Walking Among Giants

"For God and Country..."-The Smashing Pumpkins, For God and Country

Alright, apologies for promising to post yesterday and then failing to. In my defense, however, I didn't have any free time from 9AM until 9PM, at which point I had an hour before my next obligation and then bedtime. At any rate, here's the post I promised for yesterday:

I was acutely aware on election night of witnessing an important moment in history. There have been two other experiences in my life during which I've felt that way. The first were the Columbine shootings, which happened in a town in my county when I was in the sixth grade. The second was 9/11.

Needless to say, I felt a little more upbeat Tuesday night, so that was one key difference between the experiences, but the other was that my experience of the event was centered around two people. When I watched both McCain's concession speech and Obama's victory speech, I felt for the first time in my life as if I was standing in the presence of giants.

I'm not going to go into whether that was justified or not. My point is that that feeling is an important one for a writer to experience and remember, especially if he or she writes SF/F.

Not every character in a great story can be a giant, and even most giants don't start out that way. One of the viewpoints I have always found most interesting and productive in fantasy is that of the character who is not the hero--the brother of the hero, the childhood friend of the hero. Flick to Shea Ohmsford, Sam to Frodo, Mat and Perrin to Rand al'Thor.

This is because in real life there are very few heroes, very few giants. I think for most of us it's easier and more useful to imagine what we would do with ourselves in the presence of giants than what we would do if we were giants ourselves--it just seems a more realistic scenario.

Something to keep in mind as we head into the next four years--measure your reactions to life as it unfolds around you, and realize which role you're playing in the drama of life. It will give your writing the taste of reality and make it that much better.