- This topic has 15 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated August 21, 2013 at 5:14 pm by
.
-
Posts
-
I recently took part in a Twitter Chat where one person claimed novels are easier to write because the author can ramble on and on and there’s more room for mistakes.
Ummm. . . .
(My full answer to this one is here: http://zette.blogspot.com/2013/08/which-is-easier-to-write.html)
What about the rest of you? What odd things have you seen other writers say?
zette wrote:I recently took part in a Twitter Chat where one person claimed novels are easier to write because the author can ramble on and on and there’s more room for mistakes.I do find that way over the top, but I think there is a grain of truth hidden in there. In, say, flash fiction, or even short stories, every single word has to count and be as close to perfect as you can get it. I’m not endorsing sloppy writing, but I do think novels require writing that is less ‘tight’, and thus is often easier.
To clarify what I mean, I enjoy – in different ways, and often at different times – both short stories and novels. The novel not only permits, but encourages, a certain amount of extra detail and description, subplots, and so on. As long as the novelist does not “ramble on and on”, this is a feature of novels I tend to enjoy. I also usually find it easier to write than it is to strip all that away to leave only the polished bones of the story. (Which does not mean every story becomes a novel; sometimes they are a novella, or a longer short story. There are obviously stories that cannot be told, even as polished skeletons, in anything less than a novel. And others that would be dull if blown up to novel length.) To me the distinction is not so much the actual final length, but the type of writing. (Although below roughly 1,500 – 2,500 words, I think you seldom have any option other than polishing up those bones.)
To reply directly to your question: at least half of what Elmore Leonard has ever said about writing makes me wonder if he’s even serious, or if he’s pulling the reader’s leg.
I know he is successful, I know he has his fans… but very little of his writing advice is anything I can use, and much of the stuff I can’t use seems to me as over the top as his fiction. (Sorry, I’m not a fan.) Now, I try to keep in mind there may be some truth to at least some of it, or it may work for someone else. But…
To specify what I mean, here is one list of his “Ten Rules“. (I’ve read other, more detailed advice, and have issues with that, too, but this is the simplest way to discuss what I mean. To begin with, he makes these absolute rules. Yes, many of them are based in common problems many beginning writers have, because they overuse the “forbidden” techniques. But I have two problems with this list of “rules”: first, that you can break many of them occasionally to good effect, and, second, that you can follow every one of them rigorously and still produce a piece of terrible writing. Then we get to numbers eight and nine – I can think of countless books I’ve enjoyed that have utterly trampled one or both of these rules. I think they are more a matter of taste than anything else. For example, some people don’t like the Gormenghast trilogy, which is fine, but you can’t really use those as examples of “bad writing”, even though they crush those two rules up into dust and blow them away. (As much as I don’t enjoy his books, I’m not holding Elmore Leonard up as an example of bad writing, either. For what he’s trying to do, and his audience, it works. I just don’t happen to enjoy it. Don’t enjoy Gormenghast? No problem, but that’s irrelevant. For what they’re meant to be, Mervyn Peake did an incredible job.)
And then there’s ten. What use is this? “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” Sure, Captain Obvious! There are just two huge problems with this: first, that “readers” are not all alike, and one reader may skip the parts another reader enjoys. If you enjoy The Lord of the Rings, I can pretty much guarantee you’re not skipping the same parts Elmore Leonard’s fans would. I already mentioned Gormenghast, and you could make the same objection for countless other groups of readers. Second, by the time you know enough to be able to identify which parts “readers tend to skip”, you’ve already got this one figured out. So why bother including it?
I agree with your opinion on Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules for writing. I’ve seen books which break all those rules, and I’ve even broken more than one of them myself. Hell, I used to follow the “said” rule religiously, and put in “he said” or “she said” every chance I got because that was what I was “taught” but all these rule-givers. It’s only in the last two or three years where I’ve learned how to write dialogue without any obvious tags like “said” yet still providing enough information in action to indicate who’s speaking any given dialogue. And I still catch myself tacking “he/she said” onto the dialogue at times.
Elmore Leonard’s rules are a good basis for beginners to start from, but I personally think any firmly stated “rules” of writing like his should be broken at some point. Preferrably while the writer’s a beginner. This way, they know what their own bad writing looks like so they can differentiate it from their improved writing later on when they’ve actually learned their way around the rules in a manner which adds to their skills, storytelling ability, and writing style/voice.
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~I don’t suppose Elmore sat down one morning and
said totold himself, “this is the day to reveal to the world the secret of fiction writing.More that likely he was accosted by a journalist who was looking for something to write about. Not wanting to apppear rude, he does his best.
Think about it, you’re in Starbuck’s (or wherever) enjoying whatever and somebody comes over and starts asking questions. This person is in the position to write a bad review of your latest. You have no idea that your answers will be tied to you for the rest of your life; maybe in garbled form..
Ashe wrote.
Quote:Hell, I used to follow the “said” rule religiously, and put in “he said” or “she said…..
The version of Elemore’s rules I’ve just read does not command to use said, but advises not to use other tags.Sue Grafton’s line about all self-published authors being lazy was a bit over the top, too. You have to wonder sometimes what they’re thinking.
zette wrote:Sue Grafton’s line about all self-published authors being lazy was a bit over the top, too. You have to wonder sometimes what they’re thinking.I read something about that, and I think she later qualified what she meant.
It is true that there are self published books out there no sane person would ever read. (Just going by the rambling, disjointed title, the guy who got in the news yesterday for shooting his wife, then posting the picture of her body on Facebook shouldn’t have a lot of readers. Although the ghouls out there may drive up his sales.
Either way, it’s too bad there are people like that around to confirm the prejudices some people have.) But there are also traditionally published books out there which make me wonder about the sanity of the editor who bought them. (I’m not talking issues of taste here, but books no one likes. Utter, obvious flops.)I figured she would qualify the statement, but it wasn’t a wise thing to say to begin with, if only because it was so open-ended. Any time you say ‘all’ you are bound to get hit by a backlash. I would have agreed if she’d said some. I would have maybe even agreed to ‘many’ — but she hadn’t thought that one through!
zette wrote:I figured she would qualify the statement, but it wasn’t a wise thing to say to begin with, if only because it was so open-ended. Any time you say ‘all’ you are bound to get hit by a backlash. I would have agreed if she’d said some. I would have maybe even agreed to ‘many’ — but she hadn’t thought that one through!I admit I was surprised, since she seems to have more sense. Perhaps it was just a bad day for her. We all have them.
But that’s the problem with rules. If only in the mind of a novice, those rules must be obeyed, even if they’re intended as mere advice.
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~Just saw this post on Twitter: Readers are what it’s all about, aren’t they? If not, why am I writing? ~ Evan Hunter
*rolls eyes*
Maybe because it’s fun and enjoyable and you’re getting to tell a story you want to read?
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~Lots of interesting topics to choose from here. Getting back to the original… are novels easier?
I think that every form of writing has aspects that are ‘easier’ and ‘harder’ about it. Novels have space and you can indulge a bit in how much ‘extra stuff’ you put in. If you find tightly focusing on one point in a story difficult, then I can see where you would consider novels easier.
This quote, however, seems to come from someone who is not thinking about things this way. You certainly can’t ‘ramble on’ in any good writing. Every scene in a novel has to pull its weight, just as every scene in a short story does. It’s only that you don’t have to keep the same narrow focus in a novel that you do in a short.
In a wider sense, it seems that some writers are forever trying to boost their own egos by denigrating what other writers do. This is never productive. Every form of writing is easy in its own way and difficult in its own way.
–June
Fun topic, Zette. Here’s my two cents worth.
I find odd the opinion stated by many pansters that developing a basic storyline before writing the story to be a process devoid of creative merit, and furthermore, might stifle the creative juices once the actual writing begins. –I’ve nothing against pansters. :cheer: I just find the idea that conception lacks creativity a bit odd.
Anyone who says any other writer’s method is ‘devoid of creative merit’ is wrong. Beyond mere wrong, actually, because it’s the intentional denigration of another’s work in favor of ones own. It’s fine to say ‘that much pre-work would kill the story for me’ but not ‘that method is uncreative, or mechanical, or in some other way generally inferior.’
–June
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.