If it's the singer, not the song, maybe it's the actor, not the plot.

Good morning!

I am a fan of the written drama.  Yes, I watch more than my share of  "reality TV" but that's really more my Saturday afternoon viewing when there's no hockey or football and I'm too lazy to turn on Netflix or stick a movie in the blu ray player.  During the week, with just a very few exceptions, I watch written dramas. I give my DVR a workout every day.  The Blacklist, Criminal Minds, Chicago Fire, NCIS, Chicago PD, Hawaii 5-0 Dracula, CSI, The Following.  I really want to get into "Sleepy Hollow" and get back into "Gery's Anatomy" but there's only so much time in a week.  I'm still 7 episodes behind on "The Blacklist" because I work super late on Monday nights so I use Thursdays to catch up on DVR stuff  (Curse you TV people for putting such AWESOME television on Fridays...that used to be my catch up day. Now I'm glued to Hawaii 5-0 and Dracula.)

Yesterday was exhausting for me and I got almost no writing done, but I did manage to get ahead of nearly 3 weeks' worth of laundry.  And the only reason I managed that is because my 13 disc copy of War and Remembrance showed up this week.  I'm telling you this to explain why, after 5 hours of World War II drama, I needed to escape, so I watched an episode of the Blacklist.  I love that show.

He's on my "Black list."

Yes, I love the Blacklist.  Just like I love Criminal Minds, Hawaii 5-0, and all of them.  I love them.

Last night, however, I realized, thanks to the DVR, I wasn't actually watching The Blacklist.  I was fast forwarding through every scene that didn't involve James Spader.  (I've loved James Spader since I was in my early teens.  He's on my "list."  Yes, we all have a list, don't judge me.)  I made a shocking discovery, and I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but since I'm me, I have very little shame.

I realized I do that a lot.  When I watch shows on the DVR I fast forward until I see my favorite character and then I pay attention. And it's not just James Spader, with his magnetism and his great line delivery.  Let's review:

Criminal Minds:  Shemar Moore

Every Wednesday and all the time on ION.
Yes please.

Hawaii 5-0: Alex O'Loughlin
Chicago Fire: Taylor Kinney and Jesse Spencer (and they're firemen.)
Dracula: Jonathan Rhys Meyers
CSI:  George Eads and Eric Szmanda
NCIS:  Mark Harmon...do you really need to ask?
Chicago PD: well, I'm hoping for glimpses of Taylor Kinney and Jesse Spense, and Jesse Soffer, whom I adored for many years in "as The World Turns."

Who wouldn't want him to save you from
a fire?

Do we see a pattern here?  Clearly I'm only into these written dramas for the attractive actors...I mean, it's all good versus evil, crime, drama, good lighting, and in the case of Dracula, a touch of romance.  (Why are all the other dramas avoiding romance?  Did we learn nothing from JAG?  A romance storyline can carry you through a DECADE of crime drama.)

Wait, there's one show not on the list.

The Following.

Granted, I got into The Following because I have always liked Kevin Bacon and anything based on Edgar Allen Poe's writing is worth a look.  BUT I really watch The Following.  I watch every minute of it.  I don't get popcorn, I don't fold laundry, I sit down and watch it.  Sometimes I don't fast forward through the commercials because I'm busy absorbing what I've seen.

So what's the difference between The Following and everything else I'm watching right now?

At this point, I'm not sure.  While watching the Blacklist last night I realized for the most part the plot was just like everything else I watch, and I wasn't all that interested.  I was waiting for James Spader to be on screen and be brilliant.  When I checked in on Dracula, which had it's season ender last night, it was almost

An original look at a very old tale...it's still all about the leading man.

the same thing  (although I will give Dracula points, they have a TON of story lines going on in that show.)  And I realized this might be the reason I haven't been able to get deeply involved with "Intelligence."  I've watched the first two episodes, but I just don't care about Josh Holloway and his brain/computer issues.

The great 80's band Survivor had a song called "It's the Singer not the Song."

I'm a total fan girl...I take notes.

Well give the glory to the man
Who's not afraid to come on strong
When there's magic in the music
It's the singer not the song
When it's comin' from the heart
All the people sing along
It's the man behind the music
It's the singer not the song 

I get the message here.  I'll watch crime dramas all day long...if I like the characters and I feel their pain.  the plot may not be anything all that original, shoot, I may see the exact same story on the next drama.  But if I like the characters, I'll tune in faithfully.  And who knows?  If it's really, really good, I might even pay attention.

 I do with "The Following," That's for sure. 

The words are not the most important thing you should be hearing.

Good evening!

Back in the 80's, the band "Survivor" came out with a song entitled, "It's the singer, not the song." That song basically detailed how it didn't matter what the lyrics were, it was the passion of the singer, the emotion in the singer's voice that meant everything.  I typically disagreed because in the 80's I was young and stupid.

Over the years I've listened to a lot of things.  I've listened to more than my fair share of music, TV, radio, movies.  I've listened to children.  I've listened to coworkers, bosses, my husband.  And, the older I get, the more I realize the Survivor might just have been right.  It might be the emotion, not the words, that we all should be hearing.

Recently I got to listen to singer Miley Cyrus' latest little tune. Now, I've often thought that the fallen Disney Princess is the product of questionable parenting.  (When TV Dad is smarter than Real Dad, and TV Dad and Real Dad are the same guy, just with different writers, the world is a very confusing place.)  Her most recent antics would make us think that's she's a young woman who has everything and is way out of control.

A quick look at the refrain of her song "We Can't Stop" does little to undermine that assumption.

It’s our party we can do what we want
It’s our party we can say what we want
It’s our party we can love who we want
We can kiss who we want
We can see who we want

So la da di da di, we like to party
Dancing with Miley
Doing whatever we want
This is our house
This is our rules
And we can’t stop
And we won’t stop
Can’t you see it’s we who own the night
Can’t you see it we who bout’ that life
And we can’t stop
And we won’t stop
We run things, Things don’t run we
We don't take nothing from nobody

Oh yeah, she's a party girl and good luck trying to put her in her place.  The thing is, reading the words and hearing the words are two different experiences and after hearing the song a couple times, I'm starting to wonder if this song is less about a shout of independence and more a cry for help.  She sounds less like a defiant party girl and more like a lost child begging for someone, anyone, to help her reign things in before something really awful happens because she simply cannot stop her self destructive ways.

There's so much more to communication than mere words.  There's tone of voice, there's body language, there's facial expression.  None of which is readily available to those of us who write words on paper...or computer screen.

As writers we have to be very aware that it's not just WHAT our characters say.  Dialogue is a very good...and easy...method of characters revealing and exchanging plot points.  But dialogue alone does NOT give the reader the full experience, the full escape.

I'll take a quick example from my book, "Lies in Chance." First, here's a line of dialogue from Bryan (the romantic hero), as he's sitting next to Shara (the heroine):

"Your hands are cold."

You don't get much there, right?

Now, here's how this goes in the actual book:

She covered his hand with her own fingers, and the chill of her skin startled him.  "Your hands are cold."  His voice was husky, straining to hold back words he suddenly ached to say.  Instead, he took both her hands in his and warmed them.

Now, suddenly, you get a better image of what's going on between these two people.  Now you can sense that there's clearly something going on, that he's feeling an attraction of some kind for her.  It's not what he's saying to her.  She knows her hands are cold.  But he's telling her that he's aware she's got some sort of discomfort and, while he's not ready to tell her anything else (he's not ready to admit any of this to himself at this point in the book) he has a tremendous need to take care of her, even in this small way.  It's a quiet moment, but it's big in the story because by taking her hands in his, Bryan has crossed another in a series of thresholds he needs to cross to realize his love for Shara.

Telling stories is an art, just any other creative job.  Telling a story in front of an audience is easy compared to putting it down on paper.  Writing a story for others to read requires a sharp focus on the other senses.  We need to paint a picture, we need to turn on the volume so that our readers aren't just reading words, they are hearing and seeing what's going on with our characters.

Our readers don't want to just read the words.  And we, as writers, need to make sure we're hearing more than just what our characters are saying.  We need to hear how they are saying it.

Characters matter...even on Reality TV.

Good morning!
I am a devotee of the show "Survivor." That's not a secret. I was hooked from the start and I've watched virtually every moment of the show's 20+ seasons. Most recently, The Girl and I are watching the few seasons that are on DVD.

I signed up for Netflix, because I wanted to get every season of Survivor on DVD to watch the history of this magnificently popular show all over again. It surprised me that I was not able to get all the seasons. In fact, of the 20 seasons available, I'm really only able to get about six.

In a time when everything from TV movies to the cheesiest sit com get put on DVD, it was a very big surprise that not all the seasons were put on. Still, I've been watching the seasons I can watch, most recently, rewatching the awesome "All Stars" season, which we finished watching last night. But before we watched the finale of "All Stars" we watched episode three of the current season, as it aired on TV.



SPOILER ALERT:

NFL coach Jimmy Johnson got voted off last night. Now, I was very surprised the 66 year old TV commentator even went out there. Face it, Survivor is a young person's game. Each year the cast gets younger, and more photogenic, and the older folks are few and far between. In fact, this season, it's the old folks against the young folks. The age divisions are everyone 40 and up on the old team and everyone 30 and down on the young team.
Yep, 40, according to Survivor, is old.

Here's the problem with this concept. When you're casting a show, a reality show where you want diversity and interesting people, by limiting the age groups right out of the gate, you're just not going to get very interesting characters. And then the show is boring.


Jimmy Johnson was probably the most interesting character on the old team. First of all, the man might be a bajillionaire, and as a Packer fan, I've cursed him out all the years he coached the Cowboys. But as a player on Survivor, the man had skills. He could have done very well if the other completely predictable, completely BORING old farts hadn't voted him off last night. Marty, leader of the oldsters now, is just not that interesting. He's a middle aged white guy who managed to take out the one guy who knew what was what when it came to planning a strategy at challenges. And, since the tribe is old and crippled next to the younger group, without strategy, they have nothing. Personally, looking at the old tribe, the seven remaining members are either frustrated jocks who think they know it all and can do it all, or meek little women who will do what they're told. The old tribe members keep saying they're all leaders in their fields. Well, that's not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing boring women, boring, predictable guys, and a losing tribe. (Except for Fire Captain Tyrone, who is funny, and plays things close to the chest. Watch for him to do well.)

That brings me to the younger tribe, or as I like to call them, the rainbow of bad stereotypes. You've got Nay, the PE Teacher who spends a lot of time and energy being loud, rude, and very...what was the term she called herself last night? Oh yes, very HOOD. (hmmmm, an African American woman who is loud and wags her finger at people and is pushy? I think that was done really well before...by Alicia in Australia and All Stars. So Nay is just a copycat, and sort of a mean one at that. Boring.)


And then there's Fabio. That's not his real name, but he has long hair and is sort of pretty. So everyone calls him Fabio. He's also as dumb as a stump, so it wouldn't surprise me one second if he's forgotten what his real name is.

Again, the youngsters pretty much fall into two groups: Boring jocks who think they're going to win and "get with" the pretty girls, and, well, the pretty girls. There is the one girl who has one leg, and I give her a TON of credit for being out there, but other than having an artificial leg, there isn't anything interesting about her. I don't even remember her name.


So I watched the episode last night and thought, "well, the most interesting person just got voted off, and it's only week three." Then I watch the finale of All Stars, which, even thought I knew who would win, was far more interesting and fun to watch.



What's my point in all of this? Even in reality TV, you need good, interesting characters. You need characters people are interested in, characters people care about. Other than Tyrone, who has the best facial expressions I've ever seen, and who is the one person in Survivor who knows to keep his face SHUT at tribal council, there are no interesting characters on this season. Not yet. Maybe some of them will grow on me. Maybe I'll just stop watching this season.

It's the same for writing. If your characters aren't interesting, no one is going to read your book. You could have the most fascinating plot on earth. But if no one cares about the people in the plot, it won't matter. Meanwhile, if you have a skimpy plot, but really interesting characters, you may have success with the book.



TV, movies, books. It's all about the people. I've watched movies that were terrible...but I loved a certain character in that movie, and I cared about what happened to them. I've read books sometimes not because the plot is great, but because I'm really interested in a character. It might seem like the two go hand in hand, but that's not true.



Why was "Gladiator" the best movie of 2000? Not for the movie itself. There have been a million action movies, gladiator movies, war movies. The difference was Maximus. Producers later bemoaned the fact that they killed Maximus, because he was such a strong character they could have made another movie.



Why are certain characters made over and over? "Robin Hood?" Because we love Robin Hood. Good movie, bad movie, it doesn't matter. Robin Hood is an icon that people care about.


Sherlock Holmes is another one. Face it, those books are predictable. You're not reading Sherlock Holmes to see "if" he's going to solve the crime. You're reading, and you're watching the movies, because you love Sherlock Holmes.


So it's the character, my friends. Now go forth and write!

Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up!

Good morning!

I saw a t-shirt recently that said, "The difference between real life? Fiction has to make sense."

As writers, you know how frustrating it is getting a critique back from someone or getting rejection letter saying, "We were confused." One of my favorite rejection came from an agent who said, "I was confused about who the main characters were."

I shouted at that letter, as I shout at Heidi Klum when I watch "Project Runway." "WHAT IS CONFUSING? IT'S A STORY! (Or, when I'm shouting at Heidi. "IT'S A DRESS!")

Why is "reality" TV so popular? Real people are not pretty, they're not graceful, they're not dramatic, and, as I witnessed last night, they're not all that smart. Real people NEED writers because writers know that to get to point B, you have to start at point A and follow a logical path. Real people, working without writers, tend to bounce around and land on a point C that no one even knew was there.

Case in point: Survivor last night. (And if you haven't seen it, STOP READING NOW, go to CBS.com and watch it before reading the rest of this!)

I was really excited about the concept of Heroes vs. Villains. I mean, after 19 seasons of Survivor, honestly, I'm losing track of who played on which Pacific island and it's nice to see some of my favorites or least favorites at it again. Bonus, two of my all time favorite Survivors, Tom the Fireman and Stephanie, were there. (And got voted off VERY EARLY because, well the heroes are MORONS.)

Turns out, being a hero on Survivor doesn't mean you're smart, or logical, or talented, or...well, all it really means is that you're sitting on a team of people who want to be conniving and simply don't have the brains it takes to plan a trip to the grocery store. Which is why the heroes were STINKING UP THE JOINT endlessly until they finally figured out how to win a challenge or two. Then, full of their good fortune (Which they attributed to getting rid of the right people...don't get me started...) they found the holy grail of really good stuff...the hidden immunity idol!

Now, the point of the hidden immunity idol is that it is HIDDEN until the person who found it uses it. Survivor history is littered with morons, most of them either on this heroes team now or should have been, who used the hidden immunity idol the wrong way, or, in the case of James...not at all. (And he had two of them in his pocket!) So did the Mensa member who found the idol KEEP IT HIDDEN? Um...no.

The first thing Good old boy JT did (And for those of you who don't know, JT won the million in his season mostly because he was a sweet dirt clod kicker that everyone loved and no one was going to vote against. I liked him at the time. I sort of hoped he'd put the money toward some higher education...or maybe just some basic common sense schooling.) was show everyone in his tribe that he had it!

Okay, so now all the people on your tribe know you have it. Which means either they'll force you to use it or they'll plot against you so that you get voted out without using it. Yeah, way to go.

So what does the brilliant JT decide he's going to do with it?

Hold on to your chairs.

He's going to give it to RUSSELL! He thinks Russell is at the mercy of the idiot women on his tribe. (It should be noted that while women have always talked about a women's alliance, it doesn't happen often, and that's because most of the women are picked for their bodies and not their brains. Seriously, there are five women villains left...and one man. And the man is running the show for no other reason than he said he wanted to.)

Again, if you don't follow Survivor, let me explain. Russell is the man who found three of these idols without so much as a clue. He's a complete troll who someone performs Jedi mind control on everyone around him, (women are especially weak in his presence.) He's also mega paranoid and the best way to stay in the game is to tell him that someone else is plotting against him. (Right Coach?) So, even Russell, who seems to be smart, is really just a dumb dumb.

Oh, and he's a Villain, which means he's not even on Jt's TEAM!

But, the future winners of the Nobel peace prize gathered last night and listened as JT read a letter he'd written to Russell. (I know, I didn't realize JT could write a letter either!) At one of the challenges, they passed the idol to Russell who went back to his tribe, read the letter out loud, and then mocked JT and the heroes in general.

See, now if a writer were to put something like this in a manuscript, I promise you the critique would read like this:

There is no way on earth the hero would save the villain for no reason. The villain has not grown or changed, and the hero is basing this saving on a reason that is not only not true, it's not logical.

But this is what is happening to these people. Writers can't write this stuff, even if they want to. If we read it in a book, if we saw it in a movie, we'd shout at the screen, "THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!"

So go back to your work, my friends. And know that in spite of what you may see around you in the real world, when you're writing, it has to make sense.

The tribe has spoken!