Building A Better B-Movie, Pt 2

Last time we talked about how to write a good script for a B-movie. Something cheap but still solid and clever. Something we can shoot ourselves.

Well, now that the script is written—

(you did write it all out, yes? That was one of the tips!)

—we can move on to the next fun phase. The one we’re all more interested in. Yeah, be honest. What we really want to do is direct. But I think first we need to talk a little bit about what directing involves. Yeah, even on this level.

Y’see, Timmy, making a movie is a lot like being in the military. When you think of the Army, most people tend to think of big battles, shooting rifles, driving in tanks, and stuff like that. But if you talk to anyone in the military (and if you’ve been in, you already know this), there’s a huge amount of logistical work. Planning. Scheduling. Inventories. Duty rosters. It’s all that advance work that makes the shooting rifles/ driving tanks moments go off without a problem.

Well, with significantly fewer problems. We’ll talk about that, too...

Filmmaking’s the same way. So much of it gets done before everyone shows up to set on that first day of shooting, and a huge amount of that work is done by the director. Even with numerous department heads doing lots of work for them, the director’s the one making most of the decisions. And at the budget level we’re talking about, I’m probably going to be doing even more as the director.

This isn’t meant to scare or discourage anyone. I’m just trying to make it clear that a lot of what makes a good director isn’t just the flashy stuff on set when I frame shots with my hands and yell “cut!” And if I want to make a good B-movie, I need to be a good director. Some of the stuff I’m going to talk about is going to sound really boring, and more than half of it’s going to happen before the first time I get to yell “action!” Yay! Welcome to filmmaking!

So here’s a few things I should probably have if I want to do a better-than adequate job of directing. Especially at our B-movie budget level.

1) Have Some Experience
This is the easiest one. Not saying I should’ve already shot another movie or some shorts or anything like that. But before I get a dozen of my friends together... I should just play around with the camera a bit. Even if I’m just planning on shooting this on my phone, go spend some time with the phone. Figure out what it can do. Believe me, it’s a lot better to figure it now than when all your friends are standing around ready to shoot a scene.

Easy thing to do? I should think of shots I like in movies, shots I’ve imagined for my movie, and just try to do them. No pressure, no requirements, just see if I can make my camera do the thing I’m picturing in my head. Maybe use action figures or get a friend who’s willing to be my living mannequin for the day and try a bunch of different shots with different angles/ lighting/ costumes. Then look at these shots and try to figure out what needs improvement. Spend lots of time doing this.

Seriously, start doing it tonight. Start doing it right now. Point the camera at the cat and give me a serial killer POV shot—go!

You’ve done that already? For real, you’re not just saying it so you can rush to the next step? Well, okay than...

2) Have the basics down
Okay, in the past I’ve talked about some standard film shots, so here’s a link for those. I want to start thinking of the script in these terms. Visually, what each scene’s going to look like and which shots I’ll need to construct that scene.

I’ll also point you at Krishna Rao’s unwritten rule of thumb—one pretty shot a day. Maybe I want to do a neat POV shot on a slide or outside someone’s window. Maybe I’m going to use a bicycle to keep up with somebody running down the street. Maybe my friends and I figured out how to do a real cool overhead spinning shot. These are all fantastic, but I don’t want to get bogged down in dozens and dozens of them on the same shooting day (I’ll explain why in a bit).

Let me hit you with two more good things to know. There’s a term you may have heard called screen direction. It’s really important, and it’s one of those things we all instinctively notice when its done wrong. Really simply put, pretend there’s a line down the center of the camera frame. Everything has to stay on its side of the frame, unless we see it switch sides on camera. Things on the left stay on the left, things on the right stay on the right. If you’re on the left and I’m on the right, I should be looking left (at you) when we’re talking in close ups and you should be looking right (at me). If we’re both looking the same way it looks.. weird. It goes against the cinematic language we’ve all picked up over the years.

Now, there’s another aspect to this and it’s called crossing the line. Here’s how it usually gets explained. Natasha and Yelena are sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast and the box of cereal's on the table with them. When we shoot our master shot, these things are going to be on one side or the other—some people say it’s with her or with her For example, Yelena's bowl of cereal would clearly be with her, Natasha's bowl is with her. But the box... who’s the box with? Because if we try to shoot it with both of them, it’s going to jump back and forth on screen as it crosses the line. If the camera’s facing Yelena, it’ll be on the left, but if it’s facing Natasha now it’ll be on the right. Make sense? Look, I even included helpful visuals. So we need to make a decision and stick with it (I’m saying the cereal is with Natasha).

When people mess this up, it’s usually because they’re confusing the actual geography of the location—what they’re seeing with their own eyes—with what the audience is seeing through camera. It doesn’t matter where the cereal box actually is in relation to you or me. Even if it’s actually at the middle of the table, on camera, it looks closer to you and that’s how we established it, so that’s how we need to shoot things. As far as the camera’s concerned, it’s on your side, not my side.

A fantastic example of screen direction (done right) is the first swordfight in The Princess Bride. Even with all the leaping around and changing camera angles, Inigo and the Man in Black never switch sides. He’s always on the left, he’s always on the right. The only time it changes is when we actually see them physically switch sides on camera.

Something I touched on above, closely related to crossing the line, is eyelines (this is the second of those two good thing to know). Have you ever watched a movie or TV show and someone seems to be looking off over there somewhere, not at the person they’re talking to? That’s an eyeline issue, and a lot of the time it ties back to crossing the line and/or people thinking more about geography then camerawork. The actors are looking at where their co-star is in the room, not where the camera's told us they are.

ProTip—most of the time if I’m close on Yakko and he’s looking at Phoebe (but we don’t see her), he’s actually just looking an inch or two away from the camera lens. Left or right of the lens depends on which side of the frame Phoebe was on. It seems weird at first, but it looks right when you cut it together.

Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of stuff to keep track of. We should probably be making a list.

Speaking of which...

3) Have a shot list
Okay, up above where I talked about different shots? This is where I need to start figuring out which of them I need for each scene. Seriously—before the first day of filming, I should know every shot I need/want for every scene.

For example... scene one. The walk-and-talk scene outside the office building. Most of it’s just going to be a wide shot of Wakko and Dot walking, but I might want to get some overs for the last third of their conversation. I might not want to go in for coverage yet because (theoretically) tension levels are still low.

But that sword fight in the forest? Well, I’ll probably want masters from both directions, and some overs to get the swords in, plus tight on their faces for a few reaction shots. And this might be a good place for one of those pretty shots—maybe a really big camera move at a good part of the duel.

I need to do this for every scene in the script. Picture all of it in my head—how its going to look on screen—and then figure out what I’m going to need to make that happen. Yeah, it can be a lot of work—I’ve seen directors spend three or four days on a shot list just for a formula television show. I knew one guy who'd block all his shots out with action figures.

Here’s two quick pro tips about making shot lists....

First, I should remember that being in close to someone tends to give us more emotion, so I usually want to start wide to establish things and then go tighter to connect with the characters. There’ll be exceptions sure, but this is a great rule of thumb. It works for scenes and for the movie as a whole. The scenes at the start of my movie should be shot wider and looser, giving me some space to breathe, but they get tighter as the story progresses and tension builds. Seriously—go watch one of your favorite movies and see how many close-ups there are in the first few scenes as opposed to the scenes closer to the climax.

Second, when I print out my script (because I wrote out the whole script, right?), three-hole punch it and put it in a binder. Seriously, movie sets pretty much run off three ring binders. And one of the reasons why is that—if I printed my title page—every page of the script now has a blank page right next to it (the back of the previous page). I can fill that blank space up with the shots for that page, notes to myself, diagrams, all sorts of stuff. Now it’s all right there, right next to the relevant scene.

As sort of a subset to the shot list, I should know how I want every scene to make the audience feel. Is this a scary movie? A funny movie? Should they be thrilled by the action or the romance in this scene? And it doesn’t always have to be big reactions—they can be intrigued or hopeful or kind of sad. But it probably means something if I have a scene and I’ve got no idea how the audience is supposed to feel about it. Or if those feelings don’t really line up with the scenes around them.

4) Have a shooting schedule
So our script has a bunch of locations in it. An office building. A tent. A forest. A meadow. I probably want to make sure I’m listing the inside and outside of places as two different locations, so Interior: Office and Exterior: Office. This can come in handy later.

What I need to do now is figure out the best order to shoot things in that also works with when we can get those locations. Like, I can shoot inside the office during the week after 6:00PM, but it’s a two hour drive to the forest, so we need to that on the weekend. Also, that walk and talk outside the office is during the day, but we can only do that on the weekends, too. Plus, Wakko’s busy on the third weekend of the month, so he can’t be in anything then.

Plus... well, you may remember last time I mentioned a good rule of thumb is that it’s going to take 90 minutes to shoot a properly formatted page. Just to be safe, I should probably double that for pretty shots and/ or stunt stuff. So that page of swordfighting—I should plan on three hours to film that.

What I’m getting at is I also have to factor in how long we need to be shooting at each location. We may need the office for twenty hours altogether. Add in that we can’t get in there until after 6:00... it means we’re probably going to have to spread this over three nights of shooting. But not over the weekend Wakko can’t be there. Unless... we just do the two scenes he’s not in on that weekend.

This is why so many movies shoot stuff out of sequence. Yeah, those four office scenes are all through the script, but it makes a lot more sense to shoot them all at the same time. And the meadow and the exterior tent are almost forty minutes apart in the movie, but... well, is there any reason we couldn’t set up the tent in the meadow once we’ve shot the meadow stuff? We could just turn the camera a bit for a different background and bam exterior tent.

Yeah. It’s a bit of a puzzle figuring out how to make all of this work. It always is. I have friends who are assistant directors and I’ve watched them juggle these things back and forth, trying to make everything line up as best they can. Trying to work this all out will probably be when we’re doing a lot of begging and pleading and desperate promising with various people. Because we’re doing all this super-cheap, mostly off people’s goodwill, so we need to make everyone happy. This is my dream, but it might not be theirs.

Also, now that we’ve got this all these different scenes set down in shooting order, I can see that oh, crap... I’ve got three of my  pretty shots scheduled for Tuesday night. Do I really need all of them? Which one’s going to add the most to the story I’m trying to tell, to give it the most dramatic weight at a key moment? I should probably aim to get that one done and put the others aside for now.

Again, like the shot list, everything will go soooooooooooooo much smoother if we work this stuff out ahead of time. In fact...

5) Have Everything Prepped Beforehand
I’ve really gotten into cooking videos over the pandemic and I’ve basically watched... well, 90% of Binging With Babish at this point. In one of his Basics videos, Andrew talks about having as much prepped beforehand as possible when you’re cooking. Cut all the veggies. Weigh all the ingredients. Make sure all the pots and plates are clean. The less I have to do once the water’s boiling, the less chance there is I’ll mess this up.

I want to be the same with my movie. Know who’s bringing snacks and drinks to set. Know who’s bringing everything to set—if something’s supposed to be there, who’s bringing it? Me? You? Her? Have all the costumes ready to go beforehand—even if they’re wearing their own clothes, know which clothes they’re wearing. Have locations lined up and scouted and confirmed. Have the swords picked out. Any decision I can make before we all get to set is one less decision I have to make there on set.

Because when I’m on set, I want to be focusing on getting this shot from my shot list, not figuring out if Phoebe should be wearing leather armor or chainmail in a scene we're shooting four days from now.

6) Have Lighting and Sound
Okay, so... odds are pretty good we were thinking of spending some money on camera equipment. Maybe the camera itself. Maybe we’re using our iPhone to shoot this and we want to get one of those smartphone steadicam rigs. Or even just some selfie sticks and a few stands to prop it up on.

Here’s what I’d do. Right now, I’d think of the number I was willing to spend on the camera and cut it in half. Seriously, whatever I was thinking of getting, odds are I can find a cheaper version of it online. Yeah, we want good equipment, but let’s be brutally honest—at this budget level it’s all going to be kind of the same.

Then I should take the other half of that money I’d budgeted for camera and spend it on lights and sound. Yeah, I’ve mentioned lights a few times. Trust me, it matters. It will make a gigantic difference, just having a few lights I can aim and throw some diffusion over (diffusion in this case is wax paper, unless we've got access to a theater department and their gel cabinet (in which case, I want a few general purpose frosts)).

The only thing that can make a bigger difference than lighting is sound. So many B-movies these days have absolutely awful sound because those filmmakers try to just use the microphone on their camera and nothing else. But we’re smarter than that. We can just put a recording app on everyone’s phone, buy two or three cheap lav mics, and voila we now have better sound than half the indie B-movies out there. Just remember to clap really hard at the beginning of every take—one clap that all the mics can pick up. Now you’ve got something to sync all the different recordings to when you edit.

Yeah, that’s what the little clapper board’s for. It’s usually a digital sync these days, but for our purposes the old ways work just as well.

Told you this’d be educational.

7) Have a production meeting
Another term you’ve probably heard before. Maybe a week or so before we want to start shooting, I want to get everyone who’s going to work on this together. Not the cast members—all the people who are going to be behind the camera helping with costumes, props, lighting, locations, and well... the camera. And, yeah, at this budget level there’s a good chance some of them will also be cast members, but I’m not thinking of them that way today.

What I want to do is go through the entire shooting schedule page by page, with the script right next to it. If the very first thing we shoot is scene 23, then let’s go to scene 23 and make sure we’re all, so to speak, on the same page. We know where it is, who’s in it, what’s in it, if we need anything special for it (is this that running scene we need the bicycle for? Who’s got the bicycle?). We’ll go through the first day of the schedule, the second day, and so on.

Now, in all fairness, I know a few of my friends who are Assistant Directors will roll their eyes at me about this, because there are those folks who prefer to just read straight through the script and do the production meeting that way. This is an option, yeah, but in my experience sooooo many low budget films and shows had problems that tied directly back to people not being clear that A and B were (or weren’t) happening on the same day. Or that we were going to film Y a week before we shot X. And that’s stuff that won’t come out by just reading the script.

We can do it either way but personally... I’d go with the shooting schedule.

Also have snacks and drinks at the production meeting, even if it’s just chips and bottled water. Have something. All these people are here doing me a favor. Thank them for it constantly.

8) Have a read-through
Guess what? Now we’re going to go through the script in order. Maybe a day or three after the production meeting, I want to get my whole cast together, maybe order a pizza or three, and all of us read the script together. They all read their parts, I read everything else. This is when they get to all play off each other, get a sense of timing, get a sense of how they’re going to play their characters. I can get a sense for how the dialogue sounds, maybe tweak a few lines here or there, perhaps even suggest a few things now so –again—I’m not dealing with it on set. This is also a chance for everyone in the cast to just meet each other (assuming they don’t all know each other already) so they’re a little more relaxed on set that first day of shooting.

ProTip—this is a great time to take a couple random photos of people if my movie needs them. If the script calls for a casual picture of Wakko, or maybe a shot of Dot and Phoebe together for their phones, get them now. They’ll be in different clothes in a different setting, so they won’t look staged or photoshopped. Also, this may be the only time you have some people together who never actually share a scene in the movie (so they’d be scheduled for different days).

And now... we finally get started. It’s our first day of shooting, everyone’s together, and I’m about to take my place in the annals of film history as a director. So here’s two last things for me to keep in mind.

9) Have a Plan B!
Look... things are going to go wrong. Sometimes at the last minute. We’re going to lose that location. That actor’s going to get sick. The guy in charge of bringing the sword is going to forget the sword. It’s going to rain on the day of our big sunny scene. And it’ll rain really hard, believe me, because God hates us, and he hates that we’re actually making our movie while his is stuck in development hell.

While it’s good to have everything planned out, like I’ve said a few times above, it’s also good to have a few alternate versions in my head in case something goes wrong. Because things going wrong is really common at this budget level. It’s unavoidable. So I need to be flexible. Do I really need Wakko in this scene? Is there a way to do it without the sword? If I really need the sword, could this scene happen somewhere else, location-wise? Is there something else that could happen here today instead with the actors we have? Like could this office scene somehow happen outside the office building—or outside a different office building??—and maaaaaaybe one of the... meadow scenes could happen here in the office? We’ve got all the actors to do that, right? See, this is another time a shooting schedule will come in handy. Or maybe Wakko’s really sick so we just do the meadow scene now and the office scene will happen much later inside an... elevator? Parking garage?

And hey—sometimes having that flexibility can be for good things. Maybe things are going great and I’m seriously ahead of where I should be right now—we planned on this taking five hours and it only took three—well, maybe I’ve got time to squeeze in another one of those pretty shots after all.

10) Have confidence
Last thing. Be confident. When you’re making a movie, the director is the captain of the ship. We’re the person in charge, the one guiding everything. Nothing’s more demoralizing for the cast or crew than to have someone in charge who doesn’t know what to do. I’ve been on set when a director just sort of shrugs and looks around for someone to solve their problems. Hell, I worked with one guy who routinely admitted he didn’t know how to shoot the day’s scenes. It’s not fun.

I’m betting most of the folks working on this movie, cast and crew, are doing it as a favor to me. Because they believe in me. So the least I can do is convince them they’re right to believe in me. I can be prepared. I can have a vision. I can keep my cool and adapt when things go wrong.

This isn’t to say I should be a raging egomaniac and ignore everyone else’s thought and ideas and opinions. I don’t want to be that kind of confident. Think of it more like Bob Ross. He knew what he was doing, didn’t beat us over the head with it, and if something went wrong or got messed up, well... that’s just a happy little accident. Let’s deal with it and keep moving forward.

And that’s my ten top tips for being a better B-movie director, on top of ten tips for being a better B-movie writer. All of which should help make a much better B-movie. Which I can then sing the praises of during a future Saturday geekery.

I probably could’ve made this a top fifteen or twenty, but this is already so damned long I may need to take a break next week to make up for how much time I spent on this. If there was some question you were really hoping I’d answer or an aspect I’d cover, let me know down below. I’ll try to respond to the best of my abilities/ knowledge/ experience.

Also... this is SDCC weekend! I know the con itself is online, but I hope you’re doing something fun and geek related. If you’re interested, I’m going to be doing a three-movie viewing party/ live tweet instead of my usual, anonymous Saturday geekery. Everything’s going to kick off at noon (Pacific time) with Man-Thing, then at 2:00 I’ll be starting The Incredible Hulk, and we’ll finish it all off at 4:30 with Resident Evil: Apocalypse. And a few other writer friends may join me for different movies, if you want to follow some hashtags.

(Man-Thing’s free to watch on Tubi and RE: Apocalypse is on Hulu. The Incredible Hulk is the troublesome one—not available to stream anywhere, so if you don’t already own it and want to watch along, you may need to rent it. Sorry...)

And next time here... jeeez, like I said, I may take a week off. Put up a Tom Gauld cartoon or two. But next time... I don’t know. I should tell you what I’m thinking about doing, but I’m not going to.

Until then... go write.

Or direct.

I’m not the boss of you. Just go do something creative, dammit.

The Beta Version

I almost titled this “Betatron” but I didn’t think a lot of you would get a reference to a forty year old Micronauts toy that wasn’t super-popular then.

Or maybe a couple of you would. Who knows. Anyway...

Some of you may have seen me tweet about finishing a draft of my new book the other day. It’s the second, for those who care—my “fill in all the holes” pass. Which means by the time you read this I’ll already be deep into my hacking and slashing draft. And then... other people will finally see it.

Which is kinda what I wanted to talk about.

Beta readers have come up here a couple of times, and we’ve talked about them at the Writers Coffeehouse (before the plague year forced us to go digital with it). But we’ve never really talked much about how to choose beta readers. What I want to be looking for, what I’ll need from them, and so on.

I’ve actually asked three new people to be beta readers for me on this book. For a few different reasons. And  I thought it might be worth going over some of these reasons.

So... what do I look for in a beta reader?

(aside from a high level of beta-particle absorption...?)

Knowledge – All of my beta readers have something they’re better than me at. It might be a specific aspect of their background, their education, or a point of view I just can’t emulate, but there’s always something they know that I don’t. There’s a specific reason I want this person to read this manuscript before I send it off to my agent or an editor.

On a related note, these are also people I know understand why I’m asking them to look at this. They know what I’m hoping to hear (or not hear) from them. And they understand the format I’d like to get these notes back in. When I ask my biochemist friend to read this, he should understand I’m hoping he’ll catch any glaring errors in biochemistry, and maybe also related dialogue and actions. It doesn’t help me if I ask a lawyer I know to beta-read my courtroom drama and she says “I didn’t see any typos, except for a couple glaring ones in the last third of the manuscript.”

Patience – Before I start sending a manuscript off, I double check with folks to make sure they’ve actually got time for this right now. They might be able to squeeze in reading a book right now, but do they actually have room in their schedule to go through my manuscript (possibly twice) with a critical eye? I want to make sure they’re going to be able to consider and absorb things, not just skim through and say “I liked it.”

There’s also a personal thing to this. I need to be aware of what people like so I can at least have an early sense of how they’ll (hopefully) respond to this. If Phoebe really loathes mysteries, I don’t want to give her a book with a strong mystery element and ask her what she thinks. She’s going to have a lot more patience for a story with a strong sci-fi aspect.

This is important because...

(a chime rings, signaling you to turn the page)

The Micro and Macro– This is one of the ones were it’s especially important to have a really good sense of my readers. When it comes to criticism, any book is going to have two aspects to it. There’s the big picture stuff—did you like it? Did the twist make sense? Was Wakko’s overall motivation believable? Then there’s the smaller stuff—does this line of dialogue work? Does this description stand out? Is this action too detailed?

The catch is, there are things that can look wrong or odd on the small scale, but it turns out they’re correct when we look at the big picture. If I say “Hitler died in 1964,” that’s wrong. But if I say that in a sci-fi, secret-history story, maybe there’s something to it.

I don’t want a beta reader who’s only going to focus on the micro or the macro, and not how they combine to make a good book. I don’t want them to have the book for a month and then just say “This was pretty good overall,” and I also don’t want to get back 300 marked-up pages where they marked something as wrong that’s explained three paragraphs later.

Honesty – I don’t think I’ve ever used a beta reader that I’ve known for less than two years. Most of them I’ve known for more than five, and about half of them for fifteen or more. And by “known” I mean hung out with, had long one-on-one discussions with, probably shared a meal or two, maybe a drink. I know them and they know me.

More importantly, they know me well enough to be honest with me. They’re not scared of accidentally hurting my feelings. They’ll tell me what I need to hear, even if it’s not pleasant.

At the same time, I’m not some faceless internet account they’re going to aim a firehose of criticism at. Some folks like to crow how they’re “just being brutally honest,” when the truth is they just like tearing things apart.

Trust—My last point about beta-readers ties to the previous one, but actually falls on us, the writers. Now that I’ve carefully selected these well-qualified people to read my manuscript... am I going to listen to them? Do I actually trust their knowledge and opinions, or am I just going to brush their criticism aside because I don’t like it?

I need to trust my beta readers. If I've got any doubts about their abilities, their motives, or their work ethic... I probably shouldn’t ask them to read this. If I’m going to ignore what they tell me, or tell myself they just didn’t get it... I probably shouldn’t ask them to read this. We need to be open to the criticism we’re going to get, and we have to trust the people giving it to us.

And that’s the kind of stuff I look for in a beta reader. You may have a few special considerations of your own, depending on your own editing methods or the particular piece you’re working on. And that’s all fine—it’s what works for you.

But if this is the first time you’re ever gone hunting for beta readers and you’re not quite sure what their footprints look like... well, maybe some of this will help get you on the right track.

Next time on the ranty blog... I got a question about genre, and that’s always fun to talk about. And the week after that is (technically) San Diego Comic Con weekend, so there may be some fun to be had.

Until then, go write.

Word. By. Word.

Thursday’s Thanksgiving and my parents are coming into town tomorrow, so I've got a lot of cleaning to do. No post on Thursday. But I had a simple idea I’d been meaning to toss out to you for a while now and this seemed like a good time.

Random theory of mine, probably not all that original. I think we tend to batch-read words. We tend to look at larger text elements—the clauses and phrases and sentences, rather than the individual words that make up those elements. I mean, you’re doing it right now. You’re not picking out the individual words, you’re reading this as a whole. And that’s a good thing. It’s what we want readers to do. It means my writing has a great flow to it.

But...

By the same token, this can make us kind of blind to things in our own work. Once we’ve written a sentence, we tend to gloss over it. Especially after reading it three or four times. We get overly-familiar with it. Even when we’re re-reading it in an edit draft, a lot of the time we’re just taking in the big picture and not looking at what’s actually there on the page.  It’s how we can read a sentence a dozen times and never notice that glaring typo in the middle of it. Or not notice there’s a word missing altogether.  Or that twice on this page we refer to Stu as Ted, but we don’t think about it because we know Stu was called Ted in an earlier draft and so they’re the same person in our heads.

That kinda thing.

So here’s my quick tip for you.  Do at least one pass where you  don’t read your story. Read the words on the page. Actually look at each individual word there on your screen  and. Read. Each. One. Of. Them.

Yeah, it’s slow. And it's tough. That sounds silly, I know, but it is super-tough to go through a story this way. Especially a story we know. You need a ton of patience and focus. But I guarantee you’ll find dozens of things that were missed on earlier passes.

In fact, here’s a tip for that tip. Before you do this pass, change the font on your whole document. If you normally write in Times, switch it over to Courier. If you normally write in Courier, switch it over to Times. If you normally write in Wingdings, what the hell’s wrong with you? Seriously, nobody’s going to be able to read that. Put it in Times, make everybody’s life easer.

Anyway... remember what I said about how we get overly-familiar with things? Well y’see Timmy, by changing the font, I’ve just made the whole document unfamiliar to me. The spacing’s different. Things will sit on each page in new ways. Which means I’ll be looking at it with fresh eyes, and things will be a little easier to catch.

And there you go. This writing tip has been brought to you by cranberry sauce. And by Nana’s special holiday rolls.

Next time... well, look. Black Friday’s coming up, and if you’ve been here for any amount of time you know what I’ll be talking about. And then there’s Cyber Monday, plus NaNoWriMo will’ve been wrapped up for a couple of days. I’m going to be blabbing about a lot of stuff for the next week or so. Check back often.

Until then, go write.

Step 1: Collect The Underpants

            Whoa!  A relevant pop culture title. First one in ages!

            Okay, there’s an issue that pops up at the Coffeehouse now and then.  Someone sent me a message about it on Facebook a week or three back, too.  And it’s something I’ve kinda had in the back of my mind to mention again.

            It takes a couple different forms, but what this usually boils down to is keeping enthusiasm up for writing.  It’s always fun to start a new project, but then they almost always boil down to... well, work.  And when we think of writing, people don’t like to think about work.  They want passion and muses and wild nights of drunken creativity when the words flow at a rate of two thousand an hour or more.

            But the ugly truth is... it’s often work.  A lot of work.  Suddenly all that excitement of that first step is gone and enthusiasm begins to ebb.  We're not exactly sure what we're supposed to do next.  And we’re only on chapter four!

            So here are a few things I can do to make that first draft a little easier

--Know where I’m going

            Writing a book is kinda like taking a trip.  It’s going to take time.  I’m going to need some skills.  I may need some supplies.  I can plan out every step of the way or I can be a little looser with it, but either way I should probably have some idea where I want to end up.

            Yeah, sure, there’s something wonderful and romantic about saying “wow, I just learned how to drive this weekend—it’s time to explore America’s highways!!”  Just jumping behind the wheel and taking off. No destination, no maps, nothing. Just me and my best woman/man/dog in the passenger seat.  We’ll figure it out as we go!
            Again... sounds wonderful and romantic, but I think we can all guess how a trip like that will really turn out.

            If I’m going to write a book, I should start off with a really rough idea of how it’s going to end.  I don’t need to stick to that ending, but it’s tough to keep moving forward when I don’t know what direction forward is.  So even just a very general endpoint—“Wakko and Dot sell their invention and get rich.”  “Yakko uses his giant Mechbot to stop the aliens”  “Phoebe’s the only one who gets out alive.”—will give me something to aim for.

--Schedule the time

            Okay, I admit... this can be a tough one.  I’m in a lucky position when it comes to writing.  It’s my full-time job, and I make a living at it.  I do it from home.  I don’t have kids.  My girlfriend’s a writer, too, so she needs her own time just as much as I need mine.  Most people aren’t in this position.

            But y’know what?  I wasn’t always, either. I had a full-time journalism job while I wrote Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriots and my Crusoe mash-up novel. And I haven’t always been in such writer-friendly relationships.

            Heck, I’ll be honest. There were a few romantic relationships in my past where me announcing “I want to write for a while” got a bit of a... negative reaction.  There were rolled eyes, some gentle mocking, even a bit of resentment. And being a younger man who wanted to preserve certain day-to-day aspects of these relationships... I put my writing aside. It was ultimately my choice, and that was the choice I made.  Which is why I didn’t have much writing success in my twenties—writing was a very low priority that I was willing to ignore for other things.

            There’s always going to be other things, so I need to make time for myself to write. An hour before bed,  on the train into work, or a big block on the weekend.  Just like exercise or learning the violin or finally watching Downton Abbey,  writing’s something that’s easy to put off.  It can very quickly become the thing I’ll do next weekend.  So I need to figure out a time and try to stick to it.

--Don’t starve myself

            I know some folks try not to read similar things while they’re working on a project because they don’t want to be influenced.  I think sometimes this leaks out and becomes one of those telephone-game pieces of advice where new writers end up thinking they shouldn’t read anything while they’re writing.  Or watch anything. or listen to anything.  Or talk to other writers.  Or...

            We need input. That’s just common sense.  No input, no output.  I can’t expect to build a lot of muscle if I’m not eating anything.

            Also—and this is, again, just my own opinion—this kind of “starvation” approach can easily turn writing into some sort of punishment.  I’d like to hang with my girlfriend or read a comic or watch the finale of Rebels...but I didn’t write today so I get nothing!  If my method makes me hate writing... maybe I don’t have the best method.

            But again, don’t use feeding appetites as an excuse to put off writing until next weekend.  Don’t fall for the same traps twenty-something year old me did!  Learn from my mistakes!

--Know what I know

            This is also a good time for me to toss out my usual comments about voice and spelling and drafts.  It’s important to learn and develop these things, because it’s easy to lose momentum when I end up second-guessing myself a lot.  If I stop to double-check every four-syllable word or verb tense or read each line of dialogue out loud... it’s going to be easy to lose enthusiasm.  Don’t forget that none of this matters in a first draft.  It’s definitely going to matter—just not right now.  First drafts are big, messy, gap-filled things.  They’re not the point where I should be worried about little stuff. For now, just plow ahead. I’ll get to deal with all that stuff soon enough.

--Just do it

            I know this sounds like crap advice, but sometimes the way to keep writing is just, well... to keep writing.  At the end of the day, sometimes that’s what it comes down to.  I can keep making excuses, let myself get distracted, promise myself to do it later.  Or I can just do it.

            Or maybe ask myself why I keep not doing it.

            So there you go. A few easy ways to keep yourself on track. If you’ve got a favorite of your own, feel free to add it below.

            Anyway... hopefully, next week’s rant will be better than this one.

            Until then, go write.

Read it ALL! Every Page!

            Okay, not going to talk about editing.  For a couple reasons I decided to push that back a bit. If anyone really wants it sooner rather than later, please feel free to say something down below.  I’m flexible.

            Anyway, new topic.

            Bad movies.

            I’ve mentioned once or thrice before that I tend to do long Twitter rants most Saturdays about whatever (anonymous) bad movie I’ve dug up on Netflix, SyFy, Comet, or... well, sometimes from my own collection.  Terrible characters, wince-inducing dialogue,  eye-rolling motivations, bad pacing, awful reveals or twists.  Sometimes the movies are fun-bad, and other times...

            Look, on Saturdays my liver earns its keep.  Let’s just say that.

            A lot of folks follow along, and at least every other week somebody’ll make a comment about my masochistic tendencies.  Or my willingness to suffer.  Or ask why I don’t just watch something, y’know, good.

            Here’s the thing, though.  I kind of like the bad movies.  Yeah, they’re kind of painful sometimes, but they’re always at least mildly entertaining.  Even if it’s in a Mystery Science Theater sort of way.

            Plus, they’re kind of educational.  And a great exercise for the imagination.  Yeah, I know that sounds bizarre, but... it’s the truth.

            Let’s be honest.  We probably all know somebody who refuses to watch bad stuff, right?  Or to read it.  They’ll shut it off half an hour in or toss the book across the room, usually with a snide comment or three about how bad it was.

            Quick test, though... can they say why it’s bad?  Can they cite specific examples?  Anyone can say “this sucks,” but it’s a lot harder to explain why something sucks.

            Better yet... can they suggest ways to fix it?  How would I go about improving the plot structure?  The dialogue? The motivations of the hero and the villain?

            These aren’t ridiculous tasks.  As writers, we run up against them all the time.  There are scenes I’ve rewritten a dozen or more times because the dialogue just didn’t ring true.  There are times I’ve gotten halfway through something and realized it would be a lot better if I structured it a different way.  There are times I’ve guided everything towards Yakko doing something and then realized “wait a minute... why the heck would he do this?”

            Then I solve these problems. Because that’s my job.  I’m a writer.

            So in that sense, every bad movie or patience-testing novel is a chance to flex those muscles.  They’re exercise that I can do while I’m geeking out a bit.  Sometimes they even inspire a rant or three.

            That’s kind of important.  The exercise bit.  We all need to exercise.  No, not just because we sit in a chair for a good part of the day.  Well, yes, because of the chair, but also because exercise is how I get better... stronger... faster. 

            That holds for physical and mental exercise. I have to do it.  I have to do it regularly.  And I need to challenge myself with it.  If I’m following the same workout routine now that I was a year ago, it means I haven’t moved forward at all.  I’m going easy on myself.

            I know a lot of folks who pride themselves on not reading bad books.  “There’s no time for that,” they say.  “Why would I waste a day reading something awful?”  They’ll proudly tell me how they’re re-reading something by Neil Gaiman or Margaret Atwood or Michael Chabon or some obscure piece by Gertrude Stein or Faulkner.

            And there’s nothing wrong with reading any of these writers. They’re all just fantastic.  Their words are wonderful to read, and it’s almost frustrating how easy they can make it look.

            But this shouldn’t be easy.  If it’s easy... I’m probably doing something wrong.

            Y’see, Timmy, there’s only so much I can learn from the good stuff.  If it’s the only thing I take in, then I’m kinda limiting myself.  I’m not giving my brain a chance to exercise--to stretch and flex and try to do its own thing.  Following a perfect, well-laid path is great, but if it’s all I ever do, it’s all I’ll know how to do.  And if it’s a path that 90% of all English majors and would-be writers have followed at one point or another...  I'm not going to find anything new or surprising at the end of it.

            It’s like if I said I wanted to explore the whole world, but I never wanted to go off a paved road. Paved roads are great, yeah, but the way I’ll find stuff—especially new stuff most people haven’t seen before—is by traveling down the dirt roads and off road.  And sometimes getting out and wading through thigh-deep muddy water.

            ...oh, man, I hope that’s mud...

            I’d never say avoid the good stuff, because we want to surround ourselves with great material.  To bathe in it. Take long moonlight swims in it.  But... we all know what happens if you stay in the pool too long.

            Don’t be scared of reading something bad.  Or watching it.  Have fun with it. Force your way through.  And figure out why it’s bad. Where did it go wrong?  What does it need?  How could it be fixed?

            And then... go write.

The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese

            Running a little late today, but still here. Thanks for waiting.

            So, our title this week is one of those not-so-clever aphorisms that folks usually  have to work through for a minute or two.  I only mention it here because Shane Black used it in Iron Man 3... with the whole joke being that Tony Stark (cuffed to a bed frame at the time) didn’t get it.

            In the interest of moving things along, the second mouse gets the cheese because the first mouse set off the trap... and got killed.  Now the trap’s harmless.

            See what I mean.  Obvious in retrospect, not so much when you first see it.

            That’s what I wanted to blab on about.  The traps that seem like good ideas at the time, for one reason or another, but later it’s clear they were the wrong choice. 

            Lots of aspiring writers fall into traps.  Sometimes it happens when they follow bad advice.  Other times it’s because they insist on using a method or writing in a style which really doesn’t work for them.  And sometimes... sometimes that trap’s just sitting there in the tall grass, waiting to snap shut on someone’s leg.

            We all want to think the traps are clear and easy to spot. But we’re all going to fall into a couple of them. That’s just life out here in the writing jungle.  The trick’s to get out as quick as possible.  Some folks, y’know,  get caught in a trap and then try to convince themselves they wanted to be at the bottom of a hole with two wooden stakes rammed through their legs.  Hell, everyone should be in a pit with two wooden stakes through their legs.  It’s really the best position to be in.

            None of us want to be that guy.  Or to listen to that guy. Right?

            So, with all that said, let me toss out some common—and maybe even dangerous—misconceptions people have about writing.

            Writing is easy -  Probably the most common misconception there is.  I mean, most of us learned how to put words on paper when we were ten, right?  We could write passable essays by ninth grade.  So writing for a living, for an audience greater than your immediate friends and loved ones, how hard could it be?  Anyone can do it once you’ve got a clever idea.  Heck, I’d bet 90% of Americans have immediate access to a word processor of some sort.

            Truth is, writing—not basic, grade-school literacy, mind you, but the ability to write-- is a skill which needs to be learned like any other.  All you need is to browse Twitter, Facebook, or the comment sections of any news feed to learn how few people can express their ideas through words.  Yeah, I took English and reading classes in school. But most of us went through twelve years of gym class, too, and we all understand that doesn’t qualify us to be in the Super Bowl.

            Writers need to train and practice for months--maybe even years--before they’re ready to show off their writing.  I don’t have hard numbers in front of me, but I feel safe saying Stephen King didn’t make much off the first 100,000 words he wrote.  It’s work.  Hard work.  It requires skill, a great deal of practice, some actual talent, and a heck of a lot of dedication.  That’s why so many people don’t succeed at it.

            This is probably the most successful trap because it doesn’t just catch the writer--it tends to kill them 2/3 of the time.  Most of the folks who believe that writing is easy have never actually written anything.  They also tend to come up with a lot of reasons (unrelated, of course) for why they never complete a manuscript.

            First person is easy -  A lot of prose writers start off with first person stories. It’s quick, it’s not hard to get into, it’s easy to find a voice.  It’s also very personable, so a reader can relate to my characters immediately.  Plus there are tons of formats ready and waiting; journals, diaries, letter, memoirs, and so on.  My first two published short stories were both first person.

            Truth is, though,first person is a very difficult, very limiting viewpoint to write in.  There’s a reason lots of professional writers avoid it.  It takes a lot of experience and planning to pull off a successful first person manuscript.
            Writers who get caught in this trap start their first novel and pound out 20,000 words worth of journal entries over one weekend.  There’s always that chance they may be brimming with so much raw talent they’re the next Hemingway or Steinbeck.  Alas, there’s a far better chance, they’ve just wasted a long weekend.

            Writing doesn’t require any writing -  I think we’ve all heard or seen that person who talks about their brilliant story ideas, and usually follows it up with—“Well, I’ll write it out when someone’s willing to pay me.”

            This mindset is a remnant of the huge spec script boom in Hollywood a few decades back.  It was one of those rare periods when studios acknowledged the importance of writers and were paying millions for screenplays—or even just the idea for one.  And that frenzy sold some books, too

            However... this was almost thirty years ago. These days producers and publishers are much more cautious and they’re not interested in ideas.  They’re interested in complete, finished works.  Not two-thirds of a manuscript.  Not most of a script. 

            Want easy proof of this?  What do you think will happen if I self-published my idea?  Not a complete manuscript, just my one-page, cool idea?  How far do you think that’ll take me? 

            If not having a manuscript doesn’t work for self-publishing, it’s sure not going to fly in traditional publishing.

            Just to save time, knowing the right people won’t change this.  No, it won’t.  I don’t care what that website said.  As a first-timer, I’m an unknown quantity.  Who spends money on unknowns?

            Not to sound too harsh but... well, no, this is harsh because people can only end up in this trap by choice.  If someone can’t write and complete something, they can’t be a writer.  That’s really all there is to it.  I should stop now and go back to those criminal justice classes I thought about signing up for.

            Writers don’t need to read -  Somewhere along the line, some numbskull started pushing the idea that writers shouldn’t waste time reading—they should spend all their time writing.  This is kind of like saying drivers shouldn’t waste their time stopping for gas. 

            Every professional writer I’ve ever met, interviewed, or even just read about (myself included) reads voraciously.  A writer should be devouring works in their chosen field to stay current and snacking heavily on everything else to stay fresh.

            Alas, the folks who fall into this trap tend to write plain awful stuff.  Not from any inherent lack of talent—they just have no clue what’s been done.  They go for every easy idea, hit every cliché plot point, and tend to follow the textbook formulas they were taught in some creative writing class somewhere.  What else can they do?  They’ve had no other input.  They end up trying to mimic one or two famous examples of what they aspire to... and usually end up looking just like the worst of the worst.

            Research everything – This one’s  more insidious than deadly, which is why I saved it for near the end.  We all want to get the facts right in our stories.  We check books, make phone calls, visit locations... okay, yeah, and maybe some of us just spend a lot of time on Wikipedia.  Point is, how can I be expected to move forward with my story if I don’t know the exact month they started laying railroad track in Independence, Missouri?  It’ll ruin everything if I say June and it turns out to be July.

            This is an awful trap because getting stuck in it means I’m trying to do the right thing.  Research is important, but I can’t ever forget that research isn’t writing.  There’s a time for putting noses in books but there’s also a time for putting fingers to keyboard (or pen to paper if you’re old-fashioned).         

            Some folks get caught in an even deeper layer of this trap.  They get stuck researching how to write.  We’ve all known someone like this, yes?  The one who buys books, takes classes, studies YouTube tutorials... but never does any actual writing. 

            For some people this becomes a defense mechanism of sorts, sometimes subconsciously and sometimes... not so subconsciously.  If I never start, I won’t have to put the work in, and my work stays in that wonderful hypothetical stage where it’ll be the greatest thing ever committed to paper... if only I had time to write it down.

            Rewrite until it’s perfect - The last and deadliest of the traps in our showroom.  For some folks, rewriting turns into an endless loop.  There’s always another opinion to listen to, more feedback to get, and revisions which need to be done because of them.  Just thought of a new way to do those action scenes?  That calls for another draft.  Maybe last night’s Agents of SHIELD inspired a new opening?  Perhaps my old college beau is visiting and s/he thought the ending needed a touch more romance, and any decent writer knows changing the end means changing everything that leads up to the end.

            There are two ways people fall into this trap.  One is a combination of bad advice and bad judgment.  So many gurus tell people to rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.  How many times have you heard “writing is rewriting” parroted in classes or on message boards?  There’s some truth to that, yeah, but eventually, a writer just needs to call it done and move on or they’re going to be trapped in one manuscript forever.

            The other way people fall into this trap is on purpose.  A bit like with research, constant rewrites are an excuse not to actually produce anything.  You don’t expect me to show you an incomplete or old draft, do you?  I was going to send it to some agents or publishers, but I think it needs one more polish to make it perfect.  Maybe one more after I go through and clean up a few loose threads.  Rewrites are a way some writers--again, consciously or not-- can avoid possible failure yet still keep up the illusion of forward motion.

            Are all of these traps deadly?  No, but getting snagged in one can definitely cost me some time.  Yeah, I’ve fallen into one or three of them over the years.  Fortunately, one of those things only has to slam on your ankle once and you’ll rarely let it happen again.

            Assuming, of course, that I get out of it the first time.

            Next time, I’d like to talk with you real quick about my buddy Marc, who I was stationed with in Kuwait six years ago...

            Until then, go write. 

            And watch your step.

2016 Is Over. Finally.

            I don’t know about you, but this year has been kind of brutal on me.  We don’t even need to bring up politics or innumerable dead entertainment icons.  It’s sucked.  I lost my grandma.  Two friends.  One of my cats.  Hell, even the car I’ve had since I was twenty-seven and working on Silk Stalkings.  

           All dead.

           Screw this year.  Screw 2016.  And I’m only saying “screw” so this page doesn’t get banned from your work server.  I’ve been a lot more emphatic in real life.

            But, anyway... let’s talk about writing.

            At the beginning of every year I toss out some encouragement and ideas about writing. And throughout the year, I jab you pretty much every post with a gentle reminder to go write.  Because that’s the only way this happens. We sit down and we write.

            So... what did you write this year?

            I’ll go first.

            Well, let’s be honest.  The vast majority of this year was spent on Paradox Bound (which most of you will get to read in about... seven months?). I turned in a really wild, scattered draft to my editor (I can admit it), and he politely handed it back and said “try harder.”  Which made me take a long, hard look at a lot of it, rip out a large part of the ending and restructure it, which also meant going back and reworking a fair amount of the beginning.

            But in the end... I’m really proud of how this has turned out. I think you’re going to like it a lot.

            Between drafts, I also finally finished (and submitted) a little story called “Projekt: Maria” for an anthology titled Mech.  That should be out early next year, I believe.  If you read Kaiju Rising a while back, this story is another World War II adventure with Kraft and Carter trying to counter the latest weird and unusual Nazi plot.

            Plus, I’ve done a bunch of work on my next big project (no real title yet—well, not one I’m up for sharing).  And a lot of notes and bits on the next Ex-Heroes book (currently called Ex-Tension).  And I scribbled some notes and pitches for some things... well, that I can’t really talk about quite yet.

            And, hey, this is the 46th ranty blog post this year.  Granted, a handful of those were photo tips, but still... that’s a fairly regular output there. I mean, I’m no Chuck Wendig or Scalzi, but I think that’s a respectable number.  I even managed a couple over on my geeky blog, too... although nowhere near as many as I'd wanted to.

            What else did I do with my time?

            Well, if I’m counting right, I read about thirty-eight new books this year. By which I mean, books I’d never read before.  About half a dozen of them non-fiction. 

            There were also another twenty or so books I re-read, either for reference or enjoyment.  Plus a big pile of comic books and graphic novels—the IDW Revolution event (featuring GI Joe, Rom, Transformers, and Micronauts) was magnificent, as was the conclusion to The Sixth Gun. If you added all of those, I’m probably somewhere in the low sixties.

            Not an ugly score.  Essentially a book a week. I’m huge believer that reading is essential if I want to be a decent writer.  I have to take in material if I want to create material.  I can’t be a filmmaker without watching lots of films. I can’t be a bodybuilder without taking in food.  I can’t be a teacher without learning.  And I sure as hell can’t be a writer if I never read.

            So that’s what I accomplished.  How about you?

            Granted, I’m in the fortunate position where I get to do this full time.  On average, I’m probably going to write more, revise more, and read more than most of you reading this.  It’s not a slam, that’s just basic scheduling.  There’s only so many hours in the day, and I get to spend most of them in this area.  We all have different amounts of time we can put toward these things.  People have kids, jobs, other priorities.

            This also isn’t a contest.  I’m not going to berate you because you only read twenty books this year. I wouldn’t feel extra-special if I read a hundred.  We all read and absorb and work at our own rates. 

           The key thing is that I can see honest, real forward motion.  I started here and I ended with all of this done.  I can’t be telling myself “well, this counts as getting stuff done” or “I meant to do that.”  I should be able to point at things I wrote.

            I mean, that’s what we’re all trying to do, yes?

            I’d like to thank you all for reading this collection of random thoughts and lessons as we head into (holy crap) the ranty blog’s tenth year.  I’ll try my very best to stay entertaining, educational, and semi-relevant.

            Next time, as I usually do, I’d like to start the year by setting down a couple ground rules—for myself and the ranty blog and the rest of you.

            Until then... go write.

            Have a fantastic New Year’s.  May 2017 be better for all of us.