Writing, Right and responsibilities

[A. Vulgarweed]

The Elkins, bringing together the Couplethink thread and the Writers'
Responsibilities thread:

>Perhaps.  I see both factors at work, and I tend to think of
>them as facets of the same phenomenon.  People do often seem to
>think that the right partner will "fix" them, and in fact, that's
>a staple of literature, isn't it?  It's everywhere, not just in
>romance fiction, but in all sorts of fiction.  I find it profoundly
>irritating, myself.  *Why* must novels about characters undergoing
>profound philosophical changes in their lives so often tie that into
>some romance plotline?  Why?  It so *annoys* me.  It really does.
>And it's so common, too!  In fact, there are some genres in which it
>seems to be utterly inescapable.  Has there ever been a Utopian novel
>(either positive or negative), in which the protagonist's break with
>his culture is not somehow connected to his sexual desire for some
>woman?

You see this one in Snapefic all the damn time. What I don't get is, why do
so many women always think the version of a man that comes after The Love
of a Good Woman(tm) is always an improvement on the original? (Are dogs an
improvement on wolves?)

David:

>> 1) I can see why pandering would usually lead to poor fiction, but
>> not why it is dishonest.

Well, there's dishonesty and dishonesty. I have written some fiction, both
fan- and otherwise, and I have found that characters will "talk" to you.
Gradually, the story that wants to be told will unfold in your head like a
movie, and all you have to do is write it down as well as possible (and
edit lots later). HOWEVER, if you try to make changes in that story to suit
your perception of your audience, or a moral standard that may work very
well in the real world but has nothing to do with the *story,* that is a
form of dishonesty _to the story_, which is where the writer's foremost
responsibility always lies.

The Elkins:

>I suppose that the point I was trying to make, buried under
>all that verbiage somewhere, was that I don't feel that the
>fact that some people really dislike, say, slash pairings ought
>to be considered any more weighty a concern for fanfic authors
>than the fact that other people really dislike romance plotlines,
>or sad endings, or OCs, or divided plotlines which jump back and
>forth between multiple POV characters (a la LotR), or whatever
>else.  Reader preferences vary a great deal, and I just don't
>think it feasible -- let alone desirable! -- for an author to
>try to take them all into consideration.

Bingo. Some readers hate slash. Some hate explicit sex. Some hate stories
about Ron because they think he's boring. All of these are "valid"
prejudices for any given reader. None has anything to do with what any
given _writer_ should or should not do.

The rights of the reader are, in the fanfic community, I agree, appropriate
ratings and warnings. The reader has a right to choose the types of stories
s/he likes best or doesn't like; the reader has a right to assume the
writer has tried to make each story as well-written as possible and to feel
cheated if something turns out to be sloppy crap riddled with mistakes and
misspellings and inconsistencies and plotholes. The reader usually has the
right (and some would say, responsibility) to review the story, whether the
review is positive or negative. The reader doesn't have the _right_ to be
entertained and/or moved, exactly, but s/he has the right to feel and
express disappointment if s/he isn't. The reader does not have the _right_
to not be offended, but s/he has the right to express it if s/he is. (And
those who object to a same-sex pairing in a story with gigantic flashing
red neon HERE BE SLASH notices all over it has the right to be shouted
down--this really does happen a lot.) I stress this: you DON'T have the
right not to be offended: that's the risk you take when reading or paying
attention to just about anything. I get offended all the time by the 6
o'clock news; I rant'n'rave'n'wave my arms around, and then I move on. It
happens I'm offended by syrupy-sexist romance cliches. Others are offended
by descriptions of teenagers having sex, others by graphic violence, others
by writers who never finish long serials. Except in the latter case, it
really can't be the writer's problem to anticipate and pre-smooth all
possible ruffled feathers.

The writer has responsibility to create a dream that can sustain immersion:
to keep characters recognizable, motivations plausible, settings accurate,
language readable, and story "true" to itself, within its own parameters.
Aside from accurate rating and summarizing and not cheating the reader,
honestly, I'd say that's about it.

I do professional nonfiction writing too: I'm a music critic for a
newspaper IRL. The ways of writing are very different. The impulses that
lead to fingers moving on the keys come from a very different place in the
brain, as do those of reading fiction and nonfiction. In fiction, ambiguity
can be used often to very great effect, and IME the very best fiction
writing comes when the author's "uberbrain" is temporarily drowned out by
the voices of the characters. I've written a handful of short fics in which
Snape, Hermione, and McGonagall are the main characters: there's a bit of
myself in all of them, and also bits of all of them which are *not* me at
all; they're _them_. My control over what they say and do feels to me MUCH
more limited than you would think. It's not like playing puppeteer: it's
like transcribing all the dialogue, action, color, setting, and movement of
a film already in progress that I walked into partway, in which sometimes I
am seeing things from the POV (not just visual, but also intellectual and
emotional) of each of the characters in turn, or sometimes watching in
third person. It feels _mysterious_ how this process works. I don't fully
understand it - I just do it. And yes, all of them have espoused positions
I don't necessarily share and done some things I don't necessarily endorse,
as well as some I DO approve - but I am NOT going to sit down with a
moralist and explain which is what, because it's irrelevent. (If a reader
wants to cheer this or be horrified by that, that's fine - that's part of
the emotional experience of reading.)


>"Certain types" is the operative term here, I think.  There are
>some kinds of constraints which I find hard to imagine *anyone*
>would find all that gratifying to write under.  "I only like this
>particular set of romantic pairings, so no one else in your story
>can be attracted to each other," for example, is unlikely to appeal
>much, unless the author happens to share the reader's particular
>preference.  "I don't like sad endings, so don't write one" is
>another.  "I can't stand romance subplots" would be a third.

Gah!

To me, it makes a BIG difference in who I believe my audience is. My
audience is not: "Anyone out there who might stumble on this fic somehow."
My audience is: "People who already like this particular type of story I'm
writing, or might like this one if they tried it." "My audience" is a
limited group, and it's self-selecting. My obligation is simply to give
them the best story of this type within my ability.

>In terms of the question of to what extent fanfic authors ought
>be concerned with the canonical author's feelings, the constraint
>would be: "Don't write anything you think that JKR wouldn't like
>if she read it."
>
>I cannot *imagine* writing comfortably under that constraint, not
>least of which because trying to second-guess what a complete
>stranger's emotional reaction to a piece of fiction might be is
>a totally hopeless endeavor.

Gack, me neither.
I *hope* JKR doesn't read too much fanfic, honestly. Not because it's bad
or shocking or would offend her, but because it can't be good for an author
who is still in the middle of the creative process herself to get too many
confusing different notions of her characters flashing back at her like
crazy funhouse mirrors. Overload! Overload!

In my other fandom, the original author has been dead for 30 years - alas,
no new installments of canon on the horizon, but also we don't have to
worry too much about his sensibilities (though we do worry out of love -
and I honestly hope that somehow he _can_ read the beautiful story someone
wrote for his birthday about him waking up in a pub in the company of his
most beloved characters, who toast and thank him).


>David:
>
>> And this type of writing has associated responsibilities you
>> haven't mentioned at all. The responsibility to be truthful. To
>> be unambiguous - ironically enough to ensure as far as possible
>> that what the reader interprets is *exactly* what you intend
>> (surely lawyers and list moderators must have to do this too)
>> and nothing else. . . .

In fiction, I fully expect that the reader's interpretation will NEVER be
*exactly* what I intended - in fact, urging a sort of sub-creativity of
interpretation on the reader's part is what makes literature truly great. I
don't believe that the writer's interpretation is irrelevant, but neither
is the only possible one, nor does it make other interpretations "wrong,"
nor can the writer's interpretation usually ever be completely known.
Literature is *designed* to take on an interpretational existence of its
own.

The Elkins:

>That's where you can get into the "promulgating poor values" problem,
>for example.  Fiction often puts loathsome opinions into the mouths
>of characters, or shows characters doing wicked things.  Sometimes
>people object to this on the grounds that it is insufficiently clear
>that the *author* actually condemns these attitudes or practices.
>This, they claim, makes the work of fiction "immoral."
>
>Now, as you know, I have no objection to criticizing books on such
>grounds, or to discussing the ramifications of the ambiguities
>inherent in their presentation.  I do, however, find it a bit odd
>when people seem to think that the *existence* of such ambiguities in
>the text is a Bad Thing.  I am very hard-pressed to think of an
>unambiguous work of fiction that I really consider all that *good.*

Hee. I have to admit, I don't understand the belief that literature - yes,
even children's literature- ought to be a very clear and unambiguous guide
to moral living and condemned if "good" and "bad" aren't simple and obvious
enough. Not only would such a story fail as _literature_, it would fail as
a representation of actual life, of any kind. Even stories with very
obvious "good" and "bad" guys, like Star Wars, LOTR, HP, have ambiguities -
flawed heroes who sometimes fail or make mistakes or are tempted,
occasionally sympathetic villains, characters in the grey zones, actions
that are not entirely simple "right" or "wrong" - and most literature is
less "clear" by far than that. Stiff allegories that lack these grey areas
and acknowledgements of imperfections just don't ring true for audiences on
any kind of human level, and I'd say are about as "dishonest" as it gets. I
wouldn't want to inflict that on children or anyone.

AV