Stephen King holds the position that reading a bad novel can be just as useful for a writer as a “good writing school. ” Being able to recognize “bad” writing in itself has many merits. He believes this because reading poor quality literature can teach someone what not to do in their own writing. This information can be used to craft more novel stories that don’t make use of tired tropes or trite concepts. A book that does many things wrong can be infinitely more helpful to a writer’s technique than a book that does everything right.
With flaws in a book, a reader can train their brain to detect them and then apply that detection to their own writing. They can also tell what doesn’t work, and simply avoid doing those things. A book that is nearly perfect may inspire a writer, but noticing the things that do work is not as practical, because what did work may have only worked because of its novelty or context. A writer cannot copy a style that worked for a different author. They must develop their own style through a variety of inspirations that were gathered through reading different materials. As much as I agree with Stephen King, I wish I followed the words, myself.
I try to experience many different forms of storytelling, but one of my biggest drawbacks is that I do so much preparation beforehand to try and avoid bad experiences. I will look up reviews and let them strongly influence my decisions. I do this because there are so many different options, and I want to limit myself to the best of the best. This is counterproductive in a few ways. First of all, the “best of the best” is completely subjective, and someone’s favorite book may have a terrible consensus from the general public, so I may be limiting myself from things that I could love that others do not.
Secondly, how am I supposed to accurately judge anything if I am limiting myself from the proper context by avoiding what other people think is “mediocre” or “bad? ” How can a book or a movie be “good” if I have no basis to judge it by, and how many things have I labeled “bad” that are actually a decent effort when considered in the context of the medium? Finally, while I may be constantly inspired by many of these things, I will never make tremendous improvements with my writing and critiques unless I open myself up to everything the world has to offer.
In my attempts to only enjoy what I experience, I may be hampering my perceptive skills or writing skills, and I could also be restraining myself from truly enjoying something in the context that it should be enjoyed. The only real solution, seeing as free time is so hard to come by these days, is to upload our brains to computers, so that we can read, watch, and experience everything at once. Don’t let me down, science. I can attest that reading and writing go hand-in-hand with my own writing. I do love to read fiction, but I’ll admit that I read very little of it.
Most of my reading happens on the internet, and it is of primarily editorial work. My writing, then, works better as something analytical, than it does as a creative piece of fiction. When I attempt to write fiction, I am at a loss for ideas. I have plenty of inspiration from great stories, but I lack the breadth of experience or observation to write my own fiction. Not to mention my personality type, which is cold and logical in a way that doesn’t lend itself to the creation of engaging fiction.
Although you may bring up someone like Stanley Kubrick, who was a very cold, logical, perfectionist, but managed to create great works of art through his films. He, at least, was an idea man, and had the determination to execute them perfectly. You may notice, however, that his films lack the type of relatable characters or emotional warmth that you come to expect in most fiction. It is a very distant style that resulted in mixed reception throughout his entire career. It takes a special type of genius to make beautiful art from a logical place. p. 191 #2
Linda Flower proposes a significant distinction between knowledge and attitude in “Writing for an Audience. ” A writer’s knowledge, according to Flower, is singularly what is known and can be explained to the reader. On the other hand, an attitude encompasses all the bias, perception, and feelings that a reader or writer may feel about a subject. Flower believes that this distinction must be made in order to effectively communicate ideas to the reader. With each individual possessing such a vastly different experience in life, it is important for the writer to clearly set the ground rules when approaching a subject.
It would be unwise to merely expect that the reader will infer all that needs to be inferred by just a word. The writer must not only express what they know, but express their attitude toward what they know. A good writer will anticipate a reader’s attitude towards a subject, and appropriately adjust their writing so that it may impact the reader best. The general idea falls in line with common advice such as “know your audience,” and “relate to your reader. ” Medical journals are formulated the way they are because they know exactly who they are writing for. The same goes for many successful works.
Take, for example, the Transformers movies, as well as a movie like Pacific Rim. Michael Bay, the director of the Transformers series of films, knows his audience. The movies may be full of stupid jokes, meaningless plot, flat characters, and laughable writing, but it at least appeals to the mass of people who want to see absurd-CGI-robot-battles. Pacific Rim, on the other hand, is more competently directed. It knows its audience just wants to see robots fighting kaiju monsters, similar to Transformers, but what it does more effectively is know the attitude of the audience.
It is completely aware of the flaws of its Transformers brethren, so it takes some steps to freshen the formula in a way that appeals to the audience even more. It focuses less on the aspects that make the Transformers movies bad, and instead puts the emphasis on why people would bother seeing those films in the first place: the action. By understanding that the audience does not care about the other features, it is able to create something much more focused, resulting in a movie that is a lot more fun.
Guillermo Del Toro, the director of Pacific Rim, not only understood the knowledge of his audience, but he understood their attitude toward the genre, and he utilized this information to make a film that knows exactly what it is and who it caters to, creating a more entertaining experience in the end. p. 198 #4 Donald M. Murray uses the term “maker’s eye” to represent the ongoing awareness and perspective that a creator takes on when creating something. The term more specifically applies to a writer, but it can work for other creators as well. The “maker’s eye” is like a critical analyst with a perfectionist’s agenda.
Its goal is to revise all that has been made until the maker is satisfied. The eye never turns off its introspective analysis, but this is why it works so well. It is constantly adapting to a different focus, filtering a creation with specific guidelines in place, and constantly reaching for an ever-adapting goal. The reader’s eye is a more differently involved perspective. The reader’s eye is cautious of details in the story, how it makes them feel, and whether or not it’s working for them. It is not normally concerned with the writer’s intentions or mistakes.
It wants to be captured by the words and enveloped by their meaning. The reader’s eye may occasionally participate in writer’s eye activities by force of habit, but its primary concern is getting sucked into the story, and making their own personal connections with it. I can relate to the writer’s eye, but in a different way than most. I tend to be a very slow writer, and it ends up being similar to how I speak, but more effective. I sit and think a lot about what I am going to say, and take my time to say it so that it comes out okay the first time.
This means that my revisions aren’t so much huge chunks, but rather multiple small chunks. It is very likely that these revisions were conducted simultaneously with the writing, but I am also no stranger to rewriting large sections of work that I previously deemed suitable. The writer’s eye, in my experience, is an ever-evolving entity. This is productive because my writing appears to always be improving in small increments, but it also means that anything I’ve written in the past is far less impressive than I thought.
Re-reading my own work is always a very useful activity, and it only increases in usefulness the more unfamiliar I become with it. It is easier to detect certain problems when you are not in the heat of the writing-moment, and being able to view the big picture of it all allows for revisions that would otherwise be impossible to make while writing. p. 204 #7 William Zinsser outlines a list of “adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence,” and I am definitely victim to some of them.
I will sometimes use words that carry no function, but I strive to craft my sentences with words that only serve a purpose. I do often fall victim to repetition, which is just another form of words that carry no function. I tend not to use long words unless the long word fits better than a short one. Not every long word has a shorter equivalent. I hate it when long words are frantically thrown around in an attempt to appear smart, as it only ever ends with confusion and frustration on the reader’s part, so I do my best to avoid that.
I think my biggest weakness may be in adverb usage and unsure language. For instance, I could have said “my weakness is adverb usage,” but in my head, the words “think,” “biggest,” and “may” feel like better projections of my actual feelings. What I forget is that people get confused when too many words are added, even if the words are intended for clarity. This is the singular most annoying aspect of my writing, as I constantly have trouble deciding which words are necessary to convey ideas, and which words are not. I do my best to be near the minimum, but I can certainly mess up.