Re: Gareth's competition comments


17 Oct 1995 02:01:26 +1000

Magnus Olsson (mol@marvin.df.lth.se) wrote:
: In article <GDR11.95Oct11201918@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>,
: Gareth Rees <gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

: (about "Zebulon")

: > And the writing was very flat and
: >lifeless, managing to be lengthy without being either vivid or
: >humourous.

: You know, sometimes life seems to be going along just fine - the sun is
: shining, your game has just won $100, and so on, and then somebody
: whom you respect says something that's just like a bucket of cold water
: over your head.

Heh. Ask just about any book-author about that (usually his publisher is
holding the bucket). It's not uncommon to win an award for a short-story,
and get a yellow slip for that same story from a publisher. God knows, it's
happened to me.

: However, I did put some effort into the writing, and if the best I can
: achieve is so bad, I'd better give up writing altogether. Yes, I m
: whining, but this is actually quite serious: I simply don't want to be
: associated with very flat and lifeless writing, that's neither vivid
: nor humorous. In that case, it's far better that my efforts so far be
: qucikly forgotten. Above all, I can see no point in writing any more
: dull, flat and lifeless prose - after all, one does put in quite a lot
: of one's mental energy into this, and perhaps I could find more
: fruitful ways of spending that.

: Also, I get a strong feeling that I'm making a fool of myself by
: criticizing other peoples' writing in my SPAG reviews if I can't write
: myself. (Yes, I know, there are plenty of critics who can't write at
: all, but they *are* a pathetic lot, and I don't wnat to be a memeber
: of that pathetic lot myself, thankyou).

: This is not a threat, nor a promise, just a statement of fact: I can
: see no point in continuing writing if my writing is as bad as Gareth
: says. Perhaps a collaboration would be more in order, where I provide
: the mechanics of puzzles and porgramming, but some more talented
: writer does the actual text?

Collaboration is a good thing, but don't come down too hard on yourself,
son. Pick any big name author. Half the stuff they've ever written is
sitting around unpublished as 'flat, lifeless prose'. Fiction is an 'art'
not a 'science'. Despite what hollywood says, there isn't a formula that
guarantees success. If there were, we (as a race) would have long mastered
it, and every book would be a masterpiece.

If you don't get out there and _write_ sutff (crap or not), you'll never get
a feel for being good. Practice makes perfect? Nah. It _does_ improve the
success rate, though. Markedly.

Sit at that dang keyboard and _write_. You want to count Heinlein, or Asimov
or Knight or Silverberg or Farmer's rejection slips? These guys wrote more
rubbish than we _ever_ will! But the stuff that made it are gems.

Dancer