Daily Archives: June 1, 2010

Revisiting the Year 1991…and the process of historical writing

Writing, , , , , , , ,

For those that don’t know, I am currently writing a novel that takes place in 1991. This is the first time I’ve ever written an historical novel, covering a specific time. It also includes important people who were living and interacting during this particular time, so unlike fictional worlds I have built before, this is a world that already exists, and because of that I have to get it right.

This has caused me to start doing extensive research about this time, and what I’m finding is how fascinating it is to go back only a few years and see what life was like during that time. When you’re writing a novel that takes place in Ancient Greece (The Ameriad), the near future (Rumors of War) or the far-off future (Destiny), you pretty much get to create your own world. Granted, those worlds have a bit of connection to specific events and experiences, but for the most part, you really do get to develop whatever you want for those time periods because no one around today really has a clue what those worlds were like, or will be like. It’s a best guess situation for everyone.

But 1991 was only a few decades ago. I lived through it, and a lot of other people lived through it as well. So, this is a period of time that has critics who can honestly sit back and say, “um, no, that’s not what it was like.” This means I’m having to do extensive research that I don’t think I’ve ever had to do before.

And its enriching. Because it’s not just about the place that existed 20 years ago. It’s also about a set of experiences and nuances that seem almost like an alternative reality, because I’m creating a world that already exists, and not only do I have to get it right, but I have to also give a perspective that makes the reader want to explore it with me and my characters.

But I’m finding fascinating little things that I’d completely forgotten about. Sure, I knew about the first Gulf War. Believe me. I know about it. But at the same time, I kind of forgot that this is when a bunch of cops beat up Rodney King. It was also the time that the greatest boxer of his time Mike Tyson was accused of raping a woman before being tried for the crime. It was also, and this one just shocks the crap out of me, when an obscure announcement was made by Tim Berners-Lee about this little thing called a “World Wide Web”. The realization of that alone just hit me out of nowhere because during this time, there was no real Internet yet. It was coming along really fast, but we weren’t there yet, and this guy made this announcement, and people blew him off because it had no specific substance in their lives to make them think it was ever going to be of interest to them. Now, there are people who are living their lives never having NOT known about the Internet and the World Wide Web. To them, it’s always been around. But in 1991, it was just a casual mention of something that might be coming soon.

That’s what makes this kind of research really fascinating because once I’m finally done with all of this, I have to then create a series of characters who live in that world and don’t have the knowledge of what we know now. To do this, I have to constantly avoid being the all-knowing narrator or the bad writer who puts little quips into his characters’ mouths where they start projecting their beliefs of a future that has already come along in today’s world because most people don’t have the ability to predict things on a global level to realize that their entire paradigms are about to be shifted right under their noses.

Such realizations are making the writing of this novel, 72 Hours in August, so much fun to plan. In the very near future, I will be writing it, and let’s just say that I’m looking forward to it.

The Hurt Locker…an interesting peek into the abyss and shopping for cereal

Movies, Television, , , ,

I finally got a chance to watch Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker over the weekend. It was interesting to see a movie that covers the military in a way that doesn’t seem like it’s a miltary advertisement (I’m looking at you Transformers 2) or a condemnation (I’m looking at pretty much every Iraqi movie that’s been made so far).

The story is pretty simple. It’s about an EOD specialist whose main job is to defuse bombs. His team works as back-up to him, and the movie follows the events he and his team experience during a rotation in Iraq.

What really stuck out to me was the “team” emphasis the movie explores. This is one of those nuances that happen within the Army involving specialized groups, specifically those with a set mission that rarely can be handled by a regular unit. The main character is a former Ranger, and his team consists of a former mission intelligence sergeant and a specialist-ranked noobie who is pretty much learning his place in the greater scheme of things. I think it covered the specialized nature of the team very well, and it was interesting to see it carried out on film where there was little attempt to glorify it or diminish it with some stupidity (like Platoon, which while it was a decent film ended up focusing on dysfunction rather than function).

One thing that really hit me hard with this movie is a very soft scene after a return to the U.S. when the character is asked by his wife Kate (or whatever her name was…she was played by Evangeline Lilly, the woman who plays Kate in LOST, and she was honestly the only actor in the entire movie I recognized) to find a box of cereal in a supermarket where they’re shopping. This man who is so perfect in a world where it may end at a moment’s notice with people all around him who might be trying to kill him, stands in front of the entire aisle of boxes of cereal and can’t move because he’s overwhelmed by the choices in front of him. This is the sort of person who spends his every moment deciding between green and blue wires (the Hollywood equivalent of a bomb defusion choice, which THANK YOU was not an issue ONCE in this very well done movie), and he was unable to choose a simple box of cereal. That one moment brought the reality of this fictionalized world home for me, and I’ve never seen it done so well.

In the end, I think the movie is deserving of the awards is received. Granted, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that it was up against a lot of dismal films that year, which is becoming more of a norm than an exception. Even though that was the year of Avatar, a very visual film, at least the Academy recognized that that was ALL it had going for it.

The acting was done well, and the writing was what should be expected from a Hollywood film of this magnitude. Strangely enough, I had trouble finding any acknowledgement of the writing from the closing credits, although it might have flown by me and I didn’t realize it. I was looking for it, however, and was somewhat annoyed that everyone else and his brother was acknowledged, but the writing didn’t seem to be all that important to the makers of the credits.