take me out, let me breathe: now we're getting somewhere

[kaigou]

"He said I was nuthin' but a rabbit."

"But you are a rabbit."

"Yeah, but I ain't a nuthin-but-a rabbit."

-- Pogo, as quoted by CP

I ain't nuthin but a reader, y'know.

I look over the upcoming urban fantasy novels and there's a tiny part of me that rises up with the sheerest amount of jealousy -- I wanna be published, too! -- but it's not stomped on, or drowned out, so much as just ignored by the rest of me. And the rest of me is saying: that is what's hip and hot in the genre? I've already talked about my boredom with werewolves, vampires, sorcerers, blah blah blah. I've expressed ad nauseum the chick-with-weapon, or the detective or private eye or (usually former) cop or finder or seeker or looker or whatever verb+er the author thinks sounds oh-so-original -- who is generally scraping by but just this once, y'know, is gonna take this job even though it probably won't pay (if at all). I'm looking for other types of urban fantasy, believe me. Actually, I've been looking. I'm still looking.

There are a few, here and there. But come on, walk down the aisles, and I pull out book after book after book and urban fantasy is starting to get as bad as traditional epic fantasy. A month or so ago, I read a back cover on an epic fantasy that amounted to nothing more than "he was born an orphan, ignorant of his power, but now it's come upon him, and if he doesn't learn what to do with it, the entire world's fate hangs in the balance."

Go AHEAD, copy writer. Who needs even, say, a frickin' character name when you've got all the cliches beaten in twenty words or less? HIT ANOTHER CLICHE. You've already got 11, one more and it's an even DOZEN. Go you!

*slams book back on shelf*

I started really looking at the back copy, and the opening chapter, of a number of books. Detective-seeker-looker-guy (or girl) takes case and turns out to be more than s/he can handle. Throw in vampires, werewolves, possibly either or both being the love interest, some crazy hijinks with a sorcerer and copious hints of some kind of horrendous backstory on the hero*, and la la la it's book number twenty-nine of the same goddamn repetitive bs that's been... well, selling like hotcakes.

[*Simon Green is the absolute most hamhanded at this.]

Yeah, the truth is: if it's selling, and being bought (both by readers and editors), then that's probably where the market's at, right now. (Although, granted, any book that's accepted by an agent today, probably won't see the light of a bookstore until two years from now, or thereabouts.) The truth is also, for me personally, that I find the vast majority of the books on the urban fantasy shelves to be...well, pretty flat.

I don't think it's entirely the fault of being popular (hah, no way, when what I like is popular, I'm the first to dance in glee), nor is it that I'm only so-so on folklore-based fantasy -- as opposed to mythic, and that's a really bad way to differentiate, my apologies -- but it's... something else. It goes deeper, and bothers me more, than I had realized -- then I inadvertantly took a two-month (or however long) break and spent so much time working on concrete, measurable, pragmatic things like drawer slides and jigs and how to fit 300' boardfeet of wood into an 8' sack.

The last advice Mal gave me, that had a huge impact, was to take out the romance from my story, and see what remains -- that would tell me whether I'd diverted attention too much from the core to the tangential romantic element. I just ended up taking it a step further, puttering in the garage, and thinking: what if I take out all the magic? What's left? Is there still a story? I've only sort of skirted that question before now, preferring to avoid it, rationalize it, write it off (so to speak) as something I could excuse because, hey, that's the outline of the genre. But what got me thinking hard about it was the final, stark acceptance.

I live in a ranch home.

I could put up crown moulding and plate rail and paneled doors. It's still a ranch home. I could strip it all, take it down to modern minimalism. It's still a ranch home. Its bones are mid-century mildly-contemporary brick-faced open-floor-plan small-bathroom... ranch... home. Granted, it's not nuthin but a ranch home, because it's my home, but... it's still a ranch home. It's one story, metal single-paned windows and no insulation, late 60's contractor slacking tarpaper-wrapped, simple floor plan and uninspired layout... ranch... home.

And these urban fantasies? They might be covered with crown moulding to their eyebrows, but their bones aren't made of fantasy. Their bones are the detective story, the romance, the action-thriller, the save-the-world drama, the basic drama, the growing-up epic...but not fantasy. Not in the sense that the fantastical permeates every pore, although the only way to ask that is as simple as what I ask upon seeing a photograph of a gloriously decorated living room.

Take out the sofa, the side chair, the elaborate cornice on the windows, the wood mantle, the floor-to-ceiling drapes. Is the ceiling still eight feet? Is it fundamentally flat, and are the walls only three-and-a-half inches of two-by-four with another inch of drywall? Is the floor three-quarter plywood under the flooring that's really just photographs of expensive wood laminated onto bilayered pressboard? When you strip all of the superfluous away, do you have a brick-walled, steel-ceilinged warehouse that's minimalistic in and of itself, or do you have a ranch home? Do you have a grand Victorian, elegant even in its age, or do you have another cookie-cutter suburban home with a two-story entrance and a kitchen designed by a blindfolded guy throwing darts at cucumbers and designing from the spatters?

There is urban fantasy that's fantastical, yes, and I can name it on one hand; in fact, I can name a lot of fantastical works that I've adored... that aren't even found in the fantasy section. History, popular fiction, even young adult, but the one thing that hangs together in all of them is that the fantastical is what makes the story. The fantastical is the story's skeleton, and not its skin. It's the story's purpose, and if you take that out, you've literally gutted the story.

In what I've read in the past year, I never seem to fall compeltely into a story anymore; instead I find myself deconstructing, even as I read. It's like mad libs, but in a bad way (even if sometimes amusing to me). Let's say...the could-be-bad-guy is a vampire. My brain: "Insert drug dealer here." Oh, so the main character's attracted to him, but doesn't think she should be, because, y'know, it's wrong to like that kind of person. If I'm feeling generous, brain inserts: "drug dealer who's misogynist asshole from culture that thinks women are only worth something if pregnant," or similar. If I'm feeling less generous (to the story), brain inserts: "drug dealer who's also of a different 'race', and protag is really a closeted-bigot finally being forced to contemplate that she's got racist leanings."

Because: why does he have to be a vampire -- what does the story get from that? A really old, wise bad guy who looks young? Come on, be honest, be critical, be unafraid to be harsh: did it really make a difference that the vampire was, well, a blood-sucking fiend? If there's not a thing he does in the course of the story that requires he be a vampire -- because, news flash, bad guys have been killing good guys and good guys' friends for centuries without a lick of vampirism to be seen -- then I guess I end up asking: so, you made him a vampire..and the point of all that was what?

The fantastical must be the backbone, and without it, the entire story falls apart. It's what creates the story, drives it, heats it up, breaks it down, and resolves it. Why argue "your solution can't be magical, because that's a deus ex authora," -- if the conflict is magical, shouldn't the resolution be, logically, as well? I can't imagine a story in which the dreadful virus wrecking havoc is beaten back, with, say, someone singing a particularly pretty song -- or a computer gone mad and about to take over the subway system and the day is won by a bunch of folks building a bridge across the river with pool floats and old flip-flops. Those seem ridiculous, but maybe not, maybe it's just that they're mismatched, duh. Resolution must in some way be logically connected to, and derived from, conflict.

Okay, so maybe that's just my take on it, and hey, I'm just a reader.

But that's what's been in my head. And it's why -- even though I was awake the evening the announcement was made about the fangs/fur/fey hook contest (and had even planned to put in one or two, when I first heard of it) -- I just couldn't motivate myself to send in. Then they hit their max, and I said, eh, I'll just read along, learn something probably, and get back to my own stories when I've got the kitchen in at least something closer to one piece. And since then... I've not only not read a single one of the hook posts or judge's crits, but I've even contemplated ditching that comm until they're done with it.

Because the idea of even going near any discussion of modern fantasy right now just...how to put it. I've gotten tired of the letdown, to be honest, enough that I don't anticipate now. I read until the first sign that the werewolf or vampire is clearly a veneer, and I put it away and wander off to read something about how to do jigs on the tablesaw.

(Don't think this is only a behavior in this genre; I do the same with interior design books. The instant I get the sense that there's no connection to the architecture, that the focus is solely on "how to fake looking like you have a victorian!" then I'm out of there. I don't want to know how to create a veneer, a hollywood backdrop, any more than I want to spend an entire evening reading someone's fantasy version of the same.)

So the gist of all that is that I've been wondering whether my own stories have a backbone of fantasy, or of action-thriller, or growing-up (and whatever that german word is that means "something really angsty about kids coming of age and usually involves tragedy and maybe a drum"). I think they're action-thrillers. Possibly. Action where the focus isn't the guy getting the girl -- wait, it is, but the girl is the guy's sister. So, a non-romantic action story.

Anyway. Still not fantastical at the root, honestly: if I take out the magic, the story remains solid. There'd be different reasons for the characters to come together, slightly different, but they still would. The bad guy would probably still be following close to the same path, and instead of magic, she'd use drugs to control her minions. The entire thing could just be one more kid-in-the-city, drug-infested, bad-guy-shoot-out, action thriller.

Don't get me wrong; the urban fantasies I've read in the past year-plus have all been solid stories. I can see why an agent/editor picked them, why folks would buy them, why they'd have fans, etc., etc: the stories, inherently, are strong, the conflict's balanced, the characters have clear voices, sometimes a varying level of writing quality in big picture or details but hey, no one's perfect... but very few -- if any -- stories I've read require the magic to exist. And that, unfortunately, is something I require, as a reader: that the magic, the fantastical, must add something to the story, be an integral strength to the story, and not cheap glitter sprinkled across the story's face.

---

What really drove a lot of this home was taking stock -- as I tried to be organized one morning and actually, hrm, put books away on shelves, shocker -- of the books I've read in the past year that I've actually enjoyed, have devoured, haven't even stopped to deconstruct let alone pause for taking the dogs out. They've all been traditional (or close to it) fantasies -- that is, set in another world, where magic is common (or less common), perhaps trusted or untrusted or forgotten or newly risen or whatever, but magic is... hrm, thinking... not the crucial point in any of the stories. Is it? *thinks* Not really. Come to think of it, I'd categorize all of the good ones (good in my opinion, at least) as action-adventure, for the most part. But magic is as much part of the world as concrete is of ours, and... honestly, the magic, therefore, is integral to the world the way concrete is to our streets and bridges and buildings and homes, noted when it breaks down but not otherwise a source of fascination for any but the most arcane or obsessed among us.

I can blame that realization on difrancis, and Carol Berg, and Lynn Flewelling, and a few others. None of whom, I must add, seem to even remotely have inns where only ale and stew is served, nor do they have quests, nor are the characters required to collect x number of points Special Things Of Some Kind Of Power, nor are the conflicts meted out by some watery tart's prophecy from a thousand years ago -- all of which are details that I'd read in Tolkein (to some degree) or in the Tolkein knock-offs that drove me away from fantasy in the first place. In fact, if there's anything driving me away from fantasy right now, it's the one corner of the genre that slowly lured me back in -- only, it seems, to end up disappointing me. It's like following a hot guy into a club after years away, and finding the guy isn't much more than a pretty face, but the live music, well, maybe it's time to give it fair shake, this time with better selection.

I came across some of my notes for the renaissance story, which about two or three months ago I'd finally sat down and archived the drafts with the quiet acceptance that that story, in that format or style or voice, whatever, simply wasn't going to get written. Something felt too... I wouldn't say soap-operatic, but it began solidly and within three chapters felt somehow disconnected. There's absolutely nothing in the third through fifth chapters to really pinpoint, but it felt like fanservice, and that's about as well as I can describe it -- other than to add that I just generally felt dissatisfied with it, despite being intrigued by the characters and their interactions and even the solid rising tension of the plot as I'd outlined it. But it felt...unlikely, almost amatuerish; it made me feel like I was reading something I'd written at fifteen, not in voice or style or details, but in the way things happened.

It certainly felt like in that incarnation, it wouldn't get told because I couldn't take anymore of that sensation, even as I wrote it. So, it's shelved. It's not like it's the only story in my head, though, so no fear there.

But it remains a story -- and a group of characters -- that for some reason I can't get rid of; the three of them lurk in the back of my head. It's just that the world they occupy (late 15th century Italy, in the shadow of the Vatican) doesn't entirely fit, or they don't fit it, that although it's nothing so crude... Well, as I write this, it occurs to me that the reaction I had, giving an objective look, was much like the gut sense I get when watching a supposedly-rollicking story that's supposedly historical adventure, but it's Disney's version or Hollywood's version, and thus characters have logic and reactions that are quite familiar to us now -- and absolutely alien to the times they supposedly occupy. (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone? Or how about Kingdom of Heaven? Oh, the list is quite long, though...)

Yeah, I think that's the way to put it. That I couldn't write -- maybe just not enough research, or just not quite the knack for that culture's tone -- the story in that place, not if I wanted to follow the rules of that setting. But anyway, a little while ago I came across notes for the story, and down on the bottom is a note to myself: 'how would story change if alchemy were real?'

I think, after considerable thought, it'd go from being a mildly interesting otherwise somewhat unconventional historical fiction ... to something with a great deal more potential. That is, if I stop trying to observe the rules of a culture so patently alien to me, and instead set up rules just as restrictive but that work for the story. Stop trying to change the story to fit the setting, but freely change the setting so it fits the story. Why not?

Point is: you can do that in 'otherworld' fantasy (as opposed to urban or contemporary or modern or whatever you want to call 'fantasy set in our recognizable world'). I walked away from the mainstream of fantasy because I was tired of elves, dwarves, and hobbits banding together with the obligatory bad sorcerer forced to join them and the old mage and the two humans who are rangers. I was tired of worlds only half-drawn, because the author didn't know or didn't care or didn't bother to color at all, let alone within the lines, but just seemed to 'expect' me to yank out backdrop #22, slightly used, and set it up behind the story. "Order it now, and you get Backdrop #23 and #24, at 50% off, good for Sword of Shannara, the entire Dragonlance series, and the first two volumes from Robert Jordan! Trade out #22 for #23, and it's a whole new story! Operators are standing by!"

The reason I mention those authors at top are because not a single one of them played that game, and after -- well, I admit it, perhaps ten or twelve years since I'd sat down to read anything with 'fantasy' on the spine (other than magical realism, at least) -- it was... well, wow. Hey. This isn't bad. This is, actually, good.

(Although from my experiences in the bookstores, there are still plenty of cliche-ridden, quest-driven, elf+hobbit+dwarf+mage+ranger, ancient prophecy, newly-discovered save-the-world power stories, but for the sake of argument, let's ignore those, shall we?)

I guess what I like best, what draws me in, is that in these worlds, magic is somehow integral, if not always visible. Much like concrete. It's sometimes even taken for granted, in the course of storytelling, and thus when it's chosen or used, there's a reason other than just 'that makes it cool!' -- because there are well over a thousand other books on the market with magic-filled fantasy. So your fantasy has people who can use magic, and this makes you stand out, how? So you've got a bad guy who's a sorcerer: it seems as though, in the more traditional not-our-world fantasy I've been reading, someone actually stopped to ask, "why should this guy be X, why isn't he Y, what makes it so necessary that he be X?"

Which is a far, far cry from my frustration with urban fantasy, and the sneaking suspicion in some stories that the bad guy's sorcery is solely because it's cool. Y'know, a good hacker could screw up your phone lines without stepping foot in your house; a crazed felon loaded down with an AR-15 could put major holes through you just as fast as any lightning bolt, and no fancy mudras or faux-latin required, thanks very much.

---

There's one exception to this rule (isn't there always?). That's the series I've read by Michael Gruber (Night of the Jaguar was the most recent, I think), with the Jamaician/American/Spanish cop, obsessed with white girls, who works at his mother's restaurant when he's not on the beat -- and whose mother is a Voudoun priestess. He pushes away at magic, would rather it stay over there, in the fairy tales he reads to his daughter at night, but it creeps in through the windows, it slips into his soul and curls around him, catching him unawares and cranky about it, but never once is any of the fantastical treated as though it's not possible. It's fully possible. It's always possible; it's always there. The question isn't whether it's possible; the question is whether it's right.

The cross from our everyday world, to one where a combination of spells and words and the right juju blind someone, charm them into going along -- this is never an abrupt, "oh, wow, look, everything's so shiny!" moment. It's all the same world. Like in magical realism, the operating assumption is that the fantastical has always been there, and if we didn't see it, it was because we chose -- like Gruber's protagonist -- to look away. While many urban fantasies have protagonists well aware of the magical world, there is still an awareness that those around them would be surprised or dismayed, and that they've access to something most folks don't realize exists. In magical realism, there's no such divide: the fantastical simply is, and it's not that we don't know it exists or that we do, but that the story's populace just bloody well take it as the way the world is.

If I said to you, portland cement makes up 95% of your urban environment, would you be stunned by the realization that you live in a concrete jungle, or would you look at me like I'm crazy for pointing out something that, well, duh. Just because you never bother to even think about it doesn't mean you don't know it's there -- and you can't say you don't consider it because it's not impacting your world. It impacts you just from driving over a plothole pothole, but it's not a shock, it's not a surprise, it's just... how it is.

---

I guess what I'm getting at is that I think writing in urban fantasy -- while I do love the city, and I do love the conflicts -- is something that, inherently, doesn't feel entirely like me. It feels like decorating my house with a lot of crown moulding: underneath it, I'm a ranch home, whether I like it or not. And instead of following the trends and trying to cover my story in three feet deep of superfluous magical in the vein of 'do it because it's cool and hip', maybe it's time to set aside my bias about "well, traditional fantasy is just so boring, with those quests and the obligatory visits to inns where all they serve is ale and stew..." and start looking at what the story is really about, and whether it's truly served by its setting.

If I take out the magic, what's left?

Comments

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

You know, it's interesting. I really want to try urban fantasy and have been thinking about what to do if the ugly suckling doesn't go. I want to try urban fantasy, because I'd like to write something fairly different from what I'm doing--but I think that doing traditional and urban would feed the creativity of each other. If that makes sense.

I like vampires. I like them because they are familiar to me and other supernatural critters aren't. I like vampires but only if they aren't cliched and only if I can make fun of them a little. But that said, I realized the other day that I was looking to write what I don't write. what isn't comfortable. In other words, I build worlds. I like to create rules of magic and I don't necessarily like to stick to the traditional available possibilities.

And I realized hey--I could just do what I do in traditional fantasy, but in a modern setting. In other words, I could create a society, culture, magic system and etc., and it would be more my type of house than the facade thing.

So I've been noodling. And it's working. More importantly, it feels right. So I get what you're saying. I have to stick with the writer that I am, and though I want to do urban fantasy, I have to write *my* kind, not something else.

Di

[kaigou.livejournal.com]

I think what some folks like about vampires -- and what I, oddly, don't like -- is that, deep down, once upon a time, vampires were us. Human. Mortal.

And now, they're not: they're what we could achieve, if we wanted to pay that price. They're asking us, "how much are you willing to sacrifice, to get what appears to be so valuable -- long life, youth, strength, etc?"

Where the nonhumans -- like elves, trolls, tanuki -- are something we can never achieve. We can hang with it, maybe understand it to some degree, fall in love with it and maybe be loved in return, but we can never be one. (Unless, of course, we wake up one morning to find out we were one all along, unh-hunh.)

And I realized hey--I could just do what I do in traditional fantasy, but in a modern setting.

Well, of course you can -- and I suspect you'd be as successful (in both selling and in storytelling itself) as you have been in traditional fantasy. But I think a huge part of that is the sense I get that you already have your voice, or more like your innate style squarely in hand. That, to me, seems to make 'trying a different story-style' less of an issue; the what isn't nearly a problem when you've got the how in hand.