To didact or not to didact...

I've sold a handful of stories, including one at a pro rate of pay. So I'm an artist but people I know who are quite good but don't happen to have a sale are not? I don't agree. Guess we will just have to differ.

 

I've said that twice, dude...

Do you mind sharing a story or two, so that I can learn what you did that got you published (and try to learn how)?
It's cool if you don't want to though--just asking.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine

Medicine (i/ˈmɛdsɨn/, i/ˈmɛdɨsɨn/) is the field of applied science related to the art of healing


The point is we don't call the medicine man/woman an artist (although sometimes I feel they deserve it.)

lit·er·a·ture (ltr--chr, -chr)
n.
1. The body of written works of a language, period, or culture.
2. Imaginative or creative writing, especially of recognized artistic value: "Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity" (Rebecca West).
3. The art or occupation of a literary writer.
4. The body of written work produced by scholars or researchers in a given field: medical literature.
5. Printed material: collected all the available literature on the subject.
6. Music All the compositions of a certain kind or for a specific instrument or ensemble: the symphonic literature.
[Middle English, book learning, from Old French litterature, from Latin littertra, from littertus, lettered; see literate.]

Writers we do.

...and people wonder why I go to great lengths to explain things in a prologue.

 

Your condescension is unfounded, Whozit. No one asked you for your "feelings" on "medicine men/women," and I certainly didn't ask you to define anything for me.

And, as is usually the case, your point isn't clear. I have no idea why you're defining "literature." I think that you don't think very coherently...

 

It's a common misconception that he couldn't sell his work. But in reality he didn't sell his paintings because he refused to do so. The man was acclaimed a genius in his lifetime but had lived in poverty all his life and saw no need to be rich. In addition, because he slathered on the paint so thickly, it took nearly a year for the paint to dry, given the type used at that time.

 

Condescendence is treating someone like a child, not offering a definition that backs their accepted paradigm or idiom. When someone gives you something informative or even to make your mind stretch, they are treating you with the regard that you do or can understand it. Only when someone treats the other guy as if he is at fault for their own inability to understand, do they rate the "Now, Timmy, do we have a good understanding of why condoms shouldn't be used as water balloons?" response.

The point bringing in the medical arts is that there are vocations out there less associable with the word "art," yet are still considered an art. We may have a state-of-the-art telescope or gamma knife, but the fields they are used in usually are considered sciences. There are more than one even in here that are artful in depicting a scene to a potential reader. Are they great artists? Average artists. Lesser artists?

This thread is about whether to use teaching in our stories. Most seem to avoid an explanation like the plague. What did make sense was someone's signature mentioned about making the reader feel comfortable with a prologue. That sounds like trying to get a 1 year old to eat oatmeal.

 

I didn't think for a second this was about equating oneself with super successful writers... I think I could call someone who's sold two short stories but who still writes a lot an artist, just like I'd call Nora Roberts an artist.

Despite the dictionary definitions, the definition itself seems somewhat fluid in people's minds.

I know a bunch of musicians I'd definitely call artists, even those who haven't a degree in it or haven't sold anything. But I guess that's 'cause pretty much everybody can write, so you have to work harder to "earn" the title.

At times I'm sensing some putting-the-other-down so as to lift-yourself-up going around, which is weird since there're no stephen kings here.

Back to the topic! I was just reading Ben Bova's Space Travel and he put it well (I'll paraphrase): technology has to be cohesive in sci-fi. The author has to know how something works, but s/he doesn't have to explain it in detail or it can just look like showing off, 'look at me, I did research!
I thought that was pretty funny...

 

Yes, but by offering something informative without being prompted to do so, you're assuming that the other interlocutor doesn't know what you know. And if that something informative is a simple something, it's an insult. That's all I'm saying.

Thank you! That's all I asked for!

Keyword: comfortable.

 

...and it only took three tries.

 

• I've sold a handful of stories, including one at a pro rate of pay. So I'm an artist but people I know who are quite good but don't happen to have a sale are not?

First, you don't make your living at it. Next, those who will sell your work to the public don't think of you as one.

We can, of course call ourselves artists if it pleased. We can call yourself a giraffe if we care to. But that has no effect on if the people who consume whatever we produce call us one.

If it gives someone pleasure to say they're an artist they can. Doesn't make an agent like their work any better because you're only as good as your audition.

 

Which is exactly what I said. The title is bestowed, not appropriated.

 

Graffiti Artists may be writers or vandals but the news usually calls the work art. I suppose, though, to be on topic we should make a prologue out of all JayG's posts and call them didactic.

 

A word or many on art and artists:
Isn't the definition of an artist a person who produces art? I don't think the definition necessarily includes a demand that you have to make a living through your art to be counted as an artist. After all, as has been mentioned, some can choose not to spread their art widely enough to make a living through it. I know they are rarer than those aspiring to become millionaires, but they do exist. Are they not artists? Is the value of art (i.e. whether it is or isn't art and thus whether its creator is or isn't an artist) defined by how much money, if any, it makes to its creator?

If an artist is a person who produces art, we should define what counts as 'art.' I've had this discussion plenty of times, with professional artists, amateurs, and non-artists, and so far the most common way to see it I've come across is that art is like beauty; it's in the eye of the beholder. If you look at different art forms around the world, practically anything can be called art if it's presented / viewed as such. It could be a novel, a painting, a movie, a guitar, a gun, a haircut, a naked girl standing in the middle of a busy train station, a punch... anything, I guess, as long as there's either the intent to portray or view it as such.

Art doesn't necessarily even require any mentionable skill if we consider e.g. music such as punk or noise as art. If we don't count that as art, where do we draw the line: how skilled does the "creator" have to be for the creation to be called art? What if the creator is extremely skilled, but chooses to create art that's so chaotic, if you will, that a blind monkey with shaky hands could produce similar material?

I was wondering might it be a good idea to move the art / artist discussion into its own, separate thread? After all, it's an interesting subject...

 

Unless we include the perceptions of the observer, to define if the result is satisfying to other then the one producing it, every child scribbling is exactly as much an artist as Picasso and the term artist is meaningless.


“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’ ”
~ Isaac Asimov

And an artist is one who can reliably, and predictably, cause the beholder to see that beauty, not one who is trying and has not yet succeeded. Relatives and friends being kind don't count.

But we're way off the subject of either how much exteranious material to place in a story or what allows one to call themself a writer. Given the breadth of the Internet it's entirely possible to gather together a group of like minded individuals who comprise .01% of the population or less, and give the impression within that community, of competence. Expecting the remaining 99.99% to accept that definition and honor it, is unreasonable.

But again, it doesn't matter. What matters is if that acquiring editor you submit to thinks of your writing as professional—art if you will. If they do, even if the work is rejected you will get a note to improve and resubmit, as against a generic, "I couldn't generate the necessary enthusiasm to..."

 

I'll send you a PM. Those story of how this one got published is simple enough. I knew it was a good story. I got five or six form rejections, and then finally a rejection with comments. The editor liked the story, but he felt the ending fell flat. With that comment in mind, I deleted the ending scene and rewrote a new one. It sold on its next submission. I know editors don't always have time to provide feedback with rejections, but that simple comment led to the story being sold.

The story started from an image that just sprang to mind one afternoon, and I sat down and wrote it in a single sitting. Since I didn't have it planned, I didn't know where it was going when I started writing, and I think that accounts for the weak ending. After getting those comments and sitting down and rethinking the whole thing, I realized the editor was absolutely right.

 

I don't think the word would be meaningless at all, it just couldn't be used to elevate oneself on a pedestal. The word would simply indicate a person who creates art, regardless of its type, quality, quantity, or level of fame and success. Not everyone produces art, hence it doesn't negate the usefulness of the word. It's kinda like "guitarist." Plenty of people are guitarists (what else do you call the guy who plays guitar in a beginner punk band?), but not nearly all of them make a living playing the guitar and even fewer are famous for it. Even though it means one can't boast much with the title of "guitarist," even those who suck, are guitarists.

Of course that doesn't mean that all art is created equal. In my opinion it isn't. However, neither does it mean that crappier art isn't art since one man's art is another's turd (or vice versa).

 

The idea of the info dump being a deterrent to the reader seems to be an overused means of destructive criticism. I was reading what might have been a nice little horror piece, but found myself lost because the writer failed to teach me anything bout the driving concept. Movies don't need to worry about the viewer understanding it all as much as the writer, still, consider "The Grudge." If there was no information for the viewer to read explaining the driving concept of the tale, the show would make little sense till close to the end, if even then.

 

Do not confuse back story with story. There may well be parts of the story outside the chronology of the story proper, but don't load those pieces down with extraneous fluff, and don't dish them out befoe the stroy itself begins.

An infodump is exposition gone wild, inundating the reader with background the reader has yet no use for. Far better to dole it out in miserly morsels, to a reader qrowling with hunger for understanding. Never enough to sate that hunger before the dessert is served at the climax, just enough to keep hunger keen and the palate receptive.

 

Maybe "Prologue" should be retitled "Required Reading."

"It was in the last year of my 7th life that the Master had finally been brought to justice on Galafrey. Prior to his sentence of total annihilation being carried out, he requested, of the high counsel, that I personally should bring his remains back to his home world, Skarro. That was a request they never should have granted."

Recognize that? Probably saved an hour or two of film.

 

Well, the fact that readers have their eyes glaze over when a writer decided to stop entertaining the reader and lectures them, instead, might be why editors reach for a rejection when they see one. You don't mind it, but the fact is that the vast majority of readers are looking for entertainment. Present a lecture, of any kind, and they react as most of the history class did when the teacher said, "Turn to page 263 and read the next three pages." And like it or not they are the people we hope to please with our writing.

It's not a deterrent, it's a flat-out reason for rejection in almost every case. It's called an info-dump for a reason.

“To describe something in detail, you have to stop the action. But without the action, the description has no meaning.” ~Jack Bickham

And that can only be achieved by stopping the scene clock, killing the momentum the scene might have achieved, and asking the student to read page 61 in the textbook?" I can't buy that. That you felt you needed more information is perfectly valid, and I can't dispute your reaction and desire to know more. But I can't agree that the solution is to stop entertaining and begin lecturing.

“Readers don’t notice point-of-view errors. They simply sense that the writing is bad.” ~ Sol Stein

So when the reader is making up their mind as to spending money they had to earn in order to read your book you want to confront them with a course of "required reading?"

A reader arrives with only curiosity, which will quickly fade. You have, on average (based on studies in the bookstores) three pages to change that curiosity to interest. As Sol Stein put it:

“A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”

 

I suppose we're back to flavoring the oatmeal like candy.

 

Please...I beg you, Whozit...don't make me ask you what you're talking about again...you're making me feel like the fault lies with me.

 

No, we are in the business of storytelling, and it's important to know how to hold the reader's attention and interest. Part of that is knowing what will lose the reader, and not doing that.

 

Not I. You're rightly arriving at that conclusion on your own. All you really need is to read what I post. If it doesn't make sense the first time, read it again.

@Cogito
Of course. Same as feeding oatmeal on a spoon to a baby... of course some kids like oatmeal. It's not the oatmeal, but the aversion to the spoon that's bringing about the defiance. Solution? Have someone a lot scarier try feeding the kid through means bordering on abuse. Once you return with the spoon and a promised toy it just might be easier. Kid should get hungry by then, too.

A mass book burning of all novels written over the last 1/2 century should draw some attention. As long as executed properly, bringing examples of garbage in garbage out writers might help.

 

I'd rather have the author leave out some information and have to do some thinking or educated guesswork than have the author go too far the other way, which I find to be a bit insulting.

But others feel differently I suppose. One of my favorite fantasy writers is Steven Erikson, who thrusts the reader into his world, explaining just about nothing. Fans of his work seem to be very loyal and love the series, but on the other side of the coin you find a lot of readers don't like his books because they felt lost. Still, he has been quite successful.