The Blind Tattooist

 

His fingers moved up and down her arm. He could tell by the slenderness of her wrist that she was a looker.

 

“So do you do this a lot?” She asked.

 

He could hear the tremble in her voice. Most normal people wouldn’t be able to sense that sort of thing, but he could.

 

“Is this your first time, hon?” He asked.

 

“Yes.” She said. “My mother just passed. Some of the girls at work had gotten ink when they had babies or got married. I thought this would be a good way to remember her.”

 

“That is very sweet of you.” He said.

 

“Are you sure you can do the picture though?” She said. “You know because…”

 

“Because is what?” he asked. “Because I’m blind?”

 

“We’ll yeah.”

 

“Let me reassure you, miss, that I am very capable of doing my job. Perhaps you wouldn’t buy milk from a lactose intolerant farmer, but I would. Maybe you wouldn’t watch a one legged Olympic runner, but I would. Maybe you wouldn’t even trust a deaf man’s music recommendations, but I would.  I would see that a man like that would take such an immense amount of pride from his job that he wouldn’t let his physical limitations stop him from his dream.”

 

“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I didn’t mean to offend you, but you have to understand that this is all a little new for me.”

 

“I understand,” He said. “and I apologize for my rant. All of that being said, are you sure you want to do the picture? I think you have beautiful wrists and I would really like to do the piece there. However, this picture would be too big to fit and shrinking it would take away from your mother’s beauty.”

 

“You’re the expert, I’ll leave it to you.”

 

The man nodded and pulled the needle from a drawer and attached it to the tattoo machine.

He could feel her start to tremble as he brought it closer to her skin.

 

“It will feel like a pinch.” He said. “I have found that it helps to close your eyes for the first few minutes until you get used to the feeling.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He pressed the needle to her skin. The girl winced at first, then relaxed.

 

 

“How is that?” He asked.

 

“Not as bad as I thought it would be.” She admitted.

 

“Good.” He said as he continued to work. “Tell me about your mother.”

 

“She was a wonderful woman.” The girl said. “When I was little we would travel to the shore in the summer. We would walk the shoreline in the early hours of the morning and pick seashells from the sand.”

 

The image of a rising sun over the water and gentle waves lapping up on a sandy shoreline came to his mind. He imagined a woman and her daughter scooping down to pick natures treasures out of the sand. It was beautiful. He hopped the girl’s eyes were closed because he felt a tear drop from his.

 

“I remember,” She continued. “we would bring those buckets. You know the cheap colorful ones that they sell in the gift shops to build sand castles with?”

 

“Yes, I know them.” He said.

 

“Yeah, we used to bring three of those with us every morning. She would carry two and I one. Each day they would be filled to the brim by the time the sun was above the horizon. We would head back to our shore house and spend the rest of the day doing crafts with them.”

 

“What sort of things would you make?” He asked.

 

“Oh all sorts of things. We would create a wreath of seashells. Kind of like a Christmas Wreath but made entirely of shells. That way people could hang them outside their house in the summer. We bought birdhouses and glued seashells to the outside. Sometimes we would even make little shell animals out of them too.  Turtles, Seagulls, fish that sort of thing.”

 

“Wow it sounds like you two had some serious talent.”

 

“Yeah, when I got older we would sell our creations. Some of them fetched a pretty good price.”

 

The man sat back. “Speaking of creations, I’m finished with mine. Why don’t you open your eyes and take a look?”

 

“Wow, that was quick!” The girl said.  After a moment of silence, she added. “Wait, what is this?”

 

The Man felt a stab of panic. He removed his glove and felt the damaged skin where he had just worked. It had said just what he had intended, but there was one problem.

 

“I’m so sorry,” He said. “It’s braille.”

 

“Oh,” the girl said. She didn’t sound nearly as angry as he feared she might. She sounded curious. “Well what does it say?”

 

“Mom” He said.

 

“Really!?” The girl exclaimed. Now she sounded much angrier. He felt the muscles in her wrist tense just before she yanked it away. “I give you that whole emotional story from my youth and the best you could come up with was Mom!?”

 

“Hey lady,” He said. “Take it easy on me. It’s only my first day.”

Merry Christmas, Ice Cream Man!

 

 

‘Twas the Sixteenth of April, when all through the house

every creature was stirring, even a mouse;

The laundry was folded on the dresser with care,

In hopes that relaxation soon would be there;

The dogs were nestled next to their mother;

Both were quiet Paige and her brother;

And mamma with her book, and I with mine,

Had just settled our brains for relaxation time,

When out in the distance, what do I hear?

Is that really Christmas music playing this time of year?

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

Sure enough as the music grew nearer;

I heard jingle bells clearer and clearer;

Once Jingle Bells turned to frosty the snowman;

I could tell it was none other than the Icecream man.

The summers at my Grandparents house came back in my mind;

But somehow so did Christmas Time;

In the summers when visiting and we heard that distinct chime;

We knew if we went fast enough we would make it in time.

As the truck rolled into view;

I clambered downstairs, taking them by two;

“One Spiderman Pop” I said with delight;

Imagining the taste of that very first bite.

He had a wood brown stick, his head was lumpy;

His gumball eyes were half melted and bumpy.

I thought “This doesn’t look like the spider guy;

It looks like Strongbad with a lazy eye.”

Still, I chomped down;

And memories from child reached the foreground.

The gumballs were stale and the ice cream was sour,

But what mattered were the feelings that came back this hour.

It’s not about the look or about the flavor,

It’s about the memories that the Pop makes you savor.

“Merry Christmas!” I said “and to all a good night.”

“Whatever.” He said as he shoved a cigarette in his mouth and drove out of sight.

 

Walking For a Clause

In a past post we talked about the benefits that music can have on your writing. Today we’re going to talk about something else that can benefit our writing because we can piggy back off of ourselves. We have that rare and strange ability!

So what else could possibly help our writing besides music? Exercise, that’s what. This doesn’t require a gym membership and you probably won’t get ripped in 30 days. If you do, please tell me exactly what you did because I will need to know!

The kind of exercise I’m talking about is walking. Simple, every day, walking. When was the last time you went for a walk? If you can’t remember, then you may benefit from this the most.

Walking can do multiple things for the common Novel Noob. If you’ve spent the past four hours staring at your computer screen get up and go outside. Walk around the block or park if you happen to live close to one.

The walk can rejuvenate you. Your sore rump will have a chance to breath. (Please wear pants. It doesn’t need to breath that much.) Your tired eyes will have a chance to focus on other things then the black and white text they have been glaring at for the past few hours. Your blood will flow more rapidly through your body and, most importantly, your mind will have a chance to wander.

Sometimes you may want to force yourself to focus on a certain issue you may be having with your work in progress, but try not to. Instead focus on what’s around you. If it’s fall, admire the colors of the leaves. If it’s spring, listen to the birds chirping in the trees. If you pass someone, take in what they are wearing. (But no more than a three second glance. Don’t be creepy about it.)  Where do you think they are going? What do you think they do for a living? To use the old adage “Stop and smell the roses.”

If the sounds of nature are a bit too boring for you, feel free to double dip from our past post and listen to music. Use headphones though, no boom boxes. Come on man the 90’s are over. You got to let the old thing go.

I think you’re noticing a trend here. One that has been in this post, “The Music of the Write” post, and even one from almost a year ago (“Fermenting Your Manuscript”). That trend is letting your mind turn off. Letting it wander around on its own for a bit. That’s when the mind does its best at solving our creative problems.

So if you feel like you’ve been staring at the same lines for a while and getting nowhere, save your work, get up and take a walk. Your body, your mind, and your writing will thank you in kind.

What other activities (that don’t involve tissues) do you do to take a break from writing? Leave them in the comments below.

Video Games as Storytellers

Imagine an event where every publishing company and author got together and told you what they have been working on in the last year or what they will be working on the coming year. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well Video gamers get such an event. It’s called The Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 for short.

E3 will start tonight with Bethesda’s conference and run for the entire week. Most of the updates will be within the first few days and the playable demo’s toward the end of the week. Many gamers refer to E3 as a “Gamer’s Christmas.” It’s easy to see why.  In the spirit of E3 I’d like to talk about how Video Games can be great storytellers.

When we think of great stories we usually try to remember those particular books or movies that really moved us. However video games can have not only the same but sometimes even greater effect.

Long gone are the days where every video game pitted you with the single mission of shooting every enemy within range and stay alive long enough to get a new high score. There are some games still like this but certainly far from all.

Instead, many games today have acclaimed script writers who craft interactive stories with multiple consequences. While other forms of media may have a protagonist have to make a hard choice. Video games could leave that choice up to you. Each choice could alter other storylines and options in the game to the point where the player could replay the game making the opposite decisions and have a completely different experience.

The closest comparison I can think of are those “choose your adventure” novels and the experience isn’t quite the same.

I remember the first time I played a video game where I was able to dictate what happened in the story via conversation options. It was Knights of the Old Republic for the original Xbox. Knights of the Old Republic was Star Wars video game based thousands of years before the movies. A few minutes in, I quickly realized that I could make conversation choices and that some of them were pretty diabolic.

Your character in the game has no recollection of his/her(depending what gender you pick to play as) past but you are force sensitive so in time you do manage to get yourself a lightsaber or two.

On one of the menu screens was a scale. One side was bright blue the other deep red.

As you journey through the story, you meet with a vast amount of other StarWars beings with different individual conundrums. How/ if you choose to help them would tip the scale one way or the other symbolizing whether you were on the dark of light side.

Since then Bioware, the company who made Knights of the Old Republic, has improved upon this formula, making choices harder and changing the light verses dark formula to include more shades of grey. (But not 50, Thank God!)

The company TellTale Games does a great job of giving the player plenty of options and tough choices as well. Instead of a good or evil choice, they give you difficult ones. One example could put you in an instance where you have two characters who are about to meet their maker and only enough time to save one. Not only do you have to pick between two different characters but you don’t have much time to do it. Depending who you chose, the other characters in the game will react differently toward you for the rest of your journey.

These choices give weight the player’s journey and make it feel that much more personal. However, this “Choice Factor” is just a smaller part of why video games can be great storytellers.

The main reason Video Games can tell great stories is at the very heart of what they are meant to do. Video games are Interactive Media. You can’t passively participate. You have to move the protagonist through space.

Imagine a crime drama where you have to follow clues and determine the killer yourself instead of watching a character do it.

No offence to all of the great horror writers out there but the best medium for the horror experience in my opinion is video games.

Imagine a horror movie where you are controlling the dumb teenagers. Instead of yelling at them for walking into the meat locker, you could be controlling them and realize that there really is no place else you can go to advance the story but in the meat locker. What sounds scarier to you? This will only be enhanced with virtual reality which we will hopefully learn more about this week at E3.

All of that being said, there still needs to be a good solid story behind all of the mechanics to make the entire piece work and current generation video games are up to the task. Many have engaged fans for hundreds of hours by immersing them into their worlds leaving the player changed after the experience.

This renaissance of story in video games has even led The Writers Guild to have an entire award category dedicated to video game scripts.

So next time you are looking for a good story that you can get lost in for hours on end, check the video game isle.

Are there any video game stories that moved you? Leave them in the comments below.

The Case for “The Village”

WARNING this post contains a lot of spoilers from M. Night Shyamalan “The Village.” You should definitely go watch it if you somehow managed to avoid it for the past ten years.

A few weeks ago a post for “The top 10 worst plot twists in movie history” found its way to me via a friend on Facebook. Like a goober with a couple of minutes to kill, I clicked on it. To no surprise of my own, M. Night Shyamalan had managed to carve out a good handful of those ten spots all for himself. What did surprise me was that “The Village” occupied one of those spots.

I had watched The Village back in early 2005 when it was released on DVD. Like everyone else, I expected it to be a horror movie where this small community of villagers are killed off one by one by the monsters in the woods that surround them. When I discovered the plot twist, I was surprised and intrigued. I remember talking about it at work the next day and convincing another coworker, who was hoping for another slasher flick when she had originally seen it in theaters, that what it turned out to be was actually a lot better. In the end she did agree with me. Today I hope to do the same with you.

Last Saturday night, when scrolling through my Netflix account, I saw The Village. I thought back to the Facebook article and decided to watch it again. I wanted to know if my feelings for it would be any different after I had known the ending and the movie had ten years to age.

My feelings were different. I liked it even more. The movie had aged beautifully. When the credits rolled, I was left with a sense of intrigue for what might happen to the members of the Village from that point on. Before we get there though, let’s talk about some other little things I noticed on my second viewing of The Village that I didn’t catch the first time.

-Hold my hand

Bryce Dallas Howard’s Character, Ivy Walker is, of course, blind. (I noticed this the first time, smart ass.) She does an extremely good job navigating the tiny village on her own with only the use of a walking stick. However, when she gets scared(which she does despite her tough exterior.), Ivy holds her hand out directly in front of her body until one particular person grabs it. That person is Lucius Hunt, Joaquin Phoenix’s character. They do this from the beginning of the movie, before they ever confess their feelings for each other.

When the young man on the guard post sees one of the “One’s they don’t speak of” and rings the town bell to warn the village, everyone flees to their basements. Lucius stays outside just a moment too long driven by the need to help others get inside, but even more by his curiosity about the “One’s they don’t speak of.” Meanwhile, Ivy stands in the open doorway to her home. Her sister is calling her to close the front door and come hide in basement with her. She refuses. She says she knows that Lucius is still outside because he hadn’t checked in them yet. She steps further out into the darkness and sticks her hand out. We get a shot from the side of her hand. We can see one of the creatures in the distance coming closer to her. We can hear it growling. She can no doubt hear it just as well, but she keeps her hand out in the darkness. Her sister is begging her to close the door and the creature is now running toward her. Just when we think it is going to grab her, a hand clasps hers. It is Lucius’s. He guides her inside, closes the door, and leads her into the basement in what seems like one swift, fluid motion.

This happens again at the scene of Ivy’s sister’s wedding. While dancing and celebrating, Ivy stops because she hears screaming coming from outside. Ivy, who is more reliant on her hearing, seems to hear it first. A moment later the others stop and listen. Chaos breaks out as everyone flees the reception. Ivy reaches her hand out searching for that one person to grab hold of it and sure enough he does.

After both characters confess their feelings for each other, rumors start to spread around the village. Noah Percy, played by Adrian Brody, visits Lucius’s small hut. Noah, who you’ll remember was mentally disabled, had a special relationship with Ivy too. She had played games with him and he no doubt had grown quite fond of her. Lucius, who can see the distress on Noah’s face from the news, tries to explain that there “are different kinds of love.” Instead when he turns to face Noah, he finds that Noah has plunged a knife into his stomach. Lucius falls to the ground.

Moments later, one of the villagers tells both Ivy and her sister that they have found Noah with blood on his hands, but it was not his. Ivy processes everything in an instant and walks as fast as she can toward Lucius’s hut. Her hand held out searching the air frantically her entire way over. When she makes it all the way to his doorstep with her palm still open, you can see the mix of devastation and betrayal in her body language. (Props to Bryce Dallas Howard’s beautiful performance here.) She walks inside to find Lucius still on the floor and lifeless.

Watch the movie again and I guarantee that you will not find one other character that grabs Ivy’s hand. Even when Noah and her own father guide her around, they do so by her arm. This is a subtle beautiful relationship between two characters that gives real heart to the film.

-Nothing is left to Chance

One of the worst sins a writer can commit is to have a character get out of a tough situation by sheer luck. Your audience will feel cheated and it may be enough for them to stop viewing your work altogether. If there is ever luck, it should be bad luck.

Night Shyamalan did not let his characters get any strokes of good luck in “The Village” and I applaud him for it.

When Ivy is wandering the woods in search of the medicine to cure Lucius, she slips into large pit in the ground. She is able to react quickly enough to grab the edge of the pit to keep herself from falling all the way to the bottom. She gathers her strength and pulls herself up. When she reaches the surface she finds that she is covered in mud and that the “safe colored” tunic she was wearing is probably useless against the monsters of the wood. (Bad luck) Just before she continues on, she finds a tree that had toppled over. Its pointed roots were sticking out parallel to the ground.

A few moments later, Ivy hears movement coming from somewhere in the woods around her. As it comes closer, she realizes it is one of the creatures. She tries her best to avoid it until she makes it back to the toppled tree. She stands in front of the pit with arms wide open. The beast charges for her. At the last moment she jumps out of the way and the monster falls into the pit.

Since we saw this pit earlier, we can not only accept this scene but appreciate the cleverness of the character to use something that was a setback for her to be the final demise of her attacker.

-Ivy knows more than you think

Once Ivy decides she has to leave the Village, her father takes her aside and explains that he and the other elders had been dressing up as the monsters all this time. Ivy is shocked, of course, and starts to ask her father questions about the recent events with the “One’s they don’t speak of.” Most of which, he deftly explains.

Once Ivy reaches the end of the woods and climbs the wall to the outside world, she is confronted by a young modern day park ranger. He is of course astonished by her dress, and way of speaking. During an awkward conversation between the two there is one key moment when the young ranger says “You live in there?” pointing to the concrete wall enclosed “Animal Reserve.” Ivy takes a moment to process what he said. She, of course, can’t see him or the “Walker Company Patrol” patch on his jacket. However there is a comprehension on her face (more props for Dallas Howard.) and disappointment when she simply says “yes.”

She heard the siren of the rangers SUV when she first climbed the wall. She heard the ranger’s radio when someone responded to the call he made when he initially found her and she climbed the metal ladder to get back into the woods after the ranger retrieved the medicine. She may not fully understand what is going on but she knows that she and the other villagers are being tricked about more than just the creatures in the wood.

On the very last scene of the movie, the elders are gathered around Lucius’s bed. They are talking about how they will continue their way of life. One of the village boys announces that Ivy has returned with medicine and had killed one of the ones they do not speak of on her way to retrieve it. Noah’s mother starts to burst out in tears. It turned out that the monster that Ivy had killed was Noah who had stolen one of the elder’s costumes he found under the floorboards of their home. The elders were trying to weave his death into a way they could continue their tradition. They would tell everyone that he was killed by one of the monsters. They believed that Ivy wouldn’t know the difference and now she would believe the monsters to be real. They decided to hold a quick vote if they would like to continue the tradition of the village and one by one they all stand to agree.

Moments later, Ivy finally enters the room and reaches a hand out. One of the elders grabs it to guide her in, but she squirms out of his grip, she finds her way to Lucius’s bedside and grabs hold of his hand. When she says “I’m back” to him you can hear his erratic breathing. He was probably couscous during the whole scene.

Yes, the Village was far different from your typical horror flick and I’m not totally sure you can really label it as horror. What it is, is a really well told story that holds you until the end. It can give you secrets upon multiple viewings as I’ve proven here. That’s why I think it’s not only unfair to label this movie as “One of the worst plot twists in Hollywood history” but it should be regarded as one of M. Night Shyamalan’s best films.

Do you think The Village is underrated? Are there any films or books you think are highly underrated? If so leave them in the comments below.

The Music of the Write

Music, man…it’s good stuff. There have been a bunch of studies on the positive effect music has on the brain. It’s not just good for your brain though, Music can be good for your writing too.

Music can help you focus while you’re ticking away at the keys. It can center you. It can keep you in the moment.

I prefer to listen to classical music and motion picture scores while I’m actively writing. I find that I am easily distracted (thanks ADD) and lyrics make it difficult for me to focus on the “Lyrics” that I am trying to put onto the page.

If wordless music isn’t your bag, that’s fine. Listen to whatever helps you focus or let go of what is around you. Stephen King mentioned in his book “About Writing” that he likes to listen to Hard Rock and Heavy Metal when he writes. This makes total sense for the Thriller/ Horror genre that he has become such a staple in.

What’s that you say? You don’t like to listen to music at all while you write? You get distracted with any outside noise what-so-ever? You always have to be so complicated, don’t you? Not to worry, you can benefit from music too! Listening to it outside of your writing can also have benefits. When you’re driving to work and some whiny boy band song comes on the radio, you can interpret their “I’m feeling sorry for myself, you were the most horrible girl I’ve ever dated.” lyrics as spoken from a character in your YA protagonist’s love life. It could be the protagonist them self or some Stage 5 Clinger they can’t seem to get rid of. Now that character makes a little more sense to you. Hooray, boy bands are finally serving a purpose in society!

You can use the same method for the atypical country song where the guitar strumming musician loses his wife, dog, house and truck. His deep-throated-twang-filled cries of pain could help you understand a character in your novel that has lost everything that they care about most.

So if you’re feeling stuck, turn on some tunage and let your mind wonder around in the world of your story. Who knows what you might find. You may even surprise yourself!

Do you listen to music while you write? If so what music inspires/motivates you most? Let me know in the comments below.

Do You NaNoWriMo?

Can you sense the jitters in the writing atmosphere this all hallows eve? Believe it or not it’s not from the sugar rush they got from their children’s candy that they had to “dispose” of because they, ahem, “thought it was unsafe.”

No, this is a different kind of jitters. This is very similar to what I imagine a marathon runner feels the night before the big race. That’s because we writers have a “marathon” of our own and it kicks off every year on November first.

This marathon is called National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo if you’re one of those cool zippy types. The idea behind NaNoWriMo (yes I am a cool zippy type) is to create a time when writers can hold themselves and each other accountable for keeping to a daily word count. During the month of November you are supposed to write at least 50,000 words which ideally would be the entire first draft of a novel.  Pretty cool huh?

In case you were wondering, your daily word count ends up being about 1667 words a day. I know for a lot of writers that is a pretty hefty number to have to write every single day for an entire month, but it could be worth it in the end.  Besides having a finished first draft of your novel, NaNoWriMo.com throws in free trials of writing software and goodies for winners (aka: writers who pass the 50,000 word mark by the end of November).

NaNoWriMo certainly isn’t for everyone. If you expect that your November is going to be extremely busy, then maybe it would be better to hold off until next year. If you do want to participate though, sign up at http://nanowrimo.org/.  It is completely free and can be a lot of fun!

Do you plan to participate in NaNoWriMo this year? Let me know why or why not in the comments!

Getting Back in the Saddle

So.. yeah.. it’s been a while. It feels like an eon since I last wrote a blog post. I’ve had an interesting past couple of months that included, but was not limited to, going on a job interview two hours away, totaling my car on the way home from said interview, playing phone tag with the insurance company, getting the new job, and working nutty hours at my current as I finish up my last two weeks there. The bottom line, life got in the way. It happens to the best of us.

Sure there are some very successful writers out there that let nothing get in the way of completing their daily word count but I’m not one of them. Odds are you aren’t either. If you are one of those juggernauts of the keyboard, I offer you a sincere Kudos. Seriously, that’s awesome! For the rest of us though sometimes you lose track. Maybe it happens for a couple of days, weeks, months or even years. The important thing is that you get back on the proverbial horse, put your nose to the grind stone and other worn-out slogans.

Writing makes me happy, simple as that. I get a sense of euphoria when I finish a draft of a work in progress that can only be matched by the feeling of the first day of spring, or a fridge full of food. Hey Zack likes his food. Leave me alone.

Writing these little blog posts scratches an itch that novel writing can’t. It gives me the opportunity to communicate with other writers instantly. Plus I get to communicate in a different way with my writing.

If writing makes you feel good, then you should also do it. If life wants to get in the way, do your best to keep getting back to writing. If you somehow find yourself, like me, weeks out from your last written word just jump back in and get back to writing. After all, we can’t be Novel Noobs if we aren’t doing the novel part.

Descending the Mountain

In our last post we talked about underdogs and how their tales of ascending to greatness can help ours. That leaves a big question that the writer has to answer if they ever want to tell another story about that character. What happens once they’ve reached the top?

You have to somehow put you character in danger again. They have to descend the mountain. How violently they descend is up to you, the writer. Here are a few examples of how Hollywood pulled theyir leading roles back down to earth.

First method: All hell breaks loose

In that last post one of the examples I used was Luke Skywalker. I explained how he uses the force and his inborn capacity for hope to overcome the forces of evil in the end of Return of the Jedi. Star wars is a great place to explain the first method, but since there’s no Episode VII yet, (Come on J.J. Abrams, don’t let us down.) we will start right at the end of Episode IV a New Hope.

Luke just blew up the Death Star and Han sends Vader hurtling through space. Then all of our favorite heroes are anointed with shiny new medals. I think it’s pretty safe to say that they are riding high on the mountain top. Where could you possibly go from here?

Enter Episode V. Luke, Han, Leia, and all of the other Rebel forces are holed up in this tiny base on the icy planet, Hoth. The Empire has completely regrouped and is on the offensive, Darth Vader Included. A small probe droid finds the rebels and before they know it, a large empire force that far outnumbers the rebels is on Hoth and ready to attack. Yep all hell just broke loose. Luke & co. are falling down the mountain fast.

Second Method: The Foundation Crumbles

For the second method let’s take a peek at Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. At the end of Batman Begins, Batman thwarts the evil plans of Scarecrow, Ra’s Al Ghul and his League of Shadows. He saves Gotham and establishes himself as the go to guy for putting the hurtin’ on baddies and crooks. He is on top of the mountain.

In the dark knight, Batman starts off doing what he does best, beating up baddies. He catches the scarecrow again and even goes all the way to China to drag a corrupt business man back to Gotham. Bad guys don’t stand a chance and they know it.

Suddenly a crazy character appears before a group of Gotham’s most prevalent mob bosses and offers to kill Batman for a high price. He calls himself the Joker.

The Joker continues to on a warpath killing prominent figures in Gotham and is always one step ahead of the Batman. When Batman feels in need of council, he asks his butler the good old Alfred pennyworth. Alfred replies with one of my favorite quotes and one that displays method number 2 better than any other. “You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand.”

By just doing what he does best, Batman has made his job ten times harder. Everything he stands for has to be evaluated. The foundation that he has built Batman on is crumbling beneath him.

Third Method: The Game is Upped

For this example let’s travel all the way back to 1985 to the land of Rocky IV.  In the beginning of the film, Rocky is the reigning champ. He spent the last three movies beating the best boxers that movies had to offer. He is rich, famous, and has retired from the ring. He is sitting firmly on the mountain top and ready to cruise the rest of his life.

His friend Apollo Creed, who Rocky beat in the first film and the second, is gearing up for a match against a new comer called Drago from the Soviet Union. When the two fight, Creed is completely overmatched by the gigantic Drago. Creed is pounded into submission and Drago kills Creed in the ring. Rocky, just hoping to see his friend win a fight, witnesses the whole thing. The worst part, Drago stares at Rocky after he kills Creed challenging him silently. Boxers don’t kill each other in the ring and this boxer seemed to do it on purpose. The game has been upped. Rocky declares that he will not only fight Drago but he will do it his home, the Soviet Union.

As you can see there are different methods that you can use to bring your character back after they have reached the top of the mountain. Do some mountain climbing. Look back to some of your favorite sequels. Odds are they yanked their characters off of the mountain pretty quick. Do they use one of the methods listed here or is there a whole new method not listed? Leave your finds in the comments below. Happy Mountianeering!

 

Chasing Cinderella Stories

Ah Madness is in the air. March Madness that is. Can you smell it? Go on take a whiff. It’s that wonderful time of year when Americans delve into the details of college basketball programs that they hadn’t even heard of a week prior. They do this all for the sole purpose of creating the perfect bracket. That way they can brag to their office buddies about their superior sports knowledge or possibly win some money if they decide to put some skin in the game.

All of this aside, the real fun in March Madness are the Cinderella stories. Just like the famous Slave/Stepsister who married a prince with a little help from a fairy godmother, a Cinderella story is about an underdog that defies all odds. In terms of college basketball this is happens when a lower ranked, smaller school defeats a high ranked, well known basketball program.

One perfect example of a Cinderella story in last year’s March Madness tournament was about the all too perfectly named Wichita State Shockers. The Shockers were given the 9^th seed entering the tournament. If you follow NCAA basketball you know that 9^th is about middle of the road. The seeds ranged from 1 to 16.

In the first round, the shockers were matched up against the 8^th seeded Pittsburgh Panthers. If you just look at the seeds this looks like a pretty even match up and it was. The only issue was that Pitt is almost always in the tournament the Shockers weren’t. Nobody thought the Shockers would win but, somehow they did. Most people chalked it up to luck. Upsets happen in the first round all of the time. No one paid Wichita too much mind. After all, they had to play the 1^st seed Gonzaga in the next round.

Gonzaga was like Wichita State a few years earlier. They had a relatively small enrollment and a no name basketball program until they won just enough games and entered the tournament. Once they were in, they made noise by beating teams that common knowledge said they shouldn’t have. Now they were a mainstay in ‘The Big Dance’.

However, this year wasn’t Gonzaga’s, it was Wichita State’s. The Shockers “Shocked” Gonzaga 76-70. The Shockers were now in the sweet sixteen and looking ahead to the 13^th Seed La Salle. La Salle was another Cinderella in the making, but they didn’t have the tools to beat the Shockers. Wichita moved in to the Elite Eight where they faced the 2^nd seed, Ohio State.

Much like Pitt, Ohio State was no stranger to the tournament and their school has the largest enrollment in the country so having fans who don’t live far from where ever they are playing or who don’t mind to travel wasn’t a problem for them.

Despite the advantages Ohio State seemed to have going for them, the Shockers proved too much for them to handle. Wichita State was in the Final Four.

Their opponent was the 1^st seed from the Mid-West, Louisville (Wichita State was in the West). The game was close, but the Shockers finally fell 72-68. The Louisville Cardinals went on the win the NCAA championship.

Even though The Shockers didn’t win it all, they showed just how formidable they could be and made the public pay attention to their games.

The underdog factor is one of the things that make a great story. If you visit your local library, take a look at the business section. You’d be hard pressed to find a book about a huge company that bought out a smaller one or how that same company ran a mom and pop shop out of town.

What you find are tons and tons of books about entrepreneurs and how they beat the odds. Sure some of these books might be about companies that are now huge corporations but they’re not talking about their earnings last year. They’re talking about how they got started. They’re talking about how difficult it was to get their million dollar idea off of the ground.

As readers we love these stories. We want to know that the protagonist is facing impossible odds and that their back is against the wall. We fear for them.

In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is nothing more than a simple farm boy when we first meet him. The only thing he has is Hope. Hope that he might one day go to the academy and do something interesting with his life. In the span of a day, he meets two droids and an old Jedi Knight. Suddenly he is at odds with the Galactic Empire and one of the most terrifying forces in the universe, Darth Vader. You can’t be more of an underdog then that!

However, Luke is given something by the old knight. A Light Saber, but more importantly a key to understanding the mystic energy known as the force. Throughout the movies Luke, along with his friends fight the forces of evil. No matter how many wins they have, they always seem to be at a disadvantage when matched up against the Empire.

It’s not until the very end of the third film when Luke finally defeats the Empire. He doesn’t do it by killing everyone. He does it using the one trait he had all along, Hope. He reaches in and finds the part of Darth Vader that is still human and convinces him that he can change his evil ways. In one last act of redemption Vader casts the evil emperor, his boss, down a pit before he is able to kill Luke.

The sense that the heroes of Star Wars are always on the losing end of the bet is one of the things that have made and kept Star Wars so popular over the years. As writers we have to become best friends with the underdogs. Their stories make it a lot easier on us.

Oh and in case you were wondering, The Wichita State Shockers have gone undefeated this season and have entered the NCAA tournament as a 1^st seed. They are now the established powerhouse.  What will they do with that power? We’ll have to wait and see…