The apocryphal soundtracks to some of my books

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Alex in Blood Groove, Burn Me Deadly, Firefly Witch, Memphis, music, novel, pirates, Uncategorized, Wake of the Bloody Angel, writing | Leave a comment

It’s no secret that music is a big part of many of my novels, from inspiring the titles to influencing the plots to being part of the story itself. I’m not alone in this, I’m sure. Recently my friends at Facebook’s Heroic Fiction League, Nathan Long and John R. Fultz, posted “playlists” of YouTube videos, songs that either their heroes would like, or that captured the mood of their books.

My playlist is a little different. This is the music I wish would play when a reader first opens some of my books.

For my most recent novel, the Eddie LaCrosse pirate tale Wake of the Bloody Angel, I’d love it if readers were blasted with this upon cracking the covers:

For another Eddie LaCrosse tale, Burn Me Deadly, if you consider chapter one as a “teaser,” this would the perfect music to play between chapters one and two:

For Blood Groove, my tale of an Old World vampire unleashed in the Seventies, I’d begin with this under chapter one:

Then, at the moment you finished chapter one:

And finally, the theme for my Firefly Witch e-book chapbooks, the tune the main characters Ry and Tanna would call “their song” and that, in a perfect world, would play whenever you called it up on your e-reader of choice:

(I know, it’s the Atlanta Rhythm Section version and not the original Classics IV, but technically this is the first version I ever heard, and about half the Atlanta Rhythm Section was made up of former members of the Classics IV, so it’s not as heretical as it might seem.)

Any suggestions for some of my other books?

Interview: Andrew Brasfield, songwriter of Cold Wind

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Alex in anthology, cover art, creativity, eBook sale, faeries, folk music, interview, music, short stories, tennessee, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

When I began planning Time of the Season, my holiday-themed e-book chapbook, I already had two of the stories. Both the title story and “A Ghost, and a Chance” had been around for a while. But I wanted to write something new, and I’d gotten such a good response from my novel, The Hum and the Shiver, that I decided to write a holiday story set in the that world. The Tufa stories all revolve around music, so I needed a song to form the center of this new one. So I asked around: did anyone know of an original winter or holiday song, one by an indie artist who could grant permission for me to use the lyrics in a story?

Dale Short, host of the roots-music radio show “Music from Home” in Jasper, Alabama, suggested I check out this:

The first time I heard it, I knew it was the right song.

I contacted Andrew Brasfield, and happily, he agreed to let me quote from the lyrics in the story. This is a trickier proposition than it sounds, because a lot of musicians, particularly the ones played on mainstream radio, don’t actually own the rights to their own songs. Music publishers, record labels and other for-profit intermediaries have to also grant permission, and usually require payment to do so. Happily, there’s a whole world of great music being done by people like Andrew (and Jennifer Goree, and Laura Powers, and Jen Cass, and Kate Campbell) who not only own all their own rights, they’re delighted to have them included in a story or used in a book trailer.

Andrew also recorded a new version of the song at AudioCzar Productions, and played all the instruments himself (except for percussion). That version is available as a free download when you buy Time of the Season.

Andrew was also kind enough to answer a couple of questions about the song.

1) What inspired “Cold Wind”?

I used to work in television and was sent out west to Lander, Wyoming for a documentary shoot a few times over the course of 2010. On one of the final trips we set out early in the morning to catch some college students who were waking up for the last of their 21 day trip in the Wind River Range. It was really early in the morning and beautiful and I had some time to think while we were hiking. The wind was very cold and cut through me and I thought, the cold wind is an interesting image. So I came up with the first line then thought of other natural elements. Fire and water were classic images so and made verses to go with all of them. Somehow I remembered those lyrics and committed them to a small Holiday Inn Express notepad as soon as I got back to my room late that evening.

Side note: The cover photo for the song is actually a public domain photo of the Wind River Range that I manipulated a bit.

2) Your cousin Dale Short first told me about “Cold Wind,” and directed me toward the video. I had that same thing happen with the characters in the story: they learned the song from that same video. What’s the story behind the video?

There is no real story to be honest. I knew I wanted folks to hear some of my songs and while they can get a glimpse from the three songs I wrote on the first Motel Ice Machine CD, those aren’t the only songs I have in me and some of those are arranged differently from the way I usually do them. Also, I don’t have the cash to get into a studio whenever I write a new song so YouTube seemed like a more accessible medium. I’ll be certainly be adding more videos soon.

Dale still hasn’t given me all the details on how we are kin, but he is a good guy nonetheless and I appreciate what he does for local musicians through his radio show.

3) What did you think of the story that incorporates your song?

I really dug the way you wove it all together. I actually got chills when I read my lyrics in the story. I’m a big Tufa fan and having the Hyatt’s play my song in their living room is sort of surreal. I read The Hum and the Shiver shortly after it came out and was hooked. I’m (im)patiently waiting for Wisp of a Thing.

Andrew Brasfield is from a small town in Alabama where he lives with his wife and two daughters. His main axe is harmonica, which he wields in a few different bands including Motel Ice Machine and The Lefty Collins Band. He also plays a bit of guitar, bass and ukulele. He knows a handful of mandolin chords and has a few piano tricks. You can find out more about him here.

The Indy Challenge: Melissa Olson on Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Alex in guest blog, movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, reviews, Uncategorized, writers | 1 Comment

Today the four Indiana Jones films are released on blu-ray, along with a host of special features (including the awesome TV special, The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I’ve had on VHS for decades). To commemorate this, author Melissa Olson (Dead Spots) and I have agreed to swap blog posts defending the most maligned entries in the series. At her blog I’ll be making the case for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and here she sings the praises of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Greetings, my fellow Alex Bledsoe fans. I’m glad you could join me for this half of the Indiana Jones challenge. Some would say that I’m getting the short end of the stick by having to defend the series’ fourth movie, but I beg to differ. Now, I have no intention of using this blog to argue that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a Great Film. It isn’t, certainly not the way Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade are undeniably Great Films, which I believe Alex and I would agree on. But the thing about Crystal Skull is, it also shouldn’t be what it has become: an easily dismissed joke of a movie. Because when Spielberg and Lucas set out to make Crystal Skull, they tried something fascinating. And while it didn’t really work, not the way they wanted it to, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not just another tacky piece-of-crap sequel that came out way too late and was thrown together way too shoddily (I’m looking at you, Wall Street 2 and Basic Instinct 2). There’s a line of reasoning here, a story behind Crystal Skull that you might not know about. It’s interesting. Here’s why.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to bear with me for a bit of history first, because in order to really understand Crystal Skull, you have to go back to what influenced the entire series in the first place. In the late 1970’s/early 1980’s, the US was experiencing a sudden pull towards nostalgia: the 70’s had been such a complex period, politically and socially, that there was a certain anxiety and fear in the air, a general longing for simpler, more fun times. Filmmaker George Lucas managed to have absolutely flawless timing with the release of Star Wars, which gave the people exactly what they wanted. Star Wars combined elements of beloved 1930’s serials with bits and pieces of other traditional genres: samurai stories, war epics, westerns. Star Wars is a really good movie, but it’s stupendous success owes a lot to the perfect timing of supply and demand, a match of cutting-edge technology and nostalgia for simpler stories from simpler times.

A few years later, Lucas and his pal Spielberg were kicking around some ideas for how to do it again: make a nostalgic adventure film that was deeply influenced by the style of the 1930’s serials, but still had the best technology and grandeur that 1981 had to offer. They set it in 1936 to embody the spirit of those serials, and decided to involve the world’s biggest villain at that time: Hitler. They stumbled on the historical fact that Hitler was interested in the occult, pulled in Lucas’ interest in archeology, and ran with it. Raiders of the Lost Ark twists in themes of spiritual exploration, the potential danger in a search for knowledge, the power of faith and trust, and so on. And it featured the same sort of cartoonish stunts and exaggerated facial expressions that made those serials so popular in the 30’s: an enormous pit of deadly snakes, spirits that whip around and melt the faces off the Nazis, a gigantic boulder that almost rolls over Indy, and so on.

Fast forward twenty-some years. Let’s take a moment, people, to pause and pretend that we are the mighty triumvirate of Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford. Collectively and individually, we have more money than Marie Antoinette could spend in twelve lifetimes. In addition to our individual successes, we’ve already made a beloved, timeless trilogy together that (with the possible exception of Temple of Doom, which, in addition to pretty much lacking a plot, is so saturated with obscene female and Asian stereotypes that you can breathe them in and die of bigotry) actually holds up thirty years later. The three of us miss working together, and we miss the characters and themes we built for Indiana Jones. But…we are also older, and to do a fourth film now, when Indy himself would be so obviously changed, doesn’t make any sense. There’s just no way to follow the formula of the first three films with Dr. Jones as an older guy.

But wait. Suddenly, there’s a spark. An idea, if you will. Because after 9/11, and all the political and social turmoil that followed it, wouldn’t audiences enjoy getting back to nostalgia again? What if we could have it both ways? What if we could return to the spirit of Indiana Jones, but update it for a different age?

There was no way to get around the age problem, of course. Dr. Jones had to be aged about 20 years after Raiders, which put the story in 1957. So Spielberg and Lucas did the exact same thing they did with Raiders: they cast the real-life villain from that time period, which in this case was the Soviet Union – Communists. With that basic premise, Spielberg and Lucas put their thinking caps on. How to update Indy while keeping the same themes of spiritual exploration, the potential danger in a search for knowledge, the power of faith and trust, and so on? How could they revive the series but still bring in something new?

So they did what they did with Raiders: they focused on the pop culture of the period. Only instead of the serials from the 1930’s, they were looking at adding elements from the 1950’s favorite theme: Communists as aliens, aliens as Communists. The public’s biggest fear in the fifties was that the Commies would invade the US and turn good, hardworking American citizens into pod people, drones that were incapable of independent thought or action. And it was reflected in the American fiction of that time: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Thing From Another World (1951), Invaders from Mars (1953), and so on.

You see where I’m going with this, right? Lucas and Spielberg didn’t “jump the shark” by making Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. What they tried to do was the exact same thing they did with Raiders: they wanted to bring in the global villain and the global fear of that time, but still stir in Indiana Jones’s traditional search for truth, faith, knowledge, and especially, spirituality. In each of the first three films, Indiana Jones explores a spiritual outlook: Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity. And in the end, Indy always becomes a reluctant religious savior, a convert, however briefly. His fourth onscreen adventure does its best to continue that tradition, but this time, the religion being explored is knowledge. Stylistically, Crystal Skull does keep the original trilogy’s deference to the serials of the 30’s – the death-defying stunts, the exaggerated expressions, the derring-do – but adds in the themes from films of the 1950’s. And that, folks, is a pretty damned interesting prospect.

But it backfired, and frankly, that had a lot more to do with us than with them. Go back, for a second, to the outlandish success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, back in 1981. I doubt very much that movie theater audiences in ‘81 shouted and griped at the screen because the boulder trap or the convoy chase sequences were unrealistic and hokey. Or the river raft drop, or the monkey brain dinner, both in Temple of Doom. They didn’t complain because in 1981, the audiences wanted to believe in Indy. They wanted that nostalgia; they’d sought it out. And Spielberg and Lucas delivered. Wild success. Champagne and increased budgets all around.

In 2008 – and today – however, audiences don’t actually want to believe in Indy anymore. We might think that we do, but really, what we want to believe is that we are smart. We are not whores for the man, in this case represented by three rich middle-aged men trying to sell us an Indiana Jones movie about aliens, for crying out loud. We will not be taken in by that bullshit, thank you very much.

But think about it. Setting your personal beliefs in God or aliens aside for a moment, is the fridge-nuclear bomb scene really any less believable than spirits flying out of the Ark and melting Nazi faces? Is a crystal skull (and there is a fascinating, real-life history of those, by the way, go Wikipedia it) any less likely to have supernatural powers than an old chest, some magical rocks, or an ancient drinking glass? Nope. The difference isn’t in the material, it’s in us.

And that is where Spielberg and Lucas made their greatest mistake; it’s how Crystal Skull got put on the geek shit list for all eternity. They misjudged what we wanted. They thought these tumultuous times meant we’d be ready for another return to nostalgia, but what we really wanted was confirmation that even though 9/11, an economic crisis, and the destruction of the planet happened on our watch, we are redeemable because those things have made us smart, shrewd, and skeptical. (Oh, and we’ve also seen an additional twenty-odd-years worth of the best movie effects money can buy, so good luck impressing us, Indy team.)

So. Back to my mission statement: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a great movie. But it isn’t a mess, or an epic disaster, or an unholy blight on the face of a much-beloved piece of American popular culture. It’s not even the result of three rich guys getting lazy and trying to squeeze some more money out of something cool they did a long time ago. It’s just a bad call. It’s three smart guys trying to revive something they knew we loved in a way they thought was fresh. That they happened to be wrong doesn’t make it any less interesting. Maybe it even makes it more so. Because if the purpose of art is to hold a mirror up to society, then you can’t call Crystal Skull a failure. It did show us who we are. It just maybe wasn’t who we wanted to be.

Maria Scholl, the overlooked great science fiction heroine

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Alex in heroes, movies, science fiction, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The DVD cover

A while back I wrote about Meg Coburn (Mira Sorvino) of The Replacement Killers, the forgotten great action heroine. Now I’m spotlighting Maria Scholl, the overlooked great science fiction heroine.

Scholl, played by Cox Habbema, is one of the main figures of Eolomea, a 1972 East German (i.e., Soviet-era Communist) SF film directed by Hermann Zschoche. In a nonspecific future, spaceships traveling to and from space station “Margot” begin to vanish. Professor Scholl, head of the space program’s ruling council, leads the investigation, first on earth and then in space. It dovetails with the story of Dan Lagny, a space pilot doing thankless time on an asteroid station, who also has a past romantic relationship with Scholl.

Like Meg Coburn, much of what makes Maria interesting are the things she doesn’t do. As Erich Kuersten says on the blog Acidemic, she is, “shrewd, kind, and able to have a romance with the main cosmonaut Dan (Ivan Andonov) without it clouding her judgment or weakening her authority. She doesn’t overreact or have womanly issues, or pine for something ‘real’ in her life, something ‘better than command… like a child and a family,’ the way she would have to in the U.S. [at the time the film was made.]“ When another council member suggests that her presence on the rescue mission might, ahem, distract the all-male crew, she responds easily with, “The boys have had to get used to many things. They can get used to one more.” And that scene is the only one where it’s implied that her status as a woman is in any way an issue. In everything else, her competence, authority and intelligence are simply assumed.

Dr. Scholl at work…

And make no mistake, she’s a woman. When shown in flashbacks on the vacation where she meets Dan, she’s as free with her sexuality and attractiveness as any other woman on holiday might be. She wears tight shorts, she flirts, and in the one flashback scene where her job does arise, she wears a bikini on a beach while discussing Dan’s duty assignment. The implication is that women in this version of the future don’t have to choose between career and personal life: everything is open to them, and more importantly, no one expects them to pick one or the other.

…and at play, with Cosmonaut Dan.

In fact, Eolomea as a whole doesn’t do what you might expect. The space council is an international organization, and you see more faces of color that you’d ever encounter in an American SF film of the era (or heck, even now). The moments that would seem obligatory, such as the first declaration of love between Maria and Dan, or their reunion scene toward the end, simply aren’t there. The scenes that do exist imply these other scenes happen, but it’s as if the editors (and they’re ruthless: the film is only 80 minutes long) decided that they were too obvious to leave in. The antagonist might look like Blofeld from You Only Live Twice, but his nefarious plan is really…well, I don’t want to spoil everything.

East German cinema isn’t exactly known for its masterpieces, and in the popular Western mind, Soviet-era science fiction begins and ends with Solaris. But Eolomea deserves to be more appreciated, and thanks to a great DVD release (and its availability through Netflix), now it can be.

Blogging, bullying, and the big pile-on

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Alex in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

What most bloggers are like on the inside?

In this blog post at Why Advertising Sucks, the author talks–in angry, pithy language–about how quick people on the internet are to criticize. He writes, “People behind a computer are your judges, not knowing you, not knowing your life.” That’s true, and it’s not news. But it got me thinking about the part of it that bothers me the most.

Anyone who’s ever been a kid knows about the “pile on,” when everyone lines up behind the loudest taunting voice and joins in the derision. It’s a subset of bullying, noticeable for the presence in the mocking crowd of previous bullying victims. After all, what better place to hide from subsequent abuse than behind the bully?

Usually those piled-on are the odd ones: the geeks, the nerds, the ones with asthma or thick glasses, the ones clutching a book instead of a football. More cruelly, it could be those with specific physical or mental conditions that make them different. But whoever it is, we sympathize with them, right? No matter who was being picked on, we’d never do that ourselves, would we? We’re better than that…aren’t we?

Many bloggers, like me, identify with the political left, and some frequently take to the keyboard to berate the right’s latest perceived misstep. These bloggers are preaching to the choir just as much as Michelle Malkin or Matt Drudge, setting themselves up as the standard-bearers for causes with which they know their followers already sympathize. Their intentions may be good, even noble; but in practice they’re the loudmouths, pointing and laughing.

And this leads directly to the pile-on, as these fans, followers and commentators rush to join the bloggers in being the most offended by whatever (or whoever) the topic at hand might be. Often, the people most offended have, as they say, no dog in the fight. They simply enjoy being part of the pile. The author of the above blog post calls them, “mean, selfish, egocentric douches who decided that the hipster thing to do was criticize the shit out of people.”

And it’s bullying. The only difference? People are running to the pile from the left instead of the right. And if you’ve ever been bullied, ever been piled on, you should really stop a moment and think about what you’re doing, and what it says about you. Forget who the target is, and look at yourself. Is this who you want to be? Are you really no better than this?

The blogosphere in general is about as mature as the average middle school recess. When people post about current events, it’s often with the same emotional motivation as that playground chest-poke that leads to a fight. It doesn’t matter if the bloggers are parents or grandparents; anyone of any age can be immature. I know I can. But I try very hard not to be. And more to the point, I’ve been piled-on in real life. I have no desire to do it to anyone else, no matter what the provocation, because that reduces me to the level of a bully.

So while I certainly share the outrage at recent statements and events, and support those who promote positive change as opposed to just criticizing, I have no interest in joining the pile-on. I’ve got too many memories of being the kid at the bottom of the pile.

At Apex magazine: No Mortals Allowed

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Alex in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Apex magazine #33.

Over at Apex magazine, you can check out my article on vampire and werewolf secret societies, “No Mortals Allowed.” Leave a comment there if you like it!

The rare ingredient: joy

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Alex in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Eco's latest

Something not mentioned often in reviews of books is the writer’s sense of joy.

Writing, whatever you may think, really is hard. Done well, it’s as taxing as any other job. You can’t just show up and watch the clock. Sure, some books are better than others, and good writers can write bad books, but unless you’re James Patterson or someone at that level, you don’t have the luxury of just typing something out and sending it off. Everything you do has to be bled, sweated and cried over.

And with a lot of books, you can tell. Many a serious literary novel bears the marks of its writer’s angst like battle scars, and those same authors often parade their injuries as proof of their sincerity, like Henry V says the veterans of the Battle of Agincourt will do one day. That plays into the idea of the Tortured Artist, a cliche so insidious and romantic that many beginning writers assume that if they’re not miserable, they’re doing it wrong.

I work hard at being a writer. I write every day, averaging around a thousand words, and that’s in addition to revising, editing and researching. I’m usually reading at least three books, some for fun, most for work. I’m always thinking about writing, often to the detriment of my other activities (“Dad? Dad? DAD!”) But even with all this, you know what?

Writing is fun.

Eco's next-to-latest

I was reminded of this when I read, back to back, Umberto Eco’s two most recent novels, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and The Prague Cemetery. Eco wrote one of my favorite novels ever (Foucault’s Pendulum), and is probably best known for The Name of the Rose, which became a hit movie with Sean Connery, Christian Slater and F. Murray Abraham. Eco is undoubtedly literary; he’s written scores of nonfiction books and essays, and his novels are dense, vastly researched and lacking in any obvious plot structure or characterization tropes. And he writes in Italian, so he has to be translated, the sure sign of something literary.

But I’ve never read anyone, even through translations, who so thoroughly conveys the joy he feels in writing. In The Prague Cemetery you can practically hear him giggling between the lines as he references historical events and personages in sudden, often pratfallish jokes that contrast with the novel’s very serious theme. The central conceit of Foucault’s Pendulum is, in fact, a joke gone wrong: the publishers of a vanity press for conspiracy theorists decide, on a whim, to combine all the paranoid ramblings into one grandly unified Conspiracy Theory, then discover that their Frankenstein concept might actually be true.

I hope some of that same joy comes through in my writing. I take it seriously, sure, and deal with some serious things, but I also believe that the experience of reading won’t be fun if the experience of writing is totally miserable. I want people to laugh along with my books, to remember them as enjoyable journeys, however serious their ultimate intent. Life is miserable and difficult enough without paying to experience it in prose.

What authors convey their joy to you?

Crackerbox Palace: the adult world that never was

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Alex in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

George Harrison (l.) and part-time Pythoner Neil Innes (in drag).

If you’ve read this blog very often, you probably know I grew up in a tiny Tennessee town with little in the way of cultural opportunities. That meant I learned about music from two sources: WHBQ, an AM station in Memphis where you could hear just about anything (alas, now an all-talk sports station), and the more narrowly-formatted Rock 104 from Jackson, one of the FM hard-rock stations that have also vanished.

While reading Julian Dawson’s biography of all-star session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, I was reminded of the music I listened to then, and how distant, urbane and sophisticated it seemed to me at the time. In particular, I found George Harrison’s “Crackerbox Palace” going around in my head.

(To hear the song and see the Eric Idle-directed video, you’ll have to click on this link. Embedding “disabled by request.”)

Because it was by an ex-Beatle, the song went into ongoing rotation at Rock 104, where it shared airtime with “Free Bird,” “Kashmir” and “Beth.” At the time, I assumed it was rife with hidden drug references, obscure bits of English trivia and sophisticated Anglophile wordplay. Moreover, I imagined that the people who “got” all these hidden meanings were themselves urbane adults who wore black turtlenecks, smoked smoothly rolled joints (I hadn’t heard about cocaine yet) and chatted about the latest literary events. I was certain these people actually knew George Harrison personally, and dined at his mansion while listening to his tales of what the song was really about (keep in mind I was a 13-year-old when this song came out). I wanted to be part of this clique someday, and assumed (because as a kid, it all seemed possible) that once my first book was published, it would just happen.

I’m not sure when this particular image of “adulthood” finally faded. Now I recognize the song as ridiculously insubstantial, almost as thin as the solo stuff McCartney was excoriated for back then. I understand the nature of the money-and-drug culture that fueled creative people at that level (though not from personal experience; I’m nowhere near that interesting). And if I were forced to hang out with a bunch of dope-smoking, lit-quoting, turtleneck-wearing Brits today, I’d probably jump out the window.

But at some level, I’m disappointed that adulthood turned out to be what it is. I seldom get a chance to listen to music uninterrupted, certainly very little new music, and nothing on the level of the Beatles, together or apart. I don’t do drugs, or drink anything stronger than coffee anymore. I don’t hang out with celebrities; occasionally I meet one, but it’s never as an equal. I spend most of my time worrying, writing and parenting.

So now that I think about it, maybe my original idea of “adulthood” wasn’t so bad after all. Is it too late to go to Crackerbox Palace?

Bang Head Here: passive vs active voice

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Alex in Uncategorized, writing, writing advice | 2 Comments

Banged vs. Banging

A Facebook friend, Henry Snider, recently asked me, “Why is it that fewer writers seem to understand the difference between showing versus telling? Passive voice (running my head into a wall)!”

In my case, passive voice–vastly simplified, the use of “-ing” verbs (telling) instead of “-ed” words (showing), such as “I was running” instead of “I ran”–is simply how my brain initially creates sentences. All my first drafts are filled with passive voice, and from talking to other writers that seems to be common. Why we do that is more of a mystery, about which I could find no information in my limited research. Certainly as a species we do most of our actual interpersonal communicating by telling (after all, do we really was to show how someone ran into the wall?).

Those initial passive-voice drafts never see the light of day. In revision all those “-ing” words become “-ed” ones unless there’s a good reason to keep them passive. And occasionally there is, because passive voice is not inherently “wrong.” It becomes wrong when it interferes with the clarity of your sentence. “I was running” could be a perfectly correct statement, if your character suddenly returned to consciousness after a trauma (say, fighting zombies) and realized, “I was running away before I even knew it.” To say “I ran away before I even knew it,” misses the moment of blankness for the character in which s/he simply lost awareness of his/her activities.

But to be fair, those times are rare. In most cases the passive voice is detrimental to your clarity, certainly to your sense of pace and energy. So why, as Henry asks, is it so common?

I suspect there are two reasons, both based in the changing nature of publishing.

First, the advent of easy self-publishing means, simply, the editor is no longer a required part of the process. In fact, none of the usual gatekeepers–editors, agents, reviewers–are essential. It’s entirely possible for someone to write a book, format it and post it for sale with no outside input at all. When that happens, mistakes–often of the very basic kind–can occur. This is because those gatekeepers serve functions besides deciding who gets in and who’s kept out. Most crucially, they provide perspective, something that the writer simply can’t bring to the table. When you’ve lived with a story for the weeks/months/years it’s taken to write it, you’re too close to see it the way a reader will. An outside perspective can tell you not just when you’ve used passive voice, but which plot points are unclear, which jokes are unfunny*, and which characters seem unrealistic. This doesn’t have to be an editor; it can be a trusted friend who is smart enough to catch these things, and who is willing to be honest with you. But that perspective is crucial, and many writers don’t realize it.

Second, and this is based more on anecdotal information that first hand experience, many authors–some of the most successful authors, in fact–are no longer edited with the same rigor they once were. This can be due to the writer’s ego, but it’s also a result of changes in the publishing industry. A writer such as James Patterson will sell as many books unedited as he will edited, so why waste resources on the process, when those resources–time, expertise, effort–will not affect sales? Whereas an author with a smaller readership (i.e., someone like me) truly benefits from the attention, both critically and economically (a better book = more sales).

Now, many top-selling authors are quite capable of editing the passive voice out of their own manuscripts, and do so. And for those that do not, passive voice might be the least of their problems. But when you find a blatant grammatical error in a best seller, this thought process very well may be the reason.

But that’s just my perspective on the issue. What do the rest of you think?

*something my editor excels at, bless him.

The best of Dracula

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Alex in Blood Groove, Christopher Lee, Dracula, movies, Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The Halloween season here means one thing, one name: Dracula. It’s time for my annual re-read of the novel, and to break out the Dracula DVDs. Because I love them all: Schreck, Lugosi, Lee, Langella, Jourdan, Palance, Kinski, Butler, even misfires like Oldman. So I thought it would be fun to pick my favorites specific aspects of Dracula cinema. For the sake of structure, I’m limiting this list to movies that adapt, however loosely, Stoker’s actual novel (which rules out Dracula’s Daughter, one of my favorites, as well as Love at First Bite).

Leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of one of my own contribution to the vampire genre, Blood Groove. Contest runs through midnight Halloween night.

Dracula crumbles to dust.

FAVORITE DRACULA DEATH: That goes to 1958′s Horror of Dracula. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing drives Christopher Lee into a beam of sunlight, where he crumbles to dust before our eyes. The effects are crude and done mainly with editing, but somehow that doesn’t matter because the images themselves are so strong, and the actors perform with such gusto.

Transylvania, Herzog style.

FAVORITE VERSION OF TRANSYLVANIA: The one in Werner Herzog’s 1979 version of Nosferatu. He shot on location as close to Transylvania as you could get in the Coucescu era, and used real Gypsies for the inn scene. The scenery is gorgeous, the people look authentic, and you feel like you’re in another country, one that’s primal and connected with things the rest of the world has forgotten.

The soundtrack album featuring John Williams' score.

FAVORITE SCORE FOR A DRACULA FILM: This is the second-toughest choice, because there are three strong contenders. Popul Vuh’s score for Herzog’s Nosferatu is a kind of anti-horror score: all mood and atmosphere, with no bombast at all. John Williams scored Frank Langella’s Dracula back when he was still young and hungry, so it has sweep, punch and a catchy central motif. Finally, there’s Wojciech Kilar’s score for Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is all foreboding, pulsing orchestral percussion. I suppose if I had to pick only one to listen to, it would have be the Williams score. It’s the only one permanently on my iPod.

The brides hanker for some Harker.

FAVORITE BRIDES OF DRACULA: The three lovely minxes in the 1974 Dan Curtis/Jack Palance TV version. Jonathan Harker has snuck into the Count’s cavernous private study; he looks away, then looks back and boom, there they are, standing still and silent, watching from the far side of the room. When they finally lunge for him, the use of a wide-angle lens makes them seem to cover the distance with unnatural speed, and their hissing, snarling mouths are in total contrast to their previous impassive silence. The only movie where I’ve actually found the brides scary.

The happiest guy in Transylvania.

FAVORITE RENFIELD: In this case, the first is the best. Dwight Frye’s grinning, over-the-top madman in the 1931 Bela Lugosi film is the gold standard against which all other Renfields are measured. All you have to do is imitate his laugh and everyone knows exactly who you mean. Arte Johnson mimicked it perfectly in Love at First Bite.

You don't want to cross him.

FAVORITE VAN HELSING: Peter Cushing, hands down. The definitive vampire hunter, starting in Horror of Dracula and going through to The Satanic Rites of Dracula in 1974. High point: Brides of Dracula, which doesn’t actually have Dracula in it, but does give Cushing his best moments as Van Helsing.

Someday I shall return as Nixon.

FAVORITE DRACULA: The toughest choice of all, except that it’s not, really. If I use the gauge of which Dracula I watch the most, it has to be Frank Langella. Sure, he’s got seventies blow-dried hair in what appears to be 1910, but no other Dracula has the presence to play so many scenes in barely a whisper. The big budget means impressive effects and strong casting (Laurence freakin’ Olivier plays Van Helsing, even), but the Coppola version had that and for me it withers with each viewing. This film actually grows stronger with time.