A stumble into faith and thought

When I look back on my life and I have to say the happiest memory I have is that of being is a wide-eyed, optimistic teenager saying those three “magic” words for the first time and hearing them back (yes I was an emo who thought he was oh-so-original...)

But a close second is opening that e-mail in November…no wait let me set the scene. 

It’s mid-November and I’m stuck on the Isle of Wight in the midst of a blustery, personified deluge, soaked to the bone wearing my scrubs which, whilst very comfortable, do not offer even the slightest protection against the elements. I’ve been up till 5am, delivering a baby (the films by the way are absolute lies, it does not take five minutes – try ten hours) and I’m tired, so very tired. I sit down in my tiny room, considering powering up my Xbox. I was playing Assassins Creed 3 at the time and Colonial America was my place of fantasy, my world of escape.

So I decide to check my mail, bleary eyed, covered in…stuff. And I see an e-mail from Neverland Publishing (http://neverlandpublishing.com/index.html). I prepare myself for the worst, after all this was the first publisher I’d ever queried and I knew enough about the industry to not expect mountains to move simply because I desired as such.

But mountains did move. That one thing, that one thing I have sought my entire life. To anyone who has never experienced it, it is a hard one to quantify, to do justice. That feeling…when you have wanted something for so long and to have it finally within your grasp, something you thought you’d never have…

An offer of publication 

 

The euphoria lasts an age. Two ages. Several dynasties and four distinct epochs. 

Then the doubts come. I started to grasp the realities of the publishing world. I wasn’t unique, I was one of many. So. Many. 

What makes me different? Honestly, I don’t know. That’s up for readers to decide.

What if no-one like it? What if no-one hears about it? What if I can never write a never novel to match it (this last one gets a lot of air time in my head).

But that’s the world we live in, and you either deal with it or you don’t. There are no hand outs, no magic tickets. Only hard work and perseverance.

So I looked myself in the mirror and I told myself to just man up. No-one helped me write this novel, no-one even knew I was writing it (more on that later). In fact no-one in my entire life has ever thought my writing was anything more than a childish pastime.

If I had one piece of advice for an aspiring writer it’s this – believe in yourself. No-one else will. We stand alone on the shoulders of giants, echoing through space. Write because you have no choice. Write because only you can tell this story, you owe it to society to write this story. Have that utter conviction like you’re ' Eli Manning and it’s all on you. No-one in this entire world can do what you can do.

 It’s you and the words. 

It's magic and boldness and electricity...

It's you.

Snape: The man with no game...

Willian Faukner famously stated, 

"the human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing worth writing about"

And this is a tenet I absolutely hold to, more than anything else in this world. You see I believe that the only thing that really compels a story is its characters and the conflict that lies in their hearts. I believe a character should be so fleshed out and believable that they would be equally interesting in a sci-fi space opera as in the next Chipmunks films. I think too often storytellers rely on premise or setting alone with things happening to a character, rather than the character reacting so that that character just becomes another prop rather than a person. 

To this end I will breaking down characters across mediums, generations, reality and fiction to try to understand this. If anyone wants me to look at a specific character, feel free to leave a comment or whatnot and I will do so or troll you if its something ridiculous like "Wario" or "Gyarados" No F*** that, I love Gyarados. I'll do Gyarados!! 

Note - Spoiler Abound so I don't recommend reading unless, you know, you've got balls of steel and live your life on the edge. 

Y.O.L.O

 

So I thought I'd start with an easy one, someone that everyone would recognize, i.e. the infamous Professor Snape from the Harry Potter series. 

Name - Severus Snape 

Series - Harry Potter novels 

Bio - Joins up with the bad guys for free dental and 2 for 1 deals at TGI Fridays every Wednesday, but leaves them when they legit kill the girls he loves (Gets into Dashboard Confessional in a bad way after this). Becomes a bad ass triple agent (yeah, that's a thing) and ends up saving the day only to die with everyone still thinking he's a dick. 

Analysis - 

No-one knows what made Harry Potter the phenomenon it was. Anyone who says its for kids or its simplistic either never actually read the books or was hit by a bus (probably driven by me) and is now dribbling, raving mess. 

But for me, Snape made Harry Potter for me. 

You see, no-one else really had a choice. Harry didn't have a choice in so far as everyone wanted him dead. Dumbledore was just dealing with some serious guilt the entire time, the epitome of goodness and so forth. Even the ginger one didn't have much of a choice - join up with Harry or spend his life in a cubicle at the back of Gringotts being a filing bitch. 

Snape is the only one who had a choice. He could've joined Voldemort, he could've joined Dumbledore. He was the only one with the power to influence the entire story and war. The only one with moral ambiguity. His arc is spectacularly revealed in one of the final chapters of the last book but when it does, the story entirely becomes his, more moving more tragic even that Harry himself. 

He died protecting the child of the woman he had loved his whole life. But even that wasn't heroic. When asked by Dumbledore, Snape pretty much admits he would've sacrificed both the child and the husband so he could have Lily himself. 

So in the end he wasn't a hero. He was selfish, cruel and the only thing he ever truly wanted, he could never have. That is enough to drive anyone insane and when it is revealed, i.e. the conflict of his heart, you realize how little you truly knew about this character, this man who despite being in a set of kids books, refuses to be pigeon holed. The man who'd rather be hated his whole life than understood. What more can I say?

A Far Cry from original....

Stats

Name - Steven

Age - 23ish

Gender - Male

Language - English and enough Spanish to ask for cheese and the location of the bathroom.

Occupation - Impoverished student

Goal - To boldly go where Che Guvera did not...

I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't do that. Not to you, not after you have come all this way to visit me from the etherworld of the net, so I'll get the incredibly irritating self-plugging out of the way and I'll put it in brackets so you can opt not to read it,

(I'm a writer, I wrote a book and it's going to be released at some point, it's a middle grade fantasy)

There. Done. Won't mention it again, until you like me more. :) It's like going on a first date and demanding they pay for the meal, petrol money and that leak in the bathroom ceiling.

So...what will I do? Tough question. What area of expertise do I have? Well, I am a medical student (i.e. bitch of the hospital) so if anyone has any question about that I guess you could ask.

But I think what I'll do is talk about Stories. With a capital S. That is Stories regardless of medium - t.v., movie, novel, graphic novel, song, that guy at the bus stop in Soho that one time...

Steven