by anesamiller_wuhi6k | Aug 3, 2015 | Blog, Writing & Publishing
Illustration from AAIW by John Tenniel
I’m grateful to friend and author Marnie Cate for inspiring this post and hosting it on her lovely website a few weeks ago. When I first visited Marnie’s site, I noticed that her work concerns magic and the paranormal. I had to admit off the bat that, by contrast, I am primarily drawn to realism. However, I do NOT claim to have any better grasp of “reality” than writers of other genres. To me, realism in fiction basically means that, “Things may get weird, but no supernatural forces will be blamed.”
I’m not sure when the realist bug bit me so hard. Earlier in life, my favorite books were The Chronicles of Narnia, The Fellowship of the Ring, and Alice in Wonderland. A long detour through Russian literature may have done it (which is why I call myself a “recovering academic”). The 19th-century Russian novels of Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky are often classed as a “golden age of realism.”
Nonetheless, I love flashbacks, dream sequences, and the mysteries of nature—these can all be excellent elements in fiction, in my opinion. In fact, there is one key element in my new novel, Our Orbit, that doesn’t fit the realist mold.
One of the main characters in my novel is a young girl named Miriam, who has the misfortune of witnessing her father’s arrest by a SWAT team. Terrified, she hides under her parents’ bed, expecting US Marshals to come for her next. Of course, she does not understand that they will take her not to jail but to a foster home. Nonetheless, while she trembles in hiding, something strange takes place —
…the light switch clicked by the door of Daddy’s bedroom. Miriam tried to sink into the floor. Light reached for her under the edge of the sheet. …she saw dark boots in the doorway.
“Hey,” said the man’s voice. “You playing hide-and-seek in here? You can come out now, okay?”
He sounded young. Not so mean as the others. Miriam snuffled, wiped her face on her sleeve. She knew it would tell him she was under the bed.
His knees crackled when he bent down. “Come on,” he said, almost beside her now. “Don’t be so scared. We’re not here to hurt you.”
The miracle wasn’t that his voice sounded kind. The miracle was that his voice called up another, a voice Miriam had been the last person on earth to hear. Her daddy had said many times, “Miriam was with her when she died.” And Isaac said, “You know, Miriam, you were the last person to talk to Momma alive.” So now she heard her mother again, almost like the breath of someone sleeping beside you in a warm bed on a winter night—
Now is a time to be very brave. This man is not going to harm a child, I promise you that much. And no more bad things will happen tonight. You will go to a good and safe place.
Things may get weird, but no supernatural forces will be blamed…
Throughout the conflicts that develop in the story, Miriam continues to hear the voice of her deceased mother. I think it becomes clear that this is a source of comfort and guidance for her, almost as if her mother were still there. When my beta readers considered these episodes, a few said that I should explicitly clarify whether Miriam’s own psychology was causing this voice, or if it was intended to be a paranormal phenomenon.
Guardian angel….
Like most writers, I think, I was reluctant to ‘cut and dry’ the mystery. The question of whether the spirit of Miriam’s mother literally speaks to her in times of trouble remains open. In my opinion, the story lends itself a bit more to one interpretation than the other, but I hope readers will find the meaning that speaks to them.
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Visit author Marnie Cate and connect with her on Facebook, on Twitter, and Goodreads. Find her book, Remember, Protectors of the Elemental Magic on Amazon.
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by anesamiller_wuhi6k | Jul 13, 2015 | Blog, Writing & Publishing
As you would expect, I believe literary fiction is still vibrant and important because those are the books I like to read. Still less surprising in light of my convictions: it’s the type of book I do my best to write. My new novel, Our Orbit, may not be philosophical, contains no elaborate symbols, and little poetic language. Nonetheless, it aspires to such literary values as psychological depth and social relevance. Popularly termed “lit fic,” this category is tricky to pin down with a definition. With your indulgence, I’ll share some preliminary thoughts.
I like to imagine literary fiction as a coquettish college-aged human (of any gender you like) attending a costume party dressed as Mark Twain. S/he twirls one end of an old-fashioned string tie, and eyes twinkle under that mop-like wig. A lilting voice reminds us that, “Reports of my death are an exaggeration.”
It’s good to keep in mind that literary fiction is a sweet young thing. Its detractors often point out that, “Shakespeare [or Tolstoy or other greats of the past] never wrote #litfic! He just wrote what he wanted!” Leaving aside the fact that Shakespeare wrote drama and poetry, this claim makes no point at all. The concept of “literariness” is one we grapple with in relation to contemporary fiction. It is always a fresh quality for its own time. Anything else, however highbrow and elaborate, would be formulaic.
Moreover, anything of Shakespeare’s era or Tolstoy’s, which is still being read today, should be called a “classic,” or “canonical work,” rather than literary fiction. Confusing these categories lands us in hot water. The most well-written, intellectual novels of today, whether they climb a best-seller list or not, may be forgotten ten or twenty years from now. Once forgotten—regardless of how literary these books were once considered—they will never become classics for future generations (barring the increasingly unlikely event of a new vogue or rediscovery).
Instant classic, or crackpot?
Virginia Woolf by Roger Fry
Allow me to evade the issue of a cut-off date. Even so, “literary,” in the sense I mean here, is an adjective properly applied to fiction of one’s own time. Books earlier than—say, arbitrarily—the cultural shift of the 1960s, came to the publishing market contending with such a different set of tastes and expectations that we can no longer perceive them on their original terms. We cannot read them with the same mentality that prevailed when they were created (although I’m sure this varies for individual readers).
What this implies is that we may find older works interesting for reasons other than those that draw us to contemporary literary fiction. Indeed, our reasons may have nothing to do with literary quality: historical interest, curiosity about an author’s life or death, the comforts of a bygone world, etc. Whether these older books were deemed literary when published or not, they may yet become classics or enter a canon of some sort, if their appeal persists over time.
I find this distinction important because resentment among writers of different genres is running especially high these days. True, such feelings tend to be perennial but are especially unfortunate at a time when all writers are lucky if the public chooses any book over Facebook. But, I understand how authors of popular genres (the name Jennifer Weiner springs to mind) may well resent those who embrace the term “literary” IF we claim it means our work is closer to the classics that millions have loved for years or centuries. There is no necessary connection.
Let me emphasize the obvious: Contemporary literary novels ≠ classic works of literature!
Of course, resentment rarely seeks a rational cause. AND there is a pregnant similarity between the words “literary” and “Literature.” But attempting to change established terminology in any field is a bigger task than I can advocate in good conscience.
I can feel this topic expanding even as I struggle to address it! So in short (if not too late for that): I believe literary fiction is a meaningful category, one that has existed for some decades, and is likely to remain viable in the future. As a purveyor of #litfic myself, I plan to revisit many of these questions.
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Many thanks to Jason Greensides for hosting this original post on his blog on 6/29/15. Jason is the author of the acclaimed novel The Distant Sound of Violence. Visit Jason today!
Connect with Jason on Facebook.
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On Goodreads.
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Many thanks to Jason Greensides for hosting this original post on his blog on 6/29/15. Jason is the author of the acclaimed novel The Distant Sound of Violence.