Sorry if this and the last blog entry come across as too self promoting (but isn't all blogging?). I am learning about fiction writing. I want to speak about the short story I posted a couple of days ago.
Allow me to comment about it. One friend described it as "dystopian" which is true, and pointed out several things that didn't work for him. Another reader politely said it was "interesting, but not my style. And you need to clean your head out." Agreed on both counts.
People will likely find depiction of sexuality, pleasure-obsession, and toilet talk quite unsavory, perhaps even too much. So why am I so offensive (to some)? Consider this: how would people from previous generations find our habits and speech today? They would be shocked.
Wait now. Don't go saying, "Everyone knows they were stuffy and snobbish and uptight about sex, and I like the way we are now much better." No, no, no. Not fair. Go 50 years into the future, and they will be saying the same thing about us. Is the idea of unisex communal shower shocking? Unisex bathrooms are already being created by universities. Entertainment? Today's stuff is far beyond what anyone could conceive in years past. Does anyone question that the line will be pushed further and further?
What about my repeatedly drawing attention to toilet needs?
In part, this was to show the incompatibility between pleasure obsession and basic human functions. No matter how much we clean up, no matter how science or manners raise civilization, we still have stinky stuff to deal with. As Koheleth says, animals have the same breath of life in their nostrils as man does. Being rational doesn't mean we are disembodied. We still poop, sweat, barf, snot, and other things.
OK, but do we need to wallow in it?
No, but sometimes there is value in talking about our humanity, and secretions and bodily functions are is part of it. Just like how people were totally unprepared to see a dead body in the story (even today, we are hidden from death), our crazy attempt at polite society avoids non-humorous or non-charged references to human elimination processes.
In my writing, I am talking about human stuff. As Flannery O'Connor said, when you're talking to deaf people you have to yell (or something to that effect). So my goal is to draw attention to something that is human and therefore both wretched and beautiful.
If you hated my story, found it unreadable, made you cry or feel nauseous, please let me know. Send me an email. I like praise, but I benefit more by seeing your negative responses, and such things don't hurt me, so don't worry.
OTOH, if you want to hurt me, lie to me. Treat me like I can't handle the truth. Tiptoe around what you want to say. Or give a generic "oh, it was cool, man." Then I will know that you have no desire to for deeper friendship.
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Spooner-
ReplyDeleteI read 2061, and thought it was pretty good. Your depiction of the future is imaginative...Aldous Huxley meets Philip K Dick. You are a names guy, and I think I picked up on the name references...maybe some of them were a little too obvious (or I'm half as smart as I think). I mostly liked the short story narrative style, as it conveyed a lucid picture of the world to come, filling in the history between now and then. But it was a little wooden at points, and the Characters are flat. I suppose it's the hardest thing to do in a short story format to make everything whole, but the development of the world of 2061 was better than the characters that inhabit it.
I wished you hadn't brought Canis back at the end. I think I would have preferred to wonder about his fate, than being told "he was happy, and it all worked out". Loved the way Gideon and his wife end up in the painting he had created mid story. Bravo, man!
You have talent, Rev. Keep writing.
EP
Thanks for the comments bro.
ReplyDeleteRE: names - yeah, I like names. Here I was mostly going for what parents would be naming kids in 50 years. Already parents are opting for newer-sounding or uncommon names. Ansley is a popular name today, so it would be circa 1994. But Aether is just some future parent looking for a familiar/uncommon word to name their kids. And Canis is just a dog - he lives like an animal.
Agreed about character development. Its part of the constraints of a short story that you dont get to know the people as much as in a novel.
Thanks again for the words. PS -Im not a Rev anymore, but you can still call me Spooner