Harry Carton: Blog

Sometimes you're writing along and them WHAMMO... The characters just do something, and then you're out of control. It seemed so easy and natural ... It was the only logical next step, but it wasn't what you had in mind for the story.

Well... that is where Shakespeare is now. By "now" I mean: where I am in the writing of it. I've posted chapter 9 to SOL, but of course, I'm several chapters farther down the line. You'll see it, I'm sure when the posting schedule gets there. And chapter 13 is the far end of the tunnel...

I'm going to have to really work to resolve this.

Just know that it was THEM who did it, not me.

That may not make any sense to non-author readers, but 'tis true ne'rtheless.

Today, I begin the tale of Shakespeare. He is The Bard of his people. It is the story of how he and his people interact with some aliens who have some strange ideas ... they call themselves 'humans.'

It will have weekly installments, and I'll leave the voting open so all the haters and lovers out there can feel free to cut loose. Personally, I won't care (much).

HC

Lubrican has raised an issue of racial -- I don't know how to categorize it. "Point of view" perhaps? Anyway, read his blog post to see it. It's worth reading. It's here: http://storiesonline.net/blogentry/34601

Here are my thoughts:

I agree with you that most of the adult stories seem to have white protagonists. Undoubtedly most of them seem to be written for white audiences by white authors. But "seem" is perhaps the crucial word.

BUT ...

There are a lot of stories that don't mention the color of the participants, let alone their race. We'll rule out the ones that describe the female as having a pale complexion or auburn hair with lots of freckles. But there are plenty that just describe her in non-racially identifiable ways: big boobs, cute butt, long sexy legs. Men too. I've heard it said that even some black men DON'T have huge penises.

We just assume that the mechanic named Fred who is balling his wife named Melissa, are both white. Does he have to be named Jerome and her name has to be Shaniqua for them to be black? Does the man have to be called Eagle Spirit for him to be Native American, or a woman Kim Woo to be Asian? Would a reader assume that a scene between Barack and Michelle was interracial?

Perhaps we're looking at the stories from the point of view of a white reader, who would automatically envision the protagonists to be people like him (or her) and the antagonists be someone "other."

I'll be glad when all the actors are back in the same time zone. Who's writing this thing anyway? Keeping track of 'if it's noon in Shanghai, what time is it in Washington DC' is a pain.

Maybe Io can keep that kind of thing straight easily, but MY old memory is getting more and more random as time goes by. I think I have CRS (that's Can't Remember Sh... uh... Stuff).

If you're gonna read my stories, and go to the trouble of voting -- and if you're gonna give me a '1', could you at least have the decency to send me a short note and tell me what you didn't like? How do you think I'll ever get better if you don't?

OTOH, the '1' voter probably won't read my blog either... so meh!