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Post by seraphim on Feb 19, 2009 13:17:09 GMT -5
Here's a quiery. How many when conceptualizing or writing a story borrow the bones of established classical stories to reassemble and reflesh in your own way...like taking the core elements of Jack and the Beanstalk and turning it into a story about a guy and his adventures on a space elevator? Apparently it can be a pitfall for novice storytellers since I've read in many places how editors don't want utterly transparent retellings of Bible stories with rayguns or magic wands. And that probably goes for retellings of fairy tales/myths as well. But if done carefully an not over literally I tend to think using the established foundation...the bones of a classic story...or at least some of the bones can save time and make for a grand adventure. One story that I had a lot of fun writing was a parody retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk as an SF story where the beans grew into a genetically engineered biourgonic paradimensional space elevator whose use and distribution rights were held by a cabal of corporate giants...and Jack of course was an interloper, though the cow helped him out (she was a midlevel corporate officer genetically reenginnered into a cow as revenge in a lover's quarrel that went too far). In other stories I've lifted assembled bits from obscure fragments of Old English poetry and legends from Micronesia to create both a storyline and a milieu. Sometime I also find inspiration in a visual image of a history or legendary person or event. For example the emotion shown in this picture of the remorse of Ivan the Terrible is wedded to some of my Micronesian story bones. So does anyone else do this sort of thing?
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Post by JenLenaMom on Feb 19, 2009 13:25:12 GMT -5
It's so funny you ask this. At another forum I'm on we're having an ongoing flash fiction contest. An "Idol" competetion. I just submitted a scifi twist on Noah's Ark.
But I didn't mean for it to be. When I started it was going to be a robotic dystopia, but somewhere along the way I found myself weaving in Noah and after a bit of a rewrite I'm pretty happy with it.
I think, we'll see how it does when it comes up in the contest!
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 25, 2009 8:53:41 GMT -5
I once heard someone say that there are only about 7 original plots in all of human culture. I couldn't tell you what they are (though the Hero's Journey would certainly be one of them), and I have a book called 20 Master Plots and How To Use Them.
I've heard the same about music, that every time you string two notes together or make up a melody, you're borrowing from music that has been written before. Alas.
I think the point is that you're going to be borrowing from other stories no matter what. I'd personally want to stay away from things that look to the reader like you're just swiping from another well-known story in popular culture, but beyond that I wouldn't worry about it.
Jeff
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Post by seraphim on Feb 25, 2009 10:09:38 GMT -5
I have that book too and keep it as a reference though it reads a bit on the dry side. Dramatica's story/character analysis tools I like as well, but they are stike me as difficult to really master.
But with repect to borrowing from other stories, I'm not talking about a generous ladle from the universal stewpot of story, but very specific and intentional borrowing. Consider how many have borrowed the core structure of the Seven Samuari and just transposed it into a different genre or cultural milieu. And wasn't Eragon essentially a redux of Star Wars in dragon form? The star crossed lovers thing has also been done forever: Pyramis and Thisbe, Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story.
So I was wondering about who on occasion takes the whole skeleton of an established (though possibly obscure) story, rather than just a joint or two, to flesh out in their own way, to make their own version of the story?
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Post by duchessashley on Feb 25, 2009 11:10:10 GMT -5
I definitely do that. I think that's part of the magic of imagination and storytelling is the "reimagining" of stories we are all familiar with. And I find that the base story of most sci-fi goes back to Jesus. Someone who comes to save the world and/or universe. It's in Dune, the Fifth Element, even Star Wars. That's one reason that I think Christian sci-fi is such a great genre. It's a natural fit.
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Post by torainfor on Feb 25, 2009 23:01:33 GMT -5
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 26, 2009 3:16:37 GMT -5
Interesting question! One series that comes to mind is Louise Cooper's Indigo books in which she uses the Pandora's box myth for it's foundation. The first book is about the MC entering the Tower of Regrets and opening the box that looses demons into the world. The other books are about Indigo (the MC) hunting each of the demons and destroying them while undergoing her own maturation. Other books I've read fall more under the headings of spin-offs or retellings. Deerskin by Robin McKinley is a retelling of the French fairytale Donkeyskin. Gregory McGuire's books like Mirror, Mirror are also direct spin-offs of fairytales, although Wicked is spun-off from Frank Baum's Oz books (which in turn have their roots in older tales). Terry Pratchett used Santa Clause and winter myths as a primary foundation for Hogfather. Barry Hougart's Bridge of Birds draws from Chinese mythology, although when I read it I didn't specifically look for a single foundational myth — I just enjoyed it and laughed a lot. Charles De Lint (Into the Green, Someplace to be Flying) blends Old World and New World mythologies. Charles Grant's Raven and Jackals delves into off-shoots of urban myth, while his Millennium Quartet books are about the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse. The starting premise of The Firebrand (Marion Zimmer Bradley) is that Cassandra was not killed when Agamemnon returned home and so is able to give her version of what happened at Troy; I count it as a historical fantasy because of her account of the interplay of gods and goddesses in the war and in her personal life. Cassandra (for those who don't know) was given the gift of prophetic truth by Apollo; but when she spurned his amorous advances, he cursed the gift so that no one would believe her prophesies.
I'm sure you've heard some version of the saying "myths are to society what dreams are to an individual" (or, myths are society's dreams). No matter how obscure the myth someone uses for a foundation of a story, the archetypal plots (as well as characters) are universal enough that they are recognizable even if it is not a conscious recognition. How each society views the value of a story's message may differ, but the foundational stories themselves rarely vary. A reader can know a myth or a contemporary novel is, for example, a Quest story or an Initiation story or both blended but may not be aware of a Time:Direction Equation in the story. Likewise, the reader may not be able to identify the Dionysian versus Apollonian elements in the story, but the connotations plug into recognizable archetypes, if only at a subconscious level.
Jeff, without diggin through umpty-dozen notebooks, I can recall a few of the 7 plots: Initiation, Quest, Victory, Fall. This classification of plots comes out of classical literature.
One of the strengths and beauties of writing from a Christian standpoint is that we can use any of the mythic components, the archetypes, to show God's nature and His love for us. We may use Dionysian versus Apollonian elements, but we do not have to show them in opposition. Rather, they can be shown as parts of a whole. For example, law does not need to be shown as an opposite of justice (as it is in some of the classical literature) because God encompasses both and more. He is perfect Law and perfect Justice as well as perfect Love, perfect Truth, and perfect Mercy.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 26, 2009 10:27:29 GMT -5
This points towards the biggest pitfall in Christian SFF. If I may quote from the article referenced in the Verisimilitude thread:
Those last two sentences show clearly what tends to go wrong in the Christian market today. The dogmas held by the writer are not the light he sees by, rather they become the object that is seen and/or the substitute for sight and hence he relinquishes any hope of his story rising above the level of propaganda...or as we tend to call them, Sunday School lessons. In my opinion stories written primarily to illustrate "Bible Truths" should not be written unless perhaps it actually is as part of a Sunday School lesson. And trying to make such stories a little grittier and less Ozzie and Harriett do not make them less of a Sunday School lesson.
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Post by Jeff Gerke on Feb 26, 2009 22:22:22 GMT -5
Some Christian novelists are called to reach out to the lost, Seraphim. Others are called to edify the Body. Each group has to guard against the temptation to conclude that the other group is missing the boat and wasting precious time. I'm glad the Kingdom is big enough for both callings.
Jeff
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Post by metalikhan on Feb 27, 2009 2:14:42 GMT -5
*grins* Writing in the wee hours after a blastingly insane day at work can result in a lack of clarity. I apologize. The following statement was not intended to be taken separately from the example. I probably should've used a semicolon. Don't know if I'll do any better now but let me try again.
"One of the strengths and beauties of writing from a Christian standpoint is that we can use any of the mythic components, the archetypes, to show God's nature and His love for us."
We can use the codified elements of mythologies and other religions; but filtered through our lens of Christianity, those elements do not have to adhere to their initial meanings, they do not need to preserve the same associations as their sources.
The example of justice versus law (Dionysian versus Apollonian elements) is a thematic issue rather than a deliberate proclamation that one is right and good and the other is wrong and evil. However, because we are Christian and understand that God is perfect Justice and perfect Law, those themes need not be used as opposing elements in the way that the ancient Greeks used them in stories illustrating the character of their gods and goddesses.
There are any number of similar, opposing pairings — country versus city, land versus sea, dancing/singing versus painting/sculpture, the concrete versus the ethereal, static versus kinetic, heart versus head. Such themes, elements, symbols hold different connotations for us as Christians than they do for other religions (or even other times or nationalities); and these differences will show up in our writing because of who we are in Christ and who God is.
"Those last two sentences show clearly what tends to go wrong in the Christian market today. The dogmas held by the writer are not the light he sees by, rather they become the object that is seen and/or the substitute for sight and hence he relinquishes any hope of his story rising above the level of propaganda...or as we tend to call them, Sunday School lessons. In my opinion stories written primarily to illustrate "Bible Truths" should not be written unless perhaps it actually is as part of a Sunday School lesson. And trying to make such stories a little grittier and less Ozzie and Harriett do not make them less of a Sunday School lesson." (Sorry, I forgot how to do the quote box thing.) I know this is a much debated topic in another thread. I do understand your point; but it seems the moment any story is labeled Christian, it is instantly saddled with the other descriptors — preachy, Sunday School lesson, dogmatic, propaganda. I look at all the SFF books on my own shelves and can just as quickly identify the doctrines presented in most of them — Hindu, Zen, Islamic, Wiccan, pagan, pantheistic, agnostic — and many are, in the strictest and most impartial sense, just as preachy, dogmatic, propagandizing as any Christian book.
Only the individual writer knows if he is writing simply to illustrate Bible Truths or if he is following a "What if" question in which those Truths become manifest. Is either way more valuable than the other? (As an aside, I enjoy fine literature as well as SFF and a few of my writing efforts go that direction; but I would also love to write a Christian story of such simplicity that a child or my mother who did not read fiction until she was in her early 60's would enjoy and understand it.) And beyond that, do we avoid writing stories about Christians or Christian themes simply because someone will label it with those painful descriptions? Someone will label it — that is a certainty.
So what do we do with the stories within us in which we explore how a character accepts the responsibility of the Great Commission on another world, how a character comes to understand that his pride is no less sinful than another character's thirst for vengeance, how a gentle, good-hearted character finds he has as much need of salvation as the wounded, bitter criminal? Should we balk at including any dialogue mentioning Christ or His atonement for us? Should we recoil from questions about sin and salvation for other beings? Should we shy from asking the question if He completed atonement once for all creation or if He might repeat the atonement on other worlds? They are not merely Sunday school lessons — they are explorations of spiritual issues and of Biblical application in human reality (even when that reality is set on a starship or in a dragon's lair).
We write the stories. We write to the best of the ability He gives us. As mentioned in other threads, we write them for God. He will do with them what He wills.
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Post by seraphim on Feb 27, 2009 12:36:36 GMT -5
No. It's not a problem that stories are written from a Christian POV, that the universe depicted runs consistently with a Christian sense of moral order. Tolkein managed it. He was definately a Christian, and wrote from a Christian perspective, but his stories were not fictionalized dogmas. O'Conner likewise. In the SF genre Cordwainer Smith wrote a number of stories with quite Christian subtexts, as did R. A. Lafferty, both grand masters of Science Fiction. Gene Wolfe too. Theology informs their stories down to the bone. And it is known they were Christian. They are bigger and their stories more important than dismissive labels.
With repect to spiritual issues, read Scanners live in Vain by Cordwainer Smith. It is built on the narrative bones of Christ's trial by the Sanhedrin and runs on the rail of the expediency of one man dying for the nation. That imagery is all through it, and yet it doesn't come across the least bit preachy or lessony. And in his Space Trilogy Lewis deals with hard core unmasked theological issues right out front, but the effect is not lessony.
As you noted the theology/philosophy of other nonchristian writers are apparent in their works. This is true and some of them do a better job than others at how they use it. Some tell finely crafted stories from within the context of their worldview...and some produce novelized tractates of their particular faith/philosophy.
To me it is simply a question of effective storytelling technique. The dogma as light vs the dogma as object so far as I understand it is about what works best to tell a good story from within a particular frame of reference. The tack taken by Lewis, Tolkein, O'Conner, Wolfe, etc I think works better, and makes for a more satiesfying story.
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Post by knightofhyn on Mar 4, 2009 12:20:08 GMT -5
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Post by seraphim on Mar 6, 2009 13:13:55 GMT -5
I'm not sure what you were aiming at in the quote above.
It looks like a partial list of different kinds of basic plot forms.
If so there is a book out there about the 20 Master Plots. I think someone else has posited 36 master plots, and if you are a student of Dramatica story theory they have charted out somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000+ story forms.
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Post by knightofhyn on Mar 6, 2009 15:15:12 GMT -5
I was listing what I'd found after Metalikhan had commented on not wanting to dig through a half dozen notebooks or something. Sorry, a little busy in that post. I'm actually at work and was answering the phone at the time.
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Post by metalikhan on Mar 8, 2009 13:47:40 GMT -5
I found the notebook with the listing I referred to earlier. The heading for that note is "Archetypal Situations". 1. Quest 2. Initiation 3. Death & Rebirth 4. Task 5. Journey 6. Fall 7. Victory
A couple of them almost sound like duplicates -- and they are similar -- but Quest is something the character undertakes of his own volition while Task is something assigned by someone else for the character to do.
Glad I found my old notes! The Great Chain of Being, Time/Direction equation, 6 elements of the Dionysiac ritual,Heroic types, the Humors/Elements/Cycles.
Ah, a trip down memory lane! Misty nostalgia!
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