Swords and Guns and Magic, Oh My

Characters can’t fight their nemeses without weapons, whether those be material hunks of metal, metaphysical abilities, or untapped attributes within themselves. In order to achieve a happily-ever-after, or at least a happily-until-the-next-installment, most of us want the characters we read about to change – to come up against their short-comings and surmount them. We expect them to learn and to grow. This is something they can only do when pressured by overwhelming force – internal or external (most of us, I think, expect both.) Buffy the Vampire Slayer did her change with a stake in her hands. Old school Star Trek crew had their phasers. Star Wars has its lightsabers. My characters have been awarded just about every weapon known to man.

Yet weapons, in and of themselves, aren’t that interesting. Every book, every movie, every TV show. They’re all a sort of genre and period specific Guns & Ammo magazine ad. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just a thing. There’s really nothing edgy about weapons (ha) in a novel anymore. To me, the interesting bit is when weapons stand-in for the things most of us lack. They’re compensation. Usually for lack of power or lack of confidence. Which is interesting when any professional tasked with carrying a gun on a daily will tell you that the weapon is just a tool – a tool that should never be conflated with confidence or power, or you’re failing to comprehend the limits of the tool.

Compensation. The limits of the tools. Things just got interesting. Putting a weapon in a character’s hands is a great way to show up that character’s internal flaws. It’s a perfect way to make manifest that short-coming which the character must overcome in order to survive and succeed in the coming crisis point of the story. If a character’s journey through a story is a series of pressures and lessons designed to prepare him or her for the ultimate test at the climax, then a physical weapon is a talisman – a bit of a crutch getting them past each trial. And if a character is to prove he or she has internalized the lessons learned over the arc of the story, the weapon has to go away. (You’ve seen it in the movies – facing the Big Bad and the only gun jams or falls out of reach.) The character has to prove the compensation is no longer necessary because he or she no longer suffers from a lack of power or confidence or what have you. Which isn’t to say that the character offs the antagonist by means of wishful thinking – in the climax, it’s pretty common for a character to be stripped bare so that the final test is faced without benefit of hope. But if the story isn’t a Shakespearean tragedy that litters the stage with corpses, then the character out wits, out maneuvers, out-whatevers the villain. At that point, the weapon can be reacquired (or another co-opted) and the bad guy(s) dispatched. But in order to get a weapon back in hand, the character has to prove he or she has filled the gap the weapon once compensated for. Perverse, no?

It’s not like this is iron-clad law. Sometimes a gun is just a gun. But like Chekov is famously reported to have said, “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.” For our novels, weapons prove to be far more versatile tools than they are in real life. A police officer can only use his weapon a few ways – most of them having to do with apprehending people who don’t want to be apprehended. The author can use that same gun to signify that officer’s inferiority complex in the face of her infamous older sibling, the rocket scientist. It can augment her frustration in dealing with her ex and her ambivalence about her worth. It can be a status symbol and the only thing she takes really good care of. So many options for exploring character. All with one bit of metal.

I’ll say it again. Swords and guns and magic, oh my.

Worldbuilding: How the Arms Make the Character

I write action-filled books, so obviously, my characters are going to be armed.  This is something I put a lot of thought into when first designing the characters and the world.

First off, in Maradaine, I didn't want guns.  They just didn't fit into the mold of the world I wanted Maradaine to be.*  Plus, I don't really know about guns, and when you get that stuff wrong, those who do let you know.  Sometimes quite loudly.  So I avoid that conversation completely.

But which weapons do I give my characters?

For Veranix in Thorn of Dentonhill, I really wanted his weapons to mean something to him.  His bow is to honor his father-- former soldier and leader in the Aventil streets, and then later a trick shot performer in the circus.  His staff is to honor his mother, who a circus acrobat, aerialist and tightrope walker.  Of course, they are also the tools he is skilled with, but that's because those skills were passed on by his parents.

For Minox and Satrine in A Murder of Mages, what I chose for them had to apply to the constabulary force as a whole.  They carry crossbows (usually loaded with blunt-tip quarrels, for an option that is not-necessarily-as-lethal as a pointed ones) and handsticks, The handsticks are, of course, why the constabulary are called "sticks" on the streets.

A lot of the Aventil street gang folk, like Colin, have knives, knucklestuffers (think brass knuckles or this beauty my friend Kat used to carry in college) and cudgels.  Now, I also had to consider what this meant on a cultural level.  Why are people on the streets carrying  this stuff, and what does it mean, legally?  Maradaine is a civilized city, after all, with an established constable force, legal code and court system.  

But Maradaine also has a dark past, where corrupt lords had no checks to arrest anyone they pleased for whatever reason-- or no reason-- as the mood struck them.  So when the founders of the Parliament and other aspects of Druthal's modern government were drafting their Rights of Man, the need to protect oneself from false or unjust arrest was prevalent in their minds.  Thus enshrined in the Rights of Man is the right to be armed, explicitly to protect oneself from unjust arrest.  At one point in Thorn, Colin even mentions it when confronted by a stick. 

These character-based weapon concerns, as well as how old traditions can clash with a "modern" world, come into play in several aspects in Way of the Shield,  a book that I hope to have some news for you about in the near future.  

Also, I decidedly made some unique weapon choices for some of the more flamboyant characters showing up in The Alchemy of Chaos, coming out early next year.  Hope you're looking forward to that as much as I am.  Until then, I have a very full plate of edits, proofs and drafting for the rest of the month (and year).  So I better get to it.

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*- Not that fantasy can't have guns.  There is, of course, the rising subgenre of Flintlock Fantasy.

WEAPONIZING your CHARACTERS

There is something brilliant in selecting a weapon for a character that not only works for what must be done story-wise, but which defines the character in specific and perfect ways.

Wasn't that fun?

Not always, but often, there is more going on than just arming your characters. Sure, it could be a world where blades are commonplace and no one is startled by seeing a man with a blade on his belt. But maybe it is a world where only certain people have blades. Then it is a status symbol, displaying power and evoking responsibility. Or maybe, as the Walking Dead franchise is pretty good at showing, the taking up of the weapon is symbolic of the change of mindset in the character.

Did the character fashion the weapon out of ingenuity and need?

Was the weapon a gift of rank?

Was it earned or taken by force?

What did the character go through

to get to the exact place in time

where he could claim the weapon?

What did possessing that weapon mean to the character?

You could feel what the weapon meant to him, right?

Approaching with disbelief, yet in need.

The childlike wonder and joy in claiming the weapon.

The confidence gripping it bestowed him.

The freedom from the chains it gave him.

And what about a character who does not need a visible weapon to

Destroy an Enemy With His Mind?

And what about those who are not the obvious product of fiction,

but who are real and could be in line behind you at the grocery

or in the apartment upstairs, or the cubicle next to you?

 I'm talking about the subtle, sweet faced character armed
with something that cuts deeper, slower,
and does every bit as much damage
as a well-honed and poison-tipped blade.

"If that's how you remember it."

"Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse where the abuser manipulates situations repeatedly to trick the victim into distrusting his or her own memory and perceptions. Gaslighting is an insidious form of abuse. It makes victims question the very instincts that they have counted on their whole lives, making them unsure of anything. Gaslighting makes it very likely that victims will believe whatever their abusers tell them regardless as to their own experience of the situation. Gaslighting often precedes other types of emotional and physical abuse because the victim of gaslighting is more likely to remain in other abusive situations as well."  (Article this is from is HERE)

I don't think this would be easy to write (both emotionally and tactically), though with the latter the problem of showing the reader everything the victim-character is buying little by little while the reader screams, "You know better!"

Guns, Knives, or Magic: Arming Your Characters

Weapons. Weapons. Weapons. How do I choose if my characters should bear arms? How do  I choose with what I arm my characters?

Genre and time period act as first-round filters of exclusion. Genre because ray guns aren't plausible in Contemporary Inspirational. Time period because Queen Elizabeth did not have a light saber (Walsingham probably would have peed with glee, but still).

Penchant and personality? The most important parts.

Everything a character wears from Underoos to a Claymore says something about the character. It also says something about their preferred environments and the social situations in which they often find themselves.

• Someone who wears a garrote disguised as a necklace? Overconfident Assassin. Requires close proximity and shadows. Has exceptional grooming so as not to give themselves away before the kill.
• Someone who carries a broadsword with a jeweled hilt? Noble Soldier. Requires open space and short timelines of actual conflict (like 5 mins or less). Accustomed to big, bold displays of aggression.
• Someone who wears a pendant filled with poison? Duplicitous Celebrity. Requires an atmosphere of distractions yet uninterrupted delivery of product. Is often seen yet not noticed.
• Someone carrying a Thales LithgowF90? Modern Day RAA Soldier on maneuvers. Requires intel, orders, and a war-torn environment. Functions best as one part of a whole. Team player.

Vadrigyn, the protagonist in my high fantasy LARCOUT? Venomous parasites that grow from her palms. Requires foe to be within reach. What does that choice of weapon say about her? That she's unaccustomed to a kind touch, to intimacy.

Her nemesis? Carries a cudgel but uses his magic to move stones to crush her. Requires area where rocks are present and for target to be within line of sight. What does it say about him? The unused cudgel represents the art of distraction and deception. The use of stone slabs to crush people? He has a penchant for excessive force.

With the choice of preferred weapon, you're also introducing weaknesses. 

The solider with a sword? Can't use it in close quarters. Can easily be separated from it. The soldier using the automatic assault rifle? Easily spotted. Dependent on ammunition and proper function of multiple mechanical parts. Venomous parasites? Can't lay a hand on something without burning or killing it. Stone Mover? Loud noise. Big mess. Structure collapse.

Those who are adept at wielding their preferred weapon are also dependent on it, because repeated use--that whole "the weapon is an extension of self" belief--has created a series of habits during defense or aggression. Those habits can (and should) be used against the beloved character(s).

Yeah but MAGIC...

Creating a unique magic system for your world and characters is awesome and fun...and still bound by a logical give and take. It still needs to be a dance of strengths and weaknesses. It still needs to show balance within the character and within the world. "All Magic comes at a cost..." because it needs to to make good storytelling. Otherwise willynilly unbridled unchecked use means there's no character growth. No character growth means it's a boringass story. So, when constructing a new world of magic and assigning who can do what, ask if the magic enhances the character through:

• Describing the character's station/class
• Reflecting the character's environment
• Caging/hampering the character with dependencies
• Exposing unique habits
• Succumbing to assorted weaknesses borne of wielding said magic.

So, dear readers, when next you think of putting a flail, a Beretta, or an amulet in your characters' hands, consider what that weapon is really saying about your characters.

Why Carry a Big Sword?

One reason I love the cover of THE TALON OF THE HAWK – and what readers always say, too – is that you can’t go wrong with a big, mother-effing sword. 

I love this character, my warrior-princess and heir to the high throne of the Twelve Kingdoms, because she does carry a big sword. Goes without saying that she knows how to use it. It was super fun for me to get to write a warrior heroine who’s really good at what she does. Maybe it’s what I write, but it seems like I don’t get that many opportunities to write a woman who is a dazzlingly skilled fighter.

In fact, when I got this cover from my publisher, I gasped aloud. I loved loved loved how Ursula’s sword shines, her heir’s circlet and her thousand-yard stare. In a state of thrilled excitement, I showed it to my husband. Know what he said?

“That sword is too big for her—she could never swing it.”

More than a little tartly, I replied, “Does it help to know she’s not entirely human?”

At which point he backed off, really fast. No doubt due to that honed spouse’s sense of when they’ve put their foot in it and domestic discord is barreling down the track at them like a drunk driver on the wrong side of the highway. To be fair, he and I studied Chinese martial arts together for many years, and our teacher very much emphasized what female fighters could do versus male fighters—particularly as regards upper body strength. And he doesn’t read my books.

 

But man, way to harsh my buzz!

Especially because I don’t think—maybe I’m wrong and, boys, correct me if I am—that men ever look at a cover with a male hero carrying some improbably large and heavy sword and say, “No way he could swing that thing.” Instead we know it’s fantasy. That’s why we want that story—for the fantasy of the badass hero or heroine who *can* do this thing that would never occur in our reality.

It does, however, point up that these considerations must be weighed. Thus this week’s topic: Choose Your Weapon: Arming Your Characters—how do you choose, from what do you choose, and why?

For me, arming Ursula with a sword wasn’t a decision. When she first walked onto the page as a character, she had her sword in her hand. It becomes an integral part of her character—including the jokes that she sleeps with it. She also uses a variety of knives, but the sword is her primary defense. It’s also a character metaphor, as she holds everyone not just at arm’s length, but at sword length. The jewel in the pommel of her sword holds great significance in the overall story arc, too.

On the other hand, Dafne, the heroine of book 4, THE PAGESOF THE MIND, is a librarian. She’s never going to swing a sword. I did, however, get to write a terrific scene (to my mind!) of Ursula teaching Dafne basic self-defense—with short daggers much more suited to Dafne’s size and strength.

But, you’ll notice, Dafne IS carrying her mother-effing weapon on the cover also. 

We all have our strengths!