The Avengers Characters

Yes, I was one of the $600M+ ticket sales who went and saw The Avengers last weekend.  It was a great movie.  The CGI was so amazing and seamless, it almost seemed realistic.

BUT, so I don't ruin the movie for those who have not seen it yet, I wanted to discuss the characterization that was apparent in the movie.  I'll mention a few key scenes, but I'm mostly interested in how the characters act and interact.  (And I'm sure those of who are comic afficianados will tell me how wrong I am, and that's okay, but this is my impression from the movie.)

Main Characters: Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor.

Villain: Loki (brother of Thor)

Black Widow: Not as fully developed, perhaps because she hasn't had her own introductory movie.  Basically a bad girl turned good.  "Saved" by Hawkeye.  Great marital arts-type moves, and loves her handguns.

Hawkeye: Also not as developed, but is "brainwashed" onto the bad side at the beginning.  Wicked-awesome bow and arrows with deadly accurate aim, even over hundreds of yards.  Pretty cool because usually we see guns or swords, but I think it takes even greater skill to be so accurate with a bow and arrows.  And his arrows can have special "abilities" attached to them.

Hulk:  Anger issues (obviously).  The doctor has become a pacifist, essentially, in order to prevent himself from changing into the Hulk.  Most of the other characters are nervous and wonder how he contains himself and keeps himself from getting angry.  At the end he reveals his secret: he's always angry.  Leaves much for the viewer to figure out about him.  The doctor is so afraid of changing because he is a destroyer when he is the Hulk.

Captain America:  Trained and acts as a soldier.  Super strong, and has an indestructible shield.  Feeling exceptionally misplaced until this mission because he "died" in the '40s, and was revived today.  Takes the role as the "leader" in assigning roles.

Iron Man:  In his own words, "A genius, billionaire, ladies' man philanthropist."  Arrogant, but lovable.  (Probably my favorite character because of his personality.)  Probably the reason we still love and accept him although he is SO arrogant is because he actually has a valid reason to be arrogant.  He really is better than other people in many ways.  The other reason is because he is impeccably honest...and can afford to be so.  And ultimately, he wants to help the innocent -- and beat up the not-so-innocent.  He even takes on a slight mentoring role, though it is not the traditional manifestation of such a role, but would we expect less?  Uses technology in his suit as his weapons.

Thor:  A demigod from another planet: Asgaard.  As his description implies, exceptionally strong and nearly indestructible.  His main pursuit is justice.  Not quite arrogant, but definitely confident.  Uses his signature hammer to fly, destroy, and summon lightning.

Loki:  Thor's adoptive brother bent on exacting revenge on his brother for his father's lies.  He determines to destroy the planet Thor loves regardless of cost or consequence.  Of course, evil, but manipulative as well.  He tries to get all the heroes to destroy each other for him.  Arrogant, and thinks he deserves to be worshipped by everyone.  (Teaser:  A great scene toward the end of what the Hulk thinks about that idea.  Classic.)

So, now that you know a little bit about all the personalities of the characters, I want to describe two major scenes where these personalities interact so beautifully.  First of all, about the middle of the movie, Iron Man and Captain America capture Loki (don't worry -- it's all part of the plan).  As they are taking him back to their base, Thor comes down from Asgaard and kidnaps Loki away in order to return him to Asgaard to stand trial for his crimes.  Of course, Captain America and Iron Man are not too happy about that.  Iron Man reaches Thor first and starts fighting with him.  Basically it turns into a show of power, a "little boys' peeing contest," if you will.  Captain America has to step between them to stop their fighting, especially since they completely forgot about Loki in their pursuit of one-up-manship.  It's the basic school grounds fight.

Why I think this is a great scene is because it is the first time the heroes have to interact, and they do a terrible job at it.  They are so intent on proving their superiority to everyone else, they completely forget about what their actual job is.  And of course, everything around them gets destroyed in fantastic ways.

The second scene is the final battle scene.  I love this scene more than just for the sheer awesomeness of it, though that is definitely a part of it.  In this scene, the heroes have learned how to work together, but they also each use their particular skills and abilities in different ways.  It is the epitome of utilizing each member's strengths.

Iron Man is given the task of flying through the air and fighting the invaders that are up there.  Hawkeye is supposed to sit on top of the building and call out patterns and formations.  With his "hawkeyes," he is to be the reconnaissance resource.  He is literally the eyes for the rest of the team.  Captain America calls out each team member's assignment, like the perfect "captain-soldier" that he is.  And the Hulk's role is simple:  "Hulk, smash," to which the Hulk grins widely and takes off on his assignment.  Thor, Black Widow, and Captain America stay on the ground to fight the invaders and protect the citizens, although as the battle progresses, they adapt to the needs of the battle.

Now, this is an awesome movie, but there is another reason why I am writing about this on a writing blog.  I think the writers/creators did an amazing job at characterizing the main characters and staying true to their characters.  The story develops, and the characters kind of develop.  But it's not like a lot of movies wherein the characters grow and change.  Instead, the characters' personalities are established, but they don't change.  Rather, the characters learn how to work together while still maintaining their personalities.  And what I think is so amazing is that I think it would be exceptionally difficult to pull that off and still make the characters believable.  And they are definitely believable.

One aspect that I was astounded that they could pull off believably is how the characters interact.  Each hero is definitely an alpha personality.  This is exhibited quite obviously in the first scene I described above.  They all have problems with authority, and therefore their personalities would not work well with a leader over them all; they all want to be the leader.  As they learn to work together, what I think is amazing is that no clear leader ever really emerges.  It's as though they share the leadership role with each of the heroes covering a different aspect of the necessary story that must develop.

Although Captain America is the one who is calling out the orders at the end, it doesn't feel like he is particularly "in charge;" instead it just feels like he is trying to help organize all the others into a productive formation.  And I reiterate, I think part of why this works the way it does is because Captain America basically tells everyone to do what they are really good at.  It's almost as though he is simply reminding them of their skills and abilities.

So, after this super long post today...what does this all boil down to?  First of all, The Avengers is an awesome movie that, especially if you like action flicks, it is a definite Must-See.  Secondly, a huge KUDOS to the writers who took on the exceptionally difficult task of putting all these different characters together and keeping true to those personalities throughout the entire movie while still making the story work believably.  I could only hope to be so talented...

Why do we care about grammar?

Today's post is informative as well as asks for group participation.  I have been asked to give a basic grammar presentation for a writing conference.  But they are worried about people actually attending the presentation, so they asked me to make it more "interesting" and "exciting" than "Grammar 101."

My initial thoughts are something along the lines of "You've written the killer story with amazing characters in a beautiful world, but no one seems to catch your vision.  Is it because they cannot understand your vision?"

But what do you think? How do we make grammar more exciting?  It's a necessary part of the writing process (some would say necessary evil).  And I frequently tell my students that the reason we learn the rules of grammar is so that we can effectively break them.  And the key word there is "effectively," certainly not "randomly."

Grammar is all about creating meaning.  We do not need "grammar" per se when we speak because our voices carry our meaning for us.  (For a HILARIOUS discussion of this concept, watch Victor Borge's Phonetic Punctuation.)  But when we write, we have to find some way to make our reader think the same way we do, and the way we do that is through grammar.

We've all had that experience - you spend a lot of time and thought on an email, and just when it's perfect, you click on that little send button, and inevitably, a reply comes back within a few hours or maybe a day or two.  Your recipient is angry, insulted, confused, or otherwise not interpreting what you wrote the way you meant it.  And you are left wondering what went wrong as you furiously type an apology for the miscommunication and frantically try to think of another way of explaining what you meant.

No, we are not going to make every single thing we say perfectly understandable, but that is what we strive for.  And grammar helps us do that.  There are certain concepts we were taught explicitly as we were growing up, but most of them were internalized.  As readers, we completely understand grammar.  For example, we all know that when we are reading a conversation between two characters and a new paragraph is started, that means the second character just started speaking.  It is a visual clue we have learned to recognize and understand as readers.  But understanding grammar as a reader is very different from understanding grammar as a writer.

As a writer, you have to know that every time your speaker shifts in a story, you better start a new paragraph or your reader will be completely confused about what is going on.  And there are countless internalized examples like this.  Your job as a writer is to learn how to express outwardly the internalized knowledge.

Most of us have probably also had the experience (teachers and editors more than others) where someone has said, "Read this and tell me what you think" (in some form or another), but when you sit down to read it, you don't even know what to say because you have no idea what he/she is trying to tell you.

So grammar is not your enemy; instead it should be a very close, a very dear friend.  It is what helps you tell your reader about this amazing idea you have.  It is what guides your reader along the path of your story.  When you have a strong sense of grammar, it is what gets your story noticed.  It is that funny thing that when used most powerfully, it is the most subtle.  No one says, "Oh, such-and-such author has such great grammar."  But it is easy to say, "Such-and-such author has terrible grammar."  And then the complaints usually continue from there: "I'm so distracted by all the grammar mistakes, I can't even read the story..."

And while we're at it, let's be realistic.  Life seems to get busier and busier for each of us.  Why wouldn't agents and editors be the same?  They don't have the time to waste to correct the mistakes authors should be fixing themselves.  It is much easier and less time-consuming to take a 7/10 storyline with awesome grammar and make it a 9/10 story, than it is to take a 10/10 storyline with terrible grammar and make it presentable.  So, which story will an editor choose?  The first one.

So if you really want to sell your book, edit it.  Or if you don't have the skills to edit yourself, pay someone else to do it.  It will really be worth it in the long run.

But how do you encapsulate all those ideas into a tiny, nutshell paragraph that would make someone want to take a class on it?

Multiple Projects at Once

I think I've said before that I am the atypical writer. I don't have a proliferation of ideas floating around in my head.  Mostly the only ideas I feel are worth exploring intensively are occasional dreams that I have. So that usually means I work on one thing at a time.

Supposedly though, most writers are working on several projects at a time. I never understood how they could do that because I want to make something just right before I move on. But I had a good friend who enlightened me.

I've been working on my historical romance for a long time. Most recently I've been trying to re-write and revise different parts of it. But my friend, Jayrod (http://the1stog.blogspot.com/), helped me realize that I've been working on this so long (years) that my skills and abilities have drastically increased since I started the project. It's not that I can't make my novel perfect, because I certainly can, but it will actually take more work to polish and improve what I wrote before than it would to just start something new from scratch.

Another aspect of the revision I realized myself was that it takes me a lot of focus and concentration to revise how I want to, not to mention the time involved. I've been so worried about taking care of my family and creating lesson plans for this year of teaching that it's been hard to give the attention my revision needs.

Long story short, Jayrod convinced me to start a new novel. Mostly I just need a little break. (I'll come back to the other one in the summer when I can focus on it better.)  So I just started a paranormal romance - at least that's the best genre description I could come up with for it.  And I'm really excited about it. Jayrod also helped me talk out some ideas and possibilities for the storyline...and it's going to be AWESOME. It centers around an evil necklace. Intrigued? I'll keep you posted.

Book Covers are Crucial

I've always heard that a good book cover design is crucial to a successful novel. It should be carefully crafted to relate to the story, but not give away all your secrets. And of course, it must be eye-catching. I always knew that the cover was important, but I didn't realize how important until recently.

I have a four-year-old who loves to read, but he cannot read alone yet. However, he really likes to go to the library and pick out some of his own books. I take him to the library, he grabs a basket, we walk over to the children's section, I plop down on a bench, and he starts looking for books. This usually involves him finding a small section and shelf and stopping there.

He can't read the titles, so his only criteria for picking a book is looking at the cover. He doesn't even open it up to look at the pictures inside. He pulls a book off the shelf, looks at it, and sets it in his basket. He continues to do this, pulling from the same location until I tell him he has enough books. Our last trip took us 20 minutes total, including driving time.

For him, if it has an interesting cover, it will be an interesting book.

Now, as we get older, we certainly look at other criteria, such as recommendations, the teaser on the back cover, or a favorite author. But much of this early fascination with the cover lingers. If it didn't, why would we have an entire industry of professionals working to make a book cover perfect?

So pay attention next time you choose a book to read. How much credence do you give simply to what it looks like, regardless of what it says? If the cover doesn't catch your eye, do you even take time to read the teaser on the back?

Movies as Literature

I watched a movie last night that I thought was fantastic. It was called Equilibrium with Christian Bale. Not only was the storyline great, but the presentation was fantastic as well.
This was a movie I was introduced to in my Utopian/dystopian literature class over the summer. It is a futuristic dystopian that has created peace by drugging everyone to eliminate emotion. Bale is the main character who is basically secret police seeking out those who are "feeling" by refusing to take their serum each day. One morning, he accidentally breaks his last vial, and before he can get a replacement, he starts to feel emotion. From that point forward, he decides he would rather not take the serum, and instead tries to help the Underground.

Although a movie, it was presented very symbolically like literature. The most obvious symbol was a play on black/white symbolism. The "bad guys" were always in black, and when Bale becomes the "good guy," he wears white. 

Not only is black and white utilized, but basic intensity of color is used. I assume they probably used filters on their cameras, but the effect is that when there is a lack of feeling/emotion, the colors are muted (somewhat like an old photograph); when strong emotion is present, the colors are strong and intense.

Their are a lot of gun battles in the movie, but they are based around martial arts, so they are very artistic. Although there is a lot of violence, there is actually very little gore. What gore is shown in the movie is done so for effect. At one point, Bale has a small amount of blood on his shirt collar and fingers. This gore is used as he smears the blood across a TV screen showing the leader of this society.

All in all, this is a fascinating movie, both for its story and its presentation. It is rated R, but I am still trying to figure out why. There are one or two scenes with swearing, but they don't even appear until at least halfway through the movie. And as I said there is somewhat a lot of violence, but very little gore, which is what is usually associated with R-rated violence. There is no sex, nudity, or drugs either. In short, I would highly recommend this movie as entertainment and a literary presentation.

Teaching by Showing

In my academic and educational training, they spoke a lot about modeling, or "Guided Reading" and "Guided Writing." The idea behind these theories is that inexperienced readers and writers don't really know how to think through their process; they need someone to give them an example.

For instance, a Guided Reading lesson would involve the teacher reading a selected passage (perhaps a page or so long), while students follow along with an overhead or personal copy.  Periodically, the teacher will stop the reading and basically voice his/her thoughts out loud. That commentary that goes on inside our heads is spoken aurally to the students.  The idea is that as they see how an experienced reader makes connections to their reading, students will begin to have that internal dialog themselves.  Guided Writing is similar only a teacher writes/revises and voices the decisions they make as a writer.

I never disbelieved this theory, but its relevance has been made more clear to me recently.

I just recently accepted a teaching job. I am also completing my final class in my Master's program (today was the last day). Thus, my mind has been on both my final essay, and my future responsibilities. As I revised my essay, I made various changes, mostly to wording and some rearrangement of sentences. The revisions I made were primarily ones of taste, but there were still very specific reasons why I made them; they expressed a certain meaning or interpretation that wasn't as obvious with my first draft.

As I went through these, I realized how valuable it would have been for another (inexperienced) writer to be sitting next to me just to see my rationalizations. There wasn't anything technically "wrong" with my writing, but my revisions made it clearer, more concise, and stronger. Isn't that exactly what we want students to be able to do? And how can they learn it unless we who are more experienced explicitly share it with them rather than keep it inside our heads?

Thus, writing is somewhat like an apprenticeship: in order to become a master at the craft, you must learn the techniques from those who have already mastered it.

Authorial Tone

So during my musings today, I made a discovery that there is an important aspect of writing that I can recognize, but I have no idea how to produce: tone.

I will be taking a utopian/dystopian literature class in a couple of weeks and I'm reading some of the novels in preparation for it. I didn't realize how much dystopian literature I had read until addressed so directly by this class. I was reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Fascinating work.

In describing the novel to my husband, I realized that (unlike a lot of dystopian literature), Huxley was not specifically creating a dystopian society; instead he was satirizing/warning about where he thought his society was heading. The tone of the novel is somehow different.

But I can't figure out how. I can tell there is a difference, and intellectually I know that it has to do a lot with word choice, but I can't tell you what words are creating the tone. To me, it all just seems to be written matter-of-factly, a technique used often in multicultural literature to get the reader to empathize with the different culture. But there is a decidedly disapproving tone overall to the work itself.

Which thought also lead me to characterization. How does a great author make a bad (or even good) character sympathetic, or conversely, a good (or bad) character despicable?

This is something I need to study in depth to improve my own writing. But frankly I'm not even sure where to start my analysis. Not even to mention the amount of time...But I guess that's how truly great writers become great.