thoughtfulToward the end of the session, someone asked a question that I've heard before, in a variety of different forms. It boils down to, essentially, "Why did you choose to do this thing with which I did not agree?" Sometimes it's about a character dying, or an animal dying, or a character leaving the cast. Sometimes it's about the relationships between characters. But it comes up, again and again, and I keep trying to answer it. During the AMA, I came as close as I think I'm ever going to come to an answer. So here, in modified form, it is:
People ask me "Why did you decide to go that way?" a lot. There's a big assumption in that question, and it's one that's gotten me in trouble before, for answering in a way that someone felt was flippant. So please understand that I am in no way meaning to be flippant: I'm just trying to unpack the way I work.
I didn't decide anything.
I frequently say that my subconscious spends a lot of time lying to my conscious mind, and that's not far from the truth. It's not uncommon for me to write my way into elegant, if unusual solutions, react with surprise, and look back to find a hundred pages of foreshadowing that was right there, if only I'd taken the time to look. Part of me clearly knew what it was doing, and just didn't inform the rest. I think this is because that part of me is the smarter part, and it knows that I over think when given time to do so.
With every death, betrayal, or departure, I reached a point in that story where something needed to happen, and the characters said "This is the thing, this is what is going to happen." I build for characters, not for plot, but still, every time, I've said "You are wrong," because every time, it's been something that I didn't want to do. And every time, the story has said, "They are right," and when I looked back at the story, the signs were there all along. They were there from the very first chapter, sometimes even from the very first page. They are often small, subtle signs. They're not always billboards. But they're always there.
In a lot of cases I've tried to find another way, because I know that if something makes me uncomfortable, it's probably going to make some of my readers uncomfortable, too. But I always stop trying when I realize that any such solution would be overly convoluted...and more, it would be dishonest. I am telling stories. Storytelling is a form of lying, but it's a form of lying used to tell bigger truths. If you start turning the story itself into a lie, if you start forcing the narrative into a shape that isn't natural, it all falls apart. I have to make these lies as honest as I can, or their centers will not hold.
And that is why, no matter who you are or what made you ask this question, I did the thing you didn't like.
I don't regret being honest with the story. It's what I've promised, over and over again, to do. I am sorry that some of the lies I've used to tell the truth have made some people uncomfortable. I think that's a healthy response, quite honestly.
I would still do it again, if that was what the story needed.
March 28 2013, 01:23:03 UTC 4 years ago
It's not the writer's job to please everyone. That's an impossible task. Neither is it the writer's job to not upset anyone. If you genuinely don't like something you're reading, then don't read it.
All of which is to say: when people ask authors things like that, it makes me want to get between them and the author and flail at them til they go away. Honestly. Don't do things which might make the author not want to give the rest of us appreciative folk all these awesome stories.
March 28 2013, 20:42:54 UTC 4 years ago
Asked right, it's about world building; what rules are in a universe, and how that universe works. For instance, Seanan gone on record saying that her characters won't be raped, for very good reasons. So while [spoiler]torture and death[/spoiler] happens to major characters, rape will not. Seanan's has made a point to include lesbian characters in her stories (although I haven't noticed any pointedly transgender or asexual characters in leading roles). I remember reading an interview with McCaffery about Pern being religionless because it was her world and she didn't want a religous world so religion didn't exist there.
These people exist; those people don't. These things are logical outcomes of this world; these things are not. Reflected back on the writers world are the reader's expectations of how the world works really and ideally, and the intersection between them can be fertile ground to examining narratives. Questioning narratives is not necessarily a bad thing; you just have to be respectful of it.
March 29 2013, 00:10:08 UTC 4 years ago
However, I was responding to the snotty, entitled question since it seemed to me that Seanan was protesting that particular phrasing, and also saying that the genuine question of, "Why?" was the one that she preferred to answer. The point that I was making was that it's sort of a dick thing for a reader to feel so entitled to your creation that they criticize things that they didn't like as though you should be sorry for having offended them.
May 16 2013, 15:39:30 UTC 4 years ago
That is all.