Sometimes you realize that the world is just sort of bizarre if you look at it right. For example:

The train I take into work in the morning carries more people on it in one go than the entire population of a town I lived next to.

It's the 7th of January, and my son and I went into New York City today to see the cherry trees, which were in full bloom in the Brooklyn Botannical Gardens. We were both wearing t-shirts, and it was really too damn hot.

Somewhere in Wales there's a guy who can say he plays electric guitar for a classical orchestra.

There was a Japanese film crew at the gardens doing some what I can only presume were news show spots, and yeah I'm watching the Doctor Who music special right now. Still, that's not the point.

This is important, at least to me, because I'm writing more sword and sorcery fantasy stuff. And let's be honest, the traditional version of it's been done to death -- it's possible that every "two guys with swords" story that's been told in the past fifty years is just a pale echo of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

And still... I'm writing them. Partly because I like 'em, and partly because my son read the first one I wrote and wants more. (Which is a hell of an encouragement to write) I don't even mind covering well-tread paths, since he's not read all the stuff that this could reasonably be considered derivative of. I could, I suppose, go all post-modern but, like Astro City, that'd require the background he doesn't have to really work well.

This does leave me in an odd position, because while I want him to like them, I have to like them too, and I have to write them well. (Or at least as well as I can manage) I'm not feeling too up for writing complete retreads, though.

That's where the perspective thing comes in. If the stories themselves are the same old thing, how can I look at them differently? What exactly about my characters lets me show something in the stories that nobody I know of has shown, or at least shown in the way I see it? What can they bring to the plots that's fresh, or different?

Having the heroes be lovers as well as partners does put a slightly different spin on things, though one I can't use all that much. 'Cause, let's be real, he's 11 and it's going to be a long time (if ever!) until he reads In The Lair of the Serpent Queen. (You know the one -- what happens when the guy who falls into the archetypical Vallejo or Rowena painting (where the villainess is barely wearing something diaphanous that's only keeping her decent for cover art through sheer luck and a lot of double-sided sticky tape...) isn't directly affected by the evil queen's eldrich sex appeal because he wants to go boink his studly partner instead) So, using some of the relatively direct parts of their relationship is out.

So I get to think instead. How would I look at the stories I loved as a kid? How would I tell them, what would the characters I've created (or discovered, for some of them) do in those situations, and how would it all turn out. What does perspective bring to things?

I'm not sure I know the answer, really. But I'm pretty sure asking the question is important.