A very interesting essay, particularly to other writers such as myself.
Not only did it conflict with the way I wanted to write, which is largely from an impersonal if not omniscient position, it also condemned the vast majority of the literature of mankind. Most cultures and most of our own history have assumed that a story should be told from an impersonal point of view. Indeed, it condemns whole genres such as epic and theatre to utter impotence.Mmmm. Well, I see what you're getting at, but I think you're condemning the standards of POV with too broad a brush. There's a place for all types of POV, including, as you point out, the omniscient narrator of epics, theatre, and fairy tales or myth
( ... )
nothing's wrong with the ol' omniscient POV, but, like all POVs, it has to be established right away. And like all POVs, it needs to be chosen for a reason. Even the omniscient has limitations, usually. No matter when an author lived, and no matter what POV he's chosen, he can't have a moon in a pre-industrial fantasy setting being compared to a streetlight.
I'm tempted to read your fanfic, but in general I don't read fan fiction.
I was surprised, when I began falling into writing circles in LJ, at how many rules people apply to their writing that I had not even thought of--for instance, that a novel must start with a bang and keep up at a very fast pace. Many of my LJ friends and acquaintances (those are people whose comments I like to read in other people's journals but whom I haven't friended yet...) who write seem to spend a lot of time trying to make their writing faster and more action packed
( ... )
Hear hear. For a totally shameless display, read the opening pages of Trollope's Doctor Thorne - a dozen or more pages of continuous narrative in Trollope's own voice, including addresses to his readers!
for instance, that a novel must start with a bang and keep up at a very fast pace.
It's a semi-abitrary rule. Publishers know that slow-paced, slow-start novels don't sell well. I think the idea is that many book readers pick up a volume and decide whether they want to read it or not based on the first few pages. Many good novels are slow starts, but they'd be difficult to sell in the modern market.
You're writing epic poetry?
anonymous
September 26 2006, 00:03:00 UTC
You remind me of another author who doesn't like "those cardboard-cut-out-characters" where the good guys are admirable and the bad guys are not as cuddly. OK - I concede real life has complicated people. If I wanted to read real life, with epic, spawling, all-knowing characters "as big as all outdoors," I'd read blogs exclusively. But I know about structure and symbols and layers of complexity and motifs and emotion. I like playing that game. So do a lot of readers
( ... )
Re: You're writing epic poetry?izhilzhaSeptember 26 2006, 00:48:54 UTC
It's not high art - it's fanfic. Genres have a certain structure, just like epics.
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate, exactly, here...but one thing I love about fanfic is the proliferation and variety of genres. I am a "gen" reader and writer, so the romance is not something I seek out. Action/adveture, mystery, myth or fairy tale, pseduohistory, narrative poetry (or really amazing filks--someone wrote a Harry Potter version/parody of T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland" and it's completely brilliant), pretty much whatever you write.
And it needn't match the genre of the source, either.
Approach it from a different genre and reveal new things about the source, or take a new tack with it.
I guess what I'm saying is that fic isn't exactly a genre, in the typical sense of the word. It's more like a form--and it's broader even than those catagories.
Re: You're writing epic poetry?
anonymous
September 26 2006, 02:27:03 UTC
There is an exception to every rule, but I still stand by the idea that there is an appropriate POV for a story, and intimate POV's work better for more intimate scenes. Having an omnicient character in a small, imperfect world doesn't fit. It's like that law in physics - the act of observation changes the thing observed. Large actions - great battles, epic struggles - deserve a larger POV, but two characters bickering can't - omnicient POV smothers the dynamics of the two. It turns into a dull lecture instead of a small heated battle.
Re: You're writing epic poetry?izhilzhaSeptember 26 2006, 21:54:52 UTC
There is an exception to every rule, but I still stand by the idea that there is an appropriate POV for a story, and intimate POV's work better for more intimate scenes.
Well, I never said that wasn't true. It's just that I have occasionally seen fic done from an outsider's or an omniscient pov, when the source itself uses a tight pov, and the fic has worked both as a storytelling and as an addition to the source.
I agree, two characters bickering is hardly the subject of epic (unless they are gods, and the bickering involves sending their human pawns against each other in open war--then you have the Illiad). Nor is a narrow pov entirely appropriate to epic (though I would say it's very appropriate to scenes within the epic--Tolkien tells his battles magnificently, but it's from right inside Samwise the hobbit's head that we see the destruction of the Ring, that final struggle).
Don't listen to mejohncwrightSeptember 26 2006, 20:43:46 UTC
My advice, as a published writer, a living legend in my own mind, is that once you have learned the basics of hook, plot, character, description, theme, punchline, to take no further advice. Everything beyond the basics is opinion; it is fashion; it is faddishness
( ... )
Comments 26
Not only did it conflict with the way I wanted to write, which is largely from an impersonal if not omniscient position, it also condemned the vast majority of the literature of mankind. Most cultures and most of our own history have assumed that a story should be told from an impersonal point of view. Indeed, it condemns whole genres such as epic and theatre to utter impotence.Mmmm. Well, I see what you're getting at, but I think you're condemning the standards of POV with too broad a brush. There's a place for all types of POV, including, as you point out, the omniscient narrator of epics, theatre, and fairy tales or myth ( ... )
Reply
nothing's wrong with the ol' omniscient POV, but, like all POVs, it has to be established right away. And like all POVs, it needs to be chosen for a reason. Even the omniscient has limitations, usually. No matter when an author lived, and no matter what POV he's chosen, he can't have a moon in a pre-industrial fantasy setting being compared to a streetlight.
I'm tempted to read your fanfic, but in general I don't read fan fiction.
Reply
Reply
Reply
It's a semi-abitrary rule. Publishers know that slow-paced, slow-start novels don't sell well. I think the idea is that many book readers pick up a volume and decide whether they want to read it or not based on the first few pages. Many good novels are slow starts, but they'd be difficult to sell in the modern market.
Reply
Reply
Reply
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate, exactly, here...but one thing I love about fanfic is the proliferation and variety of genres. I am a "gen" reader and writer, so the romance is not something I seek out. Action/adveture, mystery, myth or fairy tale, pseduohistory, narrative poetry (or really amazing filks--someone wrote a Harry Potter version/parody of T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland" and it's completely brilliant), pretty much whatever you write.
And it needn't match the genre of the source, either.
Approach it from a different genre and reveal new things about the source, or take a new tack with it.
I guess what I'm saying is that fic isn't exactly a genre, in the typical sense of the word. It's more like a form--and it's broader even than those catagories.
Reply
Reply
Well, I never said that wasn't true. It's just that I have occasionally seen fic done from an outsider's or an omniscient pov, when the source itself uses a tight pov, and the fic has worked both as a storytelling and as an addition to the source.
I agree, two characters bickering is hardly the subject of epic (unless they are gods, and the bickering involves sending their human pawns against each other in open war--then you have the Illiad). Nor is a narrow pov entirely appropriate to epic (though I would say it's very appropriate to scenes within the epic--Tolkien tells his battles magnificently, but it's from right inside Samwise the hobbit's head that we see the destruction of the Ring, that final struggle).
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment