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lessons from writing mad-scientist-on-mad-scientist yuri fanporn
Bear with me, I'm learning as I go here.
Writing-wise, I'm generally a line-level perfectionist and a structure-level let's-hope-it-kinda-works-ist. I guess, especially now, I believe in ambitious compromises; it is okay to grab a completely stupid idea and run with it and fall flat on your face, or not fall on your face but still look totally ridiculous anyway. In this case, there's all this concept-level stupidity - using this tunnel-vision perspective (I-you, but addressed to a mute, inert character, namely the zombie cyborg in the box in the corner) that I think is decently creepy (and has produced some fucking horrible one-liners) but makes it hard to add any other atmosphere or chemistry to the whole thing; writing a short (will probably max at 7-8k) story that rambles over the course of three-and-a-bit years - but this shonky structure has somehow filled up with other things that were worth the time to write. It's okay that the premise was a giant mistake. It's mostly finished, too - there's just one more gigantic hole and lots of giant tweaks left.
And I learn as I go. I don't get any better, necessarily, I just notice more things about how it goes for me. A few months ago I was trying to verbally get to grips with cyberpunk. I just realised that what I'm doing right now is conceptually getting to grips with hard SF. I'm throwing in ideas and monologues and quote-nods from both the Cyborg Manifesto* and from Nancy Cartwright's work (though I've not added any entity realism yet. I also haven't added any Special Enhancements. I can't have everything, can I?) It's like Rule 34ing these poor philosophers, only mostly without the porn because I think I'm just going to ftb out of both laziness and uncertainty about how to play it.
But. Anyway. This is how I'd do hard SF; I wouldn't use science, that's someone else's game - I'd use philosophy of science, because I understand it better. I am definitely tucking this one away and saving it up for Really Reals Writing sometime, because OF** about Feyerabend or something would be totally fuckawesome and ought to exist already.
M's phone is charging on the desk next to me. He just got a message from his friend Mike. It says 'Good news, I talked to victoria about the furry, and she assures me that she does not have a crush on me.'
*fact: it's really called A Cyborg Manifesto. You get me?
**or RPF, I'm not fussy.
Writing-wise, I'm generally a line-level perfectionist and a structure-level let's-hope-it-kinda-works-ist. I guess, especially now, I believe in ambitious compromises; it is okay to grab a completely stupid idea and run with it and fall flat on your face, or not fall on your face but still look totally ridiculous anyway. In this case, there's all this concept-level stupidity - using this tunnel-vision perspective (I-you, but addressed to a mute, inert character, namely the zombie cyborg in the box in the corner) that I think is decently creepy (and has produced some fucking horrible one-liners) but makes it hard to add any other atmosphere or chemistry to the whole thing; writing a short (will probably max at 7-8k) story that rambles over the course of three-and-a-bit years - but this shonky structure has somehow filled up with other things that were worth the time to write. It's okay that the premise was a giant mistake. It's mostly finished, too - there's just one more gigantic hole and lots of giant tweaks left.
And I learn as I go. I don't get any better, necessarily, I just notice more things about how it goes for me. A few months ago I was trying to verbally get to grips with cyberpunk. I just realised that what I'm doing right now is conceptually getting to grips with hard SF. I'm throwing in ideas and monologues and quote-nods from both the Cyborg Manifesto* and from Nancy Cartwright's work (though I've not added any entity realism yet. I also haven't added any Special Enhancements. I can't have everything, can I?) It's like Rule 34ing these poor philosophers, only mostly without the porn because I think I'm just going to ftb out of both laziness and uncertainty about how to play it.
But. Anyway. This is how I'd do hard SF; I wouldn't use science, that's someone else's game - I'd use philosophy of science, because I understand it better. I am definitely tucking this one away and saving it up for Really Reals Writing sometime, because OF** about Feyerabend or something would be totally fuckawesome and ought to exist already.
M's phone is charging on the desk next to me. He just got a message from his friend Mike. It says 'Good news, I talked to victoria about the furry, and she assures me that she does not have a crush on me.'
*fact: it's really called A Cyborg Manifesto. You get me?
**or RPF, I'm not fussy.