No.
Suspend disbelief on creeps with date rape and issues of control? No.
Oh my God I want to scream it. It makes me want to cry.
My shameful confession about Twilight
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No.
Suspend disbelief on creeps with date rape and issues of control? No.
Oh my God I want to scream it. It makes me want to cry.
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Absolutely not. Never suspend that disbelief. And it's why I thought they were bad books and didn't enjoy them.
Oh God, that's not what I meant at all!! I'm really annoyed at myself now!
I didn't mean I agree with creepy Edward and effed-up Patch, I just meant that in books like these, people - particularly impressionable young teens - will read them and love them and think of the characters and their actions in a rose-tinted light, will accept things that they would (I hope) never accept in real life. A lot of girls want a 'bad boy', and they lap this sort of thing up because these are extreme 'bad boys', it's exciting. But in the safety of being a passive bystander/reader, they don't think about how wrong these characters are, whereas if they met Patch in real life, say, they would run a mile.
Sorry if I gave the wrong impression!
I understand now. Thanks for explaining. The thing is, though, there are millions of girls who don't understand that the kind of relationship, and the kind of behavior, is wrong in real life. I like to take a book about a messed up relationship and read it with the understanding that it's messed up. I want the narrative to show it. Even when the narrative doesn't show it, some people, like you said, can read something without accepting that in real life and enjoy fiction for fiction's sake.
But talk to many fans of these books, read many reviews, and you will see tons of girls who think these characters are acceptable and their actions something they want out of boyfriends in real life because they are 'dreamy'. Many people argue that they understand fiction from reality, but the truth is that a lot of girls (and guys) actually don't. And not just teens. Ask two of my friends in mid-twenties who don't see any problems with the aforementioned books. And it's frightening that those books exist and further acknowledge this creepy behavior as correct.
I read Twilight and enjoyed a lot of it because I wasn't trained to look at those behaviors as bad, so I get it. I get being swept up in the plot. I didn't even remember some things had happened until I reread it with more attention and was horrified by myself and by the books.
But talk to many fans of these books, read many reviews, and you will see tons of girls who think these characters are acceptable and their actions something they want out of boyfriends in real life because they are 'dreamy'. Many people argue that they understand fiction from reality, but the truth is that a lot of girls (and guys) actually don't. And not just teens. Ask two of my friends in mid-twenties who don't see any problems with the aforementioned books. And it's frightening that those books exist and further acknowledge this creepy behavior as correct.
I read Twilight and enjoyed a lot of it because I wasn't trained to look at those behaviors as bad, so I get it. I get being swept up in the plot. I didn't even remember some things had happened until I reread it with more attention and was horrified by myself and by the books.
Oh my, LJ Smith is huge one for me... especially The Forbidden Game series. Julian spends half those books talking about the color of Jenny's eyes, but I still can't stop myself from full on squees of joy.
I apologize in advance if this post gets too long, but I wanted to respond to several things.
I would make the argument that it's large appeal is evidence against it being badly written. All arguments depend on definitions and this one is no different. One has to define what "good art" is. With so many styles and forms, to me, "good art" can only be defined broadly in an accurate way as the following: Good art is art that has a significant impact on people.
I'm curious to know what about post-modernism ruined it for you? I'm not really understanding; I took a post-modern fiction class last semester and it didn't change my views on art. In fact, none of my English major classes have changed my views...if anything, they've reaffirmed them and made them stronger. The only difference is that now I have a better understanding of why my views are the way they are.
I. Love. Supernatural.
I would make the argument that it's large appeal is evidence against it being badly written. All arguments depend on definitions and this one is no different. One has to define what "good art" is. With so many styles and forms, to me, "good art" can only be defined broadly in an accurate way as the following: Good art is art that has a significant impact on people.
I'm curious to know what about post-modernism ruined it for you? I'm not really understanding; I took a post-modern fiction class last semester and it didn't change my views on art. In fact, none of my English major classes have changed my views...if anything, they've reaffirmed them and made them stronger. The only difference is that now I have a better understanding of why my views are the way they are.
I. Love. Supernatural.
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I broadly agree. The fact that a book is popular strongly implies that it is 'good' in at least one sense. Twilight is A Good Book. So's The Da Vinci Code. So's FSOG. All for certain values of 'good'.
Books are multivalent and personal. What you can tell from very popular books is that one of the least important things, from the point of view of success, is the ability to write beautiful prose. Much more important is the ability to tell a compelling story.
(Oh, when I say I 'broadly' agree, I'm doing my thing where I pepper stuff with qualifiers almost entirely out of habit. I think what I was thinking about was the bit about good art making a significant impact on people, which I'd need to think about a bit before I know if I agreed with.)
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Amadan
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If that is the case, then why do we bother telling writers to improve their writing? Why do we talk about writing as a skill that can be developed? Maybe we should be talking purely in terms of what kind of story will get the most people to read it, whether it is A Dance to the Music of Time or Taken By A T-Rex?
This comes up all the time, the argument that "good" is purely subjective and the only thing that matters is whether or not people like it. No. There is a measure of subjectivity, of course, and it is not wrong to like "bad" things. But no one who enjoys McDonald's will honestly claim the food is prepared with the same skill and quality as a 5-star restaurant. And no one who enjoys Twilight can honestly claim that Stephenie Meyers is as good a writer as someone who has won the Pulitzer or the Man-Booker Prize. Even if her books vastly outsell the latter.
You can have a great story and still not tell it well, so it does make sense to work on honing that part of the craft regardless. I think Stephenie Meyer is very talented at pacing.
And plenty of people are, in fact, reading for the McDonald's experience rather than the El Bulli one.
(Personally, I like a mix. And now I'm hungry.)
And plenty of people are, in fact, reading for the McDonald's experience rather than the El Bulli one.
(Personally, I like a mix. And now I'm hungry.)
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Yes: the way that we talk about 'improvement' in writing is often kind of useless. I think it's overly simplistic, implies a single axis of bad to good, and implies awful things like 'rules'.
We should be focusing on (a) what we we want to convey and achieve with our writing and (b) developing our sensitivity to words and meaning so that we understand how those things work.
I'm reminded of the classic split in ethics between teleology and deontology - are acts good/bad in themselves, or because of their outcomes? I'm firmly in the latter camp.
It's not purely subjective, it's inter-subjective. Again, like ethics. Art exists in a world of people and interpretation and so on. There's no way to separate art from the world and evaluate it 'objectively'. The real issue, though, is that art is multivalent. Works of art are both good and bad in themselves, and as seen from different perspectives.
But you've smuggled a value judgement in there; you're begging the question. "This food is not as good as Gordon Ramsay's, because it's not the same quality."
Yep, I will. I will honestly claim Stephenie Meyers is a good writer, for several values of good. I will also honestly claim she's a bad writer, for several values of bad. The difference in popularity between her and someone on the Booker longlist is just down to the difference in the weight the average person assigns to those values.
Amadan
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Yes, if you create several "values" of "good" including "How big are her royalty checks?" then obviously you can argue that Stephenie Meyers is a good writer for several values of good.
I am not saying that writing an engaging story that entertains people is of no value. But if you think that all grammatically correct sentences are crafted with equal skill and only some elitist literary snob would dare to pass judgment on whether one paragraph is written "better" than another, we will just have to agree to disagree.
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Actually, I agree, with the caveat that "good" is a very different thing from "successful." The two can coexist, but they don't always, nor do they have to.
There are things that I think Meyers does well as a writer--no, honestly. Her setting descriptions for one; although I'm not fond of Bella's whiny inner monologue, I could appreciate how alien and uncomfortable the landscape of cold, rainy Forks is compared to the desert-like atmosphere she left behind. Also, when we get to Breaking Dawn, the section narrated by Jacob comes across as a new, distinctive character voice. I suck at that, so I wonder if I notice it more when I see it elsewhere. And love it or hate it, the sparkling vampires thing is such an original and baffling concept that it's one of the first things people mention when Twilight comes up in conversation. To have made an impact like that, for good or bad, is kind of amazing. I've seen a *lot* of different approaches to the vampire myth, but there's only one that sparkles, and that's Twilight.
That said. The reason they sold like hotcakes is because of Edward and his possessive, obsessed attitude, and naturally perfect hair and chiseled abs, which is neither original nor good. But that's what made the books successful, and that's what she ran with. I was actually liking the first book okay UP UNTIL the gorram meadow scene. That's when everything turned stupid.
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'lots of people read it' isn't the same as 'good'.
It's successful, maybe even enjoyable. She told a story that grabbed people and hit a wave of feeling at the time it came out. She's good at that. But at the actual craft of writing - at choosing strong words, and structuring sentences well - she's pretty poor.
Postmodernism is sociology and psychology are different to in literature and art.
As my mother described it (she has a sociology degree) it's fence-sitting. 'There is no objective wrong or right, good and bad'. It may the case in the mind of individuals, but as a group we must come to a consensus. If the consensus proves to be incorrect we must come to a new one. Else what is the point in law and order? What is the point in campaigning for changes to injust laws? What is the point in trying to be a better person or a better writer? Just because some people don't think something is bad or wrong or evil, doesn't mean it isn't.
I won't necessarily agree with what other people think is evil, of course I won't. That is the subjectivity. I may be wrong to an objective observer, if such a thing exists in such emotively charged subjects as abortion.
When I was about 2/3rds of the way through the post-modernist sociologists I began to roll my eyes and think very uncharitable thoughts. I came to the conclusion that they were moral cowards with no convictions whatsoever, who were so afraid of making moral judgements that they just faffed around with 'well, in context it probably made sense.' THat's subjective too, no doubt. But it seemed to me to be a lazy way out of considering moral and ethical judgements in the study of sociology and psychology and therefore, most importantly, removing the ability of sociologists and psychologists to do good.
No-one behaves in a way that doesn't make sense in the confines of their own mind. I'm sure the man who murders and eats a woman considers that he is not doing evil. I think he does.
And that long, derailing rant is why I generally have no truck with 'there can be no objective judgement' arguments.
But let's stay on topic, so if people want to keep talking about this let me know via PM or whatever and if there's enough interest I will start a new thread.
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Royalty cheques are the effect. The cause is that she is a regarded as a good writer by many people; because her books are written in such a way that they resonate particularly strongly with many people; because of some feature of her storytelling - the stories, or the mode of storytelling - that is in some way exceptional. Otherwise, whence the sales and the royalties? She's scoring highly on some metric beyond the financials, which must, surely, be derived from this mysterious X-factor.
My bet is that where she knocks it out of the park is in the way that she creates identification between the reader and the protagonist, and has the protagonist act out these dreamlike, mildly transgressive erotic fantasies, rather than, you know, artful sentence construction.
I'm saying writing an engaging story that entertains people is valuable to people who value engaging, entertaining stories, which is tautological, sure; but when you consider that's most people, it seems perverse not to call those works of art 'good', at least in a context that allows you to qualify that remark in a way that renders it meaningful.
I'm perfectly happy to say 'I hated Twilight'. I don't think it's reasonable to say 'Twilight is badly written', or 'Twilight is a bad book', without a lot of qualification of that. And any fair-minded critical analysis of those issues is going to have to acknowledge (a) that it struck a chord with a phenomenal amount of people, so what's up with that? and (b) that, whoa, art is hella subjective.
I'm pretty clearly espousing a relativist position, so it's odd to accuse me of inverted snobbery. I'm not saying if you don't like Twilight you're a snob. I'm saying if you don't like Twilight it's because you don't value the attributes that it's strong in. Twilight fans don't necessarily value the strengths of a writer like James Joyce as highly as Joyce fans. If Joyce had been given the synopsis of Twilight and told to write it up, would it have been a better book? (But would my niece agree?)
My feeling about Twilight is, it has a lot of qualities in common with erotica (obsessive repetition, rapturous descriptions of body parts, seeming to take place in a dream world), only it dwells on emotions and sexual tension rather than sex per se. It's excellent emotion porn, and I don't say that pejoratively, because I enjoy lots of fanfic that I consider emotion porn. But Twilight didn't do it for me.
When I was an actual teen (long ago), I didn't read YA but used to get weak in the knees over the hot guys of soft SF. Joan D. Vinge was a favorite; I knew her books were pulpy and histrionic but didn't care.
I was totally hot for Lestat until Rice made him from a villain into an anti-hero (and a Marty Stu, I thought) in the second book. Also, there was this series about a swoony vampire-angel called the Darkangel and the virginal girl who gives him back his soul -- yes, back in the '80s we had books like that, but they weren't huge cultural phenomena. Anyway, I read it strictly for the broody dude and ignored the boring, virtuous heroine.
When I was an actual teen (long ago), I didn't read YA but used to get weak in the knees over the hot guys of soft SF. Joan D. Vinge was a favorite; I knew her books were pulpy and histrionic but didn't care.
I was totally hot for Lestat until Rice made him from a villain into an anti-hero (and a Marty Stu, I thought) in the second book. Also, there was this series about a swoony vampire-angel called the Darkangel and the virginal girl who gives him back his soul -- yes, back in the '80s we had books like that, but they weren't huge cultural phenomena. Anyway, I read it strictly for the broody dude and ignored the boring, virtuous heroine.
mirandashell
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But surely... if you say everything is good for a certain value of good, then 'good' becomes meaningless?
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I don't say *everything* is good for a certain value of good. I say things like Twilight are exceptionally good for certain values of good. I'm saying you have to give things you don't like credit for being good *at least in some way* if lots of other people seem to like them.
There's a fallacy of argument, the argument from popularity, which says just because lots of people believe something is true it isn't necessarily true - so you can't appeal to 'most people think Melbourne is the capital of Australia' as an argument for that being the case, strictly speaking. But when we're talking about artistic judgement, where the qualities being judged *don't actually exist* when they aren't being experienced by a human being, who in turn exists in their own particular time and place and context - how could our judgements not be deeply subjective, and relative, and personal?
There are thousands of people who would tell you they thought Twilight was a good book. As writers, we know the writing is kind of rough and amateurish, but are you really saying that their value judgment of the book as a whole is wrong?
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Amadan
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Because "good" and "enjoyable" aren't necessarily the same thing.
I like the occasional bad book. I occasionally am in the mood for a Big Mac. There are some really, really stupid pop songs that I think are catchy. If you use a value of "good" that means "I like it" then hardly anything in the world is not "good" to some people.
But if you use a value of "good" that measures quality against some standard of artistic skill, of craftsmanship, of purposeful creation, then while you can never remove subjectivity entirely, I cannot take seriously any position that insists that whether Stephenie Meyer or James Joyce is a better writer is just, like, totally your opinion man.
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I understand the sentiment, but you need to give some kind of alternative to this alarmingly relative position; it's not easy to see how it might work, without reference to the tastes and cultures of readers. What else is there to judge on? Your own reaction? That's valid. How it affects lots of other people? That's also valid.
My whole point is that in comparing Meyer and Joyce you're making a kind of category mistake. They are not the same kind of writer; placing them on a single axis and arguing about their relative positions is pointless.
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Yes.
I'm not saying they can't enjoy it or think it good. I'm saying it's not good. I'm not the arbiter of everything in life - anyone can disagree with me, obvs. However, some things I know about and some things I don't. Some things I'm decently educated about and some things I'm not and some of these things are not that complex.
I believe I can tell good cheese from bad. That, to me, is wholly different from discerning cheese I enjoy from cheese I do not.
I can't tell you shit about baseball. I cannot watch a player and tell whether he or she is good or bad at what they're doing. I can watch a hockey player and tell you.
If Twilight is good simply because plenty of people read it then, as others have said, McDonald's food is better than actual, one-star or up restaurant food - more people consume it. Velveeta is then good, as more people probably eat it than Camembert (in the U.S., anyway). Budweiser is good. These things are not true unless 'good' has no meaning besides popularity, in which case, call it popularity.
I've liked crappy books, films, and as I said earlier, Cheetos. That doesn't make them good.
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The skill with which they use language. The prosidy of their sentences. The complexity of their characters. The coherence of their plots. The consistency of their voice. The depth and themes and layers that can be discerned from their stories. The verisimilitude and imagery and metaphors in their writing. Lots of other high-falutin' words that I'm disinclined to gather and write a mini-thesis on, but which are not exactly radical new literary constructs.
And yes, there is, as always, subjectivity involved because there is no such thing as a mechanical prosidy meter. Hence Olympic events where human judgments of skill are involved are scored by multiple judges. But I know of few other talents in which someone will insist that experts and connoisseurs are incapable of knowledgeably judging the relative skill of two practitioners, and that whether someone is a "better" singer/painter/woodcarver/chef/dancer/actor/ice skater/basketball player is just a function of how many people like them.
Why do we bother critting people in SYW? If someone posted something that got blasted in SYW, but that writer then went on to get that very story published (without changing the text) and sold a ton, does that mean that everyone who pointed out that they were too wordy, vague, the dialog was stilted, the prose was purple, the plot made no sense, etc., was wrong? Or did the writer's writing suddenly become better ("for some value of good") because it sold?
Personally, I don't think that arguing that "good" is somewhat subjective means that "good" has no meaning. In a really good book, there are multiple aspects that have to come together: good prose, good voice, good story, good characters, etc. But a book can also be strong in one area but lacking a bit in others. I also don't think writing is an all-or-nothing thing. I don't think it makes sense to divide things into "good" and "bad." There are varying degrees of each, and there are varying expectations depending on the genre (readers of Taken By A T-Rex may not be looking for great prose or nuanced characters).
Why does improvement matter? Because, to me at least, writing isn't just about getting a positive reaction from readers. I believe that most readers can tell when writing is good, but I also think that a lot of readers don't read that critically and are willing to overlook imperfections. I could put out stories that are "good enough," but then I wouldn't have pride in my work. To me, learning the craft and improving is part of what writing is.
I still love Twilight, even thought I do think it's awful. There;s just something about it that makes me really happy. Maybe it's just that it brings back the memories/feel of being a teen and how my friends and I bonded over the book.