Surprised by a writer - for the wrong reasons

I've got to know who it was now.

Here is a post so you can rep me with the name.

Ooh me too!

And yes, yes I have had that experience. It's horribly depressing.

I wanna know too! Need to know who to avoid! But of course, I'll keep it quiet.

I think some authors get so big they're beyond editing. They're guaranteed to sell. Absolutely guaranteed. Their name sells books rather than their stories.

It's the same old argument. "Why do we have to polish our manuscripts when these writers get away with murder?" And we'll never find a solution.

scarletpeaches said:

I think some authors get so big they're beyond editing. They're guaranteed to sell. Absolutely guaranteed. Their name sells books rather than their stories.

It's the same old argument. "Why do we have to polish our manuscripts when these writers get away with murder?" And we'll never find a solution.

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I don't know about you but if I ever get too big to bother crafting my best, I'd rather be shot. I would rather put out my best work always than lie back on my name and coast through.

The fact I'm always talking about self-improvement and not pandering to the lowest common denominator should answer that one...

This is talking about another author in another genre, but I recently read the latest offering from a big seller, and it broke every single rule we're told to adhere to. (Yes I know rules can be broken but only from a position of power and understanding).

The book began with a laundry list description of the protagonist, it head-jumped, was chock-full of "As you know, Bob," dialogue and telling-not-showing. The plot moved along by coincidence, was full of passive voice and ended on a more-or-less DEM plot point.

And I can guarantee, absolutely guarantee if you or I subbed it, we would be laughed out of the agent's in-tray. But this was a big name author. One of the biggest.

So I looked at the Amazon reviews and it seems people are starting to notice the decline in this author's books and it's about time. So, people who are after quality writing will notice and move elsewhere.

As for those who still want to read this author? Well there's nothing I can do about that. Yes, I get resentful and think, "Why them and not me? My writing's better than this!" I can only do the best I can while trying to keep a check on my anger.

This doesn't mean I'm dismissing what you're saying, seun...but the more I rage about it, the more impotent I feel, so the only thing I can do is try to raise standards by being better myself.

seun said:

We had a delivery at work this morning. One of the books was the new one from a prolific and popular crime novelist. I haven't read any of this author's books, so wondering what they were like, I read the first 20 pages.

It was shit. I mean, really shit. I know story beats all, but I like to think avoiding info dumps and show vs tell are important issues as is constructing a sentence a little more developed than along the lines of See Dick run. I know it sounds over the top, but I was really blown away just how bad the writing was given the reviews and sales this author has.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

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You explained everything with the bolded words. Nothing else to say.

I don't understand how readers can bear to uncover the story from all that bad writing sometimes, though. Some books are less entertaining, more hard work.

Have you ever listened to other people talk?

Most people are barely coherent, much less articulate, yet we all seem to be able to extract meaning from their ramblings.

SPMiller said:

Have you ever listened to other people talk?

Most people are barely coherent, much less articulate, yet we all seem to be able to extract meaning from their ramblings.

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Point taken, but I would say that listening to someone else speak can often be reduced to merely hearing them. It's passive. With a book, we need to make effort. Much like reading a letter as opposed to letting someone ramble on.

rant/ I wouldn't care if the industry wasn't tightening its belt and mostly accepting work from "established" authors (I know that's an exaggeration, but still). What a bloody Catch-22 we new authors are in! We can't get pubbed because publishers are too cheap and cautious to take on unproven work, and we can't establish ourselves as authors if we can't get pubbed. I know it's not as simple as that, but I felt like having a wee rant. /end rant.

scarletpeaches said:

Point taken, but I would say that listening to someone else speak can often be reduced to merely hearing them. It's passive. With a book, we need to make effort. Much like reading a letter as opposed to letting someone ramble on.

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I don't know about that. I've read some pretty terrible letters (and emails) in my day.

In an abstract sense, I view this as a sort of Saussurean matter with the text as the signifier and the story as the signified. The reader will tolerate flaws in the signifier as long as it adequately communicates/represents the signified--and, of course, as long as the signified is damned interesting.

Terrible letters and emails? That's exactly my point. Writing can be bad and just because we can get away with it doesn't mean we should.

It comes back to the same old, same old. Gripping story and good writing aren't mutually exclusive. I want both in my books - the ones I write and the ones I read.

I confess to having a problem with books by the author seun refers to in the OP. I've often had to go back and try to work out who the author is referring to because they headjump so much, within the same paragraph.

If writing leads to confusion, the signifier isn't doing its job properly.

But are these authors' first books brilliant? Or maybe they were accepted for publication at a more fruitful time, when publishers were willing to take a chance on anything that looked like it might sell?

callalily61 said:

Rep me! Rep me! Esp since my agent's out there trying to sell my mystery. I wanna see the competition.

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Mary Higgins Clark. She's probably your toughest competitor and I've never seen shabby work from her.

SPMiller said:

Have you ever listened to other people talk?

Most people are barely coherent, much less articulate, yet we all seem to be able to extract meaning from their ramblings.

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This is true, and yet, if I had to pay $7.95 to hear some of these morons try to string together an intelligible sentence, I would slap the S out of them.

I had been planning on starting a thread along these same lines, because I just read a crime thriller and one of the lines was this:

'the guy who answered the phone sounded like a guy who hadn't trimmed his sideburns recently.'

I read that, and I was like, WTF?

so, I had to ask the masses. am I missing something on that sentence?

Maybe his sideburns were tickling the phone and causing interference.

My own vaguest guess would be a reference to the time period when they wore their sideburns long? Maybe hippie? Elvis? It certainly doesn't help with the picture at all.

Now I'm curious. Somebody please send me a message and tell me who it is.