And the more focused the setting, the more specific, and therefore more obvious, the message is.
Tell a story about a realistic oppressive government - say, one which enslaves clones but also does other stuff not related to enslaving clones, and in which the clones are enslaved because they're a convenient source of free labor - and yeah, there will be a message that slavery is bad, people should be judged on their character, etc. But hopefully there will also be a story. There could be a lot of different stories in that setting, from something about the psychology of slaves and owners (Cyteen) to a straight-up adventure about a clone who steals a spaceship and runs
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Go ahead! The other "Kindle sample" posts have more context, including "Dystopia is teenage girls having sex" and "Dystopia is a society based on personlity quiz results."
I haven't read (or even heard of) any of these one-note dystopias you've been talking about, but I'm finding your posts interesting and amusing, for the record.
That's what they ASK forshalannaMay 19 2011, 20:22:20 UTC
>so monomaniacally focused on their high concepts that they reminded me of the panel of the “Life in Hell” comic strip about the nine types of college professors which depicted the “One Theory Explains Everything Maniac” as a rabbit shaking his cane and shouting, “The nation that controls magnesium controls the world!”< >the first chapters are about little but the one-note concept, the characters think about little but the concept and speak about little but the conceptI think I can guess at an answer. My books are rejected because "you digress" and "you wander off on tangents and forget what the point of the story is." I have gone through many workshops where normal readers have understood that I am building to something larger, but most agents and editors reply like this. I have now surmised that they want the "cat chases ball" story with NO OTHER STUFF INTERFERING. They like the book that starts with a cat seeing a ball roll past and having the cat chase the ball past people's feet, under the sofa, across the kitchen, and so
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Tell a story about a realistic oppressive government - say, one which enslaves clones but also does other stuff not related to enslaving clones, and in which the clones are enslaved because they're a convenient source of free labor - and yeah, there will be a message that slavery is bad, people should be judged on their character, etc. But hopefully there will also be a story. There could be a lot of different stories in that setting, from something about the psychology of slaves and owners (Cyteen) to a straight-up adventure about a clone who steals a spaceship and runs ( ... )
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>the first chapters are about little but the one-note concept, the characters think about little but the concept and speak about little but the conceptI think I can guess at an answer. My books are rejected because "you digress" and "you wander off on tangents and forget what the point of the story is." I have gone through many workshops where normal readers have understood that I am building to something larger, but most agents and editors reply like this. I have now surmised that they want the "cat chases ball" story with NO OTHER STUFF INTERFERING. They like the book that starts with a cat seeing a ball roll past and having the cat chase the ball past people's feet, under the sofa, across the kitchen, and so ( ... )
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