Dial "M" for Murder

Since this week focuses on plot, I thought I’d further illustrate good plot with an old classic film from Alfred Hitchcock. This one’s based on a play, and it’s obvious because there’s not a whole lot of scene changing going on in it—which better illustrates one of my assertions about good plot; that the writer doesn’t have to go all Hollywood 3D on his readers in order to tell a cracking good story.

Ray Milland plays Tony Wendice, the villainous cuckolded husband, a former tennis pro. He runs into an old college chum, Lesgate, and manipulates him into going along with a carefully constructed “perfect crime”. Wendice wants to off his own wife, Margot Mary, played by none other than the legendary Grace Kelly. The plan involves a late night phone call and a roll of the dice on our oh-so-human propensity to live our lives by a set routine. I don’t want to spoil things if you haven’t seen it, but suffice it to say that there’s plenty of twists and turns as the perfect crime comes unraveled and improvisation comes into play.

I love the way the villain, Wendice, is written—and acted. He’s a cool customer, a man probably descended from aristocracy (though he’s far from an aristocrat in the story—he’s rather motivated by money). He never loses his cool, he always has a plan, and he’s not accustomed to being refused by anyone.

The sub-villain, Lesgate, is also perfectly presented to us. He’s the ultimate compliment to Wendice, very much his opposite and therefore indispensible to the plot. He comes off slightly dirty and common, and it’s his eagerness for easy gain that makes him what he is. His character is the wild card on which the plot turns, in fact.

And of course Grace Kelly is golden age Hollywood glamour; the soft counterpoint both visually and structurally that helps carry us through the story. She shames the starlets of today, all of them too quick to disrobe, too stupid to understand proper nuance, proper femininity...and portray it with dignity.

That brings me to my Andy Rooney-esque point. They just don’t make movies like this anymore. Well, maybe they do, but they’re rare. I see an alarming overreliance on 3D and digital effects nowadays in our popular films. What’s worse is that most of the writing that forms the construct of their storylines is vapid, limp, disgusting warm air. I hope and pray that it’s not because we are considered by filmmakers too stupid to appreciate a properly stimulating and complex storyline. It's almost like Hollywood writers are making their movies for the kind of people who star in them these days. In others words, morons. But Dial “M” for Murder delivers good plot in spades. It’s just another example of why I love old movies. And why you won't  find me at the theater very often.

How to be a Good Writer, Part 7: Plot and Characters

For the rest of the week I want to feature plot as a theme. I’ve posted other things about this subject (Archetypes), and that’s because it bears study. A good writer is one who understands at least the basic elements of plot. For me, plot = characters in a lot of ways. But first, plot.

A good story has a skeleton in good order. If you break out the major events in any well-written story, you can build an outline around them. Sometimes we get a look at it in disjunct ways, a la LOST or The Prestige, which are great stories that keep us guessing—but they’re organized quite well in the final analysis. In other words, whatever happens in the storyline has a reason for happening (the fictional past) and a consequence as well (the fictional future). That’s what I mean by a skeleton in good order.

Good stories have certain elements that are universal, too. It’s been that way since the dawn of time. If a crowd can relate to part of the story, they buy in. And if it’s a book, they buy it. That’s the goal here, folks, and it doesn’t require selling out or ignoring/forgetting your principles. Contrary to popular belief.

Take a look at any Sherlock Holmes story. I still stand in awe of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s knack for this. I always wonder which part of the story he wrote first; as if he wrote it inside out and backwards, because how can anyone do that?! It's crazy good writing, with lots of layers, lots of interdependencies; like a combination lock on a safe.

A good plot has lots of layers, interdependent interactions between the characters and the story—because really, the characters are the story. And ideally, as we read, we shouldn’t be able to notice the plot happening. It should feel just like life; like we’re voyeuristically observing the characters moving through their virtual world. In other words, a good plot shouldn’t be noticeably fictional. You’ve gotta have real and believable characters. In other words, they’re flawed. They have issues. And those issues, which go hand-in-hand with a good plot, are compounded by the issues that are created by that plot.

Bills are hard to pay in real life, for example. People get divorced and their kids pay the price in one way or another for the rest of their lives. Parents raise kids that become psychopathic in spite of their best efforts to the contrary. Young people get shipped off to combat and come back changed. If they come back. Accidents happen. Factions within families grow like a malignancy. And still the world turns. What I’m saying is that you don’t have to have some unexplainable time travel event or some impossible meteor hurtling toward earth in order to write a good story, or even tell one. You just need something for the reader to hold onto. And arguably, the closer to home it hits (depending upon a lot of other variables) the more books you’ll sell. And that's the goal, if you're making a living as a writer. Ironically, the more successful you become, there's a danger of being more insulated from good material for inspiration.

I think that’s one reason why some writers at the beginning of their careers can produce better work than those who are a commercial success: they draw from real poignant conflicts, through which they have had to live. that's not to say Stephen King is an idiot. But Jane Austen was never "discovered" in her lifetime, and her work is delicious as a result. Real people live real lives that are marked and shaped by conflict, and they will be more apt to enjoy reading stories that have an air of familiarity, even if the setting is exotic or fantastic. We all want fiction to feel like the truth at its deepest levels. Remember V for Vendetta, where we heard the line, "writers use lies to tell the truth." Fabulous.

Masculine Virtue

Real men: the U.S. Marines.

I know already that someone somewhere reading this will scoff at the title of this piece: “Masculine virtue? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Isn’t that like saying ‘benevolent dictator?” Okay, sure. Men have not acquitted themselves well since, say, the sixties. And all of it led that lady who sang the “Bitch” song to additionally lament, “Where have all the cowboys gone?” Since she’s a self-described beeotch I’ll leave it to her radical feminist friends to run-fetch her a tissue for her tears.

Let me tell you where the cowboys have gone. We’ve pretty much had it. We’re tired of hearing the constant nagging. We’ve run past the point of endurance against the kind of rhetoric that simultaneously scolds and despises masculinity for its violence and rough edges, and then whines about how men refuse to engage and remain distant from the family unit. The cowboys are out hunting. Out riding the range. Out in the garage. Out cutting the grass. Out walking the dog. Out. Why? Because, for lack of a better way to say it, you're not getting us and we're tired of talking all day long about it.

Masculinity is pretty simple and direct, and our chickified culture has misunderstood the meaning of that for a couple of generations now. I'm not trying to be a dickhead, you just tell me I am. I'm not shouting at you or the children, I'm trying to be heard above the freaking noise, okay? It's not that I'm trying to be a tyrant around here, but there are minimum standards for peace and accord that are not being met when the children are shrieking, swinging from the ceiling fan. It's pretty simple! It’s not that masculinity equals stupidity, but things for a man are usually understood in simplest terms; like those exercises with top-heavy fractions you used to have to do in school. Simplify.

Our minds are constantly doing that. All you said was that we haven't been on a date in a while, and that's what I heard. I didn't know I had to read your mind and infer from those words that what you really meant was that you're questioning why you ever married me because I'm an insensitive clot. Remind me again that you don't mean what you actually say. But there's an addendum to that, isn't there? Because sometimes you do. But I'll be damned if I can tell when.

Bill Cosby understood this whole thing perfectly. His characterization of Eve was as accurate as a fifteen thousand dollar watch: “C’mere, c’mere, c’mere, c’mere; no, get away, get away, get away, get away!” That’s it in a nutshell. But guess what, ladies. Your man doesn't stand by you because of the weird mood swings, the irrational blindside outburst, the nagging, the micromanagement of our indoors behavior. Nope. We stand by you in spite of that, and because we love you. We also know you don't have to even try to be confusing as hell for an hour or two, and then give us a teary-eyed kiss, thanking us for...whatever just happened.

So Now Hear This: Men are strong, rough, naturally smelly and hairy, made inherently irritable and uncomfortable by floral prints and doilies, prefer violence, abhor uppity know-it-all high-maintenance women (the maintenance is already pretty high anyway), and aren't amenable to asking your permission to be who we are. We'll tell it like it is; it comes natural. We don't feel like we need to apologize for it, either, so don't feel like you need to make us. We can guarantee you'll be a hell of a lot happier with a real man than with one under your thumb. But that means you've gotta trust us. And that, I'd argue, is why the world is positively filled with unhappy people: because lots and lots of women just ain't havin' that. Those women are the beeotches. And beeotches will always wonder where the cowboys have gone.

The Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions (Shaw)

Ever wanted to know when to use disk or disc? How about the difference between allusion, delusion, elusion, and illusion? Tidbit or titbit? How about the phrase, “that’s a plus.” Well? Is it correct or incorrect?

That’s why I’m reviewing a dictionary (again). This book is a goldmine of good information (notice my qualifier there; so much information today is not only not good, it’s overwhelmingly irrelevant). My particular volume is the revised edition by Harry Shaw, and dates to 1987.

By the way, because I know it would drive me crazy, there’s technically no difference between disc and disk; they’re interchangeable. Having said that, I personally cannot stand to use disk. It has nerdy connotations to me; it’s inelegant, for lack of a better word.

And speaking of words, I guess you know you’re busting some good ones out when MS Word asks your permission to send a list of your recently used words to Microsoft so that they can be added to some database or something. That happened to me not too long ago, and it’s partially because of this book.

It really all goes back to Jane Austen. I started reading through her novels a couple of years back, and something kept coming up that bugged me. She tended to use farther rather than further, almost always, and finally my curiosity got the best of me. My mom had shipped some old books to me, and Shaw’s Dictionary of Problem Words and Expressions was included. I cracked it open and discovered that there is a difference between farther and further, and that most of us misuse it in everyday speech.

It turns out that Jane Austen was right. She used farther to denote a measurable distance, which is how it occurs most often in her writing. She used further correctly also, which is indicative of something being “greater in quantity, time, or degree, and also means ‘moreover’.” (p.158). Not that I was surprised to be wrong.

I harp on this often, but if we’re to be taken seriously as writers, or if we’re going to expect it, then we ought to know how to ply our craft. This dictionary is an immense help in that regard and I highly recommend it—or something like it—for your reference shelf.

How to be a Good Writer, Part 6

A good writer knows the rules, folks. It’s just that simple. In the interest of serving my fellow man through the broadcast of useful knowledge, I’ve decided that this week will focus on a rule you probably don’t know about. Well, several, in fact. It’s all interrelated. Like Deliverance.

Here’s a rule that’s not in the style guide I have, but one I cannot overstress the importance of nevertheless: Never ever use exclamation marks in your narrative. If you find yourself doing this, you’re probably ignorant of another rule: the cardinal sin of telling and not showing. In other words, you’re using the narrative to communicate the story, when you should be using dialogue to do it. If your story is being told, there’s little dialogue because it’s all narrative. If it’s being shown, it has lots of dialogue, like a movie. But this week's writerly bit is about exclamation marks, so here's an example of when not to use them.

The car came around the corner so quickly that it came up on two wheels!

Okay, there are lots of problems with this bit, not the least of which is that when I look at it I want to add OMG to the end of it, or some other texting-based rot. Have I mentioned how I feel about smartphones? Anyway another problem is that the word came is in there twice. That’s another thing to watch out for, and don’t just right click>synonyms to fix it. Rewrite it with your brain, not Word tools. The above example is an amateurish sentence made far worse by the exclamation mark. If you're adding excitement or tension with punctuation, you've got problems. A writer's spice rack includes not just punctuation but also words, whole phrases...and the insight required to make good use of all of them. It's safe to say that exclamation marks are only for dialogue or something not strictly narrative, like when a character notices a sign that says:

Don’t pee in our pool!

The narrator isn’t saying it, and neither is the character. It’s speaking from inside the world of the book; therefore the flamboyant punctuation is apropos.

Let me give you an example of a far better way to communicate urgency and danger in the bit about the car:

“Slow down,” Jimmy said.

John sped up, however, though the corner was fast approaching.

“Dude, slow down!”

“Shut up,” John said, “I know what I’m doing.” As he yanked the wheel, the car skidded off the shoulder and grabbed, popping it up on two wheels.

Okay that’s a pretty basic version, but I think you get the idea. I’ll leave it to you to decide if the exclamation mark killed everyone or not.

Review of Airel by Reviews By Molly

Check out the latest review for Airel. This is one of the best reviews I've ever read for any book anywhere. Amazing. Thanks to Molly.

The Insidious Lie that is Hobby Lobby

I had heard vaguely of this new box store called Hobby Lobby. In my mind I had conjured up mystical greatnesses about it. I called to mind all the great times I used to have as a kid going to hobby stores looking at all the cool model cars, the ships with full rigging, the fighter jets, the radio controlled dune buggies, the flying model airplanes, the rockets. All of it. And one day recently I got my boys all jazzed up to head on over to Hobby Lobby to go get a heady dose of manly creativity.

So on one errand-running outing we decided to finish up our day with a stop at Hobby Lobby, to which I had never been in my whole life. Imagine my surprise.

I walked into the store to see aisle upon aisle of picture frames, baskets, fake flowers, and worst of all, endless shelves of nick-nacks. Or however you’re supposed to spell it. I don’t actually care; I could not in fact care any less. Frick.

I was ten feet inside the front doors, by the check-out registers. I stopped dead. And this is what I said:

“Well, this isn’t a hobby store. This…this is—this is just all chick hobbies!”

The ladies demurely manning the scanners, plus all the people waiting in line to buy their nick-nacks or whatever (100% females), all of them turned to look at me with haughty disdain. I swear to God, it’s getting so that there’s no place for a man to go and be safe in the world anymore. The truth of that old saw about whose world it is, is actually completely opposite: it’s not a man’s world. It’s a woman’s world. I wanted to run screaming from the building in horrified shock, arms waving over my head. But I didn’t, for the sake of the children.

We braved the picture frames and the fifteen thousand square feet of space dedicated to scrapbooking (“Dear God!” I hissed). We walked through millions of wreaths and fake floral arrangements; it was a horticulturist’s horror show; a nightmare. And then, there, like a beacon in blackest night, we beheld it: two lonely aisles, tucked away at the very back of the store, where masculinity was allowed to exist on a short leash.

There we found the rocket engines. There we found the ultra-cool model of Old Ironsides with all her rigging. There we found products with mythical names: Tamiya. Testors. Estes. And even some cheap-ass Lego knock-off. It was as oasis of testosterone; one could actually smell its potent power above the insidious menace of orange-raspberry potpourri. I stifled a shiver.

Well, when I say stifled…

Point is, we survived. We men are warriors. We will overcome. But this was like Hill 881 in Vietnam, 1967. It was the stuff of legend, where heroes were forged in the fires of Hell itself. We don’t talk about it anymore. But when we pass each other in the halls of our house, I nod knowingly to my sons, just a tick of the chin, and they nod back, eyes blazing with the momentary fire of comprehension for what we had endured together as males. The truth is, none of us can stifle a shiver, even now.