Looking Back at 2009

It's February, but since this is the first entry of the year to this blog I would like to say, Happy New Year. I thought this year that I would begin all of my blogs with two particular articles. The first is a look back at 2009 and the highlights of the year. The second is a look forward at some of the things that I want to talk about in 2010. One of the perennial series of entries in these dark corners is the annual 13 Nights of Hallowe'en. In 2009 all of the movies were my favourites. Most recently I wrote a couple of role-playing game themed articles that are useful for creating characters for any media. Still in the RPG vein there were articles about game changing alterations to settings, such as travel times and instant communication, which can have massive impact on a number of fronts even outside of gaming.

At one point in the year there was a bit of a lengthy look at changing perspectives, and perspectives versus reality on several levels. That got into the realities that we surround ourselves in and they way that it affects, well, everything. Those perspective shifts work their way beyond our view of the world and they effect our interactions with everyone--a handy understanding for writing. Another topic that surfaced with a need to be covered by more than one entry was a look at where publishing is going and where the writer can take their work as new paradigms emerge. There I likened one of the possible experiences, with only text being a requirement, to extras and deleted scenes on a DVD. That plays into my favourite topic of taint, which comes up now and again and will continue to do so.

It’s hard to forget as well that at the beginning of 2009 there were the last couple parts of Anatomy of a Horror Setting #3 about mixing the horror and sci-fi genres. That of course was followed by all of Anatomy of a Horror Setting #4, which looked at combining horror and fantasy moving from the typical medieval European fantasy settings up to Industrial Era settings. The rest of the series of course was a part of 2008. The whole set of them are still on my list to be lengthened, re-edited, and turned into a book. It was both easy and hard to devote so many weeks to a small set of topics and examine all of the angles. It was easy in that I knew one week to the next what I writing about and hard to come up with some of those angles and try to keep some kind of order in the progression.

Mood: progressive.

Music: Music: This Day We Fight! by Megadeth and Hitchin' A Ride by Green Day.

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What Is Not There Now Is

Last week the discussion revolved around footnotes, endnotes, and other forms of annotation possible with e-books.  It ended with mention of DVD-style extras, such as deleted scenes, and ancillary information in novels.  The first question the idea of deleted scenes being shipped out with a book is why?  If the scene was worthy of inclusion in the book why is it not directly included?  There are a few reasons for this.  In writing circles there is something referred to as killing your darlings.  It is something that comes in up when authors are asked about how they write, and editors in what they do beyond error checking and sprucing up with a word change here and there.  It refers to cutting out your favourite scenes in your books because though they are cool they do not serve a purpose.

The caveat usually missing from these discussions is that there have to be many times where an author's favourite, darling, scene does serve a purpose and thus would not be cut out.  In general there is a second flaw to these discussions; the usefulness of scenes is equated to the plot.  Not every scene needs to be important to the plot and were it so things such character development and defining important parts of the setting would be neglected unless they added to the plot immediately.  Pacing is another factor that can be important rather than focusing the direction of everything toward the plot in what is usually an increasing frenzy.  Raising the bar on tension and action is a powerful tool for an author but contrast and breathing space shouldn't be neglected either.

Beyond non-plot involvement these deleted scenes may have been deleted because they affected the pacing of the story.  Movies often cut scenes to fit a specific run time, or because they slow down the pace.  On a different tangent the events showed too much too soon, were too intense, or otherwise were better suited until later in the narrative, but of course are tied to events in their original position.  These deleted scenes are included in the extras because the director likes them.  They are interesting or they add a new dimension to the story.  Dimension adding options can include features like sub-plots, and bits of characterisation not pertinent to the plot.  Come back next week and get closer to the answer to why include these scenes outside of the natural flow of the story?

Mood: even.

Music: Hallucinate by Def Leppard and Mama Weer All Crazee Now by Quiet Riot.

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Initial Stages of a Yearning for More

Let's talk about e-books and what can be done with them that can't with dead tree books.  Let's start with that first, it's been quite some time that I have been referring to them as dead trees, not just out of deferment to the sacrifice of trees to make them--I have certainly proliferated the slaughter of trees for my fairly large book collection, especially on the RPG front, of which I have more, and they are also bigger requiring more paper to make them--but also due to the unchanging nature of them.  You put the works on the paper and there they lie, immortal and static, a testament to whatever went into them for as long as the paper and ink shall live.  This is a fine thing, a far nobler deed than--well, not nobler than living in a forest sucking up carbon dioxide and spitting out oxygen.

Still, this is not about the environmental impact.  Nor is it about the immutability of unchanging words on a page.  We are not at the stage that a book can easily be altered, not even e-books.  They can't be upgraded, only a newer version downloaded.  Narratives, stories, are best left alone, not updated anyway.  To carry on, to expand the narrative is what sequels and series are for.  While not new, one advantage e-books can have is that annotations can be kept with the page they belong to, hidden until necessary, and if done correctly viewed along with text they accompany.  Certainly people can annotate their books with a pen, or the author can include footnotes or endnotes--though endnotes pull the reader to another page and induce flipping back and forth.

The amount of information in the annotations is also limited in size, endnotes aside.  This all so far is indicative of the old school thought about not only books but also information in general and how to organise it.  Further, it is about limiting it as well.  Take for instance Stephen King's The Stand, or any film with deleted scenes available in the extras for the movie.  What if a book could have extras?  What if a novel could have deleted scenes?  With an e-book they can.  Ever heard of the book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski? Among other components, some of which are not recommended for just any book, it has footnoted footnotes, and references to different information sources.  It is a step in the direction of what can be done, but just a step in one direction.

Mood: inspired.

Music: Original Sin by Meat Loaf and I Surrender by Stratovarius.

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