Good day, readers and writers. I want to start off this week with a note of encouragement to everyone who feels down on their luck. Namely, I want to discuss using rock bottom as a foundation for future success.
Now, you may be down on your luck without exactly hitting “rock bottom.” I know I have felt that way many times. You may also feel as though you’ve stooped that low only to realize later that you had farther to fall. After all, the definition and experience of rock bottom differs from person to person. I, fortunately, have yet to hit rock bottom myself.
Nevertheless, what I’m talking about today will be useful to anyone feeling down on their luck, whether it’s a feeling of hitting rock bottom or just wanting to give up the current path because it seems to be leading nowhere.
Within the last month I have reviewed J.K. Rowling’s Very Good Lives and Rich Marcello’s The Beauty of the Fall. While they belong to two distinctly different genres, they share an important lesson: don’t give up when things look bad.
Dan in The Beauty of the Fall loses everything that matters to him. When things start to look up, he either self-destructs or has the rug pulled out from under him again. Regardless, he doesn’t give up. With the help of loved ones, Dan forces himself to soldier on even when things appear their most bleak.
Similarly, Rowling explains how she did not give into the desire to end the struggle when she hit her all-time low. She had contemplated the worst but, due to the love she had for her daughter, she pulled through. More than that, she created one of the most well-known characters in literary history and now lives as a multi-millionaire author and a household name. As Rowling claims, she used rock bottom as the foundation on which she built her success.
That’s what everyone must do. When life seems to be throwing you its worst, you have to hit back with your best. Only then will you thrive.
I’m not saying that it’s easy. Far from it, actually. You most certainly can’t do it alone. Dan relies on his friends, colleagues, and therapists to make it through his darkest times. Rowling needed her daughter. Laying a foundation and constructing a building is rarely–probably never–a one-person job. Why should we expect to build a strong future from a rock bottom foundation without some help?
Many issues complicate this matter. Motivation, for one. Mental illness is another. (Although that subject is best reserved for another post.) Time, energy, obstacles thrown at us by outside forces, even our own stupid mistakes and self-sabotaging behavior. Regardless, with the help of loved ones and colleagues you can make a solid foundation out of your hard times.
Have any experience pulling out of rock bottom? Wish to share advice or stories with other readers? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.
Trigger Warning: The book reviewed contains scenes of violence and gore as extreme as dismemberment. Sex scenes are also depicted, though not in great detail. Brief discussions of sex-related human trafficking occur and slavery serves a pivotal role in the plot. If you’ve had bad experiences with any of the above or otherwise take offense to these topics, proceed with caution.
Epic fantasy fans may want to check this one out, especially if you like your fantasy with a side of romance, mystery, and a touch of gore. Today I’m going to review Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part One) by Ameel Koro.
Set in Dacia during the time of the Roman Empire, The Making of a Villain (Part One) follows a convoy of merchants, their slaves, and the guards guiding them to Panonni. One night the convoy runs into a problem: a young woman, muddy and naked save for her horrific-smelling cloak, has been found sleeping on the side of the road. Dardanos, the leader of the guards, has a bad feeling about her and wants to leave her. Cotiso, a kind-hearted merchant, refuses to abandon her in the woods on a cold winter’s night, and so offers to buy her as a slave. Dardanos agrees but on the condition that she remain locked in the wagon in which she will travel.
As their travels continue, people warm up to the girl, Alina, with the exception of Dardanos. Unfortunately for the soldier-turned-guard, the one whom warms up most to her is one of his own men, nineteen-year-old Sinna. The young man can’t keep his eyes off of this beautiful woman, and the feeling is mutual.
What unfolds over the entire 237 pages is a whirlwind of romance, mystery, gore, and a splash of revenge. The biggest question on everyone’s mind (including the reader’s): who—or what—is Alina?
Image retrieved from Amazon (ad included below)The plot interested me and the setting grabbed my attention immediately. I typically enjoy books which take place around the time of the Roman Empire (Black Horses for the King is one of my favorite books) and the mystery of Alina’s identity kept me on my toes. Even when it seemed that part of her secret had been exposed, Koro approached it in such a manner that I questioned if it was the truth—at the least I knew it could not be the whole truth.
However, the use of setting disappointed me. I did not feel truly immersed in the time or place until they arrive at Artucia. Names of places, gods, and cultural groups are used but I never got a real feel for the location or the time. The forest, the village, and the first mansio feel as though they could have been anywhere; only the weather gives the reader a real idea of geographical setting beyond the names used. More should have been pursued in the cultural and religious aspects of the setting. Koro explores some of the cultural views of slavery and the characters repeatedly refer to a god named Zalmoxis but beyond that the story very well could have taken place in a parallel world or the modern day (if technology were added).
In fact, the dialogue and the terminology throughout the narrative seems far too modern for a book set in Roman times. The characters frequently use the word “yeah” and the narration includes words such as “boyfriend” and “pimp,” neither of which would’ve been in use back then. (“Pimp” did not enter colloquial English until at least 1607.) I can usually suspend disbelief in this regard because it would be impossible to account for all of the differences caused by time. In this case, however, it really bothered me that the writing had such a modern feel to it. I expect a far different kind of writing with historic fiction, even historic fantasy, and I felt as though I could have found this sort of writing in something like Harry Potter.
The behavior of the characters strained my ability to suspend disbelief as well. I appreciate the strong women in this narrative; in fact, I love them. Still, the dynamic among the slaves and the freed men did not match the social hierarchy and accompanying mannerisms of that time. Slavery in Roman times did follow different rules than Europe’s African slave trade we learn about in the Western World, but I doubt that the slaves would have been allowed to speak quite as informally with freed men as these characters do. I understand why Corina and Tati act the way they do and I would not expect any different from fatherly Cotiso. I also think that Sinna and Alina’s interactions could have carried on the way they do as well. The other interactions, such as Maria shouting at a guard like Sinna, seem unrealistic.
A diverse cast of characters populate this historic—yet fantastical—world: Cotiso, a kind-hearted, fatherly merchant; Tati, a skirt-chasing merchant in Cotiso’s convoy; Corina, Tati’s sassy, sexual, and jealous (perhaps even insecure) female slave; Maria, Cotiso’s tough and practical but mischievous and dirty-minded slave and Alina’s mentor; and Dardanos, the military-roughened guard with nothing but suspicions, orders, and a temper. Of course, we also have Sinna, the sweet but rather naïve and romantic (yet also, clearly, hormone-driven) guard, and Alina, the quiet and obedient mystery woman whom no one can figure out.
Even with such a wide range of personalities, I felt that the characters left something to be desired and that many do not reach their full potential. Several are stereotypes, such as Corina and Tati, and others do not really develop into realistic people at all, like Tsiru. Besides following Tati around because he himself is bad at business, Tsiru is a blank slate which Koro could use to his advantage in future installments. Tati and Corina, while a fun dynamic to watch and certainly revolutionary given the setting, fall under stereotypes that I have seen many times before: the man who should be in charge and his woman who is actually in charge.
Despite Alina and Sinna being the center of the plot, I am more interested in Cotiso. He is a very kind man, even to his slaves, and refuses to become a slave merchant. However, he also has no qualms with entering Maria and Alina into a slave contest in Artucia. If he’s fine with the idea of them being degraded in a slave contest, is Cotiso truly driven by kindness? Or by greed? He proves not be entirely pure-hearted by the end of the novel, which I think Koro pulled off well. After all, every human has the ability to commit some mean act against another human, no matter how good they seem, especially to get information that they want.
Speaking of the slave contest, the twist involved in that event—which I will not discuss in detail to avoid spoilers—humored me initially. It was too much like a plot twist in a sitcom to fully fit my tastes. As it continued, however, my blood pounded and then my heart broke. I loved seeing more of Alina’s abilities revealed—and, thus, more of her identity exposed—but the sacrifice behind it saddened me, which is the mark of a good scene. I think the slave contest revealed more about the main characters and more masterfully handled the action and Alina’s secret than any other part of the novel.
Sinna and Alina’s relationship, while sweet and playful, had me thinking much like Cotiso. Sinna is so young, how could he take of her? He thinks he loves her now because she is so beautiful, but does he truly love her beyond her beauty? This doubt caused me to not root for the relationship very strongly. At the same time, I liked Alina and felt that she had been through too much already, so I found myself hoping the relationship would last so that she would not have to experience more heartache.
On a more technical side, there are several proofreading errors, but not so often as to be too distracting. The overuse of exclamation marks, the word “intoned,” the word “nagged,” and comparisons to children, on the other hand, annoyed me. These issues can easily be fixed with more editing and feedback.
Overall, The Making of a Villain (Part One) has a lot of potential: the plot is engaging, the setting piqued my interest, the character interactions are fun to observe, and the mystery and magic behind it all compelled me to read to the very end. I want to see where the next book takes the series but I am hesitant because of the pitfalls in the writing. I just don’t think that the writing matches the setting and should have been workshopped and refined more before publication.
As usual, don’t take my word for it. Check Koro’s book out for yourself by following the ad below.
Do you have any books you think I should read and review? Published a book of your own and want me to post a thorough, honest review of it here? Contact me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or look me up on Fiverr.
Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you’re all doing well with the summer heat or whatever you have to tolerate where you live. Today’s writing prompt, in honor of The Beauty of the Fall by Rich Marcello, will involve a pilgrimage. Not a geographical pilgrimage, mind you, but one of the mind and imagination.
Travel seems to have a strong effect on human beings. I don’t know the science behind it, any neurological effects or evolutionary benefits, but I’ve noticed that people become different when they travel, no matter how slight that change is. My mother and I become happier, more relaxed. My father gets even more stressed and cranky during the actual travel and, depending on the destination, he can either get slightly happier or even worse once we arrive. No matter how our attitudes change when we travel, they do, and that seems to be why people travel so often when they take a vacation (and when they can actually afford it).
Some people even find spiritual benefits to traveling. That’s where the pilgrimage comes in. While a pilgrimage is often considered religious, it doesn’t have to be. According to dictionary.com, a pilgrimage can be “any long journey, especially one undertaken as a quest or for a votive purpose, as to pay homage”.
In The Beauty of the Fall, Dan Underlight embarks on such a pilgrimage to Fortune 500 countries across the U.S. He’s looking for inspiration and to find himself, and he at least achieves the first half of that goal. I think everyone, especially the creative types, could do with a pilgrimage like that.
My pilgrimage would include Sin City. Good luck figuring that one out.
What if you can’t afford a pilgrimage? What if traveling that far for that long is just out of the realm of possibility due to money, work, family, and other commitments? Well, that’s what today’s writing prompt is about, going on a pilgrimage without having to leave the house or office.
This prompt involves a lot more writing than usual but I’m sure no one will object to that.
I want you to imagine that you have all the resources and time you need to take on your perfect pilgrimage. Meditate on the matter for about ten minutes and jot down notes. Where do you go? When do you go? What landmarks do you visit?
After these ten minutes of note writing, I want you to step away from the notes for a while, perhaps an hour. Let it all sink in. Then return to your notes and reread them.
Once you’re finished reviewing your ideal pilgrimage, write a story about taking it. I would suggest doing so in the form of journal entries or a log book but do whatever feels natural for you. I want you to imagine that you are currently taking that pilgrimage, not just planning it. Is everything as you expected it to be? Do you experience any bumps in the road? Meet anyone interesting?
Don’t think too hard on the matter or research the locations. Just free write, record whatever pops into your head.
This exercise isn’t so much about accuracy or plot but emotions and character development. You can check the accuracy later and a plot will probably emerge from your subconscious. What’s important is to focus on how you feel during the pilgrimage and what you think would change about you along the way.
I know that this prompt sounds rather complicated and more jumbled than what I usually present to you. I think that it will help you to not only think more about character but to also stretch your imagination by trying to picture places you may not have even been to before.
When you’re done, feel free to talk about your experience in the comments or even post an excerpt from whatever arises from the exercise.
Don’t forget to check out The Beauty of the Fall and read my review of it here.
Trigger Warning: This novel deals with abusive and controlling relationships, a grieving parent, and self-harm. If you or a loved one have suffered through an abusive/controlling relationship, the loss of a child, and/or self-harm, proceed with caution.
Grab some tissues for this one. Today I’m reviewing The Beauty of the Fall by Rich Marcello. Spiritual, inspirational, and modern, I haven’t been so emotionally affected by a book since Flowers for Algernon. In fact, Marcello’s book has affected me more, making me sad and hating certain people but also inspiring me and making me hopeful for the future.
Image retrieved from AmazonThe Beauty of the Fall follows Dan Underlight, an engineer and co-founder of RadioRadio, as he copes with being fired and the lingering guilt and sorrow from the loss of his son. As he comes to grips with losing his job, Dan undergoes multiple life-altering events: he finds new love in poet and advocate for women’s rights Willow, embarks on a pilgrimage to Fortune 500 companies across the U.S., and initiates a startup directed at changing the world, ConversationWorks. Yet every time Dan’s life appears to get better, something goes wrong. Sometimes his troubles stem from forces outside of his control, and other times they result from his own self-destructive behavior. In both cases, the universe seems bent on thwarting Dan’s efforts—or, perhaps, it’s trying to teach him a lesson about life. With the help of friends, colleagues, his therapist Nessa, and the guiding spirit of his dead son, will Dan finally get and keep his life on track? Will he ever discover what it takes to make him feel genuinely happy and fulfilled?
Marcello explores a unique twist on an increasingly-popular story, i.e. how successful companies come about and thrive in the tech industry. Rather than following a company that started when computers and mobile phones were still in their infancy—which he could have done with RadioRadio—Marcello follows an engineer trying to rewrite his place in the world and start a company which challenges both technological limits and the moral grounds of big business. I rooted for Dan the entire time and every curve-ball thrown at him made me want his happiness even more.
Mind you, Dan is no saint. He’s a workaholic and a hypocrite as well as incredibly self-destructive. I often wished I could shake his shoulders and snap him out of it. Nevertheless, I understood his actions and emotions and, much like Nessa and his friends, wanted to help him.
The cast of characters are diverse and relate-able. The only characters I had a problem with were Olivia and Jason, but not because they were poorly written. Quite the opposite. Marcello depicts them as real human beings but, at the same time, has readers wondering when the shoe will drop if these two are around. I despised these characters as people and feel that Dan maintains his composure around them much better than I would have.
The relationships among Dan, his lovers, his friends, and his deceased son become the heart of the book, even more so than his technological/business ventures. They have their ups and downs; Dan makes stupid mistakes and acknowledges them and appropriate rifts occur, but closure occurs. I felt such an emotional investment in their lives that when things fell short of the best-case scenario—which, realistically, was often—I empathized strongly with all involved.
The most satisfying relationship is between Dan and Zack, Dan’s deceased son, even after Zack’s premature death. It’s sweet and sad but, most of all, fulfilling. It serves as a prime example of our loved ones staying with us even after they have died.
Marcello breaks up the pain and growth with humor and times of joy. As I read the novel, I felt that I was more than reading a book; I was experiencing this man’s life with him. Marcello lays out the good, the bad, and the ugly of Dan and leaves his readers to either judge him or empathize with him, or a little of both.
Image retrieved from AmazonIf you don’t want a book that makes you think and feel simultaneously, The Beauty of the Fall is not for you. If you don’t want to engage with liberal viewpoints or face the harsh realities behind productive conversation, this book is really not for you. For me, it’s nearly perfect, the bittersweet and engaging read I didn’t know I needed.
This novel handles many hot-button issues, including corporate greed, self-harm, and domestic violence against women. While traveling to Fortune 500 companies, Dan encounters struggling U.S. citizens, namely workers in Detroit who can’t afford water and a millennial in Northern California who’s down on his luck. The driving force behind the plot, ConversationWorks, rounds out the list with the incredibly controversial issue of climate change.
The final chapter becomes rather preachy, more so than the rest of the book, and depicts a future which is the most optimistic vision for the future I’ve encountered in well over a year. I wish change could be initiated as easily in real life as it is in the book. Of course, there’s always the possibility that it could be. Dan’s whole purpose behind ConversationWorks is to start productive, worldwide conversations on today’s top issues. Perhaps that concept is not unrealistic; we only need our own ConversationWorks.
The narrative also slips into a fair amount of exposition, especially in the final chapter. Still, Marcello utilizes this exposition and the aforementioned preachy-ness to the story’s advantage. It left me sad but uplifted and inspired.
Tiny grammatical errors appear throughout the book but not very often. If I weren’t hyper-aware of such details, I may not have even noticed them. They did not detract from the novel’s overall quality.
I highly recommend Rich Marcello’s The Beauty of the Fall. I have a lot to think about, both personal and big-picture. Writers, artists, engineers, creative people of all disciplines will appreciate Dan’s vision and those looking for spiritual relief will find a release in following his struggles.
If you’d like to read The Beauty of the Fall, you can follow the ad below and buy it on Amazon.
Marcello is also offering a chance for his readers to give back to the community. He’s donating the first $25,000 in profits from The Beauty of the Fall to Bridges, an organization which helps domestic violence victims. For more information and to donate to this worthy cause, please follow this link to the donation page.
For more information on The Beauty of the Fall, Rich Marcello, and his other works, check out his website.
The week I launched this blog, I talked about genres of literature and the genre-based elitism which still exists among writers today. I want to return to that idea, particularly the issue of writers crossing genres. I have always sung the praises of reading diversely; now I want to discuss writing diversely.
Most writers are best known for certain genres. However, many of these writers also dabbled in other genres. Edgar Allan Poe wrote mainly Gothic horror short stories, yet he is also famous for his poem “The Raven”. He composed one novel outside of the Gothic horror genre, but that book did not go over very well at the time. Ian Fleming’s claim to fame are his novels about secret agent 007, but he also wrote Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car, which inspired the classic film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (Fun fact: Roald Dahl co-wrote the screenplay with Ken Hughes. Bonus fun fact: I love this movie!) More recently, J.K. Rowling dared to step out of the fantasy and children’s books genres twice, once to mixed reception (The Casual Vacancy) and another to raving reviews (CormoranStrike series, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith).
Based on these examples, writing diversely seems to yield mixed results. An audience maintains certain expectations for a writer and when he/she drifts away from these expectations, not one sort of reaction is guaranteed. Some may be thrilled that a writer they like is branching out; others may insist (rather angrily) that he/she stick with the tried and true.
For a writer, writing diversely may be a long-awaited release from the mundane or a horrifying plummet into the unknown, or both. Whether you embrace it, fear it, or approach it with caution, crossing genres can benefit your writing in many ways.
I will discuss four of these benefits in this post.
You can strengthen different aspects of your writing. I’ve discussed this benefit at length before. Different genres teach us about different aspects of writing. Fantasy and science fiction teach about world building but horror and thrillers teach about suspense; with nonfiction, writers learn how to develop characters as real people readers can relate to, but fiction lends more to plot construction; writing novels necessitates sustaining consistent narration across many pages, and flash fiction weighs the importance of each word. When writing diversely, you develop more tools for better writing, no matter which genre you frequent most.
You may discover a new genre you didn’t know you would love or for which you have a knack. You know the saying: you never know if you don’t try. You might love a genre you’ve never tried before because you’ve heard bad things about it. Maybe you thought nothing new could be brought to the genre but something in your writing could revolutionize it. Perhaps you’ve avoided writing a genre you love to read because you didn’t think you could do what your favorite writers do. If something inspires you to write in that genre, if you seem to get a sign from the universe that says now’s the time to try this, do it. There’s no harm in trying.
If you’re ever in doubt about crossing genres, follow J.K. Rowling’s lead and write under a pen name. It’s an age-old tradition and you may like living a secret double-life and creating a persona for your “other self.”
(left picture: cover of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, art by Mary GrandPré and published by Scholastic; right picture: cover of The Cuckoo’s Calling, unable to find artist but published by Sphere)
You may discover that you despise writing a particular genre. Sometimes you love to read a genre but can’t write it. I really enjoy poetry but, frankly, I can never tell when my own poems are any good. This process frustrated me to the point that I decided I will continue to read poetry but that I should keep my poetry for myself and, occasionally, to share on this blog. By trying various genres, even if you end up hating the experience, you still get the benefits from #1 while also learning what you don’t want to do with your writing. It’s like they say, you regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did.
Writing diversely recharges your imagination. Are you feeling in a rut? Can’t get your creative gears going? You may need to switch genres for a while. Maybe you’ve run low on good ideas for your favored genre and need to shake things up. Maybe you’re bored with writing the same kind of thing all the time. And maybe you just have the sudden inspiration to write something you’ve never done before. Go ahead, knock the dust off and try the new, the unknown. It might be all you need to put your writing back on track.
Writing diversely can strengthen your craft and help you learn who you are and who you want to be as a writer. We may prefer specific genres but that doesn’t mean we should restrict ourselves to them. Better to branch out and grow as writers than to remain stagnant.
You have any thoughts on writing diversely? Ever discover you loved a genre you never thought about trying? Learn that you’re tired of writing in the same genre time after time? Drop a line the comments.
