Current mood:	weird
Entry tags:	screed, tie-in, writing

I Am a Writer, not a "Gaming Fiction Writer"
No, I'm not going to bloviate ala Rip Torn in Wonder Boys (though that's a marvelous scene in itself).

I'm thinking a lot about tie-in and media writing--you know, the kind I've been doing since 1990.

Jim Hines started it, really, yesterday with his post.
http://jimhines.livejournal.com/390737.html

Erik Scott de Bie (the tallest man in Realms fiction, it's true!) may have inspired Jim, but I saw his post second. No offense intended, Erik
http://eriksdb.livejournal.com/159230.html

Apparently, the memes/ear worms/thoughts on related topics are out there now. Found this posted by Elizabeth Hand, a good writer as well (and she links to an interview with Michael Chabon, one of my favorites).
http://community.livejournal.com/theinferior4/393748.html

So after all these esteemed folks have talked about shared world fiction, media tie-in writing, etc., what's left to say? (I can't have a segue about nose-picking goblins--it's been done already...)

What do I have to say about writing this morning? I've typed out three different screeds which started turning to rants before I deleted them. The bug that's slowly hitting me post-Gen Con has turned my brain to mush. Thus, keeping it simple (and hoping to add more via comments or in successive, more healthy, more caffeinated posts):

Writing, regardless of who publishes it or how, has an inherent need to entertain (because we're not talking about nonfiction here--just fiction). Yes, it can do more than that, but at its heart, all fiction is written to grab the reader, pin him/her to a chair, and pull them into the story. Yes, some stuff does this more luridly or crudely than others (but I love many of the old pulps writers just the same for their breaking every frontier and convention before they'd even known they were there). Yes, some publishers.....ack. You know what? I've lost my train of thought here, but I won't delete this one--just promise I'll finish it when/if I find the thought.

What is rattling around the back brain this morning is this--there's an assumption in the marketplace that "gaming fiction" or "tie-in fiction" is inherently "less worthy" of respect or readers because it's done for a paycheck or it's a shared world or whatever. The idea that a collective body of work is maligned because it happens to be work-for-hire or because it was designed to support role-playing games first is idiotic--like most assumptions or prejudices.

While I'm very happy publishing my own materials (three short stories, and zeroing in on my first novel in that universe), I'm proud of my work as a tie-in/gaming writer. The lessons I learned were many--in world building, in collectively molding a world with other authors, in simply telling stories that would either inspire other stories or simply stay out of the way of others, etc. First and foremost, I learned how to be a better writer as I worked. Secondly, working with characters and settings owned by a publisher or within a shared world was what I dreamed of doing as a kid--except I'd hoped to be writing Batman or Spider-Man or the Legion of Super-Heroes. (And does working on comics they love reduce the quality of writing by, say, Brad Meltzer or Michael Chabon? Not if you're a thinking person....)

The disparagement of writers because of where or with whom they publish is simplistic and silly. If we always held authors back at the standards under which their early stuff was published, who (accepted and lauded as great writers) would we be ignoring? Who wouldn't be published today because their first publications were in the pulp magazines (the primary fiction mill of the 30s)?

Ray Bradbury.
Raymond Chandler
Dashiell Hammett
John MacDonald
Isaac Asimov
Robert E. Howard
Leigh Brackett

No, I'm not putting myself (or any of my friends) among this pantheon of writers I love and admire as wordsmiths (though I could make arguments for a number of folks). What I'm stumbling about trying to say is that those who are going to limit their world by saying "this is all junk and I won't read it" punish themselves for not finding great authors tucked away in the shelves.

What we do is write stories to entertain, if we do it right. What we can't do is get a reader past their own self-imposed barriers, if they choose to set them up.

How's that for a rambling screed this Saturday morn?

Steven
who's just as guilty in his own way, avoiding many things recommended by Oprah's book club (partly because many of them aren't topics or styles of writing that interest him, and partly because he avoids the cult built up around all things Oprah) even though he's sure that there are many great books on her lists....but he's working on fighting his own prejudices as well....

PS: No one form of fiction is any better (or worse) than any other; why do we convince ourselves otherwise?