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Would it hurt my chances to get published if I used the word friend of the family in my zombie apocalypse story? Ever since the Mark Twain thing I've always been so paranoid about wielding my artistic license
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Jan 15, 2013 23:06
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WYA posted:Would it hurt my chances to get published if I used the word friend of the family in my zombie apocalypse story? Ever since the Mark Twain thing I've always been so paranoid about wielding my artistic license Post the context and the actual passage, or any advice we give you is just going to be flat. If you have a character (that's established as openly racist) going, "gently caress you friend of the family!" before he kills him, that would make sense and be fine. If the character is weak, and it's ironi-speak, then you'd have a bigger problem. If it's from the speaker's point of view, it again comes down to character of the narrator/speaker. Essentially, the word won't get you blocked from many places (some individual editors may not like it), but the context you use it in is of the utmost importance. Editors are also adults in the same general field, and they're aware of the landscape. Seeing as it's a sore issue though, it's best that you make sure you work that part well.
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Jan 15, 2013 23:21
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WYA posted:Would it hurt my chances to get published if I used the word friend of the family in my zombie apocalypse story? Ever since the Mark Twain thing I've always been so paranoid about wielding my artistic license Erik already did a good job explaining it, but I'll add my two cents - does your story need "friend of the family" in it in order to further the narrative from either a character or plot perspective? If the answer is "yes" then you should use it, if the answer is "no" then you shouldn't. This is true for any and all words that can be viewed as inappropriate in given circumstances, not just racially charged ones. There are authors who can write a book full of "fucks" and "shits" and all kinds of profanity, then turn around and write a book with none. It's all about the context of how it's used and whether the story requires it. You should never use language for language's sake - it's fairly obvious when it's the case and can turn people off.
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Jan 16, 2013 00:03
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What is "the Mark Twain thing" in this case?
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Jan 16, 2013 04:15
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Cpt. Mahatma Gandhi posted:Erik already did a good job explaining it, but I'll add my two cents - does your story need "friend of the family" in it in order to further the narrative from either a character or plot perspective? If the answer is "yes" then you should use it, if the answer is "no" then you shouldn't. A few years later, in a writer's group I told a cleaned up version of the story and another lady got offended by the use of clitoris and actually left. So really sometimes, even when you use the proper term sensibility is going to be offended. I would say that friend of the family is one of the hard ones to get by with using. While some people don't see it different from other racial slurs, other people will be ready to fight anyone that they don't think has "earned the right" to use it. Even if they're quoting something or referencing something.
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Jan 16, 2013 04:29
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Martello posted:What is "the Mark Twain thing" in this case?
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Jan 16, 2013 04:32
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Re CB Tube Steak: Moral of the story along with that trigger warning horseshit - pussies abound and will always be offended by SOMETHING, so just write what you gotta write and don't worry about it. Some of the greatest stories ever written or put to film are disturbing and offensive and loving raw. Don't ever tiptoe through the roses with your writing. Re Didja Redo: Knew he was trollin, but I didn't know Huck Finn was censored. What in the loving gently caress? Martello fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jan 16, 2013 |
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Jan 16, 2013 04:33
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Oh yeah. Lot of schools were straight up dropping it from the curriculum, so a sanitised edition was released as a compromise. Didn't happen without a fight, though. Pretty much every Google result is people condemning it.
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Jan 16, 2013 04:51
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Martello posted:Re CB Tube Steak: Moral of the story along with that trigger warning horseshit - pussies abound and will always be offended by SOMETHING, so just write what you gotta write and don't worry about it. Some of the greatest stories ever written or put to film are disturbing and offensive and loving raw. Don't ever tiptoe through the roses with your writing. Yeah they took friend of the family out of Huck Finn all over the place. From what I remember they used to basically call the character friend of the family Jim and all of the editions I saw in school just said Jim. There is a lot of censorship out there in books, not all of it because of the offensiveness. Sometimes it seems that parents don't think it's right their kids know how things really were. Like that it used to be okay to call a person a friend of the family and no one batted an eye. And I pretty much guessed that I shouldn't tip toe, but it's hard to get out of the habit, especially after feeling like I had to for about a decade of writing.
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Jan 16, 2013 04:57
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Chillmatic posted:
This is true. Mind you, PTSD is Very Real, and people who have experienced a trauma will often have a powerful involuntary response to smells, words, sights, sensations, event sequences, and sounds which they have come to associate with that trauma. A veteran friend of mine once narrowly resisted the urge to snap the neck of a nurse who had sidled up behind him and took him by surprise. Luckily, he was able to resist his initial instinct to react to what his body interpreted as an enemy combatant sneaking up behind him. But, I tend to be extremely suspicious of people who make a grand or dramatic production about either providing or requiring trigger warnings. Truth be told, I find trigger warnings to be stupid, condescending, and mostly unhelpful or non-essential, especially now that people have started to major-time misuse and abuse them. (I've seen trigger warnings for the words "stupid" and "dumb," for instance.) But, I see absolutely no problem with just telling your readers that a story may contain descriptions of or references to rape, murder, war, torture, graphic sex, graphic sex between supreme court justices, or what have you, as a courtesy to them. That lets people what they're in for, and provides them with the option of bailing out early, if it's not their cup of tea. Granted, this is much trickier (and probably not as helpful or as essential) if you're writing 200-page novel for a large general audience. Often, the "blurb" or plot synopsis, if well-written, can help readers to decide whether a book will be too gritty for their taste. I concur with others here that you should just write the best story you can write. Haters gonna hate, and bitches gonna bitch. Tartarus Sauce fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jan 16, 2013 |
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Jan 16, 2013 05:33
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People who claim to need "trigger warnings" are usually insane.
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:I wrote a sex scene near the end of my novel and was trying to convince my beta reader, who was a bit posh and shy, just to read it. She asked me did it feature any racy words. I knew how she was about certain things, so I told her the "c word" was in it. She flipped out and got all offended. After a few minutes of confusion I said it was a proper medical term. She had thought I meant oval office, but I was referencing clitoris and just knew she was a bit shy about anything having to do with that sort of thing in discussion. Oh my advice wasn't concerning whether people get offended or not by something you write in a story, and it has nothing to do with using the "proper" term or utilizing provocative words in a sensible way. I mean, there are people out there who will be offended if you use "drat" or "hell" in your story or even if you simply allude to sex without ever explicitly showing it. People will always be offended by stuff in stories, but if the story requires offensive terms or phrases in order to better tell the story, then gently caress their sensitivities. The Rules Of Attraction, for example, would certainly be less offensive to certain people if all the sexual content was taken out, but then the entire purpose of the book would be lost. I agree with you that friend of the family is an extreme case, based on where our society is with regards to that word and its usage. My advice for the original poster was merely concerned with whether it had a purpose in the story or if they were just using the word to be edgy or offensive. If it's the former, then you should feel free to use whatever language you want. If it's the latter, it might want to consider scrapping it.
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Jan 16, 2013 16:01
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Didja Redo posted:I think he means the thing where Huckleberry Finn got censored for the n-word, but it doesn't matter because it likely wasn't a sincere question. Based on WYA's post history and rap sheet, where I've since found he likes to drop the n-bomb in basically every post he makes, I'm going to assume you're correct and admit I feel silly for answer the question now.
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Jan 16, 2013 16:09
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There's something seductive about first person, I know I'm terrible at it but I keep wanting to do the thing and I don't get why. I don't really like the way that first person is done most of the time.
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Jan 19, 2013 07:16
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:There's something seductive about first person, I know I'm terrible at it but I keep wanting to do the thing and I don't get why. I don't really like the way that first person is done most of the time. What's your issue with it? I mean in your writing and in poo poo you've read? It can be done really badly, just like anything else, but it's also a great opportunity to use a close, intimate view of a scene to tell the reader exactly what you want them to know. You can also use narration for the protag's internal monologue. That should be done sparingly. I think when I've seen first-person done badly, too much internal poo poo was one of the problems. Nobody wants to read your tough-guy PI examining his meatus for three paragraphs. I know I personally have been guilty of that kind of poo poo in the past, but I try to keep it to a minimum these days.
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Jan 21, 2013 22:38
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Martello posted:What's your issue with it? I mean in your writing and in poo poo you've read? First person was one of the first things I did when writing a long original novel, the character came out surprisingly nothing like me and she read as genuine from what I can remember. Every since then I haven't been able to write first person long term without feeling like things seemed silly or sort of off. It's really hard to explain the feeling. Have you ever cooked something you cook all of the time and that you've had others cook all of the time and then this one time you make it and you take that first taste and it tastes alright, but there is something off. You're not sure what it is, but you know it's gone. That's me with first person.
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Jan 22, 2013 07:00
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:First person was one of the first things I did when writing a long original novel, the character came out surprisingly nothing like me and she read as genuine from what I can remember. Every since then I haven't been able to write first person long term without feeling like things seemed silly or sort of off. It's really hard to explain the feeling. Have you ever cooked something you cook all of the time and that you've had others cook all of the time and then this one time you make it and you take that first taste and it tastes alright, but there is something off. You're not sure what it is, but you know it's gone. That's me with first person. No. And the answer is to read more.
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Jan 22, 2013 07:04
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Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:No. Most of what I read is first person. I don't mind third person at all, but it seems that first person is dominant. And the narrates usually have a very distinct voice. Or at least the kind of voice where I feel like this is "well done" first person and not the alternative. Like I love Dan Wells's first person narration in the John Cleaver books and Hollow City.
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Jan 22, 2013 07:13
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CB_Tube_Knight posted:Most of what I read is first person. I don't mind third person at all, but it seems that first person is dominant. And the narrates usually have a very distinct voice. Or at least the kind of voice where I feel like this is "well done" first person and not the alternative. Like I love Dan Wells's first person narration in the John Cleaver books and Hollow City. Then read more. That's how you learn how poo poo works. You're reading at X and you need to read at X+1. Repeat that formula until things begin to bleed.
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Jan 22, 2013 07:15
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Best book written in first-person is Snow Crash, which adds in present-tense to make it feel like one long action movie. Check that poo poo out. EDIT: Actually I'm stupid as hell, but Anathem is by the same author, actually is in first-person and also worth reading. Down With People fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 16:14
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Odd that you'd find yourself reading mostly first person. Most books tend to go third-person-limited- clearly in a character's voice, often, but still using "he" and "she" instead of "I".
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Jan 22, 2013 16:45
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Maxwell Lord posted:Odd that you'd find yourself reading mostly first person. Most books tend to go third-person-limited- clearly in a character's voice, often, but still using "he" and "she" instead of "I". I think it's common in certain types of fantasy. I don't know how it ends up happening, like right now it's definitely the trend in YA.
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Jan 22, 2013 17:24
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I'm a huge fan of third person limited because you can get into your character's head without having to adopt their speaking style (which can easily come off as inauthentic) and you have a little bit of leeway to get into things that a character might choose not to discuss if the narrative is actually coming directly from them. CB_Tube_Knight, I know we've had this conversation in the thread before, but you seriously need to widen your range of reading material. If you never see the alternatives you're going to just keep falling into the same traps again and again.
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Jan 22, 2013 17:31
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squeegee posted:I'm a huge fan of third person limited because you can get into your character's head without having to adopt their speaking style (which can easily come off as inauthentic) and you have a little bit of leeway to get into things that a character might choose not to discuss if the narrative is actually coming directly from them. I like third limited the most, it's what I write. But I started reading first person more often intentionally because a lot of books I wanted to read were in first and I wanted to try and better understand it (and how to write it). I don't have an issue finding books written in third person limited and it's what I write and what I feel is the most flexible for the reasons you've said. I think my first person narration comes off as too low or high brow for the character that I am writing, depending on who they are. There are probably two characters I can sort of write it with, but that's just because they're the I've been writing longer than any others without much change in their personality or history. I narrowed my view onto first person, though. It's not that I don't see other things.
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Jan 22, 2013 17:57
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Down With People posted:Best book written in first-person is Snow Crash, which adds in present-tense to make it feel like one long action movie. Check that poo poo out. Isn't Snow Crash in third person? Or am I mis-remembering?
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Jan 22, 2013 18:50
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To switch gears a little, I've been reading the Ciderhouse Rules, and am just blown away by the excellent prose and characterization. If you haven't read it yet, I'd really recommend it. At the same time though, reading it is bumming me out a little bit because it just shows the vast difference in the quality of writing between "genre" and "literary" fiction. Not that I have any interest in restarting the shitshow about THAT particular subject, but as I go through goodreads and amazon, what I notice seems to be this: 1. The more popular genre books, with few exceptions, all seem to be more or less the same crime thrillers, the latest soccer-mom-fuckfest hour, vaguely medieval dragons huzzah my lordship, or "dystopian" YA books in fantastic settings etc and so on. Those settings don't bother me as much as the fact that everyone agrees that the writing quality of such books is essentially garbage. 2. On the other hand, "literary" books mostly consist of boring fictionalized biopics or period pieces with admittedly rich interesting characters but who mostly just lie around on a basement floor and ponder the meaning of life in a small, mundane setting. I'd like to know if any of you have any recommendations for well-written books that might also be considered "genre" in that they take place in a fantastic or interesting setting or involve some kind of adventure, but that also have complex characterization and subtext/theme/etc. The particular genre or setting is less important to me than just being able to read something that tries to do both: interesting setting or concept combined with actually good writing and deeper characters than King Lord Fucknuts or Katniss or whatever. I'm sure this stuff's out there but I'm having really the worst time trying to find it. edit: as an example, the last book I read that, to me, fits the above criteria was Brave New World. Doesn't anybody write stuff like that anymore? 
Chillmatic fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 19:10
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With regards to point of view, what I use depends on how much I want to tip my hand. I almost never use third person omniscient, because I don't like putting all the cards out in one go. First person and third person limited are nice and comfy. Chillmatic I will never stop recommending Michael Chabon's 'Yiddish Policemen's Union'.
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Jan 22, 2013 19:46
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Chill, have you read any Dennis Lehane? What are your thoughts on his work?
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Jan 22, 2013 19:47
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Molly Bloom posted:With regards to point of view, what I use depends on how much I want to tip my hand. I almost never use third person omniscient, because I don't like putting all the cards out in one go. First person and third person limited are nice and comfy. Third person omniscient has never appealed to me when it comes to the long term. I could see a chapter or part of a chapter written in it and then switching back to first person or third person limited. I also can't think of the last book I read where the whole thing was in third person omniscient.
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Jan 22, 2013 19:59
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Posting in here too, because I'm new to CC, and didn't know who'd better field my question:The Bananana posted:Is this sentence too awkward?
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Jan 22, 2013 20:06
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Chillmatic you might dig the totally OTT 'Pyat Quartet' by Michael Moorcock (begins with Byzantium Endures). He's a genre legend famous for a nihilistic elf, but these books were a departure from everything previous, into the horror of interwar Europe. The protagonist, an insane, cocaine-abusing pedophiliac inventor with an all-consuming phobia of Islam and Jews is perhaps the ultimate unreliable narrator. If you reject The Kindly Ones as pornographic garbage you'll find little to enjoy, but the scope of the books coupled with the unfettered sci-fi approach is something to behold. Takes you from the lovely end of the Russian revolution thru the twilight years of silent film to the rise and fall of Fascism from the perspective of a guy who only survives through his own amorality. It's not ironic or funny or, for the most part, gratuitous in any way, it's horrible, but magnificent. Also, let me tout Russell Hoban's wares, if you've never read Riddley Walker you're missing an amazing post-apoc YA novel not written for idiots. Personally I doubt anyone writes that stuff anymore due to a brutal nexus of market forces vs. people being wankers, but there's probably proof to the contrary...
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Jan 22, 2013 20:11
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The Bananana posted:Posting in here too, because I'm new to CC, and didn't know who'd better field my question: Oooh, yeah, that's a bit of a mess. Even just taking out your second clause makes it more readable. 'Death drawing near, Sean’s hand finds, at last, a useful lever- the battery’s priming pump.' Nesting commas like this can be a bitch. The major problem is that the bit I've removed, 'crushed by thousands of pounds of pressure in an endless night' relates to nothing else in the sentence. What is being crushed? Not Death. I'm guessing it's Sean. Look at the tense there, too. Nothing else in that is past tense. 'Crushed', however, is.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:16
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Chillmatic, for recs, I know that Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun trilogy gets mentioned as a well-written "genre" book. Also anything by Ursula k. LeGuin. I personally like the Black Company series by Glen Cook. Depends on how you define "well-written", though; it's not the best written, but I find it entertaining and not falling into the usual fantasy story pitfalls. If you want to try to find more good genre writers, you could try looking through the interviews with genre writers on the Paris Review website. Once I'm at home on a computer, I'll add some links to this post.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:21
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Hmm... okay. I wanted to add some colour to the idea of Death, you know? "Death drawing near..." works, but I'd like to embellish it. Perhaps I'm just falling prey to purple prose. Thank you for your response, and explanation.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:25
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Chillmatic posted:I'd like to know if any of you have any recommendations for well-written books that might also be considered "genre" in that they take place in a fantastic or interesting setting or involve some kind of adventure, but that also have complex characterization and subtext/theme/etc. Already answered: Echo Cian (paraphrased) posted:I finished Among Thieves by Douglas Hulik a few weeks ago. It's very much character-driven, with just enough worldbuilding to serve the story. I also like Carol Berg (namely Song of the Beast, and especially her Lighthouse Duet and Collegia Magicka series, interesting settings/themes) and Lynn Flewelling (Nightrunner series, first three books only) for characterization, though Lynn's got a lot of technical problems. I'm interested in comparing your idea of good characters and writing with mine. The Bananana posted:Posting in here too, because I'm new to CC, and didn't know who'd better field my question: This is barely comprehensible. Death draws near, crushed by thousands of pounds of pressure in an endless night (If you MUST keep this, put it here; but without context it seems like total nonsense (how can death get crushed?), so I'd sooner chop it). Sean’s hand at last finds a useful lever: the battery’s priming pump. Alternatively, to keep it a single sentence: With death drawing near, Sean's hand... Like Molly Bloom said above, don't nest commas. Keep events sequential rather than simultaneous (something I'm working on myself). Trying to describe so much at once just turns it into a mess. e: Yeah that's not embellishment, that's gibberish. If you're going to embellish the idea, find words that make sense together.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:32
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Chillmatic posted:To switch gears a little, I've been reading the Ciderhouse Rules, and am just blown away by the excellent prose and characterization. If you haven't read it yet, I'd really recommend it. Literary fiction a lot of times in the US seems to be school endorsed. In colleges down here if you're in a creative writing program you can't write genre fiction, so a lot of people who would write genre fiction don't go to those classes for that reason. What's left is people who really want to write literary fiction, but the market isn't viable with it for a reason. It's just out of style the same way other things are out of style right now. Like I said earlier I'm not really a fan of most of what I've read of it. I had no problem with Hunger Games, American Gods, or Mistborn...the writing isn't poetic (then again I tend not to like poetic writing when there's a high volume of it), but I love the stories and characters in those books. It's escapism, but in a lot of cases there's lessons to be learned about things in those books. Like a passage in Mistborn that literally stopped me dead in my tracks because I was shocked the writer had the insight to really understand and write what he had written. If you've read the book, it was the passage where one of the Skaa characters is talking to another one and he claims that maybe their race was just born to be slaves because they're hardier, have more children and etc. The passage struck home with me because as a black person I've heard other blacks say the same thing about us, that we're predisposition to servitude and manual labor. These kind of parallels are what I thrive on when it comes to the books I like. But people are going to write what they like or what's marketable. With more and more people readjusting fan fiction into novels (like Cassandra Claire and the Fifty Shades lady) there's going to be a lot more things out there that come up as pet projects of a person who normally would have never gotten into the gate. Publishers aren't stupid and they're going to start scooping these things up and paying these people. So I would expect to see less and less literary fiction out there in the coming years. CB_Tube_Knight fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Jan 22, 2013 |
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Jan 22, 2013 20:33
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Says the guy who literally has no idea what literary fiction is. Seriously, stop. You're embarrassing yourself.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:48
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Echo Cian posted:
Oh, you can do nested commas, you just have to be damned sure they work. Quick (and overly reductive) test? Try taking out the bit in between the commas. Is it still a sentence? If yes, you win. I'm only being such a bitch because I'm avoiding editing my own crap right now. Even though it needs done, like, yesterday.
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Jan 22, 2013 20:52
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squeegee posted:Says the guy who literally has no idea what literary fiction is. Do you have to be such a child all of the time? You cry when people bring up anything you don't like. You're not saying anything constructive or even an opinion about what I'm saying. I think you're wrong about who is the one embarrassing themselves. Also what definition did I give of literary fiction that was wrong? You don't provide any personal experience or anything to back up what you say. It just sounds like you're being petty because your opinion doesn't line up with what I'm saying.
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Jan 22, 2013 21:04
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Molly Bloom posted:Oh, you can do nested commas, you just have to be damned sure they work. True, a better way to say it would have been "don't nest commas often." If a single non-list sentence is broken up by five, though, might want to take a good second look at it. 
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Jan 22, 2013 21:09
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It's true. Literary fiction is a vast conspiracy of snooty professors telling their students that, no, they can't waste everyone's time with their dogshit space opera or elf story. I have a chip on my shoulder because my teachers made me write stories about sad dads and dead dogs when I wanted to write about the titanium pirates of Neo-Atlantis. Obviously the state of the medium is in decline and soon we will all wallow in lazily written fanfics, and I will smile and set alight my copy of "Best American Short Stories" and throw it onto literary fiction's funeral pyre
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Jan 22, 2013 21:49
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