Meanwhile…

I’ve been roped into helping judge a writing contest at a local elementary school. It’s 4th and 5th graders, which is right around the time I started writing. Based on my own memories of that time, I expect the entries to be simultaneously cute and bizarre. I don’t think we’ll start seeing material until May, but I’ll make sure to post about it then.

It kind of tempts me to dig up the stories I wrote back then. Then I remember that they were about a tyrannosaur with a predilection for pizza.

I don’t really know kids all that well, which might sound odd based on many of my hobbies and interests. I’m not really around kids much, and I never really know what to do with them when I am. It’s only in the last few months that some of my friends have been popping up preggers. I have a couple of nephews and a niece, but only one is at what I would consider usefully sentient, at the age of nine. Babies don’t really have much to offer, other than seeing how the adults around them react.

So in general I don’t really know how to write kids, which I consider something of a deficiency. I encountered this problem when I wrote “Aftershocks,” which features a young girl. Mostly I just wasn’t sure what age to make her exactly – is X age too old to exhibit this behavior? And physically, would she be able to do what the story needs? And this wasn’t even a character who needed to speak or narrate. I envy those who can really capture a child’s voice believably.

In “Telepath’s Lament,” the space western I’m working on, Chuck’s co-star is Val, a young telepath of about 16-18. I find myself worrying not so much about her voice and behavior – I’ve already written a couple of flash pieces featuring her at a somewhat older age, so I think I have her personality pretty well established. In general I think young people are easier to write once they get into their teens. Or at least, I remember what it’s like to be that age, which makes it easier.

There are a couple of things to watch for, though. By making her young, do I risk inadvertently creating a new Jubilee? (I actually like Jubilee, but lots of people despised the mallrat Kitty Pryde proxy like she was the second coming of Gambit. Whom I also don’t mind.)

Non-geek translation: I don’t want the audience to be annoyed by her. Teenagers are by definition annoying, so I’ll have to be careful.

Something else I’ll have to keep in check is potential sexual tension between her and Chuck. It shouldn’t be there. I’m aiming for him to initially be a father figure, then as she matures it’ll be more of a partnership. It’s impossible to predict how people will read into something, but the last thing I want is to inadvertantly create a creepy situation. It should be easy to avoid, and it’s a lesser concern than the first point, but definitely something to keep in mind as I figure out their banter and the rhythm of their relationship.

Anyone with opinions on writing kids? Not writing for kids, that’s a whole other subject, but actually capturing a realistic child-like voice and manner? Chime in!

KC has recently posted a story, Orbital Decay, which sadly failed to find a market. It’s a good story, though, check it out when you get a chance. It has inspired this post, so it might help you understand what I’m talking about. Read it first so I don’t spoil anything. It’s short.

I completely and totally identify with Dave, the narrator – I wanted to be a pilot and astronaut when I was a kid, too, but poor eyesight and later sheer laziness killed those dreams.

The story reminds me of, I don’t know that I would call it an archetype exactly, but maybe it is, the dreamer type of character.

Many fictional characters are dreamers to some extent. Luke Skywalker wouldn’t have left Tattoine if he weren’t a dreamer. Yearning for a greater (or at least more exciting) life is fundamental to the hero’s journey, not to mention the basic human condition.  But I’m talking about a whole other class of dreamer. These are people whose life is consumed with following some fantasy that originates in childhood.

Dave, as I mentioned above, does what most of us do. The real world intervenes, and our lesser natures take over. Sometimes a more down-to-earth dream comes along. Sometimes fear prevents us from following through. For whatever reason, we give up the dream. After a while, most of us come to terms with it. It’s cool. It’s kind of silly to be a paleontologist or whatever anyway, right? What does the world need with another movie star?

But some people don’t give it up. They happen to have the right combination of talent, ambition, and luck. Then the right opportunity, either through chance or self-actualization, comes along and the dreamer finally gets to live their dream. This person doesn’t – indeed, can’t – stop until they’ve built that spaceship in their garage, or directs a major motion picture, or writes that novel.

I think both are equally fascinating character types. The failed dreamer can be a study of human flaw and folly. The achieved dreamer can be a study of determination or obsession, depending on what slant you want to take. In KC’s story, Frank is, tragically, both types. He has held on to the dream, but lacks the necessary skills to follow through.

It’s not fiction, but probably my favorite story about a dreamer is that of Dr. Ronald Mallett, as featured in This American Life.

Nothing much to report. No word back yet on a couple of pieces I have out on submission. Work slowly continues on the space western, which is tentatively titled, “The Telepath’s Lament.” Is that cliche? I’m debating adding some sort of subtitle, like “A Chuck Chaykin Adventure.” It’s a bit presumptious to assume that this story alone, much less others, will be published, but if there are several, it would be nice for people to immediately and easily identify them as being kin. But a subtitle might look silly.

I have a few ideas for flash pieces for Chuck that could be fun. One involves a shark. A space shark.

I fear ”The Telepath’s Lament” going to be kind of long, as it’s currently at 3,000 words and I have several more scenes to write; I expect it could easily reach 10,000. I’m hoping it won’t be too long to sell. I guess if it is, perhaps I can just flesh it out into a full novel. I think there’s enough in my head that I might be able to do that, with this story as the core. I’m pretty excited about the story, as it’s one of the few that kind of suddenly came to me as a whole and is actually completely plotted out. I have lots of detail to fill in, but the basic story arc is all planned.

I hope I’m capturing the western aspects of the setting properly. I’m basing it mostly on western films I’ve seen, as I’ve read very little in the way of actual western prose. We shall see!

On the television front, I thought the premiere of Dollhouse was pretty decent. It had some silliness that reeked of studio idiocracy (including some rather blatant cheesecake) and some other minor blunders. I think it’ll pick up once they’re done with the exposition dump. Assuming it gets the chance.

Something interesting about Dollhouse will be seeing how they handle the personality of the dolls in between missions. Usually, and especially with Whedon shows, the characters develop gradually over the course of a series. The writers can build on previous experiences and have the characters change over time. But if the dolls get wiped clean every episode, that interrupts the process. Clearly, Echo will be the doll who breaks that cycle, and that’s what will drive the series.

And in other news, at Half Price Books last week (or so) I discovered that someone is reprinting the old Doc Savage pulp magazines from the ’30s and ’40s. I scooped up this one, and it’s pure gold. Or is that bronze? If you’re interested in classic pulp, you should definitely check these out, as the genre was pretty much invented with Doc Savage.

This has nothing to do with writing, but just a couple of hours ago I got to meet a childhood hero and American historical icon, Chuck Yeager. If I could go back in time and tell 16-year-old Alex about this he’d freak out. Then he’d tell me my camera lens needs to be cleaned.

Zombies are fun, and they have several qualities that make them a great plot device to tell stories. They’re simple – just take dead people, add animation and a ravenous hunger. Stir and repeat. You don’t really have to explain them, or explain how they happen. They are implacable, but not incredibly difficult to kill or even escape for brief periods of time. So there’s the sense that even a normal human being can handle themselves, if they’re careful. And yet there’s a constant sense of tension and dread at what might be trapped in that locked house, or shuffling across the camp ground. They’re also a way of having an apocalypse that wipes out much of humanity, but then sticks around afterward to harass the survivors. There is a constant threat looming, but it’s slow.

Which is really the key. Zombie stories allow for a lot of human interaction. Once your survivors have escaped the initial onslaught and barricaded up the building, what do they do? Do they turn on each other? Band together to survive? Split into factions and fight over supplies? To me, zombie stories are a great showcase for how terrible human beings can be to each other. Theoretically, I guess, you could use it as a showcase for how people can overcome even this, the worst calamity to befall humanity, but it usually doesn’t work out that way. Most people don’t handle stress well even in every day life, much less with monsters chasing you. I guess it all just depends on your view of humankind’s nature.

So for today’s sketch, the beginnings of a zombie story. Just a few hundred words. Continue reading

I was giving some thought to Wonder Woman last night. I’ve been rereading DC’s Crisis stuff lately, starting with Identity Crisis and moving on through the Infinite Crisis. I’ll start in on reading 52 again sometime soon. I’m still grappling with whether I liked the ending of Final Crisis, and I thought it might be useful to reread from the beginning. It’s quite a bit – we’re talking several year’s worth of stories here, stories that have reshaped the DC Universe. Wonder Woman features pretty prominently in the early portions of the Crisis series.

It’s hard not to love Wonder Woman. She’s mind-staggeringly beautiful, powerful, and noble. She’s regal. When she tells someone she believes in them, you can’t help but believe in them, too. She exudes infectious confidence. And she’s got a bit of a dark streak in her; you know she’ll do what’s necessary to triumph, which occasionally brings her into conflict with other heroes and gets her into trouble. When Darkseid corrupts her at the beginning of Final Crisis, you know the world is in for some rocky times.

She’s kind of a difficult character to get a handle on. A lot of people only know her from the old television series. I think if you told them that her rogues gallery was full of gods and mythical monsters rather than mobsters, and that she could fly and is one of the few people who could stand up to (okay, slow down for a few seconds) Superman, they’d probably think you were crazy. I’m guessing she’s quite difficult to write, too, as there are hardly any definitive Wonder Woman stories laying around. Most of what I’ve read of her involves the Justice League.

What I find most fascinating about Diana is the disconnect between her and the rest of the world. She comes from a paradise full of women. She has only a vague concept of the effect she has on the men around her. She has little more than her training, her mission, and her innate sense of justice (justice that doesn’t necessarily match up with our own) to get through her adventures in man’s world.

So I guess this is where I hit a snag. What makes her interesting to me is probably what undermines her as a feminist icon. Ultimately, who the hell is she to tell women they need to stand up and fight for what’s right? What has she experienced that the common woman can identify with? Sure, she can give some great tips on how to wear a brass bra, but is she the person you go to when you find out your boss has been stingy with your pay raises for the past 20 years? Has anyone ever sneered at her for gaining five pounds? Has some jackass threatened her if she wants to cut her hair? Not likely.

Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s something fantastic to aspire to. She seems like a great end result. But what does it mean if to get there you can’t have gone through all the shit that real women have to go through? Or is it enough to simply have something to look up to, regardless of the potential for the common person to achieve that greatness?

[I should note that I've kind of always had more of a thing for her sister and former Wonder Girl, Donna Troy. Le sigh.]

I’ve added a little random quote widget up above there (because putting it to the side screws up my widget bar for some reason), with little nuggets from my published and soon-to-be published stories. Pretty nifty, eh? There’s only about eleven in there right now, but with a little Energon and a lot of luck that number will rise. Speaking of which, my pulp story is out again, preparing the way for another rejection! I await its return with baited breath.

I’ve had a major breakthrough on my space western. Several, even. I’m pounding out a working outline/summary, which it seems is what I have to do any time I write a story that’s longer than 1,500 words. I’m rather liking it. Which is good, because it’s due to the writing group for critique in a little over a week, I think. If I can actually get the story written in that time, it’ll be pretty fast, for me anyway.

So here’s the beginning, the opening hook, if you will. The details will likely change as the rest of the story shapes up, but I think it’s a pretty fun beginning. (I’m not sure about the villain’s name, for example; it sounds appropriately evil, but I feel like I’m accidentally stealing it from somewhere that I just can’t remember.)

I’ve had the “gift in German” trivia rolling around in my head for years waiting for a story. Literally like a decade. Seemed like a good time to use it.

I’m actually starting to get excited for this story. That will make my inevitable failure all the more sweet… Continue reading

I’m kind of stalled on my space western at the moment, but last night I began a new superhero flash piece. I wrote a paragraph or two, and when it came time for this guy to start using his powers, I wondered at how important or unimportant most people consider the actual powers when they read stories about metahumans.

This probably seems like a no-brainer to most people; if anything distinguishes a super-powered hero from a run-of-the-mill hero is the supernatural powers, right? (For the moment we’ll set aside guys like Batman or Green Arrow.)

When I was younger, I completely agreed with that. I had to know exactly how Bishop’s power worked, or what Magneto’s limits were. The bright splashes of color and people getting knocked through walls and thrown into orbit is what really made those stories fun.

But over the last few years I find that I don’t really care all that much. Powers are important insofar as they inform people’s personality, sure; someone who is invulnerable may approach a situation or relationship differently from someone who is a telepath. But I find that the actual details just aren’t all that important to me, or even find them tedious, getting in the way of the stories and character interactions that I actually want to read. In my last post, I mentioned briefly that over the last few years, Matt Murdock has hardly spent any time in the Daredevil costume – in essense, Daredevil has hardly been in the Daredevil series. And I didn’t really care. The problems of Murdock’s personal life, and the consequences of all those years during which he was wearing the costume, were interesting enough to keep the series more that simply afloat. Matt is one of those rare superheroes who is just as interesting without the mask as with it.

When Ultimate Spider-Man debuted, it got a lot of flack because the costume doesn’t even show up until issue 6 (or whenever it was, somewhere around then). When I read, I didn’t even notice. Who cares about this Spidey guy? There’s a perfectly entertaining Peter Parker here keeping me interested.

That’s not to say I don’t like the costumes and the energy beams. But I just don’t feel like I need to know exactly how many tons Colossus can lift. He’s a big guy, and he’s really strong. Move along. I want to see him have a beer with Wolverine. I want to know if he’s going to hook up with Kitty Pryde.

When I sit down to start writing a new hero, I tend to initially assign them a generic set of tank powers – strong, tough, maybe they fly. If the story needs them to have something else, I’ll change it. Personality first, powers second or third.

Along that same vein is the origin story – I don’t consider how they got their powers nearly as important as why they’ve decided to use their powers for this particular purpose. Power sources are usually pretty silly anyway, which is why I consider the advent of the mutant to be a pretty important milestone. Trim the fat.

As a result of all this, I’m afraid I’m too lazy on the power side of things. Most of the heroes I’ve created are pretty basic – tanks (like the Scarlet Ranger), energy manipulators (like Starburst, Radio Gal, or the Chicago Defender), or mages (like Sevastian or Tenebrous). Do I need to try and stretch and come up with new abilities? Is it even worth the bother considering the glut of metahumans already on the market? Would it distract me from what I consider priorities? I don’t want someone to look at one of my stories and roll their eyes and say “Oh, hey, another dude that shoots lasers out of his eyes, pass!” but I also don’t want to get bogged down in unimportant details or force myself to come up with something really weird that takes a lot of explaining to even be remotely understandable.

I guess this falls pretty much into the same category as “how much technospeak do you want in your science fiction?” I think most people would agree they want it kept to a minimum, especially since most of it’s just made-up nonsense to begin with. But a superhero’s powers can actually be a pretty important part of their personality, so it becomes a more relevant, and difficult, issue for me.

Or maybe I’m just getting old and thinking about it too much.

If you’ve read this blog long, or know me personally, you’ll know I read comics. I’ve read them for most of my life, and it’s probably my favorite storytelling medium. If I could draw I’d totally make my own. Alternatively, if you are an artist and want to draw for me, let me know.

I’ve toyed with the idea of posting reviews of the week’s comics, but since I switched to ordering mine a month at a time, I don’t get them every week like I used to. This is a bit awkward, as I often have to duck spoilers all month, and can’t really participate in current discussions until weeks after the books have come out. Annoying, but comics are getting too expensive for me to buy them at full retail anymore. Looks like Marvel may be making the jump to 4 bucks an issue soon, for example.

Anyway, I frequently get asked which books I read on a regular basis. This list changes periodically, as I lose interest in some characters, or creative teams (that’s the writer and artists, for the uninitiated) switch out. There are whole lines of books I’ve picked up or dropped, and there are certain characters who I’ll probably never drop, regardless of quality or creators. It’s probably incredibly hard to understand unless you’re a comics reader.

I should note that this isn’t everything I read. There are some excellent series that I pick up in trade rather than issues, such as Walking Dead, Powers, and Ex Machina. I’m working on picking up all the Y The Last Man trades, though that series is done. It tends to be more mainstream books that I read in singles. Then I can stock up on the indy books in hardcover to make my bookshelf look smart.

There are also the odd mini-series that I read. I’m checking out Brubaker’s Incognito, and I buy anything that says Astro City on it (though those are rare nowadays, and it’s been a while since any new Astro City material). I’ve been keeping up with the big DC event, Final Crisis (though I haven’t gotten the last two issues yet, should be coming in today!).

I should also note that there is plenty of great stuff I don’t read, and a lot of it’s probably better than what I do. I’m not made of money, you know!

So, here are the ongoing books I pick up every month, at the moment at least (I’ll put in a jump in case you really don’t care and just want to skip it ): Continue reading