by Ben Zackheim | May 16, 2012 | The Camelot Kids, Writing |
The world sucked for a kid growing up in 70s and 80s America. And it was hard to ignore the suckage, which ranged from the Iran Hostage Crisis to Iran Contra to Max Headroom.
Luckily, fantasy worlds were pumped up on steroids and better than ever! Star Wars, comics, and any Atari game or Tor book were crucial to my sanity. Taking a look around at what popular culture has become today, it’s clear that several million others felt the same way.
Back then, I read comics and books that swept me away from wherever I was because wherever I was sucked. With Star Wars or Superman I could escape into a place that had nothing in common with my farty classroom, or the stale mall, or my quiet bedroom. To me, there was no magic here. There was only magic there.
This is one of the reasons why I hated stories where kids from our world stepped into another one. To me, even one child from our reality stepping into a fantastic world would be like a cancer on the story, sucking our insecurities about “otherness” out of us like pus from a wound. Narnia, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland…they were so quaint with their talking animals and a spritzy, cute sheen. And worst of all, the kids always wanted to go home. Losers. The people in these stories were shallow to me. Their bonds to other characters were like a person to a pet — strong but inhuman. All the “heroes” had one foot out the door, willing to risk everything to see mommy again.
My hatred of the “Looking Glass” type of story was vindicated (in my petty, angry, teenage mind) when the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie came out in 1987. Starring Dolph Lundgren and Courtney Cox — need I say more? In the movie, He-Man is trapped in our universe in an adventure to sap the magic out of our world for decades. No, that wasn’t the plot. That’s what the movie actually did. It made your standard TV movie of the week look like The Godfather. To me, this movie was proof that no one knew how to take a normal kid, place him in a another world and tell a good story.
I balanced myself on that told-you-so soapbox for years. It was an argument I had with my film geek college friends in NYU Tisch School. I watched as Hollywood botched fantasy film after fantasy film with nary a lesson learned.
Then Harry Potter came along.
It took Harry Potter to show me that our world and a fantasy world could mix, and be fantastic. The thing about Harry Potter that changed the dynamic for me was emotion. The best fantasy starts with our sense of love, jealousy, revenge, ambition and then places it in a fairy tale. What had been missing for years (for me) was a story that took place in our world but treated us as magic. What author would be daring enough to shed the sarcasm, the cynicism of our times and insist that adventure is right under our noses? Who would find a fantastic way to tell a human story where a school, not a parent, is the ultimate shield from harm? Who would acknowledge our deep desire to be swept into another world and never see this one again? It turned out to be JK Rowling. Brava!
In my previous post, I said the lore of King Arthur is stale. The humanity has been leeched out by centuries of interpretation. Characters have become cardboard caricatures. Camelot has become Disneyland. Chivalry has become trite. In many ways the second most recognizable fairy tale in the western world suffers the same lack of depth that I despise in the other fantasy tales I mentioned before.
This is what I thought. Past tense. Until…
(and this is where my desire to write about Merlin and his pawns sat up from its death bed like the Frankenstein monster)
…until you consider the famous characters as normal people trying to make the world a better place, but stumbling on their weaknesses.
That would be cool.
And make them modern people, who we can identify with.
But don’t lose the history. Never lose the history. Make a sequel, not an adaptation.
Next, I’ll consider what it is, exactly, about King Arthur and his gang that’s kept him around for over 1000 years. And what it could mean for the world if King Arthur’s cause was our own.
Go to part 3: How to write about King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur and Merlin. Feel chivalrous.
by Ben Zackheim | May 3, 2012 | The Camelot Kids, Writing |
When I first had the idea for The Camelot Kids, my upcoming book, it was about a summer camp run by Merlin. Cool idea, maybe, but too similar to some stories I was reading at the time. I abandoned the project before it got started.
But my brain snagged on the Camelot myth. Knights, dragons, wizards, adventure, love, betrayal; this is the stuff we scarf up like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups these days. And it’s attributable, or at least natural, to King Arthur in one way or another. Camelot and King Arthur are the vehicle in which fantasy has been carried through time, to our time.
If you ask people to tell the story of Camelot, well, that could mean a bunch of things.
The quest for the Holy Grail!
The forbidden, dangerous love affair between Queen Guinivere and the knight Lancelot!
Arthur pulling the sword from the stone!
Whichever tale you associate with the Camelot myth, it’s in your noggin somewhere, and it’s a good bet that your impression is somewhere between “meh” and “it’s a little dated, isn’t it?”
Isn’t that odd? One of the oldest fantasies to survive the ages, actually leaves many fantasy fans cold!
As I dug into the story I found something even odder. Camelot felt like a cardboard cutout of fantasy. It felt like a silly 50s Disney film with pointy towers and pointy flags and fair ladies with pointy hats. Everyone wore white or gleaming armor in my mind’s eye. Fair maidens batted their eyelashes. And knights? They jousted, or something. Blech. Maybe Camelot wasn’t for me after all.
In the end, after suffering through many brainstorming sessions, I figured out how Camelot would be relevant to me again. It wasn’t easy. In fact, it took Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Harry Potter and, most importantly, the horrible 80s film, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to give me my eureka moment.
I’ll explain in my next post. Part two is How to write about King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur and Merlin. Make it count.
by Ben Zackheim | Jan 31, 2012 | Writing |
Alicia hated the rubber skin. Military sciencers could prattle on about pre-oxygenated cells and high-pain thresholds, but then she’d have to shove her blaster up their noses. Might make this whole operation worthwhile.
She put Joe in the crosshairs. One squeeze would do it.
As she floated in space, with a thin layer of synthetic film separating her from spritzing Juxta’s smallest moon, she recalled …
“Pass me a napkin, please?” he’d asked in the coffee shop.
“If you pay me,” she’d answered. Since Joe was the richest man on Juxta, and everyone knew it, he laughed.
So easy. All his guards and AIx. But a charming girl could still slither into his top-secret, cloaked satellite lab?
“Sorry, cutey,” she said into her oxygen tank.
Joe faced her.
Squeeze.
He watched her helmet shatter. She looked at him with bulging bionic eyes that would broadcast the incident to her HQ.
Good, Joe thought.
-Ben Zackheim
by Ben Zackheim | Dec 30, 2011 | Writing |
UPDATE! Google has finally released Google Drive for the iPad, with editing built in! Read my review here.
I want to write my book on my iPad. I want to sync it with Google Docs. I want it to be as easy as using the simple but excellent Google Docs editor that I enjoy on my home computer.
I can have it all if I’m willing to keep it simple. I’m writing a book. I’m out of luck.
To put it simply, this is what you can do if you want to write on the iPad with Google Docs.
1) Go to docs.google.com on Safari with the iPad. Safari appears to behave best with Google Docs compared to the other iPad browsers, but experience may vary.
NOTE: You may run into prompts that tell you the browser isn’t compatible, just press ‘Cancel’. Don’t press ‘Okay’ or you’ll reload the page and get the same error again.
2) Use the desktop version (photo credit: Michael Doan)
credit: Michael Doan at http://michaeldoan.com
3) Start the doc on Google Docs. Don’t import a large document. More on this in two lines.
You should be able to enjoy the experience for a little while…
Then the document will grow to a size that the iPad or Safari doesn’t like at all. I’ve found that if your doc is three pages long or more the iPad/GD experience degrades to uselessness. There’s just no way to make it work well. I made the mistake of importing my book’s 400 page draft. Forget it. Typing one letter takes a couple of minutes. I’m not sure if it’s a Safari cache issue, an iPad issue, or a GD browser incompatibility (as the error message implies). But whatever it is I hope “they” fix it. There isn’t a single good solution for having an elegant iPad/Google Docs experience. I’ve bought all the main word processors (so you don’t have to), including Docs 2 Go, which works horribly.
This may be a case of Apple not wanting you to use anything but iCloud and/or Google not wanting you to use anything but an Android device. Either way, it sucks, and it leaves writers with no good solution to make our iMobile lives seamless in the Google ecosystem.
Let me know if I’m missing something.
Update: Another month of searching for the perfect solution. Another month of disappointment. I’m trying Pages for ipad with iCloud and there is no true syncing of docs. It’s a disaster for anyone who works on both PC and iDevices. I’ve started to use Memeo Reader which is similar to GoodReader but focuses on syncing Google Docs and promises an editor soon. I’ll try it out when it’s released and update again.
Update #2: Well, it turns out you can edit docs when you choose “Mobile” setting in Google Docs on the iPad. Previously I was unable to get the mobile version to preserve any formatting. I’m assuming that was a bug that got fixed by Google or Apple. The bottom line is that I’ll write/edit in Mobile mode for awhile and see if that suffices. To edit in Mobile mode just skip step #2 above, and click on Edit in the upper right of the screen. I’ll also be keeping any eye on Memeo Editor.
by Ben Zackheim | Nov 22, 2011 | Writing |
Writing about writing is like writing about God. It’s good exercise but it doesn’t get anybody anywhere. Having said that, something happened to me today on my way to the underwear drawer that I need to document for myself, which is fitting since I’m the only person who reads this blog.
This morning, while shaving the space between my eyebrows, I was overcome with affection for all that is simple. Especially simple stories.
I’m working on a project with Eric Fogel, creator of Celebrity Deathmatch. Eric has an ear for what fuels a line, a scene, a story. He’s also a master at concocting elegant characters and situations. It’s a mutant power that I hope to activate in my own DNA by either breathing his exhales or stealing blood.
Barring that, I’ll write crap until I get it.
The eyebrow-razing moment (pun intended) came about due to something Eric said. He’d just emailed me a completely new story using an old character he developed when he was in college. He’d written it in a couple of hours and it’s really good.
“This world writes itself,” he said.
He’s right. I’ve written a number of stories with this character over the years and it’s always the easiest project imaginable. And the stories I’ve written are amongst my favorites.
So what’s the secret? How can I create something that writes itself?
The way I see it, this is the rule:
Start with a simple character who’s good at one thing. Make the world bereft of that thing. Forever and ever.
Two great examples of the kind of character and world I’m talking about.
One, Sherlock Holmes. Best detective in the world. When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Two, Superman. Hero with super strength. Fights for truth and justice.
You can write a million stories about these guys. Their “premise” is simple, which is just another way of saying that they have simple souls in a black and white world. Sherlock knows the key to success is eliminating the impossible. Superman knows injustice and lies when he sees it because it punches him in the face.
Then there are characters like Harry Potter. He’s a one-off. He has a history which must be addressed. He has a destiny which is the end of his story (at least the exciting part). Sure, you can write some fan fiction and maybe even make a good read. But if it doesn’t tie into his struggle with Voldemort then it won’t resonate.
My tendency is to create characters with destiny.They drive toward an end that’s obtainable. They have arcs that dictate whether they will be seen as realistic, entertaining, solid. If I deliver on the arc I succeed. If I don’t then I don’t.
My next character will be simple. She’ll be good at one thing. The world will need her. And her job will never be done.
by Ben Zackheim | Oct 10, 2011 | Comics, Writing |
A few years ago I took a comic book idea I’d developed with illustrator-extraordinaire Nathan Fox, ate it like a pure and good strawberry, and yielded upon the world (i.e. no one, really) a brand-spanking new and horrid novel. Nathan still bugs me that he wants to read it. But I’d rather he read my high school diary.
You see, it’s a Nanowrimo novel. Nanowrimo is a project that asks writers to fill the blank page with something resembling words throughout the month of November. If even 10% of the books written were as bad as mine then I assure you that the Doomsday Clock, out of spite, deducted a minute from our collective lives. In fact, with every Nanowrimo book written an angel loses its wings. That’s what I heard, at least. So I signed up.
I called it Repo! With an exclamation point. Because it’s not just Repo. It’s Repo! It ended up as a month’s worth of turned out excrement, with chunks of brilliance distributed unevenly throughout (for those who bother to dig for it — not advisable).
But the premise is cool. An Iraq War vet comes home to find that the country he fought for is in the middle of an orgy of buying crap. The lack of priorities slaps him on the back of the head like a condescending grandparent. It just so happens that the vet comes from a family of repo men. And he’s the best repo of all of them. He ran to the army to escape his asshole dad but now it’s time to rejoin the family business!
A little bit Die Hard, a little bit James Bond a little bit People vs Larry Flynt; it was a blast to write. And a hangover to read.
For this year’s Nanowrimo I’m considering a second draft. I’m not sure I have the stomach to lift the pile from the hole in the ground and feel for the good stuff with my nice, clean fingertips. We’ll see.
To begin, whiskey please!
Oh yeah, here’s the first chapter. For posterity. And for Nathan! Enjoy buddy. Or don’t. Either way, this is all you’ll ever see — of the first draft…
You can read the chapter in the widget below, or you can read it on the web page underneath.
Chapter 1
Lots of friends die on you, but not many die together in front of you, arguing as if it would come to anything. There are lots of ways to measure a life, but friendship is the one metric that always makes sense. To Jack Manhattan, a kid from Manhattan, Kansas who hated his father so much he went to Iraq, well, friends meant a whole mess more than anything else.
Actually, Henry and Charlie were just about everything to him.
Charlie
…had the hell beaten out of him regularly by a mother who also kicked his dad’s ass every alternating Tuesday. It was a tradition around the house. He’d come home from work, get out his beer, and just wait for the broomstick on the back of his head. He didn’t even fight it after 9 years. Actually he quit fighting once Charlie was born. Better to teach the kid how to behave around momma when it was his turn. Charlie was on an every-other-day routine through 16 years.
When he was 12, he met Jack at locker 73 in Manhattan High, on Spencer Hill overlooking nothing.
“Fuck you looking at?” Jack asked.
“Nuthin.”
“Yer Charlie Cook, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You know who I am?”
“Everyone knows who you are.”
Jack had the most famous father in town. Swede Manhattan, of the Manhattan clan, from which the town of Manhattan got its name and its soul, much to the citizens’ distress. Swede owned the local repo business. He’d repo’d from just about everyone in town by the time he was 21. That meant two things. One, everyone hated him. Two, he had everyone’s number – i.e. he owned them – barrette to wedding rock. Being the son of Swede in high school meant you didn’t have any friends, except the ones whose parent’s owed Swede much more than money.
“You almost died right?”
“No.”
“ I heard yer momma almost killed you last year.”
“She did.”
“So she did almost kill you.”
“No. She did kill me.” (more…)
