Rhinocrisy

My brother-in-law suggested that interactively produced fiction (i.e., à la Wikipedia) might be interesting and even productive. It seemed to me that such a thing must surely exist already, and of course it does. Wikia.com hosts “Novelas“, a collection of collaboratively-edited stories. It also exposes the principle flaw in this type of endeavor, which is that it appears to be an efficient net for aggregating dross. The main categories of fiction there are “fantasy” and “science fiction”, two genres which have only rarely in their history managed to ascend to any level of respectability. If that’s not alarming enough, the actual text is even worse. Some of the prose is so purple it’s amazing it doesn’t fall off and die, and there’s a good deal of inventive structure that collapses because there’s nothing supporting it. E.g.:

Master Fung: Dear Mastah Fung, hoo are yah, anyways, let me cut tae the chase. If it’s awrite wae yoo, I’d like to come to visit fer a week. Please reply if you hink ah should, your best student. Scottie McCrimson.

Kimiko: Scottie McCrimson? Would he by any chance be Scottish?

Or try this truly astonishing first paragraph:

It is rather strange how the Alkali Metals react to water, if one small chunk of Cesium falls into water, then the entire city can blow up. So imagine what could happen if Francium, an element much larger and more powerful then Cesium falls into water, let’s just say, good by to the state. However, Francium is radioactive, that is to say, it breaks down into smaller, less harmful elements. But what would happen if there was a way for Francium to stop its decay? What would happen if Francium, was evil, will the Alkali Metals destroy the world?

Most of this disaster is forgivable, since it probably originated as scribblings on napkins in high school cafeterias. But I, always on the lookout for ways to dismay myself, must take a tragic lesson from this, which is that there is an unfortunate lack of correspondence between perceived ability and actual skill. Self-criticism is a conundrum for any creative individual. Art must be communicated; private meaning is fine and even valuable, but our lives are brief, and our mental space is narrow. If creation is more than an exercise in self-correction, it’s the judgement of others that becomes the primary determinant of its worth. Thus, I should know whether I’m making something others might see as beautiful or ugly, a difficult task when I am unable to appreciate the work divorced from the scaffolding that I used to assemble it. Probably this is why, my friend Claudio would say, we believe the Creator wants us to worship him - surely even he is insecure about his creation without critical acclaim.

Posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 2:03 pm | A Series of Tubes, Writing | feed | reply | trackback