ThePoetSky Archive

Despite the story focusing around the hero, sometimes, the entire world’s in danger. The kingdom is collapsing. The entire town is in trouble, and it’s too much for them, or maybe they just aren’t ready yet. Either way, they need help. They need backup. They need the people that taught them everything they know. The teachers, the elders, the wise people. It’s time for them to step in. If this happens in the finale, it can’t be the fight against the big bad; it will be a fight elsewhere, against the big bad’s minions. Otherwise, it won’t be the final fight, because that’s for the main character to handle.

In the show RWBY, the main characters are taught to fight. But at the end of volume III, the entire city was under attack, and the main characters were still only students. So it was time for everyone to pitch in and help. Even their headmaster, whom we’d never seen fight before, got involved. While this was the finale of that volume, it was far from the series finale. It made sense for the teachers to step in, since the main characters couldn’t be expected to handle it all alone. It shows that not only are they a force to be reckoned with, but they are responsible(ish) as well.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, there is a secret society made up of all of their teachers. People wise enough to see that the war plaguing the world was pointless and had to be stopped. But the only one powerful enough to take down the big bad was the main character. So while he fought the big bad, that society took back the capital city of one of the nations. It gave something for many of the most popular characters in the show to do, and allowed us to see what they could do when put to the test, all without interfering with the final fight between the main character and the big bad.

Another reason to unholster the big guns is to show how much of a threat one of the villains can be. I did this in Girl in Red, in year six when Dumbledore faced off against Rose. This was one of my favorite fight scenes to write, showing just how clever Dumbledore was in his choice of spells. When he ultimately failed to stop her, the four house heads took their shot at her in another of my favorite scenes. There is something that must be considered when going with this approach: if the teachers couldn’t do it, why can the students? In this case, Hermione was able to beat Rose because Hermione knew how to fight Rose’s unique magic.

It’s a tricky business letting the mentors fight. You don’t want them to fight all the time, otherwise the main characters wouldn’t do anything. But sometimes it makes sense for them to fight, so they have to get involved. Balancing the two sides is something that must be learned.

#Essay #Mentors #Characters

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

I’ve talked about Open Mic at Fairport Brewing Company before, and written a few poems about it. In 2019, I started bringing food with me, usually something I’d found at the farmer’s market. It started with blueberries, until they went out of season, then it turned into apple slices.

I didn’t keep them to myself. I’d offer some to anyone that wanted some, since I had more than I was going to eat. Every now and then I’d get takers, but I didn’t tend to move from my seat, as I’m not exactly a social butterfly.

During one writing workshop, we did an exercise where we described an object over and over again in ever more flowery ways. The goal was to get our imagination moving, to see an object differently. In this particular case, the object was an apple. The first thing that came to mind was sharing apple slices at Open Mic.

Later that day, I wrote Slice of Community based on that exercise. It was a nice little reminder of sharing something with my community, and a way to remember how nice my community can be. I know not everyone’s as lucky as I am, and I like taking the time to appreciate what I have. I hope other people will too.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

We’ve seen it in Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter. The wise mentor sacrifices himself to allow the hero to grow to their full potential. While this creates drama and gives the hero a reason to fight, there are plenty of other ways to do both of those. But without that sacrifice, the question comes up about the mentor handling the forces of evil himself. If not that, then the hero hides behind the mentor, falling back on him when he can’t do it himself. But is it necessary?

As I often do, I’ll look at Animorphs, specifically for the reason of the heroes handling the problem when there’s a more capable entity available. Specifically, the Ellimist, the all-powerful being that helps them out with his patented brand of non-interfering interference. Near the end of the series, his battle with the being Crayak is explained, and with that, the rules of their “game”. Instead of fighting each other directly, as they reasoned they’d only destroy and remake the universe over and over again, they use pieces, such as the Animorphs themselves. This provides a way for the heroes to handle the Yeerks (who are one of Crayak’s pieces) despite the fact that the Ellimist is more capable (being all-powerful and all).

Instead of killing the mentor, he can be removed from the story for other reasons. It could be that he recognizes the hero’s need to go it alone, finding his own way. In A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged returns to his teacher, Ogion, while trying to escape the shadow he unleashed onto the world. Fearing for his teacher’s safety, he leaves, and Ogion lets him go, recognizing that only Ged can face the evil he let loose on the world. There was no need to kill Ogion to get him out of the way.

The show RWBY takes another approach. The main characters are all being taught to fight monsters, as monsters plague their world. When the controlling force behind those monsters goes on the offensive, the main characters have to leave their homes to fight back. Their teachers show up to help them from time to time, but the heroes all have to fight, and that’s what the teachers are teaching them to do. The heroes have to grow and learn because they know they have to go into battle.

It’s easy to simply kill off the mentor when preparing a hero, but it’s done so often that it’s predictable. There are other approaches to doing it, and I’d recommend finding a different one. It’s easy to look at one of the big names in science fiction or fantasy and want to do it their way, but the problem with that is that everyone else already has. When making a story, it should be yours, so do it your way, and trust yourself.

#Essay #Mentors

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

People who know me know I don’t use social media. There are many reasons behind that, but one of the big ones I discovered on Reddit.

While I was writing Girl in Red, I had little feedback from anyone apart from my beta reader. The best way I had to get a sense of what the broader fanfiction community wanted was to check Reddit. That was a mistake.

The problem was that when I saw enough people confirming my worst fears – original characters shouldn’t be main characters, Harry should be the only main character, magic should be handled in a certain way and I was doing it wrong – it was hard to stick with my current ideas. I became afraid that if I didn’t do it a certain way, no one would read or enjoy it.

That wasn’t the only time Reddit did that. After realizing how much time I was spending on Reddit, and the negative effect it was having on me, I left it. I’d left Facebook long before that, for different reasons, but I then had a new reason: I wasn’t strong enough to ignore so many dissenting voices.

I recently saw the movie Dead Poets Society, in which Robin Williams plays an English teacher at an elite prep school. For a sense of his teaching style, his first lesson involves the class tearing out pages from their textbook. This, and many of his lessons thereafter stuck with me. One in particular had him marching some of the students around the courtyard. After a time, they fell into step with one another. He tells them, “we all have a great need for acceptance, but you must trust that your beliefs are unique”.

This reminded me of my time on Reddit, my time getting swept up with the herd. Thinking of this, I wrote Stampede of Conformity, hoping that others could learn from my experience.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

The wise old mentor. The responsible parent. They exist almost entirely to provide guidance and advice to the hero, but what happens when the hero doesn’t want it? What happens when the hero pushes away their mentor? A hero arguing with the adults for the sake of arguing, or to force the hero to deal with the problem alone, should be avoided. At the very least, they should eventually come to realize the adults had a point. This can provide necessary conflict and growth for the hero, but when this becomes the hero’s defining characteristic, it gets old fast.

As I’ve written about before, sometimes it’s necessary for adults to step back so the children or teenagers can save the world. Sometimes, this takes the form of rebellious teenagers that know better than the adults because they’re teenagers. This is to be expected of teenage characters, because it’s common among teenagers. I was no exception at that age, but when it defines the character, it gets old. The fifth Harry Potter book is my least favorite of the bunch because that’s how it felt, like Harry was whining about his life the whole time. Adults make mistakes too, but the heroes should eventually come to an understanding with them.

The previous books fall into this trap as well. Harry refuses to listen to the adults, assuming he knows better, or they wouldn’t understand, or other reasons that are there to ensure Harry has to do everything on his own. While the adults are as much to blame as Harry, it never goes anywhere. Neither side seems to learn anything, making it conflict for the sake of conflict.

Heroes did this rather well. The character Claire Bennet, who could heal from anything, and her father, who tracked down and captured people with powers, had conflict throughout the series. While her father knows what he’s doing (mostly), Claire wants to live her life as normally as she can. They butt heads throughout the first season, but when Claire sees what the people for whom her father works are like, she realizes he’s been trying to protect her from them. At the same time, her father realizes that she’s more capable of taking care of herself than he’d been giving her credit for. Their understanding of one another gives the conflict a satisfying conclusion, instead of existing for the sake of killing time.

Creating conflict between characters is fine, but it should have some sort of resolution. The same goes for heroes not getting along with their mentors and the adults in general. Refusing to get along only so they can see the clarity of each other’s viewpoint later is good, but pointlessly arguing so the hero can go it alone isn’t. Eventually, it has to end, preferably with them seeing eye to eye.

#Essay #Characters #Mentors #Heroes

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

Ever since I was little, I’ve liked making gifts for other people. One of my favorite things to do when I was four was to make birthday cards for everyone.

As I got older, I learned origami. Without instructions, one had to use one’s imagination to see what I saw in the paper. That didn’t stop me from making cats, dogs, or flying monkeys for my family, my parents in particular.

While in college, a friend of mine showed me how to make a flower out of a napkin. It was easy enough that I taught my son’s classmates to do it when he was in kindergarten.

Now that I’m older, I don’t tend to make things anymore. My usual method for buying gifts is to wander around festivals, spot something that makes me think of a loved one, and get it for them. But still, taking the time to make something says “I care”.

I wrote Paper Flower with my thoughts on that. On making something for someone instead of simply buying something at the store. Some people might call it cheap, but I don’t. It takes work to make it, and it shows how much you care.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

A throwaway character is a character that comes up once or twice, serves their purpose, then disappears forever. They’re more important than background characters, in that they have something significant about them, but they aren’t important or relevant enough to become regular characters, side or otherwise. As with all characters that are brought to the readers’ attention for only a moment, the trick is to not make them so interesting that the readers keep asking “Where’d So And So go?”

In Girl in Red, characters dropped in and out of the story constantly. For instance, I gave many of the prefects names, but even so, they remained background characters. Having a name or a line or two doesn’t necessarily bring a character out of the background. In year four, I introduced several characters from the other schools, in particular when there was an inter-school Quidditch match. These characters were brought out of the background, making them, at least for a time, side characters.

Throwaway characters aren’t necessarily a bad thing. For instance, I introduced a Chaser from Beauxbatons named Adele Caron. She mostly remained relevant to the story during the Quidditch match. Because she’d become friends with Sally-Anne, she popped back into the story later, but mostly disappeared. She served her purpose, and there was little reason for her to return to the story. No loose ends, no one wondering why she didn’t come back.

I ran into a problem with another throwaway character, Sophie Caron, Adele’s younger sister. She befriended Luna, but despite this, was rarely mentioned, if ever. I might have tossed a reference to her in a few times, but for the most part, it felt like a loose end, a forgotten part of the story. I was able to find a use for her in year seven, when Adele, Sophie, and some friends of theirs were staying in England, where Luna and Hermione found them. They provided shelter when the girls were on the run, allowing me to use the characters about whom I’d nearly forgotten. It felt as though a loose end had been tied up.

Especially when writing a series in which characters come and go, there will be times when a character disappears from the narrative. While neither of the Caron sisters were particularly interesting, I didn’t like that I’d introduced them, then left them. It’s important that when a character leaves the story, that they come back when it becomes relevant again. At the very least, they should be mentioned, if only asking “Where’d they go?” The best way to handle them, at least that I’ve found, is to trust your instincts. If it feels like they should come back, bring them back for a moment. It’s up to you.

#Essay #Characters #SideCharacters

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

I've talked before about my struggles with depression, which goes hand in hand with my self-esteem issues. I often reflect back on my life, and I still see the times I leaned on other people too much.

For many years, I was unable to explain to other people why that was, nor to figure out how to fix it myself. Not only that, but it has been a constant struggle for me to overcome it, even for a moment.

This year, I've been doing work on my house, including weeding what was probably once a garden in my front yard. As many things do, it got me thinking.

The result of that was Garden of Me. While other people have raised me up, I never learned how to do so myself, something I've had to do over the past few years. In place of self-esteem, self-doubt grew, until it had taken root. Now, not only do I need to work on improving my self-esteem, I need to remove the weeds of self-doubt.

I'll keep working at it, until I've tended a beautiful garden.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

“Elevated Extras” refers to a side character that has suddenly become a main character. Or, if not a main character, they are suddenly more relevant to the plot than they were earlier. This happens often in TV shows where a character who was popping up every so often is suddenly in every episode. This may happen because they needed to add more main characters, or because a character has suddenly become more relevant. Like any side character who suddenly has more attention, they have to be interesting, otherwise people won’t care.

There is a difference between an elevated extra and a main character that wasn’t getting a lot of attention. In Girl in Red, I didn’t give Neville much focus until year three, but that doesn’t make him an elevated extra. He wasn’t exactly a side character; I certainly didn’t think of him as one. He was a main character that didn’t get a lot of focus. In Person of Interest, a lot of the characters they add to the cast are arguably main characters that didn’t get a lot of attention at first. Fusco, Root, and Shaw are all examples of this. As with an elevated extra, they must be interesting enough to keep the audience’s attention as they settle into the role of main character, and I would argue that all of them were.

For an elevated extra, I would point to the character Molesley in Downton Abbey. He pops up every now and then, but he’s clearly a side character at first. It isn’t until later in the series when he starts working at Downton that he becomes a main character. Like most elevated extras, this takes place in a series. If it’s in a single book or story, there likely won’t be enough time to establish the character as a side character. However, as Molsley does in Downton Abbey as he becomes a main character, he is interesting enough to keep the audience’s attention. He has his own troubles, and becomes more than just the butt of other characters’ jokes.

In Girl in Red, the best example of an elevated extra is Sarah Perks, who was probably my favorite side character of the series. As Sally-Anne’s mom, she does come up every now and then, always calm and collected, with a frightening knowledge of working people for information. The hint that she’s more than she seems comes from a scene at the start of year three, when she tears down Harry’s Uncle Vernon by citing a specific incident at his drilling company that he doesn’t want known. It isn’t until the end of year six that it’s revealed that she works for a government organization tasked with monitoring magicals in the U.K. and maintaining the Statute of Secrecy, with eyes and ears all over the country. In year seven, her position becomes relevant to the plot when Umbridge actively seeks to dismantle the Statute of Secrecy and take control of both the Magical and Muggle worlds.

The transformation from side to main character must be done with care. When a character suddenly becomes more relevant to the plot, they shouldn’t be ignored either. Take the time to build interest around them, to pique readers’ curiosity. Once you’ve got their attention, you’re ready to introduce the plot point that makes them relevant. It’s best if they remain somewhat relevant to something, though. Otherwise, we’re following a random character for no apparent reason. As with everything else in writing, it takes practice and balance. But it’s worth it to get it right.

#Essay #Characters #SideCharacters

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

I was recently cleaning out some old things from my parents’ house. To me, digging through old things is like digging through memories. I slipped from present to past, remembering the stories that each object held.

One memory that came up was one of a competition among middle-schoolers in my area. We were given a task and a programmable LEGO kit, and we were to create something to solve it. In this particular instance, there was a field with bottle tops, with the robot on one side, and the goal was to get the bottle tops to the other side as fast as we could.

I spent weeks working on it, programming it in my room, then running down to the garage where my dad and I had taped out the arena to test it. My entire February break that year was dedicated to getting it to work, and I thought I had it. The robot could get all the bottle tops to the other side. It didn’t move fast, but it was fast enough.

On the day of the competition, it was time. It pushed the first load of tops into the goal, then rolled back to get the next set. But it rolled off the side of the slab on which the arena was drawn, a dimension they never gave us. Because it was slow, it couldn’t get back up onto the arena, so it couldn’t finish.

I was devastated. All that work had been for nothing, all because of a small detail they’d never given us. I tried arguing that, but it didn’t matter.

As I remembered it, I wondered what I’d say to myself back then. Nowadays, that’s part of my job, dealing with other contractors that forgot to mention some small, important detail and causing me problems. So I could say “It’s going to be good practice for the future, you’ll see”, but that wouldn’t make me feel better.

Then I asked myself “Why must we suffer? Why must we endure so much hardship?” My thoughts turned to the present, and the people suffering now. I wondered again, “Why must we suffer?”

I sat down and wrote Why Must Suffering Exist? as a response to that question. I don’t think I knew where it was going, but I had to write it. In the end, I came up with an answer: “So we may overcome it”. Shared suffering brings with it a shared understanding of others’ troubles. That’s why it exists. It makes us stronger and brings us together.

#StoryBehind

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA