Babel Clash

It looks like we’re out of here, to make room for the next duo, or group, or solo act of writers to come along and pontificate. In the American presidency it has become a tradition for outgoing presidents to leave a letter in the desk for the new, incoming president. I’ve long thought that was a nice tradition, so I am going to leave this note for the next one(s) to come along here in this place.

Dear Person(s) to Come,

I presume you’re a published writer in the genres I love. I may not have read your books before, but I will, if you talk about interesting things here. Before this short conversation began I wasn’t at all familiar with James Enge’s books. But he was interesting and engaging, even when I disagreed with him, so now there are two of his books on my nightstand. I was already a reader of Matt’s books, by the way.

I love lucid and thoughtful conversations about our shared craft, always on the lookout for new insights into why we do what we do. I think a forum such as this — especially a hit and run format like this — works best when it’s not so much about the hard mechanics of how to write (that’s much too long a conversation), but about the underlying philosophy of why we’re compelled to write, and tell these sorts of stories.

I would have loved to hear from Edgar Rice Burroughs what he thought about his most famous creation. I’d like to know what Robert E Howard thought about Conan. Did he like the fellow? Would he like to have actually met him? (I suspect not. One wrong word and — ).

So here’s a few things I wouldn’t mind if you addressed during your sojourn here.

Why did you chose to tell the stories you told? What do you think about your characters? Are any of them a spokesman for your own thoughts and opinions? Who among your cast would you want to share a beer with? Who among your cast do you absolutely loathe (and perhaps love to loathe)? Do you hope to teach your readers something? Should you? What do you owe your readers? What do you absolutely not owe your readers?

Then again, you might have a host of more interesting things to address, in which case, talk about those instead.

If you’ll take a glance just a wee bit below, you’ll see that our host Morgan asked a question that’s going to be difficult to answer, because it’s almost impossible to predict what other writers, new or long-established, are going to take from our books. And if we instead discuss what we hope others will glean from our books it’s going to be hard not to start bragging. We can on occasion be an egotistical lot (not just we three, mind you, but all storytellers in general, since it’s not an occupation for the overly humble and timid).

But with that said, he did ask, so I’m going to take a shot at providing something approximating an answer. Here’s what you might learn from Peter and Max. First, if you didn’t enjoy the book, don’t try to do something similar. Don’t set your story in the vast Black Forest of a long-ago German like fantasy world. Don’t make the central conflict revolve around a family struggle to see who gets the best flute. And certainly don’t do anything that involves your hero stuffing his wife into a pumpkin shell. (continue reading…)

Rather than just respond to the alarmingly cogent posts of Matt and James, I thought I’d attempt taking the conversation in a new direction and talk just a bit about the collaboration between writer and reader. Now this partnership is vital with any story, but particularly so in the fantasy and science fiction genres, where so much new construction is required. Even in a fantasy world such as Matt has just described in his last post (there I go again, taking my cue from their discussions), where reality of culture, technology and setting is the default whenever possible, a lot of new creation is required — much more so than, say, a non-fantastical tale set in modern day San Francisco, where the entire construction of the setting and culture(s) has already taken place, by virtue of actually existing.

When I first encountered a mention of “the collaboration between writer and reader” (I believe it was something Orson Scott Card wrote about in one of his instructional texts, but don’t hold me to that), I am embarrassed to admit that my first response was: “What collaboration? What does the reader bring to the story, other than, y’know… reading it? Maybe he enjoys the story and maybe he doesn’t, but screw any notion that he’s actually helping to tell the story.” In my own defense, I was much younger then, more naive, and still in the pre-dawn of my own storytelling career. That was then and this is now. I’ve since had years worth of opportunity to ponder the idea and I’ve come to a complete turnaround of opinion. I now believe (and finally this is an informed opinion) that not only does the reader bear a share of the responsibility in telling the story, he bears the majority of the responsibility. (continue reading…)

Beware the stranger in your strange land. He may be a well-armed cranky individualist.

Yes, Robert Heinlein’s body of work, when taken as a whole, was most certainly didactic, in the very strict definition of “intending to instruct.” But I’m not at all certain he was intending to teach his readership what you might think. He wrote often about the man (or woman) sufficient unto himself, a man crankily determined to keep his individual liberty in the face of powerful forces intending to incorporate and completely absorb the individual into the group. The rugged individual was good. The socialist group was bad.  That much seems obvious.

But was his message that everyone should then be a rugged individual, charting his own course? Should all organizations of group control be destroyed? No and no. Maybe in a perfect world, but I don’t get the sense that Heinlein ever believed in the possibility of such a perfect world, nor would waste his time in trying to form one. I don’t think he was trying to recruit others into his world view, just as most libertarians don’t care a whit if people want to live other than he might prefer. I think his instruction was much more basic: “Attention everyone. You go ahead and form your highly regulated communities and governments and nations, if you insist, but leave me (and those like me) out. We have no intention of playing by your rules, but we will leave you to them, if you in turn leave us alone. If you choose not to leave us alone, be advised that we are cranky, we are well armed, and we have scant tolerance for your nonsense.”

He wasn’t a recruiter — or if he was, he was the recruiting sergeant from Starship Troopers whose main job was to try his best to turn people away, and failing that to inform them of the world of struggle and woes they are getting into by signing up. He advocated a hard life that is absolutely to be admired, but which few are suitable for.

In the spirit of honest disclosure, that’s my world view too, but I don’t think I’m guilty of shoehorning Heinlein into it. And yes, I did indeed accuse Matt of being a closet Republican when he admitted to loving Starship Troopers, but only because I knew it would horrify him (it did) and that would amuse me (it did). It’s fun the poke the Matt and watch him squirm. But the truth is, I don’t really care what his politics are. Dear Matt; I don’t actually think you’re a secret right winger. True, it’s clear you’re on the road to becoming one, but you’ve a long way to go, buddy. Plenty of time to turn back.

One of my favorite writers of all time, Roger Zelazny, came up in the interesting ongoing discussion between Matt Sturges and James Enge. That seems a thin thread on which to elbow my way into the conversation, but it will have to suffice, since A) I’d been preparing to write about this anyway, and B) no more substantial justification seems likely to come along.

First a career-defining (mine, not his — okay possibly his too, but who am I to decide that?) passage from Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky:

“But I’m telling you straight: I think you were born into the wrong age.”
“Sir?”
“I think you are a romantic. Now this is a very romantic age, so there is no room in it for romantics; it calls for practical men. A hundred years ago you would have made a banker or lawyer or professor and you could have worked out your romanticism by reading fanciful tales and dreaming about what you might have been if you hadn’t had the misfortune to be born into a humdrum period. But this happens to be a period when adventure and romance are a part of daily existence. Naturally it takes very practical people to cope with it.”

I quoted this passage because it’s clear to me that this is the quintessential Roger Zelazny protagonist: the eminently practical man in a fantastic and romantic world. From Lord of Light’s Great Souled Sam, to Dilvish, to Amber’s Corwin (or feel free to substitute any of a hundred other examples from his other books), the Zelazny hero is one who faces the trials and troubles of his always bizarre and magical world with unshakable practicality.

This isn’t a Zelazny line, but it could have been: “Then the volcano erupted, blasting its full compliment of ghost dragons into the sky, burning the sky first and then the seven god cities adrift in it. As the cities began to list, founder and then fall, trailing black ash and fire, I sat on the next slope over to smoke a cigarette, finish my coffee and ponder my next move.”

This is what first drew me into Zelazny’s world(s) and kept bringing me back, time and again, until I’d exhausted his works. Fantasy and its related genres were much too replete with incompetents (why didn’t Gandalf or any other of those purportedly wise yahoos at the Council at Rivendale think simply take the ring to Mount Doom on those giant eagles?), the terminally timid, and the simply dumb. I wanted smart, capable heroes who faced tough challenges. Zelazny never failed to provide the practical man I needed to guide me through a wealth of wondrous lands.

As a writer I blatantly, and with malice aforethought, take my cue from the Heinlein passage above, from his gentlemen adventurers like Oscar Gordon and Johnny Rico, and from the archetypical Zelazny hero, who may come in the guise of the half-fallen god, a robotic Lucifer in rebellion against his creator, or a bottled demon, but who is always the practical man in these romantic times.