Category: ideas

November 26, 2014 / 3 Comments

More Dating Tips

            Very sorry about missing last week.  Copyedits. And Thanksgiving is this week, so I know nobody’s going to be reading this on Thursday.  So I figured I’d get this up today and hope to break even.  Sort of…
            Anyway, this week I wanted to blab on about dating your work.  And I figured the best way to do that would be to talk about the Cat & Fiddle.
           If you’re not familiar with Los Angeles, the Cat & Fiddle has been a Hollywood landmark for about thirty years now.  It’s a little pub in the middle of Hollywood with a nice outdoor patio.  It’s always been popular, but I think it managed to avoid being hip or trendy in all that time.  Part of Casablanca was filmed on that location.  Seriously.
            Heck, there’s a reference to the Cat & Fiddle about halfway through my book, 14.  It was a landmark, as I said, and my story is very much about Los Angeles.  Why wouldn’t I refer to it?
            Except now it’s closing.  The landlord found someone willing to pay twice as much so, well, the cat’s out in the cold.  No more Cat & Fiddle unless they can find a new place.  Somewhere else.
            What’s my point?
            Just like that, 14 has become dated.
             Still, I’m not as bad off as James P. Hogan.  When he wrote his novel Inherit the Stars (first book in the Giants series) back in 1977, he envisioned the US facing off against the Soviet Union in a race to colonize the solar system (a race that gets interrupted by an amazing discovery, granted…).  Needless to say, the first three books in that series are extremely dated.
            When we say a book is dated, we mean it’s a book someone can look at and say “Ahhh, well this was clearly written back when…”  It’s a book that isn’t about now, it’s about then.  And when my book’s not about now, that’s just another element that’s making it harder for someone to relate to my characters and my story. 
            Remember in school when you had to read classics?  Some of the hardcore Dickens or Austen or maybe even Steinbeck.  One of the reasons they can be hard to read is because of the references in them.  They talk of events or customs or notable persons that are foreign to us.  Hell, half the time so foreign they’re just gibberish (bundling?  What the heck is bundling..?).
            When we hit these stumbles, it breaks the flow and makes the book harder to enjoy.  A dated book has a shelf life, like milk or crackers.  The moment it gets this label, there’s an end in sight.
            Because of this, there’s a common school of thought that I shouldn’t make any such references in my work.  My story shouldn’t mention current fads or events.  I don’t want to have references to celebrities or television shows or bands or music.  If I want to have my writing to have any sort of extended life—the “long tail” as some folks like to call it—it can’t be dated.
            And there is something to this.  I’ve seen metaphor-stories fall flat with readers less than a year after the events they’re referencing.  It was funny at the time, but if you watch Aladdin today it’s tough to figure out half the stuff the Genie’s riffing on (what the heck’s with the whoop-whoop fist thing…?).
            However…
            When the GOP shut down the US government last year, my friend Timothy Long pounded out a longish comedy short story called Congress of the Dead.  And for a few months it sold really, really well.  It’s not doing much these days (it’s still funny but not as topical), but he knew going in that it wasn’t going to be timeless and used that knowledge to his advantage.
            So, which way should I go?
            Well, here’s the catch.  My work is always going to end up dated.  Always.  There’s no avoiding it.  Stories get dated by technology and cars and geography. Things people assume will never change (like the Cat & Fiddle or the U.S.S.R.) end up changing. It happens all the time.  It can’t be helped.
            Consider this…
            Stephen King’s Cujo couldn’t happen today.  Cell phones undermine the entire plot.  Same with Fred Sabehagan’s Old Friend of the Family.  The entire plot of Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher book, Killing Floor, hinges on an idea that was obsolete six months before the book even reached stores.
            Let’s not even talk about speculative fiction.  How many sci-fi shows predicted events we’ve since caught up with and passed?  Buck Rogers left Earth on a deep space probe in 1987, and Thundar the Barbarian saw the world collapse in 1994.  Star Trek told us the Eugenics Wars happened in the 1990s, which was also when Khan and his followers were launched into space in cryogenic suspension (presumably using the technology from the Buck Rogers deep space probes).  According to the Terminator franchise, Judgement Day happened in 1997 (later adjusted to 2004).  Then there’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and it’s sequel 2010.  Heck, even Back to the Future is just a few short weeks away from becoming a silly, dated comedy.  It’s going to be 2015 and there are no self adjusting clothes or flying cars or Jaws XIX (it looks like we did get hoverboards, though…).  And, hell, supposedly in 2015 people are still using faxes as a high-tech method of communication.
            If I really don’t want to date my work, I can’t mention anything.  Cars, music, movies, television shows, networks, books, magazines, sports teams, games, cell phones or providers, Presidents, politicians, political parties, countries, businesses of any kind, actors, actresses… all these things and a few dozen more. All these things change all the time in unpredictable ways.  So if I want to be timeless, I can’t bring up any of them.
            The problem is, though, these are all things that are part of our lives. They come up in conversations.  They shape how we react to other things.  So if I’m writing a realistic character with natural dialogue… these things will be there.
            So what’s this all mean?
            In the big scheme of things… don’t worry about it.
            That being said, I  probably shouldn’t base my entire plot around readers knowing the lyrics to Taylor Swift’s latest single, and (much as I love it) I might not want to use a reference to the second season finale of Chuck as the big button on my chapter.  There’s a reason some things stand the test of time, some become cult classics, and others become… well, we don’t know, do we?  And I should never be referencing something no one knows about.
            There isn’t an easy answer for this.  I’d love to list off some rules or just be able to say “8.3 references per 50 pages is acceptable,” but it isn’t that simple.  A lot of this is going to be another empathy issue.  As a writer, I need to have good sense of what’s sticking around and what’s a fleeting trend.  What references will people get in ten years, which ones they’re going to forget in six months, and how blatant these references need to be to get the job done.
            Getting dated is unavoidable.  It is going to happen to my work.  And yours. And hers.  But if we’re smart about it, we can get the most out of it while we can and still make sure that date’s as far off as possible.
            Next time, I’d like to talk about dialogue.  And I’ll probably make a mess of it.

            Until then… go write.

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June 26, 2014 / 3 Comments

Limited Discussion

           I wanted to revisit something I blabbed on about a few years back.  I’ve kind of touched on it a few times since then, but I thought it would be good to just babble on about it more specifically.  So if you’ve been reading this for a while and you have a phenomenal memory… sorry.
            I see a lot of television shows that are getting rolled out and cancelled just as fast.  One thing that amazes me is how many of them don’t really seem like television ideas.  They’re cool ideas, yes, but many of them are very A-to-B sort of stories.  My characters have been presented with a single, overriding problem or conflict, and once they resolve it… well, that’s it.  Which is a great thing for a feature film or a single season, but very rarely works well with a long-running series.
            And I’d say that long string of cancellations kind of backs me up on that.
            Some story ideas are, as I just mentioned, pretty much straight line affairs.  There may be a few steps, but in the end it comes down to achieving a single goal.  There are also the broad ideas, the ones you tell people and they say, wow, that could go on forever.  In the past, I’ve referred to these, respectively, as limited and unlimitedconcepts.
            What do I mean by that?
            An unlimited concept generally has a very broad scope.  Sherlock Holmes uses deductive reasoning to solve mysteries.  Spider-Man and Batman fight crime to make up for the death of their loved ones.  Captain America and Superman fight to protect rights and ideals that they believe in.  Joe Ledger is a soldier turned cop turned super-agent working for the mysterious Mr. Church (or is it Mr. Deacon?).  The crew of the starship Enterpriseexplores the distant reaches of the galaxy.  Jack Reacher just wants to wander and see the country, but he’ll stop to help folks out sometimes.  Detective Kennex and his android partner, Dorian, investigate homicides in the future.
            A key thing to note.  When we talk about unlimited concepts, nine times out of ten we end up talking about the characters over the plot.  Sometimes it’s the setting, but usually it’s the characters.  An unlimited concept isn’t about a specific set of events, which is why it’s also sometimes also called an open story.
            A limited concept, as the name implies, can only go so far.  As I mentioned above, it’s an idea that has an end inherently built into the concept.  A road trip story is a classic limited concept—as I mentioned above, it’s A-to-B.  We’re trying to get (physically or metaphorically) from here to there.  The passengers of Oceanic flight 815 want to be rescued from their weird tropical island and the residents of Chester’s Mill want to be rescued from the big invisible dome over their town. Tom Jackman wants to find a way to control his dark half.  Mark Watney wants to find a way to survive on Mars for the years until a rescue mission comes.  The crew of the starship Voyagerwants to make their way home from the other side of the galaxy.
            In all of these cases, the characters have very clear, straightforward goals.  Once that goal’s reached, the story is over.  It doesn’t mean everybody in Chester’s Mill lives happily ever after or the Voyager crew never goes into space again, but those are all different stories which don’t have to do with the premise I mentioned above.
            Why am I babbling about this?
            If I don’t understand what kind of an idea I have, it’s very easy for me to mess it up.  Trying to play one as the other almost never works.  By their very nature, these concepts are very true to themselves.
            For example…
            Several years back I was part of the staff for an online game.  One time while we were brainstorming new quests for the playerbase, someone suggested taking one of the old ruined castles at the fringes of the map and making it haunted.
            “Okay,” I said.  “And…?”
            “It’s a haunted castle.”
            “Right.  So what’s the quest?”
            “It’s.  Haunted.”
            An unlimited concept is almost never a story in and of itself.  It’s almost always lacking any sort of plot or narrative structure.  I need to add elements to make it work as a story (or a quest).  A fair number of “art” films tend to be unlimited concepts—they’ve got fantastic characters, beautifully rendered locations… but nothing else.  Nothing happens because unlimited concepts don’t contain a conflict or goal for the characters to strive for.
            On the other hand, a common thing I see people do with limited concepts is to keep pushing the goal away to extend the story (or series).  It’s an A-to-B, which means when I hit B the story is over.  So some folks will swerve around B for a while, maybe go back to A because they forgot a few things.  Somehow we end up at 4.2 (no idea how we got here), then we get close to B and veer off at the last minute…  If I’m doing a Los Angeles to Boston road trip, think how annoying it would be to start circling Boston but never actually get there.  Or I suddenly find out I need to be in San Diego instead.  That’s what it’s like when a limited concept artificially extends itself.
            It’s also cheap if I pile on the limited concepts, giving my characters a dozen or three goals that need to be achieved—either all at once or one after another (see above).  In my earlier days, before I had a better grasp of structure, I thought this was how you filled a book.  I still see lots of writers do it when they start out.
            The truth is, it’s very tough for either of these concepts to work alone.  An unlimited one almost never does, but that hasn’t cut down on the number of art films or “experimental” stories.  A limited one might squeak by as what’s often called a “plot driven” story.  Neither of these tends to be very satisfying.
            For a really great book or screenplay, I need both working together.  I need to put that fantastic character (the unlimited concept) and give them a solid goal they need to achieve (the limited concept).  As I’ve often said, my story won’t succeed without good characters, but they also need to do something and it needs to challenge them somehow. 
            If I don’t have good characters or I don’t have them doing anything… well…
            The math isn’t that hard.           
            Look through that document of story ideas.  Or the file folder.  Or the notebook.  If you’re reading this, odds are you’ve got at least one of those.  Figure out if your ideas are limited or unlimited.  Because then you can figure out what they need to become solid stories.
            Next time… well, there haven’t been many comments lately, so I’m guessing none of this stuff interests a lot of you.  So next week I’ll try to redeem myself

            Until then, go write.

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February 27, 2014

The Ecchh Factor

Pop culture pun.  I don’t do puns, normally, but it works.  As you’ll see.

This is mostly going to be for screenwriters.  Writers of prose—please don’t feel left out.  There’s a couple of things in here for you, too.

Tis the season for screenplay contests.  A few of the big names have opened their mailboxes for submissions, and there’s a dozen more noteworthy ones past that.  It’s a great way to get your name out there and even win some decent money, too, if you plan accordingly.

However…

As some long-time readers know, I used to read for a couple of screenplay contests (four different ones, in fact). I have several friends who read for some of the same ones, and some others, too. This time of year used to be a time of great sadness for us. And also a time of great drinking. Usually for the same reasons.

For an average contest, I’d probably read about a hundred scripts per year. That means there were years I’d read over three hundred scripts, usually all in the space of three or four months. It was a fascinating (and sometimes horrifying) overview of amateur screenwriting. To be honest, it’s one of the big things that convinced me to start the ranty blog.

It also gave me a real sense of certain patterns. There were certain types of scripts that would show up again and again and again. And it got to the point that I (and most of my friends) would let out a groan—an Ecchh, if you will—when we opened the next script and realized it was another one of those stories. Usually we could tell within the first few pages. In rare cases, the story would go along fine for twenty or thirty pages and the big first act reveal was… it’s just another one of those stories.

I drank a lot during this period of my life.

Now, I’m not saying any of these are automatically bad scripts that no one would ever pay a dime for. We could probably check IMDb box office listings right now and find examples of more than half of them. But contests aren’t about the box office, they’re about the submissions pool. Unless it’s something truly, utterly spectacular, each of these all-too-common screenplays is going to get an automatic response from a contest reader. An Ecchh.  And that means my script is already starting in the negative. And even if the reader’s just subconsciously knocking off two or three points for being an Ecchh-inducing script, those points could mean the difference between making it to the next round or winning a contest.

So, a few types of screenplays you should think twice about before submitting.  I’ve mentioned some of these before, so if they sound familiar… well, I thought it was worth repeating.

The 50% Script
I’ve mentioned this idea here a few times. In any pool of submitted material, around half of the submissions can be usually be disqualified by page three. It’s when I submit my stoner sex comedy to a Christian values screenplay contest.  Or my romantic comedy to a horror contest. Or my five-act play to… well, any screenwriting contest. The same goes for short stories. Very few screenplay contests want to see short stories. Hard to believe, I know, but there it is.

The 50% scripts are also the result of me being incompetent and/or lazy. If I  don’t know how to spell, have only the faintest understanding of grammar, and no concept of story structure…  that’s a 50% script. Or if I send in a first draft with all its flat characters and wooden dialogue. Or if I don’t even bother to learn how to format a screenplay. Or if I wrote my screenplay under the assumption I’d be directing it from this draft.

If my script falls in that 50% group, the reader’s going to know very soon. And they’re going to Ecchh because a lot of contests require them to read the whole script… even if they know it’s not going to win. Most readers will toss a 50% script as soon as they can. Sometimes sooner, if they think they can get away with it.

The Writer Script
I’ve said this a dozen or so times. Do not write about writers. I did the math one year as a reader and it turned out almost 15% of the scripts I read had a writer as one of the main characters (yeah, I started keeping track of this stuff). When I was interviewing contest directors for Creative Screenwriting, one joked that if her contest banned scripts about writers they’d probably lose a quarter of their entries. More than a few professional editors have said they’ll toss a book manuscript if it opens with someone writing on their computer.

No one cares about the day-to-day struggles I go through as a writer. No one. Most of you don’t—you’re here to learn about the successes. Definitely not a bunch of script readers, many of whom are writers themselves. If I’m being sincere, I’m going to bore everyone (more on that in a bit). If I make up some idealized writing lifestyle, the readers will Ecchh over that because now I’m delving into fantasy.

Let’s assume they didn’t toss my script aside as soon as they saw the writer character. If they get to the end and said writer-character finally sells their book or screenplay and wins the Pulitzer/ Oscar/ whatever… the reader will crumple my script into a ball and burn it so nobody else will have  to read the damned thing. Then they will get my personal information from the contest director, hunt me down, and cram the ashes in my mouth.

And I probably won’t advance in the contest.

The Current Events Script
I’m going to go out on a limb here. If we could look at the pool of Nicholl submissions for this year, I’d bet we’d see a fair number of Olympic scripts.  Several of them would be about stray dogs in Sochi. Also a bunch of screenplays that tie somehow to health care laws. A few on government gridlock, too. And most of them were probably written in four weeks or less.

Y’see, Timmy, if I saw a news report about some fascinating nuance of the world and realized it’d make a great script… it’s a safe bet at least a thousand other aspiring screenwriters saw the same news story and had the same idea. Probably more with the way stories spread on the internet. Even if only half of those writers do anything with the idea, and even if only ten percent of those people are sending their script to the same contest as me… that’s still fifty people rushing out scripts about the exact same thing I am. Even if half of them are completely incompetent and the other half are just barely on par, it means the contest reader is going to be reading a dozen scripts just like mine. Ecchh. And that’s if we stick to a thousand as our base number.

Mine may be the best in the batch, of course, but it’s going to lose a lot of appeal because now it’s a tired, overdone idea. And none of us want to be thought of as the best take on a tired, overdone idea.

The Actor Script
When people are trying to be positive about this one, they’ll call it “a character script.” It means my screenplay is just a thin plot with a handful of over-detailed character sketches piled up in it. There’s usually lots of deep and meaningful multi-page conversations about mundane things, often held in a few basic locations, and very little action. Of any sort.

The thing is though, is there anything remotely interesting about a story that’s indistinguishable from the boring, everyday life we all lead? Is there anything impressive about me putting all that boring stuff down on paper? Is there any sort of challenge there, for me as a writer or you as a reader?

Ecchh.

As it happens, this leads nicely into…

The True Script
A kissing cousin of the character script is the true script. On the cover or either the first or last page (sometimes several of these) I assure the reader this tale is based on true events involving me/ my parents/ my best friend/ someone I read about in a magazine article. These true events are often stressed to give a certain validity to what the reader is about to take in. After all, they can’t call my story or characters or dialogue unbelievable if it really happened, right?

Thing is, no one cares if my story is true or not. Nobody. Ecchh. They just care that it’s a good story and it’s well-told.  So my tale of prepubescent paraplegic drug addicts in 1990s Los Angeles needs to be as enjoyable—on some level—as a story about Neanderthal superheroes battling prehistoric lizard men in 1990s Los Angeles. Whether or not one of them’s a true story is irrelevant. In the end, I’m telling a story, and it’s either going to be good or it isn’t. Reality doesn’t enter into the equation for the reader, so it can’t for me.

The Formula Rom-Com
The man pursuing his dream girl realizes his best friend has been his real dream girl all along. A woman’s engaged to a condescending, controlling executive and then meets a poor artist and discovers he’s the real love of her life. Aphrodite/ Cupid/ an angel comes down to Earth on an assignment and falls in love.

Do any of these sound familiar? They should. Pretty much every one of them has been made into a dozen movies and a few thousand screenplays. Yeah, flipping the genders doesn’t make them any more original, sorry. Once it’s clear on page three this is a rom-com… Ecchh.

My romantic comedy has to be really spectacular and original to impress a reader. Again, it’s that sheer numbers thing. In four years of contest reading—a hundred romcoms, easy—I read one that stood out. Just one.

The Holiday Script
 If you add in straight-to-DVD, movies of the week, and pretty much everything Shane Black‘s done, there’s a good argument to be made that holiday films are one of the best selling genres out there. However, just because my script is very sellable does not mean my script is very good. Or original. And if my contest is looking for good (see above), well…

The trick is to come up with something a contest reader hasn’t already seen again and again, to the point that they go Ecchh as soon as they see the mention of Halloween decorations. And—speaking from experience—they’ve seen most of it. They’ve Santa Claus quit, get fired, and get replaced by a temp, an elf, Mrs. Clause, his son, his daughter, his evil twin, his evil other personality, a robot, an alien, another holiday figure, another supernatural figure, Jesus. It’s all been done. The Easter Bunny has learned the true meaning of Easter, Cupid has learned the true meaning of love (see above… again), and Gobbles the Turkey has learned the true meaning of Thanksgiving. The hard way. Many, many times and in many, many ways.

There you are.  Seven very common types of scripts that will make a contest reader Ecchh. Probably more like eight or nine if you read between the lines a bit.

Again, I’m not saying I could never, ever win with one of these scripts. But I am saying that if I’m going to go this path I absolutely must knock it out of the park. No questions, no conditions, no exceptions.

Speaking of movies, next week I’d like to talk about the lessons we can all learn from that fine classic film Satan Met A Lady and its slightly more well-known remake, The Maltese Falcon.

Until then, go write.

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January 23, 2014 / 5 Comments

Noxious Phrasing

            As you probably noticed, there was no ranty blog last week.  All the publicity stuff for Ex-Purgatory ate up a ton of my time.  And this week is fallout from that plus a bunch of dental issues I won’t bore (or horrify) you with.
            Thankfully, Thom offered to dive in and make some helpful tips for editors, and for writers who might be suffering from poor editor-ship.

            And maybe next week I’ll be back on the ball and we can talk about Robocop or something…

—————————

            I’m still not Peter Clines, and even though it is something of a crippling disability, I will strive to fulfill your sense of… of… I don’t know, whatever it is you’re looking for when you stop by this here blog. My name, if you’re the type what needs one, is Thom Brannan. (O hai, Thom.) I’ve appeared in this blog a couple of times, filling space when Pete was super-busy with his writerly duties. If you’re reading this, this is one of those times.

            Usually, Pete tries to talk about the craft of writing, and the many, many pitfalls he’s seen as both a casual reader and as a judge for some hifalutin’ screenwriting business. One of the things he’s asked for is a continuance of this tradition, but this blog will be a little different. If you’re reading this, Pete wasn’t only busy, but has allowed it.
            I’m talking to the readers today. Not your everyday, run of the mill readers, but participants in writer’s circles and beta readers instead. If you take time out of your busy, busy schedule to read for content and to provide meaningful critiques, I’m talking to you. If you’re receiving these critiques, I might be talking to you, too.
            During the course of these readings and critting, there are some phrases which make the rounds I wish to all that everybody, everywhere holds holy I could remove. They’re next to useless, and sometimes, downright insulting. If you use these phrases, but not in the way I’m about to mention, relax. Down, Simba. I’m not talking to you.
            You may have to forgive me if I become… animated during the writing of this blog. These things tend to get my hackles up.
Show, Don’t Tell

            If this is the limit of your advice for any bit of a critique, you’re doing it wrong. Please, readers, if you feel the urge to spout this piece of… advice, attach an example of what you mean. Or at the very least, be specific about what it is you wish to see and not be told.

            For instance, if the writer has written “John felt nervous,” and your reply is SDT, throw your writer friend (or circle-mate) a bone and give some examples. Don’t you think if the author in question had thought of a way to show it, he or she would have?
            It’s so bad that in my capacity as editor, I find myself cringing when I come to an instance where I want the author to show something. Somehow I power through, but always, always leave an example.
This Would Work If You Were Author X
            Yes. This one kind of sets my blood aflame. That was in an early critique I’d gotten; I disremember the reason. It might have been opening with a dream sequence. But the least helpful thing I read that day was, “This would work if you were Harlan Ellison, but you’re not.” You know what, you silly bitch? Before Harlan Ellison was Harlan Ellison, he wasn’t. The same holds true for Stephen King, for Clive Barker, for Cormac McCarthy, for goddamn anybody else. We all start small.
            I guarantee you, the guy up the street who has a woodworking shop wasn’t… uh, insert famous carpenter who isn’t Jesus here… the first time he picked up a hammer and saw. He was clumsy with his tools, and maybe if you look close, you’ll see he’s missing part of one of his fingers where he learned a bloody lesson. But now he has his own place, doing what he loves for a living, and fashioning memories for other people using those same tools he was clumsy with on day one.
That’s Cliché/ Been Done Before
            You don’t say. Man has only been telling stories for thousands of years. I would never have thought the same thing might pop up in more than one story.
            Clichés exist for a reason. They work. The work involves taking a pile of clichés and using them in a way that turns them on their heads, if need be, or exactly as they were intended. What? Yes. Sometimes it is a dark and goddamn stormy night. Don’t tell me that doesn’t happen, I’ve lived in Seattle. There most definitely is a calm before the storm. People don’t realize they’re holding their breath until whatever they’re holding it for is over. This really happens. And while some of these things are over-represented in fiction, that’s no reason to shun them.
            The same holds for monsters. As I’ve said before, not every instance of a monster needs to be a stunning new breakthrough in horror technology. Dracula hasn’t lost a scary step in 116 years; the vampire was done right the first time. (Yes, I know Dracula wasn’t the first. If you have to keep telling people this, maybe it’s because he was the first done really well.) The same holds for zombies and werewolves and man-made creatures of doooooom.
            For my money, the last worthwhile advance in horror technology came with “The Call of Cthulhu” and the idea of an uncaring, inhuman universe where we’re not the apex predator.
            But I digress. Things have been done before. If that’s your beef, maybe suggest ways the author could keep his or her cliché but use it in a better way.
When Will This Pay Off?
            Not everything mentioned in a novel will be essential to the plot, or to the overall story, or to character development. While it’s true that a lot of the bestest books and movies tie everything together in a neat little bow, some of them do not.
            Look at The Blues Brothers. Everybody loves that movie. Don’t they? Well. I do, and that’s enough for me. Where was I?
            Right. Take The Blue Brothers, if you will. That movie is just full of so much win, and there are parts in the beginning that link to parts at the end, and little bits in-between that talk to you when you see them reappear. “They broke my watch,” I laugh and laugh every time I hear that.
            But there are unrelated things. “Did you get my Cheeze-Wiz, boy?” What the hell is that? Is it important? Does it shed some light on Elwood’s character that, yes, he did in fact bring the Cheez-Whiz? No. No, it doesn’t. “Orange whip?  Orange whip?  Three orange whips?”  Does it matter what he ordered? No, it only mattered that the VP of the company asked to be included, and John Candy is a funny, funny man.  “Fix the cigarette lighter.”  Did that ever come back to haunt them? Hells, no, it didn’t. “Breaks my heart to see a boy that young goin’ bad.” Did that kid come back and help out? Or hurt the cause? Or was he even in the sequel? It’s in this paragraph for a reason.
In Conclusion
            No, that’s not one of the phrases, that’s just me, trying to figure out how to bring this to a clean-ish close. There are plenty more noxious phrases, but Pete doesn’t like these to be too long. Hey, if there’s reason, and he says yes, I’ll do another one. But for now, let me leave you with this.
            Beat readers and critiquers, you fulfill a vital part of the writing process. All the acknowledgements you read include people just like you, and authors rely on you to be straight with them, and to do what you can to help. From my own experience, the few works I do have out in the world would have been poorer indeed without the input of my beta team and the Permuted Pit and Pendulum critique groups.
            So, yes, you’re needed. Try not to be dicks about it.
BarkercriticismDraculaeditingideasking

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