Below you'll find a list of all posts from July, 2014
I’m on deadline.
What that means is, writing is mandatory for me. I have a title for my manuscript. A word count. Most importantly, I have a due date. And yes, barring some unforseen catastrophe such as an alien invasion or Godzilla rampaging through Colorado Springs, I will meet my deadline. (I am not thinking about any real disasters that can happen to writers everywhere.)
But let me honest with you: there are days I don’t feel like writing.
I write anyway.
Build in a Fear of Failure!
I am a closet SciFi junkie, and my current love affair is Falling Skies. I’ve been with them from the beginning and to be honest, I love the show not for the Sci-Fi, but for the characters. In short, I love the hero, and his three sons, and want them to survive.
I care about these Sympathetic Characters.
Which is why I found myself at the edge of my seat during last week’s episode. The hero, Tom Mason (played by Noah Wylie) and his oldest son, Ben, are trapped in a prison camp and need to escape. They’ve devised a wild plan to break through the electrical walls that holds everyone prisoner.
I realized the episode was fantastic when I found myself on my feet at the end of it.
Here’s the play of events – the hero has to distract the bad guys (skitters, or very large alien bugs) and get them to a building they’ve rigged to blow. In the meantime, Ben has to gather up all the prisoners and get them into the tunnels near their escape route. Finally, a third group, incidentally, a motley crew of soldiers who hate each other, has to climb over the wall with this homemade electric-repelling suit to get to the power supply and take down the electric wall.
If you are a fan and haven’t seen the episode, stop reading here.
The plan begins perfectly – Tom kills a guard, which brings out a horde of bugs, who chase him (he’s on a motorcycle) through the city, away from the escapees.
As I write to you from my turret tower, my friend Carrie sitting on the floor with my dog Lola, I gaze out my window at my farm…
Wait, there’s no farm. Pardon me, I’m a bit punchy. I lapsed into Christmas in Connecticut.
I finishing a rewrite, How To Catch A Prince. It’s been a little over a month now. I know some people, who shall be nameless, Susan May Warren, write whole books from scratch in that amount of time, but I am not such a writer.
I’m getting fast but I’m like to mull. Chew. Think. I’m the kind of person who comes up with a fabulous retort or brilliant response to a conversation three days later.
But then no one cares to hear my amazing insight.
I process. Or iProcess. Whichever. I am a Macophile.
Anyway.
I spend a lot of time speaking with people about social media, and in almost every instance the same three concerns come up.
First, the person I’m talking to shares his belief that social media posts are irrelevant and inane. This statement is then followed by the infamous example of how so-and-so posts updates about trips to the powder room and/or coffee consumption.
The second is directly related to the first. I hear complaints about how social media is all about—me, me, me—and the person I’m talking with never wants to be seen like. (Newsflash, neither do I!)
The third is frequently voiced by those new to the medium. They claim they have nothing of value to share.
Today I want to address all three of these issues.
You know what’s NOT a great idea? Putting dinosaurs in a Transformer movie. But why, you ask, do dinosaurs show up in a Transformer’s move? Probably because someone was sitting in a meeting, looking at the script and said…”I dunno, something is missing…”
It’s not the dinosaurs. It’s the fact that yes, even on page 98 of the script, we still don’t really care about the main characters.
Yes, I’m talking about Transformers 4: Age of Extinction. Sure, I WANT to care about cute Mark Wahlberg (and frankly, still do, because I’m deeply concerned this movie is going to hurt his career. Mark, call me if you ever decide to do another movie with dinosaurs in it. Especially if it does not have the words, Jurassic Park anywhere in the titles.) And, I want to care about his daughter (aka, the long drink of water, Megan-Fox stand in, eye candy), but frankly, the most emotional dimension we get from her is a plump-limped, disbelieving look (really? there are transformers in my backyard?) on her close-uped face.
And don’t even get me started on Shane, the boyfriend – or rather, “Driver” (he’s introduced as a “driver” early in the movie – and that’s what he does the entire movie. Drives. Except, what kind of driver is he? Milk Truck Driver? Ice-road trucker? Go-cart? He is driving a souped up Aveo at the beginning so I’m leaning toward that one. But, Im still trying to figure that out.) I hated Shane from the moment he pulled out his “Romeo and Juliet” license to date Mark (aka. Cade’s) hot daughter. (since he was 20 and she was still – yeah, right – 17). I’m using the word “date” loosely.
If Mark truly wanted to make me care, he would have put one of those meaty fists into Shane’s beautiful, Irish-speaking face. (He’s from Texas, so the Irish accent TOTALLY makes sense.)
But, I’m veering away from the point. Which is – if you don’t want people to fall asleep while your dinosaurs are fighting machine-aliens in Beijing, you have to make your characters LIKEABLE and if not that, at least SYMPATHETIC.
Again, it starts with a wide-angle look at the story. Let’s go back to Transformers 4 for a few more moments of pain.
