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Maddy Knight

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I'm using chrome. Maybe both me and my computer are too old.

My big confession is that ... I don't read. I really don't care for it. I think I have read 20 books in my life, with the majority being turn-of-the-century writers: William Morris, George MacDonald, and 1920s writer James branch Cabell, with Cabell probably my strongest influence (we owe him big time for taking on the US government over indecency laws). And, I would need a day to remember half of the rest have read. What I can brag about, though, is that my writing will be underivative. Is that a word?

It was / is the same with screenplays. I learned the formatting and basic craft, then told stories however I wanted, and let the world decide where they should be filed away. I suppose I should look at novels the same, but the query world wants to know. So I wing it. My first finished novel (manuscript) is told from a woman's POV, it's not meant for a quick read (coffee or wine should accompany it), so is it Woemn's Lit Fiction? I tend to cringe with terms like 'upmarket'. Screenwriters were /are constantly pushing 'Hign Concept', but when you ask them to explain it, all they can come up with 'I know it when I see it.' Arg.

I need to stop being a butthead and learn these terms as best I can, even though none seem all that well defined, and open to interpretation.

I just have to write what I want, and hope that no one throws tomatoes.
 
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ap123

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I'm using chrome. Maybe both me and my computer are too old.

My big confession is that ... I don't read. I really don't care for it. I think I have read 20 books in my life, with the majority being turn-of-the-century writers: William Morris, George MacDonald, and 1920s writer James branch Cabell, with Cabell probably my strongest influence (we owe him big time for taking on the US government over indecency laws). And, I would need a day to remember half of the rest have read. What I can brag about, though, is that my writing will be underivative. Is that a word?

It was / is the same with screenplays. I learned the formatting and basic craft, then told stories however I wanted, and let the world decide where they should be filed away. I suppose I should look at novels the same, but the query world wants to know. So I wing it. My first finished novel (manuscript) is told from a woman's POV, it's not meant for a quick read (coffee or wine should accompany it), so is it Woemn's Lit Fiction? I tend to cringe with terms like 'upmarket'. Screenwriters were /are constantly pushing 'Hign Concept', but when you ask them to explain it, all they can come up with 'I know it when I see it.' Arg.

I need to stop being a butthead and learn these terms as best I can, even though none seem all that well defined, and open to interpretation.

I just have to write what I want, and hope that no one throws tomatoes.

I'm curious, what is driving you to write a novel if you don't enjoy the medium?

On a more practical note, reading broadly--including, yes, a high percentage of what's being published now--will help you better understand the various categories and genres, and a general understanding of agent/publisher and by extension, most importantly, reader expectations in today's market.
 

Animad345

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I'm curious, what is driving you to write a novel if you don't enjoy the medium?

On a more practical note, reading broadly--including, yes, a high percentage of what's being published now--will help you better understand the various categories and genres, and a general understanding of agent/publisher and by extension, most importantly, reader expectations in today's market.

This is 100% true. I read as much as I write. Reading widely is invaluable to honing your craft as a writer.
 

Maddy Knight

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I enjoy writing, not reading. I have plenty of life experience to draw on. Just need to learn the craft, which is why I am here. I am also self-taught in screenwriting, and did okay (67 films). I feel confident that I can succeed at novels as well, once I get the nuances figured out.

Novels are more to my liking because one can sit in their hermetical cabin and self publish. To make a film, usually, takes a team to pull off, and I am really tired of being a team player. I want my cabin in the woods!
 
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Maddy Knight

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I did try, but find most of what-s written to be drivel. I just cannot get into it, not even so/called best sellers. There is nothing new or original.
 
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Ari Meermans

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I enjoy writing, not reading. I have plenty of life experience to draw on. Just need to learn the craft, which is why I am here. I am also self-taught in screenwriting, and did okay (67 films). I feel confident that I can succeed at novels as well, once I get the nuances figured out.

Novels are more to my liking because one can sit in their hermetical cabin and self publish. To make a film, usually, takes a team to pull off, and I am really tired of being a team player. I want my cabin in the woods!

Are you saying you've written sixty-seven film scripts without having watched any? Seriously?

If you do not read, you do not know what is possible with the language. You can have the best imagination and a full portfolio of life experiences and still not know how to transfer any of that from your own mind to your readers' minds without having read extensively to learn the tools. Reading provides that part of the craft. Just as chefs learn new techniques from other chefs and artists learn light and shadow techniques from each other, writers learn from other writers. To do that you need to read and read extensively across genres.

I did try, but find most of what-s written to be drivel. I just cannot get into it, not even so/called best sellers. There is nothing new or original.

You don't know that; you don't read.
 

Woollybear

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Sitting in a cabin and self publishing, never reading another book, sounds peaceful. :)

There are loads of ways to sharpen tools. Pick the ones that work for you. The advice to read is sound--and something I resisted when I started writing, because I had so much to wrap my mind around that I thought I didn't have time to read. I probably didn't. I also didn't realize how valuable it can be to read analytically.

Published novels basically equate to free advice--from people who've succeeded in the endeavor we've undertaken.

FWIW, I also don't enjoy best sellers (by and large), and I prefer some older work which today might be considered overly poetic for genre fiction. Yet... I see myself as self-employed--and reading is part of the job description. If I want to keep my job, I will read.

Now. There is reading for enjoyment and reading for craft--and the two are different. You can read works you don't enjoy, and ask yourself what is it that turns you off? That's part of reading for craft.

You can read unpublished excerpts here, other people's drafts, and offer critique. That counts as reading, too (for craft.) I read your excerpt--I count that toward my daily quotient for the day. I come away with notes for you, which I've offered, and notes to myself, because the voice I am working toward is different than yours, and every excerpt I read helps me with my own voice.

Here's one last (long) anecdote, and then I won't bug you about reading anymore:

I'm working through a 1000 page novel published years ago, and I make it through about 20 pages each night. Parts of it are very tough to get through. Parts I skim. But I ask myself why are some passages so hard? (I discover it's because the relationships on the page are real but not compelling, there are no stakes to the sequence underway, and there's a lack of proactivity from the main character.) Once the author corrects any of those elements, I'm back into the story.

Other parts are stunningly beautiful. Again, why? I've taken to writing down sentences that strike me as *amazing.* I've learned that for descriptive sentences (for myself, and as one example of reading for craft), a line of description that includes (1) motion, or (2) emotion, or (3) power or threat, or (4) all of the above is far more immersive than a static line of description containing none of those. I figured that out by reading.

Take your line:

Down in the desert valley, a sudden and feral sandstorm swallowed whole the only road home.
That has a nice mix of threat (use of the word 'feral') and motion (swallowing). For the word count, it's not a bad line. Much better than, say, "Wind blew along the desert floor."

The line doesn't have emotion, and that's OK, but emotion is something to consider. It usually comes in hand-in-hand with immersion to a character.

So, tweaking:

Down in the desert valley, a sudden and feral sandstorm swallowed whole the only road home like a great multi-headed lynx of sand, winding and twisting and blowing apart again, and Mary Jean felt, as she so often did, that she stood powerless in the face of Emmett's decision.

^^The additions there are not your voice. I'm not recommending these edits to you. I added an emotional beat, for fun, for my own practice because I need to work on descriptive passages. And I'm trying to say that by reading--whether other people's excerpts or books you enjoy or books you don't enjoy, you can identify your tools--and strengthen the ones most useful to you personally.

But no one has to read anything ever--there are other paths up the mountain--and your writing is very nice. It's clear you've done a lot of it!!! :) Very nice writing. Your experience shows.

:)

But I totally get not wanting to read--it took me a while to get converted over and join the chorus. :)
 
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I did try, but find most of what-s written to be drivel. I just cannot get into it, not even so/called best sellers. There is nothing new or original.

You need to slow down and read some stickies. Starting with the The Newbie Guide to Absolute Write.

You're perfectly welcome to have opinions and assert them, but this kind of statement is not going to fly.

* You have condemned an entire genre as "drivel" and as "nothing new or original."

Pretty sure you're not in a position to judge either statement.
 

ap123

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I enjoy writing, not reading. I have plenty of life experience to draw on. Just need to learn the craft, which is why I am here. I am also self-taught in screenwriting, and did okay (67 films). I feel confident that I can succeed at novels as well, once I get the nuances figured out.

Novels are more to my liking because one can sit in their hermetical cabin and self publish. To make a film, usually, takes a team to pull off, and I am really tired of being a team player. I want my cabin in the woods!

Life experience ≠ writing a novel. We're all talking about reading because reading is probably the best way to learn the craft. People write for as many reasons as they read, and if your goal is to write exclusively for yourself and self publish for the gratification of holding your own novel in your hands, that is completely valid, no reason you can't. If, however, you'd like others to read what you've written, then there's going to be more than just you involved in the process.

I did try, but find most of what-s written to be drivel. I just cannot get into it, not even so/called best sellers. There is nothing new or original.

The number one rule of AW is RYFW, Respect Your Fellow Writer. It's strictly enforced, and it's a good rule. We're all writers here working on our craft, learning the business, and supporting each other--regardless of genre, category, age group, or whether we're unpublished, trade published, or self published. Stating everyone else's work is drivel is neither respectful nor true. Our common ground here is words, let's choose them carefully.

Putting RYFW to the side, if every novel you've picked up has been found wanting (and your earlier post stated you've done very little picking up of contemporary fiction), you aren't reading broadly enough, or novels just aren't your thing.

Are you saying you've written sixty-seven film scripts without having watched any? Seriously?

If you do not read, you do not know what is possible with the language. You can have the best imagination and a full portfolio of life experiences and still not know how to transfer any of that from your own mind to your readers' minds without having read extensively to learn the tools. Reading provides that part of the craft. Just as chefs learn new techniques from other chefs and artists learn light and shadow techniques from each other, writers learn from other writers. To do that you need to read and read extensively across genres.



You don't know that; you don't read.

Bolding mine. Chefs/food was actually my first thought. Eldest is a chef, and it's quite something to see him and other industry folks go out to eat. They order and taste EVERYTHING on the menu, it's their pleasure as well as their business, and expected.
 

Maddy Knight

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Are you saying you've written sixty-seven film scripts without having watched any? Seriously?

If you do not read, you do not know what is possible with the language. You can have the best imagination and a full portfolio of life experiences and still not know how to transfer any of that from your own mind to your readers' minds without having read extensively to learn the tools. Reading provides that part of the craft. Just as chefs learn new techniques from other chefs and artists learn light and shadow techniques from each other, writers learn from other writers. To do that you need to read and read extensively across genres.



You don't know that; you don't read.

No, I am not saying that at all. I have writtern roughly 300 film scripts, short and feature, and have had 67 of them produced, and a few more are in the works. I do watch film, and I was / am a reader for other people's script works, and I have also written a yet-to-be-published book on screewriting. And, as I said about novels, I do find most of the screenplays I read to be derivative and unoriginal. Nothing new. I am of the 'opinion' that the whole film industry is suffering due to a lack of good written material. A few gems have come out, but so much of it is just a rehash of what came before it. Over and over. Really top-game actors and actresses just can't get great scripts anymore. Netflix is putting up some pretty good stuff, but the overwhelming majority is just junk.

As for novels, and to very clear, I am not knokcing anyone here at all. I have not read their books. I do, however, look around at what's out there. I look for books that Lit Reps say they like, and that they are looking for more like it - and I can't read it. A few pages in, and I drop it. It just does not feel new to me - I do not mean as far as just novels go, I mean as far as stories go. I've seen this story before. Maybe this writer has a new way of telling the same story, which is always something I do keep in mind. Two kids growing up in a violent home will not have the same take-aways. I get that. But reading ten, twenty at most pages into something has come up empty for me. I am trying to learn what's out there and why people are reading it. I am.

I don't like to read. I did not read a single book all through K-!2, and flunked miserably for it (back then autism was considered the mother's fault), and still to this day I just can't sit down to read. Some, of course, but I'm not ingesting them by the bucket, as i probably ought to, and I can honestly say that I do not remember the last book I read.

I will add that I am here because this is where the good writers seem to be. And they offer feedback greater than 'You suck', which is pretty common elswhere.
 
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Maddy Knight

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Are you getting requests when identifying it as Women's Fic?

I am, but only to those who request it, or mention in their blurbs that they look for it. I need to put up my query here and see if it's a collosal failure the way I have it.
 

Ari Meermans

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No, I am not saying that at all. I have writtern roughly 300 film scripts, short and feature, and have had 67 of them produced, and a few more are in the works. I do watch film, and I was / am a reader for other people's script works, and I have also written a yet-to-be-published book on screewriting. And, as I said about novels, I do find most of the screenplays I read to be derivative and unoriginal. Nothing new. I am of the 'opinion' that the whole film industry is suffering due to a lack of good written material. A few gems have come out, but so much of it is just a rehash of what came before it. Over and over. Really top-game actors and actresses just can't get great scripts anymore. Netflix is putting up some pretty good stuff, but the overwhelming majority is just junk.

As for novels, and to very clear, I am not knokcing anyone here at all. I have not read their books. I do, however, look around at what's out there. I look for books that Lit Reps say they like, and that they are looking for more like it - and I can't read it. A few pages in, and I drop it. It just does not feel new to me - I do not mean as far as just novels go, I mean as far as stories go. I've seen this story before. Maybe this writer has a new way of telling the same story, which is always something I do keep in mind. Two kids growing up in a violent home will not have the same take-aways. I get that. But reading ten, twenty at most pages into something has come up empty for me. I am trying to learn what's out there and why people are reading it. I am.

I don't like to read. I did not read a single book all through K-!2, and flunked miserably for it (back then autism was considered the mother's fault), and still to this day I just can't sit down to read. Some, of course, but I'm not ingesting them by the bucket, as i probably ought to, and I can honestly say that I do not remember the last book I read.

I will add that I am here because this is where the good writers seem to be. And they offer feedback greater than 'You suck', which is pretty common elswhere.

You may consider what's out there as "junk" but here's the thing, Maddy, that's YOUR taste talking. There are markets out there for those films . . . obviously, or they wouldn't be produced.

You missed the point about my comment regarding your sixty-seven scripts. The point was you can't have written successful film scripts without having ever seen movies. My incredulity was based on that.

If you don't read, you miss the point of the work. You miss the themes, the subtext, and the nuance. If you can't recognize those things, you can't incorporate them into your own work. And if you can't, your plots will be thin and/or your dialogue will be stilted or shallow, just to name a couple of possibilities. Find a way to read OR invest in audiobooks if that would help.
 
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Maddy Knight

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I'm curious, what is driving you to write a novel if you don't enjoy the medium?

On a more practical note, reading broadly--including, yes, a high percentage of what's being published now--will help you better understand the various categories and genres, and a general understanding of agent/publisher and by extension, most importantly, reader expectations in today's market.

I really don't want to come across as an arrogant ass. I really don't. Somehow that seems how I am coming off.

I adore the written word. I have been typing on a Smith & Corona before I knew the alphabet. My 'complaint' is that so much, both novel and film, feels like a rehash. So, instead of following 'today's market', why not lead the market in a new direction? Is that so insane?
 

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I adore the written word. I have been typing on a Smith & Corona before I knew the alphabet. My 'complaint' is that so much, both novel and film, feels like a rehash. So, instead of following 'today's market', why not lead the market in a new direction? Is that so insane?

The advice I've generally seen given is to write your book, and worry about things like genre and marketing once it's done. Some of us gravitate toward particular genres before we sit down to compose; others have a story they want to tell, and the genre is just a by-product.

Every story ever written is a re-hash. There's nothing new except what has been forgotten*.

There's nothing wrong with trying to subvert norms, either. But it's impossible to do so if you don't read widely enough to know what those norms are.

*A quote I've seen attributed to Marie Antoinette
 

JJ Litke

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I teach design. I encourage students to pay attention to the design work around them, we even have assignments where they find examples for discussion or evaluation. If a student told me they didn't like looking at other people's design work, I'd suggest they go talk to an advisor about finding a career that's a better fit for them. Someone who isn't that into design isn't likely to be very good at it, or enjoy the work. After all, if they expect to get paid for their design work, they're going to need to be able to not only design what they like but what other people will like, too.
 

Maddy Knight

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You may consider what's out there as "junk" but here's the thing, Maddie, that's YOUR taste talking. There are markets out there for those films . . . obviously, or they wouldn't be produced.

........ That is not true. Many of these junk films never make their money back. There are, sadly, many folks in the industry that just want to 'get it in the pipe' and they snap up junk screenplays and produce junk films from them, and then lose all of their money - or their investor's money - for their efforts. I would argue many indy and big-time film producers are not very good at choosing material, or they manage to completely demolish what could have been a good film. There is amarket for pretty much anything. That does not mean it will be any good. Cigarettes are a huge success. Does that make them good? Of all the writers that were knocking out books during the big pulp fiction craze, how many came out the other end as really good writers? Very few. Maybe a few gems were lost along the way because a publisher just didn't get it. Happens.

You missed the point about my comment regarding your sixty-seven scripts. The point was you can't have written successful film scripts without having ever seen movies. My incredulity was based on that.

... New confession: I also rarely watch film. Maybe only in the last year when I was tricked into getting Netflix. And yes, producers gave me a hard time about it. 'What?! You've never seen 'Scent of a Woman?!? Ah, no. Should I? In the end I really enjoyed that film. I just never went looking for it. One does not need to watch a 1000 films to be a film writer. They just need to understand how to write them, and who they are actually writing for.

If you don't read, you miss the point of the work. You miss the themes, the subtext, and the nuance. If you can't recognize those things, you can't incorporate them into your own work. And if you can't, your plots will be thin and/or your dialogue will be stilted or shallow, just to name a couple of possibilities. Find a way to read OR invest in audiobooks if that would help.

... I can get that from ten pages. Twenty at most. The whole book if it grabs my attention.
 
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