As I reader I’ve been immersed in several novels which many have flagged as bad writing. For instance, David Farland, Roger Zelazny, ect...
But you know what? I didn’t care. I still don’t. The story played in the big screen in my head and the writing became invisible. But then it seems subjective, when I’ve actually forced myself to concentrate on the writing I found I enjoyed it. I remember reading the short story Permafrost, I felt the sway and beat of certain sections.
As a reader, the writing is just a tool to project the story. A means to an end. Then again if the writing is actually bad, it’s hard to enjoy the story. There have been some novels I couldn’t get into. Was it the writing? I have no idea. It could’ve been and couldn’t put my finger on it. Yeah, a poorly written piece would not make for good storytelling.
Take, The Lord of the Rings, great story. And nobody disputes that it’s great writing. But most times the writing hits me is when sections are ready or acted aloud. Otherwise it becomes invisible.
Maybe good writing is just that in the end, invisible... Sometimes I feel the fuss over the writing itself, versus great storytelling, promotes a certain ivory tower mentality.
Give me great storytelling any day and let the writing be invisible.
Like anything, there are extremes.
Bad writing will get in the way of a good story no matter how exciting the stoyr is. The reason is that the exciting story in the author's mind never gets put down on paper, not relaly. He may think it does, but it doesn't.
Bad storytelling will get in the way of good writing. The best writer in the world, if he has nothing to say, will be found out as writing meaningless drivel.
If you want to write seriously, you can neither be a bad writer nor a bad story teller. Flagging those authors for bad writing is misleading. They write bad as compared to other published authors, perhaps, but it's relative.
You can get away with mediocre writing if you are a superb storyteller. In fact, the reverse is not true. You cannot get away with mediocre storytelling if you are a superior writer.
You can't get away with mediocre writing if you are a mediocre storyteller, or even a good one, you have to be great or it won't fly.
I hope that analysis made some sense. The point is, if you want tow rit eyou'd better at least learn some basics such that your writing won't get in the way of your storytelling, and then if that's as good as you ever write you'd better be a damn good storyteller.
I like the story better than the writing, but sometimes the writing is so awful I can't get to the story.
2 examples:
Earth Made of Glass, John Barnes. The writing was not stellar. I got really sick of a subplot about the guy's marriage. But the story was stunning.
Some best-forgotten Trek novel. Every character was earnest, worried, good-hearted, and humorless. Ro Laren, who was a rebel in the series. Kira Nerys, who was a hothead. Ezri Dax, who was a ditz. They all acted exactly the same. Eventually I couldn't stand it any more.
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited February 15, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited February 15, 2005).]
quote:
It's about the structure of a good story. The subject matter may change, but the structure is as old as time.
Darn straight... the way the dress up a story and present it to our readers has changed a lot over the years, but the structure of a story itself? No way.
I think I'm more likely to finish reading something that lacks in quality if I become engrossed in the story. Unless it is poetic, I'm unlikely to become engrossed in the language to the point where I could care less about the story.
In a practical sense, I think that if the words on the page don't mean something, then that's bad writing. If the story the writer has in mind doesn't make it onto the page, that's bad storytelling. In other words, I don't think that there's a really difference between good narrative writing and good storytelling text.
If you worry too much about which is more important, you could lose sight of the fact that both are indispensible to each other. Slight one and you slight both.