Penny Plain or Tuppence Coloured
Aug. 3rd, 2008 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
desperanceI can often be heard, at gigs and such, opining that the great themes of literature are the great themes of life, which are love and death; and that the great themes of fantasy literature are also love and death - but that we get to play with dragons and magic on top. It's all gravy, sez I.
But then last month I posted about how I was working on a slew of stories, all of which were indisputably fantasies, secondary worlds and all - and there really wasn't a hint of magic in any of them, they were just stories about people, only not in this world, quite.
Which I was having so much fun with, when it came to writing a story for a specific antho, yes indeed. I wrote a fantasy story with no magic in it. My subject is war, and the provisions of war. Oh, and Shere Khanage at the end. (I'm sorry, I had to say that, only that no one out there right now is going to get it. It's a pun in waiting, 'k?)
And of course it came back from the editor yesterday, with a rewrite request: please could I put some magic in?
So, because I am a complaisant kind of guy, I put some magic in. Hell-cattle and firewhips and such. And, y'know? I think it works really, really well. I still love the first version, which is pensive and quietly vengeful; but once I'd spotted it, the magic slotted straight in there as if the slots had been pre-cut ready for it. It's not so much a remake, it's the same artwork in a colour print. I don't think I've ever had a story before that existed in two such complementary versions. It's cool.
Unless the editor doesn't like the rewrite, of course, because then I wouldn't know which version to take back to the marketplace.
[ETA: I guess she liked it. See![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deborahjross, below...]
But then last month I posted about how I was working on a slew of stories, all of which were indisputably fantasies, secondary worlds and all - and there really wasn't a hint of magic in any of them, they were just stories about people, only not in this world, quite.
Which I was having so much fun with, when it came to writing a story for a specific antho, yes indeed. I wrote a fantasy story with no magic in it. My subject is war, and the provisions of war. Oh, and Shere Khanage at the end. (I'm sorry, I had to say that, only that no one out there right now is going to get it. It's a pun in waiting, 'k?)
And of course it came back from the editor yesterday, with a rewrite request: please could I put some magic in?
So, because I am a complaisant kind of guy, I put some magic in. Hell-cattle and firewhips and such. And, y'know? I think it works really, really well. I still love the first version, which is pensive and quietly vengeful; but once I'd spotted it, the magic slotted straight in there as if the slots had been pre-cut ready for it. It's not so much a remake, it's the same artwork in a colour print. I don't think I've ever had a story before that existed in two such complementary versions. It's cool.
Unless the editor doesn't like the rewrite, of course, because then I wouldn't know which version to take back to the marketplace.
[ETA: I guess she liked it. See
deborahjross, below...]