Films vs. Written Fiction

One of the points beaten into my head at my first writing workshop was that an author needs to grab the reader's attention right from the start and give them a roadmap to guide them through the action that unfolds. Readers don't necessarily need the backstory, but they should have a clear idea of who the main characters are (or at least the viewpoint character), what the nature of the opening conflict is, and what is at stake.

I've just seen two very different movies, District 9 and Burn After Reading, that seem to disregard completely these guidelines.

In District 9, the audience sits through at least 20 minutes of mock documentary footage, including commentary from academic types sitting behind desks, before they get any sense of what the movie's plot is or even who the main characters will turn out to be. The whole movie is roughly 72 minutes long. If I were to read the equivalent number of pages to open a novel with as little an idea of what was going on, there's probably a 1 in 4 chance at best that I'd bother to keep reading to the end.

Now, I liked District 9 by the time the film had ended. The action starts moving, you start to identify with and sympathize with key characters, and it remains visually interesting throughout. But the entire opening is basically a huge infodump, the likes of which would get any manuscript hooted at in most workshops (based on having heard a LOT of workshop horror stories last week) and tossed into the slush pile at most publishers.

Burn After Reading shares a similar problem, except that instead of elaborating a complex social setting, it spends the opening minutes laboring over the plight of an unsympathetic character aimlessly facing a life crisis, who then fades into the background of the film. The entire bit could be dispensed with in two minutes of efficient cinematography and dialogue. And while the final scene of the movie is somewhat funny, overall it's just a meandering mess like so many of the Coen Brother's films, a bunch of slow-paced scenes interspersed with some intense action and filled with a lot of confused people. It's more like staged reality television than storytelling.

Though the two films shared very similar flaws with their beginnings, they left me with very different impressions by the end.

This got me to wondering: are the rules for opening sequences in films just that much different than the rules for openings in written fiction because with a movie you've got a captive audience? Who really walks out of a movie theater anymore after shelling out nearly $10 for a ticket? I've only walked out of one film in my adult life, the Thin Red Line.

As long as you end your film well, it seems that the opening can be rather aimless. People are investing less time in the experience than they are for even a short novel, after all, and may be more likely to forgive the time you wasted.

I've been reading McKee's famous book on scriptwriting, Story, and interestingly it doesn't seem to address this issue of different expectations anywhere. I find a lot of his advice useful, but on the other hand he seems much more impressed with the writing in the movies that he uses as examples than I am for the most part. I've never seen a movie whose story made the same impression on me as my favorite books. I've never seen a film adaptation of a good book that had anywhere near the power and beauty of the book. Even a lengthy, well-done graphic novel loses power and precision when translated to the film screen.

I don't question that writing a script is hard work, I just don't find the results to be as satisfying or rich in terms of narrative storytelling as other forms. A film script relies to an extraordinary degree upon our built-in fascination with images to gloss over the characters and plots in movies that simply don't hold up well under careful scrutiny and which would not pass muster in a serious novel without further explanation. I suppose part of the charm of films is that you have to bring your own interpretations to so many of them to make sense of the events.

On the other hand, I do enjoy the series format. Rather than see a television series I've enjoyed make the leap to the big screen (like Star Trek or Firefly), I much prefer to see a good film get expanded and developed over the course of many episodes and seasons until it becomes a richer, more satisfying storytelling experience. I'd be much happier if the bulk of the money wasted on big-budget movies got spent on developing high-budget television series with great casts and good production values--especially if they had sci-fi or fantasy themes.

Why Don't I Finish Stories?

I've been thinking about my recent struggles as a fiction writer with the goal of figuring out how to break out of some of the mental traps I construct for myself.

I have a terrible, awful time finishing long works of fiction. I've tried to write a novel twice already. I ended up with 75,000 words the first time and more than 100,000 the second time before I just gave up.

What are the problems that would-be fiction writers face? Which ones are mine?

Not Enough Ideas?
Is this really a problem for most people who want to write? In any case, it is not a problem for me. My brain is constantly buzzing and I have ideas all the time. So this isn't a problem I struggle with.

Lack of Discipline?
In the sense of an inability to apply ass to seat and write when the only person watching is yourself.

The ironic thing is, I earn my living as a writer of nonfiction educational materials. Over the past eight years, I have established the fact that I can consistently beat deadlines and receive complimentary feedback on material ranging from elementary school science to high school literature to junior high geography to history and government at multiple levels. I have ghostwritten textbook chapters, lecture notes, test questions, review questions, and state handbooks. I have created activities, summarized content for below-level readers, and written more than one online-only course complete with links to content.

I have done all of this working mainly from my basement, with no one within the same time zone standing over my shoulder making sure I'm getting the work done. I set my schedule based in large part on whether my kids are in or out of school, when my wife is teaching, and whether my clients are working in a time zone ahead or behind my own.

In short, I feel that I have established a very tangible form of writing discipline. I can stare at the blank page or screen and just get on with it.

Lack of Confidence?
Well, this is a mixed bag. I write a fair amount of stuff that I think is pretty good. So that's not a lack of confidence. But I want to write material that is VERY good. And I'm not so sure about that, because I tend to use accomplished authors as my measuring sticks and they have much more experience with the craft.

One of my ideas for alleviating this tendency was to collect anthologies of works by authors whom I admire, with the express goal of finding early material that they wrote. Because typically that material isn't as good. I also look at the bookshelves at the stores and libraries every now and then to look for mediocre-looking books. Just to remind myself that you don't have to be brilliant to get published. And I think this has helped a bit.

So I don't think the problems above are the issue. I didn't include lack of talent because I think I'm a decent writer and plenty of people whose talent is not clearly evident get their novels published. So while I think that talent is essential to be an excellent writer, it is overrated as a prerequisite for becoming a successful writer.

There's something else going on here. Two things, in fact, if my navel-gazing has revealed any meaningful insights.

I have a pair of Achilles' heels as a Writer:

• I get lost in the settings I create and never stop revising them.
• I get bored easily with my own plots and so tend to overcomplicate them.

I'm going to try to unpack these weaknesses in a couple further posts.

Distractions and Mash-ups: Samurai-Fantasy-Horror-Western

One of my fundamental flaws as a writer is related to a basic component of my personality: I'm easily distracted.

I'm also curious about a lot of stuff. And I have an uncontrollable urge to mash concepts and genres together.

This relates strongly to the not finishing a story aspect. I get distracted by something new that I'm reading and try to force some ideas from it into a setting or character concept or plotline that is already developed. [This is related to another troubling issue--I get bored with stories once I think I've figured out how to solve the major challenges with them.]

I recently finished a novel that was something of a western homage to samurai films and legends, watched some vampire television, and listened to some western-themed instrumental music. So of course I'm now trying to apply all of these themes to a short story concept I had several years ago, as well as attempting to compress a story that was originally 22,000 words (way too long to submit to most markets and far too short to be a novel) down to 7500 or 5000 words.

It is, shall I say, somewhat rough going. One of those things where I wonder if I'm a loon for even trying. But I want to try to finish it.

I have, however, decided upon an ideal martial style for fighting among and against vampires: Japanese sword-fighting, with its emphasis on powerful slashing strokes that sever limbs and decapitate foes. Because you can't really stab a vampire to death unless you've got a stake and great accuracy. And any sane vampire in a fantasy setting would wear some sort of armor protecting their heart, front and back.

So you're left with the need to hack the shit out of someone to incapacitate them. Vampires are strong and fast and seem unfazed by pain in many forms, but unless you're dealing with the ridiculous stuff like "turns into fog," they aren't impervious to steel. Chop off arms and legs and they should slow down. This approach should also work reasonably well against zombies.

To make it a little cooler, I decided that the vampire samurai equivalents in this setting also carry a traditional pair of swords, but instead of the long and short swords favored by the samurai, they carry a metal sword and one made of hard wood with a sharp point. The wooden one is the "mercy blade" for dealing with mortals and the "finishing blade" for staking fellow vampires.

Plus I think that the samurai loyalty and artistic aspects go very nicely with vampires. A vampire lord's retainers will all literally owe their vampiric status to the lord, so their blood is his to shed. And if they live a long time, they'll eventually get bored with mastering the blade and have to cultivate some other artistic pursuits.

It would be too confusing and complicated to explain the western influences at this point. And I should add that none of the main characters is even a vampire at this point. Which shows how useful all this thinking is.

Daily Writing

Shortly after my last post, I made a resolution to write 1,000 words of fiction a day.

Since then, I've hit that target for 9 out of 10 days. I don't recall writing on Memorial Day at all. The total word count is at just over 14,500 words.

Note that some of those are much better than others, but I do have a complete story that I'm fairly pleased with as a result of the process. (It's awaiting one more revision before I submit it.) I've also got two other short stories in the works that I'm less confident about.

I can't say that I feel great about this process at the moment. I've got the plot and main characters of the two stories I'm working on all laid out, but I'm trying to write 5,000 word stories (because I think that's a better length to submit for an unpublished writer hoping to get published) with only one successful story told in that range so far. The other two are looking more like 10,000 word stories at the moment.

But my goals were to address two of my weaknesses as a writer:

• Writing on a regular basis
• FINISHING STORIES

I'm definitely getting some repetitions in on the first item. Maybe I need to just push through and complete these next two stories and then see if they can be revised downward. Also, I've got either a cold or bad allergies at the moment, and the kids are just about to get out of school for the summer, and both illness and big schedule changes tend to throw me off kilter and make me a bit more pessimistic.

I Tell Stories

Not always the way I'd someday like to, in nice printed editions, but as a part of my everyday life, I'm a storyteller.

Today in the grocery store I noticed that the cashier had bandages on the fingertips of her right hand. So I asked her if she had been playing the guitar or of she was just so fast on the register keys that her fingers had spontaneously combusted.

She seemed surprised, then looked at the bandages and laughed. She said that her fingers just get dry and cracked and that they never seemed to heal up. So she used some special lotion on them and had to tape them to keep it from getting the register machines greasy. Then she asked about the guitar comment.

Here's where I started to let my imagination go. I could have simply said that I'd seen guitarists like Mark Knopfler wearing bandaids on their fingers to protect them. I even think I remember my Mom either talking about this or doing it herself once.

But I transformed that into a little story about how my Mom had recently taken up the guitar again after many years away from the instrument, and that she hadn't had time to build up the callouses on her fingers yet, so she was taping up her fingertips.

Why did I pick that particular version? Well, unlike me, my Mom can play the guitar. But she doesn't do it much anymore, as far as I know. And this was a middle-aged woman I was talking to, and I wanted to give her the mental image of someone a little like her doing something kind of cool, rather than referencing some rock start. Making a story personal without making it about yourself also seems to draw people in, at least in casual everyday conversation.

As I was bagging my groceries, the cashier asked me about how my Mom got started playing the guitar again. I made a spot assessment: age, hairstyle, the part of the country I live in, and a little necklace with what I thought was a cross on it. The obvious answer became: "She plays every now and then with a group at church." Now, while I'm not a churchgoer, my Mom does go sometimes to a very open-minded church, and she's a friendly, warm person, so I could picture her doing this--though if she picked up the guitar again I suspect she'd be more likely to try to play along to Ottmar Liebert.

Sure enough, the woman's face brightened. "That's great," she said. "I wish I had a more interesting story myself, instead of cracked fingers."

"Everyone's story is interesting," I replied quietly as I bagged up the last of my items, but she had already turned to answer a question from the next customer, so I don't know if she heard me or not.

Then she turned back to me and smiled again. "I'm going to remember that story," she said. "You have a great day."

I wished her the same and left. As I was pushing my cart out the doors, I wondered at this tendency I have to embellish things, to weave together different memories, to shade a tale toward what someone wants to hear. And I have an uncanny ability to remember these little stories when they come up later should I meet someone again.

I don't think of myself as a liar, because when someone asks me what I really think about an issue or event, I do my best to answer truthfully or politely decline. I try to see the different sides of things, but I do have my own views. Most significantly, I try never to pretend that I understand someone else's pain or suffering when I have no real reason to think that I do. And I try very hard to keep promises without being afraid to make promises, which is a hard combination at times.

So I see myself as honest. Yet obviously I make things up, especially little things during chance encounters. I guess I like to share a smile and a laugh with people, to forge that brief connection with strangers, because the empathy and emotion that arises from such moments seems very real to me, even if it arises out of some tenuous blend of fact and fiction.

And there's a sincerity underneath it all. My Mom is a wonderful person; thinking about her makes me smile and fills my heart with pride. That cashier smiling and being pleased at the image of my Mom that she and I had just created seems right to me somehow, because it shares the fundamental truth that thinking about my Mom makes me happy.

That's a rationalization, but it's one I can live with.

First Post

"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking."
--Goethe

I'm anticipating taking the middle route here. That is, thinking in print about stuff that I've looked at but don't really know all that well.

I had to stop myself from writing the words "thinking out loud" above, realizing that this is a soundless exchange. (Or rather, it has no predefined sound associated with it--I'm surrounded by noise as I write this and I have no idea what you might be listening to.)

I use speech-related euphemisms a lot when writing electronically. It seems imprecise to me but habits are hard to break.

This brings to mind some reading I've been doing recently. Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy has a few chapters that examine the differences between the way literatre, preliterate, and semi-literate cultures perceive and describe the world around them.

As with most of the nonfiction that I read, I immediately think of this in terms of story and character. Take a standard fantasy "barbarian," for example. Rather than acting and speaking like an illiterate person from a literate society, wouldn't such an individual have a viewpoint based on oral culture?

Ong and others I've read suggest that such a viewpoint includes elements such as (A) a lack of general, Platonic definitions to apply to specific items in the surrounding world (for example, a picture of something round would not be described first as being a circle, but as some other specific round object like a plate) (B) an overriding pragmatism when dealing with hypothetical questions and (C) the belief that stories, laws, and such are being repeated verbatim when in fact they are slightly different every time, which might provide a greater flexibility over time, given that the rules and stories are adaptable to new circumstances by their very nature.

Oh well, dinner time approaches. Enough rambling for the first entry.