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bookfails. It is, as you might imagine, a place to snark about sucky books. They also make some claim about being non-snarky. As if it's possible to have a community of polite, well-mannered haters. But I digest {sic}. Right now there are a bunch of jerks over there snarking about how Catcher in the Rye "fails" because Holden is a "whiner." Me being me, I am choking on my own rage at that. I explain that Holden is mentally ill and that mental illness isn't a delightful romp into funland {sic}. Someone even said "I get the point, but I feel like I'm trapped in his mind and I don't like it." Well DUH! He's also trapped, and no, it isn't pleasant. By all means, dislike the book if you want to. But if Holden isn't likable because he's a whiner--? I guess that means Helter Skelter also fails because Manson is a jerk. Ditto Silence of the Lambs--if you reduce Lecter to just being an asshole. Eating people is so...rude!
I've had to use the {sic} thing a lot lately, because there are some windbags out there who think that the dramatic license I take with The Language {sic} means I have the grammatical skill of a day-dreaming 6th grader. Note: a first person narrative of a crazy person is not going to jibe with the totality of say, Elements of Style, or the Harbrace Handbook. It just isn't. Wouldn't be truthy. Nothing is more important than truthiness, especially in horror.
My debut novel, as you readers know, has a few errors in it. Three typos, by my count--though someone once told me they saw four. I imagine that it can be tricky to tell when I'm taking a deliberate liberty and when my miserable excuse for an editor fucked up. However, asserting that there are "dozens" of errors on the "first few pages" tells me that you...well, that you don't really get it. If you think something is, for example, a malapropism, it's probably something you're supposed to appreciate rather than brandish your red pen about.
My concern with asserting that people don't get it is that a) it's pretentious as hell, b) that when people say that, it's usually a front for them being either batshit crazy or dumb as a post. And c) it calls to mind criminals and careless or malicious types who say people can't handle them because they're "too real." It can be a fine line between not getting something and just plain disliking it. That's something I'll be pondering a great deal in this new year. Listening to people say that Catcher in the Rye fails because people with mental illness can be "annoying" fills me with dread about the future of all humanity, and makes me want to clarify that difference between liking something and understanding it (which I guess is totally subjective given the number of people who think Tony Soprano did not die in the series finale).
There are grammatical or punctuation errors I make a lot; they are ingrained habits by now. I'm slowly relearning. I spelled their as "thier" for much of my life--no one ever corrected me--even in college (thanks, Dr Walther). I tend to add apostrophes to words that don't need them, plurals for example. Occasionally, people will notice this and say something like Yeah, you must be a great writer dripping with sarcasm as if a grammatical error keeps someone from telling a truthy or captivating or important story. At the same time, I have trouble taking people seriously when they post about "there family" or retort with "your an idiot." So I guess YMMV so far as all that goes.
As I've mentioned, I'll be starting a new novel soon. It will build off the zombie story I began in 1995 and turned into a very short running zombie rock opera that wasn't very good. Like much of my work, it was mostly about me working some shit out. And zombies. I don't think anything on Earth scares me as much as zombies. My mom is less scary than zombies. Sharks, grizzly bears, fundies, poisonous spiders...all pale in comparison to a legion of undead. Honest.
My life has changed a great deal since 1995, so probably only the basics of the story will remain: some characters, some plot points, and zombies. My epilogue may have to change because my horrific pregnant-with-a-zombie-baby scene was co-opted by Zack Snyder in his excellent remake of Dawn of the Dead. My old buddy Finster gave me a splendid idea for a plot point that I will be incorporating in one way or another. It's juicy stuff! He are SMRT {sic}.
Oh yeah...Stephen King's Skeleton Crew came in the mail today, along with The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. The former is one of my all-time favorite anthologies (along with King's Night Shift, his Different Seasons and Skipp and Spektor's Book of the Dead zombie anthologies. Skeleton Crew is filled with short stories that stayed with me basically forever. It also includes The Mist which became one of my top FIVE Stephen King movie adaptations (Carrie, Misery, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary) immediately upon its release. So yay for that. The Girl Next Door was recommended to me by several of you LJ peeps. I'm pretty sure it's loosely based on the true story of that girl from Indiana. *shudder* I guess it's also been made into a movie, but I want to read the book first.
bookfails. It is, as you might imagine, a place to snark about sucky books. They also make some claim about being non-snarky. As if it's possible to have a community of polite, well-mannered haters. But I digest {sic}. Right now there are a bunch of jerks over there snarking about how Catcher in the Rye "fails" because Holden is a "whiner." Me being me, I am choking on my own rage at that. I explain that Holden is mentally ill and that mental illness isn't a delightful romp into funland {sic}. Someone even said "I get the point, but I feel like I'm trapped in his mind and I don't like it." Well DUH! He's also trapped, and no, it isn't pleasant. By all means, dislike the book if you want to. But if Holden isn't likable because he's a whiner--? I guess that means Helter Skelter also fails because Manson is a jerk. Ditto Silence of the Lambs--if you reduce Lecter to just being an asshole. Eating people is so...rude!I've had to use the {sic} thing a lot lately, because there are some windbags out there who think that the dramatic license I take with The Language {sic} means I have the grammatical skill of a day-dreaming 6th grader. Note: a first person narrative of a crazy person is not going to jibe with the totality of say, Elements of Style, or the Harbrace Handbook. It just isn't. Wouldn't be truthy. Nothing is more important than truthiness, especially in horror.
My debut novel, as you readers know, has a few errors in it. Three typos, by my count--though someone once told me they saw four. I imagine that it can be tricky to tell when I'm taking a deliberate liberty and when my miserable excuse for an editor fucked up. However, asserting that there are "dozens" of errors on the "first few pages" tells me that you...well, that you don't really get it. If you think something is, for example, a malapropism, it's probably something you're supposed to appreciate rather than brandish your red pen about.
My concern with asserting that people don't get it is that a) it's pretentious as hell, b) that when people say that, it's usually a front for them being either batshit crazy or dumb as a post. And c) it calls to mind criminals and careless or malicious types who say people can't handle them because they're "too real." It can be a fine line between not getting something and just plain disliking it. That's something I'll be pondering a great deal in this new year. Listening to people say that Catcher in the Rye fails because people with mental illness can be "annoying" fills me with dread about the future of all humanity, and makes me want to clarify that difference between liking something and understanding it (which I guess is totally subjective given the number of people who think Tony Soprano did not die in the series finale).
There are grammatical or punctuation errors I make a lot; they are ingrained habits by now. I'm slowly relearning. I spelled their as "thier" for much of my life--no one ever corrected me--even in college (thanks, Dr Walther). I tend to add apostrophes to words that don't need them, plurals for example. Occasionally, people will notice this and say something like Yeah, you must be a great writer dripping with sarcasm as if a grammatical error keeps someone from telling a truthy or captivating or important story. At the same time, I have trouble taking people seriously when they post about "there family" or retort with "your an idiot." So I guess YMMV so far as all that goes.
As I've mentioned, I'll be starting a new novel soon. It will build off the zombie story I began in 1995 and turned into a very short running zombie rock opera that wasn't very good. Like much of my work, it was mostly about me working some shit out. And zombies. I don't think anything on Earth scares me as much as zombies. My mom is less scary than zombies. Sharks, grizzly bears, fundies, poisonous spiders...all pale in comparison to a legion of undead. Honest.
My life has changed a great deal since 1995, so probably only the basics of the story will remain: some characters, some plot points, and zombies. My epilogue may have to change because my horrific pregnant-with-a-zombie-baby scene was co-opted by Zack Snyder in his excellent remake of Dawn of the Dead. My old buddy Finster gave me a splendid idea for a plot point that I will be incorporating in one way or another. It's juicy stuff! He are SMRT {sic}.
Oh yeah...Stephen King's Skeleton Crew came in the mail today, along with The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum. The former is one of my all-time favorite anthologies (along with King's Night Shift, his Different Seasons and Skipp and Spektor's Book of the Dead zombie anthologies. Skeleton Crew is filled with short stories that stayed with me basically forever. It also includes The Mist which became one of my top FIVE Stephen King movie adaptations (Carrie, Misery, Salem's Lot, Pet Sematary) immediately upon its release. So yay for that. The Girl Next Door was recommended to me by several of you LJ peeps. I'm pretty sure it's loosely based on the true story of that girl from Indiana. *shudder* I guess it's also been made into a movie, but I want to read the book first.
