Fictionlet
Jan. 13th, 2006 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneech"So I read this detective story you wrote," Brigid said.
"Oh yes?" said Greg.
"I have some problems with the plot," she continued. "Just little things, but after a while they really start to build up."
"Problems?" said Greg. "I thought I got the details pretty well hammered out."
"Well I don't mean inconsistencies or anything. Just stuff like, well, for starters, the hero's girlfriend doesn't get killed."
Greg blinked. "This is a problem?"
"And the rich white guy isn't an evil mastermind, doing horrible things under the cloak of respectability. I kept waiting for him to be unmasked, and it never happened."
"Well..." said Greg.
"Like I said, little things, but they built up after a while. But the real problem, the one that I just couldn't get past, was that the client wasn't the villain, weaving the hero into a web of lies and deception as a patsy. I mean, c'mon, the hero doesn't get betrayed by his most trusted compatriots even once. Nobody's going to believe that! Where's the angst? Where's the postmodern decay? Where's the nihilism? Why isn't the detective's sister a cocaine-addicted nymphomaniac who commits suicide at the beginning of the third act?"
"Er," said Greg. "Y'know, that's a good question. I just never thought of it, I suppose."
"All these upright people being just what they seem. It's just weird."
Greg shrugged. "I was going for avant-garde."
Brigid made a dismissive pfft noise. "You creative types. Always trying to be artsy-fartsy."
-The Gneech
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"Oh yes?" said Greg.
"I have some problems with the plot," she continued. "Just little things, but after a while they really start to build up."
"Problems?" said Greg. "I thought I got the details pretty well hammered out."
"Well I don't mean inconsistencies or anything. Just stuff like, well, for starters, the hero's girlfriend doesn't get killed."
Greg blinked. "This is a problem?"
"And the rich white guy isn't an evil mastermind, doing horrible things under the cloak of respectability. I kept waiting for him to be unmasked, and it never happened."
"Well..." said Greg.
"Like I said, little things, but they built up after a while. But the real problem, the one that I just couldn't get past, was that the client wasn't the villain, weaving the hero into a web of lies and deception as a patsy. I mean, c'mon, the hero doesn't get betrayed by his most trusted compatriots even once. Nobody's going to believe that! Where's the angst? Where's the postmodern decay? Where's the nihilism? Why isn't the detective's sister a cocaine-addicted nymphomaniac who commits suicide at the beginning of the third act?"
"Er," said Greg. "Y'know, that's a good question. I just never thought of it, I suppose."
"All these upright people being just what they seem. It's just weird."
Greg shrugged. "I was going for avant-garde."
Brigid made a dismissive pfft noise. "You creative types. Always trying to be artsy-fartsy."
-The Gneech
<-- previous B&G
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Date: 2006-01-13 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 04:43 pm (UTC)The movie began with, and maintained, an outrageous stance on a political issue, and at no point seemed apologetic. They defied the powers that be in the industry, and they flaunted, much as Greg did, every established convention of storytelling. To the very end of the last scene, they kept reinforcing this horrifically unpopular notion, and seemed to dare critics to blast them for it.
The movie was pro-America.
===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 2006-01-13 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 11:46 pm (UTC)===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 2006-01-13 03:01 pm (UTC)Too Whitebread...
Date: 2006-01-13 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 05:13 pm (UTC)The response to that is, I suppose, that you're overall an optimist. Or that you're not making a comic strip in country music style. "What do you get when you play country music backwards?" and all that.
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Date: 2006-01-13 06:32 pm (UTC)Country music these days, at least, seems to be rather upbeat, positive, and hopeful. I was pleased to hear this; some other forms had become fairly negative recently.
===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 2006-01-13 07:17 pm (UTC)That's interesting. I've not listened to country (well, had it played at me) in some time. I've also not been listening to most broadcast music as well anymore. I do recall once hearing the difference between Country and Western described. As it was put, Western would have a song about dealing with solitude and Country would have a song whining about loneliness. Perhaps a thing or two has changed in the last few years.
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Date: 2006-01-13 11:44 pm (UTC)There are songs about lonliness, too -- but they're generally funny, such as "On The Cover Of the USA Today" and the very clever "Big Blue Note".
What I have not heard is the general tone of "the world is going to hell" or "our oppressive government" common in folk music these days, or the violence and hatred of another form that I listened to the Top Twenty in America of (on XM channel 66) a few weeks ago. That was ... informative, if not happy-making.
I like folk music, generally, and I'm a sponsor a well-known folk musician who just won the "Most Played Album of 2005" award. But a fair amount of that genre is angry, disdainful, despondent, and ... well, political.
===|==============/ Level Head
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Date: 2006-01-13 05:20 pm (UTC)Now I'm tempted to try and write something like that.
ARRRrrrrgggghhh!
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Date: 2006-01-13 07:12 pm (UTC)Now I want to read Greg's story. :)
Congratulations...
Date: 2006-01-13 07:19 pm (UTC)Now, if only some of the folks writing for TV and movies would get the point, we could move along to some more Entertaining entertainment...
no subject
Date: 2006-01-13 08:23 pm (UTC)