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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > Breaking new ground in S&S | Forum Quick Jump
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nathan
Sage
      
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 4/4/2008 12:44 PM (GMT -5) |   |
erazmus said...
The one place Conan never seems to spend much time is in Cimmerea, with his peers. A writer could spend a lifetime chronicling the adventures of a barbarian with his own people, dealing with his own kind, facing hardships and magic and gods and war and migration with brothers at his back.
And that is just one thing. There are so many.
Mike All I can think off off the top of my head (when it wasn't inserted by Carter/de Camp as filler between stories) where Conan is home he isn't even home. He's with the Aesir raiding in Frost Giants Daughter.
One of the semminal points in Conan's life that's never told is how as a 16 year old he climbed the walls of the Aquilonian outpost with a "milling blood mad mob" (or something) and slaughtered the garrison--forming a Goth/visigoth and Roman parralel as the world went from Imprerial Age to Dark Age. --so good point.
Okay, okay, I know I just inserted a thread hijack but it was a Conan one.
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Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 4/4/2008 12:21 PM (GMT -5) | | You guys are such a bunch of writers!
And I don't think you got the point of my dwarf coming of age proposal.
You don't have to make everything brand new to be original. You don't need to set things in space or what have you. To have a new angle on an S&S or any fantasy tale you just have to have _one_ thing that is new, and build off it.
"Yound Dwarf coming of age" doesn't require any change of setting over "generic fantasy realm" to work, though it would be a very different view of that "generic famtasy realm" because you'd be showing through a dwarfs eyes. Very similar to what Jim Hines does with his goblin, though you needn't do it as humorously.
You get the dwarf perspective right and you don't have to change a damn thing elsewise, you have an original take.
On a tangent to this, I think it implies that the whole "elves and dwarves a'la Tolkien have been done to death" is an overstatement. What it is, they've been glossed over to death. You can't use them as strange and exotic two-dimensional props for your fantasy stories anymore, that is more true. But done to death?
Elvish ennui, the dreary day-to-day sameness of immortality and the lengths a society would take to combat it as barely gotten lip service. The fierce clannishness of a society where the males outnumber the females twenty to one has never been explored. Only Hines has even looked at the realities of being cannon-fodder in a world of howitzers. There is enourmous potential for storytellers in the standard fantasy world setting.
And the same is true of the standard S&S troupes.
The lone barbarian, last of his race and/or far from home may be cliche and trite from over use, But what about those barbarians en mass? The one place Conan never seems to spend much time is in Cimmerea, with his peers. A writer could spend a lifetime chronicling the adventures of a barbarian with his own people, dealing with his own kind, facing hardships and magic and gods and war and migration with brothers at his back.
And that is just one thing. There are so many.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
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"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
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"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
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"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Morning Coffee" in Every Day Fiction
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"The Jewel Below" in Flashing Swords
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"Happy Landings" in Every Day Fiction
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"Teller of Tales" in Every day Fiction
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DAWaverly
Quirky Weirdness
Date Joined Jul 2006
Total Posts : 309
| Posted 4/4/2008 9:35 AM (GMT -5) | | erazmus said...
And if you want a new take on elves and dwarves, try eliminating the humans entirely for starts. Outside of some media tie-in fiction, I can't recall a "young dwarf warrior comes of age" tale anywhere.
On second thought, don't. I think I may use that one.
Mike
I have a partial outline for one (dwarf coming of age). However, I have humans and my setting is...well, very different.
I also think that setting can have a powerful impact on character, plot, etc. Instead of Nathan's view that it is just one spoke of a wheel, I guess I would prefer to think of it as the hub that supports the other six spokes. Not more important than the rest, mind you, just a different role. Setting supports, and can help define, character, plot, etc.
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Lane
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 118
| Posted 4/4/2008 4:11 AM (GMT -5) | | The premise is actually better than I make it sound. I use two fantasy nations vaguely similar to feudal Japan and China. The mock-Taoists in China have their familiar philosophy about duality, which has led some of the monks to create a sword from meteoric iron. The magic they've put into the sword makes it useless against flesh, but capable of cutting spiritual beings.
The McGuffin firmly established, we turn eastward, where the Japanese Imperial Court is under siege by a demon, and none of the Imperial geomancers are able to bind the spirit or exorcise it. In desperation, a young female geomancer turns to her father, the leader of a distant mountain community of assassins (I purposefully avoid using the word ninja because it's a creation of the 1980s, and since I've decided to stay away from using Japanese or Chinese terms in the story, I simply use the word "assassin" or "spy"). Her father consults the lore of his tribe, and finds mention of the Demon-Sword in the writings taken from the mainland. He sends his mute foster-son, a highly-trained and ruthless killer, with his daughter (along with a hired Chinese guide and a Westerner who was marooned in the mock-Japan, a nebbishy scholar) across the mainland to retrieve the Sword.
The problem, however, is that with the beneficial properties of the sword come the problems (dual nature). It can destroy spirit, but its proximity corrupts nearby material flesh. The monks have all become cannibalistic undead (zombies) and lure our Intrepid Heroes into a trap. They escape, with the Sword, but are now torn between a duty to use it in defense of king and country and a very real desire to preserve themselves.
The subtext of this all is the mute foster-son's unexpressed (maybe inexpressible) love for the daughter, but she has affections for the Westerner, who shares her love of learning and scholarly pursuits. However, the foster-son is close friends with the foreigner, and this leads to personal strife between them. To make matters worse, the Chinese man hates Westerners, and the foster-son hates the Chinese. It's a giant, Jerry-Springer-ish mess of love, betrayal, racism, sexism, and blind nationalism.
But it's also about ninja and zombies.
-L. | | Back to Top | | |
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darkbow
Rabbit lord
Date Joined Oct 2005
Total Posts : 1764
| Posted 4/4/2008 4:05 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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crystalwizard
Forum Moderator
Date Joined Nov 2006
Total Posts : 5196
| Posted 4/4/2008 4:00 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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Lane
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 118
| Posted 4/4/2008 3:09 AM (GMT -5) | | Good sir, while I find myself using clearly non-human races at times, elves and dwarves are not among them (except for the short story I have that is basically a retelling of Norse myths in space, but that is for mythological reasons and they're actually sci-fi elves and dwarves, e.g., the dwarves are short and hairy because they evolved on a cold, high-gravity world), and as such, a coming-of-age-tale of a dwarf is beyond my meager skills and purview.
And as for Westerns, S&S, Japanese chanbara films, etc... they all share a common tie: one can look at any historical romance (which is what they are) and pick out the similar elements between them (Stephen King's "Wolves of the Calla" amazingly puts them all into one book... and makes it work). I've always been curious to use the speculative nature of a sci-fi setting to contrast the three types of narrative. My idea was to have the Europeans, the Japanese and the United States be the major space-faring powers of the day, except that during the long diaspora from Earth, each of the societies had reverted back to an earlier period in its history -- feudalism for Japan and Europe and the rule by lawmen among the "territories" for the United States. This way, I could have knights, samurai and sheriffs as my character archetypes, who are all essentially the same type of character: those charged with upholding the law and order of society, whether it is with six-shooter or katana.
Sadly, it has been back-burnered because of school.
-L. | | Back to Top | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 4/4/2008 2:53 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 4/4/2008 2:51 AM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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Steven the Git
Acolyte
Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 225
| Posted 4/3/2008 8:43 PM (GMT -5) | | A hero who plays a musical instrument? Harmonica, in Once Upon a Time, and yes, that movie does have some high ideas. I love how the main characters each have their own music, and, never forget, Henry Fonda as a baddie! Great stufd.
I don't know about high concept, I just know the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a great movie. Love the action, the plot and the characters. Mind you, have a preference for the second in the series. The villiain using the musical locket to kill people was excellent. Guess there's another music lover.
Gilgamesh is a fantastic read. It has sex and death and questions about life and big monsters and a chase scene with the sun. Again, if you can put core themes in, those that people will always find interesting, you can write about most things.
Oh, just thought. El MAriachi, and Desperado. Bloke plays guitar and shoots people. A lot.
Have to add big thumbs up to the ending of the Wild Bunch. It is sublime, they have them, the few versus the many, but you know what, what else is there? I remember when Saving Private Ryan came out and people talked about the start of it, and there's a battle at the end. Well I'd take the Wild Bunch over it any day. Bank robbery gone savagely wrong at the start, bloodbath at the end, and worth watching inbetween. That movie is about the passing of the west so you totally understand when they choose to start blasting.
I think something westerns do well is have a few people in a desolate place, so you can focus on the characters. They can often be explored and altered. Unforgiven would be my prime example. Yes, you have the crap, always. The spaghetti westerns were cheap thrills, such as Django movies. But the classics did a lot more.
I do agree with Jordan that all authors should be aiming to do the different or original, but I do think classics can be reinvented and reinvigorated. If someone writes with the same old elves again, but writes a great story, I'd love it and applaud it. I'd like to think it can be done.
Oh, crossdressing. Jackie Chan once put on a long dress so his opponents couldn't see his kicks coming. Best I can do for men. PLenty of women in men's clothes in s&s though - Janrae Frank's Lionhawk springing instantly to mind.
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MichaelEhart
Sage
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 2352
| Posted 4/3/2008 7:50 PM (GMT -5) | | Well, guys, you know that the very first story important enough to be written down was The Epic of Gilgamesh, over 4000 years ago, and that is clearly S&S--- so our burden is far greater than other genres.
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"Without Napier" Every Day Fiction, TBA
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Lane
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 118
| Posted 4/3/2008 6:59 PM (GMT -5) | | Oh, I wasn't attempting to contradict you. I was using "do" as a modifier of "think," not in the sense of "I do think they can and you do not" but rather just for emphasis, since the majority of my, um, rant beforehand was about how there's very little truly new.
I liked the Wizard and the Knight for what they were as one book, not two. I read them both together, back to back, and felt more engaged with it, even though I considered Able to be kind of a bully and didn't identify with him at all.
Another good example of using something that's been done to death in an interesting way is Naomi Novik's treatment of dragons in her "Temeraire" series. Those are excellent beyond measure, and I usually turn my nose up at anything serpentine.
-L. | | Back to Top | | |
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2178
| Posted 4/3/2008 6:56 PM (GMT -5) | | At this time, after several mentions by numerous wise and respected posters about 'world building' and such being folded into "original" as a concept that...
Setting is one of the 7 basic elements of fiction. Just so you know, or thing I'm like 'screw world building'--I just think it's addressed under Setting and think it isn't trophe busting, but rather one of the spokes in the wheel of basic fiction elements.
VIEW IMAGE
"Writing the wet dreams of teenage boys" - Lindsey Llyod, Tangent Reviews
Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages." | | Back to Top | | |
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Lane
Neophyte
Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 118
| Posted 4/3/2008 6:50 PM (GMT -5) | | | |
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