So in the interests of being less vitriolic and not just hurling insults, I thought I'd approach some of the more irritating aesthetic (as opposed to political, ethical, or social) problems with the SF Ghetto and Con Culture in particular. Some of this stuff is just dumb, and it's probably not worth pointing out why. But I think it needs saying in order to point out the differences between what I think about this stuff, and the things I'm more vocally critical of.
1. Filk
Filk makes no sense to me. My enduring image of filk is that guy from Trekkies who was really bad at being in drag, singing a klingon hymn of some sort. It made me cringe. I still cringe when I think about it. It was that bad. Supposedly the idea behind filk is a group of people getting together and singing songs. That, on its own, is a good thing. Music is wonderful and we all need more of it in our lives, even people like me who have a lot of it. What doesn't make sense to me is the form that Filk takes, which, to an outsider, appears to be something like a cross between Weird Al Yankovic and Mark Russell, only with none of the musicianship or genius to be found in those musical satirists. The point here is not that the idea of filk is a bad one, it's that it seems to be executed in an internally contradictory way. What I mean by that is that on the one hand it's pushing this "everyone can sing" idea which is laudable. But at the same time, the actual activity itself is rife with in jokes and jargon that are only really accessible to a very small group of people. It's this internal irony, that seems to be completely missed by the participants, that I find displeasing about filk.
2. Costuming
Ok, I get it. Playing dress up is fun. And some of the folks who are into fantasy costuming really go all out and produce some amazing stuff. At the same time, it's clear that there are other folks who just spend a lot of money on costumes. And, steam punk aside, which I actually think is kind of interesting as a fashion movement, the other thing I don't like about costuming is that there is so much of it that gets invested in either generic F/SF culled from an unanalyzed background of known signifiers, or worse in looking like commercial properties owned by large corporations. But really, what it ultimately comes down to is that I think fashion shows are boring. They're boring in fashion Mecca's like New York and Paris when the models are some of the most beautiful people on earth and the designers are among the most talented people working in clothing alive. They're even more boring when its a DIY affair where beauty and talent are not guaranteed. And at the cons I've been to they've always gone on for hours and hours. Dull.
3. WaLS: F/SF edition
Eric's latest post talks about a con called Boskone that is more to his taste than Arisia. Looking over the agenda, I can see why he would say that. However, there is a dangerous tilt toward WaLS that appears to be emerging in the agenda. See for example the following events:
Foreshadowing and How to Do It
The Business of Writing (a Conversation)
What do you read for Pleasure? (asks what your guilty pleasures are and if what they are affect your writing)
Keeping Your Series Fresh
Why I Write Horror
Workshopping Dos and Don't
Move Your Butt (exercise for writers)
The Fragmented Genre (asks "will the fragmentation of genre offer new markets [blech] for writers?"]
The Inclue and Other Smart Writing Tricks
How Not to Edit Yourself
Writing the First-Person Point of View
Breaking Out of Stereotype
Marketing Your Book
When Editors Vent
Write a Story Now
Stealing Folklore
Now granted, not all of this smells like symptoms of WaLS but taken together there is that distinctive odor. Note the use of the words "markets" and a bunch of people sharing advice whose qualifications seem pretty dubious at best. What really clinches this "how to write" stuff more than the abysmal adoption of the hated workshop as a means of supposedly improving, is that a lot of these topics don't seem that well thought out. Which is to say, most of these questions are things that are probably better answered by established authorities that are widely known. Want to know how to edit? Read Strunk and White, Garner, Fowler, McKee or any of another dozens of real authorities. The older I get, the more convinced I become that the only way to learn how to write well is to read a lot of conflicting authorities and then think about the conflicts. Then write a bunch of stuff of your own. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. However, I have come to the further conclusion that informal discussion among inexpert amateurs is only ever detrimental. The result is the ever expanding dross of "how to write" product feeding the legions of WaLS sufferers. And WaLS is tacky even if only because it degrades literature and puts the focus where it squarely doesn't belong. The Author may not be dead, but the best authors fade into obscurity and unimportance behind the monument of The Work. WaLS is the antithesis of that and should be opposed from all quarters.
4. Quasi-Historical Reenactment
Now don't get me wrong, I think the SCA is an interesting idea. I'm a fan of history and I like the idea of full immersion in it. But there's a problem with the way it seems to get done in fandom that I see and I don't like. Mostly because there is a gross over emphasis on the military components of what goes on. Secondarily, there's very little that's admirable about the structure of the feudal societies in Europe and Asia that fandom is fascinated with. Knights in Europe and Samurai and Ninja in Japan, for all their vaunted codes of honor, were a collection of thugs and warlords who kept the peasantry in poverty, living a menial and undignified life through shows of force. Put succinctly, a few exceptional folk heroes aside, glorifying feudal society is both short-sighted and politically dubious. I find the escape to a romanticized version of this ugly past highly questionable.
So those are the four things in broad overview that make me cringe when I look into the SF Ghetto. To be clear about this, I have to do this pretty regularly because I like SF. At its best it's one of the greatest creative modes to have come out of American letters. But at its worst it just seems to be so much worse than the bad in other areas that for me it's worthy of comment. I wish this stuff would just stop because its an aesthetic effort that fails, and in an artistic field that ought to be a death sentence. For some reason, though, the SF Ghetto keeps it alive. And that is the Ghetto's failure of poetics.
UPDATE:
Comments have questioned my dismissal of the panelists as "inexpert amateurs" which is really just a nicer way of saying "hacks." In particular the "Inclue" panel was pointed out. I'd like to note that it's possible to research this stuff and I have. Here are some fan notes I found for that exact panel:
http://skogkatt.livejournal.com/106929.html#cutid1
To which I say "meh." Here's some of the advice given in that panel:
1. That which is conventionally known as "establishing setting" should really be called "incluing" which Teresa Nielson Hayden thinks is great and I think is dumb. I think it's dumb because setting has to work in service of the story, not the other way around, which is the position that the panelists seem to be taking. The basic lesson? You're writing fiction, not a technical manual. Ho hum.
2. You shouldn't need footnotes. Tell it to David Foster Wallace, Ms. Walton.
3. When dealing with an unfamiliar language, you should build it up once word at a time. One strangeness at a time. Tell it to Anthony Burgess, Ms. Neilson Hayden
4. Apparently Dr. Seuss never used made up words for rhymes. Tell it to the the Sneetches.
All told, bad advice given, bad advice received. I stand by the assertion that careful study of Garner's Usage, McKee's Story, and similar books by respected authorities, combined with careful study of greats like those listed will serve the aspiring writer far better than any of this kind of stuff ever will.