Difficulties

It's difficult to do homework without power. We lost our power Thursday night because of a big nasty storm (one of those wicked nor'easters they're always talking about), and didn't get it back until Saturday night. I spent the weekend at a friend's apartment with a terrible internet connection, which meant I could write, but not research or do my online tutoring job. Before the storm hit I was grossly sick (in fact I'm still not completely recovered). Now Ashley is sick and our apartment continues to be a gross pit of sickness. This semester is conspiring against us--neither of us will ever get on top of the workload.

In other random news, my friend Josh (formerly of WWU, now doing his MFA in Las Cruces, NM) posted an interesting commentary about workshop difficulties on his blog All Headlights and Vapor Trails. You can read the original post here. I want to post the comment I made on my own blog because dammit, I'm in full rant mode and I want to. Basically, Josh's post is about how he's frustrated that fiction workshops overemphasize criticism of a story, making what's not working in a story a more important topic of discussion than what is working. In his teaching and his workshopping, he tries to talk about what isn't working in terms of what is. ("This section would be better if you changed this and this, to make it parallel the scene on page three.") You should read the rest of the post--it's interesting. He also takes his fellow MFAers to task for only reading their colleagues' pieces once before commenting. In my comment I talk about what pisses me off in the workshop:

I'm okay with the balance of support and criticism, as least in my workshop (probably about 25-75). What bugs the hell out of me is the way we fall into phrasing our quibbles. "I like x and y about your story, but I do have some questions..." is such a euphemistic way to segue into talking problems about the story. For me, that kind of language just doesn't help--if something is wrong with my story, I want to fucking know that it's a problem. Telling me you have a question about it doesn't help much, telling me that it sucks does.

I often wound up treating student papers quite differently because they don't have the (typically) thick skin creative writers develop in the workshop, and to much overt criticism can shut them down entirely. Euphemistic workshop language seems appropriate for college freshmen--they need the cushion--it doesn't seem appropriate for writers in their mid-twenties or later who have been doing this for years.

As for reading, I usually give it a quick "enjoyment" reading (also to get the threads of the story in place in my head before I start getting critical with it), then get into the nitty-gritty on my second reading. I usually only have time to give the really flawed or challenging drafts a third reading, unfortunately.

It is weird how people write because something is due, and it does seem counter-intuitive. I wonder how often it's a problem with time to write. Now that my semester is in full swing, I'm finding myself stupid busy--working 30 hours at two jobs and reading other students' work, mostly--and I'm ashamed to say I am in the process of writing a phoning-it-in short story. I haven't had time to do better, and that sucks. Hopefully something interesting comes out of it, but right now... ugh.

But I thought my images were subtle with a deep ring of metaphor! WAH!

Josh is *hopefully* coming to AWP and crashing with Kenny, Chas, and I. He's a stud, his comments at WWU were always hard-nosed and useful, and he mentions me all the time on his blog. Nice.

Ian's Long Lost Rant

Lost spoilers ahead.

I recently read an interview with Patton Oswalt where he said, “Television is the way Hollywood was in the late ’60s and early ’70s. The dream era I would have loved to have been part of in Hollywood then is happening right now, but it’s happening on television, with these big complicated story arcs and real character-driven shows and sheer ambiguity left and right.” Shows like The Wire and Battlestar Galactica are pushing their respective genres into new, artistic territory, 30 Rock is doing a weird meta-take on television comedy, and Mad Men is bringing an obsessive eye for detail and craftsmanship to TV. All of these shows are wonderfully written, I might add.

With all this great TV out there, I cannot explain the popularity of Lost. Yes, it's got a deep and enigmatic mythology, and it often borrows its narrative structure from old adventure serials (plus flashbacks), but on a fictional level, it commits a cardinal sin. Everything in Lost, down to the musical score, is in service to either the plot or the structure. The first season establishes a pattern that follows through most of the series. Something is happening on the island, and it typically focuses around one or two characters. The island scenes are intercut with flashbacks that illuminate that episode's lead character's motives and history, or serve as an (often heavy-handed) metaphor for what's happening in the present, back on the island. In the first season, this worked pretty well; Lost sets itself up as a character driven mystery show. Subsequent seasons, however, keep the flashback structure around after it's already accomplished what it needs to do, which leads to endlessly complicating back stories, motives that seem contradictory, and a general watering down of the characters.

The cast of Lost, scowling.

For example, at the end of the first season, I found Sun and Jin to be the most interesting characters—their uneasy marriage was fascinating, and having the others on the island not understand their language and the dynamics of their relationship was a great decision on the writers' parts. She lives in fear of her shady, controlling husband. He feels bound by duty and family to provide for his wife, and he probably holds this against her. I may be a nerd, but Jin's apology for his behavior in the season finale was heart-wrenching. Over the next two or three seasons we get more Jin and Sun flashbacks, and that interesting character dynamic dissolves into melodrama. She can't get pregnant! But the doctor lied, it's Jin who's infertile! She had an affair and Jin was sent to kill the guy, but he let him go! Sun sold Jin into working for her father to pay Jin's mother, who was blackmailing them! Okay Lost, I don't give a shit anymore. Halfway through season two, I just stopped caring about all the characters. There were a few exceptions, episodes or arcs where plot and character somehow magically aligned and produced something great, but I'll talk about those in a bit.

Perhaps the most infuriating thing about Lost was its reliance on what Roger Ebert calls “The Idiot Plot.” The idiot plot is “A plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie [or television show] would be over.” Specifically, I'm referring to the inability of Lost's characters to communicate in any logical or realistic way. When a character has an important piece of information or knows something that can help or harm the group, instead of telling somebody they either a) keep it to themselves, or b) march off into the jungle (sometimes with a few other characters who have no idea what they've actually been recruited to do) to “solve” the problem. Why do they do this? Why don't they sit down and talk it out? In season one, why doesn't Locke tell anybody about the mysterious hatch that may lead to their rescue?

Because the plot demands it.

Because if the characters did act in a logical or realistic way, there would be no show, there would be no drama, and there would be a hell of a lot fewer unanswered questions. In seasons three and four, many characters repeatedly ask Ben and Juliet about the Others—who are they, why are they treating their captives like animals, why did they kidnap children? They invariably respond either “We're the good guys” (usually followed by a dramatic music cue) or “You wouldn't understand even if I did explain it to you.” Amazingly, even when the power dynamic shifts, the survivors don't press for details. Juliet's defection from the Others would seem like a great time to sit her down and finally get some answers out of her. Why don't they? Because the plot demands it. The writers have decided that the answer to that mystery needs to be withheld, and they''ll suspend logic to do it.

And this is neither here nor there, but the Sawyer-Jack-Kate (and later Juliet) love traingle is grating. Just grating. Shoot me in the face.

The cast of Battlestar Galactica, also sitting/standing dramatically, although not scowling.

So the characters make no sense, the plot walks over anything in its path, including logic (and sometimes itself—plot holes!), and usually watching the show feels like an exercise in frustration. Why is it so successful? Why did I put myself through all five seasons of it? I have a few ideas. The mythology is interesting, and even when I no longer cared about the characters, I still wanted to know what the deal was with the smoke monster, and why there was a giant, four-toed statue foot on an abandoned shore of the island. The cliffhangers are often absurd, but they work—we all want to know what happens next—and I think the forced ambiguity brings a lot of people back. I haven't delved much into Lost fandom, but I know a little bit about all the forums, blogs, theories, etc. on the internet. And of course, people love finding all the little cultural and philosophical references (“Sawyer was reading Watership Down! What does it mean!?”)

Who gives a shit?

And then there are those brief moments of genius, where everything comes together. Locke's crisis of faith and its resolution as the hatch disintegrated around him in season two was awesome, as was switching the flashbacks to flashforwards at the end of season three. My favorite moment in Lost was “The Constant,” where Desmond is unstuck in time. Sure, it's half borrowed from Slaughterhouse-Five (which the show nods to in a reference a few episodes later), but it was also genius, and an interesting variation on its flashback/flashforward structure. But do these flashes of genius really make it worth slogging through hours and hours of bad dialogue and ridiculous plots? Not for me.

Yes, if I could go back in time I would tell myself not to bother with Lost (although now it's too late for me, and I'll watch the sixth and final season as it airs). For a good example of what Lost could have been like, I recommend the first season of Heroes—a show that draws many comparisons to Lost, and in later seasons descended into even more ridiculous plot excess and character nonsense. If you've seen Lost but not Battlestar Galactica, watch it now. Like Lost, sometimes the writers get confused and need to retcon something or hastily bung up a plothole, and the second half of the last season was a disappointment, but this is how good sci-fi television should be. Also, watch The Wire. Everybody needs to watch The Wire. End rant, soon I'll get back to things you may actually care about, I promise.

The only TV show I'll ever need.