McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
despite the flack I'm going to get....
jeno:
--- Quote from: Biffy Pyro on August 01, 2010, 07:11:07 PM ---1) JK Rowling is NOT a good writer, she is popular there is a difference
--- End quote ---
JK Rowling is a successful writer. Her world building was superb and her stories entertained people from all over the age spectrum. The sales for Harry Potter all over the world were astronomical, especially for a kids' series. Until I'm able to say the same, I think I'm gonna hold back from throwing stones. :/
And for that matter - Stephanie Meyer is a successful writer. She had a target demographic and she exploited it perfectly, whether or not that was what she meant to do. For all the crap we like to lob her way she is still a published, successful, widely known author.
I'm interested in learning from the successes of these women. Do they have their flaws? Of course. Are they still crazy successful authors? Hell yeah. And frankly, it's studying their accomplishments that can help us, not sulking over the flaws that their agents and editors and publishers and readers didn't care much about.
...and if they did care, it wasn't enough to hurt their sales. :D
Biffy Pyro:
--- Quote from: jeno on August 01, 2010, 07:52:06 PM ---JK Rowling is a successful writer. Her world building was superb and her stories entertained people from all over the age spectrum. The sales for Harry Potter all over the world were astronomical, especially for a kids' series. Until I'm able to say the same, I think I'm gonna hold back from throwing stones. :/
And for that matter - Stephanie Meyer is a successful writer. She had a target demographic and she exploited it perfectly, whether or not that was what she meant to do. For all the crap we like to lob her way she is still a published, successful, widely known author.
I'm interested in learning from the successes of these women. Do they have their flaws? Of course. Are they still crazy successful authors? Hell yeah. And frankly, it's studying their accomplishments that can help us, not sulking over the flaws that their agents and editors and publishers and readers didn't care much about.
...and if they did care, it wasn't enough to hurt their sales.
--- End quote ---
i wasn't throwing stones, just stating an opinion, Rowling did a very good job of capturing the imagination of a generation and she marketed very well, and did a lot of things that are vital to becoming successful but successful does not equal good in terms of writing quality. I love the books, have read them several times and still enjoy them now but it is not studying their accomplishments that aspiring writers should be doing its studying how she writes, and her use of bad story devices, poor characterisation and lack of limitations on the powers of the characters (other than good manners) takes away from the story. Her use of deus ex machina is the worst part, she sets up situations that cannot be solved until something completely unexpected and unpredictable happens, for example: in the last book when harry has to kill voldemort she drops in the deathly hallows, without them harry would never have been able to kill voldemort, or when harry gets the philosophers stone out of the mirror, that was a deus ex machina, or when he pulls the sword of gryffindor out of the sorting hat, or when his parents come out of voldemorts wand and allow him to escape, the list goes on. the main reason she is successful is that she found a story that spoke to the adolescent emotions of everyone "do I belong?"
she got her market dead on and deserves to be congratulated for that, but you cannot deny her use of poor story devices. aspiring writers should look at both the flaws and and the good points, that is the only way to learn
daranthered:
--- Quote ---I'm interested in learning from the successes of these women. Do they have their flaws? Of course. Are they still crazy successful authors? Hell yeah. And frankly, it's studying their accomplishments that can help us, not sulking over the flaws that their agents and editors and publishers and readers didn't care much about.
--- End quote ---
If you hope to match their success, you must realize that what initially got them published was luck. What made them successful was luck, and good marketing. The same goes for many writers mentioned in this thread.
I love Mr. Butcher's story about crashing an invitation only writers, publishers, and agents mixer. http://www.jim-butcher.com/jim/
My point being, learn to write as well as you can. Don't make intentional mistakes for styles sake. Ultimately it's networking and luck that get you published. And don't write anything like Meyer's book. There's a glut of that type of thing in the markets right now.
jeno:
--- Quote from: daranthered on August 01, 2010, 10:18:30 PM ---If you hope to match their success, you must realize that what initially got them published was luck. What made them successful was luck, and good marketing. The same goes for many writers mentioned in this thread...
My point being, learn to write as well as you can. Don't make intentional mistakes for styles sake. Ultimately it's networking and luck that get you published. And don't write anything like Meyer's book. There's a glut of that type of thing in the markets right now.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I agree completely.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: jeno on August 01, 2010, 07:52:06 PM ---JK Rowling is a successful writer. Her world building was superb and her stories entertained people from all over the age spectrum.
--- End quote ---
i would be inclined to say that JKR's worldbuilding is largely derived; an awful lot of that world is taken for a long tradition of classic boarding school stories. The single stroke of genius there is that using magic to set aside what makes your kids who go to boarding school Special short-circuits the way the classic boarding-school story is usually inherently doing nasty classist/racist/sexist things. I find the magical side of her world-building pretty shoddy, tbh. (Nobody dares mention the dark lord's name, but everyone knows what it is ? And how exactly does a secret society of villains identifying themselves with tattoos not get picked up by any half-way competent policing in short order.
--- Quote ---I'm interested in learning from the successes of these women. Do they have their flaws? Of course. Are they still crazy successful authors? Hell yeah. And frankly, it's studying their accomplishments that can help us, not sulking over the flaws that their agents and editors and publishers and readers didn't care much about.
--- End quote ---
It would be nice if it worked that way. I am not at all convinced to what extent it does; it would be interesting to have some sort of statistically detailed survey of how much of authors who a) get published b) make a career out of writing and c) are bestsellers is raw luck and how much is planning.
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