Rebecca's List of Literature Pings
Sep. 25th, 2011 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesYou know, I recall a discussion of fanfiction as a place for 'id-fic' -- that part of it is admitting you are writing something totally self-indulgent and rather than disguising that, glorying in it. Some of that is the porn, but it's also things like writing waff-y drabbles or hurt-comfort or black bleeding angst. Basically, the idea is that the story hits some emotional ping like a hammer, and that's why the reader enjoys it, even if technically, it needs work. About the equivalent of 'comfort food'. A grilled cheese sandwich with some kind of potato dish (and possibly soup) is one of my favorite comfort foods, and sometimes I enjoy it even when the food isn't that good. Or I know that having that many french fries will make me sick later. Of course, an excellent grilled cheese sandwich with just the right number of fries and perfect tomato soup would be better than going to Friendley's and taking my chances, but... it's comfort food, you know>
I kind of wonder what the line between this and Steven Brust's Cool Stuff Theory of Literature. Which, to summarize: authors write books about things they consider Cool Stuff. Readers enjoy the book to the degree that they agree with the author about what constitutes Cool Stuff. I suspect it's an approach of editing: that you can't serve crappy comfort food when being judged by Celebrity Chef of Your Choice (in this case, agents/publishers), or trying to sell things, so you do have to disguise your id to some degree, or at least back it up with some craft. Maybe not much: insert complaint about how Popular Series Here shows that its readers really crave Concept Here, and will put up with crappy writing*.
This was a long and rambly introduction to what essentially amounts to my Big List of Literature Pings: aka the things that will get me to read your book, the things I want to write about, and the things that generally make me squee.
1. Buddy-cop dynamics involving one or more woman. I specify 'buddy cop' because it's the closest way I can say 'this is not going to turn into will they or won't they UST', which seems to be the curse of any male-female partner team, or most of them. It's not even strictly speaking, 'buddy cop' since I include things like Hawk and Fisher, who are a married couple of cops in a Fantasy Hive of Scum and Villainy. But it's basically having a male-female or female-female partnership where they go out and solve crimes, and I don't have to deal with too much Romantic Relationship Drama. Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev is about my limit here, and they get maybe one episode a season of 'tee hee, Lina has feelings for Gourry and doesn't know what to do about it'**.
Female-female pairs is in this group as well, even if it's more 'doesn't exist, outside of 'girl shows''***, rather than 'will inevitably turn into 'will they or won't they?'. But I like seeing things that pass Bechdel's Test.
2. After the end stories. This is part of my love of the Newsflesh Trilogy, a series of books that take place two decades after the zombie apocalypse. Or, well, I'm re-reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, which has the main selling point is that the Evil Emperor is defeated in the first book of the trilogy, and the second and third books go into 'well, now what?' and 'why'd this guy take the throne and why does our world suck so much?'. It's one perk of fanfiction; you can tell stories about what the world is like after most authors pack up and go home.
3. Linked to that, environmental stories. About the closest example I can come up with off the top of my head are your standard Disaster Movies and the Mage Storm books by Mercedes Lackey, where the 'antagonist' isn't a person or Evil Empire or anything, but a force of nature, and the books are about survival or acceptance rather than 'fight the bad guy'.
4. Mind control and psychological manipulation. I mentioned this in my earlier post. I like antagonists who can psychologically figure out their opponent and get them working for them. Or just can use magic/science to twist someone around. Not only does it give the rest of the protagonists something to react to (how do we fight one of our own), but...
4a. The aftermath of the same. Perhaps my peculiar brand of hurt/comfort. How does one deal with the fact that one can't even trust one's mind? Not to mention the guilt of whatever one's done, and dealing with what was external and what was internal.
5. Shadows and doppelgangers. Any sort -- your evil twin created by a magical mirror***, or characters that are a dark mirror to the protagonist. Show me a villain who is close to the hero in life circumstances, and I will be happy. Especially if it leads to #4.
6. Badass women. Doesn't matter the type -- a female politician or a female warrior or whatever.
7. The Fair Folk. I don't know why I have a thing for faeries -- not the winged pixies, but the elf-lords that will blind you if you break their arbitrary rules. Perhaps because they're masters of glamour and illusion and mental fuckery, and that their evil is mostly described as an amoral part of what they are. Also...
8. The meta of stories, especially fairy tales. Utena hits me pretty hard in these pings, as do fairy tale retellings, especially ones that go beyond the boundaries of the tales. Basically if you take a tale and start asking uncomfortable questions like 'is it really good that the prince saved the princess'? or 'why does a witch do what she does'? I will want to hear the answers.
9. Taking a trope and poking it with a stick. I picked up both His Majesty's Dragon and A Companion to Wolves because both are responses to the Pern series: HMD and sequels are more concerned with warfare and society and things like 'how do the dragons feel about being a self-producing air force for humans', and 'ACtW' for dealing with some of Pern's Dragons Made Us Do It and sharing a mind with something that's not human, even if it is intelligent.
... This may be the same as the previous one.
10. Elemental magic. I know it's the most cliche thing ever. I don't care.
11. Gender commentary. Matriarchies with more depth than 'lol, Amazons' or 'peaceful female commune utopia', and actually explore what kinds of stories you can tell when you're messing with the viewer's biases. Or characters that break gender roles, or different gender roles, or the idea that you might have things like genderqueer/third gender folks.
12. Speaking of, non straight people. They exist.
13. Cultures that don't read like Generic European Fantasyland or America... in SPACE. Heck, even places that ping as 'Scandinavia' or 'Greece' or a specific place rather than GEF are preferable. Actually, places that either feel very specific or like nowhere on Earth either way.
14. Environments that would make a kickass painting/movie, and wouldn't look like Peter Jackson filming New Zealand. Give me a sense of the numinous, people. You have magic and words don't have a special effects budget. Use things as set pieces. Also, and this ties back to #3, but environments that matter.
15. Clever wordplay and banter.
16. Cities, especially cities with character. Because I like that sense of place, and a city has a sense of place. Basically I want stories where the setting and environment actually matters, rather than being a pretty backdrop.
17. Nonhumans who act like non-humans. Should this be two things? I don't know. But give me someone who sees the world differently because sie doesn't have the life experiences or even the biology to get human experience.
18. Earning your happy endings. I like happy endings, but I like putting characters through Hell and high water for them. I don't mind characters who've lost things, if they end up in a basically okay place by the end. This may be why I like after the end stories.
* Look, it doesn't matter if I say Twilight or Eragon or Harry Potter and the Etc. or Obscure Fantasy Series Here or romance novels, besides the levels of Nerd Rage I'll get in the comments.
** Gourry probably also have feelings for Lina, but figures it's better to let Lina make the first move.
*** The Slayers OVA may have the funniest approach to this, though. Both that the 'evil' twins of Lina and Naga are probably a lot more 'good' than the originals, but the problem of reversing brave and daring people.
I kind of wonder what the line between this and Steven Brust's Cool Stuff Theory of Literature. Which, to summarize: authors write books about things they consider Cool Stuff. Readers enjoy the book to the degree that they agree with the author about what constitutes Cool Stuff. I suspect it's an approach of editing: that you can't serve crappy comfort food when being judged by Celebrity Chef of Your Choice (in this case, agents/publishers), or trying to sell things, so you do have to disguise your id to some degree, or at least back it up with some craft. Maybe not much: insert complaint about how Popular Series Here shows that its readers really crave Concept Here, and will put up with crappy writing*.
This was a long and rambly introduction to what essentially amounts to my Big List of Literature Pings: aka the things that will get me to read your book, the things I want to write about, and the things that generally make me squee.
1. Buddy-cop dynamics involving one or more woman. I specify 'buddy cop' because it's the closest way I can say 'this is not going to turn into will they or won't they UST', which seems to be the curse of any male-female partner team, or most of them. It's not even strictly speaking, 'buddy cop' since I include things like Hawk and Fisher, who are a married couple of cops in a Fantasy Hive of Scum and Villainy. But it's basically having a male-female or female-female partnership where they go out and solve crimes, and I don't have to deal with too much Romantic Relationship Drama. Lina Inverse and Gourry Gabriev is about my limit here, and they get maybe one episode a season of 'tee hee, Lina has feelings for Gourry and doesn't know what to do about it'**.
Female-female pairs is in this group as well, even if it's more 'doesn't exist, outside of 'girl shows''***, rather than 'will inevitably turn into 'will they or won't they?'. But I like seeing things that pass Bechdel's Test.
2. After the end stories. This is part of my love of the Newsflesh Trilogy, a series of books that take place two decades after the zombie apocalypse. Or, well, I'm re-reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson, which has the main selling point is that the Evil Emperor is defeated in the first book of the trilogy, and the second and third books go into 'well, now what?' and 'why'd this guy take the throne and why does our world suck so much?'. It's one perk of fanfiction; you can tell stories about what the world is like after most authors pack up and go home.
3. Linked to that, environmental stories. About the closest example I can come up with off the top of my head are your standard Disaster Movies and the Mage Storm books by Mercedes Lackey, where the 'antagonist' isn't a person or Evil Empire or anything, but a force of nature, and the books are about survival or acceptance rather than 'fight the bad guy'.
4. Mind control and psychological manipulation. I mentioned this in my earlier post. I like antagonists who can psychologically figure out their opponent and get them working for them. Or just can use magic/science to twist someone around. Not only does it give the rest of the protagonists something to react to (how do we fight one of our own), but...
4a. The aftermath of the same. Perhaps my peculiar brand of hurt/comfort. How does one deal with the fact that one can't even trust one's mind? Not to mention the guilt of whatever one's done, and dealing with what was external and what was internal.
5. Shadows and doppelgangers. Any sort -- your evil twin created by a magical mirror***, or characters that are a dark mirror to the protagonist. Show me a villain who is close to the hero in life circumstances, and I will be happy. Especially if it leads to #4.
6. Badass women. Doesn't matter the type -- a female politician or a female warrior or whatever.
7. The Fair Folk. I don't know why I have a thing for faeries -- not the winged pixies, but the elf-lords that will blind you if you break their arbitrary rules. Perhaps because they're masters of glamour and illusion and mental fuckery, and that their evil is mostly described as an amoral part of what they are. Also...
8. The meta of stories, especially fairy tales. Utena hits me pretty hard in these pings, as do fairy tale retellings, especially ones that go beyond the boundaries of the tales. Basically if you take a tale and start asking uncomfortable questions like 'is it really good that the prince saved the princess'? or 'why does a witch do what she does'? I will want to hear the answers.
9. Taking a trope and poking it with a stick. I picked up both His Majesty's Dragon and A Companion to Wolves because both are responses to the Pern series: HMD and sequels are more concerned with warfare and society and things like 'how do the dragons feel about being a self-producing air force for humans', and 'ACtW' for dealing with some of Pern's Dragons Made Us Do It and sharing a mind with something that's not human, even if it is intelligent.
... This may be the same as the previous one.
10. Elemental magic. I know it's the most cliche thing ever. I don't care.
11. Gender commentary. Matriarchies with more depth than 'lol, Amazons' or 'peaceful female commune utopia', and actually explore what kinds of stories you can tell when you're messing with the viewer's biases. Or characters that break gender roles, or different gender roles, or the idea that you might have things like genderqueer/third gender folks.
12. Speaking of, non straight people. They exist.
13. Cultures that don't read like Generic European Fantasyland or America... in SPACE. Heck, even places that ping as 'Scandinavia' or 'Greece' or a specific place rather than GEF are preferable. Actually, places that either feel very specific or like nowhere on Earth either way.
14. Environments that would make a kickass painting/movie, and wouldn't look like Peter Jackson filming New Zealand. Give me a sense of the numinous, people. You have magic and words don't have a special effects budget. Use things as set pieces. Also, and this ties back to #3, but environments that matter.
15. Clever wordplay and banter.
16. Cities, especially cities with character. Because I like that sense of place, and a city has a sense of place. Basically I want stories where the setting and environment actually matters, rather than being a pretty backdrop.
17. Nonhumans who act like non-humans. Should this be two things? I don't know. But give me someone who sees the world differently because sie doesn't have the life experiences or even the biology to get human experience.
18. Earning your happy endings. I like happy endings, but I like putting characters through Hell and high water for them. I don't mind characters who've lost things, if they end up in a basically okay place by the end. This may be why I like after the end stories.
* Look, it doesn't matter if I say Twilight or Eragon or Harry Potter and the Etc. or Obscure Fantasy Series Here or romance novels, besides the levels of Nerd Rage I'll get in the comments.
** Gourry probably also have feelings for Lina, but figures it's better to let Lina make the first move.
*** The Slayers OVA may have the funniest approach to this, though. Both that the 'evil' twins of Lina and Naga are probably a lot more 'good' than the originals, but the problem of reversing brave and daring people.
