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Way With Worlds: Heroes and Villains – Planet Of Morons And The Idiot Plot

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Atomic Bomb Test

(Way With Worlds runs at Seventh Sanctum and Muse Hack)

Ironically I was about to wrap up my heroes and villains series when David Brin dropped an asteroid-sized essay in my lap.

He notes rather brilliantly that a huge part of our media is the Idiot Plot, that the story is often about a few people who save the world because everyone else, all of society, are a bunch of idiots if not evil. It’s not just Suspicion of AUthority, he notes its socially corrosive.

Now Brin’s article on its own is well worth reading. I’m not going to recapitulate it here because he did a great job. Also I probably couldn’t do it justice.

But I’m going to address the issue as a matter of worldbuilding, because the Planet of Morons, the Idiot Plot, is a serious problem for worldbuilding. That’s what I cover.

Also this idea doesn’t work for building a world.

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So It’s Banned Book Week

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So we have Banned Book Week where we look at books panned in places encourage people to read them.

I think this is great, but let me make another suggestion.

Go write a book that dives so deep, goes so far, explores things so uncomfortable (but necessary) someone wants to ban it.

As you write?  Ask yourself why your idea would be banned- is it true, is it offensive, is it honest, is it ignorant?

 
– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Maybe It’s A Size Thing

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So often we try to get bigger.  We’re always running away from ourselves, trying to expand who we are, and get away from everything we hate, from our sins.

Maybe we should try to be smaller.  Stop being so big.  Let the big world be itself, and we’ll find there’s really enough room for us sins and our mistakes and we can go on.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.