[This post was
inspired by the following post on The Story Reading Ape’s blog. Thanks, Chris!]
TSRA’s article
ends with a question: “What books do you love that have teenage protagonists?
Have you ever written a story from a teenager’s point of view?”
Unfortunately, my
response strayed from answering that question, so I’ll just say, not
really. I don’t recall ever loving a
book with a teenage protagonist. In
fact, current young adult books as a rule leave me cold – the few that I’ve read always
seem contrived and shallow. Now, my
series The Man Who Found Birds among the Stars is a fictional biography,
so part of the first volume does deal with Robbin Nikalishin’s childhood and
adolescence but only because what happens to him then is foundational to the
rest of his life. Otherwise, most of my
characters are adults, with a few exceptions.
In The Blessing of Krozem (not published yet) Halrab is 28 at the
beginning of the story, which is just past adolescence in that culture; and in Children
of the Music, two important characters are children (seven and five years
old), but that book was written for adults.
I should say I
didn't read fantasy as a child, except for the Oz books – I read a lot of those
because we had a close friend who was crazy about them and made sure I had a
big supply. Oh, and I also read Dr.
Doolittle. There were only two of those
books that stuck in my mind – Mudface the Turtle (where a giant sea
turtle carries two youngsters to the new world during Noah's flood and that's
how that region got populated) and The Canary Opera (Note a burgeoning
interest in language and in talking animals, essentially aliens). I credit Mudface with the beginning of my
interest in anthropology. But there were
two books (or types of books) that really molded my development.
The first was The
Secret Garden. It probably would be considered MG today, but I read it 14
times the year I was 8 and had the whole first chapter memorized. It has children (not adolescents) as the
chief characters, but they develop and grow in the manner of much adult
literary fiction, and the psychology of Colin in particular is quite comprehensible. I think my interest in how the minds and
characters of my MCs develop probably stems from being so immersed in that
book.
And then the
second influence was historical fiction.
I believe the first thing I ever read that had a historical (and medieval)
setting was Adam of the Road, by Elizabeth Janet Gray. But it wasn’t long before I discovered
Alexandre Dumas! Swashbuckling stories
became my thing! At the same age
I was reading The Secret Garden, I found in the school library a
bowdlerized version of The Three Musketeers, and that was it – I was
hooked! At the age of 10 I read the
(unbowdlerized) Count of Monte Cristo. I
read that one many times, also. It
probably wasn’t suitable for my age (do you want your 10-year-old learning what
“infanticide” is?) but I was fascinated by the character of the Count and how his
experiences stimulated his later actions.
When I was 12, I read every book by Dumas – all the Three Musketeers
books and some things I don’t even remember now. At fourteen I read The Black Tulip, which is
not like Dumas’s other books at all. It’s
about the tulip craze in the 16th century, which I had never heard
of, but there was a certain charm about that book that none of his other books
had.
And then there was
The Prisoner of Zenda when I was twelve.
It was my first introduction to an imaginary land (or as my conlanger
friends prefer, a constructed world), although Ruritania is really an imaginary
country. (Well, I guess Oz is a constructed
world, but I had no concept of that at the time.) After Zenda I made my own imaginary countries
and drew castles and maps – lots of fun.
And the imaginary country idea is why I really liked Ursula K. LeGuin’s Malafrena
setting, many years later.
I mustn’t omit my
Roman period. When I was ten years old,
the movie Quo Vadis came out, and I became fascinated by all things
Roman. A new period of history to
opened up before me. I read the book of Quo Vadis
– another tale most parents wouldn’t approve for their ten-year-old, but I was
captivated by it, and I learned a lot.
I read some of
what today would be called YA. I liked
the nursing series – Cherry Ames and Sue Barton – but I hated Nancy Drew. I only read a couple, I think. I remember it felt completely
unrealistic. No girl of the age of 16 that
I knew had her own car and ran around solving crimes on her own. But I soon discovered adult mysteries,
particularly Ellery Queen. And Sherlock
Holmes – I read every one of his stories when I was twelve!
And then of course
my mother was an English and Romance Language teacher, and because of her, my
interest in languages developed, and I got into Shakespeare. That kind of goes along with the historical
swashbuckling theme. I read a lot that was
not required in school, and for Christmas when I was fourteen, I asked my
mother for a Complete Shakespeare. I
still have that book.
Then I went to
college, intending to major in history. But
I hated my history teachers in my freshman year and I loved my English teacher,
so English literature became the major of choice. After that I read mostly literary
fiction. Then at the age of 29 I finally
discovered Tolkien and to coin a cliché, the rest is history (or fantasy). It was actually several more years before I read
any science fiction, and when I did, I discovered LeGuin. I’ve always said I got into SF through the
back door of fantasy.
And all of these
things influenced the kinds of characters I write about. The concept of a weak or troubled male character
who has to overcome a lot of odds probably began with Colin and his father in The Secret
Garden, proceeded with the Count of Monte Cristo, and shows up in
Griffen Gwidian in The Termite Queen and in Gilzara in The Blessing
of Krozem. My female characters are
usually stronger types, particularly Kaitrin Oliva in The Termite Queen. I think they began with Mary Lennox in The
Secret Garden. I’m not sure where
Robbin Nikalishin came from – probably a combination with the swashbuckling D’Artagnan
and the troubled man who has to overcome a lot of odds, ultimately realizing he
must give up retribution as a motivator, like the Count of Monte Cristo.
And what about the
conundrum of my termites? I presume they came from Mudface and the talking animals,
and from Shakespeare and from Greek myths, and from a growing interest in
science. Ki’shto’ba is a quintessential
hero, but it commits the sin of Hercules, who killed his children, and so has
to atone and find redemption (a favorite theme of mine) through the Twelve
Labors and the visit to the Underworld. Za’dut
is the ultimate Trickster character, which turns up a lot in Dumas, and the
villains owe a lot to characters like Cassius and Iago and Cardinal Richelieu.
The best conclusion I can draw is that the influences
of our younger days, whether actual or vicarious experiences, come together to
make us the writers that we are.
![The Korinniad by [A. K. Caggiano]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/5117V+4oweL.jpg)
