I write more slowly than you. Yes, you. If you're reading this, and you write, I write less words an hour than you do.
I'm still coming to terms with this. When one of you encourages me with the words "Well, just do an extra thousand words a day. Thinking small will help," well, I'm discouraged. I have to reply, in embarrassment, "Um, my goal is one thousand words. No, a week." And I turn that in late.
Unacceptable, right? Completely ludicrous! I'm just not writing enough. BiC, HoK, baby. Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard.*
Nope. I write plenty.
I start my session by revising the section before it. And by revise, I mean rewrite, word for word, and change any I don't like. It's a lot of work, and slows me down, but it lets me keep the energy of the scene while adding the poetry, the beauty.
I also do three drafts of a scene before I'm ready to completely move on. The first is exploratory, in which I have only the general idea of where it needs to go. The second is to make my fumbling seem less blind than it was, fixing consistency, fixing tone, fixing flow. The last is the polish, fixing things on a word-to-sentence level. The end product is something I'm willing to share, if not something I'm willing to submit.
This means that my first actual "Draft" is actually draft three. I write extremely slow, but I need to do less "Drafts" than most people.
My first draft is cleaner than yours. Yes, yours. If you're reading this, and you write, my first draft is probably prettier than yours.
I'm coming to terms with being slower.
*BiC, HoK borrowed from Writing excuses, Howard Tayler in particular.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Why Fantasy Needs Tarantino
Woah, hey, let’s put down the torches and pitchforks,
people. Just let me explain what I mean before you burn me alive.
I don’t mean that we need any more “melon famers” spouted
from our characters’ lips, and I don’t mean that every fight should involve a
decapitation (though quite a few already do). I’m only talking about the skill
with which Quentin Tarantino writes dialogue would be a great skill for burgeoning
Fantasy authors to learn.
I’m going to use the movie Pulp Fiction to explain what I
mean. In doing so, I’m going to spoil some plot points from the movie. If you
haven’t seen Pulp Fiction, I’d suggest you minimize this and go watch it
online. I’m sure it’s streaming free somewhere. And I know it’s on Netflix.
Pulp Fiction is a movie Tarantino wrote and directed in the
90’s. It’s the movie he’s most famous for, even more so than Kill Bill and Reservoir
Dogs. It’s so iconic that you probably can’t go a month without someone you
know making a little allusion to it. But I probably don’t need to tell you
that. You likely already know exactly what the movie is. If you’ve watched 10
movies in the last 20 years, this was probably one of them.
The clips I’m going to use are from one of the more famous
scenes in the movie (and thus one of the most famous scenes of all time). It’s
also what I consider to be one of the greatest scenes in cinema history. These
scenes are our introduction to characters Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and
Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson).
If you’re familiar with Tarantino, I don’t need to warn you
that these clips contain a lot of language and some violence. But there’s your
warning anyway. I also apologize for whatever pops up in the related links, but
I can’t pick and choose those.
Again, I’ll be using full spoilers in explaining why it’s so
good, so if you haven’t seen it yet, WATCH IT. It’s not considered one of the
greatest movies of all time for no reason.
Wow. See what I mean? Oh, maybe not, since I haven’t
explained myself.
In the first scene alone, Tarantino establishes many things
about the characters. He establishes both that Vincent has a history (since he just
got back from being overseas, during which time he visited multiple countries, ate
at restaurants, and so on) and that he and Jules have a prior partnership
(since they chat so easily together, like good friends do). They both express
interests outside the plot, some of which never enter into the story.
The second scene starts to introduce plot elements. It
alludes to both Marcellus Wallace and his Wife, Mia, who will both become
central to the plot later on. But that doesn’t mean it lightens up on
characterization. On the contrary; it establishes that Vincent is cynical,
practical, and pragmatic, while Jules is somewhat more optimistic, more of a
dreamer.
In fact, these first moments establish their character arcs,
and their paths throughout the movie. Jules has an eye toward the future, and it
is this that will get him out of the life and onto greater things. Meanwhile,
Vincent is stuck in the rut he’s in, is relatively happy there, and will die as
a consequence.
The third scene pays off what’s been set up. We see Jules
and Vincent do their job, and do it well. It shows the other side of them, the
side you never, ever want to see.
These clips establish that Vega and Jules are relaxed and in
their element. The violence that is about to happen is commonplace for them. So
they can banter, talk about the future, and then go into the room and kill
everyone there. Afterward, they revert to their easygoing camaraderie, like
nothing happened. These are killers, lifelong criminals, who never regret
hurting other people. But you like them anyway.
So, to summarize what I’ve just spent the last while
jabbering about, these scenes establish character, setting, and plot, give
foreshadowing, and take us from opening to the action without having us bored
for a single second. More than anything, though, it just plain feels natural.
All of it. Every stinking line.
How does this fit into Fantasy, you might ask? Haven’t I
just been praising the great and talented Tarantino this whole post?
Think about the most common complaints in Fantasy,
particularly in novels. The story starts too slow, the characters feel like
they’re born on page 1, and the dialogue is filled with exposition. The
foreshadowing is forced, and there’s an inherent black and white morality that
makes it hard for you to like a main character who does something bad.
Studying Tarantino, the way that he builds his dialogue,
could treat, if not cure, these illnesses in Fantasy novels.
And for those of you thinking, “But, but, Whedon!” Yes. Joss
has done some of the best work in the field. Us geeks owe him a lot. But he’s
just the beginning.
Not only do we all need to learn at least some of this as
Whedon has, but we need to learn to take this skill into novels. We need to
learn to develop our dialogue so that it works for us just as hard as our prose
does. We need to make dialogue just another tool in our toolbox. We need to be
almost as comfortable with dialogue as screenwriters are. And for that, we have
to hold ourselves to the standards of screenwriters.
Or in short, we need Tarantino.
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