Da Vinci Code

Sure, you just have to write a really controversial thriller that will p¡ss off a very powerful group (i.e. the church) and voila! Who cares that you can't write?

I read the first few pages of his 'Digital Fortress' and wasn't too impressed either. All of his novels I've read go exactly the same way. Once you've read one, you've read all of them.

Elwyn said:

What am I missing?

Click to expand...

I haven't heard anyone say they thought Brown's writing was very good (in fact, some people feel it's terrible). What Brown did was create a story that captured people's imaginations, particularly the "true" account of religious conspiracies. It just goes to show that good writing isn't necessarily necessary to have a best seller.

Elwyn said:

Now before ya'll start throwing daggers at me

Click to expand...

Lol! I don't think you'll find that here.

The Da Vinci Code has been trashed every way from grandma's porch on AW. Personally, I think some books are all about the story; some books are all about the writing; the best books are all about both. I enjoyed the story told in the book. I don't find his success all that surprising. In that one and in Angels and Demons, Dan Brown gets away with the literary equivalent of the Friday afternoon episode of a tangly 'daytime televsion drama' (formerly known as Soap Operas.) It's good fun. It's not high art. It's arguably not even medium-warm art. But the public sure did lap it up. I can't tell you how many times I've heard, "I hadn't read a novel in years. I couldn't put it down." So, as far as I'm concerned - trash away. Dan Brown got some sort of job done.

Elwyn said:

Once again, I've learned something in this forum; and my suspicions are confirmed - write something interesting then worry about the craft of writing.

Click to expand...

Or write something so interesting you won't have to worry about the craft of writing, lol.

Ok, ok, I'll join the trash the Code group

I started reading DVC out of curiosity, same thing that got me to reading Bridges of Madison County, and came away with the same hurl-the-book-cross-the-room frustration! I've been in the Louvre, been in UBS...no way ANYONE (including Spider Man, Superman, and Wonder Woman) could escape either institution as described. And I didn't find the story all that gripping because the writing was pure-tee horrible. As for Bridges, Waller claimed he locked himself in a room & lived on bread & water (okay, I exaggerate for effect) and wrote Bridges in 3 weeks--my reaction to that is, what took him so long? I am so sick and tired of trash making the bestseller lists and staying up there for eons!!!

Emerson Dell said:

I am so sick and tired of trash making the bestseller lists and staying up there for eons!!!

Click to expand...

I'm different. I want the cash. I want to know what I need to write to SELL plenty of copies of my book. On my wall - right here in front of me - I have "Goal: 20 million copies of expat brat sold by 2008". The goal is not to be perfect - it is to SELL the copies.

If what everyone is calling tripe can sell 49 million copies then I want to know how I can jump on that bandwagon. I want to know what Dan did right. How did he get that attention and those sales, and how can I do that?

Having the goals stuck to the wall helps in other ways too. Editing I ask myself "is this a 20 million copies sold chapter," if it is not then fix it up.

Using Dan's 49 million copies sold standard as the yardstick - perhaps this is going to be a piece of piss?

Well, I don't agree with you- at all. If you want to be a millionarie or famous, you've picked the wrong business.

But everyone has his/her reasons to write, I suppose, and if that works for you then it's cool. Anti-religious topics seem to be booming now, or rather religious-conspiracy. Heck, even plain conspiracy will do.

DamaNegra said:

Well, I don't agree with you- at all. If you want to be a millionarie or famous, you've picked the wrong business.
.

Click to expand...

So why do you write? If you don't plan to be successful - what’s your plan?

I write because I love to. It's purely an emotional need, writing is the only ability I have naturally. I write because it feels good for people to read and praise my work, even if it's just my friends and family. Why do I like the praise and not the money? I rarely get praised in my life. Writing is the only thing that makes me stand out from my cousins and brothers.

Of course I'd love to reach a larger audience, and to know that people around the world are reading and enjoying my work. Success would be like an added bonus, but it's not a requirement.

DamaNegra said:

I write because I love to. It's purely an emotional need, writing is the only ability I have naturally. I write because it feels good for people to read and praise my work, even if it's just my friends and family. Why do I like the praise and not the money? I rarely get praised in my life. Writing is the only thing that makes me stand out from my cousins and brothers.

Of course I'd love to reach a larger audience, and to know that people around the world are reading and enjoying my work. Success would be like an added bonus, but it's not a requirement.

Click to expand...

If I want to "feel good" I go for a massage, hug my husband or do a workout. Even drinking water and eating fresh fruit make me “feel good”. But hey – I am that sporty person who wins stuff all the time. In the last four weeks I have won an Adventure race, prize money in a Triathlon, a place in a 2-day sailing race and a place in the Queens Cup Kayak race. I expect to win and usually do. Writing is not about a warm fuzzy feeling – it is about selling. Selling lots and lots of books.

20 million books is where I am aiming. If you aim at nothing you will hit it.

I respect your opinion, but our circumstances are different and it's not just the 'warm fuzzy feeling', it's much more than that.

However, I will hijack this thread no further. If you want to keep on discusing this you can always PM me. I feel this could be a very interesting conversation.

Expat, that's an interesting strategy and obviously anything that's motivating is probably a good thing. But I'd have to say that trophy-writing is completely different from success in sporting competitions. In running, biking, swimming, sailing, all you have to be is good enough to beat the others.

Not so in writing. You have to be good enough and also appealing enough to 20 million people (or 10 million if each buys a copy for a friend.) There's topicality and originality. There's timing and nice cover art. In a race, it won't help you if the spectators like your running style. In writing, it's everything.

expatbrat said:

So why do you write? If you don't plan to be successful - what’s your plan?

Click to expand...

"Success" can mean many different things.

Cheryll

Perks said:

Expat, that's an interesting strategy and obviously anything that's motivating is probably a good thing. But I'd have to say that trophy-writing is completely different from success in sporting competitions. In running, biking, swimming, sailing, all you have to be is good enough to beat the others.

Not so in writing. You have to be good enough and also appealing enough to 20 million people (or 10 million if each buys a copy for a friend.) There's topicality and originality. There's timing and nice cover art. In a race, it won't help you if the spectators like your running style. In writing, it's everything.

Click to expand...

There was that American front crawl swimmer with terrible style - was it Jannet something?? – anyway, she won a bunch of Olympic gold despite her critics. And Dan the Man who everyone is trashing, complaining that he has no style and the stories are all the same (which they are), is number one everywhere.

But instead of knocking them - I want to know what they did right. How did they do that? How did someone with the "wrong technique" win Olympic medals or sell millions of books? What did they do right and how can I do it. How do you get the timing and cover right? What works?

It IS a bit like a race because when a person is in a book store they are going to buy a book, and that purchase is the writer’s trophy? How do I get that prize? How do I make my book good enough to beat the others and snag that sale?

My definition of success is achieving what you set out to achieve.

Elwyn said:

And I've been told that mechanical dialog (no contractions) is a no-no.

Click to expand...

Who told you that?

expatbrat said:

But instead of knocking them - I want to know what they did right. How did they do that? How did someone with the "wrong technique" win Olympic medals or sell millions of books? What did they do right and how can I do it. How do you get the timing and cover right? What works?

It IS a bit like a race because when a person is in a book store they are going to buy a book, and that purchase is the writer’s trophy, how do I get that prize?

I believe success is achieving what you set out to achieve.

Click to expand...

And you'll see in my post above, I wasn't knocking him. It's a dicey thing around here to say one enjoyed The DaVinci Code, but I'll say it. It was a rootbeer float when nothing else would do.

I don't know how much there is to learn from it, though. Massive, incongruous successes are flukes and as such, not very valuable in practical study. Dan Brown, if you've read his other work, is unlikely to be able to do that trick again. (That being said, I actually thought Angels and Demons was a better book, but Deception Point put me off Dan Brown, probably for good.) I don't think you can engineer a fluke.

And I can't imagine anyone arguing that one form of success is achieving what you set out to. Seems fairly straightforward. I do think, however, that a strategy of entitled-because-I'm-determined may be better translated to accomplishment in business and sporting, than the arts. Perseverance is essential of course and admittedly, there are many ways to express this drive.

I liked Angels and Demons much better -- but as thrillers, both are ridiculous. I'd really like to see a plane flying from Boston to Geneva in an hour... or falling 10,000 feet using a tarp as a parachute...

What Dan Browns did was create a thinly plotted novel based on a fascinating and controversial premise, then use a formulaic approach for thrillers -- lots of cliffhangers, lots of action, a bad-a$$ weirdo villain, quasi-suspense (what really is the secret, etc.) and did I mention lots of cliffhangers to make people turn the page? Anyway, why DVC is a phenomenon is the premise -- people keep talking about the premise, and it spawned many knock-off books (fiction and non-fiction alike) based on that topic. But did you ever hear people actually talking about Brown's story? Plot? Or characters? Robert Langdon is one of the most boring action hero, but people are NOT talking about all that. They're talking about the premise: Can it be? Everyone I've talked to mentioned about the premise and the topic... but none (at least I haven't met one yet) ever commented on how great the actual story/plot/characters were. Kind of made you think... As a matter of fact, most people I know read the book because of all the hype and talk about it. But once they finished reading it, I'd say 8 out of 10 said they didn't like it.

So I thin DVC is a phenomenon because of word of mouth, but not about the writing or the story, but about the premise. Had someone else written the same book, it would probably have been a phenomenon as well. Brown just happened to do it first (plus he did have that cliffhanger thing down pat).

maestrowork said:

So I thin DVC is a phenomenon because of word of mouth, but not about the writing or the story, but about the premise. Had someone else written the same book, it would probably have been a phenomenon as well. Brown just happened to do it first (plus he did have that cliffhanger thing down pat).

Click to expand...

As usual you're right. My son (20 years) hardly ever reads fiction but he read DVC and loved it. And why did he love it? Because of the controversy, the premise, the conspiracy theory etc. That's all he wanted to talk about. He did not care at all about plot, characters or writing style. he would have read it if it were non-fiction (which is anyway more up his alley) but Dan managed to pack the non-fiction premise into a page-turner, with lots of thrills and spills. That's the secret.

So if you want to that sort of success thats what you have to do: find some outrageous premise, (Hitler was secretly desperately in love with a Jewish woman, for instance. You can have that one for free.) make it sound as if it COULD be true, and pack loads of murders, car chases around a big city, one-eyed assassins with a club-foot and so on around it.

It seems to me that the "it could be true" thing is what facinates. You must try and dig up lots of "real" evidence.

Good luck!

That reminds me of a great book (well, I loved it way back when) but I can't remember the title. Hitler was kidnapped by Stalin and the whole bunker-thing with Eva Braun was accomplished with a double. Stalin kept him in a cage, I think. Anyone know what I'm babbling about? I should go to bed...

I think that DB certainly catered (intentionally or unintentionally) to the short attention span our culture has today. I was completely blown away by how short most of the chapters were - and many had some sort of chapter cliff-hanger!

I also think he went way overboard withholding information from the reader, but that's a lot of what kept many people (including myself) turning the pages. His overuse of it did irritate the heck out of me, though.

I think the story is fun enough, but I think the book reads like an over-long treatment for a film.

For once, I think the film will be better. Ron Howard makes good, solid films, and he'll make the characters more likable and engaging (as will the actors).

My two sense.

Yeah, premise is everything...for the mainstream thriller market that is. That's the thing you need to get right first. Get a premise that you can communicate in two sentences eg: see the tagline below.

The rest (ie writing) is considered secondary, sadly.

money

expatbrat said:

I'm different. I want the cash. I want to know what I need to write to SELL plenty of copies of my book. On my wall - right here in front of me - I have "Goal: 20 million copies of expat brat sold by 2008". The goal is not to be perfect - it is to SELL the copies.

If what everyone is calling tripe can sell 49 million copies then I want to know how I can jump on that bandwagon. I want to know what Dan did right. How did he get that attention and those sales, and how can I do that?

Having the goals stuck to the wall helps in other ways too. Editing I ask myself "is this a 20 million copies sold chapter," if it is not then fix it up.

Using Dan's 49 million copies sold standard as the yardstick - perhaps this is going to be a piece of piss?

Click to expand...

I'd love to sell twenty million coies of a novel, but good novels can sell as well as tripe, and even better, on occasion. I'd love to have the money, but I'd like to retain my integrity along with it.

And in all honesty, if you're really after millions of dollars, forget writing and buy a lottery ticket.

What Dan did right was easy. He got there the firstest with the mostest when it came to a subject he knew would be a major controversy. If you want your own millions, you're going to have to find you own controversy, and get there the firstest with the mostest. But I doubt another one exists anywhere near this big.

As for Bridges of Madison County, also a colossal bestseller, teh writing was awful, but what Waller did right was find the right story at the right time and fill it with the right characters. He got rich in the process, but also lost pretty much all the respect he might have gained as a writer.

But there are many successful writers who make more money and sell more books than either Dan Brown or Robert James Waller, and they do it with something called talent and integrity. Why not try to learn what these writers are doing right?

goatpiper said:

I also think he went way overboard withholding information from the reader, but that's a lot of what kept many people (including myself) turning the pages. His overuse of it did irritate the heck out of me, though.

Click to expand...

Argh! Me too! By the middle of the book I was ready to throw it at someone because I was already tired of it!