While The Hunger Games is a reality game show of Survivor on steroids, it is by no means the first of this type of story.  Plenty have pointed out the disturbing parallels between The Hunger Games and the Japanese story of children battling to the death, Battle Royale. I’ve not read the Japanese book, yet, but the film is worth your time (warning: it’s very bloody).  Long before, though, we had Stephen King’s tale, The Running Man (made into a movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, but not a very good one).  Go further back and you get the schlock flick, Deathrace 2000.  In fact, you’ll find plenty of examples throughout prose and television of this same basic idea — battling to the death as televised entertainment.

It’s a weird aspect of science fiction that sometimes — not often, but sometimes — the crazy worlds we create become reality.  Cell phones were predicted in Star Trek’s communicators.  Geo-sync orbiting satellites were famously described by Arthur C. Clarke long before they were a reality.  And then we have Survivor.

Now, thankfully we haven’t degenerated to the point that the contestants are trying to physically harm or kill each other, but they are trying figuratively to cut each other’s throats in order to win one million dollars.  As a writer, I love Survivor because you get to see human behavior under extreme stress and paranoia.  Writing action-adventure fantasy, these are things I encounter all the time.  Heroes and heroines, by definition, live under extreme stress.  And unlike other “reality” shows, Survivor is not set up to mimic reality.  Nobody thinks this is real life.  But it is real people stuck in a real game.

Furthering the fascination is the fact that once they reach the jury level (where contestants voted out don’t go home but become part of the jury that will vote for who wins), the jurors are sequestered to a mini-resort known as the Ponderosa.  Online, you can see short videos following contestants from the moment they’re voted off to their first jury sitting.  You see them emerge from the game and discover their humanity again.  Two people who hated each other, lied to each other, and back-stabbed each other in the game, often find that, out of the game, they get along wonderfully and become lifelong friends.

It’s a happier ending than any of the fictions usually provide, and perhaps that says something better about us as humans.

What this post concerns is expectations.

See, over at The Eclectic Review podcast I give a lot of movie reviews.  Now, one surefire way to kill a film is to make me think I’m going to be seeing one type of movie and give me another one instead.  Yet, even as I type this, I can think of quite a few films that successfully pull off this switcheroo.  The key to success is in laying the proper groundwork so that when the true nature of the film is revealed, the audience is not taken by complete surprise.  I should be able to look back and think, “Oh, of course.  That was going on the whole time.”

In Cabin in the Woods, you might think as you’re sitting in the theater that you are in for a horror film.  But really, the movie is a horror film trapped inside a science-fiction/fantasy story.  Whedon handles this by not hiding it at all.  The opening scenes of the movie let the audience in on the concept at large (even though the details are kept secret for some fun later).  It works because I’m not really led down the wrong path, even if the view is a bit obscured.

This, of course, holds true in writing as well.  It’s actually more important because the length of a novel lends itself to being easily invested in one set of thoughts for a long time.  There are many ways to deal with this, but I always prefer the straight-forward method.

In The Way of the Black Beast, I approached it much as Joss Whedon does in Cabin in the Woods.  The opening chapter is designed to set up the proper expectations – that this is indeed a fantasy novel with magic and a sword-wielding heroine, but that there are also blues musicians and a formerly civilized, technologically advanced society.  This is crucial because much later in the book, Malja and her group are in a jeep driving around.  The only way for the reader to buy into that kind of thing is to have the proper expectations laid out early on.

Of course, not all books (or films) have to approach it right from the start.  Alfred Hitchcock notoriously led his audience to believe that Janet Leigh was the protagonist of Psycho, investing a lot of screen time into her character and story.  But he used this to great effect by killing her halfway through the movie.  It jolted and shocked the audience.  At this point, when others start searching for her and Norman Bates must cover up what he’s done, the movie shifts its focus.  This kind of playing with expectations works for two main reasons: 1) though the character viewpoint is shifted, the genre does not, and 2) Alfred Hitchcock is extremely talented.  Not everyone could pull off the same trick using the same script and actors.

In the end, for me, expectations play a vital role in guiding an audience toward the goals the artist desires to reach.  If done right, I reduce my workload later on, and the reader actually fills in all kinds of details based on those expectations.  I can play with those details to reinforce the ideas or jolt the reader with the opposite of the expected.  As long as it’s earned and doesn’t violate the overall story as it was set up, it should work.  But if you pick up a book expecting fantasy and instead got a historical romance, that would be where the problem lies.

I did a lot of research for this novel both in the biology/geology for the world-building as well as in survival skills for the story.  Fascinating stuff that I’ll be sure to discuss down the road.  Today, however, I’m going to talk about a movie that I found very influential and inspiring for this book — Cast Away.

Cast Away is a film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Robert Zemeckis about a man who survives a plane crash only to spend the next four years of his life on a deserted island.  It’s a fantastic film on many levels but two key elements in particular helped my story along.

The first is a bit of structural work. In Cast Away, the first half of the film is spent detailing Hanks’s current world — busy work, family life, various things that surround him with the life, noise, food, and everything that makes up our modern world.  In other words, all the things the story is going to take away from him when he’s on that island.  This was perfect for my purposes, so I did what any admiring creator does.  I stole it.

Sort of.

I actually start After The Crash with a glimpse of Fiona Quinn, my tourist pilot, far in her future, so the reader has a sense of what she will become.  Then we zip back to before the crash and spend a bit of time establishing the world she will lose.  Like Cast Away, I don’t shy from taking my time here.  The more detailed Fiona’s reality is, the greater her loss will be. When we finally get to the crash and its aftermath, if I’ve done my job well, the reader will have that same sense of strangeness that Tom Hanks portrays so well in his film.

The other aspect of Cast Away that had an influence on my book was more on the character level.  In the movie, Hanks makes it back to civilization and is struck (once again) by the strangeness of this different world — only now it’s in reverse with the modern world being the strange one and his island life being the accepted reality.  He then has to figure out how to live. Fiona has it a bit harder.  She spends far longer alone than Hanks’s four years, and as a result, the question of whether to return to civilization or not weighs far greater.

Of course, she goes through a lot more than Hanks did.  She’s on a planet filled with wildlife and danger — not to mention two alien creatures and human scientist, each with their own agendas.  And she’s determined to uncover the mystery of why she was brought into this mess in the first place.  I’ll simply say that things are not as simple as they appear.

I won’t bore you with a rehash of what the show is about. You probably already know (and if you don’t, there are plenty of references). What I want to point out is that she, in fact, was not a simple vamp-slayer nor was she some grrrrl power wannabe. She was actually, and quite simply, a superhero. All the characteristics of a comic book superhero are within her. She is super-human in her physical abilities, she has side-kicks, she saves the world (many times), and she is always right.

That last point is an amazingly overt yet strangely subtle one.  Overt because it happens almost every episode. Something is threatening lives or friends or whatever and Buffy says what should be done, but the rest of the Scoobies ignore, dismiss, or doubt her. They try some other method, fail, and rely on Buffy to save the day.  Which she does, because she loves her friends — they are her family — and because she’s a superhero.  Superheroes help those in need, even when it hurts.

But the whole “being right” thing is quite subtle, too. Never does she point out that she was right, and often she doubts herself enough to not realize she is right. And never do the Scoobies pick up on their pattern of behavior at a conscious level (though they all act as if on some deeper level, they always expect her to be right and to swoop in to save the day).

I could talk about Buffy for a long time, but really, it’s probably all been said.  I suppose I just want to thank Joss Whedon for creating Buffy and sharing her with the world. There’s no doubt in my mind that the current crop of kickin’ butt women we see in books and film and TV owe a lot to her. Even my own dear creation, Malja, must acknowledge that Buffy provided a new scope to the female superhero, one that will reach further into our culture than any of us realize.

Today, I want to look at how research can help inspire writing.  I can say without reservation that if it weren’t for all the research I did on this book, After The Crash would never have happened.

See, I knew I wanted to write a “survival on a wild planet” science fiction story but I also wanted it to be a well-thought out planet — not just some Styrofoam rocks and a purple sky. Now, I’m married to a biologist who, at the time I began work on this novel, was in the midst of earning her Masters.  She taught me how the wondrous life on our planet evolves, interconnects, and operates.  As I started creating my new planet, Cicora, I drew on my wife’s knowledge to help me out.

She loves research.  Pretty soon, she had an extensive reading list set up for me which included classic animal behavior texts by authors such as Konrad Lorenz, E. O. Wilson, and Matt Ridley.  Those texts were just the thing I needed.  Not only did they inform my world-building a ton, but they showed me things about nature and animal behavior I would never have imagined.  They inspired the creation of all of the alien species on Cicora, and thus, changed the course of the story itself.

That’s my favorite moment when doing research.  When I discover some little tidbit that not only helps me create the world of the story but actually transforms the story into something better.  In fact, it’s the very core of what I seek out when researching for writing.

This has been on my mind a lot lately because I’m about to delve back into research for a novel that won’t be ready (I think) until sometime next year — if all goes well.  It’s a cool project that I’m partnering with a friend and his expertise is giving me quite a reading list to tackle.  Once I’m up to speed on the subject (and yes, I’m purposely not saying too much here — I get a bit superstitious with my writing — especially in the early stages), I’ll be able to start plotting.  Except this one is more than just a straight narrative.  More on that down the road.

Point of all this is quite simple.  Research can be (and should be) more than just gathering information to make your history or science or gunplay or whatever be accurate and sound authentic.  It’s more than just information.  If done right, research will uncover the gems of a story that will enrich the tale and, thus, the reader experience.

I actually have a paranormal-mystery series that’s going to start up in June (knock on wood) which involves the history of my home state, North Carolina.  Like After The Crash, the stories in this series (the first book is called Southern Bound) were heavily influenced by the research I did.  And now that I’m writing about this, perhaps I’ll share some of the specific research in a later post — if you’re interested, of course.

Until then, enjoy the fruits of my researching labors!

There’s something very retro about this that I like — but no too retro.

And here’s a short blurb about the story:

The job is simple — land illegally on the unspoiled planet Cicora, drop off two aliens and a human, collect the pay, and go home to life as a tourist pilot.  Oh, and ask no questions.  But when Fiona Quinn’s ship crashes, she is stranded on a strange planet with a gorruff, a mahtree, and a man.  And all she has is questions.

While Donnie Yen is only now getting noticed in America, he’s been doing martial arts films since the early 1980s, starting out as a stuntman and working his way into a fight choreographer, lead actor, producer, and director.  If there is a Rat Pack of Hong Kong action stars that includes Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen is a big part of it.  He’s currently the highest grossing Hong Kong action star and puts out between two and four movies a year.  It was his one-two punch of the biopics Ip Man and Ip Man II (about the legendary Wing Tsung master Ip Man who taught Bruce Lee) that not only blew away fans and brought him high acclaim, but also brought him to America’s attention.

What makes him so good?  Of course, he has great martial arts skills, and he practices Wing Tsung which has not been used as much as kung-fu or other forms in film.  He’s also a 6th degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and proficient in numerous other forms.  In fact, if not for a serious shoulder injury, he would probably be dominating the MMA circuit right now.  He’s also good-looking (important in film) and charming.  But on top of that, he has acting chops.  While the action in the Ip Man series is astonishing, there are plenty of dramatic aspects to the film as well.  More than any other film star/martial artist, I see Donnie Yen attempting to do more than just kick butt.  He brings a sense of soul to his characters that creates a strong impact.

As a writer, I’ve tried to use this with Malja, Owl, and all my characters in their fighting.  It’s not just about cool moves and big explosions.  Whereas Jackie Chan infused humor with his stories, Donnie Yen shows how to throw a punch and still have a drama behind that fist.  That’s a key element to writing good action — making it about more than just a fight.  It’s true in film, too, but it’s easier to get away with just the visual element in film.  Obviously, this is not so in prose.

Think about it this way: which is more interesting — a man punching another man or a man forced to punch another man but not wanting to, in fact, knowing that if he does so, in some way, he could cause serious harm to his own soul.  From theater to film to books to campfire stories — all storytellers know that it’s far more exciting to watch somebody try (and usually fail) to not do something than just to simply do it.  Donnie Yen brings that to his martial arts film work.  I highly recommend checking it out.

This is important to us in genre because it explains why all science fiction and fantasy once was simply called Science Fiction.  Lord of the Rings? Science fiction.  Dragonriders of Pern? Science fiction. You name it, that’s what it was called.  Why?  Because riding out of the 40s and 50s, science fiction was the big seller.  Technological advances were happening but the real exciting stuff was still in our imaginations.  We contemplated things like going to the moon but couldn’t quite get there yet.

By the 80s, however, Fantasy started kicking into high gear. It began to outsell science fiction enough that the booksellers split the two genres (I know the publishers had a hand in this, too, but I’m trying to keep this simplified).  Because of the way traditional publishing is set up, the two genres ended up with a stiff divide between them.  Those authors unfortunate enough to be inspired to write a genre-crossing novel?  Well, most of them didn’t get published.

But today, things are changing.  Readers, while still enjoying the firmly entrenched SF or Fantasy story, are more willing to try stories that mix the two.  And thank goodness.  Not just because it allows me to write a series like The Malja Chronicles which is Fantasy (there’s magic after all) but also has clear science fiction influences (apocalyptic themes, portals to other worlds, a technologically advanced past), but also because allowing writers to blend the two genres (or any genres, for that matter) takes off the shackles.

What attracts me most to Fantasy is the limitless possibilities.  You can do anything.  But during that period of the 80s to 90s or so, publishers and booksellers started putting on “rules” to what worked and what didn’t.  Medieval settings, dragons, detailed and consistent magic systems, etc, etc.  It was all a crock but it made them feel like they had some way of controlling what would be a bestseller.

Now some “rules” are certainly good guidelines, especially for a novice writer.  But the fact is that in Fantasy, if you can make it work, then you can do it.  Doesn’t matter if your magic system has no sense of rules about it.  If you write well enough to have your readers buy into it, if you serve your story well, then it works.  Think of all the fairy tales we grew up on.  There isn’t a huge magic system, but rather there is magic and maybe one rule given.  And the rule exists only as a plot point (a magic mirror, only a kiss will break the spell, etc).  That’s the beauty of this genre.  It’s a big part of where the art exists.  And, in the end, it’s why I’m thrilled to see readers embrace the full scope of the genre once again.

The movie stars Ron Perlman, no stranger to heavy make-up type movies, and Rae Dawn Chong, sister of Robbi Chong (TV actress for decades now) and Marcus Chong (Tank from The Matrix) — all children of Tommy Chong (of Cheech & Chong fame).  The movie is spoken entirely in caveman-ish and that language was developed by Anthony Burgess (who wrote A Clockwork Orange).  In other words, there were some big names associated with this attempt to make a realistic caveman movie.

In many ways, it was a success.  It made a lot of money and won a bunch of awards, including an Oscar for Best Makeup.  In fact, almost all of the awards it received were in the makeup and sound editing departments.  So, we know it looked and sounded really cool.  And it still does, for the most part (the only super-schlocky thing are the mastodons, but hey, this was 1981.  There was no CGI back then).

So why did I add this movie to this series of posts?  Because, despite the admirable job the movie’s creators did in putting together this work, despite my inner-geek loving this movie, it is still a caveman movie that doesn’t quite deliver.  Clearly it delivers better than any other caveman movie in existence, but that’s not saying much.  In fact, I’d argue that with the exception of Jean Auel’s book, there really hasn’t been much good in the way of caveman fiction.

And yet, part of us yearns for just such a tale.  I suspect it reaches in to the very same part of us that finds pleasure in post-apocalyptic tales — a look into our own world minus all the advances that make civilization civilized.  In some ways, it’s the closest we get to seeing our truest nature — the part of us that simply lives unbound by polite rules.  Of course, we can’t live this way in our real lives, so we turn to fiction.

The problem many who attempt this brand of storytelling run into, I believe, is that there are two conflicting aspects to this unique story.  On one hand, a caveman story is historical fiction.  There is a limited record out there to be researched, digested, and utilized for creating an authentic story.  This is no different than the work a writer puts in to creating a Civil War story or something taking place in the 1940s.  Research, digest, utilize.

However, there is a competing aspect that I touched on above — the post-apocalyptic tale.  Whether fantasy or science fiction, the post-apocalypse has provided writers and genre readers with endless hours of fun.  And because there is a caveman-ish feel to a post-apocalyptic tale, many writers mistakenly reverse that concept — they make their caveman tale feel a bit post-apocalyptic.  They add in fantasy elements like giant monsters to battle (sometimes dinosaurs, sometimes complete fictions) or magic shaman.  Essentially, they approach the material as if an all-out caveman movie would be boring, so they have to jazz it up with SF and F elements.

That’s the problem Quest for Fire attempted to correct.  They succeeded on many levels, but as a whole, the movie just doesn’t hold up.  It certainly gave me hope back in the ’80s that others would build off the baby steps this movie took, and for that I love this movie.

But I’m still waiting for a truly awesome caveman film.