In the book, Will Stanton is a British boy who comes from a loving family. He discovers, on his 11th birthday, that he is one of the Old Ones, servants of the Light, sworn to protect humanity from the Dark. He's inducted into a secret world of magic, steeped in ancient British lore.
As he's drawn deeper into the conflict between the Light and the Dark, his family life starts to form a sort of counterpoint to the magical world, and occasionally almost an anchor. 2/7
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There's one (non-spoilery) scene in particular that's always stuck with me, and that I'm sure was entirely intentional on Cooper's part. Will's learned that a magical artifact he has with him reacts to evil influences in the vicinity by growing cold, and if it feels warm, that's a good sign. One evening in his family's living room, as people prep for Christmas and enjoy each other's company, it winds up feeling actually hot. 3/7
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His parents explain that away as being from him having been near the fireplace, but the import is clear: the loving environment of his family is a good one.
The movie throws that all away.
I understand the movie makers said they wanted to give Will more of an "outsider" feel. They say that's why they made him and his family Americans living in England for some reason. (Dad's job? I forget.) Anyway... suuuuure, we all believe that load of shit. 🙄 4/7
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But that's nothing compared to what they did to his family life. There's no warmth. His older brothers range from dismissing and ostracizing him to outright bullying him. It's a stark and disgusting contrast to the way his brother Paul treats him kindly in the book when he's terrified by a Dark attack.
Aside from that, the magic in the book feels mystical, special, and numinous. In the movie? It's just random comic-book superpowers. The sense of connection to English mythos is totally lost. 5/7
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The movie had not the ghost of an idea of what made the book so special and beloved. It trampled on many things that were at the heart of the story.
It was awful in every way, and not even "so bad it's good"; it was just bad. Honestly, even if you don't know the book, I think it would just feel like a lackluster, formulaic modern fantasy movie with nothing special about it.
But if you do know the book, you can see just how awful a travesty it is. 6/7
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I whole-heartedly recommend the book¹. The movie deserves to be consigned to the pits of anonymity and utterly forgotten.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 14: Is it OK for a book to be purely entertainment, or must it have meaning or a lesson?
I personally like my own works to have some kind of meaning, but I adamantly defend the rights of stories to exist purely for entertainment. Hell, I'll even enjoy reading them! Just because I want to write Thing X doesn't mean I want everything to be like that, and I enjoy reading Things Y and Z.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 15: Do some readers over-interpret your work? Do they get messages you weren't sending?
Nobody's had the chance to yet! 🤣
(Okay, my alpha reader conceivably could've with the few vignettes and the one scene they've read. But if they were inclined to do that kind of thing, I wouldn't trust them as my alpha reader.)
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 16: What would be the best writing-related Solstice present someone could give you?
I haven't the faintest clue.
I don't use things like Scrivener or Grammarly, so a subscription to them wouldn't help me any. Ditto for pens or notebooks; I'm digital-only, as writing by hand makes my hand cramp very quickly and my handwriting is atrocious.
I suppose maybe a good book on writing? But I never seem to finish reading those; I always wind up writing instead…
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 17: Which writing conventions do you ignore, if any?
I've written before in this hashtag (and WordWeavers) about my utter contempt for prescriptive "grammar rules" based on Latin, but I don't think most other writers follow those, either, so I wouldn't grant them the status of "writing conventions" at all.
In that case, I think I'm mostly following conventions. No real boundary-breaking, convention-defying stuff going on in my work. And that's okay.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 18: What are your biggest turnoffs or turn-ons when reading?
One huge turn-off for me is exclamatory comments in the narrative voice. (Of the myriad things that were horrible about Piers Anthony's writing, those were the first one I picked up on.)
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 19: Do any of your stories occur in Winter? What do you take from the season?
My WIP is my first work, and it runs from early spring to mid-autumn. Just to contrast with that, I plan to make sure to have the next one cover winter for at least part of its duration, but I have no idea when it'll start or end, or what will happen.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 20: Is anyone getting a copy of your latest book for Solstice?
No, there's nothing ready to give as a gift.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 21: Disney is making a musical animation of one of your stories. How well does that go?
O_o Wow. That's an... interesting concept. I have no idea. I mean, they'd have to get over the queerness of my story and cast to even start on this, but if I assume they must have done so (according to the parameters of the question), then... I'd be incredibly curious to see what they did with it. 1/3
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Like, could Idina Menzel sing Jessie Nakamura's magical awakening, à la "Let it Go" or "Into the Unknown"? That could be kind of mind-blowing.
Look, I'm a sucker for musicals. I looove the way music can convey emotion, and pairing that with storytelling just hits me in so many places in my psyche. Disney has so very many problems, but... 2/3
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...they're also good at musical storytelling. IF they kept my stuff queer, and also didn't mess with the anti-cop parts, then I'd be willing to see what else they made out of it.
But we all know each of those "if"s is a complete non-starter on its own, and the pair together is beyond imagination. 3/3
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 22: How would you describe the tone of your WIP? Hopeful, dark, funny, emotional etc?
I think it's a juxtaposition of angry and bitter, wonder-filled, and hopeful.
(I was not planning to have anger or bitterness in it, but I'm afraid they will be unavoidable after both Trump's re-election and the past few years of response to Covid.)
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 23: What holiday treat will you enjoy while writing over the holidays?
I've been having sugar cookies as a wintertime treat, and had a little eggnog last night. With rum. (And sadly, just a teeny bit too much nutmeg. But it was seasonal!)
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 24: The elves have granted you one writing wish. What do you wish for?
For my first novel to be a smashing success.
Once that happens, I'm sure I can keep going on the momentum that will start me off with.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 25: Merry Christmas. Are you having a writing-free day or sneaking in a few paragraphs?
I celebrate the Winter Solstice, not Christmas.
Since I have Christmas as a work-free day, I'll be trying to get more writing done than I usually do on workdays (i.e., treating it as a regular weekend day).
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 26: Do real-life events inspire your writing? Share an example.
Not exactly "inspire", but since my WIP is set in the current day, I am keeping track of ways that current events might crop up in my characters' lives. One example is the solar eclipse that happened on April 8th of this year, although it wasn't very noticeable at all in San Francisco.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 27: How consistent are you with your writing? Daily? Weekly? Whenever you get the chance in your already overloaded life?
Pretty much daily, although I occasionally skip a day. According to my progress logs, that's happened 14 times in the past six months: on July 17th, 18th, and 22nd; August 28th; September 4th and the 18th through 21st (when I'd just started my new job and my whole routine was disrupted); October 3rd and 18th; and November 2nd, 26th and 27th. 1/3
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All other days (since June 27th), I've spent at least 10 minutes writing per day, and my average... well, it's one thing if I take the average over that whole time, another if I just look at "since I got employed again". It dropped for a while when I had less time and mental energy left after working. 2/3
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So currently (over the past 90 days) I spend an average of 55 minutes on weekdays and 1:29 on weekends and holidays.
(But the last 30 days, it's 1:04 on weekdays and 1:44 on weekends. I am bringing it up again, now that I've got my routine back together. Just slowly.) 3/3
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 28: Have any resources improved your storytelling skills?
I think the thing that's improved them the most, if anything has, has just been paying attention to stories as I read or watch them, and seeing how they do it. What works, what doesn't... what affects me and gets me caring about the stories and the people.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 29: What are your feelings towards readers?
I've always loved people who read a lot, even before I started trying to become a writer. But I guess that's my feelings toward bibliophiles, as a random person. My feelings toward readers, as a writer? 1/3
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I love 'em even more! I know some people are writing just for themselves, and to be honest, yes, I am doing that to some extent... but I am definitely also writing in the hope that people will read my stories and enjoy them. I am not writing in a vacuum; I'm writing as an act of communication. 2/3
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Without readers, I could complete my story and feel proud of what I'd done, but it would also still feel like the loop hadn't really been closed, like a part of the thing was still slightly incomplete.
It'd feel lonely. 3/3
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 30: Do you like a book that is challenging or just carries you along?
I'm okay either way; they both have their places.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 31: What were the big writing moments for you in 2024?
I don't think there have really been any. I've just been plugging away, keeping on going, but I haven't had any big milestones with it this year.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 1: What are your writing goals for 2025?
Number one: finish my first draft! Good grief, I've been working on background and supporting material for so long...
So, yeah. Finish the first draft. Hopefully in time to be able to let it rest for a month or two and then do at least one editing pass on it. 1/2
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I can't imagine that a mere two drafts would be enough to have it in submittable condition, so I guess setting "submit it for publication" as a goal for 2025 would probably be very foolish. Which truly sucks. I want this thing out there, in the world, so people can enjoy it! 2/2
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 2: Have you ever made up something in a story which has come true in real life?
Not yet, no.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 3: What form do your stories take? Flash, short, novella, novel or other?
Novels. I'm writing vignettes for practice, but they're not really "full stories" in my opinion, they're just snippets or scenes or suchlike.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 4: As a writer, what do you get from social media?
Conversation and maybe even a little bit of community with other writers.
Maybe someday it can also be a channel to advertise or promote myself, but that'd be way premature at this stage.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 5: January can be a dull month (especially in the UK). What’s your worst writing month, and why?
I don't have a general month of the year that's bad. This particular year, November was kind of bad for my writing, but that's because it was a particularly bad month for my mental health in general, due to the awful US election results.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 6: What’s your current writing project? How’s it going?
The urban fantasy novel about people who can talk to the spirit of the City and do magic as a result, the one I've been talking about since I got on Mastodon in the first place.
It's going... far more slowly than I'd like. But it is going.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 7: What are your biggest hopes for the writing world in 2025?
I have a fair amount of hope that it'll continue rejecting attempts to cram AI down everyone's throats. I also hope that smaller publishing houses thrive and prosper.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 8: Do you agree with Samuel Johnson, who said, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money”?
Regardless of who said that or what the context was, no. I disagree with the basic proposition. What kind of grind/hustle-culture bullshit is that? Not everything needs to be monetized.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 9: Do you borrow settings, plots or characters from other works (without plagiarism)?
I'm not borrowing any of those at the moment, but I am borrowing (and slightly tweaking) a particular book from another work. It'll be a noticeable homage to that work, which is set in San Francisco.
And that's all I'm saying about that until it's published.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 10: Do you use dream sequences in your work? How do you feel about them?
Curiously, I've wound up in a situation where, because of some stuff about how magic works, certain characters must be getting prophetic dreams. So I'll need to depict at least 1 or 2 of those on the page, although more can simply be described after the fact. 1/2
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In general, I'm a little wary of dream sequences, as they're easy to do poorly — especially for beginning and less-skilled writers.
I plan to approach mine carefully, and with respect for their difficulties and the ramifications of getting them wrong. 2/2
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 11: Do you write or imagine a backstory for your secondary characters, or do they pop into existence as required?
Absolutely the former. I figure out how old they are, where they're from, what they like to do in their spare time, all that kind of thing.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 12: Do characters use words not in the language you write in? Italics for this, or not?
Nearly all of my characters speak at least two languages. In fact, using a non-native language can be useful in spellcasting in my world, since it forces you to concentrate more on your words.
Also, 3 of my 5 MCs are natively bilingual. 1/2
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My current plan is to use italics when a character speaks a language that is a "second" language for them, but if they speak a language that's native for them, I plan to keep it in Roman lettering. In a sense, italics will mean "a language unfamiliar enough to its speaker that they could use it for spellcasting." I realize the effects will be a bit non-standard, but I think it'll be worth it, and subtle enough not to be jarring for most people. (Editors, OTOH, are a rare and special breed…) 2/2
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 13: What’s your favourite trope? Do you lean into it for your work or shy away?
I don't have single favorite things. But I'll pick one from among the many tropes I like:
Five-Man Band. I'm very much leaning into it for this WIP. And also doing some non-standard things with it.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveManBand (Beware, TV Tropes links can eat your entire day!)
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 14: Are you a pantser or a plotter? Have you always been this way? What brought you here?
I seem to be way more of a plotter at this point, but I'm hoping (and planning, haha) to do some pantsing once I get six chapters into this book.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 15: Would you ever hide your politics to avoid alienating some readers?
No.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 16: How would you describe the way you create your stories to a non-writer?
I sit down at the keyboard and I start telling myself a story. Except that instead of saying it out loud, I type it.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 17: What are your biggest fears for the writing world in 2025?
That it'll get bamboozled into accepting gen AI, either as "this will help us out somehow" (no, it won't, I assure you) or as "well, it's inevitable, so we might as well surrender to it." Nothing's inevitable! At least, not on its own! But it sure becomes inevitable if you just shrug and give up.
I'm not very afraid of this, but... a little. It'd really suck.
[Edit: Added following post. 1/2]
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I see lots of other people are talking about censorship. Yes, I'm worried about that! But I guess I interpreted the question as being about things within the publishing world. Politically-motivated censorship is an external force, so it just didn't enter my thoughts.
But I'm far more worried about that than I am that the writing world will buy into AI.
Also, I'm just now noticing that I took it as "publishing" world, but the prompt clearly says "writing". Oops. 2/2
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 18: Would you serve as a judge for a literary award?
I suspect that would require taking a lot of time to read all the entries. If the award were for novel-length works, I don't think I'd have the time.
[Edited to Add: Also, https://writing.exchange/@orionkidder/113847602997228638 makes a very good point that I wish I'd also thought of.]
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 19: Did you find a way through the maze of traditional publishing to get your book published? What’s your secret?
I haven't got anything ready to publish yet.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 20: Do any of your stories take place on the sea? In what way?
No, not yet. And the various story ideas I have percolating in my head for the future don't include any maritime concepts either.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 21: What differences do you find in your process if you write both short and long-form?
I only write long form.
Unless you count these vignettes... in which case, I still don't see any real difference in my process. I figure out a good foundation and starting point for it, get my base ready, and then start going according to plan.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 22: What prompted you to begin writing?
The confluence of two things:
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 23: Do you think it’s vital for a fiction writer to have empathy?
Yes. At least, they should have empathy for their characters. But I think building the characters requires at least a little bit of understanding of other people.
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 24: How long is the longest story you’ve ever written? Can you link to it?
So far, my longest vignette is "A Day in the Life: David Hartmann ('Good Day' version)", at 10,846 words. It's not in a place where it can be linked to, and that's deliberate. It's internal, background material. I might make it public someday, after publishing the novel, but that's still a "maybe".
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 25: Do you have a worked-out magical system (or advanced technology in sci-fi)? Or do you make it up as you go?
It's not like, Brandon Sanderson levels of "worked out"; it has what I call "room for jazz" in it. I'm very much making sure that in my magic system, there's more than one way to do most things, and there's not just improvisation but hopefully also enough mystery to produce a little wonder. 1/2
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But yes, the general bones of it are worked out; I can tell you many of the spells that exist, and what sorts of things are normally used to cast them, and so on. 2/2
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[#]WritersCoffeeClub Day 26: If people tell you they’ve always wanted to write, what do you say to them?
Go for it! It's not something that takes a lot of start-up capital or a big investment. All you need to put in is time and energy, and some of your heart. I encourage you to go for it!
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@kagan That’s a good one!
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@LuciaG Thanks! I see you mentioned Found Family in your own answer, and that's another one I love (and am using in my WIP).
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@kagan I think they go together really well, the five man band, rag tag bunch of misfits that turn into found family. Edit to fix typo.
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@LuciaG Oh yes, that's definitely a fun combo! Not quite what's going on in mine (the Five-Man Band isn't really a ragtag group, and mostly not really misfits; also the Found Family stuff is happening in multiple ways, only one of which is within the FMB), but definitely something I like.
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@kagan censorship has never prevented people to write, it prevents them to be published
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@kagan If they use a non-native language for spell-casting, how do they make sure their spells have the intended meaning?
For example: I know of a company that tried to translate their German marketing slogan “Kleben ist besser als Schrauben.” into English. The result was quite funny and definitely not appropriate as a marketing slogan.
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@sabineemden A few things:
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@sabineemden
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@sabineemden
Hmmm, which could lead to some interesting humor if a native (or just better) speaker of that language is within earshot. "Wait, you said *what‽" Thank you, I'm going to have to see if I can do something with that! 😄 3/3
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@kagan I get your points. Thanks for the explanation!
I choose my words more carefully in English than in my native German. Sometimes my use of the English language may even be more precise than a native speaker’s because I learned it based more on rules than immersion. I also often look up words to check if I got the meaning right.
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@kagan For me, my native German goes deeper than English, which I learned in school. If I want to do some soul searching like journaling, I’ll do that in German. And for talking to the Divine - for me, that’s Christian prayer - I also prefer German, at least for personal conversations. Group conversations, i.e. Sunday worship, are fine in English.
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@sabineemden I don't have a reply to these two posts, but thank you for telling me these things. I think they're a sort of "alternate viewpoint" to what I'm doing, and I'm going to keep them in mind.
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