Monday, April 25, 2011
5 Things I Don't Get
1) Why you always find reams of toilet paper lying on the floor in public restrooms. How much skill does it take to pull out just the amount you need?
2) Why, when blue jeans fade out, they always leave one dark spot.
3) Why that spot is always right at your crotch, so you walk around looking like you have a continence issue.
4) Why they make clothes from soft fabrics like cotton and silk and linen and then destroy all that comfort by sewing in tags that feel like they're constructed from a pineapple rind.
5) Boredom. Back in high school, Ben Campbell, my journalism and English teacher, used to say, "Only boring people get bored. Interesting people do interesting things and keep themselves entertained."
I must have really taken this maxim to heart, because I don't recall the last time I was bored. My usual state is more like a breathless feeling of being behind on twenty-seven different projects and wishing I could find time to take on a twenty-eighth.
How about you?
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Fiction Friday: Subplots, Part 1
Whoa! Fiction Friday!? Haven't seen one of these in a while....
That's because I've been living Fiction Friday, rather than writing about it.
One of the things I've been struggling with is subplots. Guidelines for novels and screenplays recommend no more than three subplots. I have four, and at some point I'm going to have to axe one.
Why? Because there's not time, in a 90,000 word novel or a 90-minute screenplay, to really develop more than that.
Why have any at all? you ask.
Because your main plotline, no matter how riveting, is going to get really tedious if it's all we hear about for that many pages.
Here's how it goes: your main character encounters an obstacle. She figures out a way to deal with it, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. Meanwhile....
Ah, the all-important meanwhile.
Without that meanwhile, it would read like this: your main character encounters an obstacle. She figures out a way to deal with it, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. So she figures out a way to deal with that, too, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. So then she figures out a way to deal with those, too, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. She figures that out and we're done.
As you can see, without subplots it will be tough to build intensity, and your reader will have problems sustaining interest.
So how do you choose subplots?
In well-written novels, subplots are thematically related to the main plot.
For example, in Harlan Coben's Hold Tight, the theme is how technology has changed our lives. The main plot dealt with parents of a troubled son trying to decide how closely to monitor his online activities. There is a subplot around another set of parents whose son had texted his friend a cryptic message just before leaping off a building. There's a second subplot involving a serial killer going after women for a reason that turns out to be related to sexting. And there's a third subplot involving the daughter of the first set of parents and some email messages. Coben's a brilliant plotter, so these subplots intersect at a lot of points, but it's the theme, what Robert McKee calls the "controlling idea" that really holds them together.
Sometimes subplots restate and emphasize the main plot and other times they contrast with it.
In Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, the main plotline and all the subplots revolve around Jacob's desire to rescue people and/or animals: Marlena, the sadistic animal trainer's wife, Rosie-the-elephant, Walter-the-clown, Camel-the-roustabout. In the bookended plot about 93-year-old Jacob, he must rescue himself from the nursing home.
Without spoiling it for those who haven't read it (or seen the movie that comes out today), I will tell you he's only successful part of the time. His failed attempts deepen the emotional impact of his successes, and vice versa.
If you're paying attention, you may have noticed that even though I started out by saying novels should have no more than three subplots, Sara Gruen manages to pull off that fourth, bookended subplot.
Well, for one thing, she's Sara Gruen. And, for another, she doesn't do that last one very well. (My opinion.)
Next week: Subplots, Part 2
That's because I've been living Fiction Friday, rather than writing about it.
One of the things I've been struggling with is subplots. Guidelines for novels and screenplays recommend no more than three subplots. I have four, and at some point I'm going to have to axe one.
Why? Because there's not time, in a 90,000 word novel or a 90-minute screenplay, to really develop more than that.
Why have any at all? you ask.
Because your main plotline, no matter how riveting, is going to get really tedious if it's all we hear about for that many pages.
Here's how it goes: your main character encounters an obstacle. She figures out a way to deal with it, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. Meanwhile....
Ah, the all-important meanwhile.
Without that meanwhile, it would read like this: your main character encounters an obstacle. She figures out a way to deal with it, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. So she figures out a way to deal with that, too, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. So then she figures out a way to deal with those, too, only to discover her approach yields unforseen consequences and she now must deal with them, too. She figures that out and we're done.
As you can see, without subplots it will be tough to build intensity, and your reader will have problems sustaining interest.
So how do you choose subplots?
In well-written novels, subplots are thematically related to the main plot.
For example, in Harlan Coben's Hold Tight, the theme is how technology has changed our lives. The main plot dealt with parents of a troubled son trying to decide how closely to monitor his online activities. There is a subplot around another set of parents whose son had texted his friend a cryptic message just before leaping off a building. There's a second subplot involving a serial killer going after women for a reason that turns out to be related to sexting. And there's a third subplot involving the daughter of the first set of parents and some email messages. Coben's a brilliant plotter, so these subplots intersect at a lot of points, but it's the theme, what Robert McKee calls the "controlling idea" that really holds them together.
Sometimes subplots restate and emphasize the main plot and other times they contrast with it.
In Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, the main plotline and all the subplots revolve around Jacob's desire to rescue people and/or animals: Marlena, the sadistic animal trainer's wife, Rosie-the-elephant, Walter-the-clown, Camel-the-roustabout. In the bookended plot about 93-year-old Jacob, he must rescue himself from the nursing home.
Without spoiling it for those who haven't read it (or seen the movie that comes out today), I will tell you he's only successful part of the time. His failed attempts deepen the emotional impact of his successes, and vice versa.
If you're paying attention, you may have noticed that even though I started out by saying novels should have no more than three subplots, Sara Gruen manages to pull off that fourth, bookended subplot.
Well, for one thing, she's Sara Gruen. And, for another, she doesn't do that last one very well. (My opinion.)
Next week: Subplots, Part 2
Sunday, April 17, 2011
C-PAP--Part 2: The Answer
I hate throwing away food. I'll do it, but it needs to be for a good reason, like being past its expiration date, or visible mold. And the container of asparagus soup in the freezer wasn't bad. In fact, on the Saturday I made it, it was delicious.
Just a little hard to digest.
By which I mean, both Old Dog and I wound up with, um, disturbances, that were, fortunately, gone by the time we returned to work on Monday.
I knew I should throw the leftovers away, that the Rubbermaid bowl in the freezer would be a constant temptation, but because I grew when children in Bangladesh were starving, I couldn't make myself do it.
"Take me!" the soup would whisper each time I opened the freezer door in search of something to take for lunch. "I'm delicious."
But I live in cubicle village at work, and, fearing what might happen, I resisted.
Right up until the Friday when the cafeteria was closed for spring break and all the other leftovers were gone.
We've all seen the footage from Japan, so I don't need to go into detail about what happens when a toxic substance breaches its containment device.
I will, however, tell you about the woman at work who wears scarves as an accessory. She doesn't fiddle with them, she just wears them. But that afternoon when she came to help me with a technical issue, she began to toy with the ends, and by the time she left my cube, she had the scarf wrapped across her nose.
I'm pretty sure she wanted to stuff then tassels up her nostrils, but was just too polite.
When I got home things were no better and that night, for the first time, Old Dog kept the C-PAP mask on all night.
Because it's all about motivation.
CPAP, Part 1--The Challenge
A couple of months ago, Old Dog's snoring reached a volume that left him three options:
1) Get tested for a sleep disorder
2) Sleep in a separate bedroom
3) Risk being suffocated by a spouse driven over the edge by lack of sleep.
The testing revealed sleep apnea, a condition under which a person will stop breathing until lack of oxygen forces them awake. This pattern repeats many times a night, causing the sufferer to skip the most valuable stages of sleep, those that allow the mind and body to renew themselves. Possible side effects of this sleep shortage include weight gain, diabetes, inability to concentrate and propensity to nap when watching NASCAR on TV.
The treatment is something called a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, the device pictured above. The face mask fits over the nose and mouth with a tube leading back to a machine that forces continuous air into the lungs, keeping the bronchioles and alveoli expanded, which makes it easier to keep breathing.
The first night Old Dog got the mask, I took one look at him and said, in my best Jeff Goldblum imitation, "Help me! Help me!"
Old Dog flipped me the bird.
He only made it through about two hours in the mask that night. Miserable as it was, though, when he had it on it kept him from snoring, which meant I slept a lot better.
So we were at least 50% better off.
The second night, I intoned, "Luke, I AM your father."
He flipped me off again, but that night he managed to wear it for four hours.
Night number three: "Doctor," I sobbed, "don't pull the plug. I'm not ready to lose him so soon!"
Can people get carpal tunnel from overusing their middle fingers?
But he was back to two hours that night, and the next morning, he grumbled about having to wear the mask.
"I can't tell that it's making any difference," he said.
But as soon as he removed the mask, he was snoring again, in that stop-start, no-breath-at-all-for-an-agonizingly-long-time way that makes it hard for me to sleep.
How to keep him motivated to wear the mask?
Tomorrow: CPAP, Part 2--The Answer
Friday, April 15, 2011
Thought Food: John F. Kennedy
Monday, April 11, 2011
Gaga for Gaga
A couple of weeks ago, I went to see Lady Gaga in concert.
Those of you who have been away from this planet for the past few years can check her out here.
My going to the concert was the subject of much discussion at work, where the argument fell into two camps:
Camp A: That is the LAST thing I'd ever imagine staid, professional, and, let's face it, OLD, Jeanne doing.
Camp B: That is exactly the kind of weirdo thing I'd expect Jeanne to do.
If you only watch, listen to and read things with which you're 100% comfortable, you live only half a life.
Monday, April 4, 2011
The Yellow Kid
James O'Keefe, the conservative political activist who's much-edited film was responsible for destroying Acorn, who, in the proud tradition of Watergate, was convicted of attempting to bug the office of Louisiana Sentaor Mary Landrieu, who tried to film himself seducing CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau (and if the thought of catching a glimpse of that little worm's worm doesn't make you want to toss your cookies, I don't know what would), has once again trained his camera on the liberal left.
This time, he filmed NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller making racist statements to two supposedly Muslim potential donors. As a result, Schiller and his boss, NPR's CEO, both lost their jobs.
Now it turns out O'Keefe's sting film is, how can I put this delicately? a big fat bunch of bullshit.
To wit:
1) He edited out Schiller's careful, and repeated, explanations that NPR donors have no input into the news process.
2) He removed Schiller's more balanced descriptions of the Tea Party, leaving only the parts where he called them racists. (By the way, if you don't want to be called a racist, don't hang out with guys whose other suit is a sheet.)
2) He altered the video so that answers Schiller gave to one question appear to answer a completely different question.
In the world of evasions, distortions and pants-on-fire horseshit, I will argue that, while the first two bits of editing may fall under "evasions and distortions" that last one, where he actually changed which questions went with which answers, is a flat-out lie.
O'Keefe admits to being "yellow" and says his work is in the proud tradition of muckraking. But muckraking has no proud tradition. A hundred years ago it was garbage and it's still garbage today.
And, just in case you're wondering why I'm so torqued about this, it's because I initially bought this load of crap. Which means I'm as gullible as he is yellow.
(Note: The Yellow Kid was the first newspaper cartoon. Drawn by Richard Occault, it emerged at the turn of the last century, as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer battled for the title of king of the New York newspaper market. They are famous, not for setting any sort of bar for journalistic integrity, but for catching the public's attention. Sound familiar?)
Friday, April 1, 2011
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