Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Poem - When I Was Alive

In times now past he became
He was born, he grew, he thrived
Do you remember those days spent playing
In the time he was truly alive?

Time went by so slowly then
Now it passes, so fast, seems to melt
As a child he dreamed and he marveled
But where went the joy he felt?

You’re now an adult, they tell him
You must see what is here, what is real
Yet the dream is his essence, he’s drowning
With no ear to hear what he feels

A world of worker ants, throbbing and pulsing
The heart of a heartless machine
Scalp gripped tightly by world’s cruel claws,
Nose forced to the grindstone, he screams

The skull that created is crushed
With the beauty inside left to spill
No concern for his art and his passion
Just his blood, to oil the wheel

And that’s why he’s gone away now
An attempt to escape from the pain
Tired of watching his life, going slowly
Sullied water, away through the drain

You could never have known when he left that day;
Left to you is to wonder why
It seems unfair to leave you wond’ring, alone,
As the last to see him alive.

Randall Madden

August 24, 2014

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Progress Report

It has been such a long road to this point on the book. I’ve worked in genres with established backgrounds and worlds before, but with this fantasy series I’m building so much from the ground up. There are so many groups of peoples, areas in the world, and character stories to place together. Then there are the ways in which this world’s physics differ from our own, such as multiple moons and the presence of magic. Add in a history to keep straight and it has been a true journey in straightening out details.

I’m not complaining in the slightest. This has been a fantastic journey for me! I’m putting the final pages in this week, with a new character that came about from talks with my wife. Once these are done I have just a handful more edits to complete, and a single chapter to write in the middle of the book. Once these are done and cross-checked with my notes, I should be ready to release the draft to my initial group of readers.


I’m still so energized for the process, and I’m finding that the desire only grows as I come closer to the end. I’ve spent more time per day in the book as it comes to life, and I can only hope that others will be as interested in the story as I am. If everything goes to my plan, I should have the book in my first reader’s hands by this weekend!

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Mission Impossible? – Empathizing With Female Characters

If you came here to find a misogynistic article to hate on, you have come to the wrong place. While my title may fit the definition of “click-bait,” it is more of a tongue-in-cheek way of summarizing the struggles I have experienced in writing effective, believable female characters as my writing style has matured and been polished.

As a writer, my goal is always to get into a character’s head. I want to know why they feel the way they do and why they do the things they do. In essence, your character must be real in order to convince the audience that they are real. To do this, you must have real motivations and actual problems that drive them.

When I first started writing in grade school this came easy. I was still operating with a young child’s understanding of the world, and all of my characters essentially fell into two molds. There were people like me (the good guys) and people who were different than me (the bad guys). The good guys all shared traits that I valued and respected, and this invariably meant that they were flat, one-dimensional beasts who were more or less me (or at least my idealized vision of myself). They were also invariably male.

As I grew in age and writing experience, I started to flesh out the idea of character empathy, working my way into character archetypes that varied from my own personality. This allowed me to add neutral characters, and it also allowed good guys that had personality traits I might consider annoying or less than ideal. They were, however, invariably male.

The next evolution in my writing technique came with bad guy empathy. This one was very hard for me, as I’m very much a “black-and-white” kind of person when it comes to right and wrong. However, I learned with practice to put aside my own values long enough to step into the mind of a given villain. I then realized that most of my bad guys through the first twenty years of my life were nothing more than mustache-twirling figureheads who cackled maniacally, representing evil in its purest form. By working to give them proper motivations I was able to create deeper bad guys, those who came across more as the angel fallen from grace. Still, however, there were no female leads, even in the bad guy camp.

I’ve always accepted that my writing projects were a build-up, practice for the real thing one day when I came across an idea I could take seriously. Dawnbringer is that project for me, and in its pages I have worked with every fiber of my being to bring a great variety of characters to life. I don’t necessarily want a given character to fit neatly into the realm of right or wrong. These people are meant to be believable human characters, and as such they should all inhabit areas of gray from time to time. Even if there is no malice in a character, it makes sense that they would occasionally do something wrong.

With all that said, I was determined to bring at least one female lead into play for the very first time. Her story started out simple enough, but as those who write will tell you it rarely stays that way. Complications arose throughout, and before I knew it I had a full-blown tragedy written into this young woman’s life. As I started to navigate her character through the issues, I felt like a driver just as he hits a patch of black ice.

Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I am a sensitive person; I hope my wife agrees when I say that her feelings and opinions mean a great deal to me. Still, trying to reach into the head of this female character proved to be a struggle that I wasn’t initially sure how to navigate. It seems to me that some of it comes from cultural norms; we all throw around light-hearted jokes from time to time.

Women can’t drive.

Men will not read instructions.

Characters on television don’t help matters in this regard; the American father has been made into a figure of complete idiocy in all the sitcoms of late. These stereotypes only damage our ability to truly understand one another.

So, I unashamedly started visiting sites for women in similar predicaments to my character. What I read on these websites made my heart break. I experienced the realization that women have the same feelings of failure that I do when they fail to actualize society’s expectations. This is something I’ve always known to be true, but knowing something and being rocked by its actual affect are two completely different things.

I think it’s unfair to call what I went through an epiphany, but I definitely had an eye-opening moment as I realize all the false constructs our society sets up between the sexes are just that: false. Again this is something we all know, but I had a very real moment of empathizing with these women as they endured problems that I as a man cannot go through. If I were to summarize what I’m trying to say into a single sentence:

Women and men are alike in far more ways than they are different.

Now, this is not to deny the inherent differences between men and women. To pretend that these differences don’t exist is a lie that belittles our nature as human beings and attempts to hide some of the wonderful gifts that come to each sex. However, sometimes I think society as a whole tends to exaggerate the differences to the exclusion of our similarities. Men also experience societal expectations that they sometimes cannot fulfill, or choose not to fulfill. The social stigmas, awkwardness, and frustration are, I imagine, much the same.

The process of writing this complicated character has helped to actualize me as a person, and it has also caused me to urge others to make attempts at empathy. This doesn’t just apply to the opposite sex, it also applies to those with different beliefs, skin colors, and all the other wonderful things that make humanity diverse. We each have our own struggles, victories, and accomplishments that bring us to be who we are. Take the time to put yourself into the shoes of another, and appreciate what they go through in this life.


To those of you who read Dawnbringer one day, I desperately hope that I’ve brought all my characters to life, male and female, big and small. In my eyes, anything less would be a failure.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Poem - Unknown

A faintly whispering breeze
Coming toward me through the wood
I wonder why it frightens
I’m curious if it should
Unknowable ‘til arrival
Dark thoughts inside my head
Just wind? or cold Death’s touch
Causing tender leaves to shed?
No running, no escaping
Its ponderous crawl too fast
What is this terrible nothing
That has known me, in times past?
Noiseless cacophony crushes
As this bow wave sweeps me o’er
And I’m ripped from being, screaming
Like a child sucked from the shore
Reality crumbles ‘round me
The ground falls from beneath
That fathomless journey finds me
And I drift away, a leaf.

Randall Madden
August 5, 2014

Friday, August 1, 2014

Appreciation

I’ve always enjoyed telling a good story. Whether it is something I’ve imagined myself or the works of another creative mind, I just enjoy riveting the attention of a listener with some new imagining that they haven’t been a part of yet.

I wonder sometimes what it was like for the ancient storytellers, those who lived in a society where traditions and histories and family lineages were passed down around the campfire. I wonder at the honor afforded to a man as he relates the saga of a hero from his family, or the reception given to Homer as he recited the ancient adventures.

In our society, storytelling is mostly dead. Our people are too content to have their attention and time stolen a few seconds at a time, watching the next funny joke or cat video online. Social media has done much to eliminate this ancient way of society.

And yet there are still places where it thrives. My friends and I regale one another with stories on the weekends, and they have been patient in their suffering as I talk about the latest thing I’m writing. To my friends who play roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, I salute you; in a very real way you are carrying forward the torch of those ancient storytellers.

Yet foremost among my appreciation to those who maintain the tradition is my own wife. Brittany has listened for literally hours and hours as I go on about my Dawnbringer series. She has asked questions that helped flesh out areas of that world that were lacking. Above all, she has been a voice of support when I’ve wondered if it was truly worth the time I’m spending.

Sometimes, when I’m ranting about my latest idea and telling her of cities and mountains that I’ve imagined in the tapestry of the mind, when I’m verging on becoming hoarse from speaking breathlessly to convey my ideas, I realize that I have been blessed with the perfect woman for my life. Her genuine interest in my love for storytelling, along with her passion for speculative fiction, has been a driving force that has kept me going.


So I take this space to say thank you to my wife. Through Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones and countless more, we’ve shared a common love of stories and their importance to feeding our humanity. Through her love and support, she’s encouraged me to continue being a part of that storytelling tradition. Whether or not I ever sell my books, I will always have one dedicated reader that I can thank for making the time spent worthwhile.