Interview with Michael Williams

Campbell and Rogers Press has just published my fellow author Michael Williams's Tales with a Twist III, the third installment in his Twisted Tales series. As someone who has followed Michael since his first book, I am delighted to recommend his series. I love the short, short form and the variety of his flash fiction, and I believe you will as well. Check out his interview, below. He is a man with an imagination and a vision that is on fire!

Interview with Michael Williams

Q: What interests you in the super-short genre of flash fiction?

A: Alfred Hitchcock once said that a movie shouldn’t be longer than the capacity of the human bladder. I find I agree. Edgar Allan Poe considered the effect of short fiction to be more intense than that of longer works, such as novels or—my apologies to Hitch—full-length motion pictures. I also tend to concur with Poe: shorter fiction can pack more of an emotional wallop than longer forms. In our modern, fast-paced world, I think shorter fiction is also more convenient for many. A lot of people want complete stories without having to spend hours or days to read them.

Q: It seems that you prefer fantastic to realistic stories. Why is that?

A: Actually, I enjoy reading and writing all forms of fiction, but I think that tales of the fantastic, marvelous, and uncanny—handy distinctions that Tzvetan Todorov makes—add an element of magic to mundane experience, the icing, so to speak, on the cake. I also believe that, as Flannery O’Connor once said, a writer sometimes needs to use hyperbolic techniques to communicate with readers, and the shock of the surreal; the astonishment of the weird; and the wonder of the otherworldly, the supernatural, the occult, and the mystical provide these rhetorical approaches.

Q: As the titles of your books suggest, your tales are rather “twisted.” I'm going to ask the question most writers hate to hear: Where do you get your ideas?

A: I'm an eclectic reader. I enjoy learning about a variety of subjects. I guess you could say I'm a generalist. Sometimes, when the stars are in alignment, a remembered fact here will meet up with a recalled fact there, and, out of this connection of one thing and another, an idea will emerge. I might combine one of Thomas Edison’s inventions with the spiritualistic belief in the ability of the living to communicate with the dead, or I could update an ancient myth or a modern horror movie. As Arthur Golding wrote, in translating John Calvin, “All is grist for the mill.”

Q: I know you're something of a mariner. Does the sea ever feature in your stories?

A: Not as often as I might expect, but, yes, there is a sea tale or two. In one, the ocean solves a murder, which is rather a novel notion, I think.

Q: By definition, according to the title of your series, Twisted Tales, and by the titles of the books in the series, each of your flash fiction narratives contains a plot twist. How do you think up so many of them?

A: Usually, the story suggests one. However, I also employ a couple of tricks, or techniques—three, actually. First, when plotting a story such as those in Tales with a Twist, Tales with a Twist II, or Tales with a Twist III, I keep in mind the idea that almost everything has a direct opposite: new, old; lost, found; hero, villain; reward, punishment; rich, poor; right, wrong. Then, I start with one polarity and end with its opposite. The second way is more concrete. I keep a list of the plot twists I see in novels, short stories, movies, and TV series. Then, I adapt them to fit the situation or circumstances of my own stories. My third technique is to remember that there is a fine line not only between good and evil and right and wrong, but between all such polar opposites. A person who is cautious may become distrustful or even paranoid; a man who's strict can become controlling; a woman who's concerned with her own health and that of others—a doctor or a nurse, perhaps—can become a hypochondriac; a trusting person may become gullible. Each of these possibilities is a source of plot twists.

Q: How many of your tales with a twist are autobiographical?

A: Many of them are fantasies in which I explore how something might be if a particular set of unusual circumstances were to apply. Many of my stories are thought experiments, of a sort. I place a certain type of character in a particular kind of environment and see whether he or she adapts and, if the character does adapt, how he or she manages to do so. Frequently, the environment is physical, but it need not be; some of my stories' environments are philosophical, or moral, or psychological, or political, or cultural, or otherwise. The autobiographical element, when there is one, may be small—a detail here or there, the description of a place I've been, desires I've experienced, wishes I may have wanted to fulfill, thoughts or feelings or impressions I've had, that sort of thing, embedded in the narration, the exposition, or the dialogue.

Q: Will there be further Tales with a Twist?

A: I'm working on the next one now.

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A prequel to the series An Adventure of the Old West, this action-packed short story introduces Bane Messenger, a Union veteran of the Civil War, who teams with former Confederate commander, Colonel Jake Miller, to become a bounty hunter. On the trail of a vicious outlaw wanted for kidnapping and murder during a series of robberies, Bane hones his tracking, reconnaissance, and fighting skills. His final showdown with his deadly quarry will show him just how good he is with a gun and launch his career as a man who makes his living bringing killers to justice, dead or alive.

How "Buffy" Was Written

Copyright 2012 by Gary L. Pullman

In The Watcher’s Guide, Volume 2, the television series’ writer Jane Espenson explains the procedure that she and the other Buffy the Vampire Slayer writers used to develop the show’s scripts.

Before the writers plot the episode, they determine its “emotional arc.” On Buffy, the monsters typically symbolize the emotional states of the show’s characters. In “A New Man,” the episode in which Giles is transformed into a demon by Ethan Rayne, a sorcerer with whom Giles practiced black magic as a youth, the “emotional arc” is alienation: “We talked a lot about alienation,” Espenson says, and, as examples of times when a person may feel alienated, they discussed “what it’s like when your father has a breakdown, what it feels like to be old.”

They also identified Giles’ “concerns” and the source of those concerns, whether the source was “his career” or whether Buffy, who is older and more independent now that she has graduated from high school and attends college, living on campus, loves “him anymore.” In addition, they considered the idea that his girlfriend, Olivia, who had been visiting him from England but had returned there, might decide to break off their relationship and thus might not be “coming back.”

The outcome of their discussion concerning the causes of Giles’ alienation was to decide that “the redemption for Giles comes when Buffy sees him [in his demon form] and recognizes him [as Giles]. And that sort of brings him back. It doesn’t solve all his problems. He’s still not as central to Buffy’s life as he used to be.” Nevertheless, “he knows that she knows him; she saw him; she values him. She was ready to kill the demon, not just in her normal demon-killing way, but with specific revenge in her heart. ‘You killed Giles.’ So we had to have all that before we could even start thinking about what happens in each scene.”

Once the writers have decided upon the episode’s “emotional arc” (alienation”), its cause (Giles’ life seems to be falling apart, especially since Buffy has become more independent), and the resolution of this crisis (he realizes that Buffy does value him), they determine “what happens in each scene.” In doing so, they follow a definite procedure, Espenson points out.

Each episode, she says, is divided into a teaser and four acts. The writing of the script begins by nailing down the “emotional high point” with which each act is to end. The “emotional high point” becomes more climactic at the end of each act. The first “act break” (the end of the act and the beginning of the advertisers’ promotional messages) may be end on a relatively weak “emotional high point,” one that appeals to viewers’ curiosity more than to their emotions per se. The “emotional high point” with which the second act ends, or breaks, is the episode’s climax, or turning point, where things begin to improve or to sour for the protagonist. The third act break identifies the protagonist’s decision with regard to how she plans to resolve the conflict that the earlier acts have set in motion and sets the protagonist or another character in the direction of “ultimate danger.” The fourth act resolves the conflict. Here is the example, complete with explanations, that Espenson offers:

The act breaks is where you start. At the end of each act, which is going to be its emotional high point. You want to make sure the audience comes back after the commercial. . . . At some point [in the discussion of ideas among the writers] Joss [Whedon] will say, “Oh, I’m beginning to see a story here. If this [episode] is about Giles feeling alienated, and we’re going to have Giles turn into a demon, then he should turn into the demon at the end of [act] Two.”

We knew Episode Twelve would have Buffy’s birthday, because it always does, so we knew that was a good way to get Giles feeling alienated early.

At some point Joss just said, “Okay, end of One. Ethan steps out.” He pitched the moment exactly as it appears in the script. He had that whole thing completely in his mind. That was our first-act break.

Second-act break, okay, he’s a demon. Third -act break, Buffy says, “He killed Giles. I’m going to kill him.” So that we have Giles heading for the ultimate danger moment as we head into Act Four.

So it’s the moment in which Joss lays those three moments down, the ends of Acts One, Two, and Three--at that point you’re very close to writing things up on the dry erase board. But not until then. We never start writing anything up there until Joss has decreed the act breaks.

This is The Watcher’s Guide’s summary of the episode; now that Espenson has explained how its “act breaks” are determined in advance, based upon each of the episode’s “emotional arcs,” one can see how the writers gets from point A to point B, and so on, filling in the action between the incident that ends each act. (The book’s authors summarize the action differently than according to its divisions into teaser and acts; here, its sequence has been modified to fit the structure that Espenson indicates is typical of the episode’s construction.)

Teaser

It’s Episode Twelve, and time for Buffy’s birthday party. This time, it’s a surprise party, and Giles is there as the only guest over twenty-five years of age.

Act I

He’s startled to discover that Buffy has a new boyfriend, and stunned when Willow and Xander casually mention that Riley’s in the Initiative, both of them assuming that he already knew. . . since they, Anya, and Spike know. [His being out of the loop concerning what is going on in Buffy’s personal life suggests that Giles is and feels alienated from her.] Add that to Maggie Walsh’s dismissive attitude toward him, and her opinion that Buffy has lacked a strong male role model, and it’s time for a midlife depression for Giles [in which he feels both expendable and emasculated]. Ethan Rayne, a sorcerer who practices Black Majik and worships chaos, is back in town.

Not seen in Sunnydale since [the episode] “Band Candy,” he commiserates with Giles in the Lucky Pint, a Sunnydale watering hole, about feeling old and useless [this part of the scene reinforces Giles’ feeling of alienation]. He also tells Giles that rumors are flying fast and furious about something called “314,” which has demons quaking in their boots [this is an allusion to a situation that will be revealed in a future episode of the show]. [“Okay, end of One: Ethan steps out.”]

Act II

The two become quite drunk together, and in the morning Giles suffers from more than a hangover. Ethan [has] slipped him something that has turned him into a Fyari demon. He’s hideous, with huge, curved horns, and his speech consists of Fyari grunts and growls. When he goes to Xander’s house and tries to tell him what happened, Xander reacts violently and defends himself with pots and pans. Giles escapes, running through Xander’s neighborhood, prompting a 911 call. [“Second-act break, okay, he’s a demon.’]

Act III

While on the run, Giles runs into Spike. It turns out that Spike speaks Fyari, and can, therefore, communicate with him. Spike agrees to help him. . . if Giles will pay. Meanwhile, Buffy, Riley, and the rest of the gang assume that the demon has either kidnapped Giles or killed him--in which case Buffy promises vengeance. She takes from Giles’ desk what she believes to be a silver letter opener; silver is what can kill the Fyari demon. With great glee Giles chases Maggie Walsh down the street--payback to the “fishwife” for her insults. Buffy and Riley go to the magic shop to look for clues. Buffy finds a receipt signed by Ethan Rayne, and with Riley’s help traces Ethan to his crummy motel. Riley tries to tell Buffy that the Initiative will take it from here, but Buffy insists that this is her battle. [“Third -act break, Buffy says, “He killed Giles. I’m going to kill him.”]

Act IV

Together, they go to the motel and discover that Giles (still a demon) is already there, in full demon rage, about to kill the duplicitous sorcerer. Buffy attacks Giles. [”We have Giles heading for the ultimate danger moment as we head into Act Four.”]

Only after she has dealt him a. . . blow [with the silver letter opener, which should kill him] does she recognize him. . . by his eyes. It turns out that the letter opener is made of pewter, not silver. Giles’ life is spared.

After changing Giles back into his human form, Ethan is taken into custody by the military police. When Giles and Buffy talk about what’s happened, he realizes that she loves him like a father and always will. Riley tells Buffy that he likes her strength and her take-charge attitude. Much mutual admiration takes place.

For practice in seeing how the Buffy writers use this approach to write other episodes, one can find both summaries and scripts of each of the show’s episodes at the Internet web site Buffyworld.

Noxon's Buffy the Vampire Stinkers

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

There’s a lot right with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but there’s a lot wrong with it, too, and critical thinkers, as opposed to mere fans, have identified much of what is the matter with the series. Although many of the diehard fans of the series continue to regard it as flawless, many others have either long recognized or recently recognized that the show had its share of glitches, non sequiturs, and mistakes. When did the show jump the shark? Opinions vary. Some contend that the show’s quality never declined noticeably, but many believe that, while the first five seasons are superb, the latter two are pretty much garbage. My own contention is that the series jumped the shark when its creator, Joss Whedon, handed off the show to Marti Noxon--in other words, at the beginning of season six; under her guidance, the series went steadily downhill and never recovered its original verve.

A better-than-average, but uneven, writer, Noxon fails as executive producer. Early on, as a writer, she gave the series a couple fairly good episodes, some so-so episodes, and a few horrible episodes: in the “Fairly Good” column: “What’s My Line,” Part 1 and Part 2, and “I Only Have Eyes For You.” In the “Horrible” column, I'd include “Bad Eggs,” “Buffy vs. Dracula,” “Wrecked,” “Villains,” “Bring On the Night,” and “End of Days.” Her others belong in the “So-So” column.

Noxon couldn’t maintain the quality of the show. Had the series concluded with its fifth season, it would have been one of television’s finest moments; as it is, it is a mostly good, but very uneven, show that leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth and a sense that, after seven years, the show rips off its fans rather than respects them. What is difficult to discern is why its creator preferred to leave Buffy in Noxon’s hands in order to head up the vastly inferior spin-off Angel.

Lawrence Miles, Lars Pearson, and Christa Dickson, authors of Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, more often than not hit the nail on the head in identifying the series’ “glitches.” According to them, these are the faults with regard to what I like to call Noxon’s Buffy the Vampire Stinkers:

“Bad Eggs”: “The problem with ‘Bad Eggs’ . . .[is] that it’s deeply mediocre, about as ordinary and as straightforward as the series ever gets” (63).

“Buffy vs. Dracula”: “It’s a strange episode all around. . . . Since Buffy got past the point of sending up horror movie ‘standards’ in Season One, the decision to go through the same old Abbot and Costello schtick [sic] four years later just isn’t very wise” (179).

“Wrecked”: “A real instance of the series falling on its face. . . . The show now throws any sense of subtlety or characterization out the window--replacing it with a crude ‘drugs’ metaphor. This entails using every drug-culture cliché on television, yet ironically ‘Wrecked’ has precious little to actually say about the subject.” Moreover, and even “worse, it rewrites the rules of Buffy in the most absurd way possible. As the past five years have shown, magic isn’t heroin--it’s chiefly been used as a metaphor about individual responsibility. . . . But now the entire moral context shifts into the realm of ‘drugs’ with an embarrassingly clumsy stroke” (238).

“Villains”: “A hollow story, putting its focus on the final sequence--Willow’s torture and murder of Warren--and thereby making everything that comes before it more or less irrelevant” (256).

“Bring On the Night”: “A mess, really. . . . ‘Bring On the Night’ has no focus of its own. Instead, it comes across as a ragbag of contrived plot-points (Annabelle bolting for no good reason to insure the Ubervamp kills someone), dull conversations (Drusilla’s never been less interesting) and recycled ideas (the series somehow thinks a stake-proof vampire will shock and amaze us, even though it’s now the second we’ve seen. . . . Buffy’s final declaration of war is obviously meant as a major turning point, but it’s barely distinguishable from the ‘We’re taking the fight to them,’ speech she pretty much gives every year” (281).

“End of Days”: “All the flaws of late Season Seven are still in evidence. There’s very little plot, over-extended conversation scenes and--of course--the massive deus ex machina of the scythe (the guardian isn’t very convincing, either)” (304).

Personally, I agree with virtually all of the author’s criticisms, although I don’t think that “Wrecked” is quite as bad as they so, and I think that “End of Days” is much worse. The authors’ choice of the best Buffy episodes for each season are:

Season 1: Joss Whedon’s “Prophecy Girl”
Season 2: Joss Whedon‘s “Becoming”
Season 3: Joss Whedon‘s “Doppelgangland”
Season 4: Joss Whedon’s “Hush”
Season 5: Douglas Petrie’s “Fool For Love”
Season 6: Joss Whedon’s “Once More, With Feeling”
Season 7: Jane Espenson’s and Drew Goddard‘s “Conversations with Dead People”

My own picks:

Season 1: Joss Whedon’s “Prophecy Girl”
Season 2: Carl Ellsworth’s “Halloween”
Season 3: Joss Whedon’s “Amends”
Season 4: Joss Whedon’s “Restless”
Season 5: Joss Whedon’s “Family”
Season 6: Joss Whedon’s “Once More, With Feeling”
Season 7: Jane Espenson’s and Drew Goddard‘s “Conversations with Dead People”

Other episodes that I would put on the “A” list:

Season 1

Ashley Gable‘s and Thomas A. Swyden’s “Out of Mind, Out of Sight”

Season 2

Howard Gordon’s and Marti Noxon’s “What’s My Line?”
David Greenwalt’s and Joss Whedon’s “Ted”
Ty King‘s “Passion”
Marti Noxon’s “I Only Have Eyes For You”
Joss Whedon’s “Becoming”

Season 3

David Greenwalts “Faith, Hope, and Trick”

Season 4

David Fury’s “Fear Itself”
Tracey Forbes’ “Beer Bad”
Tracey Forbes’ “Where the Wild Things Are”

Season 5

Douglas Petrie’s “Fool For Love”
Joss Whedon’s “The Body”

Season 6

David Fury’s and Jane Espenson’s “Life Serial”

Plotting By Trial and Error

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

• A demon dimension opens under the library of a southern California high school.
• An alien, sent to earth just before his own planet was destroyed, develops superhuman powers.
• A spacecraft explores newly discovered worlds.
• Government agents collect potentially dangerous supernatural artifacts, storing them in a secret warehouse.
• A town is populated by geniuses who work for the federal government, developing top-secret, cutting-edge technology.
• A tabloid reporter encounters paranormal and supernatural threats as he pursues news stories.
  

Each of these sentences identifies the premise of a weekly television series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Smallville, Star Trek, Warehouse 13, Eureka, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

What these premises have in common is that each one provides the basis for a theoretically endless number of episodes. Buffy: What will emerge this week from Sunnydale High School’s Hellmouth? Smallville: What powers will the alien develop, and to what use will he put them, and why? Star Trek: What new worlds are discovered, and what does the crew encounter when they explore them? Warehouse 13:What artifacts have been collected, and which remain? How and why are these objects dangerous? Where did they come from, or who invented them, and why? Eureka: Why research is being done? What effects has it had, if any, on the scientists and the townspeople? Do any of the experiments go awry? If so, what happens as a result? Kolchak: Where do the threats come from that the reporter encounters? What motivates their hostility? What happens when the reporter reports them? Is he believed? (He does, after all, work for a tabloid newspaper.)

Not everyone who is interested in writing horror (or any other type of fiction) is likely to want to write a weekly television series, so why should a writer be interested in a premise that promotes such a project?

Here’s at least one reason. By envisioning even a single, stand-alone story for which no prequel or sequel is envisioned or intended as a series of episodes, a writer can develop several plots relating to the same setting, characters, and situations, choosing from the results the best of the best. If one intends to write only one story, he or she may as well make it the best of which he or she is capable of writing. This approach will provide an author with the means of doing so, providing, as it does, the opportunity for him or her to develop virtually any number of plots using the same themes, characters, settings, and situations. The results? Sequels, prequels, trilogies. . . .

Moreover, if a single, stand-alone story should take off as a series, the writer who uses this approach is apt to have a lot of story ideas available, right from the start.

In addition, this approach allows a writer to envision how and why his or her characters may change as the story progresses. Should A, B, and C occur, what effects would their occurrences have upon the protago0nist six months or six years hence? This approach allows the author to ask and answer this and other questions. Whether the writer shares these perceptions with his or her reader or keeps them to himself, the fact that they have occurred to the writer should help him or her to anticipate future developments, attitudes, behaviors, and incidents, preparing the reader for their eventual occurrence, in the same or a later book, and to make such changes believable and seemingly natural.

Quick Tip: Think BIG

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a confederation of banshees, demons, ghosts, monsters, vampires, werewolves, witches, and zombies with a single goal to unify them against a town, a region, a country, or even the world. Now, you’re thinking BIG. Your scope is large--huge, in fact--with regard both to the numbers (and types) of characters your story (or, more likely, your series of stories) and your setting will include.

You’re talking a novel here, at least, or a whole sequence of novels--chronicles, you might decide to call them. You need a title for them, though, which not only suggests the commonality among the books but also sounds cool, as in elevated or grand: The Chronicles of Mayhem might serve your purpose. Perhaps the federation of monsters could call themselves “Mayhem” as their collective name.

Now, you’re rolling! Or not. Maybe you think this idea, whether for a single, stand-alone novel or for a series of book-length stories, is lame. That’s okay. I wasn’t trying to sell you on the idea of The Chronicles of Mayhem per se; rather, I was showing you a way to think big, to enlarge the arena of your imagination so that it encompasses a whole town, or region, or country, or planet and any number of antagonists. You can people your novel or series with whatever characters tickle your fancy and set it wherever you like. It’s your story (or stories), after all.

The point is that, to think big, you have to, well, think BIG.

But once you have decided on your characters and your setting, you can enhance your plot by introducing intrigues among different characters or groups of characters, developing romantic interests and triangles, establishing allegiances and feuds, and so forth. You have enough characters and a setting big enough in scope, now that you have thought BIG, to encompass all these plot angles and twists and more. You can write on an epic scale.