A Response to Lois McMaster Bujold's GoH Speech
Mmmm. Thanks to sartorias, I just read the GoH speech Lois McMaster Bujold
gave for this year's WorldCon.
My commentary is a response to many of the points raised by her speech, so the only real cohesiveness it contains is that contained within her speech. If the points herein seem scattered, that is entirely because I've left out the bridges; her speech holds together perfectly well.
Lois McMaster Bujold gives three definitions for genre. The first, she indicates, is from the writers' perspective: "any group of works in close conversation with one another." The second, from the readers' perspective: "a 'community of taste', closely allied to but not quite the same as the first." The third is: "a marketing category, signified by all those labeled sections in the bookstore." I really appreciated the distinctions she made and am very glad to have her lay these three definitions out, side-by-side, that I can better examine them.
As always, I feel that her perspicacity and ability to convey with clarity her thoughts on some concept or idea help me to better understand something that I may have understood on an intuitive level, but had trouble putting into words. When I read her answer to the apparently perenial question, "Is SF dead or dying?" I immediately thought of the pheonix, which dies and is reborn from the ashes, but I also saw this as a continuum, perhaps not so much a single pheonix, but an infinite number of them, with the lives of many overlapping in time.
When, in the context of her response to questions about the direction in which SF is moving, or should be moving, she said, "But -- as if I knew where it was going! I generally don't even know where my next chapter is going," she not only addressed her personal rejection of a question that presupposes that an author, any author, knows where the rest of the authors will take things, but also reaffirmed all those writers who write as if they are discovering the story, rather than as architects who build the story carefully and according to plan. Despite the fact that I was aware through her essays of her preference to work without a constricting plot*, I found myself wondering, reading this, how much her willingness to admit this has led to the sea change I've seen regarding writers who will admit to writing in a more intuitive way, rather than adhering strickly to a pre-existing plot. Now, maybe I just didn't know the right people, but when I first began interacting with other authors, it was my experience that the advice I was given by professional writers, by books about writing, and by writers in writing groups, was to always work from a plot when writing a work of any length or complexity. Since I've found trying to come up with plots in the absence of the story is an exceeding difficult task for me, and one which tends to interfere with, rather than support my writing, I've noted and felt reassured by those few authors (or at least it used to be few) who would admit that they also preferred to work this way. But, more recently, I've discovered more and more writers who are not afraid to admit this. I haven't been taking carefull notes, so I can't go back and compare if what individual writers say about this particular part of the writing process has changed, so this could be entirely my perception and not a real phenominon at all.
At one point, Bujold said, "I am allergic to being held responsible for things over which I actually have no control." OMG does this strike a chord with me. Not so much as a writer, but as a human being. Many, many years ago, my ex-mother-in-law got into EST** and paid for me and my ex to attend one of their seminars. There were many points at which I would have walked out, had it not been for the fact that it wasn't my money and that my then-husband was to all intents and purposes drinking up what I saw as an attempt at brainwashing. One of the things that has really stuck with me was an insistence on taking responsibility for everything. Among the examples used within the training I attended of things for which each of us should accept full responsibility, were the roaches in a hotel that one checks into in a strange city, and the genocide and other atrocities commited during World War II when I had not yet been born.*** So, yes, I share this allergy with Bujold. It may be my only chosen and desired allergy.
There is just so much grist for the mill in Bujold's speech. It's packed with cool ideas. Far more that I feel it's fair to respond to here, even when hiding them under a cut.
I highly recommend that if you haven't already done so, you hop over and read her speech. You won't be sorry.
* Please note that I'm not trying to suggest that I really know how Bujold works, or that she never plots. If you're curious about how she works, I recommend you read her many essays and interviews. Each of the omnibus editions of her work usually contains an essay and a number of her essays and interviews can be found on The Bujold Nexus - The Lois McMaster Bujold Homepage.
** Note that the neutrality of the article I referece is disputed. I am one of those who would dispute it's neutrality.
*** A very science-fictional sort of concept, as I understood it, which seemed to me to partake of the idea that each of us creates the world in which we exist. Which may be cool in a story, but really irked me when someone tried to foist it upon me, with all its attendant baggage.
gave for this year's WorldCon.
My commentary is a response to many of the points raised by her speech, so the only real cohesiveness it contains is that contained within her speech. If the points herein seem scattered, that is entirely because I've left out the bridges; her speech holds together perfectly well.
Lois McMaster Bujold gives three definitions for genre. The first, she indicates, is from the writers' perspective: "any group of works in close conversation with one another." The second, from the readers' perspective: "a 'community of taste', closely allied to but not quite the same as the first." The third is: "a marketing category, signified by all those labeled sections in the bookstore." I really appreciated the distinctions she made and am very glad to have her lay these three definitions out, side-by-side, that I can better examine them.
As always, I feel that her perspicacity and ability to convey with clarity her thoughts on some concept or idea help me to better understand something that I may have understood on an intuitive level, but had trouble putting into words. When I read her answer to the apparently perenial question, "Is SF dead or dying?" I immediately thought of the pheonix, which dies and is reborn from the ashes, but I also saw this as a continuum, perhaps not so much a single pheonix, but an infinite number of them, with the lives of many overlapping in time.
When, in the context of her response to questions about the direction in which SF is moving, or should be moving, she said, "But -- as if I knew where it was going! I generally don't even know where my next chapter is going," she not only addressed her personal rejection of a question that presupposes that an author, any author, knows where the rest of the authors will take things, but also reaffirmed all those writers who write as if they are discovering the story, rather than as architects who build the story carefully and according to plan. Despite the fact that I was aware through her essays of her preference to work without a constricting plot*, I found myself wondering, reading this, how much her willingness to admit this has led to the sea change I've seen regarding writers who will admit to writing in a more intuitive way, rather than adhering strickly to a pre-existing plot. Now, maybe I just didn't know the right people, but when I first began interacting with other authors, it was my experience that the advice I was given by professional writers, by books about writing, and by writers in writing groups, was to always work from a plot when writing a work of any length or complexity. Since I've found trying to come up with plots in the absence of the story is an exceeding difficult task for me, and one which tends to interfere with, rather than support my writing, I've noted and felt reassured by those few authors (or at least it used to be few) who would admit that they also preferred to work this way. But, more recently, I've discovered more and more writers who are not afraid to admit this. I haven't been taking carefull notes, so I can't go back and compare if what individual writers say about this particular part of the writing process has changed, so this could be entirely my perception and not a real phenominon at all.
At one point, Bujold said, "I am allergic to being held responsible for things over which I actually have no control." OMG does this strike a chord with me. Not so much as a writer, but as a human being. Many, many years ago, my ex-mother-in-law got into EST** and paid for me and my ex to attend one of their seminars. There were many points at which I would have walked out, had it not been for the fact that it wasn't my money and that my then-husband was to all intents and purposes drinking up what I saw as an attempt at brainwashing. One of the things that has really stuck with me was an insistence on taking responsibility for everything. Among the examples used within the training I attended of things for which each of us should accept full responsibility, were the roaches in a hotel that one checks into in a strange city, and the genocide and other atrocities commited during World War II when I had not yet been born.*** So, yes, I share this allergy with Bujold. It may be my only chosen and desired allergy.
There is just so much grist for the mill in Bujold's speech. It's packed with cool ideas. Far more that I feel it's fair to respond to here, even when hiding them under a cut.
I highly recommend that if you haven't already done so, you hop over and read her speech. You won't be sorry.
* Please note that I'm not trying to suggest that I really know how Bujold works, or that she never plots. If you're curious about how she works, I recommend you read her many essays and interviews. Each of the omnibus editions of her work usually contains an essay and a number of her essays and interviews can be found on The Bujold Nexus - The Lois McMaster Bujold Homepage.
** Note that the neutrality of the article I referece is disputed. I am one of those who would dispute it's neutrality.
*** A very science-fictional sort of concept, as I understood it, which seemed to me to partake of the idea that each of us creates the world in which we exist. Which may be cool in a story, but really irked me when someone tried to foist it upon me, with all its attendant baggage.