So...you want to write a book, regardless of how good it is or how trendy it is, in your own unique style and you want to publish it? Am I getting this correctly? If so, why not? Publishing is a gamble. Stick to the formula, you risk alienating those searching for a breath of fresh air into the genre you're writing in. Deviate from the formula and go wild and crazy, you risk alienating people who want something a little more familiar. Becoming popular with it? Ah, that's even more tricker and it's a shot in the dark. Some writers become big and famous the world over, others are only known to be writers by close family, friends, and others. Just write it out first. Don't worry about becoming popular yet.
It might also depend on how prolific you dream of being. "I'm a commercial writer, not an 'author.' Margaret Mitchell was an author. She wrote one book." Mickey Spillane
I don't care about popularity. Not to say I am against it. My goal has always been the same. Art was my life. Without it, I wouldn't be here. Someone made that art. I want to carry that tourch. I want to pour my very soul into a story. A story that can be there for someone else, as someone else's story was there for me. To that end, I would do anything. Money and fame are as worthless as dust by comparison.
So...just write. Are you asking if you're a horrible person if you don't think popularity, money, and fame are all that? If so, no you are not. The best kind of writer is the writer that writes because they enjoy it. True, they try to make it interesting for others to read, but they don't do it for money and fame.
I was asking if I was horrible because the thought of people that dowgrade art in order to be popular or increase their own profit made me mad, and it felt wrong to be mad at someone for their own artistic choices.
I'd say you're a bit of an idealist. If you want to make a living writing, you'll have to do some commercial work, whether that's writing a commercial novel or doing freelance work on the side. Most writers have a full-time job in addition to writing in order to pay the bills so they can write as an art. It really depends on your goals. Some writers do commercial work, are successful, and then try something more unconventional. It's better received that way because they already have contacts and a readership. Smart move, I'd say.
You can disagree on someone's artistic choices, so long as you don't force them to change it. There are plenty of books I've read where I wish the author had altered a few things/capitalized on others to make the story richer, but as with any opinion, that was just my own opinion. Doesn't make you a horrible person, just means you have a different opinion. We all get to have our own opinions on these matters.
Because your challenge is ...make your new and hitherto untested vision become popular! I guess my bottom line is I don't want to write somebody else's idea of a story, but I do want readers to like the story I've chosen to write. So I do my best to bring them around to my way of thinking. A reader says: I don't like stories about fantasy warriors who don't carry big swords. You can say: Okay, no problem. I'll give him a big sword. Or you can say: Well, my warrior doesn't carry a big sword, and here is why....
Throughout this topic I tried to say clearly that I do not believe anyone should be forced to change there artistic style. I was just more expressing my own emotional reaction to it. Though in either case, for this topic or other reasons, my mind can accept no other conclusion than that I am a horrible person.
You read my post, right? I didn't say that you were attempting to force others to change their style. I was saying that you're not a horrible person for having an opinion on this. We all get to have our own opinions on what works or doesn't. You can write what you want, incorporate bits and pieces of what readers want to read about ... or don't. It's your choice.
I did. I was at first stated a position. Then I went on to say, in either case(this thread or not) I am horrible. So even if I am not horrible for this thread. I still think I a horrible or my mind shall accept no alternate position. Sorry.
Enjoy being horrible. In the meantime - there is a difference between disagreeing with someone's choices and being angry and hateful about it. It seems as if you've gone beyond the disagreement to anger and hatefulness, which I wouldn't say makes you horrible, but which I would say is immature and pointless. I mean, I disagree with your approach to writing. It makes no sense to me when I read about the absolute sanctity of people's artistic vision or their muse or how their characters told them something this morning or whatever else. It seems silly, to me. But I don't hate you or anyone else because of this, and while I may get a bit impatient about it, I don't get angry. I just--move on. I think you're pretty young, and as I recall from my own youth and from working with kids now, there's a definite phase where the world is black and white, and there seems to be a really, really strong need to draw the cleanest possible lines between "us" and "them". If you're still in that stage (I'm going to say... teens to early twenties, maybe?) then you may not feel this way forever. (I know, it's annoying to be told you're going through a phase, but it's also annoying to pretend phases don't exist). So, chill out. You're not horrible. But you're also not perfect. Just like everybody else.
First I like your bluntness. And I said I was wrong. That the feeling is wrong, but it is a feeling. A feeling that I suppose my have cost me some friends, but they are likely better off without me. I am 25. Yes, I am young, and stupid and these feelings will likely pass. In one way or another. You know funny enough, I am not even sure disagree is the right word. I understand it, I don't think it is wrong in objective sense. People want a product, supply the product. Simple, makes sense. No argument. The thought/feeling is that such a ideal spits in the face at what I see as art, which is a person gripe and a bad one at that, hence me calling myself horrible for even feeling it. But a feeling is not something I can make go away because I understand logically it is poor.
Maybe you can examine the "spit in the face" aspect of this. I mean... how is someone else writing commercial fiction interfering with your ability to produce art? How is it cheapening the artistic value of your work? How is it spitting anywhere near anyone's damn face? The person who helped write Twilight doesn't know you exist. S/he certainly doesn't have an opinion about your writing, and certainly hasn't done anything to make it more difficult for you to create. So... why be angry?
Maybe yours. My personal challenge is to be traditionally published and have people enjoy my work. I've decided (rightly or wrongly - we'll see!) that my best shot at that is to write the kind of book readers of my genre enjoy, rather than testing boundaries. Of course, it has my own style and voice because I'm the one writing it, but it's based on two popular tropes (both with slight twists, but still tropes). I'm LOVING writing it, I'm blasting through it, and I'm sure it has a higher chance of selling than my baby. I just don't get who loses in my scenario? I enjoy the writing, I make money from it, readers get a book they like, publishers make money. Who loses? Art? Frankly, I don't care. Personally, I'm not creating art. I'm creating a product that people consume, and I'm okay with that.
Exactly! The only person making this be difficult is you, Wynn. Just write the frickin' book and don't worry about the rest. Who honest to God cares? I know we all make it like it's some sort of contest, but it really isn't. We carve our own paths in the cornfield of writing. All that matters is that you write the story that both yourself and potential readers, would want to read. Who gives two vampire wizard zombies about whether or not someone's writing Pure Art™ or just doing commercial fiction.
I wouldn't ignore the fact that art and commercial success aren't mutually exclusive. I think that for all our talk about 'authors' and 'artistic works', we can get a little full of ourselves and forget sometimes that we are, first and foremost, storytellers, and for storytellers, the audience is really all that matters. Most of the folks who saw Shakespeare's plays during his lifetime weren't tweedy college professors trying to one up each other in their literary examinations of the work. They were ordinary rubes who were there to see a good story, preferably with sexual innuendo and lots of murders. 'Mindless entertainment', in other words.
If you found it boring, why was it a good movie? If you liked the other one, why is it a bad movie? You seem to be saying that "theme" is the primary, or even the only, indicator of quality. I don't think that it is, and even if it were, what good is a theme that nobody hears because it's boring? (Also, I don't really see that the Lord of the Ring movies HAVE a theme, but that's another issue--though it is certainly a subjective, not an objective, issue.)
I see what you mean. I think most authors, at least the more prolific ones, write both the books they want to write, and the books they know will sell well, so that they can make a living and also enjoy themselves at the same time. I think it's worth mentioning that while writing is an art, art itself is also subject to the same commercial pressures. Many of the most famous works of art during the Italian Renaissance were commissioned by patrons who had specific requirements for the art work. Artists themselves have always been concerned about their audience, and were also influenced by the political climate of the time. Most major works of the same period were religious in nature. Most likely not because artists were particularly pious, but because the church was such a major and wealthy patron. I don't know enough about modern day art to say whether it's the same, but I do a good bit of graphic and UX design myself, including for my employer. Whenever I make a mockup for them, it becomes their property, not mine, and I have no control of it. I've also heard horror stories about the contracts that the music industry draws up for example. I've never been published as a writer, but from what I understand, book writers have a reasonable degree of control over their creative work even when published, and especially compared to many other creative industries (music, film, television, graphic design, etc). I wouldn't be so worried about all this myself. To make a novel really successful, you may have to make compromises, but that doesn't mean that everything you write has to include those compromises. For many successful authors I know, they have both their more popular, easily accessible works, and then their more complicated, but interesting works that the authors themselves probably enjoyed writing a lot more. Examples include Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead, Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, and Tolkein's Silmarillion. The hardcore fans love all of these books, but they just don't sell as well.
Yeah, I can't argue with that. If your goal is to become a traditionally published writer and have people enjoy your work, by all means go for it. You enjoy a particular genre yourself and want to write within it, then do what that genre demands. Nothing whatever wrong with that at all. It's a great goal, and may well bring you financial success. I guess my goal is different. I don't feel like I'm creating art, but I do have a particular story I want to tell. I want to make it as interesting and palatable as possible, because I do want people to read it, but telling THAT story (and others as well, I hope) is why I write. If somebody told me I couldn't tell THAT story, I'd stop writing and start making pizzas again. Pizzas are a foolproof way to please most people, and they sell very well.
You can have both. I've written *my* story, my baby, and now I'm writing to sell. Hopefully, by selling one, I'll get an audience for my baby, too.
I like this. It isn't an insult to art if you say you are not creating art. This is why I am more inclined to defend Twilight(assuming the information I know about it is accurate.) Because if I am right, then it did exactly what it meant to. And that is okay. I don't think that is art though, but if no one is calling it art then I have no problem with it. Then again, I was never saying someone shouldn't be able to do writing there way. It is an emotional response. I didn't say it was right. I think I was taking points to say I was wrong. But right or wrong it is my gut reaction feeling.
Because I was saying that quality and enjoyment are separate categories that are not connected. I also don't like fish, but I am not saying fish is bad as a result. Many people liked Lord of the Rings and as such I am willing to assume, just like fish, it wasn't that it was bad, but that I just personally didn't enjoy it. On the same front, I enjoy ice cream, but I can hardly call ice cream good, but I like it. All this makes sense to me when I accept the simple premise that quality and taste are not connected. If they aren't connected then things like art schools make sense. A film school makes more sense to me under this premise. Because they are learning objective ways to enhance a movie. If there is no objective than a film school makes no sense. Nothing they do has any point.
Yeah, but you can CHANGE your gut feelings. If this one is making you unhappy or making you think you're horrible or whatever, then CHANGE IT. Think it through, figure it out, realize it's stupid, and move on. You can do it!
