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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 1344210" data-attributes="member: 5171">Informal.  Bunch of unpublished and new-pro folks, most of us Clarion graduates (Clarion: Intense 6-week SF/F writing workshop in Seattle/Michigan every summer.  Great for the SF writer who wants a good quality workshop run by actual SF writers and aimed at actual SF writers.).  It was great in that you could write an alien-mutation-monster-as-metaphor-for-breakup story and have it taken seriously, but less great in that SF writers have their own kind of snobbishness.  In the writing geek arena, Hard SF writers are cooler than Social SF writers are cooler than historically accurate fantasy writers are cooler than epic fantasy writers are cooler than space opera writers, and modern-day fantasy (like Charles de Lint) writers are these magic realism snobs who act all literary.I was writing about swords and elves and stuff.  I got a lot of responses like "Well, this is less ambitious than your complex-metaphor-for-complex-scientific-idea story, but for what it is, it's pretty good," which, really, is a really awful kind of praise.  Not saying that this was endemic to all groups -- it was really just a couple people -- but still led me in a "writing stuff I wouldn't read" direction.Yep.  Science fiction with a strong literary presence.Totally made it up.  But it would be cool, no?My senior English project was an examination of Strange Brew as a retelling of Hamlet with Bob & Doug McKenzie as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern.  I eventually went with Hosehead as Fortinbras, and Hosehead's ability to fly allowed him to reach the finale in time to prevent the deaths by poisoning.Well. see, I agree and I don't.  I agree because it's possible to deconstruct something to the point where it's no longer enjoyable, and if you're not taking the emotion into account, you're not really capturing it at all well -- so you had lousy teachers.But in an English class, I do think it's important to break stuff down.  Coming at things with a fuller understanding of the subject matter and the metaphors being used can make the experience more enjoyable (and if understanding more about it doesn't make it more enjoyable, then you shouldn't be in an English class to begin with; I don't get more out of a painting by understanding more of what the author was trying to do.  It just doesn't impress me any more than seeing the painting on my own.  Therefore, I don't take Art classes.).You know, you try to make a modern-day fantasy movie, and it just naturally turns into Highlander.Right.  If we heard a director say, "Well, I didn't read any of the back issues of this comic.  I just know the basics, but I really enjoy it, so now I'm going to make a movie that really just has fun with it," we all know that the movie is going to be a train wreck for people who liked the original comic storyline or concept.  The comic-adaptation movies that have been successful have been the ones that have demonstrated an understanding of the source material.Thus, an understanding on the part of the writer can lead to a more enjoyable movie.  And an understanding of all kinds of X-Men trivia certainly led to a more enjoyable experience of the second X-Men movie for me -- catching the Easter Eggs, seeing where we were going with the Phoenix saga... If I hadn't studied, I wouldn't have known that. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The key is to study things you like, and to find people who can make the study interesting.But really, a good novel should work on both levels.  As deep as you want to go with it if you're in that frame of mind, but a good compelling story even if you're a blank slate.</blockquote>

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