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[sartorias]

superversiveon bad creative decisions, and how George Lucas lived the experiment and at the other end of the spectrum, asakiyume listens to Junot DiazI think one of the toughest challenges for a writer is connecting the good bits. It's wonderful when our brain presents us with a unified story that all we have to do is type out. When it doesn't come that way, there are

Comments

[asakiyume]

The thing I find myself wondering, in a sort of bereft way, is where what I imagine and want to write fits in. I'm not writing directly about my experience--I mean, my feelings are in there, and those are real, and my thoughts on stuff, but . . . if I could have asked him something, if I could have bothered him with my own baggage, I'd have asked him, where does he fit in all the fantasy and science fiction he loved as young person. There's got to be room for it, too, but what does it mean when your real voice is about things you don't have personal experience of. *sigh* I guess this is a derailing question, because it turns into that whole write-what-you-know question, and I don't mean to do that.

The talk really was wonderful, though, He was so engaging and engaged, so warm.

[sartorias]

I kind of wish you had asked, but it could be the answer would have come from a direction you wouldn't find useful if it turns out he's one of those writers trying to capture human experience as is. All its wonder and its cruelty.

I think that many of us sf and f writers aren't trying to mirror ourselves that exactly but to extrapolate what life could be like if . . . or what life will be like if we continue along this path . . . I guess I might have mentioned 'speculative fiction' to see his reaction before going any further, had I been there.

[asakiyume]

You're making me wonder if he ever answers questions on his website or some other site (Twitter, etc.). Maybe I'll look into it.

[sartorias]

Oh, that's a good thought.

[kalimac]

The first article devotes much attention to the details of why it doesn't make sense for Anakin to have built C3PO, and the argument is absolutely correct - but the same line of reasoning applies to why it doesn't make sense for Anakin and Vader to be the same person.

Lucas's supposed "brilliant" insight to combine the characters required him to entirely tear up and rewrite the dialogue between Vader and the Emperor in the second film - but he didn't do it. They still speak as if Anakin and Vader are different people. That's on top of leaving Obi-Wan hanging out on a limb as a pathetic liar in the first film. The result was that when Vader says, "I am your father," my first reaction was, "He's lying," and when I went back and rewatched Empire with the knowledge, I was even more sure he was lying. None of the supposed advantages of combining the characters makes up for this absolute failure by Lucas to face the implications of what he was doing.

[sartorias]

I believed it because I was afraid that was where the story was going to go. And it did. (But I watched anyway!)

[kalimac]

I didn't expect it, because the story had been so carefully written to exclude it as a possibility. Which is how too many plot surprises are made these days: you write the set-up to exclude certain possible explanations, and then you make one of them the "actual" explanation. Surprise!

[sartorias]

That logic passed me by (no news, logic usually does.) But I guess I pick up on emotional patterns, or whatever. I just remember hearing in the spring of '78, while I was on a visit to Greyhaven . . . Tracy came in and said that someone said that Leigh Brackett had been hired to write the second Star Wars movie. I recollected some of her short stories that I'd read as a kid, and hated with my typical teen arrogance. "Then it'll turn into a melodrama, you watch," I said. "Darth Vader will turn out to be Luke's father."

[serialbabbler]

Hmmm... I read a lot and I wouldn't say that reading is about unintelligibility. (Unless you're reading something by James Joyce, in which case it turns out you don't need to get more than halfway through the book in order to pass that modernist literature class you took on a lark.)

I mean, that's a bit like saying going for a walk in the woods is about getting stuck in a blackberry bramble. Sometimes it happens, but if that were the only and inevitable result, I'd probably just stay on the couch and have a cup of tea. Mmmmm... tea.

Not that I'm against the idea of including languages other than English in a book meant for a primarily English-speaking audience because "OMG! People might not understand it!". At best, that's pretty condescending to the potential reader... But I suspect there is a point at which you become James Joyce and hardly anybody finishes your books. *laugh*

[sartorias]

Not quite sure how creative decisions became reading about unintelligible prose, but I do agree!

[serialbabbler]

Oh, it was just one of the things in asakiyume's post about Junot Diaz. Apparently, somebody in the crowd asked him about the prolific use of profanity and Spanish in his writing with the idea that the profanity might offend some readers and the Spanish would confuse some readers. :) Bit of a tangent, really.

[sartorias]

The more I think about it, the more interesting subject branch off these two posts.