Archive for the ‘Reflections’ Category

What I Think About When I Make A Sequel Part II

Posted: December 30, 2012 in Reflections, Writing
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Yesterday I wrote a post with tips on making good sequels. I fogot to add two tips to the list, so I’m adding them in this sequel post:

1. If the focus of your projects are on a group of people, don’t alway focus on the same character each movie. In the two Addams Family films in the 90’s, both films seemed to place t0o much attention on Uncle Fester. Now the first film, I could see why that would be a good idea. But the second film…it could’ve been better. Those films gave people the impression that Uncle Fester was the only stand-out character of the bunch, the way they focused on him so much. Sure, there was some focus on Wednesday in the second film and her romance with a guy from summer camp, but the focus of the movie was still on Fester. No wonder the third film was Direct-tov-Video and barely anyone has heard of it!

2. Take a break between parts of the series. This is one of my tactics, but it’s also one of Christopher Nolan’s. In between his Batman films, Nolan would work on other films, such as Inception or The Prestige. When he returned to the world of Gotham City and Bruce Wayne, Nolan was able to immerse himself with fresh eyes, see the project in a new light. This way, he was able to treat each film as an individual and not as just the next entry to make big money and connect the dots of the story. What happened? Only one of the most historic film trilogies ever! Each film was a success, and I think working on other projects in between films helped. This is why between parts of a series, I take a break and work on something else. Look what I got from not immediately starting on the sequel to Reborn City: a kick-ass thriller called Snake!

I hope you found these helpful, and if you have any suggestions for further tips, don’t hesitate to let me know. That’s all for now, I’ve got work to do.

What I Think About When I Make A Sequel

Posted: December 29, 2012 in Reflections, Writing
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I’ve talked about it several times in the past, how much I loathe sequels when the only reason the sequel is being made is for more money and you can see it in how shoddy the final movie is (Hangover 2, anyone? Spider-Man 3? How about Grease 2?). But my science fiction novel Reborn City is part of a trilogy, which means eventually I’ll have to write the second book, which is a sequel.

Now, I have a general idea for the sequel and the final book as well. I also have an idea for a sequel for my serial killer novel Snake. However instead of telling you guys about those when nobody’s read them, I think I’ll tell you about what I think about when I make sequels, with various examples to illustrate my points. So here we go, with my points and tips for writing a sequel:

1. Give them what they want, but give them plenty of what they don’t expect. This is the core of my philosophy in making a sequel. For instance, the movie Aliens was markedly different from Alien. Sure, there were the Xenomorph aliens, it took place in space, and there were gun battles and death. Heck, we could’ve called that there’d be more than one alien the moment we heard there was a sequel. However, nobody could’ve predicted the colony they made, with the Queen leading the pack. Even better, there were a ton of soldiers instead of miners, so we actually got to see some battles, some resistance from the humans. We even had some connections made between Ripley and Newt, Ripley and the cyborg, Ripley and that one living soldier at the end. And the way the Queen showed up on the ship in the end, pissed as any mother when her kids are threatened? Awesome, and nobody saw any of it coming! It’s why the movie is still such a success; people never see it coming the first time they see the movie!

Then look at Taken 2. We have the gunshots, the killing and the kicking ass from Liam Neeson, we have his family reunited (we all saw that coming from the trailers, didn’t we?). But…did it add anything? Was there anything that really stood out for that film? Anything that set it apart from its predecessor? Not really, besides a location change and the daughter Kim doing some more than being a prisoner. The rest was boring and predictable.

2. Don’t recycle. This is an extension of what I said in the last point, but it’s a good point, and too many filmmakers make this mistake when they make sequels. Take the remake of the Friday the 13th franchise (not exactly a sequel, but you get the point). There were five good, scary minutes where we weren’t sure what was happening, where Jason slashed and we were left freaked. But the rest? It seemed like we’d seen it before in previous films. Plenty of stabbing, plenty of sex, all stuff we’d seen before. Nothing that makes this film stand out from any other Friday the 13th film, except how bad it was. So the lesson here kids, is don’t recycle. It’s unoriginal and annoying.

3. Ask yourself, is a sequel necessary? This is a problem with plenty of films these days. In fact, my dad says there are no original films these days, just sequels, remakes, and book adaptations, and to an extent he’s right. I mean, was The Hangover 2 necessary? Kristen Wiig declined a Bridesmaids sequel, which some saw as genius and others saw as ungrateful, but in the end it was a good decision. And remember the fiasco that was Miss Congeniality: Armed and Fabulous? And don’t get me started on Carrie 2: The Rage. Yes, there was a sequel, in the 90’s. It sucked.

4. Add some human tension if you can. By this, I mean that there should be something that puts the characters off their game, like they can’t trust each other or even trust themselves! For example, in Chamber of Secrets, Harry is suspected of being the Heir of Slytherin, tarnishing his reputation at Hogwarts and alienating him from other students. Sure, Ron and Hermione are loyal almost to a fault, but everybody’s suddenly scared of Harry. Harry even starts to suspect that he might be a danger! Then in the 4th book, Goblet of Fire, for several chapters Harry and Ron aren’t speaking, which causes Harry great amounts of anguish because he loses his best friend in the process. You see how this dark aspect adds so much to the story? It gives it so much weight and makes the story stand out more in our minds. Plus afterwards the characters become so much more relatable. So if you can, add this human tension, or other forms of it, because it’ll add so much to the plot.

5. Find a way to make the deus ex machina work. I’ll have to use Harry Potter again, this time Deathly Hallows. Remember how Harry died and then came back to life simply because he was the 7th Horcrux and everybody was sacrificing themselves for him and vice versa (spoiler alert? It might’ve not been the best way to resolve a plot, but it was clever and it sure as heck worked. In fact, JK Rowling was very good at using deus ex machina and making it work in her HP books. If you can figure out how to pull of a deus ex machina and make it work, you’ve got a great tool in your writing arsenal.

6. You don’t have to connect the sequel’s plot to the last story. In Die Hard 2, John McClane is facing a colonel trying to bring a South American dictator back to his country. In no way was this movie about getting revenge against John McClane for killing Alan Rickman’s character in the original Die Hard. It was an entirely different story, the only connections to the last film a few choice characters, especially John and Holly McClane, and a few passing references to the Nakatomi Tower of the first film. And Die Hard 2 was awesome, almost better than Die Hard! If you can do this with your story, it’ll be original, and you’re readers will respond positively to it, in most cases.

Usually, anyway.

7. Know your limit. This is important, because a lot of series, books and films, keep producing new entries when they’ve long since expired. It’s difficult to keep coming up with an original plot to add to a series, and only a few, like the James Bond films, can do it with any sort of success. Others, like Nightmare on Elm Street or the Halloween series, kept making sequels that got worse and worse, and eventually only hardcore fans watched them, if just to put them in their memories because the entries are part of their favorite franchises. So if you plan on making a series, make sure how many entries you plan to put in before you start to sound repetitive and are grasping at straws in order not to recycle old stories. Trust me, your fans will thank you for it.

That’s all I have to say on the subject. If you have any other tips you want to contribute, I’ll add them in a sequel post. I hope you found this helpful and you gain something from it. Oh, and for those of you wondering when Reborn City is coming out, I’m working on it, I’m having a friend critique it, and it’s taking a little longer than I expected. Please be patient, I hope to have it out before the summer.

An Episode With A Point

Posted: December 24, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I’m sitting in the kitchen at my dad’s place, writing and watching reruns of Family Guy. The episode they played today, I felt was aired for a reason: Peter realizes he’s got a smaller phallis than his son Chris, and joins a parody of the National Rifle Association in order to make himself feel like a bigger man. Let me tell you, I found myself laughing as I thought to myself, “Did they decide to air this particular episode as a response to some of the s&^t that the president of the NRA has been saying in light of the Newtown shooting and the new push from all sides to get guns under control?”

Let me tell you, the episode made some good points. For example, the guy who recruits Peter to the National Gun Association (NGA), says that how much of a man you are depends on the size of your assault rifle (no wonder people don’t want to give up their guns; they’re worried about their penis size…unless they’re women, in which case they’re tyring to show they’re as macho as the men without losing any chance of getting laid). Then, when Lois worries that Peter taking Chris on a hunting trip is a bad idea, they show a video that shows, among other things, Jesus and Moses using AR-17s on Romans, giving the Second Amendment the same sacredness as the Bible in the gun nuts’ minds, telling kids if they hug a pistol they can get rid of bad guys, and then saying that guns are good and safe, before showing a disclaimer that says that guns aren’t the safest thing in the world.

You know, I really love Seth MacFarlene; he really can take everything and show its stupid side in ways no one else can. And in this early episode, from season 3 and well before our current plague of gun violence and anger over gun violence, it surely is a perfect response to Wayne LaPierre and his NRA leadership buddies, who are not only out of touch, they are out of touch with their own members, who apparently do believe in some restrictions in guns (imagine that!).

Now, with politicians on both sides of the aisle working towards gun control legislation, we can expect the NRA to put up a huge fight. In fact, LaPierre has already called a reinstated ban on assault rifles “an evil bill based on lies” (or something along those lines). Well NRA members who do believe in some gun control, I hope you can put some sense intl your leadership. The nation needs it.

The Second Short Story For The Collection Is Done

Posted: December 23, 2012 in Living and Life, Progress Report, Reflections, short story, Writing
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And it was much shorter than the first short story. This one, called “Addict”, is just under 3000 words but it’s pretty extraordinary in itself. For example, I told it all in 2nd person. It’s also more literary in nature than my previous work, but it straddles the line between literary and genre in certain ways, and I like that ambiguous nature to it. But most importantly, it’s based on the experiences of a friend:

My friend, who I’ll call SA, mostly because that’s about as far from his real name as I can get, had an addiction to pornography and sex that he only told me because he felt he could trust me. It was very difficult for him. He never told anyone, and for a long time, he denied he had a problem, believing he just had a bigger libido than most. Eventually it got to be problematic for him though, and began to interfere with his life, his work and his studies. Eventually he sought help, and he’s moving ahead, one day at a time. He’s fallen off the bandwagon once or twice, but he’s apologized for his mistakes and gotten back on as soon as he can.

I’ve known this friend for a long time, so he knew he could trust me with this secret. He told me a lot about his struggles, and he still tells me. I got his permission to write this story only after I asked if I could use some of the stuff he’s gone through as base material. He told me that I’d probably turn it into something unrecognizable (which I did), so it was alright; nobody would know it was him.

In any case, I think this short story came out very well, and the fact that it’s in second person may make it very personal for current or recovering sex and porn addicts. I’ll bring it to my creative writing class to workshop it, as I signed up to volunteer a short story on the first day. I hope to get some good feedback for it, because this is a short story I think has potential.

That’s all for now. I’ll start the third short story tomorrow, but first I’d like to take a shower and then spend the night reading “Silence of the Lambs”. All for now. Blog on you later.

Forgiving A Bully For Old Hurts

Posted: December 23, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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Looks like I have something to be grateful to Facebook for: I found an old bully of mine. In 3rd Grade he made my life hell with his friends, and I was so happy when I left that school and transferred to a school that, although I had a rocky start there, I felt I had found a home for myself. However the memory of that bully never left me, and I sometimes wondered from time to time what happened to him. I do admit I was bitter up until a few years ago, still upset about what I went through. I even made him a character in a story I wrote once, changing his name a little, where he ended up killed because he was an evil vampire.

Now, I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed to know that I wanted to put all the hurt I felt into a weapon and get back at him through the power of writing. And at some point I realized that holding onto this hate wasn’t going to do me any favors. So I tried finding reasons to forgive him. After a bit of soul searching, I found one: I was molded into a writer of scary stories by many sources, first and foremost by an experience involving two staff members at a synagogue scaring the hell out of me after services one day when I was no older than six. But the torment I went through in the third grade–the teasing, the isolation, the one time a friend of his put glue in my hair and I didn’t notice until someone pointed the glue out to me–helped mold me as a writer and as a person. It wouldn’t be the last source to warp me, but it played its role.

And I emerged from that experience much stronger than I had been. I started writing, found I loved it, discovered I loved writing horror, learned how to scare people with some effectiveness, and started getting some of my work published. In addition, I began to feel an empathy not only for those who were bullied, but for those who’ve been hurt and discriminated against because they were a little different than others. It’s a part of me I cherish, because it makes me a better person.

I’m now over the hurt, even though I still don’t like it when certain aspects of that time are brought up (my immediate family probably knows what I’m talking about). I write a lot, I emphasize with people, and I try to treat everyone as kindly as possible. But I wanted to find this guy, if only to ask why, or to get a little closure or something. I had trouble finding him, particularly because I didn’t want to use social networking to find him.

But I got a Facebook page to spread the word on my writing. Lo and behold, I found him. I sent him a message. And I told him I forgive him for all the hurts, and I wish him happiness and success in life.

Now that I’ve sent the message, I feel a sense of peace. I feel like I’ve finally gotten something off my back, and now that it’s gone, it feels so great. I don’t know what’ll happen next though. Maybe he’ll read the message. Maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll send something back. Maybe he’ll ask to be my friend. I don’t know. But I do know that he’s in California and I’m in Ohio, so the distance between us is enough that I feel comfortable enough to just see where this goes and not worry that he’ll show up and harass me or something.

In the end, I’ve closed a chapter of my life that deserves to stay closed. And now, I would like nothing more than to continue working on the short story I’ve been working on since this morning.

Happy Holidays, everybody.

An Afternoon With A Friend

Posted: December 23, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I spent this afternoon hanging out with a friend I’d hardly seen since graduation, mostly because he’d spent a year in Israel interning at a television network. Turns out that while I’d been busy, so had my friend: not only had he been interning in Israel, but he’d also done some pretty amazing things. My friend’s a whiz when it comes to doing special effects with computers, and he’d done some special effects work for the B-grade horror film Smiley and for the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers video. Yes, he did that.

But that’s not all; apparently my friend’s family owns some properties around Columbus’s Old Towne East neighborhood, a historic neighborhood that had in recent years had fallen into disuse and decay. His family has been buying up properties however, and they’ve been working to renovate many of the buildings, upping the value of the other buildings and making them useful once more. This has brought a steady stream of people back to the neighborhood and even helped bring some money into the neighborhood (if you’ve been in that neighborhood and have been to Yellow Brick Pizza, you can see why). My friend even showed me a few properties, like one that’s in the middle of its renovation and another that hasn’t been renovated yet (the latter looks like a location for a paranormal exploration team’s lockdown at the moment). It was pretty interesting, and I was happy that my friend was contributing to the community. In fact, he told me that several times the people in the neighborhood have called the police when they think a building’s been broken into, just because they don’t want anything to happen to the properties my friend’s renovating with his family.

I have to say, it’s pretty interesting to see what he’s been up to lately, and I was happy to hang out with him.

Not only that, but he gave me some great tips on how to promote my writing, particularly my books when they come out (hopefully soon). I’m definitely going to have to use those tips, especially since they came from a guy who’s made a few successes doing his promotion through YouTube and whatever. Pretty awesome, if you ask me.

Oh Look, The World Hasn’t Ended

Posted: December 21, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I’m not going to say “I told you so” to the people who were expecting earthquakes and meteors and gods attacking and whatever. Instead, I’d like to quote Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory: “I informed you thusly!”

Let’s face it, the world has been predicted to end several times over the past 2000 years. It’s not going to end, at least not on some prophecy. If it does end, we won’t see it coming. Luckily, I don’t expect the world to end, so I’m not too worried about something happened. We just need to start a revolution in Iran to elect a true democratic government, bring preace between Israel and its citizens, and I think we’ll be fine.

However, some people believe that the date the world ends isn’t for another ten days, on New Year’s Eve. So unless the ball in Times Square is laced with explosives, I think I’ll ignore this date too and just spend time with the family.

So Happy Solstice, and I hope the worse weather you’re having is some snow. That’s what I’m getting, and the worse it’s doing to me is keeping me indoors.

It’s The Day Before The World Will End (Not Really)

Posted: December 20, 2012 in Living and Life, Reflections
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So it’s about 24 hours before the Mayan calendar is supposed to wind down and the doomsday naysayers crap their pants with worry. Given the lack of scientific evidence that there is something to make the world end, the fact that the Mayans weren’t thinking about fire and brimstone when they created their long-count calendar, and the fact that prophecies of doom have come and gone without a hair falling out of place (most recently May 2011), I think it’s unlikely the world will end.

In fact, I plan to act like the world won’t end. I’ll get up, wonder if there’s still time to go to the Christmas party at work even though I’m not scheduled to go into work today and therefore slept in a little, write, remember the world’s supposed to end, shrug and get back to whatever I was doing, bring in the Sabbath, and laugh as nothing happens.

You guys get where I’m going with this, right? The world’s not going to end. There’s nothing to make it end. I know things have been crazy the past week in the USA because of all the shootings and attempted shootings. It’s enough to make you think the world might actually end. But it won’t; the world’s going to keep spinning, I’m going to keep writing, and on Christmas I’m going to order Chinese and watch a movie, as many Jews will do during the holiday season.

But if you’re still scared, please watch this music video by British artist Jay Sean, featuring supposedly-Trinidadian-but-possibly-from-outer-space artist Nicki Minaj. If this doesn’t convince you the world’s not ending, you’re a lunatic:

And I Heard Something Dumber Than What Huckabee Said

Posted: December 17, 2012 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections
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During the election, I got incensed when politicians and media personalities said idiotic crap about women’s bodies. Now, I have plenty of material on politicians and gun control! For example, Mike Huckabee said that “systematically removing God” from public schools was the reason behind the massacre, and that he “wasn’t surprised” that the shooting happened. He tried to clarify his views later by saying that he meant “God’s name is only invoked after the tragedy”. That’s sometimes true, but we all understood what you meant the first time you said it.

However, I just heard something worse: Representative Dennis Richardson of Oregon said that teachers should be allowed to carry guns on campus and in the classroom, and if he’d been a teacher, he’d have shot Adam Lanza. Yes, he is a Republican, and no, I have no idea if he’s had psychological testing.

Still, I have to ask: WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?! DID YOU GO UPSTATE FOR SOME WEED THIS WEEKEND?

If you didn’t get that last question, you haven’t been paying attention to the drugs debate enough and you need to brush up on your US geography.

But seriously, what the heck are you suggesting? That teachers have guns? That’s a stupid idea. A tattoo or a piercing is okay, it may be a little garish or obscene to some people, but tattoos or piercings don’t have negative effects on children, they don’t harm children. Guns though, can harm children. And even if you lock the guns up, there’s always the one kid, even in kindergarten, who can get into places they shouldn’t. And every time a gun gets in a school, it always causes chaos, as this past weekend demonstrated well enough. How does putting guns in school for the teachers supposed to protect anyone?

I really don’t understand how giving people more access to weapons of death and destruction is supposed to protect others and stop the killing that comes from these same weapons. It’s counterintuitive, if you ask me, and I also think Representative Richardson is not going to be reelected because of this comment. If anything, we need less guns, especially the powerful assault rifles. Like Senator Feinstein from California said, those guns aren’t for hunting deer, they’re for hunting people!

Looks Like Someone Got The Message

Posted: December 16, 2012 in Living and Life, Politics and Leadership, Progress Report, Reflections, Social Activism
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This morning I wrote a post calling for everyone reading this blog to contact every politician they can think of and ask them to work for stricter measures against gun violence. Afterwards I saw an article on HuffPost.com on how a man in Indiana threatened to kill his wife and then go into a local elementary school and shoot them up. Thankfully yesterday he was arrested and is being held on felony intimidation charges, but it still had me spooked. I mean, it’s enough to make you think this coming Friday really is the end of the world!

But when I got back home from my meditation class, I saw an article that said on the first day of the new Congress, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California plans to introduce a bill that’ll stop the sale of assault weapons to civilians. As she said on her campaign website, “Who needs these military-style assault weapons? Who needs an ammunition feeding device capable of holding 100 rounds? These weapons are not for hunting deer — they’re for hunting people.”

So true, Senator Feinstein. So true.

So at least someone in Washington has the guts to step up and speak out on the gun problem in the United States. I hope soon we can see some progress, and I wish Senator Feinstein the best of luck in getting this bill through Congress.

However this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep emailing our elected officials. On the contrary, we should email them more, because if a bill like this is going to get through Congress, it’s going to need all the popular support it can get, and I’m hoping you’ll help support it. So email away; I’ve got to email the senator herself and thank her for saying she’ll introduce this bill, because as you can tell it means a lot to me.

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