Interesting Advice

[drcpunk]

The Sunday before last, mnemex and I went to Books of Wonder, missing a reading, but getting to hear a lot of cool authors talking. Afterwards, I asked one of them, blackholly, what she'd recommend as fiction to read for writers who wanted to learn how to put a story or novel together.

"Bad books," she said. "No, really."

She explained that, in good books, the structure is often hard to spot, because the writer makes it all look so smooth and so easy. But, in bad books, the bones of the structure are hanging out all over the place.

We agreed that Fanthorpe might be a bit too bad for these purposes.

We also saw that ellen_kushner had an advance reading copy of Privilege of the Sword. Waycool.

Comments

[jl8e]

So all those Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books I read back in high school were good for something after all?

[mneme]

Heh. If they worked, presumably it's easier to figure out why.

Mind, sometimes I've found that reading bad books hilights why other books are better -- "it didn't work as well a X. X does Z, which must be important!"

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The usual advantage writers get from bad books is inspiration: either "If that can get published, so can I!".