Writing Project Notes: Toby and Kasserine

So, in the interest of getting my brain working, since it doesn't seem to be, I'm going to list out my writing projects as they stand and do the GTD thing with them.

One of the problems with most of my stories is that I know the beginning and the ending, but not enough "middle." There are an awful lot of stories where I have a plotwall built and one post-it note in the middle reading "And here a miracle happens..."

So, let's review. First, a project (1) has more than one physical action, (2) has an outcome that is valuable, desirable, and well-articulated, (3) is something to which I've made a commitment.

Warning: if you plan on reading any of my stories, there are spoilers here.

( Project: Toby and Kasserine )

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As an aside, I am going to run out this afternoon and buy The Delgado's CD Hate if I can find it at one of the two used CD stores in my neighborhood. I had never listened to them before and there's something about The Light Before We Land that... it's hard to explain. It's rare that a piece of music intrinsically makes me want to cry, but this one does. Maybe it's just the stress talking.

Writing Project: Manumission

Warning: if you plan on reading any of my stories, there are spoilers here.

( Project: Manumission )

[Anime] Honey & Clover

Finally.

After bemoaning the lack of things worth watching on Japanese television, there is finally a series worth watching this season. It's kinda sad that Bleach continues to pull down over 100,000 hits while Honey & Clover has a viewerships in the mid-thousands, but that's life.

Honey & Clover is an anime in an old genre that live-action television handles poorly: going to college and falling in love. American television handles it even worse because we have expectations that series will run until it burns out; Honey & Clover has a definite end-run. The series focuses on two romances, one between the innocent and introspective Takemoto and the short, awkward Hagumi, and the other between the more mature Mayama and Yumi. The catalyst for all this is Morito, a shady guy with more energy than brains.

It's hard to say that "not a lot" happened in the first episode. We met many of the main characters and got a feel for their personalities. Tons of things happened, mostly all Morito's fault, but they just set up for more to come. But the show is screamingly, drive-you-to-tears funny, especially when Morito's on the screen. The backgrounds are picturesque hand-drawn watercolors and the action is done in a realistic style that explodes into animesque surrealism with perfect comic timing. It's a joy for the eyes and a delight for the soul.

Primacy-Recency in Kushiel's Dart

One of the things I got out of reading Story by Robert McKee was a notion of something called primacy recency. This is a target that most filmmakers aim for: getting the last act, the last 20 minutes, absolutely right. Everything that has happened before the last 20 minutes has to add up to a story that will make the last act make sense, but that last act has to be perfect. Because that's what the audience will remember; it is the last thing the film impressed upon their brains. When they talk to their friends about the film, it will be that last act that they'll recall and whether or not it completed the story in a satisfying way.

In writing, you also have to lay gold coins for the reader, because if they're not given small jolts along the way, if they're not emotionally engaged in the story, the easiest thing they can do is put the book down and never pick it up again.

I thought of both of these issues when reading Kushiel's Dart. I can't tell if Carey did it intentionally or not, but her story is full of both of these qualities. Some chapters have no real payoff, while others have their moments, and every five or so has a big payoff of some kind. She has her acts-- six, I think-- and each has ten or so chapters, with a mid-act high or low, and and end-act low or high, and scattershot through those are smiles and frowns that pay off handsomely for the reader. And she tries hard to get the second-to-last scene in every act to pay off; readers understand the concept of denouement, so it's the second-to-last scene that has to be perfect. For Carey, it usually was. I understand why the book sold well. Readers remember the mid-point and end-point moments because Carey made them the ends of scenes, and each scene had a beginning, middle, and end as well.

The book is pure craftsmanship. It's almost a shame that, for Kushiel's Dart at least, the themes were hampered by the necessity of first-person telling, and almost never delivered. Without those, the book's impact was lost. Nobody will love Phedre the way people love Honor Harrington or Miles Vorkosogan. She's too wind-blown, too destined, to be much more than a storyteller of the inevitable.

[Anime] Android Maico 2010

Android "Ana" Maico 2010 is a fun little series. It has no giant mecha, no swordfights, no giant starships and no gods coming back from the dead to threaten all of Japan. Instead, this is a mature TV series set entirely (so far) in the set of a radio station where the producer, the sound effects producer, the director, the foley, the writer, and so on are all washed-up has-beens (or never-beens) who've been moved to the midnight-to-8am time slot and told to sink or swim. The producer gets a great idea: do a variety news and lightweight talk show hosted entirely by one of them newfangled robots on the market.

Unfortunately, the first show is a disaster. Maico was bought cheap and is unfinished, so someone has to sit in the soundbooth with her the whole time to keep her from falling out of her chair. She speaks only English the first time through, and badly. Later she does better, after the assistant director installs all the software. "It was rough being rebooted 2,000 times, but I'm better now." In the second episode, the assistant producer bungees her to the chair to keep her from falling out. Her legs arrive next week.

Each 15-miute episode focuses on the show, and the set is entirely within the radio station. It's a nice little pressure-cooker idea for a show, and what's really good about it is the way the voice actors are bouncing off one another. This show is about grace under pressure (or at least character development under pressure) and it's fun. It's one of those shows that has a cast big enough to make demands of the viewer, and smart enough to amuse.

Not for everyone. It's not full of bangs and booms and it is not fanservicy at all. But if you want something that's quiet and makes you smile, Ana Maico is a good dose.