On Dan Brown, and Writing. Not a non sequitur.

[wheeler]

"Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery. He lunged for the nearest painting he could see, a Caravaggio. Grabbing the gilded frame, the seventy-six-year-old man heaved the masterpiece toward himself until it tore from the wall and Saunière collapsed backward in a heap beneath the canvas

Comments

[amanuensis1]

I found TDVC to be a page-turner, partly because the guy knows how to end a chapter in a way that makes you say, "What, WHAT? What did he figure out??" and on you go. I think it took me 45 minutes to read the whole thing. But I did A&D as an audiobook, and, oh, man, you can really feel the flaws in his writing that way. You can't rush through; you have to endure every single repetitive word at audio pace.

[cairmen]

The Barnum quote is a good one. Although it's not true - the Met are doing pretty well by overestimating the public right now.

I've been thinking a lot about the same subject. For starters, writing ability and the ability to tell an engaging story aren't the same thing, and it's actually the latter that sells books. Added to that, there's a huge difference between being able to tell an engaging story, and telling which story will appeal to the largest audience - indeed, estimating audience for a story is a different skill again, and one very few writers even realise exists. And then there's writing characters which will appeal and engage - which isn't the same as writing deep, complex characters. The characters in 'Mad Men' are deep and complex, but I and it would appear the public at large would prefer to watch the characters in, say, Buffy.

And that's just for starters.

What are your thoughts?

[athena25]

A lecturer at Uni referred to Dan Brown and his ilk as "The Big Dogs of Airport Fiction", which I've always liked.

And they have a charm. Chewable books into which you can easily immerse yourself without being bothered by anything complicated or complex. They are also exactly what you would expect - they are soothingly non-challenging and offer comforting distraction in an simple format. Like Bad Action flicks with Vin Diesel. We know that MacDonald's and KFC are bad-for-us food, but who hasn't craved the tasty calories?

But it's different strokes for different folks, and mass appeal is a technique and skill all to it's own, I can (and do, often) get snooty about writing, however I don't think anyone has ever claimed that DBs work is to be held up as a shining light of Literature (capital L). They are fun and easy books to read.

[jenny0]

Okay okay, I totally recognized that sentence. And I thought about the mysteries of Brown's popularity a lot when I read Da Vinci Code a few years ago. I think the key lies in the fact that it's not good writing, just like most of the popular films are not cinematic masterpieces, the most popular clothes are cheap chain stores, the most popular food is fast food, etc. Da Vinci Code is a hamburger of a story - delicious while you're eating it but not a meal you'll look back on for the rest of your life. His tell-don't-show style of writing made me feel like it was written with the film in mind. There are enough action words to make it feel like exciting things are happening, and enough big vocab-test words to make it seem like a book that's done its research, but structure of the writing isn't complex enough to put off anyone with a reading level past age 12 (which, I've learned from writing museum exhibits, is the average reading level of the US population, at least). I do think everyone needs that kind of reading once in a