Writing can be funny!
This made me giggle. (Don’t click the read more, there isn’t any more after this!)
Does anyone teach poetry anymore?
I was channel surfing and discovered a program on BookTV of some High School Poetry Awards. I think they were Bay Area specific, but regardless, I was curious, so I tuned in to see what it was about…and was surprised to learn that I wasn’t going to see/hear poetry of artistic merit or of any sort of significance at all.Poetry is hard for a reason. I don’t write a lot of poetry because I tend to have issues grasping the imaginative nature of it (it’s far different from writing fiction due to its limiting nature and necessity for deepness despite that). Now, I’m not knocking on an individual’s attempt at art, nor on one’s take on art. This is part of the argument between literary fiction and genre fiction (you know, that whole deal where literary fiction is real fiction and genre fiction is artless dribble, which we are all well aware is a load of crap). The thing about poetry is that if one wants to be taken seriously when writing it, they have to treat it like it is a real art form. “Roses are red” is not considered a serious poetic work, but a clever little rhyme that is somewhat infectious (sort of like tuberculosis, since, for some reason, it just keeps going and going, always infecting new minds, being read, and adapted to the modern world). Poetry that wants to be, well, something of value needs to deal with issues on a deeper level, especially if you’re attempting to play it off like it is a serious piece of work.So, boy was I surprised when the first girl went up to read her poem (or second girl, or whichever girl, as I’m not sure if she was the first to read during the program) and began reading an updated version of “roses are red” that basically was a rendition of “boys act like boys” and “girls act like girls” in words just as simplistic, but without any sort of rhyming or structure to indicate the artist had actually thought about what they were writing. Yes, that is a long sentence. Needless to say, after hearing about half of a stanza, I tuned out. The words were dull, pointless, and without anything meaningful to them.This made me wonder whether or not poetry is still taught in school. It’s hard to believe that schools have degraded this much in representing the arts to their students that no good high school poets exist. I know several poets who are exceptional and of a young age, but I’ve not had the opportunity to ask them whether they are at all familiar with poetry as a literary form (as in having learned about it both historically and literally, with clever puns included).Has there been a significant change in school English courses–in the U.S. or elsewhere–in which students are no longer being given a thorough look into the great works of English language literature? I’m curious. What do you think about this? Are the arts suffering in the youth demographic?
Fantasy Is Easy: Ha!
Why is it that some people believe that fantasy is easy?Fantasy isn’t easy folks. In fact, to write good fantasy it takes a lot of thought and, well, talent. Good fantasy is hard. Good fantasy doesn’t take all the major cliches, put them in a book, and say “there you go, an original piece of fantasy literature”. It’s quite the opposite. In fact, to assume that writing–the process–is simpler just because one is writing fantasy is really a plain idiotic thing to say. All writing is difficult. For many, it’s a job, and very few superbly crappy novels–novels which clearly display the writer’s lack of talent or interest in what he or she is doing–are actually published these days (at least, not by real publishing houses). Crappy novels, of course, do exist, but generally crappy novels are crappy because they are poorly written. Fantasy itself is also quite difficult. Remember, fantasy writers are working in created worlds, worlds that do not exist and never will. Such worlds are populated by humans and other creatures, some humanoid and some not, all of which have their own separate cultures (or a collective culture). The result is that an author can’t just sit down and regurgitate a decent, well rounded fantasy world in one go. Readers will catch on; they’ll know that the author didn’t put their all into it. Writers who write good fantasy–the type that has something to say, that addresses issues that don’t rely on common cliches, character ripoffs from other fantasy works, and entirely pointless bits of “fantasy nonsense”–put a hell of a lot of work into their writing. They have a lot to consider that writers in other genres do not: everything from fantasy races to invented cultures. Some writers are dealing with weird forms of fantasy, the kind we’re not really used to (perhaps Jeff Vandermeer is a good example here). You can’t just say “well I write fantasy because it’s easy”. What exactly is easy about fantasy? You can’t just make it all up and think it will work. Fantasy follows rules. Granted, those rules may defy the laws of physics as we know them, but they do follow a set of rules within the created world and good fantasy does not violate these rules. Magic, for example, is only interesting if it has limitations, and what qualifies as a limitation determines the value of the magic to the story. If there are no consequences for the use of magic, what’s the point? Quite frankly, I find it rather annoying when people say that fantasy is easy. It’s a display of ignorance in the arrogant vein and indicative of the narrow-minded mentality that dominates the anti-genre crowd (yes, I am aware that some people simply don’t understand that fantasy isn’t easy and aren’t necessarily “haters”). There are plenty of fantasy novelists who do, in fact, work their butts off to write a good fantasy book. Perhaps some of the people who say that fantasy is easy simply think so because it comes more naturally to them, while other forms of writing are more difficult. But then, that would mean to someone who writes fiction, fiction is easy and essay writing is suddenly not, right? And is that a fair assessment on essay writing or fiction writing? Just because it seems easier doesn’t mean that it actually is. Or, perhaps what people actually mean is that fantasy is fun? Generally when we are having fun doing something, that something is more entertaining and we’re more interested in it. Again, this doesn’t make it “easy”. It makes it fun, and that’s all. You’re exerting energy at a different level, but it’s attached to the happy side of your brain and not the side that is screaming at you that it’s bored (generally speaking, all writing should be fun, even in difficult times). So, let’s think about this folks. Any time you want to say that fantasy is easy, think about it first. Consider why you think it’s easy and assess those thoughts logically. Is something necessarily “easy” because it’s fun, or because it seems easy to you? And then, to those that treat fantasy negatively in this respect, perhaps you should read the genre more before coming to the conclusion that it is easy. Or, maybe you should write your own fantasy book, sell it, and make millions on it and tell us just how easy that was. I can almost guarantee you that it will prove to be very difficult indeed.