Breaking Dawn concept art looks really damn cool

Okay, I haven't seen Breaking Dawn Part 2 yet in the theater. But it is on my "to do" list along with "Lincoln." I was perusing io9 (one of my favorite websites) and came across this concept art. Those of you who follow and read my blog regularly already know that I like to dabble with art and that I own some art books. So naturally, I clicked on the concept art for the movie, and it looks pretty damn cool.

I tried to read the original "Twilight" book in 2008. I went to the book store across the street and picked up a copy, and I remember really looking forward to it because it had to be an excellent book if so many people loved it. I remember feeling disappointed by it, and I stopped about a third of the way through. But I did go and see the first two movies. One of the things that I liked about Meyer's vampires are their strange powers. I hadn't seen that in other vampire books (aside from what I consider to be normal vampire powers). You do get some of that in Anita Blake but it's more or less reserved for ancient vampires. In Meyer's books, the vampires are more like super heroes, and I think that's just really cool.

My friend went to Twilight with his wife. He tweeted: @MichaelOffutt OMG. I paid for the whole seat #breakingdawn2 but only used the edge!

So have you seen Breaking Dawn 2? What do you think of this concept art? Did you like the way Meyer's vampires have super powers?

The Copycats Of Fiction Have No Shame And Make Millions

When Terry Brooks published The Sword of Shannara, I was one of the first kids to dive straight into it.  And even at that early age (I was in junior high school at the time) I remember being shocked at how much it followed Tolkien's Lord of the Rings point-by-point. In LOTR you had the nine ringwraiths...in Brooks you had the nine skullbearers, in LOTR you had Sauron, in Brooks you had the Warlock Lord, and it goes on and on.  The King of the Silver River is Elrond, the Hall of Kings is Moria complete with monster at the gate, and the druids are simply the Istari wizards.  The Druids Keep is Isengard and Allanon is Gandalf, etc.  You even have two hobbits...only they aren't called hobbits but they are from Shady Vale...a place a lot like Hobbiton. And their names are Flint and Shea instead of Frodo and Sam.  Anyway...this is a well documented thing...the fact that a New York Times bestselling author blatantly stole from the grandfather of all epic fantasy and in the end...no one gave a shit.  And to Brooks' credit, it didn't stop me from reading his books. I was hungry for fantasy at the time so I bought all the Shannara books as they came out and they steadily got better and better (and more original).  I thought Elfstones of Shannara was awesome so yeah...he forged himself a great writing career. However, just out of the gate (so to speak) I thought things were so shameless with his first book that I would have been downright embarrassed had anyone called me on it.

Anyway, this is happening again in a book I'm reading.  What book you ask?  It's Amanda Hocking's Trylle trilogy and the first book is called Switched. Don't get me wrong...Amanda is a wonderful writer.  I enjoy her prose but the woman doesn't have a story. No, she has Stephanie Meyer's story.  Things started smacking me over the head about Chapter Six.  Let me see if you can pick what book she is following point-by-point as I lay them out for you.

These two books are essentially the same story. Only names have
been changed.  

We are introduced to the female protagonist named Wendy.  She considers herself unattractive, her hair is awful, and she has no friends.  She's the new girl in a high school in a small town and awkward as hell.  One day, a gorgeous boy starts staring at her and continues to do so until it makes her so uncomfortable she can't stand it.  When she asks him about it...he is evasive...won't give her a straight answer.  Only later on does she discover that he's a Trylle...the word for troll...and that he has essentially super powers.  And he's very long-lived.  Oh and he visits her in her bedroom at night...does this scene sound familiar?

One night outside her home, her life is threatened.  Not with a careening car but setup almost the same.  Two people attack her and "Finn" the hot dude saves her all by himself (pushing the bad people away). Then he takes her to his home which is absolutely gorgeous to meet his family of other trolls who are Gucci and Prada wearing, sushi-eating, upper class snobs.  I mean super rich. Like millionaire rich (high society). And it's secluded in the woods (think evergreen forests) with a view of the Mississippi River... Instead of a black Volvo we have a black Porsche.  She also finds out that there's something inherent in her that makes Finn stare at her. He can smell her.  It's her hair (not blood) and it's irresistible to other Trylle.

That's all the farther I've gotten...but does that sound familiar to you?  Does that point-by-point sound like a certain highly successful New York Times bestseller?

I know that some of you writers out there always say, "There are no original ideas." But COME ON! for Pete's sake!?

I mean, is there any shame to this?  Here...let me give you an example of what I mean...

Hey author friends! Here's my AMAZING plot for my story...OMG...IT'S SO GOOD AND I WILL MAKE MILLIONS. I even have cover art for it already made...check it out:

Dude from a future where mankind is pushed to extinction by machines escapes through a portal into the past.  He's on a mission to save a woman targeted by the machines of the future.  He has to stop a killer robot only, along the way, he falls in love with the woman and they have sex and she gets pregnant.  Here's the hitch...her baby will someday be this guy's father.

Holy shit!  Isn't that great?!  I iz so smart this is sure to be a bestseller and you all will be jealous while I'm making millions.

Anyway...what do you guys think? Amanda's books are huge bestsellers (maybe not as big as Twilight) but they've made her rich.  Terry Brooks is a rich fat cat too and he blatantly copied Tolkien.  I'm wondering why someone isn't blatantly copying J.K. Rowling.  I mean you could do it and self-pub and probably catch a portion of the same audience that J.K. has.  Even at 1% that's 4 million people that are going to buy your books.  How would you like to sell 4 million books?

Oh ummm...here's my story...there's this paranormal school that teaches wizards ghosts, vamps, werewolf kids how to properly use their powers.  Each one has a wand fetish like a silver bullet or locket that they channel their magic through.  There are professors in the school.  One paranormal boy named Charles Hatter is the only kid that survived when dark wizards ghosts, vamps, and werewolves led by Voldemort a real powerful dude attacked the family and left a mark on his forehead eyes (his eyes have flickering lightning bolts in the irises).

And to any of you that would say "You can get sued for this kind of copycat behavior"...I don't think that you can. Maybe Mr. Pagel can weigh in on this because he's a lawyer. But I'm pretty sure that ideas cannot be copyrighted...meaning a general idea...like a plot.

Anyway...authors that do this have no shame.  I'm actually kind of disgusted.  But they are richer than me and have huge publishing contracts so does what I think really matter? Nope.

How the hell did publishing get to be so terrible? Is it money? Are people so hard up to make a buck that they clone what other writers come up with and pass it off as their own story?  Does it ever occur to people that if they are just blatantly going to steal a novel point-for-point, chapter-by-chapter and just change names and setting that...I dunno...maybe the world doesn't need another book like this?  I guess I'm old school.  Writing isn't just about writing for me. It's storytelling. And please don't tell me a story I've already heard. I don't want to read George R.R. Martin's story as told by John Doe with all the names changed and have to put up with all the praise you get lauded because the idiots out there who read books aren't well read enough to know that a story is a ripoff.

Understanding Men To Write Your Fiction

I'm not a Psychologist, but I think I understand why men do many of the things that they do.  And so I'm going to tell you.  Who knows...maybe what I say here will help you in portraying them in your fiction.  Now, this post is a generalization and there will of course be specifics that I'm sure I'll get nailed on.  Men (like women) are simply too complex to talk about here. That is the nature of the human brain.  Anyway, here's what I've noticed...take it with a grain of salt if you want...I don't care if you think I'm a flake.  I'm a guy and I think I understand other guys.  So here it is...my theory of men.

I think men have an innate desire to be somebody. All the choices that they make in our society boil down to this testosterone-driven primal urge.

I think men go into politics not to fix a problem but again to be somebody--an odd reason to want a job, right?  Fixing a problem is only a consequence of them holding office...something they must deal with that is a distraction of being somebody.

I think men play video games to win. Winning makes you instantly a somebody.  Men really like to win.  And they like watching other people win because birds of a feather flock together. Winners watch winners.

I think men play games period to win.  If it's a social game like Dungeons & Dragons where winning is not obvious...then they are playing to be the best one at the table and to outdo everyone else.

I think men choose their love partners because their partner makes them feel like they are somebody. The implications of this are pretty wide.  What I'm saying is that they don't care so much WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE so much as they care that other people are jealous that they own you.  They just have to get this feeling...it doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be true. It just needs to exist in their minds. And if there's ever a time when people don't want you, when you are an undesirable commodity for whatever reason, then attraction will fade even if things on a personal level are going great.

I think that men cheat because the person with whom they are cheating makes them feel like they are a somebody more so than the person with whom they are currently in a relationship.

I think that men dominate religions because religion is an instant platform by which to be somebody and they love being in that position.

I think that men go through a mid-life crisis when they feel that they are becoming invisible and they have this perception in their mind that they were somebody to begin with...even if they never were. All that matters is what they think.  The mid-life crisis is just a way to try and recapture that feeling that they were, at one time, relevant.

I think that one reason why Twilight is so successful is because Stephenie Meyer subconsciously KNEW THIS about men. Edward loves Bella for who she is and it doesn't matter that she's important to anyone else.  The real romance is that "Bella" needs no other validation from any of Edward's peers and he loves her all the same.  I think that this is entirely fiction because it isn't the way men think...hence...why it's uber romantic.  Women may not quite put it so bluntly...they may not realize that what I'm saying is going on...but as others point out...I can be very blunt.

And it's also why Twilight fails with a male audience.  Men want to be somebody.  They don't want to read about a woman that is the somebody.  They want the man TO BE THE ONE that is a somebody. Twilight removes the nuts from the men...so yeah...it fails with a male audience.

And it's why George R.R. Martin succeeds with a male audience.  All of his men are important and they are in a power struggle to prove who is the most important.  It's awash in testosterone and every man who reads it cannot get enough.

People talk about boys not reading.  I think that boys DO read and want to read.  I think that men read and want to read.  But if you want to appeal to men, you're book has GOT TO make the man live the fiction of BEING SOMEBODY important.  J.K. Rowling did it with Harry Potter AND managed to also appeal to a huge female audience.  But make no mistake, Harry (the man) was the big somebody in the book.  Either this or the act of reading the book MAKES them a somebody. This is where the intellectual snobs come in, touting Ulysses by James Joyce or an original version of Don Quixote in Spanish because they read it and are somebody because of having done that.

So my advice is...if you are writing a story...and you are wondering if a man would do a certain act...to just pause.  Stop.  Ask yourself these questions:  By doing this, is the man getting an ego boost? Is he being somebody?  By screwing a girl in the backseat of a car will his friends high-five him?  By dealing drugs does he get money so that he can buy a low-rider all tricked out with bling that his other friends will drool over?  By cheating on his spouse, is the woman (or man) that he is with making him feel better at the moment than he feels when he is with his partner?  If he chooses to ignore the partner at home and play a video game...is the video game making him feel like he is somebody because he's winning and beating things down and destroying things?  If a man turns down money offered from a friend who just wants to help...is he doing so because accepting the gift makes him into a nobody?  Being a nobody...being mediocre...that sucks.  And if you want men to like your fiction, they don't want to feel mediocre.

That's just my two cents.

EDIT: I received a very interesting question from fellow blogger Ciara Knight. She asked why the Hunger Games was so successful given a female protagonist.  I wanted to answer that here because it's a great question and I wanted to clarify something. Female protagonists are perfectly acceptable and men will read them (I know I do). But to resonate, the theme of the book and the protag need to be winners. The Hunger Games is about winning and the stakes are very high if you lose. This makes it all the better. Men like stories of winning, challenges, more winning...pure winning.  Look at Twilight again (as an example).  What does Bella win? A boyfriend? That's not guy material. But ask yourself what does Katniss win and what does she stand to lose by not winning? It's the very essence of being somebody.