readingredhead (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
readingredhead) wrote2007-09-08 10:11 am
readingredhead) wrote2007-09-08 10:11 am
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The story of the elves and the aliens (for Lauren)
There was once a girl by the name of Candace who discovered that she loved writing. So she wrote. A lot. Then she participated in a writers' workshop and discovered that she loved those, too.
Candace was accepted to college and while it wasn't the one she really wanted, she consoled herself by looking up the creative writing classes that would be offered first semester. She pulled strings and made friends and got the application for the class in on time. A week later, she discovered she was third on the waiting list.
Candace was disappointed, because she loved writing and writers' workshops so much and wanted both of these to be a large part of her college experience, but she heard encouraging things from other writers who had been let in off the waiting list, so she did not despair. When the first day of class arrived, she hurried off to the writing class as fast as her sandaled feet would carry her (which was fast, but not fast enough to keep from being several minutes late). She took the last seat at the table and triumphantly said "Here!" when the teacher called her name a minute later.
The teacher (because to Candace it seemed very odd to refer to her as Melanie) began talking about writing and this workshop and Candace felt very much like she belonged.
Then, out of nowhere the teacher mentioned two words that generally make Candace cringe: "literary fiction." In her experience, these words were generally used by pretentious auteurs who wanted to make themselves feel better than people who wrote in genres as obviously deprived as fantasy and science fiction, which happened to be Candace's chosen field.
Imagine Candace's dismay when she heard the entire sentence in which the dreaded words had been mentioned: "Like in most college writing classes, we'll be focusing on writing literary fiction."
A hand at the back of the room was timidly raised, and a voice of reason asked, "What exactly is literary fiction?"
"It's not genre fiction."
The same hand. "What exactly is genre fiction?"
"Well, you know -- romance, mystery, fantasy, science fiction..."
Candace felt this as a knife through the heart. She was tempted to double over in expression of her pain. Instead she kept listening, hoping there would be some way she had misheard the teacher.
She had not misheard. With a smile and a sarcastic laugh, the teacher finished the discussion with, "Sorry, guys -- no elves, no aliens."
***
It's not a pleasant story. After hearing that, I sincerely had doubts as to whether I wanted to be in the class. I hate people who restrict me, especially in writing. But, I got in. I learned from the back of our textbook that the real, "literary" definition of lit fic is anything character-focused, while genre fiction is plot-focused. I've never written a plot-focused story in my life, so I feel fine about writing a wonderful work of literary fiction that contains marvelously developed characters...who just happen to be elves and aliens.
Candace was accepted to college and while it wasn't the one she really wanted, she consoled herself by looking up the creative writing classes that would be offered first semester. She pulled strings and made friends and got the application for the class in on time. A week later, she discovered she was third on the waiting list.
Candace was disappointed, because she loved writing and writers' workshops so much and wanted both of these to be a large part of her college experience, but she heard encouraging things from other writers who had been let in off the waiting list, so she did not despair. When the first day of class arrived, she hurried off to the writing class as fast as her sandaled feet would carry her (which was fast, but not fast enough to keep from being several minutes late). She took the last seat at the table and triumphantly said "Here!" when the teacher called her name a minute later.
The teacher (because to Candace it seemed very odd to refer to her as Melanie) began talking about writing and this workshop and Candace felt very much like she belonged.
Then, out of nowhere the teacher mentioned two words that generally make Candace cringe: "literary fiction." In her experience, these words were generally used by pretentious auteurs who wanted to make themselves feel better than people who wrote in genres as obviously deprived as fantasy and science fiction, which happened to be Candace's chosen field.
Imagine Candace's dismay when she heard the entire sentence in which the dreaded words had been mentioned: "Like in most college writing classes, we'll be focusing on writing literary fiction."
A hand at the back of the room was timidly raised, and a voice of reason asked, "What exactly is literary fiction?"
"It's not genre fiction."
The same hand. "What exactly is genre fiction?"
"Well, you know -- romance, mystery, fantasy, science fiction..."
Candace felt this as a knife through the heart. She was tempted to double over in expression of her pain. Instead she kept listening, hoping there would be some way she had misheard the teacher.
She had not misheard. With a smile and a sarcastic laugh, the teacher finished the discussion with, "Sorry, guys -- no elves, no aliens."
It's not a pleasant story. After hearing that, I sincerely had doubts as to whether I wanted to be in the class. I hate people who restrict me, especially in writing. But, I got in. I learned from the back of our textbook that the real, "literary" definition of lit fic is anything character-focused, while genre fiction is plot-focused. I've never written a plot-focused story in my life, so I feel fine about writing a wonderful work of literary fiction that contains marvelously developed characters...who just happen to be elves and aliens.
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...wait, were you teasing me that time?
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With modernist works, the more you hate something, the less likely you are to get it.
Style is very personal, but you can study it and be exposed to many different styles.
(I've probably read more Joyce than any of them, and I don't know what his style is. He writes in so many different styles, most of them parodies.)
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Also, I think your comment about hating things doesn't just apply to modernist works. I just finished reading Gulliver's Travels for the second time and actually enjoyed it (or at least got stuff out of it) whereas the first time I read it, it annoyed me to no end. I think that as soon as you decide you don't like the story, you lose a lot of opportunities to learn from it, unless you're specific about your dislike and learn from the mistakes of others.
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I specifically mentioned modernism because it's so hard to get. Some works are just bad. You don't have to like everything ever written.
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I'm really sorry that the teacher took literary fiction to mean no elves, no aliens, when really it means "marvelously developed" elves and aliens. That's dumb (<--- mark my eloquence). Just from your description the first time, "the story about the elves and the aliens," I assumed it'd be a good, happy, quirky story. I assumed it would be a quirky story of the professor's interesting methods that opened up minds. But that's just my bias towards professors, or maybe towards Berkeley. I'm sorry.
Has the class been any better so far?
"mood: rebellious." Heh. My rebellious moods don't usually end in writing (though they should), so I commend you. And wish you luck. Let me know if there's a chapter two?
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If she's not, you could always try to accuse her of some sort of discrimination ;) Like anti-fantastical bias or something.
I mean, you are at Berkeley
:D
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Have fun-take whatever they give you with a grain of salt but be open to what they're saying. Perhaps skills you can incorporate into your sci-fi to make them even better. =P
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As I mentioned above, I don't like being told what not to do.
So yes, I'm trying to stay open to things. We're writing two stories over the course of the semester, so maybe the first one will be literary and the second one will be a throwback to my comfort zone? Who knows. I'm trying to stay open to the idea that things don't have to be specifically genre fiction or literary fiction -- that the best ideas always come at the borders of two established concepts.
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If nothing else, try to think of it as a challenge.
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