Gillian Polack's Blog, page 123
March 7, 2013
gillpolack @ 2013-03-08T16:49:00
PS The IWD post I promised, the start of the WHM blogging will appear later, for right now I'm off to be Enlightened. I have my camera and I have my emergency chocolate.
International Women's Day
Momentum has kindly allowed me to give away a copy of Ms Cellophane for International Women's Day. I had all sorts of scintillating ideas for tags wars on Twitter and aphorisms and everything clever, but I've decided that there's a lot of wit around and many grand plans. What I'd like to see are thoughts on the types of women you'd like to see in the novels you read. You may already be finding them in your reading. If you are, maybe give us examples so that we, too can enjoy these awesome female characters. You may, however, yearn for them (I yearn for superhero grandmothers, for instance, to match several real women I know - I'm tired of elderly women who are lesser beings. You may have an entire thread of your own, or comment on someone else's. The more we talk about interesting fictional women, the happier I am (and the more names I write onto slips).
I shall put all the names in the purple sparkly sorting hat, and I shall draw a winner on Canberra Day (this Monday). This turns a one day celebration into a three-and-a-bit day one, and means we all get to talk about stories about women. And one reader (who doesn't have to know me, who doesn't have to live in Australia, but who probably should have the capacity to read ebooks) will win a copy of Ms Cellophane.
Details of Ms Cellophane are here: http://momentumbooks.com.au/books/ms-cellophane/
I shall put all the names in the purple sparkly sorting hat, and I shall draw a winner on Canberra Day (this Monday). This turns a one day celebration into a three-and-a-bit day one, and means we all get to talk about stories about women. And one reader (who doesn't have to know me, who doesn't have to live in Australia, but who probably should have the capacity to read ebooks) will win a copy of Ms Cellophane.
Details of Ms Cellophane are here: http://momentumbooks.com.au/books/ms-cellophane/
March 5, 2013
A brief writing rant (dedicated to a Pratchett character, because dedications are important)
I have a problem with some novels. They don’t belong to any specific genre. I seem to encounter them on average, one a month. Some of them are written brilliantly and some are not and some would make rather good stabilisers for a wonky table. The only thing they share is a view of language. Other people’s language.
The authors just don’t seem to understand how languages other than English operate. Or how using those languages to represent speakers of those languages can be done without artificiality. Some don’t understand that French is not a matter of adding ‘Oui’ or Italian ‘Si’ at an almost-appropriate moment of their story – that it doesn’t actually give the flavour of a language if one spatters the text with perfectly translatable words. That there are other ways of indicating that every single person is speaking in French besides having someone nod sagely and say “Ah, oui, that will solve the crise. Let’s get down to it.”
That’s my first problem: that it would be rather nice if I weren’t dragged out of reading by trying to work out why someone is translating their own common speech into a foreign language. For if everyone is speaking French, then that ‘oui’ represents a foreign language. Proper names and terms that are uncommon and don’t have a solid English equivalent are quite different. Playing with syntax is fine (as long as it doesn’t go the “'Allo 'Allo" route), but every time a writer shoves in an everyday word or phrase, I’m shoved right out of the reading. That’s why I am here, now, and not finishing my current book, in fact.
Then there is the problem of food. When is bread ‘pain’? Or rather, when is bread painful? When the word 'bread' would do just as well as the word 'pain' and yet the word 'pain' is used. When a foodstuff is quite specific to the time and place of the tale, that's a different matter. If the story is set in Paris (a place chosen at random largely because I miss it) then talking about the long artisanal bread baked by Mme Curie (with its lovely, crunchy radioactive coating) might be cause for a word in French ('pain lumineux'). If the bread is, however, baked by M. Paul Curie, Mme Curie's third cousin twice removed, the side of the family that came to France 4 generations ago, then 'bread' is less distracting. And yes, the Curie family in this paragraph serves the same function as pain in a novel - it distracts and has not much to do with anything and has the added bonus of being mostly invention. This is the precise effect that using 'pain' where 'bread' would suffice has on me. There are other ways of describing a long loaf with a polished outside that has to be ripped open with one’s teeth to get at the silk-fine white interior, and most of them are less annoying.
Then there is the problem of proof-reading and copy editing. The more exotic words and phrases that are written into a novel, the more likely there are to be typos. I collect these, so all my writing friends ought to be worried. I have a personal trophy chest. The phrase currently on display there is ‘magrat du canard’ which I have encountered in two different novels and ‘margrat’ in a third: none of these novels are by Terry Pratchett (hence the dedication). I think the moral of the story is to try not to use words and phrases we can’t actually error-check for ourselves.
One writer told me (when I was editing them) “No-one notices.” This is just to warn other writers with a similar view that some of us do notice. Not only do we notice, but we take note. Not only do we take note, but sometimes we wave the novel at students saying “Look!”
To avoid the trophy chest and the book-waving, all writers have to do is think about what languages they use and how, and to be very, very careful to avoid errors. That’s all. So why is it so difficult?
PS Please don’t tell me you use Google Translate for your languages-other-than-English and don’t check with a native speaker (or even a non-native speaker with advanced skills). I pasted my first paragraph into Google Translate and took it to Spanish, then Arabic then back to English, just to show how automated translation gets some things, but not others. This is the result:
TENGO United Nations problema con novelas algunas. Pertenecen género NINGUN. Algunos de ellos están escritos con brillantez YY OTROS algunos estabilizadores haría bastante bueno para una Mesa wonky. If UNICO QUE ES UNA comparten vision del lenguaje. Lenguaje de otras personas.
Then I fiddled with the translation route until it gave me something actually in English:
United Nations HAVE some problem with novels. ANY genre belong. Some of them are written brilliantly OTHER YY stabilizers do some pretty good for a wonky table. If ONLY THING THAT IS A shared vision of language. Language others.
PPS Now I want to use automatic translators for my whole text, just to see if I can produce Great Literature. Which becomes ‘Gran Literature’ using the same route on Google Translate that I used for my paragraph. Is there a genre that’s literature for grandmothers? There ought to be.
The authors just don’t seem to understand how languages other than English operate. Or how using those languages to represent speakers of those languages can be done without artificiality. Some don’t understand that French is not a matter of adding ‘Oui’ or Italian ‘Si’ at an almost-appropriate moment of their story – that it doesn’t actually give the flavour of a language if one spatters the text with perfectly translatable words. That there are other ways of indicating that every single person is speaking in French besides having someone nod sagely and say “Ah, oui, that will solve the crise. Let’s get down to it.”
That’s my first problem: that it would be rather nice if I weren’t dragged out of reading by trying to work out why someone is translating their own common speech into a foreign language. For if everyone is speaking French, then that ‘oui’ represents a foreign language. Proper names and terms that are uncommon and don’t have a solid English equivalent are quite different. Playing with syntax is fine (as long as it doesn’t go the “'Allo 'Allo" route), but every time a writer shoves in an everyday word or phrase, I’m shoved right out of the reading. That’s why I am here, now, and not finishing my current book, in fact.
Then there is the problem of food. When is bread ‘pain’? Or rather, when is bread painful? When the word 'bread' would do just as well as the word 'pain' and yet the word 'pain' is used. When a foodstuff is quite specific to the time and place of the tale, that's a different matter. If the story is set in Paris (a place chosen at random largely because I miss it) then talking about the long artisanal bread baked by Mme Curie (with its lovely, crunchy radioactive coating) might be cause for a word in French ('pain lumineux'). If the bread is, however, baked by M. Paul Curie, Mme Curie's third cousin twice removed, the side of the family that came to France 4 generations ago, then 'bread' is less distracting. And yes, the Curie family in this paragraph serves the same function as pain in a novel - it distracts and has not much to do with anything and has the added bonus of being mostly invention. This is the precise effect that using 'pain' where 'bread' would suffice has on me. There are other ways of describing a long loaf with a polished outside that has to be ripped open with one’s teeth to get at the silk-fine white interior, and most of them are less annoying.
Then there is the problem of proof-reading and copy editing. The more exotic words and phrases that are written into a novel, the more likely there are to be typos. I collect these, so all my writing friends ought to be worried. I have a personal trophy chest. The phrase currently on display there is ‘magrat du canard’ which I have encountered in two different novels and ‘margrat’ in a third: none of these novels are by Terry Pratchett (hence the dedication). I think the moral of the story is to try not to use words and phrases we can’t actually error-check for ourselves.
One writer told me (when I was editing them) “No-one notices.” This is just to warn other writers with a similar view that some of us do notice. Not only do we notice, but we take note. Not only do we take note, but sometimes we wave the novel at students saying “Look!”
To avoid the trophy chest and the book-waving, all writers have to do is think about what languages they use and how, and to be very, very careful to avoid errors. That’s all. So why is it so difficult?
PS Please don’t tell me you use Google Translate for your languages-other-than-English and don’t check with a native speaker (or even a non-native speaker with advanced skills). I pasted my first paragraph into Google Translate and took it to Spanish, then Arabic then back to English, just to show how automated translation gets some things, but not others. This is the result:
TENGO United Nations problema con novelas algunas. Pertenecen género NINGUN. Algunos de ellos están escritos con brillantez YY OTROS algunos estabilizadores haría bastante bueno para una Mesa wonky. If UNICO QUE ES UNA comparten vision del lenguaje. Lenguaje de otras personas.
Then I fiddled with the translation route until it gave me something actually in English:
United Nations HAVE some problem with novels. ANY genre belong. Some of them are written brilliantly OTHER YY stabilizers do some pretty good for a wonky table. If ONLY THING THAT IS A shared vision of language. Language others.
PPS Now I want to use automatic translators for my whole text, just to see if I can produce Great Literature. Which becomes ‘Gran Literature’ using the same route on Google Translate that I used for my paragraph. Is there a genre that’s literature for grandmothers? There ought to be.
Women's History Month
My Women's History Month blog celebration will begin on 8 March (International Women's Day). Instead of having blogging every day for a month, I have a few special guests talking about a quite specific topic: women in fandom. After the first couple of posts, I will be very happy to put up posts by any woman who has experiences of fandom she'd like to share or analyses she'd like to make. If anyone wants to join in without writing a whole post, the comments are a wonderful place.
I need to say that the idea of this year's theme (which is not the national theme for either the US or Australia) comes from a discussion Kari Sperring and I had a while back.
So watch this space for Women's History Month. Also watch this space for a rant, for I read something in ire and I feel one forming. The rant has nothing to do with women's history and everything about how we choose what we choose for our fiction and certain concomitant responsibilities.
I need to say that the idea of this year's theme (which is not the national theme for either the US or Australia) comes from a discussion Kari Sperring and I had a while back.
So watch this space for Women's History Month. Also watch this space for a rant, for I read something in ire and I feel one forming. The rant has nothing to do with women's history and everything about how we choose what we choose for our fiction and certain concomitant responsibilities.
March 4, 2013
gillpolack @ 2013-03-05T09:34:00
This morning I am down to one box of papers. It didn't start well, though, and I want to do the beginning all over, and quite differently. I didn't want to step on a slug, for instance. For those who need to know, a bare foot on a squashed slug is an effective way to wake up.
It does, however, make me interpret the day from the wrong end. Instead of the papers almost sorted, I want to say "I still have most of the real work to go." Instead of saying "I have two emails to send and two works are finalised at my end, and hey, look at the kind comment the very, very senior editor made on the story that was rejected today (I write a vile story and the editor called it 'nicely done') I say "Oh no, I'm doing everything wrong!"
I think the moral of this story is never to step on slugs while you have a cold. For I am at the stage of the cold where it's descending into my chest and I really don't feel very well. And yes, I stepped on a slug.
If getting drunk helped me at all (it never does - I'm not that kind of drunk, it seems) I would have a drink. Instead all I can think of doing is sharing the pain. Who wants to know what it feels like to step on a slug?
It does, however, make me interpret the day from the wrong end. Instead of the papers almost sorted, I want to say "I still have most of the real work to go." Instead of saying "I have two emails to send and two works are finalised at my end, and hey, look at the kind comment the very, very senior editor made on the story that was rejected today (I write a vile story and the editor called it 'nicely done') I say "Oh no, I'm doing everything wrong!"
I think the moral of this story is never to step on slugs while you have a cold. For I am at the stage of the cold where it's descending into my chest and I really don't feel very well. And yes, I stepped on a slug.
If getting drunk helped me at all (it never does - I'm not that kind of drunk, it seems) I would have a drink. Instead all I can think of doing is sharing the pain. Who wants to know what it feels like to step on a slug?
March 3, 2013
gillpolack @ 2013-03-04T15:19:00
The disorder in my loungeroom is no longer delightful. I have just one drawful of recent papers to go and two boxes of past papers (for it's time to get rid of some old papers as well as time to do tax). If I'm very lucky, the end result will be a bit more space as well as all my tax done.
In the interim (between bouts of taxitis) I'm catching up with small bits of errandry. I've spoken to two different bits of the insurance company, for instance, and they were, as ever, helpful.
In other words, until about 6 pm, today is a day for dull officework, punctured by a Judy Garland movie and Madigan Mine, by Kirsten McDermott. I promised I'd read for the Ditmars today, but Madigan Mine was there and something interrupted my first reading of it and it's a good book and... it really fits the mood of taxes. Totally full of uncheer. It's one of those books that one reads with much appreciation and every now and again stops to say "Glad this is not my mind producing this novel." For all my works of fiction are bright and cheerful and untwisted and full of fluffy bunnies and yellow daisies and spring meadows. Or they have recipes or footnotes or bad jokes. They don't start with death and get darker.
And this reminds me why I didn't finish it the first time. It came out when I was on death's door. The year after my stepfather died. It's not good reading for anyone in mourning and on death's door unless their sense of the joy of the morbid is particularly acute. It's good reading now, however, and a nice reminder that there is death as well as taxes. I'm not sure where old musicals fit in all this. I might make myself a pot of coffee and think about it.
In the interim (between bouts of taxitis) I'm catching up with small bits of errandry. I've spoken to two different bits of the insurance company, for instance, and they were, as ever, helpful.
In other words, until about 6 pm, today is a day for dull officework, punctured by a Judy Garland movie and Madigan Mine, by Kirsten McDermott. I promised I'd read for the Ditmars today, but Madigan Mine was there and something interrupted my first reading of it and it's a good book and... it really fits the mood of taxes. Totally full of uncheer. It's one of those books that one reads with much appreciation and every now and again stops to say "Glad this is not my mind producing this novel." For all my works of fiction are bright and cheerful and untwisted and full of fluffy bunnies and yellow daisies and spring meadows. Or they have recipes or footnotes or bad jokes. They don't start with death and get darker.
And this reminds me why I didn't finish it the first time. It came out when I was on death's door. The year after my stepfather died. It's not good reading for anyone in mourning and on death's door unless their sense of the joy of the morbid is particularly acute. It's good reading now, however, and a nice reminder that there is death as well as taxes. I'm not sure where old musicals fit in all this. I might make myself a pot of coffee and think about it.
gillpolack @ 2013-03-03T22:44:00
The highlight of my morning was being introduced to an arquebus, firing it, and ruining a favourite (but bedraggled) shirt. I will be forced to be more respectable this winter. Understanding the smell and feel of the early gun was worth it, however. I might wear my very-slightly-ashen shirt around the house, for it's very comfortable and its scars were well-earned.
The highlight of my afternoon was making inroads into my tax. I've now sorted 1/3 of my papers and my loungeroom looks delightfully disordered.
The highlight of the early evening was long talks with friends. This was also a highlight of this morning, since I went to the gun range (it was open day) thanks to the kindness of friends.
The highlight of slightly later evening was the duck being cooked. I invented a stuffing for it. The duck was delectable with the stuffing, but the stuffing was ... drabbit, why didn't I write down proportions? I made it up as I went along, and it turned out to be fruity and tart and just amazing.
I tipped some quinoa into a bowl. I added about the same amount of water. I chopped up an onion finely and added that. Then I topped it with a nice slurp of pomegranate molasses. I zapped it in the microwave (which was behaving today) a few times (a minute each time) until most of the moisture was absorbed. I might have added a knob of butter (but don't tell my mother, for that would be so wrong). Then I stuffed my duck with it. The stuffing doesn't cohere (for there's nothing in it to make it stick) but I kinda forgot to carve the duck once I had a taste of the stuffing., An hour later I actually ate a piece of duck and found that the scent of the pomegranate is faintly through the whole and it is just... I am going to stop here, for the duck and the rest of the stuffing is the the fridge, for eating during the week and it is STAYING THERE (at least until tomorrow night). I am not allowed supper! But, really, that's the best stuffing I've ever invented. I have no idea if I'll ever be able to duplicate it.
Obviously the highlight of my later evening is the memory of finally getting back my cooking mojo.
The highlight of my afternoon was making inroads into my tax. I've now sorted 1/3 of my papers and my loungeroom looks delightfully disordered.
The highlight of the early evening was long talks with friends. This was also a highlight of this morning, since I went to the gun range (it was open day) thanks to the kindness of friends.
The highlight of slightly later evening was the duck being cooked. I invented a stuffing for it. The duck was delectable with the stuffing, but the stuffing was ... drabbit, why didn't I write down proportions? I made it up as I went along, and it turned out to be fruity and tart and just amazing.
I tipped some quinoa into a bowl. I added about the same amount of water. I chopped up an onion finely and added that. Then I topped it with a nice slurp of pomegranate molasses. I zapped it in the microwave (which was behaving today) a few times (a minute each time) until most of the moisture was absorbed. I might have added a knob of butter (but don't tell my mother, for that would be so wrong). Then I stuffed my duck with it. The stuffing doesn't cohere (for there's nothing in it to make it stick) but I kinda forgot to carve the duck once I had a taste of the stuffing., An hour later I actually ate a piece of duck and found that the scent of the pomegranate is faintly through the whole and it is just... I am going to stop here, for the duck and the rest of the stuffing is the the fridge, for eating during the week and it is STAYING THERE (at least until tomorrow night). I am not allowed supper! But, really, that's the best stuffing I've ever invented. I have no idea if I'll ever be able to duplicate it.
Obviously the highlight of my later evening is the memory of finally getting back my cooking mojo.
March 2, 2013
gillpolack @ 2013-03-03T08:32:00
Yesterday was a bit of a long day. I was only teaching for a normal teaching day (6 hours, minus breaks - I asked the students how long they wanted for lunch, and they nominated 35 minutes), but it was on top of a migraine the day before and actually with - it turned out - the last dregs of that migraine. Thanks to a really good bunch of writers, who paid great attention and asked many questions, it was a good experience, even when my memory developed daft holes (which was three times, for I was counting). One of those teaching sessions that was very intensive, but rewarding. One student needed a different class to the others, and I feel I short-changed her a bit, but everyone else pretty much got what they needed from the class.
This is the last time I'll be teaching grammar or punctuation in a workshop fashion this year, it appears, so I'm glad it went well. I do wish it could have gone perfectly. What would I have done differently? Spent 20 minutes (which we didn't have, really) explaining 'that' and 'which' and conjunctions and other ways of connecting words. I mentioned and gave examples, but I didn't actually give the student who needed them exercises, so she knows the theory but hasn't solved it for her own writing. This is the only thing I wish I had more time for, but it's an important one.
In a few minutes I have an excursion! Not a long one, but I will be outdoors. Outdoors. There are no more bushfires. I would very much like all the events I missed over the last three months (Donna's launch, for instance) to be re-held purely for me.
It still hurts to walk so I'm not over the effects of the smoke yet, but normalcy is returning, and I walk slowly regardless, for I reached the point where I had to admit that spending every day at home was simply not going to happen. Alongside the pain, my lower extremities have regained their normal size and I can carry more groceries etc before that pain kicks in too badly, so I have good hopes that my caution this fire season will be repaid in a quick recovery. The thing I was trying to avoid was the hospitalisation and so forth that occurred ten years ago. It took a while for the full effect of the fires to manifest in my body last time, but from the waist down I became one of those enormous women in a John Wyndham short story and I could draw three dimensional sketches on my own legs. Cortisone cured it and caused other problems and I've just reached an end of all that and am determined not to let therecent plague of summer fire start the cycle again.
If this morning goes well, I'll wander down to the Trash and Treasure next week. If it doesn't, I'll give it a few weeks more.
Still, life is looking up. And I woke up earlier than I meant to and can get a half hour work done before I have to make a move. I'd better stop being lazy!
This is the last time I'll be teaching grammar or punctuation in a workshop fashion this year, it appears, so I'm glad it went well. I do wish it could have gone perfectly. What would I have done differently? Spent 20 minutes (which we didn't have, really) explaining 'that' and 'which' and conjunctions and other ways of connecting words. I mentioned and gave examples, but I didn't actually give the student who needed them exercises, so she knows the theory but hasn't solved it for her own writing. This is the only thing I wish I had more time for, but it's an important one.
In a few minutes I have an excursion! Not a long one, but I will be outdoors. Outdoors. There are no more bushfires. I would very much like all the events I missed over the last three months (Donna's launch, for instance) to be re-held purely for me.
It still hurts to walk so I'm not over the effects of the smoke yet, but normalcy is returning, and I walk slowly regardless, for I reached the point where I had to admit that spending every day at home was simply not going to happen. Alongside the pain, my lower extremities have regained their normal size and I can carry more groceries etc before that pain kicks in too badly, so I have good hopes that my caution this fire season will be repaid in a quick recovery. The thing I was trying to avoid was the hospitalisation and so forth that occurred ten years ago. It took a while for the full effect of the fires to manifest in my body last time, but from the waist down I became one of those enormous women in a John Wyndham short story and I could draw three dimensional sketches on my own legs. Cortisone cured it and caused other problems and I've just reached an end of all that and am determined not to let therecent plague of summer fire start the cycle again.
If this morning goes well, I'll wander down to the Trash and Treasure next week. If it doesn't, I'll give it a few weeks more.
Still, life is looking up. And I woke up earlier than I meant to and can get a half hour work done before I have to make a move. I'd better stop being lazy!
February 28, 2013
gillpolack @ 2013-03-01T10:21:00
I'm blogging earlier than usual because I want to draw a line under my morning. I've got one of those internal self-castigation things going (which can reflect pain, or can reflect memories that came up during my sleep) and it was validated by the tone and nature of an email. What this means is that I'm in self-punishing-Cinderella mode, and the best way to cure it is to start the day again. I can't change the physical self, but I can change the rest, including what day it is. So all the negatives now happened very, very, very late on Thursday and today is simply the day after.
I was going to run messages and go to the movies today, for the bushfires are finally out and I want to celebrate, but I think I finish my teaching prep for tomorrow, make more inroads on my tax, and finish small things. I can do the shopping on the way home from teaching, and everything else can wait.
ETA: One of the causes of this being a worm-eating day is something I just discovered by going outside (yes, I keep sneaking outside, now that I can). We're getting the big shift of weather patterns from summer to autumn. Today. On 1 March. How did the seasons know that we declare autumn to begin today?
I was going to run messages and go to the movies today, for the bushfires are finally out and I want to celebrate, but I think I finish my teaching prep for tomorrow, make more inroads on my tax, and finish small things. I can do the shopping on the way home from teaching, and everything else can wait.
ETA: One of the causes of this being a worm-eating day is something I just discovered by going outside (yes, I keep sneaking outside, now that I can). We're getting the big shift of weather patterns from summer to autumn. Today. On 1 March. How did the seasons know that we declare autumn to begin today?
February 27, 2013
on creating societies
Those of you who've done my history and world-building courses may have noticed me talking about how our cultural inwardness and ethnocentricities place unintended curbs on our story-telling. Here's another approach (not done for writers, but for rather more basic research reasons), using anthropology and psychology: http://www.psmag.com/magazines/pacific-standard-cover-story/joe-henrich-weird-ultimatum-game-shaking-up-psychology-economics-53135/#.US6kCBaVnHt.twitter
The bottom line is that not all stories are about us, or should be about us. The bottom line for this research (if one extrapolates for writers) is that US story models (which are very popular in genre writing) represent something very interesting indeed, but not as representative of wider humanity as many believe. There are more ways of telling stories out there than we think, and more choices characters can make.
What's really interesting is that the psychology of this research seems to suggest that we create our own societies (they were specifically talking about economies) from material familiar to many spec fic writers.
Some of you know (hopefully very few) that my initial research interest (many, many years ago) was how speakers of the vernacular wrote about history and the past ie how they structured their worldview using their literature and how that fed into itself and created a strong sense of self in time. I was influenced by ethnohistory in my approach, for Greg Dening taught me in Honours year, and his is the sort of teaching that never gets shaken off. The article didn't surprise me, then, for these researchers and I had some overlap in how we approached the study of humanity. I love it that a complex, porous place where disciplines are merging is developing and, with the merge, our understanding of humanity blossoms.
What I love particularly, is that fiction writers have the power to read and learn from the scholars working in this complex, porous place and take the blossoming and bring the new understanding into the community, with interpretations of the different ways of seeing and doing and thinking that present books and characters that move us from the US end of interpretable existence* into wider fields. More blossoms can bloom, for the understanding will spread.
There's been lots of talk of how science fits into speculative fiction, but this type of study is just as important for any genre that claims "We're the one that asks 'What if?"
*Please, do this! The finding that so much of our understanding of humanity is based on studies of US undergrads, frankly, terrified me. What worried me, additionally, was that I wasn't at all surprised. Credible sources and their cost both count in some disciplines.
The bottom line is that not all stories are about us, or should be about us. The bottom line for this research (if one extrapolates for writers) is that US story models (which are very popular in genre writing) represent something very interesting indeed, but not as representative of wider humanity as many believe. There are more ways of telling stories out there than we think, and more choices characters can make.
What's really interesting is that the psychology of this research seems to suggest that we create our own societies (they were specifically talking about economies) from material familiar to many spec fic writers.
Some of you know (hopefully very few) that my initial research interest (many, many years ago) was how speakers of the vernacular wrote about history and the past ie how they structured their worldview using their literature and how that fed into itself and created a strong sense of self in time. I was influenced by ethnohistory in my approach, for Greg Dening taught me in Honours year, and his is the sort of teaching that never gets shaken off. The article didn't surprise me, then, for these researchers and I had some overlap in how we approached the study of humanity. I love it that a complex, porous place where disciplines are merging is developing and, with the merge, our understanding of humanity blossoms.
What I love particularly, is that fiction writers have the power to read and learn from the scholars working in this complex, porous place and take the blossoming and bring the new understanding into the community, with interpretations of the different ways of seeing and doing and thinking that present books and characters that move us from the US end of interpretable existence* into wider fields. More blossoms can bloom, for the understanding will spread.
There's been lots of talk of how science fits into speculative fiction, but this type of study is just as important for any genre that claims "We're the one that asks 'What if?"
*Please, do this! The finding that so much of our understanding of humanity is based on studies of US undergrads, frankly, terrified me. What worried me, additionally, was that I wasn't at all surprised. Credible sources and their cost both count in some disciplines.
