Bulwer-Lytton

The annual Bulwer-Lytton contest inflicts itself on us in the name of Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, the man who penned that immortal line, “It was a dark and stormy night.”  The challenge is to write the worst possible opening sentence for a novel.  Those of you who have an excellent chance of winning (and you know who you are) may enter at

http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

This year’s winner in the Purple Prose category is Mike Pedersen of North Berwick, ME:

As his small boat scudded before a brisk breeze under a sapphire sky dappled with cerulean clouds with indigo bases, through cobalt seas that deepened to navy nearer the boat and faded to azure at the horizon, Ian was at a loss as to why he felt blue.

Among the Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions is Betty Jean Murray of Richland, TX:

Maggie said they were birthmarks and they very well could be, but the three very small black moles in a horizontal line just above her right eyebrow looked like an ellipsis to some, but to others who did not know what an ellipsis was, they looked like three very small black moles in a horizontal line just above Maggie's right eyebrow.

All this brings me back to my glory days in 2008, when yours truly was named the runner-up in the science fiction category: 

Lightning flashed from the blue-black sky of this alien world and shattered the engines of the spaceship, destroying Reninger's last chance of escaping and reminding him of the time his sister returned from New York with the tips of her hair dyed blue, except for the part about the lightning and the spaceship. 

You’re welcome.  

Daniel Radcliffe Sings the Periodic Table

I had no idea Daniel Radcliffe was this intelligent.  In the video below, he sings the names of every single element in the periodic table! 

But what does he do with the rest of his brain cells?  

Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens attempts to take us back to the days when Westerns were epic movies.  Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) is a gunslinger with a price on his head, but he wakes up with no memory of his past and a strange device attached to his wrist.  Ella (Olivia Wilde) is the mysterious woman with a gun on her hip who hints she knows what happened to him.  Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) is the cattleman who acts like he owns the town and has no compunction about leading a gang of toughs to spring his troublemaking son from jail.  These three collide when flying objects devastate the town and make off with a number of the townsfolk. 

We’re in the know that these are aliens, but the old West characters have to grasp their way to figuring out how to get their people back from these “demons.”  What helps is the device on Jake’s wrist is a piece of technology that gives them a fighting chance.  Along with Ella’s secret knowledge and Doharhyde’s unflagging determination, they track down the aliens on horseback, guns ready to take on them and their technology. 

photo by Caroline Bonarde Ucci

Cowboys & Aliens may not be a great movie, but it certainly is worth watching.  I enjoyed Daniel Craig’s gunslinging and Harrison Ford’s transition from mad arrogance to world-weariness.  We’re treated to actors actually riding on horseback, Clancy Brown (the sergeant in Starship Troopers) as the crusty preacher, and Apache Indians on the warpath.  A weak point is that Dolarhyde’s son isn’t worth rescuing.  And contrary to rumor, Olivia Wilde does not appear naked -- just the typical view of her bare upper back.  But it’s a successful melding of the Western with science fiction. 

photo by John  Griffiths

P.S.  When 43% of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes likes a movie, but 65% of the audience likes it, you might wonder what’s going on.  As far as I can tell, some reviewers flat out don’t like Westerns.  They seem to be disappointed that the movie did not lampoon the genre.  But the director Jon Favreau treated the genre with respect. 

P.P.S  Source Code is now out on rental.  See my review on this excellent movie.  

Borders Closing

This Borders closed some months ago

What can I say?  The Borders bookstores are closing.  Earlier this year, people in the know said they were in a death spiral. 

Barnes & Noble may get a temporary bump from this, but the book industry could be in the middle of fundamental restructuring. 

Judging from my previous experience with the closing of a large Borders, you’ll have to wait a couple more weeks to get the really cheap deals.  

When Trophy Wives Attack

Rupert Murdoch's third wife Wendi is a former volleyball player.  Keep that in mind as you watch what happens when someone tries to throw a pie in his face while he was testifying to a committee of Parliament.  You mostly see Rupert's son looking helpless, then on the left of the screen you see Wendi slap the guy on the head!  Good choice, Rupert!  

Vicious Half-Truth #3: Show, Don't Tell

The constant mantra out there among writers is “show, don't tell.”   That is, don't just tell the reader that a spaceship feels cramped, show it in the narrative by the crew members ducking to avoid overhead power lines, stepping carefully to avoid stairway alcoves, and almost colliding with each other.  Don’t tell us that a man is almost drowning on the coast of the Ionian Sea, show him hanging on to a jagged half-submerged rock, and then the pounding roar of the surf headed towards him.  And above all, don’t tell us that a character is smart, brave, pious, seductive, etc., but show us by the character’s actions and how others respond.  This makes the writer give vivid descriptions that the reader will find convincing. 

Unfortunately, this is a vicious half-truth. 

The advantage of books over TV or movies is we can describe what the characters think and feel.  And the way to do this is to tell the reader.  I've tried to show thoughts and feelings by action, which doesn't work.  For instance, I tried to show the desperation of the man in the Ionian Sea by his getting weaker as the rough surf pounded him.  And I thought I was showing how ingenious he was in his how he acted to save himself.  The criticism I received from online critiques indicated I didn’t show his thoughts or feelings. 

Tell the reader what the character is thinking, what the character is feeling.  Hopefully, you can avoid trite phrases such as “He thought,” or “He felt.”  There has to be good cause and effect, linked to the physical world.  The character may observe a certain detail, which leads her to think she’s being used as bait, or more explicitly, Using me as . . . bait.  Or the character’s feelings may be linked to a clenched stomach or tense shoulders, or suspicion that his eyelid is twitching. 

Show the reader your character and surroundings by showing, not telling.  But plunge your reader into your character’s thoughts and feelings by telling what they are.  

Anna McKinnon

In Memoriam

Anna McKinnon

1979-2011

The CSI Effect

I have cleverly inked out the name of the defendant and shown only part of her face, so you cannot possibly guess whom I am referring to. 

At a science fiction convention, I heard two CSI speakers describe their craft in great detail.  The session was packed, and we were fascinated at the techniques that can bring murderers and other criminals to justice.  But one part of it was disturbing:  What they call the CSI effect. 

Jurors nowadays have watched television dramas like the multiple CSI series, Bones, or other shows that dramatize the use of forensic evidence gathered at crime scenes.  The problem is, juries often expect that same sort of evidence when they sit in a courtroom.  As these experts said, there was a case where a criminal’s presence was proved by his fingerprints.  A juror voted not guilty.  She reasoned that since no DNA evidence was shown, the criminal’s presence was not really proved. 

These CSI type of shows have barely possible scenarios, in which they find a strand of hair, and their analysis then shows the assailant was left-handed and used a monkey wrench to kill the victim while Colonel Mustard was standing ten feet to the right.  By the end of the episode, they can show by animation, holographic imagery, or blurry imagination with lots of screaming exactly how the murder took place.  And jurors expect that.  They want to know the exact method of the murder, at exactly what angle the victim was struck, and the exact movements of the murderer before, during, and after the act. 

These expectations pretty much belong to the realm of fantasy land. 

In the case I referenced, pundits on the news have said the prosecution must know the method of death in order to convict the accused mother.  Not true.  The standard of proving the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt does not include knowing the method of death.  Look it up.  Taken to a ridiculous extreme, you could have a videotape of the mother throwing her little girl, wrapped in blanket but with duct tape on the face, into a swamp.  If you do not know if the baby died before being thrown in, you would have to find the mother not guilty, by that reasoning. 

Another silly argument is that there is no DNA on the duct tape that was on the baby’s face that could link it to the mother.  Again, the term DNA is not included in the concept of the prosecution having to prove a charge beyond a reasonable doubt.  Such evidence helps, but is not necessary.  The baby and the duct tape had been in the swamp long enough (and had probably been in the trunk of a car for a long time before then), so that no DNA could be recovered.  Other reasoning comes into play.  The mother did not report the child as missing for about a month.  Whenever a dead child is found with duct tape over his or her mouth, it is always a homicide.  No one else could have a reasonable motive for putting duct tape on the child.  You do not have to have a videotape of the mother throwing the child into the swamp or DNA evidence from her on the duct tape. 

The particulars of that case are more detailed, of course.  But the problem is that jurors expect a mountain of forensic evidence that shows exactly how the crime occurred and showing the accused’s DNA right there at the scene.  Going back to the workshop, there was one case where in previous years the defendant would have been found guilty by a typical jury.  But one juror expected the whole show as far as esoteric evidence.  The juror said that since the prosecution did not present such evidence, they must have known the accused was not really guilty. 

The standard is that an ordinary person using common sense must find the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  The doubt must be reasonable, not just any possible scenario.  Circumstantial evidence has the same weight in court as direct evidence.  The incredible evidence that CSI teams can produce is a help, but not always necessary.  Jurors are expecting court cases to look like TV shows.  I have been on jury duty at least six times, possibly more.  The real system of justice does not look like a TV show.  

Why Zombies?

Maybe we're in a dead zone

As promised in my previous post, here’s my entry on why zombies have become so popular.  Obviously, the ‘70s had their zombie movies that appealed to a limited audience, along with their weak spinoffs and imitators.  But for about the last ten years, zombie movies and novels became popular enough to attract mainstream attention, and their quality increased to match.  We even have a major television series, The Walking Dead, with amazing production values, that show zombie hordes in control of cities and suburbs, chasing the beleaguered survivors.  Why the interest in zombies? 

Thoughtful observers have noticed this trend began after the 9/11 attack.  Since that time, we have had the explosion of stories of unreasoning hordes attacking us in wave after wave.  We cannot communicate with them.  We cannot reason with them.  Their motives are not easily understood, and their way of life is totally foreign to us.  They only wish our death. 

Some who like zombie stories would reject this, saying, “I would never characterize those who happen to attack us in this stage of history as resembling zombies.”  Okay.  But the observation is that the analogy to real fears in our contemporary world is not done on a conscious level.  Neither the writers nor the readers or viewers realized these stories were metaphors.  These stories were compelling to mainstream audiences at a subconscious level. 

Am I saying that every movie or novel has a one-to-one correspondence with a fear of a past or present attack on our homeland?  No.  But that fear lies behind the growth in this industry.  If you catch episode 2 of The Walking Dead and see Deputy Grimes ride into Atlanta and get swarmed by zombies, you’ll see a glimpse of the fear that Western civilization will fall to irrational hordes who wish to destroy us.  

Dude, what's a metaphor?

[Permission granted to use either photo on this post, so long as it is labeled “Photo by Mark Murata”]