In Defense of Something I Didn't Really Like

I'm just going to put this out there:

Picking on 50 Shades is starting to feel like teasing the developmentally disadvantaged kid on the playground.

Look, is it great literature? Oh hell no. Twilight may have actually been better written, and that's saying a lot. (Yes, I've read them. At least enough to get a feel for them, anyway. Didn't finish either, in total honesty.) Then again, considering that was the source for the fanfic that was 50 Shades origin story - like Peter Parker before he got bit - it's also somehow not all that surprising. The plot was problematic in its essential glorification of an emotionally abusive relationship (not that it was original in this *cough*), and there are issues with how it portrays certain aspects of sexuality and even the mechanics of safe sex.

So yeah, it's a bad book, and yeah, it making the splash it did was the equivalent of hitting the lottery in terms of luck and timing.

I'm not saying it didn't deserve a certain amount of sarcastic disassembling, because it did.

But I'm starting to feel that we - and here "we" includes a number of people in the writing community that I talk to - that we're all busy patting ourselves on the back for how much more clever we are for mocking it. We sit around and we point and laugh and congratulate ourselves on understanding just how bad a book it was, as if somehow seeing the fifty car pile-up on the freeway is the equivalent of being a great mechanic. Myself included at times. Worst of all, the discussion often just waits to turn that mockery from the book itself to the people who read it and unironically liked it.

All of which misses one of the most salient points of the whole thing:

No matter how bad a book it was - and, again, it was - people read it. It entered the zeitgeist, and put erotica into that same mainstream sphere. And before anyone gripes that there was erotica before, sure, there was. How much of it got read publicly? Acknowledged publicly? Turned into a freaking movie with a section in Target??

If for nothing else than educating that section of older women - like one of my coworkers - that hey, there is actually more to sex than missionary and hey, there's nothing wrong with that - I think the book can be cut some slack.

Yet it feels like there's a curb stomp waiting to happen for anyone who speaks up and says they enjoyed it.

But people did read it. Droves of people. A lot of them enjoyed it, and not just desperate middle-aged divorcees who had to look up the terms in the dictionary (that would be my coworker). And if it opened their eyes to an entirely new genre (for them), then more power to it.

Where is it written that just because something becomes popular, that opens it up to even more disdain? Which I think is part of that whole "we're so much more clever" motif is coming into it. You're not allowed to like the book in certain circles. There must be something wrong with your judgement. Don't you know there's so many other better books out there?

Forgetting, I think, that a lot of what's popular is, in fact, not particularly sophisticated entertainment in the first place. Big Bang Theory, what few episodes I've managed to watch, seems about as accurate to geek culture as 50 Shades was to the BDSM community. Yet those same people who rail against the latter don't seem to have as much problem with the former. Moreover, popularity for a less well done thing can lead to increased exposure for things in that same vein that are better done.

"You liked that? Well, here, you should like this, and you might get a little more out of it."

Or even, "You liked that? Well, here, this is like a new and improved version of that. You should like it, too."

So I hope the movie does well.

I hope it gets mocked mercilessly, too. I still think the movie is begging for the MST3K treatment, though that speaks more to Hollywood than anything else. (Yes, I'm perfectly capable of holding two contrasting ideas about something.)

Yet I also hope that somewhere between there a conversation gets had about abusive relationships and why they get glorified so long as the guy is broody and "dark" and handsome and a conversation about all the better erotica out there. Because this is one of the things you can do with that piece of "bad" media. You can use it as a bridge to other things. You can talk about issues that sometimes get lost when something isn't labeled as "bad." Gone Girl is in many respects extremely problematic in terms of its own portrayal of abuse in relationships, yet no one really talked about that because everyone was busy oohing and ahhing over the artistic merits of first the book and then the film. Admittedly, 50 Shades doesn't have a whole lot of artistic merit, and maybe that can be a good thing.

Then when all of this is done, when it all blows over and we're on to the the next thing, good or bad, we can actually talk about whatever new issues that thing raises.

Once we're done with the sarcasm, of course.

Chasing a Symmetry of Feeling

I stumbled across a quote some time back. I bookmarked it, intending to write something on it, and finally came back to it. Only, now I no longer remember what I meant to say about it back in January.

The quote was: We wish for a symmetry of feeling, but we rarely get it. It is painful to be the one who loves more, and painful to be the one who loves less. I found it here which is a site that, among other things I think about it, I think could well someday save some modern English lit student's life when they fail to read the short story that was their homework assignment. (I also think if my English lit courses had been more like her blog, I'd have given my teachers less grief.)

As I said, I'm not sure what I meant to do with it, originally. If this were a different kind of blog, I could wax philosophical about my social life. Whereupon this would probably digress into a discussion of the wisdom of the Dread Pirate Roberts about life and pain, though it would end well enough because at heart I remain an incurable romantic, even if my head is committed to a life of cynicism.

However, this is not that kind of blog. And so, in pondering what I'd been pondering (I think so, Brain, but...) I came to the conclusion that as writers, especially genre writers, we have to often feel as if we're on either side of that equation, in a number of ways. There is that short story or novel that you, as the write, adore, but yet which does not seem able to find a home. Or conversely, that piece of work that all your betas rave about, but which you yourself are never quite happy with. I think we all fall along that spectrum, somewhere, with at least something we've written.

There is also the difficulty of the market itself. We can write what we love, and watch as the market passes us by in favor of whatever's trendy. (For the record, I was writing about vampires long before anyone other than Anne Rice was making big money off of them. Although I don't think vampires are ever going to be completely out of fashion.)  You can stick to your guns, knowing that these things tend to be cyclical - how long can zombies last, after all - or you can attempt to go with the flow, in which case by the time you have something written the moment may pass. These things, like love, can be fickle.

We are constantly chasing that symmetry, that moment when what we write lines up with what's in demand. A fellow writer was lamenting the lack of good werewolf stories (which, in no small irony, the good ones seem to be cropping up in the literary section), in particular because I think he has a story or two on werewolves sitting on his hard drive.

Which brings us to the inherent dichotomy here that, as genre writers, we are often in both positions at once. We cling to our vampires even as zombies shuffle into first place, knowing that zombies just don't quite do it for us even if they are selling. We love what we love, and sometimes that means we're left waiting for it to come around again, if it does so at all.

The bright spot in all this is that, unlike in relationships, as writers, if we are any good, we can sometimes pull ourselves out of this. There is little you can do in a relationship when she's moved on, even if you haven't (I say "she" solely because I am a "he"), but when it comes to writing, if you're good enough, sometimes the story sells anyway.

Sometimes you get to make your own symmetry.

Adventures in Kidlit

I've been reading a lot more children's books these days. Only that's not the right term for them anymore, is it? Now they are all either Young Adult (YA) or Middle Grade (MG) - though I suppose the readers of YA would object to my referencing them as children's books, and they'd have a point. These are not the books I grew up with. In fact, looking back, I don't think there was much like this at all when I was growing up.

(For those of you in the younger generations, yes, this is going to be somewhat of a "back in my day" post. You've been warned.)

I'm reading a lot more of these books because I read to my daughter, who at 8 years old has still not yet outgrown wanting Dad to read her stories. She still enjoys picture books, but started reading chapter books a couple of years ago, so we started doing longer books when we read. I managed to get through all the traditional standards I could think of: Dorothy and Alice, Pooh and Rat and Mole, even some Dahl and Kipling. And then my ideas dried up.

I consulted some people (by which I mean the good folks over at the AbsoluteWrite forums), and was able to come up with a list of titles.

All of which have turned out to be a lot more sophisticated than the books written "for kids" back in my day. This does not include any of the above named books and authors, of course, as they were around back then, too. I'm not quite so old that Dahl hadn't written about Charlie yet, not quite so old at all. But, back then, that was pretty much the lot of it, as I remember.

Oh, there were all the Newbery medal winners, but they mostly tend to be more grounded, more realistic books, and as we all know they tend to end on a depressing note or else, for the most part, they don't seem to get a Newbery. (The good folks at TVTropes can back me up on this. They could be renamed the Newbury for as many of them which have ended in death.) In terms of fantasy or science fiction.... well, it was pretty limited. There was Lloyd Alexander's Taran series, and there were the Narnia books, which I confess I have never read, and Ursula Le Guin, and then... well then the pickings got thin.

By the time I hit sixth grade, I was out of books at my school and local library, and had begun moving on to Tolkien and Herbert and Clarke. There simply wasn't a choice. The middle ground between picture books and "adult" books was narrow ground, and you skipped over rather quickly. Now, when I go the library to pick out what I'm going to read to my daughter next, I'm almost overwhelmed with choices.

Good choices, too. A lot of these books are far more sophisticated and well-written than I would have ever given them credit for. They are exciting, and often funny, and best of all they don't condescend. Not all are great. My daughter wanted to try a particular series that seems mostly the product of a book mill while it pretends to be Watership Down with different animals, and despite it being aimed at her tastes, she couldn't get into it. After reading a bit of it myself, I understood why.

But most of them are good, and more importantly there is such a vast array of genres in the MG and YA that if my daughter gets momentarily tired of a certain genre - as she did with the "spooky" books we were reading, some of which were a lot creepier than I'd have thought kid's books would/should be - we can move on to other genres until she's in the mood again.

Most importantly, aside from giving me plenty of titles to choose from for as long as she continues to let me read to her, it has made her a more diverse reader than I ever was at her age. A diversity that I hope will serve her well in her appreciation for new things in other fields.

Now if I can just convince her there's more to music than Pop and Country....

Serious Fiction

I attended a conference some time back. A small, more or less regional affair on the outskirts of Baltimore, I went because it was close enough to get to on a budget (by car, in other words) and for some of the ancillary benefits that come from a trip to the greater Baltimore/D.C. area. Also, I needed a mini-vacation. More on that some other time.

It was a good conference, and worth the drive for sure. It was the first writing conference I've been to, and I know I didn't get as much out of it as I could have since I wasn't able to do as many workshops as I wanted to. Those will have to wait for the next conference. There was only a small crowd there, which helped give it a more intimate feel. If I was going to compare it to something, it was like a first date of writing conferences: nothing too fancy, mostly low-key, and mainly a way to see if this was something I'd want to do again.

It is, though next time I will attend one more genre-specific, just to contrast. That said, like a lot of first dates, there was the inevitable misstep. That moment where your date says something, and you just know it's over. Maybe you'll give them another chance, maybe not, but you're essentially tuning out the rest of the conversation in favor of contemplating the dessert menu. (Of course, I've been on the other side of that too, though usually you don't realize that until you get home. Unless it's a really good dessert menu.)

In this instance, it was one of the speakers. Not the key-note speaker, she was a well-known author and her speech and reading were spot-on. No, this was one of the warm-up acts. I tuned him out, more or less, the moment he uttered the phrase “serious writer” and meant it as a stand-in for all those writers who do not write genre fiction. This is not a case of my being overly sensitive, a quick to take offense against the literary establishment hack genre writer – though I proudly admit to being a hack genre writer. The speaker was quite clear in laying out exactly what he meant by the term... and then proceeded to continue using it.

It would have irked me less if he'd said “serious fiction” or even “serious writing.” I take less issue with those, as I have heard any number of popular genre authors freely admit – albeit somewhat self-deprecatingly – that they do not engage in serious writing. I imagine that comes with a bit more freedom, and a bit more enjoyment on their end than when they do attempt serious writing. (Stephen King, for example, writes very well on baseball, even if he is a Red Sox fan.)

This is not to say that more literary writers don't enjoy what they do, too. I suspect they wouldn't do so otherwise. This is, however, an argument that they do not deserve the term of “serious writer” to the exclusion of non-literary writers. All of the successful authors I know or know of tend to take it pretty seriously. They have to, as this is how they earn a living after all. If they didn't take it seriously they could well be stuck having to work a regular office job, or worse, and frankly one of the reasons we all write is so we don't have to do those things.

(There are exceptions, of course.)

I would make the argument that anyone who keeps at it, makes a concerted effort, day in and day out, to get words down, stories out (or poems, or plays, or whatever) and does so even knowing the odds against success and despite the sheer volume of rejections that come as payment for every sale, no matter how small, is, by definition, a serious writer. And this is regardless of what they write. I cannot, for the life of me, take the whole sparkly vampire thing seriously, and many of the arguments against them and their creator are legitimate ones, but I would never suggest Stephanie Meyer is not a “serious writer” no matter how much she tried to suggest otherwise in the interview I heard her give some years back.

A concept which, no doubt, would have caused the speaker's skin to crawl, and why I was left metaphorically contemplating the cheese cake.

Real Life Fiction

I read a little bit of everything. And I do mean everything. I've been known to read a romance novel or two, even. (Admittedly, one of those two was accidental, as I had no idea it was romance when I ordered it off of Amazon.) I run through phases where I read poetry or non-fiction or philosophy, and while those often coincide with there being nothing new from my favorite authors in my local library, sometimes I'm just in the mood.

The one thing I tend not to read much of is "literary" works. Those quotes around it are mandatory, as that category has taken on a life of it's own, often to the exclusion of other works that would be "literary" were they not written by the wrong sort of author.

Now, unlike some other genres, there's no real reason for this omission. I don't read much romance because it all tends to be rather formulaic. Which I understand is the appeal of the genre, to a certain extent, but boy meets girl gets a little old when it follows the same formula. (Case in point was the accidental romance novel I read, which was some sci-fi thing. It was well written, and I had no complaints about that, but the next installment in the series was a carbon copy of the one I had just read, only with new characters.) I don't read much chick lit because, well, because I'm not a chick and I found Sex in the City to be, by and large, shallow and uninteresting.

On the other hand, most of the literary works I have read I do enjoy. I find them to be the thought provoking exercises they are meant to be, and that, I've decided, is half the problem. Generally I read the genre books I read because I'm not really looking to do a whole lot of thinking. I want a smart read, don't get me wrong, but I read novels as an escape. If I'm looking for mental gymnastics, I'll pull down one of those aforementioned philosophy texts, or some of the poets I read. (Poetry, for me, seems to straddle the escapist and intellectual reads, but that's another post entirely.)

My other issue with them is that they aren't very escapist. One of the things that separates the genre is that, by definition, they are supposed to deal with real life things. Updike does not write about Martians, and by the same token one would not expect Bradbury to talk about middle-class, middle-age life without resorting to Martians. I like the escapism. I like reading about things that only nominally resemble my own life, in terms of the themes they deal with. I may not be middle-aged yet, but I know enough about the humdrums of modern American life to want to get away from it when I read.

Of course, that is also part of the appeal of the more literary authors. That examining of the life we all lead. More or less, of course. I recently read - well, more appropriately would be to say I was turned on to Philip Roth, and while one of his characters was in a profession and a life that is actually plausible as a path my own life might have taken - sans Martians - there were definite aspects that would just not happen to me. Or anyone else I know. Which is a good thing, considering.

But, it's that deconstruction of modern life, the examination of the mundane, the requirement that you think a little (or so I would hope) about what you're reading and what it all means and the themes involved, that makes the genre of "literary" fiction a pleasure to read. I can get something out of it that, for the most part, I am not going to get from King or Kellerman. Not to say the two, and the rest of the genre fiction crowd, don't make me think, but for the most part if they're dealing with themese I'm ignorning them, not poring over the text to examine them.

Does that mean I am going to be checking out more "serious" books from the library? Probably not. As I said, I read to escape, and for fun, mainly, much the way I watch movies. I like my fiction smart, but not necessarily requiring a mental warm-up before I engage with it. Yet when the mood strikes, as it does for poetry and philosophy and non-fiction, I won't be adverse to wandering through different sections of the library than I normally find myself in.

Odd Combinations

I was staring into my freezer the other day at what little remained of the mint chocolate chip ice cream. (Which is no longer green, much to my disappointment. Granted, I think the coloring is purely a result of food dye, so it doesn't need to be green. Nor does white mint chocolate chip ice cream taste any different, at least according to my mouth. However, it was missing... something. More on that in another entry, I think.) There wasn't much left, maybe a scoop and a half, which is about all I eat anymore anyway in keeping with my general philosophy on "moderation in all things." Which I abandoned New Year's Eve but hey, some occasions are worth it. This occasion, however, was mostly an "I feel like ice cream" occasion.

More specifically, I felt like an orange juice float. Now orange juice (or soda, but honestly I prefer juice) and vanilla ice cream is, as far as I am concerned, one of the greatest taste creations of all time. My wanting for one on this day came from having acquired a very simple recipe to create an Orange Julius at home without paying for the trademark. That said, I wasn't in the mood to bother with even the simple recipe - mostly on the strength of not wanting to dig out and then afterwards wash the blender. So I opted for a simpler float. Only the only ice cream I had in the house was the aforementioned mint chocolate chip.

Now, in theory, there was nothing about the combination that shouldn't have gone well together. I've had those chocolate oranges, which are great, and orange mint, and chocolate mint. It was just putting all three of them together, in the forms I had, that might have yielded strange results. Erring on the safe side, I opted to try it first with a spoonful of ice cream and a shot glass of orange juice. Which is the most action my shot glasses have seen in quite some time. Anymore I think they're just decorative in my house.

The combination, as odd as it might have sounded at first, came out very well, and it got me thinking about other slightly odd combinations, but in writing. Now as what few followers and/or faithful readers I have here will already know, I tend to write things that fall into the interstices between genres. There tends to be a bit of dark humor and comedy that creeps into things, even if I'm writing something that might ostensibly be horror. My ongoing works are also a mix of science fiction and other things, as I busily write along creating my own genres. Sort of.

I'm not the only one who's done this, though, and certainly not the most famous example. The best example that comes to mind for me is when Dean Koontz penned a children's book. Now Koontz is one of those authors that I invariably read while freely admitting that his catalog is somewhat hit or miss for me. (Though I recommend the "Odd Thomas" series to anyone.) He is also, along with King, one of the few authors I have ever read who have managed to scare me just by reading a book. I don't remember the title, though I think it was "Night Chills," and it had to do with rats. Large quantities of evil rats, in the dark, crawling over everything, and peering out from shadows so you could only see their eyes. Gives me shivers just thinking about it.

Yet not only did he write a children's picture book, he wrote one about Santa Claus. Having read it, I will affirm that it works well as a children's book and a piece of horror. Slightly more humorous in that vein is a book we have home from the library in the Skippyjon Jones series. It's not really horror, per se, but parts of it lean toward that end, and yet, again, the combination works really well.

Horror and comedy have also been put to good use, even if sometimes it's black humor. The zombie sheep movie was... well, just hilarious on the face of it. Zombie sheep? Who comes up with these things? Shaun of the Dead also falls into this category.

Odd combinations can also get you reading other genres you wouldn't normally venture into. I picked up a romance novel once thinking it was something else from the description. It was, but it was also clearly romance. It was also a good read. (And the sex scenes steamed up my glasses.) I didn't continue to read the author because her emphasis was on the romance genre and hence her plots were somewhat formulaic, but it broadened my horizons some. (Literary-wise, mind you, not karma sutra-wise.)

Often times these ventures get labeled cross-overs, but I don't think that really fits. Especially when it's what the author regularly does. "Cross-over" to me implies a once only foray into a genre. Lack an actor who normally does action flicks attempting comedy or romance or something. I'm not saying there needs to be a new terminology, at least not yet, but I think there ought to be more room to exist between the labels. We tend to have to package things as "either/or" in order to convey what it is, and tend to rely on the old adage that as long as it's good it doesn't matter what it is, but it does matter what you call it, especially when you're trying to get someone to try it.

As for me, I'm off to buy more mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Getting Outside Your Range

Placido Domingo is singing as a baritone. Mind you, I only know he's a tenor, normally, because of that thing he did with the other two guys - only one of whom I can name off the top of my head. Not that I don't listen to opera, as I do, but I don't listen to it frequently enough to really know much about any of the stars or recognize them by voice. In part because my local radio doesn't carry that "Sunday at the Met" program, assuming it's still airing at all. Also in part because I just don't listen to that much opera.

None of which really relates to my point today. It turns out that Placido started as a baritone, and then early in his career moved up to a tenor. Where he proceeded to make his career. Now, in part because his voice is aging, and in part just because he wants to, he's come back down (musically speaking) to a baritone. By the sounds of it, he's just as comfortable as a baritone as he was as a tenor, but I am reasonably sure it took a bit of an adjustment. I'm also sure, because the guy on NPR said so, that having sung as a tenor Placido now brings a little extra something to being a baritone.

That's the part that got me thinking about how at least once in your life you ought to try something outside your normal range. Speaking as a writer, you could probably substitute "genre" for that last word without too much trouble, as that's really what I'm talking about here. However, it also applies to dabbling in poetry if you normally writer novels, or short stories if you write poetry, or something that requires you to follow a different set of guidelines than you normally do.

It does violate the old trope of "write what you know" but let's face it, in this day and age research is at the tip of your fingers anyway. There are limits on the usefulness of any rule like "write what you know" anyway, at least if you're going to be too much of a stickler about it.

This has a couple of advantages, not least of which is exercising some of your creative muscles that you might not normally use. If you spend most of your time thinking about spaceships, writing about a modern-day setting, or even getting historical, presents brand new challenges for you. Good writing is, of course, good writing, regardless of genre. And you don't necessarily need to come all the way out of your normal comfort zone to make it work. Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series contains elements of the Western and high fantasy that don't show up much at all in his other works, for example, and it remains I think some of his best writing. (Hated the ending, no matter how much it fit, but that's another entry altogether.) Robert Parker has also written some fine westerns that are far removed from the streets of Spencer's Boston.

The results aren't always good, of course, and sometimes writing exercises are just that and no more. But another advantage to when they do work is a fresh perspective. When you normally write in a particular genre, you can get too accustomed to the trappings of that genre. Switching can help shake you out of those trappings, and not just by getting you to work within a new set of guidelines. A different mode of writing can liven up some of the tropes - which every genre has - not only in the genre with which you are experimenting, but then when you return to your comfort zone. It's like taking a vacation, appreciating the change of scenery, and then coming home and appreciating what you have anew.

Then again, some people go on vacation and decided to stay.

Steampunk Music

A quick definition, for those not in the know, borrowed from the Wiki gods:

Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that [...] denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used [...] but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy [...]. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate-history-style presentations of "the path not taken" of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers [...] with a presumption of functionality. (original article here)

This is one of the concepts that may be best understood with a visual, so take a moment to look here and then again here, and you'll get the idea.

Now, the concept appeals to me for a number of reasons, not least because the first bit of adult fiction I ever really got into was Sherlock Holmes. (Tolkien and Herbert were in there, too, but their worlds had more limited entries.) Steampunk seems perpetually stuck in a semi-Victorian era level of society. A bit more advanced, as I think dirigibles came slightly later, but with about the same feel. So it appeals to me for that reason alone, as there is just something about that era that I find fascinating.

Also, I find dirigibles incredibly cool, and think that even though it would be slower, modern air travel would be so much more enjoyable if we'd stuck with blimps. Which, yes, is wholly impractical given the number of travelers and the speeds with which they must travel, but really, can anyone argue that a slower pace would really be a bad thing in today's world? And besides... blimps! Blimps!!

Ok, that bit of personal geeky self-indulgence aside, one of the other reasons the genre appeals to me is it has such a visual element to it. Which was pretty much where I thought it began and ended - as a visual medium.

I was wrong. (Probably not for the last time, certainly not for the first.)

There is musical steampunk.

I'm not sure if it expands beyond the band that was introduced on the radio the other day, via one of the NPR programs, but it does exist. The group, whose name eludes me - and we all know how I feel about research on this blog - is primarily a jazz-oriented outfit. Now for whatever reason, they decided to attempt to do modern era music on more traditional instruments. In other words, rock and roll without the standard rock and roll set of instruments. Big band meets Led Zeppelin. Sort of. (Yes, blimps again.)

It was not muzak by any means, which might be the first comparison that springs to mind. They managed to retain the edginess that defines steampunk, and convey that on a musical level. I won't claim it was music I'd run out and buy, but it was decidedly different, and I thought it added another dimension to this particular genre. It reminded me that if you're going to get into world-building, which is sometimes an integral part of both fantasy, sci-fi, and spec-fic (with all the over-lapping those genres do lately), there are always multiple layers of elements to consider.

Which, if it didn't look so cool might be enough to get me to eschew the unfamiliar future for the known element of the present.

Only... there are those blimps to consider.

Muzak on the Space Elevator

I was listening to a program the other day... not sure which one (program, that is - day, too, for that matter) and they were talking about the concept of a space elevator. For those unfamiliar with the idea, it was first conceived by Arthur C Clarke, of 2001 fame. At least I think the idea is his. Might be some other sci-fi guru's, but I'm pretty sure. And lest anyone dismiss the concept as a flight of fancy, it should be pointed out that Clarke came up with the idea of a communications satellite. Designed one, too.

The space elevator hasn't been built yet, but it's an elegant and simple concept. You stretch a thin yet high-tensile cable up to a geosynchronous position in orbit, and then use that to haul an elevator up to orbit, carrying all manner of things that can then be put up there. It would ultimately be cheaper and easier than a rocket, and probably comes with other advantages I'm not grasping at the moment. (Because I'm not bothering to look it up, per usual, and going with what I can remember at 11:30 at night.)

I've heard about the idea before, and I should mention that it's being discussed as a way to haul cargo, not people, for obvious reasons, starting with the ending destination. I suppose if someone does build it, there would be ways to make it carry people, though, again, I'm a writer, not an engineer. However, it occurred to me ask if it does carry people, would it have elevator music?

It was initially a silly question, but it raised an interesting issue nonetheless: as much as I enjoy sci-fi and technology, for all the fantastic things it does there are still the mundane aspects of life that just never go away. It's like the story of Alan Shepherd having to pee his suit because no one had thought to deal with that particular problem (in part because he was only supposed to be in it for a short while and ended up stuck on the launch pad). People have to go the bathroom in space, just like they do here.

Then there is the tech that becomes commonplace. Think about it. As much as I adore modern communications, I was among the last group of students to come of age without email. I remember using the fledgling version of it on campus. If you'd told me then about all the stuff I can do now, a mere 15 years later, I wouldn't have believed you. Not that we have everything. I want my flying Delorean, dang it. Though I fully expect that if we ever have flying cars, there will be bumper stickers on them.

It's those little touches, when they go into a work of sci-fi, that help ground it for me. I can accept the fantastical if the noodle shop guy is still getting the order wrong because of the language barrier. (Noodle shops, like yellow taxis, apparently being a cultural artifact that survives long into the future. Both Harrison Ford and Bruce Willis have told me so, and they wouldn't lie to me.) It's those little touches that, if a writer can integrate them skillfully enough, manage to work wonders with the believability of the story. Even if the rest of it is just so out there as to be ridiculous - deliberately so or otherwise.

So there is a part of me that hopes that, should the space elevator be built, and should it carry people, it will have muzak.

I just don't want to have to ride it if it does.

Death of a Character, Part 1: The Replacements

Batman's dead. (Okay, probably should have put a spoiler in front of that, but if you read the comics you know this already. On the other hand, if all you know is the movies, it's unlikely this development will affect Christian Bale's next paycheck.) To the best of my knowledge this event hasn't made the kind of headlines that happened when they - in this case the overlords at DC comics - whacked Superman, probably because by now the death of a superhero is almost commonplace. Of course, this is Batman, and easily DC's #2 (or possibly #1 ) headliner, which makes it a major comics event.

This, in combination with a few other things, got me thinking about what happens when you kill off a character. In the case of Batman (and even, from what I remember, Superman) the fans aren't entirely up in arms because it's unlikely to be a permanent state of affairs. Though that's not a sure thing by any means. This is DC, after all, and while of late past dead heroes have been resurrected with alacrity, the original Flash was dead for quite some time. As was the Green Lantern. So Bruce Wayne might be MIA for a while. Or would that be KIA? Guess that depends on how optimistic you want to be on whether he comes back soon.

In the meantime, Batman continues, much as the Superman comics continued after his "death." In Batman's case they've replaced him with Dick Grayson, formerly known as Robin and then Nightwing. I admit to still reading comics, and so far I like what they've done with the storyline. This, of course, is the first option that comes when you kill off a character: you can replace them. With superheroes this works because they all wear masks anyway, and you don't even need to necessarily kill off the first guy (or gal): they can just retire. DC has an entire pantheon of retired characters, for example.

I think in order to make this approach work, you have to do a number of things. For starters, you have to have a role someone can step into in some fashion. With Green Lantern and the Flash, there was someone else to take over the role. Ditto for Batman. Even over at Marvel, when the original Spider-man bowed out (for a bit) they had someone with his powers who could fill the role. Which is another part to it: you have to have someone to fill the role. A third part, and perhaps one of the most important, is how you get rid of the original character.

Batman died fighting evil. Twice, actually, one in a helicopter crash, and then again later on an alien world. Somehow I like the crash better. But it makes sense, because he's never been the kind of character you see retiring in old age. You don't ever see him getting to old age (with the exception of a cartoon done in the mid to late 90's that I thought handled the issue well). With Spider-man, it turned out to be a clone. Yes, there was outrage that the story had been following an "imposter" and the Peter Parker everyone loved wasn't the real deal and hadn't been since a storyline in the 1970's. I was, at first, one of those outraged fans. Then Marvel Comics did this very nice little mini-series about what happened to the now spandex-free Peter Parker.

That mini-series sold me on the new direction. It gave a nice, satisfactory ending to the character that I had grown up reading, and (I thought) gave Peter the life he deserved. I started reading about the replacement, which brought a new set of storylines and perspectives to the character that, I thought, made a nice change. Marvel didn't stick to their guns, in part because I turned out to be in the minority on that one. They eventually brought Peter back (he wasn't the clone after all) in a storyline that was so convoluted it's become one of the hallmarks of what not to do with a character.

(Which raises another issue in killing off a character, that of what to do when you've changed your mind. More on that later.)

Once you've shuffled your primary character off to retirement, or free from their mortal coil, then you bring in the replacement. It can be a chance to take things in a new direction, explore what-ifs that you couldn't do with the original character, or any number of things that couldn't be done with version 1.0. Or it can be a chance for version 2.0 to be essentially version 1.0 but with a new costume or a girlfriend. (Like the Flash, for example. Or Green Lantern, though that loses points for creating one of the worst cliches regarding the mistreatment of women and being a wasted story opportunity. One of the reasons, I think, the original was resurrected.) In that case, it almost seems kind of pointless. What was the point of killing the character in the first place - other than potential shock value for the "death of" story - if he or she is just going to be replaced by a near carbon copy?

Not every character can be replaced, and often times the whole point of dropping an anvil on a character is because it's simply time to move on. In comics this most often happens with characters whose storylines have run dry. (Until the upswelling of outrage from the fans demands a retcon, of course.) In other media, this may a way to serve the needs of a larger story - often when the dying character is of importance, but not the central main character. Or it may be a way to serve the needs of the author, who has simply grown bored with, or is feeling hemmed in by their own creation.

The ones who stay dead will be the subject of Part 2.

Even Dracula Wasn't This Creepy

I was watching the television a few nights ago when I saw a promo for something that made me stop and think. (Yes, yes, I know, television is evil, it rots your brain, etc... but like most things which are bad for you it's fun. And occasionally informative. More on that duality in a later entry, I think.) This one was for the "Vampire Diaries" which I gather is based on the YA series of the same name. Now, I could rail against the current trend of angsty vampires in high school - with or without sparkles - but if I was going to do that, which I might some day, I'd have to go back to Anne Rice. Because Louis had ANGST. Lestat less so, in the beginning, but then things just got weird. However, something else in the promo struck me and got the old gears in my head churning.

Namely, the unaddressed subtext of hebephilia, or if I'm going to be a little generous, ephebophilia. To get away from the technical terms (because they're hard to spell and way too big for me to keep typing over and over again), this is the kind of behavior for which society has such things as "age of consent" and statutory rape. It should not be confused with pedophilia, which is a somewhat different thing, though it's still creepy.

Think "Lolita," only 16 instead of 12. Or whatever she was in the original. Which I think was 12.

Here's the bit that got me thinking along these lines: once again, as in the sparkly vamp saga, there is a vampire. Who, for some insane reason, goes to high school. (You didn't see Kiefer Sutherland hanging out in high school. He was hanging upside down, sure, but who would voluntarily go back to high school to be a student?) And once again, falls in love with a human girl.

(Which begs the question, what happened to all those homo/bi-sexual vampires from Anne Rice? Or at least a little bromance vampage? Okay, I'll stop digressing now and try and stick to my point.)

Yet in the promo, they specifically mentioned this is a vampire who is a century old. As in 100 years. So regardless of how he looks, which, being a teen on television means he looks like he ought to be working on his Master's thesis instead of his diploma, he's had a century of experiences. Plenty of time to mature, develop, etc. This was a theme explored by Anne Rice with her child-like vampire, Claudia, who was a little girl but only on the outside.

The fact is, there's more to getting old than just numbers, and puberty. Which, considering they're posing as high schoolers, they've all been through anyway. There is the sum of our experiences, the things we do, the places we go, the things we see, and these more so than any biochemical processes are what shapes us into the adults we are. No matter how the vampire might look on the outside, on the inside he is, by all human definitions, old.

Which makes you wonder what he would see in a high-school aged girl. (Other than the obvious "Lolita" inferences. Or, if you've not read it, go listen to "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police. Classic stuff.) I can understand liking them young - though not that young - so I have to ask, why not just go to college? Granted, it would still be somewhat creepy, but at least they'd all be over the age of consent. Not to mentioned more experienced in terms of their life.

I would think anyone of a mature enough age - and at a century you'd think that would qualify -would find the life and interests of a high school student to be rather mundane and trivial. Not that it's unimportant to them, but let's face it, even those who have an interest in the lives of high schoolers, such as teachers, don't socialize with them. They certainly don't date them, or at least they aren't supposed to and society gets very upset when they do. To have an interest, and more than that, an attraction, to someone so young and immature....

It's just creepy.

Woebegone Poet

Despite the fact that my first ever "sale" (which was, in reality, two copies of the mag and a promise of an eventual token check that never showed, presumably because the magazine went under) was a poem, I am not a poet. I can, if need be, attempt poetry and even write some, but it remains a struggle for me. I suspect that poets probably find the idea of a five thousand word short story as daunting as I find a fifteen line poem, but that doesn't change the fact that I am not a poet.

This was brought home to me the other day as I was listening to "A Prairie Home Companion" this weekend. They were doing a poetry show, featuring a collection of their poetry related vignettes. One of the guests they'd had on - whose "Marco Polo" poem I'd heard the first time it aired - was Billy Collins, national poet laureate. Before he read his poem "Ballistics," he talked about where the idea for the poem had come from.

As I listened to him, it dawned on me that this is why I am not a poet. I'm not saying I don't strive for a certain poetic quality in my prose, because I do, but that's not the point. If I see something, or hear something, or experience something that inspires me, that trips my muse, the thoughts in my head are not poems. They're stories, or articles (or blog entries) - something in prose.

For artists, I presume they see pictures. I've heard musicians say they hear lyrics or notes, depending. So this is something that probably should not have been a surprise to me, but as I've been reading a bit more poetry these days my thoughts had turned in that direction. I've been tempted of late to try my hand at another poem, if only because I think it's a good writing exercise, yet haven't come up with anything that is setting off the poetry muse for me. And despite that one sale, it's probably for the best. Because even if this little train of thought hadn't reminded me why I don't write more poetry, a quick look at some of my past efforts would probably have sufficed.

But if something does occur to me in verse, I will be sure to write it down.

Change in Tastes

I have discovered, as I get older, that my tastes have changed. Now, while with food some of this is as much a result of biological processes both mysterious and nefarious (for example, pickles seem to bother me now, and I don't know why, and it upsets me because I like pickles), with other things such as books and music I suppose it's just a question of growing out of things.

Though for some things, there are outlying causes. Such as the writers I liked, as they got older they either got sloppier, or as my own writing improved I came to notice that they were sloppier. Or they got preachy. One of my favorite writers has now penned his last novel with a certain character, and I hated to admit but I was glad that, when I finished it, I knew he was done. Whereas the earlier novels had been active, intense, densely-packed but deftly-paced plots, this last one seemed to be one endless speech after another.

I stopped reading Tom Clancy for much the same reason. Also because, having lived in China, 'The Bear and the Dragon' didn't ring true to me. At least not the first 500 pages. At which point, still nothing had happened. Which may have had more to do with it than anything else. (Yes, I exaggerate. It was 250 pages, and nothing had happened. In the time it takes other books to be done, that one hadn't even got going yet.)

Some of my changing literary tastes also have to do with my own sense of disbelief. I am willing to entertain the notion of ghosts and nasty things that go bump in the night. On the other hand, I have much more difficulty believing in the kind of conspiracies that fuel most of the works of Ludlum and others like him. Some of this is just my lack of belief in conspiracies in general. Keeping a secret for generations, much less centuries, seems to me a losing proposition unless the number of people who know about it steadily die off. It's the nature of a conspiracy that the more people who know about it, the less secret it tends to be.

Other aspects of it are just simply my lack of belief in the lengths with which these conspiracies go to. It starts to stretch the realm of believability. I'm not just talking about the frozen heads of former fascist leaders, either, but how these organizations always seem to know everything that's going on, always one step ahead (or just behind) the hero, who himself (or herself, though that's really rare) has only just made the spectacular leap of logic to figure out where to go.

Mind you, when Muldur made those leaps on the X-Files I bought them, but then you kind of came to expect those little weird logic leaps from him. It was part of the character, and they weren't these successive little steps, on after the other, each one scaling new heights of impossibility.

Which is, I suppose, why I stopped browsing that section of the bookstore. It's just as well, I have more than enough things to read as it is.

Vampires of Lake Wobegon

No, Garrison Keiller is not venturing into the urban fantasy genre. While I think it would be hysterical if he did, I understand his particular brand of often laconic humor might not carry over well into the realm of vampires and werewolves and fairies. ... Or then again it might. What prompted this post and title though, was a skit on "A Prairie Home Companion" last weekend where in one of the skits he played the author of a series of vampire novels. His books were apparently the kind with much soul-searching and lots of emotion (and tree vampires dragging off young unsuspecting writers), the kind that had entranced the local librarian who often seems to suffer from delusions of grand romance.

It's a recurring skit, the librarian. (For those who don't listen.)

What got me thinking though was how we seem to have de-fanged many of our monsters. I know this has been remarked on elsewhere by others with far more letters and publications after their names than I have, but around about the time psychology started making a major comeback in the public perception, we began to seek reasons and explanations for our monsters. They all have back-stories now, some childhood trauma or longing for understanding that makes them tragic figures. They are almost never *just* monsters.

In some ways, of course, this makes them far more interesting. Having a back story gives the creator/audience something to explore, creates characters with nuance and subtlety, and in some ways allows us to relate to them. Which is not always a bad thing, if by relating we start to understand that there but for the grace of god (or fate, or circumstances, or whatever moves your particular heaven) go we. That a shove here, a push there in a different direction and many of us have the capacity to be monsters ourselves. As writers we're told to do this, that even if we don't put it down on the page, we ought to know our character's history so we can better understand their actions, and therefore write them more convincingly.

Understanding, though, is not the same as sympathy, or worse yet the idea that all monsters are sympathetic on some level. Because they aren't, and this is one of the pitfalls I have found in our romanticizing of our monsters. It tends to make us overlook the presence of true evil, of that monster without a backstory, the monster that just *is.*

I am a fan of modern psychology, and acknowledge that in many instances a large percentage of the criminal element is, in fact, "made" - that is, a product of environment and circumstances as much as any inborn tendency. But not all. Sometimes, the monsters just come into being as they are, no shaping, no environment, just something in them that makes them monsters.

Our figurative monsters - the vampires, the werewolves - have always been extensions of ourselves, the creative manifestation of our fears of our darker impulses. It concerns me that in attempting to relate to the manifestations, we are losing their other purpose: to remind us that evil is real, is lurking out there in the shadows.

And that if we aren't careful, it will get us.

Difference in Genres

It's odd how the different genes in any given artistic media form there own little communities, each with their own set of protocols. This was sparked the other day when I was listening to a program on the radio and they were interviewing a jazz writer. He's a musician as well, but he makes his primary living writing about and reviewing other jazz musicians. The part about the genre culture came into when he was talking about how, when he goes to review musicians or write about festivals or the like, he's often invited to play with the musicians. (Technically I suppose it would be "jam with" but no matter.)

This was then contrasted to when someone would write a review of a classical musician or performance, where it is very unlikely the writer would be invited to sit down and perform alongside the musicians, even if they play. (Of course, if you're a classical musician, likely you're making a better living playing than you would be writing about playing.)

There are similar things in the fiction writing community, I imagine. From what I've seen there's often an overall sense of camaraderie, with everyone defined as "writers." The only significant division I've noticed at the top level is between those who write "popular" fiction as opposed to those who write "literary" fiction. (Also often determined by those who came to the craft on their own, and those who pursued a MFA or one of those creative writing degrees.)

I suspect, however, that there are probably ins and outs among the various genre communities, things that say a gathering of horror writers might find normal (such as comparing research tidbits - the gory kind - over dinner) whereas it might be very different with a group of romance writers. ... Actually, that later might be a bit more interesting, but then again that's likely just my twisted imagination.

Suspension of Disbelief

There was a magical quality to the snowfall this morning as the trees in the woods across the road were all decked out in white. (Only somewhat undermined by the cold temperatures. At least it wasn't in the single digits like it was last week.) By the mailbox there is a pair of trees that have grown up to form something of a natural arch. It isn't very big, as the trees are still rather skinny, but they are flanked by evergreen trees which helps add to the effect. I had the thought that it looks a lot like the beginning of all those stories where the protagonist wanders through some magical doorway into another realm. (Narnia is an example, but I would posit the journey through Moria from LOTR fits in there too.)

I wondered briefly what would happen if I did walk through it, and was transported somewhere else. And came to the conclusion I'd be dragon fodder.

Which helped illustrate much of my problem with that whole sub-genre of fantasy in the first place. You take someone from our world, transport them to someplace magical filled with strange creatures - where invariably many are hostile and there is some evil force at work - and they're probably going to end up dead.

I, for one, have no idea how to deal with a dragon. Even if you put a sword in my hand, I don't know how to use it. A semester of fencing in college did not prepare me to swashbuckle (especially not with my grade) and I am all too aware that it is a skill which, like any other, takes years of dedication and hard work. Or very intensive hard work to learn in a short time. Neither of which I'm likely to have the opportunity for once the dragon decides I look like I'd make a good elevenses.

Some argument could be made that children - and it is invariably children who walk through these portals (leading one to wonder, where are their parents? and why are all these portals just left open and lying around for anyone to wander in?) - would be more flexible and adaptable. Adults would have to contend with the burden of being more grounded in the real world, and thus less able to comprehend their new surroundings. Children already exist in a world of make-believe and magic, to have it made real for them would not be such a shock.

On the other hand, holding a sword would be a lot harder. Swords are heavy things.

I, of course, did not walk through the portal. I thought about taking a walk in the woods anyway, and appreciating the cathedral like quality of it all - but the four foot snowdrift intervened.

Though I did wonder how dragons felt about frozen food.