Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park Talk About Storytelling

NYU teaches a class in storytelling the Tisch School of the Arts. On the first day of class, Professor Liotti invited Trey Parker and Matt Stone to discuss their take on storytelling. In this short video, there are a couple of nuggets of great advice, which helps explain the 20 year success of the animated television series. I found it interesting that they basically said writer's block is not an option. If they can't come up with a show idea, seventy people are idled. This reminded me of William Shakespeare, who had forty people depending on him to come up with a new play that would draw a large enough paying audience to feed themselves and their families. Nothing drives creativity like hunger.

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By the way, kudos to NYU for teaching storytelling. Many universities think creative writing is solely about crafting wonderful sentences. Not true. Storytelling is at the heart of anything still read or viewed that was written over twenty years ago.

Storytelling is the art, good writing is the craft that brings it to life.

The Hateful Eight— Tarantino mailed it in

I like westerns and I like Quentin Tarantino films, so I had high expectation when I rented The Hateful Eight. Bummer. It's not only a crummy movie … punishment is compounded by its interminable length. Long is usually good for Tarantino, but it’s a bad sign if you ever consciously wonder when this thing will be over. The movie desperately needed editing by someone unintimidated by the grand master.

The Hateful Eight came across as a parody of a Tarantino movie instead of the genuine article. His good films are characterized by stylish cinematography, clever and incongruous banter, startling and extreme violence, and artful revelation of plot through time displacement. The Hateful Eight included all of these elements, but without charisma. It felt flat and uninspired. Tarantino dispassionately applied his formula without the artistic essentials that make it work.  Too bad. He’s tried twice to hit one out of the park with a western. Django Unchained was a ground-rule double, and he may have barely beat out an infield grounder with The Hateful Eight.

I have watched Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films many time. I’ve also re-watched other Tarantino movies. I can’t imagine spinning up The Hateful Eight again.

John Steinbeck Writing Tips

Six tips on writing from Pulitzer Prize winner and Nobel laureate John Steinbeck.

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.
2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.
3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.
4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.
5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.
6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

Will Rogers—An American Icon

Will Rogers died at fifty-five in an airplane crash 80 years ago (August 15, 1935). A real Oklahoma cowboy who parlayed dead pan humor into a fortune. We should have had a few more years of his wisdom.

Yale University and Omaha Disagree

Pioneer Courage Park, Omaha Nebraska

Amy Athey McDonald has published an article in Yale News titled: On gunfights, U.S. colonialism, and studying the American West on the East Coast. The article includes an interview with John Mack Faragher, the Howard R. Lamar Professor of History and American Studies, and director of the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders.

The Lamar Center site has a nifty feature which displays a different student’s dissertation blurb every time you refresh the screen. (You can actually catch gems like this: “I seek to foreground these events as a historical pivot point during which North American and global geopolitics, British-American relations, and both “American” and “Canadian” native peoples’ status and territorial control hinged on seemingly peripheral people, movements, and landscapes.”)

It’s nice to see the American frontier get some attention, but I’m not an enthusiast for the tone of the article or the Howard R. Lamar Center. If you don’t want to take the time to read the article or visit the site, I can summarize the content of both in a few words—pioneers wore black hats.

Professor Faragher said in the interview, “As I insist with my students, for every community founded in the American West, imagine that one was destroyed, and people killed, removed, or pushed aside.”

Pioneer Courage Park, Omaha Nebraska

He lost me right there. When I read that sentence I heard Professor Faragher say he wanted no uplifting messages about the frontier spirit. If his students persisted, then he insisted that they balance their dissertation by showing how pioneers despoiled all that was good and decent in the Americas. I object to using deplorable acts of others to claim higher moral ground for oneself, especially when that person is removed from the transgressor by time and distance.

He says, “The best side of our history is the attempt to form a just society out of our less than promising beginnings.” In other words, we started poorly, but if we learn from our disreputable past we can fix our society so it is just. 

We started better than any other nation in history. How many civilizations had a chance to start fresh and declared with their first free breath that, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Granted, the words were aspirational—still are—but what other collection of people defined such a precise and idealistic goal for themselves. Just because we struggle to act in accordance with this lofty goal is no reason to vilify ourselves.

Pioneer Courage Park, Omaha Nebraska

I believe all people are the same. The same virtues, the same flaws. I came to this conclusion early in life from reading the Bible. It occurred to me that human frailties have not changed in thousands of years. Races and countries and clans are not noble. Collections of people cannot be consistently honorable. Individuals, however, can be noble, but more likely they perform noble acts in what might otherwise be an ignoble life.

There is no excuse for appalling acts by politicians, soldiers, and settlers. But to emphasize the negative over the courageous and honorable actions of most pioneers is not the path to a just society. We must look honestly at our past, but also see the brave and stalwart souls who struggled to make this a better world.

Man cannot be made perfect, but he can be inspired to lean toward his better nature. 

Writing Tips from Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway never published advice for aspiring writers, but he spoke or wrote enough about writing that Larry W. Phillips was able to edit a collection of his reflections on the craft. (Ernest Hemingway on Writing)

In the preface, Phillips writes, “Throughout Hemingway’s career as a writer, he maintained that it was bad luck to talk about writing—that it takes off ‘whatever butterflies have on their wings and the arrangement of hawk’s feathers if you show it or talk about it.’ Despite this belief, by the end of his life he had done just what he intended not to do. In his novels and stories, in letters to editors, friends, fellow artists, and critics, in interviews and in commissioned articles on the subject, Hemingway wrote often about writing.”

Here’s one piece of advice I like:

Hemingway said to F. Scott Fitzgerald that, “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”

This nugget reminds me of a photography course I took many years ago with my wife. (She got an A while I received only a B. Darn. And we took pictures of the same subjects.) Anyway, the teacher told us if we wanted to build a reputation as good photographer, we should take lots and lots of pictures and throw all of the bad ones away. Simple … but expensive in the age of film photography. In the digital age, this advice has become cost free. If adhered to religiously, this technique allows a visual dufus like me to catch up with my wife.

Here are some more tips gleaned from Hemingway lifelong musings about writing.

• Use short sentences.
• Use short first paragraphs.
• Use vigorous English.
• Be positive, not negative.
• To get started, write one true sentence.
• Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next.
• Never think about the story when you’re not working.
• Don’t describe an emotion–make it.
• Be Brief.
• The first draft of everything is shit.
• Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.
• Write drunk, edit sober.

If you’re inclined, there’s even an app that will measure your writing clarity against Hemingway. I’m not one for machine assisted writing tools, but at $9.99, this one seems inexpensive. I bought it and tried it out on this post. It received a “good” score. Ironically, the quote from Larry W. Phillips was highlighted as the least comprehensible.  

Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling

Scripts guidelines help storytelling. First Loony Tunes, now Pixar. The animated world has rules. Perhaps it's related to Walt Disney's comment that he liked animated features because he could control everything. He didn't need to deal with unruly actors.

Here  are Pixar's 22 Rules. Way more than Roadrunner's 9 or Bonanza's 7. 

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Click to see Pixar's 23 Years 

Characters Matter

Characterization is a crucial aspect of fiction. We know this because it's drilled into us at school, in workshops, and in all the how-to books and journals we read. The protagonist must come across as real and interesting enough to pull the reader all the way through to the end of the story. A common mistake, however, is to focus too much attention on the protagonist. When you read a great book or watch an outstanding film, it's usually the antagonist that lifts the story above the ordinary.

A favorite villain: Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West

Protagonists, especially those of the heroic breed, are bound by rules and common perceptions that somewhat inhibit creativity. Antagonists, on the other hand, are wide open for manipulation. They can be bad to the bone like Hannibal Lector or Chigurh. They can be nasty or evil, but mend their wayward ways like Ebenezer Scrooge or Darth Vader. The reader may be misdirected to believe the antagonist is bad and then everything is flipped around like with Boo Radley and Mr. Darcy. 

Antagonists can make a story memorable even when they are not even human, like Moby Dick or Christine. The one thing these antagonists all have in common is great character development.

Concentration on character development shouldn't stop with the protagonist and antagonist. Nobody willingly hangs around with boring people and nobody wants to read about characters with cornmeal personalities—not even the bit players. Everybody inside the covers of your book has to be interesting. Give each of them a distinct personality. If you have a character like a postman or waitress that appears only for a couple pages, don't slow down the story by describing their personality, show it. You need to do it with dress, movement, or dialogue. Show, don't tell, is more difficult with the brevity of a minor player, but you only need to spice the character enough to make him or her three dimensional.

A fictional work has a single writer with a single personality. If you populate your work with slight variations of yourself, you'll create a homogeneous universe that will bore people silly. A writer must suppress their own personality when developing characters so they are all different from each other. It's not enough that they look and talk different—they must think and act differently. They must be different people.

The fiction writer's personality will show up in the total work, but it's best if it's not directly reflected in the characters, especially the protagonist or antagonist. Have fun with these two. Make them unique from yourself and every other character in your work. This is especially true for the antagonist. 

A really good bad guy or gal gives a hero a reason to be heroic.

People Love That Story

Kurt Vonnegut

I'm collecting writing tips from famous author's. You can read them here. In this post, I'm adding Kurt Vonnegut’s writing tips. Good advice from an expert storyteller. 

Although I posted it before, I also wanted to share his amusing description of story forms. Behind the entertaining presentation, Kurt presents some solid analysis of the art of storytelling. So if you want to hear it from the horses mouth, watch the video below. 

Here are Kurt Vonnegut’s "8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story."

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Cover Up!

We finally decided on a cover for Jenny’s Revenge, A Steve Dancy Tale. During the course of our selection, I found an interesting article titled: What Makes for a Brilliant Book Cover? A Master Explains. The master is Peter Mendelsund, who designed the book cover for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo among many other titles. (You can see some of the rejected Girl covers by following the link.)

Here are quotes I like from the article:

Spine Most Important

“On one level, dust jackets are billboards. They’re meant to lure in potential readers.”

“A truly great jacket is one that captures the book inside it in some fundamental and perhaps unforeseen way.”

“If this author got a big advance, then you’re going to have to jump through some flaming hoops.”

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: It had to have what designers refer to as ‘the Big Book Look.’ In other words: really, really big text … Mendelsund did what he describes as the ‘dumbass thing’ of echoing the title visually on the cover itself, putting the text on top of an image of… a dragon tattoo. It was the rare case in which a novel had so much momentum that the best thing a designer could do was stay out of the way … The design featured at least one small victory against the obvious: the bright yellow backdrop … ‘Up until that point, I would defy you to find a dark gothic thriller with a day-glow cover,’ he says.”

I’ve written a number of articles about book cover because they're important. People really do judge a book by its cover. Something to keep in mind, however, is that until an author breaks into the NYT Bestseller List, the spine is the most important part of the design because that's all anyone will see on the shelf of a brick and mortar bookstore.

Honest Westerns ...
filled with dishonest characters

When we selected the cover for the first Steve Dancy Tale, we used an L. A. Huffman Montana Territory portrait from around 1880. Most genre Westerns displayed an illustrated action cover in eye-catching colors. We went with black and white photography to signal that The Shopkeeper was a different kind of Western. We've stuck with black and white period photography ever since.

The designer is my son by the way. I’m getting back his tuition from that pricey art school one book cover at a time.  When we did the cover for The Return, the fourth book in the series, I asked if my name could be larger. He informed me that when my name became bigger than the title, I’d be toast.

Happy Birthday Grandpa

My best birthday gift. Click here to see the full video.

Escape from Death Valley

Death Valley is the hottest place on earth. The valley has amiable place names like Dead Man’s Pass, Funeral Mountain, Coffin Canyon, Hell’s Gate, Devil’s Hole, Suicide Pass, and my favorite—Dripping Blood Cliffs. This is rugged terrain. Or, as a local newspaper reported in 1907, "it has all the advantages of Hell without the inconveniences."

It’s even true that you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, but the rangers are tired of cleaning up the mess and suggest tourists instead fry their eggs on the hood of their car.

Good thing for us that it’s January. The daytime temperature only reached the mid-seventies and nighttime required a sweatshirt, a large fire, and a beverage suitable for sipping. We had a great time and I learned quite a bit about the region.

Everyone loves the story of Walter Scott, known far and wide as Death Valley Scotty. Scotty was a flimflam man who despite being discover as a fraud, successfully ingratiated himself to his rich mark, a man named Albert Mussey Johnson. Johnson was so enthralled with the con man that he supported Scotty for the remainder of his long life. Scotty told great stories and entertained the Johnsons and their innumerable guests. Most people conclude that if you’re glib enough the world is your oyster. I took away a different lesson. As a cast member of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, Scotty knew the lure of Western mythos. Johnson, on the other hand, was a longtime wannabe cowboy. Scotty didn’t just tell stories, he delivered the Old West right into Johnson’s Death Valley parlor.

The whole episode reminded me of the western frontier's power of renewal. The chance to start a new life is the real reason tens of thousands abandoned their home for the Old West.  Here’s a quote from an Article I wrote a few years ago: Is the Mythology of the Old West Dead?

“The West, outer space, the future, or a make-believe land represents a new beginning in a fresh place away from home-the shrugging off of disappointments and a chance to start all over again. The romance and adventure of frontiers draws people desperate to escape the travails of their current existence. We've seen this in real life with the migrations to the New World and the Old West, but today many people satisfy this longing vicariously with fiction. If you're poor, your family makes you miserable, you've committed an act that offends society, or wanderlust has gripped you, then the adventure and limitless opportunity of a frontier beckons like a siren's call. Emigrating to a frontier means you get a do-over in a land with no rules, no fences, no referees.”

To me, this is the real lesson from Walter Scott and Albert Johnson. Johnson had been diagnosed to die young and had lived his life indoors accumulating wealth as a Chicago businessman. He loved the idea of a Wild West and Scotty delivered it for him. In addition, the dryness of Death Valley gave him a longer life and relief from his incessant pain. Of course, Johnson built his home—Scotty’s Castle—with all the citified luxuries of the early twentieth century. Scotty's Castle was both a mirage and oasis safely tucked away in a barren wilderness.

As John Wayne said, “The fascination that the Old West has will never die."

Expert Advice, Anyone?

In a Barnes & Noble Book Blog, Stephen King presents 20 writing tips. Most famous writers offer ten or perhaps a dozen tips, but as you may have noticed, King is prolific. I like Stephen King, and he’s a great storyteller. His memoir, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft contains a wealth of wisdom about writing. This list is much shorter, but all writers can benefit from following his guidelines. 

That said, I would quibble with a couple of his points. First, #10 is too strict. King can write a first draft in less than three months, but mortals need more time—especially those who have to pay the mortgage, put food on the table, and run a couple errands each day. Don’t hurry yourself … but never stop for an extended period. It’s too easy to put off writing one more day when you've been on a long hiatus.

Until you make a living by writing, I disagree with #13. Few of us have the luxury of erecting a force field around us when we write. Learn to write with distractions … otherwise you may never complete an entire novel. Looking for the perfect writing environment is a sure route to writers-block.

Last, #19 is balderdash. Just because you have driven a car for your entire life doesn't mean you can join the NASCAR circuit and race at near 200 MPH in bumper to bumper traffic. Maybe some can learn writing from reading fiction, but I needed help. I read dozens of books on writing, participated in workshops, and used a writing coach early on. I still read at least one book a year on the craft of writing. On Writing by Stephen King is a good place to start.

Here are King’s tip headlines. You can read his explanations for each one at the Barnes & Noble Book Blog.

10th Anniversary Edition

1. First write for yourself, and then worry about the audience.

2. Don’t use passive voice.

3. Avoid adverbs.

4. Avoid adverbs, especially after “he said” and “she said.”

5. But don’t obsess over perfect grammar.

6. The magic is in you.

7. Read, read, read.

8. Don’t worry about making other people happy.

9. Turn off the TV.

10. You have three months.

11. There are two secrets to success.

12. Write one word at a time.

13. Eliminate distraction.

14. Stick to your own style.

15. Dig.

16. Take a break.

17. Leave out the boring parts and kill your darlings.

18. The research shouldn’t overshadow the story.

19. You become a writer simply by reading and writing.

20. Writing is about getting happy.

Good advice. I especially like his comment in this interview that a writer’s goal is “to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all.”

Why print books are different

Mike Shatzkin

Mike Shatzkin has posted a discerning article about how print books are different than digital books. It’s common to assume that books will proceed along the same path as the digitization of music and film. Shatzkin disagrees. He claims books are very different from their digital cousins and make a number of good observations.

• Readers routinely switch between print and digital
• Whether digital or analog, music and film require power and a device to be consumed. Books require neither.
• Compared to the digital variety, Shatzkin contends print books are easier to navigate, and that navigation is not a critical function for music or film which for the most part are consumed serially.
• Print presentation can be more aesthetic. Digital book devices inhibit interior design. For music and film, there is no difference “between the streamed and hard-goods version.”
• Motivation is different for book buyers. Music and film are consumed mostly for entertainment.  Books are frequently bought for educational purposes, making the ability to browse more important. This gives bookstores an advantage over online retailers.
• Digital music and film is superior to analog which drives digitization. This driver does not exist for books.

Shatzkin argues that there are innate differences between books, film, and music which will alter each media’s adaption to the digital world. One of the most significant being that ebook readers still buy and consume print. Music and film buffs seldom go back to the prior generation technology.

Although I tend to agree with Shatzkin, he did miss a few advantages of e-books. First, they’re lighter. I’m reading a big, heavy print book at the moment and I don’t take it to bed with me because my hands get tired holding it up. Currently, I fall asleep with Tom Wolfe on a kindle. A second advantage of e-readers is the ability to read them one-handed. My wife makes fun of me, but when one of my hands is busy shoveling breakfast into my mouth, I turn the page on my Kindle by bouncing it against my nose. Try that with a print book.

Life without laptop

Last week I wrote about living without my handy Kindle. I relearned how to buy a paperback at the airport and life went on. Something far worse happened. My laptop went belly-up. Now, that shouldn’t have been a big problem, except my desktop computer is a massive-screen Macintosh that I use to edit home movies and my wife uses for everything I can’t do. That means the machine is loaded up with graphical, video, and photographic software. No Microsoft Office. Since Microsoft no longer allows the Office suite to be installed on three machines with a single license, we live without it on our Macintosh. The absence of this ubiquitous app occasionally irritates me, my wife almost never notices. And it’s her machine after all.

I use my trusty portable computer four to eight hours every day, so this appendage is a life necessity. I immediately ran to a couple of stores and eventually decided on a new machine. Being clever, I decided to go home and buy it on Amazon to save a few bucks. I get free shipping and I could read hard copy books I had bought for research on my next Steve Dancy Tale. Except … it was just ahead of the Labor Day weekend. Not only did the machine not get delivered, the holiday weekend backed up deliveries so much they didn’t get it to me until Thursday. Evidently, 2-day shipping is a highly elastic term.

Normally, I’m relegated to the basement with my laptop. During this hiatus, I was regularly upstairs asking my wife when she would be done with the computer. I paced around with a heavy footfall until she relented and let me use her machine. I wanted to try Open Office, check email, see how many of my books had sold, visit social sites, and generally get my computer fix. (I found Open Office to be wonderful substitute for the MS variety, but misgivings about compatibility with the next release kept me from working heavily on my next book.)

Then the big day arrived—my brandy new computer sat on my front porch. Now I can get back to writing … just as soon as I get everything reloaded and organized to my liking.

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Word Crimes

Now, this is fun.

Reading to a child instills a love of books

Cartoon by Grant Snider

As Grant Snider so apply illustrates, a child is likely to fall in love with a single book. At least, initially. Still, no matter how many times I read the same story, a child curled up in my lap feels like I found  Ponce de León's elixir.

We moved to Nebraska to be close to our grandchildren. It was a great decision. We experience unexpected tidbits of joy every day. I've made a discovery, however. When my wife or I engage in a new activity with any of our grandkids, the initial fun wears out far earlier for us than for them. They can go on forever. That's one of the reasons reading to a child is such a good idea for grandparents. The child learns to use their imagination and reading becomes a pleasurable remembrance they carry throughout their lives. And grandparents get to sit in a comfy chair—something I can do longer than my grandkids.

Reading: The Struggle … Really?

Reading a struggle? Tim Parks writes that modern man’s addiction to electronic gadgets means reading is relegated to odd snatches of time. His advice is that we dinosaur writers need to adapt and learn to tell a story in fewer words than were used in the theme song for The Beverly Hillbillies. (The 87 word tune at the beginning of The Beverly Hillbillies is famous for terse storytelling.)

Park opens his New York Review of Books article by writing, “The conditions in which we read today are not those of fifty or even thirty years ago, and the big question is how contemporary fiction will adapt to these changes, because in the end adapt it will. No art form exists independently of the conditions in which it is enjoyed.”

Adapt? Writing a story using Twitter might be fun and even creative as hell, but it would not be a novel. Park doesn’t actually suggest that writers restrict themselves to 140 characters, but he does predict that a novel “will tend to divide itself up into shorter and shorter sections, offering more frequent pauses where we can take time out.” To a great extent, this is because Park apparently believes fiction is art and must be studied, rather than merely enjoyed.

He writes:

“Let’s remember just what hard work it can be to read the literary novel pre-1980. Consider this sentence from Faulkner’s The Hamlet:

‘He would lie amid the waking instant of earth’s teeming minute life, the motionless fronds of water-heavy grasses stooping into the mist before his face in black, fixed curves, along each parabola of which the marching drops held in minute magnification the dawn’s rosy miniatures, smelling and even tasting the rich, slow, warm barn-reek milk-reek, the flowing immemorial female, hearing the slow planting and the plopping suck of each deliberate cloven mud-spreading hoof, invisible still in the mist loud with its hymeneal choristers.’”

Could he have found a more writerly example? Mark Twain would never write a sentence like that. For that matter, neither would JK Rowling, Stieg Larsson, or Raymond Chandler. Good grief. Maybe it was pompous writing, not texting that drove people away from long format fiction.

Except that people have not abandoned novels. Novels are increasingly popular. Instead of the novel adapting to modern lifestyles, our lives have adapted to reading in a different manner. Many of us do our reading on e-readers that we bring with us all the time because they weigh less than a Little Golden Book.  

A good novel is the best stress reliever ever invented. A good novel captivates the reader. A good novel instantly transports the reader to another place and time. And a good novel is inexpensive and accessible. 

A novel provides a unique escape from the relentless pinging for our attention. Despite what our ego may tell us, being constantly tethered to an iThingy is not obligatory. The world will not miss you for an hour or so. When you need a break, just turn off your other devices and open a novel. Give a storyteller some dedicated time and you’ll be able to handle your concerns and responsibilities with aplomb.

George Carlin Does Westerns

George Carlin was one of my favorite comedians. This is so old, he's almost unrecognizable. On the other hand, the style and humor is immediately recognizable as all Carlin.

Too few cooks in the kitchen

As a Western writer, I keep an eye on Hollywood Westerns. Last night I saw A Million Ways to Die in the West. I wish I could say the movie exceeded my low expectations, but it was worse than anticipated. A couple laughs, but far too much mind-numbing nonsense in between. Seth MacFarlane sought his laughs by using modern-day allusions, genitalia references, and potty jokes, all punctuated with f- bombs aplenty. These devices have been used so much, they're now cheap groans. The problem with being edgy is that you constantly need to go further out. MacFarlane took gross-out over the edge, especially for diarrhea absurdities.

I suppose the movie is meant to be a parody of traditional Westerns, but the film uses so many anti-Western clichés that it ends up being a parody of itself. A Million Ways to Die in the West comes across as dull and repetitive.

Movie making is a collaborative art form. The tagline for this movie is "From the guy who brought you Ted." The singular noun is purposeful. Seth MacFarlane produced, wrote, directed, and starred in this farce. I believe a major theme of the movie was how everyone needs a helping hand on occasion. MacFarlane would be wise to seek help on his next film. When he works collaboratively, he's done some good stuff.

The big question was why this movie was ever made. In McFarlane's script, the character played by McFarlane constantly says that he hates the West. It sounded like serious damnation, not witty self- deprecation. Did McFarlane see the Western rearing its ugly head and feel compelled to knock it back down again. When Mel Brooks made Blazing Saddles, he was having fun with a tired genre. A Million Ways to Die in the West comes across as ridicule, not comedy.