Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 281

Next Sherlock Sunday: The Great Game by Mark Gatiss

I love Mark Gatiss as an actor–he’s doing a brilliant job as Mycroft in this series and check him out as the megalomaniacal Dr. Lazarus in the Doctor Who episode “The Lazarus Experiment”–but he’s off and on for me as a writer. He’s definitely on in this episode, the cat and mouse game in which Holmes’ great nemesis Moriarty is calling the shots. And since Moriarty is coming out to play in this one, let’s talk about antagonists next Sunday. Well, I’m going to. You can talk about anything you want.

Sherlock Sunday 1: “A Study in Pink” by Steven Moffat (Beginnings)

Since we’re starting with “A Study in Pink,” the first episode of the Sherlock series, let’s talk about beginnings.

The beginning of your story is a promise you make to the reader. That means everything in that first scene, especially everything on the first page, sets up all of the rest of the story. I had a creative writing professor who said that the first line eliminates 90% of the possibilities in your story. I don’t know about percentages, but I know that readers (and viewers) are inveterate world builders, story collaborators, who will seize on the first clues they encounter, deduce where the story is going, and set those deductions in stone, treating any diversions from those assumptions as betrayals. That means establishing who the protagonist is, why the reader/viewer should sympathize with him, where he’s standing and when he’s standing there (setting), and how the story is going to present itself (mood) has to happen in the beginning or your reader will take your story away from you or, much worse, reject it entirely. If you’re writing for film, you have a little more time to hold your audience; people tend to settle in when they’re in front of a screen, and they’ll keep watching long after they’d have thrown a book against the wall. But the basic idea is the same: You’re welcoming your reader/viewer into a particular and specific world, asking her to identify with your protagonist (vulnerability is a big help here), hoping to engage her in the trouble/conflict that protagonist is struggling with. Forget about writing hooks; that’s a cheap trick. Hit the ground running by writing story from the first line, and if you start in the right place, your story will be so interesting that the first line will be a hook anyway.

Which brings us to “A Study in Pink.” Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss had to clear a big hurdle from the beginning: They were working with the most famous and possibly most beloved character in fiction, a character that has been interpreted and reinterpreted dozens of times. That meant that before they filmed the first line of their series, people already had some expectations set in stone: Sherlock Holmes would be a great detective, a genius in the art and science of deduction. He would partner with a doctor named Watson. He would live at 221 Baker Street with his landlady, Mrs. Hudson. And he would be at odds with/work with a detective named Lestrade. Then they upped those set-in-stone expectations with the title of the first episode. Calling the pilot “A Study in Pink” meant that every Holmes fan knew they were paying homage to the first story of the original Sherlock, “A Study in Scarlet,” which meant there had better be a dead body in an empty house with the word “Rache” scratched somewhere in blood. On the other hand, Moffat and Gatiss had also given themselves a big advantage in their choice of homage: everybody loves Sherlock Holmes. All they really had to do was Not Screw It Up. That they are succeeding so brilliantly is due in no small part to their great beginning.

Moffat opens the episode with a series of vignettes. First, there’s a hazy nightmare of guns firing, men at war, while a man (Martin Freeman, the world’s favorite Everyman) tosses and turns in his bed. Then he’s sitting on a bed in a sterile, yellowed room, staring into space. Then he’s walking to his desk with the use of a cane; he opens the drawer and there’s a glimpse of a gun as he pulls out a laptop and turns it on, loading a page identified as John Watson’s blog. And then he’s in his therapist’s office, hearing her say he has trust issues, that it’s important that he write down the things that are happening to him, which prompts the last line of the Watson vignettes: “Nothing ever happens to me.” That’s the first three and a half minutes of the ninety-minute story.

Those vignettes establish John Watson as our stake in the story; not just our main point of view in the story, but our emotional connection. You can argue that he’s an observer narrator, that Sherlock Holmes must be the protagonist, but I think this is The Great Gatsby approach to story protagonist: the protagonist really is Watson because he’s the one who changes the most. Nick Carroway may spend his novel talking about Gatsby, but Gatsby never changes; his main service to the story is serving as the impetus for Nick’s evolution into a wiser man. In the same way, John’s going to change into a happier if more exasperated man by the end of this story because of his association with Sherlock Holmes, a man who doesn’t change at all (at least not in this episode). I would argue that another thirty seconds of John staring hopelessly into space would have been a deal-breaker, and that the understated conflict with his therapist is probably the only thing that saves it at the two minute mark, but the choice of opening with John is a good one because it establishes his trouble, which means it establishes his vulnerability, which means it establishes our vulnerability in the story. We’re not going to worry about Sherlock, but John is like us, our placeholder, and he’s in a bad place, and we sympathize. Another good reason to start with John instead of Sherlock: That’s what Arthur Conan Doyle did in “A Study in Scarlet.”

Then there are the credits, which any filmgoer sits through, so they’re pretty much not an aspect of beginning a story. However, Moffat follows up the credits with another series of vignettes, this time of three suicides. They’re beautifully acted and beautifully filmed, and there are three of them so they fit the classic storytelling rule of three-that-make-a-whole, but now we’re seven and a half minutes into the story and all we’ve had are vignettes. Something better happen pretty soon, and by “something,” most viewers would mean “Sherlock Holmes.”

Moffat does something clever here: he gives the viewer Sherlock Holmes without putting him on stage yet. At a press conference, Inspector Lestrade is being hammered by reporters who want him to say that there’s a serial killer in London while he maintains all the deaths were suicides. What could be just info dump–Lestrade explaining the circumstances of the deaths and the police response–is turned into a conflict scene when his explanations are interrupted three times (never underestimate the power of three in storytelling) with one-word texts to every cellphone in the room: “Wrong.” Moffat does his viewers the courtesy of assuming they’re smart enough to know that’s Sherlock, and then ends with a private text to the harried Lestrade: “You know where to find me. SH.”

Then it’s back to John since we’ve been away from him for over six minutes, a lifetime on film. Now he’s sitting again, this time talking to an old friend from med school days. I’m assuming this scene is there for two reasons: it’s the bridge to get Watson and Sherlock together, and it’s a callback to “A Study in Scarlet,” the first direct parallel so far. His friend invites him back to the med school to meet somebody, and everybody knows that’s going to be Sherlock. Expectation established.

But there’s another delay: Sherlock is in the morgue, talking to Molly, the pathologist, a recurring character who has a crush on him. It’s a short scene that establishes Sherlock’s appalling coldness, not only in his treatment of Molly but also in his treatment of a corpse, and it works because we don’t have to attach to him; we have John already established for that. Another benefit to this short scene: this is the guy our vulnerable placeholder is going to spend the rest of the movie with. What’s going to happen when our wounded warrior meets the genius jerk?

And then FINALLY, Watson meets Holmes, in a direct parallel to a scene in “A Study in Scarlet,” updated but not violated, ending with Holmes’ last words to Watson, an invitation to meet him the following evening at the legendary 222B Baker Street. The promise has been made, the important information has been given, expectations founded in the original Doyle stories have been recast into Moffat-Gatiss expectations, and the game is afoot. Or as the New Sherlock says, “The game is on.”

So in the first fourteen minutes of the ninety minute story, Moffat has

• Introduced John Watson as a vulnerable character

• Shown a serial-deaths montage to establish a killer on the loose

Titles

• Introduced Lestrade and given more information about the deaths in the press conference and foreshadowed Sherlock’s entrance

• Shown John resisting change/optimism in the encounter with an old friend

• Introduced Sherlock Holmes being a jerk to Molly

• Shown Sherlock meeting John, beginning John’s character arc from its starting point of “Nothing ever happens to me.”

Which means that in those fourteen minutes, Moffat has established:

Protagonist/POV character and his trouble/vulnerability

Conflict (somebody’s murdering people)

Subplot (Sherlock vs Lestrade/police/ordinary minds)

Subplot (Sherlock vs Molly; unrequited crush)

Main plot (Watson vs Sherlock: “Nothing ever happens to me.”)

Yeah, I know, it still seems as though Sherlock must be the protagonist. He’s Sherlock Holmes. And if you look at the series as a whole, as the episodes as chapters in a novel, I might go along with that, even with Watson introduced first. But looking at just the story of “A Study in Pink,” if Sherlock is the protagonist, then Watson’s “Nothing ever happens to me” will be overwhelmed by Sherlock vs The Killer; we’ll forget John’s vulnerability and become more interested in how Sherlock puzzles out the crime. But if Watson is the protagonist, then we’ll care more about what’s happening to him than to whether the killer is caught. The best way to judge if the promise of the beginning has been kept: What happens at the climax? Who defeats the killer and ends the conflict? if it’s Sherlock, the opening is a lie. If it’s Watson, the opening is a promise kept, a demonstration that his life where nothing ever happened has irrevocably changed and made him a new man. This crucial link between beginning and ending is the reason that you really can’t know where to start your story until you know where it finishes: the beginning is just the set-up, the invitation to the ending.

Now, it’s your turn. I’ve focused on beginnings, but you can talk about anything you want. Not that you need permission; you would anyway, especially with a great story like Steven Moffat’s “A Study in Pink.”

Cherry Saturday: Jan 4, 2014

Today is Trivia Day so show off some useless information. (Tragically, Fruitcake Toss Day was yesterday.)

Good Blog: Eight Ladies Writing

About a year and a half ago, I met my first McDaniel class. They were a diverse bunch, hailing from all over the place, but it didn’t take them long to bond, united in their passion for story and their drive to be good writers. I swear I learned as much from their questions as they did from my answers because they pushed me to think about things in depth, and they didn’t hesitate to say, “Wait a minute, what about this,” and make me give things I was sure about a second look. They were so hungry for knowledge that they devoured every reading I gave them and looked for more, bringing new sources back to class. They were, in short, story wonks, and they were amazing.

Which is why, one day toward the end of the last class, I said, “You’re all so smart, you should do a group blog.” And about a month later, eight of them launched Eight Ladies Writing.

Naturally, I wanted to tell you all about it immediately, but they wanted time to make sure they were comfortable with blogging (as if there were any doubt), so I sat with my lips sealed while they posted every day on craft, research, resources, inspiration, well-being, good books, and anything else that crossed their minds. And they have one diverse bunch of minds over there. They hail from all over the place (Micki is in Japan, Jilly’s in London, Michille and Nancy are in Maryland, Kat’s in Ohio, Justine’s in Arizona, and Kay and Elizabeth are in California), and they write in a mix of genres, sub-genres and styles (Michille, Kat, Kay and Jilly are working on contemporary romances, Justine and Elizabeth are historical aficionadas, Micki’s thing is science fiction and urban fantasy, and Nancy writes in multiple genres including women’s fiction, urban fantasy and paranormal romance), but they’re all obsessed with story, thinking about story, talking about story, writing story, and a lot of other things, too. This week they’re doing a “New Year, New Writer” series of posts: Elizabeth and Jilly are writing about communities of writers, Kay and Justine are discussing different aspects of conflict, Michille is discussing scene, Micki is writing “Revision is not what I thought it was” (they’re all looking forward to that post), Nancy is writing about a writer’s fears, and Kat is talking about protag goals. Even better, they’ve sent you all an invitation:

Please drop by www.eightladieswriting.com and say hi or let us know what you think of our blog. We’d be thrilled to hear from the Argh Nation.

Click that link, Argh people. There’s good stuff over there.

2014: The Good Parts Version

A couple of years ago I gave up resolutions in favor of plans. Last year, I gave up plans because the Universe kept hitting me with a bus over and over again, and I downgraded to “Just get through this day without screaming.” It worked pretty well; 2013 was better than 2012, although that’s like saying, “Being poked in the eye with a sharp stick is better than being stabbed in the heart with a dull spoon.” It was much better, but it was not great. HOWEVER, I have decided that I’m carrying all the good times from 2013 into 2014 with me and leaving the bad stuff behind, so 2014 is going to be FABULOUS. And then I realized that I’d made the same decision before, only about writing. That is, while I was struggling with writing the boring parts of a novel, parts I felt I had to write, I had this epiphany that if I just wrote the good parts, the whole book would be good. It worked, too. So 2014 is going to be my Good Parts year. I’m taking all the stuff I love–my friends, my family, my house, my dogs, writing, gardening, cooking, baking, crochet–and leaving behind all the things that made 2013 dark–money worries (just keep working and it’ll all work out), health worries (Obamacare, thank you, Obama), overwork (don’t try to cram forty hours of work into a twenty-four hour day), guilt (if it happened more than a week ago, I’m letting it go), and stress (much of which I create myself). From now on, my life is the Good Parts Version, or at least the part of it I control will be. If the Universe backs up the bus again, I’ll be ready.

So what’s in your Good Parts Plan for 2014? Don’t say “lose weight.” Say stuff you’ll have fun doing. Life is depressing enough without adding to its baggage. Plan for happiness, that’s what I say.

Next Who Sunday: Sherlock

Not that we’ll stop talking about Who because who could? But I lost my grip on why I wanted to watch the new Who–to talk about the writing–so I’m going to try it again with seven episodes of new Sherlock, the Steven Moffat (yes, again) reboot of the classic, trying to look at each one in terms of writing (along with fan squee, I’m only human and so are you). The reboot is amazing for several reasons, not the least is its fidelity to the original while making it all new again. So here’s Who Sunday on ARGH for the first two months of 2014, aka Sherlock Sunday, skipping “The Blind Banker” (it’s pretty good) and “The Hound of Baskerville” (it’s not good), ending with the newest three, two weeks after they air so people have time to find them on the net somewhere (I’ll fill in topics for the last three when I’ve seen them):

January 5 “A Study in Pink,” Steven Moffat (Beginnings & Establishing Character)

January 12 “The Great Game,” Mark Gatiss: (Plotting & Escalation)

January 19 “A Scandal in Belgravia,” Steven Moffat (Metaphor and Motif)

January 26 “The Reichenbach Fall,” Steve Thompson: (Climax & Antagonist)

February 2 “The Empty Hearse,” Mark Gatiss

February 9 “The Sign of Three,” Steve Thomson

February 16 “His Last Vow,” Steven Moffat

So the plan is I’ll put up a post with my views on whatever the craft topic is that week, and then the comments can be about anything including fan squee.

And then I have a question about future Sundays. I’m fascinated by what they’re doing narratively on Arrow, and it’s streaming on Netflix (pricier on Amazon Instant, but then you own it), but I’m not wedded to that if you have other preferences. The one requirement: It has to be a series where the writers are doing interesting things (don’t even think about The Mentalist). So let talk about the future of Who Sundays, or whatever we’re going to call it now that Who is on hiatus.

(Note: Another thing in Arrow’s favor: the romantic plots in that are all over the place which would give Pam plenty to write about.)

Who Sunday: The Time of the Doctor, Steven Moffat

And so we come to the end of 2013 and Who Sundays. I’m sure we’ll be discussing Twelve eight months from now as his episodes air, and we’ve got Sherlock in the wings for January and February, but first, the last of Eleven. Whatever frustration I had with Moffat’s Who-centric stories, I loved Matt Smith’s Doctor without reservation. I swear, watching the Doctor is like adopting dogs: they all die too soon. I think that’s why I was so disappointed in this farewell episode. It felt like Moffat crammed everything he had into this one–Weeping Angels! Daleks possessing women! Amy’s back!–without giving much thought to story. It played like the Doctor’s Greatest Hits without becoming one. The beginning felt like Doctor Who meets Coupling; Clara’s lied about having a boyfriend (not even romcoms trot out that one anymore), he’s naked when she shows up, they go to church and then Clara’s naked, too, except there’s the illusion of clothes, so it’s just “heh heh they’re naked,” and then the Doctor meets an old friend, and she’s very arch and they’ve obviously been lovers, and boy, the Doctor’s getting a lot of action suddenly, plus I’m annoyed that he’s cheating on River Song, and then the other shoe drops and “Lem” is “Mel” spelled backwards, and she’s the high priestess of the Church of the Papel Mainframe and when last we left River (or first) she was loaded onto a hard drive, so Tasha has to be River, right? except she started the church and a splinter group that left it kidnapped Melody as an infant and turned her into River so that can’t be it . . .

I hated this episode. Not as much as “Love and Monsters,” but close. Incoherent in execution, alternately brain dead dumb (“I accidentally told them I had a boyfriend so you have to come to dinner”) and inexplicably complex (see Lem/Mel/River/Mainframe above), and all of it presented at the speed of light (that regeneration took about two seconds, so much for the drama of transformation), I can’t think of anything I’d keep in a rewrite. Matt Smith deserved better. So did we.

Now go ahead and tell me how wrong I am.

Cherry Saturday: 12 28 2013

Today is National Card Playing Day. As in “Play your cards right, you live to talk about it.” (Big Trouble in Little China fan here.) Also, last Cherry Saturday of 2013. See you next year!

Merry Wednesday, Argh

I know you all don’t celebrate Christmas, so I’m trying to be inclusive. Hope your holidays have been and will continue fabulous and your gifts are outrageously wonderful. My best one: a six inch clear plastic Christmas tree filled with eye-searing fuchsia and chartreuse LEDS that burned out about an hour after I got it home, I think because the people who gave it to me kept checking to make sure it worked. When you’re two, three, and five, you worry things will stop working when you stop looking at them. Also the lights were so pretty (direct quote from oldest gift-giver who picked it out with approval from siblings). It’s going to be on my mantel every Christmas from now on. Thank god the LEDs went out.

And now that Christmas is done, I can get back to work. I still have a kitchen and some bookcases to build and a ton of papers to grade and six books to write, but I’m starting to get a grip on everything which means I can make better plans. I’m going to be throwing a lot of thinking-about-writing in here in the future, and I think we should watch Sherlock in January and February and look at the writing there (no, really, I’m going to get organized this time, plus two months won’t be the never-ending slog that Doctor Who was, although I enjoyed the hell out of that) and I’m also currently fascinated with TV series like Arrow and Person of Interest and Blacklist, so you can expect me to be ruminating on those stories. Also, I had a break-through on offices and workspaces, so I want to talk about that. And dogs. There should be more posts about dogs on here. I’m moving Arts and Crafts to ReFab along with all the remodeling stuff, but we were always more about story here anyway. And even though I am achieving a Zen-like calm as I age, assume there will be rants. For me “Zen-like calm” equals “fewer rants,” not “no rants.” “No rants” means I’m dead.

Where was I? Right, Merry Wednesday. As I said back on Thanksgiving, I’m very grateful there are Argh People, and I’m well aware that as I staggered through this year (better than last year, although as I told Mollie, that’s like saying a sharp kick to the knee is better than a sharp stick in the eye), I neglected Argh. Which means I neglected Argh People. Which is bad. So I feel I should be giving Merry Wednesday gifts. So here’s my question: What would you like to see on Argh this year? I can’t promise you’ll get everything, children, but I’ll try.

Next Who Sunday: The Twelfth Night, Steven Moffat

This year’s Christmas special presents a new Doctor (Christmas presents, get it, GET IT?). “Twelfth Night” closes out the Eleventh Doctor’s run which began with “The Eleventh Hour” (remember fish fingers and custard and the crack in Amy’s wall) and introduces Twelve, so I felt a play on words was appropriate. I have no idea what’s happening here except we’re losing the excellent Matt Smith and gaining the excellent Peter Capaldi, so this should be a very merry episode except that Eleven dies. Man, I hate those regenerations; I’m still mourning Nine and Ten.