The Good, the Bad and the Barbaric
Some criticisms regarding my decision to keep human sacrifice in my One World universe has come up, but rather than sit and pout in the corner, I think it’s a good opportunity to reexamine my choices and why I made them (and whether or not it was the right choice to make them). I’m not going to quote anyone, but several readers have been bothered by the fact that in this alternate world human sacrifice is still going on next to space travel and genetic engineering and artificial intelligences. I think it’s a valid concern worthy of discussion and contemplation, particularly since it makes this future civilization appear “barbaric” to some readers. And the last thing I want to do is paint a minority population with broad generalizations or make them seem backwards. If I’m unwittingly being racist, I want to change that.
Warning! Spoilers for other published stories in the One World series.
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October 19, 2011 1 Comment
The Lives Our Stories Lead
I’ve been following a fascinating discussion of my story “Night Bird Soaring” over at the Escape Pod forums, which has gotten me thinking a lot about some of the editorial choices I made with this story and about how stories take on a life of their own after publication.
The ending is a point of argument among the commenters who think it brings the story around into the realm of fantasy, and early in this discussion, I was really kind of kicking myself for a decision I made during the final edit with my editor at GUD; it had been suggested that I cut two lines at the end because she thought what I meant was clear enough without it (I’m not going to say what these two lines were, for reasons I’ll go into a little later.). I hedged on it a bit before finally deciding “Well, if she thinks it’s clear, then it must be,” and so chopped the lines and didn’t think about it anymore.
Until Rich Horton’s review came out in Locus a couple months later, and I realized he’d read the ending in a way I completely didn’t intend it to read. I was kind of grinding my teeth about it, but not many others mentioned the same issue with the ending, and then the award nominations/recommendations started rolling in. Obviously the ending as it was reading wasn’t killing the story, so why worry?
Fast forward to earlier this week and immediately commenters started expressing dissatisfaction with the “fantasy-feel” of the ending. Not at all surprising to me when I saw it, but still I was a bit angry at myself for that editorial decision I made 4 years ago. I had considered reinserting the original cut lines when I submitted to Escape Pod, so the ending would read the way I’d intended, but I couldn’t get past the whole idea that I would be altering it significantly. I’ve never been fond of alternate endings on movies or reissues of books with all the material that was cut in the original edition put back in. It’s kind of like insisting on determining your kid’s life path after they’ve reached adulthood. I thought about posting to the thread to tell everyone “well, this is what I’d originally intended, but such and such got cut, blah, blah.”
But then the conversation started getting really interesting as folks started picking apart what the whole fantasy angle at the end might mean in the largest context of the story’s universe, and I suddenly realized: Who gives a shit what I’d intended? I was told long ago when I first started writing that no one cares what I intended, only what the story tells them, and I’m not going to be there to hold the reader’s hand while they read and explain everything to them. This was in context to clear writing and plotline, but I think it applies in a broader sense too. Once you publish a story, it aught to stand on its own, and whatever you intended doesn’t matter anymore; all that matters is the story as the reader will understand it. It’s no longer your baby to mold and direct and it now has it’s own life and will make its own way.
And quite honestly, I don’t feel so angry at myself anymore about that choice I made 4 years ago (and yes, it was my choice to cut the lines. There was no pressure from my editor). My story is living a fascinating life thanks to that choice, undoubtedly more fascinating than the one I’d intended for it, and I think it’s rather cool. Whatever I’d intended, it just doesn’t matter anymore.
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October 5, 2011 1 Comment
What We Should Tell of the Back Story
– originally published 10/22/2007 @ LiveJournal
I’m sure many of you have heard the news that Harry Potter’s mentor Dumbledore was declared to be gay by Rowling in a Q&A session with fans. I’ve seen some rather interesting discussions going on about whether or not this was information that Rowling unfairly sprung on folks after the fact and that nothing in the books’ text support this assertion. It was a little startling for me when I first heard it, because I’d never even considered Dumbledore’s orientation and it didn’t strike me as odd at all that no love interest, past or present, was ever mentioned for him. Nor did the relationship between him and Grindelwald strike me as anything other than them being just “really good friends.” It does make sense now that I know though, but others seem greatly appalled by Rowling dumping this information on us after the fact and that she should have given it to us in the books. I don’t necessarily think this information was pertinent to the overall storyline, but it does beg the question of just how much of a character’s back story are we obligated to give to the reader, and would there have been as much fuss about the withholding of information had the information been something like “Dumbledore was a Don Juan with the ladies when he was a young man”? I think the answer is no.
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August 16, 2010 No Comments
