Why I Became a Writer in the First Damn Place

Victor — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:02:59 +0000

Almost everybody I’ve ever encountered who hasn’t run away fast enough has heard this tale. But these are the Interwebs (which, wise men tell us, are a series of tubes), and they open a whole world of people to me I’ve never met in person. Try to run away faster than light. Hah! Hah!

So now you’re stuck reading it. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of how my career began?

When I was a lad there was a TV show called Mannix, which starred Mike Connors, mainly because the network suits thought no one would watch a series starring some Armenian guy named Krekor Ohanian. Imdb (“I am Vic M., and I admit that I have no power over the Internet Movie Database”) calls it, “One of the most violent detective series in TV history.” Wow. I don’t remember it being that cool.

But there must’ve been some reason I kept watching it. And it sure wasn’t the smart, well-crafted action writing. Because each and every week, at least once, we would see our hero, on foot, pursued by bad guys in a car through a parking garage or lot. And he would run right down the middle of the open lanes.

Every frickin’ week. It was even in the opening credits, if I recall correctly.

Leave aside the question of why the car didn’t go faster than he did – granted, this was the heyday of heavy Detroit iron, but it was also the heyday of great big studly six and eight-cylinder engines that sucked gas like an elephant at a Sahara stock tank (yes, if the Sahara had stock tanks. And elephants. And if they drank gasoline. It’s a metaphor, dammit!) I always reckoned, stripling though I was, that what I would do if I found myself in that position was, like, hide behind something heavy.

Indeed, I’ve long envisioned myself putting my back to a yard-thick concrete support pillar, giving the baddies the double-barreled finger (both-handed, not that Dane Cook Virgin Vulcan Herbie thing), and saying, “All right, motherfuckers, drive at me real fast.” And if they were dumb enough to do so, nipping smart-quick around the pillar at the last second, so none of the flying glass and random metal bits would hit me.

As I watched that inevitable scene one evening with my grandmother, I remarked on how astonishingly stupid it was that our hero just kept running down the street like that instead of dodging behind one of dozens of instantly available obstacles. And my grandmother said, “They have to do it that way. Otherwise they wouldn’t have any drama.”

Wait for it … five, four, three … can’t hold it – ARRRRGGGHH!

Yes. It had to be stupid so it could be action. If I wanted action entertainment, I had to turn off my brain.

No! Gods all damn it, a thousand times no! Ich werde nicht! Je refuse! ¡No Pasará!

I had my life’s work laid out abruptly at my feet, and it was this thing: to disprove, a thousandfold and irrefutably, that for an entertainment to be action it must also be stupid.

And there you have it. So have I done. In over 70 novels (not all of my 91 and counting are adventure) and a number of short stories. Have I always succeeded? In honesty, I can’t say I know. Probably not, and anyway, that judgement isn’t mine. It’s each reader’s.

But what I can say is that always – in each and every action scene I write – I have striven, I strive, and I shall strive that you can enjoy it without shorting out your brain.

And that’s how I became a writer.

Movie Pet Peeve

Victor — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:57:05 +0000

(First in an undoubtedly unending series.)

And, mirabile dictu, it doesn’t even involve guns!

First, mea maxima culpa for going dark here for so long. (Nothing like tossing in gratuitous Latin phrases to make you look smarter than you are. And if anybody’s smarter than I am, it sure isn’t me!) Things got on top of me. I’ll try not to let it happen again.

Anyway, one thing that bugs me in movies is when the elevator cable breaks, and the cage falls like an anvil toward Certain Doom. Oh, if only anyone had ever thought to invent an automatic safety brake!

Someone did. Elisha Otis. In 1853.

It’s a fairly simple system, which causes the rollers to lock up if the thing goes too fast. Because it’s mechanically simple it’s highly reliable. It’s not perfect, but what is?

Of course some people, even certain good friends of mine (who, granted, probably never read this blog) will rush in and say, Well, it’s for dramatic effect! Duh! Sorry, enablers; it’s sloppy writing. You can always bother to do it right. If by nothing more than a three-second scene of the rollers catching – and then failing. Even mysteriously. Oh my! Suspense! And without imbecility!

Perhaps oddly, one flick I know that got it right was Speed. Now, I like Speed. (Okay, I know that’s a risky statement to make in our happy police state. To belabor what’s obvious to all but informers and ambitious prosecutors, I mean the movie. As far as stimulants go, caffeine is just all right with me. And then some.)

In general I like Ted, I mean Keanu, as an action star: cope. Die Hard on a Bus was one of your better takes on our definitive modern action flick: not quite as good as Die Hard on a Boat (Under Siege), nor even Die Hard on a Train (Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.) But still pretty good – better than any other Die Hard until the most recent – in spite of that Amazing Flying Bus Sequence. Which as utter goofiness goes was at least highly entertaining. And despite the fact that they enjoyed ending the movie so much they went and did it a second time, to the tune of twenty minutes’ worth.

Anyway, the elevator bit: some good guys (LAPD SWAT buddies Keanu and Jeff Daniels, if I recall correctly – and whoa, only in speaking of fantasy am I ever likely to use the phrases “good guys” and “LAPD SWAT” in the same sentence) were in an elevator. Mad Bomber Dennis Hopper blows the cables with a charge he’s foresightfully placed. The cage falls – about four feet. Then the safety brakes lock up.

And what do you know? Our Evial Villain, who’s actually read a book, rigged them too. Crack-crack! (Again: not a drug reference.) And now our elevator can, in good conscience, plummet toward destruction.

That’s more like it. A minor touch – but it adds not only that element of realism (not to mention “the writer actually gave a fuck”-ism) but adds to the character and menace of the bad guy. He’s meticulous. And he does his research. How do you beat a guy like that?

(It’s been a while since I’ve seen this, as you can probably tell. But I’m pretty sure it involved a fistfight. Heavy sigh. Ah, well: nothing’s perfect. Anyway, if Speed was, I’d be pumping it as the Definitive Modern Action flick, wouldn’t I?)

Sense of Adventure » bad action

Why I Became a Writer in the First Damn Place

Movie Pet Peeve