I just finished reading this book by Joseph Campbell. Overall it is sort of like going on an acid-fueled spirit journey. I guess now I'll never need to experiment with drugs. However it does contain intermittent fits of lucidity that represent interesting and useful structural analysis.

Campbell seems to argue that the structural components of myth are the product of a universally shared human subconscious. This gives them the nature of self-existent, automatically compelling story elements. I think Campbell has distracted himself with a lot of postmodern psychological mumbo-jumbo into missing an easily hit mark.

The elements of the Monomyth are not self-sufficiently universal.They arise as common situations across cultures due to the universality of human nature - self-interest or self-destruction.

It seems to me that it is always easy to tell a bad application of the Monomyth from a good one: Lazy craftsmen use the structure as a template, mad-libbing scripts or novels out of it. These works have a quality of arbitrary incoherence. The work of skilled craftsmen may indeed contain elements of the Monomyth (in fact, in some cases the Monomyth is so broadly defined that it is impossible to escape), but these elements always arise smoothly and naturally as consequences of the actions and interactions of the players.

The back half of the eating hall had been curtained off into a kind of command tent. Vencel and Arrio were there conversing in low tones; they did not notice Gemma as she slipped through the slit in the whispering linen with her carefully balanced tray. The two men were hunched over the table, closely examining the long parchment that Arrio had unrolled. Gemma set her tray by the lone taper lighting their work and bent close to see what they were about.

"He can not attack from the northward sides," Arrio was saying. "The river bends there and protects us."

"Yes," said Vencel. "He would rather come in along the road; he would have the river to protect his right flank, at least."

Gemma took the earthen jug of ale from the tray and offered it to Vencel. He took it absently, drank, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Thank you lass," said Arrio as he took the jug in his turn. "I do not think he will come along the road. The ground there is clear, it is true, but turns upwards rapidly as you approach the town. Janus would find himself advancing uphill against a charge. There is a reason the citizens of the Empire built on bluffs."

"Ah, I did not know that," said Vencel. He seized one of the small loaves from Gemma's tray and broke into it. "I came the opposite way, from across the ferry. It is good you are here Arrio; it will save me much time if I do not have to learn the land."

His long finger traced the line of the river inked on the parchment.

"So he must attack from the south."
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Gemma looked curiously around the Scriptor's archive. It had been two years since she had last visited it, but she still remembered its sunlit dustiness and leathery smell with pleasure. The Scriptor was ensconced on his stool, busily scribbling away with ink-stained fingers, the tools of his craft spread out on the benches around him.

"Scriptor John?" she called shyly.

The Scriptor peered down at her over his ledger. A pair of gleaming lenses perched on the bridge of his nose, pinched on with a little golden clip. His hair had grown iron grey since the last time Gemma had seen him, and his hard black eyes were set in wrinkled sockets. But his smile was kindly, and his voice was the same as she remembered, a great rough rumble that seemed to shake the earth with its humor. Gemma had looked forward to that voice.

"Well, young citizen," he said. "I have not seen you for a long time. Who would have known when I penned your name into my census what beauty I was unleashing on the world."

Gemma looked away and shifted her feet as she felt a blush creep up her face.

"You ought not to say such things, Scriptor John," she admonished. "I am sixteen gone now, a farm woman." She displayed her hands for proof; they were tough and callused.
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Introduction

They say that if you're a writer you shouldn't listen to tips from people who aren't out there making a living from their work. This is good advice. I mention this in the interest of fair warning, since I turned away from being a professional novelist a while back but still plan on saying a whole lot of stuff about how one writes fiction. This is for my own amusement, so that I have an organized source of my own thoughts. Anyone else, if you like it - cool. But pay attention at your own risk!

Many moons ago, back before I quit school to focus on music, before I even thought of music as a career that I might need to find alternatives to, I was an aspiring author. For about six years (between the ages of 14 and 19) I wrote all the time - short stories, sketches, a couple of really crappy novellas - took writing classes, read a lot of fiction, the works. I also read a lot of books about writing.

Most of them are useless crap.
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Romance in the sense of "romantic fiction" is a dramatic developing emotional relationship between two characters.

A romantic relationship develops linearly beginning with physical properties; the appearance of characters is immediately apparent. Physical attraction, ambivalence, or repulsion may be instantly established to aide or hinder future relational growth. Over time more depth will be revealed about less superficial character traits by observing what sort of hard choices the characters make when faced with conflicts. These exhibited character traits will either be favorable, enhancing the relationship, or they will be disfavorable, posing obstacles to the relationship. As with any conflict, a romantic conflict is one where the character is faced with a decision that must be made, and that will have lasting consequences of some type regardless of which way the choice is made. These hard choices both arise from, and expose and reinforce contradictions that are inherent in the character. We are unsure what the character will do, because he is kind, yet insensitive, or because she is eloquent yet self-conscious.

In a romantic relationship, these contradictions often lead to an emotional desire to care for the object of affection vs. an intellectual knowledge of sacrifices that must be made to do so. Romantic emotions are terribly strong: Not mere desire, but longing! Not mere pain, but torture! Not mere loss, but desolation! Strong emotions require desperate situations and lead to extreme choices.
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