John August

Genres

Depression on film

Genres, Psych 101

Steve Peterson points out you [rarely see clinical depression](http://towercoda.blogspot.com/2006/10/epidemic-you-dont-see-on-film.html) in movies and TV. Which is odd, considering it’s much more common in real life than, say, retrograde amnesia.

What makes clinical depression un-cinematic is that it’s a negative affect: it’s characterized by a lack of motivation, a lack of action. Great writing can only do so much when you have a protagonist who doesn’t want to protagonate.

[Shortbus](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/i-heart-shortbus) has a clinically depressed character who goes off his meds — a decision that is as frustrating in a movie as it is in real life. While the character explains himself fairly well, he’s kind of a drag to be around. Again, realistic, but not particularly cinematic.

What if my movie is too much like another?

Genres, QandA, Story and Plot

questionmarkI have been working on a spec that has a great premise. Not long ago, a Big Hollywood Movie came out with a very similar premise, and touched on similar themes as my script. Now, I’m NOT asking, “Can I sue?”, or any of the other similar questions I have found asked by others in this situation.

My story has a different angle, and of course, I think it’s better than this other movie. What I want to know is this: when this thing is ready to send out (looking for agent, mainly, but as evidenced by Big Hollywood Movie, it might sell), should I mention its similarity to the Big Hollywood Movie? Would doing so help or hinder my cause? I can foresee the situation where I mention up front that my script is like Big Hollywood Movie, not wanting to look like a copycat, but I end up looking like more of a copycat. On the other hand, I can foresee coming off as a copycat if I don’t mention it. Sacrificing brevity for clarity, I again ask:

When this thing is ready to send out, should I mention its similarity to the Big Hollywood Movie?

— Luke
Washington, DC

Without knowing the specific details of your plot, it’s impossible to say. But here’s the issue I think you’re overlooking: is your script really that similar?

You think so, because you’ve been staring at your script for months, cursing your dumb luck to have written something so much like Big Dumb Hollywood Movie. But to an outside observer, it might not seem that way.

Years ago, when I was working on my [Untitled Zombie Western](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2005/a-movie-by-any-other-name), I read in Variety about two different “cowboy and aliens” projects rushing though development. I was certain my project was doomed — no way would anyone want to do my genre-crossing hybrid now. I refused to listen to friends’ reasonable advice: aliens are not zombies; my setting was distinct; most movies never make it out of development.

My friends were right on all three counts, and neither of the cowboys-and-aliens movies have shot. (Neither has my zombie western, so my schadenfreude offers limited satisfaction.)

You say that your script has a similar premise and theme, but neither of those speak to plot. X-MEN and SKY HIGH have similar premises, but if you’d written the latter, you wouldn’t automatically draw the comparison to the former.

Here’s probably the best test for whether you need to acknowledge the similarity to Big Hollywood Movie: write a three-sentence description of your script. If it sounds a lot like the other movie, you should probably call it out. But if it’s clear how it differs, then leave it alone.

Ultimately, the similarities between your script and the other movie might be enough to keep it from progressing. But remember that the goal of this script is to get people to notice how good your writing is. Execution is what matters.

Can Dracula’s son get a book deal?

Genres, QandA, Story and Plot

questionmarkWhat is the best way to get my life story read by someone? I am the son of Dracula.

–Nicholas
via imdb

Common sense would suggest you are in fact not Dracula’s son, but rather a nutjob who wants to see his name in print. But no matter. The vast majority of memoirs are written by vain, delusional nutjobs, so there’s no reason you shouldn’t be entitled to your six-figure advance. This is America. Not only do you have the right to be semi-famous, you have the right to milk your semi-fame with an unnecessary but hopefully entertaining best-seller.

More than truth, what a memoir really needs is a hook, and I think you’ve found a great one. Let’s start with the title. Ignore those who would urge you to pick Dracula’s Son or In Red Blood. That’s not direct enough. You want a title that is so obvious that even viewers who skip over your Today show interview know exactly who you are and what your book is about: I Am Dracula’s Son.

Now that we’ve picked a title, there’s the trifling concern of the book itself. Whether you write it yourself, or hire a ghostwriter to “put in the periods and commas,” you need to ask yourself: What story am I telling? Is it a tale of darkness and redemption, wacky family hijinks, or perhaps a long struggle to find acceptance?

To have any shot at the best-seller list, your story should include at least six of the following:

* Addiction
* Sexual abuse
* Dangerous under-parenting
* Suffocating over-parenting
* Frequent moving
* Mental illness, preferably bi-polar disorder
* Poverty
* Great wealth
* Murder
* Eating disorders
* Death of a sibling

In the case of your “life’s story,” the spotlight is clearly on the big man himself, Daddy Dracula. You might think the fact that he’s the ravaging, immortal prince of darkness would be enough. You’d be wrong.

More than just evil, he needs to be crazy. Not crazy in a let’s paint the kitchen bright red! sort of way. But crazy in a gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God sort of way. (This advice comes from Augusten Burrough’s excellent Running with Scissors, which sets a deliriously high bar. I have a wee literary crush on my semi-namesake. I hope the upcoming movie does the book justice.)

As you shape your memoir, remember that no one is buying your book to learn about the real you. Real People are not interesting, no matter what Skip Stevenson Stephenson and Sarah Purcell might have led you to believe. You need to think of yourself as a character. That is, exaggerate the best and worst qualities while minimizing any sense of normalcy. In terms of plot, the question isn’t, “What happened next?” but rather “What’s the most shocking thing a reader might possibly believe?” If you’re stumped, see the list above.

Best of luck with the book, Nicholas. I look forward to reading it, just as soon as I finish Jim McGreevey’s apologia for being a closeted scumbag.

Vampires are the imaginary numbers of modern literature

Genres, Reading

After a [bad beginning](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/to-the-guy-sitting-in-7a), I spent the flight home from Colorado reading Barry Mazur’s [Imagining Numbers](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374174695/), which looks at how we might best conceive of imaginary numbers, those uncomfortable gremlins that occur when you start looking for the square root of negative numbers.

The book was only okay. It tried to be history lesson, philosophical study and math review all at once, and in its scattershot approach never quite achieved its stated thesis.

But one benefit of a mediocre book is that one’s mind is free to wander. Over the course of reading Mazur’s book, I decided:

1. To paint a giant number line on my daughter’s playroom wall. Addition and subtraction make a lot more sense with some geometry behind them, and Mazur’s description of numbers as verbs rather than nouns is revelatory.

2. The sense of needing “permission” to do something is generally an indication of an unasked question: “What would happen if I *did* take the square root of a negative number,” or “What if my protagonist *could* hear the voice-over narration?” (c.f. [Stranger Than Fiction](http://imdb.com/title/tt0420223/))

3. Vampires are the imaginary numbers of modern literature.

This last point merits further elaboration.

Vampires do not exist. That is, they do not exist in the same way you or I do. You’ve never met an undead blood-sucker, and neither have I. Yet we can both agree on quite a few characteristics of these non-existent beings:

* They drink blood.
* They avoid sunlight.
* They’re strong.
* They are undead and undying, except by special procedures.

This checklist is by no means complete: different writers may choose to add or subtract abilities. Shape-shifting and hypnosis were once pretty common traits that have all but disappeared from the modern vampire. Likewise, flight and coffin-sleeping seem to be on the wane.

In films, books and television, you can find urban vampires, feral vampires and even white-trash varieties. Yet the sense of “vampire-ness” seems fairly fixed. Here’s a test: grab a random teenager and ask him how to kill a vampire. Then ask him how to change a tire. I suspect the more complete answer will involve a wooden stake.

So how are vampires the imaginary numbers of modern literature?

Neither vampires nor imaginary numbers exist, yet we treat them like they do, simply because it suits our purposes. Imaginary numbers let us posit hypothetical mathematical scenarios; vampires let us imagine hypothetical human scenarios. Want an addiction analogy? Vampires. Epidemic? Vampires. Alienation? Vampires. Need to have your protagonist exist both now and two hundred years in the past? Just make him a vampire.

Modern literature has substituted vampires into every conceivable genre. And I don’t think it’s any accident that our bitey friends have become the go-to supernatural beings. Werewolves are only part-time monsters. Ghosts lack a consistent mythology. Vampires, well, *they’re just like us.*

But different. They’re imaginary numbers, who can’t be reduced beyond their glamorous other-ness.

I haven’t written a vampire movie yet, but the key word is “yet.” I came close last year, and it’s almost a given that I will at some point. It’s like a screenwriter’s rite of passage. And when I do, I intend to invoke some serious calculus on that shit.