Complex Numbers

Browbeaten

I appreciated yesterday's insightful comments about my Chekov entry. What I might have failed to make clear is that I actually did enjoy the story - it's just that as a person on this site who's gotten (and given!) many reviews warning against long expositions and adverbitis, it struck me as odd that an acknowledged master could get away with such things - successfully.

Sheherazade mentioned translation and, yes, it did occur to me that some of my issues could be put down to translation.

Mavis Moog brings up a good point about style police.

Here's the thing for me: I do not have classical literature training. By that, I mean I was exposed to Shakespeare, Faulkner and Hawthorne same as anyone, but never pursued much beyond AP English class. In college I placed out of English requirements, and concentrated on engineering (though I did have a fiction writing class, even then). So I don't KNOW what those techniques are that Mavis talks about; I only know when reading something whether I liked it or not - and very rarely exactly why.

I have, however, been reading science fiction since I was eight, and my writing - even that which is not SF - probably reflects it. While SF has been attaining greater literary heights lately, it's very aware of its roots as lowbrow pulp fiction.

Which brings me to esprit 's link to Twain on Cooper.

http://users.telerama.com/~joseph/cooper/cooper.html

I've always loved Clemens' writing. When I was a kid, I kept re-reading Tom Sawyer because it alternately made me laugh and be scared. His literary style alone does that. I laughed my damn head off reading the article.

Twain / Clemens wasn't writing highbrow fiction; he was, for the most part, writing for the masses - and the masses are notoriously lowbrow (come on; we're talking about people who watch Springer and American Idol here). But he wasn't lowbrow himself. He knew what he was doing, what effect every word he put down would have. I don't think Twain would have given two shits what a professor thought of his work - at least, that's the impression one gets from his writing.

Impression, of course, is key.

I'm not writing for professors; I'm writing for your average person. I don't write for kids; I write for adults, even when I'm not writing erotica. If I am ever successful, it will be because my works are popular, not because some professor is entranced by my cleverness.

But to do that, I have to be clever - in a subtle way.

I'll let you know if I ever figure that out.