We're still talking about David Bowie.

[ex_truepenn]

matociquala: Can I love him for admitting that he's only scared about an album if he thinks it's a good one?

truepenny: Yes. And that if he's not scared about it, he's doing something wrong. Totally. ::loff::

matociquala: Yes

Comments

[matociquala]

Come on! Where's your giant lit crit brain?

Bring it on!

[davidlevine]

The surface has to be worth people's while

This isn't apropos of David Bowie's crotch, but it just so happens that I was talking with a newer writer about his humorous noir SF story, which is as yet untitled. And I realized that the reason neither of us could come up with a good title for it is that the surface plot is undeveloped.

Which made me realize that all noir stories have both a surface and a real plot (yes, all stories do, but noir stories more than most). The surface plot doesn't really matter in the long run -- even the writers don't know who committed all the murders in The Big Sleep -- but it has to be there and it has to work. Casablanca is really about lost love, not about the letters of transit, but you've got to have the letters of transit or the plot doesn't get moving. The Maltese Falcon is really about loyalty, not the bird, but you've got to have the bird.

And the title is always taken from the surface plot.

It may not be much, but it's my literary revelation for the day.

[ex_truepenn]

That's really cool.

There's a thing Richard Hugo says in The Triggering Town about poems having a triggering subject and a generated subject. The triggering subject is the surface plot, or the thing that you go, "Ooh wouldn't it be cool to write a story about ..." The generated subject is the real plot, the thing the story is about. And, yeah, you have to have both.

I discovered in using Hugo (to try) to teach creative writing that most new writers are all about the triggering subject/surface plot, and may in fact resist strenuously efforts to make them move on to the generated subject/real plot. Whereas in twentieth-century literary poetry, the triggering subject/surface plot often gets attenuated to the point you can hardly find it.

But I agree with you. You have to have both. And the more they talk to each other, the stronger the story is going to be.

[davidlevine]

I'm working on a story right now in which I'm trying to do exactly that (have the surface plot and the real plot talk to each other) and it's being very hard. I think the real plot (sometimes called "theme") works best when it evolves organically over the development of the story, and you notice it either late in development (in which case you can go back and insert subtle reinforcements) or you don't notice it at all until the story is published (in which case you say "ah, I meant to do that" and goggle in amazement at the number of places your subconscious inserted those subtle reinforcements for you). In this case I have the sub-surface plot deliberately in mind and it's making the whole thing harder. I hope it doesn't end up feeling forced.

[ex_truepenn]

I have been having this problem a LOT lately.

I am telling myself it's because I'm learning how to create a surface plot around a deep plot (or, as you say, theme), and therefore there's all this trial and error and learn by doing. (I think I forgot to mention in my post the other day how much I hate learn by doing. I hate it.) But it's much harder that way round. Phooey.

Re: I've been keeping this icon ready for AGES! And I get to USE IT!

[matociquala]

Especially when one of the things the artist is deconstructing is the social construct of sexuality itself, de-dichotomizing, de-categorizing, creating a continuum where society wants HARD AND FAST RULES. What truepenny said about the Male Gaze is really relevant

Re: I've been keeping this icon ready for AGES! And I get to USE IT!

[matociquala]

And you and I met apart-from-the-work, so we have a non-fan-founded relationship. Exactly. It gets sticky.

There's only so often somebody can tell me how much they love my stuff before I want to talk about... television. Or rock and roll. Or hiking trails.

(Not that you do that.)

(Weirdly, I can talk about the *craft* forever. But being praised for what I do? I'll be under the couch. *g*)

mrs_actornamehere would be a great sock puppet.

And yeah. Kids get a pass. They're *supposed* to fixate on somebody. It's what we *do* at sixteen, twenty. At forty? It wooorrries me. (Note: It is possible to be a long-term fan without being a creepy stalker, I hope. Otherwise, I'm going to find out one of these days about the restraining order Eric Stoltz has out on me.)

Oh, as long as we're talking about songs that deconstruct creepy narrators:

la.

http://www.david-bowie.co.uk/Falldog_Bombs_The_Moon.html

[nicked_metal]

Although I now understand men who say "No, really, I do respect..." *g*

One of the most frustrating things that can happen to me is when an attractive, smart woman is wearing something that grabs my attention. The internal dialogue gets hopelessly cluttered with repetitions of "Look at her FACE, damn you!"

Which is the difference between "popular entertainment" and "art." If his genderfuck was not accompanied by catchy and popular songs, and wasn't saturated in popular culture--if, you know, it was all stark and demanding, with all the theory showing, no one would watch him, but everyone would write about him.

Our society has got fucked in the head somehow.

I disagree. Egan makes the point well in his novels Distress and Diaspora. There are people whose role in life is to come up with new ideas. There are people whose role in life is to communicate ideas. As both of those tasks become more difficult, there is going to be an increase in specialization

[matociquala]

I don't think you're following Sarah's line of argument. What she's saying (what we're talking about in depth, in fact) is how he uses the charisma and performance to get across something subversive and important that people wouldn't sit still for if it were stripped of entertainment value.

***

Is the black magic one the eyeroll and annoyed dismissal of magical thinking in all its vagaries? Or something I haven't seen?

[nicked_metal]

I don't think you're following Sarah's line of argument. What she's saying (what we're talking about in depth, in fact) is how he uses the charisma and performance to get across something subversive and important that people wouldn't sit still for if it were stripped of entertainment value.I agree with that. What I'm disagreeing with (and not very skilfully) is the idea that it's a bad thing. There's a lot of 'doing' that is essential to human survival, and there will always be a conflict between 'doing' and 'thinking

[matociquala]

She's not saying that that's a bad thing.

It's a beautiful thing. It's the core of art.

She's saying that it's fucked up that if he were doing a starker performance, he'd be taken more seriously.

(The other thing about Bowie is that he lies in interviews, and can't be arsed to keep the lies straight. So.)

But yeah, he's obviously a phenomenally smart man, and one who figured out very early on that dichotomies are sort of generically false. And in the process of insisting that, loudly, for forty years, he's managed to change the world in some interesting ways.

[niheastkz]

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