(no subject)
19/12/05 21:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyMy initial reaction to this was "Yes!" but I think it's turned into a "Yes, but--"
You know, on further reflection I don't disagree with any of it. What I disagree with is the straw-man that I still hear way too often, that (insert author's name) is a hack who writes without passion and if only people wrote with passion (which is only a matter of will) then they would write better stories.
When you talk about alive stories and dead stories, I don't think it's simply the willingness to poke around in your backbrain and drag out the monsters. I have done that, to the best of my knowledge, in most of the fiction I've written. There are little bits in even the worst stuff that make me shiver with glee: Moriyuki the fox, Khathara and Pietra and their melodrama, the crowskin cloak. There is passion and blood on the page. But I don't know that it makes them alive, and I think that it does take a certain amount of skill just to make sure that when you bleed all over your story your readers see blood instead of gloopy ketchup.
Some of the time one (and by 'one' I mean 'me') sees things so clearly in their head, and doesn't pause for long enough to realize that the words on the page don't do justice to the bright wriggling shining thing inside their imagination. And what you have isn't a technically flawed story with a heartbeat, but a story without any visible heartbeat at all. I think it's very easy to see passion and technical quality as being in opposition to each other, but they're not; passion and restraint are in opposition, though it's true that the contemporary style favors restrained writing (maybe since Hemingway. God, I hate Hemingway. But that's because my eighth-grade teacher made me try to figure out "Hills Like White Elephants," and I'm not that smart). Ideally--technical skill is how you take the passion and the guts and the self-indulgence and get them on the page in a way that is sharp and clear and honest.
I guess what I want to say is that no one *tries* to write with stuffed and plastic monsters. I don't think anyone takes the easy route intentionally. I believe, maybe just because I have to, that everyone who does a stupid thing like writing stories with no intention of getting paid for them is doing so because they have passion, and they have no other choice. Even Robert Jordan. Even Michael Crichton. And it doesn't always come out on the page, because it's not a sheer matter of will to go rummaging around in your backbrain. It's hard and strange and capricious, and even when it seems to work it doesn't, always. But I believe they try, because I know that I try.
You know, on further reflection I don't disagree with any of it. What I disagree with is the straw-man that I still hear way too often, that (insert author's name) is a hack who writes without passion and if only people wrote with passion (which is only a matter of will) then they would write better stories.
When you talk about alive stories and dead stories, I don't think it's simply the willingness to poke around in your backbrain and drag out the monsters. I have done that, to the best of my knowledge, in most of the fiction I've written. There are little bits in even the worst stuff that make me shiver with glee: Moriyuki the fox, Khathara and Pietra and their melodrama, the crowskin cloak. There is passion and blood on the page. But I don't know that it makes them alive, and I think that it does take a certain amount of skill just to make sure that when you bleed all over your story your readers see blood instead of gloopy ketchup.
Some of the time one (and by 'one' I mean 'me') sees things so clearly in their head, and doesn't pause for long enough to realize that the words on the page don't do justice to the bright wriggling shining thing inside their imagination. And what you have isn't a technically flawed story with a heartbeat, but a story without any visible heartbeat at all. I think it's very easy to see passion and technical quality as being in opposition to each other, but they're not; passion and restraint are in opposition, though it's true that the contemporary style favors restrained writing (maybe since Hemingway. God, I hate Hemingway. But that's because my eighth-grade teacher made me try to figure out "Hills Like White Elephants," and I'm not that smart). Ideally--technical skill is how you take the passion and the guts and the self-indulgence and get them on the page in a way that is sharp and clear and honest.
I guess what I want to say is that no one *tries* to write with stuffed and plastic monsters. I don't think anyone takes the easy route intentionally. I believe, maybe just because I have to, that everyone who does a stupid thing like writing stories with no intention of getting paid for them is doing so because they have passion, and they have no other choice. Even Robert Jordan. Even Michael Crichton. And it doesn't always come out on the page, because it's not a sheer matter of will to go rummaging around in your backbrain. It's hard and strange and capricious, and even when it seems to work it doesn't, always. But I believe they try, because I know that I try.
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(no subject)
20/12/05 03:48 (UTC)You have a higher opinion of human beings than I do, because I think people do take the easy route when that's what's asked for, what's popular, what people like their stories for. 'That was great. Now do it again.' People do it again. And I believe people take the easy route intentionally because I know I've done it myself.
(no subject)
31/12/05 06:24 (UTC)We're not very far in disagreement, and I am in fact all about skill. With no skill, you have a therapy session, or just a mess.
I don't think people set out to write plastic monsters. I do think people chicken out, sometimes, sometimes without even knowing they are doing so, and sometimes it really shows.
And a lot of fanfic critique is about how much readers are annoyed by seeing the writer's preoccupations and agenda (and kinks) come through, so I did want to put in a word for the other side...
But I am glad you wrote this, it was interesting and thought provoking and, I think, really also right on.