Scary Story Season

October will be here soon. Time for some creepy reading material, yes? 

Recently I heard about a book of short stories which had been written by AI (artificial intelligence; in short, computer-generated stories). The book is available on Amazon, here. The book is available on Kindle Unlimited and since I subscribe, I took a look at it. My take on the book: although it was interesting to look at, I don't recommend that anyone purchase it. The sentences use proper grammar and word choices, so they are readable, and the premise of most of the stories starts off as interesting (the introduction states that the computer was given an introductory sentence to start off with for most stories, or a selection of scary stories to review). But many of the sentences are repetitive, the plots build no tension whatsoever and they all end on a nonspecific note. In fact, in many of the stories it's strongly implied that the narrator dies but there is no explanation of how they are then able to narrate the story! While it's an interesting accomplishment, all that really has happened here is that the computer has re-invented bad creepypasta. And heaven knows there is already plenty of that to go around.

There is certainly better horror writing on the internet if that is what you are after. I can, for example, heartily recommend the SCP website as a source of good reading. The rationale that fuels the website is this: the SCP is a secret institute tasked with restraining many monsters, anomalies, what have you from wreaking havoc in our world. Each story is framed as a report which includes its restraint requirements, the circumstances under which it was found, its effects and so forth. The danger level of these items does not correlate with restraint requirements; for example, something marked "safe" can drive people to suicide. It simply means that it does not have to be guarded or locked in a cell.

The website has been recently updated, and now in order to access it you have to type your name (or a name, at least). If you click on certain stories, this name will be entered to make it look as if it involves the reader directly. This adds an extra frisson, if you will. I will list two of my favorite entries here. 

SCP-087, "The Stairwell," is very simple but utterly terrifying and is probably the single best story on the site. It's a stairwell. And there's something in it. Just go read it. (ADDENDUM: I just went to reread the story and unfortunately the appended reports are missing. Basically, they begin with mildly disturbing and get scarier... and the final report is [REDACTED]. Sometimes less is more.)

The other is SCP-2521, which was created for a contest on the site requesting a story with the fewest words possible. This submission has no words. It's all done visually and is absolutely brilliant. Interestingly, there were a lot of complaints from site members and the author didn't win the contest, because it didn't follow the "fewest words" rule. This issue is worth mentioning, as the administrators and members of the website are known for their pickiness. On the other hand, that is precisely what keeps the overall quality of the site so high. Mediocre writing is not tolerated. And the happy ending is that the entry was immediately awarded a permanent place on the site (most submissions are severely edited and need to be rewritten before getting a spot, and "newbies" are discouraged from submitting stories until they have been around long enough to learn the site's requirements). 

So if you dare, and if you enjoy scary stories, give this site a try. Just don't say I didn't warn you...

Labels: Writing

 You Can Sell Your Soul and Still Lose

One of my longtime goals has been to write mysteries (I do write fan fiction but would like to write something I can sell to the public). In pursuit of this goal, I have started to follow several blogs about writing including According to Hoyt, Mad Genius Club, Robert Kroese, Monster Hunter Nation and Celia Hayes. 

These blogs and their authors have some things in common. They tend to work in the scifi/fantasy genres, though not all of them do; they publish independently, usually via Amazon (some of them also have conventional publishers but do at least some independent publishing); and they trend to the conservative/libertarian side of the aisle, or at the very least they keep politics out of their writing. As a result they have met more setbacks in the course of their careers than one might expect (and Lord knows, most writers face enough of those). They don't whine about it but they do discuss it. Most publishers strongly prefer "diversity" in the works they publish these days, as defined by issues related to race, sexuality or gender. If the author's work checks more than one of those boxes it's even better. That is not to say that the writers I follow limit themselves to tales about strong, silent white men who conquer new worlds and exploit their resources when they are not killing dragons and marrying princesses. Their works are far more interesting than that, often irreverent and tweak quite a few sacred cows. This, of course, is why they keep running into roadblocks. Publishers expect novels to meet certain criteria (see my recent post on Charles Stross and his Laundry Files series, which has turned into a labored metaphor for global warming). The rule for books, I feel, is that the work should be fun and interesting rather than grim and judgemental.

But... denizens of the scifi universe now appear to be turning on even the most rigorously diverse writers. The most recent example is an author named Stephanie Burke. She was a guest presenter at the scifi convention Balticon last month and her bio reads, in part, as follows: 

Stephanie Burke is a USA Today best selling multi-published, multi-award-winning author, master costumer, handicapped, wife and mother of two. From sex-shifting, shape-shifting dragons to undersea worlds, up to sexually confused elemental fey and homoerotic mysteries, all the way to pastel challenged urban sprites, Stephanie has done it all and hopes to do more.

So far, so diverse. I wish to point out here that I have not read any of her works and do not intend to analyze or criticize her writing, as I am unable to do so. My point is that today I learned from Twitter that midway through Balticon she was accused of making "offensive statements" (details unspecified) and was asked to leave. Her presentations were canceled even though the accusation was apparently unsubstantiated. Link is here. Ms. Burke was extremely upset by this incident, and rightfully so.

Example Number Two: right around that same time, author Mercedes Lackey was speaking on a panel for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and used the term "colored" when speaking about an author and critic named Samuel Delany. He is well known, well-respected and, yes, African-American. Mr. Delany specifically said that he was not offended by the term or by Ms. Lackey, who was praising his work at the time. Not only was she kicked out of the convention after this incident, but so was her husband. 

Per Wikipedia, [Ms. Lackey] has... published several novels re-working well-known fairy tales set in a mid-19th to early 20th century setting in which magic is real, although hidden from the mundane world. These novels explore issues of ecology, social class, and gender roles.

I'm beginning to discern a pattern here. Are you? It doesn't matter how much diversity street cred you have, if you don't toe the political line your readers and publishers can turn on you in a heartbeat. If you need another example, look at the one everybody knows: J.K. Rowling. Her adoration ratings, already quite high, jumped after she stated that Dumbledore was gay and had been in love with his nemesis Grindelwald - until she stepped up to the plate to support the rights of cis women. Since that time she has been pilloried on social media. (Incidentally, I think this explanation of Dumbledore's motivations is consistent with everything we learn about him in the series. But it was not touched upon because it was a children's book series, and because as a product of the nineteenth century, Dumbledore would have had very good reasons to conceal his sexuality for his entire life.)

So my takeaway from these developments is as follows. Write what you want to write, but don't join the diversity conga line in a misguided hope for success. All it takes is one wrong turn of phrase, or even (as we have seen above) one wrong word. Your career will be instantly trashed. 

Labels: Politics, Pop Culture, Writing