Confirmation!

[dragonlady7]

I got a letter from Katy today (yay!) and it contained a line I simply must share, especially in light of the post I just made.

I don't think you could ever be considered Fiona-like-- you whine far less, and you're not as "woe is me" dramatic, by the way--

(Fiona being our younger sister, who in the awards ceremony that is our family has always been "Best Actress In A Continuing Drama". Ann, the youngest, could cry on command until she grew a heart of stone at eight or nine, but Fiona, Fiona who has forever had to share her middle child syndrome with me, the other other other child-- Fiona could create entire emotional scenescapes on command, and still can.)

A picture from a year ago with my entire nuclear family in it. I'm in the pale blue, Katy's in white with the flowers, Ann's in green, and Fiona's in silver. This picture illustrates pretty clearly why I'm a little insecure about my weight. Although Ann's partially concealed behind Mom's 100-pounds-lighter-ness, so you can't see quite how giraffe-like she is.

Am already assembling Katy's next care package, which will include a giant container of Aquasafe for the fishpond just by her office. The fish in it have just all been killed by the chlorinated water again.

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

You're all a bunch of beauties, that's for sure. You are a little heavier than I pictured, and I don't blame you for trying to lose weight. I know how hard it is. But you are also beautiful as you are.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, you are heavy. But I believe that's something you really don't have control over. The best you can do is exercise to stay toned and healthy. You're already doing that. Good for you.

You would probably be better off diverting the energy spent worrying about weight into activities that make you less pathetic, like writing. Write something honest and challenging. Write something more akin to life and less akin to the stilted, belabored sci fi/fantasy stories you churn out so indiscriminately. Nobody wants to read those stories you write except for you. Surely you must be able to come up with some characters and scenes of your own.

That's my harsh, but honest criticism. Feel free to leave whatever reparatory comments you need to take the sting out of your ego. I may or may not read or respond to them, though.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I prefer that anonymous posters sign some sort of name to go with their comments, just so I know if I've spoken to them before-- it doesn't have to be their real name.

> leave whatever reparatory comments you need to

I don't actually feel I need to respond to any of this, as I know what I'm doing far better than apparently comes across in my livejournal. You apparently haven't read that much of it, by what you're saying. But thanks for commenting.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Hello, Oh Phantom Dispenser of Unasked-For Advice.

I am slightly tempted to give you my "harsh, but honest" evaluation of this comment, complete with a (facetious) Freudian analysis of your early childhood, but I don't think you'd appreciate it.

However, I'd love to discuss your comment's, er, philosophical message.

Write something more akin to life and less akin to the stilted, belabored sci fi/fantasy stories you churn out so indiscriminately. Nobody wants to read those stories you write except for you.

Just wanted to say that the second sentence is clearly untrue, since people do read her stories. Also, in my experience, the theory that stories that are honest and challenging draw more readers than fantasy or some other entertaining genre is... just plain wrong. Just look at genre books sell compared to literary ones!

I do sometimes feel like honest, difficult stories might have more innate value, since they seem to come closer to capturing truths about the human existence, but at other times I suspect that thinking so is just self-indulgent, pretentious nonsense.

(Of course, ideally, a story can be both deep and entertaining, but how many people can manage that? I feel like the number is very small, even among lauded published authors.)

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I had a related thought, in that a story's true-to-life qualities have little to do with its setting or plot and everything to do with its characterizations and observations of emotional responses and the like. The things people generally respond to in my stories are the characterizations; this goes for not only the fantasy stories I write but also for the historical fiction and my (not so recent) forays into literary fiction. I don't think truthfulness is restricted to any particular genres. But then, there are still schools of thought that dismiss all genre fiction out of hand-- but those schools are shrinking, as genre fiction gains mainstream acceptance. Which is fascinating to observe, certainly. But I digress.

So I'm not quite sure what the Phantom Dispenser here was referring to-- I am not certain which of my "sci fi" stories he/she read and found 'stilted and belabored', and can only assume he/she was referring to the style rather than the genre-- but then, that was just my assumption. I really don't know; the comment left it unclear. It would be nice to know; perhaps the PD is simply dismissing all genre fiction in general, which is problematic as by this point almost all fiction has been categorized in some kind of genre and it's very difficult to be published outside of one.

By the way, the reason I said in my response to the comment that the Phantom Unasked-Advice-Dispenser obviously hadn't read much of my journal is that the very reason I have been writing in the fantasy genre of late is that it had a larger audience than my historical fiction could attract. I do believe you were a reader at the point where I was confronting that, so you'd know that already. I have done quite a bit of work in a number of genres, but you'd have to have read an awful long ways back in this journal to know that. As it's really more a record of my life than an ongoing analysis of writing markets. ^.^

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I did feel like P.D. was dismissing unrealistic genre fiction. I could be wrong, of course, but I have certainly encountered plenty of people who insist that Truth can only be reached by writing painfully personal and literal stories about What We Know. (The instructor of only writing-related course I took in college basically forbade me from writing about anything other than Growing Up Under Communism.)

But of course you are right that truth can hide in unexpected places. I would like Strange Fortunes to have an element of truth to it--that is why I try so hard to tone down the ridiculous melodrama. And I think it is saying something vague about the universal truth that we are each stuck in our own point of view, and life is rife with miscommunication. Also, Ecthelion is a caricature, but I think his self-loathing does speak to people. But, er, whatever.

Anyway, wanted to add that I hope you are not too upset by the P.D.'s comments. I think your writing has moments that ring true. (Of course, this should be clearer in a polished draft! This could be another source of error for the P.D., that h/she thinks your drafts are meant to be the final product.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

It does seem perfectly likely, given what we know of PD's IP, that he/she is not a genre fiction fan. Which makes his/her criticisms a lot less interesting to me, certainly. If he/she was implying that ALL genre fiction is stilted and belabored, then it's unlikely he/she had bothered to read mine in particular, and thus it's not really a very useful suggestion. (I do find it unlikely that he/she had read my stuff, as it gets called lots of things but not often stilted, not since I gave up in eleventh grade on emulating Lady Gregory.)

Was growing up under Communism terribly interesting? I confess, if someone asked me to write about Growing Up Under Reagan (which i did), I'd be hard-pressed to come up with anything universally true. I wasn't even aware of the Cold War in any meaningful sense until it was over... I sorta had other shit to worry about.

It's not so much that truth is in unexpected places, so much as that stories deal with truth in unexpected ways. A story whose setting is a fictional hidden city in a fictional lost world doesn't have to be about those things-- more often, it's about the author's understanding of human society and relationships and what those things mean, which are far more universal than one would expect.
Much of the speculative fiction genre-- well, at least those examples of it that have survived the test of time and stand as classics-- is about what lies within, as illuminated by that which is without. H. G. Wells dealt with the ugly fragility of human society; LeGuin deals with sexism and racism by positing worlds where they should not or do not exist; most space dramas are an excuse to lock people in a closet and see what happens; Tolkien had a great deal more to say than his linguistic excuses can really explain. Good SF, like good literary fiction, has solid characters and fascinating emotions.
Strange Fortunes is a very interesting look at true love and miscommunication; the setting intensifies it because a) we know the characters' backgrounds and fates, and b) an isolated city is an excellent place in which to examine a society's tolerances of behavior that deviates from the norm.

> too upset

Of course not. We've already established that they're probably irrelevant. I'd be more worried if PD had actually read any of my stuff. But I highly doubt it. Nor do I wish it-- someone who isn't receptive to the genre should probably avoid examples of it, particularly someone's rough drafts intended for a particular audience. The current flailing of the N.A. effort is probably not going to appeal to anyone who isn't already a fan of the pairing.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

I think "stilted" and "belaboured" are generic writing insults, because I have certainly had them applied to me, too.

I agree that S.F. and fantasy can transcend genre. I suppose it is possible that most truly intelligent people realize this, it's just that the loudest people tend to be idiots as well.

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Wow. I missed that truly fascinating discussion. And all started by someone who was in all probability doing nothing but blowing wind.

Incidentally, I very much agree that the characterizations are what drive a good story, regardless of setting. Which is why my favorite fanfic writers can attract readers regardless of whether they are writing 'canon' or 'AU'.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

My father-in-law, who's been active in the sci fi publishing world for about 50 years, is fond of saying, "All alien stories are really about humans." I haven't yet been able to prove him wrong.

SciFi -- like magical realism or deconstructionism or all other kinds of literary ism -- gives us a metaphor. The best writers can turn metaphor into truth.

The rest of us just muck around with presumption. ;)

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the PD's discussion of weight rankled. I bet heshe don't look nearly so hot in a corset.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Meh. He's responding to a year-old photo in an unflattering dress before I lost fifteen pounds. I'm not so concerned. Even then, I looked better in a tshirt and jeans than I do in that dress which was tailor made for me by my mother who hates my figure.

I'm actually feeling quite skinny at the moment, and once our budget crises are over, I'm buying myself another corset and am going to be a foxy fox. So anonymous Internet stalkers can go on all they like about how I can't help being heavy: Me, I'm going to keep on doing my party trick where I drink a beer with no hands, which ain't none of your B-cup supermodels can do.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

(Incidentally, my comment is meant not just for the Phantom Dispenser but for anyone else who wishes to discuss the subject.)