I have no real idea what to write about today (ha--there's the trick with telling myself I'll blog once a week every Sunday or Monday ... I have to have something to say!), but, I watched Snow White and the Huntsman yesterday. Most of it, really. Okay, some, and then I let it keep running while I zoned out. Not like I didn't already know the ending, sheesh.
Not that it was a bad movie--I wouldn't assert that--just an utterly unnecessary one.
But I write fantasy so I should like fantasy movies, right? Well, two things to say about that--first of all, yes, I like fantasy movies, IF they don't devolve into tropes and cheesiness. Which a lot of them do seeing as they're movies, made for the mainstream and not necessarily people like me who have read a zillion such stories already. When I watched the movie last night and they entered the Enchanted Forest all I could think of was how it felt like a ripoff of a different movie I'd loved from years ago (quick aside: as a kid we used to go to a theme park called the Enchanted Forest. Even then I wasn't too enchanted by it).
Secondly, there is a difference between fantasy and fairy tale, which my humble opinion asserts goes as deep as the way it's written. I used to read lots of fairy tales as a kid and there's a set format, expected themes like princesses and wicked stepmothers and love triumphing over, heck, anything. Sure there are expectations in fantasy, too, but fairy tales are a genre that existed, say, five hundred or more years ago; the expectations are a bit outdated for today. Maybe this is a roundabout way of saying we know what's going to happen in the end once we know it's a fairy tale. You know Snow White lives happily ever (yawn) after. Because she always has. Just like you know the evil queen won't.
Essentially, I guess, it boils down to the fact that once you know a story is a fairy tale, you know it'll end happily. ever. after. The dramatic steam goes out of the story. But I guess that's true of any story that's been retold a half million times over five hundred years with hardly any changes. And maybe also there's a part of me that associates fairy tales with kid stuff (not all of them are, if you read the originals) and therefore automatically feels patronized to watch/read one, whether it's a remake of the same old story, or some author's 'amusing' new take on a tale. Which I'm not crazy about, but that's another blog.
Also, since the first time I watched Cinderella or Snow White or Sleeping Beauty as a kid, I had no capacity whatsoever to identify with the characters. No emotional investment. I didn't much care if the princess got kissed or saved or adored or whatever because ... I don't know. I guess because if all you can do is passively sit by and wait to be rescued, all you are is a writer's convenience. And I had better ideas for what those princesses could be doing ....
Needless to say, the princess didn't take my advice this time around, either.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Don't Forget the Rotting Pumpkin
Wow! So I've been formulating a new story in my mind and, after sitting down and thinking about it, I have realized a whole lot of stuff has to happen in the first scene--not just of this story but of any tale; this is just the first time I'm really thinking about it.
Let's put it this way: the shorter the story you're writing, the more concentrated all the ideas and working parts have to be.
The story I'm mulling right now will be at a max of 5000 or so words, so a lot of things have to go on in a small space. Let me give you an idea of the cogs that have to mesh just to make the first scene functional:
Main Character(s): In this scene I have to get across that the main character is a woman, her age, her personality, (her name!), her goals or the things that drive her and anything that makes her unique and interesting. Whether she's a huntress or housewife (or both) ought to be mentioned, keeping in mind that this better be relevant later on.
I also have to introduce any possible secondary characters, or mention them so they don't suddenly pop up later on. That said, in 5000 words I can't have a lot of secondary characters--too many working parts!
Place/World: As this story will have an ancient Mayan setting this has to be made clear in the descriptions of the plants, wildlife, terrain. Even things like the way the characters think about the world around them belongs in this category. A couple howler monkeys thrown in to give ambiance will never go wrong in telling readers this isn't just some random jungle, but a Mexican/Guatemalan one.
If this story took place in, say, the 1800s, technology or language should indicate this from scene one; as no one can really tell me how ancient Mayans talked, and their technology doesn't change much with time, no real issue here.
Tone: If this was going to be a funny story there would have to be an indication; writing the material humorously or dropping a couple witticisms. As it's meant to be horror/dark fantasy, I'll have to establish this in the first scene with descriptions, observations, etc.
Theme: This will probably be quite subtle and logically the theme will connect back to other parts of the story; it should be relevant to the main character, her goals and struggles, the tone, and the conflict. If the tone throughout the story is grim and unhappy, the theme probably shouldn't be something optimistic about how the world is a big ball of sunshine. Sunny ideas about the world should be set up ahead of time if this is the theme I'd like to convey, or I can prepare to confuse readers on a subliminal level.
I often find the theme to be something I haven't articulated but that appears while writing; by the end of draft one I can see what it is or where it's going, so an edit helps to clarify theme.
Conflict: The source of friction for this tale should show up in scene one, even obliquely. Is this going to be a huge world-spanning conflict full of massive earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, and twenty-five separate-but-interrelated tales of unrequited love? I'm not bold enough to tackle this in 5000 words and probably no one should be--there's no room in those few words for so much to happen without taking away from the significance of, well, everything.
Whether complex or straightforward (as in, a mystery that has to be unraveled or a direct good-vs-evil fistfight), the conflict had better be present in scene one. When I say obliquely I mean a subtle suggestion of where we're going; if a monster is lurking in the jungle, maybe someone goes missing in scene one? If a tale of demon-summoning, maybe the spell-book is discovered in scene one, along with evidence of a conflict between the main character and her unkind husband?
Internal conflict: If the main character is battling monsters on the outside, what about inside? Any story where strange or fantastic things happen requires some internal struggle because who's going to coolly accept that an evil demon is lurking in their jungle and then just walk out and kill it? If it was that easy I could hardly say there was a conflict--I guess in a way it's fair to say that external and internal conflict are two sides of the same coin; they should be used together to create a better story, a bigger challenge for the main character, and a better payoff at the end.
So, if her unkind husband were to go missing in scene one, the internal conflict could be based on the main character's mixed feelings for her husband, along with the fear that whatever got him might come for her, too.
Important details: If she has an ancestral demon-killing knife tucked away somewhere, it shouldn't be mentioned only when she pulls it out on the last page to slay the monster. This could at the least be mentioned in passing and probably not a lot more than that; spend too long describing the knife and the readers have figured out what she's going to do with it at the end.
If there's anything else that will be really important later on I should mention it now; like the demon-summoning book, or the main character's fear of getting lost in the jungle, or if she will battle the demon atop a mountain maybe she looks at it in the distance, etc.
Sensory details: If the demon smells like rotted pumpkin it's worth mentioning on a few levels; because engaging the senses also engages readers, and because it can be used later.
Voice: The main character's voice should come through in my word choice (or the character's word choice); this will help give an idea of who she is, how she views the world, and should help prove the relevance of the character I'm writing to the theme and conflict she is tackling.
"Wow!" you say, "That's a lot to shove into one scene. And whatever happened to writing being a creative endeavor? Where's the creativity in following lists?"
Ah yes, that's indeed the trick--so many things to juggle into one scene that I have to be creative about how to get it all in there. The observant reader will have already noticed, too, that many of these points overlap; sensory details can be a part of voice, which ultimately is a part of your main character, while observation of something like the smell of pumpkin also relates back to place/time. Creativity comes in (in a big way!) while trying to put all these pieces together as a smooth and operative whole--I don't want anything to seem clunky or out of place so ultimately it's the way I put these things together that will make the story convincing. Because the point is that even though I've got a list of things in front of me, it certainly shouldn't read that way when it becomes prose.
Now to figure out my first sentence ...
Let's put it this way: the shorter the story you're writing, the more concentrated all the ideas and working parts have to be.
The story I'm mulling right now will be at a max of 5000 or so words, so a lot of things have to go on in a small space. Let me give you an idea of the cogs that have to mesh just to make the first scene functional:
Main Character(s): In this scene I have to get across that the main character is a woman, her age, her personality, (her name!), her goals or the things that drive her and anything that makes her unique and interesting. Whether she's a huntress or housewife (or both) ought to be mentioned, keeping in mind that this better be relevant later on.
I also have to introduce any possible secondary characters, or mention them so they don't suddenly pop up later on. That said, in 5000 words I can't have a lot of secondary characters--too many working parts!
Place/World: As this story will have an ancient Mayan setting this has to be made clear in the descriptions of the plants, wildlife, terrain. Even things like the way the characters think about the world around them belongs in this category. A couple howler monkeys thrown in to give ambiance will never go wrong in telling readers this isn't just some random jungle, but a Mexican/Guatemalan one.
If this story took place in, say, the 1800s, technology or language should indicate this from scene one; as no one can really tell me how ancient Mayans talked, and their technology doesn't change much with time, no real issue here.
Tone: If this was going to be a funny story there would have to be an indication; writing the material humorously or dropping a couple witticisms. As it's meant to be horror/dark fantasy, I'll have to establish this in the first scene with descriptions, observations, etc.
Theme: This will probably be quite subtle and logically the theme will connect back to other parts of the story; it should be relevant to the main character, her goals and struggles, the tone, and the conflict. If the tone throughout the story is grim and unhappy, the theme probably shouldn't be something optimistic about how the world is a big ball of sunshine. Sunny ideas about the world should be set up ahead of time if this is the theme I'd like to convey, or I can prepare to confuse readers on a subliminal level.
I often find the theme to be something I haven't articulated but that appears while writing; by the end of draft one I can see what it is or where it's going, so an edit helps to clarify theme.
Conflict: The source of friction for this tale should show up in scene one, even obliquely. Is this going to be a huge world-spanning conflict full of massive earthquakes, hurricanes, wars, and twenty-five separate-but-interrelated tales of unrequited love? I'm not bold enough to tackle this in 5000 words and probably no one should be--there's no room in those few words for so much to happen without taking away from the significance of, well, everything.
Whether complex or straightforward (as in, a mystery that has to be unraveled or a direct good-vs-evil fistfight), the conflict had better be present in scene one. When I say obliquely I mean a subtle suggestion of where we're going; if a monster is lurking in the jungle, maybe someone goes missing in scene one? If a tale of demon-summoning, maybe the spell-book is discovered in scene one, along with evidence of a conflict between the main character and her unkind husband?
Internal conflict: If the main character is battling monsters on the outside, what about inside? Any story where strange or fantastic things happen requires some internal struggle because who's going to coolly accept that an evil demon is lurking in their jungle and then just walk out and kill it? If it was that easy I could hardly say there was a conflict--I guess in a way it's fair to say that external and internal conflict are two sides of the same coin; they should be used together to create a better story, a bigger challenge for the main character, and a better payoff at the end.
So, if her unkind husband were to go missing in scene one, the internal conflict could be based on the main character's mixed feelings for her husband, along with the fear that whatever got him might come for her, too.
Important details: If she has an ancestral demon-killing knife tucked away somewhere, it shouldn't be mentioned only when she pulls it out on the last page to slay the monster. This could at the least be mentioned in passing and probably not a lot more than that; spend too long describing the knife and the readers have figured out what she's going to do with it at the end.
If there's anything else that will be really important later on I should mention it now; like the demon-summoning book, or the main character's fear of getting lost in the jungle, or if she will battle the demon atop a mountain maybe she looks at it in the distance, etc.
Sensory details: If the demon smells like rotted pumpkin it's worth mentioning on a few levels; because engaging the senses also engages readers, and because it can be used later.
Voice: The main character's voice should come through in my word choice (or the character's word choice); this will help give an idea of who she is, how she views the world, and should help prove the relevance of the character I'm writing to the theme and conflict she is tackling.
"Wow!" you say, "That's a lot to shove into one scene. And whatever happened to writing being a creative endeavor? Where's the creativity in following lists?"
Ah yes, that's indeed the trick--so many things to juggle into one scene that I have to be creative about how to get it all in there. The observant reader will have already noticed, too, that many of these points overlap; sensory details can be a part of voice, which ultimately is a part of your main character, while observation of something like the smell of pumpkin also relates back to place/time. Creativity comes in (in a big way!) while trying to put all these pieces together as a smooth and operative whole--I don't want anything to seem clunky or out of place so ultimately it's the way I put these things together that will make the story convincing. Because the point is that even though I've got a list of things in front of me, it certainly shouldn't read that way when it becomes prose.
Now to figure out my first sentence ...
Monday, November 26, 2012
The Rotating Door of Valuable Lessons
I have learned a valuable lesson. I think. But if I think so, then doesn't that mean I did? Well, I think so.
Approximately a month ago I sent a submission for an anthology call--a call that ends the 30th of this month. Meaning I sent it in a month before the deadline. How many people do that? From this side of November, I feel like I shouldn't have. I mean, a month is a long time to have a story floating in stasis. And couldn't I have edited it one more time before I sent it out?
Well, sure I could have. I doubt anything would've changed except a few commas or so but still ... the fact of having no more power to change or fix anything, that's what bothers me. Lots of IF ONLYs and WHAT IFs going on here. I mean, what if I have a genius insight on the 28th? I can't do anything about it now, that's what!
I thought sending it out earlier would get it off my mind but it hasn't quite worked out that way. I just have to wait a month longer between sending and getting my response back!
And so, yes, I have learned my lesson. Better to hold a story in my hand and flap it around uselessly than to send it to someone else where it can sit in a pile uselessly. If only for my mental well-being.
This lesson, I believe, is one that shall serve me well in the future and which I shall apply to the contests and magazine openings of December--happily shall I go Christmas shopping, and confidently shall I spend my time wrapping gifts and putting sprinkles on cookies. Nary a fret shall I entertain until the last moment it is possible to entertain them.
Meaning that, yes, while everyone else counts down the seconds to New Year, I shall be busily sending submissions to all the places which will be closing in that same number of seconds.
Which assuredly will be followed by another very valuable lesson learned at the beginning of 2013...
Approximately a month ago I sent a submission for an anthology call--a call that ends the 30th of this month. Meaning I sent it in a month before the deadline. How many people do that? From this side of November, I feel like I shouldn't have. I mean, a month is a long time to have a story floating in stasis. And couldn't I have edited it one more time before I sent it out?
Well, sure I could have. I doubt anything would've changed except a few commas or so but still ... the fact of having no more power to change or fix anything, that's what bothers me. Lots of IF ONLYs and WHAT IFs going on here. I mean, what if I have a genius insight on the 28th? I can't do anything about it now, that's what!
I thought sending it out earlier would get it off my mind but it hasn't quite worked out that way. I just have to wait a month longer between sending and getting my response back!
And so, yes, I have learned my lesson. Better to hold a story in my hand and flap it around uselessly than to send it to someone else where it can sit in a pile uselessly. If only for my mental well-being.
This lesson, I believe, is one that shall serve me well in the future and which I shall apply to the contests and magazine openings of December--happily shall I go Christmas shopping, and confidently shall I spend my time wrapping gifts and putting sprinkles on cookies. Nary a fret shall I entertain until the last moment it is possible to entertain them.
Meaning that, yes, while everyone else counts down the seconds to New Year, I shall be busily sending submissions to all the places which will be closing in that same number of seconds.
Which assuredly will be followed by another very valuable lesson learned at the beginning of 2013...
Monday, November 12, 2012
So I am sick today, meaning that my voice has gone all squeaky. Meaning that my cat has been giving me dirty looks about why I'm talking funny at her. Which is not easy to explain to someone who's already suspicious that I'm cheating her out of a dozen or more catfood kibbles per meal.
I could take this opportunity to talk about voice or dialog or something but all the thoughts in my brain are separating like oil from water so I think I will just roll over and go back to sleep.
If the cat will stop glaring at me.
I could take this opportunity to talk about voice or dialog or something but all the thoughts in my brain are separating like oil from water so I think I will just roll over and go back to sleep.
If the cat will stop glaring at me.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Not OK!
There's a book I remember reading as a kid, full of dragons and princesses and wizards--all the usual fantasy kid stuff. Except that's got nothing to do with why I remember it, and honestly there's just one thing that still sticks in my head after all these years. While one of the characters is riding a magic carpet it suddenly takes a plunge, which could have been described in any of a dozen ways. The author chose, "it was like the bottom falling out of a cardboard box," which was descriptive enough even if it kind of bothered me for some unspoken reason ...
And thus did I discover anachronism.
This was an easy one to spot and an easy one to remedy; another good example would be the story of a well-known author who mistakenly thought a foot was equal to a meter and used them interchangeably in a novel. (Though you'd think an editor would notice?)
But even as a kid I knew the OK rule. That is, you don't ever use the word OK (Ok, so okay is a word--OK is an abbreviation. You got me) until after, say, the year 1850. Because it didn't exist before that. Knights and princesses didn't say OK. Nor did pirates, assassins, merchants, mercenaries. Or anybody who existed before the word was invented.
Let's just be reasonable for a moment: you shouldn't be writing dialog that didn't exist for your characters when, supposedly, they do. You wouldn't use slang like "rad!" or "groovy!" or "sweet!" or "pwn!" for a character existing outside of these words' respective time periods. And though OK has lasted a fairly long time, it's slang, too.
For me it was always easy to find a substitute that sounded a bit more suited to the time period--or at least less slangy. Things like "sure" or "very well" or "all right" all mean the same thing as OK, while having existed historically.
(And don't get on me about translating your story from another language and therefore thinking it's OK to use OK as a 'translation' for some made-up word. Because it doesn't make sense to translate a period word for one that's not. And anyway, a lot of languages around the world these days use OK just as we do in English. There really is no straight translation for it!)
(And on the topic of all right--it's not alright. Alright's not all right, just like OK's not okay. And generally I prefer to use the word, okay, instead of the abbreviation. But OK just shows up better when writing for emphasis. Like I'm doing now.)
All authors want to write comprehensible, easy-to-read dialog, but if you are writing in a time period that's not your own--yes, even one of your own devising--you need to stay true to it.
Which means that taking even one word out of context is not OK.
And thus did I discover anachronism.
This was an easy one to spot and an easy one to remedy; another good example would be the story of a well-known author who mistakenly thought a foot was equal to a meter and used them interchangeably in a novel. (Though you'd think an editor would notice?)
But even as a kid I knew the OK rule. That is, you don't ever use the word OK (Ok, so okay is a word--OK is an abbreviation. You got me) until after, say, the year 1850. Because it didn't exist before that. Knights and princesses didn't say OK. Nor did pirates, assassins, merchants, mercenaries. Or anybody who existed before the word was invented.
Let's just be reasonable for a moment: you shouldn't be writing dialog that didn't exist for your characters when, supposedly, they do. You wouldn't use slang like "rad!" or "groovy!" or "sweet!" or "pwn!" for a character existing outside of these words' respective time periods. And though OK has lasted a fairly long time, it's slang, too.
For me it was always easy to find a substitute that sounded a bit more suited to the time period--or at least less slangy. Things like "sure" or "very well" or "all right" all mean the same thing as OK, while having existed historically.
(And don't get on me about translating your story from another language and therefore thinking it's OK to use OK as a 'translation' for some made-up word. Because it doesn't make sense to translate a period word for one that's not. And anyway, a lot of languages around the world these days use OK just as we do in English. There really is no straight translation for it!)
(And on the topic of all right--it's not alright. Alright's not all right, just like OK's not okay. And generally I prefer to use the word, okay, instead of the abbreviation. But OK just shows up better when writing for emphasis. Like I'm doing now.)
All authors want to write comprehensible, easy-to-read dialog, but if you are writing in a time period that's not your own--yes, even one of your own devising--you need to stay true to it.
Which means that taking even one word out of context is not OK.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Boo!
It's the day before Halloween and I'm going to a party today. I'm planning to dress up as something in my closet.
As a kid I didn't have all that many exciting Halloweens. For a few years I was a cow (moo...), there was one time I was a pirate (before pirates were cool!), and once I attempted to be a vampire but, little did I know that a girl with deathly white face paint, a black-on-the-outside-and-red-on-the-inside cape, and fangs, was actually Cinderella! Yep, that's what I got mistaken for. Well, that was also before vampires were cool ...
Halloweens out here where I live are always cold and rainy, thus making the whole dressing up thing kind of unpleasant, which makes me wonder what they're like where the holiday was actually invented. Who thought it was a good idea to send kids out on dark rainy nights to beg candy from strangers? And all those dark, shadowy costumes?
Incidentally, what I'm reading is rather Halloween-themed, too: H P Lovecraft's "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." I picked it up just for the title. Turns out you can't judge a book by it's cover but the title might be a good hint of what you're getting yourself into; long winded title=long winded book. Especially when it's H P Lovecraft.
I've only got a third of the way through and am having serious trouble. With his prose, with his way of obscuring the few important actions going on by squashing them into looong sentences that explain way too much at once. With his lack of any dialog until, like, page 98 (of 99!). I understand that he was inspired by certain other writers, but I don't understand what tradition thinks it's a good idea to have no dialog whatsoever. No, it's written that characters talk to each other, and what they say (or glibber), but it's not made into dialog. Which would be so much easier for me or, I expect, most readers (modern or of his time, too) to handle. Surely there was a reason--saving paper, maybe? a pathological fear of quotes-marks?--but I just can't fathom it.
Getting back to the action in the book, I can't really tell you what's happening. Every time an action takes place in the midst of the narration, which feels mostly like explaining of things, I have to go back and read again to figure out what it was. And just as the dialog-less-ness bugs me, the fact of vast sweeping actions taking place in single paragraphs has me grinding my teeth. A whole city is overrun by sentient cats in a paragraph. The main character seems to travel by ship halfway around the world in a page or two and scales the world's largest, most impossible mountain in an equal amount of time. Maybe I'm exaggerating (only because I can't recall his fuzzy details very clearly), but not by much.
Not that I dislike H P Lovecraft in general; anyone who can dash off a phrase like "an Acheron of multiform diabolism" without blinking really has an eye for the weird. But weird shouldn't mean impossible and, though he's popularly known even today, I wonder how many people have actually read him.
As a kid I didn't have all that many exciting Halloweens. For a few years I was a cow (moo...), there was one time I was a pirate (before pirates were cool!), and once I attempted to be a vampire but, little did I know that a girl with deathly white face paint, a black-on-the-outside-and-red-on-the-inside cape, and fangs, was actually Cinderella! Yep, that's what I got mistaken for. Well, that was also before vampires were cool ...
Halloweens out here where I live are always cold and rainy, thus making the whole dressing up thing kind of unpleasant, which makes me wonder what they're like where the holiday was actually invented. Who thought it was a good idea to send kids out on dark rainy nights to beg candy from strangers? And all those dark, shadowy costumes?
Incidentally, what I'm reading is rather Halloween-themed, too: H P Lovecraft's "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." I picked it up just for the title. Turns out you can't judge a book by it's cover but the title might be a good hint of what you're getting yourself into; long winded title=long winded book. Especially when it's H P Lovecraft.
I've only got a third of the way through and am having serious trouble. With his prose, with his way of obscuring the few important actions going on by squashing them into looong sentences that explain way too much at once. With his lack of any dialog until, like, page 98 (of 99!). I understand that he was inspired by certain other writers, but I don't understand what tradition thinks it's a good idea to have no dialog whatsoever. No, it's written that characters talk to each other, and what they say (or glibber), but it's not made into dialog. Which would be so much easier for me or, I expect, most readers (modern or of his time, too) to handle. Surely there was a reason--saving paper, maybe? a pathological fear of quotes-marks?--but I just can't fathom it.
Getting back to the action in the book, I can't really tell you what's happening. Every time an action takes place in the midst of the narration, which feels mostly like explaining of things, I have to go back and read again to figure out what it was. And just as the dialog-less-ness bugs me, the fact of vast sweeping actions taking place in single paragraphs has me grinding my teeth. A whole city is overrun by sentient cats in a paragraph. The main character seems to travel by ship halfway around the world in a page or two and scales the world's largest, most impossible mountain in an equal amount of time. Maybe I'm exaggerating (only because I can't recall his fuzzy details very clearly), but not by much.
Not that I dislike H P Lovecraft in general; anyone who can dash off a phrase like "an Acheron of multiform diabolism" without blinking really has an eye for the weird. But weird shouldn't mean impossible and, though he's popularly known even today, I wonder how many people have actually read him.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
It's About Time ...
I don't like time travel stories. Nope. Not for me.
Why? Well, a lot of reasons that could just as easily be someone else's reasons for not liking a different type of story. I don't buy into the whole premise, as it's so far outside of the realm of possible science. The whole butterfly effect thing (you breathe in the past and the world is entirely restructured) has been done so many times, with so few variations in theme and result, etc, that I don't understand why writers still want to write something that's already been beaten to death.
The next common theme of time travel fiction, of going back/forward in time to meet/see yourself/significant other/ancestor/descendant does nothing for me. It's not going to happen, ever, in this world or another (I mean, can you imagine the disaster the world would be if you could tamper with its chronology in any such way???) so why even pretend?
If you are one of those people who likes time travel, then you're probably saying, at this point, something like "Well, isn't that the point of fiction? It's SCIENCE FICTION! And 99% of other SF and Fantasy won't ever happen, anywhere, ever, either!"
And you'd be right. That is very true. A lot of other tropes of the genre have been beaten past the point of death, too.
Maybe my real problem is that every time travel story I read sounds like the last one I read. Especially when you get into the mire of Back to the Future-style past-self/future-self stuff, I start to cry blood. It's been done! Let it die! Then again, maybe I've seen Back to the Future waaay to many times. That could be it too.
Although, I do like the third movie (as much as I can for time travel); I understand the appeal of putting a present-time character into a historical situation--then you can use that character as a stand-in for an audience that doesn't quite understand the time period otherwise; it helps us identify. You can explain things. But it's also pretty damn cutesy. I don't really do cutesy.
I don't get why people think going into the past could possibly in any way shape or form improve anything ever. 'I will go 150 years into the past to stop the plague of Rocky Mountain Weasel Fever that wiped out half of the world's population!' says the Heroic Time Traveler. Never once thinking this might turn out badly. Overpopulation much? It doesn't take a genius to see potentialities like this in every 'I WILL FIX THE PAST' scenario that's ever existed. Oh, and then you get the ones where the time traveler fixes the past, only to make it so they themselves were never born! Arrrg, spare me.
So maybe that's the crux of my problem. To time travel you (theoretically) have to be smart enough to build or operate a time machine, but also must be stupid enough to never wonder what could possibly go wrong. Because to time travel fully aware that you might screw up the chronology of the world to the point that you never existed in the first place either makes for a deep, subliminal message about time travel stories, or just proves the flaw of the theme.
Why? Well, a lot of reasons that could just as easily be someone else's reasons for not liking a different type of story. I don't buy into the whole premise, as it's so far outside of the realm of possible science. The whole butterfly effect thing (you breathe in the past and the world is entirely restructured) has been done so many times, with so few variations in theme and result, etc, that I don't understand why writers still want to write something that's already been beaten to death.
The next common theme of time travel fiction, of going back/forward in time to meet/see yourself/significant other/ancestor/descendant does nothing for me. It's not going to happen, ever, in this world or another (I mean, can you imagine the disaster the world would be if you could tamper with its chronology in any such way???) so why even pretend?
If you are one of those people who likes time travel, then you're probably saying, at this point, something like "Well, isn't that the point of fiction? It's SCIENCE FICTION! And 99% of other SF and Fantasy won't ever happen, anywhere, ever, either!"
And you'd be right. That is very true. A lot of other tropes of the genre have been beaten past the point of death, too.
Maybe my real problem is that every time travel story I read sounds like the last one I read. Especially when you get into the mire of Back to the Future-style past-self/future-self stuff, I start to cry blood. It's been done! Let it die! Then again, maybe I've seen Back to the Future waaay to many times. That could be it too.
Although, I do like the third movie (as much as I can for time travel); I understand the appeal of putting a present-time character into a historical situation--then you can use that character as a stand-in for an audience that doesn't quite understand the time period otherwise; it helps us identify. You can explain things. But it's also pretty damn cutesy. I don't really do cutesy.
I don't get why people think going into the past could possibly in any way shape or form improve anything ever. 'I will go 150 years into the past to stop the plague of Rocky Mountain Weasel Fever that wiped out half of the world's population!' says the Heroic Time Traveler. Never once thinking this might turn out badly. Overpopulation much? It doesn't take a genius to see potentialities like this in every 'I WILL FIX THE PAST' scenario that's ever existed. Oh, and then you get the ones where the time traveler fixes the past, only to make it so they themselves were never born! Arrrg, spare me.
So maybe that's the crux of my problem. To time travel you (theoretically) have to be smart enough to build or operate a time machine, but also must be stupid enough to never wonder what could possibly go wrong. Because to time travel fully aware that you might screw up the chronology of the world to the point that you never existed in the first place either makes for a deep, subliminal message about time travel stories, or just proves the flaw of the theme.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)