Comments on: All Writers Are

By: chris roland

chris roland — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:58:57 +0000

I would say perhaps that all writers have an extra dimension, a stage in their heads upon which they re-enact/rehearse alternative scenarios. Perhaps all writers are in some way unhappy with the world, or dissatisfied with the world they find. It follows then that a lot of readers are too. There’s probably a reader/writer continuum here and it may be misleading to draw a line between the one and the two. The writer drives themself half insane trying to become ‘the reader’ and evaluate their work from the perspective of ‘the other’ whilst the reader of necessity must enter into the writer’s world to co-author what the writer doesn’t manage to complete (most of the picture). So the rapist analogy, perhaps not. Love affair, orgy, ‘exclusive’ party or harmless flirt on the bus, café or at the library? And what happened to a plain old chat. A harmless chat. ‘All writers are like someone you might chat to at a bus stop.’ Not quite as grabbing though is it.

Anyway, please try my blog, there’s an entire online story just waiting for you to read it!

http://offbloodtombbalcony.blogspot.com/

Chris

By: glenda larke

glenda larke — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:41:35 +0000

I’ve had plenty of All Fantasy Is….followed by some nonsensical statement, usually insulting. Can’t say I’ve been told anything about “All Writers” though. Somehow I don’t like the idea of forcing words into a reader’s head. If that’s what writing was really about, I wouldn’t be a writer.

And Green Knight, I sympathise. Felt the same way about the same book. Mostly, I suppose, because I the reader was misled into believing that the protag was basically a decent fellow incapable of the vile crime he ultimately committed.

By: S. Megan Payne

S. Megan Payne — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:07:11 +0000

I totally agree with that quote, Raethe. Perfectly.

By: Raethe

Raethe — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:47:08 +0000

Megan: To borrow a quote from Making Light, “too bad they didn’t fail him first”?

I have to agree. That’s kind of… Ugh.

I kind of like the cannibal analogy, though. Gofigure.

By: S. Megan Payne

S. Megan Payne — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:08:38 +0000

How about “All authors WRITE.” ‘Cause a lot of folks that call themselves writers don’t actually put butt in chair and produce. But anyone that makes it to be a published author DOES.

As for the rapists thing…words fail me.

By: Jaws

Jaws — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:51:45 +0000

Sort of sideways from “all writers are cannibals”:

Soylent Pulp Is Authors

I think the only “all authors are” equation that makes sense is “all authors are imperfect”.

By: Alma Alexander

Alma Alexander — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:58:51 +0000

Good post. Need to think about it. But first reaction is, has to be, much like yours was, that the writer who uttered the original “rapist” comment is… not speaking for me.

So his “all writers” sentence is automatically shot.

So THERE.

By: JS Bangs

JS Bangs — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:33:18 +0000

Hmmm, the rapist metaphor works only insofar as all communication can be likened to rape. After all, I can walk up to you and say something incredibly offensive or disturbing, and you can’t choose to unhear that, either. Still, it’s not the metaphor I would have chosen.

By: green_knight

green_knight — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:53:39 +0000

I think in general the rapist metaphor is a very bad one, unless in reverse: don’t be a rapist. Don’t take readers to places (unless they explicitly consent to be taken) where they will be squicked or frightened, because it is impossible to _unremember_ those words. I once followed a protagonist for 13/4 books, felt with him, rooted for him, when – to score a point in the relationship with his brother – he murdered his nephew in the most callous, disgusting, on-screen manner. (And that’s the sanitized version.)

It was disgusting. I felt deeply betrayed not just by the author, but by the character – I’d supported him for all this time, shelled out my money in trade paperback because I didn’t want to wait, and as a repayment, I was sickened to the bottom of my soul.

Not part of the author/reader contract. My trust had been not just violated, but trampled in the mud and laughed at. I don’t think there’s any justification for doing that, ever.

By: Karen Wester Newton

Karen Wester Newton — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:51:50 +0000

The rapists thing is totally wrong. No one forces someone to pick up a book (except maybe school teachers). I think good writers could be called seducers, and just as a pick-up line works on one person but not another, the opening to a story will hook one reader but not another.

I always found it interesting that cannibalism is so limited in nature; there are few animals, even predators, who eat their own kind. I think the reason is rooted in biology. When a lion eats a gazelle, it is less likely to ingest any viruses or bacteria that are harmful to lions.

But I don’t consider using details observed from life to be cannibalism, because putting something in a story doesn’t really consume the thing being used. It’s really closer to recycling– taking something and reworking it to make it something else.

When I used to work in visual arts, I often found that looking out the window would make me pause and consider the view as a composition. Now that I write, I have a similar reaction to hearing about situations– I frame them in the context of a story, just as I used to frame a view out the window.