The Fight Scene

      Fight scenes in movies can be exciting for a few reasons, though primarily for the physical aesthetic.  Exciting fight choreography can engage an audience just like, say, exciting dance choreography can.  In books, it's a bit different.  While an author can get a reader to picture a specific fight choreography, the more specific the description gets, the more tedious the written fight can be.  Nevertheless, a fight scene in a book can heighten the drama, particularly if the reader is already invested in the stakes.  Most importantly though, a fight scene can be a way to highlight aspects of the characters in unusual, or unusually intense, ways. 
     The fight scenes in  Those That Wake and What We Become were intended to do this, delineating traits of Mal (perseverance in the first, the fact that his intelligence and wiliness come alive when he's in conflict in the second) and, to a lesser degree, Remak (precision).  A fight scene can also help intensify the tone and create a sense of just how desperate things are getting, especially when the protagonist seems terribly outmatched or, effectively, cannot hope to win (as in Mal's fight with the Old Man in What We Become).
     A book with sharp, exciting fights scenes that illuminates character illumination is William Goldman's Marathon Man, when the secret agent Scylla fights the assassin Chen.  The way the fight ends, particularly, reveals an essential trait of Scylla's character.  Goldman, incidentally, writes great fights scenes in general, including in the novels Brothers, Control and The Princess Bride.  

The Secrets in the Chapter Titles

      A little while ago, a reader told me he noticed that the chapter titles in Those That Wake and What We Become aren't numbered.  In the interest of full disclosure, this reader seemed a little annoyed by the fact, but the uneasiness it produced in him was not completely unintentional.  I left the titles unnumbered because, like the characters within, I wanted the readers to always be a bit uncertain of where, exactly, they were in the story.
     Something else I did with the chapter titles, actually, almost no one seems to have caught onto (or at least almost no one's bothered to mention to me).  The titles of each chapter have a number of words in them that correspond to the part of the book they're in, so all the chapters in Part I are a single word, the titles in Part II have two words, and so on.  This was an attempt to carry forward the theme, central to the story,  that there are secret connections between things all around us of which we are not aware.
      The ideas of the stories don't have to end with the narrative itself, but can take a hold in the physical object that comprises them.  Now, at the risk of pushing a little too far into postmodernism, I'll point out that ideas taking over physical forms is something else crucial to the stories, as well.
    

Happy Holidays

     Beyond Where You Stand is officially going on winter break.  A new post will appear on Thursday, January 9, 2014.  Until then, have a joyful holiday celebration and a very happy New Year.
 

Graphic Novels in Your School Library Reviews

     Guess I should be checking in more often, but I just recently stumbled across two reviews for Graphic Novels in Your School Library.   Kids & Books calls it "smart, accessible, and comprehensive."  The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, meanwhile, says "[a] much needed book . . . accessible, to the point, and playful in its subtle humor."

Art Spiegelman and the Jewish Museum (and Me)

     Responsible for defining an era in comics and redefining the medium itself, Art Spiegelman is the subject of an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York City.  I will be doing my small part by leading a discussion for educators called Literacy and the Graphic Novel, this coming Monday, December 9th at 4:00.  The discussion will be followed by a tour of the exhibition.  If you are an educator and are in the area, please join us.  You can still register here.