I find what you say about your father sad, wonderful, and intriguing, all at once. I'm having a very hard time restraining my curious cat nature. ;)
Why is it, I wonder, that what sff readers and critics find to be the best of sff is ignored or received in such a lukewarm way by the literary community? When I took my single writing class at the University of Arizona, it was with an adjunct professor willing to tolerate genre fiction, so long as it was "character-based," rather than "plot-based," which made me feel that he was opperating from a very out-dated view of sff. I think a lot of sff is very concerned with character and other subtle issues that literary communities claim as their primary focus. And I know that just about every author I've ever met is concerned about creating three-dimensional characters.
As an aside, Lois McMaster Bujold had some interesting comments about character-driven v. plot-driven fiction, to the effect that we shouldn't feel required to choose just one. Which makes tons of sense to me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
regna
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-22 09:17 pm (UTC)Why is it, I wonder, that what sff readers and critics find to be the best of sff is ignored or received in such a lukewarm way by the literary community? When I took my single writing class at the University of Arizona, it was with an adjunct professor willing to tolerate genre fiction, so long as it was "character-based," rather than "plot-based," which made me feel that he was opperating from a very out-dated view of sff. I think a lot of sff is very concerned with character and other subtle issues that literary communities claim as their primary focus. And I know that just about every author I've ever met is concerned about creating three-dimensional characters.
As an aside, Lois McMaster Bujold had some interesting comments about character-driven v. plot-driven fiction, to the effect that we shouldn't feel required to choose just one. Which makes tons of sense to me.