Audience Surrogates through Sequels

I was more excited for the premier of Jurassic World than I was of any other movie this summer.  I watched all the trailers and read all the articles.  I made sure we got VIP tickets at the Icon (the 18+ balcony attached to a restaurant, where you can bring your drinks and cake and fries into the theater and set the plate on the side table next to your comfy chair) so that the seat would be big enough that I could squirm around when my back got sore.  The publicity photo of Chris Pratt and the velociraptor has been my background picture for months. 

Not many other people were as excited, and I set out to figure out why.  Why was I so enthusiastic?  Why weren't other people?

The main reason, as far as I see it, is the audience surrogate in Jurassic Park.  I've long held the belief that Jurassic Park is terrifying, and it's more terrifying to me than it is to my mother because when we went to see it in theaters, I was the same age as the little boy and all the traumatic things happen to the little boy, Tim.  No, really.  Think about it.  A bunch of adults die, but they are mostly attacked and eaten suddenly.  They have time to think, "Oh no" and maybe scream and then they're gone.  With the kids, it's strung out.  The T-rex terrorizes them in the car before throwing the car over a cliff and into a tree.  Tim then has to escape the tree with the car falling on him.  He then gets electrocuted.  Then the kids are chased through a kitchen and then through the ceiling by velociraptors.  Even though Dr. Grant is with them through most of this, fewer traumatizing things happen to him.

Additionally, the kids act terrified, while the adults manage to keep it together a bit better.  As a kid, I reacted to their fear.

People who were older than eight-years-old when the film came out, didn't relate to the kids in the same way.  They had audience surrogates like Dr. Grant or Dr. Sattler or Dr. Malcom.  How boring.  They see some rough things, but they aren't as traumatized, so neither are the people relating to them.

It also, of course, has a lot to do with how, as a kid, this movie is just more scary than it is for an adult.  There were scenes I couldn't watch except from behind my fingers until I was in high school, at which point I got over it.  I was thinking when I came out of Jurassic World that I wasn't worried for the kids in that movie at all, because--Come on!--they're not going to kill a kid.  This is not that kind of movie.  There's an unspoken agreement between the film makers and the audience that this movie is going to be fun, action packed, have dinosaurs, and not kill children and puppies.  They're not going to violate that contract.  Which got me thinking (and I feel kinda stupid now for not realizing it sooner): they were never going to kill Lex and Tim in Jurassic Park either.  As a kid, I wasn't familiar enough with narrative tropes to realize this, but as an adult, I'm intuitively aware of it.

So this explains why Jurassic Park had such an impact on me and was just an okay movie to other people.  It explains why other people wouldn't be as excited about it, since the first film didnt have as big of an emotional impact.

But why was I so excited?  It's not just because I love the first movie, because I didn't care about The Lost World or Jurassic Park III.  The less said about them the better.

It's because I was terrified of velociraptors for years, and this movie--when I now relate more to Chris Pratt than to the little boy--has my audience surrogate clicker training the velociraptors.  Now that I'm an adult, my fear has been conquered, not just by my more mature brain that no longer needs to sleep with the light on and won't eat green jell-o, but by the movie itself.  The movie has taken these terrifying monsters, and put them under a measure of control, and done it while respecting that the velociraptors are still dangerous and still deserve respect.  It's a victory.

I'm Spending My Vacation at the Library!

I got a Chicago Public Library card yesterday, and spent probably too much time this afternoon transferring my To Read list from Goodreads to my For Later list on the CPL website.  Apparently, like Goodreads, on the CPL website you can write reviews, make lists, and follow people.  I haven't investigated it too much other than to see that four of the books I want to read are available right now at my preferred library location. 

Four out of ninety-six.  Alright!

When you select books for your shelves, you say what format you want: book, eBook, paperback, audible book, etc.  I said "paperback" whenever I saw it and "book" otherwise, and now I'm wondering if they maybe have more of the books on my list but in non-paperback form.  And I wouldn't mind checking out the eBook program, but that's a project for another day.  I'm also wondering if CPL has an inter-library loan, like if the book is at another branch and I request it, they'll send it over and I can pick it up.  So it's not as bad as the 4/96 stat makes it look.  All 96 books are in the CPL system somewhere, and it's a long enough list that I don't need every single one of them available to me right this second. (But that would be fantastic.)

So those are future reading projects.  Let me tell you what's going on with my current reading projects.  I don't usually read this many things at once, but--eh--what can you do?

• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  "A novel"  I picked this up from the library because I didn't feel like using the card catalog to look through my mighty list of books I need to read and I saw it sitting in the middle of the shelf and thought "hey, that's on the list."  The reason I noticed it is that it's less a book and more a raw material to build a small house.  I have three weeks to read it before it's due back at the library.
• Sandman.  I picked this up at free comic book day and since I've been interested in it and heard good things, I picked up the first volume to check it out.  Did you know that Batman is in this?  Also John Constantine.  The fact that this story is situated inside the greater DC universe turned me off tremendously, but I will keep going with it and maybe change my mind.
• To Be or Not to Be.  This is a Hamlet choose your own adventure written by Ryan North and it is fantastic.  Since it's a choose your own adventure, it's hard to read the whole thing, so I mostly do one adventure before bed.
• Baby 411.  This is a book about babies and all the stuff they do and don't do.  It's good because they use science and cite research and I like that.  But it's also overwhelming and my coping strategy is along the lines of "just not thinking about it" so it's taking me a while.

Prompt Bingo

I'm getting a new project off the ground, which has the working title of "Firebird Project."  It's a novel about a girl who has to put up with this guy who is a firebird.

Sometimes I have a brilliant idea and sit down and write for hours and stay up at night thinking about what I'll write next so I'm ready to go write it all down the next day.

This is not one of those times.  I blame it on being out of practice.  Like when you don't go to the gym for a week and you know it's going to suck when you finally go again so you put it off even more.  Or like when you forget to do the dishes one day and then might as well burn down your house because there's no coming back from that.

I also blame it on how this donut looks tragically unappetizing even though I'm sure it's perfectly fine.  I consider this a very good excuse, thank you very much.

So anyway, this procrastination cannot continue and it's time to get an action plan together to actually get this thing flying.

Step 1 is a little thing called "Prompt Bingo."  What you do is make yourself a bingo card and then fill it in with writing prompts.  These writing prompts can come from anywhere, including the many many writing prompt generators on the internet.  Some will even just spit out a random bingo card for you.

Here's my current one:

Safe and Sound	In the Park	The Kraken Wakes	Degenerate	Serpent
Finger	Mouth	Petal	Murder	Haiku
Hurt	Wife/Husband	Free Space!	Special Forces	A Quiet Moment
On the 4th Bridge	At Brimingham New St.	Summer	Labyrinth	Far Away
Window	Soft	In Battle	Belief	Jungle

You don't have to write in order.  So you find a prompt that jumps out at you and then write a scene using your characters and world and plot.  You can hone in on a prompt and think, "How does this word fit into my story?" or "What would my characters do with this prompt?"

The cool thing is that it first gives you some direction when writing if you start with very little (like me right now.)  Then once you have a string of these scenes, you can piece them together and start to get a better view of the plot and the story's overall structure.  Once you have a kind of skeleton, you can start to flush it out and fill in the gaps.

BYOT Blackout Editon

Bring Your Own Theater happened again last weekend. It was a lot of fun, especially since a bunch of writers went to Clarke's to write together and not only did it feel less lonely, but I also got to eat pancakes.

I felt really good about this one and the play ended up really close to the script. They added tinkly restaurant background music. When the lights came up, Vinny was sitting alone at the table, looking sad with sad music and the crowd went “Awwww!” Five seconds without saying a word, and he had the audience hooked.

So, for your reading enjoyment, here's "Glitching."

Breaking up is hard to do

Yesterday, for the fourth book in a row, I gave up on a book because of the second act breakup.  A second act breakup takes place after your main romantic leads have fallen for each other and everything seems like it's going great and everything looks like it might turn out okay. 

But wait!  She's suddenly had a brain wave that they're too different after all and maybe this won't work out.  Or the mobsters to whom he owes money track him down and he has to break up with her for her own protection.  And...did you lie to me about that thing???  Unforgivable! 

Also he's keeping his secret wife in the attic.

It's in most stories, especially most romances, and it has completely valid reasons for being there. 

1. Stories need conflict.  If they get together too fast and have a happy, healthy relationship and that's the entire focus of the story, then that's boring.  And also like 20 pages long.  So if you have a romance story, something has to keep them apart.
2. This structure lines up well with the hero's journey.  There has to be a low point of the story from which the hero or heroine can bounce back.  This initial failure usually mirrors the climax in some way: they fail at first, but then get stronger or learn and then overcome it at the end.

Now, I've written second act breakups, and I'll probably write one again.  But they've really been getting on my nerves lately.  I think mostly because I'll be enjoying a book and then this will come completely out of the blue.  One of them will suddenly go, "Wait!  I'm not good enough for you!" and run off without talking to their partner, who could reassure them that that's bogus.  One of them will need to do an outside thing and go, "I could talk to my partner about this and get their help with it, but instead I think I'll lie about what I'm up to and then go it alone." 

Gah.  Nope.  I'm done with this book.

If the conflict of your story could be solved with a single conversation, something's wrong.  This would solve a lot of stories' conflicts, but not all of them.  A chat between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader (although enlightening) isn't going to keep Alderan from getting blown to bits.

So I've been thinking (since I've written this and started wondering if I'm as irritating as the stuff I've been reading lately) and I've come up with some ideas to break out of this structure.

• They don't get together enough to break up until the very end.
• They get together and have a happy, healthy relationship that grows over the course of the story, but the main conflict is outside of their relationship and they face it together instead of having it tear them apart.
• They have a big fight, but work through it and they're back together by the end of the chapter.  Bonus points if this happens every chapter and every time the fight is different.
• The break up is a ruse!  They'd planned it together to confuse their rival families. 
• There's a second act breakup, but it's because of spiders.

Guess What

I have not been writing much lately because it turns out the first trimester of pregnancy is terrible.

That's my smooth way of telling you I'm pregnant.

I'll get back to the regular schedule of talking about writing and reading and whatnot next week, and this will hopefully be the only pregnancy post.  But since I haven't been doing much writing, I'm going to indulge today.

1.

I gave up caffeine.  It was terrible.  The week before I figured out I was pregnant, I made a big push to finish my latest novel.  I woke up, had a coke, went to the coffee shop, had a coffee, went to a different coffee place, had two more coffees, went to work, came home, and had another coke.  People keep telling me when I complain about it that I don't have to give up caffeine.  "If you just have one cup of coffee a day, you'll be fine :D"  Like one cup of coffee is a completely reasonable amount. 

As soon as I realized this routine had to stop, I froze and gaped indignantly at my only audience at the moment: the cat.  "I'm not prepared to change my lifestyle that much!"  

The cat stared at me, and I provided his side of the conversation.  "You think that's bad?  You ain't seen nothing yet." 

I hate it when the cat is right. 

So I just quit cold turkey and felt like crap for a while as I went through withdraw.  Or maybe it was the zygote making me nauseous and tired.  One or the other. 

2.

Prenatal vitamins are enormous.  Remember Flintstones vitamins?  You know those chewy vitamins they advertise on TV that look like fruit snacks?  I was expecting those. 

Instead they are horse pills.

My mother cackled when I told her over the phone.  Apparently they have not decreased in size since the 80s.

3.

I called and told my parents when I found out, and told them they could tell whoever they wanted, but they would be responsible for un-telling those people if it became necessary.  Then the other day, now that I'm out of the first trimester, I made an announcement on Facebook, because this is how we pass information these days.

My uncle saw it, and immediately called my dad to be sly.  "So...what's new with Cary these days?"

My dad is a firm believer that nothing is anyone's business.  This character trait added to my warnings, and he shrugged and said, "Nothing."

It made my uncle's day when he got to break the news to my dad. 

4.

Instead of calling the print outs of ultrasounds "photos", they should be called "soundos."  Because no photons are involved.

5.

Ron calls the fetus "Cary Jr." and refers to it exclusively with female pronouns.  Everyone else seems to think this is really funny and it's caught on.

6.

I've gotten aggressive about correcting people when they ask about the baby's gender.  Let me explain it to you.  "Gender" is about identity.  We won't be able to know that until the baby tells us.  "Sex" is about genitals.  The fetus right now has genitals, but you couldn't see them yet on an ultrasound.  And I don't know why everyone keeps asking about my fetus' genitals. 

Crime and Punishment

I recently saw an info-graphic about how long it takes to read famous books.  It's pretty interesting, but it mostly reminded me of my Crime and Punishment story.

When I was in high school, like a lot of high schoolers, we had to read Crime and Punishment.  What makes this story unusual is that we had three days to read it.  We got the book on Tuesday and had a test on it on Friday.  The reasoning for this escapes me now, but I think it had something to do with the end of the grading period, how long we spent on Wide Sargasso Sea, and the fact that our English teacher didn't really like the book that much.

So we tackled this book in indignant, panicked frenzy.  We tried to finish other homework, study for more reasonable tests before staying up late, trying to get one more chapter read, two more chapters read.  We hurried between classes so we could get a couple minutes of reading time in.  We read over lunch, in a group around a table, all of us buried in our books in silence, eyebrows pulled together and shoulders hunched.

All the teachers made fun of us.  This was terribly hilarious to all of them and they showed no sympathy at all.

I don't remember how our English teacher managed it--what she said, how she guilted us--but the level of energy and fruitless effort put into reading this thing was surreal.  We were nerds, sure, but we were math and science nerds.  And we were seniors, who had decided that previous projects weren't worth it and thrown in the towel.  Surely this was a fruitless effort and running ourselves ragged would prove counter productive.  But no.  For some reason, we were crazed to get this book read.

I got the audio book so I could listen on my hour long commute to and from school.  But looking at the box, I frowned and calculated that there was no possible way I was going to finish, even if I secretly listened through my blow off classes.

Thursday night, my friend Matt called at 8:00 with a plan.

"Okay.  I went to the video store and rented the movie.  Come over."

Normally, this would be a ridiculous suggestion since we all knew that movie adaptations from the video store were created with the sole purpose of leading lazy high school kids astray, and that the whole English department had movie night or something where they watched the adaptations and then wrote test questions to trick you into admitting you didn't read the book.  They were sneaky and were really proud of themselves for it.

But this was a desperate situation, and so far no one knew how the damned book ended.  I don't know why none of us knew about cliff notes.

"Okay," I said, said goodbye to my mother (who laughed at me and wished me luck), got in my car, and drove to Matt's house.

At Matt's house, Matt and I exchanged terse nods.  Our friend James had his book in hand, like that might help.  And Matt's father laughed at us.  We glared at him.  This was serious.

Matt's dad made popcorn, then ate it while watching us set up the VCR.

I remember it being a three hour movie, but IMDB now says it's only two.  Either way, both Matt and James fell asleep and missed the ending anyway.  When the movie ended, I explained it to them.

For those like Matt and James who don't know, there's a guy, Raskolnikov, who decides (based on divine compulsion more than anything else) to murder his neighbor and rob her.  He kills her with an ax, then freaks out, kills her sister too when she catches him, then flubs the robbery part and only takes like $20.  This much we had all managed to read.  The guy spends the rest of the novel wracked with guilt--a guilt that burns and builds and eats away his sanity.  He's pursued by a detective who knows he did it because he's the most suspicious, guilty person on earth.  There's drama involving a sister and a prostitute with a heart of gold, and in the end the guy turns himself in.

Matt and James were disappointed with my synopsis.

The next day, we slouched into English class, curling in on ourselves in guilt, ready to face the music.  No one pulled out their book to try to read one more page.  We sat in silence and waited for our teacher to come.

I looked around, so overwhelmed with spending every spare moment wrapping myself in this story, and thought, "We are all Raskolnikov."

"Alright!" Ms. McDonald said, clapping her hands and taking her place in the middle of the room.  "What'd everyone think?"

Silence.

Silence.

"We didn't finish."  Someone said it.  We all said it.  Heads in hands and slumped into desks.  Tired eyes giving up and flagging in defeat.  We confessed.  We surrendered.

Ms. McDonald smirked.

We are all Raskolnikov.

And none of us had finished the book to realize it.