Heart or Morality in systems

[Bob <mantic@brightok.net>]

In previous posts I have referred to a system by which I work on
conventional fiction. And I've said that I write formulaic fiction.
Discussions here the last week seem to support that interactive systems
still provide a place for the creative writer. And the term for the
creative writer's contribution is "heart."

In prose and similar forms of fiction I see that the writer contributes
a number of skills. Pure creativity in the form of creating a location
and conveying it's beaty and mystery can be a selling skill. Inventive
and powerful dialogue can make an empty room as interesting a place as
any exotic world. Poetic language can turn a stock adventure plot into a
moving classic.

Most of those are skills that I really do not have in great abundance,
so perhaps I appreciate them that much more. But to get published and
call yourself a fiction author you can get by without a lot of the
stylistic skills. 

Writing in a genre you can pick up some tricks of language and stock
methods for characterization common to the genre. For example, the
method I have mentioned before of 'tagging' characters with two
conflicting physical descriptives -- depending on your genre and the
character this could be olive dark skin and icy blue eyes (a striking
image for a heroine) or long, nimble fingers and a placid expression
(the quiet genius?). It is a simple trick but most fiction authors use
it. Similarly, the genre writer can use location and plot device
stereotypes (if thinly disguesed) to fit the bill. How many great
adventurers have wound up discovering a lost treasure in the jungles of
Borneo?

Characters don't fail to claim a life in the writer's mind because of
these tricks. In my experience, the simplicity of these methods leads
naturally into the realization of character.

But there is one thing that the writer can't put on a bulleted list or
label with a simple tag. Morality. All stories deal with ethical
conflict, the resolution of which inevitably reflects a moral
conclusion. Faced with identical crises two authors may go different
directions completly.

Is this the "heart" that has been mentioned? If so, I can say that an
algorithm could be contrived to define moral conclusion of plot
situations. The Erazmatron method could be applied, weighing the numeric
positives against the negatives and deducing the best possible solution
for conflict. A writer probably doesn't select the best possible
solution; if anything it's usually necessary to contrive situations very
carefully to support a moral conclusion.

I wonder what the moralility of the machine would be like...


						414D204920474F443F
							--Bob