[HPforGrownups] Writing

[Katherine Coble]

No: HPFGUIDX 130452


On Jun 10, 2005, at 1:40 PM, madorganization wrote:

> > Alisha:
>
>  Alisha:
>  I disagree here.  I love to write "fiction".  I am very good at
>  coming up with stories that are interesting.  My problem is that
>  when I'm finished, any workshopping I've ever had done on my pieces
>  seems to bring up the same issue.  "What's at stake here?"  IOW, why
>  is this important?  A story, or a piece of fiction can be
>  interesting, entertaining, even moral, but in order for it to be
>  literature (something that has the ability to survive into future
>  generations as a work worthy of in-depth discussion) it must have
>  some theme or deeper significance from the author.


K:  No offense, but this sounds exactly like something from a workshop 
or a tenured professor.   It's the kind of ivory tower thinking that 
makes a lot of writers afraid to write.   I've had countless workshops, 
countless literature classes and they all say the same thing.   It's as 
though they approach writing like alchemy, and aren't satisfied unless 
they've got pure gold.  I've been writing for 20 years and had two 
small books published (both non-fiction.)

There are those who Write Literature, and starve.   There are those who 
write what they love to write, make a decent living, and make books 
that other people like to enjoy.

Neal Stephenson addresses this best in the Slashdot interview he gave 
here:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1518217

I highly recommend it as reading for anyone who wants to be an author.

I'm pleased to be friends with many published fiction authors, and we 
discuss this a great deal.  To a (wo)man they will tell you that the 
first thing you need to do is forget 90% of what you've been taught in 
school and workshops and just write because you love it.

>   Often times the
>  author may not be aware of what this is, but it should still be
>  there.  I see the difference between "fiction" and "literature" to
>  be similar to the difference between Art and something that is
>  artistic.  I do collages, that's artistic.  It requires a certain
>  asthetic sense, but I'm not an artist.  I don't seek for anything
>  beyond beauty in my work.  I think literature has to be more than
>  just a good book, it has to have larger social implications. 
>


K:  No.  That's what you've been told by clinicians and professors.   
It's simply not the case.   Look at Beethoven's 9th Symphony--written 
to express joy and beauty and the love of music.  It endures because we 
can feel those things through the centuries.





>  I have to be honest here.  I really don't think Harry Potter falls
>  into the literature category.  I love it, and it is exceptionally
>  good fiction, but I still don't see it as literature.
>


K:  Thank God.  Let Jonathan Franzen and A.S. Byatt do that type of 
thing, with all of the exhausting sex [1] and Meaning Of Life that no 
one will talk about outside of Twentieth Century Fiction 213.   Let 
Harry Potter live in the hearts and minds of readers for generations.  
Like Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird.  All 
personal stories told by authors who wanted to share a piece of their 
life and joy.



>
>
>  Alisha:who's spent the last 4 years studying "literature" and
>  wouldn't mind if she got to have a happy, fluffy ending for once,
>  just not with this series.
>
>

K:  Take it from someone who has been down that road.   Stop studying 
"literature" and start reading books.   It'll make you a far better 
writer than dissecting the symbolism of Willa Cather.

Katherine


[1]  http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-byatt110703.htm

"I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that 
there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is 
restful."

-----

I just want to know what kind of sex she's having that is so 
stressful?!?!?


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