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When I started reading TG stories on the web many years ago every story I read was interesting since I had never read stories with TG protagonists before. Finally someone I could identify with who was dealing with things that mattered to me.
After a decade or so this identification is still important so I still read TG stories but now the story has to provide something beyond the mere basics - the tropes of TG fiction such as self-discovery, the process of acquiring the clothes and paraphernalia, the salon experience, the shopping trip, the talk with the parents, the visit to the shrink... You know the list.
I now believe that in order to please long-time readers such as myself there are three main ways to make a TG story interesting.
The first one is conflict. Isaac Asimov wrote his first robot story where he introduced the concept of the three laws of robotics. The story was like a utopia of how wonderful robots could be - they were used as babysitters and the children fell in love with them, etc (It's been a while since I read these so I'm fuzzy on the details). The publisher published the story but wrote a letter back advising Isaac that "Here are the three laws of Science Fiction Publishing: A story must contain conflict; A story must contain conflict; A story must contain conflict".
We have seen a row of stories lately that contain no conflict. The protagonist transitions and everything runs as if on rails. This is how we want it to be, and it could be argued that in several places and countries this is indeed roughly how things often happen. These stories serve the purpose of informing newcomers and those hesitating to transition how things are, should be, and/or could be. To oldtimers, such stories can be rather boring. But the flipside is that if the story contains too much strife and hardship it can become an upsetting read. Sometimes this is exactly what I want, but not always. If every transition was difficult in a million ways we'd be doing the readers - especially those hesitating to transition - a disservice.
The second way is Great storytelling. I love witty dialogue, a rich internal (mental) monologue, and detailed and colorful exposition. If you are a great storyteller you could write about your shopping list and we'd love to read it. But this is hard to pull off. Not everyone has the sense of humor, life experience or writing experience that this requires.
The third way is to place a TG protagonist in an interesting situation and show how they deal with it. It's been said that "Good Science Fiction is good fiction". Same here - a good TG story should be interesting and fun to read even if the protagonist hadn't been TG; Bonus points if the author can make the TG element relevant to the story without overwhelming it. These are now my favorite kinds of stories and my favorite authors often do exactly this. This kind of story requires coming up with the idea for the interesting situation and/or may require extensive research. Note that the story need not even be about transition; I've enjoyed stories where the transition happens in the first chapter and then is hardly ever mentioned again.
It would be my guess that beginning authors tend to write autobiographical stories based loosely on their own experience and then move on to the wishful thinking transition-on-rails stories for a while. If they grow as authors they might start insisting on coming up with the idea of an interesting situation before writing another one, in effect insisting on varying their output. And finally, they grow to be great storytellers and can now write about whatever they please.
- Moni
Comments
Conflict?
I don't claim to be anything other than a story-teller, I leave others to decide if that is good, bad or indifferent. Most of my stories contain humorous dialogue - well I think it so; they also contain conflict - from squabbles with parents/siblings/lovers; to internal conflict; to physical violence with lethal force. I'm also aware that even with the best planning, things go wrong - it happens in life and is reflected in what I write. Shit happens - whether my writing is shit, is up to the opinion and taste of the reader.
Angharad
Angharad
One of the things I especially like about BCTS
is that I can learn how to be a better writer. I will try to feed my muse on a regular diet of 'Good Science Fiction is Good Fiction'.
I should try harder to introduce some variation to my writing. As someone recently told me, "A walk in the park can get quite boring."
Finally, I should try to write a good story, which would stand alone without the TG element; that should add to the story, not carry it. Much of Tanya Allan's work is just such.
Thank you very much, Moni, for your very helpful thoughts. it is you, as a reader, who ultimately determines how well our work is received.
As an afterthought, I don't write stories involving children, magic, supernatural, horror, science fiction or fantasy. This is not because I don't appreciate them (e.g. I thought that 'Unicorn's Gift', 'Magic of Love' and 'Susie and Jeffery' were/are outstanding); it's just that I don't think that I would do a very good job, and my muse isn't wired that way!
Susie
Absolute unthinkable life ending horror !
My first stories happened initially because I had taken a writing class with my wife to help her along, and be supportive. I wrote most of her college essays and things. She is marvelously intelligent, but due to her early experiences, was quite poor at writing. Now she has moved on to become a very widly recognized health professional.
I think I actually published my first story on Storysite around 2000-1, and at that time I was absolutely terrorized by what seemed to be a very unwanted passage, "on rails" straignt to hell. I felt that what I was being sucked into was absolutely evil, yet I seemed to have no power to alter my path.
Approaching 10 years later, I somehow missed most of the wish fulfillment with the exception of "Natural Slave" which was actually my very strong desire to have someone hold me and tell me that it was going to be alright. I would have paid almost any price to have that one person in my life. It may still be so, but I haven't the heart to even hope it any longer. We do eventually have to accomodate reality don't we?
"Hala's Snow Day" was a sharp departure from the usual fare, and some did not realize that it was actually TG, but that the T part had taken, in my view, it's righful place in the tapestry of normal life. I think most made women just want to get on with an entirely normal life.
The "Katia" story I am working on now is an excercise to write something really violent just to see if I can do it. Is it some sort of psychological catharsis? God, I hope not!
Khadija
FWIW...
There was conflict in Asimov's Robbie (aka Strange Playfellow) -- the mother, Asimov's first Frankenstein Complex sufferer, couldn't stand leaving her kid alone with a robot, made her husband take it back, and tried to substitute a puppy. I think it's hardly a spoiler at this point more than 60 years later to say that things work out fine for both the kid and the robot in the end, thanks to the father. (Not so much for the dog.) And the mother presumably is mollified somewhat by the climactic event.
Not that my saying that affects Moni's basic point. IMO, there are times (usually vignette-type stories) where one can get away without conflict, or with less conflict than one would normally want or expect: stories (usually SF or fantasy) where the concept is so novel that it can carry the story. But there aren't many, and a real-world situation rarely if ever falls into that category.
Another point perhaps worth mentioning is that conflict in a story doesn't necessarily require a villain or personal antagonist. A natural disaster, to give one example, can conceivably do the job without requiring one member of the rescue team to be a saboteur.
Something that bothers me more than a lack of conflict, BTW, is a story where everything is happening TO the protagonist, but he or she isn't showing any initiative at all, even though he or she isn't ignorant of the situation. (I've seen this in a number of TG stories on other sites.) It's sometimes surprisingly simple (yes, that's easy for me to say) to improve a story of that kind by focusing on the character who's behind the changes instead of the innocent victim/benefactor, even though the latter is usually the TG character.
Eric
So limiting
This topic, or one related to it, comes up every few months or year, and I think that those who feel this way are limiting themselves in what chose to read. Which is fine, I don't believe in arguing taste, but still I think they should be aware of what they are doing, and that they should once in a while try those other things. (I don't like beets, but I have many times tried a borscht that cooks I like have made.)
One part of the "lack of conflict" is the nature of the fantasy. You mentioned that, but the fantasy of being what you are goes beyond tg and is what a lot of readers are looking for. But do these happy tales really lack conflict? I think you're not looking under the right rocks sometimes. I think that often being allowed freedom is frightening in its self, and in that there is conflict for the protagonist. If the writer decides to show that conflict by having a sensitive friend give a hug, rather than an angst-y internal dialogue, that doesn't wipe out the conflict (and others at other times have complained about angst-y stories too.) I posted a series of epistolary things, one of the easy transformation and tolerance stories, and when the protagonist got frightened and looked for someone to blame for her new acceptance, it upset a number of readers.
Maybe you are right, and you have simply become sated with the memes of the genera, but don't blame that on the writers. And surely discovery and acceptance can be told of as wonderfully, and interestingly, and in as many varied ways, as another neo-thermonuclear intergalactic war. At least for me it can.
Here is the best short story ever written. I said that even before I heard that Harald Bloom and James Joyce had both said it, and we can't all three possibly be wrong. Sorry, it isn't sci-fi, and it doesn't even have any interpersonal conflict; some have even said it lacks a plot (oh, my). But it's still pretty good, I think it is what we all want to write (I know it is for me.) And here is another very good story with lots of soldiers, but no fights or even arguments, and all about fantasy and dreams.
Hugs, Jan
I think...
...you've perhaps best defined the "conflict" in those stories: discovery (both self-discovery and even discovery through the eyes of another). It is a combination of variations of the self-vs-self and self-vs-milieu conflict patterns, and does >not< necessitate an externally violent conflict. Nor does it require a great deal of angst. The size (small) and difficulty (not very) of the victories obtained in those stories does not really diminish their importance. Nor can they fairly be diminished as "guidelines to how we wish it would go". They may be fantasy, but what of it? They are happy. They are light. They uplift. They encourage. Just because one is "more advanced" doesn't make that sort of story less worthwhile, either. I hope >I< never outgrow the need for a hug from a friend when I'm sad.
-Liz
-Liz
Successor to the LToC
Formerly known as "momonoimoto"