MC that's a writer

King also writes about gas station attendants and single moms. When it comes down to it, it is the journey as a whole and the characters that make people connect.

I'm reading a Koontz book at the moment. Whadaya know? Writer.

I've read hardly any books with writer MCs, but then, I don't read mainstream books.

I've noticed that what seems like a disproportionate number of mainstream books have MCs that are writers, and often published authors. I've seen this with authors such as Stephen King (he's particularly fond of this in my experience) and Nora Roberts. I understand the "write what you know" sentiment, but to me, it just seems lazy.

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I don't think lazy so much as self-indulgent and vacuous. I've not read much of King or Roberts, so I'm not name-calling them. I'm just saying, writing about writing is like a comedy about comedians. Both of which, unfortunately, have been made.

"Look man, you don't understand our tortured profession."

It wouldn't bug me if this is just a one time thing - one MC that's a writer. But when it's a recurring occupation through multiple books and separate characters, it bothers me.

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I'd agree with that. I'm guilty of it, but I think of ALL the short stories/attempted novels I've ever written, ONE was about a journalist. It has a lot to do with the ethical things I grapple with, and my unhappiness in the profession, so, it seemed a necessary evil. Any book/story that opens with someone writing a novel? It better be a stellar opening.

I make John Dufresne and exception to this; most of his characters are fiction writers (though this is never a plot focus). But I love him and I am blinded by that love.

I think authors do it for several reasons:

1) They're writers, so they know how it feels and can write believably about it.

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I'll use the comedian thing again. Should comedians just go around telling jokes about comedy, about being a comedian? I mean, they know what it's like.

2) Often mainstream novels have extraordinary events take place, and the mundane 8 hour/day job that most careers entail is difficult to work a plot around.

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I can see why that might be a reason to another writer, but I find any writer who actually uses this excuse to be extremely unimaginative, lazy (as in, unwilling to pick up one of those occupational handbook things or Google a job description which takes--mere seconds?), and narrow-minded.

If a character aught be a writer, make them so. But the spectrum shouldn't be limited to one occupation. Personally I hate reading about writers. They're so goddamn immersed in their freaking art that it's actually annoying to hear about over the course of many pages.

I'd rather hear about an electrician or an assembly line worker or a roofer, or maybe the person who writes up occupational safety handbooks. Why? Because I don't know anything about their lives, and a good writer will MAKE me want to know.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? I don't really know why I'm posting it, just kind of dumping info from my brain into the keyboard.

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No, it's a good thing to think. It's something I feel strongly about and you're USING your brain, asking questions, which I believe is the moral of this thread.

Personally, this always sort of annoys me unless there's a really good reason for a writer MC (as in MISERY, for example). Although I understand the temptation, I spend enough time writing that I really don't want to spend my leisure time reading about ... someone else writing.

Well, the main character in my next one is a writer. If this is a problem, it'll be the least of them.

I don't see an issue with having a MC as a writer.

I have one MC who is a novelist. I didn't set out to write a book about a writer, it's just what he said he wanted to be. It's a legitimate profession, so I don't have any issue with a character being a writer any more than I'd have an issue with a character being a tattoo artist, bartender, personal trainer, or biochemistry professor...and I have characters in each of those professions, too.

Martin Amis is also a repeat offender for having MCs as writers. Peter Straub does it a lot. I'm sure there are thousands more examples. Also many writers have their MCs as teachers, academics, journalists, because that was what they did before/as well as writing.

I don't think it's lazy. If you look at a writer's body of work they often perseverate on a core of ideas/themes/situations pertinent to their own experiences. Why would they write about some other occupation or milieu they feel no connection with? Just to break the pattern? That would be a dishonest motivation, and would probably result in an unconvincing book.

What bugs me is when writers portray characters who don't have glamorous jobs as boring or self-loathing people. Apparently everyone in the whole wide world either is dreams of being a movie star, poet, journalist, singer, architect, teacher, or activist (unless they're already a lawyer, doctor, or politician).

Sure, just writing a generic 9-5 job is a big old bore to a reader, but people actually do work at 9-5 jobs, not just file TPS reports all the time. Salespeople are interesting. Maintenance staffs are interesting. Waiters and managers and small business owners and bureaucrats and the people who work for movie stars are all interesting people. So why do writers so often deride them, implicitly, as soulless cogs in the machine who haven't yet been awakened?

I couldn't imagine writing a book with the protag as a writer. I spend enough time with my own shit writing thankyouverymuch last thing I want to write about is someone elses fuckin problems with writing.

I am hoping that the MC of my autobiography will be a writer.

Woolly said:

What bugs me is when writers portray characters who don't have glamorous jobs as boring or self-loathing people...

...Sure, just writing a generic 9-5 job is a big old bore to a reader, but people actually do work at 9-5 jobs...

...So why do writers so often deride them, implicitly, as soulless cogs in the machine who haven't yet been awakened?

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This kind of resonates with me a little bit. My current project is based on a guy who works on a telesales call centre in a colourless office; he's struggling with depression and has a low opinion of himself.

One of my first projects was a guy who had a normal (largely unspecified) office job and was a bit of a disaster to himself and occasionally to others.

It wasn't intentional that I make office work seem dull, I think the reason why I and others do this is because, when we sit at our grey desks, surrounded by grey walls, and grey carpet, and grey ceiling tiles and grey printers with grey filing cabinets, we dream about doing something different.

While my job in the aforementioned greyness isn't career building in any way, it is a reasonable job and it helps to keep me in my house paying Mr Mortgage and co. But i still sit here dreaming one day I may be able to be a professional writer, film producer/director/actor/whatever.

It's only human nature to want more than we have. Unless you have everything you want in which case you probably have an interesting exotic job that people find fascinating.

Just to make an exception to my logic, however, my next project that I've linjed up for myself, is going to be based very closely on my job and will most likely not have any references to feelings of self loathing, depressiveness, or extreme boredom.

Rob.

Woolly said:

What bugs me is when writers portray characters who don't have glamorous jobs as boring or self-loathing people. Apparently everyone in the whole wide world either is dreams of being a movie star, poet, journalist, singer, architect, teacher, or activist (unless they're already a lawyer, doctor, or politician).

Sure, just writing a generic 9-5 job is a big old bore to a reader, but people actually do work at 9-5 jobs, not just file TPS reports all the time. Salespeople are interesting. Maintenance staffs are interesting. Waiters and managers and small business owners and bureaucrats and the people who work for movie stars are all interesting people. So why do writers so often deride them, implicitly, as soulless cogs in the machine who haven't yet been awakened?

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Maybe it depends on the genre, too. I read a literary (if that is a genre) book where the MC's dream job was an electrician for a power/light company. He got the job, lost the rest of his life along the way. Found out the job wasn't so glamorous. Died a horrible death. But the story, even though it was titled "Louisiana Power & Light" (you may have read it), the focus isn't on the job. That's not the damn point. I think if the story's focus is on the job then there's something wrong in the first place IMO. The focus should be on people. And real people do have real jobs, many different jobs.

I think the OP has something here, in that there are far more fictional writers than there are successful fiction writers in the world.

And I don't think we aught to just be reading about writers, or writing about writers. Of course this is just my opinion. There are great books out there with writer MC's, I'm sure. But when something like this saturates the market it reminds of vampires...

And on the note that the day-to-day jobs are interesting, not 'boring' (unless you're reading an unimaginative, uninsightful writer), I agree 100 percent.

I'm tired of writers. I'm surrounded by them.

No offense, everyone

My MCs aren't writers but, curiously (or not), they're all big readers.

willietheshakes said:

Well, the main character in my next one is a writer. If this is a problem, it'll be the least of them.

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hahaha well put

I don't actually have a problem with it; it's just become so common that I roll my eyes and go, "Here we go again."

Koontz and King do it a lot. Danielle Steel. James Patterson. Many of the sex-and-shopping novelists like Louise Bagshawe.

Is it lazy? I wouldn't go that far. But it seems like a bit of a cop-out. "That's what I know, so that's what I'll write."

Of course, writers exist. Write about them. No big deal. But there are a disproportionate number of successful novelists in fiction as compared to doctors, dentists, unemployed folks, housewives, zookeepers (HAI LIBBIE!), desk jockeys, salesmen...

i dont think it is a big deal, but ive come across many writers who think of it as lazy and unimaginative. king has done it more than any other writer i've come across: misery, 1408, the dark half..

the work, though, has to be strong

jay mcinerney was rather audacious with his first novel. he tried to sell "bright lights big city" as a story about a writer having trouble with his writing and with alcohol while simultaneously addicted to blow, and the writing was so strong that it sold and sold very well. i dont remember ever being bothered when i read it by the cliche that it was a writer's story about a writer talking about and dealing with his writing; the book was very strong.

but i will more than likely on some conscious or maybe unconscious level avoid it. or at least wait until i'm good enough to get away with it haha but honestly, i'm more in line with claudia in that i wanna write about hsit other than the actual writing


-kabol

I agree that unless it makes sense (for example, in Misery or Secret Window or Atonement), this usually bothers me. I always ask, of all things, why do writers always write about writers?

I see that in movies, too... the character happens to be a writer but it is irrelevant to the actual plot (she could very well be a chef). I always find myself rolling my eyes at the screenwriters.

Certainly there's nothing wrong with characters being writers. But if you do it once too many times, and if their careers are incidental, it feels lazy. And there's always this cheese effect, like watching an actor playing an actor, or a dancer playing a dancer (Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov, I'm talking about you!)... I think that's the danger of the creative types talking about their own careers. Something esoteric or narcissistic about it, I guess.

CaroGirl said:

My MCs aren't writers but, curiously (or not), they're all big readers.

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mmm, there are some definite inherent dangers associated with that too.

I can't stand it when I read a book and there are characters who are cited as being voracious readers so as to justify them being more erudite, eloquent, or intellectual than the natural order might dictate them to be.

(not saying you do that, of course)

Ha! Oh god, my crappy trunk novel's MC was a voracious reader.

NOT AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AT ALL.

When I rewrite/update it, she's gonna become a university student.

So from bookworm to binge-drinker.

john barnes on toast said:

mmm, there are some definite inherent dangers associated with that too.

I can't stand it when I read a book and there are characters who are cited as being voracious readers so as to justify them being more erudite, eloquent, or intellectual than the natural order might dictate them to be.

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On the other hand, there's truth in that (not in the "justification" -- that's not what I mean). Intelligent people tend to read a lot (and I certainly don't mean just because you read a lot you're automatically an intellectual). When I meet an erudite, eloquent or intellectual person, 8 out of 10 times he or she is an avid reader.

scarletpeaches said:

So from bookworm to binge-drinker.

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My current MC is both.

I find it a little cliche, but it wouldn't stop me enjoying the book.

scarletpeaches said:

WURDZ
NOT AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AT ALL.
WURDZ
WURDZ
binge-drinker.

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I refuse to comment, as I like my bits attached.