Tension and Paw Patrol

Lately, my son has been watching a whole bunch of Paw Patrol.  For those not in the know, Paw Patrol is an animated show from Nickelodeon with two fifteen-minute episodes, or the occasional half hour episode.  In it, there is a team of dogs, called the Paw Patrol, and each dog is a kind of community helper (police officer, firefighter, bulldozer driver, recycling truck driver, etc.)  Each episode, doofy townspeople have an issue and call up Ryder, the little boy who coordinates the Paw Patrol, and he sends the dogs that would be helpful out to fix the problem.  It teaches about community helpers and problem solving and teamwork.  It's also very formulaic, which kids like, and the theme song plays a lot and is super catchy. 

If you still have "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" stuck in your head, I know how you could fix that.

There are a couple things that absolutely fascinate me about Paw Patrol.  The first is how quickly the stakes escalate. 

There's one episode (we tend to watch the same episodes over and over) where this kid, Alex, has a big-wheel that he's McGuivered together out of duct tape and spare parts.  He hits a curb and the big-wheel falls apart.  Pieces of his big-wheel are in the street, and it wouldn't be safe for him to get them, so he calls the Paw Patrol for help.  Ryder calls the dogs together and sorts out that the Police Pup will stop traffic around the scattered parts and Recycle Pup will help put the scattered parts back on the big-wheel.  They explain this plan, then follow through on the plan, and huzzah!  Fixed big-wheel!  But then, Alex takes off on his newly fixed big-wheel and careens down a hill straight toward a busy intersection.  What will the Paw Patrol do about this?  Well, Police Pup can block off traffic in the intersection and Helicopter Pup can help bring Alex to a stop.  Okay, that's a good plan!  Which they execute and it succeeds, and Alex learns a lesson about going slow on his big-wheel so he's not hit by a car.

There's another episode where there's been a bunch of snow, and the Mayor's car swerves off the icy road into a snowbank and gets stuck.  She calls the Paw Patrol to help tow her out.  Ryder calls the dogs together and decides that Bulldozer Pup will clear the roads like a snowplow and Police Pup will use the winch on his Police Pup Car to haul the mayor's car out of the snow.  This plan is successful, and everyone feels good about themselves.  Or at least they do until Ryder gets a call from a train engineer.  There's a bunch of debris on the track and the train is going to hit it and derail, and he can't slow down because the tracks are too icy.  Oh no!  Well, what should the Paw Patrol do about this imminent emergency?  They can have Police Pup clear some of the little debris and Snow Rescue Pup remove the big debris and Bulldozer Pup scrape the snow off the tracks with his bulldozer.  Does that sound like a good plan?  Good!  Yay!  They execute this plan and the day is saved and there's no train derailment.

Sometimes Paw Patrol makes me anxious.  There is a boy on a big-wheel hurtling towards traffic, and you're going to call a dog in a helicopter in from across town and talk about your plan before running after him?  Ahhhhhhhh!  But the other thing that's fascinating about Paw Patrol is how much it doesn't freak out my easily freaked-out kid.  By stopping the ticking clock, which is essentially what happens in this time dilation moment when they have time to make a plan--as my kid sees it--that means the ticking clock must not exist.  They have all the time in the world to decide on a step-by-step plan about what they're going to do.  And that step-by-step plan is comforting even in the face of a train derailment or an erupting volcano or a sinking boat.  The Paw Patrol's calm is comforting.  While taking their time makes me (an adult) anxious that they're not going to get to that kid in time, it actually lowers the stakes as my son understands them.

The episodes are also set up to mimic the way kids play.  You can think of it like there's a group of kids and they each have a different pup toy, and one of them comes up with a problem.  "Oh no!  There's a tree on the tracks and the train can't stop!" and the other kids jump in and say, "Police Pup can use his wench to move the tree!"  "Let's call in Snow Rescue Pup!  She can shove the rest of the trees off the track!"

It's the opposite of what you would do in a story written for adults, where you want the tension to be high and you want the reader/viewer to feel the danger.  For instance, I would have Police Pup tear after Alex the second he started going too fast down the hill, and Police Pup would rolling tackle him off the street right before he drove into the intersection.  So in a way, this show is demonstrating things not to do when storytelling: Don't stop and talk about your plan in the middle of an action scene.

But also, maybe I have such problems watching this show--maybe the reason it makes me so much more anxious than it should, is that it doesn't follow traditional story telling structures that appear in adult stories.  The beats are off, and I find that jarring and stressful.  So maybe that's a lesson too: do something jarringly to disrupt story beats to create a different kind of tension.  Get back to the story!  Oh my God!  Ahhhhh!

Trying to Cut back Ablist Language

 Ablest language is tricky.  I personally find it confusing, and I could explain what I don't get about it, but that would take away from the point, which is: some words hurt people.  When someone tells me, "This hurts me," it's my job to do better rather than explain why I don't get it and how their feelings are incorrect.  I don't need to understand.  I just need to try to do better, and I'm trying, even if I'm not perfect.

Using these words hurts people.  And wouldn't you rather not hurt people? 

Isn't not hurting people worth being mildly inconvenienced?

It's hard to cut words out of your vocabulary.  And these words are SO ingrained, that it makes it extra hard.  (Don't use the word "superfluous"?  Sure thing, boss!  Don't use the word "st*pid"?  ...Well, crud.)  There's the added bonus that as I try to cut words from my vocabulary, I also try no to expose my son to these words so he'll start life a step ahead of me: being a kinder person and not having to prune his vocabulary in the future.  And it's impossible.  These words are thrown around so causally on even the most wholesome kid's shows.  These words are thrown around casually at school and by neighbors and by the ladies in the Jewel checkout line. 

If you successfully don't use these words, no one notices.  You're not losing anything.  No one is offended by you not saying something is cr*zy.

In the last few years, I feel like I've done a good job taking cr*zy out of my vocabulary.  I think it's been relatively easy because when I used to say, "That's cr*zy!" I didn't mean, "That's illogical and counter-productive to the point of mental illness/disability."  I meant, "That's wild!  I can't believe it!"  So there's a pretty direct 1:1 between "cr*zy" and "wild," so I can just say "wild" instead.  Which I do now.  All the time.

I've had a lot more trouble with "b*nanas" and "n*ts."  I think that's because there's a subtle difference in my brain between something being wild and something being b*nanas. There's an component of endearment and playfulness to calling someone a n*t that doesn't exist in calling someone wild. In my experience, "You n*t," is like a soft way to say, "What you're doing is goofy.  You probably should stop, but I know you won't because you can't control your feelings or reactions.  I accept this about you and love you, but we both know it's still weird."  This connotation doesn't exist in the word "wild."  "Goober" or "Goofus" work pretty well, but I'm much more likely to call someone a "pine cone" and have them look at me funny, not knowing what I mean.

I just did a pass on my novel where I tried to search and destroy ablist language.  Yeah!  Doing good! 
The problem wasn't with these above examples, but with "st*pid."  When I say, "That's st*pid," I mean "That was poorly thought out."  I cannot think of a shorter way to say that.  Sometimes I mean "careless," or "reckless," or "thoughtless," which are shorter, but the problem is that in written dialogue, if one character just called someone out for acting "st*pid," changing that to "thoughtless" can mess up the voice.  It doesn't sound like a real person talking, or at least not like this character talking.

Then the huge hold up for me was "id*ot."  In this novel, there are multiple multiple times when one character will do something so thoughtless and poorly planned that it puts other people in danger and the main character is upset about it.  "You put people in danger by not thinking through your actions and I'm upset about it!" does not have the same immediacy and tension and anger as "You id*ot!"  I think the problem is that here I do mean it to be insulting.  And "id*ot" is meant to be insulting.  So I have trouble substituting, because this word is exactly what I want to convey: they were not smart and that is bad.

And that's the real problem with these words.  They actively compare lack of intelligence with a decrease in human value.  Our culture values being "smart," so when people do unintelligent things, that's viewed as bad.  This means that people with learning or intellectual disabilities are seen as having lesser value than someone who doesn't.  When I went looking for synonyms I found a list that included not just words like "thoughtless" and "nonsensical" and "outrageous," but also "bad," "contemptible," "gross," "horrible," and "evil."  When you say "st*pid," someone with an intellectual disability hears these synonyms, even if going that far is unintended. The very existence of these words says a lot about our cultural values, and who we value and why.

In this novel, I was mostly able to change "id*ot" to "damned fool."  But I'm worried about my next novel, in which the main character wrestles with her self-worth, which she (and people around her) have tied to her perceived level of intelligence.  She calls herself "st*pid st*pid st*pid," several, several times.  So I'm concerned, because it doesn't seem right to soften her negative self-talk and cut her a break, but at the same time, it doesn't seem right to drop ablist slurs left and right, harming readers.  So this is an ongoing issue for me to work through.

Monster of the Week: Jacob Shapiro

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 5: Monster of the Week

Episode 12: Jacob Shapiro

Monster of the Week: Cassandra

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 5: Monster of the Week

Episode 11: Cassandra

Writing to be Read

I have a friend who said something that blew my mind the other day. 

He said that he writes to be read, and if he's not going to be read, he has no interest in writing.  He said that he's not the kind of person who has a story that needs to be told, a story he needs to get out.  He said that he would never write just for himself.

I cannot understand this mindset.  I've tried to use my empathy and see where he's coming from, and I literally cannot do it.

I write because I can't sleep at night if I have too much story in my brain, so I need to tidy up in there.  The projects I have the most fun with are the ones that I assume no one will ever read.  They're just for me, so I don't have to do boring transitions or work too hard on continuity or grammar.  In fact, with some of the later Twenty Percent True Podcast seasons, I've gotten in my own head about it, because I know people will listen to it.  It makes it so I don't want to work on it.  Or maybe it makes it so I HAVE to work on it, and I get anxious about the quality of it, and I fight back against that anxiety by shouting, "You cant tell me what to work on!" and then procrastinating.

I will often go back and read my own unfinished writing.  "Oh.  This is fun," I say to myself, reading the first chapter of a novel from eight years that's only 15 pages long.

So the idea of "I'm going to write something because I want people to read it," just doesn't make sense to me from a philosophical standpoint.  But it also doesn't make sense from a publishing standpoint.  If you're going the traditional publishing route, you spend a year or more on a novel with no guarantee that it will be published.  You find that out at the end, after you've put in the work.  There are so many reasons outside your control for why a book could get canned, and there are a thousand reasons why it might not sell as much as it should. 

I understand why the thought that someone could read your book could be a motivator.  I find that feedback on an unfinished project can encourage me to keep going.  But if that was my only motivation, if I was pouring out my blood, sweat, and tears in hopes that a hypothetical stranger in the future will like it...that's dangerous.  You are not going to get enough out of it to keep you moving.  Every piece of negative feedback is going to hit you ten times harder, because you've basically failed in your single goal to have people like your work.  And, most importantly, you're putting your success and your enjoyment and your project's value entirely in someone else's hands. You're forcing a situation already out of your control even further out of your control.

As tired as the saying goes: Write for you.

Monster of the Week: See the Hodag

The Twenty Percent True Podcast

Season 5: Monster of the Week

Episode 9: The Albatross


For more: Background Information

More about the Hodag

Season 5, episode 10: Come See the Hodag!

The Hodag is a fearsome critter from Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where it is a local attraction, the high school's mascot, and in the name of several local businesses.  It's fame has led to appearances in our old friend William Cox's "Fearsome Critters of the Lumberwoods," several Paul Bunyun stories, an episode of Scooby Doo, and a Harry Potter expanded universe entry on Pottermore.  (One of these did not do any research, and I'll give you one guess as to which one.)


To talk about the history of the Hodag, we first have to talk about Eugene Shepard.  He was a surveyor, timber cruiser, and renowned prankster/humorist.  He illustrated several Paul Bunyun stories, which were then widely circulated.  Later in life, he ran a resort in Rhinelander.  And he invented the Hodag.

Shepard started spreading rumors in 1893 about seeing the hodag out in the woods.  He described it as having "the head of a frog, the grinning face of a giant elephant, thick short legs set off by huge claws, the back of a dinosaur, and a long tail with spears at the end."  He claimed it was 7 feet long, 30 inches tall, and weighed about 200 pounds.  In other descriptions, the hodag is a cross between bulldog and a dinosaur and about the size of a large dog.  It's favorite food is white bulldogs, which it eats only on Sundays.

Shepard gathered up a big posse of men to go out into the woods and kill the hodag.  The sheer number of people that went out with him showed not only how powerful the hodag was, but also how brave the people of Rhinelander were.  Unfortunately, they had to kill the beast, and they had to do it with dynamite, so they returned back to Rhinelander with a charred hide, feeling successful.  In 1896, Shepard brought the Hodag up again.  This time he claimed to have caught one alive by gathering together a bunch of bear wrestlers, who put chloroform on the ends of sticks, and poked the sticks into the hodag's cave until it passed out.

Capturing a hodag

By then, the hodag had nearly gone extinct, he explained, due to the severe lack of white bulldogs in the area.  So, of course, he put the captured Hodag on display at the Rhinelander fair grounds, where people would pay a dime to go into the hodag's dimly lit tent.  The dimly lit part was important, because if the Hodag knew that so many people were looking at it, it would become violent, and no one wanted that.  In the dark, the hodag would swing its tail and roar and people would scream and run away.  This all worked really well for Shepard until some people from the Smithsonian announced that they were coming to inspect his creature, at which point he fessed up that it was really a carved stump covered in cow hide and it's spikes were cow horns.  It moved with wires, and the growls were Shepard's sons standing behind it, making scary noises.

This does not stop the people of Rhinelander from enjoying the hodag.  Ans it shouldn't.