#like maybe still with some kind of external motivation to push her past her initial rejection of magic to actually get into it

[blackbirdblackbird]

[cavehags]

1) do you think liam is supposed to be as unlikable as he is in s1? they definitely try to push for sympathy in later seasons but i couldn't really figure out if he's insufferable to be ~relatable~ or if he's just designed to make me hate him. 2) rate lauren's love interests from terrible to even more terrible. 3) which plotline(s) would you most like to scrap if given a chance to rework the show?

All great questions! Thanks!

1) This question has mystified me since the show first aired. Despite Liam’s completely unsympathetic behavior, we get numerous key shots from his POV early in season 1. For instance, when he is trying to have sex with Karma in the car during Homecoming in 1x01, and Karma decides she’s no longer into it and leaves, we cut to Liam checking his breath. This is meant to humanize him. It’s odd, because moments ago he said he’s wanted to have sex with a lesbian for as long as he can remember--a transparently rape-culture-y statement that is never fully interrogated. It’s supposed to be a somewhat relatable joke when we see that Liam thought his breath was to blame and not the creepiness of the sentiment he just expressed. The best I can say is that this was the gay male writers’ best attempt to craft a believable teenage boy, and they simply could not conceive of one who was not creepily misogynistic from the start. Though Liam’s worldview should horrify any women watching, I guess we’re supposed to believe that the writers did not understand just how damaging his behavior really is, and downplayed it accordingly. 

Interestingly, Liam is told off for his actions a few times throughout the show, but never for his fetishization of Karma. For instance, in 2x02, Liam throws a bit of a temper tantrum when he learns that Shane knew Amy and Karma were faking and never spoke up. Shane scolds Liam for this overreaction and points out that he’s being myopic and can’t really understand what it’s like for a gay kid who’s just coming out. This is fair game: like every other character on the show, Liam should be learning from his mistakes. So if the writers really wanted to create a sympathetic character arc for a young man like this, they really needed to have someone--probably Lauren, as a girl removed from the situation--explain to him how violent and degrading it is that he’s so hung up on the fantasy of “converting” a woman to desiring him. But they never do, so I guess they just never meant for him to be that bad.  

2) God, this is so hard because Liam’s love interests are all so bad. Tommy is an idiot and ignorant about intersex people, but at least he’s Erick Lopez and he’s cute. Liam is a piece of shit, but at least while dating Lauren he’s subjected to the kind of bullying he fully deserves. Theo/Anthony is a cop, and specifically a narc, and worst of all he’s a 20-year-old dating a high school sophomore. So I’m gonna have to go (best to worst) Tommy-->Liam-->Theo/Anthony. Wish I could include Amy in this love interest ranking but the show wasn’t galaxy brain enough :( 

3) Oh this is really fun and I wrote a horrifying amount omfg.

First things first, we have to go through the show with a fine-toothed comb and clean up the nastiness toward bi people. Shane makes a lot of biphobic comments that we can just throw away. And Karma’s mom, who currently we learn is bisexual at the end of season two, instead can describe herself as bisexual in season one in a cringey moment when she’s trying to bond with Karma. In a touch of realism, everyone assumes Amy and Karma are “queer” rather than “lesbians” (gotta update this with the times) which explains no one sees any issue with Karma, a queer girl, having a thing for Liam, a guy. I don’t see a way to rehabilitate Liam this way, though, so Liam still fetishizes Karma as a “lesbian,” even though she never uses that word and intentionally keeps it vague.

The character of Reagan is thrown out. Instead, Amy’s first girlfriend is more like that girl Jasmine, whom she met on the dating app Syzzr in season one. Jasmine is a girl from another high school in Austin who also just got over a crush on a best friend. She’s charismatic and mature and does a lot of the initiating in the relationship with Amy, prodding her to assert herself with her mom and embrace feminism more in “Zen and the Art of Pageantry” (we’ll keep that storyline mostly unchanged). Notably absent from her arc is a nastiness toward bi girls. Instead, she’s generous and goal-oriented. She helps Amy establish an identity outside of Karma, but bristles at times when Amy regresses. However, it’s crucial that she’s not jealous of Amy’s bond with Karma; she just wants Amy to be older and wiser than she really is. This highlights the flaw in their relationship: that Amy is still struggling with her self-identity (not her sexual identity!!) and feels like she is always letting her girlfriend down. Amy is the one who decides to break up and she does it because she doesn’t want to feel like a disappointment. They stay in touch, though, and Jasmine/Reagan remains a mentor for Amy throughout the show. 

For instance, when Amy finds herself unattracted to Felix (more on him later), Amy goes to Jasmine/Reagan about it, as well as Shane. She can’t figure out why she sometimes feels drawn toward guys even though she knows she doesn’t really like them. Shane thinks Amy is probably bi or pan. Jasmine/Reagan introduces some split attraction model that gives Amy an instant headache. Amy doesn’t think either of those are right. It’s actually a conversation with Lauren and Farrah that helps clarify things for her. Through chatting with her mom and Lauren, Amy is reminded that girls are pretty much trained from birth that their job is to impress and appeal to boys. She realizes there’s a good chance she’s been acting on inertia (this is the way the show simplifies comp het). She settles it once and for all when she goes out and meets a group of other lesbians -- maybe a support group or like an organized social club meetup kind of thing. In the company of these cool and inspiring other women, she realizes that she feels really comfortable with the label “lesbian” after all. Maybe MTV even lets her say the word dyke :) 

The episode where the kids have to label themselves, however, is thrown firmly in the trash. 

Also in the trash: Amy and Liam sleeping together. Garbage. I think they get angry-drunk together instead and talk about Karma and maybe the tension for season 2a is that they did something more external to hurt her that night, like out her as straight to her parents. 

Theo/Anthony is not a cop and there is no mystery surrounding his character. Instead, he’s like a pick-up artist type and plays intentional mind games like negging that Lauren sees through after a while. She dumps him and Shane and Amy help her get revenge on him. At that point, he is fully gone and does not come back. 

Duke is also a respectable age. Not much else to do there. 

And then the Karmy of it all! We need to see more signs from Karma’s perspective starting in season 2b (after the arrest) that Karma has a real crush on Amy that she’s ignoring. The character of Felix helps with this. He and Amy still go to prom together but Amy concludes that it doesn’t feel right and nothing more happens between them. However, on prom night, Karma finds herself feeling more than just empathy for Felix’s situation - she feels jealous of someone on that date. With Amy’s reluctant blessing, Karma asks Felix out and they start to date, but she finds herself annoyed by his quirks and has no interest in having sex with him. Felix winds up asking Amy what the deal is with Karma and sex. In the meantime, Karma catches herself having the occasional dream about Amy. Amy, who is with Sabrina at this point (I haven’t decided yet if I want to rewrite the Sabrina stuff since I haven’t rewatched s3 yet so let’s go with no for now), is mostly happy to see Karma and Felix together... but when she hears that Karma isn’t sleeping with him, she can’t help but feel hope that whatever motivated Karma to kiss her in the pool that night in 2b might be the reason she doesn’t want to commit to Felix. Karma doesn’t want to admit her confusion to Amy or Shane so has no one to talk to about her feelings except Liam, and miracle of miracles, he is the one who actually nudges her to consider that maybe she’s had a thing for Amy for a while now. She denies that that could be possible, but she’s just not happy with Felix, and at the end of season 3, she tearfully breaks up with him. When Amy comes over to comfort her, we see Amy through Karma’s eyes in a new way. Karma finally has her moment of clarity. End s3. 

In season 4, Karma sort of awkwardly tries to court Amy without being obvious about what she’s doing, which has the odd impact of making Amy feel hurt -- is Karma trying to bait her into having feelings again? This results in a fight, and during the fight Karma admits the truth -- that she’s having feelings for Amy and didn’t know how to express them without potentially hurting Amy because of their past. Amy is taken aback, and she’s still with Sabrina, so she does the old “I have to go” routine. But then she talks to either Lauren or Shane or both about what just happened and they prompt her to do a romantic about-face. She races back to Karma and they have a really cinematic first real kiss. The rest of the season that follows is the two of them as girlfriends, trying to navigate being their real selves and also their romantic selves at the same time. They do a lot of cliche romantic things and annoy the crap out of all their friends. They’re also really really happy. In the series finale, Amy and Karma and Lauren and Shane and Shane’s boyfriend all go to Pride or Queer Liberation March or whatever they call it in Austin. Also Liam leaves town for military school :)

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on House of X #4

Over the halfway mark!

Look At What They’ve Done Infographic:

Suprisingly for an issue that, in retrospect is the climax of the standard superheroics part of House of X, this issue starts with an infographic, which turns out to be one of the more controversial in HoX/PoX.

Foreshadowing what’s going to come at the end of the issue, the tone is already different from the pseudo-academic objectivity of earlier infographics, although the term “mutant erasure” evokes the activist-inspired, post-cultural turn work of critical race/gender/sexuality studies, which is something of a stepping-stone. 

By contrast, describing Wanda Maximoff as both “the pretender” (does this mean “not-really-a-mutant” or “not-really-Magneto’s-daughter” or both?) and as associated with the Avengers is incredibly politically pointed, which speak to a particular kind of mutant nationalist identity that bears a good deal of grievance towards even benevolent human institutions.

Similarly, the term “human-on-mutant violence” is way too evocative of real world debates over racism and police violence to be accidental on the author’s point. It’s a depressing thought, but the 616 probably sees a lot of “what about mutant-on-mutant violence?” derailings, maybe as many as creep up in threads about HoX/Pox here...

So let’s get at the controversy: can Bolivar Trask be blamed for the Genoshan genocide? Contrary to a few voices in the fandom, I would argue strongly for the affirmative. As we see from his initial appearance, Trask created the Sentinels entirely out of racial paranoia/hatred; moreover, Sentinels have no purpose other than A. destroying all mutants and B. subjugating the human race along the way. Cassandra Nova’s actions on Genosha absolutely followed the Trask playbook of both father and son, and indeed relied on Larry Trask’s assistance to carry it out, making it a Trask affair from beginning to end. 

On a final meta note, this infographic really speaks to the outsized impact that Morrison’s New X-Men and Bendis’ House of M had on the X-line for the last 15-20 years. 

Observation-Analysis-Invocation-Connection:

But before we get to the punching, we get one burst of Hickman’s fascination with singularities and transhumanism, where for the first time we really get an example of how the Krakoan biological approach is going to work, showing us a surprisingly complicated biomachine:

Trinity (who runs the Secondary/External Systems part of Krakoa) uses her technopathy to gather intelligence from human mechanical systems: the Aracibo Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, “re-tasked SETI radio telescopes," both of which are real things, and the “Dyson solar observatory,” which isn’t. 

Beast (who runs the Overwatch/Data Analysis part of Krakoa) uses Krakoan biocomputers and his own scientific genius to “extrapolate that data into an actionable forecast,” to deal with the delay caused by the immense distances between Krakoa and Sol’s Forge.

Professor X and Cerebro handle the direct Connection between Krakoa and the away team, while the Cuckoos link Trinity, Beast, Storm into a psychic link with Xavier, which means all of the parts of the system work seamlessly even as Storm handles the Invocation of visually representing Jean Grey’s thoughts.

If you step back and think about it, this is an astonishing technological feat: with minimal reliance on machine technology, Krakoa has established a NASA “KASA Mission Control” that can send data across half a solar system almost(?) instantly. 

That’s before we even get to the whole secondary purpose of the system, which is to allow Professor X and the Five to resurrect an up-to-date version of anyone who dies on the mission, which is one hell of a life-rope. 

Thematically, we see a really sharp distinction between biological and mechanical transhumanism/singularity: “KASA Mission Control” is described in biological terms, “function[ing] as a singular organism,” and also in religious terms, with “eight of us acting as one” explicitly labelled as “Communion.” And yet...the eight people involved retain their separate personalities and identities and no separate, artificial intelligence is created. 

Should We Fear the Worst?

 And across five hundred million miles, all Krakoa gets is bad news. Archangel and Husk, the redshirt’s redshirts on this mission, are dead before they do anything; Nightcrawler has some level of “internal injury,” and Wolverine almost had his arm blown off.

Incidentally, page 7 is where something of a problem crops up with Jean Grey’s characterization. As people have noted, Jean Grey starts off in the passive communications role (indeed, she’s even reliant on Monet to do that job) and doesn’t really improve from there. With the added context of her wearing her Silver Age miniskirt costume, it’s all a bit sus, especially if you’ve been reading a much more self-possessed, confident, and all-around more powerful version of Jean Grey in X-Men: Red. For a while, many of us were thinking that Jean is a younger backup, but that seems to have been Jossed by the resurrection ceremony in House of X #5. 

Better characterization abounds for the men: following their conversation from the previous issue, Cyclops and Wolverine have different perspectives about the question of whether to continue on with the mission (another key element of the special ops/espionage thriller genre). Cyclops emphasizes pushing on to make Warren and Paige’s sacrifice meaningful, Logan agrees but rather because of the existential stakes of the mission. There’s an interesting parallel there between Xavier and Magneto and means vs. ends. 

Following the catastrophe, Nightcrawler successfully inserts the struje team, while “Jean and Monet will stay to maintain our connection with Krakoa;”we know know that part was crucial in more than one way, but it is a continuation of some troubling gender dynamics.

Meanwhile, despite being “technically...just an observer” (and doesn’t that ring of all kinds of Cold War proxy wars), Omega Sentinel takes action to prompt Dr. Gregor into retaliation, similarly playing to the nationalistic theme of “if you don’t, he will have died for nothing.” 

Orchis’ retaliation doesn’t go so well, as we see Wolverine carving his way through an AIM securtiy team and Nightcrawler bloodlessly tying up two scientists (note the further emphasis on differing personalities and values; whoever these X-Men might be, they’re not mindless followers) towards popping two of the four constraint collars.

Unfortunately, this is followed up by a couple pages of more Jean Grey being awfully Damselly: yes, she’s holding open the connection, but she’s coded as way more helpless and indecisive than Monet (who gets to go out like a badass defending the shuttle), and the line “I dunno what to say, Marvel Girl. Try harder” really sums it all up. So far, this is reading a lot more like Stan Lee’s Jean Grey (but not Jack Kirby’s) than Chris Claremont’s. 

With the tension ratcheting ever-higher, we see Cyclops succeeding at his mission, while Mystique...doesn’t and then gets promptly blown out an airlock. The “habitat” connection and the odd business with her getting “turned around” despite having the plans for the base in her head like everyone else is highly suspicious (it might suggest the use of a Krakoa flower, but no one’s ever suggested what her motivation would be for doing so), but it’ll have to go on the list of plot threads that weren’t resolved in House of X.

In a development that really ought to be troubling to more people, Dr. Gregor throws away whatever moral compunctions she has about waking up a potentially violently insane A.I because “I don’t let them stop us. No matter what,” a potentially existential downside to Omega’s strategy. 

Do Whatever It Takes:

Having reached the “darkest moment” in the story diagram, Professor X orders his students to “do whatever it takes” to prevent Mother Mold from coming on line. This prompts Cyclops to give the order to Nightcrawler and Wolverine to jump out into unprotected space to sever the last constraint collar. All in all, we’re following the traditional beats of the special ops/espionage genre pretty closely, down to the team leader’s moral anguish moment.

Appropriately, we then get a quiet moment where Kurt and Logan contemplate whether or what will be “waiting for us on the other side.” Even knowing what we know now about the resurrection system, there’s still a good deal of weight to this moment, because in a way this Kurt and this Logan are going to die and whether they’re the same Kurt and Logan who will be reborn is a matter I’ll take up in Powers of X #5 along with the difficult topic of the philosophy of identity. (I’m going to leave aside the question of them having gone to literal Heaven and Hell in the past, because my Doylist position is that those story threads were probably a bad idea and my Watsonian No Prize is that you can’t remember the afterlife once returned to earth.)

Surprisingly, things get only more metaphysically weird when the two teleport outside and Wolverine starts chopping his way through the last arm. Mother Mold wakes up and immdiately starts talking about Greek mythology. Mother Mold’s interpretation of the Titanomachy is a little choppy (as we might expect from an insane A.I): on the one hand, if humanity are the Olympian gods as the creator of the Sentinels and the mutants are the Titans because of “their spoiled lineage” (this doesn’t quite work, because the Titans preceded the Olympians), then the Sentinels being “Man” makes sense. And as someone who’s written his share of college papers about omniscience/predestination/free will in Greek myth and drama, there’s a plausible anti-theist position whereby human beings might “judge and find you both wanting.” (Although that language is too Book of Daniel for the Greeks.) On the other hand, if the Sentinels are man, them having “stolen your fire” doesn’t work either - humanity was given fire by the Titan Prometheus - unless the argument is that Wolverine is Prometheus because he yeets Mother Mold into the sun?

Regardless, it’s a very ominous note for Mother Mold to go out on, because the consistent anti-human/Olympian tone suggests this insane A.I might hate humans way more than it hates mutants. 

With the day seemingly saved, we transition into the Rogue One scenario where Cyclops is murdered by a vengeful Dr. Gregor and Jean is torn apart by Sentinel drones. 

As gruesome as all of this is, I think it does play a very important role in explaining a good deal of Charles Xavier’s change of mind with regard to human-mutant harmony and assimilation. While this incident didn’t prompt any of the decisions that he’s made along the way - this mission is happening post-Xavier’s announcement and a day before the U.N vote, making it quite late in the X^1 timeline - I think it does a good job of showing us the kind of thought patterns that have led Xavier to this conclusion. In addition to everything he’s seen from Moira’s past nine lives, which only lend a greater sense of urgency and the fear of inevitability, Xavier himself has experienced the deaths of “our children” over and over again as the founder of the X-Men, and clearly both the direct trauma (keep in mind, he’s hooked into the minds of all of his X-Men as they die) and the pain he feels at humanity’s apathy/atrocity fatigue, goes a long way to explaining why he’ll make the decision that integration and assimilation are no longer viable options.

For all the crap that people sometime sling at Hickman over his use of charts, I will say that the way that “NO MORE” weaponizes them by extra-textually demonstrating the breakdown of the facade of calm objectivity is incredibly effective.

[rina-rambles]

Hold On To That Feeling

Daydreaming and feeling overwhelming surges of inspiration is normal for me when I’m separated from the means to write (in other words, my laptop) for any extended period of time. I admit that very few times in my life have been so hugely joyous that a certain urgency to capture it in words lasts past the event. Some people have the gift of being motivational rather than nagging and I fully believe that it is the seven-hour car ride next to Sam and my number one baby that I owe this determination to not procrastinate anymore to.

The happiest and saddest experiences are either the easiest or hardest to put into words. In my grief for Max in 2015, I tried desperately to put into words the sudden sense of mortality I felt, being able to remember him as a little pup as if it were yesterday. But unlike my externally forced graduation speech back in 2010, which told as neutrally as possible of my hellish high school years, I couldn’t find the words for my sweet boy. The ever-expanding graveyard is since that summer where I find my ultimate peace and maybe that’s all I can ever say about it.

Maybe because I’ve admired and looked up to One Tree Hill actress and my idol Shantel Vansanten for so many years now, but I finally understand why she says “I look for inspiration in everything around me.” There was a time when I used to wait for that surge of urgency to write, but now many writing courses and pep talks later I’ve realized that it takes as much determination and focus as it does genuine inspiration to be productive. Every time I have heart-to-heart talks with Sam, I come away feeling more talented and capable for it so I owe it to her and myself to capture all the moments that it brings me joy to think about.

After the family vacation through Bruges in Belgium, the French war memorials and last but far from least Watford’s Warner Bros Studios three years ago, I always regretted not pushing through the procrastination to write about how much lasting joy I gained from October 10 2014. Naturally, it was my psychologist who helped me make use of that day of bliss at every turn, by using the happiness of the memory to put me back in a good headspace during stressful and less joyous times. Because I’ve figured out the key to making memories long-lasting for me personally, it is and always has been music. The more Indian weddings I attend the more certain I am that any Indian function my possible future wedding may have will be a sangeet only. I have a carefully chosen anti-anxiety playlist of positive musical associations and have to give even my least favourite One Tree Hill character, Peyton Sawyer, credit for one truth: 

But I digress, being a huge fan of John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars after the film adaptation released in summer 2014, come the sightseeing in Belgium that October it was the soundtrack’s peppy track Boom Clap I tuned into as we walked the quaint streets of Bruge. The film’s love story took place in Amsterdam before terminal cancer turned it tragic and hearing that song on a tourist boat ride in Belgium felt close enough to the movie magic to be a joy to recall. 

Seeing the war memorials on the next part of the trip it was my Dad’s excitement and the sheer scale of historical melancholy that made it unforgettable, being there to witness the 100th anniversary of WW1 was obviously an immense and sobering experience. But all that took place before one of the happiest days of my life, the one I’m sure I would think back on if J.K Rowling’s Patronus Charm existed in real life. In a way, I understand how she made the joy-sucking Dementors a metaphor for her own depression because that single day has had the strength to carry me through hard times ever since.

Harry Potter was what turned me into what I define myself as today: a fangirl. The fascinating Marauder era still holds a very special place in a heart no longer seventeen but probably happier than nearly a decade ago. It makes me feel old to think that the first Potter film adaptation came out sixteen years ago, 2001 was incidentally the same year to give the world Karan Johar’s Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, which initiated my ten-year obsession with SRK.

Coming back to the Watford experience, I can safely say it was life-changing: Between Tom Felton’s humorous tour guide recorded narration, the animatronic Buckbeak that actually bowed and blinked and my first taste of Butterbeer, I was floored long before the most exhilarating and then emotional parts of the day. The simulated broom ride which thanks to the souvenir videos and photograph reminds me more than anything else how happy that day was, is still something I just have to watch to feel intense surrealism to this day. But my favourite photograph that day is of me posing behind the Privet Drive sign. It’s hilarious to think that on the set the awful Dursley’s home exterior is right next to the ruin of Lily and James Potter’s house.

Already soaring on a wave of bliss that had begun with the HP film scores blasting all the way to the parking lot, standing in front of that scorched wall is where I got really emotional because somehow the couple who are dead before the series even begins have always meant the most to me. Yes walking through Diagon Alley’s set with the incredible detail on all sides I genuinely felt like Harry in wishing I had about a hundred eyes at once. But somehow it was still that ruined Potter cottage that I remember responding to now; the fictional sacrifice for their baby’s life as stirring and inspiring as anything else that trip.

When I was sixteen I once had a crush on a boy just because he resembled the fifteen-year-old James Potter from the Order Of The Phoenix film adaptation, incidentally my last non-celebrity / fictional crush to date.

Needless to say, that went nowhere and Harry Potter has stayed an important happy place for me longer than anyone in school ever did. There might still be times when the high school years negatively affect how I feel about myself but those days are few and far between.

Luckily for me, it’s a fact that time heals all wounds and someday only those powerful happy memories will remain. As Albus Dumbledore wisely said after all...

Even as a writer, with a craft as creative and yet honed by habit as many others, the end result of a piece like this isn’t always in sight from the beginning. There’s always the fine line of discussing a work in progress with my cheerleading family and figuring out on my own what feels right. I’ve had all sorts of advice; to combine experiences or don’t, or to be honest and heartfelt but draw the line somewhere. But at the end of the day, I know that the only way to get the words out is to find my own flow and go with it. All the song lyrics and Disney mottos about following your heart have got to come from a place of some kind of experience I suppose, so that’s what I decide to do with every word.

The theme of this article is holding on to joy and describing some hugely happy moments in my recent past would not be complete without the last week’s trip to Kottayam in Kerala. Some say this past week, with a royal Indian wedding and such a fabulous vacation with old friends deserves its own article and maybe someday it will get it. After all it took three years to pay tribute to the Potter joy as this article does.

But stand-alone tribute or not, the vacation after the Scindia wedding deserves a very heartfelt mention for inspiring me to write again in the first place with the love from old friends and simply breath-taking experiences. In a way, it does tie into the whole filmy Potter experience because Chacko Uncle shared his jaw-dropping world so modestly with us. How often does the average person get to sneak onto an active TV set and witness a girl prance onto the stage to an iconic SRK song? 

For almost a decade my love of Bollywood became a way to connect with my roots from abroad and now it is always being in India that finds some way or other to remind me how much I will always admire King Khan. Granted there’s a huge nostalgia factor now but that song choice and moment in a little corner of that studio, trying to sneak a peek without tripping over the wires or squealing out loud was something I won’t forget in a hurry.

Over the next two days, the thrills just kept on coming, whether it was the epic serenades of our very own crooner Charles (the man stole my heart with Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and kept it awed with a freaking Swiss German number) or getting to feel like a film star speeding along the backwaters, it was definitely like the Warner Studios tour in that I wanted to drink in all the sights and hold on to how I felt in the moment.

I’m not normally particularly keen on selfies, but with the enforced dressing up for the wedding before the Kottayam vacation, maybe the habit of sharing spilled over to that part of the holiday. Cruising along the backwaters I felt able to define wind-swept hair quite literally and even the slight motion sickness became easy to ignore with the sun kissing my exposed skin and finally getting to put my prescription sunglasses to good use. The picturesque backdrops helped me to feel beautiful and for that, I am more thankful than anything. Here’s hoping ten years don’t go by until the next reunion, visits to the south are as much a fascinating window into Mom and Dad’s past as anything else.

As my former obsession show used to say “by its very definition, glee is about opening yourself up to joy” and with experiences like these under my belt I might yet learn to do just that more often. 

Despite the way it crashed and burned, Glee did teach me to never stop believing and I like to think I’m one step closer to that faith with the power of all these good experiences to guide me. One Tree Hill creator Mark Schwahn made the idea of “someday” a trademark of many couples he wrote and I think my someday of just feeling good might be a lot closer these days. To end on one final OTH quote because it has words for everything 

I’ve come to realize that I don’t have to dismiss the bad things in my past in order to find happiness, but I feel like my perspective on the years of teenage suffering has changed and that, for now, is good enough.

[char27martin]

5 Types of Opening Scenes to Make Your Story Stand Out

Opening scenes introduce characters, plots, and settings, and where the story is going. Writers can take more time unpacking opening scenes than they can anywhere else in the story. The first and last scenes are almost always the ones authors can write with ease in a fully fleshed out way. They already have an “introduction” in their heads (i.e., the spark that inspired the story for them in the first place). Nancy Kress calls this “the honeymoon”: when the author is still in love with whatever gave him the story idea in the first place. With the spark driving him forward, he can frequently write one scene after the other, maybe skipping directly over the bridge scenes after the opening is established, pushing out the resolution scenes that he may also see clearly, until the initial idea is expended.

This guest post is by Karen Wiesner . Wiesner is an accomplished author with 118 titles published in the last 19 years, which have been nominated/won 134 awards, and has 39 more releases contracted, spanning many genres and formats. She is the author of the new Writer’s Digest Books title BRING YOUR FICTION TO LIFE.

Compared to the books that were written a hundred years ago, authors are given fewer and fewer words to “get to the point” these days. Whenever I think of a classic that would have been written almost beyond recognition for today’s readers, I think of The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, published in 1898. If this book were written today, we would have seen whipsawing action at this invasion—mountains crumbling, buildings crashing down around screaming citizens running for their lives in the growing chaos of the attack, fire lighting the sky. … But times, and fiction, were different then. And, as unbelievable as it is now, when this story was adapted for a radio broadcast in 1938, it utterly terrified its listeners, who thought the events were real. Can you even imagine?

There’s no denying that the first page—specifically the initial 250 words—is your story’s make-or-break stage. In these 250 make-or-break words, your reader (whether an editor at a publishing house, literary agent, bookstore browser, the library try-it-before-you-buy-it patron, or the optimistic soul who buys his books by the crate and has a massive home library because he wants to devour life-altering written words that he can go back to over and over again in his lifetime) makes the decision whether to turn the page or to close the book and never open it again. The wisest author advice I’ve ever heard about writing a killer opening is to assume that the reader is in a terrible mood when he opens your book and, for that reason, you can’t let yourself believe you have until page two to win him over. Engage immediately. Doing anything else is at your peril.

There are several distinctive methods for starting a story. Many books have started with each of these types, sometimes effectively, sometimes not so much. While I have opinions on which ones are most effective, I won’t comment. I’ll simply leave it for you to evaluate whether you think each case works and/or whether another type of opener would have been stronger.

1. Stolen Prologue

In this opener, the climax scene is pulled out of the middle/end of the book and put at the front as a prologue. A stolen prologue opening can also be an intriguing “future of the present” summary (not word for word, and maybe not told in the nail-biting way it will be shown later) that reveals something that happens much later in the book, in the present. This scenario is intended to give the reader a taste of the biggest, most exciting sequence in the story. Movie producers use this ploy a lot to get a film started with a bang.

Just to be clear, a prologue per se isn’t what’s in question here. It’s the “stolen” aspect we’re focused on. A strategy like this can work very well, hooking the reader into your story to find out what it all means and/or how it came about. It can also easily become old and contrived. Some authors and readers even consider it cheating, especially if it’s not done in a compelling way, or if, once the reader actually gets to that point in the book, the drama of the prologue becomes repetitive instead of compelling.

One reason writers may use this kind of opening scene is because the actual beginning of the story is boring and/or slow (and perhaps they want the editor or agent receiving this submission, the one who will probably read only the first chapter, to read the exciting middle/end of the book instead of the actual snail beginning). If you’ve set up this kind of opener in your book, ask yourself about your purpose in using it and whether you’ve done it for a legitimate reason that makes the book stronger. If the sole reason is because the “real” beginning is shaky, you might want to rethink using this as a starting point and pep up the true opener so it does the work it needs to. If the stolen prologue actually works and serves the purpose, go with it.

[Here’s a great article on how to structure a killer novel ending.]

2. Information Galore

In this type of introduction, the reader is given a ton of information that sets the premise of the story that follows. This can be written in a variety of ways—in the style of a prologue or synopsis, as a report of some kind, as a military dossier, in the style of a newspaper article, etc. Any of these can have a “true story” conveyance or be tailored to the fictional story about to be told.

Michael Crichton is one author who often started his books with these types of introductions, and he made this method work in whatever way he happened to present the information. For example, in Jurassic Park, he opens with a highly scientific and logical introduction detailing the field of biotechnology and genetic engineering in the late twentieth century and how a fictional company, InGen, instigated some sort of “incident” that led the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to protect its interests. This incident is the basis of the book. Crichton’s introduction effectively lays the groundwork for instilling a sense of real life into readers before the story truly begins with the fictional incident unfolding from that point on.

There can be very good reasons for using this kind of opener. If the information is actually based on true-life events, but may not fit into the story per se, that doesn’t mean it’s not important to convey anyway. If it’s not based on actual events, then maybe the underlying structure of the information presents a scientific, historical, or some other basis that lends authenticity to the story to follow; hence, the necessity of using this “info galore” delivery system to lay down the premise. This is another situation where asking yourself, “If I take this out altogether, does it damage the credibility of my story?” may be the deciding factor about whether it should be presented this way or cut.

3. Backstory-Dramatized Flashback, Dream, or Flash-Forward

This type of story opening injects a prologue or first chapter with a flashback that takes a pivotal event or memory from a character’s past and establishes where the story problem originated, slamming us into the heart of the drama. Another prospect is including a flash-forward—an event that happens in the future of the story about to be told. This event is inserted as a prologue. By using this method, you end up with a highly dramatized “real-time” (written as if it’s happening in the present, though the reader will find out following the prologue that the scene was actually something pulled from later in the book). A scenario like either of these options potentially supercharges the story, placing the reader into the midst of something emotionally powerful or that has the highest impact or action-packed situation of the book.

In his article “Where to Begin? When, Where and How to Write a Prologue,” Lital Talmor talks about the defining moment in the protagonist’s past, which must be told to the reader in order for him to understand the character. Talmor goes on to say, “Think how cold and alien Batman would be if we hadn’t first seen young Bruce standing bewildered over the bodies of his parents.” Giving the reader insight into a character’s motivating internal conflicts, stemming from an external conflict, with a flashback, dream, or flash-forward can harness instant intrigue.

[Learn important writing lessons from these first-time novelists.]

4. Change She Is A-Comin’

This type of opening establishes the main character’s world as it is. The beginning is a normal, ordinary, average-day viewpoint just before “the inciting incident” descends and tears everything apart. Depending on the genre of your story and whether the opening is done right, this method can be intriguing. If your character loves her life as is, this is probably the world she wants to get back to before she was so rudely interrupted by the external conflict. This can really resonate at the end of the book, because the reader will remember the world before so vividly.

This kind of opener can also be slow, indulgent, leisurely … and sometimes incredibly boring, if there’s not enough interest to grip the reader’s imagination. As you’re writing your “change is coming” opening, if you feel you’re struggling to get into the story, your readers probably will, too.

5. Here’s Johnny

I can’t remember where I heard this quote, but a writer said, “Don’t waste time—begin the story at the last possible moment.” While this always makes me laugh, because the two images presented are contradictory, that’s what this method is all about. Get to the point with your opening, yes, but start where something crazy and exciting is happening. Whatever conflict or inciting incident catapults your story should be present from the first sentence and, from there, bust up everything the main character knows and loves; nothing will ever be the same.

By jumping into the action of the current story at the precise moment and time of the inciting incident, the writer doesn’t have a lot of time to establish the facts of character, plot, and setting. This method requires a great deal of master-storytelling acrobatics to get everything that needs to be included in the opener precisely when and where the story (and the reader) needs them to be.

While not every story is so action packed that a T-Rex razes a swatch of destruction in the main character’s path as it sweeps through the area, the intensity of this kind of conflict-laden opener is ideal for every story, regardless of genre. In context of your story’s tone, you have to work hard to suck the reader in with a skillfully developed punch of action that gives the who-what-where-when-why succinctly, effectively, and instantly so the pages fly by and the real world goes all but unnoticed by the reader.

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If you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at cris.freese@fwmedia.com.

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from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/5-types-opening-scenes-make-story-stand