“There is no knowledge that is not power.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson, rubber glove-in-a-box manufacturer.
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Over 4th of July weekend, which is perversely called Independence Day by the enslaved corporate drones stirred to nationalistic jingoism by the sight of flags and fireworks and the taste of greasy barbecued meat, the Science Fiction Channel ran a TWILIGHT ZONE marathon. This prompted some of what pass for thoughts these days.
I’d been considering how spies were proliferating on TV these days, and how appropriate it was, given the Soviet turn toward Nazi fascism everything’s taking.
Added to this, USA Network’s motto “characters welcome” and its remarkable run of new, superior shows, from BURN NOTICE to WHITE COLLAR and SUITS. What are they able to do right so often others can’t seem to do at all?
Then here comes Rod Serling to answer the question. Serling was a jarhead who served at Leyte in a bomb squad during World War II. He became a writer, he once said, to get the bitterness off his chest.
Having seen not only war-related deaths among his brothers-in-arms and friends, but the accidental beheading of a fellow soldier during an impromptu comedy routine the fellow was doing to entertain his comrades — a crate fell on him — Serling reportedly had vicious nightmares the rest of his life and slept as few as two hours in 24.
His writing confronted his demons, and the hypocrisies of society that led to them. After writing several well-received plays for television, he landed his own series, TWILIGHT ZONE.
TZ demonstrates repeatedly a lesson genre writers rarely learn SF specifically rejects more often than not, that of developing the human aspects of a story and emphasizing the idea, which is simply the MacGuffin.
A trite notion, such as an antique watch that can stop time, offered Serling a chance to explore what effects on people and their relationships such a quirk might have. Commenting on the human condition elevates even the least-inspired episode of TWILIGHT ZONE, and leaves the viewers with at least a touch of compassion.
Focusing on people and relationships among them makes for good drama and comedy — good fiction.
SF, stuck on ideas, tends to speak in grandiose terms about a human condition that, as often as not, seems distinctly other than human. Niven still gets credit for slicing a ring out of Dyson’s sphere but can anyone name a character from Ringworld ?
Lately, SF and most other genre fiction has been feasting on its own moribund limbs. Eating itself to fuel “new” work, which is simply a rehash of old work, popular fiction risks becoming as irrelevant as literary fiction long since has. Whether vanishing up one’s own ass, or regurgitating reassuring pabulum decades past nutritive content, fiction cannot thrive or remain relevant by such stratagems.
We’re going retro. Having no future does that. Factor in a lack of imagination and a desperation to pander to the Lowest Common Denominator and you explain it.
That readers unfamiliar with the history of a given genre see everything old as new again licenses much of the derivative work. Why strain when pilferage serves as well? What was once pastiche is now sense-of-wonder inspiring innovation, then, and ideas considered hoary by our grands are shined up to sparkle anew during current award ceremonies.
It’s explicable when one recalls that current genre writing have only a past. What has gone before is all that is available to derivative types. They eat their dead or go hungry.
Once SF in particular had a future. Once it envisioned many futures and reveled in exploring the implications, ramifications, and qualifications of this or that trial future. There was a sense of wonder, yes, and adventure, too. We genuinely felt we could survey and conquer the future.
Today we know to a fair certainty our children’s lives will be less than ours, and our grandchildren may not get a chance at much of a life at all. We see things closing in. This syncope is societal, personal, and thus cultural. One is reminded of the Sex Pistols howling about No Hope and No Future as they returned to basics with a vengeance.
Refreshing, revitalizing punk aesthetics have not shaken SF from its doldrums, though. We continually see space opera dominate awards and now Young Adult SF as well. A general turning away from so-called hard SF is now a stampede as wish-fulfillment and other pure escapism becomes standard fare across the spectrum of published SF.
Derivative, plagiarized, and craven, the material produced is calculated neither to challenge nor to elevate. Not that sugarcoated escapism is bad for the pocketbook. Pandering remains reasonably profitable. Why, though, has it become so bad?
Escapism dominates genre and YA dominates sales in large part because readers want easily-digested, pre-chewed pabulum with salty sugar and sweet sweat, to feed their familiarity demons. They panic with anything else, and anxiety rules if they can’t tell precisely the kind of fiction they’ve picked up by page one, and how it’ll turn out.
Reassurance is their goal, and they do not care a whit about writerly ambitions or goals of literary glory. Innovation freezes them like deer in a spotlight and anything genuinely original will simply baffle them into hostility, the way abstract expressionism riles rednecks.
Reinforcing comfortable delusions, avoiding anything prompting thoughts of reality, and ensuring that everything turns out as expected from the first soothing word are the hallmarks of escapist fare. Escapism is unfair, however, because it cheats the reader, not to mention the writer, of even a chance at significance.
Not that readers care about such things.
Anyone wishing to get even close to making a living by writing keeps such cavils in mind, as well as writing to a 4th-to-6th grade level. Doing these things guarantees nothing, but violating them practically guarantees low to no sales.
Editors often call for “new” this and “creative” that — ignore such words. What they mean is, “Send stuff I like and I’m not sick of.” What ever that is.
Some editors offer detailed likes and dislikes or strict, picayune lists of parameters — these are bullies seeking to remote control victim writers. They will be impossible to deal with and should be avoided.
Editors who focus on formatting show where their minds are, and it’s not on fiction. Avoid such martinets and harpies.
Best advice: Write ONLY what YOU want, for the sake of the story. That’s it and that’s all. If you like it, ignore all naysaying, critiques, and advice. This won’t assure you of being published or being liked by readers but it will give solace when you haven’t wasted your life writing to others’ standards.
That’s really the truth.
A good story well told is the basis for fiction. Fancy stuff takes things away from basics, and thus away from readers, or listeners. Make them impatient or, worse, bore them, and they’ll go find a more interesting voice to hear.
Good fiction is people talking about people. As Rod Serling and many others have shown, this not only does not exclude genre fiction, it enhances and enlivens genre fiction. SF is the literature of ideas, some say. Keep the ideas subordinate to the people and their relationships and you’ll do fine.
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