The ending is where you hit, or miss

If I write all the way up until it's time to go to bed, I won't be able to sleep. So I try to knock off in time to be able to watch a movie most nights before I need to crash. Lately I've been giving Netflix it's day in court, trying to find out if their stable of horror movies is up to par. Part of the reason I don't watch more movies than I do is because I hate getting my hopes up and then seeing a finale that makes me think the director suddenly realized he only had ten more minutes of film.

So what are some of the elements that make a good ending? It should end the story, it should give us resolution. We should know what happened to all the major characters, and, if they're still alive, we should have a good idea of what they'll be doing in the next few weeks, or months.

(I'm including the denouement in this discussion. That's where we usually get hints of the future)

The questions and issues that have been brought up during the story need to be answered. The ending is where the reader gets the return on their investment of emotion in all the characters and places that we've created, and as such, needs to speak to the reader's needs and feelings.

Most of us have ideas about how the universe/fate/God's will should behave. Even if we believe it doesn't work like that, we know it should. These are the feelings that the end of a story works on, and what makes us think about it with a smile when we're driving to go see someone we like, or snicker about it with our friends while we're doing grunt work at our day jobs. If the character whom we all love makes it to the end with a few scars, we'll feel our bond with him was justified if we already believe that a person like that should be able to survive. If the sleazy dope-peddler gets eaten alive by rabid maggots, then that makes our feelings of inherent justice in the universe feel vindicated. The old Twilight Zone episodes were good at this.

Question to ponder: are we limiting ourselves by using stereotypes like the sleazy drug dealer? The reality is that people who make their livings like that are human beings, with their own complications, their own hopes and dreams. We might wonder how they can sleep at night, but the obvious answer is that they sleep pretty much just as well as the rest of us, or they wouldn't be able to get up day after day and keep selling. When John Grisham writes about sleazy lawyers, he also writes about young, honest lawyers who fight the good fight. We've seen all the tropes used over and over again. I wonder if someone could make a sympathetic protagonist out of a character that would normally be a villain?

Which brings me to one more thing I want to say. A good ending doesn't have to stay neatly within people's beliefs. I've felt for a long time that most of us don't sit down and reconcile all the millions of individual things that we believe, ideas that would be single notes in a bullet point outline of our psyche. If the ending of a story points out a small contradiction or two, and ideally recommends a resolution, then we're happy. That's an ending that gives us something new that we want to believe in, which I think would be one we all would like.

Do I need to come out and say that all of the above is my opinion? Hopefully not, any more than I need to say that you're welcome to express your own.

Still writing.

Deciding what to read next

I finished The Hunger Games on Thursday, and after a few days to let it settle in my head, it's time to start something else. There's a paperback copy of Stephen King's 'Cell' in my overnight bag, along with Terry Pratchett's 'Darwin's Watch.' Of course, it's been a while since I've re-read The Shining, or Salem's Lot. The latter might help me hash through some difficulties with Roja, come to think of it.

About The Hunger Games, it's good. Damn good. Worth every bit of your time and money. That concern that I had about the same type of group dynamic that was used in Battle Royale turned out to be unfounded. My wife and I discussed the book, and as usual we each had our own take on the story, and they were miles apart. Her primary focus was on the government, and how they use the games as both punishment and control. My biggest impression was how much the other people in the book, the regular citizens who would never set foot in the arena, were involved in the game. It's a huge production that seems to touch just about everyone. I hope the next couple of books develop that aspect in more detail.

To me, that's one of the characteristics of good writing. When two or more people can arrive at separate conclusions about a story, and each can pull facts from it to support their views, and the views don't necessarily contradict each other, that's a good story there.

Watched the first episode of SyFy's 'Tin Man' last night. It wasn't what I expected, as I had gotten the impression (and was hoping) that it was a bit darker. Then again, that reminds me that I haven't read the book itself yet.

Still rewriting Roja, and writing 'A room.' The Stephen King bio that I read, Haunted Heart, described how he can churn out a short story 'in a few hours.' My reaction? Envy, disbelief, and more envy. I want to build up where I can do that.

The odds are definitely in your favor, Ms. Collins.

So Tuesday I stop by Wal-Mart on my way home to pick up a copy of The Hunger Games. I try to avoid getting books there, because even big places like Barnes and Noble's need all the help they can get these days. But the B&N closest to me isn't open before I have to be at work. So I hit Wally World, buy the book, and start reading it that night. Wednesday night I mention to my wife that it's pretty good, and that she may want to read it when I'm done.

Friday, I get to work, and not only is one tire on my car low, another is damn near flat. The tires are still under warranty, and my wife has the day off, so she grabs the car, and takes it to the tire place. While she waits, she finishes her Song of Ice and Fire book, and picks up Hunger Games, which I had left in the back seat.

She finished it that night. I haven't finished it yet, so we can't discuss it from beginning to end, but she said it was a lot better then she had expected. Both of us agreed that somehow we had each gotten the impression that the mood and style was going to be similar to Twilight. In a nutshell, it isn't.

Disclaimer: I have not read Twilight, but have seen one of the films when I took my daughter to see it. I also tried to read The Host, but couldn't slog through it. Miss Meyer has her strengths as a writer, but they don't hit any of my buttons.

I got the book to compare it to Battle Royale, because when I saw the trailer for the film (I had never heard of the book before) that's what it reminded me about. I'm not quite halfway through the book, and I can see a world of difference. Battle is about all the kids, though there is a clear hero and heroine. HG is about one girl. They're both set in the future, but BR is more current, while HG, though set seemingly farther ahead in time, feels more like a story set in Roman times. I'm also reading a bit of Biblical influence, comparing the districts to the tribes of Israel.

Right now, my opinion is that Hunger Games is well worth the time and money. Will I be buying the other books in the series? I won't have to. I'll just read the copies that my wife has already said she's going to get.

Still writing, and hoping write something this good.

Not a good week

Okay, this entry is going to depart from my normal format. All the previous postings, and hopefully all the postings that come after this one, have been me talking to you, my readers. You, the person who reads what I write and hopefully who also has an interest in the movies and other weird bits that I discuss here. You're the whole reason this blog exists.

But this one is different. This is me talking to the whole world, especially to the people who don't read my stories. This is me venting. I want this statement engraved in both cyberstone and collective consciousness, where it will remain for all ages.

With the exception of a few good moments, this last week has been the worst of my life. The exceptions shine pretty brightly, but I'm so glad this week is over.

My mom died on the 3^rd. She had been on a ventilator for a while, and my sister had been handling her bills and such. My sister had a long talk with my mom's doctor, and then she called me. A while back my mom gave my sister both a power of attorney and a document which spelled out her wish to not be left hooked up to artificial life support if there was little to no chance of a recovery. My sister decided to have the machine turned off, and I backed that decision. My mom died a half-hour before I left the house to drive out to see her.

Because of the holiday, a plane ticket would have been almost impossible to get and ridiculously expensive. The eight-hundred mile trip took me almost two days, partly because I wasn't in the best frame of mind.

When I arrived, I hugged my sister, met and shook hands with her husband, and said hello to my two nephews. I hadn't seen the oldest since he was a baby, and had never laid eyes on the younger. I signed paperwork and tried to comfort my sister. We both went to my mom's house and I picked through artifacts that I hadn't seen in decades.

On the trip back, I was in the middle of Nowhere, West Texas when I got a flat. Luckily I had a signal for my cell phone, and my fantastic wife was able to not only add me to her AAA account, but to get them to call me. I'll write about the experience later, but I got to sit out in the desert for an hour and a half while it got dark.

When the tow truck driver arrived with a flat-bed (the flat was on a rear tire) his winch malfunctioned as he was pulling my car up on it, so I had to drive it up on the bed. We talked on the way to the small town up ahead, and it took us not quite an hour to get there. I had called a couple of motels while I waited, and found one right across the street from the tow business. Somehow in the time between my call and my arrival, they had filled all their vacancies.

Now I had walked across the street to get to the motel, and the the tow driver had taken off in the meantime. This was late Friday night in a small town, and the lights were all off and the streets were deserted. I headed up the road to where I thought the tow driver had shown me another motel, but after a few blocks I arrived in the middle of town and realized either I was going in the wrong direction or it was too far away for me to even see it. Off to one side, I noticed a sign for a Holiday Inn. Still carrying my bags, I walked a few more blocks, and staggered in to ask the nice lady at the desk if she had any vacancies. She shook her head sadly at this sweaty stranger who looked like a drifter and said that they were full, but she did call the Best Western for me, which was just a few more blocks away, up the highway.

I stopped off at the gas station next door to grab a beer, only to find that they didn't carry singles of any of the kinds that I like, and they couldn't let me break a six-pack. I had to buy a forty-ounce bottle of a watered-down brand while everyone stared at the weirdo in line carrying a backpack and a duffel bag. It was probably a smart idea of mine to zip up the bag so no one could see the case for my Beretta. (It's illegal down here to carry a weapon into any place that sells alcohol)

Then I walked those three more blocks up the frontage road of the highway, in the dark and hoping I wouldn't get hit when I had to walk on the asphalt because there wasn't a sidewalk. When I got to the motel I was tired, reeking of sweat, and thirsty as hell. I put in for a seven AM wake up call, wondering how soon I would be able to fall asleep.

After less than five hours of sleep, I got up and started making phone calls to make sure that the tow company would get my car to the tire place and that the tire place would sent someone to pick me up when they were ready for me to drive my car off the flatbed. Then I watched brainless TV and tried to doze. About ten AM, I was finally back on the road.

Eight hours later, I was finally back home where I had started. Now I can try to settle into the thought that my mother has died. We had a strained relationship, but her loss still leaves an empty hole.

By the way, about the futile hunt for quality beer? Blame my wife. She's the one who has introduced me to the good stuff and tried to wean me off of what she calls 'canoe beer.' Don't tell her that I still like that stuff too, okay?

Teenage Paranormal Romance must die

So it was time for another visit to Barnes and Noble's. I've been busy as heck recently, as well as having some family issues, so I haven't been able to stop by for a while. Wednesday night, I headed over after work, and the news was not good.

In the fiction area, the shelves are three segments wide, front and back. There was still no horror section, but incredibly, there was a section solely for Twilight and assorted rip-offs. There were dramatic rip-offs, romantic rip-offs, and light-hearted rip-offs. To be fair, some of them weren't rip-offs at all, they were stories about kids falling in love and/or lust, and about all the complications that always follow. The fact that the characters were vampires, werewolves, ghosts and cheerleaders just gave added flavor to the stories. These books were on one shelf, taking up all the sections on one side and two of the three on the other side.

I'll snicker about it, but I also have to think about it. My gut reaction is to say 'back in my day, if it had monsters in it, it went in the horror section.' But that's not completely accurate, is it? People have been using and misusing monsters ever since they stopped being genuinely afraid of them. Predating my day were movies like 'The ghost in the invisible bikini,' (with Boris Karloff, no less!) 'The ghost and Mrs Muir,' and of course, the many relevant films of Bud Abbot and Lou Costello. These are movies and not books, true. But I suspect my inability to name similar books off the top of my head is due to my ignorance, not lack of material.

Rather than get into the sour grapes of how well Stephenie Meyer's little sub-genre is doing, (because I think the whole rest of the human race has already seen to that) I'm going to admit the reason. Much like why the damsel in distress is still on the market, this sub-genre is getting the royal treatment because it's selling. B&N wouldn't give up valuable shelf space if it wasn't.

What does this mean for me? For those of us who prefer hearts pounding in terror, or torn out while still beating? It means we need to realize that a good chunk of our potential audience likes that stuff, and decide whether or not to include it in our work.

I spent the day putting together an outline of Roja. I don't like doing this before I write the story, but now that I'm doing the rewrite I need it to keep all the points straight. To make the outline, I had to skim through the whole book, and I still like it. That's a good sign.

Still writing like a horror junkie.