My own fantastic vs. mimetic dynamic
I'm fascinated by people, and I love reading stories about them. The stories I write are filled with fantastic elements -- magic, witches, gods, aliens, talking dogs -- and people who read a lot of speculative fiction know that stories can contain such elements, and even derive much of their strength from those elements, yet still be fundamentally about people.
But I also like stories that are simply about people, that show us how strange and arresting people can be once we know enough about their day-to-day lives. I guess that's why I'm such a fan of This American Life and Open Letters. I've written some fantasy stories that make an attempt to convey the beauty and sadness of everyday lives, that try to find the magical in the mundane. "Tales From the City of Seams" reaches for that, and my sequence of stories about a basketball player, "Anywhere There's a Game", that'll be out in Realms of Fantasy takes a shot. But I'm not good enough at made-up people, not even close to good enough, to achieve even a small measure of the power of something like the X Letters.
My friend Randy links to a story that ran last month in Washington Post Magazine, The Peekaboo Paradox, which is about Eric Knaus, a Washington, D.C. kids party entertainer who goes by the monniker "The Great Zucchini" and pulls in about 100K a year by pretending a banana is a cell phone and putting a diaper on his head. But that's only part of what makes him interesting. It's a fascinating profile of a fascinating man, and if I ever write a piece of fiction that's a fraction as interesting as this piece ... well, it's unlikely I will, but it's something to shoot for.
But I also like stories that are simply about people, that show us how strange and arresting people can be once we know enough about their day-to-day lives. I guess that's why I'm such a fan of This American Life and Open Letters. I've written some fantasy stories that make an attempt to convey the beauty and sadness of everyday lives, that try to find the magical in the mundane. "Tales From the City of Seams" reaches for that, and my sequence of stories about a basketball player, "Anywhere There's a Game", that'll be out in Realms of Fantasy takes a shot. But I'm not good enough at made-up people, not even close to good enough, to achieve even a small measure of the power of something like the X Letters.
My friend Randy links to a story that ran last month in Washington Post Magazine, The Peekaboo Paradox, which is about Eric Knaus, a Washington, D.C. kids party entertainer who goes by the monniker "The Great Zucchini" and pulls in about 100K a year by pretending a banana is a cell phone and putting a diaper on his head. But that's only part of what makes him interesting. It's a fascinating profile of a fascinating man, and if I ever write a piece of fiction that's a fraction as interesting as this piece ... well, it's unlikely I will, but it's something to shoot for.
12 Comments:
I was going to quick glance at this article and ended up spending twenty minutes reading the whole thing! How fascinating.
John Klima
By The Editor, at Mon Feb 06, 12:56:00 PM MST
Hey, you got "Anywhere There's a Game" out of the purgatory of an "on hiatus" magazine and into Realms? Awesome! (Wonder how I missed that?) So... this means we can put it in a chapbook now, right?
By Tim Pratt, at Tue Feb 07, 10:34:00 AM MST
Those Amazing Stories guys were very nice about 1. paying me, and 2. relinquishing all rights when they went "on hiatus." And, yeah, totally you can put it in a chapbook. Assuming Realms publishes it first. You'd know better than me what their acceptance-to-publishing time is like.
By Greg van Eekhout, at Tue Feb 07, 10:45:00 AM MST
Realms is generally pretty fast, so it should be cool.
We'll start talking more about the chapbook later in the year. Like, say, when we're trapped on an island in Ohio.
By Tim Pratt, at Tue Feb 07, 01:21:00 PM MST
It's an amazing article, Greg, but one of the things about it is that it has the shape of a piece of fiction. And you write some pretty good stuff.
But I admit, I love This American Life. I wrote a story called Interview: On Any Given Day which is sort of my This American Life. Ira Glass is fabulous.
By Maureen McHugh, at Tue Feb 07, 02:31:00 PM MST
Yeah, I loved that article. It's such an interesting story that I tried to tell Pär about it, but when I ended up fumbling around and saying "Really, just read the thing" I realised fully how much of the story's power lay in the way it was told. Just beautifully written.
By Karen, at Wed Feb 08, 05:56:00 AM MST
I read "Interview: On Any Given Day" before having heard This American Life. It'd be interesting to read it again, now that I've been indoctrinated into the cult of Ira Glass.
The writer of the Washington Post piece answered questions and comments from readers, also really interesting reading. The Great Zucchini himself even chimes in.
"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2006/01/19/DI2006011902464.html"
(And thanks for the compliment, Maureen!)
By Greg van Eekhout, at Wed Feb 08, 08:20:00 AM MST
Sigh, that link is broken. Anyway, you can find it if you go to the article.
By Greg van Eekhout, at Wed Feb 08, 08:21:00 AM MST
if I ever write a piece of fiction that's a fraction as interesting as this piece
The article is fascinating, but I wonder how much of that derives from the fact that it's nonfiction. As the James Frey incident illustrates, a story can become more compelling if presented as nonfiction. If the article were presented as fiction, would we be as fascinated and moved by it?
I don't mean to detract from the article in any way. I'm just saying that fiction is held to different standards -- not higher, just different -- and the things that make even a mimetic piece of fiction interesting are different from what make a nonfiction article interesting.
By Ted, at Wed Feb 08, 11:22:00 AM MST
That's an interesting point, Ted. Maybe what I respond to in fiction has largely to do with invention, while what I respond to in non-fiction has largely to do with revelation.
On the other hand, fiction that peels back layers to reveal something cool can be very powerful. But, as the James Frey case tells us, things get problematic when non-fiction engages in invention.
Hm.
By Greg van Eekhout, at Wed Feb 08, 12:57:00 PM MST
Certainly, revelation is an important technique in both fiction and nonfiction, while invention is something we value only in fiction. But I'm trying to get at something a little different.
I imagine that we've all heard writers in workshop defend their work by saying, "But it really happened that way," or, "But I know someone who talks just like that." We usually say that such responses aren't a valid defense, because fiction has plausibility as a requirement, while reality doesn't. When we read nonfiction, we assume it's backed up by reality, so we accept things that might seem implausible in fiction.
If a nonfiction piece presents a person with two radically different sides to his personality, we marvel at the contradictions that the human psyche can sustain. In a piece of fiction, you might be able to present a character with the same traits, but you'll probably have to work harder at it; you're more likely to face skepticism from your readers.
Likewise, a nonfiction article about someone facing ever greater obstacles and ultimately succeeding against all odds can be jaw-dropping, but a piece of fiction describing the same events can seem very conventional, even if it's well-executed.
In fact, I think some nonfiction pieces produce strong reactions precisely because we are so familiar with the shape of fictional stories, and we're amazed when reality actual follows the shape of a story because we know that how rare that is.
Again, this is not to detract from the WashPost article. It would have been easy to write a lousy profile about this guy, and we can learn from the writer's successful use of revelation as a technique. We can also learn something about human psychology. But I think those lessons have to be applied differently if we want to use them in fiction.
By Ted, at Wed Feb 08, 01:50:00 PM MST
I've been thinking about how I would have responded to the piece were it a piece of fiction -- and I mean a genuine piece of fiction, not a non-fiction piece later exposed to be full of invention.
For the most part, I think I would have been satisfied. I'd still consider the Great Zucchini an intriguing mystery. There would still have been the dramatic tension created by the question of whether he's a threat to anyone besides himself. The "narrator's" oblique references to his own demons would have provided another reflective well. And all the details of wealthy Washington society contrasted with TGZ's shabby life would have provided sources of reader pleasure.
But, for me, it would have fallen apart when the reporter started grilling TGZ about the incident that happened across the hall. It's Sidney Friedman grilling Hawkeye Pierce about what happened to the chicken on the bus. I think I would have found it contrived and facile. So, ultimately, I'd have found the story to have a great build-up with kick-ass character development, only to be disappointed by a cheap climactic moment.
So, yeah, as a reader I do have different expectations of fiction and non-fiction, and perhaps in some ways my expectations of fiction are more demanding.
You and Maureen both mentioned the shape of fiction. I think there's also a shape of character, a cluster of details that is perhaps messier and more randomly contoured than I often see in fiction. That's one of the things I hope to emulate in my own stories.
By Greg van Eekhout, at Thu Feb 09, 07:29:00 AM MST
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