Mad Genius Club: Sorry

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Sorry

I was supposed to be all self-promotional and everything but spent all day offline today, and totally spaced this.

So, open thread, whatever. I can't do self promotion worth a damn anyway.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...: Ooh! Open thread! You know I can't resist. *pause* absolutely nothing to say. Darn. Hm. Wait, I got something!
At present my book-to-be has a female heroine narrator with a male and a female companion. I'm tossing up whether she gets together with the boy or the girl in the end. Too many fantasy heroes have a gay best friend in love with them who serves them faithfully and ends up alone/heroically killed. Is it finally time for our gay sidekicks to actually get the girl (or guy)? Or would I be shooting myself in the foot market-wise?
The answer, I suspect, is that at some point predominantly-straight audiences will be able to imaginitively relate to a gay relationship just as well as a straight relationship. And if I write well enough, I can bring that point a little closer.
What do you guys think?

Louise Curtis. . . attempting to write an original love triangle; March 5, 2011 at 5:08 PM
Unknown said...: I wouldn't hold my breath (or buy that book).; March 5, 2011 at 5:21 PM
Brendan said...: Well today is the National Day of Unplugging so being offline is totally understandable. Good of you to break your moral stand for just this moment to elt us know what isn't going on;-); March 5, 2011 at 5:37 PM
Stephen Simmons said...: Louise -- What do the Characters say? If you set out to be all message-y, then yes, you're shooting yourself in the foot, in my estimation. If the Characters a integral, and the story is worth telling, then people will read it (Note Lackey's success with "Magic's Promise"/"Magic's Price", for example.) If you have an awesome-tastic-al story to tell, and the Characters are people we care about, then it won't matter to most of your audience if they turn out to be asexual or trisexual or creatures who reproduce by fission.

Just my $.02 ....; March 5, 2011 at 8:30 PM
Unknown said...: Odd scene from the day:
A muy macho Mexican smoking a Virginia Slim.

I appreciated the contrast, and being only a few hundred miles from the Canadian Border, the applicability of the advertising slogan.; March 5, 2011 at 9:18 PM
MataPam said...: What! Not all three of them in bed together? Ferget this!

Ahem. Just kidding. I'd recommend just writing the story and at the end see what works best romantic wrap-up wise. Otherwise I think it would be too easy to telegraph ahead who the winner will be.

And if your main character has been really snotty and cruel to you, have the other two get drunk, sobbing on each other's shoulders because MC doesn't love them. Where that goes, I leave to the Evilness of the moment.; March 5, 2011 at 9:48 PM
Anonymous said...: At the moment, the female companion is more interesting than the male companion, so I'm leaning that way - although it wouldn't happen until the third book anyway. It's not a moral lesson, just a choice by the hero. In some ways, it's an easier choice to make because two women can easily hide their relationship in their (1850s) society, whereas a British C of E girl would have serious social trouble if she tried to marry an Irish Catholic lad.

Louise Curtis, still pondering, and likely to decide partway through. I do think my hero will be interested in both, and have to make a choice. Hopefully she'll decide based on personality rather than politics.; March 6, 2011 at 12:40 AM
Unknown said...: Careful, you're implying that sexuality can be chosen.
While there's a fair amount of evidence that this is to some extent the case, it also strikes at the heart of the identity politics that the gay pride movement has embraced.
Pushing this hot button isn't likely to win you many friends.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but relationships aren't driven by sex.
You have relationships with your family, your roommates, your friends, your teammates, your co-workers, your boss, etc. But that certainly doesn't imply that you have sex with them. Nor does having sex with someone imply that you have a relationship with them.; March 6, 2011 at 1:22 AM
Anonymous said...: Hi Lucius - no sexuality isn't chosen. I'm not a moron :) (When I said "the female is more interesting" I meant that her personality is more fun than the personality of the guy - disregarding their sexuality). It's just that the hero is bisexual, and is attracted to two people at once (if I even go with this plotline). Anyone can make a choice between two people they're attracted to.

Louise Curtis; March 6, 2011 at 2:15 AM
Unknown said...: Believing that there is some degree of choice involved in sexual orientation does not make one a "moron". As I acknowledged, there's a good bit of evidence that there's choice at the margins. Twin studies show pretty conclusively that there isn't a sexual destiny imparted by genetics or prenatal conditions. Other studies demonstrate that the percentage of the population participating in homosexual activity jumps by approximately 5x in long-term settings where only one sex is present.

Heck, the invocation of bi-sexual implies choice. Most people who are capable of finding either sex sexually attractive live lives indistinguishable from someone who is fully heterosexually-inclined.

[shrug] True believers are generally not very good at converting others to their cause. All worldviews are ultimately based on unprovable assumptions. Know the weaknesses in your case before you try to make it. If nothing else, it ought to make you less dismissive of those who hold differing views.; March 6, 2011 at 9:55 AM
Sarah A. Hoyt said...: Okay, we're closing this "sexuality is a choice" thing right now. Is it? Oh, G-d knows. We DON'T. What we do know is not a CONSCIOUS choice or at least not in 99% of the cases. (Yes, we all know "fashionable gays" That proves nothing.)
However, the fact that there have been and still are gay people even in countries where this is forbidden or punishable with death (Yes, even Iran) argues against its being as simple as a conscious choice. In fact, in my experience, very few things that relate to what turns one on, or food tastes or any of those BASIC things, are controllable without major MAJOR reconstruction, which brings its own problems. (For an example and NOT related to homosexuality and the first person to come back with that gets slapped to Alpha Centauri, I'm NOT joking -- see all the efforts including chemical to change the obsessive behavior of pedophiles.)
As most of you know I have very little patience with lobbies, gay or otherwise, but I also have little patience with people who simplify things they don't like. Homosexuality is likely a convergence of genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors, but it's NOT conscious choice. OTOH, in the circumstances Louise specifies it makes perfect sense to 'choose' as would in any other triangle. And, Louise, I have a similar emotional plot in an unwritten novel.; March 6, 2011 at 12:47 PM