Why Fiction Does Matter

While reading Slashdot the other day, as one does, I ran across a story about what the modern military can learn from BSG (specifically thinking about all the electronic systems that need to link together for optimal battlefield awareness).  Of course I just read the abstract (again, as one does, especially when one has better things to do with one’s time), and of course, after that, despite my better judgement, I glanced down at the comments.  The top comment (modded 0: Troll), said something to the effect of “the military can’t learn anything from BSG because it’s fiction and has no basis in reality,” which, obviously, I took offense to.  However, per Prime Internet Directive 1: Do not engage, I did not wade in, though I have, in essence, a degree in arguing why this person is wrong on a grand scale.

While I can’t speak to the specifics of the article, I can answer the question of what we can learn from fiction.

Simply, an awful lot.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, for example, was so influential in his fiction that he has an entire region of space named after him (the Clarke belt, where all our GPS satellites float in geo-synchronous orbit).  The world would not be what it is today without such imaginations telling us not just about what is but what can be.

Fiction is essential–story is essential–because it allows us to connect with each other, to identify those hidden pieces of ourselves that we guard most closely, and to feel a little less alone.  To say that fiction has no worth is to deny yourself an essential part of our shared humanity.  Maybe, as the troll suggests, the police can’t learn anything from NCIS, and NASA can’t learn anything from Star Trek, but that doesn’t mean that those shows are worthless.  There’s a generation of people at NASA who grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars, who never lost that spark of wonder with the universe, that essential “what if?” that we get from fiction.  Would we have robots the size of dune buggies driving around the surface of Mars without Star Trek and Star Wars?  Maybe?  I don’t know.  Is the world a richer place for these fictions?  Absolutely.

The fiction that we love, whatever form it comes in, strikes some chord with each of us.  I love Terry Pratchett’s work because he makes me laugh and then he makes me think.  I love “Lights” by Stuart Dybeck for the sheer joy of the moment he captures and the way that he and I both revel in his language.  I love pulpy Resident Evil tie-in fiction because it’s never self-conscious about how bad it is, and neither am I.  I love Tolkien because The Hobbit gave me my first proper glimpse of another world and showed me what fantasy could be.  I love fiction, speculative or otherwise, because it asks “what if?”  (If you don’t believe me, think about any story that you love and ask yourself what question, at its very core, drives the story; it may not be the sort of big “what if?” that one thinks of when thinking about spec-fic, it could be a small question, a little personal question that is shared between two people, but it will be there.)  I love that we don’t just settle for the answers that authors give us to the questions we ask; we are always making our own answers.  I love that finding our own answers is part of our very nature.

Can fiction tell us anything useful?

Yes, but we must let it.

Writing in the Face of Rejection

Recently, over on SFWA’s site, there was posted a column by Tobias S. Buckell on the subject of rejection (something that, as writers, we all must face and face again).  I’m not going to re-hash it for the sake of making this appear to be a more substantial post, but I will say that the column is well worth your time.

I’m not the best one to talk about persevering in the face of rejection, nor can I really talk about writing every day–I haven’t touched any of my stories in what I consider a shamefully long time, certainly not since I moved, maybe not even since I was promoted.  I will say, though, that it is good advice, and that it does make me feel better when I do keep up with my writing.

So, since I’m not really providing you with much in the way of original content of my own, I’ll instead leave you with a picture of a cat.

All for the pageviews.

Kickstart a Writing Prompt (That’s Also a Cool-Looking Card Game)

On the heels of my last post about using the game Man Bites Dog as a tool for writers comes this: Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination.  If you read many webcomics, you’ve probably run across Wondermark, by David Malki! once or twice; you may even read it regularly.  You may also have heard about the anthology Machine of Death, which topped the Amazon charts a couple of years ago.  It’s a collection of stories based around the idea of a machine that can accurately predict your death but often has a twisted sense of humor–you might, for instance, get the prediction “Free Falling” and attempt to cheat the machine by never again flying, only to be trampled to death by concert-goers during Tom Petty’s classic.

Sample picture of what you get with the physical copy of the game [via Kickstarter]

I could try to tell you all about the game that’s being made based on this premise, but I’ve never played the thing, so I’ll let the game’s creators, who have actually played the game, tell you more (I was trying to embed the video, but after working for half an hour, I’ve decided that it’s just not worth it–WordPress.com, take note).

The game has already funded at this point, so there’s no risk of being disappointed that the thing doesn’t fund.  Just put down your money to help make the game even more awesome.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with this project.  I am not getting anything by plugging the project here other than any additional stretch goals that get unlocked if any of you help overfund the game.  I have put my money where my mouth is and helped back this game because, seriously, it looks awesome.

Dog Biter

Here’s something quick for you that’s part writing prompt, part game review.  Man Bites Dog, from University Games.  The premise is simple: given a hand of five cards, each of which has a noun, verb (or verb-phrase), or adjective and a point value, construct a high-scoring, hopefully funny headline that the majority of players agree is cromulent.  The first to 500 wins.  You can play with two people, though it’s better and funnier with a bigger group.

So what’s this got to do with anything?  Glad you asked.  In one of my non-fiction classes at Warren Wilson, we did an exercise using a writing prompt with a similar premise; we were each told to write down some occupations and some unusual locations and put them in two pools.  Then we each drew a few at random and mixed them around until we had a character and situation that provided good grist for some writing.  Well, Man Bites Dog works just as well.  The standard rules work just as well if you’re just using it as a writing prompt: draw 5 cards, take a look, and exchange up to three.  Then start writing.

In case you’re wondering, my most recent productive headline-prompt was “Native Dreams of New Dog,” out of which I’ve gotten over 1000 words during a 45-minute sprint.

What I’ve Been up to

If you’re a regular here, well, that’s really more than I can say for myself sometimes.  Keen observers in recent weeks may have noticed a new feed down the side of the site below my Twitter feed calling itself “Beep Boop Every Day.”  Well, that’s me, too.

A few weeks ago, not too long after my last post here, I was offered a substantial promotion, all the way up to Sysadmin.  It’s something I’d been hoping to rise to in a couple of years, but it was offered to me in a much shorter time frame.  I said yes.  There’s a lot for me to learn, and that’s partly where Beep Boop Every Day comes in.  I find that sometimes I think I understand something, but when I try to explain it, I discover that I actually don’t fully understand that thing, so BBED is a place for me to try to better understand things by explaining them.

I won’t be abandoning this blog by any means–I started BBED because I didn’t just want to fill this blog with lots of off-topic stuff about shell scripting and subnetting.

So, head on over there if you’re interested in Sysadmin stuff or want to maybe learn something.*

 

*Disclaimer: learning not guaranteed.

Magic Systems and Worldbuilding

There comes a time at the start (hopefully) of any fantasy project where you must tackle the question of magic.  Magic is an integral part of fantasy, and given Clarke’s Third Law, it can be argued that it’s integral to science-fiction, too.  That’s not to say that every author or every story will handle magic the same way.  There are many fantasies with no magic, formal or informal, but which still qualify because of some other fantastical element, and there are fantasies where magic is the only fantastical element in an otherwise-normal world.

Whenever I begin to consider a new story, one of the first questions I ask myself, whether consciously or not, is whether there will be magic (or magic that isn’t dressed up as science).  If the answer is no, well, that’s not what’s I’m talking about right now, but if the answer is yes, that opens up a whole host of new questions.  The presence of magic is, in some ways, just the tip of the iceberg.  Magic can be a nebulous force for which there are no explicit rules, such as the magic in Tolkien’s Middle Earth, or it can be very formalized with rules governing its powers and limitations, as in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn novels (or just about anything else he’s written).  Somewhere out beyond Mistborn and its like are Dungeons & Dragons licensed properties–books where the knowledgeable and the geeky can identify the exact spell that’s being used and will complain if its effects aren’t in line with the game, and where you can sometimes hear the dice rolling if the author isn’t that good.

Then there’s this sort of stuff, which happened long ago in a fuzzy version of history. [Via Wikipedia]

In case you’re wondering, Harry Potter falls somewhere in the middle–there is a formal-ish magic system, but its rules are not deeply delved into.

No matter where your magic falls on this scale, it is important to do some worldbuilding in advance to keep yourself from running up against problems later, either in your initial drafting or in revision when one of your alpha- or beta-readers asks, “why couldn’t that character just … ?”  No matter how few rules your magic has on the page, you should know its limits from the outset.  Readers are very fond of asking tricky questions, and editors even more so.  Prepare to defend yourself.

My take on magic in stories so far has tended towards the light end of the scale.  I find the idea of building big formal magic systems to be interesting on an intellectual level, and I admire it when done well by others, but at this stage, I’ve not found myself wanting to do any of that myself.  Put me down for a bit of handwavium any day.  That approach helps me not to fall into a common trap I’ve seen when writing magic: the distraction of the cool factor.

While there are many books that balance an interesting, well-built magic system with well-developed characters around whom a plot forms, there are many many others where all those important things fall by the wayside because the author wants to tell you just how damn clever they’ve been with their magic and expect that just because the complicated system they made up held their interest for tens of thousands of words, it will carry you past the flat characters and idiot plotting.

Don’t do this.

If you’re afraid that you’re doing this, take a look at your characters.  Ask yourself lots of questions about them; questions like “what’s this character’s favorite Wawa hoagie?” or “what subjects interested them when they were in school?”  If you can answer this sort of question about your characters, you’re probably doing alright, though if you can ask someone you trust for honest feedback, that’s even better.  You don’t necessarily have to tone down the magic, though you should make a pass to cull all the inessential telling you’re doing, but you should focus more on your characters; they’re hopefully who your readers care about.

There’s more of this subject than I can really cover in one short post, so I’ll probably return to this topic periodically, but until then, I want to leave you with this episode of Writing Excuses, which has stuck with me from their first season (which makes it most of five years old now–congrats, Writing Excuses!).

The LA Subway that Used to Be

Fun fact: even though the place is ruled by cars (and if my recent trip is any indication, parts of it are ruled by ludicrously expensive ones at that), Los Angeles has a subway system.  I know, I was shocked the first time someone told me, too.

Another fun fact: the LA subway used to be more extensive (and way cooler).

They even ran PCC cars. [Via flickr]

It’s true.  If you know where to look, you can even find remnants of it today.  You can even go on a tour of part of it if you’re lucky.

The Pacific Electric Railway was, at its height, the largest electric railway in the world (this was around 1925), and connected a number of cities in what would now be considered the greater metropolitan Los Angeles area.  The extent of the Red Cars, as they were known, can be viewed on this fine interactive map.

Of course, most of what remains of that system is some sections of tunnel and a few building names.  Not to say those aren’t cool in their own right, because they are, but it’s just not the same.

Still pretty awesome [via flickr]

What I find saddest about the fate of LA’s original subway/streetcar system is that it was integral to the development of the area.  Many parts of the greater LA area were once “streetcar suburbs,” populated by families who earned their bread in downtown LA but wanted to live apart from the hustle and bustle of the city.

I feel a particular bond to the Pacific Electric Railway in that regard because my own childhood neighborhood in West Philadelphia began as a streetcar suburb around the turn of the 20th Century, and my childhood home was likely built around 1910 by one of the principal real-estate developers in the area.  Of course, as was the case in many other parts of the country, transit in LA saw a decline in post-war years, especially after all the land that could be developed had been, and in the 1950′s, the local government saw a network of freeways as a better investment of infrastructure dollars than an overhaul of the transit system, though destruction of the streetcar lines in favor of more roads for cars had already begun decades earlier.

A nice little photoset and writeup of the present state of LA’s historical subway can be found at Gelatobaby’s blog, and a more in-depth history of the Pacific Electric Railway can be found (where else?) over on Wikipedia.

Relevant Thoughts From a Visual Artist

On the heels of my previous post comes this succinct bit of wisdom from webcomic artist Aaron Diaz of the comic Dresden Codak.

Negative space is essential in visual art, but it’s also applicable to constructing a narrative. What you don’t show can speak volumes.

— Aaron Diaz (@dresdencodak) December 13, 2012

Making the Unseen Seen

I have a lot of opinions (surprise!) about a great many things.  Cheesesteaks, for example, or how so few people on the west coast seem to know what the word hoagie means or what does and does not constitute steampunk in the realm of fiction.  It should not be a shock, therefore, that I have opinions on H. P. Lovecraft and by extension Lovecraftian fiction and (Cthulhu) Mythos stories.

On a recent visit to a local bookshop, I ran across The Lovecraft Anthology: Volume 1, a collection of Lovecraft’s stories as interpreted by various comic book artists and writers.  Now I’m all for a well-illustrated weird tale–I absolutely love Mike Mignola’s Hellboy comics, which I find to be a perfect blend of compelling characters, interesting storytelling, and perfectly atmospheric art–but something just felt a bit off to me about this collection.  While a picture may be worth a thousand words, there are some words that a picture just can’t capture.  This, I’ve found, is the case with Lovecraft’s stories.  So much of the horror in Lovecraft’s fiction stems from what the audience cannot see, and to attempt to capture those things with pictures seems like it would diminish the impact to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the story).

This is the part where I confess that I only leafed through the book, rather than giving it a thorough read, even for a single story.  I did look through the table of contents, and I was happy to see that they hadn’t touched some of my favorite stories, though I suppose that that does deny me the opportunity to complain about their ruining something I like.  On the other hand, there’s always the possibility that they would do a good job–lots of things are possible.

In the end, the thing I most object to in this collection is the same thing that annoys me about many of the movie adaptations of books that are out there–the pictures that other people are showing me are the ones that they have in their heads, and those don’t always mesh with what I’ve imagined.  I find this especially problematic in the context of Lovecraftian horror because static pictures of monsters don’t scare me that often, and in a graphic story, pictures are, by definition, the main way that information is conveyed.

Howard Tayler, in a recent episode of Writing Excuses on the subject of death, related how, when he draws a character’s death in Schlock Mercenary, he usually draws that part of the scene in silhouette, which allows the readers to fill in the details of the death, making the event that much more graphic.  Lovecraft, when writing about the monsters in some of his stories, does the same things with his language, using words to outline the monster and making his readers fill in the details with their minds.  While this technique may retain some of the impact of Lovecraft’s original words, I still think that something gets lost in the translation to a graphic story.  You cannot draw the unseen, and unless you want to fill your comic with walls of text (which you don’t), it’s difficult to convey the unseen effectively.

For all that I’ve written up to this point, I don’t think that this collection, or its sequel, are bad.  For many who are already fans of Lovecraft’s work, they could be a nice companion and a glimpse into what Lovecraft’s stories mean to the various artists featured.  These collections could also serve as a good gateway drug for those who may have previously found Lovecraft’s (rather dense) text to be inaccessible, and hopefully some percentage of the previously uninitiated will go on to read Lovecraft’s stories as they were first introduced to the world.

An Anniversary, a Milestone, and Important News

This month marks three years of Urban Phantasy, and this post is number 100.  Neat, right?  There have been some changes here, and a lot of changes for me since I started writing on this blog.  I started out writing here as an assignment in one of my classes at college during my Junior year, and I’ve kept it up semi-regularly since then largely as a challenge to myself.  In that time, I’ve graduated from college and moved twice, the second time going clear across the country.

I had some ideas for what to devote my 100th post to, and I will get to those, but then I learned that Duotrope’s Digest is going to a subscription model in 2013.  You can read the full announcement straight from the source right here.

I was first told about Duotrope about four years ago and have been using them ever since.  In fact, I was told about the site by the same professor who taught the class where I started this blog.  (You can follow her blog here.)  It’s a valuable resource to writers of fiction, poetry, and, as of this past year, non-fiction, offering a searchable database of thousands of writing markets.  More valuable than that, though, is their submissions tracker, which does what it sounds like, but also offers statistics on acceptances, rejections, re-write requests, and response times for every market.  Since the website was launched, all of these services were offered for free and without ads, though there was a donation button, and every page showed information about how the site’s operating budget was doing for the month.  In all the time that I’ve been a Duotrope user, I don’t think the site’s ever been in the black.

If this were a perfect world, everyone with the means would donate based on what Duotrope was worth to them.  I’ve always donated when I felt I could, and I’ve donated more regularly since I got a steady job, but I’m in a very small minority of Duotrope users who do actually donate.  It’s like public radio, only without Carl Kasell.

How do I feel about this?  Mixed.  As a writer, I’ve come to rely on Duotrope’s Digest–it’s a modern-day version of Writer’s Digest that I can access from anywhere–and it’s something that I can easily fit into my budget.  For a year’s access to all of the site’s features, it’s $50, or if you want to go monthly, it’s $5/month–a few dollars more a month than a subscription to Clarkesworld.  That’s something I don’t even feel the need to justify over the course of a year.  At the same time, I do worry that going to a subscription model could hurt the service–part of the strength of Duotrope is its huge user-base, all of whom help to improve the statistics available.  By excluding people who aren’t willing to pay, the statistics are likely to get skewed somewhat, though I don’t know in which direction.  (As Duotrope already notes, rejections are under-reported, so the statistics for most markets skew towards acceptances.)

Whatever the effect is on Duotrope’s user-base, I’m glad that they’re making a move that will allow them to survive financially.  Whether or not every current user decides to subscribe, I think it’s good that this move will make people ask themselves what this service is worth to them, and that’s a question that should be asked more often, whether the service in question is Duotrope’s Digest or Google or anything else that we too-often take for granted.

Remember, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.