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emotions in sci-fi stories
There have been five, maybe six, times in my life where I've been so overwhelmed by an emotion that I haven't had room left for self-deprecating silliness. Most of the time, no matter what I'm feeling or how much I'm feeling it, there'll be some part of me that's sitting back and making silly remarks about the whole situation, laughing at myself.
I think that's why I prefer fantasy and sci-fi to realistic stories.
That is...
In a "realistic" story, it's all run by the oh-so-serious emotion. People sit around gazing into each other's eyes and having tearful, heartfelt conversations about anything and everything. And then one of them changes emotion, changes what they're doing, and goes off to experience a different emotion, after which we have a situation of good humour and fun, until one of them gets emotional...
...and I sit there eating popcorn and making smartass remarks about the silly silly characters. MST, eat your heart out.
There's a small part of me that will always sit outside the emotion and think of absurdities. And realistic stories bring it out of me like nothing else.
This is also why I can't write realism very well. Every scene in the whole story will somehow dissolve into me snarking at my own characters and trying to make my readers laugh at how silly they are.
Sci-fi, on the other hand...
It's already absurd. They'll have a tearful, heartfelt conversation - while tracking down the fire-breathing mice that are plaguing the city. They'll have a friendly afternoon of fun - interrupted by yet another zombie attack. They'll get really mad at each other - and have their argument totally confused by the fact that they're time-travellers and one of them is arguing out of sync with the other one.
It's in-built absurdity.
Watching sci-fi means that my brain has an outlet for my sillier side, and allows me to experience their emotions as actual raw emotion, not undercut by anything, because the undercutting is happening somewhere else.
(This can also be seen in the way I get annoyed at people. If I'm getting extremely angry about someone, and ranting to a friend, my friends will often start saying "what an idiot!" and similar things. I, on the other hand, bypass "idiot", and go straight into "I hope their feet get eaten by rabid monkeys."
Sci-fi, of course, has room for literal pedivore monkeys. Whereas realism is confined to "what an idiot!", which bores me.)
My mother doesn't seem to experience things the same way I do - and gets extremely confused by my assurances that, really, the most realistic and profound emotion I've seen in fiction always comes from sci-fi stories, no really, it does. And possibly there are wonderfully deep emotions in realistic stories. I just... can't see them in the same way. They make me snarky; sci-fi, on the other hand, makes me burst into tears.
...you know, in some ways, I'm a very odd person.
I think that's why I prefer fantasy and sci-fi to realistic stories.
That is...
In a "realistic" story, it's all run by the oh-so-serious emotion. People sit around gazing into each other's eyes and having tearful, heartfelt conversations about anything and everything. And then one of them changes emotion, changes what they're doing, and goes off to experience a different emotion, after which we have a situation of good humour and fun, until one of them gets emotional...
...and I sit there eating popcorn and making smartass remarks about the silly silly characters. MST, eat your heart out.
There's a small part of me that will always sit outside the emotion and think of absurdities. And realistic stories bring it out of me like nothing else.
This is also why I can't write realism very well. Every scene in the whole story will somehow dissolve into me snarking at my own characters and trying to make my readers laugh at how silly they are.
Sci-fi, on the other hand...
It's already absurd. They'll have a tearful, heartfelt conversation - while tracking down the fire-breathing mice that are plaguing the city. They'll have a friendly afternoon of fun - interrupted by yet another zombie attack. They'll get really mad at each other - and have their argument totally confused by the fact that they're time-travellers and one of them is arguing out of sync with the other one.
It's in-built absurdity.
Watching sci-fi means that my brain has an outlet for my sillier side, and allows me to experience their emotions as actual raw emotion, not undercut by anything, because the undercutting is happening somewhere else.
(This can also be seen in the way I get annoyed at people. If I'm getting extremely angry about someone, and ranting to a friend, my friends will often start saying "what an idiot!" and similar things. I, on the other hand, bypass "idiot", and go straight into "I hope their feet get eaten by rabid monkeys."
Sci-fi, of course, has room for literal pedivore monkeys. Whereas realism is confined to "what an idiot!", which bores me.)
My mother doesn't seem to experience things the same way I do - and gets extremely confused by my assurances that, really, the most realistic and profound emotion I've seen in fiction always comes from sci-fi stories, no really, it does. And possibly there are wonderfully deep emotions in realistic stories. I just... can't see them in the same way. They make me snarky; sci-fi, on the other hand, makes me burst into tears.
...you know, in some ways, I'm a very odd person.