Category: Star Wars

September 11, 2015 / 2 Comments

Come On and Twist A Little Closer Now

If you don’t get the title reference, I’m afraid you have to leave. It’s not my choice, you understand. It’s the law.

Anyway…

I’ve run into a few folks recently talking about spoilers, usually pertaining to twists. It’s a little bothersome how many times I’ve seen people say that knowing a twist in advance shouldn’t—and doesn’t—affect their view of a story. And this is… well, just wrong. That’s not a matter of opinion. It’s just flat out wrong.

So I thought it might be worth discussing some of the finer points of a well-executed twist.

First, though, let’s define a few terms.

A mystery is when the main character and the readers are aware that information has been hidden from them, and the story usually involves the search for that unknown fact. At it’s simplest, a mystery is when someone in my story asks a question and then tries to find the answer.

Suspense is when there’s an important piece of information my readers know and the characters don’t. The key here is that my characters don’t know that they need to know this vital fact. The woman Yakko is going upstairs with is the murderer. There’s a bomb under the table. Dot’s going into a meeting with a bunch of her superiors who all know what she did. These are common suspense situations.

A twist is when information is revealed that my characters and the audience didn’t know was being kept from them. They don’t even suspect those facts are out there, waiting to affect the story. When a twist appears, it comes from out of nowhere and changes a lot of perceptions for the characters and the audience. We’ve all been told that Luke Skywalker’s father is dead, so when we learn that Darth Vader is his father, it’s a bombshell that alters our view of everything.

Assuming we didn’t see all the advertising for the prequels…

But that’s a different discussion…

Notice that in most of these, the characters and the readers are in the same position. Their view of things lines up. The only time it doesn’t (with suspense) is when the characters are in extreme danger because of what they don’t know, which cranks up the tension for the audience.

Going off the above definitions, one of the main components of a successful twist is that the reader (or audience) doesn’t know it’s coming. We can’t be surprised or taken off guard by something we’re expecting, right? So without that element… well, it’s not a twist anymore. This moment becomes empty, poorly structured suspense, a missed beat in the structure of my story.

Personally, this is why I’m so nuts about spoilers. One small spoiler can rip the heart out of a great reveal and leave it flapping in the wind like an empty shirt on a clothesline. Rather than identifying with the characters, we’re waiting for them to catch up and shaking our heads at how long it’s taking them.

Y’see, Timmy, saying a twist should still make sense whether or not I know it’s coming is like saying a defibrillator should still work whether or not it’s got electricity running through it. We’ve removed a vital element that it needs to function. A working defibrillator won’t always perform the function it was made to, yeah, but it simply can’t when it’s not even plugged in.

Now, there are two other things that can make a twist flop. One is when the information the twist reveals isn’t actually a surprise, or it’s something the reader probably figured out on their own. If you’re a long-time fan of The Simpsons, you may remember one time when Homer told the Nativity story in church. And he ended his little sermon with these drama-filled words…

“And did you know that baby Jesus grew up to be… Jesus?”

It’s a perfect example of this point. If I’m two or three steps ahead of the characters and the author, a “reveal” like this borders on comedy. Which is great if I’m writing comedy, not so good if my book is a techno-thriller. A twist that tells us something we already know, by definition, isn’t a twist, and it doesn’t matter if the author hasn’t specifically spelled it out or not in the book. If all my readers figure out who Dr. Acula really is on page two, it’s my own fault when the big twist falls flat.

The second thing that kills a twist is the flipside of what I just said. It’s also not a twist if there’s absolutely no way we could’ve suspected it. Yes, a twist depends on us not knowing something’s coming, but when it arrives it needs to fit with everything we’ve been told all along. A reveal should mesh with what we know, not contradict, and make us look at things in a new way. Finding out Phoebe is my long-lost cousin in the last fifty pages is a twist. Finding out Phoebe is a third-gender alien from the year 2241 in the last fifty pages means I should…

Wait, an alien from 2241? Hasn’t this a period murder-mystery novel for the past two hundred pages? What the hell…?

I once read a book where we found out in the last twenty pages that the leader of the all-woman biker gang is actually a vampire. And while we’d known this was an urban fantasy novel, there’d been no clue whatsoever that vampires exist. It was a first person story and the main character had never even told us that vampires were a thing, even though we learned in those final pages that this is the vampire she knew had killed her husband. The reveal clashed with what I knew about the world and the character, and that clash jarred me out of the book at a point when the author really needed me to be sucked into it.

And that’s the real killer. When my twist falls flat, for any reason, it breaks the flow of the story. And since big twists tend to come toward the end of a story, it means I’m giving my readers a reason to stop when I want them to be checking the clock to see how late it is and if they can finish the book tonight.

A twist is a powerful device, the five-point-palm technique of storytelling. It needs to be done a certain way, but if I can master it I’ll be unstoppable. And if I do it wrong… I’m just going to piss off my target.

Next time, I think we need to discuss paying dues. Especially those of you who’ve been here for a while.

Until then, go write.

January 10, 2015

The Friends and Family Plan

Running a little late. Sorry.

Hey, last week there were two posts in a row. You’ll survive. Really.

Anyway, let’s talk about the system you’re using.

I think one of the harder things to find is an honest opinion. Odd to say, I know, with all the folks who like to shout about the truth on the internet, but I think there’s a certain level of honesty that’s difficult to get from people. Most of us don’t like saying “No.” Everyone worries about offending someone and the possible ramifications it could have, especially these days when so many comments are taken out of context and so many folks are ready and waiting to be offended by… well, anything.

My time in Hollywood taught me that a lot of folks have almost brainwashed themselves against saying “no” or offering any kind of negative feedback. My differing opinion can get me fired, after all, so I keep it to myself. The person asking “Do you like this?” could end up deciding whether or not I get health insurance and a new office next year, even if they’re just the office PA right now. They don’t always say yes, but pretty much nobody says no. No is all but forbidden.

Unless you’re one of the lucky few who has a partner, writing is something we have to do alone. The odd conundrum here is that one of the very few ways we can improve as writers is to get feedback. People need to read our work and express their thoughts and opinions about it. I need to have an audience. A real audience.

What counts as a real audience? Well, it’s people who will give me an honest opinion. People who are willing to say no. A solid beta reader, as they’re often called, won’t mince words or spare my feelings, because they understand I need to know what’s wrong with my work so I can improve it. Kindness and white lies don’t help me at all. They only undermine my attempts to get better.

A little story…

When I was a kid, my mom read pretty much every piece of half-finished crap I wrote. And believe me, I wrote a lot of it. She slogged through at least three versions of Lizard Men from the Center of the Earth between third and seventh grade. There were also a few good-sized pieces of Boba Fett and Doctor Who fanfic (long before there was such a term). Plus a bunch of short stories and a truly awful sci-fi “novel” called A Piece of Eternity that had cosmic rays and mutants and cute little robots and bug-aliens that were shamelessly ripped off from the old Marvel Micronauts comics.

Now, there’s no question in my mind that I wouldn’t be where I am today if my mom hadn’t kept reading this stuff and encouraging me to write more. None at all.

However…

I eventually realized something. My mom was pretty much always going to say she liked what I was writing because she’s my mom and that’s what good mothers do. It didn’t matter if the material was good, bad, or borderline nonsensical, my mom would congratulate me on it.

Which is when I realized I needed to start getting other opinions.

Now, granted, this is an extreme example. I’m not saying my mother should’ve told the eleven-year-old me that my writing was childish and predictable and I didn’t have a chance of ever getting published. That would’ve just been cruel, and also a bit unfair. In one way, this blind kindness was a good thing.

However, this kindness can also be a trap. And many people, willingly or not, fall into it.

Dot, for example, surrounds herself with people who won’t give her honest opinions. She’ll only show her writing to immediate family members, or friends who are so close they’ve got all the same interests and background. Parents, siblings, friends, lovers—people with a strong desire not to hurt her feelings, and, on some level, a vested interest in keeping her happy.

Is it really that surprising to learn these people all say Dot’s writing is great. Her mom and dad think it’s wonderful. Her friends got all the jokes. Her brother Yakko loves it. Her boyfriend (or maybe girlfriend—Dot’s very open-minded) thinks she should send it out to some magazines or agents.

Are they all lying to her? Possibly not. There’s always that chance Dot is the next Harper Lee or Ernest Hemingway, unable to produce anything except Pulitzer-level material when left alone with a word processor. Maybe she really is a writing savant, able to put down words on the first try that are going to make the Nobel Committee weep tears of joy.

But, as they say in Vegas, I wouldn’t put money on it.

Worse yet, sometimes these well-meaning folks will tell Dot to ignore the good criticism she is getting. Did Phoebe’s feedback sting a bit? Did it make Dot question her abilities a little? Well, just ignore it. What does she know, anyway? She’s just one person, and she’s probably jealous of Dot’s talent. That’s why she’s tearing the story apart like that.

We all start out rough. Our first works suck. Usually our second works, too. But we can’t get past that until we admit it and really consider some of the feedback we’re getting… and the people we’re getting it from.

Finding a real, honest audience for your work can take years. Some folks mean well, but are coming from a place of no education and/or no experience. A few of those folks are coming with no education or experience and they’ll ask you for money. And some of them… well, let’s be honest. Some people are just jerks. They like to look down their noses and criticize people—sometimes for no real reason, sometimes so they can feel superior. They’ll give an opinion and expect you to treat it as fact.

Over the years since Mom read all my stories, out of the hundreds of people I’ve met in the film and publishing industry, I’ve found maybe a double handful of people whose opinions I really trust. They have the education, they have the experience, and at the end of the day they want to see my writing improve almost as much as I do. Several of them are merciless and blunt to a point that could make small children cry, and I consider myself lucky for that.

And, for the record, Mom still likes a lot of my stuff, too. But she only sees the final version.

Speaking of my mom, next time I’d like to tell you my story. It’s the most interesting thing ever. Really.

Until then, go write.

criticism feedback Lizard Men opinions Star Wars

April 12, 2013

Flash!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!

Pop culture reference.

You godless heathens.

So, one thing I’ve heard from a fair number of writing gurus—both for books and screenwriting—is to never, ever use flashbacks. Which seems a bit odd, because there are plenty of well-known novels and films that use them. Yet folks keep saying it again and again. Don’t use flashbacks. Don’t use flashbacks.

The thing is, it’s actually quite easy to do great, fully functional flashbacks. The kind that make your readers get a thrill rather than leave them scratching their heads. It takes a basic understanding of story structure and a bit of thought, but that’s it. They’re something I wanted to go over in that big structure series I keep promising to revisit, but… well, we’re all here now.

So… flashbacks.

And this is kind of big and sprawling, so I apologize now. But it makes up for missing last week.

For our purposes, the term flashback can cover a lot of things. It can be an element within the story like a recalled memory, dream sequence, letter or journal entry. Sometimes, like in my own Ex-Heroesseries, it’s just part of the way the narrative has been structured. Whatever the flashback is, however, it’s going to need to follow certain rules in order to work.

When someone says a flashback doesn’t work, it’s almost always because it inherently has one of four major flaws (I say “almost” because there’s always some bold, daring folks who will find very unique ways to make something not work). And it’s interesting to note that these four common flaws also pretty much define a successful flashback. Once I understand the flaws, I’ll understand how to do fantastic flashbacks.

So, first big helpful hint. I cannot start a story with a flashback. Never. This is the first of those four flaws, and it’s a simple logic/labeling problem so it’s pretty easy to deal with.

Why is starting with a flashback illogical? By its very nature, a flashback implies we’re going to a point in time that’s before now. This means we need a now before we can flash back to anything else.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade does not begin with a flashback. It begins in the “present” of 1912, when Indy’s just a teenage kid trying to stop a group of treasure hunters. Again, this isn’t a flashback, it’s just a different setting. The story then moves forward thirty years to a new setting where Indy is an adult and reclaiming that same bit of treasure for his museum.

Calling this sort of thing a flashback (especially in a screenplay) is just going to get my story labeled on page one as something by a rookie who doesn’t understand basic structure. Personally, that’s not a first impression I want to make.

All clear?

Okay, moving on…

Now, I can use a flashback anywhere in my narrative (except at the very start, as I just said), but this switch in the linear structure can’t affect the dramatic structure. If I’m going to drop linear point D between R and S in my narrative, it has to keep the story moving forward. D has to keep advancing the plot. It also needs to keep building tension. If it doesn’t, there was no point to this flashback.

A lot of writers use flashbacks as infodumps. The flashbacks are seen as a chance to show how Wakko met Phoebe, how Phoebe became a ninja, why Wakko hates snakes, and so on. The mistaken belief is that if I do this in a flashback, I’m not affecting the structure of the present storyline because these events aren’t happening now—they’re happening in the past.

When I do this, I’m confusing linear structure with narrative structure. This is the second major mistake. As I mentioned above—and have mentioned before—the narrative needs to keep moving forward. Just like a shark, if the story I’m writing (or reading) stops moving forward, it dies.

So when I have a flashback, it has to keep moving the story forward. It has to tell me something new and relevant. It doesn’t matter where the events fall in the linear structure of the story, but wherever I’m using them they have to fit into the dramatic structure.

For example… here’s a flashback failure from a book I read last year. Some names and situations have been changed to protect those I wanted to pummel senseless a third of the way into the book…

A man’s family dies when they eat tainted meat (he’s off banging his mistress, so he survives—no guilt there). The narrative then flashes back a few months and spends three chapters in the boardroom of the meat-packing company’s parent corporation. They’ve just found out the meat is tainted. Should they shut down the plant? Announce the problem? Should they do a recall? Realistically, how much would they spend on lawsuits? Maybe it’s better just to let it go and roll the dice.

So the plot was put on hold for three chapters (three long, full chapters) so we could see the board reach a decision we already knew they made—to let the meat be sold. One could make the argument that we find out their exact motivation in these chapters. Thing is, their motivation is exactly what most of us would expect from a bunch of corporate executives. In this tainted meat scenario, what’s the most likely reason the executives would decide not to issue a recall? Money, of course.

This flashback served no purpose at all. It gave us a resolution we already knew, with a motivation nine out of ten people automatically assumed. It did nothing except bring the narrative to a dead halt. There’s a good argument to be made that it actually made the narrative go backwards.

Now, the reverse of this problem is also an issue. It’s the third one, as a matter of fact. This is when the writer confuses the narrative story with the linear story. This is very similar to a problem I’ve mentioned before, being clear on the first time something happens in a story. When this problem arises with flashbacks, instead of destroying all possible tension, as mentioned above, it destroys logic.

Let’s say I’m telling a murder mystery. On page 75 of my story, the lead character has no idea who the murderer is. Then, on page 125, I flash back two weeks to something that happened “off camera” earlier. Here I reveal that my heroine learned the identity of the killer because of a clue she spotted near the mellonballer.

In a rough, quick way, this makes sense. On page 75 she doesn’t know. On page 125 she does. Except once I put these story elements in linear order… well, now they don’t make any sense. While it makes sense that this is a new bit of information for the reader on page 125, it’s not new to my heroine. She’s known all along. Which makes her actions and dialogue for the last hundred pages complete nonsense.

A quick story. One I’ve told before…

I worked on the really, really bad sequel to a fairly clever murder mystery film, one which was far more famous for Denise Richards making out with Neve Campbell in a pool then it was for its cleverness. At the end of the original film, there are a series of flashbacks that show how the various characters were intertwined and involved, and also how the various twists were pulled off. The film I worked on had these flashbacks at the end, too, but with one major difference…

When you put these flashbacks in place within the linear story, they didn’t make a bit of sense. Either they added absolutely nothing to the story or else suddenly people had conflicting motivations, plot points became bizarre twists, and once-clear twists became muddled nonsense. The writers were simply seeing this as “new information” and not considering that, within the linear structure, it was all actually old information that needed to match up with the rest of the film.

One of the best ways to test this is to take a narrative apart and put it back together in linear order. Are motivations still clear? Do plot twists still make sense? That’s a good sign the flashback is solid.

At least, solid in this respect.

There’s one last way flashbacks tend to frustrate readers. The fourth way. By the very nature of a flashback being out of sequence, the readers or audience have effectively seen the future. If my character is alive at story point S, flashing back to show her in a life threatening situation at D doesn’t really accomplish anything.

For example…

Let’s say I’m writing a story where Yakko and Dot are writing up their mission reports at Monster Slayer HQ after killing the Great Vampire. And then they remember that they still owe a report on the mummy outbreak in Cairo. So they start scribbling their report and I write a big dramatic flashback scene that ends the chapter with the two of them backed against a wall, outnumbered and surrounded by a dozen mummies and the avatar of a very pissed-off Egyptian god.

Thing is… there really isn’t any tension in this cliffhanger, is there? Because the moment the reader pauses, even for an instant (like, say, at this chapter break), they’ll remember Yakko and Dot are sitting back at HQ writing up this report. Alive and well. No missing limbs or sensory organs. Not even any notable scars. Heck, we know they’ve gone on another mission since this one (killing the Great Vampire) and survived that one, too. So in this case, the flashback actually hurts the story because it’s sucking all the tension out and killing forward momentum.

While it wasn’t really a flashback (because, again, it wasn’t flashing back fromanything), this was one of the huge flaws with the Star Wars prequels. By peppering the story with characters whose future we already knew, Lucas effectively tied his own hands and sabotaged any attempt at tension. He could threaten young Obi Wan Kenobi with all sorts of things, but at the end of the day we all know he survives to become old Ben Kenobi. And old Ben had all his major limbs, all his fingers, both eyes… He was in great shape.

So, four basic rules.

1) A flashback needs to flash back from somewhere.

2) It needs to work within the dramatic structure.

3) It needs to work within the linear structure.

4) It can’t create tension that undermines the present.

Now, I’m going to suggest a movie to demonstrate a fantastic series of flashbacks, and you may laugh a bit. Resident Evil. Yep, it’s corny fun and the series has degenerated into near-nonsense that just showcases Milla Jovovich’s figure, but—credit where credit is due—the first film has a fairly tight story and uses flashbacks very, very well. There are three major flashbacks (each one a slightly more detailed account of a past event as Alice’s memories come back), and they’re a perfect fit for those four rules I just mentioned. Go grab it from Netflix and check it out.

Next time, I’d like to talk to you about some events from last week…

No, wait… next time I wanted to talk about good genre stories.

Until then, go write.

flashbacks Milla narrative Raiders relevance Star Wars structure

December 7, 2012 / 2 Comments

That’s Crossing The Line!

I’ve been asked about a dozen times lately to take part in “The Next Big Thing.” If you’re not familiar with it, it’s sort of a self-promotional blog tour that a lot of authors are passing around. I passed on it because that’s not the kind of thing I use this page for. Oh, sure, I’ll mention it if I have a new release or maybe if something of mine goes on sale, but I don’t want to go much further than that. This page is more about hints and instruction than anything else.

And I suck at self-promotion.

But that’s all a bit besides the point. I didn’t want to blather on about crossing that line this week. I wanted to talk about crossing lines.

Some people think a genre story has to be pure. A horror story should be nothing but suspense and scares and gore. Every moment of a drama should be serious and weighty. Comedies should be non-stop laughs—there shouldn’t be a moment where something inherently funny isn’t happening on the page or the screen..

The thing is, those “pure” stories are all boring as hell. The horror ones stop being scary. The drama becomes melodrama. The comedy becomes painful.

The reason for this is a lack of variety. An idea I’ve mentioned before is that the tension levels in a story should rise as the story progresses. It’s great to begin my story with the action dialed up to nine, but it doesn’t really leave me anywhere to go. If my novel or screenplay has everything dialed up to nine, what I’ve really got is a monotone story.

Likewise, if every point on my story graph is the same point—say unspeakable horror or maybe uber-cool action—then what I now have is a homogenous script. Flipping pages is like cutting into a block of cheese. Every part is just like every other part. Case in point…

unspeakable horror

Unspeakable Horror

Unspeakable Horror

UNSPEAKABLE HORROR

UNSPEAKABLE HORROR !!

Even when I’m escalating things, getting the same point over and over and over again becomes silly pretty quick.

Consider most of the good stories you’ve read or seen. There’s a lot of comedy in Jaws. Ernie Cline’s cyber-fantasy tale Ready Player One has some moments of serious suspense. Raiders of the Lost Ark has a wonderful love story in it. Dan Abnett’s sci-fi action novel Embeddedhas a pretty enthusiastic sex scene. Ghostbustersactually gets a bit scary at points. The characters in the new Hobbit movie break out into song. Twice.

That being said, I don’t think any of us would call Jaws a comedy, and Embedded is hardly a porno. Raiders has that love story and a couple really good laughs, but I don’t think anyone in their right mind would call it a romantic comedy. And The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journeyis definitely not a musical. We all realize that little dips and swings into what would qualify as another genre doesn’t invalidate a story.

If anything, they usually strengthen it.

The secret to all storytelling is characters, and the best characters are going to act like real people. They’ll tell jokes at the wrong time. Some of them will think about love and sex when they should be paying attention in board meetings, and others will fret about those board meetings at moments they should be thinking about love and sex. A few of them might even be stressed about scratching the paint on Dad’s car when they should really be worried about the axe murderer lumbering up behind them.

One of the most dramatic moments in The Empire Strikes Back is when they’re about to test the carbon-freezing on Han Solo. For all intents, he’s walking to his execution. He knows it, his friends know it, we know it. Even if he survives– he’s gone. Leia knows this and finally admits her true feelings… and Han responds with a wiseass comment. We all giggle and then there’s a horrible blast of steam as Han’s turned into a piece of collectible wall art.

Y’see, Timmy, if my stories and characters lack this kind of range they’re going to come across as very flat and tedious. If I can’t have a moment of laughter, a bit of flirting, or a non-sequitor distracted thought, my characters are going to feel like puppets rather than people. Much like a chef uses a few different flavors to bring out the main tastes of a meal, a writer wants to sprinkle in a few moments that step out of the genre to make the characters and the material much more powerful.

So don’t be scared to stretch a toe over those lines now and then.

I know I said I was going to talk about structure, but that’s kind of a huge set of post so I think I might save it until the new year and take a bit of stress out of my holidays. So next time, I’m probably just going to say something quick about heroes.

Until then, go write.

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