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serynI was asked how there could be story without heap-big plot elements:
A lot of the non-genre fiction I've read has nothing that happens beyond the everyday normal stuff. People grow up, they do kid things, they grow up more and do adult things, other characters cycle in and out... but there's not a big war, no big tragedy, no gigantic crisis that defines the whole of that character's life. It's [supposedly] interesting in its banality.
It's like reading first person historical drama set in a time before all the people are dead.
I will be the first to admit that I cannot find a decent non-genre fiction book to save my sanity, but really, all of them have been like that.
I don't get the point. If I wanted to read about everyday things happening to everyday people, I'd, you know, make actual friends and have actual conversations with real live people.
But when I'm reading a science fiction book or a fantasy book, the author has invested so much effort into creating the "everyday" aspect, I just think it's a waste that there's always a war on. Or some danger of mass imminent deaths.
It seems like we could spend whole books having a tour and meeting the people who have banal lives in a world where the gods walk among the people and there are talking animals and the sun sets in a purple sky with 3 moons overhead.
And it seems like there's no point in reading yet another Garrison Keillor book where not only is everything banal, you could go there (or somewhere so incredibly similar as to be indistinguishable) yourself and live an equally trite existence.
Stuff doesn't need to change in order for it to be interesting, but it does need to be different. Tons and tons of non-genre fiction proves that all the time. And I think it's backward. Books about the now starring regular people should have to have plot to justify their existence because otherwise there's nothing different there.
I know it's almost impossible for authors to imagine how to show what's different without a plot framework to stretch the world around. But I'm tired of reading about people who have much much bigger problems than I do. My problems are sufficiently insoluble for me and when I can find an hour to relax, I'd rather have a family of talking animals wondering if it's going to rain on their picnic or shapeshifters seducing mundane women where they're given a handbook on how to fit in to the new culture because everyone wants them to feel welcome.
Everything I read is so violent or so tragic or so damned hard for the characters in the stories, it's just exhausting.
A lot of the non-genre fiction I've read has nothing that happens beyond the everyday normal stuff. People grow up, they do kid things, they grow up more and do adult things, other characters cycle in and out... but there's not a big war, no big tragedy, no gigantic crisis that defines the whole of that character's life. It's [supposedly] interesting in its banality.
It's like reading first person historical drama set in a time before all the people are dead.
I will be the first to admit that I cannot find a decent non-genre fiction book to save my sanity, but really, all of them have been like that.
I don't get the point. If I wanted to read about everyday things happening to everyday people, I'd, you know, make actual friends and have actual conversations with real live people.
But when I'm reading a science fiction book or a fantasy book, the author has invested so much effort into creating the "everyday" aspect, I just think it's a waste that there's always a war on. Or some danger of mass imminent deaths.
It seems like we could spend whole books having a tour and meeting the people who have banal lives in a world where the gods walk among the people and there are talking animals and the sun sets in a purple sky with 3 moons overhead.
And it seems like there's no point in reading yet another Garrison Keillor book where not only is everything banal, you could go there (or somewhere so incredibly similar as to be indistinguishable) yourself and live an equally trite existence.
Stuff doesn't need to change in order for it to be interesting, but it does need to be different. Tons and tons of non-genre fiction proves that all the time. And I think it's backward. Books about the now starring regular people should have to have plot to justify their existence because otherwise there's nothing different there.
I know it's almost impossible for authors to imagine how to show what's different without a plot framework to stretch the world around. But I'm tired of reading about people who have much much bigger problems than I do. My problems are sufficiently insoluble for me and when I can find an hour to relax, I'd rather have a family of talking animals wondering if it's going to rain on their picnic or shapeshifters seducing mundane women where they're given a handbook on how to fit in to the new culture because everyone wants them to feel welcome.
Everything I read is so violent or so tragic or so damned hard for the characters in the stories, it's just exhausting.
