The eternal coast - commentary
So, two chapters in and no end in sight.
We have a big decision here, and I’m not sure what’s for the best. When coming up with this idea, I thought it was going to be fan fiction. It did, after all, grow out of the wreckage of a couple of rejected Doctor Who novel proposals, and would fit nicely with the Doctor or another couple of time active agents who have been on telly.
But. But but but. I don’t know if I want to do that. After all, won’t that take the story away from me, if I have to kowtow to pre-existing characters and conventions?
However, if I don’t use those characters, I have to come up with a replacement plan. Which could be as simple as featuring the Physician or Tungsten and Emerald. Except that would be intellectually dishonest. I steal so much from real life and the news as it is, maybe it’s not that great a crime. Shakespeare made his career on borrowing other people’s stories and characters, or basing parts on real people. Kim Newman routinely bases his stories on other people’s creations to create a literary wall of sound effect. And Alan Moore borrows from here, there and everywhere, as does Neil Gaiman.
And people like Neil Gaiman and Warren Ellis get paid for writing other people’s characters. But Harlan Ellison thinks it’s a crime and that all authors should work only on their own characters. As if authors can make a living that way.
Which reminds me. Time to acknowledge influences on The eternal coast. One is Christopher Priest. (Not the one who writes comics, but I like him too.) Christopher Priest is like a middle class, British version of Philip K. Dick. He trades in the same arena of shifting realities, that blur together until you can’t tell them apart, but unlike Dick, he doesn’t write compulsively. His output is more considered, his style more elegant and immaculate. He also pushes the boundaries of whether what he’s writing is actually science fiction, fantasy or just a particular genre of literary fiction (amongst whose number you could also count Paul Auster and Haruki Murikami) that deals with identity. Now I find middle class fiction on the whole to be insular and introspective and self-absorbed. It’s why my bookcases are filled with science fiction or writing by authors who are resolutely not English middle class. Middle class mindsets do not seek to understand the plight of others but think that if they feel guilty and help people out that’s enough. But Priest is so clever, so mindbending, that he binds me in his spell every time. I just read the Affirmation which is particularly wonderful, and that undoubtedly inspired, in part, the chapter we’ve just had with Carol and Paul.
Sam Morse is a pre-existing character of mine. Although his previous existence was in my super hero universe, where he headed up a special unit in the police force that dealt with superhuman crime, and Lois was his sergeant. Yes, it is a bad pun. That Morse is nothing like that Morse makes me wonder why I chose to give him that name at all.
Bugs
Talking to people about stuff, that’s when my brain works. Like today, I realised that if Roger Penrose is right about consciousness being a quantum phenomenon, then potentially through a mechanism like quantum entanglement something like telepathy is possible. We could all be connected together because at quantum levels space and time stop existing. Which is pretty cool. I can’t prove it because despite having a heavy basis in the sciences, I chose the arts at degree level, but if any scientists are reading, go ahead, knock yourselves out. Also because all quantum theory is just that, theory. Wouldn’t have done it if not talking to someone about Vedic mathematics. As some people know, from talking to me, or rather me talking at them and the conversation corkscrewing off in any and every direction.
Dynamic interaction is always the way forward.
But I was really here to say: William Gibson’s writing partner Tom Maddox, cyberpunk guy, has free writing at http://www.dthomasmaddox.com/.
And more comics from my youth, the Zoids at http://www.zoidstar.com/comics.html. Some of these, particularly the Black Zoid, are written by the great Grant Morrison. I remember being affected by the story where the Namer is fighting a baddie and you don’t see the end of the battle, because I became convinced he had been replaced by the baddie. It might have been the start of my long obsession with being replaced by an evil version of yourself. (That’s kind of where Looking Glass came from.)
Never let go
One thing a writer never does is forget an idea. You’ll have an idea and sit and try and make it work and for what ever reason, it just won’t. There’ll be something missing or you’ll be focussing on the wrong thing. And you’ll say to yourself, well, I’m just going to have to leave it.
I had one of those ideas. I wanted to do a Billy Hartnell Doctor story and so came up with a Nigel Kneale/John Wyndham concept. And then couldn’t figure out where it was going. Then I had another one. I wanted to do a Watchmen thing, but not with super heroes, with telefantasy characters from British television. Y’know, Randall and Hopkirk and the Avengers and the Champions and characters from the Gerry Anderson shows like Captain Scarlett and UFO (which is by the way, such a brilliant show). I even had thoughts for a Doctor Who style character called Mr Kloch. And a girl would call him Grandfather. Which I thought was pretty clever. I thought the sixties milieu, that mixture of hope for the future and yet such ingrained conservatism, would be a perfect setting.
It was going to be a comic strip. And then I thought, God, this is going to be a labour of love. I’m going to need to dig up a ton of Sixties photo reference and have a good idea of what was going on in the world at that time and I need a studio so that I can finally have a drawing table and I need more free time than I’ll ever have.
So I thought, write it. You can expand it out into the comic strip one day. And I started writing, and I realised that Bill Ravenscar wasn’t a black magician detective, a bit like John Constantine, who had a guardian angel, he was a neanderthal detective with a guardian angel. And then I realised that that First Doctor story would fit very nicely here. Not all of it. The seaside boarding house under siege thing had to be thrown out, but the basic gears of the story (I can’t give the details away because it’ll spoil the upcoming story) could be.
And because it’s a short story (I hope, it may balloon out of control) make it closer, more intimate. So there’s a bit of Hammer horror, a bit of Agatha Christie, a bit of sixties Who to it if it comes out right.
It made me think about the fact that there are a distinct number of thematic repetitions in what I’ve put on the site so far. Death is in there, and unrequited love, and the nature/nurture synergy. You can probably see more. I think we should start to spread our wings a bit more soon.
For some writers, reusing old ideas becomes something of a trademark. Robert Heinlein would bring his characters from various books together, and Michael Moorcock has made a living out of using alternate versions of the same characters (although they are all the same characters, in a way) and Kim Newman does much the same. It’s an idea that I’ve adopted in the past. Aubrey Gethsemane has had a couple of mentions here in various incarnations, and Benny and Burke exist in the Superstuniverse but Superstu doesn’t exist in the Benny and Burke universe.
It’s a bit like Douglas Adams pointing out that the inconsistencies in the Hitchhiker books is because each one takes place in a different universe. Or John Munch appearing in every American TV show ever made.
Of course, when we’re all used to multiple versions of fictional characters (how many different versions of Superman, Batman, King Arthur, Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes have you come across?), reinterpretation and fitting character types to the type of story being told, rather than to a cohesive mythology should be something we deal with with ease.
A lot of people don’t though. Consistency in details seems to be what they favour. I used to be a little bit like that, but got through it.
Why fan fiction?
The next few weeks are going to feature quite a bit of fan fiction. You’ve just had an unexpected bonus Columbo flash (which was a surprise to me too as I literally wrote it on Monday lunchtime) and then there’s a Doctor Who three parter coming up, so now is as good a time as any to answer the question, Why fan fiction?
I dunno.
No, I keed I keed. There’s a slightly mercenary sense, a slightly poetic sense and a downright lazy sense to doing fan fiction.
1.) I keep my best stuff for sale. No good using up all my original stuff if I one day want to make this hobby into a job. Although you’ve already seen some of my original stuff here, too.
2.) I want to write Doctor Who and have done for years. It’s unlikely to happen, so live the dream. Plus, who would have paid for that Columbo flash? I apologise, Mr Falk - it’s just that your acting is so evocative.
3.) I can write fan fiction faster because I don’t have to build as much. (Except that in Doctor Who you do have to build. And I had to build that world for Stark, too. So maybe I’ve not got the jist of hack work…)
Fan fiction can be cheap and shoddy, but it can also be clever. You can take what already exists and push it much further. If any of you had a look at lostluggage.org.uk, there’s a really good short story with the Ninth Doctor stopping a girl from committing suicide. It could never appear on telly for so many reasons.
At the moment I’m thinking about doing a Dangermouse fan fiction and a Full Metal Alchemist fan fiction. We’ll see.
Moods
Scott Lynch has revealed recently that he is suffering from depression and panic attacks. Depression isn’t great. It’s had it’s grubby paws over a couple of my friends and affected the families of people I know.
Joseph Conrad was a sufferer. He put it in his books and we suffered with him. Churchill, he did too.
People have suggested in the past that I might have it. But I think what I have is a lack of hope. Because I know how depression strikes people and I don’t think it ever hits me that bad. And always always I swing back so I think what I feel is just a shadow of what sufferers feel. But that’s enough to know that it must be bad.
I think about these people and wish there was an easy solution. I hope the writing sometimes fixes things. I write for that. I know that reading helps me, and exercise, and learning, when I’m unhappy and feeling lonely. (That and writing long indulgent confessional posts that I take off the blog after a couple of hours.)
This week I read Young Sherlock Holmes by Andrew Lane and Above the Snowline by Steph Swainston. Both are good books, though I don’t know I’d recommend Above the Snowline as an uplifting read, it is a strong one. I am convinced that Swainston hasn’t got a high opinion of women, but that fits with Storm Constantine, another female author who wrote a story about how the next step in evolution would only be applicable to men. Even with that story about the kid and the dog which was cribbed from somewhere else, I still like Above the Snowline, not least because it has Lightning in it. No doubt she borrowed the story on purpose, but still. Andy does a good job with the Young Sherlock Holmes but then I’m a fan of his from his Doctor Who and Randall and Hopkirk days so that’s no surprise to me. It is exactly what you’d expect, if a bit James Bond-y with it - though less James Bond-y than the film. I got a proof copy to review, but I think it comes out in June sort of time.
And I’m teaching myself PHP and MySQL. Which is a relatively simple language.
And I’m stopping myself from buying the Titan hardback collections of the Steel Claw and the Spider. But darn it, it’s tough.