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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      There is an extreme version of this that is not restricted to "great" works of literature. *Any* literary work that "works" does so by dissolving or inventing a genre. Kinda like every innovation is at least a little disruptive.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1108407590499696640 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      “All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one” — Walter Benjamin 🤔
      4 replies 2 retweets 26 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      This kinda explains why I generally haven't liked what little fanfic and "amateur" fiction that I've read. They usually fail this test even if they are otherwise technically accomplished. This is not true of non-fiction where amateurs often easily top so-called "professionals"

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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      It also explains my own struggles with fiction. Trying to master specific technical skills like exposition, characterization, suspense etc. feels like creating a zombie without life. The missing bit is not skill but that I haven't found a repeatable genre-dissolve/invent pattern.

      1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      In fact the two are orthogonal, and the genre-busting is the more important element. Once you've found a vector of genre-busting to work with, you can work the iterative learning loop and improve all the technical bits, but not the other way around.

      2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      You can see this trajectory particularly clearly in prolific but not technical-genius fiction writers like Asimov. The genre-busting through-line is visible in the canon, and the technical skills steadily improve over decades, until his last books are technically good too

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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      I think Asimov's genre-busting innovation was to mash up science and history. By contrast, H. G. Wells and Jules Verne novels seemed to be kinda ahistorical. Asimov didn't just invent a time machine concept like Wells. He offered epic histories of robotics, and psychohistory.

      1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      3 data points from my own experiments: My first story, Heirloom Lounge, is technically okay for a beginner but clearly a zombie. It busts no genres.https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/07/30/the-heirloom-lounge/ …

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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      My second story is technically horribly incoherent and crashes rather than ends, but it did find a genre-busting vector: mashing up consulting and absurdist sci-fihttps://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/03/19/the-art-of-gig/ …

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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      My 3rd story, LEAP, which is also chapter 1 of a stalled novel, I think has both ok technical quality and a genre-busting vector (time travel scifi and identity/consciousness metaphysics). I have the plot worked out. It's just beyond my execution rnhttps://www.ribbonfarm.com/2016/08/25/the-liminal-explorer-of-the-adjacent-possible/ …

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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      I should also mention a 4th story which got off to a really strong start imo, but I had to abandon because the plot I had in mind was easily far beyond my ability to even begin to execute. Seoul Station:https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/03/19/the-art-of-gig/ …

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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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      But back to the general point. My own example makes this yin-yang dynamic (genre busting versus technical perfection) painfully, embarrassingly obvious, but it is visible even at the most accomplished and mature levels of the work of people with way more talent and experience.

      4:38 PM - 25 Apr 2019
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        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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          And the funny thing is, I have seen almost no good advice on solving or even acknowledging this problem. 70% of fiction writing advice focuses on tactical mechanics. The other 30% tries to finesse the genre-busting problem with color-by-numbers narrative templates.

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        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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          I should add. Simply juxtaposing 2 genres is not a case of dissolving or creating a genre. You could mechanically combine (say) military and romance fiction. That doesn't mean you've mashed them up in a disruptive way. Much "fusion" cuisine fails the same way

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        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr 25 Apr 2019
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          My aspirations in fiction are low. Not shooting for the moon or Nobel quality literature. I just want to write one longish story that both "works" and is technically competent. But there's something here I still haven't cracked. Like Turing wanted AI to beat a mediocre human.

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        5. End of conversation

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