[LMB] [OT] STD/fanfic

[Victoria L'Ecuyer]

--- Marna Nightingale wrote:

Quoting Auden:


>> He suggests at one point that to the degree a writer
>> is related to the world, their role is that of 
>> a witness, and the only crime a witness can 
>> commit is perjury.
>  
>
<>[snip]
 > >I am contemplating this. It SOUNDS right to me. I therefore offer it 
for discussion.


From: Elizabeth Holden
It sounds right to me. And what I am trying to do in
all my fic is to tell the truth, and the whole truth.
As I see it.


Me (Victoria):
I'd say it's a good premise, but far too limiting. Outside of poetry, I'd call the statement  "duplicitous".  The Writer as a Witness reduces an author to nothing more than a reporter. That's great if you're writing poetry, like Auden did. Poetry is the human condition viewed from inside the human and reduced to the very bare essentials of emotion and context. Most of life, once you strip away the deceptions, assumptions, and miscellaneous crap that people collect because it's expected you have something to show for your efforts, makes one heck of a poem. You just have to strip the white noise away from the core message. The key to poetry is getting past the lies you tell yourself. That is what I think Auden was talking about. If the poet lies or presses an agenda, it comes across to the reader in the finished product. [0]

The Writer as Witness in non-fiction gets iffy. Essentially, you loose the status as witness and become a persuasive speechmaker. "This is what I believe and here's why." or "This is what I've learned/discovered, and here's why you should listen to me."  Every piece of non-fiction I've read boils down to those two statements. Ditto for scientific papers and research articles.

The minute that Writer as a Witness starts writing fiction and making things up you loose the rest of any remaining status as witness and become, in essence, a liar and/or teller of tall tales. "Wouldn't it be great if this were true?" Every fiction story has to have elements of fact. Those points of comprehension are a spring board for speculation and extrapolation and the realms of "wouldn't it be cool if..." I'm not talking about SF/F either. Murder mysteries, romances, any historical-based fiction, and so on exist between the cracks of known, reliable facts that are physically documentable or psychologically and culturally pertinent. Reliable facts act as springboards for the leap into the great "what if...."

The sexy part of "The Writer as a Witness, Only Speaking Truth" is the fact that the writer is assumed both knowledgable and expert and worthy of being heard because of it. Elizabeth's "the truth as I see it" is often mistaken for "This is the Absolute Truth".

>> --- Marna Nightingale wrote:  This implies, of course, that you can't lay down
>> terms in advance for what a writer says, but you 
>> can on examining the product afterwards, 
>> conclude that they have been dishonest to their own
>> vision. [snipped]
>  
>

Me:
I'll argue with that implication, too.  First of all, how would the 
reader know and/or be able to judge what the writer wanted to do? The 
fact that Lois is here, eavesdropping and posting the occasional update 
about what she's doing is unusual. Most of the time, there is no way for 
the audience to pin the writer to the wall and demand additional 
clarification. The reader has to take it on faith that everything will 
be clear in the end before they ever pick up the book/essay/what have 
you.  That's the promise, and to a certain extent, the contract between 
the writer and the reader.

Plus, every reader has preconceived notions about what a book is before 
they ever pick it up. That is first instance of the reader setting terms 
for the writer. You can try to hand someone a book and say "read this 
and report back" but you won't get the cover cracked until you tell them 
what it's about.  I've tried.  Readers want to read something that 
appeals to them, that is understandable by them.  Anything else is a 
waste of their time (and possibly money).

If I pick up a non-fiction book that's an autobiography, I'll expect the 
writer to skew their story and edit severely for entertainment and 
educational value and to make themselves look good. It's part of doing 
business with anyone with enough ego to write about themselves. An 
autobiography is an extreme form of bragging. If I pick up a biography 
or a set of essays, I know to expect one person's view. They are selling 
one view point, theirs, because they have an agenda. Technical documents 
are the same way. Everyone is pushing something for some reason. Writing 
is a form of communication -- a way to spread ideas beyond one's 
intimates and, if they're lucky, beyond one's lifetime. Some are just 
more passive at (or sly about) pandering than others.

Lois has mentioned the readers' laying down of terms a few times when 
she made the switch from the Vorkosiverse and science fiction to the 
Chalionverse and fantasy and further into romance territory.  I was 
looking for a cover blurb on Amazon.com and paused to read the feedback 
and reviews. Each and everyone of the negative comments were a result of 
Lois not meeting the reader's "advanced terms" by producing a 
Eurocentric Hack-and-Slash Fantasy.[1] Every negative review boiled down 
to "This isn't what I expected." TSK:B is everything except a EHASF.

So, going back to Advance Terms from the Reader... Readers of Fantasy 
have generic terms and expectations about fantasy. Those terms involve a 
Eurocentric Story, Swords and Horses, Magic, Bloody Battles, and Saving 
the World While Coming of Age. Lois violated most of those terms with 
TSK:B.

Victoria

[0] I studied and wrote poetry for several years. Most poetry turns me 
off because the lies and agendas are everywhere. Auden is one of the few 
poets I still like.

[1] Tolkien is credited, in some circles, with creating modern fantasy. 
I'd have to say modern fantasy co-opted Tolkien. The early buying 
audience only paid attention to the magic, swords, horses, bloody 
battles and saving the world while coming of age.  I  have to say that 
TSK:B is in the Tolkien tradition, Lois just co-opted the rest of 
Tolkien's elements. The ones dealing with relationships between groups, 
the relationships between individuals and the groups they're part of as 
well individuals relating to groups they're not part of -- in other 
words "Cultures and the Impact of Things Changing Whether You Want Them 
to or Not."  If Tolkien had truly created modern fantasy, Lois would be 
getting better reviews on Amazon.com.