The Offerer
Minmatar
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Posted - 2011.07.25 04:45:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Darveses
Mhh this thread pops up on every MMO forum at some point.
And I mean this very thread, with these very answers. Always goes the same way, sadly.
That's why this is the first time I've opened it on this forum to see what's written (after a couple of days of it hanging on the first page of GD). At this point, I can safely say that the thread is derailed enough to be locked, but anyway... here's my opinion (as an amateur fiction writer) on the subject:
EVE Chronicles (haven't read the books yet) are pretty much very good written. Any good writer knows that if you write too much about things that are irrelevant for the whole story, you end up with boring stuff. If you write too much about the whole point of the story, you'll reveal too much to the reader and that's not good - you want your readers to be slightly confused and investigative if you want them to think about your piece of work and appreciate it.
Now, to the subject of sexual orientation in fiction... You can't just use sexuality (in general) in the story about a spaceship game as something that's only mentioned to fill the story. You need a reason for mentioning it. In the storyline where we are guided to reveal the secret about ancient races and analyze politics of huge empires that spread through hundreds of solar systems, you can't just expect that sexuality will pop up for no reason at all. It's just not relevant enough.
Now, to make it relevant, you'll have to use it somehow. Like setting the tone of some location (as mentioned earlier - gay bar) that is important for the story. When you are writing fiction that is as mysterious as EVE's (great job CCP Dropbear and the fiction team) every single description that is used in the story is on its place and has been put there for a reason. You can't just mention a gay bar if you don't want to connect it to something that couldn't happen anywhere else except in a gay bar. Otherwise, you are just throwing irrelevant information to your readers that can serve to confuse them and take the charm of searching for meaning of the descriptions in the story from them. I mean, what's the point of a mysterious fiction if you are using locations, characters or their behavior as something that is in no way connected to the story and can lead your readers to think that you have started to put info that is irrelevant. It takes the charm out of solving the mystery if something as big as a location or character behavior is set up without a reason.
Now, there could be stories that can use sexual properties of a location or characters, but try to look at it this way. I'm not saying that I know the sexual orientation of CCP's fiction writers, but if we have fiction that is avoiding to mention sexual orientation, then there's probably a good reason:
1) Fiction writers are straight and when they write, they think about the storyline and work for which they are paid for, not about sexual orientation of the characters in stories. They simply focus on presenting the information to the readers and transfer some properties of their everyday life into the story as something that is taken for granted or not relevant enough to mention. They are not afraid to use alternative preferences in their story... they simply haven't really thought about sexuality in science fiction series about internet spaceships.
2) Fiction writers haven't found a suitable situation that could use sexual orientation of the characters as an important part of the story. It happens all the time: even if you want to use something in your story you simply don't get good enough inspiration to actually write something about it.
So, sit back and relax about sexuality in an SF about internet spaceships, or if you really need an answer, take some time to do a little research on theories of fiction writing and basics of human psychology. Oh,... and to practice relations between what's (not)mentioned in the story and why, I recommend Dostoyevsky.
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