what I've been doing #3-reflection paper draft

This is the first paragraph of the reflection paper.  I wrote 3 pages, but after this first paragraph, it got kind of aggressive in a way I am not comfortable sharing.  I will attempt a complete re-write as soon as I can

Reflection

            Creating and working on this project has been a very powerful learning experience for me.  I have been taught and shown all kinds of different outside the box ways of thinking throughout this program.  From installations, comics, performance pieces and sculptures, to all other kinds of experimental poetry, this program has left no stone unturned.  However, really digging into this project, I’m still finding myself overwhelmed by all of the things I still want my writing to convey.  While I feel like a very well rounded academic as a direct result of this program, I feel that my actual writing still has a long ways to go. 

what i've been doing #2 -process paper draft

Ryan Davis

3/18/14

CRTW 490

Process Paper

            Creating a story outline for this project has by far become the most challenging project I have ever attempted as a writer.  With this project, I really, more than anything else, wanted to push my boundaries by taking my understanding of modern adventure stories and applying my style to a more retro aesthetic.  This way, I could take the best of both worlds, from the classic feel of an old adventure narrative, and update it with modern pacing, characterizations, and themes, while not pushing so far as to lose the classic feel that I want to capture.  To complete this task, I needed to research two things:  ways to perfect my understanding of modern adventure stories, and I needed to investigate the original sources of the retro aesthetic that I wanted to explore.

            For the most part, I have focused the majority of the first half of the semester on perfecting my understanding of modern adventure stories.   Much of my expertise in this area is derived from the works of comic book writers from the Marvel and DC franchises.  This has been extremely helpful, as not only are both relevant in the modern day, but DC especially has roots in older, more “classic” style adventures.  For every cynical, witty modern hero, I have been able to dig up examples of old, noir style characters that bring a very different set of ideas to the table.  Working through all these is what helped me to understand the two different tones I am trying to blend, and helped me find strong direction.

            As I began to work on researching ideas for the premise of my modern approach, I found a great deal of inspiration came from the hyper stylized genre of anime.  Starting with the twenty six episodes, I was able to watch something very similar to the goal I had in mind.  This show, while set in a cyberpunk distant future, takes the themes, tone, and humor of cyberpunk, and applies them to the retro aesthetics of a much older genre, the western.  While the characters all feel very much like fully realized, three dimensional people, they also manage to all fit into archetypical roles traditionally found in westerns.  Main character Spike is a laid back, calm and collected hero, who is mostly motivated by the desire to save his own skin and enjoy life as much as he can.  His dry sense of humor feels very contemporary and his apathy towards other people seems like a possible reflection on the cynicism brought on by a postmodern world.  However, he also fits into the role of the gunslinger with a dark and troubled past, who just can’t ever manage to put everything behind him.  He and other characters in the show often have very intense discussions about the danger his past puts him in, using minimalist dialogue very much in line with old west style.  No matter how many ties to his past spike cuts, there is still one he refuses to completely let go of, and over the course of the show, he is slowly pulled back into the life he tried to leave.  It’s a classic story, and it feels very weighty, yet the cyberpunk setting manages to not clash with it at all.  This use of archetypes has fascinated me, and it helped me realize that using an archetype is a strong way to capture the feel of an older story, but still allowing enough room for modern perspectives to be applied without clashing. 

            As for a more modern perspective, I found a great deal of inspiration actually came from an anime called Fairy Tail.  The show is, on a surface level, about the exploits of a wizard guild, but simply by watching it, the show becomes obviously about a group of ruffians and warriors who have banded together as a sort of family, and their dedication to each other is tested many times over the course of the show as they venture off on missions together.  This set up proved to be quite addictive, and I soon found that this premise was certainly strong enough to be molded into my own.  This was how I came up with the idea for the main cast to be a pirate crew.  There is a kind of camaraderie that feels very classic and retro, and the way they are sent off on missions fit like a puzzle piece when I remembered my interest in the conflict of freedom vs. control, while also allowing for a quicker, more modern pace than the original classics were able to muster.  On a more contemporary level, Fairy Tail also helped inspire me to put a strong emphasis on varied yet vitally important female lead characters, which I feel is a very valid way to update a more classic kind of pirate story.  Rather than cutthroats sailing to rescue maidens, my story can be about cyborgs whose physical abilities make their genders irrelevant, as they rescue each other from the dangers of a dark universe.  There are still the archetypes of swashbuckling action adventure present aesthetically, but with a modern approach to creating it.  I don’t want to overpower the swashbuckling so that it feels at odds with the tone of the story, but I do want it to feel like something relevant to today’s world, not something that already exists.  My feminist lens can help enhance the original archetypical stories, so that those old feeling scan still be enjoyed without feeling out of date.

What I've been doing #1

Frontier Eternal

(Draft)

1.

            Freedom.  As Claire took a brief moment to gaze out at the trillions of stars, she was reminded of her first space flight as she let her mind wander away.  She remembered that it had been scary to her, and the deeper the ship went, the more she had felt swallowed up by a crushing abyss.  Like a kind of agoraphobia, the vast emptiness had made it hard for her to function the first few days. 

            Gazing out at the abyss now, she remembered those feelings, and she felt a sense of self empathy looking back on them.  The void was crushingly infinite, and the sheer size of the emptiness resisted comprehension, even after a decade of experience flying. 

            Her ship at this time, the Young Colt, was already small compared to most interstellar ships, and against the ocean of stars, it barely seemed to even register as a fleck of dust or sand.  From inside its main bridge, she continued to take in the vastness, shifting her mind to a different memory.  Her father had once told her about his experience travelling through Space, and even after several years, she remembered his words.

            “Well Claire, I agree.  It’s pretty scary out there sometimes.  Crossing from one end of the galaxy to the other really made me feel it.  Sometimes, I still can’t wrap my head around how small we are.  I have to say though, that the best thing about that space is, by far, the freedom it gives you.  Escaping from the politics and the conflicts and just stepping back away from it all.  I feel like it gives you a new perspective on your problems, almost like a meditation.  You finally get to solve problems the way you want to, not the way some government wants you.  You know I hate the lawlessness out here, but I think this freedom is finally giving us a chance to right some wrongs that we couldn’t before.  Too many selfish abuses barbaric traditions were protected by red tape back in the Sol Federation.  I hope they get their game back together eventually and start protecting people again, but until that happens, I think the frontier is a decent alternative”

            Coming back to the present, Claire looked across the abyss one more time.  As empty as it was, the silence and the emptiness were definitely intimidating, but in a way, she almost felt they were challenging.  There was room out there.  It was a Space that could become all kinds of different things.  There was potential out here. 

            It was a sad potential, though.  As much as she wished the worlds would change, she knew just from keeping up with news that there was no end to the violence and chaos in sight.  All that empty space out there, all that potential void, yet she doubted any beings in this galaxy could ever take advantage of it to create something positive.  Perhaps Space would remain a vast, empty wasteland for eternity, its silence and serenity being the only survivors.

            She was snapped out of her meditation when an alarm on a nearby display screen sharply beeped at her.  Examining it, she realized that the ships scanners had finally picked up the signals they were looking for.  The peace and serenity would have to wait for later; it was time for a raid.

2.

            Running over to the nearby console, Claire began preparing the ship.  It’s interior was modeled after the cabins of the beautiful sail boats of Earth, with the walls and floor made of a material convincingly similar to dark maple wood.  The electronics were plentiful, and various holographic displays constantly streamed diagnostics information about their ship and its location, but were stylized after ancient golden instruments to compliment the rest of the traditional aesthetics.  If it wasn’t for the clutter of papers, devices, cables, and food leftovers among the tables, one could mistake it for a luxury ship owned by a billionaire.  Claire chuckled out loud at that thought.  The Young Colt was anything but.

            Continuing, she moved the ship from its orbit.  The local star system was incredibly barren, with nothing in the way of natural resources, and multiple asteroid belts rather than planets.  The only sign of human activity was the small space station that had brought the ship all the way out to the system in the first place.

            Coming up on the view screens, Claire took a good look at the Young Colt’s first target:  a Dark Particle Station.  Faster than light travel could only be possible through the use of dark particles to alter and accelerate a ship beyond what physics would normally allow.  As Dark particles required tremendous amounts of electricity to generate, many ships were limited as to how many particles they could produce, and how far they could travel.  A Particle station, however, solved the problem by using a series of massive energy reactors to not only generate dark particles, but saturate several light years’ worth of space with them.  This way, a small ship could travel faster than light by following a path of dark particle stations across the galaxy, never having to generate its own.  The system worked great.

            Unless you hit a station with a strong electromagnetic pulse.  Claire grinned. 

“Nothing personal, guys,” she said out loud to no one, “your station will be up and running again in fifteen minutes or so.”

work post #6

Well, I have managed to really push myself this week.  As I dove into the story, I soon found myself unable to come up with a compelling plot for the skeleton of the narrative, and I spent quite a bit of time unable to figure out why.  Studying my various guides for plot writing yielded no avail, and I was really struggling until I realized exactly what was going on;  a fundamental mistake in the set up of my story.

While I know what the story will be about, I realized that I don't really have a central antagonist to tie all of the themes together.  Without a real central force driving against the ideals of the protagonists, coming up with a plot that really feels driven and fast paced is almost completely impossible, and certainly above my skill level. 

As such, I've been re-examining my  cast to see who really stands for what, and how their ideals clash.  If I can figure out who the most interesting foil is/could potentially be, then I can really build up the narrative with more of a purpose.  The kind of plot that best serves the kind of story I am writing is one that allows the protagonists to start with a goal, and make sure that every action they take can be in service of them trying to achieve that goal. 

The challenging part, of course, is my own self imposed challenge to try and really make sure I introduce as many side characters and potential future conflicts as possible, simply because I have dozens of stories I'd like to tell using this setting and characters, and I want this story to serve as a solid beginning for the characters and their world, a sort of "book one".

Hopefully, I can really focus in on what this story is about, and restructure it so that it has the antagonist that it truly deserves.

The Poethical Wager Response

            Reading The Poethical Wager, Joan Retallack makes a variety of interesting points about the artificial binaries that tend to exist within the genres of today.  While these binaries come up in most of the essays, the one that I found interesting was the binary she explains as existing in feminism, starting on page 90.  The first thing she does is explain that the way she sees it, when comparing the feminine and the masculine, the feminine simply encompasses all of the things that the masculine does not, and that the problems feminism faces today are derived from this problematic distinction. 

            Secondly, she seems to draw a connection that since the experimental in art today is seen as an “other,” that these experiments are lumped into the feminine sphere since that sphere happens to encompass all “others” that aren’t part of the patriarchal masculine sphere.  So, as a result of the rejection of “others” from the dominant patriarchal sphere, not only do things seen as feminine suffer, but all others suffer, and are lumped in together as being feminine even if that definition doesn’t make sense, since there is so little information on what really makes something feminine in the first place. 

            Personally, I must admit that I can understand where she is coming from.  There really is a degree to which when something is rejected as not being masculine, a whole host of other traits are thrown upon it.  That said, I’m unsure if all experimental art is rejected by society because it is seen as feminine.  I say this because I feel that as feminism slowly continues to grow stringer and make more of an impact on mainstream society, I feel like experimental art will continue to be rejected just as it always has.  If we reach a point at which something being considered as feminine could be seen as something instead of a negative trait, won’t experimental art continue to be rejected?  In fact, couldn’t experimental art simply shift from one incorrect grouping to another?  For example, perhaps the experimental art of the future would be seen as anti-capitalist, rather than anti masculine.  While I understand that the connection between feminine and experimental exists, I am unsure of exactly how much of this connection is based in real concrete similarities.  It seems more like a connection society draws as a result of convenience, given the current similarities they share. 

            Overall, it is a very interesting way to look at how definitions shift over time.  It has definitely caused me to wonder how feminism will change as it continues to grow stronger.  The essay also makes it incredibly obvious how obsolete binaries are as way of viewing the world.  If feminine and masculine were viewed not as one being good and the other being bad, but as simply each being unique in its own way, then neither would have to be associated with “others” that they are in no other way related to. 

work post #5

After quite a bit of work, I believe I have finally decided the specifics of what my Capstone project will be.  I will be creating a Space Adventure Novel, and I will try and create as much of it as humanly possible between now and April.  I have worked out most of the story by now, and I have enough ideas for it to make sure I won't run out of material.  If it turns out the way I expect it to, I'll be able to explore a a lot of my favorite genre tropes and put my own spin on them, the way I personally want to.

The story will take place an undetermined amount of time in our future, in a much more chaotic galaxy.  In it, I plan to focus on a small group of space pirates.  In a Galaxy growing more dangerous every day, Captain Harris and his partner Claire are forced into hunting down an ancient alien artifact by the pirate guild they recently joined.  Will they be able to survive the mission when dozens of other cutthroats are after the same prize?  Harris and Claire will be pushed into learning the price of freedom, and the reasons others try to limit it, as well as the battling philosophies of individualism vs collectivism.

More specifically, I want to challenge Harris's love of freedom by slowly forcing him to accept more  and more outside control of his life.  The story starts with Harris explaining that the Galaxy has become so dangerous, he decided that the only way he could keep his ship safe was to give in and join a pirate guild, accepting that he will have to serve them to some degree, while benefiting from their full protection against other powerful galactic cutthroats.  As the story goes on, I have other similar compromises he may have to make in order to continue to insure his crews safety; perhaps there are some dangers that one just cannot face alone.

Likewise, Claire's inner struggle is all about her robin hood esque desire to protect the weak from the strong, and the kind of self sacrifice she's willing to go through to protect others, even strangers, from harm.  Throughout the narrative, I want to force her to into situations where she can't necessarily save everyone, and rather has to accept that she does the best she can.

There will also be aspects of trans-humanism, since I want there to be a focus on human cyborg technology.  As humanity begins to feel as though it is losing control to the galaxy's chaos, the kind of cyborg enhancements presented to the readers will become more and more extreme.  This chaos (represented in the forms of various alien predators and dangers that will slowly become more prevalent) is the same chaos that prompts Harris to join the pirate guild for safety.  The story won't be about the end of the frontier, so much as an exploration of its dangers and a celebration of its escapism tropes