Intertextuality, or Your Sources are Showing Like an Ill-Fitting Slip

[valarltd]

We're all thoroughly modern folks. We expect a certain level of intertextuality from our media. Everyone does, and always has. See all the allusions in Shakespeare or the political commentary of Dante. So we chuckle along, getting the joke when Wolverine is asked "Would you prefer yellow spandex" or when Dr. Declan Gage (played by John Glover) enters on the line "Speak of the Devil." (Law & Order:Criminal Intent. 2006, ep: Blind Spot) As times change, the allusions are relegated to footnotes.

As fans, this is doubly true. Quotes, inside jokes and allusions are how we communicate.

But lately in my reading, I've noticed a distressing level of meta/intertextuality/Undue Outside Influence. I feel, when I can point to this, that and the other and say "well, that's from this and that's from that," when the objects in question are supposed to be new and novel ideas, that maybe, just maybe, we're running out of ideas. At the very least, the story feels cobbled together or like a retread. As one friend said of a novel and as I said of "Fear Itself", "Nothing we haven't seen elsewhere, and better, dozens of times."

Some would fault me for this as well. After all, a Robin Hood novel? Where you quoted Men in Tights? Seriously? And you want US to feel bad about borrowing a demonic nurse or a child-molesting villain or a clan of inbred cannibals from the Uncanny Valley and dropping them into ordinary lives?

No, not "feel bad." Be aware of what you've done and ask yourself what new twist am I bringing to this? What purpose does this story serve and what am I gaining by telling it in this way? (money is a perfectly valid gain, never think otherwise)

When I research, I read until the experts start repeating each other. When I read novels, I read until the author starts repeating zirself.

Comments

[the-ameneko.livejournal.com]

Is that postmodernism and its irritating love affair with references? Never liked that paradigm. Not enough self-confidence, forever thinking it needs to make references to matter.

(BTW, why the newfangled gender-neutral singular pronoun instead of "they"? I get it if you're talking about a specific person who likes that pronoun, but in general speech, I've always wondered why some people risk it. So how come?)

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Actually, every era of literature has been in love wit its references. Try The Annotated Sherlock Holmes sometime, or any well footnoted English Lit textbook.

Postmodernism isn't just intertextuality. It also involves a deep distrust of theories and tends to draw attention to the structure itself rather than the story it's trying to tell. It's all about the medium, not the message.

My problem is when people are genuinely trying to tell a story, and one they think is original, but it ends up a cobbled-together patchwork of other ideas, and one where the seams are showing badly.

I use "zir" because I don't know anyone who is plural, but I know several people for whom "he" and "she" are not accurately descriptive.

[the-ameneko.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. Thanks; it seems I've been totally wrong for a while, so it's good to be set straight.