Bull Shit

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I'm reading a Tom Clancy novel.

I noticed it's almost entirely narrative summary punctuated with dialogue.

I noticed something else: It's devoid of emotion. Most of the male action-adventure novels have little emotion in them.

Narrative summary and emotional scarcity are two major writing blunders according to the sissies who author how-to-write books.

The other day I read a how-to-write book that takes issue with the canon SHOW, DONT TELL. The author says the rule is bull shit, and gave some examples of sublime telling.

I've been saying that publishers and readers buy what they like NOT whats 'good.'

 

[keeblercrumb]

.....
I've been saying that publishers and readers buy what they like NOT whats 'good.'

You're the guy that said that?

You think?



-KC

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

KEEBLER

It was definitely me.

 

[Carnevil9]

There's a huge difference between a "best selling author" and a "best writing author." Just look at me......Carney

 

[dr_mabeuse]

This guy murdered some other guy and was caught.

There's your ultimate telling novel. You use telling to paint in broad swaths of background and backstory where you're just transferring information. When you're going for emotional tension and payoff, though, you've got to switch to close-focus detail and showing to bring the reader in there and have him share the scene with you.

How-To-Write books are 80% bullshit. The other 20% is about how to format manuscripts and punctuation.

Publishers like books that grab them and are similar to other best-sellers. It's true. If you can write like Tom Clancy or Stephen King, you'll probably get published. Can you? If they like your book but don't think it's quite good enough for publication, they'll tell you why and give you a chance to fix it.

There isn't a rule in fiction that can't be broken.

 

[Iamcanadian28]

There's a huge difference between a "best selling author" and a "best writing author." Just look at me......Carney

Absolutely there is a huge difference between popular and critically acclaimed. It's the same in movies and many other art forms as well. On the other hand, it's not mutually exclusive. You can have a very good story that also has mass appeal.

 

[sr71plt]

Tom Clancey is perhaps the last writer to be used in conjunction with good writing. His books continue to sell on the basis of name recognition from the earliest novels under that name. I say "under that name," because the Naval Institute Press totally rewrote his first, The Hunt for the Red October; his second, Red Storm Rising, came almost directly from a Naval War College simulation game exercise and was mostly written by Larry Bonds (who is a better writter and has books in his own name. see Red Phoenix); and his third book, Patriot Games, was massaged by a whole stable of content and line editors (including me). After that, Clancey was well known enough to call his own shots, and he's been virtually unedited since then--at his own insistence--and it shows.

People are still buying his books (but at decreased levels) because of name recognition (and because most best-sellling authors are annointed beforehand by the publishers and marketed that way).

He is not and never was a trained "writer," though. He was an insurance salesman (although he has an English Lit. BA) who wanted desperately to go to war in Vietnam, but who failed the recruitment tests because of bad eyesight, and lived the macho soldier's life vacariously in what he read/collected and fantacized. He latched onto a good plot or two and sold those well--most of the writing that got him name recognition wasn't his own. He was the product of publisher handlers.