On Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:28:44 -0500, Someone Else
<someone.else@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>I believe that all of the threads started by Wildepad have been
>psychology experiments, rather than requests for information.
The reason they seem that way are twofold:
1) The information that I am seeking almost always involves what
people think and how they feel about a story idea. Any time you're
talking about thoughts and feelings, you're in the area of psychology.
2) When I'm plot-noodling, I have a feeling as to the basic shape of
the story, so I try to keep the discussion to those areas which feel
like they could ultimately find a home either within the story or as
part of the backstory. Keeping the focus narrow also happens to be
what a researcher does in order to maintain control of his experiment.
>He
>asks about something that could be SFnal, but is not likely to be
>part of a story.
For me, everything is part of a story. Sadly, there are too many ideas
and so little time, so the vast majority don't get written down.
The story ideas I present here are ones I find particularly strong but
for some reason they haven't gelled into a character and opening line.
When I ask questions, I am hoping that someone will come up with an
answer that shakes everything loose.
Although that rarely happens, when it does it's wonderful.
But even when it doesn't happen, the story has had some of the rough
edges knocked off so the next time it visits, it's that much closer to
being written.
Also, even a 'failure' is a learning experience, and I carry a bit of
it to every story. Just a couple of months ago, I was rewriting a
scene in a fantasy story and something in it must have paralleled a
discussion here because my subconscious tossed out the thought that
Kuo wouldn't approve. I don't know how a dragon insulting a demon
related to a thread in this group, but there was enough for me to feel
that the scene, as rewritten, wouldn't fly.
> He gets defensive if you question his
>assumptions.
The assumptions are never arbitrary. They come as part of the
character/action/theme and are crucial to producing
conflict/limitations necessary for story development.
They are also never whimsical (although they probably seem that way).
In each and every case, they are parallels of some real world
event/practice/accepted procedure.
Because of that, questioning the assumptions is an unwelcome and
unnecessary distraction.
>He seems to be more interested in continuing the
>conversations than in the answers he's supposedly seeking.
On the rare occasions when I get a straight answer, I say "Thanks" and
sometimes, but not all the time, ask a question to clarify the answer.
In other cases, I am interested in continuing the conversation for as
long as it takes to get a productive answer.
If either my methods or my process offends you, I am sorry. I suggest
you find your newsreader's kill switch and use it liberally.
As far as my posts being anything other than what they seem, one
recently was (which I owned up to in the thread), but to think they
are some kind of psychology experiment is actually giving me too much
credit -- while I like participating in psych tests, I could never
craft a decent one on my own.
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