THE STORY SO FAR: PART 227

MAY I COMMEND YOU TO THE WORKS OF JON TALTON—ECONOMIC JOURNALIST &WRITER OF DETECTIVE STORIES

As you may know by now—if you read the blog fairly regularly—one of my deep interests, apart from writing thrillers, is economics. Thriller writing and economics strikes many people as an odd mix—but, in fact, Economics was my major at university and, if anything, my interest in it has increased over the years.

Relax! It’s a relatively harmless addiction though I will admit it soaks up a fair amount of my time. But I don’t play golf, so what the hell!

I had thought I was alone in my eccentricity but recently I have learned that the economics columnist of the Seattle Times, John Talton, is a well regarded writer of detective stories.

I first ran across John Talton on the radio talking more sense on the economy than most. That piqued my interest, but it took a number of snatches of interviews before I caught his name—and decided to investigate. What I can say is that he is a thoroughly entertaining interviewee with a appealing sense of humor who has no less than ten books to his credit.

Yes, I did say ten published books—while keeping up his day job. The man puts me to shame.

No, I haven’t read any of his books yet—largely because  I didn’t even know his name—but if he writes as well as he talks and blogs, I do not expect to be disappointed.

He blogs at http://www.roguecolumnist.typepad.com

Now to get back to my screenplay. You have heard the expression: “The fog of war”—of course you have. Well, these is also a stage in assessing a manuscript which one might describe as: “The fog of words.” Then the fog begins to clear and suddenly you know where you are going.

I’m beginning to reach that stage. Exciting!

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 226

THE TRICKS OF THE TRADE WHEN IT COMES TO BINDING A SCREENPLAY

DEVIATE FROM THEM AT YOUR PERIL

Most people call the CIA “THE” CIA. Those who work for that famously warm-hearted institution, or who otherwise are associated with it, refer to it merely as “CIA.” Along with the secret handshake, it is a sign that you are an insider—one of the guys or gals.

Every specialized area has its routines and rituals (and some are extremely weird). The military excel at such arcane behavior, but the computer industry may come a close second. “Boot up” a computer? Ridiculous—but there it is.

One of the subtlest secret signals concerns binding a screenplay. Here you are submitting a work of genius—your genius, needless to say—and it is ignored!

Why so? Well, that will teach you to not to know that even though you are binding three-hole paper, the cognoscenti know you only use two brads—one at the top and 0ne at the bottom.

Alex Epstein’s book (see graphic) will guide you through all this. The following is an example of his excellent work:

Screenplays should be on 3-hole 20 lb. plain white paper, bound with two 1 1/4" brass brads (ideally Acco #5 Brass Fasteners), with brass washers in back, and card stock covers. You should be able to get brads (aka "brass fasteners") at larger office supply stores such as Office Depot, or from Amazon. You can also get brass washers from them.

Why two brads and not three? Because you only need two to bind a script, one each in the top and bottom holes, and when you're making thousands of script copies a week, as the studios and agencies do, the cost and time of putting in an unnecessary middle brad adds up.

Don't use 3" brads (too long) or those skimpy #7 brads (they don't hold the script together). A few people use aluminum screw brads ("Chicago screws"), but it's not normal, and they tend to be slightly too long for 120 pages. Please never use those funny folding metal strips with sliders to bind the script. Personally, I like to take the bottom brad out when reading so I can flop the pages over. That's impossible with metal strips. Don't spiral-bind your script either. If we like your script we're going to run it through a copy machine so multiple people can read it. Ever tried to re-bind a spiral-bound script by hand?

Flatten the points of the brads back against the back of the script so they won't catch on people's clothes. Bashing the brads with a hammer will accomplish this nicely if you have brass washers; otherwise, fold each brad point backwards on itself, and then flatten them with a hammer.

Covers should be card stock, i.e. 80 lb paper. Any copy shop should have card stock. They can probably punch the top and bottom holes in them for you, too. Don't use clear plastic covers. For extra credit, use pre-creased 9 1/2 x 11" covers that fold over and cover the points of the brads. My printer (L.A. Print & Copy, (310) 445 3200), made fold-over covers for me out of my chosen card stock. Maybe they'd make some for you?

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 225

THE DEEP END

Marvelous to be back working with words again. Mind you, there are surprisingly few words in a screenplay.

You may have a page a minute – say 100-120 for a feature film – but the layout of each page is such that you just cannot fit in that many words. DIALOG, for instance, is written in a slim column to distinguish it from ACTION which is set much wider. I guess that is a gentle hint. Long conversations are rare things in movies. Film is a visual medium.

Yes, we all know that intellectually, but if one is a book-writer, it feels—at first—if you have put your head on backwards. Fortunately, I have a highly visual mind for which I give many thanks. Also, I have been a movie addict from the age of about four. If my mother wanted to go shopping (or whatever) she would dump me in a news theater where I would watch the same program again and again—without the benefit of popcorn or anything similar. This was just after WW II and rationing was still in progress.

I can still remember the first two feature movies I saw. One was THE THIN MAN and the other was THE CHRONICLES OF CAPTAIN BLOOD with Errol Flynn. I was completely fascinated by the latter and couldn’t imagine anything more exciting. Of course, I hadn’t discovered reading at that stage. Or women, now I think of it.

ACTION does not necessarily mean violence (although it is scarcely rare). Instead, it covers the visual aspect—what the camera has to convey. That covers a multitude—everything from mood to movement—yet you have very limited space at your disposal.

You have to train yourself to write tightly—and that the director will have the talent and vision to follow through.

Writing a screenplay can be rough on the ego. Typically, a book author hogs most of the glory (if there is any). Where a movie is concerned, though the screenplay is the foundation of the whole enterprise, the writer becomes disposable once the screenplay is delivered—and it may even be re-written multiple times. The glory goes to the stars and the director.

By the way, the Captain Blood movie featured a hanging—an image which has stayed with me ever since. Little did I know that a real hanging was subsequently to play such a significant role in my life.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 224

TWO WEEKS IN

I have now been in my new home for two weeks and I’m settling in surprisingly well. I don’t have everything organized quite the way I want it, but at least I now know what I want to do, and what I’m likely to need.

Next action will be to tackle a screenplay that needs revising and shortening. Here my first move will be to break the thing down into scenes and summarize each one. The classic way of doing this is on index cards, but I have no problem in cutting and pasting in Word so that is what I will use initially. Later on, for the writing itself, I’ll use FINAL DRAFT which is pretty much the industry standard. That said, there other screenwriting programs or one can use SCRIVENER which has a screenwriting mode.

SCRIVENER comes highly recommended and costs only $40, and is on my list to try out – but I hate parting from tools I know well, much as a soldier prefers a familiar  weapon.

I have seen editors, red pencil in hand, whip through manuscripts at a rate of knots – pouncing on each suspect word, phrase and sentence with sadistic intensity (all editors have a sadistic side). Personally, I tend to work in a series of iterations and my first read-through is more to answer the fundamental question: Does it work? I’ll then go though the screenplay as many times as is necessary, marking it up as I go.

I’m quite excited about getting to work on this project. Moving has been all very well, but I feel the urge to get back to work. Also, I’d like to pay my dues. It was thanks to a movie connection that led to finding my present location.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 223

OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM—AN AMERICAN HORRROR STORY IN COST TERMS

AND NOT SO GOOD WHEN IT COMES TO QUALITY

It is nothing new to say we have an extraordinarily expensive system which not only fails to cover something like 40 million Americans, but also has severe quality problems. At its best, it is the best—which is wonderful (if you can afford it). For most people it does not show up too well compared to other developed nations. When it comes to longevity, we do not fare well—and we tend to be sicker that the populations of other nations as we age. In short, not only do Americans have shorter lives, but the quality of those lives is not what it might be.

Why is this? Healthcare deficiencies are not the only cause—lifestyle choices, the poor quality of our food, and environmental pollution are factors—but healthcare is still a serious cause for concern.

We know all this—it is certainly publicized well enough—and yet we seem incapable of doing anything about it. As with so many other issues, the richest nation in the world—famous for its “can do” attitude—seems caught in the greed of vested interests.

Recently I ran across some graphics which ram home just how out of line we are. In cost terms alone, it is a horror story.

What is particularly striking is just how out of line U.S. costs are. The differences are so extreme—even compared to high cost European countries like Switzerland—that it is hard not to suppress the feeling that something is very wrong; that greed, both corporate and personal, has got completely out of hand.

By the way, these graphs come from a commendable site called Priceonomics.com There are many more graphs on the Priceeconomics site and they make chilling reading.

 

 

 

Coincidentally, an excellent article by Jeffrey Pfeffer appeared in the Business Week of May 10 2013. He places the blame on the administrative costs imposed by insurance companies. I doubt that he is entirely right--there are other culprits ranging from over-priced drugs to for-profit hospitals—but he is certainly partially right.

The following is an extract from his article.

More than 20 years ago, two Harvard professors published an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine showing that health-care administration cost somewhere between 19 percent and 24 percent of total spending on health care and that this administrative burden helped explain why health care costs so much in the U.S. compared, for instance, with Canada or the United Kingdom. An update of that analysis more than a decade later, after the diffusion of managed care and the widespread adoption of computerization, found that administration constituted some 30 percent of U.S. health-care costs and that the share of the health-care labor force comprising administrative (as opposed to care delivery) workers had grown 50 percent to constitute more than one of every four health-sector employees.

Pfeffer is the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, where he has taught since 1979. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don't (HarperCollins, 2010).

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 222

THIS CARTOON IS RATHER TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

I LOVE IT!

It is extremely satisfying to create a home—no matter how modest. Though my personal circumstances were decidedly spartan while at my expensive boarding schools—which enforced the notion that hardship and discipline build character—I was exposed to considerable luxury both while growing up, and afterwards when I was in business armed with a generous expense account. Nonetheless, I have gradually grown to want less and less in material terms. Also, I have stayed in too many expensive hotels, and eaten in far too many overpriced restaurants, to regard them as luxury.

This hasn’t stemmed from any conscious philosophy—or religious conversion—but more from the realization that the main focus of my life is writing, and that anything which distracts from that is almost certainly unnecessary. Having time to myself to write—now that really is luxury.

It is also salutary to have to go through the belongings of someone who has died—as I have done twice in the last few years. Somehow, as you mourn the person who has passed on, material possessions seem trivial.

This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate nice things. It is much more a feeling that I don’t need them. I admire works of art and fine craftsmanship, but if someone else wants to own them—providing I have reasonable access to some of them, so I can keep my artistic sensibilities exercised—that’s fine by me.

I make an exception where my work is concerned. There I like to be as well equipped as I need, and can afford. I also like to be reasonably comfortable.

That phrase reminds me of the story of a British Army officer who even when sleeping in the field, in a trench, insisted on sleeping in silk pajamas. If necessary, he would wear his uniform over them, but he always insisted on changing into them before closing his eyes. When asked about this eccentricity, he commented: “Any fool can be uncomfortable.” He was killed in the endless battle of Monte Cassino—and was buried in his silk pajamas. True story? Supposedly yes—but if it is not, it should be.

My friend Tim has just tend me a particularly cheering quote.

"Saints are sinners who kept on going."

--Robert Louis Stevenson,
Scottish novelist, poet and essayist

How encouraging!

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 221

US Army insignia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SOMETIMES WE LOSE THE VERY BEST OF OUR WARRIORS

A SALUTE TO SPECIALIST RICARDO CERROS JR. OF THE 75TH RANGER REGIMENT

Back in the Nineties, I had the honor of spending considerable time with various U.S. Army units as part of research for various books. It was, without question, one of the best times of my life. The weapons and technologies were fascinating, but what made it were the people—the soldiers.

They were ordinary people doing extraordinary things to keep us safe. I found that a sobering thought. These people were prepared to die for us if necessary—and die they do—for us.  If you pause to think about it, such a sacrifice is breathtaking.

When I was in the Mojave Desert, watching a brigade of 3ID (Mechanized) maneuver their tanks, and my guide, BG Dale Nelson commented to me: “You have got to love soldiers,” I could not but agree.

Somehow, the Army—though far from a perfect institution (it is human after all, though generals will deny the fact) seems to be able to attract some particularly fine human beings and then to develop them to their fullest potential. In that context, I have always liked the old Army slogan: “Be all you can be.” It conveys the essential truth of the matter. It trains people to do the remarkable under any and all conditions with stoic good humor in a way the civilian world largely does not.

Specialist Ricardo Cerros Jr. made a point of living up to that slogan. His photograph is above, and well demonstrates the American soldier at his best—together with the humor and camaraderie which are two of the most attractive aspects of Army life.

Ricardo, a man with a phenomenal work ethic, was someone who pushed himself to the limit—and beyond. While at school, he served for four years in the Navy’s Junior ROTC, he excelled academically at UC Irvine and he gained a black belt in taekwondo. His friend, Mike Clark described him as “Just a ball of energy.”

After graduation in 2009, he joined the Army and eventually made his way to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment—one of the most storied units in the U.S. Army and extremely hard to get into. Beyond that, the operational tempo of the Rangers is quite extraordinary. Their talents are at a premium. Currently, they are much used on raids in Afghanistan—going after high value targets and generally keeping the enemy confused and on the defensive. Though relatively few in number, they excel at this extremely dangerous task, as at many others. They also jump out of perfectly good aircraft.

Ricardo was killed on October 8 2012 during a firefight in Afghanistan’s Logar province south of Kabul. He was 24. It was his first deployment.

“Spc. Ricardo Cerros was incredibly talented and a well respected member of this battalion,” said Lt. Col. David Hodne, Commander of 2nd Bn., 75th Ranger Regiment.  “He was a warrior who lost his life while fighting courageously alongside his fellow Rangers.  We will honor his service to our country and never forget his sacrifice.  Our thoughts and prayers are with the Cerros family.”

When I look at Ricardo’s photograph, I found it hard not to be moved by his humor and vitality, and be much saddened by his death. But, he was doing what he loved to do while wearing the uniform of an extraordinary regiment. It was a noble death, a righteous passing. He died with honor for his country and will long be remembered.

He and his family deserve both our thoughts and our thanks.

Cerros is survived by his father Ricardo Cerros Sr. and stepmother Deborah A. Cerros of Salinas, Calif. and his mother Maqueirte D. Cuevas of Gary, Ind.  He is also survived by his brother Nicholas Cerros, sister Theresa Cerros, and stepbrother Marko Cerros all of Salinas, Calif.

I wish I had met the man. I was asked to write this tribute by a friend, a fellow Ranger—and it is an honor to do so. Now he too is deploying shortly (after numerous previous deployments).

Keep safe, friend. Keep safe, guys.

You are America’s finest. I salute you all.