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Singularity - writing style, etc
I was just in a fest that had a poll where you could guess who wrote what while people were still anonymous. I was surprised that so many had guesses about who wrote what, and it really got me thinking about style. Some people certainly have a singular voice--something that is always the same no matter what they are writing. Others have certain elements or character types or details that are always likely to show up, no matter how generic the voice. Still others will always write a certain story; no matter how original and unique the plot, they are always the same tone or style of mystery, etc.
Let us proceed with the following on the premise that being recognizable or not is not a mark of quality. I feel like there are many great writers who are recognizable, and many who are not. I just wrote "are hot." I . . . really like writing, guys. Singularity is wonderful, but so is the ability to adapt different styles or diverse elements.
Per usual, I have questions. You, like RadioShack, have answers.
You can answer them in comments or in your own journal, but if in your own journal it'd be lovely if you'd drop a link, so I know it's there and discussion can happen! I think this is such an interesting topic. As a note, these questions pertain to how you feel about your writing, not your readership. You may feel that not enough people read you to recognize you, which is a totally valid point, or maybe you would never write anonymously, but I'm talking about how you feel about the nature of your writing, not the reception of it, if that makes sense. Also, there are just as many questions for readers, so if you don't write or would rather not address the writing questions, there's more! And feel free to adapt the quesitons for fanart, or vidding--let's discuss, guys!
Do you feel your writing is recognizable? Why or why not?
What do you think gives you away?
Have you written a fic that you feel best exemplifies what makes you recognizable? What was it?
What's a fic you've written that you feel is unrecognizable?
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are recognizable?
What gives those writers away?
What's a fic that you would rec that you feel best exemplifies their recognizability?
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are less recognizable?
What are some fics by those writers that you feel exemplifies difficulty in recognizing them?
For answering with ease!
Let us proceed with the following on the premise that being recognizable or not is not a mark of quality. I feel like there are many great writers who are recognizable, and many who are not. I just wrote "are hot." I . . . really like writing, guys. Singularity is wonderful, but so is the ability to adapt different styles or diverse elements.
Per usual, I have questions. You, like RadioShack, have answers.
You can answer them in comments or in your own journal, but if in your own journal it'd be lovely if you'd drop a link, so I know it's there and discussion can happen! I think this is such an interesting topic. As a note, these questions pertain to how you feel about your writing, not your readership. You may feel that not enough people read you to recognize you, which is a totally valid point, or maybe you would never write anonymously, but I'm talking about how you feel about the nature of your writing, not the reception of it, if that makes sense. Also, there are just as many questions for readers, so if you don't write or would rather not address the writing questions, there's more! And feel free to adapt the quesitons for fanart, or vidding--let's discuss, guys!
Do you feel your writing is recognizable? Why or why not?
What do you think gives you away?
Have you written a fic that you feel best exemplifies what makes you recognizable? What was it?
What's a fic you've written that you feel is unrecognizable?
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are recognizable?
What gives those writers away?
What's a fic that you would rec that you feel best exemplifies their recognizability?
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are less recognizable?
What are some fics by those writers that you feel exemplifies difficulty in recognizing them?
For answering with ease!
A Little about Recognisability
Interesting question -- if you mean fanfic writing, no, because I try to be inventive in different ways and few ever guess I wrote a story, and I work for a "transparent" style because there just doesn't seem a call for literary style, and the main characters I use for POV don't seem the sort to have a really identifiable style. If that makes sense. However, if lit crits WANTED to, I believe they could find my "tells;" I'm uncomfortably aware of them.
What do you think gives you away?
Some things just put me in certain categories: sf writer, doesn't like writing anyone as The Enemy, things work out in the end -- and in fanfic, plot as important as character to me. Characterisation is pretty recognisable too. I also tend to find the world funny, and words funnier, so there tends to be double meanings in most commentary. I also like to write dialogue as though I were an eavesdropper on a college campus where fairly smart people go. That's how I learned to write dialogue, after all. I don't think I can write dim characters credibly, or judgmental characters sympathetically, so those come out as if an elitist were making fun of them, alas.
Have you written a fic that you feel best exemplifies what makes you recognizable? What was it?
Gates, which is my rl magnum opus if I ever finish revising. In it, there are no completely bad guys, although there's a war and the audience will identify with one side (as I do;) character takes precedent over plot, so it gets quite longish with events that don't further plot at all -- with my original characters, one hangs out with them and they're procrastinators. There are lyrical passages, which is how I tend to write climactic scenes, because I have a lot of training in poetry and that's how I learned to write emotional action. These things, except the lyricism, are all present in my fanfic as well, but working with existing characters mean I can't spread myself as much creatively. I also note that in my H/D fiction I not only have recurrent themes, but recurring plot interests -- for example, somehow theatre keeps cropping up. PTSD has been referred to obliquely in all of them, but I think that's out of my system with Alohomora, so hopefully that won't give me away if/when I participate in future fests.
What's a fic you've written that you feel is unrecognizable?
If people read teh LOTR fics I wrote as Lost Owl, I think they wouldn't recognize the writer as the same person, just because I really am character driven and the characters are so different. for example, "Betters" is a Frodo/Sam fic and I don't think it resembles in plot OR character Harry/Draco, especially not Squib, which is my favourite H/D. But if you've "got" my sense of humour and my political interests, there would be resemblances to pursue.
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are recognizable?
Oh, Maya for certain! She stands out, really, because her style is language timed for humour, and she has her own "voice." She brought so many things to fandom which are recognisably her characterisations: Harry as a kind of socially incompetent loser, Draco as a coffee addict, Hermione and Ron as not suited, Pansy as a delightful snarky person who would be well-suited to Ron (don't get me started on that one!) and so forth. I love her work, rl too, but frankly I think her characters were predictably similar. Again, that's fanfic for you. Recognizable styles? Tigersilver and Wemyss have really distinctive styles I think of as kinda "early Peter Wimsey," very before-the-Great-War language. Again, I love the work. Still, it's so very "period" pure that I can't read a lot at once without needing to read some transparent stylists just to clear my brain. Sarasgirl is another who's recognisable, though in her case her plots and to some extent her characters vary significantly, and her writing style is fairly transparent. I mostly recognise her because she's simply that good, and then I notice certain ... quirks? Standards? Her characters are good people in general, and the bad ones aren't "Darkly" bad but just human bad; there's always lots of unexpected sorts of magics, and she more than anyone else I've read gives me the sense of H/D as normal people living relatively normal lives. and Pir-8fancier like Maya has ordinary people slightly larger-than-life lives credibly, with enormous humour, but her characters strike me as somewhat more sophisticated than Maya's. Pir-8 is about the only writer I know who can write Snape well and still make me like him, consistently. I haven't figured out the rest of what makes her recognisable, unless you will accept the highly non-literary description of a quality I call "I'm in good hands." From the first sentence, you know this is going to be interesting, fun, and challenge your stereotypes of character.
What gives those writers away?
Oops. See above.
I will add one other kind of writer: those with a literary bent who use angst as character development. This will sound awful -- and I certainly won't name them -- but their style is so opaque that it's interchangeable among them, kind of like the novels I was required to read in high school -- Edith Wharton, The Mill on the Floss, and so forth. The really fine ones among those can write fic which would win a book prize. Nonetheless, I could never say, "This story is X's, and this is Y's because they sound too much alike, their characters are suffering, and a sense of humour doesn't manifest itself much, in either character or author. The style draws attention to itself by being ... again, I haven't a word, but I used to write like that because I thought I was supposed to: " The diamond panes' wood frames were so old that the rain was seeping through. The dust she ran her finger through turned to a small line of mud. It was so easy to remember then that glass was a liquid too, and in this old abbey had flowed for 600 years and thickened the lower window, while leaving the diamond tips vulnerable to shattering and to rain."
Well, that's an awful first draft, but I don't feel like editing it, so just believe me: the subject, the image, the sadness are all examples of the literary genre.
What's a fic that you would rec that you feel best exemplifies their recognizability?
Oh, I think one needs to rec at least two so they can be compared. But this is way too long anyway. So: if people HAVE any of Maya's fiction, probably the quintessential later work is ... oh blast my brain; an AU where Draco is a Ravenclaw. If you compare that to her first long fic, "Underwater Light," you can see that the characters and the themes and above all the tongue-in-cheek style (when she's not committing angst) are pretty much the same, though obviously she grew a heckuva lot as a write during that time. Pir-8s "Snape the home Fries Nazi" to me is perfect example: you believe the unbelievable (Snape as a cranky cook, Harry as a lost soul, both as lovers) willingly. My personal favourite is "Lettered" and its sequel, "Lush Life" (wrote it as "lust" the first time!) where you believe Draco in all his snarky, self centered, complicated wholeness and just... well, you're in good hands. Sarasgirl's recently finished "Turn" and her earlier, beautiful "Foundations" series exemplify her magical world building and the ordinary human beings who are struggling in it -- and also includes (in 'turn') the only Lucius I've both liked, laughed at hysterically, and believed in.
What are some fanfic writers you admire that you feel are less recognizable?
Resonant? Though that's cheating, because I haven't read much. But her writing shows literary discipline, in the sense that it's following various writing rules and knows how to do that well. I would expect if she wrote another major story that it would follow those rules, and would therefore look completely different in some ways. I never know what's up with a Stray-the-Grey story because they're profoundly original in plot, and the style's not recognisable because English isn't her first language so the betaing makes a difference to how things are said. I think she's 'way undervalued and should become Hungary's premium sf writer, but then, I'm a bit biased.
What are some fics by those writers that you feel exemplifies difficulty in recognizing them?
Try Stray's HDHols 10 fic on broomstick racing at Disneyland (Disneyworld?) . If you haven't read "Transfigurations" by Resonant, you probably aren't a member of H/D fandom anyway.But if you haven't, you HAVE to. I'm sorry about not-linking. I don't have the links and they always take up two or three lines because I can never remember how to code LJ links.
Sorry -- a lot -- for the length. Interesting questions; I look forward to reading other people's answers.
Re: A Little about Recognisability
This interests me. Do you mean the particular canon doesn't lend itself to a literary style, readers don't seem interested in it, or fanfic itself doesn't lend itself?
It interests me as regards the first, because literary style seems to be the basic modus operendi in BtVS fandom. Is this because the canon is in some way more poetic? And if so, what is it? The writing is poetic, but the themes lend themselves to poetry; I feel that that is the case in HP too though, depending on which themes you're drawing from.
I've written some fairly literary things in HP and felt that they were out of place, and written some fairly literary things in BtVS and felt that they fit precisely, but I could never figure out whether that was due to the canon, or due to what everyone else was writing, how different it was from mine, and how people responded to the fics.
I think Maya is incredibly recognizable also, but not just for style and characterizations. Her themes, it seems to me, always ask this question, "What makes us human?" or more correctly, "What makes us worthy of being treated as humans?" or "What makes us worthy of being treated as equal?" It's not something I've seen many other authors address without hitting us over the head with it or tackling it more directly. I feel her original stuff does this too, which is why I love it, even though I think she's still growing as an original writer.
Still, it's so very "period" pure that I can't read a lot at once without needing to read some transparent stylists just to clear my brain.
This is so interesting! I've taken to reading 19th c novels with contemporary sci fi, fantasy, or YA in between. I used to be able to gobble up Jane Eyre after Portrait of a Lady after Vanity Fair in my teens, and yet now I find that I always need a rest. It would be interesting to write an HP fic in a more Victorian style, because Victorian seems to be the mindset of wizarding world. Huh.
their style is so opaque that it's interchangeable among them and
their characters are suffering, and a sense of humour doesn't manifest itself much, in either character or author.
This so interesting; I know exactly what you mean. I felt that way about Madam Bovary. God, the writing is good. Important things are being said, and said well. But it's all been said before and said very well a thousand times, and I just get so tired. I can see feeling that way about Wharton, though the Wharton I've read stands out and is a bit more sparkly in my mind (possibly because I've only read The Age of Innocence).
But I actually feel this way more about contemporary writers, which is interesting because contemporary authors use far, far much more humor than the Modernists (it was Modernists we were speaking of, correct?) And yet--oh, say, Johnathan Franzen, that crowd, it is always the same detail-packed commentary on the people who are all dysfunctional in the same way. It is all very complex and "look how clever I am" and incredibly deftly witty yet also poignant and crass, because, "WE ARE CONTEMPORARY AND WE ARE NOT AFRAID TO HANDLE THESE SUBJECTS."
It makes me want to go to sleep. Unless it's Pynchon, who I believe is the father of this mess and better at it than all the rest.
Re: Maya, you mean If You've A Ready Mind. Imo her quintessential way-she-writes-now thing is Quality of Mercy, which I think stands for her original stuff, too.
Oh, saras girl finished Turn? I should go read it! I had to stop because I couldn't hack just reading pieces at a time. Even though I have to do that with some WIPs because they're so good I just can't wait.
I feel like our perceptions of the characters and our tastes must be different, because some things you mention weren't really buyable to me; I wonder if that plays into recognition of an author at all.
Re: A Little about Recognisability
We may have to take this offline eventually just for length -- we both like to write looong. I did mean "If You've a Ready Mind." I didn't care for "Quality of Mercy" at all because the ending belied the rest (you probably read my comments on that. For Maya, the most significant difference between her fanfic (most of it) and her original fic that I could find is that she is a guaranteed stitch in fanfic, with the possible exception of Underwater Light; can't quite remember that one in detail. "Drop Dead Gorgeous" is my absolute favourite work of hers; it combines angst and humour I think seamlessly, which is always nicer than either separately to me.
Yes, it's finished -- I think even the epilogue. v. long, and it doesn't let one down -- which I considered a MAJOR possibility, because I saw no way it could end happily, or even... contentedly? Well worth it. As to Victorian, I totally agree -- I'd also like to see Draco as Sherlock and HP as Watson, only magical. Stray did a great story based on that, but more modern.... and with the casting reversed. Well, it's more CSI with magic, I guess. Loved it any way.
"Some things you mention don't resonate..." do you mean for all the writers, or just Maya or Sarasgirl? I definitely assume everyone's taste varies (hence my justification for researching one fandom for my scholarly work) and it's why it varies which is fascinating. I mean, both of us probably avoid ffnet like the plague, except for certain reliably rec'd works. So we're both choosing among a raft of usually better-written fics, and get to be pickier on taste.
The genre stuff is someday going to be a chapter in my book, if I ever can focus on it -- the cultural studies theory one, not my novel, which gets first priority! I think I posted some in a really rough form on lj a year or so ago. I'd love if we could talk more about it; I have a horrible time writing theory when no one I know really wants to read critical theory, or any other kind, and grad school was a constant barrage of argument and synthesis.
At any rate, the short version is to answer the question "what is genre," I look at the genres in HP fanfic and conclude that in fact there's more than one audience for the same body of fic -- or to be more precise, the multiple audiences lead to a shifting definition of what a "good story" is and should contain. (The underresearched part is my not interacting sufficiently with ffnet readers to find out why in the world they recommend "good fics" which fits NONE of my standards, nor any English teacher's. clearly, they've developed their concept of the genre themselves, which fits my specialty -- audience theory -- and is therefore quite exciting, since most of us in the f-lists I know have more or less applied the concept of what makes good reading from English classes and such.
In the process of pondering this and other things, and going to Wiscon the scandalous year a slash fanfic was on the longlist of nominations and everyone was yelling at everyone about it, I started trying to develop a definition of genre which actually represents how I see genre functioning in real life. Basically, since I'm a crit theorist, it's based on economics: genre depends on marketing niche. (And why couldn't I think of that lovely soundbite when I was writing my presentation for wiscon?)!!! So among genres, the literary genre, which is of course generally seen as a non-genre by literary-trained people, is the "real" term for what the literary world -- academy and traditional -- defines as "good."
Does that make sense? It's really hard to summarise what I hope will end up a chapter in a critical analysis and ethnography of fandom as a site of struggle.
your point on themes is well-taken, btw. I'm biased here, because I always interpret themes from my own bias and tend to miss the writers' intention of what the theme is. I think Sarasgirl also has that, and some of the others as well (like Resonance). I prefer stories where people are complicated and no one's perfect, but some try to be good more than others -- so I guess that's the connecting theme for me.
Gads, and I still haven't commented on your literary comments! I have opinions, but will save them for a time when I've already committed less verbiage. Suffice it to say, we studied Ethan Frome and Silas Marner, neither of them inspiring. I loved thackeray since I was 13, and read him without knowing it was literature, which helped -- teachers of the literary genre ask the wrong questions, generally, imnsho. You understand, I was a maverick English major all the way to my MFA-poetry, at which point I saw the light and switched fields to Rhetoric, where I fit nicely. So I do tend to think of my writing as Art, and the workshops at UW helped me along there. The Iowa workshop as far as I can tell seem to think of Fiction as something a little more... well, like a craft, I suppose. No arete. I am absolutely convinced that the "look how clever I am" phenomenon you describe -- and I totally agree with -- comes from the Iowa workshop primarily. Remind me sometime to tell you about me watching "The World According to Garp" with a less cynical poet. Workshops are extremely useful, but dangerous places: shove-tail-in-mouth-and-swallow sort of places, demanding ever more inventive style and ever less real people.
I'll talk about Seattle in the other post! Love to hear your comments on this. What is your profession?
Re: A Little about Recognisability