Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45258
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Allow me to introduce you to a game-changing author who at age 19 wrote a morally complicated "pot boiler" about a privileged jerk who plays god then abandons his responsibility. This novel has everything: an anti-hero who fails his redemption arc, a villain who is articulate and sympathetic, and a heretical theme so aggressively feminist that **Christianity is cancelled**. Men's moral-compass comes not from religion but through education and compassion (and maybe _listening to women_ but that panacea doesn't happen in the book). The real villain is "white guy arrogance". There're revenge killings, suspense, thrilling descriptions intended to keep you awake at night, and a fatalistic _elliptical_ ending where god and creation hound each other to the end of the Earth (literally an unmapped blank spot on the top of the globe at the time).

It borrows a mystical tone from earlier "discovered manuscripts" we'd call literary hoaxes – er, Romantic Fantasies. Stirs in a stewpot of social radicalism. Winks at the classics. Sprinkles with the latest scientific discoveries (not too specific with the science, or the worldbuilding gets out-dated), and heaps of transgressive melodrama floating on top like whipped cream on a Starbucks™ Mocha Frappuccino®. Narratively, it _de-centers the hero-protagonist_ creating the best-known _negative change arc_ since Oedipus, and the most iconicly tragic badguy since (before?) Darth Vader. Sure, it gets SJW-preachy and drags in the middle, but the best thing about this novel's structure is _the horror climax is at the beginning_ – then the story asks "What if…?" Today, bookstores need a whole section for this kind of "science-fiction" but this was the first.

Before this gets too long I'll just announce my thesis statement here in the middle of my answer: **Outsider perspectives lead to radical storytelling.**

The published title is **Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus** – that subtitle is to make sure everyone catches that this is a heady re-invention: a very old story from a radically new perspective. I like to pretend the original working title **Atheism; or If I ever Catch Up with God I will Make Him Suffer for this Bullshit** was too long to fit on the cover. Did I forget to mention the author?

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oYjhl.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oYjhl.jpg)

**His name is _Anonymous_** because despite being the child of a famous literary reformer and publisher, and a possibly even more famous revolutionary feminist author – 2 bankable last names – Anonymous is actually a woman who has run off with a married man, will be denied the credit of writing her own work even after it becomes obvious (her husband would _never_ de-center a hero-protagonist), and all her carefully debated, radical atheist SJW themes are dropped from the pop-culture version in favor of a stupid monster (fire: Grrr), a whiteguy redemption arc, and a decidedly _Christian_ theme that is _100% not atheist at all whatsoever_ to get past the censors. (Silly Feminist, man cannot _create_ life just poke at some dead things God in His Wisdom™ had previously created. Now get to the kitchen and make your low-tier aristocratic f-boi husband a sandwich.)

No one can "solve" your outsider dilemma – a bunch of feminists are trying but it sounds like you'd rather join the other team. Ok fine, but stop insulting the rest of us who love stories written by, and for, the _other point of view_.

Change your name to **Stan Lee** and rob your creative partners blind. The world might even hail you as a great whiteguy genius even though the stories are lowest-common denominator entitlement fantasy tinsel. Other alternatives are **George Lucas** , **Elon Musk** , **Thomas Edison** … there is no end to the list of "great whiteguys" who capitalized on the creative work of others to much popular acclaim and swollen bank accounts. I suggest you use a _specific whiteguy's name_, anyone who is already successful and well-known. **Hemingway** for example. Let's not beat around the bush, what you want is a shortcut. Good luck, I hope you become famous. (If you get rich let me know which name you choose, I will use it too!)

I don't think your stories will speak to me, but that's just my personal taste. I prefer radical thinkers with revolutionary perspectives over generic Happy Meal™ mass-marketing and monsters who say "Grrr" at fire while stupidly wandering into a fire.

Mary Shelley's name will be remembered forever – although admittedly not for what she actually wrote. The point of the story is **her name didn't appear on her own best seller**. After 200 years she is still an undiscovered radical icon in the literary world (with an ironically over-exposed novel). Stan Lee is 15-minute-famous _right now_ for telling the same 10¢ plot and 1-note character over and over, and it wasn't even original to begin with (Lee's outsider heroes were created by Jack Kirby, and his kids had to sue to get recognition).

You're a better writer than that, your essay is showing off a little. If you want my outsider, de-centered opinion, you're already a clever writer with a social critique posing as a Stack Exchange question. I don't think you'll fit in with the generic whiteguy POV, you've already let it slip that there something a little more radical and interesting there.

Original score: 4