Restless Sojourner on the Web

Longfellow says, in “My Lost Youth”:

A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.

Adds Grace Paley:

I was a fantastic student until ten, and then my mind began to wander.

Today’s been a day for lack of focus (by necessity, not choice) and wandering around in brief, staccato bursts of Web activity. Among the periwinkles, whelks, and sand dollars scooped up:

Murderati

Courtesy of a post on Jolie Hale’s LiveJournal, we have Murderati (subtitle “Mysteries, Murder and Marketing.”). Here’s a portion of what Jolie says about it:

Murderati was created by and for mystery/suspense writers, but if I can get use out of it as a writer of literary fiction, it’s going to be useful to just about everyone (in fact, I’ve found that writers in all genres have plenty to teach me). It is a group blog with ten regular contributers, all published mystery authors who know what’s what.

There’s a ton of well-written information and well-informed commentary here. Like me, other bloggers who spend way too much time doing this may be a little envious of a blog co-written by ten people. (“You mean I don’t have to post again until the end of the month?”) Possibly the best way to orient yourself is to scroll down until you see the blue “tag cloud” labeled “Top Tags at Murderati,” along the left-hand side. Now, the blog template is a little funky, at least when viewed in Firefox, so you won’t be able to see all of the tags (some extend under the middle/main column). Furthermore, the tags you can see tend to be the names of the co-authors, which you may but probably will not be interested in. But that’s okay. You’re going to look below the tag cloud, anyway, to the “search this site…” box. Type in something like, oh, “agents” (omit the quotation marks). This calls up a Technorati page with (currently) thirteen hits — all Murderati posts which contain the word “agents.” (Note: These aren’t all unique hits — there are some duplicates.) Using multiple search words “ands” them together; that is, for example, if you type in “agents editors,” you’ll get a list of posts (currently seven) containing both the words “agents” and “editors,” in any order, and not necessarily adjacent to each other.

Archetype

As is my (deplorably unproductive) habit, I was following a link to the Web site of someone who’d commented very pithily, or very professionally, or in the voice of the loon on some post on some blog. Heck of a lot of “somes” there, and I apologize to whoever it was whose site I found which led me to the site which calls itself simply Archetype: The Fiction Writer’s Guide to Psychology. From the About page

:

So many fiction writers have asked writer/psychologist Carolyn Kaufman about psychological disorders, treatments, and concepts that she realized the information is either not available or not available in a form that’s easily accessible to writers. Psychology has evolved so quickly in the past fifty years that many people don’t realize their knowledge of the field is outdated. And thanks to the publicity some of psychology’s early mistakes received, many inaccuracies have lasted far longer in fiction than they have in real life. Though the psychological and psychiatric communities are attempting to reach out to writers, they haven’t yet found a good way to do it. Someone needs to bridge the gap, Kaufman thought, and it’s going to be me!

This is a very cool idea. After all, despite living in worlds populated by lots of, well, people — of their own creation, even — novelists are often confused by human nature, to the detriment of their work. So it stands to reason they might need help figuring out motivation, using the jargon of psychology, and understanding pathological behavior. Apparently (per the copyright information at the foot of the site’s pages), Archetype has been around since 2006. (The first post to the site’s blog is dated September of that year.) In that time, much (maybe most) of the information thereon concentrates on abnormal psychology. For instance, the Q&A page lists these question categories:

• Psychosis and Schizophrenia
• Murder and Mayhem
• Suicide
• It’s All a State of Mind
• Childhood Disorders

Of those, the “state of mind” category might be the one where you might find questions and answers on (say) what it means to be in love. Not so — instead, more darkness:

• How Believing You’re Insane Affects Behavior: Let’s say my character really, really, really thinks he’s insane. Would he be acting different, maybe becoming a little insane through the thought? And…how drastically different would he be?
• A Villain’s Atonement: What would the process be like for a villain whose conscience has gotten to him, making him decide he wants to atone for his sins?
• My Character Has Just Realized He’s a Ghost: What is his state of mind likely to be? I don’t want to flat-out say “hey, you’re dead” and I want to avoid a long dialogue during the scene.
• What sort of mental problems would clones develop?: Humans believe that clones are not human because they have no soul. Clones have the potential of gene mutation and therefore could be born monsters.
• The Normal “Split” Personality: Can a person have two completely opposite sides to their personalities, and still perform adequately? I am discovering my protagonist has two sides to him; he is able to separate them until he has a break through, or a break down, and is able to ‘join’ the two personalities. Is this feasible?

All very interesting questions (and the answers are very helpful). But for now, anyway, if you’re looking for insights into the way the brain (and mind) work when it’s not misfiring, Archetype may be less useful for you. (That said, check out the page of information about psychological research.) Still, a cool site. (Obviously — I almost never include this many hyperlinks to a single site, at least in a single post.) If I ever get around to adding a “resources for writers” blogroll category, Archetype will be there for sure.