Bigger worlds? Diverser Characters?

LittleStar said:

I do see a solution to it, (aside from 100% self-pubbing which would kill every trad publisher which no one wants) which who knows might be what happens in the years to come, one which because of the 'protesting too much' I've mentioned means that no white, straight male will be able to sell a Novel to a publisher, in which case the use of a pen name might help...

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I expect that if non-white, non-male authors prove to have a marketing advantage, you'll see white male authors start to write under pen names, just as women used to write under male pen names back when they thought a female name was a handicap. However, if that does happen, I expect it will be controversial. Or maybe we'll see more cases like K.J. Parker, where a gender-neutral pen name is used to create an air of mystery.

MWagner said:

white male authors start to write under pen names,

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Why?
When even people in Africa might have more English sounding names than most White Americans?

Loads of White Americans have names that look very foreign to UK readers.
But people have been doing pen names for a long while, John Le Carré, Lewis Carroll, George Elliot.
Lots of people, male and female have used initials: G. K. Chesterton, H.G. Wells. E. E. "Doc" Smith, Captn. W. E. Johns (was never a captain).
Anne McCaffery and Ursula Le Guin didn't use initials, they started doing well in late 1960s?
Enid Blyton, Angela Brazil, Mrs Olliphant ...

I wonder if since about 1860 it's really more in the mind of the Author? After all, people get loads of rejections ANYWAY, how do they know it was because they had the "wrong" name?
Never understood though why the publisher turned C.J. Cherry into Cherryh (At least I believe that's the story).

Some Irish civil servants used pen names because of the Day Job, (Brian O'Nolan who used Myles na gCopaleen for column and a book and Flann O'Brien for other books).
Ian Fleming used his real name, as did his brother Peter (Ian worked for Military, and Peter was almost certainly spy + journalist and had been in Military), but David John Moore Cornwell was still working as a "spy", or M.I. when he published The Spy who came in from the Cold as John le Carré. He's going to publish memoirs of the actual job in sept 2016, I wonder has he clearance?

I'm using a pen name for fiction as I write unrelated non-fiction. I may have another pen name for my non-SF&F fiction if it amounts to anything, as I can't imagine SF&F fans reading it!

As...interesting as all this discussion about white male authors becoming the minority is, I'm gonna bring this thread back to one of Boneman's original points.

Boneman said:

I also wonder whether the scope of the plotline in this might be a little too focussed without a larger underlying social threat. While I’m sure there would be battles involved it doesn’t feel quite as widespread or whole country encompassing as say, John Gwynne or George R R Martin where the tapestry the characters play out their story against feels a bit larger.

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It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately. Is it an assumed prerequisite that somehow SFF needs to be world-trembling, earth-shattering, The Winner Takes It All or bust? I'm all for the evolving of close fantasy, where it's less of the sprawling battles for dominance, and more of a tightly built setting. I guess SFF is meant to hold up a mirror to our world, etc, but do the battles have to always be on such a large scale? I always think you lose a bit of the humanity of stories the bigger you blow them up, and it numbs their emotional impact.

I suppose ultimately this just shows this particular agent's preferences, but I find it odd that someone who is asking for a more original setting/world building would still adhere to what I'd consider a somewhat outdated plot format...

It does seem like she's looking for GRRM with a twist.

I'm thinking of some popular fantasy out there right now and it doesn't all have 'Hero must save the day, else the world will fall into the clutches of The Sealed One's claws'

Django Wexler is writing cool stuff on a much smaller scale. Joe Abercrombie's books are quite small scale when you think about it. Brian Mclellan is in the middle, Douglis Hulik is small scale, and I'm sure there are many more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. So I will again say that my gut says, whichever way you go, if the story is great, it will be found at one point.

ratsy said:

I'm thinking of some popular fantasy out there right now and it doesn't all have 'Hero must save the day, else the world will fall into the clutches of The Sealed One's claws'

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Ofcourse, theres also scott lynch crime caper, and name of the wind. Neither have battles or world shattering events happening in it. It just depends on what the agent or editor is looking for, they have personal taste as much as we do, and some may want to jump on the game of thrones bandwagon to make money.

Similar to lev grossman's Magicians which was marketed as harry potter for adults. And it sold well, despite being nothing much more than fan-fiction. (bear in mind this guy had connections so its probably not good to try and publish fan-fiction unless you write the next 50 shades of gray.)

@Zebra Wizard Yes two more guys I've read all their books and forgot to include. I am actually having a harder time thinking of world-shattering fantasy than the opposite from what I read anyway.

Zebra Wizard said:

The angry robot thing, Unless im misreading, the diversity means ethical background, because it is a fantasy is a very white dominant field. but there are newer fantasy authors who bring some arabian, middle-eastern and asian styles and settings into newer sci-fi or fantasy.

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Ethical? Game of thrones is many things but ethical isn't on the list, I think...
I think the new emphasis upon diversity was brought into focus with the success of China Melville's eclectic characters and worlds.
Publishers are looking for a stronger voice telling a different story it seems.
Could this look to high stakes excitement of world ending problems being integral to selling a story be another instance of film creep?
Now publishers somehow expect books to have the same plot beats as a feature film?

allmywires said:

Is it an assumed prerequisite that somehow SFF needs to be world-trembling, earth-shattering, The Winner Takes It All or bust? I'm all for the evolving of close fantasy, where it's less of the sprawling battles for dominance, and more of a tightly built setting. I guess SFF is meant to hold up a mirror to our world, etc, but do the battles have to always be on such a large scale?

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No.
I don't even regard having ANY battles as important. GRR Martin is a outlier and sub-genre. I've read lots of SF &F, the majority might not have battles at all, not a winner takes all. Cinema has too in recent years distorted some books with over emphasis of the battles.

I guess SFF is meant to hold up a mirror to our world, etc: Only if the author wants it to. Lots of SF&F is escapist, fun. Or if related to our world only for a particular issue, or consequences of a single idea. (Restoree: Female Protagonist, Earthsea: Dark skinned Protagonist, Warning of demise of Books to TV: Fahrenheit 451 is more about that than censorship!) I'm not sure how Live Ship Series or Ringworld series is meant to be more than fun to read. (brilliant F and SF, but "more of a tightly built setting", no "G R R Martin elements).
Even Robert Heinlien's Moon is a harsh Mistress or even Starship Troopers are no SF version of G.R.R. Martin.

The agent was speaking about how @Boneman's particular story might be made more sellable, not how all SFF needs to be. If you've written something that seems to flag itself as epic fantasy, but where the "epic" doesn't quite seem strong enough, that might be a problem in placing it. Either you big up the epic, or do something to lower that flag in the first chapters and raise another one. As someone who's read the story in question, I think her advice was good in that respect. I don't take it as a prescription for fantasy in general, not even fantasy involving battles.

On 'epic': I was surprised when someone described Journey to Altmortis as epic because there's no impending world doom or massive war. It's a relatively small scale tale of revenge, although there is a trek across a dangerous wilderness and exploration of an abandoned subterranean city.

Maybe it's just a category issue. High fantasy can refer to a magic-festooned world, without necessarily needing a calamity that must be averted.

I've no idea how anyone could get the notion the discussion ever touched on the white male authors becoming a minority. I can't speak for the past; but presently my understanding is that anyone who writes well has an equal opportunity to succeed in publishing.

I think so far it has been with that in mind that we've puzzled statements in the OP. Which means most of the discussion is on topic.

I also have noticed several deficiencies in the OP that we've had to trickle portions of and I think that there is more to the whole picture that has to be given to understand the full impact of the goldmine of information that's here.

Such things as did the agent read the entire manuscript; a portion of the manuscript; none of the manuscript. Did the agent only have a query letter and synopsis or only a query letter.

How was the manuscript or idea portrayed. Was the word epic used to describe.

What's the word count: At one time Smashwords had a word count they considered epic(I'm not sure if they still do.)

What was this agent's specialty?

There might be more questions to consider. The bottom line is that this is a gold-mine of information that can't be assessed without knowing where it was mined and the tools used to mine and whether they used a proper assay office; to give the whole thing some context.

Or is it Iron Pyrites?

The Iron Pyrites of Publishing and other traditional fantasies.
Follow the adventures of Longjohn Silverspoon in his endeavor to smooth talk his way into the publishing contract of his dreams.

L J almost slipped from the chair as his worst fear actualized. The agent generated a horrendous thud; dropping the manuscript on to the desk as he asked, "Could you give me the shorter version of this?"

On the subject of diversity in worlds and characters, this kerfuffle just happened:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ginalised-children-edith-campbell-large-fears

^
This stuff has taken on the fervour of a religious crusade, with its pious denunciations and ferocious witch hunts. Reason and moderation wither under the assault.

I saw some of the fallout on Twitter. People became quite worked up about it.

This is a slightly different issue::

The Bluestocking said:

On the subject of diversity in worlds and characters, this kerfuffle just happened:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ginalised-children-edith-campbell-large-fears

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:ersonally I think it belongs in a different or its own discussion.

That article demonstrates the difference because one person is talking about fiction writing, which marginalizes nothing; while the other is talking about putting a book (albeit a fiction book possibly-but hard to say) into the education system because certain elements of diversity are being marginalized.

That has nothing to do with mainstream fiction and publishing in general because we're not talking about putting these into the education system.

Though I believe there are specialized areas within publishing for those books that go into that system; I think that there are specific ways to go about getting into that system and perhaps that's the issue for those people worried about marginalization.

There is one truth that stands out here though. Not everyone can write from the diverse position because they are not directly involved in that marginalized group. They can try and maybe some can succeed, but in general we write what we know. I come from mixed heritage and my family are blended amongst English; German; Czechoslovakia; Spanish; African American. Since I was raised in what might be considered the privileged white society (I couldn't prove that by my way of life, but that's another story.) I'd be hard pressed to write diverse even from the diversity that orbits my life. I could try, but I'd have to be careful that it might look like trying and "try you get squished like grape".

You still write what you know.

I strongly disagree with the ideological prescription against writing outside of your own experience, and the assumption that it's not only extremely unlikely to be done well, but that to even try is an act of hubris that carries a kind of moral taint. The cornerstone of fiction is where imagination meets empathy. I challenge anyone who would champion self-imposed restrictions on imagination and empathy to read Brian Moore's The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne. It's an extraordinarily penetrating and sympathetic examination of the desperate final efforts of a spinster to find love. And it was written by a young man little over thirty.

When someone has genuine insight into the human heart, and the kind of talent that serious writers should aspire to, then superficial variations of culture and biology are no barrier to the powers of creation.

Let's not allow modern political dogma to dictate who can write what. Fiction transcends such base and ugly prejudices.

MWagner said:

writing outside of your own experience

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It shouldn't be undertaken lightly. It's harder. It needs research. But certainly there is no reason to avoid it OR feel you have to.

All innovative SF&F is outside ANYONE'S personal experience!