In today’s Publetariat Dispatch, Alan Baxter offers his perspective on Christopher Nolan’s gritty Batman trilogy.
[Publetariat Editor’s note: this post contains strong language]

There aren’t any spoilers in this post, but there are some spoilers at the places I link to at the end, so be warned.

It’s no secret that I’m a Batman fan. In fact, that’s an  understatement – I fucking love Batman, in a totally platonic way. I’ve  often said that Batman and the Joker are the two greatest fictional characters  ever created and I stand by that. So when talk of a new Batman film  started back in 2003 or 4 or whenever it was, I was dubious. But it was  to be made by Christopher Nolan, a man whose talents I already admired.  The result was Batman Begins, the first of a proposed trilogy. I was very pleasantly surprised.

The  first thing to remember when films are made from established literary  canon, be they novels, comic books, games or anything else, is that a  film is a self-contained thing. It’s finite. Batman comics have been  going since 1939 and there’s a metric fuckton of established canon and  ongoing story with which a film can’t hope to compete. Nor should it  try. So a film will always make changes to established canon and we fans  can’t be precious about that. It’s how the film plays with that canon that matters.

In Batman Begins,  Nolan turned the notion of Ras Al Ghul a little bit on its head. He  made Ras and Henri Ducard the same character, which they absolutely  aren’t in the comic canon. He also made Ras an Irishman. But the things  he then did with those characters, with Ras’s mission as an idealistic  eco-terrorist, were bang on the money. Nolan did a brilliant job of  retelling the Batman genesis and origin, and adding in a well favoured  supervillain. Within that, he kept the darkness essential to the  Batman’s story. He kept the gothic, noir edge of the characters and  setting. He made Gotham an integral character in the film. So while he  played with some aspects of established canon to make a film-sized  story, he did it well and kept enough of what we already know intact to  make a very impressive, cohesive whole. I was very happy with the film.

But  all along it was touted as a trilogy. And this is where we go back to  the nature of film compared to an ongoing series. This film was to be  finite in three instalments. The second film, The Dark Knight,  stands tall for many reasons. Not least of these is that amazing  performance from Heath Ledger as the Joker, which is still the highpoint  of the trilogy for me. And again, Nolan took some liberties with  established canon, but stayed true to so many parts that we love that we  went with him for the ride. I did, anyway. And most importantly for me,  he totally got what the Joker is all about. The Joker is the worst  monster imaginable, because he’s the embodiment of absolute chaos. No  rhyme, no reason, no appealing to any sense or intelligence. Just pure,  insane chaos. Some men, after all, just want to watch the world burn.

So I’d been waiting patiently and slightly nervously for The Dark Knight Rises,  the third and final instalment. So often a third film is where a series  can jump the shark. It can be the step too far. But Nolan always said  this was to be a trilogy and I trusted him as a storyteller enough to  hope that he would see it through well. Again, liberties were took. The big bad this time is Bane, and he’s very different from the comic book  character. In the comics, Bane is addicted to and fuelled by Venom. But  in this film, Venom doesn’t even get a mention. Bane’s origin is also  played with, as are the origins of other key players (who I won’t  discuss for fear of spoilers). But that’s okay, because Nolan is using  Bane in his own way, like he used Ras Al Ghul in the first one. And he  does a good job of it.

Nolan also does a very good job of using  the Selina Kyle character. She’s never called Catwoman in the film, her  cat ears are just her night goggles, pushed up onto her head and so on.  But the core of the character is there. She’s a tough, sassy, very  capable cat burglar. She’s a real-world foil to the Batman’s black and  white view of crime and culpability. She’s so much more than a sexy  accoutrement and Anne Hathaway does a brilliant job with a character  that is very hard to play well.

And using these characters and settings, Nolan brings threads from both previous films together in The Dark Knight Rises  and ties them into a truly epic story, worthy of its comic book roots  and also worthy of its cinematic grandeur. He does tell a complete story  in three films and he does it bloody well.

Each of the films is  successively darker, more epic and more daring than the last and by far  the best thing about them is that Nolan has made an absolutely  self-contained trilogy. It’s not the same as the comic books, because  the comics are still going on, and will continue to do so. Nolan has  taken the characters and spirit of those stories and turned them into  one complete and very clever tale. We see the full life of the Batman,  from genesis, through origin, through rise and fall and rise again,  right out to final closure. And it’s very satisfying.

Sure, the films have flaws. With The Dark Knight Rises there  are illogicalities, there are strange timing issues, there are simple  nonsensical things (like the one I mentioned the other day – how the  hell does Bane eat? And he’s a big boy, so he must eat a lot.) There’s  actually not nearly enough Batman in the third and final Batman film.  There are often certain events in the movies which are entirely too  convenient and plot-driven. But, these things are relatively few and far  between and largely eclipsed by all the good stuff.

There are those who have suggested that this final instalment is a pro-fascist movie  (although I disagree with most of that post and the author obviously  doesn’t have any real understanding of the ideology of Ras Al Ghul). I  mean, sure, all superhero stories are fundamentally fascist – the super  power steps in with violence, operating outside the law, to battle the  greater threat on behalf of the people. But that’s a whole other  discussion and not one limited to Nolan’s interpretation of Batman.

There  are those who have asked what the hell happened to the Joker after the  second film. Although Ledger died and couldn’t reprise his role, it’s  strange that there was never any mention. Though one possible answer lies here.

(Remember – spoilers at the above links!)

There  are several other concerns raised in various reviews and posts I’ve  read, some valid, some not so much. Regardless, Nolan has created in his  Batman trilogy something rarely seen from Hollywood these days – an  intelligent, complex, complete and satisfying story along with the  incredible special effects and cinematic epicness we’ve come to expect.  Effects are so often utilised at the expense of story, but not with  these films. The Dark Knight Rises is possibly the best of the  three when it comes to simply amazing set pieces of action and downright  brilliant photography. But it’s the combined power of the three films  together that really stands out as Nolan’s crowning achievement here.

Personally I can’t wait till The Dark Knight Rises  is released on DVD so I can put aside a day to sit and watch all three  films back to back in a beauteous Bat-filled marathon of cinematic  awesomeness.

 

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

 

In today’s Publetariat Dispatch, professional editor Jodie Renner fills us in on the dreaded author infodump, and why readers hate it.

This post, by Jodie Renner, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

When you’re revising your novel, be on the lookout for any obvious  blocks of information or mini-lectures that you may have inadvertently  wedged into the story here and there.

Author intrusions and info dumps come in various shapes and sizes, but  whatever their form, they can be perceived as an obvious and clumsy  attempt by the author to quickly impart some facts, clarifications, or  personal opinions directly to the reader. It might even be considered  lazy—it’s much easier to just insert a bunch of backstory in about a  character in one lump than to find ways to artfully weave in that  information through dialogue and thoughts, etc. But do we really need all  that information on the character, anyway? Definitely not at the risk  of turning off your reader, who’s just been wrenched out of the story to  be filled in on details, opinions, or background info.

Or, say you’re really riled up about an issue that you feel people need  to pay attention to. Maybe you want people to care about the environment  more. Or stop eating so much junk food and exercise more. Or maybe  you’re just passionate about something like gardening or Ancient Greece  or figure skating or poodles or scuba diving. Should you use your  fiction to convert others to your causes or enlighten people about your  pet topics? If you do, proceed with caution! People read fiction for  entertainment—to escape their boring or stressful life and get immersed  in a fascinating story with great characters doing exciting things. If  you really want to stop cruelty to animals or raise awareness about  anorexia or talk about sailing or World War II history or French  cuisine, make sure the info comes out in small doses, and in a natural  way through a character who is passionate about that topic—and that it  actually works for the plot and is believable for that particular  character.

Some common types of author intrusions include:

Interrupting the story to explain facts or details at length to your readers

Readers like to stay immersed in the story, not be pulled out of it to  be given a lengthy explanation of something as an aside by the author.  This can include long, detailed explanations of a specific type of gun,  for example, or stopping the story to describe in detail a castle or a  family lineage or some historical facts or the customs of a different  country or epoch. Yes, do your research, for sure. But pick and choose  what you actually share with your readers, and blend the info in in a  natural way, through dialogue, introspection and short expository  (explaining) passages, preferably filtered through the viewpoint of the  POV character.

Soap-boxing about an issue or cause

Maybe you’d like to increase consciousness about worthy topics such as  the plight of whales or the lack of clean water worldwide, or unfair  treatment of minorities, or lack of green spaces. You say, people really  need to be made aware of the situation—we all need to sit up and take  notice and do something about it! That’s true, but you could always  write letters to the editor, or newspaper or magazine articles on the  issue, or even blog posts. Or give talks at the library or to local  groups. Or insert allusions to it here and there in your novel, as long  as you have a character who is passionate about that issue and  knowledgeable. It can work in small doses, as long as you don’t go on so  long about it that it comes across as preaching. And it needs to fit  naturally in the scene, with the character’s personality, politics and  thoughts.

Giving the readers a history lesson or a lecture on a topic

Say you’re passionate about Aztecs and Aztec ruins and want to tell the  world about this fascinating subject, so you decide to write a Raiders of the Lost Ark  type of adventure story. You have a main character who’s an  archaeologist, and because you can’t resist sharing your knowledge, you  have this character giving impromptu detailed lectures on Aztec history  to anyone who will listen. Not a good idea. Just drop in a few  tantalizing tidbits here and there to pique your readers’ interest. If  you get them curious enough, they can easily google Aztecs and find out a  lot more on them. You could even add some info at the end of the story  somehow, as an Afterword or Glossary or related links or whatever.

Dumping in a pile of backstory about a character

While it is a good idea to create background information on all of your  main characters for yourself, be sure to avoid copying and pasting it  into your story in blocks, like a mini-biography or a resume. I’ve  edited novels where a new character comes onto the scene and the writer  feels compelled to immediately write several paragraphs or even pages of  background on that character, to introduce him or her to the readers.  The problem with that is that the plot has just come to a skidding halt  while you fill us in on this person. Secondly, why would we even care  about all those little details when that character has just come  onstage? Wait until we warm up to them a bit, then provide any pertinent  info little by little as we go along.

For example:

Jessica heard her cell phone ringing. “Excuse me.” She grabbed it  from her purse and flipped it open. It was her husband Richard.

Richard,  who was 42, was an engineer for the city. He and Jessica had met while  both college freshmen. Jessica was in Nursing and Richard was in  Engineering, and they’d met at a dance arranged by the two faculties.  They dated through college and married the year after they graduated. By  then, Jessica was a nurse and Richard was an engineer. They waited a  few years before starting a family…. yadda yadda.

“Hi, Richard,” Jessica said into the phone. “What’s up?”

 

Does the reader need to know all that backstory? Probably not. Certainly  not all at once, in the second between the ringing of Jessica’s phone  and when she answers it. Any of it that you feel is necessary can be  introduced gradually through dialogue, thoughts, and short exposition.  Jessica can be thinking about her college days or chatting with a sister  or friend, or Richard can be talking to a colleague or golf partner, or  Jessica and Richard can be talking to each other. But still, make sure  the info fits naturally and organically into the conversation, and  doesn’t look like it’s been planted there by the author to get the info  across to the readers. Which brings us to our last subtopic:

Info dumps disguised as dialogue: AYKB – “As you know, Bob…”

This is where the author has one person telling another a bunch of stuff  they both know, just to impart that information to the reader. Here’s  an exaggerated example, to illustrate:

Ralph said to his brother, “As you know, Bob, our parents were both  killed in a car crash when we were young, and we were raised by our  grandparents.”

Readers today are too sophisticated to go for this type of heavy-handed  information-sharing, and if you do it too often, it’s sure to lose you  respect and credibility.

Or it can seem off even when it’s more subtle, as when one homicide  detective says to another, “Serial killers have usually been abused as  children, and their victims often have similarities.”

You get the idea.

How about you? Just for fun, can you make up an obvious, AYKB dialogue for us? Use the comment boxes below and go for it!

Copyright © Jodie Renner, June 2012

Jodie Renner is a freelance fiction editor, specializing in thrillers,  mysteries and other crime fiction. For more info on Jodie’s editing  services, please visit her website.

 

In today’s Publetariat Dispatch, author Alan Baxter shares some of what George Orwell had to say about writing and writers.

I think we should file this one under ‘B’ for Bitter old Bastard. George Orwell had this to say, about his own writing:

All  writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their  motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting  struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

One would never  undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one  can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is  simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet  it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one  constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like  a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the  strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking  back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a  POLITICAL purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into  purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and  humbug generally.

 

 

I can’t say I agree with all of  that, not by a long way. But it does provide some interesting food for  thought. I came across the quote on Cat Sparks’ Facebook wall and I  think Margo Lanagan summed it up best in her comment:

Second half is halfway sensible; first half—well, wasn’t HE a drama queen.

 

Yes.  Yes, he really was. Writing a book really is hard work, and you often  question your sanity in the process. But it’s bloody brilliant too.  Nothing horrible about it. Of course, our real underlying prime  motivators for writing are obscure. Most of us may never really know  exactly why we do it, other than that we simply can’t not do it.

Anyway,  as I said, an interesting quote and it’s given me pause for thought. If  nothing else, there’s one line in there that’s absolute gold:

Good prose is like a windowpane.

Meditate on that one, Grasshopper.

This is a reprint from Alan Baxter‘s The Word.

 

In today’s Publetariat Dispatch, historical fiction author M. Louisa Locke shares some of her research findings about life in 1880’s San Francisco.
This is the first in a multi-part series describing San Francisco in 1880. For those of you who have read either Maids of Misfortune or Uneasy Spirits, or my short stories,  this will provide you with some deeper understanding of the city where  my main characters, Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson, lived as children in  the 1860s and returned to as adults in the 1870s. If you are not  familiar with my Victorian San Francisco mystery series, I hope these  historical pieces will pique your interest––although I promise my  fiction is much livelier reading. All the material quoted below is from  my thesis, “Like a Machine or an Animal: Working Women of the Far West  in the Late Nineteenth Century,” University of California: San Diego  dissertation, 1982 pp. 60-69.”  I must say, it is much more entertaining  to convey historical information through fiction than heavily footnoted  fact!

Part One: The San Francisco Economy

“In 1880 San Francisco, with a  population of 233,959 residents, was the ninth largest city in the  United States. Located at the end of the peninsula that separates the  Bay of San Francisco from the Pacific Ocean, this city of hills, sand  dunes, fogs, and mild temperatures had been only a small village called  Yerba Buena less than forty years earlier.  This small village was one  of the chief beneficiaries of the incredible influx of people into the  region after the discovery of gold to the north in the winter of  1847-48.”

[For those of you who have read Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits––Annie  Fuller, her parents, her Aunt and Uncle, and her housekeeper, Beatrice  O’Rourke, were among those who traveled west and settled in San  Francisco in those first years.]

“Commerce dominated San Francisco’s  economic structure through out the nineteenth century. Its fine natural  harbor and its location near both ocean shipping lanes and interior  river routes stimulated much of the city’s early economic growth. The  city served as the port of entry for the massive flow of people and  goods into the region during the Gold Rush, and once agriculture  developed in the interior in the 1860′s San Francisco also became the  major port to handle goods shipped out of the region. The disruption in  trade resulting from the Civil War further promoted the development of  agriculture in the Far West, and San Francisco merchants worked hard in  the 1850s and 1860s to ensure that all goods entering or leaving the  region passed through their hands. By and large they were successful,  and their control of the region’s trade remained firm until the  completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. As late as 1875,  San Francisco still handled at least ninety percent of all the goods  leaving the state and a major share of the trade leaving the Northwest.”

“As a commercial port city, San  Francisco first developed manufacturing that centered around supplying  shipping needs and processing the raw materials that constituted the  bulk of the city’s trade. By the late 1850s a few firms also began to  manufacture a significant amount of the heavy equipment used in  hydraulic mining.  In the 1860s…the Civil War and the completion of the  transcontinental railroad fostered the development of a new kind of  industry within San Francisco––the manufacturing of light consumer items  for regional markets. The dislocation of Eastern trade during the Civil  War not only aided the development of agricultural lands in the Far  West but also encouraged San Francisco’s manufacturing sector by  diverting capital investment from the cities of the East to the Far west  and by forcing the latter region to look to San Francisco to supply its  consumer needs.”

“The high shipping rates of the Central  Pacific Railroad acted as a protective tariff for the city, and the  railroad gave San Francisco easier access to raw materials and to  regional markets for its manufactured goods. The construction of the  railroad also attracted great numbers of Chinese and European immigrants  who flocked to San Francisco once their job with the railroad ended.  This new abundance of labor, in turn, drove down wages in the city and  encouraged the creation of the first large-scale manufacturing  establishments in the city. As a result, by 1880 San Francisco had a  mature, broadly based manufacturing sector that completely dominated the  Far West. San Francisco ranked ninth among cities in the nation in  value of products…most important industries in 1880 were meat packing  and processing, sugar refining, boot and shoe making, heavy metal and  machine making, men’s clothing, and tobacco and cigar making. San  Francisco’s continued vitality as a commercial center and its growing  manufacturing capabilities also insured that the city acted as the  financial capital of the region. The headquarters of almost all of the  California banking institutions were located in San Francisco, and banks  in other cities were often dependent on San Francisco capital.”

“Despite this relatively favorable  working climate, San Francisco was not in any way protected from the  economic cycles that affected the rest of the nation, nor were the  laboring classes immune form exploitation by their employers. In fact,  the high wages of the 1850s and 1860s and the popular myth that fortunes  were easily made in the Far West promoted unrealistic expectations that  were dealt a particularly harsh blow when hard times hit the city in  the 1870s. With the completion of the railroad in 1869, the chronic  labor shortage that had kept wages high vanished, and for the first time  there was severe unemployment throughout the state. The national  depression sparked by the Panic of 1873 reinforced the local downturn in  business, and in 1875 the collapse of the Bank of California and the  decline in the output of the Comstock Lode (in which much of the city’s  capital had been invested) added to the city’s difficulties.”

“Even though a visitor to the city in  1880′…was much struck by the depressed air of the tradesmen,’ and a  Norwegian pastor implored his countrymen living in the Midwest not to  come to San Francisco expecting to find jobs easily, by 1880 San  Francisco’s economy shared in the recovery that was sweeping the nation.  The development of manufacturing in the city, which had in part been  fostered by the very economic difficulties of the 1870s (because it  lowered wages), meant that the city entered the new decade with an  economy that was more diverse and stronger than ever.”

[It was the Panic of 1873 and the  subsequent national depression that had played a key role in Annie  Fuller’s late husband’s financial ruin back east and it is the  improvement in San Francisco’s economy that Annie takes advantage of as  the clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl, when she offers business advice to local  businessmen like Mr. Matthew Voss in Maids of Misfortune.]

 

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s site.