Michael Potts's Blog: Bits and Pieces: Book Reviews and Articles on Writing, Horror Fiction, and Some Philosophy - Posts Tagged "reading"

A few days ago I listened to a book on CD, a thriller by a major author in the field, who shall remain unnamed. It was the most poorly written book I have heard and/or read. The plot trudged along slowly, even though the book was short. There was little imagery and the book was chock full of stereotypical adjectives and adverbs. The dialogue tags, especially the adverbial dialogue tags, drove me nuts. Since listening to bad writing is a good way to know what to avoid in one's own writing, I listened until the book (mercifully) ended. Yet the book was a bestseller.

Of course one could mention FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY and anything written by Dan Brown. It is possible to break the "rules of writing" and have a good book; THE LORD OF THE RINGS is an example. However, when authors clearly do not know how to write, get published by a major publisher, and sell millions of copies, this sends a negative message about American education and culture.

In the nineteenth century, thousands of people lined up by the docks in New York City to purchase and read the latest book by Charles Dickens. In the twentieth century, some of Ernest Hemingway's books were bestsellers. But that was the past; in the twenty-first century good literary fiction is rarely read except by writers. Now and then a well-written bestseller appears, but that is rare, and much of what sells is awful.

Years of "dumbing down" the educational system of the United States have taken their toll on literacy. In addition, students are taught to avoid all hierarchies--thus some of them deny that any work of literature is better than another literary work. Even if a student accepts a hierarchy of literary value, the student's reading skills are so poor that he or she is incapable of making an intelligent judgement about the quality of writing in a book. Political correctness and an unhealthy focus on race, class, and gender to the exclusion of other factors of a literary work have led to a superficial, politicized understanding of literature.

The main problem remains poor reading skills--the majority of young people read books at their level of understanding and are unwilling to read more challenging works. When I browse the ratings of Indie books on Amazon and read the samples from those that sell well, often I find multiple grammar errors, stilted dialogue, and unbearably bad prose.

Sometimes poor writing is literate but of poor literary quality--Dan Brown's books, for instance--but people buy them for their story. That is something authors should keep in mind--that a catchy story can cover a multitude of sins--but having a catchy story and avoiding the sins is better.

There remains a good number of intelligent and well-read people out there, including young people--especially on sites such as Goodreads. They keep standards alive in literature by reading quality literary and quality genre fiction. They gain the unique insight into human nature that can only be gained via a good story. I applaud these people and hope that my own writing can speak to them. If anyone tries to better him or herself by reading more challenging material, I encourage that person to read the classic works of literature. Struggle with the text--and I guarantee that you will not only learn how to read (and write!) better, but you will learn something you did not know before.