Archive for April, 2015

Why I’m Excited for the Five Nights at Freddy’s Movie

Posted: April 11, 2015 in Living and Life, Scary Stuff
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
4

 

Learned some very interesting news this week. Has anyone hear heard of Five Night’s at Freddy’s? If you haven’t, allow me the pleasure to fill you in on it. Five Nights at Freddy’s (hereafter referred to FNaF) is an indie survival horror game. It’s rather interesting, and not just because it’s from the indie scene. You play a security guard at Freddy FazBear’s Pizza (think Chuck E. Cheese with creepy animatronics) who works the night shift. It’s actually a pretty nasty job: the animatronic creatures in the pizza parlor come alive at night and wander around. Your job is to not just watch the parlor, but to survive the creatures, which will try to find you and kill you by stuffing you into an animatronic suit, which still has the parts inside (bloody!). You survive five progressively more difficult nights, you win the game (and get some bonus nights). You get caught by the creatures…

And did I mention that you play the entire game from inside the security office, where the most you can do is turn on some lights in the hallways, close some doors, and watch security feeds through an iPad? All while trying to keep your battery life up before you lose power and die? Yeah, that’s how you play the game. It sounds easy, but it’s actually pretty difficult. Believe me, I’ve played. You try to keep focused on the doors, but then you get jumpy and look through the iPad. And the more power you use, the less you’re able to turn on lights or open and close doors. And then…they get you.

It’s a nerve-wracking game, and it’s not surprising to see that it’s grown popular enough to generate two sequels, where they’ve furthered the back story of the game and why these murderous robots attack security guards. And now Warner Bros. is in the process of adapting it into a movie. This could be good, because while movies based on video games usually suck, indie games are usually riskier, more artsy, and heavy on story account. So the movie that results from this game could be able to balance slasher and suspense horror with storytelling and character development. Maybe reinvigorate the slasher movie genre a little.

You have to admit, that’s kind of creepy.

 

Or it could suck balls, we’ll regret going to see it, the studios will be even more wary about trying even semi-original projects, and we’ll reach our movie-sequel saturation point much, much quicker than we’d hope. That’s always a possibility. Seth Grahame-Smith, one of the producers on the film, said he wants “to make an insane, terrifying and weirdly adorable movie”. If they get to weirdly adorable, we the audience may have problems.

Well, I’ll stay hopeful until I see evidence otherwise. I like to think that this movie adaptation has the makings of being something good. The plot will probably involve a security guard hired to watch a Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza Parlor. While being more mobile than in the game, the guard will deal with murderous animatronics, a limited amount of power (how they explain that one will be interesting) and the unraveling mystery of the source of this evil (in the games, the animatronics are possessed by the ghosts of children who were murdered by a guy in a Freddy Fazbear suit who stuffed their bodies into suits. I wonder if they’ll keep that backstory). There’s plenty of ways to make that suspenseful and creepy, I bet.

Like I said, we’ll see. I dream of writing it personally and making sure it’s good, but I don’t see that happening at this point, so I’ll hope and go see it when it hits theaters, possibly within the next five years. In the meantime, I think there are evil animatronic monsters in my apartment, so I have to destroy them. If I don’t reply to your comments within five nights, you know what’s happened.

Are you excited for the FNaF movie? Do you think it’ll be good? Why or why not?

Do you think games can be made into good movies? And what’s needed in order to do so?

Daisy: Unpublished For Now

Posted: April 9, 2015 in Living and Life, short story, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

daisy-cover

Boy, has my writing time been severely restricted lately. I’ve been so busy with everything that I haven’t been able to do as many blog posts as I wanted to (I wanted to write one about Indiana and Arkansas’s new “religious freedom” laws. Long story short, I’ll be avoiding those states for the foreseeable future).

But back on point, I’ve taken Daisy down from Amazon and Smashwords. For those of you unfamiliar with this title, Daisy is a short story I published as an e-book when I first started down the path to becoming a self-published author, about a girl who is kidnapped by a man who believes that she’s his dead girlfriend and has to hide from him in an abandoned building. I published it more as an experiment to see if people would download it than anything else. Although I am fond of it in my way, it’s definitely not one of my best stories, but its cheap price (free in some places) and how short it was certainly got people reading at the time.

So why did I take it down? Well last night, after what had been a long and arduous day, I lay down to sleep, and just as I’m drifting off, a stray thought pops into my head: You have song lyrics in that story. Isn’t that a copyright violation? Nearly sat up straight in bed and turned on my laptop after that nasty thought went through my head. After all, Daisy’s not the best read story, but if someone were to find it and realize I had those song lyrics in there, I could be in serious legal and financial trouble. Doesn’t matter that I didn’t know better at the time, it could still come back to haunt me.

So I took it down this morning after breakfast, and I’ll be taking down the entry for it on my Stand Alones page. And I might put it back up again. I’m not sure at this point. Like I said, it’s not one of my best works, and I hate having to give people sub-par writing. I also don’t do a lot of advertising for it, so  On the other hand, I’m still fond of it and a lot of people liked it despite its shortcomings. So maybe when I have a chance I’ll edit it and put it back up without anything that could get me in court.

In the meantime, I guess the people who already have copies on their various digital devices have the only copies in existence besides mine. So enjoy that folks, you have the e-book equivalent of a collector’s item. Not everyone can say they have one of those.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ve got homework to do, so I’m going to get on that. Have a good one, my Followers of Fear.

Ohio State and Creative Writing Classes

Posted: April 6, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Long ago, when college was still a faraway possibility in my preteen mind, I got my first exposure to college writing courses via Stephen King’s IT, which my mother had bought for me during a family vacation to visit our relatives in Delaware. My first Stephen King book and still one of my favorites, I remember during one of the early chapters one of the protagonists Bill Denbrough, who in his adult years is a successful horror novelist, flashbacks to a honors’ creative writing class he took.

To say the least, the class he took scared me almost as much as the clown: it was a bunch of hippies talking about everything wrong with society sexually, culturally, racially, politically, economically, etc. The professor was a weed-smoker who saw fiction as inseparable from politics and revolution. Suggest that if writing stories for the sake of writing stories in this class, as Bill did, and everyone would turn and see you as a sexist death merchant or something. He later dropped the class (smart move) and did more than fine on his own.

For twelve-year-old me, I sincerely hoped that I wouldn’t find this sort of experience when I got to college. I did tell myself that Bill’s college years took place in the middle of the Vietnam War, and everyone was a little politics crazy then. But for a twelve-year-old, you don’t really understand what college is except maybe images of grassy lawns and old buildings and people between adolescence and adulthood going to classes during the day and going to wild frat parties at night. And of course there was that slightly hippie reputation, you can’t shake that off no matter what you do.

About seven years later, I enroll in my first creative writing class. And no, they’re not a bunch of hippies looking to protest the wrongs of the world and turn any guy wanting to write a simple horror story into a pariah. Our teacher was a grad student who swore like a sailor despite emphasizing a Southern upbringing, and she tasked us to write one short story that was literary that could incorporate genre themes. That was one of my first lessons in avoiding giant plot holes, because the first draft of my story, a girl freed from being a sex slave, had some issues. My second draft was a bit better, but only so much. Still, learned a bit from that, and the students were a cool group. Some were English majors, others were looking to fill credit requirements for other majors. We wrote, we critiqued each other’s work, it was fun.

The second creative writing class I took was an advanced course, and was taught by this professor who was such a great guy. He told us flat that he wanted only literary stories, that he thought genre was often unimaginative, and that he hated James Patterson. But he always had a smile on his face, and he always brought a little wind-up toy to amuse us. I got a lot of training in characterization and looking for new angles and perspectives from that class. One of the short stories I turned in was part of the finished collection of works for The Quiet Game, “Addict”. That class definitely helped bring it up to scratch.

My final, and possibly my favorite, creative writing class was last semester, with a professor who retired at the end of our class. Every week we would read an average of two or three short stories from our peers, as well as stories gathered in a course packet (some of those left a deep impression on me). Another advanced creative writing class, each of the students here had a lot of experience and brought a lot to the table. At times I felt I had trouble measuring up, that’s how good they were. But I worked hard, and in addition to the lessons I was getting from writing my thesis, I was growing as a writer, learning all sorts of things on relating to the audience, on storytelling and how not to rush it or stuff too much into ten-thousand words. It was excellent, and I know that class is definitely going to stick with me the most, because I was never bored and I got so much out of it.

In a month and four days (yes, I’m keeping count), I’ll be walking down the aisle in Ohio Stadium in a cap and gown and receive my diploma. If someone were to ask me right before I go up to get my diploma if I became a writer because of my time at Ohio State, I would say “Yes” and point to these classes. They did wonders for my writing, and I’m so glad I took them. And while the likelihood will be that I won’t be taking any formal classes again for a number of years, I know that as I go on and get plenty of informal training, these classes will stick with me through life.

So if you’re reading one of my stories some day in the future and suddenly you’re afraid and want to bolt the door, you can go ahead and blame my classes for that.

Did you take creative writing courses when you were in college? Did they help you at all?

What’s one lesson from those classes that has stuck to you even up till today?

By the way, remember my Secrets of Ohio State University article and its sequel? Well, there’s a third secret I wanted to share, but I didn’t want to make a whole article about it. So instead, I’ll just share it here: there’s an urban legend on campus that if you’re hit by one of the school’s buses you’ll receive various benefits as compensation, including free tuition for a semester. I’ve never heard anyone test this theory, but once I got hit by a car passing through campus while I was on the way to a psychology exam. The person who hit me, as far as I’m aware, wasn’t affiliated with Ohio State. But not too long after the incident, I got a small refund from OSU. Coincidence? Or maybe some form of restitution? The world may never know.

Making Something Old Scary Again and Something New Scary For The First Time

Posted: April 5, 2015 in ideas, Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

People from outside the horror genre think it’s pretty easy to scare people. Just add a monster/ghost/serial killer, people running in terror, and a creepy forest that is called “creepy” by the author, and it’s terrifying.

Bullshit. It’s actually really tough to make things scary. It takes more than a bunch of scary words, a dark forest, and a monster to make something scary. I should know, every time I get on the laptop to write I’m struggling to set atmosphere and arrange words and try to make something old new and terrifying again.

That last bit is one of the toughest things to do. Horror is a genre that’s full of cliches, and we enthusiasts and creators are both proud of it and trying to subvert or get around them while writing. Part of that is trying to make an old monster–a ghost, a serial killer, an evil house, etc.–seem different, seem new, seem like it hasn’t been done before. Remember my review of It Follows? That movie had taken an old concept in horror (sex equals death) and had found a brilliant way to reinvent it. To some degree, all authors of horror are trying to create that, a story that takes an old concept or monster and make it scary in a brand new way.

Sounds easy, right? Wrong. You have to look at all these other works dealing with the concept and wonder to yourself, what can I do that hasn’t been done? And sometimes the idea you’re running with has been done hundreds of times over already. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, witches, aliens, serial killers, ghosts, etc. They’ve all been done and you’re trying to find some new angle, something that hasn’t been tried or done before with them. It’s made even more difficult when you consider that there are probably piles and piles and piles of other novels that you haven’t read and they might have done the same things you’re considering doing. With all that, looking for something old to make new and scary again is quite the challenge.

It’s even more difficult to make entirely new things scary. Every writer wants to do a Cell or a Night of the Living Dead or a Paranormal Activity, to make something scary for the first time. It’s even better than taking something old and making it scary again, because you’re making a mark, you’re doing something that all those afterwards will have to measure themselves by. It’s just about any novelist’s dream, but in genres like horror where you see a lot of the same stuff over and over again (and a lot of it is trash), it’s only a few degrees away from striving for the Holy Grail.

Yesterday I had an idea for a novel involving a small town in Texas and a secret surrounding flooded rivers. As far as I’m aware, the particular angle I’d be going with this novel has not been done before. I’d like to think it’ll make for some interesting fiction, make some people wish they could do something similar. Honestly, I don’t know. But I’m excited that I have something like Night of the Living Dead or Cell or Paranormal Activity, something that hasn’t been done before and others might have to measure up to someday. That’s how big a deal it is to me and to other authors in my position. And when I finally begin to write this story, I’ll do it so that not only will I strive not to disappoint my readers, but I won’t disappoint myself.

How do we come up with these ideas? There’s no set way. We just read a lot, write a lo. We go to the films and watch the TV shows, we look at what’s been done, what hasn’t and what could be done. Is it easy? Not in the least. This is a genre where the road is well worn most of the time, where many have trod before. We’re looking for new ways to trod and for a path hidden behind foliage that we can cut a path through with our pens like machetes. And we don’t stop looking, no matter what. That’s just how we are as writers of all things dark and creepy.

Ultimately, we are not doing what we do because it’s easy to do. We’re doing it because we love it and because we love it we want to make it good. To do that we have to try to make our stories fresh, new, unpredictable, something we haven’t seen done before. It’s a difficult job, but if we do it right, then we’re doing something right as horror writers.

Do you have tips for making something old seem new and scary again?

What’s something you’ve seen not done before? What stuck you about it that made it seem original?

I Am Sheldon Cooper

Posted: April 4, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

I am Sheldon Cooper.

I’m great in my field, or perhaps I’m narcissistic enough to think that I’m great. I can talk on and on about writing and horror until I realize it’s too late, I’ve made the person or persons I’m talking to feel uncomfortable. Sometimes I don’t even realize it. But then I find myself talking about how much I hate the Friday the 13th remake and I forget I’m supposed to be having a conversation.

I have odd habits that make no sense to others. I laugh at jokes only I find funny. Sometimes they don’t even leave my head and I’m in hysterics. I talk to myself, I trace shapes in the air with my mind. I hold imaginary conversations with my characters and with other people’s characters. Whatever leads to an idea, right?

Social situations can confuse me. I’ll say something that seems totally innocent in my head, and not realize most people will find a second, possibly offensive or disgusting meaning to it. If I’m lucky, I’ll realize within the next couple of hours this faux pas and never repeat it. Occasionally I never notice though, and I worry about those times, because I’m not sure when or where or why they happened. I only know that they probably have.

If someone says I shouldn’t do or say something, I will ask why if the answer isn’t immediately obvious to me (which is usually sixty percent of the time). If you only say “Just because” or “It’s bad”, I won’t believe you or listen to you. If asked why, I will reply “Once some nasty peers of mine asked me if I was gay before I knew what that meant and they wouldn’t tell me. I said yes just to see what would happen and was the laughingstock for the rest of the day.” So you either tell me what’s so wrong and you walk me through it to make the point, or I’ll just assume that it’s not so big a deal because you don’t want to spell it out.*

Sometimes I’m resistant to changes or new things that seem great but I just don’t feel comfortable with yet. I was horribly opposed to social media like Facebook for years because I just didn’t want to have to try it, an to a certain extent it just wasn’t necessary. I’m only now considering a smartphone. A sudden change in schedule can also annoy me to no end every once in a while. And if I can’t watch my shows? Oh, it’s going to bug me. And don’t make me try that thing I have preconceived notions of. I’m sure I’m going to hate it until I try it and I form new opinions.

I like fun, but sometimes I’m happiest in front of the TV with a drink and a show, writing during the commercial breaks or slow parts of the show. If there’s a cat on my lap, even better. I don’t date much, if at all. I sometimes feel that the whole dating/mating/courting process is such a waste of energy and an unnecessary cause of stress. And why go out? The indoors of the world are so friendly, comfortable and familiar.

Oh, and I’m very pale. Can’t forget that.

But I do have my differences from Dr. Cooper. I write fiction and tell stories. I like touching and hugs and I like to be social, though sometimes I prefer it on my own terms. And my roommate and I don’t banter about in such a way that audiences would laugh if they heard us. Plus I definitely believe in God and ghosts, so that’s another important difference.

But yeah, very much like Sheldon Cooper. It’s not always a bad thing–some people say my eccentricities are part of my charm–but it does have its pitfalls. Still, I wouldn’t change me for the world**, because then I wouldn’t be able to do what I love and do the things I’m able to do. It just would be too different.

*I remember when I was eleven or twelve I learned from a camp friend there was an N-word. Being that age and in an environment where swearing was as plentiful as breathing, I wanted to know what it was, but no one would tell me and they wouldn’t tell me why they wouldn’t tell me, which upset me to no end. I didn’t find out until a year later and read Stephen King’s IT why that word was so bad. So way to go, camp kids, you let a horror writer explain to a kid why he shouldn’t use the N-word. And if that doesn’t take the cake, years later some of those same campers would use the N-word casually, calling each other that when we were the whitest Jewish kids you’d ever seen. By that time I was the one trying to keep them from saying it, but up until the end of summer they never stopped, even when a black man nearly heard them say it. I tell you, talk about ironic reversals!

**Unless of course it’s for the suave spy/bad boy personality that’s at ease in almost any situation and draws people together for a common cause, usually defeating some awful evil. I might go for that.

Why Gender Studies Classes Should Be Taught in Public Schools

Posted: April 1, 2015 in Living and Life, Reflections, Social Activism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
2

This really interesting article was posted on the Huffington Post the other day. This article, which you can read in full here, discusses how many schools in India are implementing gender studies classes at public schools across India, thanks to cooperation between the Indian government and advocacy organizations. The goal of this, according to the organizers of these programs, is to get students thinking hard about how gender roles affect them and make some changes for the better. Maybe even bring down the  rates of domestic violence.

And so far the programs seem to be working, according to 15-year-old Shakir Parvez Shaikh:

“We talk about how boys and girls are equal as human beings, but how we treat girls differently,” he told Reuters. “For example, girls are not allowed to play cricket or watch as much television as boys because they have to do housework or because it is not safe outside for them. I didn’t realize before … I think it’s unfair.”

A lot of activists see these programs as one answer to a very sad problem. According to the National Crime Record Bureau,  India saw a nearly 27 percent rise in 2013 in reported gender violence, including rape, sexual harassment, and other related crimes. And for many the 2012 gang rape and murder of a woman on a bus in India is still pretty fresh in their minds. This has helped to spur the creation of these programs, which might help today’s youth see things in a different perspective and cut down on instances of institutionalized sexism, gender discrimination, and domestic violence.

When I read this article, two thoughts went through my mind. The first was that it was good that so many teens, boys and girls, were being exposed to these classes. With statistics like the ones cited above, these programs could bring down that rate significantly and help to foster a more egalitarian society. And then I thought, “Why can’t we have that here in the United States?”

And then I marveled at how we didn’t have any of those programs in the United States. Generally speaking, gender studies courses are normally only taught at the university level, which means that students might never be exposed to these ideas in the midst of taking science and literature courses. The concepts of feminism and gender equality do sometimes come up in high school or middle school settings, but they are usually in the backdrop of English literature or history classes, and they may not always be given the attention they deserve.

Current statistics suggest that 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be victims of sexual assault, though those numbers may be potentially higher due to under-reported. Women still earn only 70 cents for every dollar a man earns, and in fields such as business, politics or STEM, women may face people who believe that women aren’t suited to those fields, that they are only promoted due to their looks or sex rather than their ability, and trying to be assertive is considered “bitchy”. On the flip side, men frequently under-report domestic or sexual abuse and are expected to be tough, virile and sometimes violent to show their masculinity. If you aren’t those, if you’re not depositing your DNA in as many women as possible, then you’re seen as less as a  men, something I see as absurd.

All these reasons and more are why perhaps gender studies courses should be taught in middle and high schools in America. Getting today’s teenagers to engage in these issues may bring down rates of domestic violence, reduce sexism in the workplace, and perhaps get Americans to stop treating the word “feminism” like a swear word. It seems to be working in India anyway, so why not try it over here in the States?

What would it take to get such a program in schools?

Now, I’m no teacher or education major and my formal training in gender studies consists of one class in my first term here at Ohio State (though I’ve informally found ways to expand my training). But even if I’m not, that doesn’t mean I can’t at least get the ball rolling or start a conversation. So tell me, if you’re reading this, have a background in education, gender studies, or anything else that could possibly relate to this, what would it take to create these sort of programs and implement them in a school system? What sort of course materials would be needed? And what sort of obstacles would such a program face? I’d love to hear what you have to say, as well as your thoughts on what I’m suggesting and if it’s at all possible.*

I know that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to change society rapidly or get rid of a prejudice or stereotype. But at the very least that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. If anything, it means we should try harder to eliminate it, looking at every available option. And perhaps this can be one of them.

*However, if you use the comments section to be hateful or say really mean things, I will not approve the comments. We don’t need any of that here on this blog. I’ve already gotten plenty of that from Second Amendment and anti-circumcision advocates. Not really interested in seeing that again.

Newer Entries