POP! BOOM! POW!
I love good storytelling in any medium. I may never write for TV or film, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate and even learn from writers working in those mediums.
Everything I need to know about suspense can be found in director M. Night Shyamalan's films. The TV show Lost is a study in how to keep the plot twists coming and the audience guessing. I picked up the trick of parallelism from Watchmen, one of Alan Moore's graphic novels. (NB: a great TV writer's blog is Jane Esperson's - she's written for Buffy, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and countless others)
I guess most fiction writers already know that TV and film are great sources for storytelling inspiration, but you may not be tuned into my third example, graphic novels. If you're not, you should be. They're not just for superheroes anymore, in fact they haven't been for about two decades. If you have never read or even heard of Alan Moore's Watchmen, Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Kurt Busiek's Astro City, you need to hit the bookstore (your chain stores should have ALL of these authors). There is a lot of cool stuff being done in "comics" (or "sequential art", for the pretentious) these days. Even those that still focus on the superhero tropes, like "Astro City", are doing so in ground-breaking ways. Kurt Busiek uses his superhuman characters as metaphors for everything from teenage disaffection to accepting old age to 70's malaise. These are stories with a lot less BOOM! POW! and a lot more heart and character.
Fans of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or the 'teens with special powers' genre in general) should enjoy a series I recently picked up, Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways. This is the story of a group of teens that discover that their parents are part of secretive cult of supervillains and run away from home. Of course they all have undeveloped super-powers which they will be exploring even as they evade the authorities and attempt to right their evil parents' wrongs. More importantly, they will also be navigating the treacherous terrain of relationships, teenage emotions and newfound independence. The premise of the series is killer, and the writing lives up to it. It actually impressed Joss Whedon so much that he is going to take over writing for it in the future. In the meantime, less than $25 will net you the hardcover of Volume 1, Pride and Joy, which you definitely want, since it contains 18 issues of the comic and hundreds of pages of glossy, full-color art. Superpowers as a metaphor for coming of age have never looked so good.
I know that some people worry that immersing themselves in writing that is too good will cause that author's voice to creep into their own. I find, however, that exposure to great storytelling inspires me, even in seemily unrelated ways. And if the inspiration comes in a medium other than fictional prose, it'll be that much harder to subconsciously crib from, hey?
Everything I need to know about suspense can be found in director M. Night Shyamalan's films. The TV show Lost is a study in how to keep the plot twists coming and the audience guessing. I picked up the trick of parallelism from Watchmen, one of Alan Moore's graphic novels. (NB: a great TV writer's blog is Jane Esperson's - she's written for Buffy, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and countless others)
I guess most fiction writers already know that TV and film are great sources for storytelling inspiration, but you may not be tuned into my third example, graphic novels. If you're not, you should be. They're not just for superheroes anymore, in fact they haven't been for about two decades. If you have never read or even heard of Alan Moore's Watchmen, Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Kurt Busiek's Astro City, you need to hit the bookstore (your chain stores should have ALL of these authors). There is a lot of cool stuff being done in "comics" (or "sequential art", for the pretentious) these days. Even those that still focus on the superhero tropes, like "Astro City", are doing so in ground-breaking ways. Kurt Busiek uses his superhuman characters as metaphors for everything from teenage disaffection to accepting old age to 70's malaise. These are stories with a lot less BOOM! POW! and a lot more heart and character.
Fans of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or the 'teens with special powers' genre in general) should enjoy a series I recently picked up, Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways. This is the story of a group of teens that discover that their parents are part of secretive cult of supervillains and run away from home. Of course they all have undeveloped super-powers which they will be exploring even as they evade the authorities and attempt to right their evil parents' wrongs. More importantly, they will also be navigating the treacherous terrain of relationships, teenage emotions and newfound independence. The premise of the series is killer, and the writing lives up to it. It actually impressed Joss Whedon so much that he is going to take over writing for it in the future. In the meantime, less than $25 will net you the hardcover of Volume 1, Pride and Joy, which you definitely want, since it contains 18 issues of the comic and hundreds of pages of glossy, full-color art. Superpowers as a metaphor for coming of age have never looked so good.
I know that some people worry that immersing themselves in writing that is too good will cause that author's voice to creep into their own. I find, however, that exposure to great storytelling inspires me, even in seemily unrelated ways. And if the inspiration comes in a medium other than fictional prose, it'll be that much harder to subconsciously crib from, hey?
posted by braun at 9:39 AM
4 Comments:
Oooh, I gave up all my comics when I moved to Maine, but you make me want to pick up Runaways.
Ever read Preacher? Sandman? Death the High Cost of Living? Book of Magic?
PS I agree, it's good to read good writing. And if you happen to find it creeping into your own writing, that just helps you develop your voice.
At a planning meeting last night with my fellow editors, we all agreed that life is too short to spend it on bad writing--our own or others.
So young and so jaded already...
Wyrdd: Read Sandman and Death, great stuff. Runaways is definitely worth looking into.
Sex scenes: Well, you're an editor so I guess you're stuck!
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