Begging the Question

We call a story good because of what is written, not who wrote it.  But sometimes people invert the relationship—i.e., we believe a story must be good because a particular name is attached to it.

In “A Legend in His Own Mind” (The New Yorker, Dec. 22 & 29, 1997, pp. 54-65), John Walsh reports an exchange between editor Mike Petty and novelist James Thackara: “Once, Petty recalls, he queried a piece of dialogue. ‘Look,’ I said.  ‘You can’t say this.  It’s bad dialogue.  It’s bad art.’  Thackara said, ‘Faulkner could do that,’ and I said, ‘But, James, you’re not Faulkner.'”

So Thackara wasn’t Faulkner, but who was Faulkner?  How did Faulkner know he was Faulkner—i.e., how did he know it was acceptable for him to do the things Petty called bad dialogue and bad art?—and how did others recognize his Faulkner-hood?  And when Faulkner did whatever it was Petty was accusing Thackara of doing, how did readers know to call it good, and how do they know to call it bad when done by Thackara?

Read more »

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Annals of Superhuman Persistence, Vol IV: Veronica Roth

On March 31, 2010, 21-year-old Veronica Roth wrote a blog post titled “You + $$$ = ?”  Two weeks later, Roth sold her first book, a dystopian YA novel about a society segregated by moral virtues and a girl who doesn’t fit in.  “I was in Psych learning about exposure therapy,” she recalls. She started writing about those people instead of doing her college homework, and within 40 days she had a completed draft.  Divergent sold quickly—after four days, to the first editor who finished reading it.  Divergent was published in May 2011 and spent eleven consecutive weeks on the New York Times’ children’s best-seller list; the sequel, Insurgent, debuted at No. 1 a year later. The series has remained there ever since.  Since no popular YA series is without a movie franchise, Summit Entertainment—the studio behind Twilight—will release Divergent early next year, and its cast (Kate Winslet, Next Big Thing Shailene Woodley) suggests similar expectations for the film version. Meanwhile, the contents of the trilogy’s upcoming final book, Allegiant (coming out October 22), are being guarded like Katniss Everdeen in the first half of Mockingjay.

 

 

http://www.vulture.com/2013/10/divergent-author-veronica-roth-builds-empire.html

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Annals of Superhuman Persistence, Vol. III: Samantha Shannon

21-Year-Old Novelist Samantha Shannon on Her Debut, The Bone Season

Samantha Shannon’s “inspiration for The Bone Season, the ambitious first novel in a projected seven-part series to be published by Bloomsbury, came from an internship with literary agent David Godwin the summer after her first year at Oxford.   Read more »

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Trailer

Fade in on an office building at sunset.  Mournful music plays.  Cut to interior of the building as the white collar workers leave.  One turns back on the threshold and calls, “See you in the morning, John.”

Cut to John, late twenties, All-American looks, clean-shaven but with a lock of hair falling over his forehead, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, waving goodbye.  He remains in the office as night falls, drawing with a T-square on a large tilted desk.

In a laboratory, John pipets a small amount of blue liquid into a test tube, his face rapt with excitement.

Establishing shot of New York in the 1950’s.  Old man’s voiceover: “They say that when a true genius appears in the world…”  Read more »

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Conceptual Art Thief

Today, I can confidently state that I am the greatest conceptual art thief in the world.  I have perpetrated dozens of elaborate heists, stealing many of the most valuable works of 20th century art, and not only have I never been caught, but nobody has ever even found out my crimes had ever taken place.  Yes, even the museums that I have stolen from are unaware their precious conceptual artworks have been snatched away right under their noses.

Lesser thieves may have stolen the Mona Lisa or The Scream or what have you.  But while they may have stolen wooden panels or canvases daubed with oil paints, I had bigger game in mind.  Yes, I am an aesthete; I love beauty, and what could be more beautiful than an idea or set of instructions for creating some kind of object or experience?  Read more »

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Andre’s Law

ANDRE: “You see, I think that people today are so deeply asleep that unless, you know, you’re putting on those sort of superficial plays that just help your audience to sleep more comfortably, it’s very hard to know what to do in the theater. ‘Cause, you see, I think that if you put on serious contemporary plays by writers like yourself, you may only be helping to deaden the audience in a different way.

WALLY: What do you mean? Read more »

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Pritchard’s Law (Updated Feb. 2, 2015 w/ Proof)

Pritchard’s Law says, in one (narrow) application, there will be an inverse relationship between the amount of plot per page in a novel and the quality of its prose.  The more plot, the worse prose.

Below are passages from various novels quoted by James Wood in The New Yorker.  He specifically singled out these passages as being well-written.  What do they have in common?   Read more »

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Annals of Superhuman Persistence: Vol. II: Hugh Howey

Four years ago, he decided to give writing a shot. He and his wife were living in a 750-square foot house in Boone, N.C. He was unemployed; his wife was working as a psychologist. He had an idea for a story about a young spaceship pilot who travels across the galaxy in search of her missing father. He sold the novel, “Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue,” to a small Indiana publisher for less than a thousand dollars. Sales were meager. Read more »

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Objet Trouvé: Diminished Nerve House with a Assuredness Pool

Big Rock is an attribute of 140 acres two hours drive from Sydney. This has been set up next to Edward Szewczyk, an Australian designer Polska comply. That is, underestimated complicated complicated, knives home is the goal of any owner and their acquaintances rocking the city. Read more »

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Annals of Superhuman Persistence: Vol. I: Barry Malzberg

from Down Here in the Dream Quarter, Doubleday, New York, 1976

pp. xvi-xxi

 

My first piece, written in 12/65

My second written three months later

My third SF piece, written in September

My fourth was written in 11/66.  Campbell told my agent Read more »

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