I caught the last hour of one of my favorite films -- Cloud Atlas -- on TV the other night, and dammit if I didn't get emotional again like I do every time I watch it. There's no explaining it and I couldn't describe to you why this movie affects me in mere words. Or even song. It's just something that you feel and you know it's there, like somebody opening their arms to embrace you and telling you it's okay to let it all go.
While I have you, you should all watch The Leftovers on HBO.
One scene in particular gets to me from the film, the part near the end where Sonmi~451 is explaining to an Archivist that she envisions heaven as a door opening and her dead lover Hae-Joo walking through it, and as she narrates this the film cuts to the character Adam Ewing opening a door and seeing his lover Tilda, both of whom are Sonmi and Hae-Joo in former lives. And I just lose it.
The entire film is about people crossing each others' paths in one way or another over and over again through different lives and in different worlds. It paints a rather beautiful picture that everybody we come across in our life is bound to us and us to them for eternity, and at the end of each life we will meet again in the next. That girl you were too nervous to ask out? You may be married to her in another life. That friend who you've lost touch with? The two of you will battle aliens together side by side in a future lifetime. You know, probably.
It's neat to imagine that there's more to it after we die, like how some people believe in a heaven or a torturous afterlife of haunting houses. I like the idea that the end of every life starts a "do-over" in a later time. After all I think we can all agree that one lifetime just doesn't seem like enough to tap the full potential we all have inside of us, even though they somehow expect us to do that in four years of college.
Even if there isn't an eternity of reincarnation like that, it's still a comfort to know that our lives mean something in the grand scheme of things. I like watching movies and reading books where every single character has a purpose, and by "purpose" I don't mean comic relief or the fat one. A great writer, for film or for books, brings in other characters as they are needed to fulfill something the main character can't do alone. Once that something is complete, the character can either walk away or get horribly and unfairly killed (the latter seems the most popular these days). Still, that person did something before disappearing forever. No one else could come in and do that instead, it was a purpose designed solely for him or her. That's what I like to believe we are to this world.
Agent Smith gets it.
Because author David Mitchell isn't a prophet from the heavens as far as I know, I'm open to the idea that the Cloud Atlas thing isn't the end all explanation of the mysteries of life. Still, we as a species like to believe that our lives are being carefully planned by someone far more patient and with much better decision-making skills up above. Every bad thing that happens to us is a lesson, every wound makes us tougher, every Andrea means we won't get another Andrea.
I'm glad you're dead. We're all glad you're dead.
However, with hope also comes the possibility of no hope. Maybe this is it, these 80 or so years, and that's only if you don't get bumped off between then and now. What if there is no purpose or plan for us? That job interview you blew? You might blow the next one and the next one too without getting any better at it. That relationship that didn't work out? What if it's just the first of many more to come? Every failure could just be another failure with nothing to take away from it. When a tree falls in a forest without anyone to hear it, it makes a sound whether you're there or not. Maybe shit just happens and doesn't stop to think about what will happen next.
Of course that's all bullshit because we live in a world where this happened:
It's like a Doctor Who/Walking Dead/musical theatre fan fiction.
Someone had that idea, and someone else agreed to pay that person to film it, and now it's ours. So no matter what life throws at you or how big your eyes get for that bottle of sleeping pills, take solace in knowing that the entertainment industry will be there when God isn't.
Which brings me back to the beginning...somehow. This worked out nicely for this blog post. Gives it a nice circular fee--anyways, that brings us back to Cloud Atlas. One of the many, MANY themes of that movie is that our lives are not just for ourselves and that we affect others and they affect us, and this cycle does not stop at death but continues on into another life. I mean, Ben Whishaw's character (well, one of his characters) kills himself with the comfort that he will meet his lover again in "another world...a better world." That or he was quoting Morrissey.
If you've watched Lost, remember that scene in season 4 where we first see Daniel Faraday and he's watching that news report about Oceanic 815 and he starts crying? When his caretaker asks what's wrong, he replies, "I don't know." Daniel really doesn't know at the time but in his heart he's still sad. He just can't remember why because his mind has been fucked up by his many time travel experiments. Sometimes you hear a song that just gets to you even though the lyrics may not be relative, but for some reason it means something to you. Sometimes we meet people we either feel like we've met before or feel already connected to. Some people abuse that belief by using it as a pickup line but nevertheless it is a feeling I know you've had too.
That's Cloud Atlas in a nutshell, that whole feeling I just described. It's like deja vu but stronger. I think the reason I feel such a connection to this movie is because it gives me comfort that maybe that deja vu is more than just a feeling. If this means that I'll get to see the people I love again in future lifetimes and meet them all over again, that's quite a comforting feeling.
See you then,
Tyler
P.S. Who wants to see Guardians of the Galaxy with me?
In movies, television, and literature, there are great and complex villains who are every bit as interesting and sympathetic as the story's hero. Then there are the ones who are just plain shitty people, and when they get their comeuppance it gets a big "HELL YEAH" from we, the people.
Here are my five favorite instances of this:
5. Mrs. Carmody (The Mist)
The Mist, based on Stephen King's long-short story, concerns a group of townspeople trapped in a grocery store when a mysterious mist envelopes the town and brings deadly, flesh-eating monsters with it. One of these people is Mrs. Carmody, a heavily religious woman who immediately sees the catastrophe as the beginning of the apocalypse and that only the righteous will be saved while the evil are devoured by giant squids and spiders. You know, just like the bible says. Mrs. Carmody is instantly insufferable as she spouts religious warnings and begins to form an ever-growing group of followers who see her as a savior and bend to her will, no matter how crazy. Just how crazy, you ask? BATSHIT. Every time someone is injured doing something brave and heroic, she claims it's god's will. When a soldier explains the possible origin of the mist, she has her followers beat him and stab him and throw him outside to the monsters as a sacrifice. Her next sacrifice she decides will be the hero's 8 year-old son and when she sics her mob on them she is suddenly shot in the torso. Then a second time, in the MOTHERFUCKING HEAD!!! By none other than Dobbie the house elf!
The face of heroism.
People in the theater cheered and applauded when Carmody bit it and her killer suddenly became the audience's favorite character. At least, until he eats it too within the next two minutes. But TAKE THAT YOU OLD BAG!!! HELL YEAH!!! 4. Zachariah (Supernatural)
Seasons 4-5 of Supernatural involved the Winchester brothers trying to do more important stuff while the angels of heaven were just being dicks, and none of them was a bigger dick than Zachariah. I mean, just look at him. Look at that face. First he allows Lucifer to be set free so that the apocalypse can actually happen just so heaven can say they stopped the devil. Then he tortures Sam to get Dean to let the angel Michael possess his body - and by torture I mean he makes Sam's lungs disappear and gives Dean cancer. When the brothers are killed (temporarily) and sent to heaven, the asshole chases them around there too, not even letting them rest in peace. Every time the brothers tried to get something done Zachariah's dick face popped up to taunt them and make sarcastic remarks. Then finally in one episode, THIS HAPPENED:
FUCK YEAH!!!
Dean stabbed an angel blade RIGHT THROUGH HIS MOTHERFUCKING HEAD!!! Aw yeah dawg! Right up through the mouth! We had to put up with 2 WHOLE SEASONS of this douchebag! Granted, Zachariah was, in all senses, a neat villain. But DAMN did it feel good to see him go! HELL YEAH!!! 3. Karl Tanner (Game of Thrones)
Now I know there was a certain other death in Season 4 we all enjoyed, but as far as overall satisfaction with said demise this one just moreso met my needs.
The most recent of these deaths - occurring just this past Sunday - was that of Karl Tanner, the self-titled "Legend of Gin Alley." We first saw him in Season 3 when he led the Night's Watch into mutiny by murdering their host Craster and inciting a brawl that left their Lord Commander dead. Karl stepped into the leader role of his fellow mutineers and took over Craster's Keep, claiming the food, shelter, and the dead man's many wives/daughters (yes, they were the same. I know, ew) for his and his men's own vile purposes. Yeah, THAT. Karl was a braggart and an awful excuse for a human being. The first time we see him in Season 4 he is drinking wine out of the skull of his former commander, who we all liked. Then he captures other people we like and implies he's going to rape poor Meera, and he comes close to doing so when Jon Snow shows up with the not-so-mutinous members of the Night's Watch to take these assholes out. Karl proves he wasn't full of shit regarding his fighting abilities when Jon takes him on alone and is about to be done in by the evil skull-drinker when STAB! One of the women Karl had been abusing sinks a knife into the rapist's back. Karl turns on her to do something knife-related when suddenly:
AW SHEEIT!!!
Jon puts his sword Longclaw RIGHT through the back of Karl's head and OUT his GODDAMN MOUTH!!! Take that, Karl! HELL YEAH!!!
2. Cheese Wagstaff (The Wire)
Yeah, Method Man played Cheese. It's weird but it was good, too. So Cheese was never a tolerable guy in the least bit since his introduction in Season 2, but it was always fun to watch him fuck up. Of course, he was Proposition Joe's nephew so he was essentially untouchable by other dealers on the street. If not for that, Cheese would've gotten got a long time ago. Despite his uncle protecting him for all those years, Cheese didn't hesitate when given the opportunity to betray his uncle to Marlo Stanfield and move up in the drug dealing hierarchy. Joe is executed and Cheese gets promoted, and he doesn't feel a smidge of regret doing it. I mean, jesus man, Joe was FAMILY! That's just cold! Then in the show's series finale, an episode where so much bad happens, something wonderful takes place near the end. In a meeting about finding a new distributor, Cheese continues with his dickish ways by threatening one of his associates with a gun to the face when the man merely mentions his late uncle. Cheese goes off into a rant against that "back in the day shit" and makes a possible Goonies reference about how it's their time now when he is interrupted by a FUCKING BULLET TO THE HEAD!!! AW DAYUM!!!
That was Slim Charles who took the dick out. Charles has always just sort of been there on the sidelines, doing this and that for his superiors, and he always knew when to speak up and when to keep his mouth shut. When his boss Joe was killed, he knew it was Cheese, but still he kept quiet in order to survive. However, as that clip shows, every man has his breaking point. God bless you, Slim Charles. HELL YEAH!!! 1. The Yellow Bastard (Sin City)
Now my most satisfying end to a disgusting villain is one I'm sure few would argue against, as it was also one of the most talked about points in the movie. Long story short: handsome pedophile gets blown apart by Bruce Willis and is assumed dead. 8 years later he comes back after some weird-ass surgery that left him looking like a cross between a Simpsons and a Peanuts character to get revenge on Bruce Willis and the young girl he tried to rape back then, who now looks like Jessica Alba. Do I really need to say more than the words "pedophile" and "rapist" to make you hate this guy? Didn't think so. After some car chases and disgustingly stellar acting from Nick Stahl, the final showdown between Bruce Willis (did his character even have a name?) and the Yellow Bastard ends in perhaps the most satisfactory way possible: Bruce Willis pulls the Bastard's junk off with his BARE HANDS and then punches his head into mush. It's all pretty awesome. So HELL YEAH!!!
Whether it's television, film, or literature, everybody keeps track of their favorite characters. It's strange when you really think about it; it's like when we rank our favorite friends (oh you know you do that, don't act so self-righteous). What do we base our favoritisms on, though? What makes these specific people stand out as our favorites in the fictional adventure we're taken on? Well, I'm not here to answer that question.
When it comes to books our favorite characters may be judged by their actions throughout the story, or by their narration if told through their POV. Maybe we just relate to the characters more than some of the others. Even a minor character in a book can seem like an important one if his or her name is mentioned enough times in the text. They may physically only appear in a single chapter but if written well it can feel like they were present throughout the entire novel. Likewise in film and television, only in those cases it is mainly dependent on the skill of the actor cast in the role. Many fans' favorite characters are only recurring roles and sometimes they become so popular they get promoted to series regulars.
The following is a list of my favorite characters that fit this description: barely present but always there.
5. Walter O' Dim (Stephen King's The Dark Tower)
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
And with that simple sentence began the epic 8 book series written by Stephen King (and somewhat controversially, ended it as well). The man in question was Walter O' Dim, a man of many faces and identities who traveled across time and dimensions to cause chaos and destruction. He was a master manipulator and and a master of disguise. While he appeared in Stephen King's The Stand as the central villain under the guise of Randall Flagg, I'm only considering him based on his appearances in The Dark Tower where he played a central role but appeared for only brief moments at a time. His appearances can be broken down like this:
The Gunslinger - present in flashbacks as "Marten Broadcloak," but only appears in two actual scenes. The Drawing of the Three - mentioned in passing as "Flagg." The Waste Lands - appears in chapter near end as "Richard Fannin." Wizard and Glass - meets briefly with Eldred Jonas; confronts Roland briefly in final chapters. The Wind Through the Keyhole - appears to Tim as the Covenant Man briefly. Wolves of the Calla - revealed to have met with Callahan in a flashback. Song of Susannah - mentioned as having made bargain with Mia to birth Mordred. The Dark Tower - appears in only a single chapter.
While Walter has appeared in each book in some form or another, it doesn't seem like enough to consider him a prominent character. Particularly in the final book with his undoing occurring very early on, in which King reveals to us that the role we perceived O' Dim to play in the grand finale was never very important at all, and that he was never more than another underling of the ultimate villain the Crimson King. In another clever twist, it is the King's newest servant who disposes of Walter, effectively replacing him to accomplish what the former had failed to do.
Still, as little as Walter appeared, it was the mystery about the man that intrigued me and other readers I'm sure. He had so many aliases and disguises, the question we all had until his unpredictably-tragic end was: who was he, really? As was revealed in his final thoughts before death, for a time Walter had forgotten his real name too.
4. Badger (Firefly)
Badger appeared in only two episodes of the cancelled-too-soon Firefly as a criminal businessman who could be trusted as far as you could throw him. He appeared in an early scene of the series' pilot and again in the memorable episode "Shindig," both times hiring the Serenity crew for a job. While he is a minuscule man who seems more adept at delivering clever one-liners than attacking you, he is considered by the characters to be a very dangerous man.
As the series was cancelled after only 14 episodes, there was a lot of potential for the character left up in the air. Fans, however, took to the villain anyways and he is considered a fan favorite. This is largely due in part to actor Mark Sheppard's memorable portrayal of him and for how good he looked in a bowler hat. In the episodes he appeared in he wasn't even present for more than ten minutes total, yet the character came away from it all as if he had been in every episode. 3. The Man in Black (LOST)
While this character was the central villain of the entire season 6 of LOST, and while Terry O' Quinn did a damn fine job of playing him, I can't help but feel that the true Man in Black was portrayed by Titus Welliver. As was established in the episode "Across the Sea" the body we first see the Man in Black in was his actual human body before his soul was exiled from his physical form into what we came to know as the Smoke Monster. The Monster then simply possessed his former body but was no longer the same person.
We first see the Man in Black in the season 5 finale where he casually threatens his brother Jacob with murder (which he delivers on by the episode's end) and I must say that entire scene absolutely blew my mind. The audience had never seen these two before. We had heard Jacob mentioned by the Others and such as a leader-type figure, but the Man in Black was completely new to us (we didn't yet know he was the Smoke Monster we had been seeing all this time). Titus Welliver came into us Losties' lives with a vile charismatic swagger that seduced us into wanting to see more of him. Unfortunately, this was not to be, as the Man in Black assumed the form of the character John Locke for the remainder of the series. We were treated to only three total appearances of Welliver as the villain, all in flashbacks, but boy did they deliver. Welliver had a manner of speaking as the character that just made everything he said sound reasonable. You believe him when he speaks and you don't judge Richard Alpert for briefly aiding him or even when he tries to rejoin his side of the conflict years after the fact. In his origin story you feel pity for the Man as it becomes clear that all he wants is to be able to leave the island and to see what else the world has to offer while his mother and brother keep him there to rot. The Man in Black is obviously evil in how he uses others to get what he wants and kills those he has no use for, but in the end his justification does make sense. I think we as fans owe it to Welliver for making the villain's madness sound so reasonable in mere three episode presence. 2. Meg Masters (Supernatural)
Countless characters come and go throughout Supernatural, but there was always one in particular I always couldn't wait to see again until her eventual death, and that was Meg Masters. Meg was a girl possessed by a demon in the show's first season who acted as a sort of secondary antagonist to the bigger villain, the yellow-eyed demon Azazel. It seemed like she was done in for good when the Winchesters exorcised her from Meg's body but she returned in the second season to possess Sam for one episode. The brothers still referred to her as Meg and continued to do so when she reappeared in season 5 in a new body played by Rachel Miner, and this was where the character really started to take off. Maybe I'm just a sucker for brunettes, and we all know I'm a sucker for leather jackets, but this incarnation of Meg really caught my attention. It helped that she kicked the brothers' ass in the season's first episode, then returned halfway through the season in a memorable and tragic hellhound assault on the good guys. After that episode she wasn't seen again until the next season, after Lucifer's defeat and the years I like to call the "Supernatural Expanded Universe" (sorry y'all, I'm just a Kripke loyalist). Rachel Miner continued to play the flirtatious and vicious Meg to my delight and throughout the next couple of seasons the character slowly began to become an ally to the Winchester team, despite the obvious bad blood between them. Meg's story ends tragically (as all female characters on Supernatural do) when she is captured by demons during a mission and subsequently tortured for the majority of the next season, and just when we finally get to see her again she gets killed helping the brothers escape. Needless to say I was upset, as were many a fan of the show.
Now that all makes Meg seem like a pretty prominent player in the Supernatural universe, and she was, and Rachel Miner did such a phenomenal job reinterpreting the character that we just associate her with the character now, and she only appeared in 7 episodes. That's 7 episodes out of the whole 8 seasons the character was alive. I know! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? It may just be that she's my number 1 fandom crush, but when I think of Supernatural, she immediately comes to mind. 1. Brother Mouzone (The Wire)
When I ask fellow Wire viewers who their favorite characters were (and I do a LOT) Brother Mouzone always comes up on their lists. This character appeared only in four episodes of the second season (a season everybody but me forgets even happened) and three in the third, his final appearance. He wasn't even a native of Baltimore where the story takes place, he was a drug enforcer and hitman hired out of NYC by Avon Barksdale to ward off the Eastside dealers coming into the Westside territory. And boy did he. For a while. He got totally screwed when Stringer Bell, who wanted the Eastsiders to share in the West's territory (it's very complicated), went around his boss's back and deceived stick-up man Omar to take Mouzone out, claiming that he killed Omar's former boyfriend. Mouzone is nearly killed but Omar realizes he had been used and lets the man live. Mouzone returns the following season after leaving Baltimore for a time and forms an alliance with Omar to get revenge on Stringer for betraying both of them. And boy, do they get it.
That's it. That's all Mouzone does in the entire series. Still, we have Michael Potts to thank for playing him in such a mysterious and intriguing way. The man had beliefs that didn't falter for a second, he had traditions he followed to a T, and he wore a fucking bow tie. When he had his favorite Walther PPK in his hand you never knew what was about to happen.
So those are my five prime examples on how a character doesn't have to be seen too much for them to make an impact on a reader or viewer. Sometimes it just comes down to good writing and acting.
Thankee sai,
Tyler
P.S. Don't be afraid to like these when I post them on Facebook. Jeez, guys, you're making me feel unwanted.
For those of you who have followed my writings from Day 1 - and even those who are just tuning in - you've probably been wondering as much as I have just what the hell this blog is supposed to be about. Well, if I may quote what a wise man from my childhood once said:
Fortunately I still have a lot of time left in my life to figure that out, and you really shouldn't care that much anyway. But if you do care, well, gee thanks! I think I like you. And because of people like you, I think I have found a topic to maybe stick with when writing these blog posts: WRITING.
If you're all true fans (okay let's face it, the only ones reading this are my friends) or remember previous posts such as this one or that one then you know how much I like to write fictional stories. It's a sickness, really. I spend more time thinking about characters and plot developments during the day than I do anything. If I brainstormed that stuff any harder I might even forget I'm supposed to breathe. Especially when it comes to the characters. See, I like reading books where the characters seem like real people to me. I don't mean I have to know their entire backstory or whether their carpet matches the drapes, I just need to spend enough time with the people so that eventually everything they do feels natural and right.
J.K. Rowling has been the most successful in this area in my opinion, particularly when it came to my favorite book in the Harry Potter series: The Order of the Phoenix. A lot of people like to knock this book but it was my favorite. Why? Because it's where things really begin to unfold. Harry starts the book off pissed at his friends because he feels they'd abandoned him. On top of that is the knowledge that there's an evil wizard overlord (I do NOT get to type that phrase enough in my life) out to wear him as a coat and he's got wizard SATs to study for and distracting him from all of that important stuff is his hots for the Asian chick in his class. While I personally would've gone for the Patil twins myself, Harry's dilemmas for the first time in the whole series felt real. You know before the wand battles.
I mean, who's reading the books for those?
Not only that, but the characters around Harry begin to act more real and natural, maybe as a result of Harry's sudden maturing portrayal. Anytime Luna Lovegood has a line of dialogue I'm like, "Oh Luna, you would say that!"or anytime Neville's being a doofus I find it endearing, whereas I used to be more like, "Neville you stupid motherfucker!" This isn't only limited to the younger characters either. Every character in the series, whether you know a lot or a little about them, it's the time you spend with them and you getting used to them being around that makes it hurt so much when Rowling just rips them away from you with her death powers. Yeah sure you cried when you killed Lupin and Tonks. Just keep telling us that you heartless quim.
That got heated near the end. Also I apologize for the use of the word "quim," and for stealing that joke from The Curious Case of Phineas Gage. Funny play, btw.
So yes, as I perhaps too-lengthily explained I appreciate a good character who I can identify with and feel like I know personally. And I like creating characters like that so that I too can murder them in unfair and brutal ways with nothing you can do to save them. The problem is, doing that is hard. Not the killing, that's easy. It's just typing. I mean inventing these people and then writing them in a way that it feels like they're existing through you rather than you just pulling their strings. Unfortunately no amount of outlining your character will prepare you to do this properly. In fact, avoid outlining anything if you can help it. Notes are for people who aren't in it. If you're truly gonna commit to a story, you shouldn't need reminders on what happens next.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using so-called "stock characters." You can have "ringleader," "samurai," and "archer" in your group of heroes if you want. If you want them to act and talk like normal people, though, you need to surround them with non-stock characters. These "more real" characters, by interacting with the stockers, will help them grow and evolve realistically by default. Now how do you come up with real, original characters in a time where originality is almost nonexistent? It's, like, SO hard, man. So what I like to do sometimes is choose from my pool of real life acquaintances.
I know many interesting and unique people, and if they have characteristics or personality traits that I really like then I plop them down into the world of my story. I often change their names, but sometimes a person is so distinct that I just can't separate them from their real names. In these cases I ask that person if it's alright to base a character on them and they pretty much always say yes. I mean, who doesn't want a character based on them, assuming that character doesn't turn out to be an asshole?
Now if I ever decide to write a character based on any of you I know, here are some answers to your potential FAQ:
--------
Would you use my real name?
I may want to use your first name, but never your last name. And if I do want to use your name I will always ask beforehand for your consent.
So this is gonna be me running around in this story?
Not exactly. When I say the person's based on you it could mean I just needed a name and a face as a starting point for the character's development. I may use some personality traits of yours but you should never assume that this character is a representation of what I really think of you or how you would act in certain situations. In fact in most cases by the end the character hardly even resembles the person I originally based him or her on anymore. All things serve the story and none of it should be taken personally. And don't hate me if I kill you off.
Yeah, I don't think I want you to use my name.
That's not really a question, but okay, that's no problem. I'll give them a different name.
I don't want them to be anything like me either.
Well I can't help that they're a little like you anymore. I already changed the name so what more do you want, blood?
Yes.
See, now this is why the character comes off as an asshole.
--------
And you get the idea. Characters are the driving force in a story and often what makes the story feel as real as it should. Life is full of people and characters who affect you day to day, and the world of fiction operates similarly. If you can introduce a little reality into fiction, then it'll become real to the reader.
I will also be accepting applications for people to base my next characters off of so all interested should apply.
Pura vida,
Tyler
P.S. Maybe someday I'll be published and actually be qualified to say the shit I'm saying.
Nah he doesn't, that was just to reel you in. But he does kill Daryl.
I bet you all thought (hoped) I was done blogging! Again! But alas I get bored and twiddling my thumbs and mastur...I mean reading can only make the days go by so fast. I don't even really remember when it was I last posted but I've been itching to get back in the game. Since we last spoke I completed some more shows, my favorite of which was Dog Sees God in which I played a teenage germophobe version of Pigpen of the Peanuts gang. It was great, I got to act like a douchebag, perform various forms of pelvic thrusting, and beat up a gay kid. You know, smalltime stuff.
This happened at some point too.
Since then I've been taking a theatre break and have been attempting to rediscover what my life was like before I filled my plate with a marathon of shows. Turns out I have little to no life, so I've been trying to read and write more, which brings us to this blog post. I tried and failed to complete a 50,000 word novel for last fall's NaNoWriMo (that's "National Novel Writing Month" for the squares out there), coming up about 30,000 words short. Doing a show and changing story ideas halfway through the month kind of slowed me down. But now I'm trying to finish what I started by completing that novel and then shopping it to some publishers before inevitably self-publishing it, which will likely require a Kickstarter so all of you should remember all of the nice things I've done for you and how I always write on your Facebooks for your birthdays for when that time comes.
You're welcome for this rare pic of Mustache Tyler as well.
I was saying something...
So I'm trying really hard to finish this story which I think is really good, but we'll know for sure when my test reader gets finished with the first 60 pages I gave her. Now that I'm back in a writing groove though, I'm beginning to pick back up all of the tricks and strategies I used to use in order to keep myself committed. I'll gladly share some of these tips that work for me and may help any of you fellow aspiring writers. Here's the list:
1. Anna Kendrick
2. Katy Perry
3
Whoops, wrong list! Here's the right one, in no particular order.
1. Make a playlist
I use music for a lot of my inspiration, so one of the first things I do, and sometimes during the process, is compile a playlist of songs on iTunes that make me think of certain characters or events in the story I'm writing. This way these things are always on my mind if I'm driving or somewhere I'm unable to write.
2. Have something to drink
This doesn't necessarily mean alcohol, although a cold beer certainly isn't a bad choice. I just like to have something else to do while I'm focusing, and reaching for a bottle or a mug also keeps your hand doing a different motion other than typing. It's like a very brief break, and refilling gives you something to do for when you get stuck.
3. Listen to instrumental music
Film scores are my usual go-to for background music, but video game scores as well as classical music have also been very helpful. I can't work in silence but I also get distracted by lyrics, so this music is the most ideal.
4. Careful how often you read while working on something
Look, we all love reading. It's second nature to most of us. But if you find yourself too into a book while you yourself are trying to write one, you may find yourself copying that author's style, and in some cases, entire plot points. Always remember that every author is different and you'll gain nothing by doing what they did before.
5. Explain to your friends and family to leave you be
I'm still working on this one. Writing is work that requires great concentration, and once you fall out of a groove it's a slippery slope to get back on it. When somebody walks into your room while you're in the middle of writing, you may as well have your dick in your hand because you feel like your entire universe of privacy was just upended. Writing is basically masturbation of the mind and should be treated as such by those who interrupt you in the middle of it.
6. Become your characters
This was easier when I had more time to myself during the day, but it's a trick I came up with myself - a way to use my acting skills to boost my writing. Writing your characters, especially in POV situations, requires you to get inside their heads and think like them. Success in this results in better dialogue and natural character and plot development. I simply take 5 to 10 minutes - or more - and improvise a scene to myself as my character, acting out a conversation or an inner monologue, sometimes performing an action. Afterwards I can sit down and write practically a whole novel about that one character. And speaking of characters...
7. Plan major deaths in advance
If I really like a character in my story, I usually find ways around letting them die in certain perilous events, even if their purpose to the story has been served and they've become just bodies that talk sometimes. But the death that stung me the most in my writings came from a character whose entire purpose in the story was to die. I had a scene planned where two characters would be talking and mention that this one guy had been killed off-page. So I introduce this character for the sole intent of having him die later. I realize the main character needs a best friend for those scenes and so soon-to-be-dead guy gets promoted to "best friend." When I rewrote that whole story a few years later I intentionally gave the soon-to-be-dead a little more page time, but then somewhere along the way I gave him a love interest. It wasn't long before this character had entire chapters devoted to him and his personal life. He had now become a main character. However, his death scene still lingered on the horizon, and with my ending to the story already planned and unchangeable, he just could not be wedged into the grand finale. There was just no room for him. So I stuck to my guns and killed him when the time came. And it HURT.
8. Before having a writer look it over, have a reader do it
If you think you've got a good amount of a rough draft finished, or even just a few chapters, your natural instinct may be to send it to one of your writer friends so they can tell you how much it sucks. While you may get constructive criticism in return, it can sometimes seem like your writer friends are only telling you how they would have done it. I'm just saying there's a reason Stephen King and J.K. Rowling don't swap rough drafts, or Harry Potter would have a lot of unnecessary sex and King's stories might actually have happy endings. I'm trying something new this time around and sending what I have to 1 or 2 friends who are simply avid readers. This way I can know if my story is worth a damn before I send it off to my writing kin to work out the more technical bugs.
9. Make lists. Lots and lots of lists
This one is a bit vague but it's been extremely helpful for keeping me in my story universe. I make lists of characters in the story, list major events, list orders of character deaths (I kill people a lot), and my favorite is usually a dream cast list for what actors would play certain characters in the inevitable film adaptation.
10. Outlines are not Commandments
I don't often like writing outlines but sometimes I need to in order to keep my more epic undertakings straight. However I try not to have too many specifics in mind when drawing it up. I may write things like: "Chapter 1 - they walk in the woods/ character development occurs" or "Chapter 30 - John dies." Just small descriptions about what HAS to happen, but leaving plenty of room for improvisation. For example I had a chapter where two characters are just chased, and they had to escape somehow but unfortunately I wrote their pursuers as too good at their job and found myself stuck with them. After a lot of thinking and pacing around the kitchen, I stuck in some giant crabs and WHAMMY they were saved! It'll make more sense if you read the story. But the lesson is that if you just make yourself an outline that details every little thing, what fun are you going to have writing it? You'll basically just be reporting events and you will be bored, and bored writing = boring reading.
I think 10 is a good number to stop on, but lord knows I could give out tips all day. It just felt good to write another post again. I wouldn't be expecting these too frequently though, if you happen to be a fan/good friend who just reads out of pity. If I think of something that I just need to write down in longwinded and vulgar-filled essays, you'll see another post soon. But until then,
Say auf wiedersehen to your Nazi balls,
Tyler
P.S. And happy writing to my fellow writers out there!
All right, first off, shut up! I'm aware I haven't posted anything in like months. If you want to read the blog so bad then you write it! What's that? Oh, you didn't even notice the blog stopped? Well then, urm...sorry I yelled.
Now, I've mentioned throughout the blog's existence how last fall I was offered the opportunity to work as a property master on a film being produced by the SyFy Channel being filmed in Buffalo, NY. So yeah I like totally said yeah. I got to experience what it was like working on a (semi) legit film set, meet some relatively well-known actors, and see stuff I helped with end up in the final cut of the film. That all sounds nice, which is why that's all I usually tell people when describing my experience. I feel I've made enough distance in time to really look back on that time and tell an honest tale about the making of the film Battledogs. If curious, the film can be watched on Netflix instant stream. And you might see a familiar face in the background of the 13:14 mark.
Having never seen a film set except in DVD special features, I had only a vague idea of what to expect. The reality was much weirder than I had anticipated. It was pretty cool getting to read a film script before anything production-wise had been completed. I was reading everything with a fresh mind, with my own cast of actors visualized as the characters including Rosario Dawson, Robert Wisdom, Kevin McKidd, and Michael Emerson to name a few. Sadly, none of them were in the actual cast, but that's not to say the real cast was not (mostly) impressive.
I probably should've started this section off by saying the script for the then-titled Ward's Island read like absolute shit. I wasn't even sure who the main character was supposed to be until I was about halfway through it. Every major plot point seemed to be resolved with a good old-fashioned chase scene. Seriously, there were a lot, lot of chase scenes. My job, however, was not to criticize this B-movie but to read through and make notes of props or set pieces we would need to make happen.
All of the major props, weapons and such were mainly already purchased by the production staff, and our art department (a whopping three of us) were responsible for everything else. The film was being distributed by The Asylum, but we worked directly with a smaller company called Infectious Films. I don't want to say anything negative about anyone but even they would have to admit that working together was a challenge in and of itself. If my bank account matched the budget we had to work with I'd be broke within a few months, even with income. Also, some of the props the script called for were things that were quite difficult to get a find in Buffalo, resulting in entire scenes being re-blocked and re-written.
Who would've guessed these would be so hard to get a hold of?
You know what, though? We powered through it and we worked every day of the two weeks of pre-production we got (that's not a lot, by the way) and when the first day of shooting came we were...not even close to being ready. As it turned out I had no idea what I was doing, I was only there because my friend invited me to join the film crew. I learned that my job was basically, when not being yelled at by the director, to stand around and wait for an actor to need a gun. Actually, it was more like stand around and try and guess when the actor needed the gun, because it seemed like neither the actors nor the director knew either.
Speaking of guns, safety was super strict on this set and, despite the weapons mainly being Airsoft rifles, weapon safety rules still applied. Actors were not allowed to point them at anyone and keep their fingers off the triggers of the unloaded toy guns. Yeah, even the fucking Nerf gun. There was one real gun among the props, though, and it had its firing pin removed. Any time the gun was taken out of its protective case I had to gather everyone around and explain that the gun was real and not to be played with. That I understood because it was technically a weapon. Same with the real dart gun and the spark gun we got later on. Yeah, blanks were apparently outside the budget so we got this handgun that fires off electric sparks that sound like a really quiet gun.
As for the rest of the props, we had to use a lot of our own stuff. My passport and laptop are seen clearly in the movie, as well as my car. Anything else we needed we ended up borrowing from the on-set medic. I blame all the fucking hospital scenes in the script.
My laptop was the best actor in this scene.
I liked the director of the film as a director. Even as a person I appreciated that he managed to never hold a grudge against anyone who fucked up. This was good, because I fucked up a lot. He was a very precise person, and even a minor detail being off would set him off. I had myself a new asshole ripped when an actress, who was supposed to be holding her camera in a scene, had it hidden in a bag, making it not line up with a later scene. There were a lot of days like that, including a day when we couldn't get a hold of television monitors for a, you guessed it, hospital scene. There was about half a day wasted because of that.
He expected a lot from us despite the budget we had and the limited control we were given over things we should've been entirely in control of, but looking back I'd say he was justified considering he was trying to make a god damn movie while the universe seemingly did everything in its power to keep that from happening.
The downtime was the best part of the process. There was very little of it, but every once in a while we just had nothing to do while the cameras were rolling on something else. My favorite was a day where they filmed a boat chase (don't get me started on how stupid boat chases are and should be banned from film) and once I gave the actors the props and guns they'd need for the scenes, the boats and cameras took off to film and we were left to dick around on land. I found myself getting along with the extras and the production assistants the best, the two groups who usually get shit on the most during filming. I had been feeling pretty shit on myself so naturally there was a connection. The extras seemed to like me too since, as one actor put it, I was actually nice to them. Do you know what extras have to put up with? They arrive at the beginning of the work day, wait around, and maybe get on camera. Sometimes they don't even get to do anything. And they're not allowed to get lunch at the buffet until all of the main crew and cast have gotten their plates. That's some bullshit f I ever saw it.
On the subject of actors, let's talk about the cast:
Craig Sheffer as Major Brian Hoffman
Craig might be most familiar with fans of One Tree Hill where he played Uncle Keith, or his younger years where he starred in A River Runs Through It opposite Brad Pitt. As the protagonist of the film, I would say they chose well by casting Craig. His performance was honest, likable, and he's got that everyman look to him we can root for. As a person he's a lot of fun to be around, always cracking jokes and not taking anything too seriously, except of course for his acting. He was probably the most professional actor in the entire film, which is saying something considering the familiar names you're about to see.
Dennis Haysbert as General Monning
Haysbert is immediately recognizable as the man with the deep voice in those Allstate ads ("Are you in good hands?"), as well as playing President Palmer on 24. The film marketed the shit out of Dennis as he was the most familiar name in the cast, so much so that the mayor of Buffalo requested a special visit to the set to meet him. His adorers all assumed he was playing the hero of the film, when in fact he was the villain. Dennis was an interesting person. He's like seven feet tall and could crush your skull in one enclosed fist, while at the same time he comes off as a man who was dropped into this world without an instruction booklet. I noticed while watching him work that he does not so much "act" as he just says his lines in that deep, earth-shattering voice of his, and it still come off as acting. That's when he actually knows his lines, at least, which he hardly ever did. I have serious doubts he even read the script beforehand. However, he was also a joker off-camera, playing his character as from the ghetto and awing us with Darth Vader impressions.
Ariana Richards as Donna Voorhees
Ariana played the young girl Lex in Jurassic Park and the love interest in Angus. I wish I had more to say about her but, as she hardly used any props I did not spend much time around her. She held my passport in the film, though. As far as her performance goes, she didn't really convince me she was this daredevil adrenaline junkie the script insisted her character was. It was a very plain performance. Perhaps this was a result of miscasting, but I believe it had more to do with the underwriting of the script.
Wes Studi as Col. Falcons
Let me start off by saying Wes Studi is the fucking man! I remember my excitement when I read the call sheet for the next day, turned to my friend and said breathlessly, "Wes Studi's in this movie?" Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, The Sphinx in Mystery Men, the Nav'i chieftain in Avatar, along with work in films like Heat, The Doors, and The New World, I'd seen this guy in SO many movies that he was a celebrity to me. When he first arrived on set and stepped out of his car I literally froze. But enough sucking his dick already, Wes was awesome. His character's only personality trait was "henchman" so he really didn't have much to work with, so he made up for that by being an absolute badass. He was a quiet man off-camera but he had some interesting stories, like how the one person from Mohicans he keeps in touch with is the guy whose heart he cuts out in the film. Their families have Thanksgiving together. Also, Wes Studi loves playing with toy guns. Anytime the director was talking to the cast or he had nothing to do, you could see Wes aiming his rifle around and squeezing the trigger making gun noises with his mouth. He pulled a Ewan McGregor a few times by making the "Pew!" noise with his mouth during takes.
Ernie Hudson as Max Stevens
I can't believe I can't find a picture of Ernie from the film, but this one will have to do. Ernie was a Ghostbuster, and that's all you really need to know if you don't (but you SHOULD). He also turned out great performances as the lead in the HBO series Oz, and the films Congo and The Crow. Unfortunately he was another case of an actor not using a lot of props so I hardly interacted with the man at all, not even to tell him how bummed I was when he died in Oz's penultimate episode, or to act out Congo quotes in front of him. Alas. Anyway, I was surprised they cast him in this role because even in the script it was a very small supporting part, and his character has a really lame death scene halfway through and then we're forced to watch the rest of the film without him. His performance was honestly a highlight of the finished product, despite how obvious it was that Mr. Hudson was simply phoning this one in for his next paycheck.
Bill Duke as President Donald Sheridan
Bill Duke is most recognizable from Predator as the black guy that wasn't Carl Weathers, and he played an intimidating prison warden in an episode of Lost. I unfortunately don't see him come up enough in film casts, but his performance was definitely among the strongest in the film. Particularly his monologue as he regretfully approves a city-wide nuking to contain the lycanthropy. Though again he required absolutely no props, my friend and I got the chance to sit down and talk with him briefly while we prepared something for the next scene. He is the absolute nicest man I've ever met, period. He may look tough and sleepless, but the man is as friendly as can be.
Other actors and actresses included Kate Vernon of Battlestar Galactica as Dr. Gordon; Benjamin James from Two-Headed Shark Attack and a memorable episode of 1,000 Ways to Die as Corporal Parkins; Darin Cooper from The Social Network and an episode of Monk as Secretary Woods; and horror movie scream queen Debbie Rochon in a one-line cameo as a SWAT team leader. Getting to meet and see the work of these many talented people made the entire process worth it in the end. I even managed to get myself on screen in the background of an early scene as an infected person (13:14 mark, walking arm-in-arm with a girl behind Craig and Ariana). I also acted as a stand-in for a helicopter pilot in one scene with Wes Studi but I wasn't even remotely visible in the shot. I sat in to play Wes's thigh in another helicopter scene and the jury's still out on whether that's actually my leg in the final cut or not.
The film premiered on the SyFy Channel this past April and...I can't say I was too impressed. I feel the film really suffered in the editing process, as some deleted scenes included details or dialogue that was referenced by characters later on in the film, creating some confusion. It was always going to be a bad movie, but I found the end result to be bad in a bad way, not in an awesome, Sharknado-bad way. It's not very rewatchable. Maybe it's because I watched it all get made and had a hand in a lot of it, but the film didn't seem to fit together right to me. It was a lot of fun telling my family and others all about the making-of process while the film was going on, though, and pointing out the "cool ones" in the cast. There's also a drinking game just waiting to be played involving seeing the same extras from scene-to-scene, despite them dying in almost all of their appearances.
So that's my tale. I feel I've told it truthfully. I don't think I'll ever attempt to work on a film set again unless I've got a real handle on my job and how to do it, but I appreciate the opportunity my friend and the production crew gave me nonetheless. I am now officially on IMDb and in the credits of a film. If you're curious or just want to me my infamous walking-in-the-background scene, get on Netflix and look for Battledogs.
[Disclaimer: spoilers for the film "Cloud Atlas," The Dark Tower book series, and the television series "Lost."]
I've been very open about my not having a religion, never quite fitting the system of any existing organized beliefs group. My one true and honest belief in this world is that believing something does not make it right or so, but it says everything about who one is as a person. Religion is good when it is used the right way, to cope with the hardships of life and to feel that everything has a purpose. I think that religion's main purpose is to console us from the great mystery at the end of our roads: death. It is the one place we cannot come back from and tell our friends and family about. What is after life?
That is a trailer for one of my favorite films, "Cloud Atlas." I cannot recommend enough that you watch the movie if you haven't, but the trailer sets up what I'm about to say just fine. Throughout the film we are introduced to multiple characters across six different stories. The trick of the film is that the same actors carry over into each others' stories portraying different people. What the film stresses in many of the character cases, though, is that they are the same or similar people each time. Similar traits are exhibited repeatedly by the characters played by Tom Hanks, especially. Whereas the characters of actors Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant are consistently villainous -- in fact becoming less and less human the farther we go into the future of the timeline -- Tom Hanks's characters show a natural and necessary growth. The first chronological story, "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing," has Hanks as Dr. Henry Goose, a thieving and treacherous doctor who slowly poisons Jim Sturgess's Ewing while feigning treatment on him. Goose is after Ewing's gold, and is seen pilfering items off of Ewing's person throughout the process. When next we see Hanks he is a hotel manager who allows Ben Wishaw's character a room if he gives him his decorated vest in exchange. He is seen admiring the buttons of the vest, just as Goose admired and stole the buttons off of Ewing's vest in the previous story. A later segment shows Hanks as an Irish gangster character whose brief scene involves him murdering a literary critic. The final story has Hanks as Zachry, a native man who is a coward, allowing his brother-in-law to be killed by savages when he could have intervened. We still see the temptations of a thief in Zachry throughout the story, but in the end he finds his courage and saves the life of his niece. For the most part, Hanks's character is on a journey of redemption over the course of the film's timeline, constantly being reborn until he can achieve his full and true purpose in the world. The villainous Henry Goose becomes the heroic Zachry in the end.
What the film describes is a belief that every single person in the world has a purpose, a standard to achieve. It just sometimes takes multiple lifetimes to reach that potential. The television series "Lost" touched upon this subject matter with the character of Jacob, an immortal man who uses his mystical powers to guide people of certain character to his island where they are given the chance to redeem any past sins and achieve their true purpose in life. However, Jacob's experiments are constantly foiled by his brother, The Man in Black, who dedicates himself to proving Jacob wrong and that humanity is doomed and people cannot change.
"They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same," The Man in Black tells his brother.
Jacob calmly replies, "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."
Unlike his brother, Jacob always looks for the best in people. He looks at every failure as progress towards the eventual success.
Stephen King writes on the topic of repeated chances over the course of many lifetimes in his massive fantasy series The Dark Tower. At the end of the final novel, after hero Roland's ka-tet (fellowship) have all been killed or sent away, he finally reaches the giant and omnipotent Dark Tower, to which he had been guided towards his entire life. Upon reaching the top, however, and opening the final door, he is suddenly struck with brief deja vu. He realizes too late that he had reached the tower before, hundreds of times or more, and he is transported through the doorway to where he was at the very start of the series: in the middle of a desert following his foe, The Man in Black (not to be confused with the aforementioned character on "Lost"). Roland has no memories of the adventure we read about over the course of seven books, and he picks up exactly where we started with him. This time, however, he has an item he did not have before: the horn of his childhood friend and fellow gunslinger Cuthbert, lost when the latter was slain in battle. The horn here signifies that Roland has made progress in his ultimate quest, but he still has many more lifetimes to repeat until he does it all right. Every failure or poor choice he makes along the way to the Tower curses him to repeat it all again at the end. We as the readers never learn whether Roland is ever free from this terrible cycle, but by giving Roland his late friend's horn King shows us a glimmer of hope that Roland is on his way.
The belief that we repeat ourselves over and over again across distant lifetimes and even universes is about as close to a religious belief that I get. Life is simply too short to get everything done, too brief to really discover who we are and what we are fully capable of. There is only one true ending ahead of us, one that transcends even death, and I believe that we are slowly but surely working towards it. Only when we do will we find peace and satisfaction in life, and eventually, in death too.
"I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there,"
Tyler
