#blu-ray extras

[lies]

Everything Everywhere All at Once, dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

[semperintrepida]

Where the Magic Happens

I've spent the past week or so in a debate with myself over the idea of continuing to write in fandom. (A subject for another post at another time.) So in the hopes of finding motivation to keep polishing this book, I wanted to talk a little about my editing process, using an excerpt from the chapter I posted last weekend as an example.

Here's my first draft:

The symposium isn't a grand spectacle in your throne room, or an opulent display of means in one of the domas of the aristoi. Instead, it's an intimate gathering in a grove of cypress and laurel trees a short distance away from the palace. Very intimate, for the only light within the trees is that of the full moon and a small brazier glowing bravely in the grove's open centrum. You've paused in a pool of shadow outside the brazier's ring of light, and I have to suppress a smirk at the sight of your guests clustered within it. A few dozen people by my count, murmuring quietly amongst themselves while glancing warily at the trees. They must wonder why you've summoned them here tonight. From what I've seen of Athens, very little of it is allowed to grow unmolested. This stand of trees has been carefully tended, with stone paths underfoot and not a weed or bramble in sight. There's nothing wild or dangerous here, and the moon is so bright that this is plain to see. "They're afraid," I say quietly. Of the dark, of the unknown, of you.

It's not evident from the text, but this was originally written as the beginning of a new scene, not the opening to a separate chapter. What ended up chapters 11 and 12 in the final draft were once one enormously long chapter.

What made me split them in two? The rhythm of this first part of the book, for one. The chapters in this part are shorter, between 3000 to 5000 words, so having one 9000 word chapter show up out of nowhere disrupted the groove. I considered making cuts to the text, but the events that happen during this long, auspicious day in Kyra's life are too load-bearing to the rest of the story. So I found a good stopping point and cut the chapter in two.

Here's the opening to chapter 12 in the final draft:

That night's symposium isn't a grand spectacle in your megaron, or an opulent display in one of the homes of the aristoi. Instead, you bring me to a grove of trees rooted at the foot of the Akropolis. We've paused in the shadows under a giant cypress, looking towards the small clearing in the center of the grove where the guests you've invited, a few dozen at most, are huddled around the meager light of a brazier. The moon is a bright beacon overhead, yet they cast wary glances at the darkness beyond the brazier's reach. They must wonder why you've chosen such a place for your symposium. From what I've seen of Athens, very little of it is allowed to grow unmolested. The grove around us is more of the same unnatural perfection: footpaths swept clean, branches carefully pruned, weeds and brambles uprooted and banished from sight. There's nothing wild lurking in this moonlight. "They're afraid," I say quietly. Of the dark, of the unknown, of you.

The story action hasn't changed, but the way it's conveyed is much tighter. The final version is about 25 words shorter, and the words that remain pack a punch. In a way, the effect is similar to the difference between taking a swig of beer versus a swig of bourbon: by cutting words, I'm distilling my thoughts into something more potent.

But how does that work in practice? Let's look at the first draft again:

The symposium isn't a grand spectacle in your throne room, or an opulent display of means in one of the domas of the aristoi. Instead, it's an intimate gathering in a grove of cypress and laurel trees a short distance away from the palace. Very intimate, for the only light within the trees is that of the full moon and a small brazier glowing bravely in the grove's open centrum.

This paragraph attempts to set the scene as an intimate gathering—so much so that I used the word "intimate" twice!—and it's doing so in a way that is telling rather than showing. Let's see what happens when I show instead of tell:

...Instead, you bring me to a grove of trees rooted at the foot of the Akropolis. We've paused in the shadows under a giant cypress, looking towards the small clearing in the center of the grove where the guests you've invited, a few dozen at most, are huddled around the meager light of a brazier.

The verb "huddled" does much of the heavy lifting, in combination with the adjective "meager." Showing lets me convey that this is an intimate gathering, one with a specific flavor of intimacy that's tinged with uncertainty—and fear.

Another part of my editing process is evaluating how the text sounds. Here's the first draft again:

This stand of trees has been carefully tended, with stone paths underfoot and not a weed or bramble in sight. There's nothing wild or dangerous here, and the moon is so bright that this is plain to see.

That's two, two-clause sentences in a row, with a bit of passive voice ("has been") thrown in for extra meh. YAWN. Let's fix it:

The grove around us is more of the same unnatural perfection: footpaths swept clean, branches carefully pruned, weeds and brambles uprooted and banished from sight. There's nothing wild lurking in this moonlight.

Again, I'm saying the same thing, but the rhythm of it is completely different. Now we have some "unnatural perfection"—very on-brand for Deimos—and some nice phrasal repetition: "weeds and brambles" that are "uprooted and banished." It's still two sentences, but they don't sound so "samey" anymore.

This version is also more active due to much stronger verbs: "swept," "pruned," "uprooted," "banished," and "lurking." (One could argue that the last sentence could be further improved: "Nothing wild lurks in this moonlight." But now we're starting to split hairs and bump up against narrator voice and authorial style...)

To really experience the difference in rhythms, read both versions out loud.

I probably spent something like 5 or 6 hours on this short sequence getting it from the first draft to the final. (Chapter openings are important enough to warrant such extra attention and polish.) It's a lot of writing, re-writing, tweaking a word here and there, throwing a sentence out, re-writing the sentence again...

Editing really is where the magic happens, and while I can't say it's as fun as writing a first draft, I find a certain satisfaction in polishing a story enough to make it gleam.

[occamyeggshells]

'Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore' Gets Digital and 4K Blu-ray Release Dates

You will also be able to stream the movie on HBO Max as early as next week.

On the heels of the announcement that Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore debuts on HBO Max next week, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment also revealed that the third installment in the Wizarding World movie franchise is also coming to Premium Digital and soon to 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD. The story follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) as he teams up with Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law) and other witches and wizards in order to try and stop Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald’s (Mads Mikkelsen) rise to power.

The bonus features include some treats to die-hard Harry Potter saga fans, such as a featurette in which the Dumbledore family tree is unveiled, as well as a featurette that is all about the title character: a look at his transformation through the ages, which probably includes the other versions of the character previously played by Richard Harris and Michael Gambon. Still in the Dumbledore world, a featurette will center around his duel with Grindelwald and the stakes involved.

The bonus content also will detail the new fantastic beasts that are featured in the third installment of the prequel saga, as well as how Newt Scamander deals with them. Fans will also have the opportunity to get a closer look into the German Ministry of Magic, a major location where some vital political parts and action sequences of the movie take place.

You can check out the full list of bonus features for the Premium Digital, 4K UHD combo pack, and Blu-ray editions below:

· The Dumbledore Family Tree

· Dumbledore Through the Ages

· Magical or Muggle

· The Magic of Hogwarts

· Even More Fantastic Beasts

· Newt in the Wild

· The German Ministry of Magic

· A Dumbledore Duel

· The Candidates’ Dinner

· Erkstag Jailbreak

· Battle in Bhutan

· The Secrets of Cursed Child

· Deleted Scenes

Premium Digital Ownership of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore debuts on May 30.

The 4K, Blu-ray and DVD editions hit shelves on June 28.

[mappinglasirena]

Design Chronology Speculations

Every now and then I come back to this cross-section of La Sirena that we get a glimpse of on the DVD/blu-ray featurette Set Me Up.

It’s in the middle of a montage of different designs and concept arts for Sirena, like the floorplan or the physical foam board model.

What I love about this cross-section is that it’s really faithful to the final sets in some places. If you look at the texture of the wall, for example, you can see that it matches pretty closely with what we end up seeing on the show.

It’s not quite the same. Looking at the shapes on the wall Rios is kneeling in front of, you can tell that the slightly lighter shape from the model (just above the corner of the railing; possibly a window?) doesn’t end up on the physical set. But it’s still pretty damn close.

However, in some places, there’s evidence that this model is from an earlier point in the design process. As I have mentioned before, this cross-section shows the port side of the ship, but the room nestled into the outer wall is the holodeck, which, on the set, is actually on the starboard side.

I looked at this cross-section again today (Edit: “today” being a few months ago) hoping for some help with size-calculations, and I noticed another bit of evidence for this earlier design stage: The warp-nacelles are sitting too high on the ship!

It might not be immediately obvious, but if you look at this model, you can see that looking out of the side window on the bridge, you’d be looking straight at the nacelles.

But in the show, we get these gorgeous view instead:

Because the bridge sits just above the nacelles.

Now, if you read my post on the design history of the ship in the Eaglemoss booklet, you might remember that I was baffled by the fact that the clearance between Sirena’s cargo doors and the ground was extremely high, and that it looked like in an earlier design, the wings and nacelles sat higher on the ship.

In this early design the wings look pretty much horizontal across the top.

In the booklet, we get a front view of the ship as she was seen on the show, which looks like this:

If you wanted to account for the earlier design, it would be more akin to this:

(Bad photo editing courtesy of myself.)

From the text of the booklet we know that Mark Yang, who designed La Sirena’s overall shape, made adjustments to Sirena’s exterior late in the design process. Some of them, like widening the bridge, were made to accommodate the sets. We can see from the cross section, that at that point in the design process, that particular adjustment had already taken place.

However, the decision to angle down the wings to make it possible to look out the side windows and see something other than the nacelles was apparently made later.

Now, it’s not entirely clear whether this might be a hint that Sirena’s wings can actually move. I’ve mentioned this before: they look fairly solid, but it would make sense if she had some mechanism to bring her closer to the ground if she ever were to land. We haven’t gotten any evidence of this on the show so far, since her only landing in Season 1 was an unintentional crash after the power had been cut, but maybe we’ll find out about it at some point.

[dornish-queen]

Pedro and Matt Damon in BTS for The Great Wall.  From Man Vs. Monster Extras.  This is just a snippet

[jinjojess]

Ichino Sousuke/Shousuke for @blanko-white

[semperintrepida]

spartanrenegade on AO3 asked an intriguing question regarding the events in chapter 13 of The Breaking. To paraphrase:

What if Kyra's arrow actually killed Deimos during her demonstration of loyalty? What would Kyra do then?

It's an AU of my AU! And after I got done cackling over the mental image of Deimos being brought to such an abrupt end, I started giving it some thought.

What follows is a rough narrative summary of how this story would go if Kyra killed Deimos right then and there. (Writing a narrative summary, aka narrative outline or plot treatment, lets you sketch out ideas without fully committing to them. It's also helpful when you're stuck in a narrative and need to explore ways to get un-stuck!)

~~

Deimos is dead. The reality of it takes a while to set in, shock giving way to a creeping sense of elation. "Some god you turned out to be." Deimos is dead, but Kyra doesn't want to stick around for the aftermath. Rejoicing can wait.

Kyra relieves dearly departed Deimos of her coin purse and belt-knife, gathers the bow and the quivers of arrows, and returns to Epiphron. Kyra knows little of this part of Attika, but she knows which way is Athens, and once her gear is secured to Epiphron's saddle, she rides away from the city, further into the hills.

She spends the next several days hidden high among the scrub oaks, hunting for food, a huntress in her element. Far below, she can see a major road, and she spends plenty of time watching squads of soldiers come and go. Deimos's disappearance has been noticed.

Kyra herself notices a number of travel-worn pilgrims journeying on the road. There's a sanctuary nearby, and that gives her a course of action. She continues following the road from above, and when she comes across an estate with a farm and olive grove, she trades Epiphron and her cloak for drachmae and a new himation. Time to play a new role.

Falling in with a group of well-dressed pilgrims, Kyra spins a tale of a runaway horse and being separated from her party. Thanks to her time in Athens, she makes a convincing highborn woman—even when the group of pilgrims encounters a troop of soldiers asking questions.

The sanctuary up ahead is Elusis: home of the great Mysteries. (Lots of opportunity for resonance here: the Elusinian cult is one of Persephone and Demeter.) Upon arriving, Kyra becomes an initiate, and is now safe as long as she remains on the sanctuary grounds. However, there's a complication: those with blood-guilt are forbidden from becoming initiates, and now Kyra finds herself having to live another lie, this time before the gods themselves.

The climax of this sequence is Kyra's participation in the Mystery's rituals, when she must face her guilt head-on. (For such a small body, she holds a lot of guilt, so, so much guilt.)

She leaves the sanctuary. She travels to the port city of Nisaia in Megaris, where she sells the adamantine necklace for a small fortune in drachmae. And with that fortune, she buys passage on a merchant ship headed for Mykonos, and home, and a chance to rebuild her life...

[semperintrepida]

On That Dizzying POV Change in "The Breaking"—And Why It Was Necessary

Conventional writing wisdom says writers shouldn't change a story's established point of view (POV) and tense in a way readers will find jarring. But I ignore that advice in my novel "The Breaking," because it isn't a conventional story, even though it seems to begin like one.

On the day Kyra was supposed to be executed, the guards who came for her didn't have to drag her from her cell. She'd already accepted that she was going to die screaming in front of a crowd. The torturers would have their way with her, and then the executioner would finally put her out of her misery. She knew misery well, after a year in the Empire's dark and foul prisons. She welcomed the chance to escape it.

Immediately from the start, we know what we're dealing with: third person close POV in past tense, the POV and tense of champions, the most common POV and tense combination in published fiction. How conventional of me! It's as comforting as wearing a warm puffy coat on a snowy day, and we're wrapped in it while we're introduced to Kyra, the woman narrating this tale who also seems likely to be the protagonist. After just a few sentences, we can tell she has a strong voice, and over the course of this short first chapter—only 690 words!—we get to ride along with her as she encounters Deimos Autokratōr, the terrifying warlord who has conquered much of the known world.

Here's how the first chapter ends:

Hands grabbed Kyra by the elbows and held her fast as she fought and kicked. Ineffectual. The irons around her ankles were freed from the coffle and the hands began to pull. "No!" she shouted, stupidly, as she realized the enormity of her mistake. She'd thrown away her chance to escape through death. "Gods have mercy on you," someone whispered, and it was repeated by another, and another, Mercy on you, Mercy on you, trembling in her ears, echoing behind her as the guards dragged her away.

We know poor Kyra is about to experience something terrible, but we're safe, insulated from what's happening to her by our puffy coat of third person past tense.

Then we turn the page to chapter two:

It took you five months to break me. I lasted far longer than anyone else. Judging by the triumphant way you dragged me from your torture chamber to your bedchamber, I might be the only one who's ever left that place with enough sanity intact to serve you.

Oh, shit. The situation has changed. We're no longer riding along with Kyra, we're inside her head right now. There's no safety here in distance, and Kyra is exposed and made vulnerable in a way that makes us feel like voyeurs, or perhaps even a little complicit.

Did I want to jar my readers with this opening sequence? You bet I did! I want to shake you awake, I want to make you squirm, and I do it here by switching to the present tense and a POV called first person direct address. In first person direct address, the narrator is Kyra (the "I") and she is speaking to another character, Deimos (the "you").

But what if I'd chosen to tell this story a different way, without any POV/tense switches? Well, let's rewrite the beginning of the first chapter into first person direct address to make things consistent:

On the day of my execution, the guards don't have to drag me from my cell. I'm going to die screaming in front of a crowd, and I'm ready for it, ready for the torturers to have their way with me until the executioner finally puts me out of my misery. I know misery well, after a year in this Empire's dark and foul prisons. I welcome the chance to escape it.

And also the end of that chapter:

"Gods have mercy on you," someone whispers, and it's repeated by another, and another, Mercy on you, Mercy on you, trembling in my ears, echoing behind me as the guards drag me away.

Now we proceed to chapter two:

It took you five months to break me. I lasted far longer than anyone else…

I mean, it's all right. It works. But does it cause that gut-punch feeling of having our safety snatched away from us? I don't think so.

Let's try things the other way around and make both chapters third person past tense. Here's the end of chapter one, one more time:

"Gods have mercy on you," someone whispered, and it was repeated by another, and another, Mercy on you, Mercy on you, trembling in her ears, echoing behind her as the guards dragged her away.

And now the rewritten chapter two:

Five months passed, five months of torture until Kyra finally broke. She had lasted longer than anyone else. And judging by the triumphant way Deimos had dragged her from the torture chamber to the bedchamber, she might have been the only one who ever left that place with enough sanity intact to serve as Deimos's slave.

This was hard to write! The rhythms are off, the tenses strange ("had lasted"?), and because I'm writing about two women in third person, I run into the usual difficulties of having to avoid ambiguous pronouns. But the crux of the matter is how it felt to write, like I was trying to force the story into a shape it didn't want to be in. When I first had the idea for this book, Kyra's voice came to me in first person, and trying to tell her story any other way simply feels wrong.

But because I'm well aware of conventional writing advice about switching POVs, I wrote two versions of chapter one and sent them to my advance reader. She felt the version with the POV/tense switch had more impact, and that feedback was enough for me to stick with my original vision of using an unconventional technique to open an unconventional story.