Deborah J. Ross's Blog, page 148

Thoughts on "The Baggage of Language in Fantasy"

The topic of "Travelling Fantasy Round Table" this month centers on the use and misuse of language in fantasy. Here's my essay. Do check out the others!

This topic brings two things to mind. One is the level of diction in fantasy prose, the other the role of language and languages in fantasy stories.

Once upon a time – and you see right away that this phrase conveys a host of expectations about what follows – “fantasy” conveyed images of far-off lands, usually exotic, times-gone-by, and heroes of courage, dignity, and high rank. Whether fairy tales for children or the Arthurian cycle, these stories often (although not always) centered around royal or at least aristocratic characters. Even those who weren’t (the poor woodcutter, the third son off to make his fortune) partook of the same elevated language. The works of E. R. Eddison and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings did much to cement this association in the mind of the reader.

The subsequent explosion of Tolkienesque fantasy stories varied tremendously in the skillfulness with which prose language was handled. We can undoubtedly all come up with examples of laughably inept examples that stem from lack of research or incomplete understanding of diction.
Almost in reaction to the “high-falutin’” language of kings and elves, the “cozy hedge-witch fantasy” introduced contemporary slang (and social attitudes) into medieval and other “fantastical” settings. Again, the results ranged from fresh and innovative to awkward to inadvertently hilarious. Many of these represented attempts to reconcile fantasy elements (including what was regarded as the necessary pre-industrialized setting) with “the way people really talk.” The style of narration had shifted from omniscient to tight-third person (or first person), and this required that the diction level in exposition be roughly equivalent to that of dialog and internal monolog.

Finally, as fantasy expanded into properly contemporary urban settings, prose language and setting regained a measure of congruence. The language itself became as modern as the surroundings.

For most of us, the way people spoke three or five hundred or two thousand years ago might as well be a foreign language. We have to take classes in order to properly understand any writer before Shakespeare (and most of us need a “Reader’s Guide” to Will). With the exception of literature classes on Middle English, Chaucer gets read in translation. So those of us who are not linguists approach creating the “elevated” language of high fantasy with several handicap. If we’ve grown up in a single-language community (or worse yet, a single-class community), we’ve never had the direct experience of the interactions of culture, language, attitude, and personality, or of public versus private languages, or of separate men’s and women’s languages (although one could argue the latter does exist in English). We have to stop and think about how people who speak different languages learn to communicate – sign language? Translators? Trade dialects? Telepathy? How does a long-established, stable mutual-language/translation convention differ from those that have come before? What are the cultural assumptions that come with each language and each social class within that language-culture? What are the occasions for misunderstanding and what are the consequences? I find these questions fascinating in themselves, but also fertile ground for exploring character, culture, and conflict (not to mention alliteration). Fascinating in themselves, but also fertile ground for exploring character, culture, and conflict (not to mention alliteration).








Photo by Paul (dex). Licensed under Creative Commons.

THE FEATHERED EDGE - "Outlander" - to listen to, as well!

Now for your listening delight: Samantha Henderson's story, "Outlander," is now available as an audio version from Podcastle.



I have been greatly remiss in my progress through the anthology, telling the "stories behind the stories." Samantha's is the last story in the anthology, because it ends on exactly the right note, a tale of swordplay and romance and not a little humor. Oh, and libraries. And masks. Some of them, feathered. You have to read it (or, now, listen to it) to see what I mean.



If this makes you want to read more, here are linkies:

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

Powells Online (independent bookstore): 

I Love Escapism

Ursula K. Le Guin points out: As for the charge of escapism, what does “escape” mean?  Escape from real life, responsibility, order, duty, piety, is what the charge implies.  But nobody, except the most criminally irresponsible or pitifully incompetent, escapes to jail.  The direction of escape is toward freedom.  So what is “escapism” an accusation of?... Upholders and defenders of a status quo, political, social, economic, religious, or literary, may denigrate or diabolize or dismiss imaginative literature, because it is — more than any other kind of writing — subversive by nature . It has proved, over many centuries, a useful instrument of resistance to oppression.

GUEST BLOG: In Which Sarah Zettel Reveals The Culinary Secrets of Vampires

Hello. My name is Sarah
Zettel. And I’m a science fiction writer (Hi, Sarah). The thing is, I’m a
science fiction writer who is currently writing mysteries. About vampires. And
food.







I wish I could take credit for the
idea of the vampire chef, but I can’t. The idea itself came from the late,
great publisher and editor, Marty Greenberg, and I was just lucky enough to be
an author with time enough to take on the project (truth was, I was out of work
when the chance came). The first thing I did — after contacting a food critic
friend and buying KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL — was start reading every
vampire-starring book I could get my hands on. I was not really a reader of the
modern vampire before this, and I needed to know what I was talking about
before I settled into making jokes about it.




Thing is, as I’m a science fiction
writer by nature, there was no way I was going to be able to write about
vampires in Manhattan without going into the history of vampires, and the world
of vampires “real” and literary. And there was no way all the results of that
research were going into the books. Nor was there anyway all of it should.






This used to be a problem for
authors. We had reams of research and strange ideas we had to squirrel away in
our mental attics, and sometimes our real attics. Fortunately, in the 21st
century, we have blogs.




So, with the kind indulgence of our
hostess, I give you, dear readers, a history of the literary vampire, in
dialogue form.




HANGIN’ WITH A VAMPIRE




[In which the
author is discovered standing at her front door behind a pile of rice, holding
her crucifix and holy water and calling out sacred names. Soundlessly, a
silhouette slips up to the window, a pale hand is laid on the glass, and a rich
voice, impossibly old and dangerously young at the same time begins to speak]

            “Hey, can I come in? ‘Cause, like,
the sun’s comin’ up and I’m gonna start sparkling any minute here.”

            “Edward?”

            “Yeah. Can you, like, let me in,
please?”




            “Holy cow! Get in here. Edward! I
thought maybe…”

            “Maybe, what? That I was like, a
real vampire?”

            “No, no, of course not.”

            “It’s okay. Everybody thinks it.”

            “They don’t. You’ve got millions of
fans…”

            “Well, I think it. And they’re
right.”

            “You are a real vampire, Ed. You
suck blood…”

            “Ah, that doesn’t count. Besides,
except for Bella, I haven’t like, chowed on a human in decades. I’m starting to
forget what they taste like.”

            “Well don’t look at me, kid.”

            “See! See! You’re not even scared of
me! And what’s with the cross?”

            “It’s a crucifix, and it’s supposed
to remind you of your eternal damnation.”

            “Yeah, right. I’m damned. I’m a
daddy!”

            “‘S what you get for having
unprotected sex, Ed.”

            “But I don’t want this! I don’t want
to be married to my high school sweetheart. What kind of life is that for a
vampire! I want a harem of sinister undead beauties in white nighties at my
beck and call! I want to fly! I want to bring on floods of rats and turn into
creeping fog! I want to destroy virgins and chew on a corpse laid out in a chapel!
I want to be a vampire! A real vampire!”

            “Sorry Ed. You’re the result of
hundreds of years of evolution and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

            “What do you mean, evolution? I’m
UNDEAD. The undead don’t evolve.”

            “Yeah, you do. Listen, there are two
main species of vampire; the monstrous, ugly, permanently damned, corpse-eating
kind, and the seductive, discreet neck-puncturing kind. The monster line has
just kind of…died out. That’s the problem with symbiosis.”

            “Symbiosis? We’re top predator,
man!”

            “Yeah, and what happens when the top
predator eats too many of the prey? The predator dies back. Then you’ve got the
problem that your particular preferred prey tends to mob up and fight back. Now,
what happens in every story where the vamp chomps through a village or tries to
convert the local beauty?”

            “(Mumble)”

            “Didn’t hear you there, Ed.”

            “They get…staked.”

            “Or burned, or otherwise made to
cease to exist. Right. Now, what happens in all the stories where the vamp is
broody yet powerful and finds a woman who loves him more than life itself.”

            “(Mumble)”

            “If that was “they live,” well,
continue to walk the earth anyway, you’d be right. Classic evolutionary
pressure. The monsters died, the Undead Lord Byrons lived.”

            “So how did this happen? I mean,
Vlad the Impaler did not have girlfriend trouble!”

            “Women got the vote.”

            “Huh?”

            “The vampire myth is a rape myth,
Ed. It’s a warning to young girls not to trust the handsome stranger who
promises you the moon and the stars if you’ll just come up to the castle and
look at his etchings. It’s about how every guy wants your virginity and if you
give it up, you’re worse than dead. By the time Braham Stoker got hold of it
and wrote ‘Dracula,’ it became a story about how young women need to be saved
from their sexual feelings which will inevitably lead them to death, or worse.”

            “Those wacky Victorians.”

            “You got that right. I mean, what’s
the plot of ‘Dracula?’ Girl falls for vampire, stalwart hero saves girl from
vampire, girl becomes proper wife, and presumably forgets all about those silly
cravings. But, see, the problem was women didn’t WANT to forget all about those
silly cravings. They wanted the guy who would take them away from the fate of
being a proper wife.

            “And women buy books. Lots and lots
of books.”

            “I noticed. But, wait, you’re saying
the whole falling in love with a vampire thing is an expression of sexual
freedom…”

            “About which American society still
has really mixed feelings. We still see sexually free women as doing something
really dangerous, so we’re still equating seductive men with monsters …”

            “But what about Vampire Lestat? He’s
gay! You can’t tell me women are running around falling in love with a gay
guy!”

            “OMG. Clearly, the undead do not
read manga. Lestat’s your grandfather, Ed. He was the beginning of the modern
trend. The first vampire hero. Oh, there’d been attempts to re-vamp (you should
excuse the expression) Dracula with things like Fred Saberhagen’s “Dracula
Files,” but it was Lestat who took off. He was perfect. A handsome, broody
monster who actually loved deeply, who did right in the end, and was absolutely
unattainable because he was a gay vampire, so everybody could fantasize about
being the one he actually came to love.”

            “You are kidding me.”

            “Nope. ‘Fraid not. And you’ll
notice, the vamps didn’t remain gay. They went back to heterosexuality very
quickly after Anne Rice. These days the vampire myth isn’t just about sexual
freedom. It’s about obtaining what everybody says you can’t have and shouldn’t
want.”

            “So, what, now I’m a piece of really
good chocolate?”

            “Actually, I think you personally
might be a Mormon.”

            “What?”

            “Never mind. I can’t back it up. But
the chocolate metaphor is good. You’re the forbidden in a manageable package. Just
the right amount of danger.”

            “Because women buy a lot of books?”

            “Last big gasp of the monster line
was Stephen King’s SALEM’S LOT, and even he couldn’t stand up to the power of
the women’s vote.”

            “But, wait a minute. What about all
those kick-butt, vampire hunting heroines?”

            “Very powerful expression of the
fantasy of freedom. Those women are absolutely without question not victims. The
KBVHH chooses to love a vampire. And because she invariably looks hot in black
leather, the guys don’t mind looking at her either. Equal opportunity eye-candy
may be the ultimate evolutionary force.”

            “I’m, like, so gonna wring Angel’s
neck. He should have chomped Buffy a good one when he had the chance.”

            “I don’t think you can kill a vampire
by strangulation, Ed.”

            “So, that’s it?”

            “‘Fraid so, Ed. You’re stuck being
the hero.”

            “But…like it’s not the end, is it? I
mean, we changed once, we can change again, right?”

            “Could happen.”

            “Then I’ll be the first of the new
breed! I’ll be dark! I’ll be death on silent leather wings! I’ll rip the hearts
out of my enemies and…hey, what time is it?”

            “Almost nine.”

            “Ah, crap! I gotta get going. Bella’s
taking classes at the community college and I’ve got to take care of the kid.”

            “I bet you even drink wine don’t
you?”

            “Starbucks, mostly.”

            “Good luck, Ed.”







Sarah Zettel is the
author of numerous science fiction and fantasy novels, including the award
winning BITTER ANGELS (writing as C.L. Anderson). Most recently, she’s the
author of the Vampire Chef mysteries: A TASTE OF THE NIGHTLIFE and LET THEM EAT
STAKE. You can find out more about her books at www.sarahzettel.com and, of course at www.bookviewcafe.com of which she is a member along with many other
notables, including Deborah J. Ross.

Writing, Healing, Telling the Truth

I frequently recommend Louise DeSalvo's wonderful book, Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives
(Beacon Press, 2000). Now, there are a lot of books about journaling as
either therapy or spiritual development, or just plain self expression.
This books tackles a much tougher issue: how writing can help us heal
from major trauma, from unendurable abuse. Not just any free form
writing, but a very specific way of honoring and integrating what
happened and how we felt. Benefits are supported by research -- not only
psychological but physical as well.



If this sounds all very
well, consider this paragraph, which really went zing for me: DeSalvo
writes about all the things she did not know, growing up, about what it
means to be a writer:

I didn't know that if you want
to write, you must follow your desire to write. And that your writing
will help you unravel the knots in your heart. ... I didn't know that if
you want to write and don't, because you don't feel worthy enough or
able enough, not writing will eventually begin to erase who you are.

Erase who you are. Yes, it will, it can and it does. I sat there, in that shiver that says This Is The Absolute Truth.



I
am not sure I am called to write in the particular way DeSalvo
describes, but this I know. Unless I write the stories that are in
my heart and unless I write them true, then I will slowly lose myself.

GUEST BLOG: Sue Bolich on "Finding Magic in Weeds"

We are, each one of us, full of magic.

Ha! That got your attention, didn't it?

Finding "magical" ideas isn't a matter of sitting in front of the blank page thinking up cool magic systems. I could sit around all day trying to dream up ideas and get absolutely nowhere. Ideas ambush me. They fall out of pine trees on my head during daily walks, hit me while I'm filling the dishwasher, or rise up and scream at me while I'm working on another writing project altogether.

Where do they come from? Why, from our own lives. Finding the magic within is a matter of opening yourself to the possibility of ideas.

Yes, I know, that is much easier said than done. Begin by simply allowing yourself to be inspired. Creative people hear in the wind the lilt of a new melody...or the whisper of ghosts wanting attention. They see in the sunset the finger paints of a playful god...or the ominous portent of prophecy looming at the cusp of fulfillment. It's all in the imagination, which, if you are going to write or paint or make music, must be allowed to romp freely without the deadly inhibitions of reality thrown at you by well-meaning but magic-challenged friends: "That's silly." "It's just moving air. There's no magic in Coriolis forces."


No magic? Balderdash. I found magic in weeds./;;'>>>>/.


It's true. My long-running battle with the noxious and unbelievably tough knapweed in my pasture ended up on the pages of my first book as my heroine Jetta's intense and frustrating battle with an enemy she can never ultimately defeat. Fire—the elemental fire at the heart of Jetta's world—is alive. It thinks. It wants...the freedom of the open air, the fuel in living greenery, the defeat of the Firedancers who were created at the Beginning of all things to fight its encroachment onto the land. But no matter how many battles the Fire Clans fight and win, fire will still exist. Still want. Still hate.

My frustration with knapweed became Jetta's determination to defeat the enemy threatening her entire world, and from there became a story about duty and sacrifice and what we will do to protect the people and places we love.

I am Jetta, as all writers are in some aspect their characters. Knapweed chokes out everything around it, killing all the native plants except for the trees and making a wasteland out of formerly beautiful meadows (and my horse pasture). I did not know, when the first, surprising line of Firedancer popped into my head, that this tale about preventing devastation was really about my fight against knapweed. But "This fire was malicious" pretty much captured many surly suspicions about my enemy as I, hot, sweaty, and thoroughly sick of lugging around my little sprayer, surveyed its malevolent encroachment. I imagined it laughing at all my efforts to get rid of it. I assigned it an evil genius capable of plotting its next move into previously untouched areas. I—well, okay, I have an active imagination and too much time to think whilst hunting out every rotten plant. So?

I daresay writing fantasy beats the heck out of therapy.

There's magic in everything. It informs our lives as fantasy writers and lets us "write what we know" in the grandest sense. Aren’t there daily struggles we all deal with, from getting the kids to the school bus on time to impossible people at work? The children become magical but maddening creatures and the cretins become orcs. Geez, I love fantasy.

My advice to beginning writers: turn off conventional wisdom and find the magic around you, whatever you write. Be observant—but let what you see pass straight through your reality filters to the inner child, the one who still remembers the enormous possibilities in an empty box. Let the spark flare, no matter how silly it seems.

That really is magic.

Sign up to win an autographed copy of Firedancer at Goodreads starting April 15!

Want to know more about Firedancer? Read on...

The Ancient, the strange, living fire imprisoned at the heart of the world, has grown tired of its cage. It is pushing its way up everywhere, defying the magic of the Firedance that has bound it since the Beginning of all things. Jetta ak'Kal, the most talented Firedancer of her generation, has already lost her lifemate, the village she was supposed to protect, and her confidence to its bold attacks. Now, a year later, her clan ignores her insistence that the Ancient is acting strangely and sends her to protect Annam Vale with only the most erratic journeyman in all the Fire Clans for a helper. Poor Settak has only stubbornness going for him—and a long-cherished love for Jetta that she cannot return.

They arrive in Annam to discover the Ancient crawling up through abandoned mine tunnels. Thrown straight into battle with an enemy that still gives her nightmares, Jetta's private little war is complicated by the presence of Windriders, masters of air, the Ancient's most potent fuel. Arrogant and cocksure of their own ability to protect Annam, most of them side with a village faction that thinks Jetta ak'Kal is a greater liability than an asset. Only Sheshan ak’Kal seems reasonable, but his undisguised interest in Jetta sets Settak bristling.

Beset on all sides, Jetta must somehow bring Windriders and Firedancers in an unprecedented alliance to stop the Ancient, for if she fails, Annam Vale and its big, laughing Stone Delvers will be only the first victims of the firestorm that will surely follow.


_________________________________________________________________________


S. A. Bolich lives in Washington State with 2 horses, 4 cats, and a dog, and is winning against the knapweed, thank you. Her first novel, Firedancer, came out September 2011; the sequel, Windrider, is due out in May 2012. Her short fiction can be found at Beneath Ceaseless Skies, On Spec, Damnation Books, in Defending the Future IV: No Man's Land, and many other places, and is upcoming in The Mystical Cat fantasy anthology and the Gears and Levers steampunk anthology from Sky Warrior Books.


You can find more information about her and her work at her website: www.sabolichbooks.com, follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and subscribe to her blog, Words From Thin Air. You can also download an extensive excerpt of Firedancer at Goodreads.

The next "Darkover" novel...

The Children of Kings, has been scheduled for March 2013, from DAW Books. I'll post more details as I learnthem.




Meanwhile, here are some earlier posts about the writing process, including two snippets.








Changing Gears: Downshift to Beginner's Mind (May 2011)









Race to the Finish (June 2011) (includes snippet)




RevisionLand; Or, Aliens/Robots/Dry-Towners/Mad-Scientists Ate My Brains (July 2011)




The Children of Kings (is finished) (August 2011)




Progress on The Children of Kings (September 2011) (includes snippet)




You can also read a rough draft of the opening chapter here: Please note that my editor has not made me tear it apart and put it back together again, so it may change. It will change.

When A Story Isn't Ready Yet

Most writers who have been at it for any length of time have the experience of a story not being truly finished. It may come to an end, but it has not yet come into itself. My version of this usually involves my initial concept being wrong. I will start with an idea in what I call the "front part" of my brain--a notion, a conceit, an image from some visual medium (painting, film) and spin it into a plot. I labor under the delusion that this is what the story "is about." More often than not, I'm wrong.



I'm wrong because I'm going for the glitz, the superficial attraction. The truth is, I'm a better writer than that when I listen to what's underneath the glitz. That's where the emotional juice is, the deeper resonances, the Deborah-vision.



The symptoms of this mis-step are many: characters that refuse to follow the pre-arranged script, story elements that just won't come together, plot idiocies that are not just holes but dead-end canyons. I've learned to rip all that stuff out (leaving chunks of bleeding, burning manuscript strewn about) and dig deep into the core. That's part of my revision (re-vision, right?) process, and although with time (read: decades of practice), I've gotten better at writing first drafts that are less superficial and more true, I still value this process. Throw away the chaff; be ruthless; seek the nuggets of treasure and bring them into the light.




Stories can be not ready in other ways, too. You throw them in the infamous trunk when you're so tired of looking at the same words, you can't see the problem. I've been known to put manuscripts in the freezer to cool them off, although I doubt the physical temperature has any effect except as a metaphor. Working on something else gives "the back" of our brains time to work, for ideas to ferment and percolate and for new patterns and solutions to emerge. Alas, this process can take years, which is why it's a good idea to dive into the next project and the next.



I've been talking about a story not being ready. Sometimes it's me, the writer, who's not ready to tell that story. Usually this is because my writing craft isn't adequate to the challenge. This is particularly true if the story is a "high wire act," requiring great skill and subtlety. Or a story that plays into my weaknesses as a writer and refuses to be told in any other way. Or...something I myself am not ready to tackle, like emotionally difficult subjects.



If I try to write these stories before I'm ready, they fail just as surely as those I first described. Perhaps every failed story involves elements of story-unfinished-ness and my own imperfect skill. However, I've found that the attempt is always valuable. If I am willing to listen to the heart of the story and to see myself as being a work-in-progress, then I will surely receive priceless gifts. I grow as a person as well as a writer, and end up with stories I am proud of.

When Writing Friends Aren’t: Sabotage and Self-Image

We can encounter destructive relationships in every area of our
lives, but when it comes to our creativity, they can be particularly
nasty.




Some people write in isolation. Either they aren’t naturally sociable
or they find that critical feedback simply isn’t helpful. Most of us,
however, create some type of support system at some stage of our
careers. Often it’s early on, when we’re struggling to learn the craft.
We may find a face-to-face group or an online workshop or other network
of fellow novices. The internet provides a wealth of opportunities to
meet such people, as do conventions. (When I was starting out, there was
a wonderful workshop-by-mail run by Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury; I’m still
friends with some of the writers I met by exchanging letters and
written critiques.)






Most of the time, beginning writers are honestly trying to help one
another. We may make mistakes as we learn how to give useful critical
feedback or make idiotic suggestions about marketing, but the basic
relationship is one of good will and support. Success, however small the
sale, becomes an occasion for celebration. When one member improves, we
all feel encouraged.




Trust is a crucial element in such groups. We work hard to learn to
accept criticism, to not be defensive, to take time to think through the
comments. While this vulnerability makes us more teachable, it also
leaves us open to manipulation and abuse.




Sadly, sometimes the people we thought were our friends and
supporters, our colleagues and conspirators in the adventure of creating
and publishing stories, turn out to be our most insidious adversaries.
Sometimes, the alarm comes in the form of a sinking feeling, a sense
that verges toward futility, after a discussion with a particular
person. Other times, we realize that once again, we have been lured away
from the precious time in which we intended to work. Often we have no
idea how that happened. We want to think well of our friends; we believe
their words even when their actions speak differently.





The whole issue of jealousy and sabotage on the part of those we have
trusted with our creative process, those we have relied on to be both
honest and tender with us, is complex and troubling. I can’t do justice
to all its aspect here. The first step toward healthier boundaries is
realizing what is happening and that we are not alone. It’s happened to
most of us.




I don’t mean to say that people join writer’s workshops with the
intention of eroding the self-confidence, not to mention the craft
skills, of the other members. I do mean that people are not always aware
of their own feelings and motivations. A person may truly believe he or
she means nothing but the best for another writer, all the while subtly
and unconsciously communicating something very different.




A writing friendship can begin as mutual support but not fare well
when one writer’s career takes off and the other one’s doesn’t. We’re
not supposed to feel jealous of another writer, especially a friend. But
without self-awareness, it’s easy to slide into resentment. (“It’s not
fair that he got published and I didn’t when my story is just as good.”)




Sometimes, resentment comes out in statements that undermine trust in
the other writer’s judgment and work, pressure to go against one’s
natural strengths, for example, to change genres, to aim for
unreasonable markets (“Why are you wasting your time writing sword and
sorcery when you should be writing steampunk?”)




Occasionally, envy will prompt a writer to try to manage the other’s
career, even to act as a sort of agent. Gossip is a common way of
venting frustration, damaging both reputations and trust. (“She only got
that story published because she slept with the editor.”)




For me, it’s important to find people I can trust, both within the
field and outside it. Sometimes I need a disinterested listener, one I
know will hold whatever I say in confidence, so I can work out what my
guts are telling me and how to deal with the situation. This helps me to
recognize my own “warning signs” and develop a vocabulary of responses.
I also need regular time with fellow writers, not only to chew over
specific writing problems but for general communication-of-enthusiasm
and mutual cheering-on. When I do this regularly, I am less apt to be
drawn into those relationships that are less healthy for me as a person
and as a writer.

When Writing Friends Aren't: Sabotage and Self-Image

We can encounter destructive relationships in every area of our
lives, but when it comes to our creativity, they can be particularly
nasty.




Some people write in isolation. Either they aren't naturally sociable
or they find that critical feedback simply isn't helpful. Most of us,
however, create some type of support system at some stage of our
careers. Often it's early on, when we're struggling to learn the craft.
We may find a face-to-face group or an online workshop or other network
of fellow novices. The internet provides a wealth of opportunities to
meet such people, as do conventions. (When I was starting out, there was
a wonderful workshop-by-mail run by Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury; I'm still
friends with some of the writers I met by exchanging letters and
written critiques.)






Most of the time, beginning writers are honestly trying to help one
another. We may make mistakes as we learn how to give useful critical
feedback or make idiotic suggestions about marketing, but the basic
relationship is one of good will and support. Success, however small the
sale, becomes an occasion for celebration. When one member improves, we
all feel encouraged.




Trust is a crucial element in such groups. We work hard to learn to
accept criticism, to not be defensive, to take time to think through the
comments. While this vulnerability makes us more teachable, it also
leaves us open to manipulation and abuse.




Sadly, sometimes the people we thought were our friends and
supporters, our colleagues and conspirators in the adventure of creating
and publishing stories, turn out to be our most insidious adversaries.
Sometimes, the alarm comes in the form of a sinking feeling, a sense
that verges toward futility, after a discussion with a particular
person. Other times, we realize that once again, we have been lured away
from the precious time in which we intended to work. Often we have no
idea how that happened. We want to think well of our friends; we believe
their words even when their actions speak differently.





The whole issue of jealousy and sabotage on the part of those we have
trusted with our creative process, those we have relied on to be both
honest and tender with us, is complex and troubling. I can't do justice
to all its aspect here. The first step toward healthier boundaries is
realizing what is happening and that we are not alone. It's happened to
most of us.




I don't mean to say that people join writer's workshops with the
intention of eroding the self-confidence, not to mention the craft
skills, of the other members. I do mean that people are not always aware
of their own feelings and motivations. A person may truly believe he or
she means nothing but the best for another writer, all the while subtly
and unconsciously communicating something very different.




A writing friendship can begin as mutual support but not fare well
when one writer's career takes off and the other one's doesn't. We're
not supposed to feel jealous of another writer, especially a friend. But
without self-awareness, it's easy to slide into resentment. ("It's not
fair that he got published and I didn't when my story is just as good.")




Sometimes, resentment comes out in statements that undermine trust in
the other writer's judgment and work, pressure to go against one's
natural strengths, for example, to change genres, to aim for
unreasonable markets ("Why are you wasting your time writing sword and
sorcery when you should be writing steampunk?")




Occasionally, envy will prompt a writer to try to manage the other's
career, even to act as a sort of agent. Gossip is a common way of
venting frustration, damaging both reputations and trust. ("She only got
that story published because she slept with the editor.")




For me, it's important to find people I can trust, both within the
field and outside it. Sometimes I need a disinterested listener, one I
know will hold whatever I say in confidence, so I can work out what my
guts are telling me and how to deal with the situation. This helps me to
recognize my own "warning signs" and develop a vocabulary of responses.
I also need regular time with fellow writers, not only to chew over
specific writing problems but for general communication-of-enthusiasm
and mutual cheering-on. When I do this regularly, I am less apt to be
drawn into those relationships that are less healthy for me as a person
and as a writer.