Meanwhile…

I almost missed it, since it went up over the weekend, but Frank has an excellent new story up over at Every Day Fiction – check it out.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was about as disappointing as expected. They crammed a lot of unnecassary characters in, and to do so they condensed and butchered the portions of Logan’s origin story that are actually interesting.

Part of the problem is the taming of Wolverine for a mass audience, which is strange because the untamed Wolverine has about as mass an audience (in comic book terms) as you can get. The film completely passes over the years he spent feral and savage in the Yukon, living with wolves. His time with the Weapon X program is chopped down to like one mission. They don’t cover any of his time in Japan (though there is a hint at it after the credits). I’m not being fanboyish here – I certainly don’t expect the film to be slavishly devoted to the source material. It’s just frustrating when they ignore so much great material in favor of some 30-second fan wank appearance of Emma Frost or Gambit or other characters who have nothing to do with Wolverine’s origins.

Oddly enough, Wolverine is kind of a Mary Sue. For a character that has had tragedy after tragedy heaped upon his comic book incarnation, nothing bad really happens to him here. He has help at every turn. When he needs more power, someone comes along and gives it to him. When it looks like he meets someone who can defeat him, people who hated his guts five minutes before show up to save the day. This is motherfrakkin’ Wolverine, people. If anyone is custom made to have horror after horror perpetrated on him, just so that he can stand back up on his own and slice the shit out of whoever did it, it’s him.

There are other things to not recommend the movie as well – the last third of the film is fairly predictable and chock full of cliche. The filmmakers also underestimate the audience and feel like they have to explain things that are obvious.

It’s not all bad. There are some fun action scenes. There are some great performances from most of the cast (though I can’t imagine who thought it was a good idea to put Will.I.Am in there). If you want to completely shut off your brain and enjoy a fun action flick, you’ll find something there to enjoy.

Over breakfast this morning I was flipping through my trade of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s “All Star Superman” and I was struck again by what a fantastic book it is. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, I must insist you go out and buy it. Right now. It’s been fully collected in two hardcover volumes now (sadly, I haven’t gotten the second half yet, because DC’s trade program is terrible - but that’s a discussion for another time).

It’s everything a Superman story should be. There’s action, insanely jacked up science, humor, sweet romance, tragedy, and probably some other stuff I can’t think of. Quitely is at the top of his game here. I hear people say they can’t identify with Superman, or that he’s a “bad character” because he’s so powerful, but forget all that noise. Those people just haven’t read the right Superman story. Or, more likely, haven’t read any Superman stories at all.

The basic premise is that Lex Luthor (whose portrayal here as an arrogant genius who simply cannot stand the fact that someone like Superman exists, and a narcissist whose belief in his own superiority is his greatest weakness, is dead on) succeeds in, basically, giving Superman cancer. Suddenly faced with mortality, Supes has to decide what to do with the time remaining him.

There’s an issue about Pa Kent which, well, if you don’t tear up a little it proves only that you have a heart of stone and metal, driven by gears and pistons.

What “All Star Superman” does most of all is inject a sense of breathtaking wonder to the Superman world. It should be awesome to see Superman fly through the sun, or Lex Luthor pull off a trap from millions of miles away. These are amazing feats, and they should amaze us.

In the rush to be gritty and realistic, a lot of writers neglect that a wonderous story can be just as powerful.

Well, we’re nearing that time of year again. This morning I received an email from the NaNo people warning that they’re about to prep the site for this year’s contest.

It’s still over a month away of course, but I think the biggest thing that kills NaNo attempts (or at least mine) is lack of preparation. If you’re writing a fantasy/science fiction story, you’d better have your world pretty well built by the time you sit down to even outline, I think. That can take a lot of time. I tried to do all that on short notice two years ago and it didn’t work out so well.

I’m determined to get a lot of material written for Kelly Sienna, The Scarlet Ranger. I’ve already got one published short story about her, plus several short exercises (mostly posted here somewhere, if you look around). A lot of her life story is written out in my head, so I think I can put together a pretty decent outline. It might be roughly broken down into something like this:

Part 1 – The Early Early Years, about Kelly as a young girl, when she first receives her powers and massive events that will shape the rest of her life happen.

Part 2 – The Teen Years, when she discovers just how different her powers make her, and must decide what to do with them.

Part 3 – Early Hero Years, involvement with the second generation Liberty Gang

Part 4 – The Experienced Years, as she comes into her own as a hero and her rocky romance with The Chicago Defender.

Something like that, anyway. That would be 12,500 words per section. 

 So now I’ve got to decide on a couple of things. Do I want to write it as several novellas? Should I avoid the decades-spanning story and focus on just one of those periods? If I decide to write a later period, will I regret limiting what I can do with the earlier times?

I’m leaning toward a novella of each time period. This way I may be able to avoid Star Wars-style continuity issues, and if I feel like there’s enough story in one, it can always be expanded. I may add another Part, which would give me five 10,000-word stories. If some fall short I can always fill in with much shorter one-off adventures. I don’t have a solid villain for her yet, so I could maybe do little flash pieces about whoever that turns out to be to fill in the gaps.

Anyone else out there doing NaNo? It’s daunting, but as I understand it, it becomes easier once you get it done once. That’s what I’m hoping for, anyway.

I absolutely love writing action scenes. I feel like I’ve always been pretty good at it, and that probably stems from growing up reading a lot of books with great action scenes. (Michael Stackpole, I would have to say, is a huge inspiration for this; his action scenes are always stellar.) I’ve been complimented on my clear, fun, descriptive action scenes. It’s one of the few times that my tendency to over-visualize is an asset, I think. I don’t know if I’m any good at writing the stuff in between the action, but I’ve got that, at least.

So when Jens sent out this prompt this month, it got me a little excited (and I didn’t have to grab a dictionary to understand it ):

Prompt: Write a story with the best dang fight scene ever. But it also has to mean something. Within the context of the story. A spectacular, mind-shattering fight scene, but with emotional heft and moral repercussions, in under a thousand words. Yeah!

So I took the opportunity to fledge out a little more the Scarlet Ranger’s history. With some expansion, I think this might might a pretty good stand-alone short story, so I’ll just post a brief bit of it here. This is set in the early days of her career, before Kelly even took the mantle of the Scarlet Ranger. A member of the Liberty Gang, Lieutenant Governor (formerly sidekick to the Governor, of course) is featured as well.

The more I think about it and the more I write about her, the more I want to NaNo Kelly’s story. I enjoy writing her enough that I think I could keep it up for a month, and portions of the story are already rolling around in my head.

Anyway, on to a dark, dingy Chicago alley, mid 1980s… Continue reading

The beginning of a Radio Gal adventure.

Continue reading

The cast for my superhero universe is steadily growing. Here’s a new one, who I’m loving the idea of. I think she’s got a striking look and a fun personality. Here’s a quick bit I wrote where she learns a new use for her powers. I’m hoping it’s clear what she can do, but if not it’s no big deal, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of opportunities to write some more adventures for her. Continue reading