OLD News

So… Man of Steel.

I liked it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it a lot.

First, the non-spoilery stuff:

I liked pretty much every casting choice. I think a few people were wasted, but hopefully they’ll have bigger parts in future movies. Henry Caville is Superman, AFAIAC. Nobody’ll ever replace Christopher Reeve for me, but I’m happy to have Caville do any number of these.

I disagree, strongly, with the people who say it’s soulless. It lacks the whimsy of the Reeve movies, but then, it also lacks the problematic slapstick. There are several scenes of joy/excitement, however. Maybe not as many as there could/should have been, but the movie is hardly dreary through and through.

I felt that some of the action sequences went too far. There’s only so much destruction you can wreak on a city before–even in a comic book movie–it becomes unbelievable. The Avengers pushed up against that line. Man of Steel… Well, leapt across it in a single bound.

And I do think it was lacking in terms of seeing Superman, well, protect people. There seemed very little effort made to acknowledge the bystanders in any of the massive throwdowns.

But in the final analysis, it felt like a Superman movie. I bought Caville as Clark, Amy Adams as Lois, etc. Wasn’t quite as happy with Zod, but that’s just because I have a fixed image of Zod in my head, and this wasn’t quite it. It didn’t not work for me.

The other stuff I want to discuss requires spoilers, so…

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1) Every piece of writing advice you will ever read, no matter who wrote it, is wrong.

Oh, it may not be wrong for you. But it’s wrong for someone. There’s not a path, a rule, a method, or a technique out there that’s universally applicable. If you follow anyone’s writing advice slavishly, you’re not going to succeed.

2) You’re not special. You have to work to become a good writer. Maybe a little, maybe a lot; natural talent enters into it, certainly. But you’re not going to start off at a professional level. You’re just not.

3) You will be wrong. Sometimes suggestions and revisions and so-called "mistakes" are purely matters of taste. Sometimes they’re not, and the suggestion is flat-out incorrect. But sometimes, the problem is yours. An editor or a fan or a reader or a friend will point out a problem with your book that actually has merit, and no matter how much you argue, or love the way you wrote it, it will still have merit. Your book is not perfect as you envisioned it.

4) You need an editor. Always. Whoever you are. No matter how precise or attentive you are. No matter how long you give yourself between writing and rewriting. You will always, always, always miss things that a new pair of eyes would spot.

5) Publishing a book, even e-publishing one, isn’t free. If you’re publishing traditionally, the publisher pays those costs. If you’re self-publishing, you’re going to have to. But they must be paid. You must have editors, both content and copy. You must have a halfway decent cover. You must have non-eye-bleeding layout and formatting.

If you can’t afford to acquire an editor and the other necessary professionals, you cannot afford to self-publish, no matter how long you’ve been working on your book or how good you’re certain it is. Save. Work extra. Do what you must, until you can afford to do it right. Or don’t do it.

6) Every rule has exceptions. Including, but not limited to, these. You will always be able to find an outlier. Someone who produced a fantastic book without an editor. Someone who made a zillion dollars on their first book. Someone did work for "exposure" that actually got exposure. These are all serious long-shots, but they do happen.

These exceptions don’t make the rules invalid. They’re still rules. They’re still necessary. They’re still true 99.99999999repeating % of the time. Choosing not to follow them because exceptions exist is like choosing not to look before running across the freeway. It’s possible you’ll make it, but the odds are not in your favor.

There are exceptions. You are not going to be one of them. Suck it up and work.

It’s after midnight here, which makes it the 27th, which means I can post this.

There’s been a lot of fuss in political news about people not knowing, or arguing about, how old the world is. I just laugh at them. I know exactly how old my world is, because I know when she was born.

Happy birthday and more gratitude than I can begin to express to the woman without whose seemingly endless reserves of love, support, and patience–woo, boy, especially patience–I wouldn’t be remotely near where I am today. Or who I am today. If you’ve ever enjoyed a single word I’ve written, or a single conversation we’ve had, it’s due as much to her as it is to me.

I love you, George.

 Green Ronin Publishing 

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