#of using words and setting and plot and structure and voices to evoke something

[thisbrilliantsky]

u ever read a book that has cool ideas and compelling characters and the writing itself is decent but. there is just a total lack of actual storytelling skill. and it's 1000+ pages.

[azus-reyan]

30% less for a cleaner draft

There's your first draft. You read it through, and you feel proud. But then you realize how much you’ll have to cut.

You spot a word or two here and there. A lone sentence that doesn’t add to the story. And then, to your worst nightmare, the entire paragraph you were most proud of because of how well you wrote it. 

They say editing is where writing happens. Anything before that is a jumble of nonsense stringed together by sheer will. But you want to turn the jungle into a palace of marble. So you cut the tresspassing trees, but how?

A good rule of thumb: cut 30% of your first draft.

That number varies depending on the writer, style, and format. But the real question is: what do you cut?

Here's what helped me clean up my messiest drafts.

If a word, sentence, or paragraph isn’t helpful for the story, you cut it—rephrase it—or add upon it if necessary. Yes, sometimes you add content somewhere to cut unnecessary content elsewhere.

There are only a few scenarios where a paragraph or a sentence is helpful. 

1- A word (or other) that moves the narrative. That reveals something about the character/s, the setting, or the plot.

2- A sentence (or other) that builds the proper pace of the story. That allows for a natural flow and structure.

3- A paragraph (or other) that builds a connection with the reader. That evokes emotion and human reactions like sadness, sorrow, or fear.

It’s rare for me to cut an entire word or sentence, let alone a paragraph. I usually rephrase sentences to make them brief and clear.

I focus on cutting adverbs. I use active voice in place of passive (though not always). I opt for simpler words when I can. I also avoid qualifiers when I can. 

All this leads to about a 30% reduction to my original draft, and it feels like a palace made of marble for it.

Until next time, good luck.

[literaticat]

What do you think are the top five YA and MG books to study for craft (fiction not non-fiction)?

Being that I am not a writer, I don't STUDY books... I just read them!

So I asked some of my brilliant clients who also TEACH writing to ask THEM this question and I got the following responses:

Jo Knowles says: "Usually when I suggest books to a student, it's after they tell me about the kind of book they hope to write, and I've seen their writing and have had time to think about "what's missing" from it, at least for me. Usually that's emotion. Or connection. Often their characters just don't feel "real" yet. So I end up usually recommending books that moved me deeply, or inspired me in some way, hoping it does the same for them. I give a huge range and try to make it as diverse as I can.

I AM THE MESSENGER is always on that list. Mainly because it can be looked at for so many of those perfect things, AND because it's almost a collection of short stories, as the MC tries to address each family/person he's meant to help in some way. They are all so moving and real to me. I also love recommending TENDER MORSELS because it deals with trauma in such a profound way, and can show students how powerful this sort of "fantasy" (I really hesitate to call it that), can be. But it really depends on the genre they are writing in. If realistic, that's one thing, if sci fi, another. So I don't know that I would have a top five. But for students writing memoir or biofiction, I usually recommend THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM and BROWN GIRL DREAMING and FUN HOME and STITCHES. If something with fantasy, I would definitely include THE GRAVEYARD BOOK and TITHE. And if historical, anything by MT Anderson and also Christopher Paul Curtis. There are just so many more! But I really wouldn't just give a random list because one size doesn't fit all and I'd want to get to know the person, what their likes and dislikes are, and what they are aiming for themselves before I'd make a recommendation."

Martha Brockenbrough says: "Yes! What Jo says. I don’t rank books by best of, because that’s a lot of energy over something uselessly subjective. Instead, I think about the aspects of craft that matter most when it comes to determining excellence:

character

plot

setting

structure

point of view

voice

theme

To be excellent, a book really ought to be doing all of these things at a masterful level. But there’s probably one or two of those areas that will shine.

So, I love the characters and voice of Jaclyn Moriarty’s Ashbury/Brookfield series. She does multiple POV and even crosses genres with these books.

Holly Black is absolutely KILLER for plot, and the Curseworkers series are superb. The intersection of plot/POV is extraordinary in Elizabeth Wein’s Code Name Verity.

For structure, LONG WAY DOWN is a book about an elevator ride and it is an elevator ride. He of course is one of the finest writers ever, as well. But I do love a structure that underscore the theme.

In every category, Rita Williams Garcia’s A SITTING IN ST JAMES is an absolute work of art.

But I do think Jo’s insight—find a book that does what you want your book to do—is key when you’re trying to write a certain kind of book. Any excellent book can show you remarkable craft, and one key to recognizing it is to note a spot in the book that makes you feel a particular emotion. When you feel something, then you analyze every word and preceding scene to understand what techniques evoked that important emotion.

That’s why we read. To feel something. How do authors do this? Well, that is a very long story..."

Linda Urban says: "Agree with Martha and Jo.  My recommendations for mentor texts are usually specific to my students' needs or challenges -- what book makes you feel like you know the character in the same way that you want readers to feel they know YOUR character?  What book moves time the way you want your book to move time?  What plot twist surprised you in the way you want your plot to suprise readers?

That said, I have go-to books where I think the craft is stellar and also easy to discern.  I use the first chapter of Jason Reynold's GHOST a lot for students who want to figure out how to establish character and stakes in from the get-go.  I love SEE YOU AT HARRY'S for emotional whollop and unexpected plot twists (that are still within the realm of realism).  I like Anne Ursu's THE REAL BOY for omniscient narrator . . . etc. etc. etc.

The point is, read a lot -- read books that feel like they do what you most want to do, like they'd be great neighbors on a bookshelf (even if they are for different age readers or different genres or forms) and learn from them."

[dearwriters]

The dearwriters Revision-Checklist

VIII. Line Edit

Certainly not universal, mostly a hodgepodge of a bunch of writing advice gathered over the years. Hope it helps!

1. Vary long and short sentences

2. Vary sentence structure

3. Replace weak verbs with strong verbs: This can also help with minimizing adverbs. Example: replace “he smiled widely” with “he grinned” to convey just the right picture. Think about the feeling you want to evoke with the word.

4. Remove filter words (check out this video by author Alexa Donne to learn about filter words)

5. Remove unnecessary words: If a word can be removed without the sentence changing, does it have to be there? (Attention: If the word contributes to the prose, it’s not explicitly unnecessary)

6. Can a complicated sentence be written more clearly?

7. Repetition Check: Look for repeated words, repeated word in a different meaning/context, other words with the same meaning/context. Look for repeated phrases/descriptions (check out this phrase counter), or crutch words (cheack out this word counter)

8. Remove Passive Voice whenever possible (check out this video by author Alexa Donne to learn about passive voice)

9. Show vs. Tell: Look for instances ot “tell”. Telling is not necessarily bad. Just ask yourself: Why am I telling here instead of showing? Is it justified and intentional/functional?

10. Remove direct expression of emotion: Don’t flat out say “she was sad”. Describe the sadness to evoke the readers emotion.

11. Info-Dump and Ramble Check: Break up too big paragraphs of information, inner monologue or stream of consciousness.

12. Purple Prose Check: Do the words you use have significant meaning or are they just there to sound pretty? And it’s okay to just sound pretty. But this goes hand in hand with the Ramble Check. Are you just talking to hear yourself talk or are you actually saying something?

13. Can you put it on a shirt?: I know, this is obscure. But think about your favourite books and the quotable little snippets of text that adorn all the merch. You want to have some of those little things that grab the readers attention and stay in their minds. Short, concise and aesthetic.

14. Flow Check: Read the whole thing out loud and look for things that sound weird or forced. (check out this post to learn more)

15. Grammar Check

16. Spelling check: once normal, once backwards (word for word, to really catch the little things without being distracted by the story)

Check out the other parts here:

I. Pre-Revision

II. Plot-Revision

III. Character Revision

IV. Setting Revision  

V. Pace Revision

VI. Detail Revision

VII. Dialogue Revision

[ddaenghoney]

SERIES: HALLOWEEN BETWEEN MIDNIGHTS

Chapter 25

On October 1st, you attend a Halloween party in an abandoned house rented by some friends. As scary as the idea of cult owners is, nothing could have prepared you and BTS(regular people) for the mayhem and terror that follows until October 31st.

This is an INTERACTIVE fic. At the end of each part, readers will be able to vote to decide what happens next. Analyze everything(except the time) carefully. Choices decide romance, friendship, and deaths; and yes, ANYONE can die.

In other words, please read at your own risk; anything goes in this story.

Start here | Previous part | Next part 

“Fine!” You yelled quickly, nodding to the demand while your eyes examined Namjoon’s body growing less responsive to the gusting air that prevented him from breathing. “Okay, just stop hurting him!”

Now.

“I trust, I give, I am!” Your voice called aloud, spine shuddering from the implications you knew would come, but as the wind immediately dissipated you felt at least slightly better. Namjoon coughed senselessly, heaving in the air he had not been able to for what felt to him like an eternity. “I trust, I give, I am.” You continued, body altogether tensing as your vision filtered into a deepening red tint. You looked back at the owl as it hovered centrally over the diagram. Its own eyes seeming to emit light, as you opened your mouth again, “I trust,” You felt your throat heat and begin to rasp from a strengthening tension. You wanted to clutch your neck. “I give-”

Your voice halted midway as you gasped outright as a book flew over your shoulder and hit the owl directly. Successfully knocking it into Taehyung before heaving on the floor. Taehyung’s body shifted, a foot moving backwards to steady his balance. Your vision returned to its usual color scheme.

“No, none of this Satanic, demon shit anymore!” Jeongguk yelled, before quickly moving past you, through the diagram to grab Namjoon’s huddled body. You watched in stunned stupor as the ridiculousness idea of a book hitting some type of mystical entity ended up stopping the entire seance in its tracks.

“Jeongguk, you know that fucking book is important and you just threw it!” Yoongi groaned as he stepped beside you, hesitant to put a foot into the diagram as Jeongguk rashly ran through, “Are you okay?”

“Are any of us?” You looked at him with disbelief then back at Jeongguk, who aided Namjoon in standing. “What just happened-”

The book.

Your ears rung with the harsh voice banging in your head once more, squinting your eyes to seemingly relieve the pain. As Yoongi began questioning what was wrong with widening eyes, you looked past him to Hoseok’s body as it stabled into a crouch, clearly about to move forward.

“Yoongi, that book!” You cut of the question, desperate to make Yoongi act. Turning his head to look as Hoseok began to stumble forward, Yoongi’s leg jerked as well, disregarding the worry as he beat Hoseok to the book.

“This soul,” Hoseok grumbled, clutching against his chest when Yoongi grabbed the book, “Isn’t submissive-” Your eyes narrowed. Obviously Hoseok’s actual soul was still in there somewhere, trying to overcome the intruder. If there was a way to disconnect them then maybe he would be okay as well.

The owl screeched, successfully causing everyone able to grasp at their ears, and you desperately wanting to do the same. Yoongi, Jeongguk, and Namjoon fell to their knees from the continuous rage of sound surging through their heads. Your eyes clenched shut, but not before watching Hoseok maintain composure. Unbothered.

Taehyung had to have been the same way if you had thought about it. Completely unresponsive to the terror of the noise, and the whirlwind from earlier. You too only felt the gusting air, and none of the suction that caused Namjoon to suffocate, but now you were in as much pain as the other three.

Was any of it actually happening, or just in your heads?

In fact, all the problems around campus for the past month were caused by you. Controlled by the demon, sure, but there were no outside influences apart from what was in you. There was no other person guiding Taehyung. Hoseok’s words coaxed psychological reactions from you, but even his power came from what was inside and caused by the cult. The control the demon had over you and Taehyung, and whatever spirit over Hoseok were due to the seances; the active giving of yourself to the supernatural.

But Jeongguk also participated in the seance and yet he has yet to suffer any type of restrainment in the ways you and Taehyung have.

Why?

The stinging in your ears persisting and scraping like you were going to lose the ability to hear at any second. As you tried to peek through an eye, Hoseok sauntered clumsily through the diagram, bending besides Yoongi’s curled, pained body to grab the book. The owl flew from behind Taehyung, mouth ajar, but the sound never strengthening or deteriorating. The talons landed on Hoseok’s shoulder-- the left shoulder like where you had felt the owl’s attack the night of the party. Hoseok completely steadied upright. No longer looking to be at an internal war.

“The sacrifice, then.” He rolled his neck, stretching. “Now there’s even more life to sustain you.”

The owl’s mouth shut, effectively ending the shrieking noise. Yoongi’s hands rubbed against his ears. Jeongguk and Namjoon both stopped trembling from pain. You glared,

“You can’t even get rid of Hoseok’s soul-- whatever that demon promised you isn’t going to work out like you want.”

“I send that life off tonight.” He replied simply, shrugging as walked back to his spot on the diagram, “Don’t speak about what you don’t understand-”

“Taehyung was promised something too, right? That we-- his friends would all be okay?” You spoke on, “Look at him though. Lied to. You really put your faith in that bird?”

Reddened irises moved towards you, sending gravity against you that felt real. Like you were being binded from every angle, tightening. The pressure made you feel confined, but your breathing stayed even. You couldn’t be killed.

“The positions on this diagram are all evenly pointing to the middle-- you’ll just be a sacrifice too. All of the fucking corpses in these walls too-”

“They’re not corpses, they’re alive.” Hoseok held up the book, shaking it softly. “Binding to life indefinitely.”

“Just until you can find another body, huh?” Your mouth shut forcibly, the eyes of the owl still encasing your person in an icy stare. You willed it open again, “Aren’t you just two lives shoved into one right now? Just another eighty or something years to add to that demon’s human body-” Shut again.

“You’re just going to get played too.” You glanced to Namjoon, who seemed to pick up on your intention. Nodding as Hoseok glared over to him he continued, “Your cult buddies aren’t going to get revived-- what they’re in these walls?” He turned his head to look at the bulging structures, swallowing thickly in disgust before shoving it aside to finish, “They’re just pawns as well. You’re not special.” You watched Jeongguk shift in the corner of your eye, inching from Namjoon as he rambled on. “It’s the oldest trick in the book, besides when has a demon ever been good to the cult that worships it-”

“I’m alive aren’t I?” Hoseok spoke up, sighing in annoyance. Yoongi narrowed his eyes,

“To help the owl get more souls-- you’re just a lottery ticket in our friend’s body.” You bit your lip wondering about Jeongguk’s intention as he looked on at Taehyung. Your spine twitched, burns crawling,

Repeat the words.

You couldn’t understand the point in the demand at this point. There was no reason for you to agree. No one was held captive anymore. And even if you did follow through, you couldn’t imagine any of you escaping out of this anyways.

Yoongi’s eyes narrowed on the book clutched tightly in Hoseok’s hands. The twitch in the fingers against the spine gave him reason to believe Hoseok was wavering.

“You lied to that guy outside I bet too-” Namjoon spoke up. Jeongguk reached to Taehyung, about to grab him as Namjoon went on, “Made the moron think he’d get whatever you’re after too. He seems simpler-” Everyone’s bodies jerked into surprise as a gunshot went off, effectively evoking screams as Namjoon fell down to the ground, yelling out in pain as he clutched onto his far shoulder.

Your heart rate skyrocketed at the sight, every muscle shaking from fear, growing stronger as a voice spoke from behind you, “What’s this about a moron?”

“What the hell are you doing?” Hoseok pitched up with an angered glare at the guy standing in the doorway, “Bringing guns in here-”

“What difference does death make by a gun if you’re going to sacrifice all these brats anyways? What? Murder has its own set of ethics?” He stepped forward, “Kill me through a lie, huh-”

“No, you idiot-”

Yoongi’s eyes widened watching the guy’s body suddenly contort in half, the spine effectively breaking to release a loud wail, before the neck too snapped. The body dropped to the floor, limp.

The silence following was cold. You didn’t see it, but the expressions on Yoongi and Jeongguk’s faces were enough to blur out the groans emitting Namjoon’s mouth. You weren’t sure of the severity of his wounds but he was still bleeding, Jeongguk or Yoongi could’ve been shot as well in this time. And the guy behind you was dead. There was no denying that. Your glanced to the owl, its head turning back towards you,

I won’t include your three friends in the sacrifice if you follow in it.

Please feel free to send thoughts, predictions, interpretations; they really help me to know how to word the story so that everyone successfully understands the plot points I’m trying to get across ! More than happy to answer questions you may have !

[silver-leaf-girl]

so I read Record of a Spaceborn Few

so, I just finished the audiobook of Becky Chambers Record of Spaceborn Few last night, and haha do I have some feelings. it is a beautiful, and lovely book?

mild spoilers, and initial review-y thoughts below?

I think a lot of my friends will be familiar with Becky Chambers’ stuff, but for context (since context is such a theme in this book) - they’re queer-positive, fairly soft sci fi, focusing on the relationships (shipmates, romantic, rivalries, friendships) between individuals in the world, rather than colossal Events of Galactic Significance (esp. compared to stuff like Ann Leckie, who I also like a lot). they’re also focused on humans (and their creations, <3 Lovelace in Book 2) as a kind of marginal and hardscrabble recently discovered species that’s not up to much, rather than casting us as the kind of ‘Humanity F- Yeah!‘/humans are special/have a unique manifest destiny that a fair amount of other sci fi does (a lot of people compare Chambers with the Mass Effect universe, which I genuinely don’t like because of this).

RoSF is very much in the tradition of this kind of small-scale ‘cosy’ sci-fi, dealing with the Exodan Fleet and its inhabitants who fled an environmentally devastated Earth, and who are under the three strains of the loss of one of their Generation Ships to metal fatigue, the visit of a well-meaning but intrusive alien anthropologist (whose broadcasts back home to her wealthy alien planet are really well-captured), and the issue of emigration/immigration/decline (?) of the Fleet. It follows a variety of plot lines - a fleet archivist, a recent immigrant, a restless teen guy, a caretaker (a kind of priest/funerary worker, really interesting), and a harried mum who’s considering leaving the fleet. It really inhabits their everyday lives and concerns; it indirectly tells a bigger story about uncertain cultural identity, but is focused on these small intimate stories.

The big through-line in the book is a sense of community, shared history, and what we owe to the past. The ships of the Exodan Fleet are maintained and patched together from their own scraps; people carry on identities, meanings and (as is discussed in one rather haunting bit towards the end) even bodies and ways of living as relics from a planet they will never set foot on; and (a really key theme) the nutrients of the bodies of the dead are recycled in a really emotive and heartfelt funereal ritual. How different people struggle with the past - rejecting it, chafing against it, seeking it out to fill holes in themselves, finding meaning in it, preserving it, making it - is so key throughout the book, both in the fiction, in the language, and the structure (bookended by two naming ceremonies, using a form of words that is so beautiful I feel I have to put it in a reblog), and it puts together a beautiful picture of a changing society where people are trying to preserve the values they built it on. The notion of recognising the fleet/the fleet you grew up in - is really powerful, and honestly a bit heart-in-throat.

But the notion of keeping shared history for its own sake isn’t enough - what’s worth preserving? Politically, it’s v. interesting too - there’s quite a lot of (well-blended-in) exposition and description of how the Fleet operates, and it’s ... well, if not Post Scarcity Fully Automated Luxury Gay Pacifist Space Communism, then at least Low Scarcity Labour-Egalitarian Lib Fem Space Anarcho-Socialism. The way that humans live and coexist alongside each other - where people come together, and where the faultlines between them are - is really well-illustrated without becoming didactic, and the idea of the fleet as this utopian, half-realised, desperate-but-now-slightly adrift project is really beautiful and well-evoked. The book is hopeful and convincing about the liberatory potential of this project (there’s a beautiful bit towards the end about even people leaving the fleet still being part of it and embodying what it values and means, but is ultimately clear-eyed about the fact that it’s the marginalised, minority part of a species that is nothing special on the galactic field and is surrounded by wealthy and powerful neighbours. It’s clear about the lingering crud of human social structures, about being undercut by intense, tragic disaster, by unequal external trade and internal corruption, and about the dubious appeals of the austere space-borne (and spaceborn) life compared to what the capitalist world beyond offers - but it’s hopeful nonetheless that people can make something of it, and that the fleet can carry on.

In terms of ~queer content~, it’s not quite as rich a vein as some of the previous books (first one had a lot more queer aliens and relationship structures, second had an incredibly strong trans metaphor as a through-line with an AI working out embodiment), but it’s got a lot of stuff that works with this too? Isabel, one of the main characters, is in a beautifully described and lovely wlw relationship, and her date with her wife where they’re remembering how they met is one of the most lovely bits of the book? Sometimes it’s OK not to have difficult queer feelings be an important part of the book. Sometimes just happy elderly lesbians is all you want/need! There’s also some interesting stuff with Sunny - a sex worker - and his relationship with Eyas, a funerary worker/caretaker - about the concept of ‘caring for bodies’, and the emotional labour that goes into that?

In terms of writing, it’s beautiful and lovely, just as much a warm hug and cup of hot chocolate as any of the other books in the series - it’s not super-lyrical or evocative in its use of language, but that’s not the point - it’s heartfelt and evokes real, flawed-but-good people in messy but fixable situations. The narration by Patricia Rodriguez on the audiobook version that I listened to is fantastic - I particularly like the way that she subtly changes language and accent on the different viewpoint characters to evoke the way different cultural perspectives and denaturalising the protagonists’ narrative voice.

So yes - it’s a small, beautiful, character-focused book with an extremely evocative sense of community and history. I cried a few times listening to it.

I’d definitely recommend it - probably on its own, but ideally in the context of the other two books before it, to flesh and round out the world(s) it evokes.

[vincent-marie]

A Look Back on TREASURE PLANET

So recently I rewatched TREASURE PLANET for the first time in about fifteen years and… I'm not gonna lie, it's still my personal favorite of the 2D Disney animated features from the early to mid-2000s.

Let's be real. Of the 2D features Disney released around that time period, TREASURE PLANET is one of the more solid films. ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE had some interesting ideas and some really nice design work and animation, but it really needed to be at least two hours long if it wanted to flesh out the characters and the world-building without requiring supplementary material (like a special edition of Disney Adventure magazine). Hardly anybody remembers BROTHER BEAR was even a thing, and the less said about HOME ON THE RANGE, the better. (Seriously, that movie wasn't even worth the Steve Buscemi cameo.)

The only other film of that era that has really held up was LILO AND STITCH, and I'll admit it's probably a better film than TREASURE PLANET. It took more risks in terms of character, setting and originality, and emotionally it leaves more of an impact. (That scene when Nani sings to Lilo makes me cry like a baby every time.) My only problem with it is it always felt like two entirely different movies collided with each other and it never felt like they really meshed well. Otherwise, I agree with most fans that it’s a good film.

Also, of course, there was the excellent THE EMPEROR’S NEW GROOVE, which was just such a huge departure from Disney’s normal schtick and trying something more Tex Avery-esque, only for it to be a perfect storm instead of a total crash and burn. That is much to be proud of.

Going back to TREASURE PLANET, I can understand that most folks walk away saying it’s an "okay" film. I, however, am not one of those people. I've had a real soft spot for this movie ever since I saw it, but now I appreciate this film for additional reasons.

Namely, the animation and effects work. Holy crap, is this movie gorgeous! It's like watching Don Bluth's ANASTASIA, except I don't have to feel guilty about historical inaccuracies. (Now it’s just scientific inaccuracies, but STAR WARS gets away with that all the time.)

Directors John Musker and Ron Clements had apparently wanted to do a sci-fi retelling of "Treasure Island" since before they started working on THE LITTLE MERMAID. With that in mind I do feel like this movie would have fared better with critics back in the early 90s during the Disney Renaissance. However at that time they would not have had such elaborate and detailed CG effects within arm's reach. There's something I really enjoy about the use of 3D backdrops so that they may do sweeping camera movements, and that's not even getting into the lighting effects to establish atmosphere.

What's more, there are a lot of subtleties to the character animation that I never appreciated until now. You could just pick one character and focus on him or her during the whole movie and find a lot of fun little quirks in their dialogue or walk cycles.

Admittedly, much of this film’s appeal probably depends on how much of an animation fan you are. In my case I was watching John Silver’s animation and I suspected that Glen Keane was probably in charge of animating him (as there are moments when Silver looks so much like Ratigan). Those suspicions were confirmed during the end credits and I was delightfully geeking out about it.

It’s also easy to see where this film might not have had a lot of mass appeal. Most of the focus on the story is on Jim Hawkins and his daddy issues, which by the early 2000s was already a cliche of a character arc. And it’s not helped by the fact that Jim himself is... well, kind of on the bland side as a protagonist. There’s not a lot about him that makes him any more or less interesting than any other teenage male lead. But for what it is I think the movie did fine at establishing and building the relationship between Jim and Silver, which does have its warm and comforting moments. For both of them.

And at least the film is straightforward with its plot and characters and it’s not a structural mess like HERCULES, a previous venture by Musker and Clements.

Something I’ve noticed over the years is that TREASURE PLANET has a little bit of a cult following. I distinctly remember this one time when I was taking a storyboard class in college; we were assigned to do a “Master Study” assignment by recreating the key story frames in our favorite scene in a favorite animated movie. One of my classmates picked the scene when Jim is brought home to the inn by the police and embarrasses his mother. I recall being so impressed, and even a little envious, that she got the character design style down to a T. (If you’re wondering what movie/scene I picked for my Master Study, I picked the Big Ben scene from THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE.)

Then, of course, some friends and I suspect that TREASURE PLANET might have fared better if it had been released a bit later, more towards the height of the Steampunk craze. It’s not quite what I would call “Steampunk”, as it takes place in a sort of alternate universe version of the 18th century and not the Gothic era, and most of their transport is solar-powered and not steam-based. Nevertheless it’s easy to see how fans of Steampunk could find it appealing, with its mostly earth-tone color pallet to evoke the painted illustrations of the classic novel it was based on. Also that combination of a pre-20th century aesthetic with out-of-this-world science fiction elements is pretty much, in my opinion, what makes Steampunk so much fun to play around with. Also, a robot made out of copper. End of story.

In terms of why this film didn’t do so well when it was released, I suspect what stunted its success was the marketing. I could be wrong, as I was actually living in Honduras at the time of the film’s release, but we got some TV stations from Denver, Colorado. I remember a lot of the TV spots spent most of their time highlighting the goofy comic relief moments with Morph, and there was a real emphasis on the presence of B.E.N., even though he's in less than one-third of the movie. In other words, the film's success might have been partially sabotaged by a marketing team that seemed to think if you don’t take your film seriously at all that will somehow draw in the crowd.

Although speaking of the comic relief characters, I actually don’t mind them that much. I always thought Morph had a lot of cute, funny moments that weren’t too obnoxious. As for B.E.N., I kind of have mixed feelings for him. On one hand, the directing team made better use of Martin Short’s improvisational skills than PEBBLE AND THE PENGUIN or WE’RE BACK! ever did. But on the other hand, does B.E.N. have to be so loud and shouty? However, while B.E.N. is a real screw-up, he’s not so much to the point where I want to see him get smashed with a sledgehammer. He’s generally likable, not at all loathsome, and just annoying enough, but not TOO annoying.

However while we’re still on the subject of B.E.N., I’d just like to add that the CG animation on him is really nice. Making him 3D gives him a sort of sense of solidity compared to his hand-drawn humanoid compadres, and to top it off his animation isn’t at all stiff or feels like the CG is holding him back. There is some really expressive squashing and stretching going on with his dialogue. It’s so subtle in places that you’d probably miss it if you’re not looking for it. A lot of CG animation studios at the time like Pixar and Dreamworks had not quite mastered squashing and stretching themselves, so kudos to Disney for pulling it off so well.

Now if I may indulge a little on why I remember this film fondly, my favorite characters were always Dr. Doppler and Captain Amelia. They are both fun and engaging on their own, but together they are weirdly adorable. Granted, I've always thought them getting together at the end was a bit rushed, but I still totally buy it.

(What I don't buy is that they'd be so eager to have kids after Doppler showed such annoyance and revulsion towards that toddler alien girl at the beginning. I get that the creators wanted some visual shorthand to indicate that they're an official couple, but they could have just been wearing wedding rings or throw in a little more of them dancing together.)

Part of the reason I love these characters on their own is the casting. I was already familiar with Emma Thompson from Ang Lee's adaptation of SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, and her character of Eleanor Dashwood was very quiet and reserved. You can imagine my disbelief and delight hearing her play an assertive, witty badass as Amelia. (As if I didn't already think Amelia’s design was cool.)

As for David Hyde Pierce, I had only occasionally watched FRASIER growing up, but when I saw this movie I was familiar with him through some other memorable voice acting roles, particularly that excellent Season 8 episode of THE SIMPSONS, “Brother From Another Series.” In other words, I already knew him to be funny, snarky and charismatic.

While I'm on about the casting, I feel like there's a totally wasted opportunity to have these two characters in a room together, say, before the black hole scene, exchanging witty banter to show how compatible they are in a casual setting. It’s a shame that Emma and David didn’t record their dialogue together, because with her being an accomplished writer and with his skills at improvisation, there could have been some good verbal combat by way of “Much Ado About Nothing-Meets-Frasier.”

But looking back, I remember I immediately loved Captain Amelia just on principal. As a kid I never really gravitated that much to any of the Disney princesses. I can’t really describe why, but it was mostly how they were marketed as just looking pretty and (arguably) kind of passive in their own stories. Not to mention how when Disney Princess became a brand, they really amped up the girly cutesy-ness to their preexisting images. Not to say there’s anything inherently wrong with cute or feminine things, but it really made me feel like a weirdo who somehow wasn’t fit to be called a girl.

Captain Amelia, on the other hand, had her own style of femininity by wearing a classy, more masculine captain’s uniform along with thigh-high high-heeled boots (that she has no problem running in). She had a no-nonsense attitude, she was focused and cool-headed in a stressful situation, she was downright snarky and took crap from no one. In other words, she was the type of woman I wanted to be when I grew up, and to this day she is my favorite Disney Lady, bar none.

And while I’m at it, I’m just going to add that I’ve always found Dr. Doppler more attractive than your standard Disney prince. Besides his character design looking like a canine version of Roger from 101 DALMATIONS, he just always seemed like he’d be fun to get a coffee with.

Well, that’s about all I really want to talk about regarding TREASURE PLANET. It’s a shame it’s not remembered by more people as it does have some really good elements to it, but in some regards I can kind of see why it wasn’t a huge critical success. If you haven’t seen it already I recommend checking it out as it’s a pretty solid standalone film that doesn’t need supplementary material and covers all the bases with the plot and some fun character moments here and there. If you’re an animation fan I cannot stress enough how you really need to watch it, or even rewatch it, because, again, the animation and effects work is just a real feast for the eyes.

[mattbrothersscriptwriter]

My Top 20 Films of 2017 - Part Two

Ok, so about ten minutes ago I finished watching my last 2017 film of the year. For my FULL list - all 127 films watched in order of preference - jump on over to my Letterboxd page: https://letterboxd.com/matt_bro/list/films-of-the-year-2017/

Alright, top 10:

10. Logan

In a time when a lot of people still bemoan the existence of so many comic book movies (occasionally, with a point) this has been a stellar year for them. Marvel’s triple whammy of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Spiderman Homecoming and Thor Ragnarok were all excellent, heartfelt, fun knockouts and Wonder Woman was a terrific showcase for both Gal Gadot and Patty Jenkins (not to mention hugely important in its own right). Only Justice League really fell back on old tired habits and resulted in a bizarre mashup of tone and purpose and featured the single most damning piece of CGI buffoonery ever conceived in Henry Cavill’s ‘we’ll fix it in post’ deleted moustache. That really is one for the ages.

But I could never have foreseen the power and beauty of something like Logan, a near-perfect capper to a spinoff trilogy that began with the God-awful Wolverine Origins. It’s strengths come from it’s convictions – this isn’t an episodic story servicing a franchise, this is a true stand alone character piece, focusing on the rarest of things – an actual ending to a beloved, previously untouchable, immortal superhero. Played out as a tragic western with claws, the film beautifully champions the importance of family and love, seen (at last) through the eyes of those that never dreamed they would experience it, let alone fight for it. With some fantastic action set pieces to boot too, this one really has its cake and its eat and is also a real sight to behold – I saw it for a second time in it’s gorgeous black and white ‘Logan Noir’ cut and every frame is a revelation. Huge props to Patrick Stewart too, delivering a devastating performance of a character is has also lived with for the past SEVENTEEN years.

9. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool

This film is a heartbreaker. My God. Definitely the most surprising cinema-going experience I had this year. I went with a friend of mine and by the time the credits were rolling, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house – best encapsulated by a burly scouser sat behind us who was openly saying “Fuck me, didn’t expect that for a Sunday afternoon. Jesus! How bloody brilliant was that!? Got any tissues?’.

Focusing on the later years of Hollywood starlet Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening on Oscar sweeping form), it finds her semi-washed up and treading the boards in London where she meets and falls for Peter Gallagher (Jamie Bell – never better than this) another actor, half her age. The tenderness and straight forwardness of their pairing is so refreshing, never making an issue or point about the older woman/younger man dynamic unless directly challenged by other characters (including Gloria’s bratty sister Joy) or themselves. The most effective emotional beats of this film aren’t signposted and drawn out for Oscar clip schmaltzyness but instead hit you in a sudden burst of passionate regret; hurtful words said in anger or defence – truly proving that the most harmful things you can say to someone you love are all too easy to let slip out before you’ve had a chance to think about what you’re saying. But the damage is done.

The film-making here is exceptional too. What could have been a rather dry biopic is given such momentum through brilliantly executed scene transitions and a flashback-enhanced narrative that keeps us embroiled in the present day scenes of Gloria succumbing to cancer whilst we watch their initial courtships and brutal arguments from the months and years leading up to it. The supporting cast that includes Julie Walters, back as Bell’s mother and Stephen Graham as his brother are brilliant but this is Bening/Bell’s movie and they knock it out of the park.

8. Baby Driver

My big birthday blowout screening of the year, following last year’s Aliens 30th anniversary showing, Baby Driver did not let me down. All the usual energy, narrative foreshadowing and tightly controlled construction you’ve come to expect from an Edgar Wright flick blown out onto a much bigger and more confident scale. The genius pairing of getaway driver crime heist flick and vehicular musical allows for some hugely inventive set pieces, from the opening police chase set to Bellbottoms by the John Spencer Blues Explosion to the car-on-car parking lot duel with Queen’s Brighton Rock echoing through the tunnels.

Ansel Elgort delivers a breakout turn and everyone from Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx and Kevin somebody-or-other are having a ball playing bad. The romance with waitress Lily James initially feels a little under cooked but it all plays into the escapist fairytale of the action and seeing them dance together in a laundromat whilst sharing headphones is one of this year’s purest joys.

7. Get Out

Where It soaked up much of the straight spooky horror acclaim this year, Get Out walked a much more tantalising and complex line between thriller, social drama, satire, comedy and horror – and pulled it all off effortlessly. Jordan Peele has long had grand cinematic aspirations as evidenced in some of the larger scale sketches in his fantastic show Key and Peele but this clearly represents everything he wanted to say and do in a debut feature. I think the odds of so perfectly nailing your voice and intentions in your very first film is astronomical but damn, he must be proud, not only of the film itself but the cultural reach, impact and resonance it has had with audiences.

Daniel Kaluuya is excellent as the everyman battling his own (rational) fears and paranoia before his instincts slowly become the domineering voice in the back of his head. Trust in oneself is the saving grace here and it’s great to see an array of other ‘traditional’ characters for this genre twist the knife and reveal their true colours. The “Rose, where are my keys” turning point is perhaps the tightest I’ve gripped the arm of my chair all year. And the eventual climax is one of the best examples of subverting expected genre tropes. Brilliant.

6. Raw

Speaking of confident debuts, Julia Ducournau’s is equally astounding. Not for the faint hearted, this queasy, cannibalistic coming of age tale is a near perfect slice of fucked up fever dream. It follows a young vegetarian attending veterinary college who is forced to eat rabbit meat in a sick hazing ritual – one that her fellow student and older sister has clearly already experienced. Slowly but surely, a triggering of her animalistic appetite grows, coinciding both with her own first steps into a sexual awakening as well as a growing sense of unease that something isn’t right in her family to begin with. 

The plot takes some nutty turns, not least in the last few minutes, but everything works; from the gorgeous imagery to the tonal juggling to the assured performances. This would make an excellent entry in an ‘arthouse does horror subgenre’ triple bill, doing for cannibals what A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night does for vampires and The Witch does for... witches.

5. Jackie

This is a breathtaking biopic - interested less in the broad strokes of history and what we think we know about the aftermath of one of the most infamous events of the 20th century and more in the nuanced, private, personal moments of grief in the public eye. Natalie Portman is astounding as Jackie Kennedy, nailing everything from the look to the voice to the affectations, and its the dreamlike, woozy way that the film unfolds that really draws you in and positions you in the eye of a hurricane. The JFK assassination was a monumental cultural milestone but this story asks you to put yourself in the shoes of a woman who was unavoidably trapped at ground zero - and largely all alone with her memories and emotions, despite the surrounding pressures of aides, the press and the American people.

This is supremely confident filmmaking, incredibly affecting and features another stand out score from Mica Under the Skin Levi.

4. 20th Century Women

The second film on my list for both Annette Bening and Greta Gerwig, this is a wonderful story about the strengths and flaws found in both the family we’re given and the family we choose. With an anecdotal, episodic structure, it is less focused on plot and more on the individual moments that the characters in our lives provide us with; how they affect our own life story and evoke memories of a certain time and place. 

It’s highly emotional, with touching asides and rambling voiceovers telling us numerous stories whilst keeping a sense of an anchor through the relationship between Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) and his mother Dorothea (Bening). The supporting cast is uniformly great, from Elle Fanning as the girl next door to Billy Crudup as a lonely tenant/handyman, this one really hit me hard. The late 70s period details, along with the soundtrack, and the sun bleached cinematography recalls the joy of discovering yourself through questionable music, bad decisions and rebellious behaviour. Check it out.

3. A Ghost Story

I doubt any other film this year left quite a long lasting impression as this one did. I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards and became rather obsessed with pretty much everything it accomplishes. It’s a fairly straight forward tale of a couple (Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara) whose relationship begins to feel the strain as they quietly realise they might want different things in life. We’re not privy to many more details, positioned as a voyeur which will continue as things unfold but before long, Affleck is killed in a simple car accident outside his home and seemingly rises from death to haunt his old home, dressed entirely in the hospital bed sheet his corpse was covered in. It’s a genius depiction of the traditional ghost - simultaneously off-putting, amusing, whimsical and ridiculous - and it’s also rooted in logic too. As the ghost continues to watch his Mara grieve for him (mesmerisingly encapsulated in an unbroken take of a depressed Mara eating an entire pie that her neighbour brought round), he (and us) slowly begin to notice time... breaking.

The way the passing of time is visualised here is beautifully simple - rather than the long slow fades that normally indicate transitions, here it is as sudden as the ghost turning around to look over his shoulder, through a series of hard cuts or sometimes, no cuts at all. That feeling of time literally slipping away is brutal and the ghost can do nothing but wander about, seemingly helpless to how fast things change. One moment, Mara packs up and leaves, the next a new family of three have apparently been living there for months. Ultimately, the film becomes a meditation on the importance we embue in places, not so much people. The house is the anchor - the core - of what the ghost latches on to and if you’ve ever had the feeling of wondering who lived in your home before you and who will be there after you’ve gone, this film will dig deep into your mind.

I found this to be a brilliantly low-fi way to tell a huge thematic story and the use of music throughout - including one central track in particular - only adds to it. If you can get past the pie-eating without thinking ‘da hell is this’, you’re in for a treat.

2. Dunkirk

I’m almost scared to put this so high. I’ve no doubt in my mind that it’s a five star film and it’s certainly the most visceral, immediate cinema going experience I’ve perhaps ever had (I caught it at the BFI IMAX, opening night, at a late showing and it truly does fill your entire periphery vision) but a part of me wonders if it will hold up on second viewing - i.e. if seeing it anywhere other than the IMAX will diminish it. Well, I’m sure it won’t be the same but I’m also convinced it won’t matter either because this is clockwork precision film making of the highest order; an exercise in narrative structure as well as simply being the most accurate representation of the event in question as there possibly could be.

Some people have complained that this film does a disservice to its characters but I disagree. The power of this story is that it’s the tale of the everyman - how all of these people, no matter the extent of their involvement or the merits of their bravery, became heroes. I don’t need to see the ‘movie’ version of this - where characters chat about their backstories or show photos of loved ones or do every other cliche around. I KNOW all that is going on within the frame but I don’t need to see it. What we’re seeing is the immediacy of these events, which heightens the terror and the hopelessness felt by everyone on that beach or in those boats or in those planes. The land/sea/sky split is impeccably done and the devotion to practical battle scenes is stunning. The aerial dogfights - in full IMAX - practically made me feel like I was strapped to a wing. But even looking past the spectacle, the performances DO bring out the heart of the characters we’re presented with. From Cillian Murphy’s PTSD riddled soldier to the steely determination of Mark Rylance to the rather genius casting of Harry Styles - the exact kind of kid who would have been swept up in this war - everyone is all in and they all blew me away. Especially Tom Hardy, in perhaps his most restricted role yet (it’s like Bane meets Locke), who garners the biggest cheers.

And Hans Zimmer’s epic score can make me sweat just thinking about it. A perfect compliment to the tightening framework and increasing stakes of the action.

1. La La Land

Where do I even begin with this? Full spoilers ahead, I couldn’t help myself.

Clearly, this isn’t a film for everyone. And I get that. Some people think it’s fine but kinda hate musicals. Others get frustrated with the character’s choices. Others would have preferred it to actually remain a musical throughout. I understand all of these criticisms but for me, it does perfectly what it sets out to do. 

First of all, I personally love the musical numbers - from the jaw dropping opening of Another Day of Sun to the kinetic, glamourous rush of Someone in the Crowd to the heartfelt yearning of City of Stars. I think they’re great tunes, wonderfully performed and exceptionally shot. I think of the long one-shot takes of the first, the swimming pool splashdown of the second and the little smack on the shoulder of the third. They’re rooted in feeling, in character and in the tradition of Hollywood. They wear their influences on their sleeve but never feel like a parody. And to me, the sudden shift away from being a flat out musical at the end of the first act is not a misstep but entirely organic - this is the rare love story that has its head in the clouds (romantic dating montages, dreamlike dancing through the stars) as well as being brutally honest about what we want, how we get them and the sacrifices these things cost. 

The movie starts out as this fantastical anti-meet-cute before morphing into a romantic fable full of wonderment but the moment the characters get together, it switches gears and becomes more grounded in reality. The music largely stops and the real world catches up. Arguments are had, compromises are made, promises are broken. This is the harsh truth of getting what you want at the cost of losing what you’ve perhaps always wanted. The tension between Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) becomes uncomfortable - he’s lying to himself about doing what he must to achieve his real dream, even despite Mia’s support and she is battling her own demons in chasing hers. It’s only when the film brings them to their lowest points does it slowly turn back into being something more magical. Sebastian returns to Mia with the news of a new audition, which results in the most raw song/anecdote of the film ‘Audition (The Fools Who Dream), and just as we’re swept into the happy ending we were promised from decades of these movies, the pair realise they have to do their own thing. “We’ll just have to wait and see”...

The film’s extended epilogue is where it really doubles down on this idea. As we’re treated to a return of the ‘full blown musical’, we see the true Hollywood version of this entire story, played out in dreamlike fast forward. Sebastian leaping off his piano to kiss Mia the second he meets her, the villainous J.K. Simmons snapping his fingers and stepping aside, Sebastian giving a standing ovation at Mia’s one woman show that he missed entirely before, the two of them travelling to Paris and crafting a life together that Mia actually did alone. On the surface, it’s a joyous, colourful, happy finale but the final curtain reminds you that it’s all been... a daydream. The road not travelled. So while the film ends with them both achieving their own desires, they’ve lost one another. This is the all-too-often-true cost of creative pursuit and fulfilment and it’s so rare to see it held aloft in the final reel of an Oscar winning movie that appears to be the exact opposite on the surface. 

It’s daring, brave and imaginative and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Maybe I’m too soppy and maybe I’ve just ruined the entire plot for you (I definitely have) but I just couldn’t see anything topping this the moment I saw it. And I guess I was right. Damien Chazelle is a wizard and I can’t wait to see what comes next. 

[francel]

tagged by @goldbasar

i just finished watching ghost in the shell (the 1995 animated film, not the 2017 movie) for class, and i need something to unplug my brain from how engrossing that world was, so here’s another meme lmao... 

Fill in about your muse:

➥ What is your character’s full name?: (joacin charlemend) francel de haillenarte

➥ Do they have any brothers or sisters?:  three brothers and one sister — stephanivien, aurvael, chlodebaimt, and laniaitte ➥ What kind of eyes do they have?: dark blue ➥ What kind of hair do they have?: blond; gold; “like tarnished brass” might be my favorite descriptor for his hair color, because it’s extraordinarily fitting on multiple levels. ➥ What is their complexion like?:  healthy. fair. his skin is somewhat mid-tone when one considers that most ishgardians are very, very pale, but he can’t compare to, say, most members of house durendaire. ➥ What body type are they?: tall and slender, as most elezen men are. francel is more gently built than most, which is a nice way of saying that he lacks muscle definition. he’s not doughy — he has a little bit of tone from all the hiking he does — but he’s not obviously athletic. ➥ What is listening to their voice like?: i’m sure many people imagine francel with a high-pitched, boyish voice, or a sweet, princely one... but i’ve always preferred to imagine his voice as being surprisingly deep and husky. it’s deep enough that he could sound very authoritative and commanding, in theory, but he doesn’t really project when he talks, so he sounds like he lacks confidence. he actually has a fairly good singing voice, but you won’t catch him singing anymore. ➥ What do they hate most about themselves?: haha wow um where do we start? chronological order? ...let’s go with the fact that he wasn’t enough — wasn’t strong enough or important enough or good enough to be there when his best friend died — he had to hear it from someone else and he’ll never, ever know how much of what they told him was true. ➥ Do they have a favorite quote?: as he’s very well-read, i’m sure he has many! i like to assume that the enchiridion is roughly analogous to the real-world bible in terms of content (naturally, i am aware that halonic worship is not exactly like christianity, but they are very similar), so i’d say his favorite enchiridion quote is probably something like corinthians 13:13 — “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” my own personal favorite quote in relation to him is from william faulkner’s absalom, absalom! and is “I am older at twenty than a lot of men who have died.” ➥ What sort of music do they enjoy?: he can like pretty much anything, and has a soft spot for hymns, but he actually favors fairly uptempo dance pieces. i always associate “night in the brume” with him, though. i also like to imagine he composes his own music and it probably sounds a little like this, albeit with different instruments. (モノローグ off n-buna’s 月を歩いている album.) his compositions would probably be laughed at in ishgard... ➥ Have/would they ever cheat(ed) on a partner?:  what partner lmao ➥ Have they been cheated on by a partner?: yes no ➥ Have they ever lost someone close to them?:  did you mean: his life ➥ What is their favorite sound?: haurchefant’s any kind of positive reassurance coming out of a deep male voice works wonders on him really  ➥ Are they judgmental of others?: he’s ishgardian. judgment comes with the territory. he tries very hard to be polite towards outsiders, though. ➥ Have they ever been drunk?: yes. it’s sad. it happens fairly often. ➥ What are they like when they stay up all night?: very weary, very melancholy. half the time, he won’t even respond to you and will just stare vacantly into the distance until someone tells him that he should probably get to bed. they’ll probably have to coax him into bed, too. ➥ Have they ever been arrested?: uh... basically the plot of his questline, yeah ➥ What evokes strong memories for them?: walking into church, into any room full of books, smelling dessert in the oven, seeing any man with silver hair, sitting in the haillenarte manor garden, going into what used to be chlodebaimt’s room, hearing his father’s voice, watching emmanellain and/or artoirel from a distance... look, he basically spends his entire life in a state of nostalgia. ➥ What do they do on rainy days?: he hikes up to providence point anyway, because weather isn’t going to stop him from being sad at the memorial stone. ➥ What religion are they?: lmao ➥ What word do they overuse the most?: uh... nothing in particular, actually? he does employ a fair bit of violent and/or depressive language, but no particular word is ever repeated. ➥ What do they wear to bed?: he does have a set of frilly sleeping-clothes, but a lot of the time he doesn’t actually change into it and just kind of collapses onto his bed. plus, he knows it makes him look kind of pathetically childish... ➥ Do they have any tattoos or piercings?: no ➥ What type of clothing are they most comfortable in?: he likes structured, stately clothing; he also likes clothes that make him feel safe. he’d be right at home in an alpine coat, because it would make him feel dignified and stylish while also allowing him the ability to kind of protectively wrap it around himself and ease his anxieties. unfortunately, he doesn’t have the funds for that kind of thing, and it wouldn’t be very practical or good for morale if he strutted around skyfire locks in a fur coat while his men skip meals, so he sticks with his bliaud. ➥ What is their most disliked food?: he doesn’t like eft meat... does that count? ➥ Do they have any enemies?: no one, really — not since the false inquisitor incident. he’s not really memorable enough to have real enemies; people that dislike him tend to just forget about him. he does hold certain views that would make him some enemies if he voiced them aloud, though. also, i don’t rp very often, but i run into a lot of people who want to hate him on the basis that he’s a frilly noble alone, and that shit gets old fast. ➥ What does their writing look like?: very neat and small, if you leave him to his own devices. he adopts a more confident, embellished script if he has to write official missives, but that’s just a bit of a thing he puts on. he can write in several other styles, too. ➥ What disgusts them?: dragons, of course. himself, mostly.

[ecotone99]

[HR] The Abomination

“For the sake of humanity’s future peace and safety, it is absolutely necessary that Earth’s dark corners stay unilluminated and its abysmal depths remain unfathomed; lest we revive sleeping abominations and entice blasphemous nightmares of bygone eons to squirm and crawl out of their murky resting places.”

R.H. Blake, The Burrower Beneath[1]

​

His instruments told him that he had arrived in the late morning. The sun was low, hovering above the eastern horizon, yet the atmosphere was dismally gray. With cloudless skies above and no ground-hugging fog to diffuse the sun’s radiance, Brandon Wells found himself at a loss to explain why a beautiful day should have been so preternaturally dreary. It was as though he were looking at the world through a pane of dirty glass in every direction, all color muted or subdued by some intangible filter, and that wasn’t all.

Wells was no neurotic, nor was he given to frequent attacks of anxiety, but never in his life had he felt so unnerved by a mere location. A wellspring of irrational fear had erupted within him almost the very instant his boots touched the ground. The emotion had sprung on him fast, like a striking viper, and just as quickly abated, becoming a kind of raw excitement that made his muscles quiver and his skin prickle.

Like a sprinter waiting for the crack of a pistol shot, his body was primed and ready to run, begging for the signal to go, go, go!

Wells looked over his shoulder at the Ergosphere, the only thing in sight that had any color to it, and its hull of neutron-degenerate gravitonium was hardly esthetically pleasing to the eye. The vehicle seemed to speak to him:

Take me away from this place. Just get in and go!

Wells reigned in his overactive imagination. Despite his innate fears, he was intent on exploring the ruins.

And they’re ruins even now, Wells mused. Over 12,000 years before my time, and this place is already derelict.

Before him, carved out of cyclopean cliffs of dull, striped sandstone, were the gargantuan stepped walls of an ancient ziggurat. Calling the monument a “ziggurat” was a misnomer, Wells knew, but he couldn’t think of a better word to describe the monument’s general form. The builders had taken advantage of natural breaks in the cliff to fashion a megalithic structure with a combination of sloping and stepped walls.

Stepped pyramid? Wells asked himself. That descriptor didn’t seem to fit either, so he took to calling it simply “the Monument” although giving the structure such an innocent name did nothing to alleviate his feeling of disgust.

A tremor coursed through the ground, accompanied by the grating sound of rubble moving against rubble. There was a sharp pop as stonework cracked wide open, and Wells cried out in panic, his nerves already on edge. As if hearing him, the earth calmed, and all became still. Feeling terribly ashamed of himself, Wells sat down on a flat piece of rock and waited for his hammering heart to slow down.

He should’ve known to anticipate seismic activity. Earth was nearing the end of its most recent Ice Age, a time period future geologists and archaeologists would name the Pleistocene. The spot upon which Wells stood was still part of the Asian continent, but 12,000 years later it would be underwater, the Monument reduced to a set of ruins just off the southern coast of Yonaguni Island[2]. Wells had traveled back in time to investigate the area, intent on proving that the mysterious Yonaguni Monument was actually a natural formation. Instead, he had found something clearly man-made.

But what race of mankind could have built such a colossal structure, there, at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, where Homo sapiens and their cousins, the Neanderthal and Homo erectus, were only using crude stone tools? The engineering knowledge and necessary implements were thousands of years away, in the Bronze Age, at least. Had the ancient sandstone really been sculpted by human hands? Was the monument’s geometry, its straight edges and sharp right angles, truly the conception of a human brain? The longer he observed, the more Wells became convinced of an alien and altogether inhuman origin. The chrononaut shook his head, trying to banish his irrational thoughts by repeating his mantra:

It’s the glory of God to hide a thing, but to seek out the hidden is the honor of kings.

He had discovered something truly extraordinary, and his imagination was running amuck with terror, filling his mind’s eye with terrific visions of eldritch horrors. Wells, disgusted with his childishness, pushed himself to his feet, wondering why the Monument had evoked such a strong reaction from him. Perhaps it was an ancient instinct, something in the genes passed down through the ages from his earliest progenitors. He ignored the feeling of impending danger and marched up a winding ramp to a large rectangular gateway cut into the rock wall. As he did so, another tremor shook the Monument, causing him to trip. Again, he suppressed the urge to run away, to return to the Ergosphere and leave the cursed Monument behind forever. When the quake passed, Wells continued up the ramp; although, each small step was a herculean effort.

He finally reached the top of the ramp and peered down an unlit passageway of indeterminate length. Wells knew immediately that he was looking into the abysmal mouth of Hell, that lurking somewhere in the hidden recesses of the Monument, a terrible evil was waiting for him. Reaching into his pants’ pocket, he took out a flashlight and shined the beam along the walls, revealing intricate symbols carved into their surface. Wells ran his hands over the faces of the walls and was startled by their glassy smoothness. Not only was the rock like polished granite, but the signs were etched in gold! It was impossible, but Wells could hardly dismiss the evidence as easily as he could his own imaginings. Where had the knowledge to make such sophisticated artwork come from? It was certainly beyond the skills of humanity, there, at the end of the Ice Age, where stone knives and bear skins were the cutting edge of technology.

Wells’ research had hardly been exhaustive. The ancient history of Yonaguni Island was vague, its earliest recorded history reaching back only as far as the fifteenth century A.D. Had the region been home to a heretofore undiscovered species of technologically advanced humans sometime in the far distant past?

It’s the most plausible conclusion, Wells thought, but he was skeptical.

Wells continued down the passage with renewed curiosity, trying to decipher the wall art as he went. The symbols were accompanied by intricate and beautiful bas-reliefs that, together, seemed to tell a story. He took his translator out of his back pocket and, using its camera, took a picture of a section of the wall. It could not decipher the ancient language, but it did identify several characters that were similar to those found on the Dispilio tablet[3]. The translator also suggested that the language was meant to be read from top to bottom, left to right.

Wells had better luck interpreting the scenes depicted in the bas-reliefs. Although they were dazzling and gorgeous works of art, their gold outlines sparkling like ribbons of sunlight in the beam of his flashlight, the story they told filled the chrononaut with unmitigated dread.

Minutes turned into hours as Wells laboriously pieced together the narrative represented in the bas-reliefs, switching from the left wall to the right, trying to establish linearity of plot, all the while progressing deeper into the bowels of the Monument. He eventually came to the conclusion that he was looking at some sort of creation myth. The story started with a war being waged in the heavens, depicted in the bas-reliefs as two sets of entities engaged in combat against a background of stars. One faction had an anthropoid outline, the figures cloaked head to toe in armor and wielding weapons. In opposition, the second set of figures were depicted as misshapen monsters that could hurl lightning bolts. The carvings of the monsters, though outlined in gold, were grotesque and lacked the refined detail of the anthropoids, and Wells had trouble finding words to adequately describe their characteristics.

In another scene, the armored anthropoids were shown victorious, casting the monsters out of the stars and exiling them to a planet. It couldn’t have meant anything else, Wells knew. Shown in the background of the same relief was a large, four-pointed star and two dots. One dot was smaller and closer to the star while the other was slightly bigger and further away.

“The Sun,” Wells said, his voice sounding oddly muted within the passage. “Mercury…Venus…Earth.”

The curved line in the foreground must’ve represented the surface of the Earth; the anthropoids, still among the stars, pointed their outstretched arms across the emptiness of outer space towards the planet; the monsters were shown falling down a tunnel represented as a gold-speckled triangle that twisted and wound through the void until it’s vertex touched the inside of the curved line.

Wells moved on to another bas-relief, wondering how much of the story he was missing without reading the ancient text that went with it. The next carving depicted a pantheon or hierarchy of creatures that, he supposed, were the worshiped deities of the people who’d built the Monument. They were hideous things, and he wondered if they didn’t symbolize the exiled monsters from the previous image.

“But why would the artists choose to represent their gods as vague and amorphous in one picture but well-defined and hideous in another?” Wells asked.

Within the pantheon image, the deities were given weird and exaggerated features in both face and body. There was a thing that looked like a squid with the round, sucking mouth of a leech. Another was a spider with a lidless eye for an abdomen. A third was long and serpentine, but it had great big paws, a pair of leathery wings, and a head like a bearded dragon. Those were just a few of the less disturbing characters, but what drew Wells’ attention the most was the symbol that occupied an empty spot at what should’ve been the top of the hierarchy. It was a dot with a straight line, a hooked line, and an arrow, each radiating out of center.

None of the other deity images had a symbol associated with their picture, and Wells was left wondering why the top god only had a symbol to represent it.

Wells’ continued examination of the walls brought him before a bas-relief depicting the squid monster, its feelers wrapped around some massive sea creature, possibly a prehistoric whale, and apparently in the process of devouring it. Other reliefs showed similar scenes of the monster gods, one in particular depicting a lumbering giant that dwarfed a herd of roving brontosaurs. Finally, Wells came to one of the last panels. He wiped cold sweat from his brow, unaware until that moment that he had been sweating profusely. His skin was clammy and his clothes were uncomfortably sticky and heavy. His instinctual urge to flee from the Monument, which he had largely been able to ignore, absorbed as he had been with interpreting the bas-reliefs, suddenly resurged and he had a vision of himself running out of the Monument, screaming like a madman.

“It’s the glory of God to hide a thing,” Wells whispered, “but to seek out the hidden is the honor of kings.”

Some things should stay hidden, a voice in his head replied, and he shuddered.

He had been wondering who, or what, had built the Monument and for what purpose. Wells found his answer in the last bas-relief on the left wall. It showed a vaguely anthropoidal creature which stood upright on a pair of thick, backwards-bending legs and a saurian tail. Its chest and torso were humanoid in shape, but the hands on the ends of its arms possessed three clawed fingers and an opposable digit like a thumb. Attached to the shoulders by a stubby neck was a round, hairless head with two eyes, a flat nose, and a round, lipless orifice that must’ve been a mouth.

The Earth was old, Wells understood, and humanity would be forever ignorant about most of her past. That was why he had taken it upon himself to explore the hidden history of deep time, to fill in as many gaps as he could, but the mysteries of the Monument were too baffling. Was he really supposed to believe that the Earth had been home to an intelligent race of monstrosities from the stars? Setting aside the possibility of extraterrestrial life, which Wells was willing to entertain, where was the evidence? Surely they were part of the fossil record. Why hadn’t he seen their bones in the dinosaur exhibit next to the T-Rex? And what about the Monument’s builders? To what bygone era of Earth’s antiquity did they belong? The carving on the wall was a bastard hybridization of saurian and human physiognomy, which should have been impossible, considering dinosaurs and humans had 65 million years of time and one mass extinction separating them.

The planet is 4.6 billion years old, Wells thought. There have been five major extinctions that we know of. It’s physically impossible to account for every creature that’s ever lived. New species are discovered all the time, but how many species go extinct every day that we never know about?

A new wave of seething terror coursed through him, and Wells jumped to the side, aiming his flashlight into the chamber beyond the passageway. He had suddenly become aware of a foul stench akin to burnt garlic, a permeating odor which threatened to smother him like a wet blanket, and he began to dry heave. His impulse to run came roaring back with a vengeance. The smell—that smell—it was the crack of the pistol, the go sign, the final warning. A voice called out to him from deep within his mind:

Run, you damn fool! Run! Get out while you can!

Wells remained resolute and forced himself to continue through, past the end of the passage. He knew that he was in mortal danger—all his senses told him so. Something was waiting for him within the Monument, something old and expectant and every bit as curious about him as he was about it. Wells didn’t understand how he knew these things, he simply knew them to be true, as if they were self-evident. What horrid abomination could stir such ancient instincts within him to life? What star-born monstrosity could unbury prehistoric knowledge from the deepest recesses of his brain and draw it to the surface?

Wells had to know.

“It’s the glory of God to hide a thing,” he whispered, “but to seek out the hidden is the honor of kings.”

Ignore me at your own peril, you fool. It was the same voice that had told Wells to run, to get out while he still had a chance. It was his sense of self-preservation, his survival instinct, the oldest and most basic of human drives. It had been given a voice, snarling, angry, and loud. It was furious at Wells for ignoring it. How old was that voice? Over how many millennia had it been passed down that it should know the implicit danger of the Monument and the alien thing inside it?

Wells entered a tall, vaulted chamber with a flat, circular floor. The walls, ceiling, and floor were the same striped sandstone as the rest of the Monument, and Wells hypothesized that the cavity was a natural cave that had been altered by artificial means to serve a purpose. The sandstone walls had been cut into stepped ledges, forming a kind of amphitheater or auditorium. The smell of burnt garlic was overwhelming within the confines of the chamber and grew to unbearable levels nearest the center of the room, where there was a circular pit, six feet in diameter, carved out of the floor.

Inside the pit was a churning, bubbling fluid, dark and wretched in color. It was then that Wells saw the other markings on the floor, each pointing radially from the lip of the pit: a straight line, a hooked line, and an arrow.

The fluid heaved, and a vaguely human appendage emerged out of the pit to slap wetly against the floor, and Wells jumped backwards, a scream lodged somewhere in his throat. Another arm appeared, its three-fingered hand grasping the lip of the pit, the dark fetid fluid dripping sinuously onto the sandstone floor. Then the fluid expelled a round head with lidless, bulging eyes, each blood red with a few black dots in each. A lipless orifice made a wet, sucking noise like a single, deep breath, and Wells finally screamed.

The Monument trembled, dust falling into his eyes. He was running down the long passageway with the horribly beautiful bas-reliefs and the ancient language carved in gold upon its walls. The light at the entrance of the passage was like a beacon, urging him on. He ran at full steam—it was the fastest and longest sprint of his entire life—screaming all the while; although, he could barely hear himself over the sound of cracking rock. His body had been tensed like a taught rubber band for hours, and he had finally snapped, all the stored adrenaline burning up in a matter of seconds.

Wells reached the entrance and flung himself off the ramp and into open space. Gravity snagged him, pulling him to the ground, and he landed on his feet, white hot pain shooting up his legs. He rolled on his side, grimacing. Looking up, he saw the mouth of the passage belching gray rock dust as portions of the monument cracked and fell all around him. The latest earthquake did not abate as the previous ones had. It was as if some unseen force was intent on destroying the Monument now that its secret was known.

The chrononaut got to his feet and limped to the Ergosphere as quickly as he could. It was hard to keep his balance while tremors shook the ground, but he made it to the hatch and hauled himself up the steps into the time machine. He turned and watched with tremendous satisfaction as the Monument folded in upon itself, and then he smashed the big red button on the wall with his fist, closing the hatch.

For many weeks following his excursion, Wells found himself unable to sleep without dreaming about the Monument and the abomination that had lived there. He wanted to believe that it had been buried in the ruins and swallowed by the seas, lost to time forever, but an angry, snarling voice within him kept saying the same thing, over and over:

It’s too much to hope for.

​

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this is also a vexation of the spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1:17-18

​

[1] Original quotation paraphrased from At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

[2] The westernmost inhabited island of Japan, located between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

[3] Discovered in 1993 during excavation of a Neolithic settlement in Greece and dated to circa 5202 B.C., the symbols on the Dispilio tablet are thought to represent the earliest form of writing ever found to date.

submitted by /u/SteampunkSherlock [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/2HezEay

[ryankamiyamazaki-blog]

Appropriate Classroom Conduct: Academic Analysis of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale

Often considered the novel that Suzanne Collins plagiarized when writing The Hunger Games, the novel Battle Royale by Koushun Takami sets the readers in a dystopian future ruled by a dictator and ravaged by rebellious teens. From an academic standpoint, if the Hunger Games is acceptable by the common core standards then why not allow students to read the original? It can be argued that the novel is an English translation of a Japanese novel, therefore it cannot be accepted by the common core, but novels such as Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky and Don Quixote by Cervantez are considered academically proper, so why not? Battle Royale at its core it is an alternate rendition of Lord of the Flies (also part of the common core) with a focus on ethics, trust, human experience, and struggle, as well as a grotesque view in to the unrestrained human psyche. I am not attempting to draw the similarities between the aforementioned novels and Battle Royale. What I am stating is that the novel contains educational elements similar to the aforementioned novels, thus, it has educational relevance and should have a home in the academic world.

The novel, Battle Royale, focuses primarily on the authoritarian universe in which teenage rebellion is the norm. Over population is destroying the country and there is no choice but to have a militaristic authoritarian nation to keep things under control. The chaotic state of the country led to the passing of the Battle Royale act. The act regulates rebellion and over population by forcing students battle to the death on an island. The reward for the single winner is their life, the battle to the death forces students to appreciate their lives. Students are led to believe that they are attending a school field trip but soon awaken (after being drugged) in a classroom on a deserted island, where they are given a militaristic/academic briefing on their assignment. Their assignment is to kill or be killed in a span of three days, where inattentiveness will result in an explosion of their Orwellian-esque wiretapped collar. This dystopian universe is the world Takemi invites the reader to. With that said, an agreeable description of what makes a “good” novel can be defined by variety, since there are multiple mini stories and sub plots of every character. This allows for an option to focus on an individual character in context to the story. With variety, the term “good” becomes subjective and personalized, in a sense that an individual characters experience can be favorable over another. Though it is subjective, one cannot argue that many people (after reading every characters story) will claim that they have read “a good book,” regardless of preference. This is when Kant’s notion of taste, or agreeable sensation would be applicable as he states, “all private sensation can only decide for the observer himself and his satisfaction” (Kant 257). Clearly there are fully fleshed out characters and characters who survive for only one chapter, yet those dedicated chapters alone provides an opportunity for close reading.

If one is displeased with a single interpretation of the text, all one must do is detach themselves from the main character, Shuya Nanahara, and focus on a different perspective of a different student. This will please those in favor of taking a Kantian approach that refutes the notion of bias and enforces experience. With that said, it is safe to say that a good novel can be defined as a dense piece of literature with an established foundation of how the universe functions. This technique gives the reader an option to choose an experience within the novel most suitable (or unsuitable) for their private sensation. The fleshed out characters within the novel allows for multiple readings and experiences.

With over twenty students and one deranged principal, it is impossible for a single interpretation for any section within the novel. I find this to be an important factor for the constraints of an academic read. What I am alluding to is the diversity of subplots with rich subject matters within the novel. There is a sense of struggle throughout the novel as paranoid students begin to confess their concerns that raise the existential question, “what am I doing here?” In this scene a couple discuss their current situation and agrees to commit suicide before their collars explodes or before another student finds them, “You're so kind, Kazuhiko. That's what I like about you." I like you, too. I love you so much." (to Sakura, his girlfriend) If he weren't so inarticulate, Kazuhiko could have said so much more. How much her expression, her gentle manner, her pure untainted soul meant to him. How important, in short, her existence was to him. But he wasn't able to put into words. He was only a third-year student in junior high, and worst yet, composition was one of his worst subjects. (Takami 138) What she wanted was to leave this world quietly before they got sucked into this horrible massacre… Had he been more eloquent he might have described his feelings as something like, "I'm going to die for her honor." (Takami 140) Irony does not even begin to define this scene. These are teenagers, practically children, who are forced into life or death situation, devoid of proper eloquence to articulate their feelings. This particular scene can be read as an anticlimactic homage to wordy Shakespearian monologues. Their passion for one another has been condensed and satirized in a grotesque yet humorous manner. Not only does this unfortunate scene dismiss the classic lovesick confession portrayed in many epics, it forces the reader to empathize with the agon (Nietzsche’s notion of the struggle) of the students lack eloquence. There is also an important messaged enmeshed in the short-lived lives of Kazuhiko and his partner.  A reminder that language/education does not equate to human progress; that the concept of life and death is beyond eloquence and rhetoric (Nietzsche quote on honesty). Examples of close reading such as these suggest that the novel can be complimentary to many course-required texts (such as Shakespeare) as a parallel or a foil. Every student experiences a moment of existential crisis as Kazuhiko did and many students struggle with this concept. Each character has a different plan or motive upon being deployed and forced to participate in the program. Takami takes the reader on a journey through each one of their thought processes.

Every student participating on the island is provided with a weapon given at random upon deployment. Takami captures the sensation of the student’s existential uncertainty by giving every student a voice. By giving every student a voice Takami masterfully evokes the fragility of the human (in this case teenage) psyche. Authors studied by scholars such as Edgar Allan Poe evokes these notions in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket with lines like “words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality” (Poe) spoken by the narrator. This line alone credits the novel Battle Royale as a worthy academic read since the horror of reality is presented in the exposition of every character. Authors outside of the academic realm such as Chuck Palahnuik attributes similar sentiments by stating, “Write about the issues that really upset you. Those are the only things worth writing about” (Palaniuck 1999). Takemi hits home and harkens back to primal fears a student or teacher would experience at a regular school setting. By using the characters as vehicles for transporting the fears in to the mind of the reader, Takemi’s novel has the capacity to impress the readers mind with existential questions of their own. Since Takemi wrote from an uncomfortable and upsetting part of the human psyche, the novel can be dissected in a way Jaques Derrida would appreciate; in a deconstructive approach of critical analysis. Derrida would state that the enigmatic idea of fear is the centralized structure of Battle Royale. Though there are a few characters who live outside of this structure such as Shogo, a transfer student who is unfamiliar with other students, Kazuo, a sociopathic and mentally unstable student, Shinji, the basketball team captain with his scholarship, Sakamochi, the principal and the protagonists Shuya and Noriko, whom creates the foundation of the novel. Focusing now on the transfer student Shogo, he understands the Battle Royale Survival Program as a man made structure and deconstructs it by describing the foundation of the structure itself:

“Even if I happen to succeed I'm going to die anyway. You wear nice clothes, you seek respect, you make a lot of money, but what's the point? It's all pointless. Of course, this kind of meaninglessness might suit this crappy nation. But...but, you see, we still have emotions like joy and happiness, right? They may not amount to much. But they fill up our emptiness. That's the only explanation I have. So...these emotions are probably missing from Kazuo. He's got no foundation for values. So he merely chooses. He doesn't have a solid foundation. He just chooses as he goes... Like for this game he might just as well have chosen not to participate. But he decided to. That's my little theory” (Takemi 268).

Shogo is hinting at some Marxist theories, existential theories, as well as theories of morality and ethics (like Kant). Shogo is enduring his captivity on the island with a pragmatic perspective. He is defining the situation and raising the same questions evoked by philosophers and authors alike. In an academic setting, this will be a very useful section.

Regardless of a cult following in the underground literary world, Battle Royale ups the ante in many respects. In comparison to other literary works, this novel encapsulates key aspects of philosophy, as well as the unanswered questions evoked throughout history. This novel was originally written in Japanese but it pays homage to Western literary canon. Though it is far from an epic poem and is the complete opposite of any Shakespearian tragicomedy, Battle Royale carries an unmistakable essence of reality by presenting the burden created by the human psyche. The subject matter itself, if done tactfully, is immensely relatable to students in an academic setting. If incorporated into a lesson plan the first fear an educator might have is an uproar from angry parents or fearless junior revolutionaries trying “to stick it to the man.” I understand these possibilities. There are many talks of controversy behind this literary work, but I also feel that novels such as these are essential for developing minds. Students have questions that go unanswered by their educators, but Battle Royale acts as the pathos, a multifaceted view of the world through the perspective of different students. As presented, the novel Battle Royale can be utilized wisely as an educational work. It provides a taste of comfort for educators by introducing concepts such as deconstructivism/decentralization by Derrida, questions of existential trauma presented by thinkers such as Nietzche and Kierkegaard, inner workings of neurosis and fear relating to Freud, Rank, and Jung, all while throwing easily digesting these concepts for the student to analyze from a safe distance. Students desire relatability, what better way than raising the question, “what if?”

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2149

Palahnuik, Chuck “Thirteen Writing Tips” http://chuckpalahniuk.net/workshop/essays/chuck-palahniuk

Richter, David The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Bedford/St. Martin , 2007

Takami, Koushun Battle Royale Ohta Shuppan, Japan, 1997

[jefferyryanlong]

Fresh Listen - Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me (Audika Records, 2008)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not so recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

Western music--specifically, musical developments in the United States for the past hundred years or so--encompasses a broad swath of melodic and harmonic expressions, none fixed and immutable, all in a constant state of evolving and developing, becoming. The architectural refinement of classical music, where every breath, every absence of breath, is obsessively plotted. The danger of jazz, pushing the potentiality of musical instruments as complements to thought and feeling, without the safety net of notation. The exhilaration and shame of country and western music, where a Saturday night of honky-tonking inevitably leads to a hungover Sunday morning of heartbreak. The blues, with its restrictive structural conventions shaping the plainest wisdom. The stupidity of rock and roll, where the talentless and aggressive expose that cleverness, and occasionally brilliance, is derived from an attitude infected with poison. Soul, where testifying with a backing band about the love of a girl or boy is equivalent to communing with God, and vice-versa. The lyrical fastidiousness of hip-hop, where the rhythms of words arranged in varying combinations pushes forth new understandings about the human condition. 

None of these classifications exists outside of the other in the corrupted pool of American musical art. Take any rock song, rap track, or country tune released from 1920 until now, and you will see the pulsing strings of inspirations carried over, of sentiments reevaluated, of ideas argued for or against, echoes, echoes, attachments of forms calling out in a voice something more than human, propelled by that elusive rhythm musicians have configured in their struggles to portray the beats of nature or oppose them.

Avant-garde music seeks to uncover the hidden possibilities of the genres of Western music. By expanding their conventions, or disregarding them altogether, avant-garde music manifests its weirdness by pushing a musical point too far, sometimes challenging the expectations of a “musical experience” by forcing the vessels of musical expression to emit noises that are not music, or creating instruments from non-musical objects (computers, for instance) and pressing them into service as musical facsimile. The avant-garde, in its effort to deconstruct not only how music should be played, (or seen, or smelled, or felt, or tasted) does not restrict itself to classical, or jazz, or rock and roll--every semblance of American music is open to vampire’s kiss of “otherization” that avant-garde sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully, lays upon the languorous body of a music, so that its children become alien, bright beings with a language joyously incomprehensible.

Arthur Russell--cellist, singer, composer, and avant-garde disrupter through and through, spent a career (until his life was tragically cut short in 1991 by the AIDS virus) quietly, almost unnoticeably, inflating and making strange the genres of music in which he toiled and had incredible fun, imbuing these musics with ideas that, previously, hadn’t seemed applicable. Though contemporaneously most prominent in his classical and electronic experimentations, Russell was equally besotted with jazz, rock, and most lucratively, dance music. A cellist who played keyboards and sang, Russell’s work comes across as joyful play, invoking his imagination to enhance the music he loved.

Not many experimental electro-cellists have the vocal powers of an Arthur Russell, or the respect for simple, sometimes cretinous, rhyming lyrics that fill out the American music corpus--which makes Love Is Overtaking Me, a compilation of little-heard recordings Russell made from the Seventies through the Eighties, so impressive. Russell doesn’t undermine the country ballad, the soul number, the snotty rock tune, or even the ready-for-radio pop song. Yet each of the pieces on the record, as essentially conventional as they are, is elevated by Russell’s advanced artistry, so subtle that the music never suffers from the self-conscious intellectualism of the avant-garde composer and recording artist. Love Is Overtaking Me is, to be direct, a delight, and I don’t see how any listener could not be moved by the infectious devotion that Russell applies to these songs.

The compilation begins with “Close My Eyes,” a quiet number, just Russell singing along with his acoustic guitar about “where the trees grow together,” a place where the singer and his friend, via their hidden rendezvous, can grow into a shared freedom unto themselves, “down through those grasses so new.” Russell's country and western aesthetic is next deconstructed in “Goodbye Old Paint,” a traditional plains song wonderfully complemented by drone tabla, Indian percussion, and a Copland-esque arrangement of harmonic changes, all of it bolstered by a busy, articulate stand-up bass.  As foreign as these elements sound against on another on this new sonic soundscape, Russell aligns the pieces so naturally, seemingly without effort.

“Maybe She” is the third of Love Is Overtaking Me’s early acoustic string. Presumably through the eyes of a tentative teenager, Russell goes through the externalized motions of talking himself out of talking to a girl. In “Oh Fernanda Why” he takes up the twelve-string and maximizes his voice as instrument, harmonizing with himself on an intimate piece that reminds me of an off-kilter Eighties ballad that could have been a minor hit during the late hours of MTV.

From these acoustic songs, the track list (the record was never programmed by Russell, but is rather a curated collection of unreleased work) transitions to Russell’s interpretations of of rock. “Time Away,” which other writers have rightfully likened to the work of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers (Russell played with various ex-members of that band through different projects), starts with a Lou Reed-influenced over-articulation in the vocals, followed by some heavy rock percussion and insouciantly strummed punk-electric guitar. Though the sound is all Seventies rebellion, the lyrics are those of a neat freak securing a spot on his schedule so he can do his laundry and make his bed. So that he can feel sane.

“Nobody Wants a Broken Heart” and “I Couldn’t Say It to Your Face” are efforts into the methodical, introspective soul music along the lines of William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water.” The dynamism of the arrangement is slow, subtle, and moving. “Nobody Wants a Broken Heart’s” sad movement is buoyed, near the middle of the song, by a Dixieland jazz combo, a brassy horn section that calls to mind the funeral waltzes along the Ninth Ward. And “I Couldn’t Say It to Your Face” is one of the most even-handed, compassionate kiss-off songs ever recorded.

“This Time, Dad, You’re Wrong” I interpret as Russell’s musical and artistic manifesto: his lack of adherence to a prescribed path, either high or low (brow), is what makes is output so immediate and effective. “I know I broke the rules / I knew it right there on the spot” he sings, as if describing his career thus far, honoring conventions by not obeying them, playfully probing them.

The heartland sagas of John Mellencamp are evoked in “What It’s Like” a narrative song about the senselessness of youth, the inability to describe complex feelings. It forsakes anthemic urges for  quiet introspection, and the over-processed guitar licks are offset by the needling noise of an organ. From there it is Russell’s foray into art song, his voice echoing his bowed cello in “Eli,” a lament about a dog.

Set against “Eli” is, both jarringly and fittingly, the purest pop song of the compilation (”Big Moon” is a close second), the Sufjan-esque entitled “Hey! How Does Everybody Know,” a deliberate piece of craftsmanship with the weirdness absent, all tame instrumentation that glides along the ear canals, never meant to stick in anyway. The MTV video I’ve produced in my mind includes danced in day-glo colors and floppy top hats, big faces lip-syncing.

While “Habit of You” sounds like the sophisticated home recording of an indie artist, all painstakingly layered background vocals and self-played instruments, ”Janine” is Russell’s exercise in musical textures, a strummed guitar overlaid with keyboard squiggles, electric animals chirping along. “Big Moon,” another pure pop song, is defined by its Eighties-period production, that big bouncy bass song heard in many other recordings of the time. Russell’s sense of humor shines through, bright as the big moon, as he petitions that glowing sphere of rock for some kind of resolve to the teenage romantic crisis in which he’s enmeshed.

In the title track of the compilation, “Love Is Overtaking Me,” Russell creates an implicit, upbeat drone via an insistently played guitar chord. This is a song in which the strangeness of the expressed sentiment is its essence, the whole point, of the song itself. “Love Is Overtaking Me” defies structure and confounds expectations about how popular music is supposed to work. Despite the tricky, ear-bending chord changes, “Love Is Overtaking Me” doesn’t subvert its own sweetness with an abundance of art.

Which could be said of this entire collection of Russell works. Never grim or cynical, Russell takes popular music seriously enough to impose his own flexibility in his compositions and performances. One could say the songs are like no others, which is true, but they are also brilliant versions of songs reawakened in the listener’s memories, songs we never knew were there all along until we heard them for the first time.      

[char27martin]

Brainstorming for Story Ideas

The best beginnings are based on strong story ideas that immediately set the book apart from all others of its ilk. If you have a bad feeling that your story idea is not compelling or unique enough to hook agents or editors, much less readers, then this post is just for you. Because all other things being equal, the lack of a strong story idea is the biggest problem I see in manuscripts by writers trying to break into the business—or break out of the midlist onto the best-seller list.

Some of these tricks and techniques may seem a little offbeat to you, but give them a try anyway. Many are aimed at seducing your subconscious, a critical if obstinate ally in your quest to tell a good story. So give me the benefit of the doubt regarding these tried-and-true brainstorming and idea-capturing methods. To discover more brainstorming ideas, check out The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings.

In The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, author and literary agent Paula Munier shows you how to craft flawless beginnings that impress agents, engage editors, and captivate readers. You’ll learn how to develop the big idea of your story and introduce it on page one, structure opening scenes that encompass their own story arc, kickstart your writing with effective brainstorming techniques, and introduce a compelling cast of characters that drive the plot. You’ll also examine best-selling novels from different genres to learn the secrets that experienced writers use to dive straight into a story.

With thorough examinations of voice, point of view, setting, dialogue, and conflict, this book is a must-have tool for luring your readers in with your opening pages—and convincing them to stick around for the ride.

Pay Attention

Paying attention is perhaps the most obvious and difficult way to generate ideas. Ideas are everywhere if you know where to look and remember to look there. In a world where we are continually bombarded by sounds and images, overstimulated by everything from traffic to texts, and distracted from the minute we open our eyes in the morning to the last flicker of the screen before our weary eyes finally surrender to sleep, the gentle art of observation often goes unpracticed. Yet observation is one of the writer’s keenest tools—one that cannot be replicated by technology. It’s on you to observe the world around you—people, places, and things, from local flora and fauna to conversations overheard on the subway. The world is the writer’s oyster, so put that smartphone and those earbuds in your pocket; go out into the world, and take note(s).

Always Have a Notebook Nearby

Ideas can strike at any time—when you’re in the shower, in line at the grocery store, drifting off for a nap. But like lightning, they come and go in a flash. So be ready to capture them. Keep a pen and a notebook in your pocket or purse, and failing that, you can always email yourself notes or use the voice recorder app on your phone. I have sticky notes and index cards all over the house. I even sneak a pencil and paper into yoga class because doing yoga, like meditating, often acts like an idea faucet. One downward dog and the faucet goes on—the ideas flow.

Get Silly

Being funny is, by definition, a creative act. That’s because humor often stems from making unexpected connections. The best punchline is a surprise—and we laugh at the novelty of the connection. Putting together familiar things in an unfamiliar way—that’s idea generation.

Whenever the ideas aren’t flowing, use humor to get your juices flowing again. If you’re stuck on your beginning, rewrite it as a funny scene. See the humor in something, and the whole world may open up around it. That’s where the space is, the room you need to root around for a new approach.

Keep an Idea Box

This may seem simplistic, but this practice really works. Every writer should have a physical place, be it a box under the bed, a file cabinet in the corner, or a bulletin board on the wall, to keep anything and everything that might prove useful for a story someday. Maps, postcards, souvenirs, slogans, affirmations, news clippings, photos, illustrations, magazine articles—collect them all. Think of the box as your secret treasure, and whenever you find yourself at a loss for a good idea, rummage through it.

I have an idea box, but I rarely go through it. Out of sight, out of mind—that’s truer for me than it should be. Recognizing this about myself, I’ve designed a better way to display images and ideas that resonate with me. Instead, I have covered the fronts of two cabinet doors with cork. Door #1 is my Plot Door, where I pin the index cards I use to plot my work in progress—a scene for each card. On Door #2, I tack reminders of elements I might use in a story someday: photos of interesting places, snippets of dialogue, pictures of people who’d make good characters, sticky notes (right now there’s one that says, “Read more John Cheever”), artwork that somehow evokes the themes that preoccupy me, etc. Every time I look at it, I can almost feel my little grey cells start firing.

Granted, my approach is that of a Luddite. If you’re an early-adopter type, use technology to jump-start your creativity. Some writers swear by Scrivener; others use Pinterest. Find what works for you, and get your own synapses firing.

Do Something Else

Agatha Christie, whose diabolically clever ideas for mysteries still engross audiences nearly a hundred years later, used to say that the best time to plot a novel was while washing the dishes. At more than two billion—yes, you read that right—copies sold, Christie is ranked by the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling novelist of all time. Which is enough to make me consider giving up my dishwasher permanently. Almost.

The point is that sometimes the best thing to do when you think you’ll never have another good idea again is to abandon your desk and do something else entirely. Preferably something that occupies your conscious mind, letting your subconscious mind out to play. Chores are good—mopping the floor, folding the laundry, polishing the silver, chopping wood, weeding the garden, ironing shirts, raking leaves—and they offer the added benefit of providing a sense of accomplishment and an orderly environment in which the chaos of your own creativity can hold court. Just be prepared to stop mid-chore to run to your desk and capture all the great ideas prompted by that homely art of housekeeping.

Be Happy

Keeping a positive mindset is important, but being positive is only part of being happy. To be truly happy, you need to go deeper than a positive outlook. You need to believe that you are leading a meaningful life (or, failing that, a life at least worth living). Fortunately for writers, writing is a way of creating meaning out of what for many can feel like an existential void. That void is a source of sorrow, and sadness, like stress, is the enemy of creativity.

Unhappiness impedes the creation of new ideas, according to researchers at Penn State University. People suffering from even a mild case of the blues tend to hold back, wary of making mistakes and cautious to the point of inhibiting creative work. Moreover, people in sunny moods outperform those in sad or neutral moods in all kinds of divergent thinking, from word association to story ideas. Seriously.

Happiness is not just good for your personal life; it’s good for your professional life as well, not to mention your writer’s soul. So don’t worry; be happy, and keep writing.

Think of your favorite story—the one that kept you turning pages late into the night, the one with a plot so compelling, so multilayered, so perfect that you couldn’t put it down. How can you make your own plots—in your novels, short stories, memoirs, or screenplays—just as irresistible?

Plot Perfect provides the answer. This one-of-a-kind plotting primer reveals the secrets of creating a story structure that works—no matter what your genre. It gives you the strategies you need to build a scene-by-scene blueprint that will help elevate your fiction and earn the attention of agents and editors.

Inside, literary agent, editor, and author Paula Munier shows you how to:

Devise powerful plots and subplots and weave them together seamlessly

Organize your scenes for the greatest impact

Develop captivating protagonists and worthy antagonists

Use dialogue, setting, tone, and voice to enhance your plot

Layer, refine, and polish your storyline

About the Author:

Paula Munier is Senior Literary Agent and Content Strategist at Talcott Notch Literary Services. She began her career as a journalist, and along the way added editor, acquisitions specialist, digital content manager, publishing executive, author, and writing teacher to her repertoire. Paula is the author of several books, including Plot Perfect: How to Build Unforgettable Stories Scene by Scene. Her first mystery series debuts with Spare These Stones in 2018 (St. Martin’s Press).

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from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/excerpts/brainstorming-story-ideas