As a follow up to the earlier article, I thought I’d ramble on about writing.
Science Fiction is a genre where possibilities are examined. Hard SF is where those possibilities are within the realm of science as we know it. Soft SF is where those possibilities push past the boundaries.
We know that the world is round and that it revolves around the sun and that our moon spins while also revolving around us as we spin and revolve around the sun which is also spinning. aka Orbits. The ‘Pern’ serious by Lackey deals, in part, with orbits. Another planet orbits the same sun as the dragons’ planet. Every once in a while, that planet comes close enough that the organisms on it are able to shoot through space and make it to the ground. Orbit is hard SF. Organisms leaping purposefully into space in order move to another planet, that is soft SF. Lackey is a writing hacker by taking known science and shifting its parameters around. She further hacks away at genetics via the invention of these dragons that like to spit fire at the ‘threads’ (the organisms).
In the fantasy world that contains a country named Valdemar, some of the citizens are born possessing magical gifts that reach the surface of that person at the same time as physical maturity. We know that a lot of things happen to the human body at the time of physical maturity. We also know that there are energy patterns on our own planet. The writer (Lackey again?) hacks those concepts and comes up with a wonderful book series.
E.R. Burroughs and his Tarzan books have led to how many variations on the same them?
The writer of Alice in Wonderland has led to a wide array of books dealing with what can happen with the most simplest of events.
The Brothers Grimm wrote horror, only then it was considered children’s stories. How many books are based on the concept of “Hansel and Gretel”? (think about it)
Writers are hackers. We take an idea in our head and we craft it so that it comes out interesting enough that others would want to read it.
I like that idea. Maybe now I can tell folks that I am a hacker. It is probably more socially accepting than to say I am a writer.
Actually, the Great Anne McCaffrey was the inventor of Pern. Her first books came out in the 60’s, and I think Lackey wasn’t publishing until the 80’s, and she started with Valdemar, which, if I remember from reading somewhere, was kind of a fangirlish nod to McCaffrey.
As for ‘hacking’, nothing wrong with taking part of one genre and slapping it into the middle of another. Or copying another author’s story, for that matter. File the serial numbers off, make it your own, and you’d have 90% of fiction nowdays, I imagine.
Compare the storyline of the first few books of the Wheel of Time to the first few books of Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth. Guy who is the chosen one? Check. Girlfriend is the head of an order? Check. Order of witches comes after him to try and train him on his magic, forcibly? Check. Evil emperor bad guy afoot? Check.
While those sound pretty generic, a lot of fans screamed when SoT came out that it was a Robert Jordan Ripoff. If you boil it down to basic words, yes it is, but if you read the stories, they’re nothing alike.
Something to ponder. 🙂 If you love fanfiction, might as well write it and then go back and fix it so you can publish it someday. 😉
I got the books on the shelves or stacks or piles in the other room. I was just too damn lazy to get up and check the spines.
I’m kinda riding the fence on the ‘fanfiction’ concept. On the one hand, I think one has to be fairly creative to take what is obviously someone else’s (Xena or Buffy are good examples) and then, without changing the characters too much, write another story about them.
On the other hand, yawn. C’mon, be creative enough to invent your own characters and twist the theme enough to not be an imitation. One could say that my Long Lea and her sidekick Simple Sarah are nothing more than a religious version of Xena and whatshername. (sadly, I missed out on 99% of that show)
There’s the differenc really. Imitation vs Hacking. One is using your own brain cells and the other is using someone else’s.