The Side Bar
August 17, 2000
6:50 a.m.
 Alert: if you have not yet read "Heat," in the latest F&SF, and you intend to...please read it before you read this. I don't intend to spoil it, but I'm going to talk about structure, so a bit of detail is impossible to avoid. Yes, I liked "Heat," Mike. This is the kind of story where structure and set-up is everything, and Dale Bailey does a magnificent job of it. My point earlier was that "Heat" is an example of a type of story where the ending is obvious, and in fact by halfway through if you don't get the ending you're expecting, you'll throw the magazine against the wall. Still, he structures the story to where the character's "real" problem isn't truly revealed until the end. He does this by giving the character two separate problems--one related to her son, the other related to her husband. And like a fine magician, he focuses on the first to divert our attention from the work he's doing on the second. She uses her husband as a general irritation at time, and her next door neighbor as setting filler...you're never really sure where he's going with the neighbor until the very end when all becomes revealed. Now, on the SF/F element you mentioned, I really wish we could get away from that as genre writers. A story is a story. This happens to be a ghost story, which is explained as any ghost story should be, merely by the appearance of a ghost. It is, therefore, fantasy set in the 1940s. Clear and simple. Stories about the devil are not slipstream. Stories about zombies are not slipstream. Stories about ghosts are not slipstream. They are ghost stories. In fact, from a mechanical point of view the ghost element of this story is the core of its power, meaning the supernatural element is absolutely vital to it. Sorry to rant. Maybe I should just lighten up. :) I'm tempted to say "From in front of the keyboard," and leave it at that. But that would be unfair. [grin] Just to be clear, what I meant yesterday about fantasy was that I find it is really easy to write a bad fantasy short story, and really hard to write a good one. Quite honestly, I start my stories, be they fantasy or be they SF, by looking for something that interests me. I think that really solidified for me at the first WotF week when we read the Hubbard bit about igniting the writer. That really resonated with me. It just felt right somehow. It felt right the same way that "Fast writing is bad writing" feels wrong to me. Fast writing does not mean bad writing. Yes, fast writing is often bad writing, but that saying is not a fundamental truth. It's not mandatory that fast writing is bad. But it felt right in the calcium of my bones that if I was intrigued and enthused about what I wrote, that enthusiasm could not help but make its way onto the page. And, assuming I can do a decent enough job of structuring a story, that enthusiasm would help loose whatever talent I have for any to see. So, that's how I come to my stories. The good news is that I am enthused by a lot. (Or maybe it merely takes little to entertain me, whichever). I'm more knowledgeable in a science setting, but oddly, I think I write magic better than I write technology. I understand engineers more than I do warriors and thieves. These things color my perspective, certainly. And they make the way I look at a story differently from anyone else--which can be bad. Of course, they also make the way I tell a story different from anyone else--which is very good, again, assuming skill for the craft and a modicum of talent and whatnot. Which would I go after? Hmm...well, here's my bibliography. Someday, I assume I'll be typecast somewhere. But right now I write whatever enthuses me. Sometimes that's fantasy, sometimes, science, sometimes dark fantasy. Sometimes just stuff. So I would recommend you not worry about it. Write stuff you like and that keeps you going to the keyboard every day. You'll figure out what you are eventually. Or it will figure out who you are. Whichever.   Have a great day.  It's like a newspaper, man... Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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Business breakfast today ... no useful writing accomplished |
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