Patterns and Craft

[sartorias]

I've been on the run showing my house guests all over Southern California. Too bad we can't do internet runs while sitting on the freeway. I could have caught up on every missed post going back ten years. Ah well, wait for the implants.

One observation before I get to the post I had some ideas about. Monday my visitors wanted to see The Getty

Comments

[coppervale]

Yep. ;)

[negothick]

You always get right to the heart of the matter. "Love" is the secret ingredient, and maybe it makes readers excuse the lack of craft. People love Dickens more than they love Trollope, though critics found the latter the better craftsman. Dickens was messy, but damn he loved what he did!

[marycatelli]

except that Doyle loved his medieval works and though Holmes miserable hackwork. He didn't throw him over the waterfall for nothing.

[kalimac]

Love and talent, then. Doyle had no talent for medievalism (you can really tell the difference between the Victorians who did and those who didn't), but he did for the Holmes stories. And I think he enjoyed himself doing them more than he let on; it was the public who loved Holmes more than he did, and who wouldn't let Holmes go, that Doyle found dismaying.

[zornhau]

A lot of wise words there.

The least mutilated childrens' version of the Greek Myths has to be that of Roger Lancelyn Green. It even comes as an audio CD.

[sartorias]

That's good to know!

[kalimac]

"gutting myth in order to keep it G rated"

I am reminded of the odd line - I think, I hope, that it's supposed to be funny - in Eager's Half Magic when the time-traveling kids ask Lancelot, "And how is Elaine? And little Galahad?"

[whswhs]

Eager was interestingly subversive at times. I was lastingly influenced by Knight's Castle, where the 20th century kids go to a lot of trouble to have Wilfrid of Ivanhoe end up with the obviously superior dark Jewess Rebecca rather than the blonde Saxon Rowena. In fact, I read that before I encountered any story where the hero ends up with the blonde and the brunette is shown to be unworthy. (I still haven't been able to get into Ivanhoe, but the same duality shows up in Hugo's The Man Who Laughs.) Back when I was a kid I didn't even notice the ethnic subtext!

[sartorias]

I remember being impressed by the reasoning in Knight's Castle when I read it in fifth grade or so, though I'd never heard of Ivanhoe. But when I read it a few years later, I was already rooting for Rebecca!

[asakiyume]

Architecture suited to place--oh yes. So, so true. My father claims that the State University of New York at Albany was built from architectural plans originally intended for a site in India--it is airy and open and has fountains.... but in upstate New York, the fountains can only be turned on just as the students are leaving for the summer, and the expanses of open piazza collect snow and become slippery, messy places.

I love pre-electricity ways of staying cool--conceptually, anyway. I understand that in present-day LA's heat, you need something more. In Japan, wind chimes are meant to make you think of water, and help you cool down. I remember seeing, too, some building in Algeria--with thick clay walls, and a grillework pattern that let in breeze but only indirect sun...

And love and craft. You need both. Craft without love can feel facile or empty, love without craft, as you say, may not convey what it wants to.

[sartorias]

The question of love is a difficult one to pin down. If we are to be believed, Georgette Heyer loved her medieval novel--which reads like dry gravel. She despised the fans who enjoyed her easily-written Regencies (which follow predictable patterns) but they are far, far better in all ways than her beloved (but unfinished) masterwork. Craft was the same, the medieval had the love . . . but.

Then there is that strange man who was a janitor in Chicago who covered pages, and walls, with his beloved story--which to others read like a highly schizo, and often pornographic, version of The Land of Oz as I recall. Plenty of love there, but no craft.

These days, when I see a writer say "I just love what I wrote!" I think, great, that meant it was a joy to write. But alas, that doesn't necessarily mean it will be a joy to read.

[asakiyume]

I guess if someone just loves what they write, at least there's one happy reader (namely, the author him/herself). But most of us want broader audiences.

That's part of what being human *is*--finding a way to communicate meaningfully with one another.

Maybe it's easier to get better at expressing oneself with something that doesn't matter so viscerally --maybe that's why works that authors don't love as much get the audience love. But if you really want to share the stuff you love most, I guess you work hard to find a way to express it.

But there are no guarantees ever.

[sartorias]

No guarantees. I was just thinking about this as I did some food prep--I remember being in a workshop once many years ago. There was a writer around my own age (early twenties) who had a good ear for dialogue, and her plot sense zipped right along. But her favorite novel, which some of us began to dread her bringing up, was centered around a character that was just like her. This was not a Mary Sue in the full sense. The character was prettier than the writer, that is, everyone said she was prettier. The key thing was, the character showed all the writer's idiosyncracies and personality traits. This made for a vivid character . . . the falldown for the reader (and it took a long time for us clueless newbies to figure this out, and then no one could think of a way to express it) was that the other characters invariably thought her reactions were wonderful--funny--special. So even though the character wasn't a Mary Sue in the usual sense, she took a Sue's place by being the center of everyone's admiration. And some of those

[la_marquise_de_]

Craft is not just about refining grammar skills and mastering POV and transitions, plotting and pacing, character and world design, it's about learning how to get that love into the text for the reader to find.

That is a wonderful observation. And one I need to learn. My female characters, in particular, tend to be emotionally cool, remote to write and to read. And I fear over-decorating with words (as it's my besetting sin). But here are other ways. Hm... (Wanders off pondering.)

[negothick]

That difficulty about writing ONLY what you love (and not caring if it gets across to anyone else) hits us all, writers of nonfiction (such as LJ postings) or fiction. It's like telling your dreams--all that bright dream-gold, those episodes that made your heart turn, they turn to dry leaves when you try to tell them to others. We may fly in our dreams, but how can we convince others that we did?

[sartorias]

Oh yes, that's it exactly.

[la_marquise_de_]

Yes, this. I think in oils, but write in watercolour.