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DargonZine |
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| Editorial | Ornoth D.A. Liscomb | |
| Dance of the Dead | Stuart Whitby | 5th Yuli, 1018 |
| "A Wizard in Vibril" | Charles F. Schweppe | Vibril 30, 1016 |
| Talisman Eight 2 | Dafydd Cyhoeddwr | Yuli 13, 1013 |
| Return to DargonZine Home Page | ||
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| DargonZine is the publication vehicle of the
Dargon Project, a collaborative group of aspiring fantasy writers on the
Internet. We welcome new readers and writers interested in joining the
project. Please address all correspondence to
<dargon@shore.net>
or visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.dargonzine.org/, or our FTP site at
ftp://users.primushost.com/members/d/a/dargon/.
Issues and public discussion are posted to newsgroup
rec.mag.dargon. DargonZine 14-8, ISSN 1080-9910, (C) Copyright November, 2001 by the Dargon Project. Editor: Ornoth D.A. Liscomb <ornoth@shore.net>, Assistant Editor: Jon Evans <godling@mnsinc.com>. All rights reserved. All rights are reassigned to the individual contributors. Stories and artwork appearing herein may not be reproduced or redistributed without the explicit permission of their creators, except in the case of freely reproducing entire issues for further distribution. Reproduction of issues or any portions thereof for profit is forbidden. |
f you've been on the Internet for a while, you'll know that it's
pretty normal for discussion groups to fall into philosophical debates
about abstract questions from time to time. DargonZine's writers are
just as liable to argue philosophy as any other group, but we recently
had a long discussion that I'd like to share with you, because it raised
some interesting questions and opinions about a particularly pernicious
topic that means a great deal to us: are we artists or not?
I think forms of expression like painting and architecture would
fall into most people's definition of "art", but we found ourselves
asking first whether any literature is art. Most, but definitely not
all, of us thought that made sense, but then we started talking about
what it is that makes one field qualify as art and another not. Is
poetry an art? Music? Dance? Perhaps. Are fashion designers artists? Are
interior designers? Could cooking be art? Or psychology? Advertising? Is
it not possible that teaching is a form of art? Or the practice of
politics? Law? Accounting? And above all, *why* are they (or are they
not) "art"?
This whole thread began when one of our contributors expressed that
he viewed his writing as more of an engineering task than an artistic
one. Other writers disagreed, but we all struggled to describe what
makes one activity art and another activity a craft, and which would
enable us to determine whether we were artists or not. In the end, we
just wound up with a half-dozen different definitions that each had
merits, but didn't encompass everything that art means to people.
However, our debate did wind up reinforcing DargonZine's mission, and
your role as readers in helping us achieve that mission.
Of course, we started with the oft quoted "art is the creation of
something from nothing" definition, but others went further afield. One
person defined art as the creation of something that could be
universally understood, while another contradicted that by saying that
artists are people "whose work I can never quite understand". One person
defined art as something that goes beyond what is necessary for the
creation of an object; another said it's something wherein one can
discern the creator's unique signature. And still another writer felt
that art is subjective, something which only is meaningful in the
context of use or interpretation by people.
In the end, that there were two prevalent opinions. One group of
people believe that art must have a sensory impact on a viewer, and that
writing, which is a mental exercise, didn't qualify; the other group
took a broader view, saying that all human activity can be a form of
artistic expression, which would include literature as well as many
other pursuits.
Those two contrasting ideas were mirrored in our opinions about
whether artistry is innate or learned. Half of us believe that although
the craft of writing can be taught, you can't learn the spark of
brilliance and inspiration that is creativity; meanwhile, the rest
espouse the egalitarian view that everyone is born with the potential to
incorporate art into our work, but that only some of us nurture it.
We spent a lot of time trying to understand the difference between
craft and art. The author who approached his writing as an engineering
task pointed out that writing uses basic, learnable skills to create
something. But anyone who has been to art school will confirm that much
of art is the learning of these structured, methodical, technical skills
whose results can be measured, tested, and enumerated. In that sense,
writing (and art) is like engineering, but is there anything more to
writing than just putting words together in the best way to make the
reader understand what the author is trying to say? Most of us think so.
So, are we, DargonZine's writers, artists or not? I'll leave you
with several quotes as representative samples of how we felt about the
question.
"Do I consider myself an 'artist'? Definitely not."
"I am an artist. An artist uses both craft and inspiration."
"I don't think anyone *has* to consider themselves an artist. I
don't, though I try like heck to be one ..."
"We are most emphatically artists one and all, in my opinion."
"Maybe I define 'art' as 'fine art', and I don't consider what I do
to have enough merit to fall into this category."
"We as writers *are* all artists, though we can suppress the *art*
of writing and approach it merely as work."
One of the definitions mentioned above asserted that art is
something that is subjective and that can only be evaluated in the
context of another person's reaction to it. While there's an objectively
measurable, technical craft to our proper use of grammar and spelling,
the vast majority of what we do as creative writers is indeed
subjective. We can't say that we did a great job at plot, imagery,
characterization, or tension without asking someone to give us his or
her opinion.
In the final analysis, because a "good" story is a subjective
judgment, the only way for us to measure how "good" our stories really
are is by showing our work to one another and to thoughtful readers like
you who are willing to give us feedback and honest reactions to our
work. That is the mission that DargonZine has pursued since it was
founded back in 1984, and it's the reason why this project has succeeded
and is on the verge of our 18th year online.
And that underscores how important your feedback is to us. Thanks
for playing your part in this experiment as together we help more and
more aspiring literary artists grow and learn.
Astute readers will note that it's been about ten weeks since our
last issue. Usually, our issues come out about every six weeks, but as
discussed in the Editorial from our last issue, the pipeline of
submissions has been slow this year, and it looks like we'll be unable
to put issues out as frequently as we have in the past.
Rest assured, however, that there are some great stories currently
in our peer-review process, and we'll bring them to you just as quickly
as our writers finalize them.
Today's issue includes two haunting single-part stories from
newcomer Charles Schweppe and perennial favorite Stuart Whitby. The
issue concludes with the second half of Dafydd's "Talisman Eight". I
hope you enjoy it!
And again, thank you for your interest in DargonZine. Please take
the time to rate the stories you read, because since you are the only
way for us to judge how "good" our fiction is, we really couldn't do it
without you!
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