3 - Thoughts from Phil

I have a love for sci-fi and a general aversion to fantasy. It's quite irrational. It's something I can't pin down, only that I have read many examples of great sci-fi novels and few examples of great fantasy novels. Of course I have read far less fantasy novels and always approach them with a less open mind than I do with a sci-fi novel, so that's probably not a fair answer.

I think it has something do with the realistic element. Sci-fi is within the realms of possibility, if not probability. Fantasy hasn't enough rules for my liking.

I recently came across the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy worded perfectly by my hero and sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick. His definition comes from a letter he wrote in 1981, now serving as the preface to Beyond Lies The Wub:

Fantasy involves that which general opinion regards as impossible; science fiction involves that which general opinion regards as possible under the right circumstances. This is in essence a judgment-call, since what is possible and what is not possible is not objectively known but is, rather, a subjective belief on the part of the author and of the reader.

Philip K. Dick (May 14, 1981)

Reading this made me reevaluate what it is I'm writing and I guess I'm writing part-sci-fi part-fantasy. There are elements I regard as possible and those I regard as impossible in my story. Arse.

2 - Frak you

I'm currently watching season 3 of the exceptionally good Battlestar Galactica. Like many US shows, the characters don't say 'fuck' -generally they'll make do with 'damn' or 'shit' or simply nothing. In Battlestar Galactica, however, the writers have come up with an alternative. Instead of saying 'fuck' the characters use the word 'frak' and all variations thereof.

frak off - motherfrker - let's frack - fraked up

Characters use it from the start and we pick up on it quickly. We take it to be an example of semantic shift and although it seems odd at first, it works.

Thing is though, as much as it works, it just doesn't compare with the impact of the real 'fuck.' It's a step closer than shows like 24 or The Shield that have no strong swearing. Shows don't depend on swearing, but a great deal of credibility and believability is lost when all a guy who's just been double-crossed and left for dead can say is 'damn.'

Take The Wire. The characters swear in The Wire, a lot. One particular scene, one of the great scenes of TV history, has our two heroes Bunk and McNulty investigating an old crime scene. This scene is the best part of ten minutes long and literally all Bulk and McNulty say throughout is 'fuck' or variations thereof. It shouldn't really work, but it does. It's a powerful, indulgent scene that says so much more than a lot of crime procedural waffle.

I'd like to analyse this scene but I'm sure there are already many essays out there on it written by people with greater insight and verbal dexterity than me. So I just want to remind everyone who's watched The Wire of that scene. I just want you to remember watching it for the first time. I want you to smile as you reminisce. I want a shiver to run through you as I'm sure it ran through you nearly every time you watched an episode of The Wire. For anyone who hasn't watched it - you must, if just for that scene.

1 - Evolution, of a sort

I’m failing to get any further with redrafting my novel at the moment and yet I’m somehow alive with a huge compulsion to write. I think it’s simply that I want to be writing new things. That’s why I’ve joined One A Day. I won’t go into the details, suffice it to say the aim is to write one blog a day for a year. It seems fitting to kick start the process by writing about writing itself.

What I love about writing most is that it’s an organic process, constantly evolving and transforming until it becomes something so very different from what you started out with that you forget how you got there. I can generally remember where a single idea for a story originated from, but most of the finer points are lost in the annals of my mind.

I know that when I was writing a piece I made conscious decisions. I know when I was writing a piece I was influenced by what I was reading, watching and listening to at the time. I know that when I was writing a piece I did some things by accident and they just stuck.

Sometimes I wish I could tear apart every little detail of a story and see why this is this, even if it’s for the most banal reasons – such as the time I made a character obsequious simply because I came across the word and liked it.

I started writing a piece yesterday. It’s a truncated form of a novella idea I’ve been toying with for some months and for some reason that I have already forgotten, I have started writing it in a garbled, semi-phonetic version of English.

I’ve clearly taken direction from A Clockwork Orange, Riddley Walker and 1984’s Newspeak but I’m sure I wasn’t consciously paying homage to/ripping off these pieces when I started. Now I’ve got to such an involved level with this language that I can’t stop.

I know I’m alienating any audience by making the piece tougher to read. I know it adds little if anything to the story. Worst of all, I’m finding it hard letting go. The language is evolving every time I return to the piece. I’m deciding on specific spellings and new rules, but I guess that’s the basis for an entire other blog. I just wish I could remember why I thought it was a good idea.

The Day of the Triffids & back-story

This is a sort of sequel to my last post, 'The Lost Room & depth.' When watching the BBC's 2009 adaptation of The Day of the Triffids last week, it occurred to me that seeing as this was a mostly-loyal adaptation, you could view it as a rewrite of the original text.

Some parts were changed to contemporise it, such as the Cold War subtext and the 'cosy catastrophe' feel. Some parts were altered to breathe a little new life into the well-know story - the character of Torrence was expanded without really fleshing out his character and the ending included some nonsensical and unbelievable escape plan that involved funnelling Triffid poison into the eyes using a tribal mask. Quite.

There was one change that made sense, however; most of the back-story was thinned out. In the novel we get an entire chapter of exposition that gives us far more than we need to get through the text. This scene was kept in the 1981 TV adaptation, but removed entirely in the 2009 series. The back-story we do get in the latter is revealed in small amount gradually through the show.

Though I do have some fondness for the novel's approach, there's no denying that that exposition chapter slows the pace terribly. The 2009 TV show, much more at the mercy of pacing, skips over it. Okay, a lot of the depth has been removed, and I'm a sucker for depth, but the show zips on at a far better pace.

It has made me yet again consider when and how to leak out exposition. I love John Wyndham's writing but I admit that info-dumping can be a pretty clumsy and pace-slowing, if informative and elucidating, way of giving the back-story. Of course novels can get away with slower sections easier than TV and film, and we even expect them. Then again, and I refer once more to Cube, if done right, you can get by with absolutely minimal to no back-story and create something altogether more powerful.

The Lost Room & depth

I’ve just finished re-watching the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room. I discovered it by chance a year ago and it’s a phenomenal TV show, compelling to the brink of addiction. In themes and levels of mysteriousness, it draws comparisons with Lost but unlike Lost it hasn’t been drawn out to a ridiculous length and subsequently become diluted and confused.

At only six episodes in length The Lost Room is an intense, incredibly deep story. It’s this depth that I admire most. It’s breathtaking just how much back-story and potential for future events there is. Rather than coming across as a show too crammed-full of ideas for its own good, it’s a rich experience that reveals its depth with subtlety and intelligence. I’ve drawn a huge amount of inspiration from this show.

When I think of my writing I don’t want to simply create an intricate, deep world that’s either clumsily exposed or kept from sight. I want to create one that expands beyond the plot and reaches both off into the past and into the future just like The Lost Room. I believe a story should sit perfectly in a moment of time. We should feel like we have come partway through it and that the plot, and the lives of the characters, continues off into the future. I believe that under the surface should be a whole other level that we only get minor glimpses of.

No other TV show that I have come across does this so succinctly and so successfully as The Lost Room and I would benefit greatly from emulating this in my own writing. If I can write something as fantastically hanging in time as The Lost Room I’d be a happy writer.

Moon

I finally watched Moon (hooray) and I unsurprisingly loved it. What I particularly enjoyed wasn't the acting, the effects, the direction or the plot (which were all fantastic) but the way the story was told.

Douglas Jones gave a great deal of credit to the intellect of the audience. There was only one key scene of exposition that I can recall. Generally the story was leaked carefully out in subtle ways, through videos watched, or the ways characters acted. Huge clues were given that you in no way had to pick up on but surely will on a repeat viewing. By the end you had come to a lot of your own conclusions as to what happened, why it happened and the motives of the characters involved.

It's one of those few films that will actually get better on a second viewing akin to Memento or Primer. Both were also told in complex ways, Primer particularly thanks to its creator's refusal to 'dumb down' the plot and its subsequent near-impossible-to-follow story. Moon may not be quite as complex as either of these two but was in many ways far more subtle and I'm desperately looking forward to rewatching it to see just how much better it will be on a repeat viewing.

First lines

'It was the day my grandmother exploded.' - Iain Banks, The Crow Road

'When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.' - Franz Kafka, Metamorphosis

'This much I know for sure: My name is Peter Sinclair, I am English and I am, or I was, twenty-nine years old.' - Christopher Priest, The Affirmation

'In spite of all his efforts, Tavenor was unable to remain indoors when it was time for the sky to catch fire.' - Bob Shaw, The Palace of Eternity

It's line like these, particularly the first two, which for so long in my writing inspired and controlled me. Coupled with my longtime inability to proceed with a piece of writing until I had the previous section/chapter perfected, I was desperate to write the perfect opening line. Not just a good opening line. Nearly all novels have those. Not a great opening line; one that suits the tone and themes of the novel perfectly. A lot of novels have those. But a brilliant, punch-in-the-gut, rips you from reality and places you in the world of the novel, line.

I became somewhat obsessed with it and despite all this never succeeded. I believe the best I ever came up with was:
'A dead fish floated in the bay.'
Gripping.
Still working on this same story some time later, I gradually came to the opinion that although a line like Banks's, and Kafka's would be fantastic, they aren't necessary. As long as the first page hooks you, the first line merely has to be not-bad and that's not asking the impossible. So this first line of mine, in some sort of cathartic act finally became:
'A dead fish no longer floated in the bay.'
It was now obtuse and bizarre and acted mainly as a reminder to myself that this first line obsession was mostly pointless and not as important as I had myself believe.
Then, some time later I lost that whole section altogether.
As long as my first line isn't bad, I think I'm happy now. At least that's my excuse.