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So, there are these up and coming fantasy authors who receive wide critical acclaim in the SFF community because of their amazing style and/or voice.
I can't stand them. It reads to me as overwritten and pretentious, which is everything I hate in fiction. For example, Catherynne Valente. I wanted to like Palimpsest, and I liked the idea behind it (a sexually-transmitted city? cool!), but when I read it, I kept wishing she hadn't spent so much effort on style.
I've read excerpts from a forthcoming novel (or very recently released?), and ... I have the same problem. I have no plans to read it entirely, so I won't mention the title here, though the author's initials are NJ. I've read gushing reviews, and, while the story might be good (fantasy has recently become very much Not My Cup of Tea), the writing hits me in that trying too hard spot.
(Then there's the dang (also horribly overwritten) Kushiel series, which I wanted to like but hated for a variety of reasons, including a) I wanted the narrator to die because she was such a self-absorbed twat and b) Carey made BDSM BORING. Also c) indentured sexual servitude of minors without their consent, aside from being born into it. WHICH ISN'T CONSENT, GUYS.)
So I must be defective, and a bad writer who likes bad writing, because I don't like these great New Fantasy™ writers and think they overwrite and are trying to become Literary. I like straightforward, unpretentious writing. And there's so much recently written that seems to be filled with Literary Allusions that Smart People should Get, though in reality Smart People means "former English majors."
I'll never be successful, I guess, if the market is all about attempting to write in a Literary style.
I can't stand them. It reads to me as overwritten and pretentious, which is everything I hate in fiction. For example, Catherynne Valente. I wanted to like Palimpsest, and I liked the idea behind it (a sexually-transmitted city? cool!), but when I read it, I kept wishing she hadn't spent so much effort on style.
I've read excerpts from a forthcoming novel (or very recently released?), and ... I have the same problem. I have no plans to read it entirely, so I won't mention the title here, though the author's initials are NJ. I've read gushing reviews, and, while the story might be good (fantasy has recently become very much Not My Cup of Tea), the writing hits me in that trying too hard spot.
(Then there's the dang (also horribly overwritten) Kushiel series, which I wanted to like but hated for a variety of reasons, including a) I wanted the narrator to die because she was such a self-absorbed twat and b) Carey made BDSM BORING. Also c) indentured sexual servitude of minors without their consent, aside from being born into it. WHICH ISN'T CONSENT, GUYS.)
So I must be defective, and a bad writer who likes bad writing, because I don't like these great New Fantasy™ writers and think they overwrite and are trying to become Literary. I like straightforward, unpretentious writing. And there's so much recently written that seems to be filled with Literary Allusions that Smart People should Get, though in reality Smart People means "former English majors."
I'll never be successful, I guess, if the market is all about attempting to write in a Literary style.
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Date: 2010-02-17 03:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 04:09 pm (UTC)From:I hadn't heard anything about them, other than Carey did a lot of research and has a lot of fans. I'd seen the book on the shelf at the store a bunch of times, thought it was pretty, and never bought it (because I didn't know anyone who'd read it and could tell me whether it was good.) So I checked it out of the library about a year ago, and it took me forEVER to get into it. Nothing happened until the middle of the book! She killed the only sympathetic characters! Phedre was annoying! The writing, especially the "If I'd known then that passing him the butter would lead to tragedy, I would never have passed it" type of shit, bored me to tears. (Like in this review) The only reason I finished it was because people promised me it got better. THEY LIED.
I wrote three blog posts on it last year: 1, 2, 3.
Apparently I hated all the characters and wanted the Skaldi to defeat those prissy, self-absorbed d'Angelines. That sounds about right.
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Date: 2010-02-17 04:19 pm (UTC)From:And I so agree about that review.
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Date: 2010-02-17 09:30 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 09:33 pm (UTC)From:(There's a certain irony in me using the words "copious prose" to describe anyone, I think.)
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Date: 2010-02-17 09:37 pm (UTC)From:"I performed the languissement on him until his phallus leapt like a fish on a line..."
So, basically, I managed to COMPLETELY ignore all the problems in the book in favor of the stuff I enjoy. Which, unfortunately, did not happen in the second trilogy, either because I was a lot older, or because she had less of the stuff I enjoy, thus making the problems much more glaring to me.
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Date: 2010-02-17 09:42 pm (UTC)From:That quote is just...priceless.
(I have this horrible temptation now to Remix Kushiel's Dart... Oh god, do I...)
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Date: 2010-02-17 09:45 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 09:41 pm (UTC)From:Though, like princess, I mostly got lost in the forest of convoluted prose. It could have been, hmm, 1/2 to 2/3 as long if the excessive verbal foliage was cut.
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Date: 2010-02-17 09:43 pm (UTC)From:I think Kushiel needs to be remixed and pornified. Who needs "languissment" and "phallus" when we can suck...well, I won't post it because I'm at work and there's ever so small a chance they watch my 'net traffic...
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Date: 2010-02-17 09:44 pm (UTC)From:As opposed to Terry Goodkind, who I know I enjoyed, but he managed to piss me off both with his statements on his website and how he decided that he hated his readers and wanted to bore them to tears by repeating the EXACT SAME SCENES a million times. So I donated all of his books and I do not regret!
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Date: 2010-02-19 07:00 pm (UTC)From:At any rate, I'm right there with you--I'm glad somebody's doing highbrow stuff with speculative fiction, but it's not my cup of tea to write OR read. I'll stick with paperbacks and YA fiction, thanks.
PS: I am a former English major. Just 'cause I get it doesn't mean I like it or, more importantly, will pay for it.
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Date: 2010-02-20 04:38 pm (UTC)From:But it's like ... OK, so agents and editors and fans want the
purplelyrical prose and quasi-literary style. When was the last time you read a much-re-tweeted review of a new space opera book? Or military sf? Or action? All I ever see buzz about in genre review sites is the Valente-esque stuff. Which makes me a sad panda, because, good lord, I'll never be able to sell my lowbrow space opera if the quasi-literary stuff is what people are buying now.no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 03:33 pm (UTC)From:It seems that genres definitely have their own popular voices and styles, and it does make it harder if you don't write in that particular style. But hard is not impossible. If you have a good story to tell and tell it well and keep trying, you'll find your audience.
** despite me not being an english major
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Date: 2010-02-17 03:53 pm (UTC)From:It could be that I've developed a dislike of fantasy recently because the overwritten voice is what's currently en vogue. Fortunately for me, space opera tends to be straightforward and unpretentious.
(My current favorite line from the WIP: “I can abrogate your contract with a well-aimed shot,” Hikaru said. The next sentence isn't as good, but that's what revision is for.)
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Date: 2010-02-17 04:11 pm (UTC)From:I think with fantasy you're more likely to get big fancy words/sentences because people want to evoke elegance and a certain atmosphere, days gone by. I know in my own work, I try to bring echoes of older fiction and fairytales into my fantasy work--it's a deliberate, informed voice choice. Ha, that rhymed!
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Date: 2010-02-17 04:21 pm (UTC)From:And not liking this voice makes me feel like I'm Wrong somehow, because all the Cool Kids in the Cool Kids SFF Club like it, and I want to hang with them someday.
(Thanks to comments on DW, I'm reading reviews of Kushiel's Dart on GoodReads. Hi there, writing avoidance!)
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Date: 2010-02-17 04:50 pm (UTC)From:This whole concept needs to be retired. The only reason you're even thinking it is because we all spend too much damn time on the Internet getting into these people's head with their diaries and blogs and journals and BNFery, and whatever, when in actuality the real shopping, the real numbers, the real bulk of the sales, are still coming in from the people sitting, in-person, with their actual bodies, on the floor of B&N and Borders, who are not on the Internet in fucking "fandom" and have no clue what Cat Valente or anybody else thinks about anything at all, they just like what they like.
Nobody really genuinely important ever said you had to be "literary."
Now buck up immediately! ~__^
And stop reading book reviews of things you don't like in order to find fellow haters to help you feel sane. *has totally not been doing that for the past week HAVE NOT HAVE NOT HAVE NOT! I deny it!* ~__^ ~__^
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Date: 2010-02-17 05:35 pm (UTC)From:Yes, ma'am! *bucks up* (Though I'm still apparently avoiding this whole writing thing... I've reached the end of the plot and need to figure out how to end the stupid thing, without turning it into long, involved discussions of politics (ZZZZZZzzzzzz) or "OK, story's over! Bye!")
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Date: 2010-02-17 06:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 06:58 pm (UTC)From:I could not find this...cut and paste? I HAVE to see this :)
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Date: 2010-02-17 07:07 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 07:57 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 08:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 05:01 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 05:36 pm (UTC)From:I'm sure there's some English-major-stuff that isn't convoluted and focused intently on crawling up its own ass. Tell me there is, at least, even if it's a lie.
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Date: 2010-02-17 05:47 pm (UTC)From:Also, Tolkien.
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Date: 2010-02-17 06:10 pm (UTC)From:(PS: Any interest in going to ReaderCon?)
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Date: 2010-02-17 06:15 pm (UTC)From:ReaderCon would involve interacting with other human beings. Ugh.
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Date: 2010-02-17 06:26 pm (UTC)From:Point taken.
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Date: 2010-02-17 07:55 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 08:08 pm (UTC)From:To use the commmon winetaster analogy, it's like they were told "this is a fine wine, it has these features", and they're shoving additives into their own to try to match the experience instead of making such a wine from the vine up. Tastes artificial, man.
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Date: 2010-02-17 08:37 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2010-02-17 09:07 pm (UTC)From:"See this, this is a finished product, it has a good bouquet, it's nicely aged, and has notes of complexity."
"Uhm, how do I make sure my wine has a good bouquet?"
"Well, it either has it, or it doesn't, depending on the skill of the vintner. Taste more of this, and you'll see what I mean!"
"How do I make sure the leafiness isn't overriding the flavor?"
"Well, here's a wine that's just leafy enough. Taste more of it, you'll see what you're looking for! Now go make wine till you get it right!"
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Date: 2010-02-18 12:40 am (UTC)From:I believe that "good writing" encompasses many different aspects of the craft. A good writer can be someone who comes up with very ingenious plotlines, and knows how to carry them through with unique and compelling characters at a good pace. A good writer can also be somebody who has a way with their words--maybe they can't write a novel or good characters, but their narrative prose has a strong tone, a unique style and voice, and serves as a good example of the power of the written word.
I am kind of annoyed that you call the latter type of people, those with a way with words and a certain style "overwritten and pretentious." I believe that one of the aspects to good writing can be a strong style and voice, and the idea that a writer somehow a writer analyzing the usage of his or words or paying attention to their style as they write is somehow "pretentious" is rather offensive. I feel like you're insulting people who are trying to pay good attention to their craft and their art.
I have no problem with you not liking their particular style or other aspects of their writing, but the accusation of "they're trying to be literary" really confuses me. It's writing. Of course they're trying to be literary! I think sometimes you overreact a little bit to someone else's perceived elitism. I know this stems from your background, but the idea that anybody is trying to value style at all eliciting such a defensive reaction from you is kind of unwarranted.
It's one thing to have a preference for the styles you read, and it's another thing entirely to defend some perceived elitist slight by sneering at their pretense for having a writing style that is different from yours.
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Date: 2010-02-18 01:47 am (UTC)From: