 |
|
|
Scifi and Fantasy Forum: Writer's Discussion: Problems with Writing:
Human Enthusiast
Human Enthusiast
We have moved to new forum software and posting here is closed!
PLEASE BOOKMARK THE NEW FORUMS
I've found myself unable to get into an 'alien' state of mind. not just when writing. around the beginning of my i purchased one of the greatest games ever made, star craft, and played the crap out of it. of course, star craft has three alien races;
the terrans- mankinds space born cousins
the zerg- think the bugs off starship troopers only scarier.
the protoss- an advanced alien race that loves to get up close and personal with hand weapons.
Now, i always picked the humans even though the other races are much superior! and this made me look back on my life. It's always been like that.
in videogames i've always been the human. when i was a kid and the jurrasic park toys were hot i was like 'screw the dinosaurs, give me the cool one with the guns'. I always cheer for the humans even though they're outgunned and surrounded.
well, this affected my writing. I can't write good alien races. All of my aliens are more or less humans!
anyone else have this problem?
Posted By:  Bmat Jun 26, 2003 - 11:10 am |       | Interesting observation, jcbnfulks. Could it have to do with the instinct of self-preservation or species preservation? That you are unwilling to think of destroying self or species?
When I've played RPG's I've always gone for the human characters too.
And before somebody chimes in, Yes I've also played a bear- but a human-like bear- kinda.
jcbnfulks, you might wanna check out the chapter in the SFWA book Writing and Selling Science Fiction (edited by C.L. Grant, and, in checking the Library of Congress listing inside the book, apparently filed under his name) entitled: 'First, Sew on a Tentacle (Recipes for Believable Aliens.)' It's written by George R.R. Martin, and has a lot of interesting points, including:
- 'Funny Suits Do Not an Alien Make.'
- Bad aliens: See: Spock. The best way to have made Spock work would've been to make him a native of a human colony that disliked emotion. There was nothing truly alien about him, just pointed ears and logic. Also, humans will not be able to breed with aliens. And Spock's culture deviates 'less from the norms of Western humanity than any of a hundred cultures now living on earth.'
- 'If the only important differences between the aliens and the humans in your story are cultural and social, then your story ought not to have aliens at all.' See: Jack Vance, who creates thousands of exotic societies, 'from the mildly strange to the out-and-out bizarre to the downright kinky,' almost all of which are human. 'Aliens and exotic humans should not be interchangeable.'
- Non-Western culture assumed in an alien context =/= inhuman.
- Sometimes, it's better to use humans. If nothing is truly alien about the aliens, then there's no point in using them. Better to make a human culture with the aspects you want. If you must have aliens, tailor them to the story - make sure they have a purpose and a role to play, and that they're not just there for background noise.
- Possibly, keep your aliens mysterious, shroud their details. Don't have them come 'onstage' and say 'Ooga-booga!' That detracts from the both the scariness factor and the alien factor.
- (Martin's recommendation, and I second it) Read H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space.
(Disclaimer: All of this stuff is paraphrased from Martin's article, and is not my brainchild. I'd suggest reading the whole article, too, to get a better handle on what it says rather than just my interpretation.)
yeah, thats why i more or less do not use aliens anymore. i love world building and character building but i just can't write good aliens. the best aliens i've ever written were large alien tribes that represented a group from earth's past. like, there was the norse, the romans, the chinese, and the aztecs. kinda fun though to write about thirty thousand ignorant natives charging up against a massive steel wall topped my soldiers with energy weapons, an 80mm automatic AA gun, and all of this backed by heavy artillery. yeah, that got pretty bloody after awhile.
anyways i just can't get into the state of mind. it's like, aliens. . . .
dammit spock! get out of my head. worf!? what the. . .
and it usually ends with me huddling in a corner hollering 'go away jabba, go away!!'
oh, one thing i was thinking. okay, now i'm fairly religious, so thats one of the reasons i came up with this theory. okay, now god created the universe so why would aliens be green and slimey when god created man in his image? now, i know we're man, but what makes us think we're the only other species in the galaxy calling ourselves 'man'? maybe EVERY dominant species on a planet is man. the green slimey aliens are just like our bears. ya know, w/e. or maybe the 'men' from alpha centauri got tottally screwed and their praying mantis is four hundred frickin' pounds!!!!
so thats how i love to write aliens; either a hive mind or a human duplicate culture.
| Posted By: RongFo Jun 27, 2003 - 08:51 am | | Ursula K. LeGuinn had an interesting ongoing theme in her SF novels. As humans explore space and encounter other intelligent life, it turns out that most of is just like them. In some of her books the central questions of the story are: how did humans develop independently on different planets, and/or who could have "seeded" human DNA throughout the universe? Cool stuff for human-lovers.
| Posted By: Aslan Jun 27, 2003 - 10:19 am | | RongFo, that's mostly true, but LeGuin actually makes it fairly clear that the Hain populated the universe and then sent out anthropologists later to find out what happened. Very human-centric, and the heart of the 60s and 70s anthro-scifi revolution. It also points out culture points as well as or better than most alien-based scifi.
On the other and, I like Spock as an alien, Filmchick. He's the exaggeration of an ideal, a common and often effective use of aliens in science fiction. Again, it's to point out the Human Condition. But then, I haven't read anything by Martin that I've liked.
Everybody's got an opinion. 
Heh. Like I said, his paraphrased opinion, although I do happen to agree with him on all points. Heh.
And I haven't read his stuff, though I've had it recommended to me by folks as rather gritty fantasy. So I'm a blank slate regarding him.
As for LeGuin, he does mention her in the article. Let me see if I can find the page:
'Ursula K. LeGuin is another author worthy of note, if only because of her masterpiece, The Left Hand of Darkness. The people of the world Winter have one critical physiological difference from ordinary humans; they are sexual neuters except during certain periods of "kemmer," when they can become either male or female. Thus each individual is both man and woman many times during life.
'A small difference. But it is enough to make the Gethenians more unlike you and me than 99 percent of the awful papier-mache aliens who have plagued SF. A lesser writer would have made Winter an alien world, and destroyed the story. LeGuin, a thoughtful craftsman, made it a lost colony, and her people human.
'The first important lesson in using aliens in SF is knowing when not to use them; the writers who have ignored this rule are the culprits who have produced most of the cliched little green men of pulps past. Humans in funny suits.'
- Writing & Selling Science Fiction, C.L. Grant (ed), c. 1976. Page 155.
| Posted By: tri Nov 07, 2003 - 07:28 am | | The universe my stories inhabit is one based as closely on our current understanding as possible. And that means I don't bother with extra-terrestrial intelligences at all.
We have, thus far, zero evidence that technological civilizations are anything other than extremely rare. There may be only one right now in our whole galaxy (us).
That's why I have such a fondness for Ursula LeGuinn's universe. It is a lot like the one I imagine for the distant future: populated by many diverse societies, all more or less human because groups of humans spread widely across many worlds and became 'aliens' to each other.
My worlds are very much islands, seperated by huge distances and the lightspeed limit.
But where she has the ancient 'Hainish' as the sourceblood of Earth-humans and all the others, I find that idea ridiculous because we have way too much evidence that humans evolved right here on Earth (in Africa, more precisely). So my universe has many human races recognizing Old Earth as their ancient homeland.
tri
| Posted By: iamume Nov 07, 2003 - 11:12 am | | Although in fiction i'm fond of various alien species both absurdly cheesey and well done, I also favor humanity.
From a religeous perspective i'm a free agent so to speak. If divinity eventualy encompases a universal state then every image would be gods image,being simultaneously the god of whatever BEM we could imagine.
How we would include aliens in our literature would be influenced by our target market and intent in writting. Even an idea could be likened to an alien invasion overrunning and devastating ones perspective which would never again be the same. Ooh these synapses will recover.
|
|
|
|
|
Discussion
