From: Swapnil Bhartiya <arnieswap@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [indiansciencefiction] Re: The Story On Demand
To: indiansciencefiction@yahoogroups.co.in
Date: Sunday, 29 March, 2009, 8:01 AM

I 101% agree with you Arvind ji. Let's forget about text story. What about a radio play or a movie? Will we be giving notes there too as sub titles?

CMN sir, I quite understand your view, but we have to understand it is Fiction. That is a different format all together. The writer already has been given the tool he needs, words and space. "In a lighter note, foot note is the land are of the real estate of fiction where you don't have the perit to build anything".  I have never come across any such story where you get foot notes.

And if a writer has to give foot notes then it simply means he is picking a wrong format to share the information. He should rather write an essay on it and not fiction.

I would say in terms of creativity -- text -- fiction is the toughest because you  have build internal logic, you have to stay away from the stupidity called coincidence and you also have to be a psychologist to analyse human behaviour so as to create differentiable characters, In addition, there should be an element of emotions, drama and much more. So, it is one of the most refined and complex format of textual entertainment. Footnote is not a solution, Footnote actually has no place in fiction. Michael Crichton, my fav, seemed to have mastered the art, as you can see most of his work is either about computing or biology. In Jurrasic Park or Highly comlicated AirFrame he never used footnote, instead as Arvind Ji suggested, he used the format and tools of fiction -- dialogue -- to explain it.

If a writer thinks that his audience is kids, then he should write stories gauging thier level of understanding. In case of India, I don't think we will have to face that problem. SF movies and novels are quite popular here. As far as Indian SF is concerned it is not popular becaue of several reasons, one being diversity. I am not getting to read SF Lit in other languages. Second being the quality of literature. Third being platform to publish SF is missing except for Vigyan Pragati and Avishkar there are tiny winy magazines whoes target audience is not the one we want. So, we also need a platform here which cal enable Indian SF writers to bring forth their work. But, foot note will not be allowed :-)

Swapnil

On Sun, Mar 29, 2009 at 7:33 AM, arvind mishra <drarvind3@gmail. com> wrote:

O.k . A compromise could be reached in permitting short notes and/or glossary for Indian audience in the long sf versions like novelette and novels while short stories could be left free from such dis tractors .
I feel its not an inability on the part of the audience to understand the given text but of an sf writer  to be not able to explain the things in the main text itself with the help of dialogues or by other creative means!
I personally find  the idea of putting supplementary notes in the short stories quite unpalatable !
arvind

2009/3/28 Vishwa Mohan Tiwari <onevishwa@hotmail. com>

Tinkoo jee wrote,

"Some of us love Hal Clement's fiction - & that's about as hard science
as you find in any kind of fiction. Always without notes. Occasionally,
I need to look up Wikipedia - but that's rare; mostly just common sense
works."

I would dare say that yours {Tinkoo's) is a common sense, certainly for SF, that is uncommon. So please judge from an average SF reader's point. SF is not as popular in India as it is in the West, due to this lack of common knowledge of science.
I think, by and large, we are in agreement. Notes are required only for difficult terms or concepts, that too when the story is not able to or does not care to explain its import.
 You do consult Wikipedia or other relevant document when necessary, though rarely. How many of our friends or an average reader do such things? They manage by taking a general idea.

 

Vishwa Mohan Tiwari

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To: indiansciencefictio n@yahoogroups. co.in

From: tinkoo420@yahoo. co.in
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:19:36 +0530

Subject: Re: [indianscienceficti on] Re: The Story On Demand

Some of us love Hal Clement's fiction - & that's about as hard science
as you find in any kind of fiction. Always without notes. Occasionally,
I need to look up Wikipedia - but that's rare; mostly just common sense
works.

Ditto with hard sf works of virtually every writer I've read. And
Zeashan is not into hard sf - don't spoil his fiction with notes.

"To write an SF story without explanation of difficult terms or concepts
may result in a rather long story": Try locating Hal Clement's short
story "Dust Rag". Real hard sf - describes why there is a tenuous
atmosphere on moon & how it can be dangerous to the unwary decades
before it was verified by NASA. And easily accessible if you studied
science in 12th standard. There are any number of other examples.

Also, none of this applies to Zeashan's fiction - he's not into hard sf,
& there is even less reason for him to get into notes, infodumps, &
such. I've read probably a half dozen of his stories now, including a
novel. Never even felt need for extra explanation. I do have occasional
issues with his style & pacing - every author has his quirks, but never
with inability to understand his science.

Vishwa Mohan Tiwari wrote:
> As CMN je has said science has a very wide horizon with disconnected
> fields, and even a scientist may not know other domain of sciences.
>
> To write an SF story without explanation of difficult terms or concepts
> may result in a rather long story, or a story with appeal to limited
> audience, or an uninteresting story, or a simple story with simple ideas.
> In order to overcome various problems, notes may be a good idea.
>
> I would rather like to read a story with complex science in it with
> notes rather than without notes and missing the pleasure of 'science' in it.

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Swapnil Bhartiya
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