This weekend I flew down to San Diego for the ConDor convention. If you've never been, this is a small but very friendly convention with a lot of fantastic guests. I was very impressed with the whole thing, and encourage others to attend. One high note was the ConSuite, where they had such good food (both tasty and satisfying) that I never had a hunger crisis the whole weekend. Very impressive.
Now to the exciting parts.
I arrived just in time for my first panel on Friday afternoon, "Retelling Old Stories: The New Fairy Tales." This was a great way to get started because the panelists were all friendly and intelligent - something I found to be true through the whole convention. One of the main topics here was what exactly we lose when we're updating old fairy tales - whether there is a core value in the stories that can be lost, or whether the relevance of the stories changes with the culture around it. There were good arguments on both sides, and much discussion of "cracked" fairy tales, feminist or gender-reversed versions, etc. We also talked a bit about folk tales across cultures. I was really happy to meet Cecil Castellucci on this panel - she's a YA writer and editor with a lot of incisive things to say.
Immediately thereafter I went to "The Inadvertent Time Traveller: What to do when dumped in another era." Lillian Csernica, one of my roommates, did a terrific job of moderating, even though we were both awed by the presence of Connie Willis on the panel. It was a great discussion. There seemed to be a binary consensus that while actual time travel was likely to be quite deadly because of microbes, if not a myriad social problems, that theoretical and fictional time travel was irresistibly interesting and seemed like it would be a lot of fun. I suspect I was most remembered for suggesting that taking off one's clothes upon arrival might help one avoid social entanglements due to anachronistic clothing (until they could steal some local clothes), and might conceivably get a person sympathy if they were discovered without in the meantime. Connie Willis thought it was a plausible idea, so I felt vindicated! I came away thinking that Ms. Willis was quite an impressive thinker and speaker, and wanting to check out her books Blackout/All Clear.
That evening I went out to dinner with David J. Peterson, the inventor of Dothraki for Game of Thrones (and more, which I'll explain in a minute), his wife Erin, and authors Leigh Bardugo and Sylvia Sotomayor, as well as my two roommates, Lillian Csernica and Pat McEwen. We had some great Mexican food and hilarious conversation, and nearly got caught in a chilly rainstorm (which was surprising, for San Diego).
Saturday morning was my first chance to visit the Con without actually being on panels for a little while. I bought a couple of books - Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, and Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky - and subsequently got them autographed by the authors. Thank goodness I'm allowed a little time to be a fan as well as an author! I met internet friend Calvin Johnson for the first time, which was a real pleasure, and also ran into my author friends Stephen Blackmoore, Sheila Finch, and Erin Hoffman.
I also attended David Peterson's talk on the languages he's been designing. That was terrific, because I've heard about Dothraki before, but he's also got some new languages he's working on for alien characters in the forthcoming TV show, "Defiance." I'm really looking forward to seeing that. David is modest, but incredibly knowledgeable about his linguistics, and clearly has a ton of fun with it. Nothing like watching an expert at his work.
My own Saturday panel was "Worldbuilding 2: Biology and Sentient Races," where I was joined by friends Sheila Finch and Pat McEwen, both of whom are super experts on topics of this nature. This was a wide-ranging panel which ranged from discussing the physical conditions on planets and how those would influence sentient species, to asking whether it was possible for more than one sentient species to coexist on a planet (I thought it probably would be, provided that the evolutionary niches were not too competitive), to the plausibility of actually encountering a sentient species of aliens. We had aspirations to build an example species, but those served more as drivers for the fundamental questions we were discussing. There were just too many ideas flying around to end up with a single model at the end.
I spent the afternoon hanging out with friends, and went out to dinner at one of the many hotel restaurants with Lillian and Pat before returning to my room for a nap (for good reason!). That night we went out to a great party which had taken as its theme the photo I used in this post about strong female characters. Yes, that's right - it was a "tiaras with weapons" party. Make your own tiara, and include (if you like), guns, ninjas, toy soldiers, etc. Small figurines of Disney princesses with heavy weaponry had been arranged around the room. I thought the atmosphere was great, and because it was a crafting party, it wasn't so loud that you couldn't hear each other speak. I really enjoyed talking to the folks there.
Sunday was a bit disorienting for everyone as a result of the time change, and I arrived at my 11am "Worldbuilding 3: How might you go about creating an alien culture?" panel with a smile, looking forward to talking about my favorite topic, but also figuring the audience would be small. Was I surprised! Just before the panel was due to start, the room filled to the brim with an entire class of young people (I'm guessing early high school) who were with their teacher, researching an assignment in which they were to add to the stories of Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man. Soon it was standing-room-only, as more convention-goers straggled in, and we all got super jazzed up by the idea that we could potentially contribute to the ideas of these young people (or I know that Lillian and I did). Also on the panel were David Peterson and Eldon Thompson. Eldon did a great job moderating and keeping us talking with interesting questions, as well as talking a little about his own epic fantasy novels. I think I was most excited when I got a chance to talk about metaphors and similes, and how they can both portray a world and contribute to a character's inner voice.
My last lunch was with David Peterson and Sylvia Sotomayor. Sylvia has this great bag she uses for her belongings that has the created language from her novel written on it in two different ways (one that looks like an alphabet, the other like a sort of maze) - super cool. Partway through our meal we were joined by Nancy and Trevin (I apologize if I've gotten that one wrong; David, comment and correct me?). I was already checked out by the time I hit my first panel, in the name of reducing stress, so when the time came to go to the airport I was all ready to go (thank goodness). Super thanks to Erin Peterson for agreeing to be my ferry to and from the airport; it made my life so much easier!
I got home tired but feeling like it had been a wonderful weekend. There's nothing like going and hanging out for a few days with people as geeky as I am! So many wonderful intelligent conversations. It really makes me feel motivated to write!
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
There's more to beds than you might imagine...
We watched this video recently - "Grandma's Feather Bed" from John Denver's visit to the muppet show:
This got me thinking about the lyrics, and once I'd read them (here), I started wondering what in the world was meant by "a whole bolt of cloth for the tick." This took me to Wikipedia, here.
Just reading the article was fascinating. Here's an excerpt:
"Featherbeds were only for the rich in the 14th century, but by the 19th century they were a comfort that ordinary people could aspire to - especially if they kept a few geese. The beds, also called feather ticks or feather mattresses, were valuable possessions. People made wills promising them to the next generation, and emigrants, travelling to the New World from Europe, packed up bulky featherbeds and took them on the voyage. If you didn't inherit one, you needed to buy up to 50 pounds of feathers, or save feathers from years of plucking until there were enough for a new bed.
The feathers could be saved from geese or ducks being prepared for cooking. In England servant-girls were often allowed to keep feathers from poultry they'd plucked, and could save them to make a featherbed or pillows for their future married life."
You may have noticed the word "tick" in there. These days the striped fabric used for mattresses and pillows is called "ticking fabric." What I found most interesting is how something that we currently take for granted, a soft mattress, could be something that people worked toward achieving for years, and cared for enough to take it on a lengthy ship voyage.
Beds as we treat them now are an object of value, but that has changed a lot over time. That means if you're using beds the way we use them now, they have to have a similar basis within the culture. Not only that, but people are probably pretty much the same size that they are now. I remember seeing the bed that Abraham Lincoln died in, and it was so short that he had to be laid on it diagonally. Similarly, in Europe, we see a lot of very short beds.
In Japan, they have futons, and those are not at all like the wooden frames plus mattress objects that we find here in the US. They have two parts: the shikibuton, which plays the part of the mattress, but has no box spring and is essentially a thicker-than-usual comforter sort of object, and the kakebuton, which is the top comforter part. That top part gets tied into the inside of a cloth envelope like a duvet cover, which typically has an oval window in the top of it, covered by netting. Both parts get folded up in the morning and tucked in the closet until they are brought out again and laid on the tatami mats for bedtime.
How do you think beds might be different in your world? It's something to think about.
I'll put up a report on my weekend at ConDor tomorrow!
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Video: Weapons, Fighting, and Battles in Worldbuilding
We had a great session today, with a new guest who was a real expert on our topic - many thanks to Ken Burnside for joining us! Here's the video for those who missed the hangout:
We decided there was a lot more to talk about, so next week we'll be revisiting this topic with a focus on science fiction rather than fantasy. I hope you can make it!
We decided there was a lot more to talk about, so next week we'll be revisiting this topic with a focus on science fiction rather than fantasy. I hope you can make it!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Building a world after you've already started your story
This week, we spoke about the problem of coming to a world after a story is already partially or fully written. I was joined for this discussion by Glenda Pfeiffer, Erin Peterson, and Misha Gericke. Misha was attending for the first time, all the way from South Africa! (That was really cool).
I suppose the best place to start is determining what the topic means. What is "before" and what is "after" in this context? I think of "before" as cases when people have been designing a world in depth and then go about finding stories in it. Erin told us she does the worldbuilding and then never gets to the stories, and there are plenty of people who do this! "Before" also applies to cases where people have an initial story concept, and try to figure out which kind of world that story concept would most effectively be framed in. Glenda says that she does a lot of this, trying to match a story problem to a cultural model where that problem would be best exemplified. "After" for me means that you've started in on your prose, so characters and events and locations are happening without any previous world planning.
Erin mentioned that if you are conlanging (creating languages) and think you're not creating culture, then you're really just using your own culture as a basis because it is invisible to you. This was an excellent point, and reveals one property of worldbuilding also: if you think you're not worldbuilding, but are writing a story, then you really are worldbuilding, but using familiar world elements and not checking the consistency of the new elements you introduce.
The problem with writing that doesn't include at least one phase of concentrated worldbuilding is that very often the story will not come together as a result. Things will be implausible. Further, you won't be able to tell if the way the world works should have influenced your prose style more.
It's good to have a checklist to go through when you are preparing to head into revisions. You could always use my list of hangout topics, or my interview questions here, which are based on worldbuilding ideas. One important place to start, though, is with the characters. Who are they? What social groups might they belong? How do the story's problems relate to the characters' identities?
Erin noted that novels give a writer a lot more space for worldbuilding than short stories do. I've talked about this issue before, in this post. On the other hand, you ideally need more worldbuilding for a short story than you might imagine.
The most important technique here is to examine the details of the story as it has been written, and use those details as clues to larger patterns.
For example, do you have a scene where people are eating? What are they eating? Whatever they are eating must have come somewhere, so you've got an immediate insight into climate, agriculture, and trade. Take it further. What are they eating with? How were those items made?
Take any detail that you like and magnify. Explore its underpinnings within the world. Any piece of information you can find in the piece can expand and cross-inform others. Misha agreed, saying everything is connected - dress, weather, etc. Worldbuilding is about making connections, and making sense. Misha wrote her first draft without a fully built world. Each country was referred to simply in North/South/East/West terms. From there she went to climate and from there to buildings. Since there were a variety of countries, she had to point up differences. She took her cold climate nation and made the people very rich but accustomed to fighting for what they get. They have a different way of thinking as a result. This influences their work ethic and the way they think about goals. This in turn influences language.
Internal consistency is a really good goal to work toward. Readers will notice inconsistencies and find them bothersome - and eventually may abandon the story. If there is an apparent inconsistency due to diversity within the culture, make sure to put the background for that diversity into the world.
Economy is another critical ingredient, and one that we can learn a great deal from just by looking at what kind of evidence might already exist in a story draft. How is food produced? Where does it come from? What about clothes? Who has the money? If there is a nobility, where do they get all their money? By what kinds of steps might they be connected to the produce of the land they own? Or do the richest people of the world come from a merchant background? What kind of trade makes them so successful?
Worldbuilding is so valuable in part because it can help you shore up sparse areas in your story with extra richness of detail. Because of the internal consistency and interconnectedness of the world, you won't find yourself having to make up seemingly random details out of thin air.
Look also for the kinds of metaphors you have used. How did your characters describe and judge their surroundings? What kind of motivations might that imply? What kind of personal history might lead to those motivations?
Adding meaningful detail to a story isn't just about putting in things you like, but creating meaning. Look, for example, at Watership Down by Richard Adams. It's about rabbits. There are all kinds of details available about rabbits in the real world... and a great many of them are included in the story. But there is also more. There is how the rabbits understand themselves and each other, and humans. There is a whole world of cultural meaning that makes this far more than just a story about rabbits.
Erin remarked on a pet peeve of hers, which she called "Inadvertent Connecticut Yankees." This is what happens when you end up with a world that is clearly not American, but a character in it who acts just like a typical spunky American teen. Characters who have grown up in their worlds do not question its restrictions in the same way that outsiders would. A freed slave character in a novel about the Civil War period is most likely to feel distressed but resigned rather than to have the modern variety of righteous indignation.
Misha said that culture must lie behind the motivations of characters. What if the culture doesn't allow for sword-wielding women? We agreed that this was most likely to lead to Joan of Arc scenarios.
Worldbuilding applies also to historical and international fiction contexts - and even contemporaries. The world that exists on the page is written, and thus by definition is not the same as what surrounds us. Every author has to build a world, and those worlds are never 100% accurate. As Misha said, we are still dealing with fantasy in a cloak of reality.
At this point I asked, "What if your character doesn't match your world?" One type of compromise is to have your protagonist be a person from another land; another is to give him or her a backstory that would justify a cultural mismatch. Misha had a character who needed to be even more ruthless than the culture of her cold country would suggest, so she gave him a backstory that made him desire to retaliate against his fellows, and had him disregard rank in his behavior, thus setting him apart from the others. Erin said that most protagonists are outsiders to the dominant culture in some way. The fact is that most people have a relationship with the values of their cultural group, and the values of any group are not enacted uniformly. Diversity is the norm, and any group, no matter how uniform it seems, will have subgroups internal to it. In Japan, the concept of "in group" can refer to yourself, if you're contrasting with anyone else, or to your family, if you're contrasting with an outsider to that group, or even your country or your world. Look at all the subgroups in fandom! This is to say that you do not need to make all of your characters match in order for the world to be plausible. You just need to know why they don't match.
We also discussed how disaster can lead to atypical behavior. The more serious the threat, the greater the possibility that it will change cultural behavior. Misha suggested that entire cultures can change if the threat is big enough, such as when women began to wear pants after World War I drove so many men out of the workplace. Erin mentioned how World War II changed the culture of upper class debutantes in Britain. This is all to say that you should consider the context of the conflict as you've established it in your story, and use that to assess how much deviation there can be from a background level of cultural behavior. It may make your worldbuilding job easier.
In a way, filling in your worldbuilding after you've written the story is a good idea. That way, you know you have a story before you can get lost in the details of the world! I hope you can get some ideas from our discussion to help you in your own writing.
Thanks again to Glenda, Erin, and Misha! I hope to see you again soon.
This week's discussion will be tomorrow, Thursday, March 6 at 11am PST on Google+. We will be discussing Weapons, Fighting, and Battles in Worldbuilding. Join us!
I suppose the best place to start is determining what the topic means. What is "before" and what is "after" in this context? I think of "before" as cases when people have been designing a world in depth and then go about finding stories in it. Erin told us she does the worldbuilding and then never gets to the stories, and there are plenty of people who do this! "Before" also applies to cases where people have an initial story concept, and try to figure out which kind of world that story concept would most effectively be framed in. Glenda says that she does a lot of this, trying to match a story problem to a cultural model where that problem would be best exemplified. "After" for me means that you've started in on your prose, so characters and events and locations are happening without any previous world planning.
Erin mentioned that if you are conlanging (creating languages) and think you're not creating culture, then you're really just using your own culture as a basis because it is invisible to you. This was an excellent point, and reveals one property of worldbuilding also: if you think you're not worldbuilding, but are writing a story, then you really are worldbuilding, but using familiar world elements and not checking the consistency of the new elements you introduce.
The problem with writing that doesn't include at least one phase of concentrated worldbuilding is that very often the story will not come together as a result. Things will be implausible. Further, you won't be able to tell if the way the world works should have influenced your prose style more.
It's good to have a checklist to go through when you are preparing to head into revisions. You could always use my list of hangout topics, or my interview questions here, which are based on worldbuilding ideas. One important place to start, though, is with the characters. Who are they? What social groups might they belong? How do the story's problems relate to the characters' identities?
Erin noted that novels give a writer a lot more space for worldbuilding than short stories do. I've talked about this issue before, in this post. On the other hand, you ideally need more worldbuilding for a short story than you might imagine.
The most important technique here is to examine the details of the story as it has been written, and use those details as clues to larger patterns.
For example, do you have a scene where people are eating? What are they eating? Whatever they are eating must have come somewhere, so you've got an immediate insight into climate, agriculture, and trade. Take it further. What are they eating with? How were those items made?
Take any detail that you like and magnify. Explore its underpinnings within the world. Any piece of information you can find in the piece can expand and cross-inform others. Misha agreed, saying everything is connected - dress, weather, etc. Worldbuilding is about making connections, and making sense. Misha wrote her first draft without a fully built world. Each country was referred to simply in North/South/East/West terms. From there she went to climate and from there to buildings. Since there were a variety of countries, she had to point up differences. She took her cold climate nation and made the people very rich but accustomed to fighting for what they get. They have a different way of thinking as a result. This influences their work ethic and the way they think about goals. This in turn influences language.
Internal consistency is a really good goal to work toward. Readers will notice inconsistencies and find them bothersome - and eventually may abandon the story. If there is an apparent inconsistency due to diversity within the culture, make sure to put the background for that diversity into the world.
Economy is another critical ingredient, and one that we can learn a great deal from just by looking at what kind of evidence might already exist in a story draft. How is food produced? Where does it come from? What about clothes? Who has the money? If there is a nobility, where do they get all their money? By what kinds of steps might they be connected to the produce of the land they own? Or do the richest people of the world come from a merchant background? What kind of trade makes them so successful?
Worldbuilding is so valuable in part because it can help you shore up sparse areas in your story with extra richness of detail. Because of the internal consistency and interconnectedness of the world, you won't find yourself having to make up seemingly random details out of thin air.
Look also for the kinds of metaphors you have used. How did your characters describe and judge their surroundings? What kind of motivations might that imply? What kind of personal history might lead to those motivations?
Adding meaningful detail to a story isn't just about putting in things you like, but creating meaning. Look, for example, at Watership Down by Richard Adams. It's about rabbits. There are all kinds of details available about rabbits in the real world... and a great many of them are included in the story. But there is also more. There is how the rabbits understand themselves and each other, and humans. There is a whole world of cultural meaning that makes this far more than just a story about rabbits.
Erin remarked on a pet peeve of hers, which she called "Inadvertent Connecticut Yankees." This is what happens when you end up with a world that is clearly not American, but a character in it who acts just like a typical spunky American teen. Characters who have grown up in their worlds do not question its restrictions in the same way that outsiders would. A freed slave character in a novel about the Civil War period is most likely to feel distressed but resigned rather than to have the modern variety of righteous indignation.
Misha said that culture must lie behind the motivations of characters. What if the culture doesn't allow for sword-wielding women? We agreed that this was most likely to lead to Joan of Arc scenarios.
Worldbuilding applies also to historical and international fiction contexts - and even contemporaries. The world that exists on the page is written, and thus by definition is not the same as what surrounds us. Every author has to build a world, and those worlds are never 100% accurate. As Misha said, we are still dealing with fantasy in a cloak of reality.
At this point I asked, "What if your character doesn't match your world?" One type of compromise is to have your protagonist be a person from another land; another is to give him or her a backstory that would justify a cultural mismatch. Misha had a character who needed to be even more ruthless than the culture of her cold country would suggest, so she gave him a backstory that made him desire to retaliate against his fellows, and had him disregard rank in his behavior, thus setting him apart from the others. Erin said that most protagonists are outsiders to the dominant culture in some way. The fact is that most people have a relationship with the values of their cultural group, and the values of any group are not enacted uniformly. Diversity is the norm, and any group, no matter how uniform it seems, will have subgroups internal to it. In Japan, the concept of "in group" can refer to yourself, if you're contrasting with anyone else, or to your family, if you're contrasting with an outsider to that group, or even your country or your world. Look at all the subgroups in fandom! This is to say that you do not need to make all of your characters match in order for the world to be plausible. You just need to know why they don't match.
We also discussed how disaster can lead to atypical behavior. The more serious the threat, the greater the possibility that it will change cultural behavior. Misha suggested that entire cultures can change if the threat is big enough, such as when women began to wear pants after World War I drove so many men out of the workplace. Erin mentioned how World War II changed the culture of upper class debutantes in Britain. This is all to say that you should consider the context of the conflict as you've established it in your story, and use that to assess how much deviation there can be from a background level of cultural behavior. It may make your worldbuilding job easier.
In a way, filling in your worldbuilding after you've written the story is a good idea. That way, you know you have a story before you can get lost in the details of the world! I hope you can get some ideas from our discussion to help you in your own writing.
Thanks again to Glenda, Erin, and Misha! I hope to see you again soon.
This week's discussion will be tomorrow, Thursday, March 6 at 11am PST on Google+. We will be discussing Weapons, Fighting, and Battles in Worldbuilding. Join us!
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
TTYU Retro: Using projection/anticipation to improve your manuscript
Toward the end of the first draft of my most recent novel, I started using a new technique to improve the draft, thanks to my lovely and insightful beta-reader, Jamie Todd Rubin. The fact that he was my beta-reader was initially something of an accident - I'd been talking with him about my novel and he offered to read it, to which I replied "are you sure?" and out of that insecurity only sent him one chapter, but then he asked for another. And another, and onward. (Thanks again, Jamie!)
One of the things he told me (and it probably won't surprise you) was that he didn't want me to tell him anything about what I was currently working on, or any details about where the story was going. Okay, so I did that. But at a certain point I asked him a question that opened a whole new kind of door for me in my writing process. The question was this:
What do you think is going to happen next in the story?
The results of my asking this question were so fabulously useful that I've since done it multiple times, and now I'm recommending that you try this as well.
Ask a reader - one who does not know where the story is "supposed" to go - to tell you where he or she thinks it is going.
I often think about the arcs of my story: what I've constructed up to a particular point should give some indication of where the arc will go in the future. Asking Jamie where he thought the story was going allowed me to get an outsider's view on the arcs as they appeared on the page, rather than as I imagined them. Because I know where a story is going, and where it is supposed to go, I can miss places where I've misdirected readers, or places where I've left open a possibility that isn't actually a possibility. Jamie helped me figure out where I'd left the wrong doors open, and based on his comments, I could then go back, see more clearly what I'd done, take those wrong doors and close them.
Honestly, I lucked into that. Jamie is a perceptive reader, and very creative about thinking through the possibilities - someone like him may be hard to find. During our last conversation of this nature he didn't feel like he could address the general question "where you do you think the story is going?" so instead I asked him the same question on a smaller level, i.e. what he thought would happen next for each of the three main characters. As a result he came up with the most amazing hypothesis for my protagonist I could possibly have imagined. It wasn't what I had planned, but it was incredibly informative. What it told me was that my character trajectories were right on target: that he had precisely the right idea about where my protagonist wanted to end up (i.e. not as a straightforward "winner" of the competition), and he had developed respect for one of the secondary characters that was exactly what I was hoping for (challenging, because this character is very oppressed and doesn't have lots of opportunities to look powerful).
So to think about this in practical terms, it's worth not telling every one of your writing friends everything about where your story is going. Not that this is a risk for you, necessarily, but it is for me! It's worth having some people you can hash through plans and world details with, and having others whom you only speak with about what they've experienced so far. The person who starts knowing nothing and builds up as they go along is the person most like your future reader. That person's ability to anticipate and to project the story can be absolutely invaluable.
One of the things he told me (and it probably won't surprise you) was that he didn't want me to tell him anything about what I was currently working on, or any details about where the story was going. Okay, so I did that. But at a certain point I asked him a question that opened a whole new kind of door for me in my writing process. The question was this:
What do you think is going to happen next in the story?
The results of my asking this question were so fabulously useful that I've since done it multiple times, and now I'm recommending that you try this as well.
Ask a reader - one who does not know where the story is "supposed" to go - to tell you where he or she thinks it is going.
I often think about the arcs of my story: what I've constructed up to a particular point should give some indication of where the arc will go in the future. Asking Jamie where he thought the story was going allowed me to get an outsider's view on the arcs as they appeared on the page, rather than as I imagined them. Because I know where a story is going, and where it is supposed to go, I can miss places where I've misdirected readers, or places where I've left open a possibility that isn't actually a possibility. Jamie helped me figure out where I'd left the wrong doors open, and based on his comments, I could then go back, see more clearly what I'd done, take those wrong doors and close them.
Honestly, I lucked into that. Jamie is a perceptive reader, and very creative about thinking through the possibilities - someone like him may be hard to find. During our last conversation of this nature he didn't feel like he could address the general question "where you do you think the story is going?" so instead I asked him the same question on a smaller level, i.e. what he thought would happen next for each of the three main characters. As a result he came up with the most amazing hypothesis for my protagonist I could possibly have imagined. It wasn't what I had planned, but it was incredibly informative. What it told me was that my character trajectories were right on target: that he had precisely the right idea about where my protagonist wanted to end up (i.e. not as a straightforward "winner" of the competition), and he had developed respect for one of the secondary characters that was exactly what I was hoping for (challenging, because this character is very oppressed and doesn't have lots of opportunities to look powerful).
So to think about this in practical terms, it's worth not telling every one of your writing friends everything about where your story is going. Not that this is a risk for you, necessarily, but it is for me! It's worth having some people you can hash through plans and world details with, and having others whom you only speak with about what they've experienced so far. The person who starts knowing nothing and builds up as they go along is the person most like your future reader. That person's ability to anticipate and to project the story can be absolutely invaluable.
Monday, March 4, 2013
Subverting dominant paradigms with SF/F (focus on gender)
Events over the last few days have been getting me to think a lot about science fiction and fantasy stories which subvert dominant paradigms. They draw our attention to things we may not have thought about. They expose our insecurities, our fears, and also our invisible privileges. They can make us feel very uncomfortable.
It appears that this kind of work has always been present, and has often received acclaim, despite this discomfort. That, to me, is important. I would hate to live in a world where there were no Shakespearean fools who could expose uncomfortable truths, or no one to show the oft-ignored diversity of human experience. The institutions of the dominant culture can act to suppress these voices, it's true. But we continue to chip away, and works of brilliance can begin to shine through.
As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I like to try to turn expectations on their heads. I like to think of how to make things work differently. Do I think that writers of speculative fiction should feel obligated to do this? I don't think I'm inclined to tell people what they can and cannot write. However, I do think an opportunity is lost when we decide to leave the old stones unturned. For inspiration, I'll bring your attention to the wonderful book, Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. Read it - you'll get tons of ideas.
There are many, many ways to question the status quo, and to bring attention to voices which deserve to be heard. The way that these cultural debates play out on social media are of great value, but are restricted by their medium and often oversimplify. In storytelling, there are a lot more, and different approaches that authors can take to a single problem. Last night I was thinking about questions of gender and sexism (as I often do), so I thought I'd look at some examples of how it has been done.
Reverse the Culture and Physiology
Star Trek TNG had an early episode called Angel One where the Enterprise encountered a planet ruled by an oligarchy of women. The men on the planet, so far as I could tell, appeared to be physically smaller and less imposing than the women. Reversal is a technique fraught with peril, in my opinion, as it is easily interpreted as revenge fantasy or vilification of the promoted group (and it has been used this way before). Another problem is that the reversal of the physical qualities of gender also serves to reinforce the idea that this physical evidence justifies the cultural bias. This does not mean it couldn't conceivably be handled well.
Reverse the Culture but not the Physiology
I loved the approach that N.K. Jemisin took to gender and sexism in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Her character Yeine came from a culture where women were dominant, but this was not the case in all cultures in this world. It was, in fact, one of the reasons why she was treated as an outsider by the people of Sky, who retained the pro-male bias. This allowed Jemisin to take a close look at the contrasts between the two views. Most important from my point of view was the fact that she didn't treat Yeine's Darre people as somehow physiologically different from everyone else. She didn't even try to change gendered behaviors. It was simply that masculine protectiveness and concern with physical prowess was considered sweet and more than a little silly by the women in power. To me, this seemed very real. It seemed natural to a system where one group is considered inherently inferior regardless of their achievements, and thus quite an insightful reversal of sexism in our own world.
Change the Gender Variables - Adding a different gender
The example of this that I love comes from the work of Octavia Butler in her Xenogenesis series, which starts with the novel Dawn (great article about it here, at Tor.com). She creates a third gender, "ooloi," which is entirely different from either male or female, yet has a very specific physiological function among the Oankali. Essentially the Ooloi is a DNA guardian and gene-mixer, who experiments with the kinds of offspring that can be created through different combinations of genetic material. In Butler's conception, the Ooloi doesn't stand outside the traditional male-female relationships, either - it lies between male and female, literally. Butler makes the ooloi, and the implications of its presence, impossible to ignore. She does an amazing job of questioning our sense of species at the same time as our sense of gender.
Change the Gender Variables - Creating a different gender spectrum
In this category I loved "Love might be too strong a word" by Charlie Jane Anders. She's created a far future humanity divided into six genders, with a diversity of physiological "ins" and "outs" (not her terms; for convenience, I'm borrowing them from Kij Johnson's "Spar") that are supposed to come together in different combinations. Along with that diversity comes a ranking, where people of more outs are more highly ranked than people with more ins. It takes the male-over-female bias to a logically extreme point, gender castes, and looks at how those biases would play out for a character who isn't willing to play by their rules. In a lovely linguistic move, Anders uses "man" and "woman" as verbs to describe different approaches to sexual interaction (and status interaction). Really thought-provoking.
Change the Gender Variables - eliminating permanent gender
For this one I come back to Ursula K. LeGuin's classic The Left Hand of Darkness. For the people of Gethen, gender is a transitory experience rather than a state of being. These people are genderless in their day to day lives, and only experience femaleness or maleness during a short period of sexual readiness called "kemmer." However, they can't control which gender role they will take in a sexual interaction, which means that they are at the same time neither gender and both. The crux of the matter is that gender is irrelevant to the daily public lives of Gethenians, and is entirely a private matter. LeGuin then is able to create some fascinating tensions with the human male sent among them.
Eliminating gender
I've distinguished this one from Ursula LeGuin's approach, because it involves trying to get rid of all the trappings of gender. Star Trek took this one on in their episode, "The Outcast." The society of the Janii purported itself to have evolved beyond gender and sexuality alike, and the character of Soren got in trouble because she identified as female and became attracted to Commander Riker. One of the contemporary issues brought up in this episode was that of therapy intended to "fix" someone with the wrong gender identification (in this case, any gender identification at all).
I think one of the greatest values of science fiction is its ability to get us thinking outside of our normal patterns. Though I have looked at gender in this post, there are so many more social issues that we could consider. Reading speculative fiction is in some ways like learning a foreign language, or encountering a foreign way of life - by experiencing difference, we not only learn about others, but we learn more about ourselves. The dark corners of our deepest assumptions are put under the light of scrutiny, and thus we are given the opportunity to consider them consciously.
Maybe you'll be the next person to get people thinking in a new way. It's worth the time and effort.
It appears that this kind of work has always been present, and has often received acclaim, despite this discomfort. That, to me, is important. I would hate to live in a world where there were no Shakespearean fools who could expose uncomfortable truths, or no one to show the oft-ignored diversity of human experience. The institutions of the dominant culture can act to suppress these voices, it's true. But we continue to chip away, and works of brilliance can begin to shine through.
As a writer of science fiction and fantasy, I like to try to turn expectations on their heads. I like to think of how to make things work differently. Do I think that writers of speculative fiction should feel obligated to do this? I don't think I'm inclined to tell people what they can and cannot write. However, I do think an opportunity is lost when we decide to leave the old stones unturned. For inspiration, I'll bring your attention to the wonderful book, Writing the Other by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. Read it - you'll get tons of ideas.
There are many, many ways to question the status quo, and to bring attention to voices which deserve to be heard. The way that these cultural debates play out on social media are of great value, but are restricted by their medium and often oversimplify. In storytelling, there are a lot more, and different approaches that authors can take to a single problem. Last night I was thinking about questions of gender and sexism (as I often do), so I thought I'd look at some examples of how it has been done.
Reverse the Culture and Physiology
Star Trek TNG had an early episode called Angel One where the Enterprise encountered a planet ruled by an oligarchy of women. The men on the planet, so far as I could tell, appeared to be physically smaller and less imposing than the women. Reversal is a technique fraught with peril, in my opinion, as it is easily interpreted as revenge fantasy or vilification of the promoted group (and it has been used this way before). Another problem is that the reversal of the physical qualities of gender also serves to reinforce the idea that this physical evidence justifies the cultural bias. This does not mean it couldn't conceivably be handled well.
Reverse the Culture but not the Physiology
I loved the approach that N.K. Jemisin took to gender and sexism in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Her character Yeine came from a culture where women were dominant, but this was not the case in all cultures in this world. It was, in fact, one of the reasons why she was treated as an outsider by the people of Sky, who retained the pro-male bias. This allowed Jemisin to take a close look at the contrasts between the two views. Most important from my point of view was the fact that she didn't treat Yeine's Darre people as somehow physiologically different from everyone else. She didn't even try to change gendered behaviors. It was simply that masculine protectiveness and concern with physical prowess was considered sweet and more than a little silly by the women in power. To me, this seemed very real. It seemed natural to a system where one group is considered inherently inferior regardless of their achievements, and thus quite an insightful reversal of sexism in our own world.
Change the Gender Variables - Adding a different gender
The example of this that I love comes from the work of Octavia Butler in her Xenogenesis series, which starts with the novel Dawn (great article about it here, at Tor.com). She creates a third gender, "ooloi," which is entirely different from either male or female, yet has a very specific physiological function among the Oankali. Essentially the Ooloi is a DNA guardian and gene-mixer, who experiments with the kinds of offspring that can be created through different combinations of genetic material. In Butler's conception, the Ooloi doesn't stand outside the traditional male-female relationships, either - it lies between male and female, literally. Butler makes the ooloi, and the implications of its presence, impossible to ignore. She does an amazing job of questioning our sense of species at the same time as our sense of gender.
Change the Gender Variables - Creating a different gender spectrum
In this category I loved "Love might be too strong a word" by Charlie Jane Anders. She's created a far future humanity divided into six genders, with a diversity of physiological "ins" and "outs" (not her terms; for convenience, I'm borrowing them from Kij Johnson's "Spar") that are supposed to come together in different combinations. Along with that diversity comes a ranking, where people of more outs are more highly ranked than people with more ins. It takes the male-over-female bias to a logically extreme point, gender castes, and looks at how those biases would play out for a character who isn't willing to play by their rules. In a lovely linguistic move, Anders uses "man" and "woman" as verbs to describe different approaches to sexual interaction (and status interaction). Really thought-provoking.
Change the Gender Variables - eliminating permanent gender
For this one I come back to Ursula K. LeGuin's classic The Left Hand of Darkness. For the people of Gethen, gender is a transitory experience rather than a state of being. These people are genderless in their day to day lives, and only experience femaleness or maleness during a short period of sexual readiness called "kemmer." However, they can't control which gender role they will take in a sexual interaction, which means that they are at the same time neither gender and both. The crux of the matter is that gender is irrelevant to the daily public lives of Gethenians, and is entirely a private matter. LeGuin then is able to create some fascinating tensions with the human male sent among them.
Eliminating gender
I've distinguished this one from Ursula LeGuin's approach, because it involves trying to get rid of all the trappings of gender. Star Trek took this one on in their episode, "The Outcast." The society of the Janii purported itself to have evolved beyond gender and sexuality alike, and the character of Soren got in trouble because she identified as female and became attracted to Commander Riker. One of the contemporary issues brought up in this episode was that of therapy intended to "fix" someone with the wrong gender identification (in this case, any gender identification at all).
I think one of the greatest values of science fiction is its ability to get us thinking outside of our normal patterns. Though I have looked at gender in this post, there are so many more social issues that we could consider. Reading speculative fiction is in some ways like learning a foreign language, or encountering a foreign way of life - by experiencing difference, we not only learn about others, but we learn more about ourselves. The dark corners of our deepest assumptions are put under the light of scrutiny, and thus we are given the opportunity to consider them consciously.
Maybe you'll be the next person to get people thinking in a new way. It's worth the time and effort.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Come see me at ConDor in San Diego!
Next weekend, that's March 8-10, I'll be headed down to San Diego to attend the ConDor convention. Their theme for this year is "There and Back Again: Journeys in Fantasy and Science Fiction." I'm really excited to go, not only because Connie Willis is the author guest of honor, but because there are just so many awesome people coming! David Peterson, the creator of Dothraki for Game of Thrones, will be there, and I'll be rooming with the ever-wonderful Lillian Csernica and Pat McEwen.
Do please, if you are in the area, consider attending! I always love to meet my internet friends. Here's my schedule for the weekend:
Friday, March 8 at 4pm -
Retelling old stories - the new fairy tales
with Cecil Castellucci, Michael Underwood, Lillian Csernica, and Laura Luchau
Friday, March 8 at 5pm -
The inadvertent time traveller - what to do when dumped in another era
with Lillian Csernica, Maudlin, Connie Willis, and Scott Norton
Saturday, March 9 at 1pm -
Worldbuilding - biology and sentient races
with Jefferson Swycaffer, Sheila Finch, Patricia McEwen, and Barbara Kesel
Saturday, March 9 at 3pm -
Autographs!
with Lillian Csernica and Patricia McEwen
Sunday, March 10 at 11am -
Worldbuilding - culture and society
with Eldon Thompson, Art Holcomb, David Peterson, and Lillian Csernica
I hope you can make it!
Do please, if you are in the area, consider attending! I always love to meet my internet friends. Here's my schedule for the weekend:
Friday, March 8 at 4pm -
Retelling old stories - the new fairy tales
with Cecil Castellucci, Michael Underwood, Lillian Csernica, and Laura Luchau
Friday, March 8 at 5pm -
The inadvertent time traveller - what to do when dumped in another era
with Lillian Csernica, Maudlin, Connie Willis, and Scott Norton
Saturday, March 9 at 1pm -
Worldbuilding - biology and sentient races
with Jefferson Swycaffer, Sheila Finch, Patricia McEwen, and Barbara Kesel
Saturday, March 9 at 3pm -
Autographs!
with Lillian Csernica and Patricia McEwen
Sunday, March 10 at 11am -
Worldbuilding - culture and society
with Eldon Thompson, Art Holcomb, David Peterson, and Lillian Csernica
I hope you can make it!
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