Although that could be made interesting
On knowing your audience
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Wanted to add (but got pulled away to a concert) that Sam is ordinary but he becomes extraordinary in an extraordinary situation. I think Tolkien was saying that this is what ordinary people are capable of (in relation to his experience of WWI)
Swank
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That's fine. But it doesn't change the fact that the character on the page is not ordinary. He is not making ordinary choices and is accomplishing extraordinary deeds. That is why we read SFF.
I beg to differ. I would say Sam is very much the ordinary man and the choices he makes are the choices that ordinary people made in the trenches of WWI. Tolkien is showing us that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things. We may read SFF for the extraordinary, that’s what it is by nature, but without it being relatable in some way it ceases to be believable. However another question may be why write SFF? I believe Tolkien wrote fantasy for two reasons one was to create an English Mythology (his words I recall transcribed from an interview he gave) in answer to the Tuatha de Dannan and the Mabinogion, but secondly he was writing about the war one step removed. That is why I like SFF it enables you to explore concepts removed from the everyday without the baggage of the day to day world. We can use the extraordinary to look at what it means to be human. Jeff Vandermeer does this in Annihilation, breaking down humanity into its component parts in the changing disintegrating world of the Southern Reach or what Mary Shelley did in Frankenstein or even Mervyn Peake in Gormenghast
Swank
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The trenches of WWI are not "ordinary".
All of literature is dedicated to telling the story of "what it means to be human". That's almost all it does. At least with SFF we can step beyond that just a tiny bit.
Parallel to the various partisan/non-partisan discourse going on here, I’m wondering if anyone has changed their approach to how they write as their experience or expertise has grown/changed?
If I compare my journey in that regard with this OP I’d have to say knowing my audience has become less important and less impactful.
My success has been in not following advice I’ve slavishly adhered to on Chrons, particularly starting about two years ago where I had some intangible epiphany about the kind of demographic we get here on Chrons — particularly of age — and the expectations that come with that generation.
I’m staggered by the inflexibility at some of the positions I see here from time to time. So often we see declarations and declamations of what is ‘good writing’ and what we should aim for which is utterly irrelevant to our own fiction.
I come from the write your truth school of thought. But I also come from the allow others to offer their opinions and see if they gel school of thought. I think that whilst there are great writers here, I can only think of The Big Peat as someone who consistently motivates me to change my practice.
I’m not talking about facts — I’ve learnt from many chronners on the nuts and bolts stuff — but content and precept. Often it seems like posts are more focused in defending an opinion or cherished golden rule than actually developing one’s own practice.
Swank’s early point about knowing your genre is really the beginning and end of my ethos (credo?) on the subject. And to think of the audience is to put the cart before the horse.
Without you there would be no audience — write what only you can write, not what others feel entitled to tell you to write.
Harebrain once gave me the best feedback I’ve ever had when I was beta-ing his YA story; I think that’s the story you’d like to read, not the one I want to tell. That’s stuck with me ever since.
If I compare my journey in that regard with this OP I’d have to say knowing my audience has become less important and less impactful.
My success has been in not following advice I’ve slavishly adhered to on Chrons, particularly starting about two years ago where I had some intangible epiphany about the kind of demographic we get here on Chrons — particularly of age — and the expectations that come with that generation.
I’m staggered by the inflexibility at some of the positions I see here from time to time. So often we see declarations and declamations of what is ‘good writing’ and what we should aim for which is utterly irrelevant to our own fiction.
I come from the write your truth school of thought. But I also come from the allow others to offer their opinions and see if they gel school of thought. I think that whilst there are great writers here, I can only think of The Big Peat as someone who consistently motivates me to change my practice.
I’m not talking about facts — I’ve learnt from many chronners on the nuts and bolts stuff — but content and precept. Often it seems like posts are more focused in defending an opinion or cherished golden rule than actually developing one’s own practice.
Swank’s early point about knowing your genre is really the beginning and end of my ethos (credo?) on the subject. And to think of the audience is to put the cart before the horse.
Without you there would be no audience — write what only you can write, not what others feel entitled to tell you to write.
Harebrain once gave me the best feedback I’ve ever had when I was beta-ing his YA story; I think that’s the story you’d like to read, not the one I want to tell. That’s stuck with me ever since.
Ah yes, the politest, most eloquent way of saying "do one" I've ever come up with.
Altho the emojis you used to punctuate it were less polite. Banned, in fact.
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Hmm. I'm not quite sure what to make of this. The problem with writing advice is that it tends to circle around to "Write from the heart, just make sure what's in your heart is good and saleable". That said, I wrote a whole book and several short stories to order, so not from the heart in that way, and I think they're pretty decent.
I've just posted a critique that boils down to "This isn't for me, but the writing is fine and there's nothing big here that means that it doesn't work." I think that's a legitimate position to take and sometimes all you can say. There are two basic things that stop a book from working: (1) the writing is bad and (2) it's not credible in its own terms, which usually means that the people don't act believably. Cover those bases and you're doing well.
As to defending rules, I think some things are more likely to work than others. If you want, you can start your novel with a ten-page description of how bored the lead character is. A great writer could make this engrossing. But it will probably work better if you start with an incident that breaks the continuity of the story, because that's more inherently interesting. A lot of writing advice boils down to "Chances are, X will work better than Y".
However, if you do write what you want to read, you'll have to defend it against other people, which is probably a good thing. It's important not to be swayed by certain types of critic (not generally seen here, at least not for long!), who are usually just telling you want they wanted to read, rather than genuinely assisting. I could supply a list of critiquing styles to ignore ("tough-love" A-holes, people who want to read another genre, show-offs, people who write as if on an acid trip, and so on).
I've just posted a critique that boils down to "This isn't for me, but the writing is fine and there's nothing big here that means that it doesn't work." I think that's a legitimate position to take and sometimes all you can say. There are two basic things that stop a book from working: (1) the writing is bad and (2) it's not credible in its own terms, which usually means that the people don't act believably. Cover those bases and you're doing well.
As to defending rules, I think some things are more likely to work than others. If you want, you can start your novel with a ten-page description of how bored the lead character is. A great writer could make this engrossing. But it will probably work better if you start with an incident that breaks the continuity of the story, because that's more inherently interesting. A lot of writing advice boils down to "Chances are, X will work better than Y".
However, if you do write what you want to read, you'll have to defend it against other people, which is probably a good thing. It's important not to be swayed by certain types of critic (not generally seen here, at least not for long!), who are usually just telling you want they wanted to read, rather than genuinely assisting. I could supply a list of critiquing styles to ignore ("tough-love" A-holes, people who want to read another genre, show-offs, people who write as if on an acid trip, and so on).
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What do you mean by this? You can't "defend" a piece you are sending out to publishers.
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No, I'm talking about readers providing criticism on forums, writing groups etc.
Precisely my point. Sam is in a "non-ordinary" situation
That's a fair point and probably one reason I like SFF. It can explore the meaning of humanity but it can also explore the morality and motivation of gods, the what-ifs of our imagination or give a fresh eye to the ordinary (for do we not live in a world of wonders that would have astonished our great-great grandparents. My Grandfather was born before powered human flight, other than balloons of course). SFF is boundless in a way that other literature isn't but it still reflects human concerns. How do you see SFF stepping beyond the human? Do you think that even if it isn't exploring what it means to be human it is still reflecting our concerns? After all we can't escape being human.
That being said there has always been literature across the whole spectrum of genres that is just pure escapist entertainment and there is nothing wrong with that. Love Prachett as much as Joyce
Swank
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Okay - what is it you are defending against?
I ask because many times people receiving critiques of their writing want to explain why they did something or how something makes sense. Outside of the missing context of the rest of the piece, there is nothing really to defend. Stuff has to stand up completely on its own.
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One of the big things, I think, is people who want you to write something different to what you're trying to write. The lack of context is definitely a problem here. I used to be in a writing group with a guy who (I think) wanted me to write a slightly different story to the one that I was writing, and I suspect didn't quite realise that. Beyond "Who's writing this bloody book eh?" it helps to deal with people like that, because you have to justify your choices. Also, there are some people for whom critique is a way of venting their own likes/dislikes, showing off, and so on. These aren't good reasons, but when you're starting out, they can be hard to spot, especially if they're more successful (whatever that means).
Quite so. People have their own idea on where they think a story should go and I've learnt to stick with my instincts. I nod politely and take on board what I find relevant. However I do think that sometimes, if people don't get it, it might need a bit more clarifying. Things that are obvious in my head might not come across as such to the reader, which is why feed back is so important.
Regarding feedback, I was working on something involving a water mill, a few years ago, and ran into a US UK divide. I was talking about living in the mill and the US reader laid into me for total ignorance as a mill is a horrid dusty drafty place no sane person would live in, as far as they were concerned and sent me pictures of multi-storey timberlap structures.
I introduced them to all the cute stone and brick built mills in the UK which were news to them. I then took some care to refer to the miller's house as well as the mill. I am talking a working water mill, not a converted into an expensive house no longer working water mill. But in speech, in daily shorthand, you would say "I live at the mill" when the miller's house is right next to, or even joined on to, the grain mill building. (It now occurs to me there are multiple sorts of mill building in the UK, but the UK person default tends to be referring to something cute that could feature in a Constable landscape.)
So I defended my position, such as it was, but realised that I had a local bias on what I was saying and my writing needed tweaking.
I introduced them to all the cute stone and brick built mills in the UK which were news to them. I then took some care to refer to the miller's house as well as the mill. I am talking a working water mill, not a converted into an expensive house no longer working water mill. But in speech, in daily shorthand, you would say "I live at the mill" when the miller's house is right next to, or even joined on to, the grain mill building. (It now occurs to me there are multiple sorts of mill building in the UK, but the UK person default tends to be referring to something cute that could feature in a Constable landscape.)
So I defended my position, such as it was, but realised that I had a local bias on what I was saying and my writing needed tweaking.
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I've never lived in England, but I've read enough old literature about millers and their offspring to know what you are talking about. It could be a cultural divide, yes. It could be a period (generational) divide, yes, but I personally would be a bit wary of loud opinionated feedback. Sometimes the reader is ignorant and is not a typical reader, or it nicely excludes an audience who wouldn't have enjoyed the story anyway.
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+1 Options here are
- I can improve the information I give so the reader is better primed to make the correct reading
- This is not the reader I'm aiming for
This happened to me once. And by ignorant I don't mean stupid just uninformed (and voicing an uninformed opinion). I read out a story where the protagonist was crossing a field (England) with Skylarks singing overhead. The feedback from a listener was "There are no sklarks any more due to intensive agriculture." I had to point out that as a bird watcher I had literally heard three just that morning whilst out on a ramble
Swank
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That's absurd. How is a Buick Skylark going to end up overhead?
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