The Great (or Terrible?) 3D Oz

Oh, how I wanted to love this movie. And oh how it disappointed me.

I've been trying to put my finger on why and here are a few thoughts:

1) This is a movie that used 3D in the worst kind of way. I love how movies over the past few years (notably Hugo, Pina, Avatar) used 3D to put you in the scene with the characters (or with the dancers in the case of Pina). And how they used the technology to make the world seem more real. Awesome.
But this movie uses it to make things come out of the screen toward the audience. In that respect it reminded me of all the really bad 3D movies from the past. Or Joe Flaherty in a vampire costume moving his face toward the camera in old SCTV sketches.



Fast fwd to about the 2 minute mark to get the first example of what I'm talking about. These old sketches were hilarious. But long... Oh, 1970's Canadian TV.
Back to Oz:  It felt as if the action sequences were planned with the central question being: How can we maximize the number of objects that shoot out into the audience's faces? Rather than: How can we make this scene exciting and further the plot?

2) The film felt really juvenile. Now, I get that people probably want to take their kids to this movie. But really little kids will be terrified. Big, scary-toothed flying gorillas coming out at you from the screen... (And I thought there could be nothing scarier than flying monkeys...) And yet the tone and dialogue and character development felt like it was aimed at 5 year olds. Or 4 year olds. I've seen movies aimed at 5 year olds which entertained me more than this did...

3) They had too many character arcs. I feel like the witches' stories got badly short changed. I get that it was a story about how the wizard of Oz ended up in Oz... but they why try to tell the wicked witch creation story at the same time? It just didn't work. Now that I'm typing this, I realize there have been tons of films where the writers successfully told both a hero and villain creation story in one (just about any comic book movie, for example) but this one did not succeed. Maybe because they spent too much time trying to be cute. Or giving us winks to things. Don't know. But the transformation of the Mila Kunis character from good to evil seemed like an incredible wasted opportunity. And I'd have loved to know more about the Rachel Weisz character too. And the politics of the good vs wicked sides of the witch world... And why witches are in charge in Oz etc. etc. So many interesting things, unexplored.

4) I've decided James Franco can't act. This might be heresy, but it's how I feel at the moment. I remember seeing him in that James Dean biopic years ago and being blown away. And the critics and everyone from that point on seemed to take it as fact that he was the next coming... But looking back on his filmology, I think he's annoyed me as many times as I've been impressed. It's like squinting and talking through his teeth, which worked for Dean, is the main tool in his actor's chest. Now... I did love him in 127 Hours... And I do admit that the Oscar hosting gig, when he acted like he was so above it all, might have turned me against him. But it does say something that I reached this, "Huh, Franco can't act," conclusion in the middle of watching Oz. I almost felt like he thought the entire movie was a big goof. Like I was watching Franco on SNL or something, doing a spoof on an Oz prequel, rather than watching him as a character in a movie.

5) Bad romance. Wow. I just thought of this while composing this post. But it was another big problem. First, they start to develop a romance with the Mila Kunis character. And we start to care about her and them. And see problems on the horizon for their relationship because clearly she's more invested in him than he is in her (which fits his philandering character to this point). So those of us who like romance subplots are rubbing our hands together thinking, this could get interesting! And then we're yanked out of that romance subplot. And another witch is tossed in his path. And for no reason other than they're on the same side in a fight, and she looks like a girl he tossed aside back in Kansas, (and she's blonde?) we're supposed to believe he's going to fall in love with her. And her with him. Insta-love. Does not work.

So, in spite of all the above, I actually didn't HATE this movie. And I thought some things were really cool. (like the way they eventually create the Oz illusion.) But overall, I was disappointed.

Has anyone else seen it?

Feel free to disagree. :)

Mad Mad Mad Men Anticipation

I'm going to go way out on a limb and say that I cannot wait for the new season of Mad Men. I know, controversial. ;)

I'm going to be out of town this weekend at a writers' retreat and I will DIE if my DVR lets me down.

The past few weeks I've been watching the last season of Mad Men in re-runs and saw one of my favorite episodes yesterday. The one where it's Peggy's birthday and Don keeps her really late (eventually overnight) and Don learns that Anna has died.

There are a lot of reasons to love this episode, but I think for me it's all about the slow simmer that turns into a raging boil.

Mad Men is so often about subtle storytelling. About what the characters don't say. And three of the really HUGE things from Season 1: Peggy having Pete's baby, Don's secret identity as Dick Whitman, Don knowing that Peggy had a baby--all these things kind of hit the fan in this episode. Events from Season 1. And this was more than half-way into Season 4.

I admire how long they let some of these things simmer. Sure, in the intervening seasons there were a few episodes where we saw Anna to remind us that the real Don Draper's wife exists, and that our Don is supporting her, and yes, Betty finds out, leading to the Drapers' divorce. And sure there were a few small moments about Peggy's baby and about some lingering attraction between her and Pete. But Don knowing about the baby was pretty much never mentioned again. Which made sense to me. I mean, Don understands having secrets better than anyone so the fact that he never brought it up and that it simply formed part of this strange dynamic between Don and Peggy (among with so many other things, like her knowing about his car crash and affair with a client's wife etc. etc.) made total sense to me. It's like they had this balance of each other's secrets.

But then everything happens at once. Don finds out he's lost the only person in the world who knows who he really is--and loves him anyway. Peggy finds out that Pete's wife is having a baby--a half sibling to her "nephew" who's being raised by her sister--and this brings up a whole slew of feelings. Peggy misses her birthday dinner with her boyfriend then resents him when she finds out he invited her family along as a surprise. They break up. Peggy tells Don that her mom assumes that he was the father of her baby because he was the only visitor she had in the hospital and that her mom hates Don because of it. She also reveals both that everyone in the office assumes she slept with Don to get her promotion, AND that she's a little hurt that it's not true.

And then they spend the night his office, his head in her lap. And in the morning when he finally calls California, he cries in front of her, really cries and she comforts him.

And that's not all that happens. During all that, Peggy unleashes her resentment about Don not giving her credit for her ideas and he puts her in her place. And Don learns that Peggy was sleeping with Duck. And Duck calls Peggy a whore and Don defends her, tries to punch him and they get into a fight.

Such a powerful episode. So many little threads all woven together. Reminded me why I love this show and can't wait for more!

And have you seen those "The Zombies are Back" trailers? LOL. Gotta love AMC. Talk about great cross promo. I hope those spots help Mad Men snag some of the The Walking Dead audience.

Breaking Storytelling Rules

I was going to hijack Eileen's topic and talk about a few movies I saw this year that weren't so much movies as acting exercises. And failures as actual stories in my opinion. (Hint: the movies star Meryl Streep and Glenn Close. Don't get me wrong, I thought the performances were great in these movies--some impressive acting--but the stories... not so much.)

But I thought of something else I wanted to talk about before the Oscars.

Although only half of the post is about a movie. The other half is about a book I'm reading right now. And these two stories--one a book, one a movie--both break a lot of storytelling conventions/rules. For me, breaking the rules worked in the movie but not in the book. And in this case I'll bet the book is actually more popular than the movie, although I don't have any stats to back that up.

The book I'm not going to name... but the movie is Monsieur Lazhar, a nominee for best foreign language film in the Oscars this year. (Go Canada! Although The Separation will win...)

The book that I'm not naming (and it's not that YA novel we were talking about a few weeks ago) works really well in the parts that work. Really well. And the author is a great and successful writer whom I admire, but some of the choices she made didn't work in my opinion and prove why the rules of good storytelling exist for a reason. What made me crazy, I think, is how many of the really heartbreaking moments in the story happen off screen.

Now that I'm finished, I'm starting to see how she might have made those choices in the first half of the book in order to set things up for later--to give more power to other heartbreaking moments--but... it didn't work. After a very exciting first chapter the book shifts forward several years, which in itself wouldn't be a problem, but then the next 150 pages are either: a) full of backstory explaining what happened during those seven years that we missed, b) scenes with either the hero or the heroine but never together, (where not much happens to forward the plot), and c) scenes in subplots with characters other than the hero and heroine who the reader doesn't really know much about. After that it really picks up, :) but for me it was too late. I'm not sure whether this was an experiment or intentional or whether the author couldn't think of another way to tell her story, or whether she really didn't think much about it at all... but whatever the case, I'm sad to say it didn't quite work for me.

On the other hand... The movie, Monsieur Lazhar breaks a few "rules" and I thought it was simply lovely.

Maybe it's about which rules you're breaking.

In Monsieur Lazhar, I'd say the broken rule is "escalate the drama" or "increase the complications or challenges your hero faces" or the old "put your character up a tree and throw rocks" rule. However you want to articulate that rule, there were several places during this film where the tension is really high and you think you know what's going to happen, because it's what would happen in most commercial films or books... but then it doesn't go that way, but instead of something even worse happening, things turn out well and the tension releases. You'd think this would make for a boring story. But it works. I think because every time one of these tension points deflates, another secret or possible risk is revealed to make you worried for the characters for another reason.

In the end, it's a lovely sweet story that doesn't end sadly, but doesn't end with a tied up happy ending either.

The story is about an Algerian man who's claiming refuge status in Canada and gets a job teaching a grade 4 or 5 class, after their teacher commits suicide in their classroom and the Principal is pretty much desperate to fill the job. It's a fish out of water story, a kids healing after a trauma story, a man healing after a different trauma story, a man fighting to stay in Canada story, and ultimately just a really sweet story that made me proud to live in this country.

It's in French with subtitles, and if it shows up in a theater near you, I highly recommend it. The little blonde girl in the middle of the front row of this poster will break your freaking heart. So will the kid with the camera. And Monsieur Lazhar himself will melt it.

Embrace Your Inner Villain

Most of us who've been at this storytelling thing for a while know that it's important to understand and show the motivation of not only your protagonist, but also the bad guys.

And while I already understood that, this is an area where I sometimes cop out... "Because he's evil!" LOL And one other tidbit I remember from that Paul Haggis talk was about understanding villains. He made me see that it shouldn't be a surface level thing.

He said that for every character he's written, who does something most of us would consider "bad", he works hard to put himself in that character's shoes and write the scenes with the understanding of why the villain truly believes he/she is doing good. That is, it's not enough for a villain's motivation to be the hero deserves this for I am evil, or for I want revenge, or whatever... Better if the villain truly believes he/she is doing the right thing and for the writer to explore and understand that.

This discussion came up after we watched a clip from Crash. It was the scene early in the movie, where Terrence Howard and Thandie Newton are pulled over by the Matt Dillon cop character (when she was giving her husband a BJ while he was driving) and the Dillon character basically uses his power of authority to sexually molest Thandie Newton.

Stepping back for a second, the amazing thing about Crash, for me, is how Haggis forces us to see two sides to every character in that movie. The people who initially seem bad, we see good things and vice versa. But listening to him talk about how he developed all that, I realized it was more than just showing the sympathetic side of the "villains". It was his understanding why each character thinks his actions are not villainous.

For example, he reasoned that in that scene Matt Dillon truly believed he was doing Thandie Newton and Terrence Howard a favor. He wasn't just wielding his power to get off on it. He believed he was teaching them an important lesson to keep them safe. He thinks something like: Fool around while you're behind the wheel of the car and there could be dangerous consequences. This, what I'm doing now? Is nothing compared to what could have actually happened if you'd crashed the car or hit a pedestrian. Me doing this to you now, humiliating you both, will help you remember those consequences and think twice before you act recklessly again.

Sure the audience doesn't get all that. We see a cop we assume is a racist arrogant asshole using his power and position to put his hand on Thandie Newton's private parts in front of her husband who's too afraid to do a thing about it... But listening to how Haggis thought about it and talked to Dillon about it on set, and then thinking through the other things that happen with his character (until he ultimately saves the Thandie Newton character from a car crash...) it all resonated deeply for me. And I think I understood a bit more why I love that movie.

And from now on, I'm going to work harder on thinking about my villains' motivations and why they truly believe they are doing the right thing.

BTW When asked about the coincidences in Crash, which didn't bother me at all when I first saw that movie -- to me, that movie was like a miracle, but Haggis's response (and I'm sure he's been asked that questions a million times) was that Crash was meant as a parable. But that modern audiences can't recognize a parable in a modern day setting. Some people might not buy that and might think he's making up an excuse after the fact, but I buy it. The story was about connections, lives colliding into each other, so the conicidences of their meeting was part of that overall story. (Crash is one of my top 10 movies...)

One final thing on Haggis. He also talked about how furious fellow Canadian director David Cronenberg was with him for using that title. (Cronenberg has a 1996 film also called Crash.) Haggis said Crash was actually just a working title he didn't plan to use, but the distributor liked it. And Cronenberg... Really mad. I was lucky enough to be at the world premiere screening of Crash about 15 months before it hit theatres and when Haggis introduced the film he didn't say much, if memory serves, except that we were the very first people to see it (not even any industry screenings before) and then he apologized to David Cronenberg for using that title.

How much do you think about your villain's motivations? Do yours think they are doing the right thing?

Sex as an excuse to forget -- good writing

Sex week has yielded an interesting discussion so far -- one I'm not sure I have much to add to. One of the disadvantages to being later in the week, at least when we accidentally fall into one of these theme weeks, is that by Wednesday I've got nothing to say. :) But you know me, I rarely have nothing to say. So here goes...

I've been thinking about the "great sex scenes have to be about the characters' emotions" assertion... And while I don't disagree, I wonder if it's that simple.

I think the key to a great sex scene boils down to what makes any scene great. Clear goals, strong motivations, and lots of conflict and tension.

In a "make them wait" kind of romance I agree it is emotions that make those later in the book sex scenes so wonderful. We're already so invested in the relationship that we're right there with them, and it's easy to feel what the physical intimacy is changing for the couple as they consummate their developing love.

But I do think that an early-in-the book sex scene can work, too. Even if we aren't very invested in the romance at that point of the story. Those scenes don't always work... and if they don't work they can feel horribly contrived, but they can work. And maybe the key to making scenes like that work lies in the same principles that make any scene work -- having a purpose, having conflict, having something happen other than "THEY HAD SEX".

Most experienced writers would never write a scene in which the hero and heroine sweep the floor, or play cards, or even go sky diving, if all that happens in that scene is floor sweeping or card playing or sky diving. Something else has to be going on. Something else has to be revealed. Something needs to change. And "they've had sex now" isn't enough of a change in most cases.

Any scene needs to move the story forward, it needs to have conflict, it needs to have at least one of the major characters wanting something they aren't getting, or getting something they don't want... and if it's pivotal, it needs to have an unexpected outcome, or some kind of a reversal or a turning point.

Most writers know this about scene and story structure (even if it's instinctively). So why do many writers drop these principles when it comes to a sex scene?

What happens during a sex scene needs to matter... it needs to reveal plot points the reader doesn't already know and/or change things... It can't be just about the sex. Those are the skippable sex scenes. If they're skippable -- if you can pick up the story without reading the sex scene and still have the story make sense-- then that sex scene shouldn't be there. Just like any scene that could be skipped shouldn't be there.

Not sure I'm saying anything today that hasn't already been said. And I'm certainly not implying that I always do a good job with this myself... But I did use the word SEX a lot, so maybe we'll get lots of new visitors through google. :)

Character, Plot and Dragon Tattoos

I went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tonight and it got me thinking about plot and character, again.

On the absolute plot level, this film (and I assume the book, too, but I haven't read the book), is a who-done-it type murder mystery with a thriller/suspense edge. But it's so much more than that, and I couldn't help but think of how it rises above other popular books/movies in that same ilk like, say, The DaVinci Code.

Both had an intriguing mystery to solve, both have danger and life-threatening situations, both have chills and thrills, but the big difference is that Dragon Tattoo also has interesting characters.

Really interesting characters, whom we really care about, and worry about, and have unanswered questions about.... And the backstory for the one character is held back until virtually the end of the film but we're so fascinated by her (or at least I was) that I actually wondered at one point if maybe I'd be okay if we never found out what had happened to her. I actually started to think that they were going to hold that info back... because I knew there was a sequel (for the book, anyway).

I just read a bit of the description of the second book The Girl Who Played with Fire and it does have the same characters and it does sound like we find out more about her... Hmmm... Thinking I need to buy this book now. Too many books, not enough hours in the day.

Anyway. Good film. A few scenes were hard to watch, but a highly entertaining film.

On another aside... I don't know the story of how/when this bestselling book got optioned... but I also thought it was bold to do the film in Swedish with subtitles... After the book took off so big in its English translation, I'm sure there was huge pressure to do the film in English or even move it to Maine or someplace like that. Glad they didn't.

Taking the Easy Way Out

I was going to take the easy way out today, and blog about OUR NEXT NEW DRUNK WRITER JOINING US VERY SOON!!!, but decided that was a huge cop out. Plus, I think Molly would probably like to introduce her, so I'll restrain myself. But stay tuned....

Instead, I'd like to talk about endings and surprise twists and not taking the easy way out.

I'm struggling with the final act of one of the WIPs I'm working on now. Not that, sadly, I'm anywhere near that point in the ms yet, but I have been thinking about it. Trying to set things up properly to lead to the best possible climax and ending. (and no, I'm not talking about sex.)

Also, I eavesdropped on a little twitter discussion, between Louisa Edwards and Dakota Cassidy today, about Julia & Julie (or is it the other way around?) that got me thinking about twists and ending's, even more. And no, I haven't seen that movie yet, nor do I expect it to have much of a twist ending...

The movie I got thinking about was Junebug. A fabulous little independent film from about four or so years ago featuring Amy Adams. I think it might have been the first time I ever saw, or at least noticed, her as an actress, and I do believe she also received an Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her amazing performance. If you haven't seen this movie, you should.

Junebug isn't about her character, though. The film's about a character played by Alessandro Nivola, whom I love, and his character bringing his older and sophisticated girlfriend home to his much-less-sophisticated family in one of the Carolinas, or somewhere like that. The focus of the plot is on him coming home after so long away from his family, on them as a couple, on the folk artist the girlfriend's trying to sign and the ethical questions there...

Amy Adams plays Nivola's very pregnant sister-in-law, who's about the sweetest, most kind-hearted, naive, but curious-about-the-world character you could ever imagine. And whereas she could come off cloying or cliche, Amy Adams makes her completely believable. (Yes, the casting director for Enchanted must've seen her in Junebug. I wouldn't be shocked to learn the screenwriters for Enchanted were inspired by her performance in Junebug.)

But I digress... My point is, Junebug cruises along, pretending to be a character based story about the Nivola character, that's interesting but not really taking us on a storytelling roller-coaster of any kind (more like a merry-go-round or a pleasant ferris wheel ride at best).

The filmmakers distract us with a little business between the girlfriend and the father-to-be brother... and then BAM. A big twist. Something unexpected (I didn't see a hint of foreshadowing) that changes everything and makes you see the movie in an entirely different way. Makes you think about family and what it means in an entirely different way. Sure the whole movie was about family... but the twist pretty much punches you in the gut.

I don't want to say much more, because it would ruin the film if you haven't seen it, but I guess I aspire to walk the line this film, for me, walks so well. The line between surprising the reader, in a good way, and pissing them off, because you've written something so unexpected it doesn't meet reader expectations.

Yes, I aspire to walk that line, whereas, in real life thus far... I fear any reader will see my hand way before I play any of my cards.

You know what? It just occurred to me. Writing is hard.... Big news. LOL

How do you come up with a plot twists? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Dark Heroes and Mad Men

I've been thinking a lot about Sinead's post on Friday, and a dilemma I know she's having with one of her WIP's, and also thinking about some workshops I've attended, where the topic was making the protagonist sympathetic or emotionally identifiable in the opening scenes. While I usually think of that in terms of romance heroines, I'm starting to think this is the key to making readers accept dark heroes, too. That the "make your hero sympathetic or relatable rule" isn't just for the nice guys. It's for the bad guys, too. Let's face it, every well-rounded character's got two sides, but maybe the darker the hero the more important it is to show the positive traits early.

The thing is, it's hard to do this with a dark character, because you're trying to characterize him/her as dark at the same time. And I agree that it can be cowardly or a cop out for writers to soften the dark stuff too much. Also hard not to fall into a clichés like having them pet a puppy (or literally save a cat as in the title of Blake Snyder's screen writing book). But while challenging, it's not impossible and it doesn't mean you need to have the hero regret his/her bad choices right from the start, or otherwise soften whatever it is that makes them dark. Rather you can show something positive as well, or show him/her experiencing something the reader can relate to/empathize with. I'm going to have to pull out Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Ain't She Sweet again. Actually, I think I borrowed Sinead's copy. Need to get one of my own. But I'm quite sure SEP did this masterfully with her anti-heroine in Ain't She Sweet.

And another writer who's done it masterfully is Matthew Weiner, the writer/creator of Mad Men. AMC showed the first season of Mad Men back-to-back on Sunday, in anticipation of the second season starting next week. (Can't wait!) And I watched the opening scenes from the pilot episode about 5 times.


Okay, Don Draper might not be what many of us think of when we think "dark hero", but let's face it, he's a pretty dark guy, with some very dark secrets, who has done and does a lot of bad things. Yet, he is the protagonist of the series. (Peggy being the secondary protagonist and I'm going to have to go back and think about her introduction, too...)

So, how does the writer introduce Don Draper, dark hero...

First scene: Noisy, crowded bar. Everyone's drinking and smoking and chatting in groups. Having fun. But not Don. He's alone. Concentrating. Working. Writing ideas on a napkin.

In less than 5 seconds of the pilot episode we know Don is hard worker. Has a strong work ethic. Positive traits.

Then he asks a busboy (older black man) for a light and tries to engage him in conversation. The waiter (white) misinterprets the situation, tries to intercede and insults the busboy. Don brushes the waiter off, making it clear he wants to talk to the busboy. So, now we're maybe 15 seconds into this series and we know: Don is nice to people with low-paying jobs. Don is nice to a black person in 1960, when most white people weren't. Don respects the "little guy", cares about underdogs. More positive traits.

Then the conversation continues and he's asking the busboy about his brand of cigarettes and why he smokes them and what Don could say to convince him to switch brands. In a 20 or 30 second conversation we see more of Don respecting this man, valuing his opinion and Don being insightful and smart about his job. Look at that: Good at his job. Another positive trait. He respects others' opinions. Another one.

Oh, and the actor playing Don is very good looking, dresses well, has a great smile. Not trivial details. Good looking. Another positive trait.

Scene is over. Less than a minute. And we already like and respect Don, think he's a good guy. He's dedicated. A hard worker. Nice to underdogs. Good at his job. Good looking. At least five positive traits in maybe 40 seconds.

Second scene: Don goes to visit a woman in her apartment. It's late at night. He's not expected, but she's clearly glad to see him, but no push-over either, and she's attractive. And witty. Hmmmm. An attractive, witty woman likes Don. Wants to have sex with him. And she does the seducing/makes the first move. Another clue to him having positive traits. Others like him so he must be likable. And his lover is a bohemian, an independent woman. An artist. Plus, she has more than one lover. Interesting. His lover is a woman who is very rebellious given the time period. Earns her own living. She's interesting. That he's her lover makes him more interesting. And he talks with her about a problem he's having at work. Makes us think he respects women, respects her opinion. Because of this and the way he treats his new secretary in a later scene, we believe Don respects women more than most men of his time. We're proved wrong later in the episode. But the point is, we believe it now, as we're getting to know Don and it helps us become emotionally attached.

But back to the second scene. In addition to this scene cementing our impression that this guy is fairly liberal for his time--asking for opinions from a black man and now a woman!--it does something even more important. In discussing his work issues, we learn that he's vulnerable. Scared in fact. Scared that he won't come up with an idea for his cigarette manufacturer client, scared to go to work tomorrow, scared that one of the young execs will steal his job, scared that everyone at work will discover he's a fraud. Now, if you watch the series, you'll know that this last fear is a loaded one for Don. But we don't know that it's foreshadowing at this point. All we know is he has insecurities about his job and his biggest fear is that some day everyone will discover he's a fraud. These are fears and emotions almost everyone can relate to. The writer has made him emotionally identifiable, by putting him in this vulnerable situation we can relate to.

So, at this point, we're maybe 90 seconds into a series with an anti-hero and already the writer has given us five or six reasons to like and respect Don. To identify with him emotionally. Connect with him.

Next scene. Wakes up in bed with his lover. Says, "We should get married. ... You have your own business ... What size Cadillac do you take?" She replies: "You know the rules. I don't make plans and I don't make breakfast." Hands him his watch as a signal he should get up and get out.

Now we're wondering if Don might be a romantic. If she'd agree to it, he'd marry this woman. On top of that, he's fine with women in business. in 1960. Cool. All these assumptions turn out to be false, but Don wasn't lying in this scene, he was being ironic. Seeing it again, knowing all we know about Don after the first season, I think when he says "we should get married," to Midge, he isn't being romantic at all, but a making a wish for a different life because of the unhappiness and emptiness caused by living a lie. Midge is an escape. He doesn't have to feel badly that she knows nothing about him, because she doesn't want to know much about him. But -- big but -- at this point, we don't know any of this, so the writer is giving us more reasons to empathize with Don. Poor guy is in love with a woman who won't commit and has other lovers. And he's generous. He offered her a Cadillac, even if it was jokingly.

We're thinking Don's a pretty good guy. And we're maybe only 3 minutes into the series.

Then we start to meet the other characters and learn what pigs most of the men are and how badly they treat the women and Don starts to look even better by comparison. (Even the clearly closeted gay man does his best to sexually harass and insult the women. But Don mostly abstains and actually defends Peggy.)

After all this, by the time the negative stuff starts to come out about Don's character, we're already pretty invested in him and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. When he makes anti-semitic remarks we think, "Yes, but it's a sign of the times, plus he was nice to the black man and respects women." Two out of three ain't bad. ;-)
Then he insults a woman when she dares to question him, and says: "I'm not going to let a woman talk to me like this," before storming out on a female client. We're shocked, sure, but since we'd already decided he was a good guy in the first 2-3 minutes of the episode, we see these negative traits as complexities, not reasons to think he's a villain rather than a hero. When we learn he's a total cynic about love, we wonder, "Why does he feel that way? How was he hurt?" instead of hating him for it and thinking he's a jerk. When he's clearly sad when describing how advertising is all about happiness, we care and are curious about what's causing him pain.

And then, at the end of the episode... he goes home to his wife. Big reveal. He's married. A big-time cheater. But then even this blow is softened, because he loves his kids. And he loves his wife. And his wife loves him. And he's a good provider. We see all that in a tender 30 second scene when he gets home. (In future episodes, when we get to know his wife better, we realize everything wasn't as rosy as it seemed in that scene... but the writer is smart about that. Paints a pretty picture of his home life to start with.)

Do we hate him at the end of this first episode? Hard to say. Some people will. I didn't.
But I also think that, love him or hate him, most people by the end of this first episode are captivated by Don Draper. Fascinated. Drawn in to a complex character who just gets more and more complex as the series continues.

Stellar writing. Stellar acting. I see more in this opening episode each time I watch it. And I'm starting to think it's a master class in introducing dark heroes.

Is Don a dark hero, as in a murderer or rapist? Well no. (At least based on what we know in the first season.) But he is -- without giving any spoilers, for those of you who need to catch up and watch season one -- a bit of a scum bucket. Okay, maybe not a scum bucket. Just deeply wounded. See? I'm so invested I can't even call him a bad name.

I was totally drawn into his story. I think a good part of this is because of those masterful first scenes, those two minutes of screen time that made him emotionally identifiable to me and showed me his positive traits before revealing all the bad stuff.

(Now I want to go back and rewrite the first scene of my new book for the 60th time...)

Does reading fiction make you a better person?

According to an article in Psychology Today, "frequent readers of narrative fiction scored higher on tests of empathy and social acumen than did readers of expository nonfiction."

The article goes on to say that a follow up study showed that starting to read fiction could actually hone those skills... answering the chicken and egg question. (That is, do empathetic people read more fiction or does reading fiction help make you empathetic.)

This seemed pretty obvious to me -- at least after I'd read it. I know one of the main reasons I love reading fiction is to understand better how other people think, to walk in someone else's shoes for a while, to, through understanding and exploring the emotions and experiences of others -- even fictional others -- understand better how I feel/act/react to the world.

A doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, Raymond Mar, was the lead researcher on both studies. Yay, Ray. My new hero. He is quoted in the article I read as saying, "Stories often force us to empathize with characters who are quite different from us, and this ability could help us better understand the many kinds of people we come across in the real world."

I think this really sums up what I most enjoy about reading or basically any kind of story. (Frequent readers of this blog and my own, will know I see the occasional movie and watch just a tiny bit of television, in addition to reading. LOL.) I think statement also explains why I enjoy character driven movies and stories the best. I was talking the other week to my fellow drunk writers about how even the most theoretically fast paced film (like 300) can totally bore me, (okay, I wasn't that bored looking at those buff naked men) while theoretically slower paced films like Short Cuts or The Station Agent (just two that came to mind at this instant) can hold my attention, such that the time flies by.

A sidebar article in Psychology Today compares the reading habits of men and women and what kinds of books they list as ones which helped to shape their lives. This was interesting, too...

It got me thinking about what books have helped shape my life. I haven't thought about it long enough to come up with a definitive list, but I know of two for sure.

Okay, slightly more than 2 because one is a trilogy.
First, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies: Fifth Business, The Manticore and World of Wonders. Reading these 3 books as a young adult (many Canadians read Fifth Business in high school. I didn't) I made some decisions about how I felt about organized religion, about Jungian psychology, and I developed a deeper understanding of how events like the depression and WWII affected the world. I also think I got a stronger appreciation for being a Canadian, a stronger feeling of my identity as a Canadian through Robertson Davies' books.

The other book I instantly thought of was The Cider House Rules by John Irving, who, incidentally, was mentored and greatly influenced by Robertson Davies. This book helped me decide how I feel about many things, abortion in particular, but also about social disobedience and how sometimes it can be better and braver to follow your conscience regardless of "the rules". Or at least to question the rules.

Remembering how the Deptford Trilogy helped me make some conclusions about religion made me think of a movie that was pivotal for me... The Mission. Now Molly and I disagree about this movie. It's one of my absolute favorites and she think's it's flawed. But I was a different person after I saw that movie. It made me see how even with the best intentions, people can do so much harm to each other. (Plus it was the first time I ever set eyes on Liam Neeson and that changed my life, too. LOL)

What books have been pivotal in your life?

All Hail The Sopranos! Or why this week is the best week of television EVER!!!

A few years ago I was living in a vegetarian nudist house in California (oh! I wish I was kidding) and I didn't have a TV. I was a little smug about it too -- so much so that when friends gave my husband and I a very nice TV for our wedding I was sort of a superior pain in the ass about it. I thought we'd never talk. Never drink wine and play big games of Scrabble. And if I could go back in time and tell myself one thing (besides to put all of our money on that Boston Red Sox World Championship a few years ago) it would be to shut up about the TV - because all those games of Scrabble we didn't play are a worthy worthy sacrifice to the TV Gods for this one week of Television.

Last night was the return of the best Sociopath to ever grace the small screen - Tony Soprano and the even more delightful return of the obsessive ecumenical spazz - Ari Gold from Entourage. And if that wasn't enough - and it is frankly - it's enough - this week is the season finale of...Friday Night Lights. Oh! The bliss.

Last nights return of Soprano's was the best reminder of what makes that show great. The violence, the delicious nearly torturous tension, the crazy juxtaposition of what this man is and what he wants and how he lives.

What I love about this show and what is coming to fruition this year is that they take their time. This is a character driven show in which a raised eyebrow and a sideways look at a noisy bird is just as much a plot point as a bullet in that poor ex-husband's brain and the ripped shirt the killer leaves behind!

Long conversations take place - and the dialogue doesn't really matter. I'm talking about that scene between Tony and his brother in law, Bobby in the boat - it doesn't matter what's being said - the pacing of the scene, the so telling non verbals - put it all out there. This is a monster at rest, fishing with a good man who would love to not be in the business. But the writers aren't just showing us a quiet moment in this man's life - it's also ratcheting up the tension because anything can happen in this show. Tony could lose it on his brother in law, another boat could come by and kill them all. Tony could have a heart attack. Anything. And we know because the writers of this show reward it's watchers that no moment of peace for this guy goes unpunished - either by his own hand or someone elses. So - it's this nice scene - two guys fishing and my husband and I were biting our nails from the torment.

So when the next scene of relaxation - Tony, Carmela, Janice (Tony's sister) and Bobby are sitting around drinking playing cards - we know, we just know it's a powder keg. And they lay the foundation for the scene so beautifully. So, tellingly. Bobby gets mad at the Sopranos. Carmela gets mad at Tony. Janice gets mad at her brother. And then...Tony starts getting mad.

Now, I love Friday Night Lights but I realized watching this show why Network Television will NEVER get close to the unbelievable storytelling that cable shows do. The writers (maybe the producers not sure how it works) are scared to trust the viewer to follow a character driven (to this magnitude) show. Sure, House is a character driven show - but good god it's running off the rails. And frankly - what does it compare to Dexter? Lost was totally in that first season a delicious character driven show. But now it's all plot. It's all explosions and secrets and we've stopped caring because we don't care about who is getting hurt. Friday Night Lights is falling into this trap too - turning the story around and around with more and bigger events. But I'm still in.

Thank God we've got a TV.

No follow-through

The other day, I started thinking about great ideas with no follow through.

The Showcase channel in Canada has started screening Huff, which I already watched when it was on the The Movie Network, a couple of years ago. (At the same time it was on whichever US channel, Showtime?, US originally screened it.)

Watching this series again from the beginning, I was reminded of the homeless Hungarian character who was in most of the first season's episodes... at least the first half of the first season.

And it made me think... If you bring an element into a story that's cool or interesting or mystical or different, I think you need to follow through on it. If you just drop it, the audience/reader will be left feeling unsatisfied at best, annoyed at worst. The defection of fans from Lost comes to mind. (Me? I'm still hoping the Lost writers know what the hell is going on and what that black smoke is and why some people are on the list and why some aren't and why Locke can walk on the island. But I admit I'm very naive when it comes to Lost. Who thinks those burried alive people this week will live?)

With Huff, for me, the dropped thread was the Hungarian. I don't know if any of you watched or are watching this show, but I was originally so impressed with it, especially during the first season. Talk about your interesting characters.
A psychiastrist who's basically a really good guy but who's going through a bit of a mid-life and career crisis.
His mother, brilliantly played by Blythe Danner, who gives new meaning to controlling and manipulative.
His wife who tries to be supportive but is pushed the breaking point by Huff's crises, by Huff's mother and by her own problems.
His best friend, played by Oliver Platt, who's a drug-addicted-prostitute-using-brilliantly-successful attorney.
And the lawyer's very cool admin assistant. Love the relationship between Russell and Maggie.

And that's not even touching on Huff's patient characters.

But the Hungarian... In the first few episodes he showed up at some point during each show asking Huff for help and then disappearing in such a way that it was absolutely obvious to the viewer that the Hungarian wasn't real, that he was in Huff's mind, but somehow Huff, the psychiatrist, never seems to figure this out. The Hungarian was a device, I assume, to symbolize Huff's inner turmoil, to help show how Huff is questioning who he is and whether or not he's a good person and whether he's really actually helping any of his patients...

But then the Hungarian just disappears, or rather stops appearing in the episodes.

One must assume that the writers no longer found him a very interesting device or something, because I don't really remember any trigger for him not being there anymore. This made the Hungarian a very unsatisfying literary device, for me anyway. Speaking of unsatisfying... The final episode of Huff was pretty unsatisfying, too... but I have more trouble blaming the writers for that, because this series was cancelled prematurely not allowing the writers to wrap up all the characters' stories properly.

Anyone else watch Huff? Anyone have any different ideas about the Hungarian? Why he was there and why he disappeared??? Was there a trigger or change in Huff that I missed? Or did I miss the connection?

It's Write, not Right!

No, this isn't a post about spelling or diction... it's a post about the highly subjective nature of writing and storytelling.

I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about writing contests recently. Not because I'm entering any right now, but because I'm involved in my local RWA Chapter's contest, to a certain extent. And debating about how much detail the score sheet should have, how specific the questions should be, has got me all fired up.

Writing is an art, not a science. Sure, like any form of art, there are techniques. There are basics to be mastered, skills to be learned. But like art, writing and storytelling would not exist or be so popular, or stimulate so many people's minds and hearts, if everyone painted, drew, sculpted, constructed a chapter, told a story in the same way. Similarly there's no right answer to whether a piece of art or a particular story is "good". What one person loves, the next will hate. It's subjective.

In art schools, budding artists learn by first drawing and painting mundane things, all in the same manner using the same media. They start with cylinders, balls, cones and other shapes, first with pencil, then charcoal, then conte or ink, then paint (if they are painters) or clay (if they are sculptors). Then they move onto apples, oranges and pears (an art school favorite). Then onto more complex still life compositions and then the human form.

After this, in most art programs, the students learn to imitate. They copy the old masters, the impressionists, the great modern artists. They learn techniques by studying and imitating the artists who have gone before them.

But then? After those skills are mastered? Artists are expected to forget all that. No, not to forget, to put all those skills and techniques in a toolbox and start creating art in an entirely new way--their own original way. Being derivative isn't rewarded, even in more commercial areas of art. What everyone loves and rewards and gets excited about, is someone who does something different and interesting. Whether something is "good" or not is entirely up to the viewer of the art. In fact, whether or not it's original versus derivative is also up to the viewer. It's entirely subjective.

I believe that all these things hold true with writing. Even genre writing. Writers learn the basic building blocks of sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters, acts, novels. They learn about careful word choice, avoiding redundancy, clean writing, the advantages of using an active voice and when they might use a passive voice for effect. They study other writers and perhaps do some imitation at first. They learn other skills of storytelling like escalating conflict and point of view and managing the release of information to create the desired emotions and experiences for the reader. They study theories, developed by those who've analyzed storytelling, like "The Hero's Journey" and "Goal, Motivation, Conflict" and "Three Act Plotting".

But how to best use these skills once they are learned? Entirely subjective. If it weren't. If there were one way to do these things, then reading -- particularly reading more than one book within a given genre -- would be hopelessly boring for the reader. Readers don't notice the writer's technique, unless it's dreadfully poorly executed. (Occasionally, if the story's great, they don't even notice when it's poorly executed -- evidence that little religious thriller that did pretty well a few years ago.) Readers know when they are drawn into a story, when they are pulled along so they can't put the book down. When they are entertained.

Now I completely agree that genres have conventions and this is particularly true in the romance genre. Romance readers know what they like.

That said. Romance readers are the most voracious flavour of reader on the planet. Romance accounts for over 50% of all paperbacks sold and I've met countless readers, since I began my association with RWA, who read a book a day, minimum.

Now if all those books were executed in exactly the same way. If all the events unfolded exactly as expected and in the same order. If all the characters behaved predictably, the same way they behaved in every other book... Wouldn't readers get bored??? Of course they would. That's why the common claim that romances have a "formula" irks romance writers and readers alike. Sure there's technique involved. Great writers in the genre have developed ways to maximize the reader's enjoyment and there's much to be learned by studying those techniques. Sure there are conventions like happy endings. But there isn't a "formula" and there aren't "rules" and even for the most ingrained conventions like happy endings, there are highly successful exceptions.

I've been to a lot of writers conferences over the past 2-3 years. Too many, some may argue. But as a result, I've probably heard no less than 30 different editors and probably double as many agents discuss what they're looking for and the most common mistakes/problems they see in submissions.

What is it? It's that the writing is boring. That it lacks spark. That the story is too derivative of others already published. Too cliche. When writers ask editors, "What are you looking for?" The most common answer is, "A good story." When writers ask, "What's the next big trend coming along?" Most editors answer, "You tell us. You're the writers. You're the creative ones, the ones inventing the characters and unique story lines."

So, back to contests and score sheets... With all this inherent subjectivity, with editors wanting something "different", how is it even remotely possible to create a score sheet that can judge precisely, without bias, some one's storytelling and proclaim whether or not they did it "right"? One person's "right" is another person's "wrong".

One of the biggest challenges in running a contest is that, not only the entrants, but also the judges will be at different skill levels, different places along their journey to becoming great (or even good) writers. Some entrants will still be at the learning the mechanics stage. Some judges will still be learning to recognize whether or not the mechanics were properly applied. Some judges will be stuck at some point in the past, thinking the best practices when they were learning are still the best practices now.

But with any luck some entrants will be very close to publication. Some entrants may have moved beyond the mechanics stage and onto manipulating the tools in their toolbox in their own unique ways. To me, the most important goal of a contest is to maximize the chances that those entries which will be of most interest to the editors, the ones closest to publication, are the ones which final. Second to that, is for the judges to provide excellent and useful feedback for the entrants, so that, no matter which stage they're at, entrants learn something to help them move on to the next stage. That's where it becomes extra-difficult, because some judges will be less experienced than some entrants... but that's one of the foibles/realities of peer judged contests. You pay your entry fee and roll the dice hoping at least one judge who looks at your work knows more than you and/or will have something useful to tell you or will simply give you a great score. And lets face it. Even if all the judges were agents and editors, anyone who's submitted knows that even agents and editors can't agree on what's "good". But they can usually agree on which entries don't have the basics down.

So we can judge the basics. Does the writer understand "show don't tell", do they know how to use POV effectively. How's their use of grammar, their spelling? Is the storytelling gripping? If it isn't gripping, why? Is there no conflict? No emotion? No setting? Too much of any of the above? Is the dialogue stilted or artificial? Are the characters flat or stereotyped? There are lots of things that could be "wrong" if a story doesn't grip us. (Including personal bias...)

But if the story is gripping. If a judge picks up the pages and reads them straight through and wishes there were more to read... who the fuck cares whether the external or internal conflict is resolved first, or whether the heroine uses her sense of smell, or whether there's chemistry the first time the hero and heroine meet or whether, in the first chapter, the reader can fully understand all the reasons behind each characters' actions?

Bottom line. There is no one way to write a story, even a genre specific story. Because of this, it's impossible, and in my opinion wrong-headed, to try to create a scoring system to pretend differently.

Right and write may be homonyms, but they they have entirely different meanings.

The Secret

A few weeks ago I finally used up a gift certificate I'd been given to a swanky downtown spa. I got a sitter, a fancy coffee and settled in for a manicure, pedicure and a facial. About ten minutes into my relaxing day all about me -- in fact just after I had said the words "how are you?" to the woman providing me with all this relaxation and I'm Not A Waitress toenails - she opened her mouth and spent the next three and a half hours burying me in her horrible life story. Horrible. Little girl dying. Husband leaving. Boyfriend lying. No money. etc.... great -- very relaxing. And then at the end she asks me if I've read The Secret. I haven't -- but I've seen it's cover on Amazon and I thought it looked like a fantastic historical romance and was waiting for Sinead to read it and tell me if I should. So, this lovely woman who has spent three hours talking non-stop about terrible things to me, a stranger, tells me that this book is about putting positive things out in the universe so positive things will come back to her.

She told me in a very honest way that that's what she was doing. She was putting positive energy out there to get positive things in return. I stared at her dumbfounded and told her I had to leave before she finished the facial. I did, however, give her a good tip - but I will NEVER go back.

Anyway - what does this have to do with writing? I think as a profession writing breeds in writers a black hole of negativity. The rejection, the wait time, the constant publication of books you don't think are as good as yours, the dealing with people and personalities that are constantly rude, combative or over-sensitive. This is a tough job and it can wear on us and make the kindest of us turn into !$%holes. And lately, I've been a big one. I've felt miserly and mean-spirited and closeminded - which let me tell you is no state of mind for writing romance novels or novels of any kind. As corny as this is going to sound and I can't beleive I'm writing it but writing is really at it's foundation about sharing. Points of view, entertainment, thoughts on the world, a good laugh, a voracious thrill -- you get the point. And trying to get all that done from a dark little corner of self-obsession and disappointment does not work.

However, I didn't really realize I was in that place until this weekend. Toronto Romance Writers had it's annual critique group meeting -- writers bring in five pages of thier work to be critiqued by a published member of the group and a selection of their peers. I don't need to tell you that this can be awful -- the peers can be cruel, the writer can be combative or obtuse or overly sensitive and I can say the wrong thing and watch the writer crumple a little bit. It's always a crap shoot -- but not this year. NEVER have I had such a group of kind professionals. And watching these people be kind and generous to each other reminded me that I want to be kind and generous, too. In general. In my career.

So last night I met a college student writing a paper on romance novels for a coffee. I was a journalism student once too - and I remember how grateful I was when someone would actually talk to me. And she was grateful and I tried a Vanilla Creme at Starbucks -- win win.

So, this long point to this rambling post is -- I'm shaking it off. The crappy attitude. The overly-critical outlook. And I'm working towards kind and generous. I feel better already.

But really? That picture of Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent -- yikes!!!

Endings

Been thinking about this for a while as I approach the end of my current WIP.

Thought about it even more as I watched House last night. First, I want to declare my everlasting love for Hugh Laurie. The infatuation started in Sense and Sensibility. He had a small role, but I loved him in that movie. You can definitely see the genesis of the House character there.

Back to the point. House needs to end. I love the character, love the actor, but the show seems to have exhausted what they can do with him and his cottages, as Television without pity calls the three doctors under him.

Last night (spoiler alert) they introduced the idea that House might be dying and you know what, I liked it. And much to my dismay they crapped out on the concept.
Cowards!
It would have been a great way to end the show, on their terms, lots of dramatic possibility and then the show ends before it gets derivative and boring.
For examples, see Friends, and as much as I hate to admit it, even Buffy. The last two seasons of those shows were never as strong as the first few for me.

You can see it in other shows, an amazing concept that the writers never planned to last past one season. Prison Break, Lost, even at times, my absolute fav, Battlestar Galactica, although that last one has serious flashes of brilliance in it’s third season.

With the upcoming Harry Potter 7th book, I think, even though she needed to be edited more over the past two books, that Rowling made a smart choice limiting the series to seven. She said it from the beginning and I really hope she sticks to it.

Even within stand alone books, I find endings to be a serious problem sometimes. Authors extend the endings, tack on suspense plots in the last third, misunderstandings or long, long scenes that add nothing to the plot, just to get to 400 pages, when realistically the book should have ended 100 pages sooner and been so much stronger for it.

But endings are tough for me. They’re the hardest part of the book for me to write and I tend to rush them.

And now, it’s time to end this blog entry…. before I ramble on aimlessly any more.

Genre Fiction vs Literary Fiction...

I don’t have many more interesting things to say about the Oscars. I love them for the pomp, pretty dresses and the annual pat on the back for an industry who really doesn’t need any more pats on the back.

But I also know they don’t usually give the Oscar to the best picture of the year. The best example I can think of this is when Forrest Gump beat out Pulp Fiction for best picture. Or Roberto Benigni beating out Edward Norton for best actor. Sometimes the choices haven’t made sense to me. But, it's all subjective.

I have no literary aspirations, none. I’m interested solely in telling entertaining, engrossing stories and in my over simplistic approach, that’s how I assess everything. To me the best in literary fiction and in genre fiction tells a fascinating story with engrossing characters.

Books like the Poisonwood Bible, Fall on Your Knees, The Lovely Bones and so many more I could list, all tell amazing stories. The best in genre fiction, be it Stephen King, Michael Connelly or Susan Elizabeth Phillips, also all tell amazing stories, and hey look, they’re bestsellers.

I’m sure there are some wonderful literary authors who write incredible books who toil in mid list obscurity, as well as some amazing genre authors, but great stories connect with a wide range of people and subsequently sell a lot of books.

So to the literary author who grouses they don’t get the sales or publicity of a Stephen King, I say write a better story.

Simple, but that's what genre writers know, that perhaps Literary authors are still trying to figure out..

Storytelling Trumps Everything…

I and my fellow Drunk Writers have a few rants we enjoy when out for a night enjoying our beverages of choice.

My personal favorite, and one Molly and Maureen are bored to tears with, is great story telling trumps everything.
To me, specifically in books, great storytelling trumps clumsy or uninspired prose, clunky dialogue and even spelling mistakes.

I judge a couple of contests a year, and always find them interesting, partly to know what editors are receiving and partly to know what other authors are writing.

To me a contest entry works if the story engages me. Again, crazy simple, but we’ve talked about the many rules there seem to be out there. I judge other people’s work by my basic rule. Am I entertained while reading this?

Now I know this is a subjective thing. But I’ll read something that is polished to perfection, prose is lovely, not a comma misplaced, but the story itself is derivative, dull and the pacing is usually dead slow.
I’ll read something else where the story is fascinating, great characters, questions are raised and I’m dying to find out the answers, and I don’t care if there are a few spelling errors, misplaced commas, or anything else that doesn’t draw me from the story.
I’ll always give the better story the highest marks.
And then the list of winners comes out, and the dull, perfect prose story is on the list of finalists, and my fav - nowhere to be seen.

We should praise perfection, we should honor polished -- but at the expense of storytelling?

Is this why so many editors say they have little luck finding new authors on the contest circuit? I’m beginning to think so.

This isn’t meant as an insult to anyone who is finaling in contests. One of my critique partners has an excellent track record on the contest circuit, and her books are great examples of wonderful storytelling.

But I think of the amazing entries I’ve read that haven’t finaled, and I really hope those authors don’t get discouraged. Because sometimes great storytelling breaks rules, creates characters that stray from our idea of what’s acceptable in a hero or heroine, asks questions that aren’t easily answered and doesn’t immediately tell the reader everything that’s at stake for the protagonist.
Tough to judge in a first chapter contest.

And possibly great storytelling is polarizing. Some people will love it and others will hate it..

I’ll know I’ll love probably love it.

More advice

A funny thing has happened to me over the past couple of years. I’ve always loved writing, but could never really understand what exactly it was about it that made me tick. I now understand it. It’s storytelling. Pretty straightforward and simple answer that should be pretty obvious, but hey, sometimes these things take a while to get through my skull.

What came of that knowledge is a love for all story telling, books, movies, TV, any and all forms that tell a great story, and a need to understand how.

How did they make that so compelling that I forgot to critique and just sat back and enjoyed.

This takes up 80% of Drunk writer talk, Molly, Maureen and I discussing our favourite books/TV/movies and trying to understand what made them great. And what made things not work, because sometimes more light bulbs go off when you figure out where the storyteller went wrong.

Something I’m sure a lot of writers do on a regular basis. You learn to see your own work in a critical light, but others as well, and I can’t shut down that internal editor.

But the great things about these discussions, is that as many times as we agree, we also disagree. Again, nothing earth shattering here, either.

What I’ve figured out, is what I like best in storytelling. The elements that make me excited. Bringing this back to what my fellow drunk writers have blogged about this week. There is so much advice out there, and a lot of it good, and a lot based on what others love in story telling. Hell, we’ve given enough out on this blog.

But the crux is, I didn’t really learn what works best for me, until I sat down and really analyzed what I loved about the books, moves and TV shows that enthralled me. Me. This is really personal to each writer. Knowing what I loved, I could apply it to my work, even if it went against the general rules of writing we hear so much about.
In many ways, this is how I’ve found my voice, and will hopefully create stories that are unique to me.

So when trying to figure out what beginnings work best for me, or what character arcs, or plot developments, pacing, prose, I read the books I loved and pulled out all the common elements and came up with a blueprint that was remarkably similar to the kind of book I wanted to write.

There’s a big difference between wanting to write a certain type of book and actually managing to write it, but I have something to work towards. I also know I couldn’t have figured this out if I hadn’t at least a couple of books under my belt, but again, some people catch on much faster.

But it helped a lot, and it was kind of fun to do.

Some talk on beginnings...

I gave a workshop on Saturday at the Toronto Romance Writers on Great Beginnings. And I thought I would sort of hit the highlights of that workshop in this blog and then I promise to have more comprehensive notes on my website sometime before Mick goes to college.

First, I think and have always thought and probably will always think that the beginning of the novel is the hardest part of the novel writing process. There is so much resting on those first few pages. Not only do you have to introduce theme and character and plot and goals and motivations and be funny or scary or suspenseful or clever, but you also have to do all those things so that the reader can't tell you're doing it-- very difficult.

I have been a reader far longer than I have been a writer and if there is one thing I've learned as a READER it's that the best storytelling happens outside of expectation - when I can't see it coming. And I think RWA and all helpful rules and guidelines we pick up at the numerous workshops conferences and on line courses CREATE expectation. If we are all following "the rules" we're all writing the same book!

I think we need to step back from those small nit picky guidelines and rules that we've been taught and remember that good storytelling is about engaging the reader with questions. Books become page turners because the reader is dying to know the answers to questions that the writer controls and manipulates. It's really very simple - at the beginning of our books we want our readers to be asking PLOT questions - what is going to happen next? and CHARACTER questions - who are these people? and BACKSTORY questions why are they behaving this way?

The more specific the questions and the more immediate the question the better. Will she get the promotion? Will he get out alive? Will he speak up for himself? Will she leave her husband? Will she kill her husband? Will she make out with the cute guy at the bar? Will she get out of bed?

The goal is to make every question -- even the silly or frivolous fraught with tension and stakes. Remember the great Jenny Cruise book when the heroine is on the phone with her friend and trying to get that frozen brownie out of the pan -- it's a life or death battle for that brownie. If you are showing your character late for work and she's NEVER late for work and she's an aggressive woman with control issues - that morning commute has to be akin to the Battle of Hastings.

All too often books start with conversations - where in one character tells the other character what they already know for the readers benefit - but it's all about all the things going wrong and what's happened since Dad died/they lost their job/they got divorced/their husband cheated on them etc... there's no tension there. There's information - but I'm not asking questions because the writer is answering them before I can ask them. In two words - no conflict.

Now - some of those rules we've all been told - don't show ordinary world, start with a hook, the hero and heroine must meet in the first chapter, show don't tell, start with action and dialogue. And even more the list I have created for myself over the years of things I don't want to do in my books - you know, bob dialogue, repetition of theme, conflict and goal, lazy writing, misleading my reader - those rules become TOOLS for creating those reader questions and conflict.

I think one of the problems I have with a lot of romances these days is that many writers are lazy on the small scenes - the scenes that lead us to love scenes or black moments, or moments of change or groveling or happy ever after - and the key is to make those scenes as important as those big scenes by, again controlling reader questions. If every scene has to be important and a scene that the reader is DYING to read whether they know it or not - it is doubly true for that opening scene.

So look at those rules you've been told and figure out which of them are tools you can use to jumpstart your opener - to get those reader's hooked and asking questions. Because that's what good storytelling does and that's what we're trying to do - tell great stories.

Great endings…

My topic today is great endings, as opposed to happy endings, which I’m pretty sure are something dirty. (We’ll probably get a bunch of unexpected hits today, because I wrote happy endings.)

Not that I’m against endings which happen to be happy. All the books I’ve written to date have happy endings, hopeful endings if not entirely settled endings, and my two drunk writer cohorts both write in the romance genre, books which all have happily-ever-after endings. So I don’t want to talk about whether to make endings happy… I’m more interested in what makes endings great.

I’m just finishing revisions on a manuscript, trying to get it off to my agent so she’s got something else to sell. Problem is, I’m not feeling really confident about my ending and it’s got me thinking about endings in general.

I thought I’d consult my Vogler to see what he has to say on returning with the elixir and all that jazz, but for some reason I couldn’t find it today, and I think I only wanted to read it to get permission, to get some justification to end my book where I want to end it, where I always want to end my books, just as soon as everything’s resolved. (And adding to my lack of great-ending-confidence, an editor who was very interested in my last manuscript, but ultimately couldn't offer, told me she thought that book ended abruptly. It did. But I liked it that way.)

Based on all this, I know many (most?) readers like more ending than I do. They like something to come after the climax/resolution. Something that increases their confidence that everything turned out all right. They want to know the protagonist was still okay, even after coming down from the adrenaline high of surviving the climax. Not only do they want the protagonist to come down, the readers want time to calm down and absorb. This all makes sense to me. I know I need to push my stories just a bit past where I want to stop writing. I think my problem is that I know the characters will be okay... so after everything's resolved, it's just not interesting to me, anymore...

So, I’m ending challenged. Frequent DWT commenter Kimber, asked some time ago whether we’d do blog on epilogues. So, while this topic might please Kimber somewhat, it may also disappoint her. Why? Because I’m not sure I have an opinion on epilogues, per se. I think, like most things, it depends on the story. (And we've already established I'm confused about endings in general.)

I do think epilogues can tend toward the cliché. For example, a wedding scene at the end of a romance, or a scene with the couple and their kids a few years later. Now, full disclosure, I’ve written scenes like that… but I guess those epilogues in a romance have become cliché because they've been written so many times, and they've been written so many times because they work, because they’re satisfying to readers.

But I fear I've drifted off topic. I wanted to talk about what's driving me nuts right now... Here I go. It's my ending. My ending is boring and I think it probably tells rather than shows. Also, in the current draft, it includes an "insight" I ended up putting earlier in the book, and I do think it works better where it’s ended up, so to avoid redundancy, my ending will not only be boring and badly written it will also be insightless (if that were a word).

This weekend, I came up with a new final scene idea (not written yet) to let my protagonist return with her elixir. But, what is this planned scene I'm thinking of tacking on? Get ready for it, it’s a wedding scene. It does, however, have a twist… Not the protagonist's wedding, someone elses -- but still I feel it might be too corny and cliché.

How about you? Once the conflict’s resolved and the protagonist has demonstrated they’ve changed… Do you want more? Do you want the story wrapped up in a pretty bow? What makes a great ending for you? Help me. Please.

Slowly, slowly figuring it out

Molly posed a great question at the beginning of the week. What kind of a writer do we want to be?

Timely, as this was one of the subjects of a recent bout of drunk writer talk. Knowing what kind of a writer we want to be, doesn’t mean we have to tie ourselves down to a particular genre, but I think it might really help identify our strengths and find stories that play to those strengths.
Although we probably already do that already, without even thinking about it.

I want to write fast paced, tense, plot heavy books. I already try to do that, but recently I realized that more than anything I want to take my reader on a journey where I manage to surprise them more than once, reverse their expectations, and make them not want to put the book down.

I don’t think I’m ever going to be the kind of writer who brings a tear to a reader’s eye, and I’m OK with that. (The seven step program is working)

The TV equivalent of the books I want to write -well 24 and Battlestar come immediately to mind, mostly for their amazing plotting and their ability to constantly leave me guessing about what is happening. I aspire to that level of excellence, minus the gadgets.

It took me a while to figure all this out. I think I can say the same thing for Molly and Maureen. It took figuring out my voice and writing a few books, before I knew for sure what I was trying to do.

What does it mean going forward? I know the kind of books I want to write, and I think they play to my strengths as a writer, the stuff that comes easily. Well, along with that I have to acknowledge my weaknesses and continue to work on them.
I hate the small scenes, the emotional scenes, the scenes that add that wonderful relevance and sense of emotional connection that if done well, elevate a suspense novel to a really good suspense novel. They are hell for me to write. The scenes both Molly and Maureen seem to write effortlessly are the ones I struggle over.

The really great writers combine everything. Characters we can relate to, amazing plotting and those scenes that make you sigh and bring a tear to your eye.

So what kind of a writer do I want to be?

I want to be a constant work in progress. I want to know that while I do some things really well, that I’m getting better at the other things.

But I’m pretty sure I’m not along in wanting to be a better writer.