Some Good Writing.

It exists in unexpected places. Here is a good writer who also happens to be an airline pilot:

http://flightlevel390.blogspot.com/

Specifically...

Okay, I thought I could leave it alone. Turns out I couldn't.

Male writers, attention please. Females, if you're going to do this, stop, but you usually don't...

If your female main character married the nice guy out of college, having failed in earlier, happier times to seduce his Totally Hot Roommate, DO NOT have her climb into bed with said Hot Roommate years later when her marriage is shaky and she's sliding into middle age.

ESPECIALLY don't do it when she is exactly my age.

Just sayin'.

Sometimes...

...When the critics say a book's characters are "amazingly true to life!" what they mean is "everything these stiffs do is utterly predictable." Except of course this writer is a favorite of the critics, so they would never say that.

I've only made it through the first two hundred pages, it must be said. Wonderful surprises may lie ahead.

This One Makes You Taller.

Last post was about the small, so now on to the large. Large ideas, that is. Life under the Big Top. The hard part is erecting the tent when it's just the one of you.

I worry about that last sentence. I trust Christine O'Donnell doesn't read this blog.

Onward. I offer an idea that has recently presented itself: the danger that comes when the majority in a society starts feeling persecuted. When they begin to imagine that "those people" are going to destroy them, whether literally or figuratively. It can get dangerous for those in the minority. If you're thinking of Germany in the early thirties, you see what I'm on about. And if you see it again today, I also think you're right.

I don't know where we go from here, but I hope everyone goes to vote.

Just a thought.

Look How Small...

I've touched on this before. But I am reminded...

I'm reading the newest book by a writer singled out some years ago as the new Golden Boy of literature. As near as I can tell, it's because he can write well and also has very good hair and excellent eyeglasses. The writing well part is the most important, of course.

So, the latest book. Very good. Really moves along, mostly because I'm listening to it in the car (1 1/2 town days and a couple of trips to Foodland), and it does seem to roll by at a steady, cruise-control-regulated fifty miles an hour. Hey, you try living on a small island. And it's good. Really. It's good.

And I'm reasonably sure something will eventually happen. Something was inferred in the first paragraph. That was a couple of hours ago. So somewhere in the next thirty-odd hours something will happen. And until it does, I shall enjoy the really very good writing.

Written in response to a criticism of a young writer for having a fixation on sex and violence in his writing. Surely some doesn't hurt....

Helping Your Loved Ones Escape.

No new agent responses. Note to agents: canned rejections beat silence.

Today's observation #1 - reading a lot is good. Among other things, it allows you to see patterns.

Today's observation #2 - a pattern! This one comes from reading two very good books: Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver and Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. The observation is that there is a way to avoid deciding whether to kill off your favorite character or to leave them to deal with all the terrible things you've done to them during the course of the book. This is the exit, stage left. In both of these books characters vanish into the unknown. In one, the character probably really did escape but nobody knew it. In the other, the character probably didn't escape, but the other characters imagined it was possible. I won't tell you who's who. In both cases, it works.

I find the exit, stage left to be quite appealing. I suppose it comes from all the old westerns, when the good guy slips out the back door of the big party celebrating the victory of the small town over the desperados. He saddles his trusty steed, has a touching farewell scene with the rancher's daughter about why he wasn't made to settle down, and then he rides off into the sunset. She goes back to the party, dashes away a last tear, and gives the town's new young doctor the glad eye.

This ending allows for sequels. I don't think novelists who take this route are thinking sequel, but what this ending does for a novel is carry energy. There's a spark of possibility. More than that, there's a sense of fairness, because let's face it: most of our characters don't deserve the terrible things we do to them. They really don't deserve to be whacked.

I Don't Like What Sucks.

First, a query update. One rejection, one or two that have gone past the "if I like it, I'll respond." A handful still alive, in silent limbo. I'm surprised that the age o' internet has not improved the rate or speed of response. Echo... echo... echo...

And on to what sucks. Disagreeing with a perfectly nice agent sucks. Yes, I've read another post over at Nathan Bransford's blog. A post in which he insists that the one thing a writer should not say is that another writer's work sucks. Particularly if the work is a novel that has found a place in the hearts of many, many readers. Surely if every fourteen-year-old and her mom in the world love a book, the book must be doing something right.

No, it's not.

I won't say to a new writer that their work sucks. Because they are learning. My work sucked when I started, and I'll be the first to admit it. I wrote a great deal that did not even begin to rise to the mark. I'll note that even if someone had pointed out the glaring badness of my work I would have kept going, first because I agreed and second because I loved learning the craft and knew I'd get there eventually.

Do I think there is anything wrong with pointing out that the writing in certain popular novels is bad? Nope. These writers are in the major leagues. Their agents and editors ought to be willing to hold their clients' feet to the fire. And these writers ought to respect their craft a bit more. Yes, you may have come up with an idea alluring to the pubescent set or the infrequent reader of fiction, but that does not mean you executed it well.

It's not just the books about Jesus' kids and the creepy pedo-vampires here. I've been disappointed by fantastic writers and called it like I saw it. Even the best can have off days, and off novels. Sometimes they suck. I refuse to participate in the self-congratulatory "good effort, gold star for everybody!" culture. Because yesterday I picked up Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses and it is so good that my jealousy and respect cannot be measured by any caliper known to man. Lordy, can that man write.

Gold Star.