I might admire one author’s worldbuilding skill, but not be the most fond of her character development ability; or maybe I love an author’s banter between two characters, but find her plot development a little weak or confusing. Or maybe I don’t care for the book overall but love a character or two.

That means there are few books I ever bother to reread, and fewer that I rave about to friends. It makes me sad.

Regarding a comment above: What gets published most readily is lowest-common-denominator swill

Greatest Uncommon Denominator agrees. How can I get the folks here to give it a chance? Free copies of any story in any issue, as PDF. Available for sale as PDF or hardcopy to anywhere in the world (in theory). I know we won’t be everyone’s cup of tea (and on the end we’re probably not as “extreme” as some people would want), but our _target audience_ sounds a lot like the folks talking here. GUD welcomes comments, criticism–hell, even a bit of vituperation–we just want to get out there and be given a chance. And our advertising budget sucks. ;) But we’ve got some beautiful stories!

I think the biggest surprise to me is not that there was a lot of blow back on this post, but the personal attacks.

Jeff

I’ve written in this vein extensively, both critically and imaginatively: http://apragmaticpolicy.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/jeff-vandermeer-lamenting-the-state-of-fantasy-short-fiction/

This goes to my comment about, “reading the market to see what we like.” While some of us can see this as reading in a meta sense, many will look at it as feeding back similar stories. After all, the markets bought those before.

There could be a larger discussion about what feeds into the cycle is usually what comes out, just processed. All creative endevors have this issue. The creators look and talk to each other, the discuss what’s happening, discuss trends, try to feed their minds, and out comes mostly what they’ve been eating. Some people can look at what’s out there an synthesize something new. Mostly, however, it’s a rediscovery rather than something new. Or a combination of different things in a new way.

A question would be if you received stories that push the boundries, went somewhere new or different, but had that “tired writing” from a new author, would you be more prone to move those forward? What if that same story was from a BNA?

Do publishing houses contract with new authors who haven’t produced a full novel before even though they have the “great idea,” or do new authors who haven’t been published before get invited to closed anthos? Isn’t that because the new author needs to show they can produce saleable work, that they can bring an audience. Isn’t this showing that you can play inside the box (again, the box isn’t an excuse for not making a story challenging, exciting, new, or “dangerous,” it’s a box that says you can write to a length, write something good, that you know the market/history/what works/how to tell a story, have the basics down to avoid that “tired writing”)?

My day job is graphic design. I have design inside boxes all the time. Business cards, they’re 3.5×2 here in N. America. Why, because eveyrthing that is built around them requires that size, and it’s traditional. #10 Business envelopes, 9.5×4.125. If I want a square flap that’s going to cost my client more and I better have a damn good reason for it other than, “I’ve always wanted to do one.” At a former in-house position I had even more restrictions for the “corporate look.” Does that mean I wasn’t “creative” because I had “limits.” BS. It was harder, sure. Sometimes I was called because the powers that be believe I broke their rules, until I showed them that I was working inside their “box.” Ink on paper is another box I work inside. I now work for a printer and I’ve finally seen designs that come in that are unprintable, because the designer just didn’t understand how ink on paper works.

Again, I am completely willing to be wrong about print publication and writing.

eh, the world makes little sense at the best of times.