That tasty, tasty hobby…

A friend of mine, and a contributor on this site, is a teacher.  He’s on summer vacation now and recently took a one man writing retreat.  He left town and stayed at a place with no phone and no TV.  I told him I was jealous since lately I’ve seen my writing get a little deprioritized–short sessions or no sessions at all some days.

But then I got thinking.  I have five days of vacation.  I have no money to go any great distance or do anything particularly amazing for vacation.  Normally that would be depressing and I would just keep working like a drone and bitching about how I didn’t have any money to do anything with the days.  Alternatively I might just hoard the days and dribble them out for a three day weekend here and there. 

Instead I’m taking a writer’s retreat of my own.  I’m just taking all five days and using it to finish the first draft of my novel.  I figure I’m about 98 percent done.  This work has been much more tortoise than hare but now I’m going for a sprint across that finish line.  I’ll lay in a good supply of coffee, tobacco, and beer and put the coup de grace on this bad boy.  It may not sound like much but I’m excited.

Pancake Eric Bahle May 16, 2009 

“How about it, Bob?”
“What’s that?” Bob Grady looked around, called from his reverie. It was Handsome Jack who had spoken.
“How about them flapjacks,” Handsome Jack said. “We’re hungry.”
The whole gang, crowded around the rude plank table, nodded agreement. Bob Grady turned back and held his hand over the black-iron griddle. It felt hot enough so he wet his fingers in a bowl of water and sprinkled it on the griddle. The droplets danced and sizzled on the hot iron. It was ready. Bob gave a heavy sigh and stirred the big bowl one last time before ladling out batter for four cakes. He dropped the ladle back and picked up the spatula.
“You feeling alright, Bob?” said Ozark Dave. “You seem a bit out of sorts.”
“Well, I been thinking,” said Bob. “And I think…”
“You think what?” Ozark Dave prompted.
“I think…I just think I ought to have a nickname.” Bob moved his spatula edge under the cakes but didn’t flip them yet. He was watching for the bubbles to rise up and burst first.
“A nickname?” Handsome Jack said. “I don’t get what you’re driving at. Just hurry up with them flapjacks”
“You’ve all got nicknames,” Bob said. “I should have one too.”
“We don’t all have nicknames,” One-Eye Gonzalez said.
“They call you One-Eye,” Bob said, flipping his pancakes.
“That’s because I only have one eye,” One-Eye Gonzalez said. “It’s not much of a nickname.”
“Well, what about Stabby Pete?” Bob said. Stabby Pete Gunderson looked up from where he sat, stropping the edge of his knife on the leather of his tall boots.
“What kind of nickname did you have in mind?” Stabby Pete asked.
“I don’t know,” Bob said. He transferred the cooked pancakes to a wooden platter and poured out more batter. “Something that sounds tough. Like Mad Dog Grady.”
“They already call me Mad Dog,” said Mad Dog Murphy. “I don’t think we should have two Mad Dogs.”
“What do you need a nickname for?” said Handsome Jack. “You’re not in the gang.”
Bob Grady started and his flip was ruined. The pancake landed edge first and started to crumble and spatter apart. He ignored it and turned to face Handsome Jack.
“What did you say?” asked Bob.
“I said you’re not in the gang,” Handsome Jack said. “You’re just a cook and right now you should be cooking flapjacks.”
“I am so a member of the gang,” Bob said.
“You don’t ride with us on jobs,” said Handsome Jack. “You stay here at the hideout and cook.”
“Take it back,” Bob said, growing angrier. “I am a member of this gang and I should have a nickname.”
Handsome Jack stood and squarely faced Bob Grady. “What are you going to do about it Bob? You don’t even have a six-gun.”
“I am an important member of this gang,” Bob said again. The cakes behind him were burning and the smoke rose around Bob’s head.
“You know what’s important?” Handsome Jack said. “My breakfast. And you’re burning it. You want a nickname? I’ll give you one. Flapjack Grady! Now gimme some breakfast, Flapjack!”
“Don’t call me that,” said Bob. “I don’t like it.”
“Too bad, Flapjack,” Handsome Jack crowed. “You’re burning them, Flapjack!”
“Shut up!”
“Better flip them, Flapjack, before they catch on fire!”
“Shut up!” Bob was screaming now and he threw his spatula at Handsome Jack. Handsome Jack sidestepped it and drew his pistol. He was a fast hand with the gun but he didn’t want to kill Bob Grady, just put him in his place. He held the revolver level with Bob’s belly and his thumb rested on the hammer, ready to cock the piece.
“Alright, take it easy,” said Handsome Jack. “We don’t want no trouble here. How about I just go sit down and you finish making breakfast. We got a deal….Flapjack?”
Bob reached behind him without looking. Handsome Jack saw the look in Bob Grady’s eyes and dropped the hammer on his gun. He snapped off a shot that should have hit Bob in the liver and put him on the ground. Instead it clanged like a church bell on the black-iron griddle that Bob now held before him. Bob swung and Handsome Jack’s pistol went flying out of his burned and smashed hand. Bob swung again at Handsome Jack’s head and Handsome Jack went down like a sack of crap. He tried to scuttle backwards but Bob was on him in a flash.
Bob grunted and growled as the griddle rose and fell. The last bits of burned flapjack flew in wild arcs. At first the griddle clanged but the sound turned dull and flat, like somebody packing fresh turned dirt with a spade. Eventually the sounds grew wet and a little squishy and Bob Grady stood up. He turned to the rest of the gang and wiped sweat off his brow with his forearm.
“I think I should have a nickname,” Bob Grady said.
“Sure,” said Stabby Pete, “sure thing, Flapja…um, I mean…”
“How about Griddle?” One-Eye said. “Griddle Grady?”
Bob didn’t look thrilled.
“Black-Iron Bob!” said Ozark Dave eyeing the black-iron griddle that was now black with burnt flapjacks and bits of Handsome Dave.
“Yeah, Black-Iron Bob,” said Black-Iron Bob. “That sounds tough. Old Black-Iron Bob Grady!” A feeble groan came from the heap at Black-Iron Bob’s feet.
“While we’re at it,” said One-Eye Gonzalez, “we better come up with a new nickname for Handsome Jack.”

Awhile back Jeff posted a piece on firearms mistakes that every writer makes.  Many of them were abused cliches and many of them were maddening pet peeves of mine.  I have some other pet peeves about combat and weapons that predate the repeating firearm.  In some cases they predate gunpowder altogether.

Armor Does Not Make You Slow.  Somehow, somewhere, somebody started the idea that a fully armored knight was about as nimble as lead statue.  A lead statue high on quaaludes.  The cliche is an unhorsed knight was ‘as helpless as a turtle on its back’.  It’s not even close to true.  It is true that in the late middle ages, when tourneys were big money, specialized jousting armor was made.  These suits were designed for only one thing, riding a horse in a straight line with a lance.  They were never designed for any kind of real war (most had helmets that you couldn’t see out of)  Every other kind of armor was designed to keep a warrior alive on a feild of battle and survival meant protection, mobility and vision.  Even the full plate was fully articulated and knights were expected to perform all sorts of acrobatics in them; leaping into a saddle, climbing up siege ladders with only their arms (think monkey-bars), and doing somersaults. 

Swords Don’t Weigh Fifteen Pounds.  Your average sword was under four feet long and under three pounds.  A professional warriors sword would typically be more like three feet and about a pound and a half to two pounds.  The mechanics and physics of what a sword does is based on velocity.  Swords are light and balanced so the six to ten inches near the tip go as fast as possible with the least amount of effort from the end you’re holding.  Even the big two-handers like a Scot’s claymore or landsknecht’s pike breaker are much lighter than you might think.

On the Wearing of a Sword.  Roman legionaries wear their sword on their right hip.  Countless movies get this wrong for some reason.  It looks weird because we’re used to the cross draw and looks like it would be slow and awkward to draw.  It’s not and the Romans knew a thing or two about war.  One movie that got it right is a comedy– Monty Python and the Life of Brian.  Watch the scene where The Centurion is scolding Brian on his poor Latin.  He draws his sword in an eye blink and has it at Brian’s throat in one fluid move.

To the best of my knowledge (not exhaustive by any stretch) the only fighters who regularly carried their sword in a sheath at their back were the Ninja.  But their swords were also quite short.  I admit it looks pretty cool to have a big badass sword slung over your shoulder like William Wallace in Braveheart.  But you can’t actually draw it out of there.  Watch Braveheart again and keep an eye on Mel Gibson at the Battle of Stirling (never mind that the battle actually took place on a bridge).  He’s running at the English screaming like a maniac and he reaches over to draw his sword.  He gets it out as far as he can and it sort of stops.  Then there’s a cut.  Cut back to Gibson and the sword is out.  He sort of mimes drawing it but he’s just swinging it over his shoulder.

Sword Miscellany  Rapiers are not just thrusting weapons.  They were longer and heavier than movies would lead you to believe.  Civilian weapons to be sure but with a battlefield legacy.  They did however evolve shorter, thinner, lighter blades with more and more emphasis on the point until we get the small-sword of the 1700’s.

The swords of Japan are justly famed for their unique construction and incredible sharpness.  But western swords are not weak hunks of iron beat out by cavemen.  The Franks, the Vikings, and The Spanish were all famous for high end swords.  The Vikings made swords similar to Damascus blades that were sharp, supple, and incredibly valuable.

Man Does Not Kill by Sword Alone  The reverence that many cultures attached to the sword has made it the rock star of the slicy dicey world.  It looks cool and actors like to swing ‘em around.  But axes and spears were cheaper to make and very effective.  In fact the sword was often a backup to the spear.  With Troy and 300 the spear might be regaining some cool points however.

Europe has Martial Arts  Damn samurai again!  The structured nature of Oriental arts seems to have clouded the formal training of Europe.  You aren’t just suddenly good with a sword and shield.  You train.  There are many surviving arms manuals and not just the later schools of fence.  Sword and buckler, two handed sword, pole ax, all had multiple schools with codified instruction.  These were often written down in manuals and the Western martial arts still have a somewhat obscure but dedicated following.

Most of this comes down to research and realism.  If you’re writing a story about a Roman soldier serving in Trajan’s columns, you better have it realistic and accurate.  The more you veer away from history and into fantasy the more slack you’ll get.  Conan just wouldn’t work with a rapier, dancing around in a formal Spanish fencing style.  But keep in mind that it can be the realism in a story that really sells the fantastical elements as believable.

Writer #1:  If you ask me, word choice is everything.

Writer #2:  You couldn’t be more wrong.  Diction is everything.

So I’m writing what may or may not be a love scene.  There’s definitely a good looking young woman with no clothes on.  There’s definitely a young man admiring this young lady and her nakedness.  But halfway through I’ve encountered a rare problem:  too many breasts.  If it was first person from this randy young fellow’s perspective I could just use any slang a teenager would use seeing his first live and in-person ta-ta’s.  But no, it’s a third person narrative so I’m just writing breasts over and over again.   Too poetic (milky swell of womanhood, say) isn’t right, the kid’s not that slick.  Heaving bosoms are right out.  She’s not even wearing a bodice to rip.  Boobies is always fun but it’s a little too juvinile even for my young lovers.  I personally don’t have a problem with titties but it has just a hint of X-rated that doesn’t feel right on the page.  But breast just feels so…boring.  It’s what most people say when they’re too shy to say knockers.  It’s almost clinical really, just short of mammaries.  How many breasts can a paragraph have before it starts to sound redundant?  Why can’t the kid at least try to look somewhere else?  I mean they’re nice knockers but come on.  She could put on a shirt or something too.  She knows the dude is checking out her chi-chi’s.  Damn teenagers anyway. Show some restraint. 

Hooters.  Rack.  Naughty Pillows.

Maybe I can just get ‘em a room.

I recently experienced the self-inflicted misfortune of watching two similarly styled films based on video games: Hitman & Max Payne

Each featured an array of decent acting talent (not A-list, but well above C-list).  Each was also pretty well shot and offered some interesting visual effects.  But each was also severely lacking in the story department.  Now, I will say that I have not played the games that begat the films.  It is likely that the screenwriters were both constrained by and propped up by the stories that are presented in-game.  The projects were probably little more than work for hire and neither was able to be pulled up to rise above that ignominious start.  In retrospect, only Max Payne really had any chance of engaging me as a viewer since the characters appeared to have some unmined depths.

I don’t even need all of the digits on one hand to count the satisfying (for me) movie ventures that fall into this genre - Mortal Kombat & Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.  And Mortal Kombat was more of a nostalgia win, since it was based on a game that I actually enjoyed playing.

Looking ahead, I only see two films in this space that might have a chance to break the mold.  One is Alice, based on the American McGee game title.  If the film makers (and more importantly, the screenwriter) can capture the deliciously twisted vision of this game, I will be impressed.  The other is Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, but only because the game designer, Jordan Mechner, based the game on old movies to begin with.  Still, it will require more than flashy swordplay to hold my attention for ninety plus minutes.  That’s right, it’s going to take a story.