The Long-Legged Fly - Book Review

I reviewed James Sallis' The Long-Legged Fly for Crime Fiction Lover way back in September, but totally forgot to update it on me ol' bloggy blog with it. Follow the link below for my full 'A Classic Revisited' review of this sparse but mesmerising debut from the guy who gave us Drive.

Read my full review of The Long-Legged Fly, over on Crime Fiction Lover.

Interview with Jason Starr

I interviewed Jason Starr for Crime Fiction Lover, chatting about his new book Savage Lane, the current trend for domestic thrillers and TV's best box sets. You can read my 4-star review of the excellent Savage Lane here.

Ant-Man - Film Review

Given it’s turbulent production history and harder to sell superpowers, the fact that Ant-Man works at all on the big screen is a small triumph. 

When director Edgar Wright left the project last year over creative differences, many wrote the movie off. However Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man still zings with a zany sensibility, strong comedy performances, and a story that fully benefits from being on a smaller scale than previous Marvel properties.

Read the full review on Spindle Magazine.

Top 10 Uses of Foreshadowing

The YouTube channel WatchMojo has been entertaining me for years now, but it can also be hugely educational. This video of the Top 10 Uses of Foreshadowing in film provides some excellent examples of set ups and pay offs. Foreshadowing is a powerful story-telling technique but not always easy to get right, too subtle and it may go unnoticed, too obvious and it ruins any mystique.

The Usual Suspects, Shaun of the Dead and Jurassic Park are some of my personal favourites. Whereas The Dark Knight's "you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" always felt too heavy-handed to me, considering we all knew Harvey Dent was going to became Two Face.

Crime Fiction: My 5 Favourite Books

When the cruel mistress of time permits I write book reviews and babble on about film noir for Crime Fiction Lover. The editor asked me to write about the five books that got me hooked on the genre, a bloody excellent question when I got to thinking about it. Find out which titles I chose over here. Little clue for you down there.

The Books of Tarantino

"When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, 'No, I went to films.'"

Quentin Tarantino has an encyclopaedic knowledge of film and pop-culture thanks to his days working at the Californian video rental store Video Archives. But his early work also drew significantly on the writing of crime authors Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson.

Read the full feature on Crime Fiction Lover.

Heed the Thunder - Book Review

Jim Thompson's second novel is a sprawling, multi-generational epic following the descent of the Fargo clan at the turn of the 19th Century. Although not a noir in the strictest sense, its ominous style and cruel but sympathetic characters show clear signs of the pessimistic pulp fiction Thompson was later known for.

Read the full review on Crime Fiction Lover.

Murder My Sweet & Using IMdB for Dialogue

Murder My Sweet, is the film adaptation of Raymand Chandler's hardboiled detective novel Farewell My Lovely. It's one of the most effective adaptations of the writer's work with it's slick first person narrative, Dick Powell nailing the dry wit of Philip Marlowe, and director Edward Dymytryk presenting a dark, cynical vision of 1940s society.

Chandler's dialogue is second-to-none, and Dymytryk kept it all intact for the film - Marlowe's sarcasm and deadpan delivery are one of the great hallmarks of the noir genre - and something I and many crime fiction writer's aspire to emulate. So when researching Murder My Sweet on IMdB the quotes section proved a fantastic little resource. Nothing like reading the novel or watching the film to really get a feel for the rhythm and beats of the dialogue, but if you haven't got time for that commitment, but need some inspiration dialogue-wise, check out IMdB's quotes section of your favourite movies. If the dialogue's anywhere near as quotable as some of the classic film noir's, there's gonna be a shit-ton of great lines to inspire you.

Dan Harmon's Story Circle

My current obsession with Community has inevitably led me to discover the creator Dan Harmon. His story circle maps out the basic structure to satisfying stories, especially those that grace our screens. Sure it's a very simplified approach but it's also a massive help, a loose guide to the beats your main character is going to hit, the change they will experience, and where they'll end up.

Using Dan Harmon's story circle I thought I'd analyse an episode of Community to see how it fits with the creator's outline, coz I'm super-cool like that and totally didn't cry myself to sleep last night. Beginner Pottery is the 19th episode of the first season and sees Jeff enter the ultimate blow-off class - this is a very literal manifestation of the 'unfamiliar situation', however character-wise, the real unfamiliar situation comes from within the pottery class, when Jeff is upstaged by Rich. The episode deals with Jeff's obsession with being the best at everything, and his realisation that there are some things he's just mediocre at, and that's okay.

A character is in a zone of comfort: Jeff is in the study group room discussing the ultimate blow-off class - Beginner Pottery. He's content in his familiar role as cool guy leader of the group.

But they want something: Jeff wants an easy credit.

They enter an unfamiliar situation: So he attends the Beginners Pottery class for the first time. Although this is unfamiliar territory externally, the real unfamiliar territory is internal and comes when Jeff is upstaged by Rich, who is naturally gifted at pottery and creates an impressive vase.

Adapt to it: A very jealous Jeff stays behind to try and create a piece of pottery to rival Rich's, but his efforts are in vain. The next day, Rich notices Jeff's injured his finger and informs Jeff he's a doctor but Jeff doesn't believe him, instead he thinks Rich is a con-man, a pro at pottery who signs up to novice classes to bag girls.

Get what they wanted: When Jeff notices Rich's car plates are from Santa Fe, New Mexico, he stays up all night researching the area and concludes that anyone born in the region would naturally learn pottery. Jeff thinks he's got the information he needs to expose Rich as a charlatan.

Pay a heavy price for it: When Jeff confronts Rich in pottery class, he tries to copy Rich's technique but violates the professor's 'No Ghosting' rule and is chucked out of the class.

Then return to their familiar situation: Jeff finds Pierce and opens up to him about the difficulty of failure and realising you're not good at something. Failing to produce a good pot in the class made Jeff question himself.

Having changed: Jeff returns to pottery class, apologises to Rich for his crazy behaviour and finally accepts he can't be the best at everything and makes peace with being terrible at pottery.  

Character Bios

So I've just fallen in love with Community. I mean I'm proper head over heels, walking along the beach at sun-set, already imaging our future together in love with Community. The meta-humour relating to TV tropes and movie cliches is right up my sub-plot, as are the relentless pop-culture references, and, it's just a great sit-com, with a bunch of characters you can't wait to hang out with.

The Wikipedia page on the cast and characters is a perfect example of how to write short character bios. Obviously the more you know about your characters the better, but the few lines featured on Community's Wikipedia page sums up each character's major personality traits, their flaws and their subsequent room for growth.

Annie's bio jumped out at me, it reads -

"the youngest member of the group, a compulsive over-achiever, relentlessly organised and comparatively innocent. Annie was extremely unpopular in high school and formerly addicted to Addarall, which has caused her to be very insecure and desperate to prove herself in a variety of extra-curricular groups despite already being considered naturally intelligent and attractive by others. She is normally kind and docile, but can quickly turn obsessed or throw a tantrum when she fails to achieve or is denied something she strongly cares about, even if it's about something as simple as a pen."

This last line reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut's 8 rules to writing, the third states - "Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water." Characters with wants, aims and desires are essential because this is the centre of conflict - your character wants something, but something or someone gets in their way of obtaining it - voila! - conflict. Your characters' specific traits will set up the point of conflict for single scenes, whole episodes and a full season's narrative arch. For example Jeff wanting a date with Britta; this isn't only the over-arching point of conflict for series 1 but also the set-up for the show itself - Jeff creates the study group where our loveable bunch of misfits come together and become close friends, so he can be closer to Britta.

Using Wikipedia's Cast and Characters section is a great basis for writing your own character bios, try reading the entries for your favourite shows, see how they sum up David Brent, Tim Bisley and Phil Dunphey's strengths and weaknesses, then get off the bloody Internet and start writing!

Joss Whedon - Bafta Guru

The Bafta Guru site is a bountiful resource on filmmaking, they've got screenwriting lectures, interviews, and opportunities. This interview with Joss Whedon for their 'Life in Pictures' strand isn't just a great overview of the writer/director, it's also amazing what you can learn from just listening to him. Plus it's really fucking funny. Like really really funny. I've probably posted it before but after revisiting it last week, it bears repeat listening. This is the guy who created Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Serenity. He brought the Avengers together in a bickering harmony. I could listen to him all day.

Screenplays

Below I've collated a few links to great screenplays, both film and TV. The links are mainly pilfered from other, far better, filmmaking resources like the fantastic Cinephilia and Beyond, as well as the unstoppable Go Into the Story, and the UK's own BBC Writers Room. The more screenplays you read, the easier it becomes to write them... or so I'm told.

Glen Garry Glen Ross - David Mamet

Calvary - John Michael McDonagh

People Just Do Nothing - Steve Stamp

Fargo (film) - Joel & Ethan Coen

Fargo (TV series) - Noah Hawley

I've just finished watching Fargo the TV series, a new benchmark against which we'll measure all other spinoffs! Noah Hawley's black comedy had enough little nods to the Coen Brothers' original film - that subplot on the fate of Steve Buscemi's buried million was inspired - but did its own thing, with it's own deeply flawed yet lovable characters and quirky ideas. There's an online PDF of the first episode that's a perfect example of how a pilot can deftly introduce all your main characters, while keeping the plot moving - things just keep happening! - and using the setting to its full potential. The dialogue is sublime and the tone, that straight-faced gallows humour, is to die for.

The Lost Room & MacGuffins

In a lecture he gave at Columbia university way back when in 1939, Alfred Hitchcock defined MacGuffins as, "the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is almost always the papers." It's the thing that the main characters want, Marcellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction, unobtanium in Avatar, and the meaning of rosebud in Citizen Kane. In the first act at least, it's what drives the characters and story forward.

The Lost Room is a 2006 sci-fi series about the eponymous motel room and a bunch of everyday objects that possess unusual powers. The protagonist, detective Joe Miller, has to hunt down these objects to rescue his nitwit daughter who got lost in the lost room. It opens with some shady deal to get the Key - the Key can open any hinged door and turn it into a portal to the Lost Room - the deal goes south and the Key ends up in the hands of Joe Miller. Each episode revolves around a different object, a different MacGuffin, and the more MacGuffins we meet the more we learn about the mythology of the Lost Room, it's objects and the numerous cabals searching for the powerful objects.

It's a great hidden gem of a show, and demonstrates not only how to use MacGuffins in storytelling, but also how ultimately meaningless most MacGuffins are - they'll propel the characters and story along for the first act or two but after that, the climax and resolution really revolves around the protagonist coming to terms with their personal flaw or solving some internal conflict, which will probably have been externalized with the MacGuffin or via the characters' relationship to it. In the case of the Lost Room it was Joe's stupid daughter and his anxiety about being an inadequate father - an anxiety which was fully substantiated when he lost her in a portal to another universe. Simply, find his daughter and he's a good father.

An interesting example of MacGuffins in modern cinema are the Infinity Stones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the Avengers, and Captain America: The First Avenger, it was the Tesseract, in Guardians of the Galaxy it looks to be the mysterious orb Chris Pratt's Star Lord is trying to steal in the trailer, and in Thor: The Dark World it was the Aether. These are the Infinity Stones and it's these MacGuffins (and the heroes) that tie the plots together of each individual movie, as well as the different phases of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, because, as will transpire in Avengers 3, the uber-villain Thanos is trying to get his big purple mitts on all six of the Infinity Stones - whoever holds all six stones in the Infinity Gauntlet gains omnipotence, omniscience and God-like power - so this Infinity Gauntlet will be the ultimate MacGuffin of not only Avengers 3 but the whole MCU and stopping Thanos will be our heroes' ultimate goal. Their first aim will be to keep the Infinity MacGuffins away from Thanos, except they'll fail, all will be seemingly lost, and there'll be an epic showdown, from which our heroes will no doubt emerge victorious. But not all of them, I bet.

Elmore Leonard

Show Don't Tell

Nice little instance here of how much you can tell by showing. This is from an Elmore Leonard novel called Swag, about two armed robbers who devise a list of ten rules to successful armed robbery, but start breaking those rules and shit gets real. This here is the introduction of the cop who's on their tail when the proverbial shit is really getting real. From the character taking a simple sip of coffee we learn where he works, the type of office he has, and that he likes coffee.

It's not a long description, it's short, punchy and to the point, delivering the essential information snugly wrapped around the action of drinking coffee.

Elmore Leonard is a don of crime fiction, for seedy but sumptuous characters, dazzling dialogue, and unexpected story turns, he smacks it every time. Tarantino owes him big - his flair for dialogue, as well as Jackie Brown outright, and Pulp Fiction watches like three short stories written by Elmore Leonard. This isn't to take anything away from Tarantino obvs, it's just interesting to know where the masters got their influence from.

Brian Koppelman's Sixty Second Screenwriting

Brian Koppelman, the screenwriter behind Rounders, Runner, Runner and Ocean's Thirteen, has been recording six second Vine videos giving writing advice. They range from the practical, "Remember the last argument you had? Write it down." To the no-nonsense. "Today I'd prefer to be reading, playing in the snow, but I'm a writer - are you?"

His straight up delivery is sometimes unforgiving and sometimes comforting. In the latest #sixsecondscreenwriting Vine, number 176 states, "I promise you this, if you write every single day, a year from now you'll be a much better writer than you are today." The catalyst for these injections of knowledge were Brian's dislike of screenwriting gurus and their professed rules to writing, "All screenwriting books are bullshit, all. Watch movies, read screenplays, let them be your guide." You can find an archive of all Brian's Vines here, and with over two decades of experience these video nuggets can't be ignored.

Lena Dunham on writing Girls

"Write stories that feel like yours and feel close to you rather than trying to fill a hole in the industry."

Lena Dunham

Girls is a pretty fantastic show, the first season never had a dull moment and from the opening scene where Hannah's parents tell her they're going to cut her off, you knew this was a generational sitcom that was going to talk to a lot of twenty-somethings. Although season 2 felt like it wobbled a little with a few missteps I'm excited that it's back. Here writer, director and star, Lena Dunham talks about the creation of the show, about being open with her drafts, getting feedback from Executive Producers Jennifer Konner and Judd Apatow, and soundtracking her writing process.

Character Traits

CHANDLER

So I have a flaw, big deal. Like Joey's constant knuckle cracking isn't annoying? Or Ross, with his over pronouncing every single world? And Monica with that snort when she laughs, I mean what the hell is that thing?

This fight between the Friends in season 1 is a great demonstration of individual character traits. The points Chandler makes at the beginning are the exact sorta thing you might write in your character's bios when you're first developing them. Here the writers get a lot of laughs out of the habits as each trait annoys or grosses-out another Friend. Chandler's habit of smoking, something he started after his parent's divorce when he was younger (also revealing some of his back story), is the catalyst for the argument which then reveals the other characters' annoying habits.

JOEY

Well, is it [his knuckle crackling] a little annoying, or is it like when Phoebe chews her hair?

Cut to Phoebe spitting out her hair. 

Ross's character trait of over-enunciation also helps distinguish his character voice - Ross is well spoken, educated and articulate. This scene is from the very beginning of the series, the third episode of season 1, 'The One With the Thumb', and shows a crafty technique employed to help the audience get to know the characters. By making the traits annoying they provide excellent material for conflict, so while the characters bicker among each other the audience are learning about each of them and the writers are getting a plethora of great jokes.

ROSS 

Don't listen to him [Joey], Phoebe, I think it's endearing.

JOEY

(mimicking Ross's over-pronunciation) 

Oh, you do, do you.

Cut to Monica snort laughing.

Traits are an excellent way to make your characters feel authentic and three dimensional, and even more so when the trait is the manifestation of a flaw or insecurity. Check this scene from Guillermo Del Toro's debut feature 'Cronos' - skip to 1.50 if you're particularly impatient.

Ron Perlman's character wants a new nose, it's a quirky trait that's unexpected for the thuggish archetype he's playing, and therefore makes his character instantly more interesting, relatable and amusing. You don't have to like every character, but you do need to empathise with them on some level. Here, we can all relate to a physical insecurity or wanting to change something about our appearance. Don't overload your characters with traits, just pick one or two things they can do - a physical tick, such as Phoebe's hair chewing, or a pattern of speech, their snorting laugh, or the way they drink their coffee - and know where this trait comes from, to make your characters leap from the page and onto the screen. 

The Monomyth - Star Wars & The Matrix

In Joseph Campbell's 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' the writer establishes the journey taken by an archetypal hero in mythologies. This structure is also apparent in films and in many ways it made Campbell the original screenwriting guru. The guys over at Moon Gadget have neatly outlined how Star Wars and The Matrix both faithfully adhere to the structure of 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces'.

These films, essentially adventure stories with their heroic protagonists, are more prone to abide to the Hero's Journey due to their genre and style, however plenty of other films in less directly related genres also follow this structure, from crime films to social realist dramas. It's well worth familiarising yourself with the Hero Journey structure, as it highlights particular circumstances, challenges and changes that your protagonist can go through that will sub-consciously resonate with an audience and naturally make your story feel more complete and conclusive.

Campbell	Star Wars	The Matrix
I: Departure
The call to adventure	Princess Leia's message	"Follow the white rabbit"
Refusal of the call	Must help with the harvest	Neo won't climb out window
Supernatural aid	Obi-wan rescues Luke from sandpeople	Trinity extracts the "bug" from Neo
Crossing the first threshold	Escaping Tatooine	Neo is taken out of the Matrix for the first time
The belly of the whale	Trash compactor	Torture room
II: Initiation
The road of trials	Lightsaber practice	Sparring with Morpheus
The meeting with the goddess	Princess Leia (wears white, in earlier scripts was a "sister" of a mystic order)	The Oracle
Temptation away from the true path	Luke is tempted by the Dark Side	Cypher (the failed messiah) is tempted by the world of comfortable illusions
Atonement with the Father	Darth and Luke reconcile	Neo rescues and comes to agree (that he's The One) with his father-figure, Morpheus
Apotheosis (becoming god-like)	Luke becomes a Jedi	Neo becomes The One
The ultimate boon	Death Star destroyed	Humanity's salvation now within reach
III: Return
Refusal of the return	"Luke, come on!" Luke wants to stay to avenge Obi-Wan	Neo fights agent instead of running
The magic flight	Millennium Falcon	"Jacking in"
Rescue from without	Han saves Luke from Darth	Trinity saves Neo from agents
Crossing the return threshold	Millennium Falcon destroys pursuing TIE fighters	Neo fights Agent Smith
Master of the two worlds	Victory ceremony	Neo's declares victory over machines in final phone call
Freedom to live	Rebellion is victorious over Empire	Humans are victorious over machines
Common Mythic Elements
Two Worlds (mundane and special)	Planetside vs. The Death Star	Reality vs. The Matrix
The Mentor	Obi-Wan Kenobi	Morpheus
The Oracle	Yoda	The Oracle
The Prophecy	Luke will overthrow the Emperor	Morpheus will find (and Trinity will fall for) "The One"
Failed Hero	Biggs	In an early version of the script, Morpheus once believed that Cypher was "The One"
Wearing Enemy's Skin	Luke and Han wear stormtrooper outfits	Neo jumps into agent's skin
Shapeshifter (the Hero isn't sure if he can trust this character)	Han Solo	Cypher
Animal familiar	R2-D2, Chewbacca	N/A
Chasing a lone animal into the enchanted wood (the animal usually gets away)	Luke follows R2 into the Jundland Wastes; The Millennium Falcon follows a lone TIE fighter into range of the Death Star	Neo "follows the white rabbit" to the nightclub where he meets Trinity

The Shining - Jack's Writing Interrupted

Can't help but think of this every time my girlfriend texts me when I'm trying to write.

"Wendy, let me explain something to you..."