Why Is Modern Fiction So Weak?

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[abletobeconfused]

We’re in a cultural moment of celebrating mediocrity and abandoning ambition

[themanipulator]

As an avid male reader in my early 30s, I find myself reading things almost exclusively published in the 20th century. Everything from fantasy, science fiction to historical fiction feel much richer and more engaging than contemporary titles (with a few exceptions if course).
But without a doubt, pickings are slimmer than they once were.

[theoldgods]

Fiction is one of the cornerstones of the entertainment industry. The genre being taken over and decimated by untalented hacks is the reason why every other medium is scraping the bottom of the barrel today.

[msudoc]

A big problem is authors writing about themselves and their personal struggles, not realizing how freaking boring they are.

[qZbGmYjSQusYqv]

"Cool" literature was boomers and GenX rebelling against the old rules. They won. After that everybody became cool and hip. Then with the influx of the millennial hipster authors came self-victimization and mediocrity. Being "cool" wasn't cool anymore

[katyty]

It's not only unappealing to men, but to many of us women too. Whiny, "trauma-informed", polite narrative book after book is boring!

[InternetHydra]

Turns out low-imagination npcs trying to wrap every genre and franchise around their own petty issues doesn't make for good fiction or public appeal much less both, and that flooding entertainment industries with such and not allowing anything else to exist diminishes the industry.

[charge]

Kind of ironic how so many books these days have "facing away" cover art, given how many people face away from reading them

[LittlePhizDorrit]

As a tutor, I teach reading and writing. One day a couple of weeks ago, one of my students, a 9 year old boy, said he hated reading because all the books our school had were about boys being dumb. He was regularly reading formula series books, e.g. magic treehouse, time warp trio, etc. and he was right. Each story featured a set of kids, at least one boy and one girl, and the boys were. ALWAYS dumb. The girls had all the knowledge, or made all the plans, (this is even true in Harry Potter, where Harry never has agency or knowledge, it's Hermione; it's hardly surprising that all these books/series are written by women). And there were no stories for boys by men. When my student made this comment I just looked at him sadly and said, "try looking for some older books, books from the 80s or earlier are better".

[Nick-jjlt]

I like how people criticize men and their "toxic masculinity" but then make a story with a woman with exactly those traits and celebrate it.

[ezes.]

Why should I worry about modern literature when there is more than a hundred years worth of great books to read and reread?

[old_toucs]

At 7:45. Hilarious. Nearly every book my wife reads revolves around a young woman who finds love while solving a crime and/or running a cafe in Cornwall.

[peskylisa]

It's been horribly uncool for us women as well! Why does EVERYTHING have to be a hypersexual sob story?

[vagabond]

I cried through the entire "Looking away, " bit. Thanks for the laughs. I must now go apologize to my neighbors for my noise transgression...

[jf_knows_nothing]

Being a victim is so annoying. There’s no hero’s anymore.

[ruikirisame]

something needs to be said about how indrustries go "yay women! wooo! we love women" and they have the same stoic, uncaring, independant and strong protagonist in almost every show, movie or book and women are either none the wiser or completely okay with it. it's like the "we're all individuals" scene from life of brian.

edit: candide is right actually. fuck it we ball

[EndingSimple]

We went from being people who did things to being people who watched things. Books are now a copy of what everybody has already seen. Boring.

The women all facing away are Mary Sues. Their faces are not showing so that the reader can image themselves being that character.

[maggiem]

As an author and comic author and a reader, myself, it's not just a male perspective that is fed up with the sanitized, heart-saturated, overly make-nice world of publication. _I hate it._ When I was a kid looking to escape and throw myself into adventure and think-pieces, I _dreamed_ of someday standing amongst giants, and starting public arguments for the soul of a work or the minds of readers. None of that is present in today's publishing. Companies aren't honest about the tastes of readers, writers don't write with honesty and thought, readers are either alienated or mindlessly consuming.

Here, I have left my mother and come upon the field of battle to find the fight is over, the soldiers are all buried, and the blood rots the dirt beneath my feet.

[Schunn]

I remember I was in a writers group for many years where we were all developing our own novels. The group was led by a woman and mostly composed of other women.

I was one of two men in the group (the other so happened to be gay), and was the only one writing a fantasy novel, the rest were writing introspective melodrama. While none were ever hostile to me, most of the feedback I got was related to my writing not having enough “deep dives” on how the characters are feeling or they seem to shake off their traumas fairly easily. My advice to my colleagues was often related to issues of their characters lacking rational thought or not being active enough to change their circumstances. Looking back, I was definitely the odd one out in terms of temperament and style.

I remember one lady saying she liked how masculine my work was. I wish I’d asked her to elaborate further on what she meant.

[mudcrab]

8:50 - Angels of the Pacific by Elise Hooper

Sorry Echo. Hate to go full Trevor on you, but that woman is not facing away while saluting fighter planes in the sky.

She is facing away saluting GERMAN Arado Ar 96 two seat trainers. If you get a better copy you can even see the 'artist' didn't even bother to remove the German crosses from the fuselage. A reasonably popular and successful aircraft but never exported outside of central Europe.

Well done everyone.