(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

Huh. This is new. I think I figured out a way to turn the immortal!Susan story -- sans crack crossovers, obviously -- into an original, while still keeping the "they were kings and queens in a magical land during WWII" aspect of it. (It involves Faery, somehow. That part's still being worked on.) Also, because not everything I can write can have massive amounts of incest in it (ha! try telling this to the colonial fantasy story or the werewolf story), the Peter character and the Susan character are no longer siblings. The Peter character definitely has a younger sister and possibly a younger brother; the Susan character definitely has an older brother but I'm unsure whether or not she has younger sibs. All of them are dead by the time we get to 2009 and the FBI thing.

Also, Morgan le Fay may make an appearance. (In a generally beneficial sort of way. Not, like, evil, just immortal and cynical.)

In other news, remember when I said I'd like to see what the Revolutionary War would have been like with magic? Apparently it's already been done.

Okay, studying now.

Comments

[lassiterfics.livejournal.com]

Civil war with magic! Civil rights movement with magic! The California gold rush with magic! WWI with magic!

<3 The crack-cum-original! Will you write it?! I've been thinking about the act of writing originals and how I haven't done one in SO LONG, it's embarrassing. And I suspect that the best way to keep me disciplined in original writing is to take, like, Arthur or someone and just treat it like an AU sorta.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And then I realized that I don't particularly like magic in my fantasy all that much. *pouts* Just magical things. What if the Navy SEALS were selkies, or Army Special Forces were werewolves, or the Air Force used griffins and hippogriffs? (Dragons: so overrated.)

*cough* That is what I usually do. Most of my originals can be traced back to fandom characters and/or concepts.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

The revolutionary war with magic makes me want to read the writing of somebody who knows a lot about the influence of weapons capabilities on tactics, and is writing the type of fantasy where there's a big war and everybody/a significant portion of the population has magic and use it openly. Because that's got to change things, as far as the strategies you can use goes. And if magic was used openly for all of history, would weapons even be popular? I imagine they'd still exist, because we're talking about humans here- the more ways we can kill each other, the better- but I can't imagine they'd be as popular, or possibly as refined. And of course society and technology would be all different...

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

We might still be back at the swords and bows level -- and then again, maybe not, depending on the portion of the population that uses magic -- what if technology came about because they wanted to set everyone on an equal playing field? And then someone points out that they can't exactly forbid magic-users from using computers and guns...

Have you read Naomi Novik's Temeraire series? She did the Napoleonic Wars with dragons, and did it fairly well, too.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

And then of course the geniuses (genii?) of the magic-users create technology which uses magic...which only the magic-users can use...The politics in that world would be so interesting, and different depending on what percentage of people were magic-users, what percentage were too lazy or uneducated in magic use, and what percentage literally could not use magic.

I've been tempted to read it, because it makes me twitch to see crossovers I can't read because I haven't seen or read one of the canons involved (fun fact: the canon is rarely as awesome as the fanfiction leads me to believe), but I'm unfortunately unable to read books right now. Kind of an amusing story, actually: I used to be the biggest bibliophile I could possibly be without having lots and lots of money, and then I got into fanfiction...and now even when I try to read books I lose interest in them, even ones I know I like. I think my attention span's gotten shorter, and I've gotten pickier about what I love (I have three settings for rating what I read: love, which is apparently the best 1%; kill it now, which is the bottom .5%; and everything else, which is the remaining 98.5%). *Heads off to Wikipedia to find out when/where the Napoleonic wars were, since her school never taught any history that didn't have America as a big part of it*

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And then there are different types of magic for each nation/class/etc., and there is probably a movement in the States to get rid of certain types of magic because they're inherently prejudiced, and people trying to use ancient magic to find their heritage, and some of the purer magic users in Europe looking down on the ragtag American magic...

If it's any help, Temeraire is written by a very well-known fic writer -- I don't want to put her name out, because she's asked that people not link the two, but the books are very well-written. (They're not as deep as I'd like, but hi, I like George R.R. Martin and Scott Lynch, I heart worldbuilding, clearly.)

But I totally know what you mean; I am ridiculously picky as a reader.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

And technology which may or may not include weapons developing earlier, which leads to a whole chain reaction of change. Because once scientists come up with theories, it's a lot easier to test and implement them with magic than with only technology. And if magic was combined with transportation early, it would change things a lot because travel time was such a significant factor in the past. I think the different magics thing would be lessened by public schooling, since they have fairly standardized curriculums. I can see native Americans either losing most of their magical traditions or never being so conquered since the technological advantage would be less significant. Hmm, movements to not teach offensive magic vs. the magical equivalent of the NRA?

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And how does the second amendment apply, then? How does it change the Constitution and the Amendments and the Declaration?

And what about WWII? And Hitler? And the Civil War? Oooh. The Civil War.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

What kinds of additions would have to be made to forensics once it got invented? How would prisons- and possibly the sentences given to criminals- change, since it would be impossible to keep them prisoner in the prisons we have (unless it's prop-based magic)? How would language and literature change- I can't even imagine what those fairy tales would have to be like to keep the same tone as our fairy tales, and there would be whole chunks of language that would change (you can't say things are magic sarcastically in the same way we can, because magic isn't in the realm of fantasy, it's a very concrete thing). Things they classify as fantasy would be interesting to see.

The underground railroad, with tracking spells and counterspells and spells to mask counterspells. Depending on how the magic went, slavery might not have been as widespread, because it might be possible to work the fields easier with magic, and of course you wouldn't want your slaves using magic.

Battles once healing magic advances far enough- soldiers fall, they get healed, they rejoin the battle. Which would make the armies strange, and weird the tactics. How would that affect the Geneva Convention?

I could see treatment of magic being an issue while writing the constitution, possibly along the lines of religion. Ooh, prohibition of establishing a state school of magic, which would make things interesting. Or it might just be treated like another subject in school.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Oooh, what about religion? How would that be affected? Magical priests, and then the Inquisition back in the day, and some of the sects that absolutely abhor magic clash with the ones that use a lot of it.

And I bet there's magic that's tied into blood, somehow -- certain bloodlines, which probably means certain DNA markers, and there's obviously going to be conflict about that, somehow. And then the magical purists that are against mingling magics or diluting the bloodlines or something.

What about government? Are politicans going to be allowed to use magic? Maybe it's not allowed within Congress, or something, or there's never been a president who's been able to do more than light a few candles.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't know how people can create a society where magic use is open and not consider these issues. Magic would change things so much that everything would be unrecognizable by us!

Regulation of magic. Safeguarding elections from being magically tampered with- maybe some different method of polling? The magical equivalent of the Amish.

If magic is really widespread and accepted, politicians would be allowed to use it, because it's just an everyday thing to them- though, of course, some of it might be a breach of etiquette while in Congress. If it's less accepted to start out with, and it's treated more like race, it starts slowly trickling into Congress until eventually we have a magical president.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Especially if one happens to be holding to the idea that history still happened exactly as it did, which occasionally requires some weird contortions, like how did the ragtag American colonial magicians defeat the orderly, well-trained British Army magicians? And the Blitz -- how did that go down?

Or varioius assassinations -- maybe that the assassins used nonmagical methods rather than magical ones, or some combination, leading to the Great JFK Question: was there a magician distracting the Secret Service, or did the shooter work alone?

...oh god, Mardi Gras with real magic.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I can't see how it could stay the same- in response to magic, society would have to change so much. Just think about how much technology- even one KIND of technology, like cars- changed society. Cars led to highways and suburbs and a huge chunk of the oil industry, all of which changed society in massive ways. And the existence of magic is really more massive than that, like it's the industrial revolution (the magical revolution!), unless the magic's so limited that it might as well not exist, in which case it's not so interesting. You'd have to contort how societies work so much to keep events the same that it would completely ruin the whole exercise, unless magic was a *new* discovery...which would be fun, because it would be all about the changes that society undergoes because of it, but not really the same thing.

Elvis: is he still alive, due to the magical procedures of the aliens who abducted him?

Hm, I wonder what the magical equivalent of hackers would be, because they'd have to exist in some form.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I don't think you would, though -- I mean, if you say that magic is going to change a major historical event -- go with the American Revolution here, I suppose -- then that negates some of the interest. I mean, even without magic some things happened that are pretty unbelievable; it makes it more interesting is magic played a part, because it does raise questions. I just feel like a lot of the original interest is lost when you open a book and it's all, "Because the British had magic, there was no American Revolution!" (Which...I read a book like that, somewhere.)

Airport security has to be even more of a nightmare with magic. *grins*

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Yeah, of course a lot of the interest is in seeing how the same events are changed by magic, while still having them happen. But if we're talking wide-scale magic usage, that's going to warp things until they're a lot different, which I guess is interesting more in a world-building way than plotwise (it's like those books that have the premise of "what would the world be like today if the roman empire never fell?"). And of course, when you're doing that it's always fun to toss in a bit of "this is how America got its independence, with magic in the mix, even though the issues were slightly different and the methods were a lot different".

What I've never seen, that would be interesting, would be to treat magic like math. Everybody has the ability to do it, but you have to learn how. For most of history, education isn't widespread so most people know a couple of cantrips and that's it, and then as education becomes more widespread so does magic, and people can go on to get doctorates in magic. So it wouldn't affect most of history because only the elite are educated- though it would probably affect the laws quite a bit because lawmakers traditionally are educated. And actually I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen that concept. I've seen schools solely for magic, but I haven't seen them in *this* world (Harry Potter doesn't count, since they're so isolationist), or as anything other than *solely* schools of magic, which isn't quite the same thing.

Illegal immigration when people can teleport. :D

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I was getting disturbed by how far over our conversation was getting, so I'm replying here.

See, I knew there was another way to become an officer, but everywhere I looked it was just "ROTC or the Academy", which was *not helpful*. Which is how it goes a lot of the time in researching for stories, except half the time you don't even know it. Some of my issues with research inadequacy involve POV- if I have a character who's a scientist, they're logically going to be thinking things I don't have the slightest clue about, so if I write from their point of view it's going to be less than awesome, and the same with any character who isn't a stand-in for myself (which would be a boring, boring story, let me tell you). And no matter how I research, I know the answers I get are going to be less than the understanding the character's supposed to have. Add in a couple more characters for variety and multiply the amount of things you can only inadequately research.

I could never be military even if I wanted to, because my body hates me.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

That was why I was reading all the military memoirs -- I was really trying to get into that headspace so I could write Beau's POV adequately without having it seem off. (My MC was originally going to be a female astrophysicist, then I actually thought about that and went, "Yeah, no," so far as the POV went. So she's no longer my POV characer.)

I also had the plus side of being all gung-ho about the Air Force and interviewing Air Force officers. *cough* So...there was that. Which was helpful. Except I didn't bring up the, "I'm writing a novel," thing, since I was supposed to be interviewing for my career.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Hm, memoirs might work for some things. I'll have to try that.

This conversation and a couple of forums aside, I have major, *major* issues even emailing people I don't know, much less asking them questions in person, and at that I'm a lot less shy than I used to be. But it would be so useful to have a friend who knows literally everything, so you could just ask them questions and they'd know the answers.

In some ways, I think the easiest thing to write is an allegory of real-world events. Because if you mess up on research it's not technically wrong, but you can also do as much research as you want so you don't have to think if you feel like doing research on that particular part of it (creating governments that would both work and be accepted by the society that you're writing about=not so much fun). It's the best of both worlds!

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

And I also just found them fun to read. *shrug* A lot of the more recent ones are by journalists, embedded or otherwise, but there's also been a recent rise in memoirs. Black Hawk Down (the book) is actually very well-written; it was written by a journalist from a number of accounts he got from the men involved. Generation Kill is also good, and pretty well-known; that one's from an embedded journalist.

Oh, so do I, which is really going to screw me over one of these days.

It is like you are reading my mind. That was what my senior project novel was about, it was sort of, uh, political commentary, which I didn't figure out until about two months from the due date. The Galactic War on Terror!

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I figure the only job I'm going to be able to do is a desk job with absolutely no talking on the phone. Kind of bad since the subject I'm most interested in is sociology...

I did the American Revolution In Space in a chatfic once, even if the other person denied it. I'm jealous of your ability to finish writing novels outside of November. Also, maybe I am!

The magical equivalent of Moore's Law.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

College has taught me that the only thing I want to do with my life is write books. Period. Definitely not go into academia; I think I'd claw my eyes out.

I have actually never finished a novel in November. I didn't actually finish my senior project novel; just wrote 100,000 words of it, edited out the smut, and turned it in with commentary.

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

Oh, writing books is the only thing I'd *like* to do with my job, but I have no illusions about my ability to make enough money to live on doing that.

NaNoWriMo has made me finish three horrible novels which in my opinion have gotten less horrible with each year. I don't think I've finished anything more than 10,000 words long outside of NaNo, or even written and not finished.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wish I was naive enough to think I could be a full-time writer out of college, but the chances of doing that are so tiny they're...well, very tiny. I might try for my teaching certificate, I suppose, if I don't go for an MA.

I've finished this past year's NaNovel, I just didn't finish it during November, and...well, this is the year I did fic, so there's that. (70K of Narnia genderfuck! Yeah, that's marketable.) And then Dust, my Narnia WIP, is over 90K and still going, now. *sigh* After my senior project novel, I didn't even want to think about original fic for a very long time

[lyndseas.livejournal.com]

I've come to the conclusion that I'm bad at giving my original characters unique voices; they all come off as just generic humanoid carbon units, not whatever they're supposed to be. Which, let me tell you, makes me a lot less enthusiastic about writing original fic, especially since I can mostly only talk people into reading my fanfiction. I mean, I write for myself, but it's a lot more encouraging to know that at least a couple of people will be willing to read what I write than to know that nobody other than myself will read it. I finished NaNo '08 on the 15th, but I can't keep up a steady flow of words if it's not November.

Of course, now that I've done NaNo for a few years my muse has started to give me more ideas for long fic than for short fic, which is anti-helpful, what with the word flow problems.

[bedlamsbard.livejournal.com]

I can nearly always come up with an idea for a novel -- sort of -- only my default, somewhere along the way, got set on series rather than stand-alone. Which doesn't work out so well. (Or, alternatively, twelve to twenty-three "episode" arcs, courtesy of watching too much television. I can do that, but that just doesn't work in story form.) I'm not so good at doing short stuff, especially originals -- I actually did a fair amount of short fic for Narnia, but that's sort of diminishing in the wake of the two monsters.