For the elite, telling 'correct' stories about yourself is a poor plotline to success

When you meet me and learn I'm a fiction writer, don't stare as if I'm a child who never grew up. As if grown man + love of stories = something bizarre. As if I should put aside childish ways and embrace something — anything — which truly matters in the world.

Yes, people occasionally act like this when they learn I'm a fiction writer. It's super creepy. I imagine all authors experience this stare from time to time.

Thankfully, most people don't act this way. Perhaps they buy into the myth that every author earns millions each year (yeah, right). Or maybe they can't imagine life without the stories humans use to comprehend and process both the world around us and our own inner selves.

Because that's the power of stories. Stories are not merely our fictions but also our realities and beliefs and sciences and everything else we tell ourselves in our attempt to understand life. Without stories, humans couldn't make sense of much in this world. 

For an example of this true power of stories, read the following excerpt from Bourree Lam's excellent article "Recruitment, Resumes, Interviews: How the Hiring Process Favors Elites" in The Atlantic. Lam interviewed professor Lauren Rivera about how the gatekeepers at elite law firms and other organizations select new people to join their ranks. The following part of their discussion is revealing:

Lam: You also talk about the ability to frame your story in a way that the interviewer will like, but that often black, Hispanic, and Asian candidates lose out on this measure. Why is that?

Rivera: When it comes to personal stories, the people who end up losing out the most are individuals from less privileged socio-economic backgrounds regardless of race. Why this happens is because interviewers prioritize a particular plot line in which the interviewee describes him or herself as a protagonist single-handedly navigating a jungle where they have a goal in mind and they relentlessly pursue this personal passion and they do so through a series of concerted, and preferably linear steps in an upward trajectory, to beat all odds and achieve this personal-oriented goal.

The reason why the individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds lose out on this is firstly the ability to pursue a personal passion, say you want to be a chef at Le Cordon Bleu, that ability to do so unfettered by structural constraints is a very privileged way of being in the world. But also knowing to tell your story in that respect is not knowledge that everyone has. So knowing to disclose deeply personal information about yourself—the best stories are not necessarily why you want to be a banker at Goldman Sachs, but how you reached the summit of Mount Everest—knowing that's what interviewers value creates a disadvantage for individuals who don't have those types of stories, or don't know how to tell them.

What struck me above are the words "interviewers prioritize a particular plot line." This is extremely troubling because everyone in the world has their own story, but not everyone is taught to tell that story in a certain proscribed manner. As Rivera says, in this case telling your story in the wrong manner results in people not being considered for elite positions where they might have excelled.

But this prioritization of certain plot lines not only discriminates against individuals, it also hurts these organizations.

These elite firms believe they are selecting the best candidates available, people who are the very future of their organizations. But the people they're actually hiring are merely copies of the same people they've previously hired. That's like an author writing the same story year after year. In the short term this might be a safe bet because people find comfort in familiar stories. One day, though, that author will find people have tired of their same-old stories. People have moved on to newer and better stories, a type of story the author is no longer able to write.

Organizations which hire people based on the same old plot-lines they always hire by will eventually find they're unprepared for a world where life's plots have grown increasingly diverse and unique. 

Stories have amazing powers, and like anything with power people can use them for good or bad. How these elite organizations utilize stories to restrict who they hire is definitely a bad use of stories.

When everyone tells the same type of story, you lose so much of the depth and experience which comes from having different stories spoken in different voices.

 

Tansy Rayner Roberts on Mad Mad: Fury Road

This from Tansy Rayner Roberts:

I’ve seen a lot of people comment on the fact that the person who wrote, directed and steered this film, who made so many of the choice decisions (including the deliberate choice to hire a woman as editor as insurance against him screwing this up) is a 70 year old white dude. You know what this means? This means there are no excuses for any creator of any demographic to keep perpetuating old fashioned, boring, and unchallenging genre traditions out of nostalgia, or ignorance, or an inability (unwillingness) to be flexible.

There are just as many outmoded, broken, severely damaging tropes about men as there are about women across many, many genres of film, literature and art. Let’s burn them all down, and find what new stories grow out of the ashes.

I urge everyone to read Roberts' complete essay about Mad Max as a feminist ally. But the comments above are what live with me and should live with every creator and writer and director out there.

Because there's no excuse. There never was before and there damn well isn't one now.

The difference in how Mad Max: Fury Road and Game of Thrones deal with sexual assault

I loved Mad Max: Fury Road and believe it is a new action film classic, with director George Miller wrapping a smart mix of plot, world-building and character development into an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. Equally as important, Fury Road is also one of the few big-budget action movies in which none of the women in the movie are treated as victims. In the long run I believe this will make the film an influential one in changing how Hollywood does business.

However, not everyone agrees with my take on the film. Among them is author George Kelly.

Obviously Kelly and I aren't going to agree and hey, that's all good. People can and should disagree on which stories they like. To me Fury Road has a simple yet subtly intricate plot wrapped up in its non-stop action. Yes, on one level Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa character and Tom Hardy's Mad Max simply go on one long road chase before turning around. But what appears simple at first has multiple ways to be read on other levels. I'll write on this in the coming days.

But during my discussion with Kelly one thing he said stuck with me. While I praised Mad Max: Fury Road for not presenting women as victims, he said the film did exactly that. According to Kelly while the abuse was off-screen it still triggered everything that came after, meaning the women in Fury Road were still victims. So the film is merely a retread of how Hollywood always deals with these issues.

I disagree with this interpretation. There is a vast difference in how Fury Road deals with issues of sexual assault and how other Hollywood action films and popular TV shows deal with the same issue.

And that difference comes down to the dividing line between plot and plot device.

By way of explanation, let's compare Fury Road with Game of Thrones, which is continually criticized for how it depicts issues of sexual assault and victimization. I believe this is a valid comparison because Game of Thrones is one of the iconic TV series of our time. Just as I hope Fury Road might influence Hollywood for the better, Game of Thrones is already influencing Hollywood for the worse, with tons of rip-offs of the HBO series continually appearing on TV and in film.

Here we go with the comparison.

Fury Road is an original examination of how the world too often treats women as mere property, and sexual property at that. You don't have to go far in our own world to find women and girls who are victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking and slavery — all of these crimes are well-documented and exist everywhere, both in the United States and in every country in the world.

By creating a post-apocalyptic world in which sexual slavery and exploitation are the norm, director George Miller has created a perfect vehicle to comment upon one of the key issues of our time. Just as science fiction is a commentary upon the present, so is Fury Road an action-fueled comment upon the sins of our world.

Yes, the women in the film have been victimized before the film starts. But the film doesn't revel or delight in this victimization, or even show it. Instead, the film begins with all of them taking control of their destinies and fighting to change their world. That is the plot of Fury Road and it is a powerful one.

Contrast this with Game of Thrones, where sexual assault is merely a recurring plot device. Note that a plot device is a subset of a plot and is used to motivate or move the larger plot forward. In addition, many plot devices are interchangeable with other plot devices. Like cogs in a machine, so too are plot devices to the plot.

In Game of Thrones, the larger plot doesn't focus on sexual slavery and the exploitation of women. Instead, the series' plot is what people do to both gain and keep power. And in the supposed service of this plot we have the continual use of sexual assault as a plot device.

But as I said, plot devices can easily be changed with other plot devices. I have yet to see a sexual assault in Game of Thrones which was essential to the plot. Instead, all of these assaults appear to be used in the same old stereotypical Hollywood manner, where sexual assault is supposed to motivate characters or shock already jaded viewers.

If you removed all the sexual assault scenes from Game of Thrones, you'd still have the same story and plot. For Games of Thrones, sexual assault is merely another cog in the Hollywood machine. That's why people are so outraged over how sexual assault is used in the HBO series.

Now contrast that to Fury Road, where you can't remove the issue without the plot falling apart. Add in the amazing way Fury Road handled the issue — in a manner Game of Thrones could only dream of doing — and I hope people can see the difference between a film making commentary on a serious issue which is central to its overall plot, and a TV series simply using sexual assault as an insulting way to shock viewers and motivate the characters. 

One of these two empowers its characters. The other one turns its characters into nothing more than victims.

I'm not the only one to notice this. As Saladin Ahmed recently stated:

I am disgusted by filmmakers who use sexual assault as merely a plot device. Doing so is a cheap and lazy way to create a story. Yes, there are times in storytelling when disturbing issues like rape and murder and so many other horrors must and should be dealt with. But that's not the case with how Game of Thrones uses the repeated sexual assaults of its characters.

Fury Road doesn't do that. Instead, George Miller created an intelligent and exciting examination of a current issue. And he did this by empowering his characters instead of turning them into victims.

That's the difference between how Mad Max: Fury Road and Game of Thrones deal with sexual assault. And it's a difference I hope Hollywood eventually learns from.

Don't pretend Mad Max: Fury Road will immediately change Hollywood action films

I saw Mad Max: Fury Road with my family yesterday and we loved it. The film is a beautiful showcase of non-stop action wrapped around an intelligent script which defies all the sexist tropes of most Hollywood action films. My wife and I talked at length about how refreshing it was to not only see a great action movie that knew how to keep you on the cliched edge of your seat, but also one where none of the women in the film are victims.

To say Mad Max: Fury Road is the best action movie I've seen in years is an understatement. I believe this film will stand as a testament to what big-budget action movies can accomplish. I also believe Charlize Theron's character of Imperator Furiosa is on the fast track to becoming a cultural icon.

But all that said, don't expect the film to immediately change Hollywood action films.

Believe me, I wish it would. I am tired of going to action movies which are merely carbon-copy CGI dreams of what excitement should be. I'm exhausted by the sexist and racist tropes which fill blockbuster after Hollywood blockbuster. I'm tired of Hollywood action movies which use sexual assault and abuse and victimization as a plot device because the director is too unimaginative to find any other motivation for the film's characters.

With Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller shows how an action movie should be done.

But the problem is that Hollywood studios will look at only one thing about the new Mad Max film — it's financial return. With a $200 million budget, the film is on track to earn around $45 million this weekend. Even if word-of-mouth and great reviews give the film powerful legs, it's unlikely Mad Max: Fury Road will earn more than a half billion dollars.

Yes, that kind of money is nothing to laugh at. But compare that to the one billion dollars earned by Avengers: Age of Ultron and guess which movie the big Hollywood studios will want to emulate? It won't matter to Hollywood that the second Avengers movie sits firmly in the same tired old sexist tropes we always see in action movies. All that will matter to Hollywood in the short run is how much Marvel and Disney made off of a crappy film.

But all that said, I'm optimistic that in the long run Mad Mad: Fury Road will be incredibly influential. When the dreck which passes for action films these days is forgotten, George Miller's film will still be watched. New directors a decade or two from now will describe this film as their inspiration to become filmmakers. These directors will create the direct heirs to Fury Road, films which have women as the full partners and leads in action movies while Avengers: Age of Ultron is laughed at as that old-time crap people used to watch.

After all, it's been more than than 35 years since Sigourney Weaver first starred as Ripley, and 24 years since Linda Hamilton showed in Terminator 2 that women could also be muscled heroes. Those pioneering roles didn't immediately change how Hollywood action films treat women, but they were still influential (and it's impossible to imagine Charlize Theron's  Imperator Furiosa existing without the characters first created by Weaver and Hamilton).

So yes, I'm optimistic about how Mad Max: Fury Road will eventually change Hollywood. But don't expect the journey down the apocalyptic road Hollywood has built to be quick or immediate.

When you've finished writing a story, cut it by 10%

You've finished writing a new story. You've rewritten and edited the story to the best of your abilities. You've received detailed critiques and incorporated that feedback. You've worked so hard on the story that you want to simply submit the damn thing and never look at it again.

Congratulations. Now's the time to cut 10% of the story's word count.

Before you scream and apply a baseball bat to my head, hear me out.

When an author rewrites and edits a story, the temptation is to add words. All authors have experienced this. There you are, doing rewrites and clarifying some jumbled exposition or giving more depth to a character interaction or explaining exactly who is speaking in that confusing scene with twenty characters engaging in a spirited dialog about the best way to murder an author. So you do all this and bam, your story has jumped by several thousand in the word count.

And that's perfectly okay. If you need more words to tell your story, then use them. That's what words are for. To tell stories.

But once all the rewriting and editing are complete and you feel that the story is finished, that's a great time to see what you can do to simplify the story. And a good way to do this is to set a 10% goal for cutting words from your story.

I've been doing this recently with my fiction and I've found this 10% goal forces an author to consider both the minutia of what you've written and the larger parts of your story. Is that flowery sentence really necessary? Is that minor plot device, which needs a long info dump to explain, essential to the story? Do you really need all those adjectives and adverbs and phrases?

As you go through your story cutting what isn't absolutely needed you'll find that a stronger story quickly emerges. This is often because less is more (unless you're actually using cliches like that in your story, in which case consider my advice to not cliche yourself into being a hack writer).

And before you think this is merely my advice, note that Stephen King gives similar advice in On Writing. According to King, one of the early critiques he received stated the following: "Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%."

So the next time you finish a story, go back and try cutting 10%. I think you'll be happy with the result.