Plot Twist: Interesting Times Ahead!

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

I realise this is my--and our--last post of 2024. It's been a challenging year and the Unknown that we're stepping into looks more 'interesting' (as in 'May you live in interesting times') than hopeful.

After wrapping up the year's projects, I took a few days offline for a retreat with my old 'mentors' in the arts; revisting books (on paper) that were my guides and companions in the pre-social media days.
In particular, I revisited these four old friends.

Actually, I challenged myself that if I couldn't find two relevant lessons in a book, it would go to the library donation shelf...

(spoiler: they all stayed)

1. Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit
Along with Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, this book has fed me for years. And yes, I still do my Morning Pages!

Twyla Lesson 1:
'Find the spine' I need to apply this not just to what I write but everything I do. Too often I get lost in the middle of a project or practice because I've forgotten (or never figured out) why I'm working on it.
Twyla Lesson 2:
"Never have a favorite weapon" – a quote from Miyamoto Musashi. I know she's talking about practice and techniques, but I need to apply this one literally too!

2. Stephen Hough's Rough Ideas
A distinguished pianist and composer who's performed in Singapore several times, Hough’s notes and reflections are funny and relevant and always spark fascinating questions.

Stephen Hough Lesson 1:
'Is there too much music?'
He asks us to consider if we use music as disposable noise to cover embarrassing silences in our lives.
For me the question is; do I swallow too many words? Do I read to escape the discomfort of being around people instead of trying to see and understand them? Yes, I know I do.
Also, his warning that 'the constant nibblings on snacks spoils your appetite for the main dish' applies to my reading and scrolling as much as to synthetic elevator music. This question was partly what made me decide to try an abstenance fast from casual reading on social media etc for ten days.

Stephen Hough Lesson 2:
Don’t always set deadlines (something I always tend to do--I 'need' my deadlines and quotas because I'm afraid that without them I'll just scramble happily down rabbit holes—which is exactly what Stephen Hough suggests we do occasionally;
'Allow time to experiment, explore dead ends, and make mistakes'
Okay, I will try...

3. Stewart Gordon's Mastering The Art of Performance: A Primer for Musicians
This is an old book but still feels relevant. Sometimes I miss the adrenalin charge, energy and camaraderie of live stage performances, but as writers, our 'performances' on paper last well beyond the moment of creation--and they are 'performances' presented to readers.

Stewart Gordon Lesson 1:
Everything in life is preparation for the next performance--you are either preparing well or preparing badly.
This is even more true of writing!

Stewart Gordon Lesson 2:
To avoid getting stuck (or to get unstuck) take windows of time--from 5 minutes to an hour--to observe your thoughts and reflect on your current project.
And yes, I'm going to to try to remember to do that!

4. Jonathan Burrows' A Choreographer's Handbook
The final book was a gold mine for the untrained wannabe playwright I was when I found it. It showed me how to move beyond dialogue between talking heads to using the space between bodies to create their stories.
Jonathan Burrows Lesson 1:
"the audience wants to see something they haven't seen before, but they want to recognize it when they do."

This is so exactly what mystery genre readers (well me, at least) look for too, isn't it? And if it sounds impossible, his example of a newborn baby reminds me what to aim for when gestating every newborn book!

Jonathan Burrows Lesson 2:
It's the connections between dancers that make the magic. It reminds me every character is dancing their own storyline and I need to recognise their connection points--even if only with their past or future selves.


But there's also the larger question of why am I trying to write instead of freaking out at what's happening in the world today?
Because think about what happened in our world in 2024?

In Myanmar, almost 20,000 people died this year. Foreign domestic helpers I've spoken to here haven't been home for years, because their families tell them it's 'not safe' to come home.

We might feel the Arab-Israeli conflict has been going on forever (since 1948) but this year almost 30,000 people died--many of them men, women, children who've died without ever knowing what it's like not to live under threat of war.

In Ukraine, over 72,000 people died this year. And there's Burkina Faso, the JNIM-ISGS conflict, civil war in Sudan...

How can we live, oblivious, in a world where all this is going on?

But going mad would only add to the chaos, so do what you can to stay sane.
We may not be able to right every wrong, but we can start small. History suggests that's how most great things started!

Can you maybe start by making something in your own life a little better this year?

I'm afraid of 'just going with the flow' because knowing myself I'll likely end up mindlessly eating ice cream while scrolling media.
So... it's time for dreams, plans and schedules again...

I got these from the Jovial.Co at Bras Basah Complex.

No reason why propelling myself closer to the self I want to be shouldn't come with pretty stationery!

In 2025 I'll use these to schedule in regular reading time.

And I've always wished I'd not lost my school-learned Chinese and could read Chinese. So I'm going to try reading Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem this year (with the help of the Pleco dictionary app)!

I might not make it, but the books are here and I'm going to try!

And finally, I'd like to end with a kopitiam motto.

In Chinese the phrases on these cups says 'Know how you like to drink...' and 'Then drink that way,'

Here’s to Surviving 2025 Everyone!

May we all keep hoping, striving and smiling whatever these 'interesting times' throw our way!

The Boy from Shopton

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

Last week was the 5th anniversary of my father's death, so I thought I would re-post this tribute to him. Miss you, always, Grady.

Until four years ago, Father’s Day was one of my favorite days of the year. My late dad, Grady Thomas, never really liked a fuss, but on Father’s Day, as far as I was concerned, he just had to put up with it. 

 

My dad, the audiologist, monitoring me, which he never did in life.

 

I didn’t get to spend as many of those holidays with him as I wish I had, but I’ll always be grateful I was able to take him out to lunch on Father’s Day the year before he passed away, when these pictures were taken. 

 

Father's Day lunch

Now, the day is bittersweet. I miss his advice, I miss his wit, I miss the smell of Sir Walter Raleigh pipe smoke curling through every room in the house. 

 

This is the look I got when I mentioned one of my hare-brained schemes.

 

My Dad was a natural athlete and a great singer. He was even part of a traveling quartet called the “Gospeleers.” He loved liver and onions. And thunderstorms. 

 

High school football. But baseball was really his game.

 

One of my most vivid memories is sitting on his lap on our screened in porch and hearing the suck of his pipe between claps of thunder. He was never without his pipe, even in his last days, where he snuck out of his medical facility so he could smoke in the parking lot with my brother and sister.

 

Dad with pipe, 1960s

Dad with pipe, 2019

I keep one of those pipes on my desk and wear the silver bracelets engraved with Lost Luggage and Drowned Under he and my step-mother gave me when I published my first two books. 

 

You'll never find me at a reading without these

In many ways, I take after him. I have his squinty eyes, his passion for music, movies, and driving, his need for regular bouts of solitude, and a penchant for “pantsing,” in work and in life.

 

Off to rent Sargent York or Patton, AGAIN

 

One of the last conversations I ever had with him was about fate and opportunity. He grew up the youngest of six on a farm outside Charlotte, N.C., with no running water or electricity, but complete with an outhouse (as a child, he was famous for locking neighbors in and making them sing to get out...). He told me that the whole trajectory of his life, which he thought he would spend as a minor league baseball player or a mechanic, came down to his willingness to veer off course and say yes to random opportunities. 

 

 

This is a kid who would lock someone in an outhouse

I loved how he—the scientist that he was—saw the patterns of the last eighty years which had led him from that outhouse not only to the first college degree in his family, but to a PhD.

 

As kids, we don’t always know about our parents’ accomplishments. And Dad was never one to brag about what he was doing. I don’t think I appreciated the full picture until I was well into my forties. Among other things, he was the first clinical audiologist in the state of North Carolina and became the Head of the Speech and Hearing Department at the UNC Medical Center. He was Chairman of the Medical Advisory Council for OSHA, and his expertise on  the vestibular system led to frequent work with NASA investigating causes of space sickness. He worked in diving medicine as well, and is listed in Who’s Who in American Science.

 

I did know, however, that he was a generous, hilarious, tolerant, and kind man, and that’s what I remember, more than any accolades.  

 

 

Always cracking me up

He was great at the “Dad” stuff. He sat by my bed when I was sick, taught me to ride a bike and to drive, bought me my first transistor radio and my first album—The Monkees’ Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, and Jones, Ltd. But more than that, he always encouraged me to be independent and to do what I loved. When I decided I wanted to play the guitar, he got me my first inexpensive one, then told me he’d pay for half of the serious, Guild G-37 I really wanted, if I worked for the rest. After I did three hundred hours of babysitting (!), he kept that promise. 

 

Only a great dad would involve himself in this nonsense

 

And when I got my first paying gig at 15, at a pizza joint that served beer, my mother said I was going to hell. Dad came and ran the soundboard. He was like that for my whole life, no matter what I got up to.

 

Before he died, I’d encouraged him to write down at least some of his experiences growing up and, although it is unfinished, the few pages of his memoir, The Boy from Shopton, are precious to me and say a lot about him, and a lot about my grandparents as well. There were a few things I didn’t know, like this.

 

For a while, his nickname was "Flash"

 

“In order to get the job at the A&P, I had to have a Social Security Card. I went to the Records Dept. in Charlotte to get a copy of my birth certificate, but they could not find it. They had a Richard Grady Thomas with the correct parents and birthday, but no William Grady Thomas. As I have indicated earlier, I was born at home. My mother gave our family doctor, Dr. Richard Querry, the name she wanted on the birth certificate. Dr. Querry told my mother that he was going to name this boy after himself. Of course, mother thought he was kidding, but for the first twelve years of my life I was Richard Grady Thomas. It was terribly expensive to have my birth certificate changed, a whopping 50 cents.”

 

And this story says so much:

 

“In March of my sophomore year in high school I turned 16 years of age. My brother-in-law, Hudie Moser, took me to the Driver's License Bureau and I got my driver's license on my birthday. That evening I took the family car out to visit some friends. Neither my mother nor my father asked where I was going or when I would be back. I knew to stay out of trouble and when to return home. As indicated previously, my mother and father tended to teach by example instead of threats.”

 

Last time I saw my Dad, still cracking me up

 

My Dad was the same. He trusted us to follow his example, and that has made all the difference. Families are complicated and these kinds of holidays can bring up feelings we might not welcome or that we stuff down most of the year. Thankfully for me, I’m happy to remember Grady anytime. 

 

--Wendall

EVIL GENIUS

 Wendall--every other Thursday

A lot of my screenwriting students struggle with creating antagonists, so I’ve spent time lately ruminating on some classic movie villains, to see what they have in common and what separates them. My conclusion is that most of them fall into one of three categories. 

 

The first type of film villain exudes a pure, almost cartoonish evil—think Margaret Hamilton’s Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight, Will Farrell’s Mugatu in Zoolander, Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Dan Ackroyd’s Grocer in Grosse Pointe Blank, Faye Dunaway’s Diana in Network, or Javier Bardem’s Anton in No Country for Old Men. They are all in their way grotesques and caricatures, but potent ones.

 

Who wasn't afraid of The Wicked Witch of the West?

The hair flip! The sneer!

 

These characters represent the darkest part of the Id—the part the Superego is supposed to control. Even though these characters are often written as over the top, this does not diminish their ability to be terrifying or to harm the protagonist. They will use anything to achieve their own ends.

 

The late Heath Ledger owns "over the top."

 

The other crucial aspect of the “cartoon” villains is that they are seeking to destroy the existing status quo and creating a new one in which they are more powerful/relevant/rewarded. 

 

Faye Dunaway won't stop until she runs the Network.

 

The second kind of villain represents authority and order gone mad. These villains are made of a colder evil and their goal is the opposite of the “cartoon” villain’s–-they are obsessed with maintaining the status quo and protecting their personal power.

 

Examples of this type include Louise Fletcher’s Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith in The Matrix, Tommy Lee Jones’s Federal Marshal in The Fugitive, John Huston’s Noah Cross in Chinatown, Tilda Swinton’s executive in Michael Clayton, Bill Nighy’s Sir Bernard Pellingham in The Constant Gardener, James Cromwell’s LAPD Captain in LA Confidential, James Mason’s Kincannon in The Verdict, or Michael Shannon’s Strickland in The Shape of Water. This kind of villain also appears in comedies, in characters like James Atherton’s EPA agent in Ghostbusters or the millionaire brothers in Trading Places.

 

Least nurturing nurse, ever.

 

He doesn't care.

These villains are particularly dangerous, because they are usually in positions of power and can manipulate both the protagonist and those around them. They are part of the system and they understand how it works. So it’s much more difficult to fight this kind of cold evil, and, in the case of Cuckoo’s Nest, Chinatown, and The Constant Gardener, the authoritarian villain succeeds in thwarting (or destroying) the protagonist.

 

Money always wins.

 

The interesting thing I found in watching all these films is that the best “cartoon” and “authoritarian” villains usually only appear five or six times. Otherwise, they can overwhelm the story.  Perhaps we are worried about what they’re up to when they’re off screen?

 

However, the third type of villain, the “mentor antagonist,” is more ever-present.

 

"Greed is good."

 

Examples of these kind of antagonists include Michael Douglas’s Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, Denzel Washington’s Alonzo in Training Day, Jack Nicholson’s crime boss in The Departed, Judi Dench's school teacher in Notes on a Scandal, and to some extent Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, though he has cartoon elements as well. 

 

Keeping Ethan Hawke off balance.

 

These mentor/antagonists can also operate to great effect in comedies, with characters like Shirley MacLaine's mother in Postcards From the Edge, or Meryl Streep's magazine editor in The Devil Wears Prada. 

 

Shirley MacLaine's actress mother is the quintessential mentor/antagonist.

 

In each case, the antagonist is initially someone the protagonist admires or they represent something the protagonist wants. Often the main character approaches the mentor, as in the case of Charlie Sheen’s Bud in Wall Street, Jodie Foster’s Clarice in The Silence of the Lambs, or Ann Hathaway’s Andie in The Devil Wears Prada.  

 

In my opinion, there is a consistent pattern of encounters in these stories. The initial “meet” involves humiliation—the antagonist verbally insults the protagonist and accuses them of being either silly, inadequate, or not worthy to even approach the ‘throne.’  But the insults are soon followed by praise or a vote of confidence and this dynamic alternates early in the story, constantly keeping the protagonist off balance. There’s usually a “honeymoon period” before the antagonist’s true agenda is revealed at the midpoint. 

 

The boss from hell.

 

This mentor relationship also involves at least one moment of vulnerability, where the protagonist sees the antagonist at a disadvantage or in a powerless position, which complicates the moral choices to follow.

 

Ultimately, though, the protagonist must either leave or betray the mentor relationship in order for them to complete their rite of passage.

 

These kinds of villains are more complex to write, but they are also the ones who most frequently win Oscars, so they are worth serious study.

 

 

 

I’d love your views on whether these categories apply to crime fiction as well.

 

--Wendall

"MY BACK PAGES" Part One

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

As I was reorganizing some books and papers (i.e. moving them from one place to another, until I need that space and I move them back...) I came across some photos, including the one below. They made me think about my teaching life and how it has affected my writing life. 

  

My first teaching job

 

As an undergraduate, I was lucky enough to study with two accomplished, working novelists—Doris Betts and Lee Smith. I was particularly close to Doris. 

 

 

My professor and mentor at UNC, Doris Betts

She was the first person I knew who made a happy writing life seem possible. Although she never finished college, she still received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a full Professorship and Emerita status at UNC. Her many writing awards and nominations (The National Book Award, the John Dos Passos Award, etc.) included an Oscar for the short film “Violet,” based on one of the stories from her collection Beasts of the Southern Wild.

 

She was by far the most well-read person I’ve ever met—I’m still working through the mimeographed list of books she considered “necessary for life”— managed a happy, sixty year marriage, was tough as nails on a manuscript but always had time for a chat, had a great, raucous laugh, smoked unapologetically, and wrote me the kindest recommendation I’ve ever received. Although she passed in 2012, no matter what I write, I’m always wondering what Doris would make of it.

 

Seriously good stories.

 

So I never took the old adage, “Those who can’t, teach,” seriously.

 

Until I became a teacher—a profession that chose me, rather than the other way around.

 

In 1981, I became the first single woman in her twenties to teach at the (then) all-male Deerfield Academy in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts—Jeff’s old stomping ground. I didn’t apply for the job. My friend Philip Galanes (some of you may recognize the name from his etiquette column in the New York Times) felt the school needed female teachers and wrote the Dean of Faculty at his alma mater without telling me.

 

Initially, I thought the invitation to fly up for an interview was a prank—until I received a plane ticket. I didn’t even have a resume and had to borrow outfits from my stepmother, since my university attire was jeans only. I treated the trip as a bit of a lark, since I didn’t want the job and I couldn’t imagine that, once they met me, they would want me either.

 

So, I was absolutely stunned to get an offer. It wasn’t what I’d planned for myself (I wanted to work in the music business), but I figured so many stars had to align for this to happen, it had to be fate. Somehow I was supposed to be there. I said yes.

 

So, while most of my friends headed to law or medical school or to burn up the NYC nightlife as junior bankers, at twenty-two, I moved in as the “dorm master” for a dozen seventeen year old boys.

 

Me and my first year of "dorm charges" on top of my two-toned, bumper-less 1970 VW Bug

It’s hard to contemplate now the extent to which I didn’t know what I was doing. Not only had I never taught before (imagine discussing The Scarlet Letter or explaining gerunds to this crowd), I had no concept of the responsibility involved in being in loco parentis for real. If anything happened to the students, if they became ill, if they hurt themselves while sneaking out to drink (which they always did), or if there were a fire, it was on me. Nothing will age you faster than running a fire drill for three floors of adolescent boys. 

 

At 22, I disguised myself as a 55 year old, full-on schoolmarm. What choice did I have?

 

In addition to my teaching and dorm responsibilities, they insisted I coach skiing. Apparently it didn’t matter that I had never skiied. This travesty consisted mainly of my low-level team yelling from the lift, “Plant your poles, Miss T, plant your poles!”

For six nights a week, I also served as head of a dining table for nine students. There, I was expected to carve, and equally distribute, whole roast beefs, whole chickens, and my bete noir, angel food cake. There was a collective moan when, on my first try with a knife, I collapsed the whole cake. My favorite student came to my rescue, explaining it was better to cut the pieces with two forks. 

 

Imagine all of these tables full of nine boys and one faculty member each...

 

I will never forget him. He first came to my attention when his name tag read “Trout Almondine.” He changed it every day, based on the nightly special at the Deerfield Inn. Another one of my students actually listened to me when I taught On the Road and ran away to Denver. 

 

Deerfield was so small, my post office box number was 3. . .

 

As a prep school teacher there, and later at The Hotchkiss School, I had absolutely no time to write. I worried that I wasn’t committed enough or didn’t have the talent to carve out time for myself. But years later, I wrote a script about that time in my life called Lunatic Lit which got me an agent.

 

So, like my teaching experiences in Australia, it lead me to more than few stories. I have been teaching now, on and off, for forty-two years, and I still find it challenging to juggle my schedule and especially—since I teach screenwriting—to save enough creative energy for my own work. Whether I “can” is not for me to judge, but I guess for me, “Those who teach, try.”   

 

With some of my wonderful students in Brisbane, in slightly more casual environments!

 

Looking back, if I may quote Mr. Dylan, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

 

---Wendall