Some Personal Thoughts on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Short Story: LEAF BY NIGGLE

Introduction

In a previous post [ https://peterkazmaier.wordpress.com/2023/02/20/some-personal-thoughts-on-tim-kellers-exposition-of-matthew-chapter-11/ ], I talked about the significant beneficial influence Tim Keller’s podcast had on me in 2022 and now in 2023. In another recent podcast, Keller introduced me to a short story of Tolkien’s that I had not read before: LEAF BY NIGGLE.

This story was especially poignant for someone who is a writer and sometimes wonders “if all this work that goes into writing a story is worth it.”

A word of caution. My thoughts on this story contains spoilers, so perhaps you’d like to stop here and read the story before you continue.

 

A Comment on Sara Flower Kjeldsen’s Excellent Blog: READING AN ENTIRE BLOG BEFORE COMMENTING

Link to Sara Flower Kjeldsen’s blog: https://saraflower.ca/2023/02/05/reading-a-persons-entire-post-before-commenting/

Link to a cited reference in Sara’s blog: https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-read-the-facebook-newsfeed-think-they-know-more-than-they-actually-do

Introduction

I wholeheartedly agree, that as a blog commenter, I ought first to thoroughly read and understand the thesis of any blog before I respond either in support or in disagreement. For me that is a discipline that I ought to practice in my reading.

However, having conceded that point, I also believe as a blog writer I ought to structure my blog argument in such a way, that the modern reader with all the attention deficits they bring to the written word. cannot help but capture my central argument even if they skim that last few paragraphs of my missive. Note, to be perfectly clear, I am not at all saying that any Sara’s blog posts suffer from this deficiency. I am merely stating that as a complement to thorough reading, I always want to practice best writing practices in my blog posts.

Hamlet’s Blackberry

Why the complementary focus on blog structure? In 2011, I read William Powers’ book, Hamlet’s Blackberry. It was either while reading the book itself, or hearing some excellent lectures on Powers’ book by Pastor Bruxy Cavey, that I realized that the age of emails had modified both my own and many other people’s reading habits.

In my case, feeling the pressure of reading and responding to many, many emails a day, I found, as Powers predicted, that I would read the title and first paragraph and then, without thinking, skim the rest of the text. This modern proclivity of skimming, does not at all excuse the blog commenter from reading the blog carefully before responding, but it did signal to me as a blog writer that I should do what I can to mitigate this reading defect. In essence, I resolved to use the title and first paragraph, as much as I am able, to communicate a succinct version of my thesis, so that even those who read no further can grasp my argument.

Summary

At least one commenter attributed inappropriate responses to Sara’s blog to trolls who presumably are deliberately misunderstanding her argument since they write using uncharitable criticism to inflame passions and provoke heated responses. No urging for them to “read the whole blog” nor any effort on my part to make the thesis apparent in the first paragraph will curtain their activity, since the whole mechanism of trolling is to miss the point.

However, there are likely many readers who miss the point inadvertently because of time pressure. True they should not comment without a thorough reading, but I think it would be of value to structure my blog in such a way that they get the general idea of my thesis or point despite their rushed perusal.

Good versus Evil-Exciting versus Boring-The Writer’s Conundrum

I listen to many of the messages of New York Pastor Tim Keller on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YHHWRO9zT0katOsxVrABi?si=sz-zcGhVTLCnB1pOmjXqhA&utm_source=native-share-menu] [Note: my VPN blocked opening this Spotify link. I had to disconnect my VPN to make this link work]. This past week I listened to a message he gave years ago on September 11, 2011. In it he mentioned that he has repeatedly read and heard from actors the sentiment they would much rather play an evil character than a good one, since evil characters do exciting and surprising things while good ones were bland and uninteresting. Keller goes on to quote Simone Weil to point out that it may be true in literature and movies that good characters are boring and evil characters are interesting, but exactly the opposite is true in real life. Tyrants, the world over, are the same boring entities as they inflict their cruelty, vindictiveness, oppression, and death on the people they control.

I want to discuss this topic, as a writer, using three questions:

1. Why is it so difficult to write about interesting, good characters?
2. What are some examples of interesting good characters in literature?
3. How can I improve my own writing to make good characters more interesting?

Why is it so Difficult to Write About Interesting, Good Characters?

It’s difficult because it requires a degree of imagination that is not easy for us to achieve. Why is it so easy to write about evil? It’s easy for us to imagine great betrayal, cruelty, enslavement, pain, torture, and other travails. In contrast it is only easy to imagine good as the absence of evil. We are left with a scene where we are sitting in sunshine in a meadow with a good book and we extrapolate that idyllic scene to eternity. As time stretches endlessly on, it cannot help but become boring. As this scene becomes boring, so good characters often become boring as they become boring as they do fewer and fewer bad actions. They become empty shells.

What are Examples of Interesting Good Characters in Literature

For me Frodo Baggins is an interesting, good character. He grows in goodness as The Lord of the Rings unfolds. Yet especially toward the end of the book, The Return of the King, there is a bit of sadness about him. He continues to be afflicted by the wounds of blade and sting and he never received the recognition he deserved back in the shire (although he takes it with grace). At last he joins Gandalf and Galadriel as they travel west. Although he saved the shire for others, the costs meant he could not save the shire for himself.

Touching on Simone Weil’s comment on the contrast between real life and fiction, we can augment what we learned from the fictional character Frodo to what we can learn from the real person we read about in the gospels. Jesus is a captivating enigma. He’s from a poor background, with little education except what Judaism provided and in three years he forever changed the world. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and fed the hungry. He showed mercy to the woman caught in adultery. Almost everyone applauds these actions.

Yet everyone, including his closest friends and family, took offense at him at some point. And in the end, of course, despite his good deeds, he was shown no mercy and crucified. He rose from the dead as testified by his contemporaries and by the gospels, and Christians today believe they follow a living Christ, not a dead teacher from the past.

For me I think Frodo’s story is interesting and not boring, because Tolkien’s imagination made Frodo’s story, in a small way, like Christ’s story. His story has all the grit of real life. Sacrifice does not always lead to reward at every point. I could go on to Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, or Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. All show the same characteristics that make them real as they are made interesting in their goodness.

How can I Improve my Writing and Make Good Characters More Interesting?

For myself, I have made note of two things. First, to make a good character more like a real person; goodness does not always give me everything I want. Not all wounds are healed in this life. There is often a penalty to pay for goodness in this world, and my characters have to pay it.

Secondly, a good character has to be offensive on some points because of his goodness. If a good character is never offensive to the reader, we have simply written back to the reader a semi-good character who, following the cultural norm, will never challenge the reader’s thinking.

A Final Note

As writers we find it much easier to write interesting, evil characters. We also find it much easier to describe dystopia than utopia. We have the same mental obstacles to describe a truly beautiful, inspiring, and wonderful future state. For me the final chapters of The Chronicles of Narnia book, The Last Battle does it best.

All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

C. S Lewis, The Last Battle. page 173.

Time for a New Magnetic Sign for My Vehicles

Since I have just finished my fifth book, it seemed time to update my rather modest advertising. Having a sign on my van is one inexpensive way to draw attention to my writing. The last sign I had on my vehicle only featured my first three books. So this time I wanted to focus particularly on The Dragons of Sheol and Coventry 2091.

My books are listed on many of the major online bookstores: Word Alive Press-Anchor, Walmart, Indigo, Barns and Noble, and, of course, Amazon (it will hopefully appear on Apple soon, but they seem to take longer than anyone else to list). If you’d rather not search the site for my name, you will find links at … https://wolfsburgimprints.com/buy-books/

The print sample of COVENTRY 2091 has arrived!

I am so excited to receive my sample print copy for COVENTRY 2091, my fifth book. It begins in Canada in the year (you guessed it!) 2091, but as you can tell by the cover, it doesn’t end there.

After inspecting the copy and approving the final print run, I expect the book will be available in mid-June. Thanks everyone for your support and encouragement!

Twenty Reasons for Becoming an Indie Author

What is an Indie Author?

For the purpose of this discussion an independent author (Indie Author) is an author who retains ownership and control of their created work. He may provide a limited licence to a publisher or distributor, but ultimate control of the work remains with the originator. In contrast I use the term “traditional publisher,” as a publisher who acquires exclusive rights to a work before publication. Note: these terms are for discussion purposes only and in no way is this discussion to be taken as legal advice.

Twenty Reasons for Becoming an Indie Author

• Reason number 1 for becoming an Indie author: it gives you the freedom to share your imagination with a worldwide audience. 
• Reason number 2 for becoming an Indie author: it enables to spend your time writing your next book rather than dozens of query letters.
• Reason number 3 for becoming an Indie author: you can share your story directly with the people who matter most—your readers.
• Reason number 4 for becoming an Indie author: when your first book comes out and readers begin buying it—YOU ARE AN AUTHOR.
• Reason number 5 for becoming an Indie Author: you may be the one to invent the new genre that readers have been longing for.
• Reason number 6 for becoming an Indie Author: it enables you keep the freedom to write what you believe, in the way you believe it should be written.
• Reason number 7 for becoming an Indie Author: BIG BROTHER abhors voices that can’t be controlled.
• Reason number 8 for becoming an Indie Author: internet sales are easy to scale. If your book goes viral there is no limit to how many books you can sell.
• Reason number 9 for becoming an Indie Author: you decide when you want to follow the dictates of Political Correctness.
• Reason number 10 for becoming an Indie Author: with so many people on the internet, there ought to be 100,000 with tastes in stories similar to yours.
• Reason number 11 for becoming an  Indie Author: with low overhead you can sell into niche markets that are unprofitable for large publishers.
• Reason number 12 for becoming an Indie Author: you learn to value and cherish every reader of your book.
• Reason number 13 for becoming an Indie Author: you are able to interact personally with many of your readers since your low overhead lets you thrive with fewer sales.
• Reason number 14 for becoming an Indie Author: for introverts (like me), it’s easy to converse about books when people find out you’re an author.
• Reason number 15 for becoming an Indie Author: researching your novel leads you to study many new subjects.
• Reason number 16 for becoming an Indie Author: you finally write the book you always wanted to read, but no one else bothered to write.
• Reason number 17 for becoming an Indie Author: every one you meet has a bit of knowledge about life and relationships that will make your novel more authentic.
• Reason number 18 for becoming an Indie Author: your book need never go out of print. After all you own it.
• Reason number 19 for becoming an Indie Author: take a step to overcome fear of failure and rejection. Put Theodore Roosevelt’s encouragement “to be in the arena” into practice. Silence your inner critic by writing and publishing your first book.
• Reason number 20 for becoming an Indie Author: in these days of “cancel culture,” if you own your book, your publisher can’t be pressured into burying it.

Drawing Maps for the Novel COVENTRY 2091

Vulture Lake, a fictitious lake in the Canadian Shield, North of Lake Superior

Maps play an important part in most of the books I publish. This ingrained desire to associate maps with fantasy adventure was established from my earliest days of reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Indeed, particularly when I read fantasy or seafaring novels, I get significant enjoyment out of perusing the maps and tracing the journeys described in the stories on them.

I suppose an author with a bigger budget could commission these maps for my own books out to a professional artist, but I find that preparing the maps is an important part of the overall experience of writing a book.

One program that I like to use is Campaign Cartographer 3+ (CC3+) from Profantasy. Handy YouTube videos are available to get the novice drawing quickly. I was able to draw the three color maps shown in a short time.

The town of Kinsinger on the barren, but habitable planet, Alpha Centauri A-3

The terrain within one hundred kilometers of Kinsinger

For me as an amateur map builder, it is much easier to select a set of drawing parameters and stay within them rather than change things like colors and effects. However, since the maps in the print edition, are black and white, while the downloadable maps from the website are color, it is difficult to optimize for both online (color) and print (black and white) media.

Black and White rendition of Vulture Lake

Black and White – Kinsinger Town

Black and white – Kinsinger area.

Black and white jpeg versions were generated using the “colorify” option in GIMP,

THE DRAGONS OF SHEOL Review: “A solid, well-balanced novel within an epic framework”

Writing a novel is a bit like cooking dinner for someone else: a badly prepared meal will appeal to no one, but even a well-prepared main course will not appeal to everyone, since tastes legitimately differ.

Having said that, it is always a special pleasure for me, as a writer, to find a kindred spirit that seems to appreciate the same things in novels that I do. I am so grateful for speculative-fiction-author Tessa Stockton’s thoughtful and insightful five star review of The Dragons of Sheol. Check the links below …

On Goodreads

On Amazon.com

In case you have difficulty accessing the review on these sites, see below …

After having finished reading The Dragons of Sheol, I can’t help but come away feeling as if this is one of the most solid, well-balanced novels within a high fantasy, epic journey setting. This is not a subgenre in which I often read, as it’s not one of my favorites in the speculative fiction realm. However, the amount of work and detail the author skillfully presented was impressive. That in itself won me over, never mind the successful plotline.

This is some of what I appreciated about the book: deep symbolism, amount of fine detail, weapons hosting names, well-developed and likeable characters, as well as villains who make you cringe. There’s an array of interesting creatures—and I enjoyed that a vicious lup was adopted and turned rather cute and helpful. I also favored Hanomer, a critter with a hand at the end of his tail, and the green dragons were downright cool. The story held intriguing manners of communication, and the powers of nature were highly descriptive. Abaddon is evil and the dark magic that presides there invokes fear and trepidation as it should. The Dragons of Sheol is a complex story well carried out.

As a Christian reader, there are refreshing surprises along the way. One is with Al, a protagonist who kick-starts this journey in a search to find his kidnapped pregnant wife and stepson. The honesty that is painted regarding his sense of failure and defeat followed by purpose is realistic and relatable. And I appreciated most of all how questions were presented about the nature of God via down-to-earth conversations between characters; therefore, it never came across as preachy. A teaser from one of my favorite exchanges comes from character Dave in speaking to Al: “At the end of the day, my question still stands. Can God really love me if he’d let me choose a destiny that involves eternal torment?” It’s this kind of philosophical exploration that works—really works in causing one to think and ask those tough questions regarding spirituality and fate.

Overall, I was impressed with the amount of creativity, philosophy, purpose, sheer writing skill, and also a unique addition of scientific elements to cap this outstanding world-build. We are gifted by the author with the explanation of air pressure and how it is that dragons can fly, the topography of Abaddon, contour of the terraces, relative maps, and an in-depth glossary.

In offering something constructive, it would be with the chapter titles. Seems like an insignificant thing, and maybe it is. However, I as a reader find that an air of mystery would have had more impact. Many of the chapter titles here flat-out told me beforehand what to expect, and that kind of killed the suspense for me (because I especially love elements of suspense and mystery). As an example, when I read the chapter heading, “Necroan Attack,” I thought, “Okay, something called a Necroan is going to attack,”—and I was right! With all the interesting twists throughout this book, the chapter titles seemed, in contrast, too direct in telling. One of my writing coaches from back in the day said the best thing for a writer to give a reader is room for their own imagination to fill in some blanks. Tease them with hints of what a chapter might be about, but don’t summarize the chapter by its heading.

Those who admire J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis will really dig this epic fantasy by Peter Kazmaier, as their influences are evident. Yet, I can also recommend this book in general, even if it isn’t what you’d typically read, because it’s very well done and deserving of a five-star review.

I received this book as an ARC for free and am giving it my honest review voluntarily.

Attending CRAFT, COST and CALL Book Launch

I’m looking forward to attend Patricia Paddey and Karen Stiller’s book launch of their latest book, Craft, Cost & Call at Wycliffe College.

I have the privilege of reading a short passage on Writer’s Groups as part of the festivities. It looks to be great fun and I am honored to be asked to participate.

The Saddest Thing I Ever Read …

I belong to an Indie Publishing Group on Goodreads. One topic of discussion focuses on writers that are ready to quit. Of course some comments on this thread are encouragements to go on. Others reinforce the idea of “hanging up your quill.” I like to interact with some of the comments. I’m going to respectfully disagree with some of the points made by the author of the quote below, but I want to disagree with the ideas and assertions but not in any way pillory the person, so I propose to call her Cacia. Here is the quote:

Unless you have an independent income and treat writing as an amusement (you can afford) the outlook is very grim. And generally without appeal.

The average earnings for ‘published’ writers with book deals, but no big publicity behind their print books is $12,000 pa

Want to feel really depressed? Go to ebook tracker on kindle nation daily and set up to track so-called all time ‘best sellers’. It will take you months to build up the stats but you will be sickened by how FEW sales are made on Amazon of print and/or ebooks

In the last 10 years the world is awash with so much ebook trash the authors can’t even give away.

As for freebies – people who buy free books ONLY buy free books. With the amount available on any given day you’d need ten lifetimes to read them all

Shysters will tell you building a following on social media will sell books. Total BS. All you do is cater to time wasters INSTEAD of writing

You need a reputable agent with years of industry contacts to get to publishers. With a ‘product’ those publishers will make the real money on – selling the ‘rights’ to Hollywood.

Your agent and publisher need to be convinced you have a few more books where the first came from. And you are ‘presentable’ to the media and public for publicity stunts and promotion.
And won’t become suicidal with ‘writer’s block’.

Stick with your day job.

The saddest thing I ever read was some hopeful saying she had 400 copies of her book sitting in her garage.

Don’t let that be you

Cacia begins with the statement:

Unless you have an independent income and treat writing as an amusement (you can afford) the outlook is very grim. And generally without appeal.

I don’t think the situation is nearly so binary. It’s true that starting out is difficult. Indeed, building any independent small business is tough and success is not guaranteed. Certainly making a fortune in writing is not guaranteed and not even probable, but that is not the point. As a writer one has to have a story or message to get out. Like all small businesses, one has to build the business, and for a time, one has to augment one’s income with other activities as one publishes books. Perhaps the books will never sell in sufficient quantities, but you are following a dream and, perhaps like me, you are writing books you had wished to read, but no one had bothered to write them yet.

To me the key question I ask is not “Am I making lots of money?” but rather: whatever method I am using to publish my books, I ask: “Is my publishing method scale-able?” In other words, if I wrote a book so exciting, so deeply moving, so beautiful that readers just had to share it with their friends (it hasn’t happened to me yet), could the publisher supply 100,000 books if the demand were there? If the answer is ‘no,’ and I only have the hard copy books that I have purchased and can sell personally, then I humbly suggest you, as a writer, have some work to do, since I think you can do better.

Cacia then goes on to say:

In the last 10 years the world is awash with so much ebook trash the authors can’t even give away.

This I think is true, since e-books are easy to publish. However, trash has always been out there going back to the “penny dreadfuls” (not the television series but the small, serialized books that sold for one penny in the 1800’s). Readers have always had to discern where to spend there money. It may be worse now, but one can scan the titles so much more quickly too. Just make sure what you’re writing is well-edited and is of high quality.

Another quote from Cacia:

As for freebies – people who buy free books ONLY buy free books. With the amount available on any given day you’d need ten lifetimes to read them all

This is not true of me. I have downloaded freebies to check out an author I’m not sure about, but I then go on to buy their books if I like them.

My final quote from Cacia:

The saddest thing I ever read was some hopeful saying she had 400 copies of her book sitting in her garage.

There are many, many sad things in life. As far as writing goes, the saddest thing that I have encountered is an aspiring writer who has spent ten years perfecting a manuscript, spent another two years writing to publisher after publisher to get the manuscript accepted, only to face rejection after rejection. The aspiring author then gives up without ever getting the manuscript into the hands of the people who matter most – the reader. He will never count as a failed author. In the publishing world, he will not count at all because his book has never been published and never read. This, to me, is the fate that one ought to avoid. The woman with four hundred books is a published author.

A Personal Note

I’m grateful to Cacia for sharing her own experience. We are both authors and her comment has made me rethink the question that frequently pops up: Why do I keep writing? Why not stop?

I have written four fictional works. Three of the novels, the books in The Halcyon Cycle, are Science Fiction that reads like Fantasy. Why do I write? I don’t write for amusement. Nor do I expect to become rich because of my writing. I believe I write for two main reasons:

1. I have been so blessed by reading the fictional works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, George MacDonald, and Lucy Maud Montgomery (among many, many others). In writing their stories, they not only enthralled me, strengthened my faith, and imbued me with hope and a sense of beauty and wonder, but they left a great deal of themselves in their books. So much so, that I think I know them as friends even though I never met them in person. I want to give a bit of that back. I don’t write as well as they did, but I want to give something back.
2. The second reason is more personal. No one in my family tree has ever written a book before (as far as I can tell). If some Kazmaier had written a book in ages past, I would get to know them in a personal way that goes far beyond even letters and correspondence that might be extant. I want my grandchildren to have that kind of a chance to know me through my books.

Disclaimer

I do not offer publishing, small business, or other financial advice. I offer my own history, observations, and comments up in the hope they will stimulate thinking and discussion.

Link to the comment thread on Goodreads.

If you’re thinking of giving one of my novels a try … follow this link.