My Blog

Another View on the Book Fest

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My brother Tod offers his take on the LA Times Bookfest in this weeks Las Vegas Mercury. He also talks about the experience of being quasi-interviewed by Byron Allen.

I’m sitting in a chair talking to Byron Allen and I think, man, if this were 1979, this would be one of the biggest thrills of my life. I’d be peppering Byron with questions about Sarah Purcell and the rest of the “Real People” cast and digging for info about his stunning turn on “Battle of the Network Stars” alongside Greg Evigan and Fred Willard. Instead, it is 2004 and I’ve spent the past two days walking among the broiling multitudes at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, the largest literary gathering in the universe (400 authors and upwards of 140,000 people attend over two days) and though Byron Allen is preparing to interview me for a new show called “The Writer’s Hotlist,” the biggest thing burrowing in my mind is that I think, though I’m not positive, that I can smell my own groin.

More On Fanfic

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Novelist Sara Donati responded to my post on fanfic by directing me to a long essay she wrote on the topic. Among her thoughts…

But there’s a lot more to fan fiction than the obvious. It has to do with storytelling in the first line, yes, but far more important: fan fiction has to do with communities of storytellers. People who get together (symbolically, of course, and mostly on the internet) and starting with a character they all love, they spin tales. Then they write back and forth about those stories, exchanging ideas. Five hundred years ago people sat together around fires and told stories about the gods, about heroes they all knew and feared or loved, about Coyote, about ancestors. That was a kind of fan fiction, too.

She also pointed me to a very interesting overview on Fanfic from the BBC. I especially enjoyed the “fanfic glossary.” Some highlights:

Fanboy/fangirl – A fan who is childishly obsessive about his or her fandom, and so over-the-top that even other fans are embarassed to be associated with them.

TPTB (or TIIC)/Canon – TPTB – or in full, The Powers that Be – are the producers of the original source material; more specifically – in terms of TV series – the creator, the executive producers and the most prolific writers/directors. The term is mostly respectful, but a little sarcastic; the opposite balance exists in the term TIIC – The Idiots in Charge. The material which they produce and sanction – the series itself, plus some of the accompanying books, comics and what have you – is canon material, and is revered and referenced like the unadulterated words of the gods by the majority of serious fanfic authors. Anything else – and in particular all fan fiction – is non-canon, and fanfic writers feel no compulsion to consider it when creating their stories (but cf fanon).

For example, while a Buffy fanfic writer would be considered bound to respect the fact that the character Jenny Calendar died before the end of season two, they would not be expected to respect a fanfic in which the entire Scooby Gang were turned into vampires and burned down a 7-11 (cf AU).

Fanon – Fan canon. A fan-created fact or event widely accepted as canon, or a fact deemed to be unstated canon.

(To Be) Jossed – To have events in one of your fan fictions be invalidated by a canon development. Originally derived from Buffy fandom, the term ‘Jossed’ is named after Buffy creator/writer/guru/god Joss Whedon.

Plot Bunny – The central idea of a fanfic; the equivalent of a movie pitch. Writers sometimes swap around plot bunnies, especially if they have an idea which they don’t have time to explore more fully. The term comes from the fact that if you get one or two of these ideas together, they tend to breed like…well, you know.

Joys of Pitching III

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I went into a meeting with a major TV producer with an over-all series deal at a big studio. He brought his nine-year-old daughter into the meeting. I was midway through the pitch when the producer got a phone call.

“I’m gonna take this outside,” he said, heading for the door, “but please keep going.”

And he left me alone with his daughter.”Go on,” she said, her pencil poised on a notepad, “I’m listening.”

A friggin great show

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It’s official…Deadwood is my favorite show on television right now. Unpredictable. Shocking. Offensive. Memorable. Hilarious. Ugly. Unexpectedly moving. The characters are fresh and surprising, the sense of place palpable, and the dialogue utterly original. I don’t think I have ever heard profanity used so effectively or, dare I say it, poetically. Watch this show are your peril…it’s addictive and hard to get out of your head.

Maintaining Integrity

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Another true TV anecdote…

Bill Rabkin and I were in middle of writing an episode of “Spenser: For Hire,” which was airing at 10 p.m. on Saturday nights. In our episode, Spenser sees a woman jump off the roof of a building, so he begins to investigate why she wanted to commit suicide. He discovers she’s fleeing her brother, with whom she shared an incestous relationship. The network loved the story.

We get a call on a Friday from the network. They had just decided to move “Spenser For Hire” to 8 pm on Sunday, sandwhiched between “The Wonderful World of Disney” and “The Dolly Parton Show.”

Somehow our episode didn’t seem quite right for the Family Hour, unless your idea of family is rather twisted. But the network didn’t think it was quite as big a problem as we did.

“We love everything about the script, so all you need to do is take out the incest,” the network exec said, “but maintain the integrity of the story.”

Simple Notes

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Another true story…

My writing partner William Rabkin and I had just turned in the seventeenth draft of a screenplay based on a novel I’d written. We were a few weeks away from pre-production on the movie. The producer called us in, saying he only had a few minor notes we could do in a few minutes on our computer.

“I just need a tiny polish,” the producer said. “Just a few little nips and tucks.”

”I’m ready,” I said, having already figured out where I was going to put the framed movie poster on my wall, and how I was going to spend my production bonus.

“I’d like you to flip Act Two and Act Three,” he said.

I laughed. He didn’t. “You are joking, right?”

“No,” he said. “It will be easy with your computer. Just flip the two acts, make Act Three Act Two, and make Act Two Act Three.”

“But you can’t do that,” I said.

“Why not?” He asked, genuinely perplexed.

I walked out and never came back. Bill stuck around and got the notes, though we never did the draft. Other writers came in (including Michael Blake, who would later win an Oscar for “Dancing With Wolves”). Not surprisingly, the movie didn’t get made.

NEW CAST ON “MISSING”

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Justina Muchado has left our show and Mark Consuelos has stepped in. Production began this week on our second season…and just let me say, Vivica Fox rocks.

Lifetime’s ‘Missing’ finds Fox, Consuelos

FBI skein’s new season premieres in July

By DENISE MARTIN

Former sudser star Mark Consuelos is going primetime, joining the cast of the Lifetime drama “Missing.”
Casting of Consuelos comes in the wake of news that Vivica A. Fox (“Kill Bill”) has also come aboard the skein. Her character replaces that of original star Gloria Reuben in the second season of the show.

“Missing” revolves around FBI investigator Nicole Scott (Fox), who has teamed with a young psychic to help track down missing persons. Consuelos, husband of morning talkshow host Kelly Ripa, will play an FBI agent and former colleague of Fox’s character.

New season premieres in July.

Consuelos is a vet of the ABC soap “All My Children,” in which he starred opposite Ripa. He next appears in Miramax actioner “The Great Raid” with Benjamin Bratt and Joseph Fiennes. More recently, Consuelos did a multi-episode arc on NBC’s “Third Watch.”

“Missing” is produced by Lions Gate TV in association with CHUM TV. Glenn Davis, William Laurin and Debra Martin Chase are exec producers.

Edgar Winners

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And the Winners Are…
BEST NOVEL

Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

Death of a Nationalist by Rebecca Pawel (Soho Press)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

Find Me Again by Sylvia Maultash Warsh (Dundurn Group)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith by Andrew Wilson (Bloomsbury)

BEST FACT CRIME

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (Random House – Crown Books)

BEST SHORT STORY

“The Maids” – Blood on Their Hands by G. Miki Hayden (Berkley Prime Crime)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Acceleration by Graham McNamee (Wendy Lamb Books/Random House Childrens)

BEST JUVENILE

Bernie Magruder & the Bats in the Belfry by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (Simon & Schuster/Atheneum)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

The Practice – “Goodbye”, Teleplay by Peter Blake & David E. Kelley

BEST MOTION PICTURE SCREENPLAY

Dirty Pretty Things by Steve Knight (BBC, Celador Productions, Jonescompany)

A Sweet Kid

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In the LA Times, a despondent father (who also happens to be a Orange County Sheriff) laments that his teenage kid, arrested for raping an unconscious woman and penetrating her with a bottle, a pool cue, and a cigarette, is just…

“The most kind, caring, sweet kid you’d ever meet in your life.” He says he believes his son is guilty of nothing more than acting thoughtlessly.

“They’re all basically good kids who got themselves into a stupid, terrible situation,” Haidl said.

Did I mention these good kids also video taped their rape?

The defense has argued that the sex depicted on the video was consensual and that in the days before the gathering the girl had willingly engaged in sexual activities with all three.

I find it amazing that Sheriff Haidl can be so blind about his own son. I wonder if he is as sympathetic to the other rapists his deputies have arrested.

Does he really expect ANYBODY to feel sorry for his “sweet caring son” and his sicko buddies?

UPDATE (MAY 4): More news from the LA Times. Now the sweet kid and his lawyers are alleging the under-age girl was only pretending to be unconscious and wanted to be gang raped… and violated with pool cues, lit cigarettes, and a Snapple bottle. It’s not a new strategy to blame the victim for her own rape…but this is reprehensible.

In opening statements, the defense portrayed the girl as a sex fiend whose life had spun out of control, and the prosecutor told jurors that the videotape will reveal the youths as arrogant, selfish assailants. But both sides characterized the incident, in Haidl’s Corona del Mar home two years ago, as the culmination of a series of bad choices by the girl.

Both sides agree that on the day before the party, the girl went to Haidl’s house, where she smoked marijuana, drank heavily and had sex with at least two young men. The next day, she returned alone.

Each juror was handed a binder with 48 color photos from the videotape. The photos show the defendants — Gregory Scott Haidl, 18; Kyle Joseph Nachreiner, 19; and Keith James Spann, 19 — alternately having sex with the girl and sodomizing her with a Snapple bottle, an empty fruit can and a lighted cigarette.

In the video, after the boys have sex with the apparently unconscious girl on a couch, they are shown moving her to a pool table. Spann affirms with a gesture that the girl has blacked out — and the sexual antics continue, the prosecutor told jurors. Later, the boys mug for the camera, giggle and dance to the blaring rap music. Haidl slaps the girl’s stomach in time to the beat.

In the final photo, the girl — still appearing unconscious — is pictured after urinating on the pool table. Lawyers for the three suspects conceded that the events occurred. She pretended to be unconscious, the defense argued, because she knew that if the video were discovered, people would think poorly of her for allowing boys to treat her in such humiliating fashion.

Attorney John Barnett, representing Nachreiner, said jurors must view the tape in context with what he called the girl’s sexually free-form lifestyle

Block on Signings

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Sarah Weinman clued me in to this terrific article by Lawrence Block on signing and touring…

The whole signed-books issue got accelerated with the 1992 publication of John Dunning’s Booked to Die, which noted that books simply signed by the author had more collector value than those inscribed to a specific reader. Almost immediately, I noticed an upsurge of buyers who murmured “Signature only, please.” It’s much quicker just signing one’s name, and not having to write “To Cathy, I’ll never forget that heavenly night in Sioux Falls.” And was that Cathy with a C or Kathy with a K, and does it end in Y or I?

“Thank you, John Dunning,” many of us said under our breath when another signature-only appeared. But there was a downside. If more folks were content with a simple signature, they were also intent on getting their entire collection signed.

Larry is being a bit disingenuous… as much as he questions the value of signed books and the desire readers have to get their books signed, he’s certainly taking advantage of the market more deftly and agressively than any author I know. Not only does he tour extensively to support his books (as he should), he also runs a small business through his website and his newsletter — and literally out of the trunk of his car — selling signed copies of his backlist and other editions. It’s rare to find an UNSIGNED Block book. So while he may question the whole signed-book-mania, he’s certainly profiting from it and, no doubt, hoping the craze doesn’t wane. Who can blame him? I admire his writing and his salesmanship. But given the way he’s embraced the signed book market, I found the tone of his entertaining piece a bit puzzling…