Good Writing Series- Introduction
NATE-
Here is something I’ve been pondering: what makes writing, well, good? We all have those authors that we thoroughly enjoy, and then there are the ones that we don’t enjoy as much, but others do. This thought prompted me to really question what makes writing good. I’ve heard that good writing is like good art, you can’t explain it but you know it when you see it, but I refuse to believe that. I mean, yes, sometimes I wonder how some bestselling authors got to their position, but I can understand why good writing is good. But, it isn’t something that is set in stone either: understanding good writing is a discussion, not a fact. However, I do understand a couple of things necessary in order to have good writing.
There are a lot of characteristics that go into writing, making each individual writer different than the rest, and at the same time similar to others. One major category is style: style defines how the content is written. The main concern with style is whether or not you can sense it. A good writer has a good sense of style. Another major category is content: what does the writer have to say? Intriguing content is the backbone to good writing. The trick to good writing is combining these categories in such a way that completely captivates your readers. Good writing doesn’t mean the inclusion of overly embellished metaphors, incredibly tedious detailed images, or over abundantly dramatic material.
Good writing is simply doing it what it takes to give your readers something to occupy themselves with. It’s about creating a story for the readers to become a part of. While there can be good writing, there must also be good reading. What I mean by this is that readers need to be able to let themselves enter the story without any reservations. It takes two to tango and, likewise, two to convey and understand good writing.
This is the first blog in a series over good writing. It’s not something that is set stone, but we know it when we see it. What is it, though? This blog series will touch on exactly that.
The Novella Revival
BOB - It’s a real shame that novella don’t get much play with traditional publishers these days. Some of the best things I’ve ever read were in this short format. Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea introduced me to one of America’s best authors. However, the incredibly difficult story format has seen little emphasis in recent years. Even literary heavyweights like Stephen King have to package several novellas together, as in his Different Seasons, or in a short story collection. If these feature some of King’s most tightly written prose, why are they not further emphasized?
The issue is in financial risk for traditional publishers. The cost for editing, binding, promoting, and distributing print editions of books is astronomical. When you factor in that novellas are frequently an experiment for the author that falls outside their usual storytelling methods, the risk increases for publishers. If they stake money on a small book (such as Stephen King’s recent Blockade Billy, which did okay) and it does not perform well, they are on the hook for a large sum.
Thankfully, though, the development of digital publishing makes novellas less of a risk for publishers. Stephen King himself saw great successes with his Amazon Kindle exclusive Ur. Other authors have shared their novella attempts to more successes with the growing E-reader market.
The risks are greatly lessened for all parties involved with digital publishers; readers, authors, and publishers alike have more to gain and less to lose. This diversity of form in writing can only bring better things for everyone, and heralds great things to come for literature in general.
Page to Screen // Long Book Adaptations
BOB - Countless people have experienced the thrill of seeing a favorite book adapted by Hollywood to a full-length film. From the critical successes of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy or the recent Hunger Games blockbuster to the sleeper choices such as Fight Club, Hollywood has found the mother lode of all source material for its films: bookshelves everywhere.
However, there is something to be said for the length of this page to screen adaptations. Aspects of books will never work on screen continuous narration can only become so much internal monologue, as seen in Fight Club or Blade Runner; lengthy descriptions can only serve as a guidepost for sets, as seen in the Lord of the Rings. The most difficult part of adapting a story from one medium to the next, however, is length.
It invariably takes far longer to read a book than to watch its film adaptation counterpart (just ask all those crazy kids who watched the version of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter featuring Demi Moore). The descriptions are richer, the narration (typically) reveals more, and there are more scenes. However, we’ve seen film adaptations of books swell in length until it sometimes feels as though they outweigh their framework.
Fight Club runs just under 2 hours and twenty minutes. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers each feature run time a few minutes shy of 3 hours. (The extended cuts each extend to well over 3 hours long!) The epic conclusion, The Return of the King? In theaters, it ran 3 hours and twenty minutes long, while its extended cut is over 4 hours!
Even more recent choices, such as The Hunger Games runs about as long as Fight Club, while The Deathly Hallows part 1 & part 2 run about the same. It’s uncertain how long the first half of The Hobbit will last, but if history (and Peter Jackson’s directorial style in general) tell us anything, it will clock in at well over two hours long.
The question is, how long is too long for a film adaptation? At what point does the pacing outweigh the necessity of including as much as possible from the source material? Don’t get me wrong, I love The Great Gatsby, but if the movie plods along slowly and lacks some of the frenetic energy of the novel, I will be sorely disappointed.
What I’m trying to say is that these film adaptations are far from anemic. Indeed, at times they seem to be gluttonously overfilled with scenes and details that serve more as fan service than truly moving the story forward. The issue is that directors miss the point of their medium when adapting books to screen: Film is a visual medium, one in which it is better to show then tell. Overfilling the lean films with gratuitous amounts of detail from the book is a well-meaning, but ultimately misguided effort. These are adaptations, not the visual experience one imagines while reading a book. Portions should be adapted in order to play to the strengths of the medium, not directly translated.
Reading Like a Writer
BOB - For the past three years of my college career, I’ve taken a creative writing workshop every spring. Each course has come draped in the usual trappings of the workshop design – writing exercises, assigned stories to read, classroom discussions, and group critiques. My professor has always stressed the importance of “reading like a writer” but I never fully grasped the concept until this semester.
I think the root of this technique goes back to our infancy, when learning how to speak, walk, and feed ourselves. How did we learn this? Through imitation. We watched how those more experienced than ourselves went about their daily routines, paying close attention to the way in which they executed simple tasks. Through a combination of imitation and trial and error we eventually toddled our ways toward an apparently drunken way of moving through our homes. The same methodology is applied to creative writing.
Think back to your first written works. It doesn’t matter if they’re poems, stories, articles, essays, or some as-of-yet undiscovered form of writing. Chances are they were clunky, choppy, and roughly hewn. I know mine were (and some still are!). Don’t look upon these creative pieces with disdain, though. You were unfamiliar with the form and had not yet familiarized yourself with how to skillfully craft sentences and stanzas out of carefully selected words. These early pieces can be a benchmark for how far you’ve come.
But those awkward first writings were just the beginning. As you grew and explored your favorite genres, certain writers grabbed hold of you. For me, Ernest Hemingway, Chuck Palahniuk, and Stephen King’s styles of writing and subject matter have always fascinated me. As such, I’ve worked to combine their writing styles with my own tendencies through trial and error into a sort of literary mash up. I’m still working on developing my voice and tightening the style, but I know I’ve come a long way.
The key to reading like a writer is to do it constantly. Eventually it will become second nature and you’ll look for techniques and style from which you can borrow to accentuate your own writing without having to make a conscious effort. Find authors whose writing you admire and read them. Branch out and read authors others recommend. It’s all part of the process to strengthen your own writing.
Page to Screen // The Raven
BOB - When Hollywood isn’t busy remaking Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte films for the 17th time or churning out another Nicholas Sparks adaptation, they’re busy harvesting plots and characters from your bookshelves. Films are frequently “inspired by” or “based upon” novels and short stories, contemporary and classic alike.
Several recent films have drawn upon well-loved and familiar characters from classic literature. Maybe you saw a little film called Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., or its sequel A Game of Shadows. The two summer blockbusters were very successful in drawing basic elements from literature and placing them in the separate context of the films.
While they have little to do with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories outside of character names and basic plot elements, they’ve helped introduce a poorly-read audience to a classic collection of stories and characters. While some of the creative liberties taken on screen may be questionable, Doyle himself said of Holmes “You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him,” when working with William Gillette on a stage adaptation.
An interesting development in the adaptation of detective fiction from page to screen is on the way for this summer. The Raven, starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe, looks to move into some interesting and vaguely meta-fiction plot devices.
For those of you unfamiliar with the film, the trailer is available here. The general crux of the period piece, however, is that a murderer is leading the constabulary in a game of cat and mouse. When it becomes clear that the murders are based upon the works of Edgar Allan Poe, the writer himself is brought on to help pursue the killer. It’s an interesting commentary about an author’s relationship to his or her works. It looks as if the police force in the film holds Cusack’s Poe partially responsible for the murders, which begs the question “Can authors be held responsible for fallout from their works?” Should Salinger have been held responsible for Mark David Chapman’s actions? Hopefully the upcoming film will delve deeper into this commentary and not turn it into a straight thriller.
The Entirely Facetious and Many Years Too Late Book Review // For Whom the Bell Tolls
BOB - March 29, 2012 – When I found a fresh copy of Ernest Hemingway’s latest work, I was beyond excited. The publisher had obviously worked hard to make the book appear vintage, as its cover was dog-eared, spine broken, and pages yellowed and aged. I guess this is their way to justify charging close to $20 for a paperback book. While I can appreciate the efforts to make it “vintage” (but why then, was it humbly ensconced in the shelf of a used book store?) I think simply binding the book and allowing the words within to speak for themselves may allow for time to be better spent elsewhere, such as realigning their aging business model. But, I digress.
If you expect much character background from the outset of For Whom the Bell Tolls, you will be sorely disappointed. The author (who is allegedly quite the drunken rabble-rouser) begins in a style that is apparently known as “in media res,” leaving readers to piece together information from subtle hints in his prose and dialogue. The protagonist begins as a faceless soldier who slowly comes into focus as the story moves forward. This “Robert Jordan,” with whom readers travel throughout the entire novel, is an American expatriate fighting against the ruling government of Spain. To make matters worse, he is ordered by a Russian general to demolish a bridge alongside a merry band of drunken rebels.
Let’s stop for a moment and reflect on this. We’re expected to empathize with an American who has interloped into international politics attempting to overthrow the ruling government of a sovereign nation? I’d buy that if this took place during the Vietnam War, but Jordan takes his orders from a Communist general. I’m not sure how I should feel about a “hero” who associates with Communists.
But back to the bridge. The entire book hinges upon a plot to destroy a bridge in the middle of Spain. Jordan meets up with a group of guerrilla fighting rebels who associate themselves with gypsies and society’s other cast offs, including the beautiful and vulnerable Maria. Jordan is attracted to her, though she is timid and shell-shocked from her rape at the hands of the ruling government’s soldiers, and eventually takes advantage of her wounded mental state to make her fall in love with him. His lighthearted treatment of this exploitation only shows how inhuman he is. However, there is justice in this novel. An allied rebel group is wiped out by the ruling Fascist government and Jordan is forced to implement his plan with improvised explosive caps after the guerrilla fighters’ leader bravely steals them and flees. As they retreat up the mountains after destroying the mountain, Jordan is wounded beyond help and stays behind to face his certain and just death, struggling to buy some time for those he took advantage of. While this may be repentant, it does not excuse his other actions throughout the novel.
By far my biggest issue is that no bell ever rings in this book! What sort of misleading title is that? I know that you are to “ask not for whom the bell tolls” but I really wanted to know. So in addition to a communist exploitative rebel fighter who essentially commits suicide, we also have a misleading title to accompany the plain prose that doesn’t really tell us much. This is obviously a cautionary tale that Hemingway saw fit to provide for us. The moral of the story, you ask? Don’t take orders from Communists, or else you will die.
Look Inside liloQui // Presenting Brett Davis
Today on Look Inside liloQui we introduce Brett Davis, our application back end and network security guru. Brett’s seen the Cloud, and wants to make it more secure.
Brett Davis was born in Noblesville and graduated from Purdue University, where he met our lead developer Christopher Miller. They’re in a band you should check out. Brett lives in downtown Chicago where he works for West Monroe Partners. Alongside band-mate and fellow liloQui developer Chris, he has helped develop the security tool Filelocker.
When he’s not working, Brett enjoys a nice gin and tonic and bands such Third Eye Blind, Foo Fighters, and Fleetwood Mac. He hopes to get a master’s in digital forensics or network security and work for a government agency.
Q: Tell us a little about what you do.
For my portion of liloQui, I’ll be working on the backend site design, which means that I’ll be laying out how all of the data about different published works is stored, making sure that the site performs well and scales up as we get more users, and also to make sure that proper security is implemented to keep user data safe so that people feel confident when they’d like to purchase a work through us.
Q: Why are you excited to be a part of liloQui?
I’m extremely excited to be part of the liloQui team because all of the people in the team are so profoundly talented and passionate about this project. I’ve worked with Chris on numerous projects before, and having gotten to know Ryan and Josh over the past couple of months I feel confident that we’ll be able to put together a truly exceptional product.
Q: What are you reading right now?
I’m currently reading Ender’s Game by Orson Scott card (for the 3rd time).
200 Word Book Review // The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
BOB - What do missing cats, unfaithful wives, psychic prostitutes, and morbidly curious teenagers have in common? They are all central to the wandering, dream-like plot of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This lengthy translation from the original Japanese tells the story of Toru Okada, a 30-year old everyman unemployed by choice. Lacking direction in his life, his wife eventually leaves him, setting him on a tumbling, illogical path of self-discovery and exploration.
This is not an easy read, but the wandering prose is always rewarding, with deep insights into the human condition and what propels us drunkenly forward on a world that seems to careen out of control. Murakami’s characters are memorable and his attention to detail is astounding. Jay Rubin’s translation does well to retain these aspects of the novel, which at times is overpowering and confounding. While not always well-paced, the story is captivating and, at times, horrifying. The personal harms caused to each of the characters can be felt through the story-telling, which lends a very real weight to a book that is at times reminiscent of a murky dream. This renowned book, which nearly escapes description, is well worth the initial effort it takes to read.
200 Word Book Review // The Business of Fancydancing by Sherman Alexie
SCOTT - Ash. Electricity. Alcohol. Absence. There is no one great common theme to Sherman Alexie’s “The Business of Fancydancing.” And in fact the title of the book is the best way to describe it. There is still something about the word “fancydancing” that holds an immense fascination for me. You might be imaging some sort of ballroom dance like the waltz, but in fact “fancydancing” is a Native American form of dance. It’s Quick. Colorful. And for a lack of better words: Electric.
The biggest things I noticed while reading the book (here’s a question: what do you call a book of poetry and short fiction? A collection?) was the use of ash and electricity. For me, in retrospect the ash has taken on a form of rebirth, while the electricity must simply (or complexly) be fancydancing (which I’m still trying to discover the meaning of).
“I didn’t lose anything, but I buried my heart in the ash before it all cooled.”
“It’s simple. Electricity is just lightning pretending to be permanent.”
How do you sum up emotion in words? Rage. Pain. Loss. Absence. Renewal. I finished this book over two weeks ago, and while it may not have been as good as “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven” I am still pondering the meaning of “fancydancing.”
Hunger Games and Ransom Notes
SCOTT - The big trend in young adult literature that swept the nation this year? “The Hunger Games.” A three part series that follows the lives of Katniss Everdeen, Peeta Mellark, and Gale Hawthorne, “The Hunger Games” quickly rose to the height of popularity. The series takes place in an future time period (exact time is unknown) after North America is destroyed by war. The new nation that rises to power, Panem, consists of twelve districts that are separated by miles and miles and are only accessible by train, which the Capitol controls. The Capitol uses the hunger games to keep its power and control over the districts. The games consist of 24 contestants (2 from each district) competing to stay alive in an arena designed by the capital.
My point today is not necessarily about the books. But, more more about how Lionsgate has decided not to make it a movie trilogy, (which would reflect the books) but a four part series.
“Lionsgate executives told Wall Street analysts this morning to expect big things from The Hunger Games, a series of four action films that the studio will release from the trilogy written by Suzanne Collins.” (from: http://screenrant.com/hunger-games-trilogy-4-movies-benk-118021/)
Now, I’m a huge fan of great books that get turned into great movies. But, it is hard for me to see books be turned into movies. It’s hard for someone so in love with literature to see plot lines, characters and fantastic scenes not make the cut. So, when I first heard that the trilogy was going to be made into a four-part movie series I was thrilled (much like I was when I found out The Hobbit is going to be a two-parter). However, my initial excitement has slowly worn off and I have begun to question what is going on.
Much of the buzz online now is questioning where the books will be split. Obviously the trend is to split the last book into two parts, but is that the most sensible place? Why not ration the entire story out into four more equal parts? If Lionsgate knows, going into this project, that they are going to produce four movies, why not split the story so that it makes sense as four-parts? The problem with this is that splicing will most likely occur ( no matter how the story line is broken up). I fear that the books will be cut up and pieced together to fit into a four-part series, like a t.v. criminal cuts up a magazine to write a letter to the police.
My other main concern about this new development is that it is nothing more than a money game (not a hunger game). Lionsgate already seems to be obsessed with the film and its money making abilities:
“The highest selling film we’ve ever had at the Cannes Film Festival.” (from: http://www.deadline.com/2011/06/hunger-games-will-provide-a-feast-for-lionsgate-execs-say/)
Which begs the question: is this all a ploy to make more money?I’m afraid that at the moment I am leaning towards a strong yes. We have seen in recent years a trend by movie production companies to make more money by splitting books into two parters (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Twilight: Breaking Dawn). Do these books necessarily need to be broken into multiple parts? I don’t believe so. We can expect, whenever we go see a film adaptation of a book, that parts (sometimes our favorite parts) will be missing. And if this is still the case with books that are split into more than one, then what is point of splitting it? My cynical side says that it must be a way to make money.
What do you think of this? Should the Hunger Games trilogy be made into a four-part movie series? Where should the movies be split up at? And do you think something will be missing?
