Hello, and welcome from Vancouver, Canada.
This is the third edition of The Voice In Your Head Is Mine. The date is May 18, 2020. If you're receiving this email and have no idea what's going on, well, fuck. I guess I blew it. Or maybe you blew it. Either way, you're here and this is Zac Thompson's weekly newsletter.
It’s the early evening on Sunday. This weekend, I fully intended to take both days off and failed. This past week proved really productive and I went into the weekend too excited to sit still. Felt like a return to normal, pre-Rona days. Which is nice, since it feels like I’ve blinked and we went from February to May.
Building Character
Last newsletter I promised to talk about outlining, well I’m breaking that promise. In order to craft a good outline, you need a good character. So I wanted to talk a little bit about my process surrounding characters with a particular emphasis on crafting an interesting and well-defined protagonist.
For the most part, my protagonists come to me in pieces. I usually meet them embedded in a scene, doing a thing, and it’s not entirely clear who they are. I don’t know why my brain works like this but I see them and hear them before I understand them. Often times, once I have an inkling of that character I try to get to know them by writing a scene of that character learning to do something. It’s a writing trick I picked up from an interview with Joe Hill (I wish I could find it). Essentially, the idea is – present this half-formed person with a problem to solve and see if that character’s sort of emotional truth can set you on your way.
An early character sketch for Lonely Receiver by Jen Hickman.
Now when I’m faced with a character I’m figuring out, I sometimes do this:
Determine a character’s emotional truth. How do they feel about themselves, the world, their relationships, the journey they are on? Real people are complicated and your characters can be too. However, a good rule of thumb is to have a reoccurring theme (or themes) that your character can return to. It allows you to show how they’re progressing as a character and if the events of the story are changing them or their perspective. I know some people don’t loooooove talking about theme but it’s an incredibly useful tool that can give every word/scene/character of a story the one thing so many stories lack: intent.
So let’s say your character is a Lonely Thief. With “lonely” being the broad emotional state driving the character and “thief” is the defining character trait. If a character is a thief – this should affect everything about who they are. Especially when it comes to their morality and how often they lie, cheat, or steal.
Just as an exercise to get you thinking, now let’s take this Lonely Thief and have them attempt to steal a car for the first time. Right away, are they prepared? What do they have on them? Was this decision made in the spur of the moment or carefully calculated? Once inside the car, do they keep calm? What can we reveal about their emotional state while they carry out the act?
This is just one way (of many) to push your brain into figuring out character. It may not work for everyone but I find it a useful tool near the beginning of my story. And it really helps define voice. Which is a whole other thing all together. Maybe we’ll get into that next week.
The Brood
I took in David Cronenberg’s fantastic 1979 film, The Brood this past week. I adore this film. The general plot concerns a Father’s attempt to uncover an unconventional psychologist’s therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife. Oh, and there’s a series of brutal murders.
Now, most people know about this film because of the insane final act. But, The Brood like most of Cronenberg’s work is way ahead of its time. The movie deals with themes surrounding the fears of parenthood, repression, and the treatment of mental illness in women. For a lot of filmgoers, these prominent themes surrounding psychology were new and alien. It made people uncomfortable, and surprise! They didn’t like it. The Vancouver Sun lambasted the film, referring to it as "mean, foul and witless... The people who made The Brood do not like people. They do not even appear to like themselves. They just like money."Someone should break it to them that there’s no money in Canadian cinema.
Anyway, the movie is fascinating because of these themes. The antagonist in the film is a psychotherapist who performs a technique known as “psychoplasmics”. He encourages his patients to let go of their repressed traumas and push it into/through their bodies. This results in strange deformities that manifest in different ways. Like this:
There’s also insane dwarf-children who have built-in life cycles, psychic cancer, and men in embarrassingly short housecoats. The Brood isn’t my favorite of Cronenberg’s filmography but it’s bursting with ideas that could each carry their own film. It’s scary and completely unrestrained. There’s one murder scene in the middle of the film that simply wouldn’t fly for modern audiences. It’s haunting and Cronenberg lingers in the aftermath. I won’t describe it, just watch it.
Like with everything else I’ve been watching lately. This movie is for research around my new creator-owned book, which I’ll call PROJECT MYCENA. It’s a way off, but Andy MacDonald (from 2018’s incredible Multiple Man miniseries) are making a strange psychic lovechild that’s equal parts, Barker and Cronenberg. What a surprise, coming from me.
All Life Is Chance
This week’s playlist. Right here, right now.
No One’s Rose
After many delays, No One’s Rose #2 is set to hit comic book stores across North America on June 10th. Today is the last day to pre-order. Please contact your local comic book store if you enjoyed #1 and want to read our second issue! It’s wild. Diving deeper into the massive world of the Green Zone and the idealogy of our eco-terrorists – The Drasil. Environmental anarchists, hallucinogenic LSD caterpillars, and more plant science. It’s all there.
Oh yes, and for those of you, that missed the first issue. It’s now FREE to read on Comic’s Beat. There is no excuse, go read this book!
Small Nugs
This video from Gus Johnson about using the shovel in Animal Crossing had me dying. I’ve watched it like 200 times.
The incredible score to #Devs by Geoff Barrow (Portishead/BEAK>), Ben Salisbury & The Insects is now on Spotify.
For the Vegans out there – here’s a great video recipe for carrot bacon. It’s good as hell.
The good folks who make Image’s Ice Cream Man are running a Quarantine Comix series. The tiny issues release weekly, $1.99 a pop with half the proceeds going to the BINC foundation. Right now they’re running a fantastic guest series with Deniz Camp, Artyom Topolin, and Declan Shalvey. Get into it.
Goodbye
That’s it for this week. Last week was a marathon. Always too many things to do, always not enough time. But the world is in suspended animation. Best to remember that. You don’t have to be as productive as you think. You don’t have to pretend everything is normal. But you do have to give yourself space to breathe, to recharge, and regroup. Say please and say thank you. Tip your essential workers. Have fun, eat sweets, try to go outside, and at the end of the day: just be good to each other.