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hrjI think about this question a lot, although I'm uncomfortable with the connotations of "owe". I think about it when I simultaneously mope about not getting reviews or mentions for my books while barely managing to read two books a month myself. I think about it when I pick over the items in my Twitter feed to decide who to retweet and promote. I think about it a lot every time I'm caught awkwardly between literary communities and have to think about my relationship to each of them.
It's an inescapable fact that literary communities are not homogeneous. We have different relationships depending on our individual roles and interests. (Heck, there's no reason an author or a reader has to consider themself part of a "community" in any sense at all.) I don't have to feel like a fraud if I don't follow some particular property that half my twitter feed is in raptures over. I don't project my own habits and principles on others, just because they're important to me. I contribute to my communities in my own way and accept that others contribute in theirs, and somewhere in there it all weaves together.
But today I was thinking about two specific items under this general umbrella--items that are only tangentially related to each other.
Item #1: As an author, the foremost thing I owe to whatever literary communities I fall in is to write. That's it. If I did nothing else other than write books, that would be a worthwhile contribution. Without creators, there would be nothing for the rest of the community to enjoy (that is, to enjoy as a literary community). There are lots of different types of creators. For that matter, I do different types of creation. But with respect to this topic, the first item on my list is to write the things I want to write and to see that they are available for those who might want to read them.
This can be a harder thing to accept than one might think. I want to do all sorts of other community things. I want to discover new books. I want to connect with people who create or enjoy the properties I love. I want to dive into analysis and dissection of why things work or don't for me. I want to make connections with other people who are doing the same sorts of things I'm doing, so we can share tips and joys and frustrations. I want to be told that my writing is brilliant and that people love it and to be able to bask in that feeling.
But in the end, my responsibility is to write, and to not let all those other things get in the way of writing.
Item #2: As an author, it's my responsibility to communicate what my books are trying to do, such that readers have "informed consent" when they choose to read them. I need to communicate that I'm writing fantasy, not actual history; that my stories focus heavily on female characters and women's lives; that my plots are complex and convoluted and the reader may have to chew on them a bit to get full enjoyment.
The big problem here is that I may have responsibility, but I don't always have control. The Alpennia series has a strong streak of romance-sensibility running through it, but when you look at the formal structure and expectations of romance novels, I'm not writing romance novels. For perfectly understandable market reasons, my publisher has framed the Alpennia series as romance--and as romance in a field where the default expectation is for romance novels to have erotic content.
This has caused more headaches than any other single aspect of my work. People who purchase and read on the basis of that framing might reasonably consider that I've broken the contract. And people who are averse to romance novels (or, in particular, to erotic romance) may feel signaled to avoid my books entirely.
This aspect was very much on my mind this morning when I wrote a scene for Mother of Souls that pretty much announces in blinking lights, "Hey, I told you this wasn't a romance novel -- I hope you believed me, because otherwise you're going to be really disappointed!" And it doesn't matter how solidly I set that scene up to be the natural outcome of the story, if someone believes they're reading a romance novel, they'll feel betrayed. I have a responsibility not to betray my readers, and I'm never entirely certain that I'll succeed.
It's an inescapable fact that literary communities are not homogeneous. We have different relationships depending on our individual roles and interests. (Heck, there's no reason an author or a reader has to consider themself part of a "community" in any sense at all.) I don't have to feel like a fraud if I don't follow some particular property that half my twitter feed is in raptures over. I don't project my own habits and principles on others, just because they're important to me. I contribute to my communities in my own way and accept that others contribute in theirs, and somewhere in there it all weaves together.
But today I was thinking about two specific items under this general umbrella--items that are only tangentially related to each other.
Item #1: As an author, the foremost thing I owe to whatever literary communities I fall in is to write. That's it. If I did nothing else other than write books, that would be a worthwhile contribution. Without creators, there would be nothing for the rest of the community to enjoy (that is, to enjoy as a literary community). There are lots of different types of creators. For that matter, I do different types of creation. But with respect to this topic, the first item on my list is to write the things I want to write and to see that they are available for those who might want to read them.
This can be a harder thing to accept than one might think. I want to do all sorts of other community things. I want to discover new books. I want to connect with people who create or enjoy the properties I love. I want to dive into analysis and dissection of why things work or don't for me. I want to make connections with other people who are doing the same sorts of things I'm doing, so we can share tips and joys and frustrations. I want to be told that my writing is brilliant and that people love it and to be able to bask in that feeling.
But in the end, my responsibility is to write, and to not let all those other things get in the way of writing.
Item #2: As an author, it's my responsibility to communicate what my books are trying to do, such that readers have "informed consent" when they choose to read them. I need to communicate that I'm writing fantasy, not actual history; that my stories focus heavily on female characters and women's lives; that my plots are complex and convoluted and the reader may have to chew on them a bit to get full enjoyment.
The big problem here is that I may have responsibility, but I don't always have control. The Alpennia series has a strong streak of romance-sensibility running through it, but when you look at the formal structure and expectations of romance novels, I'm not writing romance novels. For perfectly understandable market reasons, my publisher has framed the Alpennia series as romance--and as romance in a field where the default expectation is for romance novels to have erotic content.
This has caused more headaches than any other single aspect of my work. People who purchase and read on the basis of that framing might reasonably consider that I've broken the contract. And people who are averse to romance novels (or, in particular, to erotic romance) may feel signaled to avoid my books entirely.
This aspect was very much on my mind this morning when I wrote a scene for Mother of Souls that pretty much announces in blinking lights, "Hey, I told you this wasn't a romance novel -- I hope you believed me, because otherwise you're going to be really disappointed!" And it doesn't matter how solidly I set that scene up to be the natural outcome of the story, if someone believes they're reading a romance novel, they'll feel betrayed. I have a responsibility not to betray my readers, and I'm never entirely certain that I'll succeed.
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