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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 24, 2010 8:23:38 GMT
Whatever 'intellectual' means. I suppose I mean that a Horror story *can* be a cure for cancer and not just a story - just to take an image someone created here broadly.
But the Horror genre is indeed a broad church and some works can bear more fruit given a closer scrutiny, often with a classic academic or linguistic approach. And story-telling can often be just as effective as a traditional way of telling stories or as an experimental way of telling them. Sometimes both.
Someone said here that all is story. the rest is frills. Not in my opinion. The frills often can tell a new story that the plain story cannot.
I consider myself to be a split-personality. I struggle with this question within myself. It's a cross I bear.
I have no axe to grind. I am just crucified on my own axe.
As to self-promotion, in this day and age it is impossible for some needles to be found in some haystacks. Some are great needles. Some are not. According to taste. It is human nature to try to make one's own needles sparkle. This can be counter-productive, as has been pointed out in this forum relentlessly since the big argument. There were more sides to that argument than some people now care to give it. It has been given a slant that is taken as gospel. But we don't want to revisit it, I agree. Just making the point.
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 24, 2010 8:41:29 GMT
As to self-promotion, in this day and age it is impossible for some needles to be found in some haystacks. Some are great needles. Some are not. According to taste. It is human nature to try to make one's own needles sparkle. This can be counter-productive, as has been pointed out in this forum relentlessly since the big argument. There were more sides to that argument than some people now care to give it. It has been given a slant that is taken as gospel. But we don't want to revisit it, I agree. Just making the point."
I have no objection to self promotion - providing that isn't all someone does on a particular board. Nor done to excess. Some people, though, appear to have no interets in anything else, and that does annoy - and bore me - about them.
"Someone said here that all is story. the rest is frills."
Is that me, where I said that first and foremost a horror story must succeed as a horror story, the rest is just icing on the cake? I hold by this, Des. If a horror story doesn't succeed as a horror story, what is the point of the rest? Just don't claim it is a horror story if that's the case. I hope everyone who writes strives to create something as good as they can make it, both in quality of writing, characterisation, plotting, etc. Whether the story has other depths to it is something else altogether. I often feel that when a writer deliberately strives for this, it fails, as being too heavy handed. At the same time, someone else may have no deliberate aim to do that, but it just happens anyway, either through accident or because the writer cannot help but add these extra depths subconciously. The latter, to my mind, are often the best.
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 24, 2010 8:52:30 GMT
If a horror story doesn't succeed as a horror story, what is the point of the rest? David, I agree a Horror story should succeed as a Horror story. It's just that a subtext in some fiction (often extracted at 'intellectual' pains) can be more Horrific than the top-soil story. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 24, 2010 10:37:25 GMT
I'm not sure I know what "anti-intellectual" means in this context, but taken at face value I think the answer to the question is "No". I think there are some people here who (occasionally) like to theorize about what a particular story might "mean" - I've done it myself a couple of times, and a few like-minded souls have joined in. Nobody seemed to mind - I suppose that those who weren't interested in the way the discussion was going just didn't join it.
But I don't really consider that any sort of "intellectual" thing anyway - I think some "horror" stories are written with layers of possible meanings, and some aren't. It's not that one is "intellectual" or "literary", and the other is something else ("pulp" maybe) - they are just different approaches to story writing. Personally I prefer the "layered" sort of story, and that is the only sort of story that I am likely to want to re-read - I do read "pulp", and enjoy it, but having read a pulp story I rarely feel that I want to re-read it, because I don't see how I will ever get anything more out of it. I've heard other people here (well mostly Dem) saying how they have avoided re-reading a short story in case it didn't live up to their first experience of it - well, I sympathise, but have found that I can re-read some stories precisely because they have those layers of possible meanings, so I don't always end up thinking the same things at the end.
Maybe that is "intellectual", but I really don't think so - and if it is then, like I said, I've never felt that makes me unwelcome here. Maybe if I went off on some deep analysis about every story I ever read that would be tedious - actually, I know it would be - but not every story I read hits me that way anyway. And I am just as likely to say I liked something because it scared the crap out of me as I am to say that I liked it because it had some interesting ideas in it.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 24, 2010 10:42:54 GMT
Any piece of fiction has to be entertaining, otherwise nobody will read it; it is as simple as that. There are, of course, different ways of being entertaining---some subtle, others less subtle.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Oct 24, 2010 16:44:53 GMT
Well I remember Mr Lewis calling me 'anti-intellectual' on an RCMB thread sometime ago & I was so incensed I looked it up to see if I should be (incensed that is) only to find out that actually I totally agreed with him. I suspect the Vault is mainly anti-intellectual, but with space in a corner somewhere for those who enjoy such things  |
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 24, 2010 17:16:30 GMT
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 24, 2010 17:25:18 GMT
I agree.  |
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Post by dem on Oct 24, 2010 17:55:15 GMT
Des, you might consider rephrasing the question. "Are certain posters on Vault Of Evil anti-intellectual?" or perhaps better still "Are you anti-intellectual?" It hardly seems fair to bunch us all under the same umbrella. On the New Writings ... thread it's four - five now - individuals who've expressed the opinion that, personally, they find fanatical self-promotion boring, so it's those same five individuals who have to take responsibility for what they've said, nobody else. For all i know, other individuals may find "here's a link to my latest blog post!" or "I just got another good review!" the last word in excitement, and that's fine too. There were more sides to that argument than some people now care to give it. It has been given a slant that is taken as gospel. i'm sorry, i don't get that at all. please explain. Whatever 'intellectual' means. I suppose I mean that a Horror story *can* be a cure for cancer and not just a story - just to take an image someone created here broadly. if you know of a horror story that has cured cancer, ended famine, brought peace to the middle east or even helped an elderly person safely across a busy road then you have struck gold. in all honesty, i can't say i have. |
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Post by weirdmonger on Oct 24, 2010 18:20:01 GMT
Hi, dem
It's just that the argument of two years ago has been mythologised here. It was just people emailing each other in public. We are all vulnerable, fallible.
#
And someone reading a story is like part of life, each turning, each result a surprise. Stories are more important than life.
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Post by dem on Oct 24, 2010 19:19:09 GMT
It was just people emailing each other in public. We are all vulnerable, fallible. i certainly agree with all of that. not sure about it being 'mythologised' on here. those who were involved and stayed have done our best to move on from what was an upsetting time. i think if it was 'mythologised' anywhere it was when others took it up on other boards (the one where we were collectively accused of "baying like pigs" by some self-important fellow nonentity springs to mind). and Des, sincerely. it's nice to hear from you. |
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Post by David A. Riley on Oct 24, 2010 19:25:18 GMT
Baying like pigs? I've heard of the Bay of Pigs, Dem, but I've never heard of pigs as baying. That fellow doesn't sound like a good writer if he mixes his terms as badly as that.  |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Oct 24, 2010 20:07:39 GMT
We're all different. I like what I like. Mostly when I look at what I like I realise that my ten year old son is more grown up than me. But I do like a bit of intellectualism sometimes as a break from my comic books. I like stories with plots and characters and excitement but I also enjoy word play, metaphor, subtlety and can be entranced by a clever concept.
I've come to accept that self promotion is a necessary evil if you want anyone to read your stuff in the modern age.
As regards this I always end up comparing it to music. Try being a musician with a myspace page and see how your comment box fills up.
It's a ratio of
Hey I really like your music - 1%
Hey I like your music do you like mine? 5%
LOOK AT ME, I'M THE GREATEST 94%
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Post by dem on Oct 24, 2010 20:19:19 GMT
Baying like pigs? I've heard of the Bay of Pigs, Dem, but I've never heard of pigs as baying. That fellow doesn't sound like a good writer if he mixes his terms as badly as that. a "deluge of juvenile pigs baying" were the exact words. apparently he'd "trawled the site for several months or so last year" and we were one of the main reasons the internet "left a nasty taste in [his] mouth." There was a subplot involving Stephen Jones listing Vault as a 'useful address' or something in one of the BNH's - our friend was in a frightful tizzy about that. i seem to remember the gent in question announcing very publicly that he would no longer be contributing reviews to Prism at just about the same time you took over the editorship though i don't believe the two were in any way connected. |
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Post by Dr Strange on Oct 25, 2010 10:50:46 GMT
Just to expand slightly on what I've already said - it should not be taken to mean that I think there really is anything else to this "horror" stuff than entertainment, which is why I was a bit uncertain about the "(anti-) intellectual" tag. If I "analyze" a story it's because I enjoy the process, and not because I think it's "important" (and I still don't think that makes me an "intellectual" - and I would bet anything that nobody who actually knows me would ever describe me that way). On the other hand, I think I probably am I bit anti- towards people who describe themselves as "intellectuals", as I think that's really only a judgement that other people can make (it's a bit like calling yourself a "genius", isn't it... true or not, you are going to appear to be a bit of a tw*t).
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