Friday 17 December 2010

What I've Been Reading 2010: Part 3

3. The work of Nick Spencer.

Nick Spencer is a relative newcomer in comics, his previous works such as Existence 2.0 may have passed me by, but when a new series from Image, Morning Glories, began picking up acclaim and hype, I picked up the first issue. Morning Glories is simply the finest new ongoing series that came out of 2010, coming across like the evil bastard child of Harry Potter, Runaways and Lost. The mysteries are nicely mysterious (hopefully with the added payoff that Lost so deperately lacked) with the origins of the school and its various methods of teaching, beign kept under wraps for the moment. However, what makes Morning Glories shine is the characterisation. It would be easy for Spencer to write cookie cutter characters with little to no personalities and try and let the mysteries carry the series, but he doesn't rely on anything like that. Each of the characters is rounded and interesting. This isn't to say the mysteries aren't worth the price of admission, from the first page onwards you'll be hooked. Spencer has also re-launched DC's T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents, a title about a team of superheroes who work for the UN under the knowledge that their superpowers will eventually kill them, if you want to see what Spencer's writing is like, have a read of these captions from the final few pages of issue one of this series:

"Then let's say, just when you were at your lowest point, someone came to you and offered you a choice. A chance to change everything. A way to redeem yourself, to rewrite your own history...to make the world-to make yourself-forget your past. But even more than that, a chance to do great things, things most people can only dream of. A chance to be a hero. To save the world. And this is what we did. We gave them that choice. And once we accepted our offer-we equipped them....we trained them...we sent them in to rescue Raven and destroy Spider...and then we killed them. All of them."

Perfect.

2. Lean on Pete by Will Vlautin

Willy Vlautin writes the American working class better than almost any other writer alive today. As the singer/songwriter behind the excellent band Richmond Fontaine, he can say more about the lives of people in three minutes than some writers fail to in 600 pages, so it only seemed apt that he became a writer. His first two novels, 'The Motel Life' and 'Northline' were both brilliant pieces of work, and his third, 'Lean on Pete' came out earlier this year. Telling the story of fifteen year old Charley, who moves to Portland with his father and starts working in what only a sadist would describe as a stables. The writing is excellent, and the story is capitvating, bordering on a socio-realism that books like Kes are famous for achieving.

1. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Skippy Dies is a work of art. Pure and simple. It's a nearly seven hundred page behemoth, the kind of length usually reserved for a Harry Potter novel, and yet it's more akin to The Wasp Factory or The Rehearsal. It begins with the titular death of Daniel 'Skippy' Juster, a geeky boarding school Irish boy who chokes on a donut and dies in front of his best friend, but not before leaving an ominous message in strawberry jam on the floor. From there the story jumps back to months before the incident and covers a whole host of characters, the highlight of which is Ruprecht, Skippy's roommate, a homeschooled wannabe Stephen Hawking, who spends most of the book trying to break across into the eleventh dimension in order to discover a universe made of beer. The book was longlisted for the Booker Prize and it's a wonder it didn't fare better, it's one of the finest novel's of the decade, one of the funniest and most heartwarming books, and also contains a scene where rap music induces mass vomiting at a high school prom. In my books, there doesn't get more praise than that.

Monday 6 December 2010

What I've Been Reading 2010: Part 2

Hope everyone is enjoying this slightly different rundown on the best things from this year. I'm trying to make it as wide ranging a list as possible, to show an appreciation for all kinds of writing. So onwards with the top five. This list is in no particular order.

5. Andrew Kaulder in Monsters by Gareth Edwards

Sometimes good writing sneaks up on you. Not because you weren't expecting it, which certainly wasn't the case with Monsters, but because the parts of it that impress you aren't the parts you thought would. Take any sci-fi film, any at all. Chances are, whilst they might be well written, by and large the character's are not the highlight. No-one talks about the depth of the marines in Aliens, right? Even films like District 9, brilliant though it is, has a fairly simple linear arc for the lead role. This is where Monsters surprised me. Photojournalist Andrew Kaulder is not a straightforward character. When we first see him, he's approaching a hospital to check in on his boss' daughter who was injured in a building collapse, when he finds her, he simply asks if she's ok and when he gets an answer, he leaves immediately. No quips, no moral high ground, he just leaves. He does what he has to get by, and that's all. There's something to be said for a film about an alien invasion when you come out remembering more about the main character than the actual aliens. It says something that the two main characters are a real life couple, and Andrew's feelings towards Sam do inform a large portion of the narrative. This is not to say that this is as simple as, a tough no-nonsense journalist falls in love with a woman and goes with her on a life or death journey, because he's not a tough no-nonsense journalist and he doesn't really fall in love with her. In Monsters, there are much more complex things going on.

4. This speech from The Pandorica Opens by Stephen Moffat

Really, if anything this years series of Doctor Who just proved how much we've been missing good writing talent at the head of the writing team. Stephen Moffat crafted an excellent storyline in which every race faces a tough choice. The highlight of the series was the two part finale in which the theme of self-preservation extends all the villains the Doctor has faced in his lifetime. When they show up to claim the 'ultimate evil' contained underneath Stonehenge, and thousands of starships litter the sky, the Doctor stands atop the monument and delivers this speech:

"No plans, no backup, no weapons worth a damn. Oh, and something else I don't have: anything to lose. So, if you're sitting up there with your silly little spaceships and your silly little guns and you've any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight; just remember who's standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you and then, and then, do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first."

The final three will be along soon!

Thursday 2 December 2010

What I've Been Reading: 2010 Part 1

It's nearly the end of the year! Break out the champagne and/or mulled wine, put on a hat and party like it's 1999. Usually, Blogs such as this one would spend their time listing the top of ten of whatever subject matter they choose, but I thought I'd do something a little more specific. I'm still going to do a top ten for the year, but it's going to be a top ten individual moments of writing that I loved this year, they might be comic books, novels, songs, short stories, scenes in films, but one things for sure, there's going to be ten of them.

Numbers 10 -6:

10. Uncanny X-Men 529 by Matt Fraction.

I'll be honest, X-Men for the past year or so has underwhelmed me, I'm a big fan of the God Loves, Man Kills days of the X-Men being a metaphor for diversity and discrimination. I don't so much agree with where the story has gone now, with time travelling siblings, different realities and so much continuity it's nigh on impossible to penetrate. Sure, Grant Morrison had a great handle on the property at the start of the decade but there's been nothing to make me want to come back. Matt Fraction, as brilliant a writer as he is, has had a pretty generic run on the title so far, until this final issue of his storyline 'The Five Lights'. The piece of writing that struck me came at the end of the issue, after Emma Frost (quick recap: used to be evil, now married to Cyclops.) kidnaps her ex-lover and takes him away in a spaceship made from the conciousness of a French thief. So none of this should work, but Fraction throws out a monologue at the end of the issue that is so well written, so perfectly done, that it more than made up for the lacklustre arc that came before it.

"I've started to go grey this year. You know? It's true. I have. The other night Scott reached over and found two grey hairs on top of my head. It was supposed to be sweet. He was trying to say--look at these things we're eduring together. Look at us surviving. But that's not what I thought at all. I knew a girl once--Jaye. We spent some time in New York togehter. She had come out here, but I didn't know until--I saw her obituary in the paper after we bear Bastion. Died in the attack. And then I thought of pool old Kurt. No matter how sad he seemed to get, I always saw a smiling swashbuckler. Kurt, who was always my favourite, who I could never shock. Kurt, who I miss more than anyone would ever believe. Scott was trying to be sweet and all I felt was cold and along because so many wonderful lights have gone out and I'm so tired from fighting against all this darkness. And I thought, "I'll name them Jaye and Kurt." I name my grey hairs after dead friends. Dead friends and X-Men."

9. The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin

I've blogged about this film once before, back when I first saw it. It stands as one of the best films I've seen this year and despite the fact that it's an incredibly well acted, well filmed story, the thing that makes it a true classic is the script. More specifically what works so well is the opening scene. Two students in a bar. Every single element, every theme, every nuance of character you will see is captured in a microcosm in those opening five minutes. It's an example of perfect writing, and here's how it opens.

MARK (V.O.)
Did you know there are more people with genius IQ’s living in China than there are people of any kind living in the United States?

ERICA (V.O.)
That can’t be true.

MARK (V.O.)
It is true.

ERICA (V.O.)
What would account for that?

MARK (V.O.)
Well first of all, a lot of people live in China. But here’s my question:

MARK
How do you distinguish yourself in a population of people who all got 1600 on their SAT’s?

ERICA
I didn’t know they take SAT’s in China.

MARK
I wasn’t talking about China anymore, I was talking about me.

ERICA
You got 1600?

I'm not merely saying this snippet of dialogue itself is worth of inclusion in the list, but the scene as a whole is such a good example of how to write, it should be shown to writing students as a perfect example of that age old rule, show don't tell.

8. Hurricane J by Craig Finn

The Hold Steady are one of my favourite bands, combined great music with a literary eye for lyrics and their latest album 'Heaven in Whenever' was no exception. Whilst previous albums have had a novelistic approach, telling a wider story with a tight cast of characters, Heaven picked up on themes and told a fairly straightforward coming of age tale. 'Hurricane J' is the highlight of this album. Telling the story of Jessie, a girl named after a hurricane who appears to have taken on these characteristics. It's telling that Craig Finn, brought up a Catholic, sees the characteristics of namesakes in people and it's smart that the narrator of the story steadfastly refuses to accept that her behaviour could be anything else. The lyrics in their entireity can be found below.

Jessie, I’m not jokin’ around
I see the crowd you’re hangin with
and those kids don’t seem positive
Don’t all those cigs make you tired?
You know I never ask you to change, I only ask you to try
I know you’re gonna do what I know you’re gonna do
but 22 and bangin’ around in restaurants ain’t that much prettier
than bangin’ around in bars
and why do you keep going to his car?

I don’t want this to stop
I want you to know
I don’t want you to settle
I want you to go
Forget all the boys that you met at the harbor
You’re too hard already, you’ll only get harder

Jessie, let’s go for a ride
I know a place that we could stop and kiss for a while
I know a place that makes you smile
I know you’re gonna say what I know you’re gonna say
I know you’ll look at the ground, I know you’ll probably cry
You’re a beautiful girl and you’re a pretty good waitress
but Jessie, I don’t think I’m the guy

I don’t want this to stop
I want you to know
I don’t want you to settle
I want you to go
Forget everything that I showed you this summer
You’re too hard already, you’ll only get harder

but they didn’t name her for a saint
they named her for a storm
so how is she supposed to think about
how it’s gonna move in the morning
she said if heaven's hypothetical
and if the cigs keep you warm
then how is she supposed to think about
how it’s gonna move in the morning
‘bout how it’s gonna move in the morning

Hurricane Jess, she’s gonna crash into the harbor this summer
She don’t wanna wait till she gets older
Hurricane Jess, she’s gonna crash into the harbor this summer
She don’t wanna wait, she said it only gets harder


7. Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Yes the film adaptation was brilliant, kinetic and a fine blockbuster, but really nothing can come close to capturing what made the books so good. The final volume of the six part series hit the stores this year, and completely lived up to the hype. What made the series work so well was the seague from the start of volume one, with it's general hipster comedy/drama turning quite dramatically into this bizarre mashup of computer games, manga and comedy that stuck with the series for so long. What made the finale work so well is that it brought all of that back to the beginning, with the fights taking a backseat to the everyday comedy/drama. The best scene from the final volume, and pretty much the whole series, came midway through, when Scott goes to visit his friend and ex-girlfriend Kim Pine.





6. Various Characters by Fred Van Lente

Fred Van Lente for those not in the know is a comic book writer for Marvel. He's responsible for co-writing the fantastic Incredible Herc series (seriously, if you haven't read it, go forth and purchase) which is currently winding down in the Chaos War mini-series. Van Lente's place in this list isn't for Incredible Herc, but for the myriad of characters that he's created this year. From his co-creation of Amandeus Cho's nemesis Vali Halfling in the Prince of Power mini-series, to the new version of Power Man in Shadowland he's been adept at creating iconic characters seemingly without even trying. Take a look at his new villains created for the Taskmaster series:
Black Choppers, Trenchcoat Mafia, Militiamen, The Org, Inquisition, The Don of the Dead, The Town that Was Hitler, Redshirt: The Uber Henchman, and the Minions' International Liberation Front (MILF). There's a skill involved here that doesn't just stop with creating names. The characters he creates are incredible involving, detailed characters, even moving beyond some of the pun's they first seem to be. Just look at The Town that was Hitler from Taskmaster issue 3, where Hitler's DNA has encroached on a small German town's water supply, turning each household into a miniature Third Reich, every single family fighting each other for power over the village, launching Blitzkrieg attacks against their neighbours. It's the same with his new Power Man, a character who has more in common with the kids from The Wire than he does superheroes.





Friday 26 November 2010

Harry Potter and the Secondary World

I went to watch the latest Harry Potter the other night, and it was alright. I'm not a massive fan of either the books or films, both of which I regard as readable and watchable, but nothing much more. Whilst JK Rowling (and the filmmakers) have a grasp of big events and the occasional clever moment, there's something missing that I couldn't put my finger on until now.

I think Harry Potter is one of the first examples (there have been others since) of 21st Century literature. It's a perfect example of this new generation of fiction that makes low demands on an audience and readership and favours events and rigid exposition over warmth and heart.

Don't get me wrong, I think Harry Potter is a fairly big achievement, seven books, soon to be eight huge films and all manner of merchandise to boot, there has to be something there. But I don't think what's there is quite the same as Rowling wants to achieve.

Fantasy is about building a world. A completely true statement to an extent. However, the problem most fantasy writers, and sci-fi writers as well, seem to come across is far too much focus on this world-building aspect. Writing maps, biographies, histories, drawing pictures of places is not writing a fictional book. It's creating a game world. A world in which people can speculate, imagine and play. Tolkien describes the concept of world building below:

"What really happens is that the story-maker proves a successful 'sub-creator'. He makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside. The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside."

This idea can become a little obsessive for fantasy writers, but a lot of them, Rowling included, miss the point.

Take for instance, one of the minor villains of Tolkien, Gollum, or as he's originally called 'Smeagol'. Tolkien, an English language professor has deep set origins for his characters names, for instance Sméagol" bears strong resemblance to Old English smēaġan, a verb meaning "to ponder". For people who are not scholars, this isn't something that strikes you too much. If you are an expert (like Tolkien) in the use of Old English then you may notice this similarity, but it would not detract from the overall enjoyment of the story.

This is where Harry Potter comes in. Take one of the minor villains of the story, Dolores Umbridge. Recognise that surname? It's identical, in pronunciation (if not spelling) to umbrage, a word that means:

1.offense; annoyance; displeasure: to feel umbrage at a social snub; to give umbrage to someone; to take umbrage at someone's rudeness.
2.the slightest indication or vaguest feeling of suspicion, doubt, hostility, or the like.

And that's essentially her character in one fell swoop.

And that's not the only character who Rowling does this too, what about Harry's Godfather, Sirius Black? Who turns into a Black dog. Sirius was Icarius' faithful dog, who was changed into a star. Pretty much predicates exactly what happens to the character in the books. Other characters have closely written names, Hagrid is haggard, Snape snaps at the children, Cornelious Fudge fudges things.

Now look back at that Tolkien quote, where he talks about bringing our minds into this Secondary World. The one thing that detracts from a story is anything reminding us of the existence of this Primary World, it brings people out of the story and reminds them that they are reading fiction. Rowling's problem in the books is that so many things have reference to things in our world, that don't require it. I'm not arguing that a pen has to be something completely different in the Harry Potter world (because it does, after all take place in a vague side universe alongside our own, and events bleed together). But do we really need the main villain to be named after the French, "vol-de-mort" meaning "flight from death" (meaning literally escaping death). Literally naming your characters exactly what they are like is not world building, it's lazy writing.

Structure is also something that modern fantasy seems to be confused about. Lord of the Rings is deceptively simple. There's an evil ring, and it needs to be thrown into a big volcano. Simple. Harry Potter? There's an evil wizard, and he's split his soul into seven pieces and hidden them all in different places, so we've got to find these seven pieces of his soul and destroy them. That, to me, doesn't sound like literature. It doesn't sound like a story. You know what it sounds most like to me?

A video game.

There's 21st century literature for you. A new post-millenium fantasy/sci-fi structure. No need for simple plots. Why not just write your role-playing game down on a piece of paper and have at it with levels, and bosses. Harry Potter has severely structured stories. Every single book is almost identical. Harry starts a new school year (even the story set outside of the school takes place within one school year, more or less) with Harry starting off simple and happy, learning new spells and tricks and new characters. Along the way he has minor battles and takes part in mini-games of Quidditch whilst mystery upon mystery piles up until, ta-da the final boss rears it's head and Harry uses all these new skills he's learnt in this book to defeat it. Then there's the mandatory cut-scene in which Dumbledore explains everything (even after he dies, this still happens).

This isn't classic fantasy structure. This is a Playstation game.

And maybe this isn't a bad thing. Maybe this is just what the audience of today demands, the kind of level based structure where your characters grow stronger, learn new skills and gain new items like they've just gained a hell of a lot of XP. Is this what we, the audience demand? Are these stories not Rowling's fault at all, but an audience reared on serialised gaming, where they can log in to a whole fantasy world and live out their own story one chapter at a time. Did they bring this on?

It's hard to say. I can certainly understand how an audience raised on these stories would fall in love with the Harry Potter series, even if they shy away from other copycats but maybe publishers should, instead of trying in vain to please people, show us something new. Do something dramatic. Don't let an elderly man with a penchant for being quirky, explain everything. That's called telling. And that's writer's rule number one.

Let's be honest here, Rowling's series isn't the only one to subscribe to videogame rules of engagement. There's plenty of soft targets out there, Dan Brown & Laurel K Hamilton, stand up and take a bow. But when you go back and look at Lord of the Rings, or even The Hobbit, you get a feeling that sometimes genre fiction can be so much more than an angsty, partially sighted, orphaned, bullied, scarred, uneducated boy who lives in a cupboard under a staircase completing a video game.

Tuesday 16 November 2010

A Magic Word: Origin.

Or, 'How I learned to despise interpretations of superhero continuity'.

I didn't like Superman: Earth One. In short, that's what this entire post will be about. It's a pretty fickle thing to say, and I'll go into some detail about it, whilst talking about the ways in which writers can claim to interpret origin stories and classic tales.

Superman: Earth One is written by J Michael Strazyinski, and tells the tale of a young Superman in our version of Earth, becoming the superhero for the first time. The main point is to have a whole new continuity and interpretation of the character, but let's just look at the main points in the story.

A young Clark Kent arrives in Metropolis, is shown to be fairly intelligent and decides to become a journalist. He works with Lois Lane, Perry White and Jimmy Olsen, and defeats a superpowered enemy after donning a red and blue costume.

What makes this so different from any other Superman story before? Nothing. There isn't a single moment in this strung out fight scene that couldn't take place in the current Superman universe. Add to this the fact that, let's face it, there is no Metropolis on our Earth. It's lazy writing.

But what about reinventing the myth? Isn't all this just necessary for readers who expect such things from Superman comics? What are the base elements of Superman? I think Grant Morrison, writer of 'All Star Superman' manages to sum up these elements in one page, and eight words:

"Doomed Planet
Desperate Scientists
Last Hope
Kindly Couple"

That'll do quite nicely. Because beyond these eight words, what else really should define Superman? A costume, that's just the logo, the brand, not the character. These other charactrs like Olsen and Lois Lane, they're just dressing - a result of years of continuity and story arcs - they don't define Superman, they're just a part of a particular story.

Pretend for a moment that you, as a writer are told to write a character named 'Superman', What if you were given just those eight words as an origin? Would you still send him to a fictional city, get him a job as a reporter and have him dress up in Red and blue?

Monday 1 November 2010

Writers Spotlight - Halloween Special

There's a soft spot within me for horror. I don't consider myself a genre buff, even though I can devour sci-fi, fantasy and especially comics with the best of them. But there's always something about horror that grabs me. I'm not one for this new breed of True Twilight Anita Blake Vampire Diaries that appears to be more of a trend than Tony Blair Porn. But having said that, I don't know what it is that grabs me about horror.

So, I'm going to delve into the screenplays, novels, short stories and graphic novels that really got into me, and try and work out why they were so successful (in my mind at least).

Charles Burns' terrific graphic novel Black Hole is best placed to start this off. In this coming of age body horror tale, a school in the American mid-west is consumed by a sexually transmitted disease that causes all manner of mutations on its victims. These stretch from tails, to blisters and perhaps the most horrible one, an extra mouth growing in your throat. The teens who are infected retreat to a nearby forest to form an odd commune. As Time magazine said at the time, "Fear of adulthood, fear of sex and fear of ostracization have never been more disturbingly explored in a serio-comic flashback to bellbottoms, big doobies and skinny-dipping in the woods." It's this common fear that all teenagers have, as well as the fairly horrific detail (someone's extra mouth talking to you whilst they sleep) that make this a truly frightening experience.

Is there a better, more effective short story than The Mist? The short answer, no. This simple tale of a group of survivors holed up in a supermarket during what can only be described as the apocalypse and the relgious segregation and ultimately puritan finale which result from this, is a brilliant story. Stephen King is sometimes (quite rightly) described as too wordy, and too concerned with writers in Maine being involved in car crashes, but with The Mist he succeeds in delivering a classic story, in just under 100 pages. What makes this work, is not so much the monsters (however briefly seen they are) but the people. In particular Mrs Carmody, who begins the story as a cranky religious nut, but by the end has risen to a much more papal position, ordering sacrifices to a vengeful God, as she puts it, "It's expiation gonna clear away this fog! Expiation gonna clear off these monsters and abominations! Expiation gonna drop the scales of mist from our eyes and let us see!" Almost more scary than this is the completely ambiguous ending, which won't be spoilt here. The film adaptation is likewise a true classic of the genre, with an arguably better ending.

I was a little disappointed with the original novel of Let the right one in, mostly because the film adaptation is so good, there was little to no chance that any other version would be unsuccessful. The film is an incredible piece of work, about the relationship between Oskar, a young Swedish boy and a vampire named Eli. Like Black Hole it examines the idea of coming of age. Unlike Black Hole and especially unlike The Mist, Let the right one in is an incredibly subtle piece of work. The vampiric element only constitutes about ten, or fifteen minutes of screentime, and if removed, you would still have a hell of a good film. Two moments really stand out for me, one of which is incredibly good writing, one of which is incredibly good filmmaking. The final scene in which Oskar and Eli are on a train, Eli hidden in a wooden box to protect her from the sun, Oskar tapping on it in morse code is a wonderfully written scene, bringing together the idea of this monster needing someone to protect her, and almost in a way, being the kind of monster that someone likes the idea of protecting. Earlier in the film, we see an older man who murders people and drains their blood to feed her, and by the end of the film we've no doubt in our minds that this is where Oskar is heading, with Eli forever young, Oskar will no doubt age and start killing people for her, until he outlives his usefullness. The other scene is also towards the end of the film, with the killing of three bullies by Eli. The whole scene is shot underwater, whilst Oskar is being drowned by one of the bullies. We see nothing but occasional splashes and the odd limb floating dream-like in front of Oskar and sinking to the bottom of the pool. You can watch this scene here

As an ongoing comic series, The Sandman was one of the best. When it finished it encompassed an incredible story, one long narrative with a very definate beginning, middle and end. However, there were times when it deviated into short stories, just on the fringes of the ongoing story. "24 Hours" is just such an issue. The main character of The Sandman is Dream, the embodiment of dreams and the dreaming (his reality). At this point in the story he has lost various items due to a period of time he spent imprisoned. One of these items is a ruby, stolen by a serial killer named John Dee (an old Justice League villain). He heads to a diner, and over the titular timeframe, wreaks havok with the customers. This is a fairly screwed up issue, filled with depravity and violence, all at the behest of a man with too much power in his hands. One of the Gaiman's captions puts it best when it says, "All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows when to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death."

So what is it in horror that I like? To me, that metaphor that comes with most of those stories above, that the monsters, vampires and creatures aren't what you should be scared of, that humans, in their toughest challenges, are the most dangerous people to be faced with, I think that's scarier. When you look at other horror films that I love, Dawn of the Dead, Onibaba, or books that I like, The Wasp Factory, Lunar Park. There's an element of that human indecency in those.

I think I'll leave this with a quote from Laurens Van Der Post, who said
“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.” I think he may have something there.


Friday 22 October 2010

The Social Network

The Social Network, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's new film about the genesis of Facebook and the lawsuits that followed is a rather fantastic film, and I can say fairly certainly that it contains some of the greatest written scenes I've seen in a long time.

Sorkin of course is no stranger to brilliant scenes, just check out almost every single episode of The West Wing for proof of this, but his writing here transcends that. Yes, it's quick witted and sly, and yes, not a single person on the face of the earth probably speaks like that, but it's one of the most capitivating scenes I've seen in a long time.

"You're going to be successful, and rich. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

To set the scene, two students are in a bar. One of them, Mark Zuckerberg is distracted and distant, whilst his girlfriend Erica attempts to salvage the last pieces of their relationship. The conversation that follows, seems to break down into four different topics of conversation; about the relationship, Final's Clubs, China and Mark's general ego. The conversation mixes between these topics, flitting from one to the other and back again whilst keeping a throughline, constantly bringing it back to Mark and his struggle (that makes up most of the film) about trying to stand out in a college (and to an extent, a country) filled with success.


I think we should just be friends.
I don't need friends.
I was being polite, I had no intention of being friends with you.

Sorkin distills the entire films narrative and themes into this one conversation, whilst also fleshing out Zuckerberg's character and it does this without shoving exposition down our throats. It never speaks down to an audience who has never attended Harvard, making you feel slightly alienated, which to me at least feels very purposeful.

It's an excellent scene, one of the finest of the year
.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Bad Language does Bad Literature

In honour of the Manchester Literature Festival and Robin Ince's Bad Book Club, Bad Language have decided to indulge in their very own bad literature night. The below video features Dan and Joe reading some raunchy delights from Mills and Boon. Get ready whilst Bad Language topples you to a climax....

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Interactive Literature

The future of novels is apparently here. With the rise of Iphones, Ipod touches and Ipads, as well as people looking into moving publishing into the next generation, it seems the words on everyone's lips are 'how do we make reading an interactive experience?'

Ebooks are the industries first attempt at this, with the Kindle and Ipad especially highlighting just how interesting these things can be. Both can show basic functions, say for example a digital book with a touch screen so you can turn pages. Text can be resized and background colours can be changed to make it easier to read. This is fairly standard, and for most would be considered pretty satisfactory.

But then a book like this comes along and shows everyone just how a digital book should be done. With smart physical effects moving scenary and developing aspects of the story in stunning high definition, this is a must have app for the Ipad.

But that's just as far as things are going at the moment. What I'm interested in is the future.

Let's take a look at a some trends in literature, and just how these can be worked into apps, to make interactive literature an essential part of the reading experience.

Teenage fiction, and to be honest, young adult fiction is predominately dominated these days by series of books. Harry Potter, Twilight, True Blood, the Discworld and even to an extent, series such as James Pattersons detective novels. These books all have shared universes, filled with locations and characters. They have rules and mythologies. Harry Potter even has textbooks. What if there was an app for those universes. So whilst you're reading the text you can touch an image or link on the screen and be whisked away to some other information. So, for example you're reading a chapter of Harry Potter where he's in a potions class. How about the image behind the text is of the classroom, or a desk. You can click on a textbook and be taken to a replica potions book, complete with spells, or how about clicking on an image of Snape at the head of the class and be taken to a profile of his character, biographical information etc...and then, with another click on there, get taken to a family tree-esque diagram where you can see how his character fits in with the rest of the cast.

Think about how this could apply to some of your favourite books? Imagine a Discworld series where the footnotes are all links to other information, and a map of the Discworld was readily available. Especially in terms of fantasy and sci-fi - the cornerstones of world building and fanbases that eat up continuity, this could be the future of those franchises.

Augmented reality apps are another option. These can already be found on Iphones and Ipads and look a little like this. An extra layer of reality viewed through the camera, recognising distance and location. There's a definite market for this in terms of literature. I point you to the brilliant Rainy City Stories, who have on their website a map of Manchester, along with short stories and poetry about specific locations. But what if those locations could be viewed through an Iphones camera, and then when you reach them, it triggers an audio version of a poem or story, or even just brings up the story alongside the camera. Applying location specific literature to applications that deal in location specifics can only enhance the literature. There are already books out there that try to deal with this aspect, for instance Lyra's Oxford or Ian Rankin's Edinburgh. I could see the use of an app that shows locations featured in the novels, or even direct you along the path of your favourite novels.

Anyone have any other ideas for making literature more interactive?

Monday 13 September 2010

Webcomics

Just a quick post to say that these two webcomics are very very good indeed.


Troop 142


Nathan Sorry

Friday 10 September 2010

What I've Been Reading. Over and Over again.

I like to think I'm better than Lee Child, he who manages to write fourteen books starring Jack Reacher, without making a single painfully obvious Reacher-round joke. However, I geniunely felt a little admiration for him when I was pointed to this article in which Child quite wonderfully admits that anyone could knock up a literary classic, but he's much more doubtful that the reverse could be true. So, the question I guess is this - can genre fiction be literary fiction?

I find it quite admirable that he's saying these things, about not just story but character, example quote, "People don't want a character to change. With a series like Reacher, people want to know what they're getting - oh good, another Reacher."

I don't necessarily think this is true. I mean, I'm a massive comic book fan, and not just graphic novels or Indie books, I'm talking about real superhero comics. One of my favourite characters out there is Spiderman.

Now, I'm not about to start claming that Spiderman is any sort of literary classic. Of course, he's a classic character, a brilliant creation, but the work on him is never going to considered in a pantheon that considers Lolita and War & Peace. That's not the argument. What Spiderman does give us, is a perfect example of what editors think about the changeability of characters.

Let's set the scene.

In the beginning, a mild mannered teenager became a superhero thanks to the bite of a radioactive spider. Everyone knows this part. He learned the hard way that with great power comes great responsibility, after the death of his Uncle Ben. He learned even harder, that when you let people into your life (as a superhero) you risk their lives, after his first love, Gwen Stacy died. These events, from way back in the 60's have been affecting the character ever since.

Cut to the start of this decade. Peter Parker, now no longer a photographer, is married to Mary Jane Watson, is a college lecturer and...guess what...has grown and changed as a character. He's moved on from these hangups from the 60's. Yes they still haunt him, but it feels realistic that he's moving past it.

Cut to 2007 and Spiderman reveals his identity to the world. Everyone knows he's Peter Parker now. This is a massive change for the character, showing a logical step in the stories being told. This is Parker moving completely on from his worries and accepting that he has a strong family who can look after themselves.

This is all preamble to a few years ago. In a major storyline, Peter and Mary Jane essentially annull their marriage via a deal with the devil and as a (completely inexplicable) result, the world around them changes. Spiderman's secret identity is under wraps again, Peter Parker is single, broke and a photographer (once more). This giant reset button undid everything that had been worked on with the character, and something that comics seem to rarely do these days is build character and develop them in stories like this.

So when Lee Child says people aren't looking for character development, that they want the same thing. I think it can be misleading. I think people would like to see development, they want to see characters go somewhere, and not just be ciphers for plot and exposition. I for one, get much more enjoyment, even in genre fiction, when characters develop and learn.

Sitcom characters never learn as a rule, because once they start learning, once they start developing, the only option is drama, just look at Friends. Thrillers, horror and science fiction shouldn't be afraid to take their characters somewhere emotionally, not least because its interesting for the reader, but mostly because it makes everything that little bit more dramatic.

Monday 16 August 2010

What I've Been Reading

The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

The Rehearsal has made me incredibly jealous. Not only has Eleanor Catton crafted one of the finest debut novels I've read in a long time, constantly evolving her story and taking it to places I'd never expect. Not only does it completely rewrite the rulebook as far as dramatic writing and art-house literature (as close a term as I can think of to describe the book). Not only is it laugh out loud funny. But she's also managed to do all this before she turned twenty-five.

The story takes place in an unnamed community, in a small town. The country isn't specified, although Catton herself has lived in both Canada and New Zealand (and it has a particularly British feel to it at times). A sex scandal rocks a local girls school, and when the rumour mill begins grinding, a prestigious drama college decides to dramatise the incident for their end of year production.

Catton presents the story through the eyes of Stanley, a first year student at the drama school; Isolde, the sister of the girl involved in the sex scandal; Julia, a misfit at the girls school; and an unnamed saxophone teacher.

The characters perform very specific parts in the story. This may sound obvious, but the way Catton writes each of them makes it seem that their role in the story, and the cogs they turn, are almost more important than the characters. As though the roles are being embodied by actors, who are only acting the story out in front of us (and at one point, the actors 'playing' some of the girls are switched around, and the characters suddenly seem uncomfortable and slightly unbelievable). Catton frequently breaks the fourth wall, and uses stage theatrics in her writing. The drama school has a conceit whereby whenever one door is closed, another is opened - literally. In another writers hand, it wouldn't work, mostly because they would be too scared to continue using it, but Catton keeps on with it and as such you get sucked in.

The Rehearsal is absolutely amazing, and well worth picking up.

Nathan Sorry

Nathan Sorry is an incredibly creative look at 9/11. It's an online web comic from Rich Barrett and can be found here. So far it's up to the fifty-first page with a page seemingly added every two weeks.

Nathan, the title character is a finance worker who misses his plane to New York on September 10th and consequently is not in his office when it gets obliterated the next morning. Instead of rushing back to pick up the pieces, he takes the opportunity to leave everything behind him and start anew. Luckily one of his work colleagues was defrauding the company they worked in for $2 million, and this money just happens to be lying in an account under a fake name...

The story has just started properly and although Barrett is updating slowly, it's worth getting up to date with it.

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Heather Graham...Writer

As a fairly literate flat, myself and my girlfriend have accumulated a small library of books akin to an accusing parlour in an episode of Poirot. From festivals, second hand bookstalls, the thrusting hands of writers and a lot of charity shops we've amassed an odd collection of tattered old copies of Martin Amis novels, to non-fiction books about the inventor of Cornflakes.

So inevitably there comes a time that some of these books should be delved into and essentially torn apart for the sake of...well...learning something about writing and how it works.

Our choice for the first installment: UNHALLOWED GROUND BY HEATHER GRAHAM.

Not the Heather Graham by the way, who as you all know is this person but instead, is this person. This is important.

The book was given to us at the book launch for Mrs Graham's (much much worse) fairy-tale graphic novel, during which she dressed in wild west attire and performed an excruciatingly bad set of music in the middle of a bar on Brighton Pier (without learning any lyrics of the songs she was singing, and resorting to reading them off the back of an amp.) Unhallowed Ground was left on the table we were sat at, and seizing the opportunity, we grabbed it. Once we started reading, we discovered that this book is truly a holy treasure of bad writing, resulting in one of the most beautifully unintentional comedies I've read in a long time.

This is Heather Graham's thirty-somethingth novel and on Amazon it gives you a list of Mills and Boon forums as related topics. Lovely.

The tale concerns Sarah McKinley, a woman rennovating a house when she discovers some corpses in the walls. So who would show up but CALEB ANDERSON, private investigator and all around hunk. How do we know this? Well, Graham writes with such poise and beauty that even the subtlest movement of his upper hair gives your imagination a little orgasm. Take this typical paragraph from the opening of chapter eight.

"Frankly he was just gorgeous, the kind of man any woman would want to have sex with...."

And yes, the four ellipses are the authors own. Presumably they show the lead female drifting into lustful adolescent fantasies. After all, not more than a few lines further down the page,

"Then again, why would any man - especially an exceptionally handsome and charasmastic one - want to spend any more time with a woman who had not only been convinced that he dressed up in a costume to play a practical joke on her, but had also come crashing into his room at the crack of dawn to accuse him?"

Of course, the man "any woman would want to have sex with," is the kind of mysterious Angel-lite private dick/hero figure who'd slot perfectly into Dan Brown's universe. The opening of the book finds him on the trail of a missing girl, who possibly went missing over the side of a boat. Tough mission by a long way. But Caleb Anderson has his thinking cap on,

"Unless, of course, she'd been kidnapped by a boater and dumped somewhere beyond the bay and out in the Atlantic. If that was the case, their chances of finding her were almost nonexistent. The ocean was huge."

The ocean was huge. It's a tough theory to disprove, and that's the main problem with the writing in this book. It's so full of non-statements that the book itself becomes a giant kind of non-statement of a mystery story. In fact, each chapter is an endless sequence of nothing happening, followed by a trite cliffhanger as a last sentence,

"She had not come to make a sacrifice. She had come to be the sacrifice."
"But she didn't believe in ghosts. Did she?"
"Caleb walked down to the water. And found the corpse."
"My husband's death was no accident, he was murdered."

I guess some people must like that style of writing, this odd little universe that exists somewhere between Mills and Boon, Dan Brown and Eastenders. A kind of American soap that would be watched by characters in Twin Peaks if it weren't so completely dull. And certainly, Heather Graham, not this one, has made money from this (remember, this is book thirty-something), but what scares me is that people actually want this from books. An absent minded professor is actually described as being like an absent minded professor. And the entire book ends with three pages of explaination as to what was going on, (apologies for spoilers),

"As they put the pieces together, Caroline's MO began to emerge,"

To me, this all screams bad writing, violating most (if not all) of my ten rules for writing, and worst of all - it violates that worst of all writing traits. Bad sex. This book has one of the greatest bad sex scenes I've ever had the pleasure of reading. It genuinely begins with the two characters watching 'From Here to Eternity' and continues thusly.

"A sound escaped his lips, a groan, and he plucked the beer bottle out of her hand, set it on the side table alongside his own and pulled her into his arms."

And my current favourite use of alliteration outside of Dr Seuss,

"The stroke of her fingers against his flesh felt like flickers of fire."

It continues, with sentences like:

"At last he kissed her and found her lips everything he'd imagined they'd be."
"The naked flesh of her breasts, firm against his chest, sent an infusion of fire streaking through him like lightning, straight to his loins."
"She pulled him down to he, and then they were kissing in a frenzy, hot kisses, liquid and steaming and damp, and erotic beyond measure,"

Graham has a style more akin to telling, not showing. It's the stereotypical writing style for a plot heavy mystery story, but the fact is, this story doesn't even have that going for it. The mystery doesn't really go anywhere, but rather gets boiled down to exposition in the last couple of pages, literally everything is explained in a "whilst you were looking away just then, here's what they all discovered about the killer," kind of a way.

I don't want this to read like I despise the book, I think these books are needed. They're a necessary evil for me because as much as I don't think they're any good - they can teach us a lot about writing. Take a look at some of those sentences and don't pretend you've never written anything as bad as some of them. So we learn, we look at what doesn't work and we decide why it doesn't work.

In the end, Unhallowed Ground goes back in the bookshelf for the moment, and I'm sure we'll pick a new one out in a few days (Postmodernism for Beginners definitely looks like a good title)...

Saturday 17 July 2010

Writer Spotlight - Brian Wood

Brian Wood is an American comic book writer best known for his long running Vertigo series DMZ. He has also written a few other notable series, Local and Demo - both coming of age stories, which in a way DMZ also falls into the category of. I'm going to blog a little about DMZ, since it's one of the most sincere and brilliant pieces of modern comic book writing out there.

DMZ
DMZ is an extended metaphor for American supremacy, politically anarchic and emotionally devastating, it's the best damn TV show you've never seen and it's fifty-five issues in - where have you been? DMZ tells the story of a near-future America where a new Civil War has been brewing between the Free States and the rest of the USA. With New York City as the no-man's land, Manhattan and the surrounding neighbourhoods become a demilitarised zone, a third world country where gangs and private military corporations run amok and where no journalist would dare set foot. Until Matty Roth comes along. A rich kid intern working with a top broadcaster for Liberty News (the future version of Fox), Matty heads over to New York (or the DMZ, of the title) with this journalist to cover the 'real story' of the people there, but quickly becomes seperated after a terrorist attack on their helicopter and is left to fend for himself.

The set-up allows Wood to tell modern stories about the state of the nation through a futuristic setting. He brings coporate controlled mercenary bodies into the fold, gives us suicide bombers being trained and coached, ganglords taking control of neighbourhoods and using the war to their advantage. He tells folk tales of soldiers hiding out in the winter. These are the kinds of stories war brings, but through DMZ Wood tells them in the middle of New York.

The latest volume in the series, Hearts and Minds focusses on being a nuclear power, and the conflict that arises from this.

Brian Wood is doing amazing things with this series, and you should check out the first eight volumes, as well as Demo and Local.

Sunday 23 May 2010

Writer Spotlight - Grant Morrison

I'm going to be doing a monthly writers spotlight, highlighting interesting writers and their best works.

This month we look at Grant Morrison.

Grant Morrison is one of a large bunch of British comic book writers who got picked up by DC and Marvel after success over here, (this bunch including Warren Ellis, Alan Moore, Mike Carey, Paul Cornell, Neil Gaiman and Mark Millar) and probably one of the most iconic comic book writers out there still.

His early works, including Animal Man and Doom Patrol focussed on the metafictional aspects of comics, bringing his characters face to face with God (played by Morrison in a bizarre cameo at the end of his Animal Man run) and even breaking through into the real world towards the end of Doom Patrol.

Running themes throughout his work are the ideas of superheroes coming face to face with analogues of themselves, and it's this aspect that I love about his writing.

So, here's my top Grant Morrison comics:

Arkham Asylum

Batman is called to Arkham Asylum when the inmates take over and demand that he is incarcerated as well simply because to be Batman he has to be as insane as the rest of them. Morrison's Batman stories have a genesis here and have been resonating in his Dark Knight stories ever since (see below). The characterisation of each of the villains is ingenious - his Mad Hatter verges on peadophillic in his Alice in Wonderland obsession, and his Two Face has been weaned off his beloved coin, and has instead been trained to use a six-sided die to increase the different options available to him (eventually, doctors say they want to teach him to make decisions using a set of tarot cards). This story is also the first one to start to delve into what makes Batman, what sets Bruce Wayne apart from other people - why can no-one else be Batman? It's a similar idea that Alan Moore explored in The Killing Joke, when the Joker claims that all it took for him to become a villian was one bad day, ("You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell you had a bad day and everything changed. Why else would you dress up like a flying rat?"). Arkham Asylum is in many ways an introduction to the themes and ideas that Grant Morrison plays with in his writing.

JLA: Earth 2

The Justice League of America as it stands these days is a shambles. For people who don't read DC comics constantly, the team is a vertibable who-the-hell-are-you mixture of C-listers (Donna Troy?) and almost completely unheard of characters (Congorilla anyone?). So what a joy it must have been to have been reading the title in the late 90's - Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Batman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman...the list goes on. Morrison's run on JLA is fantastic, but no storyline is stronger than this one-shot graphic novel illustrated by Frank Quitely in which the JLA team up with an alternate universe Lex Luthor to defeat their evil counterparts. Again, Morrison's theme of superheroes coming across alter-ego's of themselves is the basis for the story - and is used here to show how each of them embody their heroic ideals. Only the Bruce Wayne from this earth can be Batman, only Clark Kent can be Superman. Towards the end of Earth 2 when Owlman (that's Batman's alter-ego) reaches Earth 1 and discovers his father's grave he declares "We've been sent to the one place we can't succeed either, tell them nothing means anything. He's dead. There's no-one left to hurt." His heroes, in a classic DC comics fashion, are not in disguise when they are heroes, (Tarantino makes a similar point in Kill Bill Vol 2 when he talks about Clark Kent being Superman's disguise), they are being themselves.

Final Crisis

A massive DC event and a continuation of his both his Seven Soldiers of Victory and JLA series, this seven issue storyline managed to be the most loved and hated series in recent memory. More than anything, this series felt like a finale to his entire JLA run, in which he killed the Martian Manhunter, sent Superman into a metafictional world filled with DC comics characters no-one wanted to write anymore, shot Batman back in time to the dawn of man and brought back the original Flash. The seven issue series serves as both a testement to the power of these characters, but also to the power of stories - where the ultimate villains in the end are the monitors, an alien race who preside of the entire universe and who dictate events and who, in the end back away seemingly because of the power of their own creations.

WE3

Three missing pets become weapons of mass destruction and go on the run in this three issue mini-series. Coming across like a mixture of Transformers and Homeward Bound this is probably the most straightforward of Morrison's stories, but with Frank Quitely's incredible artwork behind it - it becomes a cinematic joy to behold.

Doom Patrol

Anyone who hasn't picked this series up, hasn't experienced comics. This post talks about the series in so much detail. The series has been collected into six trades, and contains a sentient road called Danny The Street. What more do you need to know?

Monday 17 May 2010

World Cup

So, it's that time again! The world cup is upon us and I don't know about you but I couldn't be looking forward to the end of it more. The sad fact is, unlike so many people, I'm not entirely into football. So, instead, to pass the time, and hopefully to get me into the spirit of the event, myself and Bad Language have decided to name ourselves the official Creative Laureate's of the 2010 World Cup.

This presents me with a few problems. Problem one - I don't like football, and to write in the spirit of the event is going to probably go terribly. Problem two - I don't know anything about South Africa. I have never been. I want to though. Maybe that will be enough.

Expect the first story later this week.

I hope it isn't racist.

Wednesday 28 April 2010

That's How I got to Manchester

My short story, 'That's How I got to Manchester' was named after the Tom T Hall song, 'That's How I got to Memphis'. It was written originally for the Rainy City Stories website, and sits on there in its perfect location at the Hilton Hotel.

Recently, as part of Bad Language, we were interviewed about the idea of writers and their environment. Charlotte Carpenter, who interviewed us, took my story away as a recording, and has come back with a rather wonderful extract, complete with sound effects. It really is rather special, so I've added it below for you all to listen to at your own whim!

Because Blogger doesn't allow us to put mp3 files directly on here, I've embedded it as a video, along with a slideshow of photos Charlotte took as part of the project about writers and their environments.


Tuesday 13 April 2010

Ten Rules for Writing

The Guardian recently did an excellent article on writers rules for writing, with people like Neil Gaiman and Elmore Leonard. It seemed as though the thought behind writing a list of ten rules would be fairly cathartic for a writer, being as most writers probably don't consciously know their rules. So with that in mind, I've set about writing down my own. Some are fairly obvious and some are other (more famous) writers rules - but I still stand by them:

1. Write. It might sound stupid, but is it possible to be a writer without writing? Even if it's not the novel you're working on, or the short story you want to finish, write something - a shopping list, a ransom note, a blog! - just sit down and write!

2. Bare use of Adverbs. This is one that can really put me off a story, this article explains it better than I ever could, but pick up any Dan Brown book and you'll see some beautifully awful use of them.

3. Sparing detail. We are in an office are we? What does it look like?Is the wallpaper the normal cream coloured, slightly raised print we see in every single office? Are the workers sat on black leather chairs at computer screens? Does it look a little bit like an office? Good. We don't need two hundred words to tell us this. On an equal note, if a character has a gun, I don't need to know what make the gun is, or the car he drives, or the plane he rides in. The only times you should break this rule is when any of the above is essential for the character...although when it's essential to tell us your character is flying in his DC-10...I don't know.

4. Don't write what you know. I know about working in restaurants, shops, bars, pubs, banks, offices...I know about going out with my friends and having fun. I know that if I wrote a novel about that no-one would want to read it. There's a line that can be crossed all too easily when it comes to the age old rule of 'write what you know' when people can take it far too literally. If everyone did that, we wouldn't have this.

5. Embrace your instincts. So your character has just met the potential love interest in a bar, he's leaning in close to kiss her when he pulls a gun and...where did that come from? When I write, my instincts always try to take over and there's that thought in the back of your mind when you wonder what would happen if you did pull that gun and kill the love interest only a few pages after you introduce her. Embrace that instinct. You can always re-write (see rule ten).

6. Don't do an impression. Make the story your own. No-one wants to read a rip off Tolkien or Ellis, do they?

7. Don't do this. Enough said

8. No maps, guidebooks, dictionary's or sketches. Can you tell your story using just words? No. Then you're not a writer. You are probably James Cameron.

9. Write. So good it's in there twice. Why are you not doing it already?

10. Re-Write. Nothing is ever finished the first time. Probably not even the tenth time, but by that point you won't be able to tell. If there's anything that's improved my writing, tenfold, it's getting the crap kicked out of it at writers groups.

So those're my rules. What are yours?