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writerstorm Sep. 10th, 2010 12:10 am)
capri0mni posting in writerstorm Sep. 10th, 2010 12:10 am)Okay... So, this isn't part of an actual story or a full-born plot bunny(yet), but just a thought-bone that my imagination has been chewing on, and I'm feeling compelled to work it out.
There's the "Secret Life of Toys" trope, where a child's toys are intelligent beings with lives of their own. Pixar's Toy Story movies are the latest version of that, but there's also The Brave Tin Soldier and The Velveteen Rabbit (and I think there was a horror movie, Chuck).
Anyway, I've latched onto the notion of an old book somehow becoming intelligent, and having a life of its own, by "absorbing" some of the thoughts and memories of each of the people who've read it over the years: One person's anger in reaction to a particular part of the story, one person's happy memories triggered by another part, someone else's boredom and daydreams, and so on. And each of those separate parts gets knitted into a whole new identity, and "mind," which becomes independant from the original intention of the book's author.
The thing is: the whole reason to have awareness and intelligence is so that you can interact with and move through the world. It's easy to imagine dolls and other toys in this way because they have bodies (of a sort).
How would a book, with an intelligence and will of its own, act on its will? It's hard to be a protagonist (or antagonist) if you can't actually do anything for yourself.
Since "Body" equals "Movement," at least on some level, I'm thinking that the book's mind might be bound up in the movement of pen on paper, when its letters were formed...
But I don't know. Any ideas?
There's the "Secret Life of Toys" trope, where a child's toys are intelligent beings with lives of their own. Pixar's Toy Story movies are the latest version of that, but there's also The Brave Tin Soldier and The Velveteen Rabbit (and I think there was a horror movie, Chuck).
Anyway, I've latched onto the notion of an old book somehow becoming intelligent, and having a life of its own, by "absorbing" some of the thoughts and memories of each of the people who've read it over the years: One person's anger in reaction to a particular part of the story, one person's happy memories triggered by another part, someone else's boredom and daydreams, and so on. And each of those separate parts gets knitted into a whole new identity, and "mind," which becomes independant from the original intention of the book's author.
The thing is: the whole reason to have awareness and intelligence is so that you can interact with and move through the world. It's easy to imagine dolls and other toys in this way because they have bodies (of a sort).
How would a book, with an intelligence and will of its own, act on its will? It's hard to be a protagonist (or antagonist) if you can't actually do anything for yourself.
Since "Body" equals "Movement," at least on some level, I'm thinking that the book's mind might be bound up in the movement of pen on paper, when its letters were formed...
But I don't know. Any ideas?
From:
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They could write back to their readers - that's not direct action, but it's a way of interacting, at least.
They could physically move around - crawling on their pages, snapping at people, eating things, etc.
They could mind-control their readers (Either directly - giving commands - or a more subtle full-mental takeover - or just destroying their sanity).
They could rewrite the world, either in some mystical sense where changing the words on the pages changed the world, or in a universe where magic worked through words, writing, or diagrams, they could work spells directly, or write things that became real when they were read.
They could have some sort of power that lets them move things telekinetically, or lets them "haunt" the library where they live in the ways a ghost could, or lets them change the contents of other written things.
They could be able to manipulate or shape-change the paper in their pages semi-magically - I've read a couple comics with librarian superheroes (just go with it) where they can manipulate paper, making everything from bridges and pathways to razor-sharp cutting weapons to tentacles to complex origami machinery; and then disassemble it and return the paper to an innocent stack; so I can see a book having similar abilities with its pages.
ETA: Or they could manipulate their ink - a book with prehensile tentacles of black ink that it tucks back to words when it's in danger would be both a very creepy villain and a very cool protagonist.
They could have symbiotic bookworms or silverfish that did the fetching and carrying for them.
They could take part in a 'network' of other intelligent books that spend all their time gossipping with each other through L-SPACE connections.
They could turn completely inward, refusing to believe in any world outside what's on their pages, and the story could be about drawing them out and helping them figure out *how* to interact with wider existence...
From:
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That wouldn't happen to be "Rex Libris," would it? That's actually on my literal to-read pile.
Or they could manipulate their ink -
That's kind of what I was thinking -- especially since dolls "absorb" the ability to move from being moved by the people who play with them (i.e. Disney's version of Pinnochio) -- the book would remember the sensation of movement of the ink moving across its pages (Whether by hand or by machine moved by hands), and so the book's mind could slide into the ink and move the letters around, until they form a "body".
They could have symbiotic bookworms or silverfish that did the fetching and carrying for them.
I always did think that silverfish looked like teeny tiny Cybermats...
They could take part in a 'network' of other intelligent books
Ooh! They could share information about the patrons of the library -- the same people read several books. Maybe the books could be concerned about one of the human patrons that's in trouble...
:-)
From:
no subject
I think that, like how some books never go out of print, some people could never fade as their stories would remain told and re-told between books for ages.