Michael Offutt's Blog, page 99

What you can expect from the Dr. Strange movie is a mind trip action film. That sounds right up my alley.

Disney via Marvel started rolling out their ideas regarding phase 3 of the Marvel universe this week, and it pretty much started with the video below about Dr. Strange. Also, there's concept art embedded in the video that totally shows Benedict Cumberbatch as the sorcerer supreme. This is gonna be soooo good.

Is a suspension of disbelief a requirement for true happiness?

So here's a question for all of you: is suspension of disbelief a requirement for happiness? As writers, all of us need to be aware that suspension of disbelief is incredibly important to a story. For lack of a better example, it's the trick that the Wizard of Oz pulls on anyone that walks into his throne room. "Behold the great and powerful OZ!" Just don't look behind the curtain or you may be disappointed. However, what led me to ask this question of you was not a movie like the Wizard of Oz. Rather, it's a roleplaying game: Dungeons & Dragons. Allow me to explain.

About five months ago, I decided to explore the Fifth edition rules set that was issued in 2014, and run a game for my friends. Now, just a little background, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about Dungeons & Dragons is basically "bad improv" (I think this is fair to say) in a fantasy story that is (hopefully) masterfully narrated by a person in the role of Dungeon Master (I say this tongue-in-cheek). However, improv can be incredibly fun so don't knock it until you try it. :)

Of course there are rules and all that, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. Rather, it's the observation that (in the role of storyteller or "dungeon master") it's my pleasure to entertain folks, and a lot of this job has to do with storytelling tricks that are supposed to seem random but (in all actuality) they aren't random at all. Having difficulty following? Here's an example: a player's character comes across a magical weapon that is the exact weapon in which they are specialized. Mind blown, right? What a coincidence! Sooo crazy. Sarcasm aside though, I've noticed that no one complains. In fact, they seem to be really happy with the story.

So I got this idea in my head about how we all kind of trick ourselves into thinking that we've done something ourselves when we really haven't. For example, I work with handicapped people who (with the aid of a team of non-handicapped people) are able to climb mountains or even bobsled. Those accomplishments are theirs (with like ten other people working full time to make sure they succeed). So weird, right? But it's a "suspension of disbelief" and leads me to this statement: the joy you feel in accomplishing something is totally yours with the hidden acknowledgement that you should never EVER peek behind the curtain. I can think of lots of examples in life where someone's happiness about something depends on a suspension of disbelief that what happened to them was accomplished through a) skill, b) hard work, or c) brilliance. Nevermind that a whole team of people may have also been involved. Nevermind that it could have been just pure blind luck.

So what do you think? Are a lot of life's pleasures dependent on a certain level of disbelief? Here's another example (albeit absurd): is there a suspension of disbelief with regard to the food we eat? Are we all comfortable with eating fried chicken and beef because we don't see what makes it possible to put those things on our table? I would imagine that most people don't even give it a moment's notice. Rather, ignorance (as they say) is bliss, and the more and more I think about this cliche, the more and more I believe what it says about all of us and a very important key to something many of us find elusive: true happiness.

For my Insecure Writer's Support Group post I think I'll just focus on the dragon outside the window because he's really the sum of all my fears.

I missed Wednesday's Insecure Writer's Support Group, because I'm old and I forget things now and then. To make up for it, I'm putting up my IWSG post today, and it has to do with this picture, which (I hope) serves as some kind of writing prompt for all of us writers. Additionally, I hope it's great at reminding all of us that no matter how many stories and books we write and put on our shelves, the specter of insecurity lurks just outside the window.
This picture is called "Dragon in the Archives" and it was done by artist Michael Komarck. His website with more of his work can be found HERE, and I hope you check it out because Mr. Komarck is amazing. So I guess all that's left to do for this post is to air my particular insecurity of the month and so here it is: I have a fear (when I get into a project) that I will take on too much. To conquer this, I've had to learn that I alone allow my "dragons" (as in the picture above) to be as big as I want them to be. My goal then is to keep them small by focusing on a little bit here and a little bit there. Sooner or later the whole project will be finished. For me, it all comes down to spending "my spoons" wisely (look up spoon theory if you want an explanation of this) and not all at once. The dragon can be kept at bay by a mere glass window no matter how much he wants to get in, and I can always deal with the dragon tomorrow.
The IWSG is hosted by Sandra Hoover, Mark Koopmans, Doreen McGettigan, Megan Morgan, and Melodie Campbell! Author Alex J. Cavanaugh started the whole thing many moons ago.

The website for the Insecure Writer's Support Group is located here.

The animated adaptation of The Little Prince looks really really good.

This trailer for "The Little Prince" surprised me with its quality. It looks like something I'd expect from Pixar at the height of its powers. I know nothing of the story, but I've always been drawn to animation. One of the things that I really like in the trailer is how the animation kind of switches up during the story of "The Little Prince." If this is one of the most beloved stories of all time, I think I've got some catching up to do. I guess it's a good thing that the movie is coming out next year after it makes its big splash at Cannes.

Sometimes Doctor Who has a plot so complex that I'm not sure I quite understand what's going on.

This post contains plot spoilers for "Heaven Sent," episode 11 of this season's Doctor Who.

I'm not sure what to think of this season's Doctor Who. First off, I'm actually not positive that I understand it either, but maybe that's the point? Last week we bid farewell to Clara Oswald, who (in being very much like the Doctor), had become reckless. Her death was uncomfortable, but I think the character of Clara had run its course so maybe this way was the best way to go forward? However, the result of Clara's death was the doctor being ensnared by Ashildr into his own confession dial, which (as it turns out) is a revolving castle where he's stalked by a monster that epitomizes his greatest fear.

The episode Heaven Sent (episode 11 of the 35th series of Doctor Who) was brilliant in its creepiness. There was the slow plodding monster that always caught up to the Doctor (82 minutes was as much of a lead as he could get on the thing if he ran from one side of the castle to the other). In order to open up new corridors, he needed to confess to the monster something deeply personal, which then caused everything to move as it does in Hogwarts.

Eventually, he'd find himself at room 12 which had some kind of wall harder than diamond and many feet thick (covering the way out which consequently led to Gallifrey--the doctor's home world which he kind of/sort of destroyed). He could hammer at it with his fists and make a small chip here and there like a bird pecking at a diamond. Then his greatest fear would catch him and...dying...the doctor would crawl back to a room where he would fry his own brain with an electrical charge to force a version of himself stuck in the hard drive of a computer to be born so he could start over again (have you guys ever seen the movie "The Prestige"? It's like that). After several billion years of doing this and repeatedly chipping at the wall, he finally breaks through to find Gallifrey. At least, that's what I got from it.

The episode was as creepy as Doctor Who gets too. It effectively used lighting and the loneliness of being trapped in this shifting prison (not to mention the buzzing flies which heralded the approach of the monster) to convey fear. And when the mystery of thousands of skulls buried beneath the water was solved (they all belong to the Doctor and his billions of reincarnations) the true horror of this place set in. Basically, the Doctor was trapped in his own hell and just like the journey the narrator takes in Dante's Inferno, he had to pass through the portal in the ninth layer before he could begin the ascent to some kind of redemption.

Anyway, the great reveal at the end of the episode is another confession from the Doctor: that he's the Hybrid, and I've got to confess I'm not really sure what that all means in the lexicon of Doctor Who. Any readers care to explain it to me? I'd be interested to know. This series continuously pushes the envelope of what I think I understand.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and I'll see you next Monday.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. It's my second favorite holiday so I'm really looking forward to it (my first is the Fourth of July because you can't beat summertime, lemonade, fireworks, and BBQ). I'll see you next Monday.

Is Alan Moore a genius or a crackpot that can write? You be the judge.

This is where I stand with regards to Alan Moore: I think he's brilliant. But whether or not you think the guy that wrote perhaps the most famous Batman story ever is a genius or just plain insane, if you're a writer perhaps you might want to listen to what he has to say. Recently at an anti-library closure protest Alan Moore said that aspiring writers should self-publish. Surprised?

Here's a quote: "Publishing today is a complete mess. I know brilliant authors who can't get their books published," Moore says. Then he goes on to explain that many publishing houses are afraid to take risks on fiction (a thing a bunch of you out there know all too well. Moore goes on to pass this advice: "Publish yourself and don't rely upon other people."

Why is the lack of information about something so damned addicting?

Today's blog post comes out of a realization that I may be one of the sheep that gets sucked into hype. It's an admission that's been a long time coming, but we are legion (this army of sheep), and because of our over curious natures we must poke and prod at things until we find out the truth. It's honestly why I keep coming back to things, and I'd just like to know why my brain (and many others) is wired this way. You want examples?

In the new Star Wars: Force Awakens trailer we now know that Maz Kanata is 1000 years old and she's voiced by Lupita Nyongo. The lack of knowledge about this character has led many to speculate it's a "new Yoda" which may be why she's so old. A new Yoda?! Are you f'ing kidding me? That would be so cool IF IT'S TRUE. Also, what's up with Kylo Ren's saber? Supposedly, the quillions are there to "vent" energy from the light saber because it's unstable. But why is it unstable? Will J.J. even answer this question or just tease us along like a stripper in a glitter shop?

In the leaked information about Alien: Covenant (the sequel to Prometheus) Ridley Scott let drop that another earth ship finds a planet in a dark corner of space and David the android is living on it. What about Shaw? She was the only survivor from the Engineer planet in the first Prometheus film. Knowing that Shaw is nowhere around leaves me unsettled.

In the Flash television show, I think the identity of Zoom is going to end up being Barry Allen's dad. But of course, I don't know because they've been keeping it hidden all season (thus far). So there's this huge question as to why Barry's dad would be messing with Barry (even if it's an Earth 2 dad).

In the Walking Dead I want to know what happened to Glenn. Period. And they're deliberately leaving us in the dark with respect to this to make us feel every ounce of Maggie's pain. Was the voice on the radio at the end of the last episode Glenn? It sure sounded like him, but not knowing is driving me crazy.

In Game of Thrones, is Jon Snow alive or dead? Will Melisandre resurrect him? Who knows. And it's all the waiting for answers that sucks.

Anyway, if any of you out there are psychologists, I'd sure like to know why the lack of information about something is so damned addicting. And why are some of you (Grumpy Bulldog) able to just be uninterested in everything equally.

Into the Badlands on AMC hit most of my Quentin Tarantino fanboy buttons with its incredibly gorgeous fights

So AMC premiered their new series "Into the Badlands" last night right after their weekly dose of "The Walking Dead." I gotta say that it hit most of my Quentin Tarantino fanboy buttons. The credits were wonderfully done in full comic book story board mode with silhouettes and samurai swords. The filmography was beautiful with the over-saturation of color doing its part to make me feel like this is a fantasy world where the rules are different.

I liked the very Steampunk-esque vibe I got from the show too. It seemed to play well with the absence of guns, the prevalence of martial arts, and the setting that was part poppy field and part Louisiana bayou. The characters that we met are named: 1) The Widow, 2) Jade 3) Lydia 4) M.K. 5) Veil, and 6) Sunny. Those are all the ones that I could remember. Sunny is a complete badass that channels Jet Li and Jackie Chan in every scene and M.K. is the mysterious boy with strange berserking powers that only emerge if he tastes his own blood. The mythology of the world is set in the distant post-apocalyptic future where (apparently) opium is highly valued, Barons (white people) are warlords with armies of ninjas, and where people in "The Badlands" hear rumors of a better life in the great ether that lies beyond the known world. These are all themes that go into every post-apocalyptic story. After all, you can't have an apocalypse without hope.

And "Into the Badlands" I think has plenty of hope going for it. Sunny is going to be a father, so there's urgency for him to want to seek out the truth behind those rumors of a distant land where people aren't killed for having children. M.K. adds fuel to the fire of Sunny's imagination by verifying that he came from that place...only he doesn't know how to get back. Of course, right? That'd be too easy. And the other Barons are circling Sunny's Baron, which is bad because I think if Sunny's Baron dies it's kind of like a medieval Japanese society, and he'll be expected to die with his lord.

All in all though, I was amazed by the big fight sequences. It's exciting that there's a martial arts drama with no skimping and the action is as good as in any movie. I guess I'm just going to hold on and enjoy the rumble. So did any of you catch "Into the Badlands" last night?

A Victorian age Sherlock with Cumberbatch at the helm is exactly what the doctor ordered

As much as I like modern day Sherlock Holmes, I gotta say that the BBC doing a Sherlock series with Cumberbatch and in a Victorian setting meets every single one of my requirements for what is good. I like the Victorian setting. It's good for storytelling. Do you agree? Bravo BBC, Bravo.