What is your story's Serious Business

For those who don't know, Serious Business is when something which is considered unimportant or low-priority in Real Life is suddenly elevated into a major industry, critical lifestyle, or life-or-death struggle in a fictional setting.

So what qualifies for your stories? And did you play it seriously or for comedy?

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I myself have a short story in which Le Parkour is Serious Business. The story is mostly about humans and supernatural creatures, and the only hope humans have against the undead is to evade them. So Parkour is taught as a necessary survival technique.

Story telling.

Read my stories!

As in Rewriting Reality and I Wish It Were Real?

No, as in, there's some asshole manipulating our lives to make a better story. If we're going to outsmart him, we need to understand basic storytelling things better than him.

edited 14th Jun '12 10:09:05 AM by MrAHR

Read my stories!

Platforming. There are yearly competitions.

Due to the growing presence of Wild Magic in isolated areas, travelling across seas and continents without the proper precautions (sigils, etc.) is extremely difficult and dangerous. Esoteric mysticism and different philosophical (and religious) schools of non-screwy magic are also a very big deal, albeit more for practical and political reasons than anything else: The proper application of certain rituals, particularly in conjunction with military technology, is a serious risk factor for sovereign nations and their citizens.

Guess what two things drive this story!

Yes, "unresolved sexual tension" and "various psychoses" are correct! :D

edited 14th Jun '12 10:27:06 AM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

One story I have drafted puts Scrabble into Serious Business territory, though it's still primarily a comedy piece. The protagonist is naturally good at the game since he's a huge English nerd, and the only reason he gets involved is because he's crushing hard on a girl who's president of the Scrabble Club. Then they get into tournaments, where they come across different Scrabblers who take the game very seriously, and have a Villainous Breakdown upon losing.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

Who says we need or want one?

If your story doesn't have one, it doesn't apply to you.

Anyway, I've started this thing in my story where— as my main characters are reasonably well-known amateur/semi-pro boxers—people would be like "maybe we should play chess/Connect 4/ Twister instead?" when one of them looks ready to get violent.

It is comments like these that make the Writer's Block so hard to endure. Everyone thinks every topic has to apply to them somehow.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

Then why isn't it "Does your story feature Serious Business" or something?

It's not really important, but these things just nag at me.

The problem is the wording of the title.

edited 14th Jun '12 4:59:13 PM by nrjxll

Because common sense says that if your story doesn't have it, then you move along.

I know that, but unqualifiedly inclusive statements like this have always been a pet peeve of mine - I have a lot of trouble letting them go without comment, particularly when it would have been so easy to word this in a way that didn't sound like it was saying everyone has stories about Serious Business.

Sorry for the derail.

That sounds more like a personal issue. You should work on inferring context.

edited 14th Jun '12 5:49:54 PM by KingZeal

I don't have anything that would qualify as Serious Business for the whole story (aside form stuff that actually should be seriosu business), but more than one of the "filler" chapters for Forgotten Lore (the ones where the protagonists just do some random stuff, which were left out of the final script due to lack of space) dealt with something being treated as Serious Business, such as a not!Warhammer 40k tournament, a band contest and a beauty pageant. There was even a minor character who declared herself as one of the protagonists' rival and proceeds to treat any time she competes againt her in anything as Serious Business.

In one of my stories, celebrity culture is Serious Business. A country in the story exports celebrities (and the media products to go with them), and their celebrity worship eventually gets them in trouble.

I'm an elephant. Rurr.

...I'm curious how you'd export celebrities, at least before globalization sets in, at which point actually having to export them is moot.

Nous restons ici.

It's kind of complicated. It takes place in a world that's not as connected as ours (they barely have Internet), and the "exporting celebrities" is really just glorified human trafficking.

I'm trying to make the point that objectifying people is bad and celebrity worship can get out of hand if people do it too much.

I'm an elephant. Rurr.

My fairies are so empty that everything they care about is Serious Business. Dueling (any contest imaginable), hunting, magicking, ravishing, stealing, even rhyming are all sacred.

Because of their Creative Sterility, the fey also take art very seriously. Musicking (everything gets "inged" like this), dancing and acting are the most important art forms.

Level 3 Social Justice Necromancer. Chaotic Good.

I have an entire story about badass men trying to out-badass each other, which some director exploits by turning their contests into a TV show. So for each chapter they have to show how awesome they can do the activity for the week, which could range from driving or martial arts fights to ironing, fishing and babysitting.