Don't Let Bad Yeti Happen to You

                A few days ago, I was watching “The Mummy 3” Don’t ask me why, some things cannot be explained.  I was watching the Mummy and I came upon this scene.

                                                                             

………….I know, right? What was that?  You have to ask yourself, how something like that made it into a 145 million dollar movie? What really bothers me about this scene, other than the way it damages the movie, is that it’s painfully, obviously bad, and someone made a large amount of money for writing it , while some of the best storytellers I’ve ever read, will never be paid for the work they do.  I’m not sure what is more terrifying; the idea that a Yeti Field Goal was in the original script and no one cut it, or that it wasn’t in the script, but someone said “the third act needs punching up, you know what this movie needs ? A sweet Yeti field goal!! Hell Yeah!  Or the fact that in the months that it took to model, texture, animate, render and composite this sequence into the movie, the idea that it was stupid, and hurt the movie never gained traction. What the Mummy 3 really needed was for someone to say no.

                This is why you need a good Beta reader.  A Beta reader serves many useful functions. They give you valuable feedback on your story. They might spot opportunities that you missed or have an alternate way of saying something that makes your scene funnier, or sadder, or scarier, but perhaps the most important service they provide is to give you one more chance to stop something bad from getting into the world.  When all people remember of your story is the stupid scene with the Yeti field goal, your reputation as a storyteller has been harmed. They may be unwilling to give you another chance.

                The best thing your Beta reader can do for you is to be ruthlessly honest with you about what they feel works and what doesn’t. Their reactions will probably mirror your readers. The best thing you can do for them is not take criticism of your story personally. When they tell you something doesn’t work, it’s not a slam on you. It’s not calling you stupid or saying you’re a bad writer.  It’s not about you, it’s about the scene, and if it’s not working, it’s better for you to know now than when the Ebola monkey of a scene has escaped into the wild. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to thank them in the author notes. They spent their valuable time to make your story better, so mentioning their input is just the classy thing to do, and as Ron Burgundy says, you should always stay classy.

Strength not Aggression

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before;

                Harry strode confidently into Dumbledore’s office, his dragonhide boots echoing ominously on the flagstones.  His piercing green eyes scanned the office, missing nothing.“Harry my boy, what a surprise” Dumbldore said, his eyes twinkling, “I don’t believe we had an appointment , but perhaps I could spare a few minutes…”“Shut up you old fool!” Harry snarled as he backhanded Dumbledore to the ground “I’m on to your bullshit!”  “Potter! “ Harry turned to face professor Snape . “I’ll see you expelled for this! You’re just as arrogant as….”Harry never got to learn who he was as arrogant as because he had already summoned his custom enchanted Glock 19 pistols carved with the Goblin runes for Bad Ass Mother Fucker” and shot the Slytherin in the knees. “If I wanted your opinion Snivellus, I’d beat it out of you” Harry stated as he sat in Dumbldores chair and propped his feet up on the great wooden desk. “We’re doing things my way from here on out. Anyone got a problem with that?

                If you’ve read any amount of fanfiction, you’re bound to have run into a few of these.   For some, they might be a guilty pleasure, because where else will we see Draco swallow a hand grenade? But there’s just no getting around the fact that these stories are bad, and there are some very good reasons not to write your hero like this.

                First, and I do not want to understate the importance of this, this hero sounds like a prick. The reader is supposed to like your hero, to empathize with him and to want good things for him, but how are we supposed to do that when he acts like such an arrogant bully? The only audience who might get behind this kind of character is these guys.

                                                                                 

                Aside from the fact that these sorts of protagonist come off as jerks, they make life harder on you as a writer. Remember, that your job is to convince the reader that your hero can lose.  If we’re not worried for him, we’re not invested in him, and we’ll probably move on to a story where we are invested. How do you create drama by putting your hero in jeopardy when he’s such a total badass that nothing can stand against him? The hero really has to be up against the ropes before he can make his comeback and give the reader that all important “Crowning Moment of Awesome".

                The important thing here for a writer to realize, as he decides how his character will approach the world, is that aggression is not strength. Strength is strength.  What does Harry have to prove in the story above? He killed a giant Basilisk at twelve, Drove off more dementors than anyone thought was possible.  Saved his friends lives, faced a Dragon, ect. Does he really need to bolster his self esteem by making other people feel small?  The truly accomplished, the Olympians, the Nobel winners, the great artist, don’t feel the need to throw their superiority in everyone’s faces. It doesn’t do anything for them.  They know who they are and what they’re worth. What other people think about them doesn’t really matter that much. And that confidence gives them presence.  Presence is what you should be going for in your hero, not bluster.  The arrogant, bullying character that throws his weight around is usually the one who gets his ass kicked when the quiet, taciturn hero whose calm, even friendly exterior, hides an iron will and unlimited capacity for destruction against those who cross him.   

           When I think of the tough guys I grew up watching,  not a one of them wasted time showing off what badasses they were, that just naturally came out in the course of doing what needed to be done.  Even well past the prime of their lives they’ve got this look about them. You say, “ ehn, he’s old, what could he do? Then they turn that cold steely gaze on you, and you suddenly remember that thing you had to do across town just now. That’s presence.

                                                                           

The Sam Gamgee Principle

                 In the course of writing a story, most authors are going to focus their efforts on the main character.   Their actions are the ones that drive the story forwards. They have the love interest and the Arch Enemies and the snappy dialogue, so naturally they are going to get our A game while what is left gets divided up amongst all the secondary characters.  Frequently these second tier characters only purpose is to give the Hero someone to talk at, rescue, or bounce exposition off of, sometimes they’ll die so the hero can find the motivation to beat the bad guy.  I feel this is a wasted opportunity.

                The thing about heroes is that the exceptional qualities that make them so interesting to read about separate them from us.  They inspire and amaze us, but because we know deep down that we can never do what they do, most of us will never even try.  Even when we feel connected to the hero on a level, such as when Spiderman struggles to make rent there is always that ability gap that excuses us from following his example.  This is why, even though the Hero gets the bulk of your efforts, you should not neglect the sidekick. Circle back for him. Develop him. Give him something real to say and do, because ultimately, the Sidekick is your reader.

                Most of us probably have times when we do not feel like the heroes of our own stories.  We are not gifted athletes, or prodigies of any sort. We rarely feel like the coolest person in the room.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, how chaotic would the world be if everyone was an Alpha type? But what are the qualities of a good sidekick?  They are loyal. They are frequently braver than they ever thought they could be. They stand to be counted, even if what they have to contribute to the cause isn’t much.  When the hero falters, as he will at some point if he has any depth at all, when he loses faith or hope or confidence, the sidekick encourages him and gets him through it. When the hero has exhausted his last reserves of strength, the sidekick says “Take mine.”

 When you think about it, these are not just the qualities of a good sidekick. They are the qualities of a good friend, and they are all things that I can do even though my abilities are not exceptional.  A Hero can inspire you. He can give you hope and purpose. But a sidekick can teach you how to be a better person, and that’s not an opportunity a writer should miss.

                                                           

Your Hero is not an Edgar Suit

                                                                              

           Some of you may remember Edgar from the 1997 Blockbuster “Men in Black”.  He’s here to help me talk about a mistake a lot of amateur authors make when writing their protagonist.  I say amateur authors because writers who do this rarely get paid for it.  When the character says the words you put in his mouth and performs the actions you lay out for him it can be easy to see him as a sort of avatar.  He becomes a second skin that you put on to interact with the universe of the story.  The hero becomes your Edgar Suit.  You’ll see this happen in a lot of stories that are characterized as “Mary Sue” or Mary Stu’s”.  When the story stops being about the journey your hero takes and becomes about wish fulfillment for you, then you’ve lost the ability to make the reader truly care.

                An actor can wear a characters skin and inhabit the story without ruining it. Even an actor who is also the director as Mel Gibson was in Braveheart can keep the character real. But in the Universe of the story, the writer is God. What happens then, when the character is really the writer? The character is also God, and there can be no real drama.  This is something I may circle back to in the future, because it’s that critical. One of the most important jobs you have as a writer is to convince the reader that the hero can lose.  A hero’s worth is determined by the difficulty of the challenges he faces, but when you feel like the hero is representing you, you have a conflict of interest.  Can you convincingly batter the hero down? Humiliate him? Have him rejected by the love interest in favor of his hated rival when you’re doing it to yourself? The better story would have you bring the hero low so that it’s that much more inspiring when he digs down deep, summons up all his courage and finds a way, even though he’s just hopelessly outgunned, outnumbered and outclassed.

                I believe it’s best for a writer to find a balanced perspective to tell the story from. You need to be close enough to know what happens, and to care about it enough to convey the proper emotions to the reader, but far enough to keep your ego out of the equation.  That way when the girl next door goes to the prom with the quarterback stud instead of the hero, it’s not you standing in the rain in your powder blue rental tux with the soggy bouquet of flowers.  The epic opening monologue from the movie Conan the Barbarian is a perfect example of good narrative distance.

Between the time when the Oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryus

There was an age undreamed of. And onto this, Conan

Destined to bear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.

It is I his chronicler alone who can tell Thee of his saga.

Let me tell you of the days of High Adventure!

                In other words, I saw this. It was awesome. Let me tell you about it.  Be Watson to your heroes Holmes.  Keep your distance so you can keep your objectivity, and don’t steal your hero’s glory fixing his fights so you can feel like a winner. It will make you a better writer.

In conclusion;  Edgar suits, good for Intergalactic Cockroach Bounty Hunters bad for writers.

Writing From the Bottom Up

                A very long time ago, long before stories were written down, in fact before there was much in the way of language at all, there was a caveman. His name has been lost to the mist of time, but perhaps it was Bob. Bob was out hunting as he had every day since he could hold a spear when out of the depths of the forest primeval lumbered a terrible bear. Not a small, relatively tame modern bear like a Grizzly or a Kodiak, but a horrible prehistoric protobear , superior in every way to its smaller cousins.  Until today, every caveman who had ever encountered a bear before had dropped their spears and run for their lives. Some lived, some died but all ran. Until today that is. For today something took a hold of Bob,  call it Fate, call it madness, perhaps it was misplaced rage because a similar bear had killed his hunting partner just a week before his retirement, but Bob didn’t run.  Hefting his lucky spear Bob howled his challenge at the bear and charged to meet his Destiny.  Later, sitting by the fire, with a brand new bearskin to ward off the chill of the encroaching glacier Bob showed off his sweet new scar, and for the first time ever,  in the primitive language of the cavemen, the Tale of Small versus Large was told. His cave man buddies gave him primitive high fives, and his cave woman mate was like “I am so hot for you right now”

                A couple of ice ages later,300 Spartans and some Thespians held the narrow pass at Thermopylae against several hundred thousand Persian soldiers.  And though they had little in common with Bob there was something in that battle, an echo perhaps of the caveman’s epic battle against the bear. The fear, the courage against dire odds, perhaps a sense of awe that they were actually doing the impossible. Though the Spartans all died their sacrifice had saved Greece.  All about the country the Tale of Small versus Large was told once more and Athens was like “I’m so hot for you right now Sparta”

                Again and again this story is told and though the names and faces change and the battles take many forms, from wars for independence to lawsuits against giant corporations to boxing matches against enormous Russians who couldn’t possibly be in your weight class they are all the same story, and they are all powerful.  The story of Small versus Large has endured all of these years because it is powerful.  It is powerful because it strikes some chord within all humans. Perhaps because we have all been small at some point and have felt threatened by the powerful the idea that sometimes small can stand up for itself and win is infinitely appealing.

                If you look for them you will find so many of these powerful stories that keep recurring throughout history and have found their way into modern fiction.  We have three of them in our Declaration of Independence.  How many great stories have been built on those eternal quests that drive mankind? Survival? Freedom? The chance to find Joy or at least peace in your life? The Shawshank Redemption had all three.  This is the secret to writing from the bottom up.  Look for the stories that really affect people. Chances are once you get past the details, they are the same stories that moved your grandfather and his grandfather, and his grandfather before him, because the Human stories endure.  The times change, and the fashions change, and new technologies replace old, but what makes us human remains as it ever was,  and always there are the stories. 

        When you figure out what it is that makes these stories so appealing, build your story right on top of that. It almost doesn’t matter then what the details of your story are, because this epic tale that has survived thousands of years of fans and critics is doing the heavy lifting. I call this writing from the bottom up because the energy of the story is welling up from Bob the caveman , through the Spartans, through David with his sling, and the Alamo, the Battle of Britain and Rocky Balboa and it’s just sitting there, waiting,  all that potential energy looking for an outlet through your story.

                When your story is sitting on top of one of the great stories, you have to work very hard to make it bad.  If you had never watched a Pixar movie, and all you knew about them was a synopsis would you ever have imagined that they could be as good as they are? Living Toys? Clown Fish? Rats that want to cook. Are the things you want to write about less plausible than those? Pixar movies are great because they’re telling Human Stories.  There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing the same.

Writing Naked

                In the world of martial arts, almost any discipline you care to name is going to be largely concerned with balance.  If you don’t have it, you can’t really move, and if you can’t move, you lose.  Some styles describe that balance with the concept of the centerline.  It is more than just your center of gravity; it is where you are more than any place in the world.  Soft disciplines like Tai Chi or Aikido will try to hide the centerline or divert attacks around it in order to minimize the force that can be brought to bear on you. Hard styles though, like wing chun for instance will drive out from the center, because this is where you can generate the most power.

            That’s all very interesting you might say, but what does this have to do with writing? And why should I be naked? Is this some kind of trick? All very good questions. The point is that when you write, you expose yourself.  People who never met you begin to get an idea of who you are, and what you believe.  You become vulnerable. You set yourself up to be laughed at or criticized. If you let that make you self conscious, you start to try to protect yourself.  Instead of driving out from your center and saying what you really meant to say, you let your fear of being hurt make you write obliquely so that when the criticism comes it won’t hit you where you live, and in doing so you lose your power.

            Here’s a for instance.  Not too long ago one of my best friends got married.  I’ve known him since I was a kid, and he’s definitely one of the smartest, well read and well traveled people I know.  I worried a lot about what I would say if the moment came where I needed to give some sort of speech or toast. I wanted something heartfelt and appropriate but I think deep down I really wanted to come up with something that made it sound like I hadn’t fallen behind on the reading of important books and the pondering of deep truths and exploring the world. The day came and I still hadn’t come up with anything, but luckily the DJ cranked up “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, someone started moshing and  I dodged that bullet. If he were getting married today though, I might have said something like this.;

            “Finding someone to share your life with is kind of like going to the Wizard of Oz.  You feel a void in your life. Maybe you’re not miserable, but you’re not really happy either. You just know that something’s missing, and you don’t feel quite whole. So you go to the Wizard and he gives you brains.  If you are very lucky, the woman you choose to spend your life with will be smarter than you. Aside from the fact that intelligence is always attractive in women, a smart woman challenges you. It keeps a relationship interesting, rising up to meet that challenge, finding new ways to keep surprising her even when you’ve grown old together. Being challenged makes you better, and any woman worth marrying is worth becoming a better man for. 

 But the wizard isn’t done. He also gives you courage.  A man is never so brave in his life, nor capable of as much as he is when the woman he loves needs him to be. Having someone who believes in you is an immeasurable source of strength. I’ve seen it make the crippled walk, I’ve seen it outlast cancer. If there are miracles in life, the faith of one who loves you is surely one of them. I think you’ll look back one day and realize that some of the bravest moments of your life involved this girl.  Walking across the room to ask her out when you might have been shot down. Asking her to marry you when she might have said no. Holding her hand while she reenacts the dinner scene from Alien in the maternity ward, and those are the easy ones.

  If that weren’t enough the wizard gives you a heart and now you find yourself feeling things as you never have before, and if you are more easily hurt in ways that you weren’t before, you are also more alive.  You might find yourself watching a movie like Forrest Gump or Up, and really getting for the first time how everything that’s good in the world can come to be represented in a the form of a person and how wonderful and scary that can be.  Feelings like that are a powerful thing and they bring heartache and joy with them, but the joy makes the pain bearable and the pain gives the joy meaning.

 There is just one more thing. When you find a woman who brings all these things into your life, and you join your life to hers, you are home. So to my friend and his new bride I say, welcome home."

So I’ve got my wedding speech. I wrote it just now. Give it a little time, and I’ll start to worry.  “What if everyone thinks its stupid, What if they laugh at me. What if my buddies think I’m a wuss now and don’t want to hang out with me anymore? Wizard of OZ?  What was I thinking? So maybe I throw this away and go with something safer.

“Congratulations on your beautiful wedding. I know you’ll both be very happy. I wish you many happy years together. Cheers”  

Phewww! That was a close one.  No one will make fun of me for that one. In fact no one will remember it two minutes from now. DJ crank up the Teen Spirit.  One of these was safe. One of these can’t hurt me because it didn’t come from me. It didn’t say what I felt.  Didn’t make me feel exposed. One of these had no power whatsoever.

The greatest thing in the world for a writer to be is fearless.  If you can write with the brazen vulnerability of a Superbowl Streaker, then there’s a chance you’ll be able to create something really special.

Writing a Pizza

When I think about writing styles, there are two approaches I tend to divide them into. 

The First, and probably the more common of the two, is the top down approach, which I tend to visualize as making a pizza. The second approach of writing from the bottom up I’ll get to later, but for now, let’s talk pizza.

      Say you want to write a story. You have an idea for a romantic comedy about a blue collar fireman who falls in love with a wealthy socialite after rescuing her from a broken elevator.  It’s a relatively sound beginning.  We’ve all seen movies like that.  So that’s your basic cheese pizza, the bare minimum you can have and still call it a story.  So you look at your pizza and say to yourself, “I can do better.  How can I make this more appealing to my audience?”

        

      So you start in with the toppings.  You start adding things that you know work well with this sort of story.  You need conflict to make it interesting, so maybe her friends look down on him as low class, and his friends think she’s kind of a snob.  Throw in a romantic rival of some sort.  We’ll make him a rich investment banker with the Armani suits and the Harvard degree, that way we tap into that whole Occupy Wall street hatred.  While we’re thinking about the rival, we decide to introduce him  in a scene where she takes our fireman to a fancy restaurant and the banker shows up and joins them, then uses the fireman’s lack of culture and blue collar background to belittle him in front of the girl. Yeah, we hate this guy. 

    

        We’re getting there but it needs more. Our fireman needs a funny friend to say all the funny lines I’m planning to write, Picturing Kevin James from King of Queens.She'll get one too for symmetry.  Also I decided just now that our love interest is kind of a daddy’s girl, and her father actually likes the fireman and is on his side, that way I can use a conversation between them to get her and the fireman together again in the third act after they break up in the second when they decided they were too different to work out.  There should be some kind of scene where the banker gets his comeuppance, some sort of karmic retribution where treating someone like dirt comes back to haunt him.

      I could go on, but that’s the basic gist of it. I started with the general idea, then I started piling things on that I have seen work in the past in other similar stories and know will probably increase the appeal of my story for most of the viewers.  None of its particularly original, but then again neither are pizza toppings.  Throw some ham, bacon and sausage on there, maybe a few veggies if that’s your thing, and it’s going to taste good.  Sure, it’s almost the same as the pizza you had last month, but still satisfying.

      

      The weakness in this approach is the difficulty in making it feel original, when this story has already been told. The story I’ve described above is about 40% Notting Hill mixed with some other romantic comedies to round it out.  If you want your audience to feel anything you’re going to have to make it happen yourself, through good dialogue and scene descriptions and the atmosphere you create.  Not every writer can pull it off. That’s where bad television comes from.  I think in the long run, it’s the other approach;  the “bottom up approach” that has the potential to create the stronger story, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

To be continued….