Salonieres

The book is set in Russia about 300 years in the future. Previously: America ("the Guardians") conquered most of the world [1], committing genocide through lowest-bidder concentration camps and ruling for 50 years. They were defeated probably 75 years ago, mostly by an army of ordinary people who were mind-controlled by a computer virus that erased itself from their minds once it detected victory. (Africa, which is now a walled-off technological paradise, took Egypt back from the Guardians without the virus.)

Maya is a camera, which means she broadcasts news as her senses experience it—except with a screener to filter out not just distracting bodily urges, but also forbidden topics, lest she attract the Weavers (immensely scary censors who live in the internet to prevent another mind-control virus). Screeners instantly know their cameras' minds in full. Cameras have no such reciprocal knowledge. As the book opens, Maya is broadcasting a series about why the reign of the Guardians is barely remembered, unlike the Holocaust and the Terror-Famine [2]. And she has a brand-new screener, Keishi.

But actually, the book does not open there. It opens with Maya writing to her audience:

The whale, the traitor; the note she left me and the run-in with the Post police; and how I felt about her and what she turned out to be—all this you know.

What a first line.

The prologue ends with another banger:

I will give you my thoughts since that time, but not on moistdisk. I will not let you explore the twining pathways of my thoughts as I explore them—not again. I will hide instead behind this wall of words, and I will conceal what I choose to conceal. I will tell you the story in order, as you’d tell a story to a stranger who knows nothing of it: for you are not my friend, and what you know is far less than you think you know. You will read my life in phosphors on a screen, or glowing letters scrolling up the inside of your eye. And when you reach the end, you will lie down again in your indifferent dark apartment, with the neon splashing watercolor blues across your face, and you will know a little less about me than you did before.

(In addition to the narration, it's useful to know that the book moves through different modes, and some people find the last half to be a jarring change, for expectation-setting purposes.)

With that background, we got into the discussion proper.

Marianna: ways in which book is about camera and editing reminded of Dziga Vertov, 1920s Russian cinema, had a manifesto about how in the future we would become cameras. Maya is a camera, constantly making decisions that are directing and editing her broadcasts: pan here, add background information there.

Marianna cont'd: anticipating current social media, when livecasting everything: are we actually seeing what they are? not only that, but the asymmetry in the screener-camera relationship predicted parasociality. as does Maya's relationship with her audience: she needs them, she's uneasy about their demands, they think they know her and they don't—they don't even know what she looks like, she uses a false userpic because she's older and scarred with old-fashioned sockets drilled into her head—and there's literal emotional feedback between them. (also, the camera is preemptive censorship like using euphemisms on TikTok.)

audience member: thought about "veil of Maya" in Hinduism, which is a false reality. me: oh, so that's what Keishi was referencing!

me: going back to Vertov, that reminded me of the book's terrible monomaniacal old man, Voskresenye, who had idea that true teleprescence, that is, what cameras broadcast, can save humanity: overcome the "sins of locality" that arise from being trapped in our own skulls and unable to achieve empathy.

Marianna: Vertov was propagandist documentary maker, believed that if people just saw what was really happening, would get on board with the Russian Revolution. not only that but "Cine-Eye" technique would help improve/evolve humanity.

Marianna cont'd: thinks there are three themes that underpin SF in general: memory, identity, trauma. they all come together in this book so powerfully. but doesn't argue for universality in sense of uniformity, Voskresenye is also very angry about enforced homogeneity and exclusions.

(later on, we talked about the book's pondering of whether love results from, or is stifled by, intense mental intimacy.)

Marianna cont'd: all that and we haven't even mentioned the dead psychic whale yet!

so this may have been where I talked about Moby-Dick, which I re-read specifically so I could talk about how it relates to this book! it's name-checked by the text, given to Maya as a memory:

The novel seeped into my mind, like milk into a sponge. A man tattooed with frogs and labyrinths; a leg of polished whalebone; duodecimo, octavo, folio whales; a coffin bobbing among the waves; and in the blue distance a white mass rising, unknotting its suckered limbs, and sinking: unearthly, formless, chance-like mockery of life.

But it's a lot more in conversation with it than that quote may indicate.

• They both have a central queer relationship. For those who haven't read Moby-Dick but have heard vaguely of Queequeg (the tattooed man), you may not know that Ishmael meets him because there is literally only one bed at the inn. The next day, Queequeg says that they are "married," and they go up to bed and talk, "in our hearts' honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg—a cozy, loving pair." This is text.

• They both have terrible monomaniacal old men, as previously noted.

• They are both narrated after the fact by narrators with specific agendas. Ishmael is desperately trying to understand what happened and to make us understand what happened. Maya is also trying to understand what happened, revisiting Keishi's actions and her own decisions; and she says she's trying to reduce our understanding, but I'm not so sure about that. Also, so much foreshadowing.

• There is a whale, who is intelligent and filled with hate of humans, but only because humans keep bothering him or her.

• They both are surprisingly funny. (I liked when Maya needs to insert a really gross public plug into her head—this is the very embodied kind of cyberpunk—but doesn't have anything to clean it: "I settled for wiping the plug on my shirt, to replace some of the unknown dirt with dirt I was on intimate terms with.")

My notes get a little sketchy here. I see that Marianna said that the novel is still frighteningly relevant, and there were times during this reread where she had to put it down. I'd previously noted on Bluesky that the Wizards vs. Lesbians podcast thought that the homophobia in the book seemed exaggerated, even though the book was set in Russia, because we'd come so far in overcoming that ... which was not an unreasonable thing to say, all the way back in 2021. Ouch. And as for the McGulags, well.

I mentioned that asexuality doesn't seem to be a concept that the characters have (again, published in 1996), so at least one of them treats the ability to feel love and desire as the same thing; this is extremely relevant and in-character but the conflation was noticeable to me and would be a good thing to note in recommending the book to people. (Significant trans themes, though.)

Someone mentioned the Richard Matheson short story "The Box," about whether you really know the person you married (originally "Button, Button").

(Also, I just realized that this Tumblr short story might be a riff off that.)

I think at this point, all that's left of the panel discussion is talking about the ending.

I was going to do a really thorough dive into my many, many ebook bookmarks, but I must sleep. So here's just three things I already had prepared.

First: you start looking up one chapter title, you end up with a zillion links. My suggestions for your consideration:

1. Ashes, Ashes: we all fall down.

2. The Platypus: Oliver Herford?

3. A Faster Cable: impossible to search; suggestions?

4. To Make Much of Time: Robert Herrick.

5. As a Wife Has a Cow: Gertrude Stein.

6. The Word: was God.

7. Khristos Voskrese: as the text says, "Christ is risen."

8. A Man Who Had Fallen Among Thieves: E.E. Cummings.

9. All the King's Horses: couldn't put Humpty together again.

10. My Man Sunday: impossible to search; suggestions?

11. A Property of Easiness: Hamlet, act 5, scene 1, lines 67-68.

12. Immediate Touch: as quoted at the start of the section, Paradise Lost.

13. Icarus: too close to the sun, etc.

14. Tea and Sympathy: the Classical movie?

15. Phaeton: as Wikipedia puts it: "See also: ... Icarus; Lucifer"

16. Very Like a Whale: Hamlet, act 3, scene 2, line 382; possibly also Ogden Nash, though that would feel more appropriate for a later chapter to me?

17. Fallen Like Lightning: Luke 10:18?

18. You Must Remember This: Casablanca, of course.

19. Orpheus: now you see why explaining the reference in the prior panel would have been impossible.

20. Penelope: faithfully waiting, or not, for a spouse who came home twenty-odd years later. (edited because I got this totally backwards at first)

21. Sorrow's Springs: Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Second: as I said on Bluesky, the contrast between Maya and Ishmael's last reported words is just brutal.

Ishmael:

"Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee."

Maya:

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

Both the last things they said to the loves of their lives, but one is wholehearted affirmance that he means everything, and the other is equivocation and denial.

Third: a text to a friend after I finished rereading:

The Fortunate Fall shitpost:
one of the things it foresaw, in addition to going viral, McGulags, and the death of print,
is the meme about the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Ken, who writes short fiction, amended the title of the panel to "Take Your Story to Work." And asked the panelists to talk about their work in their introductions.

Melissa: children's librarian

Sarah: writing professor, have been many other things including camp counselor, working with horses, nonprofit administrator, SAT tutor, singer/songwriter

Marianna: currently academic. formerly development executive for film and TV production, administrative assistant, film projectionist, IT, bartending training but not experience

Sarah: bartending experience but no training!

Ken: currently professor of humanities. previously IT project manager, ad hoc computer programmer, clerk typist, judicial clerk, lawyer in corporate law firm, dishwasher at deli, actor, director. several of those have found way into stories. asks: particularly good examples you've read, yours and/or not?

Marianne: caveat did not read novel Discovery of Witches, but TV really got minutia of academia right. Stross, Laundry Files, vibe of working in IT. le Carré, sounds very plausible!

(anyone interested in academia and/or Discovery of Witches must, must read this fic in which the author's note reads, "i'm not so much taking this fandom to work as i am meeting it next to the dumpster behind my workplace and engaging it in hand-to-hand combat for the honor of the field of human genetics"

pachytene phase (9096 words) by magneticwave
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diana Bishop/Matthew Clairmont
Characters: Christopher "Chris" Roberts, Matthew Clairmont
Additional Tags: Epistolary

Summary: The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics is pleased to invite you to the annual Clarence Berrigan Lecture. This year’s speaker is Matthew Clairmont, DPhil, who is giving a talk entitled: “Interspecies compatibility, meiotic flexibility, and the end of the infertility myth: insights from the southern red muntjac.” Please join us after Dr. Clairmont’s talk for a reception in the McNeil Family atrium at 5pm. Refreshments will be provided!

you don't need to know the fandom and it is hilarious)

Sarah: office vibes: Jeff Vandermeer, Authority (second one in trilogy that began with Annihilation); Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kasulke, someone gets uploaded into work Slack

Sarah cont'd: music: Randee Dawn's new one, The Only Song Worth Singing; really picky about those, good details about gritty. Elizabeth Hand, Wylding Hall

Melissa: read T. Kingfisher, A House with Good Bones, obsessed with research and entomology. own profession: Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Bruce Coville (alas no dragons at their library), probably led to becoming librarian

Ken: moments where certain details ticked off

Sarah: curse of being immersed something, is when encountering books where author learned by research. some do well: Dick Francis, glassblowers and meteorologists, seems like got it, at least from outside those professions. it's things that don't think to research that grate. music, people can only picture what rock star is like, not what slugging through every day. also categories where if write thing, prepare to get letters: guns, horses (I'm the one writing the letters), sailing, U.S. Civil War (and if you've done primary source research, often letters you get are wrong)

Melissa: authors try to get librarians right because know we'll buy the book

Melissa cont'd: remembered work meant to mention: The Public, movie, Emilio Estevez, made after watching interactions at LA public library. only thing not believable: entire staff but one person were all men (so much laughter)

Marianna: try to condense rant of many years. authors are like: I went to school, I know what faculty do, I don't need to look that up. get overly focused on research (academic conduct thereof). nothing about hiring, tenure, career track, which is what academics mostly care about: I don't care how in love you are, you are not leaving MIT to follow your lover and teach at an Arizona community college.

Ken: bias toward academia in mainstream novels, so think lot is accurate there. re: law: people view procedure through mainstream TV, movies, think understand. part is that day to day of law work is exceptionally boring. sitting for 12 hours a day in a library (me, to myself: Ken is showing his age: I sit for 12 hours a day in front of Lexis => ). almost threw book across room: passage in Orson Scott Card novel, character obtains divorce AND the arrangement of bifurcated child custody WITHOUT spouse's knowledge (caveat, not set in US and in future, suppose could imagine, but)

Ken cont'd: flip around other way: examples of juicy details re: something otherwise unfamiliar, what did that do for you as a reader?

Marianna: le Carré, spoiler alert I'm definitely not a spy, not just telling you that to throw you off scent. made me want to write spy novels, so good at lot of details but not overwhelming with. particularly love when get book like Perfect Spy: how does this person spend their time on an average day? what is the macro running in the back of their head? everyday stuff that you might not think about.

(le Carré came up so much at the con and every time I have to google his name to remind myself of the capitalization and also copy the accented e)

Ken: and we know that he had experience in British intelligence. can you remember particular detail?

Marianna: how much time he spent with radio when holed up in safehouse, had code keys, sitting around waiting to hear message

Melissa: because in hotel, thinking about Kate Stayman-London's Fang Fiction—

—at this point, I very rudely interrupted to ask for a repeat of the title, which caused her to completely lose her train of thought. I apologized then and also after. wait until people are done talking to ask for repeats of titles, self!

anyway the publisher's page on Fang Fiction indicates that the main character is a hotel manager, and also it sounds fun.

Sarah: talking about a lot of jobs that do exist, but made think of jobs that don't but believe that do: Peter Beagle, I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons, about dragon exterminator, like mice in the walls. hates his job because loves dragons, makes reader believe in this guy who knows he has to do, emotions resonant. mild spoiler for early part: protagonist tries to save some, sneaks away as pets.

Ken: The Martian, the book. main character has master's in botany and engineering conveniently. remember being struck by the thought process. no idea what experience author has, not point: I do know enough about electrical circuits to know that you need to know what gauge of wire, so completely sold that character knew what talking about, and did make me feel like I was there.

Melissa: A Magical Girl Retires, Park Seolyeon, very short, characters are all working as magical girls of X or Y, get sent on jobs, very much feels like 9-5 in hilarious way

Ken: more completely imaginary jobs?

Marianna: Stross' Laundry Files. wonderful balance between grounding familiar IT work but for government agency dealing with paranormal stuff

Sarah: all those little jobs in Terry Pratchett novels, e.g., candle snuffer. looks at Melissa: the Librarian though

Melissa: look, we take all representation

Ken: even the witches, does mundane detail so well, yeah, a real witch has to do that, more of a human interaction than anything else

(me, to myself: also, research witches.)

Ken: 15 years ago, talking with Elizabeth Hand, who said how in Glimmering, included nitty-gritty details of boat building which made real effort to research, surprised by great number of positive responses to that part specifically, not necessarily by boat builders, people who just really enjoyed. readers in general, American in particular, love to know how stuff is done, procedural details

(me, to myself: which is the joke in the Field and Stream review of Lady's Chatterley's Lover)

Ken cont'd: is detail good in and of itself, or does it have to advance plot/character/theme to be worthwhile?

Sarah: love granular detail and think is a danger of too much, either "I've suffered for my research and so must you", or because genuinely love the subject—haven't written horse novel because of risk get too in weeds. new novella Haunt Sweet Home, protagonist is working at reality show as production assistant (PA), very bottom of ladder. got lots of feedback from ex-PAs, used to live from someone who was a set dresser got some flavor from her. the things sometimes skip between big plot moments, are what make the job and character pop, so that when get to plot, believe in fully rounded character and ability/inability to do thing

Ken: remember in your A Song for a New Day, early on, step by step to get into venue and set up, played really real to me, felt like there and put me on her side

Sarah: makes it really hard to read those in public readings, not most dynamic

Marianna: just crystallized, what really sells me on details being necessary, is when feels like answering question already had, or didn't know needed until got. joy of discovery for reader, not only having fun but just learned something. can get away with a lot

Melissa: always comes back to how well written. joke never want to represent someone going to toilet, but that's first story in Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, really works. as writer, always worry that losing audience when writing library

Ken: been moments where you as reader has been lost?

Melissa: hard to lose me, find a lot of things interesting

Sarah: if I do one good thing this con, it's getting people to go read Molly Gloss, in particular The Hearts of Horses, horse trainer novel; sequel of sorts, Falling from Horses, Hollywood stuntman. details ARE the story. not SFF, basically Westerns. nobody does it better than her.

Ken: granular details about occupations as tool of worldbuilding. thinking about economy of language, classic example "the door dilated"

(me, to myself, once again: can I tell you about The Fortunate Fall????)

Melissa: Evil, CBS series, investigating Catholic Church, which everyone gets wrong (never heard priests complain, think happy to have people talking about). does get details wrong of church, but climbing and motherhood details were really interesting and well done (in the same character)

Sarah: from writer's perspective, stuff make sure to show to beta reader, especially someone who knows field really well if not your area, or if your area, to someone who doesn't know

Marianna: one of best pieces of advice ever seen, if in situation where danger of infodump but exposition needs to happen: get two characters having intense emotions, maybe even conflict, about information. can get away with so much more and also tell readers about stakes

Ken: decades ago, reading SFF story about lawyer, remember character bemoaning that his pleading-generating software was so outdated and running so slowly; opened up entire world of, what does law practice look like when there's genuinely good AI that can generate pleadings. no big commentary on that in the story, just one little detail

Sarah: going back to annoys: music related: describing music in way that music critic would. stories that do music right, talk about emotions of playing, hearing. Lewis Shiner always gets right, also LaShawn M. Wanak

Ken: reminds of TV show M*A*S*H. there are lots of doctors shows, almost always have consultant on set to ask questions of. one for M*A*S*H said, usually actors ask how to hold this instrument, they always asked how would it feel. showed in series

Ken: asks Marianna about mundane occupations in fantastical setting

Marianna: always fascinated by genre as magnifier, makes things bigger. only way to do that is to ground in mundane in one way or another. PhD dissertation about Whedon in Buffy would have outrageous situations but mundane jobs like bartending at demon bar, or inverse, to really push contrast

Ken: reminded of very short story, 15 years ago, "Accounting for Dragons" by Eric James Stone, very tongue in cheek, also satire. when look at fantastical through lens of mundane, casts light both ways

Melissa: ongoing manga, Kowloon Generic Romance, about realtors: feels very grounded but in a fictional city where things shift and disappear

(me, to myself: is manga particularly good at this? or do I just happen to hear about examples there?)

audience: reality is stranger than fiction. experience is that weird shit happens more often in real life than is written out. sparks some of my best ideas. any of that that forms heart of why you write?

Sarah: hard thing is that because so much stranger, sometimes don't read as true; wife works for liquor board, her stories are so weird (snakes falling out of ceiling onto fire marshal who was trying to figure out what rustling noise was), haven't found way to make fiction

audience: Snow Crash opening: the Deliverator was speculation, but sheer terror and anxiety is all of our delivery services now

Marianna: genre wonderful tool for laundering these things

intros: say if bureaucrats and what kind

J.M. (Julia): born and raised in then-USSR, example of autocratic bureaucracy. immigrated over 30 years ago, USian bureaucracy in immigration. is opposite of bureaucrat, day job as academic scientist, pride self on being unruly

Laurence: R&D background, joined US Patent and Trademark Office as patent examiner last year, in feat of amazing timing

Victoria: day job, bureaucrat for 28 years at major research university. currently helping with grant applications, require great deal of finicky attention to detail. before that, a lot of university policies about purchasing and reimbursement

Shiv: first novel was cyberpunk bureaucracy (Domechild). bureaucracy experience in two separate countries. government of India in professional capacity, used to make ads for them; then immigration to US

Steve: career working with what people call bureaucracy, big government agencies. never really had to deal with Kafkaesque ever. really like the bureaucrats that has worked with, far-thinking and well-intentioned, hobbled by bad legislation and insufficient finances

Victoria: bureaucracy can be used for good or bad, don't really want to argue about its existence. organizing principle for any large human endeavor is basically bureaucracy. panel: have you read anything with fresh approaches, or suggest ways that bureaucracies can make good fiction

Laurence: bureaucracy implies stability in a way, even if malicious or oppressive, can hopefully find way to adapt to it.

Steve: bureaucracies have to handle issue of scale. organizations helping thousands of people, then bureaucratic structure starts to appear. Star Wars, "fear will keep the local stations in line," doesn't really work

Shiv: bureaucracy is model that is designed to only work at scale, which is unusual, can't scale down. useful to remember that was original meritocracy as envisioned, China created exams to select (and then ignored results for centuries). really cool moment in human history, did not previously have concept of best person for job gets job.

J.M.: bureaucracies are based on rules and order. range of perceptions about how fair rules are (also transparent). ideal cozy bureaucracy is heaven, also hell: rules are fixed, no arbitrariness. so many TV examples. Korean shows or Chinese, have a structure that's bureaucratic in essence, but at top is a deity: great turtle or ox that holds the world. innate sense of fairness comes from that non-human entity. reflects distrust of human, ideal of fairness. Nobody's Looking, Brazil: character figures out that little hamster in wheel powers the whole fair structure

Laurence: Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are chaotic opposites

Victoria: comfort of predictability: in fiction, can make case for subverting that.

Shiv: challenge that predictability is one of core functions for bureaucracy. what about bureaucrats working within or against. Winston Smith in 1984 is one way

Steven: Miracle Workers: god decides to flush whole universe down toilet, two bureaucrats trying to save it

J.M.: absolutely, love it; god is not malevolent but absentee landlord, played by Steve Buscemi

Victoria: can be benevolent, non-benevolent, indifferent

Shiv: another reason challenging for story, bureaucrats are quintessential middle management.

Victoria: idea that bureaucrats go mad with power, even over really small stakes

Shiv: post-independence, India had bureaucratic system that was called License Raj, called that because was so fiendish like British still there. wanted car? go through government, takes years to be assigned one. takes years more to be assigned color ... even though there are only white cars

Laurence: bureaucrat has flexibility in interpreting the rules. once he has rejected application, can write examiner's note with advice, or suggest to attorney that have an interview so can explain conditions. some examiners like that, some don't. some green card interviewers like being kind, some get out of bed on wrong side. gives room to portray individual characters: what is their experience

J.M.: therein lies narrative tension, long for ideal bureaucracy that would be helpful and just, but only human. two problems: middle management is human, don't apply rules uniformly or at all; other side: cannot write the rules that are good enough. trying to cover all contingencies, becomes barriers

Shiv: private sector bureaucracy: try to file insurance claim. interesting, public bureaucracy designed to prevent worst-case scenario, private to prevent best-case

Steve: all worst experiences have been with private sector. (admits maybe sample is biased.)

Victoria: in private sector, people aren't rewarded for staying for long time in same job: leads to people doing things their way because institutional knowledge isn't there

V: fantasies of bureaucracy, affect how people think about government (treating government and bureaucracy as interchangeable for these purposes). how use them for positive effects?

Laurence: 20th century stories almost exclusively negative, lead to cynical and negative responses (which is not to say that not deserved). chicken and egg, Catch-22 or Kafka as responses to experiences maybe, but still cycle

V: showing bureaucrat going through daily lives and trying to do things well, goes along with seeing self in fiction. felt connection to people in Arkady Martine duology, also Murderbot experiencing different types of bureaucracy

J.M.: Star Trek itself, huge organization that works

Laurence: Iain Banks' Culture, see in interfacing with non-Culture

Shiv: Star Trek really good example, what matters is not that good, but least worse option available to you.

Steve: also Known Space, Niven, when successful, invisible. no narrative tension until fails. could do positive bureaucracy in untenable situation, e.g. natural disaster.

Shiv: how set baseline opinion of bureaucracy is during moments of non-crisis, which is difficult because stories are about overcoming obstacles. in a non-crisis, the obvious obstacle to overcome is bureaucracy itself, which is not message want to send

Victoria: trying to write post-conflict fiction, would be one way of doing it. Goblin Emperor, Hands of Emperor, consider both aspirational fantasies of bureaucracy: none of us have power of emperor, but what would I do with the power, especially since Maia (in Goblin) is so shy, downtrodden

Laurence: love Goblin Emperor, not sure best example since he is at top, many problems are because hasn't had chance to find feet. Witness for the Dead trilogy is maybe better example, very conventional church bureaucracy, protagonist working within that system; aspirational in that way too, because things do work out

Victoria: bureaucracy is background to and part of mystery plots in that trilogy

Shiv: Goblin Emperor: about to ruin, cover ears. at some point if don't draw line between politics and bureaucracy, going to have argue that Game of Thrones is bureaucracy novel. really about courtly politics

J.M.: Memory Called Empire also mostly court politics

Steve: respectfully disagree: Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings are failed systems because don't have bureaucracy, whole purpose of which to prevent what happened. "Sauron should never have gotten a building permit." medieval delegation in Europe is start of bureaucracy there, limits power of kings/emperors

Victoria: Hands of Emperor, another imperial novel but POV character is career bureaucrat. same issue of having imperial power, but mostly looking at what things this single bureaucrat puts into motion, because emperor gives instructions but bureaucrat must implement. we see that change takes time. has been working on what's effectively universal basic income, see played out in different people's lives. odd novel, massive, kind of circles back on self, but very much about civil service

audience: friend who writes legislation read it, was furious: person who writes legislation shouldn't also be implementing! can you have fantasies of bureaucracy where protagonist is not limited or collective in some way? is that necessary feature? or can we indulge in fantasy of purely good bureaucrat

Laurence: fantasy of bureaucracy, to my mind, should be much more egalitarian, focused on middle management

J.M.: the classical Western narrative with a lot of agency, is kind of at odds with this

(me, to myself: Saiyuki Gaiden features very corrupt heavenly bureaucracy and is about failing to prevail over it)

Shiv: lot of pushback about personal anonymity for specific bureaucrats. as species we really don't like not knowing who said so

Laurence: in US Patent and Trademark Office, my name is on all the rejections and allowances

Victoria: federal grant agencies: applicants know reviewers, can request not-that-one

audience: short story about alien bureaucracy gone wrong, title of which I didn't get; what would look like for alien bureaucracy to go right?

Laurence: aliens often stand for mysterious unknown powers, so bureaucracy can be monster

Shiv: weirdly, really functional bureaucracy is in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, appoint President for everyone to yell at while others do work; works at so many levels. also, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged is one-person bureaucracy, developed immortality and is very mad about it, has list to personally insult every person in universe

Victoria: probably somewhere in C.J. Cherryh

audience: comment on Laundry novels, Charlie Stross?

Laurence: fun, mockery of system that deserves to be mocked

Victoria: Going Postal is a good example of good bureaucracy. obligated to mention Andor, examples of bad bureaucracy

Laurence: Too Like the Lightning, only decent people are UN functionaries

audience: Alastair Reynolds Prefect series, whole system based on voting

(me, to myself: Kagan, Hellspark; whole apparatus to determine if species is sapient)

Victoria: Rivers of London, regular cop trying to get magic police bureau and other bureaus to work together

Steve: Jasper Fforde

Charlie: characters with this approach?

Caitlin: apologizes for inherent spoilers, because involves taking plot inherently different direction. Joffrey in Game of Thrones is legendary one (presumably this is Ned being executed)

Robert: choosing example is a little hard, because from writer's side of fence, want to create surprise yet inevitability. ones that stay with me don't feel like someone just said, we gotta shake this up, more organic

Shariann: once was given advice, when get stuck, blow something up: really very effective. but then have to put in a little foreshadowing (or might find that it was actually there all along and hadn't noticed). thinks shouldn't be as much a surprise on reader's side because not doing job

Sophia: back to initial question: as plotting and as character choice, very differently. character who realistically does that, can result in interesting plots. fascinating ones are who build up to that explosion: Stephen Graham Jones has done several times very effectively. Indian Lake series, series building to one direction, character that reader knew was going to break, does, though surprise to other characters. still, character just blowing things up can be fun, terrifying, both

Caitlin: Jason Mendoza is hot sauce, not main course

Sophia: yes, love him, but would be very different genre if he were the main character

Robert: The Scar by Sergey Dyachenko and Marina Dyachenko. lovely book. seductively awful self-absorbed rake kills boyfriend of next seduction target, target looks at him with completely indifference, which is perfect reader Molotov cocktail because all expectations upended

Charlie: is writing Jason Mendozas unique?

Sophia: had a manuscript that was very long, lot of stuff happening, each new development through new character being introduced. also had ghost character who definitionally had no sense of consequences, pure impulse. every time my agent said, this character feels a bit extraneous, decided, just going to throw ghost at it, figure out how she can get to the same end result. made it feel much less chaotic and tighter, also much funnier. that said, this was revision not plotting. if have this kind of character initially, helps have some sense of where story going, what is about, or accept that going to be messy first draft.

Caitlin: what percentage of process is plotter versus pantser (writing by the seat of your pants), since seems like would be pretty relevant?

Shariann: every writer has a unique process and can change over time, plotter and pantser is continuum. am far on pantser end, have to write to find out where it's going. so that's where blowing up comes in useful: things started to literally jam up, did not know where in plot to move next. looked to character who it would make sense to blow things up: said to character, sure, go ahead. took whole story in different direction and worked wonderfully well.

Robert: plans a lot at start, then departs; metaphorically working toward mountain seen in distance, but no satellite maps, have to find way

Sophia: generally need to have sense for arcs and themes, but doesn't frequently know plot.

Caitlin: very similar. has hideously wasteful process, can't tell whether detailed outline is right until written substantial chunk of it. example: realized climax needed to be at 1/3 point of book

Robert: Sophia re: Molotov cocktail as character versus approach to plotting, both have equally caught me by surprise as a writer

Caitlin: suddenly struck by metaphor that Molotov cocktail is literally fuel.

someone: use pitch to make stick to tanks

Caitlin: yes otherwise could just brush them away (as author)

Charlie: initially thought this was a trickster panel. can you have a stolid character who throws

Sophia: character who is very stolid isn't going to be throwing Molotov cocktail, but from plot POV can throw a lot of stuff at them

(me, to myself: Jason isn't stolid but he is very predictable, in that he always wants to throw Molotov cocktails!)

someone: character who starts showing crack in their stolidity

Sophia: love that

Caitlin: believe that can have character who's very stolid/solid and knows their mind, wants, limits: see them make actual decision to explode because intolerable line crossed. don't need to be inherently chaotic or unstable. throwing part of who they are

general agreement

Caitlin cont'd: setting up situation with unattainable goal, do reasonable things in the moment to reach, results in cascading consequences. example: Iron Widow: joins military to avenge sister, which accomplishes pretty early, but that shifts goals. at 2/3 mark, pushed to decide between survival and massively reshaping society, not goal but things escalated so fast. changes what problem of book is and what series is about.

Charlie: moving goalposts one entire field at time

Caitlin: and on reader too

Robert: as much as in love with surprise (don't think would be able to finish anything if not wondering what going to happen in next chapter [I think that this was, finish writing, rather than reading, but I'm not sure]), satisfying rug-pull on reader expectations needs balancing own indulgence with a lot of planning. just a set of encounters is not satisfying

Caitlin: Jason Mendoza not very intelligent, but definitely changes substantially over course of series. perpetual chaos muppet will eventually become tiring to reader

Sophia: keep in mind that stories are always about something. Jason is fundamentally important to theme of show, is kind caring person who does a lot of dumb and destructive things. he breaks not just plot but ideas of what goodness means. chaos so meaningful in broader sweep of story

Caitlin: writers are not being chaotic

Sophia: single most "and then THINGS HAPPEN" is Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera, which is also most intentional book ever read. need to build trust and rapport with reader. easy way to do that is tropes, much harder to say, don't know where going with this but trust me.

audience: Sophia mentioned teaching Molotov cocktail method, is that more than Chandler's "and then someone burst in shooting"

Sophia: working with burnout or writer's block people, one of goals is to make writing feel as fun and low-stakes as possible, especially since lots are writing about trauma. method: first know driving force of scene. what is the weirdest, funniest, most frustrating, etc. etc.—pick superlative, actually has a checklist—way could possibly achieve. then do that. not necessarily what final draft will be, but goal is enjoying process. which is something that Jason really has!

audience: example of Molotov cocktail compounding is Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. main character treated like walking time bomb for 12 books, 13th goes off in way he didn't expect, readers either. permanently changed dialogue between readers, author. do you consider that?

(me to myself: this is tangential but I will always remember "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault." as a first book line (to Blood Rites))

Robert: any time telling story, it's about raising of expectations and then what do with them. can't pretend that haven't been raised. to subvert, have to have planted seeds that really wanted other thing all along

Shariann: relationship between author, reader, character, and the arc of character. reader buy-in mostly through identification with character. if arc is compelling, well, people are changing all the time, which is what makes story interesting. psychologist once said that change in belief happens quickly but was building all along.

Caitlin: as author, have duty to not pretend to naive about impact on reader.

Barbara asked for the panelists' deep read with their intros.

Rebecca: Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones podcast.

Barbara: tend to deep read a lot of 19th century lit repeatedly, or SF dense enough that resembles

(me, in my notes: have you heard about The Fortunate Fall??? (I will come back and link when I make the post about that panel, but it was in the last slot of the con, so it'll be a little bit.)

Gregory: podcast began with deep dives. current: Murderbot; repeated: Lord of the Rings (and now teaches) and everything surrounding, taught importance of seeing layers even decades later

Lark: how exactly do you deep read?

Rebecca: hard to do on first read, can't see shape of whole book, so has to be on second read. have page of notes or Google Docs with quotes, end up with kind of red string theory about book as whole

Barbara: Dickens fan. when first read as young, for plot, skipped over boring parts. now every time read very prose-heavy books, find something new. naturally quick reader, will force self to sound out each word to slow down. Aubrey-Maturin, do need secondary sources for ship terms etc. but usually just rereading

Gregory: very similar. in academic work, obviously, eye toward teaching. when doing deep reading "on my own," not doing that: like waves passing over at beach, absorb something new every time. recently starting teaching [one of this year's Readercon Guests of Honor] P. Djèlí Clark: initially read because interested, before started teaching started picking up inter-book connections, which are either intentional or designed to make it appear so: valuable for own writing

Rebecca: yes, valuable to deep read into not just book or author's work, but broader context; really helpful for themes and ideas within the work itself

Lark: so downsides?

Barbara: two offhand: not spending time finding new authors; hit book 5 or 6 and suddenly realize that you don't like it.

Gregory: that's the bargaining stage. risk of tunnel vision. if after Murderbot, go to another series where voice is not as prominent, "this would be awesome if it were Murderbot!" though sometimes breath of fresh air; example of Dune and then the Witcher series, much different prose speeds. wants to downplay slightly risks of this, because value: get one of greatest joys, understanding of how sausage is made, which can be not just valuable but moving

Rebecca: doing Eight Days means has to put a "nickel in the Diana Wynne Jones jar" every time refers to. but another peril, become glutted with it: read bunch of Guy Gavriel Kay in row, started feeling like could finish sentences for him. haven't tried to push through that feeling, probably possible but ...

Lark: disagree slightly with Gregory: John Wiswell's talk on "How I Wrote Someone You Can Build a Nest In," mentioned that had very minimal edits: would like to have not know that, remain furious that book love so much just came out that way (Lark later made super-extra clear that this was a joke)

Rebecca: things wish I didn't know about favorite books: reading deeply can lead to realizing that don't like as much. Witch Week: DWJ essay explaining it as metaphor for racial bullying, reaction: oh this doesn't work. think a different way about book and now have more complicated enjoyment

Barbara: had that with Dickens, Oliver Twist: Fagin, okay going to pass by problems with character because love book so much. then reading more, learned that friend of Dickens' pointed out problems, wrote Our Mutual Friend with "good" Jewish character (Rebecca: he was doing his best)

Gregory: this is why biographical criticism is dangerous. authors are not accurate always about impact of work on wide audience. Tolkien was wrong about Lord of the Rings not being about WWI. also sometimes write beyond what they as people are like (Shakespeare being able to write more nuanced characters than his personal prejudices likely would have indicated)

Rebecca: sometimes have to read as deeply what authors are saying about own work, as read the work itself

Lark: what's difference between being a deep reader and being a Trekkie or Swiftie for whatever you're reading? just being a huge fan?

Gregory: very dangerous question to answer. couple of responses. being a huge fan is extraordinarily valuable because reflects passion and identification. not minor, important. largely come to reading for emotional impact first. that said, can be uncritical acceptance, thinking everything from artist is equally good. deep reading is trying to really engage on own terms, not just author's, which often means critical in analytic sense. nuance: doesn't invalidate deep love of the work. and can be both at different times.

(me: life is a rich tapestry, my brain is always being analytical, cannot make it stop even when I want to)

Rebecca: part of deep reading is looking at it past your own emotional response, maybe that's the difference.

Barbara: somewhat disagree with Gregory, Trek fans can wildly disagree, not uncritical. may disagree with self in half hour, but not sure that so much different

Gregory: does this happen even within an individual book? my father always thought that Twain suffered failure of nerve in Huck Finn when Tom Sawyer reentered narrative. engaged with it as a fan because so good until that point: hit speedbump, thrown off; deep reader asks, why did he do that.

Rebecca: hard to become a deep reader if not already a fan!

Gregory: no hate deep reads?

Rebecca: not done hate deep reads, but "I didn't quite get this" deep reads, come back a year-ish later, other people liked and I don't see it

Gregory: Fargo, watched 4 times, can't stand it

Barbara: next year's panel, things everyone likes but you

(it's now in my list of things to send in!)

Rebecca: brainwashed self into liking Frankenstein by reading 4 times, now very protective of (the monster, I think)

Gregory: book that rewards deep reading

Rebecca: a book that you can have an interesting fight with will always reward deep reading

Lark: would you want someone to deep read you??

Gregory: yes please! if was intending layers, nice that noticed; if not, emotionally invested that want to engage in process, amazing. what authors don't want is apathy

Barbara: what he said. one of favorite memories is someone saying, you meant to do x, y, z; no, didn't, but great that brought own experiences

Rebecca: huge compliment to be thought worth fighting with. would love it as authors if our attitude were, yes come fight with me

Lark: but not fistfight! we at Readercon do not condone physical violence on-site!

Rebecca: once dreamed that Madeleine L'Engle was coming to punch me in face

Gregory: of all authors, least surprised

audience: professional deep reading versus that might do as "ordinary" "fan", "just a reader" (quotation marks are mine)

Gregory: "professional" involves going through for targeted reasons, particular elements to bring up in class and so forth. when fully invested in work and rereading—example of his father's books, where he annotated emotional reactions (meet Gollum in The Hobbit, "don't trust him," answering riddles ahead of time). but also making connections to other works etc.

Barbara: only kind of deep reading I do is personal

Rebecca: if just for myself, not podcast or book review, tend to hyperfocus on what interests me: running list of all best insults in Iliad just to share with friends

audience (me): risk that will have opinions about author as person? I have Diana Wynne Jones opinions just from listening to the podcast

Rebecca: high. risk that hearing the ghost of author standing next to you saying things, not just work itself. not sure that mastered that challenge

Barbara: depends on author. it's my problem. Dickens: then found out how treated wife, relatively recently, but couldn't stop enjoying, so invested in literature: will use to reinterpret but not stop reading. other authors, would not enjoy works if found that were problematic. some Heinlein books "make me absolutely insane." not very consistent

Gregory: probably true for me too. okay to understand that going to form opinions, as long as doesn't substitute for work you're reading. can struggle to get back into work for author because still around. doesn't teach Gaiman any more. but important for students to understand that can write beyond self, that individual circumstances are not predictive of work can produce.

Rebecca: death of author is so much easier when author is literally dead.

audience: just done 4th reread of Terry Pratchett, love spending time with him. have discovered that certain books don't wear as well as others. when done deep read of favorite writers, ever say "I loved, past tense, this"

Rebecca: that's called the Suck Fairy (see A Visit from the Suck Fairy and A Visit from the Context Fairy). every book is created between reader and text

Barbara: find most often re: children's literature that read as child, especially 19th century. sometimes think should not go back and reread

Gregory: conversely, delight when things hold up. but: Dragonlance, don't hold up. however, when read, mattered to you in the way that they did, spoke to you: don't cringe, did best could at time

Rebecca: even if book itself doesn't hold up, understand what about yourself at that age that spoke to you

audience: apply this to poetry?

Gregory: don't know why this has become a my father panel, but he ran a small poetry press. most moving poems are ones that revisit, and engage with in similar way

Barbara: don't tend to deep read poetry, totally emotionally thing

Rebecca: feel intimidated by prospect, think doesn't understand way constructed in same way as fiction, but having conversations with poet who has same feelings has been very useful.

Tom: in 1960s, 1970s seems like more tolerance, or joy, for really bad ending. why that and why feel like it's changed?

John: easy answer, resistance to being told certain kinds of truths from stories when want something else, can get bad endings anywhere in 2025 (I'm not sure I followed this)

Emmett: sees polarization rather than general preference

Shariann: society changed, then was more economically egalitarian, so idea of everything falling apart was titillating rather than terrifying, or just momentarily terrifying. now, can be satisfying but as reflective of way have to deal with lives. sometimes want something that takes away from what have to face, looks at world from different direction (even if still bad)

Delia: depends on what kind of book, written for so many different reasons. trained by Disney to think fairy tales/folklore ought to have happy ending; expect romance and children's books to have happy endings as well. [me: that's definitional for one of those examples] have seen SFF that's very dark all the way through, reaction: satisfaction, it's an arc and finishes the way supposed to. been like that in 1960s too, always been sad endings. that said, tragedy is narrower, person you can see making consistently bad decisions and bringing upon self

Shariann: Greek tragedy very different definition, choice between two right things that can't be reconciled. find that fascinating challenge, way to delve into character.

John: got distracted, but talking about different kinds of Shakespeare tragedies, inward-facing like Othello, or world-facing where world kills us like in Lear (I think). SFF proclaims itself to be interested in stories where world changes

Tom: asks Emmett about horror.

Emmett: by proclaiming itself as genre about tragedy, self-selecting audience. emotional catharsis comes from sole survivor's redemption, or that there will be a kernel of something that remains. but also all stripes of endings in genre.

Tom: unremittingly grim stories. any favorites among? how explain where no optimism at all? haunted by end of 1984.

Emmett: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, one of most grim and nihilistic movies, love it, something about acknowledgment of anxiety and worst-case scenario, seeing that played out, was emotional catharsis.

Tom: Hadestown explicitly asks, why the sad stories?

Delia: tremendously human. should think about choices, shouldn't make promises can't deliver on. repeating story, keeps idea of hope and frustration of hope alive. gives empathy which deepens understanding of means to be human.

Tom: marketing aspect: Shariann was told could sell more if had happier endings. also thinks of Peter Watts.

Shariann: I'm not in control. if built world right and characters are truly the characters, can't push them into doing something else.

Emmett: matter of making juice worth the squeeze, journey feel worthwhile.

John: writers hoping to attract and please audience are necessarily becoming skilled in art of counterfactual. people don't want unrealistic, but don't want depressing, but world is so complicated don't know where we are let alone in a story. (I think that's what he was saying.) very difficult to know how to read any story we encounter, have to give great praise to any writer who tries

Tom: protagonists are commoners now unlike classical tragedies, good examples?

John: character in Cities in Space (I think I must have mis-typed this for the Cities in Flight series by James Blish), what happens to him?

Delia: maybe strange example, but Lord of the Rings ending is not exactly what might call a jokefest. one of things about, is persistence in face of despair. experience never leaves Frodo, but world has possibility of healing.

John: what makes us feel that world is going to be better?

Delia: the Shire, we're shown it. also appendices.

(I was not sure what this exchange was about, as it hardly seems possible that John Clute does not know the ending of LotR)

audience: black comedy, The Day of the Locust for example, satire. can something be truly tragic if find it funny?

Tom: "A Boy and His Dog," Harlan Ellison.

audience: Gilliam's Brazil.

John: when get into satire, very likely to be transgressing genre expectations; Handful of Dust (I presume this is the Evelyn Waugh novel?)

audience: "Hell Is the Absence of God," Ted Chiang

audience: fascinated by bad endings that anticipate and come true: Shute, On the Beach. then, Night of Living Dead, where bad ending is surprise, doesn't seem deserved, yet fantastic movie because of that ending.

John: generic (genre-ic) thing. Beach: pleasure of having expectations fulfilled very well.

Emmett: sudden abrupt ending serves to jolt audience out of complacency. Night of Living Dead, signposts social commentary that had been throughout story.

Tom: historical fiction, tension of foreknowledge

audience: as readers, what are elements in tragic endings that keep thinking about or make you come back—your reader patterns

Tom: Beneath the Planet of Apes when blow up planet, can't stop fighting each other even though causes it

John: King Lear, doing everything possible to make the world that the play faces absolutely real, terrible, completed rather than gestured at

Emmett: endings in which brought to care so deeply in main character. Alien.

Shariann: Antigone. might have been in part because it was a girl. but still held own power and held true to herself.

John: not going to come to conclusion unless decide that all stories are one story. thinks distinguishing characteristics of stories: "stories really really desperately want to get told." "next, they want to be twice told. no story wants to be a story that sits alone."

Karen: simple: conflict and resolution, but that's not very personal warm cozy explanation. sometimes think all stories are about death because ultimately progress to an end, what's at the end? horror, death; mysteries, death; a lot of things that can (be related to?) concept of death in stories

LJ: relationships. character's with other, place, idea, self, desire.

Walter: an exploration of mystery. mystery may be death, sex, relationship: but looks into great unknown and attempt to make sense of it.

Stephanie: also had idea that all stories are really mysteries in prior essay. answer for today: all stories about confrontation. not necessarily resolution, sometimes can end on unresolved note, just raises: confronting secret, truth. when do workshops, so often react that this story is about capitalism, which is another way of talking about power, hierarchy of relationships.

Stephanie: hearing: talking about story on craft/mechanical level, thematic level. is there any kind of craft thing necessary to make it a story instead of some other kind of work?

John: feel like a fox in coop here, find each of these interesting and appropriate in different contexts. each story is about something, seems to be second-order observation after what decide in heart what story is. story is grammar, which is amoral. until realize that raw undefinable circle in grass that is (something) about consciousness, not going to be able to come to answer (as probably comes across, I did not understand what John was saying here)

Karen: had been talking about tools. what story really requires is emotional investment from the reader.

LJ: what is purpose of story? why humans drawn to? impulse and absolute necessity of social communication and fact that we are meaning-makers, how we're wired. investment (I think, emotional investment), can have in a poem and don't think that is a story; other kinds of artistic expression, are they all story?

Walter: flip on head, recognize that all are questioning creatures, basis of how we learn. all true but ignores fundamental curiosity that brings reader to work, which is another form of exploration. allows works that don't have satisfying endings to bring you into deeper thinking.

Stephanie: do answers change depending on length of piece?

John: do seem to be talking about contemporary written or oral stories. but? almost every story that is told, is a retelling. deep itch that is being scratched may be that it's been retold. Kim Stanley Robinson talking about slingshot ending, which has two or three different endings and leads in multiple directions: that's a 20th century artifact. (then something, didn't quite get, about needing background to communicate against)

Walter: Jungian, ancient stories about historical figures turning into (I think) myth. all of us are too educated to create something truly original. (though Naked Lunch is)

Karen: fairy tales, very often retold: most are lessons on how to survive in society. is a story a lesson of some kind?

LJ: went through period of time where reading nonfiction books of the pattern, here is the story of world as told through salt, sand, dogs. could make argument that same with story, all of answers are correct, depends on lens viewing it

Stephanie: how do we choose lens at any given time, all said "well my answer today is". do you have a lens gravitated to at point in career, or chose for specific reasons?

Walter: need to have a deep theme

LJ: ideas are everywhere and cheap, but if story is only idea, doesn't go far, unless has character and relationship

John: in end what I see is rewriting, retelling, managed to get story partly told before. cannot think of successful story that close to that hasn't been birthed out of itself

Karen: but that's a good thing, been told before gives it more weight, recognizability, authority

LJ: like sourdough starter

Stephanie: fairy tales, relationships: are all stories really about our relationship with society? do answers shift depending on genre?

LJ: don't think stories differ based on, genre is window-dressing

Walter: ditto

John: as far as reading concerned, always looking for story in which final word is full recognition of what story is about. (self-described boast: contrived to do that in one novel that wrote)

Stephanie: any examples of stories that changed mind about what stories can do?

Walter: yes, if read a lot of Japanese stories discover not driven by conflict. Kafka on the Shore (by Haruki Murakami), very typical of 4-act kind.

John: anyone remember Seiun Awards, ceremony would present awards and then second half was rehearsal in reverse. works that have temporal movement spiraling to different place.

LJ: not sure exactly answer to question, book comes to mind was frustrating, Life of Pi (by Yann Martel): loved until last chapter which enraged because will go anywhere with author if they believe in story, "really all a dream". lack of trust in audience by author.

Karen: Steppenwolf (by Herman Hesse), during reading it, decided had to have sex for first time, and did.

Walter: ... another good answer to what stories are about, sex.

audience: sounded like answers from Western tradition, other than Walt's answer, any additional?

John: didn't have room to make cartoon of what story does for human beings

Walter: why useful to go back to very very early pieces like Gilgamesh because where Western stories began to develop from

John: Gilgamesh, may have been written by first woman writer, also really fragments of it, but our instinct to intuit story highly relevant

Stephanie: answer in a negative form, reading Craft in the Real World (by Matthew Salesses), one of big critiques of The Workshop is its focus on individual triumph and individual versus world, very Western way of looking at world

audience: since story is so malleable, any thoughts on what is story's antithesis or definitively not

other audience: "This Is Not A Story," Denis Diderot

John: very hard, like vampires, can't stop seeing stories everywhere

LJ: our minds are good at holographical process, seeing little piece and filling in whole

Walter: only way nonfiction can succeed is as story

audience: thinking of own answer, which would ideally be correct across all genres and medium: pursuit of wants versus needs. then: does that make it a good story? new thought is depends on reader, what want to get out of. so question: what is one thing you are looking for, needs to be there, to find satisfying?

LJ: emotional journey

John: kind of always, when reading first time, looking for point where beginning to read it for the second, where feel like starting to get it.

Karen: opposite, if story stops surprising me probably going to put it down

Barbara: start by talking about story you wrote where you were working through stuff

Noah: in current WIP, working through feelings re: loved one in abusive relationship, what it's like to feel like seeing person love but hearing person they're with through their mouth, so writing dybbuk story

Sophia: very rarely know what working through at time of writing. apologies for geopolitics but am Iranian, half of family is in Iran; writing story with ghosts djinn etc. but in real world in 2026. what I am experiencing now, protagonist did a year ago; helps empathize with protagonist who is kind of terrible, but also having future perspective really helps self

Scott: wrote essay "7 Things My Mother Told Me She Later Denied Ever Having Said" after she died, then realized should be fiction instead. could better work out feelings that way because in reality too worried about accuracy, fiction focused on themes. resulting story is on submission, now titled (approximately) "Inheritance Nobody Wants But Everybody Gets." nonfiction did not bring closure or forgiveness, but fiction did, would have thought other way around

Melissa: like that talking about form, because as thinking about this question, two books applicable are both short story collections, written in 2016 and 2020: something about ability to move through different places, settings, characters in one collection, allowed to explore complicated feelings

Barbara: father had cancer, wrote funny story about cancer; after he died, wrote funny story about death. lot of stories working through changes & losses in family, some of most successful probably because felt them more than just wrote them. question: do you find it's different when writing to exorcise political versus personal demons?

Sophia: personally, no, because have a lot of abstract rage/despair/disapproval, not writing fiction about those, writing threads on internet/news articles/having conversations. writing fiction is deeply personal things. don't really think possible to write compelling long fiction that is big and impersonal, really is about characters. regardless so much of politics is personal, people dying having debt etc., that's what makes a story

Noah: would also say that can be very hard, if even try, to separate between personal and political. writing about abusive people in this, the year of abuse, isn't going to come out apolitical. writing fiction when working through traumas or other deeply felt things, as opposed to nonfiction, nobody can fact-check your fiction. kind of freedom, about your feelings. can say, I think sucks, but not I think you're lying

Sophia: (well they can try to fact check)

Scott: when I write about "relative has undiagnosed anxiety disorder and making my life hell" can give myself closure; but writing about bigger pictures, did not make feel better

Melissa: thinking about some writers who say, want to write in space that's void of politics, because I need a break. do you stop existing as a person when you're writing, such that you don't have a political identity?

Noah: lots of people who don't want to think about politics as such, doesn't mean that their work isn't political, just don't want to acknowledge politics of what doing.

Barbara: if writing about specific person, how much feel need to disguise?

Sophia: wrote recent-ish short story that agent really liked, nervous because when writing, thought was writing about vampires, turned out to very clearly be story about my ex (audience rueful laughter)—yeah, you just learned so much from that sentence. no amount of fictionalizing will disguise that I had been in an abusive relationship, or that people will assume that was autobiographical—almost more nervous about reverse, adding fictional details that people will think are true.

Scott: even if not relatives, think average reader assumes actually happened because don't understand where ideas come from

Sophia: I keep killing sisters, multiple critique partners assumed has one. no: have brother, nothing bad allowed to happen him ever, which is why only nonbinary siblings and sisters allowed to die in stories

Melissa: semi-flippant response: people care about are so humble that wouldn't assume it's about them, and people mad at, are too self-absorbed to notice. discusses readers without boundaries stalking romance authors and something I missed

Scott: my dad did not meet Donald Trump

Noah: my WIP, any loved ones will instantly know what it's about. if and when finish, think I do plan to publish if can, because it's that level of important to me to express, but even if don't, I am doing as description and writing as own therapy, essential to write as honestly as feeling. cross bridge when come to if feelings change in future and edit story as story

Barbara: wrote story once as revenge, did nasty things to character who was doctor mistreated father. had fun writing, looked at, lousy story. other examples?

Melissa: yes, not usually throwaways because doesn't do that, but set aside for long time to get distance, find thread where went off from catharsis to become narrative, pick up from there

Noah: more honest I am when writing, better it comes out for me

Sophia: journals a lot, also first drafts run long. but never had experience of wrote from deep emotion and therefore resulting story not very good; rather, story is too vulnerable for me. sometimes frustrating, don't always want feel like presented heart on platter

Scott: is this a story or just a primal scream that hasn't been transmuted yet? if reader can see that working issues out that clearly, not art yet, just 1:1 of what going through. pause, go to journal to work that out through circular nonfiction criticism of self

Barbara: asking Sophia, is cathartic angle more successful not just for you with editors and readers

Sophia: varies widely. sound like a brag but it's a thing: my prose comes out beautiful, never had to work at sentences; but structure is weaker. so then going to come down to how deeply do you feel the emotions of this. but sometimes anger etc. makes sentences sloppier. however don't go into thinking this is going to be cathartic, see it after

Noah: worthwhile to separate between different kinds of catharsis: saying what really mean and killing stand-in character are not the same. latter not necessarily going to yield something interesting. not same kind of emotional writing which think we mostly mean, writing from deep honesty

Scott: probably most cathartic writing session ever had, flying back from con, upset about bad actors in community, wrote almost whole thing in longhand. "Boiling Point," in anthology Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners. read it out loud at conventions, people come up and say, "I don't act like that," feel like story is calling them specifically out instead of being a general warning. goes back to what Melissa said about people not recognizing themselves

Barbara: ever written more than one story about person/experience/personal demon/political thing, with each looking at it differently?

Noah: multiple Orpheus/Eurydice. as kid story bothered me, some itch have to scratch by retelling many different ways. more recent days, started to feel more like Orpheus, find once again going back to

Sophia: two answers, both answers are yes. am now writing third book in a row in which main character haunted by dead sister, again I don't have a dead sister. completely different every time, what she represents, relationship, but for some reason trope keep coming back to. second, swear do have traumas that aren't geopolitical, but family has survived three separate genocides, except for current book never set out to write about, but turned out to be. at certain point not that trying to process, but that only lens I've lived. personal, non-collective traumas, usually will write about one time and then I'm good, wrote what needed to write about that: not part of worldview, thing that had feelings about. suspect will figure out what dead sister thing about one day

Barbara: was thinking about stories wrote about her/partner's grandmothers experiences, successful stories but sometimes wonder if should not have written because can't possibly imagine what was really like to have lived through that. are there stories that should be told because others not around to tell them, but how qualified am I just by virtue of listening to them?

audience: ever written something in therapeutic mode and then realized something that completely surprised you?

Melissa: feeding into processing Barbara's previous. can't stop writing about witches, think because am the friend you call in middle night to tell worst thing, that has to go somewhere and not comfortable with writing literally about. don't think realized until this conversation

Scott: not him but others, author: "this is story that helped get over X." reader: "this? this is the most depressing thing ever read"

Barbara: funniest stories ever written are about tragedies. partly because both are about father who was very funny man.

Sophia: never done revenge catharsis story, realized that experiences have had with people who caused harm, always writing from their POV. healing from perspective of getting to walk in their shoes, sometimes compassion and understanding and sometimes how awful it must be to be them. sometimes surprised by depth of sympathy experienced.

audience: anyone have safety tips or strategies for navigating writing a story that is kicking you in ancestral memory

Sophia: yes! literally one of things I specialize in. really helps to have rituals before and after, to keep contained experience. closing ritual should help move emotions through body: if can, go outside and shake body. writing is just in your head, so didn't get to express in way that nervous system understands. when getting too much, as Scott said, pause and journal to self, you are feeling sad right now because (or from/to ancestor, like a letter)—in different way than fiction writing, handwriting if can.

Noah: blessed to have number of people can talk to about writing, being able to do that is own kind of talk therapy, and talking about writing is enough removed from trauma itself, not waiting until work is perfect