treasure Archives - Author K. Williams

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #359
Do you include any inside jokes or Easter eggs in your work?

Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. Even more so, we appreciate that you share our writings with friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.

The best part of my studies, and the reason I love to talk about it, is the study of intertexts. What is an intertext you ask? To define it simply: it is an inside joke or a kind of Easter egg. In a nutshell, intertext is found treasure.

Do you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure Books? What an amazing idea they are. The reader makes a choice and it helps shape the story they read. But, what if I told you that every single text is a choose your own adventure? You likely think I’ve fallen off my nut. Let me explain and see what you think then!

http://authorkwilliams.com/books/the-trailokya-trilogy/

You are the sum total of your experiences and learning, right? Some even believe that we have genetic memory, so that we also have experiences and learning imbedded within us from our ancestors. Certainly, our behavior is shaped by those who raise us. In that, we obtain puzzle pieces of the past. But I am talking about hard coding that helps our bodies adjust to environmental and social changes. Basically, what I am saying is that there are a lot of layers that makes you who you are. A text is the same.

If you boil items down to text you will see how treasure is to be found within every book written. Unearthing that treasure will be unique to the reader, but also to social groups to which they belong. For instance, Star Wars fans will likely find something that opens up a head cannon within the book they’re reading, or could even reframe the SW Saga for them.

Easter eggs and inside jokes require these intersections of texts. The reason that you laugh is likely because you know the meaning intended, and it opens up a whole cache of memory and ideas. Those who don’t get it don’t have the text necessary to unlock that meaning. Even when they do get that text, without other texts (experiences, knowledge, references), they still may not find it funny.

This is a popular literary theory, and one I adore. Having focused on this in my graduate studies, I absolutely could not wait to add it to my works. If you crack open any of my books, be prepared to spot them. You won’t catch them all, but those you do catch will make that reading so much richer. These are the things that keep a reader coming back to your text (or why it feels so different to read your favorite book now as compared to a couple decades ago).

The next time you watch a film, I recommend attempting to spot intertexts. Comedy is a great place to start. The genre is heavily reliant on knowing, as is Shakespeare. Last time, I mentioned the Bard and how my classmates struggled to catch on to his words. They were missing the keys of language known as intertext. So, even when the teacher explained a passage to them, they still struggled with the material. It was irrelevant to their experience (or so they believed) because it failed to make any meaning for them.

Why was M*A*S*H so wildly popular in the United States? The intertexts are widely shared. Therefore, the viewers caught the meanings. After all, the wars were not ancient history yet. People had grown up with the news and the tumultuous 1960s to make those layers of information the series spoke to.

The depth such treasure can add to your work is immense. (Check out these opinions on the topic.) That said, you have to know what you’re doing, or you could end up hammering away at something instead of layering it in. Develop the skill with an eye on finesse and care. To help, think of a recipe that says to fold in the ingredients. I can’t explain it to you, David. Just fold it in.

Cooks know how to fold, but you can’t really describe the process with words. Showing the learner can’t give them the skill, but it can demonstrate the movements necessary. At some point, how you apply it will click. That’s why I recommend watching some film with an eye for it, and think about how it altered the experience to realize it was happening. Then, examine how they carefully placed it and why they placed it in that way.

Easter eggs and inside jokes require care. You don’t want any of your audience to feel left out, but you also want to provide those who know the reference to get the thrill of getting it. Fold it in–gingerly, and don’t add too much, just what the recipe calls for.

Be sure to click on the other author links below to get their perspectives on these literary devices. Taken together, you’re going to find the pieces fit together to create a much bigger picture with greater information on the topic.

♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦

Topic #298
Do you still have a treasure from childhood, can you tell us about it?
How about any of your characters?

Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. We appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.

Back in October of 2018, I wrote a short article on a hospital stay I experienced as a small child. This resulted in me having one of my oldest life artifacts: Pinky. I know you’ll probably wonder how I could possibly keep such a thing around, considering I loath clowns, and it’s barely more than a scrap. Let me tell you, Pinky is why I got through that trauma. I believed as a girl that he protected (yes, he. and you can read that in the older article, too).

My childhood had some major traumas. This small fabric friend helped me negotiate my brain’s healing from those scary experiences. The side-eye game is on point. I felt safe under those eyes. Somehow, it felt as if Pinky could see the things that were unsee-able and keep them away.

Pinky sits next to my bed to this day, right beside the stuffy that inspired my Zo Duck Series. Do I still feel safe. As houses. That clown has the power. If you know, you know.

Do such totems exist within the realm of my work, though? There’s nothing from the childhood days of my characters that exists in their stories to serve as this kind of memory/protection, or what not. They do all have something, however, which comes to them either in the course of the book, or back to them from earlier times.

First, there is the picture that Emily gives to Joseph, stolen from her parent’s collection. This serves as a reminder to keep him pushing forward through the war and all that comes to end him. Next, there is Claire’s lipstick. Some think this item is less important than it is symbolically, but I assure you, it’s meaning is on par with my Pinky. That lipstick is an anchor to better more stable times and the freedom of adulthood that Claire has long sought. It is breaking from the abuse, surviving, and normalcy. The bombs are dropping, but Claire still believes in life after the attacks come, and that it and she will prevail. Red lipstick, also, became a glorious symbol of feminine power from the time of WWII to present day.

Lastly, I’ll speak on Maiel, and the feathers on her barracks apartment wall. Those feathers are from General Mikhael. Their power is to watch over the individual who keeps them. Indeed, they were gifted to her by him. Their presence is not only symbolic of their growing bond, but his unyielding protection promised to her. In the sight of them, she is always protected. This (SPOILER AHEAD) is a good reason for why Dominic moved them to the wilds of Eden. The feathers were most definitely left behind! Those watchful eyes would have detected all his moves, and he couldn’t bear that.

Covering the childhoods of my characters isn’t the purview of any of my books thus far. That said, it is richer to have mementos crop up from earlier times. I have items in my keep that are from my earliest times, and it makes sense that others would as well. However, not many people who experience trauma hang onto things from those times before. They can be sources of grieving, or the trauma included losing all their things. For me, it can be bittersweet to see these items, even as I pass a great deal of the surviving toys and books on to my daughter. They from safer feeling times, when someone else buffered and protected me from the big bad world that always seems to be on the precipice of ending. So, too, Maiel’s feathers create a bittersweet nostalgia in the moment they’re rediscovered.

Let’s hop on over to see what items and other details the authors on this hop have to offer. Click on their links below!