September 12, 2013

Intertextuality

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– Or Fandom and Separation Between Fans and Creators –

Fair Warning: This post is sort of Tangentially Related to an article called  I Know What You Did Last Summer: Sarah Michelle Gellar and Crossover Teen Stardom. I’m going to be talking about trends in fandom and also advertising. 

Many of these posts…say nothing about the fans’ preference for seeing stars, such as Gellar, on film versus television, and instead focus on the star as a text unto itself.

-Susan Murray, I Know What You Did Last Summer

In Murray’s essay, she examines how, using the popularity of Buffy, advertisers for films, television shows, and other products of the 1990’s and early 2000’s use the fame of an actor or actress to draw fans from one show to another, with the entry point being the star. The actress, in this case, Sarah Michelle Gellar, is the ‘entry text’ to a new series, item, or movies. I have experienced this advertising method many a time, as it is, in fact, how I rediscovered Whedon (I was on a Neil Patrick Harris kick at the time).

Something that I found interesting, was how the essay refers to Sarah Michelle Gellar as a ‘text’ – a way to read into new franchises, brands, and media, through a person’s physicality and attachment to a role on a television series. I tend to think of texts as…well, written objects, not entry points or, stranger still, people, that allow a person to connect a show, like Buffy, to a movie, like I Know What You Did Last Summer, to a brand like Maybelline.

Advertising normally feels like a shady business to me,  but using someone’s intertextuality, their connection to a single popular character to boost the ratings and/or profit margins of other companies and films seems extra shady to me. If they are doing what Murray suggests, and treating actors like ‘texts’ it seems to work. The girl, Katy, who Murray is using as an example in the quotes, has seen almost everything Gellar has been in (up until the point that post was written), but it seems…wrong. It seems like you lose sight of the person behind the character, and they just become an idol, a text of entry, a thing to be read into.

September 11, 2013

Writing Priorities

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– Or Yet Another Excuse for Procrastination –

I have been thinking recently about how ‘new technologies’ – computers, tablets, cell phones, etc. – have affected my writing. The conclusion I have come to is this; computers and the like have made it so much easier and so much harder to sit down and write, and the difficulty of the task is directly tied to how interested I am in what I am writing.

As an example, over the summer, I wrote a 2000+ word essay on a pair of episodes in the podcast Welcome to Night Vale (if you venture off to read that, be warned; it is long and also has Spoilers). I was not required to write this essay – I just felt like it. ‘Incoherent Babbling’ was composed in about 2 hours, possibly 3 due to locating quotes.

By contrast, in freshman year I had to write a 500 – 750 word essay on the Scientific Revolution. That particular essay took me 4 hours to write.

I’m not proud of that, but it’s a good example of how inspiration or drive affects my ability to procrastinate. In the first example, I utilized the internet in order to locate quotes and discuss the topic with a few friends of mine. By contrast, in the latter example, I spent much of those 4 hours on Facebook, Tumblr, and YouTube, doing anything I could to avoid writing an essay that, frankly, bored me.

The problem lies when I am uninspired, but still need to write, like when I am working on a novel or a short story, and get distracted by videos of cats for three hours. New technologies have made it so much easier to do research for more creative pursuits, but they have also created the perfect procrastination tool. “One more Reddit post” or “Just one more video” are phrases I frequently tell myself when procrastinating, until I run out of time and have to do a rush job on whatever I am working on.

It’s a habit, and a bad one. But I am working on it.

September 5, 2013

Welcome to the Hell Mouth

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– Or An Introduction to Storytelling in Buffy The Vampire Slayer –

Note: This journal post may not make much sense. I tried to connect thoughts as best I could. Apologies; E.  

However narrative is defined, they know it when they feel it.

– Jeremy Hsu, The Secrets of Storytelling

As Buffy the TV series develops, the precariousness of identity becomes ever more pronounced…not only are we introduced to the instability of peer group identities,…but also to the untrustworthiness of adult identities.

– Sue Turnbull, Who Am I? Who Are You?

If there is one thing I love about Buffy (though I haven’t seen every episode), it’s the characters, and how they interact with each other and the supernatural happenings of Sunnydale. What I loved about the first episode, however, was how hard Buffy seems to be fighting her identity.

We see identity explored in loads of teen dramas, but Buffy’s rebellion in the first episode to her position as the slayer is somewhat different. Yes, it’s different because of the supernatural lit to the show, but that’s not what I mean. Buffy’s exploration of self seems much more genuine, because of how much her destiny has ruined her life. Her exaggerated situation reflects the smaller, ‘normal’ teenage rebellions well; like a parent pressuring their child to become a doctor, Giles presses the slayer issue with Buffy. And she rebells. She refuses. There is something really realistic in that; her selfish refusal of her role mirrors one most teenagers know really well.

But, as Sue Turnbull points out in her article about identity in Buffy, it’s more than that. Joss Whedon created characters that, in an exaggerated way, reflect the issues teenagers wrestle with growing up. Realizing adults are not all powerful, and, most of the time, don’t know what they’re doing. The ever changing identity of friend groups. These things are real, and not fluffed up or padded during the writing, filming, or editing process. I’m sure there are things that got cut or added in to placate the studios, but Buffy is a dark, witty, and fully relevant show, even to teens today. I think that’s why I gravitate towards it so much – when the scripts is dark, the environment reflects that (music [ambient] that is too loud to make out the words in the Bronze, for instance). The viewer is not talked down to; Buffy’s rebellion is not looked at as unreasonable. Self-exploration and loss of identity are not trivialized.

I think that’s where the genuineness of Buffy shines – there are lots of other shows, according to Turnbull, that use the same formula that Buffy does. These shows include soap operas, who may just have identity crises to give new life to an old plot, and weekly shows, which deal with a new ‘badie’ every week. But Buffy puts a spin on both of these models – nothing done on the show feels forced. The plots arcs from episode to episode, and characters truly develop through identity crisis (whether individual or not). There are silly episodes and there are regrettable episodes (probably), but, overall, Buffy tries to bring you a version of reality you can relate to, and explore issues in. That, after all, is one of the more important definitions of story telling.

September 4, 2013

Technology

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– Or Thinking About What Multimodal Writing Means –

We need to consider what is at stake – who and what it is we empower and discount – when we use the term [technology] to mean primarily, or worse yet, only the newest computer technologies and not light switches, typewriters, eyeglasses, handwriting, or floor tiles as well.

– Jody Shipka, Toward a Composition Made Whole

It’s hard, I think, to think about technologies in a manner more complex than the computers we’re accustomed to using. Growing up, I remember being taught about ‘new technologies,’ but somewhere along the way, that term was shortened to ‘technology.’ I distinctly remember and instance in high school when a teacher made the radical statement that a desk was technology.

“No, it’s not,” said some, “it’s just a desk.”

Our teacher said that, at one point, people didn’t have desks to write on, and that a desk would have been just as revolutionary as a computer is to us. (Thinking about it now, I would say that the very act of writing was at one point new and is, by this loose definition, a technology as well.)

I try to think about multimodal writing more complexly than just ‘digital’ or ‘audio-visual’ writing projects, but after reading the introduction to Jody Shipka’s book Toward a Composition Made Whole (and talking to Dr. Warnick, my Writing and Digital Media professor), I realized that I wasn’t. Not really. I’ve talked in the past about how writing in other genres (for I will contend that video games and movies are, in fact, genres) requires thinking more complexly about what it means to write, I have never really considered how technologies (pen and paper, computers, apps, mobile devices, desks) and environments (classrooms, the out doors, and the sights and smells and noises involved in each) affect my writing. Is it easier for me to blog on a computer, and write novels by hand? How does writing on a computer affect my sense of ‘writer’s block’? What about where I work?

These are questions I hadn’t considered before, but I believe they are essential to thinking about how you prefer to write, and what we consider multimodal. Because, as Shipka states in her exploration of the topic, multimodal writing is so much more than simply digitizing our words.

September 3, 2013

An Explanation

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– Or Why Am I Here? –

Long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I had a blog called “What do I do With a BA in English,” and it was glorious. Granted, I was required to blog for the Honors program, but I legitimately enjoyed it. More recently, however, that blog is being required to be something it wasn’t supposed to be — a glorified inbox for seminar assignments. I firmly believe that blogging as an assignment sort of defeats the overall purpose of running a blog, so, here I am.

New title.

New layout.

Old tricks.

I will be using this blog to talk about writing, composition, video games, movies, and everything and anything else that catches my eye, because that is what I enjoy talking about. It is likely that I will also be relating most of it to one of my college courses this semester (Writing and Digital Media), in part because I must, but mostly because that class is exciting and new and freaking awesome.

So, welcome. I have been at this blogging thing for a while now. If you want to see a sampling, I’ve relocated my favorite posts from the old blog here. Have fun, and I’ll see you on the flip side.

 

July 18, 2013

Incoherent Babbling

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– Or HOLY LONG POST, BATMAN –

I’m going to be incoherently babbling about Night Vale and Desert Bluffs, as described in The Sandstorm (19A and 19B). If you haven’t gotten to this part in the podcast yet, not to worry! THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS AND COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF BULLSH*T. IT PROBABLY MAKES NO SENSE. IT HAS NOT BEEN EDITED. You have been warned.

Hello, and welcome to the first ever edition of Incoherent Babbling About Welcome to Night Vale. Please, have a seat. Or stand, that’s cool, too.

Onwards.

So, I’ve seen it referenced that Night Vale and Desert Bluffs are parallels of each other, or, rather, are the alternate universes of each other. This seems to make sense, re: the Intern Vanessa/Dana bit in both parts, so that is the theory I am going to be rolling with.

Now, let me begin with Night Vale. Night Vale is a town in the middle of the desert (plot wise), and a mode of satire for America and American politics (meta wise). Sure, it’s a town where strange things happen on the regular and the citizenry are pretty blase about said strange things, but, on the whole, Night Vale is very recognizable as Small Town, USA.

They have everything you would expect in a small town – Town Council (albeit a ancient, and sort of creepy Council) which dictates the ‘laws’ of the town, a Mayor, a sheriff and a (secret) police force, small town celebrities (I’m looking at you, Carlos), and a radio show just this side of creepy. Sure, everything is blown out of proportion (it is satirical, after all), but, aside from the Eldritch Horrors, Angels, and Hooded Figures, it’s sort of….Normal.

Well, as normal as Night Vale can possibly be. Which makes Desert Bluffs a perfect foil for Night Vale.

What we know about both towns is what we are told – we know a lot about Night Vale because we are listening to Cecil tell us about the events, hazards, and even things that we are not supposed to talk or even know about. He also tells us things about Desert Bluffs because they are, apparently, Night Vale’s sports rivals. [“Desert Bluffs is always trying to show us up through fancier uniforms, better pre-game snacks, and possibly, by transporting a commercial jet into our gymnasium, delaying practice for several minutes, at least. For shame, Desert Bluffs. For shame.”]

But, other than a few mentions of Desert Bluffs in regards to sports, we don’t know much about Night Vale’s relationship to Desert Bluffs.

Let’s talk about Desert Bluffs, for a moment, though. Desert Bluffs, on the surface, seems much more like the real world than expected. If you were like me, listening to Desert Bluffs Public Radio was a bit surreal. Thing is, it tells us a lot about the town. Kevin doesn’t seemed bothered by the events in The Sandstorm – everything seems like a perfectly normal parallel to Cecil’s broadcast.  Except for one thing; the doubles. Now, it was certainly easy enough to believe that a desert town that was not Night Vale would not really be concerned with a sandstorm out side of work delays and such (though the way they talk about work, it seem like that’s all anyone does ever); however, the initial encounter with the doubles, out on route 800 near exit 66, Kevin reports it exactly as Cecil reports it: “I am getting one report that there are several stalled cars on the north bound lanes…police are on the scene dealing with fist fights in the middle of the road! Now, I can’t imagine why, in a beautiful town with so many kinds of yogurt stores and pony petting stations anyone would want to fight his neighbor!”

Okay, so it’s not exactly the same a Cecil, but there is something all too nice and flowery about this report. Kevin is trying really hard to make everything seem fine. He seems to be trying to earn our trust, or, at least, he is written so that we, the listener, will immediately trust him. Sure, Desert Bluffs sounds a bit off, and Strex Corp’s ad – “Look inside you. Strex. Go to sleep. Strex. Believe in a Smiling God. Strex Corp is everything” – is a bit more menacing than things we have heard in Night Vale, but Kevin seems normal! Surely we can trust him, right?

It seems that way, but here’s the thing – we’ve been with Cecil for 19 episodes, and he generally tells the truth. Yes, he is an unreliable narrator, so ‘truth’ is relative, but he tries. He never hides things from citizens unless the report is, you know, about something we’re not supposed to know about (like the Shape in Grove Park). Corrections are given frequently, and Cecil generally acknowledges the oddities of his “little human town,” and seems concerned for those who live in Night Vale, with the exception of Steve Carlsberg and the Apache Tracker. In fact, with how terrifying the Council and the Secret Police are, they are at least acknowledged (“That’s the Sherriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids, and hardly ever take one.”).

But I am willing to bet you wouldn’t hear anything like that about the Strex Corp black helicopters; reason being is the huge disparity between what Cecil reports and acknowledges, and what Kevin reports. Let’s return to The Sandstorm, shall we? After the initial report of fist fights, the fighting of doppelgängers continues in Night Vale, and the Council has declared that, should you meet your double, you should “kill your double.” Cecil, of course, says that he does not think that violence is the answer, and will not kill his double if he meets him.

Then, he is interrupted by a rustling noise. Intern Dana is fighting with her double (“Dana, who are you fighting in there?”) Cecil leaves to break it up. In Desert Bluffs, Kevin, too, is interrupted from discussing the productive joys of having a double, by rustling. Intern Vanessa is, apparently, conversing with her double. (“Vanessa, who are you talking too?”).  Kevin then says that Vanessa and her double are building a shelving unit; minutes later, he find Vanessa standing over Vanessa with a ‘cold compress’ and a staple gun. (Dana, or Dana’s Double, is also standing over her double, holding an email and a broken stapler.)

This is where I lost faith in Desert Bluffs. Initially, I simply thought they saw things differently in Desert Bluffs, like, the sandstorm had a different effect on this town, but I believe something far more sinister is going on. I read somewhere that violence could be Desert Bluff’s official language, and so they just can’t ‘see’ the violence between themselves and their Night Vale doubles (which is what I, and TV Tropes, believes is going on; Desert Bluffs is the AU of Night Vale), and so don’t understand that they are killing the Night Valians. And that could be true, but I think it’s more than that.

I think this because Kevin’s station terrifies Cecil, and, at most, Cecil’s station just kind of confuses Kevin a bit. Let me explain. The only thing we have heard on Welcome to Night Vale that has caused Cecil’s voice to become strained, weak, and terrified, was Station Management. I mean, granted, the way he describes the DBPR station – “There is blood on the walls. Instead of buttons on the sound board there is just…animal viscera. There is so much blood it is seeping through my shoes” – is fucking terrifying. But this is the Voice of Night Vale we’re talking about, a person who has gown up with the strange and vaguely terrifying, and this scares him.

Mean while, Kevin, is just like “The equipment is much older, certainly much dryer than it should be.” He says that the walls are “darker” and that the desk doesn’t have blood on it. At first, in episode 19A, this sounds kind of innocuous; but after Cecil’s description, I think Kevin is literally just ignoring the fact that there is blood and viscera in his studio. Ignorance is Bliss. “Go To Sleep.”

There is another thing (and this lends credibility to the ‘lack of a common language’ theory) that Kevin finds odd – Cecil’s smile. He says: “Maybe it is the smile. Is that a smile? I can’t say.” I brushed this off initially, but then there is the proverb at the end of 19B – “Step 1: Separate your lips. Step 2: Use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step 3: Widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.” This is Desert Bluffs, where one cannot tell the smile on another if it is not some sort of weird, forced facsimile of a smile. (Yes, Cecil could, in fact, not be smiling. But that would break the parallelism of these twin episodes.) Cecil, in the Desert Bluffs station, also comments on Kevin’s (or, we assume it is Kevin’s) smile: “His smile…noooooo, it is not a smile. He must be wicked, this man.”

Perhaps all of Desert Bluffs is forced into happiness, or must pretend at all times to be happy, and is not allowed to talk of anything that might be considered ‘abnormal’ for the sake of appearances. I am unsure; what I am sure of is that Kevin is either a liar, or profoundly naïve. One would think that the lack of “so much blood [it seeps] into [your] shoes,” would be something to mention when you get stuck in someone else’s studio. But no, aside for the odd likeness between Kevin and Cecil, and the dry equipment/desk, Kevin does not really acknowledge the differences between the two studios, where as Cecil launches into great, and terrifying, detail. Kevin blithely transitions into the weather; Cecil only puts it on because he is a professional.

On the journey back, Cecil and Kevin reportedly meet. According to Kevin, he hugs Cecil and all is well. According to Cecil, he was attacked, and Cecil tried to “choke the life” out of Kevin, before remembering that he promised not to kill his double. Cecil let Kevin live, and walks away, though he is sure Kevin “has his bruises.” Kevin and Cecil then both remark that they are “glad [their] other is alive” in some fashion, and I think that scares me the most. They are clearly parallels of each other – one is dark and sinister in tone, but is generally nice, and the other is simply dark and sinister, but has a cheery voice – but they are glad the other is alive.

That could mean anything.

And then, in episode 26, Cecil says: “As my mother used to tell me, ‘Someone’s going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror…’” This, of course, may be a coincidence, but when is anything a coincidence in Night Vale? Someone will kill Cecil, and it will involve a mirror. Perhaps this is literal, or perhaps it refers to Kevin, being someone and a literal mirror of Cecil (sort of; apparently the eyes are up for debate). Who knows; this is the conjecture part of this crazy essay.

Desert Bluffs and Night Vale reflect each other – Night Vale is an outlandish town where the police will kidnap your children and No One Is Allowed In The Dog Park. Desert Bluffs tries, so very hard, to be normal and becomes a macabre terror in the desert. Things in Night Vale are weird, outlandish, and terrifying, but Cecil talks about those things (even, sometimes, talking about things which should not be talked about) and, though everyone is used to the weird, it is looked at as reality. The weird is not talked about in Desert Bluffs, though the radio station floor bleeds and has teeth, though the Voice of Desert Bluffs has obsidian eyes and a not-smile, none of it will ever be talked about because that sort of talk could probably kill you.

Go to sleep.

May 20, 2013

Anxiety

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– Or Just Hear Me Out –

This is mostly a self exploritory post. It’s bound to get messy, and either will not be posted or will be deleted after a few days. Bare with me, please.

Photo on 2012-12-10 at 00.02
Attractive, right?

On the right is a picture I took of myself in a moment of stress. This is not what my anxiety looks like. This is just me blowing off some steam and sending stupid pictures of myself to my mother.

I goof off when I’m stressed out; I hide and run away when I am anxious. The fact that I am making a distinction here is critical, because I feel like I hide more often than people realize. (Or, like so many other things, I am completely transparent and this entire post is moot.)

557947_10151678287062345_1626467154_n
Sometimes I’m not completely unphotogenic

This picture (on the left there….no your other left) is closer to what I look like when I am about ready to claw my own eyes out. (It is important to note that, in this picture, I was actually a little annoyed.) I put on a show; I smile and laugh a little too loud, or I stay completely silent, hoping no one will pay attention to me. It’s not like when I’m angry or upset – I express those – but this state is a monster in and of itself.

‘Panic’ is the word that comes closest to describing this feeling, and there are months were I live in a near constant state of it. To ensure understanding of this panic, I am going to do my best to describe how it feels physically:

My chest gets really tight, so tight that it feels hard to breathe, even though breathing is as easy as it was before the onset of anxiety. The feeling spreads down my torso –  sometimes causing intense stomach cramps – and into my arms and legs. My limbs feel weak and useless, my head feels light and empty, and I can think of nothing but what is bothering me. If it’s multiple things, I tend to shut down and hide; a single thing, and I go on with life, pretending nothing is wrong and searching for an opportunity to talk to someone about it. But then I inevitably don’t talk about it, because I don’t like burdening my friends with my ridiculousness. And then I get anxious about that and it all spirals out of control.

And this is all ridiculous because I know that whatever it is I’m panicing about is probably nothing. I took an idea and convinced myself that it was a world ending, friendship ending crisis, and 9 times out of 9, it’s not. To date this entry, I have been in a state of anxiety since….round abouts Wednesday evening (5/15/13). I didn’t realize that I was that anxious until Friday, when my car broke down in Salem, Va. and I spent about an hour in tears. Now, I’m panicing because a friend of mine hasn’t contacted me (they likely just forgot) and I have convinced myself that they are mad at me and no longer want to be friends.

There is no reason for me to think that this friend doesn’t want to be friends anymore because they haven’t gotten around to talking to me yet. NO. REASON. AT. ALL. And yet, here I am, writing a post about anxiety because I am so scared of losing this person (and I’m not going to unless I royally fuck up in the future) that I need to distract myself.

This is awful, and I’m not sure what to do about it. It happens rarely enough that I can’t justify therapy to myself, but, at the same time, I don’t have an outlet.

Help.

May 10, 2013

The Tuscan Milk

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– Or A Response to ‘The White Raven’ and Sophomore Retrospective –

A while back I posted a desperate, flow-of-thought post about how I was wasting the first few days of being 19. This is a response to that desperation. 

Well, kid, you made it. The end of Sophomore Year. Sitting pretty at the table in the lounge you love, with the people you love, listening to…The Sound of Music. Which you hate. It’s all good though. It’s been one hell of a year.

There’s been a lot of struggling and messes made, but hell if it weren’t worth it. You’ve strengthened your friendships, survived Proper Math, and started working towards a career in publishing. And enjoyed every single minute of it.

Well, okay, maybe not every single minute, but most of them. The good ones – hearing about El and H’s trips and travesties in Riva, re-watching The Lord of The Rings, hiking the cascades and falling in. Cook-out late nights, lunches with old friends, coffee with the mentor, and conquering Dragon’s Tooth (with only minimal terror). True, El and H were gone, you had your share of Bad Days, and American Lit drove you insane. As did Statistics.

But you wrote more than you ever did in High School. You created characters that you cared about and want to work on. You have secured a job for next semester and the summer. You won’t be working as a lifeguard, you have some of the strongest friendships you’ve ever had, and you’ve made a home here.

You have a home here.

I want to stress to you, future or past E, that nothing you do is a waste of time, if you are enjoying it. Nothing you have done with your friends, no moment of procrastination, nothing, as long as it does not harm the work you need to do, or harm those around you. There will come a point (and there always does) when you will think to yourself, “I am worthless and wasting every second of time I have.” The only true time wasted is the time spent dwelling on this idea, because, really, you just miss your friends and are being a poor sport about it.

Call them up, play a game with them, use the communication tools at your fingertips. Just don’t lose any time to your worries – most of them do not matter in the grand scheme of it.

And, worse come to worst, write about it. That always seems to help.

~E

May 1, 2013

You Will Read “Sonny’s Blues” in Hell

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– Or A Summery of American Literature II, in Poetic Verse –

Author’s Note: I wrote this poem with my friend Nikki and A. It is a summary of our American Literature class this semester and it is rife with swearing and the word Cock. If you are offended by this, don’t read the poem. Sorry Not Sorry, E. 

*~*

I have seen the best students of my major destroyed

by madness

Madness, caused not by stress or sadness, but I have seen

them lose their minds to short stories

Most notably the Greek epic, “Sonny’s Blues,” the true pinnacle

of the entirety of human literature

Has been drilled into the minds of unsuspecting English students,

expecting more, but receiving less.

It is the mark of human nature to repeat our mistakes;

thus we returned day after day.

We tried to make sense of an increasingly devious puzzle,

but the mind of our professor could not be cracked.

“I’m a nice guy, but fuck up on MLA and I will finish you,”

the prophecy foretold.

I saw students stew in their incompetancies and struggle

with their citations.

The types of things that enrapture us: the contemporary

corpocracy of the U.S., and why folks get high.

I swear I heard screeching in the walls; “Power-powerless

stick, you’re on the wrong end!”

With the very hearts of the powerless stick pulled from their bodies

good to eat w/ all the junk we’re shootin’ for a thousand years.

Our heads bashed in with concrete and music, It’s gonna be a world

of hurt, a world of hurt, a world of hurt.

And a sphinx. Because Egypt gave us schwarma and gyros and hot

dogs, because Design governs things so small as digestion.

Yo.

We sat through made up mechanisms, and historicisms, and so many

isms it would make the bureaucracy of our corporate

government blush.

Moloch! Depriving us of Slaughter House Five! Moloch! Capitalism taking

over my TV! Moloch! I just wanted to watch King of the Hill!

Sonny! States orbiting the Earth! Sonny! Blues and Digressions and Fire!

Sonny! I just wanted to read and analyze and learn!

Cock! I was just happy I could use Cock in an Academic paper!

Poems we haven’t gone over, Final papers, Monster of English,

The final death of God!

I’ll do minimum work for minimum wage! Skip the 3rd paper,

Take the 95, thank God! Hail Moloch!

Holy! The last four days of our Hell in Pamplin Hall, that the end

is in sight, Be free, my people, be free from that which

bores you!

I have a dream…That one day…It will be a comfortable

temperature in that room.

That, one day, this Appalachian hillbilly might teach something other

than Post-Modern half-truths

That, one day, we may leave the classroom without hearing the devil

whispering in our ear “Mooney teaches ‘Howl’ in Hell!”

You’ll read “Sonny’s Blues” in Hell! In the heart + fire of Pamplin 3001!

Think for yourselves, but trust me ‘bout the government! Or

I’ll ensure you feel a world of hurt.

Revolt, Brothers and Sisters! Change the face of Society! Of Hell!

Of Moloch! Of Sonny! Of Ginsburg, Nemerov, Frost, and Still!

And I ask you, where the fuck was Vonnegut?! And 1865 – 1945? Two

World Wars, The Great Depression, Casablanca? Amen. Amen.

That, in 45 minutes, 3 students wrote a poem and listened to their professor

rant about life, death, cancer, the bloody fuckin’ 1 percent, ANYTHING

but literature.

But, on the bright side, the silver linings playbook, Andy got to use Cock in

a paper! We’ve won a battle- Let’s win the war!

Amen!

Preach!

God bless us every 1.

March 19, 2013

Dialogue and Characterization

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– or In Which Emily Links You To Many Videos, Part 2 –

BACK TO VIDEO GAMES. Or, at least, back to Extra Credits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO-HhDrN2_g&hl=en_US&version=3

This is an excellent video in the context of video games, but it also an incredible resource for writers in general. There is…not much I can say by way of improving this argument, nor do I really have an opinion on it besides the fact that it’s excellent.

I guess the only thing I have to say is that dialogue should sound like someone is talking. That sounds obvious, but really, your characters should feel like real people. In this video, the presenter talk about acting out your dialogue. This makes sense for video games, but I would also argue that it’s vital to any writing process.

If you write a really elaborate and vital piece of dialogue, and just leave it, you have no idea if the dialogue sounds natural (especially if it’s expository). I frequently have trouble with this, so, I read my passages out loud. This helps, but I really think acting out what your characters are saying, even doing, can help you determine what is natural, and what seems a bit off. It will also allow you to see how others interpret things. For example, say you wrote the following piece of dialogue:

“I can’t believe you,” Amanda said angrily. “What, did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

If you have someone else read through this, you can hear what tone their voice takes on for ‘angry.’ What expressions do they make? Are they gesturing? How? You can describe this character and her dialogue so much better if you have an idea of the gestures and expressions that convey anger. So, you revise:

“I can’t believe you,” Amanda growled, throwing her hands up in the air. Her mouth was set in a harsh frown, her eyebrows furrowed, and her teeth looked on edge. “What, did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

This conveys so much more emotion than just the word angry. Of course, this requires you to have super enthusiastic friends, who get into acting things out, and you shouldn’t over describe, but it can be such a useful tool to have in your tool belt.

With that said, please, please watch the video in this post (it may bleed out of the margins again, for which I apologize) and go check out Extra Credits. If I haven’t said it enough, those guys are awesome.

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