io9 
Enter your username and password.
San Francisco, 7:00 AM
Tue Dec 8
26 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Annalee Newitz |
News Editor:
Charlie Jane Anders |
Associate Editor:
Meredith Woerner |
Assistant Editor:
Lauren Davis |
Weekend Editor:
Graeme McMillan |
Contributors:
Joshua Glenn
Stephen Goldmeier |
Ed Grabianowski |
Austin Grossman
Paul Hogan |
Lauren Davis |
Chris Hsiang |
Lynn Peril |
Ann VanderMeer
Alasdair Wilkins |
Graphic Designer:
Stephanie Fox |
Interns:
Tim Barribeau |
Julia Carusillo |
Alex Eichler |
Cyriaque Lamar |
Caitlin Petrakovitz |
Mary Ratliff |
Josh Snyder |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/22/09
I've seen Robert McKee live, in one of his London seminars, and his charisma takes your breath away. He's like a larger version of Charlton Heston, brandishing The Ten Commandments. However, he does not like to be argued with!
11/21/09
I absolutely take Ken Scholes' point, but in my own writing I do very much think in terms of Cool Things. And the fewer boring bits in between the better, I'd say. (I've written two SF novels, Debatable Space and Red Claw.)
The key is to get the necessary exposition into the story without impeding the flow of cool or exciting moments. The Golden Age writers have a great technique - they just damn well tell you what you need to know, in an author's voice. And once you know, the story can move on.
Another good principle is what Robert McKee (screenwriting guru) describes as using 'exposition as ammunition'. So instead of two characters telling each other what both already know ('As you know Captain' dialogue), one character FINDS OUT through angry dialogue. And then the exposition scene can be a Cool Thing in itself.
But as Sondheim wrote in a song, 'If life were made of moments, then you'd never know you'd had one.' (I'm quoting from memory there, but that's the gist.) So to create a story full of memorable Cool Things you need the stuff inbetween to make the Cool Things cool.
11/21/09
Even if you end up agreeing with Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation, that McKee is nothing but a slick, snake oil salesman with the patter of a game show host, he's a living example [and no, I am not in any way comparing McKee to Speer :) ]of Albert Speer's advice to a Nuremberg Trial guard who asked him for the secret of his 'success' [he was Hitler's right hand man, the literal architect of the Third Reich, but survived, stood trial, avoided execution, served a lousy twenty years and died of old age (a stroke), a free man].
Speer's reply? "Work on your charisma."
Some of the most chilling words I have ever read.
Combined with Stephen J. Cannell's pithy screen writing aphorism (thanks @Rasselas), "What's the bad guy up to?", they provide a pretty good response to the question of what (and who, and how) to write about between the OMG moments.
And may become the real OMGs, lingering as a metallic aftertaste, long after the "candy-coloured daydream" (CJ's words) of the cool, has evaporated like day-old candy floss.
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
11/20/09
05/21/09
David helped write the story for Homeworld. He's credited as Dave "The Smoking Dog" Williams.
Ruskay did the sound and helped with a lot of the cut-scenes in Homeworld and Homeworld 2.
05/13/09
05/13/09
I mean, better than this one obviously, but a 15 second motion-graphicy-animationy trailer is a cool idea... esp for sci-fi books...
05/13/09
05/13/09
05/13/09
the Tyrell Corp said their motto was "More Human Than Human", so what the hell does that mean anyway?
05/13/09
05/13/09
if you declare war on them first
mom
05/13/09
05/13/09
I believe a type of
pseudo-Haiku prose
that's dictated by
the spasms of the pinky finger
cucumber
05/13/09
05/13/09
05/13/09
05/13/09
Welcome to planet Motherfucker!
04/09/09
04/09/09
By 2100, there won't be many Russians or Japanese left-- and probably not many ethnic Europeans, either.
Maybe these will just be robot wars. . .
04/09/09
04/09/09
I don't get it... Russia's a big place with lots of people, and the demographics of Japan haven't changed in hundreds of years, so the near-future won't be that different. The population of Japan is going to get older and smaller, but not disappear completely.
Providing there's not Godzilla or killer mecha, but the Japanese survive those threats just fine.
04/09/09
5 minutes on a given fundie sight will bring up anything from islamistic majority in europe by 2050 to sharia law getting introduced any day now.
04/10/09
But, you do have to watch that immigration. Just ask the native Americans. They used to be 100% of the population of this country and now look! ;)
04/09/09
Those are some nicely made images when ignoring my minimal knowledge of physics, though.
04/10/09
Yeah, the first thing I thought of when I saw that was how it was a great image of what a space elevator would look like as it's toppling over.
04/09/09
Frenetic non-stop action and cool gear but I found some of the characters and plot points to be very one-dimensional and quite frankly silly. The editing of memories was interesting. I'll still give The Burning Skies a try. It is bound to be a real thrill ride with some interesting political speculation if nothing else.