Wednesday, February 11: Tune It Or Die!
I’LL ASK THE QUESTIONS
by Rob Lopresti
Instead of my usual dispensing of wisdom, I decided this week to ask you fine folks to enlighten me. Perhaps you would be so kind as to answer one or more of these questions in the comments space.
Follow that trailer
A friend of mine has a novel coming out and, for various reasons, she needs to create a trailer for it. You all know what a movie trailer is: the coming attractions that kill fifteen minutes of your life before the film starts. Well, some people have started creating them for books. Go to Youtube and type in “Book trailer” and you’ll see what I mean.
The problem is, my friend thinks and I agree, that most book trailers are awful. She says it is because movie trailers can use images from the movie but books contain words, not images.
I say it’s because they tend to be too Lord Privy Seal. This is a bit of British slang, referring to a comedy sketch by David Frost in which a fictional news story about that government official was accompanied by, each time his title was mentioned, quick shots of a lord, an outhouse, and a circus seal. So to say a video is Lord Privy Seal is to say the images follow the words a little too literally.
So here is my first question for you: Can you name some book trailers you think are well done? If so, what do you like about them?
Watch your language
The next question is mostly for the writers out there. What happens in real life that is too bizarre or unbelievable or just silly to put in fiction?
I was thinking recently about some things I have heard people who are not native English speakers say. In real life these comments struck me as hilarious. In a short story I think they would look contrived.
For instance, in college I had a sociology professor who was a Spaniard and he used to come up with the occasional wonderful garbled expression. Describing a situation of chaos he said “Everything up is for grabs!” It certainly is.
A Frenchman, apologizing for the behavior of his teenage daughter, told me “She is very unforeseen.” He meant unpredictable, but don’t you like his version better?
And the Israeli archaeologist who supervised the dig where I volunteered this summer was delighted to find a seal carved from “half-expensive stone.” Or perhaps semi-precious.
I have no right to criticize these people, suffering from paralytic monolingualism as I do. But can you use lines like these in fiction, even comic fiction, without the reader rolling his eyes?
It reminds me of the time Emperor Hirohito visited Disneyland. The only thing he was heard to say was “Ah so.”
The New York TImes refused to print it for fear that people would think they were making it up.
What comes after the title?
Based on the number of reader comments we have received the week-long discussion of titles organized by Paul and James has been very popular. So the natural question is: what subject would you like us to cover in another round robin? Any suggestions?
Another thread from the web
I’ve been remiss about doing these lately, but I came across a really clever search engine I want to tell you about. I have mentioned Clusty.com, a clustering search engine. Quintera.com takes the clustering idea one step further by combining it with tag clouds.
Don’t worry if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Just think of a relatively complicated subject you would like to look up on the web. (Not “mystery” but “cozy mystery titles”) Go to Quintera and type it in, without the quotation marks. Then let the magic of the tag cloud sort the web for you.
Can’t help with the trailers (don’t like ’em) but thanks for the laughs and pointing out Quintera – a helpful site.
What comes next?
I’d like to see some comments on where to start the story.
I’ve never seen a book trailer and life’s too short to start now. As for those funny ESL lines, I think you could use them in fiction, but you’d have to establish the speaking pattern of the character to make them believable. It would be a challenge, but done well, it could be great.
Desi Arnaz really did have a sign in his office saying “English Broken Here.” As for topics, I’m a junkie on the “when-and-where-you-write” process-of-writing kind of stuff. (What The Writer calls “Routine:” on it’s “How I write page.)
AND I’ll be pretty damn happy with any of the wonderous, unexpected, enlightening but never boring posts I regularly see here (except when my computer’s down!)
I’m with you on book trailers, Rob. I suppose they’ve become necessary in the eyes of the publishing-publicity cognoscenti. But I find them mostly harmless and entirely useless. I guess we’re supposed to think of them as a cross between dust-jacket copy and a movie trailer.
Regarding broken English, Harley Jane Kozak has a couple of great characters in her upcoming book, A Date You Can’t Refuse, who deliver some wonderful international malaprops. I agree with Jon that when written well, and appropriate to character, they are fair game. Harley handles it – in my opinion – extremely well.
If I weren’t in love with my wife, I’d be in love with Harley.
At Bob Crais’ book party for The Two Minute Rule at the late lamented Dutton’s Bookstore, I was embarrassed to find I hadn’t brought enough money with me to buy Bob’s book. Harley came to my rescue and paid for my copy, and when I repaid her for it a couple weeks later, she had completely forgotten about the debt. That, and she’s absolutely gorgeous.
You can never say enough good things about Harley Jane Kozak as far as I’m concerned.