tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9956467167178741762024-03-12T19:14:33.097-04:00Disturbed GravesWriting, Art, and The Paranormal. Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-79588015783375360702020-06-27T10:57:00.000-04:002020-06-27T10:57:06.980-04:00The Last of Us 2 -- My Final Thoughts *SPOILERS*<br />
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Okay! So, I have thought a lot about it (obsessed), and I <i>think</i> I get
what The Last of Us 2 was going for. I am still going to maintain that it’s not the game we wanted. HOWEVER, it
was kinda brilliant and I deeply respect what they have created here.</div>
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AMBIGUOUS SPOILERS AHEAD<o:p></o:p></div>
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We spend the entire first game killing people like they are…well…video
game characters. We never once pause to think about the nameless NPCs we’re
mowing down to get to the climax, because we’re the protagonist, we’re the good
guys. Since hopping on poor defenseless Koopas in Super Mario, we have been conditioned by games to just chew through the "bad guys" and not worry about the body count. Sometimes, if there is an achievement in a game to not kill anyone, or take a pure stealth route, we'll actually care, but that is about us, not about those nameless NPCs (non-player characters). </div>
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In the beginning of TLoU2, we’re shown what it feels like to NOT be the
protagonist, the hero of the story, but rather, just one of those pixel-people in the
way of someone else’s climax. And we hates it!</div>
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We hate it so much we don’t even
acknowledge it; it doesn't register that maybe this isn't <i>our</i> story as we head off on our quest for revenge, killing even <i>more</i> pixel-people
without a care for who they are or what their story is. </div>
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But this time they aren't nameless.</div>
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If you stand around in stealth long enough, you can hear the NPCs talking with each other about their own stories and lives. They got things going on! A lot of them just seem anxious to get home for dinner before the maniac slowly picking them all off (YOU) gets them. You kill a character in TLoU2, and some friend of theirs will happen
across their body and mourn them, assuming you give the friend time before you kill
them as well. You hear random names called out all through the game as you take
characters out, including the DOGS.</div>
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Like Bear. I killed BEAR! OMG he looked like an
overgrown corgi, and I demolished him with a hammer!</div>
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(RIP Bear. All he wanted was to play a little fetch with my liver...😔)</div>
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So we go all the way through this game, actively making the
very point for Naughty Dog, and so many of us are so freakin’ self absorbed that
even once it gets spelled at the end, we’re still pissed because…we’re the
hero, dang it!</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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But, we’re not.<br />
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There are no heroes here, as in real life, just different points of view.<br />
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The world (especially in TLoU2) does not revolve around us. We could be,
and likely are, all the villain in someone else’s story. <o:p></o:p><br />
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Honestly, it’s like a brutal lesson in empathy, which…given
how crap the world is right now, is probably needed, and yet, for those of us
who just wanted to take a break from all the bad and play a game with characters
we loved, totally unwanted. I know I was personally looking for a little relief, and given I don't get to spend much money or time on entertainment, I was initially very disappointed.<br />
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Even now that I understand what they were doing the whole time, and why they made the choices they did, I am still a little let down. All this moral baggage put on the player is rough, especially given that the player gets no real chance to sway any of those decisions, to make the wrong choices for themselves—there is no real
choice throughout the game. That makes it feel like we’re being punished for decisions
we have no control over, sort of that Naughty Dog assumes we’re <i>all</i> bad guys
and so we all need the same lesson—<br />
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Wait a minute! Did we just get made into
NPCs? LOL Guess we should just be glad Devs didn’t ring our doorbell and throw
a brick or soda bottle in our face, huh?<o:p></o:p><br />
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So, final thoughts...<o:p></o:p><br />
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In terms of entertainment, the story still gets lower marks
from me (4/10), just in that it seemed the story wasn’t even intended to entertain
(that’s what the gameplay is for—to distract you from the Jedi mind trick). If they cared about storycraft over the gimmick of their Shyamalan POV twist, the story would have been organized differently, with less need for hackneyed flashbacks within flashbacks, and we would have legit started the game in the correct POV character.<br />
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The game play itself was beyond a 10/10. It was a beautiful game with amazing play and some of the best accessibility features I have ever seen (just in general a very inclusive experience).<br />
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In
terms of weaving something that really hits hard and makes you think…10/10. I have done little but obsess about it since the credits rolled. I would not be surprised or disappointed if it ends up game of the year.<br />
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Can’t
wait to see how they mess with my head in TLoU3!<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-19126811654152037532019-03-15T13:03:00.001-04:002019-03-15T13:03:44.692-04:00Hybrid Publishing? <br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A situation came up when dealing with a student recently, where
I realized that not everyone looking to self-publish was around for the early
wave of vanity publishers preying on inexperienced authors. The scam of
promising an author a traditional publishing experience for a fee was one even
my own mother fell for, so you would think it would always be at the forefront
of my mind. Nope, there is nothing but vast echo of “meow meow meow meow” going
on in there about 80% of the time. The other 20% is filled with exploring the
futility of existence and the inevitable heat death of the universe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The term “Hybrid Author” no longer<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> just</i> means an author who traditionally publishes as well as self
publishes. The term has been taken over by the latest iteration of vanity
presses, preying upon novice authors. What’s worse, many major, legitimate
publishing houses now use these vanity presses as the “self-publishing arm”
of their company, lending credibility to the predatory practice in exchange for
a percentage of the profits—even though we trade in art, it must never be
forgotten for a moment that a publisher’s main concern is running a business
and making profit, not filling the world with great literature. They are not
benevolent caretakers of our work and should not be trusted blindly—this is why
we read contracts and give our agents a percentage of what we make to ensure we’re
not being taken advantage of. Please be aware of what vanity presses look like
in today’s publishing landscape and don’t be fooled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Addition reading:<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2015/01/author-solutions-writers-beware.html">Author
Solutions – Writers Beware! by David Henderson</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://davidgaughran.com/2014/06/03/the-case-against-author-solutions-part-1-the-numbers/">The
Case Against Author Solutions, Part 1: The Numbers</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://justpublishingadvice.com/author-solutions-gets-the-chop-about-time/">Author
Solutions AKA AuthorHouse Gets the Chop</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://accrispin.blogspot.com/2018/01/army-of-clones-author-solutions-spawns.html">Army
of Clones: Author Solutions Spawns A Legion of Copycats</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-76616880378236889912017-10-01T09:34:00.000-04:002018-05-02T16:14:52.142-04:00Damien Graves -- Guest Post -- Hineni<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLnFJs7Nzg8U3fUVPRSXXY8pEcfYBvDtytPY12nUGfPcUYrTTo_jgd7xTZZ39akoXt-CHe_UA5kkFMHt-Qbhm1q8MJX6Tsxbj0K3zLt4ODPDV6D2-kjbd6FwZ0-QSpDZgIbw2WaZ5dNYJ/s1600/75987_4879933442591_1276133948_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLnFJs7Nzg8U3fUVPRSXXY8pEcfYBvDtytPY12nUGfPcUYrTTo_jgd7xTZZ39akoXt-CHe_UA5kkFMHt-Qbhm1q8MJX6Tsxbj0K3zLt4ODPDV6D2-kjbd6FwZ0-QSpDZgIbw2WaZ5dNYJ/s320/75987_4879933442591_1276133948_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Damien Graves here!<br /> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I haven’t yet set up a blog of my own, but as this is “Disturbed Graves” I
figure I fit here as well as anywhere. While this is my mother’s blog, I will
be doing the occasional guest blog, sharing writing exercises I have completed
and every now and again a short story.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Below is a writing
exercise I did in my Holocaust course, where we were meant to become a person
being sent on their way to the death camps of Auschwitz. My professor was very
pleased with the result of my exercise, so I wanted to share it. Now, while I
am studying the Holocaust and WWII, I am by no means claiming to be anywhere
near an expert, so if I got details wrong, I apologize. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">For your consideration, </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">D.A.Graves<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<h2 align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hineni</span></span></span></h2>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The smell that hit us
when they opened the doors of the cattle train was a physical presence—the
tang of soured bleach, old death, and defecation. Like a maw of some great
beast gaping in the darkness, its perfumed promise of sorrow swallowed us up as
we were herded as livestock into its unkind gloom.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I settled myself as well
as I could in the corner of the car, propped against a water bucket. The available
space was eaten up quickly by body after body forced into the car, packed like
maggots in a wound, with scarcely a breath of distance between us. Men with
overgrown and unkempt beards, women with tangled hair and fussy children, all
scattered the interior of the train car now. They are people. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> am people. Yet here we are, huddled
for warmth in a box made for animals to the slaughter. I prayed the train
would stop, the doors would open up, and we’d be released somewhere warm and
dry, somewhere we could begin anew. Somewhere that hope still lived. Somewhere
the children these women held might have a chance to smile again.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But I knew of the
rumors. I knew where we were going. I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">knew</i>
where we were going and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what</i> was to
come, and still I prayed. I prayed to God, as I always had done, to protect us,
to help me see it through. I prayed to God even though it seemed so long since
God had listened to any of us. God wasn’t in this place anymore. He seemed to
have turned his back, shut his eyes, or perhaps just grown so weary of the
human capacity for greed and cruelty that instead of sending flood or fire he’d
decided to let us be the device of our own destruction. Would the war leave any
who knew his name, to praise it, to raise it up with a hallelujah, or to curse
it for his apparent cold indifference?</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Would any of us on this
train even make it to our stop? Its wheels rolled on and on for an eternity,
and even in the ceaseless night within our car I could see most of us were but
fading ghosts of ourselves. Fathers’ brows furrowed with worry for their children,
daughters whimpered about the cold, mothers struggled to keep everyone together
and put on the bravest faces of all of us to calm the little ones. Would I die
when those wheels came to a halt? Or was I going to be put back to work, like
in the ghettos? Was it selfish to think of what was to come for me when so many
hollowed out and terrified faces surrounded me? Was it wrong to think of my own
fate when looking into the eyes of a cold and hungry child who had not yet
begun to live? Probably, but my fear was beyond my control now.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The train’s wheels slowed,
screeched against the rails, and eventually those doors opened once more. The
SS greeted us, harbingers of doom in snappy black uniforms. A larger officer
stepped in front of me, his boots shining. He grabbed my shoulder and shook me
hard before pushing me toward the exit. I landed awkwardly on my feet and
shuffled aimlessly for a moment, and then the officers began barking orders.
They divided us up, left and right, pushing people into different lines. I was
urged to the right; I wasn't sure why they divided us up this way, many women
and young children found themselves going left, older men, graying in hair were
also sent to the left. We were ushered toward a gate with a sign that declared
“</span><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; font-size: 12pt;">Work
Sets You Free.” We marched our way over to a building reminiscent of a
barracks, long and made of brick, gray in every sense of the word. I was forced
to undress, as we all were. I removed my scarf and coat, and more slowly my
under things; the closer I came to being completely undressed, entirely on
display, the more shame I felt. I was reluctant to part with my fragile armor, and
clutched my shirt to my chest, imagining that maybe this one strip of cloth
could spare me some dignity. It was ripped from my hands, and I was shoved,
herded along with the others to be shaved.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-image: none; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat; background-size: auto auto; font-size: 12pt;">I
shambled along my course like a creature with no mind, deaf and blind and numb
to the cries around me, to the slaughter I felt sure was to come. When I sat to
be shaved, my mind was somewhere else, somewhere green, but the putrid stench
of unwashed bodies and human waste wouldn’t let the fresh meadow in my mind persist. My hair was taken without ceremony, damn near half my scalp going with
it, making me truly as naked as the day I was born, hairless and exposed. We
were then given garments, prison uniforms, because that was what we were now. Prisoners.
Criminals.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">And now I have to ask
myself, who am I? I’d been reduced to a man in stripes with a star pinned to
his chest, my identity corrupted into something horrible, into something to be
ashamed of. At least I was not alone. None of the men here looked as they had
when we arrived, but rather the army of once unkempt men now resembled shaven
rats. My father crosses my mind then; he’d always had long hair and a beard.
Would I even recognize him if he were in the room with me now? Would he
recognize me? I hope that he is not here, that he is never here, or any place
such as this. I wouldn't want him to see me this way, and as much as I wanted
to see him and Mom again, never, ever, here. What was is now gone, and I could
not look to the past for comfort. All that was left was God’s will, and an
uncertain future, however long it might last. I would face it as bravely as a
man with no other option could be expected to. “Hineni…” I whisper. Hineni.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></span></div>
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Damien A. Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16980720222992672618noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-34019510337309912592015-04-02T16:09:00.000-04:002019-03-15T11:16:26.195-04:00Boring Dialogue and How to Fix It<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8062/8183015499_18d4f5b19d_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">As an editor, I run across boring dialogue all the time. I
consistently advise my authors to study "micro tension" and often to
look into some of Donald Maass's books where he discusses it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Good dialogue has good tension. Sometimes all that is needed
to build tension is to give your audience an expectation of a negative outcome
(they know something the characters don't or are pretending they don't), and
then delaying that outcome while often teasing its arrival. Watch a few
Tarantino films--the man knows his dialogue. Check out this scene for instance.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><u>Warning: </u></b><span style="font-size: large;">This scene is a bit graphic and the language gets offensive, NSFW. It's a Tarantino film, and that's just how he rolls.<br /></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e0ZFdiQWXTM/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e0ZFdiQWXTM?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Everyone knows that Candy knows Dr. King Schultz is playing
him. When Candy returns to the room, the audience expects Schultz to be confronted. That
doesn't happen, not immediately. Instead Candy engages the men he knows are
trying to cheat him, appearing affable, all while telling a story that grows
increasingly more threatening. The audience very quickly realizes that Schultz
knows that Candy knows, and so throughout the entire nine minute scene we're
expecting violence and a full confrontation. At multiple points it looks like
the situation is going to explode into real violence, but it's not until about
eight and a half minutes in when we're made to, for just a moment, think
Django's wife is certainly going to be killed, and yet even in this expectation
we're denied. The dialogue and interactions set up expectation, deny it, set it
up, deny it again--this is tension.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">An alternative scene that does nearly the same thing, but
isn't quite so NSFW: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://vimeo.com/86741537">Chapter 1 Inglorious Basterds</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user25128711">Escinee</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Inglourious Basterds Analysis — The Elements of Suspense</span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;">But you don't always have a gun pointed at a character's
back, and you don't always have imminent doom you can use for a scene you are
writing. When that happens, micro tension is king, but even then it works on
the same general principle of setting up expectations and then delaying them.
Every scene should have a purpose, and every character in a scene should have a
goal--what the character wants in the long run, and what the character wants
RIGHT NOW. Tension in dialogue is created when the wants/needs of one character
are at odds with the wants and needs of the other character. It can be as minor
as a man really needing his morning cup of coffee, and a barista who really
just wants the morning rush to clear out, so she can check Facebook on her
iPhone. As both of these characters stand in the way of the other's needs, and
the author delays fulfilling those needs, you create tension.</span></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-size: large;">Micro tension at its finest! </span></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Check out these links for more information on micro tension:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.novelrocket.com/2012/12/donald-maass-on-micro-tension-and.html">http://www.novelrocket.com/2012/12/donald-maass-on-micro-tension-and.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Pick a passage of dialogue. Strip it down. Increase
hostility between the speakers. It can be friendly ribbing, worried
questioning, polite disagreement, snide derision, veiled threats, open
hostility, or any other degree of friction.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://jrvogt.com/ppwc-donald-maass-on-micro-tension/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://jrvogt.com/ppwc-donald-maass-on-micro-tension/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You can add micro-tension in dialogue in two ways.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. Escalate the language. This doesn't mean tossing in a
bunch of F-bombs or otherwise. That's just trying to be edgy and failing. But
don't let characters use wussy words or vague phrasing. Make their statements
direct and strong. Use harsher, more meaningful words.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. Have the dialogue create friction. Besides the composure
of the dialogue, consider the content as well. Are people kitten footing
around the issue when they talk to each other? Get them to call each other out.
Perhaps one character uses a word the other might consider blasphemous or insulting.
Don't let them become so diplomatic (unless it's that vitriolic diplomacy where
tension is simmering below every nicety).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrJ11PuTURoMwwrlzSOy5XBlM9GXt7VvJKxp-82_H0YiNvudxwQlC7acJuGdXPsR7clbDWgSMIZ9a3BEwsXDcY-6sgQshfrRzHe-PS6Or7iRhyPBzvr3T4YGbo6OP7UMDFtGaBG9akPbg/s1600/SEPERATOR.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="51" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrJ11PuTURoMwwrlzSOy5XBlM9GXt7VvJKxp-82_H0YiNvudxwQlC7acJuGdXPsR7clbDWgSMIZ9a3BEwsXDcY-6sgQshfrRzHe-PS6Or7iRhyPBzvr3T4YGbo6OP7UMDFtGaBG9akPbg/s1600/SEPERATOR.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="http://suspensenovelist.blogspot.com/2009/09/writing-concept-micro-tension-in.html" style="font-size: x-large;">http://suspensenovelist.blogspot.com/2009/09/writing-concept-micro-tension-in.html</a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maass says earlier in the chapter: Micro-tension is easily
understood but hard to do. I know this because when teaching it in workshops I
watch participants nod in understanding when I explain it, but see them stare
helplessly at their pages when they try to do it themselves.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://justinemusk.com/2010/03/07/the-art-of-microtension-and-mystique/" target="_blank">http://justinemusk.com/2010/03/07/the-art-of-microtension-and-mystique/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dialogue becomes compelling when the two speakers are
emotionally at odds with each other: perhaps one is dubious of the other's
argument. The reader reads on, wanting to know -- needing to know -- if, at the
end of the conversation, the speakers will be reconciled.</span></div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-28153502933165177472014-10-28T19:30:00.000-04:002014-11-11T18:58:15.726-05:00Don’t blink! Authors Don’t Look Away. (Part One of My Unsolicited Advice Series)<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well, some do, and when an author blinks an angel eats their soul with spidery mandibles and coughs up a hairball of mediocre prose that gives us all a bad name. Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad, but it can take a potentially amazing work and make it blah.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As a professional editor, I've found the advice I end up giving to my authors more often than not is to get deeper into their character’s POV, and to not be afraid to type the words that make them cringe. Good writing comes from the heart. Awe inspiring comes from the gut, particularly if you’ve torn it out and drizzled it all over the paper—go there, say it, write it. The more difficult a scene feels to approach, the more important it is that you free yourself to write it.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Let the bad guys be <u>BAD</u>.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">One of the worst lit crimes I see, and I see it often, is when authors write jerks. Jerks, asses, and douche-bags get no love in most books. They may get a lot of screen time (probably not) but they don’t get the TLC of a protagonist. This is a problem, because you could have a book with really well developed protagonists,but when you pit them against their jerky rival, the scene loses balance and authenticity—it’s hard to take a hero seriously when he’s fighting a cardboard cut out of a cartoon bad guy. If you really want to make that “bad guy” believable, and the threat to the protagonist genuine, you need to employ the same sort of deep POV and characterization you use with your protagonists.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I know it feels icky and you want to distance yourself from feeling like an ass as much as possible—nobody wants to get under the skin of a character no one is supposed to like—but you will thank me for it later if you really give yourself over to it…and so will your readers. What’s the worst that could happen? A reader picks up your book and makes the mistake of thinking some part of you is just like the jerk in your story? Well, yeah, that may happen, but it’s better than the reader thinking some part of you is a cliché, mustache twirling, drama hound, right? Give yourself permission to say all the vile, awful things that little dark part of your heart has always wanted to say. Give yourself permission to slip into the shoes of your berating father, your overbearing mother, that jackass at work who doesn’t know his sexist jokes aren’t funny and spits a little when he talks. These wonderful models of terrible people in your life are not contagious—you can wear their skin for a scene and go right back to being your usual pleasant self…after you show your ass in the scene and make your protagonist really uncomfortable. Don’t hold back. Don’t parrot the words of bad guys from TV—it comes off sounding like a bad high school play—get real, get ugly, and go there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Don’t tone it down.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Don’t just give your readers what you think they can handle in terms of asshole people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Don't do that! Don't write a jerk, BE a jerk.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Don't tell yourself "I can't have them say this because...it doesn't sound like writing" or pull back because some part of you is just afraid to relive those words people have said to YOU again.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Just spill it. Let your jerk be full-on rotten.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And let him or her be inspired by the full-on rotten people in your life. It's like method acting. You channel that hateful awful person through yourself, to the keyboard. Let us see you be bad!</span></div>
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Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-7482891730375852892014-08-28T21:39:00.000-04:002019-01-31T18:02:52.290-05:00Official Apology : I’m sorry I broke Amazon<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For years I have tip-toed
around the idea of self-publishing, but for one reason or another I always talked
myself out of doing it. I finally took the plunge this weekend, and excitedly
uploaded my work to Amazon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m sorry Amazon readers.
I’m really very sorry other authors who were trying to publish their own books.
I’m sorry Amazon—I didn’t mean to break you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently what had been
running as a well-oiled, predictable machine totally forgot how to Amazon when
gunked up with my first dip into the self-pub pool. My work got stuck in queue,
under review for days when less than twelve hours was the previous norm, and I
took everyone else down with me. Self-publishing message boards everywhere were
filled with people trying to figure out
why their books weren’t being processed, what had happened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I happened.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m cursed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If I touch something, it
breaks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If I want something, it’s
gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If I love something, it
dies…or runs away screaming because it knows what’s coming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If I go “Hey, that’s the
best show ever!” it gets cancelled (Firefly is probably my fault too. Sorry
browncoats.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If I enter a crowded
room, it clears out (although that may have less to do with my luck and more to
do with an inability to censor myself for polite society).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If I join a group, a
team, a movement, it self-destructs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So yes, Amazon, and all
those affected by the great end of August slow-down of the review and publish
process, I apologize. I’ll try not to let it happen again, but as I have four
more parts to my serial to get out, I can’t make any promises.</span></div>
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Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-16878079882487492932014-02-12T20:25:00.001-05:002014-02-12T20:26:46.446-05:00Zombie Night (Review) <!--[if !mso]>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Zombie Night</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUCwpKEdeca7yi9VbQ9e8lW0tQZ5sFjO695m4t5cia6Oa0bLn0GLr1aUdSzaMil8mfBdW6Mr6HMLAngRzTfG8M2v6-EKcUBh1cANSfJB7bPOQgoQE5lcqq7TVYo2ua2iXpRnIeuhrkqE/s1600/705557-zombienight_poster_a_large.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUCwpKEdeca7yi9VbQ9e8lW0tQZ5sFjO695m4t5cia6Oa0bLn0GLr1aUdSzaMil8mfBdW6Mr6HMLAngRzTfG8M2v6-EKcUBh1cANSfJB7bPOQgoQE5lcqq7TVYo2ua2iXpRnIeuhrkqE/s1600/705557-zombienight_poster_a_large.png" height="320" width="242" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m a sucker for a good B horror flick. Toss in zombies, and
I have a hard time not at least giving the film a single watch through. Add in John
Gulager, the man behind the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Feast</i>
trilogy, and this became a must watch film. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Let me just say, this movie was no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Feast</i>. One thing I have come to expect from Gulager is characters
with a lot of bite (the puns here are unavoidable, my apologies). Characterization
in this film was shoddy at best. The plot was nonexistent, explanations for the
zombies nonexistent, decent acting over all pretty sparse, dialogue not
remotely engaging. Even for a B horror film, most of Zombie Night was pretty
disappointing, however, there were some shining moments that prove this film
could have been amazing with a little focus, investment, and editing.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>CLICK READ MORE</b><br />(Spoilers and review under cut)</div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">We’re going to start
with the good:</b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKWLilS1ShYdCTFm2A9LvragKyVkxkzlIBsaZPisZ2BWm0IMYXwPBQPmm-0hgfWWMnaMRyx2Le_-kIR3LqgIVUFpxO0rtkvwKdzsk_9kuIlQl12fbfbR0TumBuyhYq_s5uaf69G4zU3Y/s1600/oldwoman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKWLilS1ShYdCTFm2A9LvragKyVkxkzlIBsaZPisZ2BWm0IMYXwPBQPmm-0hgfWWMnaMRyx2Le_-kIR3LqgIVUFpxO0rtkvwKdzsk_9kuIlQl12fbfbR0TumBuyhYq_s5uaf69G4zU3Y/s1600/oldwoman.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a>The old, nearly blind woman, who is hysterical for most of
her part in the film, has a scene where she is left alone in the
basement. She’s terrified. She can hear noise upstairs, knows bad things are
going on all around her, but she’s stuck alone in a basement…in a zombie film. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
These are perhaps some of the most tense and emotionally
charged moments of the film. For anyone who has had an ailing parent, to think
of them alone and in the dark (she’s blind) when something like this is going
on, it hits you right in the gut. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In all the zombie
movies before it, you have to wonder, what happened to all the old people? What
happens to the parents of the hero after he moved away to start a family, only
to find himself in the middle of a zombie storyline? Who is making sure Mom doesn’t
get her throat ripped out, or your bedridden father doesn’t get slowly eaten,
entrails first, while you are busy taking care of the family you’ve made
yourself miles and miles away? This scene had the potential to be so much more
than it was, and that potential has to be recognized as a plus. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRAiwdTUBIHgOYEu6-gVfATvuRE6VkUptF546J1GPrTM4vZNZ_2QRAM_F_TSFO2UhvA4myrCqOpexOO0SfvagPjvL0yc-S7Y4rkUqeKqfHSxt7r23YHht8AoSj577nnvIQsGjInPh5JrA/s1600/alan+ruck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRAiwdTUBIHgOYEu6-gVfATvuRE6VkUptF546J1GPrTM4vZNZ_2QRAM_F_TSFO2UhvA4myrCqOpexOO0SfvagPjvL0yc-S7Y4rkUqeKqfHSxt7r23YHht8AoSj577nnvIQsGjInPh5JrA/s1600/alan+ruck.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When <b>Alan Ruck’s</b> character is explaining to his neighbors
that he can’t let them into the house, into his panic room where it is safe,
you almost forget you aren’t watching a real, quality film. Through this scene,
and the scene when his son is dying, you might end up asking yourself why is he
not the main character. You feel his emotion, his desperation, and you almost
forget the absurdity of him not allowing the neighbors in, almost forget that
this is a terribly contrived plot device to keep the main characters of the
film running for their lives outside like chickens
with their heads cut off. He does an amazing job, and as a parent I really felt for him here. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlk9_Jk-Lv3pK6hdeL_dk-m7ZKJI8YPuOTaQlnJQtvnLZUGs8f65GD5r552H6sooiPwXbdOw-Woa9JB7th3LPvaj2spOPQUJqJWBwk7xj9junveOZ309jw32YnXXMkweyv6XniPsaWgU/s1600/hannah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGlk9_Jk-Lv3pK6hdeL_dk-m7ZKJI8YPuOTaQlnJQtvnLZUGs8f65GD5r552H6sooiPwXbdOw-Woa9JB7th3LPvaj2spOPQUJqJWBwk7xj9junveOZ309jw32YnXXMkweyv6XniPsaWgU/s1600/hannah.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Daryl Hannah</b> kinda acts her ass off in this one. It’s like
no one told her she was making a shitty film. She’s believable throughout and
makes a lot of really crap dialogue a whole lot less crappy. Plus at one point she
finds a sword! I kept waiting for the moment when her eye would get gouged out
and she’d be sporting an eye patch to go with it, but alas, that wasn’t to be.
Would have been great though. </div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></div>
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Where the movie
becomes terribad…</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The biggest negatives for Zombie Night are definitely in
pacing, editing, story, and overall polish. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the sake of not going on for three hundred pages describing
its flaws, I’m just going to list the big ones that stood out for me here:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The zombies were odd. Not intentionally odd, but
lack of good training and direction for the actors odd. If they have enough presence of mind
to stand there and front you, to think “I should dig” or “open the door” then
they shouldn’t be senselessly roaming around and falling for dumb distractions
like their target throwing a shoe in the opposite direction. Really, Zombie
Night, what were the rules for these zombies and how they responded to being a
zombie? It seemed all over the place, and a zombie was a mindless, shambling
husk when necessary for the scene, and a demonic presence trying to seduce the
target (like in the case of the zombie housekeeper mugging for the camera)
completely dependent on what sort of zombie they needed for a given scene. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With this sort of genre story, knowing the parameters
in which the monster must function are vitally important for suspension of disbelief.
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Double Tap. Seriously, how is it that a film set
in the modern age has people in it who don’t know you shoot a zombie in the
head to kill it? They know enough to think a bite could make someone turn
zombie, but not enough to know AIM FOR THE HEAD?</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Guns are reusable. When the bullets run out, you
can find more bullets and reload. No need to toss the gun.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>If a door opens outward…what good does putting a
trunk in front of it do? Are we trying to trip the zombies down the stairs, or
what? It was moments like this that made me wish some humor had been purposefully
injected in the film--that could have been a moment to shine. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>If you’re going to have a cop be complete shit
at his job, maybe consider casting someone who doesn’t try to play his character
as competent? It was clear this cop had only been a cop for a few days, and
hadn’t had even the slightest bit of training, but he was never presented as
being a newbie, which makes all his fumbling and poor procedure look like
writer error…which it probably was, but still, they could have played it off
as being part of the character. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Why were there no blankets in the safe room? You
have food for weeks, but no blankets? Way to think ahead. It's not consistent that someone who would put in the money and time and effort into creating a safe room stocked for weeks would forget blankets. </li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Your husband and son are dead, and your dead son
is eating your husband…and you leave your <i>youngest </i>son alone in that to run downstairs…why?
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>What was with the maid? The actress seemed like
she thought she’d been cast in the next Omen movie, rather than a zombie film.
Her over-acted, intense spiel on the end times just came out of nowhere and
came off laughable. Every time the camera focused on her as a zombie, she
looked more like she was playing a succubus from Demon Knight, not Zombie
Night. So, yeah, she clearly just got her nights mixed up…</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">No love on the
editing front</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The first ten minutes are by far the most painful. It seemed to me as if they put a bunch of clueless actors on set with just a few
hours to brush up on the script, told them they were in a zombie film, and the
yelled ACTION! Usually in Hollywood films when an actor looks unnatural, is
standing there watching something horrific when any real life person would be
running the other way, they compensate for this by creative editing and framing
of the shots. You don’t point the camera at the two idiots crouching there
staring at the bodies emerging from the ground when they should be running like
hell, you point the camera at the freakin’ things bubbling up from the earth.
This way, you allow the audience to be captivated by the same horror that is
somehow managing to make the story’s protagonist turn into a statue, rather
than making your audience groan and yell “Run, you idiots!” at the screen. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Those first ten minutes of film are probably enough to make
most film goers change the channel, because without some careful editing to cut
all the awkwardness, all the actors clearly being confused actors instead of
their characters, the movie comes off beyond amateur. You find better editing
on YouTube. Not to knock YouTube movies in any way, but given the budget Zombie
Night had, I imagine even a mediocre YouTuber could have crafted a better end
product. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Okay, so the housekeeper that this kid clearly loved just
tried to eat his ear off, ripped out his brother throat. Then his brother dies,
come back to life and kills his father, and he’s been trapped in this room with
them while big brother eats out his dad’s guts a few feet away from him. His
mom remembers she <i>still has a son </i>and comes back to save him, and just as he’s
about to get past the horror that is dead dad and undead brother, his father
wakes up and grabs his leg and tries to eat him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Would you look at the glee on this kid’s face?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7FIzcSridwPw2pcM1nyYVY9T7thgvHBa-U1leECq0slcMv_2Jd7QL8eSC2YbcNPALI3qpPblcw4qPL5tIMfYi4Qzbh5BkLzuVYvKZ9IgORFNPZH_XkMhb-RURfiybddbCfFVBsPkUh7A/s1600/smile3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7FIzcSridwPw2pcM1nyYVY9T7thgvHBa-U1leECq0slcMv_2Jd7QL8eSC2YbcNPALI3qpPblcw4qPL5tIMfYi4Qzbh5BkLzuVYvKZ9IgORFNPZH_XkMhb-RURfiybddbCfFVBsPkUh7A/s1600/smile3.jpg" height="388" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The boy is having a blast. Now, I’m not one for scaring
children for the sake of a movie (Okay, so maybe I am. I did once send my kids
through a trailer park, roadside Halloween Horror house that may or may not
have been run by the people who inspired the events of House of 1000 Corpses,
just so I could get a great home video of them running out the exit pissing
themselves) but another take was in order here, maybe? A different angle? They linger so long on
this kid’s goofy grin, and everyone else’s backs, that you have no feeling of
fear or impending doom for the boy. If the child actor can’t carry the scene,
why is the camera pointed at his face and his MOTHER’s rear end?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Never mind, I know that answer. The kid comes by his
grinning in the face of terror honestly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHpAwck_qqk4QeJHfa12Ylg1_bbIh_I_X02gEgnbbDYp_rbxj8tQzDnCx0pQnBwwf_-HzJxxcO05JngKdQEFNPV1SmPLXLHW0RK-Vf8AVYHS9o_U-ONOyn5mdXRY_cnJL482-qIvWVCyg/s1600/smile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHpAwck_qqk4QeJHfa12Ylg1_bbIh_I_X02gEgnbbDYp_rbxj8tQzDnCx0pQnBwwf_-HzJxxcO05JngKdQEFNPV1SmPLXLHW0RK-Vf8AVYHS9o_U-ONOyn5mdXRY_cnJL482-qIvWVCyg/s1600/smile.jpg" height="371" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her husband is being gnawed on by one of the zombies that
just ate her son. Should this be the look on her face?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ30JBt-GjUYRB1wKocGwONOvnjCBS0Y2ZGncL3S5XMzFk_tcsHlwsG4x_nNJ2hRMeq6scCy7n4GAlpxXDv4lhaC53kAZ6gcZupK44gdb7E1dStQijoYMLB-kq11p40ruMzIYBYh0Cw9g/s1600/smile2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ30JBt-GjUYRB1wKocGwONOvnjCBS0Y2ZGncL3S5XMzFk_tcsHlwsG4x_nNJ2hRMeq6scCy7n4GAlpxXDv4lhaC53kAZ6gcZupK44gdb7E1dStQijoYMLB-kq11p40ruMzIYBYh0Cw9g/s1600/smile2.jpg" height="372" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lady’s got some issues.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Biggest WTF of the
movie</b></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsiwBe6V2nQY2zmpCLAWjB0lnxJnQMPT0t227W_xS0gOtlN8w3_MldmTEmiXHzP5J31idft6WDMjvRBfB0lwTucaPp0TUAZ1r87NtA5FOF7paFQkdcBFvu7mF-edSFRznsISoiN-sfYnc/s1600/car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsiwBe6V2nQY2zmpCLAWjB0lnxJnQMPT0t227W_xS0gOtlN8w3_MldmTEmiXHzP5J31idft6WDMjvRBfB0lwTucaPp0TUAZ1r87NtA5FOF7paFQkdcBFvu7mF-edSFRznsISoiN-sfYnc/s1600/car.jpg" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Oh look, dear, a car. Maybe we can—”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEmSnRyupEXu-w3swQIzp31DnR1nKRc4mcbIcA3fRN8_isphae9hhELe3m3h0xz6mG61di0Ldi9x5HQWamNSuMf4j016rLQa7tnaXCls7HDggzLaqnqkQnFVmFUgvlDT0qw9LaiNiYAtY/s1600/car2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEmSnRyupEXu-w3swQIzp31DnR1nKRc4mcbIcA3fRN8_isphae9hhELe3m3h0xz6mG61di0Ldi9x5HQWamNSuMf4j016rLQa7tnaXCls7HDggzLaqnqkQnFVmFUgvlDT0qw9LaiNiYAtY/s1600/car2.jpg" height="186" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Car explodes for no reason other than director sadism and a desire
to show a man on fire in the cheapest flame retardant suit known to film making. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMeiSQ5q8jqP3ZHqCyXx9w7tl3khV_eMoPsTohwmI3bKUPRma9B3MCmJe7XBQPkp8vpMIgqOxsD-JggmVP2DR3GMuhCjFo01jP1DelC1Hcy0z27UFwKF1UwcMo1PSKsKQytAMFAjiOKKI/s1600/car3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMeiSQ5q8jqP3ZHqCyXx9w7tl3khV_eMoPsTohwmI3bKUPRma9B3MCmJe7XBQPkp8vpMIgqOxsD-JggmVP2DR3GMuhCjFo01jP1DelC1Hcy0z27UFwKF1UwcMo1PSKsKQytAMFAjiOKKI/s1600/car3.jpg" height="372" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hazard of making an action film, I suppose. Something HAS to blow up eventually. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was no reason for that car to explode. It was just
sitting there. Engine off. I think maybe along with Zombies, the vehicles got a
little sentient too, and it saw this group of fuckwits coming for it and said,
screw this. I’d rather implode than become part of this madness. Kaboom! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At the end, few members of the two families are standing.
Most of them died from an extreme case of stupidity that will leave viewers
groaning and struggling to care. We find out that when dawn comes, all the
zombies die, and viewers are left wondering, what happens when the night comes? Except
at this point, it’s a stretch to think anyone left in the audience will care,
and if a handful still do, the lead male character makes them all cringe when
he looks to the child who just lost his whole family and assures him his wife
makes great pancakes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your mother and father and brother are all dead. Pancakes?
Lots of strawberry syrup, I’m supposing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">In summation:</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This movie was bad, terribad, but you know what? I didn’t turn
it off. I’d say if you enjoy bad movies and go into this expecting it to be
bad, it almost reaches that Rocky Horror level of fun that could become an
interesting night with friends. It has a lot of Mystery Science Theater appeal,
and believe it or not, not a lot of bad movies can say that. Some are just bad
in a boring sense, but this one had some shining moments of stupidity that will
stick with you for a long time. It also had some compelling scenes that could
maybe inspire something better down the line. As a writer, it’s a great film to
watch, because the sins you see the film commit in two hours are the same sins
many genre novels commit over three hundred pages, but when you are in the
moment of writing it (as I assume the makers of this film might tell you) it’s
sometimes hard to see unless you are aware of how bad it is and how your
audience will react to it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-59442304275385697252013-11-15T15:16:00.001-05:002013-11-15T15:16:29.783-05:00Since/cents/scents/sense when?<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The boy may be in
college, but I can’t seem to turn off the internal Mommy editor. At least he has
a good sense of humor about it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is it alright if I take a nap?<br />
I’m not feeling well</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sure, honey.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b><br />
Alright<br />
Thank you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
All right*<br />
Alright is not a word.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sense when?<br />
WTF since*</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since*</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Oh.<br />
Goddangit<br />
Okay.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Since is a time based indicator. As in “I haven’t talked to
her since last week.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yeah. I know. I’m stupid-ed</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sense is like "I have a sense that something bad is
going to happen."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
O.O</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
or "Sight is one of the five senses."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
lol</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves<br />
</b>
Cents is a measure of money, usually in the form of coinage. As in "I have
five cents."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves<br />
</b>
Goodnight dictonary.com<br />
love you<br />
and your ability to check my homonyms</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Shannon Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Scents is something that triggers your olfactory senses,
such as "The scent of the cookies and bread baking in the kitchen made me
want to chew off my arm."</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am done now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Damien Graves</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Good night Sheldon!<br />
Lolololol<br />
That made my day.</div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-80392138021145152072012-12-03T16:23:00.001-05:002012-12-03T16:23:43.462-05:00Published Doesn’t Always Make Perfect<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s a painful truth
that nearly all published novels could still use a little work. It has been
said that a book is never done, but due, and anyone who has been met with
deadlines knows this to be a fact. An author or editor can always read back
over their work and find something to fix, something to expand on, or something
to perfect. An editor can always find a place for another comma. At some point,
regardless of what shape the novel is in, it will go to print, and then if you
are lucky, you’ll have a whole audience of people more than happy to point out
where those missing commas go, what needed expanding, perfecting, and fixing.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take pride in the quality of work you send to
print, or that you shouldn’t learn from your mistakes. In fact, one positive to
backing away from a book once the deadline rolls in is that the distance can
give you a better perspective to analyze what you have done and how you can do
it better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Missing quotation marks,
missing commas, extra commas, and small grammar flubs are often overlooked or
simply forgiven by readers, many assuming they were a printing or editing
error. Passive writing, echoes and repeats, misused words, and consistency
errors, however, tend to be viewed as content errors and placed solely on the
shoulders of the author. One trip through the Amazon reviews section reveals
just how harsh readers can be about these things, and even five-star reviews
lauding content can’t always win back potential readers if you have enough
grammar Nazis and error watchdogs slinging low-rated reviews your way.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">It’s not enough to just
sigh and say, well, my editor should have caught that mistake, should have
pointed it out, because at the end of the day the only one hurting for the
error is the author—the editor has likely already earned their end for the work
and moved on to something else. The sad part is, if you do even a modicum of
research and education into the craft of writing before you start, you’ll find a
legion of writers before you have stumbled over these errors and weak writing devices
and have shared them with the world. That’s not to say you can’t do it your
way, even if your way is 100% against what the bulk of writing advice tells you.
It just means if you do it, you have to wow with it. If it doesn’t make your
reader pause for an instant and think, whoa, that’s new, then all you are doing
is repeating the past mistakes.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">How’s
the weather?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Elmore Leonard, along
with a score of other experts on the subject, says that beginning a novel with
the weather is a bad idea because readers don’t connect with scenery; they
connect with characters. Even once a story is well on its way, if you have
paragraphs of description of scenery or weather, you risk your readers
skimming. Opening with the weather is the literary equivalent of small
talk—nice weather we’re having, isn’t it? It’s the throat-clearing, getting-to-know-you
sort of filler that even in real life we try to avoid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Have a look at Liz Carlyle’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Never Romance a Rake</i>:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span class="bold"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">T</span></span><span class="chapteropenerfirstletters"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">h</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">e West Indian
sun beat down on the still and verdant fields, searing all which lay beneath.
Galleried white plantation houses shimmered in the heat, dotting the lush
landscape like perfect, lucent pearls. Inside the fine homes, their broad corridors
were steeped in shadow, and window louvers lay wide to catch the meager breeze,
whilst slave children worked the fans which fluttered from lofty ceilings like
massive raptors’ wings.</span> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">(Ch. 1, para. 1)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">You’ll notice first that this opening
passage is indeed about the weather and the scenery. What’s more, the author
doesn’t bother to at least filter these details through the senses of her point-of-view
character. If this information isn’t important to the character, why would the
author assume it would be important to the reader? Modern convention leans
toward a much deeper perspective than was expected even just a decade or so
ago, and a narrative clearly flavored with the POV character’s voice is
preferred. Readers have come to accept that if a detail is mentioned, then the
detail is noticed by and filtered through the point-of-view character. Liz goes
on for three paragraphs before she even introduces her characters, and when she
does, it’s from a very distant POV.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Compare the above excerpt to the one
below by Liz Jensen:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 1.0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">That
summer, the summer all the rules began to change, June seemed to last for a
thousand years. The temperatures were merciless: thirty-eight, thirty-nine,
then forty in the shade. It was heat to die in, to go nuts in, or to spawn. Old
folk collapsed, dogs were cooked alive in cars, lovers couldn’t keep their
hands off each other. The sky pressed down like a furnace lid, shrinking the
subsoil, cracking concrete, killing shrubs from the roots up… (Ch. 1, para. 1)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This excerpt too begins with the weather
and setting details, but it’s hard to miss the voice of the character in the
words. It has personality, voice, and the details are weighed through the
character’s senses—in short, you know the character a little better just by
reading it. Solid characterization is built through showing how your character
sees the world around her, and in this excerpt, while a less-developed
character might just say, “June was hot,” Jensen tells us what hot means to the
character. It’s not enough to just tell the reader what something looked like
or what the weather is like. In order to successfully break the “Don’t start
with weather” rule, you have to show the reader how the character processes
these details.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">More
than a mouthful.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It’s
a good idea to always read your work out loud. It’s an even better idea to have
someone else read it to you. I realize the latter isn’t always an option, but
what we put on the page isn’t necessarily as clear and easily digestible to
others as it should be. Often these bits will slip past editors as well,
especially if you get an editor more concerned with grammatical correctness
than readability. Meg Cabot’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jinx</i>,
being published by a respectable traditional publisher, likely had a whole
series of edits from content, to line, to proofing. Still many sentences are
unreadable, especially out loud. Take the first sentence of chapter three, for
example: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“Then
one of the strangers, a girl whose jet-black hair matched the color of her
minidress and high-heeled boots, came swaggering out of the gazebo and stood
with one hand on a narrow, jutting hip while she eyed me suspiciously through
heavily made-up eyes” (</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Ch. 3, para. 1).</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">This
is a painfully long sentence fattened up so much by adjectives and adverbs that
by the time the reader gets to the end of it, they may have to back up and read
it again just to swallow the full image. Reading it out loud, as it is written,
would require inserting an audible period that the author hasn’t provided. If
the author had read her work aloud, she probably would have picked up on this
and been able to correct it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Without
changing the wording overmuch, the most effective fix would be to break the
sentence up into two or three smaller sentences. And just for the sake of
avoiding echoes (audible repeats), I would also suggest a slight change in
wording for the last section of the sentence to do away with the eyed/eyes
repeat: “Then one of the strangers came swaggering out of the gazebo, a hand on
her narrow, jutting hip. Her jet-black hair matched the color of her minidress
and high-heeled boots. She gauged me suspiciously through heavily made-up eyes.”</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Don’t
tell me how to feel.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">One of the worst things
an author can do is violate the reader by trying to ham-fistedly shove thoughts
and feelings into their head. Trying to force a sense of urgency by saying
something is urgent, or trying to create a feeling of humor by making all your
characters laugh and say how funny something is, is the literary equivalent of
bad touching your reader. Part of what allows a reader to connect to a story or
a character is the feeling that they're discovering something new, that they're smart enough to pick up on clues that allow them to possibly know that
character better than anyone else reading it. It’s the same principle as when
someone you know casually shares a deep and intimate secret with you; it’s
human nature to feel bonded over that. You want your reader to bond with your
words, so you can’t use them as a bludgeon to get the effect you are looking
for. Think of it like trying to convince your husband you need a new washing
machine. If you just say outright that you need a new machine, you may get
groans and sighs and resistance. Send him to work a few days with stained and
shrunken shirts, and you can expect the new machine to be on order most
ricky-tick.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Consider <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critical Impact</i> by Linda Hall. At the
beginning of the book there is an explosion, and the hero sees the heroine
crushed under debris. His response: “He ran toward the building because he had
seen a woman fall. He needed to get to her!”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> <span lang="EN">(</span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Ch. 1, para. 17). With the clever
exclamation point there, the reader knows they are supposed to be excited; they
are supposed to feel that sense of panic and urgency. What I felt when reading
it was, “Really, Captain Obvious? You think so? Maybe we should just let her
simmer a bit.” Hall makes the mistake of trying to shake us into feeling the
character’s concern. A more subtle and effective way might have been to simply
say: “The weight of the rubble would crush her. If she wasn’t dead already, she
would be soon.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The benefits of not
forcing the reader’s reaction to the information are multiple. The first is that
if they are allowed to come to the conclusion that “he needs to get to her” on
their own, they will be more invested in him doing so. The second is when you
cut to the buried heroine in the next scene, we don’t know if he’s coming to
save her or not. Yes, we hope he is, but since the author didn’t tell us that,
we’re just as unsure how long the heroine has to live as she is, and this
creates real tension, not the forced tension of before. Lastly, exclamation
points in narrative are usually stupid, and this gets rid of one. Anything you
can do to eliminate the screamy, attention seeking punctuation is a good thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Forced urgency can be
deadly to your prose, but forced laughter is like being stuck in a room with
your obnoxious brother-in-law who passes gas and slings one-liner duds, but
thinks he’s hilarious. Having your characters laugh at jokes and silliness in
your work can often come off like the author just amusing themselves and
waiting for the rimshot (badum-CHING) at every punch line. If something is
funny, you don’t have to cue the reader to laugh; they will.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">For that matter,
certain forms of humor don’t really translate well to fiction, and using them
can be more tiresome to your readers than funny. Toilet humor and slapstick, or
physical humor, have a harder time coming across as intended because these
things work primarily as sight gags. It’s hysterical to see your favorite actress
stumbling around and digging through trash for a lost cell phone, but reading
about it just doesn’t have the same effect. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ve Got Your Number</i> by Sophie Kinsella, the author employed a
number of traditional sight gags and slapstick and as a result the writing had
a tendency to come off tedious and a little melodramatic. In my experience, you
can’t just show the character running around like a chicken with her head sawed
off to get the laugh; you have to frame it with emotional support—it’s the
character’s response to these things happening to them and what they’re doing
that has the greater chance to get a laugh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">None of the discussions
in this essay have been to say you should never do these things. There are no
hard, fast rules of what a writer can and cannot do in their work. However,
it’s hard to argue with overwhelming evidence and public opinion that, in
general, these techniques don’t work. Don’t start with the weather. Don’t tell
me, your reader, what to think or how to feel. Don’t let your writing outrun
the reader’s ability to actually speak your lines. The breaking of these rules
must be attempted experimentally, if at all, and with the understanding that it
can really test your reader’s patience. If you can find a creative way to make
them work, by all means, do so, but the aim should always be to connect with
the reader and to communicate clearly, first and foremost.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="page-break-before: always;" />
</span>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Works Cited</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Cabot, Meg. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jinx.</i>
New York:
HarperCollins, 2007. E-book.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Carlyle, Liz. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Never
Romance a Rake.</i> New York:
Pocket Books, 2008. E-book.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Hall</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">,
Linda</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Critical Impact.</i> New York: Steeple Hill, 2010. E-book.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Jensen, Liz. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Rapture.</i> New York:
Doubleday, 2009. E-book.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-pagination: none; text-indent: -.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Kinsella, Sophie. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ve Got Your Number.</i> New
York: The Dial Press, 2012. E-book.</span></div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-51403873221316551582012-08-20T23:28:00.002-04:002012-09-07T03:54:26.791-04:00The Soundtrack<div style="text-align: center;">
I have been writing since the invention of dirt, and one thing has always remained the same for me -- the need for soundtracks. I write to, plot to, and revise to a soundtrack that fits my characters and sometimes single scenes. My poor husband has often lamented that I subject him to Abu Ghraib style torture by playing the same song for hours on repeat, but if a song works for the vibe, I stick with it.</div>
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So far Arles and Sam (the characters in my thesis) have my favorite soundtrack to date:</div>
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(OMG can you believe they remade this SONG? OMG) </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And then, of course, I have my Carnal Company people and Alex to consider...</span></div>
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Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-72844812461644066812012-07-19T17:14:00.000-04:002012-07-19T17:29:07.828-04:00Love it when plotholes fill themselves. :3<br />
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So I am working on getting my thesis novel good and tight before I send in my first massive submission to my mentor, Barbara Miller. There were some saggy bits, some repetitions in terms of scene purpose...and not nearly enough Alex. :)</div>
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I am happy to say I have been diligently fixing that all day and it's looking good. And Alexy...lots more Alex. :3</div>
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<b> EXCERPT:</b> Takes place in an undisclosed near future. Fossil Fuel sales are illegal. A person's entire financial and personal history is kept on a SIN-card. </div>
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“You don’t look like you’re thirty.” The clerk behind the
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“If I was going to fake my credentials, don’t you think I
would at least have a decent picture in the file?” Alex snatched his SIN-card
from the clerk's hand and stuffed it into his pants pocket. “What do you care
anyway? You’re selling gasoline out back.” </div>
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“Yeah, and your boyfriend’s card ran clean for alcohol and
tobacco purchase. You, kid, are going to send up red flags all over when the
transaction completes.” He pulled the case of beer out of Alex’s reach.</div>
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<br /></div>
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“He’s…not my boyfriend, he’s my father.” Alex groaned and slapped
his hand down on the case of beer, tugging it toward him. </div>
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<br /></div>
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“Oh really.” The clerk tugged it back. “Well your daddy’s
card says he’s thirty five. How exactly does that work?” </div>
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<br /></div>
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Every time. Every damned time Jesse sent him in to buy the
beer this happened. Why was it so easy to believe that Zakai could be thirty when
he was as old as dust, but Alex couldn’t pull it off no matter how many times
his birthday rolled around? </div>
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<br /></div>
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“Fine, he’s my boyfriend. You caught me. Give me the beer
before I have my boyfriend kick your ass.” </div>
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<br /></div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-88780276310272748732012-04-27T00:31:00.003-04:002022-12-28T07:28:32.874-05:00My guts are ugly :(<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Working on my horror story for class, which has been kinda
hard for me to write given how much of myself I am putting into it. Below is a
conversation between me and my writing partner/editor extraordinaire. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lee: I still reserve the right to stop if it makes me puke</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: gonna make me cry</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Lee: LOL</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Lee: it's SUPPOSED to be sick</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Lee: I am just soooooo not your intended audience</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: am baring my guts here! LOL</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Lee: yes I know!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: and my guts are gonna make you puke</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Lee: goes to show you that I would not have survived your
childhood</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: I barely did LOL</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me: I'd never puke on your guts</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Lee: my guts are much nicer and less traumatized than yours<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-69112423557168686442012-04-16T01:57:00.000-04:002012-09-07T03:35:51.867-04:00The Relic<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">FINALLY! I finished reading The Relic.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I think perhaps I have been reading and editing too
much lately. My love of words has turned to contempt, and at times even
outright disgust. Mostly, this is in reaction to my own writing, but it has bled
into everything I read. I think I just need to rest my eyes a bit, and maybe
watch some thoroughly brain dead TV until my poor brain can recuperate. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I remember when books were nothing but fun, when
there was no pressure to get them read in under a certain amount of time, and
no need to analyze them harshly. I miss the leisurely, non-stressful read.
Maybe that is why I was so perplexed by reading The Relic this time around for
class. I feel like I had more patience when I was younger, because none of what
bothered me about The Relic this time bothered me before. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I clearly remember enjoying the story and finding
all the added information the author provided through letters and scientific
discussions to be not only interesting, but important to making the creature believable.
This time around, I found them tedious, and I really didn’t care so much for
all the scientific explanations. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Now,
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manuscript where you quoted some interesting comments by people ‘close to the
exhibition,’ but neglected to identify the exact sources. Nothing important,
you understand, but I’d like a list of those sources—for my files, nothing
more.” She <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">smiled expectantly.</b></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Alarms
rang in Smithback’s head. “Well,” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">he
replied carefully…</b></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The read became something of a chore. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I found the monster sympathetic and interesting,
much more so than the movie version of it, which always struck me as more of a
prehistoric monster boar. It’s hard not to feel empathy for someone who is made
a monster, especially against their will. Empathy is even easier when how much
control the monster has over its actions are in question, and when you consider
what the real man looking through the monster’s eyes thinks of himself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I loved Pendergast, and his character above all
makes the book far superior to the movie. I know he’s a bit of cliché, but he’s
an endearing cliché that is easily forgiven. And I LOVED the setting of a
museum, if nothing else then for lines like this:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It
was eating him,” said Cuthbert, “eating the brains. Just eating and eating. It’s
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in the Dinosaur Hall</b>, through the
lab there.”<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" />
</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">It’s eating brains in the
Dinosaur Hall!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Would I recommend this book to others? Maybe. I
think all the technical babble puts this more in the realm of a science fiction
reader’s comfort level than other readers. I know I recommended it to my
husband (a big fantasy lover) and he wouldn’t trust my book recommendations for
years after—it just wasn’t interesting to him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-92040959844220986952012-03-30T11:59:00.000-04:002012-03-31T00:08:16.593-04:00Human Remains<div class="MsoNormal">
I read Human Remains by Clive Barker so long ago I’d
forgotten everything about the story except that the protagonist was gay and a prostitute.
This was so not the sort of story my family would have approved of me reading,
and I remember it being in one of the many books that I secretly removed the
cover and then replaced it with a cover from The Baby Sitters Club (not like I
was reading those anyway). I did this with so many of my favorite books and
read them so often that my grandparents got me a monthly subscription, and I
had tons of Baby Sitter’s books lining the front of the bookshelves that…I
never bothered to so much as crack open.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unless I was doing a book cover vivisection, of course.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To me, Human Remains was written in a much cleaner and
intimate way than the other two Barker selections we read this term. It wasn’t
nearly as raw and dirty as the other two, but still has a very free and lyrical
quality to it. Just like in the last two, Barker head hops a bit, but I am sure
most readers would find this a good deal less jarring than it was in Rawhead—it
was accomplished much more smoothly. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Unlike the other two selections, and despite the main
character of Human Remains being a bit preoccupied with beauty and ageing, I
found him to be really sympathetic and likable. I really think he finds so much
about himself as failed and unaccomplished, and he clings to the one thing he
has as long as he has it—his looks. I can relate to that in a lot of ways, the
feelings of inadequacy and having a very limited skill set of any value (not to
mention a serious ticking clock on how long I’ll be able to make use of it).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The “monster” itself I found incredibly adorable. I know
that probably wasn’t the intention, and rather the author was probably just
going for sympathetic, but I really felt for the thing. All it wanted was to
live, and really, anything that can take so much glee in the ability to yawn
and pass gas comes across as very childlike and…adorable. I found myself sort
of rooting for it, hoping it would achieve real life outside of simple
imitation. If this was contingent on Gavin losing his life, I would have been
more conflicted. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t think it was made very clear (at least not to me)
that only one or the other could live. At times it seemed like the monster was
sapping the spirit and very life essence from Gavin, and other times it just
seemed the creature was forming independently. Still, I could see where the “horror”
in the story presents itself. It’s sort of a “Single White Female” issue, the
idea of something becoming you, and maybe even a better version of you. In the
end, Gavin’s monster at least seemed more human than he himself could ever be. </div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-64624774475464141552012-03-23T23:56:00.001-04:002012-03-24T00:02:10.882-04:00The Thing<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
John Carpenter’s The Thing terrified me as a kid. It was one
of the few movies that actually inspired fear. Another one that dealt with similar
themes was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which actually caused me nightmares.
The idea that something could completely take over your body, as in the
Snatchers movie, and look like you, sound like you, but not be you disturbed me
greatly. What The Thing added to the body snatcher idea was that it wouldn’t be
a gentle transformation, but a painful, Cthulian like process involving
tentacles and being ripped apart. This
had a way of shifting my worries away from, “What if my mom is a pod person?”
to “Oh my god! What if she is and she eats me?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Outside of what the alien in The Thing could do to people, I
think what made the greatest impact on me was the kennel scene. After watching
it, every time my dog would put its head down and stare…I’d freak out (I was a
very excitable child). I watched it a million times growing up, mostly for that
scene, and I forced everyone I knew to watch it as well just to see them squirm.
Recently I watched it with my boys, and
they agree with me— the CGI Monsters of today’s cinema have nothing on old school physical effects. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/W7W4fvs0-JU?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This was a remake I adored, although my father was much more
a fan of the original, and I suffered through that about as many times. The
thing I remember most about the original was the doors. Opening the door,
closing the door, one door after another door until finally opening the door
revealed The Thing. This version of the story never really scared me, but the
constant in and out of one room after another, and focus on keeping the damn
doors closed, made me giggle and tease, much to my father’s dismay. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdpSsE5ew7I?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The original sort of followed that old horror rule though,
the one we’re always screaming at the idiots trapped in horror films--Don’t
open the door! It seemed symbolic of a fear of the unknown and of isolationism,
of closing yourself off for safety. It made a lot of sense for the political climate
of the time. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Carpenter’s remake was also heavy on the feelings of
isolation and of the unknown (though
notably fewer doors). I believe the alien in the remake is likely one of the
most successfully presented monsters ever, primarily because the characters in
the story had no idea how to combat it, what it wanted, how to avoid it, or
even which of the other characters might actually be infected by it. You add to
that the notion that even your closest friend could secretly be hosting the
creature, waiting for you to get alone with it so it could consume you too, and fear and paranoia
are inevitable. When you count in that the alien wasn’t CGI or even human-like
in appearance, it was easy to suspend disbelief and accept that the
creature was a very real threat to the characters. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve recommended this movie many times in the past, and it
is absolutely a must see for anyone who loves horror suspense. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-38101108254121748082012-03-16T23:14:00.003-04:002018-05-02T16:41:54.223-04:00The Wolfman<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmU2CSB62f8GieWr7Vd9hJeFZcNExuU74GiCoAThQRnBSvn7ltHypc8CkPHNxDv9TQ2SigUrFkpeYZtZmC39qVNHu6aRIjpSglaKacWH_-wiREzCoCunBVEJc21bBWdru-dLkrAB2iHZk/s1600/jesse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="500" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmU2CSB62f8GieWr7Vd9hJeFZcNExuU74GiCoAThQRnBSvn7ltHypc8CkPHNxDv9TQ2SigUrFkpeYZtZmC39qVNHu6aRIjpSglaKacWH_-wiREzCoCunBVEJc21bBWdru-dLkrAB2iHZk/s320/jesse.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
When I was a teen, I lived out in the middle of nowhere. We
had no cable--three TV channels if we were willing to watch shows with our
arms in the air, doing contortions with the rabbit ears all for the occasional break
in the snow. The radio was just as bad. We were cut off. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I read a lot, a whole
lot, and whenever I could manage, I went to the bargain theater and watched
movies all day. Sometimes the same movie over and over, taking notes during
subsequent viewings. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because of this, I bought a lot of movie tie-ins. To this
day my husband teases me about the first time he went through my room, and
found that all my records and tapes were soundtracks, and all the books on my
shelves were novelizations of various movies. Yes, I owned a lot of other stuff
too, The Who, loads of Bowie, tons of Stephen King and Clive Barker and
anything else I could get my hands on, but what I kept on the shelves were
movie tie-ins.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was research, you see. I was concerned with how what I
wrote would be “seen” by the reader, so I wanted to compare scenes from movies,
to a writer’s description of that same scene, just to see how the words and
pictures lined up. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was a major failure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most of the time the novelizations were terrible. They
either had the same name as the movie and told a completely different
story, or they followed the dialog closely but everything else was out of left
field. Like Back to the Future. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Back-Future-Novel-George-Gipe/dp/0425082059">http://www.amazon.com/Back-Future-Novel-George-Gipe/dp/0425082059</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine a Back to the Future where Doc Brown is a fame whore
and Marty is a complete insensitive ass. BTTF was bad in terms of novelization,
but it wasn’t alone in that. Most tie-ins are complete crap. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That said, The Wolfman by Jonathan Maberry is kinda amazing.
It follows the story, sticking to the plot, but actually does what a move-tie
in is supposed to do—expands on it. It shows you the things that wouldn’t work
quite so well on screen, like giving a deeper look into character thoughts
and motivations. He took a lot of liberty with things like dialog, but you can
see that all the important bits are represented in the book, and often punched
up a bit. The book doesn’t lose anything from the movie, but rather it
effectively builds upon what is there, and I found all the characters much more
sympathetic--and understandable in terms of motivation--in the book than I did
in the movie. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I also love what Maberry does with an action scene. I’ve always
been a little uncertain about scene and POV shifts that take up only a
paragraph or two. I worry this will become choppy and disorient the reader. But
I found his execution of it to be really impressive, and I might actually give
it a try when I am ironing out some of my own action scenes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where the book succeeded, and the movie clearly failed,
is in the beast itself. In the book we are allowed to form our own ideas of
what the wolf looks likes, at least to an extent. The creature is believable
and scary in its power. On the screen, he looks like the victim of terrible
movie makeup. I love that they were trying to pay homage to the original film
with returning to the flat, man-faced look of the beast, but I really think the
original did that only because they had little choice. In the new movie
version, it’s hard to take the wolf seriously when he looks like a pissy
Persian cat most the time. The beast needed a maw, something protruding and
non-human. The remake’s wolf just looks like he needs a shave and some dental
work. Not very scary. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-77856359253322983732012-03-09T21:54:00.000-05:002012-03-09T21:54:12.049-05:00Alien<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/138/3/7/alien_warrior_by_sgrum-d2rjbbf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/138/3/7/alien_warrior_by_sgrum-d2rjbbf.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://sgrum.deviantart.com/art/Alien-Warrior-167183115">Alien Warrior</a> <span class="by">by</span> ~<a class="u" href="http://sgrum.deviantart.com/">Sgrum</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love the Alien movies, but Alien, out of all the moves in
the Franchise, is one my favorites. I was very young when I first saw the
movie, and while the immediate sequel has a lot of action along with a very
young and engaging Lance Hendrickson Cyborg, the first was by far the scariest. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The story built suspense like few ever had, and unlike most
monster movies before or since, the monster itself was kept something of a
mystery for most of the film. Because the creature was so <i>alien</i>, the viewer,
along with the characters of the movie, had to figure out how to defeat it as
they went along. This is a big difference from say werewolf or vampire movies, where
everyone on screen seems to be clueless, while we sit in our seats moaning, “Garlic,
crosses, holy water, you idiots!” As viewers, we didn’t learn of the creature’s
powers or weaknesses until the characters did, and that was incredibly
satisfying. </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://th05.deviantart.net/fs23/PRE/f/2007/311/f/0/Alien_Queen_by_sk800720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://th05.deviantart.net/fs23/PRE/f/2007/311/f/0/Alien_Queen_by_sk800720.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://sk800720.deviantart.com/art/Alien-Queen-56090251">Alien Queen</a> <span class="by">by</span> ~<a class="u" href="http://sk800720.deviantart.com/">sk800720</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The steady escalation of threat the movie employed was also
well done. Initially, when they receive the distress call, you worry what they
might find. When nothing too sinister happens, you relax. And then there is the
face hugger, and we worry over the loss of one passenger. Then they bring the
thing onboard, and we have to wonder, will it contaminate the crew? Will the
face hugger get off and sucker-kiss someone else in the mouth? Then the hugger
dies and falls off and again we relax and wonder…when the monster is going to
actually show up. Turns out he shows up at dinner, and from what I have read,
this scene even freaked out the actors (who were not aware that a lil monster
was going to rip itself out of the man’s chest the way it did). <a href="http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/aVZUVeMtYXc/0.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/aVZUVeMtYXc/0.jpg" width="320" /></a>It’s a great
moment, but this is a little monster, terribly tiny, and it’s not like there
are other face huggers around the ship waiting to infest everyone. So we just
hunt the little bugger down and give him a good swift, kick right? Maybe sic
the cat on him? But then he gets bigger, and meaner, and starts picking them
off one at a time. <br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The movie is a fantastic roller coaster of ups and downs,
feelings of security quickly followed by those feelings being exploited. On a
storytelling level, Alien wins high marks. My only complaint is about the final
scenes when Ripley is fighting the alien. I have migraines and seizures, so all
those unnecessary strobe lights leave me turning my head away at some very
crucial moments. One of my sons also had trouble visually processing what was
going on in the final action scenes (because he is photosensitive like me) so I
ended up with one kid loving it, and the other moaning, “Will someone tell me
what the hell is going on?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs14/i/2006/364/b/5/ZOMG_ALIEN_AND_PREDATOR_by_DaKraken.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs14/i/2006/364/b/5/ZOMG_ALIEN_AND_PREDATOR_by_DaKraken.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://dakraken.deviantart.com/art/ZOMG-ALIEN-AND-PREDATOR-45607235">ZOMG ALIEN AND PREDATOR</a> <span class="by">by</span> ~<a class="u" href="http://dakraken.deviantart.com/">DaKraken</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even still, this movie holds up. I haven’t seen a “horror”
movie done this well before or since, so I tend to overlook any little issues I
might have with it here and there. Alien is highly recommendable. </div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-63653897216303878862012-03-02T14:27:00.001-05:002012-03-02T14:27:53.954-05:00WWZ<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/360/8/1/zombie_by_hokunin-d1ruvah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/360/8/1/zombie_by_hokunin-d1ruvah.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://hokunin.deviantart.com/art/Zombie-107256041">Zombie</a> <span class="by">by</span> *<a class="u" href="http://hokunin.deviantart.com/">hokunin</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I love Zombie novels and in general apocalypse novels. I
love to see how people react when society breaks down, and I like to see them
survive. Hope is a big aspect of these stories, and they often leave me
reevaluating my own troubles. It’s hard to read or watch one of these stories
without thinking, “What would I do?” Typically, it’s a safe read, and you don’t
get too sucked in to the possibility of it because Zombies are kind of bogus
monsters—I am pretty confident there isn’t much possibility of a Zombie apocalypse
ever taking hold. </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs11/i/2006/183/2/1/Some_Kind_of_Robot_Zombie_by_candy_shards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs11/i/2006/183/2/1/Some_Kind_of_Robot_Zombie_by_candy_shards.jpg" width="179" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://candy-shards.deviantart.com/art/Some-Kind-of-Robot-Zombie-35661200">Some Kind of Robot Zombie</a> <span class="by"><br />by</span> ~<a class="u" href="http://candy-shards.deviantart.com/">candy-shards</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s more the robots I worry about. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As I was thinking over the recent obsession people seem to
have with zombies, from games to books and movies, one thing in particular did
come to mind as an explanation for it. I think in many ways our love of the zombie
apocalypse stems from the over domestication of the modern man. It reminds me
of why I loved <i>Fight Club</i> so much (the book, though the movie was decent too).
In <i>Fight Club</i>, the main characters are rebelling against what they consider the
feminization of man, which results in things like the Ikea nesting instinct,
where comfort and the things you own define you. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Just like those men who signed up to follow Tyler Durden, a zombie
apocalypse presents a stage where men can be men, where everything goes back to
its basest levels of survival. One could even say that society would revert to
a time when life was meaningful, where survival and procreation depended on skill, and the raw power and intelligence of an individual. This would be a huge
change from where we are now, with everything we encounter in life being “user
friendly” or “idiot proof,” and rather than concern over the continuation of the
species, we hear daily about the horrors of overpopulation and the need for more
birth control. Just think about that phrase a moment, “Birth Control.” Birth,
alongside death, is the most natural thing in our world, and yet we find
ourselves in a time when it is necessary to control that, to defy our very
nature.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs41/i/2009/027/2/5/WWZ___The_Battle_of_Yonkers___by_adonihs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs41/i/2009/027/2/5/WWZ___The_Battle_of_Yonkers___by_adonihs.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://adonihs.deviantart.com/art/WWZ-The-Battle-of-Yonkers-110859384">WWZ - The Battle of Yonkers -</a> <span class="by">by</span> `<a class="u" href="http://adonihs.deviantart.com/">adonihs</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the apocalypse comes, and our numbers have dwindled,
sex, and everything that comes with it, will once again be a necessity…not a
vice. These natural instincts to hunt, to kill, to fight and forage and fuck, will have great value again, where as now they are viewed as the darker
side of humanity. A side that, intellectually, we’ve determined to be detrimental to
modern society. Apocalypse stories allow us to romanticize and indulge in the
very behaviors we start learning to suppress as early as kindergarten.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have to admit, there is a part of me that enjoys thinking
about how survivalists, soldiers,
game hunters and those others on the fringe of society who have been
told that their way of life and proclivities are counterproductive to society,
would fare compared to the tender hearted and liberal minded. I think at the
very least, I would get on a lot better than the targeted audience of most infomercials. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/l35QByraDII?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That said, I enjoyed reading World War Z, but I don’t know
if I would classify it as a novel. There wasn’t a central plot, no character
arcs, just the stories of those who survived. The problem with a story told
after the fact is that any sense of immediacy or danger is removed. There is no
suspense. What it offered in exchange, however, was realism. Politics aside, it
was well researched and thought out, and seemed very much like true accounts. It
almost made me think of an epilogue to all the zombie stories that are floating
around today—a deep step back to see, not how a small cluster of humans
survived, but how the world survived. I loved that! In all the zombie
movies I have watched, and the books I have read, I was always left wondering
what was going on in the rest of the world? Where was the government
involvement, and most importantly, what came after? WWZ answers a lot of those
questions in a highly insightful and wholly satisfying way. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://3.gvt0.com/vi/5rz_Qq6VuVc/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5rz_Qq6VuVc&fs=1&source=uds" />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-6844766111285536762012-02-24T08:44:00.000-05:002020-01-02T15:53:13.093-05:00Life in a Kettle<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I shared a post I made in class with
a friend and she suggested I blog it. I don’t know if it’s something that would
be helpful to anyone or not, but I figured what the heck?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve had what a lot of people would
call a pretty unbelievable life. I am often told there is no way one person
could have gone through and in fact LIVED through much of what I “claim” to
have experienced. It left me wondering if everyone else in the world just lived
terribly boring lives, and if so, how the heck do I get one of those? Then I
remembered a memoir style essay I wrote a few years back, and it made sense. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was about cooking with a pressure
cooker, which I love. In under an hour, a pressure cooker can turn a tough
piece of meat into the most tender and juicy meal ever. They are pretty freakin
awesome. My family has always cooked with one, so when I moved out of my house
(at 17) the first purchase I made was my very own pressure cooker. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This seriously frustrated my
husband, because they scare him…mostly because of his experiences with me
cooking with them. They are dangerous tools and can and will explode if not
used carefully. You have to be patient, precise, and you have to follow all the
rules and steps with them to keep them from sending stew all over your kitchen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Within a few months of owning my
first one, it exploded, and meat rained from the ceiling for over an hour as I
scrubbed and sobbed. It even put a sizable dent in the fridge. So I bought
another one, and it lasted a few months as well. The next one a little longer.
They didn’t always explode, but they always stopped working; either the lid
wouldn’t fasten after a few uses, or the rubber gasket would dry out, or the
pressure gage would stop jiggling. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Always something. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My father found out about these
incidents, and he'd call and laugh at me a little and poke fun every time.
Eventually, he called me over to teach me how to use a pressure cooker and how
to cook lamb ribs. A lot of women would have been offended by this -- her
father wanting to teach her how to survive in a kitchen when she already knows
how to cook, but I liked spending time with my dad and listening to his
stories. When I got there, he pulled out his pressure cooker…which he has had
since 1972. He showed me the little dated booklet that came with it and
everything. All those years, decades, one freakin pressure cooker. Then he
walked me through using it, and I swear it was like watching a master craftsman
at work. It was this...precise, careful, reverent process from beginning to
end. Everything perfect. Everything timed. The antithesis of chaos, which is
kinda...how I live my life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It struck me in the middle of this
instruction not just why my pressure cookers kept exploding, but why I lived
like a badly cared for pressure cooker--just a matter of time until I was
scraping bits of myself up and starting over, again and again. And my dad, who
has always been very careful and measured, and mindful, has managed to “make
it” in every way. In every way successful, his life totally in order. </span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It was kinda crushing seeing that my
life would probably always be that chaotic and explosive...and completely
opposite of what my father wanted for me. And realizing that I should just buy
a crock-pot and learn to start dinner around breakfast time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I was just a
crock-pot girl trying desperately to be a pressure cooker woman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I think a lot of people have
experienced many of the same things that I have gone through, but their
perception of those events likely weighed them as mundane and forgettable. I
think it’s a writer’s ability to put their own unique perspective on the things
we all experience that makes what they have to say important and worthwhile.
And I think those unique perspectives are what separates one writer’s telling
of a tried and true idea from another’s. </span></div>
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Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-72534589541268219682012-02-24T06:10:00.000-05:002015-08-17T18:58:12.158-04:00The Yattering and Jack<br />
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I absolutely loved The Yattering and Jack. </div>
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<a href="http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/vaatrec/STUFF/Yattering_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/vaatrec/STUFF/Yattering_10.jpg" height="175" width="200" /></a>This is one of my favorite Barker stories. I’ve even had my
children read it. <br />
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Like a lot of Barker stories, he does the head hopping
thing, but that has never really bothered me. I generally know what thoughts
belong to what character, and so I actually think it ends up enhancing the
story rather than detracting from it. A lot of people feel that one strong POV
is very important, but if Barker had gone that route with this, we would have missed
so much of the cheeky nuances that make this story so good! The Yattering just
strengthens my belief that the whole “one point of view per scene” theory
should be looked on as more of a guideline than a rule, and before labeling the use of "multiple POV per scene"
wrong in a manuscript, it should first be proven distracting or confusing. If
it works, let it work. </div>
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In the case of the The Yattering and Jack, it definitely
works. I didn’t feel too distanced from either character, and I felt I got to
know both of them a whole lot better this way. It was a very intimate POV, head hopping or no. <br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.johnbolton.com/bolton/comics/yattering/img/yattering3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.johnbolton.com/bolton/comics/yattering/img/yattering3.jpg" height="200" width="128" /></a>Despite popping off a few kitty cats, the yattering is kinda
adorable -- like an abused and wild child. The poor critter literally doesn’t
know any better (he doesn’t even know who his enemy is or have any idea of the
concept of heaven). Honestly, matching this naive creature up against an
adversary who knows what’s going on and knows the rules was just unfair to the
little guy.<br />
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Jack as the “hero” was just utterly entertaining. Yes, I
know a lot of people found him boring, but even before I knew he was in on the
game with Yattering, I loved how disgustingly nonchalant and calm he was. Toothpaste on the toilet. Meh. Cats blowing
up. Meh. Homicidal turkey chasing them around the house. Hmm, must have been
something in that stuffing. The man was very clever and very composed right to
the end, and to me that seems to imply real power and confidence. Out of a
pickle salesman, no less. </div>
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If I wasn’t already in love with Jack, his smile, as he’s
fighting to get out the door, won me over completely. It was so brilliantly
illustrated, so close to unhinged, that you get the impression that both Jack
and Yattering are tiptoeing on the precipice of going mad, and it’s a race to
see which one will crack first. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Unbolted. Bolted. Unbolted. Bolted.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Gina was standing two or three yards
behind her father. She didn’t understand what she was seeing, but it was
obvious her father was doing battle with someone, or something.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">‘Daddy —‘ she began.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">‘Shut up,’ he said benignly, grinning
as he unbolted the door for the seventh time. There was a shiver of lunacy in
the grin, it was too wide and too easy.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Inexplicably, she returned the smile.
It was grim, but genuine.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; line-height: 115%;">Whatever was at issue here, she loved him.</span></i></span></div>
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As far as sympathetic monsters go, I think both of these
guys worked well. They were engaging, entertaining, and easy to empathize with
throughout their journey together. Either way the ending went, no matter who
won, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the other guy and be proud of the winner.
This is a story I have already recommended to many people in the past and would
still recommend it as an example of classic Barker.</div>
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<br />
It even inspired me out outline a potential Erotic Romance
based on the concept. Just my little contribution to the neutering of monsters.
:)</div>
Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-53093348785351837842012-02-17T21:40:00.000-05:002012-02-17T21:40:20.782-05:0030 Days of Night<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/240/5/1/30_days_of_night_tribute_by_liquid_venom-d484qj0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/240/5/1/30_days_of_night_tribute_by_liquid_venom-d484qj0.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://liquid-venom.deviantart.com/art/30-Days-Of-Night-Tribute-255522636" target="_blank">30 Days Of Night Tribute</a> <br /> <span class="by">by</span> ~<a class="u" href="http://liquid-venom.deviantart.com/" target="_blank">liquid-venom</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://iadt.optimalresume.com/upload/portfolio/ccinc_strip1_1278821228.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://iadt.optimalresume.com/upload/portfolio/ccinc_strip1_1278821228.jpg" width="134" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://iadt.optimalresume.com/upload/portfolio/ccinc_strip1_1278821228.jpg" target="_blank">Click for larger</a></b></td></tr>
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<b>S</b>equential<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>art is
kinda my thing -- I love storyboards and comics as a means of telling a good
story. What finally made me give up on doing sequential art professionally is
the same thing that led to me having a real problem with 30 Days of Night.<br /><br /> <b>Consistency.</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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I would draw a character, establish his looks and manner, but
when I would go through it frame by frame I would notice little differences <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-- cheekbone height, weight shifts, changes in
bone depth… Little things that would make it look like different actors were
playing the part of the same character throughout. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
30 Days of Night is made with a dirty <i>dirty</i> style that I wouldn’t
mind at all in a painting, but I found it incredibly hard to follow
sequentially. A lot of the time, I wasn’t at all sure which character was
which, or what the heck was going on in the action sequences. It doesn’t help
that the artist was a bit willy-nilly with speech bubble placement from time to
time. This is not my kind of graphic novel, and I know that probably means I
have no or limited taste (I’m a TopCow, Image, Todd McFarlane kinda gal) but it’s
just not my thing. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As for the story, although I might have missed bits that
would have made this make more sense, I really think the whole thing fell
apart at the end. The biggest thing that gets me is, it seems like the sun was
only couple of days from coming up when the sheriff injects himself with blood
to become a vampire and save everyone. He transforms, kills the big bad, and
then goes to chill with his wife to watch the sun come up. On a second read, it
seemed they were trying to imply time passing, but even on that last frame
before the dawn sequence, he says the sun will be up in a few days. It just
seemed like he forced an unnecessary confrontation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All they had to do was hold out a couple more
nights. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then there is the confrontation itself. If he’s a vampire,
why is he not instantly hit with blood lust? Why didn’t he eat the people he
was trying to save? Why did he WANT to fight the vampires? If he still loved
his wife, why didn’t his instincts run toward transforming her as well, instead
of saving her? Why is he so human when the rest of them are bloodthirsty
monsters? Why would he even think that injecting himself with blood would
result in anything <i>but</i> him joining the ranks of the enemy? And why the hell was
a newly turned vampire able to take out the leader of the vampires? He should
have gotten ripped in half like the other guy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For me the whole thing was a bit slapdash -- the art, the
story, the logic. When I am left with more questions than answers at the end of
a story, and I don’t come away feeling like those questions were purposeful
hooks to get me to read more of the story later, I feel kinda cheated. That’s
how I felt with 30 Days of Night…cheated. </div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-13398148781280361262012-02-10T20:37:00.000-05:002012-02-10T20:54:14.498-05:00Bleeding vajayjays scare me too...<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Stories
like Rawhead Rex have taught me bad habits that I am still trying to shake. I’ve
been writing strong since the late eighties, and I taught myself the craft of
fiction through reading incessantly. I had some favorite genres, but in general,
I would read anything. I took notes on everything I read – what worked for me,
what didn’t. Then I purchased, with my own money (quite a thing for a child),
every book on writing that I could get my hands on, so that I could find out why some
things worked while others did not. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_37308/subcat_87460/IMG_6046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://cdn.comicartfans.com/Images/Category_37308/subcat_87460/IMG_6046.JPG" width="200" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://www.comicartfans.com/searchresult.asp?txtsearch=Steve%20Bissette" target="_blank">Rawhead Rex </a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">by Steve Bissette</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In
the last few years, I’ve had a handful of stories get the same criticism – more
than one point of view per scene is wrong. I had a hard time wrapping my head
around this, because I could name a hundred or more of my favorite writers and
stories that did it and did it well. I assumed I did it well too, because I
always made sure the reader knew whose head I was in with every shift. My
intent was to give the reader the full experience, shifting to the character
that had the most to give at that moment, or shifting away from a character
that would reveal too much. It was all very calculated. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Because
of these criticisms, and because of what I have researched in the last few
years, I am constantly telling the people I edit for or critique for to limit
the POV per scene to one character, or to make a hard shift with a double line
break between POV changes. It doesn’t matter if the shift is easy to follow. It
doesn’t matter if I know exactly whose head I am in at any given point. It
doesn’t matter if it seems to work for the story. If it breaks the POV rules
then it DOESN’T work. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Now,
I am not talking about omniscient POV, because I rarely see that written these
days and I don’t think stories like Rawhead Rex really come off as omniscient --
when Barker is in a character’s head, he is IN their head until he shifts. It’s an
intimate distance in the way Third Person Limited is intimate. This is what I
once went for when writing ensemble scenes, and I would switch back to standard
limited when the story called for it. But apparently that’s wrong. Think
someone should tell Barker? Send him an e-mail maybe?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It
almost makes me feel like there is some secret cabal of writing wizards who
have decided what works and what doesn’t, and we all must follow the rules strictly. Until
someone doesn’t. Until someone magically manages to get their odd little
experiment of a story published despite the rules. Then, surely, the rest of us
have a license to do the same, yes? No, not really. If someone does it anyway
and finds some meager or even grand success with it, they for some reason get
flagged as the exception to the rule. If you ask one of the writing wizards why
this worked for the author of the exception, and why it won’t work for you, you
usually get a response along the lines of, “Well, they did it<i> right</i>. And that
is almost impossible to do, so stick to third person limited, okay?” I can’t
find anywhere a list of rules of how to do it <i>right</i>, just rules that say not to
do it. It seems to me that what they did right was simply ignoring the wizards
and writing a damn good story. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">All
that said, despite Barker being quite well known and loved, I don’t think he
had a great command over his POV choices in Rawhead Rex. Clarity really became
an issue throughout, and I understand that clarity is one of the biggest
reasons those writing wizards hate what they term “head hopping.” It seemed
like Barker was generally unfocused throughout the story, and it almost read to
me like a rough draft that needed quite a few more passes in revision before it
ever saw the light of day. For example, the beginning sounded to me like a
writer’s throat clearing device that might have been served better by being cut
entirely. It struck me as being along the same lines as opening a story by
talking about the weather – it held off the story, rather than beginning it. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Then
there were issues such as this one:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>As she fell backwards she saw Amelia's tear-stained
face, doll-stiff, being fed between those rows of teeth. Then her head hit the
banister, and her neck broke.</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">As
it is written, the “her” in the second sentence refers back to Amelia, not the
mother falling down the stairs. The pronoun does not agree with the antecedent,
and no one likes a disagreeable pronoun. Language like this makes his shifty
POV even more difficult to follow. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Writing
aside, I kinda liked the story. As always with Barker, he delivers on shock
value, and I often found myself covering my eyes and shaking my head at some of
the imagery he created, and some of the things he would say. I’ve read a
lot of Barker, and Rawhead above them all makes me wonder if the guy has
serious issues with women and heterosexual sex (seriously, if you have ever read
a Barker love scene…They are more horrific than his monsters). Not that I mind
a bit of the author’s point of view slipping into the narrative – if we’re not
going to soapbox a little, what’s the point of trying to be heard? And on some
level I agree with Barker and sympathize with Rawhead – I wouldn’t eat a woman
on her period either….nasty creatures. </span></div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-74846335716378252162012-02-03T09:47:00.002-05:002012-02-03T09:47:30.707-05:00Breeding Ground<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Pregnant women are disgusting and cause a great deal of
</i><i>headache, only to spew forth nasty little insects from their wombs whose sole
purpose is to ruin men’s lives and destroy the world. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/187/6/c/spider_queen_by_schwarzbitter-d3l5jyw.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/187/6/c/spider_queen_by_schwarzbitter-d3l5jyw.png" width="283" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://schwarzbitter.deviantart.com/art/Spider-Queen-216929624">Spider Queen</a> <span class="by">by</span> ~<a class="u" href="http://schwarzbitter.deviantart.com/">SchwarzBitter</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s either a quote directly from my husband, or the
underlying message of Sarah Pinborough’s novel <i>Breeding Ground. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had to keep reminding myself that this book was written by
a woman, because the men who took center stage were completely selfish and
unlikable jerks…but none of them seemed aware of it. I came to the conclusion
that these were men written through the eyes of a woman who thought she was
getting it right, but really just thought poorly of men. The result was a bunch of
incredibly illogical, one-dimensional male characters, who seemed -- at their
best moments -- stereotypes of all the worst aspects of a man. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s hard to find sociopaths relatable. After spending some
time with the men of <i>Breeding Ground</i> I found myself rooting for the spiders,
hoping to see each of the men devoured slowly -- sarlacc style. As far as they knew, every woman on
Earth suddenly died – their mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, aunts – every woman
they’ve ever come into contact with is gone, and their primary concern is only for
their own skin, their hunger, their fear. Very little time is spent on
mourning, very little thought turns sympathetic to the women. In fact, it’s not
the loss of the narrator’s wife and child that haunts him, but rather the man
he saw being eaten and left to die horribly when he ran instead of helping him. He goes
from losing his wife to hooking up with every remaining adult female in the
book, and only seemed somewhat attached to the very last one. Even with her, his
greatest concern for her welfare stems from his own selfish need to not go
through the loss of another wife and child. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the group of survivors first all get together and start
sharing their stories, the main character hears the youngest of them talking
about how he killed his mother in the tub before she had a chance to spawn a
monster. For all this boy knew, his mother was very ill, but he kills her with
a hammer and then doesn’t bother to report it or even go back out into the
world until he no longer has TV and radio. Seriously, I have two teenage boys
of my own, and I know sometimes the TV is the most important thing in their
world, but that it was the loss of his MTV that disturbed him enough to step
outside, and not the death of his mother or even the reek of her rotting corpse,
really says something about that kid, and it’s not that he was “strong” as the
narrator implies. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I feel the author mistakes masculine strength and the
ability to “soldier on” with being devoid of emotion and completely self
involved. Or maybe they were all just really really British, and I just couldn’t
follow. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On the aspect of this sudden apocalypse, however, I
found a lot of it very hard to believe. I think if women just stopped coming
out of their houses one day, it would be all over the news and internet. I
think very few people would be able to hide away in their houses without
knowing something was going on. That no one seemed to notice anything negative
taking place anywhere but right under their noses in their own homes, smacks of TSTL
characters. But again…maybe they were just really British?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then there is the issue of combating the spiders. Deaf
people’s blood? F’serious? And…we’re not going to explain that in <i>any</i> way? All
the science in <i>Breeding Ground </i>reminded me of that scene of the writing class
from Throw Mama from the Train: <a href="http://youtu.be/a17ul-afTCE">http://youtu.be/a17ul-afTCE</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s generally a good idea to know a<i> little</i> bit about your
subject before writing on it. GMO’s caused this – how? The women (and later the
men) became infected – how? The scientist’s first idea to help cure the first
infected male is to have him drink a pint of human blood – why? Why not try to
cut them out first? Why not try to inject the lumps with a little bit of blood
first? Why not try targeted radiation? Chemotherapy? Why not try any number of
treatments used currently to treat other infested cycts like in cases of Echinococcosis?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hate spiders. I have an honest to god phobia of them, but
even I had a hard time being afraid of these critters once some explanations
about their origins came out. It stopped looking like something that had some
remote possibility to happen one day, or even just some strange, terrifying occurrence
having an unexplainable origin such as aliens or magic, to something badly
explained and completely unbelievable. Couple that with action scenes that
almost compel one to skim because they linger too long in build up,
description, or internal monologue<span class="st"><em></em></span>, and the scare is gone. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will say one thing though, I am very glad I live in the
states. As much as I find it amusing and a little disturbing that I can go buy
a shotgun at Walmart, I think, should an ugly apocalypse come, I would count it a
blessing. Here in the American south, I have a feeling there would be less<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Widows” and lots more splattered spider guts
all over the place … and no women around to tell the surviving men, “No dear,
you are not mounting that creepy thing’s head in the dining room.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/315/b/2/b2e4ffafb5b958f215d3a7ceef1f5b53-d32o0ta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="497" src="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/315/b/2/b2e4ffafb5b958f215d3a7ceef1f5b53-d32o0ta.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h1 style="margin-top: -4px;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://pullingcandy.deviantart.com/art/Unfurl-185878558">Unfurl</a> <span class="by">by</span> ^<a class="u" href="http://pullingcandy.deviantart.com/">pullingcandy</a></span></h1>
</td></tr>
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<br /></div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-77517472606945341492012-01-27T21:16:00.005-05:002012-01-27T21:16:56.100-05:00The Funeral<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had a difficult time reading The Funeral by Richard
Matheson. I feel a little like the only person at the table who didn’t get the
joke. I love the concept, but I think a lot of the funny was lost in the
intentional bad writing. Having read quite a bit of Matheson, I can say this isn’t
his usual writing style and that might be why the few times I’ve come across
the story in the past…I just skipped it after the first couple of pages. I just
have a hard time connecting with stories that make me feel like I am being beat
over the head with a thesaurus. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At its core, a story about a funeral director with an
unusual client really does intrigue me. After my father got out of the
military, he decided since he’d spent so many years putting men in the ground,
he may as well do his part to kick some dirt over them too, and so he became a
funeral director. Our dinner conversations were filled with stories of embalming
mishaps, strange tales of how people died, and high jinks of the grieving families.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know from my own visits to the funeral
home just how crazy the place can get. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, the profession is taken very seriously for those
who choose it. It’s not the sort of job you take on for the money. If it was,
most people would change careers fairly quickly (and many of the incoming
interns did) because you are surrounded by grief and misery and people forced
to make decisions about their loved ones that they hoped to never have to make.
It’s seriously depressing, and simply not worth it if cash is all you are
interested in. That being said, Silkline’s glee at having a customer willing to
pay for the best of everything really bothered me. At most funeral homes that I
visited over the years of my father’s employ, the funeral directors refused to
be seen as salesmen despite the commissions they would receive on caskets and
urns and services. On more than one occasion, I watched my father and others
talk families down from spending more money than necessary. They would tell the
family that their departed loved one would not want them paying for years and
locked in debt over their death, especially not over something like a casket or
titanium vault that would only end up in the ground. They nudged people toward
cheaper caskets, cheaper vaults, and my father’s favorite, direct cremation
with a rented casket for the viewing service. Most of the time, the limos to
and from the cemetery were free. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So yes, I found the funeral director petting his pile of
gold offensive. In general, people have a negative view of these men and women
doing this service. This is partly because having to interact with them means
someone they care about has died, and partly because a lot of the time when
funeral directors are used in fiction and movies, they are creepy guys who
steal your loved one’s jewelry before putting them in the ground and do strange
things to their body when no one is looking. It’s a really horrible stereotype. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But all the characters in the story were stereotypes to an
extent. I think, like the bad writing, it was done on purpose, and did speed
the story along in terms of characterization. That leaves me to wonder, if you
are using bad writing techniques and clichés on purpose, does that make it
okay? I think it really depends on your reader. Some people can truly
appreciate the parody and find genius in the word play and the author’s ability
to over describe, such as “his cardiac muscle flexed vigorously.” I, however,
am the type of reader who sees so much unintentional bad writing that I just
have a difficult time looking past it, and it hinders my enjoyment of the
story. </div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-995646716717874176.post-85317201661575242952012-01-19T07:49:00.000-05:002012-01-19T07:49:50.877-05:00I am Legend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/251/5/f/i_am_legend_by_elfdaughter-d499kyf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/251/5/f/i_am_legend_by_elfdaughter-d499kyf.jpg" width="484" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://elfdaughter.deviantart.com/art/I-am-Legend-257428311"> I am Legend</a> by =<a class="u" href="http://elfdaughter.deviantart.com/">Elfdaughter</a> on <a href="http://www.deviantart.com/">deviantART</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">It’s
always interesting when reading older works to see just what editors let
them get away with back then. In 1954 <i>I am Legend</i>, by Richard Matheson, broke new ground
in the genre. It opened the doors for future horror writers to creep through,
and creep they did, with many a zombie apocalypse story and film. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I first
read <i>I am Legend</i> in the 80’s. I was a child then and easy to please in terms of
reading material. The idea of being the last human on earth appealed to me and
spawned many such stories of my own. But I wasn’t looking for depth, and I didn’t
care much at all for craft and perfect prose. Reading <i>I am Legend</i> today, I
found it to be more profound for what it inspired than for what it is. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Technically
speaking, there is a great deal wrong with <i>I am Legend</i>. According to everything
we have learned as writers of today, this book should not work, and it shouldn’t
have a hope in hell of ever being published. The book is full of repeated words
and redundant phrases, empty actions and gestures, enough adverbs to make any
editor twitch, and lots of passive and distant phrasing. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On those cloudy
days</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">, Robert Neville was never sure
when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get
back. If he had been more analytical, he might have calculated the approximate time
of their arrival; but he still used the lifetime habit of judging nightfall by
the sky, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">on cloudy days</b> that
method didn’t work. That was why he chose to stay near the house <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">on those days</b>. </span></i></div>
</blockquote>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
actually rather like the opening above, but as an editor I know I would be adamant
that those repeats had to go. This leads me to wonder if maybe all those rules
we have shoved down our throats and forced upon our writing by those in
publishing, might just be wrong. Yes, the book is dated, yes it was written
over 50 years ago, and so the new rules don’t apply, but most people who pick
the book up now are doing so because of the film, and many of them are clueless
to the book’s history. Still, if you look on Amazon, the reviews are quite
favorable (at least the majority are). </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In today’s
publishing world, unless you are J.K. Rowling, you are not going to get away
with the rampant adverb abuse that </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Matheson</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> pulls off in this book -- over 700
LY adverbs out of 48 K total words for the full novel. Popular theory says that
this is weak writing, but I would never consider calling </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Matheson</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">’s writing
weak. It works in a blunt and amateurish way that suits the story and its tone.
You feel as though you are reading something raw and unpolished, and that fits
well with the very dystopian world he unveils to us. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">There is
something very plainly stated about the adverb that strips away that false
artistic voice of searching the thesaurus for stronger verbs. </span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He finished it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">quickly</b>, wishing he had the patience to
eat <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">slowly</b>.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I know beyond a doubt </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">the
sentence above</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> would be flagged today for revision, but
does it really need to be?</span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">He <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">devoured</b> his food, wishing he had the patience to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">savor</b> it. </span></i></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I can’t
say that the stronger verbs actually make it any stronger, or if they simply
make it different, more fitting for what is expected of today’s author. Yet in
the case of some redundant phrasing, such as when the author says Neville “ambled
slowly” I think even in 1954 this should probably have been red penned, as the
only way to amble is “slowly.” </span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Ambled </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><span class="st"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">To walk slowly or leisurely; stroll.</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Writing
style aside, <i>I am Legend</i> has a strong story and a protagonist that one becomes
truly invested in, even at times when we utterly hate him. Throughout the book I
found myself truly put off by Neville, with his constant drinking and the near
ridiculous fixation with ogling the dead ladies shaking their stuff out on his
front lawn. Seriously, I know he’s hard up, missing his wife and all, but in
all those excursions to Sears for constructions supplies, could he not have
stopped off at a Bath and Body Works for some hand lotion to help him chill out
a little bit? It was such a persistent focus for him that I was actually a
little worried for the poor dog he kidnapped and dragged into his bedroom. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">As for
the inconsistencies others have mentioned, and the weak science, I chalk that
all up to an unreliable narrator. Neville reminds me of some uncles I have who
are basically field workers who picked up a couple physics books in their spare
time and now have delusions of being nuclear physicists. I’m sure they have
some knowledge and understanding, but my eyes glaze over when they start
telling me how the world really works…mostly because I’m pretty sure they have
misread or misunderstood about 90% of what they’ve read, and if I do more than
smile and nod, I just might call them on some of their crap. In Neville’s
world, there is no one to call him out on his intellectual mistakes, and no one
who knows more about the situation than he does, so as unreliable as he is, he’s
our only expert, and we have to just take his word for things. It comes off to
me more as character building than world building, because this is just his
understanding of what has happened -- it may not be the truth. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">On the
subject of the dog. There is a general rule of storytelling, especially in
movies that says “<a href="http://lubbockonline.com/news/022897/learn.htm" target="_blank">Never kill the dog</a>.” You can kill as many people as you like,
blow up as many buildings, shoot all the hostages, but when you kill the dog
you are treading into some very dangerous ground. Many a book has been rejected
simply because someone kicked a cat or was cruel to a puppy in their anger. It’s
just one of those unredeemable acts. When an author kills the dog, he runs the
risk of getting a truly violent reaction from his readers, and may not just lose
them for that one book, but for all books that come after. That said, I love
how Matheson handled this in his book. There was this huge build up of him promising
to help the dog, to take care of the dog, and then very suddenly, “In a week
the dog was dead.” This is a slap in the face turn-around, and it hits you
hard. But it also happens off screen, so to speak, so those who might have a
serious visceral reaction to it have that blow softened a bit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In the
Will Smith version of <i>I Am Legend</i>, the bond with the dog begins early, and yes,
for most people, the dog dying has a bigger impact in the film than it does in
the book. You might also note, however, that there are tons of people who
refuse to even see the movie after hearing what happens to the dog, so it is
debatable how much more effective this method was over the book’s take.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">
Personally, I am all about killing the dog and kicking kittens. That the movie
allows us to become so invested in the dog, and then rips our guts out by
killing her, just makes me that much more of a fan. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">I
believe out of all the movie adaptations and rip offs of Matheson’s <i>I am
Legend</i>, from <i>The Last Man on Earth</i>, to <i>The Omega Man</i> and Will Smith’s <i>I am
Legend</i>, the latter came the closest to being true to the original theme of the
book, and it <i>only</i> in an alternate ending. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In the alternate ending, Movie-Neville,
like Book-Neville, has a sudden epiphany that he has been the monster all
along, that he has become the stuff of legends in the same vein as Dracula.
This bit of awareness is seriously lacking in the other films, and to me it is
what truly makes the book a wonderful read. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<div style="color: red;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: large;"><a href="http://youtu.be/YOWeyGX5Bgk" target="_blank">Video Of Alternate Ending</a> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://aaronsimscompany.deviantart.com/art/Infected-03-80301111">Infected 03</a> by ~<a class="u" href="http://aaronsimscompany.deviantart.com/">aaronsimscompany</a> on <a href="http://www.deviantart.com/">deviantART</a></span>
</div>Disturbed Graveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12565924780209837326noreply@blogger.com8