From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Saturday, November 29, 2014 4:25:10 PM UTC-7, William Vetter wrote:   
   > Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote :   
   > > On 11/29/14, 4:54 PM, William Vetter wrote:   
   > >> Michelle Bottorff was thinking very hard :   
   > >>> J.Pascal  wrote:   
   > >>>   
   > >>>> A relatively "big" author (I remember who but I'm going to mangle the   
   > >>>> quote so I probably ought not say that so and so said this exactly) once   
   > >>>> explained that if the purpose is emotional engagement and emotional   
   > >>>> response that negative emotions are the easiest to manipulate.  That   
   > >>>> "happy" is actually, artistically, more difficult to do well.   
   > >>>   
   > >>> I find it way easier to annoy people than to make their day, for sure.   
   > >>>>> rueful::   
   > >>   
   > >> Do you think _Romeo and Juliet_ sucks?   
   > >   
   > >   
   > > 	Yep. As RAH said, "Even the immortal Will had his off-days."   
   >    
   > Unless I'm mistaken, he wrote more tradgedies than comedies.   
      
   So did the Greeks.    
      
   There's such a thing as prevailing convention.  If the audience expects   
   everything to go poorly for the hero until he repents and god is lowered by   
   wires to fix it all, then that's what you've got to give them.   
      
   Sometimes "good" becomes whatever adheres to the correct moral message (ie.,   
   complaints that Interstellar didn't have the correct "protect the planet we've   
   got" message,) or "good" becomes whatever *doesn't* appeal to the hoi polloi.    
   Sometimes the right    
   ending is determined by culture and fashion.  Sarah Hoyt has explained that,   
   for whatever reason, the proper ending of a Portuguese romance is that the   
   bull fighter dies and the lady mourns him tragically forever.   
      
   My opinion... we've had a fair amount of movement toward valuing depressing   
   science fiction stories over fun ones... the hoi polloi aversion thing,   
   maybe... or maybe it's still related to the genre's 1990's "we are SO writing   
   literature" tantrum... which    
   might be the same thing.  And while I'm NOT saying, just for myself mind you,   
   that anything "literary" must be bad, that in the end tragedy and depressive   
   fatalism is actually easier to do than a really good triumph done well.   
      
   Sort of related to that are all of the "don't do this" writing lists.  And a   
   lot of them are downright silly and (ought to be) self-evidently bogus, such   
   as not writing yourself as the hero of an adventure.  Or all of the "must   
   nots" that amount to "this    
   was done twice and worked brilliantly - you must never do it again."   
      
   I'm rambling.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)