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Amy's Lane: June-- Taking the Literary Hit

6/4/2013

 
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(This is my monthly post to RRW-- I cross post it here for non-members) 





Taking the Literary Hit


 

Okay, so there was a discussion on one of my threads when a dichotomy broke out.

You all know these dichotomies—they’re not even arguments, because no one is listening to each other, they’re just giving their two-cents, their IMO’s, and, even better, their IMHO’S with a subtext of YODMD’s.  (In My Honest Opinion Your Opinion Don’t Mean Diddly.)

In this case, the dichotomy was about third person omniscient point of view, and whether or not “head hopping” is a cardinal sin.

I have to admit it—these sorts of things set my inner English teacher free of her Victorian corset and make her want to do a flapper dance on stage without underwear. 

When I first wrote Vulnerable, I varied the points of view by chapter.  Two of the viewpoints were from first person and the last viewpoint—the chapters narrated by an 1800 year old pansexual elf—were narrated from third person limited omniscient.

Back in those days I frequented the amazon.com boards, and was often surprised when people said this was a technique used by people who didn’t know how to write, because otherwise other people would do it. 

Other people had done it—William Faulkner and James Joyce to name the two I was familiar with.  But then, like I said, this was back in the day when I was still teaching, and one of the odd egocentricities of the teaching community is that all teachers everywhere like to assume that people were paying attention during their classes. 

Uhm, not so much, no.

So, at the risk of sounding like Ranty McRant McSelf-Important Douchecanoe, I’m going to talk about some of the most constantly misunderstood writing stylistics.  These stylistic choices, while highly subjective to individual taste, are often given a rather haughty—and subjective—ruling as being “wrong” or “poor writing” or “sloppy.”  Essentially, these are things that critics in our genre will denounce as wrong, and writers will assume are wrong, but that are, in fact, viewed in different light according to genre, sub-genre, writing tradition, even trope.  These are things that, outside of our rather insulated community of genre fiction, are not necessarily bad at all.  In fact, some of them are, at worst, quaintly outdated, like a ‘20’s style cloche--but like the cloche that doesn’t mean they don’t serve a function, even if it’s merely to keep our ears warm!

So here we go—stylistic fallacies, the Ranty McRant Douchemonkey list:

Fallacy:  “Head hopping” is automatically the sign of a sloppy writer. 

Fact:  Third person unlimited omniscient point of view is a common narrative voice.  While, for the purpose of shorter stories or other narrative needs, the romance community has tended to use third person limited omniscient to tighten our focus on individual characters, it’s not the only way to go.  While it’s more commonly seen in cast-of-thousands work like historical fiction or fantasy, third person unlimited omniscient—i.e. “head hopping” – is the POV of choice in many successful romance franchises.  Example?  In our genre, there’s the Cut & Run series, originally by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux.  In romance as a whole, there’s the hugely popular In Death series by J.D. Robb—in the same scene we’ll hear from Eve, we’ll hear form Roarke, and we’ll hear from Peabody and McNab as well.  It’s not a weakness folks, it’s a hugely successful choice!

Fallacy: Writing fantasy or urban fantasy is easier than contemporary because everything is made up.

Fact: Writing fantasy or urban fantasy is way the hell harder because in order to create a fantasy world, the writer needs to first create a frickin’ fantasy world.  This means that the rules of the world—while fantastic—must be completely consistent or the belief in the world falls apart.  J.R.R. Tolkien was the first author to notice this officially and then to lead by example, and brother, his example.  His world building is more extensive and more fact intensive than a lot of historical textbooks—and even better, it’s expandable and historically influenced because he used his linguistics and mythology knowledge to make “Middle Earth” a lot like an early version of our earth.  There was nothing “easy” about that accomplishment, and when one of us writes anything with a fantasy setting—even my teeny little 9,000 word story about angels—we have to, at bare minimum, implant some rules for our fantasy world or it will fall apart.  This isn’t easy, we’re not being lazy, and, in fact, much like reading fiction is more difficult than reading non-fiction, (and therefore a more valuable skill) writing fantasy takes considerably more skill than writing contemporary.  Don’t let anyone tell you differently.

Fallacy: Fantasy or science fiction writing is frivolous because it’s not “real”.

Fact: When I was in college I watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which a society programmed “super soldiers” and then watched in horror as the discarded soldiers came back demanding civil rights.  The captain’s response to this dilemma? 

He walked away and let the society face the consequences of their own callousness.

The premise of the episode was a thinly veiled reference to the crisis of Viet Nam veterans who had been neglected and relegated to homelessness by a government that had moved on, and as Picard looked with disdain at the “haves” being threatened by their self-created “have-nots” and then walked away, for a moment I was flabbergasted. 

How had the writers of the show gotten away with that?

Well, it was easy.  There was this polite fiction of “fiction” between the events of the episode and the real life events the episode mirrored.  Quite frankly, it hurt less to watch those events unfold in the context of a science fiction setting than it did to see it in the eyes of the homeless guy I passed every day on the bus on my way to school. 

That is the gift of fantasy and science fiction—that space to not only examine the human condition but to comment—often scathingly—upon it.  That moment is just a tiny example of the changes in our world that we owe to that “fictional space” because the truth is, fantasy and science fiction have done more to influence and help us understand our society than any other genre including so-called factual reporting.  The examples are endless—Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Star Trek, Thomas Moore’s Utopia, 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Gulliver’s Travels, Anthem—oh hell—just start with this list and go on from there.  My point is, these works aren’t any the less resonant with the human condition because the writers went out of their way to build a fictional world in which to explore real human failings.

Fallacy: Any mention of mythological characters is fan fiction and therefore plagiarism.

Fact A: Fan fiction is only plagiarism if you attempt to pass it off as your own work.

Fact B: Yes, if I wrote about Tony Stark and Iron Man and tried to get money for that, yes, it would be illegal unless I was working for Marvel. (Or is it D.C.?  Jesus, that’s a blind spot!)

Fact C: If I wrote about Thor and Loki (as I did!) as their mythological characters and not from their comic book canon, that is not fan fiction, that is simply writing mythology.  It is, in fact, how the works of Homer, Ovid, Virgil and Shakespeare came to be.  Not that I (or anybody else who has done this) thinks we’re all Homer and shit, but seriously—if you’re going to accuse someone of plagiarism, get it right!

Fallacy:  A bad grammarian is, by definition, a bad storyteller.

Fact: A modest, little known book defining the rules of English grammar emerged in 1586.  I’m not sure if Shakespeare ever read it.  Hell, I’m not sure if Johnson (the scholar’s playwright) or Marlowe ever read it.  I know it wasn’t around for all of the works that influenced them, and if Homer had seen it, he probably would have used it for kindling because all his literature was passed on by oral tradition.  Way the hell back when mankind first started to tell stories by the fire and write them on cave walls, I would lay the family fortune (all fifty-six dollars) on the fact that while Og was watching his buddy Uk telling the story about the mammoth hunt, not once did he stand up and say, “Uk, buddy, good story, but the dramatic tension would have been heightened by a semi-colon there at the end!”

Yes, to some extent, grammar is important because if our rules of communication are somewhat standardized we can get our point across much more effectively.  A split infinitive sounds like the nitpicking of a pompous douchepickle until someone tells you they were writing Derek and Stiles foot-fetish porn on a bus and you ask them if the bus driver was surprised.  “No, no—I was on the bus, writing Derek and Stiles foot-fetish porn--they were on a photo shoot.  Sorry!  Split infinitive!”  See?  There?  Yes, grammar was important.  But when someone went out of their way to criticize the use of the word “bicep” as inaccurate, when, in fact, bicep has been worming it’s way into acceptable use since the thirties (the muscle group is, in fact, the “biceps”) well, in fact, that’s just an example of the rapid shifting of language norms, especially apparent in the age of disposable communication and social media.  There are some grammar rules that are fading from fashion, and unless it’s the sort of thing that makes Og sit up and go, “No!  Uk, you said you caught a mammoth not a space alien you big fat liar!” sometimes it’s better to just chill out and appreciate the fact that English as a language was created to accommodate rapid shifts in rhythm and expansion of concepts and verbiage. 

Fallacy:  Comedy is less important fiction than drama

Fact: Just because it doesn’t make you cry doesn’t mean it says less important shit about the human condition.  Besides the fact that part of our business in life is celebrating, there’s also the fact that one of our most effective tools for social criticism is humor.  Literature—any literature—that gives us a reason to celebrate is important, and anything that can criticize society without starting a war should get our eternal gratitude.  People don’t take stand-up comedians all that serious either, but you bet your ass Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Dave Chapelle, Chris Rock, Dennis Leary, George Carlin and a whole host of others have left a more indelible imprint on our psyche and our world than all the treacly very-important-after-school-specials combined.

Fallacy: If it’s a romance, it has to end happily.

Fact: The King Arthur stories were the first “romances” translated into English (or what passed for English at the time) and the thing that differentiated these stories from the epic poems and tragedies that had been “literature” until then was that, in spite of the importance of the subject matter—the rise and fall of kingdoms, the master concepts of good versus evil and men living to the morals of a just (and Christian) God—these heroes had a personal agenda.  King Arthur was a great king—but he sucked as a husband.  Lancelot was indeed the most gentle and honorable knight that ever lived—just don’t leave him around your wife for long periods of time.  Gwenivere was loyal to her king, like a good queen should be—but she was not necessarily faithful to her husband.  These stories ended horribly for almost everyone involved.  Nobody had a happy ever after in the King Arthur legends.  What made the legends romance is that matters of the heart were real, and they were important--in fact, they were just as important as the rise and fall of kingdoms.  What matters is that they had hope for mankind, and the heart of mankind, even if these players didn’t necessarily fulfill that hope in its entirety.  It doesn’t matter who’s standing at the end—it just matters who had hopes that love would be waiting afterward. 

And oh, I could go on, but honestly, I’m running late and I’m running long-winded, and I’m seriously in danger of becoming the self-grandiose lecturing douche-monkey of my worst nightmares so I’m going to end the list here. 

“But Amy!” you all earnestly implore, (if I haven’t lost you at “douche-monkey”) “What shall we do if we agree with you, and write that socially relevant third-person omniscient fantasy romance epic with the artfully placed commas and the tragic ending!  Won’t people still say bad things about what we’ve written?  Won’t they still cite the fallacy without knowing the fact?”

To which I reply, “Uhm, yeah.  Sorry about that.” 

See, my little self-grandiose lecturing douche-monkey rant isn’t going to change the way critics read our work.  It’s not going to automatically expand the reading base and literary knowledge of all writers outside their own genres.  It’s not even going to convince people that I’m right, even if I want back to each of my little points and wrote the college thesis I’ve been dreaming about for years.  There is one thing and one thing only knowing the fact and the fallacy is going to do for us as writers:

It’s going to prepare us for the hit.

I frequently tell new writers not to break the rules until they know the rules.  Knowing which of these assumptions are real and which ones aren’t helps us write with integrity.  This knowledge has given me creative license to do things like incorporate Thor and Loki into a contemporary story, or write a first person fairy tale narrative about an abused wood-worker and believe that it transcends the stigma placed on fantasy.  It allowed me to write an epic romantic fantasy in third-person omniscient and not feel like I was cheating anything when I showed other character’s points of view.  This knowledge lets me play with words like “douche-pickle” and ignore my editor’s warnings about ambiguity at my own peril.  I know I may get critically burned for it, but I also know that I’m following a longstanding literary tradition, and no literary innovations are made without risk. 

So yeah—sometimes it’s worth it to follow the fallacies.  It guarantees that your work will get sold, more often than not.  It makes you comfortable that you have written to please your audience, and damn, that’s something we all want to do, isn’t it? 

But if you’re aware of the facts and aware of the fallacies, if you ever want to, say, break trope and write that book where the hero cheats, or, even worse, murders his deadly enemy in cold blood, or the fantasy that “head hops” as necessitated by the narrative, then you know if it’s worth it to take the critical flack. 

The more you know, the stronger your stance behind your work, and the better braced you are to take the hit.  

And to maybe swing back with a story that’s beyond the limits of critical expectations.  Sometimes, it’s worth the risk.


Becky
6/4/2013 03:11:29 pm

The thing about omniscient POV is that it has to be done well. And that's hard. If I have to go back and re-read constantly, which I have to do every time I read one of the series you mention, then that's not good. It interrupts the flow of the story when I have to stop and try to figure out whose thoughts and actions I'm reading now. It's hella annoying.

Now there are lots of things that aren't my favorite techniques. I don't, as a general rule, like present tense. I don't like POVs that switch from first to third. But if you do it well, I'll hang with you. If you do it really well, that annoying technique becomes completely invisible to me. (For example, I don't even remember noticing that Vulnerable used both first and third person.) But if you do it badly, it's gonna come up every time someone discusses your book.

amy lane link
6/5/2013 01:48:57 am

Yeah-- I do hear you. But at this point it's something we've habituated ourselves to. We're so very used to reading the more digestible stylistics that we quit reading when it gets a little more challenging. When I was teaching AP English, one of the things I had to teach them was how to read 18th and 19th century literature-- because it was organized and complex and it forced us to think although it was technically perfect. If a writer today used any of those techniques, they'd be dismissed as inept and "dry"-- which is a shame, because Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte were really amazing authors, and we're dismissing them from our libraries because they're more of a challenge to read. And I know I'm a prime offender-- if I can't focus on it before I lose the paperback in my house, it's gone! (Goddess bless the kindle-- I open it, and there's the book I put down, right where I left off. How perfect is that?)

The thing is, A. I usually assume when I'm having difficulty with a story it's my fault for squirrel brain and
B. I'm really afraid that if none of our newer writers understand what they can do as opposed to what everyone tells them they should do, we'll stagnate. There won't be a new J.D. Robb (whom I love!) or William Faulkner or any of the cutting edge authors we really love, because people are afraid to try. We need our writers to feel brave about crossing those imaginary boundaries. I think that's important :-0

Kassa
6/5/2013 01:41:36 am

Great points! I think people tend to get sucked into the wave of popular opinion and forget that everything deserves it's own merits and based on those alone.

I personally love seeing the perspective from different characters but if I point out head hopping it's because it's not well done. When switching POV every other paragraph in a way that makes me work to figure out who is talking, then not only is my head spinning but I can't keep track of the narration. I don't think multiple POV is wrong or even bad, I just think it should be done in a way that highlights the different perspectives but not at the expense of the reader getting metaphorical whiplash. I think sometimes those concepts are confused and thus it gets a bad rap.

It still galls me that anyone has the nerve to make those comments about Sci-fi/Fantasy/Mythology. It's incredibly hard to do right and if you don't do it right, oh the scores of readers are quick to tell you. It's not easy and kudos to anyone that tries to attempt it. Same with comedy. I tend to think contemporary romance with a familiar, well used theme is the easiest to pull off.

But at the same time, any well written book is a feat and never easy. It's just a matter of how big a challenge the author has created for themselves.

amy lane link
6/5/2013 01:56:15 am

I think what's difficult is when I see writers say, "Oh, we can't do that? Okay. I'll change it," without even knowing why. I know I break a LOT of rules-- I really did just have a first person hero murder the bad guy in cold blood. But when I wrote it--even when I wrote in first person (which is another stylistic choice people have difficulty getting into)-- I was aware of the critical hit. I knew I'd lose points for the ending, for the hardness of the characters-- but I did it because that was the story I wanted to write and it was worth taking the risk. Being aware of literary traditions and what has lasted and what is only "trendy" (like punctuation-- there are punctuation trends, which is a thing that drives me apeshit!) can only help us write more interesting stories. Or at least more lasting ones!

Andi Byassee
6/5/2013 02:36:23 am

Long before I became a copy editor, I was an avid reader, and fantasy and sci-fi formed a significant part of my reading repertoire. I honestly think that has contributed to my tolerance of a myriad of writing styles, and to not judging one style over another. All of your points are very well taken. Particularly when it comes to fiction, there are styles that perhaps don't work in the hands of an inept writer, but there are no styles that are not legitimate means of telling a story in the hands of a competent writer. I recently reread an old favorite "gothic mystery" originally published in 1964. Rather extraordinarily for the times, it was written in first person present tense. Even more extraordinarily, the novel involved a possible ghostly possession of the narrator. Imagine how difficult that would be to pull off with a narrator speaking in first person present tense! The setting was contemporary (for the '60s--everybody smoked!), but the prose was dense and a bit formal. But it all worked beautifully. The choice of POV created a sense of the surreal and gave the story a turn-of-the-screw tint that lingered after the end. And the dense prose created a tight, almost claustrophobic atmosphere that was thoroughly riveting. All of which goes to show a good writer can make even an unpopular (notice I didn't say a bad or poor) writing style and build a world and a great story on it.
I don't, of course, advocate anything goes for everyone. You are quite correct that a writer needs to know what they are getting into if the plan to step outside the rule box. Not only because they may be judged harshly for it, but because it could be a complete disaster if they don't truly know what they are doing. But it would be a great loss to readers if no author ever took the sort of chance you talk about. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But if it does, it could be brilliant.

amy lane link
6/5/2013 02:41:43 am

Exactly. As far as writing goes, the more you read, the more you know, the more you understand about literature, the better you write.

Amy

E.E.Ottoman link
6/5/2013 02:44:23 am

<i>Fallacy: Writing fantasy or urban fantasy is easier than contemporary because everything is made up.
Fact: Writing fantasy or urban fantasy is way the hell harder because in order to create a fantasy world, the writer needs to first create a frickin’ fantasy world.

Fallacy: Any mention of mythological characters is fan fiction and therefore plagiarism.
Fact A: Fan fiction is only plagiarism if you attempt to pass it off as your own work.
Fact C: If I wrote about Thor and Loki (as I did!) as their mythological characters and not from their comic book canon, that is not fan fiction, that is simply writing mythology. </i>
Yes! This. Thank you.

<i>Fallacy: If it’s a romance, it has to end happily.</i>
I would add that not only do I hear a lot that romance needs to have a happy ending in order to be romance but the underlying assumption is it has to have a socially acceptable happy ending.

Great post.

amy lane link
6/5/2013 02:51:48 am

*g* Thank you so much! And you're right-- the implication is there, and it's very limiting.

Laylah link
6/5/2013 03:17:33 am

Lovely post -- so many points in here that make me go YES.

"Fact: Just because it doesn’t make you cry doesn’t mean it says less important shit about the human condition."

This one in particular. I will defend this statement to my last breath, fff. Angst is NOT the only way to write "meaningful" stories, or emotionally moving ones, for that matter, and the "all good art is about suffering" brigade makes me froth at the mouth with frustration. There are so many ways to write fiction about what matters to us, and heavy drama is only one of them.

amy lane link
6/5/2013 07:53:06 am

Yeah-- I feel strongly about that. I admire the hell out of comedians who can get us to think and laugh and even move us to a few tears-- and who change the world.

Etienne link
6/12/2013 12:10:49 pm

That 'all good art is about suffering' is a canard that makes me froth at the mouth also. Thanks for reinforcing the point.

K. Z. Snow link
6/5/2013 04:05:02 am

Preach it!

I don't know where all these idiotic notions came from. Maybe the Genre Fiction Editors College in Swahumett, New Jersey?

Yes, points of view have been enormously varied in the history of literature. (The only one I recoil from is second person; it screams, "I'm an MFA student determined to be artsty as all fuck, no matter how many boils I raise on readers' brains!" But just because I recoil from it doesn't make it invalid.)

Yes, fantasy/urban fantasy is a bitch to write. Don't believe it? Read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville and tell me he just sneezed out that book over tea one day while Pamela Plinko toiled over her Harlequin contemporary.

And anybody who thinks the heartwrenching Brokeback Mountain isn't a romance (in the contemporary sense, that is, because the literary application of the word changed after the 19th century) really needs to enroll in Clue School.

amy lane link
6/5/2013 07:55:47 am

I know that post-modernists debate endlessly on whether writing should be reader-centric or writer-centric. I think making it TOO reader-centric makes it too homogenized. There are some things-- pov, emphasis, character choices-- the list goes on- that should be storyteller's choice.

plainbrownwrapper
6/6/2013 12:10:01 pm

I forgive you for using me as an object lesson. Heck, sometimes I *deserve* to be laughed at.

But it should still be "biceps".

So there.

;-D

amy lane link
6/6/2013 12:19:56 pm

You are so awesome! Since you forgive me, I might-- might, mind you-- concede that "bicep" is technically correct.

Thanks for being awesome!!!

Alicia Nordwell link
6/7/2013 11:01:53 am

Great article!

There is a time and a place for everything. If an author deliberately writes in third person omni, then great and wonderful, have at it. I find this an incredibly hard thing for readers to accept from MM romance authors, however, because it can be very difficult to keep the characters distinct with 2 male leads. I was re-reading some Sherrilyn Kenyon last night and realized that she uses TPO and it actually annoyed me a little, even though she had a male and female lead, and they were quite distinct from each other. It isn't 'wrong' it just isn't as popularly accepted. Now, an author writing in first person from the protagonist's pov that includes the thoughts of the villian while still using first person really IS head hopping.

I just subbed a first person sci-fi novel to DSP with the 'main' lead using first person and the chapters with the romantic interest 'secondary' lead's scenes being in third person POV. I would have been more consistent to use third person limited with alternating POV's instead, but hey, writing is all about learning and experimenting for me.

Head hopping 'rules' came into play with that plan when I decided to stretch my style to do something new with that series. If I didn't explore that 'rule' I might not have tried the new technique. Learning what is and is not 'allowed' and then deciding if you should listen or break with the trend and follow your own rules is something every author should strive to do.

Oh, and I totally agree with you on the readers picking your stuff apart. I got nailed by a few readers on my first eBook. *shrugs* Not everyone will like what you do, even if you follow every dang rule you can find. There's that whole saying about what opinions are like ... I won't repeat it here, but I'm sure you can figure out which one I mean, lol. We don't have to let their own issues become ours-unless they're right-in which case we learn something new, which is always good.

amy lane link
6/10/2013 01:50:15 am

It's always such a balance-- we would LOVE to grow as writers--but on ANY given book we can find two completely different opinions about what's wrong with the writing. (Which is why I've come to loathe the term IMHO btw!) That's why it pays to know your literature--if you know your rules, you can break them, and take the consequences. If you don't know them, you can't really be aware of what your own voice is.

Jess B
6/9/2013 10:32:22 pm

Hi Amy,

90% of the time I put the pressure on the reader to follow the POV that the author is trying to write.

I see it this way...Writers are Artists.

When you go and stand in front of a painting in a gallery. You look at the colours chosen, the style of the brush stroke and start to form an opinion on what the artist is trying to tell us.

When I pick up a book I am letting the author paint me a picture with words and I always remember that is its the artist choice in how they do that.

Now there is that 10% of books where I believe the author/artist has no idea how to uses their techniques correctly and I end up with a book that is impossible to follow or understand.

Love your work :)

amy lane link
6/10/2013 01:54:24 am

Hey, Jen B--

Yes--very often I assume 90% of the time that any problems with a book are my own. I KNOW myself-- I'm a VERY schizophrenic reader, and my attention span is HEINOUS. If I can't always sit still for what's being said, that's not the author's fault-- that's usually mine. But like you said, there is that 10% that is undeniably NOT me. And I honestly think those are the authors who REALLY don't know the rules!

Thanks for commenting-- and for reading :-)

Amy

Etienne link
6/12/2013 12:14:15 pm

Hi, Amy. Here's one for you:
what about non-standard dialogue tags? Overuse of the same can make an otherwise good book totally unreadable as far as I'm concerned.

I blogged about it a while back, but didn't generate a lot of interest:

http://etiennestories.blogspot.com/2013/04/oh-those-weird-dialogue-tags-why-do.html



Comments are closed.

    Amy Lane

    Amy Lane has two kids in college, two gradeschoolers in soccer, two cats, and two Chi-who-whats at large. She lives in a crumbling crapmansion with most of the children and a bemused spouse. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to know that somewhere in all the pain is a story of Wuv, Twu Wuv, which she continues to believe in to this day! She writes fantasy, urban fantasy, and m/m romance--and if you accidentally make eye contact, she'll bore you to tears with why those three genres go together. She'll also tell you that sacrifices, large and small, are worth the urge to write.

    This is where she posts about her books, and about Amy's Lane, the article she writes for the RRW once a month.  

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