alobear | Shakesspeare, sci-fi and editing...

A couple of weeks ago, Dave and I went to see The Tempest at the Barbican. It was an impressive production, with a huge stage, looming set, and very good special effects. The presentation of Ariel as a swooping hologram, was particularly effective. But, the interpretation didn’t match the staging, in my view, as it was a very traditional version of the play, with little alteration from the original. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it also wasn’t very interesting. The performances were good, but not stellar, and the theatre was too hot for me really to enjoy the show.

Last December, I went to Moniack Mhor near Inverness for a tutored writing retreat, and the guest speaker was Ken Macleod. I’d never read any of his work, but one of the books he mentioned sounded intriguing, so I added it to my reading pile and finally got round to giving it a try last week. It felt very exposition-heavy at the start, with the opening chapter focusing much more on establishing all the societal, political, historical and domestic details of the near-future setting than introducing complex and sympathetic characters. Still, the basic premise of the novel is a good one, and kept me interested enough to read on. The central question is about whether or not the government should make a particular medical treatment (pre-natal fixing of chromosonal abnormalities) compulsory, and what the allowed exemptions should be.

There are two aspects that make this premise interesting, at least to me. One is that the protagonist, Hope, objects to the ‘fix’, as it is known, but not on any religious grounds, and so cannot claim a conscience exemption from having to take it. This opens up fascinating questions as to why people of religious convictions can gain an exemption, while mothers-to-be who disagree with the treatment for other reasons cannot. The other interesting aspect is that Hope’s husband sees people and things other people can’t. The book takes a great deal of care in delaying the reveal of whether or not Hugh’s chromosonal abnormality causes him to have hallucinations or allows him to see a realm or dimension that most people can’t perceive. That distinction doesn’t really matter, because it still throws up interesting questions for Hope in deciding if she should stick to her principles, or give them up to ensure her child does not inherit the abnormality.

Unfortunately, the story gets more and more muddled as it goes along, and the climax is very much diluted by lengthy interrogation scenes where the authority figures spout long monologues containing lots of legal and police jargon, thus destroying the tension. Then it just kind of ends, rather abruptly and with very little explanation of anything, followed by fifteen pages of narrative summary, explaining what happened to all the characters afterwards. So, it was a great premise, which was executed a bit weirdly, and didn’t really come to any conclusions, which was a bit of a shame.

Shattered Warrior is a graphic novel by Sharon Shinn and Molly Knox Ostertag. Much like the Ken Mcleod book, it opened with way too much exposition, and also had the characters telling each other things they would already know, in order to impart world-building information to the reader. However, the world it built was interesting and well-conceived, with humans enslaved by alien invaders, trying to form an effective resistance with little in the way of freedom or resources. Some things were over-explained, while others weren’t explained enough, in my view. I didn’t feel the relationships rang true because not enough time was dedicated to their development. There was great diversity in the characters presented, and the story whipped along at a good pace, but I thought the tone was mismatched. The storytelling felt quite simplistic, as if it was aimed at quite a young audience, but it was also quite violent, with several unpleasant deaths. It was a quick read, and quite fun, but felt rather lacking in depth.

My general disappointment with recent entertaining continued when I finally went to see Wonder Woman during the week. It didn’t really appeal to me, but I heard so many good things about it that I decided to go and see for myself. I really wanted to love it, and it wasn’t exactly *bad*, but I also didn’t really enjoy it all that much. It perpetuated several annoying tropes - the beautiful but innocent female character who needs a man to explain the world to her, the physically competent heroine who has to fight in a ridiculously skimpy outfit, the overweight character who provides the comic relief - and there wasn’t that much really good about it to mitigate those. By the time the climax came around, I found I wasn’t emotionally invested in the characters for the ending to have much of an impact, which was a real shame, as I really did want to love it.

The next day, I watched Attack the Block, which initially I found very irritating, as I felt the teenage characters’ speech pattern were overdone and presented a barrier to me engaging with them. It may be that their presentation was very realistic, but there’s a reason characters in films don’t talk like real people. Clearly, the teenage characters weren’t designed to appeal to me, or for me to relate to them personally. However, Jodie Whittaker’s character very much was, and I found it interesting that both demographics were represented on the heroes’ side of the story. John Boyega gave a very good performance, portraying Moses’ emotional conflicts and development arc extremely skilfully. The aliens were menacing, and their purpose well-conceived, leading to a very tense and exciting denouement. I really liked the journey Moses and Sam took from being very much at odds at the beginning to working together to combat the external threat by the end. It didn’t feel as if the deaths along the way carried enough weight, as they seemed to be forgotten in the aftermath, but I was definitely invested in the story and the characters by the end. So, it took me quite a while to get into the film, but I was glad I’d watched by the time it finished.

Yesterday, we went to the Into The Unknown science-fiction exhibition at the Barbican. It had some great artwork, and some fun props from well-known films and TV shows. I was particularly excited to see Twiki from Buck Rogers. It wasn't particularly extensive, though, and the subsequent film and art installation rather passed me by in terms of their significance.

As I approach completion of the latest draft of my novel, I’ve been looking for guidance on editing and improving the narrative. How to Write Dazzling Dialogue by James Scott Bell is short and to the point, but provides some useful, and very practical guidance on improving dialogue in fiction. It didn’t take very long to read, but I got a fair few notes out of it, and I will definitely be trying out Bell’s tips during the editing process.