Month: May 2011

Pen to Paper: Hide the Soapbox

Posted on by bryon

Jurgen Wolff reminds screenwriters they shouldn’t hit the audience over the head with the moral of the story, or with some Important Life Message.

This, naturally, is good advice for those of us who are writing for a smaller screen, or for the page.

There are a few stories I want to write that are about Big Issues and through which I want to offer Important Life Messages. They remain unwritten because I haven’t yet figured out how to shape them so that they entertain rather than merely preach or scold. Good fiction often preaches or scolds, but it must first and foremost entertain. I haven’t found the right approach to make what I write fiction rather than a letter to the editor.

Wolff’s screenwriters have forgotten the adage “show, don’t tell” and they’re about as subtle as a Baptist evangelist at a tent revival. The characters have to play out the story and fail where they fail and learn where they learn (or fail to learn and learn to fail). The Important Life Messages about the Big Issue have to be planted organically in the flow of the story; they have to be presented almost Socratically. The reader can then find the ILM rather than having it spoonfed – or forcefed – to him.

Fiction: Floral Arrangement

Posted on by bryon

It was windy that day in St. James’ Cemetery, and the flowers that were laid with love at the eastern end of the cemetery had been repositioned to decorate other graves. I left my hat in the car so I wouldn’t have to chase after it.

Her stone was taller than it was long, and I used my pocket knife to dig in the painfully well-manicured grass on the windward side. I set the yellow rose, still in its water tube, in the little hole and scraped earth around it with the flat of my blade.

“Think nothing of it,” I said. “It’s just one flower.”

Janet didn’t respond. The dead are like that.

But then, Janet hadn’t spoken to me for almost fifty years.

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OT: All Things in Moderation

Posted on by bryon

The spam brigade is out in force at present, despite the countermeasures I’ve taken. Thus, I’ve changed Catsignal’s comment settings; I have to approve all comments before they’ll show up. That’s why you’re not getting the instant gratification of seeing your comment post (unless you already have an approved comment posted), and that’s why I’m having to log in to check under the hood more frequently than I have been or care to. I think (today, at least) this is a better system than asking people to register before commenting.

To Catsignal’s friends: Please don’t let this deter you from commenting. I enjoy hearing from you.

To the spammers: You’re not going to get what you want, so go the hell away. This includes the morons who make half-hearted comments for the purpose of linking to their own sites. No one will know you were here but me, and I get to play whack-a-mole with you.

 

Pen to Paper: The Villain

Posted on by bryon

I took a quick spin through my stories and discovered, as I suspected I would, that very few of them have a traditional villain. Catsignal appears in black on white, but the stories are in varying shades of gray.

Suzannah Freeman reminds us why villains are villains and what villains do in a story. David B. Coe writes about how the traditional villain has given way to a more nuanced character as well as the greater use in fiction of the anti-hero. He tells us about some of the villains in his stories and how he made them believable.

Melissa Donovan sees villains everywhere she looks, which is an approach I appreciate and have used. Similarly, Marie Brennan suggests that rather than out-and-out villains, we can set up antagonists for our protagonists. Her line of thinking seems to be along the same lines as what Brannon Braga has said: “The key to writing villains is to make them feel that they are the heroes of the piece.” Before that, Robert A. Heinlein’s Lazarus Long said, in part, “Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes.” That’s also useful for writers to remember.

Fiction: Marshmallow Workout

Posted on by bryon

Theo watched quietly as Rhonda sat at the table, holding as still as she could. She closed her eyes and held her hands in front of her, just above the table, as though she were holding a large ball.

A foot in front of her hands sat two ceramic mugs of hot chocolate. The one on the right had a large marshmallow bobbing gently in it.

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Pen to Paper: The KJV Endureth

Posted on by bryon

Today is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible.

The KJV was created during the Elizabethan era (if, as some scholars do, you stretch the definition a bit), perhaps the greatest moment the English language has known. William Shakespeare was wrapping up his contributions to English and would live only four more years after the KJV was unveiled. (Some people – numerologists and their prey, primarily – believe that Shakespeare wrote or helped to write the KJV and slipped his name into one of the Psalms. History gives no credence to these assertions.)

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