A Sense of Doubt blog post #2328 - Writing Best Selling Novels - WHAT I AM READING pt.5

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2328 - Writing Best Selling Novels - WHAT I AM READING pt.5

Welcome back to another edition of WHAT I AM READING, which is usually also associated with COMIC BOOK SUNDAY, but this Sunday, as in tomorrow, is JULY FOURTH, which for me will now always be the anniversary of the day my Mom died. Six years ago tomorrow. So, I will have another HEY MOM post tomorrow to acknowledge her death, so more on that tomorrow.

For today, reading:

How to Write Best Selling Fiction by Dean Koontz

Heroes Reborn - Heroes Return mini-series, Marvel Comics

Lisey's Story - Stephen King

and

How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi





On a regular basis, I hesitate to say annually but on a regular basis, I read books about writing fiction. I have favorites, such as The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, On Writing by Stephen King, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, Science Fiction Handbook, Revised by L. Sprague De Camp and Catherine Crook De Camp as well as Story and Dialogue by Robert McKee.

And among the other favorites, I am found of Writing the Novel by Lawrence Block and How to Write Best Selling Fiction by Dean Koontz. I read both of these books before I read any fiction by either Block or Koontz. I am not really a huge Dean Koontz fan. I like some of what I have read.  Midnight is a particular favorite and a frequent touchstone. But I do not read much Dean Koontz, not like my gobbling up of Stephen King novels.

Books on writing inspire me much the same as any books inspire me, both fiction and non-fiction. I like reading writers write about writing because I like to think this reading practice is part of how I hone my craft. It's not as if writers on writing reveal arcane secrets from a world into which I have no window. I feel like I am not looking into that room, the writing room, through a window. I am in the room. I might not be in the banquet hall with the other published novelists, but I am definitely writing, and so I am in the writing room.

Because I have stepped up my writing work, it is time again to read some books on writing, and so I chose Koontz's book to be first.

The thing that strikes me now as I read it -- and I have read it many times before -- is the way in which his rhetoric shaped me as a young man and how it no longer really has the same effect on me. In fact, I quite disagree with a lot of his statements.

Koontz devotes a great portion of the second chapter to criticizing academia and the literature in which academia is interested. These criticisms proved influential to me as a young man in academia, both as an undergraduate student of literature and writing and then as a graduate student in an MFA program. Koontz' arguments may in part be why I wrote a Star Trek novel as my MFA project, one my academic advisor did not even read, though she did pass me and allow me to graduate. I eschewed academic and literary fiction and want to plunge myself into popular fiction and something with a chance of being published by a commercial house.

Though my ire towards academia does not come off as petulantly as Koontz's, I did reject the literary path for fiction about which I was much more passionate.

Koontz properly characterizes the snobbery of academia toward the "popular" or the "mainstream" fiction of the time, IE. best sellers. I encountered this academic bigotry even before I submitted my Star Trek novel to the MFA program. When an Anne Rice inspired older woman enrolled in my MFA advisor's course and was churning out vampire fiction, the teacher wanted my help in looking at those manuscripts because she claimed to "not know anything" about the genre. Well, why did she need to know about the genre? Fiction is fiction. The rules of good fiction apply to all fiction. But this reaction toward that woman's vampire fiction is endemic of the attitudes in academia toward the "popular." It is seen as low brow, lesser, not as "artistic," lacking in quality, the food of the uneducated.

And yet, when one of my PhD holding friends attempted to write a Harlequin romance because she assumed it would be an easy enough route to a quick buck only to be summarily rejected, it was clear that academics cannot stoop to the low brow and be successful. To write a good Harlequin, one must steep one's self in the genre, believe in the genre, and be authentic with the writing. If a writer finds the genre to be beneath her, then this attitude will come through in the attempt, and it did, and it was rejected by the publisher.

Interestingly, since Koontz's How To on best selling fiction was published in 1981, academia has absorbed more of the popular fiction of the time. The schism between what is considered "true art" and "popular" has narrowed. People still excuse their reading (or even writing) of "trash" all the time. There's still the perception that popular books are quick, easy, and "mindless," like cotton candy. I have even held these beliefs. I have often said that I like Stephen King the most of the "popular" writers as if writers like John Gardner or Toni Morrison are not popular in their own ways and among their own audiences. But this comment of mine is meant to be dismissive, forgiving. "Please do not judge me for consuming this trash; this is good trash." And though I have often claimed that John Irving should be regarded as our modern Dickens, perhaps I should be saying that Stephen King should be so regarded. People are not standing in lines for Irving's books. Though Irving is a great writer, and I adore his work, even when I do not enjoy the book overly much, as in the 2015 effort Avenue of Mysteries, which I did not find overly gripping and had to switch from reading it traditionally and consuming it as an audio book. But King is more in line with the idea we have of Dickens as a "hack" (as he was so regarded in his time) that was still wildly popular with the "masses," and people were lining up to get their next hit of the current Dickens episode.

Thankfully, graphic novels and a great deal of "popular fiction" have become part of academic studies. And as I am currently reading Lisey's Story, which I find lyrical and complex in many ways, I would argue that the book is just artful as many so called "literary" novels. The greater acceptance of stories that deal with supernatural, fantastic, and science fictional elements reveal that works of fiction can be both chimerical and artful.

Koontz clearly suffered from inferiority complex for not being accepted by academia or perhaps for not continuing his education past the Bachelor's level, even though he attended a highly ranked state college -- Shippensburg State College of Pennsylvania.

Koontz appears to have been triggered by his high school English teacher, who wrote him and implied he was wasting his time with popular dreck and should take a crack at writing "the great American novel." Koontz balked at this notion and questioned what defines the "great American novel" as such. He feels his novels are both great and American, and they sell well and provide him with the lifestyle he wishes to have.

But then Koontz expands his argument to suggest that no one reads Melville, Hawthorne, or even Hemingway much any more. Koontz goes on from there to make many damning statements with which I disagree.

Koontz seems to think that some writers have chosen to write purely for the approval of academia and refuse to write novels with "popular appeal." There is some truth to this statement. Many snobbish writers refuse to "prostitute themselves" with work they find low-brow, mundane, sensational, and only for the uneducated masses. But the generalizations Koontz promotes that all authors with literary aspirations "turn [their] back on the masses and refuse to write novels with popular appeal" (13) is just nonsense.

After all, Koontz's definition of popularity is just as limiting and narrow as the definition of "literary fiction" that he opposes. He makes a series of generalized claims that are not well supported by his own somewhat convoluted logic. Though I agree with some of his ideas, his overall argument is deeply flawed and seems to come from insecurity and bitterness from someone denied admission to an exclusive club of which he very much wants to be a part.

"There is no merit in writing for a like-minded clique and selling two thousand copies of your book" (Koontz, 13).

No merit? Like-minded clique? That statement by Koontz is just stupid and transparently bitter.

After listing the elements of good fiction (strong plot, action, hero/heroine, convincing characters with motivations, flush backgrounds, mechanical well-written, stylistically somewhat lyrical and vivid), he  falsely claims that "the academic generally has little or no use for plot in a novel" (14), which is patently false. Though post-modern novels and stories often are less works of plot than other literary devices, it is inaccurate and quite ignorant to claim that an academic novel (whatever that is) has "no use" for plot.

Later, Koontz makes one of his most puzzling statements about the role of art in our lives and our culture: "What use is art if it not humane? What use is art if it does not give us hope, if it does not lift our spirits? What value does art have if it does not make our years on this earth better, happier, and easier to bear than they otherwise would have been? I will answer my own question: if it doesn't do those things, then art is of no use whatsoever" (Koontz, 15-16).

This strikes me as a very narrow and limiting definition for what art is and what art can do. As an artist, my immediate reaction to such a statement is to begin to imagine art works that are the opposite of Koontz's reactionary and quite stupid definition of art. We would not have "Piss Christ" and so many more art works if all art had to fit into Koontz's myopic, harps and flowers version of art.

Koontz remarks about followed as support for his argument that it is easier to write about villains than heroes. Again, his remarks are full of generalities and seem to overlook the anti-hero let alone the villain as hero, which, in defense of his limited views was less of literary concern in 1981 than today.

I am still going to finish my re-read of Koontz's book because when it comes to the toolbox of writing, he has lots of knowledge and great wisdom. His books are successful for a very good reason. But his heavy-handed moralizing and puerile rejection of academia nauseates me as I hope it nauseates you.




SHORT BITS

I am almost done with Lisey's Story, which may supplant The Stand as my favorite Stephen King book. It's lyrical, and I like the interwoven past-present structure. More on that book in my next installment. I plan to study it closely. I bought the Kindle edition and will purchase a paperback copy to go with my hardcover.

I am still reading Attack Surface, but I have less to say about that right now.

Though I finished How to be an Antiracist, I want to keep writing about it, but not this time. The Koontz thing ate my devoted writing time for this entry. The goal of this focus was to keep the entry focused and give some good content. So more next time.

I also wanted to writ about the Heroes Reborn mini-series from Marvel. I am putting that off for next time, too, but I will share the cover gallery here before I go.


See y'all next time.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2107.03 - 10:10

- Days ago = 2192 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.