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raefinlayThis post begins with a true confession: Many years (and even more pounds) ago, I competed in pageants. Yes, I'll pause right here while you laugh your freaking head off. ..... Feel better?
Anyway, I stayed involved with the Miss America program long after I retired from competition, training girls to walk in heels and to form opinions about what they read in the newspaper, producing, directing, fund-raising, etc. We perpetually struggled to generate interest. Through the mid-80's, pageants were all the rage, but they've been in steady decline for some time. (I don't even know if Miss America will remain a televised event.) Theories abound as to why this is so. They say the pageant is no longer relevant (nah, young women still want to be articulate and talented and beautiful), "talent" turns people off (whatever! American Idol is purely a talent show), or the pageant no longer reflects the best and brightest that the U.S. has to offer (have to concur with this one.)
I think the biggest reason that pageants are has-beens is this: They are a tiny, insulated industry. The pageant culture feeds itself with little to no outside support. And anything that feeds solely on itself eventually dies. Specifically, the only people who buy pageant tickets (a major source of funds) are pageant personnel and families of the contestants. Back in the day, heading out to Atlantic City for the national event was a dream vacation, but no none not entrenched in the culture would consider such a thing today. Likewise, fund raisers, training events, competitions are all attended by "pageant people" and no one else. Think about it: would you go to a Little League game if you didn't know anyone who was on the team? Pageantry is a hobby, a minor social club, that thinks it has national importance when it really doesn't.
And this results in a tremendous misfire when it presents itself on a nationally public level. Pageantry has developed a bland-looking, mildly charming ideal that is popular in the industry, but corporate suicide. Pageant winners are women who garnered moderate scores from all the judges, for they had no individual spark or rare beauty with which to offend, so they walk away with crown and scepter as the non-pageant audience cries dull, dull, dull! And ratings continue to slide.
I have a point to all this, I promise.
The analogy is nowhere near perfect, but I'm often reminded of my sordid pageant past as I continue to embrace the speculative fiction writing culture. It's a wonderful place to be. A serious hobby, a social club of the neatest, brightest people I know. But folks, is it possible that we are feeding on ourselves?
Circulation numbers for the literary spec fic mags are in frightening decline. I wonder if the only people who read Fantasy & Science Fiction, for example, are those who are trying to write for it. (I really don’t know...just throwing out the theory.) We boost our popularity by marketing to other spec fic friends. We try to impress each other on message boards, we attend conferences, we proofread each others' work and offer sound advice. We even have our own little versions of the Academy Awards. But when, if ever, do we become relevant outside our own tiny, insulated circle? Are we so entrenched in our culture that we miss that extra something special that makes us interesting to outsiders?
Some writers do it. Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Anne Rice, for example. There are many others. But most of us will be relegated to the midlist (if we manage to get there even) and the mags will continue to decline as people lose interest.
This isn't a moral statement or a call for change. I like being a wannabe spec fic writer and I adore my writer friends, and none of that's going to change no matter how small our world gets. But this is my journal and I can ponder if I want to.
And for the record, I'm one of those who no longer watches Miss America on TV. I could care less if it disappeared, because the pageant culture has produced an ideal that is nothing like mine, and I've gone off and joined a new social club.
Anyway, I stayed involved with the Miss America program long after I retired from competition, training girls to walk in heels and to form opinions about what they read in the newspaper, producing, directing, fund-raising, etc. We perpetually struggled to generate interest. Through the mid-80's, pageants were all the rage, but they've been in steady decline for some time. (I don't even know if Miss America will remain a televised event.) Theories abound as to why this is so. They say the pageant is no longer relevant (nah, young women still want to be articulate and talented and beautiful), "talent" turns people off (whatever! American Idol is purely a talent show), or the pageant no longer reflects the best and brightest that the U.S. has to offer (have to concur with this one.)
I think the biggest reason that pageants are has-beens is this: They are a tiny, insulated industry. The pageant culture feeds itself with little to no outside support. And anything that feeds solely on itself eventually dies. Specifically, the only people who buy pageant tickets (a major source of funds) are pageant personnel and families of the contestants. Back in the day, heading out to Atlantic City for the national event was a dream vacation, but no none not entrenched in the culture would consider such a thing today. Likewise, fund raisers, training events, competitions are all attended by "pageant people" and no one else. Think about it: would you go to a Little League game if you didn't know anyone who was on the team? Pageantry is a hobby, a minor social club, that thinks it has national importance when it really doesn't.
And this results in a tremendous misfire when it presents itself on a nationally public level. Pageantry has developed a bland-looking, mildly charming ideal that is popular in the industry, but corporate suicide. Pageant winners are women who garnered moderate scores from all the judges, for they had no individual spark or rare beauty with which to offend, so they walk away with crown and scepter as the non-pageant audience cries dull, dull, dull! And ratings continue to slide.
I have a point to all this, I promise.
The analogy is nowhere near perfect, but I'm often reminded of my sordid pageant past as I continue to embrace the speculative fiction writing culture. It's a wonderful place to be. A serious hobby, a social club of the neatest, brightest people I know. But folks, is it possible that we are feeding on ourselves?
Circulation numbers for the literary spec fic mags are in frightening decline. I wonder if the only people who read Fantasy & Science Fiction, for example, are those who are trying to write for it. (I really don’t know...just throwing out the theory.) We boost our popularity by marketing to other spec fic friends. We try to impress each other on message boards, we attend conferences, we proofread each others' work and offer sound advice. We even have our own little versions of the Academy Awards. But when, if ever, do we become relevant outside our own tiny, insulated circle? Are we so entrenched in our culture that we miss that extra something special that makes us interesting to outsiders?
Some writers do it. Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Anne Rice, for example. There are many others. But most of us will be relegated to the midlist (if we manage to get there even) and the mags will continue to decline as people lose interest.
This isn't a moral statement or a call for change. I like being a wannabe spec fic writer and I adore my writer friends, and none of that's going to change no matter how small our world gets. But this is my journal and I can ponder if I want to.
And for the record, I'm one of those who no longer watches Miss America on TV. I could care less if it disappeared, because the pageant culture has produced an ideal that is nothing like mine, and I've gone off and joined a new social club.
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 05:52 am (UTC)This isn't unique to SFF, though; people don't read short stories any more. Gone are the days when a writer could make a decent living selling slick fiction.
Alas.
It's novels, novels, novels all the way down.
Which is not to say short fiction doesn't serve a purpose. I think it can be a little more experimental, a little more boundary-pushing... and it's where a lot of the genre conversation, the cross-pollination and exchange of ideas take place. So yeah, it's largely an industry thing. But it's a useful industry thing.
And there are still fifteen, twenty, thirty thousand people reading Asimov's and F&SF. That's a few more than write for them.
IMHO.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 06:05 am (UTC)Yes, definitely useful. Like the Paris runway is useful. I see that stuff as weird; a fashion afficionado sees it as art, gleans inspiration, and comes up with a mainstreamed knockoff that finds its way to the GAP.
And still much loved. You shoulda seen me dance around the house with my little subscription card to Asimov's this Christmas. Er...on second thought, I'm glad you didn't.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 06:10 am (UTC)Hmm. I guess I'd be laughing if you weren't so cute. But you are, so I'm not. ;-) Instead I'll sit here and nod politely, even though you don't speak of anything I already didn't think was possible.
training girls to walk in heels and to form opinions about what they read in the newspaper
This, however, is frightening. You have to train these girls to think? Sounds like some of the women I work with.
In regard to the subject of your post, though, I think we have a skewed viewpoint. For instance, the company I work for deals with educational courses for people in the insurance industry. No one in my family understands what it is this company does, but a good percentage of the people who are interested in insurance do. In other words, the target audience knows. So if you talk to spec-fic fans who aren't writers, they may very well know and buy every magazine you're referring to. But the everyone you know who buys the mags are writers, it's easy to leap to a general conclusion about the audience.
Did that make any sense? This prattling really does not bode well for the review I'm writing you now...
And speaking of general conclusions, I will make one in agreeing with matoquala that the general audience for short stories is down. I've never met one person outside of OWW or the writer community who subscribed to a short story magazine. There was one guy I used to work with who preferred to read short stories rather than novels, but he seems to have been an anomoly.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 06:36 am (UTC)That's a really good point, Kevin. It gives me hope. I've just seen so many magazines that were started "to give more writers a shot at being published" that it's easy to wonder at the state of things.
And that was an excellent review. Some good points about the POV distance...hmmmm. So, thanks!! You're a useful fellow to have around, yanno? *g*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 07:21 pm (UTC)I didn't take "train these girls to think" to mean brainwash them as to what to think. Just teach them that there is a difference between having an opinion and having a thoughtful and educated opinion, which is a wonderful thing to teach.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:27 pm (UTC)Exactly!!! Critical thinking is quickly becoming a precious commodity, esp in public schools. I keep wondering what kind of consequences this will bring. Hmmm... Story possibility? A society of non-thinkers? Hmmm... *grin*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 03:39 pm (UTC)I've wondered this myself. Many times. Personally, I think that genre short fiction needs to be more accessible to readers (mentally as well as physically), but I don't know if that's the problem. Anyway, I do wonder what the solution might be.
Sometimes I imagine finding out about a sale to Asimov's or F&SF while at work. I see myself running around the office screaming, proclaiming my sale to those who cared and those who didn't . . . and getting a bunch of blank stares. Not many people have heard of the magazines that you and I aspire to crack.
Sobering, that.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 07:15 pm (UTC)And I've also thought about us being this self perpetuating culture. Our own audience so to speak. And while we push each other to be more strange, exotic, unusual, create more conflict, don't be cliche, don't have the good looking guy and girl hook up, etc, we are missing the fact that there is *always* a good looking guy and gal in Dan Brown's novels (like the Da Vinci Code) and that they *always* hook up in the course of the adventure. We are also missing the fact that his books sell like crazy to the mass audience out there (mostly for cool conspiracies, don't get me wrong, I love Dan Brown. I've read all of his stuff, but I noticed a pattern).
Have to agree with Bear about the novel thing.
TV, movies, and comic books have taken over the realm of short fiction to the masses. Nothing we can do to change that. I like, however, you're analogy about the New York run way and how it serves its own usefulness to those 'in the know...'
All of this, btw, is why I had Cynthia read your story 'Light Bender'. I wanted to see how someone outside of our little culture would view it. What someone would think who wasn't trying to determine if it was 'ground breaking' and who wouldn't take the analysis down to the sentence level. Her conclusion...she liked it. It held her attention for 30+ pages. Just as I had a feeling she would....
Embrace our patheticness
Date: 2005-01-09 07:36 pm (UTC)To answer the question, are we feeding on ourselves - yes. But when has it not been that way in the sci fi genre?
I do not read sci fi mags. I do not read them because I once tried, and the vast vast majority of what I read was either bad science or bad fiction. I find most fantasy to be just plain silly, and much of it makes me want to wretch.
To be fair, I find most fiction in general terribly boring. I'd rather read about nanotech, physics, philosophy or social theory any day. That's probably why I'm writing sci fi in my own fiction.
The sci fi I enjoy is Vonnegut, Asimov, Kim Stanley Robinson, some Clark, and Margaret Atwood. (Incidentally, Atwood denies that she is even a sci fi writer, despite the fact that her last novel is an apocalytic future based on genetic modification. I think her denile is rooted in the fact that we are a largely embaressing group.) But to me honest, my favorite sort of fiction is speculative fiction that borders on absurdism, such as "Geek Love"(Kathryn Dunn) and "Great Apes"(Will Self), because they really push the bar when it comes to creativity, and do something that nonfiction cannot ever hope to do.
I hope I don't offend anyone by this post, but I think it is good to be aware of the failings and embarassing aspects of one's social club. And as a Humanist, I am pretty used to embracing groups that are often embarassing, unknown or misudnerstood by the mainstream culture.
Re: Embrace our patheticness
Date: 2005-01-09 08:07 pm (UTC)Love Vonnegut and Asimov. But I'd call Vonnegut more of a science fiction satirist. Early Asimov is very good. Tons of social theory in there (which explains why you love it), but the later stuff was less so...
I'll totally confess to having a guilty love of fantasy. It is very juvenile and immature. I know. But I can't help it. And I guess I'm at the point in my life where I'm tired of not doing what I want to do simply because it is juvenile. Does that make any sense?
But I also recognize the absurdity of it all. I haven't lost all of my adult sensibilities...
:)
Re: Embrace our patheticness
Date: 2005-01-10 07:35 pm (UTC)And as a Humanist, I am pretty used to embracing groups that are often embarassing, unknown or misudnerstood by the mainstream culture.
Hah! I feel the same way being a Christian. People assume I'm stupid or have decided on my faith just because "mommy told me so" or somesuch. And my fellow Christians embarrass me all the time. *shrug* But we can only be ourselves, and hope our real friends accept and respect us.
You'll have to educate me...
Date: 2005-01-11 04:48 am (UTC)Now if you lived in the Netherlands I wouldn't be confused.
Re: You'll have to educate me...
Date: 2005-01-11 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:14 pm (UTC)