Writing

That Fanfic Line’s A-Blurring

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Now that the Silo series by Hugh Howey is ending, he’s opening it up to fanfic on Kindle Worlds.  This is even more interesting as he cultivated his audience online.

I’ve begun speculating, as have my fellow MuseHackers, on just where fanfic is going to go now that Amazon is monetizing it.  This of course gets even more intereting when you ask about social pressure to “fanficify” your work, or ways alternate works could be made.  I mean if you think about it one book could been written and spawn FAR more fanfic than its original contents.

– Steven Savag

Competence Porn In Fiction Versus Gaming

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I loved the article io9 did about the loss of Competence Porn (watching competent people do competent things) in SF. It noted how many SF stories had lost that element, leaving us with assorted “average” guys, non-scientists, and the like facing SF situations. I had to agree, at least on an intuitive level.

I miss tales of scientists and engineers solving stuff. I grew up with Dick Seaton (real name) of the Skylark stories. I, like many, wanted to be Spock or Scotty. I loved the idea of Iron Man and engineers making cool stuff.

I wasn’t into the idea that someone someone who lacks knowledge and skill (and doesn’t acquire them) is going to solve things. Wasn’t believable. Wasn’t a good story really. Didn’t give me anything to aim for.

(I could go into this as part of anti-intellectualism or “My ignorance is the same of your knowledge” trend or whatever, but that’s for later).

This got me thinking about gaming, another form of storytelling.

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Elmore Leonard, R.I.P.

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Elmore Leonard, famous crime novelist, passed away at 87.  You can find out much more about him at his Wikipedia page.  This is after all the guy who has had huge amount of Hollywood writings and adaptions to his name (Hey, Scott, you got more to do here).

He also left behind a lot of advice: that you’ll definitely want to check out.

– Steven Savage