“It looks like all of you wrote these the night before.”

We exchange glances. None of us could deny it. And why would we? We were procrastinators. We were last-second types. We were proud. Still, some of us prayed to whatever God would listen (you’ll find no atheists in freshman composition) while others murmured half-hearted excuses. Some of us tried to look indignant. All of us hoped to transfer to a university.

We were non-traditional and underachieving. We knew this. We lived this. Of course we knew failure and disappointment. It seemed our teacher now knew both intimately.

“The quality of these papers is appalling.”

We looked at each other, attempting to understand her gambit. Was this not a community college? And a night class no less! We would make her understand.

But no. She spat out her judgements as if the North Carolina community college system was known for literary excellence, and we had dropped trou and shat upon its fine name.

“There will be no make ups,” she assured us.

Fear swept the room. We all had enough math to know the averages we now faced. Three papers – each a third of our grade… this would not do. Excuses were made. Tales were spun. A curve was requested.

She smiled.

“Well, a curve would do you no good I’m afraid.”

Oh, the bastard! Who was he! Did he not realize this was about the greater good! Did she not know what the North Carolina nights offered! We looked around the room. We sought blood.

“One paper stood amongst the rest. Like a beacon of light. A hallelujah chorus of expository achievement.”

She did not say this, but we could hear nothing more. We would not stand for the way she swooned; the way she spoke of this offering. Our eyes searched the room. Our hearts sought forgiveness for what would come, what we would do.

Her lips parted. We would soon know the subversive’s name. She sighed.

“I will give you your papers on the way out.”

She knew us too well. We grumbled. We shuffled forward. We would wait in the hallway. A reckoning would be had.

And then this: “I’m glad to see somebody took this seriously.”

Vindication! We were well pleased. We looked around the room. “Just a face,” we said. “That’s all we need!”

“You obviously spent a lot of time on this.”

We could feel the flame of our righteousness burning bright enough to scorch our lesser marks, leaving only ashes and the hope of our next paper. We would…

She was speaking to me.

“Your argument is crisp,” she said. “Your prose, concise. This is what a college paper should look like.”

She said the last part loudly. For all of them to hear as they waited in the hallway, whetting their knives. They did not want to hear that I, too, had spent the bare minimum. I, too, had put the first words that came out onto my page. They were not impressed.

But I am convinced: we won that day. We took the scepter. We pulled the crown over the Queen’s eyes. We made her the pawn.

But they didn’t see it that way. No matter how many times I tried to tell it.

Okay, first of all, something I have to get off my chest: being the third person to post on a particular subject, of three people, on a three-person blog, is kind of crappy.

It’s my own fault, mind you, as when we had our pre-launch lunch and discussed schedules and topics, I jumped at Friday. That’s because the only days I can reliably do any writing at all are Wednesday and Thursday, so I was confident I could get a post done for every Friday. (I was wrong, naturally. If you look not-too-closely, you’ll see I have not infrequently missed my turn.)

Anyway, why does it suck? It sucks because I’ve inadvertently set up this little mental pattern for myself, in which I either feel the need to settle an unspoken dispute between the other two Boys, when the Monday and Wednesday posts are at odds (like this week’s), or else I feel the need to inject some controversy, when the Monday and Wednesday posts are in general agreement. This means I read Monday and Wednesday, panic all day Thursday, and then scramble to write something on Friday during my son’s nap. That often backfires. (See my above comment, re: missing my turns.)

This week, though, I’m not falling into that trap. Both the other Boys talked about television, and for the record, I agree with both of them, and therefore disagree with both of them. Also: Buffy.

But instead of focusing on that, I’m going to talk about a facet of popular culture that probably doesn’t get a lot of attention when it comes to storytelling in general: music. I’m not just talking playlists here, though I know anecdotally and first-hand how important a playlist could be to a book and a writer’s process. (I also know of writers who simply cannot write with music on. I think I heard someplace that Freedom was written with noise-canceling headphones and blindfolded, to keep out every potential sensory stimulus.)

No, here I’m talking about music—songs, that is—as stories in and of themselves. Songs accomplish more in two and a half minutes than most books can in 300 pages and an investment of time that varies from reader to reader, as much as a couple of weeks if you’re a slowbie like me.

How does that work? How do songs hit on an emotional nerve center like that? How can a song—a few chords, a handful of lyrics—make us weep or get angry or feel happy? We’re talking, usually, about a usually simple and fairly crappy poem set to banal and familiar and repetitive music. I’m talking about some of my favorite songs here.

Did you know one of my desk-drawer manuscripts (I intend to make it worth reading someday) is based on this song? That song is three minutes long, yet it does a much better job saying what I tried (and failed) to say in over 200 manuscript pages.

Obviously songs have an ace up their sleeves: the music itself. I’m sure scientists have studied how certain notes and note changes and chord changes et cetera affect us, emotionally. I bet they’ve done brain scans and all that.

But they’ve got more than that, I think. They’ve got enviable brevity, and that brevity requires an economy: every sound, every syllable, every pause, and every breath are eminently valuable.

Listening to great songs—the songs that affect us most deeply, maybe—has been for me an excellent study in the rhythm and timbre of prose I like to write and to read. But this isn’t advice. Not really. Look at it like this, maybe: watching (or ignoring) serial television addresses the forest. I’m just talking about trees.

I’ve always considered myself a movie guy. I watch them, I quote them, I love them. When my fiction felt uninspired, I thought about writing a screenplay. Of course. Growing up, my step-mother owned a video store. That meant free rentals. It meant unlimited viewings of Clue, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Raising Arizona, and, of course, G.L.O.W. – the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

And I’ve been a movie guy ever since. The Blues Brothers. The Big Lebowski. Office Space. Clerks. Say Anything pretty much spawned my first book. Movies were the first pieces of writing I appreciated – the first writing I loved. They were hip, funny, and, so many times, defined a certain part of my life.

But three years ago, something changed. I can’t say where it started. Breaking Bad? Mad Men? Friday Night Lights? The Wire? Maybe it was multiple trips to the theater, only to leave feeling screwed by the powers of a well-edited trailer. Whatever it was, a switch occurred. Slowly, I began investing my time in television shows. I subscribed to Netflix. And now nobody messes with Daddy while he’s watching his stories.

Most recently, I’ve been affected by The Walking Dead. Especially when I heard – via NPR – that the producers and writers consider the non-zombie survivors to be The Walking Dead. The show is all about hope and community and what it means to be human. It’s also scary as hell. I’d love to find a book that investigates those same ideas in such a high-concept, compelling way.

And here’s where things get scary, because I am pro-book.

But…

(deep, cleansing breath)

…I think television is doing something better than way too many books.

Character development.

There, I said it. Bring on the trolls. The flamer throwers. The holier-than-thou purists screaming about Dostoevsky and Steinbeck.

And that’s fine. Because what I’m about to tell you?

Kevlar, fools.

So buckle up and get ready.

Great television – and we’re living in a golden era of t.v. – is all about character development. It’s about seeing a character change, grow, and then live with the consequences of her or his actions. Of course, I’m not talking about Angel suddenly losing his soul because he gets a little action. (As much as I love Buffy, that always irked me a bit… But, then again, that misstep does kick off what I consider the greatest seasons of the show…)

I’m not talking about cheap character tropes where the good guy suddenly grows a big-ass black moustache and has minor key music play whenever he walks into a room.

I’m talking about Walter White in Breaking Bad.

If you haven’t seen it, Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher who, upon learning his has terminal cancer, decides to team with a degenerate former student and, you know, cook crystal meth. Good premise, right? But what makes Breaking Bad great television has less to do with the story arc and everything to do with who Walter White is. Or, who he becomes.

As the show progresses, Walter White transforms from feeble chemistry teacher to a person who will kill you if you get in his way. It’s chilling, not because he is the sort of man capable of such things, but because we’ve watched the transformation happen.

Walter White is not a bad guy because the plot requires it. Walter White is a bad guy because of the decisions he’s made. The decisions he – and, of course, the viewer – are forced to live with in every single episode. Every step he takes results in additional problems, additional cracks in his integrity and morality. And while some might think this is a cheap trick to get you to come back for more, we – the enlightened – know better.

And yes, fine – books are capable of this, too. I love books that do. But it takes time and pages to develop a character like Walter White. It also requires a bit of an author-reader contract. The author asks the reader to take a few things on faith – at least at the beginning. They ask the reader to walk with them down a 300-page path, hoping the character’s journey resonates. But in a book culture that increasingly favors high concept ideas – “Will it be the next Harry Potter series? Does it transition to movies? Will Barnes and Noble carry it?” – I have to wonder if character development is getting strangled by all these damn plots. Suddenly authors are afraid their stories won’t be fast enough. That the reader will get bored as the character grows. So we dump information. We plant well-placed backstory. We make the author-reader contract a little bit easier.

And good god, don’t get me wrong – I’m all about character-driven fiction. As I once said to my agent: “I’d totally read a book about four dudes driving across a country – even if nothing ever happens and all they do is say funny shit the whole time.” (His response: “Yeah, but you’re the only one…”) So I’m not a hater (I believe that’s what the kids are saying these days.) But I am saying that novelists can learn something from television. They can learn how a good character can develop and grow and – holy crap! – make your story better.

So, give me Eric Taylor. Give me Don Draper and Jax Teller and Hank Moody – because they all bring something to the table. They bring consequences and choices and individual histories that put them at odds with who the world – their families – expect them to be. And we get to live through all of it with them, season after season.

For three years, I’ve been learning this lesson. And I can’t go without saying that I’ve also lived in Oregon for the past three years, too. So I’m not sure what stirring your peanut butter and Oregon hops have to do with anything except another hippie trying to get you to be un-American.

So go eat some apple pie. Watch a baseball game. Or better yet: a good television show. Your characters will thank you.

Try as I might, I can’t compete with The Batman Kid. Though I should say, I grew up not 30 minutes from him and his renown did not cross the borders of Grundy County. Make of that what you will.

But that doesn’t help me figure out my Yoda, the mentor who pushed me to be bigger, better – to lift a damn X-wing out of the swamp. In Will County, the dudes who worked at the comic stores were elitist pricks. Luckily, I didn’t revolve in those circles. But much of my younger life was consumed by sports – a place ripe for mentors. You’d think there were a few coaches along the way who made a difference. A single Eric Taylor. But no.

And okay, fine. I had mentors, people who said, “Hey, you’re good at this…” A couple came during high school; a few more in college. I was lucky enough to have three in graduate school. They critiqued. They encouraged. They made me want to do better work.

But they weren’t Yoda.

Because if you’re going to invoke the name, it can’t just be some professor who offered you notes on your writing for a semester. It can’t just be someone willing to write a letter of recommendation for graduate school. It has to be more. And as I thought about this post, the dread came. Who was my mentor? Was I destined to always walk such a lonely path? Why doesn’t anyone love me?

Naturally, I did what any seeker would do. I turned to the Holy Trinity. I watched Star Wars.

You know the story. Luke is whiny as shit, acting like he’s got a skinned knee for the first two movies. And to make matters worse: he’s just an idiot. He doesn’t listen to Yoda. He goes all toddler when asked to lift the X-wing out of the swamp. Then he watches Yoda represent and you have to believe he’s finally going to get it.

But then comes his biggest moment of hubris – he leaves. Dude leaves. Sure, he ends up playing the hero and, you think, getting the girl (spoiler: it’s his sister.) And, of course, there is discussion as to whether Luke actually was the hero after all (spoiler: nerd alert.) We all know he didn’t do it alone. He had help. Mr. Obi Wan whispering in his ear. Telling him to turn off that targeting computer. And whether you like Luke or not, he did all of this without Yoda. Without full Jedi training.

(Get ready for some arrogance, people.)

I am Luke Skywalker.

Minus all the whining, the space station destruction. And, unfortunately, the lightsaber. But follow me for a second. My writing mentors didn’t have a life-changing effect. Nobody handed me a copy of Catcher in the Rye and said, “Read this.” Nobody spent years helping me move forward.

I won’t lie: they’ve been in my head – the subtle whispers of countless teachers, good and bad. But the reason I open my laptop every morning has nothing to do with them. It’s my desire to write stories I’d like to read. It’s writing, just the act of putting words on paper –  even when the odds say this won’t pan out. Because the odds say most people won’t care what I think, that I’ll end up moving back in with my parents. I write because, like the Force, if it’s in you – you can’t ignore it.

(Arrogance. Coming down the pipe.)

I am Yoda.

Add some height and, please, skip the bald jokes. But give me a cane and a house by the swamp, because guess what: I challenge myself. I force myself to get better, to be irrational every day – and don’t lie to yourself; writing, at it’s core, is an irrational act – because I believe I have something to say (which, of course, might be the most arrogant thing I’ve said yet.) And while there are teachers out there who have been helpful and inspirational and maybe even mentors, I am unwilling to believe that it doesn’t start and ends with me.

Do I wish I had a mentor? Yes. At times, desperately so. And I’m not arrogant enough to think I don’t need people to listen, to counsel, to tell me I’m full of shit. Luckily, there are many people in my life who fill this role: other writers who are further along than me (and some who are not), my mother, my agent.

But at the end of the day, I come back to Luke Skywalker, to the first part of Return of the Jedi. He’s walking into Jabba’s palace like a total badass, cloak and all, and I gotta believe that – while Yoda and Obi Wan were vitally important, while they taught him everything he knows – it all comes back to him making the decision to go back and learn the way of the Jedi.

The same goes for me. For you. You don’t get better because a mentor believes in you. They might encourage you or show you what works for them, but they’re only going to take you to the beginning of the path. You’ve got to walk it by yourself.

Let me put it in terms you will understand: nobody’s down there with you when the Rancor comes out. All you can do is remember what your mentors told you and hope that, in the end, you’ll be quick enough and wise enough to know what needs to be done.

And you will. Trust me. It may take time and it may make you curse, but you will figure out how to tame the monsters.

Because – and you had to know this was coming at some point during this diatribe, right? – The Force is strong with you.

The Boys are expecting me to talk about The Catcher in the Rye. But I don’t think I need to tell YA writers to read that. For one thing, y’all have already, and if you liked it, you loved it. And if you didn’t like it, you hated it. So.

Instead, I’m going with this, because I heard this little mention on John Moe’s APR tech show yesterday morning, and it struck a chord. And apologies, because apparently 2 out of 3 BDR bloggers think you should read Ray Bradbury. (PS, The Road is booooooorrriiiiingg.)

Fahrenheit 451 is a dystopian, and we all know how much YA writers are jiving on that whole scene right now. So that’s ten points for F451 right there. Also, its protagonist examines and then breaks away from this hellish future society (as most dystopian protagonists do), which is a totally YA thing to do, even if he happens to be married and all old and stuff. Also, there’s a MPDG, and they’re always fun and embarrassing when we realize what a sexist catastrophe they are.

But back to yesterday morning, and here’s, if I’m honest, the main reason I picked F451. Apparently, Bradbury hasn’t let anyone make a digital version of this book yet, because hell, look what it’s about: screens have deadened our intellect, and this has led to the destruction of books. To refuse a digital version was mostly a symbolic move on Bradbury’s part, perhaps, but it was a poignant one as well.

Apparently, not everyone agreed, because according to yesterday’s report on NPR, there will now be a digital version. That’s because Bradbury’s publisher said they wouldn’t offer a new contract without  digital rights. He relented.

You can agree with either party in this little incident. Makes no odds to me. But in my mind, the publisher took this 91-year-old hero of American letters and put him over a barrel.

So, YA writers, are some of the earliest visions of dystopia coming to pass? I suppose not. I haven’t seen the fire brigade at our door, demanding our library. Still, it’s an ironic moment in literary history, and a chilling one.

If you take my advice and read F451, please get it from the library or buy the physical book. I’m not an anti-digital guy, but Bradbury is. Do it for him.