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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 : 2113
| Posted 4/2/2008 2:17 PM (GMT -4) |   |
Bruce Durham said...
An adventure story has a kidnapped nuclear scientist with a stunning daughter/an evil crime lord/a missing microfiche, a tired spy/ex-Delta Force/a secretly trained gov't specialist, fun gadgets, and at least once in the story has the snot beat out him before wiping out the equivalent of a small African nation while saving the day.
Ah, Bruce you've been reading my books  . Okay, okay, the stunning daughter almost always has another and often murderous agenda of her own--but my shrink says this is not Freudian and merely convention.
I guess it should be noted as a general statement that I don't think Jordan is objectively wrong or some such--he's talking about what he likes and what he feels is a rewarding reading experience.
Most of my points have to do with reviewers telling wouldbe readers who are looking for genre fiction that a story "is genre fiction" as if it were a pejorgative to be so.
And also how often "bad writing" is often used synonymously with "staying in trophes" if you will. I love a variation of a lone violent man of action tangling with Cthulu or something like that--but I can except people tired of reading that. My 'beef' (or whatever) is more with reviewers.
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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RHFay
Sage
Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 1722
| Posted 4/2/2008 1:26 PM (GMT -4) | |
I certainly agree that, as a writer, you have to put your own individual stamp on things. You certainly should write like yourself, not like other authors.
However, I don't personally believe that the "personal stamp" need necessarily be a "new twist on an old genre trope". I don't think the two things are always the same.
Take my poetry, for instance. I don't tend to write like a lot of the other speculative poets out there. I've noticed that my poetry tends to be a bit different. Even one editor commented that my poetry differed from the usual "contemporary" submissions. Now, being different from what's out there right now isn't necessarily the same as being a "new twist". My poems are different, in part, because they are often inspired by traditional lore, and the works of the poets of yore. Yes, I've written a few "psycho killer" pieces, but I often write about old castles and the darker side of fairyland. Trust me, I'm not the first to write about such things, and I've had plenty of rejections stating "well written, but doesn't tell us anything new".
As another example, take the current trend with vampires. Vampires have become sexier and more "chic" over time. The vampires of lore were dreadful animated corpses. Even Dracula, often cited as one of the first "sexy" vampires, wasn't really that "sexy" until the story was translated to the stage and screen (read Harker's description of the count if you have any doubts). And once the erotic undercurrents came to the surface, forget it! Vampires became sex objects.
A return to the dreadful, monstrous vampires of lore might seem like a "new twist" today amidst all the stories about sexy vampires and vampire anti-heroes. In my mind, what made Salem's Lot stand out back when I read it was the fact that King did indeed return to more "monstrous" vampires. This aspect was even more obvious in the television miniseries based on the book. It wasn't so much a "new twist on an old trope" as a return to the traditional, a ressurection of an old take on a genre trope.
Depending upon the state of the market, and depending upon people's tastes, a return to the traditional can work.
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4503
| Posted 4/2/2008 4:30 AM (GMT -4) | | I can't write a Michael Moorcock story, and he can't write a Michael Turner story. Leaving aside the obvious (why would he want too?) every story I write is mine, with my own twisted take on life and the human condition.
When I write flash, I tend to paint with a broad brush and try to elicit an emotional response from the reader, and then stop. If I make you angry or sad or scared, I'm done. To me, thats flash. Only rarely do I try to do more in less than a thousand words, and most of my flash is considerably less. Some drifts down to micro-fiction.
When I'm writing longer works I'm usually just trying to entertain. This isn't as light a task as some would make it out to be-- there isn't much "mere" to entertainment. You have to engage the reader on some level, pleasing words and phrases strung together don't often cut it. Only rarely do I set out to make the reader think--but I often make the reader think anyway. You can not create a character without commenting on the human condition.
S&S is still storytelling, the people in well written S&S are people, maybe not exactly like you and I but mostly so. They strap on their bunny furs one leg at a time. (hmmnn, that metaphor doesn't quite work, does it?) If a story is about a fur-diapered barbarian confronting a monster, it is still different from any other barbarian confronting a monster story. Conan may have killed a monster or two, as did Elak and Fafred and Thongor (and Brak, and Kane, and Cormac--oh please somebody stop me!) but that has little bearing on _this_ barabrian and how he handles _this_ monster. Even if the story is a pastiche, it will come out different (not nec. better, but different).
Several time a week this baseball season, a right-handed power pitcher will face a power hitting lefty with runners in scoring position and the game on the line. Does the fact that Bob Feller faced Joe Dimaggio in 1940 have anything to do with the tension of these games? Does that legendary confrontation take anything away?
In my mind, it only adds to it. It provides a sense of history and continuety to the confrontation, even when tonights game falls short of the great at-bats of yesteryear. And its the same thing with S&S. If the story is the barbarian fights a monster, and its well crafted enough that I care about the barbarian and I'm interested in how he defeats, or escapes, or is eaten by, the monster, then that is enough. At least, it may be. I hope an author will put more meat on it than that, and as an editor I certainly try to select stories that have more going for them than this bare-bones description makes it sound, but I do not need to have the sub-genre redefined to have a good time reading it.
Nor should I. There is nothing wrong with the genre, not in my opinion. Elseways, why would I be reading it. It isn't a class assignment, I don't have a dead-line for turning in a review. I enjoy, or at least think I will enjoy, this story. Reviewers can pine for ground-breaking work, afterall its great to discover something significant and shout it out to the world. But need we artfully reinvent everything we read every few months to enjoy it?
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:
www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Morning Coffee" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/morning-coffee-by-michael-d-turner/
"The Jewel Below" in Flashing Swords
flashingswords.sfreader.com/issues/issue8/vol2-iss8-05.htm
"Happy Landings" in Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/happy-landings-by-michael-d-turner/
"Teller of Tales" in Every day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/teller-of-tales-by-michael-d-turner/
Read "Silver Shells" In Every Day Fiction
www.everydayfiction.com/silver-shells-by-michael-d-turner/ | | Back to Top | | |
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R. L. Copple
Acolyte
Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 232
| Posted 4/2/2008 2:23 AM (GMT -4) | | As one who likes a good and unexpected view on things in a story, and I guess I tend to write that way (current zombie story up at Fear and Trembling, "Confessions of a Zombie's Wife" probably being a good example of that,) I think it boils down to this.
There's average, there's good, and then there's wow. Whatever genre you're writing in, most likely the plot and characters have been done before. Whaever genre you're writing in, I'll bet no one has done it the way you have or can. As with anything, like Simon will tell contestants on American Idol, if you don't make it yours, put your stamp on it, then its like everything else that's been done before. If you do, it is unique and original, no matter how cliched the plot or characters are.
That's what I hear Jordan saying, essentially. Not that one has to transcend the genre, but if one wants to make their mark, you'll have to lift your let and let 'er rip. Then you're helping to add to the genre something fresh, you're own particular outlook on life. Otherwise, it is too much like everything else out there, and if that's true, then there's not much point in reading it. You've already read it.
But I do agree as well, if you innovate enough, you move outside the genre. But putting our own original stamp on a story in a genre, that's what we should all aspire to, whether we hit it or not.
R. L. Copple
blog.rlcopple.com
www.raygunradio.com
www.haruah.com
Infinite Realities available at Amazon.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Bruce Durham
Crom's Administrator & Drinking Buddy
Date Joined Jan 2005
Total Posts : 613
| Posted 4/2/2008 1:21 AM (GMT -4) | | I've always been confused with the 'doesn't rise above the genre' mindset. If I read an S&S tale, I expect warriors and weapons and magic and monsters. Since every idea has been done to death, it comes down to how well the same old idea is told anew. I'll take a standard storyline that's well-written over something that has a unique twist but reads like a druggie's txt msg. If it's a well-written story with a unique twist, then grand, but odds are it slips into another genre. Take away the magic and S&S becomes (alt) History. Substitute guns and S&S becomes a western. Place it in a modern setting and S&S becomes (shudder) Urban Fantasy. The line between genres is thin and often requires only the simplest renaming of conventions.
I'm not sure why S&S is regularly subjected to the 'trope' bias. It's not like it's alone out there in writing land. Let's see, a mystery starts with a body/missing heiress/insert other here; a cigar chomping PI with no sense of humour who has a drinking problem, cash flow concerns, and an ex-wife who's a stripper. A western has a cattle baron/notorious outlaw/crooked sheriff, a cigar chomping lone cowboy with no sense of humour who drifts from town to town and is tossed in jail for no reason/mistaken for a killer/returns home after 20 years on the trail and who ultimately kills all of the bad-guys with 6 bullets. An adventure story has a kidnapped nuclear scientist with a stunning daughter/an evil crime lord/a missing microfiche, a tired spy/ex-Delta Force/a secretly trained gov't specialist, fun gadgets, and at least once in the story has the snot beat out him before wiping out the equivalent of a small African nation while saving the day.
The way I see it, every genre has its tropes and cliches. I'm not sure why, or better yet, how, we are supposed to 'rise above the genre mindset' without it becoming something else entirely different, and ultimately, unsatisfying.
As far as I'm concerned, my tales are plot driven love stories with elements of S&S, adventure, and horror populated with what I like to think are interesting characters. But then, I'm a tad biased... 
Come visit the Community Forums of CPI's Official Site of Conan author Robert E. Howard
Recently published: Valley of Bones in Return of the Sword, Night of the Meld in Flashing Swords #9, Marathon in Issue #10 of Paradox, Kalini Steel in Freehold: Southern Storm, Fool's Treasure in Freehold: The Protector and Old Havana in When the World Runs Thin
Upcoming: Abuse of Power in Flashing Swords #10 and Deluge in the Special Summer Issue of Flashing Swords
www.brucedurham.ca | | Back to Top | | |
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Nik
Adept
Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 774
| Posted 4/1/2008 10:24 PM (GMT -4) | | I'm with Daniel and CW and several others on this. Just tell the story well. I bet if you took an old S&S tale, changed the characters' names, and described each action and event in a way that's never been used--with language put together in a way never before seen--you'd have an original story. And memorable.
Nicholas Ian Hawkins
Forthcoming
"Knowledge and Dust," in Magic & Mechanica, from Ricasso Press, Spring 2008
Published
"What Heroes Leave Behind," in Return of the Sword, Flashing Swords Press, March 2008
"The Weald Maiden's Will," in Every Day Fiction, March 5, 2008
"Relativity," in FLASHSHOT, September 28, 2007
Visit my website, Trampler of Beautiful Phrases, at nihawkins.wordpress.com | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel Ausema
Acolyte
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 298
| Posted 4/1/2008 6:31 PM (GMT -4) | | I love innovation for its own sake...so I suppose keep that in mind with the rest of this. It's certainly possible to tell an excellent story that when summarized seems to be the same old story as a thousand others. I'd think it must be doing something noteworthy within that, though. I'd say that the reaction that a particular story does nothing new is usually more complex than that--it's rather that the reader finished a story, and while there may have been nothing that stands out as poorly written or told, they're left with a feeling that it just wasn't memorable. If it's doing something exciting or interesting with character or setting or plot or storytelling or whatever, then even if it seems that it isn't doing anything especially new, then I'm guessing most readers won't be left thinking, "It doesn't do anything new."
So I guess, if I finish a story about a petty thief or two in a dirty city and think, "Meh, I would have been better off reading an original Lankhmar story," then I might say it's because the story wasn't innovative. But if I read another story with a thief and that city is stunningly realized or the character is presented in a way that makes her come alive or the caper is pulled off (or fails) in such a spectacular way, then the question of innovation likely won't even be there, only that it was an impressive story.
Long-winded way of saying "doesn't do anything new for the genre" usually reveals that, for that reader at least, the story fails at some other level.
(But then I have to end encouraging all writers to look for innovative plots, characters, and (especially, in my tastes) settings...simply because that's what I like )
Twigs and Brambles (my writing blog) | | Back to Top | | |
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RHFay
Sage
Date Joined Nov 2007
Total Posts : 1722
| Posted 4/1/2008 6:25 PM (GMT -4) | |
Jordan Lapp said...
RHFay said...My personal viewpoint - I think comments about "a new twist on genre tropes" are becoming old news. Doesn't it just become yet another type of "standard"? At this point, a return to "standard genre tropes" might be a refreshing change from all the twists out there. Maybe I just haven't read enough to become jaded in my views toward "standard genre tropes".
I wrote a little pithy remark about this that I've since deleted.
Please clarify what you mean? If something is new, it cannot be standard....
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the current mantra, the current "standard", if you will, seems to have become "new twist on an old trope". It gets to the point that I just crave a return to the basics. Sort of what Nathan said.
"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!"
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions
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nathan
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2006
Total Posts : 2113
| Posted 4/1/2008 6:11 PM (GMT -4) | |
Hamstersbane said...
"doesn't add anything to the (zombie) genre."  Man I gotta tell you. No matter how many times your wife, risen from the dead, cracks your skull and eats your family's brains it's gonna feel new when she gets to you.
Found this quote that seemed to fit our discussion and zombie stories about the making of Grindhouse by QT: Tarantino remembers, "I realized I couldn't do a straight slasher film, because with the exception of women-in-prison films, there is no other genre quite as rigid. And if you break that up, you aren't really doing it anymore. It's inorganic, [end]
It just reinforces the point that genre = boundaries but boundaries aren't always bad. If you want to break boundaries (and why that would be bad I don't know) then maybe what you want isn't really that genre anymore.
I will not send EDF any straight genre (or linear for that matter  ) stories because just because Jordan may not pick the same stories to read as I would doesn't mean an editor isn't king of his slush pile.
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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Hamstersbane
Acolyte
Date Joined Feb 2007
Total Posts : 390
| Posted 4/1/2008 6:02 PM (GMT -4) | | I guess this debate kind of scratches one of my pet peeves...I don't get the constant drumbeat of "doesn't add anything new to the genre."
I'm not saying every fantasy out there should be Tolkein revisited, or every S&S should be Conan repainted. But as Nathan said, genre has its limitations. There are ways to be original and still stay within the boundaries of the genre. Look at Tad Williams and Robert Jordan. Excellent writers with top-notch works that, in my opinion, really don't stretch the boundaries much. Williams' trillogy is a bit unique for fantasy in that he downplays the magic considerably, and Jordan's take on magic is not something I can recall coming across before. But they're still fantasy, with elves and monsters and all manner of evil.
In the interest of disclosure, I will say this pushes my buttons because most of the reviews I've gotten for "That Ain't a Mosey" bring up this very point -- "doesn't add anything to the (zombie) genre." It's about the only negative anyone's ever found, but then I wasn't trying to break new ground aside from maybe the setting. I had another horror story rejected recently with the same note (on that one, I actually disagree with the editor, but that's the way it goes).
I understand Jordan's point, but I wonder if people may be going overboard with it.
Jeff Parish
Jennings Grove, an online horror serial novel
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4503
| Posted 4/1/2008 5:51 PM (GMT -4) | | Firstly, originality is highly over rated. Louis L'Amour had several hundred books out, all of them highly enjoyable, all of them more-or-less successful, all of them with almost the exact same plot, pace and setting. But he was a master storyteller, and every one of his stories was effective and entertaining reading. The same could be said for any number of currently working authors. Its usually not as extreme but they end up telling the same basic story over and over, and if they tell it well enough they get little complaint from their readers, who obviously enjoy that story. A lot.
There is nothing I enjoy more than curling up with a well told "Barbarian fights Monster" tale. It doesn't have to surprise me or have some new twist, I've read enough that its likely there are no "twists" I haven't seen. So long as the writer know his buisness and does a good job with the telling, I'm satisfied.
But S&S isn't just Barbarian Fights Monster. Its also "sneak-thief gets caught up in greater events but comes out okay" and "Man with a destiny gets one step closer and learns something". Plus the not to be forgotten "heroic buddies fall into a world of shit but manage to fight/trick their way out of it". Not to mention the occasional "Young/inexperienced mage finds that magic has its price".
It doesn't end there, heck it has barely started there. "Librarian helps city guard foil plot against City government by evil wizard". "Desperate Nobel underestimates Street urchin and gets killed" is a favorite of mine. As is "Experienced Warrior helps an old friend out of a serious jam" and "Village Elder sacrifices her life to teach her people the error of their ways". Not to mention "Rag-tag team of adventurers accidnetally pick a fight with the wrong people".
Never mind that all of those plots/themes have been "done to death". There is no bottom to the well of entertainment; people come and draw on it and if they are entertained, they are pleased. The perception that one must offer something that is New! Exciting! Bold! Vibrant! is so much laundry detergent. (I still use Ivory flakes and twenty mule team borax, by the way.) A story doesn't have to be original to an expert in the field, just well done and fresh to the average reader.
One of the problems short fiction venues are having is that they can't attract enough "average" readers, they only get read by experts, and there just aren't enough of them to go around. I love it when someone send me a stunningly original take on S&S to consider for F-S, but it doesn't happen often and I don't think we could fill the magazine with such tales if we got ten times as many. Thankfully what we need, and is probably better in the long run for most of what we offer, is well written, well told tales that center right around what we think of as S&S. A well paced, tightly written story that grips the reader an | |
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