Rules for keeping fans involved in your sf movie, book, comic, etc
IO9 has a set of provocative rules for "fan husbandry" -- nine things creators should do to keep their fans active (if not, you know, happy or satisfied):
Fans love inconsistencies. Fans claim to hate contradictions in long-running stories, but actually that stuff is catnip to them. If Londo Mollari says he has seven penises in one episode and then refers to his twelve penises in another episode, the fans will spend hours coming up with explanations for the discrepancy. Marvel Comics realized this years ago, when it started sending "no prizes" to fans who could come up with the cleverest explanations of continuity goofs. So don't worry about trying to be consistent with old stories. Just ignore them, and let the fans worry about them.Link
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Thought there were 15. Will have to go recount and figure out why...
So this month it's okay to not worry about details, while last month we were educated here that "!ZOMG teh details matrZ!"
I wonder why William Gibson wasn't told to "spend (a few) hours coming up with explanations for the discrepanc(ies)".
That first one right there rankles me. I don't think it's true that fans love inconsistencies. The fact is, fans will usually _forgive_ inconsistencies, and, because of their love for the basic material, will usually try to come up with things that explain why they're really not inconsistencies after all. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't rather they weren't there. So maybe good advice is "don't overly stress over inconsistencies", because fans will forgive it. They're human, they understand mistakes, and can even have a little fun with it if you're open and inviting about it, like Marvel was in the old days. But to suggest that you should ignore old stories and not bother to do any necessary research is like saying, "hey, don't worry about spelling mistakes... fans can proofread! They'll love it!"
No, because if you obviously don't care, you're giving permission to your fans not to either. Creating a sloppy, inferior product is not good advice.
...As soon as the double-whammy of Dilaudid and Norco wears off, I'm so going to tear these guidelines apart. We fans do *NOT* enjoy blatant inconsistencies, because it's an example of sloppy writing. Granted, mistakes *are* made, and those are the ones that the "No Prizes" were invented for. Not that it matters are Marvel these days, what with the Big Fat Q excusing the biggest inconsistency in the history of the company by writing it off as "hey, it's magic, we don't *need* to explain anything when it's magic!"
Or you could just, y'know, produce product that doesn't suck.
Umberto Eco (in 'Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage' from Travels in Hyperreality) says that in order to become a cult movie, a film must display some "organic imperfections", which allow fans to break it apart -- and it's that breaking apart where people really start loving something. If it's not "ramshackle, rickety, unhinged" in some way, the fanboys just won't go for it.
It would seem that politicians work from the same rule book. Yes Dubya, I'm looking at you...
Boy, I used to hate inconsistencies, but then I realized that I was reading fiction.
Of course Lando has 12 penises. He only uses 7 of them at a time though.
I always liked the gloriously inconsistent world of Varley's stories and novels that seemed to inhabit similar, non-identical settings with small discontinuities that served the needs of each story.
I'm sure a lot of inconsistancy can be explained by the multi-verse. It's like writing alternative history.