The Word Cloud

I am absolutely awe struck by the sensitive spot my blog, ‘To Honour and Obey? Bollocks!’, has rudely prodded.  This has sooooo put my world in perspective.  Here I was having an innocent bitch about my local conservatives, never imagining it still so rife even in modern 1^st worlds. 

Are women still fighting for freedom?  Hasn’t that been won!!!!! by us bra burners?

It strikes me that they are still many woman out there that are not liberated and don’t mind the fact. My mum was, ironically enough,  progressive in her thoughts, maybe I now take this for granted?  But I can’t understand why this is still so steeped in controversy.  To be honest I was prompted to write this misshapen blog by my driving frustrations and my need to commiserate with likeminded people.  It seems this is truly not what developed.

My corner of the world seems to reside next door to everyone?  I actually find that mortifying and totally backward.

Chapter 7 in Elizabeth Gilberts ‘Committed’ she quotes:

 ‘Of all the actions of man’s life, his marriage does least concern other people; yet of all the actions of our life, ’tis the most meddled with by other people.’ -  John Seldon, 1689.

Obviously, this needs to be put in context of men and women, but maybe I should just accept we are all one melting pot of ideas and beliefs and just leave it at that.

Recently, I've been struggling with a horrific case of the over-exuberant inner critic and big dollops of self doubt as to whether I can write. No, this isn't a blog about that (already had one of those!), but rather a comment on some of the things I have found whilst going through this patch.

Since the self doubt fairy has decided to inflict an extended stay chez Ely, I have taken to lurking, reading people's writing and observing what is being said about it. I've been a bit naughty: I haven't left much in the way of comments myself, but that is simply because I don't feel qualified right now to be criticising anything, but reading other people's critiques has been a very interesting pass time.

I write fantasy, horror and sci-fi, so that is what I have focused my energies upon. We have a large contingency of very talented writers who specialise in these genres, and so I've been a bit spoilt when it comes for things to read. What has interested me immensely is how many of them have recieved very similar critiques as me in terms of overwriting, telling rather than showing, dumping info, use of adverbs etc... mainly by people who don't write nor read fantasy.

This is not a criticism of those who write other genres. It's certainly not a criticism of anyone giving critique. Basic rules and guidelines are just that - basic rules and guidelines that should apply to all, regardless of genre (like spelling, sentence structure, basic grammar etc). But should people bear in mind the target audience and genre when they approach their critiquing, rather than just approaching all pieces with the same mindset?

I only ask this because I have seen a lot of fantasy pieces critiqued to the point of austerity, which whilst not a bad thing in general, does mean that the piece can end up lacking a lot of the things that people expect to read when choosing a fantasy story. There have been a few cases when the fantasy writer has felt they have to defend their stance, and a few more are now reluctant to post pieces for critique because they know straight away that those who do not read the genre they are writing for will slash through their piece in a moment and declare it overwritten. Of course, this very well may be the case, and it can be a helpful (if painful!) thing, but there are other times when I feel that the suggested cut reads more like a list of things done and loses all of its genre 'flavouring'.

I suppose this blog has arisen because I am writing a Cthulhu Mythos short story right now, and in keeping with the Mythos conventions, it is quite baroque and, for lack of a better term, 'very wordy'. If I do put it up for people to read, there are going to be a lot of people unfamiliar with the Mythos and its conventions who are going to declare it overwritten tripe and then give me suggestions to pare it back to its skeleton. The problem with this is, if I ever approach a Mythos publisher with it, they are going to expect a Mythos story in its full baroque glory... not a modern tale told with a modern taste for literary austerity, and therefore the critique may not actually do me any favours in the long run (whereas someone who does know the genre would be able to see past the stylistic conventions and critique the actual tale as opposed to being horrified by the seeming overuse of the word 'indescribable' when describing Cthulhu!) .

And I fear that if I point this out, I will be accused of that terrible sin: being defensive.

So - to put this rambling load of nonsense to bed: where do you stand? Should genre be considered when critiquing? Or should we all abide by the same rules and be critiqued equally, regardless of genre? Should 'genre expectations' ever be a defense for a stylistic choice in prose? Or is it all just defending bad writing?