What you want to see in Sci-Fi and Fantasy more?

Lessien said:

The point I got was that you believe women shouldn't work because they might have affairs. If that wasn't what I should have taken away from that, I'm sorry. What exactly were you getting at?

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I'm sorry if it seemed that way. What I was trying to do is get you to see my side of the issue. Times have changed. Women have more opportunites open to them, and it's hypocritical to expect women to do nothing but care for the kids or hold a "feminine" job while men have the entire world open to them. I'm working hard to become a journalist, and I'll keep my job whether I get married and have kids or not. In the meantime, I see nothing wrong with having a female soldier or politician. The Bible has no references to female politicians because it was a different time period. Women had different roles then, but as I've said before, times have changed and thank goodness they have. I've looked for a verse that says women can't be soldiers or politicians, and I can't find it.

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Yes, sometimes you do need a "bad" bad guy. But my point was this: It's not immoral to have a "good" bad guy. Some bad guys are evil; some are just misunderstood. I prefer the misunderstood type, but sometimes the evil type suits the story better.

I don't even remember what sparked this part of the debate.

MrStaggerLee said:

Tell ya what, Doubtless, I'm gonna let your answers stand. You're clearly only speaking to your personal worldview, and that's just fine. There's no need for anyone to try to change your mind in this thread. It's about books and writing. You're writing only for yourself, so you can write anything you want to see. If you'd like to see subservient women, irredeemable villains and sinless heroes, I say go ahead and write that.

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That's just ignorant. I told you twice, already my heroes are not sinless. Not all the villains are irredeemable.

Whether such stories will hold the interest of an audience is something you'll discover if you choose to share them. Perhaps many people will find them very appealing. Certainly a lot of fairytales that follow that formula have lasting appeal.

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Very nice use of a backhanded compliment. Well, we'll jsut have to wait till my fairytale comes out, to see if it's any good, won't we?

I, personally, believe in my book. I've told you what it's meant to be, and you've completely blown it off as "unrealistic" and a "whitewashing [of] humanity." I must say I got better reception from a pagan and a heathen on Inheritance Forums, than I did from you.

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Doubtless said:

My sister works, as does her fiance. They have two children, who grow up in day care almost all the time, or with her drunkard father or friends. She only spends time with them when she has a day off, or at night, when they're already asleep. They're growing up without any good influence on them, because she wants to work, even though almost every cent she earns from her job goes to daycare. Those children will grow up to feel unloved. I understand if a woman has to work, but if you work just because you feel like it, and leave your children to be influenced by others, you are denying them their right to a mother. If you have children, and you love them, you will want to stay home, at least most of the time, and maybe get a morning job or something as a journalist.

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That's just ignorant. I told you twice, already my heroes are not sinless. Not all the villains are irredeemable.

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Very nice use of a backhanded compliment. Well, we'll jsut have to wait till my fairytale comes out, to see if it's any good, won't we?

I, personally, believe in my book. I've told you what it's meant to be, and you've completely blown it off as "unrealistic" and a "whitewashing [of] humanity." I must say I got better reception from a pagan and a heathen on Inheritance Forums, than I did from you.

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Lessien said:

It's not impossible to be a journalist and a good mom. I'll just wait and see what God tells me to do, but as for now, I believe He's calling me to be a journalist. If He calls me to quit later on, I will, but I hope He doesn't.

You do your thing, I'll do mine, I guess.

But you said...never mind.

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If I remember right, I was debating about the portrayal of sin in books. Somewhere along the line, my comments were misunderstood, and suddenly everyone thinks that I don't write any stories with redeemable villains.

Hey, different people have different tastes. If you believe in your book, keep it the way it is and see what kind of reception it gets.

I honestly don't see what religion has to do with this. If you're saying that I should like this book because it's a Christian book and I'm a Christian, then let me tell you that I don't like books just because they're Christian. There are quite a few books in the Christian bookstore I refuse to read. Why? Because they're not my kind of books. On the flipside, I don't hate secular books just because you can't find them in a Christian bookstore. There are some great books by authors who aren't Christians, and there are some great books by Christian authors. It's a matter of content.

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I wasn't really talking to you in what I said. I was talking to MrStaggerLee, who was employing backhanded compliments to insult my writing, though he has no reason to, other than that he may be angry with me. I was saying that a pagan and a heathen on Inheritance Forums were kinder than he was in their critiquing of my works. By kinder I mean brutally honest, but not insulting. They even encouraged me in my writing, and, though they found parts they thought lacking and expressly made it known to me, they never once insulted me or my work, save for the comment about "Heroic Hero Syndrome." I feel the same way as you about Christian and Secular books.

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Doubtless said:

I wasn't really talking to you in what I said. I was talking to MrStaggerLee, who was employing backhanded compliments to insult my writing, though he has no reason to, other than that he may be angry with me. I was saying that a pagan and a heathen on Inheritance Forums were kinder than he was in their critiquing of my works. By kinder I mean brutally honest, but not insulting. They even encouraged me in my writing, and, though they found parts they thought lacking and expressly made it known to me, they never once insulted me or my work, save for the comment about "Heroic Hero Syndrome." I feel the same way as you about Christian and Secular books.

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Doubtless said:

Very nice use of a backhanded compliment. Well, we'll jsut have to wait till my fairytale comes out, to see if it's any good, won't we?

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Lessien said:

I don't know if he was trying to be insulting or not, but sometimes brutal honesty can come across as insulting. I think his comments may have been a little harsh (just a little!), but he had a valid point.

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saying your story has sinless heroes, irredeemable villains and subservient women because I haven't read it, but some stories like that have been quite popular. However, they're almost the norm for fantasy now, and some people (myself included) would like to see authors who stray off the beaten path, if you get what I'm saying.

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Photios said:

Why is fairytale an insult? It's not what everyone always wants to read, but there is good reason why they are some of the most enduring and endearing tales in human history. Some popular examples are: Phantastes by George McDonald, The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Neverwhere and Stardust as well as the film Mirror Masks all by Neil Gaiman, and War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. These are all great stories that follow the basic structure of fairy tales.

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MrStaggerLee said:

In fantasy: how about 'strong female characters' who are actually strong? A lot of writers seem to think the way to write a strong woman is to make her bossy and self-involved, have her bite off more than she can chew, and make her get rescued by a man.

I don't recall ever seeing a fantasy story where a woman chose duty over love. I get so tired of seeing an author set up a female protagonist as all hardcore and self-sufficient, then have her do a 180 as soon as she encounters some emotional stress.

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MrStaggerLee said:

Doubtless, I most certainly did not mean to insult you. Making mention of fairytales was neither a compliment nor an insult; it was a reference to an old-fashioned mode of storytelling which still has validity. I've studied fairytales extensively in the process of learning to write, along with myth and history. I advise all aspiring writers to do so.

I don't believe in the 'I'm sorry you got offended' kind of non-apology, so rather than apologizing I'll simply state that I intended no insult.

As for me being angry at you? Um... no. That would be silly. I was just summarizing my opinion with the intention of stopping the thread-derail.

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Solomon Kane said:

You need to read some of the Dark Agnes stories by Robert E. Howard.
They deal with a woman who kills her fiance, from an arranged marrage, and manages to force her way into a mercenary company.
There's none of the "looking for a true man to change her heart" or the one who can "defeat her battle" crap that usually goes with these kind of stories.
Instead the stories deal with her having to force her way into being accepted for who she is and her own desire to live a life the way she wants to live it.

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Doubtless said:

I'll not even respond to this one. I have a feeling any response I give would lead to my being banned from CF forever.

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Photios said:

I wouldn't think so. Most Howard characters are not worth reading, at least when he was writing. They are mostly, to put it lightly, incredibly asinine jerks. Don't get me wrong, other writers have done well with the characters, as evidenced by Robert Jordan's Conan novels, and also the first of the Conan movies. However, I do retain a soft spot for Solomon Kane, as a character. He just intrigues me.

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Doubtless said:

There's a difference between brutally honest, and insulting, and trust me I'm quite familiar with it. Comparing my story with a fairytale is not brutally honest, its insulting. Just like if I were to compare your rework of Sleeping Beauty to CP's Inheritance, it would insult you, would it not? And I do have reason (however slight) to say that, because CP wrote, in essence, a rework of LOTR (as you so profoundly declare), and yours is a rework of Sleeping Beauty. Now, of course, I find no fault in this, because you are trying to do a rework of Sleeping Beauty, and acknowledging it (if not proclaiming it), and CP was not.

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Actually, I find it annoying how many people "stray off the beaten path" because they do it way too obviously. There's three things you can do: write something all your own; write something that's someone else's; or write something that's so far from anyone else's that it's pretty much the same tale told in opposites. The last is the one is used far too much.

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Doubtless said:

I don't think I comprehend exactly what you're trying to say.

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Doubtless said:

Alright. I guess we should really just leave it at that. Moving on, what kind of fairytales did/do you like?

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Lessien said:

There's a big difference between "reworking" a fairy tale and another author's work. Fairy tales were basically tribal stories, told by many people over the centuries. Over the years, they changed, and the version you hear depends on what culture you hear it from. The fairy tales we have are largely the European versions of those tribal stories.

Tolkien, on the other hand, was the single author of LOTR. He wrote it, came up with the world it's set in, came up with the characters and the plot. He did draw on mythology to do this, but as I implied before, myths had no single author; they were handed down throughout the centuries.

Therefore, it is perfectly fine to do a reworking of a fairy tale or a myth. Gail Carson Levine did this in Ella Enchanted, which is a reworking of Cinderella, and C.S. Lewis in Till We Have Faces, a reworking of Cupid and Psyche. Since they are stories told in many cultures and have been changed throughout the years, it's perfectly fine to make them your own, change some details. However, it is NOT okay to do a "reworking" of LOTR. Maybe it would have, if CP had used the same basic plot and changed some details, but he barely did that. Taking a published story and mixing it with elements from other published stories is not creativity; it borders on copyright infringement.

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Photios said:

You were saying you thought you might get booted for commenting on some of Robert E Howard's work. However, Howard's characters are generally not exactly heroic in the least. If you've ever read the original Conan stories, you'll know what I mean. In Howard, Conan has no redeeming features, with the possible exceptions of strength and cleverness. He is driven by arrogance, lust, and greed, and not much else. Other authors have written books with the character, as well as other of Howard's characters, and made them over a bit, Robert Jordan being the one I mentioned. However, this is not the way Howard wrote them. The only one of Howard's characters that I like is Solomon Kane, a Puritan witch hunter. He's not really that much better as a person than Howard's other characters, but I find him strangely intrigueing, though I couldn't say why. Hope all that explains what I was getting at.

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MrStaggerLee said:

I like fairytales that retain their flavor of myth, that haven't been gilded over and tidied up. Irish and Russian fairytales often have that quality, that aura of myth, that makes you feel like you're huddled by the fire listening while the winter wind blows outside. Safe, but not-safe. And Japanese fairytales are often wonderfully weird. Lantern-monsters! Umbrellas with one eye and one foot!

That said, I've always had a soft spot for 'The Twelve Dancing Princesses'. The description of the underground world never fails to fascinate me, and I sympathize with Stargazer the garden boy, trying to make sense of these crazy girls and their crazy secret life.

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Doubtless said:

Sweet. I hate all the Arabic fairytales, like Aladdin, and such. I love Norse mythology. That is more like epic sagas rather than cliched damsel-in-distress stories. I've never read any Russian fairytales. Have you ever read The Sea of Trolls? It's pretty good. Kind of sacreligious and indecent in at least two parts, but it's about an English (I think) boy, who gets captured by Vikings, and then has to set out on a voyage to the Troll city to complete some ritual and save his little sister. It has some real-life historical Vikings in it, like Ivar Beinlauss (Ivar the Boneless). It also deals a bit with the tale of Beowulf as a past thing that some of the characters went through. It's pretty good.

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Lessien said:

I haven't read any Russian fairytales, either, but I like the original versions of Eupopean ones, depending on what story I'm reading. Some of the Grimm fairytales are good, but some are just too freaky for me. When I say "freaky", I mean "horror-ish." Stories that are weird are great--such as the Japanese fairytales.

I like some of the Arabic fairytales, such as Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Theives (one of my all-time favorite stories). Only a few Disney fairytales are any good. They did a good job with Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, and Cinderella was okay, I guess. I've just never liked the original version of Cinderella.

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