Why do people read contemporary fiction?

This is an honest question in search of an honest answer, so I am hoping that some of you will volunteer your thoughts: Why do people read contemporary fiction?

First, let’s clarify. I am defining contemporary fiction as any made-up story set in the modern-day world that does not fall under the umbrella of “genre” fiction. So no romance, urban fantasy, scifi, magical realism, horror, thriller, mystery, or chick-lit books. What does that leave? I’m not entirely sure. Is everything else literary fiction (highbrow nonsense)?

Realizing your new novel is rubbish

I find the early stages of writing a new novel to be the most exciting. At the beginning, anything is possible. You get to really exercise your god complex as you create characters, events, even whole worlds. But it’s all downhill from there as you slog through daily word counts, week after week, dragging your imagination through the muck of Consistency, Realism, and Internal Logic. To compound the misery, you occasionally realize you have made a critical error and have to go back to rework something you thought was finished.

But it isn’t that bad if you can figure out your mistakes before you actually make them. For example, I recently realized that the novel I had just finished planning and was about to start writing in earnest was wrong. Very wrong, in fact, in many wrong-ish ways.

Landing at Point Rain, addendum

There’s another significant disturbance in the Force in this week’s episode of Star Wars Clone Wars that I did not mention in yesterday’s post.

Heroism. Actual heroism, not implied or assumed heroism.

There are two notable scenes in which clone troopers deliberately put themselves in danger to save the Jedi. And as far as I can tell, there are no instances of the Jedi returning the favor.

TV Review: Clone Wars misses the “Point”

I’ve never lost sight of the fact that Star Wars is, at heart, for children. It’s space opera, it’s fantasy, it’s adventure with clear-cut heroes and villains and tidy endings. And with that in mind, I have kept watching Star Wars: Clone Wars on the Cartoon Network because it is a weekly dose of Star Wars fun.

At the same time, I am also aware that George Lucas drew on actual combat footage from World War II aerial battles to create the battle sequences in the original Star Wars films, which betrays a strange interest in realistic violence for a show about space cowboys with magic powers.

This week, the series aired Season 2, Episode 5, “Landing at Point Rain.” And I was a little disturbed. Maybe more than a little.

Breaking the news

I review one or two draft novels for my internet-writer-friends each month, and I have detected a disturbing trend that plays out during each review.

First, the writer pitches the idea, and it is fantastic: Clone soldiers! Warrior-maiden finishing school! Magical freedom fighters! The humans are the aliens! Anti-psychic racism!

Then, I read the book. And while the quality and style of the writing varies a great deal, just about all of these books have had the same problem, which is…