Post-Mortem on the Draft Weekend

All in all, the Draft Weekend was a good idea.

I have two stories ready to go out (and ready to be printed once Roupen's awake) and one or two more that could use another round of feedback and tinkering. Having looked at my numbers, I'm submitting way less this year so far than I have in January/February previous years. Some of that is due to the many markets sitting on my stories, yes, but me sitting on my stories hasn't helped either. We're not even going to talk about the trunking. Eeeee.

This, of course, denotes a switch in submission tactics. We're slowly abandoning the Throw Enough Prose At the Editor And Something's Gonna Stick of early 2002 and easing into a more Tactical Editor-Seeking Prose Missile ideology. I've noticed lately how the list of markets I will submit to has actually been steadily shrinking over the past year. The Guilt Monkey is no longer satisfied with sales: they must be good, respectable, pro-paying sales now. Picky Guilt Monkey.

Did manage some studying, and I have to manage a little more: there's an important quiz in three hours that needs my attention. And I may have to put off writing during Reading Week, because there are also some essays that need my attention. I wonder why school and writing can't ever schedule around each other: they always jump on me right at the same time.

Anyways, to the shower, the post office, the quiz...

Experimental Fiction

Idea brought on by tanaise's friend Rick's posts (that one linked, and the one after) on experimental fiction, which dovetail nicely with a conversation I had with Charlie this morning. What Charlie and I talked about (among other things) was the balance of craft and Big Shiny Idea in a story, and I think it can be argued that there's a subset of experimental fiction that is driven by Big Shiny Ideas, just off-the-wall and unpredictable ones. These are the stories that I think are groundbreaking, and you can ascribe negative or positive connotations to that as you will.

Back to Rick: And I tell you right now that neither Kelly (Link), Cory (Doctorow), or China (Mieville) are experimental. Why they are so popular and succesful is their PLOTS are wildly imaginative but at the same time, they are writers who excel at the basics of writing - not too wordy, sparse use of adverbs, lots of action words and plot, etc.

And now here's the idea, and this is why I (MHO) think Rick's missing the point. Wildly imaginative plots are, for these writers and others, the experimental element in their fiction. That makes it experimental fiction. One can't forget that every experiment has controls: the basics of writing, a solid style, the fundamentals. Experimental does not equal incoherent, or an absolute departure from the conventions of storytelling, or esoteric, or obscure. It means you take one or two variables of your experiment (story) and change them. That's all.

(I'll also argue that sparse use of adverbs and lots of action words necessarily make good writing, but that's another story for another day.)

So, I really think saying: To all the amateur and not-so-amateurs out there, I recommned that you follow the rules exactly as laid out by Orson Scott Card, Delany, Kinght, and all your other Clarion instructors. If you want big, mainstream success, listen closely to the masters. is a bit fallacious. I mean, there's implication in the first post there (partial quote only used here) that there's little room in the big SF markets for experimental fiction, and hell, this is a literature of experimental fiction. How do you make a story SFnal? You take one variable and change it, and watch for the results. Experimentation is the very --nature-- of SF and fantasy. Pushing the envelope, experimenting, Big Shiny Ideas drive this genre. But you need to have the control, otherwise the experiment will inevitably fail: you will have no useful data.

Rick again: Don't use vague metaphors when giving advice, don't confuse good writing with experimental writing, and keep writing.

Okay, that can be valid, I think. But let's not confuse experimental writing with bad writing either.