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/lit/ - Literature

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13337161 No.13337161 [Reply] [Original]

I dont know why, but this blog post made me angry as hell:

>How To Write Contemporary Fiction: Don’t Write for Leo Tolstoy’s Audience

https://annerallen.com/2017/07/write-contemporary-fiction/

>> No.13337200

Why? She's got a point. How often do you read stuff that's trying to imitate the register of 19th century/modernist/Nabokov prose and it just comes out cringy

>> No.13337209

it jumbles the neurons how angry some /lit/ posters get over a single blog post by a literally who
like that one time someone posted a link to an article on "top 50 books you should not read" or something like that, published by a single person on an obscure website

>> No.13337214

>>13337200

It’s not just style: she argues that today you can’t invest into longer and more complex narratives because people have Netflix now and don’t have the will to read longer works.

>> No.13337787

>>13337209

this

>> No.13337794

>>13337209
it's not about the single person, it's an excuse to complain about what is seen as a larger trend in society

>> No.13337820

Piggybacking
read through the successful query database, which covers the past ~5 years or so. half of this shit made me cringe my head into the wall and through, but this total garbage still gets published. what the absolute fuck is wrong with modern publishing?

>> No.13337879

>>13337214
It may make you angry (and I as well) but it is also true. Look, the average person is a retard. If someone on /lit/ says that you'd nod. Now this boomercunt said the same thing, but from the point of view of a fellow retard to them. Now you're mad?

If it makes you feel better, most classics authors were penniless in their day, too. whoever was the meme of the day million dollar garbage penner of yesteryear has been forgotten. Reminder: capitalism doesn't reward the best product, it rewards the best marketed product.

apparently we should all be writing vampire erotica and put our actual work as a side hobby because there's no financial reward to be had from good content. recipe to get published: marissa is a lesbian non binary latinx with an "attitude problem" (so her principal said!). she just bumped elbows with bad boy edward crallin. can he fuck her straight?

according to the publishing establishment, THIS is what they're looking for, not the Tolstoy of 2019.

>> No.13337891

no one on /lit/ has ever actually read anything written by Toлcтoй so i don't know what you're bitching about

>> No.13337914

>>13337879
Yeah, but we shouldn't stoop to her level. We should be trying to create art, not just commercial sludge.

>> No.13337916

>>13337209
>how angry

Some bored complaining on 4chan is hardly anger. OP's "angry as hell" is likely an exaggeration just as someone writing "lol" is rarely actually laughing out loud.

>> No.13337924

>>13337879

Well...that makes sense. Thanks, Anon. I think that I was mad because I was afraid that she might be right.

>> No.13337925

Okay, you are all pissing me off. This thread has gone on long enough...

Assuming there is such a thing, who cares what the majority of any opinion thinks? There are 9 billion people on the planet. Even the smallest minority of anything is still thousands of people.
Write what you want. Someone will like it.

If you think that everything you do has to be couched in economic optimization, or that the only story that matters is what everyone else is doing, you've already lost your soul.

Either be your own story maker or get used to getting fucked out of your life.

>> No.13337936

>>13337916
>Some bored complaining on 4chan is hardly anger. OP's "angry as hell" is likely an exaggeration just as someone writing "lol" is rarely actually laughing out loud.

You are right too. I was not actually that angry, just a little upset (perhaps for fearing what the author was saying, and also for her arrogance - which she shows above all in the responses she gives to people commenting on the article).

>> No.13337960

>>13337161
I kinda liked it. Mostly her points are about style and form, not substance. Essentially literature ought to be more concise if it is to compete with the instant gratification of competing forms of media. Ultimately, an artist should understand the mindset of the audience in order to leave an impression.

>> No.13337974

>>13337960
>Essentially literature ought to be more concise if it is to compete with the instant gratification of competing forms of media. Ultimately, an artist should understand the mindset of the audience in order to leave an impression.


Then you are doomed to be inferior to Tolstoy, for example, for you need a vast amount of space and time to develop a large number of characters with great psychological precision and spiritual evolution and transformation.

It’s like a comparison of movies and TV series. Both can be great, but you will not have anywhere near the same space of development.

>> No.13337975

>>13337960

People that consume instant gratification media the most are not the people consuming literature in the first place.

>> No.13337992

>>13337161
got up to the part where she infers GRRM is a master craftsman that can get away with writing huge books because he knows what he's doing.

>> No.13338003

>>13337914
why not art that also has commercial value?
>>13337925
i want to be a professional writer traveling the world out of a backpack, though, anon, and i don't want to write vampire erotica to get there.

but actually it is disheartening that you have a really, really good manuscript that has no chance of being published because houses are unwilling to take even a modicum of risk. agents ask "what book is your book like?" as a staple question to see how marketable it is. it's sad. it's a real sorry state.

>> No.13338010

>>13337992
that gave me a chuckle as well. almost as bad as people on /lit/ who think st*ph*n k*ng is "good" because he sells a lot. that's like saying mcdonalds must be gourmet quality.

>> No.13338071

>>13337974
>Then you are doomed to be inferior to Tolstoy, for example, for you need a vast amount of space and time to develop a large number of characters with great psychological precision and spiritual evolution and transformation.
Nobody is saying that War and Peace has to be cut down into a more digestible size
What is being said is that contemporary audiences aren't reading books like the people who read Tolstoy's books when it was written
Holy fucking shit how stupid is /lit/?

>> No.13338081

How does either of these make you feel, OP?
https://www.janefriedman.com/challenge-facing-high-quality-literary-journals/
https://archive.fo/DA51D
The latter link is referenced in the former, but I archived it so as to not give them unnecessary clicks.

>> No.13338096

>>13338071
>Nobody is saying that War and Peace has to be cut down into a more digestible size

That is not what I was trying to say. What I meant was: if you have to understand the times and write accordingly, and, as you proposed, more concisely:

>Essentially literature ought to be more concise if it is to compete with the instant gratification of competing forms of media. Ultimately, an artist should understand the mindset of the audience in order to leave an impression

Then you are already giving up on the possibility of writing something better than War and Peace or as great as War and Peace. You are doomed to be inferior, or to not even having the chance of competing to be the best (or at least the best you can be).

>> No.13338197

>>13338096
>That is not what I was trying to say
Yes, as I said, nobody is saying that. What is your point?
>Essentially literature ought to be more concise if it is to compete with the instant gratification of competing forms of media
I didn't say that. I said that contemporary audiences don't read books the same way that Tolstoy's contemporaries did.
If you want to be taken seriously, you might want to think about the number of people who could read Tolstoy's work in Russian at the time it came out and then consider how that compares to the number of people who can, today, read a book published in English (or Chinese or any other language, really; lots of people are literate now). It's not just 'muh instant gratification means we need to write shorter or worse books for the masses,' it's that PUBLISHERS ARE NOT INTERESTED IN PUBLISHING BOOKS THAT WILL NOT SELL.
If you want your holier-than-thou aesthetic standards, based in an ideal of The Writer that has never actually been achieved, to be taken seriously, you might want to at least admit that literature is not produced in a vaccuum. Tolstoy was writing for aristocrats. This is an important facet of his work, as is the fact that the author of the Gospel of John was writing for people who had already become familiar with Christianity.
I honestly just think you're stupid. I'm not interested in hearing more of your petulant whining. You should just kill yourself and save us all the trouble of reading your self-aggrandizing idealist tripe. You probably think that you have already written something as good as War and Peace. I guarantee you: even if you have, it doesn't matter.

>> No.13338203

>>13338071
>What is being said is that contemporary audiences aren't reading books like the people who read Tolstoy's books when it was written

Except that's not true. People that actually read contemporary literature have no problems reading long books.
This blog is talking about adjusting yourself to an audience that is not actually your audiences. You might as well argue that Rammstein should alter their music to appeal to modern teenagers. its not their audience anyway.

>> No.13338211

>>13338197
>I honestly just think you're stupid. I'm not interested in hearing more of your petulant whining. You should just kill yourself and save us all the trouble of reading your self-aggrandizing idealist tripe.

Calm down, I wasn't looking for a fight. If I offended you in any way than here, I apologize for that.

>>13338197
>You probably think that you have already written something as good as War and Peace. I guarantee you: even if you have, it doesn't matter.

Nope, never wrote anyhting comparable, not even close. And I don't think I have what it takes.

>> No.13338214

>>13338197

>Tolstoy was writing for aristocrats

Plenty of modern writers write for what is for all intents and purposes a modern aristocratic elite and there plenty of publishing houses that publish these works.
I bet you don't even read actual contemporary literature.

>> No.13338217

>>13338003
>but actually it is disheartening that you have a really, really good manuscript

Are you the same guy that sent an angry text to an agent after she rejected your work?

>> No.13338218

>>13338096
>>13338197
You're both forgetting that Tolstoy's novels were serialized and popular, like Balzac's, and like those of many of the best novelists of their time.

But as one anon pointed out, were are so numerous now that even if your book only touches 0.001% of the reading population of, say, the US, that still leaves you with hundreds of potential readers. Most late nineteenth century poets didn't have as much, and it takes only a couple fervent readers to make writing worthwhile imo.

It all boils down to the all-important questions: why are you writing ? what do you want to write ? who are you writing for ?

There's no need to try becoming le new epic popular novelist if that's not your thing.

On a final note, it's funny we all talk about catering to established genres to achieve monetary success, when the biggest book blockbluster of the century came out unexpected and in many cases were rejected multiple times. Truth is, optimizing for the current market might not be the best strategy in terms of average outcome (but it certainly is in terms of risk minimization).

>> No.13338220

>>13338211
Don't apologize to him you bitch.

>> No.13338237

>>13338203
>People that actually read contemporary literature have no problems reading long books
I'm not talking about the length of books. I'm talking about the way that readers read. There are more literate people in the world now than there were 200 years ago. It's that fucking simple.
>>13338211
>If I offended you in any way than here, I apologize for that.
Your attitude toward literature is offensive to me. People like you make me sick. Treating literature as something produced by Great Genius Big Men With Big Brains rather than as a part of a larger culture situated within a historical context is a sure sign of a retard on this board. You are retarded.
>And I don't think I have what it takes
I think you're lying. I think that you DO think you have what it takes and you're pretending that you don't believe this to save face. You are a weak, simpering fool. I have no respect for you and never will.
>>13338214
>Plenty of modern writers write for what is for all intents and purposes a modern aristocratic elite and there plenty of publishing houses that publish these works.
Compare the number of books published in the 19th century to the number of books published thus far in the 21st century. If you want to get more specific, compare 19th century Russian novel publication to 21st century novel publication. If you aren't completely retarded, you'll notice significant differences in pure quantity. These publishing houses which focus on a "modern aristocratic elite" (are you talking specifically about Europe's old aristocrats, the ones that survived 2 centuries of revolution, or are you talking about the upper crust of modern Western society? There's a significant difference) wouldn't be out of place in
>>13338218
>You're both forgetting that Tolstoy's novels were serialized and popular,
Serialized publications usually took up space in newspapers. Modern newspapers do not do this sort of thing nearly as often. Were they 'popular?' Maybe. How many people could actually read them, though? What determines this 'popularity' when the vast majority of the population is illiterate? What changes when the vast majority of the population becomes literate?
These are questions that OP is too retarded to ask.

>> No.13338245

>>13338217
no. i'm the guy that rewrites his shit 5-10+ times and actually follows agent guidelines on what they're looking for. go try and be smug somewhere else, halfwit. my work is perfectly commercial and rather fast paced, but it also happens to be good. thanks.

>> No.13338304

>>13337161
a) A talent comparable to Tolstoy would simply laugh at someone's advice on how to write. There are much higher standards to aspire.
b) Not starting your literary career from a gigantic novel into which you put every idea you have about the world is a good old advice.

>> No.13338337

>>13337974
>Then you are doomed to be inferior to Tolstoy
Oh no!

>> No.13338348
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13338348

>>13337914
Good luck not starving to death buddy.