Louder and weirder.

[truepenny]

A couple of things came into conjunction today, like planets in the astronomy of my own personal heavens. One was the arrival of the SFBC catalogue and the other was an extremely unwelcome epiphany about two unfinished stories of mine, which my backbrain now insists go together. They don't. Trust me on this. But the backbrain says they do.

Now, mostly these two things wouldn't have anything to do with each other, but the SFBC catalogue brought into sharp relief one of the reasons I didn't want this epiphany.

Brace yourselves. I'm about to start talking about genre¹ again.



In any genre, there are works that are conventional and works that aren't. That is, there are works that are staying in the box, coloring inside the lines, and then there are the works that say, "Well, what happens to the box if I do this?" Both approaches to genre convention can produce the brilliant, the mediocre, and the truly dreadful.² It's just a question of how you approach your work on the meta level, if you approach it there at all. One way you get Emma Lathen; the other way you get Josephine Tey.³ I don't want to do without either of them.

I don't think it's surprising or offensive to say that mostly, the SFBC deals in conventional sf & f. (Remember, "conventional" isn't a derogatory term here: descriptive, not prescriptive.) But reading the blurbs for the various books--none of which I know anything more about because I am so far behind in my reading I'd just sit down and cry if I wasn't too busy--does tend to devolve into much of a muchness, because all the blurbs can give you are the tropes. They can't really tell you much of how the author engages with the tropes, which is the joy of even the most staidly conventional of works (Georgette Heyer, who may have invented the Regency, but who never once colored outside her own chosen lines). They can just give you a sort of checklist. Farmboy hero, check. Wizards, check. World in peril, check. Scheming viziers, check. Prophecies, check. 4,981 irradiated haggis, check.

And therefore they show you just how much of the genre of secondary-world fantasy is based on the same rather small set of tropes.

Now, in the opposite corner, we have a pair of stories I've been variously working on and stuck on for, oh, a while now. One of them (I thought) was secondary world fantasy in a sort of Delany-esque line with the fabulous decadent city and all the rest of it, and the other (I thought) was a story about American pioneer women and magic. And then my backbrain piped up and said, These two things go together.

They do not! I said.

Yes, they do. Shut up and look. Here and here and here.

Oh fuck me, quoth I. They do go together.

Now, the reason that this epiphany was so unwelcome is not that I object to these stories combining themselves. It means they're one unfinished story now instead of two, and I'm cool with that. No, the reason it was unwelcome is that telling the story has now become about thirteen times as hard. Because--and here's where we link up with what I was saying up above--it means the genre conventions of secondary-world fantasy have just neatly dumped themselves in a no-fly zone.

Later, I realized that one of the reasons I'd been having trouble with the secondary-world story was in fact that I'd been thinking with my genre conventions instead of listening to what the story was trying to tell me. I've done⁴ my go-round with the fantasy trope of the assassin; if I'm going to go near it again, I'd better be sure I have something new to say. Because otherwise, it means I'm coasting, relying on the tropes of fantasy to do my work for me.

And that's easy to do, but for me as a writer (as opposed to me as a reader or any of the other hats I might conceivably be wearing), it's the primrose path. Because if I'm doing that, it means I'm being lazy and sloppy, and it also means, as sure as anything, that I'm going to get bored.

Brain the size of a planet, and what do they have me doing?

And I think, as much as I love them, that there is something pernicious about the tropes of secondary-world fantasy. I think it's very easy for them to become a Procrustean box, to become the despots of the kingdoms of our imaginations, so that we find ourselves saying, Oh, I can't write that. It's too weird.

I beg your pardon, but what the fuck?

Fantasy should--and notice please, that I've moved out of the placid descriptive waters of genre theory and into the tempestuous teapot of manifestos and over-opinionated statements--fantasy should be a genre where weirdness is not just accepted, but encouraged, sought out, loved and cherished and promulgated. There should be room in fantasy for damn near everything ... and just because a story is set in an imaginary world should not mean that it can't be weird too.

That's the problem, of course. It's not that fantasy doesn't embrace the weird. Fantasy embraces the weird with gung-ho delight. But it's all fantasy of the here and now. "The Metamorphosis" is for some reason springing to mind, but there are dozens upon dozens of other examples; magic realism is all about unapologetic weirdness.

But it's as if we've made some sort of bargain. You may do one weird thing, but not two. You may have magic realism or science fiction. You may not have both. If your character lives in a city that cannot be found in an atlas, she may live a block down from an alchemist's, but not from an ice-cream parlor.

And I guess, fundamentally, I'm not convinced that that has to be true.

There are these implicit rules about building a secondary-world. It will either be (a.) cod-medieval European or (b.) based upon blindingly good research into one non-medieval European culture (or, in the case of Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion books, one medieval European culture). America does not exist in Fantasyland. Because there is no cod-medieval America. We have ice-cream parlors, but not alchemists. And it seems to me that abiding by that particular set of rules--and I don't know where we get them from, either. It's easy to blame Tolkien for everything, but I don't think the prevalence of the cod-medieval in the modern imagination is his fault. But it seems to me that we're short-changing ourselves--limiting ourselves unnecessarily in the kinds of worlds and characters and stories we can tell.

Or perhaps it's just that, like my cats, I do not enjoy being confined in a box.


The truest thing in the world about genre theory is that it believes the rules are only there in order to be broken. And I guess what has hit me today from several different angles is that there are rules in this genre that are masquerading as givens. The givens are the page, the words, the blood and breath and bone with which you tell the story. Everything else that tries to tell you it goes without saying should be smacked upside the head and forced to say it anyway.

Because we might all find out that it's wrong.
---
¹Quickly, because I don't want to get tangled in this discussion for the umpteen hundredth time: when I say "genre," I do not mean "marketing category." Also, when I say "genre," I'm talking about a DESCRIPTIVE rather than a PRESCRIPTIVE system. Genre theory, in its best moods, is not about saying "This is how things should be." It just says, "This is how things are. And aren't they cool?" Okay? Okay.

²Say it with me: 90% of everything is crap.

³And Hegelian synthesis gives you Dorothy Sayers.

⁴Well, I'm in the middle of.

Comments

[cassiphone.livejournal.com]

The two otherworld fantasies that do embrace American history/culture that I can think of are The Blue Sword (and sequel) by Robin McKinley, and of course The Wizard of Oz etc.

American pioneer women and magic sounds like a wonderful stepping off point for an otherworld fantasy. Having just finished & enjoyed Melusine (you sent me a freebie for winning a draw at Strange Horizons' fundraiser, thanks for that!) I look forward to seeing what eventuates from that.

I hope it has quilts in it! Because, you know, there isn't enough fantasy with quiltmaking in.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The Blue Sword's more India/Arabia than America, isn't it?

And actually, yes. There are quilts, and they're important.

Glad you liked Mélusine!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The two otherworld fantasies that do embrace American history/culture that I can think of are The Blue Sword (and sequel) by Robin McKinley, and of course The Wizard of Oz etc.

What about Michael Chabon's Summerland?

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Quilts aren't far from Amish hex-medallions, and could conceivably be used in similar ways. Historically, every block had a symbolic meaning, rather as the Victorians could deliver a cutting social put-down with a well-chosen three-flower nosegay.

Also, Card's Seventh Son world fascinates the crap out of me.

Re: Deborah Doyle's SF Genre Rant

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have. Although it had been a while. Thanks!

Re: Deborah Doyle's SF Genre Rant

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

You're my hero! Less than a week ago, I was attempting to recall where I'd seen that particular argument, and failing entirely. (While knowing that googling the terms "romance" and "novel" would not turn up the piece I was after.) You dropped the necessary link into my lap when I wasn't even looking for it.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

If your character lives in a city that cannot be found in an atlas, she may live a block down from an alchemist's, but not from an ice-cream parlor.

Oh, SING IT. Again, recognizing that I am absolutely the opposite of an authority on this issue, I'm compelled to share this: when I started a story with a farm setting, people really freaked out that they had technology like cars and cell phones. There was talk about exactly at what point I needed to mention the technology, because it really threw readers into a tizzy. I found myself explaining to people that yes, farms actually still exist today, it's really not that weird that wheat should exist alongside manmade fabrics. I know the farmboy thing is a trope in fantasy fiction and I enjoy playing with it, but I didn't realize readers would be so conditioned to see the "rural roots" thing as indicating a medieval fantasy story. I currently have it set up so that the hero is from a quasi-Amish community surrounded by a very large, very modern city full of all the technology we have. But I couldn't do it without making an obvious break, without making it very modern and very Amish. The contrast seemed to be the only way to express what I wanted to do. It's kind of like going out looking like a drag queen to just make sure everyone understands that you're female.

I think you're bang on, it's sort of obscene the way we're clinging to some of these tropes. It definitely changes the stories you can tell, because you sort of have to acknowledge the trope in order to pull the reader out of them, it seems to me. I hope your new story is going to shatter all those odd expectations. I for one would love to see more of that.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Really what you're dealing with here are issues of expectations: Because of the fantasy convention of farmboy heroes, a reader accustomed to SFF will be prone to read a farm as an indicator that they're reading a fantasy story, unless there's some upfront clue that no, this is a modern farm, not ye olde farme of ye destined hero. This is both a potential issue (because, yes, you have to engage in signaling behaviors if you want to avert audience confusion) and opportunity (since those same conventions can be exploited to misdirect your reader's attention, or to spring surprises on them).

I think I have more to say on this topic, but I am very tired. In essence, though, a lot of genre conventions emerge because they're relatively easy to work with (I'm thinking of formulaic quest/hero's journey structures here), while others emerge because they are built upon a powerful idea or icon (dragons and magical beasts, for example). Once they're in place, readers will perforce be aware of them and their trappings, and come to read various cues (such as the farm setting you mention) as indicating that a story belongs to a particular genre and subgenre, rendering them semiotically loaded. This doesn't mean authors can't use those cues in different contexts, but they do have to be aware of their likely effects on audiences and plan accordingly.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

...I guess I would not be a good reader to judge by then. I consider it perfectly sensible for a friend on IRC to say "afk, cows". And where *else* are you going to get amazing chicken except by buying it from a local chicken farm?

BTW, even if it's a modern "family farm" the people involved don't have to be Amish, or even quasi-Amish. A big difference between an Amish farm and a regular one is just how damn *much* technology they're giving up. The Amish family wouldn't even think of having a computer. A regular farmer almost certainly does, and at least uses it for doing taxes. Techie ones might plan field layouts to minimize damage from runoff. The Amish farmer may use milking machines running off compressed air (mostly they avoid milking machines, but some sorts are permitted. and don't quote me on the compressed air thing, I can't remember exactly what sort is permitted but it's something that is possible to do with ~1900 tech, just they didn't bother back then). The regular farmer will have ones running off electricity, and he'll have far more veterinary training and equipment on site.

Depending on how you present the farm, you might be able to *show* the reader that yes, it is a modern farm without having to say it and without having to set up a false dichotomy.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Y'know, the rules aren't there for the *genre*. They're there for the *author*. If the author sets up a universe where there are both alchemists and ice cream parlors, it's allowed by the story. This has nothing at all to do with the rules of fantasy, and everything to do with the rules the author imposes on him or herself during the writing.

Why does the author impose rules? Because a universe does need *some* order to function. See our only available working example.

As a reader I *like* it when authors take genre conventions, then turn them upside down and heat them up in a teakettle. It's even cooler when they take the genre conventions, smash them with a Really Big Hammer and then throw 'em away. If they do it well, the book is a ton of fun. If it's done badly, well, at least they tried.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*g* I dunno. I run hard up against reader expectations all the time, even when I have set up different rules.

This is because most people do not read. They skim, and make assumptions.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

"America does not exist in Fantasyland." Counter-examples: Emma Bull, War for the Oaks; set in the Twin Cities (though Elfland is rather Medieval). Much of Charles De Lint's fantasy is set in modern places which might be in the US or might be in Canada. Fritz Leiber: "Smoke Ghost" and other short stories set in Chicago, Our Lady of Darkness set in San Francisco.

I would say the only thing you can't currently have in fantasy is spaceships -- because if there are spaceships, the story will be classed as science fiction. But that might change later this week.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Urban fantasy is not second-world fantasy. QED. See above, this post deals largely with the genre conventions of second-world fantasy.

[treetelling.livejournal.com]

Will Shetterly's _Dogland_ and Piers Anthony's Xanth series are both set firmly in Florida. I suppose you might call _Dogland_ magical realism, though. I can't remember exactly where Raymond Feist's _Faerie Tale_ is set, but I remember it was American.

I look forward to reading your combined stories when they get published.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

In any genre, there are works that are conventional and works that aren't. That is, there are works that are staying in the box, coloring inside the lines, and then there are the works that say, "Well, what happens to the box if I do this?"

If you're talking about genre as an aesthetic rather than marketing category, then don't works of the second kind, pretty much by definition, stop being genre works?

If your character lives in a city that cannot be found in an atlas, she may live a block down from an alchemist's, but not from an ice-cream parlor.

In general: yeah, it's annoying. ObCounterExample: Steph Swainston's books. Well, I'm not sure there's an ice-cream parlor, but you've got characters wandering around wearing slogan-ed t-shirts and such.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

If you're talking about genre as an aesthetic rather than marketing category, then don't works of the second kind, pretty much by definition, stop being genre works?

No, because they're still engaged with the genre.

The Revengers Tragedy (and sorry, I have to move into my academic specialty to find a really good example) is a straight-faced parody of a revenge tragedy, a quite bloody-minded disassembling of the tropes of the revenge tragedy ... and still a revenge tragedy. It is the play it is because of the genre it's in dialogue with.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the Campbell nomination!

[jaylake.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the Campbell nom!!!

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps it's just that, like my cats, I do not enjoy being confined in a box.

So you're saying this post is basically one long (and very good-reading) "Bi-PED!"

;)

(Congrats on the Campbell!)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Um, well. I guess that'd be a yes.

:)

Congratulations on the Campbell Nomination, you rock!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

"When was America's feudal period?" as Zhang asks in China Mountain Zhang.

Have you read McKinley's Sunshine? (I wasn't reading it, but they have it in the library and I decided in the end I love McKinley more than I hate vampires.) That seems to me like secondary world fantasy with America. But even if it is, that it is this hard to think of any proves you're on to something. (Card's Alvin Maker books? I read at least "Hatrack River" and maybe all of Seventh Son before figuring out it was this world plus rather than a secondary world, but then my knowledge of US history in 1987 was pretty much zero.)

It's an interesting thought.

You know the argument about fantasy being pastoral and pre-Enlightenment and SF being progressive and forward-looking? Usually made by people deploring how many fantasy novels there are these days? OK, I have a theory. It's to do with history. I think there is a way in which the secondary world fantasy is feigned history, and history has happened, by definition, and therefore doesn't have an Industrial Revolution. (Though Hambly did edge of IR, and very well, in the Antryg books.) So no ice-cream parlors. Urban fantasy is actually secret history. Like Powers, it weaves in.

Genre is expectation, from one angle.

Also, I'm not sure about the SFBC and the middle of genre expectations. Now I have never been a member, as it's US only, and I've never seen their catalogue. But SFBC has done some of my books -- the first two, and now Farthing. The first two are much more firmly in genre (at least ostensibly) than, say, Tooth and Claw, which they didn't do, but Farthing really is a genre problem -- and they're going to offer it in their mystery book club as well.

Oh, and congratulations again on the Campbell nomination!

Re: Congratulations on the Campbell Nomination, you rock!

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Genre is expectation.

*loffs*

Again, maybe not useful, but I enjoyed reading this

[redbird]

If your character lives in a city that cannot be found in an atlas, she may live a block down from an alchemist's, but not from an ice-cream parlor.

One thing that strikes me about this is that plenty of people not writing in sf or fantasy put their characters in cities that don't exist in atlases, but in the contemporary world. Often it's cities, or areas, much like the real world--Ruritania, I'm told Faulkner (who I may read someday), Ed McBain's "Isola" which is New York City with the serial numbers filed off.

I also remember my surprise, early in Le Guin's Always Coming Home, at a character's mention of her washing machine. Because they have some of what I'd think of as contemporary tech--washing machines, printing presses, a computer network--but it's far less pervasive in their lives than in ours.

</digression>

Re: Again, maybe not useful, but I enjoyed reading this

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I didn't say that as clearly as I should have.

A made-up city (or county, in Faulkner's case) that's still supposed to be in real-world America is not the same as a made-up city in a made-up country.

Actually, de Lint's Newford is a good example. He's writing urban fantasy in a made-up city, but it's still not secondary-world fantasy. And my post was trying to be about secondary-world fantasy, not all the other stuff.

There's all kinds of urban/contemporary fantasy that uses America (and Canada); Neil Gaiman's American Gods is a case in point. What I was trying to get at is why secondary-world fantasy doesn't use America, too.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

If your character lives in a city that cannot be found in an atlas, she may live a block down from an alchemist's, but not from an ice-cream parlor.

I admire this sentence so.

It looks like Ellen Steiber's A Rumor of Gems does interesting things with this, but I've been waiting for the paperback.

American frontier fantasy

[incoh3rent.livejournal.com]

how are you defining "secondary-world fantasy"? Mentioning pioneer women brought to mind Katherine Kimbriel's _Night Calls_ and _Kindred Rites_ (http://www.ke-kimbriel.com/), which are set in an alternate American frontier when the frontier was somewhere in the region of Ohio -- early 19th C, definitely pre-Civil War -- where werewolf attacks and unquiet dead are known hazards along with storms, indians, illness, etc.

[PS: loved Melusine, eagerly awaiting the Virtu!]

[larryhammer]

4,981 irradiated haggis, check.

Oh, that's what my kiss-ass warrior woman fantasy in progress is missing. *smacks forehead*

Seriously, this post helped clarify something I've been mulling about Elizabethan sonneteers. Thankee.

And Hegelian synthesis gives you Dorothy Sayers.

o_0

0_o

---L.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Couple of fantasy novels by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel have American-ish type setting - Kindred Rites and Night Calls - but v much rural/backwoods.

[redbird]

papersky's related discussion reminded me that I'd meant to mention Elizabeth Lynn's The Northern Girl in this context--it's secondary world fantasy, set in a city on a river delta, which lives on fishing and trade, ruled by a council of wealthy familes. Much of the plot has to do with the politics of the city--and it is and needs to be a city, not a castle or a countryside. (The other two connected books in that trilogy don't fit with what you're talking about, which I also think is interesting.)