Last Month (January 2002)

06 February 2002
Of Mice and Sharks

With the best of intentions, I intended to post my award recommendations here today. A combination of circumstances has prevented that, both healthwise and workwise. I really do promise that I'll do so in a couple of days. Really. Trust me.

The trip itself went much as expected. The flight was quite uncomfortable; some day that assholes who design airliner seats are going to discover the concept of "lower back support," instead of hoping that the wimpy pillows that one can try stuffing behind one's back will both stay in place and work sufficiently well. And I'm still "special," although I was only singled out for searching on three of the four legs this time. I guess no good deed goes unpunished. Finally, the quality of airport food really, really sucks, even in "name" restaurants. I ate at a Chili's Lite at LAX on the way back. That was certainly a mistake! I can't remember a worse burger from a table-service restaurant: dry, overcooked, tasteless, and tasteless condiments. The fries seemed to have been done in 10w40 (SAE service SG), and might well have been fried oaktree roots. And those were the good points, after a 30-minute wait for a table in a rather rank waiting area.

On the other hand, my gracious hosts had both comfortable accomodations and a virtually perfect environment for preparing for oral argument. I hate hotels, and don't tend to do a very good job preparing arguments when staying in them.

The argument also went somewhat as expected. Midday Friday, Judge Cooper issued a tentative ruling that was partly for us, and partly against us. My cocounsel did a nice job supporting the part in our favor, that (absent a DMCA defense) AOL is potentially liable for contributory infringement. I think I gave Her Honor some reasons to redraft (maybe even reverse, although that's unlikely) the DMCA ruling against us, based on the frantic scribbling of both her and her clerks at a couple of salient points. At the least, there will be a good record for an appeal. I do know that opposing counsel was not too happy with the way the argument went, at least from the body language they both expressed. As should be: being as objective as I can, opposing counsel did a poor job of presenting its position and meeting ours, largely working from a prepared script instead of actually responding. We'll just have to see. The trial (if any) has been pushed back to late April.

09 February 2002
"The Perversity of the Universe…

tends toward the maximum." This is really the ultimate statement of Murphy's Law, and hence the ultimate statement of what I've been living through for the last six months. If I sound like a cranky, grouchy SOB who could use a lot of sleep, I am.

Which leads me to comment on a couple of other bits of perversity that have been in the news of late. In no particular order:

• I've updated my awards recommendations today. Of course, my recommendations for 2001 don't match up too well with the probable voting, because I'm not an Insider. This qualifies as "perversity" because, based on the scuttlebutt out there, at least two of the five Hugo finalists for novel will be completely undeserving works that get on the ballot via bullshit politicing. I will refrain from naming them; there would be no shame for those pushing the works, because they have no shame.
• I have only one thing to say about Enron: A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun. That applies to the whole concept of so-called fundamental analysis of securities, too: it depends upon completely honest accounting, and there's a GAAP in that reasoning. (You may groan at the pun. Go ahead.)
• My second-least-favorite "holiday" of the year is coming up later this week. As a student of history, I still associate 14 February with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. And with never getting any cards myself while growing up, but I'm not bitter about that. Not at all. Nope. Never me. Well, ok, maybe a bit wistful, but not bitter. Given the people from whom those cards might have come, there's no cause for bitterness.
• I didn't get to see the Super Bowl, because I was in the midst of preparing for the next day's oral argument (see the last entry). It didn't really matter to me who won, because both quarterbacks were unexpected successes who rose to prominence by taking over for grievously injured high-priced starters—and, on balance, exceeding the expectations for those starters. Were I in charge of an NFL draft, I'd prohibit use of a first-round pick on any "skill position" player from a school ranked in the top 25 at the end of the previous year. This year, only Tom Brady (ironically enough) went to a traditional football power.
• My Tractor Boys rolled over and let the bloody Scousers put six past them today. Oh, well—it's kind of hard to argue with an opponent whose strikers are the starters for the national team.

12 February 2002
The Mother of Inventions

It's been a while since I've thrown any hardcore literary or writing theory at y'all, so I'll spring it on you now (and over the next few sessions). This is a three-part invention—so to speak—on story structure. It's already been inflicted on some people (pity them).

One of the pieces of advice offered to inexperienced writers that really irritates me springs from abysmal ignorance of the good parts of literary theory. The most common mistake is the assertion that "all [successful] stories have structure x." We'll leave aside the problems with scope that this creates for now, and just look at two of the leading purported "structures."

One of the most common examples in the speculative fiction field is that espoused by Algis Budrys, which goes something like this:

1. a character,
2. in a situation,
3. with a problem,
4. who tries repeatedly to solve his problem,
5. but repeatedly fails, (usually making the problem worse),
6. then, at the climax of the story, makes a final attempt (which might either succeed or fail, depending on the kind of story it is), after which
7. the result is “validated” in a way that makes it clear that what we saw was, in fact, the final result.

Element 5 can be dismissed immediately. There is no need whatsoever for "repeated failures" in attempts to solve a problem. As obvious counterexamples, consider Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," J.G. Ballard's "The Recognition," Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," and just about anything that is single-thread action in which a "master plan" is seen through to fruition. When the author throws more, unanticipated obstacles in front of the protagonist to lengthen the piece or "increase tension," the protagonist has not "repeatedly fail[ed]" to solve the problem.

Element 7 is also easily dismissed. If one accepts it, no story can be ambiguous. With some work, one can also find exceptions to each of the other elements; "Omelas," for example, violates element 1.

What these problems with this model really point out is that the formula is too rigid. Such a formula is a good teaching exercise, like a two-part invention, with its rigid structure and focus on an individual technique or interpretive method. That is all well and good. However, it does not make for good art. The only one of Bach's two-part inventions that receives any attention as a performance piece is #4 in d. Perhaps this is just a hint that following a formula leads to less-than-salutary results. You'd never expect that assertion from me, though, would you?

That's not to say that inventions are worthless. They are learning tools. But, with darned few exceptions, that is all they are. One can learn a lot at, for example, Clarion; but stories that stay "Clarioned" either won't sell at all or will sell only to tertiary markets, or perhaps to Writers of the Future (which, sad to say, has rigidified over the last half dozen years or so.)

to be continued…

15 February 2002
b

Joseph Campbell's so-called "hero's journey" is another common proposal as the "paradigmatic story structure." Leaving aside the dubious provenance of Campbell's theory (given the willful ignorance of evidence that didn't fit his preconceived notions, among other problems), this theory has even more exceptions among good stories than does the "seven point" method. Campbell's theory has been expressed in a number of ways; here's one representative version:

1. The hero is confronted with a challenge,
2. rejects it,
3. but then is forced (or allowed) to accept it.
4. He travels on the road of trials,
5. gathering powers and allies, and
6. confronts evil only to be defeated.
7. This leads to a dark night of the soul, after which
8. the hero makes a leap of faith that allows him to
9. confront evil again and be victorious.
10. Finally, the student becomes the teacher.

This theory ¹ has more problems than one can shake a ream of paper at. Elements 2, 8, and 10 are actually seldom present in short fiction at all. Element 9 depends on the failure prescribed in element 6. Element 5 is perhaps the most laughable for short fiction: with few exceptions, there is no "gathering," but at most a "redeployment of existing assets." Perhaps at novel length, this is a significant element—but all too often it leads to the "quest coupon" method of plotting, in which the characters run around collecting various "plot coupons" until they have enough for the E-ticket ride of the climax. Of course, some of these criticisms result from the all-too-common misunderstandings of what plot really is; although that's more of an aside this time, it's far from irrelevant in the final reckoning.

There is one type of story, however, that almost invariably defies all of the supposed structural rules for fiction, whether in short fiction or otherwise. Can anyone guess what it might be? No, Mr. Brewer, you already know the answer. Someone else, please.

At the smallest level—the one most apparent to those without overexposure to literary theory—satire cannot successfully follow those rules. Satire is not the same thing as parody; there is a world of difference between Don Quixote and Bored of the Rings. Several worlds, in fact. The key distinction is that parody is ultimately "about" the source work and the author's reaction to it, while satire is ultimately "about" a larger target. Parody is usually played only for laughs; while satire can be hysterically funny (e.g., Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), the author maintains the laughter just long enough to slip the knife in and give it a good twist.

So, then, how does one structure a work of short fiction? Although I think Kipling a bit optimistic (there are not truly nine and sixty "right" ways to compose tribal lays), he's onto something.

to be continued…

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1. Both this listing and the one on 12 February are shamelessly copied from Philip Brewer's article "Story Structures in Short Stories" (Speculations 45: 16–18 (Feb. 2002)). They're quite similar to other versions I've seen—but this way I didn't have to find those versions and retype them.

18 February 2002
Fugue

The real problem with these so-called structures is that they aren't structures at all—they're lists of ingredients, or at most archetypal plots. They do not cover any of the other essential elements of fiction: character, environment, or theme. The most difficult aspect, though, and the real difference between the saleable story and the unsaleable story, is the integration of the various parts. Just having a character in a situation with a problem who tries to solve his problem isn't enough; the character must somehow fit the initial situation (even the "fish out of water" is a fit of one kind), the problem must somehow relate to the character and to the situation, and the attempts to solve the problem and theme must relate to all of the above.

One example of this problem is the quasirevolutionary stance so common in IFS. I've lost count of the number of liberal democracies¹ that seem to be accepted as a natural system of government in these preindustrial cultures, complete with organized educational systems, advancement on merit, searches for new Heroes that ignore class structures, etc. A prime example—and far from the worst one—is Lackey's Valdemar environment. Leaving aside the William-Morris-like "medieval without the dirt, disease, and poverty" aspects for the nonce, such an environment says worlds about the makeup of the elite (the Heralds, in Valdemar itself). If "merit" really is the basis, there should be a lot fewer nobles, a lot more citydwellers, and a lot more candidates who fail training than is apparent there. This does have—or, at any rate, should have—significant effects upon the characters, both in terms of the kinds of situations they find themselves in and the kinds of characters they are. It also should have great effects upon the kinds of plots and problem-solving, but seldom does. Conversely, working in the other direction, one must ask what kind of society would be consistent (even to the point of tension, if required, but consistent nonetheless) with the chosen "enlightened" ruling structure. It would almost certainly not be preindustrial, or in any event not agrarian-based, and would require some sense of physical threat to the elite from even the lowest of the low. Feodality could maintain itself as long as the average citizen had no ability, even en masse, to threaten the elite.

Too often, though, writers claim that "I'm just trying to entertain; therefore, I don't have/need a theme." Sad to say, too much of this material gets published, particularly in media fiction. The claim, however, is either a blatant lie or reflective of considerable ignorance. All commercial fiction has, at a minimum, the theme of "ka-ching!" behind it: the author wants to get paid (on occasion, in "respect" rather than in money, but that's just a different currency). Occasionally, it's even worse, as in the Dragoncrap Chronicles, which appear calculated more to sell D&D supplements and gaming aids more than anything else. But, in any event, "themeless" writing is impossible. That's not to say that every story must begin with a Theme, and everything else must be bent to the writer's preconceived notions, or that the writer's initial thoughts about theme will necessarily be the same at completion.

This all creates an interesting counterpoint in the actual writing process. At least at the initial drafting stage, every word, every sentence, every paragraph, is primarily related to one or more of the four contrapuntal aspects of a work of fiction. As the story approaches a complete form (i.e., after it has been drafted and edited at least once), some of the "notes" will weave together in something approaching harmony. A simple fugue—or even a very complex one, such as the last part of Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge or Beethoven's Grosse Fuga—cannot successfully extend very long without at least some elements of harmony.² Thus, that paragraph describing the main character's exquisite evening gowns, if done well, will reveal as much about the environment as it will about the main character herself (or himself, in a twisted-enough context…), and probably something of the underlying theme, too.

So, then, where does this leave us? No doubt more confused than when we started. It clearly leaves us without a prescribed "story structure," which is all to the good. Even moreso in the arts than in other endeavors, it simply does not do to ingrain bad habits in students. Instead, it leaves us with a description something like this:

A work of fiction requires

• One or more characters,
• who must make a decision(s) or take/refrain from action(s)
• which has/have consequences, foreseeable or otherwise,
• appropriate to and limited by his/her/their environment,
• that resolve(s) or reveal(s) an underlying theme
• as depicted in prose.

One difficulty with this model is the implied sequence (character comes first), which is more an artifact of language than a specific necessity. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," for example, certainly deals with the limitations of the environment "before" it deals with characters, or decisions/actions, or consequences, or theme. Fiction is not necessarily linear; the writing of it sure as hell isn't, even for those who claim to go from word 1 to word 108,972 without any backtracking in the middle.

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1. "Liberal democracy" has little to do with contemporary notions of "liberal" and "conservative" (particularly as those terms have been corrupted in American usage). Instead, a "liberal democracy" is one that draws both the electors and the elected from a relatively representative cross-section of the entire society (even if certain discrete groups, such as women, are excluded) to constitute a deliberative body that both makes and determines enforcement of law and policy. In some variations, the electors could be an identity with the elected, as a cursory look at pre-Roman Athens implies. It can be relentlessly reactionary, right-wing, conservative, what have you; it is the form and the cross-section that make it a "liberal" democracy.
2. Polyphonic works are not an exception to this model. Polyphonic works have limited lengths, and themselves reflect some of the underlying society (particularly including the inability of any of the "serious" instruments to individually engage in harmony). Just as we have learned a great deal about what makes "good music" since the time of William Bird, we have learned a great deal about what makes "good fiction" since the time of Laurence Sterne.

21 February 2002
For Limited Times

In a very surprising move, the Supreme Court has granted certiorari (agreed to hear) Eldred v. Ashcroft. The decision will issue during the October 2002 Term, which means sometime before the end of June 2003. Nobody realistically expected this; one of Eldred's counsel has been quoted as feeling that they were "just going through the motions."

This case challenges the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. Eric Eldred runs an electronic/internet "press" that is devoted to placing public domain documents on the internet. The Act extended the copyright term from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years for known natural person creators, and from 75 years to 95 (or 120) years after creation for corporate and work for hire. Although some authors might feel that this is a good move, it's not, as it makes it that much more difficult to make use of preexisting works. Further, on balance Eldred should succeed in overturning the extension.

Copyright is not some random accomodation; it is authorized in Article I, § 8, cl. 8. But it is not a blanket authorization. The clause reads:

The Congress shall have the power…. To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

(emphasis added) The question in Eldred is whether life plus 70 years (or 120 years) is a "limited Time[]." Although these literally are limits, they may not meet the constitutional standard of a "limited Time[]." As a matter of sound policy, they should not be so treated.

Life plus 70 years is essentially three productive lifetimes for most works. Of greater concern is the excessive protection for corporate works. The statute should really be called the Mickey Mouse Copyright Term Extension Act, as Disney's fears about the impending lapse of Steamboat Willie into the public domain led to an extraordinary lobbying effort. (That the Mouse would still be protected as a trademark seems to have escaped virtually everyone.) Authors do deserve a sufficient term of copyright protection, but this is excessive—excessive in a constitutional sense. And treaties cannot override the Constitution; rather the opposite, as there is no power to make an unconstitutional treaty.

24 February 2002
Echoes

The recent musings on "story structures" appear to have struck some nerves, or at least obtained some responses (most of them apparently approving). A number of responses—a few online, most via e-mail—have made it clear that I didn't make one thing clear: There is technical language in those musings drawn from literary criticism. The word "structure," for example, does not have the meaning one ordinarily learns in 9th-grade English while writing a book report on Great Expectorations. (One might argue that the "book report" method is, in fact, the single greatest impediment to understanding literature forced upon Americans by their education system. But I digress… like that's a surprise.) The Rumor Mill has the usual number of arguments ongoing right now (three) about how students can/should/do learn to writer better and the various impediments to doing so. As usual, one of the arguments has degenerated into personal attacks by arrogant SOBs, who all think they know more than anyone else about literature, that would bring shame and disgrace upon a third-grade recess.

Thus, I have a Modest Proposal to Alleviate the Suffering and Anguish of Writing MFA Students and Make Them Useful to Literature Instead: Abolish the writing MFA. Instead, make them all take graduate-level literature, history, and other coordinate courses, supplemented by small-group and/or independent study work in writing in at least three of the four genres (and if you don't know them, you need to look them up). Instructors will be granted tenure and promotion based solely upon teaching performance, judged 75% by the entire department faculty and 25% by the students; any publications will be so much the better, but the instructors in this program are there to teach, not to pontificate. Students will be required to meet all of the other requirements for an MA in English; "writing" is just their concentration. They will also be required to meet the admission criterea for the MA program. At the end, they will be awarded an MA, which will fully qualify them to continue for a PhD if they so choose.

Unlike Swift, though, I'm at least half serious. Most of the bullshit and harm that I've seen in writing instruction has come from one of three instructional problems, all of which would be (to at least some extent) minimized by the restructuring.

• Overly narrow focus on a specific subarea within literature, resulting in tunnel vision and ignorance of context (in terms of both theory and practice)
• Misidentification of "satisfactory" publications and projects as imitations of that already done
• Refusal to read, and read widely, during the writing process

Learning why and when to use a particular tool is more important for those who intend to seriously practice an art or craft than is honing how to use a particular tool, at least at the graduate level. By the time one gets to graduate school, there should be no need whatsoever to teach a student how to form a coherent sentence, paragraph, or essay (which is not to say that the tools themselves deserve no attention at all).º

Consider "serious" music education for a moment: By the time a conservatory student reaches the third year (equivalent to junior year of college), he or she has probably learned all the technique he or she ever will learn from an instructor. Any future improvements in technique will most likely come from experiment and imitation, not from further instruction. The last two years, and all graduate education, are devoted to mastering an ever-expanding context for applying that technique—understanding not just the notes on a page, but what techniques to use to bring those notes to life. This is most emphatically not what an MFA in writing does. The post-degree employment rates for musicians with master's degrees, versus those for MFAs, are substantially different (although there are certainly more than a few starving well-educated musicians out there!).

A little more understanding of context would keep a lot of bullshit from making its way into the stream of "writingese"; a lot more understanding of context would be even better. Students (and graduates) who understand how to analyze a narrative will not fall into the "seven point" or "hero's journey" traps, because they will know better. In order to know better, they need to know something other than the correct angle at which to hold their pens.

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• None of this is intended to imply that one can't be a good, or even great, writer (or musician, for that matter) without an MFA or some other degree. There are, after all, some prodigies out there. One of my undergraduate literature professors—the late Howard Nemerov, the Poet Laureate—had no graduate degree at all, but knew as much, if not more, about twentieth century poetry as any PhD-holding professor, and could actually explain it and challenge students to discover it. I'm concentrating here on what to do with and for those who do choose a graduate program with the objective of becoming serious writers.

  A "serious" work is not necessarily navel-gazing postmodern egotistical bullshit, either, but a work of more than ephemeral value, whether "commercial" or otherwise. Sad to say, I've written—and published, in relatively prominent places, under yet another name—a few of the former. I've learned better since.

28 February 2002
A "Knock-Down, Drag-Out Hissy-Fit Bitch Brawl"

Every so often, serendipity strikes. For the last couple of weeks, I've been mouthing off about problems with the conventional wisdom with writing instructions. Yesterday's Salon includes an interview with Dan Simmons, the author of the Hyperion books. Mr. Simmons's opinion of contemporary literature seems as low as mine, for many similar reasons.

Simmons compares contemporary fiction to 1970s and 1980s Berlin. Simmons believes that the real ghetto of East Berlin—the gray, lifeless, hopeless existence with no past, no future, only a disconnected present—is the so-called "mainstream." His explanation is a bit tenuous, founded as it is in some criticisms of particular authors lionized by the literati, but does contain one telling phrase: "joyless magical realism devoid of both magic and realism…" This is, to my mind, a complete and adequate explanation for the problem. The mainstream has lost the ability to imagine, and relies upon such outlandishly specific details that it is no longer real. Is fiction really restricted to such mundanity as the various midlife crises of a suburban used car salesman (Updike's Rabbit Angstrom), or to creating realism through descriptions of exactly which Martha Stewart craft items the protagonist has bought from Kmart this week (Ann Beatty and the "Kmart Realism" nonsense)—at least until Kmart emerges from bankruptcy.

Conversely, though, the "genre fiction" isn't really any better. The most telling comment, perhaps, is Simmons's evaluation of Tom Clancy:

It's fascinating that in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, the only author in demand on the TV networks was Tom Clancy. As a writer, as a handler of language and character and metaphor, Clancy ranks somewhere slightly below the sixth-graders I used to teach. But he knows something—about terrorists, about weapons of mass destruction, about the world we live in with all its fanaticism and teeth and cynicism and terror.

Although this is a bit generous to Clancy (his use of metaphor is closer to kindergarten than to sixth grade, and he doesn't know nearly as much as either he thinks he does or he has convinced others that he does about terrorists), it accurately reflects a major difficulty with contemporary literature: the problem of "separate but equal" standards of excellence. If nine constipated old white men could see through that bullshit in schools in the 1950s, why can't well-educated literati of all races see it on the page in the 21st century? <SARCASM>Perhaps they don't understand rhetorical questions?</SARCASM>

The one thing that Simmons screws up is that he didn't recognize a necessary vowel shift. The proper label for "shitty pseudofiction driving out good fiction" isn't Gresham's Law; it's Grisham's Law.

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