From the male perspective, femme fatales are pretty common in detective fiction, right? Hard-boiled gumshoe resists or surrenders to her charms. But if you're looking for a female perspective? I think you'd have to define what it is that makes up a femme fatale. Someone willing/able to use her physical appeal to manipulate men? Scarlet O'Hara seems like a good example. Maybe the one character in the Sex in the City books? (haven't read them, and have only watched some of the TV show, so I don't know if this works). Maybe the female lead in Gone Girl, if you're looking more at the amorality of the character.
I've read the plot summary for Gone Girl on Wikipedia, and it looks to be a very interesting book that I could both enjoy reading and learn from. I'm writing a lot of short fiction at the moment which limits my opportunity to have significant structure in the plot, but I would eventually like to write more types of fiction. So, I've ordered a second hand copy of Gone Girl for 1 penny plus £2.80 postage at a well known internet bookseller, and will look at it more closely. Thanks for the recommendation.
That's not bad writing. It could be easily edited. In fact, it's better writing than a lot of the stuff in the workshop. And I like it better than some of the things you've written in earnest.
Interesting. I still personally think it's bad writing. What styles of fiction do you usually read? What do you think of the many criticisms of the example that have been posted both by myself and others?
@Tella Thank you for clarifying your ideal of bad writing. Though I do believe it can go beyond the technical errors you look at. After all sometimes there are instances of bad writing that are the cause of poor editing. Like misspelled or added words that make a sentence/phrase not make sense, or look unintelligible. Over all it is subjective to what you and others feel is bad writing. There is a common meme stating that commas save lives. On it's face it seems funny, but a comma can make or break a sentence or dialogue by not being properly inserted. Think about music when you read something. Does it flow, and follow a steady rhythm? It may seem weird to look at a story like that of a song/soundtrack/album, but it can make a fair amount of sense if you understand the fundamentals of how it all works. If it is choppy then you most likely won't want to listen/read it. Likewise if it is a singular rhythm with no deviation, and therefore coming off as flat and uninteresting. Recommend spending some time composing some music of your own (lyrics optional), and you may start to understand that you can in fact tell a story with instruments. Also gets your imagination flowing a bit more freely when you don't over think it. Another option is taking a Creative Writing Course, where you will be objectively critiqued on multiple points of your particular style. Again to stress the overall point that it is subjective, and there are books with no inherent flaws in the writing beyond subject/content. Take the Zombie craze for instance (though the topic is beaten to death as well). Perhaps any particular genres you find appealing. Read multiple books from the "leading authors" within that genres. Sure you will enjoy one over another. Basically boils down to the style in which it was written, because they all have been professionally edited taking the little errors out of the equation. That just leaves you with the raw style of each writer. Inherently you will favor one over another despite they write similar genres and themes. Explore the many types and styles of multiple artistries for your self. Though you may not be a master of any, it will give you the insights to see that there is no 'conventional' way in approach or application. You are only limited by your imagination, and personal preferences. Venture forth and see things with an open mind. Flaws do not make things bad, because nothing in this world is perfect.
Thank you for participating That is one hell of a quote, by the way. Please, by all means, share with us why you think so. That would be great!
My last though in this thread, because I think the only possible answer to the original question is "the reader", is to give as example A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, who won the Pulitzer for his novel The Hours. I found A Home at the End of the World to be exquisitely written, masterful, and just gorgeous in its prose. It is, however, tragically depressing, and when you look through reviews, it seems many readers had a hard time getting through that facet of the story. The tragedy of the story isn't some horrendous event or trauma, but the lack of any of that, of lives that only ever almost find happiness and love. So, for many readers, the story would seem to have failed. I personally thought it was a frankly honest portrayal and I enjoyed it because of that, so for me the story was successful. ETA: I am fairly certain that had I been a young person when I read that book, I doubt I would have liked it at all for the same reason I abhorred Steinbeck as a youth. I would have thought it was dreary and been blind to the writer's execution of prose. For a young person, there is no message of hope and specialness in this story, nothing to empower or reinforce any kind of assurance that the Choices and Decision I am making now are the Right Ones that will lead to Awesomeness and Happiness. Cunningham's story has the opposite message. Sometimes people are lost and stay lost, and more tragic than that, they fail to find love in the arms of those who are lost along with them because they keep looking for someone who is "found", and there's a subtler message that such "found" people may in fact not exist at all, that we're all lost and that's just the nature of life. For a 20-something, deeply invested in creating the foundations of self-ness, this isn't an appealing message. But I read that book in my 40's, and at this point in life I know a little something about being lost, so the sadness was touching and evocative, rather than frustrating.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That is to say, we each find beauty in different things. It's us, not the object that our eyes fall on, or the sound that out ears hear, that define art. Some may say the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece, all I see is a badly-done portrait - I've seen street artists do a better job. Writing is the same. To me, a novel needs to tell an immersive story just as music needs to bring out an emotion or feeling. In this day and age, we have TV and movies and video games to tell us stories, why do we still read books? I don't watch a movie to be immersed in the story. I might watch it with friends or family, turn it into a social occasion. TV is habitual, a way of passing the time and potentially getting invested in characters more than story. Writing is the story and the world, the characters are important, but not as important as the tale being told. That, to me at least, is what make a good book. A good book is a book that a person (if not every person) can get lost in.
How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese? Charles de Gaulle, French President, 1958-1969
There are times when I am writing, when I am deep in thought as well, and the sentence seems to run on... from the reader's perspective. To me, I have given this much thought, it is just a complete idea composed in reality. If I ended it sooner it would be incomplete. The response I usually get from my readers is that the thoughts are not cohesive, or get to confusing. I suppose it is how they read it. The reader isn't emotionally on board the train at the moment it hits peak speeds, so to speak. As for what is good writing? I doubt my own work every day. I don't think I am very good, or that my work is very good. However, if one person says it is good then to me I can feel it is at least that good. I gauge it by the audience, then, I suppose.
. There are technical criticisms and then stylistic criticisms. The only complaints I saw regarding your excerpt were entirely subjective. One poster said he didn't like the sexuality discussion and you said you didn't some of the choice of words because it didn't fit your vision of the story, but I'm just the reader so I don't have that vision. Technically it's pretty sound. The first sentence is very strong. We're talking about a beautiful woman- there's nothing more interesting than that. How you convey this to us is engaging, because she's not just beautiful, she grew up beautiful. Now we want to see the repercussions. There's a strong flow throughout. It's exposition, but swift exposition. So what if we don't know why she hates men? Presumably we will find out- that's one of the reasons I am engaged. I understood the whole peice and I was engaged. In contrast, your rewrite of that general who has to sleep with his men story, which I didn't bother to respond to, felt rather meh. It read a little bit like a script and felt rather choppy. Look, none of us are big shot authors. It'sin all of our own best interests to be focusing on writing technically sound peices. Once you become a Nabokov or a Mark Twain, then you can discuss styles and all that subjective shit. But I'll tell you one thing, if you're putting your peice in the workshop and every critic is tearing up your peice and offering sound technical advice, for all practical purposes, you better not say "well that's just their opinion!"
Hmmm.... I'm surprised that you didn't find the Alicia excerpt boring. I do think the first line is OK, and I wonder if the first line has kept you engaged longer than you would be had the first line been meh. What do you think? It would fit into my writing world view if that was the case. I really think that a good first sentence/first paragraph is really important. Unless you're very famous, where you can get away with it because your reputation will keep people reading. When you say "Technically it's pretty sound," what do you mean? BTW: If you're waiting to find out why she hates men, then that shows it is bad writing. Because being teased when she was young, and not growing out of the 'boys are horrid' mindset is all there would be. Compare that to the fascinating development of Estella in Great Expectations; an orphan adopted by a spurned bride and raised specifically to wreck revenge on men. All viewed through Pip as he grows up rather than a big tell as in the Alicia example. I think however the main problem with my excerpt (which I deliberately wrote into it) is paragraphs of description with no movement. Compare that to Jack London's White Fang where our point of view is being whisked through an arctic wilderness on a dog sled!
I don't see the 'bad writing' example as bad. I'm confused. What's sophisticated about 'derriere'? It usually strikes me as a sort of arch, over-cute word. Is this perhaps a difference between American and British phrasing? (The use of "knickers" makes me assume that your vocabulary is British, though...hmm. I'm not sure who uses the word?) But I don't take that as a full psychological analysis, just a description of behaviors. I assume that she hates men for some other reason that is yet to come. You seem to see the lack of an immediate detailed explanation of her feelings as a flaw; I see that sort of restraint as a positive thing. The makeup paragraph could use a little work, but the details are justified with motivations, so I'm not deeply bored. There's not a lot of novelty and excitement in the phrasing--'flawless', 'deft', 'a touch', could be phrased in a more interesting way, but it's not dreadful. The green eyeshadow to match her eyes doesn't work for me, partly because it's again a little obvious, partly because women seem to use two or three colors in eyeshadow. (Yes, I'm a woman, but I never cared about makeup.) "Drew back" and the hand mirror don't make a lot of sense to me--if the mirror's in her hand, it's going to move with her; if she's moving it further away the movement would be in the mirror, not her body. In the next paragraph, the name-dropping of the brands does irritate me a bit, but that may be because I think they're oldish brands? Versace and Jimmy Choos make me think of Buffy worrying that she might have "last week's hair", WonderBra makes me wonder if the piece is set in the past, because I'm not sure if that brand is still around? Name-dropping without feeling stale might require really old brands; "vintage Chanel", perhaps. But I think that's all nitpicking on my part. There's nothing wrong enough, IMO, to make this "bad writing". No. Again, I admire the authorial restraint in not rushing to explain everything to me. Edited to clarify: This appears to be close third person. In close third person, I want to know what the viewpoint character is thinking. I doubt that she's doing a deep psychological analysis of her feelings about men, or rehearsing to herself why she is targeting this man. She is thinking about what the piece depicts her as thinking about. And that's why it works. It could start at the party, but that inner-monologue background would again reflect an unnecessary need to explain, explain, explain. Re: "E.g. the crude mention of 'bottom'." This is interesting. Who regards that word as crude? In the Midewestern US when I was a child, it was the proper word, the word that parents corrected their children with when they used other words. "Derriere" would certainly have been seen as over-stylized and over-cute.
Thank you! (Also, I agree with everything else you said here) @DefinitelyMaybe If you put up an unpublished excerpt and call it bad, most people are not going to disagree with you, for fear of looking like they can't recognize bad writing. But the truth is, no one including yourself was able to explain why your writing was bad, other than a few disagreements in artistic vision, that chiefly came from you, the author of the piece! In fact, I don't see that many posters criticizing the piece at all. One of the other main critics first congratulated you on having clear prose, then said, he felt one paragraph was too sexual (or something like that). Your excerpt was totally editable. Bad writing starts with a sunset and ends with the reader having no clue where he is, who's talking, or whether the narrator is actually his mother thinking about him, while she wrote the story. Bad writing is clunky, unnecessarily repetitive, and pointless. It uses the word "wood" to describe tables, directs us toward every smile, and drowns us in trivial dialogue. Bad writing is stilted characters that exist in vacuums, plotting along an A,B,C plot with no back and forth tension, with plot events and arcs that are discernible from most other stories. Bad writing has no soul.
I don't think that's accurate. I've said in quite some details why I believe that writing was bad, which I don't think it's fair to just dismiss. It is reasonable to disagree, but I think you go beyond that in the highlighted sentence. To say that I have clear prose is not enough to make it good, or even acceptable writing. The example was deliberately meant to not be awful, but having read and considered your and @ChickenFreak 's opinions, I still think it's bad writing. Some of that will be down to taste, as I didn't load the example with obvious errors. Apart from the accidental naming confusion which has continued in this thread. Alicia/Anita. There are different degrees of bad writing. In this paragraph, I think you set the bar for what qualifies as 'bad writing' rather low, or is that high. I don't think what I wrote is too clunky though there are some deliberate bits that are. I do think it's unnecessarily repetitive, and much of it is pointless. I don't think there is building tension in most of the excerpt, until we get to the corny Carl Everhoven III (clunky in itself). In the example, I deliberately broke some of the rules found in 'how to' books. This isn't to say that the rules should never be broken - I break them all the time when I think it serves the story. But, my example, in my opinion, shows why we should often follow the rules. The reason I chose to do that was so that I had some external validation of what was wrong. E.g. lack of motion in the description. I do think this is a worthwhile discussion, even if we disagree. I've had yet another rejection, of what I get a lot. In some cases I can see what's lacking in my writing, in comparison to what is published in the same webzine (or whatever). In some cases, such as the latest rejection, I can't see it. To me, it looks as if my story is as well written as what is being published, and better written than some of it. The story is of a type which they have published before. So, why was mine rejected? Personally I think it's because even my best writing is in some sense bad writing, and when I manage to be accepted, it's because something about the story chimes with the editor. I'm not going the arrogant author route of dismissing the editors' choices. There are things I don't understand and which I need to improve. In some cases it might just be that vision is different, and I can see that in what is published. In other cases, I can't. On the rare occasions that I do have something accepted by a critical market, I've had editors gushing about how good the piece was and how well it was written. I look at those accepted and those rejected and can't see a difference. We can all laugh at the misguided fools who are quoted on websites discussing the cover letters and associated texts that are submitted to slush-piles. However, do we suffer from the same problems as those authors, just not to such an extent. I don't want to offend people, but deep discussion can sometimes only be achieved at the risk of offence. Hence I ask: If some posters here don't see that example as bad, then there are several hypotheses that I can think of. 1] The writing is actually good, and those that think it bad are misguided 2] The writing is only good or bad when interpreted by an individual's taste 3] The writing is actually bad, and those that think it good or at least not bad are misguided If either 1] or 2] are true, then this says a lot about our personal quality filters. And perhaps why some of us find it difficult to get published. (I do). Writing is such that anyone can construct a case for or against a particular piece of prose. Both sides of the discussion have been able to create a case for or against that piece of prose. Even those who are for list problems with it, e.g. the lack of novelty of the description of the scene where makeup is applied, the brands being out of date. (Both things I would research more if I was writing for real - but both significant flaws in the writing IMHO.) I think if that excerpt was in a slush-pile, that it would be discarded before the reader reached the end of it. Even if it's fixable, editable, I don't think that stops it from being bad writing. It's not awful writing, but it wasn't meant to be. A lot of us are clearly putting a lot of effort into our writing. We wouldn't produce bad writing if we could avoid it. Hence, I think that part of the problem isn't just in our ability to write, but in our filters of what is good writing. I.e. that we aren't aiming high enough. Most likely, in my opinion, as we aren't being critical enough about writing.
I honestly think that once writing reaches a serviceable level (it's clear, grammatically correct (or deliberately incorrect), etc.) there is no "good" or "bad" writing at the level we're currently discussing. There's just writing that serves the story and writing that doesn't serve the story. And that means it's nearly impossible to judge a piece of serviceable writing in five or six paragraphs. If the entire story continued on in the vein that the sample indicated, I don't think the story would be well-served. But if only a part of the story is like that? I don't think it's a problem. Is the MC an interesting character who does interesting things in interesting ways? Okay, then. I don't care if we spend a few paragraphs outlining her preparations for an evening. It could be characterization, it could be building a mood, each of the things being mentioned could come back and be mentioned later in the story in significant ways. If the MC isn't an interesting person or doesn't do interesting things or doesn't do them in interesting ways, over the course of the whole story? Then it doesn't matter how tight the individual paragraphs are, it doesn't matter if the author followed all the rules from twenty different how-to-write books. The story still won't be good, because it won't be meeting the author's goal of keeping the reader interested. ETA: so in terms of the 3 options for explaining why people disagree about whether your excerpt is bad, I'd add 2.5) The writing is only good or bad when looked at in the larger context of the story being told.
If we are going to be submitting our writing for publication, then we mostly live or die based on the first page. If the first page is bad, our writing will most likely be rejected. Renowned authors can do things that unknown authors can't. As if it's Stephen King, many people - readers and professionals - are going to read through a slow start to the rest. If we're unknown authors, then bad writing at the beginning is going to be a death knell. If the rest of the story is discarded, then even if artistically the introduction could work, it's not fit for purpose for unknowns such as myself. That's one reason why I like to create examples starting from line one. As the bar for quality is much higher for that.
I don't think you introduced the excerpt as an opening, but even so - I don't think this is as big of a problem as you think it is. I also think you may be over-emphasizing the importance of the first page. If your first page doesn't serve your story, that's a problem. If your first page does serve your story, I don't think it is. I mean, you're saying that you're having trouble getting published, but you're also saying that you understand what publishers are looking for. I have no trouble getting published, but you're saying I don't understand what publishers are looking for. This is a bit of a disconnect, isn't it? Different genres have different expectations, different houses are looking for different things, etc. There are a lot of variables. Far too many to decide that one brief chunk of serviceable writing is "bad", right across the board.
It's not just me emphasising the importance of the first page. Many professional writing instructors and commentators in/on the industry give it similar importance. Can you explain how the example I gave could be better than if I added motion? E.g. instead of so many paragraphs in front of the mirror on the wall (I'm not sure why @ChickenFreak thought it was a hand mirror - not that I'm blaming her, I need to think about the text more) we could have Alicia going to the party step by step. One paragraph in front of the mirror, one in a taxi - perhaps she sees a girl that looks like she did when she was eight and reminisces. The taxi driver takes slightly too long a look in the mirror and Alicia thinks dismissive thoughts showing her opinions concerning men. Walking up to the door of the party - she can see the doorman fancies her but he's way under her radar. She enters and sees among the rich and privileged party guests a better named Carl Everhoven III, and we see his reaction to her through her eyes. That to me could be far better, if written well. It's hard for me to prove it, but I feel that the same story could be told, with a much more involving introduction. There's no need for the static nature of those paragraphs. Just because that introduction can sort of do the job doesn't mean that it's not bad writing. And if the section can be rewritten so that it's considerably improved - which I believe that it can - then I think it's bad. If you are regularly getting published, then yes you know something that I don't. Most likely a great deal. What is it? Clearly there's something there, but it could be all sorts of things that make a difference. Obviously it's difficult because you can't see into my head. But, through discussion, hopefully we can look into what it might be. You work at least partially if not primarily in the romance genre. I don't think I've every read a modern romance book. Hence, there might be a whole stylistic thing going on that I'm not aware of. I've looked up your listings on Amazon, and you have written a very large number of books. I'm impressed. Would you say that there is one of your 99p books that is a good example of your writing style? I promise that I won't attack your writing or use it in this or another discussion. If you don't think the excerpt I wrote is that bad, I'd like to compare it to your professional writing and think about things for my own benefit. One thing I don't know is how much difficulty in getting published is due to what I see as local errors which can easily be fixed with editing. Or major errors of voice, characterisation, plot development which would have to be fixed with a deeper rewrite. I know that my grammar isn't wonderful, and have fixed a few things recently. But other things
Bro, it was OK writing. Certaintly not great. If you want to publish it, you'll still have to edit it a lot. Of course I've set the bar low. That's what the majority of aspiring writers need. You also need to understand I read the through your passage quickly. It was engaging enough and clear enough to go from start to finish. You're clearly analyzing it much more than I am, which is fine, because you wrote it. If a reader can get to the end, the work passes a certain threshhold of quality
I honestly don't think I get published because my writing is at a high level... I think I get published because my writing is at an acceptable level, and my characterization, storytelling, etc. are at a high level, or at least at a high-enough-for-the-markets-I-write-for level. And really, I don't think it even makes sense to talk about those things in terms of level so much as "filling a niche" or "matching a style" or something like that. I'm reasonably good at giving readers of some genres what they want in a story. Good or bad writing doesn't really enter into it. Honestly, I don't quite understand the emphasis you're placing on motion. I mean, White Fang is a boy's adventure book, as I recall, so, sure, for that audience (a century ago) maybe a sense of motion was valuable. But there are other genres where I don't think it really applies. We don't know what genre your excerpt was going to fit into - I was guessing Women's Fic or Romance or something similar. If so... readers generally aren't too concerned with a sense of motion, I don't think. They're looking at characterization, mostly, and a bit at mood. So if the mood you're trying to establish is a sort of tension, a beautiful veneer covering a rotten core, I think it could actually be effective to keep the scene quite still, up to the point when the perfumed tigress slinks into action. Again, I don't think the writing can be judged separate from its purpose. In terms of my own writing - most of the $.99 stories are pretty old, and not necessarily indicative of how I'm writing these days. But if you use the Look Inside feature for Sacrati, you could see an example of me opening with an action sequence, because it's an action book. Mark of Cain is a more relationship-based story, and its opening is more relationship-based. The only one of my Big Five books currently available is Just a Summer Fling, under the Cate Cameron pen name - it's a kind of fluffy romance, so its opening is pretty fluffy. I got my agent based on another Cate Cameron book, Center Ice, and it's a YA romance, with a YA romance-y meet-cute opening. Actually, you might like that one - the character's running at the start of it! But none of these is going to show you an example of dazzling writing, by any means. The writing is just... functional. It's what I need to tell the story.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151204-the-100-greatest-british-novels 82 book critics from outside the UK rate their favourite British lit. Fresh. May or may not be of interest.
I also just noticed that you're writing short stories/flash fiction? Is that right? If that's the case, I think there's much more of a "every word has to be perfect" attitude, just because you have so few words! A novel has the luxury of rambling a little, while a short story really doesn't.
