FutureTense

Here is the first in a (hopefully) short series of things that I saw too much of as a reader in 2003 and really don’t need to see in 2004.

Back when I gamed, people who were absent had their characters turned into blocks of wood for the duration of their absence. Didn’t do much as a block of wood: didn’t charge into battle, didn’t save any one, took up time and attention. However, they still got a share of the treasure simply for being around. So if the player missed a bunch of sessions, chances were pretty good their character would mysteriously die unless the player was pretty popular or had a good excuse for absence. Girl/boy friends were not considered a good excuse. Working overtime to get code ready for delivery was.

Which brings us to one of my pet peeves: if we, as decidedly un-literary gamers, were able to recognize the way in which deadwood dragged down game play and spoiled the experience for everyone, why can’t today’s sophisticated modern writers?

I’ve just sat down with the January 2004 issue of F&SF. The lead story–not some buried-in-the-middle story but the lead story–Nimitseahpah, by Nancy Etchemendy
, has, as its protagonist, Mrs. Mayhew. Mrs. Mayhew is still recovering from grief after the loss of a baby still born. She’s a teacher in the struggling mining town of Pactolous. One day, she and her husband Jesse go for a picnic at the old abandoned Pahpocket mine where we learn that mysterious things of evil portent occured in the past.

The mine is now guarded by a stone gargoyle installed by the indians to keep the unspecified evil that’s in the mine, well, in the mine.

There’s a couple of odd kids in the one room school. Nev, a holder of Indian secrets, and Jaques Dechain, a recent arrival from France who is picked upon by the local boys (but not by Nev) for being a wus.

At the risk of laying a spoiler, Jaques sees in the gargoyle guarded evil a chance to even the score with the local bullies. Fortunately, Nev saves the day.

There is an axiom–the “Science Fiction Validation Test”–which goes something like this: if you can take the science out of a story and the story is unchanged, you probably don’t have a science fiction story.

If you can take the fiction out of a science fiction story–all of the character and plot stuff–and the story is substantially unchanged, you probably don’t have a science fiction story either.

The “Character Test” would be: if you can take a character out of a story and the story is essentially unchanged, the story has nothing to do with the character.

The thing you will note in this quick synopsis of the plot is that if Mrs. Mayhew were lifted bodily out of the story–sucked into the mine at the beginning of the story by the dark evil that dwells there–nothing would change. Jacques would still be teased, the evil in the mine would still do its thing and Nev would still take up Power to save the known world.

Forgive me, but according to the “Law of Dead Wood,” shouldn’t Mrs. Mayhew be left out? In Hollywood, nothing is sacred. Scenes, dialog, even characters, that don’t move the story along quickly face the monster of “the cutting room floor.”

I don’t mean to pick on Nancy Etchemendy or even this work in particular. I wanted an example that most readers of this blog would have access to. This is a lead story in a major publication by an established writer. I thought it would be a suitable example. And ultimately the writer has both the right and the responsibility to write the story as they find it. However, I feel they also have a responsibility to consider the reader’s experience. The story as it is presented contains a minor technical problem. As soon as you remove Mrs. Mayhew, you discover that Jacques’ plot and Nev’s save occupy two and one half pages of this 17 page story. The rest of the story is full of beautiful language that doesn’t directly relate to the core of what’s happening.

As a reader, I find compelling material here–the combination of gargoyle guard and resident evil is creates a powerful, explosive situation. It reminds me of Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, at least in potential. They’re simliar in that both demonstrate the action taken by children who have access to a device with the power to radically alter the fortunes of a small number of initiates.

Alas, there the similarity ends. The essence of the story–the power and terror of the children as they face their temptations and infernal device of the evil in the mine–is so buried as to be almost lost. The reader’s experience diminished by the focusing on Mrs. Mayhew as the main character instead of the two characters who are actually doing someting: Jacques and Nev. They are the ones who feel. They are the ones whose lives are so powerfully affected that they are compelled to act. Yet sice we view everything from the eyes of Mrs. Mayhew, we are deprived of the chance to experience this powerful storm of feeling.

This story is supposed to frighten us through both the immediate horror of the evil in the mine and the implications of that evil being used as a tool by a frightened, desperate Jacques. But the use of the distant, removed Mrs. Mayhew prevents me from feeling anything at a visceral level and seriously undermines the inherent strength of this story.

For those of you who are readers, please be kind to Nancy Etchemendy and accept her story in the spirit in which it was offered.

For those of you who are writers, remember that when you include a character who doesn’t contribute to the main action line, you dilute the reader’s experience. And when you choose as your main character someone who does nothing, you may prevent your reader from getting what the story is really about.

Best Regards,
Alan

Ammended 1/17/2004.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2004 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Articles & Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.