“Dogs and cats, living together!” – that’s what immediately popped into my mind yesterday when I read Tony Isabella praising DC on Facebook for how it was treating him in regard to Black Lightning.I’ve never seen the original contract between DC and Isabella in regard to Black Lightning so I have nothing to say of substance in regard to the property’s legal status, but as anyone who has followed Tony’s online writing over the years can tell you, Isabella’s statements about DC’s treatment of him and his landmark creation have not exactly been complimentary. That changed, however, yesterday, when Isabella called attention to an Amazon listing of the April 2016 release of Black Lightning, volume 1, the first of what could be a series of collections featuring DC’s first African-American superhero to star in an an eponymous book.
According to Isabella, the rapprochement is the result of outreach by Dan Didio and Geoff Johns, and Isabella is confident that DC will treat him fairly in regard to the payment of royalties. He also raised the possibility of doing more work for DC given sufficient reader demand; the prospect of Isabella working with, say, the creators of the revived Milestone line on a multi-generational crossover is particularly intriguing, given certain thematic resonances with Milestone’s nuanced reflections on creative identity.
To say that Isabella’s announcement is the most unexpected Facebook post of the year is an understatement — it’s one of the most dramatic turnarounds I’ve seen in decades of reading about comics-related disputes, and kudos to all involved for bringing about what I hope will be a truly lasting peace in our time.
Click cover to see the photo gallery.
For the next month, my writing goals for my work-in-progress novel trilogy are clear: conflict, emotion, surprise, enrich.
The trilogy is tentatively called, The Blue Planets, and is an early-teen or YA science fiction. Book 1, The Blue Marble, has a complete draft; for Books 2 and 3, I have complete outlines. I’m happy with all of it, but I know it needs to go much farther before anyone sees it. For the next month, I’ll work simultaneously on revising Book 1 and the outlines, trying to weave them into a more coherent whole.
4 Revision Goals
Conflict. The first goal in revising The Blue Planets is to up the conflict.
No conflict = no story, no readers.
Small conflict = small readership.
Big conflict = bigger readership.
Huge, gut-wrenching, moral-decison-making conflict = huge, engaged readership.
I’ll be looking at conflict globally and in each scene. Man v. nature is built into the story in powerful ways already. But I need to look at man v. man, both overall and in each scene. How can I put people at odds in more ways and in more interesting ways?
Emotion. Always my weakest point, I’ll go scene by scene and ask questions:
What emotional things happened just before this scene? What’s the attitude of each character coming in?
What is the worst thing–emotionally–that could happen to the main character? That’s what I must confront him with.
What is the emotional arc of the scene?
What else can I do to deepen the emotional impact?
Surprise. Readers read for entertainment. If they can predict exactly what happens in a story, they’re bored. I’ll go through–especially the outlines–and ask, “What does the reader expect here?” I’ll look for ways to twist that expectation to fulfill it, but with a twist.
Enrich. I’m excited about enriching the stories, because this part gets past the basic plotting and into fun stuff. Where can I add humor? Here are previous posts on 3 humor techniques and then 5 more. I’m hoping for a running gag, at least. I’ll be working to tie the three books together through scene, character, bits of dialogue, running gags, perhaps a bit of clothing, or a mug of triple-shot venti mocha–something. Enrichment might be adding bits of scientific information artfully, without doing an information dump. Making the characters quirkier and more fun to be around. Loosening up on dialogue.
By the middle to end of July, I expect the BLUES to be in shape to send out. I’m excited.
What are your goals for summer writing?
by Scott Rhoades
It doesn't matter what genre you write, what age group you write for, whether you rhyme or swear or rely on pictures to tell most of your story. Whether people remember your work comes down to one thing: delight.
We've all read books that we really liked, or that had an artistry or depth or literariness that we enjoyed and appreciated, but that we didn't quite love. Likewise, we've read books that we know might not quite have the literary value of many of the books we enjoy reading and displaying on our shelves, but they've become instant favorites or guilty pleasures. A book sticks with you for many different reasons, but the books that make your eyes light up when they are mentioned have less to do with quality than they do with the sheer delight of reading them.
What creates this sense of delight varies from reader to reader, but I think most of are delighted by similar things, including:
- Surprise
- Use of language (see surprise)
- Humor (see surprise)
- Originality (see surprise)
I could make this list longer but, as you might guess, the one element that is sure to delight us is surprise. An unexpected turn of phrase, twist of plot, reaction of character or, really, an unexpected whatever triggers a pleasure reaction in our brains. It's why a unique combination of verbs and nouns brings more joy than a cliche, even if the cliche is perfect for a particular situation. It's why a writer like J.K. Rowling can delight us with an unusual combination of elements we've seen in books by Roald Dahl and other authors.
Think of two of my favorite authors, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck. Both of these men were prolific authors whose works vary greatly in quality. Twain wrote
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but he also wrote
Tom Sawyer, Detective and
The American Claimant. Steinbeck wrote
The Grapes of Wrath, but he also wrote
Burning Bright and
The Short Reign of Pippin IV. I mention the "also wrotes" not to put them down or to call them bad, but to make a point. Twain and Steinbeck fans like those other books, maybe even love them. Why? Because each of these writers, even when relatively off, delight their readers with the way they write. Even if the characters aren't his best or the story is not quite up to snuff, there's just something about the way our favorites write that makes us forgive, or even ignore, the shortcomings of their lesser works because we know we're going to find something delightful.
That's the kind of writer you want to be.
All of this came to mind today while I was driving home for lunch, with a Tom Lehrer CD in the player. People my age most likely know a few of Tom Lehrer's songs, thanks to the Dr. Demento radio show. Songs like "The Masochism Tango" and "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" have a delightfully twisted humor, a darkness that makes us laugh and remember the songs. I love that about his songs. But there are a lot of funny and dark comedy songwriters. Lehrer is pushed to the top by the kind of intelligence you'd expect from a mathematics professor at major universities, like Lehrer was.
But that's not what
really delights me about Tom Lehrer. I'm a word nerd, and (as you may have gathered by now) I love surprises. Few, if any, songwriters can turn a great phrase or rhyme that surprises me as much as Tom Lehrer.
How many rhymes do you know for
funeral? Check this out:
When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
It doesn't come out right on the page. You have to
5 Comments on The Delight of Surprise, last added: 5/29/2011
Happy Friday! I know I’ve been a bit quiet this week. Recovering from a crazy month, I suppose. I also have a little something up my sleeve, but I can’t tell you what it is. Not yet. Soon. I promise.
Good for Tony! I hope that everything works out between him and DC Comics.
Today in TONY ISABELLA’S BLOGGY THING…Cats and dogs, living together: http://tonyisabella.blogspot.com/2015/07/black-lightning-2015.html
(Yes, I am shamelessly stealing Jeff’s very funny line from Ghostbusters.)
[…] Isabella to confirm via Facebook that he and DC were back on speaking terms (as publicized by The Beat’s Jeff Trexler). Isabella later told the story of the reconciliation on his personal […]