Getting Lost in Pan’s Labyrinth

A guest post by Megan Grey.

Pan's Labyrinth CoverI love movies of all kinds-cheesy romantic comedies, popcorn action flicks, musicals, epic war stories, you name it. But if asked which movie I think inspires me most as a writer, I’d have to say Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy drama. Of all the movies I’ve seen, this one has haunted me the most, and has inspired the most vehement “Holy CRAP, I want to write something this incredible someday” reaction after watching it.

Pan’s Labyrinth is a movie I think every writer (and particularly every fantasy writer) should watch. That being said, I must warn you that it’s rated R for a reason. There’s some pretty graphic violence in this movie. It’s no Saw, but a dude does get his face bashed in with a bottle. Repeatedly. So keep that in mind for the squeamish among you.

Pan’s Labyrinth is about a young girl named Ofelia who, along with her pregnant mother, go to live with her new stepfather, Captain Vidal, a ruthless leader in the new fascist Spain of 1944. Ofelia discovers a mysterious labyrinth on the captain’s property, and encounters a faun (who is far creepier than the jolly Narnian-type satyr usually portrayed in films and books) who tells her that she is really the princess of the underworld. He assigns her three tasks to prove her worthiness to return to her true realm. The movie moves seamlessly between the two parallel worlds of myth and reality as Ofelia attempts to both fulfill her quest and survive under the Captain’s oppressive rule.

The thing I love about this movie is that this is no Disneyfied fairy tale. Del Toro brings to the screen a fairy tale dark enough to haunt the Grimm brothers (and having read some of the original Grimm tales, I can assure you the parents in those days weren’t afraid to scare the bejesus out of their kids to keep them on the straight and narrow). And truly, a fairy tale this dark is the only kind that could provide Ofelia (and through her, the viewer) the tools to deal with the darkness of the war-torn world in which she lives. As a writer, particularly as a writer of fantasy, there is much to be learned about the art of storytelling from watching this movie.

First off, this movie is deep. The kind you can watch repeatedly, and every time catch something new, a different nuance that aids in a greater understanding of the whole. In my first attempt at writing this blog post, I got about three paragraphs into an analysis of the various layers of symbolism Del Toro employs before: 1.) I nearly bored myself to sleep. 2.) I realized there are far smarter people than I out there who have written amazing essays and even masters’ theses analyzing every nook and cranny of this film, and I have very little to add to their research.

What I do have is one of the main lessons I learned from watching this gorgeous, brilliant film that I have tried to apply to my writing ever since. It’s not groundbreaking writing advice, but it certainly makes for a good reminder on occasion, and it is this:

To bring the world of your story to life, to make it feel real and all-consuming to your reader, the use of vivid, sensory details is crucial.

From the very moment the film begins, with the haunting lullaby being hummed in the background, viewers are pulled into this dark, lush fairy tale, and Del Toro wisely never lets them go. From the moss-covered, crumbling ruins of the labyrinth, to the snap of the brutal Captain’s leather gloves to the beads of moisture clinging to the forbidden grapes on the Pale Man’s feast table, this movie is a sensory marvel. Every sound, every image, and yes, every meaningful symbol that Del Toro employs draw the view deeper and deeper into this dark world.

As writers, we have a slightly different toolbox than filmmakers. We don’t have musical scores to inform the reader just how villainous the antagonist is, and we can’t sum up the forbidding forest by showing an actual picture of the creeping vines and clawing branches (unless, of course, we’re writing graphic novels, but right now I’m speaking on behalf of writers like myself for whom drawing a decent stick figure is a challenge).

We have words. Loads of glorious words we can use to set the scene, to enhance the mood, the tone, that we’re trying to draw the reader into. Specifics are key here. You may have a scene in which two characters are talking in a car. What kind of car are they in? Are they in a beat-up old truck or a fancy new Porsche? Is the road they’re on a path winding through the mountains or a city street jammed bumper to bumper with taxis? What’s on the radio? Is it night or day? Does the air smell like wildflowers or exhaust fumes? Each choice adds up to setting the overall tone of the scene, or even story as a whole.

Description has always been difficult for me as a writer. I used to focus so intently on the character’s inner struggles and outer witty banter that I would forget to do more than a cursory description of the world around them. Pan’s Labyrinth taught me otherwise. It showed me that the ticking of a pocket watch in a villain’s gloved hand or the putrid stench of a sticky pile of massive toad innards (in one of the movie’s most memorable and gag-reflex-inducing scenes) is every bit as important to a truly brilliant story as the dialogue and character development.

When Ofelia first encounters the ancient archway leading into the labyrinth, the housekeeper Mercedes warns, “Better not go in there. You might get lost.”

The Take Home: As writers, we’d do well to follow Del Toro’s lead and use every tool possible to ensure our readers lose themselves, utterly and happily, in the labyrinth of our worlds.

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Megan Grey currently lives in Calgary, Alberta with her husband, two kids, and two yappy dogs. Her story “To Be Remembered” won the Editor’s Pick Grand Prize in a fiction contest for the Animism: The God’s Lake animated TV series and will be featured in an upcoming anthology. She has received two honorable mentions and a semi-finalist award for short stories in the Writers of the Future contest.

Indiana Jones and the Great Test of Character

Raiders of the Lost Ark CoverI have a lot of favorite movies, so when Movie Month came along I had to think long and hard about what to spend my time writing about. I was torn enough that I couldn’t narrow it down to just one post, but there was no doubt in my mind that I would have to tackle Indiana Jones, which has been a big influence on me ever since my initial forays into writing. My first published novel has an obvious connection to Jones-it tells the story of a globe-spanning archaeological chase that has the potential to turn the tide of history. The same very broad premise could apply to any of the four Jones films. Well, at least superficially, which is the whole point of this post.

There’s just something so energetic about these movies. They’re action-packed, yes, but they also have their full share of insight and philosophy. There’s a delicate balancing act going on here, and from the first time I was exposed to these films I knew I wanted to create something that tapped into the same zeitgeist.

As the series goes on, the gaps between films gets longer and longer (eventually very long), and according to George Lucas, a large reason is that he struggled to come up with MacGuffins worthy of the Indiana Jones legacy. A MacGuffin is a writerly term referring to the object of a character’s quest. It doesn’t actually matter what a MacGuffin is, because its primary purpose is to kickstart the story and motivate the characters. In other words, it’s plot fuel. In the first Indiana Jones movie, it the Ark of the Covenant. In the second movie, it’s the Sankara Stones. In the third, it’s the Holy Grail-a hard object to one-up, which is perhaps why we had to wait twenty years for the next film. Finally, the fourth (and probably final) outing sent the characters searching for eponymous Crystal Skull. The argument could be made that the best MacGuffin was the first, that Lucas was never quite able to recapture the magic.

All month, we’ve been looking at lessons to be learned from cinema. Today’s lesson, however, looks at what the first Indiana Jones movie excelled-and the others didn’t. Ironically, if the MacGuffin doesn’t really matter, it’s odd that Lucas spent so much time obsessing over them. And even after almost fifteen years of obsessing, the fourth film delivered what is almost universally regarded as the weakest one of all. So what went wrong?

The magic of Indiana Jones isn’t in the quest. Yes, there has to be a great story, but the magic is in the character-or rather, characters. The second movie relied too heavily on the plot, the third relied too heavily on the humour, and the fourth relied too heavily on… well, perhaps mysticism (or perhaps nostalgia). Certainly all four films contain these elements, but I would argue that the first movie is the only one to showcase them in proper balance, a tricky feat.

For a movie that managed to so thoroughly entangle itself in the world of its main character, it’s interesting to note that the first movie-Raiders of the Lost Ark-doesn’t even have the main character’s name in the title, as each of the sequels would (though this has been retconned on modern home-video releases). The movie was about a flawed adventurer. He was brave and cunning, but also insecure and self-deprecating. He wasn’t good with people. He was scruffy, got into a lot of fights, and had crippling fears and copious hangups. He was not idealized. These qualities are backed up not through the character’s biographical details or infodumpy expository dialogue, but through nuanced writing and an inspired performance. I may be giving the first movie too much credit, but Harrison Ford had a sparkle in his eyes back in 1981 that wasn’t present later on; I still love the other movies, but his facial expressions tended more towards exhaustion (but at least they fashion the character’s exhaustion into a plot point).

Now, I readily recognize that there are as many different kinds of authors as there are authors themselves, but I’m one of those guys who turns the spotlight on the characters more than the plot, as often as possible. You need both, but if I’m writing a scene and have to choose one over the other, seven times out of ten I’m going to look for ways to say something interesting about the character at the heart of the story. The character isn’t the guy to whom the story is happening, but rather the guy who is driving the story. The character is not an interchangeable MacGuffin. No character = no story.

If you can take away the character without seriously damaging the story, I think that’s a bad sign. In particular, if you take the Indiana Jones character out of the second and fourth films, I think those movies can still survive. The third film fares better, though still gets the balance wrong.

The Take Home: The character and the story should be so enmeshed that they cannot be separated. Test this on your own story; try outlining your work-in-progress with a different cast of characters. It’s the rare kind of test which one hopes to fail!

Coming Soon to an Internet Near You

For those of you who are alternate history fans, if you haven’t checked out the New York Times best-selling 1632 series (a/k/a Ring of Fire series) created by writer Eric Flint, you are missing something.  It currently amasses over six million words in print, with more being added on an almost monthly basis.

The first novel is titled 1632 (hence the series name), and its original edition can be downloaded from Baen Books (the publisher) for free in every common e-book format, and a couple that aren’t so common.  Check it out here.

The newest novel in the series is 1636: The Devil’s Opera by Eric Flint and David Carrico (yours truly).  It will be published in hardback edition for $25.00 and e-book edition for $9.99 in October, 2013.  I did a Fictorians post about the writing process of the novel here.

The reason for this post is to let you know that you don’t necessarily have to wait until October to read it.  Baen, of all the traditional science fiction and fantasy publishers, was the first-and for a long time was the only-publisher who embraced e-books.  Beginning well over a decade ago, every book they publish is offered in every available e-book format (including Kindle and Nook) in addition to the hard copy edition.  Every e-book that Baen has published since the very beginning was published without DRM security being loaded on it.  And once you buy an e-book from Baen, you can install any and every format of the e-book on any and every electronic device you own at any time.  Plus, they keep track of which books you have bought and you can re-download fresh copies anytime you need or desire to.

In other words, Baen has been doing the e-book thing right since way before most publishers even thought about doing e-books.

But in addition to the regular e-book edition, they offer a couple of additional options that no other publisher has provided to date that I’ve seen, and these are the things that you may want to take advantage of now.

First of all, there’s this thing called an e-ARC.  ARC, of course, is Advance Reader Copy, and prior to e-books, that was a preliminary copy of the book based on the submitted manuscript without a final edit, printed quickly on cheap paper and often with no cover art, for the purpose of sending to reviewers.  These editions are highly prized by certain collectors.  They are also highly prized by rabid fans who want to know right now what happens in the book, without waiting until the official publication date.  People have been known to pay hundreds of dollars for an ARC from a popular author.  Well, several years before he died in 2006, Jim Baen, founding publisher at Baen Books, had a crazy idea and offered an e-book ARC edition of a couple of popular forthcoming books.  As with paper ARCs, the content was lacking the final edit, but they could be had several months before the official publication date.  He pegged them at $15.00, which was two and a half to three times his then-current regular e-book prices.  As you may suspect, they sold amazingly well, and have become a part of the regular publishing cycle for many of the new novels published by Baen Book.  The e-ARC for 1636: The Devil’s Opera can be viewed and ordered here.  Just remember, if you spot a typo, this isn’t the final edited version.

The other option is this thing called bundles.  Basically, beginning about three months before the publication date, Baen offers a bundle of all the e-books that will be published in that month for a reduced rate and for a limited time.  You have to purchase the whole bundle at once, but you typically get the books for a much reduced rate over the $9.99/$8.99/$6.99 of the single e-book prices.  For example, the October 2013 Monthly Baen Bundle is priced at $18.00, and it contains five new novels and one novel that is having its mass market paperback edition released in October.  This is a significant savings over the $51.94 total single e-book pricing of the six novels.  The bundle release process is a lengthy one:  in the third month before official release, you receive the first half of each book in what is essentially the e-ARC edition; in the second month before official release, you receive the next fourth of the e-ARC edition; and in the month before official release you receive the full text of the final edited version identical to what will be in the hard copy edition.  To view and order the October 2013 bundle go here.

All things considered, I’m proud to have my first novel published by Baen Books, a truly forward-thinking traditional publisher.  And in Baen’s case, that’s not a contradiction in terms.

The Good Kind of Twist

A guest post by Tristan Brand.

The Usual Suspects CoverYou only get one chance to have your mind blown by The Usual Suspects. If you haven’t seen it, stop reading this post and go watch it immediately. I wouldn’t want to spoil that experience for anyone.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way…

The film opens with a massacre: bodies strewn about a burning boat. A mysterious figure, cloaked in shadow, executes a survivor. Later, a second survivor is questioned in in his hospital bed and screams a single name: Keysor Söze.

The details that led to that night are narrated by Roger “Verbal” Kint, played brilliantly by Kevin Spacey, who is being interrogated by the police about his role in the events leading up to the massacre. With a limp and a somewhat sniveling demeanor, Verbal’s the least impressive of the five criminals who end up in the same lock-up one day and decide to team up to rob New York’s finest taxi service, a group of corrupt cops who drive drug-dealers and smugglers around the city. Verbal spins an increasingly complicated tale of the problems the five run into while trying to fence off their stolen goods.

It turns out that the five are being manipulated by mysterious Hungarian criminal Keysor Söze, a man so cloaked in myth no one’s even sure if he exists. The detective questioning Verbal is sure that Dean Keaton, one of the five, is Keysor Söze, and indeed a good many of the events of the film lead the audience to the same conclusion.

Eventually the detective ends the interrogation, convinced he’s figured it out, and Verbal is freed. He retrieves his possessions-a watch and a gold lighter-and leaves.

The film could end right there, and it’d still be a very good film. But instead, everything gets turned on its head. As Verbal leaves the police station, the detective stands in the room he’d been interrogating Verbal in and looks around. He starts to realize the names of people and places from Verbal’s story had come from objects around the room. Too late, he realizes the truth; Verbal had been making it all up. Verbal Kent was Keysor Söze.

I remember seeing it for the first time. It felt like the entire film had unraveled before my eyes. After the initial shock wore off, I wondered if it even made sense. But upon reflection, I realized it worked. It was like the movie was a puzzle I’d put together one way, only to see it broken apart and reconfigured in a completely different but workable fashion.

Looking back, there were clues: the Hungarian way Verbal held his cigarette, the fact that he murders a man using the gun in his right hand even though his right hand is supposed to be nearly useless due to his disability, the fact that he, alone of the five, was never shown to be arrested. And at the very end, there’s one final clue before the reveal-the gold lighter we saw the killer hold at the beginning, given back to Verbal before he leaves the station.

Instead of a sniveling con-man telling the story of a job gone sour, the move transforms into the tale of a master criminal fooling just about everyone, including the audience, and getting away scot-free.

It’s easy to write a twist ending, but hard to write a good one. The set of all unexpected things is rather large; for example, we could have had Keysor Söze turn out to be an alien. No one would have seen that coming. But directors (and authors) who throw out twist endings people see as ridiculous quickly find themselves the target of a frothing mob of angry readers. Just look what happened to Stephen King after he finished The Dark Tower.

There are two keys things that make a twist ending work. First, it has to make sense when you look back. There needs to be foreshadowing, subtle hints, little clues left about so when you go back you see things in a new light. Second, and I think most importantly, the story has to be good in its own right, before the twist. That means strong characters, dialogue, pacing. All that will only make people appreciate the twist more.

The Usual Suspects does the twist ending as well as I’ve ever seen, movie or novel. It turned it from a very good movie into one I’ll never forget. It made me think-and there’s nothing I like more than a story that makes me think about it long after it’s over.

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Tristan Brand is an aspiring fantasy author and technical writer. When he’s not obsessively checking the mail for his long-overdue invitation to wizarding school, he can be found playing StarCraft II, practicing classical piano, or reading a good book. He keeps a blog, does a web-show with his friend called “Why We Like It,” and can be found on twitter as @TristanDBrand.