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Monthly Archives: May 2009

http://ursulakleguin.com/Note-Calling-Utopia-a-utopia.html

http://www.slate.com/id/2217815/

Hand, Heart, Mind and Soul

Why do we have genres? Some writers hate genre labels. They believe genres were invented by book stores to shove novels onto the narrow shelves of commercialism.

This is probably true. But it’s not the whole truth. I think genres exist because they recognize deep and important differences in novels. It’s easy to stop thinking deeply about genre, so here’s a different way to look at it.

Is your story a tale of the Hand, Heart, Mind or Soul?

What kind of power does you protagonist need solve his or her problem?

* * *

Hand – Tales of the Hand are action stories. (Perhaps these would be better called Tales of the Foot, but that sounds funny.)  To succeed, the hero needs to run for his life — or kick ass. Usually a combination of both. The energy in this kind of story is kinetic. Non-stop action. Ticking bombs. Countdowns. Explosions.

The hero of a Hand Tale might not be a brainiac, but he shouldn’t be a meathead. Though the problems in this kind of story might come down to a slug fest with the villain in the end, the heroine may also have to be a brilliant problem solver. After all, she has to use all her wits and experience to figure out how to stop the ticking bomb, the enemy spy, the traitor in the government or the shark eating everyone at the beach.

Heart – The heart of the problem in a Heart Tales is a relationship. Romances, of course, are Heart Tales and deal with many permutations: Learning to trust and love, proving worthy to win a love, overcoming misunderstandings to love.

But not all Heart Tales have to be romances. There are other kinds of relationships — friendships, parent/child and grouchy old man/lovable puppy.

Usually heart stories fall in the romance genre if they involve a love story, into YA if they involve a girl and her horse, chic lit if they involve four feisty female friends and literary if they involve an old man and an acquatic creature.

Just kidding about that last one. Old man and acquatic creature stories probably fall under Soul. See below.

Mind – Stories which make you think are dear to my heart. Most of science fiction and fantasy falls under this catagory, but many mysteries do as well. One way to look at the difference between these genres is to imagine which curriculum would best serve the hero in a story like this. For sf, you’d enroll your hero in physics, chemistry and maybe biology. For fantasy, you’d want her to brush up on your anthropology, history and metaphysics classes. For mystery, your sleuth had better understand psychology. Forensics wouldn’t hurt either!

These stories often pose a puzzle, and guide the reader down a path of clues and red herrings until it is solved. But not all Mind stories are genre and not all sf, fantasy or mystery stories are Mind stories.

Soul – What if your story is really a close examination of the human psyche? In a sense, all stories are ultimately a study of humanity, simply because humans are writing the stories, but Soul stories ask not merely what it is to be human (like Mind stories) but what is it like to be this particular human being? I think about it like this sometimes: an Mind wants to know, what does the protaganist have in common with all other human beings? Where as a Soul story wants to know, like the youngest Passover child, how is this human being different from all other human beings?

Soul stories, told well, must have as rich a setting and be as accurate historically as needed to explain the individual life-history of this single soul (or two or three souls). The world built may be on a smaller scale. In a fantasy story, if one shows what the protaganist had for breakfast, the purpose is to show What Elves Eat For Breakfast; in a Soul story, the purpose must be to show how this habit or this meal has gone into shaping an individual. (“I no longer ate eggs at breakfast; even seeing a styrofoam egg container reminded me of my dead wife.”) To “solve” a Soul story, the protaganist needs to follow the dictim, “Know Thyself.”

All good stories have a bit of Soul, without being Soul stories. The difference is usually one of degree, and of intent. Other stories need compelling characters to keep you interested in the action, setting, relationship or ideas of the story. Soul stories need to have action, setting, relationships and ideas to keep you interested in the characters.

* * *

Of course, it can’t be said enough, no book will be wholly one and not the other. Some of my favorite storiese are disguised as one genre, but really something wholly different. Take the spy thriller Dark Star. It appears to be a noir spy story, a class Hand tale of cross and double-cross. It’s also a close study of a man crushed by political and personal disillusionment. In fact, however, it is a Mind story with a philosophical historical question at the heart of it: Who was the worse monster, Hitler or Stalin?

reading

http://followthereader.wordpress.com/

But the way most of your day is structured at any publishing job actually precludes one from simply READING.
As an agent I’m up against the same thing. It was a huge wake up call for me last year to realize that in a 12-month period, I’d read only seven – SEVEN! – books that weren’t client manuscripts or partials I was evaluating. It takes some of the joy out of the work.

Baby Steps

My second son is learning to walk. (I wish he would learn to crawl first, but he’s stubborn. Clearly, this is something he gets from his father!) There’s nothing more humbling than watching the determination of a child learning to walk. He wobbles and falls. He steps and falls. He falls forward on his belly, he falls backward on his butt. He tips over to one side. No matter how or how many times he falls, though, he just giggles and grins and tries to take another step.

Who am I to complain about how hard it is to learn to do something right?

I also should keep in mind, when I am beta reading, that it wouldn’t occur to me to chide my son for screwing up at this walking business. Beyond the occasional, “Whoops! Down you go!” I don’t sit there pointing out all the things he’s doing wrong. I just cheer him on when he gets it right.

I know the most powerful feedback is specific, positive feedback; this is something I need to remember when I give critiques. (I do promise to avoid cooing at my reading partners in high pitched nonsense babble.)

Tyson

http://felixgilman.com/wordpress/?p=260

The central event in Tyson’s life, of course, is his encounter with the philosopher Sir Alfred Jules Ayer, who was at the time 77 years old:

“At yet another party [Ayer] had befriended [Fernando Sanchez, a fashionable designer]. Ayer was now standing near the entrance to the great white living-room of Sanchez’s West 57th Street apartment, chatting to a group of young models and designers, when a woman rushed in saying that a friend was being assaulted in a bedroom. Ayer went to investigate and found Mike Tyson forcing himself on a young south London model called Naomi Campbell, then just beginning her career. Ayer warned Tyson to desist. Tyson: “Do you know who the fuck I am? I’m the heavyweight champion of the world.” Ayer stood his ground. “And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic. We are both pre-eminent in our field; I suggest that we talk about this like rational men.” Ayer and Tyson began to talk. Naomi Campbell slipped out.”

The Next Mountain

This time the revisions are going to do the trick. This time, I’ll get the book right.

This mountain is the last in the range I have to climb. Then I’ll be there.

Or so I tell myself.

I’ve told myself this before. On the last mountain. In fact, I’ve been telling myself since the first mountain. Just one more step. That will be enough.

Only, it’s never enough. It’s still not right. There’s a mountain after this one. And another mountain. And another. The truth is, I have no idea how many more mountains I have to cross till I’m over the range. I thought the journey would be so much easier when I started out. If I had known how far I had to go, what a truly awful writer I was and how hard it was to become a good writer, would I have been able to start out on that journey?

Learning to write has taken me the same amount of time — and effort — and possibly even money — as going to med school. For no degree and a lot less profit. If I had known that, might I have just elected to become a doctor instead? (Certainly, this is the point Certain Relatives kept trying to impress upon me.)

What if I had known how bad I was at the beginning, back when only adoring parents and teachers read my stuff and proclaimed me the Best Writer Ever? While highly unlikely it would have launched my medical career, it’s possible I would have been too depressed to write. As it was, I had the immunity of youth. I heard people say you had to write a million words of dreck — the equivalent of ten 100,000 word novels — before achieving anything even close to mastery. Being a teenager, I assumed I was exempt. Because I was so good, you see. Natural talent would make it unnecessary for me to work as hard to achieve as much as soon as other writers. I still planned to work hard, but more from noblesse oblige than need.

I like to think that, if nothing else, I’ve learned to be able to hear how much further I still have to go without giving up.

Or maybe I’m just still trying to paint one leaf.

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