R. Canepa's Blog, page 2
September 17, 2011
Lesson From Star Trek: Don't Cheat Your Characters
Another thing I've noticed during my romp through the episodes: they spent all sorts of time building up their characters, and then sometimes cheat them in their core characteristics for the sake of drama.
The biggest example of this is Worf. In Worf, we have a trained warrior, from a warrior culture, whose body also apparently has backup organs to act as fail-safes. He's tough and mindful, both of his duties and his environment.
Why, then, do people get the jump on him time and time again? Why do his instincts and training inexplicably fail? in the episode "Man of the People," Worf and the captain have beamed down to stop something nefarious. They're confronted, and then the camera cuts to show Worf under phaser guard and being disarmed by two on-planet guards. How did that even happen? Why didn't he see them coming?
Even if someone did get the jump on him, he should be able to take more than one hit. Why does he get knocked out with one blow to the back over and over? The Klingon pain ceremony in the episode "The Icarus Factor" proved his endurance beyond any doubt.
These instances are frustrating as a viewer because I know, based on what I've seen before (based on characterizations over many episodes), that these things would never happen normally. Instead, they're just used to scoot the episode along to where the writers wanted it to go, and in the process, cheat both the viewer and the character.
Good storytelling renders a character's strength meaningless or temporarily ineffective. Don't just chump-shot the warrior: give me a situation where he has to face an army, an enemy he can't fight, a situation where he has to go against his instincts and surrender to save someone else.
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September 1, 2011
Lesson from Star Trek: Multiple Story Threads
Like many other people, I've been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation from the beginning now that it's available for streaming on Netflix. Now that I'm far older and have some stories under my belt, I saw an interesting pattern in what the writers decided to do with their story lines.
So far, they fall into two basic structures. I'll call them the parallel structure and the nested structure.
The parallel structure is two separate story threads blended together that they then cut back and forth between during the course of the episode. Usually, one of the two threads involves the "problem on the planet" type stuff. Solve the dilemma, save the other spaceship, and so forth. The second story thread is the one that the writer(s) can play with to achieve a different feel. It could be humor-based, such as when Data is trying to learn how to be funny. Or it can be character-based, such as when they investigate Worf's background or the interaction between sets of characters.
The variations, of course, are nearly infinite. What's important is the idea of the two parallel threads: you can create tension by cutting back and forth between the two, and you can also get away with more when you use them together than if you were to use each separately. The "Crisis on the planet" schtick might get stale faster if it's not interwoven with something else. There's also something to be said for allowing a story some room and giving the viewer/reader a chance to breath before the tension cranks up again. A whole episode of nothing but character background / investigation / fan service can get boring quick, too, especially if that character doesn't happen to be the viewer's favorite. It also exhausts the pool that represents that character's background story potential much faster. Want to ensure a reader comes along for the entire ride? Dribble the background, the stuff they want to know, in small bits throughout the entire arc.
In the nested structure, one story thread complicates another. One of the best examples of this so far is in the Season 1 episode "The Big Goodbye," where Picard and others get trapped in the holodeck right as the ship is supposed to make important diplomatic contact that only the captain can handle. Either story thread could have been an episode by itself, but would have felt a bit anemic. By complicating one situation with another situation, the tension rises. After all, things are seldom easy or go as planned–especially if the writer has anything to say about it.
Within the nested structure is the reminder to not let things be easy on characters. If the ship breaks down, and the crew just says, "oh, okay, then we'll stop until it's fixed," there's no episode, no conflict, nothing interesting going on.
The use of these two ideas, or vehicles, in a TV show makes me think they'd work well in short fiction. I've added these to my writer's toolbox and will try to pull them out every now and again.
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August 6, 2011
Books While Traveling
My copy, circa 1995
I spent a fair amount of time during high school shuffling back and forth by plane between states to visit with my mother and father. My ultimate go-to book of all time is Belgarath the Sorcerer by David and Leigh Eddings.
This book wins for a few reasons. They are one of my favorite authors (I'm glomping them together into one entity; I don't think they'd mind) and largely responsible for my desire to write fantasy. Their stories have a light, humorous feel to them, and the banter between characters keeps things entertaining. This book is also a follow-up to the ten-book series, retold from the POV of one of the most major characters responsible for orchestrating the whole shebang across a period of 7000 years, and so it's a good sampler, so to speak, of parts of the overall story. It's also fairly long, which doesn't hurt when you have to fly and kill time on long layovers.
I once had the idea to make hash marks on the inside cover, once for every time I read it, and am a little sad that I didn't. I'd have to put the count up around 20 at least. You can't tell in the picture, but the edges of the covers and the spine are covered in tape to make them more resilient. I did this to all of the books I bought in highschool–mass-market paperbacks were cheapest and I had to make them last.
One of the times I can remember where I didn't read Belgarath was when my girlfriend at the time gave me her hardcover copy of The Dark Half to borrow for the trip. Now that book is forever linked with her (we moved on, literally in my case, but keep in touch) and that time period. Behold the power of the blog/journal: I hadn't thought about that in darn near forever. I can still remember sitting in the airport with it and waiting for my dad to pick me up.
I also love finding used bookstores whenever I travel. It has to be a used book store–chains are okay, but if you've been in one, you've been in them all. And they get bonus points if they have a resident cat or two. I might go so far as to say that any proper used bookstore requires a cat. Some good stores that come to mind are The Bookshop (Chapel Hill, NC) and Beckham's Bookshop (French Quarter, New Orleans).
A habit I've fallen into is to search for Jonathan Carroll books while I'm there. Of course, I could just buy them from Amazon or the local place here at home, but there's something pleasing in the ritual, in the hunting and finding of that trade paperback copy with a hand-penciled price, and in delaying the procession through the backlist of one of my favorite authors. The only problem is figuring out how to support him directly. (Please oh please, support your favorite authors)
Like many others, I have a Kindle now, and so the interesting thing will be to see how it integrates into my travel reading. Alas, Belgarath isn't available in ebook form. Would it still feel the same if it was?
* * * * *
How are books and travel linked for you? Are there memories associated with the two? What's your go-to book for travel?
Note: I originally wrote this in mid-July, thought it was scheduled, found it wasn't, and got too busy for a while to do anything about it.
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July 14, 2011
A Subtle Difference In the Way I Write Story Notes
I think I've identified which story I'll be writing next, and have begun fleshing out my notes. This process allows me to see just how much of the narrative I have figured out and areas that need work. It was in this process, where I'm still working out who wants what, does what, why, and so forth, that I made an interesting discovery: everything was couched in terms of "perhaps" and "maybe."
To my horror (if only my horror had been more horror-like), I saw that I tend to do that fairly often. Then I deleted all those possiblies, maybes and perhapses, and you know what? The planning took on a much stronger feel. It also made me analyze what I'd come up with to determine whether or not it's any good or if I can do better. Those "maybes" allow something to sit there on the page, in limbo, neither accepted nor rejected, and so I can never work with the indefinite. By deleting them and saying, "by golly, this is the way it is," I'm left to either accept it–and build on it–or come up with something better to replace it.
Writing is a humbling endeavor. Three books written and I'm still learning all sorts of things.
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July 10, 2011
There’s More To Life Than Writing
It’s easy for me to measure my output–or lack thereof–in pages or words written per day. But as I mentioned in How Do You Measure Preparation?, it’s harder to do that with things like story research, note-writing, plotting, character-building, and other Very Important Bits of writing work.
The title of this post is a reminder to myself that, now that I’m serious about my work, there’s more to writing than just putting words on a page. There’s marketing to do, searching for story markets, making story submissions, formatting my work for different platforms (including print editions), and getting my work listed on those platforms. All of which are important–none of which help with getting words on a page.
I need to allow myself time to do these things and to not feel guilty that I’m “not writing.”
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There's More To Life Than Writing
It's easy for me to measure my output–or lack thereof–in pages or words written per day. But as I mentioned in How Do You Measure Preparation?, it's harder to do that with things like story research, note-writing, plotting, character-building, and other Very Important Bits of writing work.
The title of this post is a reminder to myself that, now that I'm serious about my work, there's more to writing than just putting words on a page. There's marketing to do, searching for story markets, making story submissions, formatting my work for different platforms (including print editions), and getting my work listed on those platforms. All of which are important–none of which help with getting words on a page.
I need to allow myself time to do these things and to not feel guilty that I'm "not writing."
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June 6, 2011
Pay Yourself First
There's a very common rule in personal finance that says: Pay Yourself First. It applies in equal measure to goals.
The thinking behind it, financially speaking, is that we can't waste what we don't have. When we pay ourselves first, we set aside our savings before we pay any other bills or spend any money. It's priority. Then we pay bills. And if, after paying ourselves first, we don't have enough money for your bills? Then we have to work harder to ensure we can (and double check our spending habits). That simple. We'll usually work harder to pay bills than we ever would to set extra money aside.
When people wait and pay themselves last, they often don't end up saving at all because there's nothing left for the last person in line. Do it first, and succeed. Do it last, and fail.
In many interviews with successful writers, buried within talk of their inspirations and so forth will be some variation on a theme of "I got up early every morning and wrote ten pages" or "The first thing I did when I came home from work was shut the office door and write 2000 words." It varies, but usually it's there.
They paid themselves first.
For a while, I woke up around 5 in the morning so that I could get my work done before arriving at the office at 9. I felt that my writing was the most important thing to me, and so I would give it the first hours of the day, before the daily routine sapped my brain power and energy. I paid myself first, and it worked out. I might have been tired when I came home, but it was a satisfied, content kind of tired, because I knew I'd already accomplished something that day and there was zero guilt involved in frittering away my evening hours via lazy entertainment. I've since gotten off that cycle and need to return to it (a case of "practice what I preach," for sure.)
There are ways to apply this to any goal. Want to learn a foreign language? Go over your materials and practice while drinking your morning coffee. Starting a new business venture? Do your research before your day job, or block out inviolate evening time before dinner or after-dinner movies to ensure that you'll do it. It's not even so much the time of day wherein your effort occurs as it is your attitude that's important.
So many goals start with "One Day…" and stay there.
You'll never find time. Extra time does not come knocking at the door. You make time*.
* Or kidnap it off the street, transport it via unmarked van to your residence, and then drag it in to your office… but the former is usually easier and raises less suspicion with authorities and neighbors
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May 30, 2011
Be Ruthless In Pursuing Your Goals
When it comes to accomplishments, life seems to work against us. Obstacles will always pop up in our way. Even more so when there are no deadlines and the desire is solely internal, like often happens with creative work. It's easy to let it slip another day, another day, and another day.
You must be ruthless in pursuing your goals. This means two things.
You will have to push past the laziness, the "meh," the "I already worked 8 hours today and made dinner, what more do you want?", the "I'll start tomorrow," and all the other excuses that will come up when it comes time to get to work. This is pretty common stuff here. Stuff that most "x help," where x is whatever activity you're trying to do, will talk about and help you beat.
You will have to make sacrifices–and only you can deem what is an acceptable sacrifice and what isn't. This could mean cutting your TV time. Or it could mean not going out with friends. Or not taking on another commitment during the week. It's easy for us to get too involved in too many things and then find that we have no time for ourselves. To yoink a phrase from Stephen King (with apologies), commitments are like dandelions: if you don't keep them under control, you'll soon find your lawn covered in them. Note that the sacrifices could also be your other projects (see my post, "Murder Your Darlings").
The hardest part of number 2 is the ability to say "no." I don't enjoy telling friends that I can't make it on a particular night or have to drop my commitment. But I have to be ruthless in ensuring I have the time necessary to get my work done.
"Isn't that pretty self-centric?" some might ask. To which I say: "Absolutely." You have to be. The world will take whatever you give it and ask for more unless you put the brakes on. Just like we don't give away all our money so that we can pay rent/mortgage and so forth, don't give away all your time. Keep some for yourself and don't feel guilty about it.
Life will encroach and the excuses will let it. Stomp out the distractions without pity. This is even more important at the beginning of any habit/process. Later on, it's easier to ease up a bit, but always be on the lookout for those stray commitments that pop up. Don't automatically say "yes" to them.
Be ruthless, and you'll find that your goals are closer than you think.
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May 23, 2011
Do It Every Day
One of the simplest secrets of what I've been able to accomplish so far–which, while not overwhelming, is at least something more than nothing–can be attributed to this paragraph I encountered years ago.
Do it every day.
Want to become a concert pianist? Do it every day.
Want to become a writer? Do it every day.
Want to become depressed? Think of depressing thoughts every day.
Want to become an optimist? Think of cheerful thoughts every day.
Do it every day.
–Robert Anton Wilson
It's one of those things that's simple but not necessarily easy. I've kept a copy of that text in various places over the years. It used to be my home location in my browser, so that I'd see it first thing when I sat down. For a number of years, it hung on the wall by my work computer, so that I could see it every day and remind myself that my true work never happened at that desk.
Within it is the idea that we make ourselves. That the outside only forms us up to a point–and the rest is up to us. Also hidden in there is the idea that small effort, applied consistently over time, will get you where you want to go.
There are days when it's hard. And days when I missed it completely. The important thing is to move on from there and make sure you do whatever-it-is the next day. Don't double up to make up for lost time. Don't let the guilt keep you from getting back to business the next day. Just be there, do it.
Even if it was 500 words a day, I eventually ended up with stories. Then there's the whole "pyramids and bricks" thing. Yadda-yadda. You know the routine.
The only thing I would add to the above quoted text is this: every day, ask yourself why you're doing what you're doing. What makes it worthwhile? Is it what you want to be doing? This goes back to the mental aspects that Wilson included and can help you adjust your thinking.
The answer, along with the daily reminder to "do it every day," will give you a good push in the direction you want to go.
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May 22, 2011
May 22, 2011
I have to say it's been a rather productive weekend. I got started on the templates for the print version of Number Four, designed a business card for my writing side, read three books on finances/investing, scheduled blog posts for another site I'm trying to spin up, did a little bit of realty shopping, and… actually, I think that's it. But that's a fine list.
Mostly I've been dragging my feet on the print copy, but now it's time to get past that and get back to work. For a great number of things, actually, because I'm between stories right now, and am feeling rather aimless and wander-ish. Time to pick one and get going on it.
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