Monthly Archives: February 2019

Rules For Prologs

An often-cited bit of wisdom is that editors and agents do not like prologs, and that is true. Usually someone in love with their prolog will counter will examples of novels that started off with the dreaded bit of pre-story as evidence that the wisdom is not true.

Of course some books do have prologs but it is still true that agents and editors shy away from them because the prolog is an overused and misused tool.

I myself fall into avoid the prolog camp, but I do have one novel out of submission that utilizes the technique and so here are a few of the rules I think about when considering a prolog.

1) It should not include the main character.

If you have a critical event that involves the protagonist of the tale and that is part of the main story and not a prelude to it. I have seen some people want to take an event and make it a prolog because it takes place much earlier than the rest of the story but that alone does not mean it is a prolog. Chapter one can be decades before chapter two but if it is vital and involves the main character, then do not partition it away in a prolog.

2) It should not be an encyclopedia of world building.

A very common thing seen in unrequired prologs is deep history of the setting; the recounting of kings and emperors of old, of the blood feuds, and the magical disasters that befell the people in ancient times. What that lacks is any real sense of character, it’s dull, plodding, and when I encounter it in a book I skip over it and I cannot think of a time when I did and I missed that information, Some of you may be pointing at the classic The Lord of The Rings  but I remind you that the film has a deep history prolog, one that is rich in voice and tone, but that the novel’s prolog is in an authorial voice and is more concerned with the narrative fiction of the ‘lost text’ approach than with the in world backstory. Dune  a novel with an extremely deep backstory leaps straight into the text without a prolog.

3) It should tie directly to the story central plot and themes.

This is sort of the opposite rule to guideline number 2. Instead of history and world building, use these valuable font pages to establish critical plot elements, things that will impact the characters as they navigate their troubles and inform the readers to the nature of the hurdles you are throwing up for the heroes.

Think about the prolog to A Song of Fire and Ice  the first novel in the Game of Thrones  books. It deals with a patrol of rangers, none of our main characters. The rangers encounter the ice wraiths and except for one die at the supernatural threat. For the rest of the story the reader knows the danger lurking beyond the wall. Even after the survivor flees and then in chapter one tries to warn everyone of the magical threat but is not believed, the reader knows what is going one. When learned wise men lecture other characters that there is no magic in the world, we know that there is. Without that prolog we would be on the wrong foot, tending to accept the wise old men at their word.

These simple guidelines are not the sum total of how to approach prologs and there are numerous ways to violate them and still make it work, but such a trick is not easy.

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Do You Want to End Up Like Venezuela?

That is the cry wolf heard over and over again from actors on the political right. Venezuela has become the go to example, if not the only example, of the doom that lies ahead of the United States should it make a single step to the left. From talking head commentators, op-ed writers, and casual conservatives in conversations Venezuela rises like the specter of Bob Marley warning that the lure of socialism leads only to doom, disaster, and damnation.

Make no mistake, Venezuela is a tragic case, its people are in terrible trouble, its economy is in ruins and its politics corrupt, but whenever a single case is used repeatedly as an example that covers a full spectrum of thought then that case is disingenuous propaganda.

Setting aside for the moment that ‘socialism’ is hurled as an ill-defined pejorative as often as ‘fascist,’ and apparently covers everything from the elimination of private property to merely expanding banking regulations, the conservative critics wave the bloody shirt of Venezuela while ignoring the numerous nations that have fallen into a Mad Max anarchy.

If you are a conservative who is about to elevate Venezuela’s crisis as evidence in the disaster that the Democratic Party is bringing upon the nation then I want you to embrace as a symbol for American Conservatism Richard Spencer.

Spencer, for those who do not know, among other displays, upon Trump’s election threw the Nazi salute and shouted ‘Hail Trump!’

There are those on the left that do make the same disingenuous generalization, equating all conservative thought with Spencer and Fascism and I dismiss those arguments a pure propaganda in exactly the same manner as these ‘Look at Venezuela!’ shouts from the peanut gallery.

There is and will always be a need to be vigilant to threats from the right and from the left, evil does not reside solely on either end of the political spectrum, but the United States is neither the Weimar Republican on the verge of political collapse nor is it Venezuela.

 

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2019 SDSU Writers Conference

This past weekend was the 34th annual San Diego State University Writers Conference and the first one that I have attended. I have twice attended the Southern California Writers Conference also here in San Diego, and thought that this year I would give this one a shot. Both conferences are hosted by good people, passionate about the craft, art, and business of writing so I cannot honestly rank one as better than the other.

All of the keynote speakers, Jonathan Mayberry, Cory Doctorow, Paula Munier, and William Kenower, gave lively, entertaining, and informative speeches as well as being open and friendly person that made the conference inviting. Throughout the three days I attended a number of lectures on subject as diverse as avant-garde science-fiction as social critique to the nuts and bolts of self-publishing and promoting your work.

Personally the highlights of the conference were the one on one session I had with a number of editors and agents. I gained valuable insight into areas of improvement for my writing, apparently I am the opposite of an info-dump, withholding too much of my world building back, and I gained at least the interest from one editor for a novel and an agent for another novel. These leads may not pan out, but they are encouraging just the same.

If you are a writer I strongly suggest getting to a writers conference. Do the research, find out the ones that fit for you, but I have found them invaluable.

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Movie Review: Serenity (2019)

Not to be confused with the conclusion to Fox’s canceled Science-Fiction/Western  Firefly 2019’s Serenity’s  trailer would seemingly place it more in the noiror neo-noir  though the trailer itself isn’t very helpful for sussing out exactly what sort of film to expect.

Matthew McConaughey plays Baker Dill an Iraq war veteran turned charter boat owner/captain obsessed with an elusive monster sized tuna he had name ‘Justice’ and eludes his every attempt to land the fish. His life is upended with the arrival of his former lover Karen Zariakas, played by Anne Hathaway. The Iraq war changed Dill and destroyed their relationship and now she is married to an abusive, wanna be child-rapist, crime lord played by Jason Clarke. (It was quite the Jason Clare even at the theater last night in addition to Serenity  (2019), he was featured in two previews before the film.) Karen offers Baker 10 million dollars in cash if he will take her husband out on a day excursion and drop him in the ocean for the sharks. The rest of the island is made up of mostly stock characters, the loyal friend and second mate that often acts as Baker’s conscience, the barkeep that furthers plot and gives baker someone to at least partially open up to about his inner thoughts,. Rounding out the main speaking roles is Diane Lane playing Constance, Baker’s ‘sugar-momma’, keeping him in gas, expenses, and booze money in return for sex.

Much of this, including the central dramatic elements of the plot to murder the husband, is laid out plain in the feature’s trailer, painting a picture of a classic neo-noir  set-up, mysterious past, a femme fatale, and a moral chasm that threatens to destroy the protagonist and yet the film is, once it plays out in its entirety, is not a noir  but rather belongs to a far different genre.

To even tell you which genre it occupies by the conclusion is in itself a massive spoiler. About the half-way through the run time a minor mysterious character finally reaches Baker and reveals for Baker and the audience that this story is far stranger than either may have expected. Serenity (2019)with it unique twist is the sort of film that one expects to be produced on a shoestring and gathers ‘talk’ on the festival circuit before landing a distribution deal and playing in art house across the country. Instead we have a major studio production with bankable stars playing with the form and audience expectations. Directed and written by Steven Knight who gave us the usual feature Locke

a film that presented Tom Hardy driving at night for 90 minutes while juggling professional and emotional crises on telephone calls, Serenity (2019) is his most unusual movie.

Should you see it?

I really can’t say. I do know that it is failing fast the box office, probably because of that genre jump at the mid-point, and for many people that will be a deal breaker, but I enjoyed the film, it audacious swinging for the bleachers, and I am terribly happy to have seen it. If you plan on seeing avoid all comments in reviews, spoilers abound and more than the usual ‘who done it’ kind of early reveals, this movie is particularly damaged by spoilers.

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