Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Injustice and Incompetance March On

Just hours remain before two Texas Border Patrol agents — convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in the backside while on duty — are to turn themselves in to U.S. Marshals, and there’s still no word on whether President Bush will grant them a pardon.

Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are scheduled to begin serving 11 and 12 years, respectively, on Wednesday when they turn themselves in at 3 p.m. ET for the February 2005 non-fatal shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila.

Several groups, including Friends of the Border Patrol, The Minutemen and Grassfire.org, have been trying through petitions to keep the agents out of prison — through either a motion to U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone to allow them to remain free on bond during an appeal or through a presidential pardon from Bush.

But Cardone on Tuesday denied a motion for the two ex-agents to remain free on bond until their appeals.

These border patrol officers are being sent to long prison terms for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the buttocks. Not for killing him, but for shooting a fleeing suspect.

What does that tell you about how serious our government is protecting the borders? They imprison border patrol agents for doing their job.

If Bush refuses to pardon these officers as he’s being asked, he is going to seal his reputation as the president who surrendered to Mexico. 

Ouch DuJour

Looks like Britney Spears has crotch-flashed her way out of the Super Bowl.

Among the celebrity business being brokered while everyone is in L.A. for the Golden Globes is casting for an all-star NFL Network promo to air during the Feb. 4 football finale.

A source familiar with negotiations says Spears’ people were turned down flat when they asked about participating.

“She’s too much of a train wreck,” says the insider. “Besides, we already have Paris Hilton.”

Daily News

Casino Royale II

Very nice editing. 

Free Health Care—Oops!

So much for socialized medicine.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro has long prided himself on Cuba’s doctors and free public health care system, but that system seems to have let him down after he fell ill in July , U.S.-based doctors said on Tuesday.

Based on a report in Tuesday’s edition of Spain’s El Pais newspaper, the doctors—who have no first-hand knowledge of Castro’s condition—said Castro had received questionable or even botched care at the hands of health experts on his communist-ruled island.

“It’s not a good story. Too bad they didn’t send him to Miami for surgery,” said Dr. Charles Gerson, a clinical professor of medicine in the gastroenterology division of New York’s Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.

Oh, irony. Thy bitter sting. 

Secrets of Writing: Serialized Stories

ACT STRUCTURE IN SERIALIZED FICTION

This is a very difficult thing to pull off well, but it’s also extremely important to understand if you have to do it.

Just as each story needs to build toward a climax, so does each act. And a serialized comic book story, for example, in multiple parts, can be viewed from this same perspective. Each issue should have a structure, building toward a crisis or climax. At the end of the story is a turning point which throws the momentum of that issue toward the next. This should be done in a compelling enough manner to make us want to read the next one. Make us want it BAD!

The concept of story polarity becomes extremely useful when we deal with serialized fiction. We need to start positive, end negative or visa versa, and with a vengeance! The end of each story must make us really want more. To do that you have to show a build in story energy toward that climax.

The ebb and flow between the Hero and the Villain should become more and more frenzied in each issue. The first issue’s tensions build toward a climax that’s level 2 in strength. The next issue needs to build to level 3. The following issue needs to build even higher until it can’t go any further. Then, that’s when you end it.

But the audience doesn’t want story arcs longer than five or six issues anymore. It’s really hard to sustain their interest that long. Even then, you’re pushing it. Long, drawn out epics will earn you a plethora of ill will if you aren’t careful. And then it’s hard to woo the readers back to the book.

Keep those story arcs short and sweet. Three issues is plenty in most cases. It’s hard to sustain story energy over too many acts. You start to experience diminishing returns. The audience has a hard time remembering plot details from month to month. You can’t expect them to do that. Especially if they read a lot of titles. 

Your set ups shouldn’t be paid off three issues later. People are confused easily these days. The Audience has developed a taste for instant gratification, so you have to get to the point. Therefore, it’s advisable to make your stories tight. Get those points across quickly and succinctly and build toward a story climax soon.

Personally, I think the industry should return to a standard of one issue stories, with multi-part stories being reserved for truly important epics. It becomes far too easy for writers to pad out their plots over multiple issues while they try to figure out what the next story arc is going to be. Single issue stories tend to be a lot more satisfying for the readers. They get a complete package for the price of their comic. They get a fix on who each character is and what they’re about. When you come into the middle of some multi-part epic, it’s really confusing. All those brain addled books of the early to mid-90s have done a lot to drive our audience away. We need to win them back.

With the price of comics being what they are these days, it’s suicide to expect people to fork out the money for a multi-part story unless it’s one of the coolest things they’ve read in a long while. Single issue stories are more satisfying. They tend to be what sells a new reader on a book. Alan Moore established himself well on SWAMP THING with “Anatomy Lessons” and other one issue tales. Grant Morrison sold new readers on ANIMAL MAN with one issue stories like “Coyote Gospel” and “Death of the Red Mask”. Neil Gaiman probably sold more readers with his one issue stories in SANDMAN because, again, they are complete reads for the price of a single comic. Nothing shows the merit of a writer’s talent better than a single issue story. To date, my most financially successful comics were LEX LUTHOR: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY and HARDCASE #1...both single issue stories.

Also, when you have to pay more money to read the rest of a story it seems like a rip off. Especially when the story wasn’t that great to begin with. The industry has expected people to just keep buying these half-assed titles and readers have been voting with their pocketbooks. They’re voting NO!

The Audience wants a pay off. They want consequences in their stories, not just fight scenes they’ve seen a million times already. They aren’t shelling out two bucks or more for nothing. If nothing is what they get, nothing is what your readership is going to be. Sooner than you think.

It’s a rare story that can sustain readership over a long haul. WATCHMEN did it, but it was also a limited series. The readers knew they would only have to buy 12 issues to get the whole story. And it kept most of them interested enough to keep reading.

The two or three issue arc is the safest bet for most continued stories. If you really need more than three issues, you’d better make it worth the while of the Audience. There must be truly original surprises and pay offs in each issue. There must be a sense of great momentum. Failure to achieve that will result in huge drop offs in readership.

When you continue a story, make sure the turning point at the end is a major surprise. The villain standing over the apparently dead or unconscious form of the hero is not a surprising ending. It’s an ending that has been flogged to death since the 1970s. Nowadays, you need a turning point that has major implications for the character. It raises an urgent question in the mind of the reader: “Oh, god! How the hell are they going to straighten THIS out!?”

The old, Villain standing over the unconscious Hero scene does not raise that question. Because everyone thinks: “Oh, he’s just going to wake up, the villain is going to spill his plans, and then the hero will beat him.” They’ve seen it a zillion times already. Even if you plan a different scene in the next issue, it doesn’t matter. The audience has already decided what will happen and thirty days later they may not be interested in buying your story to continue.

You must give them a real reason to come back. It must be so compelling they are quaking like junkies experiencing withdrawal until that next issue comes out. This can be done with a major reversal using story values, a subject we delve into shortly.

And if you can’t pull off a great cliffhanger, write a one issue story, dammit!

REMEMBER: Keep those story arcs short and sweet. One issue stories are best.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Tivo Hacks

How to make your Tivo behave the way you want.

I haven’t tried any of these but when I have time, I look forward to it. 

Star Wars in Engrish

A Pirate Chinese video of Revenge of the Sith has some interesting subtitles. Some of the dialog is better than Lucas’.

Secrets of Writing: Panels

The following concerns comics, but could also serve as scene direction in a film.

Every picture isn’t worth a thousand words. I can describe a panel in five. But regardless, these are extremely important components of your story. They are the beats in a scene.

Comics are like visual songs. The text is the lyrics. The art is the music. You need to think of it that way when you write. Each panel is going to make the scene go up or down. They are the notes that you hear in the visual song.

Think about the images you choose to present. These images have to have weight and power. They have to be interesting and informative. And they have to provide some kind of insight to the characters. If someone is merely talking, choose their facial expressions and body language carefully. Make sure you aren’t wasting time with boring shots.

Of course, if you’re only writing the script, you’re dependent on the artist and he may choose to ignore your descriptions, but you can’t worry about that. Do what you think is right. You can always argue with the artist later if they draw something different.

Your job is to create feeling with every shot. Emotion is short. It only serves to make feeling specific. An audience cannot sustain emotions for long while reading a story. Mood is no substitute for emotion so don’t hold back those gut punches when you need them. Save those intense panels for your turning points and climaxes.

There will be times you introduce a location or a character. In those shots make sure we get a good look at all the relevant things we need to see. Establish them well. Clarity is the most important thing. The less there is in a panel to distract us, the easier it is for us to read what’s there. Figure out what needs to be there and stick to that.

The panel is a two dimensional image, but we can create the illusion of space by working in three levels: Foreground, middle-ground, and background. The foreground is that which is closest to us, the reader. The back ground is the farthest from us and the objects in the foreground. It’s sometimes good to use the foreground for items we want the reader’s attention drawn to. The background becomes a place for action to take place. The middle ground is anything that happens in between

It’s an extremely bad idea to have multiple actions taking place in a panel, unless you want two levels of story telling to occur at the same time. But people tend to be confused when too much is happening in a panel. You can use the foreground to focus on actions dealing with the main characters in these scenes, and the background for things they are either unaware of or actions drawing their attention.

Example: A couple are in a diner, sitting by a window. They are in the foreground of the panel. Through the glass, outside, we see a man looking at them, walking their way with a gun. But they don’t notice because they are lost in conversation.

The couple in the foreground get our attention, because they are closer to us. We can read their dialog. The changing scene in the background with the big man drawing closer gets our attention next. We know he’s coming toward the couple before they do. This makes for a suspenseful sequence.

Some writers make the mistake of trying to show multiple actions in a panel to advance their story faster. They’ll have character A punching character B in the foreground, while character C shoots character D in the background and character F is in the middle ground talking about how important it is to understand other people’s feelings while character G accompanies him on the violin.

This is ill advised because the panel becomes cluttered with all those figures, and it does a disservice to the action. Action reads better when each shot is clear and simple. Too many distractions slows down the pace of the scene. When you want to slow down the reading time, complexity does the trick. So does a lot of copy. But in the case of action, you want it to be clear and simple because that’s more exciting.

When you write a panel it’s a good idea to tell the artist only what they need to know in a clear and concise manner. Too many words describing a scene, or too many objects to be drawn, will turn the artist off. You want them to be inspired, so make their job easy and give them room to be creative. Never demand things from the artist, always be polite and ask. If something needs to be in that shot, make it clear to them that it’s important. But cut to the chase and avoid boring them. You want them to find the story exciting when they read it the first time.

When you have scenes with lots of characters, keep the number of characters in a panel to a bare minimum. That is, unless you’re requesting an establishing shot of a group. In that case, give them a big panel or a page to do it in. People’s bodies take up a lot of room in a panel. Dialog usually has to go in there, so you’re going to need all the space you can get.

Crowd scenes are something artists really hate to draw. If you must have a crowd scene, or show an army approaching, don’t be surprised if they cheat and use some trick to avoid drawing all those figures. Don’t ask for a crowd scene unless you really need it.

It’s also a good idea to request no more than five or six panels to a page, maximum. The more room the artist has, the more freedom they have to draw things into the shot. They don’t like doing seven or eight panel pages if they can help it.

An exception to this rule is pages with a lot of talking head shots. Those don’t require so much work. But you still need room for copy. Always be aware of the need for copy.

When two characters are talking to each other in the same panel, the character who speaks first needs to be on the left side. We read from left to right, so the first balloon has to be on the left, over the first character. A lot of artists, even experienced ones, either don’t know this rule or forget to do it. Make sure it’s pointed out to them if you switch the speakers.

For example, let’s say in panel one you have Joe Blow talking to John Q. Public. Joe speaks first, then John Q replies. The next panel is a close up of Joe’s face as he says something. Then panel three has John Q speaking to Joe. We went from a panel where Joe Blow was the first speaker to a panel where John Q. Public talks first. A lot of artists will draw panel three exactly like panel one, with some minor variations. They’ll forget the rule that the character who speaks first must stand on the left. So don’t forget to remind them.

If only one person is speaking in a panel, then it doesn’t matter. But if two people are talking, this is a rule to remember.

Panels come in all shapes and sizes. There are three basic shapes. The “box”, which is generally square. The “flapjack”, which is a long, shallow rectangle. The “silo” which is a vertical flapjack that runs up the side of the page from top to bottom.

The silo is great for introducing a character because you can easily get a full figure shot of them. When characters are introduced, it’s important that we clearly see what they look like so we’ll know them in later panels. The flapjack is mainly used to show head and shoulder shots of people talking. Or to show a panorama view of a scene. It’s also good for POV shots. Everything else is generally well serviced by the box.

Odd shaped panels like circle and triangle shapes are design elements that an artist is best equipped to deal with. In general, they are not a good idea, simply because your goal is to tell a clear and concise story. When panels are misshapen it’s often difficult to determine which one you’re supposed to read first.

The same rule applies to panels that cross pages. These go from one page to the next and are hard to follow. People are used to reading all the panels on a page before looking at the next page. If you cross pages with panels, they have to consciously make the adjustment. And then go back to “normal” reading when they get past this section. That is very distracting, and distraction is something to avoid. It’s better not to do them. I’ve never seen it done in a way that wouldn’t have worked better if they stayed on their own page.

Double page spreads are panels that take up two whole pages. These should be reserved for highly critical shots that involve complexity or serious emotional impact. They should not go to prosaic scenes or incidents that could have been handled in a splash page or less. The audience views these things as filler when they’re wasted on unimportant shots. When they think you’re adding filler, they start thinking the story is junk.

When describing the panel to the artist, it’s a good idea to keep your panel descriptions clean and concise. Tell them exactly what they need to know, but don’t go into excessive detail. There are some writers famous for the detail they put into a panel, but they usually have something to say that’s relevant. Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to distract the artist with too many things. When they draw the page they need to look at your panel description and be able to get the gist of it quickly. If there are too many words, they may forget some element you described and will forget to draw it.

You also don’t want to burden them with too many details, because your job is to inspire them not to order them. You are giving the artist the information they need to translate a cut of time into an illustration. You want them to be interested and excited. You want them to show a love for every line and texture. Because we’re dealing with a medium where art is a major selling point. The art has to not only tell the story, it has to sell the book.

REMEMBER: Make every shot count and make them clear.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Site of the Day

Footnote provides virtual access to thousands of original documents never available to the public before. 

Water Machine Followup

Last year I ran a story on a machine that can produce water out of thin air. I remember several people on the blog (logically, I might add) questioned it was real. Well, here’s more info. Apparently, it is.

Amazing. A gizmo which sucks the air in, then sucks the water out of the air, and then spews out clean fresh water. 500 Gallons of it – a day. Every off-grid home should have one. Only problem is it’ll set you back a cool $500,000 . FEMA have already bought two, and the US Army is said to be on the verge of buying many, because getting our boys pure water is one of the key logistics requirements of any operational planning.

The box o’ tricks is from Aqua Sciences Inc, and the company says the high cost is justified because in the end it “only costs you $0.25 per gallon.” For those of us without an entire battalion at our command, however the price is still a little steep. The makers are working on a consumer model, but it won’t be out any time soon.

Its precise workings aren’t public, but they use a chemical process similar to the one that causes salt to absorb moisture from the air (and clump up your saltshaker). The water-harvesting technology was originally the brainchild of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which sought ways to ensure sustainable water supplies for U.S. combat troops deployed in arid regions like Iraq.