Writing Group Wrap Up

So last night was the second organized meeting of the writing group, and as before everyone had something to share. This week our stories had immortal body snatchers, the melusine and alien fairies by firelight. So a pretty wide collection of stories all falling within the speculative fiction definition. One thing that was surprising to me was the similar darkness to all of our stories. Nobody seemed depressed, so I'm gonna chalk it up to a reflection of the winter, or the current economic climate.

On that note, over at SFNovelists S.C. Butler has posted an article entitled The Happy Place. The article (and associated comments) explores the recent trend of what he calls the Pessimistic Fantasies garnering greater attention over Optimistic Fantasies. Pessimistic Fantasies are stories that start in a dark place, a cruel world so to speak, where characters struggle to bring positive change. Whereas Optimistic Fantasies start in a idealized place, and typically characters attempt to protect this world.

If I were to evaluate the stories presented in the meeting last night I would characterize them as pessimistic, however this is not meant as an insult. Our choices of dark worlds for our stories gave us the freedom to explore the ramifications of our characters decisions, and in a sense let them define Good or Evil, instead of their world defining it. This is one of the strengths of a short story where world building, must by necessity, be a distant second or third to the character development. There simply isn't time to waste filling in all the details of a world when an actual story must unfold. Ultimately it's easier and faster to describe Dystopia over Utopia, because the former doesn't require you to have all the answers.

Next month, new meeting, new stories. Tick Tock goes the clock, time to get writing.