Genre is a Four-letter-word

[Shryke]

Well, if the books thy make yo read in English classes weren't designed to entertain, they've certainly succeeded.

I'm sure Shakespear would be fascinated to know that he never wrote to entertain though....

[MaesterLuwin]

Well, if the books thy make yo read in English classes weren't designed to entertain, they've certainly succeeded.

I'm sure Shakespear would be fascinated to know that he never wrote to entertain though....

I think the very best works of literature (including Shakespeare) succeed on both levels. But the works that perfectly balance the two like Shakespeare did are few and far between. I think it's easier to do in a play than in a novel, because plays have be plot driven, unless we're going to get into really avant-garde theater.

Also, I used "literature-as-entertainment" for lack of a better term. By that, I mean literature that is read primarily to relax, to be engaged with the plot and find out what happens next, that we read as a hobby, for leisurely purposes, when we don't feel like contemplating the Mysteries of the Universe. Serious literature can be entertaining, but I don't think its primary goal is to amuse.

[Errant Bard]

Absolutely there are “nuts and bolts.†You have world-building for one, which is a huge component of fantasy and science fiction. Though that isn’t a craft element, it’s definitely important to have strong footing in your own world before you begin to write, at least that’s my take on it. And there are thematic conventions. Genre tends to “raise the stakes†beyond mainstream literature. Set Frodo in today’s world and make his “ring of burden†a baby his girlfriend had while they were still in high school together. Frodo has to get a job, feed his kids, fend off evil friends who are trying to get him to slack on his responsibilities . . . ugh. Frodo climbing mount Doom is frackin’ awesome. The stakes are raised. This isn’t about a few people anymore, the whole world is at stake. In my opinion, it’s harder to write the big moments like that without coming across as melodramatic or overwrought. It takes balance, a keen eye for detail and the sense that you are able to carry your reader with you, on Sam’s shoulders, to the precipice of the volcano . . .

Interesting, but on the other hand, I remember this divisive article, since deleted, of M John Harrison on worldbuilding... excerpt:

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.

Moving on, thematic conventions are well and good, but on the other hand they are not necessarily unique to a genre, I don't think Campbell's Hero with a thousand faces is meant to apply only to Fantasy, for example. But I'm curious about what you were thinking about, I feel I'm missing something (not that it would be the first time, heh)

Scope is something easier to widen in fiction, yes, but somehow I'm not convinced it makes things that different, I don't know, You take City of Saints and Madmen, it has a definitely smaller scope than Anna Karenina, the Prince of Nothing trilogy has about the same amount as a Gates of Fire and a discworld book is about the same as a Shakespeare play. It doesn't feel right to say it's an attribute of any genre.

But maybe it's a question of definition once again, or amount of training at one device or another. Interesting to think about anyway.

[Zach H]

I think I'd classify Ice and Fire more as a "fiction of emotion" than "lit-as-entertainment" or some such thing. I agree that Martin's work here is not really idea or theme or language based in the manner that I think of when I think of literary fiction. But the way he paints characters and draws me into their plights is something that I think transcends mere entertainment value. I don't read him to be entertained. I read him because his work is enthralling.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

ML,

To paraphrase what I wrote about GRRM on a thread a while back:

GRRM is very good. But I only read it for the clever dialogue and to find out what happens next. I don't think GRRM is really saying anything overall. The fact that the books are written as serials and released years apart doesn't help the lack of thematic unity. I think ASoIaF are some of the most thrilling and well-plotted books I have read, but that doesn't make them literature. The plot is central, above all else, and the frequent use of gimmicky cliffhangers serves to support this notion. It's a hell of a good plot, with amazing characters, but that's all you get.

I'm not arguing that ASoIaF is trash, or easy to write, or is worse than all works with literary aspirations. I am merely distinguishing this sort of work of literature from other books with more literary aims. I think there is a difference between literature-for-entertainment and literature-for-thought-provocation, even if, in the end, we disagree as to the exact line of difference. (Other people seem to think ASoIaF is more literary than I give it credit for. I can't agree, but if you're still arguing that there is a difference between literature-for-entertainment and literature-for-intellectual stimulation).

And finally, I think that there is literature-as-intellectual-stimulation, and literature-as-entertainment, but this has nothing to do with the setting.. Just because a work contains fantastical or sci-fi elements does not mean it is simply literature-for-entertainment. There are literature-as-intellectual-stimulation works with those elements.

Isn't this the same argument that says a documentary isn't a documentary unless it is pushing a particular agenda. That documentaries that don't push agendas are just "Educational Films."

[alguien]

I guess I have something relative to add to this topic:

I work for The Great Books Foundation.

And we're planning on coming out with a Science Fiction anthology next year.

Hopefully this can be taken as a sign that the days of professors' irrational and anti-intellectual hatred of so-called genre fiction is winding down. Speaking as someone who works hand-in-hand with these editors and phD's and also participates in Shared Inquiry discussions as to what qualifies as "Great Books" canon... the answer is tricky and for the most part subjective. History is often just as much of a determinant. We have a joke that for too long "great literature" has been determined by the stale, male, and pale.

You'd be surprised by how many literary folks have confessed to me a love of LOTR or Orson Scott Card. And they reveal this as though they're coming out of the closet. But now that the boundaries of snobbery and elitism are passing, they're talking more and more about it. A big part of it is that the old guard is dying. Literally. Its all perspective.

Lets not forget that Charles Dickens was considered a fecundian hack and deplored by critics everywhere. Frankenstein and Dracula were trashed all the time in newspapers. After Edgar Allen Poe's death, one prominent literary critic made it his life's mission to utterly destroy his personal and professional reputation, and nearly succeeded. In recent times, douchebag Harold Bloom has made several attacks on Tolkien.

All of this to say that I think the answer is somewhere in between. My favorite quote on this topic comes from Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis after the protagonist Bobby reads Lord of the Flies for the first time:

"There are also books full of great writing that don't have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words--the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers that won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book."

ps. as postscript, I will say it has been fairly hard to find science fiction short stories that hold up our discussion critiques. We've gotten 19 good ones thus far. Any suggestions would be very welcome. Thanks!

[Poobah]

Interesting, but on the other hand, I remember this divisive article, since deleted, of M John Harrison on worldbuilding... excerpt:

Moving on, thematic conventions are well and good, but on the other hand they are not necessarily unique to a genre, I don't think Campbell's Hero with a thousand faces is meant to apply only to Fantasy, for example. But I'm curious about what you were thinking about, I feel I'm missing something (not that it would be the first time, heh)

Scope is something easier to widen in fiction, yes, but somehow I'm not convinced it makes things that different, I don't know, You take City of Saints and Madmen, it has a definitely smaller scope than Anna Karenina, the Prince of Nothing trilogy has about the same amount as a Gates of Fire and a discworld book is about the same as a Shakespeare play. It doesn't feel right to say it's an attribute of any genre.

But maybe it's a question of definition once again, or amount of training at one device or another. Interesting to think about anyway.

Have you read China Mieville's comments on worldbuilding specifically with regards to how it as a concept owes a debt to Tolkien, which can be found here (point 5) he actually quotes from the same excerpt that you do, though with rather different intent.

Edit : Nadine, I know both of these have already been mentioned, but would you consider Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World to be SF, or do they get a pass for being awesome? Individually they're brilliant, but I think they're even better when considered as a pair. I find it hard to believe anyone would disdain them on account of being SF, and as I mentioned earlier I think many would hypocritically cry out "pulp trash" or whatever at SF while considering such titles to be solid capitol-L literature.

And what about Animal Farm - talking pigs and assorted farmyard animals, preposterous! :P

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I think the very best works of literature (including Shakespeare) succeed on both levels. But the works that perfectly balance the two like Shakespeare did are few and far between. I think it's easier to do in a play than in a novel, because plays have be plot driven, unless we're going to get into really avant-garde theater.

Also, I used "literature-as-entertainment" for lack of a better term. By that, I mean literature that is read primarily to relax, to be engaged with the plot and find out what happens next, that we read as a hobby, for leisurely purposes, when we don't feel like contemplating the Mysteries of the Universe. Serious literature can be entertaining, but I don't think its primary goal is to amuse.

I'm not sure that if I wanted to contemplate the Mysteries of the Universe, I'd turn James Joyce or Thomas Pyncheon; I'd rather take Stephen Hawking's word for it. If I want to contemplate the human condition, rather than Shakespeare or Tolstoy, I might choose Aristotle, Nietzsche, Freud, BF Skinner or even Steven Levitt .

[MaesterLuwin]

I guess I have something relative to add to this topic:

I work for The Great Books Foundation.

And we're planning on coming out with a Science Fiction anthology next year.

That's pretty cool. I had to read a "Great Books for Young People" anthology in 6th or 7th grade, or something like that. (Did you guys do those anthologies too? I was too young to pay attention to who was responsible for putting it together). Anyway, the one story that really stuck with me from that book and the one I still remember vividly was "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut. Which, if it's not science fiction, is pretty damn close.

[Ran]

Nadine,

Per your post script, some suggestions at random and briefly:

James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon), "The Women Men Don't See"

Ted Chiang, "The Story of You"

Samuel R. Delaney, ""Aye, and Gomorrah..."

Alfred Bester, "Fondly Farenheit"

GRRM, "A Song for Lya"

Harlan Ellison, "Jeffty is Five"

Ursula K. Leguin, "The One Who Walks Away from Omelas"

Michael Moorcock, "Behold the Man"

Gene Wolfe, "The Fifth Head of Cerberus"

[JungianQueen]

Moving on, thematic conventions are well and good, but on the other hand they are not necessarily unique to a genre, I don't think Campbell's Hero with a thousand faces is meant to apply only to Fantasy, for example. But I'm curious about what you were thinking about, I feel I'm missing something (not that it would be the first time, heh)

Scope is something easier to widen in fiction, yes, but somehow I'm not convinced it makes things that different, I don't know, You take City of Saints and Madmen, it has a definitely smaller scope than Anna Karenina, the Prince of Nothing trilogy has about the same amount as a Gates of Fire and a discworld book is about the same as a Shakespeare play. It doesn't feel right to say it's an attribute of any genre.

But maybe it's a question of definition once again, or amount of training at one device or another. Interesting to think about anyway.

On world-building. I think that if your story feels too front-loaded and heavy IN world-building, you've failed. But, you absolutely have to know your world inside and out, whether you write a mini cultural anthology of races/species (etc), or you have it all in your head, or (in JMS's case with Babylon 5) on 3X5 notecards that you keep locked away somewhere. :)

It's interesting that you mention Campbell. I think genre is one of the few places that you'll find a full-blown archetypal journey of the hero/heroine. Certainly there are non-genre stories with some of the heroic elements, but I do think that genre is the front-runner for archetypes (especially the comic book industry which seems to be booming with Heroic journeys).

The genre material just shows it in a more obvious and in-your-face manner. You have Princess Leia the goddess, Obi Wan the mentor, Darth Vader - the father issues, trickster elements like Han Solo/Chewie, obvious deaths/transformations and so forth. It's harder to find in mainstream literature when your character doesn't blow up the deathstar or confront his father in Lando's Cloud city.

Modern fiction seems to be more about formula and selling to the commercial audience. I don't know that I see much of a character transformation in one of Dan Brown's characters--for example--than I do in a fantasy/sci-fi character who is dealing with a greater, universal issue.

I think definition is the key, and as I type this, I hate using these labels like "genre" and "mainstream literature" and so forth. I think that good writing, no matter the genre, will stand the test of time, will call to the masses, will find its place in the writing world on a whole (as opposed to remaining confined to fanboy/girl-dom.

Hope that all makes sense.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Is it academic elitism? Absolutely. But I think it is important. Developing conflict in non-genre writing is a difficult thing and if you can learn to step outside your comfort zone and write a different way, it only enhances your own writing.

I also went to a college like that. I hated it at the time, but in retrospect, I really appreciate it.

[JungianQueen]

Lets not forget that Charles Dickens was considered a fecundian hack and deplored by critics everywhere. Frankenstein and Dracula were trashed all the time in newspapers. After Edgar Allen Poe's death, one prominent literary critic made it his life's mission to utterly destroy his personal and professional reputation, and nearly succeeded. In recent times, douchebag Harold Bloom has made several attacks on Tolkien.

For my 19th century Brit-Lit class, we had to sign up for the "serialized" version of any Dickens' story. I think most of them were written AS serial pieces, published what? once a week? Dickens didn't plot much out and actually wrote them week by week. What a way to hem yourself into a bad storyline or character, eh? But, we would each receive our weekly helping of "Great Expectations" or "Oliver Twist" and it was amazing fun. It's interesting to hear that he was deplored, haha.

ps. as postscript, I will say it has been fairly hard to find science fiction short stories that hold up our discussion critiques. We've gotten 19 good ones thus far. Any suggestions would be very welcome. Thanks!

Recent stories or from any time frame? Older stories that catch my attention:

Unaccompanied Sonata, Orson Scott Card

The Fog Horn / The Lake, Ray Bradbury

I read a great mystery short story just recently by Dennis LeHane as well. Good stuff. I'll poke through what I have. I know there are more out there.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

How about you hand you professors some José Saramago or Gabriel García Márquez and point that they write speculative fiction, and that they got nobel prize in literature for it? Or that, say, Voltaire's Candide is entirely fiction, and so is Swift's Gulliver's travels, among others?

I don't think professors are getting much workshop writing at the level of Marquez--I think they're tired of getting Eragon 8. But if that's what's in your heart then you should write it, and you can learn a lot from writing that kind of book, and there is a huge market for it.

I think it is hard to make truly innovative decisions in the genre world. I mean I went into my horror novel trying to do things different and found myself writing the same old situations as everyone else sometimes.

And the things that I found truly different and interesting were often lambasted by readers on other boards because I wasn't following the rules. I wasn't showing enough blood and guts. All of that. It's a tough situation to peg down. I do believe a melding of literary and genre is the most compelling storytelling, and I prefer writers who take those risks.

Edit: My creative writing teacher in college came off as arrogant early on too. But as I took his classes over the years and grew to know him, he took an interest in helping me with my writing (which is retrospect sucked). He confessed: the genre itself isn't the problem. He showed me some authors to read (Marquez for example, Kafka, and my favorite--Joyce Carol Oates who is a genre writer than transcends the trappings). I read those stories and loved them. I could only hope to someday have a fraction of the talent those writers have.

[Shryke]

Is it academic elitism? Absolutely. But I think it is important. Developing conflict in non-genre writing is a difficult thing and if you can learn to step outside your comfort zone and write a different way, it only enhances your own writing.

I also went to a college like that. I hated it at the time, but in retrospect, I really appreciate it.

And, again, I doubt you'd get as much complaints if that was what was actually happening. It isn't.

Instead "genre fiction" is being derided as ALWAYS bad.

Not "don't use these techniques/styles/etc now because we're trying to help you develop your talent", but "never use these techniques/styles/etc EVER because they suck".

[Larry.]

JQ,

You might be interested in what David Anthony Durham said to me recently in an interview I'm currently conducting with him. He's been published as both a "literary" and "genre" writer and he currently teaches creative writing in Massachusetts (I forget the name of the university). I think his take is intriguing, to say the least:

Every now and then, there's some comment or assertion on some blog or article about how there's some discernable difference between mainstream, literary, or mimetic fiction and speculative or SF/Fantasy fiction. As an author who has had stories marketed in both categories, what differences, if any, do you believe exist between these perceived narrative modes?

There are differences. Sure. There are commonalities too. I tend to think we make too big a fuss over differences, though. People stake out their turf and take too much self-righteous glee in lobbing insults onto other people’s turf. To me this is kinda silly. Kinda childish.

Here’s what I believe about “literary†and “mainstream†fiction – just today’s selection of thoughts.

I believe that there is value in writing and reading purely for entertainment, but I also believe fiction can offer more than that and that when it does it’s often harder to access without effort.

I believe that literary fiction by its nature intends to speak meaningfully about the human experience, but I also believe literary writers have no monopoly on this and that they often wear blinders that stop them from seeing quality work in other genres.

I believe that genre fiction has its roots deeply in long-standing traditions of storytelling, sometimes reaching right back to the classics, but I also believe a lot genre writing is uninventive and boring.

I believe that literary fiction’s goals are admirable, but that it’s often… uninventive, boring, safe and lacking ambition.

Looking at my own work, I’ve heard many responses that make it clear genre readers have appreciated my literary attention to character psychology, language, complexity of detail in social and political landscape, but I’m also aware that my writing seems to short circus some readers that don’t connect with any of those things at all.

Some genre readers seem to choose not to like a book when the book fails to be what they expected it to be, when the story or characters aren’t just like the last book that they really loved. That’s a perfectly valid reaction, but I don’t think it should necessarily lead one to conclude that a book is bad – or that literary is just boring. That book may just be different. The author’s interests may be different. Not all readers may share those interests, but some readers give up before they’ve engaged enough to know.

And that’s where I think there is a difference between mainstream and literary that matters. Mainstream writing by its very nature should be easy to swallow. It should go down smooth, without challenging a reader too much – or by challenging them in the ways they expect to be challenged. To take another example, McDonald’s isn’t a massive chain because they make the best tasting hamburgers in the world. They’re massive because they’ve managed to find the right formula for delivering consistently familiar and mediocre food, food that never surprises and… never fails to be what you expect when you walk in the door. That’s a rather remarkable achievement, and I do think similar impulses drive book buying in the genres as well. Why not return to authors, stories, plot twists that have worked before, rendered in language that doesn’t get in the way?

Literary fiction often begins with a different premise. It may require that a reader learn to read it. Even if you’ve bought a hamburger of a novel, it’s hopefully a different cut of meat. Your first bite isn’t just like the first bite of every Big Mac you’ve ever tasted. You might have to chew for a while to know what it actually tastes like – and then to figure out if you like it.

That’s probably a lot easier an experience to go through with a hamburger than with a novel, but I think there’s a parallel. Some genre readers are turned off by literary fiction before they’ve chewed on it long enough. And, to be fair, I think that many literary readers ignore that the genres do have lots of complexity within them, many titles that they’d love if only they had the sense to give them a try. I’d say one has to learn to read Neil Gaiman or Kelly Lynch, for example. They’re literary. They have the advantage that they’re also fun to read regardless, but I think they get better the more you digest them.

I’ll never forget an early review of my first novel, Gabriel’s Story, in the San Francisco Chronicle. The reviewer found the language of the first part strange, convoluted and a bit hard to figure out. But then he wrote that by the second part the language had started to work to “greater effectâ€, and by the end he loved the book. He seems to have walked away thinking that the first part wasn’t as good as the following three parts. But I’d argue that the writing was consistent. What changed was that it took him that first part to get into the rhythm of my writing. After he did, everything got smoother and smoother for him.

Now, if I’d started the book with simpler language he might have been happier from the start, but if I’d done that I wouldn’t have been using the language that he’d learned to love by the end. I think that’s often the case with good literary fiction. (And I do mean the “good†stuff; I’m not saying that all literary fiction is.) Hopefully, it holds you from the start, but in a great many ways full appreciation of it comes gradually.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

And, again, I doubt you'd get as much complaints if that was what was actually happening. It isn't.

Instead "genre fiction" is being derided as ALWAYS bad.

Not "don't use these techniques/styles/etc now because we're trying to help you develop your talent", but "never use these techniques/styles/etc EVER because they suck".

I know, but I can only speak to my experiences, and the reasons our professors gave us were the "we're trying to help you expand" reasons. Though they personally hated fantasy and science fiction writing too.

I guess the argument I want to make is if you're stuck in a program like that, then use it to make you a better writer and then write what you want when you're done.

[Humble Asskicker]

The only difference is degree of speculation.

You can still touch on that "conflict of the heart" regardless of the degree, but it does edge to less plausible the further along you go.

I think for some people, the considered implausibility is in too much focus for the rest to be worth a looksie.

But I'm saying nothing that hasn't already been said on this thread.

I agree with Scot: that's a good quote there, Shryke.

[TerraPrime]

Re: Maester Luwin

I really can't find too much resonance in your "big idea" thesis as to what separates Literature from other, well, non-Literature. From the SF/F/Horror genre, I've read stories that deal with loss of parents, loss of a child, the essence of human existence, the end of the world, how humans view ourselves, greed, love, altruism, and any number of themes that are "noble." If you look at the college literature canon, and also at what academics are studying, you'll find works that when they were written, they were written to entertain, or that they're "fluff." I think it's much easier to separate literary work from those that are not by abandoning facile labels like "genre" and instead, focus on the depth of characterization and the consistency of the narrative and whether the author tried new conventions in telling a story and other such elements. Focus not on the dragons, but on how the dragon is used, for a dragon is no more arbitrary than a taxi cab or the holocaust, when it's used as a literary tool.

Re: Simon of Steele

Is it academic elitism? Absolutely. But I think it is important. Developing conflict in non-genre writing is a difficult thing and if you can learn to step outside your comfort zone and write a different way, it only enhances your own writing.

Doesn't that rather pre-suppose that the default comfort zone for the majority of students is genre fiction? Shouldn't we encourage students who are uncomfortable with SF/F conventions to step into these worlds and expose themselves to the discomfort, just as much as we challenge students who are predisposed to genre conventions to abandon those reliable tools?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Re: Simon of Steele

Doesn't that rather pre-suppose that the default comfort zone for the majority of students is genre fiction? Shouldn't we encourage students who are uncomfortable with SF/F conventions to step into these worlds and expose themselves to the discomfort, just as much as we challenge students who are predisposed to genre conventions to abandon those reliable tools?

Yeah, and I was in a class full of those literary writers, and I remember bringing up this exact point. Why don't they leave their comfort zones. Answers ranged from "I'd dance all over that genre with amazing work" to "that's a stupid idea."

No doubt it's a one way street. There is some merit to that (I do love Hemingway, Steinbeck, Kafka, Oates, and many others for good reason, and they are considered classics for good reason), and I think genre writers have to work harder to gain respect. A lot of it's snobbery, and a lot of it is denying the fun in writing. I don't get the sense that a lot of these students, as they smoked their cigarettes they rolled themselves, enjoyed writing their stories. They just wanted to show off their understanding of the craft leaving us with a somewhat lifeless thing.

To further that last thought, that's what is missing from a lot of these aspiring literary writers--a good story, as someone mentioned above in the Hearts in Atlantis quote (which I can only hear in the voice of Anthony Hopkins for some reason, even though I read the book first). I think of Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and I know that literary work doesn't have to be boring. I think of the story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" And I still get chills. If you haven't read that short story then jump on it right away. It's amazing. All of these stories have souls, and wit, and good character, in addition to exploring the complex issues, thematically speaking, that plague mankind.