Ha, I probably should have said I have a sense of what I'm bouncing off, because now that I try to put it into words...
One issue definitely is turning the emotional volume up to 11. Or specifically, turning the emotional volume up to 11 but not cranking up the level of emotionally intelligent resolution and catharsis along with it. This is something I'm often running into with OFMD fic, where a conflict or emotional response is already at a satisfying level for me in canon, the situation and characters' reactions are doubled or tripled in fic, and yet the resolution that's meant to set everything right doesn't feel to me like it even addresses the canon scenario. I'm not opposed to melodrama, but overall, yeah, I likewise cut my teeth on Mary Renault for queer lit and I much prefer a quieter approach to big moments and deep feelings that lets a reader sit with those things.
Part of it is also whether the character's thoughts and feelings at any volume come organically from the character or seem assigned to them. In fic, this is the basic hurdle of "Is this in-character?" (Or maybe not always hurdle but choice - I've seen multiple author's notes to the effect of "This is actually about me" and I think that's an approach that happens more often than it's warned for. It's not at all invalid for hobby writing, it's just not what I'm usually looking to read.) In published fiction, I feel like it is an issue a little more likely to strike SFF - and queer SFF in particular.
SFF is a set of genres often concerned with having an "everyman/woman" protagonist who's meant to serve as the reader's entry point into a fantastical world or outright as a vehicle to convey the capital-i Idea of the story (particularly in science fiction). And here I'm trying not to get into nested lists, because I have about ten different thoughts all halfway down highly caveat-ed paths. But I guess if I can branch off into a few broad thoughts:
— I think the protagonist tradition of SFF is an impediment to choosing or developing the most interesting main characters for a story. This is more of an issue now than in decades past because a general trend of expecting more emotion and psychology in our SFF. — Having an everyman protagonist can at times be fundamentally in conflict with having a queer protagonist. (Okay, this is the one that requires the most "I don't mean..." and "I'm not saying...") I don't necessarily need queerness to be queer in SFF. That can be the whole point about writing about other worlds, or about other times and places in our world. But often there are the beats of queer storytelling tropes and characters ostensibly defined by being queer in a straight world, but without any conveyed sense of queerness in the character's relationship to themselves and to others. I also sometimes need more thought than is given to it when we're talking about significant changes in worldbuilding. — To take that over to fanfic, there is also often conflict between the story the author wants to tell and where I can meet them. I could go on way too long about this and also probably express myself very badly, but in short, there are popular queer fanfic tropes that are not my personal fantasy, and while I can enjoy other people's fantasies in fic, I do need them to be attached to a character I feel it can work for. — Other times in both published fiction and fanfic, the character is a vehicle for the vibe. I can enjoy that if the vibe is entertaining enough, but my expectations for the writing go way up then. Sometimes the vibe is a very particular one for social media subcultures I am not a part of and I recognize that it is just not for me. — Concerns about 'good representation' or the heterocentric belief that adding other central qualities to a queer character may be 'putting a hat on a hat' might also contribute to main characters I find uninteresting or who don't develop to the point of seeming to attach to the stakes or drama around them.
Got recs?
Unfortunately, no burning recs. (Honestly, comics are coming through better for me these days than prose-only SFF.)
But in terms of works that I didn't bounce off for the reasons above, there's Marlon James' two fantasy books, Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King. Not everyone's cup of tea for their violence and rougher edges, but I enjoyed the ride.
I'm still figuring out how I feel about how David Demchuk uses his supernatural horror novel Red X to process a true crime, but it was a strong work.
Andrew Sean Greer's work is usually just called litfic and comedy-satire, but even his most reality-rooted work is still pretty metaphysical and he's written about time travel ad the like.
It's also a stretch, given that these are autobiographical creative essays, but Joshua Whitehead's Making Love with the Land combines his geeky SFF interests with metaphysical poetry for something that reminds me of a Samuel R. Delany and Tomson Highway mashup. He's written a cyberpunk collection of poetry called full-metal indigiqueer that I wouldn't necessarily rec as SFF so much as philosophy, but it makes me really hope that his next novel will be science fiction.
no subject
One issue definitely is turning the emotional volume up to 11. Or specifically, turning the emotional volume up to 11 but not cranking up the level of emotionally intelligent resolution and catharsis along with it. This is something I'm often running into with OFMD fic, where a conflict or emotional response is already at a satisfying level for me in canon, the situation and characters' reactions are doubled or tripled in fic, and yet the resolution that's meant to set everything right doesn't feel to me like it even addresses the canon scenario. I'm not opposed to melodrama, but overall, yeah, I likewise cut my teeth on Mary Renault for queer lit and I much prefer a quieter approach to big moments and deep feelings that lets a reader sit with those things.
Part of it is also whether the character's thoughts and feelings at any volume come organically from the character or seem assigned to them. In fic, this is the basic hurdle of "Is this in-character?" (Or maybe not always hurdle but choice - I've seen multiple author's notes to the effect of "This is actually about me" and I think that's an approach that happens more often than it's warned for. It's not at all invalid for hobby writing, it's just not what I'm usually looking to read.) In published fiction, I feel like it is an issue a little more likely to strike SFF - and queer SFF in particular.
SFF is a set of genres often concerned with having an "everyman/woman" protagonist who's meant to serve as the reader's entry point into a fantastical world or outright as a vehicle to convey the capital-i Idea of the story (particularly in science fiction). And here I'm trying not to get into nested lists, because I have about ten different thoughts all halfway down highly caveat-ed paths. But I guess if I can branch off into a few broad thoughts:
— I think the protagonist tradition of SFF is an impediment to choosing or developing the most interesting main characters for a story. This is more of an issue now than in decades past because a general trend of expecting more emotion and psychology in our SFF.
— Having an everyman protagonist can at times be fundamentally in conflict with having a queer protagonist. (Okay, this is the one that requires the most "I don't mean..." and "I'm not saying...") I don't necessarily need queerness to be queer in SFF. That can be the whole point about writing about other worlds, or about other times and places in our world. But often there are the beats of queer storytelling tropes and characters ostensibly defined by being queer in a straight world, but without any conveyed sense of queerness in the character's relationship to themselves and to others. I also sometimes need more thought than is given to it when we're talking about significant changes in worldbuilding.
— To take that over to fanfic, there is also often conflict between the story the author wants to tell and where I can meet them. I could go on way too long about this and also probably express myself very badly, but in short, there are popular queer fanfic tropes that are not my personal fantasy, and while I can enjoy other people's fantasies in fic, I do need them to be attached to a character I feel it can work for.
— Other times in both published fiction and fanfic, the character is a vehicle for the vibe. I can enjoy that if the vibe is entertaining enough, but my expectations for the writing go way up then. Sometimes the vibe is a very particular one for social media subcultures I am not a part of and I recognize that it is just not for me.
— Concerns about 'good representation' or the heterocentric belief that adding other central qualities to a queer character may be 'putting a hat on a hat' might also contribute to main characters I find uninteresting or who don't develop to the point of seeming to attach to the stakes or drama around them.
Got recs?
Unfortunately, no burning recs. (Honestly, comics are coming through better for me these days than prose-only SFF.)
But in terms of works that I didn't bounce off for the reasons above, there's Marlon James' two fantasy books, Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Moon Witch, Spider King. Not everyone's cup of tea for their violence and rougher edges, but I enjoyed the ride.
I'm still figuring out how I feel about how David Demchuk uses his supernatural horror novel Red X to process a true crime, but it was a strong work.
Andrew Sean Greer's work is usually just called litfic and comedy-satire, but even his most reality-rooted work is still pretty metaphysical and he's written about time travel ad the like.
It's also a stretch, given that these are autobiographical creative essays, but Joshua Whitehead's Making Love with the Land combines his geeky SFF interests with metaphysical poetry for something that reminds me of a Samuel R. Delany and Tomson Highway mashup. He's written a cyberpunk collection of poetry called full-metal indigiqueer that I wouldn't necessarily rec as SFF so much as philosophy, but it makes me really hope that his next novel will be science fiction.