The Plume and the Pistol (1)

I've been really into a computer game called Darkest Dungeon. It's heavily inspired by the writer H.P Lovecraft. If you play computer games on Steam, check it out. In fact I've started writing some fan-fiction for it:

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The Plume and the Pistol (1)

Chapter One

When the rumbling stagecoach eased to its final halt, the ruined manor had already eclipsed the twilight sun, throwing a long shadow over the hamlet. Pierrepont stepped onto the sodden earth, closing the carriage door behind him. The driver, in an obvious attempt to avoid conversation with a known criminal, made a display of tending to the exhausted horses. It had not been beneath the chauffer to accept an outlaw’s coin, yet the man no doubt prized his own dignity.

            Less than a dozen wretched buildings huddled beside the cliffs, crumbling and ramshackle, windows barred by planks of rotting wood, rooftops sagging and in some places lacerated beyond viable repair. The nearest had the hallmarks of a tavern, and indeed a sign hung above its front door, although the image once emblazoned on it had faded beyond recognition. He turned the iron handle and entered. There were only three tables inside, all unused except for the one farthest into the corner, where a man sat slumped on a wooden bench, clad in full plate mail. A helmet and broadsword lay discarded next to him, flecked with dried blood. The smell was repugnant even from across the room. Pierrepont ignored it and approached the bar, behind which stood the only other soul present—a bawdy, greying man who was not shaken by the entrance of a stranger.

            ‘A tall mug of ale,’ said the highwayman, then after glancing back at the forlorn figure in the corner, ‘perhaps with a chaser.’

            The barkeep nodded and prepared a pair of beverages, dark as bark and with an aroma that began to irritate Pierrepont’s eyes. Payment clattered on the counter.

            ‘What happened?’ He spoke in a lower voice, indicating the tavern’s other patron with a subtle turn of his neck.

            ‘He didn’t say. Wouldn’t.’ The man sniffed, his thick moustache momentarily ruffled. He looked away and began cleaning a used tankard.

            ‘He’s here alone? I heard that others had travelled here, in response to the estate.’

            ‘There were four of ‘em, yesterday. The woman—Theroulde I think her name was—she’s no doubt sayin’ her prayers at the abbey. Drinkin’ ain’t for a vestal.’

            ‘What about the others?’

            The sombre barkeep pointed at the tavern’s northern window, which afforded a narrow view of the hamlet’s graveyard, overcrowded with tombstones. A wild-eyed, bespectacled old gentleman was shovelling a plot. Pierrepont nodded, took a handle in each hand, and walked over to the slouched soldier in the corner. When he sat down and rested the drinks on the table top, the other man lifted his vacant gaze, one eye twitching intermittently, traumatized by some internal malady. The highwayman pushed one of the mugs across the musty board.

            ‘Whatever your affliction is, sire, a drinking partner may mitigate it.’

            ‘I’ve fought many battles. I’ve witnessed countless deaths. I… I wasn’t prepared for this.’

            ‘Prepared or no, I have it on good authority that what lies beyond offers rich reward.’

            ‘What lies beyond… offers only… madness.’

            There was silence for a time. Eventually, the poor wretch reached for the handle, shaking but successfully raising the vessel to his bloodless lips. It seemed to calm him a notch, though his stare still failed to regard the room before him.

            ‘Madness or not, it’s of no concern,’ said Pierrepont. ‘I’m ready for anything.’

On Storytelling

People are good at storytelling when they have a story to tell. When they are trying to contrive ‘story’, not so much.

It’s remarkable how terrible people are at creative writing when they are just starting out, or are having some kind of struggle with it as an art form. Meanwhile, these same people are posting on forums, writing Facebook updates, e-mails, and telling their friends about their lives. When they are trying to communicate something sincerely without trying too hard to embellish the facts with sensational quality, their attempts are usually successful, and resoundingly so.

There is already a lot of material about this topic, call it filtering, or whatever else. I just want to commentate on it in my own words.

Take an example.

1. Something amazing happened to me the other week. It’ll really shock you, what happened––once you hear this you won’t believe it. I don’t normally share this kind of thing with people, but trust me, this is an exception.

2. The other week, I was involved in a motor vehicle collision. Three lives were claimed, including that of a four-year-old child. The police determined that I was at fault. 

In (1), I’m simply trying to sell you on why you should be interested in what I’m talking about. In (2), I’m telling you about something, and it’s up to you to decide whether it is sensational or not. Either the content warrants merit, or it doesn’t. In (1), there’s the insinuation that the content I want to tell you about isn’t sensational enough on its own, which would explain why I’m trying to sell you on the idea of getting excited about it even though the content might not merit excitement. In (2), the content hits so hard that it doesn’t require the storyteller to further sensationalize it.

I’m a writer of fictional literature. One of the worst things I’ve seen myself doing is to write in a way that substitutes meaning and content with misplaced technique, filler material, and fluff––false sensationalism. My only consolation is that so many other writers are doing it even more than I am. Then I look back at the forums and social media posts and occasionally see non-writers imparting a matter-of-fact story that works so much more efficiently and elegantly than a piece of creative writing that has been laboured over by a dedicated author. 

This subject isn’t really ‘about’ overuse of adverbs, dialog tags, or purple prose. Writers should actually keep those things in their arsenal. It’s about the fact that: if you can tell someone a casual and verbal story, or post a concise but interesting anecdote on the internet, and if it is more interesting and readable to others than your creative writing is, then you need to need to go back and take another look at your writing style.

Macbeth (2015): Movie Review

Macbeth, 'The Scottish Play', a piece that needs few introductions, has been through many film adaptations over the generations. Let's recap just a few:

The BBC TV Drama. This was regarded as a very orthodox performance of Shakespeare's play. I remember watching it as part of the obligatory high school course on it. Find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0LrdOa7uZQ

Ian McKellen's performance, with Judy Dench as Lady Macbeth, from '78. You can also check out other clips where McKellen discusses the best way to pull off some of the harder soliloquies, but the main footage is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpKWWK0Pj34

Patrick Stewart has also been Macbeth. I couldn't find the full movie on youtube, but here's a clip where he delivers the famous 'tomorrow, tomorrow...' after learning of his wife's suicide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZnaXDRwu84

There are so many other wonderful adaptations of the renowned play, and they are easy to find. Of course, the latest adaptation of Macbeth has just come out in cinemas everywhere, and it features Michael Fassbender in the lead role, with Marion Cotillard as Lady Macbeth. I've been really excited about it. Firstly because it's a great tragedy, so great in fact that you're forced to learn about it in school(!). Secondly because I am such a big Fassbender fan - he was amazing in such films as Inglorious Basterds, Prometheus, even Xmen: days of future past. Thirdly... the visuals in the movie trailer were so amazing. If you haven't seen the trailer, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqHhKuCQmoY

 My review of the new movie:

The cinematography didn't disappoint, neither did the music. The amazing thing about Shakespeare is that you can sit down and just read the words, the pure text--and still get something out of it (http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/full.html). Having the scenes seamlessly stitched together with the beautiful backdrop of Scottish scenery and a mournful, atmospheric score went even further to delivering the import of the story. The lonely and desperate vibe was just what the doctor ordered to supplement the predicament of the characters.

Then there were the acting performances. Obviously Fassbender and Cotillard led the way in terms of skill--if they hadn't been stealing the show, they wouldn't have been cast. But I was distracted by the fact that most of the other actors were genuinely Scottish. Fassbender is German, Cotillard is French. It's hard to ignore that fact if you've seen other movies they've been in. So as a result, the guys playing Malcolm, Ross, Siward etc... all come across as more compelling in terms of making you feel like you're watching something in a coherent setting. Having said that, Mr and Mrs Macbeth are such distinct characters, they go mad, and perhaps it's more fitting for them to 'stick out' from the crowd in a variety of different ways including their facial features, mannerisms, and accents.

Personally, my standout pick in this movie was Macduff, played by Sean Harris. He brought it all--the emotion, the energy, the accent. Macduff is the one going from standstill hanging out at Macbeth's premises, to discovering the murdered Duncan. He later receives the news of his family's brutal murder, then resolves hatefully to destroy Macbeth. I thought he was flawless.

As mentioned earlier, this is a classic, it's been performed so many times before and by so many different casts. When you watch the latest adaptation, you are watching to see how faithful they are to the original spirit of the text--or not. You certainly feel yourself doing that during this movie.

But....

You're also constantly being surprised with the innovations that this rendition brings to the table. It's a balancing act--keeping intact the things that work best when intact, while taking license to make it into a slightly different and newer story at the same time. This makes sense to me. If you set out just to stand some contemporary actors on the Scottish highlands and have them read the original text, you're likely to be rewarded with quite a forgettable result.

Spoiler alert: even though you know what happens in the Macbeth story, I'm about to discuss some things that this film may have intended to surprise you with.

Macbeth and his Lady don't have kids of their own. The original play alludes to this. However, the movie brings the fact further into the foreground. Instead of using the three witches for the opening scene, a new prologue is slapped in there, where the Macbeths are having a funeral for their dead child. Later, when Lady Macbeth is delivering the 'Out, damn spot!', she is hallucinating a vision of that same child. It's rather creepy. In committing suicide, she goes to the witches, who in the new film are insinuated to have more effect on the story than their classic plot device suggests.

Banquo's son Fleance is in his teens or even a 'young adult' when you watch other film adaptations. Shakespeare has some lines for Fleance. The new movie has it that Fleance is actually a much younger child, younger than 10 for sure, and his dialogue is scrapped. For me it was an immense change--for the better. Banquo's character becomes far more honorable and fatherly, and Macbeth's decision to send assassins for him comes across as even more chilling. Speaking of chilling, the scene where Fleance has to watch his dad get cut up by the thugs really killed me. The kid actor delivered a performance that had nothing short of a physical effect on the audience.

Macbeth is finally undone when the English send an army with Malcolm and Macduff to take him out. Classically, the prophesy begins to fulfill itself when they cut the trees and walk them up the hill. In the new adaptation, they simply burn the forest and it's the ashes of the trees floating up to the castle that satisfy the prophesied condition. Not a big deal, but it does allow the art direction to include a glowing orange backdrop to the final fight sequence.

There are so many other little nuances that they bring. I will let you discover them for yourself. For me, this movie really lived up to expectations--and they were high from the outset! I would watch it at the cinema a second time. I will probably buy the DVD. Long live Macbeth.

Use Google Documents for Creative Writing

There are a few reasons why I’m using Google Documents for creative writing at the moment:

Auto-save

Much better than having to remember to save your work, or having a big gap of time between saving only to see your system freeze or crash on you. Very convenient, and perhaps MS Word (my backup word-processor these days) has a way of doing this, but I haven’t discovered it.

Cloud-Storage

The chances of Google collapsing and losing your saved work is a lot less likely than having your computer stolen, catching a virus, or somehow having your files overwritten/deleted. Let’s face it.

Access from any computer via the internet

I currently enjoy the luxury of being allowed to use the internet for personal things while I’m on the job, due to downtime. I know that very few people get this privilege, but if you do and you’re into creative writing, this lets you log into Google docs and write while you’re at work. It’s amazing.

Controlled Sharing

For me, this is the main selling point of Google Docs. I collaborate with others as much as I can, and I want people to be able to highlight parts of the text and make comments. GD allows this even to the extent that you can reply to comments or resolve them, and get e-mail updates about them. You can specify access level, making the text ‘read-only’ to certain people if you want. This is great for my writer’s group, we can all work on a story together even though one of us is overseas.

So yeah, Google Documents! I don’t work for Google or have any responsibility for promoting their product, but this particular one has really been a great tool for me as a writer. Definitely recommended.

Here's an example of one of my documents: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wzLpyODIm69KH8zUg9HL1rjgu2Rp65ESSFMTHKaawG8/edit?usp=sharing

 

Fantasy Tropes

First, a distinction:

Stereotype: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

Trope: A:  a word or expression used in a figurative sense, B:  a common or overused theme or device

In fantasy genre-fiction (I’m thinking Lord of the Rings, Song of Ice and Fire, The King killer Chronicles, and many others), you’re bound to find not only ‘fantasy stereotypes’ but actual ‘fantasy tropes’, ideas that seem to repeat themselves in this particular genre. People have something of a love-hate relationship with tropes. On the one hand, you don’t want them to be exactly the same every time, not only instantly recognizable but indistinguishable from earlier incarnations in other stories. Yet on the other hand, you don’t want them to be missing—we love most of the things that make fantasy stories (perhaps I should say ‘high-fantasy’ or ‘epic-fantasy’) what they are. If I go out to buy an apple, but attempt to locate an apple that isn’t round, juicy, crunchy, etc… I might end up with something either totally undesirable, or something that can’t be considered an apple at all. It’s the same with my endeavor to find new fantasy literature.

What really makes a fantasy trope wonderful is the way in which it is adapted, evolved, nuanced, developed, improved upon, re-contextualized, deployed, executed… and so on…. By the fantasy author. Let’s take a look at these wonderful fantasy tropes. I will commentate on them in the order that they appear and are described as per the lovely entry for them in Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_tropes

Good vs. Evil

Obviously, the classical approach to this concept is to clearly define these two forces as opposing factions, showing the alignment to each for all relevant characters. In contemporary works, we see a breakdown and deconstruction of the trope, but without disposing of it entirely. By that I mean, there are factions and characters set up against each other, and they may be construed as either good or evil for the perception of the audience, but that colouring may change or even become ambiguous as the story progresses. Bad-guys may turn out to be good-guys and vice-versa, or the authors may even leave it up to us to decide who the good-guys and bad-guys actually are. We may argue these points with our peers in book-review sessions. But importantly, we’ll still be talking about the concepts of good and evil. And if we are still doing that, this trope is still a successful ‘keeper’ in the world of fantasy fiction.

Hero

Everyone loves a heroic figure, but like ‘Good vs Evil’, it’s easy to be predictable and boring with the trope. These days we also have the concept of the anti-hero, “a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.” Audiences by-and-large identify more closely with heroes who also have meaningful flaws. Yet characters, especially protagonists, can’t be too mundane. We find something deeply agreeable about heroes who are capable of something we ourselves aren’t capable of. Fantasy is a genre that further enables that extension.

Dark Lord

Ah, my all-time favourite without doubt. For the same reason that we like romanticized battles over real ones, we prefer romanticized villains over real ones. Perhaps you’ve felt as though you wanted to see more of Darth Vader during the story-telling process, compared with Luke Skywalker. Dark Lords are cool. They hang out in Dark Towers (another beautiful fantasy trope), wear dark clothes, have dark dialogue, exercise dark powers, have dark agendas, and so on. But it becomes rather one-dimensional unless you figure out realistic motives for them and subtleties that retain the attention of contemporary audiences.

Quest

The trope most popularized by Tolkien, it spawned countless computer/video-games and roleplaying games, not to mention works of fictional literature. It’s SUCH a good vehicle for a story. Just be wary of your quest starting in such stereotypical conditions, with such stereotypical ending conditions, and featuring such a stereotypical blend of ‘character classes’. Of course your story’s characters are going to need some kind of problem to solve, some kind of agenda to pursue. But there is plenty of room to carve out variation upon this trope.

Magic

This could go well beyond the scope of the present blog-post, since the concept of the ‘magic system’ is a bit of a thing. It’s such a malleable and variable thing though. You can keep your magic to something sourced ‘off-page’, a ‘black-box’, something like ‘magic-realism’ as in the genre, or you can systematize it and make it an integral part of the storytelling. Both approaches have worked historically. What’s important is that the magic present in the story should do something for the story or characters. It shouldn’t just be an obligatory nod to the genre.

Medievalism

This isn’t a must as far as fantasy-in-general is concerned, given that stories like Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory count in the genre. But it IS a must for epic and high fantasy, in my opinion. Well perhaps not a must, but it’d be quite the unusual story that didn’t draw from the trope if it wasn’t from the high/epic fantasy sub-genre. There’s something romantic and yet brutal about this type of setting. It allows for society to be portrayed in terms that are superlatively easy to understand, and therefore the delivery of other tropes comes even easier. Perhaps it’s just a generation thing, but one can easily imagine what it would be like to have to confront medieval adversities without resorting to guns and telephones and the like.

Races

Perhaps my least favorite trope. Yet in our society there is such an ‘us and them’ attitude ingrained in us that we can’t help but get behind struggles between the protagonist elves (they’re civilized and elegant) and the antagonistic orcs (they’re uncouth and disgusting) and similar opposing ‘racial’ factions. I actually don’t feel like high/epic fantasy needs this trope. You can tell the same story without it. Tolkien made it work because he characterized his races so well, even went to the length of designing whole languages for them to speak. When a contemporary author just invents a new race out of nowhere, deriving it from some pre-existing fantasy race idea, it just makes me somewhat skeptical, although I can and do appreciate the gesture

Ultimately we read stories for the sake of conflict and how the characters resolve it. But in fantasy we encounter tropes along the way. We identify them, pass judgement upon them, and potentially appreciate them. They can add, or detract from, a story. But what is a genre if not for its tropes?