News on the books of Matthew Rollins, plus help for aspiring authors in the form of book and movie reviews through the lens of the Hero's Journey and other thoughts on the craft of writing.
Actors work hard to remain in character for their films. Some, such as Daniel Day Lewis (above, in Gangs of New York) go so far as to stay in character even while not shooting, to maximize their approach to authenticity. As writers, we have to make sure the characters we are putting to the page remain just as true to who and what they are.
I’m in the car quite a lot and have developed a pretty voracious audiobook habit whilst driving. To improve my own writing, I go through 1-3 books a week at 1.5-2x speed to analyze every story I can cram into my ears. If you’re an audiobookphile and haven’t checked out the Libby app, I highly recommend it. Because it’s free. All you gotta do is connect it to your local library account, and you’ll potentially have access to thousands upon thousands of audiobooks, courtesy of your (already paid for via taxes) library. I can’t imagine my Amazon bill if I was paying Audible for all the audiobooks I go through in a year. Sheesh.
Anyhoo, I digress. I started a new audiobook today (from a bona fide publisher) and a couple hours in got smacked into the face with one of my worldbuilding pet peeves, a failure to keep a character in character. It’s something that many, many writers do without thinking, and (apparently) many professional editors miss during editing.
A character said something they shouldn’t have said.
I don’t mean the character misspoke, or accidentally revealed a secret, or anything like that. In this story, a YA sci-fi tale, the protagonist heard and felt an unfamiliar rumbling and compared it to thunder.
What’s the problem with that? Well, our hero lives in space, on space stations, and has her entire life. In this book’s fictional universe, the people do not have a terrestrial existence. I imagine it’s possible she would have learned of thunder through school or film or whatever. But would it be so ingrained into her speech patterns that she’d use it in a metaphor to describe that rumbling? Noooooooooooo.
Her life is spaceships and space stations. She lived among all manner of noisy, mechanical things. The rumbling could have sounded like an off-balance pressure regulator. Or a T34 Interlocking Phase Inhibitor. Or the ore tumblers at the refinery on Thrackas VII. We’re in space. She’s in space. Stay in space!
Am I being picky? Sure. I imagine plenty of readers would blow right past that and get on with the story. But not everyone. At 60+ audiobooks a year, I’m not exactly the most discriminating of consumers. But in almost every story I’ll hear a detail or two that just makes my inner worldbuilder sad. And this detail pulled me out of the story enough to want to write a blog post about it, so I imagine there are plenty of others out there whose Spidey-senses tingle every time they come across a mistake like this.
I’ll give you a couple more examples.
I did a deep-dive developmental edit for an epic other-world fantasy story for a writer in New Zealand a while back. Ten percent of the way through the entertaining tale, we’re well into the worldbuilding of a chaste anti-magic brotherhood in pursuit of an unknown magic-user among them. Low tech. A castles, swords, carts, and horses affair. A brother hands the hero a plate of food to be delivered to the head of their order. In the first person narrative, the hero describes the plate as mostly vegetables, with the only protein being a wedge of cheese.
The problem there? The word ‘protein’ is something that didn’t come around until the mid 1800s. Over a millennium after the scientific development period of the story. Yes, the story was set in a world other than Earth, but there was absolutely nothing in the writing to indicate that science had developed any farther there than it had here for the level of technology at the time.
The levels of science and technology matter in your writing, even if you’re doing something with medieval knights and castles. Because your characters have to remain in character, in both deed and word. Your knight in shining armor can’t name his speedy horse ‘Turbo’ any more than he can drive a Corvette to save the princess or use a rocket launcher to defeat the dragon. Likewise, he also can’t consider cheese as a part of a group of protein-rich foods because he can’t know about such things. The science to understand what a protein is has yet to be invented.
Later on, still a young man, the hero says he “slept like a baby”. Perfectly normal phrase, one I’m sure we’ve all used at some time or another. Except given the existence the reader is presented with, the orphan hero would have had exactly zero interactions with a baby or parent-of-a-current-baby figure his entire life. He would not be comparing anything, even sleep, to that of a baby, because babies are just not on his mind. Sure, he knows what a baby is, but there are many better ways to skin this cat. I mean, skin a razor-clawed gnurffle.
Colloquial phrases like these are opportunities to instead add depth to the world building. He slept like Old Man Shaw’s toothless guard dog Fezz. He slept like he had eaten three helpings of Father Dooba’s delicious autumn pheasant stew. He slept like he had bathed in the vat of Healer Burdock’s numbing balm she keeps locked in her secret pantry. Pick something in-world, to keep your reader in-world.
In short, we’re building entire worlds here, people. Don’t lean too much on ours, intentionally or otherwise, lest your characters briefly leap out of their boots into a different time or place!
If you’re anything like me, you enjoy a good time at the movies. Marvel movies scratch that itch for me, and millions of others. The sheer enormity of the MCU is mind-blowing, and generally even the subpar outings for Marvel (Ironman 3, Eternals) are better than anything their peers are throwing at the screen.
But when Marvel gets it right (Avengers 1, Captain America: Winter Soldier, Thor: Ragnarok), they completely knock it out of the park. Rare is the cinema experience when you leave a theater and can’t imagine any way to improve it without picking tiny nits, and Marvel has given us a handful of these.
So today I’m going to discuss Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings because 1) my daughter watched it this morning on the tail end of a weekend sleepover with her friend, 2) Marvel got oh so close to that hallowed upper echelon with this one, and 3) we can talk about why they didn’t and how they should have done things differently. Because with one major failure, they get an 8/10 stars/mystical kung fu rings/freshly baked banana bread muffins from me. Yes, I made muffins this morning while the kids were watching. So good. I ate like four. Diet starts again tomorrow.
Anyhoo, SPOILERS AHEAD.
I will skip a full recap of the plot and assume you’ve seen the flick. If you haven’t, bravo for continuing to read, but seriously go watch it. It’s a good movie, very entertaining. Just not perfect.
I REPEAT, SPOILERS AHEAD.
First, let’s chat briefly about what Marvel got right, because they, like they usually do, nail most of it.
Casting – Simu Liu as our hero Shang-Chi is a compelling lead, and while the depth of his acting may not reach Ben Kingsley’s Shakespearean level, Marvel films don’t really call for that. Awkwafina is great as the goofy comedic sidekick Katy. Meng’er Xiang is fierce and imposing as Shang-Chi’s sister Xialing, and every bit the fighter he is. Tony Leung is dispassionate father Xu Wenwu that boils with rage under the surface. Lots of great side characters too.
Action – lots of it.
Music – solid.
Comedy – plenty, from a number of places.
MCU tie-ins – Nobody does tie-ins to other films better than Marvel, and they drop a few doozies in there with the inclusion of Benedict Wong’s Wong (first seen in Dr. Strange), the Abomination from way back in the Incredible Hulk movie (with Edward Norton), the return of Ben Kingsley and the “fix” they did to his character Trevor Slattery from Iron-Man 3, and then the requisite post-credit scene featuring Wong, Bruce Banner, and Captain Marvel.
Now let’s talk character, because I think this had the opportunity to be one of the better character growth arcs we’ve seen in a Marvel movie.
Shang-Chi (as Shaun) is hanging out in San Francisco with Katy, enjoying life as a parking valet, but not really doing much with himself or caring to. We learn he’s been in hiding, avoiding his father Xu Wenwu, warlord of the Ten Rings criminal organization (first used with poorly-received audience misdirection in Iron-Man 3). Wenwu wants his son to return to the Ten Rings (and wants Shaun’s half of a jade pendant). Shaun doesn’t want that. So right there is our opening want/need, full of family history and drama. Great.
Our hero, now Shang-Chi, meets up with his sister Xialing after losing his necklace in the introductory fight with Wenwu’s goons. She’s pissed at him for running off and abandoning her after their mom died when they were younger, and they fight. Deeper family wounds, remorse for Shang-Chi. He has to come to terms with her, because she has the other half of the jade pendant, which when paired with his will provide their father with access to their deceased mother’s mythical home of Ta Lo. So they have to work together. All of this is great!
Naturally, they’re captured by Wenwu and brought back to the Ten Rings compound. And now our hero meets our villain. Again. For the first time (on screen).
The classic comic book villain The Mandarin! Wasn’t he in Iron-Man 3? No. No, he wasn’t.
Blessed with a thousand years of life by the ten rings, Xi Wenwu has led a vicious life as leader of the Ten Rings crime organization, up until the point when he (when trying to get into Ta Lo the first time) meets Shang-Chi’s eventual mother, guardian Ying Li. They fight, she kicks his butt, they fall in love. A bad guy is reformed into family man. The rings are set aside.
All is well until Wenwu’s former life catches up with him and Ying Li is murdered. Wenwu reverts. Shang-Chi (as a youngun) is caught up in the violence and eventually flees the Ten Rings syndicate rather than joining his father’s ways. Tragic villain, wounded past established. Marvel is checking all the boxes so far.
Let’s skip to the end. Marvel is setting us up for a son vs. father showdown, right? This is what our minds have been led to believe will be the final, ultimate confrontation.
And we get it. Shang-Chi heeds his mother’s lessons and becomes his own man, rather than the killer in his father’s footsteps. Father and son fight. Shang-Chi wins control of the rings as they battle and cows his father into submission. Power stripped, the villain is due to see the err of his ways, or meet a tragic comeuppance after reconciling as the Elixir payoff of Shang-Chi’s journey. And we get both of those.
But then, we get this…
Wha wha what? The Dweller-in-Darkness, a soul-sucking corrupted dragon thing. Ta Lo has been holding it behind a mystical dragonscale door to save the world from doom. It had been whispering (somehow) to Wenwu via Ying Li’s voice and convinced him she was still alive. So he came to let it out, mistakenly believing it was his wife. And just as Shang-Chi defeats Wenwu, the Dweller breaks free. It sucks out Wenwu’s soul, and now Shang-Chi has to clean up the mess.
Enter climax #2, and while it’s a rousing fight, it has absolutely nothing to do with Shang-Chi’s journey from wayward youth on the run from his criminal father into becoming his own man. The emotional connection for the audience falls flat, because subconsciously we know that everything our hero has been working for and toward for the past two hours doesn’t matter in the slightest because now he has to defeat some dimly-lit monstrosity he didn’t even know existed a day ago. Sure, he had to complete his character arc to win the ten rings in order to gain the power to defeat this new villain. But the Dweller wasn’t Shang-Chi’s antagonist in this movie, his father was.
All the way up to this, we are not educated as to why Wenwu must be kept out of Ta Lo, only that his pursuit of the mythical realm was folly and he would lead it to destruction. We are not told why during the build-up of the story, and only learn of the ultimate threat after Shang-Chi and crew make it to Ta Lo. Way too late to be introducing the audience to the ultimate villain of the story. It has no ties to Shang-Chi. It has no connection to Wenwu, other than using him to escape. It has nothing to do with the whole story until it gets out. Then we have to defeat it or the world is doomed. Just meh.
I don’t possess an ounce of comic book knowledge, so it’s entirely possible this storyline was pulled straight from the pages. Kinda feels like a few mashed together though, and here they threw one too many in right at the end.
When I watched this film in the theater for the first time last year, as Shang-Chi battled the Dweller, I thought to myself “this is totally unnecessary”. I was ready to anoint this movie as another masterful standard-bearer for Marvel, and instead the whole thing fell flat on its face on the dismount. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still one of the better Marvel films for all the great work they did leading up to the second half of the climax. But it’s not on the podium.
So how could Marvel have fixed this? I have three ideas:
Connect Wenwu’s want (return of his wife) with the intentional release of the Dweller. In his ancient texts, Wenwu translates something that makes him believe the Dweller is in possession of Ying Li’s soul and freeing it will also free her. Shang-Chi learns of this midway through, remembers lessons from his mother regarding the Dweller (needs to be added), and suddenly stopping his father has overt save-the-world implications. When he can’t stop his father in time, his failure directly leads to the Dweller’s release, and now the need to defeat the Dweller to save the world is fully Shang-Chi’s to own to complete his growth into hero.
Turn Wenwu into the Dweller. Shang-Chi wins the rings, but won’t kill his father because he still loves him, even if it is the right thing to do (will have to add the inevitable killing of his father mandatory in the growth phase of the arc, which they avoid here to keep Shang-Chi from becoming like his father). Still desperate, Wenwu makes a final deal with the devil and with some mystical MacGuffin (the audience needs to be made aware of this thing earlier on, even if Shang-Chi isn’t), joins forces with the Dweller, giving it corporal (and horrible) form. Shang-Chi is given the final kick in the tail he needs to defeat his father once and for all. Fight ensures. Rings are used with deadly intent against his monster-father and the arc is completed and world saved.
Beef up the fight with Wenwu at the end, but leave it with the father’s defeat. All of the emotional angst and turmoil we’ve invested ourselves in will be satisfied, and the journey will be whole. Save the escape of the Dweller for the end credits scenes, and you’ve got an easy direct setup for Shang-Chi 2.
I think #1 is best, but would have made an already long movie even longer.
There you have it. Did you see Shang-Chi? What did you think? Do you agree with my assessment of the film’s unnecessary second climactic battle? Leave a comment!
The ultimate lesson here? Begin your heroes’ journeys with the end in mind! M
Writers should write every day. Right? Eh, I have a few thoughts…
Not a picture of me. But we all make that face some days. I know I do.
If you’re not ready to write (go read my post on understanding your process), sitting at the computer or your notebook and attempting to pound out word count for the sake of word count is not the most productive thing you could do with your time. Sure, seeing those numbers go up is gratifying, but if your first time quality sucks, you’re really only creating more revising work for yourself later while wasting the “writing time” you have today on words you ultimately have to throw away.
I put “writing time” in quotes, because you can still be productive with those minutes or hours you have in your schedule, even if you’re not adding word count to your work in progress. Have a list:
Writing Things to Do When Not Actually Writing
Think about your work in progress. If you pants like me, then you should be doing this on the regular, “writing time” or not. I may not have an outline written down, but I do know where my scenes and chapters are going, what the character arcs are, how the climax fits, etc. If you’re a plotter, then examine your outline, make sure the setup you had originally still fits what you’ve written down.
Read. Educate yourself on the craft of writing, or just read a novel and pick it apart as you go. Identify themes, arcs, subplots, things you would improve, etc. Understanding the methods other authors use to craft stories you love can only help you do the same.
Take a class. Early on in the process of writing my first manuscript, I realized I needed some training. SMU in Dallas had a great program (sadly now shuttered) called The Writer’s Path, where people from all walks of life would come together to learn from published authors and faculty about writing. I came away well-prepared. You can too!
Read your own stuff. If you have an outline that you are betrothed to, make sure your writing is going to get you to the altar. If you’re pantsing, make sure the voice is appropriate for your genre and age group, and your characters’ actions are internally consistent.
Revise. Here’s where some of you will disagree heartily with me about editing while writing the first draft. If you’ve read my post on process, then I’ve stated my case there. First time quality matters.
Research agents. If you’re planning to enter the query trenches with your manuscript eventually, it doesn’t hurt to build your to-be-queried list as you go. There are a TON of agents out there, but only a small percentage of them are going to be interested in exactly what you wrote. You need to spend your querying time on them, and no others. Read my #1 lesson from querying.
Research self-publishing. If you’re going the other route, then you’ve a lot of work ahead of you. Find your editor(s), cover artist, learn layout, research Amazon vs. everyone else, create a budget strategy, etc.
Find a local writing group or critique partners. If you have those, converse with your compatriots or review their material. If you don’t make time for them, they’re unlikely to make time for you.
Find a conference to attend. Better yet, find several. You can find online-only or in-person events. There are plenty to choose from. I’ve had solid success with pitches through Writing Day Workshops. Dallas has a great event in October called DFWCon. Most of these conferences aren’t free, and pitches cost even more, so mind your budget. But you can learn a lot about all facets of writing, get material reviewed, meet new writing buddies, and speak directly to agents. There is no better way to get through the slush pile than to step around it entirely. I have had *way* more interest in my stories from pitch sessions than I’ve received in responses to unsolicited queries. Way more.
Social media. Use sparingly. Interacting with the writing and reading communities is great if you’re doing it to an end. Build your follower list. Make connections with critique partners or editors or artists. If you’re entertaining yourself and not much else, you could use your writing time better.
So there you have it. Lots of ways to be productive as a writer in those times when the words aren’t coming.
Whilst preparing a marinade for tonight’s grilled chicken, I cut my finger. What does this have to do with writing fiction? Consequences!
Because I was in a bit of a rush, I elected to cut the soon-to-be-juiced lemon in my hand, rather than take the safe approach and use a cutting board. Thusly, when the nice and sharp knife deftly cleaved the lemon in twain, it went into one of the fingers that was holding said lemon. I appreciate your concern, but the cut wasn’t too bad.
Right when I did it, my immediate thought (as the finger bloomed red and the scent of lemon wafted into my nose) was, “Well that’s gonna sting.” But it didn’t. Told ya the cut wasn’t that bad. Wash hands, apply a bandage, and finish cooking, right?
So that’s what I did. Flattened and scored the chicken, tossed it in marinade, and into the fridge it went.
And that’s when the pain started. It wasn’t immediate, as expected. Just a five-minute Alexa timer late. But when it hit, I found all the colorful metaphors I could muster. And, more importantly, the stealth lemon juice forced me to acknowledge the error of my ways.
Choices have consequences.
As a character on the journey of making dinner, I made a choice to cut corners. Who doesn’t want to save a little time in the kitchen where they can? The consequence of that choice was excruciating — albeit brief — pain in my finger. And I didn’t save any time in the end either. Did I learn my lesson? Definitely. Next time I go heroically up against the nefarious evil of the dinner menu, I will bring my cutting board.
Part of the point of the Trials, Allies, and Enemies phase of the Hero’s Journey (or the first half of Act 2 of the three-act structure) is to teach our protagonists lessons. Cross the Death Star chasm with a Stormtrooper’s utility belt and a kiss from the princess for luck. Knock out the troll in the bathroom to save Hermione. Solve the riddle to get the first key to the easter egg that saves the OASIS. These challenges help our protags grow into the heroines and heroes we need them to be to triumph over lemons (or evil, your choice).
Naturally, as we humans go through the course of our lives, we learn from our mistakes. But I think better character growth in stories happens when a hero has to deal with the unintended, and (hopefully) delayed consequences of their actions. Here are a couple condensed examples from my own stories.
In Dangers to Society, the four protagonists each have quirky superhuman abilities. One of them (Steve) can distinguish truth from lies. Another (Ben) can manipulate minds to believe any manner of things. So, I had Ben subtly use his ability on Steve (and others) for something frivolous, just out of convenience. Chapters on, I had a side character casually say something in front of Steve that was in direct contradiction to what Ben had done. This triggered Steve’s ability and caused a cognitive dissonance between the lie Ben placed and the truth Steve heard. It wracked Steve’s brain and risked his health. Ben had to deal with that. He also learned something about using his ability from this encounter. Steve learned something for his arc as well (about Ben), though he wasn’t aware of what it was at the time. The results of the consequences collide later on in the Ordeal phase.
In The Pentathax Contingency, my current work in progress, one protagonist is escaping a planetary conflict in the opening chapter. In my head he’s a bit of a young space scoundrel type, and to create conflict for him as he was escaping, I destroyed his ship (naturally). So he needs another one. He finds an available ship with a testy pilot getting ready to depart. In a bit of a Han Solo vs. Greedo I-live-or-you-live standoff, he shoots the guy simply to escape from the planet. Wasn’t personal. Motivated by survival, and a choice I can see a lot of us making, were we the young space scoundrel type fleeing a planetary conflict. Later on (when I get around to writing it), he’s going to have to cope with the fact that the pilot he killed was a close family friend of our other protagonist (and potential love interest). Oh my, the consequences of that.
An airlock will be involved.
These are the kinds of darlings we get to keep. If the tests you put your protagonists through don’t matter in the end, they’re not worthy of your story.
Hello again! Thanks for dropping by to read my ramblings.
Today I thought I’d ramble upon my writing process. I am (as of 4/16/22) in the early throes of the first draft of my fourth manuscript, tentatively titled The Pentathax Contingency (henceforth referred to here as TPC). It’s a YA sci-fi story.
I’m working on the fifth chapter, about 10k words into the story as a whole (out of 75k or so I’d guess), and have been around that number for a couple weeks now. When I’m at my most productive, I can do 3-5k a day. So as I sat there one night, not doing much with the story other than rereading and tweaking the already done chapters, I asked myself why.
I didn’t immediately know. I love writing, and I like my plan for this story, but I’m not in love with TPC. Not the way that I love the first three manuscripts I’ve finished. And I couldn’t quite put my finger on the reason.
When I thought back to those first three manuscripts, I found a commonality: I had hovered around at the exact same spot in the story for all three. I got inciting incidents locked in. Refined the voice. Little bit of worldbuilding and backstory, and then… paused. Tweaked. Edited. Revised. But then I worked my way through that blockage and powered through 106k, 128k, and 56k words to cross those finish lines. Why?
Like our heroes, I had crossed the threshold. Accepted the call to adventure. Understood the stakes and the payoff. And I’m not quite there yet with TPC. So why is that?
Well, I’m a pantser. I write as I go, without much of an outline or plan written down. Perhaps I’m a little bit of a mental plantser (planner+pantser), if I want to be perfectly accurate. I think about my stories a ton. Like all the time. Probably to the detriment of remembering things I should probably remember. Rarely does a shower go by where I don’t have a eureka moment for my current work in progress. As a result, I (generally) know where my stories are going, both in the coming chapter and overall. And I do know where TPC is headed. Protagonists and side characters are established. Antagonistic force is known and introduced. Climax setup is there. Have some ready subplots to add depth and complexity as needed.
But I’ve not crossed the threshold yet. I’m not ready to write TPC.
For one, I’m not quite certain I have the voice yet. It’s told in first person from two different points of view, and so far, each protagonist has had two chapters to establish their way of telling their side of the story. They’re different enough, and I think it’s young enough for YA, but they’re in space and commanding spaceships with the fate of the planet at stake, so a certain maturity is required as well. Things just don’t feel quite right yet. So I tweak. In addition to the voice, I think the way my brain thinks it likes to have little details in the narrative already lined up for use later on. Be that characters or names or technology or conflict or whatever. With all that stuff as ready as it can be, I don’t have to go back and find the right spot later when I have that idea. I wait to have the idea, put in the clue or character or whatever in the opening scenes as needed, then it’s ready when I need it. So I tweak.
What reasons might the little alien driving my subconscious have for writing this way? First and foremost, I think I’m inclined towards first time quality. The idea of writing THE END and parking a story in the drawer for a month, only to come back to it and tear it completely apart to fix stuff isn’t appealing to me. So I edit as I go. I make micro revisions in situ. By the time I finish a first draft, I’ve been over the story dozens of times and it’s already 95% ready to query. I like that.
Of course, the manuscript goes to an editor. Things need clarifying, grammatical foibles are found, inconsistencies in world building get identified, and — my specialty — overly long and complicated sentences are highlighted. We fix those. And we revise again. And again, until those issues are no longer present. Takes a few times, but those are easy fixes. The story comes out of the gate developmentally sound and needs no surgery. That’s what the little alien driving my brain is telling the rest of me to do. So far, I’m pleased with the results.
Now during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), this approach probably doesn’t fly if I’m to hit the 50k word goal. But outside of that event, I find I don’t mind the nights where the daily word count doesn’t rise by thousands. Still feels like being productive as I’m honing the early chapters into fine-edged steel.
I think it helps us as writers to analyze our writing processes, because, like our stories, they are unique. Every approach to creativity is different. But every new story is an adventure for the writer. Because like our heroines and heroes, every time we commit to finishing a story, we are crossing the threshold. Apparently, part of my writing process is making absolutely certain I am fully prepared for the journey before I step over that line.
Don’t get me wrong on TPC, I’m close. Very close. I’ll get there any day, and then the words will start flying. I expect the first draft to be done by the end of May. But for now, I don’t want to jump into the Millennium Falcon and fly off until I’ve given the droids their oil baths, I understand the structure and history of the Galactic Empire, the vaporators have been turned off, and I’ve had one last glass of blue milk.
Attend any writing conference where an agent is speaking, and invariably they will let slip how many new queries they get per week. The number you’ll usually hear is “hundreds”, and I’ve heard “thousands” more than once as well. That’s a lot of email to filter through.
An agent I follow on Twitter recently just reopened to queries and was tweeting about her slush pile (that’s the collection of unread queries waiting for their attention). In just a few hours after reopening to queries, she had 150 fresh queries waiting. After she had gotten through those 150 queries, she had requested materials from two. That’s not a great rate of return (and I think 1 out of 75 is kind of high actually). By the second day she had over 450 new queries waiting. Now she probably had a queue of people waiting to send her a query, but still. That’s a lot of work waiting for someone who’s not going to get paid for nearly any of the time they spend on it.
Most veteran agents spend 90-95% of their effort on existing clients. That doesn’t leave a lot of time during the day for queries. Let’s say the agent above gives thirty minutes a day to her slush pile. That’s 150 minutes. Enough for a minute per query, for just the first day’s haul. But for the entire week’s intake, she has less than a minute per query. A lot less. If she’s getting 1000 queries per week, and holds fast to the 30 minutes per day, that’s just 9 seconds per query.
Certainly, stories that look promising will take more time than that. What is the agent to do? Look for anything that makes for a quick rejection. So, today’s lesson is…
Follow submission guidelines to the letter.
Submit your query to the wrong place? Reject.
Get the agent’s name/pronouns wrong? Reject.
Submit when the agent is closed to queries? Reject.
Attach a Word doc when the agent wants copy/pasted text in the body of the email? Reject.
Submit more than the requested sample pages (AKA sending your whole manuscript when the agent wants one chapter)? Reject.
Have weird/bad manners? Reject.
Submit something that the agent doesn’t represent (this is always mentioned somewhere: their MSWL, Publisher’s Marketplace, or the agents/about us page on their agency’s website)? Reject.
Open by saying your manuscript is the best thing ever put to paper and you’re going to make them a trillionaire? Reject.
Get out on the wrong side of bed in the morning? Reject.
Why do agents cull with such abandon? Simple statistics. The odds of them finding something they’re going to love so much they want to represent it are already astoundingly low (see my Lessons from Querying #1 post). The odds that story they fall in love with will have been submitted by someone who breaks submission guidelines? Even lower. Because personalities matter, as well as the writing. A writer who can’t be bothered to follow submission guidelines is more than likely going to be harder to work with, and less likely to get past the traditional publishing finish line. And agents are already busy enough to have to deal with someone like that.
By clearing out all the flotsam and spending next to no time doing it, a literary agent preserves precious seconds per query that are better spent on something that has a higher likelihood, no matter how small that increase, of being something they want to represent.
Don’t make it harder for an agent to fall in love with you. Your story won’t get even a first glance if an agent ends up chucking your query out the window because you couldn’t follow the submission guidelines.
Hello again. Gonna attempt to make this blog a twice-a-week habit. Should be easy enough with the lessons from querying series. There are plenty to share.
Today, we shall discuss the very first thing I learned from the very first literary agent I ever pitched, which was at the DFW Writer’s Convention (aka DFWCon) in 2018, before the world went nuts. Since that point, I’ve heard this same advice from agents a zillion times, so you can take this one as written in stone (with a few exceptions mentioned toward the end).
When pitching/querying a novel, especially a debut novel, you must have a standalone story. It must have a beginning, middle, and end. The goals of the protagonist and threats of the antagonist must be resolved. In short:
You shouldn’t pitch/query the first book of a planned trilogy, or first volume of an open-ended series.
Here’s why:
Publishers are far less likely to be interested in an open-ended work of an unproven author. It’s simple risk/reward math to them. They don’t know if your story will sell. And if you don’t have an established track record of productivity, they don’t know they can count on you to produce sequels in the timeframe they want. Subsequently, agents are far less likely to be interested in representing said work.
“But Matt, I’ve already written the whole trilogy. Won’t that save them a lot of time?” Time, perhaps. But publishers think with their checkbooks first. They don’t want to buy three books when they don’t know if the first book will sell or not.
In addition, as a traditional publishing hopeful wanting to be productive with your writing time, you don’t to spend time writing sequels to books that don’t go anywhere with a publisher or agent. Write three entirely different stories and query them all. Yes, querying sucks at your soul, but your odds are better (very, very low x3 > practically nil x1).
If you plan to self-publish said series if you don’t get anywhere with an agent, then the advice is generally reversed. You want to have a series of books queued up for planned release at Amazon or wherever, as that tends to boost your sales. Lining up multiple books takes advantage of the “You may like…” and “Other readers purchased…” marketing algorithms online booksellers employ. And you want to take advantage of those, because they are time-limited. My focus (at the moment) remains with traditional publishing, so we’ll leave the advice on self-publishing at that for now.
Back to writing standalone stories vs. a series. It is entirely fine and, in some genres encouraged, to leave elements in your worldbuilding and subplots that can turn a standalone novel into the first of a larger story. If you do happen to have a successful debut novel, your publisher will most definitely be interested in your follow-on stories with a now-established audience.
Exceptions? Of course. If you have a million followers somewhere. If you’re a celebrity or known politician. If you write like Amanda Gorman. If you check all the boxes of a publisher’s flavor-of-the-month acquisitions binge. If you happen to query the exactly right agent at the right time that happens to have a great relationship with exactly the right editor and that editor’s publishing house’s cards all line up for you at exactly the right time. Long odds to line up all of those ducks in a row.
Success in traditional publishing has long odds already. As writers we must do what we can to improve our chances. Don’t make it easy for an agent to say no to you in the slushpile phase.
“So Matt, what happened with that first pitch session?” It was a polite decline. She gave no further reason than I had admittedly written the first book of a trilogy. The quality of the plot or characters or worldbuilding didn’t matter. I didn’t pass that first hurdle. I learned that lesson quickly and altered my pitch to the other three agents I met at the conference that weekend. All three requested materials. When I got home, I spent a furious week fixing the story before submitting my queries to those agents. I adjusted the ending, tweaked the goals, the antagonist, and trimmed the various subplots that were intended to further the story into books 2 and 3. I never got any further with an agent than the initial requests for materials from those pitches, or from unsolicited queries (which usually provide zero actionable feedback), so it’s entirely possible I didn’t de-trilogy it enough.
That manuscript is now on the shelf, biding its time. I still love the story. It’s the one that got me into the passion of writing in the first place. It’ll get attention again some day. Now that I’ve completed two more manuscripts (both entirely different stories), I suspect the quality of the writing wasn’t where it needed to be to catch an agent’s eye. We’ll talk more about that in an upcoming post.
Long time, no post. Eh, blog? Those longer analysis posts are fun, but certainly time-consuming. I’ll keep up with those at some point in the future, but to get my duff back into the blog, I thought (at the behest of some critique group friends) I would start a series of short posts that share various lessons I’ve learned throughout my time attempting to query the novels I’ve written. Some brief facts to set your mindframe:
As of March 31, 2022:
I have written three novels, two adult, one middle grade, all various forms of contemporary fantasy.
All three have been edited and revised vigorously. Reviewed with critique groups as I was writing them. Bounced off beta readers. They’re all within the expected bounds of word count. The voice and subject matter are appropriate for their target audiences.
All three have been queried. The two adult I have shelved for now and am focusing on querying the MG story while I write my fourth novel (YA sci-fi).
I do not yet have representation from a literary agent. But I am still hopeful.
The MG story has received three full manuscript requests, all from pitch sessions at (virtual) conferences, as well as over a 95% request rate for materials from agents I’ve pitched. None have requested more material, though there are dozens of unrejected queries still floating out there (fingers crossed!).
None of my unsolicited queries have received anything other than a rejection. Most do not get any kind of feedback other than a form response that apologizes and says “it’s not for me”.
Despite my lack of success, I feel I’m close. The MG story has had some very positive responses in the rejections. Literary agents sometimes refer me to colleagues or other agent friends. I get compliments. “Writing is strong” and “fun elements” and “twist on tropes” have been common. What’s also common? “I didn’t fall in love with it.” What’s the lesson here?
Writing and reading are subjective exercises. Hence, agenting is a subjective profession.
This means two things: Writers (should) write what they enjoy reading. Agents will (generally) only represent stories they love. If you query an agent, and that agent doesn’t love your story (or have dollar signs spin through the whites of their eyes), that agent will not offer you representation.
They may compliment you on your writing. They may point out things they liked, or an area of improvement. If an agent takes the time to send you anything other than a form rejection response, that in itself is an uncommon thing.
But, if they don’t connect with it first as a reader, beyond being a professional wanting to represent it in the confounding quagmire of traditional publishing, they aren’t going to offer you representation. Doesn’t matter if you wrote Harry Potter or Pride and Prejudice. If that reader doesn’t care for wizards and magic or proper English manners and the search for self, that reader isn’t going to offer you representation. Simple as that.
Not every reader will enjoy your book baby. Consequentially, not every literary agent will love it either. Doesn’t mean it’s not good, or not a potential bestseller. Just means that particular person you queried isn’t going to rep you. That’s not the end of the world — it’s the wrong needle in the haystack.
My daughter is in a stage production of Disney’s “The Aristocats: Kids” this fall, and as you might suspect, we’ve seen the movie a couple of times at our house since she joined the cast. Plus, I’m running the sound for the show, so I’m at every rehearsal, nodding my head to “Ev’rybody Wants to Be a Cat” and “Thomas O’Malley”. It’s a cute musical.
Oddly enough, the stage production is a better story than the movie. Now we can certainly forgive a 30-minute children’s stage show filled with musical numbers when it skimps on the character development and arcs, since (from the parent’s perspective) it’s merely an exercise to get our 5-12 year olds off their tablets and out of the house for a while. But the movie? I have some words.
For purposes of this post, I assume you have seen the film. If you haven’t, there’s still plenty to learn from the discussion below, so feel free to keep on reading. I’ll do my best to fill you in on the necessary details. Or go watch it first and develop your own impressions.
To be blunt, The Aristocats (1970) is not a good story, structurally. It is an entertaining movie, but flawed. Oh, so flawed. Off the top, there is the unfortunate racist depiction of the Siamese alley cat. It was common to the era, but it isn’t a good look in a children’s film. It’s about as bad as the crows in Dumbo, but he’s not in the film as much. The very beginning of the movie (available on Disney+) has Disney’s standard disclaimer regarding racist content seen ahead of a number of their older films. They acknowledge the mistake. We move on and vow never to be that awful in our own stories. Beyond that, there is the nonsensical combination of Parisian alley cats and jazz, which while fun, make about as much sense together as peanut butter and traffic cameras. And the interesting inclusion of two hounds that talk like old American war veterans. On a French farm. In the movie, they only serve as foils for the bumbling butler villain Edgar and never even come across the Aristocats. They’re only in a couple very cartoony scenes that would have fit in more in a Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote Looney Tunes sketch. In the stage show, they cross paths with the cat family briefly, which makes their inclusion at least somewhat relevant to the protagonists.
But I want to talk about characters and their journey. Specifically, we’re going to go into the protagonists themselves, the Aristocats, but we’ll discuss Abraham Delacey Giuseppe Casey Thomas O’Malley the alley cat too.
The Aristocats features only an external journey for our main protagonist, mama Duchess, and her kittens Berlioz, Toulouse, and Marie. They are kidnapped by Edgar so that he eventually inherits their owner Madame’s fortune instead of the cats. Duchess and kittens have to make their way back home to Paris. That’s the journey. External-only stories are usually action/adventure/fantasy/scifi fare, and I guess you could lump The Aristocats into the adventure category, but that’s a bit of a stretch.
Here’s why. Throughout the film, things happen to the Aristocats. Actually, everything happens to the Aristocats. They don’t do anything. The world moves around them from safe at home to being catnapped by Edgar to being found in rural farmland by alley cat Thomas O’Malley to being escorted back to Paris by Tom and some geese to being captured by Edgar again only to be rescued by Tom’s alley cat friends, a mouse (Roquefort), and a horse (Frou Frou).
The Aristocats do nothing across all of this, except play the role of victims. That’s not a satisfying experience for an audience or reader. The Aristocats make no choices. Help arrives right when they need it, and they don’t have to do a thing. Perhaps there was a subversive message here that the world bends in order for the wealthy to get what they want? I kind of doubt it’s that subtle. It’s just bad writing.
In order for a story’s protagonists to complete a satisfying journey, either external or internal, they need to earn it. Make decisions. Take action. Grow. The Aristocats are cute, the songs are fun, and Edgar’s buffoonery draws laughs, but beyond that, nothing changes for the heroes from beginning to end aside from Edgar being shipped to Timbuktu, and Thomas coming to live with the Aristocats. Externally, the cats don’t save themselves through action or choices, they are instead rescued. Internally, nobody grows past their flaws or learns anything, except that butlers can’t be trusted. And everybody already knows that.
As it stands, I would rate The Aristocats 1/5 on story and 3/5 on entertainment value. Now that’s all well and good. Who doesn’t love to point out the flaws of a bad movie or book? There are plenty to choose from.
The real exercise here for us writers hoping to improve our craft, is to not only recognize a story’s problems, but identify ways and methods to make it better. So that’s what we’re going to do. We are going to redesign the Aristocats into something much, much better. And then Disney will want all my ideas to do a live action remake of it and make a bajillion dollars. They are welcome to call me. Here we go.
Let’s start with Duchess. She’s flawless. Her owner is wealthy. Looks beautiful. Acts beautiful. So well-mannered, and oh, so boring. She needs flaws and conflict in her life to be relatable and give her character room to grow. This is easy. She’s going to come across alley cats. So, she hates alley cats. They smell. They’re rude. They’re filthy. They’re a bad influence on her kids. Give us a 15-second scene where her owner Madame is out on the town walking them in a buggy and they pass an alley full of cats in the trash. Duchess scoffs and knows she is better than them. Innocent Marie asks “What are they doing in the trash, Mama?” Duchess responds with disgust. “Who knows? We don’t associate with the likes of alley cats.” And she diverts the children’s attention to something clean and shiny and more Aristocattish. That’s as much setup as we need (in a children’s animated movie) to set the stage for her encounter with Thomas O’Malley and the jazz cats later. Instant 1/2 star rating improvement for 15 seconds of screen time.
And since the Elixir at the end of the story is that Thomas comes to join the Aristocats’ family after they make it home, setting her up that way is an absolute must. If you want to make her even better, use the actions of her kids to break down Duchess’ perfect world over time, and teach her the value of finding value in everyone (in other words, the alley cats and Thomas). They do half the necessary set up already. At the start, Duchess is teaching her kids manners, painting, music, and proper etiquette at the table – er, dish of cream, but the kittens are reluctant to comply – barely. Ramp up that conflict a bit and it would be a great setup. As they go through the story, the kids, now exposed to the big bad world, and finding enjoyment in things that the hunting dogs, geese, and alley cats do, wonder why as Aristocats they too can’t enjoy those same things at home. Through her children’s eyes, Duchess starts to see that value, and as they make their way home, comes around to Thomas as a person (cat). As Thomas joining the family is the Elixir at the end, there needs to be some element of Duchess’ life that he fulfills. Maybe she can’t get the kids to practice on their own and has to sit down with them for their music session. Maybe she wants to have a career and is obligated to be at home taking care of the kids instead. Maybe they lack worldly wisdom, despite her teachings (this is best as it mirrors what Thomas and the alley cats will teach them). Extra credit if the problems with the children cause friction with Madame (maybe she takes the kittens’ bows away for bad behavior). The addition of Thomas at the end has to resolve some issue of hers at the beginning. Another 1/2 star improvement.
In the movie there’s just a hint of love story there between Thomas and Duchess. Only the faintest wisps. So we need to identify a flaw in the Aristocats’ existing world that the love story will resolve to give it some legs. Easy again, and it’s given like three seconds of service right when the Aristocats meet Thomas when one of the kittens says they’ll never have a father. So let’s set that up by identifying that wound earlier in their ordinary world with one of the kittens saying “I wish we had a father” when Duchess is tied up with a photoshoot or something with Madame, and the kids are bored with nothing to do. Duchess hears it and feels the internal pain of that lack. Now, when tom cat Thomas (be more creative with your names, yo) enters their life and gets friendly with Duchess, but shies away from her when he learns she has three kittens, the conflict is there for the audience when Thomas is being ne’er-do-well O’Malley the alley cat. He’s a free spirit. He doesn’t want responsibility. He’s not the correct puzzle piece for Duchess. Conflict! Character depth! Add another 1/2 star rating.
Now let’s fix Thomas for a moment. In the movie, he’s all say one thing, and do another. We’re told to believe he’s an irresponsible rapscallion alley cat (telling), when in fact in action, he’s responsible, protective, and heroic (showing). Which is fine for his true character. But those qualities have to have a chance to be pulled through the hardened exterior blanket of indifference and self-centeredness, earned through a hard life of alley catting.
After Edgar dumps the kitty basket into the farmland river and the Aristocats find themselves lost, in walks O’Malley. In the movie, he saves the day. That’s no good. He’s not the protagonist of this story. He’s an Ally for the Aristocats. So let’s make them find him. They get out of the river and start walking down the path. And through their choice and initiative, they come across Thomas. Here’s a good spot for Duchess to still be Duchess and react with disgust at Thomas. He’s lazing about like an alley cat would. Fish bones on the ground. Fur unclean. Still, they’re lost, so (with encouragement from the kids) Duchess asks for help. He refuses. Duchess quickly accepts the answer and turns the kittens to the path to keep going. Thomas lets them walk for a moment, but then asks where they were going. “Paris,” Duchess responds. “Paris is thattaway,” Thomas says with a grin, pointing in the opposite direction. This simple, unexpected kind gesture by an alley cat surprises Duchess, and we see the first crack in her ordinary world impression of alley cats. Growth! Add another 1/2 star.
We need to toss a second call to adventure to Thomas since he’s already refused his first (and yes, side characters with their own character arcs – and Thomas is gonna get one – can follow their own Heroic Journeys). This is a fine point for feisty kitten Toulouse to ask Thomas to teach him how to be an alley cat. This amuses Thomas and draws him in, and provides one of those conflict points for Duchess as her kids choices on the adventure start to pull conflict strings on her impression of alley cat life. We need some throwaway comment that he’ll come along, so long as he doesn’t get stuck in any dark or tight spaces. We’ll take advantage of that claustrophobia later.
Duchess needs to make a choice here to allow Thomas to engage with Toulouse, but she does so reluctantly in order to get O’Malley to come along. What Thomas talks to Toulouse and the other kittens about though is unexpected. Independence, freedom, self-reliance, standing up for yourself, and the pursuit of happiness. Good qualities. Not expected of an alley cat. That’s great. Now add some conflict. Duchess warms to Thomas a little more. Thomas, sensing the growing affection from the family and the approach of responsibility, backs off and instead of continuing, hastily takes off, advising the family to keep on the same path and they’ll make it home in no time. Changes in momentum! Another 1/2 star, and we’re just getting going.
Conveniently, this is where they cross the railway bridge. Marie falls into the river, and Thomas (still keeping a remote eye on the Aristocats) rescues her. Now we’ve seen a hint of the real Thomas, breaking through the façade of alley cat O’Malley.
Let’s assume the Gabble Girls geese have rescued Thomas, adding the necessary comic relief. We need to provide some agency now to Duchess to make another choice that helps the group get back to Paris. Time to give her a Test. Maybe she can take advantage of her privilege and read signposts where the rest can’t, so she guides the group with her knowledge over Thomas’ instincts (which can cause some enjoyable friction between them, and may make Duchess second-guess her growing affection for Thomas). Character conflict? You don’t say!
The encounter with the jazztastic alley cats is a perfect Ordeal moment for Duchess, as they will completely pull the kids away from their Aristocatic bearing, letting them improvise, dance, and have fun with abandon and unexpectedly shed that behavior that was vexing Duchess in the beginning. In doing so, the kids yank at conflict strings on Duchess, breaking down that prejudice she has against alley cats. To the point where she herself, all prim and proper, starts to let loose. She and Tom dance, laugh, and escape for a private moment on the rooftop, which actually happens in the movie (but without the earlier set up, it’s just not that effective). The two get close. Duchess and Thomas are about to admit their feelings for each other and touch noses or do whatever it is that cats do. Then from below, one of the now-sleepy kittens asks “Where is Madame?” and Duchess is drawn back in to her old world. Madame would never accept an alley cat. She rejects Thomas, and fails in the Ordeal. Structure! Choices! Another 1/2 star.
So what are we building up to? A final choice that helps earn Duchess her reward.
Duchess gets the kittens back to Manor Madame, much to their owner’s delight, and Edgar’s chagrin. This completes the Road Back segment of the Hero’s Journey, but the entire external journey is not yet finished. Edgar makes another grab for the cats, intending to send them to Timbuktu. Since he’s a bumbling butler, he will have missed Duchess. This is absolutely critical, as she needs to take action to save the day and earn her reward. If we’re doing things absolutely right, Thomas is unintentionally caught in her stead, so she ends up having to save him too. Remember that throwaway claustrophobia we gave him? Not so throwaway now. He flips, stressing the kittens, and ramping up the tension.
Small aside here: I am more or less eliminating Roquefort and Frou Frou from the plot. They’re darlings that should have been cut. They can exist as cute worldbuilding extras, but we don’t let our heroes be rescued in the climax by side characters.
Ah, but don’t the alley cats come in to save the day too? Yes. But here’s the difference. Duchess will choose to go get their help. She’ll have the choice of seeking out Madame (and her old life) and whatever assistance the slow old lady can muster, or racing back to Chateau d’O’Malley to get the jazz cats, because she 1) knows they’re the right people/cats for the job, and 2) has accepted them as worthwhile people and that her prior prejudice against them was wrong. We’ve grown. We’ve made a choice. Now, let’s save the kittens! Another 1/2 star here.
Having cut Roquefort and Frou Frou from the festivities, we’ve lost a lot of the comic buffoonery of the stable setting where the climax takes place. Yet, we already have a ready, and dare I say, better and more fitting, replacement. Duchess has brought the alley cats. They meet up with Edgar in the alley where he’s waiting with the trunk holding the napped kittens and Thomas. How are Duchess and the alley cats to defeat the villain? Use what they have. The instruments. The final sacrifice in the Resurrection is the alley cats’ beloved jazz. A guitar string picks the lock. A drumstick through the shoelaces trips up the villain. And quickly, to wrap up Thomas’ arc, he needs to make a final choice here. Edgar is down and the trunk is opened. Thomas is free and still freaking out from his confinement in the trunk. He sees an opportunity to escape and get back to his old life. But he stays with the kittens (and Duchess). He makes the responsible choice, as we knew he would.
And after many blows to the cranium to the tune of a trumpet, drums, cymbals, guitar, and perhaps even a piano (which Duchess and Thomas both help to drop), Edgar is thwarted. He tumbles into the trunk and is carted away to Timbuktu.
Now to reward the heroes. This will be fun for the audience, and so much more fitting, given the journey the cats have been through. There are so many here we need a list (and some of these do happen in the movie, but aren’t earned like we just made the protagonist do).
Duchess and Thomas admit their mutual feelings.
Madame, having seen the battle, strikes Edgar from her will.
Madame recognizes the kittens’ improved behavior. She gives them their bows back, new and sparkling.
Madame takes a shining to Thomas and says she’s always liked the idea of a man about the house (making flirty eye winks to the old lawyer who’s been helping with the will).
Madame replaces the jazz cats’ instruments and creates a foundation for alley cats.
Thomas joins the family, giving the kittens the father figure they wanted and Duchess a companion she lacked.
Add a full star rating for the resolution.
So there you have it. We’ve turned a 1 out of five 5 stars mess in to a 5-and-a-half stars masterpiece of a story. Wasn’t that hard, was it? I’ll be waiting for that call, Disney.
Warning: spoilers ahead!Note: I will also presume you’ve read the previous entry in this series, so if you haven’t, go do that first.
For this installment of my dissection of No Time to Die, we will discuss killing off side characters as a motivational tool for our heroes. Typically this is done in one of three places:
Before the hero has crossed the threshold. The death(s) provide the necessary motivation for the hero to begin the journey. Classic example here is in Star Wars Episode IV. Luke has refused Obi-Wan’s call to adventure (join the Rebellion). He returns to his farm to find Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru murdered by the Empire. Motivation is gained, he agrees to join the Rebellion, and crosses the threshold.
During Trials, Allies, and Enemies or in the Ordeal. Typically a side character’s death here helps the hero (and audience) realize how deadly the antagonist is. In Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf sacrifices himself to stop the Balrog, and allow Frodo and friends to escape the Ordeal of the Mines of Moria. This gives them the chance to regroup (Road Back) and prepare for the final fight (against the Uruk-hai). Frodo is emotionally wounded by the loss of his friend and mentor and is taught a valuable lesson in his fight against the evils of Mordor.
During the Resurrection. Here, side character deaths close subplots, expose the true villainy of the antagonist to give the hero the last bit of oomph to triumph over evil, and (intentionally) traumatize the reader/audience to deepen the emotional impact of the climax. Remember the final battle in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? JK Rowling kills off scores of beloved side characters to deepen the emotional resolution of her story. I’m still mad.
In all three, a side character’s death serves to motivate the hero. Get off their butt. Get better prepared to face the villain. Finish the fight, or else the world will end. All common, all useful. Apply directly to the forehead.
So let’s examine what the heck the writers of No Time to Die were thinking when they killed off Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter.
Recall that Bond was pulled out of retirement by Leiter (in a Mentor role) to case a big party that Spectre was having, conveniently not far from Bond’s home. Things go south. Spectre thinks they’re killing Bond in a grand spectacle. They all die instead. Let’s continue.
As Bond is attempting to ascertain how the Spectre party went from his funeral to Spectre’s, he makes off with Spectre’s bumbling scientist Obruchev and steals the new 007’s plane to meet back up with Leiter.
Bond has just come through an intense firefight, exchanged unpleasantries with his MI6 double-0 replacement, and was totally shown up by Ana de Armas’ wickedly fun spy Paloma (she needed way more screen time!). He’s got scores of dead Spectre big wigs at his feet, the snivelling Obruchev by the collar, and some mysterious and way deadly viral agent in a briefcase. Does he need any more motivation to join the journey?
Nope. He’s in. As the plane is in the air approaching Leiter’s fishing boat hideout, Bond’s chest is heaving, his adrenaline is coursing, and he is fully committed to the adventure. He has crossed the threshold.
But moments after Bond meets up with Leiter and presents Obruchev, Leiter’s CIA tagalong, Logan Ash, reveals the turn of his coat and begins shooting. Not a big surprise. Leiter is mortally wounded. Ash absconds with Obruchev and the plane, locks Bond and Leiter inside the boat, and leaves a bomb. Bomb blows, boat sinks, and Bond narrowly escapes with his life (via conveniently available life raft) and the trauma of seeing his friend die.
Well, okay. So that’s a checkmark for Trials, Allies, and Enemies, right?
As my daughter likes to say, “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Bond doesn’t need to learn how deadly his foe is. Whoever it is just murdered the entirety of Spectre. Yes, this moment teaches Bond and the audience whose side Logan Ash is on, but come on. We knew he was bad the moment we saw that stupid grin on his face. Any time there are two CIA agents involved in the plot, one will end up being a bad guy. It’s a Hollywood staple.
More critically, we need to look at the Hero’s Journey when lined up with the classic Three-Act Structure. The point where the hero crosses the threshold happens when the story moves from Act I to Act II. And that doesn’t happen until after the boat sinks. Why not? Because story beat wise, we’re still wrapping up the Spectre party and firefight afterwards. Yes, the boat is a new scene, but it is the last step in the Spectre party’s sequence of events, and is thusly the final scene of Act I.
Which means structurally, Leiter’s death is supposed to be the final motivating piece to get Bond off his old duff and off to adventureland. And as that, it is 2000% unnecessary. Bond is already there. All the death serves to do is traumatize Bond and the audience. And that’s no fun. Character deaths (at least the ones we care about) should matter both emotionally (easy), and structurally (harder). In the Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones), it’s okay for George R. R. Martin to off randos with familiar names at regular intervals, because he has a ton to pick from, but more importantly we don’t really care about Ser What’s-his-name-from-three-scenes-ago. The deaths of important characters we care about happen, but less frequently, and with absolute impact to character development. Ned Stark? Mattered to the Starks and served as series-long motivation for Sansa, feeding into Littlefinger’s ultimate comeuppance. Red Wedding? Mattered to Arya who trained to exact sweet, sweet revenge against Walder Frey. Perfect.
Felix Leiter in No Time to Die? Didn’t matter to the hero (motivationally), because he was already on his way to adventure. That sauce is weak, my friends.
So let’s take a look at another 007 film and see where they used Leiter correctly as a motivational tool for Bond.
There’s a special place in my heart for the two Timothy Dalton 007 outings, The Living Daylights and License to Kill. These were the first Bonds I got to see in the theater, and as such, my young mind was expanded to the possibilities of choosing spy as a career. (Spoiler, I didn’t go that route). They had my impressionable teenage mind all aflutter.
I love, love, love The Living Daylights for a handful of reasons which I’ll save for future posts. But it is in Dalton’s second turn, License to Kill, where they use his old friend Felix Leiter to spur Bond into action.
The movie opens with Leiter and Bond on the way to Leiter’s wedding, suddenly called in to assist the DEA in an attempt to capture drug kingpin Sanchez before he leaves US airspace. One thrilling helicopter/airplane chase later, the baddie is snagged, and the two friends parachute (in their tuxedos) right into Leiter’s wedding. Fantastic opening. Full of classic Bondness.
Bond is in America in the Florida Keys for the wedding, so is comedically referred to during this sequence as strictly an observer, but he’s the one to jump out of the helicopter to tie a cable to the tail of Sanchez’s plane. At this point, he’s just helping his friend (Bond is Leiter’s best man at the wedding). He is only superficially aware of the threat that Sanchez poses, through what he gleans from Leiter and the DEA on the lead-in to the chase.
Sanchez quickly escapes (of course) with the help of a local DEA stooge (of course). His lackeys kidnap Leiter and kill his bride Stella. Leiter is strung up and fed to a shark, then left for dead for Bond to find. Here, Bond is taught the true villainy of the antagonist. Leiter survives with grievous wounds and is out of commission. The DEA is unwilling to operate outside of US jurisdiction, so it is left to Bond to pick up the fight. And cross the threshold he does. Begin Act II.
Simple, brutal, and very, very effective. And oh, what that shark scene did to me as a young teen! I hadn’t seen Jaws yet. Yes, Bond and the audience are traumatized appropriately, but it is done in the correct order with respect to the Hero’s Journey and Three-Act Structure and provides motivation for Bond exactly at the right time. They didn’t kill Leiter here, but they certainly could have and the character’s impact on Bond (and the film) would have been even stronger for it.
Bonus points! They also tied that motivation throughout the rest of the movie, as not only does Bond get revenge against the locals that helped Sanchez escape the DEA, he ultimately stops the bad guy in the end by setting him on fire with the gift he received from Felix and Stella at the wedding. That’s hot sauce!
Suffice it to say, I was not a fan of Leiter’s death in No Time to Die. Primarily because of how they did it (see above), but two, I like the character (throughout the Bonds), and three, I love Wright as an actor (hello, Westworld). Now I think they actually elected to kill off Leiter since Bond dies at the end of the film (also intentional). By clearing out all the ties to the old Bondiverse, it gives Amazon (who now owns the lion’s share of MGM (hah)) a clear path to carve out a new Bondiverse that fits in their plans for world domination. All Jeff Bezos needs is a damaged eye and a fluffy white cat and he’d fit right in as the next Blofeld. He’s already been to space, what else is there to accomplish?
