🚀 go-pugleaf

This was going to be e-mail, but I thought it might provoke an interesting
thread. Its about trying to work with non-genre people when you write genre.

Yeah, well, I took this course from a Thriller writer, so I thought he'd
have some space in his soul, perhaps, for SF. He admitted in the
first class that he hated Vonnegut and Delillo because of their SF
connections...I handed in a few non SF stories I'd done...

Waste of time; money; soul. Don't take a course from George Higgins.

The other writers were all struggling with LITERATURE. This seemed to
amount to a 'license to Bore.' ;-)

Most teachers will let you know their feelings up front; ask them what, if
any SF/Fantasy/Genre they've read--expand the list to include some
'literary' types, Lem, Vonnegut, Borges, etc. If they
haven't read *them* what do you really have to say to this person? Without
shared texts, criticism becomes quite difficult, I've found.

One of the criticisms of genre writing by the academy is that you have to
have read in the genre first to 'get' it. That a vocabulary gets built up,
of shared terms, ideas, etc, and without this, the non genre reader is
left hopelessly struggling. This is mainly nonsense; but the grain of
truth in it is that non genre readers have less of an ability to hold
a fact in abeyance; to put some strange bit of information on a shelf, and
think; this guy is a good writer, he'll let me know before too long what a
Smerlf is, and what it's good for.

If you adjust your prose for the teachers and classes low tolerance for
this, you run the risk of boring the genre reader, who is helplessly mired
in narrative, as you explain EVERYTHING because the poor non SF literate
audience can't handle not understanding something, even for a second.

I've had workshops with non genre people; after they read my story, I
would tell them what had happened, and then they all thought that it was
simply wonderful.  They let me know where I'd lost them. The stories got
longer. None of them were ever any good, so it's hard to say if this
experience was worthwhile or not... Actually, it got me writing. So it was
worthwhile. I found my genre writing group, and was saved...

For even though we are all far apart on what type of genre writing we're
doing (Steven Kind style horror, soft SF, light and dark fantasy; analog
style SF; cyberpunk.) we all share a common credo. To sell. To fascinate.
To Entertain; to amuse, to horrify. To grab a reader and keep
her from turning on Cheers in syndication.

This sounds like pandering, but it's not...intent is important. If I
sense, as I do in a lot of 'best-selling' fiction, a cold blooded attempt
to pique my interest, I'm left cold... Soulless button pushing doesn't work
either...

A fine artist friend of mine drags me to museums by saying, "don't worry
Jay, it isn't *good* for you." This is what distinguishes the art I like
from the art I dislike. I tend to run screaming from stuff that disregards
my interests and attention... 

Anyway, be careful about the course; I've seen people end up apologizing
for writing genre; or getting defensive over the merits of
genre; or trying to convert the class to genre; none of this helps anyone in
the slightest. If you think you can avoid these traps, go for it.

Whatever gets you writing...

Jay