Nail on the head

I just read this article about the principles of making your novel compelling and I could not agree more. For those too lazy to follow the link, I will emphasise and reiterate what every good novel should contain:

1. A good hook - if the story doesn't grab you from page one, you're doing it wrong.
2. A strong voice - if the voice of the novel has its own style, you're half-way there to an interesting read
3. A good/interesting story - that should go without saying
4. Compelling characters - strong, relateable and believable characters (not just 16 year-olds with strong desires for centenarian vampires)
5. Commentary on the human condition - something that resonates with the reader

Maybe I have rose-coloured glasses on but I know I followed those principles when writing my novel (even if I didn't know them at the time). Feel free to disagree, though, as that's what makes us human after all :)

I am going crazy

There must be something wrong with me. Despite all clues pointing to the Emperor's clothes being transparent, they continue to not see. I am, of course, talking about facebook's revitalised stock price. Even with all these sad-sacks throwing millions of dollars in ad revenue at FB, I do not know how on earth the stock price can possibly reflect reality.

Google is a proven cash cow / golden goose hybrid with a proven revenue earning model, with net revenue of  $2.89 billion (great), a stock price of $758 and an earnings per share ratio of 32 (very good). To put it another way, for every share out there the company is earning an incredible $24,256.

Apple has a very strong revenue model (high profit margins), with net revenue of $13.1 billion (wow), a stock price of $459 and an earnings per share ratio of 44.1 (amazing). To put it another way, for every share out there the company is earning an amazing $20,241.

Ebay is a business built upon a core revenue model, with net revenue of $3.38 billion (great),  a stock price of $56 and an earnings per share ratio of 2 (goodish). To put it another way, for every share out there the company is earning $113.

Facebook is a 'business' built around doing social stuff ... oh, and embedding annoying ads that no one clicks on and/or games that no one buys premium stuff for, with net revenue last quarter of $131 million (fine), a stock price of $31 and an earnings per share ratio of 0.11 (ugh). To put it another way, for every share out there the company is earning $3.41.

Am I missing something? Do those numbers not disturb you? In response facebook is performing a $2 billion buy back to improve the health of their EPS (earnings per share) ratio. When facebook's company is apparently worth the same as Google or Apple but doesn't have anything resembling the net revenue or earning potential, how can this not be a dollar share?

I'll leave it for you to mull over. Class dismissed.

Ironing out the kinks

I'm going through a movie review phase, so bear with me ...

I recently saw a film called The Man With the Iron Fists and it's a love letter to the classic kung-fu films that littered the 70-80's, with notable contributors being Jet Li and Jackie Chan (to name but a few). Later on a hip hop/rap group was inspired by this movie gold so much so that they created a new sound by sampling the effects and music of the films into 'tight loops' that were 'tha bomb' of the late eighties/early nineties. That group was called the Wu-Tang Clan, headed up by the masterful productionist, The Rza.

Why am I telling you this? Well, this film is written, directed and starring Mr Rza ... and he also did the score. I think if you attempt to review this film by western standards, you will think this is complete dreck. By 'ode to kung-fu' standards, it's good but it still weak where it counts. This is also 'presented by Tarantino.' because I don't know of any other director as much in love with classic films as he is. I think he contributed with the gore and maybe some of the dialogue (and one overhead shot straight out of Kill Bill: Volume 1).

Now, my favourite Kung-Fu film is called Snake in the Eagle's Shadow. I recommend the US dub because it is so terribly brilliant. The story is weak but the action is brilliant. The dub is stupendous in the cheesiest bad dub kind of way. Watch it! Now, before you think that my mind is prattling, if you read between the lines you will understand why the Rza's film is intentionally terrible. It's because the original films were quite awful ... but brilliant to watch. Cheesy antics, average acting and corny dialogue ... but BRILLIANT action / choreography. That's Kung-Fu film in its essence.

Having said that, I would have liked the Rza to stay behind the camera but I can understand his desire to be part of Kung-Fu lore even if the end result is pretty darn weak. The choreography is fine but slow by 'mainland China' standards. There are also a few too many character arcs and the film takes itself a little too seriously (although the main baddie's hair is hilarious) for it to get a passing grade by attempting to play the kung-fu/silly card. Too much focus on gore and too little on the choreography is where the film lets itself down.

I applaud The Rza for making the film ... it's just a shame that he missed the point of Kung-Fu.

My mind is mush

I watched the film Upside Down recently and, god, it couldn't have been written worse if the responsibility had been left to the drunken ramblings of a troupe of peyote-drinking retarded chimpanzees mashing their mutilated stumps for hands against a typewriter where the only keys that worked were s, u, c and k.

This film follows the romantic formula to a tee, except it does everything in its ability to be even less intelligible by discrediting science in the process. The story's premise destroys the basis of physics to such an incredible degree that even a five-year old would state that this film makes no sense and would not have a shadow of a doubt that he was correct in his assessment.

So, the premise is that you have two planets that are perfectly aligned (they spin at the same speed, with the exact same orbit and I would surmise the same mass, considering they're not smashing into each other) such that there is a bridge that transitions between the two of them. So far, so unrealistic. Now here comes the kicker; the gravity doesn't work the same between planets. Oof. Items from the one planet only interact with the gravity of their planet. Ouch. If these foreign elements are retained too long on the other planet, they burn up. Owowowow. Also this gravity apparently only affects certain aspects at certain times (or at least the way that this film conveys it). All this 'science' is introduced so that we can have the world's most convoluted romance story possible:  (narrator voice)

Two people, living in separate worlds ... but connected by love

I'm not sure why they needed to go to such silly extents to create such a convoluted mechanism to keep them apart. Anyway the cereal box summary is: They meet each other at the closest point between the two worlds and fall in love. For whatever reason, the people of either side of the planet deny people from the other side from interacting with each other and she falls back to her planet and hits her head. Dufus (that's what I'm calling him) thinks she's dead until he sees her on TV and then finds a means of reconnecting with her ... although she doesn't remember him (quelle contrived). The visuals are really quite good but, if you've seen inception (or Ring), you should be pretty used to seeing people walking on the ceiling so that novelty wears off pretty quickly. 

And so, to summarise, this was not my cup of tea. This film is like a nightmare that you keep hoping to wake up from ... until you realise you are awake and you are actually watching your mind unravel as you try to make sense of all the inconsistencies. If you do still want to watch this, do it while stoned or heavily inebriated. You have been warned.

Affirming your resolve

Why do we have to wait until some predetermined day before we decide to put a plan in place to change the bad habits that hinder our potential? I certainly don't.

I am certainly not waiting until I am old and decrepit before (hopefully) planning to ensure my final years are not too troublesome. Maybe it is my distaste for working for someone else that agitates my desires to find a shortcut to early retirement. So far, so unsuccessful ... but I am trying.  

It bewilders me that there are not more people questioning why their world seems to revolve around a 9-5PM 'jail sentence' and, in particular, doing nothing to change the situation. I think people have fallen into a distorted form of Stockholm Syndrome whereupon they actually enjoy being confined to their cubicle and  enjoy whittling away the long business hours with solitaire and coffee breaks.

How many of you can honestly say that your life-long dream was to work in an office? I know when I was growing up I wanted to be a pilot, computer programmer (guilty) and maybe an artist. I never thought of writing because I always held authors in such high esteem. Maybe it was a lack of confidence that made me so reticent to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) but I pushed through and created something that I am proud of even if not everyone is as appreciative. This is but one step. One stepping stone towards a path of  independence but, as you know, you don't climb a staircase with just one step. 

My ongoing resolution is to succeed in being capable of independence, even if that freedom simply allows me to remain in my cubicle because, hey, it's pretty comfy and I'm pretty sure meetings are therapeutic for my mental well-being.

The Buddhists are right

Throughout the life I would best describe as a series of fortunate (and unfortunate) events, my mind tends to wander. From Chaos Theory to Neo to Buddhists to Quantum Physicists to six degrees of Kevin Bacon, they have all come to the same conclusion. We are one with everything.

The basic principle is that, although from an external perspective we're individual entities, there is an unseen bond that connects us. Even the vacuum of space is connected by things like 'dark matter' that we have yet to fully grasp or perceive.

The more I think about it, the more I think that they must be onto something. If you zoom in or out far enough, you no longer see the individual elements you once perceived as disconnected. With the much vaunted 'god particle' nearing the point of being irrefutable to its existence, we can no longer follow the belief that the space between neutrons, protons and electrons is 'devoid of stuff'. How long will it be before we discover the sub-elements that make up the Higgs Boson particle?

If we were to zoom in on any human being, in the end all we'd see are spinning electrons and protons and nuclei - the concept of a human would be completely alien at this scale. Now all these seemingly disconnected nuclei are interacting with all their neighbours with varying degrees of influence based on distance and strength. The same can be said if you start scaling out to the scale of planets and galaxies. We would no longer see humans, cities or towns.

At this scale, the celestial bodies interact with each other through gravity and energy transference  If we were to scale out farther still, at what point do you no longer see stars, planets and galaxies? How far out would we need to scale before we see the resulting form of all these seemingly disconnected elements? Could the culmination of  all these galaxies and humanity somehow be contained within something as trivial as a marble? 

Give me a moment ... I'm thinking.

The disney formula

I love formulas. My world revolves around devising the formulas that rule our world. The one place I do not like them, however, is in my stories and films. If I recognise the trope early on, and the storyteller does nothing to deviate from this well-worn path, is the moment I begin getting irritated.

Romantic Comedies almost never deviate. Let me see whether you recognise this: An attractive but unlucky in love female meets an attractive rogue whom she instantly hates while this rogue annoys and teases her. They somehow form a pact where they're forced to be in each other's company (usually to assist the heroine in her plight to attract the man she's got her sights on  and that is coincidentally less attractive and has at least one character flaw). They fail in their quest but realise they're in love with each other. The End.

Examples:

Did You Hear About the Morgans, What's Your Number?, For Richer Or Poorer, French Kiss, The Wedding Planner, The Bounty Hunter, Killers, He's Not That Into You, The Proposal, The Ugly Truth, The Dictator, Failure to Launch, Mr & Mrs Smith, 50 First Dates, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Maid in Manhattan ... and the list goes on

Horrible, because that's all I see. Sure, you can mix this up with different contrived scenes through the length of the story, but the trope still remains. Which brings me to Disney films. I hate them ... well, apart from the very few exceptions where the maniacal reigns are momentarily loosened and something less abortive is created. Anywho: I shall now divulge the Disney formula in all its gory.

The story revolves around an attractive young male/female from a less than ideal background. The protagonist gets together with one or two plucky side kicks which provide levity to the stale-as-toast personality of the main character that is as boring as ... well, something really, really boring. There is invariably some kind of rom-com partnership along the way (where the two of them inevitably fall in love) and there is almost always an adversary that needs to be defeated. Nearing the end of Act 2, there's always a lull where the main character needs to find themselves and loses hope ... before they discover the strength they need through the support of friends/family. Needless to say, cheesy morals abound, where believing in yourself, relying on your friends/family and following your heart is the true path to happiness etc. This gets bludgeoned into your head multiple times throughout the course of the story ... and the moralistic theme is always introduced early in the story so that the viewer knows exactly what kind of path the protagonist will take towards final redemption. The End.

Examples:

Dumbo, Bambi, Snow White, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, The Rocketeer, Aladdin,  Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Tangled, Enchanted ... and the list goes on.

The by-the-numbers story telling and head-bangingly moralistic message makes watching Disney films an exercise in torture. 

please note the whitebread heroine and quirky sidekicks

I saw 'Brave' recently (against my will). A story that revolves around a spoiled child who does everything in her power to avoid responsibility. She has three younger siblings who help her avoid her Mother's ire through magic (and provides levity in the place of the boring main character). Hilarity ensues and she discovers that if she listens and respects her family's wishes, all will be well. She reconciles with her overbearing mother and learns her place (like a good little 1950's stay-at-home wife). Of course, there's an evil antagonist who adds drama/excitement to the mix. Ooooh ... way to break the formula, there.

I honestly don't want to dislike Disney films but there's no good reason that a multi-billion dollar company isn't able to make something fun, original and at least entertaining. Heck, they've had enough attempts. It's just that I want the formula to change. Please change the formula, Disney. Please.

Side note: I remember one of the producers (or something) discussing how they'd paid all this attention to imbuing the heroines' hair with personality. He seemed proud of that. There has to be something wrong with your priorities if you focus more effort towards injecting personality into her hair than into her character.