Okay, back from a one week getaway with the family that we do every year. Well, going on 3 years. Last year Villain was out, and July was the month when it took off. I'd look at the numbers for the sales at dinner time and freak out. I mean, this isn't the kind of book that should sell, much less sell well.
Last year I was also mid-Wayward and on a mission. I dedicated 5-7 hours a day and came home from the 5 day trip with over 100 pages of first draft stuff.
This year I blew it. I had plans, I had a bunch of started scenes that I planned to pickup...This was a 6 day trip, and I hoped to do at least as much as last year. I did fifteen pages. One Five. No excuse or particular reason, I'm just working on a different kind of story this year, and unlike 1 and 2, I don't have the end.
I work that way, with a final goal, mostly in chronological order, adding missing scenes later as they're needed. I have the ending, which for Villain was an rpg game I had run. For Wayward, I had the entire finale in my head, plotted out to the last detail. I knew what I wanted to do, and then it was just question of having the free time to sit down and do it.
Three is different. I don't know the ending. I mean, I have two ideas for the final act, but neither gets me hot and heavy. So I'm working with a fully plotted first act, a partially envisioned second, and no idea about the end. It's real important to do something different than what's expected, which would be a head to head throwdown with Epic, engineered by Mr. Haha. Hell, that's what I want, too, but how full of shit would that be? I mean, we saw them go at it already, what's Epic going to do? Learn some Brazilian Ju Jitsu?
It's different because I want to do it different. Different is what's worked with Blackjack until now. Know what would be more painful and real than that kind of perma-anymosity? Have them have to work together. Now that would suck, but it'd be awesome at the same time. THAT's what I'm looking for about the ending. I don't want to just have some crazy fight among the heroes, then everyone stops, looks up and sees the Lightbringer's New Army (tm) arriving on Earth to take us over...
...actually, that doesn't sound so bad.
Okay, two related pet peeves. Why do aliens always have to land in the United States? Specifically LA or NYC? If you see images of population distribution, they'd be much more interested in the area around India than in us. If I'm an alien general with even a slight bit of military knowledge, and the goal is to subjugate/destroy the population, I drop my ships there. It's mentioned in one of the funniest lines of Monsters vs. Aliens, but they keep sending their Chitauri to NYC as if that would settle the issue. Silly aliens.
But say they get wise, and instead of land in the US, they go after India or China, places where population density is nearly off the charts. They find a nice open field, land their dropships and muster the troops in nice even rows...THEN GET OBLITERATED. I hate that movies totally disregard our conventional military save for an F-22 flyby so it can fire an AIR TO AIR missile into the huge Kaiju or alien dropship, only to get crushed 30 seconds later. I loved Pacific Rim, but those Kaiju would last 30 seconds against a flight of AC-130H Spectres. I have a cousin that flew those suckers, their 105s have a range in KILOMETERS. The Kaiju might not ever actually see the planes hurling 105mm shells into it's chest cavity, sending it back to Hell.
Then there's the B-52. We have dozens of them in our inventory and they can drop 20,000+ lbs of bombs, cruise missiles and anything else we can think of. Imagine a flight of those coming overhead as the alien army is forming up. Ground beef, that's what you'd get.
I know, they had some reasons for them being unwilling to fight the Kaiju with conventional weapons, namely their blood, and the Chitauri in Avengers came by surprise, overwhelming everything that was available at the time. I imagine that amazing final sequence of the Avengers must've taken place over the course of an hour at the most, little time for any reasonable response. But it drives me nuts when they do that. I'm a huge fan of mecha since my father got me a Mazinger Z 3 foot tall figure when I was eight. I mean, I wrote mecha in both books and I had my whole clan frothing at the mouth, waiting to see Pacific Rim...but some of these things tend to add up.
I'm ranting, I know, but this stuff pisses me off. They never do it right. They've either got no time cause it's a movie, or don't spend the effort to make things more realistic. In stories like Fallen Skies, V and others, it's up to a small band of "the resistance" to do what billions of dollars in conventional weapons cannot. Why is it always up to F-22 air to air missiles, and not everything else that we have in our arsenal (I'M TALKING TO YOU MICHAEL BAY). Hell, if you were to believe the Transformers movies, our army only has M-16s or the odd Bradley. Do people know that Bradleys can fire 30mm depleted uranium shells? So does the A-10 with it's Avenger cannon. Imagine Megatron getting a belly full of lead from a flight of A-10s. Or pegged by SABOT rounds by a column M1A2 Abrams tanks?
That's what bothers me. I know why they do it, whether plotwise, or because that's the story they've chosen to tell, but to me our military is something wholesome and honorable, in particular the soldiers of all ranks that risk everything for us, and I hate that they're thrown aside as incompetent for the purpose of a plotline. When are we going to see a book or movie that takes their effort and work seriously, without over-glorifying or drowning it in bullshit?
Maybe in Blackjack three, though I'm not sure how exactly. I think it's going to be an invasion, sure, but after that I'm at a loss.
How about this: Blackjack, Apogee, SuperD...the whole bunch of them...come in hard and fast to stop the alien landing. You figure they'd be able to respond much faster than any military unit in the world, right? The author gave SuperD a plane that's as fast as plot needs it to be :) Anyway, they come in and they get CREAMED
How about that? What if we have to rely on the boys and girls in fatigues to fight this one for us? What if the supers are more of a distraction than anything...maybe going for the leadership, for the Lightbringers themselves?
Hell, I think I have my final act, after all.
And if you're wondering what I think about them:
Pacific Rim 9/10
Avengers 10/10
Transformers series 3/10
Falling Skies 4/10
V 7/10
A-10 Warthog II 100/10 :)
Ben you are absolutely right. In most movies the soldiers are almost a side note to the battle. Why?
ReplyDeleteMaybe your final act could go some thin like this.
Blackjack and crew fighting the horde. Holding the line or falling back. But the need to do something. Go somewhere. Find someone. But if they leave the civilians will me massacred. What to do? That when they hear it. THRUMP THRUMP THRUMP "What is that?" THRUMP THRUMP TRUMP THRUMP "Where is that coming from?" SHOOM SHOOM tatatatatatata BOOOOM! "Look!!!!" Here they come. Snipers line the roof top. Infantry come running in weapons ablaze. Ordnance dropping. Someone says "Holy hellfire missiles!" A commanding office walks up to Blackjack and says "Get the F@!K out of here! We've got this!" And Blackjack just walks off and says "Wow."
While an entirely novel idea (pun intended) and some of the general concept should be incorporated into the story, I don't think that would entirely work. Emphasize that the military is often underestimated and that they are far more deadly than other authors portray them; however, I think it would be an unrealistic mistake to make them the so-called Top Dog in a world where someone like Blackjack could pulp anyone that's a non-super while using only a fraction of his power. Logically, technology would give them an edge but it would have to be on par with Super Dynamic's suit to match up to other supers and even the playing field. Otherwise the overwhelming power the supers possess would overrun the soldiers. I mean, Blackjack is pretty much bulletproof and extremely durable thanks to his abilities and Ben makes it clear in the first book that average humans are all too fragile compared to supers, even those who don't possess enhanced toughness. I think going back on the established limits of humanity now in the story would damage the crucial immersiveness of the storyline.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I gotta agree though, Mr. Bequer, that you should DEFINITELY play around with the idea of some sort of black-ops Supers or give a good opportunity for the military to show that they can be bad-ass without possessing superhuman abilities. And if you're such a fan of mecha....why not give the military mechs? Or something else to even the playing field. Whatever you decide to do, I'm sure it'll make for a thrilling tale. :)
But what kind of mechs? Giant ones? Personal ones? Maybe not so much mechs but suits like the Spartans of Halo? Ben has had mechs in the previous books. Book two he wrote about an entire mech corps. that was being used to control D.C. In a world where super suits and strange tech is common I imagine its hard to think up new and interesting arms and armor. But that's what makes a good book. Always having to push the boundary a little further each time.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for the military all of sudden being a match for the supers I have to agree with D.H. Unless they all turn in John Spartans the average soldier while being well trained isn't much of a threat to even a low level super. Its a shame that the military in popular sci-fi is portrayed as ineffective but when you have hyper advanced aliens or people that can crush cars with their minds its just not helpful to the story to have them taken out by the ordinary soldier. Not that any soldier is ordinary. A special antagonist requires a special protagonist to solve the problem.
So the answer then would be to create a new type of soldier that can fight Supers... Call them Nulls. They could be walking power dampeners that specialize in lethal containment of Supers, like military-esque bounty hunters who target supers.
ReplyDeleteOoooooo now THATS an idea. Matter of fact that would be a kickass series all on its own. I would read that. Can I call dibs on it?
ReplyDeleteNo DiBs you can't call dibs. :P
ReplyDeleteSo Mr. Bequer have you made any progress on the plot?
ReplyDeleteHellooo. Hellooo. Hellooo? Where'd ya'll get off to? Is anybody out there? I betcha Ben is working on the bounty hunter idea and hasn't had time to updates about Blackjack 3. Cant blame hike it is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI meant to say cant blame HIM.
ReplyDeleteLol I think we understood the gist. And I haven't said anything because no one else was saying anything.
ReplyDeleteHey guys. I'm still here, grinding away at three. The bounty hunter idea is on hold for a bit. My writing partner's offline so we're tabling it for the time being. I'd like to have 4-5 episodes ready before we even begin to publish and we're not even close.
ReplyDeleteSummer was a weird time for me. I grew to doubt a lot of what I was doing with Blackjack, what book two turned out to be. Most other writers would have done book two as a quick epilogue and moved on. I was intrigued by the idea of showing a guy truly hit rock bottom and what he does to scramble out of that deep abyss. I know it's not the most popular idea, but in restrospect, book two ended up exactly as I wanted, for good or ill.
And as I turn to the next chapter of Blackjack's story, I'm interested in telling a story of a guy who seeks to find his place in the world and I'm not tempted to gloss over the hard, painful stuff just to get to the next badass set piece. I know Blackjack's written cinematically but I don't think movies should be all action all the time, even if the director is Michael Bay or Zack Snyder.
Next up for us is a story of a comeback. A guy who was down and out, forgotten and with good reason, trying to carve out a niche for himself. I think that's the basic principle of the Blackjack series.
Part of what makes him so interesting to me is that he's developmentally stunted, much like I am. It's the Fight Club, "now what?" idea of growing up, where were thrown out into the world without goals or passion. That kind of thing isn't easy to figure out. I'm 43 and I'm still working on it.
The same thing goes for relationships. Someone else might start book three with Blackjack already established with Apogee. Hell, they'd have problems already, without ever showing the clumsy, early beginning.
Another writer would have Blackjack get invited to Apogee's team, the Revolution - and why wouldn't she invite her boyfriend, it was all settled at the end of book two, right? In the movies, when you tell someone you love them, everything is taken care of, right?
All of this leads me to part of my worry about book three, which is that it'll be more of the same of book two, and some people didn't like it. I know, second guessing will lead me nowhere, but I'm not immune to criticism. Every harsh review hits me hard. I want to write something everyone likes, as stupid as that sounds, and when someone doesn't, it kind of hurts.
But this is the story I want to tell. As it's plotting it out, it will have all the excitement of the previous books, and some nice set pieces (WITH SOME BIGASS 'ASPLOSIONS), to keep the blood pounding. But at the same time, we'll get to deal with some of the difficult issues that have made books one and two so much fun to write.
So, yeah, I've been having a bit of a hard time knowing what to do moving forward. I came up with something pretty interesting, then second guessed myself to do something else (LIGHTBRINGERS NAO!), but now I'm going back to the original idea.
Which means Haha gets dealt with now...
I know how you feel Ben. Criticism hurts. You work and work and work putting everything you love hate laugh and cry at into something thinking everyone will love it. But it only takes one loudmouthe asshat with some overblown opinion of themselves to completely crush you and no matter how many people say good things about you you cant help but dwell on the negatives. Then you doubt if everything you've done to date is really any good at all. All I can say is let the Haters hate. How many fans do they have?
ReplyDelete