Worldcon, Friday

[tamaranth]

05/08/2005 | 12:00 | L(Boisdale-2) | Moving in Time as Well as in Space: the Fractured Narrative & the Causal World | Priest's novel The Affirmation, presents a story in pieces which readers have to reconstruct like a puzzle. This may be a valid way for a writer to depict extreme experiences -- but what are the pitfalls? Do films like Memento represent a "mainstreaming" | Claire Brialey, Fiona Patton, Alastair Reynolds, Steph Swainston
I haven't read The Affirmation and I haven't seen Mememnto: but I like non-linear narratives and want to make my own.
AR: it's easier to write four self-contained stories than a 150K linear narrative. Starting stories at different points in time so they can end up in the same time/place in a non-FTL universe.
FP: benefit of non-linear storytelling is not having everything on the surface. Easier to write delusional characters. Fragmentation frustrates the reader, drags them away from what they've become immersed in.
AR: puzzle-solving burden placed on reader -- clues in titles, chapter headings, dates etc
CB: as writers, how do you approach non-linear narratives?
FP: massive world-building
AR: flashbacks, but dangerous if not used well. Adding extra strands after first draft is complete. AR says that sometimes he writes himself into a corner and can't see way out; he jumps ahead and returns to that chapter later. Apparently Chris Priest doesn't do this -- just carries on writing and works his way out of it.
FP: 'Lost' a good example of fractured narrative: flashbacks etc
AR: it's an example of TV we wouldn't have seen 10 years ago: Starsky and Hutch episodes have a single plot strand, maybe two if you're lucky
FP: implies a more mature TV audience
CB: is this a form peculiar to speculative fiction?
Audience: no (examples from crime fiction, including a novel where one person plays two roles, assumes two names, and identity is unclear). Strong Scottish tradition of unreliable narrators e.g. Gray, Banks, RLS
AR: fractured narratives require a certain sort of attention from the reader; keeping an eye out for clues and being "mindful of metaphor"; trying to second-guess the author.


05/08/2005 | 13:30 | L(Fyne) | Reading | Greer Gilman
I've only lately discovered Greer Gilman's writing, and have still not read Moonwise, because I want to immerse myself in it without distractions and without a sense of urgency re other commitments.
Reading was from the third 'Ashes' story (following 'Jack Daw's Pack' and 'A Crowd of Bone'. Alliteration, dialect, rhythm and metre: yet none of this mars the clarity of the ideas. Gilman's prose cries out to be read aloud (I'm useless at this) and I was struck by the euphony of American accent and north country dialect.
Did my fangirl bit: "I've never had to look up so many words! It was fab!" and remarked on the way that, even in those scenes that take place during summer, Cloud (where the stories are set) feels like a place of eternal winter. Author confirms that she much prefers winter, hates summer. (In which case Glasgow, with its intriguingly blustery and changeable climate, seems an ideal setting.)


05/08/2005 | 17:00 | L(Fyne) | James Tiptree Jr. Book Group: Not Before Sundown | Discussion of Johanna Sinisalo's 'Not Before Sundown' (released in US as 'Troll: A Love Story'). In modern Finland, a man hides a troll in his apartment and struggles with problems of attraction and possession. | Irma Hirsjarvi
One of the high points of the convention, for me, as the author herself (in the company of Joe Haldeman) took part! I was a little worried when Irma Hirsjarvi asked whether everyone in the room was Finnish ... and only three hands (including mine) went up. But the item was conducted in English.
The book's been described by USA Today as 'a punk version of The Hobbit'. Translated into 10 languages, but not labelled as SF. Sinisalo big name in Finnish SF but not much available in English.
JS: Finns live in close proximity to nature and wildlife, but it's newsworthy when a bear's seen in the suburbs -- in the wrong place. But who's in the wrong place, who's in whose territory? Human tendency to project ourselves above and beyond nature (like people in the literary mainstream reacting to SF!)
What if there were a species of animal that could really compete with humans?
"it's mostly a book about human power structures".
JS (who worked as a copywriter for 15 years) recommends the endorphin rush from green chilis as a means of staying awake when writing late at night!
IH to JS: use of quoted documents realistic and without irony: one reason why it works. More emotional depth and complexity than most SF.
JS: If someone is selling you a concept it's very easy to reject it. Better if the reader has to form their own image, their own concept, gradually.
JS: (asked how much her trolls conform to Finnish folklore) ... Finnish folklore is extremely well-recorded and she's stuck to it. E.g. belief that trolls turn to stone at sunrise ...and the 'practical habit' of exposing deformed babies as changelings, economically more practical to do so and claim you've killed a troll-child.
(on writing a gay protagonist) When you are studying the power structure of humans, it's difficult to separate from gender in a heterosexual couple -- easier to see where the power lies in a same-sex couple.
I've been asked a hundred times if I'm going to write a sequel -- never!
Is the novel a metaphor for child abuse, for paedophilia? Many critics say so. Allegories are fun to write and fun to read, like a puzzle: troll as dark side of humanity etc! "But sometimes a troll is just a troll."
Compares Mikhail's reaction to his realisation of attraction to troll, to status of homosexuals in early 20th century -- Finland quite conservative until 1980s -- no history of Finnish gay/lesbian culture.
Audience discussion of whether it's a happy ending: a lot of them seem to think it is. (I disagree: hopeful, not happy. It's not going to be easy -- M will realise how much power he had and lost -- but there's so much potential.)
The title Not Before Sundown -- and the chapter headings -- are all from a popular Finnish folksong about a fairy and a troll, the sort of thing you sing when you're drunk and maudlin. Every Finn knows it. "I had to accept Troll: A Love Story: I don't know the psychology of the American reader, and even more than I want money, I want readers!"
"I don't want my worlds always to be white Anglo-Saxon heterosexual ... Finns! I want them to be true."
I was talking to vgqn about trolls after this, and she told me that as an American she didn't have much conception of trolls except from Pratchett books. I suppose they're products of Northern Europe, Scandinavia, but I'd've thought the myths would have migrated ...


05/08/2005 | 21:00 | M(Argyll-1) | Fan Fiction: Can fan fiction writers go on to write real books? | Fan authors and real authors debate the point. | Tanya Brown, Jane Carnall, Robin Hobb, Roz Kaveney, Juliette Woods
This panel didn't exactly go to plan. Four pro-fanfic writers, one anti-fanfic. We'd discussed the topic extensively by email, and didn't really have time / scope to get into everything we'd covered. Robin Hobb was late (delayed by publishers), and I wasn't sure that she was going to make it at all.
Also, I don't have many notes, because I was wielding the Pointy Hair-Stick Of Topic Drift (thanks, Lj user="ladymoonray">!), and trying to steer the panel in new and exciting directions. Any comments or notes from anyone else will be welcome.
Starting without her, we began by ripping the panel title to shreds. 'Real' books indeed; 'real' authors. Hah. We agreed to use the term 'original' or occasionally 'published': agreed that though there is certainly a great deal of rubbish out there on fanfic.net etc, there is also some very fine fanfic writing and some very bad published fiction. We also agreed to stick to the spirit of the panel's title and not discuss pros and cons of fanfiction.
RH: bad for new writers to emulate other people's style, and for new writers toi think that their ideas are somehow less worthwhile than other people's.
We discussed style, content ... media-based fanfic versus prose-based -- the former allows more variety of style, but the latter doesn't exactly prohibit it, it's just that writers tend to pastiche the books they're basing their fiction on.
Pastiche not always a bad thing -- we mentioned the Yuletide project, which challenges fanfic writers to produce fiction based on 'rare' literature, films etc. For example, fanfic poem in the style of Beowulf; slash based on (but thankfully not in the style of!) 'Gawain and the Green Knight'.
We discussed the notion of progressing from fanfic to original, publishable fiction. Those of us who've written both discussed how writing fanfic had benefitted us, e.g. in terms of confidence; better handling of characterisation; editing network and sense of community; tighter writing; simple practice.
'Original' e.g. published fiction that started as fanfiction before the author filed off the serial numbers and gave it some original twists. (We didn't mention names, but the consensus seemed to be that this happened when the universe got too small for the author's original ideas.)
As moderator, I was having trouble finding questions that could expect balanced and interesting responses from both sides of the argument discussion. (Perhaps we'd have been better just talking about the ways in which fanfic writing differs from original / pro writing, but the inclusion of Robin Hobb on the panel, so soon after her anti-fanfic polemic, seemed to require a different approach that I don't feel was as successful.)
Throwing the session open to audience questions didn't help: people either wanted to talk about their own experience of fanfiction, or to lambast poor RH for her anti-fanfic stance, rant, whatever.
Not a success, but then we were invaded by Space Pirates and had to go away. Phew!