So let me talk a bit about Arrow, which is probably my favorite show currently airing on network television. And it's certainly the best superhero-genre show, well, ever. A big part of why it is lands on how it handles its subject matter.
Usually when superheroes go to TV or the movies, there are two ways it gets played: one is the Dark And Gritty method, launched with Batman Begins. Everything is played with as much gritty realism as possible. It isn't a terrible approach, but it doesn't always work. Case in point, the recent interesting failure that was Man of Steel. It treats its subject matter seriously, but does so by attempting to undercut the source.
The other way is to go full out, but with a bit cynicism. It's as if the project knowingly winks at the audience and says, "Yeah, this is dumb, but roll with us here." And, again, you're undercutting the source. A prime example would be when the show Smallville first started. The producers went on record saying, "No flights, no tights". This was an explicit promise: don't worry, we won't be doing that stupid stuff as part of our Superman story.
What Arrow does is own its source material with honesty. This isn't the same as being grimly realistic. Hell, it has a WWII-era Japanese experiment called "mirakuru" that gives its recipients super strength and healing, but at the expense of their sanity. It has introduced Barry Allen, including the accident that will give him his super-speed as The Flash. But it does all this as if these elements are simply part of their reality. Taken seriously, fully owned.
And that's part of the secret of strong genre writing. Write every element as if it's simply part of the reality the characters live with. It's not fantastical or science-fiction to them, even when they learn about some element for the first time.
Approach it with honesty instead of apology.
And so we're clear, I do think writing a exposition-heavy beginning, or even a prologue, can be a form of apologetic weak writing. When done poorly, it becomes something like, "OK, I know this is silly, but here's a bunch of stuff you need to know to understand what's going on, and I'm sorry, but let's get through this bit, and then stuff will get good around, like, chapter five or so."
Screw that. Write it real, write it honest, and you won't need to do that. Trust your reader, that they're willing to get on board with you, and hit the ground running.
Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superheroes. Show all posts
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Monday, November 18, 2013
Heroes, anti-heroes, and misaligned moral compasses
A degree or two off course doesn't lead you wrong at first. At least, not too wrong that you can't self-correct.
But eventually that wrong course, that misaligned compass, leads one too far afield, and there's no way back to the place you thought you were going.
A misaligned moral compass can take your characters to interesting places, regardless of if you are writing heroes or anti-heroes. Of course, then one of the biggest challenges you have is making it clear that you, as the writer, are not advocating said moral failings. It's a story about a flawed person.
Take, for example, Ken Connell.
Who?
OK, it's not the most famous example, but roll with me.
Ken Connell was the main character of the flagship title of Marvel Comics's fascinating failure, The New Universe. The underlying concepts behind the New Universe were interesting, but much of the execution was disorganized and flawed.
The Star Brand was essentially combining Superman and Green Lantern into one concept: a tattoo-like power source that could be given to another, granting the owner incredible power only limited by his or her imagination. Possessed by the right man, it could be an incredible force for good.
Ken Connell is not the right man. But he really wants to believe that he is. He totally sees himself as a good guy who could do more and be great.
In other words, he's exactly the guy to buy into his own hero-destiny narrative.
In truth, Ken is kind of a loser. He works in a auto-repair shop, and is constantly talking about how much smarter he is than anyone else around him. He's got a lovely girlfriend who dotes on him, whom he consistently cheats on with a teenage girl who is so enamored of him that she happily slips out his back window in her underwear when his actual "girlfriend" shows up unannounced. (It's worth noting that he hides the StarBrand power from his girlfriend, but tells the teenager on the side all about it.)
He's that guy who is constantly complaining that life never gave him "his shot", but even with nigh-infinite power he doesn't do much to change his life. He does keep trying to do "good", in an abstract way, but he really isn't the good man he wants to think he is. When confronted with an "unstoppable" villain-- a soldier whose body has changed to be indestructible, and has decided to just walk into Russia and wreck the place*, Ken tries to do the "right" thing to stop him. But he can't stop him, so he just picks him up and flings him into space.
And also, Ken destroys the city of Pittsburgh. Not out of malice, but because he was too lazy to fly all the way to the moon to do an experiment with his power that he knew would be explosively dangerous.
But a lot of people believed that Ken was being presented as some sort of ideal, some sort of personal-avatar by then Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Jim Shooter. This mostly because Jim, like Ken, is tall and from Pittsburgh, and also because a lot of people did not like Jim and wanted to paint him in a bad light.**
The New Universe failed for a lot of reasons, but I think partly because audiences at that time weren't interested in "heroic" characters who were so flawed, so ordinary. It's funny, because plenty of stories like the New Universe and StarBrand have come up since.*** Characters who do the wrong thing for interesting reasons, and end up where they never wanted to be, and are only heroes in their own mind.
Ken is not a good guy, and is never presented as that. He never understands that he's not the hero of the New Universe, but it's most dangerous villain.
---
*- This was 1987.
**- In fact, having Ken destroy Pittsburgh was a decision made after Shooter was ousted, essentially a "Ha, we're having your hero destroy your city" pettiness.
***- Though, to be fair, with better overall execution and coherence of vision.
But eventually that wrong course, that misaligned compass, leads one too far afield, and there's no way back to the place you thought you were going.
A misaligned moral compass can take your characters to interesting places, regardless of if you are writing heroes or anti-heroes. Of course, then one of the biggest challenges you have is making it clear that you, as the writer, are not advocating said moral failings. It's a story about a flawed person.
Take, for example, Ken Connell.
Who?
OK, it's not the most famous example, but roll with me.
Ken Connell was the main character of the flagship title of Marvel Comics's fascinating failure, The New Universe. The underlying concepts behind the New Universe were interesting, but much of the execution was disorganized and flawed.
The Star Brand was essentially combining Superman and Green Lantern into one concept: a tattoo-like power source that could be given to another, granting the owner incredible power only limited by his or her imagination. Possessed by the right man, it could be an incredible force for good.
Ken Connell is not the right man. But he really wants to believe that he is. He totally sees himself as a good guy who could do more and be great.
In other words, he's exactly the guy to buy into his own hero-destiny narrative.
In truth, Ken is kind of a loser. He works in a auto-repair shop, and is constantly talking about how much smarter he is than anyone else around him. He's got a lovely girlfriend who dotes on him, whom he consistently cheats on with a teenage girl who is so enamored of him that she happily slips out his back window in her underwear when his actual "girlfriend" shows up unannounced. (It's worth noting that he hides the StarBrand power from his girlfriend, but tells the teenager on the side all about it.)
He's that guy who is constantly complaining that life never gave him "his shot", but even with nigh-infinite power he doesn't do much to change his life. He does keep trying to do "good", in an abstract way, but he really isn't the good man he wants to think he is. When confronted with an "unstoppable" villain-- a soldier whose body has changed to be indestructible, and has decided to just walk into Russia and wreck the place*, Ken tries to do the "right" thing to stop him. But he can't stop him, so he just picks him up and flings him into space.
And also, Ken destroys the city of Pittsburgh. Not out of malice, but because he was too lazy to fly all the way to the moon to do an experiment with his power that he knew would be explosively dangerous.
But a lot of people believed that Ken was being presented as some sort of ideal, some sort of personal-avatar by then Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Jim Shooter. This mostly because Jim, like Ken, is tall and from Pittsburgh, and also because a lot of people did not like Jim and wanted to paint him in a bad light.**
The New Universe failed for a lot of reasons, but I think partly because audiences at that time weren't interested in "heroic" characters who were so flawed, so ordinary. It's funny, because plenty of stories like the New Universe and StarBrand have come up since.*** Characters who do the wrong thing for interesting reasons, and end up where they never wanted to be, and are only heroes in their own mind.
Ken is not a good guy, and is never presented as that. He never understands that he's not the hero of the New Universe, but it's most dangerous villain.
---
*- This was 1987.
**- In fact, having Ken destroy Pittsburgh was a decision made after Shooter was ousted, essentially a "Ha, we're having your hero destroy your city" pettiness.
***- Though, to be fair, with better overall execution and coherence of vision.
Monday, October 1, 2012
In which I channel my madness
So I had reached the point where the floodwaters of my creative process couldn't take further damming, and the levees were going to break. This would have probably resulted in full-on madness. It would not have been productive.
So I channeled it, knowing that I should go with that urge to make a Wall of Crazy to help figure out Way of the Shield, in a way I can visualize, get my hands on it in a tactile way. If I actually went true WALL of crazy, my wife would probably not approve. So I dug through the garage and found a large board.
And now it all makes perfect sense.
OK, not really, but it makes more sense to me, and that's what matters. It also helped me see why I was having such challenges making things work.
Every project, of course, has a different process to midwife it, and this one has been especially trying. Sometimes it's about figuring out the flaw in the center of the second act. Sometimes it's just about finding the right music to work to.
I once wrote a short story once that would not come out until I was listening to a mix of Madonna, Britney, Pink and Lady Gaga. This is not what I normally listen to, but it was what made that story come together. I honestly do not understand it. I just accepted it.
And, hey, you can read that story, if you're so inclined, since it's in the anthology The Protectors, now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
So I channeled it, knowing that I should go with that urge to make a Wall of Crazy to help figure out Way of the Shield, in a way I can visualize, get my hands on it in a tactile way. If I actually went true WALL of crazy, my wife would probably not approve. So I dug through the garage and found a large board.
OK, not really, but it makes more sense to me, and that's what matters. It also helped me see why I was having such challenges making things work.
Every project, of course, has a different process to midwife it, and this one has been especially trying. Sometimes it's about figuring out the flaw in the center of the second act. Sometimes it's just about finding the right music to work to.
I once wrote a short story once that would not come out until I was listening to a mix of Madonna, Britney, Pink and Lady Gaga. This is not what I normally listen to, but it was what made that story come together. I honestly do not understand it. I just accepted it.
And, hey, you can read that story, if you're so inclined, since it's in the anthology The Protectors, now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Avengers and Twelve-Part Structure
I had been thinking about movies and the studio-system's somewhat slavish devotion to "three act structure", which more and more I'm seeing as a big problem in modern cinema, and too often I'm seeing that same advice being given to novelists. And that's a shame, because three-act structure is bad advice for movies, and it's downright horrible for novels.
That's partly because "three act structure" is more or less another way of saying "beginning, middle and end". And that's where a lot of screenwriters and novelists get into trouble: "Act 2 problems" or "the murky middle". It's because, when you come down to it, "rising action" doesn't really give you a lot to go on. It's a fancy way of saying "more stuff happens until the finale", but that tends to get translated into wheel-spinning and "refusing the call" (in Campbellian terms) as a way to mark time until the finale happens.*
This is the problem in using tools of deconstruction and analysis and trying to use them for construction and creation. They aren't meant to be used that way. Now, admittedly, I did use deconstruction and analysis to create the Twelve-Part Structure, but I did it as a means of making a tool of construction and creation.
I could probably go on for a bit on the perils of three-act structure and using analysis tools for creation, but I won't. I will, however, point out how things that succeed at being at engaging don't use three-act structure. And when I saw the Twelve-Part Structure so evident in Avengers, I was pretty damn gleeful.**
Some spoilers from here on out.
Establishment: Loki shows up out of the Cosmic Cube, enthralls Hawkeye and Dr. Solveig, SHIELD fails to stop him. With this, we establish the world and the stakes-- namely, this is a world where stuff like this happens.
Incitement: Gather the Team sequences: Fury talks to Cap, Natasha shows her skills and recruits Banner, Coulson talks to Tony.
Challenge: Loki begins his "distraction" plan in Germany, where Hawkeye does the real plan. Cap fights Loki, and then Tony shows up and subdues him.
Altercation: Thor shows up to take Loki, and then Tony and Thor and Cap all fight each other over essentially jurisdiction issues.
Payback: Loki is locked up, but all the Team squabbles with each other over petty tings. In other words, Loki's subtle discord is sewn.
Regrouping: Natasha gets info out of Loki, the Team gets a better sense over what's actually happening.
Collapse: Intergroup squabbling reaches a fevered pitch, as they discover SHIELD's plans for the Cosmic Cube. Hawkeye attacks the Helicarrier.
Retreat: Hulk smash, Tony and Cap work on keeping the Helicarrier in the air, Loki escapes and kills Coulson.
Recovery: Tony and Cap fix the Helicarrier, Natasha smacks Hawkeye's head back together, Bruce wakes up with Harry Dean Stanton.
Investment: Coulson's bloody Captain America cards, Tony gives his Big Speech to Loki, and the portal of Alien Destruction opens up.
Confrontation: BIG. DAMN. FIGHT.
Resolution: Hulk smashes the puny God. Tony throws a nuke at the aliens. Natasha closes the portal. Loki is captured, Thor brings him home. Fury gives a speech. Shawarma.
Yeah, you could break that into "three acts", but you'd be being pretty reductive about what actually happens. Whedon was essentially given "three acts" by the studio people (namely, "Heroes come together, then they fight each other and split apart, and then they come together for Big Damn Fight"). With a lesser script that could have ended up as more wheelspinning non-action-- or worse, some kind of Plot Coupon collection in lieu of an actual story in the middle.*** Instead, with a more complicated structure, you get a FAR more engaging work.
--
*- Another superhero movie example: Green Lantern. That's just full of wheel-spinning until the third-act turn where Hal Jordan, the supposedly fearless guy with near-limitless power, finally decides that maybe he should try and do something. And by "do something" I mean tell a bunch of people he previously blew off that they should do something.
**- I am NOT claiming that Whedon is aware of my Twelve-Part Structure, or that he necessarily used it or a similar framework. It's more that Twelve-Part Structure fits as a framework quite nicely.
***- I'm looking at you, Percy Jackson movie.
That's partly because "three act structure" is more or less another way of saying "beginning, middle and end". And that's where a lot of screenwriters and novelists get into trouble: "Act 2 problems" or "the murky middle". It's because, when you come down to it, "rising action" doesn't really give you a lot to go on. It's a fancy way of saying "more stuff happens until the finale", but that tends to get translated into wheel-spinning and "refusing the call" (in Campbellian terms) as a way to mark time until the finale happens.*
This is the problem in using tools of deconstruction and analysis and trying to use them for construction and creation. They aren't meant to be used that way. Now, admittedly, I did use deconstruction and analysis to create the Twelve-Part Structure, but I did it as a means of making a tool of construction and creation.
I could probably go on for a bit on the perils of three-act structure and using analysis tools for creation, but I won't. I will, however, point out how things that succeed at being at engaging don't use three-act structure. And when I saw the Twelve-Part Structure so evident in Avengers, I was pretty damn gleeful.**
Some spoilers from here on out.
Establishment: Loki shows up out of the Cosmic Cube, enthralls Hawkeye and Dr. Solveig, SHIELD fails to stop him. With this, we establish the world and the stakes-- namely, this is a world where stuff like this happens.
Incitement: Gather the Team sequences: Fury talks to Cap, Natasha shows her skills and recruits Banner, Coulson talks to Tony.
Challenge: Loki begins his "distraction" plan in Germany, where Hawkeye does the real plan. Cap fights Loki, and then Tony shows up and subdues him.
Altercation: Thor shows up to take Loki, and then Tony and Thor and Cap all fight each other over essentially jurisdiction issues.
Payback: Loki is locked up, but all the Team squabbles with each other over petty tings. In other words, Loki's subtle discord is sewn.
Regrouping: Natasha gets info out of Loki, the Team gets a better sense over what's actually happening.
Collapse: Intergroup squabbling reaches a fevered pitch, as they discover SHIELD's plans for the Cosmic Cube. Hawkeye attacks the Helicarrier.
Retreat: Hulk smash, Tony and Cap work on keeping the Helicarrier in the air, Loki escapes and kills Coulson.
Recovery: Tony and Cap fix the Helicarrier, Natasha smacks Hawkeye's head back together, Bruce wakes up with Harry Dean Stanton.
Investment: Coulson's bloody Captain America cards, Tony gives his Big Speech to Loki, and the portal of Alien Destruction opens up.
Confrontation: BIG. DAMN. FIGHT.
Resolution: Hulk smashes the puny God. Tony throws a nuke at the aliens. Natasha closes the portal. Loki is captured, Thor brings him home. Fury gives a speech. Shawarma.
Yeah, you could break that into "three acts", but you'd be being pretty reductive about what actually happens. Whedon was essentially given "three acts" by the studio people (namely, "Heroes come together, then they fight each other and split apart, and then they come together for Big Damn Fight"). With a lesser script that could have ended up as more wheelspinning non-action-- or worse, some kind of Plot Coupon collection in lieu of an actual story in the middle.*** Instead, with a more complicated structure, you get a FAR more engaging work.
--
*- Another superhero movie example: Green Lantern. That's just full of wheel-spinning until the third-act turn where Hal Jordan, the supposedly fearless guy with near-limitless power, finally decides that maybe he should try and do something. And by "do something" I mean tell a bunch of people he previously blew off that they should do something.
**- I am NOT claiming that Whedon is aware of my Twelve-Part Structure, or that he necessarily used it or a similar framework. It's more that Twelve-Part Structure fits as a framework quite nicely.
***- I'm looking at you, Percy Jackson movie.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Avengers Assemble: But more women next time, hmm?
This past weekend The Avengers went down in comic-book movie history. It broke box-office records, making over $200 million in just one weekend. More importantly, it was a success in terms of its goals-- bringing together the Big Damn Heroes of the Marvel Universe from their individual movies and teaming them up in a big, satisfying way.
So it goes without saying that Avengers 2 is a lock. They even threw in the obvious Sequel Bait in the credits sequence. I'm just hoping they lock down the details relatively soon, because I'm already excited. Unfortunately, I can't see them getting it together earlier than Summer 2015.
If I have one complaint about Avengers, it is that it comes too close to the Smurfette Principle: the team is Black Widow and five guys. This is not Joss Whedon's fault, I'm sure. Knowing his work, he probably did a lot of fast talking just to get Maria Hill in among the cast. But I know that the team of the movie was essentially handed down by studio edict. So, hopefully, Avengers 2 is going to rectify that. Though, reasonably, there are only so many New Avengers that can be added, and they aren't all going to be women.
It seems like they really might get the Ant-Man movie off the ground,
so he would be a likely add. With him, it's pretty easy to add Wasp to
the team (if she isn't a key part of the Ant-Man movie, which she
totally should be). And it wouldn't hurt to maintain her original background, if for no other reason than to be a counterpoint to Black Widow: a socialite heiress with a solid head on her shoulders. She's not Paris Hilton; she's Ivana Trump. If, you know, Ivana had superpowers.
My other key choice would be Ms. Marvel, aka Capt. Carol Danvers. Since it's looking like Avengers 2 will be going cosmic, her origin of being an Air Force pilot who is empowered when exposed to alien technology would fit in quite nicely. Plus Ms. Marvel ought to be (but isn't really) Marvel's equivalent of Wonder Woman: the universe's most notable female hero. Frankly, the Marvel Universe doesn't have someone would quite fits that bill. Black Widow isn't it. Nor is Invisible Woman, Elektra, Phoenix or Storm. Let's give Ms. Marvel a proper showcase.
I would personally love to see Mockingbird show up in Avengers 2, and she has the advantage of fitting into the world of the Marvel movie-verse quite easily. SHIELD agent turned hero, with strong emotional ties to Hawkeye, and like Hawkeye and Black Widow, she's a highly skilled "normal" instead of superpowered. Though it works best if she and Hawkeye are married, so unlike having a
strong professional bond that he and Natasha have in the movie, they can
be a hot couple who kicks ass. The Mr. and Mrs. Smith of the Marvel
Universe. Of course, her actual comic-book background is pretty damn close to movie-verse's background for Black Widow. So close as to seem redundant. And while I'm a big fan, she's a bit too obscure. (Though, apparently, they are considering an Alias-like show starring her for ABC Family, that will be tied to the Marvel Movie-verse. So, you never know.)
Those would be my choices. Many fans seem to be pushing for Scarlet Witch, though I respectfully disagree. I understand the reasoning: she was the second woman to join the team, she's a long part of Avengers history. But given her backstory is entangled with elements that the Marvel Movie-verse can't use (mutants and Magneto), and you'd HAVE to bring Quicksilver along with her... eh. It seems too much.
So it goes without saying that Avengers 2 is a lock. They even threw in the obvious Sequel Bait in the credits sequence. I'm just hoping they lock down the details relatively soon, because I'm already excited. Unfortunately, I can't see them getting it together earlier than Summer 2015.
If I have one complaint about Avengers, it is that it comes too close to the Smurfette Principle: the team is Black Widow and five guys. This is not Joss Whedon's fault, I'm sure. Knowing his work, he probably did a lot of fast talking just to get Maria Hill in among the cast. But I know that the team of the movie was essentially handed down by studio edict. So, hopefully, Avengers 2 is going to rectify that. Though, reasonably, there are only so many New Avengers that can be added, and they aren't all going to be women.
Those would be my choices. Many fans seem to be pushing for Scarlet Witch, though I respectfully disagree. I understand the reasoning: she was the second woman to join the team, she's a long part of Avengers history. But given her backstory is entangled with elements that the Marvel Movie-verse can't use (mutants and Magneto), and you'd HAVE to bring Quicksilver along with her... eh. It seems too much.
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