Psychology

Why I Wrote It: Conspiracies And Worldbuilding

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Conspiracies and Worldbuilding is a book that is more than it seems, both in content and in origin. It would seem simple to write a book on “here’s how to put conspiracies in your fictional” world – and that’s the problem.

Conspiracies aren’t simple to write.

I love a good conspiracy in a book, from political intrigue to a murder mystery (which is just a tiny conspiracy). It’s fun to figure out what’s going on, and who doesn’t love a puzzle? The problem is that most people’s ideas of conspiracies come from Conspiracy Theories, and that’s dangerous.

Conspiracy Theories are everywhere because humans try to make sense of the world. In turn, they work our way into our popular culture because they are recognizable and often fascinating. A quick perusal of fiction will find multiple Illuminatis, a heavy dose of Lizard People, and a decent sprinkling of alien technology.

But this isn’t just fun. Conspiracy Theories and taking them seriously (in the wrong way) promotes several alarming trends, and this book was to address that in part.

First, many Conspiracy Theories are just window dressing on biases, old or new. When we recycle them into our fiction, we promote those biases and even give voice to promoters who have ulterior motives. A cursory examination of many a conspiratorial belief quickly uncovers racism, sexism, bigotry, and more. I wanted people to avoid spreading these ideas as if they were innocent.

Secondly, many Conspiracy Theories lead to bad story ideas because they’re so unlikely and impossible. Most Conspiracy Theories suppose impossible organizations, dubious motivations, and terrible resource management. I wanted people to write more likely conspiracies – as those are more fun to read or watch!

Third and finally, fiction too often ignores that Conspiracy Theories and Conspiracies go hand in hand. If you have nefarious plans, the easiest way to get away with it is to turn people against someone else. They’re busy attacking phantoms and innocent people so you can get away with your own dark goals. I wanted more fictional conspiracies that were good at evil machinations and wanted to cover this.

In the internet age, I saw more spread of biased conspiracy theories, more foolish leaps of logic, and more muddling of Conspiracy Theory and Conspiracies. So I wanted to do a book on how to handle these subjects in fiction better. From avoiding spreading bigotry to creating more believable (and thus thought-provoking) settings, I figured it was a win-win.

So far, it seems the book has sold pretty well, and I hope I’m reaching people. Let’s make good stories, good conspiracies, and spend less time promoting bigotry and the unlikely. Please give me a conspiracy that chills me as it seems so real and a story that helps me see how prejudices are puppet strings.

Steven Savage

The (Holiday) Fire Next Time: Holidays in 2021

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

We’re not even through the holiday season of 2020, so I’d like to discuss the holiday season of 2021. No, this isn’t me jumping the gun like every store out there to cram Christmas and such into every mental cranny. Instead, I want to confront three facts that haunt us, the three “Ghosts of Christmas WTF” as it were.

  • This holiday season is not “normal.”
  • The next holiday season will not be “normal.”
  • The next holiday season should not be “normal.”

This holiday season is not “normal,” and it’s even less normal than we realize. We know about the obvious abnormal things – the Pandemic, economic collapse, a president in further mental and moral decline. But there are other things we may not notice because of those things.

Think of all the things that have changed because of the above. We’ve been barely seeing our friends, our exercise routines changed, our diets changes, and so forth. Many of us have come close to tragedy or have faced it. We’ve had abnormal after abnormal flung at us over and over so much we might not be able to acknowledge it.

So let’s acknowledge it and give ourselves a break. Don’t beat yourself up – or bother others – for not doing things “right.” It wasn’t going to be “normal.”

Such acknowledgment let us gear up for next year – because the holiday season of 2021 is going to be different too.

Next year isn’t just going to be Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, etc., in 2021. It’s going to be us recovering from the Pandemic and the economic crisis. We’ll be reliving the traumas of this year, on top of whatever holiday stressors we have. Too many of us will have empty seats at the table and fewer holiday cards to send.

The next holiday season won’t be “normal.”  Get that into your head, and you’ll be happier next year. You’ll be able to acknowledge the trauma you and others faced. You’ll know to go easy on yourself and others.

By acknowledging next year’s holidays will be different, that means we can deal with the fact that the next holiday season should not be “normal.”

We will have confronted so many issues about life – the fragility of it, our ignorance of essential workers, grinding poverty, political corruption, and more. We will want to rethink what the holidays mean and what we want to do in light of these unavoidable truths.

We will want to mourn. There will be so much sadness, so much death, and we’ll need to deal with it. During the holidays, sad things often come out – so let us prepare to deal with such things healthily.

We will want to dispense with some traditions.  How many holiday events are horrible mental grinds we never wanted to do anyway – and this Pandemic let us avoid them or ditch them? How many traditions don’t seem meaningful now? What do we need next holiday season – and in the years to come?

We will want to return to or elevate some traditions.  What holiday events now mean more to us than ever? What events should we make the center of our holidays in 2021? I usually did holiday potlucks, and believe me when I say I value them even more.

We will want to make new traditions.  What have we learned this horrible 2020 that can be dealt with by new practices? What deserves to be remembered, or despised, or forgotten? You’ve probably created or taken on other holiday traditions before – what should you make (or just appropriate) for next year?

Steven Savage

The Law of Conservation of Silliness

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I would like to propose the Law of Conservation of Silliness.

I do not do this lightly because I take silliness quite seriously. Be it wild cosplay or wacky humor, strange crossover fanfictions or subtle jokes, nonsense is something I appreciate. My history of watching B-movies testifies to that appreciation.

Humans need silliness, you see, much the way we need play – perhaps both needs are the same. We need that space to let our minds flow free in seemingly foolish directions, both to laugh but also to discover. We need to be silly to relax, to take a moment to not be serious in an oft-serious world, else we lose something. Any of us know the sheer power of giggling at something so foolish it might just be profound – and how we might find profundity.

When we can be silly, we also take ourselves less seriously. The world, in my opinion, needs that – and always had.

Thus we need silliness, humor, strangeness in our lives. So what happens if we do not get it? In modern times we can indeed observe that when denied, the silly side of people comes out in strange and dangerous ways.

We all know the people who take themselves too seriously. The uptight and the self-righteous, the judgemental and the hateful. We know people without joy or laughter except, perhaps at the expense of others. When they imagine, they only seem to imagine dark things and make equally dark plans against their imagined phantoms.

Thus these unsilly people build elaborate webs of hatred and conspiracy to fight. Never satisfied because they cannot enjoy, they cannot be silly, they spin silly-looking beliefs of a world against them. Their lack of silliness and humor means they turn that talent to making lists of the tiniest hatreds and elaborate conspiracy theories to explain their own pettiness.

If you do not experience silliness, then it will come out in dark ways. We use that silly side of us to make the world worse when we cannot enjoy it.

One merely has to look at elaborate conspiracy theories being spun on the internet. They are oft silly and dumb in a way that would be funny if people didn’t believe in them. Very serious people – too serious – spend time creating such illusions and making everyone else miserable.

I submit that if such people could relax, laugh, be foolish and wild, they wouldn’t spin ridiculous tales they take too seriously.

Thus the Law of Conservation of Silliness: If we are not allowed to enjoy silliness, we will turn it into believing and doing foolish but awful things.

Do I take this law seriously?

Well, there’s a good question. It does seem a bit silly, doesn’t it? But perhaps a dumb law is the best thing to explain a dark tendency of people.

Steven Savage