Another month brings me another really interesting subject to blog about: adaptations. There were certainly a lot of directions I could have gone with this, lots of movie and television options to consider for example. I’ve been a big fan of adaptations over the years: books that became movies, television series that became books, expanded universes and spun off realities. Despite this, I knew pretty quickly what kind of adaptation I wanted to cover- -a type that requires no contracts, no licensing and is usually done just for the pure enjoyment of it: fan fiction.

Wait, come back.

Look, I’m aware that fan fiction has something of a reputation and it is true that many examples of fan fiction can contain writing elements and prose that are… let’s call them underdeveloped. This is not true of all fan fiction of course, there’s some marvelous stuff out there. Addressing the ones that are a bit rougher to read though, I’m here to submit that this very rough nature may be as much a feature as a bug.

I’m not going to discuss the definition or the history of fan fiction, not when you can read all of that here <link>. Rather I’d like to discuss my own view of the concept, and why I think it is both an excellent writing tool as well as one of the purest forms of creation out there.

I think many of us started with some version of fan fiction. This was certainly true for me – The first stories I ever created were fan fiction. Before I could even write, I was dictating stories to my mother of G.I. Joe’s adventures in the jungle, hoping she’d send them to Hasbro where they’d be made into new toys. (Back in those days Joe had ditched the Army and become more of a Indiana Jones type complete with kung-fu grip!) Later I would draw my own Star Wars and Star Blazers comics as well as write my own Battlestar Galactica short stories.

Many years as an adult later the writing itch began to come back to me. I had a novel I had been carrying around in my head for a long time, but I still didn’t feel ready to attack that yet. I needed a warm up, something to get the writing muscles in shape. I decided to join an online fan fiction writing group, writing shared stories within the Star Trek universe. I wrote with this group for a few years, creating several characters and learning a great deal about duilding tension, working with character dynamics and crafting satisfying endings. It was a great experience and really prepared me for the full blown fiction writing that lay ahead for me.

Looking back on that now, I see the value fan fiction had for me as a fledgeling creative writer. When you write an original piece of fiction, the sheer amount of creation you need to do is very daunting, especially in the speculative realms. Not only does the plot need to be worked out, but you must create the characters, locations, backstories, technologies, and so on. It can be overwhelming.

With fan fiction, much of that work is done for you. It is a sandbox where everything you need to play is already set up for you. You still need to create the adventure, but the rest is already done. This allows the new writer to just focus on the story creation, let’s say by creating a new adventure for Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise. Later, the writer could expand things by adding a new character of their own creation, or sending the ship to a new planet they’d have to invent. In this case, they are taking on world building and character design in nice bite size pieces, learning to crawl before walking. Fan fiction allows a new writer to step into the world of story creation slowly, working at their own pace and adding skills one at a time. There is a freedom there that I think had a great deal of value.

Additionally, I admire fan fiction for the pure honesty it represents. These are writers who will never be paid and will never see their work in print. They write instead to see their favorite universes in a more personal light; allowing for a broader range of stories, representation and scenarios that often are simply not available in the ‘canon’ universes. Viewed in this light, fan fiction might be the the truest adaptation form of all, one done for the sheer love of the source material. These writers are writing for the pure joy of creation, and I find that compelling.

It is easy to look down on fan fiction as something ‘lesser’ than paid fiction, but I feel doing so overlooks a very special and unique category of adaptation, one that had a great deal to offer both reader and writer.

See you next time!

The Lord of the Rings – Perhaps the Best Movie Adaptation Ever

November 11, 2016

Frank Morin

Frank Morin No Comments

In my family, we love good stories. We’re avid readers, and we also love to go to the movies. Film adaptations of beloved books pose a unique challenge. Generally we read the book prior to watching the movie. It’s awesome to see characters and scenes we love come to life on the big screen.

As long as they’re portrayed well.

My kids are book-to-movie adaptation purists. They feel the movies really need to be true to the books. I lean in that direction too, but recognize that the two mediums are so different, they demand some changes, no matter how much the directors want to keep the story pure. We generally discuss at ridiculous lengths what we liked or didn’t like about adaptations.

Except for the Lord of the Rings.

That one was easy.

We love that movie trilogy! Peter Jackson and his cast and crew knocked it out of the park. They nailed it. That’s one adaptation where I believe the movie exceeded the book.

What did they do so well?

First off, they loved the books. We, of course, purchased the extended editions of all of the DVDs and, being huge Tolkien fans, we watched all the extra bonus materials, behind-the-scenes clips, and interviews. Throughout all of that material, it was incredibly obvious that the movies were made by incredibly talented professionals who loved the stories and dedicated themselves to bringing the very best aspects of them to the big screen.

For example, they spent an entire year prepping the sets. They built Hobbiton, planted gardens, and gave the area time to grow and become real.

I took my family to New Zealand where the filming took place and we visited many of the filming locations. Hobbiton was our favorite. It’s just so awesome. Plus, it’s really the only set that’s still in place. Everything else had to be taken down, including the town of Edoras. We did visit the mount where it had stood and got to play with swords!

[soliloquy id=”12048″]

They took the time to tell the story. Many movie adaptations make the mistake of cutting massive sections of the story plotline away, or change it so far from what the fan base expects that it’s barely recognizable. Great examples of movies that should have been only the first successful installment in a long series, but which angered the fan base and crushed their chances to release the sequels, include Eragon and The Last Airbender. I was so excited for both of those, and so disappointed with the clearly sub-par adaptations that resulted.

The LOTR crew focused on the details. They hired armorers to make real weapons and armor. We visited the Weta workshop where they crafted the costumes and equipment and worked so much magic to bring the story alive. Absolutely amazing.

They cast brilliantly. Sometimes it’s hard to cast everyone to fit the descriptions within a story, but I feel the LOTR cast was brilliant.

They developed a truly epic score. The music from this movie is still one of my favorite soundtracks, which I often write to, despite having listened to it far too many times to count.

They filmed all three movies at the same time. This could have been a huge gamble and could have been disastrous if the first movie had tanked. But it’s a testament to Peter Jackson and crew that they felt confident enough in their success to film all three movies. They knew they were making something epic, and they did not hold back. Knowing all three movies were already filmed helped drive anticipation for the annual release of the films.

And from a marketing standpoint, they again excelled. I remember for weeks and months leading up to the release of the first movie, they released interviews with cast and crew, sneak peeks behind the scenes, documentaries about the efforts to build the world of Tolkien. It whipped the fan base into a frenzy.

Then they delivered everything they promised.

So yes, I’m a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I love those movies, and I will watch them again and again. If I ever get the chance for a film adaptation of one of my books, I hope it’s by a team the loves my stories like Peter Jackson and his team loved Tolkien’s works, and who commit to the same level of excellence.

About the Author: Frank Morin

Frank Morin loves good stories in every form. When not writing or trying to keep up with his active family, he’s often found hiking, camping, Scuba diving, or enjoying other outdoor activities. For updates on upcoming releases of his popular Petralist YA fantasy novels, or his fast-paced Facetakers sci-fi time travel thrillers, check his website: www.frankmorin.org

Was Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Trilogy Good?

November 10, 2016

Evan Braun

Character Craft & Skills Evan Braun Fantasy Movies Plot Structure POV Reading Storyline No Comments

Contestant: I’ll take Geek Controversies for $500, Alex.

Alex Trebek: A Smaug-sized question of cinematic taste to tongue-tie any dwarven fellowship of thirteen or less at one’s local ComicCon.

Contestant: Was Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy good?

Alex Trebek: Yes, well done. You are now in the lead.

The Hobbit

Was Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy good? Now there’s a hobbit-hole-burner for the ages, and the deeper you’ve burrowed into the gentle slope of Bungo’s figurative Hill, the more fervent your opinion is likely to be. While it’s less fashionable to impinge on the honor of Jackson’s near-hallowed Lord of the Rings trilogy, a plurality of fans have been giving The Hobbit films the side-eye since the first installment premiered. For many, those side-eyes turned to full-fledged eye-rolls by the time the credits faded on the final film two years later.

I prefer to shift to a slightly different but closely related question: was Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy a good adaptation? Note that this is different than asking if it’s a faithful adaptation; as many have observed, a faithful adaption would have been… well, much shorter, it’s safe to say. It seems clear to me that Jackson wasn’t so much interested in faithfully adapting J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel as reimagining it as an epic precursor to Lord of the Rings. I doubt there will be many dissenters to that. After all, Tolkien didn’t have the later events clearly established in his mind when he wrote The Hobbit, so the two works aren’t quite as much of the same piece as Jackson might have preferred.

Despite that, were The Hobbit films a good adaptation?

And now we get to the part where there will be more dissention. Deciding whether the films are good adaptations requires you to decide a few things about the original novel. If you have come to the conclusion that Tolkien’s novel is an untouchable classic, one of the high water marks of English literature—nay, of all literature anywhere—then the films must by definition fall short, because even the most charitable reviewer must acknowledge that the films are merely good films, not the high water mark of cinema.

But I’m not sure the book is all that and a bag of lembas bread. (I bet you didn’t know it came in bags.) Don’t get me wrong; I love the book. I have very fond memories of it, going back to my Grade Five year when our teacher guided us through the story chapter by chapter. I’ve read it several times since, and enjoyed each successive re-read.

The thing is, like many books written a long time ago, I’m not sure this book is good by current (modern) standards. Which is certainly not a problem for the book itself, because it must be judged according to its context, and The Hobbit is revolutionary in context with everything that was going on contemporaneous with its release.

But Tolkien makes some rather strange literary choices. Some might go so far as to unkindly call them shortcuts.

Let’s cast an analytic eye to the book’s structure. Bilbo Baggins is the central figure, the eponymous character, the dominating point of view for most of the novel, to the point of eclipsing the other characters with him. You’ve got Gandalf (who disappears midway through and returns only for a cameo at the end), you’ve got Thorin Oakenshield, you’ve got Fili and Kili… and as for the rest of the company (there are 15 of them in total), they are hardly mentioned.

Peter Jackson rightly points out in the supplementary materials that while this can work in literary terms, it’s impossible in filmic terms.

Not to sound too much the Jackson apologist, but he really had no choice but to flesh out the other dwarves as fully as he could, constrained by the fact that the dwarves really aren’t important; they don’t contribute much, and they don’t exert influence on the plot. They seem to have been inserted by Tolkien to serve as a bit of poetry, a literary grace note.

Tolkien was a minimalist. If a character didn’t significantly further the story, he all but erased them from the narrative. Gandalf is important, but the moment he’s not, he’s off to Mirkwood and out of sight; Thorin is a tragic figure, slouching toward his eventual demise (and redemption); and Fili and Kili are likewise destined for death. Sure, there’s Elrond and Gollum and Beorn and Smaug. They serve their purpose and exeunt stage left.

The movie can’t get away with this, so perhaps it overcorrects. Jackson gives us a bustling Hobbiton full of memorable characters. All thirteen dwarves are painted larger than life and given distinctive traits, running gags, and backstories. The small role of Radagast is writ large. Galadriel joins the fun in Rivendell, perhaps unnecessarily—and Saruman, too. The Goblin King wrests the spotlight from our heroes for an extended musical sequence (in fairness, this probably hews closely to Tolkien’s intent). We get a resplendent and scene-stealing Thranduil. Oh look, there’s Legolas! And now an all-new elven maiden named Tauriel who gets an awful lot of screen time. There’s Azog and Bolg, footnotes in the book but major villains fighting for relevance and attention on the big screen. Once we get to Lake-town, whose denizens barely register on the page, we get a host of named characters who demand motivations and personalities on their own. Did I mention Sauron, glaring at us all the while? At last, Dain rides over the hill in undercooked (overcooked?) computer-generated glory.

The oddest of Tolkien’s literary choices/shortcuts is the fact that the entire climactic battle, around which Jackson created a whole movie of its own, is played out in a few pages of exposition, told to Bilbo after he is knocked out in the opening frame. This is the best example of Tolkien getting away with something that no author today could get away with. Some would charitably call it a quirk.

My thesis is basically that Jackson didn’t have a choice but to flesh this all out. I suppose he could have fleshed it out a bit less comprehensively, and delivered two films instead of three. Maybe Galadriel and Saruman stay on the sidelines. Maybe you don’t bother to show Gandalf’s investigation of Sauron. Maybe you resist the urge to bring back Legolas. Maybe you leave out Tauriel and just accept the fact that this movie has no women in it. Maybe Lake-town gets limited only to Bard. Perhaps the extra dwarves are reduced to window dressing.

I contend that several of these choices would have been very bad choices indeed, and every fan is going to pick and choose which of them were most and least essential. Essentially Jackson didn’t pick and choose; he expanded everything, leaving on stone unturned. I don’t think it’s in Jackson’s DNA to do things halfway, and I don’t really blame him for that. (Granted, others do.)

In short, Jackson turned Tolkien’s one-man play into a 50-man ensemble, thus entirely changing the character of the story. But my god, if The Hobbit had been filmed in the same manner it was written, it would almost certainly have been the most baffling film of the modern era.

So the movie is different than the book, a wildly different experience. Is it better? No. But if you’re dead-set on adapting a strange, nigh unadaptable story like The Hobbit, you could do a lot worse. Peter Jackson didn’t give us great movies, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he gave us serviceable ones that at least hold together and stay consistent with his previous work.

And if you can’t have greatness, consistency is a pretty good consolation prize.

Paid to Play: Writing Licensed Fan Fiction in Kindle Worlds

November 9, 2016

Kevin Ikenberry

Action & Adventure Author's Perspective Book Launch Business Character Choice Conflict Genres Ideas & Plotting Kevin Ikenberry Marketing Publishing Science Fiction Starting a Career The Writing Life The Writing Process Your Writing Career 1 Comment

We’ve all heard that writing fan fiction is something that professional writers don’t do. Fan fiction has a stigma attached to it of being vastly amateur and a waste of time for aspiring authors who should be cutting their teeth on their own works. The truth of the matter is that fan fiction has a very large fan base and can provide a great opportunity for new writers to hone their abilities. Yet, being paid for writing fan fiction has always been reserved for authors who sign literary contracts to write “media tie-ins.” The media tie-in was essentially the sole professional version of fan fiction until Kindle Worlds came along.

Kindle Worlds is a project from Amazon that allows authors to write licensed fan fiction in any of the licensed world. Authors can earn royalties (typically 30%) from their works in a licensed world. Works can be any length from short story to full novels. The only “catch” is that Amazon and that licensed world own your story in perpetuity. Licensed worlds include the worlds of bestselling authors Hugh Howey, Bella Andre, and Kurt Vonnegut. Other worlds include television properties (Vampire Diaries, Wayward Pines, Veronica Mars) and comic book properties (G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, Quantum and Woody, XO Man-o-War). All an author has to do is have an idea, check the Kindle Worlds quality/content guidelines for that licensed world, write a story, and publish it. It’s licensed fan fiction, and I can say from experience, a huge opportunity.

A few years ago at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio, I met Hugh Howey. We had a great conversation then, and ever since via infrequent emails. I first heard about Kindle Worlds from Hugh. Roughly about the time that I finished the second of his Silo Saga novels (SHIFT), I had an idea for a story in his universe. Knowing that the universe was available through the Kindle Worlds program, I worked up a story and promptly hesitated. On the cusp of submitting the story, I chickened out and emailed Hugh for advice. He told me to publish the story, and I did. I’ve published several short stories via Kindle, but none has sold like my Silo Sage novelette “Vessel.” It’s been out for a couple of years and has never left the Top 200 in Kindle Worlds Science Fiction and Fantasy, topping out at #3. The story has done nicely, putting some extra money in my account while generating name recognition. I never thought about name recognition as a by-product for Kindle Worlds until I had an idea for another story in a different universe.

As a kid, the cartoon series G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero was my favorite series of all time. When I saw that its universe was part of Kindle Worlds, I was amazed and thrilled. In the Kindle Worlds stories, there are some really good ones including those by bestselling author Carrie Vaughn and my friends Peter Wacks and Aaron Michael Ritchey. On a getaway weekend to Breckenridge a couple of years ago, I had an idea for a story in that universe and wrote it inside of a week. After some read-throughs and edits, I used the Kindle Worlds cover builder, formatted the book, and set it live. What happened next is surreal. About 24 hours after I set the title live, I had a Twitter notification on my account (@TheWriterIke). I’d been mentioned in a tweet from Amazon Kindle Worlds that reached almost 35,000 subscribers. They’d also tagged one of the major G.I.Joe toy collector groups, and they then retweeted it to another 6,000 subscribers. The story hit #7 in all of Kindle Worlds within the next few hours. I gained fifty or so Twitter followers. Like “Vessel,” my short story “Friends In High Places” has continued to do very well, and the fact that it’s licensed fan fiction is something I’m very proud of.

I believe firmly that writers should seek payment for our work. Exposure doesn’t pay the bills. Kindle Worlds is a perfect opportunity to play in someone else’s world while earning royalties and gaining exposure. Check them out at KindleWorlds.Amazon.Com and see if there is a licensed world you’re familiar with. Then, if the muse whispers in your ear, sit down and write the best story you possibly can. You never know what might happen with it.