Tag Archives: On Writing

Star Wars Episode Eight: Course Correction

Posted by natechen on

So let’s pick up where we left off last week. The Star Wars character Rey has had some Mary Sue elements stuck into her character but that’s not the end of the story. I really feel that The Force Awakens suffered for these elements but I have to stress that they weren’t the sole reason or even the biggest reason I felt the movie was subpar. The holes left in Rey’s character exist for one of two reasons, in so far as I can tell.

The first is that the film didn’t have enough room to squeeze in all the kind of narrative support that make the wish fulfillment aspects of Rey’s character function within the larger story framework. The story is chock full of characters to be introduced, situations to be sorted out and story to be imparted. The whole film moves so fast that none of this information really gets examined deeply. This is a bad habit I see in a lot of recent movies, and Disney movies in particular, where filmmakers just throw a character archetype or well known plot on screen and expect the audience to fill in the blanks while the story glosses over the lacking character and plot development in favor of more spectacle. The studio wanted a blockbuster show and the other, more important stuff, got cut.

Now spectacle isn’t bad but Star Wars, for better or worse, hasn’t ever been exclusively spectacle. And furthermore, the archetype of a character without power suddenly unlocking hidden power – Rey’s archetype – clashes badly with the established Star Wars lore. For the first time we’ve gotten a Star Wars film that feels like it was made to be a blockbuster, and that’s sad. Understandable, given the investment Disney made in the movie, but disappointing none the less. So one reason Rey may not have gotten the development she needed was studio mandate. That’s lame, but it’s part of showbiz.

The second reason for Rey’s off balance character development is even more speculative. There’s a possibility that the film is setting up a story arc where Rey’s burst in power is a result of the Dark Side, the fast, easy and seductive half of the Force. With a quick burst of power fueled by her anger and the Dark Side much of what Rey does can be explained away. This doesn’t have any more support than the prevailing interpretation of the story, that Rey is just an absurdly powerful and fast learning Jedi, but it would better explain things in conjunction with the lore than the idea that Rey has amnesia and has forgotten previous Jedi training.

Of course, the biggest problem with this theory is that it doesn’t have support, the problem that the whole movie has to start with. In truth, it has less support than others, since Rey never actually shows any signs of Dark Side influence when using the Force. But it could have been the intent and, more importantly, it brings me to the question of how the poor writing around Rey’s character could be salvaged.

The first is if Episode Eight runs with the idea I just laid out. If we find Luke training Rey hard to cure her of a taste for the Dark Side it would go a long way to show that the existing Star Wars lore is being respected and open up opportunities for a lot of interesting ways for Rey’s character to go. She currently doesn’t have a clear direction for character development or arcs so by giving her an ongoing struggle with the Dark Side the writers would both do her character a real favor and take advantage of the opportunity to explore themes the franchise has dabbled with previously but never delved into in any meaningful way.

Another entirely viable option would be to make the next film primarily about Finn. He felt more like the main character of the first film, with his broken indoctrination and significant streak of cowardice giving way to new ways of seeing the world and the start of real personal courage. If Rey moves back out of the spotlight some the lack of polish in her character is less jarring. That doesn’t really solve the problems in her writing as such but if the film is constructed in such a way as to make the problems irrelevant then it still does some good work.

The third possibility is to give Rey a new and very personal challenge. The fact that she is never significantly set back through the course of the film is the greatest weakness of the character. Unfortunately, the writing of The Force Awakens severely crippled Kylo Ren’s ability to serve as a good antagonist in future films and I can’t see any new meeting between Rey and Ren having the dramatic weight necessary to be that setback. Hopefully the Knights of Ren that were hinted at will provide some of that needed threat so that Rey’s character can really shine.

The big lesson here is that even bad writing can be redeemed, most of the time. The real question for the typical writer is, would it be worth the time? All three of the solutions I suggested for Rey’s character problems require a certain amount of narrative gymnastics to function. Most writers find themselves better served by drawing what lessons can be had from bad writing and moving on, as the resources of Disney probably aren’t backing your less than stellar outing (and it probably doesn’t have Star Wars level brand recognition, either). The hard truth is, while a weak writing project doesn’t doom you as a writer, it can doom the ideas you invested in it.

At least until you can adapt those ideas into a new form for a later project.

Unless your Disney playing with Star Wars. At this point, nothing can really kill that project. But I’m still hoping they draw lessons from it and make it better.

Star Wars, John Wick and Mary Sue

Posted by natechen on

“Mary Sue” is a derogatory term for the protagonist of a work of fanfiction. Fan fiction, for those who don’t know, is a story about characters from a work of published fiction, TV, movies or comics. written by a fan rather than the people who produce that work. Any fan who has ever written down a new adventure for the crew of the Starship Enterprise has written fanfiction. It has no standards for publishing or quality, it just has to be written down by a fan of the work in question.

Generally a Mary Sue is a character of either gender (but typically female, probably because fan fiction authors tend towards the female – sometimes male characters are referred to as Gary Stu) who represents the author in a fanfiction. The label has grown in many ways generally it refers to any character who gets to live out a fantasy without effort, risk or negative consequences, as this tends to be the way fanfiction authors write themselves into stories. Early critiques of the Mary Sue archetype refer to the character as “perfect” within their own narrative but that’s not a meaningful qualifier, as it’s quite subjective when applied to characters in a story.

There’s a certain amount of jealousy inherent in the “perfect” critique, the kind of jealousy that you typically find when people see a singer on American Idol and figure they made it to the finals because she’s pretty or he’s handsome. It ignores the hard work and effort the person has put in to reach the place they’re in and yes, maybe there were some elements in there that weren’t “fair” like being born with a certain amount of natural talent or good looks but there has to have been more to it than that. But when we’re talking about characters it gets a little more complex.

I think Mary Sues provoke a strong reaction from people because they tickle that same jealousy vibe in our mind. But, at the same time, we want to see characters in fiction who are extraordinary. Otherwise they wouldn’t be anymore entertaining than our own circle of friends and we’d just spend our time with real people rather than these shadows and phantasms. So a good writer gives us characters who are more perfect than us but also gives those characters situations far beyond anything we could realistically tackle, situations that push those characters to the very utmost limits of their abilities.

I’ve said time and again in this space that the point of a writer is to provoke emotions from their audience. Mary Sues provoke contempt because they seem to achieve things safely and effortlessly when we know that, in real life, things are typically achieved through effort and peril. A competent writer avoids this by creating in us a certain admiration for the character as they overcome adversity, allowing us to experience the rush of empowerment while the character overcomes challenges that only a person of their skill could possibly accomplish. A poor writer doesn’t show this adversity, or shows it poorly, and earns our contempt as a person who wrote a Mary Sue.

When people complain about Mary Sues I think they frequently mean characters who get to live out a fantasy without facing any difficulties. Without risk, effort or consequences the character comes off as flat, dull and uninteresting.

Let’s examine a character who is a Mary Sue by the traditional definition – which is to say, he’s pretty much perfect. The character John Wick, from the movie of the same name, is considered the perfect hit man. From the very beginning we see people in the Russian mob who know what he’s capable of deferring to him. When he finally snaps and destroys a team sent to kill him with little trouble we start to realize just how deadly he is. For the whole rest of the movie the Russian boss is terrified of this force of nature who is coming for him and anyone who can get out of John’s way does.

However John Wick still has his problems. His wife was ill and died at the beginning of the film. He’s injured during a botched attempt to kill the son of the mob boss and takes refuge in a hotel for assassins where, in theory, no business is conducted. But there’s enough money on John’s head to persuade someone to break the rules and try to kill him in the hotel. John survives because an old friend helps but suffers more injuries in the process. His next move against the mob results in his being captured and, again, he escapes only with help.

Finally he offs the boss’s son but his friend is discovered and killed in retaliation. John finally finds the boss and wipes out his bodyguards in one last confrontation that ends with a brutal grapple between John and his nemesis that John barely wins. He staggers away in the rain, barely able to remain upright.

While John could easily be classified as a Mary Sue by the traditional definition, given his hyper competent fighting prowess and obvious wealth on display through the film, most people don’t consider him one because the amount of difficulty he endures throughout the film makes us feel admiration for his endurance, determination and single mindedness.

Unless, of course, you deplore violent movies in general and that ruins the experience for you. Because that movie… pretty violent.

But to the point – the fact that no one seriously considers John Wick a Mary Sue is one of the reasons I tend to use my own definition of the term. Because John does show us the power fantasy of being able to take revenge on the powerful, wealthy and downright criminal creeps who feel free to occasionally make our life miserable. But the price he pays for it is horrendous, the kind of price only a fictional character could pay. The risk of his own life was made apparent during every fight, the effort comes with every grunt of exertion and every moment of pain, the consequences made clear more and more people turn against John.

Now to the final point of this post. By this point I hope you’ve all seen Star Wars: The Force Awakens because we’re going to talk about it a bit in a spoilery way. And by “it” I mean Rey.

There’s been a lot of talk on the internet about how Rey may or may not be a Mary Sue. By the traditional definition she’s not – straight up. She flat out runs from the lightsaber – and by proxy the Force – when it’s first offered to her and she makes a number of fairly minor mistakes along the way, enough that no one would consider her perfect.

But given the reasons I think people react badly to Mary Sues I think I know why people see her as one.

Rey clearly represents three fantasies fulfilled. First, the fantasy of finding a place of belonging after being an outcast. She finds a home for herself by leaving Jakku and joining BB-8, Finn, Han, Chewie, Leia and the rest of the resistance. She risks leaving Jakku and possibly never meeting those who left her there again. While facing the reality that no one’s coming back for her isn’t necessarily a huge risk it undoubtedly cost a lot of effort – enough that I’m willing to let the ease with which the rest of the cast accepts her slide. Han did want to ditch her at first and Finn kind of needed her there for a couple of obvious reasons. The movie wasn’t focused on intense character developments so lack of further effort to live out this first, very character driven fantasy is fine. That the responsibility of finding Luke and bringing him back into the fold falls to Rey also makes it clear her living out this fantasy is going to have consequences for her in the future. While responsibility isn’t always a negative consequence it frequently can cause problems and is definitely a consequence.

The second fantasy Rey lives out is the fantasy of being very good at a number of mundane tasks like flying, fixing and fighting. The risks there are pretty obvious, every time she does these things she’s taking her life in her own hands. The biggest example of this when she take the Millenium Falcon into the air the first time. There’s a lot of good piloting in there but a fair bit of bad piloting as well. She could very easily kill herself and Finn doing this but she manages not to and I’m willing to give her this one on sheer audacity. The effort in this is set up in the opening montage as we see Rei’s life on Jakku – it’s clearly hard and difficult and will have equipped her to do all of the things we see her do in order to survive – except maybe pilot a starship but again. A pass for the audacity. I like that kind of thing, in moderation. There aren’t that many consequences for this but only because the consequences you’d expect from this kind of hypercompetency are overshadowed by the next bit.

The third fantasy Rey lives out is the fantasy of power beyond the lot of mortals.

Or, y’know, she can use the Force if you want it to sound mundane.

Point is, Rey has supernatural powers. She doesn’t start with them, not in any noticeable way, in fact the movie spends a little time hinting the powers might actually belong to Finn, not her, so these are new things to her character. She uses the Force in four cases. They are:

When she repels Kylo’s mental attack and counter reads him. Rey doesn’t run any risks here, failure doesn’t leave her any worse off and success is all up side, but it clearly costs her something and it has the consequence of making him angry and her drawing the attention of the big bad as a potential resource – just like any skilled person would be, only more so. Not a particularly Mary Sue event.

When she forces a guard to let her out of her restraints and leave his weapon behind. Again, failure doesn’t leave her worse off – well, maybe strapped down a little tighter – and success is pure profit. She does have to work at it, Rey tries three times before succeeding. While Kylo gets angry again and puts the guards on Rey this is still pure profit over where she was with no noticeable consequences. But this kind of surprising move twice in a row starts to raise eyebrows, especially because we know this isn’t the kind of thing a person can pull of without a lot of training.

When she uses telekinesis to rip the lightsaber from Kylo. A third time, this is a situation with no risk. She wouldn’t be any more weaponless if she hadn’t tried this. Worse, it’s apparently effortless as she overwhelms Kylo without a struggle and again this doesn’t bring her any negative consequences. Pure Mary Sue.

When she channels the Force during her lightsaber duel and defeats Kylo Ren. You’re probably tired of hearing this but her situation literally can’t get any worse when Rey tries using Force combat so she wasn’t really risking anything. Worse, as soon as Rey opens her eyes she’s in an unstoppable battle trance and proceeds to demolish Kylo. She even avoids negative consequences like guilt over killing him when the earth splits in two and conveniently separates them. That last bit is really bothersome.

In short, Rey’s Force abilities mostly got her out of sticky situations in a rather convenient fashion without much rebounding on her. Seems to fit the bill, doesn’t it?

So Rey is a little bit of a Mary Sue, or at least the way she’s written could easily provoke the same kind of reaction from people. There was definitely some poor writing at work in there. But saying that Rey had a touch of the Mary Sue identifies the symptom – what was the problem? Why did Mary Sueisms work their way into Rey’s character arc and what steps can be taken to shore up the weak writing in the future? Or at least in stories we write where characters explore similar themes?

Well, I think that’s a post for next week. Hope you’ll join me then!

Genrely Speaking: The Western

Posted by natechen on

Wow. We haven’t done this in a while. I know I promised you all more fiction at some point and trust me, I ‘m working on it, but these bits tend to be fairly popular too and I wanted to come back to genres once before turning back to fiction. So let’s take a look at a genre that I am personally not very invested in, but is still a major part of American literature.

While Westerns immediately conjure up images of the cowboy, the genre’s most common protagonist, there’s actually a lot of other figures that could populate a tale in the Old West. And it’s even possible to create a story with the Western feel without having to actually go to the historic time and place of the Western United States, circa 1870-1890. What you really need are the following:

  1. The feeling of openness. This, of course, comes mostly from the landscape. The Western plains are flat and featureless, giving the sensation of infinite possibility just across the horizon. Add in the very small number of people living there and that sensation only intensifies. It’s one of the reasons we see “space westerns” crop up from time to time in the form of shows like Firefly and the original form of Star Trek, to say nothing of anime series Outlaw Star, Cowboy Bebop and Trigun – outer space is the ultimate unlimited space. But this sense of openness extends to characters as well. The cowboy is the cliché of the Western, but many other characters populate these stories without anyone giving them a second glance. Robbers, prostitutes, miners, railway men and private investors all swarmed through the West and people never batted an eye. Watch El Dorado with John Wayne some time to get a feel for the many faces that can appear in a Western with nary a blink of an eye. From tough girl Joey McDonald (Michele Carey) who actually shoots Cole Thorton (John Wayne) to Mississippi (James Caan) who’s to green to even shoot, there’s a wealth of strong characters that avoid or earn most cliches nicely and who never earn a strange look from anyone else.
  2. The importance of independence. Characters in Westerns are at their most noble when they make their own decisions. Even El Dorado’s Nelson McLeod (Christopher George) is shown as something of a noble character simply because he decides who to work for and does it with all the considerable skill he possesses. The fact that he’s working for something of a villain doesn’t bother Thorton – those are just the kinds of decisions a person has to make. And a few months beforehand, Cole had been thinking about working for the same villain, so he understands the other side of the story. The important factor is that the characters are their own selves, and seek to remain so in spite of circumstances.
  3. The necessity of consequences. With all this independence running around and all these options to choose from there’s got to be another shoe dropping and it’s called consequences. People think of Westerns as all white hat/black hat in part because it shows people making decisions and then quickly facing the consequences of them. Joey McDonald shot Cole Thorton and, as a result, when the McDonald family needed Cole’s help he wasn’t able to help as much as he’d like because of the lingering consequences of his wound. Nelson McLeod worked for a villain and he wound up getting killed. But it’s important to note that Westerns try not to say whether the consequences came about because a decision was good or evil. Westerns are (typically) stories set right after the Civil War after all. Many people who went West had just fought a terrible war and, while they still felt there were things that were right and things that were wrong, they were much less willing to say for sure what those things were. The war had opened their eyes in many ways. The Western simply sees the facts of life – you make a decision and then the consequences come for you, for better or for worse. Even the vast open plains will only let you run from that for so long.

What are the weaknesses of the Western? Westerns are stories from a comparatively simple time. Frontier living was much more straightforward than life today and this is part of where the Western’s simply accept and deal attitude towards consequences comes from. But it can make these stories harder for a modern audience to accept.

Particularly because consequences in the Old West were doled out by whoever had the most raw power at any given moment, very different from the lives most people today live.

What are the strengths of the Western? Westerns are American myth, and thus have much of the appeal of all the great mythological traditions. Larger than life characters, chances for teachable moments and plenty of memorable moments to use as touchstones.

Westerns aren’t exactly “in favor” at the moment. They speak to a time gone by in imagery that is very steeped in that era. The age of the Old West isn’t far enough gone to be classic but not so near as to seem nostalgic or even relevant. But given time this genre will no doubt come back into some of its own and continue to do good work in the landscape of American storytelling.

 

In Defense of Critical Thought for Pop Culture

Posted by natechen on

This post comes about as an outgrowth of a recent discussion I had about the state of American poetry. Now those of you who read a particular recent post of mine know I don’t really read poetry in literary magazines much. Well while I was talking to a friend about American poetry I pointed out that I didn’t really think what you found in literary magazines really represented American poetry.

The heart and soul of American poetry is in our music industry. Be it country music, rap or generic “pop” music, the rhythm and rhyme of song and dance form the meter of our nation’s most important poetic expressions.

Now why should that be? Aren’t music labels focused on driving the bottom line? Bent on creating albums that will appeal to the consumer and do nothing for the human condition? Maybe. But maybe, just maybe, there’s more at work in this equation than you might think.

Make no mistake – all great cultural touchstones were originally parts of popular culture. Homer was blind – it’s unlikely he wrote down his great works himself. We don’t know much about his life but it’s commonly believed he traveled about as a minstrel and sharing his stories to make a living before he was “noticed” and his stories recorded. Shakespeare’s plays were considered lowbrow and his writing not up to the standards of university educated playwrights of his time. Jane Austen wrote brilliant novels filled with characters who are timeless and loveable. She also saw things about human nature that the greatest scholars still miss in their sweeping treatises. She was taught by her parents, reading books and basic socialization, there is nothing scholarly about her novels.

Yet these people are fairly representative of their eras of great Western culture.

There were no gatekeepers these people had to go past. No journals promoting them, no scholars encouraging them (the opposite was true in at least Shakespeare’s case) and no intent on their part to create timeless works. They just tried to share something with an audience in the best way they knew how and they did it so well they set a benchmark in some way, shape or form. When they set that benchmark people took note and their work began to spread.

This brings me to the real point of this essay. In the world of pop culture critics it’s not uncommon to hear people apologizing for scrutinizing TV, movies, pop music or comic books. It’s as if there’s no reason to sift through all these new media outlets that are catering to the populace at large rather than the particular psychosis of academia. Surely the only ones deserving of critical analysis are the artistes, the literary masters, the great poets. I would like to propose to this group of pop culture critics – of which I am a very minor and unimportant member – that it’s time to stop with that attitude.

The definitive voices of days past were working in popular culture, gaining recognition and praise precisely because vast swaths of people could get to their work and appreciate the deep and timeless truths masterfully presented in ways they could clearly understand. The proliferation of mediums and technology have made tracking with culture both easier and harder. We have more information at our fingertips but at the same time anyone can create quality content very cheaply and there’s more people doing it than ever before. The need for people to sift culture with a critical eye and find the things that are truly timeless and truly accessible is greater than it’s ever been. Pop culture critics have an important role to play in that.

There’s also a need for people who will stand up and say that our movies, music, novels, comics, TV and YouTubers could be doing better. Saying that there is room for improvement and suggesting how it might come about, not because of esoteric theories but because of human nature and the need to understand, will elevate the culture and bring us closer to the next great touchstone in culture.

So the next time you take a hard look at a movie or song that you really enjoyed and want to talk about it with your friends, don’t apologize. Own it. Think long and hard about pop culture, try to create some yourself and share the lessons with others. That’s the only way culture can go from a brief pop to a timeless classic.

I Got Timelines to Kill

Posted by natechen on

This is the second half of the big Alternate Timelines discussion! Part one is here, and you might want to read it just to figure out what I mean by some of the terms I’m throwing around. They came right off the top of my head not from reputable sources like TV Tropes and might not be familiar.

So today let’s ask a simple question: Are alternate timelines a good thing?

Any answer to this is going to be very subjective so for a moment I’ll speak just for myself and say: As a general rule I like them but only when there’s just one or, at most, two.

See, when we’re dealing with Baileiesque or Narnian timelines they’re really strong. Each serves a distinct purpose in the story and presents the answer to that powerful “what if?” question. Baileiesque stories keep the audience’s attention by highlighting one or two sudden, important changes to things the audience knew and had probably become complacent with. Narnian stories throw new wonders a the audience in rapid succession and keep the interest high, doing their best when each new element is distinct, both from everyday life and what the reader has seen previously.

In all, these two brands of alternate timelines are very effective narrative devices and their nature ensures they don’t get out of hand.

Since a Baileiesque world is a narrative device to spur character development it only exists as long as it’s needed – most of these kinds of timelines only exist as dreams or as a result of supernatural intervention anyway. I mentioned Star Trek’s Mirror, Mirror in my last post and that’s a great example of how even “permanent” alternate timelines can, for all practical intents and purposes, only be temporary narrative devices. The episode was great, gave good insight into Kirk and Spock and never had to be discussed again after it was over. That’s significant because the greatest problem with alternate timelines is that they present so many memory issues. With all the major characters and locations (and sometimes minor ones) duplicated keeping them all straight for a long period of time would be taxing. But Baileiesque narratives don’t require that so their value isn’t impacted by the complexity they could introduce.

Narnian timelines work because they assume one of the worlds is basically identical to our own. Usually, little time is spent exploring the mundane world in a broad sense. Instead the story spends the majority of its time in the Narnian world, letting the exotic and unusual work its magic on the mundane protagonists. In this way the potential complexity isn’t really that much greater than any other fantasy work.

Things start getting trickier with Ultimate timelines. Re-imagining an existing property comes with a lot of issues related to fanbase, expectations and changing cultures. Adding the idea of continuity with a previous timeline to the mix is frequently more liability than benefit. Remember the example of Star Trek: Into Darkness? Perfect case study.

One of the things I found most frustrating about that film was the complete recreation of Spock’s death sequence from Wrath of Kahn, except with Kirk and Spock switching roles. A lot of people loved it just because it was Wrath of Kahn with new special effects and the roles reversed but that ignores the larger context of the story. Consider just a few problems this created:

  • Both characters wind up speaking dialog that is out of character for them. Kirk’s speech is overly precise and slightly stilted, Spock’s is inappropriately emotional and comforting.
  • Where Spock repairing the engine in Wrath of Kahn made sense because Spock was a scientist doing precise technical work on precise technical equipment, Kirk fixing that same precise technical equipment by drop-kicking it is laughably absurd. Engines do not work that way.
  • Kirk is revived by Kahn blood. Science in Star Trek is rarely that shakey.
  • Spock goes on a rampage. On a rampage. Spock. COME. ON.

A weakness of Ultimate timelines is the feeling that the creators need to homage the past incarnation of the story somehow. When a crossover with the actual past timeline is slipped into the story it warps the story even worse. I’m not sure leaving Leonard Nimoy out of the J.J. Abrams reboots would have changed them for the better but I’m not sure the huge impact Wrath of Kahn had on Into Darkness would have been quite so jarring if the writers hadn’t been worried about making two Spocks work in that world.

Ultimate reboots can kind of work as a force to be reckoned with in and of themselves. They’re sort of a genre, sort of a framing device, and sometimes they can become really successful. Look at Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy or Naoki Urosawa’s Pluto. But those stories never tried to be anything other than updates of their source material. Connecting them narratively to the source material would have needlessly muddled the waters.

That leaves us with quantum timelines. And it’s time for complete honesty:

I only like the idea of a quantum multiverse in a story when that’s the heart of the story. Just throwing out the idea of alternate timelines that sometimes show up but aren’t always involved in the story is adding a huge, huge burden on the audience. They need to keep track of what characters exist in both universes and what characters dont, not to mention whatever all the other differences between the two worlds are. They need to keep track of what characters exist in only one universe or the other. They need to do both of those things for each and every quantum timeline that exists, because there inevitably wind up being lots of them. And they need to keep track of how and why people are getting around in this complex quantum multiverse. It’s a huge amount of information to keep track of and you can’t expect them to juggle it all if it’s not of constant relevance to the plot. On top of all of that, you have to find a solid status quo you can keep returning to, if the audience is constantly being shoved into the new and weird/wacky/fantastic worlds then sooner or later they get jaded. An occasional dose of “normalcy” as your worldbuilding defines normal is an important part of keeping audiences hungry for new stories.

You have to be a good author to do all this and make it work. (Surprise!)

Now when a quantum multiverse is the foundation for a plot and properly executed with the right amount of help for the audience, so they can keep track of what’s going on, quantum multiverses make for great storytelling. But not everyone uses them that way. In fact, they’re used that way only occasionally.

This whole discussion started because I was asked what I thought of comic books using alternate timelines as plot devices. Marvel and DC both use quantum multiverses to give them access to Baileiesque, Ultimate and regular old quantum alternate timelines. And they expect their audiences to keep track of all of that even though they only use the plot threads occasionally.

That’s bad writing.

Sure, you can cross over into a negaverse on occasion, so long as it’s the same one every time, or go exploring totally different, unique universes on occasion. But expecting your audience to track with five, ten, or fifty different timelines? No. That’s bad form. I’ve noticed that DC, at least, tries to do it less these days and that’s good. In general, that’s a trend I’d like to see continue. Maybe they could let some of the publishing space that frees up go to bringing the Blue Beetle back…

But anyway. That’s what I think of the alternate timeline plot device: It’s good when it’s used properly and not overdone to a confusing extent. Like all potent narrative devices, let the aspiring author handle with care.

An Open Letter to Sherman Alexie

Posted by natechen on

Mr. Alexie,

I’ve noticed a certain amount controversy in your recent selection of a poem by my friend and colleague Michael D. Hudson for the 2015 edition of Best American Poetry. Allow me a moment to congratulate you on your integrity on choosing to leave him in the collection. Mike is a dedicated poet who not only works hard on his own materials but teaches a class at the Allen County Public Library where aspiring amateur poets can bring their poetry for public reads and workshopping.

I haven’t read much of his poetry myself, but then as near as I can gather Mike’s poetry isn’t really germane to the discussion at hand, is it? The controversy over his appearance in BAP comes entirely from his use of a pseudonym and what that supposedly says about his character.

So let me tell you what I hear about Michael’s character from his use of the pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou.

What I hear is a profound respect for the literary traditions of China. Yes, Mike chose his pseudonym because it increased his chances of getting published in an industry dominated by identity politics. But we don’t assume Benjamin Franklin used the pen name Silence Dogood as an attempt to steal something from someone else, but in an attempt to make his point rather than being ignored. I find it highly unlikely that Mr. Franklin would have chosen to represent himself as he did if he had no respect for the insight and intellect of women – and I don’t think Mike would have chosen to represent himself by a Chinese pseudonym if he didn’t have a respect for the literary traditions of China.

Let’s face it, Mr. Alexie. China has a rich, powerful and four thousand year old literary tradition. Said tradition is deep and nuanced, literary and poetic, philosophical and mundane. It has enough depth to support three of its greatest philosophers squaring off against three of Europe’s greatest thinkers in one of the Epic Rap Battles of History, surely it can stand a few people representing themselves by Chinese names. Rather than saying Mike took something from the Chinese tradition shouldn’t you say that Mike is now a part of Chinese tradition and will enjoy twice the scrutiny – that of Chinese scholars as well as that of American scholars? For that matter, what would the opinion of a Chinese thinker be on the work of Mike Hudson?

There’s a story I’m fond of, probably apocryphal but quite illustrative. The details vary from telling to telling but the essentials go like this: There was a fairly inexperienced American sports reporter at the Olympics who wound up standing next to a fairly prominent Chinese Communist official while observing one of the events. Teams were shuffling from one place to the other and there was an awkward lull things. The reporter felt like he should says something to fill time but he didn’t want to give offense by bringing up anything relating to current events and the strained relations between America and China. Flailing about frantically, the cub reporter quickly decided to introduce himself and ask, “What do you think of the American Revolution?”

The Communist official thought for a moment and then answered, “It is too soon to tell.”

The point? Chinese philosophy very often takes a long view. They view current events like a man standing at the edge of a rushing river. Yes, they seem to be moving very quickly but in the end what people are seeing is actually a very small part of a huge cycle that is endless and unchanging. The water flows to the ocean, rises as rain, falls on the land, flows into the river and rushes by the man on the riverbank on the way to the ocean over and over and over again. Chinese thinkers view the past as a huge cycle, repeating over and over again and only those enlightened enough to break the cycle and transcend it are remembered. The value of any author or poet is not seen in the present day but many, many generations down the line.

(As an aside: I am speaking in fairly broad terms here Mr. Alexie. I am aware that there are numerous traditions of intellectual thought in China. In fact, China is a nation composed of many ethnic groups of wildly different languages, histories and schools of thought. Trying to lump them together into a convenient label like “Chinese” is like lumping all the ethnicities and histories of Americans into a single group. It’s silly.

I noticed you characterized your response to Mike’s pen name as that of one “brown” man to another. If you put my father, who was born in Taiwan and had two parents who immigrated from the mainland, up against any typical person of European descent you’d have a hard time telling their skin tone apart. His whiteness, or lack thereof, is immaterial to who he is, what experiences he can communicate and the impact those things have on other people. The only reason it would matter is if there was some kind of quota for how many Chinese people/people of a given color there could be in a given place/event/publication at any given time and surely we don’t want that.)

Now you can think what you will of the value of the Chinese way of thinking. But it seems to me that said way of thinking precludes us judging a person’s artistic merit during their own lifetime, or even the lifetime of the civilization that spawned it. In that respect, Mike is the same as all other poets that are weighed in the balance of time.

And that’s the other thing I hear from Mike’s decision to submit poems under a Chinese pseudonym: He’s saying he wants to walk with us on the way to the end of time. If using a different name is all that takes then so be it. Michael Hudson hasn’t taken anything from anyone. He’s offered to be a fellow traveler with us as we explore the full depths of the American Literary scene. And for accepting his offer in spite of all that drove you to reject it, I applaud you, Mr. Alexie.

Sincerely yours,

Nathaniel Chen

Get Me to the Church on Timelines

Posted by natechen on

So recently I was asked for my opinion on alternate timelines and alternate universes, particularly as used in comics. This is really a big topic to tackle all at once so I thought I would break it down into two parts. This week I wanted to look at what kinds of alternate universes there are, just so we’re all on the same page, and then next week I’ll give my opinion on the usefulness of each in telling a story.

Let me start by defining what’s not an alternate timeline for the purposes of this discussion, namely anything like alternate history fiction. If we were to accept that definition then all fiction counts as an alternate timeline of some sort and the term just stops being useful. Yes, there are genres of fiction that are deliberately structured to be to our world as some of the following definitions of an “alternate timeline” are to fictional worlds but when you get down to basics you’ll realize all fiction does fit that description to some extent so you just have to ask how much the creators intended for that to be true. If that makes sense.

Let’s just move on.

For a story to have an alternate universe premise it must have two separate worlds that are somehow the same (a shared history, shared characters or something similar) and then make the characters of those two worlds aware of each other. That’s a little dense, I know, but maybe I can clear up what I mean by giving some examples of the four prevailing types of alternate universe.

The first, and probably best known kind of alternate universe is the Baileiesque alternate universe. This kind of alternate universe I’ve named for George Bailey, the protagonist of It’s a Wonderful Life. George’s story is one of the biggest, best known examples of the type in popular culture and most people probably know the story already, how George Bailey was contemplating suicide and callously tells his guardian angel that the people who know him would have been better off if he’d never been born.

So Clarence, George’s angel watchman, takes his charge to a twisted, darkened world where George meets people and sees places that should be familiar but seem to have been robbed of something that made them good and vital. It’s a world where George Bailey was never born.

Baileiesque alternate timelines are always defined by the person who visits them and exist to show them something about themselves. They’ve been used in everything from simple morality stories like It’s a Wonderful Life to iconic science fiction like the Star Trek episode Mirror, Mirror. These alternatives are narrative devices that let characters and audiences explore some path not taken and strive to make sure that both audience and character see as much as possible from their “home” world reflected in the alternative timeline.

The second kind of alternate universe is the Narnian alternate universe. These kinds of places are entirely different from the world as we know it, possibly even having different rules governing them from the beginning of time. As the name implies, Narnian universes are best embodied in C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. They are places of wonder visited by (usually) more mundane people who become something more than they were as a result of their visit.

Unlike Baileiesque stories, Narnian alternate universes serve to build something new in characters, rather than reveal something that is already true about them. Narnian stories are hero’s journeys, rather than opportunities for introspection. As a result there’s as little overlap between people, places and histories as possible between most Narnian alternate universes and the homes of the characters who visit them.

The third kind of alternate universe is an Ultimate universe. The name is derived from Marvel’s Ultimate line of comic books, where that publishing house completely reimagined its heroes with modern backstories and a more tightly written continuity. Characters were reworked to fit new sensibilities or storytelling conventions. Then the whole thing eventually crossed over into the main Marvel timeline before Mainline Marvel, Ultimate Marvel and a few other Marvel ideas got mashed into an incomprehensible mess that’s supposed to be the new continuity going forward.

Confused? I am too.

Let me try and give a better illustration of the Ultimate alternate universe phenomenon. Get on Netflix and watch Star Trek, both the original TV series and the movie Wrath of Kahn, then the two recent J.J. Abrams films. If anyone accuses you of wasting time tell them it’s for science.

Back? Good. You’ve now experienced the Ultimate phenomenon in a very limited case. When Star Trek was rebooted the studio couldn’t resist using Leonard Nimoy to tie-in for all the fans of the classic series. But the way this reboot reinterprets the characters, particularly in the case of Uhura and Spock, and casts the entire crew of the Enterprise as misfits rather than the cream of Starfleet is done entirely to make the narrative more exciting for modern viewers. The very long shadow Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn casts over Star Trek: Into Darkness is another classic hallmark of Ultimate alternate universes and the existence of Nimoy-Spock solidifies the modern movie franchises as true alternate timelines, since they’ve interacted with the original.

Unlike Narnian and Baleiesque alternate universes, which exist primarily as narrative devices, Ultimate universes exist to allow a popular story that has grown out of hand or out of relevance to take the highlights and rebuild the story and characters into something new and easier for new audiences to get into. At least, in theory.

The final kind of alternate universe is the quantum alternate universe or the more commonly used term multiverse. You know how I said Baileiesque universes show how the world would be if one thing were different? Quantum universes assume that all the different things that could happen did happen and each has its own universe. Basically, a quantum universe is the ultimate attempt to answer “what if?”

Now the thing that makes multiverses tick is that lots of people travel around in them – there’d be no point, narratively speaking, otherwise. The alternate possible universes are open to everyone, so they don’t have a character building purpose as a set piece. Rather they are almost always the central lynchpin of the plot, the thing that makes everything else interesting and effective. The many alternate universes in a quantum universe is somewhere between MacGuffin and Deus Ex Machina, driving the plot forward and bringing it to a close.

So these are the four broad types of alternate timelines that exist in modern fiction. How good or useful are they? Tune in next week and we’ll hash that out – but if you want the short version it’s “depends.”

Genrely Speaking: Superhero Literature

Posted by natechen on

This is a genre. Seriously.

Superheroes are big right now and writing novels about them has slowly started to gain ground as writers interested in telling their own superheroic stories have realized just how difficult it is to break into the comic publishing industries. The two big comic publishing houses are reluctant to throw resources behind unknown characters/authors and the process of printing comic books, which the American market expects to come in color, is very expensive for smaller/independent publishers so not many new titles get started that way, either.

That pretty much leaves writers wanting to dig into superheroes but with no artistic skill of their own two options – find an artist willing to work with them and pursue the webcomic route or write a novel. Artists willing to work on these kinds of independent projects are hard to come by so we’re seeing more and more superhero literature turning up. To be fair, novels are capable of many things comic books are not and authors may also be drawn to that. So what are the signifiers of superhero literature?

  1. Superheroes. Or at the very least people with the powers of superheroes, going the whole nine yards and including costumes, codenames and the like is optional although the best examples of the genre that I’ve seen find very good reasons to include both (particularly Marion G. Harmon’s excellent series Wearing the Cape). Note that these characters do not have to be at the center of the story, they just have to be present. Carrie Vaughn’s End of the Golden Age features a completely normal protagonist and is probably the best-written example of the genre I’ve read.
  2. A strong emphasis on physical conflict. A direct influence of the genre’s original incarnation, superheroes have always been a bit of a power fantasy and the ultimate fulfillment of that fantasy is being able to stand up to danger in the most direct way possible. Whether it’s stopping a tsunami or battling a supervillain expect superhero fiction to have the protagonist right there on the scene, facing the opposition with their bare hands and whatever powers at their disposal.
  3. Analysis of the emotional and long-term consequences of the conflicts the protagonist are caught up in. This is what really sets the genre apart from comic books. Producing comic panels that accurately convey subtler nuances of emotion is difficult, as is having enough text space to really delve into a character’s psyche. Raw text allows much more depth to be explored and is much cheaper to produce. This is not a license for satire, the story must take the superheroics of its characters absolutely seriously and show people reacting to them in authentic ways. When it does, superhero literature is at its best.

What are the weaknesses of superhero literature? Setting aside the inherent ridiculousness of the concept the genre has a strong emphasis on sensationalism and wish fulfillment that, when not handled well, can make it feel very juvenile. Of the three points listed above #3 is the most important in making the story work – if the emotional depth or realistic look at consequences is missing then the willing suspension of disbelief will quickly fall apart for all but the most hardcore audiences – who are probably all reading comic books and not that interested in pure text.

Which is the genre’s other weakness. Superhero literature is for those who like the abstract idea of superheroes but have never found that idea taken in a direction they care for by most comics publishers. It’s not likely to be a point of contact between book lovers and comic lovers and we’re not likely to ever see a series of novels focusing on big name properties like Superman or Iron Man simply because those characters’ stories are already being told in another medium that fans like better.

What are the strengths of superhero literature? There are a lot of serious questions the idea of superheroes would raise in any society. Few of those serious questions are addressed in comics and, when they are, the constraints of the medium (25-40 pages of story a month in most cases) can really cramp comics ability to answer them. While some titles, like Irredeemable, have tangled with the these ideas a little and the upcoming Batman vs. Superman promises some of the same the societal implications of superheroes that are a running subtheme in Wearing the Cape, no other medium can go as deep as a novel.

Also, while superheroes are often presented to audiences as role models what exactly that means for people when those role models come up short is rarely addressed in comics. Both End of the Golden Age and Alex Grossman’s Soon I Will Be Invincible offer interesting insight into what trying to be a heroic role model might cost heroes shouldering the mantle of role model – and those who love them.

Superhero literature is a very young genre, the youngest we’ve tackled so far, and as such there’s a lot to be desired in it. That said it does show promise in taking a very popular kind of story of the era and making it something a little deeper and more challenging. All in all, well worth a look every now and then to see how it’s developing.

The Whole Story is More Than You Think

Posted by natechen on

So here’s a post I’ve been thinking a lot about writing but so far put off. Once upon a time I wrote a post about nonfiction writing and the kinds of techniques a fiction writer can sharpen while writing real life events. I’ve been thinking about a follow-up based on some real life journalism I’ve seen in the last year or so but I’ve been struggling with how to approach it. After much deliberation I’ve decided that the direct approach is best and here we are. Today let’s talk about what fiction writers can learn from the recent failings of professional journalism. In particular I want to look at three cases where the press screwed up, what the consequences of that failing was and how writers (nonfiction and fiction) can avoid their mistakes and the related outcomes.

The stories of note for today are: The beginnings of #GamerGate, the Stephanopolous/Clinton Foundation situation and the Rolling Stone UVA article. Some of you may just want to stop now, since these are touchy subjects. That’s fine. But I think there are good lessons to find here and as writers we shouldn’t be afraid to look at them. Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s fine too. I’ll try and get you up to date.

That disclaimer given, let’s get started. #GamerGate started about a year ago, when long running murmurs about collusion and conflicts of interest in video game journalism broke into fullblown Twitter and Blogosphere rioting. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the accusation that a journalist had written articles praising the work of a game developer he was romantically involved with – without giving the public any indication of the relationship between them.

Now before we go any further – I am aware that #GamerGate has been tied to some harassment and a lot of critics and commentators in the video gaming world have been critical of those who use the hashtag (ironically their critical behavior is hard to differentiate from the things they decry in #GamerGate). Personally, I’m not interested in parsing all of that out. Far too much of the debate has turned into an us vs. them kind of a thing. Thousands of words could be used on talking about the good and bad things tied to each side of the movement but my main point here is about what sparked the outrage in the first place – conflict of interest.

Directly related is the Stephanopolous revelation. In short, George Stephanopoulos donated money to the Clinton Foundation and then proceeded to do numerous stories involving Hillary Clinton during the previous presidential election without notifying his employer (ABC) or the public. Once again, this is conflict of interest.

For those who don’t know, conflict of interest in journalism happens whenever someone has a connection to a story that could cause them to omit facts damaging to one side of a story (or worse, alter facts to make that side look better). Now in many cases conflict of interest is easy to deal with – usually just mentioning that the reporter is connected to one side of a story or the other in some way is considered enough courtesy to the audience. For instance, whenever a TV news story covers the parent company that owns them it’s considered good form to mention that connection. Most members of the audience will then know to read a little closer between the lines – most people (even journalists!) will hesitate to speak badly about their employers in a public forum so the story may bear further scrutiny. Discerning how much scrutiny is needed and where more information might be acquired is a responsibility that falls to the audience but letting the public know about the conflict of interest is the responsibility of the journalist.

In some cases, though, the stakes are too high and the format unsuited for a simple disclaimer to be sufficient. For example, George Stephanopoulos was slated to moderate a presidential debate on ABC. Given that Hillary Clinton is a candidate in that election and there is a real possibility that Stephanopoulos might go easy on her, or in some other way favor her in the proceedings, he was asked to recuse himself, stepping away from the proceedings and, to his credit, he agreed to do so.

Now the UVA case is much nastier than the other two in pretty much every respect. A Rolling Stone reporter named Sabrina Erdley wrote an article where she told the story of a woman, identified only by a pseudonym, who claimed to have been gang raped at a frat party. But almost as soon as the story came out the fraternity involved, Phi Kappa Psi, began bringing forward evidence that debunked the story. Huge amounts of damage was done all around – to Rolling Stone, UVA and fraternities everywhere. Sabrina Erdley’s errors in reporting is simple. She didn’t ask for the whole story.

Erdley didn’t talk to anyone from Phi Kappa Psi and in doing so ignored basic journalistic procedures. She never gave them a chance to defend themselves and also didn’t thoroughly check her facts. The result was a discredited story, a hit to the reputation of the press in general and Rolling Stone in particular and huge damage to the status of the University of Virginia and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

In all three cases we see that a failure of journalistic standards resulted in damage to the reputation of the journalists involved and the profession as a whole and furor was kicked up which obscured very real issues beyond the journalistic foul-ups. So, with that lovely journey through the failings of the press behind us, what are the lessons to be learned?

The first and most important is that personal viewpoint is a part of the story. For the gaming press and George Stephanopoulos the problem was that they didn’t talk about their personal biases. Now for fiction writers that may seem like an odd point to bring up. After all, fiction authors aren’t writing about themselves they are writing about fictional characters (except for those few times real people come up).

Problem is, fiction writers are striving for verisimilitude and they won’t get it if their characters don’t also have biases and preferences that are clear to the readers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read stories where the main character was consistently portrayed as near sainthood, impartially moving through the other characters and dispensing judgments surely meant to appear reasonable and fair but, to me, appeared very biased and strange. This undercuts the credibility of the character and your credibility as a writer. Far better to have a clearly biased character who struggles with or embraces their biases in front of the audience than try and pretend there’s no bias in your story. (There always will be. It’s human nature.)

How much and in what way you demonstrate that bias is going to depend on a lot of factors. Is your story told first person or third person? Is it comedic or dramatic? What’s the best time to reveal these biases? These are questions that you will have to answer over time but one good way to find guidelines is to reread stories you loved looking for moments when the biases of protagonists or other central characters you loved were revealed. Chances are there will be patterns for you to study and learn from.

Now you, the author, also have a bias but that’s actually a lot easier to deal with. A quick Forward at the beginning of your tale is usually enough to put it out in the open and let the audience get on with it.

Where #GamerGate and Stephanopolous were examples of the person telling the story leaving parts of themselves out of it, Erdley’s failure in the UVA story resulted from the author not telling both sides both sides. At first glance not telling both sides of a story would seem like its irrelevant to fiction since most fiction has a protagonist who’s story you’re telling and that should be the sum of it, right?

No.

Tell me, what do math and writing fiction have in common? Those who do them are expected to show their work. At least when it’s intended for the consumption of others.

Audiences have been trained to expect a distinct cause and effect relationship for events and character motivations in fiction. That’s not realistic but, oddly enough, if it’s not there then people start to find things unrealistic – just one of many odd contradictions in the art form. In the case of the conflict between protagonist and antagonist, in order for it to feel truly well developed the audience must be able to see it from both sides. The antagonist has to have a chance to make his or her or its case in some way. That may be through a scientist explaining the cause of a natural disaster, a monologuing speech by a villain to another character or just in a flashback to the circumstances that started the antagonist on his personal path. It can come in any number of ways but if the audience doesn’t get that look at the antagonist’s side of the story then your story is failing.

Like several things we’ve looked at this summer the necessity of telling the whole story boils down to the nature of fiction as a deliberate attempt to provoke a response from the audience but, at the same time, not let the audience know they are being manipulated with a specific result in mind. This is a very difficult result to achieve. One way to keep their suspicions low is to tell the whole story, completely examining both protagonist and antagonist, their biases and viewpoints, and let the audience draw their own conclusions. Which is ultimately what they’re going to do anyways, so why get in their way?

Putting that much work into a story is scary and hard, since you have to closely examine stuff that’s pretty potent. But if you don’t your audience will catch onto the fact that you’re messing with them and the blowback can be intense. Not as intense as in the examples we’ve glanced at today – the stakes are much lower in fiction after all – but intense none the less. If you value your story it’s worth the work to avoid it, in fiction and in journalism.