Loscon Panel: Contract between Reader and Writer
I went to LosCon last weekend, thanks to a couple of local fans who generously offered to carpool with me (since I no longer have a car of my own) I got to go two days instead of the single day trip that has become usual.
Great fun, of course--got to meet a few LiveJournal people, and chat with familiar folk.
One panel I attended I found thought-provoking. That was the "Contract between writer and reader" entry--from the beginning, each of the four panelists (John Hertz, Will Shetterly, Harry Turtledove, and Steven Barnes) translated that quite differently. And the definitions of all four were different from my own.
Will Shetterly started my brain off on a parallel track when he observed that readers have complained about works that they say "make them feel stupid."
I want to come back to that--they never did--but the panelists took the opening question as an opportunity to exhort hypothetical writers. Steve Barnes observed that writers ought to be aware that they are, in effect, being paid by real human beings--writers' job is to entertain those people.
Turtledove: be honest.
Then Barnes got into meta--I could listen to this man for hours. The writer needs (he said, and of course I'm wildly paraphrasing) to be thinking about questions such as, what is the nature of the world? You have done a good job if your characters seem real to the reader.
Turtledove: You are using your created world to talk about the world you are in.
Shetterly: A sequel should say something new.
Barnes: reiterated Shetterly's point, adding that if you don't find something new to say you are in danger of becoming a hack.
Hertz (who is not a writer, he's a local fan, very well read, who is excellent on panels, especially as a moderator) offered a new track by observing that diversity is now popular. A good thing in all, he said. But given that, in the context of writer contract, should the writer signal what kind of book this is?
That started off some fast riffs about readers who thought they were getting one type of book and got a change midway into something they hated.
Questions I scribbled down (maybe they said them, maybe I thought them): is this part of people wanting to read what they know? That is, familiar structure? How many switcheroos have become popular? Mostly hear complaints about something that started out light-hearted and turns into a downer. Especially interesting with reference to YA.
Barnes then said that as an artist, one ought not to pay any attention to those questions. The story needs to be true to the story. But when one takes one's artist hat off and puts on the marketing hat, yes, it's a good idea.
They swerved into assigned writing or work for hire. Barnes said if he can find an interesting question to explore fictionally within the assigned parameters, he goes for it.
Turtledove observed that your audience has expectations of you--then I wrote down "breaking those" and I don't remember if he warned against breaking those, or said, you should know what you are doing when you break those.
Barnes: We love art because we see the world from the artist's perspective--the artist gives us a new view on the familiar. "craft" allows the artist to communicate. "Art" is what you are saying.
Turtledove: You need to be a reader before you can be a writer.
Barnes: The contract with the reader is just a version of your contract with yourself . . . the care and feeding of your soul.
Turtledove: important difference is, there is more risk of going wrong. The artist has to grow by approaching questions differently.
Hertz: on people viewing the world, everyone has their perspective, and the artist has to find a way to reach the broadest audience. He gave an anecdote of a three men working at bricklaying. When asked what they were doing, they provided three different answers: laying bricks, building a wall, and earning a living.
Shetterly: Don't listen to fans. They say they want "something new" but they don't know how to express what they really want, and frequently after a writer gives them something new, they slam the writer for it.
[Edited to add: Will Shetterly clarifies this and his next point in comments--I misstated]
Barnes: In Hollywood, very often, if you get notes saying "Don't do X, instead we want Y," you'd better give them Z. Because what they really mean is, they don't want X or Y.
Barnes on experience: A six year old can advise a five year old. We all have experience in something that we can pass on. Readers will not like an experience they are not ready for, which is frequently why people don't like unpleasant books.
(Some already know the unpleasant experience and turn to reading to get away from it; others find the 'truth' the artist presents to be false)
Barnes continued about violated contracts. Another way of expressing that is that the artist violated an implied paradigm.
He said that the deconstructed story is for the educated consumer, who is already familiar enough with structure, and tropes, to recognize them when being dismantled. A new or young reader is still struggling to make sense of the tropes, and so will find a deconstructed structure a sorry mess, frustrating and unentertaining.
He also observed that writers who are happiest creating are those who write what they want. That doesn't mean the world wants to read what they want to write. Stephen King and George Lucas happened to want what fit squarely into the Zeitgeist. (To which I'd add Rowling.) Is that genius? Time will tell.
Shetterly: Don't listen to artists who tell you what they were doing with the art. Frequently they are way off base, and their POV on their own work is peculiar, not insightful.
Hertz: Talked about artists who assumed they would be remembered for one work, but actually are remembered for something very different, often something they thought minor. (How many worked on what they considered their One Great Book, which turns out to be turgid and unreadable?)
Barnes: Artists who dive down below issues and cultural limitations--ethnic, gay, religious, political--to reach human universals are the ones who resonate the most.
Turtledove: People who experience many changes within a lifetime are used to change, and so historical novels that posit what life was like before a specific change are interesting. Note that these became popular around the time that technology began to accelerate change more rapidly (I'd put that at the 1840s)
Barnes: This is the way the world looks from where you are standing.
Turtledove: But you have to be interesting.
Great fun, of course--got to meet a few LiveJournal people, and chat with familiar folk.
One panel I attended I found thought-provoking. That was the "Contract between writer and reader" entry--from the beginning, each of the four panelists (John Hertz, Will Shetterly, Harry Turtledove, and Steven Barnes) translated that quite differently. And the definitions of all four were different from my own.
Will Shetterly started my brain off on a parallel track when he observed that readers have complained about works that they say "make them feel stupid."
I want to come back to that--they never did--but the panelists took the opening question as an opportunity to exhort hypothetical writers. Steve Barnes observed that writers ought to be aware that they are, in effect, being paid by real human beings--writers' job is to entertain those people.
Turtledove: be honest.
Then Barnes got into meta--I could listen to this man for hours. The writer needs (he said, and of course I'm wildly paraphrasing) to be thinking about questions such as, what is the nature of the world? You have done a good job if your characters seem real to the reader.
Turtledove: You are using your created world to talk about the world you are in.
Shetterly: A sequel should say something new.
Barnes: reiterated Shetterly's point, adding that if you don't find something new to say you are in danger of becoming a hack.
Hertz (who is not a writer, he's a local fan, very well read, who is excellent on panels, especially as a moderator) offered a new track by observing that diversity is now popular. A good thing in all, he said. But given that, in the context of writer contract, should the writer signal what kind of book this is?
That started off some fast riffs about readers who thought they were getting one type of book and got a change midway into something they hated.
Questions I scribbled down (maybe they said them, maybe I thought them): is this part of people wanting to read what they know? That is, familiar structure? How many switcheroos have become popular? Mostly hear complaints about something that started out light-hearted and turns into a downer. Especially interesting with reference to YA.
Barnes then said that as an artist, one ought not to pay any attention to those questions. The story needs to be true to the story. But when one takes one's artist hat off and puts on the marketing hat, yes, it's a good idea.
They swerved into assigned writing or work for hire. Barnes said if he can find an interesting question to explore fictionally within the assigned parameters, he goes for it.
Turtledove observed that your audience has expectations of you--then I wrote down "breaking those" and I don't remember if he warned against breaking those, or said, you should know what you are doing when you break those.
Barnes: We love art because we see the world from the artist's perspective--the artist gives us a new view on the familiar. "craft" allows the artist to communicate. "Art" is what you are saying.
Turtledove: You need to be a reader before you can be a writer.
Barnes: The contract with the reader is just a version of your contract with yourself . . . the care and feeding of your soul.
Turtledove: important difference is, there is more risk of going wrong. The artist has to grow by approaching questions differently.
Hertz: on people viewing the world, everyone has their perspective, and the artist has to find a way to reach the broadest audience. He gave an anecdote of a three men working at bricklaying. When asked what they were doing, they provided three different answers: laying bricks, building a wall, and earning a living.
Shetterly: Don't listen to fans. They say they want "something new" but they don't know how to express what they really want, and frequently after a writer gives them something new, they slam the writer for it.
[Edited to add: Will Shetterly clarifies this and his next point in comments--I misstated]
Barnes: In Hollywood, very often, if you get notes saying "Don't do X, instead we want Y," you'd better give them Z. Because what they really mean is, they don't want X or Y.
Barnes on experience: A six year old can advise a five year old. We all have experience in something that we can pass on. Readers will not like an experience they are not ready for, which is frequently why people don't like unpleasant books.
(Some already know the unpleasant experience and turn to reading to get away from it; others find the 'truth' the artist presents to be false)
Barnes continued about violated contracts. Another way of expressing that is that the artist violated an implied paradigm.
He said that the deconstructed story is for the educated consumer, who is already familiar enough with structure, and tropes, to recognize them when being dismantled. A new or young reader is still struggling to make sense of the tropes, and so will find a deconstructed structure a sorry mess, frustrating and unentertaining.
He also observed that writers who are happiest creating are those who write what they want. That doesn't mean the world wants to read what they want to write. Stephen King and George Lucas happened to want what fit squarely into the Zeitgeist. (To which I'd add Rowling.) Is that genius? Time will tell.
Shetterly: Don't listen to artists who tell you what they were doing with the art. Frequently they are way off base, and their POV on their own work is peculiar, not insightful.
Hertz: Talked about artists who assumed they would be remembered for one work, but actually are remembered for something very different, often something they thought minor. (How many worked on what they considered their One Great Book, which turns out to be turgid and unreadable?)
Barnes: Artists who dive down below issues and cultural limitations--ethnic, gay, religious, political--to reach human universals are the ones who resonate the most.
Turtledove: People who experience many changes within a lifetime are used to change, and so historical novels that posit what life was like before a specific change are interesting. Note that these became popular around the time that technology began to accelerate change more rapidly (I'd put that at the 1840s)
Barnes: This is the way the world looks from where you are standing.
Turtledove: But you have to be interesting.