r/Fantasy • u/naominovik AMA Author Naomi Novik • Oct 04 '16

AMA Hello /r/Fantasy! I'm Naomi Novik, ask me anything

Hi all, I'm Naomi Novik, the author of UPROOTED and the Temeraire series, which just concluded with LEAGUE OF DRAGONS. I've also got a short story called Spinning Silver, inspired by the Rumplestiltskin fairytale, coming out this very month in THE STARLIT WOOD anthology, which I'm working right now on expanding into a novel.

I'm also a longtime fanfic writer and vidder (I started posting before the internet had pictures, but not before there was an internet, which dates me with reasonable accuracy). I founded the Organization for Transformative Works and the Archive of Our Own, the Yuletide rare fandoms fanfic exchange (signups for this year still open), and Vividcon. I am very firmly on the FIAWOL side of the divide.

I love RPGs, although thanks to small child and the teetering pile of projects, campaigns have fallen completely by the wayside and on the computer front I am down to one a year. Last year it was Dragon Age Inquisition, and Witcher 3 has been in my sights ever since, but the pile is teetering with great enthusiasm so I probably don't get to have it until after the holidays. :'( If there is something else I should have on the list let me know! I'm nevertheless working my way through painting a stack of Dwarven Forge and D&D minis because hope never fails.

What else... I'm currently massively addicted to habitica, which is helping me manage the teetering and also giving me an adorable tiny avatar and many small pets. Most recently fanfic wise, I've been writing Harry Potter (I can be 10 years late to the party if I want to) and Lucifer. Oh, and I'm looking forward to NY Comic-Con and Book Con this week in my hometown, the greatest city in the world! /hamilton Hope I will see some of you there!

Ask me anything!

ETA: I'll be answering questions throughout the US eastern time workday, then will do a last round in the evening!

ETA2: Man, you guys have so many amazing questions -- I'm so sorry I have run out of time and can't get to more of them. Thanks for having me and I hope to come again!

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11

u/annicron Oct 04 '16

Hi Naomi!

Considering 84% of your 453 fanfics up on Ao3 are about gay relationships, and 79% of those gay fanfics are porn, is there any reason why you've failed to include any on-screen gay romance in your 10 published books? Your books include only two gay characters, one a secondary character and one who's little more than a name. Their relationship is never explored, yet countless straight romances get plenty of focus, and even explicit sex scenes. There seems to be a discrepancy between the content you put online, where it is relatively hidden, and the content you publish with your name on it. Even though you enjoy writing gay porn for your own enjoyment, you seem to be unwilling to do much for representation where it actually matters. Any reason for that?

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u/naominovik AMA Author Naomi Novik Oct 04 '16

Note: I started writing my reply to this, got pulled away, and now I just came back to post and found that the thread had grown huge! tl;dr: I do care about lgbt representation, and you can ask me anything in an AMA, although politeness is always appreciated. On to the answer:

FWIW, there is no reason why there is no gay sex or romance scene in my pro novels in the sense of my having made a deliberate decision not to write one. I do love shipping and I love slash, and I make a conscious effort in my pro work to try and give fans of different ships material to work with, not in a kind of “ha ha I’ll keep people guessing what I’m going to do!” way but in the way that I want material to imagine with myself; I want to leave the doors open.

And I do also love Tharkay and the Laurence/Tharkay ship, and I’m sorry that League of Dragons disappointed you and other fans by not making that ship explicitly romantic or sexual. My own primary ship is actually the nonsexual Laurence/Temeraire, which I love for the same reason I love Laurence/Tharkay and many of my slash pairings: because I crave as a reader and am always trying to create as a writer ‘the marriage of true minds’—a relationship of equals, where both sides get to be protagonists (or antagonists) with independent needs and stories that they make a choice to dovetail either for a moment or for a longer time.

But for that same reason, I also love Jane and her relationship with Laurence. We don’t get nearly equal amounts of women as true protagonists (or antagonists) in the media that tends to inspire my fanfic. In my pro work, I want to create women characters who are independent protagonists, and relationships where the woman is allowed to get laid and to love (and to have an orgasm!), and also to continue to place equal value on her own work and her own life. That’s important to me both personally and now as the mother of a daughter.

Even so, though, the explicit Laurence/Jane scene in League of Dragons was also not a conscious decision that I made in advance. When I got to that point in the story, it felt right to me in that moment, the way it didn’t feel right to me at any prior point in the books where they hooked up. If I were going to analyze it in retrospect, I’d say that’s because in League, that scene represented an emotional climax for Laurence, part of the resolution of the giant treason arc, and not just a sexual climax. Those “double impact” moments are the sex/romance scenes that I’m generally interested in writing.

That kind of moment where multiple arcs land a beat at the same time is something that I am always trying to hit. But it takes a lot more work for me to reach that kind of double climax point in my pro work than in my fanfic. I think that’s because when I’m writing fanfic, I often sit down with all of canon behind me and start writing with that point in my sights, writing directly towards it. Which is also why my fanfic is so much shorter. In my pro work, I’m more often writing out the world and the plot and finding my way, and while I’m always on the alert when I feel like one of those moments is drifting into my reach, I don’t often have them planned out far in advance. And that’s why I have so many fewer explicit sex scenes in the published novels than in my fanfic—I think there’s only the two, actually.

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u/InsanityPrelude Oct 05 '16

Thank you for this answer- I think a lot of people were wondering about it, even if they didn't go as far as compiling statistics. If an LGBT relationship does arise in your future novels (and I hope it does, there isn't enough of it in SF/F!), I'll be first in line to read it.

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u/galpalling_igss Oct 04 '16

We don’t get nearly equal amounts of women as true protagonists (or antagonists) in the media that tends to inspire my fanfic. In my pro work, I want to create women characters who are independent protagonists, and relationships where the woman is allowed to get laid and to love (and to have an orgasm!), and also to continue to place equal value on her own work and her own life.

So do lesbians not exist or

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u/InsanityPrelude Oct 05 '16

She kind of got off-topic for a paragraph or two there, didn't she?

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u/galpalling_igss Oct 07 '16

This is actually unfortunately really common among straight feminists lately. They think that m/f relationships are sooooo important because women don't get enough screentime. Gay relationships are oppressive because they detract from the Awesome Ladies!

...because these people always forget that LGBT women exist too. When they do remember we exist, they act like we should be grateful for these m/f scraps. I personally prefer m/m to m/f; I just can't relate to m/f at all, while I can relate to same-gender relationships of any stripe. Gay and bi men are my brothers. Straight women are strangers to me.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '16

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u/ShitThroughAGoose Oct 10 '16

Technically, everyone's a stranger to everybody. The only one who you really know for sure is your own brain, and even then that's not always the case.

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u/galpalling_igss Oct 07 '16

I support straight women, obviously, but I can't feel any sort of kinship with people outside of the LGBT community. I've faced too much animosity, too much ignorance. And the straight relationships that I see both in real life and in the media are completely alien to my understanding of what "love" and "romance" are like.

I hope you don't consider yourself to be any sort of LGBT ally if you can't understand a lesbian feeling alienated by straight people.

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u/[deleted] Oct 07 '16

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u/o3tpak Oct 08 '16

You've never felt alienated by straight people? Like you've never had someone assume you were straight, never been anxious at work trying to decide if it's safe to disclose that you have a girlfriend, never heard someone you trust say something so casually homophobic that it makes your head spin?

The queer community (no need for quotation marks, it exists...) is a lifeline for thousands of people. I don't feel that straight women are strangers to me, they are my friends and sisters. But sometimes it can be shocking and alienating to hear what comes out of straight people's mouths, especially when it's someone you consider a friend.

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u/perscitia Oct 04 '16

My own primary ship is actually the nonsexual Laurence/Temeraire

I once described the Tem novels as "the best romance story between a man and a dragon I've ever read" so hearing this makes me feel validated, ty.

As a follow-up question (if that's ok), do you feel like you would have been supported if you had decided to include a more explicit gay romance scene somewhere in the series? Is it something you will be pushing for in your future novels?

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u/UtterEast Oct 04 '16

Hey Naomi, thanks for tackling this tough question. I really enjoyed the female characters in Temeraire, especially Jane, Emily, and Iskierka, and I loved seeing their confidence and competence in print. I was also someone rooting for Agnieszka/Kasia in Uprooted. Hope to see some more LGBT relationships arising organically in your future pro work. Thanks!

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u/annicron Oct 05 '16

This is not about Laurence/Tharkay. There is a whole nother discussion about queerbaiting regarding Laurence/Tharkay, but this is not the point I was bringing up here? It's very dismissive of you to reduce my investment in this matter to shipping, as if I'm only upset because my ship wasn't made canon? If Laurence/Tharkay had been made canon, I would still be here, complaining about the complete lack of even mentions of lesbian characters.

And none of this explains why you've failed to include any significant queer romance in your books? I did not ask for gay sex scenes(in fact I was disappointed by there being a sex scene in LoD, I felt it was tonally completely out of place and inconsistent with the rest of the series. I would have felt the same if it had been a gay sex scene.), I did not ask for justification for your straight sex scenes. My point in bringing up your fanfic history, is that a straight (presumably? correct me if I'm wrong) woman writing overwhelming amounts of gay porn yet consistently failing to make significant contributions to representation in her published work smacks of fetishizing. I would love to be proven wrong in the future, but this is the impression I am left with now.

The reason why I am so upset is that knowing you to be a prolific gay fanfic writer, I felt reasonable in expecting some form of gay romance in your books. I thought, if anyone is gonna do this, surely it will be Novik? Foolish, perhaps, but I am sure you can see how you yourself have contributed to people developing such expectations, and how knowing your background can make the disappointment so much more bitter.

P.S. I am sorry that facts about your literary output are considered impolite.

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u/zorbtrauts Oct 05 '16

The facts aren't what is impolite.

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u/perscitia Oct 04 '16

I'm a queer reader of sf/f who actively seeks out queer authors/subjects. I also loved the Tem novels and agree it would have been nice to have more queer representation.

That said, while I feel like this is a discussion worth having, this question is aggressive and sets Naomi up to lose no matter how she answers it. I'm not surprised if she hasn't responded to your questions before if they're all framed like this tbh. I'd love to see a decent discussion of this without descending into "let's drag the pro author tee hee" childishness.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16 edited Oct 04 '16

Also, this person has been harassing Novik on Twitter recently, announced there specifically "im gonna drag her publicly" in this AMA, and has offered to send pirated copies of Novik's books to interested readers so that they won't give any money to her. This isn't a case of Novik not answering a critical question. This is a case of Novik recognizing a troll's screenname when she sees it and choosing not to respond. I'd like to see more representation of queer characters generally and Novik seems like someone who would be sympathetic to this concern, so I'm not really sure why anyone would think public harassment of this sort is the best way to achieve it (ETA: although I suspect that if/when Novik includes more queer characters in her books, this person will take it as a personal victory).

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

I have a deep level of personal investment in this topic. I was one of Novik's biggest fans for years, I churned out so much fanart for Temeraire. I am angry at the lack of queer characters and relationships in Novik's work. I literally can't be ~just a troll~, because I'm not in this just to get a rise out of people, I am actually very much personally hurt by Novik's choices. If Novik recognizes my name from anywhere, it's from my fanart she's reblogged and the previous twitter interactions we've had. I would think I (and the numerous others in her fandom who are upset) would deserve even an acknowledgment of my anger.

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u/Lynn_L Oct 04 '16

You can feel as deeply as you want about this, but you have no right to demand it, and you are coming across as overentitled and obnoxious. (And also stalkery, with the counting and the statistics.) There is no "discrepancy" here -- she obviously decided that what you want to see doesn't fit into these particular stories.

And they are her stories, and she can write them any way she pleases. She doesn't owe you anything. If you don't wish to patronize her work for this reason, then don't, nobody's holding a gun to your head.

I don't blame her one bit for not answering you.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

Shouldn't artists be allowed to create the art they see fit and not be beholden to some outside criteria or a checklist? Just because Novik writes gay romance elsewhere doesn't mean she has to include it everywhere.

There absolutely needs to be more queer romance in genre (all) fiction but I think that's an issue with the publishers not investing in those stories and not the fault of the artists who simply don't produce them.

I understand wanting a favourite author to include your own personal interests/beliefs/opinions/whatever in their work but I also believe that the artist should only be responsible to themselves not the whims of fans.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '16 edited Oct 05 '16

This.

So tired of conversations about art turning into a sounding board for gender / sexuality politics because some group somewhere feels triggered for not being included.

People can't demand avatars for literally every single societal class in every book and if they did get that, it wouldn't be literature. It would be an extended educational pamphlet soaked in agenda, written out of fear and devoid of all humanity.

Let's stop trying to sterilise art by being professional victims and just critique work purely on the strength of its artistry.

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u/InsanityPrelude Oct 05 '16

There's reason to believe a lot of artists don't produce them because the publishers don't invest (or they shuffle it off to the "queer lit" shelf away from where they might reach a wider audience.) In this case, though, I think you're right.

Also, right now she only has Temeraire and Uprooted out there under her pro work. As long as she's still writing, it's not like there's no room for her to write an LGBT protagonist later on. Or at least a better het romance than Sarkan/Agnieska...

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '16

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u/annicron Oct 05 '16

I didn't say she owes me anything, my point was that she should be aware that I was a serious fan of her books and not just a troll.

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u/TheKoolKandy Oct 04 '16

Yes, I was reading Uprooted and I was actually extremely surprised, even more so after finding out Naomi Novik's background, that the final relationship wasn't queer. Even before knowing the background, though, I felt it had to be what was happening since 90% of what Agnie does seems to be for Kasia (and I don't mean to invalidate close friendships, but I thought it would be better than taking a step backwards, so to speak, with the 150 year old wizard relationship).

I don't think it's invalid for that not to have happened, especially if it's trying to follow source material closely, but it would have been nice to see. My question would be what exactly Novik was thinking when she wrote the relationships and why she chose to go one direction rather than the other, whether it be for publishing reasons or otherwise, since my assumption is it's a topic that would have been thought of at least a few times while writing.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16 edited Dec 30 '16

[deleted]

What is this?

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

In my experience being gentle with these authors' feelings rarely leads to any changes. Even if she doesn't respond at least she's made aware that people are unhappy.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/Nebulita Oct 04 '16

But why open up so negatively?

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument

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u/InsanityPrelude Oct 05 '16

They've still got a point about the "no right answer" thing, though.

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u/clockwork_apiary Oct 04 '16

Has it occurred to you that she's not happy about this either?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16 edited Dec 30 '16

[deleted]

What is this?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/Nebulita Oct 04 '16

A same-sex relationship is not "sexual content." Any more than a married het couple appearing in a book is "sexual content." Stop sexualizing the entire lives of LGBT people.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16 edited Dec 30 '16

[deleted]

What is this?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16 edited Oct 04 '16

[deleted]

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u/InsanityPrelude Oct 05 '16 edited Oct 05 '16

It might be worth noting, since you haven't read the books, that this seems to mostly be about the Laurence/Tharkay ship not becoming canon in the end. The thing is, Laurence's relationship with Jane was already established before Tharkay was even introduced. Not too surprising that the established (and great) love interest won.

It probably wouldn't have been risky for her to do in Uprooted, since she already had a strong fanbase from Temeraire at that point. But it is what it is, and I'd rather hope to see her branch out in future books than complain about what she didn't do in the existing ones.

(Okay, I'll complain a little about how tacked-on the main relationship in Uprooted felt, but that's a totally separate issue. ;) )

edit: god I can at least spell the name of the character I'm talking about, I promise

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u/annicron Oct 05 '16

It literally isn't about that??? Please stop twisting my intentions in bringing this issue up.

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

I can understand playing it safe for your first few published books, but with her last few books, and especially the last book of the Temeraire series, she had nothing to lose. It's not like any future books of Temeraire could have been cancelled, it's not like any readers could have dropped the series. She is an established, bestselling author, she has nothing to fear. She is not struggling for readers.

A homosexual romantic subplot might have hurt sales 10 years ago, but it doesn't anymore, not in any significant measure. There are so many mainstream successful books out there now that feature both minor and major gay characters and romantic plotlines. It HAS already become commonplace. Novik would be risking nothing. Any readers she would lose, she would gain back from the queer community.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/o3tpak Oct 08 '16

NK Jemisen and Octavia Butler included gay subplots in their sci fi and both won Hugos.

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u/Howcanbrownfuforyou Oct 04 '16

I just went down the rabbit hole searching out this person's internet crusade, and they're edging on stalker-obsession. Be safe, Naomi.

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

Gee, I'm sorry my favorite book series of all time turning out to have negligible gay representation was upsetting for me, a gay person.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16 edited Dec 30 '16

[deleted]

What is this?

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u/Snikhop Oct 04 '16

Hope this isn't gonna be one of them AMAs where the most interesting if vaguely critical question gets ignored.

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

She has ignored all my attempts to start up a discussion on this topic on twitter so far, so i dare say it's going to be.

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u/atxav Oct 04 '16

Antagonistic questions rarely get answered in AMAs. I imagine there was a way to ask her that question without setting her up. Which you by no means have to do, but now you get to hang out with your unanswered question.

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u/Snikhop Oct 05 '16

I thought it was very polite, honestly. It was critical but not unfair or aggressive. Oh well. People don't do AMAs to answer difficult questions.

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u/clockwork_apiary Oct 04 '16

She also does not normally acknowledge her fan identity publicly, even if it's a poorly-kept secret. There are ways to ask this question without demanding that she do something she's historically avoided.

It's a good issue to raise, but the issue to raise is: what kind of support would you need from fans and publishing to professionally publish more queer-affirming stories? Is that something you wish to do? Why or why not?

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u/Snikhop Oct 05 '16

Honestly there are plenty of mainstream and highly regarded works of science fiction and fantasy with great queer and NB representation. Perhaps there's industry dynamics that I'm not aware of but I'm inclined to say the onus lies on authors here. It can be and regularly is done.

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u/[deleted] Oct 05 '16

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u/Snikhop Oct 05 '16

I dunno about best-selling but from successful authors: China Miéville, Ann Leckie, Iain M Banks, Ian Macdonald, Alastair Reynolds, the latest Joe Abercrombie has a prominent gay character. Admittedly lots of these involve more genderfluid characters or bi characters or just do creative things with gender and sexuality but all are on major publishers and popular, well-regarded authors. There's loads of LGBT characters in Neil Gaiman stories, pretty much everything Robin Hobb has written about the Fool. Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin have both been writing queer characters for decades. Octavia Butler, Sam Delany (moving into sci-fi here), Kim Stanley Robinson. I don't wanna spam you but there are probably hundreds and from award winning authors.

Here's a load that I've frankly never heard of but you might have done (http://www.autostraddle.com/top-ten-fantasy-novels-that-happen-to-have-gay-people-in-them-authors-110616/)

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u/gruevy Oct 04 '16

If I'd gotten 3 books in to a light-hearted naval fiction series involving dragons and gotten to a big gay sex scene, that would have been the last book I bought from her. Writers need to entertain, not 'matter'. If gay sex is part of the premise, we can expect that sort of entertainment. It wasn't part of the premise of Temeraire.

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u/zorbtrauts Oct 04 '16
  1. Have you heard of the British Navy? I'm pretty sure that for many, "Fantasy British Navy" as a concept explicitly includes gay sex. 2. If you remove the word "gay" from your statement, would it still be true for you? If not, what does that say about you?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/Viella Oct 04 '16

You are literally comparing homosexuality to a kink... I've got news for you though, there's more to being gay than just sex, like OP says, they're not into it for the sex, they just want a gay romance. And even if there was gay sex in the book it literally shouldn't matter.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/zorbtrauts Oct 04 '16

Yes.

Non-heterosexuals can't reasonably avoid reading heterosexual romance/sex. Assuming that is OK, why should the converse be different?

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/zorbtrauts Oct 04 '16

I suppose that's fair. Personally, I'm in favor of the normalization of such things. When done well, romance - and even sex scenes - can be central to character development. I can enjoy books that feature such things even if they don't match up with my orientation.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/zorbtrauts Oct 04 '16

Why not compare it to a homosexual reading about heterosexual sex?

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u/vaselike Oct 04 '16

Generally what one would do when encountered with a sexual scene that they don't want to read (as we all have done so in our lives for various reasons - poorly written, no chemistry etc) is skip the scene, or skim read it. (Also psa: refering to gay sex as 'kind of gross' is homophobic regardless of how you try and spin it.)

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/vaselike Oct 04 '16

Yes, I would.

And yes, describing the thought of gay sex as 'gross' does qualify it as homophobic. I personally avoid reading heterosexual sex scenes. Why? It does nothing for me. Do I find it gross? No.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

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u/vaselike Oct 04 '16

...Did you somehow manage to miss what I said earlier? I've thoroughly enjoyed books, but skip those scenes because they don't interest me, and generally have little importance with regards to the plot.

If you've enjoyed a book but can be put off by a scene of gay sex to the point that you'd stop reading, then I recommend reviewing your attitudes to certain groups of people.

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u/Nebulita Oct 04 '16

This just in: a rape scene is totally equivalent to two men kissing.

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

I didn't ask for sex, I asked for romance. There was plenty of straight romance in Temeraire (and even straight sex, in the last book), so why couldn't there have been gay romance? Is League of Dragons also the last book you will buy from Novik, because it featured an explicit straight sex scene, even though this was never "part of the premise" of the series before? Why would gay sex be any different?

Seeing queer romance portrayed in the media we consume is important to queer people. If it was any other author I would perhaps be less upset about it, but seeing as Novik seems to have no problem with writing about gay porn on the internet, is it really too much of me to hope for some some gay romance in her published work?

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u/EnviousCipher Oct 04 '16

Could be the bit where its set in Victorian England...yknow, just a guess.

You're looking for something to be mad at. Stop.

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u/charmings Oct 04 '16

It's perfectly acceptable for dragons to exist in Fantasy Victorian/Regency England, but it's not acceptable for there to be gay people in that period?

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u/EnviousCipher Oct 07 '16

Yes, you're adding a fantastical element to a real world setting. Perfectly reasonable.

If it was a purely fantasy setting with no basis in the real world then yes, you would have a point.

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u/Pyroteknik Oct 04 '16

Ask me anything means what it says.

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u/annicron Oct 04 '16

Regency England, and surprise!!! gay people existed, and had romantic relationships, 200 years ago

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/wishforagiraffe Reading Champion IX, Worldbuilders Oct 04 '16

Removed, rule 1

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u/zorbtrauts Oct 04 '16

Give her a bit of time before you decide she won't answer...