Posts
By Lonnie Cruse
It's mid-morning, hubby's gone to Paducah for the day, and I'm sitting out a tornado watch by myself. (And obviously I'm writing this ahead of my usual post date or I wouldn't be writing it at all because I might have to dash for cover any minute and might not get it posted on time.) A tornado watch is thankfully less severe than a warning. (A watch means a tornado is possible, a warning means a tornado has been spotted. Close by.) Still, it's not fun. I'm having to keep a children's cartoon program tuned in on my TV screen because it's the local station and I want instant updates. I'm prepped and ready to dash off to the neighbors' basement should the watch turn to a warning. Crossing my fingers that I won't have to, but the radar screen is pretty much orange and red. Sigh.
They predict high winds and hail. Not good for my car and there isn't a spot in the garage for it. Not good for the plants I just planted either. Knock-out roses and a climber. Not good for our house or garage or other outbuildings IF the weather gets really nasty.
We don't usually get the amount of severe damage you hear about in Oklahoma, which often makes the national news. I hope we don't this time. But we are in what is known as tornado alley, and we HAVE had some severe damage in this area in years past, including loss of life, very sad. Also including a car with a mom and her kids landing fairly high up in a tree (she lived in a trailer and was trying to get to safety.) Someone we know rescued them. Other folks we know rode that storm out in their bathtub and wound up landing just a few feet from their pond, (saved by a tree in the way) and their roof IN the pond. House gone. Totally.
Tornadoes do strange things like driving weak bendable bits of straw or hay straight into hard surfaces like trees and walls, something no human could ever accomplish. Like making an entire house disappear but leaving a china cabinet full of antique, expensive dishes sitting in the yard, untouched, with not a chip on a dish. So tornadoes aren't something we like to have around. Or earthquakes, but that's another story.
Different parts of our country have different problems. Like California with their earthquakes. Florida, with their hurricanes. If you are in an area that is not prone to any of these natural disasters, you are blessed. If you are in one of these areas, you've learned to adapt, right? You know what to do when a tornado threatens your area (flashlights, battery operated radio, and above all, a place of safety in a basement or local shelter! Or even an inner closet, away from windows and doors if all else fails.) You are hopefully prepared with food, water, fuel, flashlight, radio, etc, in case you are trapped in your home for a time by fallen trees or other damage that won't allow you to leave. And above all, you have books to read. Because you might be without power for a significant amount of time, should the power go out.
This is predicted to be one of the worst storm we've had in a while. I'm heading to the closet with a flashlight and a book. I wrote about this because (a) of course it's on my mind, and (b) if you live in an area where natural disasters DON'T strike with uncomfortable regularity, I thought you might like a glimpse of what it's like, waiting, watching the sky, hoping it goes north or south of us. Or you might not. Either way, hope you have a sunny, safe weekend!
(Hmmm, this would make a good plot for a mystery. I did write a tornado into a book a while back. Hasn't been published yet. Maybe it's time? Timely? Hmmm.) What IS your area like? Have you used your experiences in a book?
Friday, May 7, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
What’s wrong with making memories?
Elizabeth Zelvin
Like Nero Wolfe fulminating against the use of “contact” as a verb, I want to rant a little today about the current tendency to refer to doing anything pleasant or interesting as “making memories.” It may have started with photography. The Kodak Brownie camera, the first handheld camera that anyone could use, came out one hundred years ago, in 1900. (It sold for $1.) I can remember people joking—in the 1970s? the 1980s?—about the flocks of Japanese tourists, all of whom arrived in New York with cameras slung around their necks and seemed to spend more time snapping each other than looking at the “monuments,” as the French call important buildings and tourist attractions. When digital cameras came out, that behavior went global. Vast numbers of people today don’t even bother with a camera, but use their cell phones to record the passing moment.
What’s wrong with making memories? Only that it seems to have replaced experiencing life as it happens. In 1971, Ram Dass (remember him?) exhorted us to “be here now.” Seekers of enlightenment in various traditions from Zen Buddhism to twelve-step recovery are still trying to focus on the present moment. But nowadays, they’re swimming against the current. Sometimes it seems to me that the cultural norm, especially since cell phones became so popular all around the world and addictive use of them widespread, is to ignore completely where you are, whomever you’re with, and what you’re doing in favor of somewhere else, (the spectacular sunset before your eyes vs cyberspace or the middle of the night in London), someone else (the toddler you’re pushing in its stroller vs your best friend who’s having a boring day at work), and traveling, shopping, working out, or visiting vs talking on or thumbing your Blackberry or iPod.
The use of “making memories” as a synonym for doing something both confirms and reinforces this bizarre postmodern reality. “I don’t have to enjoy it now,” people seem to say, whether “it” is a long-planned vacation or the raising of their children. “The whole point is to enjoy it when it’s over, looking back on it.” Does that mean that everyone should leave the digital camera home when visiting the grandchildren or traveling thousands of miles to a destination wedding? By no means. It is possible to strike a balance between giving oneself fully to the experience in the present and stepping back a pace to record it for ongoing enjoyment or to share it for those who can’t be there. Photography itself is an art that can be practiced for pleasure while the event being photographed is occurring. And the ability to return to an event certainly can add to the enjoyment. I chose to leave my camera in my backpack last time I visited my son and his family, in order to “be here now”—and I’ve been regretting ever since that I didn’t pull it out and use the video feature when my six-year-old granddaughter did her hiphop routine. I intend to remedy that on the next visit.
Cellphonistas are another story. Cellphonistas! Don’t get me started! They wander in front of cars as the light changes. They go forty miles an hour in the fast lane. They are so oblivious to those around them that they crash into blind people with white canes on the street and share intimate medical and financial details of their lives with everybody on the bus. It’s become a common sight to see couples, who presumably chose to spend time together, strolling along, each talking on a cell phone with someone else. Worse, I see parents ignoring and even shushing their kids as they babble on and on to whoever’s on the other end of the line, regardless of their audience. Somehow, the person who’s ruining the ride for everyone else on the bus is always doing all the talking. True cellphonistas never listen.
So let’s all put down the iPhones and e-cameras and start making experiences before we get too wrapped up in making memories. Slow down, enjoy the sunshine, listen to the birds, and smell the cherry blossoms. Be here now.
Like Nero Wolfe fulminating against the use of “contact” as a verb, I want to rant a little today about the current tendency to refer to doing anything pleasant or interesting as “making memories.” It may have started with photography. The Kodak Brownie camera, the first handheld camera that anyone could use, came out one hundred years ago, in 1900. (It sold for $1.) I can remember people joking—in the 1970s? the 1980s?—about the flocks of Japanese tourists, all of whom arrived in New York with cameras slung around their necks and seemed to spend more time snapping each other than looking at the “monuments,” as the French call important buildings and tourist attractions. When digital cameras came out, that behavior went global. Vast numbers of people today don’t even bother with a camera, but use their cell phones to record the passing moment.
What’s wrong with making memories? Only that it seems to have replaced experiencing life as it happens. In 1971, Ram Dass (remember him?) exhorted us to “be here now.” Seekers of enlightenment in various traditions from Zen Buddhism to twelve-step recovery are still trying to focus on the present moment. But nowadays, they’re swimming against the current. Sometimes it seems to me that the cultural norm, especially since cell phones became so popular all around the world and addictive use of them widespread, is to ignore completely where you are, whomever you’re with, and what you’re doing in favor of somewhere else, (the spectacular sunset before your eyes vs cyberspace or the middle of the night in London), someone else (the toddler you’re pushing in its stroller vs your best friend who’s having a boring day at work), and traveling, shopping, working out, or visiting vs talking on or thumbing your Blackberry or iPod.
The use of “making memories” as a synonym for doing something both confirms and reinforces this bizarre postmodern reality. “I don’t have to enjoy it now,” people seem to say, whether “it” is a long-planned vacation or the raising of their children. “The whole point is to enjoy it when it’s over, looking back on it.” Does that mean that everyone should leave the digital camera home when visiting the grandchildren or traveling thousands of miles to a destination wedding? By no means. It is possible to strike a balance between giving oneself fully to the experience in the present and stepping back a pace to record it for ongoing enjoyment or to share it for those who can’t be there. Photography itself is an art that can be practiced for pleasure while the event being photographed is occurring. And the ability to return to an event certainly can add to the enjoyment. I chose to leave my camera in my backpack last time I visited my son and his family, in order to “be here now”—and I’ve been regretting ever since that I didn’t pull it out and use the video feature when my six-year-old granddaughter did her hiphop routine. I intend to remedy that on the next visit.
Cellphonistas are another story. Cellphonistas! Don’t get me started! They wander in front of cars as the light changes. They go forty miles an hour in the fast lane. They are so oblivious to those around them that they crash into blind people with white canes on the street and share intimate medical and financial details of their lives with everybody on the bus. It’s become a common sight to see couples, who presumably chose to spend time together, strolling along, each talking on a cell phone with someone else. Worse, I see parents ignoring and even shushing their kids as they babble on and on to whoever’s on the other end of the line, regardless of their audience. Somehow, the person who’s ruining the ride for everyone else on the bus is always doing all the talking. True cellphonistas never listen.
So let’s all put down the iPhones and e-cameras and start making experiences before we get too wrapped up in making memories. Slow down, enjoy the sunshine, listen to the birds, and smell the cherry blossoms. Be here now.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
From Malice to Oakmont
Sandra Parshall
The Malice Domestic conference is big, noisy, and exhausting. You’d think everyone would be happy to head home afterward, but every year as soon as Malice concludes, a lot of mystery writers pile into cars or board planes to attend another big, noisy, exhausting event in Oakmont, PA, outside Pittsburgh. The Oakmont Festival of Mystery is organized every year by Richard Goldman (below, with Heather Webber in foreground) and Mary Alice Gorman of the Mystery Lovers Bookshop, and it’s an event so consistently successful that writers clamor to get in.
This year I attended the festival for the first time since 2007, and while I enjoyed it and sold a nice number of books, my ears are still ringing from the din and my throat is sore from hours of shouting to be heard. When the writers arrived at the church social hall where the author interviews and book sales took place, a long line of eager readers awaited us outside the building. Inside, as we found our seats at the tables, the place was fairly quiet. Lots of anticipation – everybody has good sales at Oakmont – but not a lot of racket. Then the doors were flung open and the crowd surged in, and the decibel level rose until my normally soft voice forced me to yell in people’s faces when I told them about my books.
Only four male authors attended, and I got to sit between two of them, Jason Pinter and Brad Parks. On the whole, the book buyers at Oakmont tend to be middle aged and older, and I found it instructive to watch white-haired women check out Jason’s thrillers and decide to buy them – or tell him they’d already bought and read his books. I wish the people who run New York publishing houses would realize that women love thrillers and probably buy more of them than men do. Brad Parks, who is funny and outgoing, charmed female readers of all ages, and most of the female writers. Men were buying his first mystery, The Faces of the Gone, too, and he sold out of the store’s hardcovers and had to bring in a box of his own copies from the trunk of his car to meet demand. Give him your ear for two minutes, and he will sell you a book. Brad (below, with Kevin O'Brien) is well on his way to being a new mystery star.
Another rising star, Hank Phillipi Ryan (below with Jason Pinter), won her second Agatha Award at Malice Domestic before she headed up to Oakmont. She won two years ago for Best First Novel, was nominated for Best Novel as well as Best Short Story this year, and won for her story, “On the House.” Hank is one of those people who are so gracious and generous that any other writer would have to be a true grinch to resent her success.
Before the book sales, writers gathered at a nearby library for coffee and pastries at a reception with librarians. I am terrible at this sort of event, where authors are expected to pitch their books to all these nice librarians, and I know I’ll never become the expert that Donna Andrews (below, right) is.
Afterward, the tired, hungry writers were treated to pizza at the Mystery Lovers Bookstore, where we enjoyed the relative quiet, newcomers signed the restroom wall, and we all collected mugs with a special logo celebrating the store’s Raven Award from Mystery Writers of America.
Our volunteer driver, Annette Dashofy (President of the Pittsburgh chapter of Sisters in Crime), finally shepherded Shirley Damsgaard, Jenny White, and me back to her car and delivered us to our hotels for the night. All three of us were feeling like the character in L’il Abner who had a perpetual thundercloud over his head – Shirley’s blouse had dried fingernail polish on it following an accident in her luggage, Jenny lost her glasses at the book sale, and I was about to discover, for the third time that day, that I had yet another key card that wouldn’t open the door to my room. But the company was great, I loved getting to know Shirley and Jenny (both animal lovers) and seeing Annette again.
On the plane coming back to National Airport, it was time to collapse and recover and enjoy the view from the window. One amazing cloud formation looked like a long, thick line of whipped cream, complete with pretty ridges, extruded from a cake decorating tool and suspended over the earth. Another looked like icebergs rising from a flat, frozen sea. But what made me smile was my first glimpse of the Potomac in the distance. Soon the plane was flying in low over the water and there was the Capitol dome on the right, and the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. It was good to be home.
*************************
More photos from Malice Domestic and Oakmont on my Facebook page and Flickr photostream.
The Malice Domestic conference is big, noisy, and exhausting. You’d think everyone would be happy to head home afterward, but every year as soon as Malice concludes, a lot of mystery writers pile into cars or board planes to attend another big, noisy, exhausting event in Oakmont, PA, outside Pittsburgh. The Oakmont Festival of Mystery is organized every year by Richard Goldman (below, with Heather Webber in foreground) and Mary Alice Gorman of the Mystery Lovers Bookshop, and it’s an event so consistently successful that writers clamor to get in.
This year I attended the festival for the first time since 2007, and while I enjoyed it and sold a nice number of books, my ears are still ringing from the din and my throat is sore from hours of shouting to be heard. When the writers arrived at the church social hall where the author interviews and book sales took place, a long line of eager readers awaited us outside the building. Inside, as we found our seats at the tables, the place was fairly quiet. Lots of anticipation – everybody has good sales at Oakmont – but not a lot of racket. Then the doors were flung open and the crowd surged in, and the decibel level rose until my normally soft voice forced me to yell in people’s faces when I told them about my books.
Only four male authors attended, and I got to sit between two of them, Jason Pinter and Brad Parks. On the whole, the book buyers at Oakmont tend to be middle aged and older, and I found it instructive to watch white-haired women check out Jason’s thrillers and decide to buy them – or tell him they’d already bought and read his books. I wish the people who run New York publishing houses would realize that women love thrillers and probably buy more of them than men do. Brad Parks, who is funny and outgoing, charmed female readers of all ages, and most of the female writers. Men were buying his first mystery, The Faces of the Gone, too, and he sold out of the store’s hardcovers and had to bring in a box of his own copies from the trunk of his car to meet demand. Give him your ear for two minutes, and he will sell you a book. Brad (below, with Kevin O'Brien) is well on his way to being a new mystery star.
Another rising star, Hank Phillipi Ryan (below with Jason Pinter), won her second Agatha Award at Malice Domestic before she headed up to Oakmont. She won two years ago for Best First Novel, was nominated for Best Novel as well as Best Short Story this year, and won for her story, “On the House.” Hank is one of those people who are so gracious and generous that any other writer would have to be a true grinch to resent her success.
Before the book sales, writers gathered at a nearby library for coffee and pastries at a reception with librarians. I am terrible at this sort of event, where authors are expected to pitch their books to all these nice librarians, and I know I’ll never become the expert that Donna Andrews (below, right) is.
Afterward, the tired, hungry writers were treated to pizza at the Mystery Lovers Bookstore, where we enjoyed the relative quiet, newcomers signed the restroom wall, and we all collected mugs with a special logo celebrating the store’s Raven Award from Mystery Writers of America.
Our volunteer driver, Annette Dashofy (President of the Pittsburgh chapter of Sisters in Crime), finally shepherded Shirley Damsgaard, Jenny White, and me back to her car and delivered us to our hotels for the night. All three of us were feeling like the character in L’il Abner who had a perpetual thundercloud over his head – Shirley’s blouse had dried fingernail polish on it following an accident in her luggage, Jenny lost her glasses at the book sale, and I was about to discover, for the third time that day, that I had yet another key card that wouldn’t open the door to my room. But the company was great, I loved getting to know Shirley and Jenny (both animal lovers) and seeing Annette again.
On the plane coming back to National Airport, it was time to collapse and recover and enjoy the view from the window. One amazing cloud formation looked like a long, thick line of whipped cream, complete with pretty ridges, extruded from a cake decorating tool and suspended over the earth. Another looked like icebergs rising from a flat, frozen sea. But what made me smile was my first glimpse of the Potomac in the distance. Soon the plane was flying in low over the water and there was the Capitol dome on the right, and the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial. It was good to be home.
*************************
More photos from Malice Domestic and Oakmont on my Facebook page and Flickr photostream.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Lay down our sword and shield
Sharon Wildwind
I’ve mentioned before about having an affinity for a techie-guy named Merlin Mann. After last week’s blog, Sandra and I exchanged comments about authors being stretched beyond their limit because they have race to keep up with the latest in marketing.
Hard on the heels of our exchange, I ran into a talk on time and attention that Mann gave at Rutgers university.
Here’s a short concatenation of my favorite quotes from that talk:
“Managing time is good, but if all you manage is time, you stand the chance of making something that no one cares about. You can’t make art unless you manage your attention, too. Time and attention are finite. Expectations go up and up; resources go down and down. We get some help in learning the hard skills—the technical stuff—but we get no help in learning the soft skills—how to stand up and say that we're drowning. If someone was stealing from your wallet, would you stop them? Why don’t we stop people who are stealing our time and attention.” ~Merlin Mann, techie-guy
Have you tallied up the “other” skills that we as writers allow to steal our time and attention from writing?
Blogs
Book fairs
Book signings
Book tours
Book trailers
Branding
Business details (Having spent 49 hours last month revising my business plan and doing taxes, I’m particularly sensitive to this one right now.)
Committees (Added for Elizabeth)
Contests
Conventions
E-book conversion
Hand-selling
Interviews
Mail outs
Newsletters
Niche marketing
Platform development
Press kits
Publicity photos
Social sites
Virtual tours
Web sites
Likely by next week that list will be longer.
Doing some marketing is essential to being a writer, but at what point do we start making choices? At what point do we say to agents, publishers, and all of the other people who have advice on what we “should” or “must” do, that we are drowning? How do we bring ourselves to a point where we make treat marketing as art by focusing time and attention on fewer things, done well instead of everything done poorly?
For my part, with all of the authority I have, I give us permission to lay down our swords and shields. On any given day, under the right circumstances, all marketing works; under the wrong circumstances, no marketing works. The kicker is that we don’t know what the circumstances will be. We might as well do the things that we enjoy.
-----
Quote for the week
Fill your life with as many moments and experiences of joy and passion as you humanly can. Start with one experience and build on it.
~Marcia Wieder; American speaker, trainer, and author
I’ve mentioned before about having an affinity for a techie-guy named Merlin Mann. After last week’s blog, Sandra and I exchanged comments about authors being stretched beyond their limit because they have race to keep up with the latest in marketing.
Hard on the heels of our exchange, I ran into a talk on time and attention that Mann gave at Rutgers university.
Here’s a short concatenation of my favorite quotes from that talk:
“Managing time is good, but if all you manage is time, you stand the chance of making something that no one cares about. You can’t make art unless you manage your attention, too. Time and attention are finite. Expectations go up and up; resources go down and down. We get some help in learning the hard skills—the technical stuff—but we get no help in learning the soft skills—how to stand up and say that we're drowning. If someone was stealing from your wallet, would you stop them? Why don’t we stop people who are stealing our time and attention.” ~Merlin Mann, techie-guy
Have you tallied up the “other” skills that we as writers allow to steal our time and attention from writing?
Blogs
Book fairs
Book signings
Book tours
Book trailers
Branding
Business details (Having spent 49 hours last month revising my business plan and doing taxes, I’m particularly sensitive to this one right now.)
Committees (Added for Elizabeth)
Contests
Conventions
E-book conversion
Hand-selling
Interviews
Mail outs
Newsletters
Niche marketing
Platform development
Press kits
Publicity photos
Social sites
Virtual tours
Web sites
Likely by next week that list will be longer.
Doing some marketing is essential to being a writer, but at what point do we start making choices? At what point do we say to agents, publishers, and all of the other people who have advice on what we “should” or “must” do, that we are drowning? How do we bring ourselves to a point where we make treat marketing as art by focusing time and attention on fewer things, done well instead of everything done poorly?
For my part, with all of the authority I have, I give us permission to lay down our swords and shields. On any given day, under the right circumstances, all marketing works; under the wrong circumstances, no marketing works. The kicker is that we don’t know what the circumstances will be. We might as well do the things that we enjoy.
-----
Quote for the week
Fill your life with as many moments and experiences of joy and passion as you humanly can. Start with one experience and build on it.
~Marcia Wieder; American speaker, trainer, and author
Monday, May 3, 2010
Words on the Walls
by Julia Buckley
An elegant decorating idea for the modern booklover is to put a favorite quotation directly on the wall.
Since I just painted my dining room, I decided that I would like to choose a wonderful literary quotation that all of my visitors would read while helping themselves to food at, say, a birthday party buffet. It seemed not so wild a dream--except that, after viewing many wall art websites and picking out my favorite quotes, I had to run them past the family. My husband shrugged. "If you want to do that, you have to pick something we want to see every day. It has to be something inspirational."
I agreed with this; I perused more websites, as well as books of literary quotations. Together with my husband, I culled out a list of twenty sayings, from Shakespeare to Thoreau to Bob Dylan (and, since I love mysteries, these included quotes by Christie and Chandler). We showed them to our sons, only to get the thumbs down.
"These are dumb," said my eldest, ever willing to disagree with the topic at hand. "I don't want any of these on our walls."
So I went back to the books. Suddenly, faced with the idea of finding one perfect, beautiful quotation, we were at a stand-off. No one could agree, and no quotation seemed just right.
So I decided to open up the question at Poe's Deadly Daughters. Does anyone have a favorite literary (or pop culture) quotation that I can submit as a candidate for our dining room wall? I'll be happy to share the results once we decide.
Meanwhile, here are some of the lovely ones I found while surfing the net:
(The art at the top can be found at http://www.philosophygifts.com/Philosophy-Wall-Decals_c_25.html and http://www.writingonthewalls.ca/graphics/slideshow/life%20is%20not%20measured2.jpg, and http://www.tradingphrases.com/item_775/Joy-Laughter-Possibilities.htm).
An elegant decorating idea for the modern booklover is to put a favorite quotation directly on the wall.Since I just painted my dining room, I decided that I would like to choose a wonderful literary quotation that all of my visitors would read while helping themselves to food at, say, a birthday party buffet. It seemed not so wild a dream--except that, after viewing many wall art websites and picking out my favorite quotes, I had to run them past the family. My husband shrugged. "If you want to do that, you have to pick something we want to see every day. It has to be something inspirational."
I agreed with this; I perused more websites, as well as books of literary quotations. Together with my husband, I culled out a list of twenty sayings, from Shakespeare to Thoreau to Bob Dylan (and, since I love mysteries, these included quotes by Christie and Chandler). We showed them to our sons, only to get the thumbs down.
"These are dumb," said my eldest, ever willing to disagree with the topic at hand. "I don't want any of these on our walls."
So I went back to the books. Suddenly, faced with the idea of finding one perfect, beautiful quotation, we were at a stand-off. No one could agree, and no quotation seemed just right.
So I decided to open up the question at Poe's Deadly Daughters. Does anyone have a favorite literary (or pop culture) quotation that I can submit as a candidate for our dining room wall? I'll be happy to share the results once we decide.
Meanwhile, here are some of the lovely ones I found while surfing the net:
(The art at the top can be found at http://www.philosophygifts.com/Philosophy-Wall-Decals_c_25.html and http://www.writingonthewalls.ca/graphics/slideshow/life%20is%20not%20measured2.jpg, and http://www.tradingphrases.com/item_775/Joy-Laughter-Possibilities.htm).
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Distant Roar of Violence
By Mary Reed and Eric Mayer
Guest bloggers
Our guests are the authors of the John the Lord Chamberlain historical mysteries. Visit their website for more information about their work.
Eight For Eternity is darker then the other novels in our series, even more so than Five For Silver, which was set during the Justianaic plague of 542, beginning with a man rescued alive from a pile of victims and including a character who dances with the dead.
We tend to write murder mysteries without a lot of blood. Murder is a messy business but not all mystery readers or writers want to dwell on that reality. Many prefer to concern themselves with the intellectual puzzle resulting from the physical murder.
So generally we keep gruesome events off the page, and those which must be mentioned for reasons of the plot are dealt with briefly. But when we decided to set our latest book during the Nika Riots in 532 we knew it would be necessary to describe the terror and horror inhabitants of Constantinople experienced for days as the city was torn apart by murder, looting, arson, and other crimes committed by mobs seeking to overthrow Emperor Justinian.
How to convey the mayhem without departing too far from the usual tone of the series? We solved the conundrum by placing many scenes at a distance from the rioting, behind the palace walls or several streets away. The violence is depicted as a kind of continual dull, distant roar -- a menacing rumble of an anguished populace gone mad -- with occasional crescendos of noise conveying the menace of mobs running wild as the city turns on itself.
Against that dark aural background we conveyed the horrors being perpetrated by using vignettes described with sparing details, sometimes only seen in passing, but always suggesting worse – a living human torch, a curtain of legs formed by a number of dead men hung from a balcony. This seemed to us to be a strong enough method of suggesting incidents of life and death in a city racked with violence.
History tells us that 30,000 rioters were slaughtered in the Hippodrome in one battle, but it is impossible to describe so many deaths. It is more effective to show individual horrors, one at a time.
There is only a single scene where slaughter is front and center, and that is a brief account of a pitched street, or rather alley, battle between imperial troops and rioters. Neither of us having been in such a situation, we attempted to describe what happens in that brief battle as experienced by Felix, a palace guard, in an almost detached manner, given in such circumstances fighters act from instinct and training and there is no time to think about maneuvers.
We did, however, set the stage for a book in which countless, mostly unseen, people would die, with a prologue from the point of view of a condemned man on his way to the gallows. We therefore dwelled at some length on the terror of death before any killing began.
We now throw open the discussion. Perhaps you agree it is not necessary to go into minute descriptions of blood and pain to convey this type of hellish setting, or do you favor more gore?
Guest bloggers
Our guests are the authors of the John the Lord Chamberlain historical mysteries. Visit their website for more information about their work.
Eight For Eternity is darker then the other novels in our series, even more so than Five For Silver, which was set during the Justianaic plague of 542, beginning with a man rescued alive from a pile of victims and including a character who dances with the dead.
We tend to write murder mysteries without a lot of blood. Murder is a messy business but not all mystery readers or writers want to dwell on that reality. Many prefer to concern themselves with the intellectual puzzle resulting from the physical murder.
So generally we keep gruesome events off the page, and those which must be mentioned for reasons of the plot are dealt with briefly. But when we decided to set our latest book during the Nika Riots in 532 we knew it would be necessary to describe the terror and horror inhabitants of Constantinople experienced for days as the city was torn apart by murder, looting, arson, and other crimes committed by mobs seeking to overthrow Emperor Justinian.
How to convey the mayhem without departing too far from the usual tone of the series? We solved the conundrum by placing many scenes at a distance from the rioting, behind the palace walls or several streets away. The violence is depicted as a kind of continual dull, distant roar -- a menacing rumble of an anguished populace gone mad -- with occasional crescendos of noise conveying the menace of mobs running wild as the city turns on itself.
Against that dark aural background we conveyed the horrors being perpetrated by using vignettes described with sparing details, sometimes only seen in passing, but always suggesting worse – a living human torch, a curtain of legs formed by a number of dead men hung from a balcony. This seemed to us to be a strong enough method of suggesting incidents of life and death in a city racked with violence.
History tells us that 30,000 rioters were slaughtered in the Hippodrome in one battle, but it is impossible to describe so many deaths. It is more effective to show individual horrors, one at a time.
There is only a single scene where slaughter is front and center, and that is a brief account of a pitched street, or rather alley, battle between imperial troops and rioters. Neither of us having been in such a situation, we attempted to describe what happens in that brief battle as experienced by Felix, a palace guard, in an almost detached manner, given in such circumstances fighters act from instinct and training and there is no time to think about maneuvers.
We did, however, set the stage for a book in which countless, mostly unseen, people would die, with a prologue from the point of view of a condemned man on his way to the gallows. We therefore dwelled at some length on the terror of death before any killing began.
We now throw open the discussion. Perhaps you agree it is not necessary to go into minute descriptions of blood and pain to convey this type of hellish setting, or do you favor more gore?
Friday, April 30, 2010
School, is it worth it?
By Lonnie Cruse
How much do you remember from elementary or high school? Probably not nearly all you learned. I know I don't. Yet, again, I do. I remember a good deal of the Spanish I learned from Mr. Alvarez in high school. Algebra? Probably not, unless I'm using it without realizing it. Add, subtract, divide, multiply, yeah, I use those a lot (except the pesky nine times table, I must've been absent that day because I always have to have help.) Grammar? I struggle with it a bit, but when I hear some young people speaking today, I wonder if they've been to school at all. Geography? Well, some countries are sneaky and change their names, probably trying to keep us from knowing where they are, but I remember some others. History? I retained a few facts about Washington and Lincoln and interesting guys like that. Ask me where certain battles took place or what year and likely I'll have no clue. Except the Civil War battle at Franklin, TN, and that one only because I have a good friend who lives there. (Bet the rest of you didn't know about that battle either.)
Time for my point for today. One of my grandsons hates school. He's at the age where he doesn't see how he's ever going to be able to "use all this stuff." Sigh. No matter how often we try to explain that he WILL need math in almost any job and he'll need to know how to speak properly in order to GET that job, and that he might need a foreign language if he ever hopes to travel, and geography to know how to get there, and history so we can all avoid the mistakes of the past, so far, he's not getting it. Neither are a lot of our kids today.
When I worked as a substitute teacher's aide, I worked quite often with kids who were struggling in high school. Kids who didn't see the need of the education they were getting there, kids who were often discouraged and wanted to drop out, kids who might have a very limited future if they don't stick with it. But they can't seem to see that far ahead. It's all about today for them.
What's the solution? The only one I see is this, if you know a young person struggling in school, try to point out to them how YOU use what you learned in school, and what you know they will need when they are grown. Our young people really have to understand that they are building the foundation of the future they will live in, and if that foundation is weak, the rest of the building won't stand.
Is there a kid who needs your encouragement? Your help? Your understanding of what it's like to have to study and learn?
Thanks for stopping by!
How much do you remember from elementary or high school? Probably not nearly all you learned. I know I don't. Yet, again, I do. I remember a good deal of the Spanish I learned from Mr. Alvarez in high school. Algebra? Probably not, unless I'm using it without realizing it. Add, subtract, divide, multiply, yeah, I use those a lot (except the pesky nine times table, I must've been absent that day because I always have to have help.) Grammar? I struggle with it a bit, but when I hear some young people speaking today, I wonder if they've been to school at all. Geography? Well, some countries are sneaky and change their names, probably trying to keep us from knowing where they are, but I remember some others. History? I retained a few facts about Washington and Lincoln and interesting guys like that. Ask me where certain battles took place or what year and likely I'll have no clue. Except the Civil War battle at Franklin, TN, and that one only because I have a good friend who lives there. (Bet the rest of you didn't know about that battle either.)
Time for my point for today. One of my grandsons hates school. He's at the age where he doesn't see how he's ever going to be able to "use all this stuff." Sigh. No matter how often we try to explain that he WILL need math in almost any job and he'll need to know how to speak properly in order to GET that job, and that he might need a foreign language if he ever hopes to travel, and geography to know how to get there, and history so we can all avoid the mistakes of the past, so far, he's not getting it. Neither are a lot of our kids today.
When I worked as a substitute teacher's aide, I worked quite often with kids who were struggling in high school. Kids who didn't see the need of the education they were getting there, kids who were often discouraged and wanted to drop out, kids who might have a very limited future if they don't stick with it. But they can't seem to see that far ahead. It's all about today for them.
What's the solution? The only one I see is this, if you know a young person struggling in school, try to point out to them how YOU use what you learned in school, and what you know they will need when they are grown. Our young people really have to understand that they are building the foundation of the future they will live in, and if that foundation is weak, the rest of the building won't stand.
Is there a kid who needs your encouragement? Your help? Your understanding of what it's like to have to study and learn?
Thanks for stopping by!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Pernicious plotting or literary license?
Elizabeth Zelvin
Sue Grafton’s latest Kinsey Millhone novel, U Is for Undertow, is a terrific read. Her masterful shuffling of past and present and of different points of view, with meaty characterizations and skillful handling of pace and plotting made me enjoy it more than most of the mid-to-late alphabet books. But. As a psychotherapist with many years of bearing witness to the consequences of childhood abuse and trauma, I was jerked right out of the story by the presentation of Kinsey’s client as a young man whose therapist had convinced him, without any supporting evidence, that his parents had abused him as a child. I understand the literary motive: Grafton wanted her character to be unstable and his family, whose reputation and peace of mind he had destroyed, to destroy his credibility in turn. But did she really have to play the so-called false memory card?
I’ve spent a lot of time on my soapbox ranting about how therapists are portrayed in fiction and film. Grafton’s therapist is a quack. Every profession has its quacks and con artists. But there is so much myth and misinformation about psychotherapy in our culture that this kind of portrayal can do a lot more damage than, say, the portrayal of a dishonest doctor.
My beef with Grafton’s scenario, however, is that in dramatizing the impact of a family torn apart by accusations of sexual abuse, she chooses the rare case in which the accusations are false. I feel the same when a novelist chooses to highlight an accusation of rape that turns out to be false. The victims of sexual violence, whether in childhood or adult life, have had a long, hard fight to be believed and treated with respect in our society. When novelists—and journalists—choose to keep the spotlight on the phonies, as if they were the norm, not only justice but our collective psyche takes a giant step backward.
I have a similar reaction to some of the current crop of TV series, notably United States of Tara, about a woman with multiple personalities, and Big Love, about a polygamist and his three wives. Some fine actors and other serious people are involved in these shows. Their intention is not to trivialize the issues. But they do. Tara is a high- functioning wife and mother whose alters include a Betty Crocker-like homemaker and a foul-mouthed male Vietnam vet—great material for a sitcom. But in real life, dissociative identity disorder is not cute and funny. A real-life multiple’s split-off alters are the result of a child’s attempt to distance from and survive severe abuse. If none of Tara’s alters is an abreacting four-year-old, cowering in a corner during a flashback of sexual torture, she’s nothing like the real thing.
As for modern-day American polygamy, it’s not cute or funny either. Betty Webb’s Desert Wives, in her Lena Jones series, tells us what it’s really like: domineering old men raping underage girls and keeping them pregnant and uneducated. And don’t say that the picture painted in mystery novels and films is mere literary license, without impact in the real world. Webb’s book played a role in changing legislation that eventually led to the arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of notorious polygamist Warren Jeffs.
Believe me, I’m not arguing in favor of “political correctness.” I didn’t like the term when it was a Stalinist catch phrase back in the Fifties, and I still have no use for the thought police. I’m just saying, writers, when you have choices to make, think a little harder about the message that you’re sending.
Sue Grafton’s latest Kinsey Millhone novel, U Is for Undertow, is a terrific read. Her masterful shuffling of past and present and of different points of view, with meaty characterizations and skillful handling of pace and plotting made me enjoy it more than most of the mid-to-late alphabet books. But. As a psychotherapist with many years of bearing witness to the consequences of childhood abuse and trauma, I was jerked right out of the story by the presentation of Kinsey’s client as a young man whose therapist had convinced him, without any supporting evidence, that his parents had abused him as a child. I understand the literary motive: Grafton wanted her character to be unstable and his family, whose reputation and peace of mind he had destroyed, to destroy his credibility in turn. But did she really have to play the so-called false memory card?
I’ve spent a lot of time on my soapbox ranting about how therapists are portrayed in fiction and film. Grafton’s therapist is a quack. Every profession has its quacks and con artists. But there is so much myth and misinformation about psychotherapy in our culture that this kind of portrayal can do a lot more damage than, say, the portrayal of a dishonest doctor.
My beef with Grafton’s scenario, however, is that in dramatizing the impact of a family torn apart by accusations of sexual abuse, she chooses the rare case in which the accusations are false. I feel the same when a novelist chooses to highlight an accusation of rape that turns out to be false. The victims of sexual violence, whether in childhood or adult life, have had a long, hard fight to be believed and treated with respect in our society. When novelists—and journalists—choose to keep the spotlight on the phonies, as if they were the norm, not only justice but our collective psyche takes a giant step backward.
I have a similar reaction to some of the current crop of TV series, notably United States of Tara, about a woman with multiple personalities, and Big Love, about a polygamist and his three wives. Some fine actors and other serious people are involved in these shows. Their intention is not to trivialize the issues. But they do. Tara is a high- functioning wife and mother whose alters include a Betty Crocker-like homemaker and a foul-mouthed male Vietnam vet—great material for a sitcom. But in real life, dissociative identity disorder is not cute and funny. A real-life multiple’s split-off alters are the result of a child’s attempt to distance from and survive severe abuse. If none of Tara’s alters is an abreacting four-year-old, cowering in a corner during a flashback of sexual torture, she’s nothing like the real thing.
As for modern-day American polygamy, it’s not cute or funny either. Betty Webb’s Desert Wives, in her Lena Jones series, tells us what it’s really like: domineering old men raping underage girls and keeping them pregnant and uneducated. And don’t say that the picture painted in mystery novels and films is mere literary license, without impact in the real world. Webb’s book played a role in changing legislation that eventually led to the arrest, conviction, and imprisonment of notorious polygamist Warren Jeffs.
Believe me, I’m not arguing in favor of “political correctness.” I didn’t like the term when it was a Stalinist catch phrase back in the Fifties, and I still have no use for the thought police. I’m just saying, writers, when you have choices to make, think a little harder about the message that you’re sending.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Mystery Anthology Boom
Sandra Parshall
Magazine markets for short crime fiction are scarce, but readers who want a sharp little dose of murder and mayhem have plenty of anthologies to choose from. These collections have popped up like mushrooms across the genre in the last few years, bringing us everything from tales of murder on family holidays (haven’t we all been tempted at least once?) to crime with a supernatural flavor.
While some anthologies are made up entirely of work by crime fiction stars, most also give exposure to work by beginners or lesser-known writers. The number of anthology stories nominated for major mystery awards is an indication of how important the collections have become to the genre.
Some anthologies are highly visible, like the International Thriller Writers 2006 anthology Thriller, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and been published in nine foreign countries. Others have more modest ambitions but are worth looking for if you want to read the best short crime fiction being published.
A lot of anthologies are focused on themes. Akashic has produced a series of noir collections set in various cities and features dark tales from Orange County, California, in its latest. Tony Burton at Wolfmont Press publishes Christmas-themed mystery anthologies, and the profits go to Toys for Tots.
Hook, Line & Sinister, an April release from Countryman Press, is another themed collection that will benefit charity, in this case two organizations that use fly-fishing as therapy. Casting for Recovery helps breast cancer patients and Project Healing Waters aids returning veterans. The anthology’s theme, naturally, is fishing, and 16 bestselling mystery authors came up with stories that involve the sport. Edited by T. Jefferson Parker, the book includes work by such notables as Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, Ridley Pearson, John Lescroart, and Dana Stabenow. And no, you don’t have to enjoy fishing to appreciate these mini-mysteries.
Charlaine Harris’s name on the cover as editor tells you that Crimes by Moonlight is devoted to supernatural mysteries, but it’s not exactly what you might expect. Along with a new Sookie Stackhouse story, the collection includes shorts by Carolyn Hart, Barbara D’Amato, Margaret Maron and other authors we don’t usually associate with the woo-woo end of
the genre. Writing these stories gave the writers a chance to stretch, and even readers who don’t normally enjoy the supernatural mixed with crime may be pleasantly surprised.
Unusual Suspects, a fantasy/mystery anthology edited by Dana Stabenow, also features a new Sookie Stackhouse story and work by writers like Laurie R. King who haven’t produced this type of fiction before.
Two of the Deadliest, edited by Elizabeth George, features stories by 18 established women authors and five relative unknowns. In its anthology In the Shadow of the Master, Mystery Writers of America also gives exposure to a few lesser-known writers by placing them in the company of stars.
A number of Sisters in Crime chapters across the country have published anthologies, giving some SinC members their first professional publications. Stories contributed by “name” authors lend cachet and draw the attention of readers. The Los Angeles Chapter will launch Murder in La-La Land on May 22 (early copies will be available this weekend at Malice Domestic). The Desert
Sleuths Sisters in Crime recently brought out How Not to Survive the Holidays.
If you have a secret hit list but know you’ll never act on it, you can savor an ample helping of vicarious satisfaction when you read They Had It Comin’, the fourth Chesapeake Crimes anthology from the Chesapeake Chapter. Stories from previous CC collections have been nominated for, and have won, major awards. A fifth anthology is already in the works. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Chessie Chapter and I’m honored to be on the editorial committee for the fifth anthology.)
Have you read a good crime fiction anthology lately? Have you contributed to one?
Magazine markets for short crime fiction are scarce, but readers who want a sharp little dose of murder and mayhem have plenty of anthologies to choose from. These collections have popped up like mushrooms across the genre in the last few years, bringing us everything from tales of murder on family holidays (haven’t we all been tempted at least once?) to crime with a supernatural flavor.While some anthologies are made up entirely of work by crime fiction stars, most also give exposure to work by beginners or lesser-known writers. The number of anthology stories nominated for major mystery awards is an indication of how important the collections have become to the genre.
Some anthologies are highly visible, like the International Thriller Writers 2006 anthology Thriller, which has sold more than 400,000 copies and been published in nine foreign countries. Others have more modest ambitions but are worth looking for if you want to read the best short crime fiction being published.
A lot of anthologies are focused on themes. Akashic has produced a series of noir collections set in various cities and features dark tales from Orange County, California, in its latest. Tony Burton at Wolfmont Press publishes Christmas-themed mystery anthologies, and the profits go to Toys for Tots.
Hook, Line & Sinister, an April release from Countryman Press, is another themed collection that will benefit charity, in this case two organizations that use fly-fishing as therapy. Casting for Recovery helps breast cancer patients and Project Healing Waters aids returning veterans. The anthology’s theme, naturally, is fishing, and 16 bestselling mystery authors came up with stories that involve the sport. Edited by T. Jefferson Parker, the book includes work by such notables as Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, Ridley Pearson, John Lescroart, and Dana Stabenow. And no, you don’t have to enjoy fishing to appreciate these mini-mysteries.Charlaine Harris’s name on the cover as editor tells you that Crimes by Moonlight is devoted to supernatural mysteries, but it’s not exactly what you might expect. Along with a new Sookie Stackhouse story, the collection includes shorts by Carolyn Hart, Barbara D’Amato, Margaret Maron and other authors we don’t usually associate with the woo-woo end of
the genre. Writing these stories gave the writers a chance to stretch, and even readers who don’t normally enjoy the supernatural mixed with crime may be pleasantly surprised.Unusual Suspects, a fantasy/mystery anthology edited by Dana Stabenow, also features a new Sookie Stackhouse story and work by writers like Laurie R. King who haven’t produced this type of fiction before.
Two of the Deadliest, edited by Elizabeth George, features stories by 18 established women authors and five relative unknowns. In its anthology In the Shadow of the Master, Mystery Writers of America also gives exposure to a few lesser-known writers by placing them in the company of stars.
A number of Sisters in Crime chapters across the country have published anthologies, giving some SinC members their first professional publications. Stories contributed by “name” authors lend cachet and draw the attention of readers. The Los Angeles Chapter will launch Murder in La-La Land on May 22 (early copies will be available this weekend at Malice Domestic). The Desert
Sleuths Sisters in Crime recently brought out How Not to Survive the Holidays.
If you have a secret hit list but know you’ll never act on it, you can savor an ample helping of vicarious satisfaction when you read They Had It Comin’, the fourth Chesapeake Crimes anthology from the Chesapeake Chapter. Stories from previous CC collections have been nominated for, and have won, major awards. A fifth anthology is already in the works. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Chessie Chapter and I’m honored to be on the editorial committee for the fifth anthology.)Have you read a good crime fiction anthology lately? Have you contributed to one?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Prolong the life cycle of a story
Sharon Wildwind
A couple of days ago I got really, really lost on the Internet, the electronic equivalent of starting out to take the #3 bus, and an hour later, realizing you are on the #27, with no clue where you are, other than it looks interesting.
I ended up watching a guy named Jeff Gomez give a 25-minute speech to the 2010 O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. I knew nothing about the conference or the speaker, so I did a little surfing. When I got to Mr. Gomez’s company, Starlight Runner Entertainment, I had a total brain freeze.
His clients?
Coca-Cola, Mattel Hot Wheels, Avatar, Transformers, Magic-The Gathering, Microsoft Halo, Walt Disney (Tron, Prince of Persia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fairies) and Dexter. I’d wandered into one hot dude here.
His first message: forget the gismos and gadgets. They will come and go.
Second message: the most important thing that creative people can do is to prolong the life cycle of a story.
In a time where many series are dying after the third or fourth book and where even long-term series are suddenly no longer of interest to publishers, a lot of the conversation we writers have among ourselves has to do with how to prolong the life cycle of the stories we love.
I had to get my head around a fifty-cents term—transmedia storytelling—and two head-filling definitions.
“Transmedia storytelling is the vanguard process of conveying messages, themes or story lines to a mass audience through the artful and well-planned use of multiple-media platforms. It is a philosophy of communication and brand extension that broadens the life-cycle of creative content. . . .The purpose of transmedia storytelling is to prolong the life cycle of the story itself.”
~Jeff Gomez, TOC 2010 Conference, 2010 February, New York City
According to the Producers Guild of America, who recently added the term Transmedia Producer to it’s approved list of skills which a producer can list on her/his resume, “A Transmedia Producer credit is given to the person(s) responsible for a significant portion of a project’s long-term planning, development, production, and/or maintenance of narrative continuity across multiple platforms, and creation of original storylines for new platforms. Transmedia producers also create and implement interactive endeavors to unite the audience of the property with the canonical narrative and this element should be considered as valid qualification for credit as long as they are related directly to the narrative presentation of a project.”
~Producers Guild of America press release, 2010 April 6.
It’s okay if you go lie down for a while. I know that I had to.
What I think is being discussed here is that the work needed to keep alive a really big, really complex story has grown beyond one writer’s ability.
What makes transmedia storytelling different from typical media franchise, like Star Trek and Harry Potter is the in a typical franchise the elements are designed independently without regard for how, or even if, they fit together. The author writes the books; the movie makers make the movies, the gamers devise the games, etc. without even talking to one another.
In a transmedia project, the pieces are, from the beginning, designed to create a cohesive whole. Creative people, from many different disciplines, work with one another to develop trust and look forward to working as a team. Customers look forward to experiencing the fictional world by connecting the pieces.
In many ways, this new idea of team storytelling scares a lot of people. Authors are scared that other people will steal their ideas. Agents are scared that they don’t know how to manage their clients’ rights in this new world. Media People are scared of losing control over the vision of the project.
Me?
I am excited about transmedia. There’s a great movie called Rare Birds, in which a chef succeeds, against all odds, with a gourmet restaurant in rural Newfoundland. While Dave (played by John Hurt) is busy running around in the movie’s foreground, in the background Bette (played by Leah Lewis), a quiet local woman, hired to help out in the kitchen, is doing everything from hauling cases of ingredients out of the freezer to worrying about plating. At the end of the movie, when Dave has a chance at love, if only he can find someone to take over the restaurant, Bette steps forward and says two words.
“I’m ready.”
Dave realizes that she is, turns the restaurant over to her, and takes off after the woman he loves.
I’m ready, too.
If Jeff Gomez’s car happens to break down in front of my house, and he happens to have to use my phone to call AMA, and we happen start talking about the importance of keeping stories alive, and he happens have an opening on one of his transmedia teams . . . well a woman can dream, can’t she?
----
One more quote for the week:
If all this makes your head hurt, go for a nice walk. Because exercise is still good for you. ~Karen Hopkin, Scientific American on-line
A couple of days ago I got really, really lost on the Internet, the electronic equivalent of starting out to take the #3 bus, and an hour later, realizing you are on the #27, with no clue where you are, other than it looks interesting.
I ended up watching a guy named Jeff Gomez give a 25-minute speech to the 2010 O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing Conference. I knew nothing about the conference or the speaker, so I did a little surfing. When I got to Mr. Gomez’s company, Starlight Runner Entertainment, I had a total brain freeze.
His clients?
Coca-Cola, Mattel Hot Wheels, Avatar, Transformers, Magic-The Gathering, Microsoft Halo, Walt Disney (Tron, Prince of Persia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Fairies) and Dexter. I’d wandered into one hot dude here.
His first message: forget the gismos and gadgets. They will come and go.
Second message: the most important thing that creative people can do is to prolong the life cycle of a story.
In a time where many series are dying after the third or fourth book and where even long-term series are suddenly no longer of interest to publishers, a lot of the conversation we writers have among ourselves has to do with how to prolong the life cycle of the stories we love.
I had to get my head around a fifty-cents term—transmedia storytelling—and two head-filling definitions.
“Transmedia storytelling is the vanguard process of conveying messages, themes or story lines to a mass audience through the artful and well-planned use of multiple-media platforms. It is a philosophy of communication and brand extension that broadens the life-cycle of creative content. . . .The purpose of transmedia storytelling is to prolong the life cycle of the story itself.”
~Jeff Gomez, TOC 2010 Conference, 2010 February, New York City
According to the Producers Guild of America, who recently added the term Transmedia Producer to it’s approved list of skills which a producer can list on her/his resume, “A Transmedia Producer credit is given to the person(s) responsible for a significant portion of a project’s long-term planning, development, production, and/or maintenance of narrative continuity across multiple platforms, and creation of original storylines for new platforms. Transmedia producers also create and implement interactive endeavors to unite the audience of the property with the canonical narrative and this element should be considered as valid qualification for credit as long as they are related directly to the narrative presentation of a project.”
~Producers Guild of America press release, 2010 April 6.
It’s okay if you go lie down for a while. I know that I had to.
What I think is being discussed here is that the work needed to keep alive a really big, really complex story has grown beyond one writer’s ability.
What makes transmedia storytelling different from typical media franchise, like Star Trek and Harry Potter is the in a typical franchise the elements are designed independently without regard for how, or even if, they fit together. The author writes the books; the movie makers make the movies, the gamers devise the games, etc. without even talking to one another.
In a transmedia project, the pieces are, from the beginning, designed to create a cohesive whole. Creative people, from many different disciplines, work with one another to develop trust and look forward to working as a team. Customers look forward to experiencing the fictional world by connecting the pieces.
In many ways, this new idea of team storytelling scares a lot of people. Authors are scared that other people will steal their ideas. Agents are scared that they don’t know how to manage their clients’ rights in this new world. Media People are scared of losing control over the vision of the project.
Me?
I am excited about transmedia. There’s a great movie called Rare Birds, in which a chef succeeds, against all odds, with a gourmet restaurant in rural Newfoundland. While Dave (played by John Hurt) is busy running around in the movie’s foreground, in the background Bette (played by Leah Lewis), a quiet local woman, hired to help out in the kitchen, is doing everything from hauling cases of ingredients out of the freezer to worrying about plating. At the end of the movie, when Dave has a chance at love, if only he can find someone to take over the restaurant, Bette steps forward and says two words.
“I’m ready.”
Dave realizes that she is, turns the restaurant over to her, and takes off after the woman he loves.
I’m ready, too.
If Jeff Gomez’s car happens to break down in front of my house, and he happens to have to use my phone to call AMA, and we happen start talking about the importance of keeping stories alive, and he happens have an opening on one of his transmedia teams . . . well a woman can dream, can’t she?
----
One more quote for the week:
If all this makes your head hurt, go for a nice walk. Because exercise is still good for you. ~Karen Hopkin, Scientific American on-line
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