BATTLING BEATNICK BOOMER NEARLY STRIKES PAYDIRT

Got back the critique of my screenplay Distant Enemies from the BlueCat Screenwriting Contest. Although I didn't win any cash prizes, I was encouraged by the feedback. The anonymous critic agreed, I think, with Randall Jahnson, my Northwest Film Center's screenwriting teacher, that my script was a solid attempt. The BlueCat critic wrote that my plot was "fresh and original". He thought my plot twist was "a fine touch by the writer". He noted the "pod" element in my script, and it's reference to "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". He said my handling of the pods was "neither unoriginal nor identical" to the earlier films. True enough.

About my character portrayals, he wrote, "There was an array of characters ... each of them gave a powerful image and had their own individuality that made the story stronger and fluid. It was quite disheartening to see some of the characters die off or appeared (sic) to have died." That sympathetic reaction was exactly my intention. I love dialogue writing and the character it reveals.

On the negative side, both screenwriter Randall Jahnson and the anonymous BlueCat critic thought the action in the middle segment of my screenplay was slowed down by elements that might be eliminated or shortened. I'll definitely see where action can be sped up in future rewrites. The fact that two separate writers agreed about this belt line sluggishness, made the suggestion specially forceful. 

Finally, my anonymous critic encouraged me when he wrote  "Distant Enemies is a solid script and could be rewritten to improve the pacing." I agree wholeheartedly.

BEATNIK BOOMER STRIKES OUT AGAIN...AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT

Not much to say, here. Today I finished one more rewrite of another short story, then did a complete rewrite of another very short story and came up with a better finish for a third story I'd already finished the rewrite on several days ago. 

See Hemingway influence here? Died age 55. Alcoholism.

What I wanted to say in this entry is something about an impression I have about a couple of published writers. I just finished Whistle by James Jones. Now I'm reading a book written by a writer whose name will not be mentioned. The second book won a Pen/Faulkner Award sometime within the last 15 years. That's a prestigious award offered by the top people in the world of MFA programs for one group. The award winning book is all you "expect" it to be. It's well researched and offers snapshots of many people in many fields of work and play, all of whom talk and act as if the writer knows about or has researched those fields. Phillip Roth, anyone? It's glib and polished and well constructed compared to Jones's novel. You can see that Jones put his poor damn passion in his book for better or worse while the award winning book reveals an easy handling of memorized tactics for writing an award winning book. And talk about a pile on of praise offered by magazines and newspapers? In short, the novel so far bores me. It's got no pizazz. No passion in it. Cooly intellectual, I'd say, and that's all I'm saying here. Detachment? Is that the modern mood? Of course, I haven't finished it yet. Who knows how I'll feel after I finish it? Just before Whistle, I  read Asleep by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto [in translation] and it took me 2/3 of the book before I was dragged into an interest in it. I guess I sort of feel saddened by the fact that the passions of my youth for the men who fought WWII is no longer in style. We've all died and gone to heaven.

THE SILENT BOOMER RUNS AFOUL OF THE CRITIQUES

A friend of mine, Carl, told me it would happen, and it finally happened. I took a solid piece of writing, Pavlov's Other Dogs, to my writing group, and my female critiques didn't get it and didn't like it. It was working at so many levels, even I surprised myself when I rediscovered it amongst some old writings of mine. One woman did catch the correct feeling from the work. She said it was "disturbing" and that was exactly how it was meant to strike readers. So I succeeded in that.

Poor Pound Puppy

Basically, the tale dealt with discipline and abuse. It was about a housewife house breaking a mongrel mutt from the pound to the point that the dog was conditioned to believe (learned) that abuse was play. In the end the young dog was so berserk, she put him down. She drove him crazy. The sarcastic distance of the embittered narrator whose offhand remarks reveal a man damaged by abuse himself escaped his critics. They were disturbed that the narrator referred to the pound puppy as an "ex-con, so to speak". They wanted a sympathetic orphan dog and sympathetic and undamaged narrator. They wanted, I fear, a straightforward tale of maudlin woe that they could feel sorry about. In sum, they were more interested in the fate of the mongrel dog than they were about the son and stepson who the mother/stepmother had also "housebroken". She trained one with excessive and unlimited love and the other with stern discipline, and one became a drug addict while the other struggled with alcoholism, but all of that human knowledge is left out of the tale so that the tale doesn't become another "poor me" tale of human abuse. 

The tale no doubt has some flaws I cannot see because its beauty blinds me, but not one of the critiques gave the story an overall approval rating. Instead, to be kind, they stuck with small details. The negative effect of their comments was considerable upon this poor writer's spirit, no matter how mightily he wagged his tail. Two did ask if the young dog couldn't be made more sympathetic. One wanted the tale told from the dog's point of view. An interesting theory I did consider, but then I'd lose the ironic tone of the damaged narrator overarching the whole affair. In fact, I was not fully aware of his damaged spirit until the critics rubbed my nose in it. For that interesting information, I give the critiquing a hearty thumbs up.

We learn in spite of ourselves!