Joel Arnold's Blog, page 13
December 20, 2010
Movie watching over the weekend
I watched a few good movies over the weekend via Netflix. First, I finally saw the classic Black Christmas (directed by Bob Clark, who also did Porky's and A Christmas Story - quite a diverse guy!) Good horror movie with some genuinely creepy stuff going on - especially the victim suffocated by plastic wrap rocking in the attic. Also cool to see Andrea Martin in there - this was before her Second City TV days.
I also watched Zombieland, which was a lot of fun. Woody Harrelson was great in his role. I thought this movie was inventive - loved the 'Zombie Kill of the Week' bits, as well as the cameo by - well, I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it.
Also saw Exit Through the Gift Shop, a documentary about street artists (graffiti artists) directed by Banksy. Pretty fascinating. Even Paige got drawn in by it.
December 17, 2010
A recent nice review from Amazon
A review I read suggested that this is horror that will keep you up at night. I didn't find it that scary, but the stories certainly are creative and contains a great voice.
Watch out Joe Hill. Joel Arnold is on your heels!
Stephen Prosapio
================
Author, Dream War
December 16, 2010
Dear God, I Hate Rush Limbaugh
And the thing is, if you listen to him for more than half a minute, he's so transparent. I do not understand why so many people love him. They seem to be either really stupid or willfully ignorant.
Oh yeah - but he did have that line of awesome neck-ties. Forgot about those. They were made of half polyester and half Jesus's tears.
Searching for Truth - Characterization
What makes interesting characters in fiction? What makes you fall in love with a character so much that you're bummed when the novel ends - so it feels like you're losing a good friend or a delightfully memorable adversary? Is it their quirks? Is it the qualities we find recognizable in ourselves? Is it the way they face obstacles?
When I first started taking writing seriously, plot was king for me. I didn't put much thought into characterization, other than maybe adding a certain tic here or there as an afterthought. As I've learned more and read more and talked to more people, I've learned - a bit slowly, perhaps - how important character is. I've been trying to put my finger on what makes good, memorable, and interesting characters.
In real life, I've found that those folks who seem to be most interesting - or those that I feel would make interesting characters in a novel or story - are those who've figured out their own truth. They know who they are.
But most novels are basically about someone on the cusp of change - it's the whole caterpillar turning into a butterfly process. The caterpillar is the naivete, the cocoon is that struggle toward truth against outside forces, and the butterfly is the discovery of who one really is. This is encapsulated perfectly by Harry Potter, for example, or Frodo from Lord of the Rings. Their struggle shapes them and soon they, in turn, shape the struggle.
So the already established 'character' - that person who already knows their truth, who is already comfortable in their own skin - would make a better secondary character, or a sidekick, or an antagonist.
The process of the character discovering his/her truth - that is usually what we want to save for the protagonist, and perhaps a few other characters as well. Hannibal Lecter, for example, knows who he is. He's mastered his truth, already come to grips with it by the time we meet him, while Clarice Starling is in the process of discovering who she is. Dumbledore and Voldemort and Hagrid all know who they are, they've already become, but Harry, Hermione and Ron are all in the process of becoming.
Of course, there can be back-story (if it's integral to the plot) where we find out how a character already established in their truth became that way. This can be interesting, too, if handled well. It can be learned in little bits here and there as the story progresses, or in a flashback - however flashbacks should be handled carefully so that they don't yank your reader out of the story's flow.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on characterization for the day. What about you? How do you handle characterization? What makes a memorable character for you?
December 15, 2010
Some Writing Opportunities
Desert Writers Award:
"A prize of $2,000 is giving annually to enable a creative nonfiction writer to spend creative time in a desert environment. Submit up to 10 pages of creative nonfiction, a project description, and a biography via email by Jan 15th. There is no entry fee."
Web site: www.ellen.meloy.com
Email: fund@ellenmeloy.com
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize:
"An advance of $12,000 and publication by Graywolf Press is given annually for a work-in-progress of creative nonfiction by a writer not yet established in the genre...Submit an excerpt of at least 100 pages and a project description between June 1 and June 30. There is no entry fee. Visit the web site for complete guidelines."
Web site: www.graywolfpress.org
United States/Japan Creative Artists Residency:
"Up to five five-month residencies, each of which includes a monthly stipend of 600,000 yen (appx. $7,100) for living expenses, housing, and professional support, are awarded annually to published U.S. poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers to live in Japan and pursue creative projects. The residencies are sponsored by the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission in conjunction with the National Endowment for the Arts. The residencies also each include a travel grant of up to $6,000...no entry fee..."
Web site: www.jusfc.gov/programguidelines.asp
Email: artists@jusfc.gov
Of course, for all of the above, visit their websites for the full shebang.
Brother Scott's Birthday!
It's my brother Scott's 51st birthday today. Happy birthday, bro!
Scott is in a lot of ways responsible for many of my musical tastes (as is my other older brother, Jeff). Scott introduced me to bands like the Beatles, X, XTC, Devo, Gary Numan, Warren Zevon, Pink Floyd, and others. (Jeff introduced me to bands like the Dead Kennedys, Bow Wow Wow, Oingo Boingo, and the Plasmatics).
Scott also was the one who had a copy of The Shining sitting around when I was looking for something to read, and that led to my 'discovering' Stephen King and becoming a life-long fan. He also had a subscription to Writer's Digest, which I found a box of around the age of 12 or so (he was away at college by this time - he's 9 years older than I am) and I devoured every copy, learning a lot of writing tips about the craft and the business at a young age.
I haven't seen him in a long time - he lives in California - but hopefully I will sometime soon. Here's to ya, Scott!
December 14, 2010
Personality and 'Piss for Peace'
On my last trip to Yellowstone, I saw that they had just torn down the building that the old Old Faithful employee pub had occupied. It stopped being used as the employee pub at the end of 1993, and a new one was built closer to the employee dorms that year. The old one was located behind the Old Faithful Inn, and they said that a thermal feature was growing beneath that building, making it unstable. I think they really just wanted the noise we made to be moved away from the tourists. But the building remained there until this summer, and I'm guessing it was used for storage (I'd peeked in the windows a few years back, and that seemed to be its use at that time.) That place had been a source of much fun my first few years in the park. It was small and almost always packed and filled with cigarette smoke. The walls were covered with graffiti; in fact you could grab a marker from one of the pubtenders to make your artistic (or literary) mark on the walls. There were elaborate drawings, ranging from a portrait of Bob Marley to a magic mushroom, and all kinds of quotes - lyrics from songs, poems, lines from movies and books. There were all kinds of employee names written, along with the department they worked for and the year they worked there. Rainier beer was a buck a can (compared with three bucks or so in the Bear Pit, which was the public bar) and there was always good music playing - sometimes even a live band would come and play. Plus, they made some of the best pizza I ever ate. There were two pool tables, and there was always a line of quarters on the tables' edge, and to take a shot, you always had to be wary of employees walking behind you since there wasn't a whole lot of room to maneuver on by. But I loved that place.
It had personality.
One thing I always found amusing was that in the men's restroom, someone had drawn a big peace symbol above the urinal in black magic marker, and had circled it with the words 'Piss for Peace'. There were many a drunken night where I stood at that urinal doing my business chuckling at that particular piece of art.
In '93 they built the new pub. It was bigger. They had a 'no smoking' section. It was more architecturally pleasing. It wasn't conducive to writing on the walls. There was something else missing, and it was pretty easy to figure out - it didn't have personality. It just wasn't as fun anymore. I'm sure that since then, the subsequent employees have made it their own and enthused it with their spirit and given it its own personality. I hope so.
But it was kind of sad this past summer to see the old pub turned into a mere pile of lumber ready to be hauled away.
It's Alive!
Found this story still out there on the internet - it's the first story in my collection Bait & Other Stories. Kind of a 'welcome to the collection' story:
The Kindness of Strangers
December 13, 2010
Control - or - a little more about Northwoods Deep
Regimes/governments throughout history have exerted control over the populace through coercion and fear. This is reflected in literature/movies quite often; 1984, A Handmaid's Tale, The Killing Fields, pretty much anything to do with the Nazis - you get the picture.
So at one point a while back, I wondered about controlling a populace by giving them what they want - or at least what they think they want. This culminated in my short story 'Mr. Blue' (available in Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse, plug, plug, plug) in which a population has access to all the 'happy' drugs and sex they wanted. This keeps them docile for the most part, keeps them from noticing or caring that they were basically prisoners in their apartment complexes.
I also used this idea for the evil entity in my novel Northwoods Deep. It keeps its 'guardian' loyal by exploiting its innermost wants and desires, giving it mind-blowing, and very addictive hallucinations; dreams, really, but extremely vivid and realistic, so they feel as if they're actually living them. This keeps the guardian (in this case, an old man named Augustus Meyer) willing to do whatever it takes to keep this entity alive and well fed - even if its food includes a variety of people.
I suppose this isn't much different than the ancient Romans, for example, giving their population the Colosseum - controlling the population's blood-lust by letting them live vicariously through the savage tournaments that took place there. (Which of course has its modern day equivalents, too.)
21" (NOT a post about Long Dong Silver)
We had appx 21" of snow over the weekend, and I spent about 5 hours w/ the snow blower blowing it out - and I didn't even get it all cleared, yet. The blower kept clogging if I went too fast, so had to go glacially slow, but still it beat shoveling. The kids, of course, loved all the snow. They trudged through it, tunneled under it, jumped and rolled in it, sled on it, ate it...I think this was the most fresh snow they've ever seen at one time. Glad they had fun with it. We also made a bunch of cookies (see previous entry for recipe - I ate way too much of the dough) and had a cookie exchange with Melissa's side of the family at her mom's house (after roads were cleared.)
And now - it's frickin' cold!
