The stories we tell each other

Two posts in a single day. Who would have thought I'd ever have so much to talk about?

I read a lot of blogs, and inevitably I follow my nose through their links and find my way to other blogs and websites. Today, I've wandered into a blog by an author called Neesha Meminger, and I've read a post of hers that talks about bullying.

I was bullied as well, a long time ago. Shut up, sit down, get over it. It's not all that important. It's your fault. Stop making waves. Stop getting people into trouble. Maybe if you tried to make friends, they wouldn't be so mean.

It's so easy to tell that story, the one where it's not really bullying. The other one, where you have to face up to the needlessly cruel things people do, is a lot harder. Maybe it's because you did something, and you can't admit that it wasn't right. Maybe it's because you don't want to say it happened to you. Maybe it just makes you too uncomfortable.

It's so easy to tell children the stories that won't hurt them, or shake them, or make them feel uncomfortable. It's easy to tell them that nobody is racist or sexist anymore, and persecution doesn't exist. They hear that narrative and just brush it off when they are racist, sexist, or when they persecute someone. She started it. She's just making trouble. I was only joking.

Writers should tell the hard stories. We dream that the world can be different to what it actually is all the time; dreaming of a voice for the silenced is not beyond us. Those narratives are harder to tell, but they are very, very powerful, and they can change the world for the better.

I, like many others, still carry the scars of the easy stories. I have a duty not to let them stand.

Fantastic Worlds

So, Avatar has come out on DVD and BluRay, and smashed all kinds of records for most discs sold and all that. I will freely admit that I simply do not buy DVDs, and I don't own a BluRay player, so I'm a little baffled by all the excitement. If this follows the same trend as many other big releases, there will be a limited edition version out in time for Christmas with extra content that is supposedly there to encourage you to spend twice the money on the content you already own. I have heard that James Cameron is also planning a 3D version next year, so people will have the chance to pay yet again. Fun times indeed.

Oh well, I say. What people do with their money is entirely their own business, and long may it bring them joy. But, personally, I have no need for another plastic disc cluttering up my home. I saw Avatar in the cinema, in 3D. I experienced the spectacle as it was meant to be experienced, and (unfortunately) it doesn't have anything else to offer other than spectacle.

The plot is Pocahontas in space, as many other people have said before. I found it quite silly at times. It's already been ripped to shreds for racism and whatnot elsewhere, so there's no need to repeat all that here. And the dialogue... oh, the dialogue. If I were being kind, I'd call it 'unintentionally hilarious'. Characterisation was disjointed, a little unreal. I left the theatre with the firm opinion that James Cameron had poured all the money and effort into the visual effects, and wrote the script himself whenever he had a few minutes to spare.

So, if we strip away the artistry, the beauty of Pandora and her creatures, what then? I have no reason to spend money on a movie where I can't experience the one exceptional feature of it. Nothing in one's home can replicate the movie theatre unless one happens to be very, very rich. But the sad fact of it all is that Avatar should have appealed to me, and I should be out buying the DVD right now. I live and breathe in fantastic worlds; Alice in Wonderland, the Belgariad, Dune, World of Warcraft. Pandora should have been no different.

What might have been another playground of the imagination is... nothing. A vague metaphor for the New World with a different skin. A setting hamstrung by lackluster story threads, destined for bad fanfiction at best. It's like taking the most expensive canvas, the most delicate brushes, the most vivid paints, and handing them over to an amateur to draw stick figures and blobs. I'm sure people will appreciate it, but oh! What might have been!

And for all that, I still don't begrudge Avatar its success. It deserves it simply for pushing the boundaries of what can be done. I know Hollywood will be chasing the phenomenon of Avatar for years, and out of that effort we are sure to get at least a few well written movies.

It's shown the world that there isn't anything beyond the reach of special effects these days. It's shown the dreamers that the technology exists to make their own fantastic worlds real.

I can't wait to see them.

The first threads

I think every author must remember their first stories. The first published one, the first written one, the first completed one. You think back on them sometimes, even when you know they were complete rubbish and your current material is infinitely better. It's a tiny thing, but it's also a place you point to where you can say "This is where I began. This is where I made the choice. This is where I became a writer."

Those threads are probably frayed and ragged, utterly unworthy of attention in any normal frame of reference, but to you they are precious.

I can remember my first story vividly. As a child, I recall myself and my sister telling each other stories late at night - the pretend games of narrative, using dolls or pictures or whatever we had lying around. It was so natural to me. It was instinctive taleweaving, telling only for the joy of it, just like every other kid.

I remember our old computer. It was a huge, clunky (by today's standards) white box, with a clacky keyboard and a basic, DOS command line interface. A Commodore 286, I think; to this day, I wonder if my parents only got it for the novelty of it, because neither of them are particularly technically inclined. But on this pitiful, ancient machine - unworthy of attention in any normal frame of reference, even then - I made something magical.

I was twelve years old, and I started tapping out a story about the snakes returning to Ireland.

It's said that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, way back in yonder days. In reality, it's probably something to do with ecology and whatnot, which is not nearly so interesting. But the idea of it was fascinating to me, and I began to dream up images of rivers of scaly bodies slipping away into the sea, with St. Patrick standing sternly behind them with a grim expression. And I thought of snakes, in the modern day, talking amongst themselves about a lost land to the west and north - a sanctuary, Atlantis even - that was little more than legend and rumour.

Ah, it was so little. I barely wrote a few pages before giving up. And it was terrible, believe me - a twelve year old may write well for their age, but that doesn't make their stuff good. It was a story I wouldn't give the time of day to, now, and it was my whole heart and soul made real back then. That was the first time I tried to catch a dream and forge it into a story. Those were the first threads.

Be they ever so humble, I sure every writer remembers them.

Christmas Threads

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a... writer?

This falls into the category entitled 'Dubious'. I get ideas all the time. They tumble through my head in drips or in torrents, and I catch as many as I can and pour them into my book of things that need writing at some point. But, dear reader, not all ideas are created equal - and yes, I am talking to myself right now because no one else is looking at this.

I have an idea for a story, and that story is a Christmas story. They've been done to death and then some, and yet I have some hope that this story is a worthy one. But what I fear more is the commercialisation of Christmas, and the fear of my worthy story being brutalised in the pursuit of money - whether by dismissive review or desperate interferance.

All this, and I haven't even written a word of it! I can't help thinking about it, though. The tales we weave are a part of us whether we want them to be or not, and seeing one bastardised in the name of greed is painful.

A thought for another day, I suppose. I'll have to flesh it out a little and see where the thread takes me.