At this past weekend’s Philadelphia Writer’s Conference, I described myself as primarily a writer of ‘speculative fiction’. A few people asked me what I meant. There are some stereotypes that I think are assigned to areas of speculative fiction I’d like to dispel, and more depth in those stories when they’re done well than some might give them credit for. So let’s explore this a bit, shall we?
What Spec Fic Isn’t
Speculative fiction is not its setting. Science fiction, for example, is not just about spaceships and ray guns. It’s more about themes and methods of exploration regarding those themes than window dressing. The bits of speculative fiction that put it in those genres are the frosting on the cake, the chocolate around a Twix. There needs to be something under that frosting, inside that Twix, or it’ll be insubstantial. It might be sweet and you might find some people who are willing to eat that frosting neat from the container, but most people will want something with a bit more to it.
Joe McGee’s Six Guns and Shadows is a good example of this. It’s what I’d call a “paranormal Western.” It’s neither all about witches & warlocks, nor all about saloons and cowboys. It mixes those two and lays them on top of character exploration and theme. Now, it might be able to get by in some circles on the unique aesthetic alone, but without Lily having some depth and themes of self-acceptance and the preservation of tradition – which I assume is what he’s working on with the Moonstone – it might as well be a Jonah Hex knock-off or something. But Joe’s a smart guy and a cool cat. Witchslinger‘s going to kick ass.
What Spec Fic Is
In addition to being about something, having an emotional core as Chuck would say, speculative fiction lets a writer tackle issues, debates and controversies in a ‘safe’ environment. Heinlein wanted to discuss the romanticism of death and the dangerous allure of militarism, so he wrote Starship Troopers. H.G. Wells was concerned by an ever-widening gap between the elite and the working class, and penned The Time Machine. Jules Verne had ideas about exploration and politics that might have been a touch controversial for his time, and poured those notions into Captain Nemo when he created 20000 Leagues Under The Sea. J.R.R. Tolkien was worried that the lessons of the hard-fought wars that encompassed the world might be forgotten, and ensured they’d be preserved by writing The Lord of the Rings. C.S. Lewis re-imagined things he’d come to appreciate within The Chronicles of Narnia.
I think I’m belaboring my point a bit, but the “speculative” part of speculative fiction doesn’t just mean speculation on how things might be in the future or on another world or against a certain antagonist. They’re also places allowing for speculation on human nature, politics, religion, sustainability, you name it. So, want to discuss the neo-conservative movement but afraid of Glenn Beck calling you a Nazi or Rush accusing you of hating freedom? Set the discussion in space.
Now, settings do vary but fall into common groups – science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, etc. I’m willing to elaborate on those more, but the point I’m getting at is that they all share the desire of an author to try something new and interesting while exploring relevant themes in a ‘safe’ way. I’ll discuss these things more at length in the future.
Not because the idea of establishing a theme for the novel is disinteresting to me, no. I just didn’t want to define a theme and then get preachy about it. I don’t want this to be the kind of story where I decide my theme is “man’s inability to coexist with nature in his quest for lucrative resources” and have the bad guys blast giant trees to bits while sipping coffee and contemplating “shock and awe.”
Okay, all right, enough ragging on Avatar, it was a good movie that is undercut by some crappy story choices and it really isn’t relevant to what I now find myself needing to do.
You see, if someone were to ask me what ‘Citizen in the Wilds’ is about, I’d be at a loss. My impulse would be to launch into a plot synopsis, and that’d bore a potential reader or, worse, potential agent to tears. I certainly don’t want to do that at the upcoming Writer’s Conference in Philly when I’m asked what I’m furiously trying to finish. So let’s see if we can’t nail down a theme, an answer to the question.
The question, as referenced, is “What’s this about?” The question is not, “Who is this about?” I have a protagonist and he’s following an arc that, one or two elements aside, is a pretty archetypal one. I don’t own a copy of “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” even though I probably should, but I’ve read and seen enough of these journeys to know what makes a good one and a bad one. Luke Skywalker, Frodo Baggins, Alex Rogan, John McClaine and Marty McFly instantly come to mind.
So, just like a plot synopsis, describing how my protagonist starts out, how his circumstances change, when he hits his lowest point and how he manages to overcome the odds is kind of dull in the overarching sense. Besides, as much as I’m trying craft strong, deep characters, the story can’t just be about them. If it were, I’d be guilty of the problem that affects some of BioWare’s games – great characters existing in a lackluster story.
Peter Parker goes through a bit of a hero’s journey in his origin story, and learns the lesson “With great power comes great responsibility.” I like that lesson, and it certainly applies as a theme to the project at hand. However, is the story really about that? Sure, a lot of the conflict comes from the grand high poobahs of one of the races not using their power & influence responsibly, but that feels more like an impetus for the story to move forward and have tension, rather than what the story is ultimately about. However, I might be on to something with the web-head, here.
Peter has to grow up.
Part of that whole using superpowers responsibly thing involves moving upward from the childlike awe of getting those powers in the first place to realizing how those powers should be used. It’s a lesson that my protagonist learns in a very jarring way, as the use of his magic in the beginning of the story would be a quick way to get himself killed, but as the story goes on and more facts come to light about where he came from, he realizes that his people need to learn a bit about responsibility themselves. The wide-eyed and naive apprentice becomes a dedicated and seasoned teacher. But are people going to be willing to listen to him? How badly have their previous lessons changed their perspective so that any facts he brings to light seem like lies?
Allegories, metaphors and soapbox moments aside, I think I’ve found my theme.
What’s it about?
This is about people learning to use their abilities responsibly, and what happens when they refuse to learn that lesson.
Right. Back to writing about dwarven caverns, forbidden knowledge and turning giant cave-spiders into shishkabobs with stalagmites or melting them with the sudden appearance of magma.
Some of the best stories out there are simple stories that are well-told. A straightforward plot doesn’t necessarily make for a bad escapist experience, if there are elements of that plot that transcend its simplicity. Take District 9, for example. Aliens come to Earth in bad shape and they’re exploited by corporate douchebags. Simple, right? Yet that story is so well told, expertly executed and subtle in its soapbox moments that the simplicity of the story can be completely ignored. How about Daybreakers? Alternative energy sources are good things, we get that, but the point is made without distracting from the fact that the lack of energy in that film’s characters causes them to bite people’s throats open, and getting Willem Dafoe in a 1978 Firebird Trans Am with an arsenal of crossbows to go after cannibalistic bat-monsters is so cool I don’t care what soapbox he’s standing on.
Avatar is no District 9. Avater is no Daybreakers. Without its stunning visuals, embarrassingly good hero cast and the word of mouth given by legions of fans whose eyes were short-circuited thanks to the insidiousness of 3-D, this film wouldn’t have a blue spindly leg to stand on.
Avatar introduces us to Jake Sully, the reluctant brother of a scientist who was gunned down in a back alley mugging. Jake’s brother, a twin, was part of the research team interested in making contact and establishing relations with the native population of Pandora, a moon 6 or so light-years from Earth. Earth has become something of a strip-mined deforested smog-covered pipe-dream-of-the-military-industrial-complex wasteland, and humanity is hungry for more resources. Luckily, Pandora is home not only to a thriving, vibrant, nature-conscious sentient race of ten-foot-tall aboriginal blue feline humanoids called the Na’vi but also a universal powers-anything totally-not-an-allegory-for-oil mineral called Unobtainium. In order to mine their MacGuffinium, the corporation in charge needs to move the Na’vi off of rich deposits. Jake’s brother was part of the Avatar program, designed to reach a diplomatic solution. Right behind them, though, are butch manly gun-happy violence-for-pleasure-seeking beer-swilling cigar-chomping Americans. Okay, they’re probably not ALL Americans, but I think you can see where I’m going with this.
Anyway, Jake’s a paraplegic and he’s told that if he helps get the Na’vi to abandon their homes that sit on top of the Plotdevicium, they’ll pay for the spinal operation to restore function to his legs. Unfortunately, somebody’s been looking at way too much shiny Plotconveniencium because they didn’t realize that an avatar, a genetically grown artificial body composed of both human and Na’vi DNA, not only gives Jake his legs but also enhanced senses, a USB interface with the world’s wildlife and, oh yeah, makes him a ten foot tall warrior crystal dragon Jesus. Nice work there, guys.
“Sam, go over there and emote. I’ll stay back here and think about how much money this movie’s gonna make me.”
Before I get to what bugs me about the film, let’s talk about what works in it. The visuals, as I’ve said, are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The eco-system of Pandora is designed to take one’s breath away, and it certainly does do that job. There’s an organic feeling to everything that belongs on Pandora. By the same token, the sense one gets from the human contraptions, from the modular buildings to the badass fighting mechs, is that these were welded or hammered together by human hands, not assembled in a graphics program on $300 million’s worth of computers.
The other really good thing about Avatar is the cast. I’m not just talking about Sam Worthington, who’s quickly becoming someone I really enjoy seeing on screen but needs to stop attempting an American accent, or Sigorney Weaver, who’s right at home being in a film like this. (Oh, and side note, thank you James Cameron for putting Michelle Rodriguez in Na’vi war paint. Rawr.) No, the Na’vi themselves are rendered beautifully. Now, I know they were pretty much designed to be appealing to a human audience in an aesthetic, emotional and sexual way, but that doesn’t stop the end result from being impressive. I think it was pretty clear from the outset that if the Na’vi and their world didn’t truly come to life, even on the flat screen upon which I saw it to say nothing of 3-D, the whole opera’d fall apart. Thankfully, Pandora and it’s flora and fauna do pull you in, and the scenes in the lush, luminous forests are some of the most immersive I’ve seen in quite some time.
This guy’s evil. You can tell because he drinks coffee while burning down trees.
But just like the fist of an angry corporate-funded gung-ho jarhead trying to punch his way to a deposit of Bullshitium, the illusion of Pandora’s perfection is shattered by so many bad story elements it’s difficult to say where one should begin. There is no way in hell this operation should run the way it does. Too many military and money-grubbing types are at the top while the scientists who might actually have a clue as to what humanity has stumbled across are treated like a nuisance rather than an asset. If it weren’t for the fact that these bozos exist for the same reason Adhominemium does, it’d be completely incomprehensible how these clowns even got off of Earth, let alone ended up in nominal control of Pandora. But James Cameron has a point to make here, and as much as he spared no expense bringing his vision to life, he pulls no punches in letting us know exactly what he’s trying to say, about whom and why it’s bad. Those bombs in the back of the shuttle in the film’s climax might as well be goddamn anvils.
The villains’ aren’t just evil for evil’s sake. Oh, no. They’re evil for America’s sake. Beyond the obvious “respect for nature” message and other aspects of the story discussed to death elsewhere in other reviews, parodies, tired internet memes and episodes of South Park, Avatar does everything within its power to underscore the major flaws in the neo-conservative movement. The villains see the worlds before them in black and white, foster a strong “us versus them” mentality, disregard a multilateral approach to solving their problems and opt instead for military intervention in the extreme. I’d say that the corporate stooges were Germans and the Na’vi Polish Jews, if it weren’t clear Cameron were going after Bush-era Americans instead of Nazis. Hell, at one point, Colonel George Herbert Walker Whatever-The-Hell-His-Name-Is uses the words “shock and awe” when discussing his pre-emptive war. It’s clear that James Cameron is underscoring the evils of deforestation and corporate greed. But hey, these are Americans we’re talking about, and they on the whole really don’t give a shit. Deforestation is only something that happens in other countries that didn’t have the good fortune to be America, and Americans love themselves some corporate greed. Just look at how our banks and real estate markets are set up.
“So wait, there’s no civilian oversight and your career military men are basically mercenaries? Come here, let me teach you the Na’vi word for ‘Bullshit’.”
The interplanetary love story is a bit trite, but it works because it’s well-acted. We do feel something is at stake during the action sequences and they’re not confusing at all, being well-shot and choreographed, but the messages that drive the action are so obvious and ham-handed you can hear the bacon sizzling when the Hometree burns. All in all, there’s stuff to like in Avatar and it’s worth seeing for the visuals and sweeping sci-fi/fantasy warfare that honestly rivals some of the set pieces in Lord of the Rings. So put it on your Netflix queue.
Oh, and don’t worry about not seeing it in 3-D. Let’s face it, 3-D’s a fad. It was a fad back in the 50s and it’s a fad right now, people are just a bit thicker than they were back then so it’ll take somewhat longer for the fad to go away this time. I mean, look at the way some people reacted to Avatar. Other than the immediate declaration that it is THE BEST MOVIE EVER and dumping piles of money and adoration on James Cameron, who probably can’t get it up unless he’s contemplating how fucking brilliant he is, some people actually fell into suicidal depression when they beheld the landscape of Pandora and had to be told it’s not real. I was personally reminded of some of the vistas from games like Aion and World of Warcraft, which makes me a pretty massive nerd in case that wasn’t clearly obvious. While I could see a lot of the flaws in this movie – I didn’t even mention the weird application of physics on Pandora, what with floating mountains and “low gravity” that operates just like Earth’s gravity – I still enjoyed it, which I guess means I’m powered by just as much Retardium as anybody else.
Spotting the flaws, though, and calling them out without mentioning all of the other films Avatar plundered like Doctor Frankenstein in a graveyard looking for fresh parts, probably means my internal derp furnace is running a bit low.
Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.
Trains are pretty amazing, when you think about it.
You’ve got several tons of steel on a couple of rails, and be it through steam power or electricity, this monstrosity of metal can speed along at quite a good clip. It carries quite a few people from one place to another, more directly than some other means of transportation, isn’t as costly as air travel and, in the case of electrics, is better for the environment. Back in the days of the coal-powered locomotive, getting a decent pace going required building up what was called ‘a good head of steam.’
I feel like I’m doing that with the novel.
I have a little notebook from the Writer’s Museum in Edinburgh, and it’s slowly getting filled with the ongoing adventures of Asherian and his friends. I’m currently tearing through one of the action scenes in the story, down in the dark dwarven tunnels. Character and world building has proceeded better than I thought it would so far, and hopefully the fact that none of it has felt boring to write will mean it’s not boring to read, either.
It’s due in no small part to this train, right here.
Even if I don’t transcribe my jotted narrative scribbles right away, I still have that big of internal knowledge that I’m writing every day, making progress. As the train pulls into the station, I’m building characters. As it hurtles along to its destination, I’m debating the morality of and impetus for open warefare. The train takes on more passengers as I describe subterranian spiders and the efforts of Asherian and his companions to stay alive and uneaten. It’s a lot more than I ever got done with my commute while sitting in traffic.
I hope i can keep the head of steam up for the foreseeable future. It’d be nice to finish the first draft before the Philly Writer’s Conference in June.
While I’m busy moving myself and my Canadian half into our swank new Lansdale pad, here are some thoughts I’ve had recently concerning what was lately called “The Project”. I’d originally planned this out as a trilogy of stories to introduce the world, build up some of its history and cultures, and do my utmost to tell a few damn good stories while I’m doing that boring stuff at the same time.
The first novel in the arc will introduce the Cities of Light, the different systems of & viewpoints on magic, and how some of the other races have gotten on since the major catastrophe that happened in that part of the world. The next major story entry would take readers across the ocean to other settlements of humans, bring out some of the religions of the world and set up the dire circumstances that cause the events of the third novel. The initial story arc concludes with a globe-trotting world-threatening race-against-time sort of deal.
Now, this may seem like a typical trilogy, but I don’t think the stories need to end with the conclusion of the third novel. Descendants may run into future problems and allegiances or outlooks may shift over time. It’ll depend mostly on how much interest is actually garnered in my writings, if any at all comes my way, but I don’t want to necessarily limit myself to just three books in this world after investing a great deal of time & energy into its creation. So it may go transmedia, more books may get written, maybe there’ll be puppet shows or something. I can’t say.
Anyway, since the first three books will have a guy named Asherian as the protagonist, I figured the titles should reflect his central role. “Citizen in the Wilds” follows Asherian as the ‘spell’ of the Cities is broken and he struggles to survive in the inhospitable world beyond the battlements that surround them. “Alchemist at Sea” will have him going over oceans for a variety of reasons. And “Ambassador at War” should be pretty self-explanatory.
This is how things will get started, if I can get the first novel off the ground. Which, considering the epiphany I had Thursday night, is actually looking more likely.
“God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. That’s flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.” – Robert McKee (Brian Cox), Adaptation.
Originally the first novel was going to be named “Asherian’s Journal,” with subsequent titles starting with “Asherian’s” in ending in another capitalized noun. “Hey, it works for Jacqueline Carey, right?” was my thought. Then, hearing Brian Cox bellow out the preceding, it hit me like a half-brick to the face. Asherian writing in his journal between most chapters is the prose equivalent of a voice-over. Now, the character in the film is kind of taking the piss out of the film he’s in, since there’s a lot of voice-over narration that actually works, but I took his words to heart and cut some of mine out of the novel. We should be focused on Asherian, not necessarily shifting from an observer’s perspective to lengthy bits of his internal monologue and back again. It’s flow-breaking, shoddy and shallow, bordering on self-insertion.
It was a hold-over idea from when I first started this with Asherian as my protagonist, as a way to tell the reader more about his mentality and his view of the Cities of Light. But that’s what his communication with his sister is for. She talks with him through dreams and visions, and she shapes the forum in which they speak. Right there is all the in-world excuse I need to show the Cities of Light and how these twins see them, not to mention how that view shifts as the story goes on.
So down went the journal entries with a boot in the ass, followed by the Mozambique Drill. Pop, pop. BLAM.
Hopefully with that out of the way, I can get back on track with a daily word count of a thousand or more, since I dropped my projected total words for Citizen in the Wilds to 100k. Here’s why.
Anyway, there’ll be writing happening this weekend. Maybe after we unpack a bit.
