{"id":975,"date":"2012-05-06T00:05:21","date_gmt":"2012-05-06T04:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=975"},"modified":"2012-05-06T00:08:14","modified_gmt":"2012-05-06T04:08:14","slug":"travelling-in-style-yoon-ha-lees-the-book-of-locked-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=975","title":{"rendered":"Traveling in Style: Yoon Ha Lee&#8217;s &#8216;The Book of Locked Doors&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If I were to perform some sort of masochistic analysis of my writing, I am sure I would find far too many scenes where the protagonist is traveling. Coming from something interesting, heading towards something interesting, but pictured sitting in some sort of craft waiting. I think the term &#8216;bleargh&#8217; describes this well.<\/p>\n<p>Unless you&#8217;re Yoon Ha Lee. Go and check out<em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com\/story.php?s=191\">The Book of Locked Doors<\/a><\/em>, published recently by Beyond Ceaseless Skies.<\/p>\n<p>The main character goes through nearly the entire story without interacting with anyone. What&#8217;s she up to? Riding the subway.Grabbing lunch. Walking around.<\/p>\n<p>And it&#8217;s <em>awesome<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>How? Lee uses description masterfully, showing us the details which pass through Vayag&#8217;s line of sight and telling us her reaction as a way of delineating her character, building stakes, attaching us emotionally. You know, all that writery stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Sure, there&#8217;s plenty of running, chasing, and being talked at by a creepy spirit book, but using travel time to build the world and the main character is a superior use of column space. Next time I want to write about someone taking a cloudskipper up to an orbital, I;ll be sure to go back to this kickin&#8217; story first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If I were to perform some sort of masochistic analysis of my writing, I am sure I would find far too many scenes where the protagonist is traveling. Coming from something interesting, heading towards something interesting, but pictured sitting in some sort of craft waiting. I think the term &#8216;bleargh&#8217; describes this well. Unless you&#8217;re [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":978,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}