All fiction—all STORIES—have a message. That’s why we tell stories!
Also, the old pulps are far deeper and richer than given credit for. Ditto Sherlock Holmes stories. Ditto fairy tales—those had messages.
The dividing line isn’t “Does this have a message or not” or “Is this serious or not.” Comedy can be deep and have a point. The dividing line is “Is this good writing and does it have something to say?” Stuff that is just “Here’s a cool thing that happened and then another cool thing that happened THE END” just don’t do it for me. Your mileage may vary.
Yes! The problem with so much new SFF isn't that it has a message, it's that it doesn't have a real one, and when it tries to say something it's usually stupid.
I’m out of it on modern sci-fi, but I can only take a wild guess that the messages tend to be “White men are bad” while a thinly-veiled Trump stand-in represents that all MAGAs are Nazis.
It's worse than that, which is already bad enough. I think I'll elaborate on it a bit on my own, but SF has become so self-aware and self-referential that it's sickening.
Sure, you can't write a near-future story without acknowledging ideas that are out there, or pulling what the Walking dead did and explicitly acting as if "Romero hadn't made a career of zombie flicks, or effectively having an alternate history, but dammit I'm tired of some wink-and-nod reference to SciFi in everything. Or star-trek style "technoword of the day" solutions.
Part of what makes Wolfe work is that he eschews established SciFi terms for descriptive ones, even the made up ones feel organic.
Likewise, poart of what makes Simmons work is the focus on the literary as much as using scifi buzz terms.
Interesting to hear about your experiment! I have seen fun gains just doing the 5am writer's club, though that's not as extreme.
I think Katie's point was more about heavy-handed messaging bogging down modern books that are already supposed to be meant for entertainment, not saying that we shouldn't have any literary fiction. Could be wrong though.
All fiction—all STORIES—have a message. That’s why we tell stories!
Also, the old pulps are far deeper and richer than given credit for. Ditto Sherlock Holmes stories. Ditto fairy tales—those had messages.
The dividing line isn’t “Does this have a message or not” or “Is this serious or not.” Comedy can be deep and have a point. The dividing line is “Is this good writing and does it have something to say?” Stuff that is just “Here’s a cool thing that happened and then another cool thing that happened THE END” just don’t do it for me. Your mileage may vary.
Yes! The problem with so much new SFF isn't that it has a message, it's that it doesn't have a real one, and when it tries to say something it's usually stupid.
I’m out of it on modern sci-fi, but I can only take a wild guess that the messages tend to be “White men are bad” while a thinly-veiled Trump stand-in represents that all MAGAs are Nazis.
It's worse than that, which is already bad enough. I think I'll elaborate on it a bit on my own, but SF has become so self-aware and self-referential that it's sickening.
Sure, you can't write a near-future story without acknowledging ideas that are out there, or pulling what the Walking dead did and explicitly acting as if "Romero hadn't made a career of zombie flicks, or effectively having an alternate history, but dammit I'm tired of some wink-and-nod reference to SciFi in everything. Or star-trek style "technoword of the day" solutions.
Part of what makes Wolfe work is that he eschews established SciFi terms for descriptive ones, even the made up ones feel organic.
Likewise, poart of what makes Simmons work is the focus on the literary as much as using scifi buzz terms.
“the garmonbozia of techno-demonic bile”
SUBSCRIBED.
Interesting to hear about your experiment! I have seen fun gains just doing the 5am writer's club, though that's not as extreme.
I think Katie's point was more about heavy-handed messaging bogging down modern books that are already supposed to be meant for entertainment, not saying that we shouldn't have any literary fiction. Could be wrong though.
I don't know what to say, honest. I'm left speechless by that tweet.