"Pathfinder, Vol. 4: Origins" by Various Authors

BOOK TITLE: Pathfinder, Vol. 4: Origins

AUTHORS: Various

YEAR: 2019

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: High Fantasy

GRADE: B

It’s a good thing that this book has the Pathfinder name attached to it, because these individual stories of each adventurer read like a session zero from a tabletop RPG. You’ve got a warrior, a cleric, a wizard, a sorcerer, a thief, and a ranger recounting their origin stories to the head of the Pathfinder society in order to prove their worth to her. They start off with a quest or a job of some kind and end with either a life-changing revelation or a desire for more adventures. This is basic character building 101, especially when creating new ones to use in role-playing games. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but I appreciate the authors putting in the extra work to make them feel fleshed out. That’s part of the fun in playing a pencil-and-paper RPG, which also overlaps with being an author. Fun is the number one priority of any gamer, but playing D&D or Pathfinder can be training for budding authors wanting to break into the industry. It doesn’t have to be the end goal, but it could be if the player or DM wanted it to be.

Having said that, I do wish the more dramatic and heavy parts of these stories had more time to breathe instead of just bolting from one scene to the next. The wizard discovered that he comes from a family of ruthless slave traders and wants to abandon them. The monk who hires the thief wants to rescue his sister from being traded like a slave herself. The barbarian who saves the fighter’s life has a history of surviving horrible violence. These moments shouldn’t be glossed over so quickly. They need to be drawn out. They need to be expanded upon. Otherwise, it’s over too soon and it’s a wasted chance to make the reader feel everything that’s going on. Sherman Alexie, the author of War Dances, is a master of making everything feel important and heartbreaking. I don’t get that sense when I’m reading this graphic novel. It could be because it’s a graphic novel and they’re fast reads by nature. But still, I would have loved to spend more time in these heavy moments to make the characters feel even more human than they were before.

The closest I got to feeling anything for the characters was Kyra the Cleric’s story. She serves the god of redemption and yet finds nothing redeeming about the prisoners she and a paladin take with them on a rescue mission against blood-sucking demons. Her hypocrisy is a major character flaw that makes her feel three-dimensional. And it’s her experiences with the paladin that make her overcome this flaw. Not all redemption takes place on its own. Sometimes we all need somebody to show us the way. We as people don’t often know that we’re making mistakes or going down a bad path until someone else points it out to us. It’s what we do with that information afterwards that will make or break our redemption arcs. That makes a lot of sense to me and it’s why Kyra’s story is my favorite out of all the ones I’ve read in this book.

Overall this was a fun graphic novel to read. Even if you don’t play tabletop RPG’s, you’ll get some enjoyment out of this as a standalone fantasy story. Yes, I know it’s the fourth volume of a much larger series, but it stands out enough on its own that the reader won’t be confused about which part of the story goes where. That’s what good books should do regardless of where they are in the series: stand out on their own and not have to rely too heavily on their back catalogue for vital information. Pathfinders Origins gets four stars out of five. Not perfect, but ultimately a nice way to spend some alone time with your nose in a book. Well done to everybody who was involved in the making of this story from the authors to the artists.

Large Groups of Characters

***LARGE GROUPS OF CHARACTERS***

“The Way-Back Machine is all warmed up, Mr. Peabody!”

Good boy, Sherman. Now let’s go back to the late 1990’s in Chehalis, Washington, where I was a pre-teen playing Dungeons & Dragons with a large group of my brother’s friends. Pay close attention to the “large group” part of that last sentence. It didn’t matter if I was a level one human fighter with a true neutral attitude. It didn’t matter if my character was destined to become a badass somewhere down the line. That prophecy never came to fruition in this particular role-play. You want to know what my character did? You want to know what his big contribution to the experience was? Smashing a whiskey barrel over somebody’s head. That’s it. End of story. The rest of the role-playing session was a whole lot of jack shit. Whenever the DM asked me what I wanted to do next, I’d just languidly say, “Go with them.”

From that day forward, I only agreed to D&D sessions with small groups of people or strictly one-on-one with the DM. When too many characters invade one story, there’s not enough room for them to get their shit in. They get shoved to the background in favor of others. There’s no room for development. Or in my case, all I got to do was smash a wooden barrel over somebody’s head…and not a goddamn thing more. Whenever I write novels, I always make sure to keep my protagonists down to a manageable number like two or three. That way, everybody gets a chance at character development in the relatively small space that constitutes the word count benchmark for novellas. Bigger adventuring parties are designed for works that are longer. Me? I don’t have the mental endurance to write something long enough to include an army of three-dimensional characters.

This heavy burden of characters is something often seen in professional wrestling as well, not just with books and movies. It’s one of the reasons why the WWE Divas Revolution was so poorly received in 2015. Nine women had to share X minutes of TV time, which means nobody got developed, nobody had any real motivations, nobody had personality, and there was no real end game to it all. To put it bluntly, it was a cluster fuck that resulted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter giving it a Worst Feud of the Year award. It also placed second in that year’s list of Most Disgusting Promotional Tactics and third in the list of Worst Gimmicks. There’s only so much TV time to go around, which means smaller groups take priority if there’s ever a chance at character development.

Of course, not all characters have to be three-dimensional. Some characters were designed to be extras and that’s okay. But if you’re going to make a character an extra, be prepared for the lack of emotional investment that comes with it. A mass slaughter of innocent civilians doesn’t hold nearly as much weight in a Marvel or DC movie as the death of a character the audience actually cares about. The more you care, the more it will hurt. Why do you think people in real life get choked up about family members dying, but won’t blink an eye at an elderly celebrity passing the pearly gates? Celebrities are nice, but they’re not as connected to us as our truly loved ones. The same logic applies with stories where there’s a large number of protagonists.

Having said these things, I can still think of a few examples where it’s okay to care about big groups of people. In “The Savior’s Champion” by Jenna Moreci, there are twenty combatants in the Sovereign’s Tournament. You know they will eventually die per the rules of the game, but when they do, it’ll hurt worse than a Kaleo knee to the ribcage. Then again, that novel is at least five hundred pages long, so Ms. Moreci has given herself a lot of space to work with. Same thing with the old SNES videogame Final Fantasy VI. It takes weeks to beat, which means a large group of playable characters can thrive in that environment. You’ll care about Sabin Figaro. You’ll give more than two shits about Mog. You’ll give lots of flying fucks about Cyan Garamonde. Please do play that game if you’re into the classics. What about Lord of the Rings? Well, each movie in the trilogy is three butt-numbing hours long. You think that’s more than enough time to develop a big ass group of characters? Fuck yeah it is!

But if it’s really dependent on the length of the story, then why don’t I just write longer stories? Why can’t Beautiful Monster be 100,000 words instead of 45,000? Because a story’s completion has nothing to do with how long it is. Yes, it’s a shorter novella, but it’s a complete story. Even in its early draft phase, it has a beginning, middle, and end. The two main protagonists, Windham Xavier and Tarja Rikkinen, are only two people, which means they get lots of time to develop and grow as characters. Everybody else can claim the spotlight for themselves because my main character roster isn’t that big. But why not make my story longer and include more characters? Does it really need more characters? Can the few that I have not carry the story on their own? Besides, like I mentioned before, I don’t have the mental endurance to write longer stories. I’d be nice if I had it, but superpowers aren’t really a thing yet, so I’ll have to stick to the short stuff.

So the moral of the story is, if you want people to care about your large group of characters, make sure your medium is long enough for their individual developments. It can be done, but not by me, because I don’t feel the need to stretch myself beyond my means. The same will apply to any Dungeons & Dragons campaigns I run in the future: the smaller the group, the smaller the headaches. Everybody will get their shit in. They’ll mean more to my fictional world than smashing a whiskey barrel over somebody’s head. This isn’t a WWE battle royal with a bloated roster full of tainted characters. This is creative writing. Although, if Vince McMahon (who gets the last word on WWE’s creative processes) wrote a novel of any kind, I’d want to read it just because I can’t avert my eyes from a train wreck. I’m Garrison Kelly! Happy Thanksgiving! Eat lots of turkey! I know I will!

***DOMESTIC DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

(Circa 2013)

JAMES: Hey Garrison, why are you being pissy?

GARRISON: I’m not!

JAMES: You’re being pissy.

GARRISON: I’M NOT!

JAMES: Yes, you are, you’re being very pissy.

GARRISON: I’m not!

JAMES: Come on, Garrison, be happy, get excited.

GARRISON: About what?

JAMES: I don’t know. Life.

GARRISON: Can I be excited about that cardboard box over there?

JAMES: Sure, why not?

***POST-SCRIPT***

True story: I told my Face Book followers that I was going to the Regal Cinemas today to watch A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I backed out at the last minute, because the entire day I was feeling grumpier than usual. I snapped at everything and expended a lot of physical energy screaming at little shit. But that’s okay, because it’ll still play Saturday night when all of the Thanksgiving and Black Friday hoo-ha has died down.

Rolling the Dice

***ROLLING THE DICE***

Last night I had quite the wonderful conversation with one of the CEO’s of Hollow Hills, Aurora Styles. Round three of editing is rapidly approaching for Emilio and the Scratching Post, so the two of us agreed it would be a good time to talk about character profiles. I’m bold enough to admit that creating characters is something that I struggle with. Sometimes my characters are relatable and three-dimensional, other times they’re either despicable as hell (despite being heroes) or bland and boring. Aurora has been writing a long time and has character creation down to a science. That’s because she treats her TV and movie viewings as “study time”. She pinpoints flaws and traits in the TV characters she likes to watch and (either subconsciously or consciously) adds them to her own characters.

Unfortunately, I don’t put that much time and effort into my own character creation. I should. I know now I should. But up until this point, I’d been doing something I like to call “rolling the dice”. It’s actually called pantsing, which is the opposite of plotting. Everybody’s a hybrid of the two when it comes to writing, but for me personally, I would be a plotter for the events happening in the story and a pantser for character creation. My characters would be listed in my pre-writes as a name, a race, and an occupation. The main character of Beautiful Monster was listed as Windham Xavier, Elf Mercenary. His rapist was listed as Shelly Atwood, Human Seductress. With this incredibly limited information at my disposal, I would rely heavily on subconscious influences to flesh out these characters, much to their detriment.

Aurora said it best when she told me that the fiction we consume has the heaviest influence on our writing, whether subconsciously or consciously. This could not have been truer for Beautiful Monster, to use that example again. My biggest influences as a young writer included WWE, Pulp Fiction, Tales From the Hood, The Shield, Pink Floyd the Wall, and pretty much anything where the dialogue is snarky and vulgar. Well, those subconscious thoughts leaked into my characterizations of Windham and Shelly. They swore like no tomorrow. They got angry at little things, not unlike a WWE wrestler. The lengths that they would go to in being vulgar had no limits. The result? Having to completely rewrite the first draft from scratch. Windham and Shelly were hardly the only ones to act this way. Torger? You’re damn right. Tarja? Hell yeah. Orpheus Rinehart? Absolutely. There was no distinction between these characters’ dialogue. If I had quoted text with no names next to them, you’d never know who they were.

My critique sessions with Marie Krepps (the other CEO of Hollow Hills) led to a complete overhaul of my characters while my conversation with Aurora enforced and confirmed everything I should have learned. To use Beautiful Monster as an example again, Windham is soft-spoken and quiet-voiced even during moments of anger. Shelly is a lot more tempting and classy than she was in the first draft. Christian and Kody Savage don’t have any dialogue at all; they’re just a couple of drooling zombie rednecks.

For Emilio and the Scratching Post, the same thing is true: a complete overhaul of characters’ personalities. While I can’t divulge major plot points due to my confidentiality agreement with Hollow Hills, I am willing to give you some appetizers. In the first draft, Sweet Pea (Emilio’s master) was a little brat who disrespected her elders and got away with everything. Now, the newly christened Marigold is a lot more fearful of the villains in her life and that’s something she wants desperately to overcome. Antonia, Marigold’s grandmother, started off as a bland and boring screamer. Now, she’s still a villain, but her eerily calm demeanor makes her more believable. She’s creepy during her coldest moments and a joy to be around when she needs to lie to the public. In Antonia’s case, I stole her characterization from Abel, Trevor Noah’s abusive stepfather in his memoir “Born a Crime”. Yikes!

Of course, Emilio and the Scratching Post (which has the funny as hell acronym EatSP) has only entered round three of editing. There will be more changes. There will be more rounds. The macro and micro aspects will be fine-tuned. This will all be done before June 1^st, when Hollow Hills’s deadline for submissions comes to fruition. June 1^st is also two days before my 34^th birthday. Being a part of Hollow Hills’s anthologies will be the ultimate birthday gift for me. But before I can get to that milestone, I’ve got a lot of work to do…but not tonight. Tomorrow? Maybe. The next day? Could be. But not tonight. I’m physically drained after going for a long walk in the springtime heat. I need to be alert and alive if I’m going to make these macro edits to my manuscript. Until then, I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain! Or in this case, the scratching post to Uncle Thud’s catnip garden! There’s another thing that needs changing: Uncle Thud’s characterization. We’ll cross that bridge when a new day rises. For now, it’s about taking it easy.

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

In between edits of EatSP, I’ve been writing chapters of Beautiful Monster and I’m currently on chapter twenty, where Queen Llewellyn Xavier is scheduled to make her first appearance in my story. The economic hardships have not been kind to her village. Her crops are covered in blight, her citizens are disappearing left and right, and she still hasn’t negotiated a trade deal with King Lars Stonewall. She’s ready to throw in the towel after so many failures…until a familiar face returns to her village with a traumatizing story to tell…

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Summertime and the living’s easy. And Bradley’s on the microphone with Ras MG. All the people in the dance will agree that we’re well qualified to represent the LBC. Me and Louie run to the party. Dance to the rhythm, it gets harder. Me and my girl, we’ve got this relationship. I love her so bad, but she treats me like shit. On lockdown like a penitentiary. She spreads her loving all over, but when she gets home, there’s none left for me. Oh, take this veil from off my eyes. My burning sun will someday rise. So what am I going to be doing for a while? Said I’m going to play with myself. Show them how we come off the shelf. So what? Evil. I’ve come to tell you that she’s evil. Most definitely. Evil. Ornery, scandalous, and evil. Most definitely. The tension is getting hotter. I’d like to hold her head underwater.”

-Sublime singing “Doin’ Time”-

Pushing Characters

***PUSHING CHARACTERS***

If you’re an author and you work in a relatively small space when it comes to your stories, you have to be careful about which characters you push and which ones are just for show. When I say push, I’m not talking about shoving them off a cliff and watching them fall to their deaths, although some characters deserve such a fate. The word “push” is wrestling lingo for heavily advertising a character and building him or her to be stronger. Wrestling companies push their superstars by giving them a series of wins and championship accolades. Authors push their characters by having them overcome difficult obstacles, show emotion when necessary, and generally be the star of the show.

Some authors have the ability to push multiple characters and make them look good while doing it (as opposed to overrated). The reason I mentioned working within a small space earlier is because I’m not one of those authors. There was a time when I had the endurance to write long ass stories, but that time has passed. My short stories and novel chapters are generally anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000 words apiece. Ergo, if I don’t have many characters in these stories, at least ones that I can properly push onto the reader.

I’ve been in situations where I had too many characters and couldn’t adequately describe them all, so I had to murder some of them. Killing off inconvenient characters is a literary sin due to the perceived laziness of not being able to develop that person. Hell, I could be accused of doing this as I’m writing Demon Axe. I’m getting set to write the fourteenth chapter and already eight major characters have died so far: G-Pac, Pig Man, Vulture Man, Bear Man, Tarantula Man, Lady Killer, Johnny Vega, and Sonia Marquez.

Eight fucking characters! While I realize that death and destruction are both central themes to any story about terrorism, I still feel like I could do so much more with these eight dead bodies other than have their spiritual essences torment Daniel during moments of insanity. I’ve even considered deleting Johnny and Sonia from this novel altogether, but nothing is set in stone just yet.

While I acknowledge that most of my readers are in no way wrestling fans (just ask the people who reviewed “Occupy Wrestling”), you had to have seen this analogy coming from miles away: The Divas Revolution. In 2015, WWE did a storyline where three factions of female wrestlers feuded over the Divas Championship and general dominance over the WWE. You had Team PCB (Paige, Charlotte, and Becky Lynch), Team Bella (Brie Bella, Nikki Bella, and Alicia Fox), and Team BAD (Naomi, Tamina, and Sasha Banks).

What’s wrong? You have no idea who these people are? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The whole purpose of the Divas Revolution was to push all nine of these women into stardom. Considering they had limited TV time, what started off as a mass push ended up being a cluster-fuck of forgettable faces and undeveloped characters. It should come as no surprise that for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards that year, the Divas Revolution was considered the Worst Feud of the Year, second place for Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic, and third place for Worst Gimmick. Ouch!

There are several solutions in which I could solve my own Divas Revolution crisis with Demon Axe. I could expand it into more chapters to give my characters more room to develop. I could delete characters who never meant more than traumatic ghosts. I even considered having a chapter before number twelve where the imprisoned characters sit around and talk to each other about their hopes and dreams. Nothing builds a character quite like dialogue and emotion. Then again, why wrack my brain when all I’m trying to do is write a first draft? All great projects start out as fertilizer before they grow into redwoods and oak trees.

If you’re a fellow author or you just love to read books, this question of the day is for you. How would you handle character development if you have lots of characters who need it? Considering my author friends all write longer stories than me, I’m already anticipating what the answer will be. In fact, I can see it coming from miles away. To quote The Who, “I can see for miles and miles and miles!” We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***DEMON AXE, CHAPTER 14***

There are two possible routes I could go down when it comes to this chapter. One of them is to follow the original blueprints and have Daniel give a pep talk to the puppet string cops guarding the gateway to the elven world. The other route is to have Daniel spend some time in the hospital, which would make the most sense considering how badly he was tortured in the previous chapter. While the latter would make the most sense, it doesn’t really give a sense of urgency when it comes to stopping Roger Zee from doing what he wanted to do. Decisions, decisions…

***FACE BOOK STATUS OF THE DAY***

Just once I’d like to see a rapper with the stage name Apollo-G.