| From: | Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Reflections on time.... |
| Date: | Fri, 2 Jun 2000 10:14:26 -0700 (PDT) |
conveys the sense of the speed of wired characters,
without a gimick?
>
> Sorry, but you have to have "gimicks". We live in a
world of time and space, and detailed descriptions
must be based on that. Even abstract writing is based
on real world time and space.
Okay, with adequate snippage.
No, you don't. First person writing can convey the
sense of speed by filtering what you see through the
narrator's perspective, as I mentioned in another
post. It's easiest to do when the narrator isn't wired
up, but it doesn't REQUIRE a gimmick.
And by gimmicks I mean things like Patrick's clock
(check the archives if you don't remember that).
As for your example, Graht...well, a) it wasn't really
all that good (no offense - I don't write well if I
just dash something off in a minute or two and think
most people fall into the same boat :) ) and b) it
didn't give us a sense of the speed AT ALL. What you
did there was abstract it completely. All we had was a
guy falling down, then this other guy saying what he
did (hell, for all we know he could be exaggerating to
make himself sound tougher and faster). There's a huge
difference in the imagery involved and how much the
reader is drawn in between that and actually
experiencing (through "being there" while reading) the
speed.
> And why can't an abstract representation convey the
true whirlwind of an SR fight?
Look at it this way. I always recall Nigel Findley's
description of the wired elf in Shadowplay (whose name
I can't remember) - he described him popping up at a
window, shooting at the bad guys "like a chipped
jackrabbit". Interesting simile (which is why I
remember it), but it isn't the same as if he'd gone
into detail describing the elf hopping up and down,
popping caps, blasting the bad guys away etc. It's in
the level of detail - the more detail, the better you
can picture the scene and the more of a feel you get
for it. On the whole.
I'm not saying "abstract bad, detailed good" - I AM
saying I've never seen "detailed" done successfully in
a shadowrun story.
> You've contradicted yourself and failed to be
specific. I don't understand the point that your are
trying to make.
> -Graht
On the contrary, I haven't contradicted myself - I've
just elaborated what I was saying (which may have
contradicted what YOU thought I was saying), and after
hearing what Patrick had to say and considering more I
REVISED my opinion - to a degree. And I don't
understand how you could miss my points now. So I'll
just leave it here.
Well, not quite. Forgetting the issue of how hard it
is to write "fast", my original contention was that
I've never read a Shadowrun book that, when going into
detail as opposed to abstracting the action, gave me a
true sense of that action happening at superhuman
speed. None of the stories have successfully forced my
perspective there (by this I mean that if I was
reading cyberpunk for the first time, knowing nothing
about it, none of the detailed scenes would cause me
to go "wow, that's fast"). In fact, few have even
tried to do so. Obviously, I can't prove this with
examples. :) If you have some examples of your own
that disprove what I'm saying, though, send 'em over.
====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'booner, aka Doc' Vader)
S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.
.sig Sauer
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