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pezGtalk can stop being annoying now. Am I online, busy or invisible?
D1 fanchat details here. Don't forget!
.......PoT finals vol.1 just came out. Why did I agree to go out with people tonight? I WANT TO BE HOME WATCHING THIS.
I am writing! \o/ And I'm having lots of fun and already thinking way too far ahead about what's going to happen to the characters and the words they'll say and the plot twist and all that. Writing it all down so that I will not forget.
I do wonder, although it's always said - and I'm sure it's true - that reading helps with writing, maybe sometimes it actually works against you, in terms of 1) "oh I've got this idea - wait, somebody's done it before :(" or 2) one gets into the mindset of "it has to be done THIS way because that's how it is for this genre"... that sort of thing. And really, just because it's been done before it doesn't mean you are only reinventing the wheel. I've said this on various occasions before, but there must be so many stories of ordinary-child-discovers-(magical-powers-and-goes-to)-a-different-word. But no one would say LotR, Narnia and Harry Potter are in any way similar. But just because it *has* been done, it might scare other people into writing it in case they get called copy-cats. Who knows, the end result of their writing might be completely different, but they stop before they start because it feels unoriginal...
For 2), I suppose it's particularly true for sci-fi/fantasy, which I hardly read, actually, so it's difficult to give an example... say, someone writing spaceship wars might write about energy shields that protects the ship, and how the protection goes down by % as they are attacked. But why? Because that's how it's done in StarTrek? Because it's logical? But in sci-fi, logic is how you play it, really. Do people get too influenced by existing ideas? Why can't the spaceship dodge? What do you mean, it's too big to move quickly? It's space! It's sci-fi! Why are you applying the law of physics to it? Why aren't you making up your own physics for it?
Okay, lousy example, but I hope I get my point across. Must vampires be afraid of / killed by garlic, stake through the heart, sunlight, dismemberment or fire? Can't they be preyed upon (yes, it's been done in Trinity Blood, but can't you do it too and make it different? Why should it stop you?) or... they can suffer normal deaths? All that's different is that they drink blood rather than eat food? (Which has probably already been done, also. But it's still more unconventional. You see the general point I'm getting at.)
Last night I told Liz I really liked one of the stories in Fragile Things because a spaceship does damage to planets/other ships by FLINGING LARGE ROCKS. Who said it has to be missiles/lasers/bombs?
Sometimes I wonder if the crazy ideas I come up with (just ask Liz**) is because I don't read so much/enough. I know some of it comes from having different cultural backgrounds and access to a wider range of literature because of it. Some of it is because I'm just generally mad. But, still.
Remember the bit in The Matrix where Morpheus teaches Neo how the Matrix works, that getting hit doesn't mean it has to hurt, that he can jump from building to building if he ditches the normal rules of the world from his mind? "Free your mind" - I think I like that idea.
**She didn't like the one with the rollerskate disco. Goddamn elitist! XD
D1 fanchat details here. Don't forget!
.......PoT finals vol.1 just came out. Why did I agree to go out with people tonight? I WANT TO BE HOME WATCHING THIS.
I am writing! \o/ And I'm having lots of fun and already thinking way too far ahead about what's going to happen to the characters and the words they'll say and the plot twist and all that. Writing it all down so that I will not forget.
I do wonder, although it's always said - and I'm sure it's true - that reading helps with writing, maybe sometimes it actually works against you, in terms of 1) "oh I've got this idea - wait, somebody's done it before :(" or 2) one gets into the mindset of "it has to be done THIS way because that's how it is for this genre"... that sort of thing. And really, just because it's been done before it doesn't mean you are only reinventing the wheel. I've said this on various occasions before, but there must be so many stories of ordinary-child-discovers-(magical-powers-and-goes-to)-a-different-word. But no one would say LotR, Narnia and Harry Potter are in any way similar. But just because it *has* been done, it might scare other people into writing it in case they get called copy-cats. Who knows, the end result of their writing might be completely different, but they stop before they start because it feels unoriginal...
For 2), I suppose it's particularly true for sci-fi/fantasy, which I hardly read, actually, so it's difficult to give an example... say, someone writing spaceship wars might write about energy shields that protects the ship, and how the protection goes down by % as they are attacked. But why? Because that's how it's done in StarTrek? Because it's logical? But in sci-fi, logic is how you play it, really. Do people get too influenced by existing ideas? Why can't the spaceship dodge? What do you mean, it's too big to move quickly? It's space! It's sci-fi! Why are you applying the law of physics to it? Why aren't you making up your own physics for it?
Okay, lousy example, but I hope I get my point across. Must vampires be afraid of / killed by garlic, stake through the heart, sunlight, dismemberment or fire? Can't they be preyed upon (yes, it's been done in Trinity Blood, but can't you do it too and make it different? Why should it stop you?) or... they can suffer normal deaths? All that's different is that they drink blood rather than eat food? (Which has probably already been done, also. But it's still more unconventional. You see the general point I'm getting at.)
Last night I told Liz I really liked one of the stories in Fragile Things because a spaceship does damage to planets/other ships by FLINGING LARGE ROCKS. Who said it has to be missiles/lasers/bombs?
Sometimes I wonder if the crazy ideas I come up with (just ask Liz**) is because I don't read so much/enough. I know some of it comes from having different cultural backgrounds and access to a wider range of literature because of it. Some of it is because I'm just generally mad. But, still.
Remember the bit in The Matrix where Morpheus teaches Neo how the Matrix works, that getting hit doesn't mean it has to hurt, that he can jump from building to building if he ditches the normal rules of the world from his mind? "Free your mind" - I think I like that idea.
**She didn't like the one with the rollerskate disco. Goddamn elitist! XD
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-25 10:39 am (UTC)this is my answer to commenting when I have half a brainno subject
Date: 2008-07-25 12:31 pm (UTC)But, even though I like the fantasy genre a lot, I don't think I'll ever attempt writing something commercially for it because just about everything HAS been done. I don't know. It would have to stand out, like the HP, LOTR etc series do. You'd have to be as good/better to get anywhere in that genre, so yeah... it's very daunting. And everything I'd like to do would probably appeal to children because it'd sound really lame to teenagers, but I don't know if I can write for children, lol. Free your mind might be a very good slogan to apply to this.
The space ship could dodge if you were able to deploy some form of temporal shift....
Date: 2008-07-25 12:49 pm (UTC)Most concepts have been imagined before. The originality is often in how you use them. Although fantasy fiction as a genre does tend to be repetitive. Science fiction is a better example because, in theory, it enables you to define your own limits. If you want to write in a universe which is a recognisable development from our own, then you're more likely to have to work with known technologies etc in order to maintain realism. If you're off to the far flung future, then you can bring in all kinds of whizzy new technology, aliens, time travel, whatever. Then the challenge is making what you imagine (if you can actually imagine it) hold together as a believable world. It's a bit like magical realism. Although I think it was Louis de Berniere who said that the problem with that was, that if anything could happen, you easily stopped caring if it did.
Or something along those lines.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-25 06:43 pm (UTC)In my opinion, classifying stuff by genres does work both for authors and readers alike, although I'm not big on it myself. I mean, it is a convenient way of summarizing those points you're looking for in a book, so it's a must in bookstores, and as a writer it also helps you to target readers who'll be interested in your works. Since that's what publishers are looking for (authors who might appeal to as large a fanbase as possible), people who want to make a living by writing usually have to cater to those, er, market constructions to some extent in order to actually get published.
In that sense, yes, I suppose it is important to be aware of who you're writing for, meaning that you should be knowledgeable in what's been done before in your genre and how, in order to avoid doing it the same way or to think of alternate ways of tackling the same thing, because you need to be unique enough to get published but also classifiable enough to appeal to your target... readership.
Even though I said all of that, I relate to what you're saying and I think what I just said sucks and that the core problem is in the way our systems work. But I'm shutting up now, because I'm turning this into an entirely different thing XD;