• Home
  • Blog
  • News
  • Events
  • About the Author
  • About the Book
  • Bookstore
  • Reviews
  • Press/Media
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Blog
  • News
  • Events
  • About the Author
  • About the Book
  • Bookstore
  • Reviews
  • Press/Media
  • Contact
D.R. Ranshaw

D.R. RANSHAW

Pooh's... Christmas?

12/16/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Squinting against the brilliant sunshine, Pooh stepped out into the crisp morning air and inhaled deeply. An overnight Christmas Eve snowfall had gently dusted the 100 Acre Wood with a thick frosting of icing, rather like on a Christmas cake, and muffled sound so that the whole world seemed swathed in cotton batting. It was time to head over to Piglet’s and open presents, and then set out for Christopher Robin’s to enjoy a scrumptious Christmas luncheon. Pooh rubbed his tummy in anticipation of the table groaning under the weight of all the delectable foods… especially desserts like trifle and plum pudding.
 
Relax. If you’re frantically reaching for your copy of The World of Pooh even now… don’t bother. This little doggerel isn’t to be found anywhere within its august covers. (What?) Yep. Made it up, actually. Just now. All on my little own. Didn’t even bother to consciously imitate Milne’s style, truth to tell.
 
Because… to the best of my recollection, Pooh and his compatriots don’t celebrate Christmas at any point in their journeys. (I’m NOT including a Disney film --- ack! --- done in the ‘90s entitled Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too. This is not canon i.e. officially created by the author and therefore to be regarded as part of the body of work, just yet another crass attempt by Disney to exploit one of its most lucrative franchises. Ka-ching! Oh, the humanity. I bet Mr. Milne turned over in his grave.) A.A. Milne did write chapters set during winter time, of course, but apparently, merely only “in the bleak midwinter.” Which, on one hand, is rather a shame, I think. On the other… maybe not.
 
So, at this time of year, with the Yule season full upon us, contemplating how Christmas is celebrated in my own fantasy world of Arrinor and thoughts of Do-I-Want-To-Include-Something-Christmasy-In-The-Narrative, I found myself idly wondering recently: why didn’t Milne include a Christmas for Pooh and Christopher Robin et al?
 
Part of it may have involved mundane practicalities. Like… aside from Pooh’s well-known obsession (addiction?) with honey… what do the denizens of the 100 Acre Wood actually eat? Are they carnivores? Or vegans who would be horrified at the mere thought of roasted turkey or ham (more likely goose in Milne’s England) or other possible compatriots? (And who would do the cooking? Christopher Robin doesn’t exactly seem like the domestic type to spend hours over a hot stove --- assuming his house-in-a-tree even possesses a kitchen, which seems simultaneously perfectly obvious and yet highly unlikely.)
 
Also, Milne may not have wanted to introduce something so identifiable with the real world into the 100 Acre Wood, regardless of whether he kept the event to a more secular level --- as does much of society today --- or gone into the religious side of it. Wikipedia says Milne didn’t write much about his religious feelings, so, even though he was writing at a time of militant British colonialist Christianity, he may not have wanted to feed into that. (Kenneth Grahame certainly didn’t in The Wind in the Willows --- which Milne apparently adapted for the stage as Toad of Toad Hall… excising, interestingly, a major pagan episode Grahame had written.) And some people may speculate that including a Christmas episode in Pooh is unnecessary, as there’s already plenty of “peace and goodwill towards all men” in the 100 Acre Wood… although you might want to read my blog post entitled “Rabbit the Racist” if you hold that opinion. You can find it here if you’re interested.
 
The main reason, though, at least as far as I’m concerned (all my conjectures today are purely that) is an author can’t possibly include everything related to the world he or she creates, and Christmas just may not have figured high on Milne’s Pooh agenda… whatever the reason. People, places, events… there’s only so much that can find a place in any given work, and one of the prime criteria when inclusion is being considered --- especially in this supremely hurried society of ours today, regrettably --- is whether or not it moves the plot forward.
 
However, I want to speak out against this, quite strongly: one of my favourite “moments” in The Lord of the Rings is Frodo and Company’s encounter with the character of Tom Bombadil in the Old Forest. Now, those of you only familiar with the film version of the story (he said in disdainful/dismissive tones) won’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about, because Peter Jackson, labouring under the constraints of every film-maker ever to put something down on cellulose, realized it did absolutely nothing to advance the narrative and so promptly discarded it… thereby excising a perfectly marvelous and magical bit of story which lessened his own. Which is A Capital Shame. After all, while we don’t want to go off on endless tangents and side trips offering no insight or enjoyment, I think it’s just as bad for a writer to be obsessed with a stripped down, high octane, relentlessly laser-tight vision when telling a story. Take (some) time to stop and smell the roses. It’s often the small details that make the tale.
 
“But… you don’t mind that we never delved into Christmas, then?” a growly voice said behind me.
                I turned around in my chair. “Of course not, Pooh bear,” I said gravely. “As long as you were always you, doing whatever came naturally, that was Just Fine with me.”
                Pooh sighed. “I’m so glad,” he said earnestly. “I would hate to think I wasn’t me, or doing things I would never do.”
                “So would I, Pooh.”
                “But you talking about Christmas luncheon sounds like a Very Good Thing, you know. And it does put me rather in the mood for Something Sweet To Eat.”
                I considered that a moment. “Actually, Pooh, now you mention it, it does me, too.”
                “Excellent,” he said approvingly. “So, shall we, then?”
                “Shall we what?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
                “Why, go in search of a Small Smackerel of Something, of course,” he replied.
                “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” I said.
                So we did.

0 Comments

Endings That Stink On Ice

12/9/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Okay, here it finally is: you’ve carefully crafted your story over multiple parts, developed characters, settings and narrative, emerging with a pretty decent tale, all told… and now you’re ready for the drum roll as you unveil… the ending. In fact, you’re just so brimming with creativity, the fertile fields of your fevered imagination have generated not one, not two, not three… but seven different possible endings.
 
There’s just one slight problem: they all stink on ice… suck like a vacuum cleaner… and other more colourful, less diplomatic literary images.
 
Such is the situation I experienced recently. Not for any story I was writing, I hasten to add. No, no, ‘twas at the conclusion of an Xbox game I played. (Yep, as anyone who knows me can attest, the old man plays video games. They’re not all just mindless shoot-‘em-ups, you know --- although I’m perfectly prepared to admit an uncomfortably large number are). But some have interesting characters and story arcs and present a perfectly acceptable occasional alternative to reading the printed word (italics, as they say, damned well mine).
 
Life is Strange 2 (LIS2) is, as the title rather unimaginatively and obviously suggests, the sequel to Life is Strange (and its prequel, Life is Strange: Before the Storm), both of which I’ve written about (you can find those posts here and here if you’re interested). LIS2, however, relates the story of different characters than the original, so it’s really only a sequel in the loosest sense.
 
LIS2, like its predecessor, was released in several episodes, rather than all at once. The first episode introduces us to teens Sean and Daniel Diaz, American Latinos living in the northwest U.S. Sean, the older, is frequently annoyed with younger brother Daniel, and as a matter of fact, Daniel’s irritating behaviours explosively get things moving (literally): Daniel does something to anger the racist next-door neighbour, and even as Sean intervenes to calm things down, events take a swift and unexpected downwards spiral into life’s toilet, as they often seem wont to do. Before we quite know what’s happening, the racist neighbour is on the ground… a jittery cop passing by has stopped and drawn his gun… Sean and Daniel’s dad, hearing the commotion, comes rushing out… and the cop has shot him. Tragic, but, in our too-often deeply divided, racially-charged society, not totally unheard of. It’s what happens next that is unheard of.
 
Daniel screams, there’s a roaring explosion, and when everyone comes to, dad, neighbour and cop are all dead, and the scene looks like a small bomb went off. Inexplicable --- except to people who have read any science fiction: Daniel, unknowingly, possesses telekinetic powers --- the ability to move objects through force of will alone --- and this extreme crisis has brutally, violently, awakened that previously dormant ability. (Kind of a sci-fi puberty, if you will.)
 
So… with the area between the two houses resembling a war zone, complete with three corpses… what do you do? Sean makes a snap decision --- possibly not the wisest one, but understandable given the circumstances, especially since the optics of the scene really aren’t very good at all (which is rather an understatement): he and Daniel bug out, get the hell out of Dodge, trying to put as much distance between them and that scene as possible. Dad originally came to the U.S from Mexico, so the brothers decide that’s where they’re heading. And thereby hangs a tale, as Will likes to say.
 
Now, it’s not my intention today to summarize the entire story or review it… although I will say there are a lot of rather stereotypical/superficially drawn characters and plot situations the brothers encounter as they make their way south on foot. Great literature, this ain’t. But that’s not this epistle’s point; the story was okay, at least to the point of maintaining my interest in discovering how this sad tale would end. And last week, the final episode was released. So I bought it… bringing me back to this post’s beginning. (And spoilers, too, so be forewarned.)
 
Turns out there were seven --- count ‘em --- seven different possible endings to the story, depending on various choices the player had Sean and Daniel make throughout the plot. And all seven endings stank on ice. I played the first one through. What the hell? The brothers are caught, separated, and Sean does years of prison before coming out a broken man? No, no, that can’t possibly be right. Try something else. Whoa. Sean dies making the run across the border? ARGHH. Once more. They make it across, but only in a bloodbath, leaving a trail of corpses littered behind them? Yikes. Gotta be a better way…
 
Turns out, there really wasn’t. I didn’t like any of the endings. Didn’t seem to matter whether I made the brothers act ethically or not, the end result was the same. And I didn’t like making them act unethically. Yuck. Way to ruin a game (or book, because sometimes we stare at literary endings too, don’t we? Yelling at the author things like, “What? The protagonist went through all that, and this is how you’re resolving the story? You gotta be kidding me!”)
 
Now, look, I know all too frequently, in this broken world of ours (or other worlds, for those of us writing fantasy or science fiction), life stories don’t always end happily. And like Orson Welles said, having a happy ending really depends on where you end the story. But when we’ve invested all that time in a given character and story… come on, throw us a bone, for crying out loud. Did Frodo die on the slopes of Mount Doom? Did Voldemort defeat Harry? Of course not. We’re authors, which means we’re creators. We get to inject a little life justice in our stories. Doesn’t have to be a blanket They All Lived Happily Ever After, because anyone with even a little life experience knows it doesn’t work that way, but, unless you’re a modern-day Poe, why would you want to end a story with, “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
 
Lighten up a little, Ed.

0 Comments

    D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

    Author of The Annals of Arrinor series.  Lover of great literature, fine wine, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly