Thoughts

Sorry about the delay in posting.  I do not doubt that it will happen again in the future, unfortunately.  Anyway, let me begin.


Writers do not have the luxury of text in nice, neat thought bubbles.  We leave that to cartoonists (no offense to them).  In literature, it's a tad more complicated to display thoughts.  It can be done in a few ways.

First-person stories use thoughts in the most dynamic, fun way.  Thoughts are thrown in along with the rest of the text.  The narrator generally breaks in with his or her thoughts frequently and may tell jokes or propel a tone that is nearly impossible to replicate in other POVs.

Quotes may be used for thoughts, with the discretion that the dialogue tag should reveal that the character is not speaking aloud.  Sometimes characters may murmur things along with thinking them, especially if they have something important to state, yet cannot have their thoughts heard because of the POV.

While used infrequently, at least to my knowledge, italics can convey thoughts as well.  Robert Jordan does a splendid job showing the thoughts of his POV characters mixed in with the text like that of first-person, albeit italicized.

Character thoughts are an important part of any story.  While they are not necessary, they help to establish a tone in the writing, can be used to establish characters (and keep them from being flat), and can foreshadow as well as anything else.

Lack of Pictures

I realized that I almost never have any pictures on my blog.  As I can't think of anything else to post, I'm going to create a home-made image using Microsoft Word (yes, Word) for a writing genre fit for October.

Stalingrad

     Ivan scrambled out of the artillery scar he had entered early during the infantry assault.  He was surrounded by gore and corpses.  The battlefield was made even more dismal by the setting sun, causing the ruins of once great Stalingrad to turn a dull hue of grey, speckled in lucid crimson.   A fallen German soldier lifted his head slightly, the movement nearly undetectable.   Ivan hefted his Mosin-Nagant 1891/31 to his shoulder, took aim, and laid a bullet through the man’s head.  “That makes twenty-four,” he said under his breath in gruff Russian. 

     He hunched slightly at the knees and paced forward at a diagonal toward a building with a somewhat intact near-wall.  When he reached the moderate cover, he dropped onto his stomach and proceeded to crawl forward against the brickwork, rifle inches above cracked cobblestone.  All was silent.  Another survivor, this time a solider of mutual nation, came out from behind an opened door and followed after Ivan.  Ivan paused for a moment to allow the man to catch up.  “Two is better than one, as they say,” he thought.

     After several moments, the fellow sniper arrived beside him.  His demeanor, face apathetic, showed that the man was used to seeing death, commonly at his own hands in fact.  The weapon he held was near identical to Ivan’s, save a lack of scratches caused by constant scraping on the edge of the pit he had laid down in.  “Your rifle startled me despite myself,” the man told him in a hushed tone, a slight smile across his dusty face.  “I did not know anyone else had survived that last wave.  We sure pushed them back though, and for a meager loss, nonetheless.”

     “I wouldn’t say it was meager.  Perhaps three hundred are dead.  The Nazis are defeating us.  First the bombings with their aeroplanes, and now these heavy ground assaults.  It will take every able gunman in the city, or whatever remains of it, to keep them back now,” Ivan replied.

     “Let us move forward then, may our fire instill fear in those dirty Germans.  Their young soldiers haven’t seen a Russian sniper in combat, especially not students of Vasily Zaytsev.”

     “May his doctrines keep us alive, and with us dear Stalingrad.”

     The two crawled forward and turned the corner to the perpendicular street, climbing over mounds of rubble as they copied the German’s retreat path.  Soon, sound could be heard in the distance, evidence that the German position was only a few blocks ahead.  The constant mortars had injured Ivan’s ears, so what he heard was heavily muffled, but it could still be detected, and he was alert.

     Nearly an hour passed by as the patient Russians crawled ever forward, slow as snails.  They had moved three blocks, and here the thick coat of smoke from the constant melees was not as thick.  Ivan caught sight of a German soldier far ahead, lifted his gun, took aim, and fired.  “Twenty-five,” he said.

Epic Fantasy Tropes

There are many tropes associated with Epic Fantasy.  Here are some of them with added explanation (with examples from Lord of the Rings and the Wheel of Time):

• Everything is huge

If you've ever watched the Lord of the Rings movies, you've seen that many of the structures are massive.  The same thing applies to ancient cities in the Wheel of Time series.

• Things happened in the past that blow "today" out of the water

The Age of Legends pretty much defines this one.

• Cool groups of awesome warriors

There were the Rangers from Lord of the Rings and Aes Sedai, the Aiel, and the Seanchan from the Wheel of Time (to name a few).

• Massive scope

The world is in peril, usually be some overlord who is the embodiment of evil.

• An everyman protagonist

Lord of the Rings has Frodo, a feeble hobbit, and the Wheel of Time series has Rand al'Thor, a young man who seems to be completely normal.

• Vastly different cultures

The Seafolk, The Game playing Cairhienins, Andorans, etc., the Wheel of time series is full of cultures.  The Lord of the Rings has the addition of several races' cultures.

Trope Dilemna

I was writing a list of epic fantasy tropes and realized that my novel didn't include two of them.

My protagonist, Fredric, a virtuous knight, is by far not an everyman.  He is wise, strong, and chivalrous, although he's a bit more stern for his own good.  Now that I think about it, I could even have him go a little pseudo-Whitecloak...

I have no ancient cities with massive structures.  I could pump up the size, but none of the magic in the book supports towers the size of skyscrapers and cities on the scale of those found in the Wheel of Time series.  I suppose I could add it.

Thoughts?  Should I change things or keep it as it is?