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Post by dreamingofroses on Aug 3, 2011 19:46:42 GMT -6
I know this is the "Books" forum, but I think poetry and short stories are just as important to out literary enlightenment. So. While I was visiting Washington State Jon, the English professor I talked to, gave me a copy of the school's Creative Writing booklet. In my completely professional opinion... a lot of it sucks. haha. Just goes to show, you shouldn't always believe that age makes people better than you. Now, I want to know about any other bad writing out there. Books, stories, poetry, or otherwise. I want to know what it TAUGHT you though. Don't just rant about its awful traits!
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XSFanatic
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Gryffindor
Daughter of Apollo
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Post by XSFanatic on Aug 4, 2011 16:57:20 GMT -6
What I personally think is a shame is people with good ideas that aren't good at writing. I once read a story on fanfiction that had a REALLY good plot idea, but the author didn't include any details or depth, and the story went by WAYY too quickly. I learned that, no matter how good an idea is, the WAY that you write it down is what draws readers in.
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Post by narelle on Aug 4, 2011 17:16:52 GMT -6
What I personally think is a shame is people with good ideas that aren't good at writing. I once read a story on fanfiction that had a REALLY good plot idea, but the author didn't include any details or depth, and the story went by WAYY too quickly. I learned that, no matter how good an idea is, the WAY that you write it down is what draws readers in. Quite true. Really good writers can capture a reader writing about even the most mundane of subjects. I mean, look at so many on the literary classics taught in English. Their subjects tend to be rather common and they tend to go into detail about the daily lives of their characters, yet they paint the picture so vividly and artistically that readers are drawn in. And they become classics. Not that being ABLE to means that you necessarily SHOULD write about the mundane...Skill can only give the dull the illusion of being interesting. After too much of it, readers begin to see past it. Take Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises...AP English Language had to read it last year, and there were few people that didn't HATE it, let alone like it. The problem with the book was that, though well written, it went into too much dull detail about the pointlessness of the characters' lives.
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XSFanatic
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Gryffindor
Daughter of Apollo
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Post by XSFanatic on Aug 5, 2011 15:28:14 GMT -6
Exactly. Though, with points like this, I'm almost scared to say that one is more important than the other (details and depth or plot, lol). I guess that things just aren't very fun to read if they're missing one or the other.
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Post by moonpath on Aug 6, 2011 8:19:39 GMT -6
Exactly. Though, with points like this, I'm almost scared to say that one is more important than the other (details and depth or plot, lol). I guess that things just aren't very fun to read if they're missing one or the other. Now I shall comment on this. Scarlet Letter anyone? Full of details and depth (if you were interested enough to look) but the plot wasn't that enticing and reading the book was like waddling through a river of molasses. However, the book is a classic and a wonderful literary achievement. Then again, you said without all those elements they aren't very fun to read, I suppose many who have read that story would say that statement is true; Scarlet Letter wasn't a lot of "fun to read." I did enjoy Scarlet Letter even though it wasn't that much fun to read, so in my mind though that doesn't diminish that it is a literary masterpiece. Harry Potter on the other hand was a lot of fun to read with good depth (spanning over many books though), detail (imagine designing a whole world!), and plot. It is a good book series so I understand what you mean when you say fun to read. So, in your opinion writers out there, does a book have to be "fun to read," (please note I don't say that sarcastically) to be a good book?
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Post by dreamingofroses on Aug 6, 2011 10:15:09 GMT -6
For a book to be good, yes, it has to be fun to read. For the writing to be good, no, it doesn't.
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XSFanatic
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Gryffindor
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Post by XSFanatic on Aug 6, 2011 11:06:48 GMT -6
It depends on what the book is about, I guess.
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Post by narelle on Aug 6, 2011 18:08:02 GMT -6
Well, the way I see it a book can be a great literary work and still have a dull plot. That's why so many dull books are still considered classics.
At the same time, you can have a great story (or any elements of one) and yet have poor construction, and the book would still be entertaining.
And both of these kinds of books can be good books and can last.
But for a book to be a truly great book, its got to have merit in all facets. The balance of writing ability and storytelling ability is what defines the best works and what separates the great writers from the rest. And in our day and age, for a book to be expected to have lasting widespread popularity, it will need to have captured that balance, as J.K. Rowling had with her series.
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Post by moonpath on Aug 6, 2011 19:06:48 GMT -6
I disagree with Roses. I think Scarlet Letter, despite the fact that it wasn't that 'fun' to read, is a good book. The depth of the characters enticed me and I found the symbolism fascinating. It's really all in the opinion. Look at Twilight fans for instance, they believe the series to be "high" in vocab difficulty and that the plot is amazing. They believe it to be a good book. Does it make it a good book for us? No. The plot is enticing (it's forbidden romance!), *some* of the characters have *some* depth, and goodness knows there were enough details about Edward's sculpted Greek body and Bella being a clumsy idiot. Despite the thesaurus murder and other such terrible things, Twilight still has millions of fans who think it's a good book. Then again some thought/think Harry Potter was/is a terrible book series. My brother thinks the books are boring, dull as it were. He doesn't think they're good books. He likes the character and plot as evidence of him seeing the movies, but he does not care for the books at all. So in the end it's all up to the reader, one of you, Roses I believe, had a quote in their signature a bit ago that I really liked. I believe it was this, "A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote." And in our day and age, for a book to be expected to have lasting widespread popularity, it will need to have captured that balance, as J.K. Rowling had with her series. I can write a story with "depth, plot, and detail" that still sucks. And I think in addition to the "writing ability and storytelling ability" the thing that makes a lasting author is the characters. And yes that could go with depth, but it also couldn't. Hester from Scarlet Letter had plenty of depth and Hawthorne also obviously had great writing and storytelling, yet the book was still dull. While it is a classic it doesn't really retain popularity. I think that to be successful in writing you need characters with whom you can relate. In Harry Potter we had characters nervous about their first day of school, bullies teasing them at school (that didn't stop after first year either), being rejected by their crushes, falling in love and out of love, adults who didn't always have the answers and had to admit that, . Despite the fact that it was in a magical world, the same problems still existed, and the story didn't turn out entirely "happily ever after." Harry's parents/godfather/mentor (the D man) were all still dead; he did grow up to get married with kids, but he still lived with the loss of those people throughout his life. There was no magic poof that brought everyone back to life.
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Post by dreamingofroses on Aug 6, 2011 21:14:09 GMT -6
Well.... I think it depends on your definition of a "good" book.
Should it be in the mind of the reader or the view of the public? The public says right now that Harry Potter is a great book, but back when it first came out there was an uproar over it's demonic messages of magic and was considered a terrible book. Just as, right now, Twilight is considered a great book in the eyes of preteens but not to people past middle school. Plus, when The Scarlet Letter was written it was horribly unaccepted by its society for its concepts and ideas, yet individuals today praise it as a great literary work.
A good book can only be viewed that way in the eyes of its reader. If enough readers see it as good then that's the public's will, but that isn't going to make the hard-core Catholics love Harry Potter, or the middle age banker love Twilight, or the Puritans love The Scarlet Letter.
A good book is a book that encaptures a reader's interest. That means, for me anyway, it has to be "fun to read." Lol.
Writing on the other hand.... it's quite simple to say that there is good/proper writing and bad/improper writing. (Hawthorne's run-on sentences, overuse of symbolism, and use of excessive detail should put him in the BAD category, but since it is essential to our education to learn about such things, it is considered GOOD.)
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