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One of the most important lessons I ever learned about art
https://whetstonefires.tumblr.com/post/644186244292771840/one-of-the-most-important-lessons-i-ever-learned
The understanding I reached as a result of this experience was multi-layered and difficult to articulate, but the most important part, I think, to share is that the value and quality of a work are not, in fact, very well measured by how many negative things you can find to say about it.
I understand that this person is talking about their high school arts magazine, but this checks out.
A few months ago, I wrote something very caustic and bitter along the same lines regarding my experience with academic peer review. What I argued was that it’s much easier to pass peer review if you edit your language in a way that makes it unreadable. To give two easy examples, you can merge multiple paragraphs into one giant paragraph and merge multiple sentences into one giant sentence. This makes it more difficult for the reader to process the information you’re presenting, which in turn makes it less likely that they’ll expend the time and energy to find something to criticize.
The larger issue this person is expressing is that bland fiction is more likely to be published than problematic fiction. I can’t speak to this from the perspective of someone who’s published fiction, but I’ve gotten this sense as a reader, especially a reader of smaller literary journals and genre fiction magazines (and fandom zines).
I think this is one of the reasons why “community” is so important. When I do see incredible work – especially incredible short stories – being published, it’s usually because one or more of the editors already knows the author and is willing to take risks. The anthologies Ellen Datlow edits are good examples of this, as are the early issues of Apex magazine.
I don’t know what the take-away point here is, save that it’s always useful to be extroverted and friendly.
https://whetstonefires.tumblr.com/post/644186244292771840/one-of-the-most-important-lessons-i-ever-learned
The understanding I reached as a result of this experience was multi-layered and difficult to articulate, but the most important part, I think, to share is that the value and quality of a work are not, in fact, very well measured by how many negative things you can find to say about it.
I understand that this person is talking about their high school arts magazine, but this checks out.
A few months ago, I wrote something very caustic and bitter along the same lines regarding my experience with academic peer review. What I argued was that it’s much easier to pass peer review if you edit your language in a way that makes it unreadable. To give two easy examples, you can merge multiple paragraphs into one giant paragraph and merge multiple sentences into one giant sentence. This makes it more difficult for the reader to process the information you’re presenting, which in turn makes it less likely that they’ll expend the time and energy to find something to criticize.
The larger issue this person is expressing is that bland fiction is more likely to be published than problematic fiction. I can’t speak to this from the perspective of someone who’s published fiction, but I’ve gotten this sense as a reader, especially a reader of smaller literary journals and genre fiction magazines (and fandom zines).
I think this is one of the reasons why “community” is so important. When I do see incredible work – especially incredible short stories – being published, it’s usually because one or more of the editors already knows the author and is willing to take risks. The anthologies Ellen Datlow edits are good examples of this, as are the early issues of Apex magazine.
I don’t know what the take-away point here is, save that it’s always useful to be extroverted and friendly.
