What makes writing 'bad'?

[ThousandthIsle]

Take a sentimental passage or piece of writing for instance: some people fail miserably at capturing the reader's empathy or emotion, while others are quite moving and effective.

Obviously, this is a broad and subjective topic of discussion. And I don't mean to limit the conversation to sentimentality only. (It just stands out as especially polarizing.)

I am just curious about observations others might have of what makes the difference between a 'hit' and a 'miss.'

[Dr. Hill]

The key, for me, is to make the writing seem above the reader, but not too much. It's a balance between pure skill and intellect, and knowing how to relate to the readers.

[Eryk]

Trying to be funny is the easiest way to write badly. Comedy is hard to do, and failure is excruciating for the reader.

[Mr Endon]

Great idea for a thread!

#1 Wordiness is usually a miss for me, unless it serves a very specific purpose (i.e. parody). Philosophical literature is an exception, of course, where some fellas just can't keep it down, and understandably so.

#2 Off-beat, pseudo-philosophical dialogues. When the writer is trying too hard it's usually pretty obvious.

#3 Also, a definite "no-no" in my book is an exaggerated sense of self-importance; when the writer takes himself too seriously, or when they think they're hilarious. (EDIT: Eryk beat me to this one!)


It's hard to draw the line, though. Sweeping statements are almost always fallacies, because it only takes one exception to annul one's premisse. I think decisions must be made case by case. The Heat of the Day, for example, struck me as being a severe case of #2.

[ThousandthIsle]

The key, for me, is to make the writing seem above the reader, but not too much. It's a balance between pure skill and intellect, and knowing how to relate to the readers.

Ah, the unplacable qualities of a "true artist!"

I think you are on the money when you say it involves pure skill - I don't expect that we will come to any conclusive formula through this discussion that outlines "How to write Good :lol:" versus "How to write bad," but I thought it would be interesting to highlight certain or specific ways that some writers exercise their skill! (or lack thereof!)

Writing "above the reader, but not too much" holds a lot of merit - I think people really attach onto writing that makes them feel they are walking away with something new, while having been able to relate to the writing all the while. Mr Endon touched on a few ways that writers may attempt to leave their readers with something new, while failing to relate with them through the execution of the writing (points # 2 and #3, respectively).

Also, an instant turn-off for me is when a writer uses too many hyphenated adjectives. It seems the mark of a novice, or an unpolished writer... maybe try a thesaurus! (sorry, small rant that had to be relieved)

I am re-reading Breakfast at Tiffany's though, and Capote's use of such "unsophisticated" descriptions (hyphenated adjectives) challenges my statement above: I think in this case, it complements the person being described - Ms. Holly Golightly, and the lack of sophistication and intellect her curious and conflicting personality. The hyphens stood out as incredibly appropriate with her.

[bounty]

i don't recall specific examples but one of the things that made me dislike a catcher in the rye so much was the author's redundant use of vocabulary in holden's speech. but then, i also have a major pet peeve about the incessant and inappropriate use of the word "like" in every day speech.

[sixsmith]

It's interesting because i've been perusing appraisals of James Wood's recently published "How fiction works" in which he tries to unpack that very question. One the problems he has with many writers, particularly when they write third person narrative, is that they refuse to let the narrative do the work itself and allow their own fussing voice to intrude, as it were. I recently listened to an interview where he referred to a passage from Updike's 'Terrorist' as a classic example.

"To Ahmad's eyes, the bulbous letters of the graffiti, their bloated boasts of gang affiliation, assert an importance to which the perpetrators have pathetically little other claim. Sinking into the morass of Godlessness, lost young men proclaim, by means of defacement, an identity. Some few new boxes of aluminum and blue glass have been erected amid the ruins, sops from the lords of Western capitalism--branches of banks headquartered in California or North Carolina, and outposts of the Zionist-dominated federal government, attempting with welfare enrollment and army recruitment to prevent the impoverished from rioting and looting."

Wood likens this to flooding the engine and i think he's pretty right. It begins with an attempt to get inside his character's head and then almost immediately you start seeing a neon sign flashing "Updike". Wood goes on to make the point that although many fine novels will often have their authors voice creep though at some stage, when it happens in the first one hundred pages the character's credibility is badly damaged. I think several contemporary writers do this. Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan spring to mind but there are many others. And though i don't think everyone should write like, say, Chekhov, i think that Wood is essentially on the money when he says that many writers seem to have lost faith in language being able to do the job. Whether that is part of novelists somehow feeling inferior in the face of tv and film and the culture in general?

[kelby_lake]

Anybody who is in love with their own writing/themselves

[ThousandthIsle]

Very interesting, sixsmith. I was thinking more about this last night (before reading your post) and started thinking it might have something do with an author who has not yet found his or her voice, or one who is not yet fully secure in a developing writing voice. (I was thinking of this last night while reading Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise... I read his later works first--Gatsby and Tender is the Night--and am now moving back to his earlier stuff... This Side of Paradise, his first book, is comparatively awkward and maybe even 'bad' in the sense that Fitzgerald seems to be trying to find his footing.)

But as you pointed out, it can equally be a problem if a writer is not falling deep enough into the character's voice, and is instead allowing their own writing voice to dominate. Very distracting, I have read books where this same scenario has tainted the whole experience, even if the story was engaging. Thanks for mentioning that book, I'll have to check it out.

[mayneverhave]

Anybody who is in love with their own writing/themselves

But doesn't all writing display some sort of element of egotism - "What I think or what I have to say is worthy of being written, and therefore worthy of being read."

Also, I can't help but feeling that art catered soley to a specific audience undercuts the very nature of art, which finds its roots in a completely personal place.

[Mr Endon]

But doesn't all writing display some sort of element of egotism - "What I think or what I have to say is worthy of being written, and therefore worthy of being read."

Quite - the problem, however, is not awareness of self-worth, but overflowing self-love. Sometimes you can just feel that the author thinks they're the wittiest person in the world, or that their bathos is actually heartrending pathos.

On a personal note, it's exactly because I'm aware of the writers' inherent egotistical streak that I tend to prefer it when they resort to parody - or, even better, self-parody. I mean, if you're going to be a narcissistic writer, at least be open about it; allow me to laugh with you, and not at you :)

[PeterL]

After thinking about this a little, I decided that there are many ways that writing can be bad, and it is largely a matter of the audience involved. All literature is written with, or for, a certain audience, and a book that works beautifully for its intended audience may completely fail for other readers. Consider the discussion of James Joyce that is going on. It appears that Joyce succeeded for his audience, but people who don't understand what he was doing read something that makes little sense. There are writers whose writing I do not like, and I can provide good reasons why I do not like it, but other people may love the same author for the very reasons why I dislike the same book. Dickens would be an excellent example of that. I hate long descriptive passages that do not lead toward the ending, but other people love such things.

There are some sub-genres that I wouldn't even touch, but other people love. Does that make those kinds of writing bad? Maybe. One sub-genre that I do not read is Romance. Romance novels are perfectly formulaic. (I have a copy of one publisher's formula.) They are essentially the same with the names changed to protect the illusion that they are different. Does that make them bad writing? Maybe.

The closest thing to a definition of what makes good writing good and by negation what makes bad writing bad are the rules that Mark Twain provided in "The Literary Offences of Fennimore Cooper," but a good writer can break many of those rules and still have a good story that is well written.

[kelby_lake]

Quite - the problem, however, is not awareness of self-worth, but overflowing self-love. Sometimes you can just feel that the author thinks they're the wittiest person in the world, or that their bathos is actually heartrending pathos.


Exactly. It's basically like massaging yourself whilst repeating how great you are over and over again.

[ThousandthIsle]

Quite - the problem, however, is not awareness of self-worth, but overflowing self-love. Sometimes you can just feel that the author thinks they're the wittiest person in the world, or that their bathos is actually heartrending pathos.

I honestly haven't come across too many authors who have given me this impression (not trying to cross your comment Mr Endon)... except maybe Nietzsche, but I find I don't especially hold that against him.

He seems very comfortably nestled in that persona--perhaps his confidence (in his texts at least), can cause readers to be comfortable with/accepting of his self-love as well.

[Mr Endon]

Well, Nietzsche is a notable exception, because he used self-praise so exquisitely and openly: for example, Warum ich so klug bin (Why I'm so intelligent) is one of the best titles in all time, if you ask me.

I guess it's not surprising that you haven't come across many hacks with a sense of self-importance, as no one likes to waste their time with bad literature if they can help it. I for one can only go as far as 10 pages into ostensibly bad writing.

[prendrelemick]

Most of the points I would have mentioned, have been made. But its the effect of these bad practices that really concern the reader. For me, If the authorial voice breaks into a story, or if it is needlessly wordy, or if you become aware the writer is trying too hard, then my suspension of disbelief is lost. Skillful writers can go anywhere, no matter how bizarre or unlikely and we will follow along. It is like an unwritten contract between reader and author, we will suspend our disbelief for the duration of the story, but the writer must be true to it.

[Trystan]

Intellectual masturbation.

[blp]

My main experience of bad writing is reading my own work. No false modesty in this and anyone who's read anything of mine needn't rush to reassure me. With the stuff I think matters, I work pretty hard at getting rid of the rubbish. In fact, that's what most of the work consists of. The bad things I do are these:

1. Use bad syntax and grammar. Not much to say about this.

2. Use clichés. Unlike some writers, I virtually never think there's a case for using these. The only significant exception might be in a first-person narrative in which clichés suit the character of the narrator, though I can't really imagine writing such a thing.

3. Take shortcuts. I'm quite lazy and when I get to a difficult bit, I'll quite often trick myself into thinking that I can get away with just sketching in the details. There's a bit in my novel where three people trash a flat. I initially tried to do it in one paragraph with no dialogue, then gradually realised I was going to have to imagine just about every minute of it and write loads of dialogue. Took months. But I constantly come across things in other people's books where they've pretty much just written the equivalent of, 'I'm afraid we were rather drunk and, by the end of the evening, the flat was in a very sorry state.' My objection to this kind of thing is twofold. Firstly, it's just so mechanistic. The flat needs trashing (for narrative purposes) and the sentence gets the job done, but in a terribly obviously doing a job way. I'd much rather feel immersed in a world with the characters and only realise later (rather as in life) that what they're doing has longer-term significance. And secondly, obviously, it misses so much potential, for good writing and for general suprises - including surprises for the author. It's only when you go into the detail of a scene like this that you realise how little you really know about your material and must figure out and, when you do, myriad new possibilities arise.

4. Overwrite. Having forced myself to figure out as much as possible about my characters and scenes, I can tend to end up with too much. One of my favourite things is realising I can take out, like, three really dull paragraphs and have the bits just before and after join up fine. In fact, all pruning, from extraneous words to entire chapters, is intensely pleasurable.

5. Write awful dialogue. It's almost always awful at first. Again, I get the characters to do the simple little job I need them to do. Then I read it back and hate it, but don't really know why, so I start thinking about what people are actually like, how peculiarly they express themselves, and the passage becomes longer and odder and better. And sometimes the narrative job doesn't get done, which is fine. Again, not saying I'm the greatest writer going, but I'm always surprised at how many writers seem really happy to stick with the bad, mechanistic stage of dialogue.

6. Tell not show. Sort of what was happening in the Updike example someone posted. I don't want clever-sounding generalisations. I want my authors to, again, take the trouble to research and imagine concrete stuff, events, that make whatever points they want to make or, far better, thwart the possibility of generalisation completely.

7. Write in an obviously literary voice. Almost the same as writing clichés, only sort of worse; the cardinal sin, in fact, as far as I'm concerned. Like most of my other substantive objections to my own work and that of others, it comes down to a failure to imagine with sufficient richness, though it appears here in its most disguised form. You can think you've got a really good passage, strong on language, strong on imagery, strong on everything, then find you've written what sounds like a parody of something from 1922, with your character turning his collar up against a sternly pitiless northerly wind, shuffling hollow-eyed towards the corner as if drawn on some fatal thread; and really, all of it has to go.

Sorry, I don't know if any of this helps the discussion.

[librarius_qui]

Anybody who is in love with their own writing/themselves

Ha! ..

I read this, earlier, and I thought with myself "well, she'd hate to read anything I wrote! .." :crash:

But then, nothing of it will be published before you or I be dead -- if ever --, so, it doesn't make any difference!~

---

Some friends have this discussion, in their hearts, I've been hearing a lot about it. They seem to agree that for something to be good, it musn't at all be obvious.

This seems to be one viewpoint.

I don't know if I agree with them. I actually don't have a very bright idea on the matter. I hate best-boom-sellers ... :sick:

[Spout]

blp, very good list!

Most of my literary pet peeves have been mentioned already so I won't repeat them.

One thing I would like to bring out are tedious, long descriptions. When I read a good book, I'm immersed in the world, I start to care about the characters, I forget the "real" world around me. Then on comes a few pagefuls of description that completely breaks the spell and reminds me than the story and the characters aren't real, that I have work to do and bills to pay. I mean, for me, reading is an "escapistic" hobby (as is writing). I don't want that spell broken.

I find that these long descriptions are possibly at times necessary but I'm fairly certain one could actually incorporate said descriptions into the story in such a way that it won't seem so disconnected, that it won't break the "spell".


Oh, and one point that was already mentioned but really is annoying is when the author has such a low self-esteem that they absolutely have to try to appear smart and intelligent at the cost of the story and the abovementioned spell. I want to read a good story, not get to know the person who wrote it so bugger off and out of the pages already! Who cares if you've studied literature? Name dropping is name dropping regardless of context. Then again, doing it all in jest (and this has to be at least somewhat apparent to the reader) might or might not make it forgivable.

[kelby_lake]

Intellectual masturbation.


Oh yes, long descriptions are on my list which are the prime example of this.

[blp]

Thanks, Spout.

The other thing about long descriptions is, I find they often confuse me more than they clarify; and I don't think this is my fault. When you read like, At the other side of the paddock was an unprepossessing cluster of outbuildings, all constructed of the same rough local granite, each giving onto the same mean courtyard in which was arrayed a motley selection of decaying farm machinery of a decidedly pre-industrial stripe. The largest of these, a wooden plow hewn from some impossibly knotted and undulant bough, was rotten and had become home to what looked like a variety of moss. Across the yard from this, at the large stable entrance, stood a black and rusting oil drum upon which had been placed an old table top, now giving a berth to a brownish bottle of sherry and a half-completed game of backgammon. It was here... and so on for however many paragraphs, even though it kind of puts a picture in your head, it's a really unstable one that, in my head at least, keeps changing annoyingly - how big was the courtyard; the oil drum; how was the wood supported by the oil drum; how could you tell the bough was rotten; how was it 'home' to moss? etc. - until in the end, to be able to go on with the book, I have to settle on an arbitrary version of the scene, which I'm not sure is right, and just go on with the unsettling feeling that I'm imagining it all wrong.

I'm not sure, but I sometimes have the impression that certain writers, Kafka for instance, are fully aware of this unbridgeable rift between the words on the page and the reader's mind's-eye and play with it, describing impossible spaces, deliberately heightening the artifice of the description or making the wealth of detail so madly profuse that no one could possibly follow it.

All that said, when description is done well, I'm not sure I even care. Lawrence Durrell's descriptions in The Alexandria Quartet are so gorgeously written, I forgot to worry about whether I was imagining the scene just right.

[BienvenuJDC]

Great idea for a thread!

#1 Wordiness is usually a miss for me, unless it serves a very specific purpose (i.e. parody). Philosophical literature is an exception, of course, where some fellas just can't keep it down, and understandably so.

This is a HOT one.

I was an aspiring preacher (religion is not the point here). I went on a medical mission trip to South America, where I was asked to present a lesson. I was told to keep it under 90 minutes (the typical for a Sunday morning sermon that I am used to is 25 minutes). I wrote my sermon and presented it in 50 minutes.

The following year I attended a school for preachers in which I took a class on Homiletics (sermon preparation and delivery). I wanted to use this same sermon for the final exam, but I was limited to only 20 minutes. After I finished revising it, I realized the great task in being concise. It is very important to tell your audience (whether they are listeners or readers), ONLY that which they need to know. You must give them every relevant piece of information without overloading them with unimportant thoughts.

[prendrelemick]

I'd agree with that 90% of the time Bien. But the "show don't tell" rule allows for the odd diversion, to set mood or to establish character. Like someone has already mentioned, a good writer can commit all the above offences and produce something good.

The technical side of writing can be taught. Storytelling is instinctive, you've either got it or you aint.

[blp]

I'd agree with that 90% of the time Bien. But the "show don't tell" rule allows for the odd diversion, to set mood or to establish character. Like someone has already mentioned, a good writer can commit all the above offences and produce something good.

Nevertheless, I want to back up Bien's case for concision. I've often had to shorten pieces of writing, an imposition that can seem outrageous and even impossible. It's almost always possible and nothing prepares you for the sinuously, pithily satisfying sense of improvement it brings. Everyone everyone everyone who wants to write seriously should try ruthlessly paring down their sentences and paragraphs just to see the result. Once I started doing it, I believed for a while that purest concision is always better, tending towards fanaticism as converts will. I've now eased up and let carefully selected (short) passages of prolixity stand. But you've got to know the rules before you can break them and the rule here, in my view, has got to be brevity is the soul of wit.



The technical side of writing can be taught. Storytelling is instinctive, you've either got it or you aint.

Must respectfully disagree. There might be a few lucky storytellers for whom the tales just flow, but for most writers it's work and, to quote Yeats, almost always takes some 'stitching and unstitching'. It feels kind of important to me to say this because I've suffered a few agonies over faltering stories of my own, usually imagining some 'natural storyteller' somewhere happily vomiting out fully formed, perfectly structured narratives and that I, by comparison, simply lack the calling and am wasting my time. In the end, I've always managed to fix my own work. It just takes graft and a kind of desperate searching for solutions, sometimes known as 'research'.

As with any job, there are ways of expediting the process that can be learned. 'Research' is one of these, a big one. Robert McKee goes on about it at length in his screenwriters' handbook Story and, in this usage, it really does cover everything from working it out in your head to reading factual material to eavesdropping. You have to take help wherever you can get it. Part of this is learning the writer's trade and part of it is learning about the world you want to create. Kathy Acker said, 'Writing is always reading or listening or looking or else it's destroying.' You have to let a big soup of stuff in and then shape it. The only real qualifications are being able to read and write and wanting to do it.

Yes, before some smart alec pipes up, I do realise I'm not really being very concise.

[kelby_lake]

The technical side of writing can be taught. Storytelling is instinctive, you've either got it or you aint.



Must respectfully disagree. There might be a few lucky storytellers for whom the tales just flow, but for most writers it's work and, to quote Yeats, almost always takes some 'stitching and unstitching'. It feels kind of important to me to say this because I've suffered a few agonies over faltering stories of my own, usually imagining some 'natural storyteller' somewhere happily vomiting out fully formed, perfectly structured narratives and that I, by comparison, simply lack the calling and am wasting my time. In the end, I've always managed to fix my own work. It just takes graft and a kind of desperate searching for solutions, sometimes known as 'research'.


I suppose what prendrelemick means is that to be really successful you need a natural instinct/flair at it as a basis. Initially it may be clumsy or not concise enough but it needs that underlying sense that makes the reader go 'Wow, this person has talent!'

[blp]

The technical side of writing can be taught. Storytelling is instinctive, you've either got it or you aint.



I suppose what prendrelemick means is that to be really successful you need a natural instinct/flair at it as a basis. Initially it may be clumsy or not concise enough but it needs that underlying sense that makes the reader go 'Wow, this person has talent!'

I haven't got the details, so this is going to be a fairly vague rebuttal, but there was a recent study showing that apparently 'natural' inherent 'genius' was almost always the product of environment and oodles of work.

I went to art school, so I saw this process, in microcosm, over and over. People turned up in the first year often barely knowing what they were doing, or pursuing a path that looked totally unpromising; then, over the months and years that followed, if they put in the hours, these dry, unprepossessing little seeds frequently blossomed into something special.

I was always noticed for my creative writing at school, so it may well have appeared to my schoolfriends as if I had some kind of natural gift. Actually, I had two journalist parents. Dad was a stickler for correct grammar and Mom read to me constantly, as well as teaching me to read and write when I was four, allowing me to start imbibing good books myself at a rate of knots while a lot of other kids were still making mud pies. As an adult, I've taken the attitude that any ability I had came from these kinds of study and duly continued to nurture myself in the same way. Writing always goes best for me when it's well nourished by outside influences. If there's something I don't know and need in my writing, I find it out. If there's something I don't know how to do as a writer, I find out.

When I first started seriously trying to write, by the way, for all my school successes, I was completely rubbish. Completely, completely, irredeemably. I wrote for about six months like this, then retreated in exhaustion, and suddenly had an insight into what I was driving at and very quickly wrote something I thought was good.

I was still at art school at this point and my paintings were OK and being well received by the tutors, but I was much happier writing, even when I was writing badly. This is why I believe - I'll say it again - the only real qualification one needs is the desire to do it. The reason I'm pushing the point so hard is partly context. This is a site with a lot of young people on it, some of whom probably have a desire to write, and there's nothing more discouraging than this mystificatory 'natural' ability, 'you've either got it or you haven't' stuff. So, for them, I'll repeat my previous advice, with embellishments.

If you want to do it, do it. Don't be afraid to be bad, even incredibly, egregiously bad, at first and don't be afraid to look for help from any and all possible sources.

A final thought from William S. Burroughs: 'Bad writers are writers who don't read enough.'

[kelby_lake]

Obviously there's no talent which means you can just sit around and produce a masterpiece with no effort on the first attempt, or any attempt. But when you read some books you can see who's been to a lot of creative writing classes and who's developed from an aptitude.

[blp]

Whatever.

[prendrelemick]

Nevertheless, I want to back up Bien's case for concision. I've often had to shorten pieces of writing, an imposition that can seem outrageous and even impossible. It's almost always possible and nothing prepares you for the sinuously, pithily satisfying sense of improvement it brings. Everyone everyone everyone who wants to write seriously should try ruthlessly paring down their sentences and paragraphs just to see the result. Once I started doing it, I believed for a while that purest concision is always better, tending towards fanaticism as converts will. I've now eased up and let carefully selected (short) passages of prolixity stand. But you've got to know the rules before you can break them and the rule here, in my view, has got to be brevity is the soul of wit.



Must respectfully disagree. There might be a few lucky storytellers for whom the tales just flow, but for most writers it's work and, to quote Yeats, almost always takes some 'stitching and unstitching'. It feels kind of important to me to say this because I've suffered a few agonies over faltering stories of my own, usually imagining some 'natural storyteller' somewhere happily vomiting out fully formed, perfectly structured narratives and that I, by comparison, simply lack the calling and am wasting my time. In the end, I've always managed to fix my own work. It just takes graft and a kind of desperate searching for solutions, sometimes known as 'research'.

As with any job, there are ways of expediting the process that can be learned. 'Research' is one of these, a big one. Robert McKee goes on about it at length in his screenwriters' handbook Story and, in this usage, it really does cover everything from working it out in your head to reading factual material to eavesdropping. You have to take help wherever you can get it. Part of this is learning the writer's trade and part of it is learning about the world you want to create. Kathy Acker said, 'Writing is always reading or listening or looking or else it's destroying.' You have to let a big soup of stuff in and then shape it. The only real qualifications are being able to read and write and wanting to do it.

Yes, before some smart alec pipes up, I do realise I'm not really being very concise.

I am not in disagreement with you, or Beinvenu. (I feel like I'm argueing on the wrong side here) I strongly believe in the value of harsh pruning. But there are some writers who can go off at a tangent, commit all the above sins and still be engaging. From the outside it looks like innate judgement, rather than hard graft.

[blp]

I am not in disagreement with you, or Beinvenu. (I feel like I'm argueing on the wrong side here) I strongly believe in the value of harsh pruning. But there are some writers who can go off at a tangent, commit all the above sins and still be engaging. From the outside it looks like innate judgement, rather than hard graft.

I know, but I honestly think that's the trick of it and the thing you work towards, making it look easy and playful. That's why my list of sins included both shortcutting and overwriting. Frequently, I find I need to both write a lot and edit a lot. In the end, it's kind of like throwing a lot of darts at a dartboard and then just leaving the ones that work. You don't necessarily know why they work, seeing as there's no bullseye or triple twenty, they just do, which is maybe why good writers' results can look so instinctive.

You do all the heavy lifting and then suddenly a point arrives when you're free and you can play and the rules fall away. I've experienced it myself in my little way. It's sort of mysterious, in the same way as going to sleep mulling over a problem and waking up with the solution is, but it's not as mysterious as the very unhelpful idea of 'genius'.

It's a bit like Whistler's defense of his nocturnes, which someone, probably Ruskin, objected had only taken about half an hour each to paint (and which he said were equivalent to flinging a pot of paint in the public's face). Yes, said W, but they were informed by a lifetime of work. And it's true, they are. They're the half hour's work of a guy who knows painting intimately and knows exactly which rules he wants to break and why.

Another example, one of my very favourite films of all time, is John Cassavetes' Opening Night, which, in many ways, is like a sort of hymn to creative playfulness and wild, rulebreaking imaginative leaps. Cassavetes' own description of making the film: it '....was like a war.' And, in fact, what he depicts is an actress working agonisingly through her problems with a play in which she's appearing, finally arriving at what the public eventually sees: an apparently spontaneous, funny, playful looking performance.

[Nick Capozzoli]

After thinking about this a little, I decided that there are many ways that writing can be bad, and it is largely a matter of the audience involved. All literature is written with, or for, a certain audience, and a book that works beautifully for its intended audience may completely fail for other readers...The closest thing to a definition of what makes good writing good and by negation what makes bad writing bad are the rules that Mark Twain provided in "The Literary Offences of Fennimore Cooper," but a good writer can break many of those rules and still have a good story that is well written.

Excellent point about the audience...Harlequin Romances are greatly admired by their audience, and the same audience might find Finnegan's Wake poorly written (and unreadable). But we're still not closer to an understanding. Shakespeare's plays were much appreciated by nearly all audiences. Then there is the matter of appeal to audiences different not only in social place but over time. Wuthering Heights might be seen as a sort of 19th C Harlequin Romance, but it works today. How many Harlequin Romances will "work" a hundred years from now? So one definition of good writing (and by extrapolation of bad writing) is the ability to appeal over time.

Regarding Twain's comments about Cooper, I appreciate that Twain was being humorous. Cooper's novels that he refers to are really great. Twain, who was also a great writer, certainly understood this. I take "the Literary Offences" as in-your face satire, and it also illustrates (though many seem not to appreciate it) the point that it is often just plan silly to come up with "rules" for good fiction writing, especially rules that derive from analysis of syntax.

[Nick Capozzoli]

I know, but I honestly think that's the trick of it and the thing you work towards, making it look easy and playful.

YES...that is certainly part of good writing in all genres. It looks easy and natural (not necessarily playful, though when it is the playfullness should seem natural). Let's add to easy and natural that it should be somehow surprising and memorable. I think we're getting somewhere.

Nick

[higley]

Ineffective characterization really bothers me in some pieces. I like to see a character develop, but so often the way it happens feels cookie-cutter. Like, "(A) happens so the character feels (B) as a result." Too straightforward. I don't have to be able to relate to a character, but I do want to be interested in them. After reading TVtropes.com I realized just how commonplace so many types of characters are.

[Nick Capozzoli]

I know this thread started out looking for the qualities of bad writing, but we've also been defining that by looking at the qualities of good writing. To continue from the idea that good writing seems easy/playful/natural, what about the "truth" of what the writing says? I think that truth value is very important, but truth needs to be defined. There is great literature that depicts things that are quite "unbelievable." Think of fantasies like The Tempest and whole categories of writing like SciFi. The truth value has less to do with the following of the laws of physics and biology than it does with following the natural operation of the human mind.

Nick

[librarius_qui]

I am not in disagreement with you, or Beinvenu. (I feel like I'm argueing on the wrong side here) I strongly believe in the value of harsh pruning. But there are some writers who can go off at a tangent, commit all the above sins and still be engaging. From the outside it looks like innate judgement, rather than hard graft.

What's engaging?

~: there's no answer to this. What's good for some may be bad for others. Perhaps you guys disagree because you like different writers ...

(Just something that occured to me ...)

[blp]

librarius, if I can say this without being to brusque, this is a discussion forum. If we all just agree to disagree in an orgy of Pilatesque relativism, there's not going to be much to discuss, is there? Anyway, you're kind of missing the point: P and I were actually largely in agreement, especially about it being possible to break the rules and still be engaging.

Also, 'occurred' has two Rs.

Pilate and relativism dovetail neatly with Nick Capozzoli's inquiries into truth, which might seem tricky territory, especially in fiction, but I agree is fundamental and, I don't think needs to trouble us much philosophically. McKee says in Story that the writer must imagine a world to the nth detail. It could be an ordinary contemporary American suburb, or it could be a rectangular planet in the distant Narglon galaxy, but, whichever it is, the writer has to know it totally. He recommends writing pages and pages of stuff, not for publication, just asking and answering questions like 'What kind of shoes would the character wear? What does he like to drink and where? What does he think about when he's drinking? What is he scared of?' etc., this being part of what he calls research. This is sort of what I was alluding to when I said most of the sins I was discussing came down to failures to imagine with sufficient richness. It's also probably at the root of the standard advice to 'write about what you know'. But you can get to know anything, even an entirely imaginary world, you just have to 'research' it, as McKee says. The point is, at a minimum, you're trying to create something that feels true, however fantastical, because it's consistent. The main thing is not to hit any bum notes. You don't want your 16th Century wavering novitiate to express her doubts by saying, 'I'm just not sure holy orders are going to fulfill me spiritually, you know?'

[librarius_qui]

librarius, if I can say this without being to brusque



You can ... [And you can be brusque as well ... I won't mind, not in this kind of discussion. If you go beyond limits, I'll let you know.] You have to understand that someone would have to check this out :rolleyes:



Also, 'occurred' has two Rs.

Pilate and relativism dovetail neatly with Nick Capozzoli's inquiries into truth, which might seem tricky territory, especially in fiction, but I agree is fundamental and, I don't think needs to trouble us much philosophically. McKee says in Story that the writer must imagine a world to the nth detail. It could be an ordinary contemporary American suburb, or it could be a rectangular planet in the distant Narglon galaxy, but, whichever it is, the writer has to know it totally. He recommends writing pages and pages of stuff, not for publication, just asking and answering questions like 'What kind of shoes would the character wear? What does he like to drink and where? What does he think about when he's drinking? What is he scared of?' etc., this being part of what he calls research.

So, would there be a question on whether this is natural to a person or not?

I can say that writing is good when it's thought "backstages", all right ...


He recommends writing pages and pages of stuff, not for publication, ...

my question is: didn't you do it _before_ someone telling you that this is the way of doing it? ...

[Mr Endon]

blp, that's interesting advice that man gives. For myself I don't think it applies too well, as my favourite fiction features narrators who know too little, and are downright idiots if possible - the hilarious humility of a narrator who would like to describe a character but can't because he knows next to nothing about her, or a narrator who knows even less than the reader, is an example of what I mean.

Apart from my eccentric tastes, however, it's very sound advice. This 'research' surely gives the story a much more natural flow, as it were. All this reminds me of Fernando Pessoa, whose heteronyms he knew inside out: in a letter to a friend, he explains when his three main heteronyms where born (to the day), their varying levels of education, their jobs, the way they lived and thought about things.

Also, I agree with that bit at the end, with the amusing 16th century example. If I had to describe good writing in one word, I'd probably choose 'consistency'.

[PeterL]

Excellent point about the audience...Harlequin Romances are greatly admired by their audience, and the same audience might find Finnegan's Wake poorly written (and unreadable). But we're still not closer to an understanding. Shakespeare's plays were much appreciated by nearly all audiences. Then there is the matter of appeal to audiences different not only in social place but over time. Wuthering Heights might be seen as a sort of 19th C Harlequin Romance, but it works today. How many Harlequin Romances will "work" a hundred years from now? So one definition of good writing (and by extrapolation of bad writing) is the ability to appeal over time.

Writing that appeals over a long time is closer to being great, not merely good. After four hundred years Shakespeare still works. Within the last few years, I have learned that the great writers of the early eighteenth century are starting to be lost on the general audience, so they not be as great as was once thought. I wouldn't be surprised if some recent Romance will be popular in two hundred years. Wuthering Heights was just that sort of thing when it was written. I can't imagine which Romance will have staying power, but there are so many that there has to be something that would appeal outside of that audience. I was recently in a used book store when the owner mentioned that he had 16 copies of Wuthering Heights, so it isn't selling well.


Regarding Twain's comments about Cooper, I appreciate that Twain was being humorous. Cooper's novels that he refers to are really great. Twain, who was also a great writer, certainly understood this. I take "the Literary Offences" as in-your face satire, and it also illustrates (though many seem not to appreciate it) the point that it is often just plan silly to come up with "rules" for good fiction writing, especially rules that derive from analysis of syntax.

I don't have much use for Fennimore-Cooper's writing, and I agree with Twain on every point. The rules that Twain listed are very useful. Those rules are cetainly not "silly".

[BienvenuJDC]

I am not in disagreement with you, or Beinvenu. (I feel like I'm arguing on the wrong side here) I strongly believe in the value of harsh pruning. But there are some writers who can go off at a tangent, commit all the above sins and still be engaging. From the outside it looks like innate judgment, rather than hard graft.

I definitely see your points...both you and blp. There is one writer that comes to mind...and I may be mistaken, but it seems that Garrison Keillor can spin off on a tangent that seems totally irrelevant, but all the while (especially if you are listening to his actual voice) you really don't seem to care that he is including information that you wouldn't normally care about. I don't know about anybody else, I just find his writings entertaining. Sometimes I just enjoy reading something that I don't have to give any thought to at all.

[kelby_lake]

librarius, if I can say this without being to brusque, this is a discussion forum.
Also, 'occurred' has two Rs.


Also in your context, 'to' has two 'o''s- too :) (sorry, I guess it's a typo but I couldn't resist)

He recommends writing pages and pages of stuff, not for publication, just asking and answering questions like 'What kind of shoes would the character wear? What does he like to drink and where? What does he think about when he's drinking? What is he scared of?' etc., this being part of what he calls research.


Whilst you have to know your character well, sheets like that can often lead into mere superficial knowledge and you accumulate cliches (my character is an old woman ergo I must call her Betty ergo she must have a cat called Doris ergo she must have a drop of sherry on Sundays, etc.) so they become a bit trivial. If it is vital to Betty's character or the plot that she has a drop of sherry on Sundays, fair enough, but otherwise you can start falling in love with quirks and trivia that really add nothing.

[emily00]

I was recently in a used book store when the owner mentioned that he had 16 copies of Wuthering Heights, so it isn't selling well.

With respect I would beg to suggest that his having acquired sixteen copies of WH does not necessarily mean that it is an unpoular book or one no longer read.

It might mean

(a) that the local sixth formers had to buy their own copies when they studied it (it is still a staple of many sllabi) and they all brought them to the same second hand bookshop to try to earn a sou afterwards

(b) that its popularity is in direct, rather than inverse, proportion to its prevalence in second hand bookshops. Lots of copies around = lots of people have read it?

[PeterL]

With respect I would beg to suggest that his having acquired sixteen copies of WH does not necessarily mean that it is an unpoular book or one no longer read.

It might mean

(a) that the local sixth formers had to buy their own copies when they studied it (it is still a staple of many sllabi) and they all brought them to the same second hand bookshop to try to earn a sou afterwards

(b) that its popularity is in direct, rather than inverse, proportion to its prevalence in second hand bookshops. Lots of copies around = lots of people have read it?

OK, what it really meant was that he had bought more than he was selling. It has little to do with popularity or anything other than inventory control.

[kelby_lake]

I know, but I honestly think that's the trick of it and the thing you work towards, making it look easy and playful. That's why my list of sins included both shortcutting and overwriting. Frequently, I find I need to both write a lot and edit a lot. In the end, it's kind of like throwing a lot of darts at a dartboard and then just leaving the ones that work. You don't necessarily know why they work, seeing as there's no bullseye or triple twenty, they just do, which is maybe why good writers' results can look so instinctive.

You do all the heavy lifting and then suddenly a point arrives when you're free and you can play and the rules fall away. I've experienced it myself in my little way. It's sort of mysterious, in the same way as going to sleep mulling over a problem and waking up with the solution is, but it's not as mysterious as the very unhelpful idea of 'genius'.
.

Having certain skills that might make you a good person to start writing doesn't mean you have to be a genius. Observational skills, love of storytelling, ability to empathise...how ever many creative classes you go to, you still won't be as good as someone who has those qualities until you find those qualities in yourself.

Anyway, we're talking about writing novels? What about plays, short stories, journalism, poetry? There's all sorts of writing- we can't just lump it into one.

Being able to do a good short story is a start.

[blp]

my question is: didn't you do it _before_ someone telling you that this is the way of doing it? ...

Calling me stupid? ;) No, I didn't. And neither do a hell of a lot of other writers. I wrote drafts and revised and thought a lot about what I was doing, but I never had a method as simply systematic as this.

I'm afraid I don't understand your other question, but perhaps precisely the point is that McKee's method is counter-intuitive and does not come 'naturally' to people. Perhaps because, as I and Nick have been saying, good writers make it look easy, the 'natural' assumption is that one will sit down and write from the beginning to the end without any prior notes. This is also the way one was expected to do it at school - and I went to a lot of different schools. It was the same in all of them.


blp, that's interesting advice that man gives. For myself I don't think it applies too well, as my favourite fiction features narrators who know too little, and are downright idiots if possible - the hilarious humility of a narrator who would like to describe a character but can't because he knows next to nothing about her, or a narrator who knows even less than the reader, is an example of what I mean.

Can you give any specific examples? On the whole, I'd say you're mistaking the character of the first-person narrator for the author, who's still going to need a certain amount of control to make the incompetent character work. But your description reminds me, sort of, of Kathy Acker, whom I quoted earlier. She wrote her books straight off without rewrites. They can be erratic affairs and sometimes don't make sense at all, but the best of them are fan-****ing-tastic, beautifully and uniquely written and frequently hilarious. She's kind of the ultimate rule-breaker. But, in a way, she still backs up what I'm saying because her primary method involved using other books as source material - plagiarism was how it was characterised, though there's very little in any of it that seems to be actual quotation - which I would say was her version of McKee's 'research'. In both cases, something exists prior to the writing and the writing comes from that.



Also in your context, 'to' has two 'o''s- too (sorry, I guess it's a typo but I couldn't resist)

It does? ;) Yes, a typo, but fair enough. I know I looked a bit snitty correcting librarius, but I honestly thought he or she might really like to know.



He recommends writing pages and pages of stuff, not for publication, just asking and answering questions like 'What kind of shoes would the character wear? What does he like to drink and where? What does he think about when he's drinking? What is he scared of?' etc., this being part of what he calls research.


Whilst you have to know your character well, sheets like that can often lead into mere superficial knowledge and you accumulate cliches (my character is an old woman ergo I must call her Betty ergo she must have a cat called Doris ergo she must have a drop of sherry on Sundays, etc.) so they become a bit trivial. If it is vital to Betty's character or the plot that she has a drop of sherry on Sundays, fair enough, but otherwise you can start falling in love with quirks and trivia that really add nothing.

Are you speaking from experience? My experience has been the precise opposite. I find it much easier to slip into clichés when writing the narrative straight off without notes, maybe because, in rushing to connect the narrative dots, I bung in whatever pat details I need to get from A to B.

The point about the notes is that you argue with yourself. You write stuff like 'OK, she's eighty-three, lives alone, husband was a veteran, died of cancer, she's called Betty and she has a drop of sherry every...no no no. This is all totally pat. This is telling me nothing and, worst of all, doesn't help explain how she became involved with the business in Dubrovnik at all. What if it's she, not her husband, who was the vet? Maybe she was a WAV. Or maybe she was part of the code-busting gang at Bletchley. No, crap, that's another cliché.' and so on.

And note that I said, 'not for publication'. The idea isn't that you use everything, it's that you put a complete and consistent picture in your own mind, precisely so that you're writing about a distinct individual, not a cardboard-cut-out cliché. In the end, you may not bother to mention that she has a preference for gin and Thunderbird, not sherry, but it will tell you something about her character, which may affect decisions about her voice, appearance and god knows what else. You may not use 90% of these notes, but they create a world and a set of three-dimensional characters from which you can pull relevant details when you come to the actual narrative - just as the detail of the real world gives you a lot from which to select if you're writing factual material. This is what I meant when I said you have to write about what you know, but you can get to know anything - even a fictional landscape of your own creation.



Having certain skills that might make you a good person to start writing doesn't mean you have to be a genius. Observational skills, love of storytelling, ability to empathise...how ever many creative classes you go to, you still won't be as good as someone who has those qualities until you find those qualities in yourself.

The only reason I used the word 'genius' is that it's the nec plus ultra of the common idea of 'talent' or 'natural ability', which I find problematic. As I say, I probably seemed as if I had 'natural ability' to some of my schoolmates, whereas I know I was very much a product of environment. In the end, there may possibly be something that equates to 'innate ability' in certain individuals, but it's a very difficult thing to prove one way or the other - as I say, what looks natural may not be - so I don't see how the idea helps and I think it can do a lot of harm. Most people when they start out are not very good and find it difficult. This does not mean they have no 'natural ability' and should stop. They should carry on if they want to. Never underestimate the little engine that could or the tortoise vs. the hare. You wouldn't expect to be brilliant at skiing, sex or painting when you first did them, so why should writing be any different? You develop a feel for these things and you also learn certain techniques and, in this way bad writers become better. It's virtually impossible to say at the beginning of the process how much better they might become - and the only thing that's really going to keep them going so they can find out is the desire to do it. One of the unlearnable qualities for being a good writer you cite is a love of storytelling. Sorry, but, duh. That's pretty much the same as me saying you have to want to do it. I'm arguing against discouragement here, but I'm not going to be bothered about discouraging people who didn't like doing it anyway, am I?

As for the other qualities you say one needs, well, maybe, but you admit that people can go from not having them to having them - and I agree. This is what I'm saying. A hell of a lot of what one needs can be learned - not necessarily in a creative writing class (I've never attended one myself), but from all kinds of sources and from trying and failing with the writing itself. But that requires another prerequisite quality: humility. You have to be prepared to get help. A person's belief in their own talent can be as harmful to their work as another's belief that they lack any. That, after all, is how the hare lost the race.



Anyway, we're talking about writing novels? What about plays, short stories, journalism, poetry? There's all sorts of writing- we can't just lump it into one.

I'm talking about writing narratives, which covers half what you said, plus screenplays. McKee's book is on screenwriting. I'm talking about this stuff because it's what I'm involved in, but I think a lot of the principles are the same in journalism and even poetry: know what you're talking about. I presume you wouldn't deny the value of research for a journalist or any other sort of factual writer. They're the ones we naturally expect to do it. Beyond that, they're faced with the same challenges as fictional writers: structure and choices about what to leave in and what to take out, style.



Being able to do a good short story is a start.

Again, must respectfully disagree. The short story, like the short film, is a distinct form that suits certain writers better than others, not a warming up exercise for aspirant long form writers. I started my novel as a short story, soon found out it needed more space, and, since then, have almost always found I want the splurge of a longer form. I don't particularly like short stories and I don't have any great desire to write them.

[Mr Endon]

Can you give any specific examples? On the whole, I'd say you're mistaking the character of the first-person narrator for the author, who's still going to need a certain amount of control to make the incompetent character work. But your description reminds me, sort of, of Kathy Acker, whom I quoted earlier. She wrote her books straight off without rewrites. They can be erratic affairs and sometimes don't make sense at all, but the best of them are fan-****ing-tastic, beautifully and uniquely written and frequently hilarious. She's kind of the ultimate rule-breaker. But, in a way, she still backs up what I'm saying because her primary method involved using other books as source material - plagiarism was how it was characterised, though there's very little in any of it that seems to be actual quotation - which I would say was her version of McKee's 'research'. In both cases, something exists prior to the writing and the writing comes from that.

Well, no, I don't think I'm mistaking the character for the author. Here is an example of what I mean:


But it is not so easy to tell about Anna Ignatievna. Firstly, I know almost nothing about her, and secondly, I have just fallen of my chair, and have forgotten what I was about to say. So let me instead tell about myself.

This is Daniil Kharms. Granted, it's not wonderfully crafted prose, but I like non-stories, or anti-stories if you will. As I said earlier, I have peculiar tastes.

Also granted that he's the only writer I know that fulfils the requirements I mentioned in the last post. Beckett, my favourite writer, also deals with 'ignorance and impotence', but there's definitely a method to his madness, and in a way we get to know his characters almost as well as we get to know Leopold Bloom, so I guess he did know his characters inside out. He had quite the God complex, as almost every writer does :)

Interestingly, like the lady you mention, Kharms never revised anything, never edited, never threw anything away. Thank you for the suggestion, would very much like to read something from her. Which book should I get?

[blp]

Blood and Guts in Highschool or Great Expectations. The former is seen as her masterpiece - by those who don't think her writing was garbage.

[kelby_lake]

Being able to do a good short story is a start.




Again, must respectfully disagree. The short story, like the short film, is a distinct form that suits certain writers better than others, not a warming up exercise for aspirant long form writers. I started my novel as a short story, soon found out it needed more space, and, since then, have almost always found I want the splurge of a longer form. I don't particularly like short stories and I don't have any great desire to write them.

I suppose what I mean is that lots of the skills needed to write a short story are universal writing skills- conciseness (i.e. not long-winded), handling a theme, expanding on a basic premise...whilst you don't need to be the perfect short-story writer, it helps if you can.

I know there is a point at which you have to say: 'Now, what's a cliche and what's just natural?' With Betty, it's not going to make much sense if she becomes a violent rock star.

I do like the favourite drinks part, but it takes ages to write a thorough sheet of details about the character. Yes, you don't put them all in (although some bad writers- Meyer- clearly do) but you're going to end up forcing yourself to think of things. Say, favourite soap opera. You give one character your fave soap, one your most hated, one doesn't like soap operas...you end up having to force the characters to be entirely different.

And then there's the theatre problem for 1st person narrator- should the actor be fed their story line moment by moment, or should they read it all at the beginning? I think the second works best but then you start to flagpoint things that the character isn't supposed to know yet and it crumbles.

[mystery_spell]

When I read a book, it always seems pretty obvious to me if the writing is "bad." A good book includes fantastic phrasing, complex sentences, brilliant descriptions and/or dialogue, and blends them all together, making them seem as if they belong together, effortlessly.

[blp]

I suppose what I mean is that lots of the skills needed to write a short story are universal writing skills- conciseness (i.e. not long-winded), handling a theme, expanding on a basic premise...whilst you don't need to be the perfect short-story writer, it helps if you can.

Yes, fair enough.



I know there is a point at which you have to say: 'Now, what's a cliche and what's just natural?' With Betty, it's not going to make much sense if she becomes a violent rock star.

No, well there's no point just being novel for the sake of it. But the point about that note-taking is, you do it to try to make everything fit together. That's what I was trying to show in the way I extended your example. You're trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle that doesn't exist yet: you're fairly sure she's an old woman and she had something to do with some shady business in Dubrovnik. Clearly, one's first thoughts about an old woman are going to have to be discarded. Or are they? Perhaps she herself has made herself into everyone's cliché vision of an old woman, right down to the sherry and the knitting, to hide something about her real self. Perhaps even the apparently innocuous fact that she walks with a cane turns out to be related to her colourful past: she was shot by a Stasi officer while escaping into West Berlin in 1962. etc. etc.



I do like the favourite drinks part, but it takes ages to write a thorough sheet of details about the character. Yes, you don't put them all in (although some bad writers- Meyer- clearly do) but you're going to end up forcing yourself to think of things. Say, favourite soap opera. You give one character your fave soap, one your most hated, one doesn't like soap operas...you end up having to force the characters to be entirely different.

This is kind of why I said McKee's method is counter-intuitive. You think, oh no, this is going to take ages, but it ends up speeding up the process. First of all, you compartmentalise your jobs: you work everything out without having to think about having good written style at the same time - that'll come later when you're actually writing the text. At this point you're just talking to yourself on paper. Then, when you come to write the actual thing, you have what you need and it's much quicker. Mckee himself says, a lot of writers talk about this stage almost as if they're divinely inspired, when actually all it is is they've taken so many notes, done so much preparation, that it suddenly seems easy.

I admit it could get a bit absurd, getting into details like whether they like soaps, but I can't help thinking about how much value there could be in asking oneself precisely that question, especially if you're talking about a group of old ladies. One of them doesn't like soaps? Why not? What does she like? It opens up a whole world of possibilities, from the mundane, but still absolutely telling (she prefers Countdown and playing Scrabble) to the altogether more surprising (she's too busy reading occultist books on Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn).

I went through this process during the writing of a film script I was having trouble making make sense. I sat down and wrote maybe fifty pages of handwritten notes, which didn't take long, a few days maybe. Stuff I couldn't work out at all just plodding through the script (which I'd been doing for months) suddenly fell into place. After that I went back to the script and didn't even have to refer to the notes more than once or twice. It was suddenly all just clear to me and I got to the end really quickly.



And then there's the theatre problem for 1st person narrator- should the actor be fed their story line moment by moment, or should they read it all at the beginning? I think the second works best but then you start to flagpoint things that the character isn't supposed to know yet and it crumbles.

Sorry, not sure what you're saying here.

[kelby_lake]

And then there's the theatre problem for 1st person narrator- should the actor be fed their story line moment by moment, or should they read it all at the beginning? I think the second works best but then you start to flagpoint things that the character isn't supposed to know yet and it crumbles.


Sorry, not sure what you're saying here.

What I guess I mean about the flagpointing is that if you know absolutely everything about the character and the plot, assuming that you won't change it, if you aren't a great writer you might start trying to add in conceits and pseudo-philosophical stuff and the like in order to hammer the point home.

The theatre example- characters don't entirely know themselves. I mean lack of self-knowledge is key for tragedies and many stories, and of course there will be plot details. Betty may like sherry but if you know that she's later going to like gin, you might end up having to drop really obvious hints that are distracting. This is why some actors are given their script scene by scene so they don't know the character's story arc.

[prendrelemick]

I suspect blp is right about most "effortless prose" being the result of a great deal of effort. I just wish he wasn't.

[Scheherazade]

I just wish he wasn't.Why? Because it is blp?

:D

[prendrelemick]

When I read a book, it always seems pretty obvious to me if the writing is "bad." A good book includes fantastic phrasing, complex sentences, brilliant descriptions and/or dialogue, and blends them all together, making them seem as if they belong together, effortlessly.

Once again that effortless quality is mentioned.

[blp]

Why? Because it is blp?

:D

It's terrible when I'm right, isn't it? But there it is. *evil laugh*

Well, if it makes you feel any better, prendrelemick, the Whistler half hour paintings thing does seem to be replicated in writing from time to time. Jean Cocteau reportedly wrote Les Enfants Terribles in two weeks. And in fact, even in my own work, much as I advocate the hard labour and multiple revisions approach, I've had moments when I knock something out expecting to have to redact and reorder extensively, then go back and think, nope, it's done - and surprisingly great (though I say so myself :D.) But in most instances of this, the explanation is probably the same as Whistler's - a quick job, but born out of a liftetime of work.


And then there's the theatre problem for 1st person narrator- should the actor be fed their story line moment by moment, or should they read it all at the beginning? I think the second works best but then you start to flagpoint things that the character isn't supposed to know yet and it crumbles.



What I guess I mean about the flagpointing is that if you know absolutely everything about the character and the plot, assuming that you won't change it, if you aren't a great writer you might start trying to add in conceits and pseudo-philosophical stuff and the like in order to hammer the point home.

You seem to be suggesting that doing this kind of work would make a bad writer worse. I don't see how. If they're already bad and they don't really know their characters and environments, they're going to write flat, implausible clichés anyway. I'd still rather they did know something about them, even if they tended to rather over-egg the pudding on the details. Remember, I didn't just say people should do this 'research' thing. I also said they should edit like crazy. Among other things.

Anyway, I'm finding that knowing a lot about your subject actually allows you to employ a lighter touch, kind of like walking a tightrope if you know there's a great big airbag underneath. As I said before with the gin example, you might not actually put that in, but it could give you a sense of how the woman looks and speaks. This stuff might eventually come out in the tiniest telling details. In the best instances, these might be details that seem like insignificant quirks, maybe even stuff that's just been put in for a laugh, and then, at some key climactic moment, you realise the overwhelming significance.

Anyway, are you sure you're not just being awkward, kelby? Do I really have to stress again that you're not doing all this exhaustive detail stuff in the actual piece? If you were, sure, that would generally be bad. You're doing it in notes to put a picture in your own head that's as complete as possible - and, crucially, you're doing it as part of the general soup of notes you're taking to try to work out the narrative. So the more you go on with it, the more clear it becomes which details you really need and which you don't. But really, I have explained all of that.

Most of all, you're giving yourself an object to work from that's as much like working from life as possible. When you're telling a story from life, it's often pretty clear which details you need, even if you tend to point them out rather obviously, as in, 'Oh, I should mention, she's a bit of a punk. You know, facial piercings, dyes her hair all kinds of colours. That's probably partly why these guys were a bit freaked out by her, though she's, honestly, she's the sweetest person, really quite shy actually...' etc.



The theatre example- characters don't entirely know themselves. I mean lack of self-knowledge is key for tragedies and many stories, and of course there will be plot details. Betty may like sherry but if you know that she's later going to like gin, you might end up having to drop really obvious hints that are distracting. This is why some actors are given their script scene by scene so they don't know the character's story arc.

Yes, but come on, k, work it out: the writer knows. And actually, very often, actors want to know a hell of a lot about their characters too so that they can start to build in the kind of tics, facial expressions, attitudes etc. that are going to bring it to life. It's a good analogy because it makes it clear how much of this is eventually going to be hidden. If an actor decides his character was repeatedly whacked across the back of the neck as a child, but this isn't in the script, obviously it won't be in the text of the play itself, but it will be there in the actor's performance as a hunched, frightened looking person, rather demure and even gentle seeming, but with a subtle, underlying aggression. A novelist might make a similar decision about a character and actually describe him like that: a hunched, frightened looking person - before going on to give little clues to his seething undercurrent of rage before it finally boils over in some terrible act of abuse or murder. By contrast, a novelist who hadn't done the preliminary work, knowing they have to depict a character who's eventually going to commit this atrocity, might make the rather more boring and obvious decision to just depict the character as an out-and-out villain from the off.

[Scheherazade]

It's terrible when I'm right, isn't it? But there it is. *evil laugh*Oh, I have no problem with that... What's terrible is that you won't admit when I'm right.

:p

[Jozanny]

Oh, I have no problem with that... What's terrible is that you won't admit when I'm right.

:p

You are always right Sche! That's my mantra.:p:eek:

[Scheherazade]

You are always right Sche! That's my mantra.:p:eek:Whatdya know? Another one sees the light!

:D

[kelby_lake]

Anyway, are you sure you're not just being awkward, kelby?

I am a bit...:)

Yes, but come on, k, work it out: the writer knows. And actually, very often, actors want to know a hell of a lot about their characters too so that they can start to build in the kind of tics, facial expressions, attitudes etc. that are going to bring it to life. It's a good analogy because it makes it clear how much of this is eventually going to be hidden. If an actor decides his character was repeatedly whacked across the back of the neck as a child, but this isn't in the script, obviously it won't be in the text of the play itself, but it will be there in the actor's performance as a hunched, frightened looking person, rather demure and even gentle seeming, but with a subtle, underlying aggression.

The hypocrisy of it is that I'm afraid I would do backstory and details for a character in a play but I just find it more time-consuming in a novel. Sometimes the restraints of that form can be just as strong for me as the perks...

[Emil Miller]

I am not in disagreement with you, or Beinvenu. (I feel like I'm argueing on the wrong side here) I strongly believe in the value of harsh pruning. But there are some writers who can go off at a tangent, commit all the above sins and still be engaging. From the outside it looks like innate judgement, rather than hard graft.

I am pretty sure there are writers who have an innate ability to write but they are a small minority, which applies also to the arts in general.
Franz Liszt could hear someone play a piece of piano music for the first time and immediately play it note for note better than the original performer. Clara Schumann, one of the greatest pianists of her day, said how frustrating it was that he had such an ability while she and others could only reach that standard through constant practice.

[Jozanny]

I am pretty sure there are writers who have an innate ability to write but they are a small minority, which applies also to the arts in general.
Franz Liszt could hear someone play a piece of piano music for the first time and immediately play it note for note better than the original performer. Clara Schumann, one of the greatest pianists of her day, said how frustrating it was that he had such an ability while she and others could only reach that standard through constant practice.

A writer who gets published needs some innate impulse toward creativity, even if they are hacks. I am a lousy writer, (and have hacked for money) but didn't care then, didn't believe it, and persisted. I got better, but the drawback to this is when I read another writer who has achieved the spectacular, it sends my impulse to self-destruct into a frenzy, and in more minor instances, like with my contemporary poet friend Robert (see the poetry thread, as he registered here coz he misses me:blush:) I ask myself why my craft can't be as fine, even though I admire his for its own sake.

But bad writing and minimal aesthetic worth are not quite the same. Bad writing is inexperience talking--perhaps laziness as well--but there is such a thing as good trash, such as a well-paced novel like Jackie Brown. This story makes the noir authors of the 30's seem like high art, comparatively, but still achieves its goal and is thus technically competent; I cannot say that of Acker, not being sure how she really played the keynote of her notoriety. I've read her, and don't quite see what blp sees. I think she's like Charles Bukowski with the slightly more subtle bent of making her biography, her persona, and her copyist-narrative kitsch, into a kind of uber-performance art which was a work in progress, her death by breast cancer giving it a kind of convenient, if shallow, pathos. In other words, you had to take the whole package to see the literary art in what she was doing, and that isn't really writing.

[blp]

I cannot say that of Acker, not being sure how she really played the keynote of her notoriety. I've read her, and don't quite see what blp sees. I think she's like Charles Bukowski with the slightly more subtle bent of making her biography, her persona, and her copyist-narrative kitsch, into a kind of uber-performance art which was a work in progress, her death by breast cancer giving it a kind of convenient, if shallow, pathos. In other words, you had to take the whole package to see the literary art in what she was doing, and that isn't really writing.

Actually, all I ever took was the writing - and not all of it, mainly just the books I mentioned, Blood and Guts... and Great Expectations. She was still alive when I started reading her and the rest of it, the piercings and crazy haircuts, were never of much interest. Nevertheless, a lot of the appeal was essentially punk, in that, like those bands who started off not really being able to play, she certainly made you feel you could do it yourself. It's only when you actually try it that you realise her ability. Those books are like reading someone's personal notebooks, but notebooks where, as rabidly undisciplined as they are (not seem), the author virtually never hits a bum note.



Anyway, are you sure you're not just being awkward, kelby?

I am a bit...:)

:lol:



The hypocrisy of it is that I'm afraid I would do backstory and details for a character in a play but I just find it more time-consuming in a novel. Sometimes the restraints of that form can be just as strong for me as the perks...

Hmm. Can't see why it would be that different. A novel may (usually) be longer, but the backstories won't be.

Jozanny, what's your friend Robert's screen name?

[Jozanny]

Jozanny, what's your friend Robert's screen name?

I think he came in as RobertT blp. I sent him a friend request, but his addiction is Facebook. Mine is using forums like this to socialize and run my mouth endlessly, as all the regulars can tell by now:D:lol:

[blp]

Oh, I have no problem with that... What's terrible is that you won't admit when I'm right.

:p

I have consulted an expert about the little matter to which I think you must be referring and it turns out I am right. :D

Thanks, Jozanny. Had a look in the poetry section and couldn't find him, which was why I asked. Was imagining he must be using a different name. But I'll try digging deeper.

[Jozanny]

I have consulted an expert about the little matter to which I think you must be referring and it turns out I am right. :D

Thanks, Jozanny. Had a look in the poetry section and couldn't find him, which was why I asked. Was imagining he must be using a different name. But I'll try digging deeper.

Here. (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?p=734625#post734625) Easy to miss. He probably will not turn up very often. I do nearly the opposite and overstay my welcome even when I am not in the mood to overstay, but I think, on this muggy sog of a day, this will be my last post. I want to try to barrel this vignette through before 6/15, even though I have to get in and out of bed in cycles. August is the worst for my stupid legs; they are nearly useless, if not quite.

[blp]

Thanks, Jozanny. Good stuff.

[Scheherazade]

I have consulted an expert about the little matter to which I think you must be referring and it turns out I am right. :D
Oh, you mean the expert whom you pay to agree with you?

:D

[blp]

Oh, you mean the expert whom you pay to agree with you?

:D

I would say, 'Oh you think you're so clever', but I don't think even you believe that. There is no expert whom I pay to agree with me. But it was my shrink, if that's what you mean. :p

[Scheherazade]

I would say, 'Oh you think you're so clever', but I don't think even you believe that. Now, that is a "healthy" attitude.

I am sure you are making your very expert proud!

:rolleyes:

[Nick Capozzoli]

I don't have much use for Fennimore-Cooper's writing, and I agree with Twain on every point. The rules that Twain listed are very useful. Those rules are cetainly not "silly".

It's hard to not nod in agreement (and chuckle) at Twain's cited "offences." Shakespeare's critics (e.g. one who famously responded to the comment that Shakespeare "never blotted a line" with "Would that he had blotted thousands...") made similar facile criticisms.

I happen to like Cooper...quite a lot. Natty Bumpo, in his various incarnations, is a great character well-defined. "Deerslayer" and "The Last of the Mohicans" are great stories. I praised the film version of "The Last of the Mohicans" with Daniel Day Lewis in another thread.