Jackson Allen's Blog, page 5

Mid-Month Madness: TRON Screams

Time for some mid-month madness with TRON screams. I was re-watching the original TRON and ran across this hysterical screen grab – a new meme format was born:

 

Jeff Bridges can scream at me any day. He had this to say about the new Tron: Ares – “When we did the original, we shot it 70 millimeter, black and white. And then it was all hand tinted by these women in Korea,” Bridges reminisces about Tron. “The second Tron,  I got scanned, and they put me into the computer, and they made a young version of myself. Now this next version is using all of the modern technology to make it even more thrilling and, you know, exciting. I have a smaller part, but it was great to be a part of the legacy.”

Part of me is excited for the TRON sequel but another part of me is like, Jared Leto … um, yeah. Hopefully it’s better than the Akira live adaptation – or maybe Akira will be better than Tron. Who knows?

‘Ever since being announced back in 2002, the new take on Akira has been passed around to several filmmakers, with the most recent being Oscar winner and Thor: Ragnarok director Taika Waititi. Now, Lazar, who is best known for the likes of American Sniper and this month’s action movie G20, has revealed (via Johan Albrechtsen of Moovy TV) that, while he can’t say anything yet, he expects there will be some big news coming “in the next couple of months.”’

So yeah, Mid-Month Madness: TRON Screams and an update on other scifi movies. I know I said this on Monday but, we’ll see.

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Amazon’s Harsh Wakeup Calls

I’ve been seeing a lot of ‘Amazon’s harsh wakeup calls’ articles in the news lately – maybe you have, too. ‘Hard-nosed messages’ for employees, ‘harsh news’ for shoppers. Is ‘harsh [emotional reaction]’ the new ‘you’ll never believe what happened, next’ for journalism?

Who knows, or cares? The main thing I want to do: point out a ‘missing stair‘ in the discussion about Amazon, it’s business practices, employees or shoppers. Amazon’s a business, like Sears, Circuit City, or K-Mart. All these ‘harsh’ messages – where’s the ‘harsh wakeup call’ for senior leadership, or the C-Suite? Are they somehow immune to the ‘harsh wakeup calls?’

I dunno, perhaps I’m overthinking it. I ignored the first two or three ‘wakeup call’ news stories – the persistent ‘manufactured consent’ of Amazon’s bottom line, it’s stock price, being ‘everybody else’s fault except management’ doesn’t sit well with me. If you want a metaphor – it reminds me a lot of Lil’ Sebastian on Parks & Rec:



Where Adam McKay says “I don’t get it at all it’s kind of a small horse. I mean, what am I missing?’ at 7:00 of this clip? Yeah, that’s how I feel about Amazon’s harsh wakeup calls. I don’t get it – what am I missing?

Now here’s the thing: I’m an author, not a businessperson. But … everything I’ve read about Amazon screams out “It’s a business – leadership sets the strategy, goals, and direction.”  Similarly, if Amazon’s structure – which was decided by leadership – isn’t working, who set up that structure? If those aren’t responsible for increased sales, stock prices – that’s leadership’s fault, right? Did the employees vote leadership in, is that why leadership thinks they need a ‘harsh wakeup call?’

I’m an author, and people aren’t reading my books – I can’t shame my readers into reading. Amazon’s leadership seems to be above that simple transactional capitalist precept. Or not. Maybe this is just rage-bait journalism. If not, I suspect Amazon’s in need of a harsh wakeup call. We’ll see.

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New Logo and Wallpaper

New Logo and Wallpaper for Sunday night – please enjoy this new wallpaper composite I’ve been working on. It’s a close-up of a dark cassettefuturism-style illuminated starship control panel – something I’ve been thinking about. I dig the cassettepunk style of old scifi films and wanted to honor that with my new logo. Hope you enjoy it – feel free to grab it as a wallpaper for your personal use. Enjoy!

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Sci-Friday #222 – Old-School Cypherpunk

Enjoy some old-school cypherpunk for this Sci-Friday – the Cypherpunk Archives are an interesting snapshot of life on the Internet from 1992-1998. More than that, the Cypherpunk Archives fill in a lot of institutional knowledge on ‘why the Internet is the way that it is.’

But wait – you say – what’s cypherpunk, anyway? Per Wikipedia, cypherpunk is abou the advocacy of strong cryptography. Who cares, right? A lot of people, as it turns out:

‘The cypherpunk movement originated in the late 1980s …  where informal groups of activists, technologists, and cryptographers discussed strategies to enhance individual privacy and resist state or corporate surveillance. Fiction blended with fact for cypherpunk. ‘GURPS Cyberpunk received notoriety when the Austin headquarters of Steve Jackson Games was raided by the U.S. Secret Service in 1990. In the late 1980s, these ideas coalesced into something like a movement.‘

Click on the image or this link to explore for yourself:

What are the Cypherpunks Mailing List archives about?

In Maaria Bajwa’s own words: “The Cypherpunks Mailing List is legendary, often credited as a foundational space during the ‘Crypto Wars’ of the 1990s. Many pioneers of blockchain technology, like Hal Finney, Adam Back, Julian Assange, and Phil Zimmerman, were active participants. This movement laid the ideological groundwork for Bitcoin and beyond.

“My interest in this mailing list was reignited after attending Porter Adams’ talk at Devcon 2024, titled “I Read Every Single 1990s Cypherpunk Email. Here’s What I Know.” You can check out his slides here. His talk inspired me to dive into the archives myself and create a way for others to explore this unique piece of history.”

The Cypherpunk Archives stuck out to me as part of the hacker history I celebrate in Mesh. That’s Sci-Friday for this week – I hope it brings a smile to your face. Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great Weekend. <3

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‘Writing Men’ for Female Authors

Today I discovered a trove of ‘writing men’ advice for female authors. This is a nice ‘flip side’ of the story I started a couple of years ago when I pivoted Mike Sierra Echo away from my original idea ‘Cinderellavator.’ Inclusivity is a great idea for everyone – that’s why I was glad to find these points on Reddit. Yes, I was on Reddit – I’ll enjoy the advice I find there while it still exists.

Back to the point – how can female authors ‘write men?’ Is it really that difficult? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I would be wrong. Turns out, there are a million bad authors out there writing terrible male characters. Read *this* advice if you want to learn how to ‘write men’ better. Enjoy!

How Female Authors Can ‘Write Men’

‘Write them as more than build-a-bear mannequins that are designed to fulfill your female characters every fantasy.’ – -BOOST-

‘We are more than anger, aggression, and being horny’ – MetalHeadJakee

‘Interact with men regularly outside of sex and dating.’ – Hrekires

‘Get away from peak physical appearance. Adress the unique problems men face with romance and relationships.’ – Rabrab123

‘Try reading how male authors write their characters. Try to analyze how they interact with others, how they approach problems, and what their inner dialogue is like. Take into consideration that this will have differences based on the culture and period in which it is written but that is just a reflection on the changes time makes to cultures and the people who live in them.’ – Marruuk

‘Just ask dudes you trust (and that trust you) about how they think a character would respond to certain situations and take inspiration from that. Or ask internet strangers (like here). Either way you’ll get good insight into the minds of guys in the specific scenarios you’re writing about.’-zmurds40

‘Base them on someone you know and like. That’s honestly the most bulletproof depiction you can have and can draw back on’  – 6twoRaptor

“My own opinion. Let the male characters do things that you don’t agree with. Men aren’t heros or villians. They are distributed in a spectrum between the two. Everyone acts in accordance with their upbringing and own self interests. So, lean into your character’s background. They may make mistakes but still help granny cross the road on a rainy Tuesday.

“Base them on characteristics from men in your own life or men you know of. If you are female, you might have a tendency to write men in extremes. For example, I myself act very differently in certain contexts than my friend. But, neither of us are extreme in anyway.

“The most difficult part is getting the dialog right. Yes, there is locker room talk when some guys are in groups, but it’s not as bad, mostly, as you think. Nor do we talk about the same things as women. I was a hairstylist for many years, so I’ve spent hours listening to both men an women. There’s a lot of similarities, we approach things differently too. And that shows in dialog.” – Opening-Ad-2769

The Best Advice of All

The best chunk of advice came from AleksandrNevsky:

Show flawed men trying the best with what they have.Create male characters that pass the “greek statue” test, the female equivalent is the lamp/vase test.Don’t make them seem simple minded or stupid.DON’T make their defining trait “incompetence.” Even total screw ups in real life are people with complex personalities and backstories. I’ve seen too many female written works where too many guys that aren’t the love interest (and sometimes even him) are just there to be incompetent. It’s infuriating and demeaning.Give clear and solid motivations for their actions.Outwardly men will look unbothered or “holding it together” that is not going to be true of their inner dialog. Even the more stoic among us worry and fear even if some have learned to not show it. Especially if someone is relying on them for something.Actions can be as attractive as physical traits. A guy will not only be drawn to a woman because she’s pretty. Keep this in mind with your romantic angle.Men can be vulnerable, many just try to hide it to protect themselves.Wrapping Up

Yes – female authors need to master ‘writing men’ as much as male authors need to understand how to write female characters. Inclusivity is a great idea for everyone. This  advice will help you ‘write men’ better. Hope you find it useful!

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STL: Be Rich | Live Poor

Whoa – scary news this week – let’s use this moment personally: Be Rich, Live Poor. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next thirty to ninety days, but I do know something about surviving tough times. There’s a brilliant Aussie phrase: Doing it tough. They’ve been using it for over a hundred years, and it describes a sense of resilience and determination in the face of adversity.

I suspect we’ll all be doing it tough for the next year.

Not here to complain or lament – enough people out there have the lamentation and complaining covered. Instead, I’d like to talk about HOW to get through these times and it’s pretty simple – Be Rich, Live Poor. If you can do that, doing it tough doesn’t feel so bad. Anyone can be rich and live poor, let me show you what I mean.

Be Rich for Free

First and foremost, when you talk about being ‘rich,’ what does that even mean? Think about that real quick – does being rich ONLY mean having stuff? Being able to buy whatever you want, whenever you want? Because if that’s the case, you aren’t thinking of the word ‘rich,’ you’re thinking of ‘affluent’ or ‘wealthy.’ Affluence and wealth are cool, but they can go away at any time. Ask me how I know (click here to read the life story of Jackson Allen) …

Living Poor Focuses Your Attention

I’m not the only one who thinks ‘living poor’ is important. Money’s a good resource, but a bad friend. By living poor, you’re returning money and affluence to the correct place in your life. Most people call it ‘living frugal’ but whatever. As it says on frugalconfessions: ‘Frugal living is about taking all the resources you have in your life – your money, your time, your energy, your friends, your family, your job, your side hustles…everything – and figuring out ways to both maximize them to their true potential, plus to not waste them … as you appreciate your resources more, you begin to appreciate everything more.

‘Suddenly, your world seems filled with people you love, beautiful landscapes, and everything that you could ever ask for. Appreciation brings happiness, satisfaction, and an entirely different perspective.’

Anyone Can Live Poor

Living poor gives you – ironically – a richer life. Now that you’re no longer making your wealth or your affluence into your personality, you’re free to become whatever you’re really supposed to be.

Of course I’d have to think about what I’d do with a firehose of success if it were pointing my way. The answer I’ve come up with is pretty simple – firehoses, like any other amount of water, can be helpful or destructive depending on how you channel them. I can’t think tactically yet, so this is more of a strategic answer. I’d start by creating channels to ‘Achieve Sustainability’ and ‘Do Nice Things for People.’

Mechanically, there are ways to do that forever – investing royalties to create recurring capital specifically for philanthropic purposes. No goofy non-profit ‘fundraising’ schemes to launder money back into my pockets. At the end of the day I want to be able to say ‘I took care of me, and I helped take care of other people.’ Full stop.

Living ‘rich’ means ‘having great worth or value,’ and life is chock full of experiences and things you can’t put a price on. The warmth of the sun on a spring day, kindness and compassion, empathy and connection, self-expression, gratitude. Some people spend their entire lives trying to fill up the existential, emotional, pyschological holes in their hearts with money. They’ll never get there, and let’s face it – we’ll never have their money. But we don’t have to focus on that – we can be rich ourselves by learning to live poor.

Getting Started with Getting Poor

Ready to live poor but not sure where to start? I liked these articles – they might work for you, too.

Reddit DIY Tips on Living Frugal – General DIY and frugal living lifehacksEat Cheap and Healthy on Reddit – I love this subreddit, so many cheap and tasty meals to experiment withHow to Save Money & Get Out of Debt – General money-saving ideas Charlotte Mason DIY Frugal Tips – More frugal living lifehacks Making Sense of Cents – Change your spending habits by changing the way you look at moneySome Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, no one can tell you how much money to have. If you want to be affluent, go nuts. For my part, I’ve seen how money is a good resource, but a bad friend. I’m tired of the bad advice money gives me. Hate the way money turns people into greedy, soulless goblins. Their addiction to wealth is killing all of us – perhaps someone will stage an intervention. Until then, learning to be rich and to live poor is a way to be happy and safe while doing it tough. I hope this can be helpful to you.

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Sci-Friday #221 – Space Elevator Stuff

Spotted this cool video discussing space elevator stuff – passing it along for Sci-Friday. Watch a down-to-earth breakdown of the out-of-this-world space transit system!

I love the fact that he validates the premise of Mike.Sierra.Echo without even realizing it. “All of these ideas assume that we have a method of getting the material required into orbit  on a much greater quantity than now, and it  might take hundreds or thousands of launches  in order to build the first space elevator. It would also rely upon possibly the capture of an  asteroid to make the counterweight but another way  would be to capture some of the space junk in the  nearby by graveyard orbit and from lower orbits. But we still haven’t been able to come up with  an idea of how to do this on mass, so it might be almost easier to try and capture an asteroid.”

Thanks Curious Droid – that’s exactly what I was thinking.

Space Elevator tech involves many exciting possibilities but we’ve still yet to solve the important stuff (a flexible, extensible cabling system that’s both super-strong and ultra-lightweight). When we get there – not if, *when* – we’ll have a simple way to expand humanity beyond the surly bonds of Earth. It’s going to be an exciting time to be alive – I hope we get to see it in our lifetimes.

That’s Sci-Friday for this week – I hope it brings a smile to your face. Please feel welcomed to dive down the rabbit hole of every other Sci-Friday I’ve published in the past couple years. Have a great Weekend. <3

 

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STL: Trust Your Struggle

I’m in a ‘Trust Your Struggle’ moment right now. Bene Brown’s ‘You can’t skip Day Two’ aphorism applies to GSBCW and other projects I’m working on and all I can do is trust my struggle. We’ve done the heavy leg work to set up a worldwide silent reading club and I’ve done all I can think to do, but moving the group from zero to one is a process. I can’t ignore that or pretend that there’s an easy path.

I’m a fan of Brown’s Rising Strong book and if you’ve been through some personal heartbreak or haunting failures in your life, you might find it useful. She doesn’t say ‘trust your struggle’ but it’s the same principle. Brown outlines an interesting experience in her three-day culture and group design seminars that illustrate a human point that applies to anyone making big changes in their life. Here’s what I mean:

Day One of her seminar – everyone feels good, hopeful. Plans articulated, people are engaged, the group feels like they’re going to make it through all three days with flying colors. Then, Day Two happens – the uncomfortable emotions that surface when we grapple with vulnerability, accountability, and reality make you want to drink bleach. Despite best efforts, that period of discomfort has always been unavoidable, and Brown finally understood why. The discomfort is, in fact, a necessary adjunct to the process of change.

If you want to describe it like the Hero’s Journey, Day One is all about hearing and accepting the call to adventure. Day Two is about everything that leads to the Dark Night of the Soul. You might even have several Dark Nights before Day Three begins. Once that Day Three begins, you’re beginning to tell the new story of your life and work. I’m sure it’s emotionally painful, and I’ve been through several versions of this in my life. Thing is, I’m starting to understand two important truths:

I can’t avoid the pain of Day Two when I’m making important changesMost love with Day One’s endorphin rush and check out at Day Two

You already know what I’m talking about. Ever join a gym? Buy new outfits, start posting fit pictures on IG. Day One feels awesome – it’s fun, it’s exhilarating to make positive changes. You got this!

Then Day Two happens – all the days and weeks doing *the actual work* of living healthy. It’s NOT fun to go to the gym four times a week. NOT comfortable to stick to a nutrition plan. Saying no to appetizers, snacks, and cocktails with your friends IS NO BUENO. No getting around the pain of Day Two.

Most people stop there. ‘It’s too hard.’ ‘I wasn’t ready for this.’ ‘So-and-so didn’t support me enough.’ ‘I need junk food to regulate my crazy life.’ The excuses come out, they give you a logical reason to fail, and you resume your previous bad habits. That is, until next year when you try again and buy new gym outfits and start Day One all over again.

I think this is why I hate gymfluencers – those little one-minute TikToks skip over the painful part of self-actualization. There’s no acknowledgement of the pain of discipline beyond ‘if I can do it, you can do it.’ No thoughts on addressing the pain you’re soothing with bad habits. ‘I’m a mom with six kids and I look like 1990s Christy Brinkley – what’s your excuse?’ How about you show me a behind-the-scenes where you’re working out four hours a day, somebody else is raising your kids and paying your bills, and the only way you can think to use all that privilege is to draw attention to yourself? Let’s face it – you were born on third base and you’re going through life thinking you hit a triple – good for you.

Okay, sorry – got off on a tangent. Hopefully this paints a picture of my experience as I take Inkican and the associated projects from Zero to One. Everything around me is in a varying decimal between those numbers. The books are around .85. GSBCW is around .2. The audio books are around .3 or .4. All of these projects could go to ‘1’ in an hour – perhaps one day they will. But until they do, I’m still chasing them and figuring out how to get them to a higher decimal every single day.

That’s true of any major effort of human progress. We’ve been led to believe that the real work of bettering ourselves happens in a montage. That isn’t really true! The actual effort of making things better feels weird, lonely, and scary. You second-guess yourself every day, deal with Imposter Syndrome, suffer the haters. That’s where I am right now – it’s time to ‘Trust Your Struggle.’

But forget that for a second – how do we get there? How do we ‘Trust Your Struggle’ every day? Any thoughts or lifehacks to share? I’m interested in hearing your suggestions, but here’s a couple I’ve figured out.

The Right Way to Use AI

Naturally, as the ethical debate of AI rages, one important point remains – while you’re arguing over whether or not AI use is ethical, what are you going to do about all the people who have no qualms of using it unethically?

Way too much Day One language (“AI good.” “AI bad.”) in those online arguments and very little Day Two verbiage (“What are practical, mindful answers to the problems we’re seeing?”).

Anyway – ignore all that and try this. Two-layered AI prompts help me get to the actual problem I’m thinking about, not just the one I’m thinking about. They also give me a basic roadmap on how to solve it.

I’ve already seen some personal benefits, so let me share a couple of ideas with you. They aren’t particularly ground-breaking, but two-layered prompts can be helpful. Here are a couple two-layered prompts:

Layer One: “As a person with crippling social anxiety and PTSD, please create a script for me to handle the following situation [INSERT SITUATION HERE]. Please also help me understand the dynamics of the situation, help me see what I’m not seeing, what should I learn from this?”Layer Two: “Please take this script and help me craft a message for [Insert description of listener].”Layer One “I’m feeling some big emotions about this situation [INSERT SITUATION HERE]. Please also help me understand the dynamics of the situation, help me see what I’m not seeing, what should I learn from this?”Layer Two: “Please take this script and help me craft a message for [Insert description of listener].”

I hope these notes have been helpful – it’s just something I’ve been thinking about. Can’t always say I’ve been right or wise, but I’ve pursued the truth within myself with some diligence. This is what I’ve learned.

If you’re on a path and you feel scared and you’re not sure if it’s gonna work but you’ve done everything you can to make it work? Don’t worry, you’re in Day Two. It means you’re in good company. Time to get to work. Time to dig in. It’s time to Trust Your Struggle.

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Notes from Eugene – 3/27/2025

Dateline – Somewhere in the Kingdom of Eugene – Garbage cans rattle. Drunken voices. Bicycle tires. Squeaky wheels of a shopping cart – a late-night Target run or a homeless person’s migratory mischief? It’s a hot night in town, and the natives are restless.

I keep one window open – not only for air but it helps. Rose Marie the landlord refuses to let us run our air conditioners between October and April. The open window lets me hear trouble before it arrives, with 9-1 punched on the house phone to save time.

Every new arrival to Eugene should come with a Handbook for the Care and Feeding of Free Range Humans. They’re everywhere, and we’re all Free Range Humans when push comes to shove. How best to pursue peace with a maddened Denizen of the DSM-V, off their meds and barking at the Martian Spiders of Mill Avenue? Watch a video on verbal de-escalation. Keep a tight hold on that battered table leg you keep behind the door for late-night callers. Violence isn’t the answer – but it is an option.

Labor unrest surrounds us with the Bigfoot Strike – reflecting larger social discord among the civilian population. Now we’re watchful, anxious, uncertain residents of an occupied city, smiling corpo-clowns bent on domination through indolence and indifference. The only thing we can control is what we own, and what we own isn’t even the contents of ourselves. Horror, rage, fear. The bomb is laid, the fuse is lit.

Or maybe not.

Changes in perspective can be valuable. One of the great logical human fallacies is the idea that we know everything and the other guy knows nothing. I remember when my Uncle Tom used to come out for a visit to us. Successful guy, ran a business Back East – every once in a while he’d show up on our doorstep with nothing more than a backpack and a duffel.

Here’s why that’s important – Tom could afford four star hotels and all-inclusive resorts all over the world. That wasn’t what Tom wanted – he wanted something else.

Tom loved those weeks he spent sleeping on our family room couch. Bare essentials, no tourist itinerary. He survived on endless cups of black coffee and peanut butter on toast. He’d stand out in our driveway, looking at the LA mountains in his bare feet and a pair of gym shorts. I didn’t understand what he was looking for but I do, now.

He explained it all to me when I was eighteen or nineteen. ‘Gotta get out beyond the comet’s tail of things that you drag through life,’ Tom said. ‘Need to look back at yourself, see what really matters.’

We wouldn’t see Tom again until the next family gathering – whatever that was. Tom was a different guy then – smiling, happy, but different. As a father, as a husband, he had responsibilities and obligations to assume. Getting five people across the country safe, happy, and in one piece – you need the organizational skills of an Army Quartermaster and the patience of Job. Tom did it all, and he seemed to enjoy it but his smile was different.

Then there were the other times – stripping it all down to two shirts, gym shorts, and underwear. Tom’s step was lighter, his laugh easier. He slipped the surly bonds of his life.

Maybe that’s what we all need right now, too. Our lives matter, they’re important. But sometimes you need to get out there beyond the noise, hopes, fears, and regrets. Then we can look back at ourselves, and see what really matters.

 

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Signs Your Scifi Story Sucks

Let’s talk signs your scifi story sucks. If Jeff Foxworthy were a scifi nerd, he’d do a ‘your scifi story might suck’ bit on the Blue Collar Comedy tour. But he didn’t so, somebody’s got to protect nerds and geeks’ hard-earned dollars and geek time. I’m always looking for well-told, undersung scifi stories to champion and somebody recommended ‘Fast Color,’ on Amazon Prime. Naturally, this movie has a lot going for it on paper, but after 90 minutes I was reaching for the remote. Fast Color *had* a lot going for it, but common story-killing mistakes prevented this otherwise-heartful movie from being a standout success.

Don’t worry, this isn’t ‘hate on Fast Color’ day – I’m using this moment to make a point. If we can watch or read scifi and see some important signs that it sucks, that helps all of us. Understanding what makes a story suck helps our stories not suck. You with me?

Okay, so back to Fast Color – what went wrong? Why did Fast Color fail to make the cut? It’s not just this movie – a lot of streaming movies have great ideas but horrible execution (Looking at you, Vast of Night). I narrowed down the list to five simple signs your scifi movie will suck. Understanding this helps us in our craft, and provides valuable feedback for other storytellers. Ready? Here we go:

1. If I’m asking ‘Why would that even happen?’

Fast Color starts out with a dramatic premise – ‘In the future American Midwest, where it has not rained for eight years,’ and my first reaction is ‘okay … why?’ FC’s mistake here is the same as every other zombie / Quiet Place / Bird Box series where the entire story hinges on the mechanics of a fantastical McGuffin. Ooh, ooh – we all have to be quiet because the aliens who just happened to arrive on meteors can

breathe our atmospherejust happened to be able to kill everybodyare still vulnerable to a low-budget MacGyver solution like high-freqency noise through a kids cochlear implantsomehow the US military with all their anti-crowd high frequency audio tech were powerless to stop them?

Shut up and take my money! I’m sure you can hear my sarcasm – your story McGuffin better make sense, otherwise you’re wasting my time. I’m not here to unravel your logical tautologies.

2. If your characters have no personality outside the plot

The 100 is a show based on a YA novel where a hundred juvenile delinquent kids are dropped onto a post-nuclear apocalypse Earth and hilarity ensues! In seven seasons, The 100’s characters didn’t experience any personality outside of the ‘Okay, we get it – the world is a different place now’ main story arc. That’s fine, if you want to spend a couple hours on it, but seven seasons of soap-opera love triangles and ‘our definition of a “good person” might not be as simple as we think it is?’ There’s more to life!

3. If I’m looking for a cup of tea five minutes into the movie

In The Vast of Night, we follow a teenage disc jockey and his friend through the diagetic storytelling of a high school b-ball game, a new tape recorder, and their jobs at a local radio station. Where other movies create compelling versimilatude (Super 8), TVON bores us to tears with overlong camera shots, intentional glances, and meaningless pauses in action within the first five minutes. I got up and made myself a cup of tea while waiting for something to happen – I shouldn’t be doing this in the first 5 minutes of your movie. The lesson learned? Make something happen – something better be happening to keep my attention.

4. If you string us along with flashbacks

Fast Color isn’t the only movie that mishandles flashbacks (Looking at you, A-Team and Dial of Destiny). Never mind that – can’t we get on the same page about what flashbacks are for? Definitively, flashbacks ‘add depth and context to the narrative, offering a better understanding of the characters’ backgrounds or the story’s central conflict.’ How does your flashback make sense if it doesn’t connect the dots back to the main story? Forcing us to wait to the end for the payoff? It’d better be an amazing payoff, that’s all I have to say. And I’m saying it because a lot of times, it was just a placeholder to force me to wait until the end of the story to find out ‘oh, they have a bad relationship.’ We already figured that ou in the first five seconds when Mom and daughter stare at each other like two gunslingers at the OK Corral. Storytelling is like set design – you can spend as much or as little as you want – but when I look at it, it better be beautiful.  0/5 Stars for bad flashbacks.

5. If ‘The Secret’ holds your story hostage

Going back over twenty years, the Tobey MacGuire Spiderman’s had amends to make when it came to holding THE ENTIRE MOVIE HOSTAGE TO THE SECRET THAT HE WAS SPIDERMAN AND/OR LOVED MARY JANE. In fact, it never got better UNTIL he told Mary Jane and Harry that he was Spiderman. 95% of the first movie’s plot ran on the fact that he didn’t tell the truth when he could or should have. I’m still salty about it, twenty years later. It’s why I had little patience for Avengers: Infinity War when they ‘couldn’t tell Peter that Thanos killed Gamora, and then of course they do and Peter loses it exactly as they predicted. The secrets in those stories propelled or paused the story as necessary, and were only revealed when they move the story forward. That’s emotional terrorism – I know the secret is holding the story hostage. Don’t do that.

Am I painting a sufficient picture for you? I don’t like sucky scifi stories. I shouldn’t be able to sublimate your tale into a whimsical quip. You’re smart, I’m smart, you’re present, I’m present – let’s be honest and authentic in our storytelling.

To wind this up, I’ll do a Foxworthy-esque send-up of sucky scifi stories – see if any of these look familiar to you:

You Might Be a Sucky Scifi Story If …If the world-building is just you telling the story in a voiceover … you might be a sucky scifi story95% of the budget went to music and actors, three percent two VFX, and .25% on the script … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf you’re releasing a move in 2025 with 1995 VFX … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf OpenAI refuses to steal your story … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf somebody asks if you ‘wrote it with AI’ and you say ‘no’ and then they go ‘…oh.’ … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf the plot’s thinner than the girlfriends’ space-bikini … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf the log line is ‘If you liked X, you’ll love Y!’ … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf you phone in a lazy script because you’re a billion-dollar franchise … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf the plot  is a ‘trope laundry pile’ … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf all the good scenes are in the trailer … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf the biggest buzz about your movie comes from the cross-promotion popcorn bucket … you might be a sucky scifi storIf I have to dig three pages into Tubi to find your movie … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf Youtube offers to show your movie with no ads … you might be a sucky scifi storyIf Screenrant calls you an ‘underrated gem’ fifteen years later … you might be a sucky scifi story

And finally, the biggest sign … you might be a sucky scifi story

If you have to ask ‘does my story suck?’ … you might be a sucky scifi story

Thanks folks, I hope this helps you identify some signs your scifi story sucks. Let’s all help each other suck less.

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