Living the Fictional Dream

I’m always fascinated by stories that approach time in something other than a linear fashion. The movie Memento is a stellar example of this. The main character has a condition where he can’t make long-term memories, so once they leave his short-term memory, they are gone forever. To illustrate this, the movie progresses in reverse.

Another example of stories that play with time well is the TV show How I Met Your Mother. I truly believe that this is the best-written sitcom that I have ever watched. Their grasp of continuity is amazing. Something is mentioned in a throw-away line in season 1, and it comes up as a huge plot point in season 3. And the stuff that they put in for viewers with a sharp enough mind to catch it makes the show really fun to watch.

But I especially like it when HIMYM plays with time. They’ve done several episodes where they tell stories out of sequence. Sometimes they’ll split the plot between the characters — do one or two characters’ stories from start to finish, then rewind and go to the next one. Other times, they will throw in flashbacks in creative and amusing ways (my favorite was once when they put in a flashback to 30 seconds ago — and it worked).

The best thing about stories that experiment with time is how the normally linear element is twisted and used to give the reader/viewer a unique A-Ha moment — that moment when everything you knew about the story is flipped on its head and you see it all from a whole new light.

I’ve always wanted to expirament with non-linear time in my stories, but I have yet to really do so. I’m not sure why… Part of it may be that I’ve just never had an idea that seemed like it would work well in such a structure. And part of it might be that I seem to have a bias in that a more visual medium seems more appropriate for these types of stories.

I know that second limitation is all in my head, though. I’ve read print stories that did a fine job of twisting time. There was one in particular that I remember enjoying at Every Day Fiction — sadly, I have long since forgotten its name. I just remember it was a story about a guy in prison that was told backwards Memento style, and it was pretty good.

I will have to put my mind to this time twisting conundrum and see if my muse has anything to say about it. It would definitely be a challenging project.

What about you guys? Any recommendations for good time twisting stories/shows you want to share? Have you ever tried your hand at such a story? If so, how difficult was it?

Last night, I tuned into the premier of the new show, Castle. It’s another crime procedural, but it stars Nathan Fillian (Firefly, Drive), so as a fan, I had to give Castle a try.

I’d heard some bad things about it — that it was silly and badly written with campy dialog — but I have to say that I don’t totally agree. There was an emphasis on humor in the show, but I didn’t find it silly or badly written. Maybe the person who wrote the review that I read just isn’t used to humor in crime procedurals?

Nathan was his charming self, of course, as the author Castle. A little over the top, it’s true, but I think that was an appropriate choice for a character with such celebrity status. And it seemed that the smarmy side of him was more his public side — we saw glimpses of the man underneath the persona, such as when he was with his daughter or great scene when he analyzed the female lead.

The female lead (whose name, I have sadly forgotten), a police officer, was all right as a straight woman. The best line of the whole thing was when she got assigned to work with Castle, and her co-worker said, “The control freak saddled with something she can’t control? This is going to be better than Shark Week!” The female lead’s character was a bit flat to me in the pilot, but I think there are opportunities for her to grow, assuming the show isn’t yanked off the air after four episodes. Her main purpose at the get-go is to be a foil for Castle’s antics, which she did well, and over time, they will be able to deepen her into something more than the straight woman.

If you don’t know the set-up to this show, basically, Castle writes mystery/crime novels and he gets partnered up with a straight-laced female cop to help solve real crimes (under the guise that he is doing research for his latest book). The cop works in the system and plays by the rules. Castle is used to his charm and fame getting him what he wants when he wants it. There is also an old-for-her-age teenaged daughter (a la Rory from Gilmore Girls) and a wacky mother (the actress who plays the mother is a scene stealer!).

My biggest nitpick with the pilot episode had to be Castle’s celebrity status. Are there really fiction authors out there who are treated like rock stars? Authors who have a book launch or an autograph signing and young girls come in skimpy dresses begging him to sign their chests? Now, granted, I’ve never been to a Stephen King signing — I’m sure they are crazy, but it’s hard for me to picture even him being thrust upon by sexy bimbos. Sure, the actor who plays Edward in the Twilight movie gets that, but does Stephanie Meyer?

Ah well, as a conceit of the show, I can suspend my disbelief. And, as a wanna-be published novelist, it sure would be nice to believe that a few best sellers would get an author movie star treatment.

My favorite scene in the pilot was when Castle attended his regular poker game with three other writers in his genre. I loved how they ribbed Castle for killing off the main character of his popular book series (he was bored writing the character) and how they proclaimed that they would all be earning royalties off their main characters until they had no other options. And I enjoyed it when Castle laid out the case he was helping the police with (someone did a series of copy cat murders based on Castles lesser-known works) as if it were a mystery novel, and the other authors were aghast at the simplistic plot structure.

All in all, I thought it was an enjoyable show, and worth watching. I’m not a big crime procedural fan, but Castle, like Bones, twists the formulaic genre into something a little different and a lot more interesting. Sure, there is still the formulaic crime solving, but it’s tempered by unique characters that (hopefully, if Castle is follows the Bones model) have continuing character arcs that give the show more focus that merely the bloody murder. And, to me, characters are the most important thing — especially in the TV medium where you have to want to come back week after week. The undercurrent of humor also gave the show a lighter tone that most procedurals, something that makes it all the more palatable to me.

I recently sat down with my husband and watched all of the Lost episodes that have aired this season. This show is quite the conundrum — both from a viewer’s perspective and from a writing perspective.

A lot of people gave up on the show in seasons 2 and 3, when it had a bit of a downturn. I still thought the episodes were good, but (to me) it just started to feel like the writers didn’t know where the heck they were going. However, I still enjoyed watching, so I stuck with it and was rewarded by the second (and longer) half of season 3 and all of season 4, which I thought were excellent. To me, season 5, so far, has lived up to its promise. I think that the secret was the creators of the show making a deal with the network so they knew in advance how many seasons/episodes they were going to make. Ever since that point the show seems to have purpose and direction.

Lost is, of course, fairly famous for ponderous plot twists that seem to go nowhere. Look at the tailies from season 2 — we spent all this time with them, and now all of them are dead except for Bernard. What was the point, then?

And look at Walt. In season 1, he was quite a fixture, and the way that his mind seemed to control the world around him was fascinating (OMGWTFPolarBear, anyone?). And then he disappeared, only to be briefly seen in cameos hence forth (luckily, the show is now 3 years later than it was, so in this season’s cameo, it was OK that the kid is tall now). And there were other things, too. I won’t go to the trouble of listing them all out here.

I think the point that a writer should take away from all this is that you have to be careful of rabbit trails and loose ends. They just frustrate the reader/viewer and turn them off of your concept. I think if the Lost writers had had a clearer vision of the end game from the beginning, we would have had a much more satisfying journey through their world, sans loose ends. From a novel perspective, these are the kinds of things that happen in a first draft — then you get people to critique your work and weed all the unnecessary stuff out on the second draft.

I also know some people who feel like Lost has gone too far out there. They were OK with smoke monsters and random polar bears, but huge initiatives with compounds on the island and time travel? That was too much for them. Personally, I’m a genre nut to the core, so I can suspend my disbelief. I haven’t been bothered on that account.

Whatever your criticisms about Lost, they do a lot of things right, too. Their story-telling is compelling and the whole story is so detailed that it amazes me. You see an actor who had one or two lines in season 1 and he comes back in season 5 with a mysterious agenda. Characters who seem unrelated turn out to cross paths in many mysterious ways. A throw-away line of dialog in one episode, turns out to be of great importance later on.

And then there are the characters. Sure, the show isn’t all perfect (I still hate how they maligned poor Charlie!), but other characters are written spot on. And I love the story-telling technique that uses flash backs and flash forwards to flesh out the character while giving impact to whatever plot is currently going on in the present day.

As a writer, some of the lessons I take away from the good elements of Lost are (1) give characters a detailed backstory and use what you can to enhance the story (but don’t over use — just because you know what your character ate for lunch every day in middle school, don’t tell us unless it affects the current story), (2) pay close attention to your plots — an intricately plotted story that works is much more fascinating that a story with a lack of plot or plot details that contradict each other, and (3) following on number 2, be consistent — know those small details and bring them back to make the world feel more real and distinct.

As a viewer, though, there is one worry that I have regarding Lost. I want the ending to be worth it. After all these years of build up, wrong turns, recoveries, and plot twists, the ending pretty much has to be spectacular to satisfy the viewers and to pull the story together. Now, I don’t want the writers to simply pander to viewers — I want them to stay true to their vision and give us the real story. But, after all this, expectations are high, so it has to be spot on. And that can be a problem in the land of television. No one can please everyone — but, keep in mind, that just because you’re not pleased or it wasn’t what you wanted, that doesn’t mean it’s not a good story.

The problem is, if the ending doesn’t work, then it will basically cast everything that came before in a negative light. We’ll all be thinking, “Why did I invest six years in this show and put up with all the twists and turns if this is what I got for it?”

Hopefully, though, we will at least be able to remember that, no matter what, Lost was a fun, exciting ride. And the journey is the thing — especially in television.

Did you watch the premier of Dollhouse, the latest bit of television by the incredible Joss Whedon, last Friday night? If not, what were you thinking? At least set the DVR/TiVo/VCR! C’mon… it’s Joss! It also stars Eliza Dushku, who is both an amazing actress and gorgeous.

If you haven’t heard about the show (and Joss and Eliza alone aren’t enough to pull you in), here’s the concept. A mysterious company has developed a system that allows a person’s mind to be completely wiped and reprogrammed with another personality. By what seems to be nefarious methods, the company has assembled a group of “dolls” (a.k.a., actives) who, if you have enough money to pay for it, can literally be whoever you want them to be.

In the first episode, Echo (played by Eliza) is both a guy’s weekend dream date and a negotiator specializing in the return of kidnapped children. And, in between the two, we meet Echo herself. Echo seems quiet and bidable, but there is a glimmer of intelligence behind that passive face, as she questions her doctor about injuries that she no longer remembers getting and stumbles upon the rather painful looking creation of a new active. We even got a couple of brief glimpses of Caroline — the woman Echo was before signing up with the company — an idealistic college graduate who wanted to change the world and got involved in something that turned out really, really badly.

This role will give Eliza a ton of room to stretch her acting chops, as she goes from role to role as an active. The thing that makes Echo stand out from the crowd, though, is that she’s beginning to remember things from previous incarnations. For example, the negotiator remembered something that only Echo should have known. So, it seems as if eventually Echo’s questioning nature will take a more investigative turn.

In addition to Echo, we have a group of interesting characters peopling the Dollhouse world. Her handler is a new guy (possibly an ex-cop). He wants to right wrongs, but the company just wants him to get Echo back in one piece and, if possible, get what the client wants done completed, as well.

There is also a mysterious person from Caroline’s past who’s trying to find her. This mystery person might or might not be the FBI agent played by the guy who was Helo on the new Battlestar Galactica who is investigating the existence of the company that everyone else thinks is rumors and myth.

The snippy little computer programmer who makes the personalities for the actives is appropriately despicable. He cares more about the work than the human beings/actives involved. Though, I thought there could be a potential ally there — I guess it depends on what Echo does.

Amy Acker plays an intriguing character who serves as the actives’ physician. The first thing you notice about her are the sinister scars that mar her face. Did she used to be an active herself? She obviously knows some of what is going on, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that she used to be an active and when her scars/injuries made field work impractical, she was implanted with the medical knowledge so she could continue to be useful. Or, is there some other reason that she took the job deep underground in the bowels of the company? It could go either way at this point.

And the head of the company (or at least the highest ranking member we’ve seen so far) is a hard-as-nails woman who seems to care only for turning a profit. But, come on — it’s a Joss show. She must have some deeper motivation that that!

The first episode was a bit of an information dump, I will admit. There was a lot of back story and set up to get through, as well as a lot of characters to meet. But I really enjoyed the premise of the show, and I think it has great potential. If FOX actually allows the show a chance to flourish, I think Joss can develop it into something exciting (of course, this is FOX we’re talking about here, so I’m not holding my breath).

Not to be too much of a fangirl, but I have high hopes for anything Joss writes. His characters are always so multi-layered and his plots so intricate, whether they are on television, in a movie, or in a comic book. I would love to be as good of a writer as Joss Whedon when I grow up!

So, if you missed out on the pilot last week, you should definitely tune in tonight. I think you’ll be glad you did.

I’ve been noticing lately how the vampires and the werewolves are always pitted against each other in urban fantasy stories. Maybe I’ve been watching too much True Blood and reading too much of the Twilight  series lately, but there you go.

True, they aren’t always bitter hatred/kill them to death rivals, but the two supernatural breeds always seem to be on opposite sides. Look at Jacob and Edward in New Moon and forward (Twilight series) — for the bulk of that series, they were bitter rivals, only brought together by common feelings for Bella. (Spoiler: Though this series did make it all work out in the end between the two groups — Breaking Dawn had the happiest of happily ever afters, somewhat to its detriment.)

Look at Richard and Jean Claude in the Anita Blake series. Now, things could have changed there, as I had to give up the series when the sex became more important than the plot, but there was always rivalry there — in check only because Jean Claude, the vampire, had power over the werewolves, so Richard had to obey, even if he didn’t want to. Again, they compromised sometimes over Anita, but they had that innate rivalry.

The rivalry wasn’t so pronounced in the Whedon ‘verse (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel), possibly because the werewolves in his ‘verse were very bestial with little humanity while in wolf form. But, the vampires didn’t like them and wouldn’t even sully their taste buds to drink from them unless forced. Luckily, at least Angel and Oz managed to get along in souled/human form.

Oh, and don’t forget Underworld. I only saw the movies (not the games), but they took the vampire/werewolf war to the next level!

And now there’s True Blood (the following is spoilerish if you’re not up-to-date on the show). They haven’t actually said that Sam is a weredog yet, so I can’t know for sure, but they are really hinting that way, and his hatred of all things vampiric led him to totally muck up the chance that Sookie gave him when she let him take her out on that date. I haven’t read the books because I don’t want to spoil myself for the TV show, so I don’t know what kind of rivalry they have there.

So, I wonder what it is about these two groups that always leads to rivalry?

I suppose one could say that it’s all about the women — many of the above examples have a werewolf (or animal shape-shifter, but we’ll just go with werewolf for simplicity’s sake) and a vampire fighting over a girl. But, I don’t really think that’s it. In some instances, the woman in the middle serves to bring the opposing sides together in a truce when nothing else would have.

My guess is it’s the difference between the two breeds’ supernatural powers. Vampires are more mental, while werewolves, et al, are all about the body. Vampires are urbane, stylish, and decadent, while werewolves are more sweats and T-shirts (you have to be if you ruin your clothes every time you shift!). Vampires hold back on their emotions, while the animal nature of the werewolves has them embracing emotions full-force. Vamprires have learned to withdraw from the human race, while the werewolves seem to want to be a part of it (and you never want what you can easily have, right?). Vampires are the ice, and werewolves are the flame.

Of course, all of the above are generalities. Every urban fantasy ‘verse has its own take on the matter.

I would be interested to see an urban fantasy in which the werewolves and the vampires were strong allies who respected each other. I’m sure there is one out there somewhere — every story in the world has already been written, right? — but I have yet to stumble across it.

Also, it boggles my mind how often, when the human girl is torn between the werewolf lover and the vampire lover, how often she picks the vampire. The poor, emotional werewolves are always left alone, licking their wounds. Me, I’d take the werewolf (assuming, of course, that it was the kind of werewolf that could control itself in beast form, like those in Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld or the La Push pack in Twilight — I’m not sure I’d make that same call if the werewolf were mega-beasty like Oz in BtVS).

So, thoughts? I’d love any other takes on causes of the vampire/werewolf rivalry. And, just out of curiosity, if you had to choose, which side would you be on?

I think that the line between a story that’s cliche and a story that breathes new life into an old trope can be very fine indeed. Sometimes, I think that the line is more in the head of the reader than anything else. Of course, the writer has to do his or her part. You’ve got to give that old idea new trappings, new characters and settings to make it interesting again. A new twist on the plot, if you can think of one, is good, too.

But, sometimes, there’s nary a new twist to be found. After all, there are a finite number of plots out there — depending on who you listen to, it’s 10 or 12 or maybe 36. You can boil so many radically different stories down to “man vs. man” or “man vs. machine,” etc. The thing that makes them stand out is how the writer told the story.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because of two stories that I submitted to Every Day Fiction. One was a ghost story, and it was rejected for being too cliche. The other was my recent acceptance, “A Million Faces.” The acceptance email actually said that they felt I’d breathed new life into an old trope, which was really nice to hear. I’m really excited about sharing that story with the world — I had fun writing it, and I felt like I really connected with the main character.

But I wonder what it was that made AMF work, while my ghost story still languishes without a home?

I started thinking, maybe I, as a reader, am too close to the ghost story. The stories that spook me the most are ghost stories. Hack-em-up stories gross me out, but they don’t really scare me. Ghosts, however… whew! I still think the pilot episode of the show Supernatural, which dealt with plenty of ghosts, was the scariest one they ever did — followed by all the other ghost stories. The ones about various earth-bound monsters or demons… still interesting, but not as much with the creepy chill factor.

I was never a big fan of The Sixth Sense, but I think that’s because it was built up to me way too much. I didn’t see it until DVD, so by that point, after all the hype, it would have had to be a much more impressive film for me to be blown away. I did think the twist was cool, though. The movie The Others, however, was totally creepifying to me! And there was the other movie that I saw where a guy had this whole life on an estate with a wealthy, eccentric family, and at the end it turned out that the estate was a crumbling ruin and they’d been ghosts all along. That one totally freaked me out, too — though, sadly, I have totally forgotten the name of the film.

So, maybe because ghost stories really affect me as a reader/viewer, it’s harder for me to write one with some distance? Maybe what seems cliche to other people, doesn’t feel that way to me because I still enjoy that trope?

I don’t know if that’s the case, but it would make sense… I struggle with the same thing in my urban fantasy stories. I love stories about vampires, werewolves, etc., in all their forms. I like the classic stories, but I like the ones that twist the myths, as well. To me, it’s about the characters and what they do with these ideas — it doesn’t bother me if the vampire has a reflection or not or if the werewolf can only change on the full moon or has full control of the shifting abilities. The creature’s abilities and flaws are tools that help the writer tell the story they want to tell with their unique set of characters.

But, I’ve gotten rejections on my urban fantasy stories because the editors of that publication felt the stories didn’t do anything unexpected enough.

On the flip side, I absolutely hated the novel Eragon. I couldn’t even get through it. It felt too cliched, and I didn’t like the writing style. I’ve always loved stories about dragons, but I didn’t feel like this one gave me anything new to hold onto. In addition, the characters were achingly flat. So, not only was there no new twist, but there were no characters to really get behind or get involved with.

But, I’m definitely in the minority on that one, if the way the novels are selling are any indication. I even had some friends who read the book say that, yes, they thought it was derivative of basically every fantasy epic in recent history (everything from Tolkien to Star Wars), but they still enjoyed reading it. And, heck, they made Eragon into a major motion picture, so a lot of people out there have to like it.

In the end, I think luck continues to play a big role. Write a good story — the story that you want to write, not the one you think the market wants you to write — and then send it out. Sure, you may get rejections if the editors feel that you didn’t twist the trope into something new enough. But, there is probably someone out there who will get your story and who will love your voice enough to publish it. It’s the idea of the right story, in front of the right person, at the right time.

I watched the premier of the new HBO series True Blood tonight. The series had an intriguing hook, and it left me wanting more, like the first chapter of a good book. Of course, the series is based on a book series — the Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris — so maybe that’s why.

Interesting premise… a girl with some sort of psychic powers (telepathy and possibly TK), a vampire whose mind she can’t read, a feisty best friend, a brother associated with strange circumstances, a dead “fang banger,” and a couple of crazies out to siphon vampire blood. Take all that, throw in some Louisiana accents, and you’ve got the beginning of what looks to be an interesting story. I’ll definitely be tuning in next week.

Part of me wants to read the books so I can find out what happens without waiting a week for the resolution of each episode’s cliffhanger!

Anyway, it goes to show the importance of the opening hook.

My week has been balanced out writing-wise. I got two rejections (one from the market that had passed my story to round 2 **sighs**), but then yesterday I had a story accepted by Every Day Fiction. This will be my second with them, so I’m excited! I’ll post the link here when it comes out — I don’t know the date yet.

So, to continue on my topic from yesterday, plots or types of stories that I don’t like, I thought I would put together a few thoughts about plots that I do like. Everyone probably has these… those story premises that suck you in every time. Sometimes, I think of these as guilty pleasure stories, because I usually enjoy them even if the writing isn’t top notch.

One of these for me is the story where two people pretend to be a couple for some at least slightly nefarious purpose and then actually fall in love during the con. One example of that is the movie Drive Me Crazy, and it’s a teen movie, too, so it has that Y/A factor that I love. But this concept has been done all over the place — in books, TV shows, etc. — and I always love it! The thing is, though it’s a simple concept, there are millions of ways it can be done. Just because, boiled down, the premise is the same, each story is totally different.

Vampire and werewolf fiction is another one for me. I love the urban fantasy/supernatural feel to these creatures. I love that they are human and “other” at the same time. I like them with the traditional tropes (silver bullets, wooden stakes, no reflection), and I love it when writers give them their own twist (like the werewolves in Kelley Armstrong’s Otherworld and the vampires in Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight). I used to devour these any time I found them because they were rare. With the current urban fantasy explosion, there are a lot more to pick and choose from, which is great, because I can always find something new to read.

I also love it when two characters who seem to be diametrically opposed (by a point of view, by temperment, by class, by family, whatever) form a really strong relationship. Romantic relationships of this sort abound — think Veronica/Logan on Veronica Mars, the main couple in Pretty in Pink, or even Romeo and Juliet (though, I prefer the ones that end more happily!). But the relationship doesn’t always have to be a romance. A friendship that opposes these lines can be just as fascinating. In this story, it’s all about the depth of the relationship, the connections forged, the sacrifices made, and the ways the characters’ eyes are opened.

I’m also a sucker for a story about a scoundrel/rebel. A character who lives his/her life in shades of gray is inherently more interesting than a black-and-white hero. Give me the Han Solos (Star Wars), the Mals (Firefly), the Deans (Supernatural), the Sawyers (Lost), the Faiths (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), the Jos (Little Women), and the Dr. Horribles (Dr. Horrible, of course) any day! I like to see the struggle between right and wrong, and when they choose the right thing over the selfish thing, the reward is so much sweeter. These characters might think they have it easy, but in reality they struggle more than any of the more black-and-white versions.

If I thought for a while, I’m sure I’d come up with more tropes/stories/plots that I have a weakness for, but that’s probably a long enough list for now. What about y’all? What concepts have you buying the book/turning on the TV without knowing anything else about the end product?

Yesterday, I stumbled across the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead on the Sci-fi channel — the movie about survivors of the zombie apocalypse hiding out in a mall. Now, I enjoy a good scary movie. Loved Scream, love Supernatural (even when those creepy ghost stories give me the willies), even have been known to enjoy a slasher flick from time to time (the Halloween and Friday the 13th variety, not the new ones, like Saw, that are all about pain and torture with no good guy to win in the end — or so I’ve heard). But after watching DotD yesterday (really only the last half… starting when the zombie baby was born), I spent half the night having insomnia and thinking about the movie and the other half of the night dreaming about my own zombie apocolpyse (the strange thing was, I dreamed the same dream twice, and the second time, I knew I’d done this before, but even still I wasn’t able to save my friends from their zombie-fied doom!).

I think it was the depressing ending that did it to me. (Spoiler alert, in case you care!) If we’d ended with our four survivors on the boat, sailing away to a deserted island and some kind of meager life, I would probably have been OK, even after my favorite guy was bitten in the last reel and had to stay behind and shoot himself. At least some of our good guys would have gotten away, won the day (sort of). But the depressing clips during the credits of the boat runing out of gas, the engine catching on fire, and them fining coming up on an island — their last chance — to then find it infested by zombies, as well. Man… suckage! So… what was even the point of the movie, you know?

The whole thing got me thinking about stories that I just don’t like. And high on that list is stories that end badly. Now, I’m not saying that I always want a happy ending or a silver lining, because that’s not true. There are stories that really need to have an unhappy ending — such an ending is true to the story. Take Memento, for example. That is a really well done movie, and one that everyone should see, but a happy ending just wasn’t in the cards from the get-go. For me, it’s the total destruction, everything’s lost including the characters you spent the last two hours growing to care about, ending that gets me. When I watch a scary movie, I want there to be a ray of hope at the end. I want the bad guy to ultimately be defeated by the last survivor or the group of survivors to get away to fight another day.

Another type of story that is hard for me is a war story — a dramatization of a real war that we fought in our histories, like Saving Private Ryan and Pearl Harbor, to name a couple of recent ones that I actually watched. The invasion of Normandy sequence at the beginning of SPR tore me up inside when I watched it, as did the battle aftermath sequence in PH. I wasn’t a fan of the silly PH love triangle and all the rest of it, but that scene where the nurse has to sort through the bodies and mark the ones who have a chance of being helped in triage vs. the ones with no chance (condemning them to death), is so painful. The semi-blurry way it portrays the scene interspersed with images of clarity… I think that’s exactly how one would remember such a thing.

After a while, I realized that the reason I don’t like these movies is because they are too realistic. As in, humans actually did these things to each other — they killed each other at Normandy and at Pearl Harbor, and so many other times. The fact that one human can do that to another, no matter what the larger stakes are, crushes my soul a little bit. But, I do see the value of war movies, too — if we are going to be that cruel to other humans, we should remember that they are human just as we are.

And another thing that, as a consumer of stories, I can’t take sometimes is stories where people are intentionally cruel to each other emotionally. Now, this one is less of an issue than the other two, because sometimes these plot elements can be done in a way that I don’t mind as much, but, to really like the story, I have to have, again, some element of hope to counterbalance or some character that I can really root for. When all the characters are cruel to each other all of the time, there’s just not much for me to sink my teeth into. For example, the constant manipulations of Cruel Intentions/Dangerous Liasons are intriguing on one level, but also excruciatingly painful, so those movies are not on the top of my list. I had to give up watching Desperate Housewives midway into the first half of the first season because the bad stuff that they did to their families (at that point in the series anyway) so outweighed the good. My last straw was when one of the housewives took her mother-in-law, a recovering gambling addict, and intentionally left her within the grasp of a casino’s temptations for her own selfish gain.

Anyway, this entry is getting to be quite a ramblefest, so I should wind things up. I guess the whole reason for writing this today was that, after my troubled sleep last night, I was thinking about the kinds of stories that I like and the kinds that I just don’t. This kind of preference definitely affects one’s writing style, I think. You’re not going to see me writing a war story any time soon, and though sometimes my stories don’t end happily, they aren’t going to end it total destruction without some note of hope — those are things you can expect from me as a writer, because they are things that I want as a reader.

What about you guys out there? Are there any kinds of stories that just don’t work for you? Stories that you avoid from either a reading/watching or writing perspective?

I finished watching The Sarah Connor Chronicles last night (the day after they came out on DVD), and man, this is a really good series! If any of y’all like sci-fi and/or the Terminator movies, you should definitely check this series out!

First of all, the series rocks at continuity. In a world with such complex plotting, it’s amazing how many details they remember. Of course, they made movie 3 obsolete, but no one saw that one anyway, right? And it supposedly sucked (though I actually never saw it, so I can’t say). But, since this is a time travel concept, even rewriting history (or, perhaps future history?) makes sense in the ‘verse.

Second, this series has great characters, and, to me, characters are the most important part of any story. I suppose, on a basic level, the SCC characters are basic sci-fi trope. We have a robot struggling with what it means to be human. There’s an angsty teen who is supposed to grow up to be the “chosen one” (though, not a mystical choosing, like with Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter). There’s a lioness mother struggling to protect her cub, a law enforcement agent who is against us right now but might become our friend in the end, and an embittered soldier in mourning for a lost loved one.

But SCC takes these standard characters and gives them all a fresh feel. Sarah kicks butt and takes names, which is awesome, and yet, she doesn’t like to kill. Derek has a grudge against terminators and possibly a death wish, but there’s a surprising soft side. He’s had some great moments with John, and when he teared up watching Cameron dance… great acting! Cameron has more depth than either Data or the Voyager holographic doctor had at the beginning of the series. She is a strange combination of mystery (what is she doing? whose side is she on?), humanity (feeling like making conversation is the thing to do, appreciating ballet), and machine (killing or allowing humans to die). And John, while he has those whiney teenaged moments, he often surpases them, and that future greatness glimmers underneath all the while.

These characters really do make SCC a great show. Anyone can take an element and tell a story about it — the thing is to give those elements their own skins, their own personalities. It’s the trappings that make a story unique, because there are only so many plots out there in the world. It’s a testiment to the series that it’s this good and, really, it has nearly the same plot (at least at a concept level) as the second movie!

And, of course, I love a show where female characters get to be strong fighters. That always rocks! If you haven’t watched this show yet, if you can get your hands on the DVDs, you should definitely give it a try. The first season was only nine episodes thanks to the writers’ strike, so you can even watch it now and be done in time for the 9/9/08 premier of season two!