Book and Links
Nov. 5th, 2024 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolffyluna"Wolffy, aren't you doing arbitrary novel editing November? Presumably this means you have less books and links than usual." Uhhh.
Books
The Truth, Men At Arms and Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett
I fell on a bunch of Terry Pratchett audio books these past few days. I don't have much to say about them as individuals? They're Terry Pratchett books.
But. Reading them has reminded me of a bug bear I have about the Pratchett fandom.
I have no objection to him being someone’s favourite author, or them thinking he’s the best thing since sliced bread. But there’s a tendency to treat him as– a perfect paragon of virtue, the sort that angels stare down at and go “wow, if only we could dream to be half as good as Sir Terry.” Which is a bit of a pedestal to put a mortal man on?
And there’s a particular claim that drives me a little batty. The claim is that Terry Pratchett wrote some of the best trans representation in fantasy literature. Which, okay, I’ll let people have ‘good’ if they add in some foot notes, but best?
If I was not fresh off reading The Truth and Feet of Clay, I would probably express my objection with holistic, reasonable arguments. Things like “surely some trans characters who were deliberately written to be trans are better?” and “no, really, I think we can set our sights higher than extended bits about dwarves?”
But I have just read what I read. And so I only have snappish, hornet throwing arguments.
In two out of the three Pratchett books I have just read– including the a particular nasty one in the book that introduces Cheri– there have been man in a dress jokes. Two. Out of. Three. Feet of Clay had two! Again, not including anything about Cheri.
To give an illustrative comparison, that is somewhere between “300%” and “incalculably more” more than in the Harry Potter series.
Now, do I think Terry Pratchett is as transphobic as Rowling is now? No, that would be an absurd claim. However, I will claim that there is certain background amount of transphobia among say, Brits in the late 90s to early 2000s who didn’t think about it all that much? And that mayhap, Terry Pratchett, for all his virtues, didn’t think about that much.
On Editing by Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price
This is a book about the persnickety details of line editing, things like not head hopping and avoiding homoerotic POV weirdnesses (no, really, that's an example they used) and showing not telling. It's a lot of fairly standard advice, in an exhaustive and methodical manner.
Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell
This is one of the plotting books I've read recently that I've found the most useful. I should warn that Bell is really obviously a Thriller author, and it shows in his advice? He treats 'everyman' protagonists as a viable option, and does not really grok Romance which makes his advice for it a little weird.
But overall, it's a good broad scale overview of plot structure, and also has some good technique advice. There's a whole chapter on different outlining method for various levels of plotting and pantsing, which I cannot summarise that would be too close to just copying chapter. But it's really good. (Also, the method I use is described as 'The Borg Method' which, fuck you, Bell [affectionate.])
There's also some really good writerly psychological advice. I'm putting his advice for getting past the Mid Point Blues, because it is really good:
- Go somewhere quiet and just chill for half an hour. No writing, no talking, no reading. Just chill, alone
- Do something fun. Go to the movies! Go window shopping! Do something of some sort.
- Fall asleep with a warm glass of milk and your favourite book.
- and when you wake up, IMMEDIATELY WRITE SOMETHING. DO NOT STOP. DO NOT PASS GO. WRITE
Which I can see working on me.
Links
- Bret Devereaux is [annoyed at oaths in fantasy literature]( https://acoup.blog/2019/06/28/collections-oaths-how-do-they-work/)
- K Klein defends linguistic prescriptivism as good, somethimes
- New AcapellaScience song! About eels!
- and a spoileriffic Baldur's Gate 3 video, that I am sharing in the spirit of the laugh rule, because these are some very funny animation crimes
But, like. If I had to pick a genre to get plotting advice from a successful writer of it from, thriller is at the top of the list.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-06 02:03 pm (UTC)I definitely agree on this, for what it's worth! I love Pratchett and the Discworld series in general but it's definitely grown over time, both as Pratchett grew as a writer and as a person and started interrogating the genre beyond tropes and more into social satire and commentary. I genuinely don't think he started out thinking of any of his characters as being explicitly "Trans representation" (or any other kind of rep) until later drafts and possible feedback that helped hone it in.
Also, while dwarves and Cheri in particular are the most commonly cited examples for trans rep, iirc Nobby later gets a bit more explicit about gender feels. Yes, he's still a comic character and a lot of the earlier jokes are at his expense. But a number of bits in the Discworld started from comic bits that eventually gained more substance, like the fact that Detritus used to be chained outside the pub as a guard dog.
That said: I still don't think Discworld vs Harry Potter as texts supports the "300% to incalculably more" and is more representative of the particular sampling of books that you've read! And the fact that the Discworld series has many more books than Harry Potter.
Like you said: he just didn't think about it yet much.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-06 07:30 pm (UTC)...I do judge [the fandom as a collective] a little for recommending *Feet of Clay* to people as a good book for gender feels without a warning :P (it is a good book for that! I just. Would want a warning for *that* joke about the ex-patrician)