An Excess of Romance: Why We Need More Focus on Platonic Relationships in Fiction

(Image Source)

Romance. I don’t think there’s much that I can say about it that hasn’t been said already.

Stories, poems, blogs and books about romance are hardly in short supply. Anything you want to know about the subject (and much that you don’t), somebody has already written about somewhere. So, you might ask, why am I writing ANOTHER blog post about romance?

Well, the answer to that question is that I’m not. In fact, I’m writing something that’s the exact opposite.

Heh. I suppose that’s not entirely true either. I have nothing against romance in the real world. Not that I have any experience in it to present you with an informed opinion.

Today, we’re talking about fictional romance. About the ubiquity, the nigh omnipresence of romance in popular fiction.

Well, I suppose movies are more guilty of this than novels, but only marginally.

Romance – It’s EVERYWHERE!!

Let’s get something out of the way from the get-go. I’m not against a well written romantic novel, or a funny and engaging rom-com for that matter. That’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the fact that creators seem to feel the need to shoehorn in random bits of romantic subplot into stories that otherwise have absolutely nothing to do with romance.

I mean you could simply remove the romance – rip it clean out of the narrative – and nothing would change. It wouldn’t impact the story in any way whatsoever. Want an example? Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Many hard-boiled crime/detective fiction has this problem of undeveloped and unnecessary romantic subplots being shoehorned in, so it’s not like I’m picking on Dan Brown here.

Angels and Demons is just the most recent novel I’ve read where I encountered this problem. Another one that comes to mind is The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Why did Locke need to be obsessed with some random woman who never makes an appearance on the page and has no role to play in the story? Who knows? It’s not as if we could have a hero without a love interest (horror of horrors)!

Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan was probably my favorite book of 2018, and even that suffered from this shoehorning problem. Royce – one of the two protagonists – has a girlfriend who is also a badass prostitute and is mentioned all of five times in the first two books. Why did she need to exist? Well, I’m still waiting to find out.

It’s not even that I dislike romantic subplots. In fact, they can be very well done in some stories. Think Peter and El’s relationship in White Collar and compare it to the non-existent chemistry between Aragorn and Arwen in the Lord of the Rings movies. Sigh.

So why do creators – be they novelists or showrunners or moviemakers – feel the need to insert incongruent romantic subplots into their stories, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense?

Everybody loves romance! Or do they???

One reason could be that romance is universally relatable, so it increases the potential target audience of the story. I mean, you may not be a big fan of classic medieval fantasy but might still watch the LoTR movies because of Arwen and Aragorn and their relationship. Well, that’s the theory anyway.

The problem is, though, that this doesn’t really work.

I mean, it’s not as if there’s any shortage of good romantic fiction out there. There are thousands upon thousands of excellent (and some not-so-excellent) romantic novels and movies; created by people who are genuinely interested in the subject and enjoy writing about it.

So why would a reader who is genuinely interested in the romantic aspect of the story, forgo all of that great literature to read a half-assed attempt at romance inserted into a storyline that would not just have survived, but thrived without it?

Nobody reads Dan Brown for the romance. Angels and Demons would have done just as well had Vittoria Vetra been Langdon’s long-lost sister.

Which is not to say, of course, that writers and storytellers should not portray romantic relationships in their stories unless it serves some kind of a crucial plot related purpose.

Romance is a part of life for most people, and a character can have a love interest even if the love interest doesn’t really add anything to the story, just like they can have a mother, father, brother, or pet dog that doesn’t add much to the story.

The problem arises when it becomes almost a cardinal rule of storytelling that the main character MUST have a love interest, regardless of what else the story is about.

A Single-Minded Focus

I’m not saying there aren’t stories with absolutely no romance in them. Of course, all rules have exceptions. But it’s hard to find a popular piece of fiction, written in recent times, where the main character doesn’t have a love interest of some sort.

If Poirot had been created in the 2010s, you can be damn sure he would have had a long-lost girlfriend (or boyfriend) tucked in there somewhere!

And that wouldn’t be a problem if this exclusive focus on romantic couplings hadn’t sidelined all other types of relationships. Platonic relationships, even those as fundamental as parent-child or sibling relationships, are often overlooked and glossed over in favor of devoting page-time to a romance that may or may not add anything to the story.

The Sidelining of Platonic Relationships

Of course, there are exceptions to this too. Supernatural, one of the most popular (and long running) TV shows of recent times, is all about the relationship between two brothers, their trials, tribulations and triumphs.

But that is definitely more an exception than a rule.

Even with the recent rise in the popularity of on-screen ‘bromances’, far fewer shows, films or books focus heavily on platonic relationship dynamics at the cost of romantic ones.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in BBC’s Sherlock, where a canonically aromantic character such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes was romantically ‘shipped’ with multiple characters by the showrunners throughout the four seasons of the show. The same can be said for Elementary, Sherlock’s American counterpart.

It got to the point where even Mycroft, Sherlock’s nigh-omniscient and borderline robotic older brother, wasn’t spared the shipping treatment in the final few episodes of the BBC show.

The Increasing Diversity in Fictional Romance

Of course, one must give credit where credit is due. And while romance is everywhere, at least it’s now far less monochromatic and homogenous than it was before.

While it’s still not very common, it wouldn’t be absolutely shocking and unimaginable to see (or read about) a lead character in a same-sex relationship of the romantic variety. Case in point, one of the characters that BBC’s eponymous Sherlock was relentlessly ‘shipped’ with, by both the showrunners and the fans, was Dr. John Watson, his best friend and companion from the original novels and short stories.

Which again, brings us neatly around to the point about the glossing over of platonic relationships in favor of romantic ones.

Perhaps the fact that I am aromantic has something to do with my fatigue with the oversaturation of romance in fiction. It certainly does have a role to play, in all probability.

But mostly, I’m tired of seeing the same old tropes reused over and over again by people who very obviously don’t even care about the tropes themselves, and are only adding them in because they somehow feel like they have to.

There are romantic subplots that I still enjoy, but they’re few and far between. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo is a good example of a story that properly integrates the romance with the plot without making it feel contrived.

But you know what I’d really like at this point?

A Break from the Constant Barrage

A main character who doesn’t give a flying fuck about getting the girl (or the guy), and has, you know, goals and aims that do not revolve around the desire to stick their tongue down somebody else’s throat. That’d be a nice change of pace, wouldn’t it?

It’s not even that they have to be aromantic or asexual or anything like that (though a little representation here and there wouldn’t be totally unwelcome). But that isn’t the point. At least not for me, and not at this moment.

The point is to explore relationships that don’t necessarily end with the participants getting into each other’s pants.

Not as viscerally satisfying, perhaps, but certainly quite emotionally rewarding when done well. Theft of Swords got this right with the relationship between friends and partners-in-crime, Royce and Hadrian.

I haven’t finished the series yet, but I would pay to see Brent Weeks spend more page-time developing the relationship between Kip and his father/uncle Gavin, rather than the tired old bodyguard romance between Gavin and Karris.

And dear Lord and Terry Pratchett, could we have a sequel to Good Omens? Pretty please?!!

My Own Struggles with Romantic Subplots

And it’s not that I haven’t tried writing romance myself. Believe me, I have! But for me personally, it always felt like being on the outside looking in. And not with a clear enough view to do justice to the genre or bring much by way of authenticity to the table.

So when I started writing my second novel, I decided to forgo any romantic subplots. Which wasn’t an easy decision at the time; not with the market flooded with romance-laden fiction in every genre.

For a time, I genuinely believed that nobody might want to read a book with no romance in it.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? There are already plenty of books with plenty of romance in them. And better written romance than anything I could hope to produce. So why would a romance enthusiast come my way to satisfy their cravings for literary liaisons anyway?

And maybe I didn’t need everyone under the sun to like my stories. Maybe, all I needed was to be true to myself, and by extension, to maybe be true to the people who agree with me about this particular topic.

Authenticity versus Popularity

I mean, surely I can’t be the only person who’s been dying to read about a solid friendship surrounded by all the magic, mayhem and badassery that the mind can handle!

Surely, there are other people out there who find the development and growth of an interesting platonic relationship as engaging as that of a romantic one.

And if not? Well, at least I would have written a novel that I wanted to read.

Which is not to say that I will never write about romantic relationships, of course. Just that I wouldn’t do so just to tick a box by inserting a cliché love story into a novel that doesn’t need it, and isn’t enriched by it in any way.

And if that means I’m not casting as wide a net as I could have for my projects? Well, at least I’d be casting a more authentic one, and hopefully a more interesting one as well!

And if at some point in the future, I feel like there’s a romantic story that I just HAVE to tell? Oh well, blog posts can always be edited, can they not?

Of Shitty Bosses and Long Commutes – Busting the Myth of a Perfect Career

Life is what happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.

And it isn’t just ourselves for whom we make plans, either. We make them for others too. And no one does this more than parents.

Mine certainly did. Good school – better college – elite university – high end job. That was the plan.

And if you cribbed about any of the steps in the process? If you didn’t like the curriculum at school or hated the professors at college? Well, you see, there’s a reason for all the pain you’re going through now, all the seemingly pointless stress and hardship.

The Myth of the Perfect Job

And that reason – the end goal of all this struggle and strife – is, of course, a GOOD job.

That was supposed to be the ultimate deliverance. Get a good job and your life is set. You’ll never face another problem again. Study as hard as you can now, sacrifice fun and frivolity, so that you can lead the good life and fulfill all your dreams after you have reached that Promised Land –

The hallowed realm of a 9-5 office job with security, insurance, and maybe even a provident fund!

And somehow, I fell for this fairy tale hook, line, and sinker. Perhaps I was naïve, but I certainly wasn’t alone. Most of my friends believed it too. Believed that everything they didn’t or couldn’t have now, they’d get once they reached the Promised Land of Gainful Employment. That all the sacrifices made now, all the missed parties and cancelled dates, will pay off once they had that GOOD job.

And then we got the jobs.

And sheesh! What a bloody disappointment. Was this supposed to be the perfect job, the perfect career, and the perfect life that made all of those sleepless nights and endless tests worth it? Was this what I was supposed to do for the next 40-odd years? This was the sacred goal we’d all been striving for over the last two decades?

‘Cause it didn’t feel like freedom. It certainly didn’t feel like any kind of a reward. On the contrary, I felt more shackled and stressed and frantic than I ever had before.

A Brief Sojourn Into the Past

Okay, so let’s back up a bit. How did we get here?

I got my post-graduate degree in Journalism and, through the placement drive at our college, got placed at a renowned digital media company in another city. However, I eventually ended up not taking that job, mostly because I didn’t think I’d be able to get any writing done while adjusting to a new city and a new job.

Of course, that’s not to say that it can’t be done, just that I didn’t feel I could do it at that point in my life.

So I returned home, and within a month, found a job at the regional branch of a national newspaper.

And landed straight into a toxic work environment with a bullying gas-lighter of a boss.

Had this happened today, I would have known exactly what was happening and walked out of the place within the first week. But I was young, inexperienced, confused and scared half to death. I was surrounded by people who kept telling me just how hard it was to get a job, how competitive the market was, what the rate of unemployment in the country was, and how terrible an idea it was to leave a relatively good job with decent opportunity for growth.

And then, one day I realized that I couldn’t imagine going back to that office without wanting to hurl myself over a cliff. And so, to the shock and apprehension of friends and family alike, I quit.

I then took a three month break to get an operation I had been putting off for over a year and write the first draft of my second novel.

Once that first draft was complete, I began job hunting again. The best offer (or at least the one that seemed to be) came from a pretty big company whose office was located almost two hours away from my home.

I had never had a long commute before, so I guess I underestimated the toll it took on you. Anyway, after I started the job, it turned out that the company had hired a bunch of people and done a bait and switch on them. We had been hired for the job of content writing, but what we were essentially doing was data entry.

Again, it was a confusing and frustrating situation. HR kept trying to mislead us and as most of the recruits were freshers and new to the job market, none of them really knew how to respond to the situation in a way that wouldn’t be counterproductive. We were also all scared to death and intimidated by our seniors.

So basically, I ended up traveling four hours a day for a 9-hour shift, six days a week, doing work that bored me to tears.

I also felt twice the amount of pressure, as I had already left one job because of a bad work environment. Was I really going to leave another one because I didn’t like the work?

I did. Within two weeks of joining.

Job Hopping – The Spice of Life

I then took a third job (with a massive pay cut, because I was desperate) very close to my home. This company was pretty much a content mill with a tiny office that made us write 5k words of regurgitated articles a day, every day.

But hell, at least I was writing. And the fact that the office was a 30 minute walk from my home also saved me a ton of time that I could then use to work on my own projects. I also had one of my closest friends from college as a colleague, which made it a pleasure to go to work every day. There was at least one thing in the office that I was always looking forward to!

This continued for six months, by which point I’d gotten quite good at the job and quite bored of being underpaid and overworked day in and day out.

Thus began my fourth job hunt in just over a year.

But I was more careful this time! I’d learned from my mistakes, and I was in no hurry to get a new job, as I already had one that I didn’t actively hate.

I carefully researched every single company that I applied to and ensured that they all met my criteria – no long commutes and no six-day work weeks. And of course, no toxic work environment.

I finally found a company that seemed to meet most of these demands halfway. It was an hour’s bus ride away from my home, it had every other Saturday off, the people seemed nice, and the pay wasn’t shabby either. It was certainly the best offer I’d gotten so far.

So I took it.

And then freaked the hell out over the one month when I was serving my notice period. My current company was not an ideal place to work by any stretch of the imagination. But it definitely had its perks.

I had friends at the office, the work environment was reasonably good, and it was a short walk away from my house. I was good at the work I was doing and knew that I was a valued member of the team.

And I was leaving all that behind for a place that I knew nothing about. Sure, I’d done my homework and read Glassdoor reviews. But that was hardly fool proof evidence of anything.

For all I knew, I’d probably end up back in a toxic culture with a psycho boss doing data entry.

So when my (former) boss asked me to reconsider my decision a week before the last day of my notice period, I was in a real dilemma. Of course, I wanted a better job. But what’s to say that the next job would be any better? What’s to say it wouldn’t be worse?

As you can probably tell, to say that my experiences in the job market had scarred me would be an understatement.

A Leap of Faith

In the end though, I did stick to my decision and make the transition.

It was scary as all hell, and I was pretty much jumping at shadows my first week at the new office, waiting for the other shoe to drop and everything to blow up in my face.

It didn’t, though. Everything was nice and civilized and just as it had seemed from the outside. Nobody bullied me, called me names, or asked me to do anything I wasn’t meant to be doing. Nor was I expected to write 5k words a day, every day. Thank heaven for that!

There was even a coffee machine with an unlimited supply of free coffee! Three cheers for my budding caffeine addiction. Yay!!!

I could scarcely believe my luck! I felt like I’d reached heaven. Sure, it wasn’t the Promised Land we’d all dreamed of in musty classrooms with cranky teachers. It certainly didn’t solve all my problems or make the trials and tribulations of high school feel worth it.

But it was something even better. It was a real place where I was really happy, where I felt like I belonged. Well, most of the time anyway.

The Reality We Never Talk About

So you might be wondering why I’m telling you all this. The purpose of this article isn’t to give you the abridged edition of my life story.

I’m writing this because I think that someone needs to say this out loud. Hell, I wish someone had told me all of this when my life was spiraling into chaos.

A job is NOT your life’s purpose. It is NOT your identity. It is in fact nothing more than a means to an end; the end being a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. And it’s certainly not the ONLY means to that end. There are plenty of others.

I don’t know why we’ve created this ridiculous hype around jobs. I didn’t even notice it was there until I was torn (quite rudely) out of it by circumstances. We’re essentially telling students that the purpose of their education, their life, is to get the highest package at the most renowned company.

Like really? Is that how sad a place the world is, that sitting in a cubicle nine hours a day is literally the most exciting and fulfilling thing we can think of?

I’m not saying that having a good job isn’t important, of course. It’s terribly important. And if you can manage to find a job that brings you prestige, happiness, money, and fulfilment, you’ve quite literally hit the jackpot! Enjoy it!

But that’s the point. Such jobs are an (extreme) rarity. Most jobs are vaguely boring and repetitive at best, mind-numbingly stressful and exhausting at worst. Add to that the issues of commute, work environment, stress tolerance, long hours, and matching the right job with the right person, and it’s quite improbable that you’ll manage to find that one perfect job that can transform your miserable life into an overnight success story.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have jobs. I’m just saying that we should have more realistic expectations about what employment actually entails. Having a job is not some magical gateway into the land of freedom and extravagance. It’s just an exchange of time and labor for money. And nobody ever pays you for having a good time.

Giving children a realistic idea of what jobs entail, instead of perpetuating the ridiculous idea that all problems will be solved and all your hard work rewarded as soon as you land that one perfect job, will actually help prepare them better for the job market and make them better employees.

Let’s Just Tell the Goddamn Truth

Getting a job may solve some problems, chiefly financial, but it brings a host of new ones. Lack of time, too much stress, fraying relationships, and chronic exhaustion, just to name a few. We need to help students prepare to deal with these potential problems before they start working, instead of hand-waving them with meaningless fairytales until they land face first into disillusioned bafflement.

I felt compelled to write this post because I saw so many of my peers confused and stressed out by the realities of corporate life once they started working. I started work a year before most of my classmates, so I already had some experience by the time they started entering the workforce earlier this year.

And boy was it a throwback to the good old days of corporate newbie-dom! The confusion, the stress, the feelings of inadequacy and disappointment. The miserable realization that this was going to continue for the next 40 years. If I never have to feel those feelings again in my life, it would be a lifetime too soon! A little bit of warning wouldn’t have gone amiss, teachers and parents!

It’s Okay to be the Ugly Corporate Duckling

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this. If you don’t love your job, that’s okay. Most people don’t. There’s nothing wrong with you for not being ecstatic at the prospect of spending nine hours a day, six days a week, sitting in a chair doing some repetitive task hour after hour, day after day. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to wake up at the crack of dawn and endure hour-long rides in overcrowded buses. That’s drudgery, and while it may well be an essential part of life, we shouldn’t be so afraid of calling it exactly what it is.

And if you hate your job? Get out.

But don’t jump from the frying pan only to land into the fire (or at least try not to, shit happens sometimes). Ask yourself what makes your present situation so terrible for you personally; not everybody is bothered by the same problems.

You might be going out of your mind from the monotony of a job that someone else finds quite interesting. You might hate a work culture that a different type of person would love. So decide on the things that you want (and don’t want) and then look for a job that can meet most, if not all, of those criteria.

Know What You Want

For me personally, I wanted a job that would involve writing and that would leave me with enough time and energy to work on my own projects. So that’s what I looked for (and finally got, the fourth time around).

Someone else might want more excitement, or quick growth, or even a prettier office. Those are all valid desires, but you can’t get what you want if you don’t even know what it is.

You don’t have to go for the biggest company or the highest package just because those are popular priorities. And you certainly don’t need to stay with a bad employer just because there’s too much competition in the job market. There will never be enough jobs in the market if you don’t start looking.

And Don’t Fall For the Hype

In conclusion? Jobs are hard and tiring and time consuming. They can also be boring and toxic and stressful.

So don’t blame yourself for not fitting the popular image of a smart, smiling, and snappily dressed corporate employee. Because that’s all it really is – an image.

And not a very realistic one at that!

Human + X: Creating Believable Aliens in Fiction

(source image)

So today I want to talk about aliens. More accurately, I want to talk about a subset of aliens.

The fictional variety.

The type of aliens that appear on the pages of science fiction novels, and in the episodes of space operas.

If real aliens exist, Hola to them too! Hope we see you guys soon. But for now, I’m gonna limit myself to the aliens created for our entertainment. AKA book and movie aliens.

In fact, now that I think about it, the points I’m about to discuss can apply to any non-human, sentient species. They don’t necessarily need to be alien, as in inhabitants of another planet. Earthly beings such as elves, dwarves, vampires, and were-animals of all sorts also qualify – although these are more likely to appear in fantasy than sci-fi.

The point is, the thingy needs to be not human, and self-aware enough to realize that it is not, and what that entails.

What Measure is an Alien?

The thing that first got me thinking about aliens was the need to create versions of them for my own stories.

You see, one thing that had always bothered me about fictional aliens was just how…human they seemed. Aliens in fantasy and sci-fi seemed to me to just be humans, plus something extra.

For example, Vulcans are humans plus excessive logic and pointy ears. Elves are pretty and wise humans. Dwarves are short and mechanically inclined humans. Werewolves are humans with sharpened senses and (sometimes) heightened aggression. You get my point. What was so alien about these aliens anyway??

Points of Difference

The problem I often seemed to encounter in fantasy and sci-fi alike was that the results of these differences were never discussed. For example, how would a race that lives for thousands of years view time? I mean, if an elven species lives for thousands of years, why would they even feel the need to go to war with humans? It’s like humans going to war with goldfish. What’s the point? The humans would die of old age by the time the elves have decided on the type of arrow to use.

Similarly, would a species that never dies consider murder a crime? If yes, then why?

How would a race that is overly dedicated to logic design clothing? Would their perception of beauty also be influenced by their preoccupation with logic, so that they see the most logical attire as the most beautiful one in the given climate? Would they even understand the concept of subjective attractiveness?

These are just some of the questions about aliens that have haunted me for quite a few years now. This affliction was only made worse when I started world-building for my own novel.

My Own Personal Alien!!

For my novel, I’d created an angel-like race called Aeriels that were essentially peaceful by nature, but had been driven – through a series of events – into a destructive war with humanity. The question then was, why were they fighting if they were so peaceful? But more importantly, why were they peaceful in the first place?

This question was easily answered by the fact that the Aeriels did not need food or water, they sustained themselves with sunlight. And they came from a world where the sun literally never set. So the Aeriels had never learned to fight because they had never needed to compete for scarce resources. It’s like if humans could survive simply by breathing air. This, of course, led to all kinds of confusion on their part when they realized the humans wanted to settle scores with a good old fashioned war!

Some Examples of Awesome Aliens in Fiction

And this is not to say that none of these questions were ever satisfactorily answered in the world of mainstream science fiction or fantasy. I once read a novel about a hive-mind species that didn’t mind if individual members of their race were killed, because to them each individual is just an extension of the planet-wide hive-mind. I mean you wouldn’t really care if somebody cut off a bit of your hair (even without your permission). Sure, you might be annoyed with them, even temporarily angry, but you wouldn’t want to send them to prison over it. That was pretty much how this species viewed the murder of its members…like cutting off bits of hair!

I also really liked the explanation given in a very popular vampire novel, for a family of vampires having a lot of money. You see, they invested in the stock market. And because they live forever, they’re basically reaping the benefits of centuries’ worth of compound interest. I thought that was quite a brilliant piece of detail. I mean, the only thing hotter than rich vampires is rich vampires who’re savvy investors, amiright?!!

The thing with alienness, of course, is that there are different varieties of it. What is it that makes an alien, alien? Therein lies the question.

The Various Types of Alienness

Of course, there’s the obvious. Those who are physically alien. If a spaceship lands on your backyard, and a creature emerges from it that has five heads and three pairs of wings, you can be reasonably sure that it is an alien.

Then there is psychological alienness, which is slightly more subtle. A creature that does not consider lying a problem because it can read people’s minds. Or, like I said above, a creature that doesn’t think murder is wrong because it cannot die.

The thing about depicting profound psychological differences is that they would also lead to differences in motivation and goals. Much of what humans do (working, socializing, etc.) is at a fundamental level geared towards survival. The survival of the individual and his tribe. So how would a species behave that is not motivated by the need to survive, because it cannot die?

Psychological differences can also arise from physical differences. To take the example above, would a creature with five heads be more intelligent, or would it have multiple personalities? If it has a brain inside each of those heads, would those brains always work in tandem with one another, or might they sometimes be in conflict? Would a hive-mind be capable of understanding the value of an individual life?

Finally, there are cultural differences. Cultural differences are a culmination of both physical and psychological differences. Cultures are created by the individuals of a species. For instance, humans have a culture that considers stealing a crime, because we value the concept of personal wealth. Would a being belonging to a hive mind even comprehend the concept of stealing?

On the other hand, would a race that relies exclusively on logic, consider it illegal to steal from someone who has something in excess, and would therefore not really miss the thing that was stolen? I mean logically, if a person who earns a hundred bucks a day were to steal another hundred from someone who earns a thousand a day, then the theft would effectively double his income while only making a small dent of 10% on the income of the person from whom the money was stolen.

From a purely logical point of view, might that not just be seen as efficient allocation of resources? If it was, then might we have a culture of hyper logical beings that actually encourage stealing as a form of income redistribution for efficient resource allocation? Or would that responsibility fall to the government in the form of tax collection? What might Vulcans have to say about that idea?

I once watched a movie about aliens that could see the future. They also looked like octopuses and had multiple legs/tentacles. They wrote in a circular script, where they began to write from two ends with both hands at the same time. The sentence ended in a perfect circle, with both hands meeting at exactly the same place.

Now imagine trying to write one sentence with both hands at once, your left hand starting at the beginning of the sentence and your right hand starting at the end. You’d have to calculate to perfection, exactly how fast both of your hands would write, how much space each letter in the sentence would require, and how many words each of your hands will be able to write before it meets the other one in the middle. Moreover, you will also have to know before you begin a sentence exactly how you’re planning to end it.

When you think about it, isn’t that language and script the natural consequence of a culture that can look into the future, just as tools are the natural consequence of a culture that has opposable thumbs?

The Problem of Relating to Truly Alien Aliens

The problem with writing truly alien aliens, of course, is that they’re not very relatable. It’s one thing to have a morally grey protagonist, but how do you deal with a morally orange love-interest? Black and white characters might well be boring, but if the spectrum of your character’s morality starts at bright pink and ends at fluorescent green, readers might have a bit of a hard time trying to understand their motivations, much less relate to them.

And I suppose that is one of the major reasons why writers and movie makers choose to create aliens that are basically: Human + X.

Because they’re relatable, and it’s hard to get readers to care about a character who is difficult to relate to on a fundamental level. Most people seek early on to establish a connection with the characters that they are reading about (or watching, for that matter).

And that connection is hard to come by when you’re trying to imagine a creature that has access to the memories, thoughts, and experiences of every member of its species that has ever been born – as would be the case for a hive mind. How would a being like that think or act? And as a very human writer with a very limited ambit of accumulated experience and knowledge, how can you even begin to depict such a creature?

How, for that matter, can you accurately guess the emotional conflicts of an immortal being, when you yourself are very mortal, as is everyone else you know? Personally, I would think immortal vampires would struggle far more with culture shock than any romantic angst. I mean, my grandmother can’t stop talking about how different things were in ‘her time’, and she wasn’t even alive a hundred years ago. Can you imagine how much worse it would be if you lived for a thousand years?!

Well, those are just my ideas, anyway. You can, of course, think differently. Let me know in the comments below what kind of aliens you’d like to see in science fiction and fantasy!

Cultural Narratives: Building an Identity Upon Fairy Tales

It was a tiny article published on one of the inner pages of the morning paper that first made me think about the idea of cultural narratives, which came to be one of the major themes underlying my second novel. The story was so inconsequential, I don’t even remember any of the details anymore. And neither, I suspect, do the people who wrote it over two years ago. Essentially, the piece talked about some kind of disagreement between India and Pakistan in the UN. (Surprise surprise)!

The details are irrelevant, since I’m not interested in talking about who was right or wrong. Quite honestly, I don’t remember enough about the incident to be able to make any sort of an objective judgment.

I do remember quite distinctly, though, that the article seemed to suggest (very strongly) that the Indian representatives at the UN had garnered a significant amount of support for their cause and that India had overall ‘won’ the dispute, whatever it had been about. This was never stated outright in so many words, but the vibe of the article was definitely celebratory.

Imagine my surprise, then, when a few hours later I came across an article about the very same incident while reading one of the most popular Pakistani newspapers on the Internet. Plot twist!!

The thing that fascinated me about the two versions of the incident is that, as far as I remember, the facts listed were almost identical. However, this article implied (very strongly, again) that it was in fact the Pakistani side that had garnered the maximum support from the international community.

Building a Narrative

As I said, my purpose here is not to pass judgment on the veracity (or lack thereof) of either version of the story. Truth is, it doesn’t even matter. The two articles weren’t contradicting each other about the facts. Stripped of the narrative direction and tone, the facts stated were almost identical.

But the narrative was very much there in both the pieces. The subtle hints in the phrasing and the set-up of the story would have been hard to miss for anyone over the age of fourteen. Which brings us to the most important question of all.

What is this elusive thing you call a narrative?

Well, for the purposes of this article, we’re going to be talking about cultural narratives. Cultural narratives aren’t good or bad. They just are. If you have a culture, you can rest assured that it has a narrative, whether you know it or not.

By its very nature, a narrative is a story. But it is also a story with elements of the truth. No civilization can stand for long upon a narrative based completely in fiction. So some truth is essential for a narrative to be successful. But at the end of the day, a cultural narrative is a story that aims to make a statement. To prove a point.

Making a Statement

What that point is will vary from culture to culture, and from time to time within cultures. But the fact that they have a point to prove is universal.

The thing is, though, bare facts usually don’t have a point. They just are.

Incidents don’t point smoothly and consistently in one direction. They just happen. The truth is confusing and contradictory and muddled up. There are no eternal heroes or eternal villains. Everybody is a hero and a villain at different points in time.

But a narrative that is confusing and contradictory and muddled up is not a very good narrative, is it? Would you buy that story book for your kid? I wouldn’t.

So a good narrative must pick and choose facts and incidents that help it prove its point; that enable it to make the statement that it wants to make.

And this is not to say that the storytellers are trying deliberately to be deceitful (though in some situations this might indeed be the case). The fact of the matter is that a good story is not necessarily an accurate record of events. And vice versa. An accurate record of events is not necessarily a good story.

So you have to decide on what the goal is that you’re trying to achieve. And if your goal is to create a compelling narrative for your people, artistic liberties need to be taken, with or without an insidious agenda.

Now, the question might arise, is it necessary to have a cultural narrative?

Well, I’d say it is, if you want to have a culture at all.

It’s human nature to build narratives around things. We just seem to be biologically wired to like stories. And it’s not just countries, cultures, and civilizations that we build narratives around. We tell ourselves stories about our own lives, about our own identities, all the time. It helps ground us; helps us make sense of the confusing, contradictory, and muddled reality that we inhabit.

The ultimate fact of the matter is, we’re teeny little transient balls of flesh in a vast universe that doesn’t give a shit. We NEED good stories to block out that reality.

So the next question might be, why do cultures need narratives?

After all, a culture is not an individual. It’s not even a thing, as such. It’s just this ambient sense of identity and common cause that a bunch of people feel or subscribe to at any given time. Culture can be hyperlocal or global in scope, though it’s certainly not bound by geography. Not in the age of the Internet.

The thing is, cultures are built on the basis of shared ideas. And ideas cannot exist without narratives. An accurate record of facts is an accurate record of facts. But you need a story, a narrative, to give any meaning to those facts. And meaning is inherently personal, so stories are inherently biased.

Too theoretical? Okay. Let me try and put this in concrete terms.

Why do we feel a sense of loyalty to our country (even after we have left the country), but don’t feel the same loyalty to our neighborhood, or district, or continent? All of those are geographical constructs.

Why should I be any more proud to be an Indian than I am of being a Kalikapurian (Kalikapur being the name of my neighborhood)? For that matter, why should I be more proud of being an Indian than of being a South Asian, or an Asian, or an inhabitant of the Eastern Hemisphere?

I’ll tell you why.

Because being Indian has a cultural narrative associated with it, as opposed to being a Kalikapurian or an Eastern Hemispherer.

I suppose you could say there are also some narratives associated with being Asian or South Asian, but they are certainly weaker than national narratives. There is nothing that makes the geographical construct of a country more significant than the geographical construct of a district or a continent. Nothing other than narratives and stories, that is.

The Necessity of the ‘Other’

So we need stories (a narrative) to form a cohesive identity for any group of people, just as we need them to form the identity of an individual. But there’s more to it than that.

A group is only a group if it has some members. Equally important, though, is that it is only a group if it has some non-members.

Being Indian only means anything if there are people who are not Indians. If everyone was an Indian, then Indian would just become a synonym for human. The word would lose its meaning. Similarly, being human only means anything if there are creatures that are not human. If every living creature was a human, then the word human would just be a synonym for living creature.

No matter how big or small a group is, it must have an in-group AND an out-group in order to exist. There must be people who belong to the group. And equally important, there must be those that DON’T BELONG.

A cultural narrative, therefore, provides a bedrock of common beliefs and shared ideas that identify the in-group in contrast with the out-group. The people who believe in the narrative belong; those who don’t, don’t.

And this is true for all groups, no matter how liberal or conservative. Feminism has a narrative, as does the patriarchy. Communism has a narrative, as does capitalism. You get the picture. For a culture to exist, you need a cultural narrative.

A Source of Inspiration and Unity

Another major role of cultural narratives, of course, is to provide inspiration. A good story can inspire you to do a number of things, both good and bad.

It can inspire you to go risk your life in order to defend absolute strangers who live miles and miles away. It can also inspire you to attack random strangers who live miles and miles away.

You wouldn’t go to war for your district or your neighborhood, would you? You might at best consider participating in a cricket match, but certainly nothing more dangerous than that. But you might very well consider going to war for your country.

Which doesn’t really make sense, when you think about it.

I mean, you probably know many of your neighbors and have a personal connection with a few of them. I’m pretty sure the percentage of your countrymen you know or care about on a personal level is far lower. And yet you’d be more willing to risk your life for a bunch of absolute strangers than for acquaintances whom you could at least pick out in a crowd.

This is what a cultural narrative does. It builds a sense of unity and common cause, even where there is no logical reason for a common cause to exist.

I mean, I live in Kolkata, West Bengal. My city is geographically closer to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, than it is to Delhi, the capital of India. It is both geographically and linguistically closer to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

And yet, I felt the blood thrum in my veins when I watched Dangal, a movie about two Haryanvi girls representing India on the international stage. I could feel my breath catch when Geeta (one of the protagonists) won her first gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.

Makes no sense, does it though? I had nothing in common with either of the two heroines. I don’t speak Haryanvi, and I’m certainly not a wrestler. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve watched a wrestling match on TV, and still have fingers left over.

So why on earth did I feel so inordinately good about the fact that they’d won gold medals on India’s behalf at the Commonwealth Games? Why would it matter to me? Would I have been equally psyched to see them win on behalf of my district, or on behalf of the subcontinent? Maybe. I wouldn’t know. Because those movies haven’t been made. Nobody made a movie about district-level wrestling matches. That says something about our priorities, and about the power of narratives, doesn’t it?

As I said, they have the power to create a sense of unity and common cause where neither of those things have any reason to exist. Now depending on the context, that can be a good thing or a bad thing. But it definitely is a thing that we have to live with.

Whether it works for us or against us depends largely on who’s telling the stories and why.

So then, you might ask me, how do you build a narrative? What are the components that come together to create one?

How Do We Build Cultural Narratives?

Well, there are several different ways of building a cultural narrative. One of the most common (and easiest) ways is to simply repeat the same story over and over again, for years and generations, over various platforms and mediums, until people start to believe it. For best results, you should try and keep some elements of the truth in it. An easily falsifiable story won’t stand the test of time (not to mention the Internet).

Hand in hand with the promotion of one idea goes the censorship of others. By censoring and stifling contradicting versions of the story, you can create a bubble where only one version is heard and echoed over and over again.

Totalitarian regimes have been doing this for ages. We might think fake news is a new thing, but it’s really not.

Since time immemorial, people have been convincing other people that chanting a particular sequence of words in a particular way is going to please an invisible power who shall then grant their wishes.

And if that’s not false propaganda, I don’t know what is. And yet various versions of this story have been widely and sincerely believed by millions of people across numerous cultures and time periods. Across time, people have been persuaded to do all manner of amazing and ridiculous things with the help of a compelling narrative.

The world really does belong to the articulate.

So what happens when this bubble bursts?

When we find out, surprise surprise, that the narrative we’ve always believed in is in fact not the only narrative in circulation? That the world of stories is not so much a planned meal as an eat-all-you-like buffet serving multiple cuisines?

Culture shock.

Yup. Culture shock is essentially just the shock we feel when we realize that the whole world does not in fact think like us, and act like us, and believe the same things as us.

It’s a strange thing to be surprised about, but surprised we inevitably are. And not just by the way people live and think in far-off lands. But even by the way they lived and thought just a couple of generations ago. Or the way they will live and think a couple generations later.

We are as scandalized by our parents and our children as we are by the most foreign of foreigners. The past, as they say, is a different country. They did things differently there.

The same can be said of the future too.

Wait a couple decades, and you’ll get to experience culture shock without having to spend a penny on international flight tickets.

So at the end of the day, are cultural narratives good or bad?

The truth is, there’s no easy answer to that question. A narrative can definitely be a necessity.

If you want soldiers risking their lives defending arbitrarily drawn borders on a map, you need a compelling narrative to inspire them to do so. If you want people leaving the comfort of their homes on Election Day to come out and vote for a remote leader they will never meet, endorsing policies they don’t understand, you’ll need a good story to make them want to do so. If you want people to tune in to support their country for the World Cup, well, you will need a compelling narrative for that as well.

But can a cultural narrative be used for something more nefarious than that? I’m pretty sure we all know the answer to that. Enough wars have been fought and enough corpses buried in the name of faith, patriotism, and belief systems of all kinds.

The Changing Face of Cultures and Their Narratives

In recent years, the growth of the Internet has served to dismantle and disprove many of the old narratives. Some cultures have sought to counter this onslaught by (trying to) control the Internet and other forms of communication technology, with varying degrees of success. Others have tried to leverage the technology by shouting loud enough that all other voices are drowned out.

Which is not to say that you can’t build a narrative for the greater good.

The rapid acceptance of the LGBT community in countries across the globe would never have been possible without media influencers actively working to create a cultural narrative where being gay was seen as a natural and even a desirable part of one’s identity.

As ever, the problem arises when people have conflicting ideas about what constitutes the ‘greater good’.

The Internet has also given rise to new forms of culture, and by extension, new types of cultural narratives. Online information bubbles are becoming more and more common every day. Different forums and communities have their own subcultures.

There’s a vast difference between the way you’d interact with someone on Tumblr and on Quora. Reddit, 4 Chan, Twitter, YouTube…all have their own unique cultures and subcultures.

Language and topics that are deemed acceptable on one forum may well be considered completely inappropriate on another. Even the number of emoticons you use in a message might be affected to a great degree by the ‘culture’ of the platform you’re posting on.

The Future of Cultural Narratives

So is it that we humans just need to believe in some form of narrative (no matter what it is or on what basis it is formed), in order to be happy and productive? Or is the need for cultural narratives something that we shall one day rise above as we grow and evolve as a global civilization?

I don’t know. I can’t imagine what a world without these narratives would even look like. But maybe someday our descendants will find out. And maybe they too will experience some amount of culture shock when absorbing the weird tales their ancestors had taken for the truth.

I don’t have the answers. But maybe someday, humanity will.

So let me end with a quote from the book that inspired this long-winded rant of a post in the first place:

“But that doesn’t make for a good war-narrative, does it? Not much by way of a thrilling bed-time story for the children – of the victory of good over evil. Not the sort of thing you tell Hunters before you send them off to face death fighting superhuman terrorists.”

“It’s the truth, though,” Ruban said simply.

But is the truth enough? That’s the question we need to answer over the decades and the centuries that are yet to come. But there’s no rush, is there?

It’s not like we’re going anywhere.

-------

Book Links: Goodreads & Amazon