Has anyone evr tried writing rationalist fiction of The Sandman? It’s a world that explicitly runs on storytelling patterns, but surely something can be done that illustrates the merits of rational thought even in such a setting. Rationalistis should win and adapt to the circumstances, even if they are a dreamscape.
Neil Gaiman himself, sort of. In his take on the Marvel Universe, the genius scientist character has figured out the world runs on storytelling logic instead of mechanical science and that he won’t ever be able to permanently change his friend turned into a superhuman rock monster back into a human since “guy permanently turned into superhuman rock monster” makes a better story element than “guy who was a superhuman rock monster but is all better now”.
For the current fic writers, I don’t see it working. Rationalist fiction writers range from middling to terrible in skill compared to traditional fiction writers at the top of their game like Gaiman, and trying to do this would basically be trying to one-up Gaiman in his own game at his home field. Not to mention that his world-building is a lot more self-aware already than the perennial nerd culture favorite soft targets like Star Wars or Harry Potter, like the Marvel 1602 example shows, so you wouldn’t have the nice obvious stuff to work with.
@First bit; that’s Discworld-grade brilliant, but does the knowledge spread, as it does in Discworld where everyone is Genre Savvy, or is Reed Richards still Useless? Of course, the problem with narrativium is that attempting to take advantage of it is likely to bite you back, but is it better than not knowing?
My very first attempt at writing, waaay back in 2007, was a story about a guy who was thurst into a Narrativium-based world, which was kind of like an immense, live Let’s Play for the entertainment a bunch of True Fae children (about three centuries old). Gran’t Morrison’s Action Comics come to mind. He’d be thurst into different genres asd different roles, and he’d have to start thinking vey meta, very fast, if he wanted to survive each story. He also wanted to get the damned show cancelled without giving a bad performance that would give the Showrunner a reason to fire him (literally), leading to many Springtime For Hitler moments, much to his frustration (sort of like Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear, Hideaki Anno and Evangelion, … but he also starts to take pride in his work (think Walter White and his blue meth)… At some point, he’d become aware that the way things made “storytelling sense” rather than “logical sense” also extended to the world outside the game. And then we’d have an Animal Man meets Grant Morrison type of meeting.
Most of the references I’m making here are retroactive; I had the idea much before I came in contact with them, but they’re handy for condensing. Another work I’d compare this to would be GAINAX’s Abenoashi Mahou Shoutengai. In fact, now that I think of it, it might be better to start the story as an Ontological Mystery, instead of having his slavery revealed to him right away as I initially thought.
Anyway, my point here is to say that, almost as soon as I wrote the first chapter, I went on hiatus, because I was keenly aware that I was biting much, much more than I could chew. Even now, I don’t think I have remotely what it takes to plan out and pull off such a project. Designing locomotives is such easy work in comparison; all you need is patience and method.
his world-building is a lot more self-aware
It’s extremely Post-Modern and illogical in every sense. It is awesome.
Has anyone evr tried writing rationalist fiction of The Sandman? It’s a world that explicitly runs on storytelling patterns, but surely something can be done that illustrates the merits of rational thought even in such a setting. Rationalistis should win and adapt to the circumstances, even if they are a dreamscape.
Neil Gaiman himself, sort of. In his take on the Marvel Universe, the genius scientist character has figured out the world runs on storytelling logic instead of mechanical science and that he won’t ever be able to permanently change his friend turned into a superhuman rock monster back into a human since “guy permanently turned into superhuman rock monster” makes a better story element than “guy who was a superhuman rock monster but is all better now”.
For the current fic writers, I don’t see it working. Rationalist fiction writers range from middling to terrible in skill compared to traditional fiction writers at the top of their game like Gaiman, and trying to do this would basically be trying to one-up Gaiman in his own game at his home field. Not to mention that his world-building is a lot more self-aware already than the perennial nerd culture favorite soft targets like Star Wars or Harry Potter, like the Marvel 1602 example shows, so you wouldn’t have the nice obvious stuff to work with.
@First bit; that’s Discworld-grade brilliant, but does the knowledge spread, as it does in Discworld where everyone is Genre Savvy, or is Reed Richards still Useless? Of course, the problem with narrativium is that attempting to take advantage of it is likely to bite you back, but is it better than not knowing?
My very first attempt at writing, waaay back in 2007, was a story about a guy who was thurst into a Narrativium-based world, which was kind of like an immense, live Let’s Play for the entertainment a bunch of True Fae children (about three centuries old). Gran’t Morrison’s Action Comics come to mind. He’d be thurst into different genres asd different roles, and he’d have to start thinking vey meta, very fast, if he wanted to survive each story. He also wanted to get the damned show cancelled without giving a bad performance that would give the Showrunner a reason to fire him (literally), leading to many Springtime For Hitler moments, much to his frustration (sort of like Hideo Kojima and Metal Gear, Hideaki Anno and Evangelion, … but he also starts to take pride in his work (think Walter White and his blue meth)… At some point, he’d become aware that the way things made “storytelling sense” rather than “logical sense” also extended to the world outside the game. And then we’d have an Animal Man meets Grant Morrison type of meeting.
Most of the references I’m making here are retroactive; I had the idea much before I came in contact with them, but they’re handy for condensing. Another work I’d compare this to would be GAINAX’s Abenoashi Mahou Shoutengai. In fact, now that I think of it, it might be better to start the story as an Ontological Mystery, instead of having his slavery revealed to him right away as I initially thought.
Anyway, my point here is to say that, almost as soon as I wrote the first chapter, I went on hiatus, because I was keenly aware that I was biting much, much more than I could chew. Even now, I don’t think I have remotely what it takes to plan out and pull off such a project. Designing locomotives is such easy work in comparison; all you need is patience and method.
It’s extremely Post-Modern and illogical in every sense. It is awesome.