Five Things, most of them Fourth Street

[mrissa]

1. Before I wandered off to the con, I read a link from somebody else's journal to this Powell's blog entry called "No One In Romance Novels Is Ever Fat." It reminded me of something that worries me when I run into it: every once in awhile I hear writer friends who are more visual than I am talking about casting their current story or book projects with Hollywood actors.

And I think, don't we hand over enough of our visual imagination to Hollywood already, without handing them a piece of control over what is not a visual medium, or at least not in the same way? Of course one obvious (or at least obvious in my social circles) concern is a dearth of actors from ethnic minorities. It's bad enough that there aren't more Asian characters on Eureka. But prose writers can't let that lack keep going into their stories, where you can't have more than a token Asian character because you can only name two Asian actors who could play them. It's not just obvious ethnic minorities, either. I was pleased by Season 2 of The Wire but also completely knocked over, because they got so many of the different visual types of Polish-American you run into if you live in a heavily Polish-American area. Not just the Sobotka family members (all of them, oh perfect casting), but also Horseface and Maui and random guys in the background on the docks and at the bars: none of them looked alike. They all looked right. And Horse, in particular, is a guy I saw four or five of just at my mom's cousin's family events when I was a kid (the said cousin married a Polish-American fella)--none of the faces exactly alike, all interesting--and never, ever see on TV or in movies.

And no, you don't want every character to look like Horseface Pakusa from The Wire. Obviously. But there is a certain sameness, a certain smoothing out of variation, among Hollywood actors, and I don't see why we should settle for that in our inspiration to prose. If you're one of those writers who wants visual cues for character description, please please consider looking at photo websites like The Big Picture, where even their recent dance entry has professionals and non-professionals in a dozen styles of dance from all over the world. The focus of these photos is to be interesting rather than to conform to a particular look of person. In other entries are people dealing with war, natural disaster, and political strife--interesting faces in interesting times. Which is what we want in fiction, isn't it?

2. I had a really good weekend at Fourth Street. I have notes in my journal and notes on PostIts and other stuff just floating around my head, and my library list and my Amazon list each grew by several items. I have come to consider, as a philosophical position, that it's a good thing about a con when I don't get to talk to everybody I want to talk to, or when I don't get to talk as much to everybody I do talk to as I'd liked; but in practical usage this does not actually translate to, "Oh, I'm so glad I didn't get more time talking to that particular friend or cordial acquaintance or new person." Funny thing, that. There'll be a few more opportunities this week, but still.

3. You know what I want to talk about on panels next year? Lots of stuff, in fact, but particularly Work In Fantasy, books that handle work particularly well, not just, "look, our main character is a writer/artist/musician/vaguely creative type, again, and it does not appear to be any kind of work for them." And sort of conversely, I'd like to do a Fun Bits of Writing or a Writing as Play or Recovering the Fun Parts panel sometime. And also maybe Geezers In Fantasy, because old people who are actual characters rather than types are striking me as frustratingly rare. And stuff.

4. I think the weather is trying to convince sheyrena and papersky that they should be pleased to leave Minneapolis. Sigh. This is not June in the Twin Cities! June in the Twin Cities is nice, and by nice I do not mean 80 F by 9:00 a.m. and rising! This is more like August, and nobody wants extra August! (Note: if you want extra August, please apply in the comments section to take mine. Thank you.)

5. I am at that stage of having too much to do where I'm sort of flailing out randomly and doing things that need doing when I smack into them. This is not perhaps optimal, but it also might be inevitable to the level of tired my brain is and the length of my to-do list.

Comments

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I sometimes do the casting thing because I'm not as visual, not where people's faces are concerned, and it helps to have a thing on which to hang my descriptive attempts. But I often look to TV shows as well as/instead of movies, because (soap operas aside) they tend to have a bigger range of people represented. Still definitely on the pretty end of things, of course, but not all cookie-cutter blandness -- Hollywood's notion of "pretty" frequently bores me.

I also have a crap-ton of people pictures saved to my computer, because every time I come across an image online that shows an interesting face, a face with personality and individuality while still being an ordinary person, I hang onto it. And sometimes that helps, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I still tend to think that the Concerned Parent Of the Week on one crime show looks very like the Villain they caught last week on another.

But yes, saving pictures you find interesting is good strategy.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

There are a great many generic people, yes. But I find it easier to also locate non-generic people.

Then again, it varies widely depending on the show.

[ckd]

Send some August; Boston is currently experiencing a rerun of March.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Ha! I have been saying to people, "This is fabulous weather! ...for April."

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I would very much like to hear that panel in #3. I've included a scene of a working artist, working, in my wip, and am so afraid that if/when I find an editor s/he'll make me cut it because watching someone do art is not 'action' enough for their readers.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It sounds--on very little data, of course--as though the right editor for this project is not going to be one who thinks that action always has to go crash and boom.

I am frequently wrong on a variety of topics, of course, and this may be one.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope this is an occasion on which you're right.

[aedifica]

And we even had a little bit of August in our May! I wonder who got our bits of May and June in return, and whether they'd be willing to share.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have a faint, faint hope that August got our bits of May and June in return, and we can pick them up when we get there.

[moiread]

The west coast, apparently! They had 19°C/66°F today, the lucky bastards.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

I will trade you your August and leave you our mid-60s-with-clouds beginning of June.

Glad you had a good time.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I would be overjoyed to have mid-60s-with clouds! Thanks, where should I ship the August to? And do you know any good references on how to pack a month for safe shipping, I've never done it before.

[moiread]

Let the rest of us know if you find out. My friends in Vancouver might be in for some surprise parcels. *halo*

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Would you like mine also? Plus June and July? Here is a recent example of what it looks like to do anything athletic in our weather (note the sweat-plastered hair):



I will take pretty much anything cooler in exchange. (Except that it would be nice if the typhoons would quit choosing weekends to visit.)

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry we didn't have more time to hang out, but holy crap was the whole thing excellent! There were so many people I wanted to spend time with!

Also? ICECREAMOMFGWTFBBQYESPLEASE.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do I ever lead you astray regarding ice cream? I mean, really.

[voidmonster.livejournal.com]

Well, ya know, there's only so high I'm willing to set my expectations regardless of the advance-praise...

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

I tend to "cast" books I read in my head, but they are often as not cast with people I know as famous people. I'm pretty sure Mercedes Lackey has never met Kendra, but that's what Beth Kentraine looks like. Eric Banyon is Forest, from high school. That's just who they are for me. Neither looks like a movie star but then, neither do those characters.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thinking of non-famous people is a goodness. I imagine that some people would be creeped out by having too many of their own friends and relations in their own writing, or would find that the guy who looked like Uncle Frank was behaving like Uncle Frank instead of like the character he was supposed to be. But in other people's fiction I'd think the directionality would work just fine if your brain supplied it in the first place.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

My problem with using people I know is that those people are the people they are, not the people in my head. They are already cast, as Kyle and Richa and Yuki and so on. They aren't available for other jobs.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

I haven't thought about 1. I've never cast someone famous as a character I've written. But most of my characters are based intensely on someone in my life -- not that they act that way or even necessarily look like that but that they, their them, is that person.

Nobody has recognized themselves, though. Except when it's blatant like they have the same name and the same job and the same height ...and then I just call it a memoir.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

It's not even a dearth of actors from other ethnicities, just plain not trying. Most of the channels I get on TV are local. There are enough Asian actors there (not just Chinese ethnicity, either - one of the most famous starlets here is from Japan) to fill out any plot you care to design. I'm sure this isn't the only country where that's true, and I can't believe a big-bdget Hollywood film couldn't afford to recruit internationally!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh indeed, I never meant to imply that only people from a narrow range of looks and/or ethnicities ever tried to have careers as actors.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I know you didn't mean it that way. I meant to say that Hollywood doesn't even have the excuse that the appropriate actors aren't available.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

I'll take your extra August. Could we arrange delivery for next January?

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I, personally, LOVE it when someone in sff pursues a craft.

And I especially love it when the author clearly has run this pursuit by people who actually do it, and so does not make silly mistakes.

I am a metalsmith, and also a cook, and would be thrilled to be consulted as to making fictional reps of such make sense. I'm sure i am not alone in this!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I should remember the metalsmith bit of this....