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I have been reading the latest 'year's best SF' and quite enjoying it. I then look up stories here, see 'SF' or fantasy in the header, and switch off. One story, "The Island", intrigues me,and I will continue reading it, but those stories with miraculous devices/transformatons do not speak to me. Clearly, this is a personal thing, and I mean no criticism of others, but while I love SF I can only connect with TG stories that are close to real life. Perhaps this is personal identification, maybe I am inflexible, but I offer now my apologies to those who write that sort of story.
T'ain't you, tis me.
Comments
Sigh, yeah
Sort of the same way. Real life reflecting back on my reading choices recently makes me a bit of a grumpy cow, some might say I am a bit opinionated too. Who me? cough. Fair cop. I'll admit the rash of retcons recently got right up my nose, I just couldn't face another spandex clad babe with superpowers. They might be written really well, but nope, I won't know it. I can look at fantasy and sci fi and enjoy them, hell I even have one with magic in it that's been sitting for a couple of years that I may finish sometime so I'm not totally close minded. The flush of somewhat 'forced' stories bothers me too, but for different reasons.
Like I said in the title... sigh... and like cyclist, taint you it's me. Each to their own and all that but recently my reading choices are pretty slim for all sorts of reasons, then maybe I'll write something new sometime and everyone can tell me what's wrong with it, that's cool. Generally I'm a 'real world' person which gives a lot of scope escapist fantasy is fine if that's what rocks you but taint really my thing mostly, always exceptions though.
Like I said real life reflecting darkly so don't mind me, carry on with whatever gets you through.
Kristina
I understand what you are saying ... Still.
We are all at different places in our journey. There was a time when the first bra, and stockings really attracted me, now I know that the damn bras are mostly uncomfortable, itch and who can keep the bloody straps up !!! Time was when the norm for me was stockings with a garterbelt and a knee length skirt. Now, It is warm leggings and silk pants under a very long skirt.
My first stories were forced fem, and rough ones too, but lately, I just want to write about happy things with good endings. Can't really bear to write about coming out; too painful; don't wanna repeat it.
Much peace
Khadijah
each to their own
i enjoy fantasy myself, as well as "real life" stories. Hugs.
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
if you write it...
To be fair, miraculous transformations aren't confined to just sci-fi and fantasy. To twist a line from a well known film, "if you write it, they will come". Who knows, if you write something in the sci-fi style you like it could spark ideas in others and lead to a proliferation of that sort of sci-fi on the site. Worth a try surely? :-)
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I tend to..
I tend to be the same way... I actually had a SF piece here on BCTS for a long time. I just recently took it down. (No TG elements...)
Where I am - today - the miraculous transformations just don't work... (There have been a few exceptions. I recall one about a Djini.) at least not for me. They "feel" too "easy". There was a time, I did read them though. Go figure.
(There are other story elements that will cause me to drop a story, too...)
We all have our favorites. If you like Anne McCaffrey's Pern stories - there's one here that actually works. (quite well done too.)
Anne
It All Depends
John Varley wrote a whole slew of "mainstream" SF with TG elements, and it goes back as far as Eric Frank Russell, some thirty-odd (?) years ago.
I agree that some here seem forced, but recently "The Green Fog" had that 50s-60s English catastrophic doomsday feeling (ala John Christopher) and "The Island" is different but still tantalising. A fantasy that was a particular favourite of mine was The "Unicorn's Gift" series, and, honestly, I never read those magicky medieval stories, but what Sarah-Lynn Morgan writes I read.
And, hey! Cyclist, you wrote one yourself a couple of months ago called "Playtime" if I remember correctly and it was pretty good (it didn't have any magic/fantasy gender change).
Good writers will generally write readable stories about different themes. I confess my own distaste for the TG super-hero sub-genre, but the fault is mostly in my prejudices and not with the authors.
As long as we get a good spread, so that each of us has something to suit our tastes, then we all should be happy,
Joanne
Magic (and my) Johnson
An aging cross-dresser dons a cheap wig and a poorly fitting housedress and slaps a bit of bright red lipstick somewhere between his beard-darkened upper lip and his triple chins. In the mirror she sees a feminine vision as lovely and sweet as the air-brushed photos in People.
Now -- if that isn't magic . . . what is? If a skirt and heels are all that's required to change a young person's sexual preference doesn't involve science fiction . . . what does? (I suppose the skirts and heels would have to be considered lab equipment and there would need to be a control group who didn't get feminized.)
This blog is timely in that my muse has been urging me to write a Christmas story. I have the first chapter in the can and an outline that has become increasingly less satisfying. I want to use the magic of Christmas to carry out the fondest dreams of three people, but wonder where that magic crosses my own line of plausibility. What is a Christmas story without magic? What is love if it isn't "magic"? Isn't one of the ten most asked questions in life, "What the hell does she see in him?" Isn't looking at the world through rose-colored glasses dabbling in both science and magic?
That internal debate is the joy of writing. It's not the number of comments, the kudos, the number of hits . . . it's the self-satisfaction of taking a gleam of an idea and through characters, plot, and setting writing something that others can appreciate. When that occurs it is magic.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
For me, fantasy and SF ...
... expand the number of "what if" stories I can write. Trying to come up with something new to write about the human condition gets a lot harder when you've got nothing to work with but mundane reality -- just ask any author who writes police procedurals or romance novels. Writing fantasy and science fiction gives me something more for my characters to overcome, new challenges that stretch their ability to learn and grow far beyond "I faced down a hungry bear in the woods with only a Swiss Army knife and a Bible ... and SURVIVED." We get to see them deal with the impossible, learn more about who they are behind the mask they wear every day, and move on to the next adventure. Because that's what life really is, isn't it? A series of adventures and challenges, big and small, for us to overcome ... and maybe wind up a little wiser along the way.
As for the writer in me, I'll play in any playground where they let me in -- well, any playground where i want to play. *smiles*
Randa
I have to come down in
I have to come down in Cyclist's camp on this one. While I have dabbled in SF in the form of 'The Miss - Adventures of Wendy Pilgrim' and 'Driftwood,'and have every intention of going back to them, that is not where my heart is as a writer or what I enjoy reading. For me taking an Alice in Wonderland pill that magically changes people is a lazy devise used all too often, one that cheapens the story and serves as a turn off. Now that's just me speaking. No doubt I shall be beat about the head and shoulders for saying so, but I do not think I am the only one who feels this way.
Taking people and putting them in situations that lead to people to make life changing choices are far more interesting and, for the writer challenging. T D Aldoennetti's 'Knowing Yourself' is an excellent example of stories that capture my attention. 'Angles High' was another one, one I wish would continue.
So count me in as on of those silly sods who would live to see more writers here enter stories that have both feet well grounded in the magical realm of possibility.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
I'm on the opposite site here...
...but then, I'm not in any place in the "journey" that was mentioned by a previous poster. You see, I'm not transgendered at all. Not even cross-dressing.
I look at the magic/sci-fi stories from another angle. I don't look at it as "a way to become a woman," but "would I be able to cope, if I was thrust in that situation?" That's why I tend to prefer stories in which the main character wasn't transgendered at the beginning. A story that goes "Transwoman finds genie's lamp, becomes millionaire sexy bombshell" has no conflict, it's just basic wish-fulfillment -- of a wish I don't even share. A story that goes "regular guy finds genie's bottle, botches wish and now faces life as a big-titted bombshell" can potentially have a lot of conflict. Conflict is good, conflict is what makes the story interesting.
Gender transformation are interesting because the subject is at once pretty "normal" and very alien to one's previous experience. Racial-transformation stories a la "Watermelon Man" come close to the strangeness level, but not quite there.
Real Life Magic
Whenever this topic comes up, I usually state that many of the stories at this and like stories that are based in the real world require coincidences to be stacked high enough that it is almost magical. Not that I think that to be a bad thing, since I happily ignore certain coincidences when reading.
However, in response to the concept that magic or advanced science (which may as well be science) provides an easy out for a writer, I would say that makes the assumption that the story's conflict needs to be based around the protagonist's transformation. That is something with which I disagree, since transgender characters can exist in stories where that part of them plays a role less important than other story conflicts.
Indeed
The last two comments say a lot of what I think. I have been a fan (term originally coined for and by SF) since childhood, which is why I made the point about what I was reading before I mademy pitch. I try and write stuff which is character driven and involves real people. Yes, I am TS, which gives a personal twist to things, but there are more things going on here. Firstly, I haven't read comics since I was a small boy, so a vast number of stories here are foreign to me. Secondly, I understand exactly what my commentator says about conflict; conflict and resoluton ARE a story.
When there is a 'miraculous' transformation, no matter if it is 'forced fem', 'being intersexed and nobody noticed', 'madjick', 'miraculous devices' or whichever, there needs to be that conflict. When a character is put in a dress, and 'therefore' starts immediately to behave like a hetero woman, it is not conflict, it is just silly. A lesbian doesn't become straight just by putting on stockings and a bra, so why should a straight man? That is a slightly different argument, of course.
Arcie emm makes the excellent point that conflict doesn't have to be about the TG issues, which is fine, but a story in which such an issue is sidelined to extinction would not ring true, which is the key to allowing that suspension of disbelief, no 'with one mighty bound' stuff. I am up to my eyeballs in writng a very long story that has taken on its own life, which involves three transwomen, a lesbian couple who want children, religious obsessions, a straight man who wants a kid but doesn't know how to interact with women beyond the superficial, transphobia, being a step parent, being a widower....enough conflict to resolve without any of the TG issues but, at the end of the day, this remains a site for TG fiction.
The reference earlier (sorry, this is an involved reply!) to my story 'Playtime' shows that I am not agin SF. The concept was entirely reliant on sex, and on sexuality giving two people an 'escape' from danger.The conflict was in the fact that a straight guy launched into full sexual activity with a man in a dress--how and why?
Finally, you wll be pleased to hear, my rant is nearly over. I read fantasy books. I am particulary fond of the late David Gemmel's warts-and-all Drenai tales. There are real, conflicted people in them. Best of all, they don't come with that bugbear of mine, a list at the start of the book. Even Larry Niven/Jerry Pournelle's hard SF stuff has fallen foul of that malady, whether it be a 'pantheon' or 'dramatis personae'. For gods' sakes, let the reader find their own way through it all, that's the skill of being a writer!