Tag: dragons

Stories Save Us

This is a speech I gave during the Stories We Share Event at the Butler Library event on December 27th. Several lovely people suggested that I publish it. So, here you are.

Hi there. My name is Nicole. I write stories about dragons, ghosts and spaceships. Sometimes I write about the ghosts of dragons on spaceships. And, like most people who are at least mildly funny, I have been through some hard life events.

Don’t worry, this isn’t all depressing, I promise.

I was raised by a mother with a lot of chronic health issues. This meant I spent more time in my childhood than I should have in waiting rooms, doctor’s offices, or just keeping myself occupied quietly so my mom could rest.

I passed the time by reading. Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Laura Ingells, Babysitter’s Club. These stories kept me company in dark places. I escaped into Secret Gardens and attic rooms enhabited by Little Princesses.

As an adult, I fell in love with and married a man who also has chronic health issues. Because of course, right? And again, books have come to my rescue. Stephen King, Philippa Gregory, Tamora Pierce, Kiersten White and Grady Hendrix keep me company through scary days.

Now I do more than read these stories, I write my own. And in the past few years, while almost everyone has fallen on hard times, it’s sometimes felt foolish to keep writing fiction. Indulgent, and insensitive even. A writer I’m very fond of named Matt Wallace, who wrote the Savage Rebellion series, said that marketing right now feels like standing outside of a burning building and yelling at the people coming out, “Hey, you wanna buy a book?”

But the answer is yes, yes I actually do want to buy a book and read it. I want stories.

Stories can save us. And they do this in two ways. The first is of course that they’re entertaining. It’s fun to read. And while you can’t run away from your problems, you can take a break from them. Maybe you need some time in Narnia, or a haunted house, or a world where sewing is magic. Because after we take that time, take that break in a book, we come out a little bit stronger. Maybe that gives us the clearer eyes we need to look for the helpers that Mr. Rodgers told us about. Maybe it even gives us the strength and courage to be the helpers.

Here’s the other thing that stories do for us. They tell us that we are not alone. Fear can make us feel like we’re the only ones suffering. That no one else understands the pain we’re going through. But that’s not true. We’ve all had those seasons in life where we’ve gotten a scary diagnosis, tried to leave a dangerous relationship, fought an addiction, moved far away from everything familiar, or worried about how we’re going to pay rent and get groceries, and keep the electric on. We’ve all said goodbye to people we never wanted to say goodbye to, or had something violent and terrible happen to us that we neither deserved or saw coming.

Neil Gaiman said this about writing Coraline. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” But we knew this before Gaiman. The author of Beowulf knew this and wrote about monsters and dragons that the great hero faced. These stories comforted and guided our first ancestors. They helped them cope, heal, and find the courage they needed.

We are not going to fight literal dragons. We aren’t going to face Voldemort, or a sentient haunted house, or a series of unfortunate events orchestrated by a school friend of our dead parents. But we are going to fight our own dragons. And a lot of the time we win, and live to see brighter days.

What worries me, is how many people can’t remember the last time they read something for pleasure. Most of us spend a lot more time doom-scrolling than resting our hearts in fiction. If that’s you, find a book you want to read today. We are standing in a library right now. Find a book to take home with you. Take half an hour, ten minutes, hell five minutes, and read a story you love. Maybe it’s something you read as a child, or maybe it’s a new book. Maybe it’s wildly out of your age range. Look, when I’m stressed I reach right for Beverly Cleary so I’m not going to judge.

Make the space for you to have joy, no matter how bad your day is going. Because we all need to remember that dragons can be beaten.

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What dragons say about us

We are obsessed with dragons. And by we, I mean all of humanity. As we discussed when I talked about Beowulf a few weeks ago when I still had hope and joy in my life, we have been telling stories about dragons for most of humanity and certainly for as long as we have written stories down. Some of my favorite fantasy books revolve around dragons, like Dragonriders of Pern. When I wrote my own fantasy series, I knew I had to include dragons. Hell, it’s even part of my tagline.

I write speculative fiction. That means I write about dragons, ghosts and spaceships. Sometimes I write about the ghosts of dragons on spaceships.

Dragons are unique when compared to other cryptozoological creatures. We tell different kinds of stories about them. Compare this to something like a unicorn. We all love unicorns, too. But they almost always have the same sort of tales told. They’re majestic, magical, pure. Trolls are almost always stupid and at best a nuisance. Giants are almost always evil and eat humans. But dragons run the spectrum from brainless beast to diety. So let’s look at some examples, and then discuss why this might be.

The monster

This is easily my least favorite way to write dragons, as evil and terrifying beasts that devour people and destroy livestock. They hoard gold they have no actual use for and light up anyone close to their dark and dreary caves.

We see this mostly in older fiction, but in some modern tellings as well. Though, thankfully, this depiction has fallen out of fashion. Dragons that are nothing more than gold-hoarding bottomless eating machines just aren’t much fun.

The ally

The next depiction of dragons we often see is more of an ally animal. Like a horse, dog, rat, or any other animal that we’ve formed a partnership with. Think of Lockheed in X-Men. We also see this in Dragon Riders of Pern, where even when the riders are psychically linked with their dragons, they are still treated the same as deeply loved animal allies. Clever, for sure, but not really on our level.

The Equal

Finally, we get to the sort of dragon I prefer, and the one I wrote in Woven. The dragon is just as intelligent, if not more so, than humanity. We see this a lot in modern fiction. Or, at least fiction that’s come out in my lifetime. Dragon Heart is a great example, as are most D&D dragons. I love this sort because it seems to take humanity down a peg. It reminds us that maybe we aren’t as clever as we tend to think we are.

The god

Finally, we see dragons as diety. As above humanity, with superhuman abilities. My favorite example of this is in Avatar The Last Airbender, where fire bending is taught to humanity by the dragons.

Why?

Now, this is just my opinion. But, since I have been reading the genre for my entire life and writing in it for over ten years professionally, I happen to consider this at least an educated opinion.

I think how we write dragons is a reflection of how we view nature.

Consider some of the dragon types we talked about. The monstrous dragons lived deep underground, protecting treasures. Living in coal country as I do, that feels like an apt analogy for mining. The ally dragons are likely written by people who have close and loving relationships with their pets, or who admire support animals. Those who see dragons as having at least humanlike intelligence, if not more, probably have a deep respect for nature and don’t necessarily think we’re the smartest creatures on this planet. And of course, those who are a bit more pagan leaning would likely see God in the face of a dragon.

Overall, I think it’s a theory that works. We write dragons and how we see nature. We read about dragons that remind us of how we see nature. And I think that’s pretty awesome. Fiction is essentially using lies to tell the truth. We can’t always put into words what scares us, what makes us furious, or what brings us joy. We can’t always write about the mines, our connections with animals, or our fear of the natural world in a way that others can understand. But we can write about dragons, and that seems like something that we can always get behind.

But I want to know what you think. Do you agree with my theory? Do you think it’s ridiculous? Let me know in the comments.

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