Struggle and Adventure

One of the great challenges of the day isn't just to resist and mock the fads corrupting entertainment, but to lay out a competing framework of ideas that, frankly, will stomp a critical mudhole into those fads. We're a ways away from that final work, but planks are being laid out on YouTube, podcasts, and blogs.

Commissar Gamza, a prominent Warhammer 40k YouTuber, in describing why one of the factions is reviled by players, lays down a theory of character relatibility. The current fashion in media is that the audience can only relate to characters who look exactly like them. (This is a side-effect of the attempt to craft the reader as a participant in the story instead of the audience to, but that's a future post.) Gamza, in all his sardonic glory, instead ties character relatibility to the the struggles a character must endure before victory.In the video below, he describes how setbacks can make more compelling characters--as well as strengthening the threat behind your villains.



Meanwhile, Vlad at the Castalia House blog takes a swing at some of the myths of science fiction writing by pointing out just how much of the classic Big Idea science fiction actually were adventure stories:

Originally, this article was meant to be different. I was going to examine two approaches to science fiction. One focusing more on action, adventure, and an exciting story, and the other on ideas about society, technology, and the future. Most stories feature both elements, but have a very clear focus preference. And yet, the more I considered it, the more I realized all the worthwhile Big Idea tales are also good Adventure stories. And most tellingly, even a profound, highly intellectual science fiction writer is capable of spinning a fine yarn that would hold its own in any early pulp magazine. 

On the flip side, bad science fiction writers, whether they go for Big Ideas or not, are incapable of writing such “mere” entertainment. Thus, we can consider simple, honest adventure to be the very heart of what makes quality science fiction.