A different story

Hello, internet!

So over the course of the week I’ve been talking about how you can draw inspiration from video games, and how to use your in-game experiences as the beginning of writing your own stories. And I’ve been talking about the process that I sometimes go through of adapting my video game adventures into prose.

I promised you that’d I’d post a story today, to show you the results of that creative process. And I’ve been working on the story all week. But you know what? It isn’t finished. And I could rush to finish it, filling in the blanks and rounding off the conclusion in time to get it up for tomorrow morning. But what I’ve written so far is good, and I don’t want to rush the rest. I want to take my time with it and produce a story that I’m happy with from start to finish, with a conclusion that’s well thought-through. Even if it is too late to post it here, I’ll know that I’ve done it right, and that it’s the best story it could have been.

So today’s post is going to have to be something different. This week’s posts were supposed to be a trilogy, but now I’m going to have to imitate Pat Rothfuss and leave you all hanging after two instalments, without a satisfying narrative conclusion: only the vague promise of more to come, some time in the future.  I hope you can forgive me for that! I’m struggling to forgive myself. But sometimes we’re too hard on ourselves, as writers. Sometimes it’s okay to take a little bit longer on a project, to play around with it until it really feels finished. Because ultimately we shouldn’t be writing for money or acclaim or to meet deadlines. We should be writing because we enjoy it.

With that in mind, here’s a short piece that I enjoyed writing a few weeks ago. It was written for a Star Trek roleplaying game that I’m part of, and it’s only ever been seen by a small group of other players. It’s short, and simple – just an old man sitting at a bar, quietly contemplating – but I hope that you enjoy it all the same.

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“Friends in low places”

The Romulan Neutral Zone, for all its sins, had been the basis of a lot of livelihoods. Xon had spent the last four decades of his life flying out of neutral ports on Nimbus III and other worlds where certain undesirable elements of galactic society could conduct their business without interference. In that time he had seen petty criminal empires rise and fall, he had dined at gunpoint with pirate warlords who ruled over failed colonies like feudal barons over their fiefdoms, and he had seen more greed and desperation than he could easily stomach, the kind of naked poverty and avarice that wasn’t conceivable to most Starfleet officers or ordinary citizens of the Federation. The black market economy of the Neutral Zone had been brutal and unforgiving to the people at the bottom of the ladder, but it had been stable enough in its own way.

The Treaty of Tarod had obliterated that stability. Spaceports that had operated for centuries as havens for malcontents were now no longer beyond the reach of Starfleet or the Romulan navy. For the first time in Xon’s long life, Romulan ale was no longer contraband in the Federation, and Starfleet was delivering Federation medical supplies freely in the other direction. The smuggling industry, with its proud heritage, was at its end. Whole criminal dynasties had been built upon the presumption that the Federation and the Star Empire would always be at each other’s throats, and now the rug had been pulled out from beneath their feet. The rock had been lifted, and the roaches had scattered.

So when Xon accepted a commission to work in the former Neutral Zone, he had been expecting to run into some old acquaintances. He hadn’t been expecting to run into Igreb.

Igreb was a sort of huge luminous quantum octopus who existed laterally in four dimensions at the same time, but he was also a very fine bartender, whose infamous taverna on Nimbus III had been as old as the colony itself. Xon had never been able to figure out if Igreb was a singular entity or part of a species that had evolved beyond corporeal form, but he had certainly never encountered any other sentient beings who remotely resembled him. If ‘resembled’ was the right word. Even after forty years, it was very hard for Xon to wrap his brain around what Igreb actually looked like. You could stare at him for hours and try to build a coherent mental picture of his appearance, but your thoughts seemed to slip away like water off a stone. Besides which, if you stared for long enough, Igreb would eventually remind you that staring was rude, and that you were sitting on a barstool that could be occupied by a paying customer.

Igreb didn’t talk, or even communicate telepathically, in the conventional sense. He just floated behind his circular bar, served you drinks that you didn’t know you wanted, and embedded vague concepts inside your head. Without exchanging words or specific thoughts, Xon had learnt everything about why Igreb finally packed up and left Nimbus. With the Neutral Zone gone, the power dynamics on the Planet of Galactic Peace had shifted overnight, and a full-scale civil war had broken out, with different pirate clans fighting in the desert for control of Paradise City. Igreb’s bar had been bombed during the opening hostilities. He had heard about Starfleet’s new outpost in the region and correctly presumed that it would need bartenders.

The new taverna seemed like an exact replica of the old one. It had the same pervading emerald light, the same pointless mechanical cooling fixtures spinning slowly overhead, the same garish entertainment consoles, the same NO PROJECTILE WEAPONS sign behind the bar. It was half bar, half cargo bay, or it would be when freighter captains started using the shelves and industrial transporters to auction their wares. Igreb had even brought his famous pool tables, where the balls floated repellently over an actual liquid pool instead of the traditional green baize, either a bad joke or the result of an unfortunate mistranslation. The only things missing were the grime, the dancers, and the scent of death, but Xon was confident that the grime at least would quickly accumulate as soon as Igreb started attracting more of his usual patrons.

Xon had the very real privilege of being Igreb’s first new customer. He was only drinking Altair water, but they had still toasted the new premises, and Xon had entertained some optimistic thoughts that the taverna might grow into Eden’s premier dive bar. Igreb had projected his gratitude. They had been sitting silently for almost an hour, having a lively and convivial exchange of ideas, when Xon heard someone parting the screen of chains that hung over the bar’s entrance. He turned on his barstool, and he was surprised by who he saw…

Book review: the long way to a small angry planet

Hello, internet!

I have decided to write a brief book review for you today. The book is called the long way to a small angry planet. It is by Becky Chambers. And in my humble opinion, it is very good.

If I was forced at gunpoint to describe it through references to other pieces of science fiction then I’d say that it’s like a mixture between Firefly and Mass Effect, but that doesn’t really do it justice, and I’d much rather pitch it to you on it’s own two feet. The story revolves around a young human woman named Rosemary who has fled her former life to sign up with a tunnelling ship called the Wayfarer, crewed by a wonderfully diverse mix of nuanced characters who make their living by punching wormholes through the fabric of space. They live in a future where humans have abandoned Earth and spread out among the stars, in a vibrant galaxy where they aren’t major players on the galactic stage. Humans live in colony ships or cling to life on barren moons, and they have to take work where they can get it, which is where the book gets it’s cowboyish Firefly feel. Shortly after Rosemary arrives, the crew are offered a once-in-a-lifetime oppurtunity, creating a tunnel that will lead to a remote planet near the centre of the galaxy. The job is dangerous, but if they succeed, they’ll be rich, and they’ll be helping to put humanity on the map.

Nothing about that premise might seem particularly original or revolutionary, but the execution makes the long way to a small angry planet different from any other science fiction book that I’ve ever read, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Chambers has been long-listed for the Bailey’s Prize, and I think she’s entirely deserving of it.

I think it’s the focus on characters which makes the long way to a small angry planet so enjoyable. There aren’t any dramatic starship battles or space-western gunfights in Chambers’ book, because there don’t need to be. The galaxy that she describes is a precarious one full of wars and fragile alliances, but any violence occurs ‘off-screen’, as something that happens to other ships in other parts of the galaxy. We’re free to just observe the crew, learning about their daily lives, their eccentricities, their aspirations and their hidden pasts. I grew attached to them very quickly, and was perfectly content with just being a fly on the wall of their ship, allowing the narrative to progress at its own leisurely pace. They move from one job to the next, skirting danger, finding love and friendship on the planets where they stop along the way, and laying the groundwork for a heart-wrenching conclusion which had me up until three in the morning. The characters are well-rounded and entirely believable, and they come across as everyday heroes: working to overcome their flaws and banish their fears, showing extraordinary compassion for one another, and retaining their identities as ordinary people who enjoy doing ordinary things, like eating ice-cream, going to concerts, playing video games, visiting their parents, and enjoying recreational substances (especially in the case of the Wayfarer’s engineers, who are strong contenders for being my two favourite characters).

But the sense of compassion that I got from this book extends beyond the main cast of characters. Chambers has created a universe full of colourful alien species that manage to inhabit the ideal middle ground of being truly alien without alienating the reader. They are convincingly otherworldly, with deliciously weird anatomies and plenty of complicated cultural practices that must be navigated by the main characters, but they are still very ‘human’ in their behaviour. I’m sure that they themselves would be offended by that suggestion, but it is testament to Chambers’ writing ability, and the scope of her creative vision, that they can be so alien and so human at the same time. These aliens have their own flaws and virtues that are instantly recognisable to humans, despite having so many traits that require acclimatisation, both to human readers of Chambers’ book and to the human characters within the story. Watching different species struggling to navigate each other’s idiosyncrasies is actually one of the most interesting and endearing parts of the book. Chambers hasn’t created a callous dystopia or a utopian paradise, but rather a middle-ground with elements of both, where the majority of sapient lifeforms try their best to cooperate and overcome their cultural differences, without resorting to violence.

Tor has described the long way to a small angry planet as a story that‘will restore your faith in science fiction (specifically) and humanity (in general)’, and that’s exactly what it did for me. Chambers has written a refreshing new piece of science fiction, in a well-thought out and nuanced universe, which has the confidence to ask you to come along for a ride. It makes me encouraged about writing my own science fiction. Some people seem to think that ‘big universe’ science fiction can’t follow the same old formulae anymore without being tired and stale, but Chambers shows that you can absolutely write an engaging piece of science fiction which follows the same old format in a fun new way. The long way to a small angry planet has all of the traditional elements of a crew, a ship, a large interstellar political union, a diverse menagerie of fascinating alien races, and a healthy dose of convincing pseudoscience, but it is still a very palatable, enjoyable, and original story. Chambers serves it up like one the delicacies made by the Wayfarer’s enigmatic cook, gathering staple foodstuffs from the homeworlds of his crew and preparing them in a bold new way in which they have never been prepared before.

Marvel vs. Star Wars: Dawn of Justice

In my last couple of posts, I’ve been dealing with the idea of originality in storytelling. It’s a huge idea, and I certainly don’t expect to uncover all the answers here, even as I’m wrapping up this three-part series. But it’s an idea that audiences (of books, movies, etc.) often pick up on quite a bit, whether positively or negatively, and so a serious writer should know how to address it to.

I looked at two recent blockbuster movies, neither of which is admittedly terribly original: first Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and then Marvel’s Ant-Man. I’ve argued that both films share significant parallels with the first film in their respective franchises (the original Star Wars and 2008’s Iron Man). And yet, while it’s a fine line and I may be nit-picking at the details just a bit, I still feel like one of the two films is simply following a formula in the way that much fiction does, while the other is more of an outright rehash of its predecessor. Is this a legitimate analysis? Let’s see if we can find out.

Of course, it’s true that very few films or stories these days are completely original. As a book I regard quite highly observes, “there is nothing new under the sun.” And as many people before me have stated, most stories are just combinations of old elements in a new or different way. I have found this to be true as a reader, a moviegoer, a student of literature, and as a creative writer. Universal concepts such as the hero’s journey and the monomyth work themselves and their familiar tropes into nearly every story, or at least into action movies with major elements like heroic quests, good versus evil, etc.  I don’t deny that these elements show up pretty strongly in the Star Wars galaxy, the Marvel universe, and quite a few other places too.

Also, as I mentioned last time, Marvel admittedly has a proven formula that works, and most of their movies stick to it to some degree or another. They have a similar lighthearted tone, similar themes of saving the world from evil threats, and similar plot structures where the hero and his allies have to overcome impossible odds together (I say “his” because none of the Marvel Cinematic Universe solo films have featured a female main character…yet).

And while these elements are all significant parts of the movie, that may be where the similarities end. The settings of each are vastly different, ranging from modern-day America to deep space, from World War II to mythical realms. The same goes for the protagonists who inhabit each setting. Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, and Captain America all have vastly different personalities and backgrounds, and Ant-Man’s is different from all of theirs as well. Although they face similar obstacles and overcome similar crises, the characters are each distinct and unique. In this sense, I might posit that the formula Marvel has become known for is comparable to the hero’s journey itself. They both refer to a certain set of tropes and plot structures, but those elements can be applied to nearly any type of hero in any type of setting. In that sense, one could argue that Ant-Man and the other Marvel movies copy elements from a certain common formula, but not necessarily from each other.

Cover for Marvel Premiere #48, featuring Ant-Man. Image from Flickr Creative Commons.

Also, one should remember that the Marvel movies are based on comic-book source material. There are a lot of vastly different characters in the comic book universe (all with a much more complicated history than any you’ll see onscreen), and so there’s quite a bit of material to draw from. That’s why, while Ant-Man featured Scott Lang as the main character, it also included Hank Pym, who in the comics was the original Ant-Man, and other characters who are recognizable to a comics fan like me, such as the Wasp and Cassie Lang (yes, even the little girl in the movie eventually becomes a superhero of her own). So does the comics background make the movies more original? No, not really, but it does mean that the movies draw elements from an outside source rather than directly ripping off each other. They have a wide range of source material to draw from because the comics have been going on for so long, and they can include characters and elements that aren’t necessarily central to the same plot formula that keeps recurring in merely the movies.

Movie poster from Star Wars, 1977. Image from Wikipedia. Fair use.

But, all of that being said about the Marvel movies, I still maintain that The Force Awakens was, to a large extent, a rehash of the original Star Wars, A New Hope. To reiterate, that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t enjoy the movie on some level, but just that it felt somewhat lacking in depth and ambition. It didn’t copy merely a formula such as the hero’s journey, but it copied one particular movie very directly. There was a desert planet that looked like Tattooine, but totally wasn’t Tattooine! And a planet-destroying weapon that’s kind of like the Death Star, but oh, it’s completely different from the Death Star! And Rey, while an interesting and compelling character so far, is to a large extent a female version of Luke Skywalker. I don’t want to give away too many details or spoilers, but see my last few posts for further details on how closely the two films and their plots mirror each other. In many ways it seems to me that they should have just called it A New A New Hope.

So yes, I am concluding that Ant-Man was a good (or at least better) kind of predictable, while The Force Awakens was more of a rehash than it should have been. Maybe I’m just splitting hairs here, as neither movie was completely original, and both fell into the category of “fun, but not amazingly awesome” for me. Of course, an ideal story, a truly memorable and groundbreaking one, might be more original than either one. But keep this difference in mind as you write. Audiences will usually accept it more or less if you follow a time-tested pattern such as the hero’s journey, but not necessarily if you borrow too heavily from one work in particular, like The Force Awakens did to A New Hope. (Then again, The Force Awakens is still proving to be amazingly successful at the box office, so despite the criticisms from a sizeable group of viewers, it’s clear a lot of people are still quite willing to accept it).

Finally, I’ll leave you with a quote about originality to ponder in your own writing. And though it’s a lofty ideal to reach, maybe this will help. C.S. Lewis says: “Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.”

Predictably Fun: The Success of Superheroes

In my last post earlier this week, I started trying to tackle some pretty big questions of originality in fiction writing. I looked at the recent success of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which, though enjoyable, lacked originality and seemed to recycle many elements from the original Star Wars. Today I’d like to explore the same ideas but in a slightly different genre of story, one that is also immensely popular despite some potentially legitimate claims of unoriginality. And it’s one of my favorite genres too. I’m talking about superhero movies, specifically the ones made by Marvel.

Before we begin, I’ll admit my personal bias. I love superheroes and superhero films. Even the mediocre ones are still enjoyable to me on some level, and it has to be pretty bad for me to actively dislike it (but trust me, there are some bad ones out there). While I love Star Wars as well, I do have to admit that Star Wars is probably my second-favorite fandom–after superheroes. So with the exponential popularity of Marvel movies over the last several years, I’ve had quite a lot to enjoy.

Theatrical poster for Iron Man (2008). Image from Wikipedia. Fair use.

But I can certainly understand why, from a perspective of an outsider who doesn’t love all of those characters as much as I do, the movies may seem to follow a similar or predictable formula. If you’re unfamiliar, you can find a pretty decent summary of that formula here. This type of movie may have seemed fresh and innovative when Iron Man introduced the Marvel Cinematic Universe back in 2008, but eight years later, it’s been done and redone a number of times.

 

Consider the Ant-Man, Marvel’s most recent big blockbuster from August. (Interestingly, I almost typed “bug blockbuster” there, but I guess that would have also been accurate.) The film was, in my opinion, a lot of fun and a well-made story for what it was. But it was also very predictable, at least to someone like me who has watched quite a few action and superhero films over time. The good guy overcame his challenges and figured out how to be a hero in the end, even when it seemed like there was no hope left. The bad guy was fairly one-dimensional and was pretty obviously the bad guy from the beginning without much subtlety. The whole film was laced with Marvel’s trademark blend of flashy action sequences and witty humor and dialogue. I won’t say that it lacked character development, but the characters and the relationships it did build were familiar too from a number of other works of fiction–the ex-con looking for redemption, the older mentor figure and his estranged daughter, the maniacal businessman-turned-supervillain, the goofy friends who provide comic relief. Etc. (Not to mention the fact that Ant-Man is a science expert who gets his powers from a scientific suit. Now where have we seen that before?)

Theatrical poster for Ant-Man (2015). Image from Wikipedia. Fair use.

Of course, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Ant-Man is exactly like all the other Marvel movies. Each hero and their backgrounds and personalities are different enough to make them distinct, ranging from a billionaire scientist hotshot-turned-hero, to a legendary god come down to earth, to the idealistic super-soldier back from the past. The film version of Ant-Man is a little different from them all in that he’s a former criminal, a down-on-his-luck ordinary guy trying to support his family, who ends up becoming a superhero. The individual characters and settings are different in each movie, and of course team films like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy shake up the dynamic somewhat too. But still, I must admit that by and large the Marvel movies are getting similar and predictable in terms of plot structure and overall tone.

 

So then, what’s the missing element? What is it that makes Ant-Man and similar films so enjoyable still, even though they’re so formulaic? And why do I appreciate one type of movie despite its unoriginality, but still look with a critical eye on recycled plots like that of The Force Awakens? Is it just because I happen to like superheroes a little bit more than space operas? Or is it because TFA was hyped up so much more that unoriginality on its part felt like a letdown in comparison? Maybe. But maybe there’s something more objective in the content of each story, too.

I’m honestly not sure exactly what that would be yet, but maybe I can figure it out in my next post later this week. And if I can, then I’m sure there will be some important applications for us as writers as well when it comes to originality and borrowing from other works.

 

 

 

 

Nothing New Under the Sun: The Franchise Awakens

STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS STAR WARS

Theatrical poster for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Image from Wikipedia. Fair use.

Now that I’ve got your attention by name-dropping the biggest and most record-breaking film on the market right now, I’m going to be talking a bit about the film Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. There’s a lot I could say on the film, both good and bad, and since much of it has already been said throughout the many circles of the blogosphere, I’m certainly not going to try to give an exhaustive, in-depth analysis here.

Actually, I’m going to take it back a bit and try to get a broader look at some things, such as general storytelling principles and the concept of an ongoing franchise that has a lot of continuity to deal with. About a year ago, when advertising for the film first began in full force, I wrote a post about it on my personal blog. I was a tad skeptical, but cautiously optimistic, because I’ve been a fan of all things Star Wars for so long–not merely the movies, but also the numerous books, comics, and other media that had been created subsequently by various authors to flesh out the story more and further expand this universe. My post argued that, even though the new movies weren’t drawing from the existing source material and were straying from the wealth of books and other stories that I loved, I would still enjoy the films as long as they told good and creative stories of their own. (The original post I’m speaking of can be read at this link–and, since it was written a year before the movie came out, it is 100% spoiler free.)

One fan’s collection of the very best Star Wars books (which are pretty much any written by Timothy Zahn). Image taken from user Sarah Thrawn on Flickr Creative Commons.

Well, like many fans, I saw the film on opening weekend (and again after that). And, true to what I said above, I did enjoy it. But that’s about all. I liked it well enough to see it a couple of times as a fun event with friends, but I didn’t really love it quite as much as I may have anticipated. And there may be a few reasons for that, including the fact that I had some pretty major parts spoiled for me (thanks, internet jerks). But now that the initial hype has begun to settle down and my opinion has solidified more, I think it’s because–as many people have claimed before me–The Force Awakens was not a very original film on the whole.

If you’re a fan of Star Wars and have talked to anyone about the new film, then you may have heard some people claim that it’s not a very original film, reusing many plot and character elements from the first Star Wars film back in 1977 (not to mention many concepts that appeared in the books but were somewhat changed or mixed around for the onscreen version). Some harsher critics have even used terms like “rehash” or “rip-off” to describe the film. And, while I did enjoy the film on the surface and for the few hours of exciting escapism it gave me, I find myself agreeing at least somewhat with those critics who say that the film was lacking in originality and thus somewhat lacking in depth. (For a fuller and mostly-accurate explanation of how The Force Awakens recycles things from A New Hope, click here–but this link DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS, so beware!)

This common complaint about the film’s lack of originality raises some interesting questions for us, both as audiences and as writers. Questions such as: does a work of fiction have to be completely original in order to be good? Wasn’t it good that J.J. Abrams tried to recreate the feel of the original trilogy, since that’s what a lot of fans wanted? Or would it have been better for him to take a new creative direction with the franchise? Is it even possible to be completely original anymore? Aren’t most stories just new combinations of old elements in different ways anyway? Where do you draw the line between appropriately borrowing from the ideas of previous works and completely ripping them off? How much true originality and creativity is it really possible for us to muster and channel into our writing?

These are questions that I hope to explore further in my upcoming posts for the rest of the week, as they relate to both Star Wars and other massively popular fictional franchises. I hope you’ll join me then. In the meantime, if you need some food for thought, chew on the questions above and feel free to voice your opinion in the comments section below.

 

Plot Challenge of the Week

Happy New Year! Welcome to the wonderful year of 2016, in which all of your dreams will not come true and you will find that the future is much like the past in a great many ways. I used to operate under the illusion that each new year would bring with it some magical change of fortune and that this year (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, etc) would be my year in which everything would change. Don’t get me wrong, the last two years have brought a lot of changes–I got into and finished a Th.M. program at Southeastern, I met, wooed, proposed to, and married Alayna, I am applying for Ph.D. programs, and I finally got out of credit card debt–but none of these have happened ‘magically.’ Honestly, I do credit Alayna with a lot of these things. Honestly, if I hadn’t met her I’m not convinced that any of the rest of it would have happened. That being said, I stopped looking to the future to solve all my problems a few years ago. 2011 taught me that. In 2011 I finally landed a teaching job, after four years of applying to various online schools, and I thought–this year is going to be the year where everything changes. It didn’t. That year I was rejected by multiple women (true to form), rejected by a couple of schools (also true to form), and made less money than I ever had in my adult life (in 2011 I made less than $5000 between teaching and delivering Chinese food). I was also kicked out of my apartment because the owner stopped paying her mortgage and went through the driest spiritual period of my Christian life–a time when I truly thought that God had abandoned me and the only time since my conversion to Christianity that I have seriously contemplated suicide. All in all, 2011 truly and thoroughly sucked… of course it also laid the ground work for many other things–while my teaching job didn’t do much in 2011, it has been my longest term, most lucrative, and most thoroughly enjoyable employment. Getting kicked out of my apartment set me up to start living with a group of guys who led me to the apartment where Alayna’s friend would (several years later) become my roommate and introduce me to her (if I hadn’t been kicked out of my apartment I probably never would have met him or her). Also, that incredibly dry spell that made me contemplate suicide… God used it to teach me to seek for a deeper level of spiritual experience and relationship with him than I’d ever had previously, and to begin teaching me the virtue of joy… which I’d never had previously. So, all in all, while 2011 was a horrible year, it was also a wonderful year. It’s interesting how things work out that way, isn’t it? However, it also taught me that a new year doesn’t make old problems go away. Only hard work, perseverance, and providence do that. There is nothing magical about the changing of a year. So, will 2016 be the year that I finally lose some weight… hopefully. However, it’s not going to be because the year changed… it’s going to be because Alayna has inspired and pushed me to start a medically guided diet and exercise program at her hospital that focuses on building sustainable healthy habits, and because God gives me the perseverance to actually do it. Anyway, I do have a plot challenge for you today. I’m going to give you a picture and I want you to develop a part of your world based on what you see. It should be a setting that is believable in your world, and that has potential for stories in it. Here’s you’re picture:

(Image Source)

Attack run

Hello, internet!

The week has flown by and this will be my last post for a while, but I leave you with an excerpt from a story.

I’ve been reading Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan, and I was planning to write a review of that…but then I went to see Star Wars, and it made me feel like a kid again. It also inspired me to write some fan fiction.

There will be NO SPOILERS in this post: my story doesn’t involve any of the characters or events of the movie. I was just inspired to write something set in the wider Star Wars universe – specifically something involving X-Wings – and I hope that you enjoy this brief extract.

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Attack run

“That big cruiser isn’t gonna blow itself up, Amber Leader.”

“Nah, we’ll have to give it a hand,” said Kad, flipping the bank of poorly-wired automotivator switches above her head. “Lock S-Foils in attack position.”

She heard her ship’s wings parting on either side of her cockpit and the magnetic thump as they locked into place, a sound which never got less satisfying no matter how many times she heard it.  She did a quick spot-check to make sure her wingmates had complied. Some of the cocky young roosters in her flock seemed to think that keeping their intercoolers closed and overheating their engines was a smart way of getting more yaw control out of their ships, instead of just a smart way of starting a fire under their asses, which was what it was. It looked like nobody was deliberately trying to get themselves blown up, today. That made a nice change. She craned her neck to look at Amber 2 on her starboard hindquarter – she saw Orta’s stern face behind his controls – and Amber 3 to port. Worlo waved his three-pronged hand and she waved back, grinning through the blistered heat distortions in her canopy.

“Seven-thousand kilometres,” said Orta, in his gruff command voice. “We should be entering their sensor range….now.”

“Copy, Amber 2,” Kad said. Sure enough, her scopes lit up, and her ears picked up an oscillating whine from the low-band interference of the imperial commscan. She dialled up her ship’s shields to compensate, bleeding a little more power from the engines. It diminished the interference, but there was nothing she could do to mask her ship’s presence. The impies had one big Bellator cruiser in orbit over Quiberos, flanked by two of the old outmoded Imperial class destroyers that Kad – and every other pilot in the Resistance – was so familiar with. They were antiquated, but all three of them had multispectral sensors. Unless the Living Force had acted in Kad’s favour for once and compelled the sensor crews on all three ships to go for a bathroom break at the same time, there was no hope of a stealthy approach.

“Let’s stay nice and wide, no bunching up,” she said, surprised at the steady caution in her voice.  When had she gotten old enough that she could give orders and sound like she knew what she was doing?

The plan that was formulating in her head had more than its share of risks. They were only supposed to be at Quiberos to take out the relay station on the second moon, so that Grand Moff Lektor’s splinter faction couldn’t use it for whatever foul purposes they probably wanted to use it for. Going toe-to-toe with an imperial battlecruiser hadn’t been part of the mission briefing. But even two destroyers was a pretty weak escort for a Bellator class. Kad wasn’t the kind of pilot who’d pass up an opportunity to put a big hulking capital ship out of commission. They were strategic targets, she told herself. It wasn’t just that she wanted to watch it burn.

“Ochre Leader, wait until we’ve started our run, then split off and hit the destroyers. Amber Squadron, follow my lead.”

“Copy, Amber Leader.”

“Copy, Ochre Squadron standing by.”

“Can we really take down a cruiser that big..?” asked a quiet voice, in her ear. It was Emran. He probably didn’t know that his receiver was on.

“Hustle up, Amber 5,” she said. “Just do what we did at the Battle of Fondor and this’ll be a piece of cake.”

“Uh, copy, Amber Leader,” Emran mumbled.

After a short silence, Kad heard a cut-glass Eriaduan accent pour through the commlink like poison honey. “Need I remind you that I was flying a TIE interceptor at the Battle of Fondor?”

“Okay,” she rolled her eyes, “Everyone apart from Whilf, do what you did at the Battle of Fondor.”

“Well what should I do?” Whilf replied, with an audible grin.

Kad scoffed, or laughed, she wasn’t sure. “You should shut up and cover my six, is what you should do.” she said.

“Copy, Amber Leader,” Whilf said, with a singsong chuckle.

EZ-9 made a series of suggestive squeaks and burbles, which somehow sounded as though he was nudging Kad in the ribs with one elbow. Easy had been trying to set her up with Whilf for as long as she could remember.

“One of these days, Easy,” Kad said, “I’m gonna take that silver spoon out of his mouth and shove it right up his starboard coolant intake…”

Easy made a shocked squawking sound. Which was good. Kad didn’t want to think about what her love=life had come to if even her astro droid was trying to play matchmaker.

“Besides, he’s half my age.”

Easy conceded cheerfully on that point.

“Hey!” she said, reproachfully.

“Closing to two thousand kilometres,” said Orta. All other considerations fled from Kad’s mind.

“Here we go…” she said.

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Art – “X-Wing – Engage”  by ChaosHour on Deviantart

 

Short Story: Lakebed

Hello, internet!

None of my usual meandering thoughtpieces this week. Instead, I present a short story!  The original idea was actually based on Tobias’ story prompt from yesterday – the idea of magic versus science – but in the execution, I never actually got as far as introducing magic. Perhaps I’ll post the next instalment some time in the future. Enjoy!

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LAKEBED

Putting the Canyon Diver on the bottom of a lake really hadn’t been the best start to Maz’s day.

After she’d checked herself for broken bones and made sure that the cockpit was still watertight, she’d spent nearly an hour trying to cold-start the TC drive and put the spark of life back into her engines, swearing at the Canyon Diver in four different languages and fighting with the ignition switches until her thumbs were raw. She only gave up hope when the batteries ran dry and the cockpit lights cut out, plunging her into abject darkness. She heard the fading whine of the atmospheric reconditioner cycling down, and she knew that she was totally fucked.

Pragmatically, she only had about fifteen minutes before she ran out of air. She sat for a long moment with her boots on the pedals and her hands on the control columns, staring into the abyss, until a voice in her head told her that she was going to have to leave the ship behind if she wanted to live. Her bones screamed in protest. But what were the alternatives? She was half-buried in lakebed muck under fifty feet of water, with no power and no oxygen. There was an emergency beacon in her survival kit, but if she set it off, she’d only attract the same Seven Systems cruiser that shot her down in the first place. She wasn’t much of a martyr, but being captured would only lead to her being handed over to the praetorians. Oxygen deprivation would be a far more comfortable death.

With no power, there was only one way out. She managed to make her hands unclench from the controls, then to unbuckle her harness, and grope beneath her seat for the survival kit. She tried not to think about what she was doing. Or about how long she’d owned the Canyon Diver. Or about how it had been a gift from Hera, to apologise for a row they’d had, a few weeks before Hera got herself killed. Or about how it had saved her life twenty times over since then, even though she didn’t fly it half as well as Hera ever did. The little ship’s bright blue hull had acquired a lot more scratches, dents, pockmarks and plasma burns since Maz became its pilot.

She was biting back tears by the time she got the survival kit open, but she managed not to cry or vomit. There would be plenty of time for crying and vomiting once she wasn’t at the bottom of a lake.

The kit folded out into pouches and strips of webbing, which she slipped awkwardly over her shoulders, hitting her elbow against the Canyon Diver’s canopy in the process. It made her stomach clench to think that she’d never hit her elbow on that canopy ever again. Unless she did it in the last five minutes, which was more plausible than she cared to admit.

Once the kit was fastened up she reached to her hip and pulled out her Aegis multitool from its holster, taking comfort from its pebble smoothness against her hand. The status light flashed, casting the whole cockpit in a momentary green light, to show that the biolock recognised her DNA. She thanked the Sisters for that small mercy. Now would have been a terrible time for her Aegis to break.

The first thing she did was to switch on the tools’ flashlight setting. Light returned, white and blinding. Once she’d blinked away the afterimage from her retinas, she moved the light over the small panel of analogue instruments on the control bank. The lake had been broiling around her when the Canyon Diver plunged into it, still hot from its descent through the atmosphere, but now the water temperature was dropping again. Once she was out she’d have to get on dry land and warm herself up as quickly as possible.

But first she had to get there. Which meant getting outside the ship. The water pressure outside the hull wasn’t registering as high enough to crush her to death or break any ribs, but it would be too great for her to open any of the hatches. She had to equalise the pressure first. And she could only think of one way to do that, off the top of her head.

If she thought of another, more sensible way, sometime later, she was going to feel really stupid.

She ran her thumb over the controls on her Aegis to activate the tool’s photon maser setting. Then she took a few deep breaths, looked around the Cave Diver for the last time, and thought about Hera.

Hera had been an awful, wonderful human being. Maz hated her, most of all for getting herself killed.

Maz aimed the Aegis, squeezed the trigger, and blew a giant hole in the canopy. Part of her imagined that she was shooting Hera. But then frigid water hit her in the face like a five-tonne block of ice.

Bad guys are people too

Hello internet,

I’ve been on a bit of a Star Wars binge recently

Yes, yes, we established that two weeks ago. Keep up.

Anyway, it’s probably just because of the new trailers coming out for The Force Awakens and Battlefront – but I’m hyped. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since 2003, when I was ten years old and the original Clone Wars cartoon (not the CGI series) was airing in five-minute shorts between other shows on Cartoon Network. At the time, I thought it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. It was produced by Genndy Tartakovksy, who also produced Samurai Jack, and it had the same pacing style and the same gorgeous animation. Minimalist but seamlessly functional, with as little exposition as possible, focusing on sharp bursts of action broken up by long periods of quiet suspense, with casual acts of badassery thrown in, and interjections of funny dialogue. Looking back, it was probably a big influence on my writing style. Except I need to learn to be a bit more economical with my exposition.

I can highly recommend watching it. It’s all on YouTube, and it puts the CGI follow-up series to shame. (And it is, so far, the only media from the Star Wars universe to feature high-velocity speeder bike jousting.)

But this post wasn’t supposed to be about Clone Wars. I watched the series again this week, as well as playing through some of my old favourite Star Wars video games and watching the original film trilogy, and I enjoyed them as much as ever.

I’ve harboured secret desires to be a Jedi ever since I first saw Obi Wan Kenobi leaping off that speeder bike, but one of the things that’s always fascinated me about the Star Wars universe is the minor characters. Particularly, in the original movies, the officers and starship crews of the Imperial Navy. Maybe it’s just superb acting from one or two minor actors, but I’ve always found them to be quite tragic characters, in their own way. I’m thinking mainly of Admiral Piett and Commander Jerjerrod. You remember Commander Jerjerrod?

In their minds, they’re serving their emperor, bringing order and justice to a galaxy which is full of “scum and villainy” even by the appraisal of Master Kenobi, who’s apparently the most philosophically enlightened being in the entire universe, given his power to become one with the living force and appear as a glowy blue ghost. The opening scrawl of Episode IV denounces the Galactic Empire categorically as “evil”, but it probably doesn’t seem like an evil organisation to the men who work for it. The Old Republic was more democratic, but it was also more corrupt: corruption which has been swept away by the New Order. Under the empire, does the galaxy still have the problem of huge militarised corporations laying siege to planets which won’t agree to exploitative trading rights, while the politicians – many of them with Trade Federation credits in their pockets – bicker over an appropriate response? Is slavery still common practice on the outer rim worlds? It doesn’t seem like it, from what we see in the original trilogy.

I’m not trying to make the case that the empire are the good guys (even though I do always play as the empire on Battlefront 2 and Empire at War). They did, after all, perpetuate genocide on a planetary scale. And more importantly, they’re supposed to be the bad guys. That’s their function in the story. But what I like is that not every servant of the Galactic Empire actually seems like a ‘bad guy’. Palpatine’s supposed to be maleficence given form, and I’m prepared to believe that he has a core group of supporters and agents whose motivations are wholly evil. But the wider empire must be held together by billions of front-line officers who think that they’re the good guys, or else they wouldn’t get out of bed every morning, pull on their jackboots, and report for duty. For people like Piett and Jerjerrod, the empire probably seems like a breath of fresh air, and Palpatine probably seems like a hero: a reformer who finally made sure that the galactic government had the ability to end corruption and exercise real power to end slavery and other shady practices on the outer rim worlds.

My point – and yes, I do actually have one – is that as writers of any genre, it’s important (and often very rewarding) to make sure that the ‘bad guys’ aren’t uniformly evil. Even if they’re the ones wearing evil uniforms. A multifaceted presentation of any large group is always better than a flat, uniform depiction, but that’s particularly true when you’re dealing with a large organisation or empire that serves as the antagonist in your story. I get bored very quickly if the “good guys” in a story are all morally upstanding paragons of virtue – in Star Wars, we have figures like Han Solo to prevent that from happening – but I get disinterested even more quickly if the “bad guys” are carbon-copy evil scumbags from the emperor of the galaxy all the way down to the lowliest stormtrooper. Shades of grey are always more believable, and more entertaining. Misplaced loyalty from fundamentally honourable characters can be very compelling. Particularly if those characters start to suspect that they might be on the wrong side of history.

This is what I like about Piett and Jerjerrod, and to a lesser extent the regular officers on the command bridge of Darth Vader’s star destroyer, who look up from their stations in terror whenever he billows past. Not only do they seem like semi-decent human beings (or, at least, we never see them do anything outright evil without it seeming like they’re conflicted about it), but when we see them come into close contact with the leaders of the empire – Darth Vader, and the Emperor himself – we see that their loyalties begin to waver. They begin to wonder whether they want to be on the same side as people who are willing to commit such foul acts. In any story that depicts people fighting for a cause that they believe in, I’m always interested to see people stop and question their loyalties.

So I have a writing challenge for you, this week. Go and read whatever story you’re writing, or one you’ve already written. Look at the “bad guys”, whoever they are, whether they’re an evil interplanetary empire or just one person who serves as your book’s primary antagonist. Remain conscious of their motivations, and ask yourself whether they’re certain of what they’re doing. Is certainty realistic? Look at the good guys as well. Could you improve your story by making them more doubtful of their actions? I’d love to hear what you think, in the comments!

Exposition: How Low Can You Go?

Theatrical poster for Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). Fair use.

This past summer, a phenomenon of cinematic glory crashed onto the big screen and took moviegoers everywhere by storm. Reviving a thirty-year-old franchise with all the action and visual effects of today, Mad Max: Fury Road impressed action movie fans all over the country with its stunning visuals, tough action heroes, and high-speed car chases across a futuristic dystopian landscape. Critics and fans alike lauded the film for providing a solid, compelling, and thoroughly exciting action movie. Among other things, one praise I heard of the film more than once was for how well it told a story and dived right into the action from the start without getting bogged down in too much exposition. In any case, many viewers began holding Fury Road up as the new standard of what action movies should be like.

Once I saw the movie, I liked it too. But I do intentionally say “liked” rather than “loved.” Now, I like fast cars, big fights, and visually appealing women as much as the next guy, so I certainly enjoyed the movie–but it still seemed to me that something was lacking in this film. As an English major (now an English teacher) and a lover of stories, I tend to be a big fan of well-thought-out plots and well-developed characters. So, while some of my friends praised Fury Road for being able to function successfully on so little exposition, I personally could have used a little more in that area. Despite the film’s many good points and overall fun quality, its sparse explanations about the details of the story or the characters kept it, to me, in the range of “good” rather than “great.”

And I thought I was the only one who felt like that, until, in a forum I’m part of, someone else called the film “an insult to dialogue and story craft” and “a 2-hour ADD music video” (and a heated Facebook debate ensued, as must always be the case with internet opinions). While such reviews seemed a little harsh for my tastes, I have to admit that I do see some truth in these criticisms.

Theatrical poster for Mad Max (1979). Fair use.

Like I said, I’m a story guy by nature, so I may be biased and my standards may be a little higher than most. In fact, I can admittedly be quite the stickler for continuity. So much so that, before I went to the movie theater and watched Fury Road, I spent the summer tracking down the previous three Mad Max films from the ’70s and ’80s and watched those, in order, too. (Also, a friend had recommended them to me, so they were on my to-watch list for a while, even before I knew about the new one.) And the very first one did give me a decent amount of that exposition and character development that I like. It showed Max’s descent from an upright police officer in a corrupt world to a morally ambiguous antihero struggling for his own survival. It showed where he came from and how he got to where he was. Personally, this exposition helps me to appreciate the action more. If I’ve invested in the character a little bit and gotten to know where they come from, then I’ll care more once that character is thrust into a high-speed chase with cars and guns and explosions. Otherwise, if I don’t know the character quite as well, scenes like that tend to feel like mindless, over-the-top action, the sort that would make Michael Bay proud.

But the next three Mad Max movies, including Fury Road, seemed a lot less story-based to me. They usually fling Max into another adventure with some other group of people in this post-apocalyptic world, but they don’t provide much info on the society or the characters other than Max. And even Max’s character doesn’t develop much past where we left him at the end of the first film. Admittedly, Fury Road did have the compelling character of Furiosa, who I’d argue was really the heroine of the story and definitely wins the Strong Female Character of the film award. But, for a movie titled “Mad Max,” we actually got very little information about Max or where he came from. In fact, he didn’t even do much in his own movie; it felt more like he was just along for the ride on Furiosa’s adventure. I couldn’t help but wonder, had I not watched the first film first, would I even know or understand who Max was at all?

Furthermore, we never learned much about the film’s villain, other than that he’s a tough-looking bad guy who rules a dystopian civilization. Personally, I could have used just a few more details to help me care about the characters more and know where the story was going. It wouldn’t have to be much; just some well-placed verbal introductions at the beginning or scattered throughout the film to identify the characters and give me a little more insight into this world and the heroic quest. But Fury Road seemed rather sparse in that area.

If you’ve ever written a story before, then you’ve probably dealt with exposition, even if you didn’t know the official name for it. “Exposition” is what we call the setup of the story, the basic background details–who the characters are, where they come from, what the hero’s main plot or quest will be, and whatever other information will be necessary to understanding the story. Authors often give exposition toward the beginning of a story, but sometimes it can be spaced out or revealed over time to add suspense and dramatic effect. But, like most aspects of writing, exposition can be tricky to do well and there’s definitely a balance to be found.

Almost all stories need at least some exposition to get by and function in such a way that the reader understands them. However, too much exposition all at once can get tedious and boring. That’s why people have begun to complain about so many reboots and origin stories in superhero movies. It can feel like an “infodump” that detracts from the main action of the story, and it can easily lose a reader who isn’t invested already. Still, too little exposition can make it difficult for readers to get to know the characters fully or to learn about the world you’ve placed them in. It can really detract from those details that make your story and your characters unique.

So where should the line be drawn between exposition and action? How little is too little before the story gets lost in all the flashy visuals and the plot becomes largely generic and indiscernible? I admit that the standard is very subjective, and it often depends on the individual work, as well as the individual reader or viewer. But, despite the film’s several enjoyable qualities, I can’t laud Fury Road as being my ultimate standard for action movies, because I think it could have benefited a lot from just a little more exposition.

What do you think? Do you prefer stories with more or less exposition? What kind do you like to read? What kind do you like to write? As a writer, how do you balance the need for exposition with the main action of the story and keep the reader’s attention through it all?

Discuss in the comments below. Thanks for reading.