Confused!! What is 'good' writing? - Page 2 - Writers Forum

Ejp414 · 09-05-2005, 12:45 AM

Quote:

"I personally think that anime is repetitive, silly, and wholly boring, and video games a waste of life."

I think you're subscribing to hyperbole because you either A) hate Ilyak or B) Uh, like being ironic?

However, Ilyak typically doesn't read very good books. I just don't think it's nice to make blanket statements about anime.

You're right. It wasn't nice, and it wasn't fair. At the time I was frustrated that after putting effort into what I thought was a helpful post, someone was going to bash my example authors and try to start some little fight.

So the correct answer is neither A nor B, but rather a modified version of A: I was frustrated with Ilyak when making the post, and, let's be honest, the one thing that sticks in my mind most about him is his overwhelming love for video games and anime, both of which I have never been very fond.

(And for the record, I enjoyed Furi Kuri.

)

If you want us to kiss and make up, that's fine, but I'm not sure how we would make arrangements for that over the Internet.

suzakugaiden · 09-05-2005, 01:04 AM

Okay, this proves my point that everything Ilya gets near ends in homosexual makeout sessions.

bearlily · 09-05-2005, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carpo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ilyak1986

If you can burn through a 400 page book in 2 days, you have a lot of free time.

Not necessarily. I read about 65 pages per hour. If I read 3 hours a day, I could kill off a 400 page book in two days. My younger sister reads about 130 pages an hour, so she could do it in an afternoon.

I suppose if one spends time watching TV or playing videogames, then 3 hours of reading per day might seem like a lot. To other people it isn't.

I am the same and can read a 400 page book in two days.
I make time for reading, it is something I love and is important to do. I am a busy mum with two young children, but I don't watch much television or go out drinking or play videogames etc Reading is my hobby, and it makes for a good writer as well.
Stephen King says he reads around 70 books a year, plus he writes for hours a day as well (sorry I can't remember the exact amount of hours, or even the amount of books but it is around 70 I am sure!).

Ben · 09-05-2005, 06:47 AM

Quote:

(And for the record, I enjoyed Furi Kuri. Smile )

Furi Kuri rules... the ending though... could've been so much better.

As for good writing... don't try your darndest to stick to those 'rules'. Just do what you think is neccessary to get your story across in an interesting way. That's all you need to do.

mammamaia · 09-05-2005, 07:03 AM

"a book has to be good stuff to make it to shelves."

if only that were true!... but it's not... all of lord lytton's merde that spawned the term 'purple prose' made it to the shelves... so does a lot of junk these days, thanks to self and pod publishing and stupid editors at publishing houses who only care about whether a book will sell to people who don't know good writing when they see it, instead of good writing...

just one horrific example is the best-seller, 'the celestine prophecy' that oprah touted... redfield writes at about a 5th grade level... and like a kid who pulled a c- in english, to boot... yet his books are on the shelves and sold by the truckload...

determining good writing takes good, discerning readers who can tell the good from the awful... unfortunately for the rare, really good writers, few book buyers are... so, publishers go with 'popular' instead of perfection... they're not in business to make nobel laureates, just money...

mswietek · 09-05-2005, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mammamaia

just one horrific example is the best-seller, 'the celestine prophecy' that oprah touted

Ugg! don't remind me of that horror. I worked at a Walden Books at the time, and before Oprah's show nobody knew anything about this book. Then, one day, we had masses of women asking for this book, and getting really upset that we did not have any copies. I think they half expected me to get in my car and drive to the warehouse myself.

Michael

Stewart · 09-05-2005, 04:08 PM

Quote:

What is 'good' writing?

Oscar Wilde once wrote that "Books are either well-written, or badly-written. That is all."

Good writing is, as it says, good writing. You know by reading it that it's good. Of course, how you know by reading something that it is good writing is by being well read.

If you spend your whole life chasing the works of Dan Brown, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, John Grisham, Matthew Reilly, and the greater percentile of authors who appear in the bestseller charts then you are not going to know what good writing is as you have no real base from which to begin.

The more you read then the more critical your objectivity will become. You soon learn what is good and bad as you are giving yourself the chance to broaden your tastes.

I used to read Stephen King, Anne Rice, James Herbert, etc. when I was younger but as I read more I discovered new writers: JG Ballard, Italo Calvino, John Banville, Haruki Murakami, Umberto Eco, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Milan Kundera, Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Faber, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Alan Hollinghurst who I'm reading at the moment. Going back to King, Rice, Herbert, etc. these days is not fun as I can get a page in before turning up my nose because I know that it is not good writing.

So, good writing is something recognisable by varied reading. And don't listen to King in On Writing with half the crap he spouts; he's a storyteller, NOT a writer.

suzakugaiden · 09-05-2005, 04:46 PM

"these days is not fun as I can get a page in before turning up my nose because I know that it is not good writing."

That sounds rather elitist; a very 17 sort of thing to say, really. And besides, storytelling is far more interesting than writing. You can write well and be a pathetic storyteller.

Stewart · 09-05-2005, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suzakugaiden

That sounds rather elitist.

Amazingly, that's the reply you get from most people who don't know any other way to defend their reading choices. So, in their eyes, I suppose that I am a book snob but it's such an unoriginal tag that I turn my nose up at that too.

Quote:

besides, storytelling is far more interesting than writing.

I disagree. Different books attempt and achieve (or underachieve) on different things. James Joyce's Finnegans Wake did not become a classic for it's storytelling; it became a classic for its writing.

Quote:

You can write well and be a pathetic storyteller.

Aww, but I named names!

There's nothing particularly elitist about my attitude. After reading good contemporary literature it's too hard to look at something like Dan Brown or John Grisham without taking them as an insult.

mammamaia · 09-06-2005, 07:01 AM

connor makes a valid point... but i'd suggest not stopping with modern writers to learn what good writing looks/sounds/feels/tastes like...

you need to read the greatest works of all time, as well as the more contemporary, in order to develop the quality of 'discernment' as a reader... see how beautifully writers from homer on used language to tell stories and move minds and hearts...

and, yes, once you've attained that ability to recognize quality, you will find yourself mumbling, 'pee-yew!' at much of the stuff that makes the times best-seller list...

imo, taking connor to task for pointing that out is the real 'very 17 sort of thing to say'... really!

journyman161 · 09-06-2005, 07:24 AM

Quote:

You can write well and be a pathetic storyteller

I think there is a valid point hiding here, the difference between good writing & good story-telling. Perhaps King, Brown, et al, are good story-tellers but not good writers.

Good tellers can grab an audience & have them slavering for more, & so provide the 'sure thing' looked for by most pulishers. Good writers however, can change the world, but may not sell well on the popular market.

So, perhaps what makes a book stand out is when the two combine & a good writer writes a good story.

Stewart · 09-06-2005, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by journyman161

perhaps what makes a book stand out is when the two combine & a good writer writes a good story.

Excellent.

And mammamaia, certainly don't stop with contemporary authors. People must go back through the years to see different writing styles. What would be the point, for example, in writing gothic fiction (horror or romance) if you hadn't had experience of Walpole's The Castle of Otranto?

mammamaia · 09-06-2005, 07:34 AM

Quote:

"And mammamaia, certainly don't stop with contemporary authors. People must go back through the years to see different writing styles. "

but, that's what i was saying... did you not get that?

Stewart · 09-06-2005, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mammamaia

but, that's what i was saying

Sorry, I meant to say that I agree with you, and was saying that I certainly believe reading the oldies is worthwhile despite my exclusively contemporary list above.

Julian_Gallo · 09-06-2005, 08:29 AM

"Good Writing", like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. This is something that always irritated me when someone says, i.e. an editor or a publisher, "I want to see good writing". Uhh...thanks. That sums it up for me.

Just to give one example: I love the writing of Jack Kerouac. Truman Capote once commented on Kerouac's writing: "That's not writing, that's typing". Some agree. I don't. So how do you define "good writing"? You really can't other than some of the simple basics, I suppose. Correct grammar, etc etc. But don't tell that to the Surrealists, who more or less dispensed with every notion there is, and some of that is great writing in my opinion.

That's the key: "In my opinion". And you will find editors and publishers work on this very same notion. Like all art, it is in the eye of the beholder. So write what you are most comfortable with and send it out there to as many places as possible. There will be tons of rejections but you may connect with someone who likes what you do.

My poems have found homes in many magazines and journals and chapbooks...but there were hundreds who thought they weren't good at all and I have been rejected a million times as well. In the end, you realize that it's just a matter of the editor's taste. Once I realized this, I stopped worrying about if it was "good writing" or not and just went with what I was personally satisfied with. After that, it's out of your hands. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but you have to decide that for yourself. Write what makes happy first. Believe in what you do. Always be open to learning new things and read read read read as much as you can. All things. Many things. That alone will improve your writing, I think.