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Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

strangehorizons.com

101–104 of 104 posts

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#101
post #60

Of course, all this is because everything has been done. Read Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales". Read one story half way, and ask yourself how it will end. You'll be right. In 1483, there was so little published entertainment that plot twists were unnecessary.

I think what happened is that writing and even publishing has become democratised, in a sense. In the sense that there are many more people alive today, than in Chaucher's time, that can write, and that want to write (because they love reading, or even writing) and that can do it reasonably well, and get their writings published. Inevitably, the majority of those people will not come up with the most original stories, or the best writing, inevitably the majority of what is written will not be the best of what is written. Duh.

So it's not like there's fewer stories to tell now, it's just there's more people writing and 90% of everything is dross, as ever since the dawn of time.

Seen another way, in Chaucer's time you had to be Chaucer to write, and publish. Nowadays, anyone can write and publish. Inevitably, quality degrades, and originality degrades.

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#103
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also surely “scientist experiments on themselves” is far too broad to dismiss out of hand

I don't think any in the list are dismissals. If you remove every item, you're left with nothing that can be said about anything in scifi. The items also include plots used by acknowledged authors in celebrated stories. This is like TV Tropes: a trope is neither good nor bad, it just is. It can be overused, it can be subverted, it can be played straight or played with, but the one thing you cannot do: avoid tropes en…

I’m not suggesting tropes are bad or good in themselves, I’m just suggesting that the tone of this article is pretty dismissive

Re: Stories We’ve Seen Too Often

#104
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any in the list are dismissals. If you remove every item, you're left with nothing that can be said about anything in scifi. The items also include plots used by acknowledged authors in celebrated stories. This is like TV Tropes: a trope is neither good nor bad, it just is. It can be overused, it can be subverted, it can be played straight or played with, but the one thing you cannot do: avoid tropes en…

I’m not suggesting tropes are bad or good in themselves, I’m just suggesting that the tone of this article is pretty dismissive

Right, misread your comment. Yes, the article is a bit dismissive, and I think it's a mistake on the author(s) part.
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