No sequel

9 November 2003 | 2 Comments

Kelley,

I just finished reading your book the other day, and I thought it was great. It delved into the recess of the human mind that many authors do not write on. Very rarely have I ever seen a book written such as this. The internal perspective of the protagonist was so vividly described that it almost made you feel as if you were her.

As I read the last line of the book it left me with one burning question: Will there be a sequel?

As I said before, I thought the book was great. I can’t wait to see what you write next.

Anonymous

I’m glad you liked the book, and sorry to disappoint you about a sequel. I don’t expect there will be one. The stories that are jostling for my attention now are about other people. I think I’d like to write a short series someday, something with a specific, planned arc (as Nicola is doing with her series about Aud Torvingen), but I’d be surprised right now if it turned out to be about Jackal or any of the other characters in Solitaire.

I’m glad you cared enough about Jackal and Snow and the others to want to know more about what happens to them. That’s such a compliment to a writer, and it seems churlish to say nope, no sequel. But I told the part of their story that I wanted to tell. It’s like driving at night past the lighted windows of houses or apartments, getting a peek at the life inside. It’s an intersection of sorts.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint, talk to me, writing 

Tribal

8 November 2003 | 3 Comments

I found a link to this by chance, and it reminded me of Solitaire.

The article doesn’t cover all that much ground, but the description of “urban tribes” as “loose networks of close friends, or tribes, [that] sustain each other emotionally and professionally for the years in between college and marriage” resonates with the connections Jackal has on Ko.

Although the people to whom the label is attributed tend to respond with “Fuck you, I’m not in a tribe.”

“Web” sounds so much better.

Ide Cyan

I’ve read elsewhere about this book, and find the notion interesting and familiar. When I was in high school and college, and imagined an adult life in the wider world, I saw myself in what might now be called an urban tribe. I thought of them as “my people” –” friends, lovers, older or younger, people who would help me move a hundred boxes on a Sunday, watch bad movies, make interesting food, understand how plumbing worked. People who would find me equally valuable. In some ways, Jackal’s web does this, but it’s heavily influenced by the corporate culture of Ko, where the emphasis is on the “greater goal” of business. The web is a community, but it’s an artificial construct based on age, and it’s in service to the good of Ko. There are people in America who think this latter quality is a good idea for us, too, so maybe it isn’t science fiction after all.

If you’re interested, there’s a “virtual tour” planned for this book, the brainchild of Kevin Smokler. I love this idea (here’s an article about it), and will be interested to see how it plays out. But I don’t love that he says “no genre fiction” in the guidelines (edited in 2008 to add: that link is no longer in service, so you’ll have to take my word for it). I infer he means “no crap fiction” and that he assumes “genre” and “crap” are synonymous terms. It’s too bad, and too easy. See my previous post for more ranting on this subject (grin).

Edited in 2008 to add: Kevin read this post and contacted me, and we had a good email chat about good fiction. A couple of years later, he invited me and Nicola to write this essay for his anthology Bookmark Now. Thanks again, Kevin!

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint, talk to me, writing 

What’s literature?

8 November 2003 | 2 Comments

Been a while, but I’m back for a glass of something and some good conversation…

What’s literature? Tough one. For many, I think they can’t get past the boundary that a book has to have been taught in English class — high school or college — in order to be considered literature. Presumably, something has to be read to be considered literature, or maybe it had to have been read at one time. I’m thinking of a quote from the movie “Bullets Over Broadway”, where the pretentious playwright mentor of the hero proudly intones that all of his plays are specifically written to go unproduced. I’m also reminded of my freshman year of college, where my Intro to Literary Method teacher spent a class period talking about the concept of “dramatic literature”, or plays written to be read rather than performed. Then later the same day, my American Musical Theater prof talked about how the concept of “dramatic literature” is a crock — plays have to be performed to be fully realized.

So what does this have to do with literature? I think my point is that writing, in order to be relevant to anyone other than the writer, has to be read. But to be literary, it has to relate to the world. Now, a lot of writing takes place in the world without actually relating to it. Hell, some of Stephen King’s writing is like that. And I’m not talking about just dropping common references — a lot of writing does that as a short cut to engage readers. There’s a feeling to literature that I’m having trouble articulating (obviously). I think a lot of writing is intended to (and succeeds in) activating emotional reactions from its audience, but in a very superficial way, like movies made from video games instead of scripts, or quickie books written based on TV characters. In order to be literary, I think writing (or art in general) has to access emotions in a genuine way. I almost wrote a “lasting” way, but it doesn’t have to last to make an impression.

I guess I think Stephen King’s best work is literary, but no writer is always literary. I think a lot of people think that authors are either always literary or always not. But was Charles Dickens really writing at the top of his game all the time? Was John Steinbeck? Was Jane Austen? The answer should be obvious.

Well, that’s my two cents on literature. Here’s another related question, though, which is implied in some of my comments above: does a work have to be written to be literature? Can a film or a play qualify as literature?

Later, y’all.

Adam Diamond

I’m with your American Musical Theatre professor on this one. Strictures of form are essential. Goethe said, “In the limitations the master shows his mastery.” I do think that “literature” is a specific term that refers to prose or poetry, so I don’t think plays or films are literature, but the best ones embody the same qualities as the best books –” a good story, well told, about characters who are true even if they aren’t real.

Art is not theory, it’s connection. It’s not about thinking, it’s about doing. It’s an interaction between people, across a spectrum of immediacy that ranges from live on stage to words or images whose creators are no more than mulch and memory. When it comes to fiction, I’m not interested in realigning the post-modern literary paradigm through radical re-interpretation of established form. Blech. I want a good story, well told, with some sort of resonance and meaning that I can connect with. I want it to be particular, the way our tastes and experiences and notions of ourselves are particular. That’s part of my definition of good writing. But do we really need three hundred pages of ten-dollar words and tortured metaphors to get there? I don’t think so.

I recently judged a writing competition with two other writers. One referred to himself as a noir mystery writer, the other as a literary writer. We had an interesting disagreement about what should constitute a winning entry, and eventually found ourselves on opposite sides of the border. The entry that these writers preferred was controlled and structured and obeyed all the rules of reasonable prose, and it was boring. Nothing happened. All telling, no showing. An adjective or two for every noun, an adverb for every verb. A theme constructed in crystalline sentences and unconvincing dialogue. I would rather pound my head against a brick wall than read a whole book of that stuff. But they liked it because it was “good writing.”

We disagreed not so much about what good prose is, but what it does. I agree with you, Adam, at heart it’s about emotional truth (which is how I’m paraphrasing your comments, let me know if that’s not right). I’m not sure it’s possible to successfully express precise emotional truth in bad prose, but I am sure that it’s possible to write beautiful prose without heart, without a human center.

So much of what is pointed out as “literary” prose seems to me to be almost a purely intellectual exercise in vocabulary and structure and style. All these things are necessary, but they are tools, not substance. A novel shouldn’t be “about” voice or theme. Yeesh. It should be language in service of story. It should create people the reader can connect with in some way, and things should happen to these people that matter to them, and to us.

And of course there are many literary novels that do exactly this. I think my biggest grump comes with the idea that genre, by definition, cannot be literary in this way. Genre can be crap sure, and it can also be literature –” but try getting the literary establishment to think so. It was interesting at the judging meeting. Everyone was comparing writing experience, seeing who could pee highest up the wall. The New York Times Notable Book thing is a clear contender in this regard, and the LW’s eyebrows went up a notch when I mentioned it. Then he looked at the book. “Oh,” he said. “Science fiction.”

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint, talk to me, writing 

Emotional truth

8 November 2003 | Comments Off

Been a while, but I’m back for a glass of something and some good conversation…

What’s literature? Tough one. For many, I think they can’t get past the boundary that a book has to have been taught in English class — high school or college — in order to be considered literature. Presumably, something has to be read to be considered literature, or maybe it had to have been read at one time. I’m thinking of a quote from the movie “Bullets Over Broadway”, where the pretentious playwright mentor of the hero proudly intones that all of his plays are specifically written to go unproduced. I’m also reminded of my freshman year of college, where my Intro to Literary Method teacher spent a class period talking about the concept of “dramatic literature”, or plays written to be read rather than performed. Then later the same day, my American Musical Theater prof talked about how the concept of “dramatic literature” is a crock — plays have to be performed to be fully realized.

So what does this have to do with literature? I think my point is that writing, in order to be relevant to anyone other than the writer, has to be read. But to be literary, it has to relate to the world. Now, a lot of writing takes place in the world without actually relating to it. Hell, some of Stephen King’s writing is like that. And I’m not talking about just dropping common references — a lot of writing does that as a short cut to engage readers. There’s a feeling to literature that I’m having trouble articulating (obviously). I think a lot of writing is intended to (and succeeds in) activating emotional reactions from its audience, but in a very superficial way, like movies made from video games instead of scripts, or quickie books written based on TV characters. In order to be literary, I think writing (or art in general) has to access emotions in a genuine way. I almost wrote a “lasting” way, but it doesn’t have to last to make an impression.

I guess I think Stephen King’s best work is literary, but no writer is always literary. I think a lot of people think that authors are either always literary or always not. But was Charles Dickens really writing at the top of his game all the time? Was John Steinbeck? Was Jane Austen? The answer should be obvious.

Well, that’s my two cents on literature. Here’s another related question, though, which is implied in some of my comments above: does a work have to be written to be literature? Can a film or a play qualify as literature?

Later, y’all.

Adam Diamond

I’m with your American Musical Theatre professor on this one. Strictures of form are essential. Goethe said, “In the limitations the master shows his mastery.” I do think that “literature” is a specific term that refers to prose or poetry, so I don’t think plays or films are literature, but the best ones embody the same qualities as the best books –” a good story, well told, about characters who are true even if they aren’t real.

Art is not theory, it’s connection. It’s not about thinking, it’s about doing. It’s an interaction between people, across a spectrum of immediacy that ranges from live on stage to words or images whose creators are no more than mulch and memory. When it comes to fiction, I’m not interested in realigning the post-modern literary paradigm through radical re-interpretation of established form. Bleh. I want a good story, well told, with some sort of resonance and meaning that I can connect with. I want it to be particular, the way our tastes and experiences and notions of ourselves are particular. That’s part of my definition of good writing. But do we really need three hundred pages of ten-dollar words and tortured metaphors to get there? I don’t think so.

I recently judged a writing competition with two other writers. One referred to himself as a noir mystery writer, the other as a literary writer. We had an interesting disagreement about what should constitute a winning entry, and eventually found ourselves on opposite sides of the border. The entry that these writers preferred was controlled and structured and obeyed all the rules of reasonable prose, and it was boring. Nothing happened. All telling, no showing. An adjective or two for every noun, an adverb for every verb. A theme constructed in crystalline sentences and unconvincing dialogue. I would rather pound my head against a brick wall than read a whole book of that stuff. But they liked it because it was “good writing.”

We disagreed not so much about what good prose is, but what it does. I agree with you, Adam, at heart it’s about emotional truth (which is how I’m paraphrasing your comments, let me know if that’s not right). I’m not sure it’s possible to successfully express precise emotional truth in bad prose, but I am sure that it’s possible to write beautiful prose without heart, without a human center.

So much of what is pointed out as “literary” prose seems to me to be almost a purely intellectual exercise in vocabulary and structure and style. All these things are necessary, but they are tools, not substance. A novel shouldn’t be “about” voice or theme. Yeesh. It should be language in service of story. It should create people the reader can connect with in some way, and things should happen to these people that matter to them, and to us.

And of course there are many literary novels that do exactly this. I think my biggest grump comes with the idea that genre, by definition, cannot be literary in this way. Genre can be crap sure, and it can also be literature –” but try getting the literary establishment to think so. It was interesting at the judging meeting. Everyone was comparing writing experience, seeing who could pee highest up the wall. The New York Times Notable Book thing is a clear contender in this regard, and the LW’s eyebrows went up a notch when I mentioned it. Then he looked at the book. “Oh,” he said. “Science fiction.”

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, friday pint, talk to me, writing 

Stop SOPA