editing – House of Error

A Writer Watching – Eternals, Part 2

Hello and welcome back to “A Writer Watching – Eternals”!

This is the second part of a two part series, so if you’re just joining us now, you might want to check out part one first via this link.

But if you’re like, “Nah,” for any reason, I have to clarify again that the purpose of this series is to pick apart the bad writing of a multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster. Not just to expose its writing mishaps so impressionable young writers who love this movie can see them / avoid internalizing them . . . but so the rest of us can kick back and rag on something “movie night” style.

If that sounds mean-spirited, all I can say is that I am in no way ragging on the actors or the characters themselves. I’m ragging on the end product of capitalistic writing-by-committee; as I said in part one, I am always on the side of characters, not Hollywood executives. Sometimes I will be like, “Wow, that actor gave an extremely wooden, emotionless delivery of that line,” but I try to keep that to a minimum, because we’re not really here for that.

But also, I mean . . . the writers I’m criticizing are all millionaires in Hollywood, where the rich constantly fail upwards. If I can take heavy criticism for my work, so can they.

Anyway, because of the vibe of this series, you’ll have way more fun if you’ve already seen this movie.

But if you haven’t and you’re determined to read on then warning: spoilers ahead.

That said, let’s dive back into . . .

A Writer Watching – Eternals

Recap – Last time, we ended with the Eternals finding Druig in the Amazon. After they explain the film’s plot twist to him (that the Eternals are all robots sent to prepare the Earth to be destroyed so a Celestial can be born), Druig starts talking about how he’s been living in the Amazon, casually controlling people’s minds for 500 years, and I got so pissed off by that that I had to turn the movie off.

(1:06:17) – Now, we continue with Druig weirdly conveying that he’s angry because Arishem lied to them.

And I’m like, “Dude, you compelled someone to do something without their knowledge or consent, like, 10 seconds ago in screen time. Fuck all-the-way off.”

Seriously, my favorite part is when he makes sweet, huggable Karun throw his own camera at a wall and then asks Kingo, “Oh, where’s your sense of humor?”

I’m not going to keep ranting about this, but I have to reiterate again there’s a very fine line between making a morally ambiguous character actually morally ambiguous. This film not only makes Druig flat-out horrible, but also never punishes him for being horrible. At worst, he gets this moment, where everyone is toothlessly confrontational with him, which only accentuates his bad boy vibes.

I’ll end this here by saying, for the umpteenth time, that I will never try and control what anyone else writes. But if you’re making illogical leaps in your plot to avoid punishing the bad boy for being bad . . . then you’re making illogical leaps in your plot to avoid punishing the bad boy for being bad.

(1:13:02) – After a few good dialogue scenes, Deviants arrive in the Amazon village to attack the Eternals. Kingo tells Sprite to get Karun to safety because, despite having two of his cameras destroyed, he somehow has a third camera he’s recording with. While pushing him to cover, Sprite asks, “How many cameras did you bring, young man!?”

And, seriously, how charming of a line is that? I love the idea that Sprite is older than Karun and I really enjoy seeing her be casual about that fact. Obviously, you couldn’t have her making this joke over and over, but if anyone acted like they were 7000 years old, I wish it was her. It could’ve lent so much to her character, especially if she said this kind of thing defensively.

To put this in writing context, I just have to reiterate how badly I wish these characters were written as their actual age instead of acting like / sounding like / looking like modern super heroes.

Seriously, I just imagined a 7000 year old version of Sersi—determined to help humanity but also extremely tired. Having a normal-girl façade that she puts on around Dane only to sigh and stare into the distance when she’s alone, seeing 7000 years worth of humans like him dying in what amounted to a heartbeat for her. But what can she do? Tell her heart no? Abandon humanity like some of the other Eternals have? She’d already tried that, and 100 years alone on a mountain had been 100 years too many. Humanity needs her, and even though it breaks her heart to be around them, Sersi knows that she needs them too.

. . . Yeah, I think it would’ve made for a more interesting story is all.

(1:14:55) – Sersi is trapped under debri and a Deviant is charging her. Before it gets there, however, a bunch of people start shooting at the Deviant. Normal, human people who are being controlled by Druig. Two of them are killed as Druig runs in, grabs one of their guns, and does an admittedly awkward spin onto its back while shooting it. Said Deviant is then stopped by Sersi, who uses her powers to collapse a crystal (?) tree onto it. Sersi then finally tells Druig to let go of the people he’s controlling because he’s “better than this.” Druig reluctantly releases them, and they seem confused, asking Druig, “What’s happening?” before he tells them to escape to “the river.”

My favorite part is when the super hero makes the innocent people kill themselves to save the other super hero.

Nothing wrong with that; just a full 180 from the entire point of super heroes.

Seriously, could you imagine the fucking uproar if Wanda made the people of Westview fight Agatha for her in WandaVision?

It’s just gross. The idea that any super hero would do this is awful, much less a super hero using humans to fight the monsters he was created to fight.

And it’s made so much worse by Druig running in and capably fighting this fucking Deviant on his own anyway. In the grand scheme, all he did was distract the Deviant so Sersi could drop a tree on it, which means they didn’t need the puppeteered humans helping to begin with. Fuck’s sake, Sersi didn’t even need Druig’s help! She demonstrably could’ve just turned the floor to water under that Deviant, then turned that water to stone or whatever exactly like she did in the canal fight at the start of the movie. And then she could’ve pushed her crystal tree on it.

It would have completely sold me on Druig’s supposed concern for human life if he’d been shown stopping people from fighting the Deviants and making them escape. Holy shit—omfg—can you imagine if he made them escape even though they were trying to save Sersi!? Fuck! That would’ve been so goddamn cut throat and awesome. Like, not only would it solidify his reasons for leaving (that he cared more about human life than he did about the Eternals), but it would’ve rolled up his anger from his last scene into such a nice, badass ball. And then Sersi kills the Deviant anyway (she would’ve killed it in my draft) and Druig starts to smuggly explain himself only for Sersi to cut him off like, “Keep getting people to the river.” Ugh! It would’ve been so fucking good! Such good, juicy, complicated drama!

But . . . no. Instead, we got Druig making humans unwittingly kill themselves fighting a monster they couldn’t hope to kill.

Cool.

(1:18:39) – After saving Ikaris from a Deviant, Sersi is pushed into a pool of water. The Deviant dives after her and Sersi grabs its face, transmuting its body into a tree.

And in this moment, with the hero music in full effect and the Eternals staring in awe, I thought, “. . . Wait, is something special happening here?”

I didn’t realize she transmuted the Deviant until it was clarified later.

And to some degree, that’s because the scenario in which it happened made it very vague. Sersi and the Deviant were in water, so I thought she just transmuted the water into wood. Earlier, when she pushed a tree onto one of the Deviants, not only did they show her selectively transmuting only a small part of that tree—they showed her transmuting that part of the tree . . . into water. How could I possibly not assume she was just doing that reaction in reverse here?

But on top of that, Sersi’s powers are extremely vague to begin with. What can she transmute? How much can she transmute? Is it difficult if she tries to change something to an extremely different element?

What I’m saying is, in writing terms, it definitely would’ve helped if Sersi’s powers were more clearly defined, and / or if this moment happened in a less confusing scenario.

(1:20:40) – Gilgamesh protects Thena from the head Deviant only to get caught by said Deviant and killed. After assimilating his powers, the head Deviant becomes humanoid and starts . . . talking?

This is just the weirdest tangent this movie goes down.

For no discernible reason, the head Deviant can talk so he can express what would be an interesting perspective on the whole Eternals-Deviants thing . . .

. . . but they just do absolutely nothing with it. He learns to talk just so Thena can kill him later and get revenge . . . which he didn’t need to be able to talk for? Seriously, even in the one moment near the end when it seems like this Deviant will team up with the other Eternals to fight Ikaris, nope—that just inexplicably doesn’t happen.

It’s just bizarre and feels 100% like something cut from a different draft of the story. Like maybe there was a draft where the Eternals learn to accept and work with the Deviants, who would also logically want to fight Arishem. But, if that plotline ever existed, 90% of it was excised for whatever reason, leaving only this talking Deviant for . . . some reason.

Seriously, kill your darlings, people. This head Deviant only serves to slow down and confuse the plot.

(1:23:24) – Druig and Sersi talk while watching Thena spread Gilgamesh’s ashes in a river.

Right in the middle of this conversation, you can seriously see a weird cut in dialogue—a jump in topic from “the Eternals and Deviants are the same and both want to fight Arishem,” which is the plotline I just imagined was removed, to “we need to stop Arishem,” the plot of the theatrical release.

Sersi: “These Deviants are trying to keep us from killing their own kind. They have a conscience now. That makes them more dangerous.”

Druig: “No, Sersi. That makes them us. Eternals and Deviants. Arishem’s children.”

And then, from Druig again, with absolutely no pause or justification: “But you are asking me to take control of a mind of a Celestial.”

It’s easy to miss, but it’s there. A jump in topic so awkward that it almost feels like a few lines were cut in post-production. I don’t want to put on my conspiracy hat and be like, “There was definitely a plotline cut!” but I will say that if there ever needs to be any cut of any kind in a story, it’s definitely worth going over dialogue to make sure there aren’t weird hiccups like this, where topic A and topic B kind of smash into each other.

Also, “the.”

“The mind of a Celestial.” If you want a crash course on 90% of what I do when I edit my own stuff, it’s changing lines like this. “But you are asking me to take control of a mind of a Celestial” should be “But you are asking me to take control of the mind of a Celestial.”

It just flows better.

(1:23:24) Continued.

Also, wait, hold on—did Druig just say that at one point he thought about controlling everyone in the world? He did—and Sersi asked him, “Why didn’t you?” as if he can just . . . do that?

How fucking powerful is he? How powerful are any of these Eternals? What the fuck?

Also, gotta love the gross way that he was like, “I didn’t do it because then they wouldn’t be human anymore.” Like, “Cool. I’m glad that was the reason you decided not to brainwash me last Tuesday, dude. Can’t think of a single other reason. ‘Because they are flawed and I like them that way’ is definitely not the worst fucking answer you could’ve given there.”

(1:27:15) – After the Eternals (once again) kind of just teleport to the next part of the plot—reuniting with Phastos in Chicago—Ikaris and Sersi sit down to explain everything to Phastos and . . .

Phastos: “It all makes sense why she wouldn’t let us interfere with human conflicts. Conflicts lead to war, and war actually leads to advancement in lifesaving technology and medicine. So our mission was never to make a peaceful or harmonious world, but to increase the population at all costs.”

Me: “I mean . . . was your mission ever to make the world a paradise? Cause I just thought it was to kill all of the Deviants. Also, I kind of just assumed you weren’t supposed to interfere in human conflicts because you were supposed to have killed the Deviants hundreds of years ago and then peaced out (thus leaving humanity untouched either way). Like, you clearly wanted to solve a plot hole here . . . but that plot hole is only a plot hole if I needed an explanation for how humanity continued to grow without killer aliens eating everyone, and like . . . I don’t need an explanation for that because I am human on a real-life Earth where Deviants aren’t real and the population just kept growing?”

Seriously, I’ve never seen a movie be like, “Oh shit! Human history is a plot hole!” before, so my mind is kind of blown right now.

(1:31:25) – The gang goes back to their ship, the Domo, which is buried in Iraq. Despite the ship being buried, Phastos steps on a bag of potato chips on the way in, leading to the discovery that Makkari is inside, reading a book.

And I’m just so confused on so many levels.

The ship was buried. How did Makkari get out for chips? If she teleported out the way the Eternals did at the beginning, why couldn’t the others teleport in the same way?
Why is Phastos reacting to seeing Makkari by asking “What has she done? Is that . . . a sarcophagus in my lab?” Did they all know she was on the ship? Why did she stay on the ship?
Also, why has she just been on the ship for the last 500 years?

None of these questions get answered.

But I get why she stood on the ship from a writing perspective; once again, it’s the speedster problem. If Makkari had been a part of this plot way earlier, she could’ve run all over the world and gathered the other Eternals together in 30 minutes of plot time. The head Deviant never would’ve gotten away from her in the Amazon, Gilgamesh never would’ve died, etc.

Still, it just kind of blows that Makkari was locked out of the film until the hour and thirty mark on a technicality.

(1:32:33) – Inside the Domo, Druig picks up a box of Twinkies while Ikaris looks at the Emerald Tablet. Druig walks up and the two look at each other before grudgingly swapping items.

And, like, I get what’s happening here, but it falls so amazingly flat because neither character was shown having an affinity for either item earlier in this film. Seriously, if you swapped it so Ikaris was holding the Twinkies and Druig had the tablet and they swapped in the same way, this moment would’ve been exactly the same.

Writing-wise, a little reinforcement goes a long way; even if you were super lazy about it and just focused on one of them—maybe showing earlier that Ikaris loves food—this moment would’ve worked much better.

(1:32:49) – Druig asks Makkari how she got the Emerald Tablet and things get flirty real fast.

And here’s the totally unrealistic zero punishment I mentioned earlier for Druig.

It is completely unrealistic that we get no scene where Druig has to explain himself to Makkari. Was she not mad when he left? Did she not feel abandoned? I totally get that she’s morally grey like he’s supposed to be, but ‘morally grey’ doesn’t mean, ‘totally accepting of everything always.’

Makkari should feel something complicated when she sees him again, but almost like she’s not a character (and Druig needs to get away with murder), she just smiles and acts like shit’s great. It could’ve been a good, emotional moment that told us a lot about Makkari, but instead, she’s leveraged to make Druig look cooler.

And Druig doesn’t die by the end of the story or learn the error of his ways, so . . . <shrug>.

(1:34:34) – The group is debating how to stop the Emergence and what will happen if they fail. During the debate, Kingo turns to Ikaris and asks him for back-up by, saying, “Boss, am I right?” In reply, Ikaris points out that Sersi was chosen to lead the Eternals. Sprite barrels straight past that and says Ikaris should lead them.

And I just wish this bit of complexity factored more heavily in the story.

The idea that the other Eternals would soft-mutiny Sersi because she isn’t Superman is extremely interesting and could’ve amplified Sersi’s arc if it was just seeded a tiny bit better. It would’ve pushed the film more firmly into PC territory if you leaned too hard on it—turning the plot into a very obvious message on sexual discrimination—but if you didn’t want to make it that in-your-face (which seems like the movie’s MO), you could’ve sprinkled in moments earlier on where someone assumed Ikaris was the leader, or otherwise showed their lack of confidence in Sersi as a leader. And that would’ve made her hero moment at the end of the film that much more gratifying.

It’s absolutely a second-draft issue, but it’s still an issue. Non-essential, but if you hired me to edit your script, this is one of the things I’d tell you.

(1:37:02) – In a flashback, Ikaris and Ajak talk about the Emergence. During the conversation, Ajak mentions off-hand that she has followed Arishem for “millions of years.”

And *phew.* Is she saying she’s never had her memories wiped? Does Ajak have millions of years worth of memories in her head? I know that this might just mean that she gets wiped every time like the others and then a new copy of her is told the plot twist, but it really seems like she has had the same batch of memories the entire time . . .

. . . which means that I have to say for one final time how fucking rad it would’ve been if she was written that way. Can you imagine if she was aloof and exhausted? A leader executing rote actions with little patience? Cold to everything and everyone, almost always lost in thought? That would’ve made her such a better vehicle for mahd wy’ry too—like maybe change it so that at the very beginning, she’s fine, but as the flashbacks progress, she gets more and more distant. And in plot, the explanation is that she has mahd wy’ry, so she’s sent back to Arishem, who tells the others that she will return to usher them back to Olympia. But then, by whatever means, Sersi contacts Arishem and finds out that, no, Ajak has been dead for a thousand years by Arishem’s hand (possibly because she tried to fight him on her own when she got back to the World Forge but failed) and also the world is ending.

(1:41:09) – After killing Ajak, the head Deviant goes back into his Deviant cave with the other Deviants. He then tentacles them right in the necks, changing their forms.

And this is seriously on my Top 10 Unnecessary Moments in Movies.

I’d be hard-pressed to believe that anyone was wondering why some Deviants are bird-shaped while others are wolf-shaped, etc.—especially after it was shown earlier in the film that Deviants evolve (the entire reason Arishem designed the Eternals to be incapable of evolution). But this moment exists to explain why these Deviants aren’t all just wolves . . . which is a question created by the previous scene. And the explanation inherently doesn’t make sense because it isn’t based on anything previously established in the plot; these Deviants don’t just look like wolves because the head Deviant can . . . change them into other animals inexplicably.

. . . Thanks?

I always think of this as a ‘clean cut’; when I’m editing, I will run into a situation where, say, a character is awkwardly standing outside of a house, holding open its door, which swings inward, so another character can jump down from the ceiling inside and kick it closed. But after a few minutes of trying to figure out how to gracefully explain all of that, I will just be like, “Holy shit, the door just swings outward.”

Like, fuck it. Clean cut. If I’m ever wasting time trying to explain something that doesn’t matter because I want to justify it for myself, I just fucking cut it. Seriously, it’s to everyone’s benefit.

This scene? Even people who dig the CGI candy would not notice if this scene was cut from the script. Get rid of it. Clean cut.

(1:45:04) – After finding out that the Emergence has started, Phastos gives some tech to Makkari and tells her to find “the point of emergence.” Makkari proceeds to run through several time zones in six seconds.

This moment is extremely cool. I love that it’s not showing the world slowed down while Makkari moves at normal speed—it’s Makkari moving incredibly fast in real time. And it looks great.

But also, this is the moment on my first viewing where I was like, “Ah . . . Okay . . . Makkari is unstoppable.”

Just all tension gone, all confrontation invalidated.

I love Makkari. But also, we will come back to this.

(1:49:02) – After Ikaris turns on the group, admitting that he killed Ajak, Sprite decides that she’s going to go with him.

And here’s where the character complexity starts to feel kinda whiplashy.

I know Sprite is in love with Supermannequin . . . but she also very visibly loved Ajak, to the point that after her death earlier in the movie, Sprite was shown to be the most hurt by it.

And yet . . . she’s throwing in . . . with the guy who killed Ajak?

On my first viewing, I thought this was setting up a double cross, with Sprite turning on Ikaris at the last minute, but nope—she legit joins Ikaris.

And it just feels like the writers were working with a checklist. “It says here that Sprite loves Ikaris so <shrug> I guess she goes with him,” instead of Sprite feeling impossibly betrayed to find out the man she loves killed a member of her family.

All I’m saying is, character traits are dope, but your character who loves spaghetti doesn’t have to be eating spaghetti in every single scene. Especially after he finds out spaghetti killed his mom.

(1:50:05) – After Kingo explains that he won’t help the Eternals fight Ikaris and stop the Emergence, Makkari catches him and tells him, “We need you,” to which Kingo says, “Even with my help, we’re no match. It’s Ikaris.”

And, seriously, Makkari should just be like, “I will go snap Ikaris’ neck right now before he even knows I’m there.”

“No worries. I will go pulp his brain by vibrating his skull at the speed of sound.”

“You just blinked and, oop—what’s this in my hand? It’s Ikaris’ still-beating heart! The movie’s over!”

(1:50:05) – Continued.

Also, when Kingo leaves, he says, “But I hope to see you on the next planet,” and man, someone needs to explain the Reset button to Kingo. Like, “Dude . . . you are going to die in a few hours and a new model of you—not even a clone—will be on the next planet. You aren’t going to see anybody ever again after the Emergence because you will have exploded, my guy.”

But, of course—and yet again—I have to acknowledge that Kingo gets written out here on a technicality; he probably would’ve been too helpful in the fight against Ikaris, so the easier solution was to have him be like, “Nah. Peace.”

And at this point, it’s 2AM and I’m tired, so whatever.

(1:55:30) – We finally enter the film’s endgame, starting with Ikaris flying onto the Domo as it arrives at the Emergence. Upon blasting his way into the ship, Ikaris encounters Thena, who confesses that she’s always wanted to fight him as they initiate combat.

And I love that dialogue choice.

I was expecting, “I’ve never liked you,” but “I’ve always wanted to [fight you],” achieves the same while saying more.

That said, this moment where Thena finally returns to being a badass warrior doesn’t feel earned. It feels like we needed a scene focused exclusively on Thena’s struggles with her memories and her feelings about Gilgamesh’s death. Instead, she silently dealt with stuff in the background. How did Thena get her mojo back? Was it seriously watching Gilgamesh die?

Just saying, it would’ve been so much more rewarding if maybe she’d stopped Ikaris from killing Makkari earlier instead of Kingo. Maybe in that moment, when another member of the family was about to die, she triumphantly remembers why she fights and battles Ikaris to a quick, tense stand still, making him flee (which would of course make this fight on the Domo a significantly more intense rematch).

But no. She floats around the plot before eventually just sorta becoming Thena again.

(1:58:01) – After killing-but-not-killing Druig, Ikaris lands and says a vague, “Druig is gone. It’s over.” Then Makkari charges in, grabbing Ikaris by the throat and running him through a bunch of scenery before chucking him against a wall.

All of this looks great.

But also, Makkari, for real, just vibrate his head extremely fast—give him five thousand concussions in 3 seconds and he’s done.

Build up speed and kick him in the nuts so hard that you yeet his ass into the fucking stratosphere. Like, explode his balls! He will just stop fighting, I guarantee it.

I dunno—am I evil? Maybe I’m just evil.

But for real, there are countless ways Makkari could’ve ended the film right here.

Pure speedster nerfing in full effect.

(2:00:26) – Nearly everyone is fighting Ikaris and it’s really cool.

And while it’s happening, the head Deviant—who’s called Kro–shows up. And despite it seeming so much like he’s going to help everyone fight Ikaris, he just lands a single cheap shot before Thena splits off from the others for revenge.

And . . . why?

This fits so poorly with the rest of the endgame. It is seriously no longer time to even think about the Deviants—we’ve moved on to stopping a Celestial from destroying the planet and the idea that we’re taking time away from that to continue fighting the red herring villain is absolutely bonkers to me.

Seriously, if you set up a red herring villain for a story, I think this case is a great argument for why you should never try to resolve their threat in the endgame; the threat of the actual villain will always eclipse them. Kro was just a massive, bizarre mistake in this film.

(2:01:10) – After Kro and Thena fuck off, Ikaris tries to fly away, but Phastos catches him, pinning him to the beach with tech that limits his powers.

And I’m just frustrated.

Why did Phastos not open with this?

I hate this phenomenon in general, and it’s something I try to avoid in my own work; characters inexplicably not using the best of their abilities so more plot can happen. Like, “Hrrm. I could pin you down and drastically weaken you while two other Eternals are fighting you . . . or I can wait until it’s just you and me to use this fight-ending tech. Hrrm.”

(2:02:44) – Sprite distracts Sersi with a hologram of Ajak and then stabs her in the back with a tanto.

And I laugh every time.

Not because I’m sadistic (I’m not) or because I hate Sersi (I don’t).

I laugh because we just watched 70% of the Eternals bat each other around at sonic speed, with laser beams that are capable of slicing off Deviant limbs. Druig was just hit with that laser and sent hurtling down hundreds of feet, literally into the Earth, and he still comes back a-okay.

But Sersi gets stabbed with a knife and she’s like, “Urrrk! I am undone!”

I know she turns the tanto into water and just gets up in a minute, but that makes this moment even worse.

Seriously, I wish I could go to Sprite and be like, “So . . . Sersi is what’s called an ‘Eternal,’ which—and this may surprise you—means that stabbing her with a knife won’t kill her. I know that you’ve been an Eternal for 7000 years, but apparently you didn’t know this somehow, so FYI.”

The movie is trying so hard to play this off like a Loki style assassination, but it doesn’t work on even a single level.

(2:07:15) – The Emergence has begun and we see Tiamut’s fingers rising out of the ocean. At this exact time stamp, we get a very good shot for size comparison, revealing that each finger is larger than the volcano that’s been in the background for the entire endgame.

All of this looks extremely cool. It exudes such Final Fantasy vibes that I can’t help loving it. The world is well and truly ending, the stakes are ridiculous, and it looks super pretty.

But also, I’m noting that this Celestial’s fingertips are larger than volcanoes. In one shot, no exaggeration, those fingertips are in the mesosphere.

We’ll come back to this in one sec.

(2:11:37) – At this exact time code, we get an amazing shot of Tiamut’s head and left hand, turning to stone (which I used as the feature image for this post). In this shot, we see that both head and hand are so large that they’re practically in space.

Which is the moment where I have to say it.

The Eternals . . . did not save the world here.

I hate to be that guy, but in a few hours, massive tsunamis will hit every continent, killing countless people, because something of that size breaking that far out of the Earth would just end everything.

But . . .

. . . it looks so cool that I, as a viewer, am able to suspend my disbelief.

Or, well, I’m clearly not able to do that, but I’m willing to give it a pass.

I am absolutely certain without a shadow of a doubt that countless people on MCU Earth would be dead by the next day.

But the rule of cool is a rule for a reason. I usually don’t abide by it.

But this time, I will abide.

(2:14:02) – Sersi just kind of teleports back to the beach with the other Eternals and Phastos asks her how she turned Tiamut to stone. She says Tiamut joined their Uni-Mind. And Phastos says, “I always wondered how we survived the destruction of other planets that we were on. By being connected to the Celestial as it emerged.”

And just like that, three minutes later, I’m reminded I’m watching a terribly written movie.

Thanks, Phastos. Once again, that explanation makes zero sense and fails to solve a plot hole that wasn’t a plot hole. Didn’t they die every time? Didn’t their memories just get beamed up to Arishem via cosmic wi-fi and then a new copy of them was sent to other planets?

Seriously, I don’t know who was determined to have characters explain all of these nonsense plot holes, but every single time, they just make them worse.

And, putting it in writing terms, I’ll say flat-out that I think it’s always bad when characters try to explain plot holes in dialogue. This movie absolutely taught me that; never have your characters say, “Hrrrm. That explains why . . .” because it almost never, ever works. I know it’s primarily a Hollywood thing to leave plot holes in and try to explain them away like this, but it’s always worth repeating that it’s better to just take the plot hole out instead of trying to justify it to your audience.

Also—and I feel like I’m losing my mind here, but—if you absolutely must leave a plot hole in, at least make sure it’s actually a plot hole before you try to justify it.

(2:15:30) – Sersi tells Sprite that with the power left over from the Uni-Mind, she can make Sprite human. She accepts.

And, once again, I would gather all of the Infinity Stones myself if I could change this scene so she makes Sprite into a Furby instead. Like, imagine if in this touching moment, Sersi got mad ratchet like, “That’s what you get, bitch! You stab me in the back!? Fuck you!” while the other Eternals are like, “World Star!”

(2:26:30) – Finally, we end our journey with the mid-credits scene, in which a CGI troll-man teleports into the Domo and heralds the arrival of . . . Harry Styles.

Okay, look.

I have rewritten this last part so many times.

At first, I was openly confused. Then I was vitriolic while writing directly to Marvel Studios. At one point, I was like, “I didn’t even realize that was Harry Styles!” and went on a tangent about why they must’ve chosen a pop culture icon for the role.

But I don’t want to do any of that, because I’m not writing this for Marvel Studios—I’m writing this for us.

After watching this mid-credits scene, what I want to say to every aspiring writer out there is . . .

. . . write your good ideas.

If you have two stories in the chamber, and you know one of them is an awesome idea but the other one is a little niche and you’re wondering, “Can I make it work?” I’m here to say, “Maybe . . . but please just write the awesome idea.” The world wants to see it, and it will probably be infinitely better than the story you’re trying to figure out.

And, to be clear, I don’t mean, “Write your more typical ideas,” or, “Be a hack.” I just mean that you should write the ideas you’re more certain of—the plots you know are intriguing with the characters who have strong silhouettes.

Write your Silver Surfers, not your Eternals.

Full disclosure: I needed to hear this too. I still don’t like Eternals, but I’m glad this film led me to this conclusion, because now I have full, undeniable confirmation that, yes, I should just abandon some of the ideas I’ve had on the docket. The one short story about characters trying to find and kill a god? Cool, but also, I’ve known for years that the conclusion didn’t work, and I have to drop it. It just isn’t going to work as well as other, functional plots I already have.

And, for the same reason, I just have to drop my high school series.

Yes, I mean the series I started working on in high school—the one I spent every moment of every day thinking about and worldbuilding on post-its for nearly a decade. I’ve known that story wouldn’t work for nearly 20 years for a whole slew of reasons.

And I just can’t keep bashing my head on it anymore. I’ve always thought, “Oh, I’ll rework it at some point and it’ll be my magnum opus,” but decades later, I’m such a different writer that I don’t even care about those characters anymore. Hell, I don’t even care about writing a magnum opus; I just want to write the handful of awesome ideas I have. I just want to tell those stories.

But also, the world has moved on, so that high school story’s cast, which was 90% vampire stereotypes, is not worth reworking (PS-yes, I was a goth in high school).

Anyway, all of that is to say none of us have an infinite amount of time on this world.

It isn’t worth spending any of that time tinkering with a story that doesn’t work.

At best, writing the stronger story will help you figure out how to write the weaker one.

At worst, writing the stronger story will make you realize the weaker one is a lost cause.

So, with that said, farewell, Darkness Nightmare. I’m sure there’s a reality where I could find you in paperback, but that reality will never be this one.

Also, yes, it was called Darkness Nightmare. And yes, I know. Watch your glass of milk—it might slip off this e-e-e-e-edge!

~~~

Phew.

This post was even longer than part one.

But holy shit . . . I never have to watch Eternals ever again! Dobby is free!

If you made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for reading. This series was exhausting, but it was also a lot of fun.

No idea what I’m posting next week, but if you’re new here, it’ll be random. It could be anything from an update about the novel I’m currently editing or a post about The Book of Boba Fett. If you’d like to be here for it, you can drop me a Follow via the button on the left side of the screen (on PC) or in the hamburger menu on the top-right (on mobile).

Until next time, take care, stay safe, and rewatch that Silver Surfer chase scene from Rise of the Silver Surfer. The dialogue is still painful, but the Silver Surfer holds up. To this day, fifteen years later, he’s still amazing and terrifying. Like, you could lift that scene, put it in Avengers 5, and replace Johnny with Captain America and it would still be awesome.

Anyway, have a good week!

Process in Progress #5 (continued) – I Realized What Was Slowing Down My Edits: Me

Okay.

I promise that I’m not stressed out.

Edits didn’t go poorly.

But they didn’t go poorly because I had a breakthrough . . . that took extremely long to hit me.

“If you edit something for long enough, it stops getting better—it just starts getting different.”

I don’t remember who told me that. Someone from an internship I worked decades ago, I think.

But it is extremely true. It’s a principal I held close while writing this draft of Memory, determined to make it good while also making firm decisions about what the novel would be.

And somehow, in the interim between finishing Memory and now, I’d forgotten that principal.

And I didn’t realize it until I was agonizing over a worldbuilding conundrum in the first chapter—the road block it took forever to get past. It was a moment I’d just reworked the previous week and decided needed reworking again.

Until I got there, texted a friend, brainstormed, and realized . . .

“. . . What the fuck am I doing?”

The result of my brainstorming was a complicated answer that I realized would never make it into the novel. Or, rather, it could, but it felt like it wouldn’t improve the novel at all to include it—it would just make the one scene slightly different.

And immediately, like a person freshly released from mind control, I realized the thing I was agonizing over truly did not matter. It’s an answer I’m glad that I have, sure, but not one that would improve the MS, so . . . <shrug>.

It’s weird too, because in that moment I realized I’d forgotten a bunch of my internal writing tools that I use to make it past hurdles like this: things like ‘writing out scene possibilities and why I like them / dislike them so I can decide which to go with.’

And ‘pulling back and looking at the big picture of my setting to solve worldbuilding-logic problems.’ Being able to say, “Well, of course character A would be able to do specialized-action B. It seems like they wouldn’t, but they just learned it off screen when they lived in a culture where specialized-action B was common.” The kind of affirmation I used to have in droves while writing the first draft—moments where I’d just nod and say, “Ah, right. Makes sense,” and keep writing.

The good thing: this was definitely just a case of me being rusty. I let those tools slip because I convinced myself the writing part of my brain and the editing part are two totally separate things and the tools that work for one side don’t work for the other.

But that’s not true, and, thankfully, I remember that now.

So my editing process, is, at least, finally set.

Big Fixes Pass.
Small Tweaks Pass (remembering the mental tools I have at my disposal making sure to not massively over-think things [which I guess is a new mental tool?]).
And the Line Feedback Pass.

Outside of all of that, I’m just accepting that I can let go of Memory and that, outside of suggestions from potential future editors, this second draft is just going to be what the novel is.

Because changing it into something else isn’t helping anyone—least of all me.

With that said, I’m off to edit ~~the hell out of~~ the rest of the novel in the coming month.

Here’s to hoping it isn’t a total nightmare.

~~~

Thanks for reading. Next week, I’m back to content that doesn’t directly involve my process. If you enjoyed what you read here, I definitely appreciate Likes and / or Follows.

Until next time, take care, stay hydrated, and, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the teaser for Across the Spider-Verse: Part One! Bye!

Process in Progress #5 – I Need to Figure Out My Editing Process

Things That Happened While My Back Was Busted:

I watched The Princess Bride, and in doing so discovered that . . . holy shit, Inigo Montoya is really the protagonist of that story. Like, the Han Solo factor of “Why am I not following this guy the whole time?” couples so strongly with his arc getting the most satisfying payoff that I came away from this last viewing like, “How is he not the protagonist?” Seriously, having read the book, it’s bizarre seeing how much the screenplay beefs up Westley (as if someone behind the scenes knew he paled in comparison). Potentially a post coming up about that. In the meantime, seriously, ask anyone to say a quote from The Princess Bride and consider how quickly they answer, “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
I started playing Hades. Possibly a post about that coming up as well.
I trimmed the tip of the tree branch that kept bashing at my window, which I only mention because just imagine walking down the street and looking up to see a Hispanic man with wild, Medusa-like hair, Danny DeVito-panting as he clumsily hacks at a thin branch with an old bread knife. That was me. It only took seconds, but just in case no one saw it, now you did.
I barely got any editing done.

Being totally real; my back was bad enough that I just stopped caring about anything. Coupled with the holiday, I just totally stopped trying.

However, the last time I edited (Wednesday) I did realize something.

I have no idea if I’m over- or under-editing.

To explain, my editing process so far has been as follows:

The Big Fix Pass. I consider big feedback I’ve gotten from my writer’s group and pair that with larger edits I wanted to make to a chapter.
The Small Tweaks Pass. After a break, I read back over the chapter, focusing on tweaking everything so it reads well and makes sense. Especially descriptions, which I realize I go super ‘implied magic’ on in my first drafts. Shit like, “The wind swirled blue, stalks wayward swaying,” which is not actually something from my first draft of Memory, but does perfectly represent the kind of starry-eyed bullshit I write sometimes. Although I’m much more guilty of under-describing because I don’t want to flood the read with worldbuilding. It’s weird to have to reign that reflex in (from what feels like the wrong direction), but I’ve really enjoyed getting to go ham with additional descriptions so far.
The Line Feedback Pass. I whip out whatever line edits I have from my writing group and go over the chapter one last time, which works really well when it comes to catching anything I missed.

And that’s it. It definitely feels like a healthy approach to editing.

However . . . the problem is the Small Tweaks.

It definitely feels great every time I find a paragraph that doesn’t make sense. When I catch a description like “he rode the elevator down and the wall fell away” (paraphrasing here), I’m always super pleased to catch that, “No, the wall isn’t ‘falling’—it’s literally going up past the character because the elevator is going down, so I really need to find a new phrasing here.” Moments like that always feel like small victories, where I’m teasing out the best ways to describe a scene.

But I also feel like that side of myself—that focuses on literal meaning, clarity, and flow—can keep going forever if I let it.

Maybe that’s not true. Maybe if I went back and looked over the first chapter again, I wouldn’t find anything new to edit. But I can’t help feeling like I’d find myself thinking, “Well, is ‘chartreuse’ 2% more accurate to the color of the scum in this run-off ditch?”

But then, at the same time, if I don’t go back, am I going to feel massively unsatisfied when I finish editing this book? I’m two chapters in and every time I think about moving forward, there’s this nagging sensation that something’s wrong. And, being fair to the editing-Terminator part of my brain, I’m usually right when I get this feeling.

I think that what I need to do is add one more pass over a chapter. And, just imagining it, I’m sure it’s going to come down to this:

I look over the chapter and fully accept that I can move on. That might mean finding a balance: adding charming descriptions to make things less clinical and further smoothing out moments that don’t make enough sense. Either way, I need to walk away feeling . . . Okay. This is going to sound super intense, but at this phase in my writing career, I think I need to walk away from every chapter feeling like it would be okay if it got published immediately. Like, if no one else ever touched the Prologue, I’d still be okay with the public reading it.
Or . . .
I look at the Prologue again and my eyes glaze over, indicating that my brain can’t handle another pass right now, which I would totally accept. And which would definitely constitute some kind of Final Pass on a 3^rd Draft after I finish this edit.

Obviously, I don’t know which of these things will happen. But I do know that either way, all that matters is that I walk away from those edits feeling certain I can walk away.

Especially because, around all of this, there’s a time constraint; I still don’t live in a world where I can casually take another year to edit this novel. At best, I have until June of 2022, but I seriously can’t take that long or I’ll feel like a failure. Just personally, as a human being, I need to be submitting Memory by February at the absolute latest.

That’s . . . a lot of pressure.

Regardless, I’m grateful I was able to write all of this out here. Because when I started writing this post, I genuinely didn’t know how I’d solve this editing problem.

But now I’m both excited and terrified to attempt that one last pass and hope that I come away from it feeling certain. Of anything.

~~~

Thank for reading. I feel like I have to follow up on this next week, so that’s what I’ll probably do. If you’d like to find out what happens—if I’m relieved or infinitely more stressed out come next Sunday—then you can give my blog a Follow via the button on the left side-bar (on PC), or the top-right hamburger menu (on mobile).

Until next time, take care, stay safe, and if you’ve ever enjoyed any rogue-like, you owe it to yourself to play Hades. As a fan of the genre, Hades is easily my favorite ever. I seriously haven’t felt this strongly about a game recommendation since Spiritfarer.

Anyway, have a good week, everyone!

Camp NaNoWriMo 2021: Week 6 (Bonus) – We Are Not Yet in the Endgame

Yep, I was overconfident about how far I would get this week.

To give myself credit, I haven’t written yet today (although I started the day with my first D&D session in over a month, so I feel totally justified). My point is, technically, I will be further along by 2AM.

However, full disclosure–staying honest–I just finished adding the new chapter yesterday.

In part because, as per usual, a bit of writing that I thought would be easy turned out to be a struggle.

Specifically, the chapter I added was full of what I’m calling “micro-events” that needed to be smoothed out. This may sound weird, but the flow of dialogue and character actions is something I obsess over, so there were plenty of times this week where I sat back in my writing chair with a sigh, rubbing my eyes as I tried to decide things like, “Should Memory mention that she saw this plant before Kole sees them?”

“Does Kole realize what this structure is before Memory tells him?”

“Wouldn’t Memory stop Kole from firing his gun in this fight scene because they’re still trying to lie low?” And then, with a huge sigh as I remembered that Kole used his gun for the entire fight scene in the outline, I grumbled, “Yes, she would.”

Tiny logic problems that absolutely dictated how natural scenes felt.

They dominated this week’s sessions because I’m so hell bent on making sure my story beats feel organic (particularly important for a mid-novel addition, in my eyes).

Still, I’m not bummed; I did finish the addition, and I do like it.

I just decided that I’d post now instead of 4AM because today’s session probably isn’t going to add words; if anything, I’m going to lose words as I neurotically comb over the addition to make sure it works. In particular, there’s one line of dialogue that I have to adjust because it creates a moment of one-sided tension between the protagonists when they’re supposed to be getting along. If nothing else, I imagine tonight is going to be me editing through the addition and the chapters that follow while carrying that one line of dialogue in the back of my head, trying to find a place to put it (because it’s a juicy moment of conflict that adds to their arcs so well that I can’t just drop it).

That said, I’m keeping this one short today.

I will go out on a limb and say there’s no chance in hell I won’t be in the endgame by next Sunday.

Absolutely impossible.

No way.

Not happening.

Definitely not going to regret posting any of this.

Nope.

Really tempting fate here.

But seriously, I’m creating a public, social deadline for myself here. Because I re-e-e-e-eally need this novel to be over and the one way to make sure I stay focused is to give myself a genuinely over-the-top, public deadline.

So yeah, are you kidding? Pssh! No way I’m not getting to the endgame by Sunday! Please! Easy! Poppycock!

. . .

I’m gonna go write! Bye!

Edited in Post – The Falcon & The Winter Soldier

Disclaimer 1: Spoilers for The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. Seriously, if you haven’t watched the entire series, read no further.

Disclaimer 2: I enjoyed TF&TWS. After last week’s post, I was happy that the finale answered a few questions I had and focused enough on Sam that I wasn’t annoyed. Last week, I was definitely on a rage bender from The New Mutants, and jumped the gun on some heavy criticism of The Adventures of Birdman & Arm Man. I just wanted to take a moment to say I pro-o-o-o-obably should’ve waited for the final episode before tearing into it (last week’s post really could’ve been a well deserved, merciless takedown of The New Mutants, a movie that perfectly caps the bullshit spectacle that was the majority of the FoX-Men universe).

Having said that . . . I am a very heavy editor. I’ve admitted that a bunch of times on this site. It’s just in my nature to think about how a story could have been better. And nothing, from my favorite series to my own writing, escapes that obsessive “it could have been better” reflex. Seriously, I loved She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, but my very first “Edited in Post” was on that series anyway. Actually, I think this series might always be for movies and shows I love (because I tried a few weeks back to write one for a movie I didn’t like and ran out of steam 2 paragraphs in).

What I’m getting at though: as a man who likes Marvel stuff and enjoyed The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, I just . . . really think it could have been better.

To the extent that I re-e-e-e-eally had to do an “Edited in Post” after the series finale.

If you’re new here, “Edited in Post” is a script doctor series; a vehicle by which I, a random aspiring writer on the internet, explains how I would’ve edited a movie or TV show if its script hit my desk in pre-production. This is all 100% for fun, so if you love TF&TWS, cool. This post in no way threatens that.

How I’m going to tackle this: a list of edits I would’ve made followed by a super rough outline for how I would’ve reworked the story.

That said, let’s just jump into the edits. And yes, we’re starting gentle to establish a baseline for the kind of edits I’d make and the reasons I’d make them.

Edit 1: Make It So One of the Senators
Was Sam’s Former Commander

If there was only one change I could make to the show, this would be it.

I would’ve just added a named Senator to the cast. And, in the very first episode, in a brief, snappy exchange (in the crowd after the shield passing ceremony), I would’ve conveyed that when Sam was in the military, that Senator was his CO. And maybe that former CO is still comfortable speaking to him with authority (not belittling him, but definitely pulling rank, with Sam saluting and calling him “sir,” etc.). In this same scene, the Senator would thank Sam for taking his suggestion to give up the shield, conveying that he was pivotal in getting Sam to turn the shield over to the government.

In episode 2, after the reveal that the shield went directly to John Walker, we get a tense phone call between Sam and that commander who basically says, “This is just the way things have to be,” to convey that classic “it is what it is <shrug> oh well,” down-talking energy that shitty government officials have. Maybe here, he more abrasively pulls rank and asks if Sam is questioning the military, even though Sam is an Avenger who helped save half of the universe.

In the final episode, that Senator is among those saved from the Flag Smashers (maybe taking the lines of the one male Senator who told Sam he didn’t understand politics) and we’d get the catharsis of Sam challenging his morals and winning–on camera. Just to make things a bit more personal for Sam (which I think was missing) without making insane changes to every single episode.

Okay. Turning the Editing Dial up just a notch . . .

Edit 2: More Isaiah Bradley and the Project Rebirth Suit

Definitely getting crazier here, but I would have added another scene with Isaiah Bradley or his grandson, Eli.

I’ve thought about it a lot and there are so many ways this could’ve been done, but my goal for adding more Isaiah would’ve been threefold.

I would’ve wanted him to seriously and more intensely challenge Sam’s feelings about the government way, way earlier.
I would’ve wanted to (again) make things more personal for Sam.
And I would’ve wanted him to somehow dismissively give Sam the suit he wore while he was doing missions after Project Rebirth.

The most extravagant way to do all of this: Isaiah lives in Sam’s town from the very beginning. Maybe he was an old man Sam always knew, who always bitterly challenged him for serving in the military and/or wasn’t impressed by him being an Avenger, particularly for working with Captain America. When Isaiah finally reveals the truth to Sam and tells him to leave, maybe he adds, “While you’re at it, take this too. And you throw it in the goddamn gutter when you leave,” and tosses an old duffle at him.

When Sam leaves, he opens the bag to find an old, burned suit that’s similar to Captain America’s–an MCU take on his costume from the comics, with logical alterations (maybe no headband, no scales, different color tones, etc.).

The less extravagant way to do this (and the way that I definitely prefer) would’ve been Sam going back to Isaiah’s house, but only Eli comes to the door. I would’ve done this mid-series, with Eli telling Sam some story from Isaiah’s past to explain why Isaiah is done with all of this and won’t talk to him (allowing for a potential flashback). But maybe Eli wants his grandfather to be happy, or wants him to be remembered as the hero he is; and/or maybe Sam manages to convince him that he cares, which makes Eli go inside and come out with an old duffle bag. “I’d tell you to hide it and get out of here, but . . . I don’t even think he’d notice it was gone.” Sam takes it, opens it up, and finds the old, burned suit.

Either way, at the end of the series, I would’ve had Sam either wear this exact suit (after cleaning it up), or he would’ve altered it to make something new, showing that he wasn’t just taking up Steve’s legacy.

“But wait,” you might be asking. “What about that sweet ass suit the Wakandans made for him?”

Yeah . . . I mean, I like that outfit for sure, but . . . I don’t think the Wakandans would’ve been in my version of the story because . . .

Edit 3: Completely Cut Baron Zemo

Okay. Hear me out.

We’re in full challenge mode now, but before you close this window, let me just say: I cannot tell you how excited I was to have Zemo return for this show.

In the promo material, I was seriously freaking out when I saw his mask. Like Kang the Conqueror, Zemo has always been one of the Marvel villains I absolutely love. Like, without backstory, if either of those dudes walked into a room and started talking, I’d be like, “Who-o-o-o-okay! Who the fuck is this dude with the blue face and the super deep voice!?”

“Who the fuck is this smooth talking dude with a purple mask and a purple jumpsuit with fucking leopard fur shoulder muffs? And why does he have a sword??”

Seriously, I love Baron Zemo.

But he is just a waste of time on this show.

And, worse, he . . . kind of feels like a completely different character from Civil War Zemo? Like, seriously, Civil War Zemo didn’t frame Bucky and find the other Winter Soldiers so he could kill super soldiers–he did it to make the Avengers fight each other. If TF&TWS Zemo had been in Civil War, he would’ve just shot Bucky in the head the first chance he got and then tried to do the same to Steve Rogers. Like, he will just forever feel like two different people to me.

To boot, Zemo doesn’t have an arc on this show? And, at least to me, it doesn’t feel like his contribution to Bucky’s arc . . . matters? Like, if Ayo had asked Bucky if he was going to kill Zemo, and then warned him that doing so would be bad for him, and then we saw Bucky deciding not to kill Zemo even though he wanted to, that would’ve been good character growth. But, from the very first episode, it’s shown that Bucky doesn’t struggle with an itch to kill the people who used to control him, so . . . why is Zemo there?

Whatever. The real point here is, I would need time for more Isaiah and tense convos with Senator Douchebag, so I would’ve cut Zemo, meme dance be damned.

The biggest loss here for me would’ve been losing Ayo and the Dora Milaje kicking ass. Oh, and that cold open with Bucky in Wakanda was a good moment. I definitely would’ve tried fitting them in anyway (maybe Ayo is there to check in on Bucky?) but if it came down to it, yeah, I would’ve killed some darlings.

The Rework Outline

Episode 1 – Exactly as it was, only with the addition of Senator Douchebag.

Episode 2 – Also as it was, but with Sam talking to Senator Douchebag. Without Zemo, the cliffhanger would have to be that Sam and Bucky are contacted by Sharon, who invites them to Madripoor, or gives them a lead in the city.

Oh, also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that I would’ve heavily edited some of Bucky and Sam’s bickering. In this episode in particular, some of their back-and-forths were super cringey. To the extent that I would’ve crossed out entire pages and handed them back like, “No.”

Just throwing that out there for anyone who thinks I play favorites with Marvel; nope, I harshly criticize boardroom writing wherever I find it.

Episode 3 – Essentially the same, but cutting out the Zemo breakout to replace it with Sam going to Isaiah’s and talking with Eli, getting an Isaiah story flashback, and getting the suit. Continue with the trip to Madripoor, with everything Zemo would’ve done achieved via Sharon’s connections and Joaquin Torres providing tech support (i.e. guy-in-the-chairing) instead.

Without Ayo making a cameo, maybe it ends with the hint that Sharon is working with someone? Not sure, but I’d definitely be able to figure it out if I was actually in the writing room, instead of belting this out in four hours.

Episode 4 – Basically the same, but with Sharon instead of Zemo. Maybe work in clearly grey-area things Sharon is doing to hint at her being/working for the Power Broker, but give every weird thing she does a logical excuse. Or, if you didn’t want to risk spoiling her twist . . . maybe we could just use Joaquin? Like, maybe Joaquin Torres actually gets to step in and help a bit more, since he eventually becomes the Falcon? Just saying–it would’ve been cool to give the MCU’s first Latinx superhero more to do in his first appearance. Ya know, aside from getting his ass kicked by a super soldier?

Whatever. The episode still ends with John Walker killing a dude in public.

Episode 5 – Largely the same, only an alteration to the scene with Isaiah, with Sam showing him that he has Isaiah’s old costume. “Your grandson gave it to me. Because he wants what I want. To help you.”

Cliffhanger with Sam working on Isaiah’s old suit, attaching and repairing his wings with Joaquin’s help (I’m going to keep adding him into every scene I can).

Episode 6 – Almost identical, only with Sam in the altered “Isaiah” suit, making all the changes that would be essential for a suit that isn’t made out of vibranium (probably can’t block a crashing helicopter with his wings anymore). Also, of course, we add Senator Douchebag to Sam’s speech scene to make it more cathartic.

And that’s it. Outside of a full story overhaul, that’s how I would’ve changed The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. Just representing Sam’s military life the tiniest bit and adding more Isaiah while removing extraneous characters. In my eyes, that would’ve made it a bit more personal for Sam while making Isaiah a better mirror for him.

But the major thing I would’ve loved: Sam in Isaiah’s suit. It would’ve been emotionally complicated and scenes would’ve needed to be tweaked to support it, but I definitely would’ve cried my eyes out.

~~~

A-a-a-a-anyway, that’s it for me. Thanks for reading if you made it all the way to the end; I really appreciate having this forum to at least vent these ideas.

That said, I post here every Sunday. If you’d like to read more stuff like this, feel free to drop by then or Follow my blog via the button on the left sidebar (on desktop) or top right drop down menu (on mobile). I don’t always do script doctoring, but I do heavily criticize blockbuster movies I don’t like at all (the other end of the spectrum from “Edited in Post”). Those posts are called “A Writer Watching,” and the last one I did was a two parter on Wonder Woman 1984 (Part 1, Part 2). Give it a read if you want to revisit your hatred for that movie. Or your hatred for people who hated that movie.

Until next time, take care. And, if you’re really down for getting into some seriously intense race issues in a comic TV show, holy shit, HBO’s Watchmen is excellent. Like, I hesitate to say things are “excellent,” but if you’ve already read Watchmen but haven’t seen the show, watch it. It’s so good.

Anyway, bye!

The Plot, As It Is Now

Hi there. Apologies for this one being late, but I used my days off this week to hunker down and finish editing Memory: Shadow of the Lord Sun. I completed it on Tuesday, then had to work the rest of the week until today, so sacrifices were made.

I’m still really happy about it though, because I’ve been struggling with this last edit for a long time.

With it, I had to fix one huge issue that kept smothering my queries: the beginning of the novel — a part that needs to impress — was weird, confused nonsense. It is, as I’ve said in previous posts, my curse as a discovery writer; I start with something meant to catch the eye, then figure out what the rest of the story is, but when the story’s done, it creates a world in which the intro no longer makes sense. Figuring out a fun, new intro without completely breaking the story, was difficult . . .

. . . because I felt like I was getting closer and closer to that point when you, as a writer, hit the foundations. When you decide, “Well, this important part of the story should maybe be completely different . . . Yeah! Let me completely redo it!” But completely changing the one thing turns into, “Let me change all the things!” so easily. In my youth, I thought that was fine. As an adult, I’m way less keen to give up on a story that has merit in order to change it into a completely new story. I acknowledge, these days, that those new ideas are meant to be short stories, or different novels altogether. I also acknowledge that scrapping and creating a new story is the easy way out.

Because it’s easier and safer to never finish a project. If you keep editing forever, you don’t have to deal with rejection. You don’t have to actually make sure any of your subplots have pay-off. If you keep editing forever, you get to keep feeling like you’re making progress, even when you aren’t. You get to tell a skeptical friend, “I’m making it way, way better!” even though you aren’t making it better — you’re making it different.

There’s a point when you just have to stop editing. When you have to accept that the manuscript you have is the one you’re going to put out there.

I have absolutely hit that point with this novel; a lot of the changes I made this time around were erasing changes I made in previous edits. Because I’ve reached the point where I’m just tweaking the plot based on my mood. There’s nothing else to do aside from making sure that the plot, as it is now . . . is cleanly and tactfully presented. On that note, there is one scene that I actually have to revisit (the new dream sequence) to make sure it’s as intense as it’s supposed to be, but that will take a day, tops.

And, regardless, I can still strap in . . . for the unbridled joy of submissions. Today, I can work on my submission package, editing the synopsis accordingly. And, yes, the synopsis is right up there with cover letters on the list of Things I Hate Writing, but at least this time, I’m writing a synopsis for a plot that makes total sense, instead of trying to hide an intro that’s strangely incongruous.

More than anything, though, I’m excited to get back to short stories. I’m going to tank the next few months on three in particular: Lokisday, A Dead God in A Silent Realm, and Hard Reset.

It’s going to be . . . amazing.

My plan for this year was to get another short story published. I got a little distracted by the promotion at work, but I’m getting back on track, and it feels great.

~~~

Thanks for reading. I’m going to grab lunch, come back, play a video game, then work on that synopsis . . . Yeah, ya know what? I’ll pick up some wine while I’m out there.

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Louis Santiago, and I’m a fantasy writer based in the Bronx. My short story, “Aixa the Hexcaster,” was published last year in Mirror Dance Fantasy. However, I’m still very much learning about the writing process — still trying to figure it out — which means posting here every week, even though I make absolutely no money from it. So, if you like what you read here and feel up to getting updates by email — a new post from me delivered right to your inbox — then please hit the Follow button at the bottom of this page. Because, even though all I get from this site is emotional support, that support means the world to me.

Thank you just for passing by, and, as always, write well.

A New Methodology

Writing used to be a feel good, hobby-ish thing for me. I would sit down and stare at my computer and brainstorm about what would happen next. And more often than not, an answer would not come. But that was always okay–cause it would come in time! As long as I was getting something done at all–as long as I was at least sitting at the computer with the intent–I was doing alright for myself. And to an extent, that’s true; just sitting down and clocking in is the first test of all writers.

But, that approach wound up leading to some major issues. First and foremost, I was way too laid back about what was happening in my story; things would feel right and I would throw them on the page, always going with my gut, never wondering how often my instinct matched what was happening or the tone I’d already set. More crucial than that though, plot lines got completely out of control; my first edit took months because I was just trying to close loopholes. I remember thinking, say, in the middle of my first draft, “Hey! This should happen! I’m going to write it in even though it hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else in the book yet! I’ll just catch it later and smooth it all out!” When I reached one of those moments during my first edit, I remember stopping, sighing, and (probably) saying aloud, “You bastard.” Tack on the countless switch-ups of characters’ moods and logic and the zig zagging plot (products of my returning to the computer completely clueless after weeks of not reading a word of my book), and the first draft of my manuscript was kind of a nightmare. And yeah, maybe it was a nightmare that would’ve sold–cause, sadly, I’ve seen worse in published Fantasy–but not something I’d want to produce.

So, really, the only option was to rewrite the whole thing, but the question became, “What can I do to keep everything from falling apart again?” The answer is probably too bureaucratic and neurotic for everyone’s taste, but, hey, I’m just explaining how I do things.

An Outline, for lack of a better word. A single master file that compiles all of the post-it notes, standalone files, and thoughts I ever had about any snippet of my book, including the full outline of the plot. I’m not going to post a sample of the Outline here, but I will give a vague example of its set-up.

Chapter Number / Chapter Title

Main Characters: A list of all of the characters who are present in the chapter. But not just Name, Age, and Place of Origin; we’re talking everything about them, from what they’re wearing and thinking in this chapter, to whether or not the wound they took two chapters ago is still sore.

Side Characters: The same, only I add side characters’ back stories (I have a Foreword detailing all of my main characters’ stories).

Locations: A full description of all the major areas featured in the chapter.

Plot Lines: A list of plot lines, keeping close track of what I’m revealing, what I’m hinting at, and what I’m saving for later.

Bullets: The full outline for the chapter in bullet portions that are as simple or complex as I want.

This is a very streamlined, boring summary, but I have to add, before you bail on me, that it has a lot of great advantages if you use it correctly:

First off, approach the Outline chapter by chapter in solid, helpful steps. This is your chance to experiment and work out all the details of your story. To make sure I’ve worked out the initial kinks, I start with the Bullets written by hand in a notebook. Writing by hand keeps me from correcting or even caring about corrections because I can’t free-hand half as quickly as I can correct in my mind; I give up and just get the plot down, bullet by bullet. Here I take my time, deciding what happens on a ton of different criteria (“Is this too boring?” “Does this make sense?” “Would my character actually do this, or is it just from that one movie?” “Is this to simple / predictable / cliche?”) After I finish the Bullets by hand, I look them over and find every character, location, or thing I’m going to talk about in the chapter. With these points of interest, I return to the Outline and that’s where my supplemental info (Main Characters, Side Characters, etc.) comes from. After I have all of the supplemental info down, I copy my handwritten bullets onto the Outline, using the info to improve what I already have and, thus, making sure what remains is as solid of a first draft as it can be.
Actually write the supplemental info. All of it. When I was rewriting the first chapter, I decided I’d use a town called Mycelston. But it wasn’t until writing supplemental info that I realized Mycelston had a mine. And, hey, wait, if it has a mine, I could use that at the end of the first chapter… and it’d be awesome. Since doing this, I’ve found a healthy terror in the amount of things I know about my world that I’ve never, ever realized. But also, right there with it was some frustration; that first draft would’ve been a lot better if I’d known Mycelston had a mine. Or that Dawnspear has outlying farms up and down the Dawn Coast. But, hey, how was I supposed to know these things about my fantasy world if I didn’t write or even think about them? More importantly for you, what do you know about your fantasy world that you haven’t realized? You’d be surprised, I bet. Take the info dumps as opportunities to explore your world; don’t sell your it short by rushing through this step.
Treat the Outline as a very rough first draft. The bullets are there for you to explore and express your story without you getting bogged down by things like writing style and narration. You’ll have all the time in the world to work with those–give your plot its own attention and see where it takes you.
And stay on point with your plot. I know tracking all of your plot points for each chapter sounds tedious, and, yeah, it totally is. But the only thing that’s worse is losing hold of something or forgetting a very important but very minor detail 230 pages into a 461 page book.

Overall, is an outline like mine insanely time consuming? Yes. Will it require you to create a ton of content that (and this is necessary) isn’t even mentioned in your book? Yes. But will your world feel that much more complete? Will you have (as Ron Carlson calls it) more fuel for your story when you create that content? Of course. And when you’re done, will you have enough fuel left over for a collection of short stories set in the same world? Ohhhh, you betcha. Try it out is all I’m saying. I haven’t gotten anything published yet so I’m no guru and there’s a great chance this approach is just a crazy, Louis thing, but if you’re struggling, I hope this helps.

At any rate, I’m going to keep working it. Right now, I’m almost on chapter three. It is, in fact, taking forever. But really, all I ever have to do is compare the old draft to what I already have now and the time and effort are immediately so, so worth it.

A Split in the Road

I remember finishing the second draft of my book. I made the last corrections and was content. My friends and I had a barbeque over it and I was pretty certain I was about to achieve total victory; there was just one edit left–the one where I would spruce up all of the writing and tie up any holes.

Only, the agent I had an eye on wanted books that were about one hundred pages shorter than mine, so major cuts had to happen. But facing that challenge, I didn’t shrink away; I knew immediately what would go. At the time, it just felt like I was being prudent. I looked at parts I’d earmarked for deletion and thought, “These chapters aren’t really important to the story.” “This scene kind of annoyed me.” “I didn’t really think this should have happened anyway.”

And then a friend linked me to a post on Patrick Rothfuss’ blog where he explained his editing process. And from there, things kind of snowballed. I found myself wondering why I was ready to send out something that had multiple nonessential chapters. I realized, really, that a few parts of my own book made me cringe because they were so campy. Most important though, I realized why these things happened: I started writing the book in 2005. Such a long, long time ago. I was 22, I was conceited, and I was a completely different writer with a whole different set of priorities. I remembered wanting things to look good and be fun, never giving enough thought to how original and different everything was. I had the ground work set for something interesting, but then dropped in old cliches because I didn’t know better back then. The result was something I enjoyed, sure-probably something that a lot of people would enjoy-but not something I wanted to submit.

So I told a coworker of mine one morning that I’d completely rewrite War of Exiles only if I could imagine a better, more original version of it’s prologue. I began plotting it out at 6:30 AM. By about 7:20, I knew there was nothing to be done. It was too much better. And there were too many other possibilities-chances to make changes that were too complicated for simple edits.

So, here I am-back to square one. My goal: to finish my “first draft” before 2012.

The Editing Process

Around when his eyes start to sting and his head begins to throb, Louis realizes he misses the writing process and very much prefers it to the editing process. Fondly, he remembers that the former was like this:

-Louis sits down at his computer and rereads the pages he wrote the previous day (or the day before that, or the one before that, etc.).

-He then remembers what he wanted to happen next. He contemplates the next pages, running them through a complex, mental filter.

-He then starts awake and remembers that he decided what he wanted to happen and how best to execute it around when he dozed off.

-Ready now, he starts. With “Then.” Or no-wait. “But then again.” Ah yes. That’s right. “But then again.”

-Satisfied with this start, Louis gets up and locates a snack.

-He returns to find “But then again” and sighs deeply.

-He starts awake again and realizes he needs to brainstorm.

-He lies down on his bed to do so.

In contrast, editing is a far more constant and steady business that is frighteningly portable (like Pokémon), so that it can dominate your life even when you think you’re safe (likePokémon).

And so, Louis squints at the red mess of a particularly bad page and realizes that there are no snacks. There is no “brainstorming” required. There is only the deed, so glaringly simple now (as it is, in fact, simply transcribing corrections from his massive hand edit to his computer).

But then again…