Science, Or Why I Don't Just Do Art

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It's not something that I talk about all that often, but I am actually a great lover of science. My dad is an engineer, so I've had an awareness of the rational forces that hold the fabric of the universe together since I was little (he once helped me make a warren truss bridge out of drinking straws and push pins). I always thoroughly enjoyed biology, chemistry and physics at school, although I confess that anatomy held my attention the longest. I'm continually fascinated by how things work, and I suppose anatomy is similar to mechanics, in a way - it's simply mechanics on an organic level.

Anyway. I'm already starting to digress. Now, as well as loving science, I'm also heavily interested in the arts, and humanities. You can look at me as being split down the middle, if you like, a bit like Spock. Science, logic, rationality and reason on one side, and creativity, art, language and music on the other. So when BBC Four decided to run a programme on the history of chemistry, I was thrilled. You just don't see "history" and "chemistry" in the same sentence often enough. Episode two is on today (you can catch Chemistry: A Volatile History on BBC iPlayer) although I finally got around to watching the first episode with my dinner.

I was hooked! I learned how to get phosphorous from urine, how to make an electrical current using salt water, copper and zinc, and how thermometers work. It's all truly fascinating stuff, and I think that science, in a way, actually helps me to be more creative. Some might believe that in drawing back the curtains and showing what the world is made of, and how the universe works, scientists are destroying the magic and wonder of life. I disagree. In showing me how all of these random elements interact in a particular way, I'm even more in awe that the whole system works at all.

Air is made up of 21% oxygen. Only a few percent less and we couldn't breathe. But how does it stay at the right percentage?! It's questions like this that don't make me go, "Oh, there's no magic in the world, it's all science..." It's things like this that make me go, "Science makes it work...but HOW?!"

The world is wonderful, people.

Still Running (Flash Fiction)

Tweet Apologies for the lapse in blogging, dear friends - real life had that annoying habit of getting in the way. Weddings, interviews - that sort of thing. Anyway. I've just been looking back through my notebook and discovered I actually have some reasonably decent work squirrelled away in there, so I must prompt myself to work on the stories. It's really not good practice to leave them 'festering' like that.

In lieu of anything else, I thought I'd post an old flash fiction of mine, slightly edited. I give you...

Still Running

"Yeah, we never thought the old girl would make it, but she has. War means nothing to her!" Caleb patted the generator. A kind smile creased his face.

Rising out of the concrete floor, the machine was a tumble of pistons, steam pumps and glass valves. Rust marked its metal skin like smallpox scars. It hummed quietly, an archaic melody out of place among the pragmatic Resistance.

"How much juice can she handle?" Philip stepped back to see the antique control panel. Needles flickered across coloured bars behind grimy panels. Buttons and levers, smeared with oil, covered the switchboard.

"Enough to power the Resistance. That's all we'll ever need." Caleb grinned.

"I guess she’s the founder member then. Eighty years old and still running."

We're on The Road to nowhere...

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Let me get this out of the way before I get to the meatiest part of my post. The Road is a very beautifully-shot, gorgeous film, and I can't fault its cinematography. However, it feels to me like it's related to one of those vapid bimbos that you come across from time to time - an aesthetically pleasing collection of molecules, but with every little going on beneath the surface. Yes, The Road is incredibly depressing, and yes, The Road is a "hi-brow" and "literary" film...but it's also entirely pointless.

Before anyone who actually enjoyed the film starts to sputter and head for the 'Comment' form, let me explain my thinking. Most films, at least those produced by Western cinema, contain a plot, or narrative. Yes? I can think of very few successes from the past few years that have managed to dispense with this key ingredient and still have a hit. The film industry is exactly that - an industry. Many individuals who work within it might do so in order to produce art, but they still have to consider whether or not that art will make any money.

Now, The Road does at least have a vague plot. I'll admit that much. The plot is extremely basic (Father and son head across post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of a warmer climate) but that's no problem - lots of films can be summed up in a single sentence. "Four children enter a magical world via a wardrobe and have to save it from an evil witch" would be one example, while "A hobbit traipses across Middle Earth to dispose of a ring" is another. The problem is that there's very little room for growth within the plot. On one hand, you'd expect such a loose plot to give plenty of room for scope, but ironically, it does the opposite. The Road is more about the relationship between the father and son than what happens to them, and both characters wander through the film until its inevitable conclusion. Neither of them really appear to learn from their experiences, caught as they are within the rigid confines of the idea of the film, as opposed to its plot.

This, my friends, brings me to the "literary vs commercial" debate. The Road drops off the fence and lands so heavily on the literary side that it's cracked the paving. Beautiful cinematography and meandering philosophy replaces character development and a forward-moving plot because the experience of the film is more important than its story. Sure, there are instances in the film where plot is suddenly injected, and things get interesting, but then the conflict is resolved and everyone goes back to trudging along. Dull. Call me a Philistine if you want, but I'm unafraid to nail my colours to the commercial mast. I want to watch a film, or read a book, because I want to be entertained. I want escapism. I don't get that from literary films or fiction.

Right now I'm reading China Mieville's Iron Council, and sure, it deals with lofty themes and political ideals, but it also lets me wander the crooked streets of New Crobuzon when I should probably put the book aside and do my washing up. The Road might let me vicariously look at a post-apocalyptic landscape that I pray I never have to visit, but that's all it does. It parades its world in front of me like a John Constable or a J. W. M. Turner, but it never lets me engage with it. It offers no escape.

Lord knows there's enough in this life to escape from.

Another piece published!

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t is with great delight that I use this post to publicise the fact that I have another piece of fiction online! You can find it at The Tomlit Quarterly, in issue two. It's available as a free PDF, which means not only do you get my short piece, Cold, you also get tons of other great work too!

I'm actually quite proud of Cold, mainly because it's written mostly using dialogue. I've never been particularly good at writing convincing dialogue, because either all the characters sound like me, or they use English in the way that I'd write it, but not speak it. Writing dialogue is a tricky business since you either use slang and regional dialects to try and sketch the character more fully (which ends up sounding cheesy or fake), or everyone sounds interchangeable. Ideally, it should be possible to tell who's talking without tagging the speech.

Whether I've succeeded in that is entirely up to you, but I'd love to hear your opinions!

To CGI, or not CGI...don't make the Phantom Menace mistake

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Celebrated sci-fi author China Mieville has written this post for The Wall Street Journal to explain just why CGI is rotting sci fi cinema from the inside. For the most part, I'm only too happy to agree with him. If you ever read my post about Pixar, you'll know that I like CGI only if it adds something to a film.

Back in the good old days of Ray Harryhausen (see the photo that accompanies this entry), the effects looked ropey, but at least you knew that somewhere on the planet, those models existed. They had a sense of tangibility, and concrete 'realness' that CGI still can't replicate. Even look at a film like Jurassic Park, and compare it to Titanic. Jurassic Park is older, but it doesn't look quite as dated since a lot of the dinosaurs are animatronic. The actors are working alongside something that exists in the real world. The dinosaurs have weight, texture, and above all, believeability. Titanic, on the other hand, looks laughable. Move further forward to the 1980s, and matte paintings were de rigueur, instead of the contemporary crap that gets splashed across green screen.

We all know why CGI is there. In today's society, where everything has to be faster, shinier and altogether more 'wow' than what came before, CGI is cinema's way of twirling about going "Look at me! Look at me! I'm AMAZING!" It's almost being so fake because it wants you to notice it and admit how pretty it is. But unfortunately it ends up feeling like you're being followed around by an obnoxious six-year-old in a princess costume singing a Les Miserables medley while you're trying to read Wuthering Heights.

I love cinema. I really, really do, and I love big explosive action movies or giant set pieces as much as the next person...but you know what? You can actually do a lot of that without CGI. Just watch the 'making of' feature on the DVD for the latest Star Trek film to see that visual trickery is still possible even when you're using CGI. J.J. Abrams utilised everything from models and miniatures to mirrors and special lighting, and while he also used some CGI, I think the film feels a lot more organic as a result of the more hands-on approach.

It's true that special effects have been part of cinema since its inception (check out the work of Georges Melies for a good example, or the famous 'see through floor' shot from Hitchcock's The Lodger in 1929) but I don't think that an entire film should be one long special effect - they're called 'special' and should be used sparingly, otherwise they're not so special any more, are they?

Silver Blade - A Spot of Promotion

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There are an awful lot of online magazines and anthologies out there in the cobwebby recesses of the Internet, and I thought I would take this opportunity to briefly swing my torch and shine its light onto one of my favourites, Silver Blade.

Yes, it's true, I am slightly biased towards them as they've published two of my pieces in the past. In The Shadows holds the honour of being the first piece of fiction they accepted, while Spring Returns was a contender for their first contest (although it didn't win). These two fantasy stories inhabit a different fictional terrain from my usual stamping ground, but thanks to their careful attention and supportive feedback, I'm actually very proud of both pieces.

Fantasy as a genre is often derided as nonsensical or just plain silly. Princes rescue princesses, witches thwart the best efforts of noble heroes, orcs and elves cavort among talking trees, and magic is as central to the world of the characters as the Internet is to ours. Despite this, I think that it can still say as much about politics or current events as science fiction. Sci-fi does so with aliens and spaceships, fantasy does so with evil sorcerers or brave warriors. No real difference - both genres utilise archetypes and metaphor - only one is hailed as visionary, the other dismissed as Tolkien-esque tosh. Poppycock, says I. You hear that, Internet? Poppycock!

Anyway. I wanted to recommend that fans of fantasy, both classic and modern alike, take a gander at the work on offer on Silver Blade. The editors work closely with their writers, and are trying to build a supportive environment within the competitive and often harsh world of publishing. If you like it, check out the work of Silver Pen, the charitable organisation sitting behind Silver Blade. Even better - submit something yourself!

Creativity game

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There seem to be posts on creativity all over the blogosphere at the moment, two of the best being Melissa Donovan's post over at Writing Forward and Mary Jaksch's post at Write to Done. I remember one person saying that you couldn't describe yourself as 'creative' unless you did anything deemed to be such, since creativity is an action. That being said, I decided I'd share a little game I devised the other day whilst sat on the tube to try and spark your creativity. It can be done on most forms of public transport, and trying to be furtive is good practice should you ever decide to become a spy.

If someone is reading the newspaper beside you, take a sneaky peek over their shoulder at the headlines. Quite a lot of people assume it's alright to read a broadsheet on a crowded train so this shouldn't be too difficult. Try combining two different headlines from the same page to come up with a plot line. Take a look at the person with the newspaper and try to work out just why a particular story might mean something to them. If the headline is about a security leak at government level, perhaps your newspaper neighbour is the staff member who left a laptop on the train? Or maybe they're the person who bought it for their own nefarious ends!

I love to read the newspapers to get ideas for plots! Truth is often stranger than fiction and one of my favourite things to do is to scan the 'for sale' ads, and then try to work out exactly why the owner wants to part with the item they're selling. Just today, I saw adverts offering a 'slightly used' wedding dress, an antique set of drawers, and a job lot of men's shoes. Why were they for sale? Even more importantly, what sort of person would buy them? Read a little further, and even the obituaries can give great story ideas, if you don't mind being a little morbid. If your newspaper has a science section, or a "strange but true" column, give that a read too. You never know what inspirational nuggets may lurk therein.

Further ways to use the news in your writing can be found at Melissa's post here. Recommended reading! Plus, if you're suffering from writer's block, then try Mark McGuinness' post at Lateral Action. They're currently running a series on removing creative blocks.

Now go forth and start scanning those newspapers! What weird and wonderful things can you find?