I first started reading The Tales Of M.U. awhile back when our computer tech at work sent the link to my girlfriend, who passed it onto me since I like reading online stories and comics more than she does. (Thank you Misty.) At first I thought it was a cute story with a novel concept: College life through they eyes of Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and other fantasy and mythical creatures. D&D goes to college, novel concept. Had me going "Ok, this should be interesting, let's see where it goes."
The more I read, the more I related to the various characters in different ways, the more I saw of myself (15 years ago really) in them. I was never very outgoing (still aren't for the most part), I was a virgin 'til I was 21 and the aftermath of my first experience was the requisite "horrible, emotionally scarring, I never want to deal with this again" kind of thing. I won't go into details, but the whole initial Puddy thing made me both cry and feel rage. But I think that is the mark of truely great author.
To make an emotional connection with the reader. It draws them into the writers world and the characters and landscape become real for them. We care about Mack, and Amaranth, and Two, and Steff, and Dee and all the others. Even when you come up with something that people just flat out hate and dispise (such as some of the comments about Mack, for example) you've still evoked a strong emotion from your readers. So far, there have been very few authors who could do that to me.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (The DragonLance Chronicles, yes, I cried when Flint Fireforge died), Rand and Robin Miller (The Myst Books), and to a lesser degree John Steakley who wrote "Armor". There are other books that have tugged on my heart-strings, but they weren't sci-fi or fantasy/adventure novels. Most all of Derrick Jensen's work gets to me, but he's exploring culture and history( The Culture Of Make Believe and A Language Older Than Words). Daniel Quinn's work gets to me, but he's writting social commentary disguised as fiction (Ishmael, The Story Of B, My Ismael) and sometime he just comes right out and says it (Beyond Civilization).
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that is takes something special to get me to care about entirely fictional and made-up characters in a story. I have to see part of myself in the characters. Some people talk about tapping into "Archetypes", metaphores for the universal human experiences. Others will touch on a similar experience and base they characters on it (write what you know, is what my creative writing teacher always told me). I can't really pin it down, but Tales of M.U. just speaks to me, it hits all the right buttons at the right time and sends me on an emotional rollercoaster. Which honestly is something I really need right now, and more importantly is the need to talk about it with other people on the same ride. How the story makes me feel, what it reminds me of in my own past, and I really don't know how you do it, but how incredibly turned on some of the chapters have made me feel. (To which Misty is very appreciative).
It's more than just imagining myself in the MUniverse. There are times when I'll read something and think you've somehow pulled a memory out of my brain and put it on the screen in disguise. It's just similar enough to get me thinking "Hey, I went through that when I was 20-something. I really understand what that character is going through and how they feel."
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ninetydegrees
The Emotional Core
on 2009-05-29 10:49 pm (UTC)The more I read, the more I related to the various characters in different ways, the more I saw of myself (15 years ago really) in them. I was never very outgoing (still aren't for the most part), I was a virgin 'til I was 21 and the aftermath of my first experience was the requisite "horrible, emotionally scarring, I never want to deal with this again" kind of thing. I won't go into details, but the whole initial Puddy thing made me both cry and feel rage. But I think that is the mark of truely great author.
To make an emotional connection with the reader. It draws them into the writers world and the characters and landscape become real for them. We care about Mack, and Amaranth, and Two, and Steff, and Dee and all the others. Even when you come up with something that people just flat out hate and dispise (such as some of the comments about Mack, for example) you've still evoked a strong emotion from your readers. So far, there have been very few authors who could do that to me.
J.R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy), Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (The DragonLance Chronicles, yes, I cried when Flint Fireforge died), Rand and Robin Miller (The Myst Books), and to a lesser degree John Steakley who wrote "Armor". There are other books that have tugged on my heart-strings, but they weren't sci-fi or fantasy/adventure novels. Most all of Derrick Jensen's work gets to me, but he's exploring culture and history( The Culture Of Make Believe and A Language Older Than Words). Daniel Quinn's work gets to me, but he's writting social commentary disguised as fiction (Ishmael, The Story Of B, My Ismael) and sometime he just comes right out and says it (Beyond Civilization).
I guess the point I'm trying to make is that is takes something special to get me to care about entirely fictional and made-up characters in a story. I have to see part of myself in the characters. Some people talk about tapping into "Archetypes", metaphores for the universal human experiences. Others will touch on a similar experience and base they characters on it (write what you know, is what my creative writing teacher always told me). I can't really pin it down, but Tales of M.U. just speaks to me, it hits all the right buttons at the right time and sends me on an emotional rollercoaster. Which honestly is something I really need right now, and more importantly is the need to talk about it with other people on the same ride. How the story makes me feel, what it reminds me of in my own past, and I really don't know how you do it, but how incredibly turned on some of the chapters have made me feel. (To which Misty is very appreciative).
It's more than just imagining myself in the MUniverse. There are times when I'll read something and think you've somehow pulled a memory out of my brain and put it on the screen in disguise. It's just similar enough to get me thinking "Hey, I went through that when I was 20-something. I really understand what that character is going through and how they feel."