Saturday, April 18: Mississippi Mud
PLAYING AT WORK
by John M. Floyd
Over the past month or so, Deborah’s written two interesting columns about reading (and writing) for the sheer fun of it. And that got me to thinking.
Occasionally I read fiction so good that the reading itself is effortless — I float along with no awareness of the passage of time. Sort of like Velma does at our reception desk, when she’s gazing off into her distant past while our phone’s ringing off the hook. Seriously, though, I do often sit down to read and become happily “lost” in the story. When I blink and resurface, hours have gone by.
As has often been said at this blog, this is the ideal situation. We as fiction readers should be able to escape into that imaginary dreamworld and enjoy every minute of our stay there. And we as fiction writers should of course work toward the ability to create stories like that, stories that sweep our audience along so smoothly they see and feel nothing except what’s happening to our characters.
Easier Said Than Done
How does an author accomplish that? Well, here’s a hint. Amateur writers become professional writers in two ways: (1) they read a lot and (2) they write a lot. The writing part is obvious: you get better at something by doing it, and by doing it often. The reading is equally important because it allows you to see how others do the job, and you learn from that. Or at least you should.
Therein, though, lies a problem. Like all readers, we writers prefer to read good stories, not bad, and — believe it or not — the enjoyment and entertainment we experience when we read good fiction can sometimes keep us from recognizing what’s good about it. We’re so absorbed in the plot we never get the chance to stop and analyze what it is that makes it effective — we just remember, afterward, that it was a wonderful story. I believe this is the reason it’s so much easier to spot bad writing than good writing. Bad writing leaps out at you, waving red flags and shouting and interrupting your trance. One writer friend told me that reading poorly-written fiction inspires her in two ways: it shows her what not to do and it reassures her that she can do better than that.
Working at Play
I also believe that if you make it a practice to study the writing itself as you read — the style, mood, characterization, structure, pacing, etc. — you eventually become able to recognize it when it’s well done and still enjoy the story as much as you did before. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. After a few years you’re like the engineer on vacation at Disney World, examining the mechanics and the underpinnings of the roller coaster even while he’s enjoying the thrill of the ride itself.
I recently found myself doing this while reading four books of mystery/suspense, three fairly new and one old. They were Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (intricate plotting), The Given Day by Dennis Lehane (beautiful language and description), Hardly Knew Her by Laura Lippman (delightfully sinister short stories), and Riding the Rap by Elmore Leonard (great characters and dialogue). I’m currently reading In the Courts of the Sun by Brian D’Amato, and even though it’s not mystery it’s definitely suspense. And so far it’s been outstanding.
It’s easy to lose yourself in — and learn from — that kind of fiction.
I enjoy reading the old writers. After watching The Maltese Falcon for about the eighth last night on TCM, I went to the bookcase and began reading it again. Chandler, Cain, Woolrich – so many good stories and novels to savor again it’s hard to keep up with the new stuff.
On a message board I read a post by someone who is going to write a mystery but has seldom if ever read one. I suggested he forget writing for a year and start reading. It’s the best teacher.
Dick, I can’t even imagine why someone would WANT to write a mystery, if he/she hasn’t read one. That’d be like me trying to write a romance novel. (Nothing wrong with romance novels — but I’d sure do a poor job of it.)
An author once told me that when an aspiring writer asks her what genre to try, she tells him to look on his bedside table and see what book is lying there. If it’s a western, write a western; if science fiction, write SF. And so on.
>An author once told me that when an aspiring writer asks her what genre to try, she tells him to look on his bedside table and see what book is lying there.
So there’s a lot of people writing Gideon Bibles?
A student in my early writing class didn’t like sci-fi but planned to write in that genre because it was ‘easy’– all you had to do was stick spaceships in the story. If he stuck in a cowboy detective and a ripped bodice, he could have covered a few more genres.
I longed to write, but it wasn’t until I read a couple of bad, bad novels that I told myself, “I can write better than that.”
I couldn’t– not then– because I didn’t understand all the elements of a story. But it motivated me to start making mistakes and start learning.
The late Ross Spencer had that “I can write better than that” feeling after his wife gave him a Spenser book because of the similarity in names. He ended up with 18 or 20 books. I don’t know if he wrote better but he sure wrote funnier.
I like that idea of whatever book is on your nightstand. After overlooking Leigh’s Gideon Bible remark, of course.
I’m used to overlooking Leigh’s remarks, that smartaleck.
(Actually, I liked it. I only wish I had thought of the Gideon reply when the author I mentioned gave me that advice!)
As for your student who planned to try to write something like science fiction because it’s “easy,” Leigh, I’m reminded of the hordes of folks who try to write children’s books for that same reason. Children’s fiction, as most of them find out, is really pretty darn hard to write, or at least to write well.
By the way, Dick, thanks for bringing up Ross Spencer. He had a delightfully crazy writing style — I think we could use more of that.
So glad you mentioned children’s writers. As a former writer of children’s stories who, in the eyes of some folks,
“graduated” to adult fiction, I find it offensive when those who have never tried it think writing for children is easy, simplistic, or whatever. A children’s writer I know used this story as an analogy:
A court jester was asked to perform for a group of children. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, so he consulted a fellow jester, who told him. “do what you always do, but do it a little bit better.”
Touche