Writing Progress, Lack Thereof and Tropes, Liked by Me
Filed Under: My Writing, Writing Process
I am utterly failing to keep up the pace of writing this week. No words. Not even any revisions. I probably shouldn’t have bought that design book earlier this week. It’s great for the day job stuff, but reading it eats up the time and energy I should be spending working on my next story.
There’s this trope I am examining right now. One of the things about second world fantasy that bothers me is that it’s rarely very ambitious with how different things are from our world. Now, before you burn me at the stake, hear me out.
Physics, for instance, generally exists the way it does here, except maybe with magic patched on as a “break the rules” thing. Biology and natural selection seems to universally work, even if some species might be hard to explain how they evolved. They still mate, have offspring, and so on. The basic biological needs of air and food and water–that’s all there too.
Couldn’t we play around with changing those basic things? Or does it make the world so different that it is harder to tell a story in it?
It started with me wanting to imagine a world without food. Every being is “born” with a life-sustaining energy force, and the idea of killing any other living organism for sustenance is completely foreign to these people. The implications are so vast, I can’t squeeze it into a coherent idea (for a short story anyway). So I moved on to another idea.
This is a well-used trope, but I want to play with it. I’m thinking about imagining a Jekyll and Hyde world. Essentially, as a function of their species, each body contains two minds. One is active during the day. The other is active at night. Two completely different societies, sharing a single physical space right down to their bodies. Communication exists between the dual selves, but dawn and dusk are impenetrable barriers. In this world, there is no such thing as sleep–from an exterior viewpoint. Having two minds in one body, been done before. Imagining a world where everyone is a double-sided coin? That might have some juice. We shall see. This was what I was going to work on last night before I climbed into bed to read and fell asleep.
I’m thinking about the tropes and ideas a bits and pieces of things that I love. I read once that Bradbury had made a list and set out to write something using every one that he liked. I made a list once, but I don’t remember what I did with it, so I think I’m going to make a new one. Having a list might be useful when I’m stuck. Behind the cut, are a few of the things I love in fiction, that maybe I should try to do or use, or have used. Comment and leave a few of yours, or head to your blog and make a list. If you do, drop me a comment that you’ve made a list so I can read it. Don’t call it a meme. Call if a half-hearted writing exercise or something. Anyway:
1. Cryptozoology (well mined for me at this point, but I still love it)
2. Evolution in general.
3. Genetic engineering.
4. 1940s two-fisted heroes, beating up nazis.
5. Old airplanes.
6. Railroads and trains, especially in the vast middle of the country, at night.
7. The deep woods, where the sun is all but blocked out.
8. Hibernation, stasis.
9. The thing in the lake.
10 Midwestern ghosts.
11. Ecology, global environment.
12. Cyberpunk tropes (evil corporations, street tech, violent criminal lives)
13. Downloadable conciousnesses.
14. The Old Gods
15. Ancient ruins with mysterious purposes
16. Nerd/geek culture.
17. “real” magic, like the Long Lost Friend, The Lesser Key of Solomon, etc.
18. Superheroes.
19. The open road at night. Especially in the summer, in places like Kansas.
20. The small prairie town with a grungy diner on the outskirts.
21. Indian burial mounds.
22. Hunter/gatherer societies.
23. really “alien” aliens. (not the human copy kinds)
24. Deep sea life, whale falls, the dark.
25. Deserts at night.
26. East Africa, culture, people, wildlife.
27. A primitive culture with a high-culture past.
28. Robots. Especially ones that don’t long to be human.
29. Urban parks.
30. The hidden magical world, seen only at an angle to ours.
31. Secret conspiracies.
32. Immortality.
33. Post-human life.
34. Sexuality in the future.
35. Religion (oddly, yes, I like playing with this in my work)
36. Inventive and clever teenagers.
37 Mad scientists.
38. Viruses and plagues. But really weird ones. Social plagues. Cultural ones. Not just diseases that make people sick and die.
39. Insects.
40. Old technology doing things it never did, shouldn’t be able to do. Clockwork spaceships!
41. Pop culture as literature.
42. Cursed heroes.
43. The doomed civilization that doesn’t know it.
44. Games. VR games, computer games, board games, card games. All types of games.
That’s all I can think of right now. I’ll add to this list later. If you have questions about one, ask. It might be a while before I answer, because stupid firewall is in place.
An interesting exercise might be trying to write something that doesn’t use one of these, because just about every story I’ve written touches on at least one of the above.
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