Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes, #2

[McKenna]

I think I like you, B. I certainly like the way you think.

Thanks for posting your views on these threads.

 

[Pure]

trouble

I hate reading material when it's OBVIOUS that it was written by someone who believes him/herself a superior being. Now, I can't exactly put my finger on WHY it's obvious ... but it is.

i have a lot of trouble figuring this one out. how to know the author's beliefs. does a difficult first page, e.g., of Ulysses, show 'belief in oneself as a superior being.' how about the novels of Virginia Woolf?

is demonstrable mastery of incredible detail in historical situations an indication of such a belief?

there are authors clearly trying to write potboilers, but maybe, rather than feeling superior, they're having a lark. william f buckley wrote some page-turner spy novels--this is the only example that comes to mind of a putative 'superior sounding' author, but of course he sounds rather snotty most of the time. but can be great fun.

OK, in the most amateurish writing, one can see an author who loves 'big words' and maybe doesn't use them properly. same for rare words. but then again the novels of Nabokov use rare words. is he one of those egotistical authors?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Don't Consider Yourself Too Smart


It's possible to sabatoge your fiction by being too smart for your own good -by being a smart aleck. Even before you begin writing your next story, you should examine your attitude toward yourself, your readers, your own work and contemporary fiction. It could be that these attitudes are damaging your work without realizing it.

Ask yourself:

• Do you consider yourself more intelligent that most of the stories and novels your read?

• Do you believe contemporary fiction is sort of beneath you in terms of intellectual attainment?

• Do you figure your readers -when you get them- will be dumb compared to you?

• Do you revel in Proust, adore T.S. Eliot, think there has never been a really great American novelist, and sneer at everything in popular magazines and best-sellers?

If so, I congratulate you on your self-satisfaction, but warn you that such smug condescension will be the death of you as a writer.

Condescension is a terrible thing. Readers sense it and are turned off by it. The good writer writes humbly, never in a condescending manner, as if to lesser mortals. As the sign said on many a newsroom wall in the olden days, "Don't write down to your readers; the ones dumber than you can't read."

And in terms of fiction, that statement is absolutely true, because fiction does not come from the head; it comes from the heart. The job of the fiction writer is to plumb the depths of human emotions, and then to portray them ...re-created them... stir them up. *** Bigness of heart -compassion- is far more important that bigness of IQ.


***I think those that write in the Loving Wives category have this down to an art!


Once again, the above was taken from a book I recently picked up, "The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes."

Well, this one has special resonance for me today. I recieved this anonymous feedback, on the first chapter of "Mad Moll:

The terrible narrative and jokey feel to the piece ruined any chance of me enjoying it. Most of the time it felt like you were taking the piss out of anyone who enjoys such themes and also me as a reader. Such a bizarre style left me unable to get into the story at all, I am afraid.

Yikes!
And, do you know, I think she's right- maybe not as much as SHE thinks, but I can see some condescension in the narrative. I could protest that the character is telling the story, and the character gets her comeuppance in later chapters.
BUt, I may be re-editing this story just a little bit.

 

[bridgeburner]

I think I like you, B. I certainly like the way you think.

Thanks for posting your views on these threads.

Thanks for making the threads, I'm quite enjoying them!


-B

 

[bridgeburner]

i have a lot of trouble figuring this one out. how to know the author's beliefs. does a difficult first page, e.g., of Ulysses, show 'belief in oneself as a superior being.' how about the novels of Virginia Woolf?

is demonstrable mastery of incredible detail in historical situations an indication of such a belief?

Pure,

I think you're having the same difficulty that Dr. Mabeuse is having --- you keep seeing an insult to great writers where none is intended. The message isn't "write like a chimp so other chimps will get it." The message is "Don't write like a pretentious boob."

I don't believe Virginia Woolf said to herself "I think I'll write in as lofty and inaccessible a manner as I can to discourage the great unwashed from any pretensions they might have that they are equal to me."

I think she wrote in the voice that was most comfortable for her. She wasn't "putting on" in order to impress an intellectual readership with her literary prowess. She had things to say, ideas to convey, stories to tell and while today her style impresses us in part because of her superior erudition, her contemporaries would not have seen her as some great oddity for her turns of phrase. In the same way that Shakespeare was a celebrated and unique writer for his time, nobody thought he was a genius just because he wrote in iambic pentameter and could produce a heroic couplet.

-B

 

[Monkey_Face]

***I think those that write in the Loving Wives category have this down to an art!

I'm sorry to post off topic, but I've been reading the AH for a while now. I'm usually one of the dregs of the GB. I keep hearing people talk about the loving wives category. Why is that? Normally I wouldn't ask this, but I'm really starting to get confused. And I don't like being confused. When I get confused, I get scared. And angry.

 

[oggbashan]

I'm sorry to post off topic, but I've been reading the AH for a while now. I'm usually one of the dregs of the GB. I keep hearing people talk about the loving wives category. Why is that? Normally I wouldn't ask this, but I'm really starting to get confused. And I don't like being confused. When I get confused, I get scared. And angry.

The readers of the Loving Wives category either want slut wives or submissive husbands. Whichever version you write for, the other group will criticise you for being wrong.

If, as I have done, you write about a loving, supportive wife, then both groups will attack the story for not being what the readers of Loving Wives want.

Whatever you write for the Loving Wives category someone is likely to attack you and the story.

Og

 

[EricCalder]

Can someone give me an example of one of these egomaniacal yet condescending writers? I'd be interested to see how they write.

I think of Patrick O'Brian, whose writing is extremely complex and whose knowledge of the eighteenth century is downright intimidating, and he cuts the reader no slack whatsoever. Still, he's one of the most gracious and graceful writers I've ever read. Is that showing off?

Indeed! I read this and my instant thought was Patrick O'Brian. He writes in a very dense style, with long paragraphs, and obscure words, with references to Peruvian bird anatomy and cellos and all sorts of things. It's such a very different way of writing from contemporary fiction and if the reader isn't on guard things just zoom by. Obviously he didn't dumb down for his audience, but he didn't need to, he handles that complex style very well.

The key issue in terms of style, I think, is to write in a way that comes naturally. That doesn't mean that a writer needs can ignore mistakes, one can learn and improve and absorb those lessons into one's natural writing style.

In terms of what one chooses to write about, I suppose one could select topics that are likely to more popular. Some people may do that, I have no idea. Clearly I don't, lol, I have been writing about much more obscure settings.