[Essay] On "Literary" Writing (1,132 wds)
Jane MacDonald
The whole thing about "literary" stories has puzzled me for
quite a while. Brad's and doc's posts in the "Climatic endings"
thread inspired me to write this.
I read several pieces in the "Best Stories of the 20th Century"
book edited by Updike, and most of them aren't the ones I
would have chosen. O. Henry didn't make it. A lot of currently
famous "literary" novelists do nothing for me.
Bradley is certainly right--dramatic stories with climaxes are
not in style these days with most critics. Like doc, I miss the
old kind, and have written a good many of that sort.
Just to keep the argument going, I want to suggest some
reasons for this change--I'm not stuck on these, and I may be all
wet. I'd like others to contribute to the discussion.
It seems to me that fiction writers are beleaguered these days.
People used to read short stories in every newspaper and
magazine, but now they watch TV instead. The market has
shrunk dramatically. Many quite good writers are writing for
TV and the movies--they want to make money, and novelists
and short-story writers don't do that. There are no more pulp
magazines--they didn't pay much, but they kept a lot of writers
in pen money--pun intended. Modern day pulp is the TV
sitcom. Modern day romance is the same, plus movies and
Harlequins.
The modern novel has suffered, too. The biggest selling genre
is the romance, closely followed by SF, horror, mysteries and
thrillers (probably not in that order). Most of those stories are
not much in the character department, nor do they allow room
for "artistic" writing. Even Carl Hiassen, whose very
well-written serio-comic novels sell in huge numbers, still
writes a daily column for a Miami newspaper. David Mamet,
once a promising writer of serious plays, now writes fairly
good movie scripts. In the old days it wasn't much
different--with rare exceptions, novelists made little money.
Even then, however, there were "serious" novelists and people
who wrote pot boilers. A very few, like Dickens, wrote pot
boilers that we still read, but they were pot boilers nonetheless.
The modern "literary novel," with a few exceptions, sells a few
thousand copies at most--no literary novelist is making a living
writing, or coming near it. Most work for universities, and the
rest have some other kind of day job.
Compare writers to artists. I know a very good painter who
makes fairly large sums selling seascapes, but he frankly
considers those as pot boilers--what he prides himself on are
abstracts that look to me like good examples of wallpaper or
floor tile designs. He makes a living teaching art in a
university. Realism died with the invention of photography, as
far as painters were concerned. The Impressionists had a lot of
high-minded rationalizations for dumping realism, but I don't
believe a word of them--the artists couldn't beat photography
when it came to realism.
So how can a writer distinguish herself--be something more
than an entertainer? How can a painter do the same thing?
Simple--write, or paint, something that the common herd won't
understand and won't like. How can a critic distinguish
himself? Become known as one who can recognize gold among
the dross. How can one prove oneself to be a true intellectual,
with delicate sensitivity? Simple; appear to understand that
which the masses can't, and have contempt for mere entertainers.
"Literary" stories and novels are like abstract paintings and "art
films." They have to be obscure--if just anyone can appreciate
them, how are they different from what Tom Clancy writes?
Not long ago I read an excellent novel by Gail Godwin called
"Evensong." It was so good that I immediately resolved to read
her entire output, and hied myself off to the library. I read the
first two novels she published. They were awful--pointless and
stupid. Yet they were highly praised by the critics of the 1970s.
Her third I liked a little better. It was a sort of slice of life, but
still, the characters were alive and the story showed the heroine
making some progress, if you read carefully. Her fourth was a
lot better, and the ones since then I found delightful. Yet if she
had started out with "Evensong," she'd never have been
noticed. Sure, it's a great story, very well written, but she'd
have been classed with Eileen Goudge, an excellent story teller
whose books sell well, but whom the high-class critics ignore.
Godwin had to prove herself capable of writing "literary"
novels in order to become "respectable"; when she'd
accomplished that, she gradually turned back to telling stories.
Fortunately, there is still a class of reader--many of the people
posting to this newsgroup belong to it--that prefers to read
rather than to watch TV. If we want to read novels we consider
good, we have to hunt for them, for the ones the high-class
academic critics like usually are not really our kind of reading.
Yet we aren't satisfied with the average pot boiler--we want
good characterization, a little complexity in our reading. So we
find a few, like Charles Frazier, but we also read 1950s authors
like Neville Shute or James Gould Cozzens, or even earlier
ones like William Dean Howells; and we find a few romance,
mystery, SF, or thriller writers who, despite their pandering to
the tastes of the masses, turn out some very good, very well
written, stories--Mary Wesley, Peter Robinson, Thomas Perry.
I'm sorry I don't know SF, so can't name one, but I'm sure they
are there.
But even we relative low-brows are influenced when we write
by the darlings of academe. I get minimalist; and occasionally I
write stories with ambiguous endings. It's very hard to ignore
the famous critics. I know about "Glimmer Train" and
"Ploughshares" and the other prestige literary magazines, and I
wouldn't mind being a famous writer, even though, really, the
stories that such magazines carry aren't my favorite kind of
thing. So it's difficult simply to say the hell with it and write
the kind of stories I like to read.
There is one exception to all this, one kind of book that can be
perfectly intelligible and still get noticed by the high
critics--the novels that take as their subject the oppressed or the
handicapped, physically or mentally. I'll call them "culturally
trendy." I'm sure all of you could name a few of these. Some
are pretty good; some are, in my opinion, garbage--but the
right kind of garbage to get noticed by the critics.
I was not trying in this little essay to be sour, and I hope it
doesn't sound that way, though I suspect it does. What I was
trying to do was be realistic. Who knows? Maybe my analysis
is pure nonsense.
Jane
Jane MacDonald
jane...@excite.com
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Greyhawk
>
> The whole thing about "literary" stories has puzzled me for
> quite a while. Brad's and doc's posts in the "Climatic endings"
> thread inspired me to write this.
I am not and never will be, a "great writer". I do write though, and I
write well enough to keep my printer in paper and ink. I have long
been of the opinion that the worst mistake a writer can make is write
strictly to please the critics, the second worse mistake a writer can
make is to write strictly for the money. Literary writers DO write for
the money, and don't let anyone tell you differently. They write for
grants, international contests, and the dream of a nobel prize.
Popular writers DO try to please the critics. Don't let anyone sell
you horse feathers on that count either. People like Twain,
Hemmingway, Faulkner, O. Henry, and even Stephen King, write with both
the hope of making some fast cash, and the hope of being remembered
long after they have gone the way of mortal flesh. All professional
writers understand that in order to survive, they have to carve out a
niche of loyal readers who will snap up everything they publish and
come back begging for more. The only way to survive, is balance both
cash and critics and still find some way to tell the story you want to
tell.
The market for short fiction is not nearly so bad as many people
believe. There are thousands of cash on delivery magazines that
publish short fiction in every single issue, and hundreds of those are
devoted exclusively to publishing fiction. There are also millions of
aspiring writers trying to sell to those magazines, and millions more
who dream of being "real" writers but never submit. True, the field is
highly competitive, and far from lucrative, but it's not the impossible
dream we often believe it is. Like anything else, professional writing
is a lot of hard work, often with little or no hope of seeing any
actual reward. Writers keep on writing though, and some of them wind
up famous, some of them wind up rich, and a few of them wind up both.
Speaking of which, over the past month I have found the time to read
three novels:
Time Enough for Love, by Robert Heinlein
Pilgrim, by Timothy Findley
The Remorseful Day, by Colin Dexter
Science fiction, modern realism (a.k.a. "literary"), and a mystery.
Each book had strengths and weaknesses, and each book is quite
representative of the world of modern literature. Each book has
brought its author a combination of both fame and fortune, and each
book contains within its pages the strengths and weaknesses of each
author.
Heinlein is by far the least "literary" writer of the three. He makes
no effort to be literary, and scatters through every book a couple
dozen pages of apologia explaining why he makes that choice. Timothy
Findley set out to write an "artistic" book, and he carried it off
quite well. The pages resonate with influences from Joyce, Hardy,
Eyre, and countless others. Instead of overt apologia, at least a
third of the book deals with themes related to why traditional art is
vitally important to the modern world. Kind of a "covert" apologia, I
suppose, because the assumption is his reader will interpret the book
itself as a work of art. Dexter dances and skips down a middle ground
between the two. His book is clearly a good old-fashioned British
mystery, with Doyle and Christie waltzing in the background. He also
spends countless pages showing how his hero's love of classical books
and music show his "sensitivity". In the end though, the book is a
tried and true mass market "whodunit".
Write the story you want to tell, and write to the best of your
ability. If nobody likes it, shift the characters around, change the
setting, and write it again. The more you write, the better you will
learn to write, and sooner or later the "genre" vs. "mass market"
debate will become nothing more than background static as you cash your
quarterly royalty check and use it pay the rent.
--
Greyhawk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Greyhawk Manor, A New Way of Looking at Your World
http://www.greyhawkmanor.org
The Clan
<jane...@excite.com> wrote:
Jane -
<snip>
>Bradley is certainly right--dramatic stories with climaxes are
>not in style these days with most critics. Like doc, I miss the
>old kind, and have written a good many of that sort.
If we write what we like to read, if we write in 'our own
imagination's home', we will likely find (1) that we write our best
and (2) there will be other people who enjoy what we write.
So, fine, you say: I'm not gonna get published?
I always want to know WHY people write? Why, to be harsh first, do
people setting out on the long silent apprenticeship of writing
believe that their first novel/story/whatever will be published, any
more than a first painting will sell, or a ballet dancer's first steps
be lauded by the audience (unless they're the parents, of course)?
Then: WHY do we write? Because it's an interesting arty sort of hobby,
because we try and make sense of the world around us, because we
escape, because it's a compulsion or a catharsis, because we're born
storytellers...?
Do we write only to be published? Okay, what will being published
bring us? Quite often, it won't bring us a lot of money and we'll
still have to keep our day jobs. Does it bring us justification,
validation? Is it the appropriate reward for the long apprenticeship?
Do we want to be rich and famous? Do we look for recognition? Will we
be completely happy and fulfilled if we publish?
Writers fall by the wayside often and easily. They fall the first time
they show their writing to someone outside adoring family and friends,
and that critiquer, or that person who's secretly jealous, says: hey,
this story has been written a thousand times before, or, it's
completely boring, and not only that, your grammar is all wrong and
you know nothing about story structure...They fall when they send off
their first piece to market and it's rejected. They fall because they
get busier, and more involved, in other parts of life. They fall
because they've got a room wallpapered in rejections. They fall
because they weren't really all that interested in the first place, or
it was just something 'cool' to do for a while, or released the
pressure of falling in love or being done wrong. They fall because
they didn't realise writing is hard work, and it's done alone, and all
the other people in their lives want to know is: "Have you published
anything?" and "When are you going to earn something?" and "When are
you going to come out of that room?"
So, what is it that keeps the rest of us going, getting better with
each story we write and each technique we learn and each bad habit we
lose?
For me, it isn't publication, and that's not a cop-out. I strive for
publication as much as anyone else. I have one of the longest writing
apprenticeships in the world behind me. But I WRITE because I have to,
because there are few other experiences in life like that of losing
myself in a story, its characters, because it's the only chance I ever
have in life to live inside someone else's head. Because those
characters and burning images and dreams and 'what ifs' come to me and
*demand* their own place. Because I get to know about things and
places and people and experiences I never had or never met or never
experienced. Because I slowly get better, then good, at a demanding
craft and its techniques...
If you *only* write for publication, you're in for terrible
disappointments, and you'll only write to current market fads and
requirements.
>So how can a writer distinguish herself--be something more
>than an entertainer?
Opera singers have to learn to act, and so do performance poets, and
so do professional story tellers, and so do ballet dancers, and so,
sometimes, do musicians. We are *also* entertained by the great music
and singers and dancers and artists.
But take the difference between a passing pop or rock favourite that's
everyone's favourite for a few weeks, then disappears and no one
remembers it; and the songs you remember forever. They may recall a
person or a place or a time; the lyrics had a special individual
meaning; like great poetry, the meaning of the song was universally
accessible; or maybe the music itself, or the rhythm, carried the
song...
I have been trying to pin down this difference between lit fic and
entertainment fic for a long time. There are writers considered to be
classic writers, literary writers, whom I think were merely popular in
their time, jumped on bandwagons, wrote potboilers. There are the
academic types who've been immersed in myths and fables and
allegories, and classic foreign writers and philosophers, who in their
own writing attempt to emulate those allegories, add deep shadings of
what they know, their frame of reference, to what they write. And
generally that will only be recognised and appreciated by others who
have a similar frame of reference. That's fine: that audience, that
market, also has a right to its enjoyments, its intellectual puzzles.
There are some who write at the peak of the technical range and pull
off dazzling zeugmas and apophthegms the way a ballerina might go for
the record in consecutive pirouettes -
>"Literary" stories and novels are like abstract paintings and "art
>films." They have to be obscure--if just anyone can appreciate
>them, how are they different from what Tom Clancy writes?
- and I think these are the kinds of writers you mean.
But there is a happy medium: the stories which totally engage us, have
unforgettable characters, keep us turning the pages and totally lost
to the world, and yet teach us something or make us question
something, and keep coming back mentally - or physically to re-read
and re-read - to chew over the bits that have stuck in our minds.
That generally wouldn't apply to genre fiction, although there are
some writers in both romance, thrillers and women's mainstream to whom
I return again and again: for those unforgettable characters, that
screaming tension, that moment which moved me to tears.
But a lot of these wonderful books *have* been published - "To Kill a
Mocking Bird" - and *are* being published right now. They entertain,
and they *feed*. "Snow Falling on Cedars", "Memoirs of a Geisha," eg,
and the absolutely unforgettable "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink.
(And *do* read some of the marvellous non-English writers in
translation: African, Japanese, Chinese, etc etc, for an appreciation
of what really is both universal and individual.)
Just recently, a writer friend wrote a series of essays on various
aspects of writing, and one of the important things he talked about
are the questions we need to ask of our characters - eg, is the sleuth
only detecting for the sake of revenge? in which case s/he will not
grow, and will be an anti-climactic, forgettable character - and the
fact that much of what we write is only the surface of the real story,
that we need to go through and through a story and press every little
last bit of matter out of it - and be truly honest, truly naked, truly
risk-taking, in the writing of it. Not writing safely and nicely and
competently. Oh, you can still be published writing like that -
skimming along, no obvious errors - but it's much more of a lottery
because you're up against so very very many more of those writing the
same way. The international publishers and agents panels I heard at
our Writers' Week this year said over and over again: they'd rather
receive brilliant messes, and send them back to that writer for 3/4
rewrites, than just go on and on reading competently written
variations on the same old themes. (And btw, warning: - by brilliant
messes, they *didn't* mean badly written!)
(I think too many of us perceive our stories as being outside
ourselves, distanced, a stage play we're directing, a movie...)
> So it's difficult simply to say the hell with it and write
>the kind of stories I like to read.
Difficult because - ? Because you think it's harder to be published? I
love reading the 'Genre Impaired' thread at Mystery Conferences
because of the amazing ideas writers have which don't fall within
currently definable genre boundaries. When I first read that thread
three years ago, 'Christian horror/thriller' was 'genre impaired' and
now it's one of the biggest sellers on the market, at least in the
Christian bookshops: masses of 'em, glossy covers! Many years ago I
read Harlequin or Silhouette or Mills & Boon's first tentative issue
of a 'ghost' love story, with a foreword of apology for the
experiment, and look where that's led!
Just a few weeks ago, a writer on a crime-writing list delurked with
the question: she didn't like writing serial murder stories, but that
seemed to be the market, how could she go about writing something
publishable in the genre? The replies unanimously said: write what you
want to write - it'll be real, it'll be convincing. When you're a
square peg trying to force itself into a round hole in writing, it
shows...
So, how to distinguish yourself as a writer? Write, learn, write,
write, write. Write where your own imagination's home lives. (You may
be the one to start the new trend!) And dig deep below the surface for
all the shades of meaning, for all the truth and emotional truth, in
your story. After all, if there are only 12 basic plots or 36 dramatic
situations, how come people have been telling stories for millenia,
and other people listening to them or reading them? We live in
different times, but we can live in all times. We are Australian
women <g> but we can be all people, all ages, all races, when we
write, as Tom Keneally points out, because we all *have* that ability.
And the truly great stories transcend all cultural barriers.
Annalou
Please perform letterectomy on the fourth letter of my email address
Bradley E. Robertson
main squeeze. Without opening his eyes, he reached over to the clock radio,
punched two buttons, and settled back to listen to the morning NPR
broadcast. The program was about an art show, with work of the masters
being shown with "common" art, popular with the masses. The art critic
being interviewed panned the show. His was incensed that art that was
understood by the common people would be grouped in categories with great
art.
A neighbor girl, in my youth, figured out how to have a popular click by the
time we were in the sixth grade. The kids didn't have to be cute, handsome,
or athletic. The trick was to do things together. Let the other kids
overhear them organizing a get together and later talk about how much fun
they had at the party. She moved to Texas, Australia, and later LA. I
received letters from her with explanations of how she was refining the
technique.
Written words fit into my examples. I do think that the craft must be
learned, and that basic talent is important. People who study, and teach
writing get an ear to what is good. They also get bored with the same
stories told by less that talented writers, so their click looks for writing
in the stratosphere; thin, rarified air, with little commercial value.
That's my quick take,
Brad
JeffD
Some very interesting thoughts in this thread.
This reminds me of the apparent dichotomy between Creative Writing
(at least the kind I'm familiar with) and English Lit . On the one
hand, we're taught the classic structure of beginning, middle, and
end, including some kind of catharsis or climax. On the other hand,
we're also told that "great" literature doesn't necessarily follow
this structure.
In my opinion, different people will always have different views
about what makes good or even great fiction. My own suggestion to
those writers pondering the literary style would be to write a story
the way you feel is best for that particular story, not just because
of any critical acclaim the style might attract. I'd venture to
guess that's the way the "greats" did it too.
On Tue, 23 Jan 2001 02:55:19 GMT, Jane MacDonald
<jane...@excite.com> wrote:
Jane MacDonald
I certainly agree with most of the inspirational matter you
contributed to this discussion, but I have to take issue with a
couple of sentences, because I have recently been doing market
research.
You wrote:
> The market for short fiction is not nearly so bad as many
> people believe. There are thousands of cash on delivery
> magazines that publish short fiction in every single issue, and
> hundreds of those are devoted exclusively to publishing fiction.
The "2001 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market" (Cincinnati,
OH: Writer's Digest Books), says on its cover "2000+ places to
sell your fiction." The key word here is "sell," and it's a bit of
an exaggeration.
The book lists 108 "literary magazines" that pay *cash* and a
couple of hundred more that pay in "contributors' copies." It
lists 36 small circulation magazines and 66 consumer
magazines that pay cash for stories, excluding children's
fiction. The vast majority of those in the last two categories do
not accept "general" fiction--they want fiction that has a certain
religious or philosophical slant or deals with a particular
subject (elk hunting, horse racing, etc.). Some in all of these
categories are in Canada, England, Ireland, and Australia; in
per capita terms, Canada has far more literary magazines than
the US does. The book is woefully incomplete on
e-zines--there are 34 of those that pay for fiction, including SF,
horror, fantasy, and several more restricted genres; I found
those myself.
Since marketing matters are off-topic for this group, I'll stop
here with the data, after saying that in fact there are somewhere
around 200-250 places to sell literary, experimental,
mainstream, romance, mystery, SF, horror, or fantasy short
stories in the United States. That doesn't mean selling short
stories is a hopeless endeavor, but it sets the record straight.
As Greyhawk says, write for yourself, try hard for publication,
but don't be surprised if it takes a while. Incidentally, nearly all
the editors quoted in that book giving snippets of advice say
your story had better be immaculate in grammar and
punctuation--they aren't going to wade through things they
consider illiterate.
Jane
Jane MacDonald
jane...@excite.com
In article <94j04c$ulr$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>,
LARRY HOYLES
line, is for the reader. I mean, why write something if nobody is going
to read it?
Literary writing is an art, but so is popular fiction, though the latter
gives more room for bending grammar (which, in a nutshell, is also the
reason for much critic snobbing).
Jane is right: the fan base for literary writers is a lot smaller than
that of competent, mainstream fiction writers. Most people who
religiously lurk in the isles of their local Books-A-Million are seeking
to be entertained by a good tale, and great literary skills are the last
thing on their mind (myself, I tend to put a book down if the writing is
terrible, but I don't get bent out of shape is I see "grammar bending.
As I've said before, grammar rules must not be broken, but they can be
bent, and the unique way each author bends them is what makes that
author unique. Everyone would sound the same, have the same voice..if
you will, if we all stuck strictly to the letter of the law).
Anyway, to write is divine, but to sell is even better. What better way
to know that your writing matters to people, than for people to buy what
you write. It's the American dream. When Stephen King was standing in
his tiny mobile home, and heard over the phone that Carrie had sold for
four-hundred thousand dollars, I'm sure his writing meant more to him at
that moment than it ever did, or ever has again. And the freaky bastard
can do some pretty good literary work when he takes a notion.
I guess what I'm trying to say is this: both sides want critical
acclaim, one side more than the other. Both sides want to be
recognized, make money, one side more than the other. The world needs
'em both.
Greyhawk
> Hi, Greyhawk--
Hi Jane!
> I certainly agree with most of the inspirational matter you
> contributed to this discussion, but I have to take issue with a
> couple of sentences, because I have recently been doing market
> research.
>
> Greyhawk wrote:
>
> > The market for short fiction is not nearly so bad as many
> > people believe. There are thousands of cash on delivery
> > magazines that publish short fiction in every single issue, and
> > hundreds of those are devoted exclusively to publishing fiction.
<snip!>
> Since marketing matters are off-topic for this group, I'll stop
> here with the data, after saying that in fact there are somewhere
> around 200-250 places to sell literary, experimental,
> mainstream, romance, mystery, SF, horror, or fantasy short
> stories in the United States. That doesn't mean selling short
> stories is a hopeless endeavor, but it sets the record straight.
Well, what can I say...
I guess I exaggerated a wee bit. Be merciful, okay? After all, I am a
*fantasy* writer! ;-)
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
Jane MacDonald <jane...@excite.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
94irqk$r6t$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
<snipped, because everyone's read it by now>
Discussions of a similar type, over at england.writing, came to the
following conclusions (we do this kind of verse thing at EW, from time to
time):
A serious hand for writing's needed
(even if you act the fool, like me)
The next few points have been conceded
To join in, you, too, must agree
One:
Sometimes one writes to feed the throng
of faceless masses, who want more
Although in this there's nothing wrong
One's work's not best, if it's a bore
Two:
More often, writing feeds one's kin
with deadlines ringing scornful bells
Although this brings the money in
it can put one through seven hells
Three:
But when one writes to feed the soul
is when the fire will ignite
The writer can then fill his bowl
and only publish when it's *right*
Four:
Art can be in your every beat
Your muse's will can run its course
But, if you've contracts you must meet
Your rose will never bloom by force
Five:
No writing carries with it shame
To write for money is a start
There's not much wrong with wanting fame
Nor in starving, for your *art*
That is the basis of this group
That types of writing number three
You've something to add to the loop?
Then post it in; we'd like to see
************
That pretty much says it all, so far as I'm concerned.
All replies at least partially in verse, please.
--
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
JeffD <tinker...@yahoo.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
3a6e7184...@156.46.10.23...
>
> Some very interesting thoughts in this thread.
>
> This reminds me of the apparent dichotomy between Creative Writing
> (at least the kind I'm familiar with) and English Lit . On the one
> hand, we're taught the classic structure of beginning, middle, and
> end, including some kind of catharsis or climax. On the other hand,
> we're also told that "great" literature doesn't necessarily follow
> this structure.
I dunno. I've always found that whatever I write has a beginning, a middle,
and an end by default. It's tricky to write something which doesn't have
all three (if you don't have the ends, the middle falls out, etc.).
That whole thing is just a teaching aid, to help people get through the
'hard bits' of writing.
Some people can't start a story; some can make a great start, but can't
carry through; and some can write and write and write, without ever finding
a good point to finish a story. The 'beginning', 'middle', and 'end'
thinghies are simply labels to make it easier to discuss those difficulties.
Don't pay too much attention to them.
> In my opinion, different people will always have different views
> about what makes good or even great fiction. My own suggestion to
> those writers pondering the literary style would be to write a story
> the way you feel is best for that particular story, not just because
> of any critical acclaim the style might attract. I'd venture to
> guess that's the way the "greats" did it too.
You always have an eye to: 'Who is going to read this drivel, once I've
finished it?', but I don't think it should be a major consideration. One
look at the bulk of the awful writing done for American TV proves that you
should never base everything you write on predicted audience responses.
Bradley E. Robertson
I can hardly spell
and he wants rime?
Well said,
Brad
Jane MacDonald
"Mark Wallace" <mwallac...@noknok.nl> wrote:
So Wallace is back
With rhyme in his pack
I must say it's nice
'Cause Mark will add spice.
If Usenet is dead
As somebody said,
He'll bring it to life
With terrible strife
And many a lark,
So welcome back, Mark!
Please stay here a while;
You cause me to smile.
docfarquar
Okay. But we're both going to regret this; I write verse about as well as a
cow rides a pogo stick.
The Options:
Lit fic, pop fic--take your choice
Toil beneath your muse's lash
Strive to find your chosen voice
One's for honors, one's for cash
Literary Fiction:
Critics rave while people ponder
Understanding may not dawn
Asseverate your puissance yonder?
Expect the booboisie to yawn
Popular Fiction:
Summer reading, winter's pleasure
Books that swell in adiposes
Fame and fortune beyond measure
Citics snort and hold their noses
The Solution:
Listen! Do you hear the voice within?
Labor not for pride nor pelf
You'll never please them all--chagrin!
Be satisfied to please yourself
doc
--
take ME out to reply
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
docfarquar <docfa...@yahooME.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
20010126114411.222$N...@newsreader.com...
> Okay. But we're both going to regret this; I write verse about as well as
a
> cow rides a pogo stick.
>
> The Options:
> Lit fic, pop fic--take your choice
> Toil beneath your muse's lash
> Strive to find your chosen voice
> One's for honors, one's for cash
>
> Literary Fiction:
> Critics rave while people ponder
> Understanding may not dawn
> Asseverate your puissance yonder?
> Expect the booboisie to yawn
<snicker>
Cool.
> Popular Fiction:
> Summer reading, winter's pleasure
> Books that swell in adiposes
> Fame and fortune beyond measure
> Citics snort and hold their noses
>
> The Solution:
> Listen! Do you hear the voice within?
> Labor not for pride nor pelf
> You'll never please them all--chagrin!
> Be satisfied to please yourself
Doc's thoughts ring out with perfect voice
and cadence due a rhymed oration
Although I feel his words of choice
suggest an act of mas... er... massive concentration!
To those who do at rhyming curse:
'Tis here the power of poetry shows.
The content of Doc's simple verse
would take a thousand words of prose.
(I'll skip over the fact that my pronunciation of 'chagrin' doesn't rhyme
with 'within'.).
Mark Wallace
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.terrashare.com/mainmenu.htm
____________________________________________
Jane MacDonald <jane...@excite.com> schreef in berichtnieuws
94s5rf$rj4$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> In article <94rcfs$emof5$2...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de>,
> So Wallace is back
> With rhyme in his pack
> I must say it's nice
> 'Cause Mark will add spice.
> If Usenet is dead
> As somebody said,
> He'll bring it to life
> With terrible strife
> And many a lark,
> So welcome back, Mark!
> Please stay here a while;
> You cause me to smile.
..And maybe cause grief?
How could I do less?
But I'll sigh with relief
(You spelt 'spice' with small 's'!).
docfarquar
> Doc's thoughts ring out with perfect voice
> and cadence due a rhymed oration
> Although I feel his words of choice
> suggest an act of mas... er... massive concentration!
>
> To those who do at rhyming curse:
> 'Tis here the power of poetry shows.
> The content of Doc's simple verse
> would take a thousand words of prose.
>
> (I'll skip over the fact that my pronunciation of 'chagrin' doesn't rhyme
> with 'within'.).
A point well taken, I should mention,
Pronunciation's always been
A matter of most dire contention
But not to G. B. Shaw's chagrin
Separated by a common language
Will we solve this age-old clash
With not a whimper but a banguage?
(Apologies to Ogden Nash)
Bill Palmer
Jane MacDonald <jane...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>
>The whole thing about "literary" stories has puzzled me for
>quite a while. Brad's and doc's posts in the "Climatic endings"
>thread inspired me to write this.
>
>I read several pieces in the "Best Stories of the 20th Century"
>book edited by Updike, and most of them aren't the ones I
>would have chosen. O. Henry didn't make it. A lot of currently
>famous "literary" novelists do nothing for me.
I feel the same way. Further, what bothers me is that
so many writers and wannabes in the prose and writing
newsgroups seem to favor things that have been done
to death for several decades now, such as "slice-
of-life," for one thing.
>
>Bradley is certainly right--dramatic stories with climaxes are
>not in style these days with most critics. Like doc, I miss the
>old kind, and have written a good many of that sort.
>
>Just to keep the argument going, I want to suggest some
>reasons for this change--I'm not stuck on these, and I may be all
>wet. I'd like others to contribute to the discussion.
>
>It seems to me that fiction writers are beleaguered these days.
>People used to read short stories in every newspaper and
>magazine, but now they watch TV instead. The market has
>shrunk dramatically. Many quite good writers are writing for
>TV and the movies--they want to make money, and novelists
>and short-story writers don't do that. There are no more pulp
>magazines--they didn't pay much, but they kept a lot of writers
>in pen money--pun intended. Modern day pulp is the TV
>sitcom. Modern day romance is the same, plus movies and
>Harlequins.
You are right, and I will take a good, old fashioned
pulp story anyday to what you find in most of the
literary zines and quarterlies these days. For instance,
I recently read HARD BOILED (AN ANTHOLOGY OF AMERICAN
CRIME STORIES) (an Oxford PB edited by Pronzini and
Adrian) and I thought many of those stories were
superb, especially pulp tales written before 1960.
>
>The modern novel has suffered, too. The biggest selling genre
>is the romance, closely followed by SF, horror, mysteries and
>thrillers (probably not in that order). Most of those stories are
>not much in the character department, nor do they allow room
>for "artistic" writing. Even Carl Hiassen, whose very
>well-written serio-comic novels sell in huge numbers, still
>writes a daily column for a Miami newspaper. David Mamet,
>once a promising writer of serious plays, now writes fairly
>good movie scripts. In the old days it wasn't much
>different--with rare exceptions, novelists made little money.
>Even then, however, there were "serious" novelists and people
>who wrote pot boilers. A very few, like Dickens, wrote pot
>boilers that we still read, but they were pot boilers nonetheless.
>
>The modern "literary novel," with a few exceptions, sells a few
>thousand copies at most--no literary novelist is making a living
>writing, or coming near it. Most work for universities, and the
>rest have some other kind of day job.
>
>Compare writers to artists. I know a very good painter who
>makes fairly large sums selling seascapes, but he frankly
>considers those as pot boilers--what he prides himself on are
>abstracts that look to me like good examples of wallpaper or
>floor tile designs.
An interesting twist is that sometimes what they do
strictly for money turns out to be their best art.
Many of cover paintings for pulp fiction magazines
are selling for big money now, despite the fact that
many of those pulp artists viewed their work as only
important in that it kept them from starving. And
artist Richard Powers, who revolutionized sf paperback
cover art in the 1950's with his mostly abstract
paintings, is now considered a major artist for his
sf painting alone--which he felt he was doing
primarily for money.
He makes a living teaching art in a
>university. Realism died with the invention of photography, as
>far as painters were concerned.
Now there I disagree. In fact, the first group of fine
art photographers, the pictorialists, did photographs
in imitation of paintings: wispy landscapes and so
on. Most of the results are today seen as boring. On
the other hand, Atget was really a commercial
photographer, far more a realist than the pictorialists,
and his reputation has been growing steadliy since
early in the Twentieth Century--while only a historian
can name the "artistic" photo-pictorialists these days.
The Impressionists had a lot of
>high-minded rationalizations for dumping realism, but I don't
>believe a word of them--the artists couldn't beat photography
>when it came to realism.
Good point.
>
>So how can a writer distinguish herself--be something more
>than an entertainer?
I am a writer. I have distinguished myself as an
entertainer. (Keyword Bill Palmer in Dejanews for
a mountain of proof.)
How can a painter do the same thing?
>Simple--write, or paint, something that the common herd won't
>understand and won't like. How can a critic distinguish
>himself? Become known as one who can recognize gold among
>the dross. How can one prove oneself to be a true intellectual,
>with delicate sensitivity? Simple; appear to understand that
>which the masses can't, and have contempt for mere entertainers.
Well, if they are "mere entertainers," that's one thing.
But writers like me--new in human history--who take this
wordscreen thing seriously must be entertainers too.
Interesting. What amazes me is that the critical establishment
of the 1950's would not give sf writers the time of day. Now,
people who were almost totally ignored outside of sf fanzines
(such as Alfred Bester) are hailed as major WRITERS (not
just "sf writers").
>
>But even we relative low-brows are influenced when we write
>by the darlings of academe. I get minimalist; and occasionally I
>write stories with ambiguous endings. It's very hard to ignore
>the famous critics. I know about "Glimmer Train" and
>"Ploughshares" and the other prestige literary magazines, and I
>wouldn't mind being a famous writer, even though, really, the
>stories that such magazines carry aren't my favorite kind of
>thing. So it's difficult simply to say the hell with it and write
>the kind of stories I like to read.
I was watching Ken Burns and I heard a very enlightening
remark about critics. One of the interviewees pointed
out that Monk was ignored by critics for fifteen years,
before being "discovered" by one perceptive reviewer
(Nat Hentoff). Suddenly by all the others who
had been dismissing him for years began to declare
Monk a genius jazz pianist. Anyway, the point was that
while critics like to flatter themselves perspicacious
souls always ready to spot new talent, the reality is
usually just the opposite. Since they have their attitudes
formed by previous styles and trents, they resent and
resist that which does not not ring many familiar bells.
The same can be said for many of our "writing group
critics," too. If they can't classify it, they ususlly
run from it.
>
>There is one exception to all this, one kind of book that can be
>perfectly intelligible and still get noticed by the high
>critics--the novels that take as their subject the oppressed or the
>handicapped, physically or mentally. I'll call them "culturally
>trendy." I'm sure all of you could name a few of these. Some
>are pretty good; some are, in my opinion, garbage--but the
>right kind of garbage to get noticed by the critics.
>
>I was not trying in this little essay to be sour, and I hope it
>doesn't sound that way, though I suspect it does. What I was
>trying to do was be realistic. Who knows? Maybe my analysis
>is pure nonsense.
Since I have not read every response to this, I may be
telling you something you already know, but you use far
too many "I"'s above, for an essay. You use about the
same percentage that I and most other people perhaps use
in a typical thread discussion, but an essay is supposed
to be more polished. You could get by fine with one-dozen
"I"'s in that essay.
As far as the much more important matter, the content:
I found your effort quite thought-provoking and well worth
my time as a reader.
Jane MacDonald
Bill Palmer <wil...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
<snip>
> Since I have not read every response to this, I may be
> telling you something you already know, but you use far
> too many "I"'s above, for an essay. You use about the
> same percentage that I and most other people perhaps use
> in a typical thread discussion, but an essay is supposed
> to be more polished. You could get by fine with one-dozen
> "I"'s in that essay.
Hi, Bill--
You're right.
I need to work on that. The only excuse is that I tend to think of
Usenet as an informal place that is more like a conversation than a
"letter to the editor" or a contribution to the op-ed page. When I
wanted to post that rather long rumination, I couldn't think of a better
heading than "essay." If somebody would come up with a good generic term
for that sort of thing, it would be useful. Would "Informal Essay" be
better? I wish more people here would stick their necks out and write
such things.
Avoiding the use of "I" when one writes a piece that is long on opinion
and emotion and short on facts is difficult--it seems more modest
somehow to keep reiterating "I think" than to state opinions as if they
were indeed facts. Yet throwing around "I" isn't modest, either, so it's
a no-win situation.
But *I* will work on it.
Thank you.
Bill Palmer
Jane MacDonald <jane...@excite.com> wrote:
>In article <9532kg$9uh$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net>,
> Bill Palmer <wil...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>
><snip>
>
>> Since I have not read every response to this, I may be
>> telling you something you already know, but you use far
>> too many "I"'s above, for an essay. You use about the
>> same percentage that I and most other people perhaps use
>> in a typical thread discussion, but an essay is supposed
>> to be more polished. You could get by fine with one-dozen
>> "I"'s in that essay.
>
>Hi, Bill--
>
>You're right.
>
>I need to work on that. The only excuse is that I tend to think of
>Usenet as an informal place that is more like a conversation than a
>"letter to the editor" or a contribution to the op-ed page. When I
>wanted to post that rather long rumination, I couldn't think of a better
>heading than "essay." If somebody would come up with a good generic term
>for that sort of thing, it would be useful. Would "Informal Essay" be
>better? I wish more people here would stick their necks out and write
>such things.
I write something that might be called an "informal
essay," often. Such efforts simply give my opinion of
something but are essentially off-the-cuff and don't
measure up in some ways to the requirements of a formal
essay.
For instance, a couple of weeks back I wrote a little
thing called, "Vast Automobile Joke of Dali," which
I posted in some prose groups and a few other relevant
groups like alt.surrealism. In that article, I simply
gave my reaction to a painting by Dali. Pieces
like that might be called "informal mini-essays."
Every once in a while I DO write a formal essay,
though. For instance, "Ghoul Zone" was a more
recent try at a genuine essay.
You may know that I call myself a writing experiment.
My goal is to see how popular a writer can get while
posting topical articles to appropriate newsgroups.
That means I write on many different subjects, since
my experiment could not be properly conducted if I
hung out in only one or two groups. My stocks-in-
trade as a wordscreen writer are "stand-alones,"
a term for any sort of posting written entirely
by me.
I get considerable ridicule for my approach to
Usenet, sort of like, "NOBODY takes Usenet seriously
as writing venue, Palmer," but I am sticking to my
guns.
The reason I hang out in writing groups is simple
enough: Though there may be differences between
me and you and others in our current objectives,
the basic principles of writing are the same,
whether a person has the traditional print market
aims or writes for net audiences.
(I am just simply those remarks since I have
not posted much in alt.fiction.original.
Some people here might not think much of this
"wordscreen writing" business, fine. They
don't need to. All they need to understand
is that I am working hard to improve my
writing talents just like a lot of folks
in this group are doing, so we DO have
something in common.)
alt.genius.bill-palmer.upstairs.office
Doug Chandler
>I tend to think of
>Usenet as an informal place that is more like a conversation than a
>"letter to the editor" or a contribution to the op-ed page.
>When I
>wanted to post that rather long rumination, I couldn't think of a better
>heading than "essay." If somebody would come up with a good generic term
>for that sort of thing, it would be useful. Would "Informal Essay" be
>better? I wish more people here would stick their necks out and write
>such things.
In my comupter there is a folder which I labeled "Thoughts on a rainy day."
I have written several essays on sundry subjects. It had not occurred to me to
post one here, since they are not fiction. There is really no place to send
one except maybe as a letter to the editor - if a question on one of the
topics ever comes up. So far it hasn't. The world seems to be lurching along
without my input. Someday when I am gone, one of my heirs will probably delete
the files without reading any of them.
Doug Chandler