The Batmen

With all of the hype surrounding The Dark Knight Rises, I thought it prudent to revisit the first two movies that Christopher Nolan directed. I found some interesting things that might have some implications for the film's finale. This... will get spoilery.

Awful Titles

Let's get this out of the way: Batman Begins was a stupid name for the first movie. It was certainly honest--BB was pure origin story. We didn't even see the fully developed Batman for the first hour. The Dark Knight was better named, and the way it tied in to the theme of the film was pure brilliance. I have mixed emotions about The Dark Knight Rises. I'm sure it's relevant to the film, but it's clunky as all hell.

Intro to the Villains

The opening sequences of both TDK and TDKR are purely an introduction to the primary villain, and it's easily overlooked, but this happens in BB as well. BB starts with a flashback that turns into the prison fight at which point we meet Ducard (who turns out later to be Ra's al Ghul--see, I told you it'd get spoilery). The only real implication here is that the role of Catwoman in the third film will probably be lesser to that of Bane. But we pretty much knew that from interviews with Nolan. This is probably for the best because...

Questionable Female Casting

There was a lot of guff handed out over the choice of Katie Holmes to play Batman's love interest in BB. And yes, she and Christian Bale seem like an odd pair. Although Maggie Gyllenhaal paired up with Aaron Eckhart doesn't make much more sense to me. Nolan's been criticized in the past for his female casting, and all this adds up to: regardless of her acting chops, there's a decent chance Anne Hathaway is going to suck as Catwoman. But at least we get to see Marion Cotillard standing around being French.

Gotham City

I kept trying to figure out what city this is supposed to be. I understand that it's fictional, but I can't wrap my head around the geography. "Gotham" implies New York. Wayne Manor is in an area called the Palisades, which implies New Jersey. According to Lucius Fox, the city has 30 million people in it, which is bigger than New York by... well... about 22 million people. It's coastal, since it receives container ships. And yet Thomas Wayne has a Chicago accent and Nolan doesn't do much to hide the fact that it was filmed there. But then Alfred says Wayne Manor was part of the Underground Railroad, which would place it in the Southeast of the country. Is it possible for a setting to be too anonymous?

It's also worth pointing out how much the city changes between movies. The Gotham of BB is brown and filthy and rundown. A big part of that film takes place in an area called "The Narrows" which isn't mentioned at all in the TDK. The monorail that dominated the first film is absent in the second. The Gotham of TDK is blue and vibrant and kinetic and very clean. The color palette of the third film looks to be more in the lighter spectrum. The trailer and prologue show a lot of green and yellow and white. So, I guess this means the third film will end on an uplifting note?

Themes

The theme of the first film was fear. Wayne must overcome his own fear. Batman uses fear against those who prey on the fearful. The bad guys are using fear as a literal weapon. Pretty thick. Thankfully the themes of TDK were more subtle--or at least more artfully constructed. It goes more into the nature of heroism. We have both Batman and Dent turning from heroes into villains in one form or another. Possible themes for the final installment could involve "rising"--Bane is nothing if not an ubermensch. And from the title we know that Batman will rise in some form or another.

Killing People

There was an interesting through-line that I hadn't really noticed between the films involving Batman's willingness, or rather unwillingness, to kill people. His entire war with the League of Shadows in BB starts because he would not execute a murderer. In TDK, his "one rule" against killing is the rule that the Joker attempts to make him break, and ultimately does make him break when Batman kills Dent. I hesitate to speculate how this will play out in the third film, but since this is the end of the trilogy, it's safe to assume that death will play some sort of role.

Commissioner Gordon

Another through-line came in Gordon's relationship with Batman. At the end of BB he says "I never thanked you" to which Batman replied "You'll never have to." At the end of TDK, Gordon thanks Batman who say "You don't have to thank me," to which Gordon replies "Yes, I do." It was a nice little moment between them.

Gordon's role in these films is notable, since BB was largely inspired by the comic Batman: Year One which followed a young Gordon closely. In BB we see a Sgt. Gordon promoted to Lieutenant. Then in TDK he becomes Commissioner. In the trailer for part three we see him as an old man, past his prime.

Fanboyism

BB made sure it hit all the requisite fanboy moments. We get the Batmobile, Batman says his immortal catchphrase: "I'm Batman". We get the Batcave, complete with secret entrance from Wayne Manor. We get the cape and cowl, copious use of bats. Thankfully the second film shied away from this a bit. We lose the Batmobile in favor of the Batpod (in one of my favorite cinematic sequences ever). Bruce Wayne lives in a luxury penthouse and his Batcave is more of a clinical workspace with good lighting. From the trailer for the third, we can see some variation on the Batwing, Wayne Manor is back, etc, etc, so we may see more nods to the comic in this one. Hard to say.

Confidence

In keeping with the move towards gritty realism from BB to TDK, Nolan's hand as a director has become more sure. He felt less need to lean on things like "I'm Batman" and is more comfortable taking risks. and the second film is a much better piece of work. It gives me pause for the third. Just playing devil's advocate, there is such a thing as over-confidence. It's possible he will take some risks in this third film that won't play well at all. We've already seen, for example, that he doesn't really care if Bane can be understood. So, this could come back and bite us.

Time will tell,
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X Marks The Jesus

Not too long ago I saw a car with two magnets on the back. One was an outline of a Nativity scene that implored the reader to keep the "Christ" in "Christmas". The other was a Jesus Fish. This is hilarious, for reasons I will outline below.

First, let's get one thing out of the way. The "War on Christmas" is a fake conflict. Christmas is a thoroughly secularized holiday. At my office, they put up a Nativity display in the lobby. But they also put up a Menora and a tree and a few other symbols of the holiday. Most businesses have switched to non-religious greetings in their decoration as a matter of practicality, on the grounds that Jews spend money too. Others don't, but no one cares. There's an office complex near me that puts up a giant light-up creche every year. There's not picketing or objection. It's on privately held property, the owner can put up whatever he or she wants. I actually enjoy seeing that display, because it makes the one put up by the Assembly of God church down the road look chintzy. I can only see this causing consternation in schools, but everything causes consternation in schools. I knew a teacher in Texas who was asked to take down a "Jesus is the reason for the season" sign in her classroom, but I doubt that's an issue anymore in the state that's leading the fight to teach Intelligent Design in every classroom in the country.

This is not to say that there aren't Christmas opponents. Tom Flynn is rather famous for advocating against the holiday largely on economic grounds. He suggests that without the Christmas spending-rush, mall parking lots could be 20% smaller. His book on the subject is so popular that there are 23 copies available on Amazon through third-party distributors. That is to say, it's not very popular at all. But it's also worth noting that there are opponents to every major holiday. Christopher Hitchens denounced Hanukkah as a celebration of "tribal Jewish backwardness". Some take issue with Kwanzaa because it is a modern invention of the civil rights movement--it's a purely American holiday celebrating African-ness. As for Ramadan... I don't actually know anything about Ramadan.

So putting all of this aside, let's examine the ridiculous claim the abbreviation Xmas is an attempt to secularize an already secularized holiday. Drumroll... The abbreviation "Xmas" dates back to the 1700's. The use of "X" to mean "Christ" is older than the English language. This is because the word Christ in Greek starts with the letter Chi, which is rendered as an X. The Chi-Rho, a stylized X over a P, is an important part of religious iconography dating back Constantine (although the symbol is actually about two-hundred years older than Jesus... if you want to wrap your brain around that for a while).

Clearly, Xmas is not a secularization. In fact, a preacher once explained to me that, because X is going back to the original Greek, in a way "Xmas" is even more religious of a spelling. I don't actually agree with that. But I would argue that we don't have any need to keep our holiday practices adhered to their namesakes. The days of the week all come from Norse Mythology, but you don't hear anyone talking about keeping the Thor is Thursday. Actually, I hear this quite a lot, but I enjoy the company of some very sarcastic people.

Now I know what you're thinking. All of this is amusing, but I promised you hilarity. For that, we must examine the other magnet, the Jesus Fish, also known as an ichthys. Did you ever wonder how a fish ended up being a symbol for Christianity? Well, it's because of an acronym. "Ichthys" is the ancient Greek word for fish, spelled Iota, Chi, Theta, Upsilon, Sigma. If you see an ichthys with letters in it, those are the letters you're seeing. They stand for "Iesous Christos, Theou Yios, Soter", which translates to "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior".

That's right, the Jesus Fish utilizes the same X = Christ formula that Xtians (see what I did there?) have been denouncing for literally decades because they don't understand their own history. The woman driving the car with those two magnets denounced X as an abbreviation on one side of the bumper and then used it as an abbreviation on the other.

Happy Holidays,

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A Tale Of Two Nativities

We all know the Nativity Story.

The Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary. Mary conceives as a virgin. The angel of the Lord appears to Joseph. Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for a census. The inn is full, so they stay in a barn. Jesus is born in Bethlehem in Judea. Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Angels appear to shepherds who then worship baby Jesus. Magi from the East see the star over Bethlehem and attend Jesus, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee to Egypt to avoid persecution from Herod. Finally, they travel to Nazareth in Galilee.

Nice story, but can you tell me where this complete tale can be found in the Bible? This is a trick question, of course. This whole story does not exist in one place in the Bible. It is, rather, a harmonization of the only two accounts of Jesus' birth, given in Luke 1-2 and Matthew 1-2. You probably knew this. But what you might not realize is how little the two accounts have in common. Let me illustrate. Here is the same passage, but now I've highlighted the text to indicate its source. Passages from Matthew are red, passages from Luke are blue, and overlapping story elements are purple and bolded.

The Archangel Gabriel appears to Mary. Mary conceives as a virgin. The angel of the Lord appears to Joseph. Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for a census. The inn is full, so they stay in a barn. Jesus is born in Bethlehem in Judea. Jesus is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Angels appear to shepherds who then worship baby Jesus. Magi from the East see the star over Bethlehem and attend Jesus, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee to Egypt to avoid persecution from Herod. Finally, they travel to Nazareth in Galilee.

Not very much in common at all. Why the difference? Well, the biggest reason is that Matthew and Luke were written for two different audiences. Luke tends to emphasize Jesus' holiness and his role as a servant. It is fitting, then, that Luke's Jesus would have a humble beginning: born in a barn and worshipped by shepherds. Luke traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to Adam, and has him descended of David through his son Nathan. Matthew, on the other hand, emphasizes Jesus as the fulfillment of Jewish Messianic prophecy. Jesus is attended by Kings. His persecution under Herod echoes that of Moses, further emphasized by his flight to Egypt. Matthew traces Jesus' lineage only as far back as Abraham, going through David's successor Solomon. Two distinct lineages, two distinct coherent narratives with contrasting themes.

This begs the question: is it even appropriate to harmonize the stories into one? Personally, I don't think so. Not only do they differ in narrative and tone, but there is one detail that could be read as a direct contradiction. The Magi visit Jesus in a house, but they visit him in Bethlehem, at a time when Jesus and Mary and Joseph were staying in a barn. See, in the Matthean account, there is no mention of Joseph and Mary leaving Galilee. When the narrative has the family return to Israel from Egypt in Matthew 2:22-23, it says that Joseph was warned in a dream not to return to Judea (where Bethlehem is) and instead he withdrew to Galilee, to a town called Nazareth. The implication here, according to Matthew, was that Joseph and Mary already lived in Bethlehem. They only moved to Nazareth to avoid Herod's son. Whereas in the Lukan account, Joseph and Mary were Nazarenes who temporarily journeyed to Bethlehem for a census.

So how do we reconcile this? How did we end up with two disparate accounts of Jesus' birth? The key may be in their few similarities. In each story, we see that Jesus is a Nazarene, born in Bethlehem to a virgin who conceived through the Holy Spirit. That is the sum total of their similarities. It may be that those are the only details that the two authors had, and each constructed a birth narrative in keeping with their individual messages. The idea that someone could be from Nazareth and Bethlehem merits some explanation, so each author contrived a way for that to happen.

We certainly have no reason to accept the historicity of either account. There is no record of Luke's census conducted at that time or in that manner. Sending people to their home towns is a pretty ludicrous census-taking method anyway. Historically it makes no sense, but it works as a literary device to give Luke's Holy Servant a humble beginning. Likewise, there is no record of Herod the Great murdering Jewish babies (keep in mind that at this time the Hebrews were not slaves, but Roman subjects). Historically this makes no sense, but it works as a literary device to emphasize Jesus' connection to Judaism. Each author took the sparse details available and worked them into their unique depiction of Jesus' birth.

In a way, the tradition of harmonizing the Nativity into a single account is a bit of a tragedy. Luke's Jesus and Matthew's Jesus (to say nothing of Mark's or John's) are substantially different characters. When we try to blend them, we muddy the individual portraits, blurring the edges as a conceit to make the myriad appear whole. What does that get us? Three Wise Men in a barn--the idea is absurd, and it certainly isn't biblical. But most believers would rather have a single thematically incoherent narrative than a series of cohesive ones that disagree with each other about the unimportant details. At some point, the church decided that there is nothing to be learned from a story that can't be taken at absolute face value, and that is the truly great irony of fundamentalism. In the attempt to preserve the man, you distort the message. Perhaps it is better to think of the Nativity stories as parables. This didn't actually happen, but what can it teach us?

Just something to keep in mind next year when you sit down to watch your child's Christmas Pageant.

Happy Holidays,

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The Obama/Bush Flip-Flop Political Thingie

I should know better than to make political predictions or analysis, because I'm genuinely horrible at it. In the past I've supported Mike "I Throw Rocks Into The Water" Gravel and John "Cancer Wife Love Child Debacle" Edwards. Even as I write this I'm drinking from my John Kerry coffee mug. Yeah, 2004 was a tough year.

But if you flip the parties, 2004 isn't all that different from right now. We have a polarizing incumbent with really poor numbers. The people who support him are disappointed, the people who oppose him do so with outright loathing. Yet Bush squeaked out a victory in 2004. How?

Well, a big part of it had to do with his opposition, the aforementioned John "I'm on Kurt's Coffee Mug" Kerry. In general, primary elections mean candidates are playing to their base. Once they've secured the nomination, they race back to the middle, because that's where the undecided voters for the general election live. So who was John Kerry? He was an articulate, personality-deficient, anti-war, liberal elitist with military experience. He was the anti-Bush, almost to the point of parody, because that's what the left wanted. They were so upset with Bush that they nominated his diametric opposite, and he lost because he couldn't steal the middle away from Bush. And also because he looked French. Possibly. Anywho.

Fast forward to today. The GOP nominations have been a contest between Romney and whatever flavor-of-the-week is leading in the polls. Romney is so moderate as to be nearly (note, I said "nearly") indistinguishable from Obama, who despite Tea Party efforts to paint him as a liberal, is painfully, disappointingly centrist. But the GOP voters keep bouncing from also-ran to also-ran, and each is a different variety of anti-Obama.

There's Michelle "Googly Eyes" Bachman, who was the living embodiment of Poe's Law, radically Christian in opposition to Obama's perceived anti-religiousness. Then there was Rick "Brokeback Jacket" Perry, who seemed to be a throwback to Bush more than anything else. Next it was Herman "Our Black Guy" Cain, and finally they seem to be settling more on Newt "I'm Seriously Just Winging It Here" Gingrich, who was written off months ago for his lack of organization and discipline. And staff.

The conventional wisdom for the Dems is that a Gingrich nomination will secure the re-election for Obama. Why? Because he's John Kerry.

This is interesting and all, but what are the broader implications? Well, one could make the argument that the best course of action for an incumbent is to be as partisan as possible. This will energize the opposition to nominate someone who is polarizing in the opposite direction and therefore unelectable. In fact, Obama's strategy of being both centrist and divisive may be his greatest asset.

But what do I know? I'm horrible at this.

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A Case Against (Serialized) Self-Publishing

On two separate occasions, I've been in conversations with people interested in writing who suggested self-publishing a novel a chapter at a time as a way to make money quickly rather than try to sell it to a publisher. I remember thinking initially that this was a bad idea, but not really being able to articulate why. After some thinking, I found my articulations.

Nobody Wants to Read Text-Only Serialized Content

There are serialized content entertainment media out there, don't get me wrong. They consist of comic books, web-comics, web-series, and some television dramas. What do these have in common? They're all more-or-less fixed-length, they all have a substantial visual component, they all require a heavy investiture of time and effort to produce, and they're all designed in such a way that you can pick up anywhere. Books do none-of-the-above. Books don't have a "previously on" intro. Books are meant to be read from the beginning, and they have had such lasting appeal because you can use a book to tell a fantastical story for very little outlay. Consider the audience for books. Who really wants to wait a week or more to read the next chapter? Who really wants to start a book in the middle? How do you accommodate a reader like that? I don't want to make it sound like there have never been serialized novels, because that's simply untrue. Great Expectations was originally published as a weekly serial in a popular literary journal. How many people do you know with subscriptions to literary journals? How many magazines that publish fiction do you read? There's just no audience for it.

Writing a Serial Novel is Actually Harder Than Writing a Normal One

...at least if you care about quality. You can churn out pulp week after week, I suppose. You'd basically have to, because serialization forces you into constraints. You can't edit anything that you've previously published. Your chapters have to be a consistent length and should end with some kind of cliffhanger so the reader is clamoring for the next chapter. Since we're talking self-publication, you're going to be publishing digitally, which limits your readership. And as an avid ebook consumer, I can honestly say that nothing sounds like more of a hassle than trying to read an ebook via a subscription model.

Self-Publishing is a Poor Business Model If You Don't Write Web-Comics

First let's talk about the exceptions. The two that come to my mind are Scott Sigler (fiction) and Jonathan Coulton (music). Sigler offered his novels as a serialized audiobook for free via podcast. And if I remember correctly, he signed with a publisher as soon as he could. He started doing this before everybody-and-their-brother had a podcast, so he was able to capitalize on the wave of a new technology. Coulton offered a song a week for an entire year. He is the exception-that-proves-the-rule for music, but he's a lot more of an exception than people think. First of all, he's ridiculously talented. Second, he was fortunate enough to get his name attached to the breakaway surprise hit video game of 2007. In both of these cases, the creator made a rather large personal investment into the project and produced something with fairly decent production values that they then gave away for free. Neither of them has a particularly huge fan base (Coulton's isn't large, although it's certainly devoted). And those are the exceptional successes. The traditional publishing model gives you things you need: an editor, a marketing budget, a legal department with experience in keeping people from stealing your content, and a filter for consumers. It gets eyes on your product and guarantees a minimum standard of quality to buyers. But even if you could overcome that...

No One is Going to Pay You to Try Out Your Content

There's too much affordable, high-quality entertainment out there for people to fork over money to audition content from an unproven source. And if you're posting it on the web, people expect it to be free by default. And even then, what are the odds of it resonating? What bands do you listen to now that you discovered on MySpace? How often do you troll Amazon searching for something cheap in your favorite genre from an author you've never heard of?

I didn't think so.

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The Meh-ppets

Abby and I went to see the new Muppet movie. We may be the only two people in America who feel this way, but we were pretty underwhelmed by it. I should say that it isn't bad by any stretch. And despite Frank Oz's denunciation, The Muppets isn't a cynical cash-grab. It's everything you'd want from a Muppet movie, and very much in the spirit of the original television show and the first few movies. So why didn't it work for me?

The Story

A muppet named Walter, raised by humans and seemingly unaware of his muppetness, travels with his "brother" Gary (Jason Segel) and Gary's girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) to see LA. Whilst there, they tour the Muppet Studios and find it about to be demolished. The only way to save it is to get the gang back together for one last show. Here's the problem: I don't care. Haven't we done two movies with roughly this premise already? It's been done. But you know what? I could even handle that if the new film were less saccharine or self-important. But the whole theme of the movie seems to be that the Muppets need to be saved because they're the Muppets and that's important to society, for some reason.

The Gags

This is actually one of the things that worked for me. Part of the mirth of the Muppets is how self-aware they are. The gags were frequently aimed just over the heads of younger viewers: Cee-Lo's Fuck You sung by chickens or Beaker singing "my libido" (as "me me me mo") in a Barbershop Quartet rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit. Occasionally the jokes are over-explained. Traveling by map is a pretty funny bit even without Fozzie saying "Hey, let's travel by map". The character "80's Robot" is pretty funny on its own without him explaining that he's offering Tab and New Coke (they're clearly visible on his tray). But in general, Muppet humor is the only thing that saves The Muppets from Muppet over-sweetness, and the jokes work best when they're stacked right on top of each other. Gonzo had a throw-away line about wireless toilets that I'm still laughing about.

The Cameos

If the camera lingered too long on New Coke jokes, it skipped far too quickly over the cameos. I barely recognized Dave Grohl as an imitation Animal. Mostly people just show up. Sara Silverman is a hostess at a diner, but all she does is show Amy Adams to a table (nothing like the legendary performance from Steve Martin in the original The Muppet Movie). For all the misses, there were a couple of magnificent hits. I'm looking at you Neil Patrick Harris and James Carville.

The Visuals

Puppetry is kind of an old-school special effect, so for me the mixture of puppets and CGI is actually a bit unnerving. In the spirit of the Star Wars re-hashes, the inconsistency is what's the most bizarre. If you're using CGI, why use puppets? Again, I realize I'm in the minority here, and nowhere is it written that you have to be all practical or all CGI. But the mix-and-match of non-realistic puppets with not-terribly-photo-realistic CGI... it really did not work for me.

The Non-Muppets

Jason Segel is fine, I guess. At no point did I ever like Amy Adams. I take it back, she had the funniest line of the movie (when Kermit initially decides not to attempt a reunion, Adams comments that "this is going to be a short movie"), but apart from that, she was a plot device. The only person in the main cast that seemed to be having any fun with his part was Chris Cooper as the bad guy, Tex Richman, but even his reading felt off. The humans weren't playing it straight, nor were they trying to match the Muppets in over-the-topness. In fact, the only human who really, truly sold his performance was--and I never thought I'd say this--Jack Black.

The Music

...was problematic for me. A big problem is that I have no love for Flight of the Concords. I respect them as artists, but their music doesn't work for me. But the music in the movie (much of it written by FotC) has too many FotC hallmarks in it. State absurd premise ("Am I a man or a muppet?"). Make absurd premise even more absurd without changing much ("If I'm a muppet, then I'm a manly, manly muppet"). Invert premise, because it's not like you're doing anything else with it ("If I'm a man, then I'm a muppet of a man"). Lather, rinse, repeat. Chris Cooper rapping was... well... an old white guy rapping. Why it fell apart here but worked so well in Tropic Thunder is anybody's guess, but I just couldn't enjoy it. When Amy Adams started off her song in the diner about being alone... I was waiting for someone to walk up and ask her why she was singing, because it's the Muppets and they're terribly self-aware. I felt so embarrassed for her during that song, because all the other patrons just kept eating and ignoring her. I get what they were going for, but it truly did not work. The only new song that really worked for me was Life's a Happy Song, and even that was only good-but-not-great. There was no The Rainbow Connection or I'm Going To Go Back There Someday or Movin' Right Along.

Of note: the one thing that I've heard complaints about is the use of Starship's We Built This City On Rock And Roll. I honestly wasn't bothered by that. It's very much in the spirit of the TV show. It's an awful song, but it's a montage, whatever.

The Inevitable Realization

I don't like the Muppets. Not just the movie, I don't care for them as an institution. This is, frankly, flooring to me. I remember thinking pretty highly of the TV, but it has not aged gracefully. Neither have the early films. I still love the post-modern awareness and I have some very fond memories, but with the possible exception of A Muppet Christmas Carol, I don't enjoy them. Nostalgia backfire. I has a sad.

So I'll just reiterate my earlier point. The Muppets isn't bad. It's probably a really great Muppet movie, but it's not a great movie, no matter what everyone else on the planet seems to be saying.

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Things I Learned While Writing The Latest Thing I've Been Writing

So I haven't been writing much here lately, because I've been writing in other places. Namely, I've devoted around 75,000 words to the first draft of a book that I intend to submit for publication. Now that the draft is done, I've been re-reading it so I know what needs attacked for the second draft, but I thought it would be worth recounting some of the lessons I've learned.

Forget chapters. I learned during a previous project that numbering your chapters is the very last thing you should get around to doing, because you will add chapters in between, and if you're numbering manually, this creates a lot of extra work. This time, I spent so much time moving scenes around and having to deal with scene-specific chapter titles, that I'm amending my previous maxim. From now on, my outlines will be scenes, and I'll put them into chapters once I'm satisfied with the way they play. I'm tempted to say that I'll make exceptions for prologues and the like, but I doubt it. This draft has had three different prologues, as the story has grown in scope and it has become necessary to add scenes to the beginning.

Placeholders are awesome. When I was writing sci-fi, I would get stuck on introducing a character and having to find a name for that character. This time, the problem was MacGuffins. But I came up with something to call them knowing I could find/replace it out later and not lose my flow, and it kept me from getting "blocked" a number of times.

Have a good idea of where you're going before you get there. I started this story thinking it would be a short, intending to publish it as a Kindle Single (word length of 5,000 to 30,000). After about 10,000 words, I realized that this was going to be novel-length and began outlining accordingly, but my early chapters still have the jarringly brisk pacing of a short story. Long story short, I started this out based on an idea, figured out the story trajectory, and then outlined, and then wrote to the outline, but now everything I wrote up front is going to have to be heavily edited or completely re-written. I think if I'd taken more time to hammer out details before I started on narrative, or focused more on characters than on plot with those early writings, they would have been less wasteful. On the other hand, some of the more organic developments were quite satisfying.

Books are not films. I made the mistake of having a two-headed protagonist, rather than a protagonist and a foil. This is useful in movies where you have to communicate to the audience through dialogue, but this isn't necessary in a book because you have access to your perspective characters' thoughts. In films, the characters are assumed to know whatever the audience knows, but you can't get away with that in a book. Which means that any bit of information that one character discovered had to be communicated to the other, which necessitated a few "oh, this thing just happened" scenes. I'm making it work by putting more effort into differentiating the characters (which means hefty re-writing of early scenes, but what can you do?), but if I had to do it again, I'd have gotten rid of one of my protagonists. In future books, I'm splitting them up quickly so they each have their own storyline to hold up.

Have a real ending. I had an ending written and felt more or less unsatisfied with it because it was unrelenting in the way it set up for a sequel. So I ditched it, focused on the closure, let it be known that the bad guy was still alive, and left some questions open. But it ends, that's the important thing. Also, this way a followup book isn't beholden to the ending I write for this one, which means I have lots of time to change my mind about what happens in book two.

So, that's the debriefing. Incidentally, I'm going to need some eyes on this thing before I try to shop it around. I've already got a couple of alpha readers looking at it, but if you'd like to alpha-read (read as: "read a very rough draft") or beta-read ("read a slightly more polished draft"), send me an email.

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