August | 2014 | Seventh Sanctum Codex

The Crux of The Conflict

So what’s the problem? The good guy kicks backside and wins? That’s how it works? So why does this seem . . . off in our worlds?

Beyond gore, gratuitous action, and so on I think the Deadly Hero who acts without repercussion or affect grates on our senses of continuity. After a while the bodycount is like a videogame score, and there’s just no fallout from it.

The world doesn’t matter, the setting is unreal, and the Hero all the moreso for the contrast.

Just consider the impact of violence in our real world.

Violence is unpredictable. A running battle of spells in a crowded city is going to have civilian casualties – having violence be super-surgical and precise seems wrong, and the more there is the less believable (unless you go out of your way to address that).
Violence produces reactions. I don’t care how heroic you think you are, that huge pile of cadavers might make me wonder if you’re the good guy, and I can’t see their badges that indicate they belong to Evil Inc. until the autopsy.
People assess risks. The violent, even the good, may make us wonder if they’re safe. If you’ve got super battle psychic powers that may be well and good, but the secret organization you work for is going to notice the levels of death and maybe wonder if you’re safe to work with . . .
Violence affects people. Ask anyone who has been in a fight, gone to war, killed. Read a biography. Study PTSD. Violence affects us personally, and the person who commits violence is affected as well.
If you’re not affected, something may be wrong. A character who kills without mental and emotional repercussion may be insanely dangerous -or just insane.
Violence takes effort. I mean if nothing else you have to rest, recharge, and buy bullets.

The Deadly Hero, I think, rubs people wrong as it’s death without repercussion or even lip service. A story without repercussion is a story without a working world, and the hero feels abstract and removed from the setting. At that point it’s just a list of things happening against a meaningless backdrop.

Also the Deadly Hero way too often is just a form of wish-fulfillment. The badass without repercussions is a form of pandering – and a sadly obvious form of pandering at that. Poorly written is bad enough, but outright pandering really means your worldbuilding is for naught, its just setting up targets.

I recall once someone talked lovingly of ‘The Punisher” comic. To which I noticed that, realistically, the character would inevitably kill a lot of innocent people (if only by accident) and that everyone who showed up dead would not necessarily be a known criminal and thus upset the public.

They didn’t get it.

Avoiding The Trap

The Deadly Hero is a trap that’s a bit too easy to fall into, and I’d credit the prevalence of this kind of story in the media. There’s also media that veers into this territory but doesn’t go all the way – but following in the footsteps of said media means you may veer all the way.

But if your world and a realistic setting are important, you want to avoid the trap of the Deadly Hero – and a common one it is. Here’s a few pieces of advice

Make sure violence has appropriate repercussions.
Make sure the hero’s reactions to violence are appropriate.
Make sure other characters in your world react appropriately to violence.
Make sure the cost of weapons, armor, repair, etc. are worked into the story.
Think of what a hero is. If you are wrting an admirable character, you’ll need to explore their reasons and reactions to violence – which is a fascinating experience as a writer. You’re poorer if you don’t – why would someone kill, and for what reasons is a great part of a tale and a world.

In short you avoid the trap by making sure the world works and functions appropriate, diving in to the repercussions and richness of the setting and character. In time, this makes not just a believable story, but a better world and characters.

A Side Note: The UHB is still annoying

When I first wrote this column I noted a character I really was tired of was the Uncaring Heroic Badass or UHB. The UHB is the grim, deadly, antisocial, unlikeable character who is the hero that the author wants us to root for even though they’re an a-hole.

My opinion hasn’t changed. The UHB is really a power trip consisting of:

I’m tough and can defeat anyone. Don’t you want to be me?
I don’t care about anyone or anything. Aren’t I cool for not caring.

Really, the UHB isn’t a hero. They’re a sociopath in a costume, meant for pandering, and still freaking annoying.

Fallout From The Flareup

Writing a violent and deadly hero is totally possible – as long as you understand the repercussions of violence and the character. This requires deep thought – and avoiding tropes.

If anything, I’d say tropes about violence are some of the worst challenges we face in writing (along with sex, religion, and politics). It’s almost like we get invested in them, and we need to overcome them.

– Steven Savage

Lost in Translation 106 – The Beverly Hillbillies

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Scott Delahunt

The hijinks of the proverbial fish out of water has been the source for many works in entertainment. The idea of taking someone from his or her element and then dropping them in an entirely new setting has great comic potential. Even Shakespeare has used the device, in such works as A Midsummer’s Night Dream and As You Like It. The latter even had the dichotomy of country and city life, one of the first being The Beverly Hillbillies.

The Beverly Hillbillies had a simple premise, as explained in its theme song – Jed Clampett, played by Buddy Ebsen, finds oil on his land, gets rich, and buys a home in Beverly Hills. Being a dirt poor farmer, Jed never saw modern conveniences. His family, Ellie Mae, Jethro, and Granny, played by Donna Douglas, Max Baer, Jr, and Irene Ryan, weren’t much better; Granny didn’t take to the advances like Jed had, like motor cars. Having a big cement pond, known to most people as a pool, was a source of amazement. Fortunately, Jed had the help of his financial advisor and next door neighbour Milburn Drysdale, played by Raymond Bailey, and his secretary, Jane Hathaway, played by Nancy Kulp. Episodes revolved around the cultural conflict between the Clampetts and the Drysdales, ascerbated by schemes by either Jethro or Drysdale. Jethro’s scheming was more to get the pretty girls of Beverly Hills; Drysdale’s scams involved using Jed’s money to get richer. Not everyone had a conflict. Jane Hathaway was friendly with the Clampetts, even with Granny, and Ellie Mae soothed some rough patches by being her charming self.

The series ran for nine years, from 1962 until 1971, switching from black and white to colour in its fourth season. Despite negative reviews from critics, The Beverly Hillbillies was a ratings hit, being the number one show in its early years. Even when it was cancelled, it was in the top third of TV series on the air. CBS, however, bowed to pressure from advertisers who wanted a younger audience and cancelled many of its shows with a heartland theme in what became known as the Rural Purge. Along with The Beverly Hillbillies, other long runners cancelled included Green Acres, Mayberry RFD, The Ed Sullivan Show, and Hee Haw, making way for new series All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, and M*A*S*H, shows that reflected the social mood of the early 70s. Rural series would return, such as The Dukes of Hazzard in 1979, but they wouldn’t dominate the airwaves as before. The Beverly Hillbillies had a reunion movie in 1981, catching up on where the characters went over the decade since cancellation.

The Beverly Hillbillies did make an impact on the mind space of audiences. Even if someone hadn’t seen the show, difficult in the age of syndication, the theme song could easily become an earworm. Even “Weird Al” Yankovic would make reference to the show, releasing the song “The Beverly Hillbillies/Money for Nothing” as part of the soundtrack for 1989’s UHF. Jed Clampett represented the rags-to-riches dream, something that appeals to a wide audience. Naturally, a TV series that had such a wide audience was ripe for being adapted as a feature film.

In 1993, that’s exactly what happened. The Beverly Hillbillies was released by Twentieth Century Fox, introducing the Clampetts to the big screen. Casting was a strong point for the adaptation, with a number of comedians and comic actors playing the major characters. Taking over the role of Jed was Jim Varney, best known for playing the character Earnest in the various ads and movies. Meanwhile, Cloris Leachman played Granny, Lily Tomlin portrayed Jane Hathaway, and Dabney Coleman was Mr. Drysdale. Rounding out the cast were Diedrich Bader as Jethro and Erika Eleniak as Ellie Mae.

The movie starts in the Tennesee Smoky Mountains, showing the Clampetts at home. Ellie Mae fends off a bear to get wild honey for dinner while Ol’ Jed’s out hunting for food. The hunt is straight from the TV series’ title credits, with crude oil bubbling out where Jed’s missed shot discovers the patch. The first ten minutes of the movie is spent recreating the events of the opening credits, including the theme song, which has one small change. In the original series, Jed’s farm was worth $96 million, in 1962 dollars. The oil crises of the 70s, in 1973 and in 1979, occurred after The Beverly Hillbillies had been cancelled. A barrel of oil, worth $2.85 in 1962, was worth $16.75 in 1993. The movie Jed didn’t become a millionaire; he became a billionaire, and the theme song was modified to reflect the change.

While the hills of the Smoky Mountains might not have changed for Jed between 1962 and 1993, Los Angeles had. Culture shock occurred using the modern LA. The iconic image of the Clampetts in their old truck on the LA freeways remained, but the reaction to it by drivers changed. Jethro’s truck caused a traffic jam, and while drivers may have fumed in 1962, things got ugly in the early 90s. Shooting incidents between drivers on the freeways hit the news. The movie picked up on it, and one irate passenger in a car that Jethro had cut off was quite willing to express his anger with the aid of a pistol until Jed trumped him with his own shotgun.

Meanwhile, Mr. Drysdale is trying to make things welcoming for Jed’s money and for Jed. His assistant, Woodrow Tyler, played by Rob Schneider, also has plans for Jed’s money, plans require Jed to not have it. Tyler and his partner in embezzlement, Laura Jackson, played by Lea Thompson, hatch a scheme when they find out that Jed is looking for a wife to help refine tomboy Ellie Mae. Laura becomes French etiquette teacher Laurette Voleur, despite not speaking French, to infiltrate the Clampett estate and woo Jed. Granny discovers the plot while making a batch of her special brand of medicine, known to Revenue Agents as “moonshine”, but Laura and Woodrow kidnap her to have her committed to a retirement home. Miss Hathaway suspects something is up, but is unable to get Jed, who has seen Granny disappear before a wedding before, or the police involved. Jane turns to one of LA’s top private detectives, Barnaby Jones, played by Buddy Ebsen himself, to locate Granny and get her back to the estate before Jed commits to a terrible mistake.

While Jed’s the subject of several matchmakers, other subplots are also playing out. Ellie Mae heads off to high school, with Morgan Drysdale, played by Kevin Connolly, showing her around. The high school allowed the film to contrast the Clampetts with the residents of Beverly Hills. The bullies took travellers’ cheques and wire transfers, there was a cappucino vendor in the hallway before class, the girls all had cell phones*. One girl even had a FAX machine in her Porsche. In a movie that could have relied on, “Hey, look at them yokels,” humour, Ellie Mae’s subplot turns the culture shock around, adding the audience’s own shock and expectations to the mix.

One of the movie’s main strengths is that it respects the characters from the TV series. While there is some fun poked at Jethro’s lack of smarts, that element existed in the original. Jed is still the calm, wise centre of the family, doing what he can for his loved ones despite his lack of education. And, even with the lack of education, Jed is portrayed as a smart man. The contrast comes from Woodrow Tyler, an educated man without wisdom.

The cast was well chosen. Talented comedic actors who understood the role plus promising young actors presented the script well. The actors suited the roles. Dabney Coleman was ideal as Mr. Drysdale. Cloris Leachman channelled Irene Ryan as Granny. Diedrich Bader turned in a dual role, as Jethro and as his sister, Jethrine, just as Max Baer did in the original series, without turning Jethrine into a charicature. The script captured the feel of an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, right down to using the closing theme at the end. Tropes that haven’t been used in some time, like the speeding of the film during especially frenetic scenes, were in use as they would have been in the TV series.

The cast and crew showed great respect to the original material and actors. The film played out like an episode of the TV series, taking advantage of the 92 minute running time to add scenes of culture shock on the part of the Beverly Hills locals. In short, The Beverly Hillbillies movie was an almost perfect adaptation of the original show.

Next week, Ocean’s 11

* Today, that’s a given. In 1993, cell phones were mostly used for business purposes, and usually by the higher executives instead of the rank and file. The critical people usually had pagers when they had to be on call.

Seventh Sanctum Update – 8/8/2014

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Steven Savage

As you may guess what is up? The Writing Prompt Generator!

Took a bit of a change here, not adding new vocabulary or prompt structures, but jazzing up and extending the ones I’d created. It’s actually made it a lot more interesting and diverse, and made me think about a few things.

Mostly I think of generators as involving a structure and language in the structure when they’re simple, or a kind of “tree of possibilities” when more complex. Superhero names are of the former variety, a character generator where you have certain things that can or can’t happen (having hair) or that relate to each other (“x item produces y occurrence”).

But the prompt generator feels more like a kind of matryoshka doll, a bunch of nested patterns. I need to have the place-word-in-slot complexity on one level, but overall complexity isn’t quite linear, but is a series of elements that can relate linearly.

There’s the overall structure (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”), lower-level components (“The X of times”) and then the words itself (“best”, “worst”). In turn you could also complicated it (By randomly adding “She was sure it was . . .” to the start), or randomly adding something to the end, (“, so said my father”). But in turn I could make those complicated as well, by adding multiple beginnings or endings. You could have “I was sure it was the most disgusting time, and the most glorious age, but who listens to me?” emerge from slotting words and groups of words into a similar structure.

Yet the relation of the parts is a tad tenuous, because I need them to be unpredictable and not connected to inspire the imagination and create diversity. It’s nested randomness.

I’m quite sure the generator will never be perfect, yet at the same time it’s already far better than my worst-case scenarios – enough I can declare it to be out of Alpha and into Beta. I certainly learned a lot!

I’ll probably take a few more stabs at it, get it to at least decently release-worthy, then take a break and maybe get to some other generators. This is one I may have to revisit.

But some results for you with my thoughts . . .

Then came the mutants, or that’s what he thought. – Not mutants, but aliens, good job lousy space adventurer, now your sidekick has to sort it out.
Such a common time, this time of science and space wars. – Space combat is automated so people are used to it.
Terrorist attacks, political collapse, sanity and wanderlust. – Sometimes you have to get away from the chaos to stay sane.
The crazy girl was weeping all night. – . . . this doesn’t end well.
I will be a linguist, with my lamps. – A linguist-interrogator, checking others for unlawful language.
I’ve found that all supervillains lack any understanding of religion – he was the exception as well as my friend. – Your best friend is a religious fanatic supervillain, teenage years just got complicated.
I have a tale about war, alchoholism, and a king – your story. – The king drank himself into oblivion and amnesia – and now he has to remember who he is as his advisor tries to help – and the story is written as if someone is talking to YOU.
Like a person, a political collapse is always sleeping. – And always ready to wake and turn over and crush things.
Everyone predicted there will be a mass murder, and that’s when everything when wrong. – What happens when a group of criminologists make an embarrassing prediction that doesn’t come true?
It will be the month of scheming. – A very organized supervillain is preparing . . .

– Steven Savage

Things That I Like: Fandom and fanfiction

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Ryan Gauvreau

This post originally appeared at The Oak Wheel on July 31st, 2014.

(Dear Reader, you may also consider this article’s title to be The Secret History of Fandom, because that’s also what it is)

Fandom has a long history. A long and secret history, which common men are not permitted to know, since the days of ancient Babylon. And today, young grasshopper, I shall teach you to how to harness this power, the power of Fandom, but only for good and not for evil.

Okay, that’s not all true. Fandom really only dates back to the 1887 (people have been raving about Sherlock forever), even if fanfiction, as such, dates back even further (Hello, Willie Shakespeare). But in these two articles I will be teaching you how to harness this mighty power of the gods, and why you should even bother.

First of all, why write fanfiction?

Because I do think that you should at least consider it. It may not be your cuppa, but don’t discard the tea before you give it a good look over.

Now, not everybody think that it makes sense. Take George R. R. Martin for perhaps the most famous example: “But don’t write in my universe, or Tolkien’s, or the Marvel universe, or the Star Trek universe, or any other borrowed background. Every writer needs to learn to create his own characters, worlds, and settings. Using someone else’s world is the lazy way out. If you don’t exercise those ‘literary muscles,’ you’ll never develop them.”

Well, let me say something, Mr. Martin: You’re very silly and I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. (Also, if I can make a brief tangent? What is Martin going on about talking about creative laziness, when half of the crap in the fantasy genre is still taking its cues from Tolkien?)

There are two benefits to writing fanfiction that I can think of right off the bat:

You learn how to write within the constraints of someone else’s world. Constraints, friend. Maybe you’re not even very good at building worlds or characters and you want to practice just writing stories first, taking it one step at a time. That’s good.

And even if you don’t have any trouble with building worlds and characters, it’s still good practice to write within certain limitations. You can set these constraints any number of ways, but there’s something to be said for seeing if you can write specifically within the bounds of an already-existing personality.

Building your own fandom. Yes sir, visiting someone else’s playground can help you build interest in your own. Take Joe Ducie, for example. He got his start writing fanfiction like Harry Potter and the Sword of the Hero and Harry Potter and the Wastelands of Time until, sometimes getting thousands of reviews for each story, he transitioned to writing original works and even appeared on a Worldbuilders video. Fanlore has a page about this phenomenon.

Full disclosure here, I don’t really know how I feel about this, but if I’m going to be comprehensive then dang it, I’m going to be comprehensive: You can use your fanfiction to test the waters, as it were, and then translate it into original fic form if it makes a huge splash. You may be thinking that this is totally ridiculous and nobody could possibly think it could work, but… Well…

You know that City of Bones movie that came out August last year? Cassandra Clare was once— brace yourself, because this is a very inventive pseudonym— Cassandra Claire, writer of The Very Secret Diaries (Lord of the Rings fanfiction) and The Draco Trilogy. The latter is more relevant, because The Mortal Instruments recycles numerous characters, plot elements, and even text from Draco.

Exhibit B is— get ready now— 50 Shades of Grey. E. L. James really takes the cake, as she originally wrote it as Master of the Universe, a sordid Twilight fanfiction, under the penname Snowqueen’s Icedragon. What did she do to translate the story into original fic format?

Just changed the names, actually…

Fanfiction gets a bad name, but it’s honestly been going on for a freaking long while. “Derivative work” or “Transformative work” might be better names, and under that auspice you can see a whole bunch of literature in a different light. The Aeneid steals Aeneas from the Iliad.WilliamShakespeare’s work was heavily derivative or transformative, especially in the first stage of his career. Bram Stoker’s Dracula gave birth to Nosferatu and basically every other story that ties Vlad Tepes to the vampire myth.

Heck, even The Matrix is not too far off from a cyberpunk-skinned rendition of Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles (as Morrison says in a Suicide Girls interview, “They [the Wachowskis] should have kept on stealing from me and maybe they would have wound up with something to really be proud of”). And the 19th Century story Edison’s Conquest, as Cracked tells us, gave birth to some of the most fundamental tropes of science fiction.

Look, we’ll just stop here and say, “Fanfiction is so embedded in our history that Cracked wrote another article on the topic.”

If I seem like I’m talking an awful lot about fanfiction, it’s because it’s very, very important. Even if you don’t write fanfiction, encouraging others to write fanfiction of your work will be a very important part of growing a fandom, so any moral imperatives against fanfiction have to be handled before we can move further. Because math proves everything, we’ll turn it into an equation:

No fanfiction = no fandom

(Exceptions may exist, sure, but you wouldn’t bet your career on rolling a “1” on a twenty-sided die, would you?)

Your turn: Whether you agree or not, what do you think about fanfiction, and why?

Way With Worlds: Heroes and Villains – I’m With The Agency

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Steven Savage

So let’s talk Heroes and Villains and your world.

I should note that when I talk Heroes and Villains I’m using that to pretty much mean the same thing as “Protagonist” and “Antagonist.” Why? Because it’s a hell of a lot easier to write “Hero and Villain” and sounds a tad less academic. I’ve got enough trouble going academic as it is.

So for the duration of my digressions, I hope you’ll forgive the simplicity.

But hey you have your main character(s) right? They’re the heroes and villains, correct? They’re the ones you focus on, right? The hero, especially, is the main character, right?

Not necessarily.

You may have a main character but they may not be a Hero. Oh there may be a Hero, but it’s not your main character.

For some writers, this is a problem, and it brings up an important issue in telling the stories of your world.

A Critical Definition

As noted earlier, when you’re writing, your Main character(s) of your story are essentially viewpoints on the world. In a few cases if you use a first-person writing style, quite directly so. But just because the story is from their perspective it may not mean they’re the Hero or Vllain.

When I try and define Hero and Villain, Protagonist and Antagonist, one thing that is critical is that the Heroes and Villains have effect. If your Hero is the main character the story is told from the perspective of someone affecting the setting. A Villain is the same way.

They may be morally different, but both are rather active, even if reluctantly or reactively (in the case of some Anti-Heroes).

In a way, Heroes and Villains are defined by a sense of Agency, of the ability to act and direct and change things. It may not be in a good way, or an effective way, or a competent way. They may fail, but their activity upon the environment is what makes them Heroes and Villains as much as their motivation.

You could be exceedingly evil, but if you’re in a coma due to your last drug binge in your lair of evil, you’re not really an Antagonist. You’re more an After-School Special for supervillains.

You could be exceptionally heroic, but if that results in no direction and activity, then you’re not really the Hero, are you? Yes you may be a nice guy, but you’re not really the Hero, you’re a well-meaning victim of circumstance.

Sense Of Agency, Sense of Story

Thus when you are deciding on your story, if you’re telling a tale of Heroism and/or with villainy, Heroes and Villains require agency, initiative and direction. If they do not act, they are merely acted upon and at best responding, and even then poorly.

This is a critical definition, as a few things happen to those who make tales that can ruin the sense of Agency.

We focus so much on worldbuilding, our characters bounce round like pinballs. Ever read a book that seemed to be an exercise in tourism? You get the idea.
We conjure up characters to tell the story or have it happen too. The Hero is there so stuff happens and things get done, but they’re not a character, not part of the world. They’re a camera with legs, making your tale the equivalent of a found-footage movie.
We spend too much time inside the Hero’s head we forget to make them a person. You don’t notice how unfurnished a room is if you keep looking out a window.

Now in a few cases if your Villain is a phenomena like a plague or something, then the Villain can lack agency in a human sense. Their “agency” comes from pure brute force and circumstance. But if you’re writing from a hero’s point of view and they have no initiative they’re no Hero.

You’ve probably read stories like above. Someone gets all the hero trappings but never does anything, never shows any initiatives. Never does anything. It’s boring – you find yourself wishing for a Mary Sue/Gary Stu because at least they’d do do stupidly overblown stuff.

(And if you can write a story where the Hero is a faceless force and the Villain has a sense of agency, I want to talk to you.)

However sometimes your main character doesn’t always have a sense of agency. In a few cases, this is actually OK.

The Narrative Character

If a main character is not a hero, not a person with a sense of Agency, then in many cases that can be quite lame. It’s not interesting to read about someone bouncing around. It’s annoying to just watch things happen to someone in a world, even if the world is well written.

Except in some cases, I do think this is a valuable form of storytelling – if done consciously.

Sometimes the main character isn’t a Hero, it’s what I call a Narrative Character. A Narrative Character is someone who relates what is happening but has little role in shaping what is going on. That may not sound interesting at the start, but I believe it can be done well if handled properly. Thus, I think in cases where this is deliberately chosen, this is a legitimate form of storytelling.

Now I should note that I think truly Narrative character, the victims of circumstance, are relatively rare. Usually they’re on a scale between Narrative Character and Hero. The exceptions are usually narrative stories, where someone is reiterating what’s going on.

But it’s a legitimate choice if you do it right.

I feel some of the best examples of Narrative Characters are often found in horror stories, especially those about people in the grip of unfathomable evil. Their narrative ability both explains the horror but also communicates their sheer overwhelming sense of being trapped. Lovecraftian tales often do this quite well.

Though I wouldn’t limit the idea of the Narrative Character just to horror.

Make Your Choice and Move On

So when writing and picking perspectives, remember that Heroes and Villains have a sense of Agency. If your main character lacks suck, there’s either a flaw in your choices, or you’re really writing a Narrative Character.

– Steven Savage

Alien August at SciFi Ideas

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Steven Savage

(This came from an acquaintance who runs a website for sf writers, SciFiIdeas – and its about creating new aliens, I figure it’s right up the alley of folks here! – Steve)

Like sci-fi? Like aliens? Like creative ideas? This is an open invitation for writers, artists, and all creative types to take part in the Alien August special event at scifiideas.com.

For those of you who don’t already know about SciFi Ideas and what we do, we’re a blog specializing in providing ideas and inspiration to science fiction writers. We want people to create great science fiction, and we believe that sharing ideas is the best way to promote creativity in the genre.

Throughout the month of August, we’ll be focusing on one specific aspect of science fiction: Aliens!

We’ll be posting lots of new “alien profiles” detailing unique alien cultures, sharing artwork by various concept artists, discussing the many alien species that already populate the world of science fiction, and hopefully bringing you some original short stories too. Even our weekly “story starting point” feature will be taking on a distinct alien flavour, encouraging you all to write short stories about aliens.

Most importantly, we’ll be encouraging our readers share some of their own alien ideas. And there’s even a prize for the most creative, original, and interesting idea!

The event will take place on the SciFi Ideas website (scifiideas.com) throughout August.

Full details of the alien profile writing competition can be found here. http://www.scifiideas.com/news/alien-august-competition-2014/

There are also lots more details about the event on the SciFi Ideas website. http://www.scifiideas.com/news/alien-august-back/

Also, we’re always looking for fresh content, so if you’d like to write a guest article for us during Alien August, perhaps as a way of promoting your own blog, book, or creative project, please feel free to get in touch! http://www.scifiideas.com/contact/

Even if you don’t plan to share any of your own alien ideas, it’s still worthwhile checking out the SciFi Ideas website during the event and exploring all the new content we’ll be posting. Who knows, you might just be inspired. See you there!

Mark Ball
Mark Ball is a professional writer, semi-professional geek, and amateur podcaster. He is the founder and editor in chief of scifiideas.com.

Sanctum Update 8/2/2014

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Steven Savage

So the Writing Prompt Generator got another upgrade! Inspired by the famous Dr. Who line ‘I am definitely a mad man with a box,’ I realized there should be more lines qualifying people and dealing with objects, and put in a lot of new vocabulary and sentence structures, as well as fleshing out some old structures with the new data. The result feels far more inspiring and satisfying than the last version – I think this is coming together.

By my estimates it’s probably around 2/3 done. I’ve also had to realize, sadly “done” is really in the eye of the beholder – I could go on for ages with this thing (and well may). So at some point I’ll have to say “good enough” and stop or take a break.

(Also I want to get back to some other generators and projects, darn it!)

I am also thinking as this is one of the most complicated generators sentence-structure wise, maybe at some point I have to just rewrite it and apply my lessons, as I’m literally learning as I make this.

Here’s some of the latest results!

People call her Isabelle. – Have her meet Ishmael!
It was Tuesday, and you know what that means. – It’s that last line that gets you as you don’t know.
Hyperspace distortions, plague, good and getting old. – I imagine someone marooned on a plague-infested world, trying to make it better as he/she comes to grips with mortality.
Call me William. – Meet Isabelle.
He was eternally an odd boy. – There’s an intriguing line, I imagine a strange child in a little neighborhood who doesn’t age . .
She was resting, and that’s when the murders began. – Subconcious monsters of the id go on a rampage – or is she the guard against them?
All the robot rebellions were her fault. – I imagine there’s going to be displacement of blame here.
He never wanted to be a supervillain. – Parental or peer pressure perhaps?
This is a story that concerns a good girl. – I’m pretty sure she’s going to turn out not to be good by the end.
Getting old is my friend, ambition is my partner. – Your protagonist uses his sense of impending death to drive himself.
That man, that thing of pure science, with his red statue and his bottle. – I imagine a guy who’s rather religious about his profession and has a statue of a famous scientist – and a drinking problem.
That boy, that being of flawed good, with his book. – A religious young man who doesn’t quite get the deeper moral issues.
That lady, that being of total peace, with her statue and her book. – A woman becomes famous and writes one book – and though she doesn’t ask for it, it comes to her.
I have a story about Thursday. – It’s the next line that would make it.
The sun was howling, and that’s when the murders began. – Sounds disturbing, as if some person believes he has to kill people to shut the sun up.
Violet was my greatest betrayer and my worst enemy. – . . . I can’t say much except Violet is a jerk.
I have a story about Saturday. – I’m sure you do.
The immoral woman was bleeding all day, which was really awesome. – Disturbing. Sounds like some kind of religious fanatic torturer with teen lingo, which could lead to many stories.
He was just a boy with a dangerous weapon. – There’s an opening line that could go many directions, and it has a lot of resonance – I imagine the weapon is some magical or technical artifact that isn’t obviously a weapon . . .
This is a story about political collapse. – A bit generic, sadly.

– Steven Savage

Lost in Translation 105 – The Dukes of Hazzard

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Scott Delahunt

Prohibiton still affects American life, despite the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment by the Twenty-first effective December 1933. The War Against Alcohol meant that law-abiding people were not allowed to drink. For some, that was enough to not touch a drop of anything except de-alcoholized beer. For others, this was an opportunity. Organized crime made hundreds of thousands a day supplying illegal hooch. The penalties for violating the Volstead Act, the law that proscribed the crimes and penalties regarding alcohol, were a slap on the wrist at best; up to $1000 for a first offense of making or selling booze and up to $2000 for subsequent offenses, with the fine increasing to $10,000 in 1929. The Untouchables went after Al Capone for tax evasion instead Volstead Act violations for this reason; the Volstead Act just didn’t have the teeth needed to stop the gangster.

When Prohibition was repealed, many rum-runners and bootleggers were suddenly out of a job. For many, part of the thrill of bootlegging was outrunning the Revenuers. They modified their cars to get as much speed without sacrificing space for moonshine. Without the chase, they had to find something else to do. They did – they started racing each other. The ultimate result of the racing was the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR. The effects don’t stop there, though. Even with Prohibition gone, counties were still allowed to ban alcohol within their boundaries. Bringing booze through one could get a person fined or imprisoned, depending on the volume. Smokey and the Bandit was based on this idea, forty-four years after the end of Prohibition. Television, where trends are picked up and run into the ground, picked up the idea of former bootleggers doing car stunts two years later, in 1979 with The Dukes of Hazzard.

To be fair, The Dukes of Hazzard owed far more to Moonrunners than to Smokey and the Bandit, at least as far as themes and setting goes, thanks to Gy Waldron, creator of both. Bandit, however, was popular enough to get people wanting to see more car chase scenes. The opening credits set up the series, with the Balladeer, Waylon Jennings, singing “Good Ol’ Boys“. The titular Dukes, cousins Bo and Luke, were on probation for bootlegging after their Uncle Jesse had promised to stop making moonshine*. To round out the cast, Daisy Duke helped Jesse on his farm and, to help make ends meet, worked as a waitress at the Boar’s Nest. Daisy was originally meant to be Ms Fanservice on the show, but the writers developed her beyond just that. Since the show depended on car chases for the main action, it would be negligent to not mention the General Lee, the Duke boys’ Dodge Charger. Of course, if that was all to the show, it’d be dull. Enter the antagonists, Boss J.D. Hogg and his right hand man, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltraine. As villains went, they weren’t evil or destructive. Boss Hogg wasn’t power hungry as such; power was just a means to get money. Roscoe even had his limits on what he would do for Boss Hogg. Adding to the light drama, Boss Hogg and Uncle Jesse were both bootleggers themselves in their youth, rivals. The main difference between them was that J.D. was there for the money while Jesse was there for the thrills and challenges.

The series ran on CBS from 1979 until 1986. Most episodes focused on the Dukes thwarting a ploy by Boss Hogg to pull a swindle, to get the Dukes arrested, or to get the Dukes’ farm. The other episodes either had the boys or Daisy working on their own goals or had an outside threat arrive in Hazzard that the Dukes and Boss Hogg had to work together to defeat. Car chases occurred, with vehicles racing around and over obstacles. Over 300 Chargers were destroyed over the course of the series, making replacements hard to find by the last season.

The series spawned off the spin-off Enos, based on the character of Deputy Enos Strate, and an animated series. A reunion movie, aptly titled The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and also known as Reunion in Hazzard, brought the surviving actors back in 1997 after the series gained renewed popularity through reruns on The Nashville Network. The reunion allowed viewers and fans to find out what happened to the characters; Bo had become a NASCAR driver, Luke became a fire-jumper, Daisy returned from Duke University with a Ph.D, Roscoe became the new Boss of Hazzard County after the death of J.D. Hogg**, and Cooter, the mechanic, arrived from Washington, where he represented Hazzard County***.

In 2005, Warner Bros. released The Dukes of Hazzard, a big screen remake of the TV series. The film was a bit of an origins story, changing some of the background of the characters. Bo and Luke, now played by Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville respectively, weren’t parolees, nor was Uncle Jesse, now played by Willie Nelson. Bo was looking forward to racing in the 70th Annual Hazzard County Road Rally****, trying to get his fifth consecutive win. Luke, meanwhile, was just trying to avoid getting shot by irate fathers. Jesse still distilled moonshine, the boys making the deliveries and Daisy, played by Jessica Simpson, helping when she wasn’t working at the Boar’s Nest. Bo has a few obstacles in his way to winning, one being the return of Billy Prickett, who also is a four-time winner.

The second obstacle was the damage to Bo’s car, an orange 1969 Dodge Charger, after having to outrun yet another shotgun-weilding irate father after Luke. Fortunately, Cooter, portrayed by David Koechner, was able to fix up the car, adding a hemi engine for extra power and giving the Charger a new paint job. The biggest obstacle in Bo’s way, though, was Boss JD Hogg, played by Burt Reynolds. JD and his right hand man, Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, played by M.C. Gainey, have a scheme to take over all of Hazzard County, including the Duke farm. JD has Rosco plant a still in the Duke’s barn, mainly because the Sheriff can’t find the real one there, to give pretense to arresting the Dukes.

Bo and Luke escape, and start digging around. They discover samples that were kept in Boss Hogg’s safe and, after recovering the General Lee and making a fool out of the Hazzard County Sheriff’s Department, the cousins head to Atlanta to find out what the samples are. Being Dukes, they get on the wrong side of the law early by not maintaining the speed limit. In a twist, they were two miles per hour below the speed limit of 10mph when the campus police pulled them over. The boys, though, reacted as they normally do and leave the police golf cart in the dust.

While hiding from campus police, the boys go to the university’s geology lab, where they’re told their samples indicate the presence of coal underneath Hazzard. Boss Hogg has several farms already under his control throug his dirty dealings. All he needs is to convene a hearing at the county courthouse, scheduled during the road rally. JD even sponsored Prickett, guarenteeing that everyone in Hazzard would be at the race and not the hearing. The Duke boys figure out a plan, one that has Bo arriving at the race, even with most of Hazzard’s finest and even some of Georgia’s state police trailing.

At this point, I need to point out that my “review copy” was the unrated version, not the theatrical version. Elements that would need to be cut from a PG-13 film were re-added. Fanservice, topless nudity, swearing, PG-13 has limits. However, even the target rating is a small issue. The original TV series was a light family action/comedy. Sure, things could get dire for the Dukes, but things would work out. PG-13, while it does allow a younger audience in, means that there will be portions of the movie not suitable for a general family audience. The humour was much more low brow, with more groin shots and drug humour than in the TV series run.

The approach of the movie was much like the original Dukes. JD had a scheme that needed thwarting by the Dukes. The Balladeer, voiced by Junior Brown, narrated. The movie even included freeze frames at cliffhangers, as the TV series would do before commercials. Risky, movie audiences have expectations about flow and not seeing ads during a film, but the freezes harkened back to the TV show and, just as importantly, they weren’t overdone.

The cast, though, is a different quibble. The Bo and Luke of the movie weren’t really the Bo and Luke of the TV series. The leads were probably better named Coy and Vance, except very few fans of the series would want to see a movie with the replacement Dukes. Even Daisy wasn’t quite Daisy. The role was Jessica Simpson’s first in movies, and like Rihanna in Battleship, the singer didn’t bring that much to a small role other than be a draw for the younger crowd. That said, Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg brought a new interpretation, a smarmier JD who was more willing to cross the line to get what he wanted. Willie Nelson was as cantakerous as Denver Pyle was with Uncle Jesse, but, again, added his own interpretation.

Despite the younger cast, the movie still felt like an episode of the TV series. The elements were there; JD Hogg’s scheming, Rosco aiding with help of his basset hound Flash, Enos having a crush on Daisy. Where there were issues with the acting and script, the stunt driving more than made up. Cars flew. One stunt involved flinging the General Lee up on to an overpass into traffic. What few 1968, 1969, and 1970 Dodge Chargers that remained after the TV series were used up in the movie, but their sacrifices ensured that at least the vehicular portion of The Dukes of Hazzard lived up to expectations.

The movie did well enough in theatres, doubling their budget domestically before considering the international box office. Critics weren’t impressed, but Dukes wasn’t meant to be more than just fluff. The movie had a few challenges; older fans would be more likely to enjoy country music while the younger audience in because of Jessica Simpson were more apt to listen to pop. Feelings about certain symbols of the American South and the American Civil War are more divided; the movie did have a scene covering the various reactions to the flag on the General Lee’s roof.

Overall, as mentioned above, the movie did feel like it belonged on the TV series. The problems come in with the rating and the sexual humour, so the adaptations feels slightly off. There was respect towards the original, but the movie could have used a little more time perculating.

Next week, The Beverly Hillbillies.

* Moonshine is the popular name for alcohol brewed or distilled illegally. There was no quality control beyond the moonshiner’s testing.
related programming dropped.
** Sorrell Booke, who had portrayed J.D. Hogg, had passed away in 1994.
*** Ben Jones, who had played Cooter, served in the House of Representatives for Georgia’s 4th district from 1989 until 1993.
**** Assuming the movie was meant to take place the year of release, that would put the first race in 1935, about a year and a half after Prohibition ended. If you give the rum-runners a year to race each other due to a lack of bootlegging to be done and get organized, that puts the first race in the right time frame.

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