Story vs Plot

Lately I’ve been thinking about the intersection and differences between have a plot and have a story. What follows is necessarily just one person’s opinion and so take it or leave as you will.

Here are my basic definitions. A plot is a character with an objective and an intervening obstacle. A story is about a character in transformation, a character who is progressing through an arc and is changed irreversibly by the arc.

I’ll illustrate the differences between with two James Bond films, Moonraker and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. (Naturally there will be spoilers)

Moonraker is all plot and no story. Bond has a series objectives, Discover what happen to the stolen shuttle. Survived the attempts on his life by the villain Hugo Drax. Uncover the plot to destroy all human life, and finally prevent the nerve gassing of the planet. He succeeds at all of this, saves the world and has space nookie. The key thing that makes this all plot and no story is that James Bond in the first reel is exactly the same person as James Bond in the final reel. He has endured no tests of character, only of skill. You can replace him with any super-humanly competent secret agent and the events will transpire in essentially the same manner. James Bond himself makes no difference to the outcome only his skills.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is a story with a plot. Bond has a series of obstacles to overcome, infiltrating the villain’s lair, discovering the threat to world agriculture, saving the world. In this aspect it is not very different than Moonraker, just with a less ludicrous set of events. However in this film Bonds meets Tracy and falls so hard for her that he marries her and resigns from the service. Blofeld, thwarted in his scheme, attempts to kill bond and kills only Tracy. Bond is shattered and broken in the movie’s final scene muttering over his wife’s corpse ‘We have all the time in the world.’

This is a story. Replace Bond with some other super-competent agent and while the world may be saved and the plot resolved, the character transformation will be missing. Tracy and James, quite unlike most other Bond girls, make this a story about choices and loss.

There in a nutshell is I how to cleave the difference between story and plot.

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Celebratory Trip

As many of you are aware, two months age I signed with the Virgina Kidd Literary agency.  (I am still somewhat boggled by that. They are a premier agency for SF/Fantasy writers.) Also in the month of June I twisted my knee and reinflamed its old injury. Now after weeks and weeks of work with my chiropractor, the knee is doing well. (The WorldCon was a test and I was able to walk 4.5 miles a day without pain.)

So now that the knee was recovered I could do what I wanted to do in celebration, go to Universal Studios Hollywood. My sweetie-wife doesn’t care for theme parks and the rides are certainly not her cup of tea, so this trip was a solo trip. That is sometimes a good thing. I am an introvert by nature and 10-12 hours on my own is good for my emotional state and usually give my brain time to ponder writing issues.

The sun beat down mercilessly on the park today, but I had  the foresight to apply sunscreen meaning I am not burned. There had been a few changes from my last trip in May. (I am an annual pass holder, so I go fairly often.) The Fast and Furious bit has been added to the tram tour/ride. It works pretty well. They use some sort of transparent screen to project footage in such a way that without glass there is a three-d effect. That’s only for the introduction, the main ride is pretty much like the King Kong 360 3D. You wear the glasses and are fully immersed in a fast action scene with events happening all the way around the tram. It’s a fairly well-executed illusion.

Raptor Encounters have been added as a character in the park. It’s very much based on the event sin Jurassic World where a trained works with the ‘tamed’ raptor. The suit/puppet for the raptor was impressive with articulated jaws and eye-lids. The Raptor performers I watched did an excellent job playing the beasts.

Photos and videos are up over at my facebook page. All in all I had a good day.

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Movie Review The Living Skeleton (1968)

Sorry about the scarcity of posts here lately. I’m engrossed in writing a new novel and that has taken up quite a bit of my new word output. So here’s a review of a film I streamed from Hulu.

1-LivingSkeleton_originalThe Living Skeleton is a 1968 Japanese horror film. I stumbled across it while browsing Criterion’s Catalog on Hulu. It promised an atmospheric, maritime-centric, ghost story. That sounded like a film worth at least a look-see. I am particularly fond of ghost stories and found several from Japanese cinema that worked quite well for me.

The story is about a freighter that is taken by pirates. (modern day freighter, not sailing ship.)  The crew are murdered and the ship considered lost at sea.  The film skips over a number of years to the sister or a woman murdered on the ship. She lives near the sea, working for a priest, and involved with a young man. The lost ship reappears on a foggy night and the young woman ventures aboard.

The story starts following the fate of the pirates as one by one they meet their deaths. All in all up to the point the film had been working for me. It is well acted, nicely photographed, and has plenty of atmosphere. My only quibble is editing. It lacked mystery because of the linear plot line. I would have favored an approach that started well after the pirate attack and brought the viewer up to speed with bits and bites of information.

*Spoiler Warning*

The film falls apart in the third act. After several well handled twists and very nicely staged ghost scenes the story reveals that there was no ghost. The ‘dead’sister survived the attack and managed to describe her attack so well that the surviving twin could track down the pirates and by her mere presence cause them to panic and die. The plot takes another terrible turn when it is revealed that not only did the ‘dead’ sister survive, but her groom did as well. Both have lived aboard the derelict ship, he as some sort of mad scientist inventing fantastic acids for bad guy disposal and third act ticking clocks.

The bad guys are killed, the sisters are killed, the mad scientist groom is killed, and the boyfriend is left alone and terribly confused.

This was a decent movie that had me buying in until they cheated and switched the genre. SF author Nancy Kress in her writing guides puts forth the idea that at the start of a story the artist and the audience enter into a contract, a promise, about what sort of thing they are going to experience, and that breaking this promise is a sure way to anger your participants. This film is an example of that failure.

 

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Post Worldcon entry

I am sorry that the daily entires dropped out. but I was just too dang busy. That’s a good thing when you are at a worldcon. The previous entries had been written at breakfast, and on those days I ate breakfast alone. The last few days of the convention we discovered a chain place that was suitable to both my and my sweetie-wife’s diets. So having breakfast with my sweetie-wife took priority over blog posting.

The Con was a blast. Each day I was there at the start of panels and they carried through into the late night. The fires nearby were bad. Sadly a few firefighters were killed battling the blaze. On Friday the winds shifted and the smoke overtook downtown Spokane. By evening the air quality had degraded to ‘hazardous to all’ and everyone was advised to no go outside unless required and to wear filter masks. Luckily this condition did not last long and Saturday the winds flipped again and it became much better.

I hung out with friends, learned new things in publishing and science, played a new game, and had the wonderful reinvigorating time I needed. I am already looking forward to next year in Kansas City MO. (2017 was won by Helsinki Finland, a convention I am unlikely to attend.)

 

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WorldCon Day 2

Well there was certainly a lot going on yesterday. Programing started at 10 am and for me the last panel ended at 10 pm. I did managed a short dinner with my sweetie-wife, but other than that it was panels panels panels. All of which made for a happy Bob.

I’m not going to recap all of them, there are simply too many and too much, so here are my highlights.

150 Years of Alice in Wonderland. A standing room only 10 am panel. Fun panelists, informative and well worth the time. Got a chance to introduce myself to my potential publisher as I wait for her acquisitions editor to make a call on my novel.

Pluto in the Rear-View Mirror. A standing room only panel on the recent discoveries at Pluto by the New Horizons mission. Pluto joins the list of bodies in the solar system that has produced unexpected mysteries.

From Starship Troopers to Honor Harrington, a look at Military SF. Informative and lively the discussion covered the topic well without getting bogged down in politics.

 

 

All in all things are a blast.

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Worldcon Day 1

So here it is at the start of Day 2 and I’ll give you a recap of the previous day here the 2015 Worldcon in Spokane Washington.

First off we awoke to a weather report of warm and smokey. Wildfires near the city have turned the sky yellow/gold, casting a lovely light but everywhere is the smell of smoke. As sunset approached the sun became a fiery red blood color more suited for an alien world than the pacific northwest,

We had registered and picked up our badges the day before so we avoided the long lines at the convention. The panels were good on the first day. I started out with  the best advice I had been given on writing. Nearly all of the advice I already knew but the speakers were entertaining and I had fun.

I followed that with Understanding Contracts, a useful topic and one that I feel is going to become more and more important to me in the near future. There were just two panelists, but both were experienced from different angles (Author and Agent) and provided plenty of precautionary advice.

Next up was a spot of fun with a discussion of Hard SF films. There I learned that Connie Willis truly does not like with Interstellar. The panel could have been better, a little too much audience taking over, but I still enjoyed it.

My sweetie-wife and I then went to a panel designed to welcome Discworld fans to the WorldCon. Naturally I know quite a bit about worldcons and I am a discworld fan, but it was nice seeing the con introduced from a different perspective.

There was time for a dinner break at a local spot The Onion, it was nice but I think I liked the burger at the Irish Bar the night before better. Then back to my final panel on legends of the Northwest followed by horror film in the film festival. (Most were okay but one was a dry dull nothing happens slashers film. boring)

now onto day 2.

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Movie Review: The Man From U.N.C.L.E

1-The_Man_from_U.N.C.L.E._posterWhen talking about books and movies about spies I find it helpful to divide the genre into two large sub-genres; Secret Agent stories and Espionage stories. Espionage stories are more grounded, more like reality, that are more often about the careful work of deception and the moral grayness of the field. John Le Carre’s work, such as Tinker Tailor, Solider, Spy is an excellent example of this sub-genre. The Secret Agent stories are not about reality. They deal with fantastic, often impossible gadgets, uber-competent heroes, fantastic plots and plenty of thrilling action. The platonic ideal for the Secret Agent story is of course James Bond. Neither style or approach is superior to the others, that are matters of taste.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E., the original television series and the 2015 feature film, belong quite solidly in the Secret Agent landscape. I will admit that the few episode I have seen of the original series did not win me over and I can not be counted among the fans. That said, I did go along with my sweetie-wife on Sunday morning and watched the feature film adaptation.

I very much enjoyed this movie. Guy Ritchie, one of the credited writers and the director, walked the line between credible threat and campy fun perfectly. The story has been dinged as rather simplistic, but personally I think this works in the movies favor and not against it. Set properly during the cold war in 1963 A former NAZI scientist has developed a new and easy method of enriching Uranium. Said Scientist has vanished it is is thought a new independent player has arrived on the field, threatening to upset the balance of power between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The global adversaries must work together to investigate and neutralize this threat. America’s best agent, Napoleon Solo is forced to partner with the Soviet’s best agent Illyan Kuryakin. From elements at the start of the film both men have reason to distrust and hate the other, but both men also have needs beyond their respective services.

The movie is a  romp through a James Bond that is having fun with the material but not winking so hard at the camera as to shatter disbelief.  The comedic moments are perfectly timed and the reversals and reveals move the pace and plot along with a brisk momentum. This is an origin story, but it is one that gives the characters a chance to grow into their final forms. Director Ritchie also handles digital effect far better than most working in the industry. Using digital camera to create swooping impossible tracking shot he keeps the geography fixed in the viewers mind during a cross mountain chase without losing any sense of the speed or danger in the pursuit. His use of split screen to convey the impression of a massive battle without slowing the film was also masterful.

In short I really enjoyed this film and heartily recommend it if you want some light summer fun.

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Thoughts of the Republican Primary Season

Clearly this is a political post and if that’s not your cup of tea, skip.

America is gearing up for the 2016 Presidential contest and the Republican after getting beaten the last two out is gunning for a win.  The process starts early and runs long. there are, I think, 17 candidates running to represent the Republicans in the autumn contest. this far out early polls have very little predictive power about who the eventual nominee will be, but that can give you insight in the party, its factions, and its troubles.

Last week the first debates Fox News hosted the first debates. They held two, one for candidates who polled very low and another prime-time debate for the top 10. I did not watch the junior varsity debate, but I did watch the main event. Everything that follows is opinion only. I possess not special knowledge or training in this field.

It looked to me that the host, Fox News, long accused and rightly in my opinion, of presenting their material with a bias for conservatives and the Republican Party, managed the debate with bias for factions and candidates within the Party. It seemed to me that some candidates were treated in a manner that would enhance their standing within the contest while downplaying their weaknesses. Other candidates were subject to hostile questions to looked to me to have the intent of driving a wedge between the candidate the party’s base.

Candidates that were treated favorably in my opinion were Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker. Bush often received questions that allowed him to answer with his resume as a governor while sliding past the fact that these facts and reports were already nearly a decade old. Walker and Rubio were treated with opportunities to boast of their social conservatives ideals, playing well to the base. All three in political writings are often referred to as candidates acceptable to the business/establishment faction of the Republican Party.

Candidate treated less well included Trump, Paul, and Kasich. All three were questioned about stands or actions taken that might be considered heresies with the conservative base. Trump endured the brunt of the attack questions while Paul and Kasich both had fewer but given their positions more policy-oriented questions. (Paul in a previously proposed budget suggest cutting all aid to Israel and his isolationism doesn’t play well with the hawkish elements of the base. While Kasich was pulled onto the carpet for expanding Medicaid in his state, and thus committing the sit or working with Obama’s hated health care reforms.)

It is interesting to watch some conservatives react with anger and surprise at Fox’s behaviors during the debate. It hardly surprises me. If they present a blatant bias in other areas it is quite reasonable to assume that they have biases within the party and its contentious factions. As the old saying goes, what is good for the goose is good for the gander.

Far more fascinating to follow is is the entire war on Trump. Now in my opinion Trump is a buffoon, an egotist, and narcissist, and a terrible, terrible choice however he’s tapped into the anger and resent that Fox News and the conservatives have cultivated within the base of the party. Anger is not rational, and those who are standing for Trump are not doing so because of policy and position, but because of passion. They see someone standing up and ‘telling it like it is.’ The problem for the republican party is that what Trump is spewing is pretty much vile, racist, sexist, shit. Fox news tried to use this at the debates to destroy Trump. They launched their nukes and watched the monstrosity of their creation withstand the blast and grew stronger. Instead of driving a wedge between Trump and the base, they drove a wedge between the Base and Fox News. Trump threatened their ratings and Fox folded. (Revealing the critical flaw in running a news organization as a for-profit business. Can any report from them ever be trusted again?)

Trump has the go to keep running even if he can’t win. He has the money to do it big and loud, as he does everything. he has the petulant nature to run purely to hurt those who have hurt him. Where in the last cycle the fringe candidates like Herman Caine eventually flamed out and crashed, Trump has the cash to survive anything crisis he wants to survive. I do not think he can win the nomination, but I do think he can stay in the race, dividing support, and maybe even throwing next year’s convention into chaos if the leading candidate doesn’t have a clear majority of the delegates. All of that would critically wound the eventual Republican nominee, nearly ensuring a Democratic victory. But what tools, what weapons does the party have to placate Trump?

No matter what happens, it’s time to buy stock in popcorn.

 

 

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Sunday Night Movie:Xanadu A Flawed, Failed, and Favorite film.

35 years ago the musical fantasy Xanadu arrived in theaters. The film failed to perform well at the box office, suffering for a number of troubles, mostly in the script, but survived by finding a dedicated fan base turning into a cult film and eventually into campy Broadway musical.

I saw the film in its initial release and it became my favorite film. It is the comfort movie I go to when I am down and the 1-Xanadudark walls of depression are closing in from all sides. That said this is not a well made, and particularly, it is not a well-written film. If you graph artistic quality on an axis, it is a mistake to lay emotional reaction on that same axis. It is possible to love a piece of art that is flawed. There will be spoilers in my essay.

As a writer, the script stands out to me as the most glaring failure of the production. The character Sonny has no strong arc through the plot and too many critical events — such as both instanced where he runs into Danny and forms a friendship — are the product of coincidences. Coincidences are to be banished from your plot, everything should proceed from the characters and the choices that they make.

In the film, Sonny works as an artist duplicating album covers into giant posters for promotional purposes. When we meet him he is returning to Airflow records because his attempt to go pure artist has failed and he is again broke. Kira comes into his life, she is a Greek goddess, a Muse, (remember this is a musical fantasy) and her job is to inspire him. However the backstory is that he always had trouble with his bosses, adding more the pictures he’s supposed to be duplicating because as he says ‘he sees more than what’s there.’ Sounds to me like he already has inspiration. The writerly fix would be to make him the cynic at Airflow records, deriding others who want to chase ‘art’ but secretly it is his heart’s desire. Kira can then arrive and cause the hidden artist to flourish. There, no you have an arc. I could go on, there are lots of troubles in the script. Too many scenes lack conflict. People just show up and do things. That’s not a script, that’s boredom. (Bonus points for anyone who sees what I did there.) I am not going to go over all the flaws, the static camera, the choices in casting, because I am already conceding the filmmaking to be bad.

So why do I love it?

Two reasons dominate that landscape. The first is the theme. Like another cult film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Xanadu is a deeply anti-cynical film. Both movies are about dreams and dreamers. RHPS could be boiled down to the line ‘Don’t dream it, be it.’ and Xanadu’s theme can be distilled down to the lines ‘<Sonny>Dreams die. <Danny> No, no, No, Not by themselves. We, we kill them.’ Your dreams end when you give up on them. it is not surprising I am a fan of both movies. I am a dreamer. I am trying to be it, and I will not kill my dreams. It helps I love the music – I had been a fan of Olivia Newton-John’s singing for years before this film arrived, but for me the theme seals the deal.

The second reason is who I discovered the film with. It was a special time and special woman. The years have passed on, but happiness can live forever in memory. Like dreams, remembered happiness only dies if we kill it.

 

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A Fantastic Image

This week NASA release an image from the Deep Space Climate Observatory. This is a satellite positioned at the L1 point, about a million miles away, between the Earth and the Sun. This point, while dynamically unstable, if a position in space where a satellite can be in one position relative to the Earth and the Sun with a minimal expenditure of fuel. This is an excellent spot to observe the Earth and make measurements about our climate.

Being a million miles out, it is about four times as distant as the moon and so the moon passes between the satellite’s cameras and the Earth producing a sight never before seen my the eyes of humanity. The Earth and the Moon both fully illuminated by the sun and clear for us to marvel at, the farside of the Moon. the side that never faces the Earth.

This image is striking and I adore it.

earth:moon

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