We spent last month in Bulgaria. I spent most of that time working on book covers and getting organized – it seems like a long time ago but it was only last month I finally finished my PhD and we flew pretty much straight here.
Plovdiv is a charming, comfortable little town, then we spent a week exploring the mountains and history. My novel Orpheum is set in Bulgaria, so we wanted to see the ancient Thracian ruins, the Devil’s cave (where Orpheus is set to have gone into Hell to save his love), and some other sites where Orpheus and Dionysus were worshiped. Now we’re in Sofia, finishing up our trip.
Dionysus and orpheus
Orpheus and Dionysus are different figures, both connected with Thracian religious traditions. Orpheus is the legendary musician who descends to the underworld to recover Eurydice. Dionysus is the god of wine and ecstatic worship, known to the Romans as Bacchus.
That distinction matters when following their stories through Bulgaria. The cave tradition concerns Orpheus and his lost love; the wine god in the amethyst story is Dionysus under his Roman name. Shared places of worship do not make them the same character.
How Orpheus and Dionysus are connected
They are not the same figure, but they are tied together in the myths. In one tradition, Orpheus was a follower of Dionysus, and some versions make him a priest of the god. The two were worshiped at some of the same Thracian sites.
In one telling, the connection has a brutal ending. When Orpheus gave up on women after losing Eurydice, the maenads, the female followers of Dionysus, tore him apart in a frenzy. In that telling the god himself set them on him. His head was thrown into the river Hebrus and kept singing as it floated away. That is the part that links the singer to the wine god.
Our trip took in ancient Thracian ruins and other sites where Orpheus and Dionysus were worshiped. The Devil’s Cave is the one tied to Orpheus going down for Eurydice.
At Perperikon, I learned a great story about the creation of amethyst (so I bought one):
The name Amethyst derives from the Greek word ametusthos, meaning “not intoxicated,” and comes from an ancient legend. The wine god Bacchus, angry over an insult and determined to avenge himself decreed the first person he should meet would be devoured by his tigers. The unfortunate mortal happened to be a beautiful maiden named Amethyst on her way to worship at the shrine of Diana. As the ferocious beasts sprang, she sought the protection of the goddess and was saved by being turned into a clear, white crystal. Bacchus, regretting his cruelty, poured the juice of his grapes over the stone as an offering, giving the gem its lovely purple hue.
We also spent a week in this amazing writing retreat – an apartment we rented in the Southern Rhodope mountains. Not easy to get to, but worth it. I hope to finish part 2 of Orpheum this year!
Just finishing my PhD and finally, finally moving on with my life… this year I managed to put out some fiction, which was a huge goal of mine, but now I’ll have the time to finish what I’ve started and start writing full-time. I have dozens and dozens of novels sketched out; first up will be finishing Shearwater this fall. I wasn’t really planning on doing live events until I had 10 finished books out, but since we’ll be flying into London and I wanted to go to the London Film and Comic Con July 29-31st, I just decided to book my own table.
I won’t be bringing books with me, but I will have some “I’m really a mermaid” stickers and some cool stuff. If you’re in London, come visit!
The Europe trip has three main goals: my book Orpheum is set in Sofia, Bulgaria but I haven’t actually been there yet… so we’ll stay there for about a month soaking up culture and visiting the ancient Thracian temples. I also REALLY want to stay at this amazing mountainous apartment and do some writing.
After that we’ll head to Ireland to check out the places mentioned in Shearwater around Portballintrae, like Dunlace castle and Giant’s Causeway. I think I’m going to giveaway a free trip to join me, as part of my launch for Shearwater part 2, but I’ll announce that later.
We’ll end up in Dublin for the Claddagh Author Event … there are a few authors I’d like to meet.
Finally, in November we’re meeting 10 bestselling authors and some of the top YA booktubers to spend a month in a castle and it’s going to be epic. We’ll be posting lots of fun stuff on social media, and do some contests and things. This is the place we rented (in France).
I plan to do at least one major “writing retreat in a castle” per year from now on.
Mostly however, I need to focus on finishing more complete books and then building them up into series… I’m shooting for 100 books in the next 5 years.
Three main characters in a YA book do not make a love triangle. Often those three stand for two warring sides and the hero caught between them, which is the case I make below.
I’ve made it no secret that I’m writing YA literature based on a template. Yes, a lot of YA is formulaic. Yes, there are some tropes that get annoying when they’re repeated. And you don’t want to annoy readers.
However, I maintain that writers shouldn’t just try to avoid all cliches. Writing popular fiction, like crafting any powerful story, is based on fundamentals of story construction that go back thousands of years.
Books need conflict. And a lot of bestselling young adult fiction really aren’t that innovative. They’re the same old stories, but retold in a fresh way. I want to give young adult readers what they’ve come to expect of the genre, while delighting or surprising them by remixing common themes in a way they haven’t seen before.
So it’s a little annoying to have all my future works criticized (as I know they will be) for merely having a “love triangle.” It’s as if a love triangle is a superficial thing, incidental to the story, that can easily be removed.
Most of the time, it isn’t. Because stories are built on character, not just plot events. In just about every cop show, ever, there’s a girl and a guy in a platonic working relationship. That’s so each of them can have multiple other partners, which opens up more plot events. In young adult fiction, the number is usually three. In my estimation, it’s because you need a representative of two warring races/classes, and a hero who is the medium between them. It allows for maximal conflict.
Examples: The 100, The Shannara Chronicles and Shades of Blue
Sometimes the heroine is a girl. In The 100, (if you’ve been watching season three) Clark is sort of split between Bellamy, who represents the SkyCrew, and Lexa, who represents the grounders. She needs to make peace between them.
In the Shannara Chronicles, Amberle is a princess elf, the last of her kind. Wil is a halfblood. He alone has the power to use a magic weapon. Eretria is a human orphan with a mysterious background. She has visions and “her blood is the key.”
In Shades of Blue, Jennifer xxx plays a dirty cop, pinned between an FBI agent who is trying to bring down her ring leader, and Wozniac. Neither, incidentally, is her love interest – she’s actually banging the lawyer who can keep her violent ex locked up for good. So sex isn’t necessarily part of the “love triangle” at all – although there’s something creepy and sexual brewing between her and the FBI agent, Wozniac is more like a father figure to her.
Yes there is some romance and dramatic tension happening between all the characters, which keeps things interesting, but they’re really not that important compared to the racial warfare happening around them.
Why the label needs a new meaning
So I find it a little flippant to discount any book since Twilight with the complaint that it has a “love triangle” anytime there are three main characters representing necessarily diverse points of view. The conflict shouldn’t just stem from petty jealousy, but the fear, distrust, hatred and desire should be structured around the more important stuff that has calamitous consequences for everyone else.
Twilight is an excellent book, because it did the love triangle well. Which is exactly why I think the phrase “love triangle” needs to be assigned a new definition. As is, it has come to represent amazing, well told stories that should not be discounted out of hand – where the alleged love triangle is really a necessary and interesting center of conflict between three major players.
This is simply good construction.
Love Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Three decisions.
Peace, War, or aligning with either team.
It’s not fair to say, “Oh look, there are three characters, that must be heading towards a love triangle because they’re there” and then discrediting the book for that reason. If a book has a romantic interest flippantly, for no reason at all, which isn’t connected to the larger circumstances, then yes, that should be criticized. But that’s bad writing. It has nothing to do with the love triangle.
And I hate comments like “the love triangle was well done” or “poorly done”. Not everything is a fucking love triangle. If a girl has a love interest and another friend who likes her, but she doesn’t like him back in that way, is it still a love triangle? If she finds out one is her brother? If he’s actually an assassin sent to kill her or a prince in disguise? The story matters, not how many main characters there or how they feel about each other or whether they’re male or female and might develop feelings for each other.
What readers and authors can do
Readers, stop hunting for love triangles and enjoy the story. If it’s poorly told, say so. Don’t discount it out of hand because some other critic says there’s a love triangle in there.
Authors, don’t avoid love triangles just because you think readers are sick of them; and don’t write them just because you think readers want them. Write what’s necessary to tell a great story, fill it with as much conflict as possible, and do things that readers have never seen before.
