#narrative

I’m not in the business of predicting stories anymore…. At least, it wouldn’t be a hill for me to die on, or what have you. I’ve learned my lesson. At the same time, I have opinions, and often they’re pretty strong, and my feeling that I naturally get the narrative subtext in a given story and others seem misunderstand at a basic level is also strong. In a way, it almost seems funny, ‘cause these days it seems like people misunderstand a lot more important information, to a lot more problematic results. It’s like, well, misread fiction all you want. That’s what it wants you to do, especially when you’re talking about plot points that haven’t happened yet. Misreading the news and otherwise factual information is just a bit more dangerous and unfortunate.

Still… I’m not sure I want to forbid myself from arguing with people about low-level fangirl stuff, especially since I mostly do it in my head. It’s okay to have some innocuous debates and disagreements, even– or even especially– in today’s fraught times. Actually, it could even be seen as training wheels for your viewpoint tolerance. If you can’t handle courteous opposition to your interpretation of a book, how can you live in a world where people may violently disagree with your right to live, at least without living in a bunker?

Anyway, to the degree I’m exposed to fandom of any kind, it’s people’s comments on the fanart they post or repost on Instagram, so… really minor. Even so, they often feel the need to preemptively defend their ship from attack, claiming hate won’t be tolerated. No one leaves any room for disagreement, on either side of ship wars, anymore than they do in politics. It’s sad. And you see familiar claims and reactions– new theory comes out with new content, is popular, and before you know it– boom! The old ship/theory is oppressed, hated, persecuted. And the worst part is that the debate probably *does* devolve into persecution. Though I mean, I also think people become pretty sensitized to disagreement and criticism of their beliefs/interpretations, too. I’m not 100% convinced that when the minority shipper fanart posts say 'hate’ they actually mean harassment, stuff that goes beyond strong disagreement.

Of course, I mean, I suppose people are even more justifiably interested in a 'safe space’ in their shipping than most other contexts– certainly moreso than political discussions. You don’t have to entertain debate about your favorite ship. It’s really only because, as usual, people try to justify their ship using rational arguments. But the whole point of a rational argument is that it’s *arguing* something. A ship itself is not an argument but a preference. It’s only once you make up supposedly 'good’ reasons that I start getting twitchy.

I suppose I’ve mostly talked myself out of engaging with the arguments, per se. Overall, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when the ship in question is seen as the 'minority’ interpretation. Like I said, it’s just because of the argument itself.

In this case, the ACoTAR series Elriel fan quoted Cassandra Clare, who wrote that “Being told that love is forbidden doesn’t kill love. It strengthens it.” This appears to be a reference to Rhys, as the High Lord, forbidding Azriel not to pursue Elain in the book extra epilogue everyone’s in an uproar about. This takes the whole situation in the epilogue out of context, basically. Like, yeah…. this would apply, but only if you claim the relationship in question is *love*. Based on the epilogue, it seems a lot more like lust and loneliness, even entitlement. The whole epilogue interaction before that conversation with Rhys was clearly showing the cracks in the reading which previously portrayed Azriel as a romantic, sweet gentleman when it comes to Elain. Not that he’s not a gentleman with her, but it’s more like he’s not really being himself. The context makes the situation more complex than 'Rhys stands in the way of a strong but forbidden love bond’, and in fact that interpretation is pretty silly.

Anyway, in a book series where 'pure love’ with both main love interests so far involved letting the woman go…. basically, there’s a lot of missing context. I can’t help but come up with these rebuttals in my head. I miss arguing with people about books who were actually up for it… but to be honest, fandom was always pretty bad about enabling healthy debates, especially about anything to do with shipping. You don’t even get to feel good when you’re right (unless you’re in your fannish safe space), 'cause most people whose ships sink tend to blame the author and not their own reading.

Not sure what the ideal would be, though. Probably only if I was actually personally friends with a person who shipped something I didn’t, and then we had a conversation about it when their ship sunk. I have this feeling like a part of the problem that creates ship wars is just that these opinions, once they’re widely enough shared, are automatically presented as *groups*, and therefore they’re part of group dynamics. Basically, disagreeing with a friend or even just a single person is not the same as a whole group constantly saying they’re right and your opinions are wrong. Tbh, though, a lot of times even friendship is not enough. I mean, it’s enough not to ruin the relationship between us, but fans who’re really disappointed tend to just be angry and sad, and not in the mood to care much about the book or show in question. I generally tend to retain some interest in open-ended deconstruction even when I’m really wrong, but even my analytically minded friends have been more likely to just quit the fandom and/or stop engaging with the subject.

Not like all my ships have come true by any means, but generally, I have an innate sense of what’s likely and why things make sense in context, especially in retrospect. This reconciles me to all sorts of unfortunate events in stories that I wouldn’t have otherwise preferred. The type of people that see things this way tend not to take sides (or have ships) to start with. Myself, I am like a true believer/fangirl type and the centrist/canon only type rolled into one. I definitely take sides and have strong feelings and preferences… just… retaining a sense of humor and rational criticism of my own preferences and thoughts. Alas, most people are… not this way.

I read a critique of a book that compared the characters to the relative popularity/interest level in Loki and Thor, saying that Loki is more interesting because he has conflicts and changing/growing motivations and desires he pursues that come from within, whereas Thor is basically content with his life of drinking, fighting and sex, and only reacts to external threats. I can see their point. At the same time, point one is that there’s nothing wrong with external threats driving an adventure narrative. That’s a valid and often interesting story structure. In fact, it’s arguably necessary for a serialized adventure story. Point two is that basically happy and well-adjusted people can have growth and interesting motivations and reactions… they just happen differently, or more subtly and slowly perhaps.

From what I can tell, the problem with that book’s main character was that she was ultimately not used in an interesting way by the narrative, and nothing super interesting happened for her to react to or grow from. Thor is different ‘cause you can do almost anything with a comic superhero character in general and Thor in particular, as we can see even in the range of tone and subject matter in current Marvel Thor movies. I mean, most stories that care about plot basically need a main character constructed like Thor, while antagonists and secondary characters are more free to have overarching agendas. At the same time, putting that kind of hero into a smaller, more character-driven story is also possible, as a lot of fanfic demonstrates.

Anyway, this makes me wonder what the 'secret’ of making a naturally well-adjusted character like Thor interesting in a smaller story would be. Basically, what if the stuff the main character has to react to is just… not that gripping, or kind of predictable, or even not the point? Does the character have to be dramatic in and of themselves then?

The main 'secret’ is the relationship/relationships developed between the characters, as far as I can tell. The 'main character’ is not the point; the dynamic is the point of interest. That’s not to say I actually think only striving, conflicted characters like Loki are truly interesting. Thor is interesting! You can’t really be 'too boring’ or 'too normal’ for a story to be great; that’s actually ridiculous. Being conflicted and intense as a person is essentially just easier. It’s a shortcut, basically. As a writer, that story writes itself. It’s just… with someone like Thor and without an external source of conflict, I think suddenly you have to have some subtlety and attention to detail, noticing all the tiny things in life that actually matter and make it feel 'real’ and important as you’re living it. You can reveal hidden depths and subtleties in any character, even if they’re just going out to a bar with friends. It’s just… easy to fail, and hard to keep the reader’s attention.

I think a lot of writers also write 'normal’ and well-adjusted characters without being very intentional about it, unlike good fanfic writers, who generally are fixated and obsessed with every tiny detail about Thor. Like, the writer may use broad strokes too much with such a character, or not be good enough at capturing small, mundane moments in an elegant, vivid manner. They may even believe their smaller stakes plot may fool readers into thinking it’s super important. Essentially, the problem is generally the writer not respecting their readers’ intelligence and not being interested enough in their own main character.

hufflepuffkat:

the-modern-typewriter:

“Shh, it’s alright,” the villain said. “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you. But that’s enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me - you could never have won. It’s not your fault.”

The ancient and powerful villain may have had a calm and gentle face as he spoke, but he was furious, not at the hero, but the gods for continually sending kids and teenagers to fight their battles.

Heya, didja miss me? haha *taps mic* Testing, testing. Is anyone even here?

I’m not in fandom, but I did miss rambling about stories enough that I did it in an Amazon review for a sci-fi romance on Kindle Unlimited. Enough factors combined that I was both alarmed and curious, so I skimmed to the end and it appears the alien hero murders the human heroine within a few paragraphs of the end, during what should be their wedding, because she refuses to have sex in public, in front of her daughter. They go straight from ‘no this is culturally inappropriate’ to 'sure okay I’ll die for my cultural norms’ and the hero just goes with it no problem, though he declares his love as he does it. Well then.

I don’t generally write Amazon reviews, and this isn’t a review, per se. I was curious about the ending and so I read the very end (instead of the very beginning). Things that stood out as bad, more so than the big shocking twist:

- Internal motivations aren’t clear, or even mentioned, even at a pivotal moment.

- Further, internal conflict (where obviously expected) is missing and not shown or told. This makes the big event– the hero murders the heroine– fall flat.

- It has no emotional leverage because of the way it comes out of nowhere (even within a page’s length) and has no apparent build-up or space for denouement. This sort of reliance on a shocking end twist and a surfacey and disconnected narrative is a sign of very, very amateur writing.

- You should not be able to follow the action in the ending from a quick glance. That is a sign, in and of itself, that the ending is apparently disconnected from the story and may even be considered random, just an end because the author needed something to happen and likes pointless drama. Lack of denouement makes the drama pointless in and of itself.

- There’s a reason big things happen in the middle of the book (the big crisis point) and not the end. That’s because readers feel cheated when it happens at the end, and emotionally satisfying plot or character arcs are made impossible, unless the whole work is a tragedy. Note, tragedies are the opposite of sudden. The whole point of Romeo and Juliet is the ending, and it’s built up from the first word Shakespeare wrote in the play. A tragedy is not a love story; they’re two different genres using human romantic relationships as a theme.

- Basically, these few pages at the end are enough to prove to me reading the book would be a pointless waste of my time. I do like analyzing why not, though, so here you go.

So I was thinking, broadly, about romance/attraction and the idea of insta-love and how that gets parsed for m/f vs m/m. I see a lot of it. I see so much of it that I don’t think it even registers unless it’s *love*. Like, for ex instant attraction and sudden/fast physicality in m/m stories and fic is pretty much the default. It may even be less overtly prevalent in straight romance. In gay romance, if you’re not having sexual thoughts at first sight, you’re probably a closeted and/or repressed character. The standard really depends on characters being modern and out, though. Not modern or not out are accepted reasons to have slow-burn and/or denial.

In m/f romance, often enough sex is deferred, but generally only because it’s seen as the ‘prize’ where the hero is having some emotional experience rather than merely physical. Generally, many authors even go to extreme (and silly) extents to defer het sex just so it wouldn’t be meaningless at first. Though of course sometimes you have a lot of sex and that’s the path to a lasting relationship and the reason for angst/development. This is common in m/m stuff, less so in contemporary m/f, which clearly seems unfortunate, or at least retrograde somehow. The women definitely feel fast attraction too, but excuses are made, obstacles arise and sex remains a reward.

Anyway, it’s rare when sex isn’t had and kisses aren’t either, *but* it’s just because that’s the natural progression and not 1) the author is very clearly not into writing smut and so sex feels like it isn’t really real anyway, so kisses may substitute for the timing sex would have; 2) there’s the the reward dynamic where it’s used as a motivation for change or a reward at the end, like I mentioned.

Alternatively, of course, there’s the insta-love phenomenon. It almost never happens in m/m romance, though it does in fic 'cause of the desire to skip to the good part we all know is real from fanon. In m/f romance, I suspect it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card so you can have sex as early as desired 'cause the emotions are in the bag. This sort of manipulation gets old, though it can be done better or worse. You start seeing gradations after enough exposure. I like mating bonds. At least it’s an excuse.

What happens in male-written m/f action/plot driven stuff is something else again. Kisses from the woman are sort of used as currency or a reward, which is bullshit, but a similar dynamic exists in female-written stuff, except the reward is held back longer. It’s hard to be incensed since the whole thing is stupid. There’s always more and less annoying ways to go about it, though.

WithGood Omens, I could tell the witch and the witch hunter were set up structurally. That’s more of a connection than you can expect, like the guy in the Battle Angel Alita movie– he was just the first her age to pay attention to her. Here, the exchange (so far) is more straightforward in that it’s sex/kissing (attraction under extreme circumstances) and not a shoehorned “love” of convenience. The two things are pretty different. If anything, I support random pairings based on physical attraction. That’s realistic, 100%. There don’t need to be Deep Thoughts or Feelings involved. That’s where it all goes wrong: romanticizing sex for spurious reasons. Possibly to placate women or moralistic people. I dunno.

Slow-burns that feel real and earned and not like people who fight their attraction for invented reasons are rare like hen’s teeth. Honestly it also works better when you have characters who are asexual or closeted. Normally, people don’t need deep or meaningful reasons to have sex or even have a relationship, unless there are outside factors. Especially het people. Like, I dunno, this applies to average guys in bars but even a guy like the one in Good Omens (the schmuck) ultimately is just a guy who never wanted to be a schmuck and will take the first opportunity to stop, definitely.

There are certain things in a post or book review (usually on Amazon) that tell me that the fan in question is projecting rather than actually seeing the story or characters clearly. Today I saw pretty much all of these in reviews to Sapphire Flames by Ilona Andrews, which is a spin-off to a popular urban fantasy series:

• Why does the love interest like the protagonist (if I don’t like the protagonist and/or it’s not spelled out)
  
• Why is the protagonist overly like the former protagonist, who is her sister (or too unlike the protagonist, whose personality was better)
• Why would any ostensibly competent adult character behave irrationally with someone they don’t know that well but like? Clearly it’s bad writing
• Why would any ostensibly competent adult make mistakes or irrational choices we disagree with or find silly? The characters can only be likable or respected if they’re always sensible and mature, after all. Clearly it’s just more bad writing
• How could the old favorite, the former protagonist, possibly have failed to do X rational/logical thing? Clearly it’s out of character
• How could the main romantic relationship in an ongoing series not be resolved by the end of the first book? Clearly it’s a major plot hole
• How could a minor character’s motivation possibly be what the text suggests, if the subtext says it’s in fact something else? Clearly that too is a plot hole
• How could one pick up up on these seeming contradictions or subtext and not have it be unintentional? Clearly, only the reviewers are smart, not the authors.

Crazy stuff. It’s interesting because I actually have read another genre book by a usually decent author where the characters did do rational things and behaved reasonably even in their romantic relationship, at least 90% of the time. The only time I was remotely invested in the story was the brief period where the love interest was behaving irrationally, but that was resolved easily enough and without even overly hurt feelings. All these people can’t even imagine how mind-numbing it is to read about the rational behavior of reasonable people, and then somehow end up asking yourself why the love interest likes the female main character, too. So it’s not like I can’t relate, per se. In this case, at least it’s just that he never shows much impulsivity and it’s based on a magical mate bond, so the later declarations of love just feel really out of left field. It’s more like they’re glad they got all that angsty beginning relationship stuff all but skipped over and can now be reasonable and dependable together. Close enough to love, surely? Conversely, Andrews’ love interest may also be a competent adult who’s focused primarily on work and/or his mission,  but he’s portrayed as a passionate Italian man for all that. He’s human.

I should note, characters whose behavior is truly irrational are maddening to read. Here, I just mean it ‘doesn’t make sense in context’, though. Usually it either involves a dependence on a character’s overreactions to get the character to do dangerous but plot-needed things consistently, or the character simply doesn’t process some basic, logically apparent aspect of the plot until it’s conveniently too late. That’s very, very frustrating. But way too many people forget that while it’s bad writing to force irrational behavior to drive plot (known colloquially as a female protagonist being TSTL), the fact is that we are all TSTL sometimes. The trick to a character acting irrational and making it work, as Ilona Andrews demonstrates, is twofold: have the character (or others) be as aware of this failing as possible, and contrast the irrational behavior with some instances of competence and common sense. Note, I’m saying that a character being ‘rational’ enough is about stuff like not constantly running into danger with no weapons, or failing to follow up on misunderstandings. It’s not about thinking five steps ahead or not making emotionally driven decisions in general.

The fact that some people don’t get this only suggests they’re projecting, or their own decisions are probably generally not emotionally driven, in the case of this particular issue.  Of course, this doesn’t bother me as much as times where people point out basic subtext as if it’s a critique to notice those things, rather than an observation of an intentional aspect of the book. Sometimes it’s literally like some readers (or worse, writers) have never heard of subtext before. This leads both to bad writing and bad reading.

prokopetz:

Participating in Dracula Daily has reminded me of how throughout the initial portions of the novel the Count repeatedly makes back-handed references to the fact that he’s a vampire, seemingly for absolutely no reason other than to fuck with Jonathan, and it’s strengthened my conviction that you can’t have a faithful modern adaptation of Stoker’s Dracula unless Dracula is just constantly spouting shitty vampire puns – which everyone around him unaccountably fails to pick up on – like a gaunt, bemoustached Hannibal Lecter.

I love the idea that Dracula has gotten bolder and bolder with his puns over time because either a) nobody ever picks up on it until it’s too late, or b) he realizes that people are ironically less likely to suspect him the more obnoxious he is about it.

In a modern retelling, you’d absolutely have them sit down across from each other, Dracula dropping all of the vampire puns, Harker looking into the camera like Jim from The Office, and then when the truth is revealed, it’s impossible to convince anyone because he spent so much time being dismissive of all the weird habits.

Also, Van Helsing tries to take down a different vampire at one point and it turns out to be a regular goth

So says me – the Narrator – so-called because I speak the narrative of the story. I advance the plot, I begin and end each episode of the Powerpuff Girls – me, the Narrator!

spacefinch:

audacityinblack:

sarahtaylorgibson:

Writing a novel when you imagine all you stories in film format is hard because there’s really no written equivalent of “lens flare” or “slow motion montage backed by Gregorian choir”

You can get the same effect of a lens flare with close-detail descriptions, combined with breaks to new paragraphs.

Your slow-motion montage backed by a Gregorian choir can be done with a few technques that all involve repetition.

First is epizeuxis, the repeating of a word for emphasis.

Example:

Falling. Falling. Falling. There was nothing to keep Marie from plunging into the rolling river below. She could only hope for a miracle now, that she would come out alive somehow despite a twenty-foot drop into five-foot-deep water.

Then there’s anaphora, where you write a number of phrases with the same words at the beginning.

There were still mages out there living in terror of shining steel armor emblazoned with the Sword of Mercy.

There were still mages out there being forced by desperation into the clutches of demons.

There were mages out there being threatened with Tranquility as punishment for their disobedience, and the threats were being made good upon.

Mages who had attempted to flee, but knew nothing of the outside world and were forced to return to their prison out of need for sustenance and shelter.

Mages who only desired to find the families they were torn from.

Mages who only wanted to see the sun.

This kind of repetition effectively slows the pace of your writing and puts the focus on that small scene. That’s where you get your slow pan. The same repetition also has a subtle musicality to it depending on the words you use. That’s where you get the same vibe as you might get from a Gregorian choir.

@secondaryrealm

Place reference in story beginnings: A cross-linguistic study of narrative and interactional affordances

By: Mark Dingemanse, Giovanni Rossi, and Simeon Floyd

Published by: Language in Society
Volume 46, Issue 2
Pages 129-158   

LL Abstract:

In this article, Dingemanse, Rossi, and Floyd look at the use of place references in narratives from 3 societies/languages (Cha’palaa, a Barbacoan language of Ecuador; Northern Italian, a Romance language of Italy; and Siwu, a Kwa language of Ghana). The authors find that place references are used in all three languages to set the stage or foreshadow events and to make the story cohere by anchoring elements of the developing story. This systematic study identifies possible uses of place reference that are generic to narratives across all three languages, suggesting that storytelling in conversation is a useful area to perform such comparative research.

LL Summary:

The article begins with noting the intersubjective notion of place referencing and by defining what exactly is a place reference: a possible answer to a “where-question” - in other words, a place that is logically connected to other places (recursive) and can be represented in a variety of forms. Dingemanse et al. then begin with an example analysis from a conversion in the British TV quiz show QI, demonstrating peoples’ normative understandings for how to begin stories as seen in the words of comedians Jimmy Carr and Sue Perkins. Observing how listeners in this orient to what place references evoke (i.e. inferences to a story’s point or a story’s later events) in this example, the authors introduce their aim in this paper: to identify the affordances of place references in narratives and to find cross-linguistic evidence for their use in conversational storytelling. The article then reviews previous literature from conversation analysis on the structure of story beginnings in various cultures and languages, introducing the background of the data in their current study: 108 narratives from videotaped natural conversations in the three languages of interest: Cha’palaa, Northern Italian, and Siwu. In 56 of these narratives, the analysts find place references that generally perform two affordances across all three languages: setting the stage and making the story cohere. Using a story about graveyard snakes from Siwu and 2 stories (about boar-hunting and women downriver) from Cha’palaa, the authors show how inclusion of place references serve to signal the start of a story and what it’s about (while it’s exclusion leads to sidebar conversation). Next, story beginnings from all three languages are analysed to show the second function of place references- making the story cohere, or providing a reference point for subsequent elements and developments of the story. Again, the authors use counter-examples to illustrate how the lack of a place reference in the appropriate place in a story leads to consequences (such as the humorous asides following one Northern Italian speakers’ lack of specificity). Dingemanse et al. argue that this and other examples reveal that references to places act as a binding technique to introduce and contextualise other elements and developments of the story. The article continues by introducing examples where place is under-specified, usually in narratives about the here and now, where narrators can draw on their current situation or elements of prior talk to make up for the lack of place in their narrative. In the final section, the authors discuss the differences between ‘location’ and ‘setting,’ how references can be ‘recognitional’ (known to the audience) or ‘non-recognitional’ (not intended to be known to the audience), and different language-specific practices for referring to place. Finally, they conclude that speakers flexibly use the interactional affordances of place references to meet the challenges of telling a story in conversation and call for further study of cross-linguistic features in this area of interaction.

LL Recipe Comparison:

This article reminds me of the recipe for Linguine with Cauliflower, Pine Nuts, and Currants:

While Dingemanse et al. find similarities in the ways that three cultures use the same linguistic strategy (place reference) in storytelling, you will count yourself lucky that this recipe combines three different ingredients into the same delicious dish! The brown butter sauce in this recipe brings out the flavor of the savory ingredients, much as the research of Dingemanse et al. brings out the interesting aspects of what makes a story compelling no matter what culture you belong to. And just like a story is incomplete without a grounding in place, this dish would be incomplete without generous amounts of Parmesan! Good Cooking!

MWV 8/22/18

And this is why I’m in love.

Eclipses of former selves drape themselves in unseen corners that touch the floor and stretch up to the skyline. Trying to reach that neat straight place: the chalky outline roadmap. But my fingernails are coloured in bright red with matching lips. And she, she stays far from inconspicuous. Trying to take a bite on a burger and keep the eloquent lines of matt finished lippy in tact.

It rains, there is no umbrella. Never an umbrella when you need her.

Instead, you hop down an unfamiliar street wishing that she would inch a little closer but you play it down and cool like the temperate of the evening, as if the night is the first of many. So you shift the focus reminding yourself to stay like those cement slabs, cemented into pavements with neat straight lines.

You see, depictions of self are just that. We meet and we try and expound our best selves. Then we meet those that don’t hide in corners or under shadows but stand up and let you see the crinkles. Let you see the fears of walking into a room first when you’re late. Let you see the fears of mirrors and the faces that sometimes shouldn’t be looking back [now].

I’m trying to focus on work and my mind wanders and I know I am yet to forgive myself. Spent so much time and unwanted effort to reconcile myself in another - when all along it was right here: I am not who I present myself to be. But I am learning to unmask the persona of who and what I should be.

I can list out the reasons the myriad of isms and complexes that sit with me. Those unchartered roadmaps with interlinks, to figure out where to change and what route to take. But like the dark blue and green lines we follow the same path with different stops.

Peace.

There’s a mirror in your heart

That only you can see

There ain’t no mist or worry

Only reflections of you and me

Others will not be there

So who we living for?

No more hiding in the shadows

When love is sitting at our front door

Cuz it ain’t about the money

Or the clothes we choose to wear

So hear the words I speak and let the fears rest elsewhere.

I have spent most of my days either looking up at the sky or down on myself. We met on a late Friday evening and after all these years have passed I still look at you in complete awe. I always knew I would find a love like this but never did I believe I would be so blessed…

I have grown in so many ways and I thank God for bringing you into my life. You have and continue to act as my confidante, teacher, healer, lover and best friend. I reflect on you and there is a warmth that settles.

I grew weary of praising our love to shield myself in case you left… In case I was too much. In case my love was too much. I misunderstood what it was to love and be loved. You hold me down in moments when I am breaking and lift me up as I spiral down our stairs and onto the street.

I am sorry for the many months and years that I have spent with the cracks as my focal point. I do not know what I have done to deserve a love so huge that I stand back and now let it engulf me.

You are the other part of me. Without ownership or without restriction. We share a light that shines. There are times - when you need someone. You are by my side. There is a light that shines special for you and me.

I never knew a la la la love like this…

This isn’t one of those horribly romantic posts. This one is one that probably won’t be seen for the one that inspired it, not for some time anyway. We past the checking each other’s social ish.. lol well; most of the time.

My heart feels heavy and I feel like the things that offer me so much strength are now making less sense to me.. I look at my mother’s life and the dynamic that rests between her and my father and it breaks my spirit. 

She is so accustomed to behaviour that makes me want to scream the house down. I try and be the good Indian daughter, but now my silence seeps out of me in ways I cannot control.

So I sit on a swivel leather chair in the living room, with my aunt and parents and think of you.. I feel calm and I even begin to feel a small smirk turning into a smile hanging from my lips.

I didn’t handle the situation as you would have done; I couldn’t sit and bite my tongue. Not meeing fire with fire, but dousing hatred with water the way you said I should. I didn’t do it, I lashed out and stood my ground and the antlers were coming for me. Reminding me of being young, afraid, without voice.

Things are different now; I feel a slight pang of fear but it subsides. A victory for my spirit and a coat hanger for this ego.

Ego Death has been on repeat in my car, Praise the Lord for an aux output and youtube videos on how to install your own “sounds”. Moving on, writing this I feel lighter. Knowing in a few days I will be back in the sanctuary we made together. 

“[Jasmin] All you need in life is love and a cat.” 

When words escape me I know I must write or speak a truth that must be refined and redefined by me.
Poems stick to the roof of my mouth and as i take them out they retain the mould, that arch, that arch that contains your name.

We used to sit around the park till after dark

With incense swirling uncontrollably

Now we meet over text messages with emojis

Silently refraining from saying:

Our maps shifted but we misplaced coordinates

The only way we knew how

Dot to dot to dot

But my bindi missed the mark - that last time I shouted in the park

Especially as it’s dusk and the spray can is nearly empty

WonderWoman painted in little suns on the shaky balcony

Oh and those old trees in a rose garden that probably still looks the same

Your names are etched onto old clothes and sit in a frame

About Victim

It is not that, so I plot a new landscape

Where sunsets in Southall and Kent

Are closed chapters and I look toward the new horizon

South of the River

Maybe forever.

We talk openly about all things that we know should remain in those velvet boxes, put up high - out of sight. I go and get a veggie patty and “yam it down” with a drizzle of encona. In that moment with wafts of curried goat I overstand what those books talk about. 

We commit to each other. Today.

My he[art] indeed.

• • •  [spoilers below]  • • •

In the middle of a blind date she doesn’t particularly want to be on, The Incredible Jessica James’ eponymous heroine squares off with her equally uncomfortable, male dinner friend/potential boyf/adversary.

They volley back and forth several brutally, “completely honest” questions.

After a few, he asks her, “How do you pay your rent?”

“I… work at a non-profit, in Hell’s Kitchen.” (Pride in her voice, though a somewhat knowing tone: yeah, I know. Very Brooklyn answer.) “I teach public school kids how to write and produce their own plays.”

“So… how do you pay your rent?”

She laughs.

Already – my Netflix ticker says this is barely 13:50 into the entire movie – the two biggest threads of the film come together: (1) an endearing, realistic romantic comedy starring Jessica Williams (that Dope QueenoffThe Daily Show who now does other stuff – namely, this) and rom-com’s staple dorky everyman Chris O’Dowd (because the thinking, even semi-straight woman[**] needs an IT guy); and (2) the female Bildungsroman.

If you’ve taken an English class any time since approx. 1980, you’ve probably had to learn and use “Bildungsroman” in an essay. It’s the coming-of-age novel, the story of growing up, an arc from innocence to experience. Except, as a pivotal cohort of feminist critics in the 1980s argued, the female Bildungsroman means “growing down,” a story of women being taught by society: Lower Your Expectations! Conform! Settle! The debate around what even isa Bildungsroman has wrestled with how gender-specific a story about maturing and (in essence) #adulting can be, given that women in Western society since the inception of the novel itself haven’t really had the options to leave home, discover themselves as autonomous, free, independent selves. The male Bildungsroman, in other words, is about the boy who grows up to be a man, and gets a job; the female Bildungsroman is about the girl who becomes a lady, and finds the right husband. Sure, there’s status and some freedom attached to that – class status and thus economic freedom, as the bourgieness of the novel excels at rewarding. But by and large, no matter how failed the male career, no matter how much the woman takes on a new career of domestic labor, the novels usually emphasize along these lines. Men achieve professional success; women aren’t left to be spinsters.

(A professor in my department, Jesse Rosenthal, pointed out how pervasive this narrative still is within even the most indie, “unconventional” of tales. His case study? (500) Days of Summer. As he recounted to a class on the 19^th-cen. British novel, here’s a movie putatively about the romantic maturation of the male subject – a rom-com trajectory usually reserved for women [i.e.. He’s Just Not That Into You could never be She’s Just Not That Into You]. But Joseph Gordon Levitt’s problematic-nice-guy fairy tale, complete with problematic-indie-dream-girl Zooey Deschanel, isn’t his acceptance of a limited role in his next relationship. It’s a successful job interview. [roll credits])

So the fact that The Incredible Jessica James coupled, in several senses, these two plots wasn’t surprising to me. Less than 15 minutes in, and yeah, obviously, Chris O’Dowd is gonna get the girl, and Jessica is gonna get over her ex by realizing that she “deserves” this more mature guy. Her work is great and all, the story goes, but obviously what we want is Bridesmaids with a lady of color. Comedy + late capitalism’s precarity (Jessica, how doyou pay your rent? Are you going to have to go live with your parents like Kristin Wiig had to after the cupcake biz tanked?) = love story. And bonus points for being about Instagram, and having a WOC lead where a white actress would have been five or ten years ago (slash even now): kudos, my friends. Kudos.

But… that’s not what happened. And here’s where this movie is radical.

BecauseThe Incredible Jessica James is a female Bildungsroman [or Bildungs-Film] that subtly, cannily, definitively breaks the mold. 

It isn’t a story about a woman realizing how wrong she is to be hung up on the wrong, bad boy, and thus the return to the family, to society’s right side of the tracks, to *herself* that is made whole again by giving up her rebellious adolescent wandering and waffling. Instead, TIJJpresents a heroine who goes through a series of rejections not of lovers, but of jobs [displayed on her wall: see first screencap]. It tracks her indefatigable efforts to make what she loves (theater) into a career, even a somewhat uncertain one. It’s about her slow realization – not the sudden “awakening” narrative that critics have ascribed to female/feminist Bildungsroman of old – that what she’s doing, working every day with kids, continuing to send out her resume, writing and reading and connecting with the public circles of her aspiring field – all that, isa career.

Take, for example, a crucial marker of James’s acceptance of herself, and of her status, as grown-up, matured, sufficiently adult that she’s no longer faking it til she makes it: she’s Made It. The blueish-purple jumpsuit spotted in a Brooklyn consignment shop, the kind that is explicitly labeled as male by the sewn patch of its previous owner, “Randolph,” tall enough for even the pretty tall JJ. 

Working-class, second hand, male-identified uniform; natural hair in box braids; red lipstick and bright eyeliner. This is how Jessica meets her parents. But the music slides to an uncomfortable stop as Jessica gets off the Arrivals moving walkway: her parents are bourgie, sweet, stable, and utterly unlike her in spirit. This is the American middle-class dream – as authors from Frantz Fanon to Paul Gilroy to Ta Nehisi-Coates have written – that preys on Black people specifically, the double-consciousness of passing as it works in all its formulaic vapidity. Jessica’s younger sister, too, has bought into this dream: she takes one look at Jessica.

“You look like an auto-mechanic,” Jerusa (her sister) points out in a tone dripping with judgment.

“It’s cool, though, right?” Jessica beams.

“Yeah…” her sister nods, meaning the opposite. “I mean, you’re not going to wear it to the party?” [Her very normative, unironic, and uncritical baby shower.]

“… Nope,” Jessica deflates. Pretending this has been her plan all along.

Because this family isn’t ever going to be the place where Jessica can be anything other than stifled. The prim-and-proper group sits in the suburban family room late that night, merrily gooey-eyed over a romantic drama they’re watching on TV, whose dialogue (that’s all we overhear) is so utterly, sickeningly banal that Jessica doesn’t even enter the room. She hangs back, in the darkness. The entire setting – with all its race and class implications (and the sincere and moving subplot about the James family’s struggles with making their own rent, and how this continues to the present with Jessica’s public school kid whose divorced parents are fighting over custody, intertwines class and race throughout) – requires, in sum, the painful subjugation of Jessica’s self. A “growing down,” a compromise, as its definition of “growing up.”

Women of traditional Bildungsromane, Abel, Hirsch and Langland posit, “are not free to explore; more frequently, they merely exchange one domestic sphere for another. While the young hero roams through the city, the young heroine strolls down the country lane” (8).

Jessica James, by contrast, goes back to New York.

And back, at least superficially, to the romantic sphere of this rom-com. Where her jumpsuit is acceptable; where people like her appreciate thoughtful, empowering arts (instead of, like her mom’s Very White Book Club Lady friend wants, Cats). Where her lesbian best friend (that actress from Master of None) is the elective community James wants, not the family she’s contractually obliged to recognize in her blood. Where Chris O’Dowd is; where her career is.

So how does the movie wrap up the romantic plot without making this aboutJessica’s successful “deserving” of the Right Man™?

(It’s worth noting, before we spoil the ending, that the Boone – aka O’Dowd – subplot of the movie focuses on his not being able to get over the right girl. He stalks his ex-wife, amusingly because it’s Chris O’Dowd, but I think the movie implies cringe-worthily and creepily too: the dude side of rom-coms, it seems, is bleak; not somewhere the film is especially interested in lingering, and neither really are we. He’s eventually ashamed of himself, and this humility is deliberately more endearing than his Every Breath You Take enactment was. Admittedly, we could get into the politics of who says they’re sorry at various points in the film, who asks for and who gives forgiveness, and the ways in which being placed in a position of forgiving is, in a way, simultaneously powerful and powerless. But Nietzsche and feminism is a debate for another time.)

What I’m especially struck by – and I’ve watched this movie myself and with my sister, and then thought about it again after it was praised by another woman I love who watched it an ocean away – is that TIJJends with Jessica.

The final two scenes are crucial here. The penultimate brings together the two guys; formally, the two choices of a Bildungsroman: forward, or back? Jessica’s ex, Damon, finds her backstage after the kids’ theater night concludes, and opens with how he “know[s] how much this means to” her. For a split second, I panicked: OH GOD, fuck, this is why we can’t have nice things. They’re gonna have this guy realize how great she is – because obviously the only way a guy can appreciate a woman is for him to be in competition with another man. She deserves better! I shouted internally. Don’t take him back: sure, you realized you were as responsible for the break-up as he was. So what! You can do better.

But they hug, they sigh, and he leaves. (At which point I breathed a sigh of relief.)

Enter Chris O’Dowd. (At which point I was back to, fuck conventionality. What a missed opportunity.)

Turns out, though, the movie saw me – and the Bildungsroman – coming a mile off.

Because Jessica – unlike Rachel – gets on the damn plane.

Jessica, after all, has been offered a huge job opportunity in the most novelistic of cities: London. But things are just getting back on track with Right Guy; but going is her dream, is her big break; but he, like Damon, just realized how great she is – he read her entire corpus of theatrical writing, and declared – #honesty – that he’s still coming to grips with her complexity, on the page and off; but; but; but…

But… she forgot to tell him about London. And in a sense, this is where swelling crescendos of orchestral joy began filling my head, because if this had been a rom-com like the others, if this had been a female coming-of-age story like the others, she would never forgotten about him. Ever. Not once. He would have been her one phone call; her best friend-par-excellence; her Person. Instead, that honor goes to Tasha, the semi-parodic self-involved best friend who always, though, has Jessica’s back.

And so when the clearly wealthy – loaded, because of an app that is explicitly about the formal gesture afforded by technology of Family, without the actual emotional or affective labor of having to talk to those totally different people who somehow raised you! – Boone mentions “frequent flyer miles,” we can anticipate an airplane that Jessica (by now we can say, of course) will be on.

“Just if you wanted to… bring someone with you… to show you around the town,” he hedges, just before the cut.

“How does that work? […] Frequent flyer miles?”

Cut to Jessica – in the god. damn. JUMPSUIT. Pleased as punch, sitting in – oh yes, we can have nice things – not even economy seats. The nice seats.

At which point, the truly INCREDIBLE part of this movie becomes clear:

Tasha: Dude, I can’t believe your boyfriend bought us tickets to London.

Jessica: Okay, who said anything about him being my boyfriend?

T: Wait. What are you talking about? This is like, the most romantic gesture I have ever seen.

JJ: Yeah, it’s dope. But it takes more than a couple of roundtrip tickets to London for somebody to be my boyf.

T: That is so boss.

Shandra – the elementary school girl whose divorced parents prompted Jessica’s own reflection on her parents/childhood – returning to her seat: What is so boss?

T: Uh, Jessica.

S: Oh, yeah. Duh.[… I]t was really cool of your boyfriend to get me a ticket, too.

T: Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. Sister. Just because a guy buys a lady a couple of roundtrip tickets to London does not make him her boyfriend.…

[a beat]

S: You know, I like your jumpsuit.

JJ: Thank you. Yeah, it’s pretty bad-ass, right?

S: Hm. Yeah, it is.

They all exchange smiles, the camera zooms in for one final-close up of Jessica’s excited anticipation of landing for the beginning of – not her romance, but – her career.

COME ON! You’re telling me the final scene of this movie is a new affinity, a new definition of family, in which the white, straight, married couple form is reshaped into the female solidarity of friendship, while the child of that hetero dyad of yore is now the dark-skinned girl who herself is a budding author, having been mentored by Jessica, who is – onscreen – mentored by another strong, Black female playwright??? You’re telling me that throw-away moment in the corridor backstage with Chris O’Dowd that seems like the lead-in to a kiss is in fact his last appearance onscreen??? You’re telling me the movie, moreover, goes out of its way to stress – TWICE – that whatever erotic/romantic relationship they’re in, Jessica didn’t accept this trip as the quid pro quo of settling down??? YOU’RE TELLING ME THIS NEW COLLECTIVE IS SO AWARE OF ITS MEMBERS’ QUIRKS AND FOIBLES AND SELF-AUTHORSHIP/FASHIONING THAT THE FINAL LINES OF THE MOVIE UNDERSCORE THAT JESSICA CAN, IN FACT, DRESS HOWEVER THE FUCK SHE WANTS, AND THAT SOME PEOPLE WILL LOVE HER FOR IT, AND FEEL THE SAME ABOUT THE THINGS SHE LOVES???

Get out of my face, TIJJ. You have *EXPLODED* the female Bildungsroman, and maybe the Bildungsroman full-stop. There is no return to the original society, no compromise, no settling. Jessica isn’t the one forced to the margins of the story by choosing either independence or submission: the family is.

For that matter, romance sort of is. Jessica has no “boyf”; Tasha has no (onscreen, stable, couple-form) gf, but neither is she a hypersexualized lerb. She masturbates on/off-screen, but it’s one of her quirks! She and Jessica go to a lesbian bar, where Tasha chats with several recognizably-styled queer ladies: but she is neither reduced to her own romance plot, nor denied any sexuality at all. She and Jessica, however queerly you read their relationship (and I don’t especially, but I see how one could), are the empowering couple of the film, supporting each other not just in romance but in their mutually-reinforcing careers.

This is a rom-com about aiming high, about finding a career not in, because of, or in spite of a guy, but because it’s the one through-line of the entire story. Jessica begins and ends loving her work, and the slow build of that love rewards her by the end. She has Made It. The fact that she probably goes home to an attractive dude who boosts but is not himself responsible for her career – sure, he gets her upgraded tickets, but her confidence, “forthright[ness],” and drive suggest she would have made it to London without him, no question, by whatever means necessary – is icing on the cake. Yes, there was a maturation narrative within the romantic plot (she learned to leap in her relationships; she also learned, as Boone did, to have realistic expectations of where both partners are at any given moment in a relationship). But this, the movie stresses, is not the end of the story. It’s a subplot within herstory.

[gif from x]

I don’t think it’s unimportant, either, that Jessica Williams – a fine actress in this movie, entirely winning the screen – plays the heroine. By which I mean, I think it’s all the more radical that to play the romantic interest to gaze adoringly at rom-com’s Irish nerdboy Chris O’Dowd, the director/producers/writers picked a woman whose best-known appearances are in scathing condemnations of male privilege,white supremacy, and American patriarchal, racist, and just terrible norms in general. That such a woman is the new face – but I didn’t even get to talk about the fact that in a few scenes, Jessica J/W’s complexion is a little spotty, which made me (with a long history of struggling with the medical and psychological reality of being a teenager and then adult woman with terrible acne) want to cry with gratitude: this is what a heroine looks like? 

Sure, Wonder Woman is fab, but damn I needed this representation so much – maybe more – than the superheroic, impervious demi-goddess from Themyscira. I needed a strong, self-loving, no-nonsense, tall, Black, not-quite-starving artist in Brooklyn, jamming with headphones in the concrete stairwell of her building, who proudly declares, “I’m freakin’ DOPE.”

I needed a new female coming-of-age story – especiallyin 2017 –, and, somewhat subtly but unquestionably, The Incredible Jessica James delivered.

***

{** I use “women,” “men,” “male,” and “female” throughout this piece to refer mostly to the historical categories of those identities/concepts. I also want to be clear that I’m not trying to gloss over this film’s missteps; rather, I’m trying to celebrate its major, but possibly missable, wins. Lastly, I know that in German Bildungsromanmeans *novel* of development/maturation, not *film*. Don’t @ me.

Thanks to Jesse Rosenthal (JHU) for getting me thinking about the basic understanding of the Bildungsroman in such concise, formal terms. For the debate about male vs./and female Bildungsromane, see – to name just some –, Abel, Hirsch and Langland (eds.), The Voyage In: Fictions of Female Development (1983); Lorna Ellis, Appearing to Diminish: Female Development and the BritishBildungsroman, 1750-1850 (1999); Rita Felski, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change(1989);Franco Moretti, The Way of the World: The Bildungsroman in European Culture (1987); and Susan Fraiman, Unbecoming Women: British Women Writers and the Novel of Development (1993).

The Incredible Jessica James (2017), dir. and writer Jim Strouse; produced by Beachside Films/Netflix. S/o to casting, Kate Geller and Jessica Kelly. Thanks also to Springfield! Springfield! movie scripts for their transcription, which saved me time. }