The Dreadful Page

Here's an interesting tidbit from the writing sessions at Penguicon. During the Q&A of one panel, the writers were asked to name their influences, and two out of three mentioned Borges. (And Borges was mentioned in at least one other session by a panelist who wasn't in the room during the first.) This thrilled me. I must admit that I only recently discovered Jorge Luis Borges, LOVED his stories, and was frustrated that no one else had heard of him. Did I happen into a panel coincidentally stacked with rare Borges admirers, or is Borges having a resurgence?

(I'm trying to remember the writers on the panel. I think Cherie Priest and Catherynne M. Valente were the Borges admirers, but I'm not positive.)

I spent the weekend at Penguicon, which was loads of fun. I may or may not get around to blogging about some of the writing sessions. Some of the sessions were useful, others less so. I did take notes. And also photos.

I just read Michael Chabon's short story “The God of Dark Laughter”. It's a nicely balanced concoction of Lovecraftian cosmic horror and evil clown trope, joined with a touch of theater of the absurd. It's good; you should read it. If you hunt a little, you can probably find it online.

I think I've just had a minor epiphany. It's no good trying to pull plots out of a void. Maybe a better way to say that is that trying to choose what does happen when literally anything can happen is paralyzing. A writer needs to create his own universe by defining what is possible and impossible, likely and unlikely. A fantasy or scifi writer does this more literally when they create a fantastical world, but I think all writers must do it to some extent. There are some thing that can never happen in a Hemingway (or whoever) story, because Hemingway's universe has constraints. I need to define my constraints.

I'm now engaged in reading a lot of science fiction, with the aim of writing in the genre. I have to admit that I'm not a huge scifi fan, if you take fan to its "fanatic" etymological root. (I understand there is some disagreement of the "fanatic" etymology, and some propose "fancier" as an alternative.) I read a lot of scifi in my youth, but mostly stopped reading it around the end of middle school. On the other hand, I never miss an episode of Doctor Who.

I started reading scifi again last year. I happened to notice that there was a scifi convention (Penguicon) happening now only a few miles from my home. I didn't have any plans, so I decided to attend. I admit that my heart was colored with irony and cynicism; I anticipated a sort of nerd safari. The con stripped all that away, though. Once I was there, I loved the con without irony.

The mystery genre gives me that warm, fuzzy feeling more often than scifi stuff, but mystery readers and writers just don't have the kind of community that's grown around scifi. I want to be part of scifi fandom. I want to belong.

I read Robert Silverberg's short story "The Pope of Chimps" yesterday. I found it very excellent scifi—strongly speculative near future hard scifi that talks about humanity. A remarkable story, and Silverberg makes it look easy.

Predictably, I quickly gave-up on Script Frenzy. In the course of writing loglines, I realized that I still don't know how to put together a plot, and that I should return to my short story study. So, I have. I have learned something by doing the loglines, however; it was a valuable exercise.

I'm still working on the logline for the Ghost Builders, but since I'm basing it on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth I decided to write a logline for that:

After his wife dies during an attempted rape, a renowned musician must overcome the ruler of the underworld to bring his wife back to the land of the living.

It's a bit rough, but I think I'm getting the idea. I found this article on loglines to be very helpful.

It seems that one sentence summaries of screenplays are a well know thing, and in the jargon they are called loglines. The logline, holds prevailing opinion, can be used as a litmus test to determine the structural integrity of the narrative. This seems reasonable to me, and further research indicates that I need to revise my logline substantially.

There seem to be various, but substantially similar, formulas for loglines. The most simple logline formulation includes only protagonist, protagonist's goal, and antagonistic force. I also like this articulation of the logline formula from Joe Calabrese on the Absolute Write forums:

(A) must do (B) before (C) does (D) or (E) will happen.

ie. Luke Skywalker must destroy the Deathstar before it's completed or Darth Vader will destroy the Rebellion.

or A sheriff must kill the shark before it kills again and ruins the town's summer business.

That went better than planned. I set a goal of one page tonight, and wrote two and a half with little effort. I know my story is about a house under construction, an architect, and ghosts. I also know that my story will be based partially on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. My working title is “The Ghost Builders”. I glanced over a couple of sample screenplays, and have a screenwriting book I’ll read before bed. I also wrote my one sentence summary:

A builder comes to believe that he can force a famed architect to reunite him with his dead wife.