Category Archives: Our Favorite Fiction

What are some of the books, movies, or TV that we the Fictorians love?

A guest post by Jacqui Talbot

First off, let me be clear, I’m a consumer. Not a critic. When it comes to movies, I watch for one reason—entertainment. And when it comes to said entertainment, I have very specific tastes. I like big adventure flicks, full of explosions, gunfights—or even better, swordfights—and the occasional one-liner.

So, as you can imagine, DEADPOOL was my jam.

But that’s a blog for another day.

Today, I want to discuss a different, imperfect film full of weak character motivations, structural issues, and plot holes big enough to accommodate a Mondoshawan spaceship and a giant black ball of skull fire.

That’s right, people. I’m talking about THE FIFTH ELEMENT.

A few weeks ago, I watched an interview with Gary Oldman about his most iconic roles. When THE FIFTH ELEMENT came up, he admitted that he only did it as a favor to the director, and that he didn’t even read the script. When the interviewer reminded Oldman that the film is now considered a cult classic, he laughed and said, “I know. That’s the wacky world we live in.”

Now, I’m not a huge fan of Mr. Oldman (or his political views) but I will freely admit that the man is a great actor. And that interview started me thinking. Why would someone so talented denigrate one of my favorite movies? Was I wrong about THE FIFTH ELEMENT? After all, it had been a while since I last watched it. Could it be that my memory—faded by too much time and tequila—was ascribing greatness to something that wasn’t all that great?

So, I dug out my old copy and popped it into the VCR. (Yes, I still have a VCR. Don’t judge me.) And I found, to my surprise, that the movie still held up. The costumes were just as outrageous, the comedy as broad, and the action as blood-pumping as I remembered. I laughed. I cried—mostly from laughing. And I wanted to watch it again as soon as it was over.

Now, I’ve seen plenty of action movies in my time. And, on paper, they all have the same attributes—swordfights, gunfights, explosions, and at least one gratuitous shot of a sweaty, muscular hero sans shirt. What more could a gal ask for?

Just one simple ingredient—fun. Remember this guy? (If not, you can watch the scene play out in the link below.)

See what I mean? Sure, THE FIFTH ELEMENT may have some major logic and pacing issues, and the acting is hardly Oscar-worthy. But, if you’re looking for a goofy, gleefully over the top movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, then this is the one for you.

Don’t get me wrong, as an author, I know that movies are great resources that offer valuable insight on story structure, character development, and visual storytelling. But in the end, for me, it’s all about being entertained.

So, whether you’re outlining, writing, revising, or editing, always look for the fun factor—that special bit that gets you excited or makes you smile. Because, just like movies, novels are meant to be entertaining.

And if you’re not having fun…then what’s the point?

About the Author:

Jacqui Talbot is a book worm, devoted Whovian, and certified fantasy geek. When not pursuing her dream of becoming a full-time writer, she spends her time learning different languages (six and counting) and being a nuclear chemist. Her current projects include SPINNERS, a YA supernatural thriller set on the Choctaw Indian reservation where she grew up, and KARMA AND CHEMISTRY, a MG fantasy adventure featuring a twelve-year-old protagonist who uses science to battle dark magic.

The Rewards of Glaciality (Which I Realize Is Not a Word)

May 27, 2016

Evan Braun

Character Evan Braun Ideas & Plotting Movies Our Favorite Fiction Reader Investment & Empathy Setting and Milieu No Comments

Sense8 Last summer, I got psyched up about Netflix’s new series, Sense8. I had no idea what it was about—I hadn’t even seen a trailer—but it had J. Michael Straczynki and the Wachowskis at the helm, and that was enough for me to give it a shot. I stayed up until 2:00 a.m., waiting for the show to appear in my Netflix queue. I was strangely drawn to the fact that the cast was mostly composed of people I hadn’t heard of before. After all, when I see Matt Damon onscreen playing a character, I have trouble seeing the character; I see Matt Damon onscreen playing a character. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I watched it all very quickly. Finished it in two and a half days. And then I read the reviews, and to my surprise realized that as a profound admirer of the show I seemed to be in a minority, at least as far as critics were concerned. And usually I’m on the same page as the critical consensus.

Sense8 is so many things to me. It’s beautiful beyond description, mostly. It’s atmospheric. It’s sensual. It’s sexy (I’m looking at you, Episode 6). It’s worldly, global. It’s cosmopolitan. It’s mysterious and coy. It’s haunting. It’s diverse. It’s profoundly moving.

It’s slow.

Glacially

Which is awesome! I mean, one of my favourite movies of all time is Meet Joe Black, so obviously I’m not averse to taking my sweet time getting to the point (and even then, perhaps being a bit vague about the point). Sometimes I don’t want something explained; I just want to dig in and experience every aspect and nuance of it.

As the years go by, I value plot less and less. When I read books, I skim right over the battles, the big action scenes. In movies, I drift off to sleep when everyone else’s pulse starts to pound. The setup, and the aftermath—that’s my jam. The long travelogue of meandering from Point A to Point B? The average person may throw their popcorn across the room and stalk out of the theater in frustration; I eat that shit up.

These weren’t always my preferences. So yeah, I admit that this is a surprising trend in my life.

At the heart of Sense8, you have a really powerful and beautiful idea—eight people, waking up slowly, suffering from confusion and long-dawning realization, discovering that they’re connected, that they’re sharing each other’s memories and emotions and experiences. They are strangers and they are intensely familiar.

This series, or at least the first season, is dedicated to exploring the underlying confusion of these eight characters as their very separate and independent lives begin to merge in surprising ways. They come from every corner of the globe, have different passions, different sexualities and gender identities (did I mention this show is diverse?), and they all bring unique skills to the table. And they don’t know what the hell is going on. They’re very slow—realistically slow—to put the pieces together.

And damn if that isn’t a beautiful thing to behold.

It’s a massively complex idea, on a character level. And there are eight main characters to be explored, and just as many interesting side characters. The best novelist would have trouble executing this, never mind a TV series. And if Sense8 wasn’t on Netflix, which is about a hundred times more patient than its broadcast cousins, it wouldn’t exist at all past the pilot.

As you make your way through the show, you realize that the show is not particularly interesting in explaining things. Well, it does explain things occasionally, but it’s never in a hurry to do so. The show knows that as long as it’s turning the spotlight on the characters and their relationships and interactions, and their inner struggles and emotions, it’s on solid ground.

But if you need plot bleeding from your every pore, Sense8 may not be for you. It’s character first. Character, character, character, and more character. So much character that you almost can’t stand it.

In a world of brainless action flicks, it’s pretty refreshing.

P.S. I also adore The Leftovers. Which is, now that I think of, Sense8’s spiritual sibling. It evokes very similar reactions in me, critics, and the overall TV-viewing audience.

Evan Braun is an author and editor who has been writing books for more than ten years. He is the author of The Watchers Chronicle, a completed trilogy. In addition to writing science fiction, he is the managing editor of The Niverville Citizen. He lives in Niverville, Manitoba.

A Man Plus A Woman Equals – Comrades?

May 26, 2016

mary

Mary Pletsch Movies Our Favorite Fiction Romance & Erotica No Comments

I’ve heard the advice that, when possible, it’s a great idea to add a romance subplot to your story. I’m not talking about romance as a genre–a genre that I’ve published in–in which the developing relationship between two characters is the focus of the plot. I’m talking about stories in which the heroes are in pursuit of another goal and just happen to fall in love with one another along the way.

Well…

Sometimes it’s a great idea, and sometimes it’s not.

Quick, think of your favourite onscreen romance. Your “canon ship,” if you will. (For those not in fandom = “Ship” means “relationship,” and “canon” means it actually appeared in the source material….because creators of transformative works will happily develop relationships between characters who never even meet in the source material…)

Who have you got?

Han Solo and Princess Leia?

Robin Hood and Maid Marian?

Korra and Asami?

These are examples of romance being a great addition to the story. Plenty of readers who would never pick up a “romance” story enjoy the interpersonal dynamics and the fantasy of falling in love taking place alongside the epic adventure. Romance adds another level of appeal, and the more appeal, the better when you’re trying to sell a story.

But we can all list examples of romance being done poorly.

Stories where “romance” is replaced by a sex scene – the kind that doesn’t contribute to the story. I’m sure many of us have waited through “this is the part where they have sex, because of course they do. Hurry up and get back to the real story.”

Stories where “romance” takes place between two characters that have no chemistry, no reason to be interested in one another, save for the fact that the “romance” box on the writer’s checklist needs ticking.

Stories where one character–often but not always the female character–exists solely to be a love interest for another character, and has little personality beyond “X’s girlfriend/wife/etc.”

Stories where an interesting female character suddenly becomes “weakened”and falls in love with the “Mr Average” leading man, who saves the day (does anyone have examples of a male character falling victim to this? Female examples include the Lego Movie, the Matrix, All You Need is Kill/Edge of Tomorrow…)

And worst of all, stories where romance runs counter to the themes and ideas in the story.

Mad Max: Fury Road was a breath of fresh air to me and many other people in that its lead characters, Max and Furiosa, are a man and a woman who…don’t fall in love! Their relationship develops from adversarial (Furiosa has gone rogue to rescue five women who’ve been held in sexual servitude, and she fears Max is an obstacle to her success; Max just wants to live and will go through whoever he has to) to mutual respect, friendship, and, yes, affection…but nowhere is there any hint of romance. Indeed, Furiosa’s position as a woman in a leadership role in a patriarchal community has interesting implications as to what her views of sexuality, gender, and relationships must be, given the society in which she lives (and in contrast to the society she was born into, which has flaws of its own). To try to shoehorn in a romance with Max (who is suffering from mental illness and also struggling to define his role in society) would not have fit this story whatsoever.
This is not to say that romance has “cooties”. There’s an obvious relationship between Warboy Nux and ex-breeder Capable, but whether this is “romance” or a more innocent sort of childlike affection between two emotionally stunted people is open to interpretation. Mad Max doesn’t shy away from deep emotion and vulnerability. It does show that romance and sex are not the only ways to show emotion and vulnerability in relationships between men and women.

Pacific Rim is another excellent example of a movie where a male and female soldier work together to accomplish a dangerous mission. There’s no doubt that Raleigh and Mako are very close, emotionally–they wouldn’t be able to fight together in their robot without a deep connection. But there’s no sex and not even so much as a kiss between them in the movie itself. Are they in romantic love, or are they comrades-in-arms? The movie doesn’t answer this question, and doesn’t need to. In this case, open-ended ambiguity lets viewers imagine a romance, or not, as they choose–whichever is more meaningful to the viewer. Some viewers will want the romance fantasy; others will want affirmation of closeness without romance. Unlike Mad Max: Fury Road, where it’s important that Furiosa and Max not be romantically involved, Pacific Rim benefits from an ambiguous relationship that can be what the viewer wants it to be.

In real life, plenty of us interact with people of the opposite gender who we aren’t 1.) related to, 2.) sexually involved with, or 3.) romantically attracted to. Yet so many stories focus on romance to the exclusion of other types of relationships. The result is stories that don’t reflect the full human experience, and a skewed depiction of romance as the be-all and end-all of relationships.

Romance has a wide appeal, but there are some stories that don’t benefit from romance. These include: stories with asexual and aromantic lead characters (people who do not experience sexual or romantic attraction)…characters who are equally worthy of being heroes with their own stories. Stories with lead characters who are at points in their lives where they are not ready for romantic relationships (Furiosa, Max). Stories in which a man and a woman work closely together, risk their lives together, would do anything for one another…but whose “love” need not be romantic love.

In some stories romantic love will make sense for the characters, the plot and the setting. In some stories, it won’t. While there will always be a market for a good old-fashioned love story, I believe that audiences also want to see other kinds of relationships on the big screen, the small screen, and in the stories they read.

The Martian – Every Writer’s Dream

May 25, 2016

Ace Jordyn

Ace Jordyn Movies No Comments

Who wants their debut novel be that quintessential novel lauded by readers, swooped up by Hollywood and flocked to be seen by millions? We all do. And if not the first, make it the sixth. It’d be amazing to have millions as enthusiastic about a project as we’ve been. So for that, I tip my invisible hat to Andy Weir and his novel turned movie The Martian.

I enjoyed the novel even more than the movie only because I could immerse myself in the techno-babble. As a scientist, I am always wondering how things are made, how one would get out of a situation, what something means, how something be fixed. What made the technological realities of this story satisfying was that they were well researched and experts aren’t arguing over it. The TV series MacGyver was always one of my favorites because MacGuyver was a mild mannered secret agent who fought the bad guys by using the ordinary materials he found around him to make unorthodox weapons. MacGuyver’s ingenuity always amazed me. Step in Mark Watney who must “…science the s— out of this” and he becomes my MacGuyer of the space age. How would you grow a potato on Mars or make water? The technology and ingenuity in this story tells tell us that our dreams of living somewhere else in space are possible.

The movie did something that the book could not – it visually put me on Mars and it felt like a virtual reality experience. The cinematography was superb, the musical scores weren’t greedy, and the pacing was quick (it was a short 142 minutes!). The Martian was suspenseful, smartass, well acted, and eye-rolling touches like the disco music the commander left behind accent Mark Watney’s interminable and almost intolerable situation superbly.

We always knew how the story would end – Mark would survive and his team would come back, somehow, to rescue him. But the question was always ‘How?’ How would Mark survive? How would he find the air he needed? What would he eat? Find water? How would he overcome the disaster of the storm, when his efforts to obtain the basic necessities resulted in disasters? How could he even communicate he was alive?

It wasn’t just these questions, or Mark Watney’s MacGuyver attitude that made this movie entertaining. It was the talented cast who didn’t overact, whose banter and disagreements felt real. Matt Damon’s character was a scientist with a wry attitude who came close to a breakdown at one point. I especially enjoyed Donald Glover’s portrayal of Rich Purnell, an eccentric, socially awkward scientist who doesn’t know his director’s name. Or, Jessica Chastain’s portrayal of Melissa Lewis, Commander of the Ares 3 Mission, and her crew who faced the tough decisions like leaving a man behind, mutiny to save him and ingenuity to make the rescue mission work.

Matt Damon did an excellent job on the man vs nature, man vs himself, the pioneer aspects of the movie. The rest of the cast tackled the man vs the-cost-be-damned-because-it’s-the-right-thing-to-do, man vs the corporation, tossed in with difficult science, small windows of opportunity, vast distances, and slow communication with Mars. As writers we know we must make things more and more difficult for our characters. It’s in overcoming obstacles that the character and readers experience cathartic moments in our stories. And this story has those difficulties in in every aspect of the story. The hero’s troubles escalate and as time passes and stuff happens, they become critical. His support systems, his ship mates and NASA, face the impossible and after we’re told that the science won’t work, a failure to launch happens, the possibility of rescue becomes minute and the chances of failure increase. It’s daunting as is the spirit of those involved.

It’s where human spirit and ingenuity prevail where people not only do the right thing, but they do it despite the odds. Space may be the final frontier, but when go forth to make the dream a reality – we want to be Mark Watney – ingenious enough to survive despite the odds while our support systems do everything they can not to fail us. The Martian isn’t merely a movie about the first steps of colonizing Mars, it’s about hopes, the cost of dreams, survival at its most basic. It’s about the pioneering spirit and about us taking the first steps to know if we’re alone I the universe. It brings our beloved space operas closer to reality, makes science fiction feel a little more real.

As a space opera fan and as someone who yearns to travel across the universe, The Martian fuels my love of space stories and makes the dream of space travel and colonization feel one step closer. And, as a writer, Andy Weir’s accomplishment reassures us that the dream of an outstanding debut novel is possible. I thank him for his vision and his execution of that vision and I thank him for a most entertaining story.