What I read in 2013

Here's a list of the books and short stories I read this year. I recommend the ones in bold.

Side Jobs by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy, 2010)
The Magicians by Lev Grossman (fantasy, 2009) 
Changes by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy, 2010)

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin (fantasy, 1999)
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (fantasy, 2008)

Feed by M.T. Anderson (science fiction, 2002)
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (fiction, 2011)
Turn Coat by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy, 2009)

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer (non-fiction, 2011)
From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
- "The Final Problem"

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (non-fiction, 2010)
Small Favor by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy, 2008)
Phoenix by Chuck Palahniuk (short story, 2013)
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman ("short fictions and illusions," 1998)
From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
- "The Naval Treaty"

Proven Guilty by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy, 2006)
The Adventures of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks (graphic novel, 2013)
Let's Write a Short Story! by Joe Bunting (non-fiction, 2012)
Schooled by Dalton Jackson (non-fiction, 2012)
The Dip by Seth Godin (non-fiction, 2007)
Limitless by Alan Glynn (science fiction, 2001)
Smarter, Faster, Cheaper: Non-boring, Fluff-free Strategies for Marketing and Promoting Your Business by David Siteman Garland (non-ficiton, 2011)
White Night by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy, 2008)

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (non-fiction, 1996)
Darkride by Laura Bradley Rede (fantasy, 2011)
From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
- "The Greek Interpreter"

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard (non-fiction, 1990)
The Resume Is Dead by Nelson Wang (non-fiction, 2012)
Disrupt: Think the Unthinkable to Spark Transformation in Your Business by Luke Williams (non-ficiton, 2010)
From The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
- "The Resident Patient"
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (fiction, 2006)

The Tomorrow People: Why is Stephen in high school?

Nine episodes in, and there’s one thing that consistently annoys me about The Tomorrow People—Stephen isn’t believable as a high school student.

Except for a handful of scenes in the first couple episodes and the basketball episode, we haven’t seen Stephen in school. He doesn’t spend much time studying or doing homework on screen, and judging by the amount of time he spends between Ultra and the Lair, he must be skipping classes. There should be consequences from missing school (grounded by his mom, phone calls from the principal), but there aren’t.

Or are we supposed to believe that Stephen’s “internship” at Ultra is taking the place of a regular high school schedule?

If high school isn’t a critical part of the story, why have the main character be high school-aged?

The writers could have made Stephen a little older. Put him in college. It might have gone like this:

Astrid and Stephen go to the local state university, but Stephen takes the semester off (or shifted to part time classes) because of his supposed mental health issues.

He realizes the voice in his head is actually Cara, the sleep walking condition he thinks he has is actually teleportation, and he doesn’t need his meds anymore. He joins the Tomorrow People and he becomes a double-agent at Ultra, just like canon.

Then the show wouldn’t have to spend much time on classroom scenes and the missing school stuff wouldn’t be a massive plot hole. Making Stephen a few years older would make him a more believable character.

Grimm season 3: the pacing so far

Spoilers for 3.01 and 3.02 ("The Ungrateful Dead" and "PTZD")

Grimm came back two weeks ago and it's probably too early to say much about the pacing of season 3, but so far I think it's too slow. Did we need to devote four episodes to this mashup of zombie breakout, Grimm kidnapping, Juliette joining the Scooby gang, and Adalind getting her powers back?

Because even though that's a lot of stuff going on, there wasn't much forward movement when you take into consideration that these stories were the focus for the last two episodes of season 2 and the first two episodes of season 3.

We'll take the story bits one by one, shall we?

The zombie breakout

I don't know if this was connected to the popularity of The Walking Dead, but last I checked, Grimm is not that show. I don't tune in to watch scenes of zombies disrupting traffic, scaring people, and breaking stuff. The writeres could have gleaned over those destruction scenes and used that time to develop other things. The zombies keep coming and they wreck everything in their path, we get it. The most important part out of the zombie breakout was that Nick was infected and went on a rampage, and even so, did we need all that time to watch Nick trudging through the forest and beating up people? (The answer is no.)

Grimm kidnapping

This is the most interesting piece for me because we don't know Eric's motive. If he wanted only to kill Nick, then why make plans to transport his body? If Eric wanted to use Nick, did he have the antidote to the infection, or did he want a zombie Grimm? And if Eric wanted to snatch Nick away from Portland, why now? What else is going on with the Royal Families and the wesen that we aren't seeing? It seems like Sean knows more about what's going on and of course he doesn't say much, so I would have liked to see the other characters investigate this (maybe Monroe and Hank). That would have been better than most of Zombie Nick.

Juliette joining the Scooby gang

Not much to say here except that I'm glad she is more involved now. I hope it stays that way.

Adalind getting her powers back

These scenes were such. a waste. of time. By now we know there are rituals and certain ways things have to be done in the wesen world. Two scenes of Adalind messing with dead body parts would have been plenty. The cross-cutting to her and the icky stuff she had to do was unnecessary nastiness. Sidenote: I hope the writers have actual plans for what Adalind will do with her regained powers. I like her character but I don't want to retread season 1 stuff with her.

Overall, I think Grimm is setting up great things for season 3: Hank, Renard, and Nick working together; Juliette in on Nick's secret; Nick dealing with killing a human; a broader scope of wesen and Royals. But episodes need to be structured differently so that we see forward motion and significant story details, instead of fight scenes and B-movie horror tropes to fill episodes.

Weekend Roundup - September 15

The best of what I read (and watched) this week.

Not Too Hard, Not Too Easy: Finding Flow In Your Work (99u.com)

PR Insider: 7 SEO Basics Every PR Pro Should Know (PR News)

Bigger Pizzas: A Capitalist Case for Health Care Reform (John Green, vlogbrothers)

How To Read Way More Books (And, Thus, Know Way More Stuff) (Fast Company)

5 Things you have to unlearn to succeed at work (Penelope Trunk)

How to Face Your First Day Like a Pro (Savvy Sugar)

What's Expected of Me on the First Day of a New Job? (Lifehacker)

Movie recommendation: Moon (2009)

Moon is the most recent success of my Netflix Game. My one criteria was a character-driven sci-fi story. Otherwise, I didn't know anything about the movie.

Moon is about an astronaut, Sam Bell, who has a three-year contract to work alone on a lunar station. That's all I'll say about the story because I don't like spoiling movies while I'm recommending them. Instead, I'll briefly list the things I liked about Moon. In no specific order:

1. The soundtrack. From the first scene, I knew I would love the soundtrack. The music is sparse, haunting at times, and gives a sense of yearning. It reflects Sam's mood, so when he is going about his daily routine, the music feels at ease. When he's scared, the music expresses his fear.

2. Character-driven. You watch Sam the whole time. That's it.

3. No explosions. There aren't high-speed chases, brilliant flashes of light, and booming sounds in Moon. You get to pay attention to the story instead of being distracted and interrupted by typical blockbuster action scenes.

4. You're rewarded for thinking as you watch. Moon lays out just enough details that you can guess at what's happening before it's confirmed on the screen. Despite that, the movie didn't feel predictable to me. The movie kept my attention and a level of suspense because I guessed what should happen and then watched to see if that did happen.

5. The soundtrack. I'm repeating this point because, seriously, the soundtrack is so good. I'm listening to it as I write this post. It fits the tone of Moon and encapsulates emotions so well.

Weekend Roundup - August 25

The best of what I read and watched this week.

The Complete Guide for Finding and Sharing Better Content on Social Media (buffer)

Young on Youtube (NerdyandQuirky)

Finally! The 23 Unwritten Rules of Email (The Daily Muse)

5 Ways to Boost Your Confidence in a New Job (The Daily Muse)

How does time travel work in Continuum?

Continuum hasn't defined its rules for time travel. On the one hand, no set rules means that the show can put things into place as needed and as the story progresses. But on the other hand, the audience doesn't know what is at stake for the characters if we aren't sure how their actions affect the future (or the past).

What we can do is look at possible time travel theories based on what happened in the show so far. My go-to process with new time travel stories is to figure them out by using older stories where we know how time travel works.

Spoilers below through episode 2.08 "Second Listen."

(source)

Theory 1

The future already happened

In season one of Heroes, Peter Petrelli has visions of the future, and he knows those events are going to happen. He isn't able to change them. The only thing he can do is figure out how he is going to react.

If the same is true for Continuum, then all the scenes in the future will happen (have already happened). Everything we see Alec do in the future is already in place, such as making sure Kiera is the CPS officer sent back with the Liber8 group and sending back Garza as his judge and jury. (We see the scenes from the future as they are relevant to what is happening in the present.) The characters in the present cannot affect the future we've already seen in 2077 and Future Alec's intervention with the past is pointless. Maybe he hasn't realized that yet.

Theory 2

Nothing is set in stone

In The Terminator movies, John Connor's ultimate goal is to prevent the machines from taking over humanity. Future John sends Kyle Reese (in the first movie) and a terminator (in the second movie) back in time to help his mother and his younger self. John alters events in the past and keeps delaying the machines' rise to power in the future. The changes oscillate back and forth. Future John sends someone back in time. The characters in the present time make changes, which affect things in the future. Then Future John sends someone (or something) else back to make more changes.

If the same flexibility works in Continuum, then Kiera and Alec make changes in the present that will change the future, and Future Alec is responding to those changes and sending back messages or people to keep altering things to the way he wants them to be. This means that the scenes we see in the future are actually happening in alternate futures. Future Alec sends Liber8 back in time. They make changes. He responds by making sure that Kiera is sent back with them. She makes changes. He makes sure that his younger self doesn't make bad decisions by sending Garza. The characters can make changes and respond to effects all the time, back and forth, in both the present and the future. 

Theory 3

The timeline split

In Back to the Future II, Biff creates an alternate timeline when he visits his younger self in 1955 and gives him a sports almanac to bet on winning teams and raise a fortune in Hill Valley. By 1985 (the movie's present time), Hill Valley is completely altered from the original timeline that we saw in Back to the Future I. The only way to return to the original timeline is for Marty to travel to 1955 and stop Biff from meeting his younger self.

An alternate timeline in Continuum means that Kiera, Alec, and Liber8 have made enough changes that the future changes. Kiera cannot go back to the 2077 she knew unless she can travel back to the day she arrived in 2012 and stop her past self and Liber8 from making any changes. (She would probably have to kill them, including her past self.) As for the show's scenes in the future, there are two possibilities: 1) The future we see is from the original 2077 or 2) The future we see is from the alternate timeline and Alec is still trying to make changes to the past.

Any of these theories could help explain how time travel works in Continuum, but I have a feeling the show is going to leave the rules undefined. If the characters don't know what they can change, then maybe the audience shouldn't know either.

Weekend Roundup - July 21

The best of what I read this week. Sources in parentheses.

Sharknado: What the hell happened to television? (The Second Screen) - Excellent post about television shows' decline in quality, especially on the SyFy channel.

Employee Rights: Starting Your New Job (Simply Hired)

The Chokehold of Calendars (Medium)

Unpronounceable (Medium)

How To Be Happy (Medium)

3 Novel Things You Must Do During Interview Prep (U.S. News)

Weekend Roundup - July 14

Things I read this week. Sources in parenthesis.

90% Of Customers Will Recommend Brands After Social Media Interactions (Business Insider)

Turn It Up: How the Right Amount of Ambient Noise Increases Creativity (99u)

8 Simple Fixes for Lonely Blog Syndrome (LKR Social Media)

On Dialogue Tags: Why Anything Besides 'Said' And 'Asked' Is Lazy Writing (Lit Reactor)

5 Marketing Gigs You Can Do From Home (The Daily Muse)

Film Crit Hulk Smash: Never hate a movie (Badass Digest)

And one thing I watched:
How to escape education's death valley (TED Talks)

Man of Steel got some things right

Spoilers for Man of Steel.

I heard mixed reviews about Man of Steel and these two things kept coming up:

1. Way too much destruction. Buildings fall apart. Explosions. Lots of civilians in danger. But Superman wouldn’t put that many people in danger. He would take the fight away, out in the middle of nowhere (or even into space).

2. The first half of the movie feels different from the second half. Stylistically, visually. It’s like you’re watching two films mashed together, and they don't mash well.

As I watched the movie, I thought these were valid points. Man of Steel has its flaws, but it also got a lot of things right. I'll go through the bad stuff first, and then get to the good stuff.

The bad stuff

1. Too much destruction, and I know why it happens. This version of Clark doesn't don the suit until he faces Zod. Clark hasn't faced major threats before, human or otherwise, so when he fights Zod, it's messy and desperate. Clark doesn't have enough experience to control the situation, and that's why there's so much destruction. I still think it's excessive, but I understand why it happens.

2. Stylistic changes. One issue is with the flashback scenes. I like seeing Clark at different ages, but a few of the flashbacks feel forced and interrupt the flow of the present action. I don’t know if there was a better way to include them. Another issue is all the fighting in the second half of the movie. Lots of explosions, broken glass and stone, and loud noises in contrast to (relatively quiet) scenes around the world in the first half.

3. Clark doesn’t work at the Daily Planet until the end of the movie. I have mixed feelings about this. I like seeing on-the-farm Clark, but the mild-mannered reporter is a big part of the character and usually a more prominent role for the actor. One of the best things about Superman I is seeing Christopher Reeve shift from Clark Kent to Superman, but Henry Cavill doesn’t have the opportunity to do that.

4. Zod was born to be a soldier and protector of Krypton, but we find out too late. Jor-El says that for centuries, everyone on Krypton was born for a specific purpose, but Clark was born naturally and with the freedom to become whoever he wanted. Zod was born to protect Krypton, and that helps us understand why he is willing to do whatever it takes to build a new Krypton on Earth. Clark takes away the purpose of Zod's life, and that's a Big Thing, but the revelation comes too late in the movie for us to care.

5. Jonathan’s death was sort of...ridiculous. In other versions of Superman, Jonathan dies from a heart attack. It’s fine if the writers want to do something new, but Jonathan's death in Man of Steel could have been prevented so easily. Jonathan should have picked up the little girl and gone to the overpass with Martha. Clark could have rescued the dog and used the excuse that he “got really lucky” that he didn’t get hurt. I understand that Jonathan was willing to die in order to protect Clark’s secret, but this was a poor way to show it.

6. Lines that failed miserably. I'm sure there are more, but these two stuck out to me:
---Zod: “Where did you train? On a FARM??” This sounded cartoony, like a cheesy villain. What Zod meant was, he dedicated his life to protecting Krypton while Clark had relatively insignificant experiences on Earth.
---The female military officer at the end who said Superman is “kinda hot.” Completely inappropriate. Her character wasn’t even well developed and still that line was out of character.

The good stuff

1. Clark as a drifter. We haven’t seen this stage in Clark’s life on screen before, even though it’s been hinted at a few times. Man of Steel has thirty-three year-old Clark moving from place to place, job to job. He has this great power and he isn’t sure how he should use it, so he helps where he can. It’s nice to see Clark in ordinary situations. Bus boy at a bar. Part of a ship’s crew. He wears t-shirts and jeans and even though he looks ordinary, there’s an Otherness about him. He wasn’t pretending to be a bumbling reporter and he wasn't a demigod with a cape yet. Just Clark trying to figure out what he is supposed to do.

2. Lois is an ace reporter and she respects people’s boundaries. Lois finds out where Clark lives and says she wants to tell his story. When he explains to her that the world isn’t ready to find out there’s life on other planets, she backs off. She keeps his secret and doesn’t push him. Other versions of Lois Lane (but not all of them) have her arguing for the sake of arguing. If someone says she can’t do something, that’s all the more reason she wants to do it. It becomes predictable. “Lois, don’t get into trouble.” And then oh, there’s trouble and there's Lois. This Lois thinks about more than the news story. She realizes there are some things she shouldn’t do, even if she has the ability to do it.

3. No Kryptonite. No meteor pieces that came to Earth with Clark’s spaceship. No crutch for the bad guys to use. I like what the writers did instead. Clark adapted to Earth's conditions and so he has a bad reaction to the Kryptonian air on the spaceship and the Kryptonian atmosphere spewing out of the World Engine.

4. Jor-El is AI you can see and trust. Russell Crowe’s Jor-El is visible (and not a translucent hologram) and integrated with the alien ships. He explains things to Clark in a straightforward way, no mind games, and Clark trusts him. What bugged me about Jor-El in Smallville was that he was always ambiguous—Clark never knew if Jor-El was manipulating him. It is so refreshing to see Jor-El as a guiding figure that Clark can work with.

5. Normal danger doesn’t faze Clark. In one of the flashbacks, Clark is on a school bus that goes off a bridge and into water. All the other kids are screaming as the bus fills up with water, but Clark is looking around, observing, because he knows he can force his way out of the bus if he has to. The other kids are scared because they’re trapped but Clark is calm because he has a way out. It’s part of his Otherness, that he can't be hurt as easily as humans. In contrast, Clark is cautious when he fights Zod and Faora-Ul because they are actual threats to him.

6. Heat vision is uncomfortable for Clark. The skin around Clark’s eyes turns dry and veiny, which is something that might happen if searing heat suddenly burst from you eyes. In fights, Clark uses heat vision in desperate moves and it takes him a moment to shut his eyes and turn it off.

7. Superman teams up with humans. The military needs Superman’s help and Superman needs to coordinate with them in order to defeat Zod. It isn’t Superman as mankind’s savior but rather Superman as a leader. Which is how it’s supposed to be. Superman leads mankind into the light, not Superman solves all of your problems for you.

8. Lois knows Clark Kent is Superman. She tracks him down to Smallville, and then she keeps his secret. The writers completely bypassed the notion that Clark’s disguise fools Lois, and it suits the characters perfectly.

9. Coming to Earth was about repopulating Krypton. This was the central conflict: would Superman help Zod build a new Krypton or would he defend his adopted home? It's an internal conflict for Clark and it has external effects and consequences. In theory it would work well, but the movie doesn't quite get there.

Man of Steel focuses heavily on Kal-El’s side of the story. It’s a film about the last son of Krypton with some flaws and some highlights. I’m still waiting for a story about Clark Kent. Scenes hinted at what that would be like...young Clark suffers from sensory overload; middle school Clark risks revealing his secret in order to save his classmates; young adult Clark is frustrated about what his purpose is. I want to see a story about what an extraordinary man does in an ordinary world, but the Superman movie we usually get is an extraordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.

I like the five-star rating system just fine, thank you

Netflix developed a virtual assistant, Max, to make recommendations for the content that you watch. So far, it has been tested on PS3. VentureBeat's article doesn't mention any plans for Max to be part of browser-based Netflix, and I hope it stays that way.

For starters, I don't want a trying-too-hard artificial personality hovering around. Take a look at this video that explains how Max works. It's annoying and unnecessary. Genre-specific recommendations and choosing movies based on the leading actors are already parts of Netflix. Besides pre-recorded quips, the only new thing that Max offers is a randomly-selected title. Netflix can do that with a Random button.

Besides all of that, I'm having bad flashbacks of Clippy.

Except Max is worse, because he makes you play mini games before you choose something to watch.

I like the five-star system that Netflix has—simple, easy to use, and its predictions work really well for me. I like that the rating system is always there, but I can easily ignore it too. It seems like Max is an optional feature, but I wish Netflix would put its efforts toward something more useful, like separate user profiles on one account.


Image is remixed with graphics by Mike Licht (flickr) and Nemo (pixabay).

Teen Wolf: Deucalion wants Scott

Spoilers for Teen Wolf episode 3.04 "Unleashed."

Up until this week's episode, I thought Deucalion wanted Derek to join the Alpha pack, but I don't think that's the case anymore. Instead, I think Deucalion is going to use Derek to get to Scott.

In the first episode of this season, the woman who saved Isaac said that Scott is a threat to Deucalion...not so much teenage Scott but rather who he will grow up to be. There are two ways to deal with a threat: eliminate it or find a way to use it for your own purposes.

The Alpha pack is strong enough to kill all the werewolves in Beacon Hills, but they haven't done that yet. Why not? Because Deucalion doesn't go for the quick fix. Maybe his end-plan is getting Scott to join the Alpha pack. That neutralizes Scott as a threat and actually adds to his own power.

We've seen Scott fight forces that are stronger than him and win, so it's possible that Scott could kill an Alpha, especially if he has a chance to prepare for the fight.

The question is, does Deucalion want Scott to kill Derek or one of the other Alphas?

I see a couple possible situations.

1. Deucalion manipulates Derek into killing one of his pack (Boyd or Isaac) so that Derek absorbs the beta's power. Deucalion said that after the first kill, Derek will want to kill the rest of his pack—he won't need any more persuasion. That's where Scott comes in to stop Derek. Their confrontation ends in Derek's death, and Scott becomes a stronger-than-normal Alpha.

2. Scott fights one of the other Alphas, kills him or her, and then becomes an Alpha.

Scott knows who Deucalion is, so I don't know why he would want to join the Alpha pack, but either of these situations would set him up to do that.

The main catch is, Scott doesn't want to kill anyone unless there's absolutely no other option. Things will have to get pretty messy for him to take on an Alpha.

Continuum: What's Alec doing?

I watched season 1 of Continuum this week and before I start on season 2, I want to write down my thoughts about what Future Alec is up to.

The two main questions are:

1. Is Future Alec good or bad?
2. What is Kiera's role?

If Future Alec is good then maybe...

a) Alec intended to improve the world with his technology but instead the government and corporations abused his technology and the power it afforded them. Future Alec sends back the group to change the course of his younger self and create a better future.

b) Alec is going to make major changes in the future, but he needs different circumstances to work with. He sent back Liber8 to set up specific events in the past that are part of Alec's plans in the future.

If Future Alec is bad then maybe...

Things happened exactly the way Future Alec wanted. Liber8's actions in the past lead to the conditions we already see in the future. (Everything already happened, so Future Alec is simply going through the motions.)

It doesn't make sense for Future Alec to send both the Liber8 group and Kiera back in time for the same purpose. He would have known that Kiera, as a CPS officer, would interfere with Liber8's plans (which are Future Alec's plans). If Kiera is not going to help Liber8, then she must have a different role. These are the possibilities I came up with:

- protect young Alec, like Kyle Reese going back in time to protect Sarah Connor
- change the views of young Alec (make him re-think what it's like to rely on technology all the time) 
- kill young Alec before he develops the tech we see in the future. I see this happening only if Future Alec thought there was no way to change the future unless he died in the past.

It's a flashback for her, not us

I watched season 1 of Continuum over the past few days, and I'm having a terminology issue. We see scenes of Kiera as a police officer in the year 2077. These scenes are her memories, so they are flashbacks for her. But from the audience's point of view, these scenes take place about 65 years in the future.

Do we still call these scenes flashbacks since the show is from Kiera's point of view? Or is there a better word?

Take away the suit

I started watching season 1 of Continuum and the fourth episode, "Matter of Time," used one of my favorite television tropes: taking away the superhero's power and seeing what she is like without it.

The main character, Kiera Cameron, is not superhuman but she has a technologically-advanced suit that gives her an advantage over ordinary police officers. She uses the suit to run scans, look up information, and protect her from harm.

In scenes that take place in the future, the audience sees that police officers rely on technology to do their work. Optical cameras record everything the officer sees and the suit offers a variety of tools to fight crime. The police officers actually learn to repress their instincts and gut feelings in favor of gathering information through their enhanced suits.

Kiera operates in the same way when she travels back to 2012, but in "Matter of Time," her suit shorts out, and she loses access to the suit's capabilities. She tries interrogating a suspect and walking through a crime scene without her technological enhancements and finds that she likes doing the work that way. She says it "feels good" to act on her hunches and listen to her instincts.

Taking the suit away gave her the opportunity to see that she can be a police officer without the advanced technology (which is her superpower). She learns to adapt and becomes confident in her skills as an officer. The character learns about herself and the audience gets to see great character development.

Evernote for writing

Someone asked me how I use Evernote when I write fiction. Here's what I do.

I keep one notebook for all of my fiction, and then I have a note for each story or idea. Each note basically looks like an outline and I have sections for characters, locations, and plot ideas. I add to notes as I write stories so that I have a quick reference. That way, for example, I don’t have to skim the whole story to find the name of the cafe where a minor character works. I make these kinds of notes in Evernote so that it’s faster for me to check details as I’m writing.

One fiction notebook works for me because I use it as a reference, but if I used Evernote for planning, organizing, and even drafting a story, then I would use one notebook for each story and have notes for characters, research, plot, and ideas.

I would do something like this:

Create a new notebook and name it the title of the story (or a working title…I always use working titles because I never know what to call something until it’s finished).

Then create notes.

One for the plot outline. I don't like planning out every detail beforehand, so my outlines are basic bullet points about the beginning, middle, and end of the story. If you like more detail, your outline might go chapter by chapter. If you want to set yourself on a schedule, include deadlines to complete each part.

I like making my outlines manually, but there are outline and number list buttons in the toolbar that you can use.



There is also a to do list button that you can use to make lists (maybe for things you need to research) and then you can check off items as you complete them.



Characters. This note includes physical descriptions of the characters (and possibly photos of what they look like) and comments about their personality, past, friends, family, goals, motivations, and anything else that’s important.

Locations. I don’t know about other people, but I like keeping track of characters and the plot by what happens where. I list and describe the major locations/settings for the story. Maybe the main character’s house, school/job, friend’s house…wherever things are happening in your story. Include photos if that’s helpful.

Progress. If you like keeping track of your writing progress, you can make a table directly in Evernote.



Make columns for the information you want to keep track of. Date, Number of words written, Chapters completed, Time spent writing…whatever you want. Here’s an example.

Click to embiggen

Ideas. I use this note to write ideas about the plot, characters, dialogue…anything that I want to work into the story.

Two other things. You can tag your notes by typing in tags in the top toolbar.



I don’t use tags in Evernote, but it might be useful for you, depending on how you set up your notebooks and notes. For example, you could tag all of your character-related notes “characters” and then if you wanted to see them all together (even across notebooks), they would be linked together with the tag.

Also, you can email notes by clicking on the gray arrow at the top right.



That’s helpful if you want to email a copy of a note to yourself (as a backup) or to someone else.

If you use Evernote to draft a story (one note for Chapter 1, another note for Chapter 2), I strongly recommend that you email yourself copies of the notes or copy and paste them into a word processing document. Back up your writing in at least one place outside Evernote, just in case anything happens to your notebooks.

That's how I use Evernote to help me write fiction. What do you do with Evernote?

Seven Ways to Watch a DVD

I recommend trying at least one of the following on a repeat viewing, and it may or may not increase your enjoyment of the film.

Don't do these the first time you watch a movie because you might get angry, annoyed, or frustrated, and that is not my intention. (The goal when watching movies is either to have fun or to broaden your experiences.)

1. On mute. No sound means you're going to pay more attention to visual details: lighting, camera angles, cuts, composition, and body language. If you want to improve your awareness of these elements (say, for a film class or to impress your movie buff friend), definitely watch a movie on mute.

2. Dubbed in a foreign language. If you're studying a foreign language, here's an opportunity to work on your listening skills, especially if you don't have the story memorized.

3. Watch side characters and ignore the main character when he/she is on screen. I don't realize all the acting that goes on in the background, and I bet neither do you. Here's a way to notice that.

4. Turn on commentary. Good for director's explanations, cast stories from the set, and random bits of trivia.

5. Skip every other scene. (Not recommended for movies that involve heavy time travel.) I haven't tried this yet, but I imagine it's sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure with more fixed parameters.

6. Watch with headphones on. The movie will sound different from the time you watched it on TV or in the theater, and in a cool way.

7. Create your own intermission. Break the movie into two or three parts, with a fifteen minute break in between each part. (Or break for however long you like. Doesn't matter to me.) When you pull away from the movie and give your mind some time to process what you've already seen, you might pick up on something that you normally would not have realized until the movie was over.

The Netflix Game

One of my favorite games is The Netflix Game. I haven't talked to anyone about this, so it might be my invention or maybe loads of other people do it too. (Let me know in the comments if you do.)

This is how you play. You choose one element you want in a movie. For example, specific genre, a certain actor, earlier works of a director, John Williams soundtrack...It can be any element you want.

You search for movies on Netflix that meet that one criteria (and that you haven't seen before, if that wasn't obvious). Depending on what your element is, you might have to enlist help from IMDB and/or Rotten Tomatoes. When you find potential movies, do not read the plot summary or reviews or cast listings or anything about the movie.

Find the potentials that are rated at least 4 red stars. Those are Netflix's predictions about how much you will enjoy the movie. Add one of those to your Netflix queue.

When you watch that movie, you have almost zero information on it (assuming you didn't cheat). You might not have any expectations of it (which is fun!) and hopefully, you'll enjoy it because Netflix thought you would, and Netflix's rating system is four kinds of wonderful.

There are no points in this game, but you can consider a "win" when you enjoy the movie and a "loss" when Netflix's prediction lets you down.

So yesterday I played the Netflix Game with Runaway Jury and it was a win. My One Element was John Cusack as a main character. I got bonuses, though, because Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman were in the movie too (and I didn't know that until I was watching. More fun when you don't cheat, see?). Netflix predicted four stars for me, and yes, I liked the movie but didn't love it.

It's a good way to spend rainy afternoons, the Netflix Game.

Don't push your content down the page

I went to Mashable to read this article about YouTube's new paid subscription model. The page loaded and I saw this:

The big headline is nice, but I don't care about the shares and likes when I haven't even read the article. Everything else is ads, ads, ads. So I scrolled down to this:

A huge photo of the YouTube logo...and the image doesn't tell me any other information. Under that in relatively tiny font, is the article. (Also, notice that the text on the National Geographic ad is easier to read than the article text. Priorities.)

I'm all for visually interesting pages, but don't make me scroll down an entire screen length before I can read the article. The first word in the headline is "YouTube," so I know that's the subject of the article. The huge logo wastes space, and it's unnecessary.

The page layout gets in the way of what should be most important—content.

When Community plays like a comic book

Spoilers for 4.12 "Heroic Origins."

Over the past four years, genre episodes have been some of Community's best episodes. We have a new but familiar environment that lets us learn about the characters. In this week's "Heroic Origins," Abed maps out how the characters' paths crossed before they became a study group at Greendale.

The comic book references are plentiful:

• Jeff is the bad guy who turned good
• Abed sees himself as the villain, but everyone is a villain and a hero in some way ("We're all Spider-Man")
• Everyone was a catalyst for at least one character ("We're all Uncle Ben's murderer")
• Dean Spreck at City College uses a voice modulator for an evil laugh and has blueprints for a killer robot
• Comic book panels and text act as transitions throughout the episode
• We learn more about each character's back origin story (and at the yogurt shop, "Don't You (Forget About Me)" from The Breakfast Club plays, which calls back to the first episode of Community)
• Abed mentions the movie Unbreakable a few times
• The story was in fragmented pieces, much like Heroes

Despite all of these references to comic books and superhero stories, the essence of Community is still there. Abed's unique point of view helps the characters learn and understand more about themselves. The situation turns sour with everyone feeling angry or uncomfortable but at the end, Jeff thanks Abed for his insight and the whole group is grateful for it.

The end of BEDA

That's it, 30 consecutive days of blogging.

I'm glad that I participated in BEDA but daily blogging is not something I want to do long-term. I enjoy writing different kinds of things, not just blog posts, and making sure I posted here every day meant that some days, I didn't have time for something else I wanted to work on.

So I'm going back to my usual blogging schedule with one or two posts per week.

Thank you for reading!

Choose Your Own Adventure in digital space

Remember Choose Your Own Adventure books? They were interactive books written from a second-person point of view. You assumed the role of the main character and made decisions for them throughout the book. The story outcome changed and depended on the decisions you made. The books were popular in the 1980s and 1990s and you can still find them in bookstores.

I love those books because you could re-read them, make different decisions, and end up with a completely different story. That sort of interactivity could work in other mediums as well. Some YouTubers have made interactive videos in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure. YouTube works well for this because creators can set up the decisions as annotations. Choose option 1 if you want the characters to do this and option 2 if you want them to do that instead, and then the next video plays.

Netflix's run of Arrested Development is going to be somewhat in the spirit of Choose Your Own Adventure because the order in which you watch episodes won't matter. But we aren't going to be making decisions for Michael or anything like that (x).

I think Choose Your Own Adventure stories have great potential on a platform like Netflix. Each story would essentially be a mini-series with all of the episodes released on the same day (much like Netflix is doing with Arrested Development). The episodes would be written so that you can watch them in consecutive order, or you could jump around and experience a different story.

YouTube and Netflix have changed how we watch video content, but the format of TV shows hasn't changed that much in response to internet technology. There are opportunities for experimental, non-linear series. It's only a matter of creating them.

On planning stories

George R.R. Martin says there are two kinds of writers, architects and gardeners:

I've always said there are – to oversimplify it – two kinds of writers. There are architects and gardeners. The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But the gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up. I think all writers are partly architects and partly gardeners, but they tend to one side or another, and I am definitely more of a gardener. (x)

When I'm writing fiction, I like knowing the basic elements beforehand and figuring out everything else in the process of writing. I'm an architect at the beginning but then I take the gardening approach.

I like seeing how other people organize their notes, and maybe you do too, so here are a few ways I have organized story notes.

In my head

When I first have an idea, I keep everything in my head. I've always had a good memory for stories, so it's easy for me to figure out characters, places, plot points, even structure—and keep it in my memory. This method lets me have my "notes" with me all the time and I can work on the story wherever and whenever (nice), but it's also possible I'll think of something and forget it before I fit it into the story information I already worked out (bummer).

Paper

When things get more detailed, I move to paper. I draw diagrams, flow charts, maps, and webs. I use a notebook for this method, so it's portable (nice), but I tend to take notes haphazardly so it can be difficult to search through my notes (bummer).

Evernote

I keep one digital notebook for a story with separate notes for characters, a rough outline, locations, and ideas. I can access Evernote from any internet connection and it's searchable (nice), but digital notes means that I don't see them all the time (bummer). They don't have a physical presence on my desk to remind me that I should be writing (instead of scrolling through Tumblr).

Index cards

Using index cards is a hybrid method of Evernote and physical paper. I just started using these for the story I'm working on. I have cards for characters (one on each card, adding details as I write them into the story), locations, and scenes. I use different colored cards to separate information (character cards are blue and scene cards are white). Hole-punching the cards and keeping them on a ring makes them portable. (So would wrapping a rubber band around the stack, but I like being able to turn through the cards.) I can rearrange the cards however I want, whenever I need to (nice), but card size is a limitation, so I might need a notebook in conjunction with index cards (bummer).

How do you like to organize notes?

Weekend Roundup - April 28

A different list this week: blogs and feeds that post creative writing prompts.

On Tumblr

FY Writing Prompts
I Dare You To Write
Odd Prompts
Photo Prompts
To Write Prompts
Writing Prompts That Don't Suck
Yeah Write!

On Blogger

Prompts for Writers
Easy Street Prompts

Lists

CreativeWritersPrompts.com
25 Creative Writing Prompts (Writing Forward)
Thirteen Writing Prompts (McSweeney's)
The Daily Prompt (Reddit)

Why doesn't Nick talk to Juliette?

After all the weird stuff that has happened to Juilette, I'm still surprised that Nick hasn't told her that he is a grimm.

Nick doesn't know about Juliette's hallucinations. From his point of view, Juliette is getting her memories back, but she is having a rough time. She asked him to leave her alone, which is fine, but the self-imposed isolation isn't helping her.

I like Juliette, but at this point, I'm waiting for a wesen to attack the house. She won't be able to respond because she won't know what's going on. Hopefully Nick will be there to save her because the way her character is, Juliette won't be able to protect herself.

Hank found about about wesen and is still a detective. He can better help Nick with research and fighting wesen. The writers should give Juliette the same chance.

Community: Switching bodies and teaming up

Spoilers for Season 4, episode 11, "Basic Human Anatomy."

I loved the Freaky Friday homage. Abed and Troy have always been paired off as best friends, even within the study group, but each character maintains his own identity. Troy is friendly, a movie fan, and sometimes slow on the uptake. Abed is obsessed with TV and movies, socially awkward, and usually the most insightful person in the group. When they switch bodies, they are obviously different people. The credit goes to Glover and Pudi for mimicking each other's mannerisms and speech patterns so well. You can tell that the person who looks like Abed is talking like Troy, and the person who looks like Troy is moving around like Abed.

Troy and Abed are the perfect choice for two character switching bodies, but the Freaky Friday trope made something else obvious: Annie and Shirley are basically the same character now.

Both are up for valedictorian, as we've been hearing in every episode. They team up against the rest of the group (in this episode, as the banner approvers), and they say the same things at the same time ("Awww, that you remember?" and "Sorry."). Shirley even tells Annie to use "we" and "us" because Annie uses first person pronouns when she actually means both Shirley and herself.

The writers keep lumping Annie and Shirely together, and it stagnates both women. Neither character can develop when they keep sharing roles and goals.

"Basic Human Anatomy" is a fun episode, but the interesting developments with Troy and Abed are diminished by the redundancy between Annie and Shirley.

I want movies loosely based on novels

The major problem with making a movie based on a novel is, most people expect the movie to be very close to the novel and it's difficult to do that because stories in books and stories on screen work differently.

You'll never be able to fit everything from a 300-page novel into a 2-hour movie. You have to cut scenes, maybe eliminate characters, and probably rework parts to make the story work for the movie.

I wish instead of seeing "based on ", we would see more movies "inspired by" novels. Instead of trying to recreate the book on screen, take the characters and some plot elements and run in a new direction. 

This is how the Bourne movies were made. I watched The Bourne Identity, liked it, and then read the book, expecting it to be similar to the movie but with more fleshed-out parts. But the book is so much more than the movie. More scenes, more locations, more challenges. The movie took the essential characters and one thread from the plot and that's what you watch on screen. You don't need to have read the book to understand the movie, and watching the movie does not spoil the book for you. They are separate but related, and each great stories in their own mediums.

Pilot Study: Touch

(x)

Touch - "Tales of the Red Thread" (50 minutes)
Original air date: January 25, 2012

Themes

Fate, destiny, patterns

Setting

Modern day, New York City (with scenes in other places around the world)

Opening 

Narration: voice over by a young boy (11 years old)
- Fibonacci sequence
- Golden ratio: 1.618
- red thread of fate in Chinese legend

Characters

Martin Bohm

- baggage handler at JFK airport
- scared of heights
- former report
- Jake's dad
- wife, Sarah, was a stock broker in World Trade Center and died on 9/11

Jake

- Martin's son
- autistic and mute
- math genius—uses numbers to find connections between people and make predictions
- likes orange soda, popcorn, and taking apart cell phones

Clea Hopkins

- child services representative
- evaluating the home life of Jake because he keeps getting in trouble at school (going off on his own and climbing cell towers) and Martin's succession of low-wage jobs can't provide the resources Jake might need

Simon Plimpton

- from London
- sells restaurant supplies around the world
- lost his phone at the Heathrow airport (London), and wants it back because it's the only place he has photos of his daughter, Lily, who died the previous year.

Red threads

Globe-hopping telephone

- belongs to Simon Plimpton from London

• London: Heathrow airport. Simon lost his phone.
• New York City: JFK airport. Martin finds phone and answers when it rings, but he gets interrupted by a call on his own phone from Jake's school. Martin leaves Simon's phone on the luggage carousel.
• Ireland: Niles uses the phone to record singer Kayla Graham. Then he stashes phone in a business man's luggage.
• Tokyo: A girl finds the phone, watches Kayla's video, and starts a fan club. She arranges to have the phone's photos and videos uploaded on screens around the city. Then she passes the phone on to a man traveling to Kuwait.
• Kuwait. (We don't know what happened to the phone, but it ends up in Iraq.)
• Iraq: phone become countdown for a bomb strapped to the boy who needs an over for his mother's bakery

The phone is a red thread connecting Simon Plimpton (the restaurant supplier) to the boy in Iraq (whose mother needs an oven). Bonus: Simon is in Tokyo when the phone's contents go up on the big screens, so he sees the photos of his daughter.

Winning lottery ticket 

- belongs to Randy, the firefighter who tried to save Sarah. The numbers are the details of when and where he found her. He isn't sure that Sarah was dead when he left her during the 9/11 attack, so he played the same lottery number every day and decided if he would win, he would give the money to her family.

• Jake takes the ticket after Randy buys it, copies down the numbers, and then gives it back to Randy.
• Randy tells Martin that Jake should be kept in a cage. Randy punches Martin in the stomach and leaves.
• Martin realizes that Jake's numbers mean something is going to happen at Grand Central Station. He goes there, sees Randy, and they get into a fight.
• Randy misses his train because of the fight. On his way back to his New York apartment, he sees the overturned school bus and rescues the kids on it.

The winning lottery ticket is a red thread connecting Randy (who wants to make up for leaving Sarah behind) to Sarah's family (who need money because Martin's job does not pay enough). Bonus: Jake's predictions set up Randy to be in the right place at the right time to see the overturned school bus. Randy couldn't save Sarah, but he has the opportunity to save a group of kids.

318

- school bus number (and date it overturns)
- fire department badge at Sarah's grave
- alarm clock on Martin's computer
- address of Teller Institute (who knows about children who find mathematical patterns in everything)
- security footage time on each instance that Jake gets caught at school
- Lily died on March 18, the previous year

Grimm moves to Tuesday nights

NBC announced that it canceled Ready to Love, and Grimm is moving to fill its slot on Tuesdays at 10 p.m.

Up to now, Grimm has been airing on Friday nights, also known as the "death slot." So on the one hand, it's a good sign that NBC thinks Grimm will do well in a more competitive, prime time slot.

But on the other hand, Grimm is doing well on Friday nights, and this change asks the audience to follow the show to a new night and time.

I watch Grimm on Hulu (and hardly ever on TV, the night it airs), so this change won't affect me. I wonder how large Grimm's online audience is, and if networks take that into consideration when they re-assign TV time slots.

When a chain feels local

More and more, I notice that my local Barnes and Noble cafe feels like a locally-owned cafe, even though it's a chain retailer serving coffee and food from chain vendors (Starbucks and Cheesecake Factory).

I spent a couple hours there today, reading and writing, and I ended up people watching and eavesdropping a little too. This is what I saw:

• three people planning a community event
• a group of native and non-native Spanish speakers who meet up every week to speak Spanish (maintaining cultural ties for the native speakers and providing practice for the non-native speakers)
• two young women chatting and catching up with each other
• two middle-aged men playing chess
• an elderly couple reading magazines
• the usual scattering of solo people (including me), writing, reading, or typing

There are plenty of tables, open space, good lighting, and what I think is optimal background noise (quiet and scattered enough that it's not distracting, but loud enough to make the atmosphere feel vibrant), and there's a community-centered feeling about the place (instead of cookie cutter chain).

Usually I'm an advocate of shopping and eating at locally-owned places, but the closest locally-owned cafe to me has limited seating and I would feel bad ordering only coffee and taking up a table for two hours. Instead, that local cafe is my spot for getting coffee to go or going out to lunch with a friend and Barnes and Noble is my spot for sitting down and working.

Weekend Roundup - April 21

Articles I read this week. Sources in parenthesis. Comments from me.

Why I'm Trading a House and Salary for a Motorcycle and Map (Thought Catalog)

How the Boston Marathon tragedy revealed the best side of social media (io9)

Why You Should Go To That Interview (Even If You Don't Want To) (Daily Muse) - The second point is about going so that you can practice your interview skills. That's the best reason for me to go to an interview when I'm not that excited about the position. Last year, I interviewed at a marketing firm and halfway through, I realized I didn't want the position. But I asked great questions and finished the interview on a strong point. It's easily the best interview I've ever had, and that experience has helped me prepare for other interviews.

Why Medium Might Be Large (Chris Brogan) - An overview of a new(ish) content publishing platform.

10 Tutorials to Make Your Own Unique Notebooks (Apartment Therapy)

Blogging pet peeves

A list of things that people do (or don't do) on their blogs that bug me.

1. No search box

Search boxes are useful for 1) finding posts on a specific topic and 2) finding a post you already read. But if you don't have a search box on your blog, I'm forced to try to find what I'm looking for through the archive (if you have one available) or tags (which may or may not be helpful).

2. Pop-up subscription box

When I click on a blog post, I want to read the post first. I don't want a pop-up getting in my way. If I want to subscribe to your RSS feed or newsletter or check out your free e-book, I'll find the information for that on your site. Don't get in the way of me reading your content in the first place.

3. No dates on posts

Depending on the content of your blog, knowing the date that you posted is essential. If you review technology or online services, chances are those things change often and quickly. A two-year old post about Spotify might not be relevant anymore, so I need to know when it was posted.

4. Irrelevant or unnecessary images

Somewhere along the way, we were encouraged to include at least one image in every single blog post. Images draw people in. They're more attractive than a block of text. That's true for relevant images that add value to your content. But if you're combing stock photography for an image to stick in your post, I'd rather not see it. Skip the fluff and post good content. If I'm interested in the topic, I'll read, regardless of if you included an image.

5. Small, thin font

Blogs tend to be text-heavy, and the design should complement the content. Choose font and spacing that make your content easy to read.

6. Low contrast between background color and font color

This goes with #5. Your text should be easy to read. If I'm struggling to read light gray text on a white background, I won't spend much time on your blog.

7. Multiple pages for one post

I don't see a need to post one article over multiple pages, except for people who focus on page-clicks as an indicator of a successful site. Photo slideshows are one thing, but don't make me click through 10 pages to see "10 tips for your job search." I've found dozens of interesting-sounding articles and then never read them because the site was set up to make me click through several times before I could read one article.

Pilot Study: Teen Wolf

I noticed that the storytelling and degree of detail varies in pilot episodes of shows, so informally, I've been watching pilot episodes and keeping track of everything we find out in that episode. (Sometimes I also watch and take notes on episode 2 to see what the pilot episode set up and how it's resolved.) These "Pilot Study" posts come from my notes.

Teen Wolf on MTV.com

Teen Wolf - "Wolf Moon" (41 minutes)
Original air date: June 5, 2011

Setting

Modern day, Beacon Hills, CA

Opening

Woods - police cars, policemen with flashlights and dogs, Sheriff
House - music playing, teenage boy (Scott) fixing a lacrosse stick, doing pull-ups, brushing teeth. He hears a noise, grabs a baseball bat, and goes out on the porch. Scott's friend, Stiles, startles him and tells him he heard there's half a dead body in the woods. They go looking for it. The sheriff, Stiles's dad, finds him and walks him back to his car. Scott walks through the woods, finds the dead woman, and gets attacked by a wolf.

Characters

Scott McCall

Main character. After the wolf bite, his asthma goes away, he has better reflexes and agility, and enhanced senses. Love interest: Allison.

Stiles

Scott's best friend. Researches lycanthropy and werewolves after Scott's attack.  Love interest: Lydia.

Allison Argent

New girl in town. Her dad is one of the hunters in the woods that find Derek and Scott.

Lydia Martin

Popular girl, dates Jackson.

Jackson

Popular, rich, jock (captain of the lacrosse team), dates Lydia.

Derek Hale

Werewolf. A few years older than Scott. His family died in a fire ten years ago.

Sheriff Stilinski

Stiles's dad

Scott's mom

Allison's dad

One of the hunters in the woods

Lacrosse coach

Plot

• A werewolf in the woods bites Scott. The wound heals quickly and afterward, Scott has enhanced senses (hearing Allison's heartbeat, smelling the gum in Stiles's pocket), strength (shoving Stiles against the wall), agility, and speed (scoring goals at lacrosse practice).
  
• Police are investigating what happened to the woman's body they found in the woods. Tests revealed that the hair samples on the body are from a wolf. (But there haven't been any wolves in California for decades.)
  
• Scott and Stiles see Derek in the woods, after Derek hasn't been in town for a few years.
  
• Allison accidentally hits a dog with her car and takes it to the veterinary clinic where Scott works. The dog calms down when Scott touches it, and he makes a splint for its broken leg. He asks Allison to go with him to a party on Friday night…
  
• …but Friday night is the full moon. Derek is hanging around in the background of the party, watching Scott. Scott feels sick and goes home. He transforms into a werewolf. Stiles tells him that Allison left the party with Derek, and Scott takes off, believing that Allison is in danger. Stiles goes to Allison's house and sees she's there and safe. Scott finds Derek in the woods. Hunters find them too, and one shoots an arrow into Scott's arm. Derek saves Scott, and Stiles drives Scott back home. The next day, Allison's dad picks Allison up from school, and Scott sees that her dad is one of the hunters from the night before.

Nice touches

• In Scott's English class, they're reading Kafka's Metamorphosis, which connects to Scott's transformation intoto a werewolf.
• Scott's mom says she doesn't want to end up on a reality TV show with a pregnant teen (something like 16 and Pregnant…which airs on MTV, the same network at Teen Wolf).

Amy Pond in Pompeii

If you've been watching Doctor Who for a few years, you probably remember that Karen Gillan guest-starred in a series four episode, "The Fires of Pompeii," as a soothsayer. Here is a screenshot of her from the episode:

Years later when Gillan was cast as Amy Pond, I thought it would be neat if her story finished in Pompeii. Like River, we would see Amy's death before we knew the character was part of the Doctor's future.

Imagine my excitement last year when I heard that the final episode with Amy and Rory would have Weeping Angels in it. It made sense—the Angels would send the Ponds back in time and feed off their energy. We already saw Rory as a Roman and Pompeii isn't far off. The Angels do send the Ponds back in time, but to 1930s New York, not ancient Italy.

Yesterday I re-watched "The Fires of Pompeii" to check on the plausibility of Amy ending up as a soothsayer in Pompeii. It might have gone like this:

• The Weeping Angels send Rory back in time to ancient Rome, after seeing his memories of being a Roman soldier.
• When Amy lets the Angel touch her, it sends her to the same time as Rory, but not the same place. Amy ends up in Pompeii.
• A side effect of being sent back, a head injury, or the fumes from the hot springs mess with Amy's mind. She doesn't remember her life in the 21st Century and she barely remembers traveling with the Doctor.
• When the soothsayers find her, Amy talks about a blue box and they realize she knows about the blue box in their prophecies. The sisters decide Amy has the gift of prophecy and they take her in.
• Amy never met Ten or Donna, so she does not recognize them when she follows them in Pompeii. She doesn't make the connection between the TARDIS and the man who steps out of it.
• Ten wouldn't know that Amy is his companion in the future, so he has no reason to care about her. Amy dies in the volcanic eruption, and we have definite closure to her story that fits with the show's canon.
• We could assume that Rory lives as a Roman soldier. Maybe his memories are scrambled or forgotten too, or maybe he is the "boy who waited" once more.

 I think this would have worked better than what actually happened to Amy and Rory.

Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons

Last week I watched Rise of the Guardians and afterwards, I went through the tag on Tumblr and I found out about The Big Four—a mega-crossover with Rise of the Guardians, How to Train Your Dragon, Brave, and Tangled. Combine the titles and you get "Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons." There are entire blogs about this combination of characters and worlds, including this one.

People are writing fanfic, making videos, drawing fanart, and cosplaying. This is my favorite kind of fandom, when people take elements from things they like and re-combine them into something greater, something we won't see from the original creators.

Here are some of my favorite works about the Big Four:

princekido | Deviant Art

jiidesu | tumblr

The Man From Earth stays in one room

One of my favorite things about Netflix is, it predicts how much you'll like a movie based on what other movies you have watched and rated. Yesterday I was looking for something to watch and I looked at what's in my instant queue. The Man From Earth was sitting there with five red stars next to the title.

Netflix's prediction was right—I loved it.

(Spoilers ahead.)

Quick summary of the plot

Professor John Oldman surprises his friends and colleagues by his unexpected decision to leave the university and move away. They come over to his house for a last-minute goodbye party and he reveals to them that he's actually 14,000 years old. He stopped aging at about age 35 and he moves every 10 years or so, when people start to notice that he's not getting older. He's lived through major shifts in civilization, wars, and plagues. The entire movie is the conversation he has with his friends. He explains parts of his life, they ask him questions, and they try to figure out if he's telling the truth or making it all up.

This is why I loved it:

1. Bottle movie

The whole movie takes place in John's house, mostly in his living room. The simplicity makes me pay attention to the characters more, and staying in one room for an hour and a half means the dialogue and the characters are doing all the work. No room for fancy cuts, car chases, explosions, or special effects. You have to focus on the people, much like what happens in 12 Angry Men and bottle episodes on TV.

2. Scholarly discussion 

All the people in the room are professors (and one student). They cover history, archeology, anthropology, biology, religion, and psychology. The conversation reflects their academic interests, and the scenes play out like an intellecutual game. They're playing with an idea: if someone were to live for 14,000 years, what would that person be like? Each person in the room asks questions and weighs in from his or her academic viewpoint.

3. Mind game

The characters waver back and forth in believing John. John can answer all their questions with thoughtful, detailed answers, but he can't offer any proof besides his words. Some points of their conversation go to far for some of the characters while other characters want to hear even more about John's life. It isn't so much a mind game between the audience and the movie because we're just sitting in on the conversation. We can't participate. But we watch the characters figure out where they stand and what they believe.

I recommend watching The Man From Earth if you like movies with good discussion. It's technically a sci-fi film, but it plays out more like a psychological mystery. You spend the time watching a group of smart people play with an interesting idea.

Pilot Study: Alphas

I noticed that the storytelling and degree of detail varies in pilot episodes of shows, so informally, I've been watching pilot episodes and keeping track of everything we find out in that episode. (Sometimes I also watch and take notes on episode 2 to see what the pilot episode set up and how it's resolved.) These "Pilot Study" posts come from my notes.

Alphas on Amazon Instant Video

Alphas - Pilot (82 minutes)
Original air date: July 11, 2011

Setting

Modern day, New York City

Format

A case every week with a dose of character development

Characters 

Cameron Hicks

Archetype: loner, bad boy vibe, the unwilling hero
Ability: hyper-kinesis, increased sense of balance and hand-eye coordination
Limitation: Buckles under pressure (or does he?)
How we see his ability (camera work or sound editing): no cues for us, just watch him do amazing feats

Gary

Archetype: social outcast, little brother vibe 
Ability: transduction, can see electro-magnetic waves (tech in the air)
Limitation: Underdeveloped social skills, Asperger's Syndrome
How we see his ability: wavelengths as lines floating/running through the air; colorful, translucent tubes; he uses his hands to move info and zoom in; uses grids in real space to organize data (whiteboard, chessboard), or works freely in the air

Bill

Archetype: all business, bossy
Ability: super-strength when fight or flight response is triggered
Limitation: Major headache afterwards, anger issues
How we see his ability: veins in his arm tense, images of synapses firing, forehead sweats, panting for breath

Rachel

Archetype: smart but quiet
Ability: "synesthesia" - she can enhance one sense by muting another one (e.g. enhanced sight --> temporarily deaf)
Limitation: Low confidence, self-esteem issues, except when she's using her ability to help people
How we see her ability: objects glow or give off smoke, her vision zooms in, we hear sounds from her perspective

Nina

Archetype: attractive woman who gets what she wants (but she's emotionally/psychologically damaged)
Ability: can persuade people to do whatever she wants, temporary brainwashing
Limitation: Doesn't work on everyone, seems like she's paying penance for past mistakes
How we see her ability: person focuses on her and everything else fades; voice sounds hollow and echoes

Dr. Lee Rosen

Archetype: guide/comforter
Leader of the Alphas, psychologist/neurologist, bit of a health freak
Does he have a special ability?

Don

Government agent, liaison between Alphas and government
No special ability

Questions

How did the Alphas develop? (Evolution or something else?)
How did the group get together?

Weekend Roundup - April 14

Articles I read this week. Sources in parentheses. Comments from me.

How to Write an Article in 20 Minutes (Copyblogger) - Tips on how to quickly write quality posts. I like #7 the best —"Never save a good idea."

Do You Make These 7 Mistakes When You Write? (Copyblogger) - I mess up with "e.g." = "for example." My problem is, I pull from Spanish and write "e.j." (for "ejemplo").

Stop calling us 'PR practitioners' (PR Daily) -  The article says that "practitioner" is "a serious-sounding word that is supposed to add credibility to the profession." I don't think it sounds serious, though, because I associate "practitioner" with witchcraft and magic. "PR practitioner," then, sounds like a role you cannot legitimize. Magic isn't real, so what are these people doing at work every day?

What Writers Can Learn From Rockstars (The Review Review) - The analogy to aspiring musicians is great.

Words for people with magic

In books, movies, and TV shows, we use different words to describe people with magic. Sometimes the words specify gender or if the person uses magic for good or evil. But the terms and their meanings are not consistent across different stories and fantasy worlds. I wanted to compare the dictionary definitions of witch, wizard, sorcerer/sorceress, and warlock to how they are used in a few fantasy worlds that I am familiar with.

Most common dictionary definitions:
witch - A woman claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery.
wizard - One who practices magic; a sorcerer or magician.
sorcerer - One who practices sorcery; a wizard.
sorceress - A woman who practices sorcery.
sorcery - Use of supernatural power over others through the assistance of spirits; witchcraft.
warlock - A male witch, sorcerer, wizard, or demon.

How these terms are used in fiction

Merlin

In Merlin, the dragon Kilgharrah calls Merlin "young warlock." Warlocks can sometimes be associated with dark power (see "demon" in the definition above), but the dragon never seems to think that Merlin might use his power for evil purposes. In Merlin's world, then, "warlock" is synonymous with wizard or sorcerer (x). The prophecies call Merlin a "sorcerer," and that is the general term used in the series for anyone who practices magic.

The Dresden Files

"Wizard" refers to a man or a woman with a substantial amount of magical talent. Sometimes "dark wizard" will be used for someone who uses magic for evil purposes. "Warlock" is the term for anyone who breaks any of the Seven Laws of Magic (x).

Harry Potter

"Witch" refers to a female and "wizard" refers to a male. In the Harry Potter series, "witch" and "wizard" do not carry with them a certain expectation of power or experience. Twelve year-olds studying at Hogwarts are witches and wizards and adults who work for the Ministry of Magic are witches and wizards too. "Warlock" usually denotes a person with high skill or achievement (x).

A Modern Witch

In this novel by Debora Geary, "Witch" refers to a male or female with any level of talent. No mention of any other terms for people with magical talent.

I like that writers use already-existing words for characters with magical talent, but at the same time, it can be confusing that these words do not have universal meanings. There's another way of looking at this though: molding these terms to their specific worlds means that writers can form their own structures for how magical talent is defined in their stories.