thoughtfulA few of my preferences:
* Mermaids! I love mermaids. I've been thrilled by everyone enjoying the glimpse of the Undersea in One Salt Sea, because wow did those chapters feel self-indulgent. I could have written a whole book just explaining how the social structure of the Undersea functions. Someday, if I get a good enough excuse, maybe I will.
* Evil twins. Yeah, I know, it's a Patty Duke cliche, and I don't care. I love me some evil twin action. Blame my early exposure to All My Children and move on.
* Mathematicians and scientists in leading rolls. I think math is sexy. Science is basically my favorite thing that isn't the Great Pumpkin or my cats. It's pretty rare to find a book of mine that doesn't have at least one of these character types represented. (Ironically, Feed didn't need a scientist because I was the scientist, with all that delicious virology kicking around.)
* Alternate universes and timelines. Yes, I love breaking continuity and seeing what happens when it's put together in a new shape. Enough so that sometimes people have to hold me down and take the hammer away, since otherwise, I'll just keep smashing things. My one regret about prose as a primary medium is that it's hard to pull off alt-universes in most prose settings.
* The malleability of death. Look, I grew up on X-Men comics, soap operas, and horror movies. I enjoy playing with the elasticity of mortality, and finding ways around things that seem permanent. You can't cheat, but watching your dead girlfriend's robot replacement come to terms with the fact that she's really a brain in a jar delights me.
...there are more, but you get the idea.
One of the interesting things about knowing and being at peace with my narrative kinks is that I get much, much pickier about how they're used. You can't just raise the dead and expect me to be happy; I want it to make sense within the rules of your universe, hang together internally, and be fair to the character you've just brought back. If you're going to have a lead scientist, they'd better be a scientist, and not a magical knows-everything widget that can somehow apply every field of science KNOWN TO MAN to whatever situation they happen to be in (Winnifred Burkle, I'm sorry, but I'm looking at you).
If you're going to do an alternate universe, I expect you to think it all the way through. Yes, all the way through. One of my favorite shows rebooted their continuity two seasons ago, and while they made the usual assortment of flashy surface changes, they didn't consider all the ramifications of those changes. The fact that at least two of the characters involved didn't tear down heaven and earth looking for a way back to the original timeline was incredibly disappointing to me. (Shawn says this is because I over think these things. I point you, again, to my list of narrative kinks. These are the things I am programmed to over think!) Basically, I want stories that will give me what I want, but really commit to giving it, not tap-dance around going all the way.
Also, often, narrative kinks are a lot like salt or bacon: a little can go a long way. I adored Marvel's House of M alt-universe, but I would have been annoyed if it had replaced the main Marvel Universe completely (even though it was an awesome setting, and I want them to do more with it). I'm enjoying the current season of Fringe, with its re-imagined continuity...and at the same time, I find myself restlessly demanding the original timeline back, because I invested a lot of time and emotional attachment in those characters, those relationships, and every delighted "oh, it went like that over here" is followed by a "...wait, does that mean that this other thing didn't happen?" So sometimes, getting what you think you want out of a story isn't ideal.
And this is why I have proofreaders and editors who don't share my narrative kinks. They may encourage me to put more foxes, or talking animals in silly hats, into the narrative, but they'll help me avoid the story turning into a stew of "things Seanan wants to play with."
What are your narrative kinks? How do you feel about their use, and how do you react when they get overused? What narrative toys would you rather never came off the shelf again? Enlighten me!
Narrative kinks
October 20 2011, 19:44:39 UTC 5 years ago
* Intrigue, whatever the setting—court, corporation, political party, academia. Power, used for good and for ill. Secrets and the people who keep them. Conspiracies. Spies. Reporters trying to unravel it all.
* Characters who don’t know their own background/history/origins and have to find out who they really are. Or characters who are estranged from their families/childhood homes and find new ones.
* Romances that break the rules about who is allowed to love whom.
* Smart, mature teenagers who have adult problems and a lot of freedom.
* People who might look human but don’t act like they are, because they aren’t. (Yes, this gets me in trouble every time with the ‘if it looks like a human, it’s a human and should behave like a good human’ crowd; I don’t care.) Faeries who can’t say thank you, vampires who don’t want to be controlling but can smell when you’re in trouble 5 miles away, pheromonal command structures, demons who can’t lie. Being non-human should mean something more than having a funny forehead or being allergic to iron.
* Childhood loves that are true. I love it when some kid says “I’m going to marry him/her when I grow up” of a completely inappropriate young adult, then goes away for a while, comes back…and does. I also love it when childhood friends who have always treated each other with respect and love grow up and fall for each other. Particularly when they shouldn’t, due to class or caste or consanguinity.
* Science and magic working together because they both have rules and limitations and make sense, and also because I have seen enough evidence of both that I can’t believe they’re exclusive.
* Stories about actual religions/mythologies where the author Did The Research Well.
* Main characters who are creative—artists, performers, writers, crafters—or academic, or political.
* Female characters who are strong-willed, independent, self-directed, and don’t give it up for a man. (I know someone will ask why I like Bella Swan. She never gave anything up that she really wanted; the things she gave up were things that other people thought she ought to want. SHE wanted immortality, eternal beauty, physical prowess, and a place in the secret world she’d stumbled into far more than she wanted school or a job or a normal boyfriend. And she got them; it was Edward who kept telling her she should want that other stuff. SHE decided she wanted the child she accidentally conceived, when others were disapproving. And so on.)
* Male characters who are beautiful, self-possessed, witty, compassionate, capricious and flirtatious, who know their own worth, like to take care of people and make things beautiful.
* Adultery can be fun. I like situations where people are more or less forced to cheat situationally. I know, nobody is ever forced to cheat, you needn’t bring this up, but forced to choose between denying themselves actual love or cheating—I don’t think people should have to deny themselves actual love, though once you have it, getting to a place where you can have it openly should be high on the list of priorities—which doesn’t mean there might not be something higher.
* Transgender characters.
* Asexual characters.
* Characters in relationships with more than two parties, presented as something that happens, neither superior nor inferior to the other kinds.
Re: Narrative kinks
October 20 2011, 20:00:03 UTC 5 years ago
Re: Narrative kinks
October 21 2011, 01:08:30 UTC 5 years ago
Re: Narrative kinks
October 21 2011, 05:58:32 UTC 5 years ago