Publish and Be Damned

Quote of the Day

2010-01-14T16:52:00.002-05:00

"A book is not supposed to be a mirror. A book is supposed to be a door."

--Fran Lebowitz

Distinction Without Difference

2010-01-08T15:43:00.003-05:00

Recent phone call:

Caller: "HP, are you depressed? You sound depressed."

Me: "No, I'm not depressed . . . . I'm writing."

Monsters We Love

2009-12-16T15:52:00.007-05:00

Your deep thought for the day, from one of the great monster movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon:

"It is impossible. But I, Lucas, will do it."

Allrighty then! You, Lucas, should go for it.

It's the lipstick that really makes this picture work, no?

How do y'all like me now??

you and your pussycat claws

2009-12-06T18:33:00.005-05:00

So I'm writing about crawfish right now. Not just any crawfish but undead crawfish. Definitely stay tuned for that one.

But anyway I happened to come across possibly the greatest crawfish picture ever. Not this, although it's good in an everybody-was-kung-fu-fighting kind of way.

No, the greatest crawfish picture ever is surely this.

What I really wonder is what the cat in the back is thinking. He looks embarrassed, like, "OMIGOD, there he goes again . . . ."

(Photo courtesy of a quite interesting article on crawfish poaching. Not crawfish poaching by cats, alas.)

Quote of the Day

2009-11-19T20:24:00.002-05:00

"Unintentionally screwing up is what storytelling’s all about."

--Victorian Mixon

Zed's Dead

2009-11-13T17:15:00.012-05:00

So I’ve got zombies on my masthead, I’ve got one zombie post up already and a few more in the pipeline . . . what’s so great about these beasties (“zed’s” as the Brits call them). Well, thanks for asking. I have some notions.

1) Zombies are the people’s monster.

Contemporary vampires are pretty damn glamorous. Be they tanned sexy (George Hamilton), broody sexy (Angel), punky sexy (Spike), goth sexy (Brad Pitt), Studio-54-ish-ly sexy (Catherine Denueve and David Bowie), or just plain horny (First Blood) . . . . They are the popular kids--the kings and queens of the Undead Prom.

Let’s face facts: Modern vamps are everything you are not--buff, well-dressed, self-confident, quip-tastic, and laid frequently.

Vampires are the ones who get waved through the rope line and straight into the VIP section of the club. Zombies don’t even get near the doorman, and if they do, they eat him.

Werewolves are not quite as sexxxy as vamps but they do have that sort of primal hellbeast thing going for them. And even if you don’t thrill to the idea of running naked through the woods and chasing down your dinner, if you’re a werewolf you only have to work one night a month. How bad is that?

Zombies get no days off. They look like hell and they smell worse; nobody wants to be hangin with the Zeds. They shamble ever-forward whether they like it or not (my suspicion is they don’t). No cool clothes, no hot chicks, no sassy comeback lines, and absolutely no rest for the weary. Even when they go to the mall, they can’t buy anything.

Any of that sound familiar? Zombies are the poster-beasts of the economic downturn.

2. Zombies are color-blind; they are people-blind, period.

There is a long-standing cliche in horror films that anytime you see a person of color, s/he is not only doomed but indeed will be the first to go down. This trope is so universally acknowledged that sarcastic movies like Scream even mock it.

And if you aren’t the wrong color in horror movies, then you’re wrong in some other way. Sluts are punished for their naughty ways, jocks are punished for their physical superiority. This one’s greedy, that one’s stupid, those people over there are snobs: die, die, die. The movie 7even rendered this concept agonizingly literal, but the monster-as-punisher meme dates back to Psycho and even earlier, all the way back to the original horror stories of the US colonial period.

Zombies don’t grok any of this Puritanical bullshit. They “punish” their victims for one reason and one reason only: their perfect victim is the one who is closest.

3. Zombies know their Thomas Hobbes.

Like all puppetmasters, horror writers and filmmakers like to create universes that make sense. If a monster gets you, it’s because you did something wrong, or you just are wrong on some fundamental level. It’s a comfort to the audience because we know we certainly would never make those mistakes.

Magical thinking isn’t limited to horror, of course. I've recently had it explained to me that the reason kids are dying of H1N1 is because their parents don’t know how to properly care for the flu. Yeah, and if only the cheerleader hadn’t had unprotected sex with the quarterback, Freddie Krueger wouldn’t have sliced her to ribbons.

In Leviathan (1661), Thomas Hobbes described "the life of man" as being "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Zombies are scary precisely because they teach us that magical thinking means nothing; because they know life is brutish and short, and if you get too close, they'll demonstrate as much.

Why did you get cancer? Why did that drunk guy run a red light and smash into your car? Why did you get bitten by a zombie?

Because. That’s why. Just because.

Damn scary, indeed.

A Writer's Companion

2009-11-11T13:21:00.004-05:00

Thoughts on the writer's greatest frenemy. If you don't know why this relates to writing, you've never tried to write anything. It took me two days to get around to posting this.

Death Becomes Her: Zombie Favorites 1

2009-11-09T10:57:00.020-05:00

I promised this blog would not just talk about writing but also monsters. Where are my monsters, I know you're both wondering. I hear your cries, and am here to provide succor to your aching monster heart(s). Let's start with zombies, since I'm told they are the new vampires. As long as they don't sparkle, it's all good.

Talking about all my favorite zombie and pseudo-zombie films would be an endless post, so I’ll dip my toe in with my absolute favorites in the Pure Zombie Genre. (Fair warning: not much about these links are family friendly.)

1. Night of the Living Dead (1968) / (1990)

I’ll save the pros and cons of original versus remake for another post. I suppose ultimately you have to put the original on top, because it’s The One That Started It All. I saw it again over Halloween and was struck by the quality of Duane Jones's performance as the original Ben. And the climactic final scene where the ghouls take over the house is just extraordinary; these days, filmmakers spend a LOT more money to scare me a LOT less.

Also, it has one of the best B-movie trailers ever made. I'd like to get the narrator to announce me whenever I step into my office. See for your own self:

The underrated remake, written by Romero but directed by Tom "Monster Guy" Savini has a great deal to recommend it, too. And no, I don't just mean the feminist heroine’s kicky haircut.

But more on 1968 vs 1990 another day. Suffice it to say that the story that started it all remains, b/w or color, damn scary.

2. Shaun of the Dead

A parody that manages to become and even surpass the thing it set out to parody. Shaun is by turns hilarious (the infamous record-tossing scene) and scary (the death of obnoxious David) and sad (Shaun’s mom). Most films would be lucky to achieve one of those qualities, but Shaun has them all.

Every zombie fan has a different favorite Shaun scene, and they are all, in my opinion, completely right. However I'm going to highlight a scene that doesn't get discussed much, which is the initial zombie outbreak early in the film. Angry with his weird step-father, in trouble with his girlfriend, hating his job, and arguing with one of his flatmates, the title character is so consumed by his own misery that he is blind to the coming Zombie Apocalypse. At one point, he trudges to the nearby deli, totally out of it and unaware of the many worrying signs creeping into the edges of the frame.

Which poses the question, “is it possible to be so hungover that the world could end and you wouldn’t notice?”

Yes, Shaun. Yes, it is.

3. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Strays far enough from the original that I think it’s fair to treat this one separately from the George Romero version. This film has an original vision and a great cast. Sarah Polley is exactly the vulnerable-but-capable heroine that 21st century horror gals like myself can identify with; Matt Frewer breaks my damn heart every time; and Ving Rhames just rules the world, period. (The only really duff note, to me, is the "playboy" character; come on, no way that dude is straight... Why avoid this issue? Let the character be gay if he wants--I mean, why the hell not? Come out, come out, fake-playboy-guy... closets are for monsters!)

But anyway, Rhames’s friendship with the gunshop guy in the neighboring building is pure win, as are the sequences where the group in the mall finds that even the apocalypse has the occasional bright side. (Great song, too--a lounge version of “Down with the Sickness.”) The characters’ looney escape plan goes wrong in all the right ways, and I still can’t watch the sequence in the van involving an out-of-control chainsaw.

I like this film so much, I’ll even overlook the fact that the zombies run in it. Again, probably a topic best saved for another post. Zombies running is just . . . people, please. No. In the immortal words of Simon Pegg, “Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.”

Amen, brother.

Bad Advice II: Cake or Death

2009-11-07T20:08:00.007-05:00

Okay, latest installment for my fellow aspiring novelists: do like Eddie does.

By Eddie of course I mean Eddie Izzard, one of the 21st century's great stand-up comics. One of his favorite little techniques is to drop in a joke early in the set and then come back around to the same joke later in a different context. Now, plenty of other comics use this technique also, but few do it as effectively (or, let’s be frank) as often as the great Eddie.

So, for instance, he’ll do an impression of God, who, as he’ll say, “talks like James Mason in this version.” Then later on, he’ll return to God, who “as we know still sounds like James Mason.” And for his trouble he’ll get not just a laugh but a laugh squared--first because it’s just funny that God talks like James Mason, but secondly and more importantly, because he’s created an “in joke” with his audience. Again, this is not new to stand-up in any sense, but Eddie really knows how to pick his moments, and so should you.

As a novelist, you’re introducing your readers to a particular world. That’s why you need to be very careful at the beginning--your readers are strangers to this world: they don’t know the geography, and they don’t know the rules. As the storyteller, you are a de facto tour guide, showing the johnny-come-lately's around their new hometown.

By the second half of the novel, your readers have by definition invested a certain measure of their lives in your world. See if you can find an appropriate moment to reference something from earlier in the novel--a minor character, a setting, a particular symbol or turn of phrase, whatever. It says to your readers, "Look, you live here now. You know where the good sandwiches are, and you know about that guy who did that thing . . . "

I hope it goes without saying that it can’t just be any random thing--comedy is a question of timing and you need to pick your moment well. If it’s just a backwards reference for the sake of itself, it’s going to come off as a cheap gimmick. The reference needs to have a point in the moment: it needs to serve some current need on page 134, while also referring back to page 28.

But if done well, it creates a moment of understanding--that “nod of the head” moment all writers live for. The more you do it, and the more you create meaningful (i.e., not merely cute) connections between the beginning and the end, the more meaningful the whole experience of the novel will be. And you not only communicate meaning but you also give your readers a tiny gift of thanks. “See?” you’re saying, “it was all worth it. Thanks for sticking with me.”

And as thanks for sticking with me, here’s some vintage Eddie. (Indeed, this small clip contains two references to earlier parts of the show--the "tastes like human" part and "thank you for flying Church of England.")

Quote of the Day

2009-11-05T09:50:00.004-05:00

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

--Joseph Campbell

Bad Advice I: Who's Got My Key?

2009-11-03T15:40:00.013-05:00

We coulda told that skinny brat how to get home any goddamned time! But did she ask? No! Dames like her never ask!

Last post I brazenly picked up a cudgel against writing tutors with far more experience than myself. So it only seems fair that I should stick my own neck out and offer some writing advice, too.

Here goes: stay friends with your minor characters. They just might save your ass.

Many times now, too often to be considered a fluke, I’ve gotten stuck on something in my novel only to realize that what I thought was a totally minor character--just someone I tossed in to be a clever little sod--is in fact holding the key that unlocks my problem. Apparently I slipped it to him without realizing? (Or he's a thief--also possible, given the sorts of people I most enjoy writing about.)

One character suggested a level of meaning I hadn’t noticed before, another offered a way to foreground my main theme without being totally ham-fisted. (The latter had to die to do it, so we're talking serious generosity!) Another suggested a way to kick off the entire story that I hadn't seen before. (He also told me he was from Teaneck. No, I don't know why, but that's what he said and who am I to argue?)

Like wallflowers at a high school formal, your minor characters are lurking just beyond the sightlines, watching the main action unfold. They might know more about the story than you think--indeed, they might know more about it than you do. Next time you get stuck, go talk to them. It could be they’re just looking for someone to dance with.*

*Jeez, how'd Michael Penn get in there? Apologies. But hey, at least we're all humming the same tune now, right? Right? Sigh. Seriously, though. Sorry.

Not All Writing Advice is Good Advice

2009-10-29T18:39:00.012-04:00

Not all writing advice is good advice. Or rather, not all writing advice is any good for you. Take for example this advice on writing dialog from guru Victoria Mixon:

Leave out most of the words. No kidding. Leave out oh, well, yes, no, um, uh (definitely these last two).

Oh.

Well, uh.

Yeah, okay. I get where she's going with that. Drama is--to quote Hitchcock--life with the boring bits left out. And there's no question that meaning-free words people use as filler should head straight for the deleted items folder. Like, uh, yeah, you know?

But sometimes, "uh" is actually what a character needs to say. Sometimes it's all she has to say. After all, not every character is articulate. Sometimes the fact of her inarticulate-ness is the whole point. Isn't the goal, as Mixon herself argues later in that post, to write the way real people talk?

"Um," "ah," and the like are known as filled pauses for a reason. Sometimes those pauses are filled with things that are quite important.

Perhaps it's my playwriting background talking . . . too much Mamet, perhaps? If Mixon had edited the Pulitzer-winning Glengarry Glen Ross, the whole play would have lasted about 20 minutes.

I don't mean to pick on Mixon specifically. I am a subscriber to her online magazine, Pulp Rag, and she has some real chops. I find her enthusiasm for fiction positively infectious. But I also think that declarations from Olympus about thou shalt not employ filled pauses miss the "creative" part in the phrase "creative writing."

Another famously guilty guru is screenwriting god Syd Field, who is notorious for coming out with stuff along the lines of, "The character's primary obstacle should be introduced on page 12." Not 11, not 13, but 12. I mean, the jokes write themselves. No wonder Faulkner hated Hollywood.

Now, before you write in. Is Syd Field an expert? Yes, of course--he's Syd Field and I'm not. But just as important: not even the experts know everything. Advice is great. But ultimately the goal is to find your voice, not someone else's.

So, about that dialog advice. Uh . . . yes. But also? No.