A. Lee Martinez's Blog, page 66

Subjectivity

It's weird to realize that everything we think, everything we believe, is almost purely subjective.  Let's set aside deep-seated, controversial subjects like politics, religion, and The Addams Family VS. Munsters.  Let's just talk about harmless thngs like movies, television, and books.  It's a safe bet that no matter how much you hate a book / TV show / movie, someone out there loves it.  And vice versa.

My favorite novel is Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.  It is, I'm betting, probably not yours.  My second favorite novel is Jungle Tales of Tarzan, which is less of a novel and more of a short story collection, but hey, it's my book.  I get to pick it.  My third favorite novel is Anarchaos.  You haven't even read it.  Nobody has.  But it's awesome.  I love Shell Scott mysteries, and I can't be the only one.  But it sure seems like it.

As a professional novelologist, I always feel a little strange about this.  I'm supposed to love Shakespeare and Steinbeck and Hemmingway.  I don't.  I don't think they're bad, but nothing I've ever read in a Shakespeare play has spoken to me the way Walt Simonson's Thor comic run did.  If you give me a choice between watching the latest Best Picture award winner or Ducktales: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, I know what I'm going for.

And there's a tendency to think that this is because I like fun, frothy trifles.  But that's not it.  It's because those things speak to me.  They've influenced me in so many ways.  Not just in the way I write, but in what I believe is important.  Superman and Batman have shaped my perception of the universe in ways both profound and subtle.  I strive to write something as thrilling and beautiful as Incredible Hulk #300 (or maybe 400, I forget the exact issue).  I believe that the medium is not the message.  The message is where you find it.

As I've said before, one of the reasons I hate being classified as a comic fantasy writer is that it puts me in a category I just don't believe exists.  The difference between Julius Caesar and King Kong is a fine line.  Both are great tragedies.  One just has an ape punching a dinosaur, and that only makes it more awesome, not less.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The Squirrel Girl Dilemma

So the latest World of Warcraft patch has come out, and I have a tauren paladin to level.  But I haven't posted anything in a while, so let's get to it.

Recently, I tweeted that I'd like to write a story with either Marvel's Squirrel Girl or DC's Killowog.  And I really, really would.  This is rare for me,  as I don't aspire to write stories for characters I didn't create.  I love Superman, Batman, the mighty Thor, but I have no real interest in writing anything with them.  (Although if someone at DC or Marvel thinks I'd be a good fit, I wouldn't rule it out immediately.)

I think the appeal of Squirrel Girl and Killowog for me is that neither character has had a lot written about them.  This gives me a little more room to maneuver, to write my own story without having to worry about previous continuity and interpretations of the characters. 

For those who don't know, Squirrel Girl is a comedic superhero in the Marvel universe with squirrel powers (of course).  The joke about Squirrel Girl is that she is the greatest superhero in the Marvel universe, despite her innocuous powers and personality.  She's endlessly cheerful.  Her sidekick is a squirrel.  And she routinely kicks the butts of world-shattering villains.

Killowog isn't a comedic character.  He's just a Green Lantern.  But he's usually portrayed as a no-nonsense guy who just kicks butt.  It'd be a chance to write a Green Lantern story without having to deal with Hal Jordan, who I've always felt was rather bland as a character.

Someone asked me, "How would I write a story with these characters to introduce them to the general public?"

It's an interesting question.

Firstly, I'm not sure that's even relevant.  Comic books are an insular medium at this point, and it's rare for anyone to just decide to buy comics out of the blue.  Usually, they have friends who are comic book fans or have already been buying them for years.  The shrinking nature of the market is a big problem, but there seems to be no real effort to stop that at this point as comic companies continue to cater to diehard fans who are willing to catalogue decades of fake history in order to understand many stories.

But let's just assume that I did get to write a comic book and that this would cause non-comic buying people to rush to the stores and purchase said comic.  It's possible.  I do have fans.  I don't know how many are eager to read a comic book I've helped write, but you never know.

The reason I find the question interesting is that I don't see how writing a comic book with an established character would be any different than writing any other story I've written.  Since I have yet to write a sequel to anything, every story I create starts with the assumption that the reader won't know anything going in.  That's one of the things I love about writing original stories.  I don't have to worry about excessive continuity or about balancing old fans with new.  Every book stands on its own.  Every book is a fresh start.

I would treat a comic book story in much the same way.  It's true that established characters in established universes come with some baggage.  But I look at that as backstory.  It might shape and influence the character, but it shouldn't be necessary to understand the history of everything a character has done to enjoy whatever story they are taking part in now.  As I said, neither Squirrel Girl or Killowog have much backstory to begin with because they're minor characters.  And that's what I find so appealing about them.

Whether or not a character has a history, I think it's a mistake to revel in that.  Tight comic book continuity is one of the reasons the medium is dying.  It's called continuity lockout at www.tvtropes.org and it's a very real danger with any kind of ongoing story or universe.  Especially in comic books superheroes, where literally decades of history can be found on so many characters.

Good writing should seek to transcend continuity.  It shouldn't rely on a fannish devotion to previous works.  There's nothing wrong with a continuity nod here and there.  And characters with long histories can have layered and interesting stories told about them.  But the second a reader has to look up reference material to understand what you've written (not just to add to their enjoyment of it) is the second you've failed as a writer.  Usually.  These aren't hard and fast rules, folks.  Novelology is a soft science.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, gang.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Friday Musings

2010 is nearly over, and I still don't have my jetpack.  Mutants are not lurking in the sewer.  The great robot uprising has not started.  Aliens aren't here to harvest our organs.  The mole people are still lurking quietly, unseen, below the Earth's crust.  There are no superpsychics threatening to replace us as dominate species.  No flying cars.  No moonbase.  No underwater cities.

Wouldn't a WAR OF THE MONSTERS! be awesome?  Nothing says the future is here like a giant ape fighting a giant grasshopper atop the Chrysler Building.  If that ape should be a robot, so much the better.

A guy can dream…

 I really like giant monsters.  Have I mentioned that lately?  Skyline wasn't a great movie.  But it did have giant alien monsters, which was almost enough for me.  I also enjoyed that it was directed with quiet competence.  There was none of that shakey camera nonsense that directors seem to love so.  I don't know when we decided that being able to follow the action wasn't "edgy" enough, but if you're going to have a giant alien stepping on cars, I want tobe able to see it.  My biggest gripe with the live-action Transformers movies is that Michael Bay seems to believe that framing a shot with the subject in the center is beneath him.  Well, that was my biggest complaint about the first film.  Let's not get into the many flaws of the second.

My biggest complaint about Skyline is that the entire film ends up being little more than a prologue.  This is annoying because if the movie is not a success then all you sold me was a really pricey movie pitch.  It's also annoying because I ALWAYS skip prologues.

I never read them.  If it's important to the story, then it's labeled Chapter One.  I don't mind prologues because they are clearly labeled as something I can skip, but it makes me wonder why they are there in the first place.  Tradition?  To beef up the page count?

One of my books almost had a prologue.  I considered writing one for The Automatic Detective because there's a cool scene I wanted to write, but, while it's an important moment in Mack Megaton's life, it just seemed irrelevant.  People (and robots) have lots and lots of important moments in their lives.  If it's not important to the current story, why bother?  That sort of reasoning is why I'll probably never win a Puliltzer.

Probably.

Hey, you never know.   Maybe the committee will decide they've read enough stories about people dying tragically.  Maybe they'll decide that it's time to give space squid "Doc Savage" types a chance to shine.  Maybe not.

One last thing:  I've just finished reading Why We Make Mistakes by Joseph T. Hallinan.  A great book about Terran fallibility.  The book deals honestly with our tendency to screw up and, even more importantly, our tendency to overlook or dismiss these screw ups.  We like to attribute our successes to our brilliance and our failures to dumb luck.  We focus on the inconsequential, ignore the important, and are oblivious to most everything going on around us.  It's a fantastic book, and I highly recommend it.

Of course, I'm also reading How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard, which is making a compelling argument that reading books is something of a waste of time.  Or at least not necessary to understand and enjoy them.

Except for mine.  Read mine.  You'll be glad you did.

But if you just want to buy them and act like you've read them, that'd be okay with me too.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

In Which, I Fix Skyline's Ending

Saw Skyline.   It's a fun movie with some very cool aliens and great action.  Sadly, it's ending is stupid.  Or rather, it's non-ending.  I get that everything is about franchises and sequels at this point, but there's a difference between leaving room for a sequel and refusing to end your story at a satisfying point.  And Skyline is just another of a long line of disappointing films / books that don't know how to do that.

Fortunately for you, I'm a professional novelologist, and I'm here to help.

Skyline isn't weak because of how it ends.  It's weak because it ends at the wrong point.  It ends halfway through a scene rather than at a satisfying conclusion that allows the audience to feel as if they've seen enough of the story to be happy and still be eager to see more of it.  Which is why I'm going to fix that.

Naturally, this entails a SPOILER ALERT.  If you want to be surprised by Skyline, go see it or wait for it on DVD or whatever.  And when you're done, come to me for the rest of the story.

Ready?  Okay, here we go.

Jared, the alien warrior with the human brain, battles his way off the alien spaceship.  With his pregnant wife in tow, he manages to escape to the city below.  Of course, the invaders give chase and there's an exciting fight through the city streets.  Inevitably, Jared is cornered and as he and his wife stare down the aliens come to terminate them, it looks like the end.

It's then that a second alien with human consciousness appears and teams up with our heroes to beat back the bad guys.  Of course, if there is one alien warrior posssessed by its human mind, there are others.  And so the new hybrid leads our protagonists to a small gathering of various human alien heroes (along with a ragtag group of human survivors) who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.

Just then, a huuuuge invader bursts through the walls.  Jared and the hybrids charge forward.  The real battle for the future of Earth has just begun.

THE END. 

I like this ending because A) it leaves ample room for a sequel and B) monster fights are awesome!  It doesn't tie everything into a neat little bow, but it lets us know that stage one of the invasion is over and that the humanity as huddling victims is done.  It's time to fight.

So there.  Problem solved.  And I won't even charge the producers of Skyline a cent for fixing their movie.  Because I'm cool like that.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

The Talent Myth

The myth of effortless talent has always annoyed me.  Nobody is great at something naturally.  Everyone who has mastered anything has put time and effort into it.  Studies have shown that child prodigies are talented because they started young and thus, have an edge in terms of experience and practice to those of similar age, and not because they were born with some magical gift.

Because I'm a professoinal novelologist, a lot of people think I went to college.  I didn't.  The next assumption is that I have always been interested in writing, even from a young age.  I wasn't.  I didn't really consider writing as a career (or even a hobby) until I was 16.  I was a decent writer, of course, but it wasn't a calling.  I felt no need to tell stories.  I wasn't driven by some inner muse.  It just sort of happened.

I do believe some basic ability is important.  A monkey can't write a book.  A dwarf can't be a basketball star.  But I am here, as a writer, because I worked at it.

There's nothing special about me or what I do.  Nearly anyone can do it.  And plenty of people want to do it.  But wanting to do it and doing it are two very different things.  I'm a good writer and it's not because I was blessed by a muse that whispers in my ear.  I'm a good writer because I write, because I wrote.

I wrote for 13 years with nothing to show for it.  I wrote when there was no payday.  I wrote when it looked like I would never get published.  I wrote stories I was pretty sure would never even get published.  How many pages did I write, how many hours?  When I look at my seven published books sitting on the bookshelf, I realize just how much material I've produced that has been published.  And how much more I've written that hasn't been and never will be.

It's easy to do something when it's fun and rewarding.  But if you want to be really good at something, you have to work through the hard, discouraging part.  Every book I've ever written has had difficult sections, parts where the characters refused to cooperate and the plot didn't want to work with me.  But what makes me a writer is getting past those sections through sheer stubborn determination.  If I just waited for a finished book to flow out of me uninterrupted you would not be reading this now because you would never have heard of me because those books would never have been written.

Talent doesn't come from the gods.  It comes from doing something and doing it over and over again until you get good at it.  Or at least until you get lucky.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

On Writing: Backstoried

So Heroscape is no more.  One of the greatest tabletop games of all time has perished from this earth.  All things must pass, and it's not as if my collection of Heroscape stuff is going anywhere.  But still, it stinks to watch something cool end.  But such is life.

Funny though.  Without Heroscape, I don't think I'd be married today.  It was through Heroscape and a convoluted series of events that I met my lovely wife.  So if you ever love why I love games, that's why.  They've given me hours of fantastic entertainment, taught me quite a bit about life (even though I know that sounds absurd), and they got me a wife.  So a guy really can't ask for much more than that.  Although if they could somehow create a game that could give me laser vision, I'd want for nothing.  But that's probably being greedy.

I went to a friend's book club meeting this weekend, and it was a lot of fun.  It's always cool to meet people who are excited to meet me.  When I do a booksigning, for example, I tend not to attract much of a crowd.  If I sign or sell four or five books, it's a rousing success.  So when I actually get to talk to people that seem happy to see me, it's still something I'm not entirely used to.

The book read was Gil's All Fright Diner, and one of the questions asked was about Tammy.  If you haven't read the book by chance, Tammy is the villain of the piece, a teenage sorceress with sinister designs on the titled diner.  Tammy is of Japanese descent, and she's also adopted.  Someone asked me what happened to her parents and how she ended up in Rockwood.

I admitted I had no idea.  Hadn't really thought about it.

There's a myth that in order to write a character, you have to know everything about them.  It's absolutely not true.  There's another myth that if something is unusual about a character, it probably ties into the plot in some way.  So if Tammy is adopted, that must mean something.  But, honestly, it was just something that happened as I wrote the story.  Tammy was Japanese-American, an off-hand detail thrown in for no good reason other than why-the-heck-not?  And she was adopted because . . . well, for exactly the same reason.

Most of my characters do not have elaborate backstories, and I like it that way.  I don't really care how they got where they are most of the time.  I care where they are and where they're going.  Some might argue that you need to know a character's past to understand how they would react, but I tend to view the past as an illusion anyway.  I'm less concerned with what happened in the past than with how they relate to the world now.

It's tricky.  There are indeed times when backstory is important, and for some characters, their history is absolutely essential.  But I usually find it irrelevant.  One of the most elaborate backstories I've ever created belonged to Mack Megaton, the protagonist of The Automatic Detective.  Mack actually has quite a bit of justification for how he came to be.  And none of it ended up in the book, aside from a few hints here or there.  There just wasn't a place for it, and to put it in would've only slowed the novel's pace.

But even in stories where backstory is important, I usually am uninterested.  I couldn't care less about how Darth Vader became evil or how the Empire came to power, for instance.  I don't need to know how the Jedi were wiped out or how Luke Skywalker was born.  All those questions are irrelevant.  And trying to answer them only ends up tying everything into uncomfortable knots of continuity snarls.

I still believe that my job as a writer is to tell you just enough of a story that you can make as much or as little of it as you want.  Perhaps in your imagination, Tammy's parents were sacrificed to a dark god and their daughter was shipped to Rockwood to begin the Apocalpyse.  Or maybe they just died in a car crash.  Or maybe they just gave her up because they didn't like kids.  Your answer is as good as mine, and that's cool with me.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

Megamindful

Saw Megamind today.  It was really good.  First and foremost, it was pure fun.  But at the heart of it is some solid characters, writing, and beautiful animation.

Watching the film, I found myself wondering why anyone bothers making live action fantasy films anymore?  Animation is clearly a better medium for this kind of material.  Animation is such a flexible art form that it can capture both the small moments and the big action and do so without any jarring shifts.  The FX are flawless because you don't need a CGI replica of a character to perform an amazing stunt if the character is already CGI.  In essence, with animation you can create a flawless reality that can do just about anything.

I exaggerate, of course.  I still think live-action fantasy is viable and worthwhile.  I am looking forward to Skyline because humans versus giant alien robots…what's not to love?  And that it's live-action doesn't deter me.

But still, animation is incredible and continues to impress me.  Clash of the Titans was good.  How to Train Your Dragon was awesome.  My favorite love story remains Wall-E.  My favorite superhero movie remains The Incredibles.  My favorite kung fu movie is Kung Fu Panda.  There's just something about them that I find appealing, an unfettered ability to create reality from the ground up while still building wonderful, relatable stories regardless of who or what the characters are.

I also think it helps immensely that animators like physical action and are far less likely to have long talky scenes.  They are far more likely to incorporate character and plot development in a visually appealing way, which is at the heart of what makes film work.  They are also less likely to get fancy with the direction in terms.  Animators work their butts off to animate a scene.  You can bet they aren't going to be tempted to shake the camera just to simulate excitement.

Maybe it's just me.  Maybe I'm reading more into it, seeing more in it than is actually there.  I've always been a fan of cartoons, of weird characters and strange realities.  And this is what animation has been consistently used for, from Looney Tunes to Batman: The Brave & The Bold and a million things in-between.  Heck, even as I write this I am wearing a Ducktales shirt, and I do so proudly.

Regardless, I loved Megamind and would say it was one of the most enjoyable films I've seen in a while.  Highly recommended.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

P.S. I've gotten some interesting responses to my last post about what I should and should not post on this site.  Thanks for chiming in, gang.  Your thoughts are always appreciated, and know that I'm mulling some things over.  I'll get back to you.

The Last Tweet

So while I hate to admit it, in all seriousness, I am kind of famous.  I am a quasi-celebrity.  And while it can be fun in concept, that comes with some baggage.  Lately, two people responded negatively to some comments I made on Twitter / Facebook.  Nothing too overdramatic, mind you.  Nothing insulting.  But still, the thing that comes with being sort of famous is that I don't have the luxury of internet anonymity.

Oh, sure.  I'm anonymous.  Nobody really cares much what I have to say.  But some people might, and that's a problem.  It's a problem because as a writer, I want to first and foremost be judged by my books, not by my personality, nor my personal views on politics, ghost hunting, or space piracy.  Even the most minor comment can discourage or offend someone, and frankly, I don't see the benefit in irritating current or potential fans.

That's the problem with the multi-media age.  I'd rather not trade on personality because there's no guarantee you're going to like me.  Paul Stevens, my first editor at Tor, didn't like me when we finally met face-to-face.  By then, we'd been working together long enough though that it didn't matter.  And Paul did learn to like me eventually.  Still, I am not arrogant enough to believe that you will like me if you met me.  There are plenty of people that don't.

And you shouldn't have to like me to enjoy my books.  Who I am as a person, what I believe, what I hold dear and what I deride, none of these should be particularly important to you, the reader.  But when I offer opinions, when I throw thoughts both casual and controversial out there into the internet, I'm forcing a choice on some people.  It's not a choice I believe they have to make, but some will feel that if they dislike a tweet or a blog or a facebook entry that maybe they can't like what I do.

It's just the nature of things.

But I don't want to be a part of any false equivalency, even if unintentionally.  I don't want anyone to mistake liking me with liking my books.  Or disliking me with disliking my books.  Or disliking an opinion I hold with . . . well, you get the idea.

If I'd have my druthers, I'd probably just avoid saying anything on the internet at all, but that's not practical.  Pure anonymity is no longer an option.  But I can do my best to limit my exposure, to avoid confusing myself as a person with myself as a writer.  So I'll still be out there.  I'll still tweet and offer wry Facebook comments.  I'll still pop in and post entries on this lovely site.  But it's going to be fairly innocuous stuff.  Stuff like what I'm working on and maybe a movie or TV show I really like.  I'll be happy to announce booksignings, talk about writing, and mention when I have a new book coming out.  But everything else…that's private property.  That's who I am on the inside and you don't need to know about it.  Especially if it discourages someone out there from enjoying my book.

Unlike nutty folks like Dr. Laura and Ex-Ms. California, I know that what I do isn't a right.  You don't have to buy my books.  I'm lucky to get paid to do this, and I'd rather just play it safe.  Or at least, let my artistic expression speak for itself.  It never annoys me when someone doesn't like my books.  But the idea that someone might not like my books because they don't like me, that bothers the hell out of me.

So carry on, internet.  I'll be here, even if I have a lot less to say.

Fighting the good write, Writing the good write,

Lee

The Leprechauns Are Coming

Ahoy hoy.  Been a while, hasn't it?  I've been busy.  Ordered a pizza.  Got married.  Wrestled a bear.  Traveled back in time and gave a cell phone to a silent movie extra.  Just for laughs.  But I'm back to share that trademark A. Lee Martinez wit and wisdom you've come to cherish so.

I was thinking about blogging about something about the married life, but how different is it?  I was already living with my wife-to-be for a year, and we'd been dating two years before that, and we'd been friends two years before that.  So it's not as if this came out of the blue.  And it's only been a week since I tied the knot.  So nothing too exciting there.  Nothing worth posting about.

Instead, I'd like to talk about reality ghost hunting shows.  I haven't done that in a while.  

Why do I watch these shows?

It's a legitimate question.  What can these shows offer the skeptic?  If I don't believe in the paranormal, if I'm pretty well convinced that ghosts and evil spirits belong in the same dustbin as faeries and medieval medicine, then why do I watch?

It's not an easy question to answer.  Because I have a lot of reasons.

I suppose the easiest is that, of course, I'd like to believe in the supernatural.  A big part of the reason I write about vampires, monsters, and magic is that I like those things, and I think it'd be cool if they actually existed.  I like the idea of the fantastic, although I also know that, by definition, the only line between the fantastic and mundane is how often we encounter it.  If my next door neighbor was a minotaur, I'd no doubt get used to it pretty damn quick and stop finding it interesting soon enough.

Ghosts as a phenomenon can be interesting.  But current ghost research (and notice how I was nice enough not to sarcastically italicize research because I'm polite like that) has fallen victim to dubious facts and accepted practices that have made hunting for the supernatural less of a scientific process and more of a game played by its own peculiar rules.

That's a big reason I watch these shows.  It's amazing to me how certain practices have just become standard in the world of ghost hunting.  Even though none of these have proven reliable or particularly compelling.  Yet for those who pick up the ghost hunting banner, there never seems to be any doubt that what they're doing is scientific.  They think that because they are using scientific instruments that they are doing science.  But all they're doing is running around, chasing shadows of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Electromagnetic fields, for example, are hypothesized to be created by ghosts.  Notice how I did italicize hypothosize because, contrary to common perception, a hypothesis is more than just a random guess.  You can say high EMF = ghostly activity all you want, but I could just as easily say high EMF = invisible leprechauns.  Neither one of us can prove the other wrong, but it doesn't mean either of us are right.

Detecting a high EMF doesn't prove anything other than a high EMF.  Just as hearing a horn blare outside your window doesn't mean a car accident.  Although at least we do know cars exist, and why people generally honk their horns.  Even this sort of comparison shows how weak most ghost hunting logic is.

Scientifically, ghost hunting shows demonstrate just how badly mangled the term "scientific" is.  This is bad science in its truest form.  An obsession over anomalies without any control groups.

Here's a great experiment I would like to do.  I would love to pick five random locations, perhaps with only one or two "genuinely" haunted.  I wouldn't give the ghost hunting team any clue as to which was which.  I would simply give them the addresses, allow them to do their thing, and see what happens.  If ghost hunters could actually pick the "haunted" location, it wouldn't necessarily prove anything, but at least it would be something of a test.

Of course, I'm already sure of what would happen.  If the "haunted" location was not discovered as haunted, then it would be considered just a quiet night.  And if any of the non-"haunted" locations were discovered to have ghosts, then this would only mean that no one had noticed them before.

But pseudo-science isn't why I watch ghost hunting shows.  Nor is it the startling lack of evidence for the supernatural that these shows have produced.  And please don't give me that absence of evidence argument.  It has some merit, but if literally hundreds of thousands of footage have yet to produce a single worthwhile apparition, then I think it's all right to call it a day.  At least until some different detection technology comes along.

I think the biggest reason I watch these shows is because of how they reflect human behavior.  How we react and overreact.  How we view our own unreliable senses.  And how we are able to believe what we want to believe with the slightest justification.

 To a ghost hunter, a garbled audio recording is inexplicable, possibly supernatural.   Every sound can be the undead roaming the halls, and every creaky door just might be proof of the supernatural.  To a ghost hunter (indeed, to most people) the improbable is proof of the impossible although it's almost always a form of the impossible that they've prepared for in advance.

I can't help but marvel at how readily we accept some absurd realities and reject others.  Most of us believe in ghosts.  Very few believe in invisible leprechauns.  Yet both dwell in an unproven realm of pure possibility.  There's no reason to not believe that leprechauns are playing jokes on us, pretending to be ghosts, shaking doors, creaking stairs, and otherwise pranking us, laughing at us the whole time while we think we're talking with the dead.

But if I tried to sell a show to Syfy called Leprechaun Squad, I doubt I'd get very far.

This is assuming that the "proof" caught on these reality shows needs explaination in the first place.  Other than human imagination, that is.  And that's an awfully big assumption.

But the most obvious intersection between the paranormal and human psychology is that people seem to find the ghosts they are looking for.  Different ghost hunters tend to find different ghosts.  Take it from a guy who has watched way too many of these shows.

The Ghost Adventures dudes are wannabe daredevils and sure enough, they run across spooky spirits that freak them out.  The Ghost Hunters are wannabe scientists.  They're far more likely to run across anomalies and scientific proof.  The Most Haunted crew are such big babies that it's hard to imagine it's necessary for ghosts to scare them at all.  And let's not forget the intrepid do gooders of Paranormal State, who believe it is their duty to protect people from the supernatural and hence, are constantly running across demonic entities and terrifying powers.

Movies like Paranormal Activity demonstrate, in a fictional way, just why these shows fail so badly in their quest for the supernatural.  I don't expect anything quite as dramatic as levitating babies or footprints appearing in powder, but that nothing even remotely as interesting has ever been captured on film should tell us something.  It's true that reality is not fiction, but it's worth asking.  With nearly every person in the civilized world walking around with digital cameras in their pockets, why hasn't anyone caught anything definitive?

Not that it matters.  Believers will believe.  All it takes is one weird noise, one strange feeling, one goosebump, one jump of a needle to persuade them.  And maybe I'm of the opposite problem.  Maybe nothing would convince me.  Although I'd like to think that if someone caught some bleeding walls or a wailing banshee on tape that I'd be more inclined to accept their proof.  But who knows?

But do you really want to know how I feel?  I'm not wrong on this.  Just as you're not wrong for rejecting invisible leprechauns or mole people. 

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee

On Writing: Characters

Here's a question I had tweeted to me.

I notice a lack of independant female characters in media. Do you go out of your way to do this or does it come innate?

First of all, thanks.

It's a great question, but I think it's the wrong question.  Instead of asking for strong, well-defined female characters or strong, well-defined minority characters, we should ask for strong, well-defined characters of all types.  Male, female,  black, white, human, robot, etc.

I like to think that I write interesting female characters, but I like to think I write many types of interesting characters.  I don't put more thought into writing a female than I do a male.  I just try to treat them like a character, to make them interesting, believable (as much as the reality allows), and to give them life.  That's how you make a character worth remembering.  By treating them like characters worth knowing.

To some degree, that means avoiding stereotypes.  Although you don't have to avoid them entirely.  It's all right to start with a classic archetype and build on it.  But if you don't build on it then you're going to end up with a flat character that, while not necessarily wrong for the situation, is going to have trouble standing out.

In fantasy and science fiction, we see this problem all the time.  It's not generally found in the humans, but every character that isn't human.  The mistake many writers make is in assigning defining characteristics right off the bat, based on something as simple as what fantastic race a character might be.  Dwarves are gruff.  Elves are aloof.  Vulcans are logical.  Klingons are war-like.

You really don't have to look very far to realize how limiting this can be.  In Star Trek, is there any need for a recurring Vulcan character other than Spock?  They've introduced other Vulcans, but they tend to stand in Spock's shadow.  Whether it's Tuvok fromVoyager or the hot chick from Enterprise, there is very little to distinguish them from a garden variety Vulcan.

How about dwarves?  In nearly every fantasy setting I've ever come across, the dwarves are a sturdy people who live in the mountains.  They're blacksmiths and miners, and they love to drink and carouse.  And they're hardy brawlers who favor axes and, maybe, muskets.  This is such a standard that creating a dwarf who enjoys the arts or writing poetry smacks of untruth.  Never mind that dwarves are imaginary and that the only limits we place on them are limits we've created.

An example close to my heart is that of Mack Megaton, the protagonist of The Automatic Detective.  Mack is a robot, and we all know how robots are supposed to be.  Cold, logical, unfeeling machines.  The standard issue robot either suffers from Pinnochio Syndrome or Skynet Dysfunction.  I deliberately avoided both extreme with Mack.  Mack is logical, but he isn't unfeeling.  He has emotions.  He isn't necessarily ruled by them, but they are an important part of who he is.

Mack's journey as a character isn't in becoming more human.  Or less human.  Mack's problems don't stem from his lack of humanity because I always felt that he was already human.  He thinks.  He aspires.  He faces dilemmas and doubts.  His perspective might be different because, as a robot, he has different concerns, a slightly different way of looking at the world.  But he's a character, and aside from a few quirks from his robotic nature, he behaves like one first, and a robot second.

It might seem strange to compare female characters to Vulcans, dwarves, and robots, but that's my point.  Too often, women are handled in this way.  They are assumed to have innate characteristics that MUST define them or that they MUST defy to be interesting.  And if this is how you start, then is it any wonder that women characters can become as flat and lifeless as any stereotype?

To continue the fantasy character example, something I've touched upon before, you'll see that women are often defined by a very narrow set of physical characteristics.  Just as elves must all have pointed ears and all dwarves have thick beards, so it is that women in fiction are usually defined exclusively by their sexuality.  Often to the point of hypersexualization, accidental or not.  Just check out every single urban fantasy book cover.  90% of them feature an extremely attractive woman with exposed skin.  Or a tramp stamp.  Or impractical, form fitting clothing.  While it's true that male characters are usually attractive on covers too, it's always less sexual. 

Compare Jim Butcher's Dresden Files to Kim Harrison's The Hollows novels.  The original Dresden covers didn't even feature the protagonist.  The new version of the covers all feature the hero standing in a rather generic fashion.  But he's fully clothed.  He's wearing a long coat, a hat, holding a staff.  He might be a good looking guy, but it's certainly not overemphasized.  Meanwhile, The Hollows shows close up butt shots, mini-skirts, and thigh high boots.  Despite the fact that the protagonist of the books (at least in the first novel) was described as attractive, but not drop dead gorgeous.  Her clothes are tasteful and mostly practical.  Yet if one were to go by the cover art, she fights monsters in a stripperiffic outfit.

The same effect can be seen in superhero comics.  Superman, Batman, Spider-Man all get to be fully realized characters in unrevealing costumes.  Meanwhile, women tend to wear revealing outfits that show off their cleavage and asses.  Part of this is fanservice, no doubt, but another part is that without these elements to define them, writers aren't really sure what they are.  The same thing happens to minority characters, who usually have powers and origins related to their ethnicity.  Because apparently black people never stumble across strange meteors or have freak lab accidents.

The poster child for this particular effect is Luke Cage.  Once known as Power Man, he now fights crime as Luke Cage.  He doesn't need a code name.  He doesn't need a costume.  He's black.  He's from the streets.  That's all the effort that really needs to be put into his character.  Once you understand this, you can see the problem, and it is everywhere.

Everywhere.

Female characters are far more likely to be "baby crazy" than male ones.  Even if it doesn't fit with the female characters portraly in any other light.  Female characters are far more likely to cry.  Female characters are expected to be nurturing, and if they're not, they're ice queens.  There's no in-between.

And they are almost always beautiful.  Even if it's in that Don't realize how beautiful she is way, which is kind of a copout.  Has there ever been a movie where the female equivalent of Seth Rogan scored with the male equivalent of Katherine Hiegel?

So how do I write strong female characters?  The same way I write strong male characters.  With a few simple rules:

RULE 1: CHARACTERS ARE INDIVIDUALS

Remember that every character should be an individual.  Important characters especially should not be defined by any of the following qualities: gender, race, job.  If the primary way of identifying a character is based on some external quality of appearance or occupation then it's safe to say they are not very strong.

Appearance is of particular note.  I like monstrous characters, for example.  But all the great ones are more than a gimmick.  The Hulk might be a giant green man, but he's also the embodiment of rage and possesses an often child-like innocence.  The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing is a guy made out of rocks, but he's also a bruiser, an average Joe, and a dude who don't take any guff.  Even one of my favorite Marvel characters, the Man-Thing, is defined by his lack of defining personality.  He is little more than an empathic plant monster, and that lack of personality is what makes him unique.

Rule 2: CHARACTERS SHOULD LIVE OUTSIDE YOUR STORY

Characters should never seem that they are just standing around waiting for the narrator to appear and get the action going.  They should seem like they had some sort of life before the story started, and, unless they die at the end, it shouldn't seem like they'll disappear once the story is over.  This is fairly easy to do with your protagonists and antagonists, and most writers get it right.

Where they fall flat is usually found in the supporting characters.   Too often supporting characters end up sitting on the sidelines.  Their entire existence revolves around the primary characters, the heroes and villains.

One of my favorite deconstructions of this notion was shown in an episode of Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  In the episode, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen spend much of their screen time talking about the lives of Lois and Clark.  Until at one point, Perry points out that it's absurd that they're doing this, that they have their own lives.  It's a funny moment because, up to that point, I hadn't even realized that every scene of Perry and Jimmy revolved around the series's main characters.  It was invisible because it was so expected.

It's important not to overdo this though.  We really don't care that much about Jimmy or Perry.  We know who the heroes are, and that's who we are there to see.  But you don't do your supporting cast any justice by having them orbit the protagonists like tiny planets.

RULE 3: DON'T BE AFRAID TO LET EVERY CHARACTER CONTRIBUTE

You can create the most wonderfully well-developed secondary and tertiary characters in the world, but if they don't add to your story, what's the point?

I write a lot of crazy stuff about a lot of crazy characters.  And none of these characters succeeds or fails on their own.  This doesn't make the protagonist seem weak.  It makes them seem like they are part of a living world.  We all get by with a little help from our friends, and having characters contribute to your hero's successes shows that there is a real obstacle.

Okay, I could go on all night, but I'd rather stop than wear out my welcome.  The point is simple.  Treat characters of any type like individuals.  Avoid stereotypes.  Even the good stereotypes.  And remember that, whether a robot, a witch, a talking gorilla, or a giant fuzzy green monster that wants to devour the universe, there is something worthwhile and interesting about any character.  It's just a question of finding it.

Fighting the good fight, Writing the good write,

Lee