Tag Archives: writer’s block comic

May 5, 2013 · 10:14 AM

Villainous Vocabulary

While I was revising Hellbound, I found myself running into trouble with a certain villain’s dialogue.  This, I realized, was because villains are just so…done.  All you have to do is watch a Disney movie to realize that there is a formula that many cliche villains follow.

[EDIT 5/30/13: It seems like a lot of the pictures I put up keep failing to show up.  I can’t tell if that’s due to an error on WordPress or Disney/the owners of the pictures taking them down or something.  I don’t really know how the internet works.  So sorry if some of the pictures are missing.  Feel free to Google anyone you can’t call up an image of in your head]

They are ugly…

Jafar, Aladdin

Governor Ratcliffe, Pocahontas

They are smooth talkers…

Scar, The Lion King

Dr. Facilier, The Princess and the Frog

They want to kill puppies…

Cruella Deville, 101 Dalmatians

You get the drift.  But mainly I wanted to talk about the smooth talkers.  Seriously, there are a lot of villainous smooth talkers…

Hades, Hercules

The reason I’ve been thinking about this is, as I said, I was trying to write a villain.  And he ended up talking like so many Scars and Hades…es that I had to completely rewrite a lot of his dialogue.  It got me to thinking about what makes a villain’s dialogue so cliche.  I mean, there are a ton of phrases out there that have been used so much that they can turn an ordinary character or situation into a cliche.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one (but really don’t):

“Impudent brat”

“Petulant child”

“Just stay out of my way”

“Meddling kids”

“Curses!  Foiled again!”

“You’re going to regret that”

“Get them!”

“MWAHAHAHAHAHAH”

Seriously, guys…what is so funny about being a villain?  Why do all villains laugh?  That’s just crazy.  I really never got it.  They’re all “You’re about to die!  AHAHAHAHA.”  What is hilarious about that?  I’ve gotten off topic again.

What I’m talking about doesn’t just apply to villainy.  There are a lot of phrases in the English language that are used more often than anyone can count.  Some of them are unavoidable…

“I love you.”

“I hate you.”

“Half past…”

“Quarter ’til…”

“See you later.”

“Come again.”

And some of them are avoidable.  For a list of the avoidable ones, just scroll up.  How many villains have given the order, “Get them!” to their minions?  A lot.  Does your villain have to?  No.  I’m sure you can think of a way around it.  And this will set your villain apart from the rest.

Another thing…villains might be crazy, but the crazier they act, the more cliche they become (sometimes).

Ursula, The Little Mermaid

Sometimes, a villain can be “crazy,” but still think that they are super sane.  So they act sane.  They speak rationally, and they don’t go for the dramatics.

Villain

If you make your villain a person, just a regular Joe like the rest of us, then you’ve created something scary: a monster that can walk among us, unseen and unsuspected.  Someone who will buy a bouquet of flowers for their girlfriend on the way home from murdering a middle-aged couple in their own home.

Unfortunately, that type of villain has been done, too.  (Think Patrick Bateman, the antihero from American Psycho)  They’ve all been done, really.  But there is a way to take a cliche and make it your own.  You just have to fiddle around with it a bit.

Done now!

Writer's Block Strip 24

Words of the Day (I couldn’t pick):

Impudent (adj) – of, pertaining to, or characterized by impertinence or effrontery.

Petulant (adj) – moved to or showing sudden, impatient irritation, especially over some trifling annoyance.

P.S. – Sorry for using all your images and whatnot, Disney!  I swear I’m not trying to profit off of them, so please, please don’t sue me.

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April 29, 2013 · 12:09 PM

Working Woman

As my last post may have hinted, I have found a job.  I am now working as a short-order cook at an IHOP.  This means that, of all the training and life skills I received in college, it was my time working in the dining halls that proved most useful to me.  Ah well.  It is hard work, and most days my legs feel like they’re going to fall off, but…money.  It’s also a fitting job for me, considering how many books I’ve discussed with my friends while eating late-night pancakes.

Anyway, about writing.

I’ve talked so much about the concept of “Show Don’t Tell.”  There are so many posts, and I know you’re not going to go back and read all of them, so I shouldn’t even link to them.  But I’ll give you a few, just for the hell of it.  Here’s one and then there’s this one, and there’s another here.

The thing is, after all that preaching about the concept, I found I’ve made a mistake.  I failed to specify when you should Show instead of Telling.  This occurred to me because I was rereading Hellbound, and I realized that sometimes it’s the narrator’s job to Tell.  That’s what description is, after all.  Sometimes you’re going to write something like this:

Sally looked at the old house on the corner and shuddered.  It looked ready to fall apart, with boarded up windows and peeling paint.  Plus, no matter what time of day it was or what the weather was like, that particular house always seemed to be in the shadows.

The above paragraph employs description to inform the reader.  That form of Telling is okay.  Sometimes you just need to tell the reader what a person or place looks like, who said what, what someone is thinking, etc.  You will notice, however, that the first sentence employs more of the Showing technique.  It implies that Sally is scared of the house, or creeped out by it, without explicitly saying, “Sally was scared of the old house on the corner.”  There is a difference between exposition and “Telling” in the bad way.  A lot of it comes from instinct and practice.  And the whole reason I’m bringing this up is so you know that I am not an advocate for trying to “Show” your readers every last little detail of the book.  I don’t even know if that’s possible.

Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say.  Have a comic.

Writer's-Block-Strip-23

Word of the Day: Carapace (n) – a bony or chitinous shield or shell covering some or all of the dorsal part of an animal, as of a turtle.

 

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April 8, 2013 · 9:37 AM

The Host

I wrote a little while back about how I was conflicted about seeing the movie The Host, based on the novel of the same name by Stephenie Meyer.  The reason I was conflicted is because I actually liked reading The Host, but I don’t particularly want to support Stephenie Meyer.

I ended up seeing the movie anyway.

It was not as bad as you might think.  It followed the book really, really closely, which amazed me.  Especially since one of the previews before the movie was for the sequel to Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.  Did anyone else see that movie?  I mean, it sucked by anyone’s standards, but it was even worse if you read and enjoyed the books.  That movie was nothing like the books.  It was a rip-off of the books written by someone who had read the back cover.  Or maybe just the title.  Who asked for a sequel to that incredibly bad movie?

Anyway.

The Host was a good book.  It had strong, female characters, it had a pretty interesting plot that was only marginally stolen from Animorphs.  It had two love interests, one for the female protagonist, and another for the alien inhabiting the female protagonist.  I found this to be pretty cool, and really well done.

The biggest problem I found I had with the movie was that the girl who plays Melanie (female protagonist who gets inhabited by peaceful, mind-controlling, probably communist alien) was only good at playing one half of her dual personality.  See, in the story, Melanie is this strong woman who refuses to give her mind over to the little alien slug in her brain.  As a result, the alien and Melanie end up sharing a brain and a body.  Melanie is not in control of her actions, but she’s still there in her head, yelling at the alien.  The alien, meanwhile, is more soft spoken and gentle.  So while the actress – Saoirse Ronan – was really good at playing the gentle alien bit, her portrayal of Melanie was unconvincing.  She didn’t sound strong or confident at all, and all her lines as Melanie felt forced.

A lot of lines were delivered poorly by the younger actors, in my opinion.  The older, more experienced actors were fine.  And, randomly, so was the kid who played Jamie – Melanie’s younger brother.  He was pretty decent.

Would I recommend seeing The Host in theaters?  No.  It only made 11 million dollars at the box office on its opening weekend for a reason.  It just wasn’t executed very well, despite staying true to the book.  Would I recommend seeing it at all?  Sure.  If you read and liked the book, you’d probably get a kick out of this movie.  It just doesn’t seem extremely necessary to go see it in theaters like I did.

That was a lot of words with very few pictures.  Have a hula hooping Mini Bex:

Hula-Hooping

And a comic:

Writer's-Block-Strip-22

And a Word of the Day:

Word of the Day: Bastion (n) –  1. A fortified place.  2. Anything seen as preserving or protection some quality or condition.

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