Quantum Storytelling

Firefly didn’t get a high enough number of viewers to inspire FOX to keep it going, but the DVD sales numbers seem to be doing just fine.

I’m about to start the third disc in the series which puts me halfway through, so I feel versed enough in the material to make some comments. The material is utter cheese, but in a very endearing way. Campy is the word I’m looking for, but keep in mind I say that as a compliment. It would be more difficult to take Firefly seriously as entertainment if Joss Whedon hadn’t infused it with campy material or humor, one-liners, etc. He offsets the humor with moments of soap opera styled dread and seriousness.

As for the rest of the writing, it seems solid enough. Joss creates some strong dramatic tension between the crew of Serenity and the situations in which they find themselves. The production values of the series could have been a little higher, but I forgive all of it in understanding of budget concerns.

What I get out of the series more than anything is optimism. The supportive, even fanatical fans of Firefly prove that you don’t need big budgets or even the greatest writing credentials to make the next Star Wars. Joss is very much a student of George Lucas bootstrapping and even a writer of Star Trek heritage. He even admits it in recent interviews:

“There’s always the young punk rebelling against his father.I’m rebelling against Han Solo, but if you are going to tell me that Han Solo isn´t the father of Malcolm Reynolds, then I am going to laugh and laugh and laugh. A lot of people liked the first STAR TREK when they were really finding their way, and James Kirk was about taking the time to take his shirt off and getting it done. Kirk was also, I would say, Malcolm’s weird uncle. And both of those franchises became more and more sterile, and less kind off down and dirt. I was rebelling against that kind of TV and science-fiction. At the same time, I owe both of those franchises a huge debt. They are both in my personal, how can they not be ?It’s that classic thing : I’m rebelling against my father and doing everything he doesn’t do, but I think I look like him.”

Creative people often focus on the notion of originality at the expense of everything else. Along with working in a vacuum, many supposed ‘creatives’ will speak of derivation as an evil thing to be avoided at all costs.

I’m often both surprised and disappointed by this Originality Notion. I find Firefly very far from original. As Joss says himself, Firefly and its characters are very much the children of Star Wars and Star Trek, perhaps with a little John Wayne or Sergio Leone western spice. Being derivative is often the source of inspiration for great works.

When I learned that Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammet was the inspiration for Frank Miller’s Sin City among others, I had to read it. After reading Red Harvest I was curious about whether a movie had ever been made, or if there were any plans to make a modern version. Here is what Wikipedia had to say:

“Red Harvest has only been adapted into a film one time, for the 1930 film Roadhouse Nights, starring Jimmy Durante. However, many major elements of the book were changed for the movie, including most of the characters’ names, and the film is not considered a faithful adaptation.It has been frequently asserted–though never officially corroborated–that the plot was the inspiration for Yojimbo, a 1961 film by Akira Kurosawa. Yojimbo was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars (1964), a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood; A Fistful of Dollars was in turn remade as a 1920s-era “gangster” movie in Last Man Standing (1996), starring Bruce Willis.”

So Red Harvest spawned Yojimbo and Yojimbo spawned A Fistful of Dollars. Kurosawa films have spawned a little something else as well. George Lucas modeled the first half of Star Wars (Episode 4) on Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress.

So here we have a long history of samurai movies, westerns, and fantasy-science fiction spawned off pulp fiction and detective stories. Not to mention Lucas & Spielberg’s open admission that Indiana Jones was inspired by 1930s serials.

Good things happen to those who emulate.

You don’t have to be entirely original to create good work or even attain a marginal level of success. Being different is more important than being original. The two are not necessarily the same thing if you think about it.

If you can’t get high TV or cable ratings, or can’t be a smashing box office success, there is always the growth of DVD sales to prove you ‘financially viable’ in entertainment markets.

This is an important message to writers everywhere that you don’t have to be a bestseller or smashing success to have some kind of success. Success doesn’t happen overnight. From a creative standpoint you don’t have to be entirely original either, just different enough to grab peoples’ attention. There is a huge market in catering to the Children of Star Wars.

If anything it proves the old adage; “If you build it, they will come.”

Just ask Joss Whedon.

Still working steadily away on my outline. I’m only on Act II at the moment, which means I may not have time to complete Act III in the outline before NaNoWriMo begins. Since I’m still suffering from this awful cold and not feeling up to my usual weekend shenanigans I may as well just work on it, no?

I pondered McGuffins yesterday, from an exploration of Wikipedia’s narratology section which is fairly robust.

An Audience Surrogate seems especially useful for science fiction. Although I’m reading Stranger in a Strange Land right now by Robert Heinlein and I think he overuses it and makes some of the characters seem like idiots for asking stupid questions. It’s mostly a matter of presentation but if a character lives in a world and is familiar with their surroundings they wouldn’t ask silly questions. A good way to put it is that like any narratology device, the reader shouldn’t be aware of it.

There is also the Author Surrogate which displays the heavy handed idealism of the author. Ayn Rand and her ‘mover’ perfect heroes are an excellent example. I remember in The Fountainhead Howard Roark sits in his architect office, not advertising, not selling himself, simply waiting for the ideal customer to come to him because he refuses to compromise his work. Well I’m sorry but in the real world most people have to eat and provide for their families, so a guy with zero income just sitting in his place of business doing nothing waiting for the perfect opportunity doesn’t seem like much of an ideal, does it?

Let’s not even discuss the 70 page ‘money rant’ in Atlas Shrugged. I’ll merely say that it’s not in the author’s interest to preach to the reader, via their characters or otherwise.

On the bright side, she does portray the corruptive influence of society via ‘2nd handers’ extremely well. Although most people do not fit entirely in the black & white, she grew up in communist Russia so I forgive her. And frightening enough, I have met a few Jim Taggarts in my lifetime.

Then there is Chekhov’s gun. A great example of this is found in the Preacher graphic novels. Throughout the series there are early displaced single pages with frames featuring new characters or events that don’t seem to be a part of the storyline… yet. They’re merely teasers. I’d rather call them plot teasers than Chekhov’s gun, wouldn’t you?

Of course every story needs a denouement.

I often like an epistolary novel even though I don’t have any plans to write one myself. It isn’t an all-or-nothing deal, as I seem to remember Bram Stoker’s Dracula featuring letters from Jonathon Harker although that wasn’t the only storytelling device used.

I can hardly forget my high school literature class with all its talk of foreshadowing. It’s interesting to consider the difference between it and Chekhov’s gun. Chekhov’s gun is merely a reference to something which will happen later, while foreshadowing seems to often involve more symbolism or flare on the part of the writer. I could be mistaken though, and surely it’s up to interpretation of the writer.

I don’t like meta references because they break the suspension of disbelief and destroy immersion.

I love the definition of Naturalistic Science Fiction. I wouldn’t not hesitate to plunk my main Quantum story and my NaNoWriMo sidestory under this umbrella.

The Plot Coupon is an interesting concept. Upon first glance it seems just like the McGuffin, although it doesn’t have to be a physical object. In the abstract it can be used as the author’s ‘checklist’ for preparing characters or events. “In order for event C to happen, event A and B must come about by the actions of characters X, Y, and Z.” In other words, the plot coupon can be used to enforce cause & effect for the author.

As Wikipedia mentions, one of my favorite Philip K. Dick short stories, Paycheck, is founded entirely upon plot coupons. In this case they also happen to be McGuffins.

There are many other elements of narratology, go check them out for yourself!

The McGuffin seems to be a focal point for a lot of sci-fi. Even where it isn’t, you could view a lot of sci-fi concepts as a mcguffin in itself. Some sci-fi examples of mcguffins: Delorean in Back to the Future, sports almanac in Back to the Future II, explosive doppleganger in Imposter. For sci-fi stories it seems the mcguffin can be a person or technology. Can a mcguffin be a concept?

I have a McGuffin in my sci-fi story for NaNoWriMo. It’s a McGuffin I’ve given quite a bit of thought, based in a longstanding fantasy of mine.

My McGuffin is a very powerful device created by one party and being sought after by several others. It involves a bit of corporate conspiracy and espionage.

One of the fun tangents is the corporate espionage involves characters and corporations from my main quantum story. It takes place before my main quantum story, so it should provide an interesting history.

As for the McGuffin? It will not be featured in the main Quantum story although I may plant references to it.

Do you like McGuffins? Are you using them?