mwotw

I’ve never been the sort of person to sit and stare at something I’ve made for a long time after making it. I like to move on. If you had asked me right after I “finished” writing Ferus Rex whether it was going to be the only novel I ever wrote, I would have said “No way!” Ten years later, it looks very likely to be the only one. But ten years ago, I tried to plunge right into novel #2 like my life depended on it. I conceived to write a novel that would cure the queasy feeling of self-indulgence engendered by the writing of Ferus Rex. How that directive led me to the plot of Powerless Day, is anybody’s guess.

The year is the not-so-distant-yet-very-different future, I learned to write about thanks to William Gibson. Neuromancer foresaw accurately some things that were coming because of the Internet. When writers want things to change very dramatically in a relatively short period of time, they will sometimes interpose an apocalypse of some sort, between the present and the day-after-tomorrow they want to describe. How you actually got from A to B is relegated to the oblivion of prologue. While the words scroll upwards on the screen and the John Williams score manipulates us into the feeling that something significant is being explained, a writer has merely to declare the way things are. What continuity, if any, there might be between present and prospective future is for the reader to think about on his way home from the multiplex.

In the case of Powerless Day, all you really need to know is that America is in an undeniable decline. Things are bad at home. They are bad in a number of “trouble spots” around the world. Unemployment is exorbitant. So is crime. In many ways, American society has been flipped upside down. The white poor outnumber minority poor. The urban landscape in most major cities is dominated by a small number of organizations with a mixture of racial, ideological and political origins. In the heartland, the hillbillies are arming and entrenching. But in Los Angeles, local government, organized crime and street gangs are engaged in outrageously candid warfare on the city streets. In New York, it is the same. In all the country, there is a high hysteria in the air. The experiences of rape and riot and violence are common in most places. Half the populace is checked out on drugs. The other half is having an orgy while Rome burns all around them. (more…)

Charlie Kaufman has helped me to understand the (still grander) power of cinema, now that the formative conventions of theatre have begun to lose their effect.

The medium *film* is NOT like life.

Comparing books and movies is going to get even more absurd.

Previously, popular films begat novelizations.

Hereforward, keep yer eyes open for the effects of film upon the written word.

The concept “narrative” is in debate and up for grabs — interactive adds a new whole new dimension to story-telling. It’s called maybe.

For most of the history of cinema, movie “plots” have adhered to a narrative structure that derived straight from theater. And theater, with a few but notable exceptions, like Beckett, etc, has used the same form to tell a story for the last 3,000 years.

Gustav Freytag came up with his famous “triangle” to conveniently illustrate for us the traditional plot structure, which applies to most novels, most plays and most movies…

While experimental departures from the above have always been undertaken by the adventurous among all three mediums (stage plays, novels and movies), these were generally appreciated only by the narrow band of society comprising academics, intellectuals and media obsessisives. So, they’d never really been much to speak of at the box office. But, I am going to guesstimate here, in the mid-late 90’s or so we began to see some bigger budget movies that began to “flirt” with non-conventional narrative structure in a very exciting way.

In my mind, there is one writer that stands above all the others…

CHARLIE KAUFMAN

I consider myself a feminist… and by that I mean that I am a man, who, though he is a man, is to all that is female and feminine an ardent and devoted fan. Interestingly, if not unexpectedly, this is a position that has seemed to alienate me from both genders for as long as I can recall. I don’t mind that so much, since those whom I offend the most are the most firmly “encamped” in their roles. And I don’t really care to be liked by fundamentalists, or by anyone who holds an opinion above reason — especially an angry opinion. Plus, standing astride an ideological line permits me to do what I love to do the most — translate and make introductions — (more…)