My Life As A Writer: Idiot Balls Suck

One of the things I like about Mission: Impossible is that the protagonist and his allies are the active party in the narrative. While the TV series pairs this down to its essence, as a TV series format requires, the films really have made the most of this element and even the bad films in the series show how different it is for an audience to see the character we're supposed to care about not just react to things and tackle the problem actively from the start.

With Book Two, I'm attempting this. It's been difficult to execute, but I think I can deliver it and with it satisfy one of my own rules: No Idiot Balls.

I despise heroes and villains that are morons who have no business being where they are when verisimilitude demands that they be, at best, subordinates of a competent master. While most Idiot Ball examples are things like "How can you be (x) without mastering (standard practice)?" there is a more fundamental element that's often overlooked, and that's one of the heroes seizing the initiative and being the driving party in the conflict from the start. The aforementioned series builds its pattern around it, as do the better James Bond films, and the books those properties took their cues from in turn.

I prefer a narrative where Hero and Villain display actual competence, with all other aspects being specific reflects of this mental match-up, which is why I love Legend of the Galactic Heroes (entire story runs on this) and find so much fiction boring so often as they rely on ill-execute literary conventions to cover their asses. Find in a comedy, but not fine in anything else, and even then some comedies actually respect this better.

As for a title, I'll have to come with one soon since the cover's getting done. Soon.