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Oct. 3rd, 2005 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethhttp://www.sequentialtart.com/cv_1005_4.shtml
panel discussion on Horror writing
On the subject of writing monsters as relatively sympathetic — or at least relatable — characters, Hurwitz commented, "For me, monsters are like people, only more so. I've only had thirty-four years to get this weird, but some of my characters have been lingering on for two or three hundred years."
see this is why it bugs me when stories throw around centuries as if they don't matter.
ten years ago I was a different person than I am now. in a hundred years, surely I'd be quite different again? Or is change something that stops eventually? Or maybe change is related to data input or changing conditions, and people in the past who stayed in one place with a handful of people and no books would change very little. But the stories I've read that throw the largest numbers in postulate travel and a wide variety of people, plus all the culture you can think of, including magical analogs of television. So that doesn't quite work.
One story I read about Methos reckoned he got as crazy as it is humanly possible to be, but on account of being 5000 years old he got uncrazy again. Had time to work through his issues.
But then there are the other Horsemen, who we didn't see much of, but who certainly didn't seem to have changed much since the good old days.
I like stories that explore the possibilities. I liked when Angel told off Penn for being so unoriginal. Or Highlander, where there was a definite attempt to show Duncan becoming who we saw when we met him, with different attitudes in all his 400 years, but a common core.
Stories that say a character is a couple thousand years old but give you barely enough backstory or character development to make them teenage... irritate me.
panel discussion on Horror writing
On the subject of writing monsters as relatively sympathetic — or at least relatable — characters, Hurwitz commented, "For me, monsters are like people, only more so. I've only had thirty-four years to get this weird, but some of my characters have been lingering on for two or three hundred years."
see this is why it bugs me when stories throw around centuries as if they don't matter.
ten years ago I was a different person than I am now. in a hundred years, surely I'd be quite different again? Or is change something that stops eventually? Or maybe change is related to data input or changing conditions, and people in the past who stayed in one place with a handful of people and no books would change very little. But the stories I've read that throw the largest numbers in postulate travel and a wide variety of people, plus all the culture you can think of, including magical analogs of television. So that doesn't quite work.
One story I read about Methos reckoned he got as crazy as it is humanly possible to be, but on account of being 5000 years old he got uncrazy again. Had time to work through his issues.
But then there are the other Horsemen, who we didn't see much of, but who certainly didn't seem to have changed much since the good old days.
I like stories that explore the possibilities. I liked when Angel told off Penn for being so unoriginal. Or Highlander, where there was a definite attempt to show Duncan becoming who we saw when we met him, with different attitudes in all his 400 years, but a common core.
Stories that say a character is a couple thousand years old but give you barely enough backstory or character development to make them teenage... irritate me.