No computer blues
Dec. 5th, 2011 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficStill no computer. My sister's actually blew up after I hacked my way in (she hadn't used it in so long that she'd forgotten her password, so I just started typing in teen girl cliches like "pony" "leo". "Cullen" worked. I now have blackmail evidence that my sister is Team Edward). I'm posting this via The Matrix.
Luckily, I've been able to keep busy editing a little project that might actually get published. It's sort of a romance novella, the kind of thing I had sworn never to do again because, haha, what do I know about romance novels? It's a subversion of the "maid falls in love with her master" subgenre, in that the maid is a guy and the master is a woman, but not what you'd call a satire. It'd be too arrogant to satirize something without having read a fair sample of it, and that's time I could be using to... read Bridget Jones' Diary to flesh out the Catherine Tate character. Merry Christmas!
Of course, in a twist worthy of O. Henry ('s high school homework assignment), I realized that no matter how much kinky handcuff sex is in there, a Myka/HG story where they get together, learn a dark secret, break up, are miserable, and finally reconcile is a goddamned romance novel. Whereas a story where Emily Browning in Sucker Punch gets a penis and has sex with all the female cast is porn. That distinction was easy.
Anyway, getting notes on a manuscript from the kind of people who do read romance novels, it's interesting to see what people want out of them. One reader wanted more sex appeal from the male lead, not just in terms of abs (I initially conceived of him as more of a David Tennant/Tom Hiddleston kind of beta male... he still gets called a ferret) but as in acting manly and doing cool stuff. So now he has a few setpieces rescuing kids and fighting people. And abs.
Another reader actually wanted the consumnation of the relationship to take more time, which worked out well because I found a kind of 'orphan' scene of no particular point and shifted it around in the narrative so now it's another moment of JUST KISS ALREADY. I think there's something to that, in terms of shipping. If you just say "here's the couple, root for them!", it's easy for audiences to just dismiss it, but if you say "here's the couple, but oh no, you can't have them!" then that put-off gratification will get them hooked. The trick, of course, is cutting bait before, say, you reboot the entire show's continuity just to keep the leads apart. Come on, Fringe fandom, we all know what's up, don't we?
I think Once Upon A Time has done this really cleverly with Mary Margaret/Snow White and Prince Charming/James/David/Coma Guy/Handsome McHandsomepants. They first show you the couple literally in their happily ever after, but you only get a few scenes of that "shipping bed death" scenario (being cynical there). From then on, all you see is either the meeting and the lead-up to them getting together, or them after they've been "broken up" and are trying to reconcile. Compare that to Brand New Day, which is the same scenario, only the intent is (analogy wise) to get us to ship Prince Charming and his shrewy wife (of course, we've only seen her be shrewish in the fairy tale world, while in the real world she's nice enough to justify Charming's devotion to her. Just to turn the screws a little more).
The OUAP writers are smarter enough to know the audience wants what it can't have and will root for the underdog, while the Spider-Man writers are stupid enough to assume the audience will just ship who they're told to so long as the character is hyped enough.
Speaking of TV, this is going to sound horrible, but what finally got me on the side of Hell on Wheels not being Deadwood Lite is revealing the "hero" as an unrepentent racist. It's a lot bolder than many of the choices they've made so far (compare self-proclaimed villain Durant to lead character/anti-hero Al Swearengen), and while I can see how a lot of people wouldn't go for it, it's a lot less grating than the "Confederate soldier who actually loves African-Americans, really!" (Even Firefly is guilty of that to some extent, reframing the Civil War so that the Space Confederacy was fighting against slavery. I know there's no rule against it, but that's pretty damn weird.) Of course, a TV show has a lot more time to devote to characterization than a movie--unless a movie is specifically about racism, it's much simpler just to say the hero isn't a racist than to spend time on a "black people aren't so bad!" subplot inbetween, say, magic Native American werewolves. (Not that anyone would make a movie about such a ridiculous thing, much less America's sweetheart Johnny Depp.)
Still, it takes some guts to assign that arc (assuming, of course, that the badass gunslinger isn't going to stay an asshole racist--which, c'mon) to the hero instead of some random supporting castmember who the hero can cluck his tongue at. Compare to The Walking Dead, where not only is one of the 0.000001% of the Earth's population that survived the apocalypse a racist, but he's full-on Birth Of A Nation racist.
This has been a ramble.
Luckily, I've been able to keep busy editing a little project that might actually get published. It's sort of a romance novella, the kind of thing I had sworn never to do again because, haha, what do I know about romance novels? It's a subversion of the "maid falls in love with her master" subgenre, in that the maid is a guy and the master is a woman, but not what you'd call a satire. It'd be too arrogant to satirize something without having read a fair sample of it, and that's time I could be using to... read Bridget Jones' Diary to flesh out the Catherine Tate character. Merry Christmas!
Of course, in a twist worthy of O. Henry ('s high school homework assignment), I realized that no matter how much kinky handcuff sex is in there, a Myka/HG story where they get together, learn a dark secret, break up, are miserable, and finally reconcile is a goddamned romance novel. Whereas a story where Emily Browning in Sucker Punch gets a penis and has sex with all the female cast is porn. That distinction was easy.
Anyway, getting notes on a manuscript from the kind of people who do read romance novels, it's interesting to see what people want out of them. One reader wanted more sex appeal from the male lead, not just in terms of abs (I initially conceived of him as more of a David Tennant/Tom Hiddleston kind of beta male... he still gets called a ferret) but as in acting manly and doing cool stuff. So now he has a few setpieces rescuing kids and fighting people. And abs.
Another reader actually wanted the consumnation of the relationship to take more time, which worked out well because I found a kind of 'orphan' scene of no particular point and shifted it around in the narrative so now it's another moment of JUST KISS ALREADY. I think there's something to that, in terms of shipping. If you just say "here's the couple, root for them!", it's easy for audiences to just dismiss it, but if you say "here's the couple, but oh no, you can't have them!" then that put-off gratification will get them hooked. The trick, of course, is cutting bait before, say, you reboot the entire show's continuity just to keep the leads apart. Come on, Fringe fandom, we all know what's up, don't we?
I think Once Upon A Time has done this really cleverly with Mary Margaret/Snow White and Prince Charming/James/David/Coma Guy/Handsome McHandsomepants. They first show you the couple literally in their happily ever after, but you only get a few scenes of that "shipping bed death" scenario (being cynical there). From then on, all you see is either the meeting and the lead-up to them getting together, or them after they've been "broken up" and are trying to reconcile. Compare that to Brand New Day, which is the same scenario, only the intent is (analogy wise) to get us to ship Prince Charming and his shrewy wife (of course, we've only seen her be shrewish in the fairy tale world, while in the real world she's nice enough to justify Charming's devotion to her. Just to turn the screws a little more).
The OUAP writers are smarter enough to know the audience wants what it can't have and will root for the underdog, while the Spider-Man writers are stupid enough to assume the audience will just ship who they're told to so long as the character is hyped enough.
Speaking of TV, this is going to sound horrible, but what finally got me on the side of Hell on Wheels not being Deadwood Lite is revealing the "hero" as an unrepentent racist. It's a lot bolder than many of the choices they've made so far (compare self-proclaimed villain Durant to lead character/anti-hero Al Swearengen), and while I can see how a lot of people wouldn't go for it, it's a lot less grating than the "Confederate soldier who actually loves African-Americans, really!" (Even Firefly is guilty of that to some extent, reframing the Civil War so that the Space Confederacy was fighting against slavery. I know there's no rule against it, but that's pretty damn weird.) Of course, a TV show has a lot more time to devote to characterization than a movie--unless a movie is specifically about racism, it's much simpler just to say the hero isn't a racist than to spend time on a "black people aren't so bad!" subplot inbetween, say, magic Native American werewolves. (Not that anyone would make a movie about such a ridiculous thing, much less America's sweetheart Johnny Depp.)
Still, it takes some guts to assign that arc (assuming, of course, that the badass gunslinger isn't going to stay an asshole racist--which, c'mon) to the hero instead of some random supporting castmember who the hero can cluck his tongue at. Compare to The Walking Dead, where not only is one of the 0.000001% of the Earth's population that survived the apocalypse a racist, but he's full-on Birth Of A Nation racist.
This has been a ramble.
