Open Letter To Captain Killian Jones

 Today I thought I would do a bit of roleplay as the writer of the Onnce Upon A Time Book. Enjoy!


Dear Killian,

Did you know that if you look up the origins of your name, Killian actually means strife? It’s come to my attention that you seem to be at dealing with a lot of that lately. And perhaps that’s my fault. Well actually it is my fault. You see, the way this world works is that all stories, yours included must involve a certain amount of pain. And I’ve reveled in created yours.

At least, I reveled in creating it before. Lately I can’t seem to reach you. Actually if I’m being honest I can’t reach any of the people I’ve created. I have what people in this world are calling writer’s block, which means, apparently, that my power of the pen doesn’t work properly anymore.

But the people of this world say that they know how to bring the power of my pen back. They say I just have to keep writing.

So I thought I would start with you. But first lets go over a few of the bugs in your system. Admittedly I was having a bad day when it comes to your love life. I killed off your first love and now it seems that I may be toying with your emotions in regards to the second love. I’m reading my notes here and it looks like I had you calling Emma, and I quote, “dried up dead and useless.” Well call me mad sir, but I hardly think those words are a strong basis for a relationship. Neither is leaving that same woman and her mother and friends to die in a cell looking quite good for a marriage.

And then there’s the way you treated a certain little boy. You try to be the father of someone who didn’t like you for who you were. Who you still are. A pirate. And what’s your reaction when this little boy rejects you? Why you toss him to the proverbial sharks. You sell him off to a high bidder because of your own pettiness. You don’t seem to quite realize yet that love and affection takes more time to grown than in this world you are from, where love was more instantaneous. In time, I hope you see that you cannot badger a person to care for you. You need to be patient.

Now this little boy is grown up and has fallen for your second love and your second love loves him. That is no excuse for you to be petty toward this young boy who now calls himself by a different name than the one you once knew him as. You have let your jealously rear its ugly head at this boy even though I know you still care for him. You kept his sword for hundreds of years so don’t try to hide your latent affections under a veil of smirks and crude remarks. I know you.   

But I look past that. After all, I think you’ve improved since the last time I’ve seen you. You’ve been doing the right things. That thing you did with the shadow? Tinkerbell is leading you to believe that you did it for Emma but I know you did it for yourself. You want to be a good person but it’s going to take you a while to gain people’s trust.

Perhaps as a start, you could try to do things beyond trying to gain Emma’s love. Make friends. Get a hobby. Start making a life for yourself in the world you’re in because I will tell you now, it won’t be easy. For one thing, this world doesn’t always have magic. But it does have technology. And a certain dress sense that is far removed from the one you currently possess. Perhaps you can try changing your clothes. I do believe I have kept you in the same outfit for over three hundred years. A technical oversight. I seem to have a penchant for dressing my men in leather as of late but maybe now it is time I gave you a t-shirt and some decent pants to wear. Oh and toilet paper. I’m afraid that toilet paper is something you’re going to have to learn how to use. I’m not quite sure how you will achieve this one handed as you are, but I’m sure you will rise to the challenge. You’re going to have to. Pirates are notoriously unclean but even a pirate doesn’t like soiled underpants. Those are normally socially accepted amongst the babies of this world.

I shall check up on you soon. Only thing is, I’m not quite so sure as to how I could possibly send this letter to you. Do pirates have mailboxes? The people of this world say I should tweet this to you. Apparently this is how people communicate here. This world is very strange indeed.

Hoping you’re not currently laying prone on floor as you seem to often be,

The Writer     

  

5 Things That Once Upon A Time Needs To Improve

This one is going to be a bit more specific. Last night I watched an episode of the American television show, Once Upon A Time, a show about fairytale characters who end up in the real world. Now, if you don’t watch the show, this post is not going to mean much to you but if you have been watching it, you may have noticed some things that I did. And so here is my list of ten things that I would do if I wrote for this show:

1.     Reduce the number of characters.

Once Upon A Time is now in it’s third season. When the show first started there were six main characters. Four of these characters were heroes and the other two were villains. Sometimes the show would add in stories for secondary characters but mostly, we were focused on this group of six.

But now?

Now there are around nine main characters plus a number of secondary characters and it’s made the show feel quite crowded. Some shows can make huge casts work but in the case of Once Upon A Time, there is a clear bias, with certain members shown more often than others. There are many times where certain members of the cast won’t really serve much a function. Often times, these characters don’t lend anything to the plot. They’re just there to stand around and maybe say a line or two. They don’t ever seem to lend anything to the team because writers barely give them anything to do, which makes you wonder why they are even there. Who are these people? What do they want? The writers won’t tell us.

And if a writer isn’t going to use the cast they’re putting on the screen, then why have these people there at all?   

2.     The Just Love Interest Problem

Out of the cast of eleven main characters there are three characters that I will refer to as the just love interests. Hook, Neal and Belle are three interesting characters. The characters have interesting backstories. Good actors play them. These characters have so much going for them and yet time and time again, they are reduced to being the love interest to another character. These three aren’t here to be interesting characters by themselves, they’re there to moon over the objects of their affections and weep when they are apart from their objects of affection. Are they capable of being their own agents and having their own goals outside of being a love interest to someone else? Yes. Are the writers letting these characters have goals and aspirations beyond loving another person? No.

    

3.     Just End The Love Triangle Already

Ah yes, the famous love triangle. For those of you who don’t know what a love triangle is, it’s when one character has two people fighting for the their affections. Now, in real life, most people will date on person and dump the other.

Oh, but not so in fiction land and especially not in Once Upon A Time. Quite honestly I feel like television writers have created the love triangle for two reasons: For forced drama and fans agony. Sometimes I look at the shipping war going on within the fan community and say to myself: Are the writers enjoying this? Do they love the fact that people are at each other’s throats over who gets the girl? Are they sitting in a dark room, stroking a cat and manically laughing to themselves when people start fighting over whom they ship? Do they really think all this stuff is healthy for their fans mental health?

Maybe the answer is yes.

Honestly, if I were in the shoes of a Once Upon A Time writer I would cut the cord. I would have the girl choose one person or the other. Would it hurt the part of the fandom that didn’t ship the couple I chose to pair up? Yes. But at least that part of the fandom would only cry for a short while instead of endlessly sobbing which is what the writers are making them do now.

4.     Why is Everyone Related?

So far on this show, there have been five villains on this show and of those five characters, only one character doesn’t have a family connection to another main character. It seems to be that this is the writer’s thing. Make everyone related so that it feels like a soap opera. This is yet another example of forced drama. The writers really need to look at other options. Having a hero related to one villain, that’s fine? Having everyone be related to each other? Boring and repetitive.

5.      Redemption Because We Said So

I’m all for a good villain redemption story. One of things Once Upon A Time does is try to make their villains fully fleshed out characters by explaining why they are the way they are. There is no problem with this type of storytelling and it can often lead to a richer conflict. But a problem that Once Upon A Time likes to do after they have redeemed the villains is to afterwards act like these villains were victims. When the villains are called out on the horrible things they have done in the past the show tends to slant the story in the villains favour, making it seem like they were victims. That they never hurt anyone.

But here’s the thing: Redemption only works when a character genuinely wants to atone and realizes that what they did was wrong. I have seen characters on this show be remorseful for their actions and seen them express their desire to change.

The one exception: Hook

I honestly feel like the writers have completely forgotten this characters horrible misdeeds. Why is Hook a hero? When did this happen? Where is his guilt? His remorse? His admissions of his crimes? I certainly have never seen this happen. Why is he a hero? Because the writers said so, that’s why.

Well how ridiculous…

  

Advice For Aspiring Writers

Interviews with writers, at least the interviews I’ve seen, always tend to ask this question: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Now, to me, it’s not the question that’s the problem. It’s the answers. I wish I had a loonie (that’s a dollar for all of you who don’t live in Canada), for every time I heard this answer: Write and read.

Look, I don’t mean to go into full on snarky mode here, but it’s my nature. When an interviewer asks a writer what advice they have for anyone who wants to get into their profession the answer is almost always to write and read. Well, golly gee, when I set out to become a writer, I had no idea you might have to actually write stuff! Are veterinarians going to tell me that you should work with pets? Are doctors going to tell me I have to help heal people? The writing and reading answer is so utterly obvious to me and yet, writer after writer after writer comes up with this answer as if it’s a revelation. If a person wants to be a writer, they’re going to write and they’re going to read.

Now, my book isn’t finished as of writing this blog, but since it is nearing completion, I’ve started to think about my answer to this question. I don’t want to be obvious. I don’t want to give the same old advice that is carted out over and over again. If an interviewer asks me “Melanie, what advice would you give to an aspiring writer?” I’m not going to tell them to write and read. I want to give them specifics.

So with that being said, here is my advice to aspiring writers

Number one, if you want to be a writer you need to start living. By that I don’t mean, living as all of you who are reading this are doing. I don’t mean living as in breathing, walking, talking, and going to work or school. When I say that you have to start living, what I believe most people mean when they say to start living, is to go outside of your comfort zone. Do things that scare you. Eat foods you wouldn’t normally eat. Talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to. What this is going to do is open up avenues in your imagination and help you to create more dynamic and varied characters in your stories. A person who sits at their computer screen all day is not going to do much actual living. Think of your imagination as a stomach that, like our own stomach, has to be fed. Only, your imagination is far more gluttonous. Unlike our own stomachs, it can never be truly full. It always craves new experiences. So feed your imagination whenever you can. Then, when you sit down to write, you will find that, instead of searching for ideas, you will be mining through dozens of potential ideas. And that, my aspiring writers, is not just going to help create a story but it’s also going to help you write good stories that everyone will want to read.

Lesson number two is to travel. This one may be more specific to people who want to go down the fantasy or science fiction route but it can also be helpful to people who want to write a simple comedy or romantic novel. Travelling is going to inspire your imagination to create amazing worlds that readers may never have seen before especially if you’re travelling to parts of the world that has a completely different way of living then your own corner of the globe. Now, if I’m being honest, I’m one of the lucky ones. I have had the opportunity to travel to some amazing places. I haven’t gone everywhere but I’ve seen more in my 23 years than many people ever will. I’m one of the fortunate ones. I know that many people will never get the opportunity to travel even if they have a strong desire to travel. Maybe you are reading this right now and thinking that you won’t ever get to travel much further than your home turf. That’s fine. When I say travel, I don’t mean that you have to necessarily go backpacking through Europe or go traipsing through a jungle. You don’t have to stray far from your house to be considered a traveller. With the advent of the Internet, sometimes you don’t even have to leave your own computer. You can just look at images of various locales online. Of course, as many people will tell you, there is a distinct difference between looking at a picture of a place far away from your home and actually seeing the place in person but sometimes your imagination doesn’t need to experience a location to be able to log it away and use it later as the basis for a fantastic environment. So maybe you can’t travel far, but that doesn’t mean you can’t travel at all. Go for a walk around your block or drive to the small town just outside your own home. It might not be a terribly exciting adventure but it’s going to feed your imagination all the same. And feeding your imagination is very important, as I have mentioned in lesson one.

Lesson three: Don’t be a writer to just to be famous. I think you could apply this lesson to any person who wants to go into any creative career, whether they want to be a writer or a singer or an actor. Don’t do it to be the next, insert name of successful writer, singer or actor ever. Do it because you love to write. Do it because your very soul pulls you to do it. From an outsider’s perspective, a writer’s life might seem like the easiest job in the world. After all, we writers don’t have to work in an office building or deal with coworkers. We don’t even have to get dressed up to be able to do our jobs. From the outside, it seems ideal. But to be a writer is to pursue a career and a career means work. If you go into the field of creative writing and you’re just doing it to be famous, writing is going to feel like a job. A writer who loves what they do might get frustrated on a daily basis but ultimately the frustration will be worth it because they love doing their job. Oh, and to address the other part of lesson three. If you want to be a writer, don’t try to be your favourite author. Your favourite author became famous because they did something that the world had never seen before not because they wrote just like the last famous writer. Don’t be the next anything. Be the first you.

  

The fourth and final lesson I’m going to give is to write as much and as often as you can.

I know what you’re going to say. I’m being a hypocrite. I went on and on about how annoyed I was by the writing and reading answer and now I’m telling you to write. Fine. You caught me. But I don’t think this lesson is entirely hypocritical because you see, when I say write, I don’t mean that to be a writer you just have to put your hands to the keyboard and type or simply press your pen or pencil to a page. People often talk about a writer’s voice, referring to the distinct way they present the words of the story on the page. It’s what separates one writer from the next. A writer with a distinct voice can be identified by their fans even if their name isn’t on page one. But these writers didn’t just come up with their distinct voices right away. They needed to write constantly. They had to discover their voice. And that’s what an aspiring writer needs to do. A good writer, a successful writer combines imagination with an interesting storytelling style. Once you have your voice, you’re well on your way.

So that’s my answer to the question. Now, obviously, if I ever get an interview, I’m going to have to pare down my answers to their simple components but since this is a blog, I figure I can get away with writing a mini essay. I hope my advice was helpful.

See you in my next blog.

Shipping Wars

Before I begin, let me educate you about a word you will probably come across when discussing a show or movie you became interested in. It’s called shipping. Here is the Wikipedia description for it:

“Derived from the word relationship, is the belief that two people, usually fictional, would be interesting or believable (or are, or will be, or should be) in a romantic relationship”

Simple enough. Maybe you yourself have dabbled in it once or twice. You saw two people that you thought would make a good pair in a movie or show and started to hope that would continue to interact with each other and eventually start a relationship. Or maybe you went the more platonic route and wanted two people to start a friendship. That’s shipping.

But that’s not what this article is about. This article is about shipping wars. This is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page. Say you have a character you like and you want them to be with another person. You ship these two together. You have found other people who share this interest in these two getting together.

But

But there is another person in a show or movie. They have interacted with the character you like. A look on the Internet shows that these two characters have a fan base.

But these two people are unsuited for each other, you say. The character I like should be with character x and character y.

And this is how shipping wars begin. Two people who support opposing couples start bickering with each other.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is how most real wars start.

Actually, the shipping war I’m involved in right now feels less like a debate class and more like a gladiator battle.

Let me tell you story. I watch a show called Once Upon A Time. The show is currently in its third season. Now, on this show there is a character called Emma and character that is, and bear in mind this my opinion, rather frustratingly torn between affections for two different men. There are people who ship Emma with one guy and there are people who support the other. And the fans of these two couples are at war with each other, spilling blood all across a battlefield that we call the Internet.

I happen to be involved in this battle. I’m not going to tell you who I support because quite frankly just to share who you ship Emma with is akin to throwing your gauntlet down the ground and challenging the opposing couple’s fans to a duel to the death. Just mention like I’m your side and let’s leave it at that.

Yes, shipping wars are that bad. But in some ways, the shipping wars that happen within any fandom are the same and just like in a real war, the combatants play different roles. Today I’m going to share with you the kinds of people I’ve come across on the battlefield.

“The Hippie Shipper”

These shippers are all for peace and love. They don’t want to fight with others over whom they ship. They open their arms and ask for everyone to join them in a group hug. They don’t want to fight. They want to ship what they want to ship and get no trouble for it.

“The Agree To Disagree Shipper”

 These are similar to the hippie shippers but with one difference. They want to draw a line in the sand between the couples and make sure that everyone stays on their side of the fence. Sometimes they want to share tea and crumpets with the people who oppose them in a bid for peace but most of the time, they’re standing around asking people to just let everyone ship what they want to ship and don’t want to address the real problems between the opposing parties. It’s not that they don’t want to fight, they just find the whole fight ridiculous.

“The Obsessive Aggressive Shipper”

Perhaps you came across tis shipper yourself. This person obsesses over the couple they ship to the point where you start to wonder if the person might have mental health issues. They don’t just ship to characters together, they make this couple their whole life. They post pictures of the couple on their blogs, their bedroom walls. They stay up late giggling with their fellow shipmates about how wonderful their couple is.

But

But they also cannot stand anyone who opposes their couple. It doesn’t matter if the opposing party is trying to be civil, the obsessive aggressive shipper will attempt to slice into you.

“Your couple is stupid. My couple is so much better/sexier/pretty/whatever word you want to use and you’re stupid for not shipping it. Why do you even ship couple x anyway? The guy/girl is ugly and ugly people shouldn’t be with insert character you like.”

These shippers will resort to personal insults against the combatants even if they don’t know whom they are fighting with. They will try to discount any arguments you make with insults about your profile picture or the shipmates you choose to associate with. There are the super villains of the fandom and they will beat you down with whatever they can get their hands on. Occasionally these shippers will have minions who will back them up if need be but sometimes not.

“The Eye Rolling Shipper”

This is the shipper who goes around calling out everyone for petty bickering. Because that’s what shipper wars can turn into. These people try to get between the couples and say:

“Look guys! It’s a show. These are fictional characters. Stop trying to bite everyone’s heads off over whom they ship because it doesn’t matter. Your lives don’t depend on whom the character you like is with. Calm down. You’re acting the five year olds having a temper tantrum. Let’s just go get ice cream and talk about this.”

“The Writer Shipper”

This shipper doesn’t go around getting involved in in shipping wars that often. Rather, like the eye rolling shipper, they are tired of all the bickering and go around writing articles about shipping wars and why they are a bad thing. Tomorrow, they might write a blog about the psychological implications of shipping wars. There’s a word for this kind of shipper. Pretentious.

Hang on a second…