Tag Archives: fandom

Why I watch the parade

society, , , , ,

First, because it’s a parade, and people do some pretty astounding things when they march.

I watched my first Pride Parade before I marched in one. I was barely out to anyone at the time, and I wasn’t even sure what the parade was. I had seen (usually lurid and shocking) pictures in the papers and during the very brief coverage that would appear on the evening news.

I suspected those representations were highly inaccurate, but I had heard a few conflicting descriptions from gay people I knew.

What struck me most about that first parade was how unexceptional most of the people looked. Oh, yes there were some outrageous costumes, and some people bared a bit more skin than you would normally see on a summer sidewalk, but the vast majority were far more fully clothed than a typical beach crowd.

I understand why a lot of people think there’s a lot more nudity at Pride Parades than other events. It’s mostly because of the men. Our society is so heavily patriarchal that we don’t notice all those women in revealing clothes, provocative poses, and suggestive angles used in advertising, television shows, and the like. Women are allowed to show off their legs, a little cleavage, and much more, to show just how beautiful their bodies are. No one blinks at all the near nudity of women on floats in the Seattle Seafair Family Torchlight Parade, for instance, or the Tournament of Roses Parade, or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade—it’s there! We don’t consciously think about how much of the world is geared around appealing to the sexual desires of straight men.

We are not used to men putting themselves on display in the same way. So when the float covered in go-go boys goes by, instead of realizing that it’s no more nudity or sex appeal than what you might see on, say, the Miss America float in the Tournament of Roses Parade, we’re too busy freaking out at the Naked Boys (who aren’t actually naked)!

But what really struck me that first time, was how ordinary so many of the people looked. The various hobby-based clubs marching by in their matching t-shirts, throwing candy. The men and women, mostly in shorts and short-sleeved shirts, walking in a group with their dogs on leashes. The political groups with matching t-shirts chanting their slogans. The groups with kids—lots of the queer couples and their kids—marching with whichever group they were with. Plus lots of church or other religiously affiliated groups and lots of amateur sports leagues.

There were a multitude of costumes, many feathers, copious amounts of glitter, and a lot of rainbows. The outrageous costumes sometimes had some sort of political message. But often they were just things like big crazy headdresses that you weren’t sure what they were meant to signify, but it was rainbow colored!

Then after all the groups with their banners and fliers and sometimes matching t-shirts had passed, the parade just kept going, just lots and lots of random people. It took a few minutes for us to figure out what was happening. I learned later that it’s a tradition that’s gone from the very first Pride March in 1970 on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. After the parade passes you, you step off the curb and join it.

And that’s why some years I watch. The reason for the parade, ultimately, is simple visibility. We’re here. We’re your daughters, your neighbors, your sons, your co-workers, your friends, your siblings, or your parents. We’re not mysterious monsters lurking in seedy clubs, we’re the person in front of you at the check-out line in the grocery store, or the two gals sitting in that next pew at church, or the grey-haired guy trying to read a label on a bottle of cold tablets in the pharmacy, or that kid on the skateboard going past your bus stop, or that guy sipping a coffee at Starbucks while laughing at something on his computer.

We’re here, we’re everywhere, we’re real, and we have lives just like you.

I watch so that the people who are being brave and marching in their first parade will be seen and cheered for. I watch so that group of teen-agers (half of them straight and there to support their bi, gay, and lesbian friends) will get the applause that their costumes deserve. I watch so the guy who was up all night gluing sequins on his and his boyfriend’s costume will get the cheering that work deserves. I watch so that the older couple walking together holding hands will be seen and their love acknowledged.

I watch so that the ones whose families rejected them and told them never to come back will know they have another family, and we’re clapping for them right now. I watch and applaud so that the trans* gals and trans* men know they are seen for who they are and we think they’re beautiful, wonderful, and I am proud to call them brothers and sisters. I watch so that the ones who are carrying a photo or wearing the name of a deceased loved one will know that we see their grief and share it. I watch so that the straight parents who have spent countless hours explaining to friends and relatives that their queer kids have nothing to be ashamed of, and yes they are very happy, and no those things you’ve heard or read about their health and lifespan are all myths will know their efforts are appreciated by the whole community.

I watch so I can see and be reminded of just how big and wonderful and diverse and amazing our community is.

And finally, I watch so that as the last official entry goes by, I can see all the people who aren’t part of a club or organization who, just like me, stood on the sidewalk cheering and applauding.

And I cheer and applaud for all of them until finally it’s my turn to step off the curb and say to the world, “Me too.”

Skipping the convention

fandom, , , , ,

This will be the first time in 26 years that I have not attended NorWesCon (the Northwest Science Fiction Convention). Technically, the first one1 I actually attended was not NorWesCon, but was called Alternacon (the notorious NorWesCon IX2 having had so many disasters3 that the hotel canceled the next year’s contract, forcing the con into a smaller hotel, and a limited membership.

I’ve been to every one since. a couple of them I only attended for a day or a part of a day6.

Seventeen years ago at a NorWesCon I met Michael7. We didn’t see each other again until the next NorWesCon. It was a couple months after that that we started hanging out, and nine months after that before we went on our first official date. The next NorWesCon after that was the first we shared a room, and we’ve been to all of them since.

So while I think of the anniversary of our first date as our official anniversary8, he always considered NorWesCon as our anniversary9.

All of which leads to why I’m feeling a bit odd and sentimental about skipping NorWesCon this year. There are a few reasons—most of them just personal timing things, though also we haven’t really enjoyed ourselves as much as we used to the last couple of years. Certainly we both had a lot more fun at EverfreeNW last year.

Maybe we just need to take a year off.

I was shocked to realized today that the convention is this next weekend. Just a few days away10.

This also means that this is the first time in many, many years that we will be home for Easter. I should probably make some plans for that.

Of course, it is the first time that this particular anniversary has not happened while we were at a convention. Maybe we should just celebrate by ourselves…

Notes:

1. I had been wanting to attend the con for a few years before that, having several friends who regularly attended. It sometimes feels as if I vicariously attended a few earlier than my first.

2. When NorWesCon IX rolled around I was attending college nearby, but I couldn’t afford to chip in on a hotel room and so forth. The con happened during Spring Break, so I was back at my Mom’s (after spending a few days with friends caravanning down; it was a strange week). When we arrived at Mom’s place, she barely let us get unloaded before she and my step-dad were loading us in the car and dragged us to a nearby Community College. They wouldn’t say why, just that it was a surprise. The Guest of Honor at NorWesCon that year was Anne McAffrey, and she had flown into Portland to visit friends before going up to Seatac for the convention. And she was doing a reading and book signing that night. So I got to see the Guest of Honor that year, in addition to hearing about all the experiences of my friends who attended the con.

3. In addition to the stories from my friends attending, and people I’ve since met who attended or were staff for that convention, I also got to hear about the con from a classmate who, at the time he was telling me about it, didn’t realize I was one of those “freaks.” He was a fundamentalist, and his wife worked in the management office at the hotel. She was also a fundamentalist, as were many of the employees there, because the Assistant Manager was a member of a very large nearby church, and had heavily recruited among the congregation for his hiring. When the Assistant Manager saw some of the costumes and pagan imagery on t-shirts and such early in the con, he had become convinced that the attendees were all Satanists (not to mention all those godless atheist science types, et cetera), and had instructed the employees who he trusted to go out of their way to document any bad incident that happened, because he was determined that those sinful freaks would never come back to their hotel.

The organizers of the convention were unaware of this. They were too busy dealing with about a thousand more attendees than their wildest dreams had expected, and they were woefully understaffed to deal with them. The physical layout of the hotel (it’s really a complex of several buildings interconnected with enclosed walkways, rather than one building), made patrolling difficult for con security4.

A bunch of bad things happened, such as damage to the rooms, people sleeping in the hallways, drunk people making a lot of noise very late at night, et cetera.

4. There are always some people attending any type of convention5 who do stupid and/or very inappropriate things. Sometimes it’s just being thoughtless. Sometimes it’s because they’re drinking. Sometimes it’s just because they are in their late teens and this is the first time they’ve been that far from parental supervision.

5. I can tell you stories from a high school journalism conference that will make your toes curl. And equally disturbing ones from a Bible conference I once attended.

6. While I was going through my divorce, a friend who had been through a few more serious breakups than I had advised that sometimes it best to let your ex “have custody” of fandom for a while, so that mutual acquaintances don’t feel awkward, if nothing else. So for at least two years I only made those brief appearances, rather than attending for the entire convention.

7. We have different recollections of where we met. I remember meeting him at a room party on the Saturday afternoon. He remembers meeting me at a specific panel on Friday morning. I remember participating in the panel, I just didn’t recall him being one of the other people there.

8. I can never remember the date of our commitment ceremony. For one thing, it was extremely informal. If you insist, I can go dig around in the filing cabinet and find our paperwork.

9. Of course, now that we’re officially married, rather than domestic partnered, I suppose our official anniversary should be December 9. Or maybe we should just celebrate all three.

10. Which means that a whole bunch of our friends will all be gone this weekend.

Not all reasons are reasonable

literature, , , , , ,

Several years ago I was browsing in a bookstore.

Now that I think of it, a lot more of my personal anecdotes probably ought to begin with that line than usually do. But I digress…

I picked up a paperback that had an interesting title. The back cover description gave the impression that the book was a parody of noir detective novels such as The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep, but with demons and faeries and werewolves and the like. I’ve been a fan of both science fiction/fantasy and detective stories for longer than I can remember, so this could be right up my alley.

Except, as I said, the description made it seem like a parody. Sometimes parodies are great. Sometimes they are just mediocre. And sometimes they are nothing more than mean-spirited dreck.

The back cover also had a photograph of the author. And the photograph was not encouraging. Everything about the stern-faced man’s pose, expression, and even hairstyle typified a kind of fan or writer I had met far too many times throughout my years in the fandom. They espoused a philosophy of social darwinism that holds most of the human race in contempt. Their idea of humor always involves belittling others while drawing attention to their own superior command of vocabulary, or (alleged) facts, or logic.

The only thing I enjoyed less than having conversations with them was reading anything they wrote. So I was quite certain this guy’s idea of a parody would be all about the mockery, with a healthy slathering of self-importance and self-congratulation at his clever turns of phrases.

The very brief author bio included beside the photo mentioned martial arts.

Every one of those aforementioned unpleasant fans who had been martial arts enthusiasts had been misogynist homophobes who were constantly explaining to people that they weren’t racist, but…

I put the book back on the shelf.

Several years later, through a series of coincidences including recommendations from friends who were the opposite of the kind of person I had inferred the author to be, I found myself downloading some sample chapters of the audiobook version of the first book in the series.

I enjoyed the sample. I found the main character very engaging and I wanted to know how the story ended.

So I bought the entire audiobook and listened to it. It was nothing like I expected the book to be, based on my reading of that back cover.

I was still buying books from the Science Fiction Book Club at the time, and they had some omnibus editions collecting the first seven books in the series into a few volumes, so I bought those. They arrived about a month or so before I was laid off at my previous place of employment.

One day, between contracting gigs, I started reading the first book—a few very short days later I had read all seven that I owned. I couldn’t put them down.

I needed to get more.

Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the author in person, even spoke to him very briefly in an autograph line. I spoke with his wife for a teensy bit longer. Between reading his books and short stories, reading some of his commentary, hearing him talk about his life and writing, and seeing him interact with his wife, it’s clear that my assessment was completely wrong. For one thing, those douchebags I had incorrectly lumped him with would never, even with a gun pointed at their head, willingly hold hands with their wife in public—let alone do a sneaky-pinky lock with a sidelong glance and a wink while being interviewed on stage

Which shouldn’t be surprising. I had based my assessment on a photograph and a single phrase in the author bio. The stories aren’t parodies, either. So that description from the back of the paperback was just misleading. As many are.

I could laugh the whole thing off as a very amusing case of forgetting the adage about judging books by their covers. But it isn’t that simple.

The assessment came out of personal experience. I can’t count the number of guys I’ve met—mostly in fannish circles, but not exclusively—who shared that particular combination of beliefs and attitudes. In person, the attitude usually manifests fairly quickly. And they usually just as quickly place me into one of the categories of people they hold in contempt. Of course, since they seem to hold most people in contempt, that isn’t surprising.

They aren’t just unpleasant to be around. Whether they are active in politics or not, they spend a lot of their time trying to convince people of the validity of those social darwinist ideas I mentioned above. That means they advocate policies that threaten me and people I love (not to mention society as a whole). So I have really good motivation to identify people with those attitudes, if for no other reason than to minimize the amount of time I have to spend with them.

We make decision like that every day, without even thinking. While walking down the street, or up a grocery aisle, standing in line at the bank, or selecting a seat on a bus, we assess people on a variety of superficial characteristics, then act accordingly. That gut reaction, that ability to put together a bunch of nonverbal cues to identify people we should be cautious around is a valuable survival trait.

But, having spent my entire life fighting for respect and acceptance in a world that rejects gay men (or any one who doesn’t confirm to certain gender expectations), I understand the dangers of misjudging people.

The reasons behind our gut reactions aren’t logical; they don’t conform to the rules of deductive reasoning. That doesn’t mean they are always wrong. Even if they did conform to the tenets of logic and rational analysis, they wouldn’t always be right, either.

The best we can do is keep as close an eye on ourselves as we do strangers we meet throughout our life. When we recognize a mistake, we can correct it, and learn to be a bit less hasty in the future. And when we’re right, we can feel a little less guilty about the times we weren’t.

Experiences, not things

conventions, movies, music, , , , , , ,

The ads usually pop up as Christmas time approaches: give people the gift of experiences, not things. They suggest paid excursions, theatre tickets, sports event tickets, and so on, with an appeal against consuming natural resources. As a person with a house continually crammed full of stuff that I love but don’t really have room for, I understand the sentiment.

But I’m not terribly good at following it.

While I was browsing the dealer’s den at RustyCon (a small local sci fi convention), one of the booths was filled with zillions “Rare! Hard to Find!” soundtrack albums on CD and movies on DVD. I have a weakness for soundtrack albums and started flipping through the tightly packed rows of discs. Within the first half dozen I looked at, all labeled with a price of $44.95, were two which I had happened to buy in the last year at the iTunes store. One for 9.99 and the other for 7.99.

I have no doubt that many (if not most) of the discs he had there are not available for download from iTunes or Amazon or any of the other digital music sources. And I’m sure that many of them were difficult for him to obtain. Certainly storing and transporting those enormous piles of discs isn’t cheap. So I’m not in any way disparaging the vendor.

It’s just that seeing those two albums (one originally released in 2002, the other originally released in 1975) which I had by chance purchased digitally recently made me stop to think about the situation. The reason I like owning music is to listen to it from time to time. I have a rather daunting amount of music in my digital collection, and how often any individual track is listened to is rather less often than might justify even the typical digital price of 99₵ per song. So does it really make sense to spend 45 bucks on a disc with 12 – 16 tracks on it?

I had just this last week commiserated with two friends about our shelves and shelves full of music and movies, which even though many had been digitized, we were still reluctant to get rid of because the discs now constituted the backup. But we also were all a bit frustrated at how much space they took up.

Not too many years ago I still owned a couple boxes of music albums on vinyl. I hadn’t owned a machine that could play them in a few years, so I finally admitted it was time, and got rid of them. I should mention that among those boxes was the 1975 soundtrack I mentioned above which I recently purchased digitally.

I’m afraid all this thinking about how much stuff is cluttering up the house made me steer clear of the booksellers. If I stopped acquiring new audio books and ebooks, and just focused all my reading time on the piles (multiple) of “new books to read” beside my bed, it would likely take me a few years to get through them.

I have been enjoying myself at the con. I’ve had several good conversations, attended interesting panels, and yes, I bought some things. As a person who frequently has a table with things for sale at conventions, I don’t want people to stop buying things at cons, don’t get me wrong.

I just think that I, personally, need to focus more of my enjoyment on the experience, and less on carrying home a pile of toys and such afterward.

Swan (songs) a swimming

writing, , , ,

Beginnings in fiction are very important. If you don’t grab the reader’s attention and engage his/her curiosity at the beginning, they’ll never read the rest of your story. It’s no surprise, then, that numerous books, courses, seminars, and panels on how to write spend a lot of time on beginnings. They also spend time discussing how to develop and advance a plot, how do to characterization, and so forth. But I’ve always felt that endings get short shrift.

Knowing the right place to stop is deceptively harder than it looks. The ending needs to resolve the conflicts (both external and internal) which drove the plot. The ending needs to leave the reader with a sense of closure. Or, if not exactly closure, some indication of where things are headed for the characters the reader has spent the entire story bonding with.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I’m working on (what I hope is) the last round of edits on a novel. A couple of my advance-readers have commented that the final chapter is a little long. The climax and crisis action happens before the final chapter in a big dramatic fight, and then I have the final chapter to wrap everything up. In literary circles they call this the denouement: the unraveling of complications, the final resolution of the story.

This is one of the places where my tendency to write stories with lots of characters makes my job harder. The reader has spent a lot of time with many of these characters, and understandably wants to know at least a bit about how each has been affected by the events at the climax. Also, there are one or two running gags in the story which it was inappropriate to resolve during the battle. Those each have to have a pay-off (and judging by the writers’ group reaction when I read the first draft of the final chapter, those work). I don’t want to skip any character that had significant appearances, because each character, no matter how strange, will be the favorite of some readers.

I’m not saying that one needs to perform “fan service.” But, as a writer of a novel-length tale, I’ve asked the reader to come along for all the ups and downs of these characters. If I don’t finish the tale for each, I’ve wasted some of the reader’s time. As a storyteller I’m not obliged to give the reader what they want, but I am obliged to tell the best story I can.

Fortunately, a lot of the characters can appear in denouement scenes together, so the reader can see them one last time and see how they are.

I’ve also been thinking about this a lot lately because two different television series I’ve watched and enjoyed for a number of years are coming to their conclusions. In each case, the creators of the show have been given an opportunity to end things on their own terms. They knew in advance that this was the end, with plenty of time to write the ending they want.

A lot of writers (not just TV writers) don’t get the chance. While it is frustrating for a fan when that happens, trust me, it’s even more frustrating for the writer.

I wish them luck in their endings. As a fan I hope I get something that feels fitting, with maybe a surprise or two.

And as a writer struggling with an ending of my own, I really hope I don’t blow it!

Wrong in all the right ways

fandom, , ,

Every convention I have ever attended has included conversations with people who do not seem to be on the same time-space continuum as I am. This has been just as true at the journalism conferences I attended back in the day, or the evangelical mission conference I once attended, or any tech conferences, not just the sci fi, comics, gaming, or anthropomorphics conventions.

I realize that it is mostly a matter of statistics: a certain percentage of the population could be categorized as odd or downright crazy, so any situation that puts you in contact with a bunch of people in a constrained time will include some of them. There’s also likely a correlation between certain personality types and enthusiasm. In other words, the sort of person most likely to choose or agree to attend a convention dedicated to any topic may be more likely to be a few standards deviations out from the norm in some way or other.

Often after conventions I summarize some of the conversations I had with random people while sitting behind my table in the dealer’s den. I do this for entertainment value, and so have usually picked the silliest, weirdest, or just most dumb-founding. Which creates the impression that that’s all the happens.

It’s not.

Also, for some reason, there were a lot fewer of the really odd ones this time.

So, I think this time I want to focus on the more positive fun encounters:

Fan #38: Points to my t-shirt. “Hey, is that a pony? Which one?”

I lift my badge up out of the way. “It’s Derpy!”

Fan #38: “Derpy! I need a Derpy shirt! Wait, why does she have a muffin?”

Me: “Why shouldn’t she have a muffin?”

Fan #38: “No, no, no! Derpy should have a chocolate chip cookie!”

Me: “Derpy can handle either.”

Fan #38: “True. More Derpy!”

———————

Fan #9: Stops and grabs friend’s arm. “Oh! This is one of the books I was telling you about!”

Fan #10: “What? Another comic?”

Fan #9: “No, it’s stories! Science fiction and stuff.” Makes eye contact with me. “I really like your stuff. Oh! Look, that’s a new issue!”

Me: “Just published last week, actually.” I look at the other guy, who has picked up one of our zines. “Do you want me to explain how the project works?”

fan #10: “Sure…”

I gave him the usual spiel about being a collaborative project, and that we’re a non-profit with a mission of fostering creative skills, and a bit about the universe.

Fan #9, meanwhile, has pulled copies of the most recent two issues from the racks. “I’ll take these.”

Fan #10 puts the issue he’d been looking at back down, and asks his friend, “I can read these, right?”

Fan #9: “Yeah, but if you like ’em, you should pick up the whole set.”

I rang up the sale, handled the change, then pulled out one of the blind bag boxes.

Fan #10: “You’re giving away ponies?”

Me: “One blind bag with each purchase, subscription, or renewal.”

Fan #10: “So I can come back tomorrow when I have money. Cool!”

(I don’t know if he came back, since I wasn’t always watching the table)

———-

Fan #87: “There you are! I was afraid you weren’t around any more when I didn’t see you last year.”

Me: “We were here last year.”

Fan #87 is picking up the last several issues from the racks. “Really? I looked and looked.”

I pointed out where we had been, and mentioned the posters.

Fan #87: “I don’t know how I missed you. Tell me about this Omnibus…”

———-

Fan #43: “Yeah, I picked up some of your books last year, but only really liked a couple of the stories.”

Me: “I’m sorry.”

Fan #43: “It happens. I really, really like those two stories, but some of the others just weren’t my thing.”

Me: “Do you remember which ones you liked?”

Fan #43 describes two tales. I ask some questions, he answers. We determine the stories were “New Queensland Station,” originally published in issue #2, reprinted in the Omnibus, and “A Shadow’s Kiss” from Eclipse. We talk some more about what he liked about them. Eventually I suggest he might possibly enjoy “Beside Himself” from Skulduggery, and point out a sequel, “The Shadow of Azrael” was printed in a more recent issue. He decides to pick them up.

The next day, Fan #43 stops by the table. “I haven’t had time to read them all, yet, but I really loved the story in the Special Edition. Thanks for recommending it!”

Amazingly amazing!

fandom, ,

I had a great time at RainFurrest this past weekend, despite several things that did not go according to plan.

Because of a mix up at Michael’s work, he didn’t get Thursday off. So I had to finish packing the car after he left for work. One of the events I was supposed to assist with involved a script that I didn’t receive until Thursday morning… and which needed some editing so I could read it. Which contributed to my being late. But wasn’t the only culprit. So while I had hoped to arrive in time to have a couple of hours to set up our table in the Dealers’ Den and get checked into the room, I arrived less than a half hour before the den opened.

Which meant I was still unpacking and setting up inventory when the first customers walked up. Both were people with lists of which things they wanted to pick up, and they wanted to get purchased early, before they’d spent all their money on other things. That was nice.

Chuck was sharing the project table again, and he made more sales in the first day that he had the entire convention last year. He was happy enough with how sales went that he’s talking about getting his own table next year.

Michael took the bus and light rail down after work, arriving at the restaurant as we were thinking of ordering dessert. It was nice to have my hubby, at last!

Friday was a good, bustling day. I had only one panel that day, but it was a fun one, and my co-panelists were cool. I believe Friday night was when a bunch of us gathered in our room to give Gloom a try. I definitely want to play it again, now that a few more of us have an idea how the game is supposed to work.

Saturday was my insane day. I had three panels in a row, one break, another panel, a break, and then I had to be at the Coyotl Award/Ursa Major Award reception at 9. It just made for a very busy day.

Sunday was slow in the dealers’ den. As it almost always is.

I got the most writing done on Friday. I managed to compose a song and write a couple thousand words of an accompanying story. I need to make sure I do a lot more ukulele practicing between now and the Christmas party, or this is going to be a disaster. Saturday was just a bit too crazy for getting any writing done. Then on Sunday, I realized that the story I was working on was just far, far too grim to be a Christmas Ghost story… and I came up with a different plot and got about a thousand words or so of that, instead. I also did a little work on some other tales in progress.

Several of our usual gang all had to be elsewhere very shortly after the den closed, so it was a smaller group than I would have liked (myself, Mark, Chuck, and Michael) who went out for dinner one last time. On the other hand, C.D., who had not been able to attend to con, joined us for dinner. So that was good.

This was the first year in a while that my actual birthday didn’t land during this convention. But it was close enough that it still counted, in my head, as an extended birthday party. And I had a great time.

I also learned that the other Gene’s birthday is the day after mine. That’s just… weird. But he agrees with me that September babies are superior.

Our sales were good, not great. But definitely good. I have some better ideas for next year’s table display. And yes, I’m making plans for next year, already.

It was a great con!

The faster I run…

life, , ,

It seems as if I’m always playing catch up.

There is never enough time in the day to do everything I’d like. Never enough time to see, talk to, email, or otherwise check-in on everyone I care about. The pile of books I have been meaning to read never seems to get smaller, no matter how many I read.

Everyone feels that way some of the time. Those of us with a wide variety of interests may feel it more often than others. Or maybe we just think we do.

I was reminded of this while sorting out some things regarding the collaborative sci fi project for which I’ve been editor for a number of years. I and one of the authors were figuring out where, on the project timeline, a particular tale could take place, and which characters would be available to use in the story. And I mentioned a character, and the author said, “Oh, was that the guy whose story never got finished?”

The character had been created by Gerald P., an extremely enthusiastic and always busy member of a lot of projects. He had submitted a couple of rough drafts to our project, along with this character and a number of proposed further stories with the character. He completed two stories, only one of which included this character (and in a small, supporting role, to boot!) which we published several years ago.

Subsequently, whenever I talked with Gerald, whether it was at a convention or online, he would talk about the other stories. He would occasionally send me revised individual scenes from the stories. I would send back comments.

Soon, whenever I would see him in person, he would get a slightly guilty look on his face, and would open every conversation with an apology for not finishing a second draft of the stories. We’d talk about what was holding him up on this scene or that, but soon we would be talking about other things. Often other stories others had written and how much he enjoyed them. Or stories he had finished in other projects. It was impossible not to enjoy these conversions, because Gerald’s joy and enthusiasm for everything he did was just that infectious.

Unfortunately, a few years ago, Gerald unexpectedly died. He’d been fighting cancer for a while, but it was undiagnosed diabetes that brought his untimely death.

He never finished those stories. If there is an afterlife and I am lucky enough to see Gerald again, I am certain he’ll give me that familiar guilty look, apologize for not getting a new draft in, and start talking about the intricacies of the plot that have been troubling him. And I’m just as certain that our conversation would quickly drift onto other topics.

Because all of us are always playing that crazy game of catch up.

Otherwise known as life.

An elf, a shapeshifter, and a knight walk into a bar…

writing, ,

I’m coming to this latest iteration of this perennial debate a little late, but since the principles apply to many genres of writing, I wanted to inflict my opinion on the net.

Certain critics of anthropomorphic fiction take issue with stories in which the author seems to avoid (or is simply oblivious) to the question, “Why talking animals?”

Watts Martin makes a good point that if a story features elves, dwarves, and hobbits, no one raises an analagous critique1. Then he posits that the real question ought to be, “How does the fact that some of the characters are talking animals affect the story?” In other words, in most stories involving elves, dwarves, et cetera, the differences in the fictional culture and characteristics of the elves, humans, and so on is usually inherent to the plot. Or at the very least figures into the characterization of each character.

Since our readers are human, it certainly seems reasonable to ask that any time we use non-human characters of any sort, there should be some sort of literary reason for doing so3.

Some authors assert that they are using the talking animals as stand-ins for different races, ethnic groups, and so on, making it a little easier to make certain kinds of commentary on social issues, let’s say. Others harken to Berke Breathed’s comments about choices comic artists make: a person sitting on a toilet reading a paper is off-putting, at best, while a penguin sitting on a toilet reading a paper is cute. Still others say that the species serve as a kind of shorthand for personality traits. Otters are playful, for instance, and cats are aloof.

Those are valid reasons, though I would quibble that many of the authors I’ve heard use those excuses don’t seem to write stories actually demonstrating those techniques. But maybe they’re doing it in a subtle, nuanced fashion I’m just missing4.

My particular problem when I hear someone talk about the culture or personality traits of particular non-humans, is that my contrarian instincts always kick in. Okay, so raccoons in your world are sneaky, clever, and have a rather cavalier attitude about the concept of ownership, leading many of them to be thieves or pursue similar professions. As soon as you say that, I immediately wonder, “But what about the one who doesn’t want to go to raccoon practice, but would rather be a dentist?56” And don’t tell me there’s only one raccoon in all the world who isn’t particularly sneaky and clever.

Which is why I sometimes respond to those who insist that a story needs to answer that “How does it affect the story” question with, “I’ll agree every story using talking animals has to answer that question if you agree that every story which mentions a character’s eye color has to also answer the question of how the heroine’s eye color affected her behaviour in the story.7”

So why am I writing two novels that include a shapeshifting fortune teller, a raccoon thief, an otter priest, dragon-riding knights, and so on? One truthful answer is that I’ve been hanging around anthropomorphic fans, artists, and writers for over two decades. I have lots of images, snippets, conversations, and tons of debates about this topic floating around in my head all the time. Of course they’re going to pop up in stories!

Or you can look at some of the jokes in my stories—the raccoon thief who keeps protesting his innocence by accusing his accusers of species-bias, or the otter who insists he’s a kitsune trapped in an otter’s body—and you can say I’m using the animals as metaphors to tackle issues such as racism and transphobia; topics which could be too grim and depressing if told using ordinary people in a realist setting.

Or you can look at some of the fun I’ve had with things like the Church of the Great Shepherdess9, the Predation Congregation, and the Omnivoral Free Fellowship, and say I’m looking at how our social institutions are more of an outgrowth of our biological identity than we may like to admit.

I suppose those do, in fact, answer the “how” question. I couldn’t have a church like the Predation Congregation10 in a comedic tale if I wasn’t doing it in a world where a talking golden retriever and a talking cat can be teamed up as police constables.

I have done the world building to figure out why I have talking animals, dragons, elves, and even ordinary humans, living in a civilization together, but so far it hasn’t been important to the plot (though there are a few clues here and there in the existing narrative). But neither the answers to the “How?” as stated above, nor the “Why?” answered in my world-building will satisfy some people.

To them, I can only quote Tolkein: “He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

Footnotes:
1. That isn’t entirely true, of course. When I was younger, I was frequently asked by my most fundamentalist relatives why I wrote about elves or aliens rather than “stories that would help people find Jesus2.” But the number of people who take issue with elves and the like is infinitesimal compared to the number who get in a tizzy over talking animals.

2. I was not always diplomatic enough to stop myself from replying, “I didn’t realize he was lost!”

3. If nothing else, as an author, everything you do in your story ought to further at least one of the goals of moving the plot forward, illustrating the character, or setting the scene.

4. And it’s a quibble I’m sure people would make with some of my stories in this “genre,” as well.

5. Bonus points if you recognize that allusion!

6. To be fair, writing a character who fights against the stereotype is a perfectly legitimate way to use an elf or an otter or whatever as a metaphor for ethnic/racial/religious prejudices.

7. I understand if you object that eye color is not on the same scale, as it were, as species8. I counter by pointing out that talking animals in stories have been around for at least as long as written language has existed. Ancient Sumerian tales occasionally featured talking animals. The Bible has talking animals. Aesop’s fables are almost all about talking animals. I could go on. The point is that as a literary tool, talking animals aren’t outlandish, and many of Aesop’s fables would work just as well with a human instead of a fox or a crow as the main character.

8. I should also mention the time when I was involved in a collaborative project featuring elves, and wound up in a conversation where another contributor was appalled to the point of refusing to ever work with me on any projects because I couldn’t remember the eye color of one of my own characters without looking it up. She didn’t believe it was possible for someone to plot a story about a character unless you knew that character’s eye color, hair color, hair style, et cetera. So for some people, it is definitely on the same scale.

9. Members tend to be from herbivorous species that live in herds. Adherents are sometimes derogatorily called “Bo Peep-ites.”

10. Whose members have been known to hunt, kill, and then eat sentient non-members.

…and a cast of thousands!

writing, ,

Back when I was very active in ElfQuest fandom (I think it was the early Triassic age), I wrote a lot of stories for several fanzines, and one of the things I became a bit (in)famous for were stories featuring a whole lot of characters. I would squeeze in dozens, sometimes scores of characters into relatively short stories.

It wasn’t something I set out to do. It was just the way my brain worked. If something was happening in the little fictional tribe or village or whatever that we had created, the way that something affected each of the characters in said setting just seemed natural. I didn’t include every one of the reactions that occured to me, just the ones that moved the story along, or would naturally play out in a particular scene I needed for the plot.

It wasn’t hard. It just felt right.

I tend, therefore, to be fond of books, movies, and TV shows with ensemble casts. I love watching the way all those characters interact. I love seeing how the consequences of even the smallest incidents can sometimes ripple out to a wide communtiy.

I still write that way. The book I’m currently most busy writing has at least three major protagonists (and a secret fourth), at least (counting quickly on my fingers) twenty-six supporting characters with multiple lines of dialogue, four primary antagonists, and about eleven minor antogonists/minions.

It may seem an impossible number, but then I pull some books from my shelf by some quite successful authors, and when I count all the characters, I get very similar numbers. So clearly there are readers out there besides me who can follow this sort of thing.

I may wind up trimming some sub-plots. I certainly did in the last one. I even managed to get at least one funny short story/spin-off out of it. But while I’m in the middle of writing the first draft, I have to just point all the characters toward the finish and shout, “Charge!”