Chris Dee's Blog: Chris Dee's Cat-Tales Blog, page 32

Guest Blog: Bad Yeti

When my good friend “The Enigmatic Mr. Wu” started to blog about writing, I knew I wanted to feature him here as a guest blogger.  Why?  Because Mr. Wu is also Thundering Monkey, a name some of you may recognize as a Poser artist featured in the Cat-Tales Gallery, and frankly, several of his pictures display a better understanding of storytelling than we see in the output of certain professional writers.  There is real artistry in finding the psychological moment in a scene and in knowing how to convey it. 

Or, as a friend of mine put it recently, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, you better choose those words carefully.”

So I give you a blogger of fewer words than most of us, which belies a marvelous clarity of ideas.   

(Mind you, when I asked him to do a guest spot, I didn’t realize he’d be bringing a yeti.)

Don’t Let Bad Yeti Happen to You

A few days ago, I was watching The Mummy 3.  Don’t ask me why, some things cannot be explained.  I was watching the Mummy and I came upon this scene:

………… I know, right?  What was that?

You have to ask yourself, how something like that made it into a 145 million dollar movie?

What really bothers me about this scene, other than the way it damages the movie, is that it’s painfully, obviously bad, and someone made a large amount of money for writing it , while some of the best storytellers I’ve ever read, will never be paid for the work they do.  I’m not sure what is more terrifying; the idea that a Yeti Field Goal was in the original script and no one cut it, or that it wasn’t in the script, but someone said “the third act needs punching up, you know what this movie needs ? A sweet Yeti field goal!! Hell Yeah!  Or the fact that in the months that it took to model, texture, animate, render and composite this sequence into the movie, the idea that it was stupid, and hurt the movie never gained traction. What The Mummy 3 really needed was for someone to say no.

This is why you need a good Beta reader.  A Beta reader serves many useful functions. They give you valuable feedback on your story. They might spot opportunities that you missed or have an alternate way of saying something that makes your scene funnier, or sadder, or scarier, but perhaps the most important service they provide is to give you one more chance to stop something bad from getting into the world.  When all people remember of your story is the stupid scene with the Yeti field goal, your reputation as a storyteller has been harmed. They may be unwilling to give you another chance.

The best thing your Beta reader can do for you is to be ruthlessly honest with you about what they feel works and what doesn’t. Their reactions will probably mirror your readers. The best thing you can do for them is not take criticism of your story personally. When they tell you something doesn’t work, it’s not a slam on you. It’s not calling you stupid or saying you’re a bad writer.  It’s not about you, it’s about the scene, and if it’s not working, it’s better for you to know now than when the Ebola monkey of a scene has escaped into the wild. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to thank them in the author notes. They spent their valuable time to make your story better, so mentioning their input is just the classy thing to do, and as Rob Burgundy says, you should always stay classy.

Originally published as Don’t Let Bad Yeti Happen to You at enigmaticmrwu.blogspot.com.

Texts from Catwoman

If anyone hasn’t seen or heard about the Texts from Hillary Tumblr I can only assume your internet is out, your dog ate your phone, you have no friends, and you don’t watch the news. If anyone doesn’t know a bunch of new pics came out from The Dark Knight Rises, there’s really nothing this blog can do for you. For everyone else, behold the parody that simply had to happen…



via Cat-Tales

via Cat-Tales

via Cat-Tales

via Cat-Tales

Oh Photoshop, is there nothing you can’t do?

So, my good friends over at Gotham Trending were the first to post this semi-yummy new promo pic of The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman. 

Unlike last year’s set photos, this is a “Promo Pic,” a provocative pose, nice lighting on the tush, lots of detail on the costume, and as they pointed out over at GT, it seems intended for all of us to get busy making up our own artwork.

Rather than simply plop it against a Gotham backdrop, I decided… Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Last year, while Anne Hathaway’s stunt double was on a motorcycle playing chicken with an IMAX camera that should have known better, some of us who weren’t wincing for the poor camera man noticed she was wearing the Jim Balent thigh boots.  Since we see now that she’s got the long gloves to match, there really was just one thing missing to make her a proper Catwoman fit to make The Dark Knight, er, rise.

The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman - New and Improved

 

Oh Photoshop, is there nothing you can't do?

So, my good friends over at Gotham Trending were the first to post this semi-yummy new promo pic of The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman. 

Unlike last year's set photos, this is a "Promo Pic," a provocative pose, nice lighting on the tush, lots of detail on the costume, and as they pointed out over at GT, it seems intended for all of us to get busy making up our own artwork.

Rather than simply plop it against a Gotham backdrop, I decided… Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.  Last year, while Anne Hathaway's stunt double was on a motorcycle playing chicken with an IMAX camera that should have known better, some of us who weren't wincing for the poor camera man noticed she was wearing the Jim Balent thigh boots.  Since we see now that she's got the long gloves to match, there really was just one thing missing to make her a proper Catwoman fit to make The Dark Knight, er, rise.

The Dark Knight Rises Catwoman - New and Improved

 

The Dark Knight (apolo) Gises

I'm not sure what it says about my sad excuse for a writer's brain that I made up this picture and didn't see the pun until somebody else started sharing it.

Cat-Tales: The Gotham Rogues – Chapter 6: Against Belief

Cat-Tales: The Gotham Rogues – Chapter 6: Against Belief

You knew it was close when the trailer went up yesterday.  Now it's here.  On the official Cat-Tales website, natch, and the mobile-friendly mirror Cat-Tales.mobi.  Enjoy.

The Gotham Rogues: Watch the Tigers Fight

It's the video trailer for the next installment of  Cat-Tales: The Gotham Rogues – Against Belief

Gotham has been torn by war before between The Gotham Rogues and the Gotham Mobs, in The Dark Knight, in The Long Halloween, but the war between Batman's theme villains and organized crime has never played out quite like it's happening in Cat-Tales.

Now we’re talking…

So he's all "I don't think those jewels belong to you" and she says "I salute you, world's greatest detective."

So he's all "The easy way or the hard way" and she says "Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get?"

The Gotham Post... pinheads

Now we're talking…

So he's all "I don't think those jewels belong to you" and she says "I salute you, world's greatest detective."

So he's all "The easy way or the hard way" and she says "Why Batman, how hard do you want it to get?"

The Gotham Post... pinheads

And so it begins… After Coffee

The Gotham Rogues Chapter 5: And So It Begins

It's a tricky business being the one-woman marketing department for an operation like Cat-Tales.  See, I had a plan.  Come backstage with me for a minute, pay  no attention to the madman spattering paint over there on the Occupy Gotham set.  It means nothing.

Okay, so, it's a new chapter day, and I had a plan.  There's the link to the chapter on the main Cat-Tales site and on the mobile-friendly mirror, that's two links for me to be a-posting.  There's the Cat-Tales Facebook Page and then there's my personal profile, and I think it's tedious and annoying to be posting the same things in both places within seconds of each other.  So what I like to do is give a little teaser on my profile while the CT page gets the links, then I go on and send out the newsletter, post on the forum, etc. etc. and finally go back to Facebook and share the link on the profile.

I had my teaser all picked out, or at least narrowed down.  The title of the chapter is: And So It Begins, a reference, of course, to this moment

Nothing says the long built up war is finally upon us like those 4 little words: And So It Begins

I didn't expect to actually find it on YouTube, but it's there, along with this rather haunting piece of music with the same title:

No doubt the same allusion.  It's the phrase of choice to indicate a war against the rising darkness.  Joe Straczynski did the same on Babylon 5.

So anyway, I teased the new chapter day and shared the link, got on with my day, uploaded the new chapters, went about sharing that link on Facebook, Twitter, sent newsletter, posted in forum and… uh, oops… turns out I didn't share the video on my profile after all.

Have I ever mentioned what a total mess I am before coffee?  I was logged in to post on the Cat-Tales PAGE when I shared the video, so it went up there along with the chapter links.  That's perfectly obvious now, but before Gevalia's caffeine lube has worked its magic on my brain, you should have seen me trying to figure out why the damn thing I KNEW I had posted was. not. there.

Moral: don't try to facebook before coffee.  Just, don't.

Oh, yeah, the new chapter, right.  Cat-Tales #65:  The Gotham Rogues, Chapter 5: And So It Begins on the Cat-Tales website and mobile-friendly Cat-Tales.mobi