What Writers Can Learn from DOCTOR WHO

I'm a big fan of Doctor Who. Like most Whovians, I don't like every single episode. I have my favorites, just like I have my favorite Doctors and my favorite companions.

So what exactly makes Doctor Who so great? And what exactly is Doctor Who?

Doctor Who is a BBC science-fiction series that has been around for over 50 years--even before I was born--although there was a long break between the late eighties and 2005 when the new series began.

Doctor Who tells the ongoing story of the Doctor: a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey and the last of his kind.

The Doctor is hundreds of years old, and he’s seen a lot of terrible things. He has a lot of enemies, like the Daleks and the Cybermen.  He’s lost a lot of friends along the way, which makes him very lonely.

That’s why the Doctor likes to take people along for the ride. These special people are the Doctor’s companions. They get to travel with the Doctor is his time machine, which is called the TARDIS.

TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. On the outside, the TARDIS looks like a blue police call box from England in the 1960s. It’s much bigger on the inside, though. Sometimes bigger than others.

The Doctor’s real name is a secret he must keep, because if it falls into the wrong hands… Actually, I don’t know what would happen, but apparently it’s something really bad.

When the Doctor dies, he regenerates and turns into someone new. So far 13 actors have played the Doctor, and each one has brought something different to the role.

Some people say that this is what makes Doctor Who so great: because the Doctor can become anyone, the show can be anything… Except apparently a woman, but that's something I hope will change. I've even written a first episode for her, and I've entitled it "Madam with a Box," a play on somethin the Doctor sometimes calls himself: a "madman with a box." I'd like to someday create a Kickstarter project so I can turn Madam with a Box into a fanfic graphic novel. Someday... 

Anyway, remember how I said that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside? Well, I think that what makes the show great is that the show itself is bigger on the inside.

The show makes you feel, and it makes you feel BIG time.

For example, I’ve never seen a more romantic couple on TV than the 11^th Doctor’s companions, Amy Pond and Rory Williams.

He dies over and over for her, and as the Last Centurion he waits over a thousand years to guard her in the Pandorica. And when Amy has to choose between Rory and all of time and space, she chooses him. “Together or not at all.” Try to beat that, any other TV couple out there.   

Looking for something scary? Try the episodes entitled “Blink,” “Silence in the Library,” “The Time of Angels,” “Flesh and Stone” and finally “The Angels Take Manhattan.” I don’t know of any other show that’s made thousands of viewers too scared to even blink.

Looking for something funny? Donna Noble probably would win a funniest companion competition, and one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV was near the end of companion Donna Noble’s storyline in the episode entitled “Journey’s End.” Of course, it very soon becomes one of the saddest things ever. (Maybe that's a spoiler, although soon after Donna Noble is introduced as a companion we're told that something very sad is going to happen to her. The only spoiler here, really, is that it's true.)

And that’s what makes Doctor Who so great! It makes you feel so much and so deeply.

You fall in love with the characters. You feel their terror and sadness and joy. In a way, everyone who watches Doctor Who BECOMES the Doctor’s companion. We’re all onboard the TARDIS for this wonderful, scary, funny, exciting ride!

So it’s not that the show can be anything; it’s that the show can take your emotions ANYWHERE, and it does.

There's a lesson there for any storyteller: don’t let the audience half feel things. Go as far as you can. Make your story like a TARDIS: bigger on the inside.

And that’s why I love the “Madman in a Box.”   

Have a character but no plot? Three easy steps you can use to make one

If you have an idea for a character but don't know what to do with it, here are three easy steps that will help you create a great story:

1. find out what your main character wants most and make him/her want it or need it more and more.

2. find something that prevents him/her from getting that thing and make the obstacle bigger and more urgent (it can be internal, another character, or the world your character is in). 

3. bring the conflict to a head until the character resolves it by getting what he/she wants, letting go of what he/she wants (and possibly getting something better in return), or coming to accept being without the thing he/she originally wanted. 

A plot can have several steps, so your main character can start out wanting one thing, get it, and then want something else.  For example, in The Cat in the Hat, the main characters ("me and Sally") want something to relieve their boredom until they get it; then they want to avoid getting in trouble. 

These three steps have infinite possibilities depending on the main character(s), other characters, setting, style, and want/need.

If you have an idea for a plot but not a main character, you can easily turn that plot into a main character, too: whatever the objective of the main character in a plot is supposed to be, create a character who is strongly motivated to achieve that objective. Create other characters who are strongly motivated to stop the main character from achieving that objective. For example, some of the people who are motivated to solve a crime are a detective, a reporter, the accused, the victim, and the likely next target. Notice that the more motivated the character is to achieve the objective, the more compelling the story becomes. 

My Top Ten Sci-Fi Movies

There are two problems when it comes to compiling a list of my 10 favorite sci-fi movies: first, not everyone would agree that every movie on my list qualifies as science fiction; and second, how do I limit it to just 10?

Well, I agree that some of these movies aren’t really science fiction. I mean, that whole nonsense about being able to erase yourself from existence if you upset the “space-time continuum” in Back to the Future? Yeah, that’s great for the plot, but it has no scientific basis. It’s what Doctor Who would call, “Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.” But it’s still a great movie franchise with a pseudo scientific basis, so it stays. The Avengers, on the other hand, is one of my favorite movies of all time, but it didn't make the list because, well, I just don't think superhero movies qualify as science fiction, particularly when they involve Norse gods.   

And there were about 10 other movies I put on and took off the list, because there really are so many great sci-fi movies. I could play with this list forever, but I had to settle on a top 10, so this is it. Some are classics, while others are just personal favorites. Maybe some are your personal favorites too.

1. Serenity

The movie that followed Joss Whedon’s Firefly: a TV series about Captain Mal (Nathan Fillion) and his motley crew of outlaw space cowboys. Like anything done by Joss Whedon, it has the perfect combination of excitement, comedy, strong characters, awesome heroes, and even more awesome heroines. Netflix has both the series and the movie available for streaming, so if you can, watch the series first and then the movie. Prepare to laugh and cry. A lot. Shiny.

2. E.T.

A young boy named Elliot tries to help a friend from another planet get back to his spaceship. I’ve seen E.T. so many times, and I’ve cried every single time. E.T. will always hold a place in my heart.

3. Inception

A dream in a dream in a dream, and audiences argue which is reality. That’s kind of missing the point, though. This is really a movie about movies and how they affect us. That’s what’s real. Everything on the screen is a dream, and yet those dreams have the power to change our perceptions and our lives.

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4. Star Trek

J.J. Abram’s reboot of the original Star Trek series is nothing short of brilliant. Star Trek Into Darkness is brilliant too. The only question is--where does the series go from here?

5. Blade Runner

What makes someone human? That question isn’t so black-and-white in this movie about a man who hunts down and kills renegade robots that have been programmed to think they’re just as human as the rest of us. This movie does what the best science-fiction does: it entertains while making you think.

6. Back to the Future

Marty McFly endangers his very existence when he travels to the past and accidentally stops the event that led to his mother falling in love with his father in the 1950s. Can he fix the past, save himself, and get back to the present? Yeah, it doesn’t make sense, but it is so much fun.  

7. Men in Black

The Men in Black help good and harmless aliens on Earth, while saving the planet from otherworldly threats. So silly and so funny.

8. Star Wars: Episode IV--A New Hope

The Star Wars movie that started them all. I know it’s probably just me, but this has always reminded me of a game of Dungeons & Dragons played in space. And I like that. Some things are better when they’re produced on a shoestring budget. The Star Wars series proves it.

9. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Ordinary people are joined together on a quest after an encounter with aliens, in this early Steven Spielberg film. Just thinking of the scene with the car headlights, or the one with the mashed potatoes, puts a smile on my face. Da, da, da..DA, DA.

10. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay for the movie based on his hysterically funny science-fiction novel--my all-time favorite in any genre. Arthur Dent is rescued from planet Earth just before it’s demolished to make room for an inter-galactic highway. This isn’t for everyone, but if you love Douglas Adams as much as I do, you should definitely give it a try. Don’t panic, and don’t forget your towel. It’s not as good as the book, but that’s like saying a Hershey bar isn’t as good as Max Brenner truffles. It’s still chocolate, and that means it’s still wonderful.

Looking for Family Entertainment Deals in New York City? Check out These 11 Websites

New York City is one of the most amazing--and expensive--cities in the world, but deals abound if you know where to look. (Times Square in New York City, photo: Terabass)

A friend of mine from overseas will be coming to the New York City area with her family for summer vacation. We talked about it over Facetime (gotta love how Facetime can connect you with family and friends who are far away), and she told me her family wants to have a genuinely American experience. She mentioned seeing an auto race as an example.

She also said she wanted to see a Broadway show. Then we both said in unison, “But they're so expensive!”

And it’s true, they are.

But there are great deals out there if you know where to look.

For example, one year I bought tickets for the family to see Ovo by Cirque du Soleil, which is a great Cirque show. We sat only four rows from the stage, and the tickets only cost us $40 each.

Today I bought tickets for Rebounderz in Edison, New Jersey. This is an amazing indoor trampoline park that my family loves. Two tickets good for 90 minutes each were just $23. That’s $11.50 per person! Not bad.

I've also bought coupons good for discounted merchandise from some cool stores, discounted movie tickets, tickets to off-Broadway shows, like Stomp, and more.

So I compiled this list of places to look for good entertainment deals in the NYC area for my friend and her family, and I thought I’d share them here with you. 

After all, the only thing better than having a good time is having a good time at a great price. (If you're coming from overseas, be aware that you might need an American credit card to take advantage of many of these deals.)

Here's a short list of websites you should check out if you looking for entertainment deals in the New York City area:

1. Groupon

Groupon works with Expedia to bring you travel deals based on location. I bought those tickets to Rebounderz here, as well as movie tickets. It's best to subscribe a couple of months in advance, because you never know what you’re going to find.

http://www.groupon.com/new-york/getaways

 2. Goldstar 

Goldstar offers an eclectic list of events, some of them FREE, and many of them half or more off. Current examples are the Blue Man Group: Worldwide Theatre Sensation at Astor Place Theatre for $43.00-56.60 instead of $85.00 and Cirque du Soleil’s Totem for $37.00-$78.00 instead of $55.00-115.00. We've bought tickets to off-Broadway shows from Goldstar. You have to join the club to take advantage of offers, but it's free, so why wouldn't you?

http://www.goldstar.com/new-york/events

3. Living Social

Living Social deals are . . . interesting, and even more eclectic than Goldstar's. They're worth checking, though, because you never know what you're going to find: rock-climbing in Brooklyn for the kids or a pirate boat cruise for adults, who knows? It could be fun.

https://livingsocial.com/cities/231-nyc-midtown

4. Amazon Local

Did you know Amazon offers local deals? Well, now you do. There are deals for local services, activities, and products. For example, right now you can save 60% off a New York City ghost tour . . . if you dare. I wonder if my friend’s family would like that?

http://local.amazon.com/nyc-midtown/deals/all

5. School Tix

How does taking in a Broadway or off-Broadway show at a decent price sound?

School Tix has a nice selection of shows at discount prices, and you generally don't have to come with a school-age child to get these deals. Right now, for example, it’s offering Annie for $45.00-$85.00; Chicago for $49.50-$88.00; and Peter and the Starcatcher for $49-$69.

http://www.schooltix.com/

6. Theater Mania

Theater Mania also offers tickets to a nice selection of shows, on and off Broadway, at reduced prices.

http://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/discount-tickets/

7. Your Broadway Genius

Your Broadway Genius has discount tickets for Broadway and off-Broadway shows, too. The selection is small, but interesting. And I was surprised to see reduced tickets for The Ride: $50 instead of $69 (not including tips). I've always wanted to take The Ride, which is part bus tour and part musical-variety show. You sit facing the windows, while actors and entertainers perform on the sidewalks of New York City in front of your eyes. Now I’m even more tempted.  

http://www.yourbroadwaygenius.com/locations/new-york-city-discount-broadway-tickets/

8. DealCatcher

No matter what you're looking for, DealCatcher is a great place to check prices first. I usually go there to look for deals on products, but they offer activities too. I’d be particularly tempted by the Improv and comedy club offerings they have going now. (I love, love, love Improv and stand-up comedy.) DealCatcher catches deals from other websites, so if you find something you like, you might want to follow the link to the other site to see what else they have to offer.

http://www.dealcatcher.com/local/new-york

9. SlickDeals

SlickDeals is a lot like DealCatcher, but not all of their deals are the same. They're worth checking out too. And you might want to subscribe to both newsletters so that you can be aware of new deals before they're sold out.

http://slickdeals.net/localdeals/new-york/

10. TravelZoo

And finally, one of my favorite travel deal aggregators, TravelZoo, also offers entertainment deals by area. Of course, their New York City entertainment deals include Broadway, off-Broadway, and so much more, including unusual tours of the city, sport events, and activities on the water. TravelZoo is also a good place to look for travel deals near and not so near New York City.

http://www.travelzoo.com/entertainment/new-york/

Oh, and I should include this one last website just for the locals . . .

11. New York City Patch

I don't know if these exist around the country, but in this area, most communities have a Patch website with local information, such as news updates, classes, events, and much more. Here's a list of family events in the New York City area over the next few days, and most of them are free:

http://newcity.patch.com/events/category/family

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I hope this helps my friend make the most of her family trip, and I hope it helps you too.

This isn't a complete list by any means, so try searching on your own. And let me know what you find. I always love learning about great deals, particularly ones my family can enjoy close to home.

ADD ON: I realized after I wrote this that I completely forgot about AAA. If you have a membership--and you should if only for the roadside assistance should your car break down in the middle of nowhere for whatever reason--you're entitled to some great discounts at theme parks, restaurants, the movies, and lots more. Here's a link that should work if you can enter the site with your membership card: http://midatlantic.aaa.com/Store/Travel/AttractionandMovieTickets For example, Hersheypark tickets, which usually cost $58.80 are just $38.00 when preordered online and shipped to you (at no additional charge).

Daily Geek Quotient (or GQ)

Shevi’s Geek Q for today: 142 (Genius!)

You CAN get happiness in the mail! I ordered Professor Layton and the Last Specter, and it arrived today! 

I've already started playing it, and it's so much geeky fun. I know it's not as great as Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, which is the best video game EVER (anyone with a heart would have to shed a few tears at the end of that game), but who cares? It's still a Professor Layton game with all those wonderful puzzles. 


The only problem is that the battery on the Nintendo DS started dying, and I couldn't find the charger, so I couldn't play more than a few minutes. Of course, that just gives me something to look forward to when the DS is fully charged. I'm so happy, I'm geeking out! Yes!

Best review ever!

I'm so excited! I got the best review EVER! Here's just one part of it:

"Do you believe in Magic? I think after reading Toren the Teller's Tale, you will absolutely believe in Magic. The way this story is set up by the author is absolutely mesmerizing." "Even with a black and white Nook, this book is a visual pleasure. I love you Shevi Arnold, and I adore Toren The Teller's Tale."

Thank you, thank you, thank, thank you!

A List of 10 of the Best Fantasy & Science Fiction Novels for Girls

When my daughter was about ten, we read Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism by Georgia Byng to her. After a while, we would have my daughter read every few chapters, and eventually we left her to read the rest of the series on her own. My daughter is now fifteen, and she reads a lot of fantasy and science fiction. She loves novels with smart, strong and funny girls as main characters, girls like her. I asked her to help me compile a list of some of her favorites for other girls, the list at the bottom of this blog post.

 

When I was her age I read a lot too, and like her, I loved fantasy and science fiction. I journeyed with Frodo through Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings, discovered with Schmendrick the Magician why all but one of the unicorns had disappeared in The Last Unicorn, and learned how a boy named Sparrowhawk became a great sorcerer named Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea.

Unlike my daughter, however, I never found those smart, strong, funny female main characters that I was looking for. Shouldn’t a reader be able to find him or herself in the novels he or she reads? Where were the girls who were like me?

The women in The Lord of the Rings books are mainly there to be beautiful or to add a comic element. None of them have active roles in the story. Of all the fantasy novels that I read, The Last Unicorn came the closest to embodying what it feels like to be a teenage girl moving between childhood and womanhood, which is crazy considering the character who embodies that isn't even human. What's even crazier is that Wizard of Earthsea features a boy as the main character even though it was written by a woman. Not even women were writing female main characters back then, or so I thought. (Much later, I discovered that there were a few contemporary female fantasy protagonists, like Meg in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, which was published a few years before I was born.)  

So why did so few fantasy novels back then have strong female protagonists? Why were even women writers creating male main characters? Harry Potter is a much more recent example. Not only is the main character of that series a boy, the woman who wrote the series wrote it under the non-gender specific pen name J.K. Rowling. Why?

 

I think there might be two reasons. The first is that publishers don’t know there’s a demand for something until it hits the bestseller list. The Lord of the Rings hit the bestseller list in the sixties, so that told them there was an audience for fantasy novels of a certain type, a type with heroes, not heroines. So they tried to recreate that success and failed. By the seventies, according to Terry Brooks in Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life, the publishers had come to the conclusion that fantasy doesn’t sell. You had a hard time selling any kind of fantasy, forget about fantasy for girls. A publisher had to put his reputation on the line to publish a fantasy novel. Brooks was lucky to find a publisher who was willing to do just that. Stephen King also had a huge battle getting his first horror novel published, because publishers back then thought that horror didn’t sell. King had to prove them wrong, but first he had the almost impossible task of getting someone to publish his first horror novel.

Of course, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Something that’s never published won’t make it to the top of the bestseller list. So if it was believed that fantasy for girls didn’t sell well, that was enough to prevent them from getting published at all.

The second reason is that it’s long been assumed that girls will read books with male main characters, but boys wouldn’t read books with girl main characters. This led to the assumption that if you want to sell a lot of books, you had to attract both boys and girls readers—and the only way you could do that was by making your main character a boy. Changing a female writer’s name to something less gender specific or even male was also considered good for sales.

While it’s still somewhat assumed that boys won’t read books with girls as main characters, everything has changed. Why? Because it’s now generally acknowledged that women and teenager girls buy more fiction than men and teenage boys. There’s still a preference for boys as main characters in middle grade, but female main characters are blossoming in YA and older fiction. A few fantasy and science fiction novels with female protagonists--like Twilight or The Hunger Games have turned into runaway successes. What difference does it make which gender of reader puts something on the bestseller list, as long as it goes on the bestseller list and stays there?

And the most interesting thing is that, while in the past even women were writing male protagonists, nowadays even men are writing fantasy and science fiction novels with girls as main characters, like the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson.

As for me, not being able to find the books I wanted to read when I was a teenager turned out to be a good thing.  I eventually I came to the conclusion that the only way I was going to get to read a fantasy novel about a girl like me was if I wrote it myself, and that's why I started writing Toren the Teller’s Tale when I was sixteen years old.

 

Nowadays, girls have plenty of wonderful, smart, strong and brave fantasy heroines to look up to. Without further ado, here are ten of my daughter’s favorites. (Although I agree with many of her choices, my list would have looked a little different.) This is by no means a complete list, but I wanted to limit it to ten, so I apologize to all the great fantasy novelists--Gail Carson Levine, Tamora Pierce, and many more--who didn't make this list. Each of these books is the first in a series, so if you like the first, you'll probably love the rest too. While most are good for readers age nine and up, the last two are better for ages twelve and up.

List of 10 Recommended Fantasy & Science Fiction Novels for Girls

1. Akiko on the Planet Smoo by Mark Crilley—a group of aliens take a fourth grade girl on an intergalactic adventure to rescue a prince from kidnappers.

  

2. The Everyday Witch: A Tale of Magic and High Adventure! by Sandra Forrester—Beatrice Bailey is about to turn twelve, when means she will get her official classification as a witch. But she first needs to pass a test.

 

3. Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism by Georgia Byng—a young girl living in an awful orphanage discovers a book on hypnotism and her own incredible power.

 

4. Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George—a plucky orphan girl befriends a dragon and gets a mysterious pair of blue slippers that might destroy the kingdom.

5. Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos by R. L. LaFevers—eleven-year-old Theodosia, who spends a lot of time in 1906 in London’s Museum of Legends and Antiquities , discovers an ancient curse that leads her on a grand adventure.

6. Dealing with Dragons: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Book One by Patricia C. Wrede—daring and adventurous Princess Cimorene would rather deal with dragons than marry a prince.

7. The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley—after the disappearance of their parents, two girls discover that they must take on the family responsibility of being fairy-tale detectives.

 

8. Fablehaven by Brandon Mull—Kendra’s and Seth’s grandfather is the guardian of Fablehaven, a magical place where fairies and other magical beings live hidden away from most human eyes, and now it’s up to the brother and sister to save Fablehaven and their grandfather.

9. Scepter of the Ancients (Skulduggery Pleasant) by Derek Landy—a young girl teams up with a walking, talking skeleton to solve her uncle’s murder and stop whoever is trying to kill her next.





10. The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn—a high-school student becomes an outcast and has to run for her life when she refuses to get a bar code tattoo like everyone else.