Text 69, 163 rader
Skriven 2004-09-12 08:56:02 av Bob Lawrence
     Kommentar till en text av Robert Bull
Ärende: Recommend juvenile Sf?
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BL> One of my problems is conflict. Characters are supposed to
BL> strike sparks, as you say, to create tension and make the story
BL> hum, but my *own* character avoids that, and so do the
BL> characters I "create." It takes me a real effort for me to make
BL> my characters act stupidly...

RB> Crawford Kilian said something in his book about writing F&SF
RB> that if your story isn't going anywhere, you need to give your
RB> characters more conflict. You could have the conflict dumped on
RB> them from on high, like dimwit senior management or whatever.

 I know the theory... doing it is the problem. In fact, when I read a
book where the conflict is obviously imposed with a clear solution
(like just walk away), it makes me angry.

 Writing is a craft, and the two parts of that craft I lack are the
ability to make my characters act so stupidly that they create
unnecessary conflict (trapped by stupidity), and I lack the ability to
write in bureaucratese.

 The first is just me. When I find myself in conflict that has no
apparent solution I do the obvious and either walk off or remove
the cause. When they banned torture as a way to make you do things you
don't want to do, it made it rather easy to resolve conflicts (I have
no problem at all with violence). I solve the bureaucratese deficiency
by plagiarism. It's meaningless anyway, so when I need one I keep my
eyes open for a good example, and copy it word-for-word.

BL> In real life, the only end is death, but in fact, ending a
BL> *story* is a conscious decision - you just end it and it
BL> doesn't really matter much where, so long as it is satisfying.

RB> I suppose could be part of the reason for the conventional
RB> happy ending - at least it's a stopping point, where all the
RB> characters' problems are sensibly resolved. For now.

 A sad ending does the same thing. The best ending I ever read was
Lord of the Rings (it had me in tears).

BL> It meant that I had to edit the whole bloody book, but it only
BL> took me a week, and in total I only typed an extra three pages.
BL> I had to *read* the whole 600-bloody-pages... but the actual
BL> changes were minor

RB> Is it that much of a chore to read your own prose? ;-)

 No! I always end up thinking, "Gee! This guy can write!" but I know
how it all comes out (and if I forget, I can rewrite the ending
anyway).

RB>> Someone told me once that Christie is supposed to have had a
RB>> system that sort of plotted things out on a chart...

BL> Of course! My complaint is the need for the big explanation at
BL> the end. A proper plot is supposed to reveal itself in one big
BL> climax.

RB> That was perhaps just her way, which too many people copied.

 Good thought! It had not occurred to me that her success would bring
imitators. It gives me another reason to spit when someone says her name.

RB> I did like the TV films with Joan Hixson as Miss Marple, but
RB> she was so good in the part.

 I don't recognise the name, but I think I know the actress. There
was only one good Miss Marple (with Rutherford second).

BL> All they neded as a few hundred English in pith helmets
BL> drinking gin squash in the afternoon and complaining that the
BL> natives are revolting...

RB> I'm sure that could be arranged ;-)

 ROFL!!

 After years of war, what the people of Iraq want is stability. The
poor Yanks have no idea. One only has to compare Basra under the
English with the rest of Iraq under America - and the Brits are under
a handicap, as US allies.

 It amazes me that Americans think of themselves of the font of all
freedom, and yet do not have the first idea that you can't run a
country without the trust of the people! A Pommie in a pith helmet
might be faintly ridiculous, but you can trust him to be fair. Not so
an American soldier in combat fatigues and a wild, frightened look...

RB> Do you choose the books you use for "recharging" to be in the
RB> same genre, or just anything you fancy?

 Anything I like. SF is fairly restrictive, in that the story is
usually based on a single idea. When you read, it triggers other
thoughts, and with your own story running in the back of your mind, it
often suggests a whole other approach. My caveat is that books by
creative writers break the writer's block best.

BL> Sounds good! The problem is making the psycho a sympathetic
BL> character. Redemption ought to work...

RB> Oh, there's no sympathy and redemption. He's a psycho to the
RB> last. But you end up interested and involved in the problem if
RB> who put out the contract, and why. That's good work.

 Not even a hope of redemption? I'll have to hunt that book down and
see how he does it. Unsympathetic cahacters interest me...

RB> I'll bet the first one is the worst :-(

 Writers always say so... but I don't trust them. Mark Brandon Read
has written a series of weird books in the CHOPPER series. What makes
it interesting is that Mark Read is a genuine psycho, a murderer and
a convicted criminal. So far as I can work out, he doesn't give a
damn. He killed his best friend, he killed his mentor... what comes
through his writing is the need to be on the inside, to know secret
things, to be the MAN. He's funny, too.

BL> like Superman comics. Once promoted and exposed, if it doesn't
BL> take and show a profit in its own right (like Opera and
BL> classical music) then too bad, let it die and find something
BL> people actually like.

RB> Hmmm. Sounds like a charter for dumbing-down the world.

 Sounds more like natural selection, and that doesn't dumb-down, it
lifts up.

 Okay, so if subsiding opera and classical music improves the
breed, where is our new Verdi, Beethoven, Wagner? Why do they keep
producing century-old crap? If you start at Beethoven and move
forward in time, assuming that old Ludwig was in the entertainment
business, what are the signposts? None of the major ones are in the
Classical music, Opera, or Ballet region. To me, the Beetles had more
influence than Mahler, and Satchmo was more creative.

 I had a mate who was right into Classical, it was not a matter of
being one-up with the cogniscenti he really liked it, it did something
in his brain, but to me it is just jiggly-jiggly totally predictable,
boring! I have no problem with someone liking stuff I see as totally
empty, but I do have a problem with subsiding their queer tastes,
just as I could understand if they objected to subsiding the Beetles.

RB> Just finished: LORD OF SNOW AND SHADOWS by Sarah Ash. Ash's new
RB> trilogy (series title: The Tears of Artamon) starts with a book
RB> filled with possession by a dragon-ghoul with vampiric
RB> tendencies, poisonings, secret passages, vengeful wraiths,
RB> music- powered shamanesses, romance, werewolves, unnatural
RB> weather, alchemy, adultery, friendship, revolting peasants,
RB> betrayal, revenge, a cold would-be emperor, and all set in
RB> something like an 18th or early 19th Century Russia.

 It sounds like it's got soemthing for everyone. No incest?

RB> My reaction? Get part 2! 

 I've sworn off anything with more than one part (again). I shall
make an exception in the case of Ms Ash.

Regards,
Bob
               

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