Discussion question
Thursday, November 11th, 2010 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rolanniSome While Back, I read an interview, it may have been, with an author who writes adult post-apocalyptic SF and also YA post-apocalyptic SF.
The single comment that stuck with me from this interview was that the author worked to make sure the YA work had a happy ending, because young readers deserved hope.
The implicit statement -- I don't remember at this remove if it was explicit -- being that adult readers don't deserve a happy ending.
Discuss.
The single comment that stuck with me from this interview was that the author worked to make sure the YA work had a happy ending, because young readers deserved hope.
The implicit statement -- I don't remember at this remove if it was explicit -- being that adult readers don't deserve a happy ending.
Discuss.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 07:21 pm (UTC)Everyone deserves hope. I think the YA times are some of the hardest in anyone's life, so it may be that desire to say "look, things can get better" to teens that prompts that feeling.
It may be a belief that older readers are more cynical. I know happy endings have to be well done for me to not go, well, that was trite and facile when I'm done. On the other hand, there's an entire genre that banks on the "happily ever after" for adults (romance).
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:37 pm (UTC)Interestingly, there is an author, wildly popular among teen girls, who exclusively writes books about people dying. So there's another trend there too. Ah, Lurlene McDaniel.
http://www.amazon.com/Lurlene-McDaniel/e/B000AP7LGG/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1289507715&sr=1-1
Oh, and I found the original piece
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:43 pm (UTC)Hope is important now, too; I notice my tastes in RP and in reading very depending on how things are going IRL.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:56 pm (UTC)And I don't get the Lurlene McDaniel stuff either - all of them are romances where one half of the teenage couple has a terminal disease or something. But some teen girls love it.
I'll agree that my reading tastes also cycle with my moods, how things are going in my life, and the state of the world in general. I've been reading a lot more upbeat, positive stuff, or romance, sine the economy tanked. Oddly, I am getting rather bunt out on the paranormal romance (there's a lot of world-ending stuff in many of them, so that may be it) - I may have to turn to science fiction based romance or something.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 09:10 pm (UTC)I don't get it, but I think there's a certain romance to funerals, weddings and funerals and never growing old.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 09:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 12:50 am (UTC)That said, I much prefer happy endings, myself
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 12:52 am (UTC)And I can see the "at least it's not me" thinking.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 08:54 am (UTC)It may also be connected with the fashion for "teenage angst[1]" and the 'goth' culture which seems to glorify being miserable.
[1] Interestingly, the German meaning of 'angst' is 'fear', rather than the now-common English one of depression, despair, being miserable, etc.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 06:43 am (UTC)Hope Shmope
Date: 2010-11-11 07:38 pm (UTC)That said, I can see wanting a character that you expect your young readers to identify strongly with to end up in a place from which it is possible to go on. Sam, as opposed to Frodo (perhaps).
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 07:47 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, there are many people who have higher doom-and-gloom tolerances than I do.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:04 pm (UTC)I'm in favor of happy endings, but I have read books with other kinds of endings that were well done.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:20 pm (UTC)It took a bit of digging - it turns out it was not an interview, but his Big Idea guest post on John Scalzi's Whatever blog. So folks who want to original statements can go here:
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/05/20/the-big-idea-paolo-bacigalupi-2/
And another good interview, in which Paolo talks about genre work being compared to literature is here:
http://techland.com/2010/09/27/paolo-bacigalupi-this-is-what-it-takes-to-write-a-novel/
I think his points are interesting. I think adults deserve hope too, but I'm an optimist. So that isn't a surprising thing.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 09:50 pm (UTC)Thanks for doing the legwork.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 10:01 pm (UTC)Librarians like this sort of hunt.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 08:13 am (UTC)"I mostly won’t write an upbeat or hopeful story for adults, because we so clearly don’t deserve it, but for young people, who haven’t yet started screwing things up, I wanted to at least provide the possibility of something better. A window into a better future, so to speak." That's pretty explicit that adult readers don't deserve a happy ending.
Which makes me wonder what he thinks a story is for? Polemical beatings? Why would people read that?
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 08:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 08:29 pm (UTC)Me, I read for fun...
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 12:46 am (UTC)Discussion
Date: 2010-11-11 09:50 pm (UTC)I'm either an optimistic cynic or a cynical optimist, and I like things to resolve in a positive direction. Not treacly, but with hope.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 10:09 pm (UTC)I prefer endings that are well resolved, and realistic to the story line. Happy doesn't mean much if the ending doesn't fit within the world frame, nor does non-happy get my vote when it is grimness just for the sake of grimness.
Happy Ending
Date: 2010-11-12 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 02:20 am (UTC)I don't get people who say that "happy endings aren't realistic." *Fiction* isn't real life. Life doesn't come with a narrative arc. People do not speak in dialog. (Srsly. I spent several of my Kelly Girl months transcribing tapes of meetings.)
If you're going to impose the shape of "story" upon a sequence of events, you've already abandoned realism.
Oh, and in re the Lurlene McDaniel type of tearjerker -- my adolescent psych class contended that the teenage brain is wired to experience heightened extreme emotions, whether they are happiness, anger, grief, whatever, and can come to crave the charge they give. In a very real sense, "it's a phase they'll grow out of."
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 03:04 am (UTC)However, it was a hopeful ending because he died battling the Evil Overlord and this Made the World a Safer Place.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 03:35 am (UTC)I think to many people persue the antihero everything must be dark and horrible. Feh I read my books to escape not to make myself more depressed. Yes sometimes that kind of book is good but I would rather have a book where the hero goes through hell and then emerges victorious and if he/she gets the girl/guy at the end that is nice too. ;)
The author doesn't even have to drag the hero through hell for me to enjoy the story. Just tell a good story with the hero in it such a Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper series out in free podcast format. There we follow the main character from new crew member to captain. No massive battles or any such just the challenges of his life. Yet If find the books fascinating and enjoy them a lot. So again I prefer books that uplift the human spirit rather than drag it down and stomp all over it.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 03:37 am (UTC)::facepalm::
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 09:07 am (UTC)Everyone does it. This is why authors (and composers, and artists, and programmers, etc.) should never be the only people who inspect their work before publication, and certainly not too soon after creating it. Editors and other people will detect a lot of errors the creator will miss.
(I agree, it's really annoying when it happens. BTW, the typing error above was intentional, it's an internet law that anything talking about (especially criticising) spelling etc. must also have an error...)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 05:27 am (UTC)Anyway, I think that young adults are perfectly able to handle unhappy endings - in fact, I think it's good for them to occasionally see the world without the Disney filters on, and see that things not working out the way they'd planned is not the end of the world. Sometimes it's an opportunity!
Happy Ending. Unhappy Ending?
Date: 2010-11-12 07:05 am (UTC)Gus wants a correction. He's not 21 in dog years. He tells me he's gotten to be around 50 actually. Gentlemen don't mind revealing their age after all.
C.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-12 04:21 pm (UTC)Kid-Lit
Date: 2010-11-12 03:58 pm (UTC)At one point my friend and I discussed the modern “protect our children”—“no disturbing events or villains” fashion in kid-literature. By comparison, McCaffrey and Lackey offered peeks into the minds of villains who were indeed villainous. Offered some understanding of the thought processes and emotional motivations provoking the human lust for power and/or domination and/or cruelty. Which gave the girls a safe look into the minds of potential human predators. And gave them an early warning that life is not all puppies and butterflies.
My comment at the time was that the Pern and Velgarth books were more realistic than modern kid-lit. Oddly as the term sits on books featuring time traveling dragons and telepathic horses. In psychological terms they are more realistic.
Raymond