The Woods

Today we have another post from Abbie Brubaker. This one is an interesting take on making a setting element into a character element:

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My previous post began a series on faerie tale tropes with a deconstruction of the villainess – the evil witch, stepmother, or queen who appears in a number of time-honored stories and can be aptly appropriated for use in your own writing. This week’s focus switches from a character type to a setting: the woods. In faerie tales, the woods are literal forests, natural wildernesses of towering trees and shadowy undergrowth; such regions are somewhat removed from the modern, developed world we live in, but the significant timbre of “the woods” as a concept constitutes a setting in its own right, independent of an arboreal landscape.

Often, the woods act as a mysterious, ominous place, home to any number of bloodthirsty creatures or malevolent forces. Notably, Little Red Riding Hood’s trip through the woods brings her into contact with the wolf who attempts (and, in some versions, succeeds in) the consumption of Red and her grandmother. For Hansel and Gretel, the woods conceal a similarly-intentioned witch. In other cases, however, the woods offer shelter for characters fleeing domestic troubles. In the case of Snow White, the heroine finds sanctuary (however briefly) in the secluded home of the seven dwarves. The lesser-known story of “Brother and Sister” also portrays a forest setting as providing safety for the young protagonists.

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The woods, then, can be described as a location with some element of danger and enigma, large enough to lose oneself in – for good or for bad. Evil may lie concealed here, but unexpected good as well; the woods are layered and deep, with niches for all manner of folk. Often a journey is associated with this place, a journey to it or through it, sometimes a flight from an abusive home life to anywhere which might be better. A life can be carved out in the woods, if you set your mind to it. There may be predators lurking around the corner, but for the savvy soul, the woods present a varied and vibrant setting to explore or settle into. The woods are not usually a permanent residence, however; they are a place for the young, the in-between, who eventually move on to build a new and happy domestic realm elsewhere.

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Although “the woods” may be incarnated in any number of places, the most prominent correlation is to an urban setting, where a protagonist may encounter villains as menacing as any cannibalistic witch but also may find a safe haven amidst the bustle and daily rigmarole of the city denizens. The essence of the woods is their otherness – which can mean the threat of the unknown or the promise of a break from an unsatisfactory situation. This dichotomy can be written with equal emphasis on both aspects of the setting, or can be weighted in either direction to suit the nature of the story in which it is being employed. A coming-of-age narrative might feature “the woods” as downtown New York City where the hero rents a shoebox apartment to take time away from what seems an oppressive home environment; a thriller might show the opposite take on “the woods,” displaying the dark, crime-riddled underbelly of a futuristic metropolis.

For characters in a faerie tale, the woods are composed of firs and ferns, with perils as likely to be animal as human; the essence of that setting can be transplanted to a more modern story by playing with the elements of menace and refuge beneath the superseding sense of otherness.

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Tobias say: Abbie isn’t familiar with this particular work, but I think an excellent practical example of this concept would be the Azath houses from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen. The Azath are mysterious buildings that seem to connect all of the different realms of Erikson’s world, and perhaps even more beyond those realms. The houses clearly have a being and will all their own and are capable of making choices, and they can serve either as a prison: sometimes imprisoning, and sometimes possibly consuming, even the most powerful of gods. Or as a place of refuge: in Erikson’s world the Azath are possessed of immense, if possibly dormant, power and thus it is impossible to enter one unless the house chooses to allow a person entrance. It is also clear that within the Azath houses time/life/being doesn’t exactly work in the same way. It is apparently impossible for a person to die while inside an Azath house, which allows the houses’ chosen guardians to become effectively immortal. There are also a couple of instances where time is apparently stopped, though it is unclear if time is stopped only within the house, or if time is stopped everywhere, and it is also unclear if it is the house itself that stops time, or a particular character within the given house that stops time. Thus the Azath houses represent the concept of ‘the woods’ that Abbie addresses here quite well, and they also become one of the most interesting setting/character elements in Erikson’s novels.

The Fairy Queen

Well, we have a new writer that I’ve been talking to for a while, and I must say that her first post is very good. So, here is the first post from Abigail Brubaker:

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Faerie tales are a foundational genre for many modern storytellers, myself included. Through everything from Disney movies to hefty volumes of Grimm or Anderson, faerie tales long ago established their influence in my mind – and, by extension, my writing. Their patterns are easily learned. For a reader familiar with the genre, reading a faerie tale is much more a dance of well-known steps than a baited-breath chase after an unpredictable plot. Faerie tales are methodical, as a general rule, and tend to make use of the same elements. These familiar tropes – recurring places, plot devices, and character roles – can be examined, extracted, and repurposed for use in stories of any genre.

Today’s post will address the figure of the villainess – the evil stepmother, queen, or witch (or combination of the three). In stories which feature her, she is the primary force of malevolence, the one who lays a terrible curse or throws children out of their homes. A number of the best-known western faerie tales include some incarnation of this archetype, with varying degrees of menace and power. The stepmother in Cinderella is a comparatively light version of the trope, with no magic or influence outside her own home. Snow White’s villainess, on the other hand, is stepmother, queen, and witch in one.

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Here is the core of the villainess figure: she is a force of spite, of self-centered violence and vengeance. She is envious and petty, cunning and relentless, always scheming against those who are in her way. She seeks her own gain and glory (or that of her own children) with every ounce of dominion she has at her command – magical or otherwise. There is no pity in her, no hesitation. Her only moral compass is her pride. Anyone who touches the things she considers her property – a head of lettuce, the title ‘fairest’ – is subject to her fury. Neither will the smallest slight be borne. Beware, those who would leave her off the guest list for a royal christening. She is queen regardless of titles or crowns; her household is her realm, or her cottage, or her garden. Her ire is swift and her hand unyielding.

The villainess of the faerie tale canon is notable for her typical lack of depth. Her motivations, as given by the text of the stories, are purely selfish or malevolent. She is not written to be sympathized with; she is written to be feared and hated. When writing a villainess à la Grimm, be conscious of that precedent. Either play it up – portray your villainess through the eyes of those who dread her and see her not as human but as an embodiment of evil – or turn it on its head and build a character who acts as a villainess but whose actions are explainable and whose motivations resonate with the reader in some way. There is great potential in both avenues. The strength of an indecipherable, inhuman force is terrifying, while a villain who is revealed to have been made villainous as a result of their humanity can illicit the audience’s fellow feeling.

Three examples of this trope from contemporary culture are Cruella de Vil (of 101 Dalmatians), Miranda Priestly (of The Devil Wears Prada), and Cersei Lannister (of A Song of Ice and Fire). Cruella is the most simplistic of the three – as complies with her cartoon setting. She is entirely despicable, being described as “a spider waiting for the kill,” a “vampire bat,” an “inhuman beast.” She has no qualms towards the prospect of killing puppies in order to produce the coat of her dreams, and there is nothing redeeming shown about her character. Miranda, the cutthroat editor-in-chief of a premier fashion magazine, rules her offices with a razor tongue and what seems a complete absence of human emotion. She is given a hint of sympathy, however, when the audience is granted a glimpse of her love and concern for her young daughters. Finally, Cersei is perhaps the most nuanced villainess of the three. She is a calculating, vengeful queen who seizes power at every opportunity; however, as her story advances, she is revealed as thoroughly human, with an array of traits both positive and negative. Her ruthlessness towards her foes is driven both by her pride and her love for her family.

The villainess archetype can be played straight or subverted, as described; either approach can produce a highly potent character appropriate for any setting or genre. It may appear difficult to repurpose pieces of told-and-retold faerie tales without any persistent staleness. However, with care, faerie tale elements can be boiled down to their essentials and put to use quite effectively. Whatever abstract or literal empire the villainess may rule, she is a salient figure as much at home on Wall Street as an enchanted wood.