Bear with me..

We're trying to get this fixed...

There is a fascinating discussion going on over on the Voyageronline board about cliches. I just got really carried away with one of my answers, but I thought it was worth posting here and filing under writing advice.

It's all well and good to have realism, but readers are usually attracted to this genre because they want to identify with a world where things are not as they are in this one.

One doesn't read fantasy if one wants to read about a short, dumpy unattractive girl with skin problems and credit card issues who falls in love with the short dumpy, unattractive sanitary-bin salesman next door, who, after vanquishing the evil termites threatening her foundations, sweeps her up, throws her into his Mazda and drives off into the sunset to live happily every after.

You read fantasy because you want to be taken out of yourself, and that's why the world building is so important. The more real the world seems, the easier it is to escape to it.

Would Buffy have been half as much fun if she been played by a "plain" actress. Would you have cared that she fell for a vampire if he looked like creepy IT guy in the next office?

Fantasy isn't just about the fabulous settings. It's as much about the idealised people as it is about the scenery. To scoff at the cliche of a pretty heroine or an handsome hero is naive. And it's not necessarily commercially viable, which is why you see it rarely, and why you will have trouble selling it if you're trying to break into the market.

Right or wrong, people want to imagine they are prettier... that Brad Pitt might want them instead of the some other, better looking, thinner, taller,(insert your own attribute here)girl. Look at Twilight. That's the cliche down pat and Meyer is a multi-millionaire.

Another thing to note about cliches... they become cliches because they work and people like them, buy them and therefore publishers print them. They don't become cliches because writers are lazy and it's easier to repeat the same thing over and over than to think up something different.

The second thing to remember is that to buck a cliche you need to thoroughly understand the reason behind it. That's the trick with writers who do this sucessfully. They give you the essence of story or plot element the cliche provides by other means. Cecelia Dart Thorton did this with her heroine, who was exceedingly ugly... right up until she was magically made beautiful, because she understood that you can only get away with bucking the trope for so long before you lose your readers.

Let me put it this way... suppose you decide "The undead are poorly represented. I'm going to buck the Zombie cliche and make them smart, thoughtful and attractive corpses with a sincere humanitarian agenda". You've bucked the cliche, sure enough, but you no longer have Zombies...

I speak with some authority here, because I've just done my Masters thesis on bucking the trope of immortality, and I've looked at this issue in depth.

Cliches in and of themselves aren't bad. It all gets back to how they're handled. And if you're going to buck them, be really, really certain you know what it is you're throwing out. Unless you understand the purpose of the cliche and why it is so common, you may be chucking out the vital element of your work that makes it publishable.

I am starting to get seriously worried that I might have something wrong with me. Symptoms include washing up after dinner every single meal (new dishwasher not yet installed, you see), doing the laundry before it's piled so high I can no longer get to the back door, putting things away where they actually belong, and taking the garbage out on nignts other than garbage collection night.

And, God help me, this morning I got the sewing machine out and cleared up everything in the mending basket that's been sitting there for over a year. Then I made Dace a scub top (covered in dinosaurs - so cute)  for when he's helping out at the vet clinic, and tomorrow I'm making Secondborn a lab coat. I also sorted out all my sewing stuff into boxes, sorted the overlocker cottons by colour, fixed the sewing cabinet, and re-threaded the overlocker. Twice.

The last time I was this organised and productive in non-writing related activies, I was pregnant.

If it turns out I'm pregnant now, my first call will be to the Vatican, the second will be to Oprah.

Oh dear... now I'm starting to think I need to tidy up my office...

Save meeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay... bear with me. Iime for a bit of shameless self-promotion:)

The Chaos Crystal is official on sale in Australia!

The Tide Lords have gathered in Jelidia and learn that in order for Cayal to die, they must open a rift to another world. Before they can do this, however, they must find the Chaos Crystal that brought them to this world.

As they set off in search of it, they head to Glaeba, where Arkady has been captured by Jaxyn. She escapes and flees to Caelum to find Stellan, where she runs into Warlock and his family and learns that Elyssa, Warlock's cruel immortal mistress, knows the location of the Chaos Crystal.

With every immortal on Amyrantha searching for the crystal, the stakes are very high. And when they find it and finally open the rift, only two questions remain… Will Cayal finally be able to die? And where will the rift take the survivors?

Review quotes:

The finale of this series is everything fans hoped it would be and more. Just like the earlier titles it’s dynamic, compelling and not at all what they expect.
-- Bookseller + Publisher Magazine on The Chaos Crystal">

The Chaos Crystal is the perfect ending to this bestselling series. Short of a miracle, no one will be able to predict what happens in this thrilling and totally un-put-downable read... no one will regret buying this series...
-- www.aboygoesonajourney.com on The Chaos Crystal

Well... I saw it. And although I am a Baz Luhrmann fan, I doubt I'll be adding this one to the DVD collection.

Evil, hard-nosed, unromantic cynics should not see this film. Unfortunately, I discovered during this nearly 3-hour long epic than I am an evil, hard-nosed, unromantic cynic.

Australia tells the story of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) who, in 1939, comes to her husband’s remote Northern Territory cattle station (Faraway Downs) to insist he sells the property and return to England. She arrives to discover her husband dead, her Station Manager, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) ripping her off, stealing cattle for her neighbour, King Carney (Brian Brown), and the only help she can muster is The Drover (Hugh Jackman).

Thrown into the mix is Fletcher’s unacknowledged son, Nullah (Brandon Walters), who is targeted by the local police sergeant for removal to a remote mission, thanks to the official government policy of the time, which required the compulsory removal and assimilation into European society of all part-aboriginal children.

Thrown into the mix we have the 1942 bombing of Darwin by the Japanese, an attempt at social commentary on race relations, and some previously undocumented native magical tricks thrown in for good measure which I’m pretty sure fall under the heading of “dramatic licence”.

On the upside, the film is spectacular, but then it can’t really help being spectacular, because it was filmed in some of the most spectacular country on Earth, and cinematographer, Mandy Walker, has made the most of it. The film purports to be set in the Territory even though, with the exception of the scenes on Stokes Hill Wharf, most of it was filmed in WA or Sydney. But borders are something humans draw on maps, and only the truly pedantic would argue the point. The bombing of Darwin was another highlight, particularly as the government of the time downplayed the seriousness of the attacks in order to maintain national morale. Historians who have fought to have the Darwin attacks, which killed over a 1000 people, given their rightful place in the history of Australia will be well pleased by Luhrmann’s depiction of those awful events.

The other amazing thing in this film was Brandon Walters, the child who plays Nullah. He has the most expressive eyes I have ever seen on a human being. He steals every scene.

As for the downside… Australia is a big as the country it is named for. It goes on forever, and ever and ever…

This film has been compared to Gone With the Wind, but at least that film had an intermission. Australia clocks in at almost 3 hours and to be honest, felt more like a three-episode miniseries run together for a cinema release, than a cohesive narrative. There were at least four times I caught myself thinking “Dear God, are we there yet?”.

And then there were the Moments of Profound Cinema, of which there were so many strung together it felt like a cliché necklace. This is where I discovered I’m an evil, hard-nosed, unromantic cynic.

There has been much discussion about the “chemistry” between Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. Some have praised it, some claim it is non-existent. I fall somewhere in between. I am not a Kidman fan, but she wasn’t as bad as I feared she might be. Luhrmann always manages to bring out the best in her, it seems. Jackman can’t help looking good and rough and manly, but just in case you’re not convinced, Baz cleans him up and puts him in a tux for a few scenes, just to make sure we know how cute he is.

And it was moments like this that had me squirming in my seat. Great romance films don’t mimic other great romance film scenes, they create new ones (how many hands sliding down a foggy car windows have we seen since Titanic?) There is nothing new here, just a series of spectacular set pieces strung together by a rambling plot determined to encompass every momentous historical event that occurred in the Northern Territory during the period.

This film, for me at least, missed the mark. It’s a romance, but not original enough to be a great one. It tries to be political, but it skims over that as well, not for a moment depicting the true horror of the plight of the Stolen Generation. It tries for the impact of Gone With The Wind and ends up more like Pearl Harbour.

I’m sure it will do well with the ‘not an evil, hard-nosed, unromantic cynic’ demographic. The rest of you should just go see the new James Bond film.