Learning from Tremors

If you haven’t seen Tremors, you need to. While you’re at it, watch the sequels. Even the prequel. Don’t go in expecting a Great Cinematic Experience. Just watch some fun movies.

Done? Because there may be spoilers ahead. I’m not reviewing the movies, but I am going to talk about them.

So. Not too long ago at Best Buy, my resolve to BUY NOTHING AUGH was shattered by the discovery that there was in existence a Tremors Attack Pack. I love Tremors. I’d seen the first movie several times, and II and III once each. I didn’t even know a IV existed.

Today I was feeling up to not much more than sitting in a chair, so the kid and I had a Tremors marathon. And it was really cool. Not only did I watch some fun movies and spend some good time with the kid–but I learned a bit.

See, over on her blog, screenwriter Alexandra Sokoloff talks about structure, and tells people to watch movies and pick out the turning points and the climaxes. Learn structure by watching. A great idea, I think–and then she goes and does it for JAWS and I’m actually nodding my head, seeing the scenes she mentions in my head and understanding why she chose them. Which is awesome, because most of the time when people talk about this stuff I Do Not Get It. My stories grow organically, and any structure they have has been accidental.

Apparently I’m at that point where the writing no longer comes easily. I need to do better than intuitive. I need to make the leap to doing it consciously. To do that, I need to know how it all works, so I’m studying structure and scene construction. I hope to move into “the writing comes easily AND works on many levels like it’s supposed to” sometime soon.

Bah, I’m meandering. It’s 0220. Sorry.

Every other time I’ve watched Tremors, I just enjoyed it–no thinking. Nothing in the world will ruin a good monster movie faster than too much thinking! But this time I realized that Val, Kevin Bacon’s character, is the one to watch for the character arc. Maybe he’s just the most obvious, but I didn’t see anyone else really changing in that movie.

In the beginning we meet Val and Earl, out doing what they do. When they learn the “new geologist” has arrived, Val remembers the next one is a girl, and they’re off to meet her. He rattles off a list of what he wants as he drives–and he’s sorely disappointed. Rhonda isn’t a tall blonde with green eyes, great boobs, and long legs–she’s a short brunette with sunblock on her nose.

This is his starting point. Earl scolds him for hanging on to his idea of perfection, but Val has his heart set on that blonde. Earl even points out Rhonda’s intelligence, and that every girl Val has met that could measure up to his list is also “dirt stupid.”

I have to mention my admiration for the set-up. Val playing the stampede joke on Earl. Dealing with the garbage with “the cat.” The septic issue that sends them packing, determined to leave that life behind forever. I was so with them on that one!

Anyway, by the midpoint of Val’s character arc, he’s giving Rhonda his jacket when they are “treed” by the graboids and have to spend the night in the open. And by the end, he’s hiding the blonde-pictures before making sure Rhonda doesn’t slip through his fingers.

In II, it’s Earl’s turn. Val “married a good woman” and is apparently doing well, but Earl didn’t invest wisely when the “Graboid” craze hit, and he’s broke. Enter the Mexican oilmen who need help dealing with a sudden incursion of graboids–but Earl doesn’t want to help. He points out a blonde on the wall–Miss October 1974 (I think)–who is there to remind him not to chase after impossible dreams. Earl made his mistakes. From now on he’s playing it safe.

Of course he goes. By the midpoint he’s lying (rock tears paper, I win!) to be the one to risk his life and save the others. By the end, he’s taking chances–asking out Kate, the pretty geologist (and Miss October 1974, who put herself through college modeling), and agreeing to Grady’s plan to build a Graboid theme park.

In III it’s Burt, but I didn’t really pick out the points well. I think I was having too much fun. And in IV–well, of course it’s Hiram, who arrives willing to cheat a boy just because he can, at the midpoint teaches that boy to ride a bicycle, and in the end sells his pocketwatch to buy firearms to help fight the graboids when he’d already gotten away.

What all this means to me, is I’m finally learning to Get It when structure parades itself in front of me. This cannot help but be good for my writing. Yay!