tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post4148887692044898437..comments2024-03-19T03:21:49.937-04:00Comments on SleuthSayers: Write What You Know?Leigh Lundinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-20502271566625677242015-10-11T23:32:43.358-04:002015-10-11T23:32:43.358-04:00I'm back from Bouchercon now. It was wonderful...I'm back from Bouchercon now. It was wonderful--among other things, after years of online friendship, I finally got to meet fellow SleuthSayer John Floyd, and also met newer SleuthSayer friends such as Rob Lopresti. I'm delighted to come home to such an interesting range of comments.<br /><br />Melodie, I think fiction writers' first works are almost bound to be closely tied to their own experiences to some extent. As you say, writing about what we know best allows us to concentrate on learning more about how to write. And we all have things we want to say about our own experiences, about the worlds we live in and the people we know. It's natural to begin by writing about those. When we feel more confident about writing, research helps us reach beyond our own experiences and, as you say, live other people's lives in other people's worlds. And, of course, research is fascinating in itself.<br /><br />Anonymous and Leigh, you raise important, difficult issues. If we don't include minority characters in our fiction, we run the risk of presenting a distorted, incomplete view of society, and of offending people by excluding them; if we do include minority characters--that is, characters from minorities to which we don't belong--we run the risk of getting it wrong, and of offending people by seeming to exploit them. When I included deaf characters in Interpretation of Murder, I worried about unintentionally stereotyping them (or of being too timid and making them too perfect), but I also think it's a shame that there aren't more deaf characters in fiction, including mystery fiction. Research helps, empathy helps, and paying attention to readers' responses helps, but I don't think there are any easy answers here.<br /><br />Dixon, I'd love to go to the Poisoned Pen bookstore some day--it's a long way from Virginia, but it sounds like a fascinating place. If I ever make it there, I'll definitely announce it here.<br /><br />Jeff, I love that sentence, too. When I was teaching English, I often put it at the beginning of my syllabi. It's excellent advice not only for writers but also for readers of literature.<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17673578800047888317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-16443826396586992122015-10-11T18:37:22.247-04:002015-10-11T18:37:22.247-04:00"Try to be one of those people on whom nothin..."Try to be one of those people on whom nothing is lost." Worthy advice! Thank you B.K. And thank you Henry!Jeff Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00316081079528920123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-85989319095602561742015-10-11T13:31:05.834-04:002015-10-11T13:31:05.834-04:00Great post! And congratulations on Fighting Chanc...Great post! And congratulations on <i>Fighting Chance</i>. I live relatively near the offices of Poisoned Pen/Pencil Press, in Scottsdale, and often shop at the Poisoned Pen bookstore next door. I'm on their email list, but don't always have the time to read through the list of authors visiting that month, so if you come out for a reading or signing, please let me know. I'd love to go!<br /><br />--DixonDixon Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11220791609338404147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-77630972953933645372015-10-11T13:12:38.309-04:002015-10-11T13:12:38.309-04:00Brain glitch: Momaday is Kiowa, not Pawnee. He'...Brain glitch: Momaday is Kiowa, not Pawnee. He'd have my head for that. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-64094904246908038222015-10-11T13:04:52.872-04:002015-10-11T13:04:52.872-04:00Leigh, I agree it would be nice to see more encour...Leigh, I agree it would be nice to see more encouragement of Indigenous writers. In fact, there are a number of workshops for such in this country, run by successful writers such as Linda Hogan (Chickasaw; her book Mean Spirit was nominated for a Pulitzer; it's got most of the elements mystery and crime readers appreciate, as it happens). Of course we have many powerful Native authors, including N. Scott Momaday (Pawnee), whose "House Made of Dawn" did win a Pulitzer, and Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) and Paula Gunn Allen (also Laguna Pueblo). All are fairly prolific writers, especially Hogan. The strange thing is, even though we do have quite a few Native authors the author of "Indian books" that springs to the minds of most non-Native people (or even non-First Nations people in Canada) is Tony Hillerman. Granted, he's done very well learning not only Dine and Hopi culture but also picking up essential elements and nuances of Indigenous worldview (which actually is amazingly homogenous, though cultures are not, and why we are able to have Fourth World dialogues and meetings internationally). And I myself enjoy his mysteries. But he's a white guy. Why isn't Linda Hogan's work as well known? Why are her and Momaday's books largely read by non-Native people only in college courses? It's absolutely not because they're not as good as Hillerman's work. So I'm not sure the problem is that we don't have Native writers or even Native-run workshops to train new writers. The books are getting published. But they remain largely marginalized.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-1292032194716740682015-10-11T00:33:19.834-04:002015-10-11T00:33:19.834-04:00Many 19th century writers were praised for their h...Many 19th century writers were praised for their highly detailed novels, authors who’d never visited the Orient, the Yukon, South America, The Russian Steppes, Africa, or the Ottoman Empire. What the best had in common was deep research.<br /><br />As far as writing from the viewpoint of young or old, male or female, Asian, African, or Indian, it’s a matter of empathy and getting inside the head of those characters. I can trace indigenous ancestry through my mother’s side, but I think that could be compatible with Anon’s thoughts on the topic.<br /><br />A point of confusion even among American Indians is that First Nation cultures are <i>not</i> homogeneous. It’s not fair to readers as well as AmerInd culture to conflate practices of the many Algonquin offshoots with, say, Plains Indians or Pueblos.<br /><br />One solution is to encourage indigenous writers. That’s not to suggest publishers should compromise on quality, but that workshops, like Tony Hillerman’s, could seed not merely stories of Indian culture, but talented native writers who then choose their own genres.<br />Leigh Lundinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-27294718900101324482015-10-10T17:25:21.371-04:002015-10-10T17:25:21.371-04:00I like what you say here a great deal! But I would...I like what you say here a great deal! But I would like to add a caveat, which is that it doesn't work as well across cultural boundaries. I don't want to speak about this matter as it applies to cultures I don't personally know, so I will just say that I am an Indigenous person from North America and that many of us are pretty tired of reading books (starting with Fennimore Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans") that purport to represent people from cultures the author doesn't remotely understand. When the author uses his/her imagination to do this, they can't help but project their own culture onto the other. Worse, when they consciously try not to do this they wind up projecting ideas about cultural evolution (in which Native or Indigenous cultures exhibit "primitive" characteristics such as superstitiousness or an idyllic "noble savage" connection to nature) onto our cultures. The problem is that it perpetuates stereotypes that are actually damaging because they make real cross-cultural communication very difficult. (As an educator as well as writer who specializes in trying to facilitate cross-cultural communication, I know how really serious the problem is. We can't start communicating well until we unpack all the mistaken ideas that have been passed as good information or knowledge in print and filmed stories about Native people.) But I think as long as the people we imagine inhabit the same worldview we do, and hold the same basic paradigms about the nature of reality, then imagination works very well to help us write about things we have not personally experienced. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-74962019508352479802015-10-10T10:48:59.279-04:002015-10-10T10:48:59.279-04:00I think for your first work, it's an advantage...I think for your first work, it's an advantage to "write what you know," because then you can concentrate on mastering the important aspects of writing fiction (plot, motivation, characterization, dialogue, viewpoint, etc.) rather than research. But at this stage of my writing career, I think "Write what you want to know" is best. Doing research into careers you haven't had, reading history - all that is part of the delight of being an author. You can write the characters you want to be, and live in their world for a little time.Melodie Campbellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07870938103759179132noreply@blogger.com