Dan and Columbine for adding their voices to the dialogue. Especially since they confirmed my take on the average reader’s dislike for literary fiction. Thanks.
But I want to answer a couple of point Columbine made in her entry, largely because it further the discussion. I’m pressed for time, so I’ll apologize in advance for my laundry list response. It’s the best I can do, given the twenty minute window I have this morning.
Point One: I mean, it’s not like it’s dismissive of smutty fiction altogether, far from it … although I dislike the categorization “simply pornography” for badly done erotica (I’d frankly prefer to retire the term “erotica” permanently).
I *did* find it pretty dismissive. “Simply pornography” is the kind of language that keeps the boundaries of the sex writers’ ghetto firmly estalbished, and I can’t help but feel Kuipers wouldn’t recognize any erotic content outside of literary fiction as having merit. I read his statement as “if it’s not literary fiction, then it’s all badly done erotica.”
Retire the word erotica? It’s the only word that’s palatable to the world outside the ghetto. It’s the only word we’ve got now that allows booksellers to put our works on their shelves. That said, I’m more than willing to entertain other options (hint, hint, Columbine), and I’ll also go on record that when queers friends and colleagues call me a pornographer, I welcome it in the subversive, celebratory intent in which it was delivered. But the general public doesn’t get it; “pornographer” has increasingly become an insider compliment of rank in an outsider community. (But that’s another story.)
Point Two: …it’s that it doesn’t understand the merits of pornography AS GENRE FICTION.
Yes, exactly. But it’s the lack of understanding that permits the dismissiveness.
Point Three: Genre fiction is often very, very bad. However, unlike litfic, it is seldom stagnant and it has never forgotten how to have fun. There is always forward movement, even if it’s forward movement right into the trash heap.
Actually, I don’t have a point to make here. I’ll just second Columbine’s statement. (Maybe I should call this instance a “validation point”?)
Point Four: I think the instant that you drop more sexual content into the litfic, there will be a substantial majority for whom it instantly stops being litfic. It takes up the genre taint instantly. Litfic and its community are like a pack of Boston bluebloods who are dying off because their lineage has gotten thin and haemophilic, if you’ll pardon my mixed metaphor.
Here, I disagree, but only in part. It can apply to some of the readership and maybe to some literary fiction editors, but I think most literary fiction editors are, by and large, broadening their acceptance of erotic content from their contributors. Some may be slow in doing so and other may be resistant, but it is happening.
As well, at literary conferences, I’ve seen established literary writers influenced by Amy Bloom’s daring works — and I suspect someone among them would love to be the next Mary Gaitskill with the next Secretary optioned to film — so how far behind can the editors be?
And I look at my own reading experience. I’m sorry, but when I read Margaret Atwood’s The Haidmaiden Tale, I saw it as literary fiction. Its speculative fiction was more a backdrop than a definition. (I’ll leave it at one example, though, for brevity’s sake.)
Point Five: But let’s leave the stuff that’s designed purely for arousal out of the discussion – WITHOUT dismissing or condemning it; it’s just that it’s practically a separate category.
Focus instead on being able to write good stories for grownups, actual stories with actual characters and plots and such, that just happen to have reasonably explicit sex in them. Now, the thing is, if you want to encourage more people to do this and not scuttle their careers when they do this…
This is my biggest point of departure from Columbine’s views. First, I *don’t* want to see one-handed writing separate from “actual stories.” Genre fiction should be all encompassing. Just like the mystery genre includes the Caleb Carrs and the James Reeses, and SF/F runs the gamet from space operas to the Samuel Delaneys and Ursula Le Guins, erotic fiction should be both pulp and preen.
I want to write a spectrum of smutty fiction. I want to compose intriguing, conceptual short stories, but I also want the pleasure and freedom of knocking off a good ol’ dirty book without penalty. I want a broad enough genre that permits me both and I want agency representative for both because representative is legitmacy.
To whit: I doubt if Anne Rice wanted to produce a new Beauty trilogy, she wouldn’t be advised to write it under a penname as she was in the 1980s. I want that same level of freedom and legtimacy.
Point Six: …because, as Debra points out, as it stands right now you instantly consign yourself to a place where all the publishers are either marginal or fly-by-night or both and no one will represent you
Marginal, yes. Fly-by-night? Not really. That label’s from the old adult bookstores days, if you look back at what I wrote. Modern day example: Blue Moon Books and Carroll and Graf aren’t exactly fly-by-night. Their parent company, Publisher Group West, is a notable conglomerate. (By for point of fact, if you will.)
Sadly, that’s all I have time for. I don’t even have time to proof what I’ve written, so please forgive me for any typing gafs I’ve made. And, thanks, Columbine, for furthering the discussion.
Tomorrow: Headlines!
