Genre Expectations

[alanajoli]

There have been a couple of really interesting posts lately, both in livejournals I read (irysangel and sartorias) and in other blogs (Genreville) about what we carry with us as readers when we approach a work of fiction. Sometimes we as readers demand a happy ending, or "good writing" (whatever that means). Sometimes we have expectations that a work of fiction will stay true to its beginnings--in the case of John Leavitt's interesting Genreville post, that means urban fantasy that sticks close to the private investigator noir tradition, rather than fantasy roots. While a novel may not demand decisions from its readers like a role playing game does, there's a high degree of interactivity even in the printed page. Readers supply a whole lot of what goes on in a scene. My mother used to tell me she had trouble reading as a kid, because she'd imagine so many details of each scene, it would take her forever to get on with the reading instead of the imagining.

It makes me wonder a bit about the nature of sub-creation, which I've been reading and writing about a bit lately (thanks to the article randyhoyt had me ponder about earlier this month). Tolkien's description of sub-creation is quite clearly the act of an artist, or the person involved in the act of presenting a secondary creation to an audience. But I wonder, as that audience, how much sub-creation effort we expend ourselves. I've heard some writing teachers talk about students who see words simply as data. They take in the information, but don't do what my mother did as a child--they bring no imagination to it. I suspect that good writing--that a good work of sub-creation--requires not only investment from the artist, but from the audience as well. The give and take required there is a much more intricate balance than people who write off genre fiction on the whole (or really, any form of art--like the abstract visual works that I can't really claim to understand, or some forms of poetry that I don't "get") allow for.

Comments

[breathingbooks.livejournal.com]

Here via sartorias

I've heard some writing teachers talk about students who see words simply as data. They take in the information, but don't do what my mother did as a child--they bring no imagination to it.

How are you defining imagination? A broad question, I know *g*, but there seem to be slightly different shades of meaning attached to it.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! I've been linked by sartorias! :)

In this case, the prof I was speaking with said that the students would take in the words, which would make sense in sentences--like data--but couldn't turn them into images in their heads. So when discussing a poem, the prof would ask what the students "saw" from the description, and the students literally didn't understand how to do the exercise until he started it for them. The opposite of that--what I'm calling imagination in context--is the ability to turn words from data into images or emotions.

Does that make sense?

[breathingbooks.livejournal.com]

Ah, I wondered if that was what you meant. I think I'd partially disagree then as I'd call imagination the ability to consciously create or (to a lesser degree) enter secondary realities. How one experiences that reality needn't be sensory. I rarely visualize or hear when reading, for example, but I love stories and think my imagination is pretty strong. Too, I think emotions are often but not always present. I've read books before where I could for lack of a better word "feel" the world and the story still left me cold because of personal taste. That doesn't mean I wasn't "there" because of insufficient imagination though ; I came, judged it boring, and left.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

You make a good point, and I definitely see what you're saying--I often don't directly picture things (as my mother did as a child) unless I pause to do so. It certainly sounds like you derive meaning from text--which is possibly what I intended to say, but stopped myself because the term is so vague. I suspect the difference between data and story is the difference in reaction. A response to data might be, "Okay... so what?" because the story has no intrinsic, quantifiable value. A response to a story is almost certainly more emotional, a feeling of at least entertainment, or perhaps some sort of fulfillment or satisfaction. A well-told story that resonates with me is one that I leave feeling as though it is *right,* that it is a whole unto itself (or unto its four volume set, depending on the case!).

But now I'm moving into the realm of pure speculation, since I've left behind my concrete example (told to me second-hand). :)

[breathingbooks.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think I understand what you're saying and mostly agree (emotional connection! entertainment! rightness!) but I'm not sure the data distinction always works. I mean, facts about Canada are data but I can still find them interesting even if they don't hold obvious practical value. They're interesting sometimes because they are.

So do you think there is always distinction between reality-that-we-experience-sensorily-and-temporaly and reality-that-we-find-in-human-created-things?

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

It may actually be a matter of application. I think nonfiction (even possibly factual data, though moreso when it's arranged in a cohesive fashion) can definitely have meaning. The difference might be that some people, when looking at data, don't look at implications, only facts. The implications start to create something that is more--bigger--than just the bare statistics laid out. And I think poetry and fiction have that element, too. They have to be more than just the words, or they're not actually worth very much. What takes them from just being arranged words and turns them into a story is imagination.

I'm really loving mulling this around--thanks for asking questions that make me expand my ideas!