>>> Item number 29864 from WRITERS LOG9405B --- (71 records) ----- <<< Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 18:35:02 JST Reply-To: WRITERS Sender: WRITERS From: Mike Barker Subject: Re: TECH: Sci-fi? Or Phantasie? jc asked... - To reach down a little further into the discussion of what is SF -and what's not.... - Why do we care? ... honest answer - I don't. However, I finally had to think about why some stories with well-written characters, plot, and so forth, simply didn't produce the same excitement for me as a reader that other (sometimes very badly written) stories did. When I thought about it (and compared them), I found that the "flat" stories were those that didn't mix their peculiar assumptions into the story. Yank out the background, slap it down in the present, and nothing needed to be changed. there is a special charm for me in a story that makes some special assumption(s) and "drives" the story off of that, rather than just using it (or them) as an ornament for an otherwise pedestrian tale. so now when I read some drivel that has cardboard characters, peeling backdrop scenes, and so forth - and it rings a bell anyway - I start looking for the SF slant. On the other hand, when I read something well-written that still leaves me flat, I start checking - and usually the plot and so forth are oldies, without that SF twisty to liven them up. On the other side of the coin, in trying to write the darned stuff, I feel it is important to know what I'm trying to do. Not that I necessarily do anything even close to what I think I'm trying to do, but it gives me warm fuzzies to think I have some method (instead of alien facehuggers... AAACHoo!). while I'm meandering - Randy mentioned happy endings and jc pointed out that some authors should be killed for their endings (keeping the reader curious about how the "heroes" could possibly get out of this, only to find out that they don't!). While I like happy endings, I prefer any ending - RESOLUTION - to what some authors seem to be pulling. I realize that it isn't necessarily "realistic" to expect every story to have an ending, but - isn't part of the trick of fiction that the stories aren't necessarily realistic? So, if the author just shuffles and says "things went on..." - I am not happy. If the author declares it was only a dream, it was only a game, april fool's, etc. - I'm ready to borrow a kitchen knife. Do something - blow up the town in pyrrhic victory, give the vampire pyorrhea to save the children, let the python crush the police into hamburger for the 4th of July picnic - but resolve the story. Carrie (I think?) was neat because (along with many others) she was dead. Full stop. and the hand from the grave was NEW - not just the same old story straggling on into the sunset... I think that's the real ugly part of some of these "unhappy endings" - they don't end. Even if the ending is to have the hero(ine) break and give in to the fault - let the reader know, don't just leave them hanging... Sigh - if the blob is going to eat the town, let the romantics do something interesting as the last act. Break into the Hilton to use a hottub, down the Dom Perignon, and declare undying love as the creeping crud slowly dissolves them, leaving a single rose gently rocking in the waves, drifting slowly into the ring of greasy kid's stuff blobbo left in its wake... Eat a chocolate chip cookie and damn the zits! Finish the story. Please? tink