Typical short story form that passes for "litrature" among the "artsy elites."
I took an almost complete progression of fiction writing classes (in addition to journalism and marketing writing) at college known for fiction and media writing (Columbia College). Most of the courses were taught by professionally artsy types all working towards that MFA and writing (for many years running) that great novel that if published, will only be read by other professionally artsy types (likely only as assigned reading in similar fiction classes). Ride that grant gravy train if you can.
Notice the gobs of description, the gritty urban elements, the dark undertones and human frailty. Also notice how generally boring and disconnected it is, as well as some of the factual liberties like his living in a ganbanger neighborhood (teachers are poor, but they do have some options).
They want stuff like: “You could smell the stench of the rotting garbage, entwined with the light but acrid hint of stale urine from an endless flow of winos and prostitutes that had taken their liberties in the alley behind the once proud Regal Theater. In a happier, more golden times, refined men had walked arm in arm with women resplendent in Edwardian finery to see the notable theater ensembles touring from Europe. Now, greasy men, with bed-sore-boils on their distended guts, pull themselves to pitiful completion watching cheap porn in tattered threadbare seats…” Continue with same for another 3 pages then add a plot point or change of scenery (to also be described to death). Add some stilted dialog reflecting how a middle class white suburban teen or early 20 something thinks urban folk on the edge of darkness actually talk or just some inane chattering to flll the space until the next steaming dump of description.
Most of these literature types have a disdain for plot and movement -- the elements that make things interesting. For old school read Flaubert’s classic “Madame Bovary” -- I dare you. Or anything by Hubert Shelby (the good news is that once you read the first one you’ve pretty much read them all). The artsy types look down on genre fiction (the stuff people enjoy reading like detective stores and science fiction) as being banal and formulaic. But… they ignore the fact that the “gritty urban angst human edginess grand drama” is just as formulaic and banal.
I probably wrote over 600 pages of fiction in the various classes, but only completed several full stories because it mostly involved exercises in writing these descriptive passages. One to three of four chapters worth and then move on to the next idea. The only instructors that required a beginning, middle and end with movement were from the handful of “genre” instructors that were tolerated. A few in the fiction department and then those in the separate broadcast media department -- screenwriting, science fiction writing, and I was able to be one of eight writers for a two semesters writing a soap opera that was actually acted and filmed and broadcast on local cable. Hell, the science fiction instructor, Phyllis Eisenstein was tough as nails, formal, and had written 9 novels and over 60 short stories which were published. I remember one artsy instructor giving a particularly tough critique of Science Fiction, but to this day I doubt he’s published his first novel.
Charon
