Do you sign up for emails you wished you didn’t sign up for only to have them barge into your email, despite unsubscribing to them?

When I started writing, I was very open to learning cool techniques and concepts about storytelling. I read magazines, blogs, talked with other writers, read their recommendations on writing books, taken seminars, and gone to conferences. Almost all talked about theory. Very few talked about actual techniques.

As I checked my emails, I saw one come in. And he, a published author, who mentors other writers, interviewed a woman, who is also published and mentors. She said something interesting:

Beginning writers tend to think of themselves as the center of the universe and expect huge successes. They’re often not open to criticisms. Blah blah blah…

I haven’t encountered that, but I don’t mentor other writers. In taking classes, I am asked to read others writing and comment.  Whether they listen to me or not doesn’t really matter because it’s not my work. Only they can determine whether the criticisms are justified.  I’ve applied many suggestions and criticisms and rejected those that don’t help the story. I don’t make changes from a place of fear. Another words, if I fear that my book won’t sell because I don’t have a certain element, then I’ll probably reject that criticism.

Now going back to the email, here’s an example of taking advice with a grain of salt.  The interviewer asked her why she got into writing.  She said (her exact words):  For me it’s been looking back over my life and seeing all the input I’ve received over the years. Folks told me I could write when I wrote Christmas letters. My teachers saw the gift. And, yes, mentors have helped me hone the gift and encouraged me to continue.

Paraphrasing:  Praise the Lord, for He hath layeth on me a gifteth!

Did you read that?  She, in her head, is the center of the universe. She thinks she’s special after she just said beginning writers think they’re special. She ain’t no beginner, so does that mean you don’t have the right to feel special unless you’ve acquired a certain level of success?

In every moment of life, people should feel special about themselves. Who else, besides our doting parents, is going to feel that way about us?  Everyone has the right to exist. Everyone has the right to follow their passions, to explore their lives in different ways, and to live it as they wish, barring hurting anyone outside of themselves.

And the interviewer went along with it.  And this guy is reputable!

There’s some good advice out there. But when it comes to a story that is close to your heart, trust that that story will come out well, use actual writing techniques that will help tell your story (don’t use a flat head screwdriver on a phillips screw), and be clear about where your story and characters are heading.  That way when people give you suggestions or criticisms, you’ll know what to implement and what to throw out.

I usually use Steven King’s method.  Pay attention to the most common critiques. It’s a good sign you may need to fix it. But I had a friend point out my character’s reaction to a tragedy felt false to her. She explained why and I immediately took her suggestion and made the change. No one else pointed it out, but it matched exactly where the character was headed.  This same friend made a similar suggestion farther down the story, but to change it would flatten the overall character arch.  So I rejected it.

No one knows your story better than you. So be confident in it. And be open to learn and see what others see. Sometimes we writers are too close to see the forest.

Just watched Black Swan this weekend, starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. The movie is about the character’s psychological breakdown, which parallels Swan Lake’s story between the dark and light side of the Swan Queen (and no, I’m not familiar with the story). A subplot in the movie is Portman’s character’s struggle of technical perfection in ballet versus artistic expression.

Good Girl

When I started to write consistently, I had struggled with wanting to be the good girl versus the bad girl (not sure I’m doing myself any favors here). The good girl is being technically good at writing, and the bad girl is allowing myself to suck and the freedom to just write whatever comes out.

Which is better?

Bad Girl

So I started with the bad girl (yes!). I started to write Nightfall, and allowed whatever to come out, come out. I wrote sixty pages worth of material.

Then I talked to my friend who’s constantly working on being a technically perfect writer. He turned me to books and seminars that taught me how to be a good girl, how to write well technically. They focused on structure, emotional techniques, how to build depth in character, scenes, overall story, and provided a mechanic’s dream full of tools. More than what any writer would use in any single work.

But deep in my heart, I felt the bad girl pounding, wanting to get out and expose herself.

I’d talked to a friend recently, and she told me she wrote a book with her eyes closed. As far as I could tell, she’d done little research on writing technique or structure but was inspired to write. I haven’t read it so I’m not sure of the quality. However, when I was listening to her talk, the good girl inside shook me and said, “She’s crazy!”

Was my friend unconsciously incompetent (the individual neither understands nor knows how to do something, nor recognizes the deficit, nor has a desire to address it)? Google the four stages of competence and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

To be fair, my technically induced friend does allow for inspiration, and my crazy friend could be a great writer. But these two people showed up in my life as symbols of two extremes because I asked the question:

Which is better?

Choose me. No! Choose me.

In life, too much of anything isn’t good.

Humans can’t live more than a few days without water. But drink too much of it and people can die of water intoxication. Take in what you need. Leave the rest.

Today, I’ve used very little of what I had written during my purely bad girl days. But I learned what not to do, and in the process of my redemption, I had taken the time to learn. In doing so, I found out something interesting about myself that is the fundamental philosophy behind Bruce Lee: When one has reached maturity in the art, one will have a formless form. It is like ice dissolving in water. When one has no form, one can be all forms; when one has not style, he can fit in with any style.

What?

Learn what you need to learn. Leave the rest. You don’t and can’t know everything. Just make sure what you’ve learned doesn’t imprison your soul, that you can still express yourself wholly. Another words, forget what you’ve learned and just go with it.

As renowned photographer, Rodney Lough has said, “Art is the language of the soul.”

One of the coolest things about all art is the interpretation. Debates go endlessly about movies, books, paintings, poems, sculptures. And who’s to say who’s right and who’s not when we can’t even agree what’s art and what isn’t.

In trying to get feedback on my book, I’ve been giving out copies to my friends and family to get initial reactions, both kneejerk and constructive. I had readers who are fans and non-fans of fantasy, which is my genre.

One of my readers stated that my main character was highly sexual and emotional. I wanted honest opinions and here we are!

My kneejerk reaction was of course to defend.

But I’m here to learn so I asked her question after question, trying to keep an open mind.

None of my other readers had mentioned any of this. And just in case they missed something my friend hadn’t, I asked one of them specifically about the above points.

Highly sexual was something that really surprised me. I asked her what made her think this. She said that my hero thought about his wife’s scent, was enamored by her silky hair, and in a key scene couldn’t sleep due to the absence of her breathing next to him. I asked another female reader what she thought about this without mentioning what my friend thought. She said my hero was in love with his wife that it was about love.

Who’s correct?

Both.

There’s a saying. What you hate in others is what you hate in yourself. When I look at the lives of these two women, I can see why both thought the way they did.

I’m not saying they hated my book, but often what we see in art is often a reflection of us, an aspect anyway. I mean, haven’t you listened to music that reflects how you feel in the moment? We listen to love songs, or angry alternative, when we’ve broken up with someone. Or listen to ambient music when we want to be calm. Or listen to heavy metal or techno when we’re working out.

And knowing how 50% of sold books are romance novels tells you what women are feeling or needing.

My friend’s second point, complaint really, about my hero being emotional was also interesting.  For one, he is.  It being a complaint is a judgement on the character. Kinda like saying someone being short is not good. It’s not their fault.  My hero just turned out that way.

This brings us to the definition of art. First off, I don’t think it can be defined. It’s like defining the soul. Or God. You can’t. But a famed photographer once said that art is the language of the soul. Isn’t that where inspiration comes from?

But if you want to see a cool and heated debate of what art is, check out an articleRober Ebertwrote about how video games aren’t art.

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Run! Dammit! Run!

If you haven’t seen this movie, watch it. It mixes great world building techniques with flash backs and illustrates fantastic character development.  And the rules the main character develops to survive in a land of zombies are hilarious with a level of truth.

Robert Mckee, author of the popular book, Story, distills every story to be a quest.  Romance stories are quests for lust or love, fantasies are quests to save the helpless, thrillers are quests to solve a mystery of some sort, etc.

The main character, Columbus, played by Jesse Eisenberg is a college student who’s on a quest to find out if his parents are still alive.  Alive as in not zombies.  Honorable endeavor.

Columbus and Tallahassee run into a pair of sisters played by Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin whose sole purpose is to survive.

But Woody Harrelson plays Tallahassee.  What’s his quest?  Is it to save a damsel in distress?  No.  Is it to find the one rare cure for zombieism?  Not even close.  He loves killing them.  How about to rescue other humans from being eaten?  Ha!  Nope.  His quest is an honorable one.  Twinkies.

This brings us to the whole message of the movie.  Enjoy the little things in life.  Because in the world of zombies, (i.e. a symbol of our world:  people who work, do as they’re told, consume, watch mindless TV, and sleep only to wake up to do it again) you have no choice but to enjoy what you love.  And it’s usually the little things that matter the most.

Dead eye.  One of the biggest things I notice about all CGI movies are theeyes. They’re dead.

James Cameron has solved that by using motion capture to specifically record the actors’ emotions from the eyes.

But I’m not here to talk about how he made it.  Mostly because it’s beyond me.  I only understand the reasoning behind it like solving dead eye.  Sounds like a disease.

So here’s a list of what I truly loved about the movie as a whole:

• No over usage of CGI as a replacement for story.
• No over usage of 3-D.  In acting there’s a fourth wall, the wall removed so the audience can watch.  Rule is to never break the fourth wall.  But many 3-D movies do because it’s 3-D.
• All of the actors did an incredible job.
• It didn’t feel very heavily directed.
• Clear plot, clear themes, clear characters types.
• And most important of all, there was a good story.

.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been so obsessed with story and writing for the past few years, but there were some parts that were predictable, only because the story required it.  Certain key supporting characters died, certain story elements had to happen to drive the plot, the theme and climax. The ending was definitely predictable, and I mean the ending after the climax.  But what was strange was I wanted that ending.  I desired it myself.  And I know why.  Cameron made it important, subtly.

Spoiler alert:

Jake Sully is a paralyzed war veteran.  Without saying it or making such a big deal about it, he wants his legs back.  When he takes over his avatar, he runs out into the open with pure joy.  He’s laughing, yelling, and sprinting, then he takes a moment and digs his toes into the dirt.  That tiny scene was aforever moment.

At that point I was certain Sully was going to be permanently place in his avatar body.  I knew it before I watched the movie.  When it happened it was wholly satisfying like eating a warm chocolate cookie.  There were little things like the digging toes in that emphasized the need for that ending. It really speaks to how Cameron doesn’t over do things like using the technology both given to him, and invented by him.  He’s a storyteller at heart, knowing how to use little things to make certain story elements big.

I’ve experimented with that in writing myepisodes.

Trying to make something big by making it a big deal is a big big mistake.  In one of the writing seminars the teacher made fun of beginner writers when they write about the first serendipitous moment between two lovers.  Paraphrasing here:

“The world stopped as I gazed into her eyes. The ticking of my watch slowed and the flakes of the first snowfall hung in the air.  The hustle of the streets silenced and I felt my heartbeat yearn to feel hers.”

I must admit, when I first heard that I wanted to rush to my manuscript and make sure I didn’t do something similar.

The whole point here is that James Cameron played it well when he told his story.  I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the technology.  I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the directing.  Another words, I didn’t feel his hands in the movie (an example would be the first three episodes of Star Wars).  The actors were awesome. For example, Sigourney Weaver’s character as the dedicated scientist didn’t play up to stereotype.  Sam Worthington’s performance as Jake Sully felt relaxed, which contrasted well to his avatar character (nicely done, communicating a message).  There was a scene where he watched his brother’s cremation, which felt false.  But at least it wasn’t forced like having flashbacks.  And it was OK being false, since it was a small scene, despite requiring to be emotionally heavy.

Avatar is what storytelling should be like, whether computer imaging is involved or not.  I left the theater totally uplifted and inspired and still feel the same as I type these words.  I can’t wait for the sequels.

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”

Ever heard this?

As a storyteller, this can be a very limiting view.  Or is it?

William Shakespeare’s version of Twilight

A prominent screenwriter in Hollywood, David Freeman, gave a seminar.  There are hundreds of seminars I could have attended, but why did I go to his?  If you go to his site, he talks about techniques in writing.  No theories.  In fact, he gave so many techniques, it was like getting a trunk full of tools.  And in any one job, it’s highly unlikely you’ll use all of them, but you’ll definitely use enough to make your story emotional, something he emphasizes a lot.

He agreed with the quote above, but in a very un-limiting way.

I love going to movies, and one of the pleasures is seeing the previews.  I hate missing the previews like I hate missing the beginning of any movie.  One movie I’m anticipating is Avatar.

When I first saw it, I thought, James Cameron stole my idea!  WTF Cameron?  How’d you hack into my PC?

As I watched the preview, his premise was different.  Similar but different.

Then an image sparked in my mind.  American Indians gazing out into the sea as English ships sailed toward them.

The story of the Native American Indians against pioneering pilgrims is a familiar one.  It’s empire building.  The conflict?  The natives don’t want to leave.

Look at Braveheart.  I love that movie.  It’s the same thing.

Look at the battle of Thermopile, 300.

Look at the Mongols invading China.

Look at China’s history of the seven independent states warring against each other for power.

Look at Star Wars.

Look at King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

We have tons of stories based on the idea of oppression.  Sometimes the story ends with unification, like China and the seven states.  Sometimes we have stories of independence, like William Wallace’s fight for Scotland’s freedom.  But they all stem from a single idea.

Avatar is no different.  A powerful force, in this case us in the far future, wants something, a valuable mineral.  To mine it, we have to “politically” move a native race.  Easy enough.  But wait!  The native people don’t wanna move.

And the story begins.

Freeman said there were an unlimited amount of stories that could be told using the story computer.  Look at any story that you love or connect to.  Find a variation.

Turn the hero into a heroin.

Change the race.

Change the time.

Change the setting.

Change anything.

Look at Romeo and Juliet.  Change the time to the present.  Make the male a brooding, James Dean-looking vampire.  Now you have Twilight.

The Princess and the Frog is a great example.  What do we expect to happen when the princess kisses the frog?  The frog should turn to her prince.  But Disney was like, “Hell no. Dat’s been dun.  Da princess should turn to a frog, sucka!”

OK.  I doubt Disney execs would talk like that.  But they used the story computer to churn out what seems like a great story.

The Seven Provinces is a familiar story.  It’s about empire building.  It’s an underdog story.  It’s about a man trying to protect his family in a time of war.  It’s about oppression, betrayal, tragedy.  And much more.

There may be nothing new under the sun.  But that doesn’t mean new stories can’t be told using familiar themes.

Old fashioned martial arts schools are behind the times.

Recently in the past few weeks, people have asked why I think martial arts schools are behind the times.  Why I referred to the school I used to attend as crap in mybio.

Bruce Lee said it best:  ”Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it.”

In earning my kinesiology degree, I learned something about human movement that not only undermined years of martial arts practice, but destroyed the basis of most martial art foundations.

Most schools teach by practicing patterns of movement.  There’s nothing wrong with this, but eventually people need to move past this mode of learning.

I remember learning how to write, doing lessons in workbooks.  One of them required me to follow dotted lines for each of the letters of the alphabet.  Once we graduated from that simple lesson, our class moved to copying simple sentences my teacher wrote on the blackboard.  Then she wrote simple paragraphs that we copied into our notebooks.  The paragraphs we copied got longer.  As we moved up the elementary school echelon, we were taught the structures of the three paragraph essay, then the five paragraph essay.  We were given subjects to write about and we wrote.  And so on and so forth.

Now, imagine teenagers in high school, or students in college being given homework, copying dotted letters of the alphabet.  That is what you have in the traditional martial arts school.

Have you seen old English calligraphy?  All those swirls, extra lines, and decorations?  How inefficient would that be in everyday writing?  A lot of that is in traditional martial arts, as well.

In our particular school, we always made fun of Tae Kwan Do students.  They limited themselves to kicking, and when sparring they didn’t allow striking to the head.  But one thing they did a lot was sparring.  Sparring is the key to truly learning anything.

Kinesiology taught me that people need to be in dynamic environments if they are to perform in dynamic environments.  If I taught you a martial arts technique to deal with a right punch, and I drilled that technique over and over again, all you would’ve learned was the technique.  What you wouldn’t know how to do is react to the right punch.  To do that, you can’t be told that a right punch is coming.  And sparring gives you that opportunity.

Yes, learn the technique.  Yes, practice the technique.  Then forget it.

The above quote by Bruce states exactly how I live my life.

When I first attempted my first three novels, I had no idea what I was doing.  Then my best friend suggested many sources that spoke on the structure and techniques of fiction writing.  I read them, attended seminars and learned so much.  But those lessons didn’t sink in until I sat down and wrote.  By the end of my many revisions and writing myepisodes,I had to go back and do one last revision/rewrite.  I’d changed so much as a writer that I had to do a line by line examination of my manuscript.

I didn’t want to at first.  I knew it would take a long time.  But once I dug in, I became more intimately engrossed with my story.  And something happened that was unexpected.  I fell in love with my story again.

I also realized that I’d broken some rules of writing.  I didn’t do it on purpose.  That’s just the way the story needed to be told.

Bruce Lee said:  ”Using no way as way, having no limitation as limitation.”  That has definitely worked out for him.

The evil bad guy in my story uses ignorance to shed fear upon the people he’s terrorizing. Ignorance is a powerful tool. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen those shrink your tummy gizmos shizmos on TV and know it’s bullshit.

“It takes five seconds a day and you’ll see results yesterday. It’s so easy you’ll barely do anything but sit there.”

Yeah. The result is that you just bought a piece of crap machine that does nothing but take your $19.95 from your credit card.

I was eating cheese today with a group of people and heard a woman say how ignorant Americans were. She was talking about how the cheese made overseas was better than cheese made in America.

I thought, What?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!

What you see with the ?!?!?!???? is what we edumacated writers call a no no, a sin, a taboo in accepted English grammar.

Why we be so ignant? Cuz we ignant Americans have a law dat requires pasturizin da cheese.

For you folks I misspelled these words on purpose. Ignant for the Ebonics challenged means ignorant. Dat means that.

Getting back to ignance…

When I went to Walmart I looked at a ream of paper. One pack was a dollah fitty. Another was two dollah fitty. What was the difference? I have no idea. One dollah?

Can I make my own paper? No. In fact, I go to Walmart because I can’t make paper as good as the two dollah fitty version, let alone the one dollah fitty version. I doubt that ego ridden woman sitting on her highchair could make paper. Yes, the highchair babies use.

To further my point, she can’t make anything Walmart sells. That’s why Walmart sells stuff. So we don’t need to know how to make stuff. That doesn’t make us ignant. It allows us to focus on things that are more important. Like friends and family, our passions, or just being.

So the next time anyone makes fun of Walmart, ask them if they can make anything they sell. 100 to nothin they can’t.

One of the things I had to be clear about was the cultural elements of my fantasy.

Is marriage a common thing like it is in our world?  Are there family dinners?  Or do people fend for themselves?  Or is it more like a socialist society where the bounties are shared?

In creating my world, I borrowed from different cultures.  Not that I studied any one of them in depth.  I didn’t need to.  The elements I chose were used to convey an overall philosophy without explicitly writing it.  A couple of examples:

In the Matrix, the real world is not the real world.  And the world after being awakened was due to a choice of taking the red pill.  The whole movie is about choice. 

In Karate Man, aka Karate Kid, the man who believed in himself and was of pure heart won out.  Not the one with the bigger muscles and or more experience.

Fast and Furious is interesting.  If you gots the most fastest cars, the bestest finest chicks, and the deepestest voice with big ass muscles, then a plot or a message need not apply.  This is kinda true for Transformers.

Age just happens to be an important element.  For example, a toddler is referred as someone who’s in the morning of their lives.  As they move into the coming of age, which just happens to be different for every one, they’ve entered the afternoon of their lives.  And as you may have guessed, once wisdom settles in, the person strolls into the evening of their lives.

There is a reason I refer to age this way.  And it ties neatly into the culture of the provinces.

I think about age a lot because so many people place some sort of limitation due to age.

Look up a guy named Randy Couture.  He’s a UFC fighter who’s currently 46 years old.  He takes on guys over a decade younger and wins.

One of my ex-employers said once he hit his thirties, his metabolism slowed, he got fatter, and felt tired.  He failed to see that as he grew older he did less and less.  When he dated his wife, they went out a lot, went on vacations, took walks.  Now that they’re married with kids, they stay home a lot more, barely take any vacations, and any type of physical exertion has been removed.

Age had nothing to do with his physique.

I’m 37 years old.  I workout four times a week.  Yes, I like to look good.  So I’m a bit superficial.  Nothing wrong with that.  There is a more pertinent reason why I exercise.  When I studied kinesiology, one of my teachers was a physical therapist.  All of his clients were senior citizens, his specialty.  He said something that never left me.

“There’s one truth about human beings.  You’ll leave this world the same way you came in.  Bald, drooling, and pooping in a diaper.”

I pressed my lips together, pondering what it’s like taking a dump in diapers.  Then he said something that totally changed my view on exercise.  Exercise will improve the quality of life as we enter the evening of our lives.  I’m not sure if I’ll do a number 2 in diapers.  I don’t spend much time thinking about that.  But I’ve made sure exercise has become a part of my life.

Luckily, my family, my mom included, has embraced that as well.

One last thing about age.  I’ve now encountered about half a dozen men who shy away when asked how old they are?  WTF?  It’s one thing that women shy away from this subject.  But men?  Is this a growing trend?  Have they become sensitive about their age?  Grow a set of brass balls.

Have you seen those wild life specials where a group of congregating chimpanzees are screaming, slapping their hands above their heads? Sometimes I have a sneaking suspicion they have their own language that we don’t know about. Anyways, that’s another post.

Animal behavior often explains some of the odd things, sometimes called sins, that we humans portray.

When a father kills his wive and children, when a woman cheats on her man, when a boy goes to strange lengths to show a fifth grade girl he likes her can come from animalistic behavior. Thanks, Darwin.

We see all of this in the animal world.

Today I was eating at a ramen house and saw a group of young Asian boys hanging outside. One of them wore his sunglasses backwards, shading the back if his neck from the hot afternoon sun. He must have said something funny. Because one of his friends started laughing, screaming almost, slapping his hands together above his head. Sound familiar?

Is this important in story telling?

In my currentEpisode,my character is faced with an opportunity to prove his innocence. He has a choice. Prove it with dignity or with violence. Why the two opposite choices? If you’vereadwhat he’s been through, then you’ll undersand why he could choose violence.

Sometimes in life we don’t see how our behaviors can originate from our innate animal behavior.  If we are closest to our chimpanzee cousins, then how can we deny the strange behavior that some people exhibit?  Do I agree with it?  Not all the time.  But as story tellers, we should allow for some raucous action.

One that comes to mind is Hermione punching Draco in the nose in the third Potter book.  I thought that scene was right on.  A bigoist taunting someone should get their nose punched in.  Not because it was right.  Because that kind of behavior would elicit another.  Cause and effect.

I once had a student who was constantly bullied by another boy who didn’t respect my student’s ethnic heritage.  The bully called him obscene names.  My student asked him to stop and even avoided him.  But the bully looked for him like  a shark.  Heckling my student.  Barraging him with physical threats.  So my studentslappedhim.  Hard.

That bully never bullied him again.

The alpha male was now replaced by another.