Be Brave with Your Fear

Did you ever want to tell the story after the story, but you decided that you couldn't because beginning at that point requires an emotional investment in the characters from the audience for it to mean anything to them? Did you ever want to have an event in your story that seems arbitrary, but has a good reason behind it, it's just that you can't tell it too early or you will spoil it? Did you ever want to tell a story in chronological order, but you couldn't because no one would stick with it long enough for the right things to happen to make for a great pay off later on? Did you ever want to tell a very subtle story, but it was just too much effort to build in everything to grab and keep audience and not leave the subtlety lost in the clutter? There are a dozen more questions like this that can be asked. There are dozens of variations on each and every one of them.

Some of these scenarios have resolutions. They can be conquered. The first question is do you want to surmount the obstacle? Sometimes the question is are you brave enough to embark on such a challenge? Will you stick with it or give in when the pressure becomes too much? The worst pressure may come from within. Just like last week I'm asking you to consider what happens when we break from script and do something different rather the same old thing--whether the same old thing is bad in the first place, or especially if it does work already. It's one thing to jettison a failed idea, to not repeat bad execution, but what if the thing are you looking to replace always works, gets certain people going, and ultimately is what will definitely sell to some fraction of the desired audience? You might ask who am I to do these things. I may be the one to do them or not, but I am here advocating them to others.

Are you going to do such a thing now? Be brave; be bold. If you are telling your stories and getting them in front of people, no matter how many or few, then you are already one of the brave. Look at the positives. Turn negatives around into positives. Think big even if you're doing it by thinking small. Bring the excitement whenever you can, as hard as you can. Go now and be the object of fear--not the recipient--tell your stories. Remember to scare them silly and leave them panting for more. I'll leave you to it.

Mood: invigorated.
Music: You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night) by Meat Loaf and Brave New World by Iron Maiden.

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Tired Trope Kick-out

I was watching what was a great series of horror shorts when one of the pieces comes out of the blue with an excessively overused trope that I am really sick of seeing. You know it very well too I bet. A person has information that could help the police once they get past the fact that it is a supernatural perpetrator. This in and of itself is not a story problem even as often I've seen it. Now, this informant meets with the detective on the case and starts in about how the detective will think the informant is crazy. Mistake number one. Certainly the informant is intelligent enough to know that it's hard to believe so why don't they think ahead to find a way around that? This is way too often made worse by how the informant came into this information about the supernatural, which is a part of the trope--and the worst of it all--that there was a previous case involving just such a modus operandi as the current crimes.

In the particular case of this series there is a further bit of information. The informant knows about the particulars not only because of the previous case, but also because a relative was directly involved in the old investigation. Yet, the informant never does what any reasonably intelligent mammal would do and start off the conversation with "Hi, my name is Clara and I have something to tell you about your case because my deceased grandfather was a crime scene photographer and I found old case files that seem just like what I saw in the news papers." No, instead the conversation goes, "You'll think I'm crazy... there's something unnatural going on... the victims eyes are missing..." and the detective immediately has suspect number one right in front of him because no one not on the case is supposed to know anything about the missing eyes.

Instead, why can't script writers--I have no idea if this trope is repeated in novels but I have to imagine it is--sidestep this tired, and frankly pretty lame from the first instance whenever that was trope? What happens if this and other overused plot devices are put aside? How will the stories differ? Sometimes movies with tongue firmly planted in cheek, or with an attitude that all of their competition sucks flaunt these ideas. Sometimes they even knock these scenarios with flare and style. Not all tropes are bad, just like stereotypes. The word trope itself refers to different things with the meaning I have here being in line with the idea of "TV tropes" rather than traditional literary tropes. I'm personally fond of a trope I like to call "heritage speaking" where intelligent, somewhat socially awkward, characters speak as if they come from an older time period, but it is instead actually a matter of their family's status and its link to stuffy archaic thought and speech.

Mood: breezy.
Music: Phantom of the Opera by Iron Maiden and The Phantom Opera Ghost by Iced Earth.

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Scheduling for the 2010 Remainder

Hi, it's been just a few days since I completed this year's thirteen special nights of Hallowe'en. Normally I take a bit of a break, something of a hiatus. Not so much this year. At the same time I am not planning to be up to much here. That said I thought it would be a good idea to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated in the movie nights, and especially everyone who helped spread the word. Thank you.

If you even need to know when the next entry is scheduled for this blog you can always check out the Dead Days Calendar(TM) on Battered Spleen Productions' main page. For November I've penciled in the 10th and the 24th. December is undecided, but is also a sparsely populated month blog-wise. One of those entries will be a small gift guide--likely the first week so people have time to shop. Otherwise I do not know what will happen until closer to then. Cheers.

Mood:
Music: Punched In The Teeth By Love by Motley Crue and Wanted Dead Or Alive by Bon Jovi.

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