Category / Writing

by DrMabuse

A Case for Minor Larceny?

Malcolm Gladwell’s latest article chronicles how artists across several mediums are prone to sampling. While the obvious examples such as George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (taken subconsciously from “She’s So Fine”) and Tarantino’s wholesale lift of the magic marker anecdote from Scorsese’s American Boy are left out, Gladwell does make a strong case for greater sensitivity in how artists “steal.”

If Gene Wolfe hadn’t been inspired by Jack Vance, we wouldn’t have his fantastic Sun books. Nor would we have Eric Kraft without Proust, or David Foster Wallace without Borges, Coover and Gaddis. Lindsay Anderson’s cinematic masterpiece, O Lucky Man!, couldn’t have come into being, had Malcolm McDowell and Anderson not been inspired by Voltaire’s Candide. Should we damn David Mitchell from the blatant Haruki Murakami inspiration in Number9Dream?

I once interviewed Guy Ritchie and pointed out that his subtitles in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels reminded me of the jive talking from Airplane. Apparently, nobody else had pointed this out to him and the stylistic similarity had never occurred to him until that moment. But the scene in question helps to give Lock its lived-in feel.

Months after writing Wrestling an Alligator, while there were a few conscious nods (and revisions) to other influences (the argument clinic sketch from Monty Python, Daffy Duck running around like a loon in his early Warner Brothers appearances), I was shocked to learn that I had unexpectedly included a line from Superman II (a film I had watched too many times as a child): “I’ve seen a lot of sleazy moves in my time.” When Mark finishes his novel, I have no doubt that John Banville will work his way in there somewhere.

I’d hate to see a world where “stealing” becomes so rigid that it fails to account for an artist’s subconscious inspirations. The simple fact is that we are just as inspired from what we read as we are from what we experience. There’s an idea in this somewhere about the pros and cons of novelists as cultural and literary stenographers.

by DrMabuse

Whatever It Takes, Apparently

Not so many years ago a teacher of the art of writing began the advertisement of his services with the announcement that millions of people can write fiction without knowing it. He would have been safer had he said that millions of people are certain that they can write fiction a great deal better than those engaged in the profession. Even so, it is my belief that the consistent craftsman of fiction is very rare. His talent, which is in no sense admirable, is intuitive. In spite of the dictum of Stevenson on playing the sedulous ape to the great masters, it has never been my observation that education helps this talent. On the contrary, undue familiarity with other writers is too apt to sap the courage and to destroy essential self-belief, through the realization of personal inadequacy. It encourages a care and a style that confuse the subject, and the net result is nothing.

Instead, a writer of fiction is usually the happier for his ignorance, and better for having played ducks and drakes with his cultural opportunities. All that he really requires is a dramatic sense and a peculiar eye for detail which he can distort convincingly. He must be an untrustworthy mendacious fellow who can tell a good story and make it stick. It is safer for him to be a self-censored egotist than to have a broad interest in life. He must take in more than he gives out. He must never be complacent, he must never be at peace; in other words, he is a difficult individual and the divorce rate among contemporary literati tells as much.

— John P. Marquand, Wickford Point

by DrMabuse

Thoughts Between Coughs

It’s been linked several places, but this excellent thread is a must-read for any aspiring writer. Any neophyte may want to spend their time reading James D. McDonald’s advice rather than subscribing to Writer’s Digest.

Sarah has some good followup to the McCrum article about publishing changes, raising the validity of proposal/synopsis only justification for a contract. But one thing she overlooks is that the new synopsis trend may very well reflect a profit-driven industry looking to cut corners wherever possible. Short-term profits with little concern of the book’s gestalt or long-term profits based off of constant communication between author and editor? You make the call. The goal, lest we forget, is to get people to buy the books. And the longer the book, the less susceptible it is to editing. (See Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, for one.) There’s the additional financial advantage of a long book purchased and then remaining unread on most people’s bookshelves.

by DrMabuse

Tainted by Influence?

Iowablog: “I think everything I learned at Iowa is wrong.”

These are good, honest words to hear from a young whipper-snapper who wants to write. If there’s a positive spin to this, it’s the fact that Concho is willing to question the lessons she’s learned. I’ve never been in a nuts-and-bolts creative writing class (screenwriting, nonfiction and journalism classes don’t count) and I have only a second-hand idea of what goes down in Iowa, but I do know the merciless world of rejection notices weighed against the ocassional acceptance and/or check. If anything, the pivotal lesson that any writing class or seminar should include concerns the world not giving two fucks about the writer’s circumstances, and a publishing industry that is worse than Cthulhu in its callousness. Any writer hoping to break in must have the thickest hide. Anything less than an iron carapace, a firm resolve and a dedication to the work will send out “AMATEUR” in bright neon lights.

Some folks may recall last July’s Clarion-Wolfe debacle, where an extremely sensitive gentleman mistakenly informed Gene Wolfe that the class disagreed with his hard criticisms. Wolfe bolted. An imbroglio ensued. And there was some controversy over whether Wolfe’s perceived ruthlessness was good or bad for the students. The authoritarian impulse that had gone unquestioned before was replaced by a general sense that workshopping should involve a back-patting atmosphere to foster encouragement.

Well, I cry foul. Constructive criticism is one thing. But personally, I could never trust anyone who would do nothing but praise every element of a lengthy piece I’ve written. Something I’ve observed of so-called “writer’s groups” is that their formation involves stroking egos rather than improving writers and preparing them for the harsh battlefields of Manhattan and beyond. Some of the finest criticisms I’ve received were from people who were honest enough to eviscerate every nicety that was slightly off. To do anything less is a betrayal, a celebration of monkey-clapping amateurism that’s as hypocritical as The New York Times running some bullshit story on sexual fetishes and failing to include the word “fuck.”

The rise of books about writing (and, to a similar degree, screenwriting) has unleashed a Pandora’s box where hope is more prominent than it should be. An “I can do it too!” spirit has emerged, but the hard truth is that writing is difficult work, that even if you manage to finish something, it can be torn to pieces in a New York minute. Even if you get your book published, you will face savage reviews and emerge from the fracas to convince frugal folks to lay down the twenty-five clams to buy the sucker on a book tour.

So why the contentment? Why the entitlement? Why the anti-snark movements?

The answer lies somewhere within the atavistic feel-good jungles that have permeated almost every facet of the liberal arts. The air stinks of softness. Nurture is certainly necessary, but there comes a point when the writer must understand that it’s a tough racket. If a writing instructor doesn’t have the effrontery to call a piece of shit by its true name, then he has no business instructing.

(Iowa lead via Maud)