Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 247

Flash Fiction Challenge: A Traveling Tale

Last week’s challenge: “Death Is On The Table“

I am traveling today, up at the hot spackled ass-crack of dawn to fly out to LA (“Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs”), so it seems only appropriate that this week’s writing challenge is about:

Travel.

Travel — a journey of some sort — must figure into your story.

Moving from one place to another.

Point A to Point B.

Any genre.

Up to 1000 words.

Post at your space and give us a link so we can see it.

You’ve got one week. Due by Friday, April 27th, at noon (EST).

Dana Fredsti: The Terribleminds Interview

You don’t turn down an interview with an author when part of their bio includes things like “zombie aficionado,” “swordfighter,” or “B-movie actress who worked on Army of Darkness.” You just don’t. So please meet Dana Fredsti, author of the ass-kicking zombipocalypse novel, Plague Town. Go find her at her website — danafredsti.com — or on the Twitters: @zhadi1.

This is a blog about writing and storytelling. So, tell us a story. As short or long as you care to make it. As true or false as you see it.

I stumbled into theatrical combat because I was hungry and nosy. Eighteen years old, I was working my first Renaissance Faire. When I say “working,” I mean flouncing around in a full red skirt, white blouse and cinch-belt, adding to the local “ye old Renaissance” color and enjoying the attention. Standing in line for a turkey leg (back when the vendors only charged a couple of bucks for one and cooked them all the way through), I overheard a guy behind me say, “I was going to do a short sword fight, but my partner backed out.” I snuck a peek; the speaker was really cute in a Ren Faire type of way, longish dark hair, white full-sleeved cavalier shirt, breeches and boots. “Too bad, it was a good fight.”

Without even thinking about it, I piped up with “I’ll do it!”

The guy looked me up and down and said, “Yeah, okay.”

Within an hour (after I finished my turkey leg), I’d learned the basics of sword fight choreography, b: my teacher’s name was Chris Villa and that he was a fight choreographer by profession. We performed our fight to much audience applause and I fell irrevocably in love with swordfighting … and my teacher. The latter burned itself out after a few years, but my passion for swordfighting (and men in breeches, boots and puffy white shirts) remains strong to this day.

Why do you tell stories?

I’ve written since I was old enough to string words together, and when my family moved to Tucson for a year when I went into seventh grade, my imagination was my salvation. I was unhappy and spent a great deal of time in my own head, making up stories, putting myself in different worlds. When I don’t write, I get stressed and unhappy. And then voices in my head tell me to do bad things…

Give the audience one piece of writing or storytelling advice:

Don’t count on spellcheck/grammar check to do your work for you. It won’t and you’ll end up embarrassed down the road, I guarantee you.

What’s great about being a writer, and conversely, what sucks about it?

What’s great? Creating worlds, getting lost in them and escaping the real world, and having the opportunity to take literary vengeance on those people who piss you off. In other words, playing god…ah, what a heady rush of power!

What sucks? Not being able to do it full time, having deadlines and knowing you have to meet those deadlines no matter how tired you are at the end of a day job or how dull the knife edge of your creativity might be during your writing sessions. And knowing no matter how much effort you put into something, there will always be people who don’t like it and aren’t shy about telling the world how much you suck.

Favorite word? And then, the follow up: Favorite curse word?

I don’t have a favorite word. That’s the kind of question that needs a context, like “favorite word when you’re happy,” and even then, nothing springs to mind. I did know someone who would get enamored with specific words, like “buttocks.” He played a hard-boiled detective in our theater troupe and one of the lines was “a clue crawled up my leg and bit me on the ass.” He kept saying “a clue crawled up my leg and bit me on the buttocks.” Just didn’t work. Which goes to show you have to watch getting attached to specific words. Favorite curse word is actually two: Jeez Louise. Or Fuckity-fuck, depending on the company I’m keeping.

Favorite alcoholic beverage? (If cocktail: provide recipe. If you don’t drink alcohol, fine, fine, a non-alcoholic beverage will do.)

Wine, wine, wine, and MORE wine! Red, white, bubbly! WINE!!!!

Recommend a book, comic book, film, or game: something with great story. Go!

Walking Dead (graphic novels). The Dead (film). Rock Paper Tiger (book).

What skills do you bring to help the humans win the inevitable zombie war?

I’m familiar with just about any zombie mythos you can name, so I’m prepared for any eventuality. Although if they turn out to be those fast sprinting zombies, I think we’re all screwed. At any rate, I can shoot, I can wield a mean sword, I don’t freeze in the face of danger, and I WILL shoot you in the head if you get bitten. Or if you steal my wine.

Okay, swordfighting: what do other writers get wrong about it?

For me, what bugs is when writers describe the fights in an entirely technical fashion, with no drama whatsoever. Kind of like calling out a Twister game. “Right hand on hilt, left foot in lunge” etc. It bleeds the passion and excitement right out of it. And occasionally writers will get the sword components wrong, calling the hilt a “handle” or the pommel the “guard.” I mean, if a character has no clue what’s what, that’s okay, but otherwise… do your research! It’s kind of odd, though, because I have not really read that many books recently in which the characters utilize swords. Which is kind of funny considering how many urban fantasies feature a cover model clutching a katana. Including mine.

You are a bonafide zombie aficionado: what’s next for zombies? What haven’t we seen?

Damn it, Jim … er, Chuck! I’m an aficionado, not a fortune teller! I mean, who knows? So far we have slow zombies, fast zombies,

sentient zombies, sentimental zombies, nice zombies, pathetic zombies, funny zombies, half-zombies, zombie animals, zombie birds, and sexy zombies. I think the innovations to the zombie mythos (pretentious writer speak alert!) will continue to happen, but I truly have no clue as to what the next one might be. Other than what I’ve got in Plague Town and to tell you here would be considered a major spoiler. I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you. And then kill myself since I was the one who blabbed in the first place.

Sex and death. How do the two relate? Are they closer than we think?

Considering the French refer to an orgasm as le petit mort (the little death), I suppose there’s a connection. A Some serial killers certainly equate the two, what with the whole “I will stab you while I fuck you” (can I say “fuck” on this website?!) or, in some cases, “I will fuck you after I stab you.” Gotta say I don’t get that connection (and a good thing for my boyfriend, yes?); I’m of the opinion that sex and the resulting pleasure reaffirm life rather than echo death.

Okay, tell us about working on B-Movies. Pick a story and share it. Give us the goods.

Oh, but there are so many goods when it comes to working on B-movies… most of them bad, but there you have it.

I personally love B movies, but watching myself in, say, Princess Warrior requires a lot more wine than is probably good for me in one sitting. Most of my friends who’ve watched it feel much the same way. But it was really fun to work on. Most of them are because you have a small crew of enthusiastic people working for peanuts (I wouldn’t be surprised if this were literal in some cases), most of them really believing that art is being made. The stronger the belief that the movie being filmed for anywhere between $3K and $100K (I am not joking about the budgets) is either an art film or a really good film, the more sincere the acting despite very little to no production value and scripts of questionable quality. The perfect formula for the best kind of ‘so bad it’s good’ b-movie.

One of my favorite experiences was working on a film called Ninja Nymphs in the 23rd Century. Horrible horrible script, with a director who took himself and the project so seriously it was scary. He was also SO. SLOW. I mean, granted you don’t want the Ed Wood “Cut! Perfect! Let’s move on!” after every take, but this guy… take after take. The movie was filmed on video and oh, it shows. I played “Minstra”, the Prime Minister of whatever planet we were supposed to be on (I just don’t remember) and wore a blue lycra bodysuit, thigh high boots and a cape. I looked like a super hero. I also did stunts and the ultra cool thing about that is that the stunt coordinator on the film was Jack West, who doubled Wang in Big Trouble in Little China, all those really cool aerial flips and leaps. He also played the demon in S-Mart in the end of Army of Darkness. At any rate, working with Jack was the highlight of the film. He was really enthusiastic about sword-fighting, open to learning more about it, and just so much fun to work with!

You’ve committed crimes against humanity. They caught you. You get one last meal.

Are you asking about the crimes I’ve committed or what I’d eat for my last meal? I’ll assume the latter…so…let’s see….

Steamed crab (that I don’t have to take out of the shell) with melted butter. O Toro sashimi. Hot sourdough bread with more butter. I like butter. Bacon. Lots of bacon. A slice of pizza with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, on a cornmeal crust. The best grass-fed steak available. Hot flourless chocolate cake. And to go with the food, any decent champagne (or sparkling wine ’cause I’m not a snob), a bottle of Tobin James Fat Boy Zinfandel, and the creamiest, butteriest chardonnay available.

What’s next for you as a storyteller? What does the future hold?

For the next year or so, it holds the sequels to Plague Town (Plague Nation and Plague World). I’ve also got a sequel to my cozy noir mystery Murder for Hire: The Peruvian Pigeon in the works and a couple other ideas I’ve been kicking around. That being said, I’m open to whatever the future brings me by way of writing projects!

Plague Town. How is this a book only you could’ve written?

I have a unique background and it’s because of my eclectic (some might say jaded) past what with the B-movie acting, the sword-fighting, a life long immersion in geek culture, an honestly inherited sarcasm from both sides of the family, and (as noted above) my status as a zombie aficionado. Bonafide. Other writers might come up with a similar plot, but I seriously doubt anyone could come up with the same book. It’s mine. MINE!

Where will the two sequels take the world, the characters, and by proxy, the readers?

Well, Plague Nation and Plague World kind of hint at the scope of the zombie outbreak in each book. The ante is upped for the characters as all the struggle they experienced in Plague Town turns out to be, while not in vain, certainly not the end of their battle. I’m hoping to up the ante for the readers as well by not letting them get too comfortable with the characters’ safety. I will be killing some of them (the characters, not the readers), something that doesn’t always come easy to me when I really like my characters. Other times it’s pure joy … but I’m forcing myself to push my own comfort envelope in the next two books.

The Wendigo Eats Your Heart And Replaces It With Updates

It’s that time, again, in which we play: WHERE’S WENDIG?

Turns out, I’m all over the map these days. This week, for example, I leave for Los Angeles on Friday for a mix of transmedia talks, meetings, and Blackbirds stuff. What stuff, you ask?

Well, on Sunday, April 22nd, I’ll be at the LA Festival of Books. I’ll pop by the Mysterious Galaxy booth (#372!) to sign Blackbirds at 1pm. That’s also my birthday, so I expect you to show up with love in your heart. And cupcakes. And possibly some kind of exotic monkey. Or at least dressed up as an exotic monkey. Other awesome authors will be signing at the booth, including Stephen Blackmoore and S.G. Browne.

Then, on Tuesday, April 24th, when the book releases, I’ll be having a launch party signing event at the Mysterious Galaxy bookstore (Redondo Beach!) at 7:30pm. There will be a Fortean rain of dead blackbirds to celebrate. Though, that’s only if I can manage to cast my septic contrails across the skies over the city.

If you’re in LA, then, please do come track me down and say “hello.” I won’t bite. Well. Okay. I bite, but I don’t have any diseases. Well. Okay, fine, you should probably bring some antibiotics. Just in case.

And if you care to vote, Blackbirds is up in a “debut author cover challenge” at the Qwillery!

What else? Ah! Yes. I’ve got another bundle of strong Blackbirds reviews in…

“Chuck Wendig has managed to take the best of urban fantasy and crime noir, twist ‘em together like barbed wire, and drag you right over the barbs. Blackbirds is gritty and violent, yet never loses sight of the light that might be at the end of the tunnel. It’s there, I promise. You may have to squint a little, but Miriam’s humanity always shines through, even when things look pretty grim. Chuck Wendig hasn’t disappointed me yet, and I suspect he’s got quite a lot more in his arsenal. Don’t miss this one!” — My Bookish Ways (5/5).

“Chuck Wendig is one of those rare authors with such masterful use of language, and such a good ear for dialogue, that he engages the reader from the first page and never lets go.” — British Fantasy Society review.

“It’s a cliché in reviewing to say that you couldn’t put a book down, that you ended up reading all night because you couldn’t bear to leave the story. In reality there haven’t been that many books written – ever – that have that indefinable quality that demands your full attention. Blackbirds is one of the few I’ve come across in recent years… straight into my top 10 for 2012.” — Sci-Fi Bulletin review.

“Dark. Disturbing. Unfiltered. Coarse. These and everything everything associated with the above adjectives are not enough to describe this book. The emotional attachment runs deep and the totality of the story is bigger than 354 PDF pages, an hour and a half afternoon walk wasn’t enough for me to digest everything.” — Talk Supe review, (5/5) (and fairly spoilery, so be warned).

New interview with me at Bryon Quartermous’ site. I discuss poop, hobos, and being a “genre spaz.”

New interview with me at On Fiction Writing, where I talk about jealousy, bestsellers, and the worst book I’ve ever read. Oh, and something about Cthulhu? I shouldn’t be allowed to talk in public.

The Dinocalypse Now Kickstarter is up over 1100 backers (!) and $33,000 (!!) and has books dropping from me (a three-book series), Stephen Blackmoore, Harry Connolly, C.E. Murphy, and Brian Clevinger, and for a $10 pledge you get them all. You won’t find a deal like that many other places, and time is ticking down.

If you want a new Atlanta Burns short story, look no further than Fireside Magazine, now available. Brian White treated his authors like royalty, paying them well-above the professional rate. The magazine purports to have no genre boundaries and has crazy awesome art from Amy Houser (who did lots of my e-book covers). It has stories from Tobias Buckell, Ken Liu, Christie Yant, Adam Knave, D.J. Kirkbride. You will  check it out. Because you can smell delicious content and hunger for it.

And I think that’s all she wrote.

Hope to see some of you in LA.

CARRIER LOST

25 Things You Should Know About Transmedia Storytelling

Let’s get this out of the way, now — this, like many/most of my other lists, could easily be called “25 Things I Think About Transmedia.” It does not attempt to purport concrete truths but rather, the things I believe about the subject at hand. I am something of an acolyte and practitioner in the transmedia cult, and sometimes give talks on the subject (as I will be doing next week in Los Angeles).

So, here I am, putting my transmedia ducks in a row.

Please to enjoy.

1. The Current Definition

The current and straightest-forwardest (not a word) definition of transmedia is when you take a single story or storyworld and break it apart like hard toffee so that each of its pieces can live across multiple formats. This definition features little nuance, but hey, fuck it. That’s why this list exists — to gather up the foamy bubbles of nuance and slurp them into our greedy info-hungry mouths.

2. The B-Word

Transmedia is, admittedly, kind of a buzz-word. And it’s not entirely new, though the Internet helped this flower bloom. But it’s a very charming buzzword, innit? It makes me feel like I’m from the future. “I have arrived in my temporal pod to uplift your species with the pop culture genetics of — I’ll say it slowly so you can absorb it — traaaansmeeeeedia. Stop shaking that femur around, monkey. Time to learn.” In the end, though, whether you call it transmedia or cross-media or new media or hybridized-story-pollination (HSP), it’s still just storytelling. Though it’s storytelling in a bigger, sometimes weirder, way.

3. Reality Coalesces Into A Story Carapace Around Our Soft Human Brains

The rise of any new or altered media form sees an awkward transitional period where everyone wants to define it. And that’s good, to a point — hell, what do you think I’m doing right now? Rules are starting to appear. Hard definitions. “Well, transmedia needs to be on X screens and across Y platforms and you need at least one robot.” (I just made the thing up about the robot, relax. Though, to be clear: ROBOTS IMPROVE ALL STORIES.) Part of me likes the Wild West nature of the thing, though, where transmedia exists in this state of flux, this uncertain haze where the rules are weak and the practitioners are hungry and the experiments come flying fast and frenzied. Also worth mentioning: the rules are not precisely agreed upon by all practitioners. My writing partner and I worked on a digital storytelling thing called Collapsus, and I have been told that it’s not strictly transmedia. (To which I shake my fist and say, “Fie, fie.”)

4. Still Gotta Give Good Story

Good storytelling is still good storytelling. Doesn’t matter how the story is being told. And this is where transmedia stops being a buzzword, ceases to be a gimmick — no matter what you call it, no matter how many screens you slap it on, no matter how experimental you choose to get, you still have to know the ins and outs of strong storytelling. You cannot and should not lean on the crutch of transmedia.

5. To My Woe, Strongly Marketing-Centric

Transmedia these days is strongly marketing-centric. Which, to me, as a storyteller, goes against the power of this thing. I want to tell stories, not sell widgets and dongles.

6. True Heart, False Face

I find that a lot of what people call “transmedia” fits the technical definition (as noted at the fore of the post) but fails to take into account what for me is more important: the philosophical definition. For me, what makes true transmedia unique and beyond the buzzword, past the gimmick, is when it carries two corollaries to that earlier definition: first, it offers audience investment and lets them act as collaborators; two, the story was intended to be a transmedia experiment from the very beginning.

7. Tree Versus The Forest

Stories are generally a single tree, sometimes grown by a single practitioner. But for me, the transmedia storyworld is far more fertile and compelling when seen as an entire forest growing up together at the same time. The forest for me is the perfect metaphor for transmedia — I live in the woods and I see how all these trees grow together, how some find light and others fail, how it’s all one big organic collision of life that thrives on organized chaos. You can certainly admire the forest for its individual pieces (“What a lovely elm,” or, “Those two squirrels seem to be having crazy methamphetamine sex on top of that turtle-shaped rock”), but you can also gaze out and see a much larger picture: the ecosystem. Therein lies the beauty and elegance — and yes, squirrel-banging chaos — of transmedia storytelling.

8. The Crass Retrofit

A lot of what I see bandied about as transmedia really isn’t. Not for me. It’s not taking one successful property and then staple-gunning other stories — or worse, a re-hash of the original story, where someone makes a video game out of a film or a film out of a comic book or a best-selling erotic novel out of a Denny’s menu — to the original. What Marvel is doing with their film series? Ehh. Not transmedia. It smells of transmedia. And it’s very cool stuff. But Marvel didn’t start out building a universe that was intended to thrive across multiple formats. They built one bulk comic book universe and then shopped it out so that the stories could be re-told across films and books and whatever. Further, the audience investment is minimal, if not zero. The audience has no hand in shaping the Marvel Universe.

9. Sometimes, You Gotta Let The Audience Drive The Dune Buggy

Here’s why transmedia storytellers need to put their auteur egos off to the side — because the audience needs to control a chunk of the action. This can be overt, where the audience is literally allowed control (or even provenance) over the narrative, and their input changes the entire experience. This can be covert, where audience investment helps to shape the output if not directly change it. But the audience must be part of the feedback loop — and in this increasing age of interactivity, the audience wants their slice.

10. Yes, Blah Blah Blah, Star Wars

I dig Star Wars and in transmedia you won’t be able to easily get away from it. The Star Wars Universe is generally transmedia-flavored. Lucas and his phalanx of creators built together a strongly-connected and well-defended universe that crossed a metric jizz-load of media properties. You could argue for audience investment across games and toys (though there I’d argue it’s weak on the transmedia front). As to why this is more transmedia and the Marvel Universe is less transmedia, well, that’s a whole other post.

11. Your God Is My Alternate Reality

You want to look farther back than Star Wars, well, look no further than religion. Like, any of it. Multiple stories and characters across a storyworld that crosses multiple platforms (books, oral tradition, friezes, scrawled on the backs of temple eunuchs) and is profoundly affects and is in turn affected by its audience? George Lucas ain’t got shit on the entire breadth and depth of religion. Religion is transmedia.

12. The Ejaculation Of Game DNA

Shine that UV light over these transmedia bedsheets, and you’ll find many stains shaped like space invaders or puzzle ciphers — that’s because transmedia often absorbs DNA from games. That’s not to say transmedia requires a game-based component, only that games offer philosophical components that other stories do not. Games are active, not passive. Games demand something from the audience. Games are fun, exploratory, experiential. Most traditional narratives do not offer these things: reading a book is passive. Watching a movie demands nothing of me and my input doesn’t do dick. There’s little that’s exploratory or experiential about watching TV. But that changes with transmedia storytelling. The game-ist DNA runs rampant — a virulent thread of chaotic delight. (Some of this comes from the fact that ARGs — Alternate Reality Games — serve as a springboard for transmedia endeavors.)

13. But Please Don’t Say The Word “Gamification”

This probably doesn’t deserve its own list item but fuck it, it’s my list and I’ll rant if I want to. I hate that word: “gamification.” I like games. I like to play. I like putting game elements into play where appropriate. But gamification often relies on shoddy collection mechanics to beef up an already un-fun idea. “We just gamified your gynecology appointment! You just got seven cervical coins! Ding. You’re now mayor of vagina-town! You just collected the Speculum Is Colder Than An Ice Cube In A Yeti’s Mouth badge!”

14. The Word I Like: “Emergence”

I’m starting to feel that the success of a given transmedia project lives or dies on how much emergence it affords — emergent gameplay being unexpected or unintended game interaction, and emergent narrative being stories growing out of the experience that you did not plan for or anticipate (and note that both are strongly driven by audience). You cannot demand or force emergence, but I think you can cultivate it by leaving room for it, by designing aspects that cede  authorial control (or some portion of it) to those who are participating in your story. It also may work if you just hand out buckets of hallucinogens.

15. You Can Lead A Horse To Water But Can’t Make Him Tweet About It

More to the point, you can’t ever force participation. A portion of the audience — perhaps a large portion — will never want to engage with a property beyond a cursorily active (or entirely passive) experience. They just don’t operate that way. Games change this to a point, in that audiences are getting used to feeling handsy with narrative (hello, Bioware). What this means is, you leave room for collaboration, but let the audience walk through the door. They won’t all walk through, because some are just here for the show.

16. The Perfect World Scenario

My perfect world scenario for any transmedia experience is that my path =/= your path. What I experience in the storyworld is not precisely the same as what anybody else experiences. I want to be telling someone about the story and I want them to be surprised that I was able to interact with the T-Rex, or that the painting on the wall of the Hyperborean Castle was one I actually painted.

17. Faster, Transmediacat, Kill, Kill!

It’s probably worth a note that pacing in transmedia is a different animal. Everything moves a little more quickly — the oxygen that the novel or even screenplay format allow is now potentially provided by the audience and by the gaps in their experience. I don’t think this is universal, and I think you could still tell a slower, more relaxed story through transmedia, but I suspect it’ll be trickier. I also suspect that my neighbor is transmitting hate speech into my brain using a super-tweaked Flowbee. So. Um. Yeaaaah.

18. Bridges And Holes, Bridges And Holes

Transmedia relies on strong transitional elements — how do you move the audience across the many spaces? How do you remove obstacles? How do you get them to want to overcome the obstacles you’re incapable of removing? Story bridges and rabbit holes — places they can cross knowingly or spots they can fall into the narrative unexpectedly — are necessary components to the infrastructure.

19. Writer As Swiss Army Knife

The transmedia writer must be like the Swiss Army Knife. You are a many-tooled motherfucker. Screenwriting, game design, flash fiction, belt punch, compass, crack pipe, wakizashi, and so on.

20. Cheap As Free

The perception of transmedia storytelling is that it’s expensive. And it can be. But it doesn’t have to be. The Internet has made content delivery easy as Sunday morning. A great many tools are free — ask Jay Bushman how an entire story can be told over Twitter. Many tools you already possess — like, say, your phone — have content creation tools already built into them. (We’ve long passed the time when a phone is just a phone. Mine is made of nano-bots. It knits sweaters!) It’s getting cheaper, and maybe even easier.

21. Break Me Off A Piece

Audience investment needn’t be directly related to or buried in the actual narrative. Transmedia storytelling is a great place to break out the individual components of storytelling — idea, motif, theme, mood, plot, character — and highlight them in different ways across different platforms. This Is How You Die, related to my novel Blackbirds, explores the themes and ideas of the novel without changing the novel.

22. The Cast Is All Here

Transmedia is like any grotto carved out of pop culture — you have visionaries, cult leaders (and their cultists), craftsmen, auteurs, skeptics, critics, haters, weirdos, shamans, fixers, and so on, and so forth. Worth realizing, though: it’s a fairly small community. And a lot of really awesome work is being produced at all levels. (If you’re so inclined, recommend some in the comments.)

23. The Hoax Is Over

Hoaxing has been a way into transmedia: tricking people into believing something is real or genuine when in reality it’s, er, not in reality at all. I kinda feel like maybe the “hoax” component is done, kaput, pbbbt. This is also a good time to mention you should be checking out Andrea Phillips. Behold: “Cautionary Tales in Transmedia Storytelling.” She’s also got a book out soon: “A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling.”

24. Not Every Story Requires It

Transmedia isn’t a big pop culture Snuggie. It is not one size fits all. Some stories just don’t demand that kind of treatment. They’re better off as single-serving entities — book, film, show, comic, deranged hallucination, Scientology pamphlet, whatever. But on the other end of the coin, transmedia isn’t a genre-only thing. I mean, it often is in practice. But it shouldn’t be. And it doesn’t have to be.

25. You Won’t Know Until You Try It

Go. Splash around in the transmedia pool. Look at what’s been done. Find transmedia creators and pick their brains (they’re a surprisingly accessible group and the community aspect is strong right now). Think about the stories you’re planning on telling — could any of them be told this way?

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Prepping For The Publishing Doomsday

I am a fan of the show Doomsday Preppers.

If you’re not familiar, each episode offers segments that take a look at one or several “preppers” — people who are convinced that the world is on the cusp of destruction — in order to explain what they fear and what they’re doing to countermand the coming apocalypse. Each prepper has his own crazy-flavored vision of how the world is going to end: some fear economic collapse, others solar flares or EMPs or polar shifts or nuclear attack or mutant zombie hillbillies or whatever. The list goes on and on and on.

Some preppers are smart. Some are stupid. Many are fucking nuts.

It’s a fascinating show. You see people hoarding water, building compounds in the middle of nowhere, spending butt-tons of money on subterranean shelters, and damn near all of them are stockpiling guns.

But watching every episode, I’m struck by the thought: “These people are wasting their lives.” I mean that literally — they’re expending a great deal of time, effort and money to thwart a dreaded outcome whose likelihood is… ehhh, ennhh, y’know, not really all that likely. It’s one thing to prep a little bit — “Oh, if an emergency happens, we’ve got some supplies and a strategy.” But a little prep ain’t getting your ass on that show. These people are building armored bug-out buses. They’re running their kids through weekly panic drills. They’re spending hours a day in Ghillie suits, hiding in spider holes they build in their own backyard.

They’ve imagined the worst case scenario and they’re clinging to it like a tick.

So. Speaking of doomsdays…

Let’s talk about publishing!

Publishing pinballs drunkenly between the bumpers of optimism and the flippers of holy fucking shit-hell the meteors are coming fairly regularly. The Internet is good for this: we get to see every moment as it happens and we have zero time to process it. All our processing is done out-loud, together, and mass hysteria runs rampant. Every shadow that passes over our prairie dog heads seems like a hungry hawk when it might be nothing more than a harmless vulture or a passenger plane. Or, y’know, Underdog.

The most recent publishing news is, of course, that Amazon is being given a leg-up by the Department of Justice as the DoJ sues Apple and several big publishers for collusion.

(Sidenote: educate yourself about Amazon’s e-book strategy with this blog post from Charlie Stross.)

Once again the cries of panic have risen over the walls of our digital city. A big shadow is passing over our heads. Publishers and bookstores are in danger. Amazon is a mecha-robot stomping toward Bethlehem.

And writers feel lost. Worried. Bookstores are exploding like a landmine gophers! Books are on fire! Publishers are throwing writers out of windows! An army of self-publishers is marching on New York!

So you turn to me. Your drunken, pantsless Sherpa. Waiting at the top of Mount Penmonkey, stroking my beard seductively at you. *stroke stroke stroke* *comb comb comb*

Okay, you don’t really turn to me so much as I kidnap you in a van and yell at you as we barrel toward the liquor store at increasingly troubling speeds, but whatever. Just the same, let me tell you what to do:

Nothing.

Calm down.

Breathe easy.

In. Out. In. Out.

Maybe have a drink. Take a walk. Sip some oolong tea.

Then, when you’ve relaxed: keep writing.

Stay the course.

Let the squirmy anxiety-ferret you’re holding go. Free him. You don’t need him. He’s bitey.

Put all this bullshit out of your mind.

Stories aren’t going anywhere. Books still exist, both inside Kindles and on meatspace shelves. If a major publisher goes down in flames, a smaller publisher will wink, shake its hips, and step up to the plate. If a major bookstore chain shits the bed, indies will fill the gap, or another chain will rise. If libraries suck the pipe — well, that’s bad for a community and not good for books, but you, little Wordomancer, Inkslinger, Storyspinner, can’t do shit about that. You can’t control any of this. You can, however, control your output. And there exists an audience for your stories. Which is the key, isn’t it?

What, you’re worried about Amazon? Amazon Schmamazon. It’s done no favors to the publishing industry (or the government, given their lack of paying sales tax), but it’s done a lot of favors for overall reading habits. They’re an imperfect juggernaut of a company. You’re free to distrust them (I certainly cast them a wary gaze), but to reiterate: you don’t control them. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. And if things start to suck for writers, other solutions will slide into the gaps — new competitors, new services, or authors who sell their work DRM-free and direct to the readers.

People always want stories.

Book sales — e-books in particular — are up.

Authors have more options now than they had ten years ago.

The Internet is a disruptive-yet-equalizing force that even Amazon cannot fight.

Should you educate yourself? Sure. Should you be aware of your options? Absolutely. Read. Talk about it. Express frustration. But don’t let it get in the way of doing what you do.

Don’t let it get in the way of your stories.

Because all the publishing woes — or publishing successes — mean a soggy sack of dicks if you don’t have a finished story to bring to the party. So keep writing. Keep telling stories. Eye on the prize, Eye-of-the-Tiger.

Flash Fiction Challenge: “Death Is On The Table”

Behold last week’s challenge: “Just The Opening Line.”

So, in less than two weeks now, my debut original novel — Blackbirds — enters into the world. Hopefully with a mad flutter of wings and not the thud of a dead crow hitting the windshield of a parked car, but that’s a thing that’s out of my control. The book aims to be a sharp-toothed tale about fate and free will, featuring a girl who can see how you’re going to die just by touching you. (Let me add, in a moment of self-promo whorishness, that if you pre-order the book now from Amazon (US),  Amazon (UK), or B&N, and you email me proof of said pre-ordering to terribleminds at gmail dot com, I will toss you my short story collection and the first Atlanta Burns novella. For free, in PDF or MOBI format.)

What all this means is, today we’re talking about death.

The Big “D.”

Demise. Dirt-Nap. Stick a fork in me, I’m done.

You have 1000 words to write a short story that prominently features death. What that means is up to you, of course. And genre is also in your court.

But a death — or the concept of death, or an exploration of death — must be front and center.

I’ll pick my favorite before Blackbirds releases on April 24th, and I’ll send the winner an e-book of my novel from either Amazon (MOBI) or B&N (ePUB).

You’ve got 1000 words.

Post the stories at your blogs or online spaces — don’t post here in the comments as the stories are too long to live at Casa Terribleminds. I’ll delete stories that post here. I’ll bring the hammer down.

Deadline is — well, given that I’m traveling next week, let’s short the deadline by one day.

Your new deadline is Thursday, 4/19, by noon EST.

Ask Me Anything

Here's the deal.

I figure, I'll offer my own neck on the interview chopping block here.

You're free to ask me anything you want. Pop the question (er, not the marriage question, put that ring away), and drop it into the comments below. I'll pick my favorites and will compile and answer.

Ask me about writing, personal life, this site, my books, pop culture, whatever crosses your terrible minds.

Or, don't ask me anything, and leave me here sobbing, staring at an empty comments thread.

Your choice.

*lip quivering*

A Long Look At "Show, Don't Tell"

You hear that a lot, as a writer: "Show, Don't Tell."

It is, by itself, not entirely meaningful. Taken literally: films show, while novels tell. It's doubly complicated by the word, "Storytelling." As in, "To tell a story." As in, "Wait, wasn't I supposed to show instead of tell?"

As with all the succinct little amuse-bouches of writing advice, this particular nugget contains a modicum of wisdom if you can peel back the skin-flaps and chip away bone to find the heart of the thing underneath.

It's like this:

We tell stories. But the advice asks us to look at how we tell those stories.

There exists a mode of telling stories which is strongly declarative: less visual, more intellectual and instructive, and with it comes the sense of a parent instructing a child. This mode relies more on telling.

There exists a mode of telling stories which asks more of the audience. It is more visual, more intuitive, and some might (falsely) claim it's more "cinematic." This mode relies more on showing.

Telling is explanation. It is definition. It is text. It says, This is that.

Showing is revelation and illustration. It is subtext. It asks, Is this that?

Telling walks ahead of you. It pulls you along.

Showing is the shadow behind. It urges you forward.

Telling invokes. Showing evokes.

Now, both modes have value in storytelling.

Sometimes you want to drop the audience into the space with no easy answers and have them feel around for themselves. Other times you need to take a moment, sit their ass in a chair, and give them a right-good talking-to. You need to tell them what's up. You need them — if they're going to proceed any further — to understand the sticky diplomatic relations between the jellyfish-like citizens of the Blumzorp Conglomerate and the constantly-micturating Night Goblins of the Moons of Hong.

Here, now, I will make some bold and debatable statements.

Generally, showing is a stronger mode of writing than straight-up telling.

The impact is more keenly felt. Imagine, if you will, a phone call where someone tells you, "Your mother is dead." It's a big gut-punch, that phone call. It'll leave you reeling. Ah, but — now imagine a situation where you're shown that rather than told it. Imagine you're there when she dies. You're there to feel the last flutter of a pulse, to share last words, to watch the life pass from her eyes as everything just… slumps.

The latter is more impactful, at least in my mind. The latter is you in that moment, witnessing it first-hand as a primary source. The audience wants to feel like a primary source — it gives them intimacy with the tale told and does not purport to keep them at arm's length. Further, showing delivers a level of mystery, whereas telling often (though not always) obviates that mystery.

Another example, this one simpler but no less important:

Saying "John is angry" (telling) versus offering signs of John's rage and irritation (showing).

You might reveal this through body language, through words chosen, through his actions. You're letting the audience come to the conclusion regarding John's vein-popping rage rather than straight up telling them he's one pissed-off little monkey. Nothing wrong with letting the audience do some work.

Further, when we show things to the reader, we are building elements (character, setting, description) with details rather than letting a single statement ("John likes cake") be the standard-bearer for the scene. Though therein lies a danger, too — just as you can tell too little, you can show too much.

When is telling more appropriate? Again, if you have information that absolutely must be conveyed, then telling is the way to go. It's short and dirty and sometimes? It works. Further, you shouldn't be afraid to have characters (through dialogue or, at times, through first-person POV) "tell" things. Explanation through a character's voice and perspective still can carry with it the earmarks of showing — because just as it's true that you as the author have choices in how you share information, so too do all the characters in your story. Characters speaking in their own voice are, in a way, showing.

And that's maybe a lesson for the author, too — your voice in all this matters, and a strong and artful voice can make telling seem like showing even when it's not.

What's the ratio? How much showing versus how much telling? Since I like arbitrary made-up numbers with absolutely no reflection in reality, I'll say, mmm, somewhere in the 70/30 split range, with the 70% going toward showing over telling. More to the point: more showing, less telling.

What say you, Internet? What's your thoughts on this oft-spoken writing adage? Spun from gold? Heaped with bullshit? When is telling appropriate? Give examples or you get the hose.

25 Reasons I Hate Your Main Character

It's possible I hate your main character.

Now, that might be on me. The list below? Entirely personal. And, as always, in the hands of a master, none of this shit applies. A masterful storyteller can break all the rules and make the breaking of the rules seem like that should've been the rule all along. Your Mileage May Vary, but just the same I thought it an interesting exercise to list those things that make me want to punt your main character into a pterodactyl nest. Where he will be promptly ripped into ribbons and gobbets of man-meat.

1. No Agency: Reactive Over Active

The protagonist helps to shape the story through her actions. It's just how she rolls. Only problem is when the reverse ends up being true: the story forever pushes the character. It's like in a boxing match — some boxing matches are dreadfully one-sided, with one poor sod taking a limitless pummeling, his head looking like a Ziploc baggy full of ground bison. That's not a good mode for your story. Your protagonist should not be constantly on the ropes. Sure, the inciting incident might demand reaction ("My daughter was kidnapped by angry polecats! To action!"), but the character must have or claim agency for herself. I despise characters who never grab the reins of the story, not even by the tale's end.

2. Even Worse: Passive Over Active

Passive is worse than reactive. They're not just ducking and guarding and feinting — these characters lay down on the ground and let the story defecate on their chest while the audience watches. The character is not a leaf in the stream that is your story. The character is not just a piece of fucking furniture.

3. Zero Redemptive Qualities

I don't demand a "likable" character. I think likability is overstated. As I say, we need to be willing to live with the character for two hours or 300 pages, not be his best buddy. Just the same, I can't abide a character who has zero likable or redemptive qualities. He can be selfish and shallow and doomed to his own tragic flaws as long as I have something to grab hold of to pull me out of the swampy mire of those most wretched character traits. "Oh, he's a dick, but he loves kittens! He kills people for a living but he saves orphans!" Something. Anything. Please.

4. Punches Kids, Kick Pets, And Other Vile Acts

You can give a character as many redemptive qualities as he likes, but for me there is a line where a character crosses over and performs truly execrable acts that cannot be forgiven. I think of this as the Anakin Skywalker problem — I'm supposed to believe that Darth Vader is deserving of redemption by his hillbilly moppet of a son. "There's still good in him." Except then Lucas made the prequels and has Anakin murdering Jedi children, Force-choking his wife in a case of domestic abuse and, I dunno, probably setting up a brutal dog fighting ring on Tatooine. I can't get past that. Ruins the whole thing for me.

5. The Ben Stiller Effect

I don't want to feel a sense of unending embarrassment for your main character. Watching him, I shouldn't be constantly wincing, crossing my legs, furrowing my brow. Do not let conflict be driven by the character's ceaseless stupidity. Endless humiliating self-driven failure ceases to be interesting.

6. The Forrest Gump Problem

Reverse problem: your character's success is driven by his stupidity. Every time Forrest Gump steps in pile of horse-shit it's another unqualified success, somehow — "Oh, ha ha ha, Forrest Gump accidentally threw a Frisbee and broke the president's nose and now we won Viet Nam and chocolate cake for everybody!" I can't get behind a character whose rampant dipshittery is a cause for celebration.

7. Muddy Motivation

I need to know what your character wants and why he wants it. That is the bare minimum psychic investment I must possess for your character — motivation is the engine behind a character's actions, and if I have no idea why the character does what he does, then I'm floundering about on the beach of your fiction like a dying porpoise. You can obfuscate a lot about your main character. But not that.

8. "I'm So Good I'm Perfect!"

"I'm a noble fireman and an astronaut and I can do no wrong and I'm made of adorable river otters and I help create the dreams of young girls with ponies in their hearts." I hate your Goody Two-Shoes Never-Does-Nothing-Wrong character. Hate 'em. You've turned that character's goodness into a shining dagger which you then plunged into my breast (tee hee, breast). Conflict dies in the hands of a perfect protagonist. We love characters for their imperfections. So allow them to be imperfect.

9. Though Maybe Cool It On The Imperfections

You can, of course, go too far with the imperfections, flaws and frailties though, can't you? "He's a heroin addict! And a compulsive liar! And gets off on autoerotic asphyxiation. He's got one leg. And gambling debts! His kids hate him his wife left him he lost his job and his house and he's allergic to bees and…" You hit a point where it's equal parts pathetic and downright unbelievable. Hang your hat on a core set of weaknesses. Don't hamstring the character with an egregious and endless menu of foibles.

10. Her Quirky Quirks Are So Heck-Darn Quirky!

Quirks can be cute. They can be fun. Michael Weston on Burn Notice always eats yogurt. Great. Fine. But don't let them stand in for genuine character traits. You know the old saying: "Too many quirks poop in the soup." I think that's a saying? Whatever. Point is, it's awfully easy to let a laundry list of quirks pretend to be the foundation of a good character. But quirks are hollow. Too many overwhelm with a disingenuous sense: quirks are a stand-in for authenticity. Doubly true when the quirks mount and become all too twee.

11. "Blah Blah Blah, Toshi Station!"

Whining is not an attractive quality in anybody. Including your characters.

12. Had It Too Good For Too Long

Characters can and should overcome conflict. It's part of storytelling: characters encounter conflict and struggle to overcome said conflict. But it should never be easy. You remember that kid in school? Had lots of money, teachers loved him, always had everything handed to him on a silver plate by his robot butler? You hated that kid. You hate him in real life and you hate him in fiction. Characters should not slide through the story like a baby covered in bacon grease. Conflict shouldn't just be speed-bumps or walls made of tissue paper. If a character has it too easy, then I find it equally too easy to quit reading your damn story.

13. The Shoddy Character Copy Machine

Oh! Look! It's Superman! Buffy! James Bond! Bleargh. I don't want to see a carbon copy of another character. If I want to read about that character, I'll go read about that character.

14. "The Type"

I don't want to read the story of any kind of "type." I don't want to read about an archetype or a stereotype or a… I dunno, a what's a daguerreotype? That's a thing, right? It's a character who… is good with… daggers? WHAT AM I A WORDOLOGIST? (Okay, fine, before I get a fusillade of smug pedantic comments, I know what a daguerreotype is. It's the French word for "penis.") A "type" is just a piss-thin coat of paint to slather on a faceless mannequin to give the illusion of having a genuine character there somewhere. Create people who are real in the context of your world. Do not lean on the crutch of "type."

15. The Everyman: Duller Than A Butt-Plug

I'm done with the Everyman. He's just — ugh. He's a cubicle wall. He's a chewed up wad of cardboard. He's a blank piece of notebook paper. Yes, yes, I get it — he's meant to represent all of us and be the fictional representation of The Common Man but yeah, you know what? He mostly just comes across as boring. Few of us are truly as common as the phrase "Common Man" suggests, so, let's divest ourselves of that dull-as-fucking-wallpaper notion and move on. Yes? Yes.

16. Those Angles Don't Add Up

I don't want a boring character, obviously, and yet I do demand some degree of internal consistency. The things she does need to add up. They need to come from a place inspired by her fears, her motivations, her past. If we know all along she's got a lady-boner for revenge, then it's a hard pill to swallow when she continues to perform actions against that revenge. But it falls to little things, too — she got shot in the leg but doesn't limp, she's from Philadelphia but doesn't know what a cheesesteak is, she's got black hair one minute and the next minute she's a sentient recliner named "Dave." You know. Little things.

17. The Inexplicable Cipher

Mystery is good. I like mystery. I like not having all the answers and feeling like I'm following a trail of your breadcrumbs and, hey, who knows, maybe there's a pile of gold at the end or some kind of bear-shark-robot hybrid that wants my intestines to host its sharkbearbot progeny. What I don't like is a character who's basically just one big question mark: an unsolvable and unknowable puzzle. The character is our way through this thing. She is the lens that focuses our view of the story. If that lens is covered in bird foulings and other schmutz, then everything is muddied. Ciphers can end up as a cheap and lazy trick. Such artifice will earn you a Krav Maga crotch-kapow from yours truly.

18. Atlas Pooped

A character is more than just his philosophies. We are not the sum total of our beliefs. We have friends and family. Hopes and dreams. Secret plans and bizarre sexual peccadilloes requiring an oil drum full of egg whites and Abe Vigoda in a too-tight wetsuit. If your character fails to possess those things and is just a mouthpiece for his (or worse, your) belief systems, then I will come to your house and beat you about the head, neck and butthole with a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

19. He Tells Me About Stupid Shit

The novel form is great in that it gives story and character room to breathe — but the novel form also offers authors enough rope with which to hang themselves and the whole audience. Just because a novel gives you room to talk doesn't mean the character should sit there for page after page talking about completely inconsequential piffle. It has to relate back to the story in some way — if your character goes on for three pages about breakfast or toilet habits or animal husbandry and none of it reflects or relates to the story at hand, I am going to want to throttle that character for wasting my time. First draft is a great place to let characters off their leashes. Subsequent drafts should cage those unruly assholes.

20. Truly Fearless

Fearless characters don't hold my interest. Oh, I like a character that seems fearless, that acts like she doesn't have one scaredy-widdle-bone in her whole body. But just the same, real fears need to manifest — she must have things to lose, must have things she cannot abide, must have things that haunt her.

21. Not Actually The Main Character

I want the main character to be the protagonist. This doesn't need to be true, technically, but fuck it, I like it and this list is all about me, nyah nyah boo boo. Sure, you can have a main character who is a witness to the protagonist's journey and is an observer to the changing world and the unfolding tale, but you need to be really powerful talented to pull that off and get away with it. Let your main characters drive the story as protagonists. Don't give us a main character who somehow remains secondary to the tale being told.

22. The Motherfucker Dies

Pet peeve time: kill off your main character and I get squirrely. Twitchy. Stabby. There's an, erm, quite popular "vampire apocalypse" novel a few years back that did this and I had to put the book down. And stomp on it. And punch trees as I held them responsible for creating the paper on which the book was printed. You can maybe get away with this if your cast features an unholy host of "main" characters (I'm looking at you, GRRM), but it'll still earn you the stinkeye.

23. Wait, Fellas, Come Back, Come Back!

I wanna spend time with your main character but then you run off, leaving me behind like a fat kid who just dropped his ice cream in the sand. I want to hang with great characters, I don't want you to keep ditching me and having the action happen off-screen or off-page. Root me to the character. I want to be duct-taped to that sonofabitch. Don't give me a kickass character and then abandon his perspective for half the story.

24. Stagnant As Swamp Water

The heroic mode allows main characters to not change but instead change the world. That's totally viable. What burns me is when neither is true — the character doesn't change, the world doesn't change, nothing changes, it's all one big status quo circle jerk. Something or someone must change.

25. There's No There There

Worst case scenario: your character just has no substance. He has no soul. This isn't a technical writing thing, and it isn't even a thing you can stick with a push-pin and say, "Here, just give him dark hair, some Mommy issues, and a loyal sharkbearbot companion." But for some reason the character fails to feel real, fails to allow the audience to transcend the page or the screen and see the character as a Real Boy rather than a Wooden Doll. It's a sign, perhaps, that you just don't understand the character you've written, that he is held at an arm's length and you have not yet found that empathetic psychic bridge between the two of you. There's no easy way to solve this conundrum, sadly — my only advice is to hunker down and figure out what it is you haven't figured out about your main character.

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In Which I Ponder The Lyrics To "The Rainbow Connection"

I am, of course a Muppets fan.

Who isn't? Al Qaeda. The Mansion Family. Rick Santorum.

But everybody else — Muppets fan.

Having a Tiny Human in the house (now ten months old!), I'm slowly steeping him in the warm waters of approved pop culture goodness, which means it is time for a slow but ever-increasing dose of things like The Muppets. Yes to Kermit! No to Barney the Dinosaur. Stuff like that.

In the process, I've got a few mix CDs I play in the car with kid-friendly tunes (They Might Be Giants is particularly delightful in this regard). One such track: "The Rainbow Connection." As sung by The Muppets.

And, as sung by me. Singing along in the car.

Thing is, as you start to sing songs to your kids, you start listening to the lyrics. I mean — Rockabye Baby? In the tree-tops? Wind blows, cradle rocks, baby falls out of tree? Why was the baby in the tree in the first place? Who puts a cradle up there? Ben Franklin? Nikola Tesla? And why are we singing songs about babies falling out of trees as a means to get babies to sleep? Is there a subtle threat in there? "You don't fall asleep, I'm going to stick your bediapered ass in a tree and you better hope the wind doesn't knock your chubby cheeks to the forest floor, kid. Now shut up and slumber."

Anyway. So. Rainbow Connection.

I sing along and now I'm forced to ask:

What the hell is going on in this song?

Let us examine.

Why are there so many

Songs about rainbows

And what's on the other side?

Right up front I'm forced to ask: are there that many songs about rainbows? I can think of… mmm, one other one. "Over the Rainbow." Do we possess a secret canon of rainbow songs? More specifically, how many songs about rainbows do we have where the song ponders what's on the other side of said rainbow? (We know what's on the other side, by the way: goddamn leprechauns. A whole bloody cabal of 'em. Wizard of Oz had Munchkins, a thinly-veiled metaphor for an unruly host of leprechauns hoarding gold in the form of a "yellow brick road." Filthy little fair folk! Greedy little Rumpleforeskins.)

Rainbows are visions

Only illusions

And rainbows have nothing to hide

Except leprechauns. Rainbows are hiding the shit out of leprechauns.

So we've been told and some choose

To believe it

But I know they're wrong wait and see

Wait. What? What's happening? Rainbows aren't just illusions? This is starting to sound like a crazy person's conspiracy theory about rainbows. "Hey, man. HEY. BUDDY. Psst. All that shit you thought you know about rainbows? LIES TOLD BY BRAINWASHED SCIENTISTS. You think rainbows aren't real but I'm here to tell you they're real as you and me, man. It's a ploy by Homeland Security. I'm stocking up on ammo and so should you. Because one day the rainbows are coming to come for us all. And then what happens, man? THEN WHAT HAPPENS."

Ahem.

Okay, onto the chorus.

Someday we'll find it

The Rainbow Connection

The lovers, the dreamers and me

Someday we'll find "it." Find what? What the fuck is a rainbow connection? What does it connect? Is it a bridge? A Delta flight? A drug connection? "Yo, you wanna get high, you gotta see my man Jimmy the Skeev down under the overpass. He'll hook you up with the real rainbow connection, if you know what I mean. Right? Right? I mean drugs. He's going to give you drugs for money. In case that wasn't entirely clear."

Also: saying, "The lovers, the dreamers, and me," indicates that these are three distinct entities. Lovers cannot be dreamers and vice versa, and further, the singer identifies as neither of those things.

Now, given that the singer is generally a frog made of felt, I'm comfortable not imagining him as a lover. Because then he's going to be (alert, incoming pun) porking Miss Piggy, and I don't need to see that outside of an early Peter Jackson film. But Kermit isn't a dreamer? Really? How sad for the gangly frog.

Who said that every wish

Would be heard and answered

When wished on the morning star

Okay, I don't know that anybody ever said that. Is that a thing? "Sure. You want something, you gotta wish on the morning star. Someone will hear it. And that someone will answer it. No, I don't know who the fuck it is. Could be a giant Space Manatee for all I know. Just shut up and get to wishing already."

Though, now that I re-read it — "morning star?" Morningstar? Isn't that a title of…

LUCIFER? Morningstar and Lightbringer? Is this song advocating Satanism? Or is it trying to teach us to turn away from the Devil's wiles? "Oh, sure, Old Scratch will tell you that he'll listen to and answer your every wish, but then he'll stick a trident up your butt and remove your soul through your anus. That's a true story. That's in the Bible. It's in… uhh, Mordecai 7:11. I dunno, shut up and just don't worship the Devil."

Somebody thought of that

And someone believed it

And look what it's done so far

Who? Who thought of that? Who believed it? And what has it done?

I'm asking. Seriously, song. I'm asking. Because now it sounds like you're just making shit up. Are we supposed to wish for things? Or not wish for things? Is this a war between the Morning Star and the Rainbow? Are we trying to get those two to connect? Come together, like the Beatles sang?

What's so amazing

That keeps us stargazing

What do we think we might see

I'm getting a real mixed message here. Stargazing is cool? Stargazing is stupid? Wishing is for assholes? What's so amazing that keeps us star-gazing…? Can't it just be like, y'know, stars? Stars are cool.

Someday we'll find it

That Rainbow Connection

The lovers the dreamers and me

Back to the chorus again. Still don't know what we're hoping to find. But, okay. I'm listening.

Have you been half-asleep?

And have you heard voices?

I've heard them calling my name

This sounds like a nightmare I had.

That's some hypnagogic hallucination type of shit right there. "I was half asleep. Then… I heard voices. I heard them… calling my name." That's fucking creepy is what it is. Is it the rainbow? Is the rainbow calling you? Why? What does it want? Or maybe it's the Devil? What's happening? Am I high right now?

Are these the sweet sounds

That called the young sailors?

I think they're one and the same

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are we talking about the sirens? The freaky shipwrecking seductresses calling to sailors? This is getting terrifying. You're saying that the voice I'm hearing while half-asleep, the voice that's calling my name, is actually the same song that calls to sailors? To crash them against rocks? There's a whole Christian analog here to when sirens were used to represent not a literal song toward deadly rocks but as a metaphorical representation toward worldly sins. And given earlier lyrics talking about dreaming and wishing and what might be a reference to the Devil…

What the hell is going on in this song?

I've heard it too many

Times to ignore it

There's something that I'm supposed to be

If you're hearing this with some frequency — these name-calling siren song voices — I'm maybe thinking you need to get jacked up on a Thorazine drip. Like, ASAFP.

And are the voices telling him what he's supposed to be? Which is… what, exactly? Lover, dreamer, rainbow hunter, Satanist, non-Satanist, leprechaun felcher, what? What's happening? Why my pants undone? How did I get here? Why am I surrounded by monster puppets in a swamp? Why does my anus hurt?

Someday we'll find it

The Rainbow Connection

The lovers, the dreamers and me

THE RAINBOWS

THEY HAVE ME

THEY WANT ME TO KILL

TO DESTROY

SWEET SONG SINGING

THE FROG KNOWS THE FROG KNOWS

IA IA RAINBOW FTHAGN

I AM THE LEPRECHAUN KING, DREAM LORD, LOVER OF LUCIFER

AAAAGHAGHAGHA

*sob*