Where the Billionaires Went Wrong
Oct. 27th, 2005 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafocNow that I've sold exactly one short-short story, it's time for me to tell those who have made hundreds of millions from their writing just exactly where they went wrong.
I don't know much about writing. I just do it. Nevertheless, I picked up along the way that a story has to have a mix of things in it, in different proportions depending on story type. You need characters. Perhaps your characters learn, grow, and change. Things have to happen, and your characters have to make other things happen in response. And, of course, your story has to happen somewhere, so you need a setting.
In "serious literature" the setting isn't that important, and the more serious the literature, the less important the setting. Hemingway might go so far as to set his novel in a cave full of partisan guereullas sitting around, spitting into the fire, scratching themselves, and telling each other "go and obscenity thyself," but that's about as wild as a serious-literature setting ever gets. And, I might add, since something actually HAPPENS in that book, it's not the most serious literature out there. The real serious stuff often involves some senile old man sitting in a cockroach-infested cold-water flat, drooling on himself and muttering about the old days when he had teeth.
Such a setting exhausts its delight and variety rather quickly. Of course, since the general theme of serious literature seems to be that everything is futile so we should just kill ourselves now and save all the trouble, a setting that is empty, boring, and miserable is the perfect choice. It goes far to establish the feeling of pointlessness, tedium, and despair the Serious Writer wants to create.
But if you're writing genre fiction, the setting becomes more than just a place for things to happen. It becomes a character in itself. The Lensmen couldn't happen without the universe of the Galactic Patrol. The dragons of Pern couldn't happen anywhere but Pern. And, dare I say it, Flanker couldn't have happened without the Ten Thousand Worlds of the Allis Draconia.
In stories like these, exploring the setting is in itself a big part of the story. The scenery, society, and customs of the place introduce a lot of the interest and a lot of the plot twists. That sense of discovery and surprise is a big part of the enjoyment of this kind of story.
Which is why it is always a big mistake to explain things too much. The reader should be allowed to explore, to find things on their own. There should always be a good supply of dark corners and unexplained events for the reader to wonder about. If the story is about exploring the setting, once you've explained everything, the story is over. Not only that, but if you're so busy trying to make sure the reader gets the CORRECT understanding-- yours, of course-- that you give them every detail, the story becomes more of a propaganda piece than entertainment. Readers can tell when they're being led by the nose, and I, at least, don't like it. I don't think many people do.
One of the reason Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were so popular is that he presented a fascinating character and explained almost nothing about him. One result of this is Sherlockian clubs who have extracted decades of harmless amusement by meeting to speculate and debate upon Holmes's origins and his world. Another result is that most of the Holmes stories written since Doyle's death really really suck, even when they were written by people who were as good as Doyle, or even better. Inevitibly, it seems, the writer's big motivation is to set forth his theory on Sherlock's life, his hatred of Moriarity, what REALLY happened at Reichenback Falls, and so on, and so on, and the writers try to ram that theory down your throat. It's tedious.
And then, consider Larry Niven's Ringworld vs. his Ringworld Engineers. One is full of excitement and discovery. The other.. well, Mr. Niven discovered he'd made a mistake in the physics of his Ringworld design. The Ringworld is unstable. He decided therefore to go back and explain how its designers took care of this problem. He went back to explain. Always a bad idea.
The bulk of the Pern stories since the Dragonriders were finished... most of the Ann Rice vampire novels.. all of the Dune saga after Dune Messiah.. on and on it goes. Too much explaining in a world that's already been explained. Too much leading the reader by the nose. Of course, you can hardly call these books MISTAKES, since they made their writers lots and lots of money. But even so.
However, even though setting is more important in genre fiction than in "serious" fiction, you still have to remember to put in a plot. How many times have you read a science fiction or fantasy story that started out fascinating, discovering the details of a delightful world, but then went flat because the writer didn't make anything happen there? Or, say, a plot that's too linear. If the characters never change and grow, if you can more or less predict exactly what's going to happen once you've been introduced to the main characters; if nobody learns, or changes, or grows, or discovers (s)he is mistaken in some important way; if all you need to read to know the outcome is the first chapter, why bother to read the rest of them?
In my opinion Harry Potter is going in this direction. I have hopes Rowling will still fool me somehow, but it's going to take some amazing cleverness (or the most tired dodge of all, "and then I woke up and realized it was all a DREAM!") to pull that off now. On reflection, what bugs me is not that Harry's dislikes, however petty their basis, are always right. What bugs me is that aside from Harry nobody in that whole world seems able to learn from mistakes, change their ways, grow or learn in any way.
Granted that in the real world people usually don't, but this is literature we're talking about.
So, in short, genre fiction like fantasy and science fiction needs a good setting, and it also needs a good plot. No wonder the college professor fans of "serious" literature hate F and SF so much!
I don't know much about writing. I just do it. Nevertheless, I picked up along the way that a story has to have a mix of things in it, in different proportions depending on story type. You need characters. Perhaps your characters learn, grow, and change. Things have to happen, and your characters have to make other things happen in response. And, of course, your story has to happen somewhere, so you need a setting.
In "serious literature" the setting isn't that important, and the more serious the literature, the less important the setting. Hemingway might go so far as to set his novel in a cave full of partisan guereullas sitting around, spitting into the fire, scratching themselves, and telling each other "go and obscenity thyself," but that's about as wild as a serious-literature setting ever gets. And, I might add, since something actually HAPPENS in that book, it's not the most serious literature out there. The real serious stuff often involves some senile old man sitting in a cockroach-infested cold-water flat, drooling on himself and muttering about the old days when he had teeth.
Such a setting exhausts its delight and variety rather quickly. Of course, since the general theme of serious literature seems to be that everything is futile so we should just kill ourselves now and save all the trouble, a setting that is empty, boring, and miserable is the perfect choice. It goes far to establish the feeling of pointlessness, tedium, and despair the Serious Writer wants to create.
But if you're writing genre fiction, the setting becomes more than just a place for things to happen. It becomes a character in itself. The Lensmen couldn't happen without the universe of the Galactic Patrol. The dragons of Pern couldn't happen anywhere but Pern. And, dare I say it, Flanker couldn't have happened without the Ten Thousand Worlds of the Allis Draconia.
In stories like these, exploring the setting is in itself a big part of the story. The scenery, society, and customs of the place introduce a lot of the interest and a lot of the plot twists. That sense of discovery and surprise is a big part of the enjoyment of this kind of story.
Which is why it is always a big mistake to explain things too much. The reader should be allowed to explore, to find things on their own. There should always be a good supply of dark corners and unexplained events for the reader to wonder about. If the story is about exploring the setting, once you've explained everything, the story is over. Not only that, but if you're so busy trying to make sure the reader gets the CORRECT understanding-- yours, of course-- that you give them every detail, the story becomes more of a propaganda piece than entertainment. Readers can tell when they're being led by the nose, and I, at least, don't like it. I don't think many people do.
One of the reason Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories were so popular is that he presented a fascinating character and explained almost nothing about him. One result of this is Sherlockian clubs who have extracted decades of harmless amusement by meeting to speculate and debate upon Holmes's origins and his world. Another result is that most of the Holmes stories written since Doyle's death really really suck, even when they were written by people who were as good as Doyle, or even better. Inevitibly, it seems, the writer's big motivation is to set forth his theory on Sherlock's life, his hatred of Moriarity, what REALLY happened at Reichenback Falls, and so on, and so on, and the writers try to ram that theory down your throat. It's tedious.
And then, consider Larry Niven's Ringworld vs. his Ringworld Engineers. One is full of excitement and discovery. The other.. well, Mr. Niven discovered he'd made a mistake in the physics of his Ringworld design. The Ringworld is unstable. He decided therefore to go back and explain how its designers took care of this problem. He went back to explain. Always a bad idea.
The bulk of the Pern stories since the Dragonriders were finished... most of the Ann Rice vampire novels.. all of the Dune saga after Dune Messiah.. on and on it goes. Too much explaining in a world that's already been explained. Too much leading the reader by the nose. Of course, you can hardly call these books MISTAKES, since they made their writers lots and lots of money. But even so.
However, even though setting is more important in genre fiction than in "serious" fiction, you still have to remember to put in a plot. How many times have you read a science fiction or fantasy story that started out fascinating, discovering the details of a delightful world, but then went flat because the writer didn't make anything happen there? Or, say, a plot that's too linear. If the characters never change and grow, if you can more or less predict exactly what's going to happen once you've been introduced to the main characters; if nobody learns, or changes, or grows, or discovers (s)he is mistaken in some important way; if all you need to read to know the outcome is the first chapter, why bother to read the rest of them?
In my opinion Harry Potter is going in this direction. I have hopes Rowling will still fool me somehow, but it's going to take some amazing cleverness (or the most tired dodge of all, "and then I woke up and realized it was all a DREAM!") to pull that off now. On reflection, what bugs me is not that Harry's dislikes, however petty their basis, are always right. What bugs me is that aside from Harry nobody in that whole world seems able to learn from mistakes, change their ways, grow or learn in any way.
Granted that in the real world people usually don't, but this is literature we're talking about.
So, in short, genre fiction like fantasy and science fiction needs a good setting, and it also needs a good plot. No wonder the college professor fans of "serious" literature hate F and SF so much!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-28 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-28 07:04 am (UTC)Then I saw your comment.
Ah
Date: 2005-10-29 07:02 am (UTC)