Inside the Brain of E.C. Henry

Post Memorial Day Weekend 2015 Reflections

I actually had a pretty good Memorial Day Weekend as compared to this sad recollection two years ago.  O-kay, so I missed my normal Sunday post cycle, but at least I'm getting around to it now.

Highlight of the Memorial Day 2015 for me?  Probably watching the movie "Patton" (1970: staring George C. Scott, written by Francis Ford Coppola, directed by Franklin J. Shaffner).  So why was watching this movie the highlight for me?  Well-p, you would have had to have been there.  First, for starters, you have to understand my dad.  He's a die-hard republican.  He can't stand the democrats or the liberal mind.  At.  All.  He's very Stallinistic when it comes to what should be done with criminals and "bad people" in general--bullet to the head!  Thus, my dad EASILY gravitates towards hard-nose, take-no-prisoners, tough guy types such as General Patton was.  

So who was George Patton?  Well, I'm FAR from a war buff, but George Patton was an American hero of World War II.  He lead the American army in North Aftrica and was a guiding force in turning back the Nazi advance.  Patton also lead the army in the re-taking of the island of Sicali, and then later got in the ground assault as the Nazis were pushed back into Germany in 1944.  

My dad LOVES these John Wayne types.  And I wonder if real-life people like George Patton inspired John Wayne?  Now, John Wayne's era of movies was before my time.  But I know for a fact that he had A LOT of people who loved him.  And why?  He was the iconic hero who always stood for what was good and right, and was willing and always came out triumphant over whatever evil was present in his world surroundings.  People like that.  They like to know there is a hero in a white hat who is good and strong and can save them.  John Wayne was a hero in the movies.  George Patton, however, was a hero in real life.  

Anyway, I tuned this movie on as a lark, and when my dad saw it was on he dropped what he was doing and came over and watched it with me.  Overall I thought "Patton" (1970) was an excellent movie.  It had a lot of aircraft and tank battles.   Deffinatley a movie worth watching at least once if you've never seen it before.

The Sunday before Memorial Day, me and my family went to the Woodland Park Zoo.  I had a lot of fun with my brother's two year old son, Riley.  I made it my mission to "guide" Riley into being more adventerous.  I had Riley climing on EVERY rock surface or animal statue I could find.  And guess what, Riley was willing!  That little two year old boy was fearless.  Way more adventeruous than his seven year old brother, Brycen, who I affectionatle re-named "Obo" on account of him saying this once in private when the grown-ups were in one room and Brycen was in another alone trying to form words on his own.  

After the zoo, I took the family out for pizza on my treat on account of the last $50 bond I had to cash from my grandfather Louie: my mother's father.  I loved grandpa Louie.  That guy had a kind of Europenan style and swagger that was unique.  He was first generation from Slovoika in Europe, and he skole Slovak.  For years my grandfather used to give me U.S. bond for my birthday or as Christmas presents.  A long time ago I used a collection of matured bonds to help me pay for my first car.  Yeah!  I thought I had cashed them all, then about 6 months ago, my mother gave me one last bond from my grandfather Louie.  I spent a lot of time thinking about what was the right and just thing to do with this lone surviving, uncashed bond.  Finnally, I decided that I wanted to do something with my family and talk about what impact my grandpa Louie had on my growing up and life.  This ended up being going out for pizza courtesy of grandpa Louie.

So what was my fondest memory of grandpa Louie?  Easy.  I think it was 1978 on the Forth of July, my grandpa Louie took me, my brother, and my two other cousins: Jamie and Jeff; out on the Chicago waterfront to watch the fireworks afterwhich time he took us to McDonalds where we all had french fries together and had a great time stealling each other's fries.  That was back when a trip to McDonalds was special, before they really cheapened everything up.  Back in the days of Grimace, the Hamburgler and of cource the clown, Ronald McDonlad.  

Anwho, Iove my grandfather Louie dearly. To this day a lot of the stuff I do can be traced back to him and his influence on me, as I strive to carve out a style nitch of my own that would compare favorably to how I saw my grandfatther Louie conduct his daily business.  

On Memorial Day, Obo came over and he wanted to spend the day "messing around" with me.  Though I wanted to spend the day working on the novel, I succumbed to this little boy's desire and I took him on a long hike down to the river to revisit some of my old stomping grounds; places I kicked up my heels as an off-road motorcycle riding enthusiast.  

Did you know that coyotees can howl in the middle of the day?  

I didn't--untill Memorial Day 2015 at about 12:30 p.m.   Me and Obo are walking through a trail in the woods, and there across the hill from us a coyotee started howling.  In broad daylight!  At first this freaked Obo out, and even our dog, Sam (an adult/mature golden lab) started wimpering.  But after I explained who and what was making this sound, Obo's fear relented and he starting howling back at the coyote.  My guess for the mid-day howling was Sam got a little to close to its lair and the coyote was staking its claim and trying to ward us off.  

Later on our trek down the Carbon River, Obo and I discovered a place that we called "stick island".  It was place in the river bed where a collection of truely sun-baked driftwood had collected.  All over the dry riverbed was rocks.  This made the going hobbly-wobbly for little Obo.  Before we went home I made an impromptu campfire out of some of the sticks from stick island and Obo and I ate hotdog and marshmellows.  Poor Obo had marshmellow all over his lips and chin.  I had to dunk him the river to clean him off properly.  

That hike lasted for about five hours and by the end of it I was exhausted.  Still, all-in-all it was a pretty good Memorial Day Weekend for me.  Probably the best one I've ever had.  The only drawback...

You're a lazy fucker!

This quote from the movie "Birdman" sticks in my craw.  It's the scene where Riggan Thompson confronts Tabitha Dickinson: a high falutin NY art scene, thearte critic; and lashes out against her for threatening to write a bad review of his play--even before she's even seen it!  So how can this be re-directed so as to be apply to a one, E.C. Henry.  Well-p, my progress on editing the novel hasn't been as fast I'd like it to be.  Being honest, I drink too much and find myself just listening to sections of the novel using Dragon Natural Speaking and making line-edits.  This method of edting is... Very... Slooowww...  And not very efficient.

So okay Riggan, blast away.  I probably deserver it, as I'm probably more of a lazy motherfucker than Tabitha Dickinson ever was--and I have no excuse!

But at least in my fucked-up ineptitude I see my errors, and I know how to correct them.  They key for me (as it's always been) is DISCIPLINE.  I need to make adjustments and do more.  

Besides the line-editing on the prolog (the initial, epic dragon fight) I have been reading ahead.  Actually printed out and re-read all of chapter 14.  All told I have like 24 chapters, two of which are an epilog and a prolog, btw.  Anywho, I raeally like chapter 14, and that's a very encouraging thing.  In chapter 14 I really fleshout and explose the inner-working, thought process and motivation of this story's main villian.  

Know the vilain, know the story

(Another E.C. Henry writing mantra that I wholeheartedly subscribe to)  

Anyway, I don't know why this is but writing vilains come much more easily to me than writing heros.  I have no problem whatsoever slipping into the skin and into the head of the vilian and exposing why he does what he does.  And the cool thing is, that on a certain level, my vilains rationale is understandable; he's doing what he's doing for the benefit of someone else.  But when that someone else is taken away from him, what then?  Ah ha!  A greater vilain emerges...

And so on the Friday as I FINALLY complete this post I enter a new weekend.  A weekend filled with vast possibilites.  Writing wise I hope to get some serious work in on chapters 13 and 14 this weekend: finish the red-line edits of chapter 13 and make and type in red-line edits for chapter 14.  

I'm going to try to shed this "lazy fucker" feeling I have and make some serious progress towards finishing this novel.  And the cool thing is, that with the screenwriting I've done for 10 + years, I see things in images.  So who knows maybe with all the work I've done on the prolog I'll revisit the 1st of 3 movie screenplay adaptations and really make the intitial eye-catching scene sing.  

Mush!  Mush!  Enough of camping on Memorial Day and past writing failures.  It's on to a beter more productive day.  Hope to tell you more about in a couple days.  Till then, stay well.

Sincerly,

E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

Great Action Sets the Stage for Iconic Lines of Dialog

"I'll be back."

The most iconic line of dialog that comes to my mind.  For years Arnold Swartzeneggar's infomous line of dialog has been said by million of adoring fans.  

And why is this line of dialog famous.  Is it because of Arnold's great delivery?

Certainly not!  It's because of the title of this post, and it's something I want you to think about: iconinc diaglog comes from GREAT ACTION that proceeds and comes after it.  

Why is that line of dialog so iconic?  Dude, you've been set up with GREAT sci-fi and thriller action.  A half-man/half-robot monster is on a hell-bent quest to kill the mother of a futhure infuential leader.  After the Terminator says, "I'll be back", he crashes a car in a police headquarters lobby and proceeds to mow each and everyone of them down with automatic weapons--and it was awesome!  

Great action came after this line of dialog, and then later people remeber that one line and it becomes iconic.  

Point: action fuels the potential for great lines of dialog to be spoken and remembered by the audience.  

Kinda wierd to think, isn't it, that if you want to craft a great line of dialog you probably better be able to back and set up and pay it off with great, action set pieces.  

Corollary: be Quentin Tarantino.  HUGE fan of the Q.  He goes counter-intuative and uses blasts of dialog to set up brief and intense action.  Loved "Reservoir Dogs."  It's a heist-gone-wrong movie that for the most part is all talk.  BUT there are a few intense scenes with guns and the torturing of a police officer to the song, "Back in the Middle Again".  

So you can use dialog to set-up memorable action, BUT if you do you better be as good as Quentin Tarantino is.  Watch enough of his movies and you'll see that he is an unspoken MASTER of using diversity to fuel conflict.  Typically this conflict is an escallating verbal barb from people of different points of view.  

Short post.  But that was the goal here.  It was just a key reminder of a writing axiom that I belive to be true:

Great action set pieces set the stage for iconic lines of dialog being spoken.

This quick lesson in writing well has been given to you this day by,

The Ice Cream Post

So what is your favorite ice cream of all-time?  For me this is a bit of a trick answer.  As my favorite ice cream right now isn't even technically an ice cream at all, it's a gelato: Sicilian Pistachio by Talenti.  So what's the difference between what's consdidered a gelato and what's considered ice cream?  I don't know.  BUT if you really want to know you can read about that issue right here!  Personally, I don't give a fuck.  I buy my Siclian Pistacio gelato in the ice cream section of the Bonney Lake Safeway anytime I have a taste for it.  Yeah, it's a little spendy, but it's worth it!

So why am I writing a 2nd post today?  Well-p, Skippy, I felt like it, AND I originally intended on writing this post last week as a post-script for Mother's Day.  Since George Miller's "The Fury Road" came out this weekend I didn't want to post on this a week later so I was on-time and topical concerning current events for once.  

So why ice cream?  And why now?  Well, last Sunday night WAS "Mother's Day" AND I actually did the right thing and took my mom and dad out to a fancy restaurant.  We ate at Harbor Lights on Tacoma waterfront.  I think the total bill for me, my mom, and my dad came out to $189 bucks or so.  They had a bottle of wine, I had a coctail and then later an after-dinner coctail.  

So why bring this up?  Because I wanted to make a point to anyone who reads this post that whey you go to a fancy restaurant order the fanciest stuff you can get.  Don't get cheap and get items on the low end of the menu.  My dad got what's called a "Captain's Plate" and he lived to regret it.  I, on the other hand, ordered the Dungenesse crab and was loving life!  After dinner I even had my favorite dessert, creme brulee.  Ever had a creme brulee before?  Well, if you haven't, you should try it.  That's my favorite dessert of all-time and if it's served hot it's a must have, if I find out the place making it serves it cold, they lose a lot of points in books.  Stangely enough, you MAY be able to find creme brulee in the dessert section of your big grocery store.  I know the Bonney Lake Safeway carries it on and off again. I've made it 2 times for my family: me, my mom and my aunt love it.  Unfortantely, my dad who's a big meat-and-potatoes guy isn't into it.  

The creme brulee I had at Harbor Lights last Sunday night wasn't hot, but I did have a it with a real interesting desert coctail.  The coctail was Grand Manier and Vermoth served in a sipping cup that was tilted at rest over a cup of hot water.  This made the liquor warm.  Very interesting presentation, as for the drink, I would have just assumed have had a Conac, which I think is the perfect match when eatting creme brulee.  

Back to ice cream.

Besides Siclian Pistacio Gelato there are some other flavors I really like: Baskin Robbin's Dacquari Ice is very refreshing, Baskin Robbin's Cherry Jubillee is always good, and chocolate chip mint is usually good from a bevy of differerent distributors.  If I'm going with vanilla ice cream, I LA-OVE hot fudge on the top.  Malt wise, nothing is better than a butterscotch malt, pistacio almold milkshake at Baskin Robbins rocks too.

O-kay, 'nough of the good stuff, here's some ice cream and related products that I can't stand:

• Kool-Aid pops: I hate EVERYTHING Kool-aid.  Growing up my mom used to substitue Koo-Aid product, that sugar water mixutre for soda pop and other things.  I've ALWAYS had a stigma against Kool-Aid.  To this day I won't drink it.
• Licorice ice cream.  I remember trying this ONCE as a kid.  Couldn't even finish the one scoop I had it was so gross.
• M&M, Snickers, Butterfingers or Skittles in ice cream or in cake.  Love these products as individual candy, but it you start putting that in ice cream or cake I won't eat it.  

Okay, so now you know a little bit about the decadant deserts I like, mostly on the ice cream side of the ledger.

So how does this apply to my writing.  Well-p, I want all my writing to come across a creme boulee or Siscilain pistacio gelato.  I want you to like it and savor it.  I don't just crank stuff out, rather I work very hard at it so that I have a quality product to share with the world.  Right now I'm re-editing the Prolog.  Just today I was able to listen to the entire first page without stopping the playback feature to change something.  Nailed the first line of the novel.  Feel real good about the first paragraph.  

It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.

OR

It was a dark and stormy night - from Snoopy of the Peanuts cartoon series.

Hopefully, my opening line will become iconinc or at least precieved as being good.  YES, I do care very much abou the opening line of my epic fantasy novel.  I think I've listend to it over 50 times now and am not feeling the need to change it, so that's a good thing.  Now was for the rest of the book espcially the crap I'm reading in chapter 13...  Sigh, I gotta a lot of work ahead of me, and yes, some it is heavy lifting thing that definatley need to be better before I can show it to soul.

Cool news to report that definately IS NOT Kool-Aide:

M' man Scott Mullens who has read my scripts for yeas (as he's a "reader" in the Industry) is now a screenwriter with credits and an IMBD page to his name.  Recently Scott even had one of his screeplays made into a movie where it showed on a cable TV station.  Point: he's arrived!!  Yeah!   Isn't that cool when you hear that one of the good guys that you've known for years has broken through, made a sale, and got his work made into a movie.  Anyway, I'm real happy for Scott.  And hopefully now with this success under his belt more is to come.  I wish him nothing but God's best.

My favorite celebrity continues to earn points with me, as last week on the Huffington post I read that Taylor Swift reached out to encourage a fan who had recently lost her mother to cancer.  The more I see and read about Taylor Swift, the more I like her.  It's so easy to hide your personal life from people and try to have a professional and a personal life.  But Taylor lifts the veil occssionally, and let's her fans know some of the things that are going on in her personal life.  Do you know how easy it is when a close family member has a bad diagnosis to throw the blanet of privacy over the situation?  But Taylor actullay used her own tragedy to try to encourage someone who had just suffered a major loss in their life.  Taylor Swift: beautiful on the outside, beautiful on the inside too.

So good for Taylor Swift.  Like Scott Mullens I wish her nothing but God's best and a long and sustained run at the top.  Be that as a pop star or whatever Taylor Swift sets her mind too.  Huge fan.  And I like her decisions and openness.

 

Hope everything is going good in your word, my fans who continue to visit this blog.  I look forward to communication with you again soon.

Love,

E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

The Fury Road (2015) by George Miller Movie Review

   Gotta believe that when George Miller's "Mad Max: The Fury Road" (2015) came out I would be one of the first to see it.  Well, I did wait until the first Saturday of its wide release to see this good movie, but on my first day off on its release I couldn't wait any longer.

   And why is that?  Well-p, wayyy back in 1981 I saw George Miller's "The Road Warrior", which stared Mel Gibson, and this movie had a profound impact on my developing world-view as a writer (who didn't know it yet).

   Confusing?  Shouldn't be.  I'm talking word-builing in a world after our's where the reset button has been pushed on society.  Now in the case of the "The Road Warrior", "The Fury Road" and "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" the world is George Miller's take on a post-apacalyptic world after a nuklear war and the scavengers who emerge in this world and put their own stamp on it.

   Lemme just start the review by saying George Miller Miller did a GREAT JOB giving us a vision for a post-apaclypic world that takes place between the time of the first movie in this series, "Mad Max" (1979) and  "The Road Warrior".  Real good imagination on display here.  I was really impressed with the vehicle chase scenes and the motorcylce attack in the canyon is a CLASSIC car chase scene.  

   You may not realize this because you skip out on seeing this movie because its too dark for your tastes, so I'm going to cue you in on the BEST part of this movie; it's the AWESOME way "Fury Road" fits in between "Mad Max" and "The Road Warrior".  Kinda reminds me of what George Lucas did with his prequel flims (1999 - 2005) to the original three Star Wars movies (1977-1983).  But now back to George Miller's high concept brilliance...

   Three cities all controlled by post-apacalpytic tyrants, all whose cities have a different stength.  Immortan Joe (the main villain in the movie) pumps up water so his city can raise crops.  Another mutant city is called "Gas town", a third mutant city is called "Bullet town".  From a world-buidling perspective, at the high end of high concept, where a world and its rules are made this movie is pretty solid for what it is, a post-apocalytic thriller.

   Where "Fury Road" ultimately fails is in its character development department.  YES, for two hours you have some GREAT car chases, but at the end of the show do ANY of the characters in George Miller's "Mad Max: The Fury Road" stick with you?  I say, no.  The closest thing that even came close to getting me interested from a character perspective was the  Nicholas Hoult "Nux" character.  Nux starts out as one of Immortain Joe's bezerkers (I think in the movie they call the war boys).  For much of the movie Nux whips himself into a frenzy so that he can lay chase after the main protagonist of the show which is Tom Hardy's "Max Rockatasky" a.k.a "Mad Max".  Towards the end of the movie Nux is seen cudleing with one of Immortain Joe's freed wives who is roughly the same age as him.  Hence suggesting a potential romance and normallizing of this former bezerker.  THAT was good stuff!

   Unfortunatly in the character department, at a one-on-one level THAT was the only character I cared about by the end of the movie.  Sure Tom Hardy's Max is an active protagnoninst, and SOME effort is made to give him a backstory, where he is horror movie tortured by images of family coming back to haunt him.  But that's it, and that didn't work.  At.  All.  For me!

   Okay, so what about Charlize Theron's Imperator Furosia character?  She's got a metal hand!  Well, that's where her interesting ends, unfortunatley.  She spends 3/4 of the movie running a fool's errand to her homeland--only to find it's gone!  

   Yes, there was a nice job of high concept bridging in of older women warriors at this point, but on a personal level the only one I cared about what that naked one atop the power pole, and that's just because I'm a horny 45 year-old male, who dilusionally thinks he's some kind of ladies man.  So hey, if you find the girl naked already, half the work's done right?  Now all you gotta do is buy her a drink.  Unfortunately, there were now bars that were serving alchol in that next of the desert.

   O-kay, so how did George Miller and his screenwriter partners do on the bad guys?  Pretty good on the world building level.  Shallow as a puddle on the character development level.  Immortain Joe looks cool, but after you get used to that, there's not much more that discovered.  His son Rictus Errectus, looks cool at first blush, but everything after that is a bore.  The other warlords could have been more interesting too.  Love their vehicles, beyond that, boring.  Did LA-OVE the bandaged up bickers in the canyon.  No need to go into them on a deep level, and this story didn't.  Seeing these "hill demons" on motorcylces jump over the war ring and drop fire bombs on them IS the coolest thing in this movie, from my prespective.  So George Miller and his creative team deserve some props there. 

   The big takeaway from this movie, is it has a world that can draw you in and get you to care, but it lacks the developed characters to push this movie into the realm of being considered a classic.

   Still, tip of the hat to George Miller and his film crew, the shots they managed to get during the car battles in the sun-kissed desert were AWESOME.  Back in "The Warrior" I was disappointed by sudden changes in the sun durring the car chase in the desert.  That is not a problem in "Fury Road".  Okay, I get it, George had acess to better technology now that made for better inter-scene connectivity.  But that's still my biggest gripe against "The Road Warrior" (1981) how in one scene it's twillight, then in the same car chase in the next shot that follows its considerably much lighter outside.

   Finally, E.C. Henry gives "Mad Max: the Fury Road" a rank score of 7.5 out of 10.   Great action just not enough interesting characters by the end of the movie.  And for means of comparison I'd give "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" 6 out of 10, "Alien" (1979) 6.5 out of 10, "Terminator: Judgement Day" (1991) 8 out of 10, "The Road Warrior" 9 out of 10, "The Matrix" (1999) 9.5 out of 10, "The Terminator" (1984) 10 out of 10, and "Aliens (1985) 10 out of 10.  

E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

The Flawed Protagonist

Nina Sayers, Riggan Thompson, Daniel Plainview, Whip Whittkaker, and Mavis Gary; who are these people, and what do they have in common?  

Answer: they are the lead characters in hit movies in the drama genre.  And what they all have in character is that they are what I would call: flawed protagonists.   

And what exactly is a "flawed protagonist"?  Glad you asked, Skippy, 'cuz I came prepared with m' own defiintion. So check it out, Skippy.

Flawed protagonist: a central character in a movie who has an internal problem which risks his or her success with overcoming the central conflict that they are in.

Pretty good definition, eh Holmes?  Thought so.  Just try to realize the guy pulling the strings of this bitch/blog is an intellectual baddass.  Just sayin'.  

Mavis Gary as played by Charlize Theron in Diablo Cody's "Young Adult" (2011) is a flawed protagoninst.  In this story we follow her character arc journey of attempting to refind her relevance after her stint as writer of young adult novels is clealy winding down.  Mavis Gary wants to reconnect with a past high school flame because that's the time when she was "cool" and ontop of the world, and she wants to go back there.

But Mavis Gary is flawed.  The journey we the audience take in this movie is following her vain attempt at re-invisioning herself.  Mavis Gary is not a galliant hero, she's a selfish individual with vain, misguided ambitions.  She knows she needs something but has her heart set on the wrong thing--a married man, whose wife is expecting with child.  Mavis' pursuit of this guy is not noble.  So why bother watching "Young Adult"?  Well, in watching Mavis and why she behaves the way she does, we get to see our own poor descions and how they can misslead us don't the wrong road.  Mavis Gary's character arc is a cauionary tale.   Mavis Gary character arc is about the ramifications of setting your heart on the wrong thing.

Daniel Plainview as played by Daniel Day Lewis in Paul Thomans Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" (2007) is a flawed protagonist. From what I remember about his character was that he was a hard, solitary man.  A guy who had a concept of family and love, but didn't know how to express that amdist the ambtitions he was striving for: to be an oil barron and be rich.   In the line of his pursuit he ends up taking on a boy and raising him up, but that boy ends up losing his hearing in a oil rig accident.  This boy, and Daniel's potential connecting with him is his one salvation for finding his way and becoming a more well-rounded person.  But once this boy looses his hearing, their relationship suffers a devestating setback.  One that Daniel Plainview never quite recovers from.  

Why watch "There Will be Blood"?  Well-p, it is Daniel Day Lewis at his best.  You do get a perspecitive on the oil rigging buisness around the turn of the century.  But as pertains to this flawed protagonist, we get see the arc of a hard man and the choices that come into his life which offer him relief from himself.  Unfortunately, Daniel's own distrust and hatered for mankind is his downfall, so is a cautianry tale, of how a man can miss out on the things that can bring him into a bigger, more fulfilling life.  

Nina Sayers as played by Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" (2010) is a flawed protagonist.  Of all the flawed protagnists listed here.  This is the one that I realate to the most.  Why?  Because Nina desperately wants to be good.  She has put in years of sacrifice and hard work to be best ballet dancer that she can be, and now finally she gets to be the headliner.  Isn't that how us pre-pro novelist and screenwriters roll?  Fuck yeah!  We spend YEARS writing in obsucrity, hoping beyond all hope that someday our writing we be recieved well and something mass produced will be done with it.

Like Nina we want to be good.  BUT if we don't watch it, like Nina before us, perhaps we too can fall victim to our own inherrent weaknesses and not get to enjoy the fruits of our labor.  

Nina Sayers, however, had some serious issues.  Her underdevloped sexuality was explointed by her director and fellow balerena.  And not only that, but in her isolation Nina's mind started playing tricks on her.  

The central question posed in "Black Swan" is TOTALLY character arc related to Nina's plight: can Nina pull off her staring role in "Black Swan" amdist her growing mental and sexual turmoil?  The answer to that is yes and no.  Eventually Nina is able to harness in and properly channel her sexuality so that it actually contributes to her perfomance.  Unfortunatly, Nina is not able to conquer her mental demons, and that, ultimately ends up being her demise.  

Point to consider: the inner demons of flawed protagonist ends up being the central conflict of the story.  When attempting to identify if the story your watching has a flawed protagonist go to the central conflict of the strory and see if it's the protagonist's inner demons that are fueling the conflict, OR if the central confict comes from another source.

This is why I would not consider, Annakin Skywalker a "flawed protagonist"; the central conflict of the Star Wars saga is a greater battle between good and evil in the galaxy, of which Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is ultimately a pawn.  Get that?  Star Wars has a bunch of heros and a bunch of despicable villians.  The only character with much a grey area is Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.  Yes, Annakin/Darth Vader has an inner struggle but it does not drive the plot, the great battle between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire is what is driving the story.  And in this battle Annakin Skywalker/Darth Vader is just a pawn.

Riggan Thompson as played by Michael Keaton in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu's "Birdman (or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)" (2014) is a flawed progonist, and probably E.C. Henry's FAVORITE protagonist of all-time.  Laudy praise, eh?  Well, after watching "Birdman" five times now it's grown on me to point where I think I'm ready to stand out on that ledge and say that with some confidence.

So what makes Riggan Thompson so good?  It's a beautul blend of EXCELLENT screenwriting at the character level topped of by a great performance by the only actor who could have pulled this role off, that being Michael Keaton as so much of the audience's buy in of this character comes from knowing that in the past Michael Keaton played Batman in several movies in the late 80s and early 90s.  Thus ONLY Michael Keaton could have pulled of the Riggan Thompson character.  As for the screenwriting, I site that because of all the factors that come at this character, Riggan Thompson.  In "Birdman" Riggan battles his own personal demon of his past sucess as the title character in the previous "Birdman" movies, AND he battles a mistress who wants more affection and commitment from him, AND he battles a broadway star who one level may save his play, but on another level may destroy him, AND he battles an actor that he forced off the play.   So hats off to Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo, and of course, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for penning a GREAT script for this greatest flawed protagonist of all-time.

As for Michael Keason's acting in "Birdman", I can still watch it and appreciate all the subtle nuances of his performance.  I love how after trashing his dressing room, he shoos his hand out and expresses to his confidant Jake (Zach Galifiankis) that this "isn't for him".  And I loved how Riggan cringes just before he takes the stage with the water gin bottle he's going to replace.  And then there's all the facial expressions Riggan makes when he's getting drunk and considering how things are going.  This is just brilliant acting.  And to be honest with you, I didn't think Micheal Keaton had it in him to deliver a powerhouse performance like this.  Michael Keaton may not have won an Oscar for his performance as Riggan Thompson in "Birdman", but in my books he did.  I love Riggan Thompson; he is my favorite movie protagonist of all-time.  Whew, it was easier to say the 2nd time.

Whip Whittaker as played by Denzel Washington in "Flight" (2012) is a flawed progaonist.  In this story Denzel plays a commerical airplane pilot who manages to stave of catostrophic airline crash with some fancy manueveing, but later an investigation of the accident reveals that that Whip may have been drunk behind the wheel of plane when this happened.  This flawed protagonist must face his own ego, substance abuse, and his fractured family and relationships with other people.  

 

O-kay, so as I wind down this post, let's summarize a little bit more about what is meant by a flawed protagonist using bullet points:

• A flawed progagonist is the main main chacter in a story whose innner struggles ends up being the central conficlt of that story.
• Flawed protagonists are mostly found in movies that fall under the "drama" genre.
• Studying and getting into the character arcs of a flawed protagonist can be great therapy for a given audience member, as movies are a "safe place" to look at issues that affect people and what the ramications can be if those issue aren't dealt with in the right way.
• Most times storylines with flawed protagonists are trajedies.  A.k.a. something bad or ominous is threatened to happen.

O-kay, so how'd I do handling this whole "flawed protagonist" th-ang?  Well-p, at least I tried.  Sometimes I'm real passionate about something, but have yet to full articulate it.  For me, after watching "Birdman" five times now, I felt the need to take a stab at delving in deeper to this subject.  Doesn't make me an expert on it, by any means, but going deeper into subjects like what is and what is not a flawed protagonist is what interests me.  It interests me at a creative level.  I love strudying and marveling over what other people have done.  Hopefully, at some point in my life, I'll join them.  Hollywood (and the world) will discover me, and see what new thing I, E.C. Henry, bring to the table.  

 

 

The Task of Building Forts Amidst the Wilderness; Challenges in Writing a Novel: Volume V

For the past eight month or so I've been driven to make one of the 20+ chapters in my epic fantasy novel I'm in process of writing as good as I can make it.  Chapter 2 is a critical chapter that I feel I must "nail" and make as good as I'm capable of doing.  Yes, I've tried to branch out and work on other chapters that need work, but guess what after a while it feels like.  IT.  ALL.  NEEDS.  WORK.  Bad writing abounds.

So that begs the question, how does a writer go from taking something that he's writen, that's currently what he or she would consider "bad writing" and make it "good writing".  You work at it, dipshit!  Writers have to be willing to revisit their writing and make an attempt to make it beter.  

Anywho, see all this bad wrting in an earlier draft of the story, has really made me want to get at least one chapter to be what I would consider "good".  If I can get chapter 2 to that level, I would have a sense of inner satisfaction.  An small, "I did it!"  

Do writers need to feel proud of their work?  Yeah, they do.  Moreso I need to feel that I'm capable of writing something worthy of mass publication.  In order to scratch this itch, I have been slaving over one chapter in particluar.  And now after many months of work I'm finally at the point of stopping work on this chapter and moving on.  

Originally, in an earlier draft this chapter was actually part of a bigger chapter, but after recognizing the logical break I broke a 30 page chapter into pieces, and out of the 2nd half of this original chapter came my current (what I consider critical) chapter 2.  Aftter 8 months of work this has gone from about a 26 page section to a 75 page chapter with 43,592 words!  So what's the reason for the near 3X expansion?  Depth.  I went much deeper and made this critical sequence and the outer story which it frames, stronger.

My hope is that in this wilderness of editing I've got a fort built.  A stronghold out of which I can venture out and try to conquer the rest of this story world.  

Writing is rewring.  And I'm a firm proponent of that.  First thought is not always best thought.  From my point of view, the best stories take time.  

So why does it take so long with everything?  Well-p, I'm not writing a simple story.  It's a layered story with many characters going through what I hope will be exciting character arcs for an audience to track.  

You wouldn't believe the thoughts going through my mind these days.  Stuff like parallel construction: how one characters' arc compares and intersects with another.  How to graft in buiding details when scenes are revisited.  How not to jar a reader out of the story by changing details of a place when it is revisited later in the story.  (It's VERY EASY to be too creative and re-invision everything, when sometimes what you really need is consistency)

As I slowly forge ahead I'm finding lots of problems.  Like in chapter 13, I've got a critical sceene that is half-baked and not nearly as impactful as it needs to be.  Thankfully, I'm able to see that now, and make corrections.   You do that by writing notes to yourself, then incorporating those notes into a stonger, later draft.  

I just printed out the latest version of chapter 2.  I'm going to show that to my aunt and see what she thinks.  Hopefull this is the first of many more gold brick to come...

So is ol' E.C. looking to build even more forts in his vast story chapter universe.  You bet he is!  Next up is the prolog.  Gotta have a whizbang, big and good opening.  I'm hopeful that this chapter isn't too far off.  I've already done a lot of work on it.  

Besides that I'm determined to continue to advance the frontier and root out more and more bad writing and replace it with better writing.  Right now I've got reverse beat sheets done for two chapters.  Eventually every chapter will have one.  

So yours truly has a lot of work ahead of him, at least as pertains to the writing of novel.  At the homefront I'm waiting for the day job to end.  A couple weeks ago my company announced a big loss of business, so I figured I wouldn't be there too much longer.  My good paying job could end at any moment.  But the crazy thing is, I HATE that place!  More precisely, I HATE the people I work with, and don't trust the management which is over us all.  So whenever this job ends, leaving the people behind won't be hard for me to do.  Loss of income.  Well, that's always scary.  These are such unstable times.  But one positive thing to report on in the job front was that I JUST passed my seniority date, passing the five year mark.  So if they fire me, I'm owed a lot more vaccation money.  Yay!

Sorry for not having this post ready to go a couple days ago.  My bad.  The goal as pertains to this blog remains the same: two posts a week.  One bigger, content post sometime on the weekend.  And one smaller post, sometime during the week.  I'll try to get back on track with that in the future.

So what's next?  Well-p, time to FINALLY move on from chapter 2.  Hopefully this change will free up my productivity and I'll make even greater progress towards a final product that is worthy of mass production.  I'll let you know more about my future plans and goals in later posts.   So stay tuned.  And thanks for continueing to visit this blog.  

Sincerely,

E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

P.S. I did see "Avengers 2" over the weekend with my dad.  Wow, did that movie ever suck.  The biggest problem I saw with that movie was it felt like a regurgitated vilian.  Ultron was a complete bore.  It seams to me that in the last couple superhero movies the main villian was an Iron Man knock-off with other flying Iron Man knock-off cohorts.  Anyway the vilian angle in "Avengers 2" didn't work for me at all.  I did laugh a couple times at some of the clever lines of dialog, but overall I though "Avengers 2" sucked.  

E.C. Henry rating of "Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron" (2015)" on a 0 to 10 scale with 10 being the highest: 2.0

So much for the 2015 summer movie season getting off to great start, at least from an artistic point of view.  Don't even get me started with the box office numbers, because my point of view that is not an accurate standing of how good a movie really is.  Try to remember that most people see superhero movies as "safe entertainment" thus they tend to draw a wide crowd, but that alone does not make a move good, artistically good or prove it has an interesting to tell.  "Avengers 2" is not conceptually interesting, it is mind-numbingly boring.  If you like "Avengers 2" at all, it is probably due to the fact that you like the actors and actresses playing the superheros, because the rest of "Avengers 2" is essentially as stupid as the "Transformers" series and underliining concepts of Autobots vs. Desceptions.