The Estimable Niall Harrison has drawn my attention to a report about the goings on at Readercon. In particular the ideas that emerged during a panel discussion called "Reviewing the Blogosphere". Niall describes the panel in these terms :
John Clute needs no introduction. In the online world, he writes a column for Sci-Fi Weekly, occasional reviews for Strange Horizons, and has even posted reviews on his blog … sort of. Kathryn Cramer blogs, and is an editor at NYRSF. Jim Freund is the host of a long-running NY radio show, Hour of the Wolf, in which sf writers and professionals are interviewed; the shows are archived online. Ernest Lilley is Senior Editor at SF Revu; Tom Purdom is a music critic, and writes online for the Broad Street Review, but is obviously better known around these parts as a writer. Gordon Van Gelder is, of course, editor of F&SF, but also wrote a fair number of reviews for NYRSF in its early days. (I have the issue with his piece on “Kirinyaga” in; it’s good.)
I recommend having a look at the various reports and discussions because they are genuinely interesting (if you have an interest in the activity of writing about SF, as opposed to just reading it). However, a couple of points jumped out at me and I thought I would make them here as they're a little long-winded to fit in the comment box on Niall's blog.
The first interesting thing that struck me about the discussion was that John Clute suggests that the freedom that comes with online publication is both a boon and a curse. It is a boon as writers do not have to worry about word-counts or space and it is a curse because it means that comments that appear in blogs tend to be unedited compared to dead tree publication, leading to greater self-indulgence and bad reviewing. Aside from the rather obvious fact that Clute doesn't really maintain a blog, this comment is interesting as I imagine that at this point in his career Clute is pretty much unedited wherever he goes. Clute's style is one that does not lead itself well to editing as unlike academic-style writing where points need to be spelled out and lines of thought thoroughly documented and explained, Clute's style is almost stream-of-consciousness at times with points implied rather than spelled out and the whole piece hanging together in a stylishly strange manner. When I was editing Scalpel we received a couple of Clute-style pieces and it was obvious that we had to take them or leave them as you couldn't start pulling the piece apart unless you wanted it to result in going sentence by sentence. I would be very surprised if Clute had received a "great John but can you keep it under 500 words and say a bit more about the plot?" response from an editor this decade. So even more so than the rest of the Dead Tree dominant panel, Clute seems an odd choice as a poster boy for less self-indulgent editing. In fact, I suspect that Clute is a product of generation upon generation of hands-off SF journal editors.
The second interesting point is that I think there's some truth to the idea that serious critics are lured away to become superficial bloggers. The issue is how one defines "serious critics" and this is where I tend to have an issue with SF Fandom. In many ways, SF Fandom is quite a conservative milieu. Despite technological advances people still go to conventions and many of the organs of SF criticism that are around now have been going in one form or another for decades. Indeed, a common process through which Fandom renews itself is by ushering newly arrived people into the fold. So, a few years back, Niall and the rest of the Third Row lot emerged through the online Whedon-verse discussion groups and seemed to be a completely new kind of fan (as one write up of the convention they first appeared at put it, they gave out their LJ names as you would a phone number). A few years later and the Third Row lot are editing long-running journals and attending conventions like lambs. In short, the rings you have to jump through in order to be considered a "serious critic" have been there for a while, so it's no surprise that a panel largely composed of members of the SF establishment should balk at the idea of blogging and serious criticism being perfectly compatible... after all, anyone can submit to the NYRSF.
The truth I see in that observation is the fact that, as someone who discovered blogging soon after I discovered SF criticism, I have been ruined for "serious critical venues". I'm used to writing a piece, sending it to an editor and getting an immediate response and a publication date not that far off. I'm also used to linking to other reviews, being linked to and discussing my work and the work of others online. I'm used to being able to link mid-sentence to an article expanding an idea I touch upon and I'm used to everything I write being available theoretically to everyone all of the time. When you're used to all of these things, the prospect of having plaintext published in a dead tree journal months hence promises little, especially when you place little value on the Fandom-determined kudos that goes with being published in these places.
Whenever these types of discussion come up I am always reminded of how little organised Fandom actually means to your average SF fan. Genre magazines such as SFX never mention their institutions and a look at an Livejournal community will reveal that SFF fans have gone off and created their own little institutions and means of talking to each other that have very little contact with mainstream Fandom. The blog is an instrument of this much younger and technologically open-minded fan and as such, it's difficult not to see one age group and community looking down its nose at another in the responses of the Readercon panel.
The third interesting point are the similarities between many of the generalisations made by the panel and those made by sections of the mainstream media accusing bloggers of being corrupt, ill-informed and generally poor writers. I'm also reminded of Susan Hill's response to such criticism by pointing out that what this is really all about is bitterness about the transfer of power. The likes of F&SF, the NYRSF and even Interzone are now read by a niche of a niche of a niche. The opinions and ideas expressed in their pages are as aloof from the experience of most genre readers as those of literary academics. Indeed, I suspect that a well read blog can get its reviews to a far wider audience than that offered by the NYRSF.
The issue, in my mind, is not why people enjoy blogging about books, the reasons are obvious, but rather why people, especially intelligent and well-read people prefer reading and writing blogs to participating in traditional journals.
While John Clute might not himself get edited much, his advice about seeking out forums where editing is the rule rather than the exception is valuable. How else does one improve one's writing? In fact, Clute's advice to me following that Readercon panel was to read everything, write a lot, and submit to venues where I will get edited, if I truly want to become a voice in SF/fantasy/horror criticism. It sounded like good advice to me.
I will add that the best thing I got from what was otherwise a sad experience with SCALPEL was that I got edited. I learned an enormous amount from rewriting a single piece. I'd like that sort of opportunity again.
Posted by: Terry Weyna | July 11, 2007 at 05:40 PM
The point I was trying to make though was that Clute's style has never been editor-friendly and yet he has a voice.
I think the give and take process of editing requires a decent editor that the writer trusts. I've heard terrible tales of editing involving the people on that panel.
Being edited is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being a good writer, though I agree that if you find the right editor it can be a huge boon.
He is correct though that there are hoops to jump through in terms of getting yourself heard.
Posted by: Jonathan McCalmont | July 11, 2007 at 05:51 PM