Unbashing bad authors

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shadowwalker

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I think part of the problem is that some really can't disassociate the writer from the writing. There's a difference between saying "X book" is terribly written and saying "the author of X" is a terrible writer. The first deals with the book; the second attacks the person. And I have seen that happen very often here and on other forums. In some cases, it is envy; in others, it's just honest bewilderment as to how the book became so successful. The problem is making that distinction and not falling prey to the author dissing.

As to when people talk about 'entertainment' versus 'serious' writing, I think it's a bit like the discussions about literary versus genre. There's nothing wrong with writers who write 'entertaining' stories; there's nothing wrong with readers who read them. But I think writers tend to look at all writing from their own standards - they write a certain type or style of book and compare other books/authors to that. And that just naturally means objectivity goes out the window.
 

Jamesaritchie

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So what, in your opinion, have these folks done well? And I am not looking for sweeping generalizations about how “Dan Brown knows how to tell a good story.” I want to know what about their story-telling technique is good. Is it because he creates an interesting premise? Does he have a gift for building suspense and what specific method does he use to do it? Is it because he can be easily followed and understood? Logical, well developed action? Interesting presentation of the details?

I think you're asking too much. If any of us could really define just what it is these writers do so well, we would all be selling a smany books as they do. They do all the things you mention, and more. But it all boils down to being able to tell a story people want to read, and filling it with character raders want to live with for a time.

But there is no formula for doing this. There is no way to simply break down what they do and how they do it.

I will, however, say that the "bad" writing rap is mostly nonsense.
 

quicklime

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I am perplexed. Of the five paragraphs I wrote, in only the first one did I mention anything about feelings other than make some generalizations about human nature and writers in general. I made no reference to you specifically. If you honestly have never had feelings of jealously at any time in your life or had the desire to be commercially successful in your writing, it is your prerogative to exclude yourself from humanity and these statements if you wish. But I don’t see how my opinion puts words in your mouth. Envy running amuck could simply be feeling overly irritated by what someone else has that you don’t. It doesn’t have to entail verbally bashing someone because you feel unhappy about their success. .



so....you see neither irony nor conflict between the blue and the red, for example? Me apparently "having no desire for success nor feelings of jealousy in my life" but you not actually putting those words into my mouth?

I find that amusing, albeit a bit suspect as well.


The other four paragraphs asked only for ideas about what people thought these other writers did correctly in their writing, with an eye towards being detailed. I asked for positive examples of what people thought was done well, with my own examples (not my own opinions) tossed in to stimulate the discussion. so, you gave examples devoid of opinion?

So to that end, no, your answers were not very helpful. Most of the opinion you stated consisted of what the authors had done wrong, not what you believed they did right. When you did respond with a positive, it was not very detailed. My questions regarding Dan Brown were rhetorical in nature, and I was not expecting anyone to answer each on an individual basis. wait, when I DID answer, I asnwered about the wrong guy?

.....

Medievalist: I have seen posts referring to how horrible a well-known writer is which do not give any real clue what the poster finds objectionable about them. It is one thing to state you don’t like a certain writer because their prose is too choppy or their stylistic choices aren’t your taste, but simply painting them with the broad brush of bad writing seems like a form of bashing to me. then is saying someone is a great writer, without explanation, shameless ass-kissery? you're a big boy--if you want an explanation you can certainly ask for one, but I don't see where a person is obligated to explain why they think someone is a good RO bad writer any time they make the assertion. I don’t say you approve it and neither do I, but it is done here. Or is it that this practice is ok if it is said about someone who is not a member here, but not if they are? I don’t think you or I would like to see someone read another’s work in SYW and them have them make a post on here about how that person is a horrible writer because their prose is too choppy. Or to have someone post and say “I’ve read some of MacAllister’s stuff and she is terrible. Her style is too dreary.” (Just an example--not anything suggesting I know anything about your writing) I think the respect should be extended to even those who are successful, whether they are on AW or not. I certainly have to respect their success at doing something right. since you're a bit spotty on fact/opinion I spotted you a favor there...the bold is an indicator of opinion...which you are entitled to, as I am my own. The silly false dichotomy arguments and character assasination and straw-man arguments like the one about if it is "ok so long as the writer in question doesn't post here" (seriously, you know perfectly well what the answer to that will be) are a somewhat different matter, and you have every right to expect if you try to reduce someone else in that manner or make such a flawed argument people will, you know, notice. and respond.

The thread was intended to foster some positive discussion. If this topic is stated in such a way that it is going to offend AW members or you, then please delete it if you feel you must.

no, this post was, apparently, intended to be your own little toy. There is positive discussion, including of what the authors did well, which is what you wanted. Your delivery, however, was sorely lacking.
 

Phaeal

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It's worth pointing out that in its first incarnation Fifty Shades had no marketing at all. It was only when RH picked the book up that any marketing, advertising etc was done. The book was a viral hit already.

It's dangerous to assume that hits can be created by marketing. In my experience they can't. You have to have some momentum to work with.

Agreed. Without a core group of enthusiasts (the critical mass), marketing can turn into a colossal flop.

The formula for mega-bestsellerdom remains the same. Step One: Tickle the right nerves and/or flatter the reader's intellect (as Torgo noted above) and/or support the reader's treasured beliefs. Step Two: Gather the critical mass of enthusiasts. Step Three: Reach the tipping point at which the lemming effect takes over, pulling in additional readers, including those who wouldn't normally have paid attention.

Step One the writer controls, perhaps deliberately, perhaps unconsciously. Steps Two and Three, not so much, though tactics like E. L. James's exploitation of the Twilight fandom might fuel the fire. And it's at Step Three, I conjecture, that publisher marketing and distribution efforts makes the biggest difference.

Note that stellar writing (as critics and other writers might define it) is NOT part of the formula. If you've got the stuff of Step One, you can do without it.

As for unbashing authors, spelling their names correctly, as in Stephenie Meyer, could be a good start. ;)
 

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Medievalist: I have seen posts referring to how horrible a well-known writer is which do not give any real clue what the poster finds objectionable about them. It is one thing to state you don’t like a certain writer because their prose is too choppy or their stylistic choices aren’t your taste, but simply painting them with the broad brush of bad writing seems like a form of bashing to me. I don’t say you approve it and neither do I, but it is done here. Or is it that this practice is ok if it is said about someone who is not a member here, but not if they are?

It's not OK; and if you look you'll see mods point that out as they do here:

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7980718&postcount=66

You might notice there's a fair amount of mod intervention in thread, attempting to guide conversations to specifics; you might also notice how often threads that assert and insult writers, whether members or not, get locked.

If you see posts that you think are truly bashing an author, you've an obligation to PM the mod or use the Report Post button
report.gif
.
 

maryrider

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I think Twilight had the potential to be a fantastic series, if Meyers would've worked on the idea more. Those books draw people's attention because girls want a fairytale romance. I'm not to keen on romance novels. I read Twilight because my Advanced English teacher in high school made us read the series as a class. (She put Edward above Mr. Darcy...) It was interesting, and had its moments when the writing and ideas were great. They were short lived, but at least they were there.
 

MacAllister

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Quicklime and jdm, knock it off. Use the ignore feature if you need to -- but knock off the personal sniping back and forth.
 

Torgo

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Steps Two and Three, not so much, though tactics like E. L. James's exploitation of the Twilight fandom might fuel the fire.

Though it seems churlish to object to an aside in a post in which you agreed with me, I would just want to slightly pick a bone with 'tactics' and 'exploitation'. I don't think publishing Fifty Shades on a fanfic site was a tactic aimed at selling books. As you pointed out, that initial critical mass of enthusiasts is really important, and it's incredibly hard - in fact, I think impossible - to set out to create that in a cynical or calculated way.

The version of the Fifty Shades creation myth that I think is closest to the truth has EL James writing for fun, her online friends urging her to publish, and then the book going viral because people enjoyed it. I can't see anyone being exploited, either, and for me the truth of that lies in the fact that EL James did not take her book directly to a Big Six firm, saying 'look how popular I am online.' That's happened to me more than a few times over the last 18 months or so - someone comes with representation from a serious agent, who says 'my client has a bazillion hits on this writing site, let's have an auction'.

With James, she only went for the major deal after the Aussie press couldn't keep up with demand. Either it was some kind of incredible Xanatos Gambit or she went into this with no tactics, no plans to exploit. And though she has her detractors on that point, I really don't believe she had any moral reason not to make money out of her work.

Sorry for any churlishness, and to bang on about this - I just find publishing phenomena endlessly fascinating.
 

Deleted member 42

Writers don't necessarily criticise poor writing skills because they are envious of commercial success. It can be that. But not necessarily.

As far as why these works enjoy commercial success is for the same reason the hoi polloi prefer to watch Top Gun and The Terminator films as opposed to Richard III.

The Great Unwashed are not looking for the answers to life in their entertainment after a long day at work. They are looking for... entertainment.

You know dude, someone who refers to the [sic] hoi polloi isn't really in a good position to refer to "the Great Unwashed."


That's what these writers do. They entertain. And perhaps they inform, too... on some level... without boring the brains out of their readers. And has already been mentioned, at the same time they manage to flatter the (generally average) intelligence of their target market.

Yeah, you're a little lacking in understanding literary history as well.

You might wanna work on that.

And before a mod jumps on me again for expressing this opinion, I am aware and I accept that is all it is - my opinion.

No, those aren't opinions those are unsupported assertions. And they quickly devolve into literary snobbery.

The canon, or literary greats as you would have it described, is filled with all manner of writers who were popular in their lifetime, sneered at for being popular, and those who weren't popular and were regarded as erudite and destined for a limited audience. Fitzgerald comes to mind; Gatsby is routinely taught in high schools, and is often described at "the" Great American Novel.

Yet in Fitzgerald's lifetime it was less commercially successful than his previous books. What made a huge difference was that long after Fitzgerald had written it, a paperback edition was distributed to thousands of soldiers for free; that got the book into wide circulation, and word of mouth did the rest.

It became a popular novel. It was only later, in the 1960s that it really entered the canon proper. It started appearing as a set text on graduate exams in the early 1970s, at which point the writing is on the wall; it is now as canon as it can be.

But it was popular before it was "great." And it was made popular by the ordinary reader you term the "Great Unwashed."
 

Phaeal

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Though it seems churlish to object to an aside in a post in which you agreed with me, I would just want to slightly pick a bone with 'tactics' and 'exploitation'. I don't think publishing Fifty Shades on a fanfic site was a tactic aimed at selling books. As you pointed out, that initial critical mass of enthusiasts is really important, and it's incredibly hard - in fact, I think impossible - to set out to create that in a cynical or calculated way.

The version of the Fifty Shades creation myth that I think is closest to the truth has EL James writing for fun, her online friends urging her to publish, and then the book going viral because people enjoyed it. I can't see anyone being exploited, either, and for me the truth of that lies in the fact that EL James did not take her book directly to a Big Six firm, saying 'look how popular I am online.' That's happened to me more than a few times over the last 18 months or so - someone comes with representation from a serious agent, who says 'my client has a bazillion hits on this writing site, let's have an auction'.

With James, she only went for the major deal after the Aussie press couldn't keep up with demand. Either it was some kind of incredible Xanatos Gambit or she went into this with no tactics, no plans to exploit. And though she has her detractors on that point, I really don't believe she had any moral reason not to make money out of her work.

Sorry for any churlishness, and to bang on about this - I just find publishing phenomena endlessly fascinating.

I don't see the fandom connection as rendering James's success immoral or transgressive, as many fans seem to have done. In my opinion, Twilight was easily scrubbed off Fifty, since it was so alt-universe to begin with. Looks like Meyer and her legal team felt the same way.

As far as I remember, the main "proof" that James started out to exploit the fandom is her infamous exchange with gentleblaze, as noted in this article, to link to just one:

http://www.crushable.com/2012/05/11...ty-shades-of-grey-twilight-fandom-wank-860/2/


Speaking of Meyer, my impression is that she is one of those who fulfilled Step One unconsciously, writing exactly what she was driven to write. Probably the same could be said for J. K. Rowling and the HP series. Both happened to connect with core groups of reader promoters, Meyer with more assistance than Rowling, who is the truly amazing success story, given the modest first printing and initial promotion PS/SS received from the publisher.

Rowling is the word-of-mouth queen! Also a super promising writer who missed taking HP from very good to great by just a few (if critical) missteps. IMO, as always and inevitably. :D
 

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Rowling is the word-of-mouth queen! Also a super promising writer who missed taking HP from very good to great by just a few (if critical) missteps. IMO, as always and inevitably. :D

I liked the books, some better than others, but I did rather wish she'd perhaps had a sharper editor.
 

DanielaTorre

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Can't we all agree that this topic is subjective? Everyone's point is moot and will probably remain that way for the rest of time.

What we can all agree with is that bashing the author is not fair. Pointing out the flaws in their work is acceptable. Everyone has different tastes. I love LOTR. I swear by it. Others think it's a boring piece of shit and have given me very valid points on why that is, but you know what? I still like it. So everyone can give their opinions, but nobody is right and nobody is wrong. Saying someone's book sucks isn't going to change the fact that people enjoyed it. Apparently, a lot of people. I did not enjoy Twilight for a plethora of reasons, but one of my friends did and that's that.

As aspiring authors, I think we should humble ourselves a bit. Our own work suffers from flaws and if we ever get published and become as successful (or successful at all) as these authors, there will be people who bash our work. Thinking otherwise is just being pretentious. So to add to my previous post, while I think Meyers' writing is atrocious, mine might very well be too. C'est la vie.
 

Torgo

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I don't see the fandom connection as rendering James's success immoral or transgressive, as many fans seem to have done. In my opinion, Twilight was easily scrubbed off Fifty, since it was so alt-universe to begin with. Looks like Meyer and her legal team felt the same way.

As far as I remember, the main "proof" that James started out to exploit the fandom is her infamous exchange with gentleblaze, as noted in this article, to link to just one:

http://www.crushable.com/2012/05/11...ty-shades-of-grey-twilight-fandom-wank-860/2/

I've seen that before, and it does kind of test my faith in the creation myth; I don't feel it's amazingly damning, though. She has ambitions for the book and for her writing, but I think if you were to trawl AW for similar expressions, you'd find quite a few people with similar sentimnts, of varying levels of jokiness. There's also the stuff about not being terribly into the fandom, and I can't bring myself to be upset about that, either.

Even if she planned the whole thing, and never felt an ounce of comradeship? I take my hat off to her as one of the greatest and most foresighted marketing geniuses of all time. A woman who built the biggest-selling book of modern times by giving it away on installments on the internet.

Rowling is the word-of-mouth queen! Also a super promising writer who missed taking HP from very good to great by just a few (if critical) missteps. IMO, as always and inevitably. :D

I still haven't read Harry Potter.
 

dawinsor

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But the OP does ask an interesting question. If many of us writers look at a book and say wow, that's bad writing, but the book draws a huge readership (sometimes including us), then the writer is doing something right. It can be useful to try to identify what it is.

In the case of Twilight (the only one in the series I've read), I thought the action plot was too concentrated near the end, as if Meyer thought of it as she went along and didn't go back and work it in. I also found the repeated mentions of Edward's beauty to be boring after a while. But Meyer managed to capture that teenaged sense that every little thing mattered, that a boy looked at you and your heart stopped, that you felt pain and it was the end of the world. I didn't respond to that, but I can recognize it.
 
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DanielaTorre

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I also found the repeated mentions of Edward's beauty to be boring after a while. But Meyer managed to capture that teenaged sense that every little thing mattered, that a boy looked at you and your heart stopped, that you felt pain and it was the end of the world. I didn't respond to that, but I can recognize it.

Wow dawinsor. I never really looked at it that way. It does make sense that the one thing I disagreed with the most was the MC was reckless, obsessive, and narrow minded. I suppose I was never that narrow minded as a teenagers because I had bigger problems to deal with besides boys. Like an alcoholic father, poverty, and emotionally unhealthy household. I could not relate to Bella at all. She had understanding parents, people who loved her, and threw it all away over a boy. I would have KILLED for her life and she took it for granted over her sick obsession over this Adonis.

Thanks for pointing that out. I like when things open my mind. :)
 

Torgo

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Wow dawinsor. I never really looked at it that way. It does make sense that the one thing I disagreed with the most was the MC was reckless, obsessive, and narrow minded. I suppose I was never that narrow minded as a teenagers because I had bigger problems to deal with besides boys. Like an alcoholic father, poverty, and emotionally unhealthy household. I could not relate to Bella at all. She had understanding parents, people who loved her, and threw it all away over a boy. I would have KILLED for her life and she took it for granted over her sick obsession over this Adonis.

Thanks for pointing that out. I like when things open my mind. :)

The fact that people can disagree over interpretations and take different perspectives on characters seems like it might be a sign of good writing.
 

Buffysquirrel

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Buffysquirrel: You make a good point. Success feeds on itself. But the success still had to get to a criticality at which it then exploded and was driven more by society than by merit. Do you have an author’s book in mind who you are not impressed with but can pick out a reason for its success in terms of how it was presented or written?

Umm. I could say that Twilight's success depended to a great extent on its telling young women that they could fulfil the crappy roles society has assigned them and still have exciting adventures? Also, of course, the book is full of sex. With the sex not actually happening on the page and the characters being ciphers, it was easy for the readers to project themselves into the book and fantasise about all the sex Bella and Edward weren't having.
 

DanielaTorre

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The fact that people can disagree over interpretations and take different perspectives on characters seems like it might be a sign of good writing.

And you know what, I agree. Perhaps that is one reason Twilight is successful despite its many flaws. As dawnisor mentioned, her ability to capture the teenage mind is in fact, good writing. The fact that she can have teenage readers gossip about it to other readers and spread the word about the book is even more commendable because it shows she knows her market.
 

dawinsor

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Umm. I could say that Twilight's success depended to a great extent on its telling young women that they could fulfil the crappy roles society has assigned them and still have exciting adventures? Also, of course, the book is full of sex. With the sex not actually happening on the page and the characters being ciphers, it was easy for the readers to project themselves into the book and fantasise about all the sex Bella and Edward weren't having.

That too.
 
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And you know what, I agree. Perhaps that is one reason Twilight is successful despite its many flaws. As dawnisor mentioned, her ability to capture the teenage mind is in fact, good writing. The fact that she can have teenage readers gossip about it to other readers and spread the word about the book is even more commendable because it shows she knows her market.


I think we need to be careful both about making generalizations about the audience and assumptions about the author's intent. Stephenie Meyer apparently managed to capture the "teenage mind" of a large subsection of teenagers, mostly female, by writing what she loved. I don't ascribe her some sort of marketing genius such that she wrote the book to pander to that audience.

I think that a similar effect explains the vast majority of best-sellers. They wrote something they would want to read, and unknowingly tapped into some part of the audience which then took them to success.

I d not believe that book quality is subjective. It can be argued. It can be debated. But there are books that are unarguably bad from a writing craft standpoint. It's the fact that this seems to have little relevance to their success in many cases that makes writers and some readers upset.

And beyond that, it is 100% possible to enjoy something even when you are aware that it is objectively lacking in some areas. First, because there are very few perfect or universally interesting stories out there, in any genre or medium. And second, because, fuck it, nothing is a single towering monolith. maybe the writing does suck, but the story itself is a nail-biting, cliff-hanging, rip-roaring ride through awesome-land. Or maybe the plot is kinda of meh, but the characters are fascinating. Or maybe the book fulfills some other desire. The vast majority of online porn is terrible. But it keeps getting made and watched because viewers are getting something form it. Whether because they don't know it's bad, or because they don't care, the effect is the same. And yet that shouldn't invalidate any discussion on the merits of the piece.
 

Ken

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... no complaints myself about myers or brown.
Fine authors imo. I'm just an average joe though.
I'm not striving for any depth in what I write or profundity.
Just interested in presenting a simple story solely in hopes of entertaining potential readers.
For writers that are literary I could understand how they might not like myers and brown and other popular authors.
They don't find depth in them and whatnot. Or well constructed prose perhaps too.
Maybe they have a point. Not sure.
All I know is that there is value in a simple tale that just tells a tale and nothing more.
And many reader seem to feel similarly.
And for those who don't they've got their hemingways and that satanic verse's guy.
That's good. Novels to satisfy all sorts of readers. THat's how it should be.
 

JSSchley

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One of the things I've experienced is that a lot of novice writers and a great many more readers struggle to separate criticism of the writing from a criticism of the writer. This is the same thing you see when an author's fans gang up on a negative review. The assumption is "don't like writing" = "don't like writer." In that instance, I can see how the next move is "you must be jealous" because if someone is presuming that I'm claiming I can tell something about a person's worth and nature from the quality of his/her writing, then they're right to say I must be coming to that conclusion for other reasons.

But the part the "you're jealous" or "you're just a hater" people are often missing is that "the writing is bad" doesn't mean that the criticizer has come to the conclusion that the writer is an awful person. It just means, well, that they found the writing bad for one reason or another.

As a writer, I think the fact that someone can tell me my writing, or some part of it, stinks without that meaning that I'm an awful person is the best part about the whole thing. Good writing is a skill, and while some people are naturally better at it than others, anyone can work at it and learn how to do it better.

With the exception of James, there hasn't been a single book or author mentioned extensively in this thread that I didn't enjoy reading. But I can recognize that certain aspects of their writing is flawed. In many ways, that gives me an even better springboard to examine what makes it work in spite of the fact that I notice that the writing is, to me, subpar. That's really useful info, as far as I'm concerned.
 

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I almost fell over laughing when someone on a different board posted that they'd bought Da Vinci Code to see why 'everyone' was buying it. Uh. Well. Even now I wonder if they'd have understood why I was laughing.

Sometimes, books like the Harry Potter series, Da Vinci Code, Twilight, etc, reach that tipping point where people are buying them for social reasons, not literary ones.

But let's face it, you can't write 'word of mouth' or peer pressure into your book. It happens or, more likely, it doesn't.
Well yes these are the books that REALLY make money. There are, I fear, a vast number of people who ONLY read what "everyone" is reading.
 
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