As a “white cishet” woman, I have found most doors shut to me. Women have always struggled to get published, and while there are now a lot of women getting published, there are reams more men. And one reason I struggle? Most of my protagonists are females – uppity females at that, who dare to be things like scientists and journalists and other “male” fields.
But forget that…some trans person might have trouble getting published, so it must be because they are trans (I presume the “allocishet” was the key phrase here, and white was just thrown in because we have to point out that these “other” people who are tormenting us are whtie…if that picture is Hillary, looks pretty white to me).
it is damn difficult to find a publisher, or an agent, no matter what color, sex, gender, race, or creed you are. Yes, marginalized people have it more difficult. But we have to be realistic – it might not be that people aren’t publishing trans views. It may just be that they aren’t publishing you. I have had agents tell me they loved my writing, but wouldn’t touch it, because I write literary fiction, which tends to have a smaller market than genre fiction and formulaic writing.
1) Allosexual is a term used most commonly in the asexual community to refer to someone who is not asexual.
Someone who is allosexual is someone who experiences sexual attraction.
2) The opposite of asexuality, allosexuality is a term used when someone experiences a ‘typical’ amount of sexual attraction, to a level which is considered normal by society.
3) Sexual attraction to an Allosaurus.
But ‘not asexual’ is a double negative. A prefix defined as the opposite of a negative prefix. So yet another po-faced bullshit word for a concept that already has a word and has no need of a prefix, just like woman does not need cis.
#3 is misguided; the best dinosaurs were the ankylosaurs.
…they loved my writing, but wouldn’t touch it, because I write literary fiction…
I had to google literary fiction because I had questions. It didn’t help right away but then I hit on thinking of it like “prog rock” in music, possibly aided by the fact I’m listening to a streaming prog concert right now.
Mike @4: There seem to be some evolving meanings for the word such that some things are now called literary fiction that never were in the past, but…I didn’t know what I wrote until my librarian husband was able to define it for me.
It basically is a form of general fiction (no particular genre) that is somewhat less prosaic. Tends toward longer words, longer sentences, longer paragraphs…written for a more literary audience. At least, that’s how librarians use it. I think it’s evolving a lot to encompass almost anything that isn’t genre fiction, but that becomes confusing.
The difference between literary fiction and genre fiction is rather stark, so it gives a good gist of the terms. On the literary side of science fiction, we have something like Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, an extremely dense tetralogy that requires a rather large amount of mental work from a reader. On the genre side, we have the Warhammer 40k novels, which tie into the tabletop war game of the same name.
It’s a matter of intended audience. Literary fiction targets the person who reads carefully and intentionally. Genre fiction targets the person who buys something at the airport shop just to have something to do on the flight.
Nullius, literary fiction doesn’t have to be dense and hard work to read, though. It can be entertaining and easy to follow, but you might need a somewhat larger vocabulary. Oh, wait, I guess that last does somewhat limit it, doesn’t it?
Everything you’re saying even though I have no reference sounds exactly like prog rock in contemporary music. I have never heard of any of those authors or works, so I’ll just say Enchant and Spock’s Beard and District 97. :^)
For personal use (as opposed to how libraries classify) I prefer to divide into good and bad. Fiction can be popularish and still be well written, while a lot of “literary” fiction can feature way too much description of what he did with his cigarette and what she did with her drink and then what he did with his hamburger and what she did with her salad and blah blah blah – a weird insistence on detailing a lot of humdrum actions by way of breaking up the dialogue or giving a sense of realism or some such shit. It’s a bad habit and I wish “literary” writers would stop doing it.
That’s why I prefer David Baldacci to Salman Rushdie, John Le Carre to Patrick White. I read fiction for entertainment, not erudition. I get enough of that from the non-fiction I read.
I read “allosexual” as similar to “allopathic medicine”, which is a retronym to refer to plain old science-based modern medicine in order to distinguish it from naturopathic, osteopathic, chiropractic, homeopathic, etc. “medicine”. Thus, “allosexual” sounds to me like plain old “sexual”.
I gathered that that is what it means – it’s in opposition to “asexual” the way “cis” is to “trans” – so being asexual is a form of oppression while allosexual is privilege.
Roj @ 11 – for me the opposition isn’t so much erudition v entertainment as self-consciously Arteesteek writing v good writing. It’s entirely possible to combine erudition with good writing, and for the combination to be entertaining as well as other things.
It seems to me that a lot of literary fiction is self-consciously so. It needs to come naturally, and not be worked at to make it sound high-flown and intellectual. I think that often comes through when I read good literary fiction vs bad literary fiction. Sometimes you realize it’s just the way the author thinks and talks, and the people around them think and talk, and then it’s natural and not forced. Some people work very hard to get that literary aspect in there, and a lot of times it will sound stilted and pretentious.
As for that excess detail, I have a friend who does that. She does a lot of research for her historical fiction novels, and then puts everything in it, so in one scene she might detail the exact steps of the manicure someone is giving another person – she did this to the nails, then that to the nails – which has no bearing on the story. I edited one of her books for her. It was painful…especially since she wouldn’t accept any suggestions to remove any of that. I focused on punctuation and spelling (which were a big enough problem) and getting modifiers in the wrong places.
As a “white cishet” woman, I have found most doors shut to me. Women have always struggled to get published, and while there are now a lot of women getting published, there are reams more men. And one reason I struggle? Most of my protagonists are females – uppity females at that, who dare to be things like scientists and journalists and other “male” fields.
But forget that…some trans person might have trouble getting published, so it must be because they are trans (I presume the “allocishet” was the key phrase here, and white was just thrown in because we have to point out that these “other” people who are tormenting us are whtie…if that picture is Hillary, looks pretty white to me).
it is damn difficult to find a publisher, or an agent, no matter what color, sex, gender, race, or creed you are. Yes, marginalized people have it more difficult. But we have to be realistic – it might not be that people aren’t publishing trans views. It may just be that they aren’t publishing you. I have had agents tell me they loved my writing, but wouldn’t touch it, because I write literary fiction, which tends to have a smaller market than genre fiction and formulaic writing.
I’m a bit curious what would cause someone to say that.
Urbandictionary to the rescue:
Allo: The abbreviated form of allosexual.
Allosexual:
1) Allosexual is a term used most commonly in the asexual community to refer to someone who is not asexual.
Someone who is allosexual is someone who experiences sexual attraction.
2) The opposite of asexuality, allosexuality is a term used when someone experiences a ‘typical’ amount of sexual attraction, to a level which is considered normal by society.
3) Sexual attraction to an Allosaurus.
But ‘not asexual’ is a double negative. A prefix defined as the opposite of a negative prefix. So yet another po-faced bullshit word for a concept that already has a word and has no need of a prefix, just like woman does not need cis.
#3 is misguided; the best dinosaurs were the ankylosaurs.
I had to google literary fiction because I had questions. It didn’t help right away but then I hit on thinking of it like “prog rock” in music, possibly aided by the fact I’m listening to a streaming prog concert right now.
They’re also using two terms that define sexuality… If you’re asexual you sure as hell aren’t heterosexual…
Mike @4: There seem to be some evolving meanings for the word such that some things are now called literary fiction that never were in the past, but…I didn’t know what I wrote until my librarian husband was able to define it for me.
It basically is a form of general fiction (no particular genre) that is somewhat less prosaic. Tends toward longer words, longer sentences, longer paragraphs…written for a more literary audience. At least, that’s how librarians use it. I think it’s evolving a lot to encompass almost anything that isn’t genre fiction, but that becomes confusing.
The difference between literary fiction and genre fiction is rather stark, so it gives a good gist of the terms. On the literary side of science fiction, we have something like Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, an extremely dense tetralogy that requires a rather large amount of mental work from a reader. On the genre side, we have the Warhammer 40k novels, which tie into the tabletop war game of the same name.
It’s a matter of intended audience. Literary fiction targets the person who reads carefully and intentionally. Genre fiction targets the person who buys something at the airport shop just to have something to do on the flight.
Nullius, literary fiction doesn’t have to be dense and hard work to read, though. It can be entertaining and easy to follow, but you might need a somewhat larger vocabulary. Oh, wait, I guess that last does somewhat limit it, doesn’t it?
Everything you’re saying even though I have no reference sounds exactly like prog rock in contemporary music. I have never heard of any of those authors or works, so I’ll just say Enchant and Spock’s Beard and District 97. :^)
For personal use (as opposed to how libraries classify) I prefer to divide into good and bad. Fiction can be popularish and still be well written, while a lot of “literary” fiction can feature way too much description of what he did with his cigarette and what she did with her drink and then what he did with his hamburger and what she did with her salad and blah blah blah – a weird insistence on detailing a lot of humdrum actions by way of breaking up the dialogue or giving a sense of realism or some such shit. It’s a bad habit and I wish “literary” writers would stop doing it.
Yes OB. Yes Yes Yes.
That’s why I prefer David Baldacci to Salman Rushdie, John Le Carre to Patrick White. I read fiction for entertainment, not erudition. I get enough of that from the non-fiction I read.
Gee, I was guessing that ‘allo-sexual’ was in opposition to ‘homeo-sexual.’
I read “allosexual” as similar to “allopathic medicine”, which is a retronym to refer to plain old science-based modern medicine in order to distinguish it from naturopathic, osteopathic, chiropractic, homeopathic, etc. “medicine”. Thus, “allosexual” sounds to me like plain old “sexual”.
I gathered that that is what it means – it’s in opposition to “asexual” the way “cis” is to “trans” – so being asexual is a form of oppression while allosexual is privilege.
eyerolling emoji here
Roj @ 11 – for me the opposition isn’t so much erudition v entertainment as self-consciously Arteesteek writing v good writing. It’s entirely possible to combine erudition with good writing, and for the combination to be entertaining as well as other things.
It seems to me that a lot of literary fiction is self-consciously so. It needs to come naturally, and not be worked at to make it sound high-flown and intellectual. I think that often comes through when I read good literary fiction vs bad literary fiction. Sometimes you realize it’s just the way the author thinks and talks, and the people around them think and talk, and then it’s natural and not forced. Some people work very hard to get that literary aspect in there, and a lot of times it will sound stilted and pretentious.
As for that excess detail, I have a friend who does that. She does a lot of research for her historical fiction novels, and then puts everything in it, so in one scene she might detail the exact steps of the manicure someone is giving another person – she did this to the nails, then that to the nails – which has no bearing on the story. I edited one of her books for her. It was painful…especially since she wouldn’t accept any suggestions to remove any of that. I focused on punctuation and spelling (which were a big enough problem) and getting modifiers in the wrong places.