Dialogue Part 6 - How to Write Bullshit Dialogue by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Previous parts in the Dialogue Series (yes, we'll get to "integration" of dialogue with other skills), can be found here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/dialogue-as-tool.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/12/dialogue-part-2-on-and-off-nose.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/dialogue-part-3-romance-erotica-vs-porn.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/dialogue-part-4-legal-weasel.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html
That last one, Part 5, How to write liar dialogue, is most relevant to this post which is about something even worse than lies.
I was reading a newspaper (yeah, on paper, would you believe?) recently, in which I ran across two opinion pieces about diverse topics. Each hung their main point on a non-fiction book.
I thought it interesting that one article pointed to the book, saying that there is something WORSE than lying, and that from the explanation I agreed!
For the most part, you can't use this method to create dialogue because dialogue is not "speech" per se, not a simple transcription of the way people talk, but must be terse, to the point, off the nose, and not be the author talking to the reader, but one character talking to another character.
However, when searching for a way to SHOW DON'T TELL a) the nature of a character and b) the gullibility of another character that will lead them into serious trouble, this method of dialogue generation will work very well.
Here's the book:
The thesis is that liars know the truth and are trying to cover it up, misdirect you, or otherwise convince you that the truth is not true.
Bullshitters, on the other hand, don't necessarily know the truth, and really couldn't care less what is true and what is not true. Bullshitters are ramming their agenda into your head by saying whatever will make you do what they want you to do, regardless of whether it will benefit you, or even the bullshitter.
The article also pointed out that the originator(s) of the bullshit dialogue may actually know it's not true, even if they don't know what the truth really is. But those who have been bullshitted, and somehow absorb the message and become advocates of it, repeat the bullshit without fact-checking, without knowing the truth, and very possibly without knowing what agenda they are pushing!
Like gossip, bullshit takes on a life of its own.
As a result, a fiction writer can use this method of speech, discussed in the book above, to set up a plot involving character assassination. Like a murder mystery, a character-assassination plot would have a FORM -- open form mystery, or closed form mystery.
In open form, the reader sees in the first scene who-done-it (if not how and why), and in closed form, the reader has to unravel the mystery with the detective.
Envision trying to use this "bullshit" method on Colombo -- or say, in current TV shows, Longmire.
I love Longmire's hat, and the way the camera director uses it. But I love the underlying values of the heroic portrayal of this rural, 21st century, sheriff. I love the modern Indian reservation and all their (rather authentic) modern day politics. Longmire is a great show to watch -- and well written enough to learn dialogue writing by studying it, scene for scene.
So, no, a criminal is not going to get away with bullshitting Longmire! (or Colombo).
You can also use this bullshit dialogue methodology to portray the various sides of the thematic issue you are using at the core of your composition.
Use this blog's search-tool (on the right) to search for theme, and you'll get a lot of theme posts. I have to make a long index of them eventually.
The point I make in most of those posts on theme is that it is important to understand your theme, and to create characters who really believe (down to the core of their being) each side of the current arguments on that point in our current culture.
You can't fake it.
You must actually understand where the people who loathe your own personal point of view are coming from, and for that little while that you are writing the dialogue of that character, you must be able to believe it. Yes, it's kind of like "method acting." You have to walk a mile in the moccasins of the characters who shun and despise your personal views, and argue their side of the matter with the character who is representing your view.
The best novels are the ones where there is no character who represents the author's personal views -- so there's no ax-grinding or polemics, no preaching, just good drama.
Which brings us to the second book I found mentioned in a printed on paper newspaper.
I wouldn't have noticed this book except for the roiling and embroiling issues raised by the SFWA Bulletin controversy, sparked by a hapless writer's blogpost (in ignorance of the SFWA issue), and then brought to sharp focus by Ann Aguirre's blog post which drew an instant splashback of several true "hate-speech" emails. Yeah, Ann Aguirre drew hatespeech!
Here's what I posted about this, which contains links so you can research this anti-SFR matter:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-conflict-integration-part-1.html
So the following Friday, there was a #scifichat on twitter about the eruption of sexism in the science fiction community, and everyone was perfectly civil, used regular English, and tossed around some really thoughtful opinions.
It was astonishing how DIFFERENT the tone was. The folks on #scifichat talk like the Science Fiction fans I grew up with and have known all my life. The people directing hate at Ann Aguirre's blog post did not sound like anyone I'd ever met, and the stories the commenters brought to light of their own experiences likewise sounded like encounters out of the twilight zone.
So when I saw this article on an epidemic of hate online, and I remembered some of the nonsense language posts I've seen in comments on news articles (such as on Yahoo news, and other news posts that allow comments), I realized hate online could be viewed as an "epidemic." These hate-language users represent one of those opinions I keep telling you that you need to include where appropriate in a story -- to use characters to present beliefs that you do not hold personally.
Here's the book on amazon:
Here's the blurb on Amazon:
Emboldened by anonymity, individuals and organizations from both left and right are freely spewing hateful vitriol on the Internet without worrying about repercussions. Lies, bullying, conspiracy theories, bigoted and racist rants, and calls for violence targeting the most vulnerable circulate openly on the web. And thanks to the guarantees of the First Amendment and the borderless nature of the Internet, governing bodies are largely helpless to control this massive assault on human dignity and safety. Abe Foxman and Christopher Wolf expose the threat that this unregulated flow of bigotry poses to the world. They explore how social media companies like Facebook and YouTube, as well as search engine giant Google, are struggling to reconcile the demands of business with freedom of speech and the disturbing threat posed by today’s purveyors of hate. And they explain the best tools available to citizens, parents, educators, law enforcement officers, and policy makers to protect the twin values of transparency and responsibility. As Foxman and Wolf show, only an aroused and engaged citizenry can stop the hate contagion before it spirals out of control—with potentially disastrous results.
Note how many 1-star reviews it has pulled. 1-star is "I hate it."
Look at Ann Aguirre's post (which has made her some new fans and readers!)
http://www.annaguirre.com/archives/2013/06/02/this-week-in-sf/
Look at the splashback emails she posted right at the end of her item.
This newspaper article advanced the theory that the hatespeech you are seeing flood online venues is coming MOSTLY (not exclusively) from teenagers, and that parents need to police their teen's online behavior better to stop it.
I don't know if there's any value to that suggestion, or any truth at all to the allegation that it's teens -- but wouldn't it be (fictionally) interesting if the hate-email Ann Aguirre got wasn't from any professionals, active fans such as frequent #scifichat, or adults with considered opinions who are ticked off by the skyrocketing sales of SFR compared to the shrinking and shriveling sales of nuts-n-bolts SF? What if she just hit a network of teens who love to "vandalize" blogposts with hatespeech and really have no idea what the subject actually is (and don't have the education to understand it even if someone explained it to them?)
Now that would make a CONFLICT for a novel -- and there's a theme integrated right into that conflict. A Setting of Parenting -- especially single-parent parenting (the article I read pointed to single-parents who don't have TIME to police their kids)?
Can you see the various sides of the argument and how it fits into a Romance?
A woman struggling her way up in a traditionally mans' world profession, -- say widowed when her husband was killed in Iraq? -- and raising kids by herself. Suitor #1 who has bought into the idea that single-parenting produces wayward kids. Suitor #2 advocating casual live-together, but admiring her parenting skills - maybe more than her professional skills? Which will she choose? Or will she look for Suitor #3? Or go the SINGLE route?
Anyone watching THE GLADES? Highly recommended -- not SF, but Detective Mystery -- Mystery-Romance. Shows a man falling in love with a woman-single-parent-medical-student.
This issue - A Woman's Place In The World - and maybe even the very definition of woman and of "mother" - is under furious discussion in our world today, and criss-crosses the Religion borders like crazy.
This is a venue where you can set up any number of Romance Novels plotted around really hot screaming fights (Bullshit dialogue, Liar dialogue, Hatespeech dialogue) liberally laced with sex scenes.
In fact, such screaming fights would tend (in certain cultures) to skip from language to language.
Remember I LOVE LUCY, where Ricki shifts to Spanish when he gets mad?
Who are the really "hot" immigrants today? What language to they shift into when exasperated?
Remember, The Newcomers in Alien Nation? There was Newcomer kid who as a teen became aculturated to Earth and joined a gang -- got himself in lots of trouble with his traditional parents for his LANGUAGE USE.
Now think about all this, and think about the hatespeech directed at Ann Aguirre not as anything to do with her work (those who HATE like that probably haven't read her books which are full of love overcoming the ugliest sides of our violent culture) -- but think of it as being a bigger problem that your readers are encountering in a lot of environments as they struggle to deal with things like being a single parent -- or dealing with kids of single parents who just aren't being properly parented, or some who are better parented than those from two-parent households.
Think of your broadest possible reach as a writer -- and see what you can do applying these dialogue techniques.
Try the classic exercise of putting two characters you know nothing about in a pitch black, can't see or touch each other, environment (a prison, a cave, an elevator in a blackout), and let them just TALK to each other. All you have on your page is DIALOGUE - quotes, without description, just the names of the characters and all you can describe them with is what they say.
In fact, the classic-classic exercise is to write such a two-character dialogue without names, but just speech that is so distinctive the reader can tell who's talking without he-said, she-said. In fact, one exercise is to write such an exchange in such a way that the reader can figure out which one is male and which female, without being told.
Read these books, look at these TV shows, all the while having in mind that you are going to use what you learn to construct such a "limbo set" dialogue exercise.
If you do this read/view/write exercise with enough determination, you may find yourself with the core scene of a dynamite novel. But start first with the conversation in the dark exercise. It's tough, but you'll learn a lot about the difference between dialogue and everyday talking. This would work with a telephone conversation, too -- no videochat, just voice.
by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com
Showing posts with label I Love Lucy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I Love Lucy. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Writer's Eye Finds Symmetry
We had an interesting discussion on Spoilers recently in which I held that any story worth reading or viewing couldn't be "spoiled" by knowing the ending, or any particular scene, plot development or bit of dialogue.
In other words, I held that there is no such thing as a "spoiler."
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html
If knowing what happens "spoils" it for you, then it wasn't well written enough to be worth your time and money anyway.
But in fact, there is such a thing as a spoiler!!!
What "spoils" fiction for readers and viewers is not knowing what happens, but knowing the trick behind the fictional facade.
The trick that's jerking your emotions around, that takes an event or line of dialogue and carries it straight through your conscious defenses into your subconscious and hits your deepest, most buried buttons, works just as well whether you've heard the plot in advance or not.
But once you know the trick being used against you, you don't react to it any more.
As stage magicians loathe letting anyone know their "secrets" (even other magicians), so also writers (who are prestidigitators of the emotions) should guard their proprietary secrets. Some writers go so far as to not-teach new writers because newbies are 'the competition.'
There is a process which trainee writers undergo as they pass from audience to stage-magician that is extremely wrenching. As you learn the secrets that writers have been using to jerk your emotions around, to make you laugh or cry over a scene, to deliver a GASP!, or a whoop of triumph, you find that your favorite fiction is "spoiled" -- you just don't enjoy it anymore, the way you used to as a mere reader.
You've found the keywords that trigger your emotional responses, even when used 200 pages before the impact hits you. You've found how you fall for the hero's kryptonite weakness, or root for heroes who have no such weakness. You've read a lot of these articles on how to write, and you've attended panels at conventions where writers reveal their secrets. Perhaps you've even done some writing yourself, and realize that these stories that always seemed so real, so important, so filled with higher truth, spiritual insights, or personal affirmation of your view of the world -- all this stuff you always adored suddenly seems as flimsy and false as the Western town main street consisting of plywood fronts for stores with catwalks on the back for cameras.
And it's all bland and pointless, except there's money to be made writing! So you set out to write, and that just makes the apathy for reading or viewing any fiction worse.
This state of apathy for fiction can persist for years once fiction has been "spoiled" for you by glimpsing behind the scenes. Or it might persist only for a few months, depending on how fast the stage of mastering the craft lasts. And the length of that interval depends on how hard you work at mastering the tricks yourself, and how much of yourself you put into it, and on how good you are at learning abstract things then applying them in the practical world.
Some people actually reach a version of this stage of apathy just while watching television, never thinking to become writers. They grasp the underlying formula for a TV series, find it predictable, and then find it boring because it's predictable.
Some will then segue into an "I can write better than that!" attitude and proceed to do so (with varied results), but still not find their enjoyment of commercial fiction returning.
So let's talk a little about how writing students bootstrap themselves up to the level of professional writers, and begin enjoying fiction for totally different reasons than they had ever been able to imagine before. This sheds light on why the same novel rarely wins both the Hugo (voted by fans) and the Nebula (voted only by professional writers.)
What does the writer's eye see that the reader's eye misses?
What do writers see in each others' work to send them into paroxysms of joy, of admiration, or even (*gasp*) into becoming a FAN of another writer's work?
It's all in the writer's TRAINED EYE. The writer's inner eye "sees" patterns that escape the casual reader. Having attempted to capture such a pattern and display it in a fictional universe, a world they have built themselves, the writer is aware of how difficult it is to put such an abstract vision into a piece of fiction and have the fiction still work as a story comprehensible to other people.
Only the writer who has studied the craft, then attempted (and perhaps even sold) stories has full appreciation of what an achievement capturing a real-world pattern in a bit of fiction can be.
If the pattern is put into the foreground of the fiction, the fiction fails to reach the reader/viewer's subconscious. If it's in the background or too buried in symbology or assumptions, the fiction doesn't communicate the pattern to a commercial size audience. If it's too hidden in the THEME, the fiction fails. Too blatant or too hidden -- either one is easy to write. But getting the pattern to be visible, clear and well stated, but still open to personal interpretation, and thus able to engage the audience's subconscious, now that's hard.
A writer can have a blazing epiphany, become filled to the brim with the urgency of showing the world an important bit of wisdom, and write their heart into a story -- only to have it sneered at or rejected.
After such a failure, a writer is set up to break through the apathy barrier, to become a FAN of other writers, to appreciate writing as craft and art welded into a thing of beauty.
What does a writer learn in that moment of breaking through the apathy barrier? What breaks that barrier and restores enjoyment to fiction? Finding a pattern you recognize properly used in a bit of fiction, understanding the craft elements that construct and convey the pattern, and knowing "This is what I was trying to do!" Recognizing another writer's success at something difficult restores a writer's zest for reading/viewing other writer's fiction.
All that is very abstract. Here's a concrete example.
Let's take the film MR. AND MRS. SMITH, the 2005 movie version where a husband and wife are in marriage counselling, and discover that each one has been keeping a secret from the other.
They are both assassins working for secret agencies. And they've been assigned to kill each other, and in fact the situation which pits them against each other was rigged by their superiors simply because they were living together. (um, yeah, it's a romance, and has all the elements of an alien romance, since each is "the unknown" to the other)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356910/
I've seen this film several times, and once again just recently.
But this last time was the ONLY time I saw what it was that speaks to me in this film.
Previously, it had been years since I'd written a screenplay. Recently I've done three (none yet to my own satisfaction!). Now I'm seeing movies differently, and really enjoying things I did not enjoy before. Apparently I stopped writing screenplays before I broke this barrier.
So in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I found the PATTERN that (when I couldn't see it) was jerking me around. Now it is very likely you saw this pattern the first time you saw the movie, and you won't understand why I didn't see it.
And I like this movie even better now that I've seen clearly what was only hazy before.
I hope you've re-read my post
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html
because in that post I did mention that if you have a prologue, you also need an epilogue. That's a technique of structure often called "bookends." Mr. & Mrs. Smith has "bookends" in the structure, and I never missed that point.
The film starts with the husband and wife sitting in office visitor chairs before a desk you don't see. It's a marriage counselling session. They haven't had sex in a while (with each other, that is) and can't agree on how long that's been, nor on how long it's been since they met. We see how they met, pretending to be a couple even though they didn't know each other, evading a police search for an assassin who was an American traveling alone. Total strangers, they provided cover for each other.
We see each of them in their ordinary workday persona, in wild "James Bond" action, battling, killing, almost being killed, arriving home in very "James Bond" unruffled fashion, being the perfect suburban couple. They argue or go stone-silent over trivial household matters. Clearly something abnormal there.
Then they're pitted against each other (we don't know why at first) and each wrestles with whether to kill the other (almost does it), and finally they begin actually TALKING about the issues between them ("What did you think the first time you saw me?" asking frank and embarrassing questions and answering honestly.) As they clear the air, they decide they won't kill each other, and they team up as allies against the conspiracy of their superiors to make them kill each other because they're living together (and therefore the "other" is a spy.)
The battle scenes get wilder and wilder until they shoot up a store, blow things up, (even their own house gets turned into a pile of kindling) then there's a stunt-doubled car chase to make Indiana Jones pale.
And after one wild-WILD action fight sequence, they blow off the rest of their aggressions in sex, wild passionate sex like they haven't had in years.
They settle the problem with their superiors, and they're back at the marriage counsellor. Mr. Smith prompts the marriage counsellor to ask the sex question again. They admit they redecorated the house (one of the issues they were spatting over was the color of the curtains).
Of course, the way I've outlined the story here, the pattern is obvious because I see it now.
The VIOLENT ACTS we see as they do their day-job, the violence in joining in combat at a job (that was a setup) where one tries to steal the "package" from the other, all the way through forming an alliance and shooting up and destroying a SUBURBAN HOUSEWARES STORE (with all kinds of nasty hunting weapons) (and they turn out to be wearing kevlar vests! I tell you the SYMBOLISM is perfect for penetrating subconsciouses), even the explosion that destroys their house -- all that violence and destruction is the SHOW DON'T TELL illustration, an exact replica or reflection, of the usual ho-hum marital-spat screaming fights most couples have. When a marriage is in real trouble, those spats become symbolic of the real problems in exactly the way the violence and truth-in-marriage issues do in this film.
The violence in this film acts as a SYMBOL for the marital issues that are screamed over and around but never actually stated in ordinary marriages (such as viewers of the movie might be living through). As the violence escalates, their COMMUNICATION over the real issues escalates (as rarely happens in real life -- I said this is a romance.)
The marriage counsel session dialogue is easily recognizable as marital issues. Just read some self-help books and you can't miss it. Textbook stuff. The marriage counsellor doesn't know they're both assassins by trade. Would that trade make a difference?
The VIOLENCE appears to be just rollicking good fun needed to sell a movie. Neither is rattled by explosions, wounds, etc. The violence isn't about the violence. It's about conversation, about communicating.
This is a film in which VIOLENCE is CONVERSATION. DESTRUCTION is SEXUALITY.
The film doesn't go into great detail about the sex scenes, but the violence is detailed move for move and prolonged for fun, right down to gradually stripping off clothing as it gets ruined by the violence.
We've all discussed the psychological equivalence of sex and violence.
From the writer's point of view, the trick is to define a HIGH CONCEPT, and write that story, delivering on the fun in the concept.
The CONCEPT that husband and wife are (secretly from each other) professional assassins casts the marital "battle of the sexes" into HIGH CONCEPT, and provides the "violence" that producers require to pull in audiences.
But the violence in Mr. And Mrs. Smith (2005 version) is not gratuitous. It's not there to draw audiences. It's not there to display the grandiose physiques of the stars or the director's genius. It's there to FULFILL A PATTERN, to reticulate a pattern, and to discuss the nature of marriage.
Whee! This writer SQUEALS FOR JOY at seeing every bit of this script so clearly etched that every line traces right back to where the concept came from.
Now seeing into the wheels-and-gears behind the illusion does not spoil it for me. It is in fact the reason I imbibe fiction in all media. I take vast joy in well oiled wheels-and-gears.
Seeing into the mechanism is one part of the exercise of creating such a mechanism of your own. Seeing this particular mechanism fitting a typical alien-romance plot into commercial box office parameters makes me ever more hopeful that we can indeed create that blockbuster, runs-for-twenty-years PNR TV series.
Does anybody reading this remember TOPPER? It's not even currently available on DVD, and what's available used is only "highlights" -- it's time to rethink all this PNR stuff.
AMAZON SAYS: "A madcap comedy escapade, The Adventures of Topper is a collection of the funniest episodes from the ""Topper"" television series. The show, based on a novel by Thorne Smith and the book's subsequent spin-off motion pictures, features genteel banker Cosmo Topper who moves into a new house that comes complete with ghosts and all!"
Remember "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" ???
Each of those two "Concepts" spoke to a particular generation in terms of what was bugging that generation most. Mr. & Mrs. Smith speaks to the issue of truth in marriage. Note how on SMALLVILLE, and even in BUFFY, the truth issue is make-or-break in the Relationships. (Clue: truth in marriage wasn't always iconic in USA society, [rememer I LOVE LUCY?] nor in Victorian or Renaissance English Romances. It's really a very new yardstick for measuring relationships.)
Book, film, TV Show -- there's a link, a trail to follow that connects these forms of entertainment with each other and with the social matrix they address. And today we have to add web-originals, and other graphic novel, TV, and other new distribution channels.
Now think CONCEPT and think SYMMETRY as only the writer's eye can see it.
Think about Mr. And Mrs. Smith and how the violence level of the script mirrored the exact textbook progress of a marriage encounter-group session. See the pattern whole and completely reticulated, in the subconscious and in the conscious. The pattern is not in the foreground, not in the background and not even in the THEME. It's in the ties between the violence and the psychology that exist ONLY IN THE VIEWER'S MIND, and never on screen.
Don't just admire the modern Mr. And Mrs. Smith -- follow the pattern lines back to the originating concept, reverse engineer the script, deconstruct that concept into its components, and delve into how that concept was created.
It's not just a flash of inspiration that creates concepts. It's long, hard days of perspiration -- sometimes watching or reading things you wouldn't ordinarily want to. When that flash of inspiration occurs, it's your subconscious reporting on its month's work.
Writers do most all their work while sleeping, but the IRS doesn't let you deduct the bedroom of your house. Talk about unfair tax practices.
So replicate what they did to create and recognize the High Concept, "A married couple where each is secretly an assassin."
You can't use their concept, but you can use their method of finding that concept.
What other conflicts besides the "battle of the sexes in marriage" do you know of that go on in millions of people's lives every day? That's the question to answer in order to get the effect Hollywood wants: THE SAME.
What kind of well known, familiar conflict is so pervasive people don't even notice it's there, nor consider it worth commenting on? And what are the best self-help books that address subsets of that vast conflict area?
Nail that SAME part, then search for the BUT DIFFERENT part of the formula.
With Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the "different" part is that they're BOTH professional assassins.
Then the grind-the-crank part of the plot leads directly to "assigned to kill each other" - you just have to figure out a reason. The elegant solution is "because they're living together which means each is a spy assigned to waggle our secrets out of our hired assassin."
The twist with Mr. and Mrs. Smith is that the box-office requirement of VIOLENCE is supplied by their day jobs, not by the domestic dispute over keeping secrets.
I'd bet all of you already know all this.
So what are you thinking. Two alien from outer space spies meet on Earth and marry to maintain their cover? But they've each been sent here to search for the other and a) kill him, or b) protect Earth from his faction Out There?
Here are some widespread "conflicts" to explore other than Battle of the Sexes:
1) People Vs. Medical System
2) People Vs. Insidious Advertising Practices (think 0% nothing down mortgages)
3) People Vs. The Boss From Hell
4) People Vs. College grading system
5) People Vs. Traffic congestion
6) People Vs. Post Office Screw Ups
7) Tech Support Slave Vs. Enraged Customers
8) Mom Vs. School System over allowing Bullying
What other pervasive, everybody knows what it is about, conflicts can you think of?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://twitter.com/JLichtenberg
In other words, I held that there is no such thing as a "spoiler."
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html
If knowing what happens "spoils" it for you, then it wasn't well written enough to be worth your time and money anyway.
But in fact, there is such a thing as a spoiler!!!
What "spoils" fiction for readers and viewers is not knowing what happens, but knowing the trick behind the fictional facade.
The trick that's jerking your emotions around, that takes an event or line of dialogue and carries it straight through your conscious defenses into your subconscious and hits your deepest, most buried buttons, works just as well whether you've heard the plot in advance or not.
But once you know the trick being used against you, you don't react to it any more.
As stage magicians loathe letting anyone know their "secrets" (even other magicians), so also writers (who are prestidigitators of the emotions) should guard their proprietary secrets. Some writers go so far as to not-teach new writers because newbies are 'the competition.'
There is a process which trainee writers undergo as they pass from audience to stage-magician that is extremely wrenching. As you learn the secrets that writers have been using to jerk your emotions around, to make you laugh or cry over a scene, to deliver a GASP!, or a whoop of triumph, you find that your favorite fiction is "spoiled" -- you just don't enjoy it anymore, the way you used to as a mere reader.
You've found the keywords that trigger your emotional responses, even when used 200 pages before the impact hits you. You've found how you fall for the hero's kryptonite weakness, or root for heroes who have no such weakness. You've read a lot of these articles on how to write, and you've attended panels at conventions where writers reveal their secrets. Perhaps you've even done some writing yourself, and realize that these stories that always seemed so real, so important, so filled with higher truth, spiritual insights, or personal affirmation of your view of the world -- all this stuff you always adored suddenly seems as flimsy and false as the Western town main street consisting of plywood fronts for stores with catwalks on the back for cameras.
And it's all bland and pointless, except there's money to be made writing! So you set out to write, and that just makes the apathy for reading or viewing any fiction worse.
This state of apathy for fiction can persist for years once fiction has been "spoiled" for you by glimpsing behind the scenes. Or it might persist only for a few months, depending on how fast the stage of mastering the craft lasts. And the length of that interval depends on how hard you work at mastering the tricks yourself, and how much of yourself you put into it, and on how good you are at learning abstract things then applying them in the practical world.
Some people actually reach a version of this stage of apathy just while watching television, never thinking to become writers. They grasp the underlying formula for a TV series, find it predictable, and then find it boring because it's predictable.
Some will then segue into an "I can write better than that!" attitude and proceed to do so (with varied results), but still not find their enjoyment of commercial fiction returning.
So let's talk a little about how writing students bootstrap themselves up to the level of professional writers, and begin enjoying fiction for totally different reasons than they had ever been able to imagine before. This sheds light on why the same novel rarely wins both the Hugo (voted by fans) and the Nebula (voted only by professional writers.)
What does the writer's eye see that the reader's eye misses?
What do writers see in each others' work to send them into paroxysms of joy, of admiration, or even (*gasp*) into becoming a FAN of another writer's work?
It's all in the writer's TRAINED EYE. The writer's inner eye "sees" patterns that escape the casual reader. Having attempted to capture such a pattern and display it in a fictional universe, a world they have built themselves, the writer is aware of how difficult it is to put such an abstract vision into a piece of fiction and have the fiction still work as a story comprehensible to other people.
Only the writer who has studied the craft, then attempted (and perhaps even sold) stories has full appreciation of what an achievement capturing a real-world pattern in a bit of fiction can be.
If the pattern is put into the foreground of the fiction, the fiction fails to reach the reader/viewer's subconscious. If it's in the background or too buried in symbology or assumptions, the fiction doesn't communicate the pattern to a commercial size audience. If it's too hidden in the THEME, the fiction fails. Too blatant or too hidden -- either one is easy to write. But getting the pattern to be visible, clear and well stated, but still open to personal interpretation, and thus able to engage the audience's subconscious, now that's hard.
A writer can have a blazing epiphany, become filled to the brim with the urgency of showing the world an important bit of wisdom, and write their heart into a story -- only to have it sneered at or rejected.
After such a failure, a writer is set up to break through the apathy barrier, to become a FAN of other writers, to appreciate writing as craft and art welded into a thing of beauty.
What does a writer learn in that moment of breaking through the apathy barrier? What breaks that barrier and restores enjoyment to fiction? Finding a pattern you recognize properly used in a bit of fiction, understanding the craft elements that construct and convey the pattern, and knowing "This is what I was trying to do!" Recognizing another writer's success at something difficult restores a writer's zest for reading/viewing other writer's fiction.
All that is very abstract. Here's a concrete example.
Let's take the film MR. AND MRS. SMITH, the 2005 movie version where a husband and wife are in marriage counselling, and discover that each one has been keeping a secret from the other.
They are both assassins working for secret agencies. And they've been assigned to kill each other, and in fact the situation which pits them against each other was rigged by their superiors simply because they were living together. (um, yeah, it's a romance, and has all the elements of an alien romance, since each is "the unknown" to the other)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356910/
I've seen this film several times, and once again just recently.
But this last time was the ONLY time I saw what it was that speaks to me in this film.
Previously, it had been years since I'd written a screenplay. Recently I've done three (none yet to my own satisfaction!). Now I'm seeing movies differently, and really enjoying things I did not enjoy before. Apparently I stopped writing screenplays before I broke this barrier.
So in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I found the PATTERN that (when I couldn't see it) was jerking me around. Now it is very likely you saw this pattern the first time you saw the movie, and you won't understand why I didn't see it.
And I like this movie even better now that I've seen clearly what was only hazy before.
I hope you've re-read my post
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/03/prologues-and-spoilers.html
because in that post I did mention that if you have a prologue, you also need an epilogue. That's a technique of structure often called "bookends." Mr. & Mrs. Smith has "bookends" in the structure, and I never missed that point.
The film starts with the husband and wife sitting in office visitor chairs before a desk you don't see. It's a marriage counselling session. They haven't had sex in a while (with each other, that is) and can't agree on how long that's been, nor on how long it's been since they met. We see how they met, pretending to be a couple even though they didn't know each other, evading a police search for an assassin who was an American traveling alone. Total strangers, they provided cover for each other.
We see each of them in their ordinary workday persona, in wild "James Bond" action, battling, killing, almost being killed, arriving home in very "James Bond" unruffled fashion, being the perfect suburban couple. They argue or go stone-silent over trivial household matters. Clearly something abnormal there.
Then they're pitted against each other (we don't know why at first) and each wrestles with whether to kill the other (almost does it), and finally they begin actually TALKING about the issues between them ("What did you think the first time you saw me?" asking frank and embarrassing questions and answering honestly.) As they clear the air, they decide they won't kill each other, and they team up as allies against the conspiracy of their superiors to make them kill each other because they're living together (and therefore the "other" is a spy.)
The battle scenes get wilder and wilder until they shoot up a store, blow things up, (even their own house gets turned into a pile of kindling) then there's a stunt-doubled car chase to make Indiana Jones pale.
And after one wild-WILD action fight sequence, they blow off the rest of their aggressions in sex, wild passionate sex like they haven't had in years.
They settle the problem with their superiors, and they're back at the marriage counsellor. Mr. Smith prompts the marriage counsellor to ask the sex question again. They admit they redecorated the house (one of the issues they were spatting over was the color of the curtains).
Of course, the way I've outlined the story here, the pattern is obvious because I see it now.
The VIOLENT ACTS we see as they do their day-job, the violence in joining in combat at a job (that was a setup) where one tries to steal the "package" from the other, all the way through forming an alliance and shooting up and destroying a SUBURBAN HOUSEWARES STORE (with all kinds of nasty hunting weapons) (and they turn out to be wearing kevlar vests! I tell you the SYMBOLISM is perfect for penetrating subconsciouses), even the explosion that destroys their house -- all that violence and destruction is the SHOW DON'T TELL illustration, an exact replica or reflection, of the usual ho-hum marital-spat screaming fights most couples have. When a marriage is in real trouble, those spats become symbolic of the real problems in exactly the way the violence and truth-in-marriage issues do in this film.
The violence in this film acts as a SYMBOL for the marital issues that are screamed over and around but never actually stated in ordinary marriages (such as viewers of the movie might be living through). As the violence escalates, their COMMUNICATION over the real issues escalates (as rarely happens in real life -- I said this is a romance.)
The marriage counsel session dialogue is easily recognizable as marital issues. Just read some self-help books and you can't miss it. Textbook stuff. The marriage counsellor doesn't know they're both assassins by trade. Would that trade make a difference?
The VIOLENCE appears to be just rollicking good fun needed to sell a movie. Neither is rattled by explosions, wounds, etc. The violence isn't about the violence. It's about conversation, about communicating.
This is a film in which VIOLENCE is CONVERSATION. DESTRUCTION is SEXUALITY.
The film doesn't go into great detail about the sex scenes, but the violence is detailed move for move and prolonged for fun, right down to gradually stripping off clothing as it gets ruined by the violence.
We've all discussed the psychological equivalence of sex and violence.
From the writer's point of view, the trick is to define a HIGH CONCEPT, and write that story, delivering on the fun in the concept.
The CONCEPT that husband and wife are (secretly from each other) professional assassins casts the marital "battle of the sexes" into HIGH CONCEPT, and provides the "violence" that producers require to pull in audiences.
But the violence in Mr. And Mrs. Smith (2005 version) is not gratuitous. It's not there to draw audiences. It's not there to display the grandiose physiques of the stars or the director's genius. It's there to FULFILL A PATTERN, to reticulate a pattern, and to discuss the nature of marriage.
Whee! This writer SQUEALS FOR JOY at seeing every bit of this script so clearly etched that every line traces right back to where the concept came from.
Now seeing into the wheels-and-gears behind the illusion does not spoil it for me. It is in fact the reason I imbibe fiction in all media. I take vast joy in well oiled wheels-and-gears.
Seeing into the mechanism is one part of the exercise of creating such a mechanism of your own. Seeing this particular mechanism fitting a typical alien-romance plot into commercial box office parameters makes me ever more hopeful that we can indeed create that blockbuster, runs-for-twenty-years PNR TV series.
Does anybody reading this remember TOPPER? It's not even currently available on DVD, and what's available used is only "highlights" -- it's time to rethink all this PNR stuff.
AMAZON SAYS: "A madcap comedy escapade, The Adventures of Topper is a collection of the funniest episodes from the ""Topper"" television series. The show, based on a novel by Thorne Smith and the book's subsequent spin-off motion pictures, features genteel banker Cosmo Topper who moves into a new house that comes complete with ghosts and all!"
Remember "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" ???
Each of those two "Concepts" spoke to a particular generation in terms of what was bugging that generation most. Mr. & Mrs. Smith speaks to the issue of truth in marriage. Note how on SMALLVILLE, and even in BUFFY, the truth issue is make-or-break in the Relationships. (Clue: truth in marriage wasn't always iconic in USA society, [rememer I LOVE LUCY?] nor in Victorian or Renaissance English Romances. It's really a very new yardstick for measuring relationships.)
Book, film, TV Show -- there's a link, a trail to follow that connects these forms of entertainment with each other and with the social matrix they address. And today we have to add web-originals, and other graphic novel, TV, and other new distribution channels.
Now think CONCEPT and think SYMMETRY as only the writer's eye can see it.
Think about Mr. And Mrs. Smith and how the violence level of the script mirrored the exact textbook progress of a marriage encounter-group session. See the pattern whole and completely reticulated, in the subconscious and in the conscious. The pattern is not in the foreground, not in the background and not even in the THEME. It's in the ties between the violence and the psychology that exist ONLY IN THE VIEWER'S MIND, and never on screen.
Don't just admire the modern Mr. And Mrs. Smith -- follow the pattern lines back to the originating concept, reverse engineer the script, deconstruct that concept into its components, and delve into how that concept was created.
It's not just a flash of inspiration that creates concepts. It's long, hard days of perspiration -- sometimes watching or reading things you wouldn't ordinarily want to. When that flash of inspiration occurs, it's your subconscious reporting on its month's work.
Writers do most all their work while sleeping, but the IRS doesn't let you deduct the bedroom of your house. Talk about unfair tax practices.
So replicate what they did to create and recognize the High Concept, "A married couple where each is secretly an assassin."
You can't use their concept, but you can use their method of finding that concept.
What other conflicts besides the "battle of the sexes in marriage" do you know of that go on in millions of people's lives every day? That's the question to answer in order to get the effect Hollywood wants: THE SAME.
What kind of well known, familiar conflict is so pervasive people don't even notice it's there, nor consider it worth commenting on? And what are the best self-help books that address subsets of that vast conflict area?
Nail that SAME part, then search for the BUT DIFFERENT part of the formula.
With Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the "different" part is that they're BOTH professional assassins.
Then the grind-the-crank part of the plot leads directly to "assigned to kill each other" - you just have to figure out a reason. The elegant solution is "because they're living together which means each is a spy assigned to waggle our secrets out of our hired assassin."
The twist with Mr. and Mrs. Smith is that the box-office requirement of VIOLENCE is supplied by their day jobs, not by the domestic dispute over keeping secrets.
I'd bet all of you already know all this.
So what are you thinking. Two alien from outer space spies meet on Earth and marry to maintain their cover? But they've each been sent here to search for the other and a) kill him, or b) protect Earth from his faction Out There?
Here are some widespread "conflicts" to explore other than Battle of the Sexes:
1) People Vs. Medical System
2) People Vs. Insidious Advertising Practices (think 0% nothing down mortgages)
3) People Vs. The Boss From Hell
4) People Vs. College grading system
5) People Vs. Traffic congestion
6) People Vs. Post Office Screw Ups
7) Tech Support Slave Vs. Enraged Customers
8) Mom Vs. School System over allowing Bullying
What other pervasive, everybody knows what it is about, conflicts can you think of?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
http://twitter.com/JLichtenberg
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
"Mr. Ed" and Writing the Great American Novel
Please see my long comment on Linnea's post that went up yesterday. She's right, it takes longer to write shorter.
Well now! Isn't The Great American Novel what we all feel we're doing when we write?
Of course, we know it isn't so. Problems of genre-prejudice aside, you don't write "the great American novel" on purpose. Perhaps someone else on this co-blog will examine the concept "great" and the concept "American" in depth, and "novel" is a whole subject on its own, but today I wanted to examine what makes an Icon of a culture.
What is the function of an Icon and why do cultures elevate some trivial bit to become an icon to future generations?
Where do Icons come from?
I saw a segment on the PBS News Hour last week that's been bugging me with this question, and in truth it has a lot to do with Alien Romance and Intimate Adventure and Genre-Prejudice and Iconography.
"Mr. Ed" the 1960's TV show was billed and named in the News Hour segment several times as An American Icon. I think the publicist for the book written by the star of the show whom they were interviewing must have coined the phrase and succeeded in convincing the reporter to use it.
"Mr. Ed" preceded Star Trek and was an SF-ish parody crossed with kiddy-fare and came out immensely popular with adults because it was interlaced with complex relationships (like I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show).
http://www.tv.com/mister-ed/show/769/summary.html for more information (episode guides are there if anyone posted them -- tv.com is only as good as the contributors).
Mr. Ed was followed by "My Favorite Martian" -- and later by Star Trek which turned everything topsy turvey.
You see, Star Trek was actual adult drama -- not even really SF's traditional "Action/Adventure For Teen Boys" though it had that element prominent on the surface. ST posed serious questions about morality, ethics, world politics and religion.
SF on TV was revolutionized by Star Trek -- but the thin edge of the wedge, the ground-breaker, the true entry point into the general consciousness for science fiction (and adult stories about non-human intelligence) was via COMEDY.
And so Mr. Ed (about a deep buddy-friendship between an ordinary man and a talking horse who wanted to keep his verbal skills secret) became an American Icon (nearly 50 years later, when the star of the show writes a book about it!).
So maybe "an icon" is the tip of the root of change -- the point where a seed breaks open and starts to grow, but isn't quite recognizable yet.
Yes, I noted Rowena's post about Ginger Root and its shape. You see the impression humor makes.
So an Icon may be the first not-quite-recognizable appearance of a thing, or the next growth stage where it becomes recognizable (Spock has been named "an Icon") -- or some further inflection point in a growth curve.
Why do we appoint some things as "icons" and other things not? Well, that's another discussion having to do with popularity, publicity, journalistic choices, feedback between audience and profit-driven journalism, and group mind building.
But before we discuss any of that, and get bogged down in the related topic of "what is Art, really?" I think here on Alien Romance, we should study the 1960's a little deeper and learn.
Try this link:
http://www.tv.com/comedy/genre/4/topshows.html?g=4&era=1960&l=A&pop=&tag=gen_subtabs;era;4
Romance has been as derided as Science Fiction.
Science Fiction has begun to lose that stigma (still has a way to go, but frankly SF fandom WON the battle).
Romance is still considered "girly" fare, kid-lit, or the opiate of the useless drudge of the household.
But The Romance Genre really is an in-depth, far ranging and far reaching, highly philosophical, blatantly critical study of a single astrological phenomenon long known as The Neptune Transit -- which is famous for its spiritual effects.
The Alien Romance exposes that buried philosophical depth to the eye of the un-educated and perhaps innocent reader just as Star Trek exposed the philosophical importance of Science Fiction buried inside Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, and The Adams Family. (I'm not even mentioning Superman and other "kiddie" items, just general comedy.)
As Alien Romance adds an adult dimension to Romance, so Comedy added an adult dimension to SF.
Our next step must be a TV SHOW -- maybe made from a feature film -- which will become an American Icon like Mr. Ed -- a lighthearted romantic comedy with an alien point of view.
Now, maybe that's already happened and we're too close to it to see. I could nominate Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel as the Alien Romance Icon, maybe Lois and Clark -- maybe Forever Knight? Today we have Tanya Huff's Blood Files on TV along with a chance for The Dresden Files to make it on the Sci Fi channel. Maybe we're already there?
Anyone else have a nomination for the 2000's decade American Icon that will change viewing habits and make Alien Romance highly respectable general audience fare recognized on its artistic and philosophical merits?
What exactly is an icon and how do you recognize it before the media names it so?
Or maybe more to the point, how do you get to be "the media" that gets to choose what to select as "an Icon?"
Note this media piece on the last episode of The Sopranos:
--------------Were 'Sopranos' fans whacked or blessed? By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer
NEW YORK - And so on the first day of Year One A.T. — After Tony, that is — the "Sopranos"-viewing world was split in two camps.
One was muttering bitterly into its morning coffee at the open-ended conclusion of the epic series, a banal family moment over onion rings that would have delighted existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, author of "Being and Nothingness."
The other was lavishly praising the iconic HBO drama for capturing life's essential ambiguity and disorderliness.
See the full article:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_en_tv/tv_sopranos_ending;_ylt=AnWtrKSlaxXnNWYMMX9RZueuGL8C
---------------------
Is "iconic" a buzzword being cheapened by overuse? Or does this really point the way forward into the general consciousness?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
Well now! Isn't The Great American Novel what we all feel we're doing when we write?
Of course, we know it isn't so. Problems of genre-prejudice aside, you don't write "the great American novel" on purpose. Perhaps someone else on this co-blog will examine the concept "great" and the concept "American" in depth, and "novel" is a whole subject on its own, but today I wanted to examine what makes an Icon of a culture.
What is the function of an Icon and why do cultures elevate some trivial bit to become an icon to future generations?
Where do Icons come from?
I saw a segment on the PBS News Hour last week that's been bugging me with this question, and in truth it has a lot to do with Alien Romance and Intimate Adventure and Genre-Prejudice and Iconography.
"Mr. Ed" the 1960's TV show was billed and named in the News Hour segment several times as An American Icon. I think the publicist for the book written by the star of the show whom they were interviewing must have coined the phrase and succeeded in convincing the reporter to use it.
"Mr. Ed" preceded Star Trek and was an SF-ish parody crossed with kiddy-fare and came out immensely popular with adults because it was interlaced with complex relationships (like I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show).
http://www.tv.com/mister-ed/show/769/summary.html for more information (episode guides are there if anyone posted them -- tv.com is only as good as the contributors).
Mr. Ed was followed by "My Favorite Martian" -- and later by Star Trek which turned everything topsy turvey.
You see, Star Trek was actual adult drama -- not even really SF's traditional "Action/Adventure For Teen Boys" though it had that element prominent on the surface. ST posed serious questions about morality, ethics, world politics and religion.
SF on TV was revolutionized by Star Trek -- but the thin edge of the wedge, the ground-breaker, the true entry point into the general consciousness for science fiction (and adult stories about non-human intelligence) was via COMEDY.
And so Mr. Ed (about a deep buddy-friendship between an ordinary man and a talking horse who wanted to keep his verbal skills secret) became an American Icon (nearly 50 years later, when the star of the show writes a book about it!).
So maybe "an icon" is the tip of the root of change -- the point where a seed breaks open and starts to grow, but isn't quite recognizable yet.
Yes, I noted Rowena's post about Ginger Root and its shape. You see the impression humor makes.
So an Icon may be the first not-quite-recognizable appearance of a thing, or the next growth stage where it becomes recognizable (Spock has been named "an Icon") -- or some further inflection point in a growth curve.
Why do we appoint some things as "icons" and other things not? Well, that's another discussion having to do with popularity, publicity, journalistic choices, feedback between audience and profit-driven journalism, and group mind building.
But before we discuss any of that, and get bogged down in the related topic of "what is Art, really?" I think here on Alien Romance, we should study the 1960's a little deeper and learn.
Try this link:
http://www.tv.com/comedy/genre/4/topshows.html?g=4&era=1960&l=A&pop=&tag=gen_subtabs;era;4
Romance has been as derided as Science Fiction.
Science Fiction has begun to lose that stigma (still has a way to go, but frankly SF fandom WON the battle).
Romance is still considered "girly" fare, kid-lit, or the opiate of the useless drudge of the household.
But The Romance Genre really is an in-depth, far ranging and far reaching, highly philosophical, blatantly critical study of a single astrological phenomenon long known as The Neptune Transit -- which is famous for its spiritual effects.
The Alien Romance exposes that buried philosophical depth to the eye of the un-educated and perhaps innocent reader just as Star Trek exposed the philosophical importance of Science Fiction buried inside Mr. Ed, My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, and The Adams Family. (I'm not even mentioning Superman and other "kiddie" items, just general comedy.)
As Alien Romance adds an adult dimension to Romance, so Comedy added an adult dimension to SF.
Our next step must be a TV SHOW -- maybe made from a feature film -- which will become an American Icon like Mr. Ed -- a lighthearted romantic comedy with an alien point of view.
Now, maybe that's already happened and we're too close to it to see. I could nominate Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel as the Alien Romance Icon, maybe Lois and Clark -- maybe Forever Knight? Today we have Tanya Huff's Blood Files on TV along with a chance for The Dresden Files to make it on the Sci Fi channel. Maybe we're already there?
Anyone else have a nomination for the 2000's decade American Icon that will change viewing habits and make Alien Romance highly respectable general audience fare recognized on its artistic and philosophical merits?
What exactly is an icon and how do you recognize it before the media names it so?
Or maybe more to the point, how do you get to be "the media" that gets to choose what to select as "an Icon?"
Note this media piece on the last episode of The Sopranos:
--------------Were 'Sopranos' fans whacked or blessed? By JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer
NEW YORK - And so on the first day of Year One A.T. — After Tony, that is — the "Sopranos"-viewing world was split in two camps.
One was muttering bitterly into its morning coffee at the open-ended conclusion of the epic series, a banal family moment over onion rings that would have delighted existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, author of "Being and Nothingness."
The other was lavishly praising the iconic HBO drama for capturing life's essential ambiguity and disorderliness.
See the full article:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_en_tv/tv_sopranos_ending;_ylt=AnWtrKSlaxXnNWYMMX9RZueuGL8C
---------------------
Is "iconic" a buzzword being cheapened by overuse? Or does this really point the way forward into the general consciousness?
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/
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