Bias ~or~ what's wrong with slaughtering your own characters?

Regular readers of this blog will probably know that I am the proud author of a book of short stories, winningly entitled "They All Die At The End".

You can buy it here as a Kindle ebook.

Or, if you'd rather have a paperback, contact me for a signed copy. Or buy it here unsigned - but be aware that I'll earn almost exactly nothing if you choose that route - such is the publishing business.


I sell a few. People like it - even people that I don't know.


And then occasionally, I read things like this:


There is a short-story competition, called "The Short Story", more information here: http://www.theshortstory.net/. The website contains "classic pieces of advice" and, at number 3 (higher than "opening and closing lines", "what is the premise of the story?" and "steer clear of the sentimental") we have...


"If you’re going to do death, make sure it’s original"


Aren't the first six words redundant? Why not just say...


"make sure it's original" ?


Otherwise you are left with the nonsensical implication that unoriginal stories in which all characters survive would be just fine. A clear message is being given that the judges would be strongly biased against stories such as mine, despite their later admission that "death is a part of life" and "these stories can be moving, funny, harrowing and compelling".


Never mind that one of their four examples of a great opening line is "Harry Joy was to die three times, but it was his first death which was to have the greatest effect on him, and it is this first death which we shall now witness" (Bliss, Peter Carey)


It might only be an implied prohibition but it seems extremely unrealistic. What proportion of films, television programmes, books (whether long or short stories), plays or operas concern death? Even if you exclude police procedurals, whodunnits and horror films, I would expect that well over half would include the death of at least one major character. Include those genres and you're maybe even close to the three-quarter mark.


There's a fair amount of slaughter going on in the judges' own lists of their top ten favourite books. I haven't counted but I'm confident that at least half of these titles result in major character wipe-out.


Maybe writing this blog post and entering the competition are mutually exclusive. Maybe they aren't. Kerry and Katherine - what do you think? Although really, you'd have to read my book before coming to a conclusion.

Love Cinema? Hate Piracy?

...but maybe hate overpriced, technically inept cinema chains too


Last week, before the film started at the Odeon cinema, we were treated to the Film Distributors' Association's one-minute public information film in which a run-down 'last cinema on earth' is shown with its customers gradually fading away. Apparently this dystopian future is not caused by zombie virus, nuclear apocalypse or global warming but by film piracy.


I do not condone film piracy, or indeed any form of theft. But that is not the debate here.


It is not film piracy that will stop me from returning to that cinema. The Odeon has lost my business due to extortionate pricing and being technically clueless. Perhaps someone could make a companion public information film in which a cinemagoer from ancient times (maybe the 1980s) falls through a portal and arrives in the Odeon in the year 2012. He'd be clamouring to get back before the minute was up.


From the top...

• Buying tickets from the food counter behind a long queue of people buying, er, food. To be fair, this is a minor improvement on making people queue outside to buy tickets.

• Ticket prices. When I can buy my own copy of a film for less than the price of two tickets, the visit to the cinema has to be particularly enticing. I'm not convinced the Odeon chain is taking this approach.

• Allocated seating without any staff or floor lighting. It is difficult to find row G in darkness. Some cinema chains have discrete lights on row letters. Not this cinema. At least mobile phone screens act as effective torches – glad I hadn't turned it off. But I could have ignored those points if it hadn't been for...

• Dark, grotty picture with sides of screen unused. Friends who had previously seen the same film in a better cinema agreed that it was too dark. Not just a bit too dark – much too dark. Apparently the Vue cinema managed a brighter and sharper 3D picture. (Yes, the film was in 3D but I do not wish to discuss the evils, pointlessness and general rubbishness of 3D here.)
  And, the squarer, not widescreen, picture suggested that we might have been watching an IMAX print – on a standard screen.
  
  All that work by a veritable army of skilled professionals – the overpriced cast and director, the writers, the artists who created the digital special effects, the model makers, the hair-stylists, the parking coordinators – ruined at the last moment by an inability to project it correctly. People have been projecting films for over a hundred years – how has the Odeon chain managed to lose the knowledge? If the director had seen his film made this ugly, he may well have come over all Russell Crowe.

• Bright floodlighting suddenly turned on 20 seconds into end credits. That was a bit surprising. It was the lighting equivalent of shouting at everyone to get out or you'll set the dogs on them.

At the very beginning of the film, I complained to a cinema employee about the lousy picture. I was polite. He was polite. He came in to the cinema and looked at the picture. He said something I couldn't catch into a walkie-talkie. He told me that he had notified whoever it was he was supposed to notify. And nothing changed.


If cinemas are to become history, I don't think this Odeon will be the last cinema on earth. I think it'll be one of the first to go.