fineprint ¶
Why do I go to so much trouble here to undermine creative impact of stories I write? You might enjoy them more if you harbored a fantasy I enjoy a deeply eccentric world view — then you could wish to think like me.
I benefit little from your admiration of any perceived raw creative talent you suppose I have, since my career as a tech person normally demands an uncommonly lucid and rational style of thinking and behaving, which is in fact perfectly normal for me in my work life.
And I prefer to avoid seeming driven by random creative impulses when it comes to prospective future employers who find stories and wonder: what the heck does this mean? My explanation is actually quite mundane:
It's easier to show complex ideas and tradeoffs in fuzzy terms, without committing early to one view, by using a story format with competing ideas represented by different characters. I think virtual characters improve your short term memory's ability to tag competing ideas in lines of reasoning, and dramatic conventions lend structure; that's all.
Whether our brains have some native support to track multi-voiced narrative, or whether we simply have a lot of training from media we consume, the fact is we're well prepared to digest information in this format. As a result, a monolog in one voice is slow, inefficient, and labored. First person exposition is just less effective.
Most importantly, I want to leverage a side effect of using characters presumed neither to know the truth, nor to have considered carefully before speaking: I can say something and you can listen to it without any burden of supposing I think it's true. Viewpoint churn nurtures ideas. The game (as blogged in January 2008) is to become familiar with notions you later see provide relevant context.
ground hog's day ¶
By coincidence, today's date fits my introduction of partially fictional technique on this site. One of my favorite movies is Groundhog's Day starring Phil Connor, I mean Bill Murray. It's a surreal comedy that isn't science fiction because there's no science to the idea of being stuck in one day you live over and over (and over).
But by assuming a bizarre premise, you can create a context to explore ideas you find interesting, and perhaps enlightening in terms of how you feel about things. If you can get over the discomfort of pretending a weird idea is true, just for sake of discussion, you can make opportunity to view old things in new ways. You might imagine a new way to see something, since it's easier to see in an odd context you supposed. Any insights you find there might translate, in some way, to the real world.
For some years I've been interested in the use of fiction as a platform for thought experiments, in a context where no rule must be held inviolate.
tall tales ¶
I might soon write here in a strange format. I expect to use it often and keep doing so a long time. I'll explain a little now, then add more later as needed. Each time I use this new format I'll add a link to this explanation.
The strange format resembles fiction and often uses dialog between characters I invented. The tone may be conversational and, if I do it right, will look very similar to entries on this site in first person for blogging. In other words, a goal to lend versimilitude via style alone will apply. My tone might sound just as serious and/or informal as always, right before the odd part occurs. (Any "going off the deep end" transition aims to be funny.)
However, many redundant signs will appear, showing I'm not serious, at least in a factual sense. You are not to believe what I say, or believe that I do (believe what I'm saying). Please tell me you're smart enough to parse that last sentence. The signs are all based on things that could not be true laced with the more reasonable parts.
If you like, think of this as a game or a puzzle. I'll tell you more about it by and by, so you can know how to play. In a couple years or so, perhaps, I might start a web site partially based on this game, in which part of the game is figuring out how to play. The fun part will be not knowing some of the time. If you're a little puzzled, the game is working. Rules will change to ensure you can't stay on top of them.
Odd character traits are signs to give you clues:
- characters mentioned are imaginary
- they might hold or state bizarre ideas
- they take impossible notions for granted
- they can possess or acquire super powers
- they act as though in control of their fates
- they don't recall many/most past interactions
- they argue with or threaten one another
- they sometimes see beyond a story format
- their names often consist of three letters
Beyond those character traits, these are also clues:
- one or more story element feels surreal
- science fiction or magic casually appears
- reasonable premises change to weird ones
- nothing seems impossible as a story premise
- inter-contextual story framing violations occur
How many times on this site have I mentioned people by name? Usually only when I link a story online you can access. I use single letters to refer to folks I know personally, to keep them anonymous. So often your first clue I'm telling a story will be someone is named at all: I say Ged or Vex did this or that, or Poe or Sly said something. Who are they? They don't exist. They merely satisfy the need to populate stories with human figures.
I'll link spots where they appear to this blog entry, so you figure it out faster. Now, if you like further explanation, blog entries right after this one give background and further context. But before I do, first note this rule:
I am not trying to entertain you. At least not now anyway. You can demand entertainment when you pay me. I'm not writing fiction to tickle your fancy, so I'll make no effort to hit standards of novelty and fashion you expect in media you consume for fun. Even worse, at times I may be completely serious, and not fun at all. Instead, I might simply take advantage of efficiencies to convey information in story format. I can write complex and subtle things much more clearly when characters argue with each other and challenge each other's views.
In short, the word fiction isn't as good as parable or allegory to describe what I'm doing. I might present very dry and boring technical info this way, so tough it out.
honest abe ¶
In high school I noticed it inconvenienced me that I had a reputation for never lying, under any circumstances. It greatly reduced the scope to which other folks accomodated themselves to me because it was easy to box me in after asking me a question. My honesty was used to screw me over since I was predictable. I thought I might fix my situation by borrowing the idea of bluffing from poker, but I was still averse to lying.
So I decided I would do something to make folks less certain they believed every thing I said, and I would do it by telling a story that wasn't a lie since no one could actually think it true. And yet, having heard words come out of my mouth at variance with reality, people might need to think twice about what I said.
I went in the drama department's green room just off the stage from the theater, where I often hung out with kids in my senior year. And I told them a story about Nettie, one of the nicest girls in school. The story began with me asking whether folks had heard about Nettie. Of course since I was an honest abe, I had instant attention.
Nettie was a large girl — much larger than me — but one of the sweetest human beings. She was one of the most popular girls in school, and was nominated prom queen and nearly carried it off from being liked. You might say the germ of my story idea came from imagining Nettie was a destructive juggernaut, instead of being an angel.
I told the kids a tale about Nettie running amok in various parts of the school, starting in the drama department — right over there as a matter of fact — and destroying everything in her path like a human tank that couldn't be stopped. You could have heard a pin drop between questions to draw out more detail. Everyone smiled and played along with me, not quite sure what I intended by this game. But it was hard to find out since I'd only expand the story further when asked a question.
At first, I thought this experiment had failed because no strong reaction occurred. But shortly thereafter I had a new sign it worked better than I expected. I was invited to go to speech contests to participate in a category apparently suited to my talents: improvisational story telling.
I did, and I was good at it. The typical format involved drawing a story premise from a hat and taking 60 seconds of preparation time before starting. I had a formula that always worked, which primarily relied upon stock characters who could be slotted somewhere in almost any story. I had no problem playing their point of view in real time. My gimmick involved bratty non-human characters to play inanimate objects with heavy personality. This was colorful.
But I saw a downside to my new reputation as an unpredictable fantasist: if I said anything odd with sufficient conviction (and I always did) it was perceived as invention instead of fact, and often no one bothered to mention I was not believed. An example:
One day the drama teacher received a written message from someone named Michael Taylor, saying he would be at the production of our current play that night. He claimed to be a former student, but no one had the slightest idea who he was. I offered them my solution to the problem.
I told them when I'd first come to that high school, on my very first day in gym class by coincidence I sat next to a student named Michael Fink, whose name had struck me as so interesting I asked him about it. Fink had told me, I assured them confidently, he'd always hated his last name and planned to some day change it to his maternal grandfather's last name — which was Taylor.
So obviously this message was from Michael Fink: he'd finally changed his name to Taylor. Mystery solved.
Everyone nodded thoughtfully, in a way I took to mean gratitude. However, that evening when Michael Taylor showed up — and it was in fact the same guy whose name had been Michael Fink — they were all stunned.
It was like I'd said Godzilla was coming to the party, and then Godzilla actually showed up. And I knew then I'd have an ongoing problem whenever I knew something unexpected as a result of relating unlikely bits of information, which I did all the time as a data sponge.
I get this reaction from my kids today when I tell them trivia (I'm chock full of science trivia, for example) in exactly the same tone of voice I use when I make up really strange nonsense to test whether they're listening critically.
first person ¶
When I use the word "I" on this site to refer to myself, I'm telling the truth, no matter how odd the story might sound. The use of first person pronoun in writing is your clue you see very conventional, boring, blog writing.
Third person stories, where I don't appear at all, are probably stories about fictional characters then, right? But I'll talk about those characters like I really mean it, even when I don't. I'm not going to label those stories with a "this is not true" label because it spoils the atmosphere like explaining a joke before it's told. But I will link today's tall tales blog entry each and every time. You can also treat the absence of the tall tales link as a sign I'm perfectly serious.
Some things about me are unlikely, so you might think it's fiction when it's not.
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