I have another bone to pick: this time with the way much popular fiction is structured, written and sold to the public. Let’s start with fantasy.
One of the things that makes LoTR more powerful than any other fantasy story of our times (including HP – sorry guys), is its focus on heroic action by a small group of deeply outnumbered people and the way they bond together in the face of adversity. HP does this to an extent, but it never gets over the tired trope of ‘the kids are better at this than the adults’ – that crap needs to stop. It puts a childish ‘adults are stupid’ spin on the story that cheapens the whole thing. Yes, adults are stupid. So are kids. And kids have the added disadvantage that they have no experience to fall back on in times of trouble.
Harry always had to run to Dumbledore or some other adult whenever he really got in trouble. Even after the wizard died, Harry had to go running back to him. Aragorn had no one to fall back on except Gandalf, and he didn’t have the wizard available to him (alive or dead) for over half the story. Even Frodo could only lean on Samwise for support after the first third of the story. This is the difference between adults driving the story and kids (with ineffectual adults in the wings) driving it. Also, Tolkien was trying to create a myth about England – a very different focus than teenage angst.
I find that I need to write the truth – even if that breaks popular tropes. For instance: while some kids can be smarter than the adults they deal with – most aren’t. The people in fantasy settings are just as smart (or stupid) as people in science fiction settings. Just because they don’t have science doesn’t mean they’re dumb. And, of course, the unpopular truth that evil people don’t think of themselves as evil. All kinds of truth.
You see this kind of twisting of reality, the insistence on an author’s own prejudices dressed up as incontrovertible truth, in the very worst stories. You also see it, sadly, in some of the best stories as well. Personal religious beliefs dressed up as scientific fact, personal political beliefs lionized while the opposite side is demonized. But I think the worst instances occur when authors try to paint money or science or religion or technology as the bad guy. Not only does this make for a very weak story (a thing or concept can’t really be an antagonist), but it’s just plain false. Those things are tools – they can’t be good or evil on their own.
Only people can be truly good or evil – mostly they’re a combination of the two. If you have a problem seeing people as an amalgam of nice and bad, I suggest you take a closer look at people. Because people are what we write about, not science or art or money or God – if you want to write about those things, there’s plenty of publishers willing to talk to you. But stories – stories about people caught up in the chaos of life – that’s what other people mostly want to read.
People want to know about other people. They want to look at them, listen to them, talk to them, read about them. It’s the glue that holds groups, countries and civilizations together. We all want to know that others are just as goofy as we are. People want to know what makes other people tick – and what drives them to despair, violence and even murder. But I think that one need in people has been overlooked in our modern culture, or perhaps sidelined as maudlin or over-sentimental. We need to see people not only at their worst, but at their best. Audiences need to be shown that the same humans who can be petty, cowardly and greedy can also be loving, brilliant and generous. This is my aim, among others, in the things I write.
Years ago, I decided that I wanted to write about uncommon people in common settings or common people in uncommon settings. At the time I felt that writing about common people in common settings, or its opposite, was too simple or even boring. I was not a big fan of comic book heroes back then. I have since altered my opinions. I will still pursue stories of the first two varieties, but I’m beginning to see the attraction of the common/common type, and even the uncommon/uncommon variety. I can see that much of what is labelled ‘mainstream’ fiction is often no better written than the wildly fantastical stuff, and therefore offers a challenge. And aren’t we all just a little tired of superheroes?
It’s not just the truth of our characters we need to face, or the truth of the society we live in (or they do) – we also need to face the truth of our lives as writers. Anybody can do this job – anybody can be a writer. Some can do it well. It also seems that most of the difference between a ‘pretty good’ writer and a very good one is largely in how much work you put in. ‘Born’ writers, if they exist at all, seem to be as rare as ‘born’ athletes or ‘born’ artists. Sure, a person may start out with an innate love of books and writing, but I promise you that is no guarantee of literary success. Nearly everyone has to start with the basics, and then practice – practice – practice. There are no shortcuts, and you can’t wait for divine inspiration.
This doesn’t mean, by the way, that I don’t believe in divine inspiration. See my blog Care and Feeding of a Muse if you want proof. We just can’t wait for inspiration in order to write. As Dan Poynter said, ”If you wait for inspiration to write you’re not a writer, you’re a waiter.” And that, my friends, is the unvarnished truth.
Be well.
bcd