Alpha Dogs: Public Servants - Mommy Dog, Officials and Overseers

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


Oh, boy, today's post split in two on me.  This particular trope is rich and varied, I guess....

In the comments on yesterday's post, Angie pointed out that Marshal Sam Gerard has a fatherly side.  Sure he tells Dr. Kimbal that he doesn't care (about justice), but he actually does care.  That's the flip side of being the gruff and demanding team leader and coach: he cares deeply about his "kids" - his team.  And about his duty as well.  Part of the reason he picks on people, especially other authority figures is because they are not doing their jobs well.

It is this devotion to duty -- this caretaker role -- that makes these types of characters so attractive.  They are just about my favorite type of character.

And yet I almost never write this type of character as a protagonist.

Furthermore, when I think about the many examples of famous characters I came up with for this post, I discover that there really aren't any protagonists in the bunch.  Oh, a few of them are co-protagonists (as is one of my own) but for the most part, they don't completely carry the story themselves.

Why is that?

Two related reasons.  One is that impact characters and co-protagonists have a freedom that main protagonists don't.  They don't, in particular, have to have fatal flaws or weaknesses to overcome.  They can be more mysterious, less forthcoming, funnier and more surprising.  So... you can write them as perfect, or powerful as you want to.  You can have more fun with them.

And that leads us to the other reason: They are powerful, whether you like it or not.  As I mentioned in yesterday's post, they have the authority vested in them by the government or organization for which they work.  They either have minions, or they can draw on minions.  They are naturals as The Cavalry.  They also make great fairygodmothers - pulling some strings in the background.  They make good mentors and great pseudo-antagonists -- that is, the person who provides opposition to the hero when the real villain is hidden.  And when you're telling a story in which the protagonist is a bad guy (such as with Columbo) they are the antagonist.

Mommy in Chief

But for now I want to get back to the concept of team leaders; the concept of a public servant who takes care of not just the team but the community. And also, provide you with an extreme contrast to Sam Gerard:

I give you the very pregnant Chief of Police of Brainerd Minnesota, Marge Gunderson, from the movie Fargo.

Margie has a very different leadership style from Sam Gerard.  She is a gentle and soft-spoken leader of a gentle and soft-spoken people.  In some ways this scene reflects some of the same types of things as the one from yesterday, with very different cultural connotations.  (Another similarity: like Tommy Lee Jones, Frances MacDormand won an oscar for this performance.)

Here is a four minute clip of Margie investigating a triple homicide in the tiny town of Brainerd Minnesota.  (The movie Fargo is quite violent and gruelling. This scene, though epitomizes how it is also wry and funny.  And even a little sweet.)




Most of Margie's minions don't show up for the triple homicide because ... it's cold out.  Geeze, it's Minnesota in the winter. We don't know how she is going to handle this, because she keeps her reaction to herself (but we get a hint later on).   The only thing we see of her leadership style is when her sidekick gets an obvious fact wrong at the end of the clip, she gives him a surprised look and says, "I don't know if I agree a hundred percent with your detective work there."

For the most part, Margie interacts with her minions the same way she interacts with her husband.  They kind of mill around, doing their routine and get the job done.  A little reminder here and there should be all that's necessary.  They are hardy northern folk, after all.

You wouldn't think these small town folks would be up to handling a triple homicide by vicious gangsters.  But you know what?  Margie is on it.  She and her sidekick, Lou, persue the information gently and politely but doggedly until she catches a brutal killer, single handed.  And then as she drives him to jail, she gives him a gentle commentary -- hardly even a lecture -- on how much destruction he's done for so little purpose. "There's more to life than a little money.  Don't you know that?  And here you are, and it's a beautiful day." 

You get the feeling this is how she'll handle her cops who didn't show up at the crime scene earlier.  It's the disappointed mom talk.  And maybe for her team, a lecture like this will work.  They are dutiful people, who are grateful for a "beautiful day" when it's cold and overcast and perhaps even blizzarding.


My Own Characters

I have two very different characters who fit into this model, both from serials I have posted here:  Captain Rozinshura from The Case of the Misplaced Hero, and Rocken from Test of Freedom.


Rozinshura - Your Friendly Neighborhood Official

Rozinshura is an official in a revolutionary government.  His nature fits somewhere on the spectrum between Margie and Gerard. He's a lot more friendly and cuddly than Gerard, and also willing to be as indirect as Marge, but he has no cultural issues with exerting his authority.

And like Gerard, he tends to operate with a flock of minions.  He wades into the scene and directs people, often without looking at them or where he is pointing, just as Gerard did in the clip yesterday.  But while Gerard takes over with the full and correct authority of the United States Federal Government, Rozinsura does it whether he has authority or not.  He bluffs his way through everything. If you call his bluff, he'll keep a straight face and give you another line.

And that's part of what makes him a good facilitator -- by taking responsibility onto himself, he not only gets the job done, but he also gives his superiors plausible deniability.  (In some ways, it's a part of his job to be like he is.)  But he also does it because he's a true believer.  The party functionaries over his head?  They're not The State he serves.  They're just the temporary form it has at the moment.

He even does it to ME.  I write a story where he's a secondary character, he declares he's a co-protagonist.  I come up with a story where he is the protagonist, he declares that's totally wrong. He should be the one who makes the protagonist's life interesting.

Given what he is like, I wish very much I could show you a clip of another movie.  Unfortunately, that move is currently available only in French, without subtitles.  (I have it somewhere myself with subtitles, but I can't give it to you.)

Les Ripoux is a movie about an old crooked cop (played by Phillip Noiret) who gets a new straight-laced young partner.  When I look at it, I really think that Noiret's performance had a great influence on me when I created Rozinshura. He's French, he's laid-back, he displays bald-faced chutzpah. Sometimes it's like Claude Rains in Casablanca ("I'm SHOCKED!  Shocked to find there's gambling going on here!" "Your winnings, sir." "Oh, thank you very much!")

There is one scene in Les Ripoux which displays how this unauthorized use of authority can make this kind of character like The Cavalry.  After the new cop arrives, he tries to get a room in a cheap hotel recommended by Noiret, but the hotel is full up, so the kid calls him to report that he can't get a room.  Noiret shows up with a squad of gendarmes, and raids the place.  "There," he says as he strolls back out. "Two prostitutes and an illegal immigrant.  Now you've got three vacancies."

(If you want to see it, here is a link to Les Ripoux in French.  The scene starts at 12 minutes in. It's pretty clear what's going on in that scene without understanding French.)


The Overseer

I'll end today's post on a character who is trapped in a very different version of this model: Rocken, the overseer on the prison farm in the serial I did last winter, Test of Freedom.  When Rocken introduces himself to the new prisoners, he says,  "If you make trouble, I'm the one who'll beat the hell out of you.  I'm the one who decides what work you do, and how much to feed you.  You'll make me happy, won't you?"

Rocken would seem to be just an arm of the oppressive institution above the prisoners, but he's got a big twist: he's a prisoner himself -- a murderer with a  life sentence. And for all that he hangs on to the hope that if he pleases his evil overlord he might some day be free again, he hasn't actually lost his humanity and good sense.  He's buried it as deeply as he can.

The fact is, he identifies with the prisoners.  He doesn't see himself as an instrument of justice, just a herdsman who manages resources and does his best to take care of them.  Even though he knows he's hated by the men, he takes on a protective role toward them.  Cursing them when he has to punish them, relenting when he can get away with it.

I have drafted the continuation of this story, and I'd like to find a way to finish the series -- because Rocken has a whole lot more to happen in his story.  Jackie, the main character (and another anarchist, but of a very different kind), has a really strong effect on Rocken.  There is a major battle of good and evil going on inside the guy, and that will explode.

And this may be a good place to split this post off in prep for the next post.  Because, though Rocken fits with these team leader characters, he is also a minion, who does his duty alone, though he wields it with the power of the state.  This makes him a little like some characters I'll talk about next week.

Because some public servants are not team leaders, they are investigators who go out and deal with the job alone.  And as with Rocken, that's only one step away from the last group, which I'll talk about after that - the Rogues.  So next up, Agents and Rogues.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Alpha Dogs - Public Servants: The Big Dog is Always Right

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


Continuing on with the Characters and Dominance series.  This time we're talking about public servants, in particular the enforcers of society: cops, soldiers, bureaucrats and the like.

And when it comes to the classic kind of "mind games" domination that kicked this series off, I can't think of anyone better than U.S. Deputy Marshal Sam Gerard of the 1991 movie, The Fugitive.  Played by Tommy Lee Jones.

What is most interesting about him, in terms of this series, is one element of contrast between him and Jules of Pulp Fiction (whom I talked about last week).  Jules is a gangster - but under that dangerous and flamboyant gangster style, he uses law enforcement techniques to take and keep control of a situation.  Including things like being reassuring and kind.

Gerard, on the other hand, uses the techniques of a particularly smart school yard bully.  While he has all the tools and skills at his disposal, his favorite tool of control is dirision and sarcasm.  But unlike in the schoolyard, he uses them judiciously, intentionally, and if you look closer it's not quite like the schoolyard bully... it's like the leader of a schoolyard _gang_.  He is also very much like an ultra tough drill sergeant or coach, too. 

And in that sense Gerard is much closer to the definition of an Alpha Dog than anyone I talked about last week: he's the leader of a pack.

But more than that, he is in a chain of command and has authority.  Which is true of all the public servant characters I'll talk about tomorrow as well. This might make a character seem weak.  After all, unlike the Paladins of last week, these guys don't get to pick and choose their clients.  A gun for hire can refuse a job, or quit, and still go on being exactly what he is.  These guys have to keep their jobs to continue being what they are.  So doesn't that make them weak?

No. 

If we're going by Sam Gerard, not at all.  Being a part of a pack -- even being one of Gerard's sidekicks -- means you wield the full power and authority of the pack.  Including the power and authority of those above you, who can command additional packs as necessary.

But Gerard, like any great coach or drill sergeant or ship captain or gang leader, wields a second kind of authority.  He's the BEST.  He's smarter, sharper, more on the ball, more competent than anybody.  And so is his team, partly because he constantly nags at them.

But because they are the best, too, they nag back.  He is always in charge, but if you live up to his standards, you have the right to push back.  He is at ease in his authority.

I couldn't find a perfect clip for Gerard, but I think this one illustrates a lot of my point -- the teamwork, the wielding of authority even with other authority figures, the hyper-competence. Unfortunately, it's a rather low quality clip.  I'll describe it below the clip.

This is the entrance moment for Gerard and his team.  It's the beginning of act two, after a horrific wreck of a train and a prison bus has set our hero -- an innocent man on his way to prison -- free.  He runs off through the woods, the movie cuts to a short time later.  The scene of the wreck, filled with law enforcement and emergency responders, and in through the mass of flashing lights slides the plain dark car of the federal marshals.



That very first line, "My my my my my, what a mess."  Spoken like the guy is almost bored.  It takes more than a train wreck to impress Sam Gerard.  He nags and banters, as well as points out details and barks orders as they make their way through the site.  Note that the team banters and nags back, but they are all business about the details and orders.  These guys are proving that they are SO good that they can have a running comedy routine without missing a beat.

But the important part here, is how he treats the OTHER authority figures, which starts about one minute in. On the one hand, he does the minimum he needs to do -- as if to prove they aren't worth his time to nag.  A state trooper stops him he doesn't say who he is, he just pulls open the flap that covers his badge and asks who is in charge.  Then when the guy tells him, he intentionally gets the name wrong -- just like a school yard gang leader would to show his disrespect.

But when he meets Sheriff Rollins, he does politely introduce himself.  Rollins makes the mistake of being condescending.  Gerard lets him. The guy gets a chance to prove himself worthy or not.  Gerard observes a moment, looking harmless, and yet his eyes are narrow, watching.  The guy proves himself incompetent by simply accepting the witness's story.  Gerard is still polite, and suggests what he should be doing, but the guy tries to pull authority on him. It's his investigation, he gets to blow off "advisors." 

And Gerard lets him do that, and then lowers the boom, by taking away his authority. Very sarcastic, but also very bored.  And watch the woman marshal, who with perfect timing, taps the guy on the arm and hands him the paperwork as Gerard speaks.  He already HAD the authority when he gave the polite suggestion.

Let's just face it and say Gerard is mean.  He lets people lead themselves into traps and makes fools of them.  But that's also how he turns them into subordinates.

And that's exactly what this scene turns out to be: he and his team came in and took charge of all the other teams.  This is the process by which he takes charge.  The troopers and sheriff's deputies and all are new recruits.  He dominates their alpha dog, gets the evidence and the story while the sheriff is still stammering and trying to deal with the fact that he's lost status.

And when Gerard straightens up and says "Listen up, people!" he has completed the take over.  Everyone there is a member of his team now -- they're his minions.

And once in charge, like a good coach or officer, he barks out clear information and orders.  It's like formal a military briefing, but off the cuff.  (He knows exactly what to do and how and why at any moment.)  And then, like any coach, he signs off with the command to hit the field: "Go get him!"

Not all public servants are good leaders (or leaders at all).  Sometimes they are minions.  Sometimes they do their best work alone, even when they can command others.  But they all have the leverage of authority.

Tomorrow I'll talk about a few other types, in particular I'll talk about Marge Gunderson from Fargo, who exerts authority in a somewhat different way.  Then on to some more lone characters, who work with their teams in the background, such as Columbo.  (That will likely be next week.) And one more famous character: Bud White of L.A. Confidential. Because Bud isn't entirely a team player -- and he gives us a segue into the last type of Alpha Dog, which I'll talk about next week: the Rogue.

See you in the funny papers.

Index Post on Characters, Money and Dominance

I decided that this index needs it's own separate post.

This is a series of posts inspired by another blogger, who was musing on how her characters measure up to the current fad for Billionaire Bullies as romantic heroes.  This inspired me to start musing on how my characters, and famous characters in popular culture, relate to Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery.

It turned out to be a long series, so this is an index.  (Links will be updated as I write them.)

Introduction

*Billionaire Bad Boy Scale (First thoughts)
*Billionaires, Vampires, Wolves and La Bete (A look back at the inspiration for the series - which is not at all what I'm going to talk about for the rest of the series.)

Money Week (Sept 30 - Oct 4)

*Monday: Wealth and Glamor
(Wealth is glamorous, yet my wealthiest character, George Starling, is not really very glamorous -- and that's what makes him interesting.)
*Tuesday: Wealth and the Zen Gunslinger
(Mick and Casey McKee have no wealth or glamor, but they've got what they want.)
*Wednesday:Wealth and Pragmatism
(A look at the characters from The Serial, who run the gamut from rich to socialist.)

Alpha Dog Week (Oct 7-11)

About characters exerting dominance (and will probably have three posts, although if it makes sense, any of them may get kicked to a future week.)

*Monday: Alpha Dogs - How Characters Take Control
(It's the nature of the protagonist, no matter how weak, they need to learn to take control, or else you've got a tragedy on your hands.  We'll talk about Samuel L. Jackson and Pulp Fiction.)
*Tuesday: Paladins: On Dicks, Saints and Saddle-Bums
(Outsiders for hire - including Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, George Starling and Mick McKee.  The guys you call when you can't handle something yourself.)

Alpha Dog Week 2 (Oct 14-15)

*Monday: Public Servants: The Big Dog is always Right
(Marshal Sam Gerard, of The Fugitive, is your ultimate Alpha Dog, because he leads a pack.)
*Tuesday: Public Servants: Mommy Dog, Officials and Overseers
(Other team leaders - Marge Gunderson (Fargo), plus Rozinshura, Rocken, and a short side trip to Paris.)

Alpha Dog Week 3

*Tuesday: Public Servants: Agents and Rogues
(Columbo, Bud White of L.A. Confidential, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Saint.)

As for "Jackasery and Inner Torment" (the third quality of those Billionaire Bondage Boys) - I may not do a separate post on that, or I may do it later.  Not sure until I get there.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations via Paypal)

Update - Indecisive Muses

Okay, the chase after enthusiasm is going about like you might expect.  Some good work, taking on more ambitious projects, but also debating things with people on the internet more than I should.  I got over the cold, though.  And I've been doing enough to keep myself in a state of sleep deprivation and lost a pound. (If you remember, these were supposed to be measures of how well I was doing.)

If I don't crash next week, I will be pleased.

This Week On The Blog

I'm going to handle the rest of this like I did last week: talk about an archetype from popular culture, and then a post about my own characters and maybe some other famous models.

*Monday: Alpha Dogs: Marshal Gerard - Dominant Public Servant
And all around schoolyard bully - but yet admirable in his own way.
*Tuesday: Alpha Dogs: My Own Cops, Soldiers and Bureaucrats
My cop characters tend to be secondary: Rozinshura, Sgt. MacGreevey, Uncle Rosie. I'll probably talk about Columbo too.
*Friday: The Plotting Game - Defining My Version of the Old Woman-in-Jeopardy Suspense
The game really starts with thinking about genre and tropes.

The Game - Saving Time on Decisions

Garrison Keillor likes to make jokes about groups of polite midwesterners, standing in the cold of a Minnesota winter, in a parking lot, unable to decide where to go for dinner.  "Wherever you want to go is fine with me!" they say.  "Naw, I can go anywhere.  Where do you want to go?"

I am a midweseterner.

Furthermore, according to the Myers-Briggs test, I am a borderline J/P ("judging" personality vs. "perceiving" personality).  I tend to test neutral on that.  But I think that's just because they define percievers as people who can't stand it when a decision is made.  Finality bugs them, and they have to walk the decision back and do it over.  I don't have that compulsion at all.  Constitutionally, I am pure perciever.  I can see all sorts of options and it doesn't bother me whether a decision is made or not.

So I don't actually have trouble making a decision, it's just that exploring all the details of all the options is more interesting, and I have no drive to hit the "final answer" button.  And it doesn't tend to bother me if decision is taken out of my hands. (Hey, I was the one who came out of my layoff meeting grinnning from ear to ear.)

So....

For me, flipping coins, rolling dice and drawing cards are a great time saver.

From what I hear from other writers, some level of indecisiveness is a common problem for writers, particularly when we're in creative mode.  I mean perceiving -- at least on the level of thinking through the options -- is a big part of what we do.

The point of plot wheels, and other writing games is to direct that energy into something more fruitful.  It narrows the options quickly, so you can put that perceiver energy into finding a new wrinkle on that one option. You can go deeper and deeper.

The Joy of Brainstorming

I've written before about The Magic of 100 -- the way pushing your ideas further and further gets you to something new and interesting.  I'll be honest, though, and tell you that I do this because I enjoy it in and of itself.  (Which is another time-waster for writing: I can flip into brainstorming mode and go forever.)

So that makes two reasons why writing your own plotting game could be useful to your writing.  It saves time on decision making, and it also is a practical and useful outcome to general wool-gathering.  I mean, when you need to stop and screw around, you can either play Angry Birds, or you can come up with 16 categories of "Meet Cute" for your rom com plotting wheel.  (Or 16 sympathetic motives for the killer in a whodunnit.  Or 16 weaknesses that are really strengths.  Or 16 ways to lure your gothic heroine to the basement that actually make sense to an intelligent adult human being, or even a moderately intelligent iguana.)

Okay, I just had an idea for that last one. (Pause to take notes.)  Oh, and another idea, considering how Mick can sometimes behave like a Gothic heroine.... (Pause to take more notes.)

So anyway, where was I?

Next week, on the Plotting Game, I'm going to skip the overviews. I realize that the key to this game actually is in creating it, so I'm going to jump in and talk about defining a personal "genre" (or really it's a "trope" within a genre).  So we'll get straight into the old-fashioned Woman-in-Jeopardy Romantic Suspense.

But I'll see you on Monday with the next edition of the Characters and Money and Power series.  We'll be talking about Tommy Lee Jones, The Fugitve, and the Dominant Pulbic Servant.

See you in the funny papers.

Story Game: Erle Stanley Gardner's Plot Wheels

I have a cold.  I hear from the waitress at the Taiwanese restaurant where I picked up some hot and sour soup (as cure) that there is a really nasty but short head cold going around.  I am hunkering down with said hot and sour soup, Halloween candy and a half-gallon of OJ.  I did not have a coherent version of the post I meant to put up today, so instead, I have a canned post I intended to put up later.  It's still about a writing game....


Erle Stanley Gardner, creator of Perry Mason, and writer of dozens and dozens of novels from Mason to Pulp Fiction, was a self-taught lawyer.  As I understand it, he was kicked out of law school somewhere back east and so he went west to California and simply studied law on his own and passed the bar, and became a successful (and sometimes unorthodox) defense attorney.

One of the things he understood as a writer and a lawyer, was playing with the rules.  He, like his famous creation, thrived on taking on an intricate, rule-bound environment and using those complex rules to his client's advantage, and against the opposition.

So it's not surprising that he liked to work within strict formulas in his writing.  And at one point in his writing, he created a randomizing story creation game of his own.  His "game" is actually the inspiration for my original story game, which is growing and growing and growing.....

The University of Texas at Austin has in its collection four of Gardner's famed Story Wheels. I downloaded and transcribed them. (For the most part... there is still one or two words that I just can't figure out.)

If you're a long time reader of Gardner, their contents aren't surprising, though it is not clear whether he used these wheels for all his books or just for a time.  He certainly had these elements in his head before he created the wheels, and by the time he created them, those elements were strongly enough in his head that he didn't need the wheels to remember them.  I doubt that these wheels changed his fiction any.  They were likely just a way to mix it up and keep it fresh -- to allow him to leap more quickly into the writing.

It is interesting to study these wheels as someone who has read his books.  When I look at the phrasing, and what he chooses to include, you realize what is conscious in his writing.

(Another thing learned: A great lawyer and writer isn't necessarily a great speller.  He spelled the word "villain" as "villian" throughout all the wheels.)

What I find interesting is what elements he finds necessary to create a story.  Of course, elements he takes for granted wouldn't be in here.  Also anything that he doesn't feel the need to vary wouldn't be here.  Another thing that wouldn't be in such a plot wheel are things which are unique to the story.  There's nothing here, for instance, that relates to the main concept of the story.  This isn't a brainstorming tool.  It's about writing the story once concieved.

Before I go further, here are the titles for his wheels: 

• Wheel of blind trails by which the hero is mislead or confused.
• Wheel of hostile minor characters who function in making complications for hero
• Wheel of Complicating Circumstances
• Solution

The thing that strikes me above all is how much these topics all relate to one thing: the battle of wits between the hero and others. ("Solution" is about how the hero wins.)  These are all about strategy.

Of course, strategy is what he did brilliantly in his writing (and I assume in court).  The whole appeal of reading a Perry Mason novel is wrapped up in the legal shenanigans and maneuvering that Mason does.

I'm speaking here, about the books, not the TV show.  The TV show, which I also love, had a certain amount of strategy, but focused more on investigation.  I understand the earliest books (which I haven't read) did too.  But the developed series, after the first ten books, was at least as much about legal maneuvers as they were about the mystery.  But back to the wheels....

What I find interesting is that Gardner did not make any wheels for the things he was weak at. For instance, he wrote very flat characters, but he didn't bother to create a wheel for generating character.  (His secondary characters wheel is all about the opposition they present to the hero, not actual character.)

The stereotype of a writer who uses a formula or a mechanical tool to generate plots, etc, is that he'd use it for the stuff he was no good at or didn't care about.  If you don't like to do something, you create a machine to do it for you, right?

But when you think deeper, it makes sense that Gardner would create a tool for the things he loved most, not least.

Creating flat characters is not hard.  If you don't care about characterization beyond a certain rote level, there are no decisions to make.  You just throw in a cliche, or leave the character blank.  The more you know about something and the better you are at it, the more you see a million options.  Decision making is harder, because you can see many benefits and problems with each direction you could go.

So randomizing choices with what you're good at can actually be a time saver.  It only requires a minimal short hand, and you jump straight into solving that problem; put your energy into pushing it in a new direction.  The fact that you've artificially limited your options just forces you to be more creative.

Which brings me back to my own Plotting/Writing Game....

I suppose this is the difference between a game (and learning) and using something as a work tool:

A work tool is to make the job easier.  Both learning tools and games are designed to make the job a little harder -- to challenge the student or player.  Using random choices forces you to do things you might otherwise avoid.  You have to work harder, and be more creative.

(Added note: I drafted this before I found more information about how Gardner used the wheels and had a whole theory of plotting related to them -- and that he originally created more wheels.  In the end, his game is a lot more like mine than I thought.  So I'll probably revisit this subject again later -- and at that time, I'll give you a transcript of the four extant wheels.)

In the meantime, let's hope the waitress was wrong about this cold maybe laying me out for three days.  I will post an update on Sunday, if only to give you an ETA on next week's posts.

See you in the funny papers.

The Self-Interview - Talking To Myself

I was going to do this first interview as a part of this ongoing series I'm doing about characters and money and power and all that, but I decided that it would be better to put that off until the end of the series.

Instead, I'm going to be totally circular here and talk to myself about talking to myself....


Q: What's this self-interview thing about?

A:  I'm a self-publisher.   I like to do everything myself.  I do my own covers, and formatting, and taxes, and make my own bread....

Q: Seriously though, why is it going to be a regular feature?

A: Three reasons, mainly.

One is just that it's a really easy way to organize a topic, especially for a dialog person.  And for a teacher. I spent 25 years answering every question that came my way.  Q and A is a natural fit.

It's also fun.  I remember when Lawrence Block used to do that column for Writer's Digest, and he often wrote it in the form of a dialog between himself and an imaginary class of students.  I loved that as an essay form.

The biggest reason, though, is research for a book.  Over the years I've been collecting interview questions, just for my own use and amusement.

Then I noticed that a lot of bloggers and book sites were handing writers a list of standard questions to be filled out like a form.  It's a great way to generate a lot of content, but after you've read one or two of them, not so much fun to read.  I think a lot of that has gone by the wayside, in favor of guest posting, where the guest writers still do all the work, but it's more varied.

And a good deal of the time, writers are interviewing themselves for these appearances.

So I figured I might as well turn my collection of questions into a book for both the bloggers and the writers to help come up more variation in what they do.  But first I want to do research.

Q: Where did you get these questions?

A: Some of them I steal.  I'll read one of those long interviews in the Paris Review or something and the questions will strike my fancy.  Other times I will just sit and brainstorm.

Q: That sounds like a really easy book to put together.

A: Yeah, I thought so too, but there's a problem.

Q: ... and that is?

A: Follow up questions.  The very best questions of all are not generic.  They are specific to what the person just said, or they are specific to something about the person's work.

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that.  I might have a section on "digging" questions -- the questions that elicit the info that you want to ask about, but that you DON'T include in the interview.  (A lot of those form questionaires on the internet actually ask those questions, instead of the next question deeper.)

On the bright side, when you are being interviewed by yourself, at least you know the interviewer has read your books.

Q: So you really hate those form questions, don't you?

A:  No, I really don't.... it's just that they are often clumsily used.  Or lazily used.  I've seen it done well. It works in two instances, I think. One is where all the questions are very practical, and designed to elicit specific information. In that case, they actually are a form. The answers form a kind of database where the readers can comb through a whole lot of such posts for specific information.

The other is that Inside the Actor's Studio technique.  At the end of the show, Lipton asks ten questions that are kind of like one of those internet memes. (What your favorite sound? What sound do you hate?) I have mixed feelings about those for the very reason there are interesting -- they're provocative.  They're like a touchy-feely psycoanalysis game, but they can pull out something unexpectedly interesting.

Q: We gonna do this every week?

A: Probably not.

Q: What about opening this up to guest posters?

A: I am thinking about it.  Most likely if I do, it will not be just any kind of self-interviews.  I'll want a smart interview where a writer talks about the nature of their genre, or some literary topic like that.  I'll expect them to talk about their books in the course of the interview, but the subject will be something like defining a paranormal mystery, or how much romance belongs in a thriller, or even their favorite kinds of secondary characters.  I expect it to be personal, informal, and yes, the writers can talk about their books -- and especially their characters -- but it's not supposed to be an "about the book" or "about the author" interview.

Q: Speaking of characters....

A: Yes, I am thinking of having characters interview each other.  I don't know if I will interview any of them myself.  It might be interesting to have one interview me... but that might be weird for both of us.

Q: Okay, final question: why do you always sign off with "See you in the funny papers?"

A:  I've always felt like a blog is like a newspaper column, or even more like a broadcast column. And when I get to the end of a post, I always feel like I should sign off.  "Good night, and good luck," or "And that's the way it is," or "Th-th-th-th- That's all folks!"

(Hmmmm, I could have gone with Porky, couldn't I have?)

I grew up with that as how commentary ends, with a sign off line.  I feel like I'm not finished if I don't have one.

Q: Is the funny papers line a reference to anything specific?

A: No, not exactly.  It's a reference to forties movies and pulp, in that it's a line that smart guys and street punks and sassy kids tend to say.  It's an insult, actually.  It was originally meant to say that "you're a cartoon" or "you're a joke."  It was something a grinning, sassy crook might say as he walks away from the cop who gave him a stern warning.

But it became less of an insult and more of just a swaggering way to say good-bye.  "See you later, alligator!"

And I thought it was an extremely appropriate thing for a fiction writer, and also someone who talks about movies and books and tv and comics.  Writers and readers spend a lot of time on "the other side" in dreamland, or the imaginary world.  We're very often headed for the inside of a story when we leave this little coffee klatsch I call a blog.

So since that's where we're all going, it just seems right to say it....

See you in the funny papers!

Alpha Dogs - The Paladins: Dicks, Saints and Saddle Bums

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.


Yesterday I talked about the ending of Pulp Fiction as an example of a professional character taking control.  Jules is pretty extreme, and though he concludes by deciding to use his powers for good, he's no good guy.  As he terms himself, he has been "The Tyranny of Evil Men."  I won't be talking about evil men in this series. It's about good guys, or at least mostly good guys.

I mean THIS Paladin. He has a gun, he will travel.

And today I'm going to talk about a class of character I call "Paladins."  This may not be the best term for these guys, but I have such a strong instinct to call them that, that I went with it.

This Gun For Hire

Real paladins are actually officials -- they're honor-bound sidekicks of the king.  In gaming they are "Lawful Good" characters who are loyal to right, and follow their code of honor.

The guys I have in mind.... maybe not so much.

There's another connotation of the word paladin, though, and that is the roving hero, the free lance.  They're nobody's sidekick.  They're the professionals -- the answer to the question in the theme song of Ghost Busters: "Who you gonna call?"

And their loyalty, along with their skill and dominance, is for hire.

But that leads to a built-in conflict for these characters:

If you're for hire, you're not in charge: the client is.  But if you're a gun for hire, odds are the job itself is something the client can't handle, and requires someone who is more dominant than the client. Perhaps someone intensely dominant -- a true Alpha Alpha Dog who can handle anybody.

But a person who can handle anyone is going to be a loose cannon.  In those cases, it's only his code of honor that keeps him in line with his client.


Sam Spade - Alpha Alpha Dog

For someone like Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, this works because it's game he likes to play.  He is so alpha, that he doesn't mind doing the client's bidding.  It's like indulging a child.  But it's clear from the start that his will, and his code rules.  If it suits him, he'll destroy you.  Neither feelings nor right and wrong hold him back. Only his code.

But that's what makes him a powerful ally.  Furthermore, part of the reason he cultivates that attitude is that it's good for business.  A loose cannon -- someone who might do anything -- is scary and dangerous.  Even the most powerful of men have to watch out for loose cannons.

And that's one of Spade's biggest tools in taking charge of a situation.  His power doesn't come from money or authority -- or even from the calm calculated masterfulness of someone like Jules in Pulp Fiction.  It comes from the fact that he's fearless and unpredictable ... and uncontrollable.

My favorite bit from The Maltese Falcon movie is when Spade first meets The Fat Man, Caspar Guttman (Sidney Greenstreet).

They engage in genial negotiation, two Alpha Dogs feeling each other out.  But then, as Guttman continues with the pretense of rational persuasion, Spade simply explodes.  He throws a wild, irrational hissy fit.

If this were actually a rational negotiation, this would be a terrible move.  But Spade isn't negotiating, and the hissy fit is coldly calculated to let Guttman know that.

But the most interesting part of this scene is after the explosion, Spade storms out, and then, as we see him leave the hotel room, he transforms, like a werewolf becoming human again.  He didn't actually lose his temper.  The whole thing was a cool and calculated strategy.

Here's a clip.  If you want to just see the relevant parts, you can skip to about halfway through -- maybe two and a half minutes.  Spade explodes at 3:17.




My favorite bit here is at the end; after Spade pushes the button of the elevator, he pauses to admire the way his hand is shaking.  He enjoyed that wild bit of adrenaline.  He's not doing this for the sake of the client.  He's not even really doing it for money.  He's doing it because he likes it.  He's an alpha dog. He does what he likes.

In the very next scene he gets to revel in different kind of loose cannon moment: the district attorney calls him in to be questioned, and again he starts at ease, but then stands up and is a smart ass -- even going so far as to make a joke with the man's subordinates -- as he tells the guy that his authority means nothing.

I suppose Spade is as good at disrupting the control of others as Jules is at taking control.

Probably the most interesting thing about Spade, though, is how he reacts when someone gets the better of him: When Joel Cairo -- the effete character played by Peter Lorre -- pulls a gun on Spade, Spade takes the gun, knocks him out.  On waking up, Cairo is utterly subservient.  He's polite and pleasant and cooperative.  He totally accepts that Spade's in control of the situation.  He makes a deal with Spade, and then meekly asks for his gun back... and then turns it on Spade and goes right back to what he came for -- he wants to search Spade's office.  Spade is amused and even delighted to be beaten this way, and cooperates fully.  He could take the gun away again, but he respects someone who is a stubborn as he is -- who plays the game like a game. (The whole five minute sequence is here.)


Of the characters I talked about last week only three of them fall into this "gun for hire" category. That's Mick and  Casey McKee - my crime-solving young gunslingers from Have Gun, Will Play and other stories -- and George Starling, who straddles a couple of categories.

And all three of them -- even Casey -- are actually what I call Alpha Beta Dogs.


Casey McKee - Alpha Beta-ish Dog

Casey is by nature very alpha.  She is just a teenager, but she grew up in outlaw territory and she learned young, as a matter of survival, to be a cross between a wildcat and a rattlesnake.  And it's not a game either.  She's too small and too female to laugh off any violations of her personal space.

And yet....

Casey is very much aware that Mick has much better social skills than she does. As a matter of fact, she's just a little bit in awe of his ability to come right out and talk and joke around with people. Although she will never openly admit it, she recognizes that her doofus husband is actually smart.  She admires his brain.  And he can do things and take her places she never would otherwise go.

And she's not the only one.  In the back story of the series: when Casey met Mick, he was riding with a legendary -- and ornery -- lawman named Harry Lowe.  Harry and Casey are extremely alike.  (Except Harry is a man and gets more respect.)  He had very poor social skills, and though he didn't need Mick to solve puzzles for him, he did come to depend on this goofy kid's social ability.

So even though both Casey and Harry are ornery people who call the shots, they both recognize that there are times they would rather defer to Mick.


Mick McKee - Beta Dog with a Gun and a Wife

Mick's chosen profession is freelance law man.  So he has to have the skills to take control of a situation, to dominate when dominance is necessary.  And he learned from the best, so he has all of those skills that Jules exhibited in that scene I talked about yesterday.  Or at least all the social skills: Mick knows about looking the right person in the eye at the right time, about calming people down, but putting an edge in his voice when he needs to.  He knows how and when to be fearless when necessary.

He's at ease with all of those things, but dominance not really his nature. He'd rather joke you into something than use force.  And being scary?  He'd just as soon let Casey do that part.  And it works particularly well because, while people tend to underestimate her, his smiling narration (and obvious respect) tends to draw attention to her more dangerous attributes.

As I mentioned up top: being a gun for hire is the source of a built in conflict, and Mick and Casey probably feel it more than anyone.  They are there to do dirty work.  Other people's dirty work.  And they're young, and they haven't quite got all the ethical ins and outs of their world or profession worked out.  Spade may have his internal code figured out, Mick and Casey don't quite.

And that causes a little angst in them.  Are they doing the right thing?  They live in a world that isn't black and white, where breaking a law might be the right thing. Where doing a good job may mean killing somebody.  This doesn't sit easy, but Mick figures that's how it's supposed to be.

George Starling - The Cat Among The Pigeons

Is George an Alpha Beta Dog?  Um... sort of.  But really, George isn't much of a dog at all.  He does compare himself to a retriever at one point, but others have a different animal in mind.  About halfway through The Man Who Did Too Much, George tells a co-worker; "I did not set the cat among the pigeons."

The other guy gives a long significant pause and says: "George, you ARE the cat among the pigeons."

George is very goal-oriented. He has no interest in social structures, and no interest in dominating others.  He has kind of a thing about busting things up when he sees people being dominated.  But he isn't interested in taking over.  It's just in breaking up the situation.  And he tends to shake things up because he doesn't respect or recognize things like pecking orders.

He was once a Mountie.  He is not a Mountie any more because... well, you know that motto about how Mounties always get their man? Well, apparently you're only supposed to do that when it's your assignment.

And yeah, he probably would have been happy as a Mountie if he'd been allowed to chase down Gros Pierre in the Yukon and drag him back trussed like a Christmas goose -- but that's not a matter of domination. It's not a dog correcting a rogue dog in his pack.  It's a cat catching a mouse.

As for dominating him...  George will do anything you want, as long as you are A) female, or B) a father figure or C) a kitten up a tree.  (Otherwise, he's really hard to nail down.)

And that's probably the only reason George is in this category of Paladin, because he really isn't a gun for hire. He doesn't need or want the money.  He has a job becuase then someone will give him assignments, and he has found the job where gets to help people and the boss doesn't try to stop him.  (That was the rest of the statment by his co-worker "You are the cat among the pigeons, and that's why Eva calls you.")

But George also fits in another category, which I'll talk about next Tuesday: the Rogue Hero.  But before I get to that, I want to talk about the one category that George clearly doesn't fit in at all: The Public Servant.

Next week on Monday we'll be talking about cops and soldiers and bureaucrats.  I'll be talking about Columbo and Marshal Sam Gerard of The Fugitive, and of my own characters; Captain Rozinshura and some supporting characters like Sergeant MacGreevey and Uncle Rosie.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Alpha Dog Week - Characters Exerting Control

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series.  This week we're talking about Dominance, or Alpha Dog characters.



This series started with some musings by another blogger on the fad for dominators (as in BDSM bondage "doms") in romantic heroes these days.  But I'm taking this subject to a broader level. It's something all writers have to consider and deal with; that protagonists have to take control of something -- themselves, the situation, the bad guy, something.

But I'm talking, in particular, about characters for whom taking control is an actual skill set.

For some it's also a personality trait, but not for all.  And because I write mostly in the genres surrounding mystery and adventure, my characters are sometimes called upon to be downright dominant, whether that's in their nature or not.

And in these genres, this kind of dominance is aslo more than just a character trait or a skill set.  It's a part of the plot.  It's an important theme that runs through such stories: the ethics of dominance, resisting dominance, the social uses of it, etc. (Even in a cozy mystery -- the killer is someone who used unacceptable force, and the point of the detective work is ultimately to take the killer into custody.)

So instead of starting with my own characters, I'm going to kick this off with a movie that really illuminates those things -- the skills, the themes, the ethics.
  
Pulp Fiction - The Epilogue

This is a movie many of you may never want to see, and I am not recommending that you do.  (Though it is brilliant if you like the kind of movie it is.  I can't really watch any other Tarantino movie, though I admire his work.)  I just think that everybody -- every writer, certainly -- can benefit from the lessons of one scene, the epilogue ending.  And so I'm going to talk about that and offer a clip for those who haven't seen it.

Pulp Fiction is a violent crime movie about dominance and bullying, but also about chivalry, and honor and characters with a personal code.  It's full of extreme contrasts.  For instance the opening scene is a pair of sweet young lovers -- Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey-Bunny (Amanda Plummer) having coffee in a diner.  They're sweet, they love each other, they call each other cute names ... and they are also professional armed robbers.  They are discussing a change in their career -- from robbing liquor stores to robbing banks -- but decide, in the end, to rob the diner they're in instead.

Then the movie cuts away and tells the story of other characters -- criminals and gangsters all -- until the very end, when it cuts back to that scene in the diner, where we see that among the customers in the diner are a pair of hit men.  We've seen them throughout the movie, and they're really dangerous guys.  Mean, uncompromising, highly competent, and they've had a really bad day.

However, the meanest, baddest one of all, Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) has just revealed that he's rethinking what he wants out of life.  And just then the young robbers leap to their feet and start waving around guns and screaming.  They're terrifying, abusive -- screaming, waving guns, shoving people, threatening them personally -- until they have complete control of the diner.

And then they face Jules.  Jules would just let them take his wallet and leave, but they want the briefcase he has with him, which belongs to his boss and he is honor-bound to deliver it safely.

So Jules has to take control back.  And it's not something he can do by just pulling out his gun.  There are two of them, armed and on edge, and determined to keep control -- and when they realize he's a threat, they are even more determined to keep control.  Jules is alone, since his partner had gone off to the men's room.  And worse yet, the partner comes back, gun out and ready to shoot, just as Jules is getting things calmed down.

So at any moment, everybody's going to start shooting.  Jules must dominate all of them. And he does so mainly with his voice. (Yes he has a gun, but they all have guns.)

I want you to see this for two reasons -- one is because I want you to see how he does it.  The other is because I want you to hear what he says as he explains why he doesn't kill them.  This speech is about dominance, and defining the weak and the strong and the protector and the tyrant.

It's all about what we have to think about when we have characters take control.

There is only half the scene here (the clip's about four minutes) and it starts after he's got everybody calm.  But he uses the same techniques in the clip as he used before it.  (Especially when his partner returns just a moment into this, and things get a little crazy again.)  Jules shouts and uses expletives and points his gun like everybody, but notice what his real main tools are:

He focuses -- he looks only where he needs to look (mainly keeping control of Pumpkin, whom he calls "Ringo" because of the English accent), he gives simple and reasonable orders.  He talks like a parent, "point the gun at me, honey, you're doing great."  He frequently uses names -- and one of the first things he did to take control was to get Pumpkin to give him Honey-Bunny's real name, Yolanda, because he does not have physical control of her, and she's getting hysterical.  And that's exactly what anybody would do if you have to get control of a frightened child: ask the name, use it to establish familiarity.  It is a professional technique.

But most of his energy if focused on Pumpkin/Ringo.  It's Control 101.  He keeps eye contact, he frequently demands responses -- though he is not bullying (not saying "I can't hear you!").  He keeps it on a practical level.  Pumpkin must calm Yolanda down, he must indicate that he understands. Jules doesn't have to rush him -- he's rushing himself.  And that's a part of control too, to be doing the opposite of what the victim expects.

And watch what Jules does with the gun and his face as he comes to the conclusion of his speech about the Bible verse and righteous and evil men.  As he reaches his final point, his manner is more intimate.  He moves the gun closer, which is scarier, even as his face becomes more expressive and his point more benign, and it seems like this whole thing is to be sure Pumpkin doesn't miss the point.  He relents only when he's done.  And everybody is so dominated, they are afraid to move.  Jules has to say "go" very softly and gently.

Here's the scene.  It's full of bad language.  Cover the cat's ears....



For this series, I'm not going to talk about villains -- even reforming villains like Jules -- I'm going to talk about heroes (and impact characters) and how they take control.  I'll break them down in to three types which my characters fall into.  I call them Paladins, Public Servants and Rogues.

I'll start tomorrow with the Paladins (who I am defining slightly differently than they do in gaming and history; I'm making a specific reference to Wire Palladin, the hired gun from Have Gun, Will Travel).  Paladins, in this case, are champions: hired guns and private eyes who are hired to be Alpha Dogs for people who are too weak to protect themselves.

I'll talk mainly about Sam Spade, of The Maltese Falcon (and maybe a little about Wire Paladin) and then my own characters George Starling and Mick and Casey McKee.  (Link to Paladins - Dicks, Saints and Saddlebums)

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Sunday Update: Chasing Enthusiasm, Not Dreams

Before I get to the meat of the update, a few business items:

PSA Reminder: Referral Spam

An interesting side effect of last week's blog posts about Wealth.  Kyra (who got me started on writing my Wealth and Power and Jackassery series) reports that she had a big bump in traffic on her series when she wrote about bondage.  (Note, index to the series is at the bottom of this post.)

There was a similar effect on my blog last week, but worse, because I was talking about WEALTH WEALTH WEALTH!  So I got socked with referral spammers.

Those are the creeps who pretend that people are visiting your site from theirs, so their link will show up in your blog statistics. They assume you'll wonder who is saying nice things about you, and click on their link. (Don't do that.  While some of these just go to sites that paid them to drive traffic, many go to dangerous malware sites looking to turn your computer into a zombie.

If you find an unfamiliar site in your stats, Google the site name, look them up in Whois.  Or better yet, just leave them alone.  Use Google Analytics to watch your stats instead.


This Week on the Blog - Alpha Dog Week

We're continuing our Wealth and Power and Jackassery with a discussion of power with Alpha Dog Week.  (Let's see if the reference spammers like that.)  In particular I'll be talking about characters taking control.

*Monday: Alpha Dogs - Characters Exerting Control
(It's the nature of the protagonist, no matter how weak, they need to learn to take control, or else you've got a tragedy on your hands.  We'll talk about Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.)
*Tuesday: Paladins: On Dicks, Saints and Saddle-Bums
(Outsiders for hire - including Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon, George and Mick McKee.  The guys you call when you can't handle something yourself.)
*Thursday: A Self-Interview
(Why I'm talking to myself, and why this wealth and power thing struck a chord with me.)
*Friday Story Game: The Situation Form
(Starting to get into the actual game a little. Talking about how Title, Genre and Theme + Character Issues really can define a story for you - but that's not all there is to it.)

Chasing Enthusiasm and Sleep Deprivation

I looked over my body of work, and had an epiphany the other day.

When I look at everything I have done -- the things I've finished, the things I'm proud of, my achievements and things I've been recognized for, everything (even my investment account):

I did not achieve any of it by having a dream and setting goals and sticking to it.

I achieved it through undisciplined, unplanned enthusiasm.

And after realizing this, I looked over things again and I can say this: having a dream and setting goals and being disciplined was probably helpful when I was young.   I mean, it's been a while and my memories are colored by the opinions I held at the time, but I think it helped to learn.  The effort and goals were there while I happened to learn, anyway.

But even there, I'm not sure.  Because I loved learning, I never actually made myself study or write papers or anything.  I mean, I did do everything on time, but I was reading up on stuff, and writing about it, out of interest.  The same way I do now.  I was a person who always got to class or work early, and always stayed late. 

Now, as I get older, I take a look at how and when accomplish things and how much, and I find a kind of Pareto Principle going on. (Pareto Principle: 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your efforts.)

It's true, when I am disciplined I tend to finish things that are related to my stated goal ... but I expend much more time and energy getting much less done.  And furthermore, when I look closer at those projects I actually got done with discipline, I realize that I did most of that work -- like 90 percent of it, and the best quality of it -- when I was supposed to be doing something else.  And that work gets done in a relatively short period of time.

It appears that my very best and most productive method of working is to leap madly from enthusiasm to enthusiasm, and only worry about finishing things when that's the thing I'm feeling enthusiastic about.

This is something that we all believe deep in our hearts is not true.  It can't possibly be true. It's like finding out that eating chocolate is good for your heart (which, of course, it is).  We know from experience, when we allow ourselves to stop being disciplined, nothing will be finished.  We think "This is bad.  I've got to stop doing this and get organized." And we do stop it and get organized.

But maybe we're thinking on the wrong timescale.

(And I say this knowing that most people have to stick to the smaller time scale. We have bills to pay and reality to deal with.)

But looked at from purely a lifetime of work accomplished, maybe on the larger scale we might find that the thing that gummed up the works was the discipline to turn away from our enthusiasms.

Maybe the problematic rule in Heinlein's Rules of Writing is not Rule 3.  Maybe it's Rule 2.  "You must finish what you start."  The implication being "before you go on to something else."  But maybe that implication is wrong.  Maybe that's just a business rule.  You've definitely got to finish to get paid.

But maybe it has nothing to do with the creative process.  And maybe if you can put off being paid, you'd have more finished work to be paid for.

I do not have good, empirical data on this.  Probably never will.  But as I currently have the savings to not worry about being paid for a while, I'm going to try it out.

Now, here's the thing that I think is key to actually doing this: dreams beget goals beget guilt.  So I'm not limiting my enthusiasm to my writing career, or achievements or dreams.  I'm trusting my enthusiasm to lead me to what I do intensely and well.

The risks of this, as I see it, are two-fold:

1.) There will be things I start and never get back to.  But is that worse than not even starting things, and getting less done in the end? (Besides, there are already things I start and never get back to.)

2.) I might become less reliable to my readers.  I have two thoughts on that.  One is "I can get less reliable than I am?"  The other is, "I got through school Summa Cum Laude by following enthusiasms."  (Even though I had about six different majors -- one of which was multidisciplinary -- I did actually make it through all my classes with good grades.)  I can meet responsibilities without turning them into achievements and goals.

So my new goals are sleep deprivation and weight loss.

(I tend to forget to sleep and eat when I'm chasing enthusisasms.)

See you in the funny papers.

Return of the Baroness in November

For you fans of Plink: 

I'm going to restart The Case of the Misplaced Baroness sometime in November. It will be a once-a-week serial, rather than twice.  Not sure of other details yet.  As I will tell you in Sunday's Update post, it's a part of a new approach I'm taking to life and writing.

(I'm thinking that when I do the whole thing as an ebook, I might use the image at left as inspiration for the cover.  Maybe with the smoking man as the figure in the background....)

Oh, and on a related note: I finally got the previous story, The Case of the Misplaced Hero, redone and uploaded to Amazon, as well as an ePub only to Smashwords. It will take a couple of weeks for it to trickle through to other distributors and for other formats to appear at Smashwords. 

See you in the funny papers.

The Story Game - Introduction

What is The Story Game?

It's something I came up with this summer. It was intended to help me write a particular kind of story better and faster, but mostly it turned into something I was having such a good time doing, that I didn't really write that much.

But it was fun, and my new experiment in life and writing is to chase enthusiasms rather than chasing dreams/goals. (More about that Sunday.)  So, I'm going to develop this into ... something.  A workbook, an actual formal game, I don't know.

It consists of a whole string of little exercises -- randomized choices, brainstorming, formulas, research -- which can be played as a big formal game, or as little individual games/exercises, or even as an ongoing activity.

Who is the game for?

I'm not sure yet.  I think it will be of most use to two groups of people; student writers who are still struggling to actually write a book (and their teachers), and people who love to play creative games.

Professional writers who already have their skills under control may find it fun, and may find parts of it useful, but honestly, I think most pros will have the same problem I did.  As a whole, it's more a time wasting hobby than a major professional tool.

Parts of it will be useful, though (as the plot wheels were for Erle Stanly Gardner) and I think it could be very useful for a pro who was preparing to strike out in a new direction -- like writing a screenplay or a genre with a very different structure than you're used to.  The "create your own game" parts of this are really about studying the genre and getting to know it on a different level.

And some of these exercises and games might be useful to book bloggers and reviewers.  They'll give you subjects to blog about, or some deeper thoughts to help with a review.

On to the game....


The Formal Version of the Game

Today I'm going to introduce the big formal game, but since it'll take a few posts to really get it all started, I'm also going to give you a mini-game that works by itself, but also can be used in part of the bigger game.

One note: This game has one problem, if you want it to be a useful writing tool; you have to create your own game materials.  But it's hard to do that until you have an idea of how the game works.  So we're going to start with materials I've already created, and then start talking about creating your own.


How It Works

Like Fight Club, there is only one rule:  Your creative side is allowed to trump any part of the game at any point.

The main point of this game is to allow your creative side to skip over pesky decisions that don't interest it, and get straight to the stuff it wants to work on.

But the secondary point of this game is to challenge your creative side to come up with new cool solutions -- so it can be a good idea to try to stick to the game as much as possible.  Basically, if you already know where you want to go, go for it.  However if you don't have a great idea in mind, but you just don't want to go where the game is pushing you... it can be a good idea to give it a try.  Even if the problem is that it sounds boring and cliched, your imagination might come up with something really cool, just as a form of self-preservation.

And if it doesn't.... Your creative side is always allowed to trump any part of the game at any point.

Playing the Game

The actual first step is creating the game materials.  Part of the reason is that the game works best if it is specific to your own style or genre.  If you want to use this as a writing/learning tool, it's important that you create your own.

But it's hard to write your own until you have an idea of how the game works.  So we're going to start next week with materials I've already created, and then start talking about creating your own.


Game Materials

*Situation Form - suited to the genre or your style of writing.  It has all the background for a story: characters, conflicts, and a few wildcards -- such as title and theme -- to get the imagination going.
*Randomized Lists of possible answers for the Situation Form.
*Brainstorming Materials -- paper, pens, or your computer, or whatever.

And for many writers, that may be all you need to take off an start writing.  However, for the full game you also need  two more things:

*A Plot Formula suited to the genre and to your style of writing.
*More Randomized Lists of plot points and tropes you can plug into the plot formula.


Game Play

1.) Fill in the Situation Form with random choices from the lists. (If there is some element you already know you want to do, go ahead and fill that bit in first.)

2.) Brainstorm your actual story concept and a logline.  The situation form should have enough information to give you interesting problems to deal with.

3.) If you're a pantser: Start writing.  If you're a plotter (or just want to keep playing this as a game), you move on to the plot formulas. (Note, you don't have to fill in the whole plot before starting to write.  It can be fun to just do it one act at a time, and go back and forth, too.)

4.)  Fill in the Plot Formula. There are a lot of ways you can even randomize the creation of this plot.  That can be a  series of mini-games in and of themselves. I've developed a few, but we'll talk more about that when we get to it.


Next week I'm going to give you my Situation Form for my version of the "Woman in Jeopardy" Romantic Suspense story, and explain how and why I created it.  I'll have a downloadable PDF of the form and lists for you.

Since you have to wait until next week to get on with the big game, I decided to leave you with a little mini-game (which can also be used within the bigger game).


Random Relationships Mini-Game

Stories aren't just about a person who interacts with random other people.  It's about the relationships between those people.  No one exists in a vaccuum.

This little exercise creates a circle of characters and their relationships.  It's particularly interesting for traditional mysteries where you need to build a circle of suspects.  (I sometimes call this "A Plate of Red Herrings Game.")  You can adapt it to suit your needs.

How you play:

*Decide how many characters you want. (I suggest five.)
*Roll a character from List A below, then roll a relationship from List B. The relationship tells you what the character is to the next character.
*Keep rolling characters and relationships until you get to the end, and the last character's relationship will be with the first on the list.

(To "roll" a selection, you can use random.org, or you can get ten playing cards with numbers 1-10 and simply draw them to make a selction (or write numbers on slips of paper).  If you draw cards, be sure to put the card back in the deck for each draw. You actually want to have repeats, because that's more natural.)

List A - Characters

• 1. male elderly
• 2. female elderly
• 3. male middle aged
• 4. female middle aged
• 5. male young adult
• 6. female young adult
• 7. male teen
• 8. female teen
• 9. male child
• 10. female child

List B - Relationships (to next character)

• 1. Parent/child
• 2. club/church acquaintance
• 3. sibling
• 4. aunt/uncle/cousin
• 5. stranger
• 6. friend
• 7. enemy
• 8. coworker
• 9. boss
• 10. neighbor

So if you draw 1 - 1 - 6 - 7 - 4 - 9 - 9 - 3 - 4 - 1 you will have a character circle that looks like this:

Elderly man -- is parent of -- Young woman -- who is enemy of -- Middle aged woman -- who is boss of -- Teen boy -- who is sibling of -- middle aged woman -- who is child of (the first character - elderly man).

So... it looks like the young woman, the teen boy and the second middle-aged woman are all siblings -- all children of the old man.  Which means he was a pretty active guy for a long time, unless one or more of those are step children.  Furthermore, the middle sister hates her younger brother's boss.

There's some interesting potential in that.  Especially when you consider how these disparate charaters became siblings, and why the sister might have it in for that other woman.

With these particular lists, you can end up with some weird things. For instance: a little kid is the boss of an old man.  Not likely, unless you're going for something a little over the top.  There are two ways you can handle that.  You can go with it as a brainstorming exercise: how can a little kid be a boss?  Or an enemy?  That can force you to come up with some out-of-the-box ideas.  Or you can just re-roll one of those items.

If you keep coming across items that cause you problems -- or simply bore you -- then change the lists.  Replace some of the family relationships with working relationships, or don't have children in the mix.  Tweak it to suit the kind of story you want to tell.

For instance, I find that "enemy" is a pretty hot item and you might want to load the list with similar items.  "Hated by" and "Hates" shifts the relationship. (Does the sister hate the boss or the boss hate the sister, or is it mutual?)  "Rival" has different connotations -- more competitive.

If you want your characters more similar in age (say, a school story) narrow the age ranges (use grades) or take age out and use something else.  You can even put repeats of the same item to increase your odds of something you really want.  And yes, you can make special lists just for special kinds of stories -- like a Halloween list with werewolves and witches and ghosts.  Or NA romance with the relationships having to do with romance.

A really good list have two things: it will be loaded with items that spark your imagination, but it will also have a few items that maybe you don't like so much -- and those will make you work harder.


Next Friday, we'll continue The Writing Game, with the "Character Structure" behind the Situation Worksheet.

But before that, on Monday and Tuesday, we'll continue our Characters, Wealth and Power series; moving on to Domination!

See you in the funny papers.

Characters: Wealth and Pragmatism

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  This week we're talking about Wealth.

ALL OF MY characters, even the ones I talked about Monday and Tuesday, have a pretty pragmatic take on wealth.  But the previous characters have a very loose attitude toward money, which may be best summed up by another character of mine.

Luther Cymck ("It's pronounced JIM-check!") is a not very bright but oddly wise bank robber from a screenplay called "The Scenic Route." (It's not available for you to read, but I'm working on it, okay?)

When he discovers that their Big Bank Robbery did not net them very much money at all, Luther institutes a new rule for his misfit gang:  Never count the money.

"There's only two amounts of money," he says.  "Either there's enough or there isn't."  And he points to the pile of loot and says.  "If you want to buy a pack of smokes?  It's enough.  Tank of gas?  It's plenty.  You want to buy a race horse, it's probably not enough.  At least for a good one."

And though it would be cool to own a race horse, he admits, it really isn't necessary, so the money they have is enough.

Today's characters are also pretty relaxed about money... but they have bigger plans.


A Romantic Age

The series these characters come from is what I call The Serial, or The Perils of Plink.  It takes place in a world inspired by the Golden Age of Silent Movies, and fiction of the same period.  So the characters are built on archetypes from an age when the world was changing rapidly.  Modernism seemed exciting and soulless, and old romantic values seemed on the wane -- but were much loved.  It was an age of revolution and social change -- which might have shaken up our ideas of good and evil, but still maintained a strong romantic sense that there _was_ such a thing as "good" and "evil."

(You can find a the rough draft of the first story here on the blog in serial form -- The Case of the Misplaced Hero.  It's also available for sale as an ebook, but I'm about to upload a new and improved edition, so wait until this weekend if you intend to buy it.)

Alex -- The Misplaced Hero

Alex is a rich, idle college student, much like Don Diego Vega (the guy who became Zorro).  He was raised by his odd-ball aunt to identify with Zorro, to emulate him.  But he was also raised in modern-day Michigan, and his aunt seemed to be talking literally about swordfights and rescuing peasants, so it seems like a game to him.

It's only when he finds himself in the world he thought she had made up that he realizes he can be everything he wants to be. He can save the world or at least people in it.

In the Case of the Misplaced hero, Alex is actually dropped into Awarshawa without anything but his clothes.  He has no money or access to it, and he doesn't care. He has left that world behind and found his destiny.

It's only when his sidekick, Professor Thorny, points out that wealth is a super-power -- it's what gave Batman and Zorro and The Scarlet Pimpernel the power to do great things -- that Alex realizes he needs his money.  And though we don't see it in that first story, I can tell you that when we meet him later on, he will be cultivating his wealth for use in heroism.

As for the "Million Jelly Beans Factor" I mentioned with the previous characters: there is no frivolous desire he would waste that money on.  He might use a million jelly beans as a diversion to help him distract the guards while he breaks into the secure facility to rescue the maiden or steal the document that will prevent a war.  He can be pretty playful, but if he does anything that seems self-indulgent, it'll be to mislead somebody about what he's really up to.

But that's the more mature Alex than you will see in the first story.

Alex's sidekick Thorny, on the other hand, was a cynical burnt-out shell of a college professor, and now he considers everything to be a wonderful indulgence -- even danger.  He'd be perfectly willing to shoot the wad on jelly beans.  Or more likely, Doritos.  (That's the one down side of an alternate universe -- no Doritos.)

And what would happen if Alex lost his fortune?  Nothing.  Alex would simply continue with different resources.  Maybe becoming like Robin Hood, and financing his adventures by robbing his enemies. And Thorny would enjoy that too.


Plink -- The Well-Placed Flapper

Plink is actually Lady Pauline, the Baroness of Beethingham.  She is just 21: young, beautiful, rich, and soaked in priviledge and social position, and she thinks it might be jolly good fun to use said wealth, power, etc., to have adventures and do good.  She is not as driven as Alex.  She doesn't really have a mission.

As far as Plink is concerned, jelly beans would be lovely.  There is nothing wrong with little excess, but only if you have people to eat them up.  Perhaps we could invite some orphans over or something.  That would make a smashing party.

However, in spite of Plink's frivolous site, she is not an airhead.  She has guts and enthusiasm, and she can be very serious and practical when she needs to be.

If Plink's wealth were taken from her, I think it would throw her for a loop.  But she's young and adaptable, so the circumstances that took her wealth away would be more traumatic than the actual loss of money.  That is, her wealth includes her staff, who are like a family to her.  Would the circumstance in which she lost her money cause them to lose their livelihood too?  Would everything she knows be destroyed or would she simply lose access to it?

But what is a more interesting question to me will eventually be brought up when Plink gets herself a sidekick (in a later story):  When her aunts insist that she take on a paid companion (in hopes of settling her down) she hires a poverty-stricken radical journalist, which is going to create some intersting "how the other half lives" scenarios, but since Lily is pretty young and naive herself, I think she's going to get more out of it than Plink will.

Which brings us to another side of the political situation in this alternate world:


Rozinshura - The Revolutionary Bureaucrat

Captain Rozinshura is an official in the Anarcho-Bureaucratic Republic of Awarshawa.  He isn't a bad guy -- more of an impact character, and sometimes hero of his own stories -- but his country is full of bad guys and also often in conflict with Plink's country of Imperia.

Rozinshura is more or less a communist.  But more than that, he was born at a time and place where he was pretty much in the army from birth.  It was an anarchist army, but all the same: there was never a time when he actually owned anything, his clothes are his uniform. His needs provided by the state.

And ironically, that makes him the most acquisitive person in the bunch.  That's partly due to his job: he's a facilitator which means he's in charge of distributing resources.  As far as he is concerned, that means he "owns" everything that comes under his sphere of influence.  It also means he is responsible for it, and he takes that very seriously.

He's kind of a reflection of George: since he "owns" everything around him, he doesn't really think much about possessing anything personally.  And if he believes you actually need a million jelly beans?  He will find a way to provide a truck load of the closest approximation thereof that he can acquire. 

UN-like George, however, Rozinshura will actually think it through.  He's a logistics guy.  Not only will he consider whether you actually need that many jelly beans, he will weigh cost/benefit ratio on expending the effort, and he will consider whether you actually have room to store a million jellybeans.  If you don't, you won't get a million of them.

On the other hand, if you do have room to store a million jelly beans, and he has a million jellybeans that need to be stored -- you may get them whether you want them or not.  And if you objected, he might throw up his hands helplessly and hand you a huge stack of paperwork to start the process of having them removed.  (There is a little bit of Sgt. Bilko in Rozinshura -- though it is more in his methods than his motives.)

What if you were to give Rozinshura an enormous fortune?

He'd thank you for this great gift to the Republic of Awarshawa.

It's not that he isn't self-indulgent.  If you gave him a basket of peaches, he might very well pick the largest and juiciest for himself.  But he loves his life, and he has no personal use for a diamond car or a million jellybeans or a grand fortune.  Not that he would ever turn such things down.  He'd just process them into the system, for the greater good of the state.

That's enough about wealth.

I was going to relate the rest of this week's posts to the subject, but I've changed my mind. Instead, there will be no Thursday post, but on Friday I'll introduce one of the new features I'll do off and on this fall: The Writing Game.

Then next week, we get to what I consider the most interesting part of the wealth and power posts: POWER and DOMINANCE!  I'll talk about classic characters -- like Sam Spade, Columbo and Zorro -- as well as my own characters.  The subject will be whether they are Alpha Dogs and how they manage to get their way in all sorts of situations.

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)

Characters: Wealth and the Zen Gunslinger

Continuing the series on the currently popular character attributes - Wealth, Dominance and Jackassery. First Post,  Index of the Whole Series (scroll down to the bottom of the post).  This week we're talking about Wealth.


Yesterday, in our ongoing series about characters and wealth and power, I talked about one of my richest characters, George Starling of The Man Who Did Too Much. One of the things I mentioned about him is that he really doesn't care much about money and might even be happier if he didn't have it.

Today I'm going to talk about another pair of characters who have no use for money -- and that's a good thing because they generally don't have much of it: Mick and Casey McKee of the Mick and Casey Mystery series.

The Zen Gunslinger

Mick McKee is not what you'd call wealthy, though he is what you would call entrepreneurial: he and his wife Casey are gunslingers for hire in the old west.

They own their horses, their weapons and gear, and the clothes on their backs.  Since they are young and inexperienced and one of them is a girl and the other a bit too sweet-natured to impress people as an effective gunman, they really don't get your top-of-the-line gunslinging work.

When they get a little extra cash, Casey might insist on upgrading their hats or their weapons.  But Mick?  He's always happy when they have enough cash to sleep in a real bed.  The fact is, there are really only two things he wants in life: Casey and pie.  He'll even give up the comfortable bed for a little more of either one of those.

One irony of their life: they probably have more money than it seems, because on those occasions when they have more money than they want to carry around, they put the extra in the nearest bank.  It's never very much, but they have cash squirreled around all over the west.

But as it is not the age of Paypal and internet transfers, most of the time that money is out of reach.  So they live hand to mouth, day to day.    And now and then, they truly hit bottom: at one point in Have Gun, Will play, they find themselves stripped of everything -- horses, weapons, gear.  Casey has managed to hang on to her boot gun, but Mick barely even has the shirt on his back.

Though that is the low point of the story for he and Casey, it is also the high point, as they sit and make love under the stars.

They are very existential that way.

What would happen if Mick and Casey were to become fabulously wealthy?  There might be a few Beverly Hillbillies moments, but I suspect they'd put the money in a bank and ride away.


When I think about both my mystery series -- not only Mick and Casey, but also George and Karla from yesterday's posts -- the characters are pretty zen about money.  They're detectives -- their interest in is in justice and figuring things out.

And though there is always a certain level of laid-back existentialism in my fiction, wealth plays a much more powerful (if not important) role in lives of the characters of The Serial (a.k.a. The Perils of Plink -- which started with The Misplaced Hero.)

I decided, because it's different, to stop here and tell you about Alex. Plink, Thorny and Rozinshura in tomorrow's post.  (Once again, you'll find the index to the series at the bottom of this post.)

See you in the funny papers.

If you read this blog, and find it useful or entertaining, buy a book once in a while, or make a donation. 

Here's a link to a list of my books.  And ... hey, look at that!  There's a donation link right below this sentence. (Donations are via Paypal)