***SPOILERS***

Last night I went out with my wife and some friends to watch QUANTUM OF SOLACE. I was so excited. But when the movie ended, I was totally unsatisfied. There was no release. Nothing. It just ended.

There was lots of great stuff in it. Love the character and style of this new bond. Loved CASINO ROYALE, but this just didn’t work for me. My diagnosis has two parts.

MINOR ISSUE: clarity in story. The chase scenes were so choppy I couldn’t get a feel for what was going on so I could worry for Bond. All I did was get sick to my stomach. Part of the way through I told my wife I was going to write death threats to the freaking director. Who in the world thought that was a good idea? It doesn’t mimic battle etc. In battle you are HYPER alert and focused. Your world doesn’t turn into chaos.

But it was more than the chase scenes. There were times when I did not know what was going on. Why was Bond going to his friend from movie 1, why was he watching that guy pick up a bag at the play, why was he going to the party, etc.?

If he’d shared any of his plans, I could have gotten worried when antagonistic forces thwarted him. As it was, I was just watching him do stuff and only realizing at the end what the goal was.

The basic principle of suspense is to let me know what they need to do and why they need to do it, then let me worry as I see the operation fall apart. Or let me know the danger and see them walking into it. But time and again they didn’t provider the viewer with the necessary information in this movie. 

MAJOR ISSUE: ineffective story structure. I think for a film to build to a huge climax and release, the hero has to find himself in more and more desperate circumstances. His situation has to become darker and darker until we see no way out for him. By the end of act 2 his plans etc. should all be in shambles. He’s out of options.

In this Bond I rarely felt he was in danger. Yes, there were some fight sequences which were tense, but he never ended up in worse shape afterwards. We got messages that he was being framed for murders, but I never really felt the screws tightening on him. So it never got darker and darker for him.

His plans seemed to only be delayed, not destroyed. In Casino Royale, his car is wrecked and he’s taken captive and is going to die. He loses. In this one, nothing. Even when his plane is shot down going out to the desert, it’s just a delay. They walk to the bustop and are soon back on track.

There might be another point about something being at stake. The water grab is a great idea, but we’re talking a 50 year plot. It’s not THAT urgent.

A FIX?

I think they could have done more by playing up the revenge/mystery of the last one. Yes, have the water grab, but make this personal to him. He’s searching for the answers to who was behind his lover’s death. Why not?

Then get the villain, the US CIA, and the British hunting him down with real resources. He evaded everyone fairly easily in this one. He’s running FROM all these forces, barely one step ahead, until he gets caught by them. And it’s one of Green’s guys in the CIA or something like that who captures him. So he’s totally screwed. Then have the Black CIA officer do something to spring him. He’d probably have to die for it.

I’m sure there are more and better options. But do something so that Bond is running for his life, FAILS, then pulls it out. Not chasing down the bad guys one by one with relative ease.

Just one option. Thoughts?

I have found that having a logline is not only essential to pitch a story, but it also helps me as I’m writing the story. An unnamed producer sent this to Orson Card who passed it onto his online workshop. It is the best tutorial I’ve ever come across on writing loglines. And everything Christopher Lockhart says about loglines can be used when pitching your novel to agents and editors. I would also read his article about pitching your story. Now I did a little digging and found these resources as well that include both Lockhart articles plus a examples of loglines that work and don’t and few other articles that you might find helpful.

One of the most amazing pictures I’ve ever sceen. It’s of a 12 year-old girl who fled Afghanistan to Pakistan in 1983 during their war with the Soviets. Here’s the article that goes with it. Of course, this is yesterday’s news. But some things are worth revisiting.

A number of people have asked for it, and I’m now happy to announce I’ve posted the opening chapters to SERVANT OF A DARK GOD in the Novels section of my site.

Read!

Enjoy!

And then come back to beg for more.

Klein (isn’t that a lovely photo with the arch, the girl, and the color? It feels Potterish and is perfect for Klein) is a senior editor at Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc. (Levine is the guy who purchased Potter in the US), and the continuity editor for the U.S. editions of the Harry Potter books. A “continuity editor” is responsible for ensuring that the world an author creates remains as consistent as possible through multiple books. A senior editor, on the other hand, finds likely books and acquires them for publication.

Please look at this list of best selling books of all time. Rowling’s success is simply AMAZING. And Klein looks, as an editor, at some reasons why she feels Potter did so well. Of course, there are other factors like the fact that it was a book the whole family could enjoy and the wonder she created with things like quidditch and every flavor beans etc. But the points she makes here are marvelous. Take some time to think about and digest what Klein has to say. For more essays, here’s her website: http://www.cherylklein.com/.

I just ran across this.

 Published on Saturday, July 27, 2002 in the Washington Post
F-16s Pursue Unknown Craft Over Region
by Steve Vogel

WASHINGTON — For Renny Rogers, it was strange enough that military jets were flying low over his home in Waldorf in the middle of the night. It was what he thinks he saw when he headed outside to look early yesterday that floored him.

“It was this object, this light-blue object, traveling at a phenomenal rate of speed,” Rogers said. “This Air Force jet was right behind it, chasing it, but the object was just leaving him in the dust. I told my neighbor, ‘I think those jets are chasing a UFO.’ ”

Military officials confirm that two F-16 jets from Andrews Air Force Base were scrambled early yesterday after radar detected an unknown aircraft in area airspace. But they scoff at the idea that the jets were chasing a strange and speedy, blue unidentified flying object. Read more here.

I don’t automatically assume it was methane creatures from Jupiter or our long lost cousins from Alpha Centauri. But I do find it interesting. Was it some new military craft? An exercise? Something the military has seen before? From another nation? The possibilities are endless. Here’s another link to the full article since the WP appears not to have archived it online.

This is simply incredible. Watch the video about Claudia Castillo growing a replacement to part of her windpipe with her own stem cells. She didn’t grow the complete tube, but nevertheless…

Ms Castillo, who was born in Colombia, had suffered a tuberculosis infection that ravaged her airways, leaving her unable to do simple domestic tasks. Disease had caused her windpipe, or trachea, to collapse just at the point where it entered her lung. Without the pioneering operation in June, the lung would have been removed. Today she again has a normal life and is able to look after her two children. She can walk up stairs without getting breathless and has even been dancing.

Oh, my. Can you believe this? What the future holds for all the folks with damaged parts…

And does this mean as we age, we’ll be able to swap out the old for new? How will that affect aging? This is simply incredible.

So reads the headline at Drudge.

Here is Abdul Hassan, 39. A Somali pirate nicknamed “the one who never sleeps.” Hassan is part of a pirate group called the Central Regional Coast Guard. It was formed three years ago, has 350 men in its ranks and about 100 speedboats.

Zing, zing, zing, zing, zing!

There are some wonderful stories waiting to be told about this. Sure, there is the terrorist angle. But what about the angle of someone of value they stumble across on the ship? What about the kid who knows these pirates and decides to make a buck turning them in? What about the guys sent in to find out who the heck is backing these guys?

What about Hassan himself? Somali is so poor. With one job he made $350,000. Here are some great articles.

A fascinating MUST READ pictorial of Somali pirates. 

A map of pirate attacks in 2008.

An article about a tanker just taken by pirates.

An article indicating just how much money pirates are making (more than $100m just this year) by taking ships and demanding ransoms.

Why is Kij smiling?

Because she knows how the blasted monkeys do it!

And she’s not telling, neither. Neener-neener.

I just read Johnson’s story and enjoyed it. I enjoyed the inexplicable trick, the narrator, the transport to this odd and wonderful traveling troupe, and dang it, even the ending. Furthermore, there are moments in the story that capture the wonderousness of these fellow animals so well that they shine like jewels.

I always wanted a monkey friend. You can read about someone who has 26 of them.

 It’s on her website, free, just waiting to be enjoyed. Kind of like a delicous mango or bananna.
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Dude.

What else is there to say? (btw, this is the best clip I’ve seen)

One more…

ma-ma.

I would be so freaking tempted IF I had the skinny body of 20 years ago. As it is those little wings probably wouldn’t do a thing and I’d drop like a stone. Yeeeeehaaaaaaasplat.

Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer and a dang good story teller. I ran across her “Clockwork Chickadee” this last summer and forgot to blog about it. Then she won the Campbell Award. And I thought to blog it again. Now it’s November and you see what it means to run on “Brown time.” But however belated my review, this story is marvelous. The images have stuck in my mind since that first reading. And the chickadee, well, let me share the beginning with you.

The clockwork chickadee was not as pretty as the nightingale. But she did not mind. She pecked the floor when she was wound, looking for invisible bugs. And when she was not wound, she cocked her head and glared at the sparrow, whom she loathed with every tooth on every gear in her pressed-tin body.

The sparrow could fly.

He took no pains to conceal his contempt for those who could not. 

I am an impatient reader: if the story doesn’t grab me within the first few lines, I usually pass. I’m trying very hard not to be so demanding and extend this to two pages (no, I do not have the fortitude some readers do to extend this to twenty, forty, or sixty pages). But sometimes I slip back into my old ways. However, with Clockwork Chickadee I didn’t need to remember to be patient. I just read and read and read some more.  

For those who care about story, you’ll notice it doesn’t run on the normal fuel of sympathy and suspense. This is a curiosity story. And Kowal does it so well.

Here’s the text version. But if you have no time to read, that’s no problem. Listen to the audio version right now or download it to your iPod or MP3 player and listen while you’re out and about.

Enjoy!

I wasn’t meaning to read this story. I drifted over from Codex (an online writers group I belong to) and thought I’d check the opening, nothing more. But the voice and the story were so compelling that the next thing I knew I was halfway through and had to finish.

There are a few things in this story I don’t know if I like. But I’m not going to mention them here and prejudice you because the narration was fabulous. The story situations compelling. The dry understatement, the mixture of the mundane and fantastic, the oddness of the tale—all lovely and delicious. But that’s not all. There was something else with the cadence of the writing that drew me. And the solution the golem finds in the end, oh my gosh, it was wonderful.

It’s free, dang it, so follow this link and enjoy.

“Blurbers” is so much more fun than “endorsers.” Stacy has sent the manuscript of Servant of a Dark God out to the first round of people who said they would give the story a go. If they find they’re in the audience, they’ll write up a blurb for it. This is all in preparation for the launch meeting in December when my editors go to bat for me and sell the book to the salespeople inside Tor.

While I hope the potential blurbers will all find themselves in the story’s audience, I do not assume it’s a given. If they’re not, I’m still a happy man (although a bit disappointed). There are many wildly successful tales that I myself am not in the audience for.

I expect we’ll get reactions back in a month or two. I’ll post here the results.

I can’t remember the last time I was this anxious. Yesterday I read Scott Card’s review of K.J. Parker’s stuff.  All his business about great writers. And I’m thinking, holy heck. I’m a nothing. Just a little dude with this nothing book. And then I thought, what if none of these readers find they’re in the audience for the book? It’s one thing to send out a manuscript. You can always change, improve. But this is it. This is the book. It either soars or plops in the mud.

But then I read Mette Ivie Harrison’s first article on writing for IGMS and thought—you know what, I tell the stories I tell. While others may aspire to “greatness,” that’s not something I care to strive for. I want to write stories that entertain and move. And while I can learn how to write and tell better stories, they’re always going to be John Brown stories. If they plop, they plop. And I just have to forget all the greatness-everybody-must-love-me nonsense and write John Brown

I met Mette at Card’s boot camp in 2002. We’ve read each other’s manuscripts every once in a while. I respect her ideas, loved MIra, Mirror, and am grateful for that article. If you’re a writer, I recommend it to you highly.

When you live where we do, you cannot hope to landscape likes folks in a warm suburb. First of all, at 6,000 feet with a min temp of -30 Fahrenheit you can’t grow a lot of warmer climate plants. Second, the deer seem to eat everything else you do grow. So we’ve been looking and I think I’ve found a tree to add.

I actually found it earlier when I was biking around the beautiful Round Valley and had to stop and go back to revel in the delicious fragrance. But I didn’t know what it was at the time. I do now. 

It’s the black chokecherry.

It grows naturally up here. Has beautiful fragrant blossoms in the spring. And it produces fruit that can be made into a delicious syrup. Oh, the raccoons like it as well.

Now when you eat the raw berry, unless you eat it late in the fall, you’re in for an astringent, alum after-punch. But we picked the berries up a canyon behind our town after the first frosts. In fact, many of our berries were wrinkled. They just fine raw. Even Lilia, my pickiest eater, enjoyed them.

We picked about 1.25 gallon ice cream buckets of the stuff. Then we followed this recepie and made about 4 quarts of syrup.

It’s absolutely delicious on pancakes. 

We just visted the Abbey of our Lady of the Holy Trinity this week with my family. It’s nestled on over 1,800 acres of some the most beautiful country in Utah.

I think almost every religion demonstrates virtues we can all learn from. The dedication of these good men to their beliefs and vows to God is one such example.  As is their decision to live simply. And their creamed honey blends, which you can order from their website, are delicious! So far the maple honey is my favorite. Here’s a 2 minute National Geographic video about this abbey.

Who needs the European myth of the white stag when we’ve got the beauties here, not more than 15 miles from my home in Logan Canyon. Feast your eyes on these bucks!

Click on the pictures to see them full size.

Notice the normal brown buck on the side.

The three

Do Not Swallow Bubblegum!!!

This is what happens

Read the rest of this entry »

Maybe you’ve heard this one from Paul Harvey. Can you guess who it is?

“Escape!

Of all the positions in the field of journalism, that of war correspondent is perhaps most dangerous. Some are captured, some escape. Some die.

Twenty-five-year-old Leonard Spencer was the London Morning Post’s newest correspondent. His assignment was the Boer War, in South Africa.

Had young Leonard foreseen the peril awaiting him, he would probably have taken the assignment anyway. That’s how Leonard was.

About twenty miles from Ladysmith, Leonard could hear the booming guns. He was aboard a British armored train that would take him as close to the front as he could get.

The train got too close. There was a sudden crash. The train had struck a boulder on the tracks … a Boer booby trap. It was an ambush!

Immediately, a fusillade of rifle fire followed. Surprised, British troops on the train fired back.

And Leonard? Leonard ignored the gunshots and exploding shells. He jumped off the train, directed the British defense, helped to clear the wreckage.

In fact, without the aid of this youthful correspondent from the Morning Post, the train might well have been lost and the British troops massacred.

Instead, the wreckage was cleared, the train did pull out of the trap and carried a good many British soldiers with it.

The one left behind to face the enemy…was Leonard! No, the story does not end sadly there.

Leonard was captured, unharmed. Even though Leonard was technically a war correspondent, the Boer commander was sufficiently impressed with his bravery…to have Leonard thrown into prison at Pretoria.

The Pretoria prison was among the world’s most carefully guarded strongholds. Still, that did not stop Leonard from plotting an escape with two other British captives.

As darkness fell, the trio waited for their opportunity. It was now pitch black. The sentries exchanged their posts. Leonard sprang across an open area, hurdled a fence of barbed-wire mesh. When he looked back, there was no one. His comrades had missed their chance!

Three hundred miles of hostile territory lay between Leonard and his freedom. For a while, he followed the railroad tracks to the east, stumbling alone, through the dark, dodging enemy patrols. Tired, hungry, thirsty…Leonard plodded long into the night, knowing that, each painful foot of the way, one false step could be his last.

The night turned to day and back to night again, until the days and nights blurred.

Finally Leonard reached a mining town. His luck wearing thin but holding, he knocked on the door of the only Britisher in the territory and was smuggled onto a train loaded with bales of wool.

The train would carry him to the British consul. To safety.

And that’s how Leonard Spencer, the London Morning Post’s fledgling correspondent, got his story…and his reputation for daring.

History has all but forgotten this incident in his life in order to make room for later glory.

The fortune that once seemed to be wearing thin had only begun…and one day rubbed off on all of England.

For the young correspondent who once upon a time saved a British armored train and escaped the enemy under impossible circumstances…continued to do the impossible for the rest of his life.

We knew him as Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill!

And now you know THE REST OF THE STORY.”

Um, no, not even close. 

When I read about the childhoods of famous historical figures I’m often surprised. For example, I’m still freaking out that Hitler was a street artist. So I ran across this article today about Winston Churchill’s childhood and his mother who was nicknamed “Lady Randy” for her promiscuity (rumored 200 lovers).

She had no time for Winston. Other people raised him. Yet she wasn’t completely absent in his life. Apparently, she called on favors from previous lovers when Winston needed to learn French. Nevertheless, it appears Winston was raised without a father or mother, yet ends up being the kind of man who could lead a nation at war.

This is fertile ground for drama of the best kind.

I’m going to be seeking out some biographies. It’s going to be fascinating seeing how Winston pulled it off and who influenced and helped him along the way. 

There’s one thing more. These facts aren’t all that drew me. What Winston wrote upon his mother’s death, well, it’s the finest poetry I’ve heard this last month.

“I do not feel a sense of tragedy,” he said, “but only loss. Her life was a full one. The wind was in her veins.”

That metaphoric power of that last sentence given her history and relationship with him–it’s stunning. 
 
Read a summary of the documentary here.

I don’t know how it’s possible to aruge that media does not influence our decisions. The evidience is simply overwhelming. Here’s another report of a study linking media sexuality to teenage decisions about sexuality.

“CHICAGO — Groundbreaking research suggests that pregnancy rates are much higher among teens who watch a lot of TV with sexual dialogue and behavior than among those who have tamer viewing tastes.” Full article here.

The study shows that while teenage pregnancies have dropped overall, those teens watching racey shows had, not just a small incremental risk, but TWICE the risk of getting pregnant.

Now, I know this article by the Guttmacher Institute focuses on the 1990’s, but it still is enlightening. It discusses the reasons for the dropping teenage pregnancy rates during those years. It’s conclusion is that both abstinence and usage of more effective contraception are the main factors for the drop in teenage pregnancies.

When I put the two articles together, it makes me wonder if the racey shows are encouraging more sex among the teens who watch them or the use of less-effective contraception or both. My guess is that the shows are influencing a decision for more sexuality.

Either way, what does this mean for a writer?

To me, it means that while I’m never responsible for someone’s actions nor in 100% control of what people take from my writing, I AM responsible for those things I know are highly likely to influence folks one way or another. I hope my works provide a wonderfully entertaining experience, but also avoid influencing people into decisions that will lead them down paths that will limit their happiness.

I had business in Vegas and decided it was time to take the family to Zion’s National Park. We could drive down from the northern tip of Utah (Laketown) to the southern tip (St. George) together. Then I’d take a rental to Vegas, do my business, and hook up again with the fam to hike the canyons for two-days. (Hiking Kolob, folks, was incredible, but that’s another post.)

So I ask Nellie what she’s got to read to me as we drive down. She pulls out Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney and says all the kids in her classes said she had to read it. 

I think, hey, it’s got pictures. Any book with pictures gets one shot at the very least.

I’m happy to say I can’t tell you how many times she had to wait so I could stop laughing. We almost wrecked only once. And if I’m going to wreck I’d rather do it while laughing than asleep. Kenny has written and illustrated a wonderful, fun book. And now we have a new word in the family vocabulary–”Fregley.”

What is that? You’ll have to read to find out.