Novel progress has not been so great for the past week. I was spending a fair more amount of time on animation work, which is going well. Anyway, the novel is now at about 14K words, and I’m almost finished with chapter 7 which, as I wrote last week, introduces a new character gambling away money on a game of Twenty Wizards. Even though the scene is not very long, it was pretty challenging to write; I didn’t want to go into enormous amounts of detail about how the game works, yet I didn’t want it to seem too vague either. It will probably need a fair amount of editing at some point to get the balance right. But for now I think I can just finish up the chapter.
Writing
On writing reviews…
Though I have no intention of writing reviews anytime soon, I might someday, so this article, judged by its title, seemed interesting: How to Write a Good Review.
While I disagree that becoming a full-time critic is a good use of one’s life (rule three of the artist’s creed), the skill of critiquing is vital for the development of almost any skill, especially creative ones, where the choices are plenty and the rules lost in the depths of the subconscious mind.
On a quick side note, one thing I’ve noticed about reviews, which I find to be extremely annoying, is that they spend sometimes up to over half their time describing the plot of the work they’re reviewing. That’s a summary, not a review. But I suppose it makes sense; many people read reviews to decide whether or not to see a certain film or read a certain book. It can also be helpful in establishing the context of the review. I sometimes read reviews for this purpose, but more often I read them out of curiosity, to get different perspectives on work I’ve already experienced and naturally made my own judgments about, but might’ve missed some important point. Different people can see the same piece of work so differently, especially because so many people have different past experiences upon which to base their new experiences.
I suppose that brings up an important point that must be considered when writing a review. Why will a reader be reading it? In the aforementioned article, the author quotes a phrase from a review of the film Green Lantern (2011):
This is pure popcorn entertainment, a one-dimensional outing that is more in the ballpark of Thor and Fantastic Four than anything else.
The author says this about it:
Roberts use of certain critical clichés like ‘popcorn entertainment’ and ‘one-dimensional’ without either explaining them or relating them to some broader opinion about the film does suggest that he is applying a set of rules and templates without necessarily understanding what they mean.
I won’t argue about whether or not Roberts understands what those phrases mean; I think most readers will understand what he means in the context he uses them. (He’s saying the movie does little more than provide visual entertainment; there’s no deeper theme in the story, or if there is, it’s not a very good one.) I think Roberts’ review was meant for readers who didn’t want the details, they just wanted to know whether or not to see the movie that weekend or spend their $30 elsewhere. Roberts wasn’t pleased with the movie, but he does mention two other movies, Thor and Fantastic Four, so if readers enjoyed those movies, they might enjoy this one as well. So Roberts’ review may indeed include cliché phrases, but if the readers just want a brief answer to the question of whether or not they should go see it, I think clichés are perfectly fine. I think the author of the article wants to write reviews for readers who want a more in-depth, more analytical review.
As I say in the artist’s creed, no work of art is perfect. You could find something to critique in just about every work of art, especially films and literature. But looking at every work of art with that critical eye can be exhausting. If you’re watching a film or reading a book to be entertained, the mind may be a bit more passive, bathing in the vague feelings the work brings about, but otherwise not questioning where such emotions are coming from, at least not to a very great degree.
But I think the author’s point is still important. It may be OK for a review to be filled with clichés, but if the reader and writer don’t even realize when and how they’re using clichés and are simply being vague because they’re stupid or lazy or both, then the writer may be unintentionally misleading the reader, keeping him from enjoying a film he might’ve enjoyed because he didn’t enjoy it for reasons that might not have affected the reader had he chosen to see it. Or, at best, the review becomes mostly superfluous, and the writer fills a page with clichés and vague notions when a simple “I didn’t like it” would have sufficed, wasting the readers’ time (and perhaps the reviewer’s time, if he’s not getting paid).
The author tries to fit the skill of writing reviews in with “A Dreyfus Model of Critical Skill Acquisition.” I think this is silly at best. While the Dreyfus model he describes is somewhat interesting by itself, I think it’s inapplicable to the acquisition of any practical skills.
Not that the author is implying otherwise, but I think this Dreyfus model is too simplistic; a skill in and of itself is not a discrete entity. Acquiring skills may still fit the model, but you can’t rate your own or someone else’s “level of skill” that easily. Aspects of your skill may be low, while other aspects may already be mastered. For example, in chess, while we can say that you will be objectively better at the game after five years of studying for eight hours a day, you may be better at king and pawn endgames while another player is better at openings. The real “rules” of chess are not the rules of how you move pieces, nor are they just the sorts of patterns you read in books on chess. They are ultimately large-scale patterns that you only memorize with the experience of conscious effort, and even then it’s not necessarily guaranteed. It is similar with language and music; if we could completely define the rules by which we create and perceive such things, then we should be able to make computers write stories and symphonies. We can’t yet. Some rules are still elusive. So how do we know whether or not we have mastered these rules? We can’t, really. All we can judge is whether we can achieve the outcome we want, and how hard it was to achieve that outcome.
Overall, this article didn’t seem live up to the title; the only thing the author really says about how to write a review is to be more specific than giving vague cliché phrases to represent your conclusions. Not being a big reader of reviews, I thought there might have been some kind of conventional formatting or style that I didn’t know about or something, but perhaps not.
Writing
Novel progress sidetracked by game inventing
I’m about 12K words into the writing of my novel. The next scene I write will introduce a new character who is gambling away some money on a game of Twenty Wizards. I definitely wanted to introduce him playing a game; gaming just goes with the personality of the character. And he’s gambling; he takes risks. Anyway, since my novel takes place in a fantasy world, I didn’t want him to be playing any game that would exist here on Earth, so I invented a pretty simple card game, calling it (for now) Twenty Wizards (of the 120 cards used in the game 20 are wizards, and they are the most powerful cards you can draw). I nerdishly printed out the cards on green construction paper and cut ’em up and somehow managed to get my sister to play so that we could test out different variations on the rules. Winning takes a combination of luck and strategy, but it’s simple enough that once you get used to it, you can play through each round quite quickly. I’ve only tried playing it one-on-one so far; I’d like to try it with three or more players at some point, but I think it will work for the purposes of my book.
My testing version is a card game, but in the novel the game will be played with game pieces, the size of chess pieces, on specialized tables. Should be fun to write. I’ll probably stay away from going into a detailed explanation of the game’s rules in the novel, but the info will exist somewhere for interested readers… if this thing ever gets finished and published.
Movies
In Time trailer
I am looking forward to seeing this film In Time (formally called Now); looks like a really fun idea for a sci-fi. Although most of those actors definitely look older than 25.
By the way, wouldn’t it be better to stop aging even before 25?
Writing
Refusal of the call…
I’m 10K words into the writing of my fantasy novel, and I’m at the “refusal of the call” scene; the scene in which the hero is presented with the quest and refuses it. Or, as Blake Snyder calls it in Save The Cat!
Of course, not every story needs this, especially sequels, but I’d argue that most stories do. It helps frame the conflict of the story, and it makes it quite apparent that the character is struggling with something. If the main character just got what he wanted all the time, audiences wouldn’t be very interested in his plight. Because there’d be no plight, and thus no story. In fact, I’d say everything before the debate is the “set-up” and the debate is the true beginning of the story. In some stories, especially in movies, the debate can be very small and subtle; just a glance backwards or a hesitation. But it’s still an important moment, and tells us, the audience, that the character really does not want to have to do this, even if we, the audience, would, and even if we know what he’ll end up choosing. Just think about any movie and you’ll find that there’s almost always at least a small hesitation before the hero takes his journey.
Of course, it’s not like you have to know all this consciously to understand it or find it showing up naturally in your daydreams or stories. I think most writers will do it without thinking about it, just as most musicians use rhythm without thinking about it; it’s just natural.
That said, I don’t think it hurts to be conscious of it either, just as it doesn’t hurt a musician to be conscious of rhythm.
Anyway, for better or worse, the debate scene in my novel is more than just a glance backwards. And it’s not really an action scene; it’s an inward debate. It’s probably the hardest scene to write, equalled in difficulty only by the “dark night of the soul” scene which comes before the climax, and of course the climax itself. These are moments in which the audience knows what’s going to happen, but you still have to make it believable and relatable.
In Star Wars, Luke first refuses the call, to which Obi-Wan replies something like: “You must do what you think is right, of course.” And then Luke goes home to find it destroyed and his aunt and uncle murdered, forcing Luke to have no choice but to accept the call. That seems like a bit of a cheat to me, to force Luke into the journey like that, but I think that sort of thing is much easier to get away with in movies, where pacing and visuals are more important, and an inward debate is much harder to communicate.
Movies
The original Planet of the Apes ending – a twist?
I just read a blog that said that the original Planet of the Apes film had a “phenomenal twist ending.” What? No it didn’t. When I first watched the original Planet of the Apes, the ending did not surprise me. Maybe it had somehow already been revealed to me (it must’ve been 20-something years old by the time I first saw it). But the crew crashes on a planet with an earth-like atmosphere (the air isn’t toxic or anything, and is just the right temperature), the animals are just like animals on earth, except the apes are the ones who can talk (albeit using many less facials muscles), they all speak English, and, as if that wasn’t enough, they dig up some old human relics. It should be plainly obvious where they are. I never thought the ending was meant to be a “twist” as if the audience was supposed to realize anything new; it was just a powerful way for the main character to at long last face the painful truth.
I do, however, remember Darth Vader revealing his fathership to Luke being a genuine surprise to me, even though the film must’ve been out for almost 20 years by the time I first saw it. I thought that was the coolest twist ever; I never saw it coming.
Writing
Novel progress…
I’m about 8,600 words into my new middle-grade / YA fantasy novel, or novella, whatever. I have no idea what the final wordcount might be. But writing is remaining quite exciting. Following a brief outline (and years of daydreaming), I have yet to hit any walls or plot problems, which I usually do at this wordcount, even for short fiction. So that everything has been going so smoothly for 8,600 words I think is a good sign.
Writing
Working on yet another new book
I know, I have yet to finish writing a novel; I keep starting new stories instead of finishing old ones. But I don’t care; when the feeling of I-must-write-this is strong enough, I must obey.
I started writing a new fantasy book last week. I’m not going to call it a novel, because it will more likely be novella length, probably between 35,000 and 50,000 words. It’s a middle grade or YA book (the main character is currently twelve years old, though I’m not sure if that will change or not). The story is completely planned out, but rather simple compared to the previous story I was working on, Atarius Destory This World. The story is based on a bunch of elements from a bunch of other stories I’ve been plotting in the back of my mind for quite a few years. All the elements just sort of collapsed together in my mind, like gravity forming a star in a nebula. (What a great simile!)
The story is about the last sorcerer in the world, a twelve year old who hardly understands how to use his powers, who must save a kingdom from an ugly invasion. It will hopefully be the beginning of a series, which is thinly planned out.
Right now my wordcount is at around 5,500 words. Though I’m still a slow writer, I will say that this is so far the easiest story I’ve worked on, perhaps because so many of the elements have been floating around in my mind for so long. We’ll see how long it lasts… but for now it’s quite exciting.
Interesting finds
Envy
It’s like being starving and smelling pizza and then watching someone else eat it… while you have to do homework.
I could do this, surely.
Not sure why they disabled embedding… ??