Category: Writing other things

The grass is always greener when you’re writing ‘off-topic’.

Genre, genre, what’s the genre?

I am busily writing historical fiction but reading an alarming amount of science fiction/fantasy. However, it strikes me that they share many issues related to the notion of ‘genre’.

The complexities of written genres provide fiery debate among critics and readers alike. The greatest heat is generated by those who pit literary fiction against ‘genre fiction’—no prizes for guessing which holds the greater cachet. Literary fiction is typified by the depth of its thematic concerns (e.g., loss, love, humanity) and the quality of the writing style. In contrast, genre fiction is marked by its content matter (e.g., scientific possibilities, historical events, espionage, crime) and the writing structure associated with each sub-genre (e.g., first person narration for hard-boiled detective fiction). Of course, within every type of writing there are opportunities for the writer to subvert the genre (e.g., fun ‘mashups’ such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, as well as more serious works such as Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?). Of course, the reason that it is possible to play with genre in this way depends crucially on the assumptions around the structures of types of novels.

Even in the recent obituaries for the redoubtable Ursula Le Guin I was surprised to see that the authors felt they had to defend her literary standing against the slur of being labelled as science fiction/fantasy. Le Guin herself argued against the dichotomy, calling instead for the recognition of the literary merit of any work, regardless of genre. One of the obituaries alerted me to her essay—the delightfully titled, ‘From Elfland to Poughkeepsie’ (1973), which I tracked down in a collection, The Language of the Night (Berkley, 1979).

In this essay, she writes, ‘Let us consider Elfland as a great national park, a vast and beautiful place where a person goes by himself, on foot, to get in touch with reality in a special, private, profound fashion. But what happens when it is considered merely as a place to “get away to”?’

Le Guin throws down the gauntlet to genre writers to share the ambitions of the writers of literary fiction—i.e., to not only engage readers but also open them to opportunities to transform their understanding of themselves and others. The fundamental themes of such works, she suggests, involve shifting focus from ‘daydream’ to ‘dream’ through exploring the far reaches of the society’s shared unconscious workings. The acceptance of genre and cross-genre writing is greater today, perhaps in part because of her own brilliant demonstration of literary fantasy in books such as The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).

Le Guin raises another issue which, I think, is less sustainable. She argues that the journalistic style that is often employed within the ‘Poughkeepsie style of fantasy’ is inappropriate as, in its objective stance, it fails to evoke the depth of imaginative writing needed for fantasy. She is not arguing against clear writing—for example, she holds Tolkien up as a writer of plain, yet evocative, English—but rather she suggests that adopting a journalistic style is ‘a refusal to admit what you’re in for when you set off with only an ax and a box of matches into Elfland’. Surely a similar argument can be put in relation to styles of writing as she puts for the themes—that the demarcation lines between genres need not limit the choices of the writer about what they are saying and how they say it?

Perhaps questions of genre all boil down to the comments made by currently acclaimed author of Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell:

‘It’s convenient to have a science fiction and fantasy section, it’s convenient to have a mainstream literary fiction section, but these should only be guides, they shouldn’t be demarcated territories where one type of reader belongs and another type of reader does not.’ (The Guardian, 2015)

So, from this practical viewpoint, the genre of a novel may be roughly where you’re most likely to look for it on the shelves of a bookshop.

The Blank Page

Pantsers and Planners and the Blank Page

There I was — frozen — staring down a course requirement to produce a 30,000 word collection of short stories. The keyboard stared right back, as keyboards do, the indifferent sods. As the days till deadline diminished, my calculations generated predictions of having to generate 1,000 words a day, then 2,000 words, then 3,000. When the target of 5,000 was on the horizon, I panicked. I raced to find my lecturer. He wasn’t in his office, nor in the coffee queue.  Peering through the small window set in the door of the lecture room, I spied him. As he paused for breath, he glanced in my direction — perhaps it was something to do with the wild gesticulations of distress.

He came to the door and, opening it a crack, snapped, ‘What?’

I began to gabble about my plight.

‘Stop,’ he hissed. ‘Listen carefully. You will type the word the over and over again. I don’t care if there are 30,000 thes. If, perchance, you start to find the word the becomes boring, then do feel free to use some other words as they occur to you.’ He closed the door and turned back to his class.

It was novel advice and, desperate as I was, I followed it. It only took a paragraph of thes before I was so bored that I began to write.

I’ve never heard anyone else prescribe similar measures but the experience meant that I am intrigued by the distinction that is often drawn between pantsers and planners. Both terms describe ways in which writers tend to go about the writing process.

The term pantsers is said to come from the expression ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ which originally arose to describe a pilot flying without instruments. Pantsers write their first draft in a flow of ideas, possibly guided by some overarching theme or end-point. Pantsers are open to following new thoughts and directions as they arise during the writing process. Stephen King, in his fascinating book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, describes a similar drafting process he calls ‘writing with the door closed’, i.e. getting the ideas down while leaving your inner critic outside (the inner critic is allowed inside the door when re-drafting). The advantages of this approach include that it’s a faster way to get the ideas out from between the ears and on the page.

Artist: Serena Snowfield (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/serena_snowfield/32230739846/in/pool-600501@N20

Planners (or plotters) prepare detailed outlines for the overall structure and individual sections of the work ahead before they begin. Planners tend to build their first draft in layers, i.e. outline, more detailed outline, even more detailed outline, and then the writing within each section. The advantages of this approach include that you know what’s ahead. When planners get a new idea, they down tools and test the potential new direction by revising their outline before they proceed.

Public Domain CC0 http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Leave-Hand-Marker-Mark-Production-Planning-Control-516278

Both pantsers and planners extoll the virtues of their processes in reducing anxiety in facing down the blank page, which probably tells you more about the mental health challenges of writing than the relative efficacy of either approach. However, as for most false dichotomies, there need be no opposition between the two approaches. No doubt, many of us adopt these processes at different stages and for different works. For example, author, Victoria Strauss, describes her transition toward a hybrid approach in her blog — ‘Pantser to Planner: How I changed my writing style’.

Luckily for me, while I’m by nature closer at the planner end of the continuum, so far I haven’t had to resort to the the strategy again.