[small enough to matter]
Jan. 15th, 2006 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaI'm starting to truly think that in fact, talking to tech-support people is pure torture, designed to test the mind and break the spirit. Yes.
You know why? WHY?? YES, OH YES, I CAN TELL YOU WHY.
THEY ARE TOO POLITE. They are so polite, and non-offensive, and non-information-volunteering that I want to wring their scrawny little necks, oh yes I do. Talking to a person who treats you as if you're a (vaguely mentally disabled) 5 year-old is... well, it's bad enough if you don't feel you should keep your temper too. And of course I don't push too hard because that would make me feel ungrateful and silly, and also a bitch ('what's going on?' 'oh, some settings got changed.') ARGH.
My problem, really, is that overly polite professional people somehow come off as inhuman. Except a machine would offer to give you information more; come to think of it, I like computers themselves like, tons more than chippery tech-support girls. Die, tech-support girls, die!!1
They're really like... the human incarnations of AOL. -.-
And then people say 'if you haven't got anything nice to say, say nothing at all'. Riiiight. Because that doesn't lead to 'if you don't think it'll be useful, say nothing' and 'if you don't think The Little People can understand, say nothing' and 'if you think it'll make people listen to The Authority That Is You, keep on saying nothing'. Of course.
~~
I've been reading fantasy novels recently, both set partly in Scotland. Mmmm, Scotland... I'm not sure if I'm more enamoured with the faerie lore or the actual history (the Picts! Eee!), but-- well, that's normal for me.
Back when I first went to the fantasy section of Barnes & Noble several days back, I had some major headdesk...ing regarding everything being part of some crappy serial (trilogy being getting off lightly), but my real problem is actually things being crappy. It's just somehow worse when it's also 'part three of five'. (And then they say it's hard to break into the writing business-- I mean, can't be that hard when 90% of what I see is awwwwful.)
But Lisa Tuttle's stuff is really promising and Juliet Marillier is one of the very few people who do historical fantasy to my tastes these days. In epic fantasy especially, my tastes seem to be more exacting than with other types (well, than with urban fantasy), because people seem more likely to write in a dry, ponderous manner and use lots of flowery cliches-- I mean, even the best (Marillier or the other recent Australian, Alison Croggon) have this thing with the flowery descriptions and over-elaborate pretty much everything, and that sense of pompousness which I hate-- but it's more bearable somehow. Probably an actual talent for writing helps.
Though yeah, my issue is generally that when people focus on far-reaching plot and 'environment' or 'social issues' in their writing, the immediacy level goes way way down. Everything, even how things are -described- starts to feel predictable and boring when the focus becomes on the story to the point where the actual writing part is irrelevant. Like, I really don't know how people stand to read it-- not that some cliches aren't comfortingly familiar, but a constant barrage of them with no random sparkle feels like a recitation of a memorized play, doesn't it?
This is why I don't tend to read all the more famous fantasy epics that mark everyone else as a fantasy fan, man. It really takes way more talent than most writers have to make a big story still seem small enough to matter.
Actually, what I really like is some self-consciousness on the part of the narrative-- especially when things become cliche, it really amuses me when the characters are aware they're in a story (not literally, but more in a 'this is like this sort of story' sense). In stories which are based on fairy-tales but set in modern times especially, that works well for me. In a historical fantasy, characters being aware of myths or telling folktales for some reason frames things nicely as well-- or there being other (positive) characters who 'talk sense' or think in a skeptical fashion allows me to identify more with the main heroes. Though too much self-awareness makes for tell-not-show, methinks.
When the nay-saying character is merely there to be the enemy (and no real attempt at winning anyone over exists), I just get tired of being proselytized at.
Actually, it seems a lot of the fantasy books I've read lately off the top of my head, the main 'sympathetic' character is a 'true believer' or becomes one by necessity or revelation. Generally, I identify with that sort quite well, but when the skeptic or heretic is portrayed sympathetically as being intelligent and discerning and grows as a person without becoming a 'convert', that's even more appealing somehow. Maybe I'm just doomed to liking anti-heroes, I dunno.
You know why? WHY?? YES, OH YES, I CAN TELL YOU WHY.
THEY ARE TOO POLITE. They are so polite, and non-offensive, and non-information-volunteering that I want to wring their scrawny little necks, oh yes I do. Talking to a person who treats you as if you're a (vaguely mentally disabled) 5 year-old is... well, it's bad enough if you don't feel you should keep your temper too. And of course I don't push too hard because that would make me feel ungrateful and silly, and also a bitch ('what's going on?' 'oh, some settings got changed.') ARGH.
My problem, really, is that overly polite professional people somehow come off as inhuman. Except a machine would offer to give you information more; come to think of it, I like computers themselves like, tons more than chippery tech-support girls. Die, tech-support girls, die!!1
They're really like... the human incarnations of AOL. -.-
And then people say 'if you haven't got anything nice to say, say nothing at all'. Riiiight. Because that doesn't lead to 'if you don't think it'll be useful, say nothing' and 'if you don't think The Little People can understand, say nothing' and 'if you think it'll make people listen to The Authority That Is You, keep on saying nothing'. Of course.
~~
I've been reading fantasy novels recently, both set partly in Scotland. Mmmm, Scotland... I'm not sure if I'm more enamoured with the faerie lore or the actual history (the Picts! Eee!), but-- well, that's normal for me.
Back when I first went to the fantasy section of Barnes & Noble several days back, I had some major headdesk...ing regarding everything being part of some crappy serial (trilogy being getting off lightly), but my real problem is actually things being crappy. It's just somehow worse when it's also 'part three of five'. (And then they say it's hard to break into the writing business-- I mean, can't be that hard when 90% of what I see is awwwwful.)
But Lisa Tuttle's stuff is really promising and Juliet Marillier is one of the very few people who do historical fantasy to my tastes these days. In epic fantasy especially, my tastes seem to be more exacting than with other types (well, than with urban fantasy), because people seem more likely to write in a dry, ponderous manner and use lots of flowery cliches-- I mean, even the best (Marillier or the other recent Australian, Alison Croggon) have this thing with the flowery descriptions and over-elaborate pretty much everything, and that sense of pompousness which I hate-- but it's more bearable somehow. Probably an actual talent for writing helps.
Though yeah, my issue is generally that when people focus on far-reaching plot and 'environment' or 'social issues' in their writing, the immediacy level goes way way down. Everything, even how things are -described- starts to feel predictable and boring when the focus becomes on the story to the point where the actual writing part is irrelevant. Like, I really don't know how people stand to read it-- not that some cliches aren't comfortingly familiar, but a constant barrage of them with no random sparkle feels like a recitation of a memorized play, doesn't it?
This is why I don't tend to read all the more famous fantasy epics that mark everyone else as a fantasy fan, man. It really takes way more talent than most writers have to make a big story still seem small enough to matter.
Actually, what I really like is some self-consciousness on the part of the narrative-- especially when things become cliche, it really amuses me when the characters are aware they're in a story (not literally, but more in a 'this is like this sort of story' sense). In stories which are based on fairy-tales but set in modern times especially, that works well for me. In a historical fantasy, characters being aware of myths or telling folktales for some reason frames things nicely as well-- or there being other (positive) characters who 'talk sense' or think in a skeptical fashion allows me to identify more with the main heroes. Though too much self-awareness makes for tell-not-show, methinks.
When the nay-saying character is merely there to be the enemy (and no real attempt at winning anyone over exists), I just get tired of being proselytized at.
Actually, it seems a lot of the fantasy books I've read lately off the top of my head, the main 'sympathetic' character is a 'true believer' or becomes one by necessity or revelation. Generally, I identify with that sort quite well, but when the skeptic or heretic is portrayed sympathetically as being intelligent and discerning and grows as a person without becoming a 'convert', that's even more appealing somehow. Maybe I'm just doomed to liking anti-heroes, I dunno.
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Date: 2006-01-15 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-15 09:28 pm (UTC)