Isn’t studying Hemingway and the other masters a bit like studying “Mr Ed?”

I've made this mistake but in a different context--well, maybe it IS the same. In the past year I've read a lot of the old masters of science fiction--even the "golden age" writers. You all know who they are--Verne, Wells, Bradbury, etc,.

Little did I know that their concepts i.e, plots crept into my own writing. One of the first rejections that I received from a major house via my agent, stated: "You didn't push the genre enough." This could be a fluke, but I rather doubt it. What I've learned from this is, is too keep abreast of all new science discoveries and see if I can't come up with something unique and truly fresh. From here on out I'm going to concentrate on some newer stuff, maybe something ground-breaking.

We're not talking about the craft or style issues here, although I can certainly see how this could influence a writer. So I will say, yes, leave Lovecraft where he lies, and this is truly a different age. I think the masters are great for substance, color, atmosphere, pace and other aspects--just to see how it was done. But one does have to rely on one's own ability and talent in a uniquely personalized voice.

Tri

No. Disagree.

You study the past to learn from it. You study the canon in order to understand where you, as a writer, are coming from, and to know what you as a writer are building upon.

The first thing you learn is how to spell "Hemingway".

caw.

Studying great writers of the past can be very fulfilling, but just don't go into it with the attitude of copying what they did as far as style & technique goes. Look more toward how they created characters, made them interesting and developed them throughout the "Character Arc" of the story. Plot too, is a great point to study, but not the pacing of the plot & character arc. Many novels of the past moved far too slowly for the preference of today's reader. Learning about WHAT the past writers did, but finding a different, more updated way of doing it yourself is important.

Jane Austin, just as an example, (as great as she was) would have a hell of a time being published by a big publishing house today. The same with many of the other literary giants of the past. They were far better writers than most of today's most popular authors, but the market is much different, the trends in publishing and writing are different. The influence of film & televison has had a lot to do with the gradual decrease in the attention-spans of the average reader.

Some things about writing are universal: characterization, POV, plot, word choices, themes, structure, language, etc. Though time might have changed, these skills remain mostly relevant. Studying the masters like Hemingway or Twain or Dickens, like studying Picasso or Monet in art, tells us a lot about the craft. You might not want to write like Hemingway anymore, or compose like Mozart, or paint like Van Gogh, but you can learn a great deal from studying these masters.

expatbrat said:

So I got this email add thing from Absolute Write promoting this great course where we study the masters like… Hemmingway.

Is looking back really the way forward? Isn’t studying Hemmingway and the other masters a bit like studying “Mr Ed” or “the flying nun” as a means of producing the next “desperate housewives” or “24?”

I am all for remembering history so we don’t repeat the mistakes of our past. But if we spend too much time looking backwards – won’t we just trip over?

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I've never known a good writer, or a sucessful writer in most genres, who hasn't read an awful bunch of old and classic writers. If you don't read a great deal of what has been done in the past, you'll spend an awful lot of time trying to reinvent the wheel.

You also miss out on the best possible examples of what has been done well enough to last for decades or centuries. It isn't about not repeating mistakes, it's about repeating successes.

Reading current bestseller is also important, but all this does is tell you what reeaders want today, not what reader will want two or three years from today. Great writing and great storytelling never go out of style, and the best way to learn how to do both is to read and study those writers who did it well enough to be read yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

And if you look at the reading lists of today's bestsellingw riters, you near always find a healthy selction of yesterday's writers.

And in the end, it's like saying, "Isn't studying da Vinci and Rembrandt really a good way to learn how to paint?"

You bet it is, and that's why studying the old masters is mandatory in art school.

This is an interesting proposition: If you want to learn to write, study the Bulwer-Lyttons of the world, then do what they DON'T do.

Like sculpting the proverbial elephant: get a piece of stone and chisel away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

In my film/media class we studied films such as Jaws, the Godfather, and David Lean movies. I doubt that anyone would be making those types of movies, the same ways, anymore, but WOW, did I learn a lot from the techniques. No CGIs, and I'm sure some of the techniques are obsolete, but the ideas behind, say, a Hitchcock zoom, or superimposition, are timeless. And the ways Spielberg, Copola, and Lean use these skills to weave together a spellbinding story are amazing. I think I've learned more about films while studying Jaws than I did all those years before watching films.

I think critical analysis of any art form is essential for one's understanding of such art form, and I'm not talking about artsy fartsy, ivory tower stuff.

I heard of a girl who went to Juilliard. Her great love was Jazz - but all her profs wanted her to play Chopin, Liszt, Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff - an endless stream of music she really wasn't interested in, or wanted to play. She became desparate. She began to frequent bars with good Jazz groups, asking questions and learning what she could. Her professors told her soon that if she didn't start practicing better, she would fail out.
It all came to a head one day when her favorite teacher stopped her in the middle of a piece; he just put his hands gently on hers and shook his head.
"That won't do," he said. "If you're not going to try to do better than that, you may as well quit now."
She threw the sheet music all around the room and screamed at him.
"But I don't want to play this G**d*** old stuff! I want to play Jazz! This is just wasting my time!"
Her prof sighed. He looked on her paternally. He had a nice old face, hardly a wrinkle, except when he smiled. Taking off his half-moon reading glasses, he placed them in his pocket - and proceeded to lay down some of the most awesome chord progressions she had ever heard - while looking at her.
He stopped when he saw he had her full attention.
"When I am finished with you," he said, "you will be able to play anything you like: untill then you will play what I tell you to play."
And smiled.

You don't learn to play Mozart to be Mozart: you play Mozart to be a better piano player. Neither should you read Hemingway, or Faulkner (chalk and cheese, if you please ) or Bradbury or Austen or whoever to be them; you study them to be a better writer.

Only someone who has read everyone can claim to be truly original.

Bulwer-Lytton

poetinahat said:

This is an interesting proposition: If you want to learn to write, study the Bulwer-Lyttons of the world, then do what they DON'T do.

Like sculpting the proverbial elephant: get a piece of stone and chisel away everything that doesn't look like an elephant.

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Bulwer-Lytton gets a truly bum rap. He wa sa much better writer than he's given credit for. I think the main thing people have against him is that so many things he write have been truned into cliches. But this is the fault of the lesser, unimaginative writers who copied from him.

"It was a dark and stormy night" was a wonderful line when first used. It only became bad after twelve thousand writers with no imagination of their own also used it.

Maestro mentioned Mark Twain. He was a great one for combining social commentary, writing that made the reader think, with entertainment in such a way that the social commentary made an impact without being noticed.

Thanks for the correction! I was just trying to conjure a well-known example of a bad writer.

Birol said:

Maestro mentioned Mark Twain. He was a great one for combining social commentary, writing that made the reader think, with entertainment in such a way that the social commentary made an impact without being noticed.

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Mark Twain is also a writer whose style has never gone out of style. Most of his writing is timeless. I've sold several stories written as close to his style as possible.

What they all said. We learn to write well by subconsciously absorbing the rules, rythms, patterns of great writing. This is true for all of the arts.

Great work is great work, and as such it should definitely be studied and appreciated, regardless of how old, or new, it is. But, at the same time it is also important to do the general bulk of one's study by studying the newest examples of whatever art you're in. If you're an art major, studying Rembrandt, Da Vinci, Van Gogh (who was considered a hack in his lifetime) etc is definitely time well-spent but there are scores, and scores of artists to come along since then who've displayed far more talent. It's just the nature of the beast. Art evolves. Med students wouldn't be trained to perform dissection with a scalpel from the 1890's. Film students and apprentice directors etc don't spend a huge portion of time (over the totality of their education) dissecting the work of silent film directors. Art evolves and improves over the generations, as it should and if its students study correctly, it has no choice but to. Though, the progression with writing and writers is a bit harder to define than with the visual arts, etc.

Great artists of whatever field should and do spend the majority of their study time by studying artists in their own generation. It's common sense. Psych majors are given the primer on Freud, Jung, Adler, etc because it is important to study them, and it gives a foundation. Truly cutting edge work is spent in the present.

So, in answer.. Studying Hemingway, etc WOULD be like studying the flying nun while attempting to create Desperate House Wives ONLY IF that person ONLY studied Hemingway, Austin, James etc to the exclusion of his own generation of authors.

If you want to create a Desperate House Wives, you certainly wouldn't do the bulk of your screenwriting and film analysis on movies from the 20's anymore than a writer wanting to create a Clancyesque thriller should do the bulk of his work studying Dickens (who was considered a hack for a portion of his career). This doesn't mean that studying the past masters isn't important. It is and always will be, but the bulk of your study should be spent analyzing great writers of your own generation.

A reason I am writing this is because, the mistakes people usually make lie in ignoring the past in their studies, but there's a smaller portion who, oddly enough, ignore the present. (I'm not making any assumptions or implications about anyone here, this is just something I have noticed in different areas of my life)

If a writer can't be successful until they've read Hemingway, then I'm screwed, because I can't stand Hemingway.

I think that BuffStuff said it well. It's probably useful to have a working knowledge of those who came before, but it doesn't do any good to ignore the great writers who came after.

Also keep in mind that the canon of "great literature" taught in high school and college does not necessarly include all of the best books. There are huge gaps. And just because something is in the canon, it doesn't mean that it is an enjoyable read, no matter how well-written it may be.

There are many different canons. Nearly as many as there are students of literature.

If it helps, I also cannot stand Hemingway, but I've read him and can tell you exactly what it is I don't like about his style.

I'm not particualry interested in "studying" anyone. I'm interested in stories. Good stories. Styles may differ but a good story is a good story. Writers from the past (such as Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Dickens, Poe, etc.,) had different styles and methods of presentation. Some of those styles would still pass muster in today's literary climate, while perhaps others wouldn't. Yet, even with the latter, I can still appreciate the storyline, the plot arches and mechanics of storytelling. And I might even learn something about the craft along the way. I consider that a bonus to a good read.

PastMidnight said:

If a writer can't be successful until they've read Hemingway, then I'm screwed, because I can't stand Hemingway.

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I don't think it's a question of liking or not liking. I hate Wuthering Heights but I can still (reluctantly!) concede that it's a great book, and worth reading.

As for Hemingway - the name alone, ro me at least, says nothing. "For Whom the bell Tolls" is perhaps my all-time favourite book. I can't think of another book that had the same effect on me - I was crying for three days after reading it!
That was my very first Hemingway (about 5 years ago) and I decided that "Hemingway is my favourite author" and tried to get my hands on al his books (I was in Germany at the time and it wasn't so easy). Everything else by him was completely underwhelminhg, and one, "The Sun Also Rises" I found dreadful.

aruna said:

Everything else by him was completely underwhelminhg, and one, "The Sun Also Rises" I found dreadful.

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Maybe I'm not judging him on his best, then. The Sun Also Rises is the only book that I've ever started and put down before finishing. I always force myself to finish books, even if they aren't doing it for me. But I just couldn't do it with that book!

aruna said:

I don't think it's a question of liking or not liking. I hate Wuthering Heights but I can still (reluctantly!) concede that it's a great book, and worth reading.

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This may be true, but if I'm finding it hard to get into a book and pay attention to the story, it is less likely that I'll pay attention to the writing style.

PastMidnight said:

Maybe I'm not judging him on his best, then. The Sun Also Rises is the only book that I've ever started and put down before finishing. I always force myself to finish books, even if they aren't doing it for me. But I just couldn't do it with that book!

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I agree! I forced myself to finish it but I absolutely hated it.

Okay, just for balance's sake, an enthusiastic vote FOR The Sun Also Rises. Loved it.

I'll gladly trade you my half-read copy of The Hobbit, or my nearly untouched copy of Steinbeck's The Red Pony. Hey, you can have both. For nothing.