media

Why I Wrote It – News, Media, and Worldbuilding

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

Why would I do an entire book on news and worldbuilding? Because I was (and am) pissed off at people misunderstanding the importance of news in fiction and life. We’re not talking about my most noble of goals, but it led to a good book.

When I wrote this book in 2019 people were waking up to the impact of disinformation, news-as-propaganda, and internet bullshit. Many people wished this had happened much earlier because plenty of people sounded the alarm, but at least there was an alarm. I was one of the people wishing this had happened a hell of a lot earlier because, look, it is evident that people are tragically deceived between networks like Fox and internet propaganda.

Of course, when I think about real-life issues, I start asking how these issues are portrayed in fiction because it’s what I do.

I realized quickly that fictional settings rarely deal with the questions of how news works. Sure we sometimes get great things like Sir Pratchett’s The Truth, or maybe a reporter character, but I couldn’t recall anything that stood out beyond that. It was time to do two things:

One, keep doing my political activism.

Two, write a damn book on worldbuilding and news.

If that seems petty, it was – I was annoyed and wanted catharsis. However, there were two benevolent motivations:

  • Fiction is a tool to help us understand the world, to think, and imagine. If people who were worldbuilding thought about news, their stories would in turn, make the audience think. Plus, we might get more cool stories out of it.
  • Those reading this book would also think about news and media in general and become more thoughtful. Worldbuilding is very educational, very thought-provoking, and I view it as a form of personal growth.

It was time to write a book on news and worldbuilding – which was also easy.

Remember when I said this age of disinformation got to me? I’ve been a news junkie since I was in my early 20s; I was the guy buying the newspaper in college and turning on 24/7 news on my radio at work. My career in IT has been dependent on information, reporting, and data. You can see why I was annoyed – and that I had a great foundation to write another worldbuilding book.

Yes, some of it felt good to get out.

The result is a pretty good worldbuilding book. It’s got some great questions, some thought-provoking bits, and comes from both the heart and experience. Definitely, one I’d put as high up in my collection because it dealt with something that wasn’t typical to worldbuilding coaching.

It’s also a reminder that a mix of irritation and personal experience is a surprisingly solid start for a book.

Steven Savage

The Pandemic In Fiction

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

We know, inevitably, the Pandemic of 2020 (and sadly, 2021) is going to eventually work it’s way into fiction. Humans use fiction to make sense of things, humans use real events in fiction to ground them, and known things sell books.

But what will the Pandemic of 2020 do, specifically to American media and fiction? I asked myself that recently – and then found myself standing on a precipice of imagination, looking into the unknown.

The Pandemic of 2020 is, for America, an unmitigated disaster, with 200,000 people dead as of this writing. We’re humiliated in the eyes of the world, our politics in chaos, our social media clogged with conspiracy theories, and no end in sight. Right now the biggest source of Pandemic fiction is people lying about the situation or making up stories to grift money or excuse our failure.

How do we fictionalize this?

If we step back, the Pandemic of 2020 looks like a badly written novel. If you had composed this a decade ago, would anyone have believed it? America having the worst outcome in the world? The CDC losing face? 200,000 deaths? This would be a made for TV movie or hack novel at best.

I asked myself again, how do we fictionalize this?

So as I stared into this abyss of the unexpected, I’ve come to a few shaky conclusions. Perhaps this is in my own head as I try to cope with the insights as well as the Pandemic.

First, I don’t expect to see “Pandemic In Fiction” as a theme for awhile. We’re still in the middle of it, and crass and exploitative as some media is, I don’t see this becoming widespread. Also we’re sick of it, and there’s little market for it when you’re living it.

Second, I expect any fictionalization of the Pandemic of 2020 will be politicized or seen as politicized. You can tell the most honest researched story, and some hack pundit will decry it for hits and to push products. In time this may pass, but not for a few years.

Third, I expect to see many a fiction piece that are political fiction of the Pandemic of 2020. Some will indeed have agendas, pundit ranting aside, and you can expect plenty of apologia and non-apologia. It is my hope this is minimized in the face of harsh reality, because even if I agree, crass fictionalization of important things may not do any good.

Fourth, I expect fictionalization of the Pandemic will have no middle ground. It will be done in wild metaphor or fantastical parallels in world of magic and science fiction – or it will be tales based on real life. The uncomfortable middle ground where we mix hard fact and big dreams will be too ambiguous, too uncomfortable. We’ll want the abstract fantastical – or the painfully familiar – because that middle ground is where speculation runs and harsh truths emerge.

We’re ready for Godzilla and Alien Plague, or for two people at a coffee shop decrying the state of life. We’re not ready for fiction with enough fact that the speculation cuts us.

The near future of Pandemic Fiction is going to be not much different than we have now, a mess of politics and agendas, the fantastic and the on the nose, and people arguing over it. It is my hope in time we can confront our experiece and our history with the power of imagination, but for the short-term I fear a muddle is where we’re headed.

May we reduce the time we’re in that muddle so our writing may clearly illuminate the human experience, our lessons, our losses – and those responsible. Because we’re doing it half-assed now.

Steven Savage

A Worthy Remake

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

A meme I’ve seen going round repeatedly can be best summed up as “don’t remake good films, remake bad films” with the idea that you should give good ideas badly done a chance.

Now first, despite having good friends that study remakes, I do get a bit tired of them. But there are also times remakes are a good idea, and I think this may be one of them.

So when is “it was bad but it could be good” a good reason to remake something.

Is There Something There?

There are quite a few films and shows out there that may not have been good but have some seed elements that are actually interesting. Think of all those bad movies or cheesy shows or not-great-but-interesting novels that we may critique but somehow like. We connect with it, there is something in there that’s worth it.

Now just because we like it, it doesn’t mean it’s remake-worthy. But if a story of some kind has good seeds, we should ask if these are things worth sharing. Would a remake bring benefit to others if we made it?

If you’ve ever tried to explain the “magic” of a not-really-good thing to someone, you get the idea. Imagine if something could be remade so the magic comes out!

The Artistic Value

When remaking something there’s little value in just doing it the same. Just updating a film or rewriting a book is really more polishing something. It may be good to bring out the magic, but I think more value comes if there is some artistic challenge or improvement.

Change Of Media: Maybe a bad book is better as a comic or movie.

Change Of Style: A poorly done movie might be better done if there’s a change in genre or shooting style.

Change Of Sequence: A bad TV series could be better as a movie to tell the whole story – or a TV series might be better done as a serial show.

The Challenge: A good writer or actor, giving a flawed but interesting work or remake, may grow if given that challenge. So a remake of a bad piece of work could bring out the skills of others.

A Few Examples

Finally, a few remakes I’d like to see – most of them courtesy of Rifftrax/MST3K

Manos: The Hands Of Fate – This infamous cheesy film had a certain charm, mixing cult fears, horror, and some occult/eldrich god stuff. That’s an interesting mix, and I think a remake could do something with this.

Space Mutiny – The oft riffed film is interesting for two reasons. One, there was clearly some larger storytelling there that got shuffled around due to the many crises on set. Secondly, it rested on the easygoing charisma of Reb Brown. A remake as a miniseries, with the right lead, and a retro sensibility would be fun – and allow name recognition to promote a good lead.

Gamera – Gamera, the famous Godzilla ripoff, got a remake as some darned good kaiju films. But I feel that it actually could be redone one more time – as a TV series. There are some continuing plot elements in the film, and a story of people ant their relationship to this protective/destructive kaiju would be incredible.

So there you go folks. What would you remake?

Steven Savage