DragonCon 2011: Talks with Michael Stackpole

During this year's DragonCon, I attended two panels featuring Michael A. Stackpole, a science fiction writer noted for the Rogue Squadron series of Star Wars novels and the Blood of Kerensky BattleTech novels covering the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere.

The first panel, I did not originally plan on attending because it was part of a series of writing workshops that one had to pay for.  However, Gary Henderson told me that one could attend individual sessions for $10 and since characterization is one of my weak points, I figured this would be a good idea.

The first panel I attended was about characterization.  Stackpole gave a presentation on the different types of characters out there, starting with roman a clef (based on real events and people, like Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics) before moving onto archetypes (stock characters), composite archetypes, and organic development of characters.

"You're going to use all of these techniques," he said.

One easy way to create a character is to combine a composite character is to take a real-world character and add--the example he gave was General Patton if he were a motorcycle-riding bad boy like the sort typically played by the young Marlon Brando.

However, one advantage of organic character development is that there's going to be character growth.

Another technique is deliberate design--Stackpole said it was like a composite characterization on steroids and said role-playing gamers do this a lot.

However, he warned against rigid adherence to a model because it would kill character growth.  "George Patton would never do that" is something one shouldn't ever say.

He also warned against complications--he said many roman a clef novels are written about students getting their master of fine arts in literature who sleep with their professors by master of fine arts in literature students sleeping with their professors and this leads to alienation-of-affection lawsuits and divorces when the professors' spouses read the novels and recognize the scenario.

He also said although archetypal stories are familiar and make readers comfortable, archetypal characters are often shallow and a sign of writers who don't challenge themselves.  Stackpole said he uses archetypes as place-holders and then elaborates on them to create real characters.

"Every character is the hero of their own story," he said.

Although I've most often heard this in regards with the characterization of villains, he said this can be used to generate additional material.  For example, what story would a fantasy hero's loyal retainer tell his children about his adventures?  Many short stories and novellas begin this way.

He then said that organic characterization has a big drawback--it takes up a lot of space/page-count and a lot might end up cut.

He also provided some more concrete advice.  He said if a secondary character begins taking over a story, one should give them their own story later.  He also said if killing off a character hurts you, it will probably hurt the reader.

I remember reading that George R.R. Martin wrote the infamous "Red Wedding" (in which the Freys and Boltons murder Robb and Catelyn Stark at Edmure Tully's wedding to Rosilin Frey, held in the Freys' castle) last of all the parts of A Storm of Swords.  Furthermore, many fans apparently reacted very strongly to the scene, including crying or throwing the book across the room.  I guess this proves Stackpole's point.

Stackpole also said writers need to be able to rationalize anything.  He said in his Age of Discovery novels, he said one race had nine gods in one book and ten in the second.  He fixed this by throwing in that members of said race didn't talk about the tenth god and this became a big deal in the third book.

"I had totally, totally blown that," Stackpole said.

However, he managed to turn it around so a flub looked like something that was planned ahead.

"That happens more than you care to remember and it's wonderful," he said. "It makes you look brilliant."

He then suggested something called "blitzkrieg characterization," a technique he said Stephen King used in From a Buick 8.  Basically, one lists two character traits and then a trait that flatly contradicts them.  The example he used was that of a well-dressed man who attended church on Sunday and Wednesday but should not be trusted with the collection plate.

"What this means is that you as the writer have them," he said.  People will want to read to find out more.

Stackpole ended his presentation with a character growth arc--have the character ask why they are, what they want to be, and what do others they think are.  The first two are connected, while the third can provide pressure on the characters.  I've read some discussion on the Song of Ice and Fire message-boards and they described Jaime Lannister's redemption arc in somewhat similar terms--he wants to be a great, honorable knight (and be perceived as such), but people think him an honorless king-slayer and suspect him of incest with his sister.  The fact his family has a rather bad reputation at this point doesn't help.  Reading the White Book chronicling the Kingsguard throughout history shows him how he's come up rather short. 

This supposedly drives his behavior later on the story, when he ends the siege of Riverrun without storming the castle or killing any rebels, rescues the female knight Brienne of Tarth from a bad situation (before, he was in the habit of calling her "wench" and was generally rude to her) and later dispatches her to find and rescue Sansa Stark, beats a man senseless with his golden artificial hand for insulting Brienne, rescues his brother from being unjustly executed, etc.

The second panel with Stackpole was about Robert E. Howard's Conan and Howard as a writer.  Something I found particularly notable was that Stackpole had written Conan the Barbarian, a novelization of the 2011 movie.  Stackpole is a man after my own heart--like me, he believes the 2011 film is a much better representation of Howard's mythos than the Arnold film.

He discussed how one novelizes a film and how he expanded on Conan's life story between Zym's destruction of his village and when we see Conan again as an adult.  This included consolidating the scene where Zym's minions chase Tamara on horseback--one simply can't write that shot-for-shot in a novel.  To write it, Stackpole wrote in the morning and read Howard's Conan stories and commentaries on them later in the day.  He finished the novel, which was contracted to be 80,000 words but came in after editing at 79,500, in 17 days, writing three chapters per day.  Much of the book is based on material not in the film--if it was solely based on the movie, it would only be 50,000 words long.

Unfortunately, the Fulton County library system doesn't seem to have it.  I'm going to have to order it off Amazon.com.

Movie Review: "Conan the Barbarian" (2011)

I saw the new Conan the Barbarian with Jason Momoa Sunday afternoon.  I wasn't able to review it until now. Here we go...

The Good

*Unlike the Arnold version, this actually felt like one of the original stories, complete with exotic cities with hard-to-pronounce names and lots of fight scenes.  And we see Conan's early career where he was a thief, a pirate, and a general-purpose trouble-maker rather than him escaping slavery, performing one illegal feat, and then going off on a quest for revenge.  And like the stories, it's extremely entertaining.

*The beginning in which we see Conan as a child and the destruction of his village, a plotline borrowed from the first movie and not from Howard or his successors, is extremely well-done.  We see how Conan was born on the battlefield, per the original stories, and see how he becomes a warrior despite being much younger than the other warriors.  The scene where Conan, who can't be more than 12 or so, takes down several Pictish raiders was awesome.  Leo Howard did a good job as the child Conan.  And the Picts' battle-cries were downright spooky.

*Jason Momoa makes a far better adult Conan than Arnold did.  Conan in the stories, although lacking formal education, was very intelligent, while Arnold's Conan came off as rather stupid.  Later in life, he became King of Aquilonia, and rather than blow the realm's entire treasury on booze, gambling, and orgies as a younger, more foolish man might have, he became a very effective ruler.  Momoa's Conan was intelligent and as his friend Artus (Nonso Anozie) said, had the heart of a king.  The Conan of the stories was also lithe and agile, not a walking tank like Arnold in his younger years was.

*Ron Perlman did an excellent job as Conan's father Corin.  Particularly notable is his performance when the warlord Khalar Zym (Stephen Lang) interrogates him in the forge.

*And Lang did a good job as Zym, who was fairly complex for a sword-and-sorcery villain.  Yes, he did intend to rule the world and become a god, but he dearly loved his late wife and wanted to resurrect her.  And when Fassir (Raad Rawi) told him his wife deserved to die (burning alive to be more specific) for witchcraft--an act Zym and his daughter Marique (Rose McGowan) were forced to watch--he goes convincingly berserk.  He made a better villain than Thulsa Doom from the original, although Doom wasn't bad.

*I liked Tamara (Rachel Nichols), who Zym and his daughter are hunting to use her blood to reactivate the mask.  She's no shrinking violet needing to be rescued all the time and shows herself a capable fighter, but at the same time she's not unrealistically depicted as being the combat equal of Conan or Zym in the name of political correctness either.

*Also, props to Alina Puscau, Zlatka Raikova, and to any of the other actresses from early in the film who were required to have actual conversations and act while topless.  I'm referring to the scene where they're rescued from the slavers early on and later when they're hanging out with Conan, Artus, and their crew in the bar. When I was a student at UGA, I saw a hypnotist show in which several women and one man were hypnotized and convinced they were naked in front of the spectators.  The women proceeded to start screaming and covering themselves, while the man didn't seem to care at all. I didn't detect any trace of awkwardness or fear at all in any of actresses playing the slave girls or "topless wenches" when they conversed with Conan and Artus.  It was like they were carrying on an ordinary conversation, only not wearing much of anything.  And points to Momoa and Anozie for convincingly acting like this kind of thing is totally normal and carrying on ordinary conversations with the actresses rather than leering the entire time.

The Bad

*Some of the dialogue was laugh-out-loud and not necessarily intentionally.  The only specific incident I can recall is whe Corin holds the infant Conan over the battlefield and roars dramatically.  Narm (see TVTropes) alert.

*When Conan raids the slaver camp in the beginning of the film, he tells Artus "no man should live in chains."  Conan as a young man would violently object to being enslaved himself but I don't recall any moral scruples about enslaving anyone else.  Conan is described as having a personal moral code, but the only part of it I can recall is that he will not, under any circumstances, commit rape.

*It was fairly strange that Tamara kept referring to herself as a monk when, being a woman, the proper term is nun.

*Early in the film when Conan joins the other Cimmerian boys in an initiation ritual and they encounter Pictish raiders, it would have been nice if they had been identified.  I know from the Conan mythology that these were the Picts, the Cimmerians' hereditary enemies, but it wasn't mentioned.  It would have been pretty easy to have one of the older boys yell "the Picts" upon seeing them, perhaps before another boy tells the others they need to return to the village.

*When Zym interrogates Conan's father in the forge, we see the battle is still going on outside.  That seems rather strange.  It would be more sensible for the enemy commander to wait until all resistance is subdued before he takes the time to torture and interrogate someone. Of course, given the circumstances (not going into detail for reasons of spoilers), him not being especially rational about the whole thing makes sense.

*There are some logistical issues--how long does it take to get from city to city?

The Verdict

This was an entertaining movie and far more faithful to the source material than Arnold's version.  I definitely snagged this one on DVD.  8 out of 10.

Saw "Conan The Barbarian" Today

Saw the new Conan film with Jason Momoa today.  I won't write a full review until tomorrow or Tuesday, but I really enjoyed it.  It was certainly better than the original film with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, by far.

All of you should go to see it before it leaves theaters.  There were only two showings of the non-3D version in the theater today and I believe a roughly similar number of 3D showings.  Although it doesn't look like the movie is going to make back its budget in theaters, at least in the United States, every little bit helps.

Conan is an awesome character and Robert E. Howard was one of the greatest fantasy writers of all time.  Let's do our bit to help keep the character and franchise alive.

Conan the Barbarian (2011) Trailer

Now this looks awesome.  Nothing in the trailer, nor anyone in the list of characters in the Wikipedia article about the film stand out as being based on any particular story or culture from Robert Howard's stories.  IMDB mentions Valeria, but I don't see her in the Wikipedia cast list.

That being said, I don't think I've actually read any of Howard's Conan stories, only about them.  I have read L. Sprague de Camp's Conan stories, but those were written later on, to fill in the gaps in Howard's chronology, and many fans do not regard them as canon.

Also, although Conan objects strongly to being enslaved himself, I don't think he's ever expressed general anti-slavery sentiments ("no man should live in chains").

Some of the material I've read about Howard's work indicates he develops stronger morals and a sense of responsibility that comes with leadership as he ages, leading to him suppressing the banditry he'd started his career in when he became King of Aquilonia, but that would be years later.  In the movie, Conan appears to be a young man, and based on the Wikipedia article, is still in his "make money by violence and then blow it all gambling, drinking, and whoring" phase.

That being said, this looks awesome and I will definitely see it.  It already looks better than the original Conan the Barbarian from the 1980s.

BTW, thanks belong to James R. Tuck for finding this and posting it on his Facebook page.  He's got a three-book deal about a monster hunter and the above link is his author page, so if the phrase "Deacon Chalk: Occult Bounty Hunter" appeals to you, you might want to check this out.

Something Awesome from Robert Howard's "Conan" Stories

Found this on TVTropes.  The site lists this under Badass Creed and said it's from Howard's Conan poem "The Road of Kings."


Gleaming shell of an outworn lie, fable of Right Divine
You gained your crowns by heritage, but Blood was the price of mine
The throne I won by blood and sweat, by Crom I will not sell
For promise of valleys filled with gold, or threat of the Halls of Hell!
When I was a fighting man, the kettle-drums they beat
The people scattered gold dust before my horse's feet
But now I am a great king; the people hound my track
With poison in my wine cup and daggers at my back.
What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie?
I who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky.
The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing.
Rush in and die, dogs — I was a man before I was a king!


This is awesome.  Very Nietzchean and Will-to-Power, which is appropriate considering how the film Conan the Barbarian began with Nietzche's "What does not kill us makes us stronger."

I need to work in an allusion to this in my "Wastelands" novels, for Grendel and ultimately for Andrew Sutter.

(Oops...was that a spoiler?)

I did ponder a sketch of Grendel ramming his foot down on one Merrill soldier while shooting another with his "Old World" rifle (a modern assault rifle, probably an AK-47 or an M-16) and title it "I Was A Man Before I Was A King."  When I was in Britain in 2006, I saw a Star Wars-related magazine cover depicting Vader bringing down his lightsaber on a Rebel Alliance soldier, so it would be in a similar style.  I could also do a similarly-themed sketch with Andrew doing the same to a Flesh-Eater.

I already have a sketch of Alonzo Merrill in my sketchbook, which I used to visualize him for Chapter Nine of Battle for the Wastelands when the character is introduced, so I've already got some "Wastelands" artwork.

However, until my "Wastelands" novels become popular, there's not much of a market or audience for that.  I suppose I could post it on DeviantArt, but that risks the ideas being stolen.

"Conan the Barbarian" Movie Review (and Suggestions)

I just finished the film Conan the Barbarian - Collector's Edition, which I rented the other evening to entertain myself while I was ironing. Time for the review...

To be perfectly blunt, I could have written a better script than writers John Milius and Oliver Stone did.  I've read a fair bit of Conan fiction, although to be fair, it's mostly from later writers like Robert Jordan who filled in the gaps creator Robert E. Howard left in Conan's life.  Thus, I've got a fair bit of knowledge about the Conan mythos.

However, I don't like to criticize without offering suggestions for improvement, so I'll go through the film from the beginning and describe how I would have done things differently when I don't like something and praise the things I did like.

For starters, I would have had Conan be a teen when his village is destroyed by raiders and he is sold into slavery.  In the timeline assembled from the stories by various writers, Conan, before he was sold into slavery, had already fought against some invaders from the civilized realm of Aquilonia who were attempting to colonize Cimmeria.  Some of the source material describes him as a respected warrior among the tribe by the time he was around 15.

In the stories, Conan was enslaved as a gladiator as a teenager, but not for very long.  He broke his chain and, using it as a weapon, battered his way to freedom.  Also, in the film we see a frightened-looking woman brought to Conan in his gladiatorial cell, where he proceeds to rape her--in the stories, Conan is proud of how he never took a woman against her will and the sex while he was a gladiator was from noblewomen who admired his prowess in the ring.  I don't recall anything in the stories or the timelines about him being bred "to the finest stock" as part of some prehistoric eugenics program.

That version of the "gladiator phase" would eliminate the need for the decade on the Wheel of Pain (some kind of slave-driven grain-grinding machine) and make Conan a far more active character than the man who was a slave his entire life and is only freed (for no discernible reason) by his master rather than his own efforts.  It would also give him reason to say the "to see your enemies driven before you" line, as he would have had the life experiences to learn this lesson.

Soon after leaving slavery and finding a sword in a tomb, Conan is seduced by a woman who, while having sex with Conan, starts turning into a snake-like monster and trying to bite him.  He physically tosses her away and she turns into some kind of fiery being who flees the area. 

That scene strikes me as something taken from Howard's short story "Worms of the Earth," which was about a Pictish king fighting the Romans and had nothing to do with Conan.  It also didn't involve shape-shifting--the woman in question was the product of the rape of a human woman by one of the "Worms of the Earth" (a reptilian semi-human race whom the Picts drove underground centuries before) and had some snaky features, but didn't change her form.

Given how the purpose of that scene is to introduce Conan to his traveling companion Subotai, who for some reason is chained to a nearby rock wall for the wolves, I would have simply had Conan, soon after escaping slavery, hiring on as a caravan guard and fending off a group of horsemen.  Subotai could have been a survivor of that group who becomes Conan's devoted henchman for having his life spared or something like that.

After meeting Subotai, we have a scene where he and Subotai discuss their different gods.  I would have kept that or something like that because it exposits Conan's (and the general Cimmerian) attitude toward their god Crom.  However, after that, I would have replaced the montage of them running through the fields with a montage of them doing the various things Conan did during his early career--thievery and mercenary work.  We could see scenes of them fighting and debauching afterward (see below).

I liked the introduction of Valeria and the way her relationship with Conan began.  The montage of them blowing their loot on parties and material goods after they successfully rob the temple of the snake cult nicely ties in with how Howard and his successors got Conan off on adventures again after he'd successfully snagged a lot of money--he proceeds to blow it all on drinking, gambling, and prostitutes and soon ends up with only his sword.

I also liked how Conan managed to infiltrate the headquarters of the snake-cult on the assignment to rescue the princess who'd run off with cult leader Thulsa Doom (although I would have used a different villain, since TD was actually associated with Howard's other barbarian hero Kull), although it would have been nice if it were clearer just how Conan was discovered.

(Some of the priests of the temple that he'd robbed recognized the icon he used to gain access to Doom's headquarters but there's no dialogue to indicate this when they confer with each other.)

I liked how Doom's casual dismissal of Conan's accusation of the murder of his family ("I was younger then") showed his evil attitude and the "power of flesh" demonstration (in which he showed off his authority as a cult leader by having a woman jump to her death).  Conan's subsequent crucifixion, in which he bites the head off a vulture trying to nibble on him, was unintentionally hilarious due to bad 80s effects but it does come from one of Howard's short stories, I think "A Witch Shall Be Born."

However, in that particular story, Conan was rescued from the cross before death and not killed and resurrected in a rather trippy sequence where his companions Valeria and Subotai fight off some demonic-looking beings.  I think there might be a dead-and-resurrected Conan in another story, but I didn't like how this was pulled off in the film.

The infiltration of Doom's fortress and abduction of the brainwashed princess were fun, although I'm not sure why Doom took that opportunity to transform into a giant snake, which he never does again throughout the film.  It would have been better if he did that for the purpose of sneaking around the heroes and ambushing them or escaping them when they burst into his chamber to retrieve the princess.

Valeria's death works, since to preserve a sense of threat to the main characters, one should be willing to kill off the supporting cast.  I guess it would be either her or Subotai, since the Wizard was introduced too recently for the viewers to develop an attachment to him.

Conan, Subotai, and the Wizard making their stand against Doom's horsemen in the middle of the standing stones makes sense, since the alternative is being taken on an open plain, as does their carving of many anti-cavalry stakes.

The problem is, we never see the stakes being used for their intended purpose.  No horsemen end up being impaled on them, nor do we see them being used to "channel" the enemy into traps or positions Conan and his friends can more easily defend.  All we see is someone riding past the stakes and later some soldiers Subotai shoots with his bow and arrow smashing them by rolling down a hill.

In the stories, although Conan did not have a lot of formal education, he was intelligent and his enemies underestimated that to their detriment.  The defense against Doom's cavalry could have done a much better job of illustrating that.

It's also not clear why the princess, after Doom tries to kill her, helps Conan infiltrate the temple for the final showdown with Doom.  Obviously she has reason to be angry with him, but it's an abrupt jump from Doom's retreat to the infiltration of the temple.  Some dialogue here would be nice, especially since earlier, Subotai explicitly told Conan to simply retrieve the princess and save killing Doom for another day.

The defeat of Doom was also rather anti-climactic--he attempts to hypnotize Conan like he had Conan's mother, only for Conan to kill him.  Given how Doom was a raider before he became a cult leader, I would have him bust out some martial skill and, failing that, turn into a snake again.

The aftermath of Doom's defeat was rather slow.  Not sure what suggestions I would have to improve it--perhaps less time showing Conan sitting on the steps of the temple looking contemplative.

As far as movie quality goes, the version I saw merited a 4 out of 10.  The soundtrack was really good, which helped.  Hopefully the upcoming animated Conan film Red Nails, which has experienced delays but has recently picked up some new voice actors, will hew more closely to Howard's stories.  After all, it's a straight adaptation of one story rather than an attempt to glue several of them together.

Edit: The podcast Myopia: Defend Your Childhood discussed the film. Here's the link. Having watched it a second time, I was probably less harsh on it this time around