Chuck Wendig's Blog, page 72

K.R. Richardson: Five Things I Learned Writing Blood Orbit

The planet is beautiful; the crime is gruesome.

A mass murder in an ethnic ghetto sparks racial and political tensions that could lead to genocide or civil war on the corporate-controlled planet Gattis. Eric Matheson, an idealistic rookie cop trying to break from his powerful family, is plunged into the investigation in his first weeks on the job in the planetary capital, Angra Dastrelas. A newcomer to the planet, Matheson is unaware of the danger he’s courting when he’s promoted in the field to assist the controversial Chief Investigating Forensic Officer, Inspector J. P. Dillal, the planet’s first cybernetically enhanced investigator. Coming from a despised ethnic underclass, the brilliant and secretive Dillal seems determined to unravel the crime regardless of the consequences. The deeper they dig, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. But in a system where the cops enforce corporate will, instead of the law, the solution could expose Gattis’s most shocking secrets and cost thousands of lives—including Matheson’s and Dillal’s.

Suspense is killing me.

Although it is, at heart, a police procedural, the usual “slow burn” school of suspense is a little too slow for many cross-genre readers. Pacing and world-building can work against each other, since both mystery and science fiction stories require information be shared with the reader in order to “play fair,” keep the reader informed of the essential facts, and build the plot/character tension that propels the story. Information insertion, background “color,” and world context also have to be present, but can really slow things down if they’re lying about in bloody great chunks. It’s a hell of a juggling act; editors have a desire for everything to be clear, but over clarifying undermines suspense and speed, and damned if I didn’t realize how much of that I’d gotten into the habit of doing.

Initially I found it easier to throw all the info into the first draft and then slash mercilessly in the second draft. And the third draft. And the editorial revision. And the copyedit. But I’m finding a more minimal approach better with the next book in the series, writing smaller and adding only where I have to. Whittle each sentence and paragraph as small and tight as possible. Cut every word that doesn’t lift a ton of concept or descriptive work. Eliminate every bridge, set-up, and explanation that can be inferred, suggested, or taken for granted, so you can get to the good parts faster. It’s also more fun to torture the characters, as well as the readers, with minimum information and a lot of uncertainty, which adds to the suspense.

The better your world building, the less it looks like world building.

I got an early review that was critical of the “minimal” world building in Blood Orbit. That was a gleeful moment. The world building is intended to sneak up on the reader and encourage them to see reflections of the real world, so I’m fucking chuffed. But it’s still a beast of a thing to build a whole world and it’s so tempting to put it all on display. Don’t. You don’t even have to know everything about the world you’re writing at the beginning, so long as you understand its essential questions: what’s valuable; who controls it, how, and where does it come from; what about sewage and unpleasant tasks; how does the society deal with all this; what are the wacky things about the world and its history; what is the dominant society’s working premise of the basic nature of humanity (or whatever lifeform it is). Like character, the world you start well will reveal itself over time as you write; yet most of it is the body of an iceberg—90% of it hidden and just waiting for a chance to rip open the Titanic and kill everybody on board (too bad about the artist-fella.) Vary the revelation of your world by breaking it up and scattering it around. Give the obvious out in lots of tiny pieces, like the clear, cold night at sea with the terrible unseen beneath the surface: as character context, implication, demonstration, voice, social hierarchy, food… And only occasional Titanic-sinking.

Politics makes strange (fictional) bedfellows.

Politics and social commentary. Yup. Went there. People who fall in… whatever won’t always have the same ideas about the world, but they can still fuck each other over, no matter how good they are in bed. I took a certain glee in making characters who started out with one set of ideas about other each other and ended up with a different one. It changed the story track I’d originally imagined, and the first redraft was a bugger as a result, but it was worth it. The actual sex scene ended up in the editing bin, even though how they did the horizontal tango was as important as the fact that they did. But I didn’t have to show it to get to the gist—sometimes tell is better than show—especially when you can let the hedging and embarrassing silences do the talking. Putting the political in place of the personal surprised the hell out of me and made the story much more interesting, but it was a tricky bit of revising to hit the sweet spot (hah!) between character motion and mechanical porn.

Changing genres is hard (or not)

A lot of my previous work was fantasy, but the story and the subtext of Blood Orbit were better served with a technological world and the reference base of current reality and human history. So change had to be made. There’s a lot of weight in an established career and byline: you have a reader base, they know and like (and buy) what you write, you have a reputation with reviewers and your part of the publishing world. On the other hand: your reader base has certain expectations, reviewers and other readers have preconceived notions about what you write, and you’re never going to make everyone happy anyhow (get used to it.)

In my case, I chose SF and a pseudonym. I think of it as testing a new product-line. It is a little risky, because I may not reach the additional, new audience I want, and I may lose some of my established reader base. But a clear differentiation between the current work and my previous work has to be made, so the book can find its own audience, and be measured on its own merits. This won’t always be the case for every writer, and it may cease to be the case for me, but right now, it’s the best choice for this book. It wasn’t an easy decision. My agent and I went round it for a long time, weighed the advantages and disadvantages and how “secret” the pseudonym should be and settled on “not too much”—I’m not J. K. Rowling, after all. Readers who already follow my earlier work shouldn’t have difficulty finding the new one if they are interested, and readers who find the book without knowing its connection can like or dislike it for what it is, rather than for what it isn’t.

It’s easy to take success for granted.

I had assumed that a decent degree of success and a long-running series assured my new project would also meet with approval and success. Initially it didn’t. But not because the new book is bad—it’s fucking brilliant if you ask me. My measure of “success” was faulty. I thought of it in terms of money and numbers of units sold, and the amount of those that met my needs. I assumed that and my skill were sufficient and would allow my success to continue because… well. Because.

So, for a while, I looked on the effort as a failure until the book finally found a publisher at its eleventh hour. But success is not in the publication, or the potential sales, or the viability of a long-term series. Success is that I love the end result of the work: this difficult, complex, troublesome, wicked-cool book. It’s not perfect—but it’s pretty damned good and better than anything I’ve done before. I’m not going to lie and say I wouldn’t like to have a pile of money, fans, and the award-night adulation of my peers, but they aren’t necessarily the only way to measure “success.”

* * *

K. R. Richardson is the pseudonym of a bestselling Washington-based writer and editor of Science Fiction, Crime, Mystery, and Fantasy. A former journalist with publications on topics from technology, software, and security, to history, health, and precious metals, Richardson is also a lifelong fan of crime and mystery fiction, and films noir. When not writing or researching, the author may be found loafing about with dogs, riding motorcycles, shooting, or dabbling with paper automata. Learn more at: www.gattisfiles.com

K.R. Richardson: Website

Blood Orbit: Indiebound | Amazon | B&N | BAM

Alex Segura: The Challenge Of Paying It Forward

Ladies and gents: the inimitable Alex Segura.  And I say he’s inimitable because I’ve tried very hard to be him, but he keeps evading capture. If you see him, bring him to me.

* * *

The 24-hour news cycle.

The shrinking media landscape.

Those darn millennials.

Social media, amirite?

We’ve heard every reason possible for why it’s hard to get any traction for your book – people read less (not true), it’s a conspiracy (rarely, if ever, true), my publisher screwed up (sometimes, but too easy a default setting). The time right before your book launch is fraught with stress, anxiety and anticipation. You’ve put in the hard work, written a book and seen it through every iteration — from nasty first draft to pretty polished oh-my-god-I-cannot-read-this-again final manuscript. You’ve written your guest blogs (yuk yuk), done your interviews, booked events and begged and pleaded with authors you admire to read and blurb your book. It’s the calm before the storm, and damn wouldn’t you just kill for something to do to distract you from the looming launch of Your Very Important Work?

Here’s an idea: plug another writer’s work.

“Huh-what? Why would I do that? This is my time, Alex. MINE.”

I get it, I do. If you’re anything like me, the weeks before launch are loaded with lots of follow-up emails, unhealthy Google searches and nail-biting. This time is all about Your Book and How It Lands. It’s an offshoot of a bigger Please Love Me feeling all authors share to varying degrees. We work hard and want our work to be appreciated and gushed over. It’s kind of why we do it. I just went through it with my new crime novel, Blackout, which comes out…ahem…today!

But here’s the thing: you’re not alone, writer pal. Writing itself is a lonely crusade – done in solitary spaces and in the dark, winding labyrinth that is our own whacked out headspace. If you’re a novelist, you probably don’t even share what you’re working on until the first draft is done – an arduous, drawn-out process that could take months or years. And now, as you peek out from your little blanket fort, the laptop closed and file sent off to the publishing gods, you wonder – what’s out there? How can I get people to read this damned thing? Hello? Is this thing on?

The sad reality is, there’s no magic bullet. There isn’t a single, definitive thing that will ensure your work gets in front of readers beyond, well, the work itself. Make it good. Make it sing. Labor over it. Write it. Rewrite it. Read it aloud. Edit it. Cut from it. Send it to people you trust not to BS you and do it all over again. Keep doing that until the finished product is something you’d read and enjoy, then do it all over again. That’s the stuff you can control. The rest? Like “building your brand,” “marketing” or “going viral”? That’s all out of your control. Now, you can and should do the things put in front of you – interviews, blog posts, events, you get it. Do it all. But do it with the knowledge that if your book does resonate – if it does catch fire – it’s not because you did 100 blog posts or sent out 1m tweets. It’s because the book is good, people are liking it and spreading the word. What matters is the work.

Which brings me back to this moment. You’re feeling stressed. You’re wringing your hands. You’re waiting and waiting for this damn book to come out already. What are you supposed to do?

Promote another writer.

Talk about the book your reading now. Talk about an author friend who has a new book coming out. Share the cover of a book you got in the mail. Let people know about the books you love. All (good) writers are avid readers, too, and that’s a wonderful, warm and welcoming community – embrace it. It’s a surefire way to clear your head and get your mind off the stuff you have very little control over.

Case in point: every few weeks, I send out a tweet reminding people that Amazon and Goodreads reviews matter. They do. They help improve book visibility and help authors get eyeballs on their books. I don’t link to my books. I don’t demand that people say nice things about books they review. I just ask that people talk about books more. Share what you’re experiencing and reading. Spread the word. Let an author know that something they wrote resonated with you. I’m not pointing to this tweet as a great example of anything, it’s just a little something I like to do that helps remind folks that there are people behind the books they read, and those people would like to write more books for more people to read.

Kind of like you, huh?

So when the stress of working on your own stuff is eating your insides, step back and think about the stuff that made you want to write your own work in the first place. Think of the last book that made you sit up and take notice. List some of the authors you’re eager to see more from. Cruise your bookshelf and see what the DNA of your current book looks like. Then talk about it and spread the word. It’s the least you could do.

* * *

Alex Segura is a novelist and comic book writer. His latest installment in the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series, Blackout , is out today from Polis Books.

The Eternal Question: What Should I Write?

[image error]One of the questions I get most frequently over email is this:

What should I write?

The question presumably meaning, what kind of thing should I write? What genre? What story? Maybe it’s the first thing you’re ever going to write. Maybe it’s just the next thing in a long line of written things.

And the answer to this question is simple.

That answer is:

How the fuck should I know?

I mean, I’m not you. At least, not until I get my SOUL TRANSPLANT HELMET working, but that’s at least five years off — maybe seven if Elon doesn’t call me back (seriously, Elon, get your shit together, gimme a ring, Musk). Because I am (presently) not you, I have no idea what you should write. Because the advice of what to write is not a thing that has an easy answer — or, really, any answer. You want the answer to be something concrete, something that is the result of plugging variables in and punching the CALCULATE STORY button, but no such thing exists. You can’t “run the numbers” and end up with the perfect answer (“Ah! I should write — let’s see, mumble mumble, carry the three, put the DNA on the slide, shake the shoebox with the cat inside of it, et voila — I should write The Terminator meets The Gilmore Girls as if written by Mary Shelley. Bestseller status, here I come.”)

It doesn’t work like that.

But what I can do is tell you how I come to terms with what I should write next. Because this isn’t a question just some writers have — it’s a question that plagues us all, I think. It plagues us at the start. It plagues us throughout our career. It plagues n00bs, midlisters, even bestsellers. It plagues traditionally-published authors and indie authors. It is a question I ask myself even as I’m writing one thing because I always need to know what’s next? And what’s next after that? If this book is successful, what else can I write in that vein? If it tanks, how do I move to an adjacent track that still makes sense? Where am I? Why am I wearing pants? Is this a curse? Did I spit in the Pants God’s eye? WHY HAS THOU FORSAKEN ME, OH PANTSLESS PANTHEON

Ahem, sorry.

Here is what I do to determine what I’m gonna write next.

First, fuck your brand.

I know, I know. But seriously, any brand you have in mind is a box, a fence, a limitation. Said it before, will say it again, but a brand is the thing a farmer sears into the ass of his livestock to make sure they don’t stray.

Fuck.

Your.

Brand.

If I thought about my brand I’d never write anything.

Second, it bears mentioning that I no longer write my ideas down. I used to. I used to hoard them like jewels until I realize they weren’t gems — they were bits of aquarium gravel. They’re dross, they’re dribble, they’re just a building material like dirt or concrete. Not valueless! But also not precious. Ideas ping my brain daily the way we’re all pelted by solar radiation. I submit ideas to Idea Thunderdome, and only those ideas that emerge victorious — by which I mean, they are persistent, like carpenter bees thumping against the window-glass — get to stay. And even then, I don’t write them down. If the idea is good, it will continue to percolate. It will bother me. It will live with me, lingering in my head like a beautiful or traumatic memory.

I usually have four or five of these ideas swirling around my head at any given time. Fireflies in a fucking jar. So, when it comes time to figure out what I want to write — I look at these effulgent little weirdos to see if there’s anything there, and if there is, I pluck it out, smash its glowy butt, and smear the bioluminescent innards onto my face like phosphorescent war paint.

If there’s not, or if I remain uncertain, onto step three:

I ask myself two questions.

a) What is exciting me right now? I don’t mean that way — not “in-the-pants-excited,” because if we’re talking about underwear excitement, I’d be writing fan-fiction about shirtless Thor and Cate Blanchett as Hela and also Loki and definitely Valkyrie and, inexplicably, the ghost from Booberry? I dunno. Don’t kinkshame me, you monsters.

No, what I mean is, what’s geeking me out right now? Not pop culture geekery, but topic geekery. You can look through my books and see the things I’m feeling dorky about at any given time — birds! ants! hackers! agriculture! mythology! — and see how that translated into those stories. Basically, I just want to be interested in something, because that gives me a reason to research it and involve myself in it and then be passionate about it on the page.

Like, have you ever been sitting down with a friend or loved one or captive enemy and you’re all like, “Man, I just read the CRAZIEST THING today, Elon Musk and this guy named Chnurk Mandog are inventing some kind of soul-stealing helmet or maybe it’s a body-snatching helmet I’m not really sure?” And you just wanna keep talking about that really cool thing? Yeah, put in a pin in those kinds of topics. If something gets you all nerdy, that’s a thing you might wanna fold into your work at some point, and it can help form the skeleton that will support the flesh of an idea, narratively.

b) What is bothering me right now? I don’t mean “that rash” or “mosquitoes,” but I’m asking you to identify something that’s troubling you. Something that’s making you scared. Or upset. Or anxious. Something that’s scratching at your brainstem like a sick rat. Again, you can look to my work and find the deeper, scarier shit (death! surveillance! artificial intelligence! class warfare!) that serves as my effort to… make sense of it. Not for you. But for me. Fiction is a great way to explore the snarliest, gnarliest depths of That Which Troubles You, just as it’s a great place to explore the heights of That Which Geeks Your Ass Out.

And fiction is best, for me, when it’s combining those things.

If it’s just troubling stuff, it ends up dour, dire, not much fun.

If it’s just the geekery nerdery excitement, then it’s light, or twee, or conflict-free.

The first is too deep, too dark.

The latter too shallow, too bright.

For me, it’s the perfect combination to find the next damn thing to write.

And here you might be saying, WHOA WHOA WHOA, WHY ARE YOU NOT TELLING ME TO CONSIDER MY CAREER, OR THE MARKET, OR TO CONSULT THE ORACLES OF PUBLISHING.

Listen, you can care about that stuff.

Maybe you even should, I dunno. It’s certainly not the worst idea to try to imagine what things might sell and what things might not. But… the reality is, nobody actually knows anything? I’ve made this point before but it demands a return visit: nobody knows anything inside publishing. They can make guesses. Many can make educated guesses based off insight and experience. But there’s no answer. And by the time you actually write the thing that might serve the market, the market will have changed. As I’ve said before, you’re aiming your spaceship at a star that has already burned out — the light from it just hasn’t caught up yet. The market is an unknowable entity. It is a lightless, doom-filled eye whose only language is chaos. It’s Sauron, it’s the Death Star, it’s Kanye West’s Twitter account. My advice is to stay away from it.

And this is where I exhort you yet again to say fuck you to branding. Because branding is you imagining yourself in relation to the marketplace. It leaves little room for you to be you, or for you to explore these questions that are uniquely your own. It leaves room for you to Provide Content, but that’s it. There’s little passion there. Little interest. Little fear. It’s finding a market niche and filling it with whatever narrative widget or story hamburger you choose to provide.

Do not worry about brand.

Worry about voice.

Voice meaning, who you are as an author. What things that speak to you as an author, and that will end up on the page because you just can’t help but put them there.

Of course, all of this is useless to you if branding is exactly what you want. And that’s okay if it is what you want — no harm, no foul, if it makes you happy. But for my mileage, the market is so unknowable, and this career so unpredictable, you might as well give writing to your own needs and desires a healthy shot.

So, when it comes down to the question of, what do I write next?

Return to this post.

Maybe it will help you.

Maybe it won’t.

Can’t hurt to try, though, can it?

* * *

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DAMN FINE STORY: Mastering the Tools of a Powerful Narrative

What do Luke Skywalker, John McClane, and a lonely dog on Ho’okipa Beach have in common? Simply put, we care about them.

Great storytelling is making readers care about your characters, the choices they make, and what happens to them. It’s making your audience feel the tension and emotion of a situation right alongside your protagonist. And to tell a damn fine story, you need to understand why and how that caring happens.

Whether you’re writing a novel, screenplay, video game, or comic, this funny and informative guide is chock-full of examples about the art and craft of storytelling–and how to write a damn fine story of your own.

Out now!

Indiebound  |  Amazon  |  B&N

It’s Time To Talk About The Sandwich

Maybe you’ve heard of it.

You take some bread.

You spread some peanut butter on it.

You put some pickles on it.

You smash that motherfucker together.

And now it’s a sandwich and you eat it.

You’re thinking, as I thought: well, that’s fucking gross.

I mean, shit, I like pickles. I like peanut butter. I am nothing if not a fanboy for bread. But my brain could not get around globbing these things together into a single Combiner Transformer in order to eat it. It seemed like some kind of heresy.

Let’s rewind a little.

The PB & Pickle sandwich got some love thanks to a recent NYT appearance. And initially, I assumed the NYT was just being the NYT, which meant it was offering treasonous nightmare opinions, probably either to troll us or to ruin democracy. And this sandwich definitely felt like a democracy-ruiner.

Just the same, I am wont to chastise my child — you can’t say you don’t like something without first trying it. And in the last ten years, I’ve come happily to terms that most of the things I feared were gross were… nnyeah, actually pretty dang tasty. Sweetbreads? (Spoiler: not actually bread.) Delicious. Spam? Amazing. Sushi? What the fuck was I thinking not eating sushi? Bugs? Hell yeah I’ll eat bugs. I ate a chapulines taco and it was legit wonderful.

Pineapple lumps? SURE.

So, I thought, I can eat this fucking sandwich, and it’ll be weird, and I can tweet about it, and my Twitter feed for five minutes will be a hilarious respite from the neverending DIPSHIT WATERGATE that is the true Infinity War.

I made one:

[image error]

You can see what pickles and PB I used — the bread was a sourdough.

I made it.

I took a bite.

And whoa wait what the fuck.

It was good.

No — it was actually pretty great.

Here’s why it’s great — first, it does the thing that you might find in, say, Thai food, or some Vietnamese food — you’ve got sour and savory, plus the fattiness of the peanut butter (not to mention the salt), and the pickles bring some nice crunch. It’s eerily satisfying. And it helps then too to decouple your assumption that PEANUT BUTTER = SWEET, because it ain’t. Think satay. Normal peanut butter is savory as shit, we just happen to use it a lot with sweet things, combining it with jelly or chocolate or honey or whatever.

So, then authors-extraordinaire Kevin Hearne and Adam Rakunas said, no no no, you need food lube for that sandwich, and they said the true magic is adding in mayo to that motherfucker —

*record scratch*

What ha ha no, that’s a bad idea, don’t do that, don’t add mayo. Like, what? Who hurt you? How did you get this way? I’m not a mayo-hater, I mean, I’m a white guy, it’s literally in my blood, but at the same time, I’m not cuckoo bananapants. I’m not putting that goop on this already-wonderful sandwich and OH FINE FUCK IT I decided to try it.

Duke’s mayo, of course —

[image error]

And whoa wait WHAT FOOD FUCKERY IS THIS because…

…because it also was great. Maybe even better.

The mayo was food lube. It made the sandwich even more sandwichy.

So, a week or so later, I ran a couple miles, felt pretty good, decided to have a treat, and weirdly, my mind ran to this sandwich. As a reward. I had been reprogrammed — brainwashed! — by this sandwich to consider it a trophy. My brain said, “That sounds like a way to treat yourself.” So I decided to make one. Except… oh, hey, what’s this? I have some extra bacon in the fridge? Ha ha, okay, listen, I am generally of the belief that bacon is an overdone food fad. “Put bacon in it” is a lazy way of making something hipstery and salty and meaty, and generally a good way to overpower a thing with little nuance. At the same time, it’s… also tasty. Bacon is nummy. I like bacon. And I figured I’d slap some bacon on this mad motherfucker of a sandwich —

[image error]

And by all the saints and all the sinners, all the gods and all the devils, this is a truly sublime sandwich. It is satisfying on a deeply primal, weird level I can barely begin to describe — salty, crunchy, a bit sweet, a lot sour, it’s like a FLAVOR PINBALL going full-tilt in your happy mouth.

Since then, others have hit me up on Twitter with their attempts at making one of these bastard sandwiches and then eating it — and I’d say 90% of the time, people expected to be revolted, but actually really dug it. A lot of folks also added their own delightful ingredients, too: Spam, bacon-flavored Spam, turkey bacon, other pickled veggies, Miracle Whip, jelly, bologna. And it’s versatile, as well — you can go from sweet to dill, you can use all kinds of different bread choices, different meat, different kinds of peanut or nut butters.

It’s great.

And you have to try it.

You don’t get to say it’s gross until you try it.

Because that’s a lesson even my soon-to-be-seven-year-old knows: you can dislike something after you’ve tried it, but not before. Because a lot of foods in particular seem pretty gross. I mean, cheese? Cheese, if you have never before beheld it, is nasty. My understanding is that some cultures view our consumption of cheese the same way we view the consumption of bugs, or stinky tofu, or rotten fish — I mean, cheese is like, THERE’S A BIG LUMBERING ANIMAL, GO SQUEEZE ITS TEATS, GET THE LIQUID, BUT THEN YOU WANNA CURDLE IT WITH ACID, AND THEN YOU WANNA LET IT SIT WHERE IT’LL GET SOUR AND WEIRD, AND SOMETIMES YOU REALLY WANT SOME MOLD TO GROW ON IT, OR EVEN THROUGH IT, AND SOMETIMES IT SMELLS LIKE A DEAD GUY’S FEET BUT HERE, EAT SOME.

Fish sauce is basically, hey, let fish get so rotten that they liquefy, now, put that rotten fish liquor on some rice, mmm.

Meat is, hey, kill that thing, bleed it out, then press fire to its carcass, then eat its carcass.

Eggs: “Hey, this oblong object fell out of that chicken’s nebulous under-hole, maybe it’s a baby, maybe it’s not a baby, but I’m gonna go ahead and open it up and pour the bird-snot I find inside into a hot pan, get it sizzlin’, see what happens.”

Honey? BEE VOMIT.

So, food is fucking weird.

Get past that.

Make the sandwich.

Try the sandwich.

I’ll wait here. Report back.

Macro Monday Is Full Of Pollen And Now You’re Sneezing

It is spring. The flowers are poppin’. It’s raining. I’m getting some nice waterdrop shots. Also my face is full of CONCRETE thanks to the DISCARDED SEX BITS of HORNY TREES. Or something. My allergies are having a lot of fun right now, is what I’m saying. In a social media metaphor, it’s like my sinuses went on Twitter to say they liked The Last Jedi or didn’t like Justice League, and now they’re grappling with endless waves of pollen trolls.

(Curiously, I had a tweet last week go hella viral — we’re talking 40,000 RTs at present, 136,000 ‘likes’ — and boy it brings some fascinatingly stupid people out of the woodwork. I may have to dissect what happened there on the blog this week sometime.)

Anyway.

Freshly announced — I’ll be a special guest at Hal-Con in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is somewhere in the SEA-BRINED WILDS OF CANADA. I am told to expect a thing called a “donair,” so when I arrive my mouth will be open, hungry for this regional food. Which also I assume is just a remix of a doner-kebap? Which are amazing, so, if that’s true, count me the fuck in. Hal-Con is October 26-28th, so, hopefully I’ll see you there.

Let’s see? What else is going on?

There’s this mysterious tweet. Hm.

And that’s it, I think.

Here are more photos.

PLEASE TO ENJOY THEM.

Flash Fiction: Space Operatics

It’s May the Fourth, c’mon.

So obviously the only choice of what to write is:

SPACE OPERA

SPACE OPERA

SPAAAAAACE

OPERAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaa

So, get on that. Whatever it means, it means.

Length: ~1500 words

Due by: Friday, May 11th, noon EST

Post at your online space (“space”) —

Link to it in the comments.

GET THEE TO A SPACESHIP.

Is Thanos The Protagonist of Avengers: Infinity War?

As with the earlier post this week about Avengers: Infinity War, I’m gonna buffer in with a metric bootyload of spoiler space in the form of James Joyce, this time in the form of a passage from a significantly less-bullshit book, one of my favorites: Ulysses.

Note that when this passage is over —

THE SPOILERS BEGIN.

Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy lobsters’ claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing in a thousand years. If you didn’t know risky putting anything into your mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this morning. Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high. Tainted game. Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in the sea to keep up the price. Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom pearls. The élite. Crème de la crème. They want special dishes to pretend they’re. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the Rolls’ kitchen area. Whitehatted chef like a rabbi. Combustible duck. Curly cabbage à la duchesse de Parme. Just as well to write it on the bill of fare so you can know what you’ve eaten. Too many drugs spoil the broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards’ desiccated soup. Geese stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan. Wouldn’t mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I remember. Du, de la French. Still it’s the same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped the guts out of making money hand over fist finger in fishes’ gills can’t write his name on a cheque think he was painting the landscape with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds.

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck.

There. We good?

Okay.

Is Thanos the protagonist of Avengers: Infinity War?

I DON’T KNOW WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME

oh wait I’m the one who introduced the question

uhhh

um

LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN

Is Thanos the protagonist of Avengers: Infinity War?

The short answer is: nnnyyyynnnmmmaybe?

I mean, okay, first it’s important to know that this shit ain’t math. Like, we don’t have codified STORY MECHANICS where you can rip open the source code and look at the evidence for the thing. It’s all floppy, sloppy theorizing, but I’m down for that kinda floppy, sloppy theorizing, because that’s what makes all this story stuff fun to build, dissect, study, and replicate.

First it requires us to define our terms a little.

What the fuck is a protagonist?

Well, ‘protagonist’ is Greek for ‘professional player of the game of tag,’ which is to say, it’s the person in charge of tagging other characters and since Aristotle invented the game of tag (also hide-and-seek, and also a less-famous game called who-can-drink-the-hemlock-first) —

*receives note*

My Greek may be rusty there.

Let’s more hastily define ‘protagonist’ as the ‘main character.’

Except wait —

*receives note*

That’s not it, either.

As I noted in an earlier discussion of Fury Road, the ‘main character’ is Mad Max because, his name is in the damn title, but he’s also not the protagonist, which is Furiosa. She’s the one with an effect on the plot. She’s the one with the problem to be conquered, and the one with the arc, and the one whose point-of-view we’re largely with — or at least the one we engage with most often. The film is her story, but Mad Max is still the ‘main’ character. (Though in a sense he’s also literally a supporting character, in that he uses his body as a support for her rifle.)

Usually, I like to define a protagonist as the ‘agent-of-change,’ and the antagonist as the one who opposes that change — either with change of her own, or in an effort to uphold the status quo. Villain ends up being something different altogether, as is hero, because then you’re dealing with the standard (and occasionally boring) duality of good guys and bad guys. Can the villain be the protagonist? Sure. (See: Maleficent or Reservoir Dogs or The Grinch or, or, or.) Can the good guy be the antagonist? Sure. (The Fugitive!) But where does that leave us with Thanos?

Is Thanos the POV character in Infinity War? Not necessarily — we are not proxy to all the beats of his story. The film doesn’t follow him, mostly — it assumes he’s Off Doing Thanos Shit, and we’re not with him. Is he the character with the problem to be conquered? Nnnyes? Mostly? Probably? He has a mission, though a spectacularly dull-headed one — one that is either a plot-hole if you believe him to be noble or one that instead confirms that he’s actually just a giant genocidal dildo (and a purple one to boot). Is he the one with the arc? Probably. Most of the heroes are either nudging forward their arcs from the past several movies or have no notable arcs to speak of — his is the most complete one, in that we get the full scope of it from the start of the film to its conclusion.

Is he the agent-of-change?

Definitely.

But if he’s the protagonist…

If he’s the agent of change…

That means the heroes, who oppose his change…

Are the antagonists.

Which, if you interpret again as a value-free narrative term — meaning, they oppose his change but are not necessarily ‘villainous,’ then that actually works. Are they also the bad guys? Well, no, obviously not. You can interpret Thanos’ mission as loosely as you like, but there’s few moral codes that assert his dipshit plan is actually the noblest one — he wants to kill a lot of people, randomly, in pursuit of some autocratic magnanimity. He’s a dick. A giant, bloated jerk. He’s the bad guy, and there’s really no way of wiggling out of that, unless you’re also a horrible monster.

It does however reveal the slightly problematic part of the movie which is, for me, the characters are playing defense for nearly 90% of it. Even when Tony, Spidey and Strange opt to “take the fight to Thanos,” they’re just doing what would have happened anyway — going where he’s going. It’s still not active, but reactive, which is the hero mode in this film. They become slightly more active with the intro of Cap, who — using the help of his Secret Avengers — opts to work on Vision’s bling and Shuri it out of his head in order to destroy the stone. They become more active in that, though they ultimately fail, and are forced to a fallback position of reactive. (And it goes toward my argument that, despite filmmaker assertions, this damn sure isn’t a “complete movie” unless you really, really want the movie to positively identify with Thanos as protagonist, main character, and Actual Good Guy. Given that the midpoint of a story like this is usually the All Is Lost turning point, and that point in this film happens moments before the credits, it’s pretty clear this is just one half of a larger story.)

So, again, is Thanos the protagonist?

Maybe? It’s an argument, and one you can support. Is he the villain? Also, probably yeah, unless you’re a dictator and a murderer, in which case, hey, he’s aspirational. It’s a fun way to think of the movie, and maybe intentional on the parts of the writers — the question now becomes: was that effective? Was that the best choice? That is left to you, and to the passage of time, to decide.

(Casual reminder now: if you like this sort of narrative dissection, you can find a whooooole lot more of it in Damn Fine Story, which also unpacks stories like Die Hard, Star Wars and… wait, Gilmore Girls? *checks notes* Yep, Gilmore Girls. Grab in print or e-book.)

Fran Wilde’s Museum of Errant Critters

Goddamnit.

Fran was like, “Hey, can I have the keys to the blog?” and I was like, “Sure, obviously,” because I’m no ding-dong — I know that Fran knows how to bring the Quality Content, but then I show up for work in the morning and what’s happened? THE WHOLE BLOG IS COVERED IN CRITTERS. Well, somebody is going to have to deal with this. And that’s you, dear reader. It’s you.

* * *

The Museum of Errant Critters

Or (as my friend C.L. Polk dubbed them): Adorable Creatures of Doom

Chuck has been tweeting and blogging a lot lately on matters of Authorial Mental Health and Happiness and that synced up with a side project of mine — drawing some of the brain weasels and head dragons that sometimes set up shop northwards of my heart while I’m writing, working, not working, going to conventions, not going to conventions, etc. Sure there are happier critters around these parts, but Errant Critters are currently easier to trap and sketch for posterity.

When I told Chuck what I was up to, he offered to let me park the Museum on his blog for a little while… and luckily he didn’t ask about care and feeding so I’m just going to leave them here to eat all the food in Chuck’s murdershed.

Welcome to The Museum of Errant Critters – Established somewhere between 1812 and 2018 to catalog and archive mind-creatures that often behave in creatively destructive ways.

Visit our exhibits to learn tips and tricks for Critter Management… (results not guaranteed). In particular, we’ve found that identification and discussion helps with management of many of these critters. At least, it helps with identifying the gnawing sounds in the dark of night.

Despair Narwhal

Migratory and nocturnal, the Despair Narwhal’s sharp horn and plaintive song wake creatives up in the middle of the night with intense feelings of doom. Despair Narwhals, being composed mostly of mist and doubt, often evaporate with a good dose of morning light, application of food, or starting a new project.

 

[image error]The Youcant (extinct)

The megasaurus Youcant once lurked artists studios and creatives’ desks worldwide. Currently extinct, the creature was put out of business by a rapid, global outbreak of Why The Hell Not in 2016.

[image error]

BrainWeasels

The sharp-toothed brain weasel is a rapid breeder that thrives on grey matter. Usually seen following an infestation of doubt devils or worry worms, these critters’ lifespan lasts as long as you feed them.

[image error]

Catastrophizing Cormorant

Often found hovering, wings flapping, around the worst possible outcomes. No, worse than that. Even worse. Yep, that one. This bird is sure the worst will happen and demands that you make plans for this outcome, often instead of doing other things. Care and feeding involves a nap, some lunch, and a long look at other possibilities.

[image error]

Guilt Gorilla

The gravity well near most Guilt Gorillas is extensive and can drag down even a stalwart creative. Feeds on: pre-existing feelings of not doing enough, overwork, and lateness. Distraction devices include planning calendars, reminding yourself to stand up and stretch once in a while, and that yes even you should take a @!%$#@ vacation now and then.

Worry Worms

Numerous, but small, these critters can chew through anything, if left festering long enough. Writing down their names sometimes helps, as does telling them you’ve got better things to do than watch them eat. In some cases, they signify something left unaddressed, but not always the thing they’re chewing on.

 

[image error]

Garbage Moths

Attracted to dumpster fires, train wrecks, and twitter, these moths’ bright colors and spectacular tendency to spontaneously combust can devour hours, days, even weeks. When you look back at the missing time, you might not even remember what attracted their interest. Solution: accountability software, net nannies, a trip to a wifi-free zone.

[image error]

Doubt Devils

Known to frequent conventions, speaking engagements, and presentations, doubt devils, much like their cousin the cartoon tasmanian devil (hired long term by Warner Brothers) like to arrive in a whirlwind about midway through any multi-day event and helpfully repeat back to you a distorted version of things that you said, did, or didn’t do. Cause is unknown, but having a strong desire to be part of a community can be an attractor. Cures include checking in with a friend, stepping away from convention overload for a few minutes, and reminding yourself that almost everyone feels this way sometimes.

[image error]

Procrastination Platypus

Found lazing in deep task lists, this platypus doesn’t really care what you need to do, it wants you to play minesweeper or maybe just watch some YouTube for as long as possible. Set a timer and do a few minutes of downtime if you’re feeling distracted. The platypus is useful for giving yourself a break, just don’t let it eat your clock.

[image error]

The Carousel

A master of camouflage, the Carousel is a slowly turning critter that can make you forget your own successes in order to ask you, repeatedly, what have you done lately. Best way to overcome: celebrate your wins, no matter how small.

[image error]

***

Fran Wilde’s novels and short stories have been nominated for three Nebula awards and two Hugos, and include her Andre Norton- and Compton-Crook-winning debut novel, Updraft (Tor 2015), its sequels, Cloudbound (2016) and Horizon (2017), and the novelette “The Jewel and Her Lapidary” (Tor.com Publishing 2016). Her short stories appear in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Nature, and the 2017 Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. She writes for publications including The Washington Post, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, iO9.com, and GeekMom.com. You can find her on Twitter (@fran_wilde), Facebook (@franwildewrites), and at franwilde.net.

Joseph Brassey: Five Things I Learned Writing Dragon Road

When portal-mage Harkon Bright and his apprentice are asked to help select a new captain for the immense skyship Iseult, they quickly find themselves embroiled in its Machiavellian officer’s court. Meanwhile, their new recruit, Elias, struggles to adapt to his unexpected gift of life while suffering dark dreams of an ancient terror.

As the skies darken and storm-clouds gather on the Dragon Road, the crew of the Elysium come face to face with deadly intrigues, plots from beyond death, and a terrible darkness that lurks in the heart of a thousand-year storm.

THE FIRST STEP ISN’T THE HARDEST. IT’S THE SECOND.

So you’ve finished your debut, and it’s launched. It has a slew of 5 star reviews on the Amazons and the Barnes and the Nobles. It’s racking up great responses, and you have your own pile of encouragement words that you can turn to the second you start to feel yourself flag on the next book you’re contracted for, right? This should totally be a breeze, because it’s the same characters and the same setting and you know them and what you’re doing and this is all fine, right?

RIGHT?

God, that third pot of the coffee you’ve been mainlining looks appealing. So what if the world is vibrating? It’s smooth sailing. IT’S ALL FINE.

(It is in no way fine my face is melting please help)

This is the thing about writing a series. The first time you write a book it’s this herculean effort of pole-vaulting, bare-knuckle bear-boxing, and naked oil wrestling with giant naked mole rats. Finishing it is an epic act of catharsis that feels like cresting the final ridge of the highest mountain. Oh wait, no, that’s a foothill and there’s a much bigger mountain. And it’s covered in ice. And skulls. And ice-skulls. Fuck. Picking up your legs and doing it all over again is exhausting.

THE SECOND ACTS MEANS EXPANDING THE SCOPE

SKYFARER had a very focused arc. It’s a combination quest/war story that follows two PoV’s chasing one goal as their stories weave closer and closer together until they both collide. Then the rest of the book is the explosive consequences of what they do when what they were looking for turns out not to be what they expected. The benefit of a story like this is that it forces brevity and focus. Ideally no book wastes words at all, but different story structures have different word-allowances. It’s like a triangle: the narrower the base, the less space there is to work in as you hurtle towards the apex.

DRAGON ROAD is a broader story. You get a lot more of Aimee and Elias as they work and fight together to seek truth and bring justice to the Eternal Sky, but you can also expect to get to know the rest of the cast better, too. More Hark, more Vant with his brilliance, Vlana’s devotion to her chosen family, Bjorn’s wisdom, Clutch’s wit and raw badass talent. Basically, my sequel meant that I had to spend more words on getting to know the core cast better. The plot structure of the book is also bigger, it covers more ground, and the build is slower. On the one hand this was SUPER COOL, but on the other hand I’d gotten used to working on a comparatively tiny word budget. All of a sudden I had a thousand extra crates of nails and nuts and bolts available to me and oh god what do I do with this shit.

EXPANDING THE SCOPE MEANS RAISING THE STAKES

Readers are lovely. They will stick with you through thick and thin, if you’ve made them feel something real. The magic of this job is reaching into people’s hearts and giving them something to give a shit about in a world that—lets face it—is pretty rough lately. But even your most devoted fans have limits to their patience. People are showing up for something specific, and if you jerk their chain around with pointless bullshit, they wont have the stamina to finish. So next to “Always make sure your subversion is cooler than the original implied trope,” my best piece of advice on this is to remember that more words builds a broader base. So don’t waste it. Crank up that fog machine, Fuqua. Summon the bigger racks of fireworks.

SKYFARER had the backdrop of a small, third-world country, and dealt primarily in personal stakes. A small crew, a single, dauntless mercenary leader and his tormented backstory. DRAGON ROAD deals with the lives of millions in the balance, and then more, as the story goes on and it becomes apparent the scale of atrocities that the Elysium crew must work and fight to prevent. It needed NEW characters and MORE THINGS. And DEEPER FEELINGS.

And that means…

HIGHER STAKES REQUIRE GREATER INVESTMENT

You know how much those readers cared about those characters? You have to make them care more. The more you present, the greater the pull to get them through it. Every bite of the apple must taste better. The fever must spike, and the colors grow more vivid. The second act is where the readers caring about the first book needs to pay dividends, so they’ll feel rewarded for placing their faith and hope into these people whose journey they’ve shared. Every fleshing out of a character or bright, vivid set piece needs to enhance, rather than distract. You learn to recognize these things as time goes on, and to detect the merit of something you add based on how much it enhances the experience. The question, through all of this bigger scale, meatier, gear-shiftier work is does this contribute to the payoff?

And that brings us to the most important thing you learn writing a Book 2:

GREATER INVESTMENT NECESSITATES BIGGER PAYOFF

A broader base takes a longer time to cross, and that means more time invested, so if you’re going to make people cover more ground and invest more time in the book, your payoff absolutely must be proportionately better. What does this mean? Well, basically if your stick is bigger, so must be the BOOM. Books are collections of sticks and booms, and the doctrine of explodicism teaches us that bigger, heavier sticks must deliver better booms, or the people who lugged them around will feel let down. This isn’t just about set pieces and blowing up the train and finally taking that Howitzer off the mantle-piece, it’s also about the feelings. Emotions are your stock and trade as an author, and goddammit people are showing up for these people you’ve made real enough that they feel as if they know them, and love them.

There’s a goddamn reason why people will read through six hundred pages for a promised kiss, a validation long sought after by a loved one, a mentors benediction, or the sweet release of a death well-deserved. The point is, as you draw people deeper and further, you need to always keep in mind the fact that you’re pulling them towards something exponentially more impactful than last time. Even as that triangle gets narrower towards the point, the point must be sharper, the edge keener. Reading a good book should be the act of getting intensely drunk on something, and my favorite writing is the stuff that creates a humming, dizzying buzz in the senses.

But the good news is, you can do it.

The thing about hard work is it builds on itself, so the most important takeaway from this is that I learned I can do it again. The thing about finishing the first book is that you’re assailed by the sense that you’ve spontaneously generated something you wont be able to make again, and you wont, because what you made then is a product of who you were then, and humans change… but the good news is that you’ve made yourself something BETTER in the course of making it, and what you make going forward will be better too.

So go fucking forward. Charge. Slay. Consume. Rise like a storytelling phoenix and set it all on fire. Because you can, because your trials have made you stronger, and because this is a Kung Fu movie and it’s time to summon the Glow.

And when you arrive at your final battle, and the beast seems like it can’t be overcome?

Tell em Joe sent you to kick its ass.

* * *

Joseph Brassey has lived on both sides of the continental US, and has worked as a craft-store employee, paper-boy, factory worker, hospital kitchen gopher, martial arts instructor, singer, and is currently an author and stay-at-home Dad (the last is his favorite job, by far). His novel Skyfarer–first in the Drifting Lands series–is published by Angry Robot Books. Joseph was enlisted as a robotic word-machine in 47North’s Mongoliad series, and still trains in – and teaches – Liechtenauer’s Kunst des Fechtens in his native Tacoma.

Joseph Brassey: Website | Twitter | Instagram

Dragon Road: Indiebound | Amazon

We Need To Talk About Avengers: Infinity War (Spoilers Inbound)

When I say we need to talk about it, I mean I need to talk about it.

See, sometimes I like to take big-ass pop culture event movies and then dissect them at least a little on the autopsy table — from a storyteller’s perspective, I like to root through the narrative guts and splash around in the blood that pumps a particular story’s heart. I’ve done it with The Last Jedi, and Mad Max: Fury Road and Prometheus and so forth.

What choices did they make? Why did they make them? How am I feeling? How did the story make me feel that way? Where are my pants? WHY DID THE MOVIE TAKE MY PANTS

I don’t think I’ve done that yet with a Marvel movie.

And maybe it’s time.

I don’t want to get too deep with Infinity War, but I do want to talk about a few things, and that means — well, it means SPOILERS ARE COMING.

And I hate spoilers.

It’s because I’d hate to spoil you if you don’t want to be spoiled. Spoilers foisted upon you rob you of your agency as a reader, as a viewer, as audience for a story. And spoilers too obviate the storyteller’s construction — we put a lot of work into a lot of things, one of those things being the orchestration of revelation in narrative, and spoilers undercut our articulation of the things we want known, and when we want them to be known.

So, with that said, I’m going to put a WHOLE LOT OF SPOILER SPACE here.

In fact, I’m going to just cut and paste a passage from James Joyce’s nonsense book, Finnegan’s Wake, just so you have an absurd buffer between this part of the post and the part of the post where, basically, I tell you the ending of the movie.

Here, have some James Joyce:

Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passen-

core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy

isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor

had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse

to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper

all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to

tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a

kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in

vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a

peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory

end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-

ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-

nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later

on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the

offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,

erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends

an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:

and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park

where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-

linsfirst loved livvy. 

What clashes here of wills gen wonts, oystrygods gaggin fishy-

gods! Brékkek Kékkek Kékkek Kékkek! Kóax Kóax Kóax! Ualu

Ualu Ualu! Quaouauh! Where the Baddelaries partisans are still

out to mathmaster Malachus Micgranes and the Verdons cata-

pelting the camibalistics out of the Whoyteboyce of Hoodie 

Head. Assiegates and boomeringstroms. Sod’s brood, be me fear!

Sanglorians, save! Arms apeal with larms, appalling. Killykill-

killy: a toll, a toll. What chance cuddleys, what cashels aired 

and ventilated! What bidimetoloves sinduced by what tegotetab-

solvers! What true feeling for their’s hayair with what strawng 

voice of false jiccup! O here here how hoth sprowled met the

duskt the father of fornicationists but, (O my shining stars and

body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of

soft advertisement! But was iz? Iseut? Ere were sewers? The oaks

of ald now they lie in peat yet elms leap where askes lay. Phall if

you but will, rise you must: and none so soon either shall the

pharce for the nunce come to a setdown secular phoenish.

Bygmester Finnegan, of the Stuttering Hand, freemen’s mau-

rer, lived in the broadest way immarginable in his rushlit toofar-

back for messuages before joshuan judges had given us numbers

or Helviticus committed deuteronomy (one yeastyday he sternely 

struxk his tete in a tub for to watsch the future of his fates but ere

he swiftly stook it out again, by the might of moses, the very wat-

er was eviparated and all the guenneses had met their exodus so

that ought to show you what a pentschanjeuchy chap he was!)

and during mighty odd years this man of hod, cement and edi-

fices in Toper’s Thorp piled buildung supra buildung pon the

banks for the livers by the Soangso. He addle liddle phifie Annie

ugged the little craythur. Wither hayre in honds tuck up your part

inher. Oftwhile balbulous, mithre ahead, with goodly trowel in

grasp and ivoroiled overalls which he habitacularly fondseed, like

Haroun Childeric Eggeberth he would caligulate by multiplicab-

les the alltitude and malltitude until he seesaw by neatlight of the

liquor wheretwin ’twas born, his roundhead staple of other days

to rise in undress maisonry upstanded (joygrantit!), a waalworth 

of a skyerscape of most eyeful hoyth entowerly, 

We’re good now, right?

GOOD BECAUSE HERE THERE BE SPOILERS

Also, boy, Finnegan’s Wake is fucking nonsense, isn’t it?

Moving on.

I, like the rest of the civilized world, saw Avengers: Infinity War this past weekend.

And I have thoughts.

It’s worth first describing the overall theater experience — I don’t mean this to be emblematic of every theater experience, but it was at the one I went to, 10:30AM on Friday. For most of the movie, the crowd was fucking excited. Lots of applause. Gasps in the right places. Lots of cheers. (So many cheers and laughs actually that it ended up stepping on subsequent jokes or dialogue.) There was this shared energy going on, a pop culture electricity buzzing like bees between us.

And then —

*Thanos fingersnap*

— the movie ended.

Credits rolled.

Post-credits scene played.

And walking out of that theater…

Shit, I’ve been to noisier funerals.

People just… wandered out, like from a disaster, a plane crash or a collapsed building. Shell-shocked. Jaws dragging behind them like carry-on luggage. A look of bewilderment and worry passed between us all. There were some breaks to this: a few guys behind me were like, “Yo, what the fuck just happened.” Next to me, a woman explained to her boyfriend who Captain Marvel was, and what the post-credits scene probably meant. On the way to the parking lot, two late-20s dudes were explaining to a pair of young boys (maybe 10?) that everything would be all right, it’s a comic book movie, they’ll all be okay.

I went to my car.

I sat in the driver’s seat.

I kinda just stared at it for a while?

And then I went home.

And I kinda felt really shitty? Like, inside. Inside my body. Inside my heart. I felt shitty. (Real-talk, I felt a fraction of what I felt during the 2016 election, which is actually apropos when you think about it: big pastel-colored asshole walks away with an unexpected victory, sits and regards his ruination with weary glee, credits roll, good luck, motherfuckers.)

That’s worth picking apart. That movie made me feel something hard. Whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s damn sure a powerful thing, to affect emotions like that, to kick you around like an empty soup can. I went through an array of emotions in the wake of feeling shell-shocked: I felt mad at the movie. Then I felt sad. Then I felt disappointed? Then I was reassuring myself the same way you reassure yourself after any loss, after any failure — “Well, it’ll be fine, Captain Marvel is probably kicking it in outer space, and of course in the comics Adam Warlock just undoes the whole fucking thing anyway, right?” — and then you go through a new wave of disappointment when you realize it is a comic book movie, like that dude said, and everything will probably just be okay. Certainly half the people that turned to void-ash have movies planned anyway — it’s not like Black Panther 2 or Doctor Strange 2 are going to be about piles of dirt blowing around the cosmos for two-and-a-half hours.

Here people will say, and have said, this is the Empire Strikes Back of the Avengers. Or, if you prefer more recent, The Last Jedi. And yet, neither of those movies kicked me in the teeth as hard. My kid loves those movies and doesn’t view them as a one way trip to Bummertown — we think of movies like ESB and TLJ as having down endings, but they really don’t. They take us to the bottom, to the nadir, but then we get sight of the ramp. We see the lift, the upward-angle right at the end. In Empire, we’re granted the scene with the rebel fleet — Luke gets a new hand, Lando goes off with Chewie to find Han, Leia and Luke regard the galaxy as the music swells. In Last Jedi, we not only get a Pyrrhic Victory moment with Luke versus Kylo, but we see Rey take the mantle of the last Jedi truly as she moves some rocks, reunites with friends, and they zip off in the Falcon — not to mention we’re granted the coda with Broomboy and the Stable Gang (my favorite Genesis cover band, by the way).

Infinity War has no such scene.

And that’s why it hurts so hard.

This comes down to a discussion about story structure. I know. Yawn. Snore. Boo. But for us storytellers it’s an important thing to talk about — we know how stories are structured, and that structure is (usually) deliberate. Changing a piece of it, or removing a piece, can have dramatic impacts — impacts you may intend, or impacts that you may not.

Infinity War has no denouement.

(Pronounced with a haughty French accent: DAY-NOOO-MOOHHHH)

Most stories give us an ejaculatory story climax — OH MY GOD SHIT IS HAPPENING, IT’S ALL HAPPENING, NNNGH BOOM — and then we are given narrative time to deal with that. The action ‘falls’ and moves past the climactic resolution and into a glimpse of the fallout of that resolution.

Usually, the more exciting and intense the movie, the shorter the falling action / denouement. The more epic it is, the longer that becomes.

Jurassic Park goes from their climactic escape to a moment of peace onboard the helicopter out — and then the credits roll. We don’t have much there, maybe just two minutes max of that, but it’s not really essential. The kids glom onto Alan Grant, completing the circuit for Sam Neill’s character, and hey, Holdo smiles, birds are dinosaurs, it’s a new day.

Empire Strikes Back has about… five, six minutes of falling action and denouement. The escape from Cloud City, Luke has one last chat with New Dad, and then it’s time for a new hand and talk of a rendezvous on Tatooine to go save Han.

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has 37 hours of denouement.

Infinity War has mostly none. Okay, you get a denouement of Thanos sitting in like, a fucking meadow and being all proud of himself — and that works if you assume he’s the protagonist of the movie. (Spoiler: he might be, though whether that’s intentional or not, I dunno.) We don’t need much denouement if we’re to believe the Avengers are actually the Bad Guys. In that case, Thanos gazing out on his glorious success is not that different from Alan Grant looking out of the helicopter as they flee Jurassic Park. Job done. High-five. Music swells.

(One could also argue that the post-credits scene is a denouement, but I’d rather avoid that as a declaration. Given that it’s set in the middle of people turning to void-ash, and given that it lends us no time to decompress or understand what just happened, I’d argue it’s just an additional moment stapled to the climax of the film.)

If you assume the Avengers are the protagonists, then… the denouement isn’t much of one, is it? We aren’t given any moments with the heroes to deal with what just happened. We don’t have a scene of them dealing with it. No funerals. No conversation. No Cap and Tony entering a room and giving each other a hug. There’s no resolution. Further, we’re given literally no optimism — we’ve spent two-and-a-half hours with our plane in freefall, and you kind of half-expect that right at the end we’d be given a hint that the engine’s gonna start, that we’re about to pull out of this dive before we hit.

But nope.

We just crash.

Snap.

Thanos wins.

It’s kind of brilliant.

It’s also kind of awful?

Because here’s the thing — denouement is, as noted, French. And it’s French for “unknotting.” Meaning, you’ve just spent all this time tying some knots, and now it’s time to loosen them, if even a little. And those knots aren’t just plotty-knots. They’re the knots of our emotions. Infinity War spends a great deal of time tightening those knots, and then no time undoing them.

Brilliant? Maybe. Difficult to deal with? Nnnyeah, kinda, for me, anyway. Maybe not for you! I’m not telling you how you should feel. But I felt like I was kicked in the gut after leaving it — and it’s maybe why I can’t take my kid to this, at least until the next chapter is out — *winces* — a whole year from now.

At the end, Infinity War ends up being a truly astonishing comic book movie through-and-through. It is the realization of Marvel’s dreams, and of my dreams as a comic book reader. It is the perfect example of a brawny, bang-up comic-book crossover translated to the screen.

But perfect example also means that it carries with it the best and the worst of those comic book crossovers. The action is high! The heroes meet! They quip at each other! It’s funny and intense and unrelenting. It also doesn’t give them a lot of time to talk or be their characters beyond their most trope-iest of traits. It also requires you to have seen… most of the MCU movies, which in terms of the movies means you’ve spent a buttload of time and money to get here. It also means that, like with comic books, we’re treated to a real cliffhanger ending. But the problem there is, a cliffhanger in comics means you have to wait 2-4 weeks to pick up the next one. Here it means we have two more movies over the next year to help us pick up the teeth that this one knocked out of our open mouths.

There are other problems with the movie, maybe — the powers are inconsistent and sometimes the movie seems to be willfully plotty even when it betrays characters or logic. The Infinity Stones seem to do specific things until they don’t? Thanos’ master plan is somehow both genuinely sympathetic and really dumb — there are better ways to achieve what he wants to achieve, unless you assume he is just a narcissistic genocidal maniac who is lying to himself about that (and by the way that works for me, I buy that). But those problems are small in the face of what is a movie that gets so much right about the big, bursting bad-assery of a comic-book cross-over event.

But I miss that denouement. That’s where it gets me. That’s where the movie hurt me. For 95% of it, I was in love. For that last 5%, I felt sad and upset and mostly still feel that way now. I don’t know if that was intentional or not. If it was — then, hey, here’s my applause. I don’t like feeling that way but I also appreciate a film that wants me to feel that way and achieves it. But a part of me worries that it’s really just down to marketing — they didn’t want to tell us it was Part One of Two, meaning, the reason we get no denouement is less a willful narrative choice and more because it’s really one half of a movie and they just didn’t wanna tell us. Which means maybe this bit, from this article, wasn’t entirely true:

Two months ago, the Russo brothers told the Uproxx site that the third and fourth Avengers were being retitled in part to clarify that the films would be two separate films rather than one large film split in half.

I loved the movie. I hated the movie. Which is the sign of something interesting, I think. It is a remarkable achievement, if a troubled one, and needless to say I am gnashing my teeth for the next one to find out how our Heroic Resistance undoes the horrors of Purple Space Trump.

NOW GIVE ME BACK MY PANTS, THANOS