JOSHUA GILLINGHAM
  • Welcome
  • About
  • Ten-Tree Saga
    • Book 1: The Gatewatch
    • Book 2: The Everspring
  • Althingi
    • One Will Rise
    • Saga Heroes
    • The Crescent & the Northern Star
  • Liberati
  • Writing Blog
  • Contact
  • Welcome
  • About
  • Ten-Tree Saga
    • Book 1: The Gatewatch
    • Book 2: The Everspring
  • Althingi
    • One Will Rise
    • Saga Heroes
    • The Crescent & the Northern Star
  • Liberati
  • Writing Blog
  • Contact
Search

In Defense of Genre Fiction

5/1/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
 I don’t think my wife has ever ordered the same dish twice. Ever. At first this was rather perplexing to me, a person who craves the comfort of a tried and true classic. Of course, I am not against trying a noodle dish I couldn’t pronounce if my life depended on it or a curry that makes my eyes water with just one sniff, but I like to balance such culinary gambles with a sure bet. 
​
"I don’t think my wife has ever ordered
​the same dish twice. Ever. "
 ​However, my wife will always choose something new. Always. I have to admit that I owe some culinary revelations to this habit of hers, including my addiction to sushi and a discovery of the treasure trove that is Lebanese cuisine. But to be honest, the majority of new dishes we order are disappointments that we have no desire to encounter again. Is it worth it for the rush of discovering a delicious new food? Sure. Is it enough to stop me from ordering a pulled-pork sandwich or a pad thai for the one-hundredth time? Definitely not. 
Picture
"Is it worth it for the rush of discovering
​a delicious new food? Sure.
​
Is it enough to stop me from ordering a pulled-pork sandwich or a pad thai for the one-hundredth time? Definitely not."
​
​ So what does all this have to do with writing genre fiction? Well, some might say that reading genre fiction is a bit like ordering pulled-pork sandwiches over and over, that it makes you predictable (i.e. boring). Others might add that writing genre fiction is little more than an act of trying to resuscitate long-dead tropes while trying to pass off cheap imitations as original work. Given these two stereotypical notions, especially within the writing community, there can be a lot of shame or defensiveness around reading or writing these kinds of stories. Therefore, I feel the need to present an argument in defense of genre fiction, its readers, and its writers. 
​
"Therefore, I feel the need to present an argument in defense of genre fiction, its readers, and its writers." 
​

 ​I would love to include a comprehensive list of all that is included under the umbrella of ‘genre fiction’, but there are endless branches and sub-branches which spiral down toward infinity in fractal patterns. Some of the most popular are Romance, Westerns, Mystery, Horror, Thrillers, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. If you are a writer or reader of any genre, or aspire to be one, this rant is for you. (And if not, feel free to go read a dictionary…)
​
 ​Genre is almost a dirty word in many writing circles. Mention Westerns in a writing course and you will see the eyes of every ‘serious’ writer start to twitch. Say the word Fantasy to most agents and you might as well have told them that you like to wear your pants inside out. Tell your siblings that you are a Romance writer and, well, you can guess how that usually goes.
​
​"Say the word Fantasy to most agents and you might as well have told them that you like to wear your pants inside out."
​

Picture
 So I’ll just go ahead and say it straight: I write Fantasy. I write cursed swords and magical monsters and medieval feasts with calorie counts high enough to kill an olympic weightlifter. I don’t have a BA in History, in Poetry, or in Literary Criticism (though I’m sure those are all great degrees to have) and I don’t aspire to be published in a literary journal. My aim in writing is not to win an argument or to show off my intellectual prowess, and it is certainly not to win prestigious literary awards to line my shelf with.
​
"I write Fantasy. I write cursed swords and magical monsters and medieval feasts
with calorie counts high enough to kill an olympic weightlifter."
​

Picture
 ​My highest aspiration as a writer is this: to write the book that people keep on that extra-special place on their shelf, the book whose pages are wrinkled and stained from use, and the book they pick up when they are trying to ride out a hurricane that has torn a trail of destruction through their world. In other words, I aim to write their literary pulled-pork sandwich.
​
"My highest aspiration as a writer is this: to write the book that people keep on that extra-special place on their shelf, the book whose pages are wrinkled and stained from use..."
​

 ​I write Fantasy because I strive to create the kind of stories I want to read. I want adventure. I want magic. And most of all, I want worlds unbounded by the shackles of our present reality or belaboured past. That is the kind of story I crave when I feel numbed by the drivel of the day-to-day, when I feel crushed between the cogs of ‘the system’, or when the itch for adventure is so insistent I can no longer ignore it. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t reference history or challenge real political or philosophical ideas; what it means is that I have a safe place to explore and create, a cushion between raw reality and a mental other-space where it is easier to think, explore, and feel.
​
"That is the kind of story I crave when I feel numbed by the drivel of the day-to-day, when I feel crushed between the cogs of ‘the system’, or when the itch for adventure is so insistent I can no longer ignore it."​

 Despite my love of Fantasy, many writers of genre fiction get it wrong. Really wrong. Their plot lines get tangled in tropes, their characters end up skewered on tired stereotypes, and the overcooked hyperbole of their world causes it to collapse in on itself. In fact, these fumbled attempts at imitation, rather than creation, are what give genre fiction a bad name in the writing world. So where does good genre fiction start? Well, it starts with a promise. 
​
Picture
 ​Promise is the foundation of genre fiction. It is also the same thing that keeps me ordering pulled-pork and pad thai. You must fulfill the promise of your genre to readers because it is why they picked up your book in the first place. If it’s horror, I had better be scared to turn off the lights. If it’s romance, make me swoon like Cinderella at the ball. If it is a Western and you don’t have a saloon shoot-out then go straight back to your manuscript right now and write one in. 
​
"Promise is the foundation of genre fiction... You must fulfill the promise of your genre
​to readers because it is why they picked up your book in the first place."
​
 ​But don’t stop there. Give your genre fiction something extra. Zest it with a character or an idea that will catch your reader off-guard, that will make them think, that will stay forever impressed on their minds. Give them the rush and the escape that they have felt before while reading that genre and then dazzle them with something they never expected. 
​
Picture
 And don’t think for a second that just because you write genre you get a free pass on shoddy writing. In fact, the opposite is true, just like culinary classics. If I order a pulled-pork sandwich from your food truck you had better be aware that I know pulled-pork and will be holding up the experience of that first bite with dozens of other sandwiches. You need to both fulfill and exceed the promise of a classic. Give me savoury sauce and give me the crunch of coleslaw. But don’t think for a minute that I’ll go raving to my friends about how awesome your sandwich is unless you give me something more. Something I wasn’t expecting. Banana peppers? Nice play. Mango drizzle? Now that’s bold.
​
"​You need to both fulfill and exceed the promise of a classic."​
​

 So don’t be ashamed of writing or reading genre fiction. If you are a writer then start with the promise and build off of that foundation. If you are a reader, don’t settle for dry characters or soggy plot lines. 

 Now, you’ll have to excuse me because I am really craving a pulled-pork sandwich...
​
For more advice about writing genre fiction, Joshua recommends listening to the Writing Excuses podcast. 
1 Comment

Q&A with A.R. Jung

3/17/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Welcome Adrianne! First, a few quick-fire questions: What is your favorite magical creature? If you had to be best friends with any villain who would it be? And what is your preferred beverage while writing? 

​First off, thank you Joshua for putting this together. My favorite magical creature is Al mi’raj from Arabic poetry. It is also known as the Wolpertinger in German mythology, the Jackalope in American myth and the Lepus Cornutus from medieval and early Renaissance times. This creature is a mash-up of various animals and the Al mi’raj specifically is a ferocious hare with one spiral horn protruding from it’s head. It has an immense appetite and can devour living things several times its size.
​
"My favorite magical creature is Al mi’raj from Arabic poetry. It is also known as the Wolpertinger in German mythology, the Jackalope in American myth and the Lepus Cornutus from medieval and early Renaissance times."
​

 I like stories when seemingly weak or underdog characters win in unexpected ways. I’m not particularly religious, but even as a kid I liked the David and Goliath story. Speaking of Goliath- the mythology there is of the Nephilim- the giants who were apparently offspring of demons and humans. That’s interesting. It was when I was a little kid and to me, it probably always will be. I’m a lover of myths that attempt to explain life to believers. There’s a creature from the Ewe tribe of Togo and Ghana called the Adze. The Adze are shape shifting vampires and evolved as a way to warn against the deadly effects of mosquitos and malaria in the region. 

"If I had to be best friends with a villian, I would choose the Fratelli family from Goonies."
​

​If I had to be best friends with a villian, I would choose the Fratelli family from Goonies. They were such a bumbling group of silly meanies. I write Middle Grade and Picture Books, so it follows that I would like this group of greedy criminals from a smash hit kids movie. I especially loved Sloth Fratelli but he was a good guy, wasn’t he?

I drink an unnatural amount of coffee while I write. I recently upgraded to a Keurig after a decade of using the same drip coffee maker. Now, I can have a hot cup - fresh every time I need a bathroom break. It’s kinda funny- I was gifted a box of mixed flavor coffee from my wonderful husband and now I rotate through cinnamon, vermont maple, hazelnut, southern pecan and blueberry vanilla and I love it. 
​
"I drink an unnatural amount of coffee while I write." 
​

I often offer to read rough manuscripts for fantasy fiction and one piece of feedback I often give (and sometimes get!) is that the narrative doesn’t feel ‘real’. How do you manage to connect with your characters and express their thoughts and emotions to readers in an authentic way?
​

​Well, thank you for this question because it implies that I know how to make a character come to life and feel ‘real,’ jumping off the page. I am not sure I always do this. There are times that I’ve reread my work and felt the feelings that the characters are reported to be feeling. I’ve cultivated those moments by writing about something that I have a personal, visceral connection to. Feelings are triggered by sensory experiences and if you can tap into the sensory experiences of your reader and make them feel the feelings that the characters are feeling from the lens of their own visceral life experiences...it becomes real for them. They feel like they “know,” the character. Using the five senses can get you where you need to be quickly. Also using observations about human nature and human behavior can create a connection and give insights into how a character might be feeling. The reader might find themselves thinking “I do that too.” 
​
Many authors branch out from writing to provide other services related to the process of making books as editors, graphic designers, and online forum hosts; I call these ‘writing adjacent’ skills. In addition to your writing, you also design incredible author logos to help writers present their brand effectively. What advice do you have for writers who are thinking of exploring the option of offering services using their ‘writing adjacent’ skills?
​

​I think that writing adjacent services help you to build an author platform. If you are launching a writing career out of obscurity - offering a service can help others get to know who you are and where you sit within the writing community. You can cultivate friendships, readership and writing adjacent customers in this way. When it comes time to enter into the querying trenches, having a following of some kind is important. How important? The blog subscribers, twitter followers or insta numbers as a platform are a mystery to most of us, but a general, strong effort to get your name out there is valuable and it shows. It shows you have staying power and that you are willing to work for your place in the industry. 
​
Picture
Your book The Girl Behind the Magic, is an epic reworking of Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit. What inspired this project and how did you set guidelines between what you would keep from Williams’ classic and what you would make your own? 
​
Thank you for the compliments. My retelling of The Velveteen Rabbit came about because I wanted to attempt to write a backstory to the evolution of the Easter Bunny. Santa Claus gets a new origin story often enough. I just wanted to give the Easter Bunny his due. 
​
"Santa Claus gets a new origin story often enough. I just wanted to give the Easter Bunny his due."
​

​There is an origin story for the bunny in The First Easter Rabbit narrated by Burl Ives from 1976 but I wanted to give my story a classic feel and tie it to another famous rabbit story. I find retellings satisfying because the reader gets to re enter a world they’ve loved before and learn a little bit more about the beloved characters. They get to relive the joy. My version of The Velveteen Rabbit,  The Girl Behind the Magic sticks to Margery Williams’ original and has enough of her story for modern children to receive the wisdom that Williams intended about ‘realness,’ coming from the pure source of love. However adding a few more layers of contrast helps this story come to life in a fresh new way. Also there is a little girl in this story and I think adding little girls to stories that once had boys as the only protagonist is a fresh take too. 
​
"However adding a few more layers of contrast helps this story come to life in a fresh new way. Also there is a little girl in this story and I think adding little girls to stories that once had boys as the only protagonist is a fresh take too. "
​

You are also a writer of short stories and in your lyrical piece The Hope Goblin, a young girl named Isabelle learns to confront a wicked, bullying goblin. The themes of building one’s own self-confidence and self-image are apparent throughout the rollicking tale. On that topic, how do you feel about instructive literature vs. escape fiction? Where is the line for you as a writer between stories that teach and stories that entertain? 
​

​I love escapism as a reader. 

As a writer, I must be true to my roots, and instructive literature comes out in me in earnest. I was an English teacher overseas in the Peace Corps,  Uzbekistan and then also independently in China. I taught 8th grade writing in Texas as well as ESL to adults and kids. If teaching is breaking something down to its simplest components to be able to build- students in tow, a thing to its theoretical completion- this is how I approach most things in life. I am a parent and I utilize those skills. I love to cook and paint abstract pieces and I do graphic design. I use the skill of looking at the building blocks and ingredients to get to a desired result in those areas too. I think this is why I like writing for kids. Simplifying may seem just that...simple...but it’s a lifetime thus far of developing the skill of breaking things down in order to teach it... I think I bring this skill to the table as a writer too.  
​
"Simplifying may seem just that...simple...but it’s a lifetime thus far of developing the
​skill of breaking things down in order to teach it..."
​

You have an impressive compendium of mythological creatures on your website, including the little known fairy pig from the Isle of Man known as the Arkan Sonney. What draws you to these creatures and in what ways have other writers responded to your work on that collection?
​

Picture
The Arkan Sonney
​I love myth and folklore. I think you can learn a lot about a place and its history by looking at the tales they tell. I love to travel and explore cultures and places that seem exotic and so, so different from me and what my experience has been. I have traveled a lot and what I have found is that we are all very much alike. Human emotion, spirit and desire for love and prosperity is common everywhere you go. I like myth and folklore for that reason. We all have similar fears and insecurities too and you find them personified in many of the creatures of myth.  
​
"We all have similar fears and insecurities too and you find them personified in many of the creatures of myth." 
​

​Authors from other countries have contacted me and asked when I am going to do an article on a creature from their culture. I am slowly working through an alphabetical list and so many have said they will be patient until I get to theirs! Others have reached out and thanked me for expanding past what they can find on Wikipedia. I try to cross reference and give examples from several sites so that I am not just replicating what is already easily accessible on the internet. What also seems to be helpful is talking about where the mythological creature has shown up in American pop culture. I find that advertising and product naming ventures pull from International myth and folklore a lot. 
​
"I try to cross reference and give examples from several sites so that I am
not just replicating what is already easily accessible on the internet."
​

What can you tell us about your most recent project? Do you have a few smaller stories on the go or are you working on something big? 
​

​I am currently seeking representation for a #STEM, PB series and am very excited about the process. I have a MG Contemporary Adventure based on Aztec Mythology that I am trying to find a home for as well and am also continually working on short stories and creature articles for my blog. 
​
Last, but not least, where can readers find more of your work and stay up to date on your latest publications?
​

​Thank you, yes, I can be found on Twitter and on my blog - Happy writing everyone! 
​
Find A.R. Jung's adaption of Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit on Amazon: The Girl Behind the Magic. 
0 Comments

Q&A with Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág

1/6/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Welcome Csenge! Thanks for taking some time to chat about writing. First, a few quick-fire questions: Do you prefer movies or live theater? What is the strangest meal you ever ate? And if you received funding to make a professionally produced film of one folktale which would it be? ​
​
​Thank you for reaching out! Fun questions to start with! Honestly, I like both movies and live theater, but I definitely go to the movies more often, mostly out of convenience (plus, I like popcorn). As for the strangest meal… I am not very adventurous when it comes to food, but the foundation I work for runs a cooking program for kids, and they recently made a beet-and-raspberry soup that was surprisingly delicious. The film question is hard… I’d love to see Aicha’s Tasks on Earth on the big screen, I think it would be amazing. It’s an Algerian folktale about a girl who hunts monsters. 
​
"I’d love to see Aicha’s Tasks on Earth on the big screen, I think it would be amazing. It’s an Algerian folktale about a girl who hunts monsters." 
​
In the past few years you have published several books, been an active contributor in academic circles, and engaged a large audience through social media. Do you set a strict schedule to maintain this level of productivity or do you find other ways to sustain your work?
​

I have a bullet journal. It is not very decorative, but it is great for making checklists, and I like checking things off (yeah, I’m an overachiever). I read a certain amount of stories each day with my breakfast, and most of my blogging and social media posts are scheduled for specific days. It also helps that I do a lot of the storytelling research purely for fun. Sometimes I just feel like looking up folktales about a topic, or from a place, and I enjoy going down the research rabbit hole. It’s one of the things I do for fun.
​
"I have a bullet journal. It is not very decorative, but it is great for making checklists, and I like checking things off..."
​
Your work on folktales from around the world spans both continents and centuries. Is this work driven primarily by personal passion or do you hope that your translations become contributions to the ever evolving conversation on globalization? 
​

It is mostly personal passion. I love learning about cultures through their stories. I started the “Following folktales around the world” reading challenge a few years ago, and I still have about 40 countries left to read folktale collections from! As for contributions: With my books I hope to bring Hungarian folktales to English-speaking audiences and storytellers, because they are not very well represented on the English language folktale market. On the flip side, I translate a lot of tales into Hungarian so that Hungarian audiences can have access to them as well. 
​
"With my books I hope to bring Hungarian folktales to English-speaking audiences and storytellers,
​because they are not very well represented on the English language folktale market." 
​

One of your first books was Tales of Superhuman Powers: 55 Traditional Stories from Around the World. Today more than ever, North Americans are flocking to the theater to watch movies about superheroes and traditional story-telling media, such as comic books and graphic novels, are becoming popular again. Given your work in this field, what do you think draws people to stories about superheroes? Is it human nature? Is it a part of our mythos or culture? Is there perhaps something psychological at work?
​
Picture
I think it’s human nature. What I learned while researching old stories about superpowers was that people have been dreaming about doing the impossible for a very long time. Not just being special or unique, but also using their powers for various goals they might not achieve otherwise. Plus, let’s face it, these stories are fun! The thing about superpowers is that there is a lot of creative freedom in how many ways one can apply them. Stories take the same abilities, and use them in different ways against different obstacles and challenges. It speaks to the richness of human imagination.

My personal favorite thing about these “superhero” tales is teamwork. I have always loved teams more than lone heroes. There is something inherently exciting in a team coming together, going adventuring, and combining their powers to overcome challenges. I think it’s a very important message for today’s audiences. 
​
"My personal favorite thing about these “superhero” tales is teamwork.
​I have always loved teams more than lone heroes."

Earlier this year you released a book titled Forum-Based Role Playing Games as Digital Storytelling in which you describe an emergent form of digital storytelling facilitated through online platforms. Through this experience you discovered “a subculture of unbound creativity” as people wrote novel length descriptions of fictional characters and experience that they lived through these digital worlds. As a professional story-teller yourself, what drew you to engage with and study these emerging communities?  
​

Picture
​I have always been a tabletop gamer. I never really got into video games - for one, we didn’t have the equipment for it at home, but also, the stories always felt limited to me. In tabletop games, anything can happen. When I found out about forum gaming, I was excited for even more creative freedom (since they have less rules, and no dice systems), and also for playing with people from other countries who shared my interest in these fantasy worlds.
​
"I never really got into video games ... the stories always felt limited to me. In tabletop games, anything can happen."
​
​It’s an added bonus that forum games are not time sensitive, you don’t have to free up 8 hours of your week to play; you can take a few minutes each day, or you can spend an afternoon, depending on what you feel like doing. 
​
And the stories that come out of it stay online, and you can go back and read them for fun, or out of nostalgia. There are sites where I have been active for 8-10 years, and the stories still keep surprising and entertaining me. I love creating them in cooperation with others, rather than just writing things alone. 
​
In your 2018 publication Dancing on Blades: Rare and Exquisite Folktales from the Carpathian Mountains, you translate the tales of Anna Pályuk, a Rusyn woman who married into a Hungarian family. I find myself challenged by the task of ‘crossing cultures’ as I work with Icelandic source material from a different culture and time. How did you preserve the essence of Anna Pályuk’s stories while translating them for a modern reader? Were there any guidelines or strategies that helped to guide your process? 
​
Picture
​It was definitely a challenge, mostly because a lot of the texts had already been damaged in transcription. The collector wrote them down from memory, and maybe the teller’s memory was not at her best either, because the stories had inconsistencies, contradictions, and missing pieces. I read a lot of folktales from the same cultural context, and tried to restore the tales to their full form.

​As a storyteller, I never work solely in writing; I told these stories many times, and in spoken word they came alive again. The audiences’ reactions helped me smooth out the parts that were strange to modern ears. I didn’t really change the plot of the stories, just retold them, trying to convey some of the unique turns of the original language in English. Telling the tales live helped me select 30 out of more than 100 that worked best with today’s audiences. 

"As a storyteller, I never work solely in writing;
I told these stories many times,
​and in spoken word they came alive again."
​

Joseph Campbell believed that common connections existed between stories from many parts of the world and summarized some of the key aspects of those similarities in what he called the Heroic Journey. Do folktales from around the world share much in your experience or have you found them to be highly distinctive to the culture they were first told in? 
​

​I have a bone to pick with the Hero’s Journey. For one, it only fits a sub-category of folktales, usually known as wonder tales or fairy tales. The more one digs into different kinds of traditional stories, the less the theory holds up. Plus, as a storyteller, I tend to focus on how the story is embellished, rather than the basic plot. A lot of tales can be boiled down to “someone gets into trouble, then gets out of it”, but let’s be honest, that is not what makes one tale more compelling than another. There are tale types that exist all around the world, but I only ever really liked one or two variant of them and the rest just didn’t click, because of small details. 
​
"The more one digs into different kinds of traditional stories, the less the theory holds up.
​Plus, as a storyteller, I tend to focus on
how the story is embellished, rather than the basic plot." 
​
Where can readers find more of your work and stay up to date on your latest publications?
​
I regularly blog through my website and I have a professional Facebook page. You can also follow me on Twitter. 

If you'd like to read some of Csenge's translated folktales or learn about her academic research
check out her books through her website or follow her on Twitter! 
0 Comments

    Author

    Joshua Gillingham is an author, editor, and game designer from Vancouver Island, Canada.

    Archives

    April 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018

    Categories

    All
    Ableism
    Algiers
    Archeology
    Arthurian Legend
    Article
    Author Q&A
    Beowulf
    Canadian
    CanLit
    Children's Books
    Colonialism
    Crime
    Crowdfunding
    Dialogue
    Dwarf
    Dwarves
    Editing
    Egyptology
    Experimental
    Falconry
    Fantasy
    Feminism
    Film
    Folktale
    France
    Genre
    Greek
    Heavy Metal
    HEMA
    Hispanic
    History
    Horror
    Hungarian
    Irish
    Journalism
    Kickstarter
    Korean
    Libraries
    Loki
    Microspaces
    Myth
    Myths
    Narration
    Norse
    Norsevember
    Podcast
    Poetry
    Publication
    Queer History
    Resiliency
    Review
    Runes
    Russian
    Sci Fi
    Sci-Fi
    Scotland
    Screenwriting
    Sequel
    Serial
    Smithing
    Social Media
    Storytelling
    The Gatewatch
    Thriller
    Translation
    Trees
    TTRPG
    Viking
    Virginia Woolf
    Welsh
    Woodblock Print
    World Building
    Writing Craft
    YA
    Zombies

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Welcome
  • About
  • Ten-Tree Saga
    • Book 1: The Gatewatch
    • Book 2: The Everspring
  • Althingi
    • One Will Rise
    • Saga Heroes
    • The Crescent & the Northern Star
  • Liberati
  • Writing Blog
  • Contact