Posts filed under ‘OBSERVATIONS & OPINIONS’
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN VS JIM BUTCHER, PADDING VS ACTION
In my last piece where I discussed how my approach to reading a book has changed since becoming a writer, I mentioned that I noticed that some authors overwrite. They add a vast amount of unnecessary detail which pads, and in my opinion, slows down the story.
I, on the other hand, feel I don’t give enough detail. I have had stories rejected where the editor said that it wasn’t a story but an outline. I hope to remedy this and will discuss it my approach to the ‘fix’ in a future piece.
The example of an author that gives far more detail in his stories than I feel is necessary is George R. R. Martin. I know this may ruffle some feathers and that he is all over the bestseller lists, but I stand by my observations.
I have read a couple of his books and what I find is an opulence of description that is totally unnecessary. If there is a banquet, he describes in great detail what people are wearing. There is nothing wrong with this, but to go on and give the history of garments and belt buckles I find does not add anything to the story and slows down the action to a crawl.
Another fault I find in his very popular series is a total lack of advancement in technology and the life of the characters. In one story he talks of a sword that has been in the family for a thousand years and is in use by the current generation. In the course of a thousand years, shouldn’t some advance been made in warfare, for better of for worse.
I have read another fantasy series, The Codex Alera, by Jim Butcher. His stories are fast paced and not padded by details that add nothing to the story. His characters use ‘furies’ which are natural powers of the earth. In one story he explains that the culture once used an advanced technology which is now long forgotten. Since the discovery of the ‘furies’ the technology became obsolete. I find this detail more satisfying than believing that no advancement has occurred in a thousand years.
These are the observations I have made as a writer. If you want, let me know how right or wrong you think I am.
READING AS A WRITER
I’ve always been an avid reader to the point where it’s almost an obsession. I cannot remember the last time I was not in the process of reading a book. If I go anywhere where there is the slightest chance of waiting, I feel naked if I do not bring a book along.
I’m sure most writers would agree that being a compulsive reader is a prerequisite for being a writer.
What I would like to discuss in this piece is how the appreciation of the book I am reading has changed. I began writing fiction approximately twelve years ago, and since then I have noticed that the qualities I look for in a book are different. Before I became a writer I was just appreciating the story at face value. Now I look for much more.
Now, when I read a book I look for character development. I look for descriptions of the character and how this sometimes leads to overwriting of the book. I will discuss this in an upcoming piece giving examples. Plot is something I examine, wondering if the author outlined the story or if events occur which the author did not see coming. In my writing, I sometimes use a dynamic outline with nothing cast in stone. I also have events occur that are created during the writing process.
Another quality I look for in a story is background information to explain details in the story. In science fiction, horror and fantasy not everything needs to be explained, nor should it be. But there comes a point where some background is necessary.
These are some of the changes I have in mind when reading. I wonder if other writers
approach a story differently since they began writing.
THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD by H.P. LOVECRAFT
Our lab-mix, Millie, has not tolerated the thunderstorms very Here in southeastern Pennsylvania we have endured, for the last week or so, and continue to endure almost daily rain and thunderstorms.
well. My computer table is rather small with a printer beneath and all the necessary plugs and cords. During one particularly violent storm Millie squeezed all of her 61 pounds under the table while I was working. I fear that if I decided to turn on the vacuum cleaner during one of these events I would surely send poor Millie over the edge.
These storms, however, provided the perfect atmosphere for my latest reading endeavor, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft.
The background of a good thunderstorm forms the perfect atmosphere of a story full of the nameless and unspeakable.
Unlike most of Lovecraft’s writing efforts, primarily short stories, this work is a short novel, one of his longest works. The story begins with Joseph Curwen and follows his activities during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Curwen is consumed with certain mystical activities involving obscure chemistry and strange chants. Charles Dexter Ward is his great-great-great-grandson and follows in his relatives footsteps.
I love Lovecraft’s stories and his style of writing. However, I think he would have some difficulty finding a publisher in today’s market. This effort is almost exclusively narrative. As usual, the atmosphere of the story is rich with the bazaar and implied bazaar, but he occasionally violates the writer’s rule of ‘show don’t tell’.
Yet, no matter how archaic his work may be, I still enjoy his stories a great deal.
ANOTHER CLASSIC NOVEL
Writer’s Digest once published a list of famous authors and the books they considered essential books in their lives. One book mentioned by a great deal of them was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The English translation was first published in 1970. In 1982, Marquez was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
I felt an obligation to obtain this novel and recently finished reading it. It is both a haunting and haunted story. The one problem I had was the names and remembering which character was which, but Marquez provides a genealogy chart to help in this matter. The problem was that many of the names are very similar, but that confusion, on my part, was a small price to pay. This was a most excellent read. It’s one of those stories that is a little difficult to get into but once you’re there, you’re sorry when you’re finished.
It essentially follows a family that establishes a town in the Caribbean. The exact location is never revealed nor is the date. The story is populated by some characters that live well over a hundred years and by a healthy amount of ghosts. The book is full of both sorrow and humor. One common theme for most of the characters is no matter how many family members or friends they have, they experience a feeling of solitude in their lives.
I highly recommend giving this book a try.
A FATHER’S DAY POEM
The members of my writers group, The Wordwrights, were given an assignment to write a Father’s Day piece. I decided to write a poem.
The poem is bleak, but it reflects a trend I see.
I could be totally wrong. I hope I am.
THE FATHER THAT NEVER WAS
Contributing their seed,
They flee,
Gone.
Not knowing life was passed,
Never hearing the first cry
In the silent night,
Creating a hollow being,
Guidance from the streets
Of despair,
Walking a path
Into a world
Of dead ends,
Death, all too young
The only future.
H.P. LOVECRAFT, A CLASSIC AUTHOR OF HORROR
All my life I loved to read horror. As a teenager, I chose my reading material by the cover of the paperback, the more gruesome the better. It was during this period of my life that I discovered H.P. Lovecraft. I loved the moodiness of his stories and the amphibian-like humans the inhabited some of his stories only added to my pleasure.
I am in the process of rereading some of his work. Barnes & Noble sells an excellent compilation of all Lovecraft’s short stories and novellas. For $20 you get over one thousand pages of horror. The style of some of the stories is rather dated, but for the most part enjoyable.
Just recently I finished reading his novella The Dunwich Horror. As the story progresses, you realize something is not quite right with one of the main characters. It is the conclusion of the story that I found most satisfying. For horror fans, this is an excellent read and serves to maintain the Lovecraft approach to the land of the fantastic.
I RETURN
My consistent readers,
I return after a long hiatus, part due to a seaside vacation and part to a regrouping of my priorities in life and my writing.
As difficult, and at times depressing, writing may be I have decided to attack the projects I have begun with more vigor and determination. I know I am not alone in this mystic endeavor when I say that I went through a long period thinking that anything I wrote was worthless and thought ‘who would read this shit’.
Those ghosts of despair are still lingering, but for better or for worse – I’m back.
UPDATE REHAB
My consistent readers, 4/11/13
I’m home now and have been since last Saturday. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts while getting to the point that I could come home.
Once I left the hospital after my bout with a ruptured spleen, I was not able to go home so I entered a rehab facility. I would like to share some of my thoughts while experiencing this period of my recovery.
I was now a resident, temporarily, of Devon Manor, after falling and suffering six cracked ribs along with a lacerated spleen. The spleen was a big problem for I was on blood thinners when it began bleeding. I went to the rehab center after a ten-day hospital stay and was weak as a baby. I needed a walker to walk and breathing exercises to rebuild my lung capacity.
Once I made fun of walkers calling them ‘jungle jims’. Now that I was using one to get around during my recovery they were no longer a source of ridicule.
I went through a strange period when I first started rehab. We did our exercises in a large room with about four or five patients at a time each working with a physical therapist. As I looked around at my fellow patients I realized that, except for those with brain injuries, I was the youngest at 65. Later I would visit another gym where those in rehab were around my age or younger.
What started me thinking this way I do not know. But as I looked around at the patients working along side me, some extremely elderly and barely able to move, unable to do the simplest tasks, I wondered why rehab them at all? What were they going to rehab to?
But after much thought my heart softened and my mind opened. They were rehabbing back to the life they left no matter how limited that life may be. They were rehabbing back to their families, their children and grandchildren.
I’ve mellowed during my rehab experience. Perhaps it’s having your routine, your normal life; take away from you and trying desperately to get back to where you were. I now know it doesn’t matter how old you are or what that life was like – you want to return.
The care, the concern of the therapists at Devon Manor was highly professional. I owe them a great deal, especially, Lisa, the physical therapist who worked with me for most of my stay.
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