Friday, March 23, 2012

Post Eight: Novum writing

Novum Writing: 

The thought of a novum when producing a story is creating something new and different in the genre of science fiction. Science fiction separates its self in many ways compared to romance, drama, horror, and mystery. It involves creating new invention, discovery, or something technological. The word novum is literally defined as new thing. Knowing what the true meaning of science fictions allows me to distinguish the difference between the genres much more easily.
Due to multiple people not knowing the true definition of science fiction, it always throws them off when watching a movie or reading, because they aren’t exactly sure what science fiction means. When writers write this type of story, considering it a novum is very important because it’s not only what brings the story together but also defines it, because you are creating something new. You have to think about all the major aspects in a story like characters, plots, themes, style, and language when writing a science fiction story..
Science fiction deals with a lot of new technology that has to be presented to our world today. In the story “Burning Chrome,” written by William Gibson, talks about hackers, and technology in ways that we would have never thought of, its amazing how technology can be used in so many ways. “Baby, You Were Great”, by Kate Wilhelm, goes into detail about the character John and how he doesn’t like to be physical he just likes to watch it. Also how technology allows for you to do so much more thank your actual body can do. Is that even possible in our world? Then there is  “The Algorithms for Love” by Ken Liu, which also deals with technology and how she creates her dolls. Talk about creepy. The Asimov’s “Liar,” and how all the doctors deal with robots and their insane intelligence. Can’t forget about “When It Changed,” by Joanna Russ, and how it’s all women who live on this planet, and use test tubes to produce children. Each of these stories creates something new and different, and use technology and science in ways that aren’t possible. That only applies to now, who knows what will happen in the future.
As you can see novum becomes a huge factor in all of these science fiction stories. There is always something new being created, or something having to deal with technology and things that have yet to be introduced to in our world. I can most definitely say that I most likely would have never known the proper meaning of novum without taking this class, and now that I know about it, its that much easier to understand why science fiction is so different than other genres,


Wow! Not that I didn't realize this before, but the stories we read are really really weird/bizarre/creepy/ and did I mention weird? ha (This crazy technology stuff gives me the creeps)

1 comment:

  1. I love that making a list of each novum attached to each story made you realize that SF is weird/creepy! I think this is actually a really common "nerd culture" problem; something that totally makes sense "on the inside" becomes totally wacko when you sum it up in one sentence. One of your classmates summed up "Bloodchild" as "crazy tentacle male rape" or something on her blog, and she isn't wrong--but certainly that one-phrase summary would be offputting to someone who hadn't read the story! Any subculture is inherently weird to outsiders. It's an interesting moment when you're half-in, half-out, and you find yourself able to understand both perspectives--which is what I think your last paragraph is about.

    Good work here.

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