While I agree that the Left Behind series is utterly awful, for people who value confirmation of their dogma over other things, they're good.
Now, I'm perfectly happy to discourage people from reading them. My point is that you won't make them stop reading those dreadful books by saying they're bad, for values of "bad" that are irrelevant to the people who like them. You first have to convince those folks to join you in your value system, at least for purposes of analyzing literature. That's difficult to do, and it certainly can't be done by giving professional martyrs something to feel persecuted about.
I think the lesson that aspiring writers can take from this is that "give the people what they want" is a hell of an easy way to make money (assuming you figure out what the people want, and are able to competently deliver it). The question then comes down to whether the particular writer is sociopath enough to do that.
Me, I couldn't do that, for two reasons. First, because I am completely opposed to the notion of encouraging people to be Fundamentalist Christians (or Fundamentalist any religion). So right there, on this particular topic, I would have to utterly compromise my own ethos.
But suppose we're not talking about something so charged. Suppose the question is, "Should I write [some genre] novels for the money?" Many writers have done this. The world is full of folks who've written romance novels, porn, media tie-in novels, and other forms of for-hire or commissioned novel, solely for the money.
(Examples? Media tie-ins abound. Lawrence Block started his career writing softcore porn. Anne McCaffrey wrote romance novels before she was able to get her SF published. I know a number of novelists who were encouraged to try their hand at YA or UF because those genres have been very hot.)
Now, many writers seem able to do this sort of thing. They don't mind working to a plan that was devised by someone else, or writing in a genre that they don't feel an overwhelming affinity for. Me, personally, I don't think I could do that. Not for moral reasons--I have no moral objections to any of these genres, or the practice of market-chasing in general--but because my brain doesn't work that way. I would not enjoy working on a book that didn't 100% originate in my personal brainspace, and wasn't something I really, really wanted to write, just because.
(As contrasted with writers who are happy to write a for-hire book because they need to pay their rent, and develop enthusiasm for the project because they're professionals and professionals try to be enthusiastic about their jobs.)
While I agree that the Left Behind series is utterly awful, for people who value confirmation of their dogma over other things, they're good.
Now, I'm perfectly happy to discourage people from reading them. My point is that you won't make them stop reading those dreadful books by saying they're bad, for values of "bad" that are irrelevant to the people who like them. You first have to convince those folks to join you in your value system, at least for purposes of analyzing literature. That's difficult to do, and it certainly can't be done by giving professional martyrs something to feel persecuted about.
I think the lesson that aspiring writers can take from this is that "give the people what they want" is a hell of an easy way to make money (assuming you figure out what the people want, and are able to competently deliver it). The question then comes down to whether the particular writer is sociopath enough to do that.
Me, I couldn't do that, for two reasons. First, because I am completely opposed to the notion of encouraging people to be Fundamentalist Christians (or Fundamentalist any religion). So right there, on this particular topic, I would have to utterly compromise my own ethos.
But suppose we're not talking about something so charged. Suppose the question is, "Should I write [some genre] novels for the money?" Many writers have done this. The world is full of folks who've written romance novels, porn, media tie-in novels, and other forms of for-hire or commissioned novel, solely for the money.
(Examples? Media tie-ins abound. Lawrence Block started his career writing softcore porn. Anne McCaffrey wrote romance novels before she was able to get her SF published. I know a number of novelists who were encouraged to try their hand at YA or UF because those genres have been very hot.)
Now, many writers seem able to do this sort of thing. They don't mind working to a plan that was devised by someone else, or writing in a genre that they don't feel an overwhelming affinity for. Me, personally, I don't think I could do that. Not for moral reasons--I have no moral objections to any of these genres, or the practice of market-chasing in general--but because my brain doesn't work that way. I would not enjoy working on a book that didn't 100% originate in my personal brainspace, and wasn't something I really, really wanted to write, just because.
(As contrasted with writers who are happy to write a for-hire book because they need to pay their rent, and develop enthusiasm for the project because they're professionals and professionals try to be enthusiastic about their jobs.)
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