Realistic vs. Romantic Literature – The Sunday Re-Blog

05/11/2014 4 Comments

This post originally appeared on Comparative Geeks, as the end of a series of posts I had done and have shared over here as well. The post is long, so I will keep my intro short – but let me just say this, this is a post I am proud of!

Hello my readers, time again for me to touch on a series of posts I’ve written over the course of the blog so far. It all started out from a definition of science fiction I read in a book, which led into a blog post exploring that. Then, for comparison, I explored a definition of fantasy based on a quote that’s floated around social media. So between the two, I had pitted Frank Herbert against J.R.R. Tolkien. Then, for another look at it, I compared Star Trek and Star Wars. I still really like my genre exploration there.

And then I listened to George R.R. Martin on the Nerdist Podcast, and it got me thinking that all this work of putting things in genres, and holding one over another or pitting them against one another, was wrong; and I was working on coming up with new terms or new ways of thinking about the differences, of trying to really articulate what I was trying to say.

That’s when I got a comment back on that first post, questioning what I meant about science fiction, making me really think about what I was saying. The commenter – who had the opportunity to interview the author, Paolo Bacigalupi – recommended and discussed The Windup Girl. So I felt I needed to read that first and consider it. And to consider what it is I have been trying to articulate, to think of the terms and groupings and ways that we talk about these sorts of stories, and so that is where I am coming from with this post. Let me know in the comments what you think!

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U – Understanding

04/24/2014 4 Comments

U

Okay, so on the one hand, this seems like me reaching for something that starts with U for the A to Z Challenge. On the other hand, this is one of the ones that made some of the most sense to me.

The famous quote is, of course, Write What You Know. Because in so many ways, writing is taking what you know, and making it so it’s a thing the reader knows. Maybe they won’t know all of it – maybe they’ll only take a quote away. Nonetheless, you’re adding to what they know.

However, as you may have noticed, I am a fan of science fiction and fantasy – genres that are impossible if you take a literal interpretation of “Write What You Know.” Only a handful of people would be qualified to write about travel in space. No one has been to Middle Earth (except apparently anyone who has been to New Zealand). And yet, these works can be written, and read, and understood.

So that is the crux of the matter: it’s about understanding. The writer should understand what they are including in their book: understand the language they are using, understand the grammar and words; understand the characters they are including, their psychology and experiences; understand the setting and the things that happen there, whether that’s the climate or how the people fight or what they eat for breakfast.

And maybe you don’t have to know all of those things. And certainly you don’t have to have experienced them all yourself. But the writer should have an understanding of these things – whether that comes from education, research, reading, experiences, talking to people or experts, or wild extrapolation.

Because when you understand it, and put it in such that it makes sense and is believable, your readers will get it too. Not to say all writing must be realistic in that it is only real things that happen; however, the things that happen should be internally consistent, should have a realism within the world they are in. Whether that’s how alien technologies work or magic systems or biology or computer software (No click enhance! Bad!). By understanding these things happening, you can create that consistency, make things make sense, and have their own logic. And then your readers will understand, too.

What do you think? Write What You Know? How much do you need to understand? Let me know in the comments down below!

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Q – Quotes

04/19/2014 4 Comments

QI love quotes. Not going to lie. And I think most people do – whether it’s to show our fandom, or to use the thoughts of others; whether it’s for an academic purpose to support our thoughts, or for an argumentative one to use our opponents’ words against them. Quotes have power.

When it comes to creating fiction, however, or really any sort of writing – can you ever really know what parts are going to be quoted (if any)? Generally that’s not an element under your control. You don’t know whether you’ll be taken out of context, or people will catch a mistake, or catch that one phrase you worked really hard on. Many of the most influential academic papers tend to be ones with an important theory presented or word created or explained – which are often elements that happen early in the set-up of the paper, and rarely as the purpose of the whole paper. But these parts stick, even as the purpose is forgotten.

For fiction writing, I think that the go-to case study when it comes to quotes is Dune by Frank Herbert. In Dune, every chapter begins with a quote from somewhere in the science-fictional universe Herbert created – whether it is a quote from a history book (generally written after the time described in the book), or an ancient (though future for us) proverb, or a cultural proverb, or a quote from one of his characters from a scene we are not presented. There are poems and songs.

Herbert breathed life into this universe, and created one of the most lasting pieces of science fiction – and really the genre-defining work – in part by creating the important quotes of that world. The sorts of things the people would say, or turn to; the research in the world; the arts and writings. And by having these moments outside of the plot, though often enhancing the plot, he showed that this was a universe wholly realized and fleshed-out. He gave it substance.

What is the son but an extension of the father? To quote Dune. Brian Herbert kept this tradition going, and it is interesting to see it continued. It is a fantastic writing exercise and thought experiment. And though it would be hard to include quotes like this in another book without being compared directly to Dune, it would be good to be thinking about it: what sorts of quotes would exist in the world you are creating? Or what quotes would you like your readers to take away? Have those in mind, even if you don’t include them directly in the work!

Oh, and I found this collection of Dune quotes online.

[Edit]: And how could I forget this Dune quotes gem: http://calvinanddune.tumblr.com/

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C – Characters

04/03/2014 12 Comments

CIn all of my thinking and planning for the A to Z Challenge, I have found that C is a pretty easy letter to work with. Almost too easy – you end up with too many things to choose from. There are a few letters like that. And maybe why I’m thinking about it is because today’s topic matches what my wife and I are doing on Comparative Geeks: we’re going A to Z characters.

When it comes to writing, though, characters are kings. Even in non-fictional pieces, the subject of the piece often ends up as the character, as we get the history, or current goings-on. Maybe not fully anthropomorphized, but getting there. But when you get to fiction, a story needs its characters, perhaps even more than those characters need a story. I’ve read absurdist literature. It’s doable.

I do a lot of my thinking and writing about Science Fiction, and Fantasy, and it can be easy to get carried away with these sorts of genres… lost in ideas, in world-building, in all of those sorts of gritty details to make the world seem right. Carried away too much, and the characters fall flat, and the reader ends up unengaged. You want a story your reader can get lost in… but for whatever reason, it’s through the exploration and experiences of the characters that we get lost.

Which means the most common sort of character is the one that is a stand-in for the audience, or the one who is new to the world being presented. Whether it’s just the new guy or rookie, or the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s court, this character is essential. You don’t want to make them too blank – this is actually something that happens a lot in video games. To give the player the control of the situation, to feel like they are this blank slate character, the character does not speak throughout the game themselves. I think the Nintendo games especially have a lot of this – Link never really gets any lines in the Zelda games!

But even, think of non-fiction, or better yet – think of political speeches. They always seem to reach a point where they need to personalize it, where they have to bring up some real (probably) people in a real place, experiencing whatever it is they’re talking about. They can give you facts and ideology all day, but they give you that character to latch on to as well.

Because let’s face it – characters are a fundamental to stories.

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One Year Anniversary of Comparative Geeks – The Sunday (Tuesday) Reblog

01/21/2014 Leave a comment

I posted this yesterday over on Comparative Geeks. Today would be the to-the-day anniversary for us starting our weekly schedule of posting. I ask below for more ideas for posts, for input from my community – and I would happily accept input here as well! Let me know what you would like to read from my blog!

Last year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Holly and I started a blog. We had been toying with a few different ideas, thinking of what niches we saw and conversations lacking. And we thought a lot about how we talked about things, and what we wanted to say. And Comparative Geeks was born from that – the thought that we would talk about Geeky things, and not alone or by themselves, but in comparison to each other, or to other aspects of life.

I’d like to think that we’ve accomplished that, and written a blog at least a little different from what else is out there. For instance, we’re not a news blog – there are other blogs out there doing a much better job of giving you day-of updates on what’s going on in the world of geek. We tend to speculate a bit more instead. Nor are we a review site – there are other blogs out there doing episode-by-episode show reviews, issue-by-issue comic reviews, and more detailed sorts of movie reviews.

Instead, we’ve taken our comparative approach – things like our LitFlix, which compare the book or comic to the movie based on this source material. Or like our Science Fiction and Religion posts, which consider a topic often touched in science fiction but which is treated in interesting ways whenever it shows up. And we have now, for a year, successfully kept up with our publishing plan – six posts a week, three each. Granted, not always on the days we plan on, but we got you some content!

And that leads to what has been great about this blog: you. The readers. While we had enough to say that we likely would and could have kept going on our own, you make it all the more worth it. While we may not reply to comments in a timely fashion, know that each one makes us happy. When you take the time to read our posts, thoughtfully consider them, and add to the conversation? That’s where this is worth it.

So that’s what I wanted to do for a one-year anniversary post: ask for input from you, the readers, on what you would like us to write about in the days, weeks, and months to come. Help us make another great year for Comparative Geeks!

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