Speed Racer and Editing

Okay, let me just start out by saying that Speed Racer is pretty much exactly what everyone is saying.

Here are some quotes that I think some up the movie, both good and ?bad.?

?There is something freeing about watching this movie because it establishes early on that it's not playing by certain cinematic rules.? Eric Melin, http://www.scene-stealers.com/

?The brutal sensory overload is coupled with a plot that starves the brain, a recycling of the silliness of the TV show unleavened by any saving hint of postmodern irony.? Frank Swietek , One Guy's Opinion

?The arty blockbuster has arrived, and it's as flashy, accessorized and auto-erotic as can be. Which creates a strange sensation indeed, that it's not just the cars that are smoking, but those Wachowski brothers as well, and whatever's in their pipes too.? Prairie Miller,
NewsBlaze

?Speed Racer may very well give your brain diabetes, and I state that as compliment.? Rob Humanick, Projection Booth

Now my take. I loved it. My kids, ranging in ages from eight-year-old son to twenty-year-old daughter loved it. My wife even loved it. Why? Because we didn?t go into the theater looking for a ?hint of postmodern irony??whatever the heck that is. We didn?t go to the movie looking for a deep and meaningful plot.

Speed Racer was a cartoon that lasted for one year. The very fact that so many of us Boomers remember it says something about the show. But it was a silly cartoon. It didn?t have deep meaningful messages. It had car races. It had bad guys. It had fights. It had cool car crashes and neat stuff on the race cars.

The producers of Speed Racer the movie could have taken the tack of trying to turn it into a ?serious? movie. After all, these are the guys that brought us The Matrix movies. But they knew that would have ruined the show. Instead, they take a tongue-in-cheek view of the old cartoon and combine it with some effects that literally are so incredible they almost make you sick. (Brian, don?t bring your little brother.) If you go in looking for ?sensory overload?, ?flash?, and a movie that will both make you laugh and have you gripping the edge of your seat, you will love this movie. I, personally, have never seen anything like it before, and I will definitely go see it again.

My only compliant was that they didn?t play the original theme song until pretty much the end of the credits.

Now to answer the second part of Deren?s question.

I know that many authors hate working with an editor. Writing a book is such a personal thing. You do it privately, struggling to get the scenes that work so well in your head onto the paper. Then it sees the light of day and everyone who reads it finds flaws. For writers with thin skin, that can be almost unbearable. It?s worse than someone saying your kid is ugly. It?s like someone saying your kid is ugly, and she got her looks from you. Ouch!

But here?s the thing. Would you want to watch a movie in which the same person was the director, the writer, the main actor, the editor, sang the theme song, and did the lighting? No. It would be terrible. An artist can get away with doing a painting by himself because it is one scene. And even then it doesn?t always work.

But an author has to deal with multiple characters both big and small, many interlocking scenes, plot, dialog, new creatures and civilizations, grammar, flow, sentence structure, and a million other things. How can you possibly look at all of that objectively when you?ve seen it both in your imagination and on paper hundreds of times. It?s impossible to see your story with completely fresh eyes even if you put it on a shelf for six months.

So you know you need outside people to look it over. But not all readers are created the same. I like paintings. I have purchased paintings. I?ve been to art museums. I could look at two paintings and tell you which one I like better. But I could not at first glance tell you which painting is worth millions and which is worth a hundred dollars. (Good thing I?m not an art investor huh?) So it would be foolish for a painter to bring me her work and ask for my opinion. All I could really say is whether I like it or not. I couldn?t give the artist the feedback she needs to know even if it is a quality piece of work or not. And I definitely couldn?t point out what areas need what type of work.

That?s where a good editor comes in. Now let me give you an overview of what Water Keep has been through since its inception. First I wrote it. I don?t recommend beginning writers edit as they go. Some author or the other said you can?t edit what you haven?t written. So get the thing done first. With that being said, I do edit while I write. Every day, before I begin writing, I read over what I wrote the last day and make changes until it feels right.

After I finish it, I take my writing to a seven person critique group. They often read it in pieces on a weekly basis. But after it?s done, they read it as a whole. Usually there is at least two weeks of rewrites there. Then I gave it to Lisa Mangum. It was through her that my manuscript was given to Chris Schoebinger. But before Lisa gave it to Chris, she gave me a bunch of suggested changes. Then Chris gave me his changes. Then he passed it to a group of kids to read, and gave me even more changes.

Once I?d made all of those changes, I sent it to some author friends who had never read it in any earlier stage. These are authors who read the genre, are comfortable giving me honest feedback, and that I know well enough to trust. After their changes, it went to the committee, and then actual editor. (Lisa had been sick and fallen behind on other projects.) Again more changes.

Reading how many times the manuscript had to be changed, you?d probably think the original writing was a piece of garbage. But the thing is, almost nothing in the main storyline changed at all. There were zero key plot changes. Stephen King compares writing a book to uncovering a fossil. What all the feedback did was give me clues to places where I had not uncovered the fossil as completely as I could have.

Now don?t get the idea that I took all of the advice everyone offered. Or even that most of the advice included actual fixes. It didn?t. The feedback I got was far more likely to be of this sort. ?I don?t understand why character A was able to do x,y, and z without a wand.? Or, ?I was really hoping that when the [creature name] attacked character a, he would have used a, b, and c.? Or even just, ?The beginning of chapter 13 was a little slow.?

As an author, it is my job to look through the feedback, decide was has merit, and then?and this may be the hardest part to do well?figure out what the real problem is. Does my character really need a wand, or did I just forget to include a key piece of information about magic back in chapter 3? Does it help make the story more exciting or detract from the pace if I add more to the battle?

In general, the fixes I tend to look for the most are: overuse of certain words, phrases, or sentence structures, anything even remotely boring, issues requiring more clarification, and any point where success is achieved to easily. It?s hard to catch yourself when you start using one word a lot. It?s like it gets stuck in your brain. It?s also hard to know whether you communicated clearly what was inside your head. Many times I?ve had a reader complain about one thing only to realize the real problem was something else entirely.

For example, let?s say the reader tells me he doesn?t believe my unicorn would really be that unkind to my princess. (These are all just examples by the way. There is no unicorn or princess in my book) When I look at the scene, the unicorn seems very nice. I could make the unicorn sickeningly sweet, I could ignore the comment, or I could reread the scene trying to figure out why the reader thought the unicorn was mean. Upon rereading the section, I discover that I never made it clear that the Unicorn can only speak in riddles at night. That?s why it appeared the unicorn was being rude. The reader found a problem, but I had to find the actual fix.

One other thing I focus on a lot is anything to make the story more compelling. The ?wow? factor in fantasy is huge. Think of all the cool scenes you remember from Harry Potter. Almost all of those are ?wow? scenes. If I can make a creature just a little nastier, a battle just a little more intense, or a magical item a little more fantastic, I?m all over that.

One thing I have found is that most editors don?t care how you fix the problem. They just want to make sure you recognize that there is a problem and that you address it. For me personally, I like all the qualified feedback I can get. I?m about to put 40,000+ copies of my book out before the public. I want it to me the most highly polished gem it can be. There are plenty of things people can find to dislike, why give them more?

Okay, everyone. I'm out of questions. What would you like to talk about?

Here He Comes . . .

Sorry for no post today, but I just got home from celebrating my daughter's 20th B-day. (Weird since I'm sure I'm not any older than 30 myself.) But I digress. We went out to dinner at a place where the food is only adequate but they have a bunch of guys cliff diving (in the restaurant, no less) in skimpy outfits. Can you guess who picked the restaurant?

Anyway, after the movie we all went and saw Speed Racer on the IMAX screen. I'll post a full review tomorrow, but suffice it to say I had a hard time keeping the minivan under 80 all the way home.

More tomorrow!