MikeKardec
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,157
- Location
- Los Angeles
Good God ... get going! We're all lending our reality entangles, distant spooky action, help and best wishes.
Agreed -- but I've always seen it as in part a story of Prof. Indiana Jones's commitment to preserving the artifacts of the past. He has the chance, not long before the end, to destroy the Ark with the bazooka, to keep the Germans from having and opening it, and doesn't take it; because (as the French guy says, I think) he can't bear to destroy the past, or let it be destroyed.This may be controversial but ... A great example of avoiding the "So what?" reaction is Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's a lot of running around but little meaning, little resonance. Basically, it says nothing about anything (my opinion only ... and I love the film) but it is absolutely SAVED by it's final shot. The ark being lost yet again as the "top men" order it stowed away deep in the stasis field of a government inefficiency and incompetence storage location. The theme of the film is: All that crazy adventure and action and it is "lost again." Or, if you really want to give it the benefit of the doubt: The ark has true mystical powers, the most important of which is to disappear ...
It's not much of a message but it is astoundingly effective, simply because it was such a wild ride. The contract was fulfilled.
A joke, provided it is the least bit funny, is always an example of perfect story structure. It has no choice, it cannot be funny without it. The "Lost Ark" at the end of the film (especially one lost by "top men") is a great punchline.
Agreed -- but I've always seen it as in part a story of Prof. Indiana Jones's commitment to preserving the artifacts of the past. He has the chance, not long before the end, to destroy the Ark with the bazooka, to keep the Germans from having and opening it, and doesn't take it; because (as the French guy says, I think) he can't bear to destroy the past, or let it be destroyed.
And a further point about "Raiders has no plot/no matter what Indiana Jones does, the outcome is the same": Yes . . . but Indy and Marion don't know that! They don't know as they go along (any more than the first-time viewer does) that when the Germans open the Ark, it'll destroy them. For all they know, once Hitler & Co. grab the Ark -- take mere possession of it, not opening it -- the artifact will make the Wehrmacht invincible. So the story could be read as their struggle to stop what they think is the disastrous outcome, not the actual outcome. If they'd known what would occur when Bellocq opened the Ark, they'd have let him have it a lot earlier, and we'd have had no adventure at all.
I really wish I was good at this kind of thing in the world of stories but I have a long way to go. I see Steven King doing it all the time: Q) "How can I even the odds to that a man and a pigeon are equally in a battle to the death? He probably got dive bombed earlier in the day. A) Put the man on the window ledge of a skyscraper.
Harold Lloyd did exactly this bit in 1923.
Finished the Weird West story, 3500 words. Not sure I like it as it stands. Oh, I *like* it all right; it's finished and it says, I believe, what I hoped it would say. But I'm not sure if I *love* it. Usually I'm crazy about a piece right after I type "The End." It's later that I look at it and say, "When did this turn into rotten fruit?"
With this one, I'm not in love. That might mean I failed, or it might mean that the stuff I love is the rotten fruit and this is a proper steak. We'll see what my writing group has to say.
Still plugging away on the novel. Now that we're back on a regular schedule - i.e. school has started - maybe life will settle down some so I can devote more time to it. I doubt I'll make my self-imposed deadline of having the draft done by the end of August; but things are pretty solid so it might not take me as long to edit (a month) as I thought.
That's Amazing. My work comes to me so slowly and you have all those family distractions to top it all off. It's good to know that someone is banging it out on a truly professional schedule!
Ha! I don't know about a professional schedule! I'm trying to write as much as I can every day, but it depends on my health. I skip some days and feel bad about doing so. But we are our own worst taskmasters, are we not?
On July 19, I wrote, "submitted a query for a mystery novel . . . to Random House Alibi, RH's digital imprint." They wrote back with the same old boilerplate -- this time it's "I liked the setup and the Colorado setting, but I didn't connect with the narrative voice the way I'd hoped." Not sure what they mean. If they only like authors who write in present tense and second person (I've seen it done -- Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City), I guess I would disappoint them. Ah, well.
Thanks, AmateisGal,The important thing is you tried and put your work out there. It took me several years just to get an agent and I'm still piling up rejections for my novel. Publishing is definitely not for the faint of heart!
On July 19, I wrote, "submitted a query for a mystery novel . . . to Random House Alibi, RH's digital imprint." They wrote back with the same old boilerplate -- this time it's "I liked the setup and the Colorado setting, but I didn't connect with the narrative voice the way I'd hoped." Not sure what they mean. If they only like authors who write in present tense and second person (I've seen it done -- Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City), I guess I would disappoint them. Ah, well.
On July 19, I wrote, "submitted a query for a mystery novel . . . to Random House Alibi, RH's digital imprint." They wrote back with the same old boilerplate -- this time it's "I liked the setup and the Colorado setting, but I didn't connect with the narrative voice the way I'd hoped." Not sure what they mean. If they only like authors who write in present tense and second person (I've seen it done -- Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City), I guess I would disappoint them. Ah, well.