I like my coffee black, just like my metal
Mar. 5th, 2007 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribali. Romanticism
While hatefully skimming the blog of kim's least favorite writer,robbiewriter, I noticed an interesting style of hers - romantic writing. I don't mean romantic as in romance, but romantic as in... "sitting in the fire escape of my Manhattan apartment with a vanilla latte in one hand, a Montblanc pen in the other, hunched over my notepad and agonizing over final edits for the hundredth time, wanting this to be perfect". Every word gives off this nostalgic vibe. It's not necessarily all positive, but it's all very detailed and pleasant and/or chic, and if it's not - "Spanish ghetto", for instance, is an example of her being what she would call negative - it's somewhat forced and contrived, either that or it's a very tragic kind of negativity. Like you're writing Wuthering Heights, over and over, in different times and places. Everything is windswept with jagged cliffs at your estate where the horses ride.
If I were writing that same scene, it would go more like this: "my back hurts like hell from making every meticulous little correction that the editor oh so sweetly 'asked' me to make, 'so this is marketable'." I don't tend to go into food and drink or objects, not unless I'm trying to write really sarcastically. But I always write sarcastic. This article in Writer's Digest claimed that there are four styles of writing: comedic, romantic, realistic, and sarcastic. I almost always write sarcastic. Kim says she writes realistic, androbbiewriter writes romantic. Don't know any comedic writers who aren't actually sarcastic writers. Anyway. I prefer not to think of it as sarcastic so much as ugly. Because sarcastic sort of implies that I'm cynical and suspicious of everything I write about, or that I don't take it seriously, and that's not always true. But I think I write ugly - unpleasant or grotesque or uncomfortable or unhappy. I don't really write to make readers feel good - let me put it that way. One of my favorite sentences comes from Memento Mori, otherwise known as "book 6": "Maybe it was because she was in the middle of the world, and the middle of the world was empty." It comes off as very nihilistic, doesn't it? Even when I'm being more optimistic, like in Blessed Are the Peacekeepers, it's not the same kind of materialistic...
ii. Materialism
Just realized it. It's materialism, not even romanticism. It's materialistic writing. Very popular nowadays, as evidenced by people who put brand names in their books' titles - Bergdorf Blondes and The Devil Wears Prada. I didn't even know what Manolo Blahniks were until I read reviews for those chick lit books. It's a very easy and convenient way to describe things, because everybody knows what Gucci means and implies, and it's also a good status-marker - both for your characters, and for yourself, as their writer. I understand its place in some realistic fiction, but I don't like it, and I don't think writers should have to depend on it. The problem is that you're describing people by corporations. You're not even going to the trouble of describing how that pearl necklace looked. All you care about, and all you want your readers to take from it, is that it's from such-and-such famous jewelry store. See how good I am at coming up with brandnames off the top of my head. When I write using brand names it tends to be very tongue-in-chic, like this, from Pep Ralies For Anomalies (that high school fan fic I sometimes mention): "He is your Banana Republic. Leave your Old Navy loser boy behind! You know, he's not even Old Navy anymore. He's like... he's like Goodwill." There's a difference between using brandnames to romanticize and using brandnames to criticize.
As they said in "Fight Club"... "you are not your bank account, you are not the clothes you wear, you are not the contents of your wallet, you are not your bowel cancer, you are not your grande latte, you are not the car you drive, you are not your fucking khakis."
iii. Materialistic Romanticism
The same policy - that there's a difference between using brandnames to romanticize or criticize - applies to the other tools of writing too. For example, that emphasis on food and drink and detail - I do that sometimes, it's true, but I still think that I tend to write ugly. Even when I'm writing about warm cozy things that should make people happy. Like in Ilium: Apostollein... "The Sophos family sat in their den that evening, basking in the warmth of the hearth and simmering in the juices of their dinner of mutton and potatoes au gratin". That doesn't really make me happy. I don't know what the difference is, but it doesn't. Too over-the-top to be happy? Too cynical sounding? Maybe it's the contrast with what I had just written, about the blacksmith and his clanging hammer.
iv. Conclusion
Of course, all of this is simply a matter of preference. How I write is definitely hateable and probably less marketable than what I'll now call "materialistic romanticism" (my poli sci gums are showing). But I'm alright with that. I'm just trying to make a book set 500 years in the future that's realistic and still understandable, and I'm going to do what it takes to get that done. I challenge materialistic romantic writers who rely on contemporary allusions to "worldbuild" to write a science fiction or fantasy, one that does not have a protagonist who's from the modern world and does not feature two parallel universes, so they can slip back into modern lingo anytime. It's harder than you might think. Good thing ugliness transfers across the centuries. Applicable at any time... because the world is always so damn ugly. I learned that from A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster. In fact, let's end with a quote from that book, one of my favorite books.
"The crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murder: 'Pathos, piety, courage - - they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same - - 'ou-boum' . . . no one could romanticize the Marabar, because it robbed infinity and eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to mankind." (146)
" What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of generosity - the undying worm itself." (194)
While hatefully skimming the blog of kim's least favorite writer,
robbiewriter, I noticed an interesting style of hers - romantic writing. I don't mean romantic as in romance, but romantic as in... "sitting in the fire escape of my Manhattan apartment with a vanilla latte in one hand, a Montblanc pen in the other, hunched over my notepad and agonizing over final edits for the hundredth time, wanting this to be perfect". Every word gives off this nostalgic vibe. It's not necessarily all positive, but it's all very detailed and pleasant and/or chic, and if it's not - "Spanish ghetto", for instance, is an example of her being what she would call negative - it's somewhat forced and contrived, either that or it's a very tragic kind of negativity. Like you're writing Wuthering Heights, over and over, in different times and places. Everything is windswept with jagged cliffs at your estate where the horses ride. If I were writing that same scene, it would go more like this: "my back hurts like hell from making every meticulous little correction that the editor oh so sweetly 'asked' me to make, 'so this is marketable'." I don't tend to go into food and drink or objects, not unless I'm trying to write really sarcastically. But I always write sarcastic. This article in Writer's Digest claimed that there are four styles of writing: comedic, romantic, realistic, and sarcastic. I almost always write sarcastic. Kim says she writes realistic, and
robbiewriter writes romantic. Don't know any comedic writers who aren't actually sarcastic writers. Anyway. I prefer not to think of it as sarcastic so much as ugly. Because sarcastic sort of implies that I'm cynical and suspicious of everything I write about, or that I don't take it seriously, and that's not always true. But I think I write ugly - unpleasant or grotesque or uncomfortable or unhappy. I don't really write to make readers feel good - let me put it that way. One of my favorite sentences comes from Memento Mori, otherwise known as "book 6": "Maybe it was because she was in the middle of the world, and the middle of the world was empty." It comes off as very nihilistic, doesn't it? Even when I'm being more optimistic, like in Blessed Are the Peacekeepers, it's not the same kind of materialistic...ii. Materialism
Just realized it. It's materialism, not even romanticism. It's materialistic writing. Very popular nowadays, as evidenced by people who put brand names in their books' titles - Bergdorf Blondes and The Devil Wears Prada. I didn't even know what Manolo Blahniks were until I read reviews for those chick lit books. It's a very easy and convenient way to describe things, because everybody knows what Gucci means and implies, and it's also a good status-marker - both for your characters, and for yourself, as their writer. I understand its place in some realistic fiction, but I don't like it, and I don't think writers should have to depend on it. The problem is that you're describing people by corporations. You're not even going to the trouble of describing how that pearl necklace looked. All you care about, and all you want your readers to take from it, is that it's from such-and-such famous jewelry store. See how good I am at coming up with brandnames off the top of my head. When I write using brand names it tends to be very tongue-in-chic, like this, from Pep Ralies For Anomalies (that high school fan fic I sometimes mention): "He is your Banana Republic. Leave your Old Navy loser boy behind! You know, he's not even Old Navy anymore. He's like... he's like Goodwill." There's a difference between using brandnames to romanticize and using brandnames to criticize.
As they said in "Fight Club"... "you are not your bank account, you are not the clothes you wear, you are not the contents of your wallet, you are not your bowel cancer, you are not your grande latte, you are not the car you drive, you are not your fucking khakis."
iii. Materialistic Romanticism
The same policy - that there's a difference between using brandnames to romanticize or criticize - applies to the other tools of writing too. For example, that emphasis on food and drink and detail - I do that sometimes, it's true, but I still think that I tend to write ugly. Even when I'm writing about warm cozy things that should make people happy. Like in Ilium: Apostollein... "The Sophos family sat in their den that evening, basking in the warmth of the hearth and simmering in the juices of their dinner of mutton and potatoes au gratin". That doesn't really make me happy. I don't know what the difference is, but it doesn't. Too over-the-top to be happy? Too cynical sounding? Maybe it's the contrast with what I had just written, about the blacksmith and his clanging hammer.
iv. Conclusion
Of course, all of this is simply a matter of preference. How I write is definitely hateable and probably less marketable than what I'll now call "materialistic romanticism" (my poli sci gums are showing). But I'm alright with that. I'm just trying to make a book set 500 years in the future that's realistic and still understandable, and I'm going to do what it takes to get that done. I challenge materialistic romantic writers who rely on contemporary allusions to "worldbuild" to write a science fiction or fantasy, one that does not have a protagonist who's from the modern world and does not feature two parallel universes, so they can slip back into modern lingo anytime. It's harder than you might think. Good thing ugliness transfers across the centuries. Applicable at any time... because the world is always so damn ugly. I learned that from A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster. In fact, let's end with a quote from that book, one of my favorite books.
"The crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murder: 'Pathos, piety, courage - - they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same - - 'ou-boum' . . . no one could romanticize the Marabar, because it robbed infinity and eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to mankind." (146)
" What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of generosity - the undying worm itself." (194)
