Goldenrod and cross-promotion

I'm going soft today.

I'm been working up to something bigger,something more outraged, as the result of yet another maddening meme I saw on Facebook this weekend, but I'm not quite ready to go there and I don't want to start my week off with aggravation. Instead, we'll go with something a little more "feel good."

Locust borer on goldenrod

As you may or may not know, I write a monthly column for a local newspaper. It (the paper) publishes once a week; my column once a month. While I enjoy the work, it often causes me stress, as I regularly find myself scrambling to beat deadline. And, much as I do with this blog, I will frequently spend several days banging my head against the wall on a column, only to change topics at the last possible minute. This month's column was one of those. After struggling for the better part of a week with...well, I don't even remember what I was trying to write about now...I switched gears at the last minute and wrote about my favorite fall wildflower, goldenrod. You can read that here. (Quick note: local papers tend not to do much editing, except for the headlines. All errors, grammar mangling, and leaps of logic are my responsibility)

In the week or so since this column was published, I've had several people tell me they loved it. Four of them were people I know (though I did not walk up to them and say, "Did you read my column, huh, huh? What'd ya think?" These were unsolicited comments.); one of them was a random lady in the bank who must have recognized me from the picture that goes with the column. Seems I am not the only person who appreciates goldenrod. And, I have to admit, it's nice to hear these kinds of comments. The ego needs boosting once in a while.

I mention this not to toot my own horn, because I hate tooting my own horn, but because it's important to know that, even in this digital age, people still do read things like newspapers. And they listen to the radio. When my organization has a big event coming up, we make a point of going to the local radio station and going on air for a few minutes. The number of people who call or register for programs as a result is impressing. In fact, two days after the goldenrod column ran, I was representing the organization at a local timbersports event and was interviewed live on air. Literally five minutes, someone looked at me and said, "Didn't I just hear you on the radio?"

Maybe it's a function of where I live--a predominantly rural, media-starved county with spotty cell/wifi and cable service that still doesn't reach all areas. The point, however, is that if you are an author (or any kind of  business person), you shouldn't be sitting around waiting around for Terry Gross or The New York Times to call you. Start local. There are people listening, and reading.

 (Photo by me. The locust borer is a harmless beetle (harmless unless you are a black locust tree, that is; then it could be a problem) commonly found feeding on goldenrod in fall)

Fitting Ends

Every so often I see a blog post that dovetails nicely with something I've been thinking about. When it happens, I usually scrap whatever I was planning to blog about, if indeed I was planning anything. This week was one of those weeks.

On Tuesday, Jemi Fraser wrote about a disappointing experience with an author. Said author wrote a book that was working—things made sense, the story was good, she liked the characters, everything was working.

Until the last page.

What she ended up with was an ending that made no sense, an ending that undid all the work that the author had put in to that point, an ending that left Jemi quite disappointed. Everything she said clicked with something that I'd been musing on all weekend.

The something that started the musing in the first place was the news that the first half of season 5 of Breaking Bad had finally arrived on Netflix (just in time for AMC to begin the show's final installment of episodes, which started Sunday). I've been waiting for this for a while now, because I'm cheap and don't want to buy DVDs or pay premium rental fees. Anyway, starting Sunday I began watching season 5 and should be caught up pretty soon. (I'd be caught up already, but my wife, who has a hate/hate relationship with the show, can only watch one episode per night. It's probably better that way.).

I've written here about BB before, about how I think it's done a brilliant job of characterization and showing, not telling (yeah, it's a TV show, but it's still a great example of it). As the end draws closer, I've been wondering what kind of conclusion we can expect, and whether it will be a satisfying, fitting end to a great series, or if it will disappoint, like the book Jemi read.

Endings are hard to get right, and they are of critical importance. If your book ends poorly, it can ruin an otherwise-wonderful journey, as Jemi found. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending, but it has to be the right ending. There's always pressure to get it right, but new writers have a certain advantage: we write our books, especially our first ones, in a vacuum. We write with freedom, unencumbered by anything except our own desires to tell the best story we can. We hope for success, we hope for readership, but when a reader gets your book, the ending has already long-been written, and you're hopefully already elbows-deep in the next one.

The folks running Breaking Bad, however, have tougher conditions to deal with. Not only do they have to wrap up the series in a way that makes sense within the confines of the world they've built, they also have to satisfy a rabid fanbase, and put up with intense media scrutiny. Series finales (and this goes for books and movie franchises as well as TV shows) have become Major Events, hyped up to the nth degree by network PR departments in order to capture as many eyes—and advertising dollars—as possible. The normal, week-to-week show structure is frequently thrown out of whack by having a longer episode. Or turning it into a two-hour movie. Viewers are promised something big and extra special, and it's often hard for the writers to deliver. (Some have suggested that this is why it seems to be taking George R.R. Martin so long to deliver the final book—or is it two?—to his Song of Ice and Fire series; maybe there's truth to it, maybe not). Sometimes, the finale lives up to expectations (M*A*S*H); sometimes it falls flat (Seinfield). Sometimes, no one knows what to think (The Sopranos).

I've been wondering what kind of end we'll see for Walter White and the people in his world, and I have no idea what we're going to get (I have two episodes left in the first half of season five, so please don't spoil anything for me!). All I hope is that it's the right ending. It doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be spectacular, and it doesn't have to make me feel good (and indeed, it's really hard to see a 'feel good' ending coming out of this series). It just has to be right. I have some ideas in my head about what 'right' is for this show, though I'll keep them to myself for right now.

Have a great weekend, all.

Image by Dwros89, used under Creative Commons license.

50 Ways....

Remember that old Paul Simon song, 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover? What's that, you don't? Oh, right, of course not, you're too young. Well, it was  a hit for Simon back in the mid-70s, which is why most of you DON'T remember it, but through the magic of the internet, you can see it here, if you so choose.

One person who probably does remember it is Hall of Fame broadcaster, Mike "Doc" Emrick, the current voice of the National Hockey League during the Stanley Cup Final. While he's not everyone's cup of tea, I've loved listening to Emrick since I first heard him calling games for ESPN back in the 90s. His love of the game is evident, and he's one of the most creative souls when it comes to describing the action.

Case in point: during Game 1 of the final between Chicago and Boston last week, Doc used no less than fifty (50!) words to describe a simple action that takes place hundreds of time during a game: the movement of the puck from one player to another, which is typically called "a pass." Someone kept a list, and here it is:

As outlandish as many of Doc's synonyms look on paper, they are frequently bang-on descriptions for the action. While I'm not entirely sure how you 'wand' a frozen disc of rubber, and 'spirits it' is a total head-scratcher, most of these really, really work in the course of the action. And this list is not inclusive; this is only what he used in game 1. Doc also has players 'shillelagh it' (knocking the puck out of the air), and one of my personal favorites is 'ladled it', which occurs when the puck is played softly down the ice.

I'm not sure what's more amazing, the fact that

a)      Doc has actually come up with so many words to describe a common action;

b)      Doc can actually remember to use these words appropriately while in the midst of describing what can be a ridiculously fast-paced game; or

c)      Someone actually sat down and made this list while the game was going on (I'm guessing the guy had no rooting interest in the game)

Point B is something all of us writers should take into consideration. We're always looking for new ways to say something, to set us apart from all the other writers out there. There are all kinds of interesting ways to say things, and it's our job to find them. BUT the key is to make the words sound natural, to fit them into the flow of our writing, to match them to the voices of our characters. 

Oh, and of course, someone did a "Doc Emrick 50 Words Mashup", which is a fun listen. Enjoy, have a great weekend!

Emotion on the Wane?

Saturday morning I sat, bleary-eyed, at my computer, a cup of coffee close at hand. I saw a tiny headline that woke me up quicker than the coffee: "Is literature losing emotion?"  The article quoted a recent study (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0059030) which seems to think so.

The researchers examined books published between 1900 and 2000, using a text analysis tool that looked for 'content' words that expressed emotion in six categories: Anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise. There's a lot of deciphering in the 'methods' section of their paper, but the long and the short of it: emotion in literature is on the decline. The study claims a steady decline, with a two brief bumps, one in the late 1920s, another the early 1940s*, then dropping, dropping, dropping, with a slight upturn beginning in the 80s (the authors point out the biggest upturn has been with words indicative of 'fear', interestingly).

There are a lot of potential flaws with this research, and the Slate summary points out what looks an awful lot like confirmation bias. The study's authors claim they are accounting for changes in language and word use, though we don't know what words are used to indicate what emotions. Neither article really delves deep into what this means, whether it's a reflection of our times, or something else. Personally, I wonder if it comes down to authors working harder at 'showing', not 'telling'.

Someone commenting on the Slate article mentioned Raymond Carver, blaming him for stories that "focus on the dull & somewhat depersonalized stories of average people…all written with a heavy nod toward the language police & topped off w/, at this point, an enormous dollop of contemporary cliché." Ouch! I haven't read huge amounts of Carver's work, but what I've found is his work is packed with emotion, but the emotion is in the tone that permeates the entire piece, a mood he sets without using obvious content words. A skilled writer can do this without heavy use of emotion words. In fact, I would bet you can create a piece that's dark and depressing while stuffing it full of words that would indicate the opposite. Hmm. If I were a contest and challenge sort of guy, I might suggest you do that. What the hell, do it anyway, on your own, have fun with it.

I haven't found recent literature to be lacking emotion, have you? I do think writers are working harder at conveying emotion with less use of 'emotional' words. What do you all think of this? Have you found books becoming less emotional? Do you find a major difference between old books and new?

Thanks for stopping, have a great weekend.

A lot of time and analysis these days is spent on examining women in the media and rethinking how they are presented. We want—we need—to see more quality presentation of women and girls in movies and TV in particular (books are far better at presenting women who are not merely arm- or eye-candy, or there to be rescued).

But as much as we can bemoan the state of women in the media, when we see things like the following commercial, I have to wonder about men, and how we are presenting ourselves, and what we think of ourselves.

Labatt Blue Light is a repeat offender, and their latest offering is especially bad. Their new ad, called "Better Bus," (and not currently up on Youtube) features three 'men' who miss their bus on the way to the game. One opens a Blue Light and a bus magically appears before them. A bus full of women in skin-tight, two-piece cheerleader outfits, hanging out the windows, shaking what they've got. Driven by a woman who leans suggestively against the door and asks the boys if they're …coming.

I'm up for a joke, I'm up for humor, and yes, there's a certain degree of humor in these commercials. But guys, come on: aren't we a little better than this? As much as we can bemoan the messages we're sending to our daughters, what are we telling our sons?

More on this some other time. Have a great weekend!