A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 42

Frozen is Fantastic

Saw Frozen this weekend.  You should see it too.  But maybe you’re hesitant for any number of reasons.  You might have been hit by the well-meaning, often unfairly marginalized feminist objections to the film’s changes to the original tale.  The advertising campaign might have convinced you it’s just a slight little musical fantasy film aimed at children.  Or maybe you just object to Disney movies in general.

Now put aside those objections and go see the damned film already.

To address the feminist complaint (which I often agree with by the way), the film does indeed feature male characters in prominent roles.  It also does that thing, much like Tangled, where the title is deliberately gender neutral to avoid sending up any “girls are icky” red flags.  Despite these initial impressions, the movie is exactly the kind of story we could use more of.  Its two female leads are the heart of the story.  The male characters function mostly as support, and the central conflict and resolution relies almost entirely on the relationship between the two sisters.  Much like the often misunderstood Brave, this film isn’t a love story, and its heroines aren’t the default plucky ultra-capable version of empowered that pops up a little too often when someone is trying to create a strong female character.  No, Anna and Elsa are allowed to have flaws, and those flaws (as well as their strengths) are what drive the story.

Much like Brave too, the story doesn’t really go where we’ve been trained to expect it to.  Not to get too far off topic, but one of the elements I loved about Brave was that Merida is not an action girl.  Yes, she can fight and use a bow and loves to ride the countryside and explore, but she doesn’t have to be a better fighter than everyone.  She is plucky, sure, but that same pluckiness (along with her mother’s stubborn traditional nature) that causes every complication, and Merida doesn’t save the day with her strong sword arm, but with compassion, understanding, and self-realization.  That’s pretty heavy stuff for an animated film, and not one that even a lot of critics understand about the film.  Probably because we’re so conditioned to see Merida and her tale as a typical empowered fairy tale re-imagining.

Back to Frozen, the film is full of subversions, and yet, it never seems to be stretching to reach them.  Like Brave, if you’re not paying attention, it’d probably be easy to miss many of them.  Anna is plucky and passionate, both her greatest strength and weakness.  Elsa has self-loathing and isolation issues, and those plaque her more than any outside villain or force.

Heck, like Brave, this movie also suggests that parents aren’t perfect and even when well-meaning, they can make things worse.  That’s a complex message for a “kid’s movie”.

Frozen is a wonderful film with a lot of depth to it, and it’s definitely a must see, regardless of any reservations you might have.  I’d talk more about the film, but to do so would give away a lot of surprises.  Even saying the film has surprises probably gives away a few.

It also reminds me why it is so difficult to get an original story made anymore.  Frozen‘s advertising focused on the adventure, the funny snowman, the possible romantic angles because it’s genuinely impossible to tackle the story’s deeper themes and central conflict in a thirty second commercial.  Advertising, by its current nature, forces any film with an intriguing premise to be repackaged into something that’s easy to sell, and in thirty seconds, the easiest thing to sell is something you’ve already sold before.  Tangled had a similar problem, as did Pacific Rim, I believe.  Advertisers must show the BIG moments, and hope the audience will be convinced.

This is where a lot of the objections to Frozen were born.  The core of the story, the relationship between the sisters, is impossible to summarize in a sound bite, and dialogue outside of context will never make the same impression as a catchy song and a big visual.  The funny little snowman is more than just a few running gags and silly lines.  (He’s actually a terrific character, representing boundless optimism and joy, and a belief in dreaming.  He’s probably the most standard princess-like character in the entire film.)  So the film relies on focusing on the big moments because it really doesn’t have a choice, but it also does so at the cost of making the film seem insubstantial and predictable, two things it definitely isn’t.

Finally, I’d like to address the weird issues of lesbianism that get dropped any time a movie like this comes around.  It seems like whenever an animated female character comes along who isn’t focused on getting a boyfriend, inevitably, the cry will go up about a lesbian agenda.  This is absurd.  I can see why the homosexual community might be eager for their first mainstream gay animated character (and even impatient about it), but it’s puzzling to me that anyone outside that community would feel the need to read anything of the sort going on here.  These accusations were thrown around against Brave too because apparently the idea of a young woman who isn’t ready to settle down and hook up with a guy she just met is somehow code for her being gay.  And now it’s getting tossed at Elsa, who doesn’t even have a romantic subplot to reject.

I get it.  Homosexuality is a hot button issue, but if you’re offended by the notion of a young woman not getting married at the end of a story, then maybe you’re concerns about corrupting our children are a bit overblown.  As for the homosexual community, hang in there, folks.   Your characters will come along some day.  Though, again, I understand the impatience.

So see Frozen.  It’s a wonderful tale, told brilliantly.  It’s fun, lively, subversive without being gimmicky, classic while being modern, and a finely-tuned masterpiece of filmmaking.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Mage Wars (a board game review)

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed any tabletop games.  Just in case you weren’t aware of it, Action Force, I am a big fan of tabletop board and card games.  I was writing reviews before it became a “thing”, and before Will Wheaton started doing it, I sometimes imagined I was the most famous board game advocate out there.  This was probably not true, but I liked to believe it anyway.  In an effort to regain my tabletop credibility, I’m going to start reviewing more games, and because I am something of a gaming hipster, whether I like it or not, I am going to review games you probably haven’t heard of but really should have.

Today’s game is Mage Wars by Arcane Wonders.  (http://magewars.com/jsite/)

Mage Wars could probably be described as a tactical version of Magic: The Gathering.  If you haven’t played M:tG or don’t know what it is, don’t worry about that.  It’s really not important.  Other than to say, if you’re a fan of M:tG, you will probably like (or even love) Mage Wars.  It has all of the charm and strategy of M:tG, but without the blind collectible aspect and with a few board game elements like positioning and dice.

If you’ve never played M:tG, that’s not a big deal either.  Mage Wars is thematically a duel between magically powerful spellcasters who summon creatures, hurl fireballs, and otherwise do everything you would expect magical wizards to do if they faced off in combat.  The beauty of Mage Wars is that while it is a complex game with a lot of interesting interactions, the creatures, spells, and attacks all work on an intuitive level.  The idea is that if you summon a killer plant monster into the arena, the rules will have it behave like a killer plant monster.  If a guy in metal armor is hit by a lightning bolt, he’ll get an extra jolt.  If you feed sacrifices to your dark masters, you can summon a wicked cool demon a little easier, etc.  Add to this that each style of mage has their own strengths (while still having a customizable selection of spells), and you end up with a game with an incredible amount of depth and replayability.

The four mage types in the basic game are the beastmaster (master of . . . well . . . beasts), the warlock (fire and demons), the priestess (angelic servants and healing), and the wizard (traditional mythical monsters and resource control).  Each has their own particular style, and the game offers suggested spellbooks for each mage to best represent their abilities.  However, there are also nifty rules for building your own spellbook, and if you want to have a warlock who can heal a little bit or a beastmaster who plays with fire, you can do that too (if you’re willing to invest in those options).

The game might seem intimidating at first because there is a lot going on here, but it’s aided by a very helpful index of keywords, most of which don’t really need much definition.  You’ll probably figure out what “flammable” or “slow” mean pretty quickly, and so playing the game is really as simple as sitting down and understanding the basics.  It’ll take many games before you can grasp all the crazy interactions and infinite possibilities, but that’s what makes the game interesting in the long term.

But, putting aside all the rules, the question is how fun is the game?  For me, a game like this works best when I can visualize what is happening.  I have nothing against abstract games, but a game like this should be something I can see unfolding like an epic action adventure sequence.  And Mage Wars succeeds brilliantly in this regard.

In one recent game, I was playing a druid versus a beastmaster.  As the druid, I grew killer plants all through the arena as the beastmaster fired magic arrows and summoned wild animals to the battle.  The battle ended as a rooted my opponent in place with stranglevines (exactly what the name leads you to believe) and hurled acid balls at her, thus cementing my victory.

In another game, playing as the necromancer, I unleashed an endless tide of skeleton warriors to destroy my opponent’s life-restoring tree and giant guardian ent.

Games are always full of such interactions, and it’s not difficult to see the arena as a chaotic jumble of monsters and magic, where opponents work to outmaneuver each other at every turn.

Mage Wars even has regular expansions (about two a year so far) that introduce new mage types as well as adding new cards to the base set.  While strictly optional, these are great additions to the game.  Unlike collectible card games, these are not random either, so there’s no chasing down cards to find that rare creature or spell.

The first expansion, Forcemaster vs Warlord, introduced the forcemaster (master of psychic powers) and the warlord (a magical general who commands armies).  The second, Conquest of Kumanjaro, added a variation of the beastmaster and the priest.  And the third, Druid vs Necromancer, added two more mage types.  Each mage adds more options, more creatures, more everything, but they aren’t strictly necessary, and the base game of Mage Wars is already brimming with more choices than most players will ever need.  Although I do enjoy a good skeleton army now and then.

Mage Wars does have a few weaknesses.  First, it isn’t a great casual game for someone who has never played this type of game before.  It’s not that the game is confusing or difficult.  It has a lot of depth, but it can be played casually.  However, most people who aren’t familiar with games of this type will probably be intimidated by the amount of options and the terminology (even though they shouldn’t be).  Still, in a world where most people think Monopoly or Clue when it comes to tabletop games, this can be a bit overwhelming.  My advice on that is to just sit down and start playing.  Most people will pick it up quickly once they get over their initial impression.

Secondly, a game can take a while.  A full came can easily take two hours (or more if neither player is aggressive enough).  There is an apprentice mode meant to limit options and speed play.  I’ve found that for quicker games, all I have to do is reduce each mage’s starting health and only use half the arena.  The game then easily fits into an hour, even with new players.

Thirdly, there are obviously some supernatural themes at work.  Some people might find that unsettling.  Especially with the Warlock (who summons demons) or the necromancer (who brings animated corpses to the field).  While I find these objections a little silly myself, if they’re something that bother you, the game might not be for you.  Although if only certain aspects of the supernatural bother you, it’s easy enough to play without them, too.

Mage Wars is a hell of a game, and one I recommend highly.  If the idea of taking on the mantle of a powerful sorcerer who controls monsters and commands the forces of magic sounds at all interesting to you, it’s definitely worth considering.  It is, hands down, the best game of its type currently out there, and, yes, I’m including Magic: the Gathering in that category though M:tG has portability and near ubiquitous market saturation on its side, I’ll admit.

Bottom Line:  I’d consider it a MUST BUY if the theme sounds appealing at all, and it remains a fantastic game in every sense of the word.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The (Hypothetical) Video Games of A. Lee Martinez

The Bibliomancer asked (via my Tumblr account, which you should visit if you haven’t yet http://a-lee-martinez.tumblr.com/):

Are there any of your books that you would like to see as a video game or as the inspiration for one?

 

Yes.  All of them.

Well, maybe not all of them.

No, wait.  Yes, all of them.  Why limit myself?  I’m sure everything I’ve written could be made into a crackerjack collection of video games.  Not that anyone has come knocking with any proposals yet.  That’s one of the bummers of this business.  Just because I’m a semi-successful novelologist, it doesn’t mean I have any influence in other forms of media.  Or much influence in publishing, if I’m being truly honest.  But it’s fun to imagine, and I think each novel I’ve written could form an interesting basis for a wide variety of games.  But what genre of game, you’re probably asking yourself.  (Or maybe you just have nothing better to do and are killing some time.  I’m cool with that too.)

Gil’s All Fright Diner would probably make an interesting survival horror idea, though with a more casual bent.  Imagine Silent Hill if everyone was a bit jaded about the weird stuff going on, and your character is tough enough to handle most horrors that came your way.  But an out of the way rural town where supernatural mysteries are a way of life could be intriguing, even a subversion of the genre while still sticking to what keeps the genre interesting.  Or so I’d like to believe the book itself manages to do.

In the Company of Ogres I imagine in a Mass Effect style RPG where you create your character and lead a team of ragtag misfits on an adventure.  It might even be interesting to have the player directly control Never Dead Ned, who is a hero deliberately designed to be unexceptional in every regard, while commanding his chosen squad to fight the bad guys.  The beauty of this is that Ned has a built in justification for extra lives, and your squad could range from burly ogre Frank to shapeshifting goblin Seamus or Regina the brutally efficient soldier or Miriam the siren or, well, take your pick.  You’d go on missions, upgrade your team, form bonds, and beat up a lot of bad guys.  And because your Ned, you’d probably get beat up a lot yourself, but that’d be an interesting variation on the badass leader that we so often see.

A Nameless Witch is a tougher nut to crack.  It could make an interesting adventure game, much like Ogres, but perhaps with more mysticism.  Also, the witch would be an interesting lead character because most of her magic is subtle and while she is undoubtedly powerful, she isn’t the kind to wade into battle directly very often.  But that’s why it’d be fun to switch over to her supporting cast for those types of segments.  Seriously, if you’re not jazzed about the idea of slaughtering a horde of bad guys while controlling a demon duck, I find it hard to believe you’re a fan of mine.

The Automatic Detective is an obvious L.A. Noir possibility.  I have never actually played that game, but he notion of investigations with action sequences is pretty much the heart of Detective.  Mack could alternate between talking to suspects, piecing together clues, and punching the hell out of giant robots and slime monsters.  I think we can all agree that’d be awesome.

Too Many Curses I see as a fantasy-themed sim, where the player takes on the role of caretaker of Margle’s cursed castle.  The object of the game would be to keep things in order while maintaining the well-being of the castle’s many cursed residents.  Think of it as a dungeon management game where you don’t have to worry about outside heroes but everything inside the walls.  The Sims for those who would rather manage undead monsters and unruly dragons than ordinary folks.

Monster would be open world.  You’d explore a city, taking calls, tracking down cryptobiological beasties.  Along the way, you’d level up your skills in magic, take on bigger beasties, and take on a larger story.  But in the tradition of sandbox games, if you just wanted to cruise around earning money by capturing yetis and rogue trolls, that’d be cool too.

Divine Misfortune is probably one of the more difficult translations because it is, despite being about gods, one of my more sedate and down-to-earth tales.  I could see it as an MMO, where every player takes on the role of a god and competes for tribute among the mortal population.  You’d start out as a minor deity, completing simple requests, until you eventually grew powerful enough to take on bigger jobs.  The big problem is that it isn’t about the traditional sort of conflict MMOs favor, but that must makes it more intriguing.  A game where your quest chain involves helping a NPC get a promotion or impress a date could actually be pretty cool if done properly.

Chasing the Moon would be intriguing as open world too.  Like Monster, but with an even looser sense of reality.  The cool idea here would be that things would start out relatively normal but as the game progresses, the city environment becomes weirder and weirder.  By the end, while the city could still be recognizable, it could also be alien and bizarre, full of alien creatures and otherworldly locations.  The player could take on the role of a reluctant assistant to West, which would justify going deeper into the weirdness, and it could have all manner of gameplay from puzzles to combat to exploration.  Yeah, that could be amazing.

Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain is easy.  Straight up pulp style space adventure.  Lots of interesting set pieces.  The ability to customize Emperor in ways that only an exoskeleton cephalopod offers.  Robot battles.  Space battles.  Lost civilizations.  Intergalactic war.  Cool inventions.  Probably one of the easier books to translate into gameplay, so someone should get on that.

Finally, Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest I could imagine as an old school point-and-click adventure.  Think the Monkey Island series, but in a modern day magical world.

None of these are likely to happen anytime soon, but there are possibilities here.  So if someone wants to talk, you know where to find me.

Next time, I’ll talk about what kind of tabletop games my books could take on.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Demon with 10,000 Fists (An Untitled Short Story)

 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any free fiction.  Today’s short story is from an unpublished idea I have called Demon with 10,000 Fists.  It’s probably the closest thing I’ve ever written to traditional urban fantasy (if there is such a thing).  There’s a lot of backstory here, but rather than get into it, I figure I’ll just leave it here for you to enjoy.  And if you don’t enjoy it, remember, it was free.

It currently doesn’t have a title.

A girl can’t help but contemplate her life choices when she’s punching a man in the face for a rent-controlled apartment.

In my defense, the guy was trying to set me on fire at the time.

Dragon stumbled back and wiped away the blood dripping from his nose. He chuckled and smiled. “You can’t beat me.”

I adjusted my stance, held my fists out before me, and motioned for him to make a move. “I can always beat a gimmick.”

“You think your insults are going to make me sloppy? I expected more from you.” He adjusted his jacket sleeve. Smoke sizzled and a slight scorch was left where his hand touched. He wasn’t as confident as he pretended. Then again, neither was I.

“You need to leave,” I said.

Dragon sneered. Half his face was pink and red scars. His right hand had a few more burns peeking out from the cuffs. I didn’t know how much of his flesh he’d offered up to the flame he loved. I didn’t want to know. The Game demanded sacrifices of its players. We’d all made them, myself included. I didn’t judge Dragon for his choices. I judged him for being a colossal asshole that I would’ve been happy to kill under the right circumstances.

These were not those circumstances. Behind me, the old lady who owned this place lay stiff on the floor. She might’ve been dead, but I doubted it. Dragon didn’t kill someone without making a mess out of it. A burning, blackened mess.

“Who sent you?” he asked.

“Profit,” I replied. “You?”

“Alpha.”

It was understood then that neither of us were backing down. I’d already been paid by Profit, and accepting a paycheck from her was an unbreakable deal. Not because I feared her, though I did because I wasn’t stupid, but because I couldn’t break it if I wanted to.

Alpha was much the same except that I doubted Dragon even got paid for this gig. Alpha gave orders, and people followed those orders, often despite themselves. I doubted Dragon had any resistance to the compulsion. The guy loved burning stuff to the ground. Maybe more than I liked punching guys who loved burning stuff to the ground.

“Profit’s got more mojo,” I said. “You can’t win this even with Alpha behind you.”

Dragon shrugged. “Says you. Only one way to know for sure, right?” He ran his fingers along an old recliner, and some yellow flames danced along it, eager to get things started and start a blaze. He snapped his fingers. The flames died out. His boss must’ve wanted the place undamaged. That’d work to my advantage.

The apartment, a nice, spacious loft, was important for the Game. All across this city, across this world, there were places of power. They weren’t all Stonehenge or Great Pyramids. Some were quiet, unassuming apartments that sat unnoticed for decades until a Player stumbled across them and sensed their true value. No one knew why mojo gathered in certain spots, but when you found a reservoir, you damn well took it before someone else could.

This was why an old woman was out cold on the floor, and I was staring down Dragon, who would love nothing more than to sear my skin away, layer by layer.

This was the Game, played under the nose of a world full of chumps, who thought their lives added up to anything, but in the end, it’d be the Players who determined the outcome. Still, I’d be damned if I let Dragon claim another chump while I was around. They had it hard enough already.

He must’ve read my thoughts in my face. “You always did have a soft spot for these losers.”

He gave me an opening to respond. I didn’t take it.

“I used to think you were cool, Shaolin,” he said. “Punching through bricks. Flying from rooftop to rooftop. All those awesome roundhouse kicks and crazy ass karate chops.” He imitated a few chops with a high-pitched squeal. “It looks cool. It really does. But, in the end, you and I both know all that matters is mojo. And I bet my mojo beats your mojo any day of the week.”

I had enough. Talking wasn’t going to settle this. Neither of us were that kind of Player. I charged forward and landed an iron knuckle punch into his chest. He fell back against the wall and coughed up some more blood. I followed up with a spinning side kick that would’ve crushed his chest, but he moved aside. My foot pulverized the wall behind him as he grabbed my ankle.

The flesh seared as his fingers burned into me, and the pain was more than physical. It scorched my soul. I failed to stifle my yell as I jumped back. Out of contact, the leg still burned, and the pain danced up my calf like hot spiders.

He laughed. “Got you now. See, I’ve learned a few things. I don’t need to keep touching you to burn you. Once you’re marked, you’re mine. You can feel it now, can’t you? The rising heat. Making you sweat. Making it hard to breath. Hard to think. You’ve lost.”

If he was right, the only thing keeping me from going up like a roman candle were my personal stores of mojo. Those couldn’t last forever.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “All you gotta do is hit me hard enough.”

Laughing, he burst into flame. The fire covered his entire body. It sizzled around the edges of his suit, and his eyebrows smoldered.

“Take your best shot then.”

 

***

 

When you get a call from Profit, you answer it. There were a lot of Players in the Game, and where they sat on the invisible scoreboard that kept track of such things, nobody really knew. But Profit was in the top ten, everyone agreed, and she could destroy most of us with a phone call and the loss of a teeny tiny bit of cash from the pile of money that gave her her mojo.

For most people, money meant happiness, control, security. For Profit, it meant power in a very literal sense. Part Gandalf the Gray, part J.D. Rockefeller, Profit’s bank accounts controlled the fates of nations. Her campaign donations made people into presidents. Her debt collections unleashed natural disasters. And if she called you for a personal meeting, you damn well went.

For a Player, she was a great source of mojo, and I’d worked for her before. We didn’t usually meet face-to-face. We didn’t talk on the phone. Most of my orders were given to me by the army of employees at her disposal. That was the way I liked it. Profit might not have been God, but she was a god, and I was a demi-god at best. I liked the mojo she threw my way, but I also liked being mostly ignored by her while she was throwing it.

Her secretary was a tall, handsome man who wore glasses and a crisp black suit. He was Superman trying to pass as nebbish Clark Kent and failing. Not that I found him imitating. A chump was a chump was a chump, even if working for Profit.

He didn’t smile at me. “Do you have an appointment, Ms. . . . ?”

“Shaolin,” I replied, though he knew I was due. He was simply reminding me of my place. Profit never saw anyone on time. Knowing that, I didn’t bother showing up on time, but I always had to wait.

“She’ll be right with you,” he said.

“I just bet she will.” I took a seat in the waiting area outside her office and flipped through a magazine I’d read a couple of times already. Ten minutes later, I was allowed to see Profit. Her assistant made sure to emphasize the word allowed.

Her office was a giant empty space, aside from a weird sculpture and her desk at the far end. The walk from the door to that desk was another reminder of how unimportant I was. She didn’t get up to greet me. She continued going through papers. I sat in the chair opposite the desk, folded my hands in my lap, and enjoyed the view in the window behind her that overlooked the city. I waited another three minutes to be acknowledged. I timed it.

“You really should take care to project a more professional image,” she said.

I shrugged. “Business casual isn’t my style.”

I tended toward loose T-shirts and relaxed-fit jeans. They were easier to move in. Not that I couldn’t kick ass in an evening gown and heels. I just preferred not to. Profit might not have liked it, but she didn’t hire me for my fashion sense.

She nodded to an envelope on the desk. I’d known it was mine but hadn’t touched it until given permission. There was a check, a contract, and a piece of paper with an address written on it.

“I need you to go to that apartment, have the current tenant sign the contract, give them their check.”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“They might need some convincing.”

I glanced at the number of zeroes in the check. I had a hard time imagining anyone could say no to that. For a chump, it was a lot of money. For a Player, it was a lot of money and mojo.

She didn’t elaborate on the kind of convincing that she expected. I was only really good at one kind.

“You know I don’t beat on chumps,” I said.

She looked up from her desk with a slight, amused smile. My ethics were an anomaly among Players, who usually saw chumps as unworthy of consideration. Even the best Players tended to not give a damn if a few innocent people got hurt if it helped them advance their position on the scoreboard.

“Hurting people is what you do,” she said.

“Hurting bad people is what I do.”

She shook her head. “No such thing as good or bad. Only Players and chumps, opponents and collateral damage.”

I noticed she didn’t mention allies, but when you were high enough on the scoreboard, there was no such thing. Only tools to be used and discarded and enemies to be crushed.

“I don’t hurt chumps,” I said.

Profit stopped working. She leaned back in her chair and sized me up. I did my best not to twitch, but it felt like God was deciding whether She should step on me or not.

“You’re not going to win with that attitude.”

“That’s my problem,” I said.

“You won’t have to hurt her. She’ll take the check. They always take it in the end. But I need you to do this because there might be some trouble, and despite your haphazard appearance and unprofessional attitude, you come through. I value reliability.”

“Stop. You’re making me blush.”

If Profit ever laughed, she might have then. She went back to work without saying another word to me. Her assistant appeared like a phantom over my right shoulder. “This way, Miss Shaolin.”

“It’s Shaolin,” I said. “Just Shaolin.”

On the long walk out the office and the longer elevator ride to the ground floor, I had time to consider the job. I knew the apartment was a place of power. It was the only thing Profit would pay this much money for and the only reason to send me to secure it. With some luck, it’d be a simple transaction, but Profit didn’t send me on many simple jobs. She always knew when trouble was coming and when my particular skillset was required.

The truth was that I did hurt people, and as long as those people deserved it, I didn’t mind. I did sometimes feel bad about that and that my moral code, however unusual, was all just so much bullshit, a silly little justification to beat the hell out of people. Like everyone, I was a prisoner to my nature, but the contrived guilt about that at least helped me sleep better at night.

 

***

 

Profit had been right. I’d found the old lady on the floor with Dragon ready to do unspeakable things to her. Now, I stood there as the heat climbed up my leg and my vision blurred and Dragon, covered in fire, leered at me.

I hadn’t planned on going out like this, but the Game had its winners and losers. Every Player thought they were a winner until they finally lost, and most everyone lost eventually. Crossing paths with the wrong guy on the wrong day to discover that their mojo was stronger than yours. It all came down to mojo. The fire, the martial arts, the business empire, they were all merely how that mojo expressed itself.

Right now, Dragon’s mojo overshadowed my own. He landed a flaming punch across my chin. His form was lousy, but my reflexes were slow, my senses dull. He kicked me in the side in a move I should’ve easily dodged. I lashed out with a textbook shadow strike. He blocked it.

Nobody blocked a shadow strike this close.

He grabbed my wrist, and I stifled a scream as he scorched my flesh. The heat coming off his body combined with the heat building in my gut made it impossible to concentrate. I could smell both of us burning, but that fire only made Dragon stronger.

His sweltering breath washed over my face. He laughed.

“I always knew I could beat you.”

He reached out with two flaming fingers to poke out my eyes. I seized his arm and twisted. He yelped as I flung him across the room. He landed on the couch, setting it ablaze. I struggled to gather my wits while he got to his feet. The flame that consumed the couch didn’t spread, but it was more heat to overwhelm me.

“Some fight still left in you, Shaolin. Good. I want you to go down slowly. You want to punch me? Kick me? Go ahead. I can take it.” The flames on his body brightened a blinding white. “Can you?”

I gather my mojo in a tight ball between my hands. If he’d have had any sense, he would’ve stopped me, but Dragon made the mistake of thinking he’d won before the fight was over. I thrust forward the quenching wind palms. It pushed forth a wall of air that shoved Dragon back a few steps, and also extinguished the couch and Dragon.

Before he could react, I leapt forward and kicked him across the face. His neck didn’t break because my focus was still off.

He triggered his engulfing flames again, but the quenching wind took care of that. I smashed an elbow into his neck, and he fell over, choking. He tried raging at me, but all that came out was a pathetic croaking.

He tried burning up again, but the scales had tipped. It was barely a sputter.

The heat in my body was dying. I still had trouble breathing, but I could focus past it.

Dragon had fight in him. I had to give him that. He stood on uneasy legs as fire sparked in random points on his body. He tried one clumsy punch that I dodged without even thinking about. I shoved two fingers into his ribcage and twisted, then stepped back as his fire died away.

I let him recover a bit. When his voice came back, he said, “What the hell did you do?”

“Mojo blockage,” I replied. “You’ll recover from it in time. Or not. But you’re finished for now.”

He looked at his hands and sneered. “You can’t take away my fire.” His skin reddened as scars on his face darkened.

“You don’t want to do that,” I said. “Blocked mojo has a way of—”

Geysers of flame burst out of every orifice in his body and burned a couple of new orifices while they were at it. Screaming, he fell to his knees and burst into a smokeless blue fire. He said something or maybe he only gagged on the flame raging within. He collapsed on his face, twitching a little, popping, sizzling. I let him burn for a minute before putting him out.

I limped over to check on the old woman. She was alive, all right, and when she came to her senses, I’d give her the check. I had a feeling she’d sell. If the check didn’t convince her, the stench of burning flesh was sure to.

 

***

 

You would think getting rid of a body would be hard, but Profit had a way of taking care of problems. The mess was cleaned up. The old woman, her name was Joan, took the money. It was a smart move. Now that the apartment was public knowledge among the Players, it wasn’t a safe place to call home.

It didn’t hold enough mojo to make it worth much to Profit, but it was a boost to me. She didn’t want it, but she didn’t want any other Player having it. The deal was simple. She paid the rent. I lived there. Half of the mojo filtered up to her, half came to me. I made sure it didn’t fall into unapproved hands, and the boost made me a better troubleshooter. There weren’t many win/win situations in the Game, so I took them when they came along. Living here was bound to have consequences, but it beat the hell out of my old place.

And after a while, I barely even noticed the smell.

 

Old Classics versus New Pop

Here at the A. Lee Martinez Action Force Clubhouse, I’m here to do more than rail against popular culture and extoll the virtues of dinobots.  I’m also answer questions the general public might have about popular culture and the virtues of dinobots.

Today’s question comes from Jimmy via Facebook.

I’m a teacher at a classical school and one of the things the principal has said is “The difference between classical literacy and popular literacy is the inner struggle the hero must endure before the story’s end.” What are your thoughts on this claim?

When I asked for clarification, he followed up with this:

From what the principal stated, Classical literature (in the opinion of who I call the embracers of “high-brow” culture)  does indeed imply this – an emotional depth that does not exist within popular literacy. For example, The illiad and the odessy vs Harry Potter.

It’s an old debate.  What constitutes Literature versus what constitutes (for lack of a better term) a mere Book?

The most common measuring stick seems to be how well-respected and old the story is.  Also, it helps if it’s kind of boring.  From my personal experience, moon monsters and space squid supervillains eliminate a story from literature right off the bat.  Basically, if you have to force a young adult to read the book and a dog is killed at some point, it’s literature.  If it’s actually something people enjoy reading, it’s just a book.

This all goes back to that most basic precept of human nature:  If it tastes good, it must be bad for us.  Or at least not good for us.

As a guy who writes about space squids and slime monsters, it’s obvious how I feel about this assumption.  I like writing fun books that are easy to digest, and I also think that just because they are enjoyable, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re empty of deeper content.  I’ve never been a fan of the notion that unpleasant experiences are innately more meaningful than pleasant ones.  Although this too is human nature.

Most psychology studies show that we innately place more value on negative experiences.  We also are constantly told that reading something difficult shows intelligence, while reading something popular is akin to enjoying cotton candy.  It’s nonsense, and it’s nonsense because it routinely dismisses the emotional depths, joys, and investments of “The Common People”.

And I get where that’s coming from.  The lowest common denominator is a scary place to visit, and it’s difficult not to see the popularity of shows like Honey Boo Boo or Jersey Shore without cringing a little.  There’s little doubt that a lot of people are kind of dumb, and not truly interested in depth or philosophical examination of themselves or their world.  There’s also little point in denying that a lot of fiction is designed to be consumed and discarded without saying much of anything.  I have no problem with that kind of fiction either, though I’ll admit it bugs me when my own books are dropped into that category.  And it bugs me even more when things I enjoy and think are full of deeper ideas are dismissed as fluff.

I’m trying to dance around this idea a bit, but let’s stop wasting time.  The fact is a lot of people seem to think that reading “smart” things makes them smart.  This is just not true.  You can read all the literature you like, but it doesn’t necessarily make you more intelligent or more fulfilled than someone who reads “books”.  Books can have great characters, satisfying character arcs, larger questions to ponder, and even be fun.  A story that reaches the masses is not innately stupid, less worthwhile.

Confession time:  I am not a huge Harry Potter fan.  I haven’t read all the books, and I have little interest in them.  But when I hear people talk about the books, when I see their passion and their joy, I’m hard-pressed to dismiss this as merely fluff.  It doesn’t matter if I get it or not because it isn’t about me.  It’s about their experience, and I’ve heard enough people talk about the depths of Harry Potter to believe that there are depths to be found.  That the books sold millions of copies doesn’t mean they’re meaningless.  Just as if a book sells only three copies this doesn’t make it genius.

The ultimate question above though was the assumption that there is no character arcs or true emotional depths to be found in mainstream books.  That is bull.  Complete and utter bull, and it deserves to be met with a rebuttal.  I have nothing against Shakespeare, and I absolutely love mythology in all its forms, but they didn’t stake the claim to artistic and emotional resonance.  And, really, have you read some of that stuff?  It’s pretty unsubtle at times.  Shakespeare loves having his characters pause and tell the audience exactly what they’re feeling.  Myths are full of characters doing dumb stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense simply because it’d make a better story.

I’m not saying Harry Potter will stand the test of time, but I’m also not saying it won’t.  Only time will tell that.  But most things don’t.

Also, it seems like too often we’re discussing the form of the story, not the actual merits of the story itself.  It’s like calling Pacific Rim a “dumb giant robot movie”. That says nothing about the content of the story, its character arcs, its choices and execution, and instead only makes an assumption about it based on the subject matter.  It doesn’t bother me when someone dislikes Pacific Rim, but it does annoy me when they dismiss it as shallow simply by existing.

Heck, I’ll admit to falling into that trap on myself occasionally.  I reflexively dislike anything labeled as “literature” because I equate it with stuffy, boring stories.  It’s a prejudice I’ve developed over the years, and one I don’t always conquer.  I don’t like a lot of literature, but I love a lot of books.  I’m willing to admit I’ve probably missed out on a lot of interesting books because of this reflex.

If we could be honest with ourselves, we’d admit that we all have our buttons and if a story manages to push those buttons, it works for us.  If it doesn’t, we only end up seeing all of its flaws, flummoxed that others can’t.  I’ve wasted enough blog entries on Star Trek: Into Darkness and Man of Steel to appreciate that, and while I do think those are two incredibly flawed films, I realize that it’s just one opinion.  I doubt either will stand the test of time, but I don’t have a time machine, so my doubts are meaningless.

In my own stories, no matter how absurd or weird or silly they might be, I endeavor to give them depth.  I know they’re about monsters and strange, funny tales, but I strive to make them have some emotional resonance.  All of that won’t matter much to many, who will prefer their depth more somber or dull.

I get it.  I really do.  It’s innate to see something as hugely popular as somehow made for the masses.  As an artist myself, I sometimes even convince myself that my obscurity is less about getting noticed (or lack thereof) and more about my level of genius, and that if I just “dumbed down” my books, I could be a bestselling writer too.  But then I realize that this is mostly sour grapes on my part, and that while there are indeed a lot of dumb, popular books, there are a lot of smart, popular books too.  And we all know this because nobody accuses The Road of being shallow, even though it is a popular story written by a popular writer that got made into a popular movie.  (By the way, not a huge fan of that book either, but again, less about content and more about form.)

But I think when it comes to playing it safe, it’s always easy to claim classics are deeper than modern stories because few people are going to disagree with you, but has the human experience really changed all that much since the Odyssey was written?  Certainly, we’ve changed as a species, but we still struggle with the same issues we always have.  Love, Honor, Hate, Vengeance, Jealousy, Success, Failure, Indifference, etc., etc.  And to say that a story has a better handle on those issues because it is older or more obscure is merely assumption, not a truth.

My ultimate goal as a novelologist has always been to create fun, lively stories with robots and slime monsters that also have emotional and philosophical depths, and like I said before, that can be a tough path to walk sometimes.

I’m probably the wrong guy to ask though.  My favorite literary character is Tarzan, although he’s pretty old at this point so that probably means something, right?  The fifth classic struggle is Man vs. Ape, Lions, and the Occasional Dinosaur, if I recall correctly.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

A Thousand-and-One Space Wizards

Just in case you haven’t heard it yet, I’ve been working on a collection of short stories based on my previous novels titled Robots versus Slime Monsters.  My original goal for publication was the end of October, but obviously that hasn’t come to pass.  I’m finishing up the ninth story now (based on Too Many Curses), and after that, I only have to write a story based on Monster.  Then I’ll move onto the editing and formatting and all that other stuff.  With some luck, it’ll be ready by mid-December.  I’ll keep you updated, but before the year is over, I’m hoping to have both e-book and actual physical soft covers available.  So far, so good.

Writing these stories has been an interesting experience.  It’s fun to revisit worlds and characters I’ve created.  It’s allowed me to take a stroll among my previous novels, and I’m happy with the body of work I’ve created so far.  There’s no doubt that each universe has larger worlds to explore, and that all of them can tell more stories.  I’m regularly asked about sequels and series, and it’s probably inevitable I’ll end up doing that at some point.  It seems to be what people want.  But just because they want it, it doesn’t mean they should always get it.

I know saying that will probably make me look like a hypocrite when I finally do it, but I’ll freely admit that the primary motivation will be my desire to make a living.  That doesn’t mean I’ll phone in those stories, or that I won’t give them just as much attention as I do any story.  It just means that, given my druthers, I don’t know if I’d do it when I could write more standalone originals.

I have never been a big sequel fan.  Not in my own work, and usually not in the work of others.  Perhaps it’s because I don’t assume that because I liked a story that I’ll like more of it.  I think the original Star Wars trilogy is a masterpiece of science fantasy adventure, but I never had an interest in the extended universe.  From what I’ve heard, it never sounded very interesting. I absolutely love The Incredibles, and my love for it makes me actively dislike the idea of a sequel.  The film remains the best superhero story ever, and anything more is likely to sully that perfection.  Or, even worse, make it mundane.

Star Wars is a great example.  The Jedi Knights in the original are a mysterious order from the ancient past with only a handful of members still alive.  The prequels give us hundreds of Jedis, and that wonder and awe that Darth Vader embodied so beautifully in the original film is lost when there are literally hundreds of people running around with light sabers, flipping like space ninjas through the air, hurling boulders at each other.  It stops being something special, and just becomes another character class.  Heck, Han Solo, the space smuggler, is a rarer character archetype than friggin’ space wizards at this point, and that’s just weird.

I get the appeal.  Jedis are cool, so MORE Jedis must be COOLER.  And I can’t argue with the success, so I’m clearly the odd man out.  But I’d hate to have Mack Megaton become just another robot or Helen Nicolaides become just another woman with fur and horns.  I love that Emperor Mollusk is the only space squid evil genius in my stable of characters, and I’d hate for his universe to become a predictable place.

All this is irrelevant though because the general public seems to feel exactly the opposite.  They become attached to their favorite stories, and rather than finding them diluted by more of the same, they appear to find it rewarding.  A show like Once Upon a Time is built upon taking familiar characters and expanding on their origins in a shared universe, and while I’m not necessarily against the idea, I have to admit all the characters seem alike.  This is a show, for example, where both Captain Hook and Tinkerbell have tragic backstories.  For most, that seems to make them more interesting.  For me, it only makes them more generic.

I can’t be the only one who finds the notion of tacking on a tragic backstory to an established character as cliche at this point, but it sure as hell seems like it.  The question isn’t whether the public likes it.  They obviously do.  The question is it worthwhile to do.  From a purely commercial perspective, there’s no argument it works.  And not every story that goes that route is formulaic or unworthy of praise.  I can say it’s only a matter of “when”, not “if”, that I’ll end up writing a sequel, and I believe (perhaps foolishly) that I can manage to do so without weakening the characters or their original stories.  But I still believe that we could all be served a little better by more originality.

The Marvel movies have managed this by introducing old characters to a fresh audience.  There are decades of Iron Man stories, but for the average person, he’s something of a new discovery.  And I am an old school Thor fan, but most people have never heard of Malekith or Kurse, so in a way, it’s a fresh experience.  That’s probably the key to the Marvel movies’ success in the first place, a perfect blend of obscurity to the general public and familiarity to old fans.  But even this balance can’t be maintained for long, and I’ll admit I’m weird again because I’d be much more interested in Thor: The Dark World if Loki wasn’t in it.  Not because I don’t like Loki, but because the more time I spend with Loki, the less interesting he becomes.

Yet even if Loki weren’t part of it, the Marvel movies are innately less surprising as time goes by.  Iron Man 3 wasn’t a bad movie, but it was by the numbers (and it should’ve been), and  a lot of people went just to watch Robert Downey Jr. do his schtick, which he is very good at, but which I find so familiar as to be not terribly engaging.  But what do I know?  It works, and in the end, isn’t that what matters?

Giving the people what they want isn’t a bad philosophy.  Nor do I automatically assume it to be “selling out”.  But I still like to believe that sometimes, the job of the artist, is to NOT give the audience what they want.  Sometimes, no matter how much they’re clattering for more, it’s worthwhile to leave that yearning unsatisfied.  Not that this philosophy works if you want to make money, and, despite all my artistic pretense, I enjoy money too.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Mailbag: Fanfiction

I’ve been thinking about Pacific Rim, and how I think it’s a pretty great film.  I was also thinking that it’s weird that I wrote a series of essays about how cool Superman can be in response to the disappointing effort that was Man of Steel, but not much about a film I actually enjoyed.  So expect a series of essays on Pacific Rim soon, but today, I thought I’d take a few moments to answer a letter in the Action Force Mailbag.

As always, you can reach me at hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com.  Don’t be shy.  I don’t get a lot of fan mail.  Every letter is read and appreciated.  If you have a question, send it.  If you just want to say hello, feel free.

Today’s mailbag question:

 

Beau asks:

I’ve noticed in creative writing circles, there’s the fans of self publishing and the fan fiction writers.  What is your opinion of Fan Fiction?
Personally I feel that unless you’re a writer for comic books or you’re a writer for television shows where they need a new story each week, what is the point?

Also, if you do or were to write fanfic, what would it be?

I used to have a mildly negative reaction to fanfiction.  My initial response was always that it seemed a bit lazy or that it sought to borrow creativity from other, better sources.  It seemed unnecessary and, honestly, a bit weird.An interesting discussion with a friend of mine changed my mind.  She pointed out that, yes, fanfiction might indeed be a bit “lazy” and might be borrowing creativity, but that is exactly why it is so appealing to so many of its writers.  By borrowing from established stories and using established characters, an amateur writer is more freely able to begin a story than if they started entirely from scratch.  There is a fine tradition of new writers basing their characters on people they know or using familiar situations as jumping off points, even before fanfiction was established as a thing, and for a writer who either lacks confidence or simply wants to jump directly into writing, it’s a valid option.The truth is that not everyone who writes wants to become a professional novelologist.  Some people just want to write stories, and they’re perfectly fine with using pre-established ideas to do that.  Fanfiction is also a good place for new aspiring writers to begin their journey.  It can take the pressure off, allowing a new writer to focus on story, resonance, and character while they get their feet under them.  Fanfiction can allow the amateur to indulge in a fun hobby and the aspiring writer to develop their confidence.Short answer:  I’m fine with fanfiction.There’s little doubt that a lot of fanfiction is terrible stuff, but a lot of original works are terrible stuff.  And I can’t see a reason to get upset about people doing art badly.  As a matter of fact, I support people expressing creativity in whatever way they want, even though I’m certain a lot of those expressions are dreadful failures.  That’s the thing I stand by most.  A world where people are free to be creative without fear of judgment can only be a good place.Now, I’ll admit there are some mixed feelings on the topic too though.  I am hesitant to call anyone a “fake” writer, but if all someone writes is fanfiction, they probably aren’t challenging themselves enough.  It’s cool to take the easy option, but I’m also a big believer in taking that blind leap to try creating on your own.  Not surprising, I suppose, considering I’ve written ten different novels, each standalone, occupying different sub-genres.  I don’t expect everyone (or even most) people to do that, but I do expect everyone to occasionally step out of the comfort zone now and then, if only to fail gloriously before going back to it.But then I remember that most people are perfectly content to find something they’re good at it and stick with it, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  If Writer X has mastered the genre of X-Men / Dr. Seuss crossover stories and wants to keep cranking them out, more power to them.  You probably won’t make a career out of it, but then again, making a career out of original material isn’t always puppy kisses and rainbows either.On a side note, I would love more fanfiction based on my stories.  There aren’t many out there, but if you’re a fanfiction writer and so inclined, that’d be cool with me.  Just putting that out there.As for the second part of the question, if I were to write fanfiction myself, it would revolve around that great Thark chieftain, Tars Tarkas from Edgar Rice Burrough’s Mars books.  He remains one of my favorite characters in all of fiction, and while I don’t know if I could do him justice, I wouldn’t mind giving it a shot if I didn’t have my own stories to focus on.Keelah Se’laiFighting the good fight, Writing the good write,Lee

 

The Battleship Dilemma

A lot of times, when I talk about my disconnect with modern media (specifically, modern storytelling), it can come across as a dislike of its grimdark nature.  To be sure, I am not generally into gritty stories.  They don’t do a lot for me, though there are one or two that I can enjoy.  Yet I’ll admit that I prefer stories about good guys and that shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones don’t push many of my buttons.  If my only complaint was of a thematic nature, I think it’d be easier to explain.  Furthermore, it’s easy to get sidetracked by discussing morality and whether good characters are “boring” or bad guys more “interesting”, and all of that is worth talking about.  It’s just not what I’m always talking about.

Another element of my disconnect is more nebulous.  There are plenty of movies and books that I love that get little to no respect, and that’s not such a big deal.  Except it happens more and more, and I can’t help but feeling as if I’m out of tune in a deeper way than I can easily explain.

To put it another way, I loved Battleship.  Seriously, loved it.  And not in the “It’s okay because it’s cheesy” way.  No, I genuinely think Battleship is a great movie.  One of the best movies I’ve seen in recent years with solid story, acting, direction, and adventure all the way around.

I’m also the guy who liked Green Lantern quite a bit.

And I’m on record as saying that Pacific Rim is a phenomenal film from top to bottom.  More than just a dumb movie where robots punch monsters, it’s actually a very smart movie where robots punch monsters with crackerjack pacing, great characters, and a story that is thematically deeper than most people will ever give it credit for.

I adore Real Steel, which is probably the only boxing movie I can sit through, but is also better and more heartfelt than most people will ever acknowledge.

And, just to add an extra level of controversy, I think both Ghost Rider movies (while neither being more than good) are better than nearly all the Marvel superhero films (which isn’t meant as in insult as I find the Marvel films mostly acceptable still).

This is me.  These are the stories that have spoken to me, that I can actually watch over and over again, and each time I do, I usually find something new to enjoy about them.  There’s no point in denying I’m the odd man out, and that I stand in a very weird place.  I accept that easily enough.  But as a professional writer, I also have to worry about stuff like that sometimes.

And believe me, I do worry about it.

I sometimes wonder if it’s even wise to admit that I loved Battleship.  If someone stumbles across the blog, deciding if they want to buy one of my books, will that admission turn them away?  If I say, without irony, that Battleship is a slambang film with a solid story and worthy character arcs, am I undermining my artistic credibility?  It’s one thing for me to say that Man of Steel or Star Trek: Into Darkness aren’t very good movies.  It’s another to stand beside a much maligned story and say that I not only liked it, but that I think it is far superior to either of those films.

Battleship makes more sense, has a more logical character arc, and just a hell of a lot more heart than anything in Man of Steel.

There, I said it.  It’s on the record, and I’ll live with whatever consequences that come.

I don’t think it needs to be a competition.  It’s perfectly fine for people to love Man of Steel and ridicule Battleship.  It’s all opinion in the end.   But as the guy who stands by Battleship (the only guy who stands by Battleship as far as I can tell) it can be a hell of a lonely place sometimes.  Being a professional writer who strives to understand stories and why people like them makes it scarier too.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Happy Accidents

Most people acknowledge that the Star Wars prequels are flawed at best and substandard at worst.  I don’t imagine there are many people who would say they’re great films, though I’m sure if you looked hard enough you could find diehard fans who would claim they’re amazing.  Those people are wrong.

Truly, objectively wrong.

But I’m not here to beat the dead AT-AT that is the Star Wars prequels.

Most people agree that the prequels have their flaws, and most people tend to agree that George Lucas is at the heart of those flaws.  The most common reason being that Lucas has “lost” it, but to me, the question isn’t whether or not Lucas lost whatever special magic he might have had.  It’s where that magic came from in the first place.

The problem I’ve always seen with the prequels is that they were Lucas given an unlimited budget and no oversight.  The prequels are a mixed bag, but for better or worse, they are exactly what George Lucas wanted them to be.  If we were to look at the difference between the classic trilogy and the prequels, I’d say that more than anything else, it was all the difficulties and limitations that made the original trilogy great.  Those difficulties are absent from the prequels, and that is why, whether fans want to accept it or not, the prequels are the films Lucas always wanted to make.  The original trilogy are the films he ended up making despite himself.

Limitations and happy accidents often end up making great stories.

Absolute control often works against that.

As a novelist, you would think this wouldn’t come up quite as much as a filmmaker.  Film has an element of logistics that novels lack.  If I want to create a scene with a million space ninjas or have a dragon as big as a continent, it’s as easy as typing a few words.  That unlimited canvas is a novelologist’s most perilous asset.  It’s something most of us learn to adapt to fairly quickly.  After a while, you learn to limit yourself, to pick and choose what you will do from EVERYTHING you want to do, and that, usually, your story is better off by focusing on a few really awesome ideas rather than a ton of good ones.

The other truth I’ve come to accept is that often the best ideas are the ones you never quite saw coming.  Whether it’s a malfunctioning robot shark forcing Spielberg to rely on other, more subtle methods to portray the shark in Jaws or an under-the-weather Harrison Ford deciding to just shoot a bad guy rather than get into an elaborate swordfight, there are a lot of great moments in the films we love that were improvised or altered due to circumstances and a willingness to experiment in the moment.

Writing novels is a little different again, but there are plenty of happy accidents in my own stories.  In my first novel, Gil’s All Fright Diner, I created a ghost named Cathy.  Originally, she was going to be a male character, but I decided at a spur of the moment to make the ghost a woman because I wanted another important female in the story.  I also added, without much forethought, the idea that vampires could touch ghosts.  Both ideas weren’t considered as necessarily vital when I came up with them, but they ended up creating the foundation for a romantic element that became integral to the story.

(Not that there couldn’t have been a romantic element between two male characters, except that just wouldn’t have happened.  At that time, I wasn’t comfortable enough in my own writing chops to attempt a homosexual character, much less any kind of same sex romance.)

This is true for all my stories.  Elements just pop in my head and sometimes, I run with them.  There was initially no reason for Mack Megaton to have a talking gorilla for a friend other than I liked the idea.  Chester the paper gnome was simply a cool image (i.e. an assistant Monster could carry in his pocket), who became a character in his own right.  Franklin, the orc wannabe, was just there to be the butt of some jokes and ended up becoming something more.

It’s mostly in the development of characters that I trust the happy accidents.  The plot can benefit from them too.  I find if I hold too tight to an idea or plot point, even when it’s not working, I can often end up wasting a lot of time not adapting to the great idea before me as I cling stubbornly to the bad idea I want to work so badly.

Flexibility makes great stories, and limitations encourage flexibility.  It’s cool to have a vision and, if you’re fortunate, that vision can be exactly the story you need to tell exactly the way it should be told.  But, more often, you end up with something as uneven and confused as the Star Wars prequels or Star Trek: Into Darkness.  By being chained to their creators’ vision, such stories are hobbled.

This is also why I’ve so rarely experienced a prequel or reboot worthy of the original.  Flexibility and experimentation is exactly the opposite of what most prequels have in mind.  Lucas knew the ending he had to get to, and he had no choice but to railroad the plot along those lines.  Into Darkness is a bit stranger, considering it has more innate flexibility.  Yet in the end, it chose to revisit older material, cramming it into the tale in nonsensical ways, and there were so many scenes that seem to be storyboarded first, then justified later.  I’ve often heard it said that Lucas planned the sets for the prequels before penning the script.  Even if this isn’t true, it often feels like it.

Creativity isn’t a straightforward process.  It’s a mysterious affair, and if I could tell you how to do it, I would.  I rarely understand it myself.  I just trust that if I make myself sit down and write AND I focus on what is important while being open to the occasional happy accident, then everything will work out in the end (with the help of judicious editing).  But the more I write, the less I concern myself with knowing all the cool stuff I want to put on the page and the more I benefit from being open to discoveries along the way.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Teeth

Hey there, Action Force.  This weekend I was at Fencon, a Dallas area science fiction / fantasy convention.  I had a great time, hung out with some cool people, touched base with a few fans, and just otherwise socialized with random folks.  It’s a great con, and if you happen to live in the Dallas / Fort Worth area (or already happen to live there), it’s definitely worth checking out when it rolls around.  I’m usually there, which is pretty solid reason for true blue A.Leegionaire to drop in for a visit.

While there, I talked to fans.  One fan in particular stands out because it gave me something to post about.  He said that he liked what he wrote, but he wondered when I’d write something with “some teeth”, as he put it.  When I asked for a clarification, he said that he’d read Monster and felt, while it had some interesting depths, it didn’t really explore those depths enough. It was an interesting discussion, and one I think worth exploring.

I’ve heard this observation more than once, read it plenty of times in reviews, and otherwise seen it bandied about.  It’s a variation of the fun versus fluff debate.  While I know what side of that debate I’m on, I also hear this enough (from both sincere fans and dismissive critics) that I can’t just blow it off.  But it was specifically the phrase “with teeth” that illustrates just how difficult this topic is to navigate.  We’re not talking about the story itself, but the execution of the story.

I think the best example might be found in Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain.  If you were to summarize the story in the broadest terms, it is a pulpy adventure homage featuring a brilliant space squid who outsmarts everyone while visiting exotic locales and facing weird perils.  Emperor Mollusk is apologetically absurd, and it blasts from one strange set piece to another with nary a pause.  It’s hero is virtually infallible, and his self-confidence crosses into arrogance and egotism (justifiably so within the story).

This doesn’t change the fact that Emperor Mollusk is intended to deal with some pretty heavy issues within the story.  Chiefly, it explores what it would genuinely be like to be the most important person in your universe, to control and shape the lives of millions with your talents.  Emperor Mollusk, for all his genius, knows he is brilliant and incredibly dangerous at the same time.  A recurring point of the story (often mistaken only for a joke) is that Emperor is simultaneously Terra’s (aka Earth’s) last line of defense and its most persistent danger.  The odds are just as good that Emperor will destroy Terra as save it, and even as he knows this, he’s powerless to stop it.  He is driven by his own compulsions, and that those compulsions could destroy a world and not just himself isn’t lost on Emperor.

I think that’s actually some pretty deep stuff there, and while most of us aren’t going to destroy a planet with our mistakes, we can still do tremendous damage to those around us.  We are all capable of unthinkable destruction to ourselves, our loved ones, and total strangers.  And, yes, accidents happen, but a lot of that damage is also the darker sides of our nature.  If you haven’t hurt someone you’ve loved through a careless action, then I can only either assume you’re very lucky or (far more likely) completely oblivious to those around you.

Emperor’s entire character arc is tied to the near genocide of a world.  For those who haven’t read the book yet, some mild spoilers coming up.  In order to defend Terra from an invasion of Saturnites, Emperor had to nearly obliterate Saturn itself.  Even though he didn’t have to follow it through (though the story makes it clear he would have if necessary) Emperor is responsible for the death of millions, the devastation of an entire civilization, and the pain and loss of trillions.  There’s little attempt to sugar coat this.  The devastation of Saturn is somewhat justified within story as a weapon of last resort, and it’s softened by the fact that the Saturnites are the aggressors in the conflict.  Yet this doesn’t change the fact that Emperor has nearly committed genocide (or even worse planetcide).

Writing that chapter wasn’t easy for me.  Despite its many absurdities, I had to ask myself if Emperor Mollusk could ever be redeemed after an act like that?  This is part of the reason that bit of backstory is told in flashback near the end of the book.  If the story started with it, I’m fairly positive it would seem every bit as horrific as it is.  But by then, the audience has come to identify with Emperor or at least enjoy exploring his universe.  More honestly, by then most readers have decided the story is just a light, fluffy read and aren’t really paying attention.

It probably helps that the destruction of Saturn takes place from a distance and that the Saturnites are rock creatures.  It’s easy to see it as merely a plot point, I suppose.

And that’s where the idea of “with teeth” comes in.  I don’t think my books are light.  Not at all.  In fact, the more I think about my books, the more I write, the more I see them as complex and interesting explorations of the human experience.  That they often fail to be perceived as such is a matter of execution, and that’s squarely on my shoulders.  I make choices as a storyteller with the assumption that someone will look past the space squid or robot detective, the weird settings, the deliberately accessible style, and see something more.  But, more often than no, they won’t.

(This isn’t meant as a rebuttal of critics who don’t like the stories.  Nobody is going to write a book everyone loves, and The Mighty Robot King knows there are plenty of “deep” stories that I find to be shallow and uninteresting.)

“Teeth” seems to be less about themes and depth and more about the appearance of such.  A novel like The Road relies on its teeth.  A Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad and even a show like Mad Men gain artistic credibility by having unpleasant moments and harsh brutality (either physical or social) rear its ugly head on a regular basis.  That’s a legitimate artistic choice, and one that works very well.  Yet it isn’t something I find appealing very often (either as artist or audience).

I’ve always believed that art (at least some of it) should strive to challenge the audience, and ironically, it seems to me that art “with teeth” is so easily accepted as deep and mature that it’s often not challenging at all right now.  I remember reading a review years ago where the reviewer wondered if they actually liked a show or if they had simply bought into the It’s not TV.  It’s HBO hype.  In essence, Teeth have become safe.

There are no easy answers, and I believe human experience is so varied that there’s no single story to be told, no universal style to be had.  All I know is that whenever I hear someone talk about how awesome these books and shows with teeth are, I often wonder if they would be as appreciated without the teeth.  What if no one in Game of Thrones died, but instead was thrown into prison and never seen again?  Would people think the show was as mindblowing?  Or would it just come across as a plodding fantasy epic with very little fantasy to recommend it?  Is it the story’s plotting that holds the audience’s interest or is it the blood, torture, and rape?

I’m only asking the question.  Not trying to answer it.  It’s too complicated a topic.

I do know though that my stories might lack these things, but it doesn’t mean they’re meaningless.  Depth is where you find it.  I know that I find depths in my stories as I write them, but perhaps without more obvious teeth, I can’t reasonably expect many others to see those depths.

Maybe I need to write a sequel to Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain where Emperor barely saves the world, kills thousands in the process, and then kills the bad guy (but then cries for two minutes so you know he really really feels bad about it) before walking away with no long-term emotional consequences.  It might seem absurd, but hey, it seemed to work for Man of Steel, right?

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee