Call Me a Dreamer

Maybe I'm too concerned with the literary/genre divide, but I think it does matter. In ways both small and big.

Readers of genre fiction may have trouble finding books that are shelved in the literary section of the bookstore or library. It becomes a matter of knowing that someone like Marge Piercy or Margaret Atwood or Gregory Maguire is writing works that could be categorized as science fiction or fantasy, should the author and publisher so desire. You only find their works if you're in the club, or stumble across them by accident.

Plus, in my current community, I've discovered that the kind of writing I do is sneered at by the academic community of which I am sometimes a part. I know of creative writing students working on their MFA at the university here who feel they have to hide the work that's closest to their heart, because it's not acceptable. I chose not to pursue a writing degree (going instead for English Lit.) when getting my BA a few years ago, in part because I didn't feel I would be comfortable in that enviroment. There were other reasons for pursuing the English Lit, but it bothers me that the writing option didn't feel open had I wanted it.

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cedunkley.livejournal.com

This is a problem. We've seen recent books that are clearly in the SF/F genre that literary critics either ignore or brush aside so as not to diminish the book.

If a book is greeted by literary critics as transcending the genre I would hope a book store would have a knowledgeable enough staff to also stock a few copies of the book in the proper genre section.

What I don't get is the writer who writes a genre book and then goes along with literary circles who intentionally ignore the genre label.

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chupacabrito.livejournal.com

I learned that my children's stories would "not be acceptable" about the first week I began school.Our school has one of the best writing departments in the country and, naturellement, the literature snobs it attracts are of the most severe nature.

For me, I was lucky to discover this before I submitted my first story. Phew.

As a self-protection device, I became exceedingly good at writing what both my peers and teachers wanted to read. I escaped the scathing peer critiques and managed to bumble through fours years of a writing degree as one of the few condoned and approved by the tight knit "elite" clique. As long as I kept writing what they considered, ahem, "lit-trit-chure."

Of course, the toll this took on me I still can't measure the impact of. I lost the ability and I can not write anymore. I'll let that underscore itself.

The thing was, they ate up the exact same devices over and over again. Obviously I got good at it because it was a clear pattern which I could then repeat over and over. The types of writing they tended to like could have well been called a genre. Gasp.

I'm a huge literature snob. I enjoy and frequently read post-modernist authors, dense Russian novels, or whatever smattering of classical writing might be on offer. I was never been much for "genre" fiction and looked down my nose at it for years. But mindset of these people wasn't aimed at the writing, it was largely about peer groupage and self-presentation. Ah, both lovely reasons to write! It pushed me far into the favor of the genre fiction's court and brought about an overall readdressing of my literary values.

So, when I next sit down to pen a story about... drawing maple syrup in the forest with...my estranged father... in the falling winter snow... while coming to terms with my male sexuality... (how easy it is!) I'll market it under genre: This Looks Good Sitting on Your Coffee Table.

So, long live writing for fun and passion! I'm afraid others will have to carry on the torch in my place.

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Elly, I hope there will come a time when you and your creative spirit can be comfortable with each other again. I remember how beautiful the little creation myth was, that you wrote for our skit at TusCon. There I was, the adult, someone who'd been working on her writing for years, yet it was you who was able to sit down and write exactly what we needed and it was wonderful.

I never knew that you didn't care for genre, or if I did, I'd managed to forget. I remember how supportive you were of my writing and of the story I sent you--do you remember? It became my first published fiction, in Realms of Fantasy magazine.

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This is a problem. We've seen recent books that are clearly in the SF/F genre that literary critics either ignore or brush aside so as not to diminish the book.

I'm confused. Do you mean that the literary critics are simply ignoring the SF/F elements of a book when they review it, because to mention them would somehow diminish the book?

If a book is greeted by literary critics as transcending the genre I would hope a book store would have a knowledgeable enough staff to also stock a few copies of the book in the proper genre section.

Unfortunately, the move to big box book stores has meant that many, if not most, of the staff are not knowledgeable about books. The books are usually filed wherever the publisher indicates they should be. Alternatively, you may find that the books of authors who publish in multiple marketing categories will all be filed in one section, so that they are all together, instead of each being in the appropriate area. If they had enough books to file in both areas, I wouldn't mind so much, but that's rarely the case. I don't know as much about how things are filed in the library, but at least there you can go online and find books based on multiple categories.

What I don't get is the writer who writes a genre book and then goes along with literary circles who intentionally ignore the genre label.

I think, often, these writers are academics, as well as writers, and make their choices based on what they think will be best for their academic standing within those literary circles.

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crinklequirk.livejournal.com

Hmm, yes, perhaps it is really serious.

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cedunkley.livejournal.com

I'm confused. Do you mean that the literary critics are simply ignoring the SF/F elements of a book when they review it, because to mention them would somehow diminish the book?

I don't think it would diminish the book, but I do believe the literary critic thinks it would. When they do mention it, it seems to usually be in the context of the book transcending the genre it belongs to, because it apparently needs to for the literary critic since they can't lower themselves to review simply a genre book.

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Gotcha.

It's really sad. As if there's something terribly threatening about genre fiction.

It also seems indicative of a kind of prejudice that goes far beyond the literary genre divide: If every example of a category, any category, that one is willing to acknowledge as "good," is either redefined as not belonging to the category, or said to be an exception, then one can never see or admit that there is nothing inherently wrong with the category.

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I think it's incredibly hypocritical and any snob who ever does it to anything I've written is going to get an exceedingly nasty letter from me.

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You go girl. :)

In general, though, I think this sort of thing occurs most often with the full consent of the author. I've heard about some authors who've written works I consider SFF, that they refused to allow their publisher to identify the works in question as SFF. That sort of thing does take me aback when I hear it, but as it's entirely hearsay, I don't feel comfortable naming names.

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Oh, yes. It's like Gabaldon insisting Outlander wasn't romance till her editor told her that she'd make a lot more money if it was marketed as romance, so she said, okay, it's romance.

My own thought on the subject is that it's stupid to get snotty about what a book is, if you intend to make a living as a writer. I hope never to have to cut off my nose to spite my face on the subject.

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Heh. I hadn't heard that about Gabaldon.

I think there's a lot of variation. Some writers do better with a mainstream audience; I know at least one, but she's never abandoned her genre roots. But, I don't think that's true across the board.

When I was a kid, I ran into the attitude that sff was somehow a lesser sort of writing; when I graduated, my favorite high school English teacher wrote in my yearbook that I had almost convinced her that there was some merit to be found in sff. I was very fortunate that she never let her opinion of the subject matter effect the way she graded my work. There was a fair amount of general prejudice about the field and many people who read sff might hide the fact from those around them. When, after a long hiatus, I returned to college and started taking writing classes, I was fortunate that two of my early instructors were a genre author (mystery IIRC) and his wife. He said outright that if you wanted to make a living as a writer, you had a better chance as a genre writer.

I suspect that the vast majority of authors who choose to be identified as literary, rather than genre, are academics who have no desire to make their living with their writing. Their purpose in writing is tied up more with their academic peers, than with market forces.

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It's very sad that those years killed your joy in writing... I hope it comes back eventually.

And you're so funny about what they'll eat up: the estranged father, the gender issues... *sigh*

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My father wrote "literary" fiction, which never was noticed much, then finally, somehow, submitted stories to Fantasy and Science Fiction and was nominated for a Nebula--crazy! He found an accepting, enthusiastic audience in the sff world, though the *nature* of his writing has stayed the same all along.

I don't think the best stuff in the sff genre gets sublimated out--because some of the best stuff is really, inexorably, sff, and that element can't be ignored. But then, my reading's still woefully deficient...But sure, I do think it sometimes happens that something is scooped up and out of the genre ghetto... but to be something that people like who never read sff, I wonder what it has to sacrifice... what things are present in the genre that drive away people who don't like the genre? And are all those elements absent from the scooped-up works?

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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.

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Bujold is definitely on my reading list!

Here is more info--scroll down to short stories, third one...

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If you think SFF is derided, try writing romance [g]. Seriously. And I think you're right about the literary/academic thing. It all reminds me of that movie with Michael Douglas a few years ago -- Wonder Boys, that was it. He played a professor who'd written one novel that did really well, and couldn't write another one to save his life.

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I'll bet. :)

I's funny, I can remember reading a number of books as a kid, when I'd graduated to the adult shelves, that had what I'll call a romance ethic, since I've no idea now who wrote them or how they were categorized. But, I didn't have any awareness of them as romance novels, per se. So, later, when I ran into the more, er, overt type of romance, I became guilty of forming a negative opinion of the whole genre. (Even as I was annoyed by people who criticized my favored genres.) It was only later that I realized how hypocritical I was being. My favorite romances, by and large, have been cross-overs (even before this was common), but there's one romance book with no fantastical elements, Too Deep for Tears by Kathryn Lynn Davis that I found extremely moving.

One thing I like to remember, when people fuss over reading choices, is that just by being a reader at all, of anything, we are only ten percent of the total population. To the extent that we value reading, then, being a reader of any kind, regardless of whether we have a preferred genre, means that we're engaging in a valued activity.

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Coolness! You must be very proud. 8)

Here, too. (http://www.speculativeliterature.org/Awards/SLFFountainAward/2005.php)

Edited Date: 2008-08-23 11:44 pm (UTC)

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So, are his other works also things that might have been categorized sff? I love the titles I see on his Website (Have Google, Can Search *g*).

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Only his other short story in F&SF is very science-fiction-y, and even it, like "The Woman in Schrodinger's Wave Equation," is only SF by association--but a great story. It's called "The Only Known Leap Across Time."

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As a former librarian, I'll quote from one of our gurus: "Never apologize for your reading tastes." Betty Rosenberg wrote several readers advisory (aka helping people find new books to read) books on genre fiction, and ran up against rather more snobbery than most people do on the subject in a lifetime.

Hey, at least you realized you were being a hypocrite. A lot of people never quite see the irony in their complaints about people dissing their genre.

I'll have to see if I can find a copy of Too Deep for Tears.

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Well, F&SF must have thought it sufficiently science-fiction-y, or they wouldn't have published it. :) That's a market I've never managed to break into, although I'd love to. On the other hand, most of my recent work has been fantasy, rather than SF.

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