Swimming Up The Mainstream
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Zero Punctuation and the above entry has a particularly good point about originality and creativeness around 1:00 in that applies to entertainment other than gaming. It seems to me that an increasing number of films, tv series and novels are falling into somewhat disturbing if not self-destructive patterns that I’d like to discuss, if only to remind myself of things not to do when trying to write something creative and original that might see the light of day outside of this blog.
Trying To Do Everything
An action movie nowadays can’t satisfy itself with just being an action movie. There has to be humor and romance, too. Sometimes it can be pulled off with snappy writing and interesting, well-rounded characters – Star Trek comes to mind – but more often than not the explosions, laughs and heartstring-tugging live in separate cubicles in the same creative space. The first Transformers film wasn’t necessarily bad, in that there are impressive action sequences and a fresh perspective on beloved characters that offend just as many people as they delight, but that’s a point I’ll revisit later. Here we see the problem I’m discussing at the moment, in that the mood of the film is rather schizophrenic. We’re jolted from mysterious to heartwarming to pulse-pounding to funny and back again without any sort of warning that there’s a track change imminent. The end result is that the overall experience isn’t as good as it could have been, and tends to feel more mediocre than innovative. This isn’t to say that Transformers is necessarily a bad film, it just suffers from some of the problems that are beginning to permeate the entire entertainment industry.
Dropping Plot Threads
This is related to trying to do everything or please everybody. As a story grows and develops, it’s possible that an aspect of the story might fall by the wayside. It’s possible to become fixated on one aspect of your creation, or be told that a storyline is more important than another, and focus all of your energy on that while other plot threads which may or may not be more interesting wither and die. More often than not in a film, a character will make a reference to something ominous or foreboding, and either the terrible thing never occurs or we catch a glimpse of it and it’s never seen again, like the skeletal hand we see for just a moment in Van Helsing.
Watering Down Themes & Characters
Here I’d like to bring up Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Indiana Jones is a nearly mythic figure of adventure and machismo, whose escapades into the fables and stories of various faiths made for classic examples of good cinematic storytelling. He’d been in three films that featured artifacts of untold power with long, storied histories, all of which were terrestrial in nature. Then he jumps into a fridge. It’s not a bad analogy, in point of fact. The character I remember from my childhood is in here, but he’s surrounded on all sides by face-melting agony that rivals the Ark of the Covenant’s power, and what’s worse is that this horror is indiscriminate, targeting more than just Nazi’s. Maybe my taste for what can laughably be considered George Lucas’ writing skills has been dulled by the utter banality of the Star Wars prequels, and maybe Indy simply hasn’t aged well despite Harrison Ford being in great shape. But in order to appeal to a mainstream audience with little time or interest in “older” movies, a character who used to drive an entire film on his own now has to share the screen with sub-par CGI sequences, hot young male action star du jour, and the aforementioned schizophrenic shifts in mood and theme. Despite the mythological and supernatural touches here and there in the first three films, for the most part they feel like pure high adventure and nothing else. The latest entry tries to recapture that magic while heading into science fiction territory and reminding us how devastating and horrible nuclear weapons are. Apart from the viewer, the biggest victim is Indiana Jones himself.
The Fan Problem
I know that my last paragraph began to ramble a bit because I’m a fan of the original Indiana Jones movies. I can admit that there were things I liked about Crystal Skull, in that there are glimpses of the old sparkle behind the haggard appearance of an aging Indy, but there are some who decry it as the rape of their childhoods. A lot of people see the Transformers films in a similar light because they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the original cartoon. The offended parties are the same kind of people who live in their mothers’ basements whining on Conan forums how “the depiction of Daisy McSwordboobs from page 74 paragraph 3 in Conan Gets A Fixed-Rate Mortgage” isn’t the same as it is within the MMOG Age of Conan, to paraphrase Yahtzee again. You’re not going to please the most hardcore of hardcore fans no matter what you do. There are some who consider Star Trek to be an utter pile of excrement painted in gold, blue and red and shaped like the USS Enterprise, and they tend to whine on and on like an under-oiled ceiling fan about how it messes up the canon or violates this or that. It’s important to keep in mind that entertainment is a form of art and art is utterly and completely subjective. True, there is good art and there is bad art, but opinions on which is which are going to vary from person to person, sometimes wildly. I think most people can agree, however, that trying something new and different regardless of its quality is a tad more respectable than simply rehashing the same ideas over and over again just to appease a fan base or appeal to a certain demographic or keep the flow of cocaine and hookers going.
In short, it seems best to focus on one thing and try to do it better than everybody else than trying to do everything at once. Don’t be afraid to try something new and different even if the experiment blows up in your face. And no matter what some money-grubbing executive might say, telling a good story has little or nothing to do with what surveys or sales figures have to say. Go somewhere nobody’s ever been before, even if it’s slightly to one side or another.
I might be seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this weekend, and if I do, I’m going to do my utmost to judge it for myself, without preconceived notions from either those who loved it or those who hated it. We are all entitled to our own opinions. And if we all thought the same about this sort of thing, the Internet would be a lot less entertaining. If nothing else, it will be another opportunity for me to mentally not how to write, or perhaps how not to write, in order to avoid swimming in that filth-infested body of water people call the mainstream.
Guardians of the Galaxy
I ended up being pretty pressed for time at work today, so instead of tackling two of my current favorite titles from Marvel, I’ll focus on just the one. Guardians of the Galaxy starts up in the wake of the Annihilation event, which introduced older characters from outside of Earth in the Marvel universe (the regular one, not any of the odd parallel ones) and made them awesome. I’m not exaggerating – the very first mini-series took Drax the Destroyer and changed him from an energy-shooting Hulk-wannabe resembling a lime green brick to a shirtless badass armed with a couple of knives and more attitude than Wolverine on a bad hair day. He doesn’t even wear a shirt when exposed to deep space. That’s pretty badass.
He’s a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, a team of super-powered beings from all over the Milky Way brought together by a guy who has no powers whatsoever, Peter Quill (aka Star-Lord) in order to keep an eye on the goings-on in the greater universe and to keep things from going too pear-shaped. They’re kind of like interplanetary troubleshooters. Their roster is a fascinating mix of individuals, ranging from the most deadly woman in the universe (and one of the hottest) to a gun-toting wise-cracking anthropomorphic raccoon who tends to ride in the branches of a living tree whose got strength that rivals the aforementioned Drax. I’m not even making this up. Rocket Raccoon is awesome and if you disagree with that sentiment I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.
What makes the Guardians on the whole appealing to me is the way the stories, action and dialog remind me of the very best space operas of the past. Picking up the latest issue has a feeling that brings to mind the anticipation of a new episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation or reading The Cat Who Walks Through Walls for the first time. Since the Guardians are mostly adults, there’s none of the “Dawson’s Creek” feel that could occasionally creep into the Legion of Super-Heroes and the title delights in deep space swashbuckling and high adventure without descending into the camp of the 1980s Buck Rogers series, though there’s more than a little humor to be found. I mean, come on, a raccoon riding a walking tree! And did I mention the telepathic dog who used to be a Russian cosmonaut?
If you’re a fan of science fiction at all, or you like fast-paced action mixed with humor and diverse character interaction, I heartily recommend this title. And if you find yourself in desperate need of reading material dealing with sweeping cosmic events and visuals that will blow your mind – Drax’s final confrontation with Thanos for example – go to Amazon and pick up the Annihilation trade paperbacks. I hear Annihilation: Conquest is just as good but I don’t have the scratch to spare to pick those up.
If nothing else, you’ll come to understand how “I AM GROOT” can express quite a wide range of emotions.
Over-Achievement
While making my way through Elwynn Forest towards Goldshire, it occurred to me that I needed to do something that I hadn’t done since I last rolled an Alliance character. I took a slight detour from the path, strolled the lands north of Westbook Garrison, and there he was. One quickly loosed arrow later, he was on the ground and I was doing a little dance. But I guess the question you might be asking is what I was doing in Elwynn in the first place.
We’re in the midst of the Midsummer Festival, one of the yearly events that occurs in World of Warcraft. If you participate in the events in various ways, you earn achievements, and while the points associated with them don’t count as anything other than a general benchmark of how much stuff you’ve done in the game, you can earn other prizes such as titles and rare mounts. There’s a bit more incentive, then, to do things like toss torches, hug enemy players and fill out the unexplored portions of your map, rather than just secure bragging rights.
The fact is, however, that most gamers would do these things even if rewards weren’t offered. X-Box Live participants build their Gamerscore by racking up achievements from all sorts of games. The score doesn’t allow for free content downloads or anything else, it’s simply to show how dedicated a gamer is to this or that game. While one player might spend a weekend trying to get the perfect headshot in a shooter, another might try to find all the obscure hidden items in an open-world game.
When you’re creating any form of entertainment, it’s always good to have repeat business in mind. The beauty of achievements is in their ability to deliver exactly that without having to develop new content. I’m playing BioShock again on the hardest difficulty with the reanimation tubes switched off to earn a couple of achievements I missed the first time around, and I’ll continue working on the seasonal achievements in World of Warcraft because I want the special flying draconic mount you can earn by dedicating yourself to all the holidays for an entire year. I could simply worry about raiding to earn the best loot and then roll another character to chow down on grind sandwiches for another 80 levels, or I could pick up a new game for my X-Box instead of playing an old one, but with all of this achievement challenge, why bother?
Achievements really are advantageous for both players and developers. Developers can relax a bit and work on other projects, even if they’re upcoming patches/sequels for the current game, and players save money by not investing in new games until they’ve wrung absolutely every ounce of enjoyment they can from their favorites. It’s like buying a bag of miniature cupcakes but instead of emptying, every time you reach in for what you believe is the last cupcake your fingers tell you there are at least five more in there just begging to be popped into your waiting mouth so you can enjoy their succulent soft sweetness.
I’m not entirely sure where that analogy came from.
True Blood vs. Twilight
So here we have two stories first conveyed in novels that are now on screens. True Blood is a series on HBO adapted from the Southern Vampire Mysteries, novels written by Charlaine Harris. Twilight is the latest hot vampire commodity put to paper by Stephanie Meyer. Both deal with vampires living in the boondocks and the women who come across them. There are some similarities between the two of them, and I think it’s worth comparing the two. And not unlike the method employed recently by Benjamin Yahtzee Godzilla Croshaw, I thought we might toss these two into a metaphorical steel cage and see which one comes out on top.
In Lieu of Fiction
Posted by Josh in Current Events on June 26th, 2009
Say what you want about the man… his voice and moves changed the face of music.
I hope he’s in a better place now, free of pain and hate. We miss you, Michael.
It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You’re paralyzed
‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it’s thriller, thriller night
You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight
You hear the door slam and realize there’s nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl!
But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind
You’re out of time
‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
There ain’t no second chance against the thing with forty eyes, girl
Thriller, thriller night
You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight
Night creatures calling, the dead start to walk in their masquerade
There’s no escaping the jaws of the alien this time
(They’re open wide)
This is the end of your life
They’re out to get you, there’s demons closing in on every side
They will possess you unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night I’ll save you from the terror on the screen
I’ll make you see
That this is thriller, thriller night
‘Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a
Killer, diller, chiller, thriller here tonight
‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller, ow!
(I’m gonna thrill ya tonight)
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’alls neighborhood
I’m gonna thrill ya tonight, ooh baby
I’m gonna thrill ya tonight, oh darlin’
Thriller night, baby, ooh!
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller
The Fine Art of Selling Yourself
So you’ve written the next great American novel, or at least a Twilight-killer. It sits pristinely on your desk or hard drive and you can’t wait to get it into the hands of the public who are hungry for something new and interesting to take them away from the dark soul-draining mire of everyday life, spinning your words into gold. But there’s something you need to do first.
You need to sell yourself.
Now I don’t mean that it’s time to pull on the fishnet stockings and hit the streets of the nearest slum. No, I mean you need to send the right queries to the right people.
Would You Buy This?
I might go into more detail and give examples on what not to do in a query letter in another Thursday post, but suffice it to say that the old adage of KISS applies – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
- Open with a hook. Introduce a character or situation that you think will drive the work.
- Give a synopsis of the plot. Let the reader of your query know what they’re in for in general, but don’t give away all of your twists & secrets.
- Thank them for the time they’ve taken to read the query.
- Offer them an outline and sample chapters if you’re pitching a book.
- Let them know you’re looking forward to a prompt reply.
Again, I’ll elaborate on these points at another time. Let’s talk about where these queries are going.
The Knife Guy
I have an old edition of the Complete Guide to Novel Writing, and one of the authors describes agents as “knife guys.” Basically, the agent’s job is to cut through the slush piles and red tape of publishing houses, going right to the heart to someone they know on the inside who can help your work see print.
Finding an agent is the most expedient way to get your work published. And by most expedient, I mean that if you get your work accepted, an agent will be more prompt in responding to you than a publisher will be, in most cases. This is because an agent is part writing partner and part mercenary. They understand your need to express yourself and tell your story, and they’re willing to do your dirty work if you pay them enough, usually on commission from your advance & sales. If you win, they win. I’d advise going this route, even though I myself have had zero success in hooking one. Though it has occurred to me I might be fishing in the wrong pond.
Go to the Source
You can, if you prefer, send queries directly to the editors at publishing houses. While this means you don’t have to share your spoils with an agent, it also means it’s much harder for your work to stand out. An agent tends to work face-to-face with publishers, whereas your query letter is one of quite a few that flood into publishing houses on a regular basis.
However, a work that is unique enough or fills a void a publishing house is hungry for might survive the bucket of swamp run-off that is your typical slush pile. Your mileage will vary depending on your genre and the nature of your work. While nobody else on the planet can write exactly in your style on the subject you’ve decided to work with, there might be enough similarities between you and another author that the recipient might decide neither are worth an investment.
Don’t Give Up
Sending queries is a long, thankless, and depressing process. You’re facing entry into a field of entertainment that is crammed with both existing authors looking to continue their careers and new talent frothing at the mouth to get noticed. Know this: you are going to get rejected.
Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a letter of interest within the first wave of your queries. But it’s more likely that you’ll get a bunch of form letters saying that your work isn’t quite what they’re looking for and thanking you for your effort. Try not to think of it as a reflection on your work, but rather an increase in your chances of getting a positive response.
Another book I own, I believe it’s What Color Is Your Parachute? says something about the interview process that applies to sending queries. Your responses are going to look something like this:
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO YES
That “Yes” will make the mountain of rejections disappear so fast it will make your head spin.
Do It Yourself
You could always try to publish your book yourself, but this is an expensive and time-consuming process and you’re better off writing instead of going through it. Even if it’s just writing & sending more query letters.
Next week I think we’ll tackle the query letters themselves.
Running a Bit Behind
Posted by Josh in Maintenance on June 24th, 2009
The good thing about having a real job is keeping busy and feeling like a professional, from constructive meetings to wall-banging over client idiocy. The bad thing is less time to invest in things like writing and blogging. I’ve known what I wanted to blog about but haven’t had the time during the day to get it written out. Perhaps I should start drafting posts the night before, if I want to keep my schedule?
Unfortunately pushed to next week are the following:
Monday: True Blood vs. Twilight
Tuesday: Over-Achievement (World of Warcraft post)
Wednesday: Iron Maiden & Guardians
Tonight I’ll draft a recap of my experiences thus far in attempting to get published, and Friday should see some new Jovian fiction.
Back to work. Barely a month in, and already I need to re-shuffle things like recording hours and prioritization. This really does feel like my first real job.
And did I mention Vera, my ‘04 Honda Civic, needs work on her electricals?
Fun times.
“Fake” news vs. “Real” news.
I was planning on writing some fiction today. It’s Friday, after all, and that’s the schedule I established for myself. But in light of last night’s riveting discussion about abortion on The Daily Show, and seeing the continuing anti-Obama rhetoric spewing out of various conservative camps, it was time for me to discuss why I get my news from a so-called “fake” source as opposed to a “real” one like, oh say for example, Fox News.
I have a problem with Fox on a fundamental level. At the cinemas, they’ve gotten into the habit of doing very unclean things to beloved stories & characters, like the X-Men. On the television, they cancel good shows like Firefly and Sarah Connor Chronicles and more often than not do bad things to the remaining shows, like 24. And then there’s their “news.” I use the quotation marks with news because Joe Scarborough or Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity will read a single headline and, rather than investigating the issue at hand, will do their utmost to verbally illustrate how subject X is against everything they believe in and everything that is morally and intrinsically right, then proceed to shout down anybody who tries to voice a dissenting or even neutral opinion. Everything to them is white or black, right or wrong, and they’re always on the side of white and right.
Everybody’s going to have their opinions, and we’re all entitled to keep and defend the ones we form as individuals. Look at Jon and Mike. They’re intelligent and opinionated adults who differ on a rather delicate and large issue. However, rather than the conservative shouting down the liberal, the two of them sit down and discuss, at length and in detail, the nuances and difficulties of the abortion issue. It’s a serious discussion, yet it’s done in an intelligent way that shows respect to both sides. If this is “liberal media bias,” I think we could all use a bit more of it.
Let’s say for example that President Obama does something that we don’t agree with. How do we best address the issue? Do we look at the entire situation, try to determine why he made the decision he rendered, and how we can inform him and the government at large that we disagree? Or do we grab the nearest media outlet and scream at the top of our lungs, calling him incompetent, asleep at the switch, communist or Muslim or whatever the conservative buzzword is that day? I’m not saying that conservatives aren’t entitled to their opinions, it’s just very difficult not to feel that the likes of the Fox battalion are less journalists & columnists and more schoolyard bullies that never grew up.
And that’s without touching Rush.
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel that if we treated political and social issues more like debates and less like open warfare, society as a whole would be a lot better off. Unfortunately, I’m not featured on television or radio news media, so I doubt my opinion will count for much. At least I know that in America I’m entitled to have it and cannot be condemned for it.
Unless I’m trying to discuss it with Bill O’Reilly.
Breaking Writer’s Block: Use Your Anger
Let’s try an experiment, shall we?
Most people who swing by this place have at least a passing understanding of Star Wars. You know that prequels to the original classics exist. Maybe you believe they’re abominations. Maybe you think Lucas is a genius and the prequels are under-appreciated gems that outshine the originals. Maybe you think the entire debate is stupid and we should stop wasting our time. Bottom line is, it’s likely to get your irritated, if not angry.
Good. Write about it.
We’re taught by some that anger is a bad thing and should be tightly controlled, hidden away, what have you. Sometimes we’re told that our emotions are detrimental to others and we shouldn’t give voice to them. Being emotional can come off as whining or complaining or generally being shrill and attention-seeking. Better for the world at large, the argument could be made, if one simply clamps their mouth shut and goes on about their business like nothing’s wrong.
Tell that to the millions in the streets over in Iran right now.
Anger isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it’s not entirely bad, either. It’s inspiring. It moves people to action. What action that is determines if it’s right or wrong. Twittering “I’m angry about X” is, in the long run, healthier than going out and burning down the house of whomever you’re angry at. You don’t even have to do it in public. Find a piece of scrap paper, grab the nearest implement of writing destruction, and dash out a quick wrathful line or three. Tuck it in your wallet or destroy it, but at least it’s out now. Emotional constipation is a quick way to put yourself in a very bad spot, and possibly in need of professional intervention. Trust me on this.
If you do post your thoughts publicly, be prepared to endure some flak. You’re going to be told, and perhaps rightly so, that when life hands you lemons, you should “shut up and eat your goddamn lemons.” And while this is true, as is the more eloquent illegitimus non carborundum, you shouldn’t let dissenting opinions stop you from expressing yourself. Again, look at Iran. In the eyes of the conversatives that tightly grip the leadership of that nation, millions upon millions are letting their voices be heard and don’t give a damn of the threats made upon them by the opposition. If they were taking up arms or starting insurgencies they’d be soundly condemned, and rightly so. But they’re not. They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore.
Neither should you.
Just remember what Abraham Lincoln Oliver Wendell Holmes said: “Your right to swing your fist ends where the other person’s chin begins.”
Use your anger, clean out the negative and the dark, and move on unfettered by those useless and detrimental feelings. Who knows? Maybe in the aftermath of the cleansing fire you’ll find something you can use for a piece that isn’t so emo you can almost hear the Depeche Mode soundtrack.
What About Bucky?
It’s been announced that Captain America is coming back. For a while, the former sidekick of the original Cap, Bucky Barnes, has been wearing the blue and wielding the shield, carrying on Cap’s legacy the best way he knows how. It’s meant carrying a gun, because that’s how he operates, but he’s still standing up for what’s right, which includes having the Avengers stay at his house during the Dark Reign event.
There’s something wholesome about Steve Rogers. The original Captain America might have been everything the misguided Nazi geneticists wanted – tall, muscular, blonde haired & blue eyes – but he always stood up for what he felt was right. And of course, you can’t argue with the unbridled heroism of a guy armed only with a vibranium-alloy shield wading into automatic gunfire to punch Hitler right in his smug little mustache. Whatever contrived notion the guys at Marvel have for bringing him back from beyond the grave, considering this is mainstream Marvel and not Marvel Zombies, I think it’ll be good to have him among the Avengers again.
The question that comes to my mind, however, is where does Bucky go from here? He’s been feeling quite a bit of pressure in carrying Cap’s legacy, so I’m sure he’ll be relieved to hand the shield back to its rightful owner. But will he return to being the Winter Warrior? Or will he adopt some sort of new persona? And will he remain with the Avengers or strike out on his own once again? I think it will be interesting to see whichever way it goes.
Captain America isn’t one of my regular titles – I keep up with Invincible Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, both regular Avengers titles and Deadpool – but I’m curious to see just how Steve manages to battle his way back from the afterlife. And if he has any stories of beating up Nazis there.
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