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Nerdburger_Jansen posted:Or don't Orwell and Rand have the strongest, most obvious themes? What the gently caress This is so wrong I dont even know where to start Like, do you think "message" and "themes" are synonymous or something?
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Jan 28, 2019 04:43
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Nerdburger_Jansen posted:The point of storytelling isn't just communication, though - otherwise nonfiction prose would always do just as well. Art is about form for its own sake, and not just function. If anything, the latter has to be subordinate to the former for it to be any good. A decent story will move a person without their understanding why, or give them something they didn't know they wanted. The reader needs something to relate to in any story, and that's where the themes come in. We're not saying that you need to have poo poo like Ayn Rand jabbering on for 200 pages about how greed is good and Dagny really likes loving, but even Covenant in your example has something to relate to (concern for the environment, fear of going mad). The best stories can relate to the human condition somehow or have ideas. Prose is important to communicate these ideas, because the prose is the ideas. Your art argument is laughable because there is actually a lot of thought and technique that goes into any art, and it doesn't spring from The Artist via divine inspiration. I can't speak for actual visual arts, but any kind of music composition has a ton of theory behind it. The stories that speak to us speak to us because they are well constructed, they do have good prose with thought behind it, and the words are carefully chosen to have an effect and convey ideas. The form IS the function, full stop.
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Jan 28, 2019 05:30
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Like, do you think "message" and "themes" are synonymous or something? Before you answer that... 1. Can a “dragon” be a “theme”? 2. Can a “theme” be a “dragon”?
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Jan 28, 2019 06:08
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all communication, all art, has "ideas" in it. they're not just something added in by the artist to make it more relatable, they are an inevitable feature, whether consciously wrought by the artist or not
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Jan 28, 2019 08:07
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I, for one, hate it when a book has motifs
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Jan 28, 2019 09:50
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leitmotifs
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Jan 28, 2019 10:12
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modern literature is poo poo because only the blandest stuff gets published, but my question is where is the self-publishing industry? there should be at least one or two undiscovered geniuses out there laying secret golden eggs, why aren't the publishing agents sniffing them out?
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Jan 28, 2019 10:24
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or maybe there are no secret geniuses. maybe we as a species have decayed from our evolutionary peak of genius and from here it's an inexorable spiral down into the depths of self-serving predatory lovelessness, devoid of literature, of art, of anything except survival and the struggle to win it
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Jan 28, 2019 10:26
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and loss edits
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Jan 28, 2019 10:38
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We've pretty much exhausted/reached the limits of most forms, it won't be until climate change obliterates modernity that you'll see good art again (assuming humanity survives).
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Jan 28, 2019 10:48
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pikachode posted:modern literature is poo poo because only the blandest stuff gets published, but my question is where is the self-publishing industry? there should be at least one or two undiscovered geniuses out there laying secret golden eggs, why aren't the publishing agents sniffing them out?
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Jan 28, 2019 10:52
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maybe we really do need a war
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Jan 28, 2019 11:03
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pikachode posted:modern literature is poo poo because only the blandest stuff gets published, but my question is where is the self-publishing industry? there should be at least one or two undiscovered geniuses out there laying secret golden eggs, why aren't the publishing agents sniffing them out? i think that cool things are being published but mostly by small(sometimes very small) presses. the self publishing thing is what happened with sergio de la pava's first novel, he published it himself online when no one would accept it and then it got picked up to wide acclaim by real publishers a couple of years later.
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Jan 28, 2019 13:05
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porfiria posted:We've pretty much exhausted/reached the limits of most forms, it won't be until climate change obliterates modernity that you'll see good art again (assuming humanity survives). this is stupid and i think you have the computer programmer style of brain disease/depression that is very prevalent on this forum, unfortunately.
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Jan 28, 2019 13:07
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porfiria posted:We've pretty much exhausted/reached the limits of most forms, Have we really?
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Jan 28, 2019 13:45
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I tried to draw the other day, but I ran into a limit so I had to stop.
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Jan 28, 2019 13:54
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I feel I'm somewhat to blame for the idea that the best (fantasy) work is themeless, messageless, meaningless. If you squint a bit at what I said you could come across that idea, maybe. I'm more saying that the author (and the author's idea for the work), the story, and the text the reader constructs are all distinct stages with less influence over each other than many would commonly assume. As for where is all the decent work, vis a vis self-publishing, then self-publishing doesn't have a whole community dedicated to telling you the work is amazing, darling. I'm sure there's some amazing writing being published, either self-published or traditionally published, but there's definitely a tiredness when all the "hot" traditionally published novels are spoken about with ever-demanding superlatives. For trad publishing there's entire networks set up to commend the work, talk about how amazing it, the author and publishers are. To fully embrace the communal exultary throes of being and being together. It's hard not to get a little eye-rolly. And it's hard not to see the real meaningful work amidst that. Never mind the effect it has on publishing where they're looking to fuel hype rather than reading.
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Jan 28, 2019 14:12
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I am surprised we haven't seen the return of short-story magazines or even serialized fiction to any meaningful extent, which are forms that more easily allows for experimentation with new styles and narratives than either traditional publishing or self-publishing avenues. With the latter two, an author has to find an audience that is receptive enough to their stuff to be willing to pay for it and sustain their writing, so anything kind of has to rely on familiar genres that would appeal to specific audiences for marketing purposes. But with, say, a monthly magazine of shorter pieces, authors could spend much less time and effort on each work, thus reducing the pain if any single story doesn't pan out. So there's much more room to experiment with fresh ideas in this format.
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Jan 28, 2019 14:55
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AFancyQuestionMark posted:I am surprised we haven't seen the return of short-story magazines or even serialized fiction to any meaningful extent, which are forms that more easily allows for experimentation with new styles and narratives than either traditional publishing or self-publishing avenues. With the latter two, an author has to find an audience that is receptive enough to their stuff to be willing to pay for it and sustain their writing, so anything kind of has to rely on familiar genres that would appeal to specific audiences for marketing purposes. But with, say, a monthly magazine of shorter pieces, authors could spend much less time and effort on each work, thus reducing the pain if any single story doesn't pan out. So there's much more room to experiment with fresh ideas in this format. Because novels and short stories are very different media. And even then I've seen plenty of articles, in the UK and Ireland, talking about how lit mags are more popular than they've been in years.
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Jan 28, 2019 15:24
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Mrenda posted:Because novels and short stories are very different media. Didn't know this. Can you point me towards mags that regularly feature good or interesting pieces? Re: novels and short stories being different - that's why I mentioned serialized fiction. Sure it isn't quite the same as a novel, but it could still afford more flexibility to the author and result in more interesting fiction. There's a web serial thread here, but last I saw most discussion centers around the works of one (very decent, imo, could be a target for this thread) genre author, with occasional interludes into other peoples works that quickly die down because they're all super derivative. I wonder why this format isn't more popular? AFancyQuestionMark fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 15:42
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AFancyQuestionMark posted:Didn't know this. Can you point me towards mags that regularly feature good or interesting pieces? I haven't read much of it because it moved from Ireland to North America, and I couldn't bring myself to buying pdf copies, but Into the Void is attempting things. https://intothevoidmagazine.com/ The Irish ones can be ok, but aren't amazing and are changeable based on the particular issue and who's editing (I've yet to read any Gorse.) The Stinging Fly is probably the equivalent of the paper of record here. The Lonely Crowd coming out of Wales is refreshing in how solid it is. Then you get the big international ones like The Paris Review, Granta, what appears in The New Yorker, but I haven't been able to bring myself around to being disappointed by them. I've read a few of The Paris Reviews from my library and they seem to be more a who's who of literature rather than a what's what.
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Jan 28, 2019 15:52
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pikachode posted:modern literature is poo poo because only the blandest stuff gets published, but my question is where is the self-publishing industry? there should be at least one or two undiscovered geniuses out there laying secret golden eggs, why aren't the publishing agents sniffing them out? let me be the first to introduce you to LitRPG
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Jan 28, 2019 16:25
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my bony fealty posted:let me be the first to introduce you to LitRPG mods?
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Jan 28, 2019 16:31
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Serialized fiction exists and is hugely popular. YA novels are like 100 pages each and come in trilogies or tetralogies. Nothing new under the sun.
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Jan 28, 2019 17:06
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poisonpill posted:YA novels are like 100 pages each i can't tell if you're making a joke
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Jan 28, 2019 17:21
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Bonaventure posted:i can't tell if you're making a joke Not really, no. YA novels run about 1/2 the page count of a adult science fiction/fantasy novel, although 40k words is about 160 pages so 100 pages is a bit hyperbolic. quote:Adult Fiction:
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Jan 28, 2019 17:35
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I was about to say: I'm not sure if that was re: genre fiction, but literary short story anthologies have been doing just fine e: ^^^^ that is some weirdly arbitrary prescriptive nonsense Lex Neville fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Jan 28, 2019 |
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Jan 28, 2019 17:38
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it should be noted that short story collections and multi-volume YA books are both not examples of serialized novels which I think the original dude was referring to
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Jan 28, 2019 17:47
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ulmont posted:Not really, no. YA novels run about 1/2 the page count of a adult science fiction/fantasy novel, although 40k words is about 160 pages so 100 pages is a bit hyperbolic. I work with YA books and in my experience they're more commonly bloated to 400 pages because of Harry Potter and Twilight's lingering influence. Also what Mel said.
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Jan 28, 2019 17:49
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Mel Mudkiper posted:it should be noted that short story collections and multi-volume YA books are both not examples of serialized novels which I think the original dude was referring to AFancyQuestionMark posted:I am surprised we haven't seen the return of short-story magazines or even serialized fiction it was both (or, well, not the YA stuff) Bonaventure posted:I work with YA books and in my experience they're more commonly bloated to 400 pages because of Harry Potter and Twilight's lingering influence. what do you do?
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Jan 28, 2019 17:53
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Lex Neville posted:what do you do? Materials cataloguing at a public library.
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Jan 28, 2019 17:54
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Mel Mudkiper posted:it should be noted that short story collections and multi-volume YA books are both not examples of serialized novels which I think the original dude was referring to There has been a return of serialized novels of sorts. (I'm somewhat interested in seeing how much BotL hates Wildbow's works.)
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Jan 28, 2019 21:35
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AFancyQuestionMark posted:Didn't know this. Can you point me towards mags that regularly feature good or interesting pieces? 
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Jan 28, 2019 21:57
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A human heart posted:the computer programmer style of brain disease/depression "Alcoholism" is the word you're looking for
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Jan 28, 2019 21:59
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Joke’s on you I almost never drink and suck at coding.
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Jan 28, 2019 22:09
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Silver2195 posted:There has been a return of serialized novels of sorts. (I'm somewhat interested in seeing how much BotL hates Wildbow's works.) I doubt BotL or anyone else in this thread is seriously going to consider reading what is effectively a 7,000+ page novel to pick it apart, so you'll just have to rely on me saying its good.
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Jan 28, 2019 22:13
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my bad
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Jan 28, 2019 22:23
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Silver2195 posted:There has been a return of serialized novels of sorts. (I'm somewhat interested in seeing how much BotL hates Wildbow's works.)
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Jan 28, 2019 22:34
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obviously the pinnacle of 21st century serialized fiction is Homestuck
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Jan 28, 2019 22:46
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Jan 28, 2019 22:51
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