Danger! Verbosity Alert! Set all phasers to “deflate text.” Cast your “read arcane silliness” spells. And if you have cybernetic enhancements, get your wet drives and Times Square Plus ready to inferface.
First, let me reply to LD.
1) I will go with Storey and Director on this one. They are basically the same; however, in common usage, one thinks of a review as intended for an audience, while a critique is only intended for the author. In most other respects, they will contain the same sorts of information.
2) The only universal guideline to follow with a review is that the reviewer attempt to be objective; however, reviews are not written in a vacuum. They are written for specific audiences and under the guiding hand of whatever the publisher wants. A reviewer writing a review of Book X for the Huntsville Times may have radically different guidelines than Tangent Online. As such, it is incumbent upon the reviewer to imply or explicitly state what those guidelines are (not necessarily in the article, but somewhere readily accessible). This ensures that you know what you’re getting into with a particular review. This also allows authors to discount reviews that don’t matter to them. For example, an author could get a story reviewed by both Maxim magazine and by the Oprah Book Club. Well, Maxim’s reviewer might like the story, but Oprah might hate it. They might both have good arguments, but if the author is generally anti-Oprah, then the author probably doesn’t care that the average Oprah devotee won’t like the story.
3) Ethics? Moral Boundaries? A Secret Master craves not these…
Seriously, there are few ethics questions when it comes to reviews. The most important is that honesty be maintained. This doesn’t just mean being honest about ones opinion. It may also be as important as not misquoting/making up anything about the piece, or doing something similar with regards to the author. Such behavior is inappropriate, but I would be surprised to see it occur in any reputable publication. A secondary consideration would be that the reviewer refrain from engaging in logically fallacious reasoning in the review. Personal attacks (for the sake of being personal) are particularly inappropriate, as are attempts to grade a story by intentionally using the wrong criteria. (It is, however, reasonable to make personal attacks after having concluded that the work in question is terrible. It is also rather mean, but not fallacious.)
4) I hate to say it, but since literature, like all art, involves human interaction at a deeply personal level, almost any review of said literature is bound to be personal; as such, your question is stupid and lowbrow and I refuse to answer it…
However, now that I have deliberately misconstrued what you have said LD, I’ll go one to discuss what makes something personal.
What I just wrote could be an example of something malicious
if I really know what LD is talking about in his question. By misconstruing it, and then making LD seem like a simpleton, and by publishing it, I am making indirect personal attacks on his character. What makes a review, or elements of review, personal? It becomes personal when the focus shifts from the story to the author. Period. Any good reviewer is going to spend 99% of the time talking about the piece, not the author. Note that being personal works both ways. You can make personal attacks, or you can make personal atta-boys. Both work against the legitimacy of a review. (i.e. if Oprah reviewed LD’s story, and spent an hour discussing what a great guy he is, then she is not doing a good review of the story because she is too personal in her review)
In response to Director:
Good fantasy is GOOD in the sense that good WRITING is good. Bad science fiction is just as cliched and wretched, I think….
Good writing works - I'd read Asimov if he rewrote the phone book
I agree completely, although I’d want Asimov to flesh out the story arc of the phonebook a bit before publishing.
You bring up a point that is often forgotten, whether around here or elsewhere. In most cases, a setting only gives us a flavor for the writing, not the quality of it. You can sit three authors down to write three fantasy novels (or science fiction, or AARs about Burgundy) and the quality will not be determined by the setting. It will be determined by each author’s ability to write well. Now, this is not to say that any author can write any kind of fiction well. Some folks are better suited to writing a particular brand of fiction than others. I hesitate to think of how badly Tolkien would write, say, a William Gibson cyberpunk epic. Does this make Tolkien a bad author? Nope. It just means that’s not his style. For a homework exercise, try imagining the greatest authors of history writing each other’s works. (i.e. Milton writing Bleak House or Shakespeare writing The Divine Comedy)
In response to stnylan:
What is the difference between a fantasy story, and a story that is fantastical?
Aha! You took the bait. And I agree with a lot you have to say about plots and whatnot.
One thing that I subscribe to in my analysis of fiction is that a story is a fantasy by virtue of its structure, not its setting.
A setting can be Fantastical, but the structure of a story can only be a Fantasy. Let me explain.
Setting is, of course, nothing more than the reality inhabited by your characters. The setting/reality might include dragons, cyborgs, bitchy mother-in-laws, Super Wal-Mart, a virtual reality Net, sorceresses, steam powered robots, sexy vampires, or even polytheistic gods walking among mortals. Some of these elements of setting are commonly found in Fantasy stories, but, with the exception of mother-in-laws and Super Wal-Mart, they are all fantastic elements. That is, they are outside the actual reality we inhabit. Yet, the mere presence of dragons, sorceresses, and polytheistic gods walking among mortals does not constitute a Fantasy story. They could, for example, be a part of a Homerian epic or a Greek tragedy. In fact, dragons, sorceresses, and polytheistic gods can be found in either the Illiad, the Odyssey, or the play Medea, none of which are fantasy stories. As such, we may say that these elements of setting are fantastical.
A fantasy, on the other hand, requires a certain plot structure. You should have a morally upright protagonist who is heroic, who comes from modest or lower means, who is dragged unwittingly into earth shattering events that shape the fate of the larger world. The protagonist might have a mentor who is both wise and powerful; yet the mentor, for whatever reason, cannot shape the events of the world like the protagonist. A rite of passage must be undertaken and completed, which equips/prepares the protagonist for the epic struggle. The antagonist must be moderately or completely evil, and his/her/its plans must include evil to be inflicted upon a large scale. The villain must also have some sort of invulnerability or superpower that makes him/her/it difficult to destroy. Through either strength or guile, the protagonist defeats various henchmen, allied evils, or third-party evils, and faces down the antagonist. With strength or guile, the protagonist either personally dispatches the antagonist or, in some cases, renders him/her/it vulnerable to the predations of others. After a final, large scale, battle, victory is had by the protagonist and his friends. The protagonist is rewarded with gold, jewels, enlightenment, land, magic powers, or whatever else is appropriate in scale. The protagonist then lives happily ever after, until the next time he must do battle with evil.
Does any of this sound familiar? It should. It’s the plot structure to The Hobbit, LOtR, and Star Wars (just to name a precious few). I know, I know, some of you might be thinking “But Star Wars isn’t a fantasy. It’s science fiction/space opera.” Hmm, let’s put George Lucas to the test, then, and see if he scores high on the “fantasy story” criterion.
Star Wars: Episode IV, A New Hope
It is a dark time for the Rebellion… yada, yada, yada.
Our protagonist is Luke Skywalker. He is a simple farmer on some backwater planet. He can expect very little or anything exciting to happen in his life until two droids show up. Thanks to their interference, Luke is forced onto the path of the hero. The evil Darth Vader has his family killed, in addition to killing a lot of people in scenes prior to this, setting him up as the antagonist. With the aid of his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke sets out to save the galaxy. A premature encounter with the Death Star causes him to lose his mentor, but he grows up and becomes stronger as a result. Luke makes contact with the Rebel Alliance and they hatch a scheme to destroy the invulnerable Death Star. If they do not, the Death Star will be used to kill billions of people. Because Luke managed to save the droids, he has given the Alliance the keys to defeating the Death Star. In a frenzied battle in space, Luke draws upon his mentor’s teachings to destroy the Death Star and defeat the evil Darth Vader. After doing so, Luke is a bona fide hero and he earns prestige and status as his reward. He lives happily ever after, until the sequel comes out.
Perhaps it doesn’t get a perfect score, but it scores very high, and never once did I mention light sabers or The Force. Neither of these elements make Star Wars a high fantasy story (though they are fun). It’s all in the structure.
Now, for maximum fun, let’s try the reverse. I’m going to radically change the setting for The Hobbit, and let’s see if it still makes the grade. I will remove all the fantastical elements from it and make it as mundane as possible.
The Hobbit: A high fantasy tale
Bilbo Baggins is a short, chubby suburbanite living in the suburbs of Hobbiton. He lives a quiet life, working in a cubicle by day and eating extravagant meals at night. One day, he meets up with the mysterious Mr. Gandalf. Mr. Gandalf wears a black suit, with a black tie and white shirt. He wears black sunglasses, and seems to know quite a bit about Bilbo. He has no visible means of support, yet he is known to wander around the city, often stopping in the suburb of Hobbiton. Mr. Gandalf asks for Bilbo’s help. It seems a group of indigenous people, known as Dwarves, are trying to retake their ancestral homeland, known in their native tongue as “The Lonely Mountain”. The problem is that the notorious crime lord Smaug “The Dragon” uses their land to manufacture and deal drugs. They need his help, since the citizens of Hobbiton are well known for being crafty, witty, and sneaky (though not malicious). Bilbo refuses to help at first, but when Mr. Gandalf invites the Dwarves over to Bilbo’s house anyway, Bilbo gets carried along a wonderful adventure.
Along the road to The Lonely Mountain, Bilbo and the Dwarves visit Elrond and other rich tycoons in the Rivendel section of town. They must also pass through the street gang infested, burned out tenements known as the Misty Mountains, where the Goblin gang almost kills them. Bilbo, through “Hobbit Trickery,” also manages to steal a camouflage sneak suit, that makes him virtually invisible, from the notorious crack head Gollum. At various times during the adventure, Mr. Gandalf appears to lend aid or advice, yet he always goes his own way shortly thereafter (probably on errands for his nameless government agency). Upon arriving at The Lonely Mountain, Bilbo sneaks into the headquarters of “The Dragon” and sees all of his ill-gotten possessions. Smaug has a high tech security system, which allows him to detect Bilbo’s presence, though not see him. Bilbo engages the crime lord in a dialog, and the vanity of Smaug is such that he inadvertently reveals the weak spot in his personal body armor, which heretofore has made him immune to assassination. Bilbo reveals this information to the Dwarves, but Smaug has become angry and is going on a killing spree in and around his neighborhood. The local beat cop Bard, acting on Bilbo’s information, shoots Smaug through the weak spot in his body armor, ending his reign of terror.
All is not over, though, because with the death of the crime lord, other unsavory groups such as the Goblins and the Orcs want to take over the turf. A gangland style war ensues, which ultimately results in the defeat of the Orcs and Goblins. Bilbo takes his share of the crime lord’s wealth and retires back to Hobbiton to write a best selling novel…
That is, until the darker aspects of the sneak suit become evident in his psychology and physiology, resulting in a new story involving Bilbo’s nephew and the fight of the Free World against Communism.
It’s still a fantasy story, but the magic, elves, and dragons are replaced by greedy drug lords, rich tycoons, and high tech items that would almost be believable.
Stnylan, you said something else that I wanted to comment on:
So really, for me, the question is slightly odd because it seems to supposes a difference between RPG and writing I do not see.
I would agree with you; however, many do not. Case in point: the reviewer of LD’s story drew a comparison between LD’s story and D&D. It was an unfavorable comparison, meant to disparage his writing. Yet, I could not help but think “Gee, all of the best RPGs are based on genres of literature.” D&D is supposed to allow you to role play stories along the lines of high fantasy. Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse are storytelling games based on romantic vampire fiction and tribal legends, respectively. Cyberpunk 2020 let’s you role play Bruce Sterling or William Gibson types of stories.
Personally, I have no idea if LD even knows what an RPG is, much less having played D&D specifically. (I suspect he has some RPG experience, but what kind is open to speculation.) Yet, if such elements are present in his writing, we shouldn’t ask whether or not it feels like D&D. We should instead ask if such elements work for the story in question.
Whew, that was a long rant. And I even cut some stuff out. Feel free to review, I mean critique, any part of this.