On over-engineering writing
Everybody’s got a novel in them, so they say. And as I’ve mentioned before, the novel writing business has become an industry in its own right. Everywhere you look you’ll find another course on how to come up with plots, write convincing characters, create a scene that ‘hooks’, edit your book so that every word counts. Writers blog about ‘how to’, things you should do, things you shouldn’t. What your novel must have to sell. Books have been written on how to market, how to sell, how to use the internet to create your ‘brand’. And so it goes. I wouldn’t say all of this is useless; far from it. I’ve done quite a few courses, read a few ‘how to’ books. But you know, I think the danger is that a novel can become over-engineered.
I wonder if Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, Jules Verne or more modern well-known authors like McCaffrey, Asimov, Stephanie Meyers and J.K. Rowling ever took much notice of ‘theme’ or ending every scene with the MC worse off. I don’t have to ask about Tolkien. He made his position very clear – he wanted to try his hand at writing a very long story that would entertain.
Let me give you an analogy. I would have loved to have been good at painting. I had a certain limited talent but (let’s face it) I wasn’t very good. That’s okay. I’m good at lots of other stuff. In the art world, though, I resorted to a few ‘paint by number’ kits. You know what I mean. A ‘real’ artist has created a painting of something (let’s say a horse) and the kit you buy shows the outline of the horse and its surroundings on a canvas and then various shapes are drawn, each with a number in them. You get a couple of paint brushes and little jars of paint, each with a number corresponding to the numbers on the canvas. And away you go. You carefully colour in each little shape and end up with a recognisable horse. But it isn’t art. Sure, you could improve your input by mixing the colours and blending them together, so it’s not so obviously a colour-in. That’s what it is, though – a colour-in.
I did one year of English at university. I’d always enjoyed writing and reading and I thought I’d enjoy English lit. But I very soon discovered that the profs weren’t interested in MY opinion of the books we were given to read. I was supposed to go off and regurgitate what other learned folk had to say about them. I walked away because I didn’t care. I don’t analyse books I read. I read for entertainment. And nobody can tell me I have to read Dickens if I don’t want to, if I find his style overblown, if I can’t relate to his characters. On the other hand, I LOVED Tolkien, even if his style was narrative and he went off into tangents that didn’t relate to the overall story.
I’d take a guess that among those hugely successful authors it wasn’t only Tolkien who ‘just wanted to write a story’. I fear that if we all go along with the ‘template for novels’ approach we’ll lose our spontaneity, even our creativity. Yes, I guess this is yet another rant about the Rules of Writing. Follow them slavishly and you have a paint by numbers kit.
I’m very interested to know what others think.
Another type of creativity?
I’m a keen amateur photographer. Recently I succumbed to the flattery of friends and decided to try my hand at actually selling some of my pictures. I uploaded a number of photos to my favourite online photo source, Dreamstime. I was absolutely delighted when they accepted a number of my pictures. But I have to tell you, it’s nothing like the buzz of having people actually buy and enjoy my books.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think photography – at least the kind that I participate in – is particularly creative. I don’t have to use my imagination. I don’t have to think up a plot. Sure, I might have to crop here and there, fiddle a few settings in Photoshop or similar. But it’s nothing – nothing – like the hard slog of writing a first draft then the round of editing, critiques, re-writing, fixing, tweaking and eye-bleeding proofing that goes into a book.
That said, there are some analogies. Dreamstime is fussy. You send them a picture, their editors look it over. My success rate is currently about 30%. Now this doesn’t mean the photos are necessarily technically deficient. You get an email telling you what was wrong. This can be anything from slightly out of focus, to too much ‘noise’ to ‘we’ve got enough landscapes/sunsets/sunrises, thank you so much’. Or you might need a model release for a person who is in any way remotely recognisable. I took a photo of a footbridge across the Yarra from a considerable distance. Even so, a model release was required for the half dozen people (tiny figures) walking on that bridge. Or you might need a ‘property release’ for a building. That was in the case for one of mine, when I can only assume a property release was needed for the casino in the photo. I’ve found, too, that out of focus backgrounds are not popular even when the bird (in my case) which was the subject of the photo was sharp as a pin. And so the list goes on, soon becoming issues like ‘distorted pixels’ and ‘overprocessing’. And very often, I could see what the editor objected to. Sometimes you can fix and resubmit; sometimes you just can’t.
The point is that they accept what they think they can sell, both in quality and content. It seems to me it isn’t a site interested in photography as ‘art’. As a result, some of the pictures I like best have not been accepted. Do I care? Not much. Because, you see, my approach to photography is hit and miss. I take photos of the natural world around me. There’s no point me arguing the toss if they say the photo of the whale emerging right next to the boat isn’t in focus all the way along. I can’t ask it to come back while I set up for greater depth of field. Same with the birds. They’re there, and I take a picture. If I’m lucky – and if you look at the photos which have been accepted, you’ll see it happens – they’re perfect. But most of my pictures – the ones I’d never send to Dreamstime – are flawed. And again, some I really love, such as the picture of a young lorikeet waving its wings was knocked back. Oh well. Landscapes – sure. Then, I frame a view and press the button, taking care the shutter speed, and the F stop is going to do the job for me. If the editors feel the resulting landscape doesn’t stack up against their database – well, I just shrug. And maybe I disagree.
Having said all that, I’m learning as I go. I know more about the gentle art of fiddling with photos – and I’ve learnt it’s best to do as little as possible. So I’ll keep uploading pictures to Dreamstime, if and when I get one that I think may qualify technically. But I’ll still load my ‘inferior’ pictures to Facebook for the edification of my friends and I’ll continue loading a picture a day to the 365 project.
Oh, and in both cases, it’s all about marketing. Nobody’s going to buy my photos if they don’t know they’re there. So if you want a picture of a Brahmani kite, an Osprey, a bee on a callistemon, come and visit. I’d love to see you. And if you’d rather read a book…
A re-imagined fairy tale
Today I’m absolutely delighted to host Sandra Sookoo, who is going to tell us all about her new SF Romance, ‘Fractured’. Love the cover, Sandra. Tell us all about it.
Thanks for having me on your blog today!
Today, I’m talking about my latest release, FRACTURED. It’s a re-imagined fairy tale but it’s set in a futuristic world. Things have changed for Earth a little bit, but some things—like government red tape—remain very much the same.
I came late to sci-fi. In fact, it never really held my interest until a few years ago. When I married my husband nine years ago, I knew he was a complete sci-fi nut, the walking, talking, fan-boy nut. I tried to ignore it or overlook it, thinking it wasn’t for me. Little did I know he was slowly pulling me in with little tidbits. It started with watching Star Trek Voyager. I became enamored of a female starship captain who was tough as nails. Once I had the opportunity to watch Stargate SG-1 I was hooked and knew there was no looking back.
But it wasn’t until I began actually writing in the genre that it ignited in my blood. I didn’t pen my first sci-fi piece until sometime in 2010, and wow, can I just say that writing sci-fi is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s also one of the most rewarding as well. Making up names for people, races, species and ships is only part of the fun.
I’m also a big fan of fairy tales in all forms, so blending one love into another seemed like a no-brainer. In FRACTURED, I used the classic Beauty and the Beast tale as a spring board, but I turned it around and made the female lead be the beast. What’s more, she’s a strong woman who doesn’t mind what she is, and has, in fact, made peace with that. No changing for her.
Here’s the blurb: What happens when beauty is the beast?
Major Rick Keenan has a near-impossible mission: repair his broken shuttle, rescue a missing crew member and get off an almost-dead planet. Angry that the U.S. is discontinuing the space program, he wants to find a discovery that will revise the government’s position. Unfortunately, that discovery might just kill him.
Marin is one of the last of her people. Forced to flee to the planet in her childhood, she’s kept herself hidden away in darkness, safe in a castle-like fortress, only coming out when she needs to feed–from human blood. Convinced she’ll never fit in, she shuns all contact, yet taking Rick hostage as a food source chips away at her perceptions.
Though their differences threaten to tear them apart, their humanity binds them together. In a world where only the strong and determined survive, does a happily ever after stand a chance?
Book video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3hiQHxMW2w&feature=youtu.be
And a short excerpt from the beginning of the book:
“Major, I’m under attack!” Static crackled over the com-link, but didn’t hide the panic in Private Jenkins’ voice. “…requesting back-up!”
Rick Keenan depressed the talk button on his handheld com-link. “Where are you?” He’d made the decision to send the lieutenant out alone. The man had escaped from trickier situations than this before. It shouldn’t have been a problem.
Another long period of static broke the response. “…castle… couldn’t see… Oh, my God!” The static gave way to a man’s terror-filled scream.
Rick’s gut clenched. “Be there as soon as we can. Hold on.” He glanced around the Redemption’s interior. Auxiliary power flooded the cramped space with anemic white light. Hoses hung from a few built-in compartments while the crystal panel gave off intermittent flickers then finally blinked off. We’re so screwed.
“Reigen, what do we need to get this bird back in the air?” Rick barked out the question as he strode to the crystal panel. Down a power source, they’d be sitting ducks to any being—dangerous or otherwise—on the planet.
“Without a whole crystal array replacement, we’re not going anywhere. Power core’s busted, but I think we can get moving, given enough time.” The wiry, red-haired man turned to face him, his long face tight with stress. “Core’s needed for hyperspace; crystals are needed to get airborne. You choose which you want more. I’ll figure out how long we’ll survive without both.”
“No time to argue. Grab your gear. We’re going after Jenkins.” Barely waiting for an acknowledgement, Rick strapped a dagger to his right thigh. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find someone who can help us.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Then we’ll have a fight on our hands.”
All Romance e-books: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-fractured-668700-143.html
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Fractured-ebook/dp/B006V4Y63Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326067754&sr=8-1
Liquid Silver Books: http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=linda018&product_name=Fractured&return_page=&user-id=&password=&exchange=&exact_match=exact
Want to connect with Sandra? Find her here:
Liquid Silver Books: http://www.king-cart.com/cgi-bin/cart.cgi?store=linda018&product_name=Fractured&return_page=&user-id=&password=&exchange=&exact_match=exact
Want to connect with Sandra? Find her here:
Website: http://www.sandrasookoo.com
Believing is Seeing blog: http://sandrasookoo.wordpress.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/sandrasookoo
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sandra.sookoo
Giveaway: One random commenter will receive book swag (bookmarks, postcards, etc). Please leave your contact information. Winner will be drawn January 23rd.
Hogfather the movie. A mixed experience
I’ve finally had a chance to watch ‘Hogfather’ the movie – based on Terry Pratchett’s book. After I’d watched the first episode (the second will be on Saturday) my other half said “I didn’t hear much laughter.” So true. I’ve had some time to think about what I’d seen and how it affected me. I also went back and re-read the book.
I have to say I don’t think the book translated well to the screen. It’s just too complex and it’s actually a rather dark tale. Mister Teatime (pronounced ‘Te-ah-tim-eh’) is an evil nutcase, superbly played, I must say, by Marc Warren in the film. Teatime isn’t somebody like the fearsome Mrs Bucket (Boo-kay). A baby-faced young man whose only outward appearance of madness is his weird eyes, he murders for amusement, kills people for whom he has no further use. Lord Downey, head of the Assassin’s Guild, charges Teatime with the task of inhuming the Hogfather, a commission he has received from the shadowy ‘auditors’.
Sure, there are some genuinely funny parts to the book. Pratchett ‘gets’ kids and the whole sitting on Santa’s knee stuff, and the little ‘s’ which is a shy kid’s ‘yes’. The notion of a real, raw wood Santa sledge drawn by four wild boars replacing the curly sleigh and the pink papier-mâché pigs in the department store’s Santa grotto is hilarious. The kids LOVE the boars, which pee on the floor, generally stink and scare the bejaysus out of management. And the notion of Death, a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe, taking over the Hogfather role is mind-boggling. Only TP could have come up with that. But while there’s plenty of amusing by-play on the sides (the death of rats, the raven, the Cheerful Fairy, the oh-god of hangovers, the wizards, Ponder Stibbons and HEX etc etc at its heart, ‘Hogfather’ is a serious story with an interesting message. You might say it examines the real meaning of … not so much Christmas, but the ceremonies of the winter solstice. The more recent religions have tacked their message onto a primeval fear, that the sun will not return. In fact, that fear is stated – if the Hogfather is not found, the sun will not rise tomorrow.
This isn’t the only deep-seated belief Pratchett uses in this book. The Tooth Fairy looms large in the plot. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but the concept of giving a child money for a tooth may very well stem from the fact that if the wrong people collect the teeth, the child could be in jeopardy. The analogy is to hair and nail clippings, which are used in spells to control people. In fact, the whole book is about fear and belief.
I can quite believe people who had not read the book would find it very difficult to follow the thread of the movie. Even I had to work at it, and I’ve read the book several times. I think perhaps the people who made ‘Going Postal’, the more recent transfer of a Pratchett novel to the screen, learnt a few lessons. ‘Going Postal’ deviates from the book in several ways, simplifying the plot for a TV audience. I can’t help but feel that the resulting screenplay lost rather a lot in translation but it was probably wise.
Which all goes to show why I’d rather read a book. You can uncover so many more layers.
If you’re a writer, nothing is ever wasted
If you’re a writer, nothing you’ve ever done, nothing you’ve ever learnt, or experienced will ever go to waste. I was thinking this profound thought the other day, when considering my latest work-in-progress. It’s a paranormal romance, set in India, Hong Kong and Melbourne and it touches on Indian and Australian history, as well as tiger poaching.
Wow. That’s quite a canvas, isn’t it? But you know the old saying – ‘write what you know’. To which I would add ‘and research the bits you don’t’. So what did I know? Well, I’ve lived in Melbourne, I’ve visited Hong Kong and I studied Indian history for three years as part of my BA(Hons) in history. I wanted to weave in a little of the history of the Afghan cameleers in Australia, so I used the internet for what I wanted to know. To learn more about tigers I watched documentaries by the master, David Attenborough, and went to the net to learn what I needed about tiger poaching.
The Indian part of the story had several layers. This wasn’t a history lesson, it was a novel about an Australian doctor confronted by a very different culture. I had to have enough of an idea of how that would work. My interest in India helped, because I had some basic understanding of how caste works and its impact on workers. But movies like ‘Ghandi’ and ‘A Passage to India’ added some color, as did traveler accounts I encountered on the net. I also had to learn enough about how a broken hip affects the patient and how it’s treated to make that thread convincing. One man who had experienced a broken hip had actually chronicled his recovery. Very useful.
This particular book (working title ‘Shadow of the Tiger’) is contemporary. Most of my other work is science fiction romance. Write what you know? How does that work?
Let’s take ‘Morgan’s Choice’. You’ll find a society which quite possibly derives from the Indian caste system. I wonder where I got that from? The main character, Morgan, is human but she has a supercomputer in her brain. This isn’t new; the concept is in other books. I’d suggest the difference with Morgan is I emphasise her humanity more than her data skills. Be that as it may, I worked for many years in the computer industry, first as a programmer and later as an analyst and team leader. So I felt I had a good chance of making Morgan’s activities in the cyber world convincing.
In my other two books, the ‘Iron Admiral’ series, I introduced an alien species called the ptorix. They’re not just a nightmare I dreamed up one night. I’ve had an abiding interest in nature and animals, as well as astronomy and cosmology, for many, many years and my alien species was well thought out, with characteristics you would expect in a technologically advanced society.
That history background has been useful many times over. Who said a BA isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on? The plot in ‘The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy’ is loosely based on a real, historical incident when Hitler’s secret police, dressed as Poles, staged an attack on a German radio station near the Polish border to give the Fuhrer an excuse to start what became World War 2.
See what I mean? Nothing is ever wasted.
Oh – one more thing; Sally Carter, MC of ‘Shadow of the Tiger’, is a very keen amateur photographer. Gosh, what a coincidence. 
Do ‘autocritters’ help?
I’m on the final hurdle of the editing marathon for my latest novel, “Starheart”, the copy edit. I’m not a great adherent of the “Rules of Writing” as I’m sure some of you know. But on a whim I decided to test my MS against an ‘autocritter’. They come under various names and are easy enough to find. Software which sucks in your manuscript, breaks out every word, and comes back with a list of how many times you used what.
The software I used is available at Savvy Authors, an energetic and helpful web-based writers’ site. Basic membership is free for those interested. Anyway, this package prepares a report after it has done its thing. The user is told that “All percentages are based upon industry averages for mass market fiction.”
These are my initial results for Starheart
The software also listed the number of times every word occurred, but I haven’t shown those results. This table is worth considering because it purports to give a comparison against ‘industry standards’. So what does it tell me?
I don’t use exclamation marks (yay me!) and I’m okay on a few others, according to whoever came up with the recommended maxima. But overall, I guess you’d have to call it a fail. 
Let’s see, now.
All
I overused ‘all’. I checked by using ‘find’ to read each one in context. And yes, I agree I had many instances of ‘nothing’ expressions such as ‘after all’ and ‘at all’.
As
I was astounded at how many times I’d used the ‘as…as’ construction, such as ‘as fast as’, ‘as soon as’ and so on. I managed to replace quite a few of those with words like ‘immediately’. But here we hit a problem. If I use ‘immediately’, I introduce an adverb, something this software does not detect and which (according to the Rules of Writing) should be used sparingly (sic). I found that quite often, ‘as’ occured in a construction such as ‘“where are we going?” she asked as they walked down the corridor.’ Now, I could replace that fragment with ‘Walking down the corridor, she asked, “where are we going?”’ Having been guilty of overusing ‘…ing’ words in the past, I’m careful with them. Besides, to me the meaning isn’t quite the same.
Could
I suspect the main reason for the objection to ‘could’ is that it is often used in constructions like ‘could see’ when one is in a character’s POV, for instance, ‘in the distance she could see a train’. It’s not needed. Just tell the reader what the character saw. ‘A train meandered through the valley far below.’ But ‘could’ is a perfectly legitimate word in many other cases. For instance ‘Even her security couldn’t beat one of those.’
Just/then
These can often be ‘nothing’ words. Eg ‘Let’s go, then’. ‘I don’t want to air the whole ship up just for a quick visit.’ I did go through and eliminate many instances of these two words.
Key/major/meaningful/important/significant
I can never use those words? Never? Oh, bummer. I have keys to locks, keypads. Jess only wants calls directed if they’re important. ‘He didn’t think it important, but Longford clearly did.’ I think I’ll ignore that one.
So/very/really
I was fascinated to read that the count for ‘so/very/really’ was zero. Certainly I checked for ‘very’ and often I could eliminate the word. But I did not remove it from dialogue, because that’s how people talk. And ‘so’? The word is not always used in the context of ‘so fast’, or ‘so slow’, it can be in context such as ‘So that’s what you meant?’ Why would you eliminate the word there?
The word ‘really’ isn’t always used as a nothing adverb, as in ‘really quickly’. Take this example; “So you believe what she’s saying? Really?”
Knew/know/think/thought
The implication here is that these words are unnecessary if you’re in a character’s POV. For example, ‘What the hell am I doing here, she thought.’ This is true and I take care not to use such constructions. However, I do use lines like this. “By the way, I thought the strip search was foolishness. But it’s not my command.” It’s in dialogue. Another example – ‘it would be interesting to find out what everybody else thought.’
See/saw/look
Here again, I suspect this is mainly aimed at cases where the narrator intrudes, as in ‘she could see the train in the distance’. But what about “See what you can find out.” Or ‘ Nothing to see.’ And dare I say, ‘saw’ might just be a crosscut saw (though not in this story).
Taste/smell
I passed this one with flying colours. Here again, I think it’s about POV, the ‘could smell’ or ‘could taste’ construction. ‘She could smell something rotten.’ So much better to write ‘the stench of decay invaded her nostrils’.
That
It’s always wise to check for ‘that’. It can be used as a ‘nothing’ word as in ‘so that‘. The word isn’t needed in this context. You might also be able to appease the software by replacing that with which.
There/it
My favourites in this category are ‘there was/were’. You can almost always find a better way of expressing this. For example ‘There were thirty levels on this thing.’ ‘This thing had thirty levels.’ Well worth a check.
Was/were/am/is/are/be/had/has
I seem to have overused these rather a lot. I’ll read through the MS and see what I think as I go. Again, I suspect this is a warning about POV and of using passive language. Why say ‘was walking’ when you can say ‘walked’? But while I’m checking, I’ll bear in mind that passive voice is perfectly legitimate in some circumstances, it’s preferable since it slows the action. And then there’s dialogue. It’s how people talk.
So there you have it. Is this type of software worthwhile? Yes it is. Anything that makes a writer think about his/her MS in a different way is useful. However, it is just one snapshot, a two-dimensional view of a complex object. I feel if you take these ‘rules’ too far, you’ll lose your own, distinctive voice. So take what is of value to you, and ignore the rest. I’m re-reading Terry Pratchett’s ‘Going Postal’ at the moment. It occurred to me, as I read, this award-winning, hugely popular author would fail the Autocritter, every time.
What about you? Do you use these tools? Do you find them helpful? I’d love to know.
And a parrot on a pool fence…
Everybody else seems to be doing Christmas posts so I suppose I should, too. This year, it’ll be a party of three munching barbecued prawns around our swimming pool. As you might have guessed, I’m of the ‘bah humbug’ persuasion. No tree, no presents and no huge Christmas spread. It’s all become too commercialised for my taste and we don’t have young grandchildren who still believe in a sleigh drawn by six white boomers. The Christmas fare appears in the supermarkets before November is over and in December the decorations appear, along with the schmalzy Christmas carols, all accompanied by the happy ping of barcode readers.
If you believe that Jesus was born to save the world on December 25th, that’s up to you. Me, I’m thinking that the Christmas tradition is more and more returning to its origins. This wonderful post about the origins of the Christmas traditions puts it very well. Certainly in the Northern hemisphere it’s all about mid-winter and the return of the sun. Another of my writer friends has expressed these feelings here.
Christmas in these happier times when we don’t have to fear the winter is all about sharing with family and friends, sometimes the only time in the year you’re forced to do so. So that’s fine by me. I used to make Christmas cards to send to people, using my photographs and Photoshop. We felt it meant a little more than the bought cards. This year, we decided to send the cards as emails. The money we saved (and a bit more) we donated to the Salvation Army. Because even here in the ‘Lucky Country’ there are people doing without.
So to those of you who read my blog, here’s my Christmas card to you.
Oh, and if you’re looking for a last minute gift, you’ll find my books at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, Omnilit and iTunes. Or have a look at my books page.
Is a ‘Star Wars’ type galaxy starting to look likely?
Remember that scene in ‘Star Wars: A New Hope‘ when Luke and Obi Wan go into the Mos Eisley cantina? The place was full of aliens. Leaning on the bar, arguing, drinking various foaming substances and playing cool, swing music. If you’ve any sort of interest in science, you’d be like me and go directly into ‘go along for the ride’ mode. It just isn’t probable.
But wait a minute. Just the other day we were told that our very own Milky Way could contain up to 2 billion (yes, billion with a ‘b’) ‘earthlike planets’. Gosh. Two billion planets that could potentially support life like us. http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/12/the-milky-ways-two-billion-earthlike-planets-an-update.html
Wait a moment, though. What does ‘earthlike’ mean in this context? The report comes from Kepler’s search for planets orbiting planets like our sun and in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone. Which means the planet is ‘not too hot for liquid water and not too cold’. Kepler can’t actually see any of these planets, their presence is surmised from periodic dimming of the sun’s light as something passes in front of it and from slight perturbations in the sun’s orbit. But scientists can calculate the likely size of the body. For instance, Kepler 22-B is estimated at 2.4 times the size of Earth.
But there’s much more to life on Earth than liquid water and reasonable temperature. The article goes on to quote from “Rare Earth”, a book by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, which discusses in detail what would be needed to define a planet as an ‘earth analog’. Some of the things they list don’t readily spring to mind, such as a giant like Jupiter acting as a mine sweeper to reduce the amount of debris penetrating to habitable zones to pose a threat to life. We also need that molten metal core inside the Earth to generate a magnetic field which protects us from harmful cosmic rays. Then we need a breathable atmosphere, a year length not too much different from our own, and gravity at least 80% of our own. (Less than that and the planet wouldn’t hold atmosphere) I don’t think I’d like to live on a planet 2.4 times the size of Earth. It would be pretty hard to move around.
We just don’t know enough about any of these planets to know if they’re really ‘earthlike’. The point is made that both Venus and Earth are in the habitable zone around our sun and they are much the same size. But we won’t be setting up a colony on Venus any time soon.
Yes, but that’s humans. Getting back to the cantina scene, we are presented with a number of alien species, all presumably capable of space flight. So what about other life forms on these earthlike planets? Sure, that’s possible – but then we come up against the famous Drake equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation), which considers variables such as technology and the life of civilisations.
Mind you, Kepler’s discoveries are a breakthrough from the time not too many decades ago (maybe only two) when scientists could do no better than to say that our sun was nothing special so other stars would quite probably have planets. The Drake equation dates back to those times. This is such an exciting time to be interested in the universe. I keep getting this feeling that space travel as written in science fiction might not be all that far away. Soon, it seems, we’ll have places to visit, too.
I’m not too sure I’ll be running auditions for a new cantina scene, though.
Why is ‘The King’s Speech’ a good movie?
I’ve just watched the movie ‘The King’s Speech’ and thoroughly enjoyed it. For me to enjoy a movie is in itself a rare and wonderful thing. I don’t as a rule watch movies and my taste is limited. I loved the original ‘Star Wars’ films and the LOTR films. And ‘Bambi’. So now, days later, I’ve begun to wonder why I enjoyed ‘The King’s Speech’ so much. And I think we, as writers, could learn from the answers.
In essence this is an exceedingly simple tale. The man who will be king has a speech impediment. When the story starts, he is a young prince whose stammer leads to public humiliation as his failure on the wireless is broadcast to millions. Then he meets a man who fixes him. In the end he delivers an important speech to the world and does so effectively.
This is a story set in the 1930′s, when the British Empire was still a powerful entity and when Adolf Hitler was a rising threat in Germany. George V was still on the throne, his oldest son, David (who would become Edward VIII) was next in line and Bertie, the stutterer, was the Duke of York. Then David has his fateful love affair with Wallis Simpson, almost bringing down the Monarchy, a stalemate finally ended when he abdicates. The movie includes cameo appearances from Winston Churchill, Alec Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, all pivotal players in the inevitable spiral into war in 1939. But all of this is just scenery, backdrops to the main play which is the relationship between two men who could hardly be more different. The prince, born into royalty and Lionel Logue, the self-taught Australian speech therapist who refuses to call his client anything but Bertie.
So much of this movie is simply conversations between two men as Lionel breaks down Bertie’s barriers to discover the reason why he stutters, revealing a tyrannical father, abuse by a nanny, over-expectations. All of this has resulted in feelings of total inadequacy, which Bertie must confront as the horrifying possibility of him having to be king edge toward probability.
There is conflict between Logue and Bertie, of course. But also between Bertie and his brother and his father. Bertie’s wife, Elizabeth, is unfailingly supportive and we are given a glimpse into the relationship between Bertie and his two daughters – one of whom is now Queen Elizabeth.
Why does this movie work? There are no gruesome deaths, no car chases, no violence of any sort. Nobody steals anything. The background facts are well known. There is no suspense, no horror; just a man with a speech impediment and a man who treats him.
The screenwriters have created conflict in a number of ways, the most important being the differences between the two men, one a Royal Prince, the other an Aussie larrikin. To start with we are shown Bertie’s excruciating first radio speech, then Bertie’s initial reluctance to play by Lionel’s rules in his home (‘my castle, my rules’). But the screen writers have, I suspect, bent the truth just a little to increase the tension. For instance, in the movie Bertie learns at his rehearsal for the coronation in Westminster Abbey that Lionel has no formal qualifications, that despite his Harley Street address, he is no doctor. I find that a little bit hard to believe, but it adds to the tension. In similar vein, there are several countdowns to Bertie having to make a speech and we’re along for the ride. In the end, when Bertie delivers his ‘we are at war with Germany’ speech, the audience inevitably remembers that first speech which he completely mangled. And so, indeed, does he. After a slow start, Bertie delivers. One of the great things about this movie is he is not miraculously cured. Lionel enables him to function, but he hasn’t waved a magic wand. So for writers, use conflict, contrive conflict even if it is conflict within an individual and you can have a gripping story.
Of course, the acting is just terrific. Colin Firth does a wonderful job of showing Bertie’s shyness, his lack of confidence and his desperate attempts to overcome these characteristics as a Royal Prince. I cannot imagine how hard it must be for an actor to convey a man with a stammer – for me it was absolutely convincing. And Geoffrey Rush is great as Lionel Logue.
One other little tip for us writers – the way detail was sprinkled in. The wonderful scene where a man leads a car containing the Duchess of York up Harley Street through a London fog, Bertie storming off through a park with a horseman riding the other way, glimpses of Lionel’s family – most especially his intelligent oldest son who drives the car to take his father to meet Bertie before the final speech. That boy would be caught up in the coming war. And the scenes of Bertie with his daughters, the dying king, David and Mrs Wallis.
Just a simple little movie about two blokes talking to each other. Wow.
Is writing a bit like prospecting for gold?
You know, there’s a lot of similarities between the business of writing books and prospecting for gold. Think about it. There you are in London trying to scrape a living doing something or other and you hear the news they’ve discovered gold in Australia. A place called Ballarat, quite near Melbourne (wherever that is). It’s 1851, life’s hard, cold and grim in England. Why not go off on the Big Adventure? Somewhere new and warm. Sure, it’s a long way but you’ll only be away for a year or so. They say you can pick up nuggets as big as your fist, just lying there for the taking. A few weeks and you’ll come home a millionaire.
But it isn’t like that. You join the other thousands intent on the same purpose, enduring bad food, harsh weather, unsanitary conditions. Sure, a few people make it big and find a large nugget. But most of the people who make it big are the people who supply the miners with everything. Food, safe drinks like lemonade, mining equipment, sex.
For us poor writers the conditions may be a little better, we’re not at risk of a cave-in or typhoid (I’m not, anyway – don’t know about you). But I’ve paid an awful lot of money to attend courses, join writing groups, buy ‘how-to’ books. I’ve sold a few books – panned some gold dust from the river, you might say – but I haven’t found that nugget yet.
I hasten to add I never expected to earn a mint from this (nice to have but not a requirement). I enjoy the courses. I tend to treat writing as a hobby and (generally speaking) it’s fun. I reckon if I wanted to make money out of this, I’d be offering a service to writers.
What do you think?
