Category: Blog

Tony Lazlo’s Thoughts on The New She-Ra

Netflix’s She-ra series got me thinking about the different approaches to reboots.

I’m stating the obvious here, but there are a few ways to go about revisiting old material. Until recent memory, the most common way to reboot a property was simply to remake it. (I’ll discuss the current definition of reboot—as I understand it, at least—in a moment.) More often than not, studios remade old properties that had some brand recognition (The Ten Commandments, Ocean’s Eleven, Sabrina). Whether or not these properties could benefit from being remade was immaterial. Opting to produce (or re-produce) a familiar property no doubt felt and continues to feel like a safe bet for Hollywood suits.

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General Writing Thoughts: Screenwriting

Whether or not you work in Hollywood, I submit that screenwriting should be a part of every novelist’s routine. At the very least, it can provide a welcome change from writing standard prose, and it provides a host of different challenges for a writer. Let me explain:

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General Writing Thoughts: The Medill Maxims

Basic Writing was supposed to strike fear into my heart. Instead, it brought the world into relief.

When I attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, the school’s curriculum required all freshmen to take a class called Basic Writing. Known as a weed-out course, the class was reputed to be one of the most challenging at Medill. And it was challenging, but it was challenging in the best way possible – you had too much fun to realize how hard you were working.

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Influences: Neal Stephenson

After reading the first few hundred pages of Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, my friend Jordan Byrne asked me what I thought of it. Despite the novel’s incredible scope and dazzling prose, I only said these four words in response:

“It’s filled with joy.”

There are specific elements of Stephenson’s writing that I aspire to emulate in my own, but more than anything else, I try to write with the same joy that he does. Let me explain:

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Influences: John Irving

John Irving gives me the courage to be weird.

For an adult who writes novels, I spent my high school years largely baffled by literature. Don’t get me wrong – I got good grades in my English classes, but it wasn’t until I was well into my senior year of high school that I really got excited about literature and fiction writing. I also started what would become my first novel during that time. When it came to the analysis and appreciation of books, something finally clicked.

I credit John Irving for a lot of that.

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