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I've got a theory...
Aug. 16th, 2004 05:34 pmIt goes like this: Old Trek was very, very important to SF writers. That's no so much my theory, although I haven't seen any organized analysis of the phenomenon. This idea comes from the accumulated autobiographical reading I've done about SF writers.
In English-speaking North America, which still dominated SF production at the time, that show meant a lot to Sf writers. They saw it as the first big, well-written (I know, but for the time), well-produced (I know, but for the time) TV show with an SF theme.
After Old Trek, the Void was full of galaxy-spanning Federations (er, Collectives, Unities, etc), big ships, and human drama against the backdrop of Far-Flung Alien Civilizations where people dress exactly like people in mid-20th-century North America, except in different colors. (All Females Wear Skirts. It's genetic. See New Trek.)
This is my theory:
I think Buffy is this generation's Old Trek.
I say this because in an effort to Find Out What the Kids are Publishing, I bought two (2) Canadian pulp SF mags, the established _On Spec_ and the newer _Neo-Opsis_. The idea being I could read them, figure out what the market's like, and determine what material, if any, I could send to them with the most liklihood of publication, or at least a pleasant rejection letter.
I read a story that read like someone's Buffy Fanfic with the names changed. I've got no objection to doing this, except that the charge of Buffy fanfic is, simply put, that it's about characters from the Buffyverse. We want to see them do things. Mostly nasty things. Mostly we want them to play out the sadomasochistic mesotext of the show. Random characters with no background and no character development... not so much.
It's not this writer's fault. James Tiptree, Jr., published a short story that he* admitted in his author's notes was a rejected Star Trek script. Reading it over, it's hard to see how it would work into the original series, although it probably could have been a part of the later TrekLit. There's an amazing phenomenon -- fanfiction goes legit, and so long as you don't try to make Kirk and Spock get it on, you can write in the Trekverse.
If Buffy is the new Old Trek in terms of providing the collective pool of images and archetypes from which we SpecFi types draw or to which we refer, however obliquely, I think that's really interesting. For one, although Buffy has some SF elements (the Initiative, the Buffybot), it's a horror, or what the fashionable call "dark fantasy," show. Old School SF is idealistic and expansive; horror is claustrophobic and introspective. SF is about ambition; horror is about fear.
How does that affect what people are writing and will write? Maybe it'll get into the psyche like good horror does and tell us the things we don't want to know about ourselves. I hope it'll be well-plotted, like Joss Whedon's maddening stomach-dropping plot curves and switchbacks. (In keeping with my rollercoaster theme this month.)
Or maybe it'll just be annoyingly glib stories with no plot and goofy demons and lines which the author thinks are much, much funnier than they actually are.
Anyway, it made me think I might be able to get published. Which is my latest goal; to actually send material out, rather than live in the Fantasy. I've got the sitting-down-to-write bit okay. Now I need the sending-out-material bit. And eventually, the being-best-friends-with-famous-people part which will naturally follow as water follows... water.
--rf
* Hi-ho, yes, I know Alice Sheldon was a woman, but when she wrote as James Tiptree, Jr. she went to some lengths to be perceived as a man, and I think it makes the most sense to refer to that well-defined masculine authorial persona as "he". Which is a whole other chapter in the SF theory book.... one day.
In English-speaking North America, which still dominated SF production at the time, that show meant a lot to Sf writers. They saw it as the first big, well-written (I know, but for the time), well-produced (I know, but for the time) TV show with an SF theme.
After Old Trek, the Void was full of galaxy-spanning Federations (er, Collectives, Unities, etc), big ships, and human drama against the backdrop of Far-Flung Alien Civilizations where people dress exactly like people in mid-20th-century North America, except in different colors. (All Females Wear Skirts. It's genetic. See New Trek.)
This is my theory:
I think Buffy is this generation's Old Trek.
I say this because in an effort to Find Out What the Kids are Publishing, I bought two (2) Canadian pulp SF mags, the established _On Spec_ and the newer _Neo-Opsis_. The idea being I could read them, figure out what the market's like, and determine what material, if any, I could send to them with the most liklihood of publication, or at least a pleasant rejection letter.
I read a story that read like someone's Buffy Fanfic with the names changed. I've got no objection to doing this, except that the charge of Buffy fanfic is, simply put, that it's about characters from the Buffyverse. We want to see them do things. Mostly nasty things. Mostly we want them to play out the sadomasochistic mesotext of the show. Random characters with no background and no character development... not so much.
It's not this writer's fault. James Tiptree, Jr., published a short story that he* admitted in his author's notes was a rejected Star Trek script. Reading it over, it's hard to see how it would work into the original series, although it probably could have been a part of the later TrekLit. There's an amazing phenomenon -- fanfiction goes legit, and so long as you don't try to make Kirk and Spock get it on, you can write in the Trekverse.
If Buffy is the new Old Trek in terms of providing the collective pool of images and archetypes from which we SpecFi types draw or to which we refer, however obliquely, I think that's really interesting. For one, although Buffy has some SF elements (the Initiative, the Buffybot), it's a horror, or what the fashionable call "dark fantasy," show. Old School SF is idealistic and expansive; horror is claustrophobic and introspective. SF is about ambition; horror is about fear.
How does that affect what people are writing and will write? Maybe it'll get into the psyche like good horror does and tell us the things we don't want to know about ourselves. I hope it'll be well-plotted, like Joss Whedon's maddening stomach-dropping plot curves and switchbacks. (In keeping with my rollercoaster theme this month.)
Or maybe it'll just be annoyingly glib stories with no plot and goofy demons and lines which the author thinks are much, much funnier than they actually are.
Anyway, it made me think I might be able to get published. Which is my latest goal; to actually send material out, rather than live in the Fantasy. I've got the sitting-down-to-write bit okay. Now I need the sending-out-material bit. And eventually, the being-best-friends-with-famous-people part which will naturally follow as water follows... water.
--rf
* Hi-ho, yes, I know Alice Sheldon was a woman, but when she wrote as James Tiptree, Jr. she went to some lengths to be perceived as a man, and I think it makes the most sense to refer to that well-defined masculine authorial persona as "he". Which is a whole other chapter in the SF theory book.... one day.
