Joshua Unruh's Blog, page 9

On The Species of Origin

I decided to move this one up a day since I had so many great comments and responses and I kept having to allude in my reactions to them about "the answer I'll blog about later."

Well, it's LATER!

So I think I may have figured some things out about both how I see superheroes and how the public at large sees them.

I think for superheroes (in the broad sense of them as cultural artifacts), origins are a merely a vehicle. Take Marvel's mutants as an example. The whole point of mutants was so we could get to superhero action without any origin nonsense. "They were born that way! Suit up and shoot eye lasers at living islands already!"

The way Stan Lee thought of mutants is how I tend to think of existing characters, like Batman or Captain America. But broader audiences want character more than plot. As a guy who loves superheroes on their own merits, it doesn't bother me that they're generally much more plot than character. A wider audience is not that forgiving to the concept. This explains shows like Alphas, Heroes, and (some of) Smallville.

This is also probably why the tone of the Lord of the Rings movies felt so different from the books even thought there was almost no plot deviation.  A broader base of fantasy watchers need it grounded in people. It is grounded in people in the books, but in a VERY different way.

So, my guy Ajax Steward, Engineer of the Impossible, born to a long line of pulp or superheroic people, raised by his dad to be the ultimate science hero and problem solver, he needs no origin story. Drop the guy into a fight with, I don't know, mystic Nazis and werewolves.

But a currently unnamed character (I have two names, but I'm waffling between them) who starts out a totally entitled, spoiled douche bag, has tragedy strike to show him what's really important, becomes a better person, which thereby opens him up to super powers... that's a guy who needs a bloated, overwrought origin story.

Take my other great love: Pulp. Pulp is plot transcendent. What's happening? Who is it happening to? Where's the square-jawed hero? How will he stop the cackling villain?

Superheroes are much more plot focused. The focus is so heavy that the character stuff happens during the plot most of the time. So often, in fact, that you could almost make the mistake of considering it plot transcendent. But it isn't, not quite. It's just the conflicts are literalized. I have an argument with my wife, of course she throws an invisible force field up at me. I'm worried about my kids, of course a grown up version of them comes from the future and I hate how they turned out. I'm a planner and a total type A who wants to save everyone's life, of course my arch nemesis is a chaotic homicidal clown.

But those are all still character arcs, they're just worked out in plot. Steve Rogers has a good heart and a crap body, but the good heart turns him into exactly who his people need. Peter Parker makes one bad decision, and it haunts him forever into doing the right thing even when it sucks the hardest. Tony Stark is an entitled jerk who gets hoisted on his own petard and, instead of just getting angry, realizes it's a pretty crap petard in the first place. That's storytelling GOLD.

Some don't need it. Thor has power and believes the weaker deserve protection by the stronger. Superman sees the good in everyone and then reflects it back to them with his selfless actions. Batman creates a crime fighting family because crime steals families. Obviously there could be explanations for all this, but they'd be explanations and not stories.

When it comes to the question of "is a long origin story necessary?" I guess my answer purely in the realm of theory is "sometimes." Practically speaking, I'd probably entirely solve all my problems with the power of flashbacks. But DAMN those are hard to write well!

Sample Chapters!

I'll be doing some sample chapters from my various scribblings. I've been planning on doing one for the upcoming release of Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall and suddenly wondered why I wouldn't do one for my other stuff as well.

So, for those of you who haven't been enticed by a Spy Fi novel starring a triumvirate of tween girls, here's the first chapter of TEEN Agents in the Plundered Parent Protocol to hopefully change your mind!

Origins or Snore-igins?

A little over a year ago, I used the trailer for the Captain America trailer as a springboard to complain about superhero origin movies. I later recanted that, despite Captain America's origin being REALLY BORING, the writing on the movie made it work so that the second act only drug a little bit.

Since then, we've been treated to an amazing Avengers movie that's basically a team origin story and yet another retelling of Spider-Man's origin. Both of which were, pardon the adjective in the case of the latter example, AMAZING.

Admitting I'm Wrong...Sorta

Now, to be entirely clear, I still think that long, overwrought origin stories miss the point of superheroes. That is, 99% of the stuff that comes before the costume is stuff that happens to them before they are interesting. That said, I think the public has clearly spoken something here. Despite the fact that bloated, overlong, and painfully detailed origin stories miss the point of superheroes, people apparently still love them.

My love of superheroes is oft-trod ground on this blog as well. To a lesser extent, I've been explained how I used to love comic books while now I, at best, like-like them. These movies are actually helping with that. I no longer need comics to get a superhero fix. There are cartoons, movies, and...novels?

Writing The Book on Superheroes

There are a few superhero novels in the world. Some of them aren't about pre-existing characters (although novelizations of my fave, corporate -owned guys can be a lot of fun). I'm somewhat interested in making comics, but it takes a) an artist and b) an artist you really trust to make that happen. I currently have neither of those. But I do write novels. And I do have original superhero characters rattling around my head.

Until recently, I've planned to tell those stories as though the characters are well-established, skipping the origin and, possibly, many of the early years of their careers. I've also planned to do them in short stories or novellas and using a style that is much faster and punchier than the typical novel.

But all these only-sorta-superhero fans that helped Avengers make as much money as the Gross National Product of Laos and went to see (and love) yet another Spidey origin have me rethinking this. Do I need to, despite proper judgment, do a long, overwrought origin story for my characters? Would potential readers of superhero novels want me to write a 80,000+ word novel that explained who a character was and how he or she came to be?

So sound off, people! You'll be taking the reins of my creative energies here! If I were going to write prose superhero fiction, would you be interested in a novel length origin story? Movies and TV shows say you would...but possibly only for movies and TV shows. Would you read it? WOULD YOU?!?

By Odin’s Beard! What the frack is all this sprock?

Recently I found myself reading Courtney Cantrell's newest book, the first in what will be a long running fantasy series, Legends of the Light-Walkers: Rethana's Surrender. Peep this cover art.

I've mentioned it briefly before, but it really is a fantastic book. I cannot recommend it highly enough. There's pretty stunning character work, some impressive world building, some semi-annoying fake languages (so many vowels and apostrophes...but we forgive her!), but mostly there's just an amazing story of a sheltered, frightened girl trying to figure out how to take care of the little sister that's wasting away in front of her eyes.

I'm told that eventually there'll be a war. You can see how that kind of thing would make Rethana's priorities even more complicated.

But the words I really want to talk about isn't the one with all the vowels and extraneous punctuation. I want to talk about dirty words!

Rethana fantasy curses like a fantasy longshoreman. And the cursing is fantastic.

I'm not sure when I noticed it exactly, but once I did, it could not be unseen. I immediately texted Courtney about Rethana's predilection for dirty words. She rightly defended it by pointing out that most of Rethana's friends are guys who have served mandatory military time. Courtney also pointed out that Rethana censored herself better when she was around her great grandmother.

I thought about how the Vikings I'm writing about in Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall curse and how complicated that was for me to figure out. That's when the light bulb went on.

More than religion, more than language in general, more than government, more than clothing styles, the thing that most defines any given culture might be how it decides to curse. And, most shockingly, this doesn't seem to enter into world building all that often. I mean, you can see in in the post title. The first is comic book Thor swearing by his actual dad's facial hair, honest to goodness stubble of  the guy he probably just saw at breakfast. The second is so the surly military folks on the Battlestar Galactica revival could drop the F-Bomb more or less. Seriously, despite a lot of cultural barriers, there seems to be no difference in usage between our own favorite f-word and that of the crew on BSG. And, lastly and nearest to my heart, you have the catch-all curse word from a thousand years in the future used by the Legion of Super-Heroes.

I think these are pretty typical stand-ins. And the thing I notice is that they are either ridiculous or nearly 1-to-1 with our own style of cursing. Ridiculous I can dig, that's always at least fun. And it does say something about the tone of the work even if it doesn't speak to the characters. But 1-to-1 is boring and almost as bad as fake curses that aren't thought out at all.

Courtney and I conversed via text about this for a couple hours and it reminded me of all kinds of things. It reminded me how the producers and writers of Deadwood had tried a script that used period curse words, and they jettisoned that idea because everyone sounded like Yosemite Sam. That made me think of how, until very recently, cursing was mainly blasphemous rather than scatological (Biological? Whatever.) as we are now.

Think about Shakespeare. It's all "God's Teeth" and "Zounds" (a shortened form of "God's Wounds"). People still damned things, of course, or suggested that God should do so. But, again, that's all in the realm of "blaspheming." Nowadays, we are almost pathologically concerned with fecal matter and sexual activity when it comes to our cursing. Or at leas colloquially we are.

Then I couldn't help wondering, what caused that shift? It happened way before the Post-Christianization of the Western world, so it couldn't be that. Courtney suggested the growing focus on personal hygiene in the West might have something to do with it. That's a fantastic theory, but I don't know if it's true. What's worse, I don't know how to find out!

And it could really matter! Whatever caused that sociological shift could get injected into a fantasy or sci-fi world I'm creating and I wouldn't pay attention to the attendant cultural shift in curse words. That feels wrong, like introducing the printing press but having it be no big deal.

This is why my "fantasy" Vikings curse the way they do. I thought about going the Deadwood route for all the same reasons, but it just didn't feel right to me for my Vikings. Others have gone that route, and it more or less worked, but not for me. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of easily accessible scholarly work on how Vikings cursed. So I went the blasphemous route with a little biology mixed in. This is why most of my guys are all "By Loki's dangling balls!" or "What in the name of Tyr's bloody stump is this?" And this is working for me now, but what about the next thing I write?

And what about non-Western cultures? Courtney grew up in Germany and they pretty much curse like us only in German. But we've also been living in their kitchens for the last 60 odd years, so that's not surprising. My friend Zac who spent a lot of time in Japan, tells me Japanese curse in a very boring, pedestrian way. I love that information because, with very little pondering, that totally makes cultural sense.

Anyway, this is getting long (probably because I find it fascinating). For now, go buy Courtney's book and review it when you inevitably love it. Second, if any of you have or know of scholarly works on this subject, link me. Better yet, blogs and such where it's getting broken down for the layman would be perfect. Lastly, just for funsies, put in a comment with your favorite fantasy or sci-fi curse word or phrase.

I can't wait to learn how to curse in even more made up ways!

I Return Bearing Gifts!

Hey, gang! I know, I know, it has been hella quiet around here. I'm honestly really sorry about that. But writing time has been precious lately, and I know that, given a choice between blog posts and novels, you'd all pick novels, right? RIGHT?

Heavens, I hope so. I love writing at this blog for real but I love writing stories way more.

Speaking of awesome stories, I missed the chance to point you at my dear friend, writing coach, and acquisitions editor Courtney Cantrell's offer of free goodies. Well, you'd have heard about it if you followed me on Twitter, though. You all follow me on Twitter, right? No? Well, go fix that (@JoshuaUnruh)!

Anyway, she thankfully extended the offer for an advance copy of her next book, but you all better hurry. Legend of the Light-Walkers: Rethana's Surrender is an epic fantasy kissing book that still manages intense action scenes as well. I finished it in record time and loved it. It is nuanced, true, and painfully real at times. Go check it out!

Between you and me, grabbing Rethana's Surrender and reading it as soon as you can might just net you a leg up on some freebies coming down the pike that have my name on them. Just saying.

So just what has kept me so busy that I couldn't post here? That would be The Saga of the Myth Reaver: Ascension. Come August, I'll be joining the ranks of published fantasy authors. Remember when I had an existential crisis and you all told me you loved me so I decided to do a fantasy novel? Well this isn't the one I had in mind, but it is the one that's getting published.

Myth Reaver is my own answer to the question "What happens if you rigorously apply Noir storytelling techniques to a fantasy story?" The answer started out being "something very like Norse sagas," but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that wasn't enough. Noir and Norse legends have a lot in common, but they aren't a straight one-to-one conversion. It's a helluva starting place, though!

So I wrote the story of how Finn Styrrsson, a hero cast in the same mold as Beowulf or Sigfried, keeps getting everything he wants, but it never makes him happy. Conniving family members, ever-greater victories that refuse to satisfy, and slaving for powers you can't hope to control with only your own flawed moral compass as guide. Now that sounds like a Noir story even if there are swords instead of .45s and mythological monsters instead of mobsters.

Sounds cool as hell, right?

Ode to a Czar

This is a poem that my boss, Aaron Pogue, just wrote for/to/at me. I'm the czar in question since I'm the Consortium's Czar of Marketing. Also, this was written with the aid of Mexican alcohol. Be ye warned.

PS: He's super proud of the fact that this is a "textbook Elizabethan sonnet." Take that, culture.

PPS: He wrote this in 19 minutes flat. Double take that, culture.

We want to see our artists paid. We do!

But we cannot accept the claims of some

That answering our fans with threats to sue

Is truly the best way to get it done.

And that's what copyright is, at its heart.

It's nothing but the threat of brutal law.

It's stupid and it's dangerous to Art.

Its obsolescence liberates us all.

But isn't it a necessary sin?

The lesser of two wrongs, to make it right?

Perhaps it was. Perhaps. But we begin

To see new hope against the artist's plight.

The internet has changed the marketplace,

And patronage puts forth a brave new face.

Copyright is Copy Wrong

Hello faithful readers! I'm sorry for my absence, but I've been plugging away at all manner of Consortium projects. Some of them even involve me writing things! Some of those writings are even fiction! For instance, be on the look out for a big summer push with four new fantasy novels, including my own Saga of the Myth Reaver: Downfall in August (most likely).

But the first novel of that push is Aaron Pogue's The Dragonprince's Heir. It's special for all kinds of reasons, but the biggest one, and the one I need for you all to get excited about, is discussed in the press release below. Don't worry, I wrote most of it so borrowing it for a blog post isn't plagiarism.

Please give it a read, please get excited about it (or ask me for more details about why you should care), and then contribute. This is the first of many big moves to close the gap between what we're doing now and what we've always wanted to do from the start.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DIGITAL REVOLUTION RENDERS COPYRIGHT OBSOLETE

OKLAHOMA CITY - Bestselling author Aaron Pogue is publishing the third book in his successful fantasy trilogy. Given the excellent performance of the other books in the series, this book, The Dragonprince’s Heir, will sell thousands of copies in its opening week and has the potential to make as much money as the first two books put together. None of that is what Pogue wants you to know about the book, though.

“I want to donate this book to artists everywhere,” Pogue insists. “The first day The Dragonprince’s Heir is available, I hope that it’s in the public domain. Just like the first two in the series.”

What makes a successful author, one who was only recently able to quit his day job as a technical writer, give away the ownership to an intellectual property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars?

For Pogue, it’s the belief that copyright is a concept that has outlived its usefulness. “Those rights could have made me a fortune. A single movie option could make my non-profit arts foundation a fortune. But we're passing up that opportunity in search of something better.”

Copyright is Copy Wrong

Pogue believes that copyright has become a tool for exploiting artists. He says it’s time for a cultural revolution where art is valued as art and not as a commodity, but not at the expense of artists making a living.

“Art gets its value from being shared. By keeping art hidden, copyright has become an artificial, ugly, and ineffective thing. It was necessary for a while, but the low production costs and easy market access of digital art changed everything. We have the opportunity to bring back patronage. A new patronage opens new opportunities for art.”

It isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Pogue is already bringing this “new patronage” about with his non-profit arts organization, the Consortium.

The Consortium Model

The Consortium is a non-profit organization comprised of schools and students that will produce art for the community, all while making a decent living. Pogue believes the key to this model is a reinvention of the patronage system that succeeded during all four centuries of the Renaissance.

For anyone unfamiliar with patronage, Pogue has a quick history lesson. “Back then, the nobility and the very rich kept artists on staff. The artists composed beautiful music, created breathtaking paintings, or wrote classic books which their patrons then gave to the world. Much of what we consider culture today was created under this model.”

“But we don’t need mega-corporations or multi-millionaire Medicis anymore,” Pogue says. “We just need art lovers to support an organization like the Consortium so that the Consortium can support artists.”

You can read a more detailed explanation of how Pogue will use the Consortium to bring the plan to fruition. But so far, the model is working. As the organization’s president, Pogue is the Consortium’s first paid artist and also the main source of financial support. The first two fantasy novels in his bestselling Dragonprince trilogy have sold thousands of copies and made a tidy profit. This profit has been invested back into the Consortium to launch the successful publishing arm of the organization, Consortium Books.

“Right now I have 30 dedicated and hard-working volunteer artists,” Pogue said. “They’ve made it possible for us to publish seven writers in addition to myself with over 100,000 book sales across 15 titles in the last year. That’s commitment, and it’s success. But it isn’t our ideal. Not yet.”

Kickstarting the Ideal

Pogue believes that if artists were paid a decent salary for making creative works initially, they wouldn’t have to worry so much about intellectual property law and copyright. That’s all he expected from Taming Fire and The Dragonswarm, the first two novels in his trilogy. Once each title made $30,000, he authorized the Consortium to release them into the public domain.

Even Pogue was surprised how quickly his plan flourished. “I thought it would probably take ten years for Taming Fire to earn enough that I could release it into the public domain. It didn't even take ten months.”

As of this month, Taming Fire and the The Dragonswarm are both dedicated to the public domain. The Consortium has released them under the Creative Commons No Rights Reserved license.

But Pogue wants more for the third novel. He wants it to be in the public domain from the first day it’s published. And he’s turning to cloudfunding website Kickstarter to make it happen. For the month leading up to publication, Pogue is using Kickstarter to raise the $30,000 necessary for the Consortium to secure the rights to his novel without a single copy sold.

“This is an opportunity to make a statement, to participate in something new, and to show support for an idea that could change the world,” Pogue says. But he doesn’t want any confusion about what this fundraiser is all about. “I'm not asking you to contribute to the publication of a single book. I'm asking you to help make that book, that piece of art, belong to the world. Free and clear.”

How To Become a Part of the Revolution

Whether you are an art lover or simply feel copyright is no longer a useful system, the Consortium would appreciate your help. The easiest way to show your support is by purchasing Consortium art. The publishing arm is funding the organization through published works. The Consortium has both full length novels and short stories, both individually and in collections.

But the best way to support this vision of the future is by contributing to the Kickstarter campaign that will immediately purchase the rights to The Dragonprince’s Heir. (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/consortiumokc/help-release-the-dragonprinces-heir) Please visit that link for more details on the organization, to look over the contribution rewards, and, finally, to contribute to this revolutionary new idea.

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For more information or to schedule an interview with Aaron Pogue, please contact Joshua Unruh at Joshua.unruh@consortiumokc.com

THE MAKING OF ‘THE STARS MY REDEMPTION’ PT. 3

You're in for a special treat today, blog-goers. A fellow Kindle All-Star and often frantic Twitter-mate, Tony Healey, aka the Fringe Scientist, has a new novel coming out. It's a science fiction piece that promises to be a great read. Tony's running around a few blogs talking about how the book came to be, and I was lucky enough to host Part 3. Enjoy!

Guest Post by Tony Healey

The Sci-Fi Adventure Novel ‘The Stars My Redemption’ is released June 1st in the Kindle Store.

At times in The Stars My Redemption there is a flashback within a flashback. Writing the book, I found it hard in deciding how to move from one flashback to another. On this one, I turned to Stephen King.

In ‘IT’, King uses the following technique to transition from one time to another.

(1985)

and then the writer transitioned from one time period to another. He picked up his pen and--

(1969)

--writes a cheque.

You see? It’s like in a movie, when someone thinks back to something that happened in the past. Sometimes the screens goes all wobbly, but in most modern films we just get a hard, clean cut to the past. I think that’s the best way. And although I know this device might throw a few readers off, I’m confident that most will get it. Look, if it worked for King in one of his most successful novels, I’m sure it will work for The Stars My Redemption.

I have used the flashbacks in the novel to show you what Abe has been upto. They give you a perspective on the character you wouldn’t have if the flashbacks weren’t present. And come the ending of the book, you will see how important those flashbacks really were. They are part of his arc as a character.

The quote from ‘Tiger’ by William Blake that appears at the beginning of the novel is a direct reference to the original title of The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. He was going to call the novel ‘Tiger! Tiger!’ and I almost considered the same at one point. But I thought it enough to include the quote only.

‘Tiger, Tiger,

Burning bright,

In the forests,

Of the night’

There are nods to Star Trek, Star Wars and other shows throughout the novel. There are also members of the Kindle All-Stars who have been written in. I couldn’t include everyone however, which is a shame. I’d have liked to have worked in all 30 members somehow. None of this was intentional, it just happened as I was writing.

When I thought about the character of Abe himself, I pictured a bald man with a white eye and a robotic arm that had seen more than his fair share of danger. I envisioned him covered in scars deep as tree bark and old tattoos from all four corners of the galaxy. A man who has literally been chewed to bits by the jaws of life. I thought that the uglier I made him outside, the more striking it would be to find that he still had a heart inside. As for his speech? He talks like some people I know or have come across. He’s a common man, and I wanted him to have that common flavour when he spoke.

I hope that readers enjoy The Stars My Redemption, and that they want more. I can’t say that there will be a sequel to the book. It’s a stand-alone novel in many ways. But I’ve left myself plenty of room for another novel set in the same universe, so maybe readers will be seeing more. As for Abe, I can tell you that there will be individual short stories featuring him. I might even write a prequel. He has a lot of history, and there are many adventures that are yet to be revealed. How did he become the most wanted man in the galaxy? I think he did something very very bad, and I think I have an idea what that might have been.

But you’ll have to wait to find out. My next novel is a thriller called ‘Adolf Hitler Must Die’. At the time of this writing I am halfway through it. I hope to publish it August 2012, all going well. I also have a collection of four horror stories I’m putting together called ‘At The Edge of Sleep’. And for years I’ve been filling notebooks with ideas for a Fantasy Series. Well, hopefully I’ll get the time this year to work on that too.

But after that all? Maybe I’ll look to the stars again. See what’s going on.

PART 1 appeared 05/25 at www.apiarysociety.com

PART 2 appeared 05/26 at www.davidhulegaard.com

Having Chosen to Oppose His Shield, I Yield

A long, LONG time ago, I complained that the Captain America movie was doing it wrong based on trailers and without having seen it. I come before you, lo these many months later and just before the Avengers movie drops, to recant...sorta.

Why am I taking an entire blog post to say I was wrong? Because once I think an opinion through, I rarely change it. Only time and eroding the original core thesis can typically change my mind. When I do change my mind, it only feels right to point it out.

I'll sum up my previous post stating my usual thesis thusly: "Superhero origins are really boring if used for anything other than a quick (emphasis on quick) vehicle to get them into costume and punching bad guys in garish costumes." I stand by this with a few exceptions, Captain America not being one of them.

But this movie managed to keep me engaged even through the relentlessly slow origin build-up. And, my friends, it is relentlessly slow. However, it is never, ever boring.

I think that's the key. Probably the same with Batman Begins and the opposite with Green Lantern. BB absolutely belabors every little damn thing about the Nolan Batman's painful and small origin, but it's so fraught with all the emotions that we're never bored while we wait for the cape and cowl to show up.

Similarly, in Captain America everything is absolutely fraught with idealism that we're able to overlook how damn long it takes for the guy to punch super-Nazis.

In Green Lantern, however, we have a painfully long amount of time where Hal Jordan is a douche followed by a painfully long amount of time learning how to make a gun with his magic wish-ring while on Planet CGI. Nothing is fraught here.

Just to show this is not a new problem, Superman The Motion Picture suffers from a lot (45 MINUTES!) of Planet NobodyCares and living on the NobodyCares farm before he gets in the costume. Interestingly, very similar problems to GL just in a different order.

Anyway, the bottom line is, I was wrongish. You can, with the right origin, the right take, and the right attention to craft make even the most boring, three-line origin story into compelling cinema.

I still wish they'd knock it off, though.

Drop the Policymic

Things may be a bit sparse here over the next few weeks as I've joined a politics and culture/New Media bootcamp at Policymic.

As part of the assignments and learning process, I have to write a couple articles a week on something trending, hot, and/or interesting. I'm afraid that'll soak up most of my blogging energy. Maybe not all, but we'll have to see what strikes my fancy. I do have some short stories and novels that need writing too, you know?!

At any rate, I still have things for you to read! And you help my "grade" if you go visit them, "mic" them, tweet them, and FB them. Now only do that stuff if you really like the article, not just if you like me.

Without further adieu, here are Call of Duty and AMC's Walking Dead Show Americans Are Obsessed With the Apocalypse and James Bond 'Skyfall' Will See 007 Drink Heineken Instead of Martinis.

You'll be shocked to note I went with the (pop) cultural stories. And you will be doubly shocked to discover I have opinions about them.