A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 44

Mailbag: Art versus Artist, Comic Book Recommendations, Underdog vs. Lassie

Got some questions in the Action Force Mailbag today.

 

@MGenuineBaker asks:

Do you ever like or dislike a book/movie based on its creator? Should we try to separate the art from the artist?

That’s a doozy of a question, isn’t it?  And not one that’s always easy to answer.

Ideally, I would love to live in a world where the audience knew nothing of the artist and were free to simply love / hate / be indifferent about art based solely on their reaction to that art.  There’s no guarantee that just because you like X that you’ll end up liking its creator, and I know this because I’m confident in saying just because you like my stories, you might not like me.

I know.  Hard to believe, but true.  There are people out there who don’t like me.  I’ve met them.  And while they are wrong for not realizing how delightful I am, they are entitled to their opinion.  For now . . . (cue ominous music)

Of course, this really isn’t about me because while I have my opinions, I try to take a measured approach with my public persona.  While I feel comfortable saying how much I disliked Man of Steel, I also temper that with an acknowledgement that it’s just one guy’s opinion.  Plus, if you’re offended that I didn’t like a movie so much that you don’t want to buy my books, I feel confident saying you’re the one with the problem.  Not me.

This question isn’t really about me though, is it?

There are creators out there who do make it hard, intentionally or not, to get past their worldview and still enjoy their work.  The most recent example is Orson Scott Card, who is anti-marriage equality (which is his right) and even advocates open, armed rebellion should he deem it necessary (which isn’t).

For the record, I am pro marriage equality, and I still find it hard to think of as a controversial topic even.  But, hey, if someone ends up having a problem with that opinion and decides not to buy my books because of it, I wholly support their right to do so.  I’m also staunchly pro-robot, pro-dinosaur, and (unsurprisingly) pro-Dinobot.  And, yes, I’ll take all the heat for those controversial views as well.

Card, who is undeniably a giant of science fiction, even more recently came out with a paranoid essay about how President Obama is a dictator and how he plans on grooming Michelle Obama to be the next president.  Oh, and something weird about street gangs becoming Obama’s own private army.  Or something.  Really weird stuff there, but, hey, there’s no delusion like paranoid delusion, right?

Given Card’s rather strong and radical views, there’s been a lot of blowback directed at him.  In particular, Ender’s Game, a movie based on probably his most famous work, is coming to the table with a lot of baggage, and that’s sad but unavoidable.  While I’m not sure boycotts really matter and I don’t doubt that the call to boycott product X is so commonplace as to often be silly at times, there’s also no denying that Card has positioned himself to take on this fight.

And really, that’s where I think the line is.  If an artist has unorthodox opinions, it’s cool.  Lots of people do.  And if an artist voices those opinions, that’s cool too.  We should all be allowed to do so without fear of excessive reprisals.  But when an artist picks a fight, it’s hard for me to work up much sympathy when that fight comes back at them.  It’s like the infamous Dr. Laura incident where instead of acknowledging that she said something stupid on the radio and maybe should back away, she decided to double down and try to claim the moral high ground (somehow).  And then her sponsors pulled out and her radio show went away.  And, hey, that’s not anyone stepping on her rights to free speech because free speech doesn’t mean there are no consequences for what we say and it certainly doesn’t guarantee anyone a national platform to share their opinions.

So Card is in a position where his voice gets extra credibility and notice, and that comes with a lot of responsibility.  And if he chooses to use that position to voice his controversial worldview, then everyone else is certainly free to withdraw their support from him, even indirectly.  If it’s an issue that matters to a person, they are allowed to react accordingly, and while it’s a shame it might hurt a movie made by people who don’t share those views, it’s also just part of the big jumbled package that is human culture.

As for myself, I do my best to avoid learning very much about creators at all because, frankly, I’d usually rather not know.  It’s not always easy, but the less I know, the more comfortable I feel judging a work on its own merits.  There are exceptions, both good and bad.  I was never a big Mark Millar fan, but his recent statements about rape in fiction and his persona as a whole have made it difficult for me to support anything he does.  (To be fair, I don’t really like much of what he does though, so it’s not like there’s much of an internal conflict there.)  And at a very low point in my life, Rob Schneider was the first person to make me laugh, and so, I’ll get behind anything he does too.  It is virtually impossible for me to separate the artist from the art in some cases.  And I’m okay with that.

And I’m okay with people choosing to separate the art from the artist too.  It’s just a very personal judgment call.  I’ll respect everyone’s choices as long as they respect mine.

 

@JarrettRush asks:

What are 3 comics you’d recommend for a someone who’s never gotten into comics? Or superheroes, for that matter?

First off, I always recommend Atomic Robo from Red 5 comics.  Great series of stories with a charming robotic protagonist.  (Have I mentioned I’m pro robot?)  There are several great collected trades, and I recommend all of them, other than Real Science Adventures, which I’m not a big fan of.  Otherwise, you can’t go wrong.

My favorite so far still has to be Atomic Robo and the Shadow Out of Time, where Robo fights an otherdimensional monster across time and space in such a brilliant and well-conceived manner that I can’t ever give it enough praise.  But, really, any trade you can get your hands on will do and they’re well worth the money.

IDW Publishing had an ongoing Dungeons and Dragons comic that was surprisingly fun.  I’ve never been a big fan of D&D (collective gasp from the audience), but this series was fun and lively.  It didn’t really challenge anything about the format of stories featuring a group of adventurers having, well, adventures, but the writing was solid, the art always great, and it was just fun to read.  They released a few trades of this as well, and I recommend starting with the first if you can find it and moving on from there.  Just be sure to get the Dungeons and Dragons series, and not any of the offshoots (Forgotten Realms, Eberron, etc.)  Those might be great, but I haven’t read them, so I can’t really say.

Finally, if you want to go a little toward the classics, I really like any of the collected Marvel Essentials line.  These large black and white collections are chock full of classic stories, and while there’s some dust on them, they’re also a great chance to explore the comics of the sixties and seventies.  I particularly like the more eccentric characters of yore.  (Are the 60′s yore yet?)

Marvel Essentials Man-Thing is probably my favorite because they are so strange, being a potpourri of everything the 70′s had to offer.  They have horror, philosophy, superhero stuff, and often all three at once.  Plus the hero is a walking plant monster AND it is the series that introduced Howard the Duck, so there’s that going for it too.

If you want something a little less out there, I’d recommend Marvel Essentials Tomb of Dracula. It is very much a product of its time, like a Hammer Horror film, but where occasionally Drac fights a mad scientist.  It also introduced Blade, who wouldn’t really become a popular character until several decades later and even then, really isn’t that popular, if we can be honest.

But, if you’re really interested in something awesome, check out Marvel Essentials Godzilla, King of the Monsters.  For a while, Godzilla was actually part of the Marvel universe, which means he got to meet a lot of staples of the Marvel U.  He got pushed down by Hercules, got sent back in time via Dr. Doom’s time platform, and even fought Marvel’s greatest saurian superhero, Devil Dinosaur!  It’s a weird weird series, and well worth checking out if you’re of a mind to.

Hope those suggestions are helpful to you.

 

@docxen ask:

Could Underdog beat Lassie in a fight?

The obvious answer is yes.  Lassie doesn’t have any superpowers, and Underdog does.

But if I am free to subject your question to nerdly overanalysis, I could suggest that Lassie is the Batman of dogs.  She might not have the utility belt, but she manages to be heroic and capable and, just as with Batman, you would want her around when the world is exploding around you.

Realistically, none of this would make much difference once Underdog threw her into the sun, but if we’re going to apply superhero logic here, Lassie might be able to hold her own.  Give her a Lassiemobile, arm her with exploding Lassierangs, she could even put up a good fight.  But, still, in the end, she’d probably end up in the sun.  Might be fun to watch though.

 

Have a question you want need answered by a demi-famous guy?  Or just want to drop a line to tell me how cool I am?  Reach me on Twitter at @aleemartinez, on Facebook as A. Lee Martinez, or via e-mail at Hipstercthluhu@hotmail.com.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The Theory of Expositional Credibility

Reflecting on my last post, I think it’s worth clarifying a point:

I want to reiterate how I don’t have anything against Game of Thrones.  It’s a fine show, and judging it by what it’s attempting to do, I think it succeeds admirably.  I also think that what it wants to do isn’t really anything I’m into.  That’s a criticism of a sort, but it isn’t the same criticism I might level at Star Trek: Into Darkness, which I feel fails as a coherent story and even in terms of creating a consistent theme beyond it’s cool to watch people running and ships blowing up.  (And even that isn’t necessarily a failure for other films, but feels a bit empty for Star Trek.)

I think my complaints about Game of Thrones aren’t even directed at the show, but at the culture that surrounds it, and that culture says that Game of Thrones is the definitive, absolute best that fantasy has to offer.

To which, I reply balderdash!

Perhaps I’ll throw in a tommyrot and humbug while I’m at it.  Yes, I’m that worked up.

Game of Thrones isn’t the best of fantasy because there really is no such thing.  It’s true the show and books defined fantasy for a new era, but it is only a specific brand of fantasy.  To suggest that it’s the best is no more valid than suggesting fish are better pets than birds.  It depends entirely on context and what you’re looking for.

It’s not easy to talk about this idea because we all have our preferences, and it’s easy to see those preferences as innately more worthwhile than the preferences of others.  Yet there are so many of we humans with so many different cultures and sub-cultures that to pin anything down as “The Best” is all but impossible.

In the world of video games, I don’t play first person shooters.  I’ve only played one Grand Theft Auto all the way through, and I haven’t played many Mario games either.  I loved Fall of Cybertron and I absolutely adore Skylanders in a way that I feel no need to apologize for.  These are my tastes, and I can sometimes justify why I prefer some to others, I can also admit that sometimes, I don’t really know why I prefer one game to another.

So it is with so many things.  I can articulate why I’m not into Game of Thrones (as I previously did), and I can tell you that I’m not into epic fantasy in general (just don’t have the patience for it).  I have nothing against The Lord of the Rings and acknowledge its power and influence over the very genre I dabble in, but it doesn’t change the fact that I find the books dull and the films only slightly amusing.  It doesn’t stop me from giving credit where credit is due or make me think anyone is wrong for their love of those things.

It’s not always easy to not get judgmental.  Or at the very least, to not sound judgmental when discussing these things.  For instance, I’m convinced the only reason The Return of the King was able to finally win a Best Picture for fantasy was by being a bit melodramatic, overwrought, and (dare I say it) even a little boring.  But I add a disclaimer that what I find melodramatic, others will find enthralling and boring is in the eye of the beholder.

I’ve never been a lore kind of fan.  I’ve never cared about the landscape or the history of kingdom X except in regards to how it fits with advancing the story.  I’d much rather dive into the action and just start having an adventure, and that’s no doubt why Edgar Rice Burroughs is my favorite writer.  He isn’t as poetic a writer as Tolkien.  Not by a longshot.  But Edgar knows I don’t go all the way to Mars to read about the trees and to listen to the tharks singing about their ancestors.  No, I’m there to watch John Carter have swordfights with giant white apes and hang out with that coolest of dudes, Tars Tarkas.

Perhaps that’s yet another reason I despise the “light” label.  The assumption seems to be that I don’t write about scenery and spend 100′s of pages worldbuilding because I am just not as good a writer as those that do.  And that is bull.  It’s utter nonsense.  I don’t do those things because I DON’T want to do do those things.  I don’t find them especially interesting, and I believe that there are plenty of people who agree with me.

Yet even those people will often intentionally or unintentionally buy into that notion of Expositional Credibility (as I have just spontaneously named it).  I’ve seen the “light read” label applied to me in very complimentary ways, but rarely have I heard anyone say that perhaps I use lean writing on purpose, that I choose to focus on story and characters above poetic prose, and that I choose to do this because it is a valid and worthwhile style.

Maybe it isn’t.

Art is only half of what an artist intends.  The other half is how the audience receives it, and if the audience chooses to buy into the notion that one style of fantasy is innately superior to another, then arguing against it is probably a waste of time.  But it’s worth mentioning, I believe, because I’d at least like my potential audience to approach it with that in mind.  If they choose to reject that aspect, I certainly won’t argue, but it’d be nice to have a shot of convincing them so before they’d made up their mind.

I believe that this world is too large and complex, our needs so varied, our emotional hot buttons so personal.  We don’t need to feel embarrassed about that.  We don’t need to apologize for not embodying “maturity” as culture decides to label it.  I’m not interested in writing a Game of Thrones style fantasy just to gain credibility, and I don’t mind if people see what I write as merely literary confectionery.  But I know that I choose to write what I write and how I write with a great deal of deliberation.  Heck, because I don’t write series yet, every book is a very deliberate choice in style and tone and narrative poetry, and those choices are all things I take very, very seriously.

I don’t write about ghost dinosaurs and robot detectives because I can’t think of anything better to write.  I write about them because they are things I want to write about, and I think I’m pretty damned good at it too.  And if you want to read about how much rainfall Middle Earth gets per year or about complicated pseudo-Medieval political machinations, that’s cool, too.  But I’d much rather write about cursed cannibal witches and irresponsible raccoon gods.  I won’t judge others for their tastes as long as they return the favor.

(Sorry  if these last few posts have been a little too introspective, Action Force.  Feel free to send me questions, comments, etc, at Hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com.  Send me interesting questions, and I’d love to answer them.)

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Miserable

As always, I take a moment to remind everyone out there that my 10th novel, Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest, is out in stores now.  I’d recommend buying it, and if you like it, buying another copy and giving that as a gift to a friend.  Or just mentioning it in passing conversation with your friends once every hour or so.  Maybe getting a tattoo of the cover.  Maybe make up a little song about it, post it on the Youtube, and make both of us very famous.  I’d be very cool with that.

Basically, spread the word, Action Force.  The longer the book is out, the more important word of mouth is, and I rather like getting paid to write books and wouldn’t mind continuing to be paid to do so for a few more years at the very least.  As much as I might like to believe otherwise, my career depends entirely on your efforts.  So, hey, no pressure, but you are the only thing standing between me and unemployment, and I’ve never had a real job, so I’d be kind of screwed it the bottom drops out of this racket.

But enough sniveling self-promotion from this C-list novelologist . . .

 

I finally watched some of Game of Thrones, and I can say it just isn’t for me.  I’m not making any judgments on quality.  There’s little doubt the show is well-made on every conceivable level.  The acting, the direction, the plotting, the scripting, and so on.  It sets a standard of excellence that fantasy fans could only have dreamed of a few years ago.

But it just isn’t for me.

Understand, this is not a criticism.  I think it’s okay to admit that some things, despite being well-made, are not going to be to our tastes.  I don’t like pineapple on pizza, and there’s really not anything that can be done to fix that.  And I prefer my fantasy . . . well . . . more fantastic.  And watching this show, it just makes me miserable.

It is, by the literal definition, a miserable show.  It features miserable characters in a miserable setting doing miserable things to each other.  It is a story designed, by intention, to take much of the fun out of fantasy and replaces it with a more “mature” version.  While I might not agree with that interpretation of “mature”, I can’t argue with its success.  And I’m not begrudging the show, its creators, or its stars their success.  They’ve earned it, and good for them.

But, yeah, it’s not for me.

I’m not here to talk about a specific show, but to talk about the transformation of a culture.  I won’t label it as good or bad because change is change.  It can be good or bad, and is often both at the same time.  But I get that this is the future of fantasy and science fiction, and it isn’t a place I’m very interested in going.

I also finally get why I will never convince many people that I am not a “light” writer.  It’s not just because I’m not interested in maturity for maturity’s sake.  It’s because the entire definition of what constitutes maturity is different than it was even a few years ago.  While my stories would never have been considered “dark”, they are even lighter by comparison.

Everything is relative, and the darker mainstream fiction gets, the lighter mine becomes.  As people become embroiled in more and more soap opera-like sagas, my standalone stories are working uphill to be considered anything other than trivial snacks.  And I get that.  I even accept it.  What choice do I have?

I’ve railed against the grimdarking of popular culture in general, but there’s little point in denying it is how things are going.  When even Superman is maudlin and mopey, it’s safe to say we are living in a different world than I ever expected to be in.  Speaking of which, a friend of mine said that he didn’t understand why anyone thought Man of Steel was so dark, and I realized that he wasn’t far off the mark.  If you’d tried to pass of the unpleasant version of Superman in the 8o’s, it probably wouldn’t have been well received.  But today, a Superman who leaves Metropolis in ruins and who struggles to do the right thing isn’t much different than most mainstream heroes.  Watching Metropolis fall to rubble or this Superman kill a guy doesn’t draw much attention from at least half the audience.  Heck, Superman even kind of feels bad about it for a few minutes, so, hey, that makes him seem positively quaint by today’s standards.

We are living in the culture where a hollow deconstruction like Kick-Ass can be viewed as groundbreaking and where I read “Good guys are boring” at least once a day when perusing the internet.

I get all that, and I realize it doesn’t help any that I’ve become reflexively more interested in heroism and sincerity as a response.  Where once I might have enjoyed cynical anti-heroes, I find them more and more off-putting.  When I watched Game of Thrones, I realized I could only watch so much of the despicable characters mutilating innocent victims before I needed a hero to sweep in and do something about it.

But heroes . . . they’re old-fashioned.  Now, we’re all just living in shades of gray, and in a world where there are no heroes, the only way to make the bad guys bad is to make them so terrible that they fill the audience with utter disgust.  And I can even live with that, but I can’t help but feel like we’ve lost something important in the transition.  Or not.  I don’t know.

Given the nature of current popular culture, there’s little chance of me ever being taken seriously as a writer.  I’ll certainly be good for a laugh or two.  I might even give the more thoughtful reader something to think about.  But I still have a tendency to make even my bad guys into good guys (of a sort), and I’m unapologetic of my love of heroes who step up and do the right thing because they are genuinely heroic.  I’m not going to drop in a rape scene to show how bad the bad guys are.  I’m not going to mutilate the heroes’ scrappy girl or boyfriend just to show you how serious I am.

That’s not something I’m interested.

That’s not entirely true.  If HBO or Showtime or anybody came to me with the idea of turning one of my books into a “mature”-style show, I would be more than happy to jump on board that train.  Recognition is everything in this biz, and I’d be an idiot to turn something like that down.  And if such a show came out half as good as Game of Thrones, I’d have every reason to rejoice.

But I realize that the odds of this happening are pretty damned small, and they’ll only get smaller as I continue on my own path.  I see that path going away from serious artist each passing day.  That’s a problem I haven’t figured out how to solve yet because if it continues at it does, my books will be considered lighter and lighter and lighter until they’re considered to be little more than cotton candy of fiction.

I think it’s okay to admit that I’m a little bit troubled for my future as a writer, and that those worries are only getting worse as time passes.  I admit this to you, Action Force, because it’s not getting any easier.  I love writing fiction, but I feel the gulf between myself and pop culture widening, and it is kind of scary.  It’s why I take something like Man of Steel so personally.  Aside from the fact that it screws with one of my greatest heroes, it’s also a grim omen of a world where what I write will be less and less relevant.

And here’s where I would normally try to put some kind of positive spin on things, but I hate to say it, I’m not sure how optimistic I am at this point.  It’s not the end of the world just yet, and I make no judgments on the choices others make in their entertainment.  But there are times, more and more, where I’m not sure whether what I write will be deemed valuable in five or ten years.

And that scares the crap out of me.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

True Geek

Just because you like Firefly, it doesn’t mean you’re a science fiction fan.  Just because you laugh at Big Bang Theory, it doesn’t mean you are a fan of nerd humor.  Just because you are excited to see who the new Dr. Who will be, it doesn’t mean you’re a nerd.

The following post might ruffle a few feathers, so let’s start with a disclaimer.  I’m not going to suggest that it’s bad that anyone likes these things (for any reason) or that casual fandom is a bad thing.  Not intentionally anyway, and I’m not trying to dismiss people’s level of devotion to science fiction and fantasy.  That sort of elitism, of “You just don’t get it” reflex, is usually just someone being petty and obnoxious toward people who are legitimately enjoying something.

That said, you probably don’t get it.

Well, not you.  You’re a member of the A. Lee Martinez Action Force, and as such, you most certainly get it.  I’m talking about other people.

I guess there’s really no way to say this sensitively, but as a guy who actually loves this stuff, I can find casual fandom a bit irksome.  It’s not casual fans that bother me, but the notion that all fans are created equal.  There was once the accepted fact that the geek label and the love of staples of science fiction / fantasy were the marks of a person with an almost unhealthy devotion toward their beloved pop culture icons.  Now it’s anyone who happens to watch a few episodes of Dr. Who or thinks Nathan Fillion is cute.

There’s a world of difference between the casual fan and the devoted geek, and while I’m not suggesting one is better than the other, I am pretty sure that unless you’ve written a series of essays about why Superman is awesome and how Man of Steel fails to understand all those reasons, you’re probably not a geek.

And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that, but it can be infuriating to a real geek.  Not just someone who knows about Superman and has read a few comics, watched a few cartoons, went to see the latest blockbuster featuring Superman.  But someone who honestly has thought about Superman, his world, what he represents, and has serious hero worship of the guy.  To the casual fan, whether or not Superman might kill someone is something insignificant.  To the devotee, it’s something huge.  And a movie where Superman isn’t inspiring or a symbol of genuine hope can be morally crushing.

Yes, he’s just a fictional character, and in the end, he will do whatever the writer tells him to do.  But to the devoted fan, to the hardcore nerd, Superman matters more than a lot of people realize.  But it’s larger than any one character, any single choice by any particular writer.  It’s about devotion and a level of immersion most people never experience.

A good way to tell if you’re a casual fan versus a hardcore geek about something is to ask yourself obscure questions.  Everyone knows that Superman is Clark Kent, but do you know of the once canonical explanation that his glasses hypnotized people to see Clark Kent as shorter and scrawnier than Superman.  Maybe you’ve heard of Lana Lang and Lois Lane, but have you heard of Superman’s mermaid girlfriend?  Have you read the comic where Superman loses his powers, but gains the power to shoot a miniature Superman out of his hands?

If not, you’re not a geek.  You’re just a person who casually knows about Superman.

As a devotee of a lot of this stuff, I often get annoyed by the casual fan.  Not for their casualness, but for their mistaken belief that because they’ve watched a few episodes of Star Trek that they’re somehow deep in hardcore fan culture.  It’s that mistake that bother me, not their casualness.  I don’t expect everyone to know that Gizmoduck’s secret identity is Fenton Crackshell, bean counter, or that Mjolnir is made of enchanted uru metal.  I don’t expect most people to know that a giant cyborg space chicken with a sawblade in his chest is one of Godzilla’s recurring foes.  I would be surprised if you’ve seen the classic killer automobile movie The Car even once, much less at least four times as I have.

I don’t expect the average person to have that level of devotion, nor do I believe they need it to call themselves fans.

BUT…

I do expect them to understand that there’s a world of difference between liking something and devoting yourself to it.  Devotion is an entirely different experience, and one that demands a hell of a lot more from the devotee.  If you’ve only watched the last few seasons of Dr. Who, you are certainly entitled to call yourself a fan.  But if you can’t compare and contrast William Hartnell versus Tom Baker versus Sylvester McCoy than you are probably not a nerd.  (Note that I had to look those names up, but then again, I know I’m not a Dr. Who devotee.)

I used to think that the line between casual fan and devotee wasn’t that important, and I still think it shouldn’t be.  But then along comes something like Man of Steel, a movie of Superman that really isn’t aimed at Superman fans, or the reboot of Star Trek that shambles along like a zombie, living on mythology it hasn’t earned.  One of the reasons I adored Pacific Rim was that it was a movie about giant monsters and robots done by a guy who clearly loved the genre.  Pacific Rim was a movie by a nerd for nerds, and it is really any mystery why it didn’t perform better domestically?  We live in a culture of superficial geekdom, and there’s a world of difference between that and actual geekdom.

A friend of mine summarized it pretty well recently.  He’s a devoted Gargoyles fan, and whenever someone equates their casual affection for the show with his devotion, he says part of him wants to ask, “How many Gargoyle conventions have you gone to?”, “How often were you mocked for being a grown man having to rush home to catch the latest episode?”  Those aren’t impertinent questions.  They’re the heart of what separates the casual fan from the geek.

I remember when I was still wearing Transformers T-shirts and told it was “little kid” stuff.  I was ridiculed for my nerdiness.  But I persevered.  I loved Transformers so much that I didn’t care what everyone else thought.  Now I can wear a Transformers shirt, and nobody bats an eye.  Whereas once it marked me as a guy who loved the Transformers and their universe, now it just marks me as a guy who went to a website and clicked on a buy button.

I used to wear Superman shirts every day.  Every.  Single.  Day.  And I only stopped because my Superman shirts got old.  So when Man of Steel tells me the S stands for Hope, I don’t need convincing.  But now I’m reluctant to even wear the few I have left because I don’t like the association with that film.  More importantly, I just don’t want to talk to some random dude about Man of Steel because I’ll either end up lecturing someone (despite myself) or getting irked by someone saying how “awesome” it was to finally see a movie where Metropolis is reduced to rubble and even Krypton is a crappy place.  Even knowing that it’s not my place to do so and they have every right to their opinions, it’s hard not to get a little worked up about it.

That’s the nature of geekiness.  There is a dark side to it, of course.  It can become proprietary, elitist.  Yes, I imagine that Michael Bay’s version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is going to be lousy, and I’m annoyed by that.  But those kind of disappointments are just part of being a devoted fan of something, and you have to be mature and accept that.  Geeks and nerds and devotees would always be better served to remember that, and at least attempt to temper that passion.

But the casual fan should also make an honest effort to understand what stuff like this can mean to the devotee.  Just because you didn’t mind that Superman killed a dude, that doesn’t mean the Superman devotee who does is wrong.  Or that their nerd rage isn’t valid.  It shouldn’t be dismissed just because it doesn’t matter to you.

And you might not like the kaiju genre, but if you automatically consider it stupid by default, you and I are probably going to have words.  Especially if you summarize Pacific Rim as “Transformers versus Godzilla” or “Power Rangers”.  In such case, reasonableness be damned, I will let you know how wrong you are.

And Superman’s mermaid girlfriend’s name is Lori Lemaris.  Just in case you were wondering.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Beware the Meta

As usual, I like  to begin this post by mentioning my new novel, Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest, is out now.  It’s pretty good.  You should buy it.

Today, I’d like to talk about the concept of the Meta-Narrative.  It’s a bit of a writerly thing to talk about, but it’s also all kinds of important.  I’ll endeavor to avoid making it to dry, so stick with me.  You’ll be glad you did.  Promise.

The Meta-Narrative (or Meta, as I shall henceforth call it) is the notion that fiction doesn’t exist in a vacuum, that its perception and reception is determined not only by the story itself, but by the fiction around it.  There is probably a more official term for it, but it’s one I hear most often, so it’s one I’ll stick with.

If you’re not a writer yourself, you probably haven’t given much thought to the Meta.  There’s little reason you should have, but I’m here to tell you that it’s worth it to take a little time to do so.  You are influenced by the Meta, whether you acknowledge it or not.  Sometimes, positively.  Sometimes, negatively.  But enough abstract talk.  Let’s use some examples.

Pacific Rim is a story about giant robots and monsters battling for the fate of the world.  The Meta tells us that giant monster movies are kitchy and goofy and not at all serious.  So a lot of people went into Pacific Rim not expecting anything other than that.  You can see that in the way they easily dismiss the story or make fun of the acting, not because these things are actually bad but because they are presumed to be bad.  On the other hand, the film was also directed by Guillermo del Toro, who is something of an auteur, a creative genius.  Those people are prone to give Pacific Rim possibly more credit than it deserves because of his attachment to it.

Both these factors (and many others) influence how the audience might see the film, and neither relates to the film itself but to the larger Meta surrounding it.

The Meta is far more influential than most of us will ever realize.  I watched 2 Guns this weekend, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  It was a good, entertaining film, but what made it stand out is how relatively small in scale it was, its reluctant buddy partners element, and on several other things that were once old hat but haven’t really been around much recently.  The Meta of the moment made the film seem fresher, more interesting than it might have seemed in a different summer.

Yes, it’s strange to view fiction from this perspective, but it is more important than most people realize.  Especially in this day and age when we are inundated with media, advertising, and endless internet comments before our art even reaches us.  That’s the Meta at work, and it is a double-edged sword.

My own stories wrestle with the Meta on a continual basis.  As a “funny fantasy” writer, I am constantly being compared and contrasted to other writers of the genre.  Even if I don’t consider myself in that category myself, it is irrelevant because the Meta is bigger than that.  When I write a story about modern day gods, the Meta demands I face off against American Gods, even if my god story is entirely different in design and theme.  And when I write a story called Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain, I can’t honestly claim to be surprised that the Meta seeks to define it as frivolous parody.  In that case, I hoped the Meta would show its roots to classic pulp science fiction, but I also knew for a lot of people unfamiliar with pulp, it would only be goofy.

Heck, even my own name has become attached to the Meta.  For a lot of my own fans, the name A. Lee Martinez stands for light, enjoyable reads, and for a lot of people who have never read a word I’ve written, it probably still stands for “that goofy guy who writes goofy stories”, “that guy who writes like Christopher Moore”, “that guy who isn’t quite as good as Terry Pratchett”, and so on.

There’s not a hell of a lot a creator can do to control the Meta.  Pacific Rim will always be seen as silly by a certain percentage of the audience, and I’ll always be thought of as “that goofy writer” by many.  Even knowing how the Meta might influence us doesn’t often allow us to supercede that influence.  I know, for example, that I find Christopher Nolan to be an overrated director and that, as a reflex, I have an innate hostility toward his work.  I know too that I have little interest in any “realistic” take on Batman.  So it is that Nolan’s Batman films are fighting an uphill battle with me.  This doesn’t mean that my dislike and criticism of them is incorrect, but it does mean that I acknowledge a lot of my criticisms are invalid depending on how you feel on the same Meta.

Acknowledging Meta also doesn’t mean that criticism or praise is automatically invalid.  It just means that every piece of art doesn’t exist alone, and that how it fits together with the narrative around it is vitally important if you want to understand it.  One of my favorite monster films is an old black and white classic called It Came from Beneath the Sea.  The film is about a giant octopus that menaces the world.  The octopus is fun, and the story is good.  But I mostly love it because the female scientist in the movie demands to be treated as an equal, and the male lead is even lectured by another supporting male character for treating her with accidental disrespect.  There’s very little subtle about it, but I imagine being in the audience, seeing the film when it was first released, and it makes it a powerful moment.  It’s the Meta that gives it that extra life.

The Meta is also why so much nostalgia backfires so.  I get annoyed when someone watches something from their childhood and dismisses it as stupid because it isn’t “as cool” as they remembered.  Yet they’re not upset because it isn’t cool.  They’re disappointed because they’ve forgotten the Meta.  They aren’t putting themselves in the place they were when first watching it.  Yes, some of those shows are pretty damn silly at this point, but others are still pretty damn good if you view them from the right mindset.  Instead, we often try and take the charming elements of nostalgia and “fix” it, usually by making it more mature, however you define that term.  The end result is often missing the point of what made the original work in the first place.

For myself, I realize how groundbreaking and amazing such works as The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen were, and that at the time, they were incredible, fresh takes on the superhero genre.  But then along comes generations of imitators, and they seem like so much more of the same humdrum grimdark for grimdark’s sake.  And that isn’t fair.  It’s why, even though I’m not fond of either of those works, I do give them credit for being truly original and influential.  The imitators…not so much.

Regardless, the Meta is out there, and it is shaping our opinions and reactions to our art every day.  There isn’t necessarily much we can do about it, but we can at least acknowledge it exists, and that our love or hate for some stories isn’t about the story itself, but about the larger culture around it.  And that’s something always worth thinking about.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Present Tense

I haven’t written a sequel yet.  I know that I will do it one day, and I’m not against sequels in general.  I also know I have no particular fondness for sequels in and of themselves.  It’s apparently just not hard-wired into me to yearn for them.  While I loved Pacific Rim, I walked out of the theater perfectly content if that was the one and only story to told in that universe.  My absolute favorite film is The Incredibles, and I’ve never been eager for a sequel to that either.  I don’t know why I’m like that.  I know it’s a unique attitude to have, especially in this day and age when everything is viewed as a potential franchise or series, and I even get why creators like doing it, why publishers find it worthwhile, and why the audience gets excited about it.

But not me.

This definitely makes me the outsider on this topic.  Logically, I have nothing against sequels or series.  Creating something original is hard, and asking the audience to get excited about something original is even harder.  It’s easier to build on something that already exists, both as a creator and as a product to sell, and that’s just a fact.  It’s never easy to tell a good story, and series and sequels are a good jumping off point.  Also, there’s no denying that a continuing universe can become richer and more detailed as more stories are told in it.  That’s an advantage a standalone story doesn’t have.  Star Wars is so popular precisely because it is a universe in itself with so many characters and ideas and tales floating around that you can immerse yourself into it.  And when it works, it works marvelously.

I get the power of series.  I do.  But there’s also the downside that rarely gets talked about.

What happens when a series is used up and continues to shamble along like a zombie, feeding on nostalgia and the audience’s good graces rather than justifying itself with a good story and worthy characters?  What happens when the sequels and the spinoffs and the reboots all merely end up diluting what is great, leaving us with what is okay?

As much as I loved Pacific Rim, I’m not eager to see it transform into a franchise because that leads down a dangerous path.  Star Trek and Star Wars have become accidental parodies of themselves.  As has the Die Hard series.  I don’t find their newest incarnations bad.  I just find them well short of the masterpieces that spawned them.  Part of this is just the law of averages.  A great story is difficult to create.  Even the greatest creators don’t always produce great stories.  And so it is that any string of sequels is probably not going to capture the wonder and beauty of an original work.  It’s not exactly a criticism.  More like a fact.

In my once beloved medium / genre of comic book superheroes, there are a few masterpieces, a lot of great stories, a lot more okay ones, and more than a few bad ones.  Thor remains one of my favorite superheroes, but more from a fondness for those stories of his I’ve loved in the past than for the stories being told now.  Of course, a big part of that is just changing times.  Stories I loved as a kid wouldn’t really fit with modern comic book aesthetics and sensibilities, and I’m okay with that.  That’s just the byproduct of creator, cultural, and medium changes.  And, yes, even changes in myself.

But, really, my dislike of sequels has little to do with their tendency toward declining quality and a heck of a lot more to do with the attitudes of the modern day audience toward them.  It seems as if the audience has been conditioned to not only expect sequels, but to demand them.  It’s to the point where the talk of sequels starts before the story is even told, and I think we’re definitely poorer for that.

There is something unsettling to me about a culture that isn’t invested in its present, that sees its stories as setups to other stories in the future rather than something to be enjoyed now.  I don’t remember anyone walking out of the original Star Wars, wondering what the sequel would be about.  At the time, you paid your money, went to the movies, and enjoyed yourself.  Some of my favorite novels have been standalone tales.  Indeed, much as we seem to have forgotten it, some stories work best as standalone tales.  Some universes weren’t meant to be explored further.  Some characters aren’t interesting enough to carry an ongoing series.

Even this though is beside the point.  I like good stories, and if they happen to be original or sequels should be largely irrelevant.  I liked Hellboy quite a lot, but disliked Hellboy 2 almost as much.  And while some of that was a loss of the charm and some inconsistencies between the films, a lot of it was also the fact that Hellboy 2 just isn’t a very good movie, story wise, regardless of anything else.  So it is that a good Pacific Rim sequel would always be welcome in my world, but I can no more get excited about the prospect of a bad one than I can convince myself that The Phantom Menace is in any way a good film.

Like a lot of media in the information age, we seem to have become slaves to our every indulgence.  We binge on TV shows and books, devouring them eagerly and expecting to be given a steady stream of our favorites.  Meanwhile, we don’t enjoy what we have because we’re so busy thinking about what we’ll get tomorrow.

One of the reasons I write standalone novels is because I love that you can enjoy one of my books in the present.  Because it isn’t a sequel (yet), and it isn’t setting the groundwork for a series (yet), you can actually sit down and experience it for what it is.  A good story (I hope) told well.  You can partake of the story with an absolute freedom that only a standalone story allows, and rather than getting stuck pondering how it fits in with previous narratives or anticipating what it might mean to future tales, you’re experiencing a story in the now.

That’s something worthwhile.  It’s a powerful thing, and it is important.  It only grows in importance as it increasingly becomes more rare.  I don’t doubt that, unless something radical happens, I’ll have to switch to writing a series of some sort someday.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Series offer a lot of great things, and if that’s what the audience wants, I can give it to them.

But while I can offer an alternative, I will.  Life is too short to be living in the past or permanently gazing into the future.  Sometimes, you just have to stop and enjoy the moment.

And that’s what an A. Lee Martinez novel is all about.  That, and laser pterodactyls.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Twists

Twists are often the enemy of good writing.  The goal of a story shouldn’t be to surprise you.  It shouldn’t be its default goal anyway.

This is a topic I keep coming back to because, of all the complaints I’ll hear about a story, the one I find most frustrating is that it is predictable.  This is often a complaint about a storyteller doing exactly what they should do:  Giving a story you can follow and that makes sense from beginning to end.  In nearly all cases, a story should be predictable.  Plot points and characterization that was at the beginning should be important at the end.  Story beats that are tried and true should pop up.  And anyone who has seen enough stories should be able to see it all coming in some form or another.  That’s not bad writing.  That’s just writing.  Good or bad is entirely independent of how many twists a story has.

I get the appeal of the SHOCKING TWIST!  When done correctly, it can be a fantastic payoff.  When done badly, it still tends to be shocking, and if you’re looking for a twist, if you’ve been conditioned to expect it as a necessary part of good storytelling, we will often accept it as a sign the storyteller is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  But twists, shocking or otherwise, are (if I may be so bold) crap if they’re just there because they’re supposed to be.

Star Trek: Into Darkness is full of twists, and while they might seem kind of cool in the moment, they all add up to a story that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.  And I’m not talking about nitpicking story elements either.  It’s one thing to debate the motivations of a character or the choices of a storyteller.  It’s another to point out that crashing a starship into a city and then having no one who actually lives in that city and witnessed the destruction acting as if it matters is just sloppy writing.  Or that having the bad guy reveal he is Khan (unnecessary spoiler alert) isn’t even a twist because there is nothing to differentiate Khan from any other generic super bad guy with a nebulous motivation in this particular rebooted universe.  But it looks like a twist.  It looks like a shocking revelation.  Therefore, it fits the bill superficially.

It’s easy to pick on Into Darkness and The Mighty Robot King knows I’ve done that more than enough, but it is the most mainstream film in recent memory to live (and possibly die) by its slavish devotion to twists and surprises.  I am painfully aware that my criticism really doesn’t even matter because people liked the film, and I am certainly never going to say they’re wrong for that.  It’s all subjective.

But for me, the best stories are almost all utterly predictable, and rather than being a weakness, it’s what makes them satisfying to begin with.  Within twenty minutes of The Incredibles we are given everything we need to know about that universe and its characters, what motivates them, what issues they’re dealing with, etc.  And we know, because good storytelling is predictable, the arc each character will face and the story beats we know almost by heart.  There are still surprises to be had, but those surprises are in the execution of the story, not in the story itself.

Even more importantly, The Incredibles doesn’t cheat by holding back vital information.  It doesn’t sneak around an important plot point, only to reveal it at a shocking moment.  No, everything about The Incredibles is right there for the audience to see.  Even the bad guy’s tie to the good guy isn’t meant to be a big twist, but just a way of highlighting the complexity of heroism and hero worship.

Yet the number of times I hear someone say a story is “predictable” continues to surprise me.  It’s not always meant as a criticism, but it is usually meant as a soft form of dismissal.  Not exactly an insult, but a sort of “Good for what it is” apology.  It’s entirely possible I’m just too sensitive to this because it’s one of the more frustrating complaints I hear about my own stories.  It’s a sore spot, I’ll admit, but it’s also just a perception I don’t get.

Perhaps that’s why I more and more prefer storytelling aimed at a younger audience.  It seems the last place to find simple, direct, satisfying stories.  Rather than trying to impress children with how complicated they can make things, a good all-ages story seeks to just tell its story well.

In my own writing, I’ve found a growing distaste for complexity for its own sake.  Every story I’ve ever written has grown less complicated in edits, not more so.  I’ll admit that this probably makes me seem like a less sophisticated writer to many.  I write standalone, predictable stories.  I admit it.  There’s little point in denying it.  And if someone doesn’t like that, I don’t fault them for that.

But it’s also weird to hear someone say they liked the characters and the plot and the overall journey I took them on, but then to remark on the story being predictable as a fault.  As if I can accomplish everything I set out to do but because I didn’t do this one thing (that I wasn’t even trying to do) that the book isn’t as good as it could be.

Yeah.  Definitely a sore spot for me.

But this isn’t meant to be about me, but about fiction in general.  I loved Pacific Rim, and there wasn’t an honest “surprise” in the whole damn movie.  There were certainly plot choices that could’ve gone in many directions, but all those directions would’ve been along a predictable path.  I’m rather proud of Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest but not because I think of it as a particularly twisty story, but because I loved the characters, their world, and the way the story is told.

To put it another way:

There once was a dog named Frank.  He was a very good dog, and everyone loved him.  His worst enemy was a cat named Greg.

Until Greg was eaten by a dinosaur.

That’s a twist.  It doesn’t necessarily make a good story.  And there’s no denying there’s a certain element of envy at play here.  I see all these successful storytellers who trade on twists and shocks, and I sometimes get annoyed by it.  That’s not really fair to them or to me.  It creates a false dichotomy when I believe this world is big enough for all kinds of storytellers and all kinds of stories.  Yet I would love a little more respect for my particular brand of storytelling, which seems kind of foolish considering I get paid to do this.  That’s already a lot more respect than many writers get.

I’m only human, right?

For now.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Mailbag: Snark and Cynicism

Another reach into the ol’ Action Force Mailbag today.  Reach me on Twitter (@aleemartinez), Facebook (A. Lee Martinez), or e-mail (hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com), if you’d like me to possibly answer or comment on one of your questions.  Or even if you just want to drop a line and say hello.  Believe it or not, I don’t get a lot of fan mail.  I know.  ‘Tis inconceivable.  But true.

Today’s first question comes from Mark Baker (@MGeniuineBaker):

Ever thought about pitching something to Adult Swim? Given your sense of humor and love of animation, it seems like a good fit?

 

Interestingly enough, I don’t particularly care for a lot of what’s on Adult Swim.  About the only show I watch on it is The Venture Brothers, which is a good show, but also kind of near the end of the road of my interest for it.  Robot Chicken has its moments, but I don’t generally enjoy gross out or mean spirited humor, and jokes about laundry detergent mascots getting raped actively annoy me.  There are a few promising live-action shows that look kind of funny, but I have this rule that I won’t watch live action shows on Cartoon Network, no matter how good they might be.  It just isn’t something I can encourage.

If Cartoon Network came to me and wanted me to do a show, I’d love to try something.  I’m not stupid.  Every bit of exposure is invaluable, and while I’m sure certain tweaks would have to be made to fit the Adult Swim brand, I could certainly live with it.  Honestly, I’d be more interested in developing something for the all-ages division of Cartoon Network because I’m kind of tired of shoving adult humor (sex and swearing and snarkiness) into animation at this point.  I’d much rather do a sincere all-ages adventure series with heart and intelligence.  Duck Tales and Batman: TAS set the gold standard on that, and while I don’t know if I could reach that level of high art, I’d love to give it a shot.

What I find most interesting about questions like this though is that it speaks to the dilemma I have as a “funny” writer.  It’s not a question of content.  Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad.  I may not be a Robot Chicken fan, but I’m reluctant to dismiss anything that has achieved that level of popularity.  It speaks to many, and that’s great.  It just doesn’t speak to me, and it’s not something I aspire to write.

Perhaps that’s why I have such mixed feelings about the “funny” writer label.  It isn’t just the notion that I write slight stories.  It’s this accidental and intentional assumption that I don’t care about my stories and characters beyond what good they are as a joke.  I know that’s not always what people are suggesting, but it still often comes across as this idea that I’m working on gags rather than creating stories where gags occasionally show up.

More importantly, I never want to be thought of as snarky or insincere, and there are just a lot of edgy humor that I don’t usually care for.  There are exceptions.  I loved This is the End, but I think I loved it because, aside from being funny and underneath all the absurdity, it was a story about two friends working out their relationship while dealing with their own emotional baggage.  It wasn’t just a series of gags, and, sure, there was definitely some dark humor in there, but it was dark humor built on character motivations and analyzing tropes we’ve all come to expect.

Which is all a way of saying that, while I don’t care for much of what’s on Adult Swim, I would still jump a chance to develop something for it because it’d be a great opportunity.  But, despite my D-list celebrity status, nobody has come knocking yet.

 

@Grumpyhawk ask:

Any chance you want to expound on your comics tweets from yesterday? books/writers that get it wrong or right?

 

For anyone who isn’t keeping up on my every random thought distributed via Twitter, I recently remarked Reading about how a writer writing a Batman comic wants to “destroy everything Batman stands for” makes me glad I don’t read comics anymore.  To be fair, that’s not an exact quote.  I tried to find it again, but the internet isn’t being very helpful, so I’ll try to be more fair and say the writer, Grant Morrison, said that the end of his current Batman title, Batman, Inc., will be incredibly bleak and make everyone question what Batman is all about.  Again, paraphrasing, and if someone can find the original quote and interview, read it.  I’m not out to question Morrison’s writing credentials or his story choices.  The guy is popular and a very good writer, so while I might not like his choices, I know that this is a great big universe and everyone has their own emotional needs, etc.

As for me, I’ve grown tired of deconstruction and bleakness.  Especially in superhero fiction.  It was a fairly radical idea to explore in the 8o’s, but now, it seems to have become as much of a cliche as the stuff it tried to deconstruct originally.  I’ve never been a tremendous fan of Moore’s Watchmen or Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. I applaud them for their new look at old ideas, and I think they are rightfully masterpieces of the superhero genre and comic book medium, but they just don’t speak to me in the same way good ol’ fashioned genuinely heroic characters do.  But I am not the be all and end all of comic book superheroes, and I can no more fault someone for liking the darker stuff than I can always justify my love for brighter material.

But where I do think this new generation of bleak and literary writers are making a mistake is that the really well done deconstructions don’t take place in a continuing universe.  Watchmen challenges and ultimately nullifies everything about the idea of “heroic” superheroes, but it does so with the clear intent that this is a one-shot story.  It’s not meant to carry on after it’s over.  The original The Dark Knight Returns does this too.  And I don’t think this is an accident.  There is a real freedom to write those kind of stories with one-shot tales, but the moment the story becomes continuing, it loses a lot of its weight.

It puts me in mind of the original God of War.  The story about a man whose lust for blood and glory led to great personal tragedy, then to a quest to kill a god in revenge, then to the depths of despair and a sort of dark victory is solid on its own.  But by God of War 2 his dark hero manner and vengeance above all seems like the acts of a character who hasn’t learned any lessons, who is less tragic, more unintentionally comical.  And by the third game . . . well, it’s kind of hard to see this guy as anything other than a cartoon character.

So it is with any attempt to make an ongoing character “bleak” or “cynical”.  Cynicism is hard to maintain without becoming emo.  And bleakness can work in a lot of genres, but bleak superheroes, well, I just never got that as appealing in any ongoing manner.

In the previous question, I mentioned my distaste for snarkiness as a comedic device.  Well, I also have a certain distaste for cynicism.  Especially cynicism inserted where I’m just not sure it works.  Like Man of Steel, where a character in bright blue with a cape who punches asteroids is somehow deeply unhappy and unpleasant.  And while I get the whole “dark hero” aspect of Batman, I’ve never particularly enjoyed the idea that he is a hopeless hero.  Batman always struck me as the opposite of hopelessness.  Instead of wallowing in his own tragedy, Batman has elected to challenge it, to go forth in the world and try to make it a better place.  Oh, sure, he does so by dressing up in a funny costume and throwing boomerangs shaped like bats, but he lives in a superhero universe, so it’s not really that weird in context.

And, really, that’s my problem with a lot of this literary cynicism thrust in the superhero genre.  Superheroes are about a lot of things, but cynicism isn’t generally one of those things.  Your basic superhero is a man or a woman who fights crime, saves the day on a regular basis, and at the end of the day, is there to help.  A superhero who fails to do those things isn’t exactly super.  He or she is just a guy who happens to have superpowers.

Yes, I know Batman doesn’t have superpowers.  Except he totally does.  He is a scientist, athlete, detective, martial artists who is smarter, tougher, and better than any real human being could be.  If that doesn’t count as a superpower, I don’t know what does.

Call me old fashioned (I’m sure many will), but I rather like superheroes as symbols of hope and empowerment.  And that so many creators instead choose to see them as bleak and hopeless doesn’t diminish those writers’ talent or vision, but in the end, it’s just incompatible with what I tend to look for in my superheroes.  It’s no doubt why I no longer read much of the genre, and why a lot of the movies don’t appeal to me.  I can’t honestly say it’s a question of right or wrong.  Different strokes.

But I also can’t shake the feeling that stories about a guy dressed as a bat fighting a guy dressed like a clown are probably not the best place to explore cynicism.  A lot of people disagree with me though, so what the heck do I really know?

 

That’s it for today, Action Force.  Until next time, you know where to find me.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Mailbag: Dessert Can Be Good For You

Time to reach into the old Action Force mailbag and answer another question.  As always, you can reach me on Twitter (@aleemartinez), on Facebook (A. Lee Martinez), or through good ol’ fashioned e-mail (hipstercthulhu@hotmail.com) if you have a question or comment you’d like to share.  I can’t guarantee I’ll respond, but I can guarantee I will read it.  And isn’t having a vaguely famous person reading an e-mail almost like being vaguely famous yourself?

No, not really.  But we all take what we can get, right?

Today’s question:

I’m reading Helen & Troy’s Epic Road Quest and, as a junior member of the A. Lee Martinez Action Force wanted to spread the good word.  I started describing the book but stopped abruptly when I was going to use the term Beach Read.  It felt like a dirty word.  What I wanted to convey was that when listening to the story (yay audible) I wished I was on a beach – the book really captures that post-high school, magical summertime vibe.  I briefly considered pausing the book until I could be on a beach to listen to it.  When I say beach read I mean “this book feels like it is meant to be enjoyed at leisure on a perfect day by the waves.”  Like a cocktail with an umbrella in it.

There has been much to-do about rethinking of the word escapism as a wonderful, necessary, healing thing.  Can beach read be reclaimed from meaning “fluffy pot boiler you won’t mind getting sunscreen all over?”

Charles

This is a dilemma I often face myself when describing my books.  The problem, as you so rightly pointed out is that escapism is a complicated thing.  I’ve actually grown uncomfortable with the label myself, and not just talking about my own work, but other people’s work in general.  Pacific Rim is escapist science fiction cinema, but it’s also a heck of a great film with a lot of heart and soul to it.  Galaxy Quest is a comedic send up of dozens of Star Trek cliches, but it is also a genuinely engaging and intelligent film.  Heck, it’s a better Trek movie than Into Darkness at this point.  And so it is that a lot of things I write (and a lot of things I simply admire) are shuffled into the category of “beach read” or “escapism” or “fluff”, and that’s not changing anytime soon.

I have never been able to figure out if this is a failing of human psychology or language itself.  Do we diminish stories we enjoy because we overvalue the negative and dark?  Or does language itself instill in us a black-and-white dichotomy.  Something is either “light” or “dark”, “comedy” or “tragedy”, “silly” or “serious”.  It is certainly in our nature to quantify things and stick them into neat little boxes and a lot of those boxes make sense.  I don’t usually go to a monster movie looking for romance.  I don’t usually read a comedic novel to feel bad about life.  I don’t go to a Superman movie to walk out of the theater feeling depressed.  (Reflexive Man of Steel jab there.  Sorry.)

Much as I hate the labels, I also understand where they come from.  It doesn’t mean I won’t occasionally fight against them or attempt to broaden appeal rather than shrink it.  Not just for my own work, but for the works of others.  I will rail against anyone who chooses to dismiss Pacific Rim as simply a giant monster movie or calls The Incredibles merely a cartoon.

As for my own work, that’s a bit trickier.  It’s hard to defend your own work without sounding pretentious and a little full of yourself.  I believe my stories are more than just fluff, certainly, and I work hard to give them more depth than you might get at a first glance.  Despite the subject matter, despite the absurd nature of stories about robots and vampires, I write my stories with human beings in mind and I like to think I have something worthwhile to say about the human experience, even as I write about robots and monsters.

But, yes, I do also write to entertain, and I make no apologies for that.  My goal is to write enjoyable stories and if attempting to write accessibly is somehow a sign of a less talented artist, well, there’s just not a whole lot I can do about that.  As I’ve mentioned before, writing fiction is a weird gig because if you do it well, people tend to diminish your achievement.  The line so often between genre and literature is less about subject matter and more about how difficult a story is to get through.  It’s like eating your vegetables.  You don’t do it because you like it.  You do it because you’re supposed to.

That’s the basic dilemma I face every time I write.  I know that if I create a story someone likes to read, that they eagerly devour, it will come across as dessert.  Satisfying, enjoyable, but also assumed to be low nutrient and full of empty calories.  Meanwhile, a story that is a chore is viewed as metaphorical vegetables, difficult to consume but good for you.

But writing isn’t cooking, and reading doesn’t have to be difficult to be rewarding.  There are definitely difficult stories that need to be told, that have enriched our culture.  But there are also enjoyable stories that have done the same.  And just because something is hard to digest, it doesn’t mean it’s good for you.

Labels are almost always arbitrary, and once I accepted that, I found I had a lot less trouble with the labels I’ve been saddled with.  Ultimately, if they’re meant as compliments, I take them as such.  I can’t tell you the best way to get your friends interested in my books because I don’t know them and what might give them that push.  That’s up to you.

I will say that what always works for me is when someone says the books are enjoyable, fun, original, and with more depth than you might expect.  I like to think of them as dessert that’s good for you, and if that isn’t enough to convince someone, I’m not sure what else you can say.  And I’m not sure the term “beach read” will ever be reclaimed from your rather on-the-nose summary.  At a certain point, I stop worrying about it, and just believe, “This is a good book” should be enough.

About the only way to really counter the “fluff” assumption is to actually talk about the depths of the story.  A lot of people won’t agree with you, but if you convince even one person there are hidden depths, you’ve taken a step toward breaking that stereotype.  So feel free to call Helen and Troy’s Epic Road Quest a beach read, but while you’re at it, go ahead and mention some deeper characterization, some theme (intentional or not) that the story made you ponder.  It’s the best way to show that something is more than fluff, even if it is enjoyable.

It’s why when I talk about The Incredibles, I don’t just talk about the giant robot fights, but the smaller moments that ring true emotionally.  And while I love watching a kaiju getting a rocket punch to the face, I also love the quiet moments when characters relate to each other or when a frightened little girl who has just had her world end looks up into the face of the man who becomes the embodiment of hope for a better tomorrow and he sees the same thing in her.

So feel free to talk about your emotional investment in the fluffiest of stories.  You’ll be glad you did, and it just might show the world that even the most shallow stories might have more to offer than we’ve been taught to expect.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

 

Square One

In the immortal words of Mugatu, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.”

If you haven’t heard, J.K. Rowling wrote a mystery and had it published under a different pen name, and while the book was lauded critically, it wasn’t selling all the well.  Somehow, this is supposed to be either shocking, surprising, or, even more strangely, an indictment of the publishing industry itself (depending on who you ask).

But I fail to see it as any of those things.  It’s just proof that, underneath it all, success is an elusive beast, and the best way to trap that beast is to already be successful.  While I’m not out to criticize Rowling’s writing (nor do I actually have any reason to), her incredible level of success is surely as much to do her reputation and celebrity status as the quality of her writing.  The only alternative is to believe that the Harry Potter series is, indeed, the greatest literary accomplishment in the history of the world.

Nothing against Rowling or Harry Potter, but I sincerely doubt this.

I’m not trying to dismiss her writing ability or her hard work (or anyone’s for that matter), but it’s also okay to admit that some things just become popular and through their popularity, become wildly successful.  And through their success, they become more popular.  It’s a cycle, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it.

I get more respect as a novelologist now than I did five years ago, and that’s usually because now that I have ten books published, it makes me seem more respectable.  There’s no reason it shouldn’t.  It shows that I’ve been doing this for a while, and that people are still willing to pay me to do it, which doesn’t equal talent, but does equal some level of success.

Harry Potter is indeed a very popular series, but let’s be honest.  A big part of that success is that it was in the right place at the right time, and that, by virtue of its popularity, achieved even more popularity.  A lot of people read Harry Potter because they loved it, but a lot of other people read Harry Potter because their friends read Harry Potter, because they wanted to be part of a cultural phenomenon.  And why not?  The motivation is incidental.  It certainly doesn’t diminish the books’ success or Rowling’s accomplishments.  But it also doesn’t mean that she is such an amazing writer that she could write anything and everyone would automatically adore it with the same level of passion.

Rowling’s biggest asset is her name because it gets people interested in the first place.  Without it, she’s back to square one, and square one is a very unforgiving place. Without something to help you stand out, you’re just another nameless schmo trying to get noticed.  So Rowling had the courage to go back to square one, and good for her.  But it can hardly be surprising that, without her name, she wasn’t setting the world on fire.  Unless you’re foolish enough to believe that talent is more important than reputation and branding.

If you believe that, I don’t want to destroy your illusions.  But, screw it, you are wrong.

We all know this to be true.  How many movies have you gone to see, some you weren’t even that interested in, because you noticed an actor or a director (sometimes, very rarely, a writer) you had a fondness for?  Hollywood has built an entire industry founded on creating something recognizable (via sequels, big name stars, or both), and while it doesn’t always guarantee success, it is the easiest way to ensure that you’ll at least get noticed.  And getting noticed is vital.

On the flip side, how many movies have you skipped because you had a dislike (for whatever reason) for someone involved in it.  After Earth might not have been a good movie (I didn’t see it), but I do know when I heard criticism or doubts about it, they were always rooted in complaints about Will Smith, scientology, or M. Night Shyamalan.  The movie itself seemed irrelevant.

Even as a writer myself, my goal is to eventually have a strong enough reputation that my books get bought sight unseen, pre-ordered before anyone reads a word of them, picked up by pure reflex.  It is only when I’ve achieved that level of success (which I doubt I actually ever will) that I’ll be truly secure in this job.  I still want people to enjoy what I write, but, let’s be honest, there are plenty of writers who have somehow succeeded in fragmenting and disappointing their audience who have managed to maintain strong careers.  I don’t want to be one of those writers, but I also know, given the choice between starving or selling out, I know what I choose.

Reputation isn’t always such a bad thing.  Nor is it always shallow.  If you’ve read a book that you absolutely despised, there’s nothing wrong with shying away from another book from the same writer. If an actor consistently amuses you with their film roles, they’ve probably earned your loyalty.  Heck, I’m attempting to build a career on the very foundation that nothing more than the name A. Lee Martinez will convince you to buy a book about anything from cosmic monster horror stories to divine comedies to modern day mash ups of the Hero’s Journey / Road Trip movies.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, our minds are often made up before we’ve even thought about it.  It’s how we function.  If we eat someplace and like it, we’re more likely to eat there again.  If we like an actor, writer, series, we’re more likely to give them a little leeway, and if we dislike someone or something, we’re more likely to nitpick and deride it.

J.K. Rowling dared to reset, to step out onto a ledge she never ever had to revisit, and unsurprisingly, she got treated like every other random person on that ledge.  It’s a scary place, and I can respect her for doing it.  What did she really have to lose?  But it just proves that greatness isn’t merely the byproduct of talent and that success isn’t something due anyone.  It’s something that some stumble upon, like a hidden vein of gold.  Once you find it, it’s pretty easy to keep finding it.  But if you choose to go dig elsewhere, you probably aren’t going to strike it rich again.

Everyone who is struggling for success should probably realize that.  More importantly, everyone who is already successful should keep that in mind.  Otherwise, we run the risk of thinking our success due us, of assuming that the failures of others is due to their incompetence, and not, more than we care to admit, happenstance and circumstance.

Except for me, of course.  I’m an amazing writer who will be renowned throughout the ages.  But you already knew that.

Keelah Se’lai

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee