Formal vs. informal
Dec. 7th, 2007 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksI'm not going to couch this in the proper analytical language, I'm sure. My exposure to literary analysis is long past and what little I learned was rudimentary, at best.
My personal prejudice: excessive informality in writing style (slang, grammar that makes me cringe, constant pop culture references) seems sloppy to me. That's not to say I can't appreciate it, just that I don't want a steady diet of it.
I've been thinking about writing style/voice a lot lately. A couple things prompted it: first, reading Silent in the Grave, a Victorian-set mystery, after reading several paranormal and/or urban fantasy novels.; and second, skimming the first couple of chapters of Harvard's Education not long after listening to the audio version of Brockmann's All Through the Night. The tone and style of SitG is much, much more formal and...reserved, for lack of a better word, than the paranormals I've read lately. It's a function of setting, sure. But the contrast made me pay attention to how very casual and informal a lot of the romances I'm reading now are, especially in comparison to older books. This is even more evident to me when I think about the two Brockmann books. One was written in 1998, the other in 2007. Harvard's Education seems much more formal in writing style to me. Not stuffy, but with less slang, and it seemed less immediately modern. (I don't mean that it felt dated, just that the dialogue didn't feel as full of pop culture or as reliant upon it as some books do.) Has Brockmann's style evolved? Surely, but I'm not sure if that's the only thing going on.
Some of the loosening up in style is probably due to the efforts of authors to be more hip (yes, I'm a dork, as evidenced by my vocabulary -- hip, chic, in, whatever). Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, for all that their cultural appropriation feel a bit off and their slang is mocked (yep, huge vamps go outtie, right, if I were the Big Bad, I'd laugh my ass off), really seem like torch bearers for a monumental change in the style of a lot of contemporary and paranormal authors. Their use of slang (however wrong) seems to have broken the ice. Lots of vampires and Others now talk like teenagers at the mall. Is that good? Is it bad? I don't know. (I was inclined to say "bad" after reading a 500 year old Altlantean who sounded more like a 23 y.o. frat boy squabbling with one of his brothers.) Mostly I'm wondering if it is here to stay, or if the pendulum will swing back. If once paranormal series and urban fantasy is no longer the darling of the romance publishing industry, there will be a swing back to a less informal style.
Was this going on before the BDB? (Maybe I'm just unobservant.)
My personal prejudice: excessive informality in writing style (slang, grammar that makes me cringe, constant pop culture references) seems sloppy to me. That's not to say I can't appreciate it, just that I don't want a steady diet of it.
I've been thinking about writing style/voice a lot lately. A couple things prompted it: first, reading Silent in the Grave, a Victorian-set mystery, after reading several paranormal and/or urban fantasy novels.; and second, skimming the first couple of chapters of Harvard's Education not long after listening to the audio version of Brockmann's All Through the Night. The tone and style of SitG is much, much more formal and...reserved, for lack of a better word, than the paranormals I've read lately. It's a function of setting, sure. But the contrast made me pay attention to how very casual and informal a lot of the romances I'm reading now are, especially in comparison to older books. This is even more evident to me when I think about the two Brockmann books. One was written in 1998, the other in 2007. Harvard's Education seems much more formal in writing style to me. Not stuffy, but with less slang, and it seemed less immediately modern. (I don't mean that it felt dated, just that the dialogue didn't feel as full of pop culture or as reliant upon it as some books do.) Has Brockmann's style evolved? Surely, but I'm not sure if that's the only thing going on.
Some of the loosening up in style is probably due to the efforts of authors to be more hip (yes, I'm a dork, as evidenced by my vocabulary -- hip, chic, in, whatever). Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood, for all that their cultural appropriation feel a bit off and their slang is mocked (yep, huge vamps go outtie, right, if I were the Big Bad, I'd laugh my ass off), really seem like torch bearers for a monumental change in the style of a lot of contemporary and paranormal authors. Their use of slang (however wrong) seems to have broken the ice. Lots of vampires and Others now talk like teenagers at the mall. Is that good? Is it bad? I don't know. (I was inclined to say "bad" after reading a 500 year old Altlantean who sounded more like a 23 y.o. frat boy squabbling with one of his brothers.) Mostly I'm wondering if it is here to stay, or if the pendulum will swing back. If once paranormal series and urban fantasy is no longer the darling of the romance publishing industry, there will be a swing back to a less informal style.
Was this going on before the BDB? (Maybe I'm just unobservant.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 01:56 pm (UTC)It was definitely going on before the BDB -- take Sherrilyn Kenyon and MaryJanice Davidson, for example. For me, Kenyon's informal style generally works in the Dark-Hunter books, but I found it so jarring in her Avalon books (despite their being fantasy too, I just couldn't take Morgan La Fey and her minions dancing to hip-hop in medieval times) and her other historical-set books that I've stopped reading them. And I place the blame for all the chick-lit vampires out there at the feet of MJD.
There are good formal contemporary fantasy writers out there -- Lilith Saintcrow and Kim Harrison immediately come to mind. But yes, I agree that "informal" writing is glutting the market now.
Oh, and I bought Silent in the Grave thanks to your rec. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 09:58 pm (UTC)I'd love to know what you think of Silent in the Grave. The only person who commented on it said that she thought it was a wallpaper Victorian. I didn't get that...but I'm a little unclear on what "wallpaper" means in the romance context. Well, I understand the meaning (to me) but it seems to be a measure that varies by user.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-07 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-10 02:50 am (UTC)The one thing I'll say about pop culture references is that it can age a book (but then again, so can shoulder pads *lol*), and it puts geographic/cultural restrictions for (usually) non-US readers.