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Jennifer Fallon's Blog
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Viewing By Month : February 2009 / Main
23-Feb-2009
Heath Ledger... a bittersweet accoladeI assume everybody knows, by now, that Heath Ledger won the Best Supoprting Actor Oscar for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight.
I'm so glad he won, and I can't think of an award so richly deserved (except possibly Kate Winslet.'s Best Actress win. about time). What a pity Heath is not here to bask in his well-deserved glory.
22-Feb-2009
Six of Fallon's Many Rules of CharacterisationI'm getting back into lecturing mode, what with all this talk about Master Classes and lovable Rude Buggers... So, I thought this worlth repeating - a summary of my 6 Rules of Characterisation that I wrote up for Voyager Online. Fallon’s Six Rules of Characterisation 1. Have some idea what your character looks like. This is not to say you need a detailed description of every single character in your book. But you do need to know if he’s black, white, brindle or covered in purple polka dots. Are they tall, short, fat or skinny? A person’s physical appearance affects how they see the world and how the world perceives them. A short fat person is unlikely to be performing athletic feats of heroism without it impacting on them somehow (breathless, more prone to injury…?). People who perceive themselves as plain can sometimes resent those considered “beautiful”. Short people can resent others being tall. Tall people (particularly women) are often self-conscious about their height. These are all hang-ups that come with physical appearance and will add depth to you characters. I play a game sometimes, called: “If this was a movie my dream cast would be…” in which I “cast” the major characters if the book like it was a movie. This gives me an idea of who I see the character as being most physically like. I may never describe them the same way in the book (although perceptive readers will find George Clooney and Brak have a great deal in common…hehehe), but in my head, I know, and that’s what really counts. 2. Know your character’s past. Despite being largely formed by a genetic makeup, we are still creatures of our environment. If you don’t know what that environment is, then how will you know what has made your character the way they are? People are moulded by their past, either by being pulled down by it, or by rising above it. If your characters have no past, however, you have nothing to work with. 3. Know your character. 4. When writing from a character’s particular point of view, write in their voice. If you were writing a chapter from the point of view of a child, you probably wouldn’t write… “Pandora cautiously lifted the lid on the valuable antique rosewood chest with it’s intricately inlaid mother-of-pearl and gilt decoupage design (which would have fetched a fortune at Christies), and gasped as all the deadly plagues of the world were unleashed upon humanity.” Design features and consequences come from an adult’s perspective. The child would see a pretty box. You’d probably do something more like this… The latter is a child’s perspective, and if you write your characters using language they wouldn’t use in dialogue, then it doesn’t gel. It is for this reason that I despise “head-hopping” so much. Only a very few, very-skilled practitioners (and I do not claim to be one of them) can do this and maintain characterisation without confusing the reader. 5. Evil is merely a matter of perspective. There is a saying – one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and there was never a truer word spoken. Good people might think they’re good. But bad people, more often than not, think they’re good, too. This is the fatal mistake many would-be writers make writing their “bad guys”. They make them bad for no apparent reason. Or have them rejoice in their “badness”, and people following them (whole populations often) with no apparent goal in sight, other than world domination, just because they can. Being an Evil Overlord just because you like the idea of being an Evil Overlord only works if you’re Mike Myers and planning to clone a Mini-Me. 6. Give your characters shades of grey. My agent brokered a stunningly fantastic advance for one of her (literary) writers last year, and the last I heard, they were into seven figures. (Yes, that’s over a million dollars.) The reason? It’s because, as one enthusiastic publisher gushed, “the characters have so many shades of grey”. To give you an example of what I mean, let me paraphrase the story of The Good Samaritan for a moment. • A good character without shading would stop and help the wounded man lying on the road, for no other reason than he is good and it’s the right thing to do. It’s not the best example, granted, but you get the idea. Heroes are often accidental. In fact, there’s an argument that only a fearful man can be a hero. If you’re not afraid of anything, what is there to overcome? Courage is doing something in spite of your fears, not blazing ahead fearlessly because you’re too stupid to know the danger.
21-Feb-2009
World Building Master Class - What's it all about...Some rude bugger said the other day when I posted the news about the World Building Masterclasses that they weren't willing to pay $150 simply for the pleasure of my company. So... here's the Course Contents. You'll find, Aaron (aka Rude Bugger...hehehe), that the course involves considerably more that just hangin' out with Fallon :) Speculative Fiction Theory
Crafting the Physical Landscape
Building the Sentient Landscape
Building Civilizations
Science & technology
So... that's what you get. See you there, fellow megalomaniacs worldbuilders. You can book through the Ticketek link below.
20-Feb-2009
Damn that shielding...So... Royal Adelaide Hospital rings me yesterday (actually it was a very nice lady named Lisa who called, not, you know, the building) to give me the dates for my radio therapy treatment which starts in a few weeks. After we get the pesky admin details out of the way, Lisa asks if I have any questions. "Well, I'm glad you asked," says I. "What do you suppose the chances are of the radiation machine being hit by lightning while I'm under it?" "Oh, my goodness, no!" Lovely Lisa hurries to assure me. "Our machines out perfectly safe! Besides, they're in the basement. So that would never happen!" "Oh," says I, rather disapointed. "What's the good of that?" "I beg your pardon?" "It's a well-documented fact, you know, that you only get superpowers when lightning hits whatever happens be irradiating you at the time. How am I ever going to a decent superpower, if you've gone and put the damned radiation machine in the basement and shielded the bloody thing from the elements? Sheez!" There is a long silence followed by a small voice... "You know... I don't think we've ever had a patient like you before..." ROFL!
19-Feb-2009
Thursday's Movie Review - Frost/NixonThis week's review for ABC Radio is Frost/Nixon, the story of David Frost's 1977 interview series with disgraced ex-president, Richard Nixon. A brilliantly acted, fascinating slice of history. If you've heard the word "Watergate", you don't know why it's so pervasive, or why they stick "gate" on the end of every political scandal in the western world, this is the film that explains it all.
As the story unfolds, it becomes a battle of wits between the two men. The wily and confident Nixon — collecting a tidy six-figure sum for his time — believes the lightweight celebrity talk-show host will be a pushover, allowing him to dominate the interview and take the discussion where he wants it to go. Frost, on the other hand, is strapped for cash, determined to revive his career and prove himself more than a seventies version of Ryan Seacrest. He's also a lot smarter than people give him credit. Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost) reprise their Broadway roles for the film, a smart move by Director, Ron Howard. The actors are confident in their roles, utterly believable and supported ably by the rest of the cast, which includes Kevin Bacon as Nixon's chief of staff, Jack Brennan, Mathew MacFadyen as Frost's producer, John Birt, and Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell as the journalists, James Zelnick and Bob Reston Jr. Although the last interview is the climax of the film, the story concentrates mostly on Frost's extraordinary battle to keep the project afloat, adamant in his belief that the final product will be well worth the cost. He risked his money and his career to get the interviews, putting up much of the $2m to fund the project himself. If the film is to be believed, he spent as much time trying to secure sponsors as he did preparing for his on-camera battle with Nixon. There are a few historical liberties taken for the sake of dramatic licence – such as introducing Nixon and Frost to each other in the film, when in fact, Frost had interviewed Nixon during his presidential campaign. And there is a pivotal phone call in the film which, although it would have been nice for it to happen…well, it didn't. But despite this, the film is engrossing and surprisingly tense, and well deserving of its five Academy award nominations. I knew how this film would end, but it mattered little. Ron Howard manages to keep the pressure up, building slowly to the final interview about Watergate, on which Nixon's reputation and Frost's ratings winner will ultimately rest. It's a riveting story, told in a semi-documentary style, that over-explains things a little, but then, this film is made for a new generation who don't really get why every time there's a scandal involving a politician, the suffix “gate” is added to it.
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Dead or alive, he utterly deserved the award. What a crying shame such a talent was cut down so prematurely. I'm not the least bit surprised by the win. When I 
Adapted from Peter Morgan's award-winning play, Frost/Nixon is the story of two men trying to prove they're heroes. In one corner is disgraced former President, Richard M Nixon, the only US president to resign from office, hoping to justify his actions and revive his political reputation by presenting his side of the story in a sympathetic fashion. In the other corner is a brash and savvy English TV talk-host, David Frost, certain getting Nixon to confess, apologise, or even admit he might have done something wrong, would be a ratings winner. Backed up by a couple of crack political journalists to take care of his research, Frost interviewed Nixon in 1977 for over 28 hours, extracting some remarkable insight about the ex-president and a hugely profitable series of TV interviews along the way.
