Random Fantasy: Demanding Unfantastical!

Xyxel stroked his pseudopods against the thought crystal floating in his alcove, the thoughts and concepts recorded as a rough draft within. Xyxel tuned out the slurping noise of his fellow employees working in their own mold-stone alcoves. Let them write the latest romantic comedy, let them write the latest mindless murder thriller, Xyxel was busy creating WORLDS, entire places that existed before only in his imagination, but soon would exist in the minds of his receptors as well!

Working in a collective thought-nest hadn’t been his ideal when he graduated, he was supposed to be signing replica memory crystals by now. But no, here he was, his ideas struggling among a horde of other ideas, where only the ones that had the broadest sense of appeal could hope to ever reach the replication floor as decided by the all mighty editor. But it was still better than scribbling it on the tunnel walls.

“Xyxel!”

Speak of the devil…

“Yes, sir?” Xyxel responded moving his mass towards his direct superior.

“What have you been working on this time?”

“Oh… it’s called, the ‘Wright Brothers and their Fantastic Flying Machines’.”

The editor didn’t ask for permission as he snatched the memory crystal from Xyxel’s alcove, every thought and idea he had belonged to the thought-nest after all, it was in his contract. Who needed totalitarian governments when you had publishers?

The editor moved his pseudopods over the memory crystal.

“Hairless monkeys again? Seriously? The characters in your stories half the time aren’t even blobs, or are blobs shaped like apes! I’d almost worry about you Xyxel! Do you do anything that isn’t fantasy? Flying machines? Machines that can listen and speak back to you? Weapons that unleash the power of the sun? A giant memory crystal that can be accessed by anyone anywhere?

“Why can’t you realize that there’s no fun for your audience when you can just make up anything? You can just throw in a new invention whenever you write yourself into a corner? Don’t you see how lazy that is? How is that fun for the readers? How is anyone supposed to relate to such a world?”

Xyxel stayed quiet as the editor went on. Finally, when it seemed the editor had finished speaking, he finally spoke his own piece.

“First, my world has rules, when I introduce something, I make sure it fits with everything else. And I make sure what I introduce has rules that make sense within the context of the world.

“And for some of my readers, they like the idea of ‘anything can happen’, that sense of discovery, of never being sure what’s coming next, to see what my imagination can conjure up for them.”

The editor’s body gave off a dismissive ripple. “It’s all flash. Your shallow bells and whistles aren’t going to hold readers. Once they’ve read one of your stories, they’ve read them all.”

“The bells and whistles don’t have to. The bells and whistles are just to get their attention. Like bells and whistles are supposed to. As long as the people act like people: feeling sad when someone they love is hurt, angry when they’re wronged, happy when their friends pull through, the readers will want to know what happens to them next. That’s what makes a story thrive.”

“Pst. Whatever. I have dozens of writers who know how to write what sells. What makes you think anyone wants your confusing headache inducing craziness?”

“Maybe people who WANT to explore new worlds now that we’ve explored so much of this one. People who WANT a sense of discovery. People who WANT to figure out the rules of the world piece by piece instead of having it all dumped on them all at once like a field manual.”

The editor’s entire body jiggled. “HA! I’d bet real money that there’s not a blob on the planet who aren’t your relatives who’d EVER pay real money to read a word of anything you inscribe outside of a holiday greeting crystal. You think your monkey shaped blobs with their impossible powers mean a thing to anyone but you? You should keep them out of sight and silent like a decent person. Maybe I’ll publish one of your stories, just so you can see how much you’ve been wasting your time, and then you can write mystery novels and comedies like you’ve should have been doing all along!”

“I have faith in my worlds and the characters that dwell within, Xinde. And if people like it, you have to let me write my work for my very real audience.”

“Sucker’s bet, it’s a deal.” Xyxel and Xinde slammed pseudopods together, marking their binding agreement.

~Fin