More Positivity Than A Proton AND a Positron

A thing I know about myself is I tend to get more talkative and introspective about the stuff that outrages me than the stuff that makes me happy. I don't think I'm unique in this. In fact, any of you who have worked food service are right now thinking, "Yeah, you and the rest of this herd we call humanity."

Well, no longer! Or at least not for today! Today I'm going to talk about six pieces of fiction that have really got me excited lately. These are things that blew my mind with their quality, inspired me to write, or taught me lessons. Usually they did all three at once.

So, in no particular order, things that recently awesomed me!

1. Sports Night - I've heard raves about Sports Night for years. It's a late 90s dramedy about a sports news show with a few obvious main characters but a sprawling secondary cast. Snappy patter, Hawksian dialogue, and genuinely funny and human characters make this a triumph from Aaron Sorkin. It makes me want to write dialogue that will be described as "Unruhesque" someday.

2. Terriers - My buddy Zac convinced me to watch this by describing it as "the Neo-Rockford Files." I'd heard some good things, but this clinched it for me. A recovering alcoholic ex-cop and his ex-criminal buddy work as unlicensed private detectives. The premise is that they've stumbled onto a case that's way above their heads. I know that sounds like half the PI shows that have ever been made. The magic of this one is that EVERY case, not just the big, season-long one, winds up being weirder and more complicated than originally thought. This show taught me that it's okay for your characters to do bad things for the right reasons. It also taught me that it's okay if that works for them every now and then. It also taught me how to make things difficult for main characters without undermining their inherent awesome.

3. The Absolute at Large - Who would have thought that 90 year old Czech science fiction/satire would be so relevant today? The basic idea of this novel by Karel Capek is a scientist invents a way to annihilate matter completely, thus unleashing almost infinite energy. Unfortunately, that sets loose the Absolute, the parts of God found in all matter. Naturally, God turned loose in the world causes some pretty amazing havoc. This book accidentally handed me a concept that solved a superhero idea I've been working on. It also got me to think hard about what it'll mean if I write a science fiction story.

4. Justice League - I mentioned before I've been working my way back through this series. Generally, it's still amazing. But the first season of Justice League Unlimited has caused me to seriously think about the core concepts of characters. Obviously, characters that have been written for 70 years have a core concept that you don't want to try to row against. But shouldn't every main character I write be given the same kind of up front consideration? I think so and JLU s1 is showing me why things ring hollow if you don't do that initial character work.

5. Leverage - Every 44 minutes is a modernized 60s heist/con movie. I think this show is going to spawn at least one post as I talk about our love of the anti-hero. This is a group of thieves who have turned their abilities and skills against those who stomp on the little guy. Aside from the anti-hero thing I'll talk about another time, this show has taught me that I really want to write a television show someday. It's also taught me (along with #6) that literally any genre can be updated and repackaged to appeal to a new audience while still making the audience already in the know happy.

6. Sherlock - A modern retelling of the Sherlock Holmes concept. I don't know what to say other than if you're not watching this, you're missing out. It updates and reimagines the core concept and stories of Sherlock Holmes into a thing so fresh that an entire generation of people for whom this is their first brush with Sherlock Holmes is going to wonder why somebody would do it a stuffy, Victorian version of their favorite stories. This show taught me that I was being lazy when I wrote period pieces. It showed me that updating an aging concept is so much more than just moving it into the modern day. Frankly, considering how much I appreciate period genre pieces, it showed me that, as a writer, I could be doing better.

You'll note that's a lot of television that's inspiring me. There are several reasons for that. One is that reading is harder in a house with young children. Another is that I'm not able to get what I get from the show from the original material . The biggest reason, though, is that I've wound up reading a lot of  not very good stuff lately so that I can learn what not to do as a writer.

And if you think you just read the seed of another blog post, you're right about that too.