Musicals: It's All About Context

Let me begin by saying: Musicals have never really been my thing. When I was a kid and my mom was always wanting me to watch musicals, I just couldn't get into them. Let's just say that the idea of a crowd of people suddenly bursting into song and dance (as in Oklahoma!) just didn't fit into my reality. I mean, I'd never seen that happen in life, so why should I be expected to accept it in a movie?

Of course, Disney films, at least the animated ones I watched as a kid, were an exception. The break into song didn't seem out of place to me in an animated movie. And they usually didn't involve elaborate dance numbers, Mary Poppins being the exception, but there was enough animation and fantasy involved in that movie that I didn't have issues with it. However, when people think of "musicals," I don't think they tend to think of Disney movies, except, maybe, the aforementioned Mary Poppins.

All of that to say that I grew up with the idea about myself of "I don't like musicals," and it was an idea I held onto for quite a while. Which is not to say that, now, I like "musicals," but I certainly don't dislike something because it is a musical.

Interestingly enough, it was two unrelated musicals in 2001 that began to change my perspective.

The first was "Once More, With Feeling," an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Now, let me make it clear that the episode contained all of the things I'd always disliked about musicals: people, including crowds of people, spontaneously bursting into song and dance. However, Joss Whedon, who wrote all of it himself, gave it all a context, a reason for happening, and it was pretty brilliant. It was especially brilliant in that the characters, at first, were aware of what was going on but didn't know what was causing it. Not to mention that it had some great songs. I bought the soundtrack of the episode for my wife, and she carried it in her car with her for months.

The second was Moulin Rouge. Not only did it have music by U2, but it had Obi-Wan Kenobi... SINGING! How awesome is that? [And, yes, ever since Moulin Rouge, I have wanted Star Wars: the Musical.] And, again, they put the singing and dancing in a context I could take, that of writing a musical. And, well, some of the numbers are just amazing. And hilarious. If you haven't seen the "Like a Virgin" scene, you are completely missing out. However, I'm going to share one of Ewan McGregor's songs (you can look up the "Like a Virgin" number on your own time):



To make what could be a longer story shorter, the lessen here is that you shouldn't dismiss an entire genre, any genre (even romance), as being something you "just don't like," because there is always the room that there are pieces of that genre that you could like. It's like when my oldest boy was six and tried to maintain that he didn't like cheese... while preferring cheese pizza and being a constant eater of cheeseburgers. Later, much later, it was, "I only like Gouda," but that was wrong, too.

Within the last couple of years, we've begun showing our kids musicals. Partly, this was prompted by the fact that my oldest son has now been in a few (right now, he's performing in Les Miserables) and my younger son has actually been in a couple himself. Partly, it was prompted by my wife's love of musicals. They all loved Moulin Rouge; only my wife likes Oklahoma! Other favorites have been Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music.

Basically, don't get trapped within ideas of yourself. We all get tempted to do that because those things help us define who we are. However, when we lock ourselves into those things and refuse to step outside of those boxes, we tend to become smaller and smaller people. Our views fail to expand and grow, and we can't even look at things that don't fall within the narrow confines of who we think we are. It's time, now and always, to look outside the box. Musical or not.

The Asimov Genre

Does Asimov have so many books that he's become his own genre?
That's not my actual question, but I talk about it anyway.
Drop by today's Indie Writers Monthly post for my genre probe.
Wait... maybe I don't want to say probe...

How Does Your Garden Grow? (an Indie Life post)

I haven't spent a lot of time talking about our little mini-garden; at least, not here on the blog, I haven't. It's not really much of a garden, since it's just a planter box, but we did get a ton of tomatoes out of it last year. This year, we expanded the tomatoes into the backyard, too. But I'm not here to talk about tomatoes. Not today, anyway.

One of the things we planted last year was nasturtiums. I think it was because we had some fantasy that we

would use them in salads or something, but, mostly, we never did. I'd throw some flower petals in occasionally but not enough to really count. We skipped planting the nasturtiums this year, but that was because we didn't have to plant them. The above picture is our little nasturtium plot for this year, and, if you can see it up there in the top right corner, they didn't grow in the planter box. No, we had our own little patch of nasturtiums spring up all on their own this year, outside of the box. That's kind of cool, because they are pretty.

As you will notice, the nasturtiums are yellow and orange, which is what we planted last year, yellow and orange nasturtiums. As a big patch of flowers, they are very pretty, but... BUT none of the individual flowers stand out. It's just a bunch of yellow and orange flowers all mixed together. One flower is as good as the next. So let's say I was making a salad and I was going to throw in some flower petals for color, there wouldn't be a lot of thought involved in which nasturtiums to pick. I'd look for the ones that were more freshly bloomed and pick a few.

And that's kind of how choosing books are for a lot of people: What's newly published? What's "freshest"? But, really, it's all the same stuff, so it doesn't really matter. To a large extent, for example, fantasy written today is pretty much the same as fantasy written 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Look back up there at that picture of the flowers. Just orange and yellow nasturtiums. And that's all it was for a while. But, then, inexplicably, we had this:

That, just to be clear, is a red nasturtium. We didn't plant any red nasturtiums. It grew up all on its own. And that's kind of like when something new comes along in the book world. It really stands out against everything else that is just orange and yellow.

Harry Potter is a good example of this. Not that Harry Potter is really all that new, because it still uses many of the familiar fantasy themes: orphaned boy, who finds out he has previously unknown powers, who is the subject of a prophecy. Etc. It's a fairly standard fantasy setup, except for the setting. That's the thing that makes it different. The thing that makes it standout. The thing that makes it red. It's no longer just some apprentice wizard boy with his wizard master; it's a whole school of witches and wizards and it's set today. People stopped to look. "Ooh, look... that one's red."

Which, incidentally, is the same thing that happened with Fifty Shades of Grey. I mean, nothing has changed in romance in, like, ever, but Fifty Shades came along, and it wasn't just the same old yellow or orange flower and, whereas before, no particular book got lots of attention because of that; suddenly, Fifty Shades was the only red flower, and everyone wanted it.

Now, of course, we have lots of red flowers,

which has changed the look of the nasturtium patch somewhat (but only somewhat, as they tend to hide under the leaves more than the orange and yellow flowers), and, now, of course, we have lots of books like Harry Potter, which is not a bad thing. Adding variety is a good thing, and, although a lot of "copycats" can seem antithetical to variety, it does, actually, add variety to the overall landscape of the book world, just as it's done with our flower patch.

Then, we have these that have popped up in the planter box along with the tomatoes:

I'll call these mixing genres, which also produces some pretty flowers (and interesting books). In fact, I actually these are prettier than the red ones, though harder to see from a distance. I mean, I'm not a zombie fan, but even I have Pride and Prejudice and Zombies sitting on my teetering stack of books to read.

Often, publishers don't want to take a risk on anything but that's not yellow or orange. They look out at he flower patch and see that everything is yellow and orange and just decide that that's all people will like. But people like variety, and it doesn't always have to be good (see 50 Shades) for people to be attracted to it. The difference is all that matters. Which is not to say that you should give up on quality for being different; I'm just saying don't stick to the same old orange and yellow flowers. Or, even, red, when a lot of that comes along. Don't be... safe.

That's what I've tried to do in my own writing. I like fantasy, but I don't want my stuff to just be the same old fantasy. And, evidently, I like it to be scary, because a lot of people call what I write horror, especially Shadow Spinner, but, you know, I'm okay with that, because I don't want anyone to read this and think, "Well, this was okay, but I already read this book." [Which is what I think of anytime anyone starts talking about how great Martin is, because I already read that story except it was called The Sword of Truth and, before that, it was called The Wheel of Time, and, before that, it was called...] So, you know, write what you like, but put your own twist on it. Make it yours.

Be the red flower.

This post has been brought to you in part by Indie Life.

How To Win at Magic: Part 2a: Building the Deck

As I mentioned last time, the first thing you need to be able to win at Magic is Magic, but I guess that's really kind of obvious. Still, I felt like the point needed to be made. Basically, in a lot of ways, anything has the potential to be "the next big thing." Richard Garfield only developed Magic because he was trying to sell some other game. Rowling was just trying to make ends meet when she wrote Harry Potter. George Lucas thought Star Wars was going to be a flop because sci-fi had been out of fashion for over a decade and no one cared. Still, they all had a vision for what they wanted to achieve with their separate projects and worked to make those visions as close to reality as possible.

But, now that we have Magic, what do we do with it? [I suppose, really, some explanation as to what Magic is and how it works is probably in order, but that would be a whole other blog post and I still couldn't get all of it in, so I'm not doing that. Let's just say it's a card game (a CCG (collectible card game), as they used to be called; the first CCG, in fact) and leave it at that. If you want to know more about how it works, you can look it up.]

Building a Magic deck is a lot like writing. No, really, it is. Sure, it's nothing like writing in that there is no actual writing involved, but there is that level of construction that is very similar. You could say that the cards are like words and the colors like genres. So let's get some basics down. There are five colors of magic in Magic that each use a specific (basic) land type:

• white/plains -- life magic
• blue/islands -- mind magic
• black/swamps -- death magic
• red/mountains -- chaos magic
• green/forests -- nature magic

There are also some forms of colorless magic such as artifacts (machines) and some other stuff that was introduced after I mostly quit playing. At any rate, before you can build a deck (write a story), you have to decide what kind of deck (genre) you're going to build. Yes, you can mix colors (blend genres).

The basic building block of any deck is your land. You have to have land; it's where the power for your spells comes from, and you have to have the right mix of it to not get stuck not drawing any or drawing too much. This is rather like word balance in your story. There are some words that you just have to use, but you don't want to use the same words so much that your readers get tired of seeing it. For instance, don't start every paragraph with your characters name; that's like having too much land. The balance of your land mix is one of the most vital parts of making a deck.

Actually, this whole land mix, achieving the proper balance, could be analogous to any number of things in writing, so we'll just look at it as having your writing balanced properly for whatever it is you're doing.

I used to do a lot of helping people build decks, and the most prevalent issue was not enough land. There was this one kid that couldn't ever win a game, and I mean never, so he brought his deck to me for help (a black deck). For one thing, he played with about 80 cards (sometimes more), which was too many (but more on that in a moment), but he only had about 15 lands(swamps) in his deck. Land concentration is dependent upon the type of deck you're building, but, as an easy way of dealing with it, let's just say 1/3 of your deck needs to be land. He was playing with less that 20% land, so it was not surprising that he couldn't get any land into play and always lost. I upped his land count to about 22 and dropped his deck size to about 62, and, guess what, he won some games. However, the next time he came in, he brought his deck to me again and told me that it had "quit working" and wondered what had happened. Had he done anything to it? Only added in a few cards. So I took a look at it, and it was close to 100 cards, and he hadn't added any more land to it, so he was, basically, back down to that 20% land mix he'd had before. He was so stuck on using particular cards (devices) in his deck (writing) that he couldn't make it work. (I think this is not an uncommon problem for writers.)

Jumping back to deck size... the minimum deck size is 60 cards (except in some variations), and, generally speaking, you want to stick to something around that size. Your deck should be designed with a purpose, a selection of a few cards or card types that the deck works around with other cards to support that theme (you can think of those as your cast of characters, if you want). When you get too many cards in the deck, you can't depend upon getting to the cards you need quickly enough for the deck to do its job. There are, of course, exceptions in increasing deck size as long as what you're adding is still working toward your purpose and you continue to keep the deck balanced as you do it.

But let's say you want to break some rules. You're a writer, right? Who needs to follow rules? Oh, wait, no, we're playing Magic, so let's break some rules. One of the guys I worked with and I were discussing unique deck constructions one day, and I suggested making a landless deck. I bet even those of you that have never played Magic are thinking, "What?!?" at this point. Let me clarify: non-basic lands were okay, but many of those only give colorless power (mana), so it was going to be a stretch. So we talked it out, what specific cards would be needed, non-land sources of mana, cards that didn't require mana, that sort of thing. I helped him get a few of the cards that he needed, and he built the deck, and we tested it. He played it in the next tournament, and it was worth it for the shock value alone. People couldn't believe he had a landless deck. It was great even if he didn't win with it. Admittedly, it was a difficult deck to play, but it was a lot of fun because it was something different. So, yeah, sometimes, it's good to break with the conventions.

To recap, here are the steps to building a winning Magic deck:
1. Decide on your colors. (Choose a genre.)
2. Choose your theme. (This is like a plot.)
3. Balance!
4. Don't put in too many cards. (It clutters your plot and throws the balance off.) Likewise, put in enough to support your theme (or your plot).

And, now, we'll talk about the deck I became known for. Now, pay attention, this has all kinds of good lessons.

When we first started getting our cards, I was drawn to blue. Blue is about controlling what your opponent does, rather than simply pounding him until he's dead, and manipulating your own deck so that you can get cards faster. To put it simply. It was my first intention to focus on blue... BUT!

It was early '94 before we were really starting to get our cards, and, by that time, the first expansion, Arabian Nights, had come out. This card was in the set:

One of the guys in  the group looked at the card and said something like, "well, it's okay, but you couldn't build a deck around it," and everyone seemed to agree with him. He tossed the card on the table, and everyone dismissed it. Except me. I knew exactly how to build a deck around it, and, so, I abandoned blue as my color of choice right then and there and picked up red and green instead.

Red/green is still my color combo of choice (Not that I really ever play anymore. I probably haven't built a deck in ten years or more.). It's what I became known for playing, and it was the red/green deck I built around the Kird Ape (or variations of it) that took me to being the top ranked player in north Louisiana throughout 1994. Not that I didn't play other things, too, but red/green was my standard. And I never quit playing with the Kird Ape despite the monkey boy, ape boy, and worse nicknames.

The point here is that you shouldn't listen to what other people say can't be done. Everything is worth trying. Even building a deck with no basic lands was worth trying. Some things just take a little bit of imagination and effort. If you believe in something, don't let people tell you it won't work. Figure out how to do it. You might also just discover something you didn't know you'd like.

For fun, here are a few of the other cards from the deck:

The Taiga helped make the Kird Ape even more powerful. With an ape and this land in the initial draw, you could drop a 2/3 creature on turn one.

Once Legends came out, Blood Lust went into the deck. Potentially, you could hit your opponent for 6 damage on the second turn with this.

The Elven Riders was just for fun. It was one of my signature cards that I included in pretty much every green deck I played.

Palladia is one of my favorite cards ever. He's expensive, and, mostly, he'd just sit in my hand if I drew him; however, I never lost a single game when I got him into play.