Hello readers, and long time no see,
I find myself with an additional amount of time on my hands, which, under recent circumstances, is unusual. You see, I just finished writing the last words for my four-book series, Symphony. The ending is pleasing, has a nice amount of round-aboutness, and those who follow along on Patreon have seemed to enjoy it.
Nice
Then, with my rarefied free time I hop onto Reddit and see this appear in my feed.
I have to admit, it was a real kick in the pants.
You see, I’m a LitRPG author. I didn’t start out that way. Oh no, I started out dreaming of a boy, soon to become a man, traveling through a deadly forest on his way to a horrifying realization. Basic fantasy, with a light dash of what I’ve come to learn is called grimdark tendencies.
Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, and violent.-Wikipedia
But then, as I finished my degree in English, a dream of mine since I was in the fifth grade, and began teaching in a Texas high school classroom, I discovered LitRPG. A random book caught my eye. The Wandering Inn. It sounded pleasant, interesting, and I hadn’t seen a cover like that in a long time. I knew waiting for the next Rothfuss and Martin books were going to take a while, so I dove in.
IT. Was. Fucking. Amazing.
Not at the start, no. Everyone knows the start of the Wandering Inn is bad. Bad, Bad. But the rest of it is glorious. Single-handedly the best character writing I’ve ever come upon. And you’ve gotta understand just how much of a nerd I am. During my thirteen years in college (4 degrees, so suck it), I’ve read thousands of books. Fantasy, Thriller, Horror, Science Fiction, Plays, Autobiographies, so on and so on. Still the best to this day.
Then, at the end, PirateABA talked about being a LitRPG author, which led me to discover a place called Royal Road, and the outstanding writing being done there. In the five or six’ish years I’ve been a member, the genre’s exploded. So, rather than write about my standard fantasy story with light grimdark edges, I decided to dive into the whole of LitRPG feet first and eyes wide open.
Then I got followers.
Then I got a publishing deal.
Then I finished my first book series.
Then I see that god damn reddit post on the same day.
So, here’s my rejection letter to all of those who believe they can pigeonhole what literature is.
In the late 1800s, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of my favorite poets, stated that a gothic novel written by Matthew Gregory Lewis had no literary value. While it was likely far too sexual for its time, it was one of the first books within the Horror genre, and has inspired countless stories, plays, and films since its release.
Source: Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Review of The Monk by Matthew Lewis”. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 8th ed. Vol. D.Ed. Stephen *Greenblatt and M. H. Abrams. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. Print.
In the early 1900s, detective stories were considered a guilty pleasure. Writing that fits a “Read for the fire, not to impress the choir” style. Specifically, the linked article below states that there are two kinds of novels, Genre fiction and Literary fiction. It also poses the idea that modernity has removed the distinction between the two.
Source: New Yorker Link
H.P. Lovecraft’s work was dismissed as both bad taste and bad art. Ignored largely until long after his death, Lovecraft was posthumously awarded a Hugo Award for best series and inducted into the Museum of Pop Culture’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.
Source: Wikipedia (further sources at the bottom)
In the 1950s, J.R.R. Tolkien, Founder and master of High Fantasy in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (which Grammarly just fixed in a typo, which tells you something), received many critical reviews for his series. It was called too childish, overly whimsical, and lacking the animating freedom of true adventure.
Source: Wikipedia (further sources at the bottom)
Naturally, there are far, far more of the above critical receptions and gatekeeping that I can place here, but for now, I’ll stop. Instead, I’ll place the following paywalled link to Ursula K. Le Guin’s response to the “ghettoism” of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Link: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/the-golden-age-5
In other words, it’s old news. Because it is. At what point do people think to themselves, “This is new, and I don’t like it, so let’s put Baby in the corner.”
Look below, that search took me all of a few seconds to find.
It brings up a valid point, one that helps prove my own, even if a quick read will tell another person that it’s hurting my arguement.
LitRPG is just starting.
It’s been around for a few years, maybe ten or fifteen as a “genre”. Yes, books have come before that held LitRPG elements, but were never identified as such. They were fantasy or Science Fiction, and that’s fine.
But they didn’t have contemporaries pushing the field. Pressing the fruit into the juicer, hoping for that special squeeze that brings about a satisfying conclusion or a greater theme. Something that elevates the genre to another level. Something that says Hey, you must read this.
Recently, and as has been all over the LitRPG headlines, both Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl and Andrew K. Rowe’s How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps have received traditional (note: Trad) publishing deals. Solo Leveling has become an anime. The Beginning After the End has a manga (weird level of hate for that).
The LitRPG world is flourishing with new stories, every, single, day. Constantly, new and inventive authors are pushing the field to higher levels, with many like myself gaining publishing deals from forward thinking organizations. Everyday, new readers are discovering the genre, and diving into the written word like they never have before.
Who are they, in that reddit post, to gatekeep the literature world? Who are they to say that LitRPG isn’t literature? (I won’t point out what LitRPG means)
One last point here, as this post is long enough. George Orwell has something to say. He wrote an essay in 1945 titled, “Good Bad Books” which can be read here for free Link.
Specifically, Orwell, who is considered a master storyteller the world over, stated that the books that you enjoy, that really sink into you and affect your psyche, are often a good bad book. They make you want to leap up and shout, to be read over and over again, because they’re un-pretentious. They’re often unrefined and flawed, but in a great way.
They connect with the reader, deeply and emotionally. They call you back when you’re down and want the comfort of an old friend. They don’t care about their own literary merit, and neither should the reader, but still, here we are.
So my last point is this. In a world where the average American’s reading level is at the 7th and 8th grade, do you really want to spend your time telling them that there are certain books that aren’t literary enough for them?
Books that directly connect their minds to video games (61% of the U.S. are gamers).
I just don’t see the +1 wisdom in it.
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