The Connor Wars Writer’s Room 16 – Quickies From the Interweb

I know I only just posted a Writer’s Room vlog, but sometimes more needs to be said.

First…yay for Joss Whedon snagging Summer Glau for at least a couple of eps of Dollhouse (starting episode 5). Those two names, when put together, just make me smile.

Second…I wasn’t aware that my link to the Sarah Connor Society website had been broken for a while. Oops. Sorry about that. It’s fixed, now.

Third…Josh Friedman posted a new guest blog over at IO9 (The Questions You Shouldn’t Answer, And The Answers You Can’t Let Go Of). A lot of what he says is exactly right. After all, the collaborative process isn’t often a conflict-free process. Mostly it’s about trying to stamp out as many fires as you can before the next one flares up. But one section caught my eye, where he talks about an exchange he had with an executive about the scene in S0222 “Born to Run” where John is feeling-up Cameron’s power core.

EXECUTIVE: I don’t get that scene.
ME: How so?
EXECUTIVE: I just don’t get it. Why does she do that? Why does he do it? Was he going to kiss her? Does she want him to? What does she really want from him here?
ME: Well, we’ve got a lot of different possibilities. I’m sure she has her reasons. We don’t really know Cameron’s mind, do we?
EXECUTIVE: Shouldn’t we know it?

Heaven help me…I’m actually in agreement with the executive. And Josh, too, a little, but mostly the executive. See…after a while, we writers aren’t the creators of character, just the custodians. They start doing what they want to do with little input from us. Even so, I feel that if you don’t take time to find out from your characters (off the record, if need be) what their motivations were, then you are doing a disservice–to the audience, yes, but mostly to the writer. You see, these characters will go on. You need to know where they think they are headed. That’s character-oriented writing.

But it’s also a difference in writing philosophies. Josh writes:

Now whether you want to believe it or not, this was not me just being lazy. This is the way that I like my drama, both written and watched-organic, ambiguous, a little messy and inclusive of multiple interpretations.

Which, I grant you, on a bad day is barely distinguishable from lazy.

Again, I’m both pro and con with this. You’ve seen in The Connor Wars scripts that I’m not at all shy about making things ambiguous for the audience. Truthfully, some events (like whether John or Skynet wins the war) are ambiguous to me. But, when I need to write about an event, I take ownership of it. I MUST know the answers even if I don’t tell you all.

Why?

Because the characters, from their own points of view, have their own histories and expectations. Just because they seem ambiguous to others doesn’t mean they are ambiguous to the characters themselves. The characters (and the writer) need to know where they stand because it informs their actions in the future. It’s sort of the writing equivalent of the “butterfly effect”.

For example, in that scene Josh references, both Cameron and John can feel conflicted about whether or not carnal desires are there and/or should be acted on. But IRL, neither character would be ambiguous about it. IRL with real people, though we are often conflicted, we always have a preference for how something will work out, and we always have reasons (even if they are dumb ones) for every choice we make. Ambiguous means the equivalent of “vapor lock”, and that generally only happens in catastrophically traumatic situations.

In some ways I have to thank Josh. If/when John and Cameron reunite in The Connor Wars, clearly this will have to be addressed. It’s definitely ones of those unanswered questions that’s begging for an answer.

I encourage you to read Josh’s article.

3 Responses to "The Connor Wars Writer’s Room 16 – Quickies From the Interweb"

SJ_Edwards says:

August 29, 2009 at 11:09 am

@CJ
I do think ambiguous, was a key point for Mr.Friedman and I agree with your assessment, that it happens in catastrophically traumatic situations, but I don’t agree, that it always, or even often, results in “vapour lock”. That is a perception driven by media and fiction’s focus on those who are temporarily or permanently overwhelmed by trauma. A huge subset I grant you, but not the whole set, by any means. Ambiguity isn’t a synonym for paralysis. Indeed, it is an essential component of the successful integration of a coping mechanism for unavoidable and sustained trauma.
Unfortunately, I think you may have been ‘culturally disenfranchised’, by a happy childhood and a trauma free adulthood [you are welcome, to take offense at that :), in Russian or Greek].
I don’t think the same can be said for any of the inhabitants of Sarah Connor’s little corner of the Terminatorverse, Sarah, John, Derek, Jesse, Riley etc.. They are pretty much textbook examples of people who’s operating parameters have been exceeded and reset, time and again.
One of the first thing to go, is the idea that a ‘preference’ for how something will work out, is in any way relevant or useful. A ‘preference’, is a weakness, ruthlessly sought out by events you are trying to survive, exploited and thwarted at every turn.
‘Reasons’ for choices are similarly, surplus to requirements. If you react to a ‘decision event’ with anything other than an instantaneous, unexamined, spontaneous response, the chances are you’ll never get to take another decision again. That doesn’t mean a pathological, destructive, response. Far from it, remember, the people we meet in TSCC (even, and perhaps especially, Sarah and John) aren’t a demographically representative cross section of the population, but the final product of the most horrendously brutal and merciless, random chance and darwinian selection process. Those whose ‘instinctive’ responses, weren’t and aren’t up to scratch, simply don’t exist anymore.

Ambiguity, means malleability of desire and flexibility of response, to suit the parameters of any given situation. Survival is the index of success, not satisfaction.

Goals are formulated and plans are made (usually far, far more ambitious than a ‘reasonable’ person would contemplate) with both absolute commitment to their execution and the simultaneous expectation, that they will need to be abandoned, replaced, or stranger still, reversed, at any point in the process.

One of the most appealing aspects of Mr.Friedman’s TSCC was the way it attempted to portray this ambiguity in every aspect of the production; writing, casting, design, directing and the playing of the characters. As he says, this frees us all to interpret and expand (and expound) as we see fit. I know I do.

As you say, his article is well worth reading. I hope he keeps going at io9.com.

Yours sincerely, SJ_Edwards.

PS I finally gave in and read a couple of your episode blogs from Season 1. Nice. I look forward to reading them all and the Season 2 ones, after I finally get to watch the whole of S2 a half a dozen times, when the DVD comes out. Should make a fun Christmas. Read enough to realize that if you held to the same timeline interpretations, future Allison’s ‘birthday’ and her (and future John’s) apparent knowledge of the date of birth of John Baum on his fake 2009 ID, could have interesting ramifcations.

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CJ says:

August 29, 2009 at 12:10 pm

I think you may have misread my “vapor lock” comment. I wasn’t saying that this lock is an inevitable result of the trauma, but that the major contributing cause of the lock is said trauma. Except for some cases of catatonia, this is a very transient condition.

In terms of the terminatorverse characters– especially those whose experience is post-JD–they all suffer from PTSD to varying degrees. A significant part of their character’s makeup, then, is how they deal (or don’t deal) with that condition.

As for preference and reason…I’m not requiring it be a higher-level function. It can be very hard to read and could be interpreted as “ambiguous”. Let’s say we have a character that’s “had it”. Just sits in front of a fire. In a script or story, the writer might leave it at that for the audience. The audience, holding to their nature, will interpret that non-action as they will. However, the writer needs to go further into the character’s mind. It’s likely that the character’s preference is just to be left alone. Why? Perhaps to heal, to try to find a part of them that is recognizable. Perhaps it’s to hide. Perhaps it’s to find a quiet place where bad things don’t happen. Even if the audience doesn’t know this, the writer must. If the character juts their hand into the flame, perhaps it’s to feel…anything. There is no “vapor lock” if you are inside the character’s head, but it might seem that way to the outside. Whatever coping tactic is used tends to imply both preference and reason.

Damaged doesn’t mean ambiguous. It doesn’t mean non-function. As Allison recently commented about herself: “Not broken, just dented a little.”

An interesting effect that happened several times during the U.S. Civil War was how commanders could suddenly, and without reason, experience a vapor lock. Their capacity for making decisions just seized up for a couple of hours, and then they were fine. But it didn’t define the commanders as ambiguous, just all too human.

It’s this sort of thing I try to be mindful of when I’m writing, especially in a battle-rich milieu such as is found with Terminator. Humans are psychologically fascinating and complex. Just because actions are seemingly unfathomable on the surface doesn’t mean they are without motivation.

I’ve long held true to the writing axiom: “The difference between fiction and real life is that fiction has to make sense.” I view that as the difference between storytelling and simply relating incidents. Fiction is necessarily an artificial construct. Choices have to be made by the creators of said fiction.

My preference is for the writer to be omniscient (or close to it) about the world they are sharing with us. No, the writer can’t know everything that is happening in places not yet written about–the writer isn’t a God in that sense–but my taste is that the writer should be well-informed. E.g., in this fanfic series, I’m aware not only of the story I’m telling, but also about the battles that are happening around the world and many of the players involved in those battles. The war with Skynet isn’t just in SoCal, even though that’s pretty much all I’m showing. All the rest has an effect on what’s happening with Derek, John, et al. It isn’t just some amorphous “out there”.

(I should mention…I hate hate hate the sometimes-called “70s” movies with the ambiguous, non-conclusive endings that leave the audience to interpret/wonder about. They don’t end, they just stop. Feh. IMO, the writer failed to do their job, failed to seal the deal.)

Reply
Strandwolf says:

August 30, 2009 at 6:17 am

Oh, I’m pretty confident that Josh did indeed had Cameron’s (and John’s) motivation for this scene worked out in his head before writing it down. He just doesn’t want to tell us.

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