"Ten Harmful Novels for Aspiring Writers"

I had a student try to emulate Ayn Rand and it was so horrific and abstract. Unreadable, really. Even when I tried to explain where he could revise and make changes, he insisted that it should be "exactly this way."

It's one thing to be inspired by a writer, but another to try and imitate an author to the point of losing your own voice in the process.

CrastersBabies said:

I had a student try to emulate Ayn Rand and it was so horrific and abstract. Unreadable, really. Even when I tried to explain where he could revise and make changes, he insisted that it should be "exactly this way."

It's one thing to be inspired by a writer, but another to try and imitate an author to the point of losing your own voice in the process.

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With this example, though, it seems more like the person doing the imitating didn't fully understand the source material, so the imitation became a horrible, muddled version that in the end did not reflect the original.

And individual's understanding of what they're reading (from wider concepts right down to style and grammar points and why they work in the source material) has a greater bearing on whether or not they're learning a 'bad lesson' from the reading or not.

I agree with you, Bookewyrme, imitation is a common stage, and it also behooves aspirants to read a variety of things--from whatever they consider bad to whatever they consider good, stylistically and ideologically.

To me, the problem seems to be that they aren't taking what they'd liked from each of their favorite authors and tried it in their own voice to see if it worked for them. To me an imitation novel is just for practice to learn something.

Add to the fact that we are a combination of MANY writer's great books, not just one. I'm a mongrel of several (about seven) authors, who I've taken bits and pieces away from.

Tri

Alessandra Kelley said:

I dunno. I had a teacher who said to us, and I quote, "You'll never be as good as Picasso, so don't even try."

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None of us will ever be as good as Picasso at being Picasso. But we should all be better than Picasso at being who we are as a writers/artists . That may not be what the former teacher was getting at, but I suspect it's where the author of the NPR story is coming from.

Let me get this right, so now we are being advised not to read the great books?

Sorry, but new writers need to be reading and learning from these authors. I love Angela Carter and Rosemary Sutcliff's skill in describing settings, I learned how to write descriptions of setting from those two talented ladies.

Alessandra Kelley said:

"You'll never be as good as Picasso, so don't even try."

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Who did Picasso's mentors say he'd never be as good as, I wonder?

Michael Angello...and I suspect they were right so Picasso did his own thing, and it worked, after his death...

I listened to this episode of Talk of the Nation on NPR, and I thought his idea of not reading these works was taking things too far. Immitation is part of learning to write and finding your own voice. And I agree with Alessandra Kelley's opinion that it's rather defeatist.

Ick.

While I understand this article, I really don't like it. I think discouraging young writers from daring to deviate from the beaten path and establish a unique voice is disgusting. Don't read Hemingway, Kerouac, or Rand? Are you fucking kidding me? The Great Gatsby is a dangerous book? The fact that the author is so flippantly dismissive of them all too is an outrage, in my opinion.

Yes, again, I understand the premise of this article. But I think, as a writer, you have to be smart enough to know better than to copy directly the style of a writer like Salinger, Kerouac, and so on. That's why it's their style, because only they can really pull it off.

But to outright warn aspiring writers against reading Ulysses is just crazy talk.

It just means they don't want beginners reading Cormac McCarthy and thinking, Oh, so THAT'S how I should write, without knowing *how* to write well or knowing *why* McCarthy writes the way he does.

It's like a step above "beginners should follow the rules," but it's all the same point: master the basics before fooling around with tricky style things.

Beginners of anything are often highly suggestible.

Aspiring writers can copy all they want. As long as they have an outlet like this one to show them why it isn't working for them. My first attempts at publishable fiction were absolutely and laughably, bad. An editor actually sent me a personal rejection and told me a few things she liked and why it didn't work for her, which really helped set me straight. Then I got more involved here and while my work certainly isn't publish worthy just yet in my mind (but it may never be to me), I have certainly improved. My advice to young writers wouldn't be to not read the classics, but to read whats selling now in there chosen genre as well. Read a lot and read widely.

I thought this a warning against trying to hard to imitate a particular style, just because it's so well known and well thought of, which is all well good. But not reading those works at all? That's the worst advice I've ever seen. Aspiring writers should read often, and widely, and that includes every one of the authors mentioned. What a ridiculous suggestion.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Is there an equivalent in writing?

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In my opinion, I would say that fanfic is the writing equivalent. It's not a perfect comparison by any means since fanfic and the reasons for writing it vary so widely, but I think it's the closest to what you described.

I agree. I certainly used fanfic as a test platform to learn certain things. I already had character and setting templates, so I could play with interactions as long as I didn't take them laughably out-of-character.

As for reading great books, yes, I think new writers should. The same way I think new artists should open themselves up to great artworks by doing gallery walks and museum visits. Is it intimidating? Oh my, yes. The first time I saw Church's 'Cotopaxi' it blew me away from the detail and skill of the brushwork. Brilliant art and writing doesn't depress me or intimidate me anymore. It uplifts me, shows me what is possible, and inspires me to improve my work.

But I have noticed younger artists and writers (those schooled in an atmosphere of being-rewarded-for-just-showing-up) express frustration when they realize their best efforts aren't up to masterwork level on the first try.

A couple of books that I love dearly are on that list.

I can see how imitation can be dangerous, especially deliberate and clumsy imitation. However, I feel that writers also ought to read quite a lot, and not reading fantastically good books on purpose so you don't accidentally try to imitate them is the road to madness.

That article makes me grouchy, especially as a young writer (I'm 24). Why does reading something mean you're going to imitate it? In my opinion, the more styles you read the less likely you are to imitate any one one of them. Sure, what you read will impact you and your writing, just like the places you live and the people you know and the emotional struggles of your life. And when you're still in the earlier stages of learning about writing, isn't it important to expand your horizons? To get an idea of what you can do with writing? To see how some great writers use lots of description and some use lots of dialogue and some create lush pictures with words and others evoke a scene with just a few details. The more I've read, the more creative freedom I've felt. Even if you (like this columnist) think some popular/well-regarded books suck-- does that mean you can't take anything away from it? No, you shouldn't think, I'm going to write On the Road 2012 edition, or I'm going to write like Hemingway-- but what's wrong with thinking, hmm, I like the energy of Kerouac and the subtext of Hemingway and I want to incorporate some of that into my deeply personal exploration of what it means to be twenty in surburban 1990s Toronto? You shouldn't have no influences; you should have a whole bunch (and not just literary ones) and put them in a blender along with your own life and personality and interests, and the resulting literary smoothie is your style (my style involves being good with metaphors, obviously). Not taking any Hemingway or Marquez or Salinger just because they're strong flavours isn't going to make it better, and may very well mean it ends up blander than it needs to be.

CrastersBabies said:

I had a student try to emulate Ayn Rand and it was so horrific and abstract. Unreadable, really. Even when I tried to explain where he could revise and make changes, he insisted that it should be "exactly this way."

It's one thing to be inspired by a writer, but another to try and imitate an author to the point of losing your own voice in the process.

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Maybe your student simply didn't have enough talent to do the job.

God knows we don't need another Ayn Rand or Cormac McCarthy. Another Fitzgerald or Chandler might not be a bad thing. (Enough people have tried imitating Chandler; never get it quite right.)

It seems to me, if a young aspiring writer's intent is to imitate a specific writer, it's his intent that's the problem, not the source material he uses.

It can be a useful exercise to write a piece in the style of a famous author; but if a writer doesn't eventually find his own voice for original work, there's not much piont in it.

It infuriates me whenever someone says ANY book is "dangerous." Such as ............ I don't give a fuck how many copies of that odious piece of shit called Mein Kampf get published. (There. I just Godwinned the thread.) Calling the book itself "dangerous" pisses me off. Books aren't dangerous. Ideas aren't dangerous. It's PEOPLE who are dangerous.

As soon as the word "dangerous" gets applied to ANY book, that's when the gasoline and matches get brandished, and we start having biblio-bon fires in the public squares.

Plot Device said:

It infuriates me whenever someone says ANY book is "dangerous." Such as ............ I don't give a fuck how many copies of that odious piece of shit called Mein Kampf get published. (There. I just Godwinned the thread.) Calling the book itself "dangerous" pisses me off. Books aren't dangerous. Ideas aren't dangerous. It's PEOPLE who are dangerous.

As soon as the word "dangerous" gets applied to ANY book, that's when the gasoline and matches get brandished, and we start having biblio-bon fires in the public squares.

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I agree. People's interpretations of books can be dangerous. But I'm not understanding how the books listed could ever be dangerous to anyone, especially to inspiring writers. I don't see the harm in trying to imitate art, because that's how you learn. I see harm when you never move forward from imitation.

It reminds me of apprentices actually. They imitate their teachers until they get the hang of things. Then they develop their own style, and maybe even find new ways of doing things that make it easier on others in their vocation. The fact of the matter is without imitation, the world would come to a complete standstill.