Imaginary

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Writing is a sort of madness. Undoubtedly. Or at least it is as I’ve experienced it and as a lot of my mentees, friends and associates practice it.

There is danger in dreams. Every human myth records that. The danger of the dream, like a deep ocean. You can get sucked into the dream and never find your way out. You can confuse your dreams for reality. You can suck others into your dreams too.

The Victorians weren’t entirely wrong that fiction is dangerous. Yes, yes, I know. It’s fashionable to make fun of the idea that novels made young ladies silly and immoral. And, as far as it goes, it is silly. Young ladies were — and are, like all humans — naturally silly and immoral. It’s just that the novels — of the time — didn’t provide any bulwark (ah) against that. Attempts to do so, hilariously, created the moralistic, annoying books my grandmother read in her childhood and adolescence (And I did too, because they were still kicking around, and no book is safe from my reading it. Even if they were so predictable they made me giggle, and even if in the end they gave you the moral in straight forward words, in case you had forgotten.)

Those novels, the moralistic ones, were not really dangerous, for the main reason that they were not really immersive. You could see the characters’ being manipulated by wires. You could see as each movement was prescribed by the author. It’s hard to forget someone is lecturing you, as they’re in full Karen mode, nose in the air and none of their characters breaks mold or experiences anything startling.

To an extent this is what the leftist mind-set has done to fiction once more. Because they are in their own way as “moralistic” as any Victorian, following received wisdom from a Victorian, even if some of the applications would make that old lecher and grifter Marx blench. But more on that anon.

The fascinating thing in the link that Steve keeps putting in comments, and which I saw first in my fan discussion group with direct link from Twitter: Hot take: Fictional characters can’t consent because they don’t have ‘agency’. (link) is that it goes way beyond the divine madness of writers. And is self-contradictory, which leads me believe that the person who posted it is trolling for attention.

Though heaven knows, I’ve at times assumed the same about other leftist shibboleths, like the idea that people who tan can’t be racist, because blah blah power relationships, (ignoring that in many countries people who tan are in fact in power. In fact, people, I saw my first blond at the age of 6. Scared the heck out of me. I thought he was a plastic doll come to life. I had nightmares.), or the idea that only women can be harrassed/raped, because men are just so darn persuasive, or the idea that a 120 lb woman can physically beat a 300lb guy who is neither paralyzed nor tied down. All of these are on the face of it so patently absurd that they can’t be believed, entertained, or even thought of for more than two minutes without evoking belly laugh. Unless they’re religious pronouncements, which of course they are, and therefore immune from examination.

Here’s the thing, and please keep in mind as I type this there are writers trying to scale my house walls to stop me, since I’m about to give away a trade secret. (Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but it is a trade secret.)

I know you’ve heard writers in conferences and workshops telling you they create their characters piece by piece, assemble them like a puzzle, “fire” them if they’re not working, etc.

They very well might. Or they might be lying like people who dream for you wholesale would do. Or they might be lying to themselves because the truth is uncomfortable to anyone trying to stay sane.

I don’t hide from anyone — because frankly I believe in telling the truth — that I am a gateway writer. I get the stories pretty much wholesale from my subconscious. (Well, I sleep better thinking it’s my subconscious and not some sort of portal in my head that beams in the events of some alternate universe.) Now, 90% of the time, this is not as effortless as it sounds. It really isn’t. Because I get the whole thing in a bolus. What the character believes and his life and death battle, and also what he ate for breakfast on his third birthday and what his favorite toy was, and how he had this deep talk with his friend when he was ten. And I don’t get the words. Most of the time when “block” it’s not lack of story. It’s lack of distance, to clean up the mess that dropped in my head. Or being too tired to think of words. (Today there is a blinding headache added to it.)

Note 90% of the time. Have I got the story words and all dictated to me? Sure. Couple of times. One of them is A Few Good Men. I was typing at the limit of my not inconsiderable speed, and I saw about a page ahead of what I was writing. It must count as one of the most unnerving experiences of my lifetime, since I didn’t know how the story would continue, or if it would, or if it would suddenly leave me halfway through. Worse: I didn’t know where it was going. Would it devolve into something unutterably senseless? Would it have a conclusion I didn’t like?

Look, I only wrote it at all because it was coming out at speed. if I didn’t like it, it was 2 weeks of my life, not a year. I could put it in a drawer and refuse to admit I’d done it. Or burn it, so that the boys didn’t get brilliant ideas after I was dead. (I think I have, at this point, destroyed all copies of my first ever written novel, but heaven knows. I keep finding others when I least expect it. So I’ve told them I’ll haunt them if they publish it. On the good (?) side, my notebook of poems — 8 to 25 years of age — seems to have disappeared in the multiple moves. It’s probably a good thing, yes?) But it turned out I liked the book. Though if I had to do it again, I’d probably have called it something else. But hey. I never get titles, ever, and was struck by the punniness of it all. It happens.

However, there’s the other books. I’m not going to pretend that when I got the call to write –work for hire– Plain Jane (the story of Henry VIII’s queen, Jane Seymour) I was seized by sudden inspiration, or had the creature come into my mind and dictate.

I wrote it because children needed shoes and school books, and we were paying two mortgages in the middle of a house-move.

But here’s the thing, as I found a POV that allowed me to write it, having done the research, I HAD TO BELIEVE THE CHARACTER ‘Existed’. I had to believe in the character’s and the story’s intrinsic truth, and I had to let it escape my total control.

Because writing is like playing chess with yourself. As you turn the board, you have to forget you created it all, so it works.

And — in my opinion. I know writers who say they don’t do this. They’re writers. Lying is always an option — I have to let the creations escape my control a little, or none of it is worth anything. (Ah. And now you know. G-d is a pantser.)

Now, the level of control the characters’ and story has depends on how it came to me, and how driven it is. When it’s fully driven, a thing with a life of its own…. well, weird stuff happens. Like the character balks me. “I wouldn’t do that” is the basic description, though mind you, it’s not words most of the time, just a feeling of utter wrongness. You can force the character, but if you do the character dies, and you’re skin-suiting it, and the book becomes horrible or worse, dies. And sometimes it’s a lot of characters.

It used to confuse Dan when he came home and I told him I’d had a terrible day at the office (down the hall) because the characters wouldn’t and I had to find what they would do that worked. I think he understands it better now.

However, I think all of us at some level must believe the character exists somewhere, to make it seem real to others. Secure your dream-magic-mask, before applying it to anyone else.

Which is why the hot take that it’s immoral to make your characters have sex they didn’t consent to is both terrifying and hilarious.

It means you’re required to think of the characters as their own people, self-actuated, with some sort of free will. Because otherwise you’re being accused of violating the consent of puppets.

But if they’re self-actuated, and have free will, you can’t make them do what they don’t want to, because frankly it’s way too much work to force it.

So this hot take is simultaneously crazier than the average writer, and completely incoherent in application.

Either the characters are alive elsewhere — I call it character world — and you’re just telling their story, or they’re not alive at all, in which case…. well, my socks don’t consent to be worn. My blanket doesn’t consent to be washed. Objects can’t consent, even if they’re mind objects.

I can tell you it’s almost impossible to force into sex characters who just don’t wanna or aren’t there yet. (This once led me to send a note to an editor who was demanding more and more explicit sex in a book — no, not Baen — that said “Look, I can force half a page of generalities, but if you want more, you’ll have to write it yourself.” …. which didn’t do wonders for my career with that house.)

I’m still assuming the whole thing is a massive troll. However, having seen 4chan trolls, like “Free bleeding” be taken absolutely in earnest on the left, there is no telling this won’t be.

I anticipate in some giggling the trad pub — because it will be — books being published with statements that the characters have been interrogated and consented. (And to my friends at Baen, yes, it would be hilarious if you guys do it, though I’d just put something blanket on the website. Or not. I remember that storm of stupid from the left about the bar. Eh.)

However if the left buys into this, they will finish completing, sideways and backwards, their transformation into the Victorian moralists they claimed to despise for so long.

Their objections to the male gaze, their contempt for anything that isn’t useful to their Marxist religion, their belief in the superiority of their beliefs and evangelical fervor to the “benighted” communities, which in their case seems to be anyone having fun. (We won’t wear pants, even if they make us, so there.)

They are the new Victorians. And unlike the originals ones, which at least had a clear view of humans and their behavior, they’re as delusional and insane as a hedgehog on mescaline.

I guess first as tragedy, then as farce.

On with the motley.

*I am in fact staying away from current events, yes, because just screaming incoherently how angry I am does nothing. I’ve come close to that in my instapundit stints, for which I must beg your indulgence. Yes, it will get worse before it gets better. Like Heinlein refusing to read current events during WWII (If I remember he only read month-old newspapers) I’m just trying to keep a small sliver of sanity, so I can clean the house, and cook, and yes, write without standing in the middle of the street screaming. Bear with me, therefore for a week or so. I’ll return to the fray. I can’t help myself. It’s just a little time to catch my breath. (And yes, I’m fairly sure that Steve keeps posting that link to distract me from the serious stuff ;) I’m onto him. ) – SAH*

87 thoughts on “Imaginary”

  1. Want something scary?

    I wonder if I’m the imaginary character of a lunatic. [Crazy Grin]

    Not really, but I do wonder “what book I’m in”. :wink:

    Liked by 1 person

    2. How the dickens do any of us know what book we’re in?

      All I can say is it’s the best of times, the worst of times, the age of wisdom, an age of foolishness, the epoch of belief, the epoch of incredulity, the season of light, the season of darkness, the spring of hope, the winter of despair…

      Hum, a novel idea, might be a story there.

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    3. One of the more fun story-generating ideas I like is “character in the wrong story and doesn’t realize it”.

      E.g., in Big Trouble In Little China, Jack Burton is 100% certain that he is the hero, and never once realizes he is the comedy relief sidekick.

      Or drop an autistic engineer into the Cthulhu mythos.

      Or have Jason Bourne wake up in an anarcho-capitalist world.

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      1. The oldest “heroine is dropped into a dating game as the villainess” has the heroine never really realize that she’s changing things with her attempts to save herself.

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      2. I’ve used that as an example in a writing class I taught: imagine switching Hamlet and Othello in their respective plays. Ghost tells Othello his uncle murdered him. Othello goes downstairs and kills uncle, marries Ophelia, reigns as King of Denmark. The end.

        Iago tells Hamlet that Desdemona has been unfaithful. Hamlet gathers evidence, looks for clues, realizes Iago is lying, sets a trap for him, and kills him. Then beats the Turks and goes home to Venice with his wife. The end.

        The Othello version of Hamlet would be very short and boring, but the Hamlet version of Othello could be an intriguing cat-and-mouse game.

        Liked by 3 people

    4. College friend of mine would occasionally refer to himself as a figment of my imagination.
      No, don’t blame me for your state.

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  2. Don’t know if you’ve seen the trailer for American Fiction, but…well if the trailer’s accurate I think whoever created that film has seen a lot of what you have in publishing and media, if from a different angle…

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Let’s see, at least ten years since I’ve had the TV turned on for more than3 or 5 minutes at a time, 8 years since I’ve been in a movie theater and that was the last time I watched a trailer.

      OK I did just, based on your comment and C. F’s. link to it below, watch that one on youtube.

      In a word: THANKS! :-)

      I don’t plan to see the movie (Obviously lacking and adequate helping of sex and gratuitous violence.) but I thoroughly enjoyed the trailer.

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  3. Heck, I barely write and so far every single thing I’ve written has had at least one character go up to my carefully laid plans and go ‘here, have a monkey wrench.’ And it doesn’t have to have a side either.

    We have the “And I stab her in the back!” “Wait, what? Why?”

    The “It’s the logical villain thing to do. I don’t really want to write that but,” “Naw, I’m letting them go.” “What? You’re not allowed to carry the idiot ball. No. You’re an unrepentant monster. Why this now?” “Hey, I can be random and cryptic. It’s what I’m best at!” “…”

    And the infamous, these characters are interacting weird. I guess I’ll just write how they met and see… Oh. They’re married. Well that explains it. Guess I’m writing thins now…

    Actually the problem right now is I’ve got a character who is being stubbornly inert. Contrary to appearances, he’s very comfortable doing what he’s told, and in no hurry to rock the boat. After all, it can always get worse. I need to figure out which stick of dynamite to stick under him to get him to move. But maybe that’s how he ends up in the soup to begin? Trying to do what everyone tells him to do, without really wanting to think about what happens next?

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    1. I see you’re writing about me. I am fiercely libertarian, and I want to be as free as possible, but I cannot help but notice a very strong streak of “just stick me in a bureaucracy and tell me what to do (up to and including “spinning your wheels until we can get a project ready”) and I will be content.

      Well, as content as I could be, wondering how the heck I could get around to my own projects, when my work drains all the mental energy I need to work on them!

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    2. I forgot to add: once you figure out what kind of dynamite to put under me to get me to move, I hope the explosion won’t hurt too much!

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  5. “Was it in the ‘Cat who walks through Walls’ where Heinlein had the protagonists ask if were fighting against enemies or an author?

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  6. As far as that goes, the voices in my head might be Russian, Mandarin, or Swahili; but since I don’t understand those languages, I’m on my own.

    I often wish for this or that; but life has been a grand adventure thus far. And no one would believe it if I wrote an autobiography.

    I’m also thankful I never met up with these guys…

    Liked by 1 person

  7. ” It’s fashionable to make fun of the idea that novels made young ladies silly and immoral. ”

    If the only thing they read are silly and immoral novels, and they have no other functional and moral guide to “how to human in situation”, then of course they’re going to follow the template they’ve been taught in their books.

    Same thing with trash television, that is designed to play-up the draaaaaaama.

    If that’s the only thing you watch and you have no other guide to human behavior (possibly because everyone around you has been watching that same trash televisions for the last 3 generations and they also think that’s a normal way to behave), then that’s how you are going to behave.

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  8. Ultimately, I see myself as the camera in my character’s lives.

    I exist as a writer to share their stories-beautiful and ugly, bright and dark, tawdry and exhilarating. Because I want to tell these stories-I want to show the art I’ve put on my canvas for everyone to see.

    If there is any interest in intervention, it is simply that when willful monsters are found, they are slain. Always.

    I also know the dangers of stories, of myths, of legends. Our enemies in the Ctrl-Left think they’re myth-makers, creating a new legend that ends in perfect happiness for all. No matter what it costs.

    I’ve known what the cost has been ever since I was sixteen years old. Nobody should pay it. Not even the people that deserve it the most.

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  10. From =A Fable for Critics=, on JFCooper:

    “When a character’s needed he goes to the task
    As a cooper would in composing a cask.
    He picks out the staves of their qualities heedful,
    Just hoops them together as tight as is needful.
    And if the best fortune should crown the attempt, he
    Has made at the most something wooden and empty.”

    Liked by 1 person

  12. In The Number of the Beast Heinlein proposes there are real universes in the multiverse model that correspond to fiction. None of my analogs believe this.

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    1. That idea has been used by Fiction Writers before Heinlein used it. :wink:

      Of course, IIRC Heinlein had commented about “using other people’s idea” is OK as long as the author “filed off the serial numbers”. :grin:

      Liked by 1 person

      1. In NOTB, Heinlein was showing writers how to write.

        In all the other World-As-Myth novels, he is showing the university sinecure set what a Real Professional could do with “postmodernism” and making them look bad the whole time.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The first “world as myth” story I remember reading was “The Roaring Trumpet” (followed immediately by “The Mathematics of Magic” and “The Iron Castle” since I was reading the collection “The Complete Enchanter” by de Camp and Pratt. (Later read “The Complete Complet Enchanter which added two additional stories which, IMO, were much weaker than the first three.)

          While the premise was that fictional/mythological universes exist (the Edda–Norse myth, Spencer’s Faerie Queene, and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, to be specific) it doesn’t expressly say that the main characters’ own timeline was likewise fictional but there’s no break in the symmetry of the arguments used by said characters so it follows logically from their own propositions. In this one, the “University Academic Set” are the ones doing the travelling and while the protagonist, Harold Shea is a more “physical” type (being, for instance, an avid fencer), his ivory tower boss doesn’t come across too badly at all.

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          1. Um, I was referring specifically to the late Heinlein books Number of the Beast, Cat Who Walks Through Walls and To Sail Beyond The Sunset. They are referred to as “The World-As-Myth” books. Others have done similar things, but I was referring specifically to RAH’s books.

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      2. Roger Zelazny’s Amber series. You can find any world you can imagine in Shadow. The great philosophical question is, did that world exist independently before you imagined it, or did you create it?

        Merlin winds up trapped for a time in a version of Alice’s Wonderland by somebody else under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs.

        Ah, the good old days, when the Hugo still meant something.

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          1. The Library of the Infinite Number Of Monkeys! :-D

            Although there aren’t enough atoms in the universe to actually print all those books. There wouldn’t be enough atoms in a billion billion billion universes.
            ———————————
            “Ehh, on second thought let’s not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.”

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        2. Zelazny also uses that in his “Creatures of Light and Darkness”. The Prince who was a Thousand can teleport to any place he can visualize/imagine. It is not clear whether he is finding the place in an infinity of worlds or if he is somehow creating it. Publication of Creatures of Light and Darkness predates Nine Princes in Amber by a year, but given the way many writers seem to write it is likely that Zelazny developed the idea concurrently and liked it so much he used it twice. He died in 1995 so we can’t ask him, and I don’t know if he left papers like some (say Tolkien or Heinlein) did that would give hints. Either way it is a clever summation.

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    3. I like the concepts of worlds as stacking dolls, with fictional characters I write telling each other their own legends and stories.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. It took me six years to write Without a Voice, then I finished it in an 18 hour writing marathon. Once I stopped trying to force my MC into a specific mold, she took the story out of my hands and it was done in a day.

    I have had people tell me flatly that I’m lying when I say I didn’t model Justin (the villian) after someone I know. I didn’t, but apparently he’s too real. Others weren’t able to finish the book because it brought back their personal nightmares.

    That didn’t come from my own experience. Imagination? Maybe. Maybe there’s a shared pool if experience that we can draw from. Or maybe it’s something else.

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Regarding characters, I’ll say there’s nothing wrong with crafting a character around the needs of the plot. I use an analysis of Jaffar from the animated Alladin (haven’t watched the live action and don’t intend to). Basically when a character’s actions are dictated by the plot, and you have to invent reasons he would act this way, you can craft a pretty interesting character.

    Specifically, with Jaffar they needed an otherwise-competent villain who nevertheless would keep screwing up at key moments.

    For much of the movie Jaffar is portrayed as having a great deal of self-control. You notice it in the straight lines he’s drawn in, and how the top half of his face is almost a mask, and that self-control has done well for him: he controls the guards and practically runs the kingdom.

    But it’s a self-control that he intensely resents. Maybe because he presumably had to work his way up by merit while the royals are permanently over him just by an accident of birth, and could take away everything he’s worked for at a whim (“when I’m queen I’ll have the power to get rid of you”, that had to sting).

    So as soon as Jaffar gets what he wants or is about to get what he wants, he drops his self-control immediately, and it always backfires on him.

    We get the first glimpse when he’s too impatient and wants to take the lamp right away rather than wait for Aladdin to get out – otherwise he would have won right then and there. And as soon as he gets the lamp he abandons self-control altogether, he indulges in every impulse without thinking, culminating in making his last wish without considering the consequences and getting himself stuck in a lamp himself.

    And to the viewer, it all seems very natural and in-character for him to screw up in those key moments, because his entire character was BUILT around him screwing up in those key moments for the plot to happen.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. One could do a lot worse than studying the screenplays of Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio (the Aladdin duo, as well as Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean) for “how to craft story and characters”.

      Also, I had not realized that Jaffar was basically George Costanza until this moment. :D

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            1. Also different, though, because of how you have to write a spec script. You have to put characters clearly into the reader’s mind, but be non-specific enough that almost any actor can play the role to keep casting options open.

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              2. Ah hadn’t thought about that. Writing someone like Honor Harrington (for those unfamiliar a 6’+ woman with oriental features particularly the eyes and skin and VERY muscular build due to genetic manipulation and High G birthplace) makes her almost uncastable.

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                1. Writing adaptations, you can describe closer to the source material. On an original spec, nope. Clear but vague is the requirement, so they can cast Denzel or Stallone or Timothy Chalomet, depending on how things shake out.

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                  1. Indeed that was the understanding I got. I merely used Honor as an example I could come up with where it your spec character needed to be a VERY specific type. In essence you’d have written yourself (or at least the casting director) into a corner and have made your script (even if it rivaled Casablanca Citizen Kane otherwise) anathema to a producer who is trying to get something they can film in non geologic time. As I said I never would have thought of that but once you said it it makes absolute sense, something distinctly NOT obvious to someone not involved in the process even if the logic is absolutely clear.

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                    1. Even in adaptations, casting is not beholden. Morgan Freeman’s character in the original Shashank Redemption novella really was Irish, instead of saying it as a joke. (The line was always in the script, but was left in because it was funny.)

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                    2. And Nick Fury was always a cigar chomping white guy in the Silver Age Comics. But darn it I LOVE Samuel L Jackson’s version, it hits ALL the notes. And likewise Idris Elba’s Heimdall takes the usually blonde Norse god and fills him out elegantly. So you CAN do things like that, although as I noted elsewhere beware the wrath of the Fanbois/Fangrrrls it can reach up and but you on the ass hard… Classic case for me is the changes to Faramir in Peter Jackson’s LOTR, It took as truly noble character who was showing through the true strengths of Numenor and cheapened him unnecessarily.

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                    3. The Black Kingpin (forgot his name) in one of the Dare Devil shows/movie was also a good choice.

                      In the comics, Kingpin is white but the producers couldn’t think of a white actor that could Be Kingpin.

                      They kept thinking “we need a white actor similar to that black actor” so they decided “why not use that black actor”. :wink:

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                    6. The Nick Fury case is complicated by the Ultimates universe, which influenced the early MCU, and which based Fury on Jackson. But yeah.

                      As for LOTR, it wasn’t Faramir who bothered me, it was Denethor. They did the character dirty, apparently by not understanding WHY he was acting the way he was, they just made him petty. (John Noble did a fine job, the problem was the writing.)

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                    7. Right we never really get to understand the Palantir and the fact that Denethor was arguing directly with Sauron who had corrupted far stronger men (and even other Maiar in the case of Saruman and through the same process). even in a 9+ hour set of movies things just don’t fit. Not sure Jackson, Walsh and Boyens made the perfect choices, but they did far better than I had expected. Gimili is another character that even though quite ably acted by John Rhys-Davies gets turned to almost purely comic relief, Similarly Peregrin and Meriadoc kind of get short shrift in the character department.

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                    9. I agree. I remember the disappointment that was Bakshi’s animated attempt, they tried hard and perhaps stayed closer to the source material (for the 1/2 or so of it they covered) but it wasn’t a 1/10 as good as Peter Jackson’s. Given the quantity and sheer depth of the source material they did an amazing job.

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                2. Well, it would have been. Now, what you look for is an actress who can capture the personality and trust in CGI, airbrushing, and green screen to handle the physical details.

                  And how much time did Honor really spend in situations where those things were apparent to a casual observer?

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                  1. As noted it replying to Mr Fleming I had used Honor as an exemplar of a character who would really blow things out of the water with respect to casting. As for an Honor movie or TV show, I suppose it doesn’t matter except for the fact that Mr Weber describes her in that fashion all over the place (it is nearly as frequent as the military Sci-fi info dumps). Her height and heavy Grav build matter especially in later books where her use of Coup de Vitesse (and practice of it) are plot points. One could perhaps dispose of the Oriental features as they do not enter in as plot points and then just tweak Allison Chou Harrington. Of course doing things like that is bound to piss off the Honorverse fanatics who are likely to be one of your main targets and most enthusiastic advertisers. Look at part of the fail of the third trilogy of Star Wars. Annoy NOT the Fanbois lest ye desireth to consume dust for all your days.

                    I think trying to fix Honor using green screen techniques falls into the class of a VERY bad idea. I believe cranking up a full up synthespian treecat would be a far simpler task then tweaking some living actress to provide the requisite Asian/Oriental features. Maybe one could take an Asian actress who was close and through practical effects and camera angles get 95% and do the rest with VFX. The various Star Wars Movies and TV shows have messed with human synthespians or at least partial synthespians lots of times.

                    Note: Warning potential spoilers !!!

                    Rogue One with the synthespian Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin were pretty bad although Tarkin ALMOST worked. Deaging/tweaking Luke for the end of season 2 Mandolorian worked better but still had a lot of the uncanny valley effect. Season 3 Mandolorian Luke worked less well likely because we’re doing full light and close shots. Deaging Anakin for the recent Ahsoka series was probably the best so far, but the facial expressions still are deep in the uncanny valley and like the first deaged Luke they avoided the problematic close shots and kept the lighting dark. The technology has come a long way since first mucking with Jar Jar Binks and Gollum. It just isn’t ready for tweaking the lead actress of a series who will be on screen constantly. We just know what a human looks like REALLY well and that isn’t it. I also think that level of VFX is probably prohibitive cost wise likely even for Major A Class productions.

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                3. Anime – voice casting. Need a Soprano not noted for singing, who can project voice. Need a voice coach for military commands.

                  heh.

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                  1. IIRC David Weber’s only concern about the actress that might play Honor was that she needed to project a strong Command Presence.

                    IE Could the watcher believe that She Is The Captain.

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                  2. You know Animation came to mind to me too. Much anime I remember from my youth (e.g. Speed Racer, Simba the White Lion) was low quality. Not a lot of tweening although backgrounds and key frames were gorgeous. More modern stuff is nice and Studio Ghibli stuff (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, etc) are amazing rivaling and exceeding Golden age Disney like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. There was a comic of Honor Harrington (although for Ghu’s sake redo the treecats) that might serve as a start. The problem is in the US animation is still often viewed as kids fare. Honor Harrington is anything but childrens fare (Consider for example Honor of the Queen or Field of Dishonor). Certainly Japanese anime can do the more real stories but the Anime style art feels wrong. Maybe get something closer to the Lone Wolf and Cub Manga that got republished in the US by First and then went to Marvel in the 80’s or the art styles of Jon Sable or American Flagg from First or Claremont period X-Men for the key frames. Tweening needs to be REALLY detailed and at least 30 fps, 60 fps preferred maybe 96fps for IMAX? I’m not sure if automated generation of tweens is quite up to it, coloring needs to be spot on and a bit muted or it will look garish human intervention required there. And I suspect Manticore’s gold on black Uniforms are going to be a royal pain as that’s going top dominate LOTS of scenes. Animation even with lots of automation used to speed the process is expensive and the number of skilled artists is small. I wonder if you might not be cheaper going with live action. It does have the feature that you can keep your 3rd gen prolong people essentially unchanged should you get to run large portions of the story line over many realtime years as voices change far less in say 20 years than bodies. Even the best preserved modern 40 year old actress doesn’t look the same as she did at say 20 but Honor changes very little from On Basilisk Station to Uncompromising Honor looking like a healthy early 20 something the whole time.

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        2. And even a villain who is mostly off screen in a novel (or longer) needs to be competent to retain credibility. Sauron was ruthlessly competent. His defeat was largely due to his utter blindness to the possibility that his opposition would rather destroy the One Ring rather than use it., Competency and ability can’t save oneself from such blindness.

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          1. Sauron tried to rig it so that no one who ever possessed the One Ring could possibly will to destroy it. He actually succeeded at that. Note every single ringbearer at Mount Doom. Frodo turned away with it. Gollum, having seized it back from Frodo and meaning to keep it, fell to excessive celebration.

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            1. There was never a chance that Frodo would throw the ring into the crack at Mount Doom. When Gandalf first explained about the ring to Frodo, Frodo was unable to throw it even into his own fire after having seen that the fire didn’t damage, or even heat, it. After all that much more time for it to influence him? Was never going to happen.

              Gandalf had to know that which leads me to wonder what his plan actually was.

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              1. “But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.” Frodo in ‘The Return of the King’. It was clear that Gandalf foresaw that Gollum had a part to play. How much he knew is not clear from the text.

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          2. Sauron had ‘faith’ of a type. He had faith that people would always be ruled by greed and fear and pride, and when push came to shove would always betray one another for their own interests. In a lot of examples, he was proven right, from the corruption of Numenor to the treachery and self-destruction that marked the ‘Long Defeat,’ betting on weakness, corruption and fallibility had brought him wins. That made those who stayed true all the more admirable.

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  16. “And yes, I’m fairly sure that Steve keeps posting that link to distract me from the serious stuff”

    Nah, that’s usually my music links. The first time I posted it, it was because “my eyes are bouncing off the floor, and if I put that here, I’ll generate lots and lots of kitteh toys to be chased.”

    Same reason I put it on the Writer Dojo FB page and on the ILOH’s X feed. I’m still hoping he’ll fisk it.

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  17. Religious pronouncements free from examination!?! Oh, now just hold on a minute!

    As a former religious professional, and still committed aficionado, I can tell you that religious pronouncements above all others REQUIRE examination. Good heavens, or nirvanas or celestial spaces whatever! We establish realities on these foundations. Examine them carefully, sift them thoroughly, test them with Bunsen burners and scan them with electron microscopes! If they are any good they’ll stand up OK, else they are just dross.

    What the left puts out is certified dross. Same for a lot of mainstream religious institutions. Toss them into the sun. Otherwise hold them to your bosom as they are worth more than gold, platinum and rubies.

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      1. Dear Hostess their pronouncements are truly religious in nature. But their actions are far more cultic with strong resemblance to Heavens Gate, Jonestown and the Manson family, etc. than to the Christian faith of which they are a heretical offspring (as is much of Marxism as far as I can tell). Their punishments (cancellation) and techniques are almost exactly those of cultic groups. The problem is this cult has its hands on the controls of the societies and is not afraid to use them.

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  18. I’m a pantser. It often gets me odd looks (and the expectation that lightning will strike me down) when I liken my writing to God’s Creation, or describe Him as a writer. I think it’s the closest analogy to reality (like anyone could prove it before it’s time.) Of course God is a pantser – we wouldn’t have free will, otherwise.

    (And yeah, Sarah – we all need to take a break from fighting the current crazy before we get trapped in our own. Enjoy yours.) (Break, or crazy – your choice.)

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