A World Without Spear Carriers*

I only had HBO for about six months in the early 2000s, so I missed much of the birth of premium TV, including the show that's on pretty much every critic's shortlist for GOAT: The Wire. Thanks to HBO Now, I've been catching up on it over the last few months, currently working my way through season 3. I'm here to offer the extremely controversial opinion that yes, this is a great TV show.

One of the things that strikes me most about The Wire is the way the writers are able to manage a massive cast, while at the same time giving nearly every character their own motivations, goals, etc., even if they're only on screen for a moment. Nowhere is this better illustrated than with Squeak, who first appears in the episode "Back Burners."

When we first meet Squeak, she's along for the ride with her boyfriend Bernard as he drives up and down I-95 buying disposable phones. In this episode, Squeak serves the role of audience stand-in, asking why they can't just buy a bunch of phones at one store. Through her prompting, Bernard explains for the audience exactly what he is doing and why he's doing it.

But Squeak is more than a plot device**. The writers give her motivations and desires of her own. Frankly, she's bored. She wants to not be bored. It's not the most complex motivation, but it serves its purpose, elevating her into a fully realized character. The fact that her primary motivation is boredom is also commentary on one of the contributing factors to the state of Baltimore's streets, and dovetails with Carver's storyline where he tries to figure out what to do with all the out-of-work hoppers. Kids get into trouble because they're bored. People do drugs because they're bored. And people go for long-ass drives down 95 with their boyfriend to buy cell phones because they're bored.

So, how to apply this to your own writing? Take one of your pieces and look for an unimportant, incidental character. Maybe it's the convenience store clerk who sells your protag a pack of gum. Think about what he or she wants, in general terms and in the context of this specific encounter. Maybe they have a significant other they want to see after work. Maybe they just quit smoking cigarettes and selling pack after pack is stressing them the hell out. Maybe your protag is bleeding profusely from several orifices and it's freaking them out (and also pissing them off since they'll have to clean that up later).

Once you know who your incidental character is, it's easy to work in a seemingly throwaway line or two, or a behavior, that illustrates what they're thinking and feeling. And then you've elevated them from human scenery to another character populating your story.  

* A spear carrier is defined as "an unimportant participant in something."  

** While Squeak becomes the fracture that Freamon, McNulty, et. al. eventually exploit to bring down the Barksdale crew, I'm primarily interested in the tricks the writers room brings to the table during her introductory episode. Although The Wire, like Breaking Bad after it, is very, very good at not wasting characters.   

What I'm Working On

Story-wise, I'm a little over 4,000 words into a horror short inspired by Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers. I've always thought it would be kind of cool to open a SMB-themed gym. Put a bunch of turtle-shaped trampolines all over the room, get some papier mache bricks for people to punch (maybe fill them with single serving packets of protein? Or steroids. Yeah, steroids). What red-blooded Gen X or Yer wouldn't want to spend their afternoon bouncing around a room pretending to be Mario, Luigi, or Princess Toadstool? 

I also finished editing a story for the anthology "Zombie Punks Fuck Off." "Mall Punk Meltdown" clocks in around 2200 words. Brutal and to the point. We'll see what happens...

I'm still reading slush for the first issue of Deciduous Tales. We've gotten some great stuff so far that I'm really excited about. The main thing I've noticed so far after reading dozens of stories is the high level of competency in most submissions. The competition is stiff out there, people. Which means if your piece has a single sentence that lands awkwardly, that could be the difference between literary life and death. Polish. Then polish some more. 

Finally, I've been sketching out an actual logo for this site. Something along these lines I think...except, y'know, professionally done.

Advancing Narratives with Dumb Decisions (Please Don't)

I watched Logan last week. 

Growing up, Wolverine was one of my favorite characters. Having spent the early days of my childhood watching sanitized, saccharine stuff like Super Friends, the idea of a superhero slicing through throngs of bad guys in a berserker rage whilst simultaneously healing the worst damage they could dish out was refreshing. Perfect for an adolescent boy with rages of his own. One who'd just discovered grunge, even.

But this post isn't a love letter to Canadian mass murderers, or a paean to the days I spent reading comics in my room beneath a Frazetta-esque poster of Logan* perched atop a pile of dead bad guys. This is about how Logan, which is in most respects a very good movie, leverages some idiotic decisions to advance the narrative.

To wit:

When Donald Pierce confronts Wolverine at the farm where he's hiding Professor X, he is knocked unconscious by X-23. Wolverine, who in the opening sequence has no compunction whatsoever about sticking his claws directly through a cholo's head, decides to take mercy on Pierce. Instead of killing him, he enlists Caliban, whose primary mutation appears to be the power to act like a slightly less useful C-3PO, to leave Pierce in the desert. Pierce is a man who's tracked down Wolverine twice at this point in the movie, I might add.

But if Wolverine slices off Pierce's head this early in the movie, who's going to chase Wolvie, Professor X and Eleven I mean Laura across the country?

I dunno, Dr. Rice and the rest of the Reavers? Reprogrammed Sentinels? X-24 (who would have actually been cooler as the cybernetic Wolverine clone Albert that used to pal around with Elsie Dee)? That's one option.

Another option would have been to have a more expendable Reaver show up at the ranch as an advance scout. Like maybe the guy from The Ultimate Fighter who Laura decapitates a few scenes later?

ANOTHER option would have been for the Reavers to descend on the ranch en masse before adamantium claw meets cyborg skull. 

But nah. Let's knock Donald Pierce unconscious and send the guy who doesn't have claws, a healing factor, or the ability to take his shirt off at the beach to leave him in the middle of the desert like we're fratboys playing a prank on the pledges.    

I won't get into some of the lazier narrative devices used (hey look, it's a character who's mute by choice! hey look, vampire C-3PO is also vampire Cerebro!** hey, let's put handcuffs on the kid who shoots solar energy out of his hands), and some of the other criticisms leveled at the film are actually baseless (for example, why aren't they shooting adamantium bullets at Wolverine when adamantium bullets are a thing that exist? Because adamantium is rare AF). Because Logan is generally a pretty great movie otherwise, it makes the dumb decisions by both good guys and bad guys all the more glaring.

This kind of thing has been lampooned in the context of horror flicks about a billion times. Don't take the easy way out in your writing. If your protags have your antag incapacitated, FINISH HIM! You should listen to your friend Scorpion, he's a smart dude. Or have your antag turn the tables. Whatever you do, don't have your protags uncharacteristically show mercy when you've established in the opening freaking scene that they're merciless.

If your character has no problem killing random gangbangers who try to steal his hubcaps, he'd shouldn't have a problem killing that dude from Narcos. 

*Which was a promotional poster for his late '80s ongoing series. When it came out, the world thought the X-Men were dead for some reason and the first few issues had him running around Madripoor as "Patch," the worst secret identity this side of Clark Kent.

** Yes, I know what Caliban's power is. That doesn't mean it's not lazy writing.