Tag: Burn Hollywood Burn

My Novel’s Villains Aren’t Bad Enough Yet


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m beginning to slip into a groove about how to wrap up this first draft before the sun goes black, I find myself thinking about how to make the final project better.

One issue is my villains remain more “moods” than evil personified. They just aren’t up to the evil found in Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. But I do think I’m going to do some reading to at least give my villains some sort of ideological underpinning for their dickhead behavior.

I’m getting there. I’m getting much closer.

I have a specific book I’m eyeing as I write this that I think will be the key to giving some sort of motive to my villains. And, I recently read Ezra Klein’s “Why We’re Polarized” which, in a sense, helps ME with the universe I’ve constructed. That book — despite not giving any answers to why we’re polarized –definitely was an eye opener for me as to try to make this novel an allegory about the fading Trump Era.

ScriptNotes, My Novel & The Curious Case Of The Female Villain


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because my novel is meant to be something of an vaguely allegorical rant about the Trump Era, I need an Ivanka Trump. As such, I doing something that Stieg Larsson didn’t do in his original Millennium series — have a female villain.

I have this “female villain” for a number of reasons. One, because I want to slyly rant about Ivanka Trump being so fucking complicit and also because I want a more realistic depiction of human nature than the all-women-are-heroes that was found in the Millennium Series. And I need a female villain because that’s one way to show the “bad guys” side of things without reveling some pretty huge secrets that I want to hide from the audience until the Third Act.

So, that’s how I realized I needed a flawed female character.

This is even more interesting when you realize the screenwriting podcast ScriptNotes just recently talked about this very thing. In general, there is a huge dearth of female villains. This is probably because, well, one, male writers struggle to write accurate depictions of non-villain women and there’s a real danger of coming across as a misogynist if you don’t do it right.

But I’m an idiot, so I’m going to at least TRY to have a very flawed, very complicit female character in the novel I’m working on who is aware of some very dark things that her dad is doing, but does nothing to stop him. At least, that’s the vision at this point.

‘The Lady Bird Gambit’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The novel has an existential problem, in a sense. And that problem is it’s meant to be a vaguely allegorical critique of the Trump Era and the Trump Era is, thankfully, over.

And, yet, I press on for two reasons. One is what I call “The Lady Bird Gambit.” This is the idea that if you really develop character and plot — and just make something a great experience for the audience — that they’ll forgive you if you’re also leaning into “instant nostalgia.”

Love this movie.

So much has happened, in a sense, since 2020 started that I think if I make it clear that’s when the novel is set, then when I go off on subtextual rants about how insane those days were, then people will give me a pass if the story they’re reading is otherwise just a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, the other issue is MAGA-GQP-Trumplandia ain’t going nowhere. In fact, if my fuzzy understanding of novel post-production is accurate, then just about when this novel would be published (IF I SELL IT) would be just about when we have to start worrying about the fucking MAGA cucksuckers again.

As such, in a sense, I keep working on this novel because I know in the long-term I’m putting my stick where the puck will be, no where it is right now. But, also, I just love this story and I’ve gotten so far into the process that I simply can’t in good conscience give up.

You can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

‘Cancel Culture’ & Breakfast At Tiffany’s


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

How exactly does the conservative bugbear of “cancel culture” work if the easy pickings of Mikey Rooney’s portrayal of Holly Golightly’s Asian neighbor in Breakfast At Tiffany’s hasn’t caught its attention yet?

The depiction is so fucking racist that it makes what is otherwise The Perfect Movie in to a solid B+ movie. It comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really do much to serve the plot. In fact, I would go so far as to say we should either cut out that part of the movie altogether or film the movie again shot for shot with a new cast and simply change the plot as necessary to avoid that character’s existance.

The only thing I can think of as to why the movie hasn’t been “canceled” in some way yet is it’s not on any of the major streamers and, as such, it hasn’t come up as an issue.

Notes On ‘Scriptnotes’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really enjoy the “Scriptnotes” podcast, but I do have some…notes. My chief beef is the very strength of the podcast is its weakness — it’s two very accomplished, successful and knowledgeable guys talking about what it’s like to be be two very accomplished, successful and knowledgeable guys.

As such, sometimes they are rather….patronizing…to the serious concerns of people who are just starting off in the business. The show seems more for people who actually have a career in Hollywood than someone who aspires to have a career in Hollywood.

But you can’t be all things to all people.

I guess I’m suggesting that there’s a market for a Scriptnotes for extras who aspire to be screenwriters. Or something. A program that takes novice screenwriter’s concerns about IP theft seriously, that kind of stuff.

Yet, in general, I find Scriptnotes interesting. I sometimes feel like a street urchin with my nose pressed against the glass of the podcast as they talk about their careers, but lulz.

Why Hollywood Needs More Movies Like ‘Greenland’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Greenland was a good, but not great, movie. But there was one specific aspect to the movie that I have to give it credit for — it wallowed in the tacit conservatism of a regular dude put in extraordinary circumstances trying to keep his family safe.

It was CIS comfort food on a creative level and I think we need more of that kind of stuff if we, like, don’t want the United States to buckle and a second American civil war break out. I’m being serious — a lot of regular old center-Right people I know are really beginning to seethe with rage over “woke” “cancel culture” and the idea that a major Hollywood movie is simply tells a heteronormative story is a change of pace.

I’m all for representation in art — I’m going way out of my way to do just that in the novel I’m working on. But I also find it amusing that even in the genre I’m working with, there are some tropes that if I flip them or toy with them cause me to end up in, well, some pretty heteronormative territory without even thinking about it.

The point is — there’s plenty enough room in this world for all God’s chillins. I love the liberal democracy I live in right now and I’m growing nervous that if the center-Left doesn’t get its act together we’re even more fucked than we might be otherwise.

Remember, all the CPAC cocksuckers need is to get their golden orange god (or someone like him) elected ONE MORE TIME and that’s it. We live in an autocracy for the rest of my life.

We’re fucked. We’re all so totally fucked.

Half-Assed Review: ‘Greenland’ & The 10,000 Year Old Story


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I went into “Greenland” blind. As it opened, I thought maybe it would pass what I call the “10,000 year old story” test. This is the following test: could this story be told in some form 10,000 years ago?

It, at first, passes the test.

Man comes back from the hunt. Has problems with his wife. His kid is sick. The world is changing and the story is about how he protects his family in the context of that change.

Then things went crazy with “Greenland.”

The story was soooo contrived and leaned so heavily on zombie movie tropes (even without zombies) that I couldn’t bear to finish watching. Here’s what I would have done:

Greenland SHOULD have been about:

Act I
The lead up. At the end of the first act, the world ends and our Hero is now living underground inside Greenland.

Act 2
Hero and family have to get used to living in this new world.

Midpoint: His son, now an adult — rebels against the strict rules of under-Greenland meant to keep humanity alive (or something)

All is Lost:
His is exiled onto the Aboveland

Third Act
Hero and wife go searching for son.

They go through some adventures but finally discover him.

Turns out, the surface, while a struggle to survive on, is beginning to recover.

Our hero becomes the leader of Aboveland.

Or something.

But the Greenland I saw was a good movie…but not my kind of movie. Way, way, WAY too contrived.

Only Worry About What You Can Control


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m really worried someone is going to steal a creative march on me with this novel. After all this hard work I’ve put in into it, my nightmare is someone cherry picks parts off and does something more successful with it.

This has happened to me before with ROKon Magazine and so I’m extremely paranoid it will happen again. But as I keep telling myself, worry about what you can control.

Should I learn 100% that someone has “stolen” my concept, then I have a number of other creative projects in the back of my head I can pivot to. I’m not saying I’m not going to sulk with devastation for a few days — weeks? — but I know a lot more about telling stories than I did when this process began.

As such, I can pretty easily use all that new knowledge to write something else. That’s the plan, at least.

Jennifer Lawrence, My Novel & The Role Of ‘Dr. Susan Calvin’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about Hollywood types is they both live in the aether and also (probably) are obsessed with what people say about them online. I’m a nobody living in the middle of nowhere…but I am writing a novel. And (I think) it’s a good one.

I sometimes for shits and giggles find myself thinking about who might play this or that character in the move adaptation of the novel if somehow, someway miraculously sell it. I really like Jennifer Lawrence, so I mull which character she could play. Honestly, I can’t really think of any character off the top of my head, but given the point of the novel I could definitely see her wanting to, like, uhhhh, produce it.

I’m not going to say I’m any type of “feminist ally” because, well, I’m of the opinion that if a dude says that about himself he’s just looking to get laid. But I have been inspired by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements to write a novel that pretty much roots around in those concepts as part of its DNA. It also has sex and tech stuff that goes boom so dudes will like it, too. (Hopefully.)

But absolutely no one listens to me. No one. But if someone, somewhere, would listen to me — Jennifer Lawrence? — they would realize there is a great, great sci-fi franchise just waiting to be exploited by Hollywood: Dr. Susan Calvin.

It kind of blows my mind that no one has noticed what a great character she is — and there are all these short stories to be adapted into movies! She appears briefly in the dumb I, Robot movie with Will Smith, but that’s not the character in the short stories at all.

In the short stories, she’s a tough as nails robot psychologist who goes through a series of adventures. All Hollywood would have to do is dust these adventures off, update them, do cool stuff with them and, there you go.

And, yet, again let me say — no one listens to me. Ever.

My Novel As Trumplandia Catharsis For ‘Woke Park Slope Moms’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, I know I’m being “oblivious and stupid” for even mentioning some silly idea of New York City ‘woke Park Slope moms.” It’s just a joke I tell myself to make me smile whenever I think about who the audience for this novel is.

But having said that, today was one of the first days when it really sank in that we’re no longer in the Trump Era but in the Biden Era and some basic assumptions about this novel that I made no longer apply. And, yet, the universe I’ve come up with is so Goddamn interesting — and there’s so much momentum behind it in my mind — that I’m going to keep going.

I’m not even going to hedge my bets by working on anything else. I learned a long time ago in this process writing a novel that any such talk is just a distraction. I made a pretty big break through tonight with the beginning of the novel and so I’m pushing ahead.

The biggest structural problem with the novel right now is because we’re in a new political era — one when the president isn’t deranged — it kinda feels weird talking about POTUS as a deranged person.

And, yet, I think if I made it absolutely clear when this novel is set — during Trumplandia — that readers will get it. I don’t intend to mention Trump’s name during this novel, but he definitely has an Individual #1 presence in it. I mean, who else would be president during the time this novel is set?

So, I’m hoping that a lot of people like me will want what I want — a plot that’s not-so-subtly influenced by the bonkers events of the last few years. I can’t help that it’s taken me this long to get to the point where I can actually probably finish this novel at a reasonably fast clip.

I’ve fallen in love with these characters and the least I can do is knock out one complete novel involving them. I keep struggling with some significant insecurity about how dated this novel will seem, and, yet, if I address Trumplandia in a way that, say, “woke Park Slope moms” find some catharsis, then maybe some of them will want to read it.

There is one option — simply slice the POTUS angle off the plot altogether. But, to date, I’ve not figured out how to do that. I want to root around in macro political issues using fiction. So, in a sense, this is my Atlas Shrugged, only it’s more such a novel for liberal-progressives astonished by how bad Trumplandia got before it was all over with.

Or, to put another way — I’m still angry enough about Trumplandia to keep going, damn what everyone thinks.