BlackShanglan
Silver-Tongued Papist
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2004
- Posts
- 16,888
No, quite seriously. One actually useful thing I've done while away was to come up with this concept for expanding my understanding of writing: compare the very best and the very worst I could think of and see what I learned from it. I'm working on screenwriting, so TV shows were a good choice for me, and I'd long lamanted the staggering gap in quality between the stellar (ha ha) "Battlestar Galactica" and the comically lame "Torchwood," on which the SO and I regularly make wagers as to which character will have the most wincingly stupid lines or actions each week and what they will be. (Owen's lengthy digression on the local history of fairies is still the hands-down winner.)
At any rate - my goodness, it was delightful! I dug out all sorts of nuggets to scamper back to my horde with. I become so excited that I even ended sentences with prepositions. But truly, it was a month's education in an afternoon. I recommend it to anyone. And the beauty is that whatever you like to write and however you like to write it, it's guaranteed to show you how to do what you want to do, because you get to pick what's the best and what's the worst.
If you're deeply bored, or even better, you're eager to become deeply bored, here are a few gleanings from it:
1) Character-defining tensions. This was my favorite "click" moment. What really stood out in the characterization in BSG was the manner in which they'd built so many characters with central, defining internal conflicts that made them continually capable of both growth and consistency. Adama is both a soldier and a man deeply concerned with doing the right thing. Instant, constant conflict, fruitful conflict that deepens the character at every turn. Ditto too many other characters to list, including even the villains - who are so much more compelling for having depth. These tensions are what let the characters grow and develop and capture me throughout the whole series, unlike the Torchwood crew who can barely make it through an episode without seeming either wooden or schizophrenic. They swing between having only one very simplistic persona and multiple, completely inchoate ones.
I loved this one. It instantly fixed my screenplay in flux. The priest was being a massive nuisance until I realized that this was the problem. He only had one aspect to his character. As soon as I realized that he needed the other, I saw what it was and how I'd been an idiot not to have noticed it before. Yeesh. It was all right there.
2) Motiveless villains are silly. Really. Truly. "Torchwood" is the textbook example for this. The most powerful villain is the world is just silly if his only motive is "because I'm insanely eeeevilll!" He could just as easily have attacked another planet, or every planet, or a dust bunny. The more powerful the villain becomes, the more silly it gets if the motives make no sense. BSG shines in comparison; even when they're out to wipe out the human race, it's impossible to deny that the Cylons often have good reason for it. That's scary, because then you know how difficult it would be to make them stop.
3) Whatever you are, you are. Throughout. The SO and I save some of our sharpest derision for the scenes in "Torchwood" in which we are painfully reminded that Owen is allegedly a medical doctor. We mock this incessantly because the only time it's ever apparent is when they dress him in a gown and put a scalpel in his hand, and even then he just looks like an idiot at a costume party. Nothing else about the character ever reflects this aspect of him. His vocabularly, his history, his bearing, his focus of attention - none of them suggest it until the plotline demands a doctor. Then it's laughable because the man has absolutely no reason in the world to be a doctor. Dragging in a third show, "House" is a good contrast; it's a show full of doctors, and every one of them has an individual, different, and identifiable reason for being a doctor.
BSG stands out nicely in contrast because its characters are whatever they are 24/7 and in every scene. It's obvious why an impulsive hothead like Kara Thrace is a fighter pilot, and it's obvious whether she's flying or playing cards. It's obvious, too, why an at heart highly idealistic man like Helo is a soldier - for very different reasons, and reasons that we can see in every scene from his home life to his missions. We know their motives not because they spend 30 seconds explaining them just once in that episode because someone needed to be a veterinarian for the plot to work, but because in small, show-not-tell ways, they are that every episode, consistently.
4) For the love of God. Show. Don't tell. It only takes a couple of agonizing rounds of watching Captain Jack blow a perfectly good scene by opening his mouth ... ooh. Sorry, that was a distracting image, wasn't it? But honestly. There are times when one wants to scream at the screen, "Shut UP! For God's sake, man, shut up!" Take the episode "Meat," in which they discover a still-living, gruesomely mutilated whale-alien people have been carving pieces off of to sell as meat. Jack walks up with an agonized look on his face and embraces the side of the suffering creature. And Shanglan and the SO wince, because they know that he just can't leave it at that. Alone, the gesture would be perfect - but no, he has to open his mouth and thump out, "Oh, my friend! What have they done to you?" From drama to melodrama in 2 seconds flat.
Compare that to Adama in BSG, having given a particularly distasteful order regarding the treatment of a prisoner. He doesn't blather on in some purply speech about the agonizing pain of balancing his sense of moral right against the duty he has to the lives in his care. In fact, he doesn't say anything. He simply stays in the room and watches, weary and bleak, as his orders are carrried out. He says nothing; the expression, and the mere fact that he won't let himself leave and avoid the reality of the actions, say it all beautifully.
So. That's my blather for tonight. Slice it up into bits and you'll have enough words to cover a few dozen posts a day since I was last here.
Shanglan
At any rate - my goodness, it was delightful! I dug out all sorts of nuggets to scamper back to my horde with. I become so excited that I even ended sentences with prepositions. But truly, it was a month's education in an afternoon. I recommend it to anyone. And the beauty is that whatever you like to write and however you like to write it, it's guaranteed to show you how to do what you want to do, because you get to pick what's the best and what's the worst.
If you're deeply bored, or even better, you're eager to become deeply bored, here are a few gleanings from it:
1) Character-defining tensions. This was my favorite "click" moment. What really stood out in the characterization in BSG was the manner in which they'd built so many characters with central, defining internal conflicts that made them continually capable of both growth and consistency. Adama is both a soldier and a man deeply concerned with doing the right thing. Instant, constant conflict, fruitful conflict that deepens the character at every turn. Ditto too many other characters to list, including even the villains - who are so much more compelling for having depth. These tensions are what let the characters grow and develop and capture me throughout the whole series, unlike the Torchwood crew who can barely make it through an episode without seeming either wooden or schizophrenic. They swing between having only one very simplistic persona and multiple, completely inchoate ones.
I loved this one. It instantly fixed my screenplay in flux. The priest was being a massive nuisance until I realized that this was the problem. He only had one aspect to his character. As soon as I realized that he needed the other, I saw what it was and how I'd been an idiot not to have noticed it before. Yeesh. It was all right there.
2) Motiveless villains are silly. Really. Truly. "Torchwood" is the textbook example for this. The most powerful villain is the world is just silly if his only motive is "because I'm insanely eeeevilll!" He could just as easily have attacked another planet, or every planet, or a dust bunny. The more powerful the villain becomes, the more silly it gets if the motives make no sense. BSG shines in comparison; even when they're out to wipe out the human race, it's impossible to deny that the Cylons often have good reason for it. That's scary, because then you know how difficult it would be to make them stop.
3) Whatever you are, you are. Throughout. The SO and I save some of our sharpest derision for the scenes in "Torchwood" in which we are painfully reminded that Owen is allegedly a medical doctor. We mock this incessantly because the only time it's ever apparent is when they dress him in a gown and put a scalpel in his hand, and even then he just looks like an idiot at a costume party. Nothing else about the character ever reflects this aspect of him. His vocabularly, his history, his bearing, his focus of attention - none of them suggest it until the plotline demands a doctor. Then it's laughable because the man has absolutely no reason in the world to be a doctor. Dragging in a third show, "House" is a good contrast; it's a show full of doctors, and every one of them has an individual, different, and identifiable reason for being a doctor.
BSG stands out nicely in contrast because its characters are whatever they are 24/7 and in every scene. It's obvious why an impulsive hothead like Kara Thrace is a fighter pilot, and it's obvious whether she's flying or playing cards. It's obvious, too, why an at heart highly idealistic man like Helo is a soldier - for very different reasons, and reasons that we can see in every scene from his home life to his missions. We know their motives not because they spend 30 seconds explaining them just once in that episode because someone needed to be a veterinarian for the plot to work, but because in small, show-not-tell ways, they are that every episode, consistently.
4) For the love of God. Show. Don't tell. It only takes a couple of agonizing rounds of watching Captain Jack blow a perfectly good scene by opening his mouth ... ooh. Sorry, that was a distracting image, wasn't it? But honestly. There are times when one wants to scream at the screen, "Shut UP! For God's sake, man, shut up!" Take the episode "Meat," in which they discover a still-living, gruesomely mutilated whale-alien people have been carving pieces off of to sell as meat. Jack walks up with an agonized look on his face and embraces the side of the suffering creature. And Shanglan and the SO wince, because they know that he just can't leave it at that. Alone, the gesture would be perfect - but no, he has to open his mouth and thump out, "Oh, my friend! What have they done to you?" From drama to melodrama in 2 seconds flat.
Compare that to Adama in BSG, having given a particularly distasteful order regarding the treatment of a prisoner. He doesn't blather on in some purply speech about the agonizing pain of balancing his sense of moral right against the duty he has to the lives in his care. In fact, he doesn't say anything. He simply stays in the room and watches, weary and bleak, as his orders are carrried out. He says nothing; the expression, and the mere fact that he won't let himself leave and avoid the reality of the actions, say it all beautifully.
So. That's my blather for tonight. Slice it up into bits and you'll have enough words to cover a few dozen posts a day since I was last here.
Shanglan
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