Man Of Steel
Just about every writer I read has had an issue with this movie. They picked it apart for its emphasis on action, lacking the qualities that make Superman, its gritty nature, etc. I really, really wanted to love this movie and be like hah but that just wasn’t meant to be. The movie isn’t terrible, it’s just alright. The action was well done, but has the same problem I’ve always had with Superman, a whole lot of teasing with no payoff. Sure, a whole hell of a lot of buildings got destroyed, but everyone else just walked it off. They didn’t even breathe heavy. When everyone comes out of going through multiples buildings, having a train dropped on them, exploded, etc. and they don’t get scratched at all, it removes the climax of the combat. The only reason anyone stopped hitting each other was seemingly because they got bored or…
A Couple Articles by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Read this and this. I talk about Dean Wesley Smith a lot (or I did a lot on the old Story Arcs) but less about his wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I don’t really know how that happened, but I am going to correct it. Personally, I think if you take her Business Rusch posts and the Shatzkin Files, you pretty much have everything you need to know about publishing as an industry. They’re well informed, experience, very analytical and sit on different sides of the publishing spectrum. Note on that, reading Mike Shatzkin is a bit like reading H. P. Lovecraft. Not so much the supernatural aspect, more like, “What the hell did that paragraph just say?” Anyway, Ms. Rusch has an incredible way of being brutally honest, and being uplifting at the same time. If you have anything to do with publishing, no matter its form, read her stuff….
Xbox One Eighty
I love that play on words above, and a one eighty it truly has been. Like many, I am truly amazed that Microsoft backpedaled this much. And maybe I’m cynical, but I don’t trust it. This is how I see it (and its hardly a unique perspective). Microsoft knew that, all things equal, they would sell a crap load of systems, pretty much no matter what. They would sell a crap load of games. They would make money. Because they’re Microsoft, becuase they have the Xbox (and Halo) and they’ve been successful so far. So what they did, was take a gamble. They said, lets throw out a maximum profit plan. There would be no room for their customers to wiggle out of their grip if they wanted their Xbox games. The publishers would make more, Microsoft would make more, and most retailers would probably make more as well. And then…
The First Chapter
Anne R. Allen put a post a few a week or so back (I am so glad to be caught up on Feedly now…) that discusses what all should be involved in a first chapter. The moment I saw it, I groaned. Here we go, something else to tear everything I think I know to ribbons. But I read it, because this was a new blog I added to my reader, and I nee to get a feel for it, and much as I didn’t want to admit it, these types of posts are important. Nothing is concrete, but the thing about being a new writer, one who hasn’t written for anyone I wasn’t related or married to, is not having the ability to gauge what is concrete and what is quicksand. I think I know my stuff, but who knows what that will mean to readers? And the first sentence, paragragh,…
Violence In Fantasy
Adam Callaway at A Dribble of Ink has a great article that dissects violence, particularly in relation to fantasy. He makes some great points (especially using BioShock 3 where the violence there is ridiculous). The entire time I read it, I was trying to think of novels I loved that didn’t employ violence. I have a few, but none of them are fantasy. And it got me thinking about my own story. In the first novel, Sorcerer Rising, I have a good bit of violence. I think of it as action, but really, that’s how we as a society put a nicer label on violence. That’s not really a problem for me, I’ve always handled that rather well and I think it has a point. Virgil isn’t dark or an anti-hero, but his reaction to horrible things is to throw a whole bunch of horrible right back at it. Very rarely…