#11 – She’s Faking It

File Under: Happy endings

Fingers dancing slowly on the keys of:
Kupek – Awkward Songz [album]
Propellerheads – “Take California”
Sheryl Crow – “Tomorrow Never Dies”

She was pretty, but she lied to Elijah Wood.

Last Thursday, I went to a screening of Fantastic Four 2: Silver Surfaloo (thanks, Karl) and shortly thereafter, my compatriot and co-worker hailed us a cab to where two friends of his were enjoying some alcoholic respite from the stresses of the day.  A good time was had by all, in the style of conversing with those you’ve just met in a bar, which was America’s chat room of choice before the Internet.

One of the two ladies had a snazzy cell phone (White Chocolate, if you care), which she thrust at me to see a grainy photo of some DJ spinning records. “Who’s that?” she exulted, “Elijah Wood! Yeah, baby, that’s right!”

Which means something to someone, somewhere.  I mean, heck there was a cute girl holding a neat phone featuring Frodo on the turntable, there’s nothing objectionable about that.  She told me, “I went up to him and said, ‘Elijah, I am such a big fan!’”  Then, confidentially, she added her own story, “I’m not, but he let me take his picture.” 

So there you have it: boasting about a picture you can’t discern of a celebrity you don’t like taken on a compliment you don’t mean.  That’s not a nice thing to do, is it?  All the curves in the world can’t hold my interest after you’ve flashed a personality card like that.  You’d have to counterbalance it with a different facet of your personality.

Now lest that make me a snob. I’ll clarify: she wasn’t invalidated as an interesting or decent person, or even as someone I’d want to be friends with.  As new information comes to light, it’s good to keep esteem for someone ever-forming and reforming so I’m not costing myself good company or defending jerks.  From a romantic consideration, however, fakery is off-putting, even (especially?) about something that trite.  So consider my disinclination purely auditory.  The author remained a nice person, but the story wasn’t anything I wanted to hear.  It cost her my interest.

That’s what happens in writing. You’re courting your audience, you’re seducing them, you’re trying to present an honest and clear impression of a work that is intelligent and informative and entertaining and amiable. Your opening is your first impression. Who doesn’t want to be loved at first sight?

You’re making a bid for the hearts and minds of your readers.  Unlike writing as confidence game or sales pitch, the deity Scriba Venus doesn’t appreciate your technical give and take as an end unto itself.  A strong plot is simply part of your responsibilities as a writer, you should know enough to provide one because you love your audience that much.  No, this epithet of the trade demands sincere emotion from you.  Your audience can frequently tell when you’re phoning it in.  Give them a genuine moment, a worthy feeling, something that’s not manipulative, but damned real, and they’ll love you forever.  It’s the mentality of any audience to any creative work. They want to be impressed. They want to be wowed. They want to think and feel new things. Thrill them. Make them swoon. If you can deliver, they’ll love you. If you can’t, they’ll feel completely betrayed and repulsed.

Of course, in reading as well as dating, the things you learn first matter least.  It’s okay to be attracted to story and people with pretty skin (and in comics’ case, the extra flash of gorgeous art), but soon you’re going to want them to be entertaining company as well.  Then you’re going to want them to be smart, or at least clever.  Then you’re going to want the core, the heart, the deepest, hidden soul – what they’re really about – that thing you must seek and discover that’s not revealed to everyone, you need that.

Because people want to be in love as much as they want to love.  They want to be in awe of something amazing.  They want to discover a hidden treasure.  Everyone wants a little magic in the world.  Everyone wants to own something beautiful.  Give style.  Give substance.  Give symbolism.  Bare soul.

This is the inevitable disappointment of soap operas and superhero books.  They’re excellent at evoking those raw and high emotions, and if you’re lucky, making them worthwhile, but ultimately, they’re undermined by the open-ended story.  Their meaning is debased by their interminability.  Ultimately, progress becomes a closed loop, and the conflicts, however well depicted, are stripped of their worth.  The X-Men, for example, are never going to earn the world’s acceptance until the story ends, which, come on, it’s never going to do because those books make gobs of money, and even when they try, it doesn’t happen.  Chris Claremont had…what, three chapters of X-Men: The End to close out the story, and it’s still mostly space shenanigans about alien races.

(Sidenote: two The End books that actually nailed their concept, Hulk and Punisher, did close out their core concepts.  Hulk, who typically gets stronger as he gets madder at not being left alone, must choose between strength and rage to get the solitude he wants, while Punisher is given the opportunity to wipe crime from the face of the Earth. They’re both probably the strongest stories about either character in a decade.)

In love as well as writing, first impressions count.  A failed effort may not bar you from recouping grace, but a strong debut buys you a lot of credit.  The reader is invested in the relationship because of your magical beginning.

That’s why so many comics start off with big, flashy splash pages.  It’s the equivalent of a garish shirt at the discotheque.  The brightest peacock attracts the hens.  But that’s not going to work every time, is it?   That hustle’s alright for the Jersey shore crowd, but some of us want to be seduced.  Sometimes a slow burn start is appropriate, and often it’s delicious.  Just as ironic t-shirts and bad facial hair won’t be helping hipsters score in another couple years (I think the bloom’s long been off that rose in any instance), those flash pages often look trite in retrospect.  To contrast that, a thoughtful opening that deigns to show off just a little bit then intrigue you with what else it has in store. 

It depends if you’re looking to get laid or married, I suppose.  If you want a no-strings-attached adventure (and there’s nothing wrong with a blockbuster), a fun lark, be flashy.  I’m working on two projects right now – one called Heist, and the other is Star-Xed.  Heist is about the kind of playboy who never existed and whom most guys stopped believe they could become between the last time Sean Connery played Bond and the rise of Maxim magazine.  Star-Xed is about two crazy kids in love and aching to get married.  Both start off with a bang, but in contradiction to what I just advised, the playboy comic draws you in steadily, while the romance begins in full chase mode.  These were conscious rebellions, because there’s enough action and unrealistic charm in the criminal’s tale to warrant a few moments of calm and introduction, which are necessary in asking the reader to like a supervillain.  Conversely, in a book full of relationship drama, I needed to show these superpowered lovers in action.

It’s all in the presentation.  It’s okay to put a certain spin on the appearance you want to make, but remember to be yourself (or let your story be itself). You can give a story any ending you want, as long as it's in the terms set forth at the relationship's outset. It's not just about what you "establish" in terms of showing the reader, it's about the things they come to understand about your characters' personalities and the story's nature. Just make it fair.  Everyone loves a happy ending, but the truth is, what they really want is a satisfactory one. 

Here's an example: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  He hates Christmas.  It makes sense, that sour-pussed, green bastid hates everything good and right.  We probably disagree, but let's see where this is going.  So he decides to undertake the ambitious endeavor of wiping it from the town of Whoville. And he does, sadistically.  He dances around, enjoying himself for the first time, thinking of how he's going to run the holiday for those stupid Whos, taking away all their Christmas trappings.  He even pats little Suzie Who patronizingly on the head, mocking her. And he goes to bed that night, smiling, thinking "Ho ho, did I ever burn those idiots," and looking forward to the tears in their eyes.  You know what happens.  He wakes up to find he hasn't stolen Christmas at all.  In fact, he missed the point entirely. The love and the community are still there, stripped of their gildings.  He gave it his best effort, and he failed.  Boom.  The protagonist (in this case, the villain, the Grinch), loses against the antagonist (Christmas), so there's only one thing left for him to do.  His identity is destroyed, so he reacts and recovers with awe for this invincible spirit.  His next action is to leap down the mountain into town and shower the Whos with the lovely, though unnecessary Christmas loot. 

Isn't that terrific? Isn't that great? I can't think of ten books this millennium with such a wonderful plot and character arc, and Dr. Seuss didn't get there by sticking to some formula.  He didn't try to make the Grinch likable or follow a precise schedule of action and reaction.  He followed his gut and the unrepentant mean streak of the Grinch to an ending both happy and satisfactory.  Just to cement the character change, Seuss gives the Grinch a friend in the sad-eyed dog Max.  Even though he virtually ignores Max except when employing him, the Grinch's custody of Max shows he's not a total misanthrope.  At some level he's capable of appreciating a fundamentally touching, pathetic puppy.

Now flip that: think how skinned a reader would feel (just to tie everything back to Mr. Wood), if Lord of the Rings had ended with little Frodo's pure heart so impressing Sauron that the lord of all evil renounced his ways, cured Gollum's ring-addiction, and promised to spread sunshine and clover.  Not fair, right?  Sauron's waited thousands of years for this return to power.  There's no cause for him to be impressed with one little hobbit when he's slain whole kingdoms.  A happy ending via the villain's reformation here would not be a satisfactory one.  If Tolkien had written that ending, he'd be left lonesome at the bar.

The next time you’re stuck for where your story should go, try to re-imagine it as someone looking to connect with another human being.  Your story should have a personality, and you know the reaction it hopes to get from the reader.  Imagine it incarnate, trying to make a connection with a stranger.  How does it present itself?  What does it ask of the reader?  How is it going to charm its way into their graces?  In some cases, you're going to only appeal to a certain type of reader, but that's ok, because some stories, like some people, aren't for everyone. Yet any story, regardless of what it gives or takes, is asking for trust.

Keep their trust in good faith, and the love will follow.