Firefly, and Planning Ahead
Sep. 21st, 2005 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseSo last night my brain was far too baked for writing. My performance at work was empirically and visibly worse than usual. Archery started badly, but I let my technique foul up enough I stung my ring finger (again) before I wised up.
So, on my arrival home, I debated the old question: would it be better for me if I wrote and got somewhere but produced crud, or if i waited until I was sane?
End result? Huzzah, I've finally seen the first two episodes (Well, the first three episodes and first two stories) in the Firefly TV series. Colin bought it, knowing full well it had been on my last birthday list and I wouldn't have time to see any of it the next while.
Well, it looks worth getting enthusiastic about. In some ways, of course, the western in space feel does cause problems with the varied tech levels. In others... it's almost more interesting than the stories where everyone has roughly equal tech (With just enough variation between cultures to make the space battles more interesting), or where all the humans use the same tools to do the same things. The application is no more realistic than the uniform version (I do have a hard time justifying the use of horses as a primary mode of transport, and the train's lack of anti-theft measures that I'm sure could be developed at our tech level -- or lower) but the concept of varied tech levels isn't. But the characters are well-drawn so far, and there isn't a one of them that doesn't promise further development. (Except the spear-carrier villains, but they're always cardboard).
Anyhow, I had enough sleep last night, and I figured out the problem with the last scene I wrote, so hopefully another pile of leaps-and-bounds progress tonight.
Although... the story does feature a hurricane wreaking havoc about a chapter from now. That plot point has been there for years. BUt here and now, With Katrina done and Rita on the way (That story is outdated; she's a category 5 hurricane now), I'm not sure that isn't too close to home for many. Admittedly, the disaster fallout will be very different from that in our modern world, and the relief efforts (the real tragedy in our world) will be much much different in a disorderly, decentralized, low-tech culture. Not necessarily better, but different, and without the taint of deliberate, systematic prevention of relief efforts.
I'm really really worried about what the real-world hurricane coming is going to do after what the last nasty one did. But I'm actually looking forward to writing the fictional one, though it's going to be spawned by tragic death, and is going to be a killer in itself. Believe it or not, I like my characters. It's just that, as the aphorism oft quoted by Yog and Teresa goes: "Writing is about many things. Being kind to your characters is not one of them."
(Some versions of selkie folklore say that when a selkie is killed by a sealing ship, a storm comes and sinks the sealers. This is going to be the deliberate murder of a leader, following immediately on some other, even fouler play. The gods are, shall we say, pissed.)
So, on my arrival home, I debated the old question: would it be better for me if I wrote and got somewhere but produced crud, or if i waited until I was sane?
End result? Huzzah, I've finally seen the first two episodes (Well, the first three episodes and first two stories) in the Firefly TV series. Colin bought it, knowing full well it had been on my last birthday list and I wouldn't have time to see any of it the next while.
Well, it looks worth getting enthusiastic about. In some ways, of course, the western in space feel does cause problems with the varied tech levels. In others... it's almost more interesting than the stories where everyone has roughly equal tech (With just enough variation between cultures to make the space battles more interesting), or where all the humans use the same tools to do the same things. The application is no more realistic than the uniform version (I do have a hard time justifying the use of horses as a primary mode of transport, and the train's lack of anti-theft measures that I'm sure could be developed at our tech level -- or lower) but the concept of varied tech levels isn't. But the characters are well-drawn so far, and there isn't a one of them that doesn't promise further development. (Except the spear-carrier villains, but they're always cardboard).
Anyhow, I had enough sleep last night, and I figured out the problem with the last scene I wrote, so hopefully another pile of leaps-and-bounds progress tonight.
Although... the story does feature a hurricane wreaking havoc about a chapter from now. That plot point has been there for years. BUt here and now, With Katrina done and Rita on the way (That story is outdated; she's a category 5 hurricane now), I'm not sure that isn't too close to home for many. Admittedly, the disaster fallout will be very different from that in our modern world, and the relief efforts (the real tragedy in our world) will be much much different in a disorderly, decentralized, low-tech culture. Not necessarily better, but different, and without the taint of deliberate, systematic prevention of relief efforts.
I'm really really worried about what the real-world hurricane coming is going to do after what the last nasty one did. But I'm actually looking forward to writing the fictional one, though it's going to be spawned by tragic death, and is going to be a killer in itself. Believe it or not, I like my characters. It's just that, as the aphorism oft quoted by Yog and Teresa goes: "Writing is about many things. Being kind to your characters is not one of them."
(Some versions of selkie folklore say that when a selkie is killed by a sealing ship, a storm comes and sinks the sealers. This is going to be the deliberate murder of a leader, following immediately on some other, even fouler play. The gods are, shall we say, pissed.)
