Law I

Always try to avoid cliches. Cliches are the harbingers of disinterest and if your story is full of them, not many people are going to enjoy reading it. Life is cliched, yes, that’s why they exists, just like with stereotypes. But, people and characters and plots should be flawed, they are in reality, and should not be pulled from the same three stock-piles each and every time. This also applies to word choices. If you use a phrase like, “Her stomach knotted,” or “His blood turned into ice,” it makes people roll their eyes. They’ve seen this phrasing a million times, and do not want to see it again.

Law II

Always, Always make your characters REAL people. Don’t always make the main character good. The best stories are written from the prospective of the “Evil” character, or the antihero. Like with Alan Moor’s Watchmen. The main character is a man named Rorchach. He is fundamentally a despicable person who has a complete and utter disregard for the laws of normal human social contact make him a hard person to relate to, but he always fights for what it is right, regardless if it’s the best thing for humanity. He is an interesting character with emotional depth that you can’t help but relate to in the end, even though he is a bad person.

Law III

Always, always, ALWAYS, check your work. I am the worst person at this. I will finish a story and print it out without bothering to go back and check it through. It leads to stupid, embarrassing spelling mistakes and typos. Which are frustrating to both you and your English/creative writing teacher. It’s the most important and basic rule and something that you should always , always do!

The thing is, I believe in a few strange things. Like, having another half. Another “Half” is someone that fits you so well, it’s like they’ve known you for your whole life. I met my other half when I was in the tenth grade for the first time (Thank you, FIS.) I was going to a Catholic school in the States, and I met her. Her name is Katlin but through a certain coincidence of fate that if fairly common in the US, there was another girl in our little circle of friends that had that name, so we relied heavily on nicknames. So, we called her Buckle, after a mysterious incident in middle school that involved tying a belt buckle around her head. ( Or something. The details aren’t exactly clear. Don’t ask – I wasn’t around for this stroke of brilliance.) So, regardless, I met her through a friend of a friend, purely coincidence. And we sort of hit it off. Over the next three months or so, we spent all of our time together, and it felt like I had known the group, and especially herself, for as long as I’d been alive. I realized it half a year after we had met, when we were laying on the roof of her shed, looking up at the stars. It was an infinite moment, because I knew I could spend the rest of my life just sitting on this shed with her, and I would be fine.

But, she is about two years older than me, and went off to collage, and half a year after that I moved to Germany. It made it a little hard to keep up our friendship. But, we’re still in contact, and I’m staying with her this summer in the US.

She calls me every Sunday, and it’s my favorite part of the week.

Okay, so I’m stealing Mr. Neal’s idea of using Joss Whedon. All of the people here in this class may know him as the dude that’s the director/singing cowboy in “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog.” But some of us know him from hisearlier work, such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and my personal  favorite “Firefly,” (Insert fan-girl squeal.) His style of directing and writing  is a little on the side of emotionally shallow characters, but not so much that it’s distracting, but there’s always a nice balance of humor and drama, something I like. There’s also a strong sense of fantasy in all of his works, especially “Serenity.” Which, by the way, is set int he future where the human race has spread to the outer planets of the solar system, and they drive space crafts between them. There was a war between the Alliance, the reigning government, and the Resistance, a conglomeration of outer-planet rebels who fight against the corrupt government of the Alliance. But the actual story is set years after this war, on the space ship “Serenity,” which is captain by Mel, a sexy, captivating, loyal, meanie of a captain, and they do illegal trading. And  the main point of this series is the Doctor and his crazy sister, who are running from the Alliance, who did experiments on the sister’s brain and want her back to do more.

It’s simply fantastic, regardless of how bad that summary was.

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/50fau6a7psc&hl=en&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/50fau6a7psc&hl=en&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object>

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

My favorite story of the whole collection was not one of the famous ones. It was The Sphinx. In this story, the main character sees the image of a Sphinx on a hillside, and promptly passes out from fear. Upon his awakening, he tells a friend what he saw, and the friend shows him it was nothing more than a bug on the window. I liked this story because it shows how people’s perception can affect them. If someone believes a thing is real, than it is real. If someone sees something out of the corner of their eye, or from a distance, they may mistake it for something supernatural. It’s how legends are formed and stories inspired.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

The thing I have learned about the short story genre by reading this collection is that all great stories have a good sense of suspense. You know a good writer when they leave out details and slowly reveal them to you as the story progresses. Poe is a master as suspense, all of his works has it in them, weather it be his poems or his short stories. I try in my own writings to do that, a well. Keeping up suspense by adding in left-out details gradually as the story progresses makes for a better, more interesting story. With Gradient, I tried to leave out the fact that Rain human, and more like make allusions to it. I’m greatly inspired by Poe’s works, and he and I share the love of exploring the point of views of other people.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

I read a collection of short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. Now, as typical with Poe, whom, in and of himself, is synonymous with the word creepy, all the stories in this collection were of the horror Genre. The definite highlights of this collection was the Fall of the House of Usher and the Tale Tell Heart. Both of these stories are probably the most famous pieces of work that Poe did outside of the Raven. In the Tale Tell Heart, the main character is a man that borders the insane. He hates this man he lives with, and cannot standing looking at his one blind eye. So, he plots to kill him. In the Fall of the House of Usher, the main character rushed to the aid of a childhood friend who has come down with a disease of “nerves”. Upon the death of his childhood friend’s sister, whom they bury under the house for fear of medical experiments, they start to hear sound around the house and the question arises to if they buried his sister alive. I did like this collection, but then again, I am a big fan of dark literature. The only problem I had with it was that it was written so long ago that the language is a little obsolete and hard to read.

This weeks blog prompt is to write about an UNUSUAL romance. Well all know the Cliche. Guy meets girl. They fall in love. Blah. Blah. Blah. We all know that one. It’s trite. It’s overused. Make something interesting! People say there’s no new idea in the world, well they’re wrong! Make the setting interesting, make a change to an old idea, make the characters bold and unique. MAKE IT INTERESTING.

It would to be able to controll electricity. Electricity controlls everything – houses, companies, countries, even the human body runs on electrical impulses.  I could be able to controll the world very easily by taking out the world’s computers. Easy. My only weakness would be to pretty men. As ruler of the world, I would have a harem of pretty, pretty men, and they would influence me politically. Eventually, they could bring about my downfall.

Gradient

By

Brittany D. Venable, The Magnificent

In the bright white-wash of sunlight, her dress shone like packed snow against the red and gray of the brightly checkered picnic blanket. Laid out carefully around her was an array of little plates of food. Sandwiches, cheese, fruit, all settled around her as if she had expected him to find her here, tucked in the farthest corner of the park with a nice little view of an irregularly shaped lake.

Perhaps she had, he thought, raising an eyebrow. He had no idea what these androids could do anymore.

Pausing briefly, he watched her sit, completely still, back to him. It would have been unnatural for someone to sit so still, and he would have thought it strange if he knew better, but the fact was that this little being, past the very human looking eyes and soft real-feeling skin, was little more than a overly tinkered with mannequin.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

It had no soul.

There was nothing wrong with bringing it back to Dr. Leto. He made it. Like a parent to a child, he built it with care and devotion and taught the learning program in her brain basic human functions with an unimaginable amount of patience. Stop, he thought, chiding himself, trying to make her a person.

“Dr. Leto loved to read me books.” She said, her back still to him. “He would wake up in the morning and read to me. Teach me manners, teach me speech, teach my of the world. All day until his voice started to fail.”

“Why did you leave?” He asked, frowning.

The android turned around and the first thing he noticed was that she didn’t look much younger than himself.

The dress was almost as pale as her skin, curling around her bare thighs and feet. Her hair was the color of spun copper, spilling around her arms in tendrils, framing her glittering gray eyes. Perfect, like the doll she was. “Can a bird really be a bird if all it’s life has been spent in a cage?” She asked.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Pondering the thought for the moment, he frowned. He hated metaphorical rhetoric crap. It would be just like Dr. Leto to program his robot to spout it, too.

“Do you know why I’m here?” He asked, running his fingers through his messy hair.

“Leto wanted you to bring me back.” She said, her face still impassive, gray eyes unsettling in their blankness. “He’s paying you quite a bit.”

Flinching, he frowned once more. “You’re drives crashed a few days ago, setting off a tracking device Dr. Leto installed. Really, I am surprised. I figured I’d be finding your…” He trailed off. What he really wanted to say was ‘body,’ but somehow it left a little bit of a sour tinge in his mouth. Bodies were made of organic material, not metal and rubber and what ever the hell else these things were made of.

The android smiled demurely. “Of course, he would, wouldn’t he?”

“What?”

“Make up a story,” She said, standing up.

Blinking in confusion, he watched silently as she approached him. She was shorter than he by several inches, perfect and slender and tiny. “Are you saying he’s lying?”

“I’m moving aren’t I?” She asked, doing a little spin on her heal as if to prove her point. Her dress fluttered like the wings of a dove. “If you knew anything about robotics, or really, technology in general, you know when something crashes there has been a cataclysmic failure and the thing ceases to function.”

He thought about it for a moment, frowning, doubt welling up in his chest, black, sticky, and clinging. Doubt was something he hated, something that was dangerous in his line of work. Faith was the only thing that kept him stable. Without absolute faith in his employers, that what they were doing was right, in the anciently laid laws, was the only thing that let him be able to do the horrible things he’d done.

Could robots even lie?

Shaking his head, thinking, miserably, that after this he was going to need a nice long vacation. “It doesn’t matter.” He said, reaching up and grabbing her arm, not painfully, but with enough force to tell her that he wasn’t playing around. “Come with me, it’s going to be a long way back.” Pulling on the arm, he watched as her eyes surveyed his face. Resisting for a moment, she sighed and followed after him, head bowed in a submissive way. These things were programed to follow human commands, every last one of them, even if it meant their own destruction. He almost felt bad, she didn’t even have a drive to live.

“May I ask your name?” She asked, following him down the winding path several minuets later, gravel crunching under their shoes.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Thinking about it for a moment, he couldn’t find the harm in telling her. Though, for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why she wanted to know. “Cirian Blake,”

“Dr. Leto called me Rain.” She offered, a moment later, with a muted smile.

Thunder crackled in the sky, rattling the plastic windowpanes of the hotel room. Cirian watched the downpour from the small white desk, fingers absently rubbing the keys to his holopad. Sighing, gently, he quickly finished typing up the email, telling the anxious doctor that they would be delayed for at least two more day because of the atrocious weather. Even in this day and age of technology, the weather was still an obstacle. Pressing send, he swiveled around on his chair, eyes immediately seeking out the slender form of Rain.

She sat, silently, on the other side of the room, on the made-up bed. Her gaze was focused somewhere near her own feet, but even from this distance, he knew it was rather drawn and pale. Cirian’s eyebrows drew together, feeling concerned besides himself.

He didn’t know what could possibly be wrong with her. Was her battery low or something? Or was the crashing of her drives finally making itself apparent? She was right, he thought, miserably, he had no idea how robots worked.

Clearing his throat, Cirian stood up, walking over to her. “Hey, er, are you alright?”

Rain looked up at him. After three weeks of being with her, he still found those eyes a little too human for comfort. Her lips pulled down in a frown. “Yes, perfectly.” She said, pulling her knees up to her chest. “It is just…” She trailed off, looking out the far windows. Her eyes reflected the color of the sky. “I was wondering… Where does the soul reside?”

Cirian blinked, frowning. “I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a priest.” He said with a shrug.

“Would a priest tell me?” She asked, looking at him imploringly. “Would you take me to one?”

“Why do you want to know?” He said, crossing his arms and leaning against the far wall. He was starting to dislike her fascination with Faith. Cirian himself was only religious in passing. Yes, he believe in souls and a higher power, but he didn’t go to the temples. He was hardly qualified to answer these questions she was so fond of.

“Can I ask you something?” She asked, looking distressed. Cirian was only further unsettled by this deep display of emotion. Rain was usually so…contained “Are people with prosthetic limbs less of a human than a person with a complete body?”

Frowning, Cirian’s dark eyebrows drew together. “No, they’re just disabled.” It was a strange question to ask, he realized, only a moment after he replied. Most people who were missing a limb these days got fully-moving, capable prosthetics that really, oddly enough, were better than actual limbs. He couldn’t think of a single person who wouldn’t jump at the idea of getting one. Hell, there had been raids on illegal limb-replacement surgeries for years.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

She mulled over this information for a moment, eyes downcast, before looking up at him again. “What about a baby that was grown in a lab?”

Cirian looked away in discomfort. Again, as he found himself asking with more and more frequency, why was he answering her questions? He could just ignore her. There was something to those eyes of hers that was child-like with the kind of innocence that nobody with a heart could ignore. He was a man, not a demon, and he felt compassion for her, despite himself.

“A kid’s a kid, regardless of whether or not it has a mom,” He said.

Rain seemed to digest this for a long moment, just like the other piece of information she had learned. It took a while for her to look up again, and when she did her face was screwed up in a way that if she had been a real person, he would have thought her about to cry. “What about a person who’s brain has been placed inside another body?”

At the mention of it, Cirian’s lips curled back into a snarl. There was a surgery that had popped up about ten years ago to help people with quadriplegia and the like walk again. It involved the removal of the brain and placing it in a cadaver, where it was artificially hooked up to the spinal cord. Then, through the magic of the science he didn’t quite understand, they were able to reanimate the body and give people their lives back. At first, there were serious side effects like brain damage, but it had been perfected until there was only a small amount of physical therapy involved. But, recently, it had been legalized through lobbyists to be open for the public, and the rich had all scrambled at the idea of being young again. It was revolting, their desire to defile themselves so completely.

“I suppose they are still people, at heart.” Cirian said at length, trying to calm himself.

Rain nodded, lips pursed. “What if said bodies weren’t human bodies? What if they were fake?”

Snapping his eyes back to her face from where they had stayed, his lips set in a very thin line, not liking where this conversation was going. What she was proposing…

“Fake?” He asked.

“Into android bodies.” She said, giving him an meaningful look.

And then much like waves cresting on the beach, the realization struck him hard in the face. Oh, hell, he thought, hand reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. All the questions, how she was so good at acting like a person, unlike all the androids he’d ever met, why the good doctor was so antsy to get her back – it all made sense now. She was a pet science fair project that was going to make Dr. Leto a millionaire.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

“You’re not a robot at all, are you?” Cirian asked, looking back at her. His dark eyes were dark with the doubt that had resurged within him. Rain smiled softly at him, almost apologetically, standing up to move to one of the windows in the room. She gazed out at the white towers of the skyline that were partially obscured by mist. “That depends on how you describe being human. Is a brain and a spinal cord enough to make a me a person?”

Cirian walked over to her, roughly grabbing her arms and spinning her around to look at him. Her gray, gray eyes were staring up at him apprehensively. He wanted to yell at her. He wanted to scream about being lied to, about being drug into something that way over his head. But, Cirian couldn’t. Even before he knew that part of her was flesh and blood, he wouldn’t of. Rain was too fragile, his words would break her.

“It’s enough.” He all but whispered, before pulling away and stalking over to the desk. He said himself down in the chair and placed his face in his hands, fingers running through his messy hair. Several long minuets ticked by before he was in control of his emotions enough to speak. “Why did he make you?” Cirian asked, although he already really knew the answer. It was one step above the brain replacement surgery that the rich were exploiting as their very own fountain of youth. Except now, with android parts that were so hard, nearly impossible, to break they really could live forever. And be as beautiful and young as they pleased…

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Rain didn’t answer him. She realized better than he that it was rhetorical question.

Shaking his head, he closed his eyes. Cirian let out a careful breath. It was so wrong, to use a person like this. “I can’t take you back now. I’m sure you know that.” He said, his own dark eyes meeting hers from across the room. There was a relieved smile on her lips. “Is that because I’m a person now?” She asked, as if truly delighted by the idea.

Cirian knew that even if she hadn’t told him he wouldn’t have struggled to take her back.

Funny how the human heart got attached to things.

“Something like that.”

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Steam rose up in wisps into the clear blue sky. Rain’s dress shone like white sunshine against the sleek shining steal of the train. People passed her and Cirian on the platform, carting bags and luggage, paying them no mind as they hurried off to their waiting lives.

Rain smiled up at him, clutching a small bag of her own things. “Will you be okay?” She asked, her voice truly concerned. Cirian fought off the urge to smile at her fondly. Instead, he let his gaze soften. “I have to tie up a few loose ends,” He said, knowing full and well the girl knew it meant erasing both of their existences off the map. They were enemies of the most powerful scientist in the country, probably for several countries, and he would not willingly let them escape. Rain was just to valuable.

Shuffling closer, anxiously, she frowned. “You promise you’ll find me when you’re done?” She asked. Cirian closed his eyes for a moment, nodding his head. Where else could he go? This decision of his, his morality, would not let him give her back. He wouldn’t let her become a tool to be exploited.

<!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

“Good,” She said, smiling brighter, he knew, without even having to look. It was so easy to make her happy. The whistle blew, distantly, and Cirian’s eyes slip open. “Go catch your train,” He said. She gave him a long look, before turning and walking a few paces.

She stopped, long hair rustling as she turned to look back at him. Next thing he knew a pair of cool arms were wrapped around him. Shocked and a little unnerved, he patted her back, feeling his heart warm despite himself. Leaning up on her toes, she placed a soft kiss to his cheek. “I’ll wait for you,” She said, before running off and slipping into her train just before it took off, sliding down the magnetic track like a looming beast.

Cirian watched her go with a slight smile pulling at his lips.

Maybe, just maybe, this decision wasn’t so bad, after all.

My perfect world would be in the future. Ever heard of the movie Blade Runner? It would be something like that. If you’ve never seen the movie, it’s set in the future with androids running about and angsting about souls. Or something like that, I haven’t’ seen it in a while. In this future, nature would be replaced with concrete and steel.You could see the world from holograms. Everyone has a personal android that looks like a human, that follow them around. All the food would come from vending machines in the wall, and would be compact with more nutrients. And food would be modified to have more taste and less calories. So you could eat anything and not get fat. Of course the government will be slightly corrupt, but nothing too drastic.