WHAT IS GOOD WRITING?
I wrote one post on the rules in writing fiction. This time I'll talk about what I think good writing is and how it's done. I'll get more into my opinion of how things should be written.
If fiction is written well enough, the reader forgets that he is reading and becomes so absorbed in the story that it's like she is living it. That's true of all the great books I've read. Not only that, the reader is disappointed when the story is over, wanting it to go on and on.
The reader gets to know the characters so well that he mourns when one dies whom he likes and cheers when the bad guy gets it. I was really young, maybe eight, when I read "The Last of the Mohicans." I couldn't believe that Uncas could die. I felt great satisfaction when Le Renard Subtil got his just reward in the end. Another time, and this is much more recently, I almost didn't continue to read a book because I was so upset that the writer killed off a chicken that I had come to know. A chicken! If you've read the story, you know what I'm talking about.
How does the writer craft the story so the reader becomes absorbed in it?
First of all, the writer stays out of the story. I've read many books where the character starts talking to someone, especially at the beginning of the book, and it becomes obvious after a couple of sentences that the character isn't talking to the other person in the book at all. He's talking to the reader. Sometimes he'll tell his life story up to the present to his mother or brother or best friend. When he does that, I'm thinking, why doesn't she say, "Hey, you don't have to tell me where you were born! I'm your mother! I was there!" Other times, one of the characters will start spouting political or religious propaganda that has nothing to do with the story and seems out of character for the character. I had a friend whom I considered to be an outstanding fiction writer. He couldn't resist throwing in chapters that told little morals in which his (the writer's) political leaning was always shown to be the right and only way. He got as far with one book as having an editor at a major publishing house who wanted to publish it. Unfortunately, she told him that it needed editing because it was "a little bit pretentious." He made a remark about a "girl in a training bra" presuming to edit his writing, and the book was never published.
Anything at all that makes the reader stop and think about how the book is written is bad, in my opinion.
I think Neal Stephenson is a brilliant writer, and obviously a very intelligent person. My problem with his books is that he can't resist demonstrating how brilliant he is. He includes really clever things in his novels where I, as the reader, say, "Wow, what a clever way to write that chapter!" The problem is that I'm completely out of the story and thinking about what Neal Stephenson has done. One chapter that pops to mind is where he, for no apparent reason, presents a chapter as a play with each character's lines separate and even includes stage direction. He also goes off on incredibly convoluted descriptions of tangential objects in the story to the point that I forget what's happening in the chapter. In spite of all that, I read his books. I just skip large chunks of inconsequential verbiage.
To put that another way, everything in the book should contribute to the story. Anything that doesn't move the story along, flesh out the character, or make the story seem real should be taken out, no matter how clever it sounds or how brilliant it makes the writer seem.
Read any chapter of "Huckleberry Finn," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," or "Sweet Thursday," to name a few, and you'll see what I mean. Pretty much all of the books on my shelf at Goodreads measure up.
It's up to you to decide if OIORPATA does too.
If fiction is written well enough, the reader forgets that he is reading and becomes so absorbed in the story that it's like she is living it. That's true of all the great books I've read. Not only that, the reader is disappointed when the story is over, wanting it to go on and on.
The reader gets to know the characters so well that he mourns when one dies whom he likes and cheers when the bad guy gets it. I was really young, maybe eight, when I read "The Last of the Mohicans." I couldn't believe that Uncas could die. I felt great satisfaction when Le Renard Subtil got his just reward in the end. Another time, and this is much more recently, I almost didn't continue to read a book because I was so upset that the writer killed off a chicken that I had come to know. A chicken! If you've read the story, you know what I'm talking about.
How does the writer craft the story so the reader becomes absorbed in it?
First of all, the writer stays out of the story. I've read many books where the character starts talking to someone, especially at the beginning of the book, and it becomes obvious after a couple of sentences that the character isn't talking to the other person in the book at all. He's talking to the reader. Sometimes he'll tell his life story up to the present to his mother or brother or best friend. When he does that, I'm thinking, why doesn't she say, "Hey, you don't have to tell me where you were born! I'm your mother! I was there!" Other times, one of the characters will start spouting political or religious propaganda that has nothing to do with the story and seems out of character for the character. I had a friend whom I considered to be an outstanding fiction writer. He couldn't resist throwing in chapters that told little morals in which his (the writer's) political leaning was always shown to be the right and only way. He got as far with one book as having an editor at a major publishing house who wanted to publish it. Unfortunately, she told him that it needed editing because it was "a little bit pretentious." He made a remark about a "girl in a training bra" presuming to edit his writing, and the book was never published.
Anything at all that makes the reader stop and think about how the book is written is bad, in my opinion.
I think Neal Stephenson is a brilliant writer, and obviously a very intelligent person. My problem with his books is that he can't resist demonstrating how brilliant he is. He includes really clever things in his novels where I, as the reader, say, "Wow, what a clever way to write that chapter!" The problem is that I'm completely out of the story and thinking about what Neal Stephenson has done. One chapter that pops to mind is where he, for no apparent reason, presents a chapter as a play with each character's lines separate and even includes stage direction. He also goes off on incredibly convoluted descriptions of tangential objects in the story to the point that I forget what's happening in the chapter. In spite of all that, I read his books. I just skip large chunks of inconsequential verbiage.
To put that another way, everything in the book should contribute to the story. Anything that doesn't move the story along, flesh out the character, or make the story seem real should be taken out, no matter how clever it sounds or how brilliant it makes the writer seem.
Read any chapter of "Huckleberry Finn," "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," or "Sweet Thursday," to name a few, and you'll see what I mean. Pretty much all of the books on my shelf at Goodreads measure up.
It's up to you to decide if OIORPATA does too.
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