Grit is This Year's Black

This blog post has been a long time coming because I got distracted by all that publishing industry stuff, but here we go.

One of my favorite current fantasy authors, Joe Abercrombie, recently published a great post regarding "The Value of Grit."

He's a smart guy, and covers the subject pretty well, but I figured I would throw in my two cents.

I grew up reading the Redwall series, The Dark is Rising sequence, The Lord of the Rings, and The Lost Years of Merlin.  Each of those series is pretty traditional fantasy (LoTR, of course, being the quintessential traditional fantasy), and each embodies the traditional fantasy elements of heroism, medievalism, magic, good vs. evil, and of course, good's inevitable triumph.

Then, when I was a sophomore in high school, I came across George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, and my world changed.

Mr. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series has become for "gritty fantasy" what The Lord of the Rings was for traditional epic fantasy.  He introduced vague magic, nihilism, and characters with questionable motives who were often--gasp!--neither good nor evil.  He popularized a massive movement within the genre--one that seems to have stuck.

While Mr. Martin is, er, still pushing this movement forward (given the fact that he's still working on his ASoIaF series...), many other voices have emerged and taken hold of the "true grit" of fantasy:  namely Steven Erikson, Tom Lloyd, R. Scott Bakker, Scott Lynch, and of course, Joe Abercrombie (among others).

Which brings me back to Mr. Abercrombie's blog post.  In it, Abercrombie defends the "gritty" fantasy movement (which has endured various levels of attack since its popularization).  I'll just list his main points, and tell you my brief thoughts on each.

1. Gritty fantasy has a tight focus on character.  Certainly one of the things that I love about the gritty side of the fantasy genre.  From Martin to Abercrombie, the characters are more real, visceral, believable, and sometimes they just make me squirm.  I love it.  While epic fantasy certainly can have strong characters, they're often overshadowed by the magic, setting, or the sheer scope of the conflict at hand.  In gritty fantasy, the people are almost always front and center.  I've always been drawn to stories that focus on character as opposed to plot, setting, or idea, and therein lies one of the draws for me.
2. Moral ambiguity.  While I certainly acknowledge value in presenting fantasy worlds where things are always as clear cut as "good vs. evil," I don't think that's reason to completely ignore all of the shades in between.  Gritty fantasy explores those shades of gray.  The truth is, sometimes good people do awful things.  Sometimes bad people pull through with something good, against all odds.  That's the way of things, and I, personally, love to see it in fiction, and write it in my own stories.
3. Honesty.  Abercrombie says it best:  "People crap.  People swear.  People get ill.  People die in a way that serves no narrative. . . . People are horrible to each other.  Really horrible."  Now, a lot of the gritty fantasy focuses strictly on the crappy sides of life and people.  Abercrombie labels that as a reaction to years and years of focusing on the heroic and bright sides of people in traditional epic fantasy.  I agree with him; such a reaction seems both obvious and inevitable.  So, while a lot of the gritty fantasy may not be completely honest in the sense that it tells life exactly like it is (but then, what does, artistic or otherwise?), but it does offer a new, or at least different, take on honesty and verisimilitude within the fantasy genre.
4. Sometimes life really is that [crap].  Edited for content by yours truly, of course, but either way there it is.  Sometimes life is that awful.  Sometimes people are that horrible.  Sometimes things happen for no reason whatsoever.  That's life, and that's also something that has been missing from epic fantasy*.  In my opinion, at least in my own (largely LDS) culture, we tend to wear the rosy glasses a little too often.  I like to take mine off every once in a while.
5. Modernity.  A lot of epic fantasy writers use a very high-language style of writing and prose.  Most gritty fantasy takes the modern twists and nuances of contemporary prose and mashes it with the fantasy world, creating a bit more of a splash-of-cold-water feeling (as opposed to epic fantasy's slow immersion into a luxurious bath, if that metaphor makes any sense at all).
6. Shock value.  Gritty fantasy surprises me.  Usually for the worse, in the sense that the surprises are often horrifying and disturbing and exactly what I never wanted to happen, but there's something to be said for that kind of shock.  It may be gimmicky--and it some cases it is too gimmicky--but there it is.  If nothing else, it gets the reader's attention, and honestly that is something that traditional fantasy has had a difficult time doing for me lately.
7. Range.  Perhaps one of the reasons why I think darker fiction is so fascinating.  We have a saying in the LDS church that there should be "opposition in all things," and I think gritty fiction exemplifies that ideal, albeit in nontraditional ways.  Abercrombie says that "the extremes of darkness only allow the glimpses of light to twinkle all the more brightly, if that's the effect you're after."  So, in theory, by showing the gritty dark side of stuff, you can showcase the pretty bright side that much more clearly.

While I don't think I'm writing stuff that is quite as dark as Joe Abercrombie (and even he admits, and I agree, that his stuff could still be much darker), I'm definitely at least as interested in the dark as I am in the light.  If I'm honest with myself, I'm far more interested in the darker stuff.  And it's really for the reason states above:  by showing the dark, I start to see the light more clearly.  I'm not advocating that ideology as a lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination.  Let's be clear on that.  But, while my life has been pretty great in a lot of ways, it has also been pretty hellish in a lot of others.  And my own fiction feels most honest when I include that kind of stuff.

A lot of my writing has been, is, and will be cynical.  A lot of dark, gritty stuff happens.  But, for me, the reasons for that relate far more to #s 1, 3, 4, and 7 on that list than #6.  I don't do it for shock; I do it because it feels right.  And I'll keep doing it as long as it does.

*  The really good epic fantasy, of course, always has moments of this.  Frodo succumbing to the Ring, for example, totally sucks but allows for a really beautiful ending.  But, generally, those moments are very few and far between.

Fantasy on the Other Side of the Pond

What I mentioned in my last post regarding Neil Gaiman and China Mieville got me thinking:  they're both British.  And they're both very significant names in the fantasy genre these days.  Here's some reasons why:

Neil Gaiman has written some great books, first of all.  American Gods is the first that comes to mind.  It won the Hugo* for Best Novel in 2002, along with a few other honors (and by few I mean a LOT), and its really a fantastic piece of literature all around--all awards aside.  Seriously.  I mean, if you haven't read American Gods, you should go read it right now.  Beyond that, he's also written Stardust, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book, all of which have been nominated for and/or won a deluge of Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, Newberry, and World Fantasy awards.  And, to top it all off, he co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett (who I'll mention later)--a book that is hilarious, endearing, and a brilliant take on a generally over-done subject.

China Mieville's record is no less (okay, only slightly less) prestigious; his books (particularly Kraken, Perdido Street Station, and The City and the City) have also been nominated and/or won a slough of awards including but certainly not limited to those mentioned above.  He is also spearheading the revolutionary movement of the "New Weird" within the fantasy genre.

So to make a long story short, these are two great authors, and they both happen to be from Britain.  But that's not all.

Let's not forget the aforementioned Terry Pratchett, who's been turning the fantasy genre on its head, and making it hilarious, since the 1980's.

There's Joe Abercrombie, whose work with characterization, voice, and style (not to mention his vivid, gritty battle scenes) has been absolutely brilliant.

And there's Mark Charan Newton.  He's a newer voice in the genre, following partially in the path of the New Weird (if the New Weird does indeed have a path to follow), but his exploration of identity, gender, and sexuality have opened up brand new directions for contemporary fantasy.

Anyway, the point is that there are some incredible writers across the Atlantic, and it makes me wonder what they've got in their water over there, or what they're feeding their babies, or whatever, that makes them so great.  Don't get me wrong--there are definitely some top-notch fantasy authors in American right now, too.  But so much of the real innovation of the genre seems to be happening in England.  Maybe its because of Grandaddy Tolkien (to steal Brandon Sanderson's affectionate dubbing of the master of all fantasy).  He's from England, isn't he?  Maybe its because the People of the Isles are more liberal-minded in general, driving them to explore issues and situations that we on the New Continent aren't quite comfortable with, yet.  It could be any manner of things, and more likely than not a combination of all of them.  But I really think that, right now, Britain is the hot spot for fantasy fiction.  I've even heard (and this is pure hearsay, I'll admit it) that fantasy fiction in general is much more accepted in academic/educated/literary circles in England than it is here in America (which wouldn't be too hard to do, I don't think--I still feel like I have to tip-toe around the fantasy genre in my own MFA program, and I think I'm at one of the more accepting programs in the country).  There's something going on over there, something that I'm sure could warrant a few dozen full-blown graduate dissertations.  Of course, I won't be doing any those dissertations--I can hardly manage my own Masters Thesis--but when they start showing up (if they haven't already), I'll try not to say I told you so.

So those have been my thoughts lately about how fantasy is faring, and who the movers and shakers are at the moment.  Take it or leave it, and if you'd like, tell me what you think.






*  Speaking of Hugo Awards, I'm going to Renovation this week...!  Pretty crazy.  I may or may not publish a post all about my thoughts regarding my first WORLDCON in a near-future post.