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we can write if we want to
How totally unnecessary.
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I finally caved in and bought the About A Boy DVD. And Steve bought the novel the other day - so I read it, too. Although I didn't really enjoy High Fidelity the novel, objectively I saw evidence of craft. I mean this novel is actually a slightly more interesting story than the other one, but the characters don't hit you in the gut quite as hard. Still pretty hard though - they have that brutal and painful honesty that Rob did, although no one is quite the fucking jerk that he is.
I keep saying that there's two things you have to do to write a good book - you have to have an interesting story, and you have to be able to tell it. I think one of the best ways to tell it is to have sympathetic characters. For years and years The Eyes of the Dragon by King was the pinnacle of a well-told story for me - though if you think about it, the plot is pretty weak and formulaic. But you fall in love with the characters. That's always been my bag, too. I don't have so many interesting stories to tell, as just a bunch of stuff happening to people I love. (Although technically they aren't actually people.) This is why I can't bear Tolkien; first of all, he can't tell a story for shit, and second of all, well, I didn't feel for the characters, anyway. Except Bilbo Baggins. No one else, though.
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I finally caved in and bought the About A Boy DVD. And Steve bought the novel the other day - so I read it, too. Although I didn't really enjoy High Fidelity the novel, objectively I saw evidence of craft. I mean this novel is actually a slightly more interesting story than the other one, but the characters don't hit you in the gut quite as hard. Still pretty hard though - they have that brutal and painful honesty that Rob did, although no one is quite the fucking jerk that he is.
I keep saying that there's two things you have to do to write a good book - you have to have an interesting story, and you have to be able to tell it. I think one of the best ways to tell it is to have sympathetic characters. For years and years The Eyes of the Dragon by King was the pinnacle of a well-told story for me - though if you think about it, the plot is pretty weak and formulaic. But you fall in love with the characters. That's always been my bag, too. I don't have so many interesting stories to tell, as just a bunch of stuff happening to people I love. (Although technically they aren't actually people.) This is why I can't bear Tolkien; first of all, he can't tell a story for shit, and second of all, well, I didn't feel for the characters, anyway. Except Bilbo Baggins. No one else, though.
no subject
I went to a Q&A by Octavia Butler shortly before I started writing it, actually, and she said more or less the same thing - that the STORY isn't a mere description of the plot, the STORY is about basically the theme. Like (for example) her book Wild Seed chronicles the life of an immortal couple, but it's ABOUT morality and love. And then I though "Well, what should my novel be about?" So I started writing one about how religion is stupid, but I didn't get very far, and then I went back to an idea I had about ten years ago. This one is basically about being alienated from society because you're different. Or, to put it more succinctly, about how people suck. Which I think most good books are about really...