Escape Pod 620: Promise (Artemis Rising)
6 years ago
Monday, September 1, 2008
This is a serious question!
not really. I'm going to ditch the whole oriental thing I was talking about in my folio. When I read that Bad Film diaries article last week I thought I should actually get around to watching the old version of Planet of the Apes so I knew what it was going on about. Now I'm thinking of doing something like a human vs beast thingo. I'm thinking of some kind of chimera - not the traditional greek monster. At the moment I'm thinking cat (cos I like cats), bird, human combo, maybe lizard. Any suggestions? Any alternative ideas will be appreciated! XD
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
If you like cats this will help to make your beast-character more sympathetic, but perhaps also less confronting and "Other" (though I think the aloofess and independence of cats could be used to make them fairly "Other"). A reptilian (or insectoid?) meld with a cat would be interesting (but perhaps hard to do?).
Ha! funny, i didn't even have to sign up for this blog, it said "Hello Carina" right at the top of the page. ooo creepy... google knows my name!
But moving right along. I like the idea of mixing human and animal features, or perhaps just anthropomorphising animals (giving them human minds and personalities but leaving their bodies animal) because it reminds us that humans in truth actually are animals too. We are part of the same mammalia, and the only reason we think we are the crown of creation is because no other animal has openly contradicted us (yet).
I did dutifully print off your folio outline for the workshop, but then i was so sick i couldnt come. I did read over it tho, and I got the impression that you had been extensively influenced by already existing literature. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with that, but what I personally find sometimes is that if i'm too much impressed by other people's work, i get depressed about my own ideas, or struggle to find something 'different' from what i admire. Therefore i think it's good that youve taken a different tack on what you said in your outline.
Now, an alternative suggestion... hrm.... Perhaps you could move away from a 'fixed' physical form, say a catperson or a lizardperson or whatever, but instead focus on the plasticity of form. Your character's race could be able to change their bodies at will, borrowing from the animal life on their planet for inspiration and adapt it to whatever task they would need to accomplish at the moment (within limits of course...). And as they get older, these people would 'settle' on a form they found most comfortable or practical, leaving the younger generation to experiment wildly and discover the limits of their pliability.
Just an idea :) that would let you get around having to pick one particular hybrid, and also allowing you to explore identity from an interesting viewpoint. If everyone can be gorgeous/strong/fast/flexible/etc, what do you use to define yourself as 'you'?
I think that what makes the difference in the direction that you take with a plot point like that, is how you explain the chimerism: whether it's a result of some event, (which is more sci-fi), or just a fact of the world that they're in, (which is more fantasy). If you go the sci-fi route, I think you could do a lot of interesting stuff with the culture of the creatures...
That's where world-building stuff would come into it, with thinking about how the creatures would build their societies. Like, if they're scaled cat beings, they're probably going to be desert- or jungle-dwelling, whereas if they're human beings with tails they can probably live pretty much anywhere. That's the stuff that I find more interesting really, more so than 'there was a catastrophe and now we're all mutants' or something. :P
Then again you will probably have to balance that sort of stuff with the storyline, 'cause 2000 words isn't really that much to work with, especially if you're creating a world. You have to be careful, don't want to end up like.. Red Earth or whatever it was called, with no plot.
omg, please tell me if it end up like red earth... anything but that
Yeah, I'm interesting in building a sci-fi society/culture perhaps that fits with how these chimeras exists - if that makes sense. I've just watched Dune and I liked how they did their society, despite how crappy the acting was. Planet of the Apes was good as well :)
I really like Carina's idea but would sound like Pullman? But the identity idea wast was cool.
The other reason why I choose cats was cause I have one so it makes it very easy to write any mannerisms :)
The reason for a reptilian was because is isn't mammal, but its hesitant put in there. I'm thinking that yes, one it will be harder to pull off and two, just two many animals in one form. Maybe I should stick to the first three?
I was perhaps thinking of having magic sourced from a sort of higher plane/astral realm that these chimeras could perhaps wander into, but at a risk? King of like the "gloom" in Nightwatch and Daywatch if anyone has seen these.
wow, i was fully not paying attention to what i was writing up there. Sorry about all the errors lol
Post a Comment