Month: December 2016

The High Road’s Book Trailer

I love book trailers… but I hate videos, or at least how easily they can end up padding themselves out without a real reason for the extra minutes. So that puts me in a fun place now that the time’s here to get my own trailer for The High Road.

 

Training for the Trailer

You don’t have to be a writer to see the logic that makes a trailer. Of course that’s what a trailer is: taking the arcs and the sizzle of storytelling, and arranging them so someone can “know” the story in a minute. It’s distilling the tale.

And I do love that challenge. After all, Shadowed has completely different back-cover and inside-cover copy (“Paul lives in hiding… the one person who knows…” vs “Open your mind… take another look”) simply because I got into writing both. So how many plot points does a trailer need? How many words, to leave how many pauses in a timeframe?

But then making the video itself? No way I’d do that.

I’d either lose weeks learning the software and hating the result, or lose weeks learning the process and love it too much to ever finish. I always knew I’d start with the script and then work with an expert to get the final result. So instead I studied trailers like Joanna Penn’s advice at http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2015/03/02/book-trailers/ and http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2011/01/07/how-to-create-a-book-trailer/ and looked at what could work. Then I went shopping.

The result?

 

 

So what do you think? Do the skyline and cloud images, and how they alternate with fire and destruction, make the point about the joy of flying and the dangers Mark and Angie are in? Should more of the cityscapes have been at night (when most of the flying happens), or does the light/dark contrast work better on a visual level?

I think there’s a lot to like here.

Especially, I like that it keeps to 45 seconds instead of the two to three minutes of so many trailers—both book and movie. It always bugs me when a video fills up time with less inspired content, figuring that just making it visual means every second is earning its keep. (A lesson we writers are relearning with every line we write!) And a trailer isn’t like the recorded clips I’ve put up, for a fan who wants to follow a page of my writing with their own ears. No, it ought to hook, and re-hook, the viewer with every line.

 

Ahead on the Trailer Track

If you take another look at Joanna’s above, and compare, I think we did okay for our first time out. Similar lengths, and a lot of similar arcs and techniques.

Or there are longer, more detailed trailers out there, like for Hugh Howey’s classic Wool at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-ardca2IAg

Of course that one takes the leap to using custom-built images for every shot, from the View Outside to the computer readings… enough to make me pound my fists and wish for a bigger budget. But there’s no question the words and the images follow a story, the distillation of what we need to know about Jules’s world.

(On the other hand, Hugh himself has some thoughts about the art of trailer-making, and what might be shaking it up soon: http://www.hughhowey.com/this-is-only-the-beginning/ )

Or there’s the all-out cinematic approach, like some of Jim Butcher’s fans did for Skin Game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ZUvrIQWuY

That’s a full three minutes with actors, staged moments, and everything else it needs to convince us this Dresden Files book is a film out there (well, why isn’t it?). Shifting storms, characters set up to show their conflicts with each other in a few shouted words… or a burning subtitle to introduce their roles in the heist Harry gets trapped in.

(If anything, the last glimpses on the trailer might be too fan-centric. You need to know the other books to see why Michael Carpenter defending his home is such a big deal, and you need to have already read this one to appreciate how that moment’s not part of the caper but the dread aftermath. Still, how could they not have referenced a scene that got as wild as that one, even if they stayed clear of the real spoilers…)

It all gives me a lot to mull over. I think I’m getting the hang of picking the words to tell a story in trailer form… the next step could be to go further in matching images to the pieces.

  • Should there be more moments, more pieces of words and story elements along the way?
  • Or less? (For more oomph for each.)
  • Onscreen text instead of voiceovers? Or a mix, like some of Joanna’s?

And then there’s the other trailer. The one Ilona Andrews made to make fun of trailers themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMxG1ayUAOw

“Cheesy,” it calls them. There’s truth to that; book trailers try so hard to say so much quickly, they do have a bit of absurdity to them. Then again, even a parody like this has to know what it’s spoofing… and a good skewering does help me remember what matters. Like memorable moments that (should) string together to imply the story, good visuals or phrases that hook in their own right…

I won’t need quite so many cute kittens, though. Unless I could get a shot of a kitten touching someone and possessing him.

 

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Darth Vader Missed It and Dracula Never Tried – Character Plot Twists that Matter

What single choice could make a story? Sure, we writers have dozens of strengths we might weave into a tale, but could there be one clear decision that pushes it to a whole other level?

It’s been on my mind lately, now that The High Road is out and I’m looking at a mix of blank screens and early drafts for Freefall and Ground Zero. What would the perfect keystone, first step, heart of a story look like?

I’ve got plenty to start with. The first book left Mark starting to master his flying magic, while Angie is… in case you haven’t read it yet, let’s leave her status up in the air (there’s always a flying pun available somewhere). He’s gotten to know a bit about his enemy, and he has old and new allies and a plan for the future.

Lots of next steps for them. So many ways to chase their enemy, from tracking his history to digging deeper in their own magic to forcing him to fight on their terms. So many ways he can push back. I could dive into those strategies and not come out for a dozen books…

Then I worry about Dracula.

Straight-up Adventure (plot twists as action)

We all know the original story… if you haven’t read it, look up the plotline and see how much of it you know anyway from what’s passed into clichés ages ago: The hero walks into a castle not knowing it holds a vampire (“Enter freely and of your own will,”) and barely escapes with his life. The Count comes to London and begins stalking pretty girls for blood and pleasure. Van Helsing leads our heroes to chase him down.

And, it drew all that from (or created) the basic steps of what a vampire wants, what he can do, and what that gives a hero to track him and fight him with. The twists of the plot are mostly what new clue or weapon or new target for the monster’s evil are revealed, and which moves will fail at what cost. (Poor Lucy, playing the original “bit” part.)

It’s a fine book, to this day, from its sheer energy and how inventive it is with its concepts. (Turn a vampire’s influence on a girl against him, with hypnosis? Cool.)

But… it’s basic. The cast mostly go from semi-fearless vampire survivors to fearless vampire hunters, except for the designated victims. All its twists still settle into the same steady push forward.

When people talk about “plot-centered” rather than “character-centered” stories, this is what it comes down to. The characters here are still at the center, but nothing about them breaks them out of what the plot forces them to become—and that means, half of what the tale says to our own vicarious sharing in it is “If I were there, maybe I could fit in that mold too.” Not so many options, variations, or revelations about human nature there.

Lord of the Rings has some of the same focus. A hobbit and a ranger may not see the quest the same way, but they all follow the same plan; half the books’ surprises come down to who yields to the ring’s influence and which way the one wild card (Gollum) will jump.

Does that make either story weaker? Not at all, not when they both choose their own territories and use them so masterfully. But, just what are those tricks they don’t use?

Plot Twists – Under the Helmet?

For one thing, those tales aren’t just sticking to “old-fashioned” simple heroism as if it were the best anyone could do at the time. After all King Arthur’s tale is many centuries older, and Lancelot and Guinevere actually act on that “forbidden love” and bring the kingdom down.

(Come to think of it, Tolkien used Eowyn to hint that Aragorn just might go off-script in the same way… but only a small nod to it, since he’d barely showed us Arwen at all. The LOTR movies set up enough more that we could at least see the possibility.)

Or these days, Harry Dresden’s torn between so many overwhelming forces you wonder if any side he allies with will let him protect the innocents around him. And anyone in Game Of Thrones is struggling so hard to survive that there are no sides that last (let alone innocents).

So what makes the difference? What does one kind of story make do without, and others sink their roots into?

It might be Star Wars that has the answer, just from comparing its first two movies. The original New Hope played a grand simple storyline better than anyone ever had… and then Empire let Vader blow it all up with four words.

(Or, it would have blown it up except the movies only gave us the buildup to that one shock, and then Luke simply recovered and decided he could save Vader. On the other hand, that “simple” first movie gets its real high point not from Luke finding the power to make that shot but from Han riding to the rescue first. It’s a basic but clear thrill from seeing who stands where, and why.)

Call it the power of rooting the plot twist in the people. Dracula finds different directions to throw the same threat at us, but there’s nothing in its heroes to make us wonder how they’ll respond; Star Wars gives us a limited amount of the same. They’ve both got brilliant buildup with Dracula floating about and Yoda warning Luke what he’s not ready to face, but the hunters only fight harder and Luke flinches for a few scenes before he begins re-twisting the plot back into line. Compare that to Lancelot and Guinevere following through with their failings, or Dresden selling only a bit of his soul but having to do it again and again each book, and the Game of Thrones parade of all-too-real changes…

By these lights, there are three chances to build a harder-hitting tale:

Set up the twists. Use everything from background to atmosphere to misdirection to fill the characters and the reader with a driving need to survive the threat, destroy their enemy, complete their quest… and then spring how the key to that is nothing like what they thought. The simpler tales live and die on a few surprises and a smooth path along the way; Dracula mostly plays with how to fight and what other lives are in danger.

That might be enough. It might not.

[bctt tweet=”A simple vampire-chase story could use a #plot stake *from* the heart. #writetip” via=”no”]

More: twist a character against himself. The deeper changes build on how a character honestly could choose something above the same struggle he’s been on. (And that means, how we readers don’t have to be in a swordfight to have been pulled in some of the same two directions.) Lancelot convinces his fans that true love might be worth risking loyalty and everything he’s built. Game of Thrones does some of the same with every new chapter, and usually tears that apart too the next time around.

And:

[bctt tweet=”If your #writing’s dangers hit the hero as rarely as a Stormtrooper’s blaster, you don’t know what you’re missing.” via=”no”]

Most: twist until something breaks. Every plot change is a chance to tease a reader with how much the heroes could lose, or win—or it can follow through and make real, lasting changes nobody can forget. Lancelot did it. The Dresden Files does it halfway since Harry wriggles out of so many compromises, but each one he makes leads to so many more. And Star Wars blinked, since in the end Vader simply came around… but imagine how unsatisfying that scene would have been it hadn’t cost him his life instead.

(Then again, a bigger miss with Darth Vader might have been back in the “setup” category: The movies made him one of the most iconic evil figures of all time, with zero balancing hints that he could be redeemed except Luke’s faith, but they simply went there anyway. And that’s not counting the prequel movies, that couldn’t make us care what happened to that version of Anakin at all. In the next few years we’ll see how well “Episode VIII” and “IX” touch those bases…)

 

So, put the story on a course where the upcoming twists make the biggest difference. Have them make the deepest difference by using what honestly could turn a person away from their path. And sometimes, let them actually turn.

Intriguing….

 

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