"I knew Knockout was going to take on something pretty modern and heavy, as well—the realization that criminal justice and social justice are often at odds. This is a massive conflict—one that hits at the core of a person’s identity, especially when they realize they are part of a problem, not a solution. So I was excited and very nervous about tackling it. But I’m very proud of where I ended up.
Romance is a deeply political genre because it deals with such fundamental issues—who is afforded happiness, whose love is valued, what joy and hope and triumph look like in the hands of those who are not always prioritized for those things. I have always written with this as my true north. And every book, I feel like I have to prove it to publishing, to reviewers, to readers. I think the learning moment is always the same…the realization that I will always have to convince people that this genre is a powerful, important reflection of not just who we are, but who we might become."
Sarah MacLean: If It Feels Scary, You’re Writing It Right
Doing more research on Story structure--Structuralists.
This round I found out... but I’m looking into roughly the 1960′s-1980′s.
White straight men are still insufferable. And yes, someone is going to chime in with “Not all men” But I’m going to hit back with especially these men. Yes, yes, you’re crying, but women and what about PoCs, etc. You see, kids, the majority of the structuralists are white cishet abled men who like to also celebrate white cishet abled men while being AHs to everyone else. Some of them are Jewish, but the Christians are also AHs to the Jews. One or two are gay in the mix of things, but then they get erased from canon.
Feel mercy for me since I had to read a lot of insufferable misogyny, racism, erasure, etc and then call people out for it.
I should note that this type of erasure doesn’t tend to happen with white women women. They cite EVERYTHING. Because they think deep in their hearts, they will be doubted, but these white cishet abled men think that they won’t be doubted, so often take the credit for these “brilliant” ideas from other people and then fail to cite them, especially when they are disabled, PoC, a woman, etc. Or generally they hate them (which is justifiable with Freytag, BTW).
So I’m catching you up on my research so far through mostly the beginning of European lit to about the early 1960′s (and you can tell I’m really tired)
I went to the library, and to be honest they don’t have books from the 1970′s much through the 1980′s. I’m thinking at this point either I have to buy them, go through Google books, or go to yet a bigger library. I have one in mind, actually, but it’s going to take a while to get there.
What I noticed in the books I was able to sample, was this overwhelming feeling like this is how it was and always will be, DESPITE the fact that my research DOES NOT BACK THIS. For example...
“How to write Western Novel” by Matt Braun
manages to cite a bunch of people before the 19th century, forwards, and without any citations (i.e. no backing or quotes or scholarship), asserts that everything they wrote was about conflict. This is called retconning folks. It’s not backed by my research one bit. (There are long, long ass posts about Shakespeare, Aristotle, etc and what *people at the time* wrote about story structure.
CITATIONS, MATT, for the love of what’s holy. And it’s a Writer’s Digest book. (They started in 1920, and this makes my head spin, so, so much, because in the early 1920′s you had the confessional story, which wasn’t really about conflict, but about morals, so you know I have a huge rant about this too. WTF, Writer’s Digest? Did you forget your own history?) But he waxes on and on about 3-act, climaxes, and conflict. I guess all of those Kurosawa movies are also in 3-act? (except they aren’t, because I’ve watched them several times and they use a variety of plot structures, which include, but are not limited to: Kishotenketsu, Jo-ha-kyu, and some of the staging of Noh/Kabuki--I also looked up Noh and Kabuki plot structure, which is 5 acts, with an internal act structure of Jo-ha-kyu--the plot structure that makes international people often angry and upset.) For those who are unclear, Kurosawa had a HUGE influence on Westerns and how they are shot in Hollywood. (A true Western fan would know this...) And Yojimbo, which caught the attention of fans internationally was shot in 1961.
The things is that though Matt says there isn’t a correct way to plot a book, he assumes the only correct way to structure it is 3-act, by this point, which is 1988. Which means by this time, all of the other plot structures are kind of dying, though there is Joseph Campbell.
So overall, this means by 1988, people didn’t think there were any other options--which coincides later with the Charlie Rose Interviews with Tony Morrison.
There are no real citations in the book. If there are, it’s odd quotes, mostly by white men. Because only white men can star and be in Westerns, Matt? This, BTW, is changing as the real history of the West is being redug up and discovered.
Follow? This is writer history here. This is why you should doubt always was and always will be.
I didn’t have the heart to go through the entire bookshelf, really, and my energy is limited on spoons, because who wants to sit there as a queer, disabled poc feminist reading white cisabled men glorifying white cis abled men while doing erasure of people just lie me for hours?
Dark Thoughts on Writing Edited by Stanley Wiater, originally published 1974
ONE WOMAN IN THE FREAKING ENTIRE BOOK (and it’s Anne Rice. WTF, Stanley)
The edition I picked up was from 1997 WTF.
So you edited it and couldn’t find a single other woman in that entire effing time. WTF Stanley. WTF.
This is a compilation of various quotes by various horror authors. But it’s all men except one. I did check a few of the names in post, but I got tired after seeing a wash of white men. There wasn’t anything useful.
Djuna Barnes- Sapphic horror writer. June 12, 1892 died: June 18, 1982
Plenty of time to quote her.
“Truman Capote, William Goyen, Karen Blixen, John Hawkes, Bertha Harris, Dylan Thomas, David Foster Wallace, and Anaïs Nin. Writer Bertha Harris described her work as "practically the only available expression of lesbian culture we have in the modern western world" since Sappho.“
-- Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djuna_Barnes
Also from this list: https://romancingthegothic.com/2021/03/14/100-women-writers-in-horror-the-gothic-and-supernatural-fiction-from-the-18th-century-to-2021/
42) Jean Rhys (1890 – 1972) Rhys was a British author who grew up in Dominica. She had a lengthy writing career with adaptations made of some works. She is most famous, of course, for The Wide Sargasso Sea which reimagines Jane Eyre through the eyes of Bertha Mason.43) Anya Seton (1904 – 1990) One of the most popular manifestations of the Gothic in the 20th century was the Gothic Romance. An early example was the book Dragonwyck (1940) by historical novelist Anya Seton. (The inspiration for the title of Vincent Virga’s Gaywyck – the first gay Gothic romance).
44) Victoria Holt (1906 – 1993) If we’re talking Gothic Romance, we can’t miss out Victoria Holt. Holt was the pseudonym of Eleanor Hibbett used for her Gothics. She had many pseudonyms for writing in different genres. It was her Mistress of Mellyn (1960) which really saw the beginning of the Gothic romance heyday.
45) Phyllis Whitney (1903 – 2008) Another of the most prolific and popular Gothic romance writers was Phyllis Whitney. Rather than setting her novels in a windswept England, many novels are set in America or in locations all over the world, often with more ‘modern’ heroines. The Trembling Hills (1956) is a favourite for me – the stakes are particularly high…
46) Violet Winspear (1928 – 1989) Winspear was a popular and prolific Mills and Boon author. She didn’t write category Gothic romances but was known for her inclusion of Gothic elements in some works. Dearest Demon (1975) includes doubling, demonic heroes and murderous danger.
47) Harper Lee (1926 – 2016) There were many genres and offshoots of the Gothic in the 20th century. One of the most well-known is perhaps the Southern Gothic, set in the American South and investigating narratives of decay, decline and race relations. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) is one of the most famous examples.
48) Shirley Jackson (1916 – 1965) Jackson was a prolific writer (over 200 short stories and 6 novels). It’s hard to pick a work. ‘The Lottery’, with its final twist, is a favourite. For horror, you can’t go wrong with The Haunting of Hill House (1959).
49) Joan Lindsay (1896 – 1984) Australian Lindsay was a novelist, dramatist and essayist. Her novel Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967) is a historical Gothic about disappearing school girls, unresolvable mysteries and the main character: the landscape.
50) Angela Carter (1940 – 1992) Carter is most well-known, perhaps, for her Gothic and horrifying fairy-tales in The Bloody Chamber (1979). Her books mix genres with a thread of feminism running through. If you’re looking for something less familiar, try Shadow dance (1966). Horrifying!
https://jessnevins.com/blog/?p=842 Covers Black Horror writers.
It’s not that these people didn’t exist, it’s that he didn’t want to contact them.
Also FU stanley.
How to write Plots that Sell by FA Rockwell
Francis Alicia Rockwell--the only thing she wrote was writing manuals--five of them, but never really wrote a novel.
In this book, she mentions only 1 woman in the entire book. Cites nothing, and argues yet again for conflict.
That’s a lot of internalization you got there Francis, especially after you wrote this:
In a society in which there are more and more single women and an increasing amount of violence and men streets, there's a valuable premise in the old German proverb "A woman without a man is like a garden without a fence.”
What sort of plot does this suggest to you? A successful woman-executive who feels incomplete, unprotected, and exposed without a man, for all her independence, fame, and fortune. A popular formula presents an attractive lady VIP in her thirties or forties whose life is, as always, full, rich, and happy without marriage. Suddenly and surprisingly she marries a rather plain, nondescript man whom everyone considers her inferior. In this case you'd highlight suspense and motivation. (Page 71)
Are you crying? I am. WTH, Francis. Also, her reading of Roses for Emily, I find it really strange. Her take on it isn’t the literary analysis I’ve ever heard and sounds super conservative?
Starting with the same German Proverb, you might go the way-out route of a woman pretending not to be single by wearing a wedding ring, propping up a male dummy in her car at night to deceive would -be attackers, or carrying a tear gas pen or police whistle. All, of course, much more innocent and practical than the gruesome husband-substitute in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” in which the old maid kept a male corpse in her bed.
But don’t worry, if you’re not upset at that, she does have casual racism too:
“What can happen to your skywriting pilot downed in a primitive area--Africa, South America, etc.--whom the natives consider a god or a devil?”
IN the jokes section.
This is 1975.
In summary, this book is more how to get ideas for books, but by this time reinforces the idea that conflict is the only way forwards. It still astounds me and depresses me that this woman (who never wrote a novel in her life) could only cite one woman author in the entirety of the book. She cited one PoC by accident, but not by name--Dumas. (Since apparently Africans are “primitive”--the entire continent. WTH, Francis.)
The book doesn’t get better, and gave me a royal headache along the way--the foundational ideas are good--here’s how to get ideas and maybe apply them, but having to climb through misogyny and racism to get them, bad.
Again, there are very few direct citations. And also an invocation of Shakespeare and that Shakespeare was about conflict--but he wasn’t--he was about morality.
She also steals from Rowe, doesn’t cite him draws some diagrams, etc. I know it had to be Rowe, because she uses his wording almost one for one. WTH, Francis AND YOU ARE A TEACHER (what is it with teachers not citing their works?). He stole in turn, if you remember from Esenwein who cited Whitcomb. But the wording that was used by Rowe to cite Esenwein (not really, but indirectly) and his new assertions on top are stolen by Francis. The diagramming is almost the same too, but by 1975, the printing tech on images had gotten better.
I found her book so depressing, I forgot to ask for my ID since I had to give my ID to look at the book. And then I left the building to do something else, and then I had to come back for my ID, it was so nauseating having to climb though a book with so few women and PoCs and then outright hatred of women. WTH Francis, and you’re a woman?
So, I think this goes to show that at least for these three books, internalization and spill over to women would have begun, the erasure is peaking around this time. Still doesn’t answer my question about the Antigone diagram. I’m looking in university libraries, hopefully for the answer. Even my Lit professors who drew the damned thing don’t seem to know the origin. And this is what I really, really want to say: Don’t repeat things you don’t know the origin of.
Also PLEASE CITE YOUR SOURCES IN FULL WITH THE BOOK AND PAGE NUMBER.
The best resource--both online and in magazine format--a writer can have. I recommend subscribing to the magazine at any stage in your writing career. There's something for everyone.
We share a lot of writing-related posts throughout the year on the Writer's Digest website. In this post, we've collected the 20 most popular writing posts of 2020.
I appreciate the Writers Digest emails, they’re a great way to get writing advice throughout the week. They’re succinct and easy to implement. Here are a few of these that resonated with me:
21 Authors Share One Piece of Advice for Writers
25 Plot Twist Ideas and Prompts for Writers
15 Things a Writer Should Never Do
Writing Submissions for Magazines: How to Submit Writing to a Magazine
9 Tips on Writing Query Letters to Publishers and Literary Agents
What They Don't Teach You in MFA Programs: 5 Rules for Writing Stories That Work
5 Ways to Surprise Your Reader (Without It Feeling Like a Trick)
Creative writing exercises.
Gary Reilly's 25 Unpublished Novels: How a Great, Late Writer Lacked This One Necessary Thing to Find Writing Success in His Lifetime
