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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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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
no subject
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.)
no subject
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!
no subject
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!)
no subject
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!* ~__^ ~__^
no subject
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: