----- Original Message ----- From: "Amanda Marlowe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 7:32 AM Subject: Re: Stephan King
> A friend had introduced me to King's Gunslinger series recently. Prior to > that, I'd read Carrie, The Dead Zone, and The Stand, and decided I wasn't much > of a Stephen King fan. > > After working through the earlier books in the Gunslinger series, I came to > these conclusions: > 1. King is a better storyteller than he is a writer. His plots can be > fascinating and compelling. Unfortunately he indiscriminately adds details > about every thing including the kitchen sink, which can make the writing very > hard to slog through. > 2. People are far more interested in good storytelling than they are in good > writing, hence King's (and many other popular authors') popularity. > 3. People who are both good storytellers and good writers are worth gold. > > After reading Wolves of the Calla, I concluded that Stephen King has managed > to learn something about good writing over the 40 years or so he's been > writing. > And I'm still not much of a Stephen King fan. > > As a writer, however, I do feel he taught me something. In the end, it's > usually the storytelling that wins out commercially. Is that what wins out in > the end to determine if a book is a classic? In part, yes. The other factor I > think makes a classic is how well the author has pinned down basic human > nature. I think Shakespeare was considered a hack in his day. But he knew > human nature, and made sure we knew he knew it, and we still read him today. > Many of today's classics, if written now, would make today's writing teachers > cringe: Some contain sentences so full of modifiers and phrases it's sometimes > hard to find the subject and verb. That doesn't stop people from loving them, > because the human foibles they are about are still human foibles today. Good Post Amanda! It got me thinking. Since just about every writer and book I like is invariably slogged somewhere for one reason or another, after reading your post I conclude that I don't really give a damn about writing. I usually just pass writing styles off as indiosyncracies. What I care about is content. You might summarize my feelings as "Its the story stupid!" Sometimes I will read someone who writes sentences that just cruise into my mind and think"this is good writing". Next think you know some yahoo is ranting about the awful "writing". I suppose I'm a bit intolerant of "armchair grammarians". Even worse to me are the "story structuralists". These are people who can frequently be heard to say "X doesn't know how to end a story". If anyone reading this happens to resemble that last remark, let me clue you in. When you run out of pages, most of the time the story is over. Not all wheelchair critics draw my ire though. People who complain about weak characterization often get my sympathy. When all the women in a book resemble either dudes in drag or a crutch for some guys ego, its a distraction from the story. But then, I suppose everyone has their bugaboos. > > Amanda > Just my two cents Maru > (And no, I haven't read King's book on writing yet.) Its interesting, but not required reading. xponent Andy Rooney's Spleen Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
