Lance Schaubert

Tagged alternate words, cool shtuff, Mr. Freeze glaciated the building, thesaurus, thinker

Feb 20 2012

4 Comments

fantastic points of ignorance, impulsive pastimes, literary interpretation, The Writing Life

Firefly: Power and Poise

Saturday, February 18th, I lost my Firefly virginity.

I waited right around seven years to do this – ever since I stepped onto the college scene and my newfound friends began badgering me to watch the show. I borrowed the series from a friend, sat down on my Saturday at 7:45am and watched the series straight until 9pm. Yes, I was that hooked. This show’s amazing, and I completely understand why Firefly fans beg so often, so long and so convincingly about making a second season.

It’s like all of you told me all these years that there was gold in them there hills, but I blew you off because, let’s face it, there’s always gold in them there hills. But seven years later I walk over the tops of them there hills on the first open Saturday it crosses my mind and find out what you meant was “there’s gold on them there hills.” Lying around. In hunks and nuggets and bars. What you meant was “take a walk over this hill and pick up all the friggin’ gold you want, dummy.” That was Firefly for me, walking around and finding gold everywhere. That’s why I imbibed all of it in a single day: gold rush. Three things stood out to me: a lesson, an interpretation and a longing.

Continue reading →

Tagged best friggin' tv show ever, commentary, cool crap, firefly, joss whedon, screenwriting

Feb 17 2012

censored opinions, Entertainment, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: World Building

Ever look at one of these, these, these or these?

Fantasy writers perfect cartography. We have Tolkien to think for that, for he coined the phrase “cartographic writing” – writing from the map. You create the world, the mythology of the world and then you write with a character inside that world. Unfortunately, many fantasy writers focus so long on the what and the where that they neglect the who and the why questions. Good answers to these questions create great stories. Today, we turn to the fantasy writers to teach us about trade, authority, ceremony, and ethics.

Trade

What can your characters do to make a living? Awhile back on Twitter, I asked people to list out medieval professions. Piper, Karl, Matt and I came up with the following list:

Tinker. Tailor. Tanner. Fletcher. Cooper.
Miller. Mayor. Archer. Chester. Cobbler.
Smith. Butcher. Smelter. Sailor. Fisher.
Baker. Hunter. Harper. Valet. Butler.
Footman. Pikeman. Barker. Geoffrey. Trouper.
Foreman. Friar. Blacker. Herald. Gardener.

Tagged authority, community, crafts, ethics, trades, work

Feb 13 2012

Entertainment, film, The Writing Life, video, Writing

Typewriter Short Shorts

Who wears short shorts?

Nair wears short shorts.

Actually I’m talking about a complete different pair of shorts today. Some of you work with churches to communicate truth in relevant ways. To help you out, Derek Hammeke and I cranked out a couple of illustrations on Sermon Spice. Find our profile under Flying Treasure. If these two videos do well on the site, we hope to increase the length and production quality of our future films.

Both of these humanize a typewriter that interacts with the audience. Tell me what you think…

They Have Punch

This short mirrors the message of the series I wrote for CIY. We compare God’s words to typewriter keys that instantly produce words.

Here’s two screenshots:

Continue reading →

Tagged creativity, hurry, illustrations, over-connected, screenwriting, sermon spice

Feb 10 2012

censored opinions, film, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Antagonize

When I was young, my brother and I could get one another into trouble if we needed attention or if life bored us. My brother would steal stuff and hide it, I would give him wedgies or worse. I laugh now because I strive to lead a peaceful home, strive to keep my cool and strive to plant gentleness and joy and ultimately fun wherever I go. But that’s not always the case.

Unfortunately sometimes, just like then, I get bored or need attention or need to feel heard or ache for respect and honor. When I was a kid, I’d give my little brother a wedgie or hide a bag full of his year-old Halloween candy and call it good. Mom’s response?

Quit antagonizing your brother!

She meant, “Quit escalating things, Lance. Quit stirring crap up. Quit harassing him – especially since the tone of our household was peaceful/fun/creative/controlled/kind a moment ago. Antagonism escalates things at home, in interpersonal conversation, in the world and basically everywhere else. But what antagonism achieves is integrity. I’m using “integrity” broader than normal. Normally I mean integrated, whole, uncompromising, good. For the characters in your novel I mean consistent. The framework. Integrity, for our purposes here, means what lies at the core. Want to see consistently what kind of man I am? Look at what I chose to do when my brother or best friend or wife or father or school antagonized me and opposed what I wanted most. That’s the measure of my integrity – my choices when faced with antagonism.

Your protagonist is only as good as your antagonist.

Tagged antagonist, protagonist, WIP

Feb 08 2012

film, The Writing Life, video, Writing

Recent Gigs

Back when “The Writing Gig” banded together every week, we shared small victories and portfolios. Since November, we started sharing on our own personal sites.

I bring three projects to show-and-tell today: a completed one, an in-progress one and a future one (or ones).

The Word Animation

MD Neely and Johnny Scott of CIY hired me to write narrations for four short episodes tracing the history of Scripture as they understand it. Their faith-based non-profit hosts conferences for youth trying to enrich their lives and move them to care for their communities.

I wrote the following for their Jr. High conferences that go by the name “Believe”:

Used with permission from MD Neely of Christ in Youth
per contract line with Johnny Scott: “Author retains the right
to use this material in his personal portfolio compilations.” Continue reading →

Tagged contract line, film production, key productions, narration, resume, school conferences, script, small victories, the word

Feb 03 2012

censored opinions, Entertainment, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Emotional Structure

Our stories breed three species of emotion.

These three species unearth the temperament of our stories and life perspective as we write. One species, the Cynic, rides the downward trend of the world. The Cynic sees everything ending stoic and stark. Another, the Visionary, envisions an uphill battle. There’s a hill to charge. Once we take it and stand on top, we shall all be kings. The last species, the Paradoxical, trusts neither in hope nor revels in despair but meditates on the fascinating contradiction called “life.” He thinks you can get your true love, but only if you die for her. You might achieve success in the financial world, but only after you sell your soul. You could earn honor for your family by submitting yourself to public disgrace.

These three species (The Cynic, The Visionary, The Paradoxical) influence every realm of story: novels, screenplays, plays, documentaries, old radio, commercials, TV series, the miniseries and narrative performance art. They “prove” their ideas through subtle swelling swings in emotion:

Whatever drives your current work, whatever thought you aspire to smuggle into your audience’s mind, start on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. Your story will swing wider and deeper, back and forth between the positive and negative ends of your story spectrum until climax. Some stories end up, some end down and some end with the bittersweetness of real life – both beautiful and grotesque, wonderful and awful. Continue reading →

Tagged emotion, essentials, idealism, irony, pessimism, story

Jan 27 2012

censored opinions, literature, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Protagonist

Ever watch a fat soprano shatter a wine glass with her voice?

It’s called resonant frequency – the pitch at which something vibrates. Everything has it – the table I’m typing on, the car keys hanging from my carribeaner and the engine block on my car that, judging by the smell of burning rubber, may or may not need a check up.

Friggin’ serpentine belts…

Vocal chords vibrate a column of air to its resonant frequency, allowing the sound to fill your mouth with song and then enter the world by leaving your sound hole. I wonder if musical mothers ever use that phrase in vain? “Shut your sound hole!” If the frequency exiting your sound hole matches the exact resonant frequency of, say, a glass? BUM-CHINSH go shards and wine all over your table.

The glass says “that sounds like me” and explodes in an emotional encounter. Protagonists are the songs we writers sing, the notes that resonate deep in the caverns of our readership’s soul. Each of us is a glass begging to find something that “sounds like me.”

Protagonists come good or bad, evil or righteous, living right or dead wrong. They can be rich or poor, powerful or weak, accepted or rejected. Regardless of looks, they must resonate. They must sound like us often enough that when their story finds the breaking point at climax, we too shatter. Analysts dub that phenomenon “catharsis” – our human desire to discharge emotion in one satisfying purge.

I offer four solid words to describe protagonists: volition, ambition, predisposition, qualification, and fortune. Continue reading →

Tagged broken glasses, human desire, protagonist, resonant frequency, serpentine belts, sound hole, sympathy, wine

Jan 25 2012

5 Comments

Alchemy, fantastic points of ignorance, Kingkiller Trilogy, literary interpretation, literature, mythology, Writing

Kingkiller Nigreddo: Felling Night

I addressed the prologue elsewhere, so we’ll start with Chapter One:

“It was felling…”

Stop.

When ripped from mommy-context’s grasp, this creates double entendre, piggybacking on what came before. We could say, “A man waiting to die was felling.” Lumberjacks fell trees, but a felling is the amount of wood they fell in a given season. If double entendre, then he used “fell” verbally – to chop down. “The broken tree” is one meaning of the Ademic Maedre, Kvothe’s other name.
Continue reading →

Tagged Felling, nightfall, tree

Jan 24 2012

11 Comments

Alchemy, Kingkiller Trilogy, literary interpretation, Writing

Kingkiller Alchemy Reread: Disclaimers & Housekeeping Before We Start

Before I go on a posting rampage and dig into the nigreddo-gritty of The Name of the Wind, let’s lay out my assumptions:

1. Rothfuss mentioned in his bio that he dabbles with Alchemy in his basement. That means one of three things. He could mean that he often attempts to turn Pb into Au through metallurgy. If so, he’s avoiding the question – much like the witty “I stand exactly 10,000 feet tall” – as the grammar of chemistry does not translate into the grammar of Alchemy.

He could also mean he practices neo-gnostic esoteric alchemy in hopes to purify his soul and reach enlightenment. Though that crops up in cities like Seattle and New Orleans, I doubt Rothfuss cares much since he’s a staunch ethical relativist, inconsistent as that may seem with his more-than-relative stances and statements.

The third “dabble in Alchemy” nods toward literary alchemy. I say “nods” because, like many other PoMo writers, he doesn’t take himself too seriously. If he mentions his alchemy dabbling literarily, then alchemical symbols do not hide under ever rock and draccus cave. I write with that assumption FOR EVERY SINGLE POST. I have no clue which symbols he intended, but the beauty of writing shows up when author exposes a theme and reader applies insight in myriad ways. Interpretation looks neither like reader’s response or author’s intent, but a dance between their telepathic bond. That said, we’re searching for alchemical potentials and their potential implications, nothing more, nothing less.

Tagged alchemy, blog, Kingkiller, literary analysis, patrick rothfuss, readership

Jan 23 2012

1 Comment

Cities, Entertainment, gergia, impulsive pastimes, travel

Cartography: Our Picture of Us

The Cartographer’s Guild encouraged me in my map making. Since then I noticed how maps disinter our understanding of the world. Maps do not show us where things are or where things were. They reveal who we are and how we think.

Take Hecataeus:

He’s missing a couple two or three continents. His world is all he sees.
Continue reading →

Tagged cartography, maps, opinions, philosophy

Jan 20 2012

6 Comments

censored opinions, Entertainment, Storyssentials, The Writing Life, Writing

Storyssentials: Research

All good stories start like all good speeches – in the hard chair. You know the kind: wooden, no thoracic support on your back, flat on your butt. You will shift in this chair once every twelve minutes. If you don’t shift in this chair once every twelve minutes, it’s because we’re talking about two entirely different chairs.

Hard chairs seldom occupy our living rooms and dens. They hide out in libraries, coffee shops, and offices. In the hard chair, we dig through slush piles of info, hoping to find diamonds in the rough. In the hard chair, we prep for the soft chairs.

Here’s the thing: I used to believe in writer’s block. Then Rothfuss said, “Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block,” and I started to think, “Well yeah, but…”

Aspiring writers say, “I have nothing to write about.” Maxwell recounts how people come up to him declaring their aspirations to write. He asks them what they’ve written and they typically answer, “nothing yet, but I’ve got a lot of ideas.” Maxwell’s response?

Writers write. Painters paint. Leaders lead. You want to be a writer? Then write.

Yeah, but what about? Whether from fear of jump-starting a career or from “writer’s block,” writers eventually have nothing to write about. They have nothing to say. Research heals that festering wound. Three worlds give us material and we’ve got to travel to all three to get good research. We have to hit the books, dream it up and reminisce. Continue reading →

Tagged creativity, imagination, memory, reading, research, story

Jan 11 2012

Entertainment, fantastic points of ignorance, gergia, travel

Wood, Brass and Leather

As an aficionado of Gilded Age America, I covet all things wood, brass and leather. I made a board about it on my Pinterest immediately after receiving my confirmation e-mail last June. If you scroll through, you’ll see a lot of steampunk but that’s only because steam-punky things take up a very small sliver of Gilded Age lore. There’s also tons of stuff you might find at The Art of Manliness site or even the old Whiskerino themes. Basically, some day I want to work in an office that crosses that of Indiana Jones:

Tagged brass, indiana jones, invisible man, leather, office, wood

Dec 21 2011