[ExI] ai test

Sat Apr 15 16:05:23 UTC 2023

Tara, I have wondered for some time about book covers.  Two female authors
I just love, Kage Baker and Bujold, have covers that are just about totally
wrong for the book.  Apparently they did not have control over them.  I
guess the publisher wanted control.  What do you know about this?   bill w

On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 10:45 AM Tara Maya via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Mar 2, 2023, at 3:10 PM, spike jones via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>
> Oh hey, cool, I have an idea.
>
> Tara in our times in the USA and probably elsewhere, culture wars are
> escalating to the point where businesses are having to take sides, then
> settle for a much reduced market as the other side of the culture war will
> eschew that retailer or place of business.
>
> A writer might be able to leverage that culture war to her advantage.
> Categorize stuff that generally goes together well: feminist movement and
> social justice for instance.  I want to leave out nuclear power because
> that one is undergoing a remarkable transition as the greens are
> discovering how clean it is, how little emissions, how safe and how small a
> footprint nuclear power requires.  OK good.
>
> Now, write two versions of your story.  Write one with your bad guys
> embracing all the stuff that kinda goes together on one team, and your good
> guys opposing.  Now switch them: still have bad guys, but have them all
> embrace the opposite.  It isn’t entirely clear what is the opposite of
> feminism (is there a masculism?  (never heard of it)) but the opposite of
> social justice I suppose could be imagined: your bad guys could advocate
> re-establishing slavery.
>
> So now you have really the same story but you would be writing for both
> sides of the culture war.  You could even have a pen name and a different
> publisher so that it wouldn’t be quite as obvious what you are doing.  You
> could make a buttload.
>
> spike
>
>
> I do like the idea.
>
> It's not that simple, alas. The most popular book as peak feminism hit the
> culture wars was 50 Shades of Grey. Who do you think was reading that book?
>
> People's taste in fiction often reveals other values than those they claim
> to hold. Or perhaps we all have atavistic drives we'd rather not admit to
> in public.
>
> You'd be surprised who reads stories about female enslavement for
> pleasure.
>
> (An old joke:
> Question: "What's the difference between male p0rn and female p0rn?
> Answer: "40,000 words.")
>
> Also, it's not so easy to write "the same story" with a completely
> different theme. It's simply not the same story. No time is thereby saved.
>  :)
>
> One thing I do like to do, however, is create many different characters in
> my story, who have different points of view. (You may know this technique
> from Game of Thrones.) I avoid modern politics and try to write about
> universal archetypes instead.
>
> I'll give an example. In my coming-of-age epic fantasy The Unfinished
> Song, my main character is a young woman whose storyline has a lot of
> elements that appeal to young female readers: cute pixies, a magic doll,
> adorable pets, romance with a dark and mysterious guy, etc. Her personality
> is one that many young women also share: sweet, naive, generous, shy,
> idealistic. Her overarching goal is to right a terrible wrong done to the
> enemies of humanity; she sides with fae against her own kind.
>
> At the same time, I also have some other characters, for instance, the
> older, experienced, grumpy, but still strong and virile War Chief of the
> tribehold. He is concerned with protecting his tribe from enemies, passing
> power to his recalcitrant son, punishing those who betray him while
> protecting those who depend on him, etc. He also wants to rescue his
> immortal fairy wife from the villain who kidnapped her. His personality is
> clever and gruff, ruthless, tricky and brutal when he needs to be, but with
> a soft spot inside for the vulnerable. In other words, I tried to give him
> a much different agenda and set of interests and personality than the
> protagonist.
>
> He's a good guy, but he is an enemy of the heroine because he think's her
> naivety is going to get his son killed.
>
> Now if you look at who is at the cutting edge of "woke", you'll see it's
> teen girls. If you look who is at the forefront of pushing back against
> "woke", you'll see that it's mature men who want to protect civilization
> from collapsing back into barbarism. My story isn't for or against "the
> current thing," it's just an observation that young people are prone to
> rushing into "the current thing," and older people, who realize maybe the
> new thing isn't that new, are more likely to hold back and warn against it.
>
> In my story, it happens that sometimes the heroine is right... and
> sometimes the old War Chief is right.
>
> My attempt to appeal to different demographics may have worked, at least
> going by letters from fans. I have received emails from young female fans
> who HATE the old War Chief because he is SO MEAN to the protagonist. I've
> literally had girls beg me to kill him off.
>
> On the other hand, I've received some email from military vets who asked
> me why I put such "girly" covers on my books when the books are all about
> strategy and war, etc. They tend to name either the hero and/or his father
> (the War Chief mentioned above) as their favorite characters.
>
>
> Tara Maya
>
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