I actually did end up writing "Rest Stop" last Monday, but as it turns out the contest closed submissions...several hours previous. But it's okay. The story ended up far shorter than I would think the contest would've liked. It saves me the agony of waiting, and rejection. Pat was confused about a few things. (I reference Pat casually these days. Hi, Pat!) But it was basically exactly what I wanted it to be. Maybe if I'd had more times, it could've been longer, better. But I didn't even have a few of the ideas that went into it until that day, until after the apparent submission deadline had passed. In the end, there could've been no different results for this one.
This week I continued working on A Squire's History of Oz. Because they're in the public domain, I figured out I could actually include excerpts from Baum's books, and that was a breakthrough I typed into the manuscript with some satisfaction. Last Saturday (not yesterday) I typed up a timeline (drove myself mad trying to remember a somewhat recent Eric Shanower comic, never did find it, thanks in part to a maddening remodel of ComicBookDB that I discovered was happening, in some ways worse than BoxOfficeMojo selling its soul to IMDb, but hopefully when it's back to functioning capacity it will be better), and just left out the bulk of Oz comics (because there have been many) and concerned myself with the many, many film, stage, TV, and book iterations (some of which will be very confusing, because a lot of them have the same title: Wizard of Oz).
And because I'm always brainstorming for that elusive idea that traditional publishers will actually want to publish, I flashed on Best Cuban In Town, which will join my lamentable large assortment of projects that need to be tackled. This one has the virtue of drawing on Tampa, where I live, with a lot of elements I can practicably draw on, including stuff I'm really sure no other writer is approaching.
Sort of drew inspiration, too, from the reminder that Hamlet is about thirty-three thousand words. Granted, it's a play (and paradoxically Shakespeare's longest; I have no idea how many words the typical play encompasses; my mom was a rollerskating judge alongside a guy who ended up writing plays, but that's as close as I get, other than acting in school and writing the odd attempt). But great things don't need bulk. Maybe that'll help...
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Sunday, February 16, 2020
The Plot Thickens
In the last several days, the plots of two stories I'm tackling suddenly came together.
I was watching Ad Astra (a really good movie, by the way) when I realized what "Just a Regular Joe" actually looked like. It came tumbling into view just as Brad Pitt was plunging down to earth, an image that itself made the movie for me. Suddenly I knew what the main character in the story was struggling with, the relationships that defined him, everything.
Similarly, after watching The Gentlemen in theaters, I knew how to write "Rest Stop." (By the way, actually writing the thing will have to take a miracle, because now I have to do that on the day it's due, a classic scholastic scenario if there ever was one.)
These were matters of knowing the stories but not knowing them. There's a huge difference. One is the basic plot, the basic elements. The other is knowing what to do with them.
I think a lot of writers misunderstand this fundamental aspect of their craft. They get hung up on the mere act of writing that they hope later revisions will iron out the differences. But once you set out on a journey, you're already halfway there. You have to have a solid plan. If you haven't at least allowed yourself to figure it out along the way (another valid option), you're going to end up with something that's infinitely less than it could have been, because even if you and most of your readers won't be able to tell the difference, it will still be there. And the story will die a slow death, or if you're really lucky, someone will care enough in the future to fix it for you.
Because the story is in the details. The story is in how you tell it. Movies have made it so much easier to distinguish the craft from the concept. As far back as Citizen Kane, which hinges entirely on finally learning what "Rosebud" is (and in hindsight, everything makes so much more sense), and up to Memento, which is entirely defined by its flashback structure (seeing it in sequence would in theory make as much sense, once you'd seen it as originally intended, but then you'd lose the shape of it), filmmakers have understood that the language of the story is at least as important as the story itself. Even the cold detachment of Melville explaining whaling is essential to the tragedy of Ahab's madness, however baffling and unnecessary it might seem to the unsuspecting reader.
So now I know how to tell a few of the stories I've been trying to tackle. I'd had ideas already, but in hindsight they now look hollow and impoverished. As to whether or not I can pull either of them off, that's another matter entirely. But I can try.
I was watching Ad Astra (a really good movie, by the way) when I realized what "Just a Regular Joe" actually looked like. It came tumbling into view just as Brad Pitt was plunging down to earth, an image that itself made the movie for me. Suddenly I knew what the main character in the story was struggling with, the relationships that defined him, everything.
Similarly, after watching The Gentlemen in theaters, I knew how to write "Rest Stop." (By the way, actually writing the thing will have to take a miracle, because now I have to do that on the day it's due, a classic scholastic scenario if there ever was one.)
These were matters of knowing the stories but not knowing them. There's a huge difference. One is the basic plot, the basic elements. The other is knowing what to do with them.
I think a lot of writers misunderstand this fundamental aspect of their craft. They get hung up on the mere act of writing that they hope later revisions will iron out the differences. But once you set out on a journey, you're already halfway there. You have to have a solid plan. If you haven't at least allowed yourself to figure it out along the way (another valid option), you're going to end up with something that's infinitely less than it could have been, because even if you and most of your readers won't be able to tell the difference, it will still be there. And the story will die a slow death, or if you're really lucky, someone will care enough in the future to fix it for you.
Because the story is in the details. The story is in how you tell it. Movies have made it so much easier to distinguish the craft from the concept. As far back as Citizen Kane, which hinges entirely on finally learning what "Rosebud" is (and in hindsight, everything makes so much more sense), and up to Memento, which is entirely defined by its flashback structure (seeing it in sequence would in theory make as much sense, once you'd seen it as originally intended, but then you'd lose the shape of it), filmmakers have understood that the language of the story is at least as important as the story itself. Even the cold detachment of Melville explaining whaling is essential to the tragedy of Ahab's madness, however baffling and unnecessary it might seem to the unsuspecting reader.
So now I know how to tell a few of the stories I've been trying to tackle. I'd had ideas already, but in hindsight they now look hollow and impoverished. As to whether or not I can pull either of them off, that's another matter entirely. But I can try.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Updates February 2020
Been working on A Squire's History of Oz recently, a nonfiction project I've been meaning to realize for a little while now. I also have some more submissions I'll be tackling, one of them that's due in about a week and the story for which I figured out this morning. Tentatively calling it "Rest Stop." The other is centered around Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, otherwise known as the Captain Nemo story. I actually read it a few years back for the first time, and was amazed at how compelling the first part of it, before Nemo is even introduced, actually was. There's a Jules Verne park here in Tampa, so I almost feel compelled to work on this one.
Apart from these, I have Three Stooges Syndrome, in that there are of course larger projects I want to begin tackling, that I've mentioned here before, one of which (Collider) I worked on the outline for after previously tackling it anew last October, just before the blood-in-the-eye thing happened, which sort of derailed me for a while, and they keep butting up against each other. And then I follow links in emails for shorter pieces I can submit, and...Oh, and I also worked on formatting another of the poetry collections, so that's another thing, and finally ordered copies of the last one I put out.
Plus, wrote about what I'm working on here, at the blog, which I don't do often enough. Or perhaps the commentary I was doing a year ago for another project still leaves me feeling guilty...
Apart from these, I have Three Stooges Syndrome, in that there are of course larger projects I want to begin tackling, that I've mentioned here before, one of which (Collider) I worked on the outline for after previously tackling it anew last October, just before the blood-in-the-eye thing happened, which sort of derailed me for a while, and they keep butting up against each other. And then I follow links in emails for shorter pieces I can submit, and...Oh, and I also worked on formatting another of the poetry collections, so that's another thing, and finally ordered copies of the last one I put out.
Plus, wrote about what I'm working on here, at the blog, which I don't do often enough. Or perhaps the commentary I was doing a year ago for another project still leaves me feeling guilty...
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