Note: I am NOT talking about writers whose style of writing seems pretentious. Rather, the writers have pretentious personalities. Was having this discussion with someone not too long ago. They think writers aren't pretentious at all. I think that many, if not most, including her, are. Now, I understand how many will take this question. No, I'm not referring to you specifically. I don't know you. You could be a wonderful, unpretentious person, like many writers are. I'm simply wondering if you think there seems to be a disproportional amount of pretentious people in the writing profession, as opposed to other professions? I actually think it's artistic fields in general that have far more pretentiousness, but specifically talking about writers in this thread. You know the people I mean. Of course I'm exaggerating. "How cute. You used this verb, when CLEARLY, this one would have been better. So ignorant." "You've never heard of 'author x'/'book y'? Wow, so uncultured." "Modern authors don't appreciate the ART behind writing." "You've never been published, so your opinion doesn't matter." "You're a bad writer because you use comma splices/slang/whatever."
That's also been my experience. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for 'internet writers' to mistake their fiction preferences for objective quality standards. Wanting to write the best story you possibly can, and helping others do likewise, is admirable. But stuff like prose, author, and genre snobbery, is anything but admirable imo.
I could go on and on about genre snobbery. Could I write a compelling, high fantasy trilogy that reminded you of LOTR? I dunno, maybe. But just because my chosen genre (humor) isn't "literary" enough, many would cast it aside as crap. Especially because of the plain language (the opposite of purple prose). I used to be an edgy 18-year-old that would go into great detail about every little thing, and have a thesaurus handy every time I sat down to write. But nowadays? I rarely use any "big" words. Layman writing is both clearer, and, in my opinion, more interesting. No one likes reading Shakespeare. But people love reading J.K. Rowling (even if she as a person is pretentious, her writing isn't).
I'm struggling to think of any authors I've met whom I'd classify as pretentious. (By pretentious, I assume, from the way the discussion is going, that the OP meant snobbish and dismissive of ordinary people and their efforts.) I've met quite a few authors here in Scotland, at the Ullapool Book Festival, including biggies like Val McDermid, Ian Rankin, Iain Banks—all of whom are (or were) big enough to make a lucrative living with their writing. They are/were all lovely, friendly people, who aren't fools, but recognise that writing and learning the craft is something most people do in stages. I suppose there will always be 'one,' but in general, no, I've never met a pretentious author. At least not a successful one. I can't think of any who have been snobbish or dismissive. In fact, I've been impressed that they aren't. I haven't really met any of these others either, but I'd say 'pretentious' can also be applied to authors who love to write difficult rubbish and pass it off as high art. The gullible fall for it. If you can't understand what the book is about, or what in heck is going on, and they are snowing you with 'edgy' technique—then they've got to be good, right? Worthy of prizes. Feeling inadequate or 'challenged' is what a reader should always feel when reading a book, right? If you don't feel confused and small, but simply annoyed, you're a philistine. There are some big names out there (I won't list them, because I don't want to start WW3) whom I would definitely put into that category!
Interesting. I wonder if it's mostly an American thing. We do seem to have a lot of douchebags here (not saying I'm excluded).
Here's a good example from a similar question someone asked on Quora: Comfort's catholicity of perception and image, strangely Whitmanesque in range, almost the exact opposite in aesthetic compulsion, continues to evoke that trembling atmospheric accumulative hinting at a cruel, an inexorably serene timelessness . . .Wrey Gardiner scores by aiming at simple bull's-eyes with precision. Only they are not so simple, and through this contented sadness runs more than the surface bittersweet of resignation." Reading that pretentious crap is tiresome. Talk like a normal human being. You know big words, congratulations.
If you're limiting the conversation to professional writers who live exclusively off their fiction, then I can't think of many either. I assumed @frigocc was including writers with little or no readership.
You may possibly be right. Here in Scotland, people are NOT encouraged to get above themselves. It's definitely a characteristic that will make you unpopular. They even have a saying about somebody who's flying a bit too high ..."Ah kent his faither." Meaning ...who does he think he is? I knew his dad.
Well, erm, not always. I loved reading Shakespeare when I was in college. It surprised me, because I though I'd hate it. I didn't. I read the first two Harry Potter books, and then stopped. (She was okay, but didn't float my boat.) Anybody who makes blanket assumptions about what kind of person reads particular genres is probably making a mistake. I don't know if you'd call that attitude pretentious, but it could be. However, that doesn't mean disliking a genre makes you pretentious either. Everybody has preferences. My own goal, as a writer, is to disappear. Meaning I don't want to distract from the story with style or gimmicks. I want people to forget about me altogether. I think that makes me less than 'literary,' but I don't care. I'm not so much a lover of Writing, as a lover of Storytelling. That makes me a philistine in some quarters, but you know what? Stories have been around since the dawn of time.
I didn't mean to suggest that liking Shakespeare meant someone was pretentious. I guess I was just showing frustration at people thinking that, unless you write in a superfluous manner (much like my use of that term), your writing sucks, when most people seem to enjoy more books that are not filled with artsy, fartsy literary prose, than those that are. Whenever I think of the average writer I've met, I think of the English professors that had to show everyone how much smarter they were than others. The ones that read some obscure text, and think they're "enlightened." Or that they're special because they understand some meaning of a text (that probably isn't there). And, of course, they've read all of the classics. Even though many of the classics are just terrible novels in the eyes of most non-academic people.
I always thought pretentious meant trying to be something your not in an effort to impress people. If you are, in fact, a well educated person, or a member of royalty, then it's not pretentious to act that way. But, if you are in fact Cletus, roadkill farmer, then acting like you're King of Kensington, putting on airs with your pinkie up, would be pretentious. Most English Professors I had didn't need to show off how smart they were, they had framed bits of paper on their wall to tell them that. Most of them just really loved talking about the literature they spent most of their lives studying and going through theories and engaging in other basic human interactions. Not much different to when you go on Youtube and find people making hour long videos discussing the lore and theories surrounding Skyrim or The Legend of Zelda. Something most people wouldn't consider pretentious.
I don't know many professional writers, but I wouldn't say any of those I do know are pretentious. They take their work seriously, though, and I'm not sure I'd class all of your examples as "pretentious" rather than "focused on educating themselves." Like, I wouldn't say someone's a bad writer because they use comma splices, but I rarely see them in work I consider well-written and well-published, so...? And if you're writing in a certain field, there are authors you should have heard of or read, if you've done your homework. So, no, not "uncultured", but also maybe not taking the writing as seriously as others do? Like, there are some authors, I assume, who reliably sell well in the field of humour writing. If someone was serious about getting published in humour writing, yeah, I'd expect them to have read those authors. It's homework.
Don't know, don't care whether a writer is pretentious in person. Don't care what their favorite food or drink is either. All I care about is what they write.
I had an english professor who was pretentious and patronizing. it was for a literary criticism class and he's a writer and has a PhD. I didnt call him "Dr." once because it was my first time taking his class and i got his name wrong so i addressed him as "professor" and he ignored me. he kept ignoring me until i went back to my seat (the whole class was silent and watching) then he stands up and looks me dead in the face and says "i did not spend thousands of dollars on my PhD just to be called "professor." you will address me as "Dr." are we clear?" and then after that, my criticism topics, he'd shoot down because they werent what he would do. for example, 2 Shakespeare poems, i wanted to argue how they could have been written about a black woman or at least a north african woman based on the language he used, and the words he described her with. I also found a bunch of sources to support my argument... but he says "shakespeare WAS NOT talking about a black person. dont push your ideals on one of the most famous poets in history" my classmates were shocked. they even supported me saying that i was not arguing that she WAS black, but that she COULD BE and that the whole point of his class is to explore literature and write our own arguments. the woman could have also been a sicilian musician (i forget her name, but an italian woman was also mentioned as the possible identity of the woman, and i did talk about that in my paper that i wrote regardless of what he thought). but, at my job, i've met 1 well established author, Beverly Lewis, and another up-in-coming author, Finn Murphy. they were really down to earth. They were not what i expected at all in a famous author. However, my coworkers who have been working here a lot longer than me have had multiple experiences meeting authors. a few of the authors they've met that have come in, they didnt care to much for, personality wise.
Some people are pretentious - or at least rude. And some people don't take criticism well, and label any criticism they don't like as the product of a pretentious person to deny the problem. I don't think it is pretentious to point out that the inability to use commas correctly shows a general deficit in writing ability, for instance. But I'm sure the writer who can't use a comma to save their life feels differently.
You don't have to use big words and write literary fiction, but it doesn't mean those who do are pretentious. In fact, most literary fiction does not use big words and flowery language. That's not what literary fiction is. It's just a different kind of story. It's framed differently. It's told differently. It does not mean it's better. But it is what I like to read and write. I don't think I'm pretentious. The stories I write and the way I write doesn't mean I think I'm better than anyone. As far as comedy/humor writing that I would consider also literary is someone like Rody Doyle. He's a storytelling master, in my opinion. I don't know him at all, but I do know his work and would not call it pretentious at all even though he's been published many times and had work in prominent publications. Even with the classics, I don't think those works were written with the idea of being pretentious. If anything, it's more pretentious for someone to think they're too good to read such works or they all must be inaccessible. I've read a lot of the classics and don't find that to be the case. (It's not all Shakespeare.) I will admit I was once more intimidated to read such books. I worried they would go over my head and I wouldn't get them. But that's not what happened. I think every story we read contributes to our writing journeys. I want to read as much as I can because that's an important part of being a writer. There are markets for both genre and literary works with some crossover as well. But no one has to bash literary fiction to make a case for good genre works.
Well, in his defense, Shakespeare had never explicitly written about a black person and most certainly didn't make them a protagonist in a three hour long play.
If I might, Shakespeare is a really bad example to use for this, as his work was actually considered lowbrow during his own time, and instead has had significance attached to it by later people. It was actually his friends who collected his plays and poems after he was dead, because he himself didn't bother preserving them. There are actual contemporaries of his that do fit this category. Ben Johnson was the royal playwright and the first writer in history to collect his texts as a set of "works". And before this point, the only time "works" had been used to refer to texts or collections of texts, was biblically. That was the ego on this man. Comparing his works to the bible.
I take it you're only referring to published writers who you read, and not writers who might critique your work online or in person?
I still keep a thesaurus handy for those times I want to use a word that I know exists and would work here so much better than this bullshit and is on the tip of my brain, but I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT IS!!
And that's fine. I'm referring to the people that use big words for the sake of using big words. He can't say that the person faked a smile, he has to say he was an "eccedentesiast."
