I sat down this afternoon with the clear intent to be creative. I did manage that but found myself unexpectedly cramming an idiot's crash course into genetics and recessionary traits into the afternoon. All for the sake of two sentences now but possibly more to come later.
I think that was a good thing.
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Saturday, 27 April 2013
Yay!
I had some nice comments about the love story I posted a couple of days ago. When it finally appears in the context I have envisioned for it then it will be tweaked slightly as, on re-reading, there are some sentences that could be better. But that's OK because someone read it and liked it and told me so.
What fragile egos we have.
Some years ago I entered a songwriting competition and came third. I entered two songs and one of them - somewhat bawdy and not the one which was placed - went down well with the audience and lots of folks were laughing and joshing about it afterwards. One person, though, went into print on a forum a couple of days later making slighting comments about both of the songs. Of course it was the slighting comments I took to heart, not the positives from everyone else.
Ah well.
Anyway, back to the keyboard.
What fragile egos we have.
Some years ago I entered a songwriting competition and came third. I entered two songs and one of them - somewhat bawdy and not the one which was placed - went down well with the audience and lots of folks were laughing and joshing about it afterwards. One person, though, went into print on a forum a couple of days later making slighting comments about both of the songs. Of course it was the slighting comments I took to heart, not the positives from everyone else.
Ah well.
Anyway, back to the keyboard.
Friday, 26 April 2013
Anita
When I first started putting together notes for a novel (the 'main' one I have in mind, not the limbering up exercises) my thought was to make it an episodic set of short stories based around the same characters in the same world. I was reminded of this over the past couple of days as I have read "Anita" by Keith Roberts which is a collecting of individual stories initially published in the late nineteen sixties.
I have read a reasonable amount of Roberts' writing before and have always enjoyed it but Anita is something else and I like it as much, if not more, than much of the material for which he is rightly remembered. What struck me immediately was the economic precision of the writing and the amount which was left to inference rather than description or exposition.
I have recently been reading some weighty modern fantasy novels which have passed the time agreeably enough without ever really gripping me. In one or two, the early chapters were so concerned with world-building that it was hard to discern a story. There is none of that with Roberts: there is enough to spur the reader's imagination but in essence we are straight in with story and character and I find that very refreshing.
I have read a reasonable amount of Roberts' writing before and have always enjoyed it but Anita is something else and I like it as much, if not more, than much of the material for which he is rightly remembered. What struck me immediately was the economic precision of the writing and the amount which was left to inference rather than description or exposition.
I have recently been reading some weighty modern fantasy novels which have passed the time agreeably enough without ever really gripping me. In one or two, the early chapters were so concerned with world-building that it was hard to discern a story. There is none of that with Roberts: there is enough to spur the reader's imagination but in essence we are straight in with story and character and I find that very refreshing.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
Paradoxes of style
I read a lot and I read a lot of science fiction and related genres. That covers a lot of stylistic ground, of course, and I try to read around the bases although I don't do so systematically.
There are some authors whom I will buy and read sight unseen and I've noticed of late that the quality of writing has generally improved when compared with the norm when I first got into skiffy in the early seventies. That doesn't mean the quality of the books has necessarily got better but the writing has - at least amongst the authors I have read over the last three years or so.
However yesterday I picked up an Anne McCaffrey novel - Pegasus In Space - in a charity shop and read it quickly. Although it was published relatively late in her career it struck me quite forcefully that it was not especially well written. The earliest chapters clunked, cliches abounded and the wrap up happy ending left threads dangling left, right and centre. It was largely plot driven although there was relatively mechanical attention paid to character development and internal dialogue, at least for the protagonist.
I am willing to bet, though, that it sold a great deal better than many a better written and more interesting work.
And that's the paradox of style - all engaged writers want to write well, I think, but it I reckon that it is rare that something well written with a literary quality hits the commercial big time.
One other thing struck me about the McCaffrey novel - I found myself being reminded on occasion of the work of EE "Doc" Smith, father of vintage Space Opera. Perhaps it was a generational thing but it did strike me that McCaffrey will have started out in the tail end of that era and absorbed that ethos of crafting yarns that sell, clunkers and all.
There are some authors whom I will buy and read sight unseen and I've noticed of late that the quality of writing has generally improved when compared with the norm when I first got into skiffy in the early seventies. That doesn't mean the quality of the books has necessarily got better but the writing has - at least amongst the authors I have read over the last three years or so.
However yesterday I picked up an Anne McCaffrey novel - Pegasus In Space - in a charity shop and read it quickly. Although it was published relatively late in her career it struck me quite forcefully that it was not especially well written. The earliest chapters clunked, cliches abounded and the wrap up happy ending left threads dangling left, right and centre. It was largely plot driven although there was relatively mechanical attention paid to character development and internal dialogue, at least for the protagonist.
I am willing to bet, though, that it sold a great deal better than many a better written and more interesting work.
And that's the paradox of style - all engaged writers want to write well, I think, but it I reckon that it is rare that something well written with a literary quality hits the commercial big time.
One other thing struck me about the McCaffrey novel - I found myself being reminded on occasion of the work of EE "Doc" Smith, father of vintage Space Opera. Perhaps it was a generational thing but it did strike me that McCaffrey will have started out in the tail end of that era and absorbed that ethos of crafting yarns that sell, clunkers and all.
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