Entertainment weekend

Old What’s Her Face and I went to the new Star Wars movie yesterday. It’s too early in the game to include spoilers, so I won’t break it down. Suffice it to say we had a great time, and enjoyed the story.

It went places I never expected, had a bit of a plot foible, along with one that involves gravity and atmosphere in space. Nothing unusual for commercial science-fantasy. It also didn’t include some of what I wanted to see. (Rose Tico) I’m fine with that, because I didn’t write it. I was there to be entertained, and I was. It was hard to avoid all the fanboy stuff ahead of time, so I knew a few things before I walked in.

I feel for Disney in a way. They have to take a gigantic franchise, and if it’s to continue, live with what’s come before. They have to dispose of the original characters before they can get people invested in new ones. I think they did a reasonable job of this, and don’t envy them their task. I enjoyed the film, and will watch it again when it comes to cable or Disney+ eventually.

We also checked out The Witcher on Netflix. Everyone is touting this as the new Game of Thrones — it isn’t. It isn’t bad, but it’s no GOT either. We watched a few episodes last night, and the plot still isn’t firmly established. It looks like there are three characters we’re supposed to be following, but we don’t have any kind of goal established.

It’s pretty cool visually, and the action scenes are outstanding. The timeline is maddening, because the last one we watched involved a bunch of people who were killed in the first episode now suddenly back to life. That’s only in the Witcher’s timeline, the other two characters appeared to be in the current timeline. I don’t get it, and whatever they were trying to get across isn’t explained well enough.

We’re going to keep watching it, and I suppose that places it in the plus column. The Superman dude still can’t act, but he may have found a part that doesn’t require too much of him. Gerralt, the Witcher, mostly grunts, nods, and fights. Might work for one season.

In other news, the free days for The Playground are down to free hours. With your sharing, I moved a ton of copies. Maybe it will bring some new eyes to my work. If you didn’t get a copy, and still want one, chop-chop. Here is the link http://a-fwd.com/asin=B01D6EF6RI

We made it into single digits at one point. I think that’s pretty fantastic, and might consider another free push in the future. Now that I’m writing series, I can see some merit in doing a push for the first volume after a few more exist.

Hope you’re all having a great weekend. Mine appears to be all about cinematic drama, so there is no writing going on. If I’m feeling ambitious, I have some critiques I can address to make sure Lanternfish stays on course.

Hard to pass up a good soapbox

This is a topic I’ve addressed before, but it’s timely once again. I’ll try to do it without spoilers, but it’s pretty rare air way up atop this box.

I may have addressed this on Story Empire, and it might have made a good topic over there. I don’t get a turn in the rotation for a while, so you get it here.

Regular readers will remember my post about fandoms who think they have the right to dictate the plots and character arcs in popular stories. At that time, it was all about Harry Potter. People crawled out of the woodwork to petition Rowling for what they wanted to see happen.

You might remember the campaigning, Harry + Hermione, Harry + Ron, how Voldemort would get his, Snape’s story arc, etc.

The Walking Dead got a bunch of this too.

Now we’re down to Game of Thrones. I’m irritated how everything went down, and I’m about to tell you why… without spoilers.

Readers/viewers are part of a compact. A story cannot be successful without them. An author can entertain himself to no end without any readers at all. However; when that story goes out for public consumption we strike a bargain with our readers.

We promise to deliver certain things, and a satisfactory ending is part of that. Some of the other things are genre specific, but can you imagine a murder mystery with no murder, with no mystery? A horror story without anything horrifying?

This doesn’t mean you have to have a “happily ever after” kind of ending either. There are plenty of super-famous tragedies out there.

Okay, now I’ve set the stage. While I’m pissed off over what they’re doing with Game of Thrones, I don’t believe I have any right to dictate or even suggest how the story will wrap up.

Right now there is a petition circulating to force HBO to rewrite, refilm, and air an alternate ending. This whole concept is absurd. Even if people get all the signatures they are seeking, HBO has no duty to honor the petition. This applies to the writers, directors, actors, etc.

This story belongs to the writers to screw up or wrap up as they see fit. My right is to like it or not. I have no right to dictate how it will wrap up, demand a happy ending, or a fan favorite hookup.

When people like my stories, some of them leave a positive review. On the rare occasion they are dissatisfied, they can leave a negative review. Viewers of GOT have the same rights. No more.

I’ll be there Sunday to see how it goes. I’ve invested eight years in this story, so I’m going to finish it. Then I’ll either like it… or not.

My short weekend

I only get a two day weekend on the rotation. My wife is off too, so it doesn’t make for much of a writing weekend. Normally, it isn’t even worth trying.

Tomorrow is when I call my parents, so I lose an hour in the morning there.

I really wanted to reach a part in Serang, so I dabbled this morning among all the noise. This isn’t the same as quality writing time, but it did add words.

It only came to about 800 words, but I got to and through that folk legend I’ve been planning. I like the way it turned out, and Serang is working on completing her quest.

I’m happiest with a callback to her childhood that brought a bit of emotion to the scene. Early reports are that it worked.

This is the start of Serang’s quest. It involves a bit of mining while dealing with the local wildlife. It’s going to take a few words (and locations) to bring it full circle.

It wasn’t productive, but it was successful. Forward progress counts even a few hundred words at a time.

Because I already had some words, this allowed me to send about 6000 words to my critique group. I already have the majority of them back. I seem to keep making the same errors over, and over again. Maybe we all do that, but I’d like to think I’m improving in some small way.

I’ll probably try to address the critiques after talking to my parents tomorrow. They’re coming for a visit next weekend, and I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t seen them in a while. It will be fun, but takes the place of any writing progress.

The rest of the weekend will involve a whole lot of Game of Thrones.

And now for something completely different

Yeah, I’m still at home and in pain. My keyboard and mind still function. Well… my mind functions at its normal level, never said it was great.

I’m about ready to fill a hot water bottle with a big Tom & Jerry. It can medicate in multiple ways.

If I were in charge, and I should be, I would add one thing to the end of Game of Thrones. I was exchanging comments with Charles Yallowitz early this morning and this came to me.

After the last episode aired, I would require all the dead characters to return in full costume. I’d make them all into a chorus, and I’d even hire Eric Idle to direct them. Then they’d all sing this song:

Of course, we’d have to change one line somewhere to accommodate Hodor. Maybe Eric Idle can help here.

I swear to God, it would be an internet sensation. Think of the video you could make. A little girl burning at the stake singing along, one several being eaten by dogs, seas full of drowning sailors. It would be awesome. Just think of old man Lanister sitting on the toilet, full of arrows and whistling.

It could work for The Walking Dead too, but not quite as well in my mind.

I had an email exchange this morning with one of my favorite authors. We’re putting together an upcoming Lisa Burton interview, and there is no word to describe a sigh. Think about the “radio” format. If someone sighed you would hear it. I don’t want to break the format to tell listeners a guest character sighed, so what would it sound like?

Think about it. We have “words” for: tch, hmmm, ahhh, oooh, mmhmm, even hmph. We need a word for a sigh.

She suggested perhaps there is an Onomatopoeia Control Board we can petition. Authors need a word for a sigh.

My wife has been watching The Hallmark Channel. I’m a captive audience, I can’t exactly run screaming from the room currently. I have to prop myself against the back wall just to go pee right now.

Everyone of these stories is the same damned story. Life-changing boyfriend with a mansion and a helicopter gets dumped in favor of a small town bumpkin with a broke-assed dairy, because love. I know dairy farmers, and there isn’t a lot to look forward to. Oh, and the actors are all exceptionally pretty, even the men. Aside from the actresses, their characters are always adorable. This time of year there is the added requirement of Christmas being involved. Bumpkin shows her the true meaning of Christmas, that kind of thing.

What kills me here is people eat this crap up. I should rip off about a hundred or so of these and retire. They teach us not to have Mary Sue characters, but there they are in abundance. I’d probably blow it by creating unique characters that don’t fill the recipe out right. Grouchy old bastard with emphysema reconciles with ex-wife who once shot him through the liver. Expect scenes of making a noose out of red & green ribbon and suggestions of where to stick those baubles.

Okay, enough of my nonsense. Pass me the hot water bottle and always look on the bright side of life.

Small successes

I did some work on the Lisa Burton interviews this afternoon. I should have done more, but it's a step in the right direction.

It's kind of important to note that I have a life outside writing too. This weekend we had our date night, and the other night we watched a movie at home. I also call my parents every Sunday, regardless of what might be going on.

Then, of course, there was Game of Thrones. I want to say more, but it just aired and I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

I got to dedicate some time to my WIP this morning, but I wasn't as successful as yesterday. It still amounted to over 1700 words. Kind of mediocre success, but it's still success. I have several months worth of material for critique group, so I'm going to stop sending them Yak Guy and start them on The Hat.

It may be two weeks before I can write again, but I can live with that. We have some company coming next week, and that will be fun too. We intend to go to the fair and enjoy a couple of the concerts. I'm jazzed about Joan Jett, and everyone else wants to see Trace Adkins. I'm sure Adkins is great, but Joan Jett is a legend.

There is also the bonus of fair food. I know it's bad for me, but fair food rocks.

Back to the office for me tomorrow, but I'm sure I can step outside to look at the eclipse. We were married on a solar eclipse many years ago, so it's almost like an anniversary for us.

Let’s talk about a different kind of character

I'm kind of swamped for time right now, but I nearly always post on Monday nights. I've been putting this post aside for a few weeks, but I need a quick topic tonight so here goes.

The world is buzzing about last night's episode of Game Of Thrones. I'm sure The Battle of the Bastards will rank as one of the highest rated episodes they have. I want to talk about a different part of the show.

This may be because of some wonderful actors and performances, but I'm developing a couple of new favorites on Game of Thrones. These are supporting characters, but they really appeal to me.

First up is Sandor Clegane, better known as The Hound. This guy has been through some crap in his life. It started with his brother, and wound it's way through many parts of Westeros. He isn't a good guy, and has done some terrible things. Somehow he maintains a sense of justice though. He occasionally manages to do the right thing.

His form of justice is brutal and violent, but he has an idea of what is right. He's crass, he's rude, and I can't get enough of him. Whenever he's around, things are going to happen.

To be honest, I can see similarities with my character Clovis from The Playground. This isn't by design, and The Hound didn't really come into his own when I was drafting the Clovis chapters. The similarity is there though.

I nearly combined Ser Bronn with The Hound, because there are some similarities. Bronn isn't quite the asshole The Hound is, but he's been a warrior all his life. He's seen things. He's done things. He brings a certain male humor to his scenes. He says things that someone who's spent a lifetime as a soldier might say.

My protagonists tend to be kind of stoic, and I like to use colorful supporting characters to lighten things up. Bronn's relationship with Ser Jamie Lanister is styled similarly. Jamie is a little dry, but Bronn lightens the mood.

Bronn has hopes and dreams. He helps Jamie, because he expects lands, a castle, and a woman out of the deal. He's fleshed out quite well in very few scenes. Everybody wants something.

The third one I nearly left off, because he doesn't bring character to the character. He is Gregor Clegane, better known as The Mountain. This is the sibling that gave Sandor Clegane such a hard time growing up. While The Hound is a big dude, The Mountain got his name by being even bigger and meaner.

The Mountain died and was brought back by some arcane magic. He doesn't get lines anymore, and he's kind of like a Frankenstein creation. Imagine an eight foot tall man in golden armor, (with a helmet so you can never see his face) but he's built like a weightlifter not a basketball player.

I like him for a completely different reason. He brings a certain menace to every scene he's in. He doesn't even have to do anything, the sense of foreboding is always there. They accomplished this by selling him well in the first place. Of course tearing someone's head off (literally) on occasion serves to remind us who he is. After that, all he has to do is be in the room and I pay attention.

I have a similar character in The Playground. Their creation is similar, I should say. In Playground, Morley is a poltergeist. A poltergeist can move things around, so they stitched up a body for him to move around. He's kind of moody and can get his feelings hurt, so he differs from The Mountain in that way. Nothing phases The Mountain.

In Game of Thrones fashion, I expect any or all of these characters to come to a bad end. They try to make viewers like someone as a setup to killing them off. I'm not opposed to this, but it would be nice to see one of them survive.

To draw some kind of rushed conclusion, I like colorful characters who support a more serious main character. There is more to The Hound and Ser Bronn than random red shirt characters. We feel for them to a degree.

I also like pending doom. The tension The Mountain brings is wonderful. Now that I know who and what he is, the menace is always present when he's in the scene. This allows the show runners to include dialog and stories from the other characters, but the tension never disapates. It's a neat trick, and you can bet I'll remember it.

Sorry about the rushed quality, but I'm swamped for time. Any of these characters is deserving of an individual post. Has anyone else developed a fondness for these characters, or is it just me?

A little bit of work, a little goofing off

I managed a bunch of work on future Lisa Burton Radio posts. I have things in the works from the first questionnaire being sent out, to a final version that will go live Thursday. There are multiple exchanges between those bookends, and Lisa has some great guests coming up.

I wrote and sent off a requested guest post. This is more for me than my host. I get to promote the 99¢ sale for The Playground. I only noticed today that the dates I chose are from the 7th to the 11th. After that it goes back to its regular price. Seven and eleven, no superstition going on around here. No siree.

I wrote a fun Lisa Burton post, complete with new artwork that will go live tomorrow morning. WordPress is pissing me off with this one. This seems to be a random thing, but if I include a picture in a post, everything south of the picture doesn't format correctly.

I want a paragraph, followed by a space. Seems pretty simple doesn't it? WordPress insists that I don't really want my white space in the post. I've run it through both editors, multiple times, and it looks worse now than when I started. Now it looks like there isn't any spacing above the picture either.

The funny thing is that it looks perfect in the editor. It looks incorrect in the preview. Tune in tomorrow to see what fun surprises WordPress has in store for me. If I get up early enough, it may accept some edits after it posts live.

Funny, after writing this far, I see it's doing something similar for everything south of the link to my book sale. I wind up with a strange arrowhead and a tiny little tab after the link. I'll fix it, but I must check to see if it works correctly.

Karen posted my three quotes on her blog today. I have a hard time talking about myself. Ask me about my books, plot, characters, and I'm golden. Ask me to be myself, and I freeze. I'm glad she gave me a few days to come up with something reasonably intelligent.

We went to the new Captain America movie this afternoon. It's almost pure action, but there are some decent character moments in there too. Scarlet Johannsen changed her hair color on me, but I'll get over it. Also someone please get that Winter Soldier/Bucky guy a bottle of shampoo and a haircut. Oh, and Stan Lee stole the show. Cheers for him.

In other news, John Snow is alive, his sister fights with sticks, everyone else is posturing for what comes next. One little Stark brother is learning about the past so we get all the back story. One Stark sister is missing in action. The remaining Stark is in big assed trouble along with that Tonks chick from Harry Potter.

I also received a wonderful five star review for Wild Concept. It looks like the 99¢ sale for it delivered something. Maybe the occasional sale is a good thing. I have the same hope for The Playground. A few reviews might really nudge it along.

Hope you all had a great weekend. Back to the grind tomorrow.

 

The Rest of the Weekend

This weekend was kind of a bust… Again. I managed a mere 500 words of new fiction, but that's 500 more than I had before, and 500 more than last weekend.

We had date night at a cool restaurant where everything is about bacon. It's actually called Bacon in the daylight hours, but changes its name to Berryhill in the late afternoon. They even have different menus. Berryhill is still all about bacon, and there was bacon in the bread course, even infused in the butter. I really enjoyed my bacon lasagna serving. So I'm probably going to die from a bacon OD, but my body will be preserved for years. I'm also very happy.

My Amazon advertising isn't producing much for The Playground. It never costs much, and the exposure is huge. They don't seem to lead to many sales though.

I managed to move forward with two new episodes of Lisa Burton Radio today. They aren't finished yet, but there are some fun things coming up. I also paid for my next cluster of Lisa Burton artwork. I don't have a book coming out any time soon, but I need some general images to post on the blog.

I was recently awarded a Push Tuesday by the Rave Reviews Book Club. They chose to push Wild Concept, my oldest book. That isn't to say it's old, but the online world moves fast. It came out in February of 2014, I guess that makes Lisa two years old physically, but her database is much older than that.

RRBC started something new recently. They have a members only room on WhatsApp for us to promote and push our free and 99¢ books. My Experimental Notebook was pushed there too, and I sold copies. Experimental Notebook is always 99¢ though.

I kind of want to play in the WhatsApp room, so I'm holding a sale on Wild Concept. I haven't held a sale in about 18 months. For about five days, anyone – not just RRBC members – can get a copy of Wild Concept for 99¢. If I did it right, it will start tomorrow. Once it switches over, I can share it on WhatsApp too. I have to dig a little bit deeper, because they have a special hashtag to use on Twitter. This is so club members will support our sales, but it's a neat tip for readers too. If you follow that hashtag, you can find some great books for free or 99¢.

So let's talk about it. Wild Concept is Lisa Burton's origin story. It covers her journey from just a high tech piece of equipment to the Lisa we all know and love.

It covers her first job, chasing a killer for the Hudson PD, to her flight from the company that created her.

Her questionable decisions are here too. This includes her sometimes garish makeup she learned from YouTube videos, and tattoos so she would fit in with others.

It also addresses issues of prejudice. Some folks aren't too keen on the idea of robots in our society.

I don't expect this to be an overwhelming success. I've never had much luck with sales, and that's why I stopped doing them. On the other hand, I'm a pretty good club supporter, and want this experiment to succeed. If I did it correctly, the sale should start in the morning. You can get your copy of Wild Concept right here.

Finally, I sent out an advertising inquiry for The Playground. This involves sponsoring a blog talk radio show where others are talking about their books. I would get a banner and visual ad that could produce some sales. I like it, because it's different from everything else available out there.

For the rest of the evening, it's Game of Thrones, and a mug or two of a nice Bock beer from McCall Brewing. Okay, I'll probably check email to see if I can finalize those two radio posts, and check my baseball score. The game was all tied up in extra innings the last time I checked. But I'm doing it with a frosty mug in my hand, so it counts as relaxation.

An open discussion about stakes

I try to always post something on Sunday's. I've been a bit busy catching up from the delays my paycheck job threw me. Still, I sent an extensive email to the promotion company I found in Sun Valley. I finished my critiques and am ready for our group tomorrow. Will O' the Wisp is getting an Amazon advertising campaign too. I even managed to catch up with Dr. Who, Last Man Standing, and S.H.I.EL.D. I caught the finale of Fear the Walking Dead moments ago.

I'll figure out a way to catch up with Sleepy Hollow somewhere down the line. I have some major reading booked out for tomorrow too.

These programs got me to thinking about stakes. Good stories need them. The higher they are, and the more clear they are, the better the story… In many cases.

I'm free writing this tonight. Time caught up with me, and I usually get more time to think about stuff before I write.

When Obi Wan croaked, it didn't just propel Luke to new heights. It demonstrated to the audience that genuine risk was involved. Of course they had that whole Death Star demonstration too.

There are stories, like cute romances, where the stakes don't have to be life and death. I still think something has to be on the line, I think the more personal it is, the more it resonates with readers. Catching the killer might be interesting, but it's more interesting with a girl in a well or future victims at risk.

Nothing provides stakes like The Walking Dead. (The original one.) Many of you might argue for Game of Thrones, but I choose TWD. In each case, fully formed characters die. Viewers (readers) understand the stakes, and have seen the result of failure first hand.

In S.H.I.E.L.D. Colson lost a hand and part of his forearm. He managed to briefly turn this into a weapon, of sorts. I respect Colson, and know he's going to continue the fight. Previews tell me Dr. Who is going to die next week. I'm fairly sure time travel will repair this situation.

Do stakes have to be this personal? I believe there is an opportunity to demonstrate a burned out village, and a few refugees. It doesn't have to be on a character level each time. It can be so much better at a personal level though.

I've seen a few things recently where the stakes didn't measure up. They were killed in a flashback, telling me with certainty the character survived. The version of past tense did the same thing in one case.

In a treasure hunt type story, if the character can simply walk away there aren't enough stakes. Greed is a great motivator, but if Camelot will fall without the Holy Grail it's that much better.

I still remember when Robin was killed by The Joker. Those are stakes. Robin II survived a few adventures, and we knew Robin I survived all his adventures. When Robin II died, it gave renewed vigor to the Batman mythology.

I even went so far as killing off my main character in one story. Maybe this is too far, but it would have made a great Greek tragedy. I've been thinking about a short story called The Death of Lisa Burton. If I ever write this one, I assure her fans that she has an escape plan.

How far are you willing to go in your stories? Do you stop at redshirt characters? Those whose sole purpose of being in the story is to die and establish stakes for the hero. Is the sidekick going to kick off in your story? Is the main character going to get it, only to have the sidekick rise up and finish the story? Are you the kind who kills off the pet character? The mentor?

Let me hear it. What tricks do you use to establish stakes? How far are you willing to go? What prevalent tales disappointed in the stakes department? I'm going to start writing again as winter approaches, and maybe you can teach me something.

 

Long day

I had a long hard day today. My job was depressing. Enough about that.

I took my wife out to our local Irish pub for dinner. Sounds like her day sucked too. The hospital where she works is going to require a grey uniform from now on. She must have five hundred unique scrub outfits that make her happy. Now we have to buy all new stuff that fails to make her happy. This does nothing to improve customer service, but tastes like micro management.

The best part of the day was many Smithwicks. My attitude has improved. Tomorrow is another day, and it almost has to be better by default.

I found out about Goodkindles today. This sounds like something I need to investigate. I bookmarked the website for later. If anyone has some input on this promotional site I'd love to hear it.

That's about it. I'm going to go now before I make a tasteless joke about Theon Greyjoy/Reek and Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner.