The Seanachai

In my book Catastrophe: Risk and Return (2004), I examined the issue of scientific literacy briefly, pointing out that only a third of American adults (adults, not 15-year-olds) know what a molecule is, that 39 percent believe that astrology is scientific, that 46 percent deny that human beings evolved from earlier animal species, and that almost 50 percent do not know that it takes a year for the earth to revolve around the sun (many do not know that the earth revolves around the sun). These are amazing statistics, and yet, according to the materials I consulted, the scientific literacy of the U.S. population actually exceeds that of the European Union, Japan, and Canada.

This is an excerpt of Richard Posner from the Becker/Posner blog. It’s not important that you know who these guys are, but they are big brains in the fields of Law and Economics. They kind of guys who have theorems named after them. http://home.uchicago.edu/~rposner/biography. Read the rest of this entry

Okay, okay. So I’m lame for being quiet for so long. (And I know I’m lame)

But things are bubbling. I swear they are. For one thing, we’ve got a colorist (the Mighty Myron Macklin) and he’s awesome. And we’re almost, almost, almost, so close I can taste it, done with the color version of the book.
And of course, if you’ve caught up with the latest installment. We can expect many interesting things from Topper in what I’m going to call Season Two of How to Succeed in Evil.
Here’s a peek at the color (unlettered)

technorati tags:How to Succeed in Evil, Patrick E. McLean, comic book, Graphic Novel, Edwin Windsor, Nic Rummel, Myron Macklin

It was on this day in 1452 that the first section of the Gutenberg Bible was published in Mainz, Germany. It was the first book ever printed with movable type, Gutenberg’s revolutionary idea. At the time, all existing books were copied out by hand, and in order to be as efficient as possible, scribes had developed a way of writing that was full of abbreviations. Words were written in a dense cursive script, and there was very little space between letters or even words on the page.It was Gutenberg’s genius to imagine an entirely different way of writing, in which all the individual letters would be distinct from each other, rather than connected. That way, he could produce individual blocks with letters on them. He fitted these letter blocks into a frame, coated them with an ink made of linseed oil and soot, and then used an adapted wine press to print text on paper. The revolutionary effect of movable type was the ability to print an infinite number of pages from a small number of letter blocks simply by rearranging them.Within three decades there were print shops all over the European continent. It is estimated that more books were produced in the 50 years after Gutenberg’s invention than scribes had been able to produce in the 1,000 years before that.Today, about four dozen copies of the Gutenberg Bible survive. One of the most recent copies to come on the market was auctioned in New York in 1987. It consisted of only the first volume, but it was in good condition, and it sold at auction for more than five million dollars.

http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=25571&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=731c61ee4d

The last time I was in New York I was blindsided by a Gutenberg Bible. I literally backed into it while checking out the New York Public Library. It affected me tremendously. And perhaps most of all because it was still perfectly legible.

But a few facts not noted here.

1) When John Jacob Astor, one of the main patrons of the library, brought the Bible into the United States he made the Customs officers remove their hats.

2) Shortly after printing his Bible Gutenberg went bankrupt.

Happy birthday moveable type!

technorati tags:Gutenberg, patrick mclean, Seanachai, NYPL, New York Public Library

I’m a professional writer. My words pay for my bread, my beer and everything else I consume. Last year, not counting re-writes or emails, I generated 400 pages. That’s a novel worth of writing. Except that I don’t write novels.

The average length of what I write is about two pages. Which means I started writing something new about 200 times last year. And as you’ve probably experienced, starting is the hardest part.

Hell, starting an email is hard. I write for a living and starting is hard. But if I don’t start, I can’t finish. And if I can’t finish, I can’t get paid. And when I really get stuck, this is what I do to avoid starvation:

I write longhand.

Seems silly, but, for me, this is the gold standard of all writing hacks. The problem with writing is, in many ways, the same problem as hitting a golf ball. Both the page and the ball just sit there. And when you write you have (theoretically) a lifetime to rewrite it until you get it right.

But that gives the critical part of your brain time to jump in a muck everything up. It needs something to critize. That’s it’s job after all. But when I write longhand, instead of giving me a stream of, “you’re writing sucks, it sucks, it sucks, sucks, sucks and you just changed tenses you eggsucking loser” it pours forth with “you’re HANDwriting sucks, it sucks, it sucks, sucks, sucks, go back to those huge pencils you had in kindergarden you loser.”

This is a huge difference. Because now the critical part of my brain is no longer in the way of the creative part of my brain. The critical function is necessarily and naturally secondary to the creative function. Something must exist before you can start whining about it.

In fact, the more I focus on the quality of my handwriting, the easier the process seems to be. So when you’re really stuck - go low tech on the problem. Bust out the paper and pen and start scrawling away.
And let me know if it works for you.

technorati tags:writing hacks, Patrick E. McLean, writing, writing tips, Structure of Story, Seanachai

Patrick McLean was given a Parsec Award for “Best Fiction (Long)” for How to Succeed in Evil!

Patrick McLean was given a Parsec Award for “Best Fiction (Non-speculative)” for Death of a Dishwasher!

So the Seanachai (I guess I could just say ‘I’) won two Parsec Awards this weekend. It’s somehow fitting that it was Labor Day weekend. Because if there’s one thing a podcast requires it labor. And it’s very nice to get recognition for that labor.
The Seanachai was nominated in four categories and won in two. Best Long Fiction for How to Succeed in Evil. And Best Non-speculative fiction for Death of Dishwasher.
You can see the field and the other winners here.
One of the biggest difficulties with listening to podcasts is finding good ones. And all the podcasts in the running were vetted by a panel of judges. They’re good. So if you’re looking for something to tide you over until the next Seanachai, they’re worth your while to check out. The ones I haven’t listened are absolutely on my list.
And while I’m pontificating on awards, let me just say this. It’s important not to take them too seriously. It’s wonderful to get recognition. But they are just somebody else’s opinion. And they are subject to all the whims and capriciousness of the rest of human existence.
To put this phenomenon in perspective, check out this list from the 1941 Academy Awards.
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Orson Welles

Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Black-and-White
Perry FergusonVan Nest Polglase
A. Roland Fields
Darrell Silvera

Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Gregg Toland

Best Director
Orson Welles

Best Film Editing
Robert Wise

Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
Bernard Herrmann

Best Picture
Orson Welles

Best Sound, Recording
John Aalberg (RKO Radio SSD)

Citizen Kane, the film that many pick as the greatest of all time, didn’t win a single one of these awards. Not one. The only Oscar that it garnered was for Best Screenplay.
Connect the dots as you like, but that’s how I try to put award shows in the proper perspective.

technorati tags:Parsec Awards, Patrick E. McLean, Succeed in Evil, Death of a Dishwasher, Seanachai, Seanachai podcast

If I told you I knew how to write dialog I would be lying. I have no clue how I do it. I listen and type what I hear. (Yes, these are the voices in my head.) So when people go on and on about dialog it bores me. And not just because I feel like it’s easy for me. It’s because I don’t think dialog is all that important. Not fundamentally. Read the rest of this entry

There are many ways to dissect a story. One of the ways that has proven to be most rewarding for me is to consider only the reader’s expectations. Plot, story, theme, character, point of view — all of it, right out the window (it’s fairly liberating). The only analysis becomes what is expected vs. what actually happens.

Because if writing is a game, the reader’s expectation is the ball. If I can put some spin on that ball and move it around well, I feel like I’m doing my job as a storyteller. If I can’t I’m probably just wasting a reader’s valuable time.

Say I describe a character who’s an ex-drill instructor. Crew cut. Ramrod straight posture. The kind of guy who irons his t-shirts. You develop expectations about this guy. He probably doesn’t suffer fools gladly. You expect him to swear a bit and not back down from a fight.

And if tell a story where he swears and gets into fights, well, it’s probably going to be pretty dull. I could be colorful about how I describe the fights and invent all manner of interesting oaths, but that’s really fighting an uphill battle. All that stuff is the window dressing on the story itself. And if there’s no story beneath it, it basically has to be the best window dressing of all time. (Who wants to perfect window dressing when you should be building houses?)

But let’s say I tell you that this guy is scared. In fact, it’s been so long since he’s been afraid, he’s having trouble placing the sensation. It not what we expect from this character. Now it gets interesting. Why is he afraid? What is scaring him?

It could be a fierce monster. Or a guy pointing a gun at his head? But that’s what we expect. What if it’s a 9 year old girl? Now we’re curious about the girl. Why is he scared of the girl? She could have the power to start fires with her mind. But that feels kind of expected. What if she’s just an ordinary girl? No powers what so ever? What about an ordinary girl could scare a hard-ass Jarhead. And I mean really scare him.

Let’s make her Ebola Mary — a carrier of a fantastically lethal disease.
And what does this leatherneck do when confronted with a horrible, inglorious death. He could run away. He could talk big. He could break down crying. He could attack. He could whistle a happy tune. The entire universe of human action is open to us really. But which one is the least expected and why?

Because if everything happens as we expect it will, a story becomes dull as paste.
To be sure, this is quite a simplification of story construction. Some conventions must be adhered to. And paying certain things off creates a very enjoyable experience. But being aware of the expectations that story creates really helped me understand writing in a new way. In the next post I’ll test my analytical tool on a few well-known tales.

technorati tags:patrick e. mclean, Story, writing, The Structure of Story, Plots, Story Construction

Let’s analyze a few storires using the expectations model. Nothing rigorous here, just what popped off the top o my head.
The Book of Job: A man’s life falls apart. We expect him to curse his maker. We would totally sympathize if he did. (Since it’s his maker’s fault.) But he does not.
Gospel according to Mark: A man dies. We expect him to stay dead. He does not. He returns from the dead.

High Noon - Bad guy returns to town on the day of the former Sheriff’s wedding. We expect the Sherriff to get married and leave town. But he doesn’t. We expect at least some of the townspeople to help him - but they don’t. We expect his wife to stand by him, but she doesn’t. (Do not forsake me oh my Darling…)

Rocky - Even though the conventions of the boxing story demand that the underdog win at the end, the story creates expecations that Rocky is a bum. That he doesn’t stand a chance. Further, we expect the guy who’s a boxer to be brutish and rough. But the plot with Adrian defies that expectation by showing him to be surprisingly tender and gentle.

To Kill a Mockingbird - We expect Boo Radley to be a monster. He winds up saving Scout.
Don Quixhote - We expect the good Don to take the first good beating and go home. We expect Sancho Panza to wise up and desert the old fool.

Raiders of the Lost Ark - We expect Indy to get into a huge brawl with the guy with the sword - but he just shoots him.

I’m not saying unexpectedness is the gauge of a good story - but there appears to be something going on here. You give me a good story and I’ll show you that a big part of it is unexpected.

technorati tags:Patrick E. McLean, Structure of Story, Story, Writing, Story Construction, Plots