Forum Overview :: Cabaret Voltron :: the men

[quote name="FABIO"][quote name="Bill Dungsroman"]HOWEVER! Taking what you say at face value, it <I>is</I> funny that you can take a female (seemingly) at random, instruct her to write about whatever she wants, and that's the crap you get. But what do dudes commonly write about? Anything?[/quote] The guys were pretty much just rehashes of done to death fiction plots. The big difference between them and the women was that the women could only rehash the Liftetime channel vault. One was some extended 1984'ish torture scene, then the TWIST turned out to be it was just to get information on a game of battleship two dictators were playing against each other (seriously). Another was some group of friends working at a coffee shop that they decide to rob so they hide out in some motel in the desert. He just ended it there with "this is a work in progress" which was always shorthand for "I had an incomplete idea and couldn't come up with a conclusion". One was about a breakup, but instead of the usual dreary wrist-slitting drama fare of the chick authors, this one was a comedy because the guy was a snivelling pussy apologettically trying to break up with his girlfriend. So of course he deserves to get punched and knocked out by her. No cheating on her, no screwing her over, just an honest upfront breakup. Every girl in the class, including the female TA, saw nothing wrong with this after dozens of tales about horrible horrible MEN who were drunken wife beaters that deserved to be shot. I pointed this out and the TA actually asked me, "Why? Do <i>you</i> think he (the honest breaking guy who got knocked out) didn't deserve that?" Another was about a man inventing a new series of robot. The first series died off because they didn't have a reason to live. The second series had a "religion chip" installed in them by "Doctor Theocroces" (he swore he wasn't going for any play on words in the name) by King Wenschalis (again no intention) to give them faith, but they ended up killing each other over religious differences. So the current series was being given a "reason chip" and.....they reasoned that they didn't need humans! ONOS! Strangely this story came only a month or two after I, Robot hit theaters. There was one about a guy akwardly meeting his girlfriend's parents for the first time. Did somebody make a movie about that? I remember there was one guy who would always write in his peer feedback to everyone that they should set their stories in an alternate reality, no matter what the genre. The stories the TA handed out to us to read by published authors weren't much better. One thing I remember that without fail not a single one of them could write characters of the opposite gender. Every time they tried it was just a collection of the most played out stereotypes. Male authors would have their female characters bouncing around with glee at shopping, telepathically plot against men with other women, and be inflicted with severe daddy issues. Female authors would have their male characters get drunk and punch things while trying to pick up women and ruining their lives in the process. The exception was the ONE impossibly saintly and understanding man in the story who would be there to support someone no matter how fucked up things got, in other words the 'nice guy" with a shoulder to cry on after the asshole man kicks her out of bed. Another page from the Lifetime network. One story we had to read sent me into a near Laudablepuss rage. Some guy (George Saunders I think) who was supposedly an established author wrote a collection of short stories entitled <u>Civil War land in Decline</u>, and we had to read the title short. Good fucking lord what awful fiction. Mrs Johnson awful. It tried to be a Catch 22/Dr. Strangelove situation with characters acting non-chalantly to an insane setting. The thing that made Strangelove work though was that the characters were ridiculous as they could be while still retaining believability. Saunders' shit was entirely looneytoons. I can say without pride that <i>my</i> fucking Catch-22 knockoff was better than his shit. I encourage anyone to find a copy online just to see how bad it is. It's pretty short so the pain won't last long. [/quote]