[sic]

Sometimes you remember the first meeting. The details of time and place—the day, the hour, where you were, what you were thinking, what you were wearing—come back with striking vividness when you recollect. I remember the first time I met certain people, heard particular songs, read specific books. Other times, the first encounter becomes lost to the sieve of memory, lumped in with so much other minutiae it’s impossible to sift it out. The first time I saw Avatar: The Last Airbender falls into the latter category, sadly. I mentioned the series previously, back when anime also-rans were in vogue. Having seen nothing more than a few minutes here and there, I couldn’t comment on the show’s quality, but it was obvious the show owed its aesthetic to Japanese animation. But it didn’t have just the look; it also had the feel.

Like virtually all other anime series, Avatar followed an overarching story throughout its individual episodes. Continuity has since become much more prominent in American television, but that wasn’t the case a few years ago. Though there have long been exceptions to the episodic format of most TV and anime has been dealing in sustained story-arcs for years, I think Avatar was among the vanguard to introduce U.S. audiences to such a grand design. And rather than follow the example of anime series puffed up by filler, Avatar opted for a streamlined approach. While some episodes were more important than others, each one served to advance the plot and reveal more about the cast.

Not only that but the show exhibited a kind of maturity that is rare in programs aimed at kids. It wasn’t that Avatar trafficked in risqué or graphic content; rather, the show’s creators treated their cast and their audiences with respect and an attentiveness to craft that others would do well to emulate. There was humor to lighten the quest, but it did not dispel Aang’s burden of responsibility to bring balance to the world, a task that much more difficult for a carefree twelve-year-old than a wise centenarian. He and his friends did not always make the right choices, and for those mistakes, they faced consequences—another advantage of a cohesive storyline, rather than a clean slate by the end.

Beyond the sophistication of the characters and their struggles, the show’s craft is evident no matter which angle you view it from. The creators built a rich, consistent mythology that simultaneously felt familiar—a world governed by four elements—and fresh—distinct cultures among the Tribes, the Avatar’s reincarnations, the hybrid of martial arts and spirituality that is bending (even the word implies a loose form of control). Each type of bending is based upon a specific form of martial arts, further distinguishing one element from the next, in a way that’s deeper than aesthetics. And the cast was diverse and developed beyond stock archetypes. Literally and figuratively, Avatar peopled its world with different hues, adding to the overall texture.

Clearly, I love the series. I think it is one of television’s finest achievements, not just in animation but period. The quality of its production, the cleverness of its plot, the dimensionality of its characters, and the fullness of its setting—all of these things together make it the kind of watershed against which other shows should measure themselves. Of course, the downside to developing an attachment to one amazing story is its end. Co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko ended Avatar in July of 2008 and that was that. Or so it seemed.

Though it isn’t clear if Nickelodeon asked the duo for more or if they had it up their sleeves all along, two years later, in July 2010, fans got the news—the world would get a new Avatar in the form of Korra, a hot-head from the Water Tribe. As trailers and details trickled through various news outlets thereafter, it became obvious that The Legend of Korra would be in many ways a very different animal compared to its predecessor. For one, Korra would be a mini-series with a much more limited scope; Korra herself would start with three elements mastered, whereas Aang had only one. The setting would be different, taking place seventy years later and mostly within Republic City, a wonder of technology and (supposed) peace. And, after effectively saving the world, what does an Avatar do for an encore?

That DiMartino and Konietzko manage to address all these aspects and weave from them a smaller but no less compelling story is a testament to their craftsmanship. Elemental experience aside, Korra is not Aang; she is impulsive and occasionally reckless, an interesting contrast to the portrayal of several waterbenders in the past. Korra’s friends and foes are similarly not simple analogues of previous characters. Any attempt to duplicate too much form the original would ring false. Thankfully, the creators are smart enough to avoid that pitfall and Nick seems to give them the autonomy to tell the story as they see fit.

There’s a lot about the show to admire so far (only seven episodes have aired). For interesting write-ups, check out The AV Club and Tor.com. What I want to discuss, if only briefly, is the conflict at the heart of The Legend of Korra. Yes, she has to learn airbending, but without a compelling need to master the four elements, as Aang had to in order to confront the Fire Lord, it hardly serves as a catalyst for the plot. In the relative peace after the dismantling of Fire Nation imperialism, the world has changed. Some benders compete in a popular sport that takes advantage of their skills. Other benders have fallen in with gangs and low-level organized crime. Responding to this increased attention on benders and the resulting disparities are the Equalists, a group of counter-culturalists who want to level the playing field. Their leader is Amon, a masked man with a flair for oratory and theatrics who can, to all appearances, take away bending permanently.

This is great for several reasons. It gives Korra—and all benders—something to fear beyond death or bodily harm; it’s rooted in character, especially for Korra, who’s more apt to let loose with fire-blasts than to scour patiently for answers. It throws light on a rather sophisticated theme for children’s television—those-who-have versus those-who-have-not. And given the society the series illustrates, the Equalist argument has more than a kernel of truth to it. I think it’d be fair to criticize Avatar: The Last Airbender on the lack of moral subtlety; Ozai and Azula were crazy-evil. But here we see complexity, shades of gray. The intended audience may not understand that completely or at all times but it’s worthwhile to raise these questions, to give viewers more to think about beyond a thirty-minute distraction.

Really, if you aren’t watching The Legend of Korra yet, I encourage you to start. Nick.com has the full episodes online days after they air, so you can stay more-or-less current. And if you like it, tell other people to tune in. Great stories like this, whatever medium, need to be appreciated and shared.

Let me tell you a brief story. A fable, even. A centipede was walking along one day when a frog stopped him. “How do you move all those legs like that?” the frog asked. “I don’t know,” the centipede said. The frog hopped away and the centipede found himself unable to go on as he thought about moving each and every leg. That is the centipede’s dilemma. And that is what has prevented me from writing until recently.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a steer-by-my-headlights writer. I don’t plan ahead. I don’t outline. Before starting I usually have destination scenes—points I think the story will reach—in mind but the route I’ll take to get there is a mystery until I begin writing. That holds true for all of my writing whether it’s academic, personal, or creative. But until a few weeks ago—and even now on occasion—my fiction was stuck at an impasse.

The culprit is easy to identify: my MFA education. Over the course of those two years, reading and writing as much as I did—I’d be curious of the total word count—I learned so much about stories in general and the particular kinds of stories I write that I felt better equipped than ever to flesh out an idea. Character, setting, conflict, to say nothing of other considerations craft books mention rarely and in brief, if ever. (Frame story. Unreliable narrator. Stylistic variation. Attitude toward the fantastic. And so much more besides.)

With the story I’m currently working on, before I overcame that inertia of not-writing, I’d often sit with a notebook open and assault myself with questions: What kind of story would it be—a journal entry, a first-person reminiscence, some kind of hybrid of different forms? Who’s going to be my point of view character? What’s the conflict here? Even after I answered, or ignored, the questions, I still encountered difficulties. How well I knew my characters. Plot holes in need of addressing. The sheer struggle to make the prose decent after so long without practice.

For as much as these issues frustrated me, I didn’t—couldn’t—easily dismiss them because I knew that finding solutions would invariably make the story better. But there’s a definite threshold with writing; eventually you have to stop planning/researching/wool-gathering and just write. Otherwise, you can procrastinate endlessly. Like an object in motion without friction, it’ll keep going unless an external force acts on it. Chances are that external force is, will be, must be you.

I’m not sure how, or if, the centipede ever solved his dilemma. Nor am I sure I’ve solved mine. I expect my learning will at times bubble up to the surface and send me into a fit of doubt. But even if I don’t fix all my narrative problems up front, I’ll never get the chance to do so if I never get anything written. So that’s what I’m trying to do—silence both my inner critic and my inner writing student. They can both speak up later in the process. The story does not need to be perfect, especially not in the first draft. It does, however, need to be written.*

*Thanks to Elizabeth Bear for that bit of wisdom.

Over the weekend I wrote fiction, for the first time in nearly six months. I can’t think of so long a stretch not working on a story in some fashion; even at my most sporadic, I never went longer than two months, maximum, without scratching that particular writing itch even a little. While I was in this most recent slump, I found it fairly easy to rationalize to myself why I wasn’t writing. I’m tired. I can’t think straight. I should be doing X instead. I don’t have enough time. It’s been so long I don’t even remember how anymore.

As true as those sentiments were, they were still at bottom rationalizations. It’s always easier to not write. Writing takes effort and presence of mind in a way that surfing the Internet or watching a television program decidedly does not. In this insightful article, Nebula Award-winning writer Rachel Swirsky says she doesn’t understand the whole “I have to write” mindset many writers have bought in to. I see her point. I hadn’t written fiction—the writing I do that I most care about—since late last year; if I simply had to do it, I’d never have managed so long without.

The living in that span, though, has been…paler somehow. I found myself wondering less, questioning less, distanced from the world and the people in it in a way that was foreign. I often feel like I’m on the fringes in my daily life, but this was a more pronounced alienation. Writing, for as much as it takes me out of the flow of life, paradoxically settles me more fully into it. Writing is how I process my experiences. How I best communicate with others. How I connect with myself.

If it’s so important, then, how did I manage to put it off for so long? Besides the above rationalizations, the greatest paralysis came from fear. Which, honestly, still lurks about, waiting to pounce in a moment of doubt, of psychic vulnerability. According to writers more practiced than I, that fear doesn’t ever completely dissolve. You just get craftier at dealing with it.

Why all that doubt and anxiety now? I’ve identified myself as a writer for years, with a decent amount of experience to draw on. Why should it fail me? I’ve spent years and significant portions of my education, formal and not, enriching my understanding of writing, of stories, of the craft’s tools and techniques. Doesn’t that count for something?

As many writers will tell you, those things do count for something, of course they do, but unfortunately they’re not always enough. The blank page or Word document can feel like a fresh start in so many senses, that no matter what you’ve done in the past, none of it matters now, at this precise moment, for this story. History doesn’t so much repeat itself as it rewrites itself from the very beginning, again and again.

But none of that is new to me and likely to you either. However, bracing for the wave doesn’t guarantee it won’t topple you. Even so, the prevalence of the fear and the sheer probability of succumbing to it, briefly or for a longer duration, are not why I’d been stymied these months past. As I wrote in another post, last year I was lucky enough to read several amazing books, ones I plan to read again, that will stick with me into the future, ones that have carved out a place in my mind. Rearranged some of my neurons—this is what great writing is capable of. My own work seems lacking compared to that standard.

And I want to write fiction that gets people to think and feel differently, maybe not in huge ways, but enough to notice the change. But, so went my rationale, my work wasn’t doing that and I hadn’t the first idea how to go about achieving that goal anyway—assuming I have any say in that matter—so I might as well have quit before I wasted any more time. I’m not mining new possibilities. Not pushing boundaries. Not finding fresh language. Not doing something different enough from the scores of other writers currently working in the field.

Maybe that’s all true. Maybe only some of it is. Maybe none of it. But if I have control over how mind-blowing my writing can be, the solution to accomplishing that is not to simply give up, yes? And if I don’t have that control—if that’s up to other people to determine and my own efforts only go so far—then shouldn’t I be working on doing the best job I possibly can with each story, regardless of any overarching aspirations? In either case, it’s obvious what I have to do: I need to keep writing.
 
Not every story has to be exceptional. Not every story can be. But they should be as good as you can make them. Do that and you can take pride knowing that you gave it your best rather than some half-hearted attempt.

This is only a portion of my epiphany. More on the other part next time. For now, I have a story to work on.

I have yet to meet a writer who doesn’t have a set of personal hobbyhorses, those topics that are hardly common yet remain a source of deep fascination and excitement. For myself, I think my interests in specialized subjects are fairly standard, given that I’m a writer—and, by nature, a curious sort—with a special penchant for science fiction and fantasy—the less readily explainable: the mind, death, dreams, words, outer space, folklore and mythology. I also have an abiding interest in aesthetics, though I rarely say much about it because discussing what is and is not art (or Art) usually leads into violating one of my guiding principles—“Aim to describe rather than proscribe, or prescribe.”

Yet sometimes I hear or read something that compels me to re-evaluate my thoughts on Art, not because I necessarily agree with an opinion but because I need to clarify my own thinking. The something that currently has my synapses firing is this 2010 article by Roger Ebert in which he claims “in principle, video games cannot be art.” Even though I play video games only sporadically at this point, and nothing by way of newer titles, I still feel I ought to respond. It stems from my being tired of people’s narrow-mindedness concerning the value in things I like—speculative fiction, comic books, video games.

As you might expect with someone of Ebert’s visibility voicing an opinion guaranteed to incite the legions of video game fans, his article generated a major backlash. On that entry there are nearly five thousand comments by real people, not spam-bots. Running a Google search on ‘ebert video games’ yields nearly three million hits; the first few pages of results almost exclusively address his essay. So great was the outcry—and with reasonable arguments—that Ebert later issued a sort of apology for speaking his mind without any substantial familiarity with the medium.

I don’t want to belabor the points Ebert’s critics raised. Still, I do want to consider some of the gaps in his argument that relate to my own ideas about what constitutes Art. Ebert, for his part, does not in either piece arrive at a clear definition of Art. At best, he offers a few characteristics—“usually the creation of one artist,” that which enables the audience “to learn more about the experiences, thoughts and feelings of others,” without “rules, points, objectives, and an outcome” that games, video and otherwise, typically have.

On this haziness, I can’t fault him. When it comes to Art, I find myself agreeing with subjective definitions, like Justice Potter Stewart on obscenity: “I know it when I see it.” Or, to borrow from Damon Knight, it’s what we point to when we say “Art.” I tend to label Art something that evokes what G. Christopher Williams calls the aesthetic response, “a feeling of awe (though that is a slightly inaccurate and abstract word) when recognizing a very well arranged object or idea or image or story.” But do I respond to something and call it aesthetically pleasing or is it aesthetically pleasing and thus I respond to it? Echoes of Socrates’s Euthyphro. Regardless of the origin of the aesthetic response, I still feel like some works can—should—be considered Art even if they do not in any way move me. (Modernism and I rarely get along, for instance, but I cannot make the case for excluding some works from the canon/“classic” status.)

If not the aesthetic response, then, what qualifies a work to be Art? I’ve tried to formulate some definite rationale and the one aspect I keep coming back to is skill. Not just competency but proficiency to the point of inspiring a modicum of, if not awe, then certainly appreciation. It’s for that reason I can’t wrap my head around a great deal of abstract and modern art. Anyone can inscribe a name on a urinal. Not just anyone can paint like, say, Yoshitaka Amano.

Of course maybe I, like Ebert, have defined Art in such a way that precludes what I don’t like. Maybe this isn’t such a problem. In my undergrad ethics class, I learned that a given action can be morally right or wrong depending on which philosophy you subscribe to. There are no absolutes. Maybe aesthetics is the same way.

The problem is that Ebert’s not alone in thinking this way; the wider society, particularly critics and academics who have a keen interest in what constitutes Art, does not regard video games as a serious artistic medium. Why not? I think part of it is the infancy of video games. They’ve only been around for not even fifty years. Even if video games that could earn the label of Art have been already produced, we likely won’t know that for quite some time. It seems somewhat far-fetched to ponder if the earliest humans considered their cave paintings as Art. The stories forming the backbone of the oral tradition, some of which survives today as myth and folklore? They were for entertainment, instruction, and just communication. Examinations of the past, explanations for the world and everything in it. Only later could we see early artifacts as Art (if indeed we do) because, for one, we had the concept of Art, and, two, we had enough distance to determine a piece’s cultural significance. (Another possible criterion for Art?)

Let’s go back to Ebert. Maybe it’s empathy—helping us understand the thoughts and feelings of others—that determines a work of Art. But he admits that he cannot articulate “how music or abstract art could perform those functions, and yet they were Art.” Such a definition clearly has its limits, as he points out. What about poetry, which can encompass narrative and emotion but also casts language in new lights? Some might identify that as playfulness but it’s not the play of games with points and objectives. It just is. In any case, evoking empathy, while a decent barometer, is obviously not essential for a work of Art.

What about Ebert’s belief that Art is the usually the product of a single individual? While I do see his point—we’ve moved away from community to privileging individual talent—it’s obviously weak. Authors do not work in a vacuum; at the very least they often have editors whose input influences the final published version. While film and drama have individual directors, these forms are by nature collaborative. So too video games—the final product is in some sense the vision of one person, but that vision cannot be realized alone. Art must be idea and execution. Otherwise, we ought to be revering Shakespeare’s inspirations, rather than the Bard’s work. The map is not the territory.

Even if a piece of Art were produced alone—if we strictly mean that a single individual created/arranged a specific set of words/images/sounds—it is never processed that way. Art must be received by an audience and, especially in the case of literature, those people become co-creators. Ebert overlooks this when he talks about film and stories being passive experiences. I understand he means that there is not a real explicit sense of choice or interactivity within the text. Still, to call literature (if nothing else) passive is a mistake. Granted, there is far less interactivity in a book compared with a video game. But less choice does not mean none. (Reader-response theory, anybody?) If that’s the case, it’s arbitrary what threshold of choice a work must be beneath to be considered Art.

Ebert wonders why gamers care about the medium’s status as Art and, in his apology, washes his hands of it all. “I had to be prepared to agree that gamers can have an experience that, for them, is Art.” I wish I could have the same attitude—just like what you like and ignore what anyone else thinks. But I can’t completely let it go because I can’t stand the idea of a hierarchy, that we in general see one kind of human creative endeavor as more valuable than another. I see it in the debate between literary and genre fiction. I want these arguments to be over. For this to happen, all of us have to let go of these rigid definitions. I’m not suggesting abandoning categories, which can be helpful, or individual preferences. I just wonder what would happen if we kept our personal tastes, well, personal.

One of these days I’ll get back to writing about writing—when I’m actually working on something, that is, instead of just contemplating it.

I recently happened upon this article NPR published last year about what should be strikingly obvious—no matter how much free time we have or intense our focus, we’ll never experience everything life has to offer, in this case the various media available. Linda Holmes, the author of the piece, sees this as a good thing, in fact. She reasons it’s a testament to humanity’s accomplishments that enough worthy art has been produced so no one person can cram it all into a lifetime, even a lifetime devoted to consumption of said art. I see her point; it makes perfect sense. Yet I’ve never had the impossibility of reading/seeing/hearing all I’d like spelled out so plainly before. Frankly, it’s a little disheartening.

Holmes concedes the sadness of that fact. She believes that there are only two responses to this idea: surrender (“the realization that you do not have time for everything that would be worth the time you invested in it if you had the time”) and culling (“sorting of what’s worth your time and what's not worth your time”). I don’t see the real difference between the two. For me, I’ve been trying to cull for the past few years and I’m sure that’ll continue.

If you’ve met me, you know I carry a notebook at almost all times, and what I frequently scribble in its pages are recommendations for books, movies, albums, assorted ephemera. The Word document I’d been using to record book recommendations eventually reached eighteen pages in eight-point font. I am not a particularly fast reader, nor a particularly slow one. Still, I realized that even if I got through a book a week, it’d take a significant chunk of my life just to finish that list, to say nothing of new books or ones I stumble across that for whatever reason appeal to me. I’ve since scaled that back to a much more sensible eight pages, though I do add new titles, albeit with less frequency than I used to.

This culling habit comes at an interesting time, shortly after I’ve decided to read more widely. And, perhaps after reading this essay by Roger Ebert, I’ve been considering what both reading widely and being well-read mean. If you think about books alone, there are a lot of ways to compartmentalize them. The most basic categories are obviously fiction and nonfiction. Let’s take fiction as the example. We’ll keep it simple and stick to the novel. Now, think about all the possibilities there—the classics of Literature, contemporary literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, romance, crime, thriller/suspense, mystery… How to be well-read in even one of them? Read the accepted works of the canon? (According to whom?) The award winners? Which award, then? (I met someone who planned to read all the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels.) Do you just select at random?

No matter what sources you listen to for recommendations—I’ve got a mash-up of the Western Canon/Modern Library’s 100 Best Novels/Time’s All-Time 100 Novels, important books in speculative fiction, and word-of-mouth from trusted friends and authors—it still boils down to a choice. I’m sure my education as a student of literature will be somewhat poorer for never reading Ulysses, but I refuse to embark on that venture. Likewise, I probably won’t get to read all the classic works of speculative fiction, due to a lack of access/availability in some cases, a lack of personal interest in others. I have to be okay with that. But in any event, I decide what to read and those choices, to some extent, reveal something about me.

Given the limits of time, it’s curious in a way that writers are told to read as widely as possible. “Even bad books,” as they have lessons to teach as surely as good ones. I guess we writers have to look at it as a trade-off: in reading a book that gives us little (or no) pleasure, we are developing our understanding of craft. Such is the hope, anyway. Writing is a series of trade-offs, in the choices made both on the page and off. For every moment spent writing, it’s time away from other things. And if we resent that, we might find a better use for our time.

As I near thirty, I’m more aware of how I spend my time. I try to limit my Internet use. I have no TV, so hours don’t sneak away from me like they once did. An area I haven’t been able to manage my time better is reading. I have yet to give up on a book, even when the one at my bedside has taken up the past month with still more to go. I don’t know if I should consider myself lucky I haven’t found a book so bad it made me quit or if I’m just too stubborn. I’m sure it’ll happen as I find more things worth reading and less time for them all.

Thinking about my current read has led me to ponder what’s necessary for me to continue with a story. I need at least one of three things: an interesting plot, skillful prose, and/or compelling characters. I admit, when I read Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons, I got sucked in by all the twists and turns, the brisk progression of the plot. Increasingly, I find a thrilling plot holds less interest when the writing is pedestrian and the characters are bland. But if I’m spending so many hundreds of pages, I would like some forward motion, if only incremental. Then again, I have a number of favorite stories in which little happens plot-wise. This is especially prevalent in more literary kinds of speculative fiction and here, often, prose is given prominence. The kinds of sentences you want to curl up in, the ones you read over and over because the writer arranged the words so well, chose the most sublime image. Stories with all style, though, leave me kind of cold. I can appreciate them aesthetically, but they don’t move me. Those that most resonate and generally become favorites have great characters. And I don’t mean great as a synonym for sympathetic or likeable. Some of literature’s most memorable persons are pretty loathsome. No, I want characters who are compelling—they feel real or they’re drawn with such care you can understand (if not agree with) them or their lives and problems speak to your own. When I think about the novels that have stuck with me, almost all of them have dimensional characters. Ideally, a great book has all three in decent measure. But books without any of the above, I just don’t have the time for.

That no doubt seems like a long digression, but it goes back to my earlier point about time and choice. It’s good to know what you want/need in a book to enjoy it. And if you’re not enjoying it, it’s important to realize what you’re aiming to get from the experience. Otherwise, why bother? As Holmes’s article says, there’s no shortage of great stuff out there. Even if you have to wade through some junk first, go find it.

One of the ideas from my Intro to Journalism class that has stuck with me is journalism, generally speaking, must be timely. Thus, when I have an idea for a post but don’t get to it for weeks (or months), I refrain from writing. Well, this isn’t journalism. I already write here about whatever strikes my fancy, so why self-censor when I have no good reason? And writing fiction has proven tremendously difficult these past few weeks. I need something to keep me in practice of putting words down one after another. That something will, I hope, be [sic].

If you’re not yet reading The Guardian, may I suggest you start? Particularly the Books section—the staff routinely writes provocative articles on various literary matters. Late last year, they published this by one Zoe Williams on why reading nonfiction should take priority over fiction in times of social crisis. It’s an interesting article—followed by especially thoughtful comments—even if I wildly disagree with Ms. Williams. And here’s why.

Though she doesn’t say so explicitly, Williams sets up a dichotomy between fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is about “made-up people” and reading it feels “frivolous.” Nonfiction, meanwhile, is real and the source from which you can learn. Simply put, this is false. The amount of “factual” information in a novel can, occasionally does, outweigh that in a nonfiction book. Moreover, she implicitly privileges fact and research with only little acknowledgment that other kinds of information can be gleaned from reading, fiction included.

A great deal of her argument’s force relies on the idea of utility. She believes that “there is [also] a problem with the modern novel,” that it has “a fear of saying anything useful.” (Novels must say something useful—residue from a more orthodox view of literature?) She quotes Damian Barr, a writer and playwright, who concedes that the novel is good for informing us about “our human condition” and no more. Barr—and Williams in all likelihood—thinks “we desperately need to be informed about our times, our history.”* In their eyes, the contemporary novel isn’t doing that. Williams seems to limit her discussion to mainstream work, which obviously robs her of a wealth of possibilities. I’m not going to go on a genre rant; others have articulated some of my beliefs quite cogently and eloquently. Merely, to address a narrow sliver of published fiction and to generalize those impressions is not only inaccurate: It’s sloppy writing.

Besides which, isn’t the reason we read stories hundreds, in some cases thousands, of years old is because they do still speak to not only our common humanity but also our concerns within society? They may not be perfect analogues, but there are resonances. If the modern novel has, as she argues, become insular, there remains a long and rich literary tradition to appreciate, some of which would speak to our history and, in some way, our current situation. Then again, novels and stories are not history books or newspapers. (Let’s leave aside the whole narrative-of-history issue for now. Big can of worms there.) Their primary task is not the same, though they can learn from one another. Which, I realize, is a point in her favor. To which I say, yes, read nonfiction. And fiction. Read a lot. But we’ll return to that.

While Williams uses loaded words such as “unpatriotic” and “civic duty” to elevate nonfiction over fiction, her emphasis on fiction being frivolous is worth unpacking. At no point in her article does she suggest that other forms of recreation be sacrificed to responsible citizenship, to staying abreast of global developments. Forget sitcoms. You should only tune in for the news. Music? Public radio instead. It isn’t reasonable to stress such asceticism in only reading, one form of recreation that in general expands people’s minds in a variety of ways, not just the absorbing of facts. Even in a crisis, life continues, and life (hopefully) means finding or making time to enjoy yourself.

I admit, I can’t argue with her point that ignorance makes me feel “alienated and disempowered.” In the face of all the uncertainty and anxiety and stress the world over, it sucks to feel helpless. And knowledge is power, as the old saw goes. But realistically, how does that translate in the real world now? What can the average person, informed or not, do? I ask because I’m not sure of the answer. I’m not suggesting an embrace of the other extreme, a retreat into isolation and willful ignorance. I simply wonder what difference it makes. Maybe only minor changes are feasible. But I’ll take minor positive changes over news that only seems to get progressively worse.

Ultimately, Williams oversimplifies the issue: Readers must be either reading nonfiction (especially what’s relevant to the economic state of affairs) or risk being frivolous. Unpatriotic. Really, she may have been better served if she’d called for people to read more nonfiction, to emphasize how important it is to be informed about what’s happening today. It’s not unreasonable to ask people to read both fiction and nonfiction. I tend to ignore prescriptivist philosophies, or at least regard them with skepticism. Personally, I advocate reading widely, for a number of reasons. But read what you want. Or don’t. It’s your life. It’s your choice.

* I don’t know enough about the publishing industry to say this is true, but maybe the cycles of fiction and nonfiction are different. If nonfiction, depending on the topic, relies on its timeliness, it may be written and published in a shorter span than fiction, which rarely (not to say never) takes that into account. If that’s the case, it may be much more difficult for a novel to speak directly to modern concerns.

A new semester’s begun and sometimes I don’t have the energy or clarity of focus to read or write. (I feel like this will be a year of few books—a marked contrast to the previous—but I’m going to make every effort to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy.) It’s so much easier to flip on an episode of [insert title here]. And according to a number of friends, we’re in a small golden age of television; I have no shortage of recommendations for Things I Need to See. While in Maine for the winter Stonecoast graduation, I caught an episode of How I Met Your Mother, a show friends have been raving about for years (even leaving aside the presence of Bob Saget’s voice). With one episode, I got hooked. As a young adult fast approaching the big three-oh and seeing many in my social circle getting engaged (or married or pregnant), I recognize clear parallels between myself and Ted Mosby, the series’ central character. (Mild spoilers ahead.)

But as much as those resonances interest me—and do they ever—I’m also tremendously fascinated by the narrative possibilities of the show. In case you’re not familiar with the premise, HIMYM uses a frame story: In the year 2030, Future Ted (Saget) relates to his two children “in excruciating detail” the story of how he met their mother. The series doubles back to 2005, centering on Ted and his four friends in Manhattan—Marshall and Lily, whose new engagement precipitates Ted’s search for a soul-mate; Barney, a womanizer of unspecified employment; and Robin, Ted’s unrequited love interest (natch). I’m only mid-way through the second season but so far the bulk of the episodes take place in the modern day, with Future Ted providing voice-over and maybe context. Occasionally there’ll be a cut to the future (the show’s Now) and the kids’ dwindling interest.

For every good frame story I’ve read, I can think of two more that didn’t work so well; either they’re unnecessary, uninteresting, or just a lazy way to impose structure. While HIMYM’s frame story has, so far, proven fairly bland, it does mean the writers can add a few tweaks to the traditional three-camera sitcom. Most obviously, it lets Future Ted tell us asides his past self and friends are unaware of. Often these openings are played for laughs—when he tells us a thoroughly wasted law student will become the US District Attorney, for instance. But the writers also use it for pathos, like when Future Ted diffuses a romantic prospect with an off-hand “It didn’t work out.”

That Future Ted does this throws light on an interesting choice the writers made. Throughout his monologue, Future Ted refers to his friends as Aunt Lily, Uncle Barney, Uncle Marshall, and—you guessed it—Aunt Robin. This sets my writer brain in motion. If Ted and Robin have an on-again-off-again dynamic a la Ross and Rachel, then telling the audience the resolution of that effectively deflates the romantic tension.* Or does it? Because a good number of episodes give only lip service to the frame story, it’s easy to become invested in the characters, to forget that the story’s Now is almost twenty years forward in time.

Also, a recent study demonstrated that foreknowledge of a story’s ending didn’t reduce enjoyment. In fact, readers got more pleasure from knowing how it all turned out. A similar point arises in pop culture scholar Henry Jenkins’s insightful introduction to Interfictions 2. Jenkins asserts that all works of art exist on the continuum of invention and convention. Either extreme—complete innovation or complete predictability—is alienating to an audience. The study and Jenkins both posit that in many contexts we know how a story turns out anyway. (That can be as broad as the three-act structure or the careful breakdown of, say, some romance lines.) Even so, people digest certain stories, read retellings, see adaptations: the intrigue just may be in the details. The journey, not the destination.

Personally, I’m against spoilers, so I’m not wholly convinced, however much I think Jenkins is on to something. There’s another explanation** here, one that warms my writer’s heart: Future Ted is an unreliable narrator. He does omit information (though nothing vital so far as I’ve watched), he hears about some events secondhand, and occasionally his memory fails him. These moments are few, though. After all, this is still a prime-time sitcom and the wider viewing public can only take so much meta. (Witness the plight of Community.)

Still, the series has been going for six seasons and, so far as I know, isn’t winding down just yet. When I think about the sitcoms I’m most fond of, they’re definitely different, however many familiar tropes they use—Scrubs, The Office, Flight of the Conchords, the aforementioned Community, among others. How I Met Your Mother fits in nicely with that bunch, even if it does skew a little more conventional than I usually prefer. In any case, I’ve found it worth watching. And I’ll be very interested to see if the meta aspects of the show become more prominent as it progresses.

* I didn’t see a likely place for this: If it turns out that Robin isn’t the mother, then the show has (or will have) a deus ex machina on its hands. Unless someone becomes a part of the core cast over the next few seasons, pulling a romantic interest out of the ether will, I suspect, feel like a massive cheat. And then, of course, we have to wonder what the point of so much backstory was if it isn’t Robin.

** With a tip of the hat to Jeff for telling me about this.

I wanted to accomplish two major goals this year after earning my MFA: I wanted to write four new stories and I wanted to read more widely. The former I accomplished last week after a long stretch of total creative paralysis; I was convinced I wouldn’t finish that last story that gave me so much trouble. But I succeeded. And as the following list demonstrates, I’ve definitely managed to expand my reading habits beyond speculative fiction as well.

( To be continued...Collapse )

Take a look at this list of 2011 films. Notice a trend? Apparently, Hollywood has released more sequels this year than in any prior one, to say nothing of adaptations and reboots/remakes. Even television is following suit with remakes of The Munsters and Dallas planned for development. This has to stop.

Now I say that as someone with a keen interest in adaptation as an art-form and in retellings. I spent several months last year researching and writing a lengthy critical essay about those very topics, and retellings comprise a significant portion of my aesthetic as both a writer and a reader. So I fully understand the appeal of revisiting a story and putting your fingerprints on it, making it your own. Still, I say this as a writer. So much printed work is released in any given year that even when there are trends—paranormal vampire romance, for example—there’s enough material available in other niches to satisfy consumers. In TV and movies, the new offerings are far fewer; any pattern is that much more visible.

But just because fewer movies and TV shows are made doesn’t mean those creative teams should be denied the opportunity to re-imagine an old story, right? Fine, point taken. In any case, though, I wonder what’s causing it—if it’s a response to audience demands, a conservative strategy for the ailing big/small screen industries, or just another manifestation of the retro/nostalgia phenomenon currently permeating our culture.

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that anyone was really clamoring for a fifth Fast and Furious or Final Destination. Or that a sizable fanbase has been seriously pushing for a Munsters revival. My guess, then, is that the producers and executives are either out of ideas and/or they’re looking to play it safe with a known quantity—known property, in theory, equals some degree of commercial success. (“It worked before, didn’t it?”)

Maybe I’m being too hard on the business people. After all, it’s very likely that adaptations/sequels/remakes are plentiful in any year and I am only just now becoming aware of it. And although sequels are in greater number than in previous years, they still make up only a fraction of 2011’s total releases. If every original project is unique, then it’s harder to recognize a pattern among them than to look for a title with a number or a colon/subtitle.

Even so, I can’t help but question the choices the studios make in which projects to work on. Sometimes it makes sense—Tron: Legacy, for all its script troubles, certainly took advantage of today’s technology to create a visually impressive spectacle. Other times, it’s baffling—there was no reason for Rush Hour 3, especially when there was hardly enough justification for Rush Hour 2. Unsurprisingly, it comes down to money; if people show up in the theaters or tune in at home, the studios will crank out product aimed at making money, regardless of aesthetic considerations. If the second Transformers hadn’t raked in huge profits, it never would have gotten a third installment.

So we vote with our eyes and our wallets. If we want to see more original material, we need to stop opting for remakes and sequels. I don’t think a complete embargo is necessary or even desirable. There have been, and will be, worthwhile spins on old stories and characters. I will support those. But as I more carefully consider how I invest my time and money, I think I’m more often going to pass on remakes and sequels that only elicit a vague curiosity—wanting to see what, if anything, is different.