recommended books for sf writers
Daniel Goodman
What books on writing would you recommend to science fiction and/or
fantasy writers?
What other books would you recommend?
What books, if any, would be DISrecommend?
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers
RWGalt
Three good books are Ben Bova's How to Write SF, Dean Koontz' How to
write BestSelling Fiction, and Damon Knight's Creating Short fiction...
for SF discussions join #SFAuthors on IRC
Daniel Goodman
In article <845326...@bbs.orionsys.com>,
I have reservations about your first two. Bova's book because I haven't
found anything he's written more than just good. And I think he had some
failings as Analog editor. Koontz's because I don't remember his
sf/fantasy as being particularly good.
Daniel Goodman
What books on writing would you recommend to science fiction and/or=20
fantasy writers?=20
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What other books would you recommend?=20
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What books, if any, would be DISrecommend?=20
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--=20
Dan Goodman=20
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From: dsg...@visi.com (Daniel Goodman)=20
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Subject: recommended books for sf writers=20
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Donna Woodka
In article <53utqt$b...@darla.visi.com>, Daniel Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>>
>>And, though it's not sf-specific, Card's "Characters
>>and Viewpoint" is superlative.
Definitely!
>Card's books are very good, yes. However -- he shares one of my major
>flaws as a writer. (Making things too blankety-blank complicated.) So
>using his books is, for me, something like going to a doctor who smokes
>for advice on how to stop smoking.
>--
For some of us, life is complicated, and we enjoy reading complicated
stories about characters that feel like real people to us and a world
that feels like a real world. Card's works do that for me. What I
don't enjoy are writers who make things "complicated" by making them
confusing or adding a lot of things that aren't really relevant to
the story being told. I don't think Card does this, though. I see his
works as richly created, well thought out stories that have a lot to
say.
--
Donna Woodka |"It's not enough to question authority;
| you gotta speak with it too!"
woo...@sdsc.edu | -- Taylor Mali, Slam Poet
|
john carlos prezas
:
: For some of us, life is complicated, and we enjoy reading complicated
: stories about characters that feel like real people to us and a world
: that feels like a real world. Card's works do that for me. What I
: don't enjoy are writers who make things "complicated" by making them
: confusing or adding a lot of things that aren't really relevant to
: the story being told. I don't think Card does this, though. I see his
: works as richly created, well thought out stories that have a lot to
: say.
I think the real point in reading other authors in your chosen
genre is reading those stories you enjoy reading and imitating
the techniques (though using your own styles and ideas) that
made the work to you most readable.
At least for me, if I read what I like, I seem to
unconciously pick up techniques ( I've noticed this mainly
through hindsight) that made that piece grip me and take me
right to the end.
This has made me a better writer. Although I will be
the first to admit this helps in technique only. For ideas
I draw on the classes I am taking in and out of my degree.
The core currriculum courses have helped. Particularly the
sociology class I am taking. I think it will help me better
develop the culture of the people (and aliens) in my fiction.
John
: --
Anne B. Nonie Rider
I'd disagree with the "avoid writing classes" generalization;
instead, take them but use them as tools rather than bibles.
Classes are a wonderful way to learn how other readers think.
Friends can't always be trusted, and editors are hard for
beginners to reach. But if three students misunderstand your
character's motivation, two have fallen asleep, and five
say the ending doesn't make sense, you've learned something
about what you do wrong.
And in stage 2, you learn to clarify your own work rather
than either fixing it their way, or arguing with the students
who misunderstand you... <grin>
And, best of all, the other writers are sure to make enough
mistakes as well that you get to learn what to avoid by
example!
One story from a college class stays with me as an example
of the best and the worst (no, it wasn't mine):
It was a portrait of a marriage dissolving, in a New Yorkerish
style. The author named one of the characters JC, after a friend
of hers, and was utterly bewildered to learn that readers were
trying to find Christ-figure references in it. The wife in the
story worked as a lab technician, killing rats with a hypodermic,
and again, the writer was baffled to find us trying to make
her the villain of the pair, or lethal/castrating, rather than
somehow intuiting that it happened to be her friend's job.
But another accident was fortuitous. At *perfect* points in
the story, the writer would focus on the detritus blowing
outside the window--old newspapers, dead leaves, discarded
pigeon feathers--all perfect examples of things that, like
the marriage, had once been alive and meaningful, and were
now just restless, empty forms.
When complimented on this as the best part of the story,
the underlying image, she was completely puzzled. She'd
just been staring out the window for scenery to describe.
But the timing and style was too much for coincidence; we
actually began to understand that the creative subconscious
can do these things.
You know how much we learned from that one story?
--Nonie
Dorothy J Heydt
>Card's books are very good, yes. However -- he shares one of my major
>flaws as a writer. (Making things too blankety-blank complicated.) So
>using his books is, for me, something like going to a doctor who smokes
>for advice on how to stop smoking.
Oh, I dunno. There's the old saw "Those who can, do; those who
can't, teach." Far be it from me to describe Card as one who
can't; he publishes and he sells. But I'm never, never, never
going to read his fiction again. But I do like his essays on the
craft of writing. Ursula K. LeGuin's another of the same.
Dorothy J. Heydt
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
Jonathan Carter
Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:
> can't; he publishes and he sells. But I'm never, never, never
> going to read his fiction again. But I do like his essays on the
Could you elaborate on this? I am very fond of Card's work, and am
interested in how it could be considered dangerous for an aspiring writer
to read.
Jonathan Carter
jca...@mc.edu
--
===============
Jonathan Carter
jca...@mc.edu
===============
Dorothy J Heydt
In article <54guuj$6...@csc.mc.edu>, Jonathan Carter <jca...@ox.mc.edu> wrote:
"Dorothy J Heydt (djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote:
"
"> can't; he publishes and he sells. But I'm never, never, never
"> going to read his fiction again. But I do like his essays on the
"
"Could you elaborate on this? I am very fond of Card's work, and am
"interested in how it could be considered dangerous for an aspiring writer
"to read.
Why, I never said he was dangerous. I don't LIKE his work. I
don't enjoy reading it. It leaves me feeling depressed and
distressed, as if I had just watched a couple hours of network
news.
(Apparently this trend of his, on which many have commented, to
take an innocent young child and do horrible things to him, is
deliberate. It's supposed to enlist your sympathies and tell you
that the villain is villanous. But I know who *really* tormented
the child: it was Card. He did it on purpose, to try to hook my
emotions and drag them along with his plot. Doesn't work.)
I read for (a) information and/or (b) pleasure. I get (a) from
his essays; I don't get (b) from his fiction; so I don't read
it.
Randy Carmine
Wolf wrote:
>
> > (Apparently this trend of his, on which many have commented, to
> > take an innocent young child and do horrible things to him, is
> > deliberate. It's supposed to enlist your sympathies and tell you
> > that the villain is villanous. But I know who *really* tormented
> > the child: it was Card. He did it on purpose, to try to hook my
> > emotions and drag them along with his plot. Doesn't work.)
I purposely torture all of my heroes. My anti-heroes. It has nothing to
do with trying to gain sympathy, it has to do with showing why s/he is
the way s/he is. Take Vic. Deck knows Vic (although my chances of him
looking in on this post are about nil) because I was writing the story
when I first knew him. Vic lost his brother to the feds (or so he
thought), his mother died from the shock of that. When the plauge came,
he saw his aunt driven insane and plunge to her death, and his uncle
killed. He was alone, save for his fiance, who died in the the plauge.
He struggled to get back to his home state, and his friends, but by the
time he got there he had been through so much, he flipped. Now here you
have this character that's lost almost everything, been driven to the
edge of madness. It is a situation, just like writing a character going
to the store.
Or Molly. She watched her mother killed by the Church sanctioned Night
Police.
Or Nike, who was born in a vat and grown to be a sex slave. She was
abused and mistreated endlessly before an accident, when her nanotechs
slipped a gear and wired her back together wrong. She's another example,
like Vic. Here you have this girl, who because of law, is not considered
human. She's merchandise. She's been designed to possess three
personalities. The first being aggressive, the second being whorish, and
the third being completely innocent. Her innocence memory, which is
usually at the forefront, is dumped every time she is violated so that
each time she experiences it, it is like the first time. Same horror,
same terror. If you're gonna do something like that, you wouldn't want
her going numb, becoming unresponsive, would you? So she forgets after
each inccident. Then, she gets wired back together wrong and she
remembers EVERYTHING. How mentally brutal is that?
They are just characters. IT is a thing produced of your thoughts. No
matter how bad you make it for IT, IT only responds in the way you tell
IT to. I know, this goes against EVERYTHING I've said before. I DO feel
that the characters have a life of their own, whithin my confines, not
their own. HOWEVER, I do have this theory. Well, I'll post that later.
Under the "Pan-universal reality" subject header.
> this is akin to saying that if a character in a book dies, the author is a
> murderer.
I do have to say I hate killing off my characters. That's probably why
so many of my mains are immortal or virtually immortal.
> --
> |\-/|
> <0 0>
> =(o)=
> -Wolf
> wo...@parrett.net
> http://www.parrett.net/~wolf
> http://www.parrett.net/~wolf/ttm.htm
> All views expressed in the above message are copyrighted
> (C) 1996 wo...@parrett.net and any editting or quoting will be
> promptly replied to.
R.Carmine
Wolf
> (Apparently this trend of his, on which many have commented, to
> take an innocent young child and do horrible things to him, is
> deliberate. It's supposed to enlist your sympathies and tell you
> that the villain is villanous. But I know who *really* tormented
> the child: it was Card. He did it on purpose, to try to hook my
> emotions and drag them along with his plot. Doesn't work.)
murderer.
--
Susan E Stone
Wolf (wo...@parrett.net) wrote:
: > (Apparently this trend of his, on which many have commented, to
: > take an innocent young child and do horrible things to him, is
: > deliberate. It's supposed to enlist your sympathies and tell you
: > that the villain is villanous. But I know who *really* tormented
: > the child: it was Card. He did it on purpose, to try to hook my
: > emotions and drag them along with his plot. Doesn't work.)
: this is akin to saying that if a character in a book dies, the author is a
: murderer.
Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
Later, my heroine, then in her early teens, sees her father's murdered
body, and her mother being raped. And so on. Of course, on some level
I'm the one putting the characters through torture, and on some level
it's to hook readers into the plot. But that doesn't make me a murderer,
a rapist, or whatever. It simply means I've created a world with
colossal evils running rampant. If I don't show my protagonists as
victims of those evils who then overcome them, what's the point? Where's
my plot?
--Susan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan E. Stone * "We've secretly replaced the
Penn Biology Dept. Academic Office * dilithium crystals aboard the
sst...@sas.upenn.edu * Starship Enterprise with Folger's
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~sstone/ * crystals! Let's see if they notice."
Daniel Goodman
In article <54oe6j$2...@gw.ddb.com>,
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet <pd...@gw.ddb.com> wrote:
>sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) writes:
>
>>Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
>>a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
>>Later, my heroine, then in her early teens, sees her father's murdered
>>body, and her mother being raped. And so on. Of course, on some level
>>I'm the one putting the characters through torture, and on some level
>>it's to hook readers into the plot. But that doesn't make me a murderer,
>>a rapist, or whatever. It simply means I've created a world with
>>colossal evils running rampant. If I don't show my protagonists as
>>victims of those evils who then overcome them, what's the point? Where's
>>my plot?
>
And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
When the death penalty is outlawed, only outlaws will die.
Gary Farber
Daniel Goodman (dsg...@visi.com) wrote:
[. . .]
: And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
A great many movies.
--
-- Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
Copyright 1996 Brooklyn, NY, USA
Sysop, Reinventing America II
Visit http://www.pathfinder.com/reinventing and play along.
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet
sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) writes:
>Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
>a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
>Later, my heroine, then in her early teens, sees her father's murdered
>body, and her mother being raped. And so on. Of course, on some level
>I'm the one putting the characters through torture, and on some level
>it's to hook readers into the plot. But that doesn't make me a murderer,
>a rapist, or whatever. It simply means I've created a world with
>colossal evils running rampant. If I don't show my protagonists as
>victims of those evils who then overcome them, what's the point? Where's
>my plot?
This would be news to Jane Austen.
--
"Moreover, fantasticality does a good deal better than
sham psychology." -- Virginia Woolf
-----------------------------------------------------------
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet pd...@ddb.com
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet
dsg...@visi.com (Daniel Goodman) writes:
>In article <54oe6j$2...@gw.ddb.com>,
>Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet <pd...@gw.ddb.com> wrote:
>>sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) writes:
>>
>>>Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
>>>a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
>>This would be news to Jane Austen.
>And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
A lot of big-time movie rights, I believe.
y
Gary Farber
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pd...@gw.ddb.com) wrote:
: gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) writes:
:
: >: And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
:
: >A great many movies.
:
: I should have known you'd beat me to that punch line.
But if you've seen CLUELESS, you've beat me to that. (No, it's not a
realistic movie about Usenet.) :-)
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet
gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) writes:
>Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pd...@gw.ddb.com) wrote:
>: gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) writes:
>:
>: >Daniel Goodman (dsg...@visi.com) wrote:
>: >[. . .]
>: >: And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
>:
>: >A great many movies.
>:
>: I should have known you'd beat me to that punch line.
>But if you've seen CLUELESS, you've beat me to that. (No, it's not a
>realistic movie about Usenet.) :-)
*snrch*
Nope, sorry, you're still ahead. I hardly ever see movies,
and when I do it's usually years after their original release.
Perhaps we can resume this joke in, oh, say, 2003.
Susan E Stone
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pd...@gw.ddb.com) wrote:
: This would be news to Jane Austen.
I'd say horrible things happen to people in Jane Austen's books. Elinor
and Marianne don't exactly have a fun time of it in Sense and
Sensibility, for example. Besides, it's apples and oranges. I can't
create an imaginary world and write a *comedy of manners* about it and
expect anyone to care. The genre almost requires a more violent, direct
type of conflict.
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet
gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) writes:
>Daniel Goodman (dsg...@visi.com) wrote:
>[. . .]
>: And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
>A great many movies.
I should have known you'd beat me to that punch line.
--
Steve Patterson
In article <54og38$1...@darla.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com (Daniel Goodman) says:
>
>In article <54oe6j$2...@gw.ddb.com>,
A whole raft of movie rights, for one...
------------------------------------------------------------
Steven J. Patterson spatt...@wwdc.com
W.O.R.L.D.'S....S..L..O..W..E..S..T....W...R...I...T...E...R
"Men may move mountains, but ideas move men."
-- M.N. Vorkosigan, per L.M. Bujold
Wolf
> They are just characters. IT is a thing produced of your thoughts. No
> matter how bad you make it for IT, IT only responds in the way you tell
> IT to. I know, this goes against EVERYTHING I've said before. I DO feel
> that the characters have a life of their own, whithin my confines, not
> their own. HOWEVER, I do have this theory. Well, I'll post that later.
> Under the "Pan-universal reality" subject header.
very dark in thses cases.
> > this is akin to saying that if a character in a book dies, the author
is a
> > murderer.
>
> so many of my mains are immortal or virtually immortal.
<G>
though one character I'm working on may *become* immortal. (weird little
world he's on)
Gary Farber
: *snrch*
:
: Nope, sorry, you're still ahead. I hardly ever see movies,
: and when I do it's usually years after their original release.
: Perhaps we can resume this joke in, oh, say, 2003.
All right, the jig is up. I confess: I haven't seen PERSUASION or SENSE
AND SENSIBILITY yet, either. I had hoped to have rented them by now,
particularly before leaving for my first trip to England, but I'm always
vastly behind in the number of movies I want to see, and I see almost all
of them, alas, on videotape.
Yes, I confess I rented FARGO first.
2003 should do it, though. I'll bring the popcorn over, if you like.
ObSFComposition: Suddenly the sun went nova. The end.
miketotty
Steve Patterson wrote:
>
> In article <54og38$1...@darla.visi.com>, dsg...@visi.com (Daniel Goodman) says:
> >
> >In article <54oe6j$2...@gw.ddb.com>,
> >Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet <pd...@gw.ddb.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>This would be news to Jane Austen.
> >And what has Jane Austen sold recently?
>
> A whole raft of movie rights, for one...
>
I suspect that the stuff is public domain. She's been dead quite a
while.
miketotty
P Nielsen Hayden
Susan E Stone (sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pd...@gw.ddb.com) wrote:
: : This would be news to Jane Austen.
: I'd say horrible things happen to people in Jane Austen's books. Elinor
: and Marianne don't exactly have a fun time of it in Sense and
: Sensibility, for example. Besides, it's apples and oranges. I can't
: create an imaginary world and write a *comedy of manners* about it and
: expect anyone to care. The genre almost requires a more violent, direct
: type of conflict.
One could hardly insult the fantasy genre more thoroughly if one were a
mainstream literary critic writing a hatchet job on it for, say, Harper's.
-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@tor.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
P Nielsen Hayden
: >Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
: >a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
: >Later, my heroine, then in her early teens, sees her father's murdered
: >body, and her mother being raped. And so on. Of course, on some level
: >I'm the one putting the characters through torture, and on some level
: >it's to hook readers into the plot. But that doesn't make me a murderer,
: >a rapist, or whatever. It simply means I've created a world with
: >colossal evils running rampant. If I don't show my protagonists as
: >victims of those evils who then overcome them, what's the point? Where's
: >my plot?
: This would be news to Jane Austen.
Yeah, but what did Jane Austen know about writing _popular_ stuff? Would
anybody pay _money_ to see a movie based on something by Jane Austen, huh,
huh? Why, there are hardly even any car crashes!
Susan E Stone
P Nielsen Hayden (p...@panix.com) wrote:
: One could hardly insult the fantasy genre more thoroughly if one were a
: mainstream literary critic writing a hatchet job on it for, say, Harper's.
You misunderstand me, then. I've certainly defended sf against many
attacks of that sort in writing classes and the like. So I'll try to
elaborate my position a little.
My favorite sf authors, the ones whose works I buy and re-read, include
C.S. Lewis, Orson Scott Card, Stephen R. Donaldson, Tolkien, Kate Elliot,
and Stephen Lawhead. All of them write strong characters, IMHO, and one
reason I read their books is because I care about their characters and
want to see what will happen to them next. In that, they *are* similar
to Austen's books. However, they, like most of the other sf I read (I
don't know if the whole genre is this way, not having read everything
that's ever been published), also deal somehow on a macro level with
questions of human nature, good and evil, etc. Good and
evil are usually more incarnate than they are in real life, making direct
confrontation and conflict between them possible. That tends
to require a plot with anywhere from a bit to a lot more action and/or
violence than a Jane Austen book. I don't see why it's a criticism to
acknowledge that.
miketotty
Susan E Stone wrote:
>
> P Nielsen Hayden (p...@panix.com) wrote:
>
> : One could hardly insult the fantasy genre more thoroughly if one were a
> : mainstream literary critic writing a hatchet job on it for, say, Harper's.
>
> You misunderstand me, then. I've certainly defended sf against many
> attacks of that sort in writing classes and the like. So I'll try to
> elaborate my position a little.
>
> My favorite sf authors, the ones whose works I buy and re-read, include
> C.S. Lewis, Orson Scott Card, Stephen R. Donaldson, Tolkien, Kate Elliot,
> and Stephen Lawhead. All of them write strong characters, IMHO, and one
> reason I read their books is because I care about their characters and
> want to see what will happen to them next. In that, they *are* similar
> to Austen's books. However, they, like most of the other sf I read (I
> don't know if the whole genre is this way, not having read everything
> that's ever been published), also deal somehow on a macro level with
> questions of human nature, good and evil, etc. Good and
> evil are usually more incarnate than they are in real life, making direct
> confrontation and conflict between them possible. That tends
> to require a plot with anywhere from a bit to a lot more action and/or
> violence than a Jane Austen book. I don't see why it's a criticism to
> acknowledge that.
The "genre" has infinite flexibility. It can accommodate any theme. Your
original statement echoed the long-held position among critics that sf
stories are basically one-dimensional action/adventure stories for boys.
This opinion persists despite the brilliant work of many writers (esp.,
IMHO, Delaney, Simmons, Ellison, Fowler, Butler, etc., etc., etc.).
Your statement, even when you restated it, limits sf to action/violence,
thus pigeon-holing it. Just because the majority of works in the genre
emplot "action" and/or "violence" as a significant plot element does not
mean that other plots/themes/characters cannot be explored within the
context of sf.
miketotty
Gary Farber
: One could hardly insult the fantasy genre more thoroughly if one were a
: mainstream literary critic writing a hatchet job on it for, say, Harper's.
Luc. . . swing the hatchet with Force, Luc. . . only you save literature
from the Dark Empire of science fiction. Luc. . . .
Susan E Stone
miketotty (to...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: The "genre" has infinite flexibility. It can accommodate any theme. Your
: original statement echoed the long-held position among critics that sf
: stories are basically one-dimensional action/adventure stories for boys.
If I thought that, then why on earth would I, as a 25-year-old woman, read
so much of it? I dislike almost all one-dimensional action/adventure
stories. I might occasionally go to such a movie, if that's what my
friends want to see or the special effects really are *that brilliant*,
but I don't spend my money or time on that kind of book, and I'm
certainly not trying to *write* that sort of thing.
: Your statement, even when you restated it, limits sf to action/violence,
: thus pigeon-holing it. Just because the majority of works in the genre
: emplot "action" and/or "violence" as a significant plot element does not
: mean that other plots/themes/characters cannot be explored within the
: context of sf.
I think you're misunderstanding what I mean by action and violence. I'm
not talking about what an old roommate and I used to call shoot-'em-up-
bang-bang stories. I'm only saying sf rarely involves a bunch of people
mostly going about ordinary lives, like in Jane Austen or L.M.
Montgomery books. (Maybe that's where the misunderstanding comes
in--since most of the non-sf I read *is* stuff like Austen and
Montgomery, I'm working with different standards of comparison.) The
best analogy I can think of is that reading Austen or Montgomery is like
looking at a photograph and reading most sf is like looking at a movie.
To say the movie has more action doesn't mean there's more blood, guts,
and gore; it just means there's more motion.
I thought the author list I gave would make it clear that I'm not
interested in immature, derivative, nothing-but-blood-and-guts sf. Till
We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis) is my all-time favorite book, for crying out
loud. No one-dimensional action/adventure story for boys that!
I also managed, accidentally, to overgeneralize. When I first posted on
this thread a few days ago, I didn't say so directly, but I was defending
my own right to write a fairly violent book--just because there's rape
and massacres and other horrid things going on doesn't mean I'm a
manipulative sicko. And it's true enough that if you took the war out of
my novel, I'd be left without a story worth telling. I got the idea for
my novel from two real-life wars of independence, and I made it fantasy
because that way the outcome and theme could be whatever I wanted, and I
could combine a 20th century event with a 14th century event, make allies
of countries that didn't know each other existed in the 14th century, etc.
But I don't think of my novel as action-adventure, in spite of all the
battles that go on. The story is about my protagonists and the goals
they are willing to die for. One of the other sf ideas I hope to develop
someday is just the story of a teenaged girl who happens to be
half-alien, and the *only* half-alien on Earth, and what that means to
her. Nothing action-adventure about that by any definition.
David Darr
Susan E Stone wrote:
>
> Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet (pd...@gw.ddb.com) wrote:
>
> : This would be news to Jane Austen.
>
> and Marianne don't exactly have a fun time of it in Sense and
> Sensibility, for example. Besides, it's apples and oranges. I can't
> create an imaginary world and write a *comedy of manners* about it and
> expect anyone to care. The genre almost requires a more violent, direct
> type of conflict.
Hmmm... although there is certainly fantasy (and sf) which fits this
prescription, there is also quite certainly very good fantasy which does
not. John Crowley immediately springs to mind. Ægypt is up near the top
of my list of recent fantasy novels. Crowley writes wonderfully,
although some folks may grouse about the general plotlessness of his
more recent work.
_dd_
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David Darr - INTERNET: da...@ocean.washington.edu
School of Oceanography, WB-10 - Univ. of Washington - Seattle, WA. 98115
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adam M. Lipkin
: mainstream literary critic writing a hatchet job on it for, say, Harper's.
Or a pretentious reviewer in last week's Entertainment Weekly.
Adam Lipkin ali...@emory.edu
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~alipkin/
_____________________________________________________________________
"And of course there were books, for research or passing interests or
simply because their bindings had pleased him, many books because love
knows many reasons." --John M Ford, The Scholars of Night
--
The above opinions do not represent the Emory Bookstore or the Emory
Computer Store.
Jean Lamb
Pooey, tormenting heroes for Fun and Profit is one of the _good_
things about being a writer. Besides, it keeps one out of jail if you
do it only on paper (never mind the mess to clean up. Have you _any_
idea what this sort of thing does to the carpeting?).
Jean Lamb, tla...@magick.net.
come see me at news.dm.members.jean
(!)
Ulrika O'Brien
sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) wrote:
>Good and evil are usually more incarnate than they are in
>real life, making direct confrontation and conflict between
>them possible. That tends to require a plot with anywhere from
>a bit to a lot more action and/or violence than a Jane Austen
>book. I don't see why it's a criticism to acknowledge that.
I'm not sure this is a much kinder summation of SF/F than
your previous one. Reducing SF to a perpetual re-match
of tedious old dualism, unexamined, dismisses untold reams
of subtlety, depth, complexity, ambiguity,introspection,
and ironic humor as found in SF. Yeah, a lot of SF can
be summarized as yet another bout of Good Guys versus Bad.
This doesn't mean this is one of the necessary, or even
one of the better, traits of the genre. Thud and blunder
and Gojira versus the hapless architecture of Tokyo are
hardly paradigm cases of rising to the pinacle of the form, eh?
--
"Criticism is the only known antidote to error." -- David Brin
Ulrika O'Brien***ulr...@aol.com***caveat lector
Susan E Stone
Susan E Stone (sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: degree, I like Tad Williams (loved Tailchaser's Song and Taliban's Hour,
^^^^^^^
Of course that should be *Caliban's*. It was a long week.....
Susan E Stone
Ulrika O'Brien (uaob...@uci.edu) wrote:
: I'm not sure this is a much kinder summation of SF/F than
: your previous one. Reducing SF to a perpetual re-match
: of tedious old dualism, unexamined, dismisses untold reams
: of subtlety, depth, complexity, ambiguity,introspection,
: and ironic humor as found in SF.
Who said anything about unexamined? One of the things I enjoy about sf
is the way it can shed new light on reality by placing it in a different
setting or changing the rules and perspective a bit.
My favorite sf authors are are Lewis, Card, and Donaldson. To a lesser
degree, I like Tad Williams (loved Tailchaser's Song and Taliban's Hour,
couldn't make it through The Dragonbone Chair), Tolkien, L'Engle, Lloyd
Alexander, and
Robin McKinley. Richard Adams, too. (I guess Traveller is really sf,
but it seemed logical to shelve it with my other Civil War novels. :-)
So what's wrong with these authors? I don't think you can claim that
their writing is a "perpetual rematch of tedious old dualism,
unexamined", that lacks "subtlety, depth, complexity, ambiguity,
introspection, and ironic humor." What's so bad about my taste if
that's what I most like to read? And if I can manage to write a book of
equivalent quality and thematic richness without being derivative, could
I be called a bad writer?
Kim Malo
Susan E Stone wrote:
>
> Ulrika O'Brien (uaob...@uci.edu) wrote:
>
> : I'm not sure this is a much kinder summation of SF/F than
> : your previous one. Reducing SF to a perpetual re-match
> : of tedious old dualism, unexamined, dismisses untold reams
> : of subtlety, depth, complexity, ambiguity,introspection,
> : and ironic humor as found in SF.
>
> Who said anything about unexamined? One of the things I enjoy about sf
> is the way it can shed new light on reality by placing it in a different
> setting or changing the rules and perspective a bit.
>
> My favorite sf authors are are Lewis, Card, and Donaldson. To a lesser
> degree, I like Tad Williams (loved Tailchaser's Song and Taliban's Hour,
> couldn't make it through The Dragonbone Chair), Tolkien, L'Engle, Lloyd
> Alexander, and
> Robin McKinley. Richard Adams, too. (I guess Traveller is really sf,
> but it seemed logical to shelve it with my other Civil War novels. :-)
>
> So what's wrong with these authors? I don't think you can claim that
> their writing is a "perpetual rematch of tedious old dualism,
> unexamined", that lacks "subtlety, depth, complexity, ambiguity,
> introspection, and ironic humor." What's so bad about my taste if
> that's what I most like to read? And if I can manage to write a book of
> equivalent quality and thematic richness without being derivative, could
> I be called a bad writer?
>
> --Susan
skills, but that your original post reduced the entire genre to an
oversimplified (hence "unexamined") all SF is a violent battle between
good and evil. Akin to saying the comedy of manners a la Jane Austen is
just boy meets girl and marries her.
-Kim
P Nielsen Hayden
Susan E Stone (sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: I'm only saying sf rarely involves a bunch of people
: mostly going about ordinary lives
A great deal of sf involves ordinary people going about ordinary lives, and
manages to be entertaining and durable without requiring its characters to
act as stand-ins for good and evil. Phil Dick's best work comes to mind.
: I also managed, accidentally, to overgeneralize. When I first posted on
: this thread a few days ago, I didn't say so directly, but I was defending
: my own right to write a fairly violent book--just because there's rape
: and massacres and other horrid things going on doesn't mean I'm a
: manipulative sicko.
I certainly agree. I'm a big fan of massacres and violence and stuff,
personally.
-----
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@tor.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
senior editor, manager of science fiction, Tor Books : http://www.tor.com
Gary Farber
: My favorite sf authors are are Lewis, Card, and Donaldson. To a lesser
: couldn't make it through The Dragonbone Chair), Tolkien, L'Engle, Lloyd
: Alexander, and
: Robin McKinley. Richard Adams, too. (I guess Traveller is really sf,
: but it seemed logical to shelve it with my other Civil War novels. :-)
I would never be a taxonomical hardcase, but I will murmur that most
people consider all these writers to primarily write fantasy, not science
fiction. I won't fuss further about the nomenclature in this context,
though.
[. . . .]
Susan E Stone
Gary Farber (gfa...@panix.com) wrote:
: I would never be a taxonomical hardcase, but I will murmur that most
: people consider all these writers to primarily write fantasy, not science
: fiction. I won't fuss further about the nomenclature in this context,
: though.
But I thought sf, as in the name of our group, meant speculative fiction,
encompassing science fiction, fantasy, combinations of the two, and a
couple of other things that don't neatly fit categories. I know I was
naming primarily fantasy writers--I tend to enjoy fantasy more than
science fiction, as a matter of personal taste.
Mike Farren
sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) writes:
>That tends
>to require a plot with anywhere from a bit to a lot more action and/or
>violence than a Jane Austen book. I don't see why it's a criticism to
>acknowledge that.
It's the "tends to require" that I balk at. In particular, the word
"require". There simply is no such requirement. There are many fine
examples of both fantasy and science fiction which do not meet that
"requirement". Off the top of my head, you've got much of LeGuin,
Delany, Aldiss, just to name a few in the SF field, and far more
examples in fantasy: Cabell, Bramah, LeGuin (again), Crowley, Ryman,
and on and on - the list is large, and honorable. For heaven's sake -
much, if not most, of Ted Sturgeon's output boils down to people leading
"ordinary" lives, albeit in somewhat extraordinary circumstances, and you
wouldn't oust him from the canon, would you?
My problem with your statements is simply that in describing what you
think SF/fantasy "tends to require", you're also defining limits which
have no real existence outside of your preferences. That's not a fair
mode of criticism, as far as I can see, and a crippling outlook to
foist upon a would-be SF/fantasy writer.
--
Michael J. Farren, Ex-Lemmings Manager | All standard disclaimers apply.
Currently unemployed - know anyone |
looking for a good game programmer? | Are we not Lemmings? If you click
far...@shore.net, far...@well.com | us, do we not ... Oh, no!
Gary Farber
Mike Farren (far...@shore.net) wrote:
[. . .]
: My problem with your statements is simply that in describing what you
: think SF/fantasy "tends to require", you're also defining limits which
: have no real existence outside of your preferences. That's not a fair
: mode of criticism, as far as I can see, and a crippling outlook to
: foist upon a would-be SF/fantasy writer.
It's another way of saying "sf has all these limits" when the more
accurate observation is "lots of bad sf displays these limits" and then
deducing from that that all sf must have these limits. This would be a
false conclusion, which Susan has already disclaimed in one way, but then
restated in another.
Gary Farber
:
: : degree, I like Tad Williams (loved Tailchaser's Song and Taliban's Hour,
: ^^^^^^^
: Of course that should be *Caliban's*. It was a long week.....
I merely thought you had the Afgan edition.
Rocky Persaud
>: this thread a few days ago, I didn't say so directly, but I was defending
>: my own right to write a fairly violent book--just because there's rape
>: and massacres and other horrid things going on doesn't mean I'm a
>: manipulative sicko.
>
>I certainly agree. I'm a big fan of massacres and violence and stuff,
>personally.
>
>-----
>Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@tor.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
>senior editor, manager of science fiction, Tor Books : http://www.tor.com
So it was you who egged Robert Jordan on! Exploding heads, exploding ships...
what's next? ---yeah, I know, RAFO.
/////Rocky
Gary Farber
:
: : This would be news to Jane Austen.
:
: I'd say horrible things happen to people in Jane Austen's books. Elinor
: and Marianne don't exactly have a fun time of it in Sense and
: Sensibility, for example. Besides, it's apples and oranges. I can't
: create an imaginary world and write a *comedy of manners* about it and
: expect anyone to care.
I think it's very sad that you think so. I would much prefer to read a
fine fantasy comedy of manners than another same old same old hack and
slash. I have no interest in rereading that which I have already read.
: The genre almost requires a more violent, direct
: type of conflict.
Would you like a more violent, direct response? This is utter bullshit.
This displays a failure of imagination and a lack of confidence in your
writing skills. If you wish to subjectively state that *you* are not up
to writing a good fantasy comedy of manners at this time, that's fine --
I'm surely not writing one. But to attribute this to the field is false;
the "genre" requires nothing publishability.
You might also try reading Ellen Kushner's two books, Esther Friesner,
Connie Willis, and more widely in good fantasy and sf in general.
Stevens R. Miller
Gary Farber wrote:
> ...my experience with the people I largely deal with is that
> they use "sf" to refer to "science fiction" as distinguished from
> "fantasy," however loosely.
That's the parlance I know. I always think "sf" implies some
connection to fantasy, but it always has me thinking "science
fiction" first.
I use "fsf" for the whole genreplex.
--
Freedom from fear and want.
Freedom of speech and religion.
Gary Farber
:
: : I'm only saying sf rarely involves a bunch of people
:
: A great deal of sf involves ordinary people going about ordinary lives, and
: manages to be entertaining and durable without requiring its characters to
: act as stand-ins for good and evil. Phil Dick's best work comes to mind.
Robert Charles Wilson, Ursula Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Carol
Emshwiller.
[. . . .]
Gary Farber
: But I thought sf, as in the name of our group, meant speculative fiction,
: couple of other things that don't neatly fit categories. I know I was
: naming primarily fantasy writers--I tend to enjoy fantasy more than
: science fiction, as a matter of personal taste.
No problem. It would probably be clearest, then, to spell out the full
words "science fiction" or "speculative fiction, " I suggest, as at least
90% of the time, my experience with the people I largely deal with is that
they use "sf" to refer to "science fiction" as distinguished from
"fantasy," however loosely.
Up to you, of course; we all have our preferences in these usages.
Jonathan W. Hendry
Mike Farren wrote:
>
> sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) writes:
>
> >That tends
> >to require a plot with anywhere from a bit to a lot more action and/or
> >violence than a Jane Austen book. I don't see why it's a criticism to
> >acknowledge that.
> My problem with your statements is simply that in describing what you
> think SF/fantasy "tends to require", you're also defining limits which
> have no real existence outside of your preferences. That's not a fair
> mode of criticism, as far as I can see, and a crippling outlook to
> foist upon a would-be SF/fantasy writer.
It does seem to be a requirement for SF/fantasy *films*. (There
are exceptions, of course: 2001, 12 Monkeys, etc.).
--
j...@steeldriving.com
Steel Driving Software, Inc.
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Republican
My friends all own Congress, I must make amends
No cash in my trust fund, no big dividends
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Republican
Kevin Denelsbeck
In article <54o1fe$4...@netnews.upenn.edu>,
Susan E Stone <sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Wolf (wo...@parrett.net) wrote:
>: > (Apparently this trend of his, on which many have commented, to
>: > take an innocent young child and do horrible things to him, is
>: > deliberate. It's supposed to enlist your sympathies and tell you
>: > that the villain is villanous. But I know who *really* tormented
>: > the child: it was Card. He did it on purpose, to try to hook my
>: > emotions and drag them along with his plot. Doesn't work.)
>: this is akin to saying that if a character in a book dies, the author is a
>: murderer.
>
>Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
>a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
>Later, my heroine, then in her early teens, sees her father's murdered
>body, and her mother being raped. And so on. Of course, on some level
>I'm the one putting the characters through torture, and on some level
>it's to hook readers into the plot. But that doesn't make me a murderer,
>a rapist, or whatever. It simply means I've created a world with
>colossal evils running rampant. If I don't show my protagonists as
>victims of those evils who then overcome them, what's the point? Where's
>my plot?
It's funny to see this whole thread take off, and I think Dorothy's
(?) original point was not that violent things happen to characters in
some SF, but that it can easily be manipulative. This is an important
distinction. Obviously, awful things can and, at times, must happen
to characters so that stories progress and characters mature. The
question becomes whether the violence makes sense within the context
of the story. You don't have to expect it, but when you see it you
have to, at some level, say "This is feasible -- unfortunate, but
feasible -- given how the author has set up his/her universe".
Now, I think Card is technically one of the best writers out there;
the economy and simplicity of his prose is quite admirable. I haven't
read much Hemingway, but technically they seem similar.
As far as Card goes, I've only read the Ender books and "Hart's Hope".
I can't remark on how often young children are subjected to
end-of-innocence brutality in his books. But I've always been
impressed with how easily his prose flows, and I've never said to
myself "This is infeasible" when reading his books.
So, perhaps Dorothy's of the opinion that Card is guilty of *creating
settings/universes* where children suffer. That is, he's being
manipulative at a higher level (that is, making a world where cruelty
happens, which is easier to "accept") rather than at the lower level
(the plot, where manipulation is easier to spot). SF writers,
obviously, have much more freedom in creating tricked-up worlds that
allow them to facilitate some sort of mood or Cool Plot Point (tm).
I'm sure we can all think of books that do this badly (the Gor series
comes to mind me -- pls don't flame). The best SF is when even this
level of artifice is "feasible" and transparent.
Don't know; Dorothy, if you're reading, you might want to clarify. I
apologize for this rambling mess :->; hope it made sense to y'all.
Kevin
--
Kev @ UNC _|_ After the climb/after time turns
(dene...@cs.unc.edu) | designs to despair/it is good
(http://www.cs.unc.edu/~denelsbe | nothing's fair/it's all who you know
GO HEELS! _/~~~\_ -Newsboys
Eugenia Horne
In article <54uldd$q...@panix2.panix.com>,
>:
>: : This would be news to Jane Austen.
>:
>: I'd say horrible things happen to people in Jane Austen's books. Elinor
>: and Marianne don't exactly have a fun time of it in Sense and
>: Sensibility, for example. Besides, it's apples and oranges. I can't
>: create an imaginary world and write a *comedy of manners* about it and
>: expect anyone to care.
>
>I think it's very sad that you think so. I would much prefer to read a
>fine fantasy comedy of manners than another same old same old hack and
>slash. I have no interest in rereading that which I have already read.
Austen's works survived the "test of time" because people
can still relate to the characters and their situations.
A lot of the manners stuff is either downplayed in movie
adaptations or not understood by today's readers. (Sorry,
it isn't. Most Americans don't understand the "code of
manners" that existed back then, but it really is fascinating
if one takes the time to learn it especially as Austen's era
was seeing some major shifts in ideology.)
>: The genre almost requires a more violent, direct
>: type of conflict.
>
>Would you like a more violent, direct response? This is utter bullshit.
>This displays a failure of imagination and a lack of confidence in your
>writing skills. If you wish to subjectively state that *you* are not up
>to writing a good fantasy comedy of manners at this time, that's fine --
>I'm surely not writing one. But to attribute this to the field is false;
>the "genre" requires nothing publishability.
The "violent, direct response" is more apt to grab
the reader's attention because it's easier to "relate
to". (Let's face it, a lot of readers are "lazy".
Why else do those endless series apparently sell so
well?)
A "comedy of manners" tends to require a lot of "set up"
before it gets going. A "comedy of manners" involving
a different culture (whether it's sf, fantasy, or even
historical) requires even MORE "set up" if the author
has any hope of getting the reader to understand what
the big deal is when one character turns his back
on another in a certain situation or another character
slams her arm on the Register so one person can sign his
name before another.
The most successful approach nowadays seems to be
writing it on two (or more) levels with something
more "accessible" for most readers while sneaking in
the other stuff for the "gourmet" reader.
>You might also try reading Ellen Kushner's two books, Esther Friesner,
>Connie Willis, and more widely in good fantasy and sf in general.
Isn't Connie Willis the writer who was thrilled to do
"dress descriptions" in one of her upcoming books
because she knew most sf readers couldn't ABIDE taking
the time to get into all this frivolous detail and since
she was writing a "alternate history" book she could
finally indulge in "dress descriptions"?
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"We have found what others seek in vain, during all their lives:
the soul of another that is able to understand one, that will
suffer with one, be glad with one..." - Prince Albert (1839)
Gerry Quinn
In article <01bbc159$ef1e2180$cee41ece@the-ox>, "Wolf" <wo...@parrett.net> wrote:
>> (Apparently this trend of his, on which many have commented, to
>> take an innocent young child and do horrible things to him, is
>> deliberate. It's supposed to enlist your sympathies and tell you
>> that the villain is villanous. But I know who *really* tormented
>> the child: it was Card. He did it on purpose, to try to hook my
>> emotions and drag them along with his plot. Doesn't work.)
>this is akin to saying that if a character in a book dies, the author is a
>murderer.
>
Maybe this is science fiction itself, but consider the following...
Assume that a digital computer may attain consciousness based on symbol
manipulation processes contained in a program and expressed in physical
processes (that's what a computer does). Not everyone assumes this but many
do.
It would presumably be immoral to torment such a conscious entity.
How does such an entity differ from a character being tormented in the mind of
an author, or in those of his readers? In both cases, the symbols in a
program (words in a book) are manipulated and a personality simulated in the
author's or reader's brain.
Worth a ponder, anyway.
- Gerry
----------------------------------------------------------
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)
----------------------------------------------------------
Gary Farber
Gerry Quinn (ger...@indigo.ie) wrote:
[. . .]
: Maybe this is science fiction itself, but consider the following...
:
: Assume that a digital computer may attain consciousness based on symbol
: manipulation processes contained in a program and expressed in physical
: processes (that's what a computer does). Not everyone assumes this but many
: do.
:
: It would presumably be immoral to torment such a conscious entity.
:
: How does such an entity differ from a character being tormented in the mind of
: an author, or in those of his readers? In both cases, the symbols in a
: program (words in a book) are manipulated and a personality simulated in the
: author's or reader's brain.
:
: Worth a ponder, anyway.
And quite a list of authors, from Robert Heinlein, to David Gerrold, to
Greg Ega,n have done so. If you're talking about a fresh treatment: cool.
If you think you have an idea that hasn't been around for decades, return
to go and learn more about the sf field.
Ulrika O'Brien
sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) wrote:
>So what's wrong with these authors?
Let's don't go there. My estimation of Donaldson in particular
is not high, and I don't see any point in getting into a probable
religious debate.
>I don't think you can claim that their writing is a "perpetual
>rematch of tedious old dualism, unexamined", that lacks
>"subtlety, depth, complexity, ambiguity, introspection, and
>ironic humor."
Depending on which particular author, and which particular conflict
of good versus evil, I probably can. Dualism is trite, has been
done to death. It is simplistic, and it's a rare author who brings
anything of interest to the formula. When L'Engle does, for instnace,
it's the charm of her characters that is enjoyable and fresh,
not anything new she brings to the clash of the titans thing. Qua
plot core, the conflict of Good versus Eeevvil is brain candy.
>What's so bad about my taste if that's what I most like to read?
I don't think anyone's objecting to your taste in reading material.
It's when you appear to delimiting the boundaries and nature of
what constitutes SF, what SF "requires", that you may find folks
objecting. Read it with my blessing; read John Norman if you like.
Enjoy. But please let's leave a little room in the genre for something
more interesting than black hats versus white.
Anthony Taylor
The *only* requirement for SF (speculative fiction) is INTERNAL
CONSISTENCY. (Sorry-- didn't mean to raise my voice.) Too much sf tends
to the pulp TSR-style D&D fantasy. Not only is this sub-genre overworked
to the point of cliche, but they lack internal consistency and logic.
Granted, it's nice to see strong characterization and good dialog. ("I
summoned thee here to privy thee to secrets dark and dangerous, bloody
daggers of secretude that have lay fallow these last twelve years.
Thou dost yet know the recent history of our kingdom, but let me recount
it anyway, for the edification of our readers just joining in.") But the
only *requirement* is internal consistency, the Kraft Marshmallow foam
that holds our rice crispy treats together. (Mmmm... Rice crispy treats...)
- Tony
On 26 Oct 1996, Gary Farber wrote:
> Mike Farren (far...@shore.net) wrote:
> [. . .]
> : My problem with your statements is simply that in describing what you
> : think SF/fantasy "tends to require", you're also defining limits which
> : have no real existence outside of your preferences. That's not a fair
> : mode of criticism, as far as I can see, and a crippling outlook to
> : foist upon a would-be SF/fantasy writer.
>
> It's another way of saying "sf has all these limits" when the more
> accurate observation is "lots of bad sf displays these limits" and then
> deducing from that that all sf must have these limits. This would be a
> false conclusion, which Susan has already disclaimed in one way, but then
> restated in another.
Russell Asplund
In article <552n0f$a...@news.service.uci.edu>, Ulrika O'Brien
<uaob...@uci.edu> wrote:
> Depending on which particular author, and which particular conflict
> of good versus evil, I probably can. Dualism is trite, has been
> done to death. It is simplistic, and it's a rare author who brings
> anything of interest to the formula. When L'Engle does, for instnace,
> it's the charm of her characters that is enjoyable and fresh,
> not anything new she brings to the clash of the titans thing. Qua
> plot core, the conflict of Good versus Eeevvil is brain candy.
>
> >What's so bad about my taste if that's what I most like to read?
>
> I don't think anyone's objecting to your taste in reading material.
> It's when you appear to delimiting the boundaries and nature of
> what constitutes SF, what SF "requires", that you may find folks
> objecting. Read it with my blessing; read John Norman if you like.
> Enjoy. But please let's leave a little room in the genre for something
> more interesting than black hats versus white.
>
You may not like it, but the fact is that it sells and sells well. I like
a lot of obscure, literary fiction, but you have to admit Robert Jordan
and Donaldson sell well, so obviously not everyone thinks that big stories
are trite. I hope that there is room for both, but the fact remains: For
almost every author mentioned here as a counter example to Susan's view,
Rober Jordan outsells all of them combined.
I've also spent plenty of time in my writing career getting rejection
letters that tell me my action should start sooner, that there is no hook,
that the characters need to be in more jeapordy. So I can say from
experience that you ignore action at your own risk.
I think your attitude towards science fiction is more limiting that
Susan's, and more destructive to the field. Frankly, Science Fiction will
never has been and never really will be accepted by the literary
establishment. It has done pretty well as popular entertainment.
Your attitude strikes me as somewhat elitist, and I think that that is
what is destructive about it. If instead of saying, "Oh, you like
Donaldson, well maybe you could try this as well," and thus bringing
people into the field, you say, "Oh, you like Donaldson, you are not
worthy of real science fiction," and drive people off.
Or rather, I should say, what you seem to be saying. I'm sure, actually,
that we're not all that far apart. The tone of the responses on this
thread has just started to get under my skin. It is no sin to want to
write popular works, just as it is no sin to want to write more obscure,
literary fiction. I suspect most writers do a little of both.
--
Russell William Asplund
ru...@candesa.com
Author: The Unhappy Golem of Rabbi Leitch
Writers of the Future, Volume XII
Travis E. Elmore
Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote in article
<54tm9f$l...@panix2.panix.com>...
: Susan E Stone (sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:
: [. . .]
: : But I thought sf, as in the name of our group, meant speculative
fiction,
: : encompassing science fiction, fantasy, combinations of the two, and a
: : couple of other things that don't neatly fit categories. I know I was
: : naming primarily fantasy writers--I tend to enjoy fantasy more than
: : science fiction, as a matter of personal taste.
:
: No problem. It would probably be clearest, then, to spell out the full
: words "science fiction" or "speculative fiction, " I suggest, as at least
: 90% of the time, my experience with the people I largely deal with is
that
: they use "sf" to refer to "science fiction" as distinguished from
: "fantasy," however loosely.
:
: Up to you, of course; we all have our preferences in these usages.
: --
: -- Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
: Copyright 1996 Brooklyn, NY, USA
: Sysop, Reinventing America II
: Visit http://www.pathfinder.com/reinventing and play along.
:
I confess the term "speculative fiction" appears somewhat of an exercise in
redundancy to me. I automatically infer the definition "science fiction"
when my eyes trip over the sf tag. Not that I'm incapable of learning new
tricks, however.... <woof>
Gerry Quinn
In article <553vdf$3...@panix2.panix.com>, gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) wrote:
>Gerry Quinn (ger...@indigo.ie) wrote:
>[. . .]
>: Maybe this is science fiction itself, but consider the following...
>:
>: Assume that a digital computer may attain consciousness based on symbol
>: manipulation processes contained in a program and expressed in physical
>: processes (that's what a computer does). Not everyone assumes this but many
>: do.
>:
>: It would presumably be immoral to torment such a conscious entity.
>:
>: How does such an entity differ from a character being tormented in the mind
> of
>: an author, or in those of his readers? In both cases, the symbols in a
>: program (words in a book) are manipulated and a personality simulated in the
>: author's or reader's brain.
>:
>: Worth a ponder, anyway.
>
>And quite a list of authors, from Robert Heinlein, to David Gerrold, to
>Greg Ega,n have done so. If you're talking about a fresh treatment: cool.
>If you think you have an idea that hasn't been around for decades, return
>to go and learn more about the sf field.
>-- Gary Farber gfa...@panix.com
>Copyright 1996 Brooklyn, NY, USA
>Sysop, Reinventing America II
>Visit http://www.pathfinder.com/reinventing and play along.
Interesting, if snotty - I am reasonably well read in the sf field, yet I
can't recall any specific treatment of the above. Perhaps in the realm of
fantasy, as with Gene Wolfe's "Thag" or Sheri Tepper's "Beauty", some have
come close. Intelligent machines, yes; characters in novels as moral
entities, no.
I wasn't really talking about sf, as I thought paradoxically to imply with the
phrase "maybe this is science fiction". The thread referred to the question
of whether Orson Scott Card was acting cruelly in describing a tormented
character, but I could have asked the same about a non-genre writer. I was
semi-seriously putting forward the proposition that maybe he was [acting
cruelly], insofar as a simulation of the character was processed in Card's
brain, and in the brain of each reader.
Note: my ISP does not recognise rec.arts.sf.composition.
Ulrika O'Brien
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn) wrote:
>come close. Intelligent machines, yes; characters in novels as moral
>entities, no.
Heavens, I can think of several novels that incorporate a computer
as Pope. Seems the very apotheosis of moral entity-hood, to me.
Certainly, questions about the moral status of self-aware machines
are well-worn chestnuts in the arsenal of thought experiments
as offered by TAs in first year philosophy classes...
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet
First, I'd like to apologize for not responding to several
messages directed to me, in this thread; my newsreader
wouldn't let me, I think because it wasn't wrapping the
References line properly. I have cavalierly deleted
it.
ru...@candesa.com (Russell Asplund) writes:
>In article <552n0f$a...@news.service.uci.edu>, Ulrika O'Brien
><uaob...@uci.edu> wrote:
>> Depending on which particular author, and which particular conflict
>> of good versus evil, I probably can. Dualism is trite, has been
>> done to death. It is simplistic, and it's a rare author who brings
>> anything of interest to the formula. When L'Engle does, for instnace,
>> it's the charm of her characters that is enjoyable and fresh,
>> not anything new she brings to the clash of the titans thing. Qua
>> plot core, the conflict of Good versus Eeevvil is brain candy.
>You may not like it, but the fact is that it sells and sells well. I like
>a lot of obscure, literary fiction, but you have to admit Robert Jordan
>and Donaldson sell well, so obviously not everyone thinks that big stories
>are trite. I hope that there is room for both, but the fact remains: For
>almost every author mentioned here as a counter example to Susan's view,
>Rober Jordan outsells all of them combined.
She didn't say big stories are trite.
In any case, as for selling, so what? Very few writers sell
as well as Robert Jordan, and a writer who subverts her natural
style to imitate anything that sells is simply going to be unhappy.
It's probably very difficult in any case to figure out what elements
account for the sales and produce them on demand.
>I've also spent plenty of time in my writing career getting rejection
>letters that tell me my action should start sooner, that there is no hook,
>that the characters need to be in more jeapordy. So I can say from
>experience that you ignore action at your own risk.
Consider that you may not be doing whatever it is you do instead
of action and "story" well enough, or that you are not really
doing anything else. Or that you have been sending stuff to
the wrong markets. I ignore action on a regular basis, and
the only book I have failed to sell on those grounds was a
Star Trek novel. I don't sell as well as Robert Jordan, but
I won't sell better by writing things I have no interest in
nor aptitude for; I'll sell better, if it's possible, by
doing what I am good at better and in a more balanced way.
>Or rather, I should say, what you seem to be saying. I'm sure, actually,
>that we're not all that far apart. The tone of the responses on this
>thread has just started to get under my skin. It is no sin to want to
>write popular works, just as it is no sin to want to write more obscure,
>literary fiction. I suspect most writers do a little of both.
I think that is a false dichotomy. John M. Ford writes some
very literary and obscure stuff, but it is hardly short of
action.
I have not read Jordan, but I understand from the copious
discussion of his work that there, too, there is a lot more
going on besides simple action.
Not to mention that some very popular and formulaic kinds
of fiction, like romance novels, do not have action in the
sense we were originally discussing it here.
--
"Moreover, fantasticality does a good deal better than
sham psychology." -- Virginia Woolf
-----------------------------------------------------------
Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet pd...@ddb.com
Ulrika O'Brien
ru...@candesa.com (Russell Asplund) wrote:
>You may not like it, but the fact is that it sells and sells well. I like
>a lot of obscure, literary fiction, but you have to admit Robert Jordan
>and Donaldson sell well, so obviously not everyone thinks that big >stories are trite. I hope that there is room for both, but the fact
>remains: For almost every author mentioned here as a counter example
>to Susan's view, Rober Jordan outsells all of them combined.
Honestly, I don't see the relevance any of this has to what I
was saying. It isn't any sort of revelation that hackneyed
plots can be big sellers. What I thought was the issue, certainly
what I was addressing, was whether a piece of writing needs to
have YAF Final Conflict/Armageddon/Ragnarok in order to have
a viable stfnal plot (I contend that it doesn't); and whether
there are constraints inherent in the genre that require action
in F/SF to mean *Biff!* *Thwapp!* *Blooie!*, gobbets of goo
dripping from the rafters, bisected babies, and thundering
hordes of barbarian raiders style action (I contend that there
are not). I am not saying that such writing has no place.
I am not saying that such writing is not popular. All I am
saying is that there is a lot more to F/SF than that, and
that defining F/SF as requiring such plots and such
action does a disservice, if not outright violence, to the
genre. That's it. It isn't even a very interesting thesis,
really.
>I've also spent plenty of time in my writing career getting rejection
>letters that tell me my action should start sooner, that there is no >hook, that the characters need to be in more jeapordy. So I can say
>from experience that you ignore action at your own risk.
Action is, of course, central to plot. If nothing happens in
your story, then, well, nothing happens, and there's no story.
(ObFarber Caveat: Assume that I have noted the possibility
of exceptions made for exceptional writers here.) But I think
it's easy to confuse action with ACTION!. Action is guys doing
stuff. Conflict is your central character encountering some
sort of road block to getting what he wants. Neither action
nor conflict necessarily involve anyone's head getting cut
off, and I would suggest that violence can be a cheap authorial
trick for temporarily avoiding more substantive conflict,
and genuinely plot-moving action. Putting your characters
into jeopardy may not require any sort of physical threat
at all. It can be just as effective to put some goal or
value of the character at risk, so long as that character
is someone whom the reader is engaged with and cares about.
So I am not suggesting that writers ignore action. I am, however,
suggesting that there is more than one sort of action possible,
and a brave panoply of possible motives for it, all of which
are as viable for writing F/SF as they are for writing mainstream
fiction.
>I think your attitude towards science fiction is more limiting that
>Susan's, and more destructive to the field. Frankly, Science Fiction will
>never has been and never really will be accepted by the literary
>establishment. It has done pretty well as popular entertainment.
Um. What *are* you on about? I did not suggest that SF should
try to become accepted by the "literary establishment", did
I? And how exactly is an attitude which suggests that SF need
not be constrained by a single plot type, and a single mode of
action, more limiting than an attitude that suggests that SF
*requires* that single plot, that single sort of action? Again,
I'm not sure what you're addressing yourself to, because this
doesn't seem very responsive to what I said.
Nicola Rowe
: sst...@mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Susan E Stone) writes:
: >That tends
: >to require a plot with anywhere from a bit to a lot more action and/or
: >violence than a Jane Austen book. I don't see why it's a criticism to
: >acknowledge that.
Which reminds me of a cartoon that hung on the door of the
English Department at home: in an old-fashioned office, a man
in a frock coat says to a woman in a bonnet and long dress:
"We like the plot, Miss Austen, but all this effing and
blinding will have to go...."
Nicola
Cathy Purchis-Jefferies
Susan E Stone wrote:
> Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
> a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
> Later, my heroine, then in her early teens, sees her father's murdered
> body, and her mother being raped. And so on. Of course, on some level
> I'm the one putting the characters through torture, and on some level
> it's to hook readers into the plot. But that doesn't make me a murderer,
> a rapist, or whatever. It simply means I've created a world with
> colossal evils running rampant. If I don't show my protagonists as
> victims of those evils who then overcome them, what's the point? Where's
> my plot?
I haven't read the work in question, so this may not be at all a valid
comment, but I've read some books where the bad guys rape, torture people,
etc, because they are the Bad Guys, and that's how I'm supposed to know they
are Bad. This doesn't work for me. Yeah, I know it happens. Bosnia, Rwanda,
the Holocost. But there were reasons that the people in those situations
tortured and killed people. Maybe not reasons that seem good to US, but THEY
were able to rationalize what they were doing based on some feeling of having
been wronged or something in the past. I guess my point is that if you have bad
guys like this, I hope you also show some background for why they feel like
raping and torturing your characters is okay.
--
Cathy "George" Purchis cat...@value.net
visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
http://www.nps.gov/seki
Mike Huber
Friznitx misc.writing ak Mon, 28 Oct 96 17:28:30 GMT farblik
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn)}
> Assume that a digital computer may attain consciousness based on symbol
> manipulation processes contained in a program and expressed in physical
> processes (that's what a computer does). Not everyone assumes this but many
> do.
> It would presumably be immoral to torment such a conscious entity.
Only if the entity is self-aware. A good clue to self-awareness is
that the entity would resist, or at least object to, being tormented.
I'm using the term "self-aware" in it's widest form here - it includes
entities that may not be concious in the classic sense. A cat may not
have an abstract self-symbol, but it is self-aware in the sense that
it objects to being tormented.
> How does such an entity differ from a character being tormented in the mind of
> an author, or in those of his readers? In both cases, the symbols in a
> program (words in a book) are manipulated and a personality simulated in the
> author's or reader's brain.
The character is not self-aware. There is no self-aware entity to be
tormented, thus no real torment.
-------------------------------------
Roses are red Mike Huber
Violets are blue http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2111
if I were a poet, anaxi...@geocities.com
this would rhyme.
Paul Harwood
On Tue, 29 Oct 96 11:23:58 GMT, ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn) wrote:
>In article <553vdf$3...@panix2.panix.com>, gfa...@panix.com (Gary Farber) wrote:
>>Gerry Quinn (ger...@indigo.ie) wrote:
>>[. . .]
>>: Maybe this is science fiction itself, but consider the following...
>>:
>>: Assume that a digital computer may attain consciousness based on symbol
>>: manipulation processes contained in a program and expressed in physical
>>: processes (that's what a computer does). Not everyone assumes this but many
>>: do.
>>:
>>: It would presumably be immoral to torment such a conscious entity.
>>:
>>: How does such an entity differ from a character being tormented in the mind
>> of
>>: an author, or in those of his readers? In both cases, the symbols in a
>>: program (words in a book) are manipulated and a personality simulated in the
>>: author's or reader's brain.
>>:
>>: Worth a ponder, anyway.
>>
>>And quite a list of authors, from Robert Heinlein, to David Gerrold, to
>>Greg Ega,n have done so. If you're talking about a fresh treatment: cool.
>>If you think you have an idea that hasn't been around for decades, return
>>to go and learn more about the sf field.
>>--
>Interesting, if snotty -
<snip>.
>
>Note: my ISP does not recognise rec.arts.sf.composition.
>
>- Gerry
>
"Snotty"? <snicker>
Are you sure you're not plugged into rec.arts.sf.composition?
Paul
---------------------------------------------------
It's an eternal truth in magazine journalism that
an editor exists in large part to kick a journalist
where and when it hurts the most. --Dan Jenkins
Ulrika O'Brien
"William T. Quick" <ice...@iw3p.com> wrote:
>Once you get into giving your villain a fully-fleshed personality and
>motivation, you may find it addictive - so be careful. The villain is
>still the bad guy,
Well, not necessarily. The antagonist to your protagonist
may, if deftly handled, be a decent human (or whatever sort of)
being, trying to do his best under the circumstances, and
given his own beliefs, and not in any reasonable sense
a *bad* guy, at all. By way of example, one of my favorite
things about Parke Godwin's _Sherwood_ is the humanization
of the Sheriff of Nottingham.
>and you may have to do nasty things to her in order to
>make the plot work.
But, of course, you *may* have to do nasty things to your
protagonists, too. One of the harder tricks for beginning
writers of fiction in general may be learning to make things
problematic for characters you like, be they heros or villains,
or something else entirely.
Al Wesolowsky
Nicola Rowe (nr...@gwdu19.gwdg.de) wrote:
I am reminded of a cartoon showing the interior of a 19th-century
office in Moscow, with St. Basil's visible through the window. A man
in a frock coat has a huge manuscript stacked before him on a desk and
he is dictating to a secretary:
"Dear Mr. Tolstoy--- We have received your insurance claim and find it,
frankly, astonishing. One of our adjusters remarked that if you were
to give it a title...oh, like 'War and Peace,' you might have a
best-seller on your hands."
--
Al B. Wesolowsky o Unlike J. W. Hardin, my foolish moves
a...@crsa.bu.edu o have been many.
Boston University o ---Michael Murphey
The Last Real Marlboro Man
"William T. Quick" <ice...@iw3p.com> wrote:
> (I actually once had a suitably nasty villain I liked
>so much that I had him undergo a huge personality change at the end of the
>book, and he ended up being a minor hero in the following book. It worked,
>but I don't recommend trying it very often.)
Many novels feature a villain who's human qualities are such that one
finds oneself almost wishing he will succeed in his nefarious plot, or
escape capture.
When the reader feels that way, then the writer has succeeded in
creating a complete and believable character.
- Wayne
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dusty are our books,
The stein makes us more clever;
Beer gives us joy
Books frustration ever. - Goethe
---------------------------------------------------------------
Wayne Lutz (wl...@earthlink.net) http://home.earthlink.net/~wlutz
miketotty
William T. Quick wrote:
>
> Absolutely correct. Inexperience writers often concentrate their character
> development skills on their heroes, who are naturally the likeable ones.
> But it is equally necessary to turn your villains into humans, even if they
> must be terrible humans. Short of hopeless psychopaths, most people have
> reasons for what they do. Great churchmen have been great killers - in the
> name of good, in the name of their god. Generals and Presidents have
> slaughtered millions - to preserve their own clan/tribe/nation. The
> President of the United States okayed the use of the atomic bomb - he had
> to make the final decision on the ever-vexing means/ends riddle.
>
> Once you get into giving your villain a fully-fleshed personality and
> motivation, you may find it addictive - so be careful. The villain is
> still the bad guy, and you may have to do nasty things to her in order to
> make the plot work. (I actually once had a suitably nasty villain I liked
> so much that I had him undergo a huge personality change at the end of the
> book, and he ended up being a minor hero in the following book. It worked,
> but I don't recommend trying it very often.)
I agree with Judge, but I often wonder if publishers are of the same
opinion. I strive for "shades of gray" not only for the villians but for
the heroes as well. I subscribe to the whole duality thing.
But, when you read something like Jordan or Brooks, you're forced to
face the reality that publishers are sure not all that concerned about
it. Jordan's evil characters while intersting and well-drawn in many
ways, never seem to discuss their motivations other than the lame power
of the Dark Lord angle. Yawn. Tolkein, Brooks are other examples in
fantasy. I find this much less of an issue in science fiction (except
Star Wars crap).
miketotty
Loki
In ashen ink, Russell Asplund (ru...@candesa.com) inscribed:
: I've also spent plenty of time in my writing career getting rejection
: letters that tell me my action should start sooner, that there is no hook,
: that the characters need to be in more jeapordy. So I can say from
: experience that you ignore action at your own risk.
"Hook" and 'action' are somewhat different, although they could be
used interchangeably in some cases. I doubt anyone's trying to say
that one should have no conflict, no plot, no interest to one's
writing, simply that that need not be as direct as a standard action
movie.
: I think your attitude towards science fiction is more limiting that
: Susan's, and more destructive to the field. Frankly, Science Fiction will
: never has been and never really will be accepted by the literary
: establishment. It has done pretty well as popular entertainment.
And?
You think, then, that anyone writing Science Fiction should be aiming
for the lowest common denominator, the entertainment of the masses?
You would like SF to be relegated to the "Bread and Circus" level?
Most of my favorite speculative fiction does not do well as popular
entertainment. Yes, popular entertainment sells, and yes, it has
its moments, and yes, people should go on writing it, particularly
if they're dollar-oriented, rather than writing-oriented.
Placing -any- limits on the genre that need not be placed
there is pointless. All of action-oriented, literary-oriented,
character-oriented, plot-oriented, idea-oriented--and anything
else you can come up with, really--stories have their place
within this genre, and pretty much any genre.
I don't think anyone is saying that SF -shouldn't- include
the kind of fiction that sells well as popular entertainment,
simply that that is not the -only- kind of SF, nor (in the
minds of some of us, at least) the -best- kind of SF.
: Your attitude strikes me as somewhat elitist
I think you're reading more into his (his? Who was the poster?
I forget. How about zher?) words then actually exists there.
What I saw was in favour of *re*moving limits, not moving them.
- Loki
--
+------+------------+------------------------------------------+
| Loki | Geoffrey Wiseman | http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/5042 |
+------+------------+------------------------------------------+
"Come here, I think you're beautiful
I think you're beautiful, beautiful
some kind of angel, come inside" --SoM
William T. Quick
Cathy Purchis-Jefferies <cat...@value.net> wrote in article
<3276F9...@value.net>...
> I haven't read the work in question, so this may not be at all a valid
> comment, but I've read some books where the bad guys rape, torture
people,
> etc, because they are the Bad Guys, and that's how I'm supposed to know
they
> are Bad. This doesn't work for me. Yeah, I know it happens. Bosnia,
Rwanda,
> the Holocost. But there were reasons that the people in those situations
> tortured and killed people. Maybe not reasons that seem good to US, but
THEY
> were able to rationalize what they were doing based on some feeling of
having
> been wronged or something in the past. I guess my point is that if you
have bad
> guys like this, I hope you also show some background for why they feel
like
> raping and torturing your characters is okay.
Absolutely correct. Inexperience writers often concentrate their character
development skills on their heroes, who are naturally the likeable ones.
But it is equally necessary to turn your villains into humans, even if they
must be terrible humans. Short of hopeless psychopaths, most people have
reasons for what they do. Great churchmen have been great killers - in the
name of good, in the name of their god. Generals and Presidents have
slaughtered millions - to preserve their own clan/tribe/nation. The
President of the United States okayed the use of the atomic bomb - he had
to make the final decision on the ever-vexing means/ends riddle.
Once you get into giving your villain a fully-fleshed personality and
motivation, you may find it addictive - so be careful. The villain is
still the bad guy, and you may have to do nasty things to her in order to
make the plot work. (I actually once had a suitably nasty villain I liked
so much that I had him undergo a huge personality change at the end of the
book, and he ended up being a minor hero in the following book. It worked,
but I don't recommend trying it very often.)
Best,
Bill
<yours in heartwarming villany>
--
W. T. Quick | Iceberg Productions | ice...@iw3p.com
Science Fiction Writers of America | The Authors Guild
http://www.iw3p.com
Dave Milloway
ru...@candesa.com (Russell Asplund) wrote:
> I think your attitude towards science fiction is more limiting that
> Susan's, and more destructive to the field. Frankly, Science Fiction will
> never has been and never really will be accepted by the literary
> establishment. It has done pretty well as popular entertainment.
Hmmm,
And how is Susan's view that fantasy and SF can be more than
swords and laser guns more limiting than your statement above? I find the
attitude that SF "does pretty well as popular entertainment" and "will
never be accepted by the literary establishment" to be much more
destructive and dismissive of the genre.
SF is more than just "popular entertainment." And it is slowly
becoming more and more accepted in literary circles. My college teaches
classes on both SF and fantasy, and there are a number of college which
have masters in Fantastic Literature. The respect it there and growing.
Please do not dismiss it.
dave milloway
****************************************************************************
"It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you
can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but
nobody has ever gotten away with much."
-Flannery O'Connor
****************************************************************************
Dave Milloway
At some point in the past Susan E Stone wrote:
>
> Yeah, if nothing horrible ever happens to your characters, you don't have
> a plot. My current opening scene for my novel involves human sacrifice.
Read Flannery O'Connor for characters that have truly horrible things
happen to them. It may expand your definition.
And, On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Cathy Purchis-Jefferies wrote:
> There were reasons that the people in those situations
> tortured and killed people. Maybe not reasons that seem good to US, but THEY
> were able to rationalize what they were doing based on some feeling of having
> been wronged or something in the past. I guess my point is that if you have bad
> guys like this, I hope you also show some background for why they feel like
> raping and torturing your characters is okay.
I think the key to interesting and believable bad guys is keeping in mind
their point of view. If you look through their eyes, THEY are the good
guys. They have justification for what they are doing.
A really great recent example of this was on the premier of EZ
Streets last Sunday. There's a crime boss that goes by the name of Jimmy,
and he does a number of horrible scary things. He's a psycho. But from his
point of view, which we get a lot of, we discover that he thinks everybody
deserves to feel safe, and that that is why he does what he does. It's a
very disturbing monologue he gives, because it's crazy and destructive,
but makes a lunatic kind of sense. . .
That's a key to a great bad guy....
miketotty
Ulrika O'Brien wrote:
>
>
> Well, not necessarily. The antagonist to your protagonist
> may, if deftly handled, be a decent human (or whatever sort of)
> being, trying to do his best under the circumstances, and
> given his own beliefs, and not in any reasonable sense
> a *bad* guy, at all. By way of example, one of my favorite
> things about Parke Godwin's _Sherwood_ is the humanization
> of the Sheriff of Nottingham.
On a different note, I really don't mind the bad guys being evil and
doing evil things, I just want them to be doing them for logical,
consistent and hopefully original reasons. I grow so tired of evil for
evil's sake, or evil because I will gain power.
Power to do what? What's he going to do as evil ruler of the world? Why
does he want to be evil ruler? What motivated him to choose the evil
path to world domination?
I think the power angle is lame, but if you can tell me the whys behind
the desire for power, I can live with it.
An example of one of the best movie villains in recent memory -- Tim
Roth's character in Rob Roy. He's nasty, but he does things for a
reason. He rapes Rob Roy's wife (Meryl Streep), but he knows that is an
effective way to bring Rob Roy to him. He doesn't do it just to be nasty
or because he likes doing those things.
miketotty
Anna Banana
686$01adb820$09c5abcf@default>
Distribution:
Cathy Purchis-Jefferies wrote about villains
or 'Bad Guys':
(snipped some)
...I guess my point is that if you have bad
: > guys like this, I hope you also show some background for why they feel
: >like raping and torturing your characters is okay.
Bill Quick wrote:
: Absolutely correct. Inexperience writers often concentrate their character
: development skills on their heroes, who are naturally the likeable ones.
: But it is equally necessary to turn your villains into humans, even if they
: must be terrible humans. Short of hopeless psychopaths, most people have
: reasons for what they do. ...
(snipped a little here, too)
: Once you get into giving your villain a fully-fleshed personality and
: motivation, you may find it addictive - so be careful. The villain is
: still the bad guy, and you may have to do nasty things to her in order to
: make the plot work. (I actually once had a suitably nasty villain I liked
: so much that I had him undergo a huge personality change at the end of the
: book, and he ended up being a minor hero in the following book. It worked,
: but I don't recommend trying it very often.)
But if we want to do more than write a well rounded villian--
if we want a reader to feel that the character is truely evil--
we have to write to inspire fear or hatred of that character.
We can do this by giving the character some positive and human
traits.
Fear and hatred are very intimate emotions. I think they're a
response to an intimate betrayal. That's why it's difficult to
fear or hate someone in whom we _can't_ recognize ourselves.
If we want a reader to truly react to a villain's corruption, I
think that we have to give the reader a villain who dares to be
a little like the reader. The human traits, the ones in which we
should feel pride, are the ones that insult a reader when he finds
them in a villain. How dare an ugly, evil character be like us in
any way? This unconscionable immitation of us good humans saves an
evil character from being dismissed as a two-demensional abstract.
A patient and conscientious schoolteacher can't kill a child.
We'd hate that teacher for more than the murder.
Anna
Wolf
> If we want a reader to truly react to a villain's corruption, I
> think that we have to give the reader a villain who dares to be
> a little like the reader. The human traits, the ones in which we
> should feel pride, are the ones that insult a reader when he finds
> them in a villain. How dare an ugly, evil character be like us in
> any way? This unconscionable immitation of us good humans saves an
> evil character from being dismissed as a two-demensional abstract.
why can't the villain be a 'good guy' who just happens to be working for
the other side?
(a good example would be the American Civil War)
--
|\-/|
<0 0>
=(o)=
-Wolf
wo...@parrett.net
http://www.parrett.net/~wolf
http://www.parrett.net/~wolf/ttm.htm
All views expressed in the above message are copyrighted
(C) 1996 wo...@parrett.net and any editting or quoting will be
promptly replied to.
Cameron Fitzanko
: Many novels feature a villain who's human qualities are such that one
: finds oneself almost wishing he will succeed in his nefarious plot, or
: escape capture.
: When the reader feels that way, then the writer has succeeded in
: creating a complete and believable character.
: - Wayne
I'm not so sure that is the only limiting quality that proves the author
has made a believable character. I think it could also be feasible to
create a character/villian whose evil is a twisted/perverted desire that
almost everyone has. To create an evil character I think you have to
find some desire that you are ashamed to admit to having and then exploit
it. Its almost like the cliche (well it isn't really a cliche) that you
write best what you know. So if you know you like to look at women, then
twist it to sometihng like someone who likes to watch a woman who is about to
be tortured. Or maybe you saw an animal get hit, make it that your character
likes to watch animals be mutliated. Personally I think that either the
character can be just slightly/romantically evil or repulsively malign.
I know when I read something I want the villian to be someone I might
envy or someone who scares/repulses me. It's a matter of personal taste
I guess.
Cam
--
(~) cHuK (~) fitz...@umr.edu
| | ScHmUk | | http://www.umr.edu/~fitzanko
/ \ cHeM / \
(_____) mAjOr (_____) "I need to know if you know
PoLyMeRs & CoAtInGs what you need to know, you know?" - Harvest Collier
Wolf
> >come close. Intelligent machines, yes; characters in novels as moral
> >entities, no.
>
> Heavens, I can think of several novels that incorporate a computer
> as Pope. Seems the very apotheosis of moral entity-hood, to me.
> Certainly, questions about the moral status of self-aware machines
> are well-worn chestnuts in the arsenal of thought experiments
> as offered by TAs in first year philosophy classes...
Robot', and 'The Bicentennial Man' (sp?)
HAL went mad because of a moral dilemma, and Asimov's robots were more
human than most of the humans.
Gary Farber
miketotty (to...@earthlink.net) wrote:
[. . .]
: But, when you read something like Jordan or Brooks, you're forced to
: face the reality that publishers are sure not all that concerned about
: it.
[. . . .]
Publishers publish them because they sell. When they stop selling,
publishers will stop publishing them. (See "John Norman.")
I would put Tolkien (note spelling) in a different category than his
imitators.
ga...@not.gone.yet ;-)
Jensen
In article <558n0g$s...@uruguay.earthlink.net>, wl...@earthlink.net wrote:
>"William T. Quick" <ice...@iw3p.com> wrote:
>
>>so much that I had him undergo a huge personality change at the end of the
>>book, and he ended up being a minor hero in the following book. It worked,
>>but I don't recommend trying it very often.)
>
>finds oneself almost wishing he will succeed in his nefarious plot, or
>escape capture.
>
>When the reader feels that way, then the writer has succeeded in
>creating a complete and believable character.
>
I think the most complete example of this is Satan in Paradise Lost.
Milton manages to make even old Nick sympathetic.
jen
Daniel Goodman
In article <559cgh$k...@panix2.panix.com>,
Gary Farber <gfa...@panix.com> wrote:
>miketotty (to...@earthlink.net) wrote:
>[. . .]
>: But, when you read something like Jordan or Brooks, you're forced to
>: face the reality that publishers are sure not all that concerned about
>: it.
>[. . . .]
>
>Publishers publish them because they sell. When they stop selling,
>publishers will stop publishing them. (See "John Norman.")
John Norman's books are coming back into print; published by Masquerade, I
believe. They're being sold to a different market, as a certain variety
of sex books.
--
Dan Goodman
dsg...@visi.com
http://www.visi.com/~dsgood/index.html
When the death penalty is outlawed, only outlaws will die.
Dorothy J Heydt
In article <559d4p$l...@darla.visi.com>, Daniel Goodman <dsg...@visi.com> wrote:
>
>John Norman's books are coming back into print; published by Masquerade, I
>believe. They're being sold to a different market, as a certain variety
>of sex books.
Well, the publisher got that right.
(Barnum, thou shouldst be living in this hour....)
Dorothy J. Heydt
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
Dorothy J Heydt
>Milton manages to make even old Nick sympathetic.
Say, rather, that he fails to prevent him from looking
sympathetic. This isn't an accomplishment; it's a variant of
"sometimes even Homer nods."
Chris Hooley
Externalizing evil works in a story but it's boring. The bad
guys get their deserts and another morality play reinforces the
culture.
Is it laziness to put evil "out there" where you can shoot
it?
Chris
run fast
Dave said:
>I find the attitude that SF "does pretty well as popular
>entertainment" and "will never be accepted by the literary
>establishment" to be much more destructive and dismissive of the
>genre.
> SF is more than just "popular entertainment." And it is slowly
> becoming more and more accepted in literary circles. My college teaches classes on both SF and fantasy, and there are a number of college which have masters in Fantastic Literature. The respect it there and growing.
> Please do not dismiss it.
Thanks Dave - SF can be so many things and even as popular entertainment
it can have profound societal effects. I had a class in high school on
SF and there are so many things that can be covered besides bang, bang
shoot-um-up because of the lack of constraints. SF can be as far out as
aliens and other world or right here at home if .........I'm not
terribly concerned with literary circles because that's not my world,
but don't insult SF just because you (the original post) have limited
vision.
--
¬ ============================================== ¬
Randi Neff * In my last life I was a guy named Sue *
= Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by
age 18 =
= Albert Einstein =
= Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes =
= Oscar Wilde =
¬ ============================================== ¬
Randy Carmine
Here's something...I took a few of the major points of two characters
of mine. They are arch enemies. Can you guess who the protagonist is?
Person A:
Male
Thrill killer. Ready to kill ANYONE just for kicks
Brutally honest
Manipulator
Anti-authoritarian
Insane
Smoker
Doesn't drink.
ex-junkie
Has fantasies about rape
Molests his prisoners
Bisexual
Person B:
Male
Vengeance bent
Ready to kill anyone (except kids) that gets in his way
Willing to do almost anything to maintain order
Non-smoker
Drinks
Honest
Straight
I'll give you one guess, and it ISN'T Person B.
R. Carmine
Mike Huber
My problem with the whole generic GvE fictional structure is that I
have yet to meet somebody who is intentionaly evil.
I've met people who declare themselves to be evil, but they were all
either very nice people who failed to live up to their own excessively
high standards, or in a kind of harmless permanent personal Halloween.
I've also met people who were very, very bad. They all had reasons and
thought they were doing the right thing, or the only possible thing
under the circumstances.
So, for me, GvE tends not to be beleivable. Real conflict is more
complicated.
Peter Hickman
miketotty wrote:
>
> publishers are sure not all that concerned about
> ways, never seem to discuss their motivations other than the lame power
> of the Dark Lord angle. Yawn. Tolkein, Brooks are other examples in
> fantasy. I find this much less of an issue in science fiction (except
> Star Wars crap).
On the other hand you could say that the Dark Lord (shhhh!)
miketotty
Dave Milloway wrote:
>
>
> Read Flannery O'Connor for characters that have truly horrible things
> happen to them. It may expand your definition.
Every time I read Good Country People it maekes me want to stop writing.
I love that story. Manley Pointer, bible salesman extraordinare, and his
suitcase full of "trophies". Sorry, what were you saying?
> I think the key to interesting and believable bad guys is keeping in mind
> their point of view. If you look through their eyes, THEY are the good
> guys. They have justification for what they are doing.
> A really great recent example of this was on the premier of EZ
> Streets last Sunday. There's a crime boss that goes by the name of Jimmy,
> and he does a number of horrible scary things. He's a psycho. But from his
> point of view, which we get a lot of, we discover that he thinks everybody
> deserves to feel safe, and that that is why he does what he does. It's a
> very disturbing monologue he gives, because it's crazy and destructive,
> but makes a lunatic kind of sense. . .
> That's a key to a great bad guy....
For me, a good exercise for your bad guys is to pretend that they are
modern-day terrorists. Terrorists consider themselves the ultimte
patriot. They are fighting and dying against an overwhelming oppressive
enemy to deliver their people from tyranny. From their perspective they
are the heroes of the story and the "heroes" are the villains. I like to
aim for that duality. Obviously you can't make it that ambiguous, but
it's a good reference point.
miketotty
miketotty
Dave Milloway wrote:
>
> ru...@candesa.com (Russell Asplund) wrote:
>
> > I think your attitude towards science fiction is more limiting that
> > Susan's, and more destructive to the field. Frankly, Science Fiction will
> > never has been and never really will be accepted by the literary
> > establishment. It has done pretty well as popular entertainment.
>
> Hmmm,
> And how is Susan's view that fantasy and SF can be more than
> attitude that SF "does pretty well as popular entertainment" and "will
> never be accepted by the literary establishment" to be much more
> destructive and dismissive of the genre.
> SF is more than just "popular entertainment." And it is slowly
> becoming more and more accepted in literary circles. My college teaches
> classes on both SF and fantasy, and there are a number of college which
> have masters in Fantastic Literature. The respect it there and growing.
Absolutely correct. More and more SF authors are coming to be
anthologized in high school and college literarture anthologies. My high
school taught Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. My colllege (University of
Florida - Go Gators!) had classes in science fiction literature and
creative workshops that specifically mentioned sf. And this was in the
mid-80s.
You have to remember, only in the last 30+ years has the genre really
started to flex it's literary muscle with writers exploring themes and
form in far more depth than in previous years. This IMHO is an outgrowth
of the maturation of the target audience and recognition that the
audience is generally older than that they aimed for in the pulp and
golden age eras.
Remember also that short stories and novels were considered a ridiculous
literary form when they first emerged. They could never be considered
art. In Shakespeare's time, plays were considered droll entertainment
for the masses.
miketotty
KATYMUNGER
>>I think the key to interesting and believable bad guys is keeping in
mind their point of view. If you look through their eyes, THEY are the
good guys. They have justification for what they are doing.<<
I think the author Thomas Harris always does a great job of this because
his villians are truly horrible yet we see through their eyes and can
actually feel sorry for them in some ways. He's very subtle about it,
though, no overt explanations of their childhood or loneliness or
whatever. Once you get obvious, i think it becomes forced or annoying.
If it doesn't creep up on the reader almost unconsciously, everyone
probbaly has a tendency to resist it.
I've always thought that empathy is the greatest trait a writer can have.
Without it, it's very hard to accurately portray a wide range of
characters. The Dutch even have a word for a feeling that is like a
heightened form of empathy and I suspect the very best writers possess
this. There is no English translation and my Dutch stinks. Anyone else
know the word I mean?
Katy Munger
Your guests will never know....
Paul Harwood
On Wed, 30 Oct 1996 15:28:47 -0600, miketotty <to...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
>An example of one of the best movie villains in recent memory -- Tim
>Roth's character in Rob Roy. He's nasty, but he does things for a
>reason. He rapes Rob Roy's wife (Meryl Streep), but he knows that is an
>effective way to bring Rob Roy to him. He doesn't do it just to be nasty
>or because he likes doing those things.
>
>
Not to be outraged or anything, but the wife in Rob Roy was played by
Jessica Lange, not Meryl Streepe. And what a most excellent villain
Tim Roth made ...
Paul
--------------------------------------------------
Proving a ham sandwich is better than true love:
Nothing is better than true love.
A ham sandwich is better than nothing ...
Mike Huber
Friznitx misc.writing ak 31 Oct 1996 02:20:47 GMT farblik
ban...@gold.interlog.com (Anna Banana)}
> If we want a reader to truly react to a villain's corruption, I
> think that we have to give the reader a villain who dares to be
> a little like the reader. The human traits, the ones in which we
> should feel pride, are the ones that insult a reader when he finds
> them in a villain. How dare an ugly, evil character be like us in
> any way? This unconscionable immitation of us good humans saves an
> evil character from being dismissed as a two-demensional abstract.
> A patient and conscientious schoolteacher can't kill a child.
> We'd hate that teacher for more than the murder.
You have a good point here. But I don't think the trait has to be an
important one.
There was a murder a few years ago here in Milwaukee (the murderer was
killed in prison along with Dahmer) where the killer took his wife to
a restaurant and killed her in the parking lot on the way out. I used
to take my wife to that restaurant, and the horror of that particular
murder affected me very deeply. Not so much that he could kill his
wife, but that he could eat a meal with her, knowing he was going to
kill her on the way back to the car.
Murders happen all the time, and usualy it's just one of those things.
This one got to me.
I never went back to that restaurant, and I don't' think I'm the only
one. The restaurant was demolished rather soon after the murder.
Mike Farren
miketotty <to...@earthlink.net> writes:
>You have to remember, only in the last 30+ years has the genre really
>started to flex it's literary muscle with writers exploring themes and
>form in far more depth than in previous years.
A statement that can only be made by someone who doesn't have a clue
as to what was actually happening 30 years ago. "Literary muscle" has
been being flexed for as long as there's been science fiction. If
anything, the last thirty years is only seeing a return to what was
the original condition. In the meantime, however, them muscles still
got their workout, just about as often and as successfully as they
do now. Just because space opera existed doesn't mean that other
styles *didn't*.
--
Michael J. Farren, Ex-Lemmings Manager | All standard disclaimers apply.
Currently unemployed - know anyone |
looking for a good game programmer? | Are we not Lemmings? If you click
far...@shore.net, far...@well.com | us, do we not ... Oh, no!
Chad Ryan Thomas
In article <3277C8...@earthlink.net>, to...@earthlink.net says...
>On a different note, I really don't mind the bad guys being evil and
>doing evil things, I just want them to be doing them for logical,
>consistent and hopefully original reasons. I grow so tired of evil for
>evil's sake, or evil because I will gain power.
>
>Power to do what? What's he going to do as evil ruler of the world? Why
>does he want to be evil ruler? What motivated him to choose the evil
>path to world domination?
>
>I think the power angle is lame, but if you can tell me the whys behind
>the desire for power, I can live with it.
Something I notice as missing in this entire discussion (not just to this
point--everything that's reached my server) is that it ignores the viewpoint
of the book. For example, I write almost exclusively in limited omniscient
third, past tense.
I also write with viewpoint characters who have been socialized in cultures
that are traditional enemies of the "bad" guys. There's social/cultural,
religious, and historical gulf between the groups, so much that a member of
one group seldom if ever meets a member of the other, except while they're
trying to kill each other.
In this situation, to depict the antagonist(s) as purely evil is the best
and most correct way, since the viewpoint character has been taught from
birth that this is the true state of the world.
On the other hand, it's important for the author to at least have an idea of
the antagonists' motivation. In my work, it's a pretty simple: religion.
The antagonists are aggressors because their religion puts a great premium
on expansionism (similar to early Islam).
The protagonists don't understand the religion--they just know they're being
attacked by these weird hairy guys who always seem to be doing that. And
their religion stresses peaceful coexistence, so aggressive expansion
certainly looks evil. Besides, the old grannies all *say* they're evil . .
.
--
****** Chad Ryan Thomas ******** crth...@indiana.edu *****
/ "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be\
\ content." -- St. Paul (Phil. 4:11, KJV) /
********* http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~crthomas *********
Bill Oliver
In article <55b2vo$j...@news-c1.gnn.com>,
In my opinion, it shold *all* be done to serve the purpose of your
particular work. There's a market for morality plays, and writing
in terms of absolutes may be appropriate for that market.
I think that it is as wrong to insist that one be ambivalent
about evildoers as it is to insist that one paint them in
black and white. Just like in the "real world," there are not so
bad folk who make bad decisions for complex reasons, and there
are bad people who delight in evil.
I remember a murderer once in North Carolina who, between murders,
would amuse himself by driving along coutry roads and shooting
cattle in the fields. When asked why he did it, he said he just
liked the look of surprise and hurt in their faces when they died.
He felt the similarly about humans.
billo
Anna Banana
Wolf asked:
(after this quote from my post)
: > If we want a reader to truly react to a villain's corruption, I
: > think that we have to give the reader a villain who dares to be
: > a little like the reader. The human traits, the ones in which we
: > should feel pride, are the ones that insult a reader when he finds
: > them in a villain. How dare an ugly, evil character be like us in
: > any way? This unconscionable immitation of us good humans saves an
: why does the villain have to be evil?
:
: why can't the villain be a 'good guy' who just happens to be working for
: the other side?
:
: (a good example would be the American Civil War)
This would depend on the story you wished to tell, I believe.
I was responding to Bill Quick's response to Cathy Purchis-Jefferies.
She said (if I understood her correctly) that merely depicting crimes
and acts of violence, or describing the mind-bending horror of situations
like Rwanda, Bosnia, or the Holocaust, reveals nothing about the people
committing the crimes. Of course their acts are evil, but too often the
villains in these situations are presented as undeveloped, flat characters
who surrender to evil just because... the characters are evil.
Bill Quick agreed and explained about the importance of turning villains
into human beings with whom the reader can identify, on some level--
all the better to understand their role in the story. And all the
better to present a fully developed character.
I suppose I shouldn't have snipped so much of their posts. You quote
me trying to say that these human traits should contrast with the
villain's 'evil' traits, and illicit a strong response in a reader.
Rape, torture and murder are horrific acts committed by humans. The
horror of these crimes, and the evil of the humans committing the
crimes can be emphasized by giving villains certain 'good' traits that
resemble the reader. It brings the ugliness uncomfortably close.
Can a villain also be a 'good guy' who is just confused in his choice
of sides? I guess that would depend on the story you're trying to
tell. It would also depend on his understanding of the impact of his
choice. If he's truly unaware that his adoption of that side is
wrong, if he goes blithely along, ignorant of the crimes committed by
that side, he serves a different purpose, and has a different role
in a story, than a villain who would methodically commit crimes--
even take pleasure in the crimes themselves. The ignorance of the
good guy's choices becomes an issue. Did he willfully stay ignorant
in order to stay safe? To me, that raises different questions about
that kind of evil. It's a different kind of story.
Not just the American Civil War-- any war would be likely setting
for a 'good guy who just happens to be working for the wrong side.'
Anna
Cathy Purchis-Jefferies
miketotty wrote:
> An example of one of the best movie villains in recent memory -- Tim
> Roth's character in Rob Roy. He's nasty, but he does things for a
> reason. He rapes Rob Roy's wife (Meryl Streep), but he knows that is an
> effective way to bring Rob Roy to him. He doesn't do it just to be nasty
> or because he likes doing those things.
DEFINITELY one of my favorite bad guys. The evil queen (forgot her name)
in Joan Vinge's _The Snow Queen_ is another villain(ess) that I thought
was very convincing.
Wolf also asks:
>why can't the villain be a 'good guy' who just happens to be working for
>the other side?
If you don't dislike C.J. Cherryh's style (as being discussed over on r.a.sf.w)
I think Morgaine in her _Gate of Ivrel_ series comes close to being a character
like this. She has a reason for what she's doing, but if she succeeds, bad things
will happen to a lot of other people. Because the viewpoint character is hanging
around with Morgaine, the reader comes to understand why she feels she needs to
do what she's doing, but just about everyone else in the books thinks she a
villain who needs to be stopped.
--
Cathy "George" Purchis cat...@value.net
visit Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks
http://www.nps.gov/seki
Dorothy J Heydt
A while back, somebody said,
>: why does the villain have to be evil?
>:
>: why can't the villain be a 'good guy' who just happens to be working for
>: the other side?
>:
>: (a good example would be the American Civil War)
Well, in that case, he would be not a villain but an antagonist.
(and if the guy on your side is a jerk, then he is not a hero but
a protagonist. But you knew that.)