I’m not big on blogging. I think my ideas work better in stories. However, on occasion I’ll have ideas which I think are interesting, but I can’t fit into a story and would probably make for a weak blog. Usually these become lost in my notebooks or are forgotten. But now I’ve decided to try to save some of these thoughts and share them with the world. Aren’t you lucky?
So here are some of my random thoughts.
Category: Why the Sci Fi Channel Sucks
July 20, 2008
I am a big fan of Doctor Who. Such a fan that I watch the episodes on YouTube before they are aired in the US. Part of it is I can’t wait, but also because the Sci Fi Channel cuts out bits to make room for commercials. I still watch the Sci Fi Channel version so I can see what they cut out so I can tell a friend of mine what he missed by not watching the British version on YouTube. But during the last episode they aired, I became extremely pissed off. Apparently, they can’t use the British previews for the next episode, so they make their own. That shouldn’t be a big deal, but they RUINED the cliffhanger for the next episode. Compare the British version and the sucky Sci Fi Channel version. Did you see what was happening to the Doctor? That’s the cliffhanger! They gave it away! The bastards!
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Category: Quickfacts
July 5, 2008
This started with the Babylon 5 episode “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars.” Part of the episode was set 500 years in their future. In that time, there were “realfacts” which would be the truth, and “goodfacts” which are what the government wants you to know. At first, I was going to call my idea “newsfacts” because they are often used in news media, but I later realized that they – unfortunately – are part of our whole society. The definition of quickfacts is that they are the one word, or one sentence answer to very complex questions. For example: What was the cause of the American Civil War? Slavery.
I think quickfacts originated from all the information at our fingertips. We want our questions answered immediately, in laymen’s terms, and finally. Our society doesn’t want to have to research an answer; we don’t have the time, the patience, or the skills to do so.
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Category: Great sex
June 25, 2008
Is great, mind-blowing sex a myth? Is it something people have deluded themselves into thinking they’ve had, like the emperor’s clothes? Is it all a scheme to sell sex books?
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Category: Writing
May 28, 2008
In the past several years I have read – in magazines and anthologies – numerous short, scifi stories. I have been disappointed by a lot of them. Over the years I’ve tried working out why that is so, and I recently had an idea. It happened when I read this ninety page novella. The first eighty-five pages dealt with the main character trying to solve a mystery, and discovering some things about himself along the way. The last five pages were: the mystery is solved, he has an epiphany, the end. The solution to the mystery was okay, but not all that exciting and I felt it ended just as the main character was becoming interesting. I wanted to see how he dealt with this new understanding of himself. Was it a real epiphany, or one of those that wears off after a few days?
After I finished the story I kept asking myself, Why did the author end it just when it was getting good? Were they trying to go out on a high note? The author would probably say they had made their point, but I think that could have been done in twenty pages. So I kept thinking about it and I came to the realization that the story was built around the mystery. Once the mystery was solved, that was the signal to the author to end the story. Looking back, I think this explains a lot of the stories I didn’t like. Their authors think that as long as there is a mystery, there is a story. Once the mystery is solved, they feel compelled to wrap everything up as quickly as possible. What about the plot? What about character development?
I admit, I have written stories that involve a “mystery” that end right when it is solved. But, in my defense, those are three or four page stories. Basically, they are just set ups for a punch line. I think that is okay – and works – for flash fiction stories, but is a let down for longer stories. True, there is a mystery genre, but I want to read good scifi stories. Ones that when I finish them I go, “I’m glad I read that,” not, “What was the author thinking ending it there?”
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