June 27, 2007
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writing emulation
If I had to choose one writer in all the world’s history whose writing I could magically emulate in style and effect it wouldn’t be anyone anybody is likely to suspect. I would not pick any of the famous historical authors or philosophers or thinkers in history. No Shakespeare or Tolstoy or Hemmingway or Joyce or Proust. And aslo no Plato or Niestche or Marx or Locke. It would not be any famous politician or speachwriter either. I would not choose to write like King or Lincoln or Jefferson or Adams.
And if you think you’d get a better clue as to what I might pick by knowning my tastes in modern fiction and stories, you might be right but I’m betting you are still likely to guess wrong. My favorite authors whose skill in prose awes me regularly would not make the cut either. No Rowling, no Martin. Not Bujold, Hobb, Gemmell, Weis, Hickman, Card, Brin, Zelazny, Alexander, Williams, Anthony, Jordan, Bradly, Brooks, Brust, Donaldson, Drake, Farland, Feist, Friedman, Goodkind, Kay, Hamilton, Rawn, Rice, Salvatore, Silverberg, Gaiman, or Carey. Nor Ray Bradbury. Nor Toni Morrison. Nor Kurt Vonnegut. I would not even choose the great master Tolkein himself to emulate. None of them.
If you think that you would find better luck looking at TV, Video Games or movies think again. Much as I respect Stracynsky and Whedon, I would not emulate them or any other television writer. I would not want to match Lucas. And I wouldn’t want to make Hinrobu Sakaguchi proud either.
Are you think that I would emulate no one? Well wrong again. There’s definitely someone I would pick, someone whose works I would emulate its just someone you are unlikely to suspect.
Look toward anime and manga then? Ok good. Getting closer. But if you are thinking of my very favorites, ie Cowboy Bebop and Haruhi your still not quite on to it. I would not even emulate the mad genius of Anno Hideaki or the brilliant wonder of Hayao Miyazaki. Nope. That isn’t it.
Believe it or not, and I’m sure you won’t believe it, but the one writer in all the world who I would pick to have the ability to write exactly like if I chose would actually be the author of the manga Hikaru no Go. What? Why, you ask?
Simple. Of all stories, Hikaru no God embodies a writers ability to make people care about characters regardless of what conflicts they are in. That ability to make me feel enthralled with a set of characters and really dependent on wondering what they are going to do next and how they lead their lives even though they weren’t doing anything of particular relevance is just an extraordinary thing to behold. I would want my stories in an ideal world to have that feature to them. They can be important and substantive too and have clever and complex plots neither of which are true of Hikaru no Go, but I would want all of that to be wrapped around that core of story telling that just creates wholly sympathetic characters who you aren’t even sure why you care about them at all.
The runner up in this consideration is somewhat more famous. That would be Rumiko Takahashi and for much the same reason. Her stories have more of an overt plot or purpose be it slapstick humour or high adventure. But even so it is pretty much totally irrelevant. Those things are like added benefits. You watch Inuyasha and you watch Ranma wholly for the character development, because the writer is a master of developing characters you care about beyond all reason just like with Hikaru no Go.
Of course the truth is these authors appeal to me so much as far as being entities worthy of my emulation goes simply because they embody the exact opposite of my current writing style. I simply have no idea how to write a character that any one would actually care about, and that’s probably in large part because I practice indifference with such regularity in all that I do that I have not built up the requisite experience base to build such characters upon.
Well since nobodies going to come over from a higher dimensional existence and grant me the ability to write with the skill of such authors that I oh so much admire, there’s no point chasing after them and trying to write in a way that I cannot. Instead I’ll just have to write in a different manner, perhaps even the exact opposite of how these writers write. Rather than beautiful character depictions being the heart of my stories, characters will be the least part, there depictions exaggerated simplicity. They will merely be the mechanism to carry forth more subtle and ironic messages and plots. I think a good story can still be crafted in such a fashion even though it will never be worthy of mention even in the same sentence with such extraordinary works I admire. I think it can still be interesting to someone. And in any case I am sure I would still obtain deep satisfaction in writing such stories regardless.
