Wednesday, December 27, 2006

SECRETS OF WRITING: The Grail

THE OBJECT OF DESIRE

Every story is about one thing. Desire.

All human beings desire something. All stories are about someone wanting something and their quest to obtain that object they seek.

I call this object the Grail. After that cup the Knights in King Arthur legends sought. Because it symbolizes the very thing that all stories are really about. We are all creatures of want. From the moment we are born we want something. We scream for it. Whether it be air, water, mother’s milk, food, sex, peace of mind, money, love, happiness...every story is about a character trying to get something, or keep it from other people.

The Hero and the Villain of your story have conflicting motives when it comes to the Grail.

The Grail is whatever the hero thinks will restore balance to his life. There may be a visible grail in the story. A material object. But the Grail can be something intangible like friendship or trust.

All stories are about A wanting C and B stands in the way.

Once you understand this simple concept it becomes a lot easier to understand how to construct your story.

Action, Crime, and Suspense stories usually employ a physical Grail. Examples are a piece of microfilm, a suitcase full of cash, a nuclear bomb, plans to a new secret weapon, or incriminating documents. Writers call this kind of grail “MacGuffins”. Sometimes the Hero is already in possession of the MacGuffin, but doesn’t know how to use it. So the Grail in such stories is knowledge. Knowledge restores the balance.

Romance stories have an obvious Grail: love. The Villain is either a rival lover, parents, society, or nature, threatening to keep the lovers apart.

Sometimes the Grail is a person or a living creature. The Grail in Jaws was the shark, doubling as Villain and Grail. In cop movies the Grail is the capture or death of the criminal (Villain).  In some stories, the object is the rescue or capture of a person who only serves as the Grail and not as an Villain. Charles Bronson did a movie called Breakout, where the Grail was a man in a Mexican prison that Bronson was supposed to “break out”.

Most writers view Grails as physical objects of desire. But since all stories are about someone trying to get something, or not get something as the case may be (refusal is an action), we can define any object of desire as a Grail. It doesn’t have to be a material thing.

When you set down to create a story and are stuck for where to begin. It’s not a bad idea to think about what the Grail might be. That makes it easier to then formulate the motivations of the Villain and the Hero. Once you have those things figured out, everything starts falling into place.

UNCONSCIOUS DESIRE

It’s often the case in a story that the main character is conflicted. Their desire to win the grail may be against their own better judgement. They may unconciously want to fail. More often than not, the unconscious desire is radically different than their conscious desire.

When unconscious desire is employed, it can add a lot of dimension to the work. The object of the unconscious desire becomes the true grail in the story and all the hero’s conscious desires are ephemeral.

The true grail in these scenarios becomes the “Super objective”. No other MacGuffin or Grail really matters when you’re dealing with an unconscious desire, because the U.D. is what the story is about.

When you’re dealing with a super objective, the conscious desire is a front. A ruse, even.  Sometimes the false grail is to establish that the Hero has sold out his personal values for what he perceives to be a higher purpose. But the story teaches him that his “heart’s desire” is more important than what he’s been fighting for. During the Crisis, he realizes what his heart’s desire truly is after a series of events makes it clear to him, and this is when he makes his choice.

This desire is usually at odds with the interests of other protagonists in the story, but as far as the premise is concerned, choosing to follow it is the right thing for him to do in this story.

REMEMBER: The unconscious desire is the only desire that matters when it’s used. 

The Brutal Truth

This cartoon is all too true, alas. YouTube commentors are the worst. 

RIP: Gerry Ford

In the 1970s he lost to Jimmy Carter and inflation. Former Warren Commission member Gerald Ford is gone.

Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th president and the only one never elected to nationwide office, has died. He was 93.

“My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age,” former first lady Betty Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband’s office in Rancho Mirage. “His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country.”

He wasn’t a great president. Many of his economic policies made it possible for Jimmy Carter to defeat him. But unlike Carter, he was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.

Back when he was president, the press and comics called him stupid. He banged his head a few times getting in and out of the president’s copter. But Ford wasn’t a dummy. He was a well connected politician who got into power by showing certain people behind the scenes he knew how to get things done. Conspiracy theorists of the day said he got6 the vice president’s job under Nixon has a favor for his work on the Warren Commission. But ford was a moderate Republican like Nixon and well placed. He was also easy to work with.

I was in high school when he was president. So I remember his short term well. It’s said people voted for Carter as payback for Ford pardoning Nixon. That may be true in part, but he was also not a very inspiring leader and his economic policies continued the economic decline America saw in the 70s. But there’s something to be said about the fact that after the animosity people had for Nixon, he was generally liked as being a easy going, Charlie Brown type character.

Hopefully, the next president, whoever that may be, will help end, or at least lower the level of acrimony we’re seeing these days. Like Gerry Ford.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Great Pictures

Color pictures from England in the Victorian Age

African Kings

101 Amazing Earth Facts

Lots of interesting trivia here, some of it about other planets in the solar system.

1. What is the hottest place on Earth?
Count one wrong if you guessed Death Valley in California . True enough on many days. But El Azizia in Libya recorded a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) on Sept. 13, 1922—the hottest ever measured. In Death Valley , it got up to 134 Fahrenheit on July 10, 1913 .
2. And the coldest place around here?
Far and away, the coldest temperature ever measured on Earth was -129 Fahrenheit (-89 Celsius) at Vostok, Antarctica , on July 21, 1983 .
3. What makes thunder?
If you thought, “Lightning!” then hats off to you. But I had a more illuminating answer in mind. The air around a lightning bolt is superheated to about five times the temperature of the Sun . This sudden heating causes the air to expand faster than the speed of sound, which compresses the air and forms a shock wave; we hear it as thunder.

Secrets of Writing: Time

THE TIME FRAME

Time affects your story as much as the Milieu does. A story takes place in a span of time. It can be anything from a second to a thousand years. You need to decide how much time there is to play with.

Once you make that decision, it sets the timeline in which the events of the story unfold. This gives you parameters in which to work. Parameters are a good thing, because it helps you decide how much time your hero has to perform his quest. It also makes the story seem more real. We all live in time. We relate to time limits. We do not relate to endless time. Or time having no meaning. In this modern world especially, time is very important.

THE TICKING CLOCK

This device is probably the most widely used and even critical device in storytelling. Especially when it comes to thrillers or suspense stories.

We all understand that we have a limited time in which we’re to live. We will die eventually, but we hope it’s in the distant future. The ticking clock gives the characters in the story a deadline in which they must achieve some result. If the deadline is missed, it might be fatal.

Fatal to the hero, their loved one, the world, whatever you set up as the crisis that must be solved.

You can employ one or more ticking clocks to a story. Each sub plot can have a ticking clock, but you don’t want to burden a story with too many. You want the reader’s focus to be on that one deadline. Anothing more than one can be a distraction, unless it is part of a sub-plot or a new ticking clock is established after one ends.

A classic example of the ticking clock is the bomb set to go off by a certain time and the hero has to find it. But the T.C. can be as simple as the time a student has to finish his exam, or as complex as the time it takes to woo someone before the risk of taking too long bores the other person.

You need to remember that the protagonist of your story are the eyes of the story. And in an effective take using a ticking clock, we have to feel one with the character. We have to care that the ticking clock is counting down.

The main purpose of the ticking clock is to add pressure on your character. Pressure is the key to making a story exciting. We’ll delve into this subject later.

Night and Day

There are environmental considerations to the time frame, as well. If your story takes place at night, you have to consider the limitations that imposes. Lack of light in certain places can work for or against your hero. The fact that most people are sleeping means less bystanders or witnesses around. But it also means people are home and might call the police when they hear a commotion going on outside. There are other considerations to night. A married person should normally be with their spouse. What if they aren’t? This could be telling.

Day time imposes other considerations. Sunlight can be good or bad, depending whether or not you’re a vampire. It can mean hot weather, it can mean more people are out on the street. More witnesses to the action. More bystanders who can get killed. This can impact on your story. You have to be aware of the effect daytime has on your plot. It adds to the realism.

Personally, I like to set a lot of my action scenes at night so there will be less bystanders around. It gives you less to worry about. It also lets you play with mood, lighting, and contrasts. But sometimes bystanders are nice to have around.

And sometimes the sun becomes an element in the story. Such as a man lost in the desert with the sun beating down on him as he struggles to find water. The moon can be an elementr too, providing light, or causing a person to become a werewolf.

The sun and moon establish the passing of time, as well. A rising or setting sun gives is a sense of time passing.

Weather

Technically, this is an environmental subject, but I’m including it under the Time Frame because weather can hinder your hero as he races against the ticking clock. A blizzard can make it real hard to get from here to there. Same goes for a hurricane, or fog, or a rain storm.

Weather also adds a sense of atmosphere to your story and can make it seem more real. Too many stories have perfect weather all the time. It makes things a little too convenient. As we’ll explain later, you want to put pressure on your characters. You want to make it really hard for them to reach their goal. Otherwise, the story is boring. Weather is a good way to put pressure on your characters. Especially since it’s a hard thing to change.

And the ending or starting of a storm also gives the impression that time has passed.

REMEMBER: Time is valuable! Night and Day have implications. Weather creates limitations. 

Fantastic 4 2 Trailer: Rise of the Silver Surfer

This is a leaked copy so the quality isn’t great.

UPDATE: Here’s the real trailer, with quality focus. 

Monday, December 25, 2006

Have a Good One

Secrets of Writing: The World of the Story

THE WORLD

The World of your story, also known as the milieu, is the reality in which the story takes place. If it’s set in a Seattle high school in 1942, that’s a different world than a Detroit High School in 2004. If you set your story on the island of Manhattan in 1600, that’s a different world than Manhattan today.

Your Milieu must be a place audiences can believe in. It can be as fantastic as you want it to be, but it must obey certain rules, contain certain truths, or your readers won’t buy into it and they’ll lose interest.  In tourism terms, it can be as enjoyable as Maui or as unpleasant as Falluja. It’s all up to you.

Your world becomes attractive to the reader when you make it believable. You can set your story in Hell, and it can still real to us as long as it’s fully drawn. It has to feel right. It has to feel whole. The Milieu must live!

Your Milieu also establishes the limitations imposed on the characters. Limitations are good things to know because they’re the tools you’ll use to increase the pressure on your story’s protagonist.  People respond to limitations and stress, because most of us have to live with them every day. You can’t make things too easy on your characters or it’ll get boring.

Every world has elements that impose restrictions on the character. For example, Maui is an island. You have to leave it by boat or plane. You can’t walk or drive away from there. And it’s expensive there, so if your character is short on money, they will have limits on what they can do.  In 2005, Falluja is a war torn city with crushing poverty, crime and terrorism. Those are things that would make it hard on the average person, if they were thrown in that environment.

To make your world live and breath it’s a good idea to answer some, or all, of the following questions.

1. Time and place: Is your story set on a cruise ship in the Caribbean? Does it take place in a ghetto on the planet Zander? Is it happening among the social gatherings of the of the French Bourgeoisie in 1887 or does it happen in a Gay Disco in 1978? The place should be clear in your mind so you have a point of reference to draw from. It must be real to the reader so they’ll have a feel for the milieu. If you choose a place you are unfamiliar with, like say...Addis Ababa, make sure you do your research so you can write about it with authority. Otherwise, it will seem generic and unreal to the Audience. If you’re creating your own world, make a list of all the things unique and interesting about the place and try to incorporate them into your story.  This will give the world the life it needs to make it believable.

One of the reasons J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth remains so popular is because he spent an incredible amount of time making sure he knew his Milieu inside and out. He wrote volumes of notes, compiled the histories of families and places, created languages and alphabets. Middle Earth feels like a real place to many people. So does the Vampire society of Anne Rice’s novels. She thought everything through and researched her history and locations well.

How many stories have you experienced that took place in a generic locale and you felt no connection to it? Making a believable Milieu goes a long way to making the story enjoyable. If you don’t connect to the Milieu, you don’t connect to the story.

2. Economics: What kind of financial realities do the characters have to deal with? Are they rich or poor? Are goods available for money, or is there rationing? What is the economic system the Milieu employs?  Remember that economics affect your characters just like they affect you and me. If there’s anything that smacks of unreality, it’s characters who have no apparent job, yet always have money for every situation and live in an expensive looking place. People respond better to what they can relate to. In most people’s experience, cash flow is limited.

3. Politics: Naturally, the politics of your Milieu can have a major impact on the story. If you set it in a society under a tyrannical ruler or government, such as the Milieu we saw in 1984, Brazil, or Schindler’s List, its going to have an impact on your characters. Just as economics play a part in shaping how your characters survive in your world, so does the politics. If the politics are modern day America, you still need to examine whether this will affect your Hero. If your Hero is an illegal alien in South Texas, the politics of the Milieu are possibly going to affect him.

4. Power: This is somewhat related to the previous question but not necessarily. In the world of your story, certain people may have power over your character’s lives, but not necessarily politically. They could be doctor treating your hero, they could be the banker who decides whether they get that loan, they could be the hero’s boss, or their parents. The power structure of your world is important to the character’s life, especially if it is part of the plot in any. So examine how it affects them and the story.

5. Morals, Ethics, and Laws: What are the unique morals, ethics, and laws in your milieu? If your story is set in the Disco era of the late 70s, failure to pass around a joint could be construed as bad manners, whereas in the late 80s, smoking a joint would be considered bad morals. Ethics? In a strict Moslem Family it’s not unethical to kill a daughter who is promiscuous. Nor is it unlawful or immoral. But it is in the Western Milieu. So, you can have a conflict of Milieus within your story. There have been cases in the U.S. where this has happened and the parents were arrested. In the Milieu of their family, this was not wrong, but it was in the eyes of the society they chose to live in. Morals, Ethics and Laws will have an impact on your character in some way because it will either determine their choices, or affect the consequences of their actions. You can’t really ignore them or people won’t believe in your Milieu.

6. Values: What are the moral values in your Milieu? By what standards do people live, or are there any? Values gives the story and characters some grounding. That’s important for realism’s sake. People who have no values are hard to relate to or care about. Empathy is a very important factor in a story. If you can empathize for a character, anything bad that happens to them is almost meaningless. We decide we care about someone when we can relate to them on some level. So it’s important that they have values we might agree with, even if they’re not like us in other ways.

7. Rituals: How do people go about certain tasks in your world? When people meet, here in the west, they usually shake hands. In Japan, they bow to each other. These are rituals, but there are so many others. Giving a woman flowers on a date is a ritual. So is having turkey on Thanksgiving. In your Milieu there will be rituals of some kind and they can be used to establish the uniqueness of your world, as well as define the way characters interact. You can also use them to symbolize elements of your story. You can use them to give insights into the culture of the characters.

8. Backstory: When you’re dealing with other Milieus, dimensions, or history, it’s a good idea to know what the story behind these things are. This is called
the backstory. It may be necessary to put the backstory in your plot somewhere, in a non-obtrusive way, so your reader can understand the history that shaped your world. It will usually have an effect on the story, regardless. If you wrote the tale of a black man in Mississippi circa 1952, the backstory of that place would have an effect on your plot. No doubt about it. The same goes for any story or situation. Why are your characters there? Why did they choose to do what they’re trying to accomplish? What background shaped their personality. It’s all important. A blank slate is boring. Give us something to ponder.

Research your Milieu

I cannot stress the importance of this more. Research is critical. If you’re writing about something you made up, like an alien world, it’s still a good idea to research how similar cultures, economies, religions work as a model for what you create. Depth is everything.

Besides, research provides you with ideas and insights that will help your creative process as you build your story. Many good characters, plot twists, and scenes can come from real life examples you can find by doing research. And research is one of the best the best cures for clichés there is. Clichés come from ignorance. Research is education.

If you were to write a story about a cop working in the Mission District of San Francisco, talking to cops in that district and hearing their stories would give you tons of material and ideas, in addition to getting the facts straight. Then, you’d have a fresh story, instead of something inspired by half-baked memories of old TV shows.

Ideas write themselves when you know your world. Research not only deters clichés, it’s also a good cure for writer’s block. Reading expands the mind, provides fresh insights. And talking to people with useful experience can give you a zillion story possibilities.

Your Milieu will live when it has depth. Depth comes from knowledge and experience. If you’re not an expert on the world you’re writing, make certain you are before you get too far into it. Your readers will thank you for it.

And finally, the rules of your world need to be internally consistent. Internal consistency means authenticity. Don’t establish rules then break them for no reason. You’ll destroy the credibility of your Milieu and all that work will be for nothing.

REMEMBER: Believable worlds make for interesting stories. 

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Merry Christmas

I love the music in this cartoon. I have the CD and love to break it out now and then. This is the full cartoon.