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Sep. 11th, 2011 11:55 amDespite today being very achesome, I'm halfway through my review reading and halfway through my urgent-must-chase-my-own-tail dissertation stuff.
While I washed some of my dishes* I was thinking about this latter. I've collected a lot of conversations, both online and off, concerning how people consider history in fiction and what makes a spec fic novel. It struck me just now that the vast, vast bulk of these conversations address the general things. They look for alternate worlds, presence of magic, whether the novel is didactic. It's very much big picture.
Big picture is important. Having these conversations (or similar ones) in many forae is in important. They give us a common ground to accept or argue. They give us tools for discourse. The conversation I want to have as well, however, is a continuation of the one from Leeds.
One peculiar thing about medievalists (and classicists) is that many of us have a smidgeon of training in rhetoric. I can never remember formal rhetorical terms, but the memory of learning Geoffrey of Vinsauf from Sr Frances pushes me to think "What are writers doing at the micro level? How do they influence readers? When is it intentional? When does it make up an aspect of a genre?" (Why Geoffrey of Vinsauf? That's another story.)
This insight isn't going to change the world. It isn't even going to change my dissertation. I do now, however, understand why my approach isn't like those conversations I've been on the edge of.
*never wash them all - they might come to expect it
**well, it struck me yesterday, actually, but yesterday I lacked words to it, so, really, I put words to it just now - not very good words, because words have not fully returned
While I washed some of my dishes* I was thinking about this latter. I've collected a lot of conversations, both online and off, concerning how people consider history in fiction and what makes a spec fic novel. It struck me just now that the vast, vast bulk of these conversations address the general things. They look for alternate worlds, presence of magic, whether the novel is didactic. It's very much big picture.
Big picture is important. Having these conversations (or similar ones) in many forae is in important. They give us a common ground to accept or argue. They give us tools for discourse. The conversation I want to have as well, however, is a continuation of the one from Leeds.
One peculiar thing about medievalists (and classicists) is that many of us have a smidgeon of training in rhetoric. I can never remember formal rhetorical terms, but the memory of learning Geoffrey of Vinsauf from Sr Frances pushes me to think "What are writers doing at the micro level? How do they influence readers? When is it intentional? When does it make up an aspect of a genre?" (Why Geoffrey of Vinsauf? That's another story.)
This insight isn't going to change the world. It isn't even going to change my dissertation. I do now, however, understand why my approach isn't like those conversations I've been on the edge of.
*never wash them all - they might come to expect it
**well, it struck me yesterday, actually, but yesterday I lacked words to it, so, really, I put words to it just now - not very good words, because words have not fully returned