This is a problem that comes often when someone is writing: There's an action going on in whatever it is that's on paper, and you (the author) have no idea how to explain it. For example, your protagonist is going out to Mc'Donalds, but you've already used that phrase twice. Repetition can be a serious problem in a story, so you need a better way for them to explain their plan to their friends, other than "Going out to McDonalds."
"I'm on a McRun," the hero says, dashing off to get his fries.
A second character responds, "Wait! What's McRunning?!"
And you, the author, are left saying, "Huh."
Verbs, as we should know through reading my old Parts of Speech Infographic, are "action words." They describe what people, characters, what-have-you are doing. "Drive" is a popular example. "Describe" could be another. These are things that we do. But using them in an appropriate, effective manner is another story entirely.
Sometimes, a verb can stand alone. "Running" can serve as a classification of a hobby; people like "running," and regularly use it as a Google search. Sometimes you just need to use good adverbs. Adverbs are words used to better describe a verb. Let's take, as a simple example, "He drove expertly."
"He" is a noun; "drove" is the past-tense of "drive," so it's our verb in this short sentence; "expertly" describes how this random guy drives. A reader will know, therefore, that "he" is an expert driver. Of course, you could nit-pick something this isolated-in-the-void (void-dwelling, perhaps?) down - "He drove expertly" implies that in at least one incident, said "he" happened to indeed seem like an amazing wheelman, but that this past incident might well have been a lucky shot and...
...Wait, what just happened? I just found another way to explain "he drove expertly," while simultaneously mocking that very phrase! Words are like that; they have connotations as well as denotations - they have interpreted meanings which can differ from their literal ones. A "Wheel Man" sounds like a beast from a video game; a "wheelman" is an ace driver. Of course, the term "wheelman" is also often used in crime stories, to refer to the guy who drives the vehicle and must, therefore, drive expertly. And in-so-far as being something can be being that verb, being a "wheelman" is something you always are; "wheelmanning," or "manning the wheel" is what you sometimes do...
Maybe we need another example.
Let's look at "Blogger."
A "Blogger" is someone who "Blogs." A "Blog" is...Well, this is a blog, but that doesn't explain much! This is more like a place for some crazy word-ninja to write down random ideas at 11:00 PM! In all seriousness, though, a "blog" is basically a journal where an author writes up and distributes articles. With me so far? And I have no idea how the word "blog" got started - I'm sure there's a good reason, I just don't know it off-hand and I don't feel like researching it. Call me lazy.
What I do know is that the authors of a "Blog" were immediately "verbed," with their writing suddenly referred to as "Blogging." "Bloggers" was a natural evolution; it's simply someone who "Blogs," which is the act of "Blogging." But if you look wayyyy up at the top of your address bar, you'll notice that this website is a .blogspot website - a spot for blogs, right? Yes - and no! For "Blogspot" is actually a Google-owned sub-company called "Blogger."
I am, now, a blogger. I write blog posts. I write entire blogs! Yet I am not Blogger, the service.
You will notice, by now, that I seem to be going off on tangents a lot. You might even have noticed that this blog entry's title begins with "How To Use Verbs." It does not say the following...
How to Use Verbs Effectively
The reason why I've waited until now to "get serious" is that, frankly, writing is about timing. The first thing this rule implies is that everyone has their own timing; when timing differs between writer and reader, there can be a dissonance which can make the writer's work hard to read - if not render it altogether intolerable!
More importantly, however, is the fact that timing means knowing which verb to use, when, and how. A lot of times this is simply technical; to write, as a sentence, "Next, the computer activated" is entirely mysterious. Does the computer activate on its own? How? Is it artificially intelligent? It's just a lot of questions, and if there aren't any immediate answers, readers will start to sense that aforementioned dissonance. They will get lost. Instead...
"Next, Bob activated the computer." Now we know that Bob is involved in this picture, and that he activated the computer. Suddenly a reader has an idea of what's going on. But how did Bob activate it? Did he just tap an on switch? Or, like a movie hero, did he turn it on with his mind? Maybe that sentence needs a little more work. Let's step up our game!
"Next, Bob knelt down and plugged in the old computer tower; it roared to life, courtesy of its creaky fans which discourteously spat dust back into Bob's face."
Wow. So now we have a real clear picture of this Bob Plus Computer shindig. His motivations are unclear, and while one might make inferences (he's searching for an ancient file!), that's for another sentence to explain. From what's written in this example, you can see that by sprucing up the diction (word-choice) and adding a hint of complexity, we've actually taken a lot of the guess-work out of what's going on. We know that Bob plugged in the computer. We know its old. We know Bob physically had to do things, and we know Bob isn't gonna be happy about all that dust in his face.
All in all, I only wrote this article because I was curious what my take on an article about verbs would be. I've never really written one before, and here we have it! It's not scholarly, it's hardly serious, but it has a point it's trying to get across. Hopefully you'll agree that a point was made.
Shameless self-promotion
And, hey, if you like my style, buy my book!
Friday, September 28, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Cancelled Before Prime Time: Firefly
Welcome to our third installment of the "Cancelled Before Prime Time" series! As I mentioned previously, Summer Glau has an unfortunate lot in life; she's talented, but when she pops up in a show it tends to go the way of the dodo. I felt it only fitting to explore the first of many such series - Firefly!
No! Not that firefly! This firefly!
Firefly debuted on Fox on September 20th. It lasted until December 20th. That's right, folks - Firefly only had a grand total of fourteen episodes produced. Not all of them aired. But enough spouting on about the Wikipedia article's bottom-of-the-barrel facts, lets...Yammer on about more facts, actually.
Joss Whedon. There, I've said it. This man has serious hit-or-miss potential. In the late nineties he created a tiny little movie-and-TV-show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Y'might have heard of it. It had a spinoff series as well as an "expanded universe," I.E. comics and the like. No big deal, right? Well, here's the trick: Whedon's huge hits have always been betrayed by his, ahhh, smaller ones. Firefly? Smaller one. Oh, it's a really good series! But it's not Buffy. Dollhouse is one of his most recent TV productions, and it didn't do so great (it also had some Summer Glau in it), but what came right after that? The Avengers, that's what.
So Whedon goes from up to down faster than a manic depressive switching off between methamphetamines and booze. And that'll be our offensive joke quota for this section of this article. Let's look at character development.
The Souls Aboard the Serenity
In a startling departure from the ordinary "Name your series after a character or object in it" policy, Firefly is not the name of the starship carrying our protagonists around. It's just the model; the actual vessel is called Serenity, and it's named (of course!) after a battle that our hero, Malcolm Reynolds (played by the Nathan Fillion) fought in and lost.
Serenity isn't a warship like the Death Star or a peaceful-but-deadly vessel like the Enterprise. It's a small but resilient little transport ship. That'd be fine enough, but it's inhabitants take Serenity on all sorts of crazy adventures. There's an overarching space empire called The Alliance, which Mal's side fought against and lost to, and their grasp on their frontier territory is, well, exactly as great as a historian would imagine it to be. There's also weird, half-legendary half-people called Reavers, who are crazy and barbaric and so therefore terrorize the fringes of Alliance space. See: The Native Americans (not the real ones, of course, but the mythical version). So the Serenity's staff zips across the galaxy and transports priests as well as illegal contraband.
Malcolm himself is the heart-and-soul of his ship. He's incredibly loyal to his friends, an unusual trait among outlaws but one that keeps Serenity's crew from dying, like, every episode. There's Kaylee, a nice girl who is cute, quirky, and in charge of keeping the ship's engines running. You've got your stoic second-in-command Zoe, a soldier who fought under Mal's command; she's married to Wash, your kooky pilot who fears the relationship the two old friends have...Waiiiitttt! Why am I starting to sense stereotyped characters, here? It's almost as if this is a spaghetti western! Next you'll be telling me there's a priest who happens to have awesome skills with a gun and...
...No! Not him! There is, however, Shepard Book; one of my favorite characters, he's a man who clearly has a history with the Alliance but has renounced his old life in favor of peace...Save that he's trapped in Serenity's hi-jinx and, furthermore, that we never get a really good explanation of what that past is.
See, this is the problem Firefly might have come across. Many of its characters were reincarnations of old western themes with a space-faring twist on them, and that's great! Hell, I genuinely loved many of the characters who fit those very stereotypes! But it might have led to some viewers tuning out, saying "I've already seen this flick, only with horses," and moving on.
Where Firefly really broke with tradition was with the Tams. Simon is a mild-mannered medical-genius prototype, just innocuously impressive enough to have a nasty little backstory all to himself. It's revealed in episode one, when he's found to be carrying around a rather naked Summer Glau - his sister, River. She's your "crazy, broken girl psychic" character, which I don't really remember being anywhere in the old westerns. Anyway, she's a secret Alliance weapon of dubious nature, and her presence is a constant thorn in Mal's side.
There's also Jayne, the mercenary; Inara, the companion; "Saffron," a con artist who marries her marks, and other characters who are all awesome in their own rights, but not exactly the most original characters on the block.
Where Firefly Fell, Serenity Soared
As I mentioned earlier, maybe it was just that it felt like a rehash of a western to some people, but Firefly wasn't all that successful. For a major network like Fox (who, you'll see, is a recurring villain in my series on cancelled projects), an average of 4.7 million viewers per episode just wasn't enough. It got the 'ol axe. This didn't make those, y'know, millions of fans very happy - they launched all sorts of crusades.
In 2005, to shut up the aforementioned fans, a movie was slapped together, fittingly enough called "Serenity." It's box office just about made back it's costs-of-production, while Node 3 of the International Space Station was almost named "Serenity," probably after this series. Of course, the official poll was discarded and the name "Colbert" almost won it as well, so maybe that's not such a great sign to look toward...
...Anyway! Serenity sold well enough to break even, but that doesn't get movie sequels. On the other hand, there's a whole expanded universe - comics, novels, and even a roleplaying game! For hardcore fans, some of these products might well be worth looking into, as might the fan-created sequel, Browncoats: Redemption.
When it comes to an autopsy, however, there's really no reason at all why Firefly died; other than, perhaps, due to low ratings. It's story was largely unexplored, but with eleven aired episodes (and fourteen produced, including one of it's best), the fact is that the series was never even given a chance. 4.7 million viewers really isn't that bad an average; but ten years ago "Reality TV" was starting to make it big, and perhaps that's the greatest lesson to be drawn from Firefly:
Great writing and development are little match for low-cost production.
Shameless Self-Promotion!
Wow. That doesn't speak well for my chances as a writer; but, hey, you could always check out my latest novel and see if ya like it!
 |
| Image from Enchantedlearning.com |
No! Not that firefly! This firefly!
 |
| Image from Amazon.com |
Firefly debuted on Fox on September 20th. It lasted until December 20th. That's right, folks - Firefly only had a grand total of fourteen episodes produced. Not all of them aired. But enough spouting on about the Wikipedia article's bottom-of-the-barrel facts, lets...Yammer on about more facts, actually.
Joss Whedon. There, I've said it. This man has serious hit-or-miss potential. In the late nineties he created a tiny little movie-and-TV-show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Y'might have heard of it. It had a spinoff series as well as an "expanded universe," I.E. comics and the like. No big deal, right? Well, here's the trick: Whedon's huge hits have always been betrayed by his, ahhh, smaller ones. Firefly? Smaller one. Oh, it's a really good series! But it's not Buffy. Dollhouse is one of his most recent TV productions, and it didn't do so great (it also had some Summer Glau in it), but what came right after that? The Avengers, that's what.
So Whedon goes from up to down faster than a manic depressive switching off between methamphetamines and booze. And that'll be our offensive joke quota for this section of this article. Let's look at character development.
The Souls Aboard the Serenity
In a startling departure from the ordinary "Name your series after a character or object in it" policy, Firefly is not the name of the starship carrying our protagonists around. It's just the model; the actual vessel is called Serenity, and it's named (of course!) after a battle that our hero, Malcolm Reynolds (played by the Nathan Fillion) fought in and lost.
Serenity isn't a warship like the Death Star or a peaceful-but-deadly vessel like the Enterprise. It's a small but resilient little transport ship. That'd be fine enough, but it's inhabitants take Serenity on all sorts of crazy adventures. There's an overarching space empire called The Alliance, which Mal's side fought against and lost to, and their grasp on their frontier territory is, well, exactly as great as a historian would imagine it to be. There's also weird, half-legendary half-people called Reavers, who are crazy and barbaric and so therefore terrorize the fringes of Alliance space. See: The Native Americans (not the real ones, of course, but the mythical version). So the Serenity's staff zips across the galaxy and transports priests as well as illegal contraband.
Malcolm himself is the heart-and-soul of his ship. He's incredibly loyal to his friends, an unusual trait among outlaws but one that keeps Serenity's crew from dying, like, every episode. There's Kaylee, a nice girl who is cute, quirky, and in charge of keeping the ship's engines running. You've got your stoic second-in-command Zoe, a soldier who fought under Mal's command; she's married to Wash, your kooky pilot who fears the relationship the two old friends have...Waiiiitttt! Why am I starting to sense stereotyped characters, here? It's almost as if this is a spaghetti western! Next you'll be telling me there's a priest who happens to have awesome skills with a gun and...
 |
| Image courtesy of Animecrazy.net |
...No! Not him! There is, however, Shepard Book; one of my favorite characters, he's a man who clearly has a history with the Alliance but has renounced his old life in favor of peace...Save that he's trapped in Serenity's hi-jinx and, furthermore, that we never get a really good explanation of what that past is.
See, this is the problem Firefly might have come across. Many of its characters were reincarnations of old western themes with a space-faring twist on them, and that's great! Hell, I genuinely loved many of the characters who fit those very stereotypes! But it might have led to some viewers tuning out, saying "I've already seen this flick, only with horses," and moving on.
Where Firefly really broke with tradition was with the Tams. Simon is a mild-mannered medical-genius prototype, just innocuously impressive enough to have a nasty little backstory all to himself. It's revealed in episode one, when he's found to be carrying around a rather naked Summer Glau - his sister, River. She's your "crazy, broken girl psychic" character, which I don't really remember being anywhere in the old westerns. Anyway, she's a secret Alliance weapon of dubious nature, and her presence is a constant thorn in Mal's side.
There's also Jayne, the mercenary; Inara, the companion; "Saffron," a con artist who marries her marks, and other characters who are all awesome in their own rights, but not exactly the most original characters on the block.
Where Firefly Fell, Serenity Soared
As I mentioned earlier, maybe it was just that it felt like a rehash of a western to some people, but Firefly wasn't all that successful. For a major network like Fox (who, you'll see, is a recurring villain in my series on cancelled projects), an average of 4.7 million viewers per episode just wasn't enough. It got the 'ol axe. This didn't make those, y'know, millions of fans very happy - they launched all sorts of crusades.
In 2005, to shut up the aforementioned fans, a movie was slapped together, fittingly enough called "Serenity." It's box office just about made back it's costs-of-production, while Node 3 of the International Space Station was almost named "Serenity," probably after this series. Of course, the official poll was discarded and the name "Colbert" almost won it as well, so maybe that's not such a great sign to look toward...
...Anyway! Serenity sold well enough to break even, but that doesn't get movie sequels. On the other hand, there's a whole expanded universe - comics, novels, and even a roleplaying game! For hardcore fans, some of these products might well be worth looking into, as might the fan-created sequel, Browncoats: Redemption.
When it comes to an autopsy, however, there's really no reason at all why Firefly died; other than, perhaps, due to low ratings. It's story was largely unexplored, but with eleven aired episodes (and fourteen produced, including one of it's best), the fact is that the series was never even given a chance. 4.7 million viewers really isn't that bad an average; but ten years ago "Reality TV" was starting to make it big, and perhaps that's the greatest lesson to be drawn from Firefly:
Great writing and development are little match for low-cost production.
Shameless Self-Promotion!
Wow. That doesn't speak well for my chances as a writer; but, hey, you could always check out my latest novel and see if ya like it!
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Cancelled Before Prime Time: City of Heroes
Y'know how sometimes you come up with plans to write about certain topics? Like, how there's not one but two Summer Glau series which I could explore in this column? Oh yeah. There's an NBC series that relates to the subject that's now pre-empting the aforementioned Summer Glauness, however.
Because this weekend, much to my surprise, NCSoft announced it was ending the long-running MMORPG "City of Heroes."
City of Heroes Memories
I have to admit, I didn't play CoH for that long. Why? Well, I was between MMO's at the time (My first love was Asheron's Call). Some friends recommended it and we loved it, but we ultimately never stuck it out. What was the #1 feature in such a game? This:
As you might notice from the above credit link, this character design system is so expansive that actual comic book characters have been "knocked off," and lawsuits have resulted from how incredibly detailed it is. Aside from the character's design, a player chooses the powers their avatar wields.
My character, "Luitennant Dan," (I was unable to come up with good names, nor spell them right) was what the game called a Scrapper. In World of Warcraft terms, he'd be a melee DPS character, dealing close-quarters damage. He used a katana. I decked him out in army gear but made him about four feet high. I loosely based him on the character Lieutenant Dan from the movie "Forrest Gump." For a travel power (acquired when travelling long distance becomes a factor in the gameplay), Dan had the power of super jumping - leaping across continents.
I was pretty young and stupid, and I didn't expect to play the game as much as I did. I enjoyed, but failed to complete, some of the Task Forces that marked end-game play. I thought about, but ultimately couldn't find the dedication to play the expansion, City of Villains.
The Fall of City of Heroes
Less than a year ago, City of Heroes went to a Free to Play model, following games like Tribes: Ascend and League of Legends, hoping that expanding it's player base would lead to more income. By many accounts, City of Heroes has still a fair number of players dedicated to the game. Unfortunately, the company which owns City of Heroes, NCSoft, has made the decision to sunset (end) the game.
"Private" servers, usually used to allow people to play subscription-based games for free, seem poised to rise up and allow true City of Heroes fans to play well after the game's death. There's also Champions Online, a similar game. But why did the game get so anemic in the first place?
For starters, World of Warcraft. WoW sucked up all of the MMORPG market for years, and while it's hold might arguably be weakening in the face of games like Guild Wars Two (An NCSoft project, ironically), WoW'll be around for a decade to come, in all liklihood. With WoW in the way of the generic MMORPG fan, and with Champions Online (and DC Universe, but they're a franchise) cropping up to siphon off the hardcore comic crew, City of Heroes was limited in it's potential player base.
When subscription-based gaming lost it's stranglehold over the market, well, the end of steady income and the rise of server load being dedicated to non-paying players limited profitability.
Still, it makes me wonder why the owners of NCSoft didn't even attempt to do a server trimming, and to cut their number of servers to reduce expenses and repopulate player worlds. That would have brought the game more life, probably - and more reasons for players to spend money, to add even more life to the much beloved game.
Because this weekend, much to my surprise, NCSoft announced it was ending the long-running MMORPG "City of Heroes."
City of Heroes Memories
I have to admit, I didn't play CoH for that long. Why? Well, I was between MMO's at the time (My first love was Asheron's Call). Some friends recommended it and we loved it, but we ultimately never stuck it out. What was the #1 feature in such a game? This:
As you might notice from the above credit link, this character design system is so expansive that actual comic book characters have been "knocked off," and lawsuits have resulted from how incredibly detailed it is. Aside from the character's design, a player chooses the powers their avatar wields.
My character, "Luitennant Dan," (I was unable to come up with good names, nor spell them right) was what the game called a Scrapper. In World of Warcraft terms, he'd be a melee DPS character, dealing close-quarters damage. He used a katana. I decked him out in army gear but made him about four feet high. I loosely based him on the character Lieutenant Dan from the movie "Forrest Gump." For a travel power (acquired when travelling long distance becomes a factor in the gameplay), Dan had the power of super jumping - leaping across continents.
I was pretty young and stupid, and I didn't expect to play the game as much as I did. I enjoyed, but failed to complete, some of the Task Forces that marked end-game play. I thought about, but ultimately couldn't find the dedication to play the expansion, City of Villains.
The Fall of City of Heroes
Less than a year ago, City of Heroes went to a Free to Play model, following games like Tribes: Ascend and League of Legends, hoping that expanding it's player base would lead to more income. By many accounts, City of Heroes has still a fair number of players dedicated to the game. Unfortunately, the company which owns City of Heroes, NCSoft, has made the decision to sunset (end) the game.
"Private" servers, usually used to allow people to play subscription-based games for free, seem poised to rise up and allow true City of Heroes fans to play well after the game's death. There's also Champions Online, a similar game. But why did the game get so anemic in the first place?
For starters, World of Warcraft. WoW sucked up all of the MMORPG market for years, and while it's hold might arguably be weakening in the face of games like Guild Wars Two (An NCSoft project, ironically), WoW'll be around for a decade to come, in all liklihood. With WoW in the way of the generic MMORPG fan, and with Champions Online (and DC Universe, but they're a franchise) cropping up to siphon off the hardcore comic crew, City of Heroes was limited in it's potential player base.
When subscription-based gaming lost it's stranglehold over the market, well, the end of steady income and the rise of server load being dedicated to non-paying players limited profitability.
Still, it makes me wonder why the owners of NCSoft didn't even attempt to do a server trimming, and to cut their number of servers to reduce expenses and repopulate player worlds. That would have brought the game more life, probably - and more reasons for players to spend money, to add even more life to the much beloved game.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Cancelled Before Prime Time: UnderGRADS
Greetings, fellow fans of writing, art, and all other forms of creation!
First and foremost, this is my latest attempt at conjuring up a column of some sort. Since one of my goals is to be more honest with myself, I have a habit of coming up with new "projects." They might be promising, might be unique, but all too often them come under some sort of death sentence. My Chronicles of Alleron Lego comic strip? Let's call that death by "production difficulty," meaning that as easy as they seem to whip up, actually posing, editing, and posting the comic strips was a hassle. My Weekly Roleplayer blog that I won't even bother linking you to? Complete flop, a demise via "no tangible feedback or recognition whatsoever." Oh, and let's not get into all the different books, stories, and games I've worked on and ultimately just grown bored with. Perhaps that's best classified as "bashed with a writer's block."
So maybe it's a fitting irony that this particular article, and probably (hopefully) more, is dedicated to a TV show which I loved, many of my friends loved, and yet which for some reason or another ate some cancellation pie. This episode of "Cancelled Before Prime Time" is dedicated to UnderGRADS, a cartoon produced by MTV that was axed almost a decade ago, still airs regularly up on Teletoon in Canada, and is undergoing a new renaissance in the push to get it picked up once more!
What is UnderGRADS?
Perhaps the coolest bit of the story of this show's lifespan is the way it was conceived. It wasn't generated in the think tanks of a major media corporation like, ohh, Viacom. A pencil test was submitted by Pete Williams III, a young college student (if I'm not mistaken) out of New York. That's right! A young New Yorker entered into a contest and won, and just like that his TV show was on the air in 2001.
Okay, so it wasn't that easy. He still had to produce a pilot, for example:
Nevertheless, Mr. Williams got his tuccus in gear and swung a TV show at the age of 19. That, my friends, is a young creator's wet dream. And what's more, the guy clearly had talent. You hear most of those voices? Namely those of Nitz, Cal, Rocko, and Gimpy? And you notice how, as the protagonists, they are going to be heard a lot, and therefore need to sound different? Yeah. Williams does the voices for all four of them. So we have art, we have voice-work, and since the actual plot revolves around Williams' actual experiences in college, we have writing as well. Basically, the dude [i]is[/i] the show, and that's just really cool.
There are two other things, at this point, that are worth my noting. First of all, again, the show aired in 2001. This is when I, myself, was just getting ready to go to college - I graduated in '02. As one might imagine, any show about college had a solid shot of resonating with me and my buddies; especially as my buddies fit very well within the concept of a "click" (actually spelled clique, in the real world!) that the show revolves around. The series touches upon relevant (if sometimes cliched) experiences of a college freshman, like the college bookstore; the meal plan; the dorm life; and the dozens of clubs and organizations that lure newbies in and devour their souls - err, time. Most importantly, however, is that it deals with how these four friends manage to stick together, despite their numbers being spread out over three different schools.
Second of all, you'll notice how the pilot is gritty. I don't just mean the admittedly amateur (though still pretty decent) art style - pilots are usually quite below the polish of a professionally produced episode! I'm referring to how the jokes come at a viewer harder, there are plenty of sexual innuendos, and there don't seem to be any practical limits on the character direction or topics of discussion. Kimmy, for example, is being sketched out by Nitz in what we'll politely call a compromising position.
So with an edgy show to follow up to the legacy of Beavis and Butthead, as well as Daria, how could UnderGRADS - seizing upon my very Adult-Swim-Ready generation - possibly fail?
Intentionally Hobbling Your Product is Bad Business
There are plenty of reasons why television shows fail. Sometimes the show itself is terrible, or not what is promised. This was MTV's first blunder. The show itself was thirteen half-hour-episodes long. Most of them were strictly episodic: The characters had clear-cut problems, solutions, and resolutions. For many of them, you could have aired them out of order as the outcome of the first episode didn't dictate very much toward the second. Continuity is, as pointed out by the character Brodie in the episode "New Friends," sort of important. Of course, Brodie was also a jerk.
More importantly, however, MTV tried to present a sanitized, non-offensive version of the college experience in a medium which had already evolved to such a level that we fans were expecting - craving! - controversy. For instance, take the character of Stoner Dave. His name makes obvious what he does - he smokes bud. And in the first episode, we see him and his friends surrounded by a cloud of smoke, playing Frisbee with feeble yet hilarious results, and craving cheese. The man is a pot-head. So why is this the only episode where he is obviously a pot-head? Because MTV management had already suffered the wrath of irresponsible parents who let their children watch Beavis and Butthead and, subsequently, burn down their house. My best guess is that they were afraid some kid would watch the show then pick up a joint.
I went to college. I did stupid things. Nothing [i]too[/i] crazy, and only one near-death experience, but I saw plenty of others do stupid shit as well. And the fact is that there was another TV show displaying far, far edgier content than UnderGRADS ever did. That show was called South Park. They got away with being more controversial, simply enough, by airing at a later time slot.
Unfortunately, if recollection serves, MTV Executives put UnderGRADS (sanitized as it was) up against South Park. South Park already had a following (it premiered in 1997), meaning that the new show in the time-slot had to out-punch South Park to gain viewers. Even though South Park had yet to really coalesce into a series which took on and dominated serious issues, it was just too well established. Once UnderGRADS was watered down, it had no chance. It was up against one of the defining avenues of social commentary of our day.
The Fate of UnderGRADS
As I mentioned, there's still a fairly strong movement to see the show resurrected. Oh, look, here's another one! While Pete Williams, Josh Cagan, and other forces who were behind the show continue to work with production companies on acquiring the rights to the intellectual property (still held by MTV, if I'm not mistaken), there's been talk from the fans of coming up with Kickstarter or IndieGoGo Campaigns to raise money to buy it. One fan in particular is accepting clips from UnderGRADS fans to form into a large montage of "We Want UnderGRADS Back!"
Will it be successful? The show is ten years old, but the creators still have a passion for it. That's a major key. The fact that the voice and acting talent remains interested is essential - you won't get a Nitz who sounds like a bassoon, that's for sure! There is still fan interest, and apparently at a recent convention in Calgary it was discovered exactly how potent that fan base was.
The biggest hook is in securing at the very least a framework for transferring the rights. MTV owns them and it will not part with them for free. On the other hand, chances are it's just a legal right that it is sitting on, making very little money from, and it might accept some form of down payment plus revenue sharing just to be rid of it. That's more for the show's creators and their legal eagles to deal with. Decode Entertainment, now DHX Media, still prominently features Undergrads as part of it's catalog. Teletoon had, in the past at least, offered to put up funding for a second season provided a second major production company would be involved. Once the property rights issue as secured, exploring such production becomes possible - even if the fans have to put in some money and try to convince Teletoon to go it alone. Alternative forms of production have been suggested; comic books, flash animations, and even audio dramas.
For now, though, the most pressing task for us fans has to be trying to rebuild a fan-base somehow. The show is old, and there's no guarantee there will ever be a season two. The show was watered down, especially when compared to today's Adult Swim programming like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For a show that's supposed to talk about real-life experiences of college students, it might be way too tame in its current form. That conjures up a catch-22: It needs to be edgier to win the fans needed to compel the production of new episodes, but until new production starts we're left with relative weakness. That's bad news bears.
On the other hand, the Season One DVD can be found for pretty cheap, or on Youtube. Viewing parties, where a veteran fan invites his friends over for a drink (or more, if they're like Stoner Dave) and a few episodes of the show, could help ensure that at least some people are still talking about it. The Facebook community I linked to is a strong one and is active. The show is still aired regularly in Canada, and while that doesn't help any of us Yanks, hey; it means there -is- still growth taking place.
The real bottom line is that it's possible, and the creators and fans certainly haven't given up the fight. So here's hoping for some success! Both for them, and for this brand new column!
Jesse Pohlman is a fiction/current-events/promotional writer from Long Island, New York. His latest novel is Physics Incarnate, is available in paperback or on Amazon's Kindle E-Reader. It is about Emmett Eisenberg, a professor of physics at the fictitious (Undergrads Inside Joke!) Catskill Community College; Emmett has a dark history to say the least, and it's coming back to bite him! Give it a shot today!
First and foremost, this is my latest attempt at conjuring up a column of some sort. Since one of my goals is to be more honest with myself, I have a habit of coming up with new "projects." They might be promising, might be unique, but all too often them come under some sort of death sentence. My Chronicles of Alleron Lego comic strip? Let's call that death by "production difficulty," meaning that as easy as they seem to whip up, actually posing, editing, and posting the comic strips was a hassle. My Weekly Roleplayer blog that I won't even bother linking you to? Complete flop, a demise via "no tangible feedback or recognition whatsoever." Oh, and let's not get into all the different books, stories, and games I've worked on and ultimately just grown bored with. Perhaps that's best classified as "bashed with a writer's block."
So maybe it's a fitting irony that this particular article, and probably (hopefully) more, is dedicated to a TV show which I loved, many of my friends loved, and yet which for some reason or another ate some cancellation pie. This episode of "Cancelled Before Prime Time" is dedicated to UnderGRADS, a cartoon produced by MTV that was axed almost a decade ago, still airs regularly up on Teletoon in Canada, and is undergoing a new renaissance in the push to get it picked up once more!
- Image By Eliot Smith
What is UnderGRADS?
Perhaps the coolest bit of the story of this show's lifespan is the way it was conceived. It wasn't generated in the think tanks of a major media corporation like, ohh, Viacom. A pencil test was submitted by Pete Williams III, a young college student (if I'm not mistaken) out of New York. That's right! A young New Yorker entered into a contest and won, and just like that his TV show was on the air in 2001.
Okay, so it wasn't that easy. He still had to produce a pilot, for example:
Nevertheless, Mr. Williams got his tuccus in gear and swung a TV show at the age of 19. That, my friends, is a young creator's wet dream. And what's more, the guy clearly had talent. You hear most of those voices? Namely those of Nitz, Cal, Rocko, and Gimpy? And you notice how, as the protagonists, they are going to be heard a lot, and therefore need to sound different? Yeah. Williams does the voices for all four of them. So we have art, we have voice-work, and since the actual plot revolves around Williams' actual experiences in college, we have writing as well. Basically, the dude [i]is[/i] the show, and that's just really cool.
There are two other things, at this point, that are worth my noting. First of all, again, the show aired in 2001. This is when I, myself, was just getting ready to go to college - I graduated in '02. As one might imagine, any show about college had a solid shot of resonating with me and my buddies; especially as my buddies fit very well within the concept of a "click" (actually spelled clique, in the real world!) that the show revolves around. The series touches upon relevant (if sometimes cliched) experiences of a college freshman, like the college bookstore; the meal plan; the dorm life; and the dozens of clubs and organizations that lure newbies in and devour their souls - err, time. Most importantly, however, is that it deals with how these four friends manage to stick together, despite their numbers being spread out over three different schools.
Second of all, you'll notice how the pilot is gritty. I don't just mean the admittedly amateur (though still pretty decent) art style - pilots are usually quite below the polish of a professionally produced episode! I'm referring to how the jokes come at a viewer harder, there are plenty of sexual innuendos, and there don't seem to be any practical limits on the character direction or topics of discussion. Kimmy, for example, is being sketched out by Nitz in what we'll politely call a compromising position.
So with an edgy show to follow up to the legacy of Beavis and Butthead, as well as Daria, how could UnderGRADS - seizing upon my very Adult-Swim-Ready generation - possibly fail?
Intentionally Hobbling Your Product is Bad Business
There are plenty of reasons why television shows fail. Sometimes the show itself is terrible, or not what is promised. This was MTV's first blunder. The show itself was thirteen half-hour-episodes long. Most of them were strictly episodic: The characters had clear-cut problems, solutions, and resolutions. For many of them, you could have aired them out of order as the outcome of the first episode didn't dictate very much toward the second. Continuity is, as pointed out by the character Brodie in the episode "New Friends," sort of important. Of course, Brodie was also a jerk.
More importantly, however, MTV tried to present a sanitized, non-offensive version of the college experience in a medium which had already evolved to such a level that we fans were expecting - craving! - controversy. For instance, take the character of Stoner Dave. His name makes obvious what he does - he smokes bud. And in the first episode, we see him and his friends surrounded by a cloud of smoke, playing Frisbee with feeble yet hilarious results, and craving cheese. The man is a pot-head. So why is this the only episode where he is obviously a pot-head? Because MTV management had already suffered the wrath of irresponsible parents who let their children watch Beavis and Butthead and, subsequently, burn down their house. My best guess is that they were afraid some kid would watch the show then pick up a joint.
I went to college. I did stupid things. Nothing [i]too[/i] crazy, and only one near-death experience, but I saw plenty of others do stupid shit as well. And the fact is that there was another TV show displaying far, far edgier content than UnderGRADS ever did. That show was called South Park. They got away with being more controversial, simply enough, by airing at a later time slot.
Unfortunately, if recollection serves, MTV Executives put UnderGRADS (sanitized as it was) up against South Park. South Park already had a following (it premiered in 1997), meaning that the new show in the time-slot had to out-punch South Park to gain viewers. Even though South Park had yet to really coalesce into a series which took on and dominated serious issues, it was just too well established. Once UnderGRADS was watered down, it had no chance. It was up against one of the defining avenues of social commentary of our day.
The Fate of UnderGRADS
As I mentioned, there's still a fairly strong movement to see the show resurrected. Oh, look, here's another one! While Pete Williams, Josh Cagan, and other forces who were behind the show continue to work with production companies on acquiring the rights to the intellectual property (still held by MTV, if I'm not mistaken), there's been talk from the fans of coming up with Kickstarter or IndieGoGo Campaigns to raise money to buy it. One fan in particular is accepting clips from UnderGRADS fans to form into a large montage of "We Want UnderGRADS Back!"
Will it be successful? The show is ten years old, but the creators still have a passion for it. That's a major key. The fact that the voice and acting talent remains interested is essential - you won't get a Nitz who sounds like a bassoon, that's for sure! There is still fan interest, and apparently at a recent convention in Calgary it was discovered exactly how potent that fan base was.
The biggest hook is in securing at the very least a framework for transferring the rights. MTV owns them and it will not part with them for free. On the other hand, chances are it's just a legal right that it is sitting on, making very little money from, and it might accept some form of down payment plus revenue sharing just to be rid of it. That's more for the show's creators and their legal eagles to deal with. Decode Entertainment, now DHX Media, still prominently features Undergrads as part of it's catalog. Teletoon had, in the past at least, offered to put up funding for a second season provided a second major production company would be involved. Once the property rights issue as secured, exploring such production becomes possible - even if the fans have to put in some money and try to convince Teletoon to go it alone. Alternative forms of production have been suggested; comic books, flash animations, and even audio dramas.
For now, though, the most pressing task for us fans has to be trying to rebuild a fan-base somehow. The show is old, and there's no guarantee there will ever be a season two. The show was watered down, especially when compared to today's Adult Swim programming like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. For a show that's supposed to talk about real-life experiences of college students, it might be way too tame in its current form. That conjures up a catch-22: It needs to be edgier to win the fans needed to compel the production of new episodes, but until new production starts we're left with relative weakness. That's bad news bears.
On the other hand, the Season One DVD can be found for pretty cheap, or on Youtube. Viewing parties, where a veteran fan invites his friends over for a drink (or more, if they're like Stoner Dave) and a few episodes of the show, could help ensure that at least some people are still talking about it. The Facebook community I linked to is a strong one and is active. The show is still aired regularly in Canada, and while that doesn't help any of us Yanks, hey; it means there -is- still growth taking place.
The real bottom line is that it's possible, and the creators and fans certainly haven't given up the fight. So here's hoping for some success! Both for them, and for this brand new column!
Jesse Pohlman is a fiction/current-events/promotional writer from Long Island, New York. His latest novel is Physics Incarnate, is available in paperback or on Amazon's Kindle E-Reader. It is about Emmett Eisenberg, a professor of physics at the fictitious (Undergrads Inside Joke!) Catskill Community College; Emmett has a dark history to say the least, and it's coming back to bite him! Give it a shot today!
Monday, August 13, 2012
New Infographic! "Parts of Speech!"
I whipped this up, today. Check it out and spread it around! It's not super-fancy but hopefully it'll help some folks out.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Why I Love Arrested Development; as a Writer, and a Fan!
I'm gonna cut to the chase; I'm not much of a comedy writer. Oh, I can throw out some funny characters from time to time, but situations which are funny are hard for me to figure out. Even some of the best situation comedies (that's what "SITCOM" means; it isn't a U.S. Military Command based around sitting!) seem droll to me at times. My girlfriend, for instance, introduced me to "Friends."
It was good, don't get me wrong; but so many of the characters (Ross fucking Gellar) made me want to throw my TV set.
So that's why I'm so impressed with Arrested Development; and so stunned, happily, that the folks at Netflix are finally making a fourth season.
Making Every Character Count
The truth is that I didn't even watch Arrested Development until a year and change ago. Now I've watched the three seasons of it about three times. Not bad for a show that stopped running in 2006. Also not bad; it won an award from IGN in 2011 for being the funniest show ever. Yep; it beat out I Love Lucy, The Simpsons, and even one of my favorites, South Park. And yet it was relatively short-lived?
See, here's the thing - Arrested Development works because each of its characters are funny, easy to relate to, and - most of all - has a place. Even my least favorite characters (Tobias, I hate you so much!) have qualities which make the viewer know exactly how to feel about them. You're supposed to hate Tobias. You're supposed to hate Buster. You're supposed to hate Lucille Bluth! And, while the show clues you in on the fact that they aren't the ones you're supposed to relate to, they don't beat you upside the head with reasons to hate them as told by the characters to the viewer.
They simply are hate-worthy!
As it stands, the characters you are supposed to sympathize with are in fact sympathetic. And as a result, you laugh at it all! You laugh at their suffering because the show does a great job of blending the consequences of the real world with, well, the consequences of being able to get away with shenanigans.
Arrested Development from a Writer's Perspective
Comedy writing for a television program is all about knowing how to get piece A, piece B, and the set to interact in such a way as to make the viewer laugh. If the viewer doesn't give a damn about the characters, then there's no reason to laugh. If the viewer wants a character to suffer, chances are it's not that kind of laughter the writer is going for. Most of all, if a viewer is too in love with a character to bear them suffering, it's not a frikking comedy.
Arrested Development relies a lot of referential humor, both to the goings-on of the world (such as the Iraqi plot), and to the characters' history (Barry Zuckercorn, for example; brilliantly played by Henry Winkler, AKA The Fonz). When the viewer recognizes that something is going to go horribly wrong based on an obvious precedent - Lucille causing in-fighting between her children, for instance - it's funny because the characters don't realize until that split second when they can go, "oh, not again," and everyone watching can laugh.
In a show with no long-term consequences (being in jail is frequently just a laughable punishment in this world), where the police act in ludicrous manners (Richard Belzar's portrayal of "Professor Munch," a spoof on his Law And Order SVU Character), and where unemployment is more of an annoyance than a death sentence reminds me of a happier time when "get a job" was a joke, not an impossibility.
See, that was me trying to be both serious and funny. And I probably failed! Why wouldn't I; simply put, comedy writing isn't my thing, and it's an art which the folks at Arrested Development had damn near perfected. They even knew enough to recognize that their show was suffering from serious weaknesses in its production. A weekly show, the narrator (playing himself as a director) Ron Howard stated, just wasn't going to work - but a movie?
That was the plan!
And now, oh-so-happily, Netflix is going to produce a bunch of episodes in the true fashion of a resurrected TV show. With Mitchell Hurwitz returning to write, and with Jason Bateman and Michael Cera returning to act, anything is possible as long as the plot is constructed in such a way as to make viewers completely buy into the show once more.
Season Four of Arrested Development - In Development!
The show did, in general, come to an end. The plot, in effected, ended. Moreover, it ended half a decade ago. How are the writer's gonna catch the Bluths up to the modern day? They were facing arrest and, moreover, wealthy folks living in the Pre-Great "Recession"-Era. The marriage between Tobias and Lindsay was fucking doomed no matter how many times they puffed it up. The hardest thing for me to believe is that they would still be together. Without that dynamic, where would Tobias fit in?
What will the cinematography be like? The handheld camera is a hard tool to film with, and Arrested Development did that perfectly. The narration was amazing, but does Ron Howard still have it? Well, I have faith! If any show can come back and one-up Family Guy as the most successful "reborn" show out there, it's Arrested Development. It's funnier, at any rate!
Then again, I've had faith in two other TV Shows getting renewed; underGRADS and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Both have rabid fan communities; the underGRADS one can be found here; the Sarah Connor Chronicles one here. Will they be successful? There are different issues with both shows. But if Arrested Development is (finally) coming back, maybe they'll be successful, too!
Y'never know; I do have some openings in my schedule...
It was good, don't get me wrong; but so many of the characters (Ross fucking Gellar) made me want to throw my TV set.
So that's why I'm so impressed with Arrested Development; and so stunned, happily, that the folks at Netflix are finally making a fourth season.
Making Every Character Count
The truth is that I didn't even watch Arrested Development until a year and change ago. Now I've watched the three seasons of it about three times. Not bad for a show that stopped running in 2006. Also not bad; it won an award from IGN in 2011 for being the funniest show ever. Yep; it beat out I Love Lucy, The Simpsons, and even one of my favorites, South Park. And yet it was relatively short-lived?
See, here's the thing - Arrested Development works because each of its characters are funny, easy to relate to, and - most of all - has a place. Even my least favorite characters (Tobias, I hate you so much!) have qualities which make the viewer know exactly how to feel about them. You're supposed to hate Tobias. You're supposed to hate Buster. You're supposed to hate Lucille Bluth! And, while the show clues you in on the fact that they aren't the ones you're supposed to relate to, they don't beat you upside the head with reasons to hate them as told by the characters to the viewer.
They simply are hate-worthy!
As it stands, the characters you are supposed to sympathize with are in fact sympathetic. And as a result, you laugh at it all! You laugh at their suffering because the show does a great job of blending the consequences of the real world with, well, the consequences of being able to get away with shenanigans.
Arrested Development from a Writer's Perspective
Comedy writing for a television program is all about knowing how to get piece A, piece B, and the set to interact in such a way as to make the viewer laugh. If the viewer doesn't give a damn about the characters, then there's no reason to laugh. If the viewer wants a character to suffer, chances are it's not that kind of laughter the writer is going for. Most of all, if a viewer is too in love with a character to bear them suffering, it's not a frikking comedy.
Arrested Development relies a lot of referential humor, both to the goings-on of the world (such as the Iraqi plot), and to the characters' history (Barry Zuckercorn, for example; brilliantly played by Henry Winkler, AKA The Fonz). When the viewer recognizes that something is going to go horribly wrong based on an obvious precedent - Lucille causing in-fighting between her children, for instance - it's funny because the characters don't realize until that split second when they can go, "oh, not again," and everyone watching can laugh.
In a show with no long-term consequences (being in jail is frequently just a laughable punishment in this world), where the police act in ludicrous manners (Richard Belzar's portrayal of "Professor Munch," a spoof on his Law And Order SVU Character), and where unemployment is more of an annoyance than a death sentence reminds me of a happier time when "get a job" was a joke, not an impossibility.
See, that was me trying to be both serious and funny. And I probably failed! Why wouldn't I; simply put, comedy writing isn't my thing, and it's an art which the folks at Arrested Development had damn near perfected. They even knew enough to recognize that their show was suffering from serious weaknesses in its production. A weekly show, the narrator (playing himself as a director) Ron Howard stated, just wasn't going to work - but a movie?
That was the plan!
And now, oh-so-happily, Netflix is going to produce a bunch of episodes in the true fashion of a resurrected TV show. With Mitchell Hurwitz returning to write, and with Jason Bateman and Michael Cera returning to act, anything is possible as long as the plot is constructed in such a way as to make viewers completely buy into the show once more.
Season Four of Arrested Development - In Development!
The show did, in general, come to an end. The plot, in effected, ended. Moreover, it ended half a decade ago. How are the writer's gonna catch the Bluths up to the modern day? They were facing arrest and, moreover, wealthy folks living in the Pre-Great "Recession"-Era. The marriage between Tobias and Lindsay was fucking doomed no matter how many times they puffed it up. The hardest thing for me to believe is that they would still be together. Without that dynamic, where would Tobias fit in?
What will the cinematography be like? The handheld camera is a hard tool to film with, and Arrested Development did that perfectly. The narration was amazing, but does Ron Howard still have it? Well, I have faith! If any show can come back and one-up Family Guy as the most successful "reborn" show out there, it's Arrested Development. It's funnier, at any rate!
Then again, I've had faith in two other TV Shows getting renewed; underGRADS and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Both have rabid fan communities; the underGRADS one can be found here; the Sarah Connor Chronicles one here. Will they be successful? There are different issues with both shows. But if Arrested Development is (finally) coming back, maybe they'll be successful, too!
Y'never know; I do have some openings in my schedule...
Monday, February 20, 2012
My literary goals for mid 2012
Howdy!
So, part of being a writer is having a plan on what you're gonna write. This is my general assessment of my ideas in my head - enjoy 'em!
Promoting Physics Incarnate
First things first, ya can't ignore what you have. You have to promote, almost relentlessly, the things you've put out. The latest novel of mine is Physics Incarnate, as my regular readers know, soooo hey! Promoting it is fun!
Jesse Pohlman's next production: Protostar!
So, for National Novel Writing Month this year, I created a space-opera called Protostar. I don't want to spoil too much of it, because it isn't released and I have one publisher in mind to contact, but I'll give you a small taste of what might become "promotional" material.
Why am I so focused on this, right now? For a few reasons...
- Its written differently; its designed for serialization, meaning its set in short chunks to be distributed once a day instead of as a whole novel.
- I'm on some of the very last chunks.
- If my search for a publisher fails, I will distribute it through my website until the novel is fully put out; it will have advertisements in that case, google as well as for my books/projects that I like. But, in that case it will be free!
- Once I'm finished, or once I'm a significant amount through at least, I'd put the book on Kindle for something like 99 cents.
Next Novels
There's really two I'm working on besides Protostar. The first is, yes, Pillars of the Kingdom, Volume Three. Right now I'm just structuring things for the final show-downs with the Apostles. Yep, the Pillars vs Valin and his crew. It will be an incredible display of awesome action.
Then, I'm actually working on an Epic Poem. Which is going to be, well, Epic. But, its in the earliest phases of plot-planning so I can't really talk about it.
Political Writing
Somewhere in the future I really want to write two books on politics/futurism. The first is gonna be my (not-at-all) scientific blueprint for how to improve the world at large, similar to the "Call to America" articles I've written for Liberty Free Media.
The second is going to involve me opening up a college textbook I have on Modern Logic, and taking Sentence Logic (primarily; its the most simplified form) and applying it to Politics. :)
Anyway, that's the update!
So, part of being a writer is having a plan on what you're gonna write. This is my general assessment of my ideas in my head - enjoy 'em!
Promoting Physics Incarnate
First things first, ya can't ignore what you have. You have to promote, almost relentlessly, the things you've put out. The latest novel of mine is Physics Incarnate, as my regular readers know, soooo hey! Promoting it is fun!
Jesse Pohlman's next production: Protostar!
So, for National Novel Writing Month this year, I created a space-opera called Protostar. I don't want to spoil too much of it, because it isn't released and I have one publisher in mind to contact, but I'll give you a small taste of what might become "promotional" material.
Lahira Ocean is the Chief Navigator of the George Washington, one of only four Alexander-class battleships in Humanity's space-fleet. Her vessel is called upon to help oversee a "Condition: Genesis" mission; first contact with an alien race. While exceedingly rare, these missions have never been catastrophic in nature - the Aquarians were friendly; the Firions were cordial; even the cybernetic Automatons, who overthrew their organic masters eons ago, were willing to live-and-let-live.
With past results not being a promise of future outcomes, the George Washington quickly finds itself on the front line of Humanity's war against a new species; they are called "The Orphans" due to their overwhelming search to discover the nature of their creator.
What mysteries do these alien races hold? Will Humanity survive this new antagonist? And, most of all, how will Lahira fare when desperate times call for desperate measures, and she is made the Captain of Humanity's newest Cruiser-class vessel, the Messenger?
Why am I so focused on this, right now? For a few reasons...
- Its written differently; its designed for serialization, meaning its set in short chunks to be distributed once a day instead of as a whole novel.
- I'm on some of the very last chunks.
- If my search for a publisher fails, I will distribute it through my website until the novel is fully put out; it will have advertisements in that case, google as well as for my books/projects that I like. But, in that case it will be free!
- Once I'm finished, or once I'm a significant amount through at least, I'd put the book on Kindle for something like 99 cents.
Next Novels
There's really two I'm working on besides Protostar. The first is, yes, Pillars of the Kingdom, Volume Three. Right now I'm just structuring things for the final show-downs with the Apostles. Yep, the Pillars vs Valin and his crew. It will be an incredible display of awesome action.
Then, I'm actually working on an Epic Poem. Which is going to be, well, Epic. But, its in the earliest phases of plot-planning so I can't really talk about it.
Political Writing
Somewhere in the future I really want to write two books on politics/futurism. The first is gonna be my (not-at-all) scientific blueprint for how to improve the world at large, similar to the "Call to America" articles I've written for Liberty Free Media.
The second is going to involve me opening up a college textbook I have on Modern Logic, and taking Sentence Logic (primarily; its the most simplified form) and applying it to Politics. :)
Anyway, that's the update!
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