The fact that I was once an economic market research analyst still plagues me, because it’s become clear that I ask questions about writing that probably are better left unasked, at least in public forums. But then, when I was an economic analyst I also asked those questions, and they were part of the reason why I didn’t remain an employed analyst. As the most junior economist in the company, you don’t question the vice-president of marketing’s brand-new and very expensive product, no matter how bad an idea it is, or express doubt about fancy economic models, not if you want to keep your job, no matter how correct posterity proves you — because if you do, you won’t be working at most companies long enough to experience that posterity. I wasn’t the first economic type to learn this first hand, and I was far from the last. More than a few analysts and economists did in fact question the long-term effects of derivatives, and most of those who questioned were not exactly rewarded. A few were fortunate enough to be ignored; the rest fared worse.

With that as background, I’m going to observe that the vast majority of the very most commercially successful authors write “more of the same.” By this I mean, for example, that while the events in subsequent books may change, the feel and structure of each “new” book tends to mirror closely the feel of previous books. I’m not saying that all authors do this by any means, just that a large percentage of those who sell millions of copies of their books. This practice, from what I can tell, emerged first in the mystery/thriller field, followed closely in what I’d call the “high glamour” type novel by writers such as Danielle Steel, Judith Krantz, Sidney Sheldon, and others, but now it seems to be everywhere.

Some authors [or their agents] are so sensitive to the commercial aspects of the “more of the same” that the author uses a different pen name when writing something even slightly different, so that Nora Roberts also writes as J.D. Robb, and by noting that she is writing as J.D. Robb, she gets to cash in on her fame as Nora Roberts while announcing to readers that the J.D. Robb books are a different “more of the same.” In F&SF, Dave Wolverton became David Farland to write fantasy, and perhaps to also make clear that he wasn’t writing Star Wars books about Princess Leia, Jedi apprentices, and the like.

Who knows? Maybe I should have adopted a pen name, say Exton Land, for all my fantasies when I started writing them and saved the L.E. Modesitt, Jr., moniker for my science fiction. But then, which name would I have used for the “Ghosts of Columbia” books? And The Hammer of Darkness really isn’t either. By strict logic, then, to maximize commercial success, I shouldn’t have written any of those… or even The Lord-Protector’s Daughter, because it has a “different” feel.

And in some ways, I may be in the worst of both worlds, because the Recluce books have enough of a similar feel that I’m often criticized for being formulaic there, but I’m clearly not formulaic enough to replicate the success of Harry Potter or The Wheel of Time, etc.

At the same time, when I do something different, such as in Archform:Beauty or Haze, those readers who were expecting a faster book, such as Flash or The Parafaith War, feel that I haven’t met their expectations.

Then again, at least I’m not totally captive to “more of the same.” That would be almost as bad as having been successful as an industrial economist.

Over the past few years, there’s been a great deal of enthusiasm about the internet and how it’s likely to revolutionize the world, and almost all of the commentators express optimism.

The Economist recently reported a study on the effect of the internet, and the conclusion of the study was that the extent and range of contacts of internet users had become more limited, both geographically and culturally, with the growth of internet usage. This certainly parallels the growth of “niche” interest sites and the “Facebook” effect, where like gathers to like.

In effect, if these trends continue, and if the study is correct, and the authors caution that it is only preliminary and a proxy for a far wider and more detailed effort, the internet is creating a voluntary form of self-segregation. What’s rather amusing, in a macabre way, is that when Huxley, in Brave New World, postulated the segregation of society by ability and by the programming of inclination, the government was the evil overlord pressing this societal division upon the population as a means of indirect and effective repression and social control. Now it appears that a significant percentage of internet users are effectively doing the same thing enthusiastically and voluntarily.

A similar trend is also occurring as a result of the proliferation of satellite and cable television, where programming is broken into a multiplicity of “viewpoint-orientations,” to the point that viewers can even select the slant and orientation of the news they receive. This is having a growing impact as the numbers and percentages of Americans who read newspapers continue to decline.

At the same time, we’ve seen a growing polarization in the American political system, combined with a disturbing trend in the government away from political and practical compromise and toward increasingly strident ideological “purity,” along with the growth and vehemence of “public” and other interest groups.

Somehow, all this open communication doesn’t seem to be opening people’s viewpoints or their understanding of others, but rather allowing them greater choice in avoiding dealing with — and even attacking — the diversity in society and the world. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

One of the canards about genre fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is that it’s not “real” or realistic. But what, exactly, is “real” or “reality?” Is the definition of “real” a setting or set of experiences that the reader would experience in the normal course of his or her life? Is a “real” protagonist one who is similar to most people?

Even in mainstream fiction, the most memorable characters are anything but normal. Let’s face it, there’s nothing dramatic about the life of an honest, hard-working machinist, accountant, salesman, or retail clerk who does a good job and has a solid family life… and, consequently, no one writes that kind of story, except perhaps most rarely as a dystopia. Most readers only want to read about these people when they’re faced with a great challenge or disaster and when they can surmount it, and by definition that makes the characters less “normal.” Readers generally don’t like to read about average people who fail; they do like to read about the failures of the “superior” people or the golden boys or girls. And just what percentage of readers actually live in multimillion dollar houses or penthouses or drive Bentleys or the equivalent? That kind of life-style is as removed from most readers, if not more so, than the backdrop of most fantasy or science fiction.

One of the great advantages of science fiction and fantasy is that it can explore what happens to more “average” or “normal” people when they’re faced with extraordinary circumstances. That’s certainly not all F&SF does, nor should it be, but what all too many of the American “literary” types fail to recognize is that a great amount of what is considered literary or mainstream verges on either the pedestrian or the English-speaking equivalent of watered-down “magic realism.”

After the issue of “realism” comes the question of how one defines “literary.” Compared to F&SF, exactly what is more “literary” about a psychiatrist who falls in love with his patient [Tender is the Night], dysfunctional Southern families [Faulkner], the idiocy of modern upscale New Yorkers [Bright Lights, Big City], or any number of other “mainstream” books?

When one asks the question of American literary theorists, and I have, the immediate response is something along the lines of, “It’s the writing.” I don’t have any problem with that answer. It’s a good answer. The problem with it is that they don’t apply the same criterion to F&SF. Rather than look at the genre — any genre, in fact — and pick out the outstanding examples, as they do with their own “genre,” and mainstream fiction is indeed a genre, they dismiss what they call “genre” writers as a whole because of the stereotypes, rather than examining and accepting the best of the genre. Yet they’d be outraged if someone applied the stereotype of “parochial” or “limited” to mainstream fiction.

Interestingly enough, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy — which awards the Nobel Prize for literature — just last year issued what amounted to that sort of dismissal of American mainstream fiction, essentially calling it parochial and narcissistically self-referential. Since then, I haven’t seen a word of response or refutation from American literary types, but perhaps that’s because all the refutations are just being circulated within the American “literary” community.

Maybe I’m just as parochial in looking at F&SF, but I see a considerable range of literary styles, themes, and approaches within the field, and intriguingly enough, I also see more and more “mainstream” writers “borrowing” [if not outright stealing] themes and approaches. That does tend to suggest that, even while some of the very same writers who have insisted that they don’t write SF are doing the borrowing, that some of the artificial “genre” barriers are weakening.

Of course, the remaining problem is that the book publishing and selling industry really loves those genre labels as a marketing tool… and so do some readers… but that’s another issue that I’ve addressed before and probably will again. In the meantime, we need to realize that F&SF is far from “an ineluctably minor genre,” as one too self-important, if noted, writer put it, but a vital component of literature [yes, literature]. Eventually, everyone else will, too, at least those who can actually think.

Last week, a reader made the comment that “Most literature professors would dismiss Mr. Modesitt’s novels with the same contempt he probably reserves for Harlequin romances.” While I can’t argue with his evaluation of “most literature professors,” even though I spent several years teaching literature at the undergraduate level, I can and do dispute the assessment of my views on romances, Harlequin or otherwise. Having survived the adolescence and maturing of six daughters, who now tend to prefer F&SF, I have seen more than a handful of romances around the house over the years. I’ve even read a few of them, and I’m no stranger to including romance in at least some of my books.

Because of my own contempt for those literary types, whether professors or writers, who sniff down their noses at all forms of “genre” fiction, I’m not about to do the same to romances… or thrillers, or mysteries. I do allow myself some disgust at splatter-punk, and the pornography of violence and/or human plumbing, otherwise known as ultra-graphic sex, but that doesn’t mean some of it might not be technically well-written. Snobbery and blanket exclusion under the guise of “excellence” or “literary value” is just another form of bias, usually on the part of people who haven’t bothered to look deeply into genres or forms.

While more than a few “sophisticates” and others dismiss romances as formulaic, that’s just a cop-out. Just about every novel ever published is formulaic. If novels weren’t, they’d be unreadable. The only “formulaic” question about a work of fiction is which formula it follows.

Romances happen to have some redeeming features, features often lacking in mainstream “literary” fiction, such as a belief in love and romance, and optimistic endings, and often retribution of some sort for evil. There’s often a theme of self-improvement as well. Are these “realistic” in our world today? No, unhappily, they’re probably not, but paraphrasing one of the grumpy old uncles in Secondhand Lions, there are some things, which may not even be true, that people are better off for believing in, such as love, honor, duty… And if romances get readers to believe in the value of such traits, they’re doing a lot more for the readers and society than “realistic” novels about the greed on Wall Street or the narcissism of the wealthy or the depths of violence and degradation among the drug and criminal cultures.

From a practical point of view as an author, I also can’t help but note that romances are the largest selling category of fiction by a wide-selling margin. Nothing else comes close. As in every other form of writing, there are exceedingly well written and even “literary quality” romances, and there are abysmal examples of fiction, but as Theodore Sturgeon said decades ago, “ninety percent of everything written is crap.” That includes F&SF, romances, and even, or especially, mainstream “literary” fiction.

So… no, I don’t dismiss romances. Far from it. And I just write my romances as part of my science fiction and fantasy.

Newspapers are dying. The drum-beat goes on. Some readers are worried; others think their time has already passed. Yet another major city is threatened with the loss of all newspapers. Another newspaper cuts staff and sections to the bone. Book reviews are cut; business news is shortened; advertising revenues are plummeting.

In the meantime, I keep reading my local newspaper and the major daily paper in the state, and I notice things. The local paper trumpets its awards, and it has won a great number. So why does scarcely a day go by without a misspelled headline? In fact, the lead headline last Saturday read: “Mountain of Dept Faces US.” If this is an award-winning local daily paper, I shudder to think about those that aren’t. And why are all the “national” and “state” stories a day behind the large state newspaper? Why do all the major local scandals never make the local paper, but appear in the state paper?

As for the major paper, it’s scarcely much better. Almost never does the weather section appear without errors. On Sunday, the weather temperatures predicted for the next two days — by town statewide — were listed as Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, the next two days were Monday and Tuesday. The lead headline the other day began “An State Issue…” Oh?

In both papers, syntax and grammar errors appear regularly, yet I can remember when it was rare to find these kinds of errors in newspapers, as opposed to being so common that any issue offers plenty of examples. These problems don’t even take into account the quality of reporting and the choice of stories. The lieutenant governor of the state — soon to become governor — appeared at a national meeting of governors and made comments that indicated that he knew nothing about the global warming issue — right after listening to [or at least sitting through] a speech on the issue by Dr. Stephen Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy… and the only story that appeared was days later in a political commentary story. One Utah author won a Newberry medal, and while it merited a TV news story, it never appeared in the paper, while a story about an author who wrote a novel about a platonic affair between a married Mormon woman and a British actor was a feature article. Unhappily, what I’ve seen here in Utah seems also to be happening in other locales, if perhaps not so egregiously.

Might a certain lack of quality have something to do with the decline of newpapers… or is it that the decline of advertising revenue means that newspapers are both understaffed and with fewer and fewer true professionals? Either way, it’s a sad situation.