I love commercial fiction!

I do, I really love it. I've been able to appreciate literary fiction, and there have been a few times that I've been riveted by it (like Crank by Ellen Hopkins--holy awesome, everyone should read it), but I LOVE commercial fiction.

Sometimes I think commercial fiction gets a bad reputation. People don't think it's as "deep" as literary fiction, or that the stuff that happens in it isn't like real life (I mean, true, how many of us have Hagrid coming to our doors saying "You're a wizard, Harry!"), or that there are too many happy endings, or that it's just frivolous.

To them I say, no way! Yes, part of commercial fiction is entertainment, hence the word "commercial"--but I have learned so much about life from all kinds of commercial fiction. I learn about teenagers from YA, I learn about love from romance novels and women's literature, I get to visit other time periods in historical fiction, I learn about heroism and loyalty and fear in fantasy, I learn about new technologies and applications for modern science in science fiction, and I get a unique look into someone else's life through popular memoirs. And I get to take amazing journeys in my head with people that are so real, I swear they'll walk through my door at any moment. Some of the best writing I've encountered has been in commercial fiction books, too.

And, lest we forget, many of our favorite authors from history were popular while they were writing, which would make them, at least by some definition, commercial.

I'm not dissing literary fiction at all. Literary fiction is an insightful place, a place you go to really think about things, to examine the human condition, and to find some really freaking good writing. I don't need to tell you it's good--we all know it's good. I'm just saying, hey, let's not be too hard on commercial fiction and whether or not it has artistic merit. It gives us so many things--and there is nothing wrong with being entertained, or reading to escape life for a while. And let's not forget Lord of the Rings, which manages to be commercial and literary at the same time!

So here's to you, commercial fiction! I've never once doubted your greatness, and I look forward to a long, happy relationship.

On Making Assumptions (Glee!)

[I feel like I need to make a disclaimer before I write this post. I'm a very strong feminist, but I rarely talk about it, because I'm not a believer in preaching my views to others, and I don't want to come across in any way like I'm marginalizing somebody or some group of people. My views of feminism encompass everyone feeling free to embrace ANY gender role, and any societal role that they feel comfortable with. I support mothers staying home and taking care of the kids just as much as I support women being the CEOs of fortune 500 companies, and the same goes for men, AND for transgendered or transsexual people. Basically, I prefer to view people as individuals, rather than as gendered beings or through stereotypes that they may or may not fit into.]

Did anyone watch Glee last night? I love Glee--I've been watching it ever since that first teaser episode came out. But I noticed something about last night's episode that bothered me, as a woman and as a musician.

When the guys did their song, they played instruments. In one scene, the guys are trying to convince a new boy to join Glee club--they ask him if he can sing, and then just HAND him a guitar without even checking first to make sure he can play--thereby reinforcing the stereotype that all musically inclined guys know how to play the guitar. But when the girls were singing, no instruments were to be found. I thought back over the episodes of Glee, and found a pattern: the guys always played the instruments, and the girls rarely, if ever, did.

And I went, hey, Glee, I play guitar! I play piano, too, and I can sing while playing either--AND I could do so in high school. In fact, I DID do so during high school (and I faced hella ridicule for it because of my gender--but that's a story for another time).

My point is this: making assumptions is bad, and it can alienate your audience. Yes, I know, I sound like a kindergarten teacher, but it's true. To bring it back to writing, I think we can really write ourselves into corners if we allow ourselves to make assumptions about characters not based on THEM, but based on whatever stereotypical group they fit into. It's sexy and easy to make the guys play guitar, I know. But that's the problem--it's easy, and it's almost like a tell instead of a show: if the guy plays guitar, well then he must be sexy, right? I'd rather be shown how he's sexy by his personality and his actions, rather than be told that he's sexy because he's the quarter back or the lead guitarist in a band. (And that's also not accurate--I'm sure we've all met some jocks during our high school careers who were not sexy because they were such jerks, and so on). I also realize that what I'm saying could be taken as its own generalization. I'm aware of the fact that there are books/tv shows/movies/other medias that portray these images in alternative ways, and I'm very happy and appreciative about that.

I'm not thinking of any specific thing in the media as I write this, nor am I trying to criticize those who choose to do it--I'm not saying take the guitar out of the hands of your male lead. All I'm saying is, make sure to remember to show us why he's sexy, other than just that guitar strapped over his shoulder. And maybe throw in a surprise. So, he's good at guitar. But is there a contradictory aspect of his personality? Would he rather be playing the violin in a quartet, or making explosions in the chem lab? Did his parents expect him to play? Does he do it because he loves it, or because it's how you get girls?

And, maybe give the girl a guitar, too--or even a football helmet and a set of pads. Because that would be less expected, but seriously, REALLY awesome. And, if you ask me, it would be believable and fresh, and something that I would LOVE to read.

Are you a sprinter, or a marathon runner?

Are you a short story writer, a novelist, or both? (Please don't come to me and say "novella" or "novelette" because I'll throw my shoes at you--this is a purely unacademic exercise.)

I am a novelist. I think in ideas that need at least 50k words to tell--or at least, to tell well. I do not get ideas and then make them into novels--they're already novels when they sit on my face and wake me up in the middle of the night. That doesn't mean I have every point of the outline already blooming in my head--to the contrary, I usually skew about 85% towards pantsing.

But the ideas are still novels. I know this because I usually have my starting point and my ending point, and I know how much needs to go in between. How lame would LotR have been as a short story?

Gandalf: Frodo, take this ring to Mount Doom and destroy it!

Frodo: No, Gandalf, I can't!

Gandalf: Yes, Frodo, you can. You must for the sake of Middle Earth!

Frodo: Well... okay

Frodo and Sam undertake a perilous journey.

Three pages later:

Frodo tosses the ring into Mount Doom.

Frodo: So, Sam. That was a rough morning, don't you think? Let's go get some lunch.

Sam: You bet!

Even if you're not writing epic fantasy (which I don't write--it's like the one kind of fantasy I don't really write) you know roughly how much character development, how much plot, etc., needs to go between the beginning and the end. For me, that always leaves me with the idea for a novel.

So, do you think in short stories, or do you think in novels? Or, do you actually get to make a decision when you get an idea?

p.s. it's Carolina Valdez Miller's birthday. Go wish her a happy one.

Don't make hair mistakes. They haunt you forever.

Three and a half years ago, I had a really terrible haircut. I thought it would be a good idea to get bangs that were cut straight across.

It wasn't.

I grew them out after a couple months, and have barely had bangs since (except for these random pieces of hair that never seem to grow farther than chin length... I don't know where they come from. Maybe gremlins come out of my shoes at night and cut them.)

We've all had bad haircuts, and we've all learned never to get that haircut ever ever again (or go to that hairdresser, or what have you.) It's a mistake everyone over age 10 has made at least once. I know I looked ridiculous, and I'm not savvy enough with hair product to have really made them look nice, anyway. So it was a disaster all around, and when I look at pictures from that time I cringe.

Here's the funny thing. People don't seem to want to let me forget the mistake. Whenever I mention that I'm going in for a haircut (and my hair is really long, so this isn't often, because I'm too lazy) people make sure to tell me "don't get your bangs cut like you had that one time. Those were really awful." To which I always reply: "Definitely not. I hated those bangs." And yet, these same people continue to remind me never to do it again.

I feel like there's a moral in here, somewhere. But I can't really dig it out. Anyone want to do it for me?

(Before anyone asks, no I will not show you pictures. I'm embarrassed.)

Who do you write for?

I'm sure a good many of you here in the writing bloggy world were (or still are) English majors or creative writing majors, which means that you did a fair bit of writing for professors.

I've been thinking about this lately (and it stems from my inability to write a decent short story): is there a difference between people who write for other writers, and people who write for readers?

Well, writers are readers, too, you might argue. But think about how you read a book. I know that there's a part of my brain that examines structure, characterization, word choice, how many revisions I thought it went through, because that's what I do every day when I sit down to write. But do I view films like that, or TV shows? No, because I'm not an actor, or a director, or a producer.

So I have to believe that most people who are reading (for pleasure, not for academic reasons) are probably not dissecting a novel with the same obsession that I am, or at the same level of scarily minute detail (and sometimes I really wish I could turn this part of my brain off.)

Which leads me to the question, one that I grappled with during creative writing classes especially, of when we write, are we writing with other writers and their reading styles in mind, or are we thinking about the readers? Or is it some combination of the two?

Let me use another metaphor. I play guitar, and every so often I force myself to go out and play for people (it builds character, I tell you!) There are many things I can do that really impress an audience of people who don't know anything about the guitar. But someone who knew how to play wouldn't be impressed at all. And there are things I could do to impress someone who knew how to play, but the audience wouldn't realize what I was doing, and probably wouldn't think it was any cooler than fingertapping (the easiest impressive thing you can learn to do on an electric guitar.) Like sweep-picking. Do you even know what that is? Probably not. If I did it for you (and I'd really have to practice first), would you realize how hard it was? Unlikely, because it happens so fast it's hard to catch unless you know what to look and listen for.

So I always have to be aware of my audience (that is, when I'm not hiding from them.) In college, we tend to write for other writers--our classmates, and our professors. Because I've had my family members read my college short stories, or close friends, and they tend to just say "great!" or give me a really general idea of what they did or didn't like. Sometimes I'd walk into class really confident because my non English major readers liked my story, only to have it ripped apart in workshop by other writers, because they saw things that my other readers didn't see.

What do you guys think? Am I crazy? Thinking too hard again? Are you able to do both?

WINNERS (and my cat again)

I have drawn the winners (ok, random.org did it) for the Fall Releases contest!

Hooray!

The winner of BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS is

Mallory (The Teen Bibliophile)

and the winner of MATCHED is

Okapi

Congrats to the winners, and thank you to EVERYONE who entered!

Also, would everybody take a moment to watch the latest shenanigans of my kitten? I sort of (ok really) want her to become a youtube celebrity. But I (we) need your help!

Did you know my cat has a youtube?

Yeah, I'm one of those pet owners.

But it's cute!

Check out the rest. :)