Melanie Marttila

My first SciFi Saturday: Killing with Kindness

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Hi there.

Trying something different today.  A new acquaintance, Melanie Fountain, has her own publishing company: Fountain Blue Publishing.  In conjunction, FBP has a blog.  You should have a look and see what you think.

The blog encourages guest bloggage and has several opportunities to keep your writerly chops in shape.  One is SciFi Saturday.

So I’m giving it a try.

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Killing with Kindness

The boots don’t fit.  Far from being small, I’ve had to wrap my feet in strips of cloth to keep them on at all, but the wrappings have come loose and bunched up around my ankles and the arches of my feet, possibly the most uncomfortable places they could be.  Every fold and wrinkle has become the occasion for a blister, or a pressure sore.

The persistent rains have made it worse, turned the inner surface of the leather into sandpaper.  Every inch of skin on my body has pruned.  Much longer, and we’ll all have to start worrying about fungus and infection.  Not that we don’t already have worse to contend with.

We can’t stop though.  There’s no shelter out here on the wide plains that would hold twenty people.  We haven’t come across a town with standing buildings in days.

Besides, if we stop, the Radios—the radioactive people—will catch up.  As slow as we’re moving, their mutations slow the Radios even more.  As long as we keep moving, we’ll be okay.  If we stop, we’ll all die.

It’s not that the Radios want us dead.  I think they’re just looking for friends, family, mates, but their long exposure and adaptation to the radioactivity that’s killed just about everything else on the planet has changed them, and not just physically.  I don’t think they understand that the very thing that saved them will kill the rest of us.

When the shelter doors opened a month ago, the curious Radios flooded in, and though we were preparing to leave, and more than a little horrified by their melted and tumour-riddled appearance, we were curious ourselves as to what had become of the human race on the surface.

The constant pain they lived in had made them kind and amiable sorts, willing to help and learn in exchange for food and warmth.  The shelter’s reserves were almost used up, though.  That’s why the doors opened.  Though there could be no certainty, the scientists had given us as much time as they could to wait out the worst of the fallout and nuclear winter.  For better or worse, we would have to see if we could survive on the surface.

The Radios set up housekeeping though, and at first, we didn’t have the heart to leave them.

Within days of the Radios’ arrival, the children and the elderly became ill, over half our scant population.  Too late we realized that the people from the surface were still strongly radioactive.  How they survived to reproduce, we could only speculate, but now the entire shelter was contaminated and we didn’t have enough anti-radiation medication to save everyone who already showed signs of sickness.

Half of those who remained healthy eschewed the drugs, chose to stay and die with their loved ones.  The rest of us took the medication and fled.

If the Radios would only give up, but here on the prairies, we can still see them on the horizon, following like a bunch of forelorn puppydogs, just trying to bring their friends back home.

Now we’re all getting sick from mutated viruses and exposure that the anti-rad drugs are no proof against.

One way or the other, it’s going to end soon.

I don’t know where we’re going, but we’re almost there.

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This was actually something I wrote for the Canadian Authors Association Virtual Branch Given Line flash fiction contest.  I’m trying to break the epic novel-writer’s mojo and see if I can get a proper short story written one of these days.  A friend suggested flash fiction as the fix.

We’ll see how this goes.

Let me know what you think.

 

Three bits of Writerly Goodness in October 2012

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

I’ve been on the road quite a bit this month.  Specifically, from Oct. 16-18, 24-28, and 29-31.  So I hope you’ll forgive the lack of posting.  I did warn you 🙂 Normally, blogging while I’m away isn’t a huge problem, but recently, I’ve been travelling so much that I’m plain exhausted.

I think the cold I caught Thanksgiving Day (here in Canada) is finally going away, but the fact that I got sick at all (first virus in two years) tells me that I’m overdoing it.

So here is the first of two catch-up posts for the month of October.  Tomorrow, I’ll blog on various things that have been happening on the learning mutt side of my life.

We Grow Media’s “Build Your Author Platform” course

I signed up for this in September, having missed the course earlier in the year.  Knowing what a busy few months I’d have ahead of me, I probably should have waited until the next one, but it doesn’t look like things will get much better at work, so ultimately, there was no time like the present … then.

Dan Blank’s course was enlightening with respect to narrowing focus, targeting our ideal audience, and making use of tools like Google Analytics.  The weekly insider calls were productive and encouraged community building within the course.  Unfortunately, these and the specialist calls took place during the day and I couldn’t take part in most of them.

They were recorded, however, and so even though I couldn’t participate in them, I could still reap the benefits of the calls with Joanna Penn, Joel Friedlander, Jeff Goins, and Jane Friedman.  Those calls were worth the cost of the course alone.

I can’t really give much more away without starting to discus the materials in depth and those belong to Dan.  Suffice it to say that while I wasn’t able to participate in October as much as I wanted to, I have the course materials on hand and will make use of them often in the months to come.

Having said that, I think the course is best suited to those with some technical savvy but just getting going, and who also have a product to promote (novel, non-fiction, poetry collection, etc.).  The participants who had no background in social media or blogging whatsoever tended to have greater difficulty, and those like myself, who do not have a recently published work to promote couldn’t necessarily narrow down our focus sufficiently to make the most of Dan’s lessons.

For the former group, I might recommend Dan’s Social Media 101 and Blogging 101 courses offered through Writer’s Digest University.  Links to these can also be found on the We Grow Media site (linked above).

Khara House’s October Submit-O-Rama

I intended to get some submissions done over the course of October anyway, so I thought I’d join in the fun of Khara House’s October submit-o-rama.

The challenges varied from three submissions per week, through to a submission every day of the month, to the alpha-challenge in which you’d do the same but submit to magazines, contests, and journals in alphabetical order.  There was also a name game challenge to submit to publishers according to the letters of your name, and a create your own challenge.

I chose the last and settled on one submission a week.  I cheaped out, I know, but I honestly couldn’t manage more.  Anticipating the travelling I’d have to do in the latter half of the month, I submitted twice in the first two weeks and then decided I’d try, but not kill myself, for the remainder of the month.  That way, I met my challenge and didn’t overwhelm myself further.

I’ve received one rejection so far and the remaining ones are still up in the air.  Fortunately, my rejection included a request for other material, so I’m looking at it as a positive.

Khara had forums up on her site: Our Lost Jungle (linked above) as well as an event page on Facebook.  There were a handful of dedicated but insane writers (my opinion only) who managed 31 submissions in the month through various challenges.  Kudos to them!  They worked so hard and I’m sure they’ll be reaping the rewards for some time to come.

Now most of them are onto the November challenges of NaNoWriMo (national novel writers month) and PAD (poem a day).  I wish them the best and am sure that they will do smashingly!  And of course, our dear Khara deserves praise for putting everything together and giving everyone the kick in the pants they needed to get their work out there!

New York Comes to Niagara

I wanted to attend this conference last year, but ended up not being able to due to work commitments.  So when the conference Web site announced that applications were being accepted, I jumped on board.

NYCtN is an Algonkian pitch conference and writers first have to apply, submitting a short synopsis and writing sample before they are accepted and able to register.  When I made it through that stage, I immediately registered and booked my hotel room. 

Then came the 88-page guide and half a dozen emails with accompanying assignments.  My work was set out for me.

Now I have to make something clear.  My goal in going the conference was just to find out what the heck a pitch conference was, how it worked.  I’m an experiential learner and sometimes reading about something just doesn’t cut it.  So again, to be clear: I had no expectations.  I fully expected to have every agent and editor in the place reject me out of hand.

And I went prepared for that outcome.  This is not to say that I wrote anything but the best pitch I was capable of or that I blew off any of the assignments.  I’m a keener.  That would be impossible.  I just wasn’t pinning my hopes or self worth on the result of the conference.

Until it started.

Once the first pitch panel took place, which I, keener that I am, volunteered for, I was caught up in the hype.  I forgot about my humble goal and suddenly, I felt the pressure to sell.  It didn’t help that I was told in no uncertain terms that my novel was dead in the water and that traditional fantasy of any variety wouldn’t sell to anyone.

Nor was it particularly useful that I was advised to either throw out my created world and place the story in a historical setting (not my novel), or failing that, that I should set aside Initiate of Stone and focus on a more commercial project until my money-making capacity could be well-established and that I could then bring out the snoozer and rely on my reputation to coast me through what would surely be a slump in my writing career.

Please note: this was my interpretation of the advice, not the actual advice given.  You’ll understand if I wasn’t particularly clear-headed about it.

I lived in that illusory and completely self-induced angst for two days until, thanks to a friend, I remembered why I came to the pitch conference in the first place.

I revised my pitch but did not alter my project and I was true to my original intention and to IoS.  I pitched it and received some positive response.  Then I had to disappoint (seriously, the worst thing I can do to anyone in my book and pure torture for me) the person who had done everything in his power to guide me in the direction of success.

Here’s what I learned:

  • A pitch conference is all about the commercial viability of the pitch and its ability to obtain the interest of an agent or editor.  You have to back your pitch up of course, but the only thing that anyone will hear at the conference is your pitch.  For all intents and purposes, your novel might as well not exist.
  • It’s best not to bring only one idea/pitch, and if for one reason or another you only have one, you can’t be invested in it.  If you are, then a pitch conference may not be your best bet.  There are often opportunities to have your pitch critiqued before the pitch session opens.  If one idea doesn’t pass muster, keep pulling them out and throwing them against the wall until something sticks.
  • It’s common to pitch an idea for a novel that you haven’t written yet.  So long as you have the time and dedication to bang it out, this is acceptable, even expected.  I might go so far as to suggest that it’s a good idea to have your novel ideas plotted out and maybe even a few key scenes written, but that you may need to be flexible enough to accept suggestions that will drastically alter your novel.  This is harder to do with a project that you’ve invested months or years in writing.
  • If you’re like me, and reading these pieces of advice isn’t really enough, if you have to experience a pitch conference for yourself and you only have one project, one you’ve invested time in and are attached to, then stay true to your intent and be prepared to hear some things that you won’t want to accept.  Keep in mind that these things are going to be said to you with the best of intentions: to make you a viable career author.  If you’re not ready for that, so long as you understand that and keep all the excellent advice you receive in mind, you’ll be fine.

One way or the other, you and your work will emerge stronger on the other side.

Algonkian conferences have helped many writers achieve success.  Just visit their site and read the testimonials.  It’s a great opportunity that if you’re ready for, you shouldn’t pass up.

Besides, you usually get excellent advice outside the pitch panels and sessions as well.  In this case, Barbara Kyle delivered several sessions on plot and structure and Amy and Duncan McKenzie delivered an informative and entertaining session on improvisational techniques.

I even got some sight-seeing in 🙂

I highly recommend attending an Algonkian conference, or any pitch conference, and found it had the potential to be profoundly life-changing.

Writerly Goodness, signing off 🙂

Breccia: An interview with Ignatius Fay and Irene Golas

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Irene Golas discovered the world of haiku when she purchased a slender volume of Japanese nature poetry in a gift shop in Elmvale, Ontario. She was immediately drawn to the brevity and concision of the haiku form. Her first haiku were published in 2005, followed by her first tanka in 2006.

Ignatius Fay is a retired invertebrate paleontologist who began writing haiku and related forms of poetry primarily for his own pleasure and as a means of personal expression. His first published poem appeared in 2008, the same year he published a small book of haiku/senryu, Haiga Moments: pens and lens, with photographs by Ray Belcourt, of Leduc, Alberta. In 2011, he published Points In Between, an anecdotal history of his early years.

Irene and Ignatius have been published in many print and online journals, including Acorn, Eucalypt, Frogpond, and The Heron’s Nest. Irene’s poems have also been chosen for a number of anthologies. Both authors reside in Sudbury, Ontario.

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WG: How long have the two of you been working together?

Irene: I’d known about Ignatius since 2008, but it took me a while to find any contact information. I emailed him in the summer of 2010, asking if he’d be interested in corresponding about the art and craft of haiku. There aren’t many haiku poets in town! At first we talked in general terms about books, haiku and other poetry. Soon we were exchanging haiku books and journals and some of our unpublished work. By the fall of 2011, we had developed a mutual trust and a respect for the other’s judgment. This is when the idea of a collaborative publication first came up.

Ignatius: Irene and I are alike in that we are straightforward when asked an opinion. Our intent is always positive, to help each other become better poets. I don’t think a collaboration would have worked had we not first gone through this process.

WG: Whose idea was Breccia? When did you actually begin work on it?

Ignatius: I suggested we consider doing something jointly. After toying with the idea for a time, we got down to it in January 2012.

Irene: We were ready to prepare the manuscript for publication by the end of July. Since then we’ve spent good chunks of time writing promotional material and otherwise spreading the word about Breccia.

WG: By the way, who came up with the name, Breccia? What is its significance?

Ignatius: Irene suggested the title. She was unfamiliar with the term when she read it in one of my poems. I was referring to the Sudbury Breccia, a rock formation that is part of the Sudbury Basin. Both the basin and the breccia were formed by an asteroid impact about 1.85 billion years ago. The nickel-iron-copper ore bodies of the Sudbury area are all associated with this rock.

A breccia is made up of fragments of preexisting rock that have been re-cemented. By analogy, our collection may be considered a haiku ‘breccia,’ poems from two sources cemented together to form a unique whole.

Irene: When Ignatius sent me his manuscript, there were a few poems about his childhood in Levack. They shone a light on a way of life that was unique. It occurred to me that the Sudbury area should have a larger presence in our book. Sudbury is our home, after all, and has shaped our lives in so many ways. I encouraged Ignatius to write more. He did, expanding his focus to include details of miners’ lives and the changing face of Sudbury. I added several of my own and soon we had a ‘Sudbury Breccia’ section.

WG: This type of collection is rather rare in that it is a collaboration and in the way your poems are intermingled. What made you decide on this format?

Ignatius: Our original intention was to put together a small collection of selected and new haiku and senryu. A poem had to satisfy us both to make the cut. A fair number of poems were edited or rewritten.  We ended up with more good poems than expected. Then we complicated matters by deciding to include tanka and haibun.

Irene: At the same time, we began to discuss layout. We wanted Breccia to be a true collaboration rather than a joint publication with two sections, one for his poems, one for mine. We also wanted something different from the traditional grouping by season, something with a more organic feel. Eventually we decided to integrate our poems, creating several extended sequences in which each poem suggests some relationship to the immediately preceding poem.

WG: Breccia is 208 pages long. That’s a lot of poetry. Did you find the sequencing difficult? How long did it take?

Irene: Sequencing turned out to be the longest part of the process. And the most satisfying. We spent hours trying to get short bits of sequence to feel right, then emailed it to the other. Often the response brought suggested changes. Occasionally, emails passed each other in cyberspace and we found we had very different ideas for the next part of the sequence. This process alone took more than two months.

WG: How did you like the experience of collaboration?

Ignatius: Delightful. We’re a good match. Sure, there was lots of hard work, but we work well together. We share an interest in the English language and a commitment to our art.

Irene is an extremely efficient editor…far better than I. She has such patience and attention to detail. Many of my poems have benefited from her insights. She is straightforward in her criticism, encouraging growth. And she doesn’t hesitate to praise something I’ve written that she likes.

Irene: We both look for honest assessment of our work. We strive for improvement, which includes acknowledging a weakness in our poetry when it is pointed out and being open to editorial suggestions.

WG: Why did you choose to self-publish Breccia?

Irene: We both got the same story when we looked into traditional publishing. Finding a publisher for your first book can be a long, drawn-out process. Then it may take a couple of years for the book to appear. Our biggest concern was getting our work out there. And Ignatius had some experience with the process, which is becoming increasingly popular.

Ignatius: Another problem with using a traditional publisher is the need to travel and do personal appearances to promote the book. My inability to do that lowers our prospects significantly.

WG: This was a strictly do-it-yourself project. Did the two of you also design the cover and do the layout?

Irene: Yes, we did everything. From the beginning, we agreed we wanted this to be 100% our project. But I have to give credit to Ignatius for carrying the weight when it came to the actual layout and other aspects of desktop publishing. He’s been in graphic layout and design for 22 years.

WG: What was the most difficult part of publishing Breccia?

Irene:  Definitely the promotional writing. First we had to distill the essence of what Breccia is about – a slow process. Then we had to present that essence – sell it, really – in a catchy way, often in a hundred words or less. Too often we found ourselves reverting to a dense academic style of writing, or reaching for clichés.

Another challenge was reworking this material into different packages – a flyer, a press release, and at least half a dozen blurbs. To avoid sending out carbon copies, we had to rephrase, augment, emphasize or completely delete things from one piece to the next. A case of “how many ways can you serve hamburger?”

Ignatius: For me, the most difficult part was not being able to work regularly with Irene in person. Face-to-face, so much more can be accomplished in a short time. But my health and Irene’s other obligations were limiting factors.

Thank goodness for email! Much of the work was done through the back and forth of emails. It could be frustrating, waiting for a response or trying to iron out a miscommunication, but it allowed us to proceed. We may never have completed the project without it.

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You can purchase Breccia on Lulu.

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The launch of Dead Air, Pontypool, and other Writerly Goodness

/ Melanie Marttila / 1 Comment

Last night was the official launch of my writer friend Scott Overton’s first novel, Dead Air.  I bought my official copy, Scott signed it, officially, I hung out with the other members of the Sudbury Writers’ Guild who came out to support Scott (his official fan club?), and he even got the official CTV interview 🙂

Before I get to particulars, I wanted to share a few more views of the Living with Lakes Centre at Laurentian University where the launch was held.  Yes, that’s the same place that Scott read with John Forrest and Mark Leslie last week for the LUminaries reading series.

I won’t say that I arrived early, but it looked like I had some time to walk around the grounds and I took a couple of pictures of the centre from a different angle, and then another looking out over Lake Ramsey from the centre’s dock.

Upon entering, I immediately gravitated to the huddle of SWG members.  We chatted and caught up a bit before the flurry of purchasing and signing got underway.

There were beverages, but word soon spread that the caterer hadn’t shown up yet.  Ever the consummate showman, Laurence Steven of Your Scrivener Press gathered the crowd and ushered us into the room for the reading.

One of the SWG members had thoughtfully brought cookies and just as Laurie apologized for the lack of provisions, the caterer arrived, the result of an understandable miscommunication.

With that sorted, Laurie made a brief but gracious introduction of Scott and brought him to the podium.

Scott first introduced his wife, Terry-Lynne, to whom his book is dedicated, his co-host for his morning radio show, and then he read three selections from his novel.  Afterward, he opened the floor to questions.

Scott spoke of his inspiration, the process of writing the novel, and the interesting things he learned on the way.  He also spoke about the editing process and how he and Laurie had negotiated that.

Overall, it was a very entertaining evening.

But I got this cold, see?  So when I got home, I crawled into bed like the little illen-filled chicklet I am and settled in for the evening.  In cruising the channels, I came across Pontypool.

In the movie, adapted from Tony Burgess’s novel of the same name, a morning radio host (sound familiar, Scott?) is trapped in his radio station while people in the town around him succumb to a strange virus.

Far from the scads of zombie-related virus movies, Pontypool takes a left turn.  The virus is spread in the form of words, and the infected begin to babble and fixate on a particular word or sound.  Through the timely visit of a doctor to the studio, the protagonist learns that it is the understanding of a word that seems to trigger the infection and that speaking in another language is an effective means of evading the illness.

As everyone around them succumbs, the protagonist and his producer are hiding from the hordes and she (the producer) begins to babble, “kill, kill, kill …”  The morning man, twigged by the words of the visiting doctor, begins to try to break his producer’s loop, telling her that kill isn’t kill, that it’s sun, dress, flower, and finally he settles on kiss.  Kill is kiss.

He knows he’s been successful when she says, “kill me.”

I just found the premise fascinating.  A semiotic virus.

You may have noticed me dropping that academic bomb from time to time on my blog, and the reason for it is that I love semiotics.  It’s the study of meaning, to put it simply.  Ultimately all language is invented and arbitrary.  Language is a series of signs or symbols that we chose to mean things so that we can communicate with others and think about them.

We accept that the letters D O G spell dog and that means a certain class of canine quadrupeds that many of us choose to coexist with, but why is it dog and not cap or tree of bazooka?  Who came up with the word and why did everyone accept that this wee beastie should be called dog (and not tomato)?

Two things: have you ever repeated a word to yourself over and over again until the word loses all meaning and just becomes a sound?  Have you ever written or typed a word that you’ve written or typed thousands (perhaps millions) of times before only to think immediately that the word is somehow wrong?  Have you been so convinced of this illusion that you look the bloody word up in the dictionary just to make sure you’ve not gone insane?

That’s semiotic confusion, or uncertainty and may just lead to the thought that it’s not the experience that’s the illusion, but all language and meaning lumped together.

That’s the kind of mind-blowing awesome of a movie like Pontypool.  Not to mention the eerie serendipity of coming from the launch of my morning radio show host friend Scott, whose novel is about a morning show host who receives what turns out to be a very serious threat and finding a movie about a morning radio show host in the middle of a semiotic virus breakout.

Gave me dreams, man …

One last thing, well two really, but they’re related.

I’ve been so busy guest blogging, hosting guests, blogging events, and interviewing that I forgot to mention that Brian Braden of Underground Book Reviews interviewed me last week!  And this week, as the result of the number of comments and likes, he’s posted an excerpt from Initiate of Stone, my work in progress.  Sure, he may have misspelled my name, but everyone does 🙂  Hazard of being me.

So if you want to find out what my WIP is made of, go read for yourself!

Need to curl up with my dog and some wicked cold meds.

Shivering yet? Seasonal chill? No, it’s just Dead Air

/ Melanie Marttila

An interview with Scott Overton.

Scott Overton is a radio morning man on Rewind 103.9 FM in Ontario, Canada, who blames his off-kilter perspective on years of lost sleep from waking at 4:00am. His short fiction has been published in magazines including On Spec and Neo-opsis, and the anthologies Tesseracts Sixteen, and Canadian Tales of the Fantastic, among others. His first novel Dead Air (a mystery/thriller) is now available from Scrivener Press, while several SF novels are looking for good homes in the publishing industry. When not writing, Scott’s passions include scuba diving and a couple of collector cars, in which he hopes to someday find enough story inspiration to make them tax deductible.

Scott’s webpage is www.scottoverton.ca

An interview with Scott Overton.

Scott Overton is a radio morning man on Rewind 103.9 FM in Ontario, Canada, who blames his off-kilter perspective on years of lost sleep from waking at 4:00am. His short fiction has been published in magazines including On Spec and Neo-opsis, and the anthologies Tesseracts Sixteen, and Canadian Tales of the Fantastic, among others. His first novel Dead Air (a mystery/thriller) is now available from Scrivener Press, while several SF novels are looking for good homes in the publishing industry. When not writing, Scott’s passions include scuba diving and a couple of collector cars, in which he hopes to someday find enough story inspiration to make them tax deductible.

Scott’s webpage is www.scottoverton.ca

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Thank you, Scott, for taking the time to visit Writerly Goodness in advance of Dead Air’s launch on October 11, 2012 (Living with Lakes Centre, Laurentian University – be there or be … oblong).  I’m very pleased to have you with me, if virtually.

WG: For those of my readers who may not know what your novel is about, could you give them a brief synopsis?

Scott: Sure. It’s about a radio morning man named Lee Garrett who makes a joke on the radio about a neo-Nazi gang and a few days later he finds a death threat left for him. Then a series of incidents of mischief and vandalism turns into outright attempts on his life. Someone wants him dead, and he doesn’t know who or why.

WG: Where did the idea for Dead Air come from?

Scott: I’m a morning radio broadcaster myself, and I was struck by the vulnerability of even small-scale celebrities. People think they know us, but we don’t know them. And it’s very easy to make an enemy without meaning to, or even knowing that you have. I also wanted to explore how an ordinary person would try to cope with such a devastating threat (as opposed to some Hollywood hero who’d just get a gun and blow the bad guys away).

WG: Writing process is a personal interest of mine.  Would you be able to speak to your process in writing Dead Air?

Scott: It took at least five years to write the first version of Dead Air because I was working full-time and was involved in quite a bit of charity work. I worked on it whenever I could: evenings, weekends, and vacation time, but was impossible for me to stick to a routine because of my other commitments. Fortunately I have an upstairs room that became my study and interruptions were discouraged (even when I was hogging the family’s only computer!)

My writing habits are better now, though I still can’t tolerate any distractions or listen to music. I don’t know how writers can do that and still feel the rhythm of their words.

WG: Dead Air is a thriller, but you’ve had a fair amount of recent publishing success in another genre.  If readers would like to find more of your work, where would they look?

Scott: Everything else I’ve written would be considered science fiction or fantasy, though often with thriller elements. I’ve been fortunate to have seven short stories published and, as a Canadian, I’m particularly proud to have been published in the two top Canadian SF magazines, On Spec (twice) and Neo-opsis, as well as the quintessential Canadian SF anthology series, Tesseracts (I have a story in the latest edition, Tesseracts Sixteen). So I feel like that’s the Triple Crown of SF in our country. Now I really hope I can get my SF novels published.

WG: How did you first start writing?

Scott: I’ve been writing stories ever since I was a child, and briefly tried to write full-time in my twenties, but couldn’t stick with it long enough to break in. I’ve always been determined to become a published author, so when I came up with the concept for Dead Air I just went for it, and I’ve been writing consistently ever since.

WG: Getting back to Dead Air, how did you get your contract with Laurence Steven of Your Scrivener Press?

Scott: I’ve always had a lot of respect for the quality of the manuscripts he chooses and the books he produces. My friend and mentor, Sudbury author Sean Costello, spoke highly of his own experience working with Laurence. Scrivener Press is also a recommender for the Ontario Arts Council’s Writers Reserve grants. I applied for a grant to rewrite Dead Air, Laurence recommended it to the OAC, and when the MS was ready I submitted it to Laurence. I didn’t get his answer for about six months, but he says that was because he was trying to work out the timing of the publication. He’s a busy guy.

WG: Finally, aside from your launch on October 11, are there any other upcoming events you’d like to promote, and where can readers purchase your book?

Scott: I’m sure I’ll be doing more readings and book signings at Chapters and places like that, but nothing has been scheduled yet. The book is available directly from Scrivener Press (though the web site’s a little behind on the direct purchase linkage), and I understand it’s now in stock at Chapters in Sudbury and likely Coles, too. Online it can be ordered through Amazon and Chapters-Indigo.

Scott, thanks for joining me 🙂

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Don’t miss the launch of Scott Overton’s thriller Dead Air! Thursday, October 11, 2012, at the Vale Living with Lakes Centre, 6:30-9:30 pm: free admission and refreshments. (Scott will be reading from the book at 8 pm.) More info at http://www.scrivenerpress.com/default.asp?id=580

 

LUminaries: The Power of Popular Fiction

/ Melanie Marttila

On October 4, 2012, I attended the first of Laurentian University’s new season of the LUminaries readings series, held at the Living with Lakes Centre (LwLC).  The theme of the evening was the power of popular fiction, with authors John Forrest, Scott Overton, and Mark Leslie.

The first thing to note is that the LwLC is beautiful.  It was built with the landscape and the environment in mind, using a lot of natural or reclaimed materials, a green roof, and wonderful views of Ramsey Lake on the shores of which the centre stands.

The parking was a bit of an issue and I understand the reasons for this.  The builders wanted to encourage a more environmentally sustainable mode of travel, such as walking, cycling, or public transit.  Sadly, this would only work for individuals who work and/or live in the immediate university area.  The room in which the reading was held has a capacity of about 60 I believe.  There’s no way the cars of 60 attendees could fit into that wee parking lot.

This is unfortunate, because it makes the site unattractive for larger events where attendees from off-campus might want to participate in numbers.

This year’s LUminaries was co-sponsored by the English department, through Laurence Steven, the big squishy brain behind Your Scrivener Press, and by the English Arts Club, who are also behind the university’s new literary journal, Sulphur.   

The evening began with a meet and greet/author signing session out in the foyer of the centre.  I decided to hold off on picking up one of Scott’s books until his official launch this coming Thursday, October 11, 2012, at 8 pm (also at the LwLC).  I picked up Tesseracts 16, however, and Mark Leslie’s Haunted Hamilton.  I chatted up the authors, including John Forrest, but I must confess to selling Mr. Forrest short.  The books he had for sale were of Christmas stories and I wasn’t interested or yet in the mood for Christmas.

Laurence Steven began the reading more formally with a brief talk on popular fiction, its attraction, and its denigration in the literary/academic community.  Then he called John Forrest to the podium.

John was an educator and principal in his past career, but then turned his considerable talents to writing.  One of his claims to fame is that he’s had eleven stories published in various Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, three in the one about hockey.  That’s what he started with, his recounting of the ’72 Summit Series from the perspective of a young teacher working the sporting event into his teaching unit.

He then read part of a story from his story collection entitled Home for Christmas, about a WWII bomber tail gunner and his struggle to get home for Christmas.  Finally, he pulled out his first published short story, a humorous tale about purchasing condoms pending his vasectomy.

John’s first Christmas short story collection, published by YSP last year, has gone into three printings and was sold in Home Hardware stores as well as online and in book stores.  Home for Christmas has already sold out its first printing even though it hasn’t formally been launched yet!  John was dropping off boxes of his book to a couple of the local Home Hardware stores this week, so look for them in the Christmas home decor section.

Next, Scott Overton took the podium, and read three excerpts from his new novel Dead Air.  Without giving too much away, because I am going to blogging more about Scott in the next week or so, his novel is a thriller about a morning radio host in northern Ontario who has a strange dispute with a caller to his morning show and subsequently finds a hand-written threat on his desk.

Several possible love-interests, a snow mobile chase, and car trouble on a cold and stormy night are among the thrills in Dead Air.

Then Mark Leslie read a humorous horror story about what it might really be like to be Frosty the Snowman and some of his poetry from his collection One Hand Screaming.  He also spoke about his experience at editor for Tesseracts 16.  He’s never cracked the anthology as a writer, but lost his “Tesseracts” virginity at 16 🙂

As you can see from the picture, Mark is a very animated presenter and performer, changing his voice for the various characters in his stories.

At that point, there was an intermission after which there was to be a Q&A session.  Unfortunately, it was what I like to call a “school night” and I had to get home to complete my interview responses for Brian Braden and Underground Book Reviews and then get to bed so I would be marginally coherent at work on Friday.

I’m sure it was a fantastic second half and I’m sorry I had to leave.

If anyone who was there would care to fill in the blanks in the comment section, please do so!

More randomness from which creative connections might arise

/ Melanie Marttila

Good afternoon!

I wanted to post these ramblings separately from my post regarding the Luminaries reading.

The power of an awesome haircut

I have to set this one up a bit. A number of years ago, the best stylist I’d ever had moved out of our area of town.  I made the attempt to support her by traveling out of my way, but life got increasingly hectic, and I just couldn’t keep it up.  I went to one of the local places, but the one good stylist there went on maternity leave, and then always seemed occupied when I went in for a trim.

Last year, I decided to get “chunky” bangs.  This was fine, until this year and several haircuts later, each by a different person, I decided that I wanted to grow them out.

I have no pictures of this hairy period, but I looked like hell.  My two increasingly lengthy chunks flipped out and looked like a couple of fuzzy horns.  I knew only time and patience would fix it and determined to wait the horrible hair out.

Then, a few weeks ago, my mom told me that Diane (the awesome stylist) had sold her business, and set up in her basement, once again in the south end of Sudbury.

At the time, I was overwhelmed at work and at home and not in the take action mood.  This past week, however, I worked a lot at “letting go” all of those things over which I have no control.  It’s been a very good week.  So yesterday, I made an appointment with Diane.

I knew it would life a weight from my shoulders–long hair is surprisingly heavy and you never realize just how heavy until it’s cut away–but I had no idea how good it would feel, and how lovely the result.

This was the result 🙂

Diane is a consummate professional.  She knows her business and she doesn’t mess around.  She asks, like all stylists, what you want, but then she sets to and you’re in her hands.

Those hands are skillful.  They inspire confidence.  Every snip is purposeful, and she really approaches a haircut as a piece of art.  It was wonderful to be able to trust someone so completely for a while.

The result was two inches shorter, layered artfully, and Diane even straightened my hair, something I never take the time to do myself.  It felt considerably lighter too.

Really, it was just what I needed, even though I didn’t know it.  Funny how that happens.

Mel is happy.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and Larry Crowne

Mentioned last night when I logged off that I was going to watch Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and I have to say that I was disappointed.

Though more faithful to the comic (Ghost Rider can come out in the day), the story wasn’t all that compelling.  Nicholas Cage was looking very much like he didn’t want to be there, and his transformation sequences were entirely too drawn out.  With respect to that, he ended up sounding half the time like his character Big Daddy, from Kick-Ass, in my opinion, a much better character and performance, and something that hearkens back to some of his early, quirky roles.

I like the quirky.

Fast forward to this morning and Larry Crowne.  While I missed the beginning, I was immediately on board with Tom Hanks and his portrayal of a middle-aged man having to start over.

I loved the characters.  Julia Roberts as the long-suffering college teacher and spouse of a porn-addicted writer, so-called, was awesome.  Unfortunately, the chemistry between the two leads left something to be desired.  Hanks often ended up looking at Roberts like she was insane.

Still, I enjoyed it a lot more than the second Ghost Rider.

The sounds of fall

This morning wasn’t a quiet Sunday morning.  It’s rarely quiet around here: I live on a busy street corner where a lot of traffic passes.

But this morning, I was struck by the sounds of fall.  In the Carolina Poplars across the street, chickadees and tardy starlings chirped and chittered.  I listened to the leaves falling.  It was amazing.  Over the noise of the traffic and the sound of the birds, I could hear each leaf fall onto the bed of them at the foot of each tree.

Last night was the first night that the temperature fell below zero (degrees celsius) so even though the wind was still, the leaves were falling.  Time has come.

Today, I finally gave over and put the furnace on.  Tomorrow, the winter clothes come out of storage and the tank tops go into hibernation until spring and the Hallowe’en door decoration comes out.  Tomorrow is also our (Canadian) Thanksgiving dinner.  Looking forward to some time with family.

Look for my post on the LUminaries reading series later today.

TTFN!

October submit-o-rama and other randomness

/ Melanie Marttila

Hey there!

I’ve joined Khara House‘s October Submit-o-rama!

In the lovely Khara’s own words:

There are five unique challenges for you to choose from to participate in the Submit-O-Rama! Click on the links below to pick your flavor of the month!

The “Basic” Challenge
The “Uber” Challenge
The “Alpha” Challenge
The “Name Game” Challenge
The “Choose Your Rules” Challenge

Of course, you know I went for the “choose your own rules” challenge.  I’m going for one submission per week and I’ve just made my first one: a short story to Tesseracts 17.  The deadline’s not until February 2013, but I wanted to get this submission done early.  this will be my fourth try at a Tesseracts anthology, and last year I received a very encouraging (not being sarcastic) rejection letter from Mark Leslie, who I got to meet in person this past week (more on that to come).

It’s not too late if you want to join in the fun.  Just go to Khara’s blog, Our Lost Jungle, click on the Submit-o-rama page, and follow the destructions from there.  She has forums set up too.  You can also join Khara’s Facebook event page for ongoing updates from the participants.

Some of them are going for the gusto.  Join in on the fun!

The blog schedule changes again

In fact, if you look at my blog now, you might notice that there’s no blogging schedule in evidence.  I’m going to be posting as I can and as I have things to blog about.  This may mean a blog or more in a day and it might mean days or weeks when I don’t blog at all.  I’ve decided that I’m good with that.  I’m hoping that you will be too.

Right now, I have to work on my novel, and I’m trying to restructure and simplify my life so that I can do that.

What’s coming

Having said that, I’m going to be blogging on a fairly regular basis for the next couple of weeks.

  • Tomorrow, I’ll post about the first LUminaries reading series at Laurentian University on the power of popular fiction;
  • On Tuesday, I’ll be posting  my first guest blog by fellow Sudbury Writers’ Guild author John Rice;
  • Before Thursday, I hope to be posting my first author interview with Scott Overton;
  • After Thursday, I’ll be blogging the launch of Scott’s novel Dead Air; and
  • In the future, I’ll be blogging about the progression/completion of Dan Blank’s Platform-building course, more submit-o-rama madness ( I hope), my experience at the Algonkian Writers’ Conference, interviewing my friend Kim Fahner about her upcoming book of poetry, and her book launch.

From the learning mutt side of my brain will be:

  • In-person meetings (for virtual teams) as a vehicle for professional development;
  • The Business Expertise Forum experience from a presenter’s perspective;
  • Striving for certification;
  • Business Writing Made easy in action; and
  • Managing transitions – will the course meet expectations?

As you can see, there will be lots of Writerly Goodness to come.

Something apropos of nothing

As the sun rises later each morning and until the snow falls, I’m faced with a dog-walking conundrum.  If Nuala (das pooch) chooses to unburden herself on a lawn that is not flooded by streetlight, how does a proper pup-mom find, let alone extract the odious package?

I was thinking of that semi-annual problem on Friday morning and reminded of a friend, Stacey, who has moved to the States.  When she lived in Sudbury, we walked our dogs together, and discussed this very issue.

Though she was devoted to cancer research, and still is, we both thought that it would be great if some enterprising researcher were to invent some kind of additive (innert and harmless to the animal) that when added to a dog’s food would make their feces phosphoresce to aid in the timely and efficient removal of such materials incumbent upon all responsible dog owners.

Any keen researchers interested in taking up the challenge?  I’m just sayin’ …

The randomness of Writerly Goodness is heading off to watch Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

Good words at ya, my friends.

100 thousand poets for change in North Bay, September 29, 2012

/ Melanie Marttila

Please note: this post originally appeared as a guest post on John Rice’s Keeper of the Sword blog on October 3, 2012.

It was a grey autumn day when I set off for North Bay.  Then I picked up Kim Fahner, and the journey became a poetic road trip of epic proportions 🙂  Talked craft, poetry, fiction, blogging, social media, and Doctor Who!

Kim brought me back a gift from her recent trip to Ireland: Leanne O’Sullivan’s Cailleach: The Hag of Beara.  Lovely book.  Saving it for the weekend 🙂

The drive was blessedly uneventful and we arrived early enough to have lunch before the event started.

On the way back to the park for the reading, we were greeted by Father Forrest.  The White Water Gallery’s Youth Arts Initiative created puppets this summer.

Father Forrest was one of them and he stopped by the reading later on in the afternoon.

We walked on to the park where the poets and audience were already gathered.

Though the organizers, Kevin smith and Natalie Wilson had brought a PA system there wasn’t an outlet to power it.

Still, Kevin introduced the event and got underway promptly, explaining a little of the background of 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

100 Thousand Poets for Change was initially conceived by Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion in March, 2011, as a worldwide set of events to take place simultaneously on September 24, 2011. Literary event organizers volunteered to host associated events in their own cities or schools. ~Wikipedia

The first reader of the North Bay event was Laurie Kruk, professor at Nipissing University and author of Theories of the World, Loving the Alien, and the soon to be released, My Mother Never Told Stories.

She read several selections from her new book of poetry.

I was the next poet to read and only chose a couple of poems: “Manitou Sky” and “Relatively Speaking.”

I started my set with a post on Jezebel regarding a Sikh woman and her response to what seemed a malicious picture posted as a critique on her appearance.  It was my way of commenting on how social media can be an avenue for positive change.

I finished my reading by offering some advice from Kristen Lamb in this season of political frenzy on how writers really change the world.

Following my set was Tim Robertson, poet and aphorist, that is, writer of aphorisms.

He started the session with a series of witticisms and then read a couple of his longer poems.

After Tim’s reading was a brief intermission where poets mingled and chatted.  I took a few moments to reacquaint myself with Natalie, with whom I’d contributed to NEOVerse, and Laurie, with whom I’d read on several occasions during my more active poet years.

The second half of the afternoon session began with Christine Charette, artist and poet.  Father Forrest visited at this point and remained around for her set.

Christine’s poetry has as its heart the issues of womanhood and motherhood and it did speak to the theme of change.

Denis Stokes read next.  He’s taught English in high school and at Nipissing University, and published poetry in print and online.  Denis’s poetry was definitely the poetry of Northern Ontario, evocative of its sights and sounds in the context of family and change.

Then Doyali Farah Islam took the stage, er, cobblestones 🙂  She published her first book of poetry, Yusuf and the Lotus Flower, in October of 2011.

Doyali is definitely influenced by Rumi, and her poetry brought a bit of the sacred to the assembly.

The last poet of the afternoon session was my friend, Kim Fahner, English teacher, and author of You must imagine the cold here and Braille on water.  Her new book of poetry, The Narcoleptic Madonna is due out this fall.

Kim is a great reader who interacts with her audience with humour and self-conscious grace.  Kim read from her new work.

Afterward, the poets mingled again.  Business cards and books were exchanged.  Though there was an evening session where Ken Stange, Kevin, and Natalie would be reading, Kim and I had to toddle off.  Nonetheless, I understand the evening reading at the Cornerstone Cafe was a great one, and the North Bay edition of the 100 thousand poets for change event a success.

And then, after a fortifying pumpkin spice chai latte at Twiggs, we were on the road again, chatting more about the day, poetry, creativity, and again, the fabulous Dr. who 🙂  David Tennant is one of Kim’s secret husbands, don’t you know.

The day ended with a lovely supper at Verdiccio’s where I had the chance to use the coupon I’d won on Facebook this summer.

All was ‘write’ with the world 🙂

For more information, please see the 100 Thousand Poets for Change North Bay Facebook page, or the Web page, graciously hosted by Ken Stange.

Fairy tales, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Mirror, Mirror

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Once more, I find myself a day late and a dollar short, but for good reason.  Last night, I attended the Sudbury Writers’ Guild meeting and caught up with my fellow writers in arms 🙂

A lot is happening up here in the north.  Matthew Del Papa published Green Eyes through Capreol, a collection of short stories based on life in the railway town.  Scott Overton had one of his short stories accepted into the recently published Tesseracts 16, will have his first book, Dead Air, launched October 11, 2012, and next week, he will take part in the LUminaries reading series at Laurentian University along with Mark Leslie and John Forrest presenting on the topic “The Power of Popular Fiction.”

Several members are nearing completion of their various works in progress (yay!) and the Guild is moving forward on an anthology of northern writers.

Exciting creative times in Sudz!

____________________________________________________

Last week, I was a little out of sorts.  My response to stress seems to be to heap more of the deadly stuff on until my overwrought brain insists on a break.  Thanks to the kind comments of my writer friends, I embarked on a dedicated weekend of relaxation, and as part of that, I watched a couple of movies: Snow White and the Huntsman, and Mirror, Mirror.

In the beginning

Both movies are based on the fairy tale of Snow White.  Now the original story is much the same as the one most of us have become familiar with through Disney.  With a few subtle differences.

A young queen, desperate to have a child, sits spinning at her wheel.  She looks out through the ebon-wood frame of the window, onto a snowy field.  So distracted, she pricks her finger and three drops of her blood fall.  In that moment she wishes for a child black as ebony, white as snow, red as blood.

She has the child, but dies in childbirth.  The king remarries a vain woman who owns a magic mirror.  As the child grows in beauty, the new queen grows jealous and orders her huntsman to murder the girl.  The huntsman, touched by her beauty, cannot kill her, and she runs into the woods.

The huntsman figures the girl will be killed by wild animals in any case and shoots a deer with his bow, taking its innards (not just heart) to present the queen.  In the meantime, Snow finds her way to the home of the dwarfs and they allow her to stay if she will cook and clean for them.

The queen learns from her mirror that Snow still lives, and the artefact is so kind as to tell her where.  So she disguises herself and visits the dwarfs’ home while they are away working.  First, she gives snow a lace collar that once tied around the girl’s throat, chokes her.  The dwarfs return and remove the collar, restoring Snow.

They warn the girl not to receive strangers but the naive thing does so twice more, once to be poisoned by a comb placed in her hair, which the dwarfs also remove, and then to be poisoned by an apple, a mouthful of which lodges in her throat.

The dwarfs cannot revive her this last time, and determine to encase her body in a glass coffin.  As they transport the coffin to a mountain top, a traveling prince literally runs into them, upsetting the coffin, and dislodging the poisoned apple.

The prince announces he will marry Snow and invites everyone in the land.  The queen, preparing to attend the great feast and not knowing the identity of the bride, checks once more in her magic mirror, and is told once again that Snow White and not she is the fairest in the land.  The mirror neglects to tell her where Snow is this time, however, and she goes to the wedding still ignorant.

At the feast, the queen and her treachery are exposed and she is presented with a pair of iron shoes that have been heated in the fire.  She must dance until she dies.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her anthology of the Tales of the Brothers Grimm, writes:

A tale invites the psyches to dream upon something that seems familiar, yet often finds its origins in a far away time.  In entertaining the tales, listeners are re-envisioning the meanings of them, “reading with the heart” these important metaphoric guidances about the life of the soul.

As my recent foray into Fairy tale blogging madness will attest, fairy tales have an enduring fascination.  Snow White has been given homage in many novels and movies as a result.

Snow White and the Huntsman

This movie is quite faithful to the original fairy tale at the outset, but then takes a radical departure.

**Warning: Spoiler alert!**

Snow White & the Huntsman

Snow White & the Huntsman (Photo credit: Ludie Cochrane)

The queen, a fearsome sorceress who drinks the life force of beautiful maidens to remain young and beautiful, murders the king and keeps Snow White a prisoner for ten years while the country grows desolate around them.

When Snow White escapes into the dark forest, where she has no power, the queen recruits a huntsman and binds him with the promise that she will resurrect his dead wife if he will kill Snow White.

In the forest, Snow meets the dwarfs, who have fallen on hard times.  The huntsman finds Snow White, but Snow convinces him that the queen has deceived him and that they will both die if he takes her back to the queen.

They flee with the dwarfs, through various adventures, and joined by Snow’s childhood playmate, the son of a neighbouring duke, they defeat the queen’s brother and his men.  The queen, however disguises herself as the duke’s son and offers Snow the fateful apple.

When she is revived, Snow convinces the Duke to go to war against the queen and in a final confrontation, a Snow that appears more like Joan of Arc than a fairy tale princess, kills the queen.

What I liked about it:

  • The queen.  She was a brilliant villain, made more complex by a back story of abuse and tragedy, and more creepy by implications of incest with her brother.
  • The dwarfs.  They were a mystical, gruff bunch.  Bob Hoskins was fantastic 🙂
  • The lord of the forest.  At one point, the group enter fairy lands, and the lord of the forest blesses Snow.  It was a scene reminiscent of Princess Mononoke, with the lord of the forest appearing as a giant white stag with gloriously branching antlers, though I much preferred Myazaki’s Puff ‘n’ Fresh-like head rattlers to Huntsman’s eerie fairies that crawled out of the bodies of animals.
  • The scarred women.  To protect themselves from the queen’s predations, the widowed and orphaned women of the land scar their faces.
  • The awakening kiss.  Though it is the duke’s son who loves Snow, his kiss does not awaken her.  It is the huntsman’s kiss that proves to be the kiss of true love, but not because he loves Snow.  It is a kiss born of his sorrow for failing Snow as he failed his wife before.  I liked that a lot.
  • The ending.  Snow White, having defeated the queen and reclaimed her kingdom, sits on the throne, no man by her side, not the duke’s son, and not the huntsman.
  • The song.  Breath of life by Florence + the Machine is awesome!

What I didn’t like:

  • Some of the plot points were too convenient.

Why keep Snow White a prisoner?  The queen could have just killed her, or better still, take the girl’s life force to maintain her beauty.  It’s only when the mirror reveals to her (ten years on) that Snow’s heart will keep her forever young that she thinks to do anything with her rival.  Why did the mirror wait so long to tell her?
The queen has no power in the dark forest, so she recruits the huntsman, but she still sends her brother in after Snow.  Why didn’t she just send her brother in the first place?
The duke’s son gets himself recruited to the queen’s brother’s hunting party, but when they find Snow, he’s more concerned about maintaining his cover than in helping her.

  • The fairies creeped me out.
  • Snow is innocent and pure.  It’s that purity that allows her to defeat the queen, but for the final battle, she’s done up in plate mail.  It promises bad-assery that Snow fails to fulfill.  The queen tosses her around like a rag doll and she only succeeds in killing the queen because she’s lucky.

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, Mirror, from the outset, seemed a movie that didn’t know what it was trying to accomplish.  It starts with the queen, narrating her own story in a British accent, which she doesn’t maintain.

There are moments in it that are potentially dark, but they are overwhelmed by the silly.

In this revision of the fairy tale, Snow is merely locked away while the queen fritters away her money on parties and trying to look young.  She is advised by a maid to go out and have a look at the kingdom herself.  Snow is horrified by the poverty she sees.

When the prince comes on the scene, the queen settles on him as a means to continue her wastrel ways.

The prince, however, has fallen in love with Snow (who rescued him after the bandit dwarfs left him hanging), so the queen decides to get rid of her, sending her chief boot-licker out to do the job.  That part is faithful to the fairy tale.  The boot-licker is unable to kill Snow, but leaves her to the beast that lives in the forest and shows the queen some organ meats that were left in the kitchen.

The dwarfs are highwaymen in this version.  They rob the prince twice, and in keeping with the fairy tale, permit Snow to stay with them if she cooks and cleans for them.

As the queen tries to seduce the prince, Snow becomes a highwayman herself, insisting that the dwarfs return the money they steal to the townspeople to whom it truly belongs.

The queen eventually sends “the beast” out after Snow and the beast turns out to be her father.  Snow breaks the enchantment, marries the prince, and when the queen sneaks into the wedding feast and offers Snow the gift of an apple, Snow sees her for what she is, and refuses to be fooled.

What I liked:

  • The mirror.  In this version, the mirror is a kind of portal to another place where the queen communes with the mirror, which is herself.  Kinda nifty.
  • Snow as a highwayman.  She delivers on the kick-ass, though not terribly convincingly.
  • The beast/the king.  It was Sean Bean!  He got to live, for once!

What I didn’t like:

  • The queen.  Shallow and careless.
  • The prince.  He’s depicted as a doofus from the beginning and totally unworthy of Snow.
  • The dwarfs.  Though they’re thieves, they run around on stilts and do circus stunts.
  • The potion.  In the queen’s attempt to seduce the prince she gives him a potion without first examining what it is.  It turns out to be puppy love.  More doofus action for the prince.
  • The puppets.  The queen sends marionettes after Snow and the dwarfs.  Lame foes and once Snow sees their strings, she easily cuts them and saves everyone.
  • The Bollywood production at the end.  Totally misplaced.
  • The soundtrack.  Very traditional orchestral stuff.  Probably very good, but easily ignored given the ridiculousness of the movie.

Takeaways

  1. Villains that have a reason to be villainous and who do truly terrible things as a result are always better than purely selfish divas.
  2. In the same vein, flawed heroes are better than the goody-two-shoes, but …
  3. Heroes need to be heroes.  No doofaci (the plural of doofus, don’t ya know?) need apply.
  4. Convenient plot points will always be noticed and called out by the faithful reader.
  5. Go for the subtle twist.  The kiss of true love doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means.
  6. The trails that your characters go through have to be dangerous, dire, challenging.  If no one is truly in danger, the reader won’t care.
  7. Even minor characters can be awesome: the scarred women.
  8. If in doubt, borrow from Anime before going to Bollywood for inspiration 😉
  9. Similarly, go for the quirky new artist rather than the traditional soundtrack for inspiration.
  10. Your story doesn’t have to end with a kiss, or even a relationship beyond mutual respect.

Have you seen any movies lately that got you thinking?  Do you watch movies for plot?  Learn anything about your craft in the process?

Writerly Goodness must hit the hay.  Reading at the 100 thousand poets for change event in North Bay tomorrow!  And you know I’m going to blog about that 🙂