What I can’t stand in bad writing (and this usually occurs in bad screenwriting for movies) is when the antagonist is given what seems like invisible supernatural powers just because they are the bad guy.

That would be good for the cliché category over at the hotforwords forums.

I imagine you like The Shadow because you enjoy listening to old radio shows.

Never could quite figure out if The Shadow was a good guy or a bad guy.

I have always wondered about the term ‘Deus Ex Machina’, and, until now, didn’t realize it was strictly a literary term. I for one can’t stand hackery when it comes to writing, so I would definitely say that Deus Ex Machina is a bad thing. A writer is only limited by their imagination, and if they have to fall back on cheap tricks like deus ex machina, they are simply being lazy and not putting their best into their work. I think that is one of the secrets to Marina’s success… she puts her all into her videos and always makes sure to be creative and clever. No ‘deus ex machina’ here at HotForWords… more like Deus Ex Marina! :lol:

As for the homework, I don’t think this quite counts as deus ex machina, but it is closely related. What I can’t stand in bad writing (and this usually occurs in bad screenwriting for movies) is when the antagonist is given what seems like invisible supernatural powers just because they are the bad guy. In order to move a hackneyed plot forward, the bad guy ALWAYS shows up at just the right time and always knows just what to do to make things worse for the protagonist. It’s as if the second a character becomes ‘bad’, they are imbued with power that makes them able to trump mere mortals, when in fact all it is is a hack screenwriter relying way to heavily on ‘man vs man’ to move their plot forward.

An excellent example of this is the truly horrid movie ’16 Blocks’. Now, I am a huge Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan, so I have seen quite a few horrendously bad movies, and 16 Blocks is about as bad as it gets, especially for a big budget movie. When we saw it on DVD, my friends and I mocked the antagonist of the film, dubbing him ‘Super Bad Cop’, as he had the superhuman ability to constantly pop up from behind a vehicle or dark corner to lecture the protagonist on how he was going to fail. It gets so bad that, come the 5th or 6th time it happens in the storyline, one wonders “How does this guy constantly know where his opponent is going to be, and is constantly able to show up at just the right moment to confront him?”.

In the real world, being the bad guy doesn’t put you on a higher playing field than others. But, in a bad movie, simply adopting the role of the main antagonist means you’ll always be around at just the right time to make things worse for the protagonist, and will be there until the very end of the movie. It’s called paint-by-numbers plotting, formulaic hackery at it’s best… or should I say, worst.

Thanks for the informative lesson, Marina! Peace and love, Errin : )

We used to use a shim or wedge of wood to tighten the handle on the axe-head.

Hardest for me to split was cottonwood, & too little heat from it from high water content. Easiest to split, cedar, but it burns too fast; best for tinder. Alder splits easily enough, gives a lot of heat, & doesn’t throw sparks when it burns.
And that’s what I learned as a child in Skykomish. :smile:

I have got some gnarly knotted Box-elder to split… :x

..save a soldier and burn wood.. :cool: :twisted: hey Evan: what wood do you consider hardest to split?…me think [ELM] :smile: Tree and coal[][][] ECONOMICS for heating house===many houses would have froozen pipes and mass migration to warmer climate :-) old is knew and no not of know…dole living