Pop culture
reference. Long overdue, and to bring
even more shame on my household, it’s kind of a repeat. Sorry.
Before I
dive into things, I must shamefully point out that the latest book in my Ex-Heroes
series got released this week. The
marketing folks are lovely people, but they’ll be upset if I don’t mention
it. Ex-Isle is book #5 and
it’s now on sale everywhere. Check it
out.
And now,
back to this week’s rant...
This is
something I’ve been meaning to talk about again for a while now. As I mentioned, I’m kind of in a rush this
week (even more on that below), so I thought this would be a good time to add
in what’s more-or-less a repeat post. At
least, it is if you’ve been here since 2008...
That being
said, let’s talk about “Darmok.”
“Darmok”
was one of the first episodes of Star Trek:The Next Generation‘s fifth season. The Enterprise
visits an alien race, the Children of Tama, which has repeatedly brought first
contact attempts to a grinding halt because the universal translator can’t make sense of their language. The Tama
language can be rendered in Federation English, yes, but the words and sentence
structure make no sense. Sensing the
problem that needs to be overcome, Dathon--the Tama commander—kidnaps Captain Picard
to a hostile world where the two must fight together to survive. Through their trials together, Picard comes
to realize that the Tama language is not based on ideas and concepts, but on stories
and metaphors. They wouldn’t say “I’m
happy,” they’d say something like “Scrooge, on Christmas morning.” They don’t say they’re relieved to see you,
they’d say “Indy, finding Marion in the tent.” It’s been impossible to translate the Tama
language literally because the Federation doesn’t share their history and
folklore.
In a way,
all of us do this every day. We reference movies, TV shows, pop culture events,
and then we stack and combine them. Heck, that’s pretty much what memes are.
We also do it
on a smaller scale, though. All of us
have jokes that are only understood by our family or certain circles of friends
or coworkers. Some folks crack jokes
from Playboy, others from Welcome to Night Vale.
These folks obsess over Scandal and these folks watch iZombie whenever they happen to catch it. Some people like sports, others like science.
And all of us talk about what we know
and what we like.
I worked on
a set once where people commonly asked “Where’s Waldo?” A lot of my college friends understood when
you talked about Virpi Zuckk, the third Pete, and nice shoes. Some of my best friends and I make frequent
references to Pod Six, killing Jeff, and
“the girl’s evil cheater magic.”
Heck, even this
title is an in-joke. It’s a reference to
one of the first Adult Swim cartoons, Sealab 2021. But also, when two of my
friends bought a house and decided to use their sunroom as a dedicated gaming
room, we all sort of universally decided to call it Pod Six. Because it’s where we all hang out and talk
in weird references that only we’re going to understand.
See where I’m
going with this?
A common problem
I see again and again in stories is oblique references and figures of speech that
the reader can’t understand. It might make
sense within the writer’s personal circle or clique, but outside readers end up
scratching their heads. Several of the writers
responsible for this sort of mistake will try to justify their words in a
number of ways...
First is that my friends are real people. Therefore, people really
talk this way, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Alas, as I’ve mentioned here many times
before, “real” rarely translates to “good.” Pointing to a few of my like-minded friends
and saying “well, they got it,” isn’t going to win me points with an
editor.
Second is that I’ll argue common
knowledge. I’ll try to say this material
is generally known-- universally known, even-- and it’s the reader who is in the feeble minority by
not being aware of it. This is probably
the hardest to contradict, because if somebody honestly believes that everyone should know who the U.S. Secretary of
State was in 1969, there’s not much you or I can do to convince them
otherwise. It’s much more likely, in the writer’s mind, that the readers are just uneducated simpletons who never learned the ten forms of Arabic verbs, don’t collect Magic
cards, and couldn’t tell you the obvious differences between Iron Man and War Machine if their lives
depended on it.
Third, usually reserved for screenplays,
is the auteur excuse. I plan on directing this script, so it
doesn’t matter if no one else can understand the writing (or if there are tons
of inappropriate camera angles, staging instructions, and notes for actors). The flaw here is that my screenplay will
invariably end up getting shown to someone else. A contest reader. A producer. An investor. Someone out of that inner circle
of friends who needs to look at my script and understand the writing.
Y’see,
Timmy, I can’t be writing just for my five closest friends. Not if I want to succeed as a writer. I’m not saying my writing has to appeal to
everyone and be understood by everyone, but it can’t be so loaded with in-jokes
and obscure references that nobody knows what I’m talking about.
This is one
of those inherent writer skills.
Something I just need to figure out how to do on my own, mostly by
reading everything I can get your hands on.
I need to know words and phrases.
I have to know them and I have to be honestly aware of who else knows
them. Using extremely uncommon terms or words may show off my bachelor’s degree and vocabulary, but the moment a reader has to stop and think about what a word or
phrase means, they’ve been taken out of my story.
And
knocking people out of my story is one of the certain ways to make sure the
reader puts my manuscript down and goes off to fold laundry.
On an
unrelated note... if you’re in San Diego and happen to be reading this just as
it went up, I’m going to be at Mysterious Galaxy tonight (Thursday)
talking and signing copies of Ex-Isle. And on Saturday I’ll be at Dark Delicacies in
Burbank doing more of the same. Hope to
see some of you there (and if not, you can call them and order books, too).
Next time,
I’d like to talk about how ignorant some of your characters are.
Until
then... go write.
Well, in the event you do make some of those references in your writing, I must fit in with the same demographic as your friends. I just finished off "14" while waiting for the audio version of Ex-Isle. Considering that I discovered your work after someone recommended The Fold, I had no clue that it was a shared-universe situation. I won't lie, I'd love to see more of Mike, Veek and Nate. Between these works and the Ex series, you have an uncanny world-building ability that hits me right in the feels. Whatever, just keep doing what you are doing, and I'll keep throwing money in your general direction. Thanks for the excellent stories!
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