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When you are writing, if you want an appreciative audience, you have to keep it moving.
Yes, I want character development. I want to know what the scenery looks like, yadda, yadda, but keep that information fairly short. Break it into smaller blocks and intersperse it. Let the reader discover it along the way. Keep the action moving forward, keep interruptions short, or you can lose your reader's attention.
I'll give any new book at least 25 pages. If characters look promising, or writing is skilled, I might read 50 pages, or even 100 pages. But seriously, if nothing has happened by page 50, I shut the book and returning it to the library.
"Yada yada?" What's that supposed to mean?
It struck me funny to see this in the writer's forum. Writers generally try to avoid yada yada for the reasons you mentioned in your post. Yada yada doesn't keep thing moving along.
"Yada yada?" What's that supposed to mean?
It struck me funny to see this in the writer's forum. Writers generally try to avoid yada yada for the reasons you mentioned in your post. Yada yada doesn't keep thing moving along.
Not for nothing, but I can think of a few authors who definitely should have used "yada yada" rather than burying the reader in a deluge of extraneous words. Tolkien, for one, could have saved himself and the readers a whole lot of time had he been more familiar with the phrase.
Not for nothing, but I can think of a few authors who definitely should have used "yada yada" rather than burying the reader in a deluge of extraneous words. Tolkien, for one, could have saved himself and the readers a whole lot of time had he been more familiar with the phrase.
That's true! The Lord of the Rings trilogy was definitely a slog in places.
But Tolkien never intended it for publication when he wrote it. It began as a verbal children's story told at bedtime, and he began jotting notes at first, then writing chapters as the story became more complicated.
The writing was all very intermittent, and mostly done during free moments, done mostly because his kids wanted to keep the story. It began as one story- the Bilbo Baggins saga, and then became a kind of ongoing serial that was written over a very long span of time.
Repetition is very common is saga as a memnonic device. It helps memorization when phrases and sentences are repeated; it's like beads on a string.
The old bards could sing/chant/speak stories that would often take weeks to tell, going for 4 to 8 hours at a stretch using the same repetitive devices Tolkien used in his writing.
Those bards still exist in the middle east today. They make their living telling thousand-year old tales in coffee houses much like musicians in fern bars do in the United States.
Tokien taught medieval history and folklore, so he used the ancient bardic devices to read his kids to sleep at nights reading the Lord of the Rings. If you listen to an audio book, you'll hear the rhythms of speech quite plainly in the trilogy, but they aren't as obvious when read silently.
What's most interesting to me was Tolkien compressed a lot of very ancient folklore into one work of high fantasy that has become a creative template many others used all over the western world.
The United States had its own Tolkien; Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs was another children's writer, and he created Tarzan, his most enduring and popular character. Tarzana, the neighborhood in Los Angeles, was originally Burrough's orange ranch that he turned into a subdivision.
But he also created John Carter of Mars first, the book series that spawned the Star Wars movies, along with another lesser-known series of his, Carson of Venus.
Everything that is in the original Star Wars trilogy is in the John Carter books except for the very first book. In the books, John Carter was a Civl War veteran who was accidentally transported to Mars, where an inter-species civil war was going on.
Tolkien compressed the fantasy of the past into one body of lasting work, and Burroughs created the fantasy of the future into another body of work.
I'm the same age as George Lucas. When I was around 13, the John Carter series was reprinted in some monthly science fiction/fantasy digest magazines that printed short stories. I'm sure Lucas and I read them all at the same time back in the late 1950s as young teens.
That's true! The Lord of the Rings trilogy was definitely a slog in places.
But Tolkien never intended it for publication when he wrote it. It began as a verbal children's story told at bedtime, and he began jotting notes at first, then writing chapters as the story became more complicated.
The writing was all very intermittent, and mostly done during free moments, done mostly because his kids wanted to keep the story. It began as one story- the Bilbo Baggins saga, and then became a kind of ongoing serial that was written over a very long span of time.
Repetition is very common is saga as a memnonic device. It helps memorization when phrases and sentences are repeated; it's like beads on a string.
The old bards could sing/chant/speak stories that would often take weeks to tell, going for 4 to 8 hours at a stretch using the same repetitive devices Tolkien used in his writing.
Those bards still exist in the middle east today. They make their living telling thousand-year old tales in coffee houses much like musicians in fern bars do in the United States.
Tokien taught medieval history and folklore, so he used the ancient bardic devices to read his kids to sleep at nights reading the Lord of the Rings. If you listen to an audio book, you'll hear the rhythms of speech quite plainly in the trilogy, but they aren't as obvious when read silently.
What's most interesting to me was Tolkien compressed a lot of very ancient folklore into one work of high fantasy that has become a creative template many others used all over the western world.
The United States had its own Tolkien; Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs was another children's writer, and he created Tarzan, his most enduring and popular character. Tarzana, the neighborhood in Los Angeles, was originally Burrough's orange ranch that he turned into a subdivision.
But he also created John Carter of Mars first, the book series that spawned the Star Wars movies, along with another lesser-known series of his, Carson of Venus.
Everything that is in the original Star Wars trilogy is in the John Carter books except for the very first book. In the books, John Carter was a Civl War veteran who was accidentally transported to Mars, where an inter-species civil war was going on.
Tolkien compressed the fantasy of the past into one body of lasting work, and Burroughs created the fantasy of the future into another body of work.
I'm the same age as George Lucas. When I was around 13, the John Carter series was reprinted in some monthly science fiction/fantasy digest magazines that printed short stories. I'm sure Lucas and I read them all at the same time back in the late 1950s as young teens.
Well written post, and I do blame the lack of quality editing for Tolkien's verbosity rather than a lack of storytelling talent. I have a similar viewpoint when it comes to Zane Gray - he would have benefited greatly from quality editing, which wasn't something that was commonly available in pulp fiction.
Well written post, and I do blame the lack of quality editing for Tolkien's verbosity rather than a lack of storytelling talent. I have a similar viewpoint when it comes to Zane Gray - he would have benefited greatly from quality editing, which wasn't something that was commonly available in pulp fiction.
Yup. But it's also important to remember a writer's times. Zane Grey wrote pulp fiction when it was about the only entertainment a lot of folks could afford, so they liked their stories wordy, long, and complicated.
An interesting aside on Zane Grey... I once stayed in the small cabin he rented in the summers to write in. It's about 100 miles north of my home, on the shores of a really killer good trout lake.
Grey woke up early in the mornings, fished until he had enough trout for breakfast, and then wrote the rest of the day. A couple of times a week, he would hitch a ride with the resort owner and spend an evening hanging out in West Yellowstone in the bars there. He liked to listen and pick up local dialect in the saloons wherever he went.
Back then, West was still more a cowboy than a tourist town. The resort Grey stayed in is pretty close to the Railroad Ranch, a huge private ranch that was owned by the Harriman family, the railroad magnate. All the cowboys who worked at the ranch would go to West to spend their paychecks raising hell, playing cards and drinking. Their bunkhouse was large enough to hold 50 of them.
Rumor has it Harriman got the ranch on a coin toss with Wrigley, the chewing gum millionaire. Wrigley lost and got Catalina Island as a consolation prize.
The Harriman Ranch is now an Idaho State Park. It's worth a visit- the Harrimans may have roughed it in Idaho, but they sure roughed it in grand style, and the property is very beautiful. It also abounds with wildlife. I'm sure Grey got an invitation or two to go to dinner on the ranch.
Let's make the assumption that we're talking about fiction here, though a lot of the principles apply to non-fiction as well.
I find that my mood dictates how much effort I feel like putting into a book. Sometimes I just don't feel like anything other than a straightforward detective novel. Other times I am prepared to tackle something a bit more challenging. Sometimes I pick up a book I've read many times before, and it feels like an old friend; other times reading something the nth time is just too boring to continue.
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
Let's make the assumption that we're talking about fiction here, though a lot of the principles apply to non-fiction as well.
I find that my mood dictates how much effort I feel like putting into a book. Sometimes I just don't feel like anything other than a straightforward detective novel. Other times I am prepared to tackle something a bit more challenging. Sometimes I pick up a book I've read many times before, and it feels like an old friend; other times reading something the nth time is just too boring to continue.
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.
What compels you to re-read a book?
I'm like you- there are books I've read several times and always enjoy, and others that were once and enough. I don't know what pulls me back to a book over and over, but I suspect it has to be something that is the special sauce that makes a book a best-seller. Most of my faves are either classics or old best-sellers.
I'll reread a book that I particularly enjoyed because I want to experience that enjoyment again.
Part of the reason I can do so is that I do not read a book to 'find out what happens'. I'm more interested in the literary journey than the destination. The way the author uses the language, the unfolding of the story, the meditation on the themes. There are several books by my favorite authors that I imagine I'll read about once a decade for as long as I live. Really, it's the same reason that I'll watch an entire television series again one day, or that I'll watch a film that I've seen before.
I'll reread a book that I particularly enjoyed because I want to experience that enjoyment again.
Part of the reason I can do so is that I do not read a book to 'find out what happens'. I'm more interested in the literary journey than the destination. The way the author uses the language, the unfolding of the story, the meditation on the themes. There are several books by my favorite authors that I imagine I'll read about once a decade for as long as I live. Really, it's the same reason that I'll watch an entire television series again one day, or that I'll watch a film that I've seen before.
I actually have a few that I reread every year. Mainly it depends on how well developed the characters are, and how well the author can get me invested in the characters. My short list of rereads are:
Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series. Joel was a sort of friend of mine, and rereading lets me forget for a while that he isn't with us anymore.
David Eddings' Belgariad series and the followups. Yes, he was formulaic in his writing. However, he wrote conversation better than just about any other author I've read.
Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series. Not every year, but every couple of years I go back through and read these in full. Frankly, there are a lot of books and if I reread it every year that's all I would read.
Larry Correia's Monster Hunters International series. Larry writes engaging stories and skirts the edge of reality while pretty much ignoring political correctness. These books are sheer escapism, and I love them for it. It doesn't hurt that Larry is possibly one of the most commonsensical people I've had the pleasure of interacting with, is a font of knowledge about firearms, and uses that knowledge when writing his books. If you're looking for something non-violent, these aren't the books for you. If, however, you are looking for books that combine firepower and fairytales in an engaging way you might want to check these out.
There are others that I reread, but they'll have to wait. Wife is waiting on me to go to the store. Ciao.
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