Strong Female Protagonists

It's been about a year and a half now since I started shopping around for an agent and/or editor for EOLYN.  The submission process is, in a word, harrowing for any author, no matter how much confidence he or she has in her product. You have to be able to live with uncertainty and hope -- and a lot of patience -- and there has to be a sense of determination combined with an underlying humility; a readiness to confront the difficult truth that this might not be the time or the place to publish a novel like the one you've written.

I've found, in talking to different authors who have been through the submissions process, that we all have slightly different approaches. Some folks shotgun it, taking Writer's Market or whatever their favored reference is in hand and simply going down the list to send their manuscript to any address labeled 'Literary Agency' or 'Press'.  I tended to be much more selective, and tried very hard to identify agents and presses that had represented or published novels in some way similar to my own.

One of the key phrases I used during that period of searching was an interest in 'strong female protagonists'.  Agents or presses that expressed a clear preference for strong female protagonists received a longer look from me, and often a query as well, because EOLYN features a woman who, in my mind, clearly fits this criteria. 

Yet it was interesting, in looking at the titles represented by certain agents or published by different presses, to see how broad and varied the definition of 'strong female protagonist' can be. More often than not, a 'strong female protagonist' tended to be rather gritty in nature, always wielding a weapon, and ever-ready to engage in violence.  Now, I don't have any overt problem with this definition of 'strong female protagonist', but I was disappointed to see just how often this was the only definition of interest to the agent or press that I was researching. 

What is it that makes a female protagonist 'strong'? 

For me it is -- more than the ability to do a back flip, sword in hand, while slicing up three opponents at once -- complexity and depth of character.  A strong protagonist, male or female, has many qualities that we admire and at least  few that we do not.  She must have the capacity to overcome great difficulties, whether through physical strength, or emotional fortitude, or both.  We should be able to recognize something in her that we would like to be; and to think of her as the kind of friend we would like to have, especially when the going gets rough. 

This is the kind of protagonist I've tried to craft for the novel  EOLYN; and I hope that in reading the novel you will agree that I've succeeded.

Just for fun, I thought I'd put together a list of some of my favorite female protagonists over the years.  Here are a few:

The Miller's Daughter -- A nameless young woman in the Grimm's Fairy Tale The Robber Bride Groom, she manages to escape from an unwanted marriage by proving her future husband a thief, a murderer and a cannibal.  One of my favorites growing up, this story and its protagonist always ran neck-and-neck with that other Grimm's classic, Snow White. 

Princess Leia -- Technically, she doesn't quite count since her brother was really center stage, but she has to be mentioned here because Leia was the first fantasy adventure woman to capture my imagination.  Bold, witty and strong-willed. Thanks to Leia, I finally had a role to play when I ran around with the rest of the boys in our neighborhood games of cops and robbers (which of course were instantly changed in those years to rebels and stormtroopers...)

Trinity --  And of course, there has to be at least one person on the list who can do a back flip while slicing up three opponents at once.  Again, techinically Trinity doesn't quite count as a protagonist because Neo took center stage, but she had a tender heart encased in that core of steel, and that always makes for an interesting story.

Arya -- From George RR Martin's classic series A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.  Arya isn't even a teenager yet, but oh my goodness she's amazing.  Arya takes war by the bullhorns, so to speak, and does not let its horror or violence defeat her in any moment.  One of the best journeys I've ever read in a fictional character.

Mendoza -- From Kage Baker's wonderful blend of science fiction and historical fiction, THE GARDEN OF IDEN.  Mendoza does not wield a sword or a laser gun, but she's a sensitive, passionate cyborg with super-human strength, and a top-notch botanist to boot.  Who needs jijitsu when you know your plants?   

Ki'Leah -- The protagonist of Kim Vandervort's THE SONG AND THE SORCERESS.  Ki'Leah fits everything I like to see in my female protagonists.  In this first book of Vandervort's series, she is young and somewhat immature, but experience and harsh reality shape her into an admirable leader.  And she can even wield a sword by the end of the story!  I'm looking forward to spending time with her again in Vandervort's sequel THE NORTHERN QUEEN. 

Olivya -- In the soon-to-be-released APOCALYPSE GENE by my good friends Suki Michelle and Carlyle Clark, Olivya is a sharp-witted and daring young woman with paranormal powers, who lives in a futuristic Chicago beleaguered by a plague of cancer.  Definitely the kind of gal you want on your side when the bad guys come knocking on your door. 

Well, I could go on, but I think that's enough rambling for one day.  So help me out here -- Who would you add to the list of your favorite female protagonists?  And what is it, for you, that makes a female protagonist "strong"?

How It All Began

Welcome back, everyone.  I hope you had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to a great year in 2011.

Less than five months left before the release of EOLYN; I can hardly believe we are almost there.  Although I stayed away from blogging over Christmas and New Year's, we have been doing a lot of work with the book.  Hadley Rille editor Eric T. Reynolds has been busy formatting the pdf version of the manuscript.  Artists Jesse Smolover and Ginger Prewitt have been sketching ideas for the cover art and the map, respectively.  Later this week, I'll be meeting with Erin Bolton to talk about the marketing plan.

Some news from recent days:

Eric T. Reynolds has posted a list of libraries worldwide that carry Hadley Rille Books.  Visit the link to view this impressive list of libraries that endorse HRB publications.

My short story When Sally Met Ben is now available on 69 Flavors of Paranoia.  Stop by for a free read of this flash fiction horror piece.

The anthology A Visitor to Sandahl, edited by C Lee Brown, is now available through Amazon.  I contributed a short story to this anthology, entitled Chirro's Escape.  The volume also includes several great stories by talented authors, all of whom came together through the on line writers workshop tNBW.

Last but not least, I've been selected for a Writers Residency as a part of the Long Term Ecological Reflections Program at Andrews Forest in Oregon.  I'm very excited about this opportunity, which not only brings together my love of ecology and my love of writing, but will give me the chance to visit the magnificent forests of the Pacific Northwest. 


That's the news. 

So, why the title for today's post,  "How it all began"? 

Well, I just wanted to share a little something with you, though I'm going to keep today's reflection brief.  I was going through some boxes that we have in storage today, and came across the journal entry where I started writing EOLYN for the first time, just over four years ago. Here's an excerpt from those first few sentences:

I'm reluctant to write it down, because these ideas seem so much sillier when they pass from my imagination to paper.  But here it goes...

...The South Woods of Moehn was where the girl grew up.  After her mother disappeared, and her father and brother were killed in one of the King's raids, she was found -- or found -- a maga of the old school, who lived alone...in a place so well hidden only the Duendes knew how to find it...a cinamon-colored cottage surrounded by wildflowers and a thick garden of herbs and fresh vegetables...

The entry is dated 26 Nov 2006. Of course, none of this text survived subsequent edits to get into the final version of the novel, but what struck me was how very clear I was about the premise of the novel, from the moment I started to write about it. 

It also made me smile to remember how worried I was that what I had to say would sound 'silly'.  I seem to have gotten over that initial hesitation fairly quickly though, because what follows is seven straight days of journal entries devoted to Eolyn and her story.  (Followed, of course, by four straight years of working and reworking the delivery of that original idea...)

On December 2, 2006, I wrote for the first time about Akmael, the boy who would become Eolyn's closest friend and her greatest rival.  I ended that entry with this:

For the first time since he began his studies, [Akmael] had a piece of magic over which [Tzeremond] could lay no claim. 

...a sentence which faired remarkably well during subsequent edits, and still exists more or less in its original form, at the end of Chapter 3. 

So, that's how it all began. 

This year, we'll celebrate another beginning:  the publication of the novel EOLYN in May, by Hadley Rille Books.  Join me as we begin the count down!

 

Midwinter's Eve

Time for my first annual Christmas reading.  (haha -- I've always wondered how a 'first' can also be an 'annual', but let's just hope I'm right and this becomes a yearly event.)

This excerpt is taken from Chapter 23 of EOLYN, which recounts a celebration of Winter Solstice. 

Winter Solstice, by the way, is coming up this week, and will be accompanied by a full lunar eclipse the night of Monday, December 20, around midnight.  I'll be staying up for that one -- let's hope the skies over Kansas City are clear!

I want to let you know I'm going take a break from this blog over the holidays.  I will, of course, respond to any comments you leave, but no new posts until after Christmas and New Years.  When I come back in January, we will be heading into some very exciting times -- The final countdown for the release of EOLYN, scheduled for May 6. 

Well, on to the audio recording.  This is a long one...about eleven minutes.  But, like I said, it's the last you'll be hearing from me for a little while, so you can always break it up if you like -- four minutes now, four minutes next Sunday, three minutes the following week, and by then we'll be good to go with brand new material for 2011. 

I want to thank all of you for sharing in the journey of EOLYN these past few months.  May the holidays bring you much rest and companionship, and many opportunities for celebration. And may at least one of your dreams come true in the New Year. 

I found the image for this video online.  It is entitled "Yule Witch", and the best I could do for tracking down a credit was to find a person called "EcoWitch" who apparently posted it on photobucket.com   So, I'm really not sure who the original artist is.  If you happen to know, please drop me a line so I can give proper credit. 

Similarly, I don't have a proper credit for the 'merrie dancers' image I used for this post; I obtained it online at barleyhall.org.uk

The Nutcracker Prince and the Mouse King

Many posts ago, I talked a little about  why I wrote EOLYN, highlighting some of the early influences that,  in my view, inspired the story.  I haven't returned to this topic -- at least, not explicitly -- since then.  But tonight I was watching the San Francisco Ballet's performance of The Nutcracker Suite, and I remembered what this fairy tale meant to me as a child. I realized this classic ballet, based on the much more intriguing story by E.T.A. Hoffman, was one of the fantasies that fed my young imagination and planted the earliest seeds of my own stories.

There was a period -- oh about ten years ago -- when I considered myself an authority on the Nutcracker.  After all, I'd seen the ballet countless times.  I'd even performed in it as a child, interpreting the role of a young boy in the Christmas party hosted by the Staulbaums.  I'd read Hoffman's tale -- or had it read to me -- repeatedly by the time I was ten years old.  And I knew all kinds of quirky little facts about the story's history, like for instance, how the Tchaikovsky hated the score for the ballet.  It was the least favorite of all his works (thought it became his most famous), because when Russian choreographer Petipa commissioned the music he had already choreographed the dances.  So Tchaikovsky's creative impulse was thoroughly constrained by having to respect predetermined rhythms and phrases. 

As a self-designated Nutcracker Expert, I had a full layout in my mind of the differences and similarities between the ballet and Hoffman's story; I knew what the original version was really about, and I could tell anyone all the fine and important details in which the ballet departed from the purity of Hoffman's vision.

You can imagine my surprise when, a few years back, I sat down with Hoffman's story once more for nostalgia's sake and discovered it was very different from what I remembered.  It turned out I wasn't an expert on the Nutcracker at all.  The story I'd been telling all those years -- the original, true version in which Klara was the brave young protagonist of a magical and somewhat dark adventure -- had not been written by Hoffman at all, nor choreographed by Petipa.  In fact, it didn't really exist anywhere outside my own imagination.

To this day I'm wondering what led to the strange amalgamation of real story and personal myth that became my unique version of the Nutcracker.  The essential elements remain; my 'Nutcracker' is still a Christmas story, though curiously devoid of all Christian imagery.  (Has anyone ever noticed the creche is altogether absent during that great battle against the Seven Headed Mouse King? I mean, where were Joseph and Mary -- and Baby Jesus, for that matter -- when the Nutcracker really needed them?)  My 'Nutcracker' has a female protagonist who makes the transition to womanhood by falling in love with an ugly prince, following him into war, and saving his life.  And my 'Nutcracker' is the story of a girl coming into her own by learning the ways of magic, inheriting a rich tradition of special powers from her mysterious and beloved uncle, the toy maker known as Drosselmeyer.  Most importantly, my 'Nutcracker' is not a dream (and nor was Hoffman's -- it was Petipa, it would seem, who got that lame 'it-was-all-just-a-dream' ending started, and generations of ballet companies since who have insisted on keeping it).

Of course, my version does not have a Sugar Plum Fairy, but who needs her anyway?  (The Snow Fairy, on the other hand, was a definite keeper...)

Somehow this is all connected to EOLYN.  That's why I got started on the topic; that's what I found myself thinking as I watched the San Francisco Ballet on TV tonight.  Eolyn's childhood, and her journey in magic are, in some deep and perhaps untraceable way, an elaborate permutation of my version of Tchaikovsky's version of Petipa's interpretation of Hoffman's The Nutcracker Prince and the Mouse King. (And who knows where Hoffman first got his ideas?)

Eolyn, like Klara, inherits a rich tradition of magic from an eccentric and mysterious old practitioner.  Eolyn also falls in love with an ugly prince -- though he's not exactly ugly, and for a good part of the story there's some doubt as to whether he's really a 'Nutcracker Prince' or whether he is, in fact, a 'Seven Headed Mouse King'.  

The resemblance probably ends here, but in any case there you have it:  Another seed -- however obscure --that helped me build a novel. 

What are the fairy tales that have inspired you, in your life and in your imagination?  Do you have your own version of some classic legend?  If so, tell me about it -- I'm always up for a good story.


In honor of Christmas, E.T.A. Hoffman, and Tchaikovsky, I've posted a scene I wrote once based on this classic tale on my Other Works page.  Click HERE if you'd like to read it!

The "Rules" of Magic

The big news this week:  Kim Vandervort's THE NORTHERN QUEEN is being launched this weekend.  Hooray!  I can't wait to read it. This is the sequel to the wonderful novel THE SONG AND THE SORCERESS, released by Hadley Rille Books in 2009.  I'm a big fan of Vandervort, and if you haven't had a chance to read her work yet, now is the time to put her on your holiday reading list.  Congratulations, Kim!

Both of the links I put for Vandervort's novels go to the Hadley Rille website, but you can also order these books through Amazon, or ask for them at your local bookstore.  Just as a reminder, though -- Hadley Rille is still celebrating its fifth birthday with the giveaway of a free Kindle 3G. In addition to being able to register for the drawing for free when you visit Hadley Rille's website, every time you order a book from the site you get another entry in the drawing.  For more information, click HERE. 

Okay, on to today's topic:  The 'Rules' of Magic

I'm not sure who first coined the term 'the rules of magic'.  I'd like to credit Orson Scott Card with having used the phrase in his brief but very helpful book "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy", but in truth I'm not sure he did.  The first time I heard "magic" and "rules" used in the same breath was at a meeting with my local writers group, the Dead Horse Society.  The heart of the idea did not really become clear to me, though, until many months later when a member of DHS, having read an early draft of EOLYN, came back to me with several questions about magic in Moisehen.  The one that has stuck with me to this day is this:

"If magas draw their power from the earth, how is it that they can shapeshift into owls?"

In the moment, I thought this  a ridiculous question.  Why would drawing power from the earth negate the ability to shapeshift into an owl?   As it turned out, this person's confusion arose from a preconceived notion that flying creatures are associated with the power of air.  Yet in the world of Moisehen, that's not how things work.  All living creatures are associated intimately with the power of the earth, and practitioners connected to the earth can, therefore, shapeshift.  Practitioners who draw their power from the air, on the other hand, cannot shapeshift  -- even into flying creatures -- although they do have access to other distinctive gifts.

In any case, this question was a turning point in my journey as a fantasy writer.  For the first time, I realized there would be readers out there with preconceived notions of how magic is supposed to work, and that if I wanted to avoid upsetting them with 'magic that made no sense', I needed to be more explicit throughout the novel about the underlying logic of magic in Eolyn's world. That day I went home and told my husband I needed to outline the "rules of magic" for Moisehen.  To which he laughed and said, "I thought the whole point of magic is that it breaks the rules." 

At the 2010 World Fantasy Convention, I attended a panel discussion entitled "The Fairy Tale as a Specific Form".  There were five members of the panel, Leah Bobet, Terri-Lynne DeFino, James Dorr, Gabe Dybing, and Delia Sherman.  Early in the discussion, the topic of magic came up, and one of the panelists mentioned that for JRR Tolkien, magic by its very nature could not be explained -- as so many readers expect it to be now -- it simply 'felt' right, though its inner workings would always be a mystery. 

Now, I am no scholar of Tolkien, and all I have from this panel is that one brief note, but I do think it's interesting -- assuming the panelist's assesment is accurate -- the implication that we have moved from a period in which magic was accepted as an intuitive, essentially inexplicable endeavor, to a time when it's a fundamental task of every fantasy writer to elaborate, in an almost scientific fashion, on the 'rules of magic' for his or her world. 

Does that mean the genre has advanced somehow, become better, more thorough in its approach to world building? 

I'm not so sure. I have heard, for example, colleagues ruminating about the problem of 'conservation of mass' during shapeshifting.  Yet as I see things, if you can turn a duck into a goose with a wave of a wand, the laws of physics are already irrelevant.  What, exactly, do we gain by mixing science with magic?  By distilling the infinite universe of imagination into testable hypotheses? By trying to fit square pegs into round holes? 

Just one year ago, I was comfortable with this idea of 'rules' in magic, but -- as is probably clear from this post -- I'm starting to drift away from that.  I no longer believe 'rules' is the correct word to use in association with magic. I do believe magic (like, say, religion or art or even literature) must have an underlying logic, a way of working that is tied intimately to the culture, history and worldview of the people who practice it. (Another way of saying, I suppose, that it has to 'feel' right.) In that sense, magic will always have limitations -- but limitations defined, I think, more by the vision of its practitioners than by any inherent 'rules' that govern what magic can and cannot do. 


What do you think?  Does magic need rules?  Or is magic meant to break them?
 
 
 

Simple Magic

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

Things are starting to come together now for EOLYN's debut as a Hadley Rille Books publication. The release date has been set for early May.  Ginger Prewitt is drawing up a map; and Jesse Smolover has agreed to work with us on the cover art. Both artists have collaborated with Hadley Rille before; Prewitt has done maps for Kim Vandervort and Terri-Lynne DeFino, and Smolover did the cover art for DeFino's FINDER. I met with HR editor Eric T. Reynolds on Wednesday to talk about cover design. We came up with some very cool ideas, and I am excited to see what the artist does with them.
In other good news, my flash fiction short "When Sally Met Ben" has been accepted for publication in the December/January issue of 69 Flavors of Paranoia. This is a great little story that grew out of a writing exercise with my local writers' group, the Dead Horse Society.

In honor of the holiday weekend, I'm giving myself a break from writing a full blog post, but not without giving you a little treat.  This is an audio recording of the opening pages of Chapter 1 -- part of the reading I did for World Fantasy at the end of October.  The acoustics aren't the best, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.  If you haven't read all of Chapter 1 yet, you can find the text by clicking HERE. 

The image used for today's video is from Biogradska Gora National Park in Montenegro, one of the few remaining patches of old growth forest in Europe.  This scene is a bit more summery, maybe, than what is appropriate for the reading, but I liked the photo so I decided to use it anyway.

Choice, Change and Loss in EOLYN

Some news and announcements before I get to today's topic.

First, the good news:  My flash fiction short "When Sally Met Ben" will be published in the December/January issue of 69 Flavors of Paranoia.  (This may be the last of my short fiction pubs for a little while; I don't have anything else out at the moment -- better get hopping on that...)

Also, I've put up a Directory of Audio Recordings for the blog.  You can go to this page now for direct access to any post to date that includes an audio recording from EOLYN.  I am also working on setting up access to audio clips for you to download.  I haven't quite figured out the best way to do that yet, but I will keep you posted as options develop.

Now, the bad news:  Friend and author Christopher McKitterick, who recently published his first novel TRANSCENDENCE, discovered this past week that the electronic version of his novel was pirated and is now available for free on the internet.  After going through the five stages of grief, Chris has decided to fight back by giving away electronic versions of his novel for free -- which brings us back to the good news.  If you'd like to download a free copy of this great sci fi book, visit Christopher McKitterick's website.

Those are my announcements.  Now, for the topic of the day...


"Eolyn’s gaze wavered and disconnected from Akmael. An unmistakable energy flickered about her, the signature of some terrible memory. Before Akmael could determine the source, she buried her thoughts with a quick shake of her head."   
 -- Chapter 4

A friend from one of my writer's groups once said that EOLYN is essentially a story about loss; that this is an underlying theme that ties the entire book together, from beginning to end.  The statement took me by surprise, because in writing this novel, there was no conscientious effort on my part to create such a thread.  Yet when I thought about it, I realized he was right.  This is one of the wonderful things about having fellow authors willing to read your novel as it takes shape; they often see aspects of your work that are intriguing, and important, but to which you yourself are blind. 


I think my initial inability to see the prevalence of loss in EOLYN stemmed from my approach to change in my own life.  I am, in many ways, the eternal optimist.  I embrace change because I instinctively focus on all the good that can come with it:  new opportunities, new friendships, new adventures, clean slates. Coupled with this, I am not very inclined to think much at all about what I am leaving behind. 


In writing this novel, I gave some of this attitude to Eolyn.  She is, from the very first page, dealing with the first great loss of her life, the disappearance of her mother, Kaie.  Her strategy is to push back that emptiness by imagining Kaie still present in the whispers of the forest.  When Eolyn's village is destroyed, she does not return to dwell on the aftermath of that massacre, but instead seeks a new future in the South Woods.  At the age of fifteen, she must say good-bye to Akmael in order to study High Magic. Intent on the joy and excitement she feels for the completion of her training, she does not consider how painful it will be to let her only friend go until the moment in which she is forced to do it.  And so it continues:  Choice and change, gain and loss, over and over, and through it all Eolyn looking instinctively forward, convincing herself that the good she will find in this next transformation must outweigh the pain of what is being left behind.


Is this a useful strategy to have in life?  Sometimes I think, definitely yes.  At other times, I'm not so sure.  But for better or for worse, I gifted this instinct to Eolyn.  

I suppose it's no coincidence that EOLYN came together as a novel during a period of my life characterized by dramatic transformation.  This is not to say that the novel is somehow an allegory for the last four years of my life, but rather I think the transitions I was going through made it easier for me, as an author, to understand how a character like Eolyn might confront and respond to change.  I  also think that in some ways, Eolyn became a kind of imaginary companion for me, a good friend who always seemed to be facing challenges much greater than my own. 

This month is Eolyn's birthday.  Four years ago in November, I sat down with a journal and penned (quite literally) the first chapter of the book.  At the time, I was living in Costa Rica, working for Duke University and the Organization for Tropical studies. I had no clue that a year later I would be living in the United States, back in my home town, close to my family for the first time in twenty years, starting a new job at Avila University, building entirely new circles of friends and colleagues, and looking for the path that could lead me to becoming a published author.  So much change in so little time; and something tells me it's only just begun...

So, Happy Birthday, Eolyn!  I hope we have many more years of choice and change ahead of us.