 |
| 2006-12-27 20:52 |
| Eating my words, chewing them up, and spitting them back out |
| Public |
| process, writing |
|
I've been thinking more about my genre shield post. I seem to have accidentally set off a tempest in a teapot. (Or perhaps a stewpot...)
What I didn't mean to say was that genre would categorically prevent emotionally genuine writing. Unfortuunately, that's what I more or less did say, out of shooting from the hip. The comment directly and indirectly stirred objections from both directions -- the "write to entertain" folks and the "write to bone" folks. Further confusion was caused by the blade-and-bone metaphors, which seem to have meant very different things to different people.
Barth Anderson did a very good job of capturing the underlying fallacy in the whole discussion, where I had been pointing fingers at the writer, by saying:
The writer is not the one who is flayed open in a truly resonant story. It's the reader who is laid bare. I can find room to argue here, but I'm not going to bother, since I've long averred that the story belongs to the reader once it leaves the writer's hands. However, to the topic at hand, my revised thesis, after reading a day's worth of comments and counterarguments in other people's posts, is that the tropes and structures of genre, any genre, provide a story-telling framework which intersects with the emotion in the writing. One can occlude emotionality through genre-specific aspects, or one can bring it into sharp focus. As I write, I realize this sounds very much like talking out of both sides of my mouth. That's because it is. This question as I proposed it amounts to a tautology, in fact, one which Jeff VanderMeer and Barth Anderson neatly and wisely stepped around. The more interesting question which cropped up out of today's passage of words was whether there must be a core of strong and genuine emotion at the bottom of every story. I'm leaning heavily toward "there certainly ought to be" on this. Perhaps this is self-evident, perhaps it is not, but I chew on it nonetheless. Our Western/anglophone storytelling tradition begins with a character in a setting with a problem. Simplistically... Marta was on a 27-hour orbit to Gernsback Station, with 11 hours of air left."You have ten seconds to convince me not to kill you," said the violet-eyed man standing over me with his foot on my chest.Bennie's rent was late for the third month in a row, and he hadn't been able to feed his cat since Sunday.Could you tell a story which was rooted in procedure, or technicality, or description, or some other aspect of craft or genre? Sure. It gets done all the time, to varying degrees of success. I've read plenty of entertaining but emotionally neutral fiction. But people connect most strongly to emotion, which arises naturally out the character's interaction with and reaction to their setting and problem. It's why work of bafflingly poor craft quality can become a major bestseller -- Bridges of Madison County springs to mind. In my own writing, I would throw almost everything else overboard to maintain a genuine emotional core to my story. Luckily I don't have to. This isn't the wreck of the Hesperus. We don't have to cut things loose. Maybe another way to look at my original attempt at expressing this concept is to think of genres as being like forms or molds, into which stories can be poured. To choose to write in the vernacular of a given genre offers writer and reader alike a toolset to approach the story -- the reading protocols originally articulated by Delany. Those tools can be used in lieu of emotion, dancing fast in hopes no one will notice, or they can be used in pursuit of emotion, stepping into those blades, however metaphorical they may be, or they can be used to another purpose entirely, where emotionality is simply one of the supporting structures. As to whether the emotion should come from within the writer, I don't see how it could be otherwise. But that's just my view. I don't suppose that should be true for other writers. So here I am arguing with myself, making change for my own $0.02 worth. As always, your mileage may vary.
Post A Comment | 16 Comments | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend | Link
None of the classics I have been reading open that way, by the way. More later.
Reply | Thread | Link
 |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jaylake |
| 2006-12-28 05:29 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
|
Well, not very many of my short stories do, and I'm pretty sure none of my novels do. Like I said, simplistically.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
| dsgood |
| 2006-12-28 06:07 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
Are you dividing stories into genre and non-genre? I would say that's as erroneous as dividing the way people speak English into "dialects" and "accentless."
As I see it, almost all fiction is in one genre or another. "Mainstream" is a collection of genres, with less coherence than "speculative fiction." "Literary" is a genre.
Reply | Thread | Link
|
| jaylake |
| 2006-12-28 14:08 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
|
re you dividing stories into genre and non-genre?
Oh, not at all. *Everything* is a genre, in the sense of having tropes and expectations and forms.
I should stop using the word "genre" because it has at least two distinct meanings in discussions like these, and an implied but incorrect exclusivity as well.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
I can find room to argue here, but I'm not going to bother, since I've long averred that the story belongs to the reader once it leaves the writer's hands.
What does it mean to say that a story "belongs" to one person or another?
Does it mean that the person who owns it gets to decide what it means? Well, anyone who reads a story can decide what it means to them individually if they want to. If you want to try to convince others of that meaning, though, you have to argue based on what the author wrote, and words have meaning, however broad and poorly defined. So some of the meaning of the story seems to still belong to the author.
What do you mean by "belong"? I apologize in case you've addressed this over and over and I've started reading too recently to have heard of it.
Reply | Thread | Link
|
| jaylake |
| 2006-12-28 14:33 (UTC) |
| Re: Somewhat tangential |
|
It's an excellent question, and one I've not really addressed in detail that I can recall. Rather than try to answer it here in comments, I'll take it up later on a new post.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
 |
| seanmmurphy |
| 2006-12-28 21:22 (UTC) |
| Re: Somewhat tangential |
|
bmm, I think the basic argument, and one I seen used elsewhere, is that the process of receiving a story is inherently that if a conversation--I proffer a set of words, phrases, concepts, and they are modified immediately upon reception because they come to you through your own filters of experience and knowledge. Certainly, words have general meanings, but they are somewhat shimmrey and indistinct things when it comes to nailing them down. Also, the more of them you put together, they greater the likelyhood that that cumulative variance will nudge to one side or another, allowing for (sometimes widely) divergent interpretations. Now, add to that the relative moral, ethical, and emotional value judgments that each reader will make, and you've got a sense that Picasso and you don't necessarily see the world in the same way.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
 |
| brni |
| 2006-12-30 21:32 (UTC) |
| Re: Somewhat tangential |
|
This is something that Roland Barthes explored in his essay Death of the Author. Literary theory and aesthetics in general had long held the view that there was A (definative) meaning to a work (story, poem, painting, whatever) - and that all we needed to do to understand that meaning was to understand what the creator of that work intended.
Barthes claimed that there can be multiple valid interpretations of a text, depending more on the cultural perspectives of the audience than on the specific intentions of the author. Like a child that is raised to adulthood and goes out into the world, once a the story is released into the wild, the author ceases to control it.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
|
| jaylake |
| 2006-12-30 21:40 (UTC) |
| Re: Somewhat tangential |
|
Thanks for the link. I've used the child metaphor before, I think because of my own experiences as a parent -- you raise 'em well as you can, teach them to say please, thank you and how to brush their teeth, and turn them out into the world. After that, they're on their own.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
Thanks for starting this debate. It's been both fun and a good stretching of the brain muscles. I posted another note referencing this one over at the Wyrdsmiths blog. I also posted this note here as an anonymous comment before I'd logged in, mea culpa. I'm much more conversant with blogger than livejournal.
Reply | Thread | Link
|
| jaylake |
| 2006-12-28 14:14 (UTC) |
| Re: Trying this again |
|
S'alright. I'll delete the anonymous comment as redundant, then check out the followup. Thank you!
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
 |
| juliabk |
| 2006-12-28 06:47 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
|
Gonna muse here... I think storytelling is a collaborative effort. We can write and rewrite and hone and bleed all over the page until our veins are empty, but if the reader isn't with us, what difference does it make? (If a story is published in the forest can it be read? ;-) I say this as someone who 'wrote' stories for decades inside my own head and never shared them with anyone. Yes, they existed but only for me. I spent a lot of my time 'as a writer' working to an audience of one. Talk about an ideal setup! The interaction between writer and reader was perfect. The moment, though, that I showed something to someone else, I had to start dealing with what my reader brought to the table and how *that* impacted the meaning of what I wrote. Does the emotion have to come from the writer? Yes... but if the reader doesn't have an appropriate 'receiver', the writer is just broadcasting into the ether and maybe Vegans (y'know, from *Vega* ;-) will derive something from it hundreds of years from now.
Does the emotion come from the writer or the reader? Yes.
Reply | Thread | Link
 |
|
To choose to write in the vernacular of a given genre offers writer and reader alike a toolset to approach the story
Babbling ever onward...
Yes. I think the mechanics of genre, for want of a better term, allow for emotional distance if that's what's desired. Distance for the writer, if they want concentrate on the Shiny, or the Puzzle, or the Politics or the Inner Workings of Dragons. Distance for the reader, if they want to concentrate on same, and maybe complain to the writer later that their characters whine too much and could we get on with more ass-kicking, please?
The structure is there, though, if someone wants to write something more emotionally fulfilling. Like one of those closet kits that provides you multiple bits that you can piece together any way you chose, discarding what you don't need. Give the same kit to three different people, and you'll get three very differnt closets kitted out with essentially the same gear. Readers come along with their stuff, and pick the closet that works for them.
Reply | Thread | Link
 |
| kmarkhoover |
| 2006-12-28 15:38 (UTC) |
| I thought your point was pretty valid |
|
Frankly, I was astonished at the reaction you got.
This is so typical of the people who work and write in the field of sf, fantasy and speculative fiction. We're always so willing to argue "angels on the head of a pin" points. I see it at sf cons all the time. As if it matters. As if it means something.
As if it might change the world.
It gets tiring.
Reply | Thread | Link
|
| seanmmurphy |
| 2006-12-28 21:38 (UTC) |
| Re: I thought your point was pretty valid |
|
Rabbis have argued "angels on the head of a pin" arguments for millenia, specifically because yes, it does matter--maybe not right now, or in this specific way, but eventually. The Talmud is full of arguments along the lines of "Say you're in a house floating twenty feet up in the air, and it passes over a dead body..." This is seventeen hundred years ago--how does that apply to them?
It does matter, it does mean something. It means that when we write, we care about what we're doing. We're not merely tossing words on the page without regard to our readers, our process, ourselves, our stories, or our outcomes. Every people is founded on myths--stories--that they tell about themselves in order to help define who they are, what they're made of. So the stories do matter.
Striving to improve our craft and our understanding of it is rarely a wasted endeavor. I'm not averting nuclear holocaust, here.
But maybe I'll invent the space suit. Heinlein did.
Reply | Parent | Thread | Link
 |
| etcet |
| 2006-12-28 15:47 (UTC) |
| Iron Chef Writing |
|
Some folks cook with a lot of garlic. Some folks rely heavily on salt. Or pepper. Or citrus. Or whatever.
There are a lot of ways to prepare a meal.
What I'm saying, metaphorically, is that some folks like the taste of emotion more than others, and apply or consume it accordingly.
That being the case, whether you're preparing haute cuisine, an old family recipe, or just experimenting in the kitchen.... there will always be some wiseass like me asking, "Do you want fries with that?""
Reply | Thread | Link
|
|
|
|
|
