Two More Things

[mrissa]

Two things I've been meaning to say and forgotten until just now:

1) Some idiot drive-by posting in the Making Light comments reminded me once again how grateful I am to hang out with geeks. In my social circles, if I said, "I will not always be in my twenties, and I may not always be this thin," people would hear this as a statement of obvious and somewhat boring fact, and they would wait for me to get to the interesting bit, if indeed there was one. They would not hear it as mourning for some great tragedy. This is a good, good, reasonable, good thing.

2) I can't decide whether I'm in mild disagreement or violent agreement with matociquala here. She's talking about using everything up in your story, not trying to save anything for the swim back, to take the "Gattaca" approach to writing, and I can't decide whether my reaction is "yes but" or "yes and." What I'm talking around here is: I really, really like it when I have the sense that other interesting things are going on in the world of the book. That the author is telling this story because it's an interesting story, not because it's the only interesting story available. Even in an epic-sized work -- perhaps especially in an epic-sized work -- I want the sense of things going on just off the map, just out of the corner of our eye, that are equally interesting. I don't want pointless futurism, like the person who suggested that my characters in a far-future SF story shouldn't eat salads because it would be more SFnal if they had vitamin pills. (Salads are good. I like salads.) But I do want other things to be moving and shaking beyond my movers and shakers. Sometimes the author can go back and tell those stories, too. Sometimes they'll remain forever out of our reach. But I want them to exist, and if the author does tell those stories, too, I want them to imply additional stories.

Regardless of where this falls in regard to Bear's using-stuff-up idea, I think this is Anti-Mary-Sueism. A Sue is the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the most fascinating. I'm good with someone who is "merely" beautiful, brilliant, and/or fascinating; it's okay if other people are, too.

Oh, crud. This is just my dislike of total orderings rearing its head again. Well, never mind, then; as you were.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I think there are always more stories. "There are eight million stories in the naked city. And since the population has fallen to seven million, there's a lot of people with multiple personalities."

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Last census had us back to 8 million, as I recall.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

There are 8 million stories in the naked city, and 23 million in the greater naked metropolitan area.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That is fabulous.

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew where the original idea of "the naked city" came from. Is it a quote from something?

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

I think I lean toward the this is one interesting story and the one I'm telling now approach, but I also like the hint that more exists.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

So do I. I want the characters to exist before and after the story I'm reading, and the world, too.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* Aha, and see, that's something I wasn't even considering, because as far as I'm concerned, most mature stories do slop off the edge of the page. Because you can't get everything in a book.

But when I talk about using it up, mostly I'm talking about not inserting filler to stretch things out. Yank out the padding, in other words. But on the other hand roughage (as you note) is essential to a healthy diet.

There's a difference between the egg and bread crumbs that make a meatload stick together, though, and the cellulose in a McDonald's hamburger.

If that makes any sense?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It does make sense, but I wouldn't have thought of padding at all in the context of what you said.

There are a lot of not-very-mature stories published, unfortunately.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yes. There are. *g* I've published some of them....

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

For me, building in the hints and gothic curlicues and throwaways is an essential part of not-holding-back. Because the things that aren't quite part of the story are the things I'm most likely to try to hoard, and that's futile.

I'm not saying that very well. For me, part of telling the story to the best of my ability and with no holds barred is salting it with these hints of other stories. I won't tell the story with the same passion if I'm constantly censoring myself from tangents. Stories throw off sparks, and extinguishing the sparks tends to put the story out. That may just be my brain, and I'm still not explaining it very well.

I know exactly what I mean; I just can't say it.

The throwaways are also the good bits. Maybe that's it.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

The throwaways are also the good bits. Maybe that's it.

Of course they are. *g*

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

What about when they're not exactly throwaways but explicit "But that is another story"s? Like in Tolkien?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I'm all right with those, but sometimes they annoy the shit out of me. I also hate heavy-foreshadowing phrases like, "If she had only known then...."

[flewellyn.livejournal.com]

I really agree with you. This is one reason I loved Lord of the Rings: the world is so much bigger than the story, and you know (because it's talked about) that Other Stuff happened, and it was also Significant. Significant enough to warrant Capital Letters, sometimes.

And as for "pills for food" in sci-fi...why the hell did anybody ever think this was a good idea? Sure, I can see maybe making a case for it on a space mission using primitive (by sci-fi standards) technology, where you have to save every possible gram of mass and every possible cubic centimeter of space. But on planets? Nobody wants to eat pills. Humans are a species of animal, and every animal likes to eat FOOD, dammit! A few hundred years of technology will not erase half a billion years of evolution. This must be one of those ideas from the sci-fi of the 1950s, when "futuristic" meant "Nature? There is no nature here!" (Yet, even though they envisioned a future in which robots, fancy physics, and powerful chemistry had all but eliminated human need, they still couldn't envision a future in which women were anything but secretaries and housewives, wearing ridiculous dresses and "yes, dear"ing all the time.)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I think matociquala's response probably already covered it, but I read her injunction as being not to try to keep one's own energy in reserve. Not to say, "I don't want to use all my good lines in this book and have nothing left for the sequel!" To do all the cool things you've thought of that you think you want to do someday, somewhere - right now (if they fit). Not to mete out your inspiration carefully out of some misguided idea that the total in your life is some fixed amount. Rather, the more it's emptied, the better it refills. In other words, that 'do everything' is about the writer's capacity, not about the story's extent.

Orrrrr I could be wrong. :) But that's how I read it.

And, regarding your first point - ohmygodyes.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on the 'pills for food' topic - I take as a given that anything I explored extensively in seventh grade REALLY doesn't need to be in published fiction.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Umm. I can see where some SF cliches can be reused to good effect -- I'm interested in seeing what scalzi does with that magazine issue. But peppering otherwise-unrelated stories with Rosie the Robot Maid just to make sure people know it's in the future? Meh. Meh, I say!

[callunav.livejournal.com]

You sound like a goat.

That's a good thing.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Regarding the first: many years ago--I think I was about 30 at the time--someone in an SF apa was lamenting how soon she would be 30 and no longer "young and pretty." She was seriously carrying on as if the good part of her life would be effectively over--and some other women agreed with her. I was appalled. Horrified. If intelligent women who hung around fandom had bought into this, what hope was there for society in general?

As I say, that was nearly 30 years ago. The more things change ...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

When I was 17, a young man who wanted to date me was explaining to me that women peaked at 19, so he was really looking forward to seeing how I looked in another couple of years.

I did not date him.

For his sake, I sincerely hope he's changed his mind by now. About the peaking thing, I mean, although he was on campus to see how I looked at 19, so bully for him if it was really a Thing for him.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

In my social circles, if I said, "I will not always be in my twenties, and I may not always be this thin," people would hear this as a statement of obvious and somewhat boring fact, and they would wait for me to get to the interesting bit, if indeed there was one. They would not hear it as mourning for some great tragedy. This is a good, good, reasonable, good thing.

Occasionally I end up in some situation that requires me to interact with people outside the "good, good, reasonable good" circles and inevitably they become convinced that I am very vain. I'm not angsting over my wrinkles and weeping for my lost youth, therefore I must be full of conceit. Okay, they got me, but my conceit is based on how much smarter and happier I am. {Big Evil Grin}.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's one of the annoying traps that in many circles women can either be vain or angsty -- no other choice like "content" or "focused on something else." It's a dumb, self-destructive rule.