hodge podge: Star Trek; horror movies where everyone dies; and writing books that readers want to live in

We saw Star Trek last night, and loved it. I have no storytelling peeves, like I had after seeing Wolverine last week. Though I watched the original Star Trek in syndication, it's been a long time and I never watched any of the spin-offs; I don't remember too much about the show, but it was still fun to see the reimagining of the characters. Simon Pegg was great as Scotty, and who'd have guessed that Karl Urban (Eomer the "horse lord," Eowyn's brother from LOTR) would make such a perfect Bones? But the movie really belonged to Kirk and Spock, who were both awesome. And Eric Bana as the creepy Romulan!? I'd never have recognized him.

Jim pointed out that the writers did something brilliant, which was: (this is not a spoiler) by introducing some fancy fantasy-physics (i.e. time warps), they completely rebooted the story. That is, they do not now, in sequels, have to adhere to the timeline as established by the TV show or the other movies. They're free. Isn't that great? Unlike in Wolverine (which, admittedly, could not have resorted to time warps), they don't have to be careful not to ruffle the flow of events. It's been ruffled and reshuffled. They can do whatever they want now. Awesome.

So, no storytelling peeves there, but I do have an unrelated movie peeve, and it's this: what's up with horror movies where everyone dies at the end? Jim and I like horror movies. Not slashery gorefests (things like Saw, we refer to as "torture porn" and do not watch), but scary movies. But we've now counted four recent ones in which no one survives. What is UP with that? It's so unsatisfying! Can you imagine reading a book where everyone is dead at the end? Have you read a book like that? I can't think of any. I feel like that would be a tremendous violation of the "pact" between reader and writer, which is perhaps more sacred than that between movie-maker and movie-watcher. Do you think? Do you think that because the link between a reader and a character is so powerful, you know, the way we consent to "become" that character while we're reading, that to kill the character off in a book would be worse than to do it in a movie? I don't know, but I'd be pissed if that happened in a book. If you can think of any, let me know. I've listed the movies I'm talking about at the bottom of the post (the last two are crazy scary and would be awesome if not for the "everyone dies" factor), but if you haven't seen them and plan to, this will spoil the ending for you, so beware.

So, off the topic of movies. I am giving a talk tomorrow evening to the Writing for Children class at the University of Washington. I'm excited! What I'm going to talk to them about is: writing books that readers want to live in; writing characters readers want to be. I'm not saying I've nailed this in my own writing, but it's what I'm chasing. It's my goal. The kind of book I hope to write is the kind readers want to climb right inside of. When I find a book like that, I spend a little time trying to figure out just how the author did it.

I do believe the essential "secret" of Harry Potter's success is that J.K. Rowling did this so well. I mean, there are a lot of elements that go into it, it's no one easy-to-define thing, but I think that's the fundamental magic it's got: it makes us yearn to really be there, sitting in Professor McGonegal's class learning to transfigure things, or putting on the Sorting Hat and seeing what house we'd end up in, or whatever. You know? Same with Twilight: it taps a basic fantasy in a very direct and deft way: the fantasy of being the ordinary girl who becomes the object of sublime love of an extraordinary boy.

I think it's the secret of Pride and Prejudice's enduring success too. These books make us long to live in them. They're the ones we reread multiple times, write fan fiction of, etc. They distill the quintessence of "escapsism" -- and when I use that word, I do not mean it in a negative way at all (I wrote more about escapism way back HERE, along with pre-pink-hair pictures!). In my opinion, as a lover of fantasy and romance, escapism is just about the highest level of magic in reading -- the ability of the writer to enchant a reader right out of the world they actually live in, to essentially remove them from their own body, their own reality, and entice them into a world of your own creation, and make them wish they could stay there? That's . . . wow. You know? So, viva la escapism. How to do it as perfectly as possible? That's my question.

Anyway, that's what my talk is about, and today I'm refining it, seeing if I can put it into better words, if I can figure out any "secrets" along the way :-)

Oh, and since I've mentioned Pride and Prejudice and of horror movies in one post, it's only right to show you what books I bought last night at Powell's:
tee hee. The middle one? I didn't think I was going to buy this, but . . . I did. What can I say? As for the others, neither are new, but I've been meaning to read both forever. Since Adam Rex is going to be at the SCBWI conference next weekend, it's time to finally read Smekday. Looking forward to it!

*
*
*
Now, horror movies where everyone dies at the end:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Cloverfield
The Ruins
The Descent
Quarantine

(Any others? Someone pointed out to me that Dawn of the Dead fits this category, but I don't really remember. Blair Witch, I think, kicked off the trend in the movies above, two of which also use the hand-held camera trick, in which the camera is the only testament to events left at the end because everyone is dead. Phleh.)