Writing a love story.

I've mentioned how many different things that A Pius Man happens to be. I've mentioned how I blow up public places. That there is philosophy, shootouts, history, explosions, theology, a car chase, RPGs (not role playing games), property damage, and … hmm, there's something else there.



Oh, yeah, a love story.



It's not that strange. After all, a love story seems almost obligatory nowadays. Usually, as a motivation for senseless violence after killing off half of the couple involved. Even if it's as simple as a boy and his dog … or a boy and his robotic killing machine in Terminator 2.



I mean, hell, what makes me qualified to do a romance subplot? I mean, hell, I'm weird, maybe you've noticed. Just from the various and sundry topics on the site, I'm all over the place. I've done comic books, politics, terrorism, writing, music, book reviews, and the list keeps going. The less said about theology, the better.



But a love story?



Here's the thing. I'm in love …



Yes, with a woman … Yes, she's human …



And non-fiction …



No, she's not “from Canada”...



Though she might as well be.



It's complicated.



I met this woman online, and she didn't come onto me in any way. She saw I was a fan of J. Michael Straczynski, when she asked to be friends on Myspace. This was back when Myspace was actually good for something ...



Yes, that long ago.



We exchanged emails. We found out that we have a lot in common. We make fun of the same people. We like the same authors. We have the same sense of humor....



On the same sense of humor: we each started talking about one book that had come out – a Jim Butcher novel called Turncoat. My family had gotten the book before her local library had, and she said, “No spoilers.”



At which point, my default setting was to tease her. “So I shouldn't tell you about the love interest being the traitor, and Y-female 'comforting' our hero afterwards …? …. Which of course is impossible for me to know, because I haven't I haven't been able to read the book at all, so I know nothing.”



Her response was “Ye gods, your second paragraph had me wanting to claw my eyes out before I got to your third! Mission accomplished; you got me good.”



I think I fell a little bit in love with her that day.



Though what prompted me to first say it was when she sent me a little bit of “flair” that said “Good morning, I see the assassins have failed.”



And I had sent her the exact same flair about the exact same time.



My reply was mostly in jest: “I am certain that we are compatibly dorky and violent. I must hit on you.... “

Her response: “Hit on me? This could get scary if we're ever on the same side of the continent at the same time. But don't let that stop you. :)”

But that was as far at it went. The rest of that exchange had to deal with

the spoilers discussion from above. Every once in a while, we would mention “flirtation subtitles,” or hand signals (via email), without Skype. We would compare dating histories, then discuss Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Victor Hugo, and try to write Jim Butcher's next few books for him. We had similar jokes on sex scenes in novels – and even considered doing a similar twist on the cliché for a later novel: an idea we had developed independent of each other.

We challenge each other – I know she challenges me, and she claims the same, but she covers it so very well and so effortlessly, I wouldn't know unless she told me.



We then started shipping books back and forth for conferences she didn't get to, but I did, and vice versa. She got me into a webcomic she was following in hardcopy … then I read ahead of her by reading it online.



After two years of back and forth, we met in person at an aquarium. Nothing overdramatic, but it was pleasant. We talked of comic book characters, and sharks and Peter Benchley. When we tried footnoting the real life story Benchley stole Jaws from, we both knew it was 1916, in the New York area, but we disagreed on the shark type and the exact location. Then we found a plaque dedicated to Jaws, and discovered that I was right about the shark, she was right about the location.



Together, we can remember a whole story.



I suspect that with her, I can even pass for a whole and complete person.



Since we are on opposite ends of the universe, she has encouraged me to try dating -- if only as a trial run. She is the only woman for whom I would drag myself into the quagmire of the dating pool.



No, she is not the most beautiful woman in the universe – well, she is, but I can't say that, because she somewhat disagrees with me on the topic, and it's easier just to smile, nod, and talk about something else.



I think she's beautiful and wondrous. And she is truly the brightest star in my star ...



 Thankfully, I have a 50/50 chance of her reading this blog … so, shhh, don't tell her.



But not only is she beautiful, she's smart, and kind, and generous. She offers time she doesn't have, but by God, she will make it. I suspect if/when A Pius Man sells it will be because of her time and effort in edits. And maybe Matt's artwork.



No, it's not easy. I've hit her self-destruct buttons a few times without knowing it. In fact, once, I jabbed it repeatedly in the same few hours without realizing it. And I nearly triggered a nervous breakdown. By email alone.



We're working on our communication.



As I said, not easy. But if love were easy, I wouldn't trust it. I've had love come to me easily. Twice. Both times, it ended in the most spectacularly awful implosion.



So, it's not easy. But it's right.



That is pretty much what I hope to do in my novels...



What? You didn't think I was going to go on and on about a nameless woman just because I could, did you?



Notice how my relationship developed. Little details. Small things that add up into a very nice big picture. Our tiny jabs at Stephen King, the light teasing about Terry Prachett. Change the details if you like, but that's mostly how I like to think most romance stories should go.



Then again, if I wrote a romance novel, I suspect that my two leads would only get to an “I love you” by the end of the book. Possibly on the last page. Or when they're about to be killed.



In A Pius Man, I try to do the little things with Scott Murphy and Manana Shushurin. I have, essentially, three days of two highly-paranoid, suspicious-by-nature, spies, staying together. And, by the end of it, along the line they fall in love. It's a love that literally saves the world, possibly in the strangest ways imaginable.



But, heck, it worked for Terry Goodkind.



And, while Manana is stunning, and Scott is bland, and it works well because neither one of them care about appearances. They're spies, they know that appearances are the most deceiving thing in the universe. And their styles are so opposite to one another, they fit perfectly well.



And it's not easy. But it's right.

Assuming they survive the novel.

Writing a love story.

I've mentioned how many different things that A Pius Man happens to be. I've mentioned how I blow up public places. That there is philosophy, shootouts, history, explosions, theology, a car chase, RPGs (not role playing games), property damage, and … hmm, there's something else there.

Oh, yeah, a love story.

It's not that strange. After all, a love story seems almost obligatory nowadays. Usually, as a motivation for senseless violence after killing off half of the couple involved. Even if it's as simple as a boy and his dog … or a boy and his robotic killing machine in Terminator 2.

I mean, hell, what makes me qualified to do a romance subplot? I mean, hell, I'm weird, maybe you've noticed. Just from the various and sundry topics on the site, I'm all over the place. I've done comic books, politics, terrorism, writing, music, book reviews, and the list keeps going. The less said about theology, the better.

But a love story?

Here's the thing. I'm in love …

Yes, with a woman … Yes, she's human …

And non-fiction …

No, she's not “from Canada”...

Though she might as well be.

It's complicated.

I met this woman online, and she didn't come onto me in any way. She saw I was a fan of J. Michael Straczynski, when she asked to be friends on Myspace. This was back when Myspace was actually good for something ...

Yes, that long ago. [More below the break]

Spoiler Alert for ... a video game? Halo.

Some people may have noticed that I'm a little wierd. I'm also a bit of a nerd, as my DragonCon reports and my JMS blog of today might tell you.



However, I want to discuss a little bit about one of the most epic bits of science fiction storytelling I've seen outside of Baen publishing.



The Halo video game franchise.



Yup. Video games can have epic writing.



If most of you are thinking "Thanks. We've seen Super Mario Brothers, there is no writing," I respectfully suggest you get your head out of the 80s. And parts of the 90s.



I've only recently been brought back into the world of video games by my friend Jason. He started by giving me a video game called Halo. It was a "first person shooter," which I always figured was short for "a game with no plot, but you get to shoot up anyhthing that gets in your way, or blow them up if you have grenades."



Then I started playing it.



It had a story. It had supporting characters with personalities. It had witty chapter titles and sarcastic one-liners. It was a space-sprawling epic played out on something that resembled Larry Niven's Ringworld -- an artificially designed planet called Halo.

The premise was simple enough: alien jihadists called the Covenant have discovered humans, and they really, really don't like us. The game starts with the player's ship on the run from an alien armada, and runs into Halo, a world that turns out to be a sacred artifact to the jihadists. The player's character is a bioengineered super soldier called a Spartan-II, and wears a Mjolnir battle suit (yes, it's named after the hammer of Thor). The humans get the bright idea to take over Halo before the Covenant do -- this artificial ring world is a moon-sized weapon, after all.

And then, the humans wake something up. Not quite an eldritch horror from beyond time and space, but good enough for government work. Let's just say that they're called The Flood and leave it there. They have a tendency to devour, well, everything.

After waking up said horror, another side to this little war comes up. The artificial intelligence of the Halo ring discovers that, "Hmm, the Flood creatures have been let loose. We have to stop them."

It turns out that the eldritch horror isn't from beyond time and space, but from one hundred million years ago. The Halo rings were built to stop them. But, the people fighting the flood back then decided to hold on to a few samples for research, and so the species wouldn't die out (I always knew rabid environmentalists would be the ruin of us).

All goes perfectly well until the player discovers how the Halo rings kill the flood-- by erradicating all life bigger than a microbe. The flood starve. End of problem. When the Spartan-II and his sidekick object to this plan, the AI that has been chattering at you for a whole level of the game turns nasty.

Did I mention that the AI is insane?

Soon, the game becomes a four-sided battle. Alien jihadists are still trying to kill you. The flood are trying to kill everyone. And the AI that you've pissed off has his own army of flying, laser-wielding drones who are also out to kill you, the flood, the jihadists, and everything else in its way.

And that's just the first game.

The Halo universe is so dense in background and in story, they've written at least half a dozen novels worth of material, and they're making more.  Comic book and Star Trek favorite Peter David has written a comic book volume from the Halo-verse, as has William C. Dietz, another author with his own writing credits -- though the first author to be offered the job was Timothy Zahn.

SPOILER ALERT. [Below the break]

Inspiring Authors: J. Michael Straczynski

Every once in a while, I look over my writing style, and I look at what I've taken away from the authors I've been exposed to.



The first, and most important writing influence is someone named J. Michael Straczynski (JMS).



JMS, who I have mentioned once or twice, was an executive producer on Murder, She wrote, created Babylon 5, and writes almost anything else he can get his hands on. He's written comics, TV, novels, science fiction, battling demons....

Just look him up on amazon, buy everything except for “Rising Stars” and “Supreme Power.”



I'm not joking. Go now.



If you saw Thor -- and who didn't? You didn't? Go see it. I'll wait..... Back now? You liked it? Good. -- JMS had a cameo in the film as the first fellow to find Thor's hammer, and organized that big sequence with trying to drag out the hammer with a truck.



There is Tribulations, a book about demonic possession in modern LA. Surprisingly well put together and very religious ... And he's an atheist. So, he at least knows how to appreciate religion, even if it's only for use as fantasy fodder.

I first experienced the writing of JMS a very long time ago, before I even knew who the man was. Originally an author for television, he worked his way up from cartoons and into prime time. He penned the only episode of The Real Ghostbusters that I can remember.  Twenty years after the original airing of Murder, She Wrote, all of the episodes I knew off the top of my head happened to be written by him (if you remember an episode in the Psycho house, that would be Joe).

I first became aware of Joe Straczynski with his television show Babylon 5; at the time, it seemed to be a rip-off of a Star Trek program that had just come on called Deep Space 9. Then odd things started happening. To start with, the show had character. The characters on the show had personalities. They had backgrounds. They had character flaws. When there was fighting, there were actual military tactics, and the science fiction .... had science.

If you are not a follower of science fiction, you may not be aware of this, but to find military tactics in most science fiction filmed media is almost as rare as finding science in a Star Trek film. As mentioned during our week of Infinite Space, Infinite God II, most sci-fi will resort to technobabble before using actual science. Babylon 5 is the first science fiction television show that ever explained how their artificial gravity worked.

With military tactics -- how much in the way of tactics did anyone see in Star Wars or Star Trek that did not amount to "Watch two armies. See them ram into each other. See them ignore that space is three dimensional."

With Babylon 5, NASA has asked permission to use some of their designs, because they can't come up with better ideas.  If you ever hear about a NASA space construction craft called a "Star Fury," it's because JMS allowed them to use it on the condition that it shared the name it had on the tv show....

Constant readers of this blog will see the fingerprints of JMS all over it. The most popular blog post Disasters to Marvel At was made possible by Joe Straczynski. After Babylon 5, JMS went on to writing comic books; in particular, Amazing Spider Man (ASM). Being a fan of Straczynski's, I followed. It was the first time I had picked up a comic book in about five years. At least.

And it was a gloriously enjoyable run. If you ever saw an issue of ASM that involved Spider-Man dealing with the 9-11 attacks, that was JMS' doing. It was a throwaway issue in a grand story arc that had Peter Parker questioning his own origins, pondering whether or not he was part of a larger plan, and finding himself embroiled more and more with supernatural problems. The solutions became more cerebral and scientific than requiring an ability to pound someone into dust.

Also, in pure JMS fashion, he took the marriage of Peter Parker and made it work -- after all, Straczynski's strong suit is having two people interact with each other. And it's nothing like having a reconciliation in the middle of a super-powered smackdown at Denver airport.

And then there was the surprisingly epic ASM 500, where JMS managed to condense the entire 500 isues before into one, simple question.

Which is why I was somewhat enraged when editorial mandate came down from a clear blue sky and decreed that every Marvel comic would be dragooned into the Event of the Week. The story arc for Straczynski's Spider-Man run was stomped on by the far inferior Civil War. And, while I liked what JMS managed to do with it, despite editorial mandate (it was the only part of the Civil War I remotely enjoyed), and he managed to make the follow-up Back in Black, a fun read, at the end of the day, management came down and destroyed, literally, every achievement JMS wrote over the course of his six-year run.

When I saw JMS at New York Comic Con, he had a running phrase: "Joe, you suck." He even had the audience repeat it back to him.  However, between the links above, there's a reason why I think it should be "Joe (Quesada), you suck."

JMS would also take over duties on Thor, where he placed the Norse deity in the middle of New Mexico (Thor movie fans, sound familiar?)

After Marvel and he had a falling out, he went direct to DC. He did some spectacular Team-ups of the Brave and the Bold, tried to work on a new arc for Wonder Woman, and even a Superman arc called Grounded. Right now, he's heading the bestseller list with his graphic novel Superman: Earth One.  If Warner Brothers is smart, they'll reboot the Superman movie franchise with Earth one as a model.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM JMS.

I learned how to write people. Taking a cue from Rod Serling, JMS knew how to make a conversation be dramatic with just two people in a room, no ticking bomb required. He knew how to work dynamics with different characters for different results. He even went so far to lock two people in a room together, he literally trapped two characters in an elevator.

If you wondered why my short story One Way to Stay out of Jail consisted mostly of two people in a room just talking to each other, you can probably guess. It's the joy of having characters (some of whom are deeply flawed) interacting with each other.

Another thing I got from JMS -- how to take cliche's and turn them inside out.

For example...

Situation: Two people who hate each other are trapped in an elevator; fires are burning outside. If they don't work together, they will die.
Hollywood standard procedure: The trapped duo will overcome their grievances in order to stay alive.
JMS: One character says to another "I'm not going to help. This way, I can watch you die and I won't be prosecuted."

It's fun.

In A Pius Man, there is a reason that the book has plenty of deep, in-depth conversations between people who have some obvious flaws .... although a lot of it revolves around Sean Ryan, who is, himself, really weird.

Further Reading.

Other works by JMS include.

Demon Night (I haven't read it yet, but it should be fun)



Othersyde: Another book I loved. High school, meet demonology 101.

Two high school nerds, "losers," tormented and tortured on a routine basis, buy curiosities -- two telegraph signal senders.



And then, the devices start tapping out Morse code on their own.



It was elegantly written, and even made the angst of high school tolerable. And, no, there is no Twilight level, whiny-angsty BS. I would take a power drill to my head before I even read anything remotely like it, to heck with recommending it.

Book of Lost Souls: A late, lamented comic book series JMS wrote while at Marvel. While there were only five issues of this run, I think it has a good, solid story arc. that reads well even though Marvel pulled the plug on it early on.

 

Straczynski Unplugged: A collection of short stories, mostly novelized versions of screenplays JMS did for The New Twilight Zone back in the 80s. I can only assume these few were all he did, otherwise the show would have done much, much better. These were all awesome.

Under the heading of both "touching" and "I never saw this coming," was Silver Surfer: Requiem. The premise: the Silver Surfer originally made a devil's bargain to save his home planet, becoming the Surfer, herald to a planet-eating being called Galactus. Years later, the Silver Surfer's own body is turning against him. Everything that makes him the Surfer is breaking down. The story arc is broken down into four parts. Benedictus, Sanctus, Kyrie, and Agnus Dei. All parts of the funeral mass.

Let's put it this way: I never liked Silver Surfer, and this brought me to tears ... yes, I'm a nerd.

Bullet Points: Another Marvel project. A simple "What if?" If the assassin who killed Captain America's creator completed his task 24 hours earlier, and, at the same time, killing one of the bodyguards, a Ben Parker, what would the world look like. The only thing that I've read that compares to it in comics is the ASM 9-11 issue ... also by JMS.

-- Okay, this was pure, unadulterated awesome. An LA cop finds himself caught in the crossfire between Heaven and Hell, and loses his soul, becoming one of the lost people of the Midnight Nation.



In order to get his soul back, he has to cross all of America to New York City to face the Devil himself.Midnight Nation

Squadron Supreme and Rising Stars -- the only works I can honestly not endorse. Even JMS has complaints about Squadron Supreme.

Update: Sorry, I'm from New York, the Midwest, unfortunately, does look alike to me -- New Mexico or Oklahoma. Especially since the artwork in the JMS Thor comic and the images in the Thor movie looked the same to me. I suspect Kenneth Branaugh looked at the comic and said "This doesn't match Oklahoma, where does it match? Nex Mexico? We're there."

Music to Write To: Winterborn, Cambreadth, and Over the Hills....

Sometimes your friends know best.



After months of doing non-fiction, "high-intellect" blog posts, some of my friends could see what it was doing to me better than I could. Let's just say that they could tell I was under a strain. Also, they found the posts boring.



So, time for something fun.



It's been a while since I posted a music blog, and I really think I should get back into the swing of posting whatever I like. Which include history, blowing stuff up on paper, and doing it to really cool music.



Here's some more stuff that I enjoy writing to.



"Winterborn," by the Cruxshadows. I never know what to do with this band. They are nominally "Goth,"  but they tend to use a lot of classical imagery. I first encountered from in a John Ringo novel called Ghost.(A book I will talk about at a later date, with a few cautionary notes ... it's not that bad, but there is one section that should carry a warning label)  I had no idea what the song was about, so I looked it up on YouTube. The title is taken from something that could be from the original Illiad -- that the bravest of those who died were born in winter.



In this case, the visuals are taken from the video game "Halo 2."







"March of Cambreadth," by Heath Alexander. I first discovered this song in a John Ringo novel called When the Devil Dances, a scifi military novel about a cannibalistic Mongol horde spreading through the galaxy, with only humans to stand in the way. While the author himself refers to it as carnography (which I can only presume means "carnage porn"), it's well designed, the characters fully developed, and there's enough scheming and political intrigue to fully screw up a war.... the images are from the tv show Babylong 5, which happens to also be a scifi war epic. I know this because I assembled the video myself.











"Over the Hills and Far Away."  It's an army song from the Napoleonic wars, and was first introduced to most people through the British tv movie series "Sharpe's Rifles." Richard Sharpe, the main character, was played by Sean Bean.... coincidentally the one who played Boromir in the video below.









"Over the Hills and Far Away," by Nightwish.  I found this one song while looking for the it's partner above. And, wow, was I in for a surprise.







And, a final one for today.  Remember all of those movie trailers, when you listen to the awesome soundtrack, and you expect to hear it in the movie... only to discover that it's not there, only in the trailer?



Odds are, it's Two Steps from Hell.

Evil religion / Atheist: Conclusion.

This is the very last post of anything remotely "High-intellectual." I'm tired, and I want to take a nap now. If you've been tracking the blogs of the last day, you don't need the disclaimer. If you haven't, this blog will make no sense to you.



However, if you've been paying attention, you probably already know where I've been going with all of the Evil religion and Atheist blogs.



My Conclusion: Culture makes people stupid, not religion.



Anthropology has whole bookcases dedicated to how society treats “the other.” The other can look different (xenotype), or act different (behavioral traits), but it's just plain different.



I was the worst of all possible worlds in grammar school. I was a nerd, and I was the fat kid, and I was beaten up a few times—I went from passive to aggressive, and things toned down. In high school, I was the loner, and I read, and I wrote song parodies (more on that much, much later), and I was the nerdy fat kid. I played psycho, and things toned down … up until it bit my in the ass.



In college, when I explained to one sociology professor who wanted to listen to “The stereotypes inherent in upper middle class white society,” the professor was shocked when I told her that I was a candidate to be a future serial killer. She was still in shocked after a classmate explained “Well, no offense, but he seems really smart, and he's really quiet. So....”



So, three levels of education, and I managed to be the outsider every time. Nothing to do with religion. You can beat up on three groups of people in New York: Catholics, smokers, and fat people, and I'm 2/3.



Atheists say that religion causes all of the bigotry and hatred in the world. I say that people in general suck, religion or no religion. That's called culture.



Look at the "Blood libel": it's in no one's religion. Check the Koran, Haditha, the Vatican, the Bible, it's not there. It's not anyone's doctrine. Yet it's all over the middle east, and it's out of medieval Europe, dispite Popes pulling their hair out over it for centuries (the Wikipedia article only mentions two: look up Rabbi David Dalin for a full list of Popes who have ulcers over Blood Libel morons)



Since the majority of people on the planet have not been atheists, there is no control group to prove your theory one way or another that an atheist society would be perfect, or in any way better.



Most of the professional atheists out there claim to be smarter, better, and more educated than anyone else. Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris say “We're scientists, we know what we're talking about.”



I say: You might be scientists, but you're practicing lousy science. You're making statements of fact out of theories. You can't prove it, you don't have a big enough control group for study. You're not anthropologists, and you wouldn't know a culture if you had yogurt tossed at you (microbiology joke, sorry).



Also, saying that “all atheists are smarter than you” also has issues. I mean, hell, there is a survey out there that says that most atheists have aspergers syndrome.



Should I take that study as gospel and say that Dawkins is an idiot savant? No.



Besides, Aspergers usually result in someone very intelligent, and very asocial; in the case of Matt, he's more socially well-adjusted than I am.

 

Although in the case of Dawkins, it would explain a few things as to the manner of his disputes … or he could be merely British, it's hard to tell.



In my evil religion post on Islam: the problems of the middle east turned out to be a culture that hasn't changed much since 300, and Nazis.



In my post on pederast priests, the problem also turned out to be cultural: the culture of any bureaucracy to not move its butt to adapt to a different solution to its problems....



As for the rest ... I'm not going to reiterate every argument I've made. I think I've bored you all quite enough.



Anyway .... be well, all.  I'm going to take a long, long nap.



****

Beat me up. Slander me. Whatever. However, use foul or abusive language, or anything that wouldn't get onto network tv, I will delete your comment ... after I wake up, certainly. If you dedicate one of your blogs to shredding me, feel free to post a link below, just spell my URL right.