Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2012 0:11:08 GMT
So you find yourself right in the middle of life, your daily routine and you think to yourself 'I want to do something creative.' And why not? What you've been doing for as long as you can remember and learned a bunch of stuff, or so you think, and you want to share it.
You try conveying it to people in conversation. They ask you for your opinion, and you know what you want to say, so you say it. But its not what you truly want to say, you cant articulate yourself correctly, you have to soften the impact of your words because your still in the real world, and in the real world having radical ideas is different.
Society has expectations you must meet, not just morals and ideas but structures and tones in conversation. And they restrict you, even if your writing text. Typing casually on internet forums, writing letters or using social networking sites, essays, reports and anything else that requires you to express yourself.
You cant talk for too long, you cant bore people, you cant expect people to agree or not interrupt, for the topic of conversation to be suddenly changed while your still talking, you cant even be sure you have their full attention.
So, you continue onwards for a little while. You either keep quiet, rethink your ideas into societies ideas or you lie your way through responses, secretly holding different views to the ones you present to the world.
So what do you do, then?
Some never express themselves. Some become caricatures of wherever they stand in society. Others, however, search out different means.
Yes, entertainment. When one seeks entertainment, they are already expecting to be fully engaged in whatever they partake in. Sitting alone to read a good book, film, listen to a song, play a game or head out to the theater. People listen to ideas presented in narratives, a likeable knight in heroic armor explaining the importance of eating your vegetables is much more likely to have an impact on you than the old man who created the knight telling you the same thing, using the same words, in person. And of course, the very society that restricts you formed many such ideas from their entertainment. Their stereotypes and morals, every such unrealistically portrayed event easily played out subconsciously in our minds every time we make an average decision.
What it must be like to wield such a power.
Far more subtle and far less intentionally sinister than a mad scientist employing mind control, the simple ability to create a knight and present an idea without your audience even noticing. To have your ideas ingrained within the minds of every living being for all time, weather they agree or not, if you could create narrative, you can create a megaphone, and not only make people listen, but for people to praise you, and even give you a better standard of life for using your new megaphone.
Lots of people have done it, but as you come to this realization and try to do it for yourself, you realize that its harder to do on paper. Surely you could make even the most basic of narratives. Of a boy who has to go out into the world to defeat unambiguous evil. Use the steps ingrained in your mind to create the plot, then replace the villain with whatever you hate and the hero with whatever you like. Simple. But you actually have to make it. Can you write your book effectively? Make it an average length, flesh it out, make characters?
How about a film? A decent video camera doesn't come cheap, nor do actors. If you simply want to play music, you have to learn an instrument and learning how to play but one can take years of serious dedication, and then you have to find your own tune.
Finally, there is of course the issue of originality. People like novelty. They don't want to see a plot already ingrained into their mind played out once again in front of them, something new works. How novel would it be if the villain wasn't unambiguous? By extension that makes us question the ethics of the heroes actions, and that's only the start.
Of course, you knew all that. I'm sure most of you have already gone through that thought process in some form or another.
I say all this, to provide context. For me. I've been around the block of bad story telling, being cliche then trying to be novel. Of course being novel presents its own problem in my case- I try to be to novel, to have a novel message or novel story structure. But it doesn't work, I find it boring to write after a while and readers simply aren't fulfilled, far as I can see. I cant write middles, and I cant write characters who are little more than plot devices, or filling a quota. The hero. The villain. A girl and whatnot. I do however excel in themes.
However enough of that. What I'm trying to say is, I have strengths and weaknesses, and I've tried many times before this frankly desperate attempt.
I could always try making fun of religion or the upper class, to provide social commentary or to play out a fantasy of mine, but that wont work. The story I present here will be all yet none of those things, and all of it will be evaluated in a fair fashion until it unwittingly leads you to my specific point. This story, bound in words, is called Lexis, because that is a cooler name for what is simply 'words'. And its about me. The villain, the protagonist, the girl, and others will all take the stage at the same time, and all played by one actor- me. Or at the very least, people in my life who I feel bring out a specific aspect of myself. This story is about my personality, what I think, what I was, what I hope to achieve, and it will all be presented in exciting context- the apocalypse. Doesn't get much better than the end of everything by the hands of an almighty god. And yes, I'm god too.
Finally, as reader interaction is a novel thing, I present a game for you to play, if you so choose, as you read:
Try to guess which character in the story represents who I truly am. What side of myself do I truly agree with, who or what symbolizes my ultimate thesis on each of the plot's themes and ideas. At the end of the story, I'll come back and reflect in an epilogue and reveal the answer. Until then, I will present the story in a third person perspective.
And as Alex finished writing the paragraph, he felt his eyes droop from exhaustion. He decided to finish off the prologue with 'And with that, I bid you farewell, for now.'
You try conveying it to people in conversation. They ask you for your opinion, and you know what you want to say, so you say it. But its not what you truly want to say, you cant articulate yourself correctly, you have to soften the impact of your words because your still in the real world, and in the real world having radical ideas is different.
Society has expectations you must meet, not just morals and ideas but structures and tones in conversation. And they restrict you, even if your writing text. Typing casually on internet forums, writing letters or using social networking sites, essays, reports and anything else that requires you to express yourself.
You cant talk for too long, you cant bore people, you cant expect people to agree or not interrupt, for the topic of conversation to be suddenly changed while your still talking, you cant even be sure you have their full attention.
So, you continue onwards for a little while. You either keep quiet, rethink your ideas into societies ideas or you lie your way through responses, secretly holding different views to the ones you present to the world.
So what do you do, then?
Some never express themselves. Some become caricatures of wherever they stand in society. Others, however, search out different means.
Yes, entertainment. When one seeks entertainment, they are already expecting to be fully engaged in whatever they partake in. Sitting alone to read a good book, film, listen to a song, play a game or head out to the theater. People listen to ideas presented in narratives, a likeable knight in heroic armor explaining the importance of eating your vegetables is much more likely to have an impact on you than the old man who created the knight telling you the same thing, using the same words, in person. And of course, the very society that restricts you formed many such ideas from their entertainment. Their stereotypes and morals, every such unrealistically portrayed event easily played out subconsciously in our minds every time we make an average decision.
What it must be like to wield such a power.
Far more subtle and far less intentionally sinister than a mad scientist employing mind control, the simple ability to create a knight and present an idea without your audience even noticing. To have your ideas ingrained within the minds of every living being for all time, weather they agree or not, if you could create narrative, you can create a megaphone, and not only make people listen, but for people to praise you, and even give you a better standard of life for using your new megaphone.
Lots of people have done it, but as you come to this realization and try to do it for yourself, you realize that its harder to do on paper. Surely you could make even the most basic of narratives. Of a boy who has to go out into the world to defeat unambiguous evil. Use the steps ingrained in your mind to create the plot, then replace the villain with whatever you hate and the hero with whatever you like. Simple. But you actually have to make it. Can you write your book effectively? Make it an average length, flesh it out, make characters?
How about a film? A decent video camera doesn't come cheap, nor do actors. If you simply want to play music, you have to learn an instrument and learning how to play but one can take years of serious dedication, and then you have to find your own tune.
Finally, there is of course the issue of originality. People like novelty. They don't want to see a plot already ingrained into their mind played out once again in front of them, something new works. How novel would it be if the villain wasn't unambiguous? By extension that makes us question the ethics of the heroes actions, and that's only the start.
Of course, you knew all that. I'm sure most of you have already gone through that thought process in some form or another.
I say all this, to provide context. For me. I've been around the block of bad story telling, being cliche then trying to be novel. Of course being novel presents its own problem in my case- I try to be to novel, to have a novel message or novel story structure. But it doesn't work, I find it boring to write after a while and readers simply aren't fulfilled, far as I can see. I cant write middles, and I cant write characters who are little more than plot devices, or filling a quota. The hero. The villain. A girl and whatnot. I do however excel in themes.
However enough of that. What I'm trying to say is, I have strengths and weaknesses, and I've tried many times before this frankly desperate attempt.
I could always try making fun of religion or the upper class, to provide social commentary or to play out a fantasy of mine, but that wont work. The story I present here will be all yet none of those things, and all of it will be evaluated in a fair fashion until it unwittingly leads you to my specific point. This story, bound in words, is called Lexis, because that is a cooler name for what is simply 'words'. And its about me. The villain, the protagonist, the girl, and others will all take the stage at the same time, and all played by one actor- me. Or at the very least, people in my life who I feel bring out a specific aspect of myself. This story is about my personality, what I think, what I was, what I hope to achieve, and it will all be presented in exciting context- the apocalypse. Doesn't get much better than the end of everything by the hands of an almighty god. And yes, I'm god too.
Finally, as reader interaction is a novel thing, I present a game for you to play, if you so choose, as you read:
Try to guess which character in the story represents who I truly am. What side of myself do I truly agree with, who or what symbolizes my ultimate thesis on each of the plot's themes and ideas. At the end of the story, I'll come back and reflect in an epilogue and reveal the answer. Until then, I will present the story in a third person perspective.
And as Alex finished writing the paragraph, he felt his eyes droop from exhaustion. He decided to finish off the prologue with 'And with that, I bid you farewell, for now.'
