Wednesday, July 1, 2009

SF&F's Famous Flounders [sic]

Years ago, in a galaxy far far away...

No!

Stop me before I puke out literary wastage!

Once upon a time...before there was the insidious notion of "genre," people used to write stuff...some of it was good stuff and some of it was crap stuff. But it was writing -- and they didn't know into what "genre" it fit. That's because they know about this extra crispy confection of a term.

Oh, sure! Today....when we write stuff, if we're lucky, if we love what we're doing, and if we don't bother reading literary critics, we don't pay any attention to this "stuff-classification" either -- we just write!

Think about it: if you were asked to come up with some writers that you really liked, writers that you enjoyed, writers that you thought were good [No...wait...forget about this last thing! If you think they are "good" you've stopped enjoying them. They may be good -- but that's totally beside the point.], I bet "genre" is not even a teeny tiny itsy bitsy consideration.

Here's a few of mine: Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Bram Stoker, John Steinbeck, Leon Uris, Kurt Vonnegut, Susan Sontag and Gore Vidal.

I write alternate history/time travel/first contact stuff....!?

Go figure!

1 comment:

Holly Jahangiri said...

I thought you were referring to <:}}{{{<<

Genre? I know what it is, but can't for the life of me manage to pick one and shove my ideas neatly into it. Just like my house, my writing is cluttered. And that seems to suit my readers just FINE.

Someone had to invent each "genre," right? There may be only 4, 42, or 119 plotlines on the planet, but someone invented "genre."