Being a Better Writer: The Disney Desert · 5:58pm Oct 9th, 2023
Hello again writers! It’s Monday (or Friday, if you’re a Patreon Supporter), so it’s time for another installment of Being a Better Writer!
Which, with a little hope will be a tad shorter than normal. It’s an interesting topic, but one that I hope doesn’t take too long to write up, as, you see, last night I hit the absolute climax of Axtara – Magic and Mayhem.
Yeah. Without offering too many details, what I wrote last night was the highest point of the story, which means today is going to be checking over it to make little tweaks to amplify that … and then writing the final wrap-up chapter.
Yup, Axtara 2‘s draft is that close to being done. While there’s still work to do coming, her second journey is almost at the end of the writing process, and I’m eager to close it out. I’ve been wanting to write this final chapter since about the final chapter of the first Axtara, so yes, I have been looking forward to it.
In other words, I really want to get back to it. Sands, I skipped my workout yesterday just so I could spend more time on it. This is also why there was no news post on Thursday.
But the longer I talk about wanting to work on it, the longer it’s going to take for that moment to arrive (and for me to write a couple of paragraphs, then stop and go “hmmm” for about five minutes), so without further ado, let’s get down to the topic of today’s post!
Which I’ll admit, is an odd one. At least from a title perspective. I’m actually referencing a news post from a few months ago in which I spoke about going and seeing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in theaters (and enjoying it quite a bit). But there were a few things that happened in that movie, one-off lines, that made me realize something I’d subconsciously noted but never acknowledged about a lot of stories these days. Which in turn, the more I thought about it, the more it made me want to cover it on Being a Better Writer.
So here we are, talking about something that, for now, I’m calling the “Disney Desert,” or more accurately, the “Disney Content Desert.” Which I know will immediately make some of you wonder, given how much Disney owns and produces, how anyone could call that a desert … But if you hit the jump, it’ll make sense. Better yet, it’ll tie back to other forms of entertainment as well, including the one we’re all here to learn about.
So hit the jump, and let’s get started!
Ha, even before you called back to the TMNT post of yours where getting references to properties not owned by the parent corporation was such a refresher, I was thinking "ah, this is the yin to that yang". Though your pivoting from the "only reference things we own that you can buy!" trend of the last decade to the sci-fi/fantasy novel trend of the quoted titles just being a transplant of the author's own experience, not properly adjusted for the timeframe or setting, was plenty insightful too.
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Without naming names, a modern take of this most wouldn't think of was one related to me by a quite successful (household name, really) Sci-Fi writer of 30+years. They related to me that a few years prior to our chatting, one of the publishers they'd written for had been acquired by a new company, and with that came a new contract. As part of this contract was a requirement that when at events for any of the books from this publisher, authors were to forbidden from referencing any other work they'd done elsewhere. By contract (so you know, with penalties if you broke it).
Thankfully, this author's lawyer was a sharp cookie, and they went to meet over the contract where the company was informed that the author would honor it, but would by counterpoint never discuss any of the books published by this company at any other event or location. Ever. To which the company quickly said "No no, you don't do that." After realizing they'd been hoist by their own petard, they resubmitted a contract excising out that particular bit.
What I wondered was how many authors simply sighed and agreed to the new contract. Naturally, this corporation (I'm not naming it nor the author because it is their story to give details on, not mine) publishes books that exhibit the exact issue noted in today's post.