I had more political stuff I'd planned to say, but it frankly makes me tired and depressed, so here's some geekery instead. With no new Trek product in production, this season they're syndicating the original Star Trek, remastered for HD with rerecorded music and digital special effects. There's a trailer here and we'll all be able to watch the finished product within a couple of weeks.
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I think the show works well as a product of its times, and I think it ought to be viewed that way. The original space effects were extremely well done, especially given the time and money constraints on a weekly TV show. They've held up amazingly well over time, partly because they were so stylized. The ships had these odd abstract shapes and the colors were striking. The color schemes also work together well between the effects and the live action. The show works as a whole, and it could distract to add modern digital realism, subtle color schemes and fidgety details.
That being said, the show could also use some clean-up. Check out that first shot of the Enterprise in the youtube clip. You'll see a weird wobble in the movement as the Enterprise flies away from camera toward the planet. That eccentricity in the movement was caused by the tracks the camera ran on. That would be an almost invisible fix that could only help the show, because the wobble drops you out of the illusion and alerts you that it's not real.
I also think it would help sell the concept if they make geek-friendly changes. What the hell does that mean? Well, take phasers, for instance. The producers of the original show never really worried about consistency from episode to episode when it came to phaser fire. Sometimes the phasers are depicted as slashing continuous beams with what I consider the definitive phaser sound effect. But sometimes they used the photon torpedo visual, instead, firing discrete white blobs. I don't remember whether they ever used the photon torpedo sound effect, but sometimes they did go for the "no sound in outer space" effect.
Any one of these is a valid artistic choice, I think, but as a fan watching the show back when, I got frustrated by the lack of consistency. I don't fault the producers for it. They had no reason to think that the show would end up with a rabid fan following that would watch the shows multiple times, and even have their own personal video libraries at home. Consistency was not high on their list of priorities.
But the remix offers the new producers the chance to make things consistent across the board. A phaser is a phaser, and a photon torpedo is a photon torpedo, and never the twain shall meet.
If they do that, it's a good thing.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Paradigm Schmaradigm
I usually stay away from the politics in this blog, and I had originally planned not to post anything about 9/11. But it's so much in the air that I thought I may take a stab at getting my own thoughts in order and in print.
I saw "The Path to 9/11" last night, and thought it was generally okay. There were some clunky "author's sermon" bits of dialogue, but I thought that they got the weaselly bits, and more importantly, the clueless mind-set of the Clinton administration down perfectly. And five years down the road, they're still clueless, still arguing for the same failed approaches that got us to 9/11 in the first place.
See, something big happened in this country on 9/11 that had huge consequences for the world, and I'm not speaking specifically about the attack on the World Trade Center. I'm talking about a change in mind-set, a different paradigm, if you will, that emerged from the fire and rubble of that day, and that was codified in Bush's speeches shortly afterward.
It was the recognition that we were at war.
And it's something that the ex-Clintonistas, the Bush-haters, those on the left refuse to admit or acknowledge. I'm not talking about people making the grudging admission that "Yeah, we're at war, but it's Bush that put us there." I'm talking about deep down, where you really believe that this is a kill-or-be-killed situation and you'd better start taking the threat seriously and acting accordingly. And the left aren't there. Never have been.
Ever.
The Clinton administration's biggest failing in dealing with terrorism was their insistence that terrorism was a law-enforcement problem. Someone does something wrong, you arrest them. You only go after those directly responsible for the incident in question, and only if you have sufficient evidence to connect them. If a Blood kills a Crip, you don't round up the whole gang. You arrest the one Blood responsible, and if you don't have sufficient proof that he did it, you have to let him go. That's the law enforcement mindset.
And evidence for it is everywhere. From U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine's letter to the LA Times ("The Cole was also a crime scene"), to Clinton's vow to "bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long it takes," to the continued loony insistence that Bush lied about a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in order to go to war. He never did no any such thing. He claimed links between Al Qaeda and Iraq as part of a larger case for Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism. People have interpreted that as him saying Saddam was in on 9/11 because they're listening through a law enforcement filter: "you only go after those directly involved."
And they're still doing it. Yesterday, Vice President Cheney was on Meet the Press and went through an amazingly frustrating "Who's on First?" routine with Tim Russert that illustrates this very problem. A small sample:
MR. RUSSERT: All right. Now the president has been asked, "What did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center?" and he said "nothing." Do you agree with that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I do. So it's not...
MR. RUSSERT: So it's case, case closed.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We've never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11.
MR. RUSSERT: And the meeting with Atta did not occur?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don't know. I mean, we've never been able to, to, to link it, and the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say, at this point, nobody has been able to confirm...
MR. RUSSERT: Then why, in the lead-up to the war, was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al-Qaeda?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: That's a different issue...
America's response to terrorist attacks under Clinton was paralyzed by the "Superman problem." Superman's so strong that he can finish most enemies with one punch; no one can really challenge him toe-to-toe. Superman's big problem is that before he can hit someone, he has to figure out who to hit.
As I was watching TV that morning 5 years ago, part of my deep depression was caused not just by what was happening at that moment, but by the feeling that, like Clinton, Bush's response to the attack would be a few angry words followed by a shrug: "We will do whatever we can to bring him to justice, but in reality, 'whatever we can' will amount to a lot of talk and a couple of empty gestures."
The policy that George Bush announced immediately in the wake of 9/11 was a radical shift away from this mindset. So radical that many people in this country still either don't comprehend or believe it. Bush did not announce a simple investigation to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Nor did he announce that we were at war with Al Qaeda, although I've heard lots of people use that phrase.
This was the Bush policy in a nutshell: the problem isn't just Al Qaeda. It's the fact that Islamic jihadists have been allowed to breed and flourish, that countries around the world found terrorist groups to be such valuable tools that they were giving them weapons and money and training and safe haven. So bringing bin Laden to justice is only a small part of what we need to do. The big part is bringing down that edifice of terror-sponsoring regimes, and the intricate networks that fund and train and supply terrorists. Because we are not at war with Al Qaeda. We are at war with the larger system which brought Al Qaeda into being and helped it grow.
Here are direct quotes from Bush's speech on September 20, 2001:
"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."
"Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success."
"And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
Everybody heard these words that night, but apparently few took them to heart, didn't believe they were true or that Bush meant them. But looking back over the past five years, it's apparent that he meant every word.
What has the Bush administration done in the intervening years? Gone on a single-minded manhunt for bin Laden? Made a couple of arrests and a cruise missile strike, then declared victory and quit?
No. They've brought down terror-supporting regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, created a new cabinet-level department, embarked on secret programs designed to monitor terrorist communications traffic and strangle terrorist finances, changed or began planning to change the way the military is structured and equipped to fight this enemy.
Quibble with Bush's execution, if you will. Necessary intelligence overhauls still have not been done, and the Iraq occupation has not been handled well. Bin Laden is still at large, although his influence has been diminished as other players have come to the fore. And there are serious debates about civil liberties versus the need for security.
But stop with the "Bush lied" nonsense. He said what he meant, and he did it. The problem is, after eight years of having to read between the lines of every utterance by the Big Weenie, to try to divine the truth behind the carefully-worded ambiguity, a lot of people were not prepared for a President who did that.
That's about it for now, because it's lunchtime. I will add that many see our handling of Saudi Arabia as an indication of Bush's hypocrisy, but I disagree. I'll argue that later if someone insists. And I may talk more about Clinton later. Or not.
I saw "The Path to 9/11" last night, and thought it was generally okay. There were some clunky "author's sermon" bits of dialogue, but I thought that they got the weaselly bits, and more importantly, the clueless mind-set of the Clinton administration down perfectly. And five years down the road, they're still clueless, still arguing for the same failed approaches that got us to 9/11 in the first place.
See, something big happened in this country on 9/11 that had huge consequences for the world, and I'm not speaking specifically about the attack on the World Trade Center. I'm talking about a change in mind-set, a different paradigm, if you will, that emerged from the fire and rubble of that day, and that was codified in Bush's speeches shortly afterward.
It was the recognition that we were at war.
And it's something that the ex-Clintonistas, the Bush-haters, those on the left refuse to admit or acknowledge. I'm not talking about people making the grudging admission that "Yeah, we're at war, but it's Bush that put us there." I'm talking about deep down, where you really believe that this is a kill-or-be-killed situation and you'd better start taking the threat seriously and acting accordingly. And the left aren't there. Never have been.
Ever.
The Clinton administration's biggest failing in dealing with terrorism was their insistence that terrorism was a law-enforcement problem. Someone does something wrong, you arrest them. You only go after those directly responsible for the incident in question, and only if you have sufficient evidence to connect them. If a Blood kills a Crip, you don't round up the whole gang. You arrest the one Blood responsible, and if you don't have sufficient proof that he did it, you have to let him go. That's the law enforcement mindset.
And evidence for it is everywhere. From U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine's letter to the LA Times ("The Cole was also a crime scene"), to Clinton's vow to "bring those responsible to justice, no matter what or how long it takes," to the continued loony insistence that Bush lied about a link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11 in order to go to war. He never did no any such thing. He claimed links between Al Qaeda and Iraq as part of a larger case for Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism. People have interpreted that as him saying Saddam was in on 9/11 because they're listening through a law enforcement filter: "you only go after those directly involved."
And they're still doing it. Yesterday, Vice President Cheney was on Meet the Press and went through an amazingly frustrating "Who's on First?" routine with Tim Russert that illustrates this very problem. A small sample:
MR. RUSSERT: All right. Now the president has been asked, "What did Iraq have to do with the attack on the World Trade Center?" and he said "nothing." Do you agree with that?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: I do. So it's not...
MR. RUSSERT: So it's case, case closed.
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We've never been able to confirm any connection between Iraq and 9/11.
MR. RUSSERT: And the meeting with Atta did not occur?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: We don't know. I mean, we've never been able to, to, to link it, and the FBI and CIA have worked it aggressively. I would say, at this point, nobody has been able to confirm...
MR. RUSSERT: Then why, in the lead-up to the war, was there the constant linkage between Iraq and al-Qaeda?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: That's a different issue...
America's response to terrorist attacks under Clinton was paralyzed by the "Superman problem." Superman's so strong that he can finish most enemies with one punch; no one can really challenge him toe-to-toe. Superman's big problem is that before he can hit someone, he has to figure out who to hit.
As I was watching TV that morning 5 years ago, part of my deep depression was caused not just by what was happening at that moment, but by the feeling that, like Clinton, Bush's response to the attack would be a few angry words followed by a shrug: "We will do whatever we can to bring him to justice, but in reality, 'whatever we can' will amount to a lot of talk and a couple of empty gestures."
The policy that George Bush announced immediately in the wake of 9/11 was a radical shift away from this mindset. So radical that many people in this country still either don't comprehend or believe it. Bush did not announce a simple investigation to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Nor did he announce that we were at war with Al Qaeda, although I've heard lots of people use that phrase.
This was the Bush policy in a nutshell: the problem isn't just Al Qaeda. It's the fact that Islamic jihadists have been allowed to breed and flourish, that countries around the world found terrorist groups to be such valuable tools that they were giving them weapons and money and training and safe haven. So bringing bin Laden to justice is only a small part of what we need to do. The big part is bringing down that edifice of terror-sponsoring regimes, and the intricate networks that fund and train and supply terrorists. Because we are not at war with Al Qaeda. We are at war with the larger system which brought Al Qaeda into being and helped it grow.
Here are direct quotes from Bush's speech on September 20, 2001:
"Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."
"Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success."
"And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
Everybody heard these words that night, but apparently few took them to heart, didn't believe they were true or that Bush meant them. But looking back over the past five years, it's apparent that he meant every word.
What has the Bush administration done in the intervening years? Gone on a single-minded manhunt for bin Laden? Made a couple of arrests and a cruise missile strike, then declared victory and quit?
No. They've brought down terror-supporting regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, created a new cabinet-level department, embarked on secret programs designed to monitor terrorist communications traffic and strangle terrorist finances, changed or began planning to change the way the military is structured and equipped to fight this enemy.
Quibble with Bush's execution, if you will. Necessary intelligence overhauls still have not been done, and the Iraq occupation has not been handled well. Bin Laden is still at large, although his influence has been diminished as other players have come to the fore. And there are serious debates about civil liberties versus the need for security.
But stop with the "Bush lied" nonsense. He said what he meant, and he did it. The problem is, after eight years of having to read between the lines of every utterance by the Big Weenie, to try to divine the truth behind the carefully-worded ambiguity, a lot of people were not prepared for a President who did that.
That's about it for now, because it's lunchtime. I will add that many see our handling of Saudi Arabia as an indication of Bush's hypocrisy, but I disagree. I'll argue that later if someone insists. And I may talk more about Clinton later. Or not.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Die Hard Part 4: Conclusion and Lessons Learned
So what have I learned from rewatching the film and tearing it apart? Is there anything I can apply to my own work?
Lessons to apply:
Some of it I'm already applying. I've added a lot of POV intercuts, explaining the bad guy's plan and sequence of actions more clearly, and giving minor characters more room to grow. I've tried to flesh out the characters more, making them more easy to identify with.
Unfortunately, while I've always considered dialogue one of my strengths, I think it might be suffering in the rewrite as I try to give more dramatic weight to the proceedings and lose some of the levity. However, I think I'll then be going back over the novel again in what the movie types call a "dialogue polish," specifically to brighten and tighten the dialogue. And with luck, I can make the book sing.
The big problem, and one that just hit me in a lightning flash this afternoon, is that the protagonist isn't. He gets recruited to join the team in act 1, then kind of mopes around aimlessly in act 2, wrestling with a moral dilemma, and failing to act on it, until the villains force his hand at the act 2 climax. He doesn't really protag until act 3, when he gets off his butt and kicks ass.
Act 1 works pretty well as near as I can tell. And the act 2 climax and act 3, while they need a lot of patching, are structurally sound, I think. But for the bulk of act 2, I need to give my protagonist a goal to work towards, something to keep him pushing forward and to get the reader to keep turning pages. Which means I'll need to introduce some kind of subplot and re-restructure the work I've been slogging through for the past two weeks or so. This kind of reimagining is something I'm very bad at.
Lessons to apply:
- Intercut scenes and use subtly parallel structures: true parallels, foreshadows, echoes, reverse foreshadows, reverse echoes.
- Dialogue needs to sparkle.
- Strive to write scenes and dialogue that work on multiple levels at once. The best line of dialogue is one that gives insight into a character, while also advancing the plot, while also being entertaining in its own right. Not everything can work this way, but look for opportunities where it can.
- There is no such thing as a throwaway character.
- Humor and heart can go a long way toward papering over plot holes and inconsistencies. If the audience is identifying with the characters, they're less likely to look for logic holes to pick at.
Some of it I'm already applying. I've added a lot of POV intercuts, explaining the bad guy's plan and sequence of actions more clearly, and giving minor characters more room to grow. I've tried to flesh out the characters more, making them more easy to identify with.
Unfortunately, while I've always considered dialogue one of my strengths, I think it might be suffering in the rewrite as I try to give more dramatic weight to the proceedings and lose some of the levity. However, I think I'll then be going back over the novel again in what the movie types call a "dialogue polish," specifically to brighten and tighten the dialogue. And with luck, I can make the book sing.
The big problem, and one that just hit me in a lightning flash this afternoon, is that the protagonist isn't. He gets recruited to join the team in act 1, then kind of mopes around aimlessly in act 2, wrestling with a moral dilemma, and failing to act on it, until the villains force his hand at the act 2 climax. He doesn't really protag until act 3, when he gets off his butt and kicks ass.
Act 1 works pretty well as near as I can tell. And the act 2 climax and act 3, while they need a lot of patching, are structurally sound, I think. But for the bulk of act 2, I need to give my protagonist a goal to work towards, something to keep him pushing forward and to get the reader to keep turning pages. Which means I'll need to introduce some kind of subplot and re-restructure the work I've been slogging through for the past two weeks or so. This kind of reimagining is something I'm very bad at.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Die Hard Part 3: Dialogue & Character
Three things set "Die Hard" apart from the general run of action films that immediately preceded it.
First was the brutally simple premise: lone cop is trapped in a skyscraper with a large team of well-armed terrorists and must defeat them using brains and guts. The premise was so compelling and easy to understand at a glance that it spawned its own mini-genre of imitators, commonly referred to as "'Die Hard' On A ______""
Second, and where most of its imitators fell down on the job, was the complex storytelling structure (as discussed last time) it used to tell such a seemingly simple story.
Third, and the real subject of this post, was the attention given to creating memorable characters and quotable dialogue, something notably missing from the book.
Take the opening scene as an example: A jet touches down on a runway. Inside the plane, a passenger is gripping the armrest fearfully. His seatmate, an experienced business traveler, notices his fellow passenger's distress and tells him the secret to beating jet lag is to take off your shoes and walk on a thick carpet "making fists with your toes." Then the nervous seatmate gets up to leave and is revealed to be carrying a gun. "It's okay," he says, "I'm a cop." Then he pulls a giant teddy bear out of the overhead compartment. And thus we are introduced to John McClane.
It's a brilliant opening. In less than a minute and a half, we are introduced to the main character in a way that highlights his human flaws, and that hints at the two big (and conflicting) pillars of his life, police work and family. And even though the seatmate is seemingly a throwaway character (he never appears again), he gives us a memorable line of dialogue ("fists with your toes") that sets up one of McClane's big handicaps during the film (McClane, practicing the businessman's advice, is forced to flee without his shoes when the villains strike) and serves as a sort of reverse foreshadowing of the rest of the film (the business executive in his element, taking the nervous cop under his wing).
And the rest of the film only builds on this. We get a string of memorable characters: Argyle the hip chauffeur, Ellis the vapid salesman, Al Powell the cop, Dwayne T. Robinson the officious deputy chief, Johnson & Johnson (no relation) the FBI agents, not to mention the terrorists.
And line after line of sparkling dialogue:
"Sir, this channel is reserved for emergency use only."
"No fuckin' shit, lady! Do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza?"
"Who's driving this squad car, Stevie Wonder?"
"Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except the four assholes coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation."
"Hey babe, I negotiate million dollar deals for breakfast. I think I can handle this Eurotrash."
"You ask for a miracle, Theo. I give you the F-B-I."
"You're nothing but a common thief."
"I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClane. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite."
The characters may be cartoonish, but between the wittier dialogue and the excellent performances by the ensemble cast, they have a lot more heart than the cynical, vicious bastards moping their way through Thorp's novel. And even the throwaway parts get memorable bits, like Al Leong's terrorist stealing a candy bar while he waits to ambush the SWAT team, or the pompous anchorman who tries to show off his erudition by placing Helsinki in Finland.
Next up: Conclusion and lessons learned.
First was the brutally simple premise: lone cop is trapped in a skyscraper with a large team of well-armed terrorists and must defeat them using brains and guts. The premise was so compelling and easy to understand at a glance that it spawned its own mini-genre of imitators, commonly referred to as "'Die Hard' On A ______""
- "Under Siege" ("Die Hard" On A Battleship)
- "Under Siege 2: Dark Territory" ("Die Hard" On A Train)
- "The Rock" ("Die Hard" on Alcatraz)
- "Speed" ("Die Hard" On A Bus)
- "Speed 2: Cruise Control" ("Die Hard" On A Cruise Ship)
- "Passenger 57" ("Die Hard" On An Airplane)
- "Air Force One" ("Die Hard" On A Really Famous Airplane)
- "Con Air" ("Die Hard" On Yet Another Airplane)
- "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" ("Die Hard" In An Airport Full of Airplanes)
Second, and where most of its imitators fell down on the job, was the complex storytelling structure (as discussed last time) it used to tell such a seemingly simple story.
Third, and the real subject of this post, was the attention given to creating memorable characters and quotable dialogue, something notably missing from the book.
Take the opening scene as an example: A jet touches down on a runway. Inside the plane, a passenger is gripping the armrest fearfully. His seatmate, an experienced business traveler, notices his fellow passenger's distress and tells him the secret to beating jet lag is to take off your shoes and walk on a thick carpet "making fists with your toes." Then the nervous seatmate gets up to leave and is revealed to be carrying a gun. "It's okay," he says, "I'm a cop." Then he pulls a giant teddy bear out of the overhead compartment. And thus we are introduced to John McClane.
It's a brilliant opening. In less than a minute and a half, we are introduced to the main character in a way that highlights his human flaws, and that hints at the two big (and conflicting) pillars of his life, police work and family. And even though the seatmate is seemingly a throwaway character (he never appears again), he gives us a memorable line of dialogue ("fists with your toes") that sets up one of McClane's big handicaps during the film (McClane, practicing the businessman's advice, is forced to flee without his shoes when the villains strike) and serves as a sort of reverse foreshadowing of the rest of the film (the business executive in his element, taking the nervous cop under his wing).
And the rest of the film only builds on this. We get a string of memorable characters: Argyle the hip chauffeur, Ellis the vapid salesman, Al Powell the cop, Dwayne T. Robinson the officious deputy chief, Johnson & Johnson (no relation) the FBI agents, not to mention the terrorists.
And line after line of sparkling dialogue:
"Sir, this channel is reserved for emergency use only."
"No fuckin' shit, lady! Do I sound like I'm ordering a pizza?"
"Who's driving this squad car, Stevie Wonder?"
"Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except the four assholes coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation."
"Hey babe, I negotiate million dollar deals for breakfast. I think I can handle this Eurotrash."
"You ask for a miracle, Theo. I give you the F-B-I."
"You're nothing but a common thief."
"I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClane. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite."
The characters may be cartoonish, but between the wittier dialogue and the excellent performances by the ensemble cast, they have a lot more heart than the cynical, vicious bastards moping their way through Thorp's novel. And even the throwaway parts get memorable bits, like Al Leong's terrorist stealing a candy bar while he waits to ambush the SWAT team, or the pompous anchorman who tries to show off his erudition by placing Helsinki in Finland.
Next up: Conclusion and lessons learned.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Die Hard Part 2: Structure
So why, out of all the stories I could pick to analyze, did I pick "Die Hard"?
Number one, I often want to do something like this with movies I watch, but some people get so wrapped around the axle on spoilers that I shy away. But "Die Hard" is almost 20 years old, so I'm not worried about spoiling anything for anybody. And number two, it and "Big Trouble in Little China" were both big influences on my work in how they combine action and humor. And since I spent several hours yesterday sitting at the keyboard trying to figure out how to approach a particular story point in the second draft, I could use some inspiration right about now.
Structurally, the movie is very similar to the book, only much leaner. The sequence of events, in general, is the same. However, the book, concerned as it is with the events of the terrorist siege causing Leland to examine the many ways he has fucked up his life, intersperses a lot of flashbacks into lulls in the action.
The movie, on the other hand, compresses everything and keeps pushing forward. Which is not to say that it's full of mindless action. The movie takes almost 30 minutes setting up McClane's character and his relationship with his wife before the villains are even introduced. But even much of the exposition is done in motion: McClane gives us the essential outline of his backstory during a limo ride, and the essential geography of the setting is set up as we travel through it with him.
Then throughout the film, things happen much faster than they do in the book. The most obvious example is the fire hose rappel. In the book, Leland fashions a harness from the straps of a kit bag he's wearing and uses it to attach himself to the hose, then carefully measures out the hose and calculates every aspect of the drop. In the movie, McClain is racing to get the hostages safe from an impending explosion while being shot at by FBI agents in a helicopter. The hose is a last-second impulsive choice, his only slim chance of survival. He ties it around his waist and jumps.
Of course, this approach has its drawbacks, at least in written fiction. The movie blazes past you so quickly you can't reflect on what you've just seen or heard, or else you'll miss what's coming next. So, for instance, you can let some howlers like Al Powell's backstory pass without complaint (the howler in question is the fact that in the movie, Powell is the first responding officer on the scene, then later tells McClane the story of how he accidentally killed a kid and was subsequently pulled off the streets; those two elements just don't fit together). A written story doesn't have that same luxury.
On the other hand, some of the structural techniques in the movie work better than the book. The book is told exclusively from Leland's point of view, while the movie intercuts between parallel lines of action: McClane and the terrorists, usually, but also the police in the street, the hostages, the TV reporter covering the story, the limo driver in the parking garage. In the action leading up to the fire hose rappel and the roof explosion, they're intercutting between four parallel activities: McClane fighting Karl to get to the roof, Gruber and Holly in the vault as they pack up the loot, hostages being taken to the roof, FBI agents on helicopters getting ready to blow away the bad guys and cold-bloodedly discussing how many hostages will die.
One of the neat structural tricks in the movie is to mirror action between the heroes and the villains. So, for instance, McClane or the cops will make a plan, while the villains are making their own plans, then we see teh results of both actions. We also see both sides succeeding and advancing simultaneously. So, for instance, after McClane has finally succeeded in getting the cops to take the threat seriously after a few failed and foiled attempts, we find that not only have the villains proceeded in their vault intrusion efforts, but that McClane's efforts have actually advanced their plans as well.
Next up: characters and dialogue
Number one, I often want to do something like this with movies I watch, but some people get so wrapped around the axle on spoilers that I shy away. But "Die Hard" is almost 20 years old, so I'm not worried about spoiling anything for anybody. And number two, it and "Big Trouble in Little China" were both big influences on my work in how they combine action and humor. And since I spent several hours yesterday sitting at the keyboard trying to figure out how to approach a particular story point in the second draft, I could use some inspiration right about now.
Structurally, the movie is very similar to the book, only much leaner. The sequence of events, in general, is the same. However, the book, concerned as it is with the events of the terrorist siege causing Leland to examine the many ways he has fucked up his life, intersperses a lot of flashbacks into lulls in the action.
The movie, on the other hand, compresses everything and keeps pushing forward. Which is not to say that it's full of mindless action. The movie takes almost 30 minutes setting up McClane's character and his relationship with his wife before the villains are even introduced. But even much of the exposition is done in motion: McClane gives us the essential outline of his backstory during a limo ride, and the essential geography of the setting is set up as we travel through it with him.
Then throughout the film, things happen much faster than they do in the book. The most obvious example is the fire hose rappel. In the book, Leland fashions a harness from the straps of a kit bag he's wearing and uses it to attach himself to the hose, then carefully measures out the hose and calculates every aspect of the drop. In the movie, McClain is racing to get the hostages safe from an impending explosion while being shot at by FBI agents in a helicopter. The hose is a last-second impulsive choice, his only slim chance of survival. He ties it around his waist and jumps.
Of course, this approach has its drawbacks, at least in written fiction. The movie blazes past you so quickly you can't reflect on what you've just seen or heard, or else you'll miss what's coming next. So, for instance, you can let some howlers like Al Powell's backstory pass without complaint (the howler in question is the fact that in the movie, Powell is the first responding officer on the scene, then later tells McClane the story of how he accidentally killed a kid and was subsequently pulled off the streets; those two elements just don't fit together). A written story doesn't have that same luxury.
On the other hand, some of the structural techniques in the movie work better than the book. The book is told exclusively from Leland's point of view, while the movie intercuts between parallel lines of action: McClane and the terrorists, usually, but also the police in the street, the hostages, the TV reporter covering the story, the limo driver in the parking garage. In the action leading up to the fire hose rappel and the roof explosion, they're intercutting between four parallel activities: McClane fighting Karl to get to the roof, Gruber and Holly in the vault as they pack up the loot, hostages being taken to the roof, FBI agents on helicopters getting ready to blow away the bad guys and cold-bloodedly discussing how many hostages will die.
One of the neat structural tricks in the movie is to mirror action between the heroes and the villains. So, for instance, McClane or the cops will make a plan, while the villains are making their own plans, then we see teh results of both actions. We also see both sides succeeding and advancing simultaneously. So, for instance, after McClane has finally succeeded in getting the cops to take the threat seriously after a few failed and foiled attempts, we find that not only have the villains proceeded in their vault intrusion efforts, but that McClane's efforts have actually advanced their plans as well.
Next up: characters and dialogue
Friday, September 01, 2006
Finding What Works: Die Hard
So I thought I would take a break from obsessing about my own progress (or lack of) and talk about something I really like, while trying to find the elements that make it work so well. So I thought I'd take a good close look at "Die Hard."
The movie came out in 1988, just after I'd left The Daily Oklahoman. It starred Bruce Willis, who was mainly well known for his role asDavid Addison in Moonlighting, a combination screwball comedy/romance/mystery TV series that was a huge hit, if only briefly. Before the movie came out, I had my doubts about Willis being able to pull off an action role, but he did it brilliantly.
But before I start tearing apart the movie, which is an almost perfect piece of action-adventure entertainment, let's look at the book that inspired it.
In 1979, a guy named Roderick Thorp released a little suspense novel titled Nothing Lasts Forever. The book was actually a sequel to his 1966 novel, The Detective, which had been made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra.
Comparing the novel and the movie is an interesting exercise. There is one school of thought that says you should be as true to the book as possible when making the movie. Another school of thought says that you can take liberties with the text, changing and combining characters and events, as long as you are true to the spirit of the book. The general line of thinking goes that if you discard both, you're sure to have an awful movie.
"Die Hard" disproves that. It's true to neither the plot nor the spirit of the book, and it's a rip-roaring good time. Yet, for everything from the book that it discards or changes, you can still see the skeleton of the novel in the movie, unlike say, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," which discards virtually everything from Gary Wolfe's novel except for a few names and the central conceit, that toons are real and photographed, not drawn.
So what did the movie discard from the novel, besides the title? The main characters' names, for one. Joe Leland is replaced by John McClane. Stephanie Gennaro, Leland's divorced daughter, is replaced by Holly Gennaro, McClane's estranged wife. The terrorist leader, Little Tony the Red, becomes the suave Hans Gruber.
Yet the basic structure is much the same. Leland flies to Los Angeles to be with his family on Christmas Eve. Joins his daughter at a Christmas party in the high-rise building where she works. Terrorists attack while Leland is off cleaning up, relaxing with his shoes off. As the terrorists defend the building from police and try to break into the safe on the top floor, Leland picks them off one by one. He breaks the neck of one in a fistfight. He escapes down a ventilation shaft, using his rifle strap as a rope. He takes a bag of plastic explosive and detonators off a dead terrorist, and later drops that explosive down an elevator shaft as a makeshift bomb. He cuts his bare feet on broken glass. He listens over the radio as Ellis, his daughter's coworker, is killed by the terrorists right after giving them Leland's identity. He argues with the cops outside, ends up trapped on the roof, and has to rappel down the side of the building with a firehose. He finally shoots Little Tony, who grabs Stephanie's watchband as he falls out the window, dragging her with him. In the end, as McClane is about to be killed by Karl, the vengeful brother of the man whose neck Leland broke, the final terrorist is shot by Al Powell of the LAPD.
Anyone familiar with the movie will recognize these familiar touchstones, and yet the flavor of the book is completely different. Leland is a bitter old man, a retired cop and widower who has grown estranged from his daughter. Stephanie is a self-absorbed, cocaine-snorting yuppie, and while Leland loves her, he doesn't much like her. Little Tony is a committed communist who commits the assault in order to steal money the corporation has gotten by illicit means. After Leland kills Tony, and accidentally causes his own daughter's death in the process, he proceeds to the opened safe and throws of millions of dollars in cash out the open windows into the streets, in order to punish the corporation, a big oil company whose misdeeds prompted this whole mess.
While the book is suspenseful, the characters are all sort of sour and used up and pathetic, and it's hard to really root for any of them. From the pessimistic, contemplative title to the final line, there's something in the book that's like, to quote Stephen King, "biting on tinfoil." A stinging undertaste that never mellows.
Next time: how to turn this bitter downward spiral into a sweet roller-coaster ride.
The movie came out in 1988, just after I'd left The Daily Oklahoman. It starred Bruce Willis, who was mainly well known for his role asDavid Addison in Moonlighting, a combination screwball comedy/romance/mystery TV series that was a huge hit, if only briefly. Before the movie came out, I had my doubts about Willis being able to pull off an action role, but he did it brilliantly.
But before I start tearing apart the movie, which is an almost perfect piece of action-adventure entertainment, let's look at the book that inspired it.
In 1979, a guy named Roderick Thorp released a little suspense novel titled Nothing Lasts Forever. The book was actually a sequel to his 1966 novel, The Detective, which had been made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra.
Comparing the novel and the movie is an interesting exercise. There is one school of thought that says you should be as true to the book as possible when making the movie. Another school of thought says that you can take liberties with the text, changing and combining characters and events, as long as you are true to the spirit of the book. The general line of thinking goes that if you discard both, you're sure to have an awful movie.
"Die Hard" disproves that. It's true to neither the plot nor the spirit of the book, and it's a rip-roaring good time. Yet, for everything from the book that it discards or changes, you can still see the skeleton of the novel in the movie, unlike say, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," which discards virtually everything from Gary Wolfe's novel except for a few names and the central conceit, that toons are real and photographed, not drawn.
So what did the movie discard from the novel, besides the title? The main characters' names, for one. Joe Leland is replaced by John McClane. Stephanie Gennaro, Leland's divorced daughter, is replaced by Holly Gennaro, McClane's estranged wife. The terrorist leader, Little Tony the Red, becomes the suave Hans Gruber.
Yet the basic structure is much the same. Leland flies to Los Angeles to be with his family on Christmas Eve. Joins his daughter at a Christmas party in the high-rise building where she works. Terrorists attack while Leland is off cleaning up, relaxing with his shoes off. As the terrorists defend the building from police and try to break into the safe on the top floor, Leland picks them off one by one. He breaks the neck of one in a fistfight. He escapes down a ventilation shaft, using his rifle strap as a rope. He takes a bag of plastic explosive and detonators off a dead terrorist, and later drops that explosive down an elevator shaft as a makeshift bomb. He cuts his bare feet on broken glass. He listens over the radio as Ellis, his daughter's coworker, is killed by the terrorists right after giving them Leland's identity. He argues with the cops outside, ends up trapped on the roof, and has to rappel down the side of the building with a firehose. He finally shoots Little Tony, who grabs Stephanie's watchband as he falls out the window, dragging her with him. In the end, as McClane is about to be killed by Karl, the vengeful brother of the man whose neck Leland broke, the final terrorist is shot by Al Powell of the LAPD.
Anyone familiar with the movie will recognize these familiar touchstones, and yet the flavor of the book is completely different. Leland is a bitter old man, a retired cop and widower who has grown estranged from his daughter. Stephanie is a self-absorbed, cocaine-snorting yuppie, and while Leland loves her, he doesn't much like her. Little Tony is a committed communist who commits the assault in order to steal money the corporation has gotten by illicit means. After Leland kills Tony, and accidentally causes his own daughter's death in the process, he proceeds to the opened safe and throws of millions of dollars in cash out the open windows into the streets, in order to punish the corporation, a big oil company whose misdeeds prompted this whole mess.
While the book is suspenseful, the characters are all sort of sour and used up and pathetic, and it's hard to really root for any of them. From the pessimistic, contemplative title to the final line, there's something in the book that's like, to quote Stephen King, "biting on tinfoil." A stinging undertaste that never mellows.
Next time: how to turn this bitter downward spiral into a sweet roller-coaster ride.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
From The Horrors of War To Just Plain Horror
Finished Gust Front by John Ringo today, finally, and I must admit, I'm getting a little burned out on military SF for now, having gone from Wentworth's Hrinnti series to Drake's Hammer's Slammers to Ringo's Posleen war almost without pause. So now I'm reading something completely different, suggested by Jess Nevins and Chris Roberson at ArmadilloCon.
I'd never read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, although I'd seen several movie versions. But after being burned by several failed attempts at reading classics above my level as a child (in my youth, I got somewhere between a third and halfway through Frankenstein and Dracula and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea {failed to finish that one twice} and The Time Machine and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which was not at all like the Invisible Man movies, BTW), I've always been a little leery of reading classics for their own sake. Not that I was unable to understand the books, although a lot admittedly went right over my head. They were just boring for a kid raised on The Brady Bunch and Space Ghost, Jonny Quest and Gilligan's Island.
I've rectified some of that lack in later years. I did get all the way through Frankenstein on my second try, and whizzed through The Time Machine. I read The Iliad once for the hell of it, and I read The Sun Also Rises on a dare (the deal was that I read Hemingway while my friend read Stephen King - neither of us liked what the other one loved).
So Nevins and Roberson said that Jekyll & Hyde was a great book to read, well written in a style that hasn't dated nearly as much as other authors of the period. They also mentioned a lot of gay subtext, which is not so much an attraction, except I just had to see it for myself. And as I'm about a third of the way through right now, I have to say: I see it. I don't know if I'm only seeing it because I've been told it's there, like listening to "Stairway to Heaven" backwards, but I definitely see the intimation.
I'd never read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, although I'd seen several movie versions. But after being burned by several failed attempts at reading classics above my level as a child (in my youth, I got somewhere between a third and halfway through Frankenstein and Dracula and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea {failed to finish that one twice} and The Time Machine and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which was not at all like the Invisible Man movies, BTW), I've always been a little leery of reading classics for their own sake. Not that I was unable to understand the books, although a lot admittedly went right over my head. They were just boring for a kid raised on The Brady Bunch and Space Ghost, Jonny Quest and Gilligan's Island.
I've rectified some of that lack in later years. I did get all the way through Frankenstein on my second try, and whizzed through The Time Machine. I read The Iliad once for the hell of it, and I read The Sun Also Rises on a dare (the deal was that I read Hemingway while my friend read Stephen King - neither of us liked what the other one loved).
So Nevins and Roberson said that Jekyll & Hyde was a great book to read, well written in a style that hasn't dated nearly as much as other authors of the period. They also mentioned a lot of gay subtext, which is not so much an attraction, except I just had to see it for myself. And as I'm about a third of the way through right now, I have to say: I see it. I don't know if I'm only seeing it because I've been told it's there, like listening to "Stairway to Heaven" backwards, but I definitely see the intimation.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Wait... Okay, I'm Ready... Wait...
I finally got an answer on my short story "Shell,"which has been languishing in the slush at Intergalactic Medicine Show since February. It has gone into the editor's "Read Again" pile, so there's hope that this could be that elusive second sale. This also means at least another couple of months of waiting. Aaargh, the pace of this business kills me.
Which is not a criticism of the editor at IGMS, any more than it is of the editor at Baen's Universe, who has a story I submitted in December of last year and won't be giving me a definitive thumbs up or down until after my 44th birthday, probably. I mean, it's basically a result of too many people chasing too few dollars.
Also, I'm approaching the halfway point of the novel rewrite and hitting one of those "this book totally sucks and I should quit and do something else" doldrums with it. One of the problems is that I've planted so many clues to the villains' plot that the heroes need to twig to it a little earlier, which means revising their actions for the remainder of the second act.
Problem is, what I really need is for them to do something in reaction to the perceived danger that actually puts them in a worse position when the real danger is revealed. So I know what I want the effect of their actions to be, but as far as their substance, I'm clueless. Need to think...
Of course, once I finish it (which if I work really, really hard will maybe be within a year of the time I started), then it goes into a slush pile somewhere, where it will wait for two years, if I'm lucky and they like it, before being accepted for publication in another two or so years. So start the chant now: "Digger in 2010."
Which is not a criticism of the editor at IGMS, any more than it is of the editor at Baen's Universe, who has a story I submitted in December of last year and won't be giving me a definitive thumbs up or down until after my 44th birthday, probably. I mean, it's basically a result of too many people chasing too few dollars.
Also, I'm approaching the halfway point of the novel rewrite and hitting one of those "this book totally sucks and I should quit and do something else" doldrums with it. One of the problems is that I've planted so many clues to the villains' plot that the heroes need to twig to it a little earlier, which means revising their actions for the remainder of the second act.
Problem is, what I really need is for them to do something in reaction to the perceived danger that actually puts them in a worse position when the real danger is revealed. So I know what I want the effect of their actions to be, but as far as their substance, I'm clueless. Need to think...
Of course, once I finish it (which if I work really, really hard will maybe be within a year of the time I started), then it goes into a slush pile somewhere, where it will wait for two years, if I'm lucky and they like it, before being accepted for publication in another two or so years. So start the chant now: "Digger in 2010."
Friday, August 25, 2006
Out of the Loop
Well, the WorldCon is in full swing, and I'm not there. Not that I ever had serious plans to go, but it's in Anaheim this year, which is where I attended my first WorldCon 22 years ago. I have lots of memories of that con, probably more memories of it than of the other WorldCon I attended, which was just six years ago in Chicago. Next year's is in Japan, which I would love to attend, but certainly cannot afford, but maybe the year after that. It's an event worth doing every few years.
To clarify the post from a couple of days ago, I have never personally killed nor maimed a cat. But I will admit I don't much like them, which may be why I find stuff like BonsaiKitten.com funny (their site was down when I included this link - if it's still down, you can read about the phenomenon here and here and here and see a mirror of the site here). There's something about cats that makes their destruction and torture an acceptable subject for humor while the same cannot be said about dogs or snakes or even goldfish. You would never see a BonsaiPuppy website (unless some catlover ginned one up just because I said it couldn't be done). You would never see a dog equivalent of How to Kill Your Girlfriend's Cat. I don't know why this is, but it seems to be true, and it works for me.
To clarify the post from a couple of days ago, I have never personally killed nor maimed a cat. But I will admit I don't much like them, which may be why I find stuff like BonsaiKitten.com funny (their site was down when I included this link - if it's still down, you can read about the phenomenon here and here and here and see a mirror of the site here). There's something about cats that makes their destruction and torture an acceptable subject for humor while the same cannot be said about dogs or snakes or even goldfish. You would never see a BonsaiPuppy website (unless some catlover ginned one up just because I said it couldn't be done). You would never see a dog equivalent of How to Kill Your Girlfriend's Cat. I don't know why this is, but it seems to be true, and it works for me.
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Cold War Hilarity
I know this will probably get some animal rights folks all het up, but come on, it's cats. They deserve it.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Second Draft: The Countdown Begins
So I decided to start back up with the word counter thingie, except since I'm in the middle of a second draft that is growing quickly (and that I'm not rewriting from scratch), it's easier for me to do a page counter. Here's where I stand right now:
To illustrate how different the second draft is, this is the corresponding place in the first draft:
So I've fleshed out the beginning quite a bit. The manuscript is almost 10% longer than it was before. I don't know if the rest of the manuscript will grow at the same rate. I hope not. Then again, if I do still decide to go to Baen first, they want at least 100,000 words, and I'm still not there, so I've got room to grow without really needing to cut much more.
One cool thing I'm finding is that scenes that seemed sort of pointless or throwaway in the first draft are being rewritten to focus a lot more on the overall arc of the story and really draw out the conflicts between the characters. The second act wandered all over the map while I tried to find the storyline in the first draft. The second draft is much clearer and more focused.
| |
192 / 504 (38.1%) |
To illustrate how different the second draft is, this is the corresponding place in the first draft:
| |
153 / 466 (32.8%) |
So I've fleshed out the beginning quite a bit. The manuscript is almost 10% longer than it was before. I don't know if the rest of the manuscript will grow at the same rate. I hope not. Then again, if I do still decide to go to Baen first, they want at least 100,000 words, and I'm still not there, so I've got room to grow without really needing to cut much more.
One cool thing I'm finding is that scenes that seemed sort of pointless or throwaway in the first draft are being rewritten to focus a lot more on the overall arc of the story and really draw out the conflicts between the characters. The second act wandered all over the map while I tried to find the storyline in the first draft. The second draft is much clearer and more focused.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Going Postal
Today is the twentieth anniversary of the event that gave birth to the phrases "going postal" and "disgruntled postal worker." Twenty years ago today, Patrick Sherrill went on an armed rampage at the Edmond, OK post office where he worked, killing 14 people and wounding six more before taking his own life.
I was working for The Daily Oklahoman at the time, so I was peripherally involved in the news coverage that day. I was grabbed early in the day to follow one of the reporters to the post office, because they needed radio-equipped cars to coordinate the coverage. I can remember riding back to the paper with one of the reporters, listening to other reporters on the radio telling about the people they were interviewing, relatives and friends and neighbors. One reporter in particular mentioned that Sherrill's neighbor, completely opposite of the old cliche about the neighbors saying 'he was always such a nice, quiet man,' could not say enough bad things about the guy.
I remember how the newsroom buzzed frantically all day, and how, about 10 minutes before I was supposed to go home, I got grabbed again by one of the editors and sent to Edmond to pick up a photo of one of the victims from her husband. I drove the half-hour out to the home, feeling awfully put out because this would keep me working for an extra hour at least. When I got there, the red-eyed husband handed me a Polaroid photo that had been cut in half so only his wife's face showed. I hesitated as I took it, and he asked me what was wrong. With my usual lack of tact, I mentioned that the resolution of the Polaroid was really not suitable for reproduction. He began to get upset, and someone else came and angrily told me to get out of there, so I took the photo and returned to the newsroom. The picture went out over the AP wires that night.
I really don't like myself sometimes.
That night, at home, I watched the local news of all three stations. One station billed the story as "Tragedy in Edmond," and had the local anchors interviewing Sherrill's sister on the living-room-style set of their morning show, all muted colors and hushed voices. "Did you ever get any indication that your brother was capable of something like this?"
One of the other stations had a blood-red graphic that simply said, "Massacre!" and interviewed Michael Bigler, one of the surviving victims, in a live remote from his hospital bed. "So where exactly did he shoot you, Mike?" asked the grinning anchor.
Bigler later recounted in an article in Guidelines magazine how God had saved his life that day. When Sherrill shot him, God told him to play dead. So Bigler lay still on the floor and didn't move, listening to the shots and screams as Sherrill continued to gun people down. And then the screams stopped. Then Bigler heard footsteps in the adjoining room, punctuated by occasional single shots. "He's shooting everybody again, to make sure they're dead," Bigler realized.
And God said, "Run."
Bigler then scrambled out the nearest door while Sherrill was reloading.
That day was actually my second experience in a newsroom frantically covering a breaking story. The first had been in 1985, when a fireworks factory blew up in Hallett, Oklahoma. But I wasn't personally involved in it like I was in the Edmond story, however peripherally. So the Edmond thing affected me more and taught me some things about myself that I didn't particularly like.
The novel rewrite continues apace. I'm over a third of the way through, and the second draft has expanded quite a bit so far. I've deleted some extraneous material and tightened up some of the dialogue, while adding quite a few scenes to make the timeline clearer and develop the characters and their relationships further. I've also added a lot of sensory descriptions for setting and atmosphere, so the characters aren't walking around in a bland gray void. I still don't know if the book will work as a whole, but I think it's getting better.
I was working for The Daily Oklahoman at the time, so I was peripherally involved in the news coverage that day. I was grabbed early in the day to follow one of the reporters to the post office, because they needed radio-equipped cars to coordinate the coverage. I can remember riding back to the paper with one of the reporters, listening to other reporters on the radio telling about the people they were interviewing, relatives and friends and neighbors. One reporter in particular mentioned that Sherrill's neighbor, completely opposite of the old cliche about the neighbors saying 'he was always such a nice, quiet man,' could not say enough bad things about the guy.
I remember how the newsroom buzzed frantically all day, and how, about 10 minutes before I was supposed to go home, I got grabbed again by one of the editors and sent to Edmond to pick up a photo of one of the victims from her husband. I drove the half-hour out to the home, feeling awfully put out because this would keep me working for an extra hour at least. When I got there, the red-eyed husband handed me a Polaroid photo that had been cut in half so only his wife's face showed. I hesitated as I took it, and he asked me what was wrong. With my usual lack of tact, I mentioned that the resolution of the Polaroid was really not suitable for reproduction. He began to get upset, and someone else came and angrily told me to get out of there, so I took the photo and returned to the newsroom. The picture went out over the AP wires that night.
I really don't like myself sometimes.
That night, at home, I watched the local news of all three stations. One station billed the story as "Tragedy in Edmond," and had the local anchors interviewing Sherrill's sister on the living-room-style set of their morning show, all muted colors and hushed voices. "Did you ever get any indication that your brother was capable of something like this?"
One of the other stations had a blood-red graphic that simply said, "Massacre!" and interviewed Michael Bigler, one of the surviving victims, in a live remote from his hospital bed. "So where exactly did he shoot you, Mike?" asked the grinning anchor.
Bigler later recounted in an article in Guidelines magazine how God had saved his life that day. When Sherrill shot him, God told him to play dead. So Bigler lay still on the floor and didn't move, listening to the shots and screams as Sherrill continued to gun people down. And then the screams stopped. Then Bigler heard footsteps in the adjoining room, punctuated by occasional single shots. "He's shooting everybody again, to make sure they're dead," Bigler realized.
And God said, "Run."
Bigler then scrambled out the nearest door while Sherrill was reloading.
That day was actually my second experience in a newsroom frantically covering a breaking story. The first had been in 1985, when a fireworks factory blew up in Hallett, Oklahoma. But I wasn't personally involved in it like I was in the Edmond story, however peripherally. So the Edmond thing affected me more and taught me some things about myself that I didn't particularly like.
The novel rewrite continues apace. I'm over a third of the way through, and the second draft has expanded quite a bit so far. I've deleted some extraneous material and tightened up some of the dialogue, while adding quite a few scenes to make the timeline clearer and develop the characters and their relationships further. I've also added a lot of sensory descriptions for setting and atmosphere, so the characters aren't walking around in a bland gray void. I still don't know if the book will work as a whole, but I think it's getting better.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
More Reality TV
So I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about Who Wants to Be a Superhero? It's a weird show, a combination of reality tropes and cheesy cheese. The thing is, sort of like The Apprentice, the show's biggest weakness is its centerpiece: Stan Lee. The attack dog challenge was awesome, but some of the others, like the prisoner interview challenge, have been either ill-conceived or just too simple and vague. In some cases, Stan The Man has had to grasp at straws in choosing which hero to dismiss.
For instance, Stan took one hero to task for making fun of another's costume. "Superheroes are supposed to make people feel good about themselves," says the man who introduced the concept of heroes who constantly bicker and fight in the Fantastic Four.
One challenge involved heroes ordering food in a restaurant and being seduced by a sexy waiter/waitress into giving up their secret identities. "The number one rule of being a superhero is never give up your secret identity," says the man who started a new era in comics by introducing superheroes whose real identities are common knowledge (the Fantastic Four, again).
And then there's Major Victory, a former male stripper who keeps getting chided by Stan about taking off his cape during challenges. "You'd never see Superman taking off his cape," Stan says. Well, apparently, Stan didn't read the same Superman comics I did, because Superman took his cape off all the time, wrapping Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen in it to protect them when he flew them to the Fortress of Solitude. Batman has also taken his cape off a few times, for instance, to fight a hawk or to duel R'as Al Ghul.
And perhaps most frustrating of all, whenever he talks to the superheroine Lemuria, Stan can't pronounce her name (although to be fair, no one else can, either), pronouncing it "Lumeria," except for the occasional voiceover.
I'm looking forward to the final episode, although I fear that Fat Momma, she of the doughnut utility belt, could well win it all, which would just be wrong. I would rather see Feedback win, although he has crazy-ass long mutant arms and is taking all this way too seriously. But he's got the best costume, he's a martial artist, and he plays the game well.
For instance, Stan took one hero to task for making fun of another's costume. "Superheroes are supposed to make people feel good about themselves," says the man who introduced the concept of heroes who constantly bicker and fight in the Fantastic Four.
One challenge involved heroes ordering food in a restaurant and being seduced by a sexy waiter/waitress into giving up their secret identities. "The number one rule of being a superhero is never give up your secret identity," says the man who started a new era in comics by introducing superheroes whose real identities are common knowledge (the Fantastic Four, again).
And then there's Major Victory, a former male stripper who keeps getting chided by Stan about taking off his cape during challenges. "You'd never see Superman taking off his cape," Stan says. Well, apparently, Stan didn't read the same Superman comics I did, because Superman took his cape off all the time, wrapping Lois Lane or Jimmy Olsen in it to protect them when he flew them to the Fortress of Solitude. Batman has also taken his cape off a few times, for instance, to fight a hawk or to duel R'as Al Ghul.
And perhaps most frustrating of all, whenever he talks to the superheroine Lemuria, Stan can't pronounce her name (although to be fair, no one else can, either), pronouncing it "Lumeria," except for the occasional voiceover.
I'm looking forward to the final episode, although I fear that Fat Momma, she of the doughnut utility belt, could well win it all, which would just be wrong. I would rather see Feedback win, although he has crazy-ass long mutant arms and is taking all this way too seriously. But he's got the best costume, he's a martial artist, and he plays the game well.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Working Up My Courage
So I mentioned a while back that I had this idea for a magazine that I would never produce. And then I got a favorable comment about the idea. And then I went to ArmadilloCon and met several small publishers, some of whom, like Chris Roberson and Monkeybrain Books, are putting out some awesome product (I really want the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana and Superhero: Origin of a Genre). And I'll stop geeking out about Monkeybrain now, I promise. Seriously, you guys.
So I started thinking more about it. I have quite a lot of it in my head. I know vaguely how I want it to look. I know what kinds of stories I want in it, and how I plan to sell content and pay contributors (a different scheme that I don't think anyone has tried before, although Universe is similar in some respects). I have a couple of ideas on marketing, but not enough. My big problem now is numbers; when I sketch out my idea of what an issue will be and translate that into costs, and then I look at what kind of response I have to have to get that back, it's pretty scary. And the one thing nobody can predict is how people will respond to something new.
One thought I've had is trying what I call Issue Zero, something about half the size of my eventual goal, and seeing what kind of response I get. I'm not going to go into details here. If you want to know more, email or comment me and I'll give you the big picture.
So I started thinking more about it. I have quite a lot of it in my head. I know vaguely how I want it to look. I know what kinds of stories I want in it, and how I plan to sell content and pay contributors (a different scheme that I don't think anyone has tried before, although Universe is similar in some respects). I have a couple of ideas on marketing, but not enough. My big problem now is numbers; when I sketch out my idea of what an issue will be and translate that into costs, and then I look at what kind of response I have to have to get that back, it's pretty scary. And the one thing nobody can predict is how people will respond to something new.
One thought I've had is trying what I call Issue Zero, something about half the size of my eventual goal, and seeing what kind of response I get. I'm not going to go into details here. If you want to know more, email or comment me and I'll give you the big picture.
Monday, August 14, 2006
I'm Back
ArmadilloCon Day 3:
I was entirely too bright-eyed on Sunday. I'd expected, from that first panel on Friday, that this would be an ultra-party con, but it was not so much (or maybe it was, but the parties all revved up after I left). They seemed to anticipate big party action on Saturday night, else why delay the panels until 11 a.m. on Sunday? Which is not to say there weren't parties when I left Saturday night, but just a couple.
Went to a couple of good panels on Sunday. One, on 19th Century Fantastic Fiction, was very informative, and I came away with titles of several things I want to look up and read. The other one was on Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan. This is the 100th anniversary of Howard's birth, and they're planning big doings at World Fantasy Con this year (also being held in Austin). I won't be there, both because it's during November Sweeps and because I can't afford it. But this panel was good and informative, and once again, I came away with some titles of things I need to hunt down and read.
I've only ever read one thing by Howard, a Conan novella in some anthology I can't remember (I'm sure I've got it packed away somewhere). I remember sort of dreading it before I tried to read it, just because I anticipated some muscular but dreadfully clumsy pulp prose. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the writing was. Not perfect, but better than I'd anticipated. I'm in a reading phase right now (currently reading A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo - in this first book, at least, he's obviously knowledgeable about the military, but the prose and characterization are clunky, and 5 chapters in, I'm getting impatient for the action to start), so I want to take advantage of it by reading some classics as well as new stuff.
I'd planned to attend another panel at 3 p.m., on using current scientific discoveries in writing, and attending the legendary Howard Waldrop reading after that (I heard him recite the opening sentences to the story in the first panel of the con, and it sure sounded intriguing), but about 2 p.m., I decided I'd had enough and decided to beat feet for home. The drive was mostly uneventful, except for traffic jams in Austin and Fort Worth. I listened mostly to music rather than talk radio.
When I left Tulsa, gas here was $2.95 a gallon. When I got to Austin, it was $2.84 in places. As I was driving back, I made sure to refill before I got back home, so I could save that 10-ish cents a gallon. Got back here and discovered that gas was $2.75. Doh! It dropped 20 cents a gallon here while staying basically the same in Texas. And the weird thing was, while I was on the road, I was hearing news reports that gas had hit an all time high, with the lowest gas in the nation costing $2.82 in North Carolina or someplace.
Anyway, I'm back, and I even got some novel work done while I was gone. I also got bored at the friend's house while I was waiting for the Mobile Command Center to recharge, so I got out their copy of The DaVinci Code and started analyzing the structure. The book is clumsily written on a prose level, to be sure, and you can pick it apart endlessly on its errors of fact and its wooden characters. But on the structural level, where it introduces mysteries and weaves together parallel plotlines as it doles out small answers and clues while deepening the mystery further, it's actually pretty sophisticated. If I could do that with Hero Go Home, I might have a page-turner on my hands. I only got through about the first tenth of the book, but I think I learned some things that I might try to apply on the third draft of Hero Go Home (and there will be a third - I'd hoped to clean it up sufficiently in the second to submit it, but I can already tell it will need further polishing).
I was entirely too bright-eyed on Sunday. I'd expected, from that first panel on Friday, that this would be an ultra-party con, but it was not so much (or maybe it was, but the parties all revved up after I left). They seemed to anticipate big party action on Saturday night, else why delay the panels until 11 a.m. on Sunday? Which is not to say there weren't parties when I left Saturday night, but just a couple.
Went to a couple of good panels on Sunday. One, on 19th Century Fantastic Fiction, was very informative, and I came away with titles of several things I want to look up and read. The other one was on Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan. This is the 100th anniversary of Howard's birth, and they're planning big doings at World Fantasy Con this year (also being held in Austin). I won't be there, both because it's during November Sweeps and because I can't afford it. But this panel was good and informative, and once again, I came away with some titles of things I need to hunt down and read.
I've only ever read one thing by Howard, a Conan novella in some anthology I can't remember (I'm sure I've got it packed away somewhere). I remember sort of dreading it before I tried to read it, just because I anticipated some muscular but dreadfully clumsy pulp prose. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the writing was. Not perfect, but better than I'd anticipated. I'm in a reading phase right now (currently reading A Hymn Before Battle by John Ringo - in this first book, at least, he's obviously knowledgeable about the military, but the prose and characterization are clunky, and 5 chapters in, I'm getting impatient for the action to start), so I want to take advantage of it by reading some classics as well as new stuff.
I'd planned to attend another panel at 3 p.m., on using current scientific discoveries in writing, and attending the legendary Howard Waldrop reading after that (I heard him recite the opening sentences to the story in the first panel of the con, and it sure sounded intriguing), but about 2 p.m., I decided I'd had enough and decided to beat feet for home. The drive was mostly uneventful, except for traffic jams in Austin and Fort Worth. I listened mostly to music rather than talk radio.
When I left Tulsa, gas here was $2.95 a gallon. When I got to Austin, it was $2.84 in places. As I was driving back, I made sure to refill before I got back home, so I could save that 10-ish cents a gallon. Got back here and discovered that gas was $2.75. Doh! It dropped 20 cents a gallon here while staying basically the same in Texas. And the weird thing was, while I was on the road, I was hearing news reports that gas had hit an all time high, with the lowest gas in the nation costing $2.82 in North Carolina or someplace.
Anyway, I'm back, and I even got some novel work done while I was gone. I also got bored at the friend's house while I was waiting for the Mobile Command Center to recharge, so I got out their copy of The DaVinci Code and started analyzing the structure. The book is clumsily written on a prose level, to be sure, and you can pick it apart endlessly on its errors of fact and its wooden characters. But on the structural level, where it introduces mysteries and weaves together parallel plotlines as it doles out small answers and clues while deepening the mystery further, it's actually pretty sophisticated. If I could do that with Hero Go Home, I might have a page-turner on my hands. I only got through about the first tenth of the book, but I think I learned some things that I might try to apply on the third draft of Hero Go Home (and there will be a third - I'd hoped to clean it up sufficiently in the second to submit it, but I can already tell it will need further polishing).
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Day 2
ArmadilloCon Day 2:
Wow, long day. Went to several panels, including one on editing, one on comics, a really fascinating one on small press publishing, a fun one on King Kong and giant apes in general, one on finishing a novel manuscript, and one on on-line publications. I also did some math and realized I had economized enough to buy at least one book. I bought a copy of an anthology titled Adventure, edited by Chris Roberson (whom I mentioned yesterday). He liked the "Whack a Monkey" shirt, and asked me to send him one of my stories. If he likes it, he'll keep me in mind for his next anthology project.
The capper of the day was the evening's performance in lieu of a dance. At Conestoga, they have a costume contest and a play during the judging. The play itself has been hugely entertaining the two years I've actually watched it. It is written by members of our local writers group, and is generally hilarious, due to its script, but also to the rather embarrassingly amateurish performances. A Penguin Playhouse production is neither smooth nor rehearsed, but the way the players deal with cheaply-built props falling apart, blown lines, missed cues and other disasters is part of its charm.
The performance at ArmadilloCon was the polar opposite of the Penguin Playhouse. The show by the Violet Crown Radio Players was slick and smoothly rehearsed. It was an onstage performance of a radio play, with a small band, a crew of voice actors and sound effects being performed live. They did King Kong, and it was hella cool. It made up for the disappointment of not having the Baen crew here. I have met four other Baen's Universe authors, but there was no official presence, so that was kind of a bummer. However, the other benefits have made up for it. I'm having fun, and there's still one more day to go.
Wow, long day. Went to several panels, including one on editing, one on comics, a really fascinating one on small press publishing, a fun one on King Kong and giant apes in general, one on finishing a novel manuscript, and one on on-line publications. I also did some math and realized I had economized enough to buy at least one book. I bought a copy of an anthology titled Adventure, edited by Chris Roberson (whom I mentioned yesterday). He liked the "Whack a Monkey" shirt, and asked me to send him one of my stories. If he likes it, he'll keep me in mind for his next anthology project.
The capper of the day was the evening's performance in lieu of a dance. At Conestoga, they have a costume contest and a play during the judging. The play itself has been hugely entertaining the two years I've actually watched it. It is written by members of our local writers group, and is generally hilarious, due to its script, but also to the rather embarrassingly amateurish performances. A Penguin Playhouse production is neither smooth nor rehearsed, but the way the players deal with cheaply-built props falling apart, blown lines, missed cues and other disasters is part of its charm.
The performance at ArmadilloCon was the polar opposite of the Penguin Playhouse. The show by the Violet Crown Radio Players was slick and smoothly rehearsed. It was an onstage performance of a radio play, with a small band, a crew of voice actors and sound effects being performed live. They did King Kong, and it was hella cool. It made up for the disappointment of not having the Baen crew here. I have met four other Baen's Universe authors, but there was no official presence, so that was kind of a bummer. However, the other benefits have made up for it. I'm having fun, and there's still one more day to go.
Friday, August 11, 2006
So Yeah, Okay, I Went
ArmadilloCon Day 1:
So I came down yesterday. Eight hours of driving, sipping Diet Coke and listening to AM radio (the AstroCruiser does not have a CD player). Heard Air America for the first time. I was able to listen to about 10 minutes of it before I started screaming at the ignorant host-chick, who was prattling on about how the neocons don't understand the "peace process." Then she started explaining the peace process in terms that would make the Underpants Gnomes proud.
Step 1: Israel withdraws its forces
Step 2:
Step 3: Peace
Turned off the radio before I blew a blood vessel in my head, causing me to go blind in one eye, causing me to lose depth perception and smash into a road barrier at one of the ENDLESS road construction sites.
Went to the hotel at about noon today. Registration wasn't supposed to open until 1, but I was getting tired of sitting around my friend's house. Spotted the hotel from the freeway: easy. Found a road route to actually get me to the hotel: not so easy. Looked for the entrance to the hotel's parking structure: nearly blew another blood vessel in my brain. After a brief fit of rage and FOUR LAPS around the block, I talked to the con staff and figured it out, then discovered that there was literally nothing to do until, like, 5 p.m. Even the dealers' room didn't really open until four-ish, which brought me back to remembering why I've always been kind of take-it-or-leave-it with cons, at least until Conestoga this year, which I loved.
If you aren't actually a guest of the con, there will be long stretches where you have nothing you want to do, but you don't want to leave, because it's such a pain in the ass to leave the hotel and navigate your way back. So along about three, four in the afternoon, I started thinking I might have made a big mistake coming here.
Then I attended the "Welcome to ArmadilloCon" panel, which made me think that maybe this would not be like any other con I'd ever attended. I've attended a few cons in my time, mostly in Oklahoma, but also in Nebraska and L.A. and Chicago, and even one in Austin (a NASFIC 21 years ago, God, has it been that long?). I have never been to a panel where the moderator pulled out a huge bottle of gin and said, "Who wants martinis?" followed by another panel member saying, "If you don't like martinis, I've got Shiner Bock and barbecue ribs." I was worried about my food budget here, but I had a chili dog in the Con Suite, a rib at the opening panel and some crawfish in the ApolloCon party. I may actually save enough money on food that I can buy a book if I want to, and there are some books in the dealer's room that I really want.
Met a member of my online writing group in person (the first such I've met). I also met Julie Czerneda, a fellow Universe author, as well as Elizabeth Moon, who writes military sci-fi (I have not read any of her books yet, but they will go on my list soon). And I talked comics with Chris Roberson, who has written a book called Paragaea: a Planetary Romance. I don't know if the book is any good, but it has one of the coolest covers I've seen in years.
I'm still kind of on the fence about whether this will be worth the trip. I don't know, for instance, if there will be an official Baen's presence tomorrow or not, but I am ready to schmooze if there is.
During the down times, I've been working on the second draft. It's really eating at me; I thought the second draft would be much easier than the first, but I've felt kind of adrift. I read through the revised first act. When I read the first draft, it was like, "This has some cool energy, but structurally, it's a mess." Now it's like, "The structure works a lot better, but the prose feels dead." Dang it, when did writing get so hard?
So I came down yesterday. Eight hours of driving, sipping Diet Coke and listening to AM radio (the AstroCruiser does not have a CD player). Heard Air America for the first time. I was able to listen to about 10 minutes of it before I started screaming at the ignorant host-chick, who was prattling on about how the neocons don't understand the "peace process." Then she started explaining the peace process in terms that would make the Underpants Gnomes proud.
Step 1: Israel withdraws its forces
Step 2:
Step 3: Peace
Turned off the radio before I blew a blood vessel in my head, causing me to go blind in one eye, causing me to lose depth perception and smash into a road barrier at one of the ENDLESS road construction sites.
Went to the hotel at about noon today. Registration wasn't supposed to open until 1, but I was getting tired of sitting around my friend's house. Spotted the hotel from the freeway: easy. Found a road route to actually get me to the hotel: not so easy. Looked for the entrance to the hotel's parking structure: nearly blew another blood vessel in my brain. After a brief fit of rage and FOUR LAPS around the block, I talked to the con staff and figured it out, then discovered that there was literally nothing to do until, like, 5 p.m. Even the dealers' room didn't really open until four-ish, which brought me back to remembering why I've always been kind of take-it-or-leave-it with cons, at least until Conestoga this year, which I loved.
If you aren't actually a guest of the con, there will be long stretches where you have nothing you want to do, but you don't want to leave, because it's such a pain in the ass to leave the hotel and navigate your way back. So along about three, four in the afternoon, I started thinking I might have made a big mistake coming here.
Then I attended the "Welcome to ArmadilloCon" panel, which made me think that maybe this would not be like any other con I'd ever attended. I've attended a few cons in my time, mostly in Oklahoma, but also in Nebraska and L.A. and Chicago, and even one in Austin (a NASFIC 21 years ago, God, has it been that long?). I have never been to a panel where the moderator pulled out a huge bottle of gin and said, "Who wants martinis?" followed by another panel member saying, "If you don't like martinis, I've got Shiner Bock and barbecue ribs." I was worried about my food budget here, but I had a chili dog in the Con Suite, a rib at the opening panel and some crawfish in the ApolloCon party. I may actually save enough money on food that I can buy a book if I want to, and there are some books in the dealer's room that I really want.
Met a member of my online writing group in person (the first such I've met). I also met Julie Czerneda, a fellow Universe author, as well as Elizabeth Moon, who writes military sci-fi (I have not read any of her books yet, but they will go on my list soon). And I talked comics with Chris Roberson, who has written a book called Paragaea: a Planetary Romance. I don't know if the book is any good, but it has one of the coolest covers I've seen in years.
I'm still kind of on the fence about whether this will be worth the trip. I don't know, for instance, if there will be an official Baen's presence tomorrow or not, but I am ready to schmooze if there is.
During the down times, I've been working on the second draft. It's really eating at me; I thought the second draft would be much easier than the first, but I've felt kind of adrift. I read through the revised first act. When I read the first draft, it was like, "This has some cool energy, but structurally, it's a mess." Now it's like, "The structure works a lot better, but the prose feels dead." Dang it, when did writing get so hard?
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Kind of Boring Discussion on Rewrite Goals
This may not interest anyone, but once again, it helps me to write it out.
The novel rewrite is proceeding. I'm done with Act I. I don't know how much better it is (if any), but it's longer by about 25%, and that's with at least two short scenes cut out. The basic problems I tried to address: introduce some major characters and their motivations earlier, give the protagonists and their relationships a little more time to breathe (the first part of the first draft was a NaNoWriMo project, so it was a little breathless, with major story elements elided), flesh out the generic first act climax with detail specific to the setting.
Since the first act climax takes place in Phoenix, I hit up an online acquaintance for help. He came up with some pretty good ideas, but in the end, I decided not to use his suggestion, setting my big action set piece not on Camelback Mountain, but in Patriots Square Park downtown.
Moving on to the second act now. The second act has different problems, mostly caused by my wandering around as I tried to find the storyline and fill time between the end of Act I and the Act II climax. Major goals here are much the same as in Act I, only more so: eliminate the extraneous elements and false starts, the scenes and subplots that end up going nowhere, while fleshing out the parts that push the story forward. First reader reaction to the Act II climax was that it felt a little rote. This says to me that I emphasized the action too much, while losing track of the emotional connection to the characters. Goal: play up the emotions more while still retaining the big explosions.
The novel rewrite is proceeding. I'm done with Act I. I don't know how much better it is (if any), but it's longer by about 25%, and that's with at least two short scenes cut out. The basic problems I tried to address: introduce some major characters and their motivations earlier, give the protagonists and their relationships a little more time to breathe (the first part of the first draft was a NaNoWriMo project, so it was a little breathless, with major story elements elided), flesh out the generic first act climax with detail specific to the setting.
Since the first act climax takes place in Phoenix, I hit up an online acquaintance for help. He came up with some pretty good ideas, but in the end, I decided not to use his suggestion, setting my big action set piece not on Camelback Mountain, but in Patriots Square Park downtown.
Moving on to the second act now. The second act has different problems, mostly caused by my wandering around as I tried to find the storyline and fill time between the end of Act I and the Act II climax. Major goals here are much the same as in Act I, only more so: eliminate the extraneous elements and false starts, the scenes and subplots that end up going nowhere, while fleshing out the parts that push the story forward. First reader reaction to the Act II climax was that it felt a little rote. This says to me that I emphasized the action too much, while losing track of the emotional connection to the characters. Goal: play up the emotions more while still retaining the big explosions.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Mobile Command Center: The Verdict
The first act, second draft is finished. Much of the rewriting was done on the Mobile Command Center (aka my New Toy) . So now that I've had two weeks to break it in, how does it stack up to my expectations?
On balance, I have to say it's working better than I'd expected.
The negatives first: even though the T/X has a bigger screen than most other Palm devices, the screen is still small and hard to read sometimes. Although the resolution can be adjusted, it sometimes changes unexpectedly, and I'm not sure why. I get a lot mistyped characters on the keyboard, more it seems than on a regular keyboard, because the sensitivity of the keys seems to vary or something (it communicates with the Palm via infrared rather than plugging in). Also, using the stylus as a selection tool, rather than a mouse, is frustratingly imprecise. And I have occasionally gotten a lot of typos introduced as artifacts during the synchronization process; I think it has to do with the translation between regular Word files and Word To Go files. And the battery life is not as great as I might like between charges.
Now the positives: I'm finding a lot more time to write than I'd expected. When I bought the MCC, I was planning to use it mainly as a tool for typing in bars on the one night a week or so I go out. Instead, I find I'm working during my lunch hour almost every day, which means I'm being a lot more productive than I'd planned. The ebook function is getting a lot more use than I'd expected, also. Depending on my mood, I might spend my lunch time reading a couple of chapters (currently Stars/Over/Stars, the sequel to Black/on/Black), or writing a couple of pages, or doing a little of each if I have time. I'm loving the flexibility. The keyboard is not perfect, but the keys are almost full-sized, so it's not as difficult to type as I'd thought. And I like the fact that I can either edit the full MS or start a new document to write a self-contained scene to drop in later.
So on balance, although it's not perfect, I think I'm going to get good value out of the Command Center. Now I've got to get back to work.
On balance, I have to say it's working better than I'd expected.
The negatives first: even though the T/X has a bigger screen than most other Palm devices, the screen is still small and hard to read sometimes. Although the resolution can be adjusted, it sometimes changes unexpectedly, and I'm not sure why. I get a lot mistyped characters on the keyboard, more it seems than on a regular keyboard, because the sensitivity of the keys seems to vary or something (it communicates with the Palm via infrared rather than plugging in). Also, using the stylus as a selection tool, rather than a mouse, is frustratingly imprecise. And I have occasionally gotten a lot of typos introduced as artifacts during the synchronization process; I think it has to do with the translation between regular Word files and Word To Go files. And the battery life is not as great as I might like between charges.
Now the positives: I'm finding a lot more time to write than I'd expected. When I bought the MCC, I was planning to use it mainly as a tool for typing in bars on the one night a week or so I go out. Instead, I find I'm working during my lunch hour almost every day, which means I'm being a lot more productive than I'd planned. The ebook function is getting a lot more use than I'd expected, also. Depending on my mood, I might spend my lunch time reading a couple of chapters (currently Stars/Over/Stars, the sequel to Black/on/Black), or writing a couple of pages, or doing a little of each if I have time. I'm loving the flexibility. The keyboard is not perfect, but the keys are almost full-sized, so it's not as difficult to type as I'd thought. And I like the fact that I can either edit the full MS or start a new document to write a self-contained scene to drop in later.
So on balance, although it's not perfect, I think I'm going to get good value out of the Command Center. Now I've got to get back to work.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Second Draft Blues
So I'm approaching the end of the first act in the rewrite, nowhere close to the pace I wanted to set, but not bad, considering. The thing is, although the draft is cleaning up okay, I don't know if it's actually going to work. The book has good parts, but I'm having one of those crises of confidence, where it feels as if no amount of polishing can fix the deep problems with basic structure and the book's overall storyline/character arcs. I should finish the first act rewrite by this weekend. I think it's better, but I really have no idea.
I've got a place to stay in Austin, but still don't know for sure if I'm going. Stupid Alaska pipeline. Gas alone for the trip will be over $100 (don't know how much over, but probably close to $110 total). So I'd be in for $150 just in gas and con registration fees, before I've eaten a single meal, or bought so much as a paperback from the dealers room. Are the networking benefits worth it? Of course, there's no way to know until after I've done it.
I've got a place to stay in Austin, but still don't know for sure if I'm going. Stupid Alaska pipeline. Gas alone for the trip will be over $100 (don't know how much over, but probably close to $110 total). So I'd be in for $150 just in gas and con registration fees, before I've eaten a single meal, or bought so much as a paperback from the dealers room. Are the networking benefits worth it? Of course, there's no way to know until after I've done it.
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