I Have an Evil Plan, with Zahn, Ringo, and David.

Holidays are generally not great days for my blog traffic.  This upcoming labor day, that's a good thing, because I'm going to be at DragonCon.

Yes, DragonCon, in beautiful downtown Atlanta, Georgia.  You can check out their guest list here.

I intend to enjoy myself, and unleash my evil plan.

Okay, it's not necessarily evil, but it should be interesting.

For newcomers, It Was Only On Stun! is a murder mystery at a science fiction convention. And, since I've published this bloody book mostly through my own stubborn efforts, I'm going to try selling as much as possible, and one thing that would help would be blurbs from authors, giving me positive reviews. Really positive reviews.

In short, I hope to give a copy of my book to Peter David, Timothy Zahn, and John Ringo. Why these authors?  You mean aside from the fact that they are all kick-ass writers, and popular in the science fiction community?



Peter David and John Ringo have a similar sense of humor to mine ... or I developed my sense of humor by reading them, pick one.  I find Ringo inspiring, and David usually entertaining, when he's not putting his politics into it.



Timothy Zahn is "only" an amazing author, and most likely responsible for resurrecting Star Wars as a franchise (sadly, the book franchise might be the only reason Lucas felt comfortable trying the prequel trilogy.  Bonus: Zahn has gone everywhere that Lucas has, and has outperformed the little sot.)

Right now, my major hope for the convention is that I don't have security sicced on me for trying to hand an author a novel.  Signed, of course.

On the plus side, I know Peter David has out-and-out advocated this procedure, so I can at least tell him that I'm only following his own advice. 

On the other hand, if Zahn found it creepy, he could call the 501st Imperial Stormtrooper Legion (see my Sean Ryan Trailer.).



And John Ringo ... well, he's ex-82nd airborne, and legions of his fans are military vets. I really hope he doesn't mind. And that he likes the book.

It's going to be amusing.

SFCS -- Strong Female Character Syndrome.

I believe it was Stuart West who told me in private correspondence that he appreciated how many strong female characters I have. I was a little thrown there because it took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about.

In my novels, I have Manana Shushurin, who's a spy that's more James Bond than George Smiley.  She reads, likes music, has a degree from Wittenberg university .... has no social life, and technically, lives with her mother (technically, I say, because she really lives in her office). She also has a secret that's eating a hole in her life.



I also have Maureen McGrail.  She's an Interpol detective, local Dublin cop, relentless, tenacious, and she knows about three martial arts.  She's also pining for a guy who came into her life, swept her off of her feet (just by being himself, really) and disappeared, without showing even a hint of romantic interest in her.



Then there's Wilhelmina Goldberg, who is 4'11", computer nerd, daughter of two esoteric languages nerds. She likes science fiction and fantasy, programs her computer to talk like characters out of Lord of the Rings, and has a subscription to Security magazine.



In context, I should point out that Stuart was using the strong female character comment as a segue into a completely different point, an issue he found in my writing. (Apparently, I shouldn't be putting in bust size as far as describing a female character.  I neglected to tell Stuart that if I knew anything about clothing, I would probably include men's jacket sizes to paint a clearer, more accurate picture of them, too. But I don't know any men who are the sizes I need. Me? OCD?  Nah....)



In any case, the SFC term struck me, and stuck with me.



And then there was this article, entitled I hate Strong Female Characters.  If you read through it, you might find a few points to agree with, and a few problems.



Now, I agree with the author on the initial point.  I also have problems with the SFC label. I really do, because it tends to detract from, oh, the point. In the example they used of Buffy-- she was smart, witty, with outside the box solutions to non-vampire problems (shall we start with the fertilizer bomb in the high school, or the rocket launcher?).  But "Strong" is the only descriptor one can come up with?



In my own work, I spent so much time on developing characters like Manana and Wilhelmina, their quirks and habits and hobbies, that I feel a little awkward if the best description anyone can come up with about them is just "strong."



Though you want my problem with this author?

1)  "I want good complex characters!"



.... And then, let's focus completely on Buffy, because she's the STRONG character.... and ignore Willow, who saves the day repeatedly, but is physically as strong as your average anemic? Faith, who's as physically strong as Buffy, but a broken character? How about Cordelia, who starts out a vacuous California mean girl, and becomes more interesting within the first half of season 1? Anya, who goes through a fairly strange character arc of her own?



And, while they're talking about complex characters, they boiled Buffy down to only "SFC." How about witty? Smart? Creative? The example used in the article was the end point of a two-episode arc exposing just how vulnerable Buffy really is. Yes, she's got superpowers, but she's still a teenager, with all the problems that comes with it, in addition to waging a constant war against everything that came to kill her, swallow the Earth, etc. The author managed to ignore the entire point of a two-part story!



Who demands good complex characters! and then ignores them when s/he gets them?  If this article had said that the "SFC" label shoved a character into a box and left them there, then I could agree to some degree.  But this author seems to be guilty of doing just that.



2) I want a 1:1 ratio of complex characters, male and female! 

The author prattles on about Peggy Carter of Captain America: The First Avenger, complaining that she was unbalanced and cartoonish, making a lot of assumptions.





The author mentions that Peggy Carter shooting Captain America's shield is a temper tantrum that no guy would have gotten away with. Obviously, this person never saw the 100 generic Stupid People Tricks that are on cable, and mostly male.  The author assumed that in firing, Peggy had been too stupid to not be listening to the toymaker Stark prattle on about his cool toys for however long she'd been in his general orbit. The author also assumed that no one in the entire room knew that the shield was bulletproof-- which is kind of like people in Q's lab not knowing to duck on a regular basis.



The author then insists that this "over-the-top" reaction is because she's one of two women with a speaking part, and there be more women on screen to counter stuff like this. (Which is odd, since I counted four -- which included a grandma with a tommy gun, and a SHIELD agent at the end of the film).



My real problem?  First, the author makes these above assumptions and then kvetches that they could have shoe-horned in more women. Why? Just to shoe-horn in more women. So we could have a 1:1 ratio of women in the film. Really?



Hey, maybe we could have put in more cardboard cutouts. Besides, if you really want equality, then Captain America: The First Avenger, was perfectly equal. There were only two complex characters in the whole film.  Tommy Lee Jones was playing....Tommy Lee Jones.... Zola was Mad Scientist #2 ... The Red Skull was Psycho Villain #6 ... Eskine was "Dr. Littleoldmun" from Mel Brooks' High Anxiety. And Stark was very much "Howard Hughes Carbon Copy #1."  Outside of the sidekick Bucky (Plucky Sidekick #9), are any of Captain America's team referred to by name?



In short, Carter and Rodgers were the only two characters of any substance in the film. This isn't a complaint. I'm sure they were plenty deep in character design, but there was little enough of it on the screen. Not to mention-- it's a movie. If you're Peter Jackson, you get nine hours of films for develop all of your character. If you're a Marvel film, you have, at most two hours and thirty minutes.  If you have two well-written and developed characters, you're ahead of the game.  I feel fortunate to have one, some days.



But for the 1:1 ratio this author wants?



Maybe this author would have liked more 2D characters. As she suggest, let's gender swap.... Dr. Zola?  So we can have a weak, simpering little woman be bullied by Tommy Lee Jones? Dr. Erskine? So we can have a little grandmother figure play the martyr?  Hey, we could gender swap Tommy Lee Jones, and have him played by Kathy Bates!  Why not have the Red Skull played by Angelina Jolie?



Now, a reasonable argument I got from Karina Fabian is from the point of view that, there were certainly a heck of a lot more women in the WW2 military than were seen in the film. There were secretaries, WACs, women who transported planes, codebreakers, nurses, etc.  That way, we could have had a lot of women.... but they would have been in the background, and probably would have completely boiled away this author's argument.



3) Women are at the back of the bus...um, movie poster, like Black Widow.



"Strong women are supposed to kick ass and keep their mouth shut." Really?



How about, oh, that Black Widow WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO OUTSMARTED LOKI?  IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE! GAAAHHHH!!!



How about that BLACK WIDOW WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO COULD CLOSE THE PLOT DEVICE DESTROYING NEW YORK?



How about the fact that there were maybe five deep moments in the entire film, and Black Widow was in two of them (The five moments were Stark and Banner in Lab, Stark and Rodgers reconcile, Coulson, interrogating Loki, and Black Widow and Barton, post-brainwashing....six scenes, if you count Black Widow and Bruce Banner in India, giving her half the deep moments in the film).



Oh, hey, how about Sam Jackson? Maybe we should say The Avengers was racist, because he was in the back of the poster?



I'm sorry, but unless you're Iron Man or Thor, you're in the back of this poster.



4) Where's Thor?


Seriously, where's the movie Thor in this discussion?  You know, the movie that was mostly Kat Denning and Natalie Portman handling Chris Hemsworth as he was enduring culture shock? With some occasional exposition from Mr. Skaarsgard? Portman's character, astrophysicist Jane Foster, isn't "strong," in this sense, is she? Because last time I checked, most of my female friends could break her like a toothpick. Foster is instrumental in Thor's change from prick to hero, but is she thrown on the bonfires of the blogger's vanity because she doesn't come with a complete bio and genealogy?



Or does this author consider her merely as a damsel in distress?  Which would be odd, because if you were in the New Mexico town in Thor, you were in distress, up to and including the three beefy supporting characters and the Valkyrie that (quite literally) drop down out of the sky.



Or does this not count, because the end of the movie involves the Warriors Three, Odin, and Loki? Making it three more male characters on screen than women?  Do we count Freya, who tried to stopped three assassins coming to get Odin? Or because she wasn't on screen that often, should we throw her aside?



While not physically strong, I thought Jane Foster was very well written. She was the love interest, sure, but that love motivated both of them to be better.  He was motivated to be a better person, and she was motivated to continue pursuing interstellar/inter-dimensional travel.



Am I wrong? Or, as I asked, does she just not count?



Conclusion: Equality!



As I said at the beginning, I don't like the SFC label.  If you can shove my characters into a nice neat little box, I'm going to be pissy -- either at you for demeaning my characters, or at myself for making them cardboard cutouts.



I would have liked this article more if it were less obvious. It's clearly pushing an agenda -- not about creating good characters, but numerical "equality!" for "equality's" sake. By the end, I felt like I was reading a review of 300 that insisted that there should have been 150 female Spartans at Thermopylae (this is not a joke, I did read one of those).



I honestly couldn't tell you the ratio of my characters if you dared me to.



In A Pius Man, I've got Maureen, Manana and Wilhelmina named above as main characters. Is the ratio 1:1 if I include Giovanni Figlia's wife, the forensic specialist?



Is the ratio no longer 1:1 if I count the three priests in the background?



Is it all right if I have Scott "Mossad" Murphy, who can't shoot, is pale, anemic-looking, and pair him up with the sexy gunslinger Manana?  Does that make him weak, even though he will take gunfire and is a pivotal part of the book?



Does Wilhelmina Goldberg not count if she doesn't shoot anybody, but is a key part to hunting down the bad guys by the end?



At the end of the day, the SFC label is too simple. But so is reducing "equality" to numbers of people on screen and counting lines.  If you're keeping score with 1:1 ratios, exactly what will satisfy you? I have no idea.



Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to go write a scene where Manana has to save Scott. Again.

Gun shop visit

Margot St. Aubin.

While I was in Chicago, I was offered a visit to a gun range by fellow Catholic blogger, Margot St. Aubin.  She had read the Pius trilogy thus far and could see that I wasn't exactly up on guns.



And by that I means I've never seen one off of a cop, and never held one. Welcome to New York City. Screw you, Bloomberg.



Anyway....



So, she offered me a range visit while I was in the area.



I walked in to the gun range, and explained the situation. When I said I was I New Yorker, I used the cop line from above.



Off of that visit .... well, one suggestion for writers: First of all, assume that there are no clips. They are magazines. Period. Few guns actually use clips.



Second, I didn't take any pictures because, really, I'm an idiot. Actually, I'm still not used to the concept of my phone as a tool to document every last event in my life.

Springfield, XD, 9mm. The model I used at the range

Upon my arrival, the store owner was pleasant. He went over the rules of gun safety, most of which I knew. He then went over the gun's operation, some of which I knew. I never really knew what to do with my thumbs when firing, now I know that they go over one side.



I knew about avoiding slide bite (when gripping the gun, make sure the slide doesn't take off skin between your thumb and forefinger).



Squeeze, don't pull.  I always knew this rule, just didn't really know how to apply it. Even after firing off some rounds, I'm still not 100% I do.



Don't point at anything you don't intend to shoot at / act like it's loaded all the time... again, I picked that up from many, many thrillers where guns come into play.



What I didn't know were the rules of the individual range. I knew that the slide locked back when the gun was empty, though I didn't know there was a little switch? Button? on the side that slid it back into position after it was reloaded, and automatically filling the chamber.



My stance was a simple weaver stance. Feet are diagonal, gun is cupped in both hands, elbows are not locked out ...



Basically, I learned the stance by watching Jack Bauer on 24.

I started out relatively close, only a quarter of the range, then I moved it halfway down range.  I fired 21 rounds, all but 3 landing within the 10 ring (well, I think). When one of the employees saw it, I think the word he used was "fantastic."  Or was that the hotel employee who saw me bringing it inside the hotel?  I'm not sure. There were a few compliments from complete and total strangers.



Either way, we've got photos.



Some observations.



Brass goes EVERYWHERE.  And I mean EVERYWHERE. The casing ejected over my shoulder, around my body, directly onto the floor, bouncing off the stall I was in, rolling as far as 8 feet away, easily.  I understand why not every killer polices their brass. It's hard work. And I was standing still. Imagine if it were a running shootout. Oy.

Firing a gun is a lot easier than I thought. Then again, the Springfield that I was using was very easy to operate.  It's not quite point and click, but it's close.  The grip safety is nothing. It's a button at the back of the pistol grip, just under where it meets the rest of the gun, where the webbing between thumb and index finger wrap around the gun.  From what I can tell, the hardest part was putting the bullets into the magazine. Step one, they broad flat part of the bullet goes into the narrow part of the magazine. The pointy-er bit goes towards the open end.  And after the first ten bullets, the spring inside the magazine starts to fight back.



Damn, that thing's light. As in toy gun light. The gun owner stripped the barrel off for me and let me hold the frame. The frame is comparable with a squirt gun.  The bullets will double the weight. Just over a dozen pill-sized pellets of doom will double the weight. Imagine it. It's strange.



Come to think of it, I think a super soaker, empty, is heavier than an actual gun.  Okay, it's been years since I've even seen a super soaker, but you get the idea.



I always heard that the magazine ejection button was behind the trigger, but it's actually on the side of the gun behind the trigger guard.



After firing, there was no smell that I really picked up on.  None. Seriously, none. There were three other people firing guns in that range at the same time, and I didn't really pick up on any major scent. I expected a smell akin to a fireworks display.  But, apparently, expanded cordite doesn't exist anymore. At all. So, just pretend it doesn't exist. I made reference to it in A Pius Man, but thankfully, I didn't say where the explosive came from, just that it smelled like a fireworks display.  Granted, I said it smelled like Cordite, but I might be able to bluff through if I'm called on it.



There are pink AR-15s. Really. It was strange, because I could ID it by sight, despite the pink. I may have been looking at guns too long.



It's official. Guns are not that scary. Also, I may need to rewrite some scenes in future novels.



Thanks once more to Margot for bringing me along. It was awesome.

Author Review: John Ringo, Part 3, the Thrillers. (Still, with Free Books.)

Here we go again.



As mentioned, John Ringo has written a LOT in the past decade.  He's only been writing since 1999, but he's been pumping out almost three to four books a year ever since.



However, despite the previous posts, he hasn't written only political-heavy science-fiction and fantasy novels. But, they're all published by Baen, so they're still free for download.



To start with there's this one character of his who's a navy SEAL ....

The Paladin of Shadows (series)

.... This one is odd.

Ghost --- This first book is made of a series of three vignettes, and stars one Mike Harmon, a veteran who is not a very nice person, but he does qualify as a good man. Ringo opens this book with a quote from George Orwell -- We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to do violence on our behalf.



Mr. Harmon is one such rough person.



“Ghost” is the code name of former Navy SEAL Mike Harmon. Trapped on a far-left college campus, the veteran feels isolated and discriminated against. But when he sees a co-ed being kidnapped, he charges in to save the day, only to find himself in the middle of a terrorist plot that takes him all the way to Syria, where he lands in the middle of a terrorist stronghold, and eighty hostages, all of whom are slated to die.



The second vignette... skim it. Trust me.  It's a thirty thousand word story that's twenty thousand words of bondage porn and deep-sea fishing.



Vignette three finds Harmon in Eastern Europe, and he finds himself hip deep in a plot to nuke Paris.



Kildar—Harmon, still moving through Eastern Europe, finds himself trapped in the middle of a valley during a snowstorm. He buys lodging to hold up in during the winter, but this new home comes with an interesting piece of real estate -- the entire valley.  The home also comes with a title for the owner.  The title is Kildar.



However, Harmon still has a problem.  The Valley is in the middle of a pathway for Chechen terrorists killing everyone in their way. Now, Ghost has to train the locals to stop the invaders, or else everyone is going to die.



Unfortunately for the Chechens, killing is what Ghost does best.



Choosers of the Slain: A US Senator has a problem.  The daughter of a major money donor has been disappeared into the Balkan sex slave trade.  Here's five million dollars, could Harmon and his merry band of mountain warriors do something about the matter?



And when Ghost and company discover that some of the clientele in this sex trade happen to be from Washington D.C. ... well, there's a reason I picked up certain songs from this author.



And, there's a reason that the cover looks like the movie poster for a James Bond film.



Unto the Breach.  After the incident with the slave trade, people in Washington figure that Mike "Ghost" Harmon is a great person to call upon when the situation is both dire, and politically inconvenient.



This time, a scientist has been kidnapped by terrorists.  The problem?  He's an expert in biological warfare.



And that's not even the problem.   The problem is when the terrorists follow Harmon home, back into the valley he has lived in for years. But the local people are warriors by culture, and by blood, and they've been itching for a good fight. And all Hell breaks loose.



Remember when I mentioned where I first heard Dragonforce?  This was the book.





A Deeper Blue.





Biological weapon at Disneyland, with a shootout at the Holy Rodent Empire.



I think that's all you need to know for this one. It was fun.













The Last Centurion. I'm still not sure what to make of this one. To start with, this is a non-Mike Harmon novel.  Technically, it's science fiction, but only because it's set a few years into the future.  The United States has invaded Iran, beaten it, and is still there, even though President "the Bitch" has ordered a half-asses withdrawal. This book was published in 2008, so you can guess who he means.  The world has been hit with a global pandemic, the Earth is in crisis, and American army officer "Bandit Six" is trapped in the middle of Iran, with no support, no help, and the only way out is through the hostile territories of six countries..



This is a heavily political novel.  Ringo WANTS to piss off everyone with SOMETHING in this book—he didn't piss me off, but I'm odd. It's a one-shot, and written in blog format, with all that the genre entails. It was written in early 2008, before Swine Flu, the rise of Obama, and the first 100 pages, you will NOT know what's going on... okay maybe you will, but it took me a few pages to get into this one. He shoots at Fox news, environmentalists, the army, the peaceniks ... pick someone, he shoots at them.

Music to write to: Hi ho Sliver.

Yes, today's a music blog. It will feature music from the Lone Ranger soundtrack.  Thankfully, this has  more to do with Rossini than Johnny Depp as Tonto.



Basically, this is the original William Tell overture as filtered through the mind of Hans Zimmer.



Zimmer (or as we call him in my house, simply Haaannnnnsss) can usually make almost any movie better than mediocre. Almost any.

I'm back! Action / Adventure panel at CWCL

The Catholic Writer's Conference, Live! action-adventure panel.

This will be an incomplete transcript of the entire panel, starring Declan Finn (me), Gene Wolfe, and John Desjarlais (French-Canadian pronunciation. Good luck) and Anthony Kolenc.



Now, there will be gaps here. I've forgotten most of what I've said, to heck with what anyone else said.  I'm going to ask anyone who was there to comment, and fill in the blanks. Anyone who posted to YouTube, please let me know, I'll post some here.



The moderator was the awesome and wonderful Ann Margaret Lewis.



Here we go.....



Q: Has a Saint's non-violence inspired you?



Declan Finn: Well, the closest I've ever come to that was with Thomas Aquinas. Like me, Aquinas was a nerd. He had only two real outbursts in his life.  One was when his family had hired a hooker -- a second one, because he converted the first -- only this one was more persistent in her job. Aquinas finally grabbed a burning log from the fireplace and chased her out, drawing a cross of fire into the door on her way out. I always liked that one if only for the comedy value. The second story was Aquinas at a party being held by King St. Louis. It was one of those "You've been invited. Go to the party, you'll have fun." During the party, he had a philosophical thought, rear up, and slammed the table, declaring "and that will settle the Manichees!" I've got a few characters who are also just as flakey.



Gene Wolfe: But the important part of that fight scene with the hooker -- and it was a fight scene, even if she just ran away -- was what was being defended!



JD: One of my earlier books was about a war that happened over a book. It was written back when I was still a Protestant. Who knew I was writing a Catholic novel?



Worst fight scene ever?

Declan Finn: Jack Higgins wrote a scene to the end of a family of villains who had been plaguing his heroes for books. It was a dark and stormy night, fighting on the roof.  The entire fight consisted of "They went at each other. They fought. They grappled, they rolled to the edge of the roof, and Rashid fell off."  He's been the bad guy for repeated books! I know fights are quick, but can I have a little more detail?



JD: The worst fight scene I've ever read was when a pivotal fight happened off screen, with no emotional payoff.



Q: Who can you give as an example of writing good fight scenes.

Lee Child's Jack Reacher.  Before every fight, there's a little dissertation on violence. It explains why he's targeting who he's targeting, and why he's hitting with what he's hitting.  And since Jack Reacher was 6'5" -- not Tom Cruise -- he was always being confronted by 5-7 people, and discussed group dynamics.



Ann: Do you think they stole that for the Robert Downy Jr. Sherlock Holmes films?



Well, for that, I can at least see Holmes doing it, because he's Holmes. He can play three-dimensional chess in his head.  As for stealing .... does Guy Ritchie even read? I know he was with Madonna for a while, so I wouldn't place money on it.



I also suggest James Rollins.  And for large scale battles, read Bernard Cornwell -- not John, Bernard -- who wrote the Richard Sharpe series. It was about the Napoleonic wars, and one of the few roles where Sean Bean did not die a horrible, horrible death.



[I got a few laughs there]



Q: Why do you write in your genre?

Declan Finn: Because thrillers are what people read. And I'm not going to write a romance novel.



What is your pet peeve about action scenes?



Gene Wolfe: When two guys are exchanging one-liners between punches. All of the one-liners in real life come before the punching starts. One of these days, I want someone to start a one-liner and get punched in the mouth.

[No, I don't remember what I said to that one. It's been a hard week]



Q: For science fiction and fantasy, it's easy to ignore tech or magic in order to have an exciting fight scene. (Remember how Indy shot the swordsman instead of the big scene they had planned.) How do you work around advanced tech that might make a dull fight?



Declan Finn: "I make it simple. I give all the advanced weaponry to the bad guys.  As for working around it -- the tech can be magical, but it's still run by people. People can be tricked. Confused. Or just plain stupid."

Gene mostly answered this question.  I don't remember his answer, though I want to have recalled it.  He also loved the Raiders swordfight cited above because that's very much how real fights go.





Q (from the audience): What makes a Catholic adventure?

JD: As Bilbo said in The Hobbit, "I'm going on an adventure!"  The first part of having an adventure is that you go out."

Me: I'm the simple one here. Catholic adventure? The priests aren't all Nazis. The Pope isn't evil.  There is good. There is evil. And evil must lose.



[I swear I had an "amen" at that point.]





Q (From the audience): "Have you ever had prayer, or angels, or a miracle to solve a problem? Something supernatural for a solution?"

Gene: "Yes, I did. I had one story where every time my main character would start praying, he would start to win."

Declan Finn: "Since I don't want it to be a deus ex machina, I do have a bit of a miracle in book three of my Pius trilogy, when the fecal matter hits the air impeller" [laugh].  "But it's like the old joke: A cop car goes up to a guy's house.  There's a flood coming. Get in the car. Guy says that God'll save me, God'll save my house. The next people to come by are in a boat, and they're talking to the homeowner in the second story window because that's where the water is.  Get in the boat, they say. Guy says that God'll save me, God'll save my house.  The next people to come by are in a helicopter, and the homeowner's on the roof. Guy says No, God'll save me, God'll save my house. Homeowner drowns.  When the homeowner asks, Why didn't you save me? God says 'I sent the cop, I sent the boat, I sent the helicopter, what more do you want?'  It's like that."



Then there were several great lines that I can't remember the context for......



JD: "The scene between Bilbo and Gollum in the cave is a buildup to Bilbo and Smaug later on, playing for much larger stakes. Setup, payoff."



JD: A fight has to either advance the story or the character.  You can't just have it to be there. It has to accomplish something.



[.... I hate him for that. He stole my line before I could say it. :)  Yes, I'm kidding. I love his novels Bleeder and Viper.  I should probably review then ... anyway....]

Declan Finn: "As was said by John, if it's going to bore the writer, it's going to bore the audience. I cut a scene from my novel Codename: Winterborn because there were too many fight scenes already.  But since the scene was something that had to happen for the story to move forward, and it was a navy SEAL versus some guys in the street, I boiled it down to a sentence of the aftermath, and moved on."



Gene Wolfe: "I'm glad to see that fighting men are wearing armor again. I had one of the first pieces of armor issued to the army. It was this big heavy nylon thing with lead squares, and it might as well have been made of solid metal. Anyway, during one time, this Lieutenant had come up on stage before the men, and he wore this bright green shining piece of armor with a string of grenades across the chest. It made him look like Flash Gordon. He had a truck of his new armor and he said "Is there anyone here who doesn't have armor?" I disconnected my straps, holding my armor up, and I shot up to the stage, saying "Me. I don't have armor."  And I got myself some shiny new armor, the first time it was given out to the enlisted men and not just officers.  Anyway, we made an about face, and marched out of the room, and there was my old armor, just lying there. The Lieutenant just laughed, picked up the armor, and threw it on the truck."





As I said, these are pieces and parts I recall from less than a week ago. Any help on filling in the blanks would be helpful