That sounds like I’m coming on to you, doesn’t it? I’m not, I swear. I respect you, Internet.

Normally Tuesdays are writing posts but last week was a little heavy and this week I’m on vacation so, you get a post about eggs. Chicken eggs, in particular.

I eat eggs every morning in some capacity. Farm-fresh eggs in particular. It’s interesting, actually, to see the shift in organic (which now doesn’t mean what you want it to mean) to free range (which used to mean that the chickens dined outside as wandering creatures but now means that someone opens a door and gives them the opportunity to roam free which they don’t do automatically because they’re not, uh, smart animals) to pastured or pasture-fed.

Mostly, buying fresh from a local farm undercuts all that. Because you can usually see the chickens somewhere in the distance, dicking around, being chickens.

Anyway. When out of season I do try to buy the “pasture-fed, not pumped full of exotic pharma-cocktails” type of egg, and in terms of taste it damn sure pays off. The regular eggs you buy — woo boy, I ate those for most of my life but had no idea. Those eggs are watery. Flavorless. Then you crack open a farm-fresh egg and it’s like, the yolk is thick and looks like a little sunshine. And the eggs taste like something. (Appropriately enough, a little like chicken.) And sometimes you crack open one egg and a little baby chick hops out and chirps at you and helps you with housework and dress-mending TRUE STORY SHUT UP.

Sometimes I make my eggs in the morning in a particular and perhaps peculiar fashion that is both simple and — at least, far as I know — unheard of. Not sure anybody else does this. Maybe they do and I have more people out there than I think. Here’s how it works:

I warm up a non-stick skillet (an omelette skillet) on medium heat and drop into it a glob of whatever Delicious Fat Product I choose to lubricate my food with. Butter is the obvious choice. I don’t eat vegetable oil because I’m one of those paranoid food types. Olive oil is a good oil but for me, not with eggs. I happen to recently like coconut oil for this purpose, actually — the blobs of white coconutty goodness bring a kind of sweetness to the end result (though any coconut taste is lost). Anyway: MELTY FAT GOODNESS.

Swirl the pan, let that fan run a few laps around the skillet.

Just after it melts, I crack a couple-few eggs into the skillet. For extra fun, draw a couple of googly eyes and a mouth frozen in horror onto the eggs, then crack them and mimic their screams. Then leave the shattered egg-skull fragments around for a loved one to find.

Anyway, point here is, you don’t want to drop the eggs into the pan so they’re suddenly sizzling and bubbling. You want to beat the heat a little, let the eggs warm up in the pan. BECAUSE IF IT’S TOO HOT YOU’LL RUIN IT LIKE YOU RUIN EVERYTHING ELSE. Ahem. Anyway, what you want is for the goopy translucent egg whites to slowly grow white — and when the pocket of goop around the yolk gets mostly white, that’s when you want to flip the eggs.

Now comes the weird part.

You let it cook another 30 seconds or so.

Then you take a fork.

Gently — as if performing surgery — make an incision over each yolk. Peel the egg back, exposing the golden sunshiney goodness. Use the fork or whatever other tool you so choose (spatula, spoon, hobo-finger) to spread the goopy yolk around over the top of the egg so that the majority of it is covered in a golden shellacking.

It’s like you’re bronzing the egg with its own insides.

This, by the way, is the time for salt and pepper.

Let it keep cooking until the egg yolk — again, most of which is now smeared all over the eggs — starts to firm up. It may almost start to look like it’s getting a skin to it. The goal is to stop it from turning yellow. You want the orange yolk to thicken, to tighten, but not go full bore. The taste is exquisite — like in that middle phase the fat and the poltry magic and the souls of all the incomplete chickens come together and —

*eyes roll back in head, begins drooling, moaning in eggy pleasure*

Oh. Ahem. Sorry. I’m back! I’m back.

This is probably some French technique that I just stumbled upon. Whatevs.

And so now I ask you:

How do you like your eggs?

Toss around some egg recipes. Let’s see ’em. C’mon, chop chop.

Maybe you like origin stories.

The world certainly seems to like them well enough.

But I’m not a fan.

I in fact actively dislike them.

I pee on them. I make an angry face, and I pee on them.

Here’s why:

An origin story is all prologue.

It’s act one of a story stretched across the narrative expanse of three (or five, or seven) acts.

Just as the origin story ends is when I want to begin.

Note: an origin story differs from a story that presents a character’s origin. The latter is a tale whose primary plot is something else, but that may touch on or reveal the character’s origin in an oblique way — a side-angle, a sub-plot, a component that features but does not dominate. An origin story proper is where the character’s origin is the dominant sequence of events.

Origin stories frequently hit the same beats. Childhood. Before the powers and abilities. Gaining the powers and abilities. Learning (and failing to learn) responsibility with those powers. Epiphany and sometimes, apotheosis.

These stories are often reiterative and redundant. We know how Superman becomes Superman because we’ve seen it a hundred times. Same with Spider-Man (and they even rebooted that pesky web-head approximately ten minutes after we ended the last set of Spider-Man movies).

The more interesting stories frequently occur after the origin, and yet we remain subjected to the origin narrative over and over and over again.

Imagine if we had to sit through a film before Die Hard where we have to first learn how John McClane becomes the alcoholic hero-cop — his youth, his training at the academy, his time as a beat-cop. (There’s a comic book series that covers this, I believe; I don’t know if it’s worth checking out.) Is it necessary? Would it even be that interesting? Aren’t we better off just jumping into the story as it is? Leaving some open variables? Doors and windows yet to open?

Most aspects of an origin story can be embedded in a non-origin story. Flashbacks. Dialogue. World-building. We don’t need it to fill up two full hours of film.

Origin stories are expository.

Origin stories defeat mystery. And mystery is good.

Avengers is so much fun because it is not an origin story. We’ve gotten over all that stuff in the other films. (Curiously, of the new Marvel series, Thor really isn’t an origin story.)

The Dark Knight is a far stronger film than Batman Begins because we have dispensed with all the Stuff We Already Knew and got right to All The Awesome.

Origin stories are money-making plays meant to stretch out the potential narrative bandwidth. I’m sure if somebody could get away with an Iron Man Takes His First Dump story, they would have. (Hey, Hollywood — call me. I’m your Huckleberry.)

An origin story defies that old writing chestnut — “Start the story as late as you can.” I’m not opposed to defying traditional advice, obviously. You can do anything with a story and violate any rule and if you do it well and with aplomb, nobody gives a bag of koala cock that you did it.

That’s the thing. Some origin stories can and do work. The Star Wars prequels are a bad example, but the original Star Wars: A New Hope is a pretty solid example. I thought the first Iron Man was solid enough, though buoyed more by RDJ than by anything else, maybe.

All of this is, of course, IMHO, YMMV.

It is my cross to bear, this disgust toward origin stories.

And so I ask you:

What origin stories work? What ones don’t?

What would make an origin story better? What do we see too much of?

Noodle. Answer. I’ll sit here and stare at you, eating comic book pages like Communion wafers.

I WENT TO THE MOVIE THEATER AND I SAW MAN OF STEEL AND THE MOVIE WAS VERY FUCKING LOUD. IT WAS, YOU MIGHT EVEN SAY, “SUPER” LOUD. HA HA HA OW.

I FEEL LIKE I JUST SPENT TWO AND A HALF HOURS LETTING SOME DUDE YELL IN MY EARS AND PUNCH ME IN THE SIDE OF THE HEAD

DID A GRENADE JUST GO OFF

MY EARS ARE RINGING

I HAVE PTSD NOW

NEXT TO ME SAT A LITTLE GIRL — THIS IS A TRUE STORY, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP — MAYBE EIGHT MAYBE NINE YEARS OLD AND THE WHOLE TIME SHE SAT THERE WITH HER FINGERS IN HER EARS. FOR OVER TWO HOURS. FINGERS! IN EARS! OCCASIONALLY SHE’D MAKE THIS SOUND LIKE SHE WANTED TO CRY? I’M NOT KIDDING THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.

THEN ON THE WAY OUT OF THE THEATER THIS FAMILY OF FOUR — DUDE, WIFE, ONE BOY, ONE GIRL — WERE WALKING NEXT TO ME AND THE DAD WAS TALKING ABOUT HOW HE THOUGHT THE MOVIE WAS JUST OKAY AND STUFF AND THE LITTLE GIRL SAID: “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU MY EARS ARE RINGING.” AND THE WIFE SAID: “THAT MOVIE WAS TOO LOUD IT WAS JUST NOISE AND FIRE.” AND I AGREED AND SAID YEAH, YEAH, TOO LOUD, AND THE HUSBAND SAID, “WE JUST DROPPED SIXTY BUCKS ON TICKETS TO WHAT FELT LIKE A METALLICA SHOW.” AND THE WIFE SAID: “I’M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN.”

I HAD EARPLUGS IN

I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT

I PUT EARPLUGS IN MY FUCKING EARS BEFORE I WENT BECAUSE I ALREADY KNOW THAT YOUR MOVIES ARE TOO GODDAMN LOUD AND STILL — STILL! — MY EARS ARE RINGING. THEY’RE MAKING THIS EEEEEEEEEE NOISE LIKE AFTER I’D GO SHOOTING RIFLES WITH MY DAD AND HE WOULDN’T LET ME WEAR EARMUFFS

TOO LOUD

CAPS LOCK

IT’S LIKE TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF CAPS LOCK

FUCK YOU MOVIE THEATERS AND I KNOW IT’S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT BECAUSE THE STUDIOS SET YOUR MOVIES AT A CERTAIN VOLUME LEVEL AND YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FIDDLE WITH THAT SHIT BUT I DON’T CARE IT’S ON YOU ASSHOLES BECAUSE SOMEWHERE I’M SURE YOU HAVE A VOLUME KNOB HIDDEN BEHIND A GLASS BOX THAT YOU’RE ALLOWED TO BREAK IN AN EMERGENCY

WELL IT’S AN EMERGENCY

MY EARS ARE SQUIRTING BLOOD LIKE I’M A LAWN SPRINKLER

LOUD

LOUD

AAAAAAAA

CAPS LOCK ALL THE TIME IS IRRITATING ISN’T IT

TRY GOING TO MOVIE WHERE EVEN THE DIALOGUE SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE HITTING YOU IN THE EARDRUM WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER

I’M DONE WITH YOU MOVIE THEATERS

DONE GAME OVER POOP NOISE

I HAVE A VERY NICE TELEVISION SET AND SURROUND SOUND

AND I HAVE A REMOTE CONTROL WITH A FUCKING VOLUME KNOB

AND I’M GOING TO USE IT SO I CAN SAVE MY HEARING

ASSHOLES

* * *

Postscript:

A brief Man of Steel review:

MORE LIKE MEH OF STEEL AMIRITE?

Ahem.

I mean, it was fine? I thought I’d hate it. But it was, y’know, okay?

Liked Cavill as Superman. Liked Amy Adams as Lois Lane. Really liked both, actually.

The Krypton prologue is assy because they basically retell the exact same story later in the movie when Superman finds the not-named-Fortress-of-Solitude and they retell it much faster and much cooler. Then the third act is basically an assault on the senses (I assume the script just reads BOOM KSSSHHH CITY CRAAAAASH PUNCH THROUGH BUILDING PUNCH THROUGH BUILDING PUNCH THROUGH BUILDING KAPOOOOOM RUN RUN EEEEEAAAH PUNCH THROUGH SKY PUNCH THROUGH SKY BADOOOOOM all in messy crayon).

They do the hard part, though, of making Superman a likable guy — a protagonist who feels very human despite all of it. Which is a shame that the rest of the movie kind of falls down into either a) boring origin story or b) noisy consequence-less apocalypse fight because it would’ve been rad to get more of, well, Superman’s character in there.

And that’s what it’s really missing. It’s missing that sense of character. It’s missing fun! The movie isn’t any fun. I’m okay with Batman not being a whole lot of fun (though even the Joker brings a kind of sociopathic circus tent with him), but Superman — I feel like it’s a dire shame to miss out on the fun and games portion of that story. Like, when he learns to fly, that’s what you get. That’s the most fun the movie ever gets. And then it’s all steely dire gray boom.

All of it is an origin story.

And origin stories are fundamentally flawed. Ninety percent of them are a waste of time.

So: meh.

And also:

TOO FUCKING LOUD

the end.

Last week’s challenge: “ABC Meets XYZ“

All right.

This week’s challenge (up a couple days late since for some reason again WordPress borked me on a Friday where I was gone from the house, grarrrgh) is pretty simple: in the tradition of Don Draper, Tony Soprano, Walter White, or even my own Mookie Pearl (hint hint), it’s time to write a bit of flash fiction featuring a bad dad. These fathers fit on the lower more sinister echelon of the D&D alignment chart. The question is: can you also make them sympathetic?

You’ve got 1000 words.

You’ve got (less than) a week: due by Friday the 21st, noon EST.

Write at your online space.

Link back here.

Go and write.

I gotta be honest — this is one of those books I’ve been waiting to read for quite some time. It’s got, as the kids call it, “buzz.” It’s now available in the States so that means my greedy little ink-fingers are gonna go get grabby. Here’s Danie to talk about the book:

Tell Us About Yourself: Who The Hell Are You?

I’m Danie, full name Daniella (don’t tell anyone) aka @Danacea. You’ll find me at the head offices of Forbidden Planet in London, or at home with my son. You might also find me on a bicycle trying not to get hit by London traffic, in a gym trying to beat the rush to an elliptical trainer, or, you know, in the pub.

I’ve been everything from a Viking warrior to a kiss-a-gram girl to a professional mathematician – and I’ve found out that I’m pretty happy where I am!

Give Us The 140-Character Pitch:

A little sex, a little violence, a little sarcasm – this is a tongue-in-cheek sideswipe at the genres we know and love!

Where Does This Story Come From?

From years of wacky creative projects with my mates, from endless evenings of throwing everything at the wall just to see what stuck, from the darkest depths of our sugar-fuelled imaginations. The core and concept of the story is more than twenty years old; it’s something I never really left behind, and something I had to come back to when I started writing again.

I guess I needed to let it out!

How Is This A Story Only You Could’ve Written?

Because no-one else has the mates I do! Humorous, but pretty much true – in our twenties we explored our collaborative creativity to its outermost limit. Some of it was genius, some of it was awful, some it exploded under the weight of its own pretentiousness and should never be mentioned in polite company again – but it’s all fuel of the best kind.

Though your question says ‘only you’… though perhaps any of that coterie could have taken the concepts we played with and breathed life into them!

What Was The Hardest Thing About Writing Ecko Rising?

Two answers to that question. The first one is Ecko himself, who can be both the hardest and the easiest thing to write, depending on mood. He’s angry, he’s vitriolic, he’s sarcastic – he’s that part of all of us that doesn’t want to do what it’s told, and, in the right mood, writing him is freeing, it’s a real rush. If I’m not in the right frame of mind, though, trying to reach for it is very hard.

The other thing has always been the sheer size and ambition of the project. There are several critical story threads that work right through the whole Ecko sequence and they needed to be woven in and together early on. This was a very hard thing to get right!

What Did You Learn Writing Ecko Rising?

Mostly, just how much work a book really is and how many people’s time and energy – and love – go into making it happen. You may have a book in your head, and you may be the one writing it – but it also comes to life in the hands of everyone that meets it along the way. From my mates at the beginning, to the friends that helped me start writing again, to the editors and the proof-readers and the agent and the publicist that brought it all to life. To the cover artist who drew Ecko and scared me out of my skin (he’d never looked back at me before), and to all the people who have bought it in the UK and offered feedback.

…the book you write is a piece of your heart – dark or light or any combination, it’s something of yourself and your soul. What I’ve learned is the absolute wonder that occurs when other people can see it too.

What Do You Love About Ecko Rising?

I love Ecko – he runs away with himself. He doesn’t care, does exactly what he wants to do and doesn’t give a toss about the consequences. This can land me in some interesting places as a writer, and sometimes I have no idea how to get out of them again… but there’s never a dull moment!

What Don’t You Like About It?

That’s a hard one! The honest answer to that one is that it’s nearly over – for me anyway as I’m finishing the initial draft of the third book. This idea has been with me for such a long time that I’m going to be oddly bereft when it’s over – and I had no idea where I’ll head next.

Though I’m sure every author must feel like that!

Give Us Your Favorite Paragraph From The Story:

…he tweaked back the edge of the curtain.

A slice of bright illumination made the colours of his skin recoil.

His oculars defending his vision, he looked out at the polluted, halogen-blazing –

The sky was dark, untouched by advertising – unobscured by clouds or buildings, by the Tate’s ever-cycling LED. It was pitch-black, crystal-vision clear and completely starless.

What?

That wasn’t right.

The moon was half-full, low, brilliant and shimmering silver. It was way too close and way too bright – that wasn’t right either. The second moon, a little higher and glowing a fantastic yellow-gold, was also half-full. That was getting beyond not right.

What freaked Ecko right out was that it was the other half.

What’s Next For You As A Storyteller?

The sequel, Ecko Burning, will be out from Titan Books in the UK in October this year, and I’m halfway through writing the third book of the sequence. After that, we shall see!

Danie Ware: Website / @Danacea

Ecko Rising: Amazon / Trailer

(Once again, trigger warnings.)

I guess THREE POSTS MAKE A SERIES, eh?

One last post on this subject, then I’ll cool it for a little while and talk more about story plotting or how to cook your eggs while using the requisite amount of egg-specific profanity. But I felt this needed to be said as it’s something I’ve been wrestling with over the last couple of days —

I posted the two posts over the last two days about this difficult and uncomfortable topic — the post itself and then the follow-up. And most of the responses are positive from both men and women. Overwhelmingly positive in some cases. Lots of signal boost and agreement and thumbs-ups and high-fives. So: YAAAAAY.

But I’m a guy. I say stuff like this, I get credit for being brave or standing up when I’m doing no such thing. I’m making a controversial argument from what is ostensibly a very safe position. I’m up here on Heteronormative White Dude Mountain (which is a very long name for this mountain so most people just call it “Mount Norm”) and few people dare to fling rocks up at Mount Norm where I sit on my comfortable chair made of Safe, Patriarchal History.

When a woman says stuff like this, they might also get credit for being brave and standing up, but then they also get a tide of venom sweeping over them —

Sometimes in the form of rape or death threats.

My goal isn’t to jump into this conversation and be all like, “DON’T WORRY, LADIES, I WILL OPEN THAT STUCK CULTURAL PICKLE JAR FOR YOU — POP! — THERE WE GO, YOU ARE SAFE NOW. CAPTAIN MAN-PANTS IS DONE HERE.”

Some have even raised the question of, should men say anything at all? Are we just muddying the conversation? Are we just continuing the cultural vibe that women need us to swoop in and save them? We’re the heroes, they’re the victims?

Here’s why men need to speak up:

Because solidarity. Men speaking up are choosing solidarity with the side of change and against the side of sexism and misogyny. If men don’t say anything, it sounds like they agree by default — or are at least not concerned enough to take those two steps up onto the soapbox. And it also sends a message to those rank, rancid assholes — “I’m not on your side.”

(Sidenote: that’s actually a thing about being a white dude. You sometimes get other white dudes coming up to you and in apparent confidence they start spilling racist or sexist shit like, without even knowing you. And when you react poorly they get this look like, “Ohhh, oooh, you’re one of them. See, I thought because we both had these KKK robes for skin we could talk about stuff like this but apparently you’re a Pod Person gotta go.”)

We don’t want the behaviors of this septic culture to become or seem normalized. If we’re quiet about it, we contribute to the normalization of misogyny or any of the other cultural poisons.

Like I said the other day, this isn’t about playing the hero — we aren’t going to fix it with our magical man-hammers, and women are not our Death Star Princesses to rescue. But we can signal boost. We can support. We can be on the side of the angels instead of the side of the diseased dick-bags (they don’t rate being devils, honestly) who want to trumpet their hate and rampant shittiness. We can try to do better and ask that others do the same.

Postscript: Speaking Of Rampant Shittiness

The anti-woman vibe amongst gamers is some of the worst out there.

This isn’t universal, obviously — a lot of gamers are awesome people. Most gamers, probably. But there’s a very strong and not necessarily small contingent of deeply ingrained awfulness out there. (It’s why I don’t generally get on Xbox Live anymore — I can only hear angry 13-year-olds spew toxic racist or homophobic slurs at me so long before I contemplate melting the console into slag and moving to some cozy island where I can raise sheep and tend a lighthouse.)

I actually tweeted about it, referencing the tsunami of hate (warning, reaaaaaaally triggery) cast at Anita Sarkeesian just for saying that none of the Xbox One game demos had female protagonists in them.

And lo and behold, just by invoking her name, I got some troll comments all my own.

My favorite (“favorite” being relative, mind you) was:

@chuckwendig anita sarkeesian sucks big fucking cock

— fullname (@steedsoftware) June 12, 2013

Now, at first I just assumed — well, here’s some chump with an egg-avatar on Twitter, so I’m going to look at his feed and it’s going to be puerile boy-rage all the way down. Oh ho ho, no. You look at his feed and what do you see? Someone who wants to work in the game industry.

My deepest hope is that this little human turd would never be allowed through the gates, but then again, given some of the behaviors not only of gamers but also the game industry, I can’t be sure that @steedsoftware won’t one day be among those Captains of Industry.

Point being —

There is work yet to do.