Friday, January 28, 2011

Coco Chanel Writing Moment

A little over a week ago, I was lamenting that -- despite one of my characters being a mermaid and the other being a kind of ancient Greek magician -- two of my characters were having the fantasy equivalent of a Socratic dialog.  The Mermaid was arguing with the Greek about the power of songs to endure being stronger than that of his written scrolls.  All this dialoging is great for getting inside of the characters' heads, but it's deadly to plot.

Tonight, during some recreational reading of Wondermark, I realized they were in fact, having a real-bonafide retelling of "Egyptian legend of Theuth" as told in the Socratic dialog The Phaedrus.

Did I mention that the story is supposed to take place around 300 BCE, in Greece?  Which, is, um about when the Socratic Dialogs were written?

Now I get to write "The Secret Aquatic Life of Plato"... or else I have to re-cast the story on a gas giant...  or something....

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