Style and Popular Literature

One of my favorite writing teachers, Bill Henderson, addresses a fundamental question on his blog:

Are commercial bestsellers poorly written?

If you have a chance, definitely check out his post at TrueVoice - The Blog. I've included my response below, but there are several great perspectives on TrueVoice regarding the role of style in popular (and successful) fiction.

Style and Popular Literature

I'm afraid I have great respect for certain popular writers. The latest Harry Potter book was filled with dozens of horribly structured paragraphs, and there are some Stephen King books simply not worth reading, but I enjoy these authors. I appreicate what they can do with a character, how they can bring a story right up to the edge and somehow create a happy (and believable) ending.

At the same time, I have incredible respect for some of the literary short-story authors I've read lately. I can't remember their names, and I only remember their stories from which magazine I found them in (e.g. Georgia Review or Ploughshares). But these are stories I could not have read six years ago. I hated them, dreaded them. In college, the complex literary stories made me avoid the serious literature classes (quite a feat for an English major). I wanted to study creative writing - I didn't want to get bored out of my mind and then start pulling C's. I didn't understand story structure well enough then to appreciate what these stories accomplish. And what I understand now I learned from writing. Workshops taught me how to read stories in-depth, and I will never again enjoy my cherised "pop" novels which happen to be filled with run-on sentences and poor speech attribution.

Most readers, though, are like my mom - they don't write. Hand her Ann Rice and she'll pass the time; hand her Moby Dick and she'll talk about the ex-cousin-in-law who dropped out of his Ph.D. program. Readers like my mom enjoy a good story, and they rarely notice adverbs or participles that dangle into space. If they're good readers, they might feel queasy as the brooding superhero was saying his words darkly, but not always. To many readers, good writing is a product of deep thought. They think that "specificity of detail" means using phrases like "the fact that" and "he was verbed adverbly." They use these phrases themselves, and then they tell people like us (their friends/neighbors/bartenders who claim to be writers) things like "oh, yeah, I'm working on a book, too. It's about..."

Do I begrudge the bestsellers they're fame? Not really. They tell stories that are fun and witty and enjoyable despite transgressions of style. Honestly, I despise awards committees who slap labels like "A Genre Essential Book" on novels that lack either plot or fully realized characters. I worry about the editor who let it go when dozens of poorly-worded paragraphs in Harry Potter 7 crossed the desk. I feel robbed of my time when the books are bad and robbed of an even better read when the books are good but flawed.

Is style important? To us, certainly. To the typical reader? I'm not sure. I feel like an elitist saying this, but I remember the days when I could read a book without critiquing the word order on every other page. When I was younger, I had no patience for many of the books we call "literary." I read E.B. White because the book was about King Arthur, not because I understood the meaning of clean prose. Pride and Prejudice was a favorite because I thought Elizabeth Bennet was fun.

This, I think, is where the popular books excel - they develop characters who readers relate to. They provide compelling plots and exciting action to help readers quickly escape this world of work, taxes, and parking tickets. They reveal that it's possible to write a compelling story despite structural mistakes. It's the kind of trick I'm still trying to pull off.

In the meantime, though, I'll keep working on the fundamentals of style. I'm already much better at sentence structure than conflict, but there's always room for growth. When the day comes that I discover my compelling blockbuster story, I want the style to back me up all the way. I want the the story to read fast so the reader can dive in and forget that the images dancing through his mind are the product of black ink on white paper.

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About Ryan Edel

Why Fantasy Novels are Overlooked

Our waking hours are limited. In the free moments left to us after e-mail and dinner and getting the kids to bed, we do our best to be productive in our leisure. For many, this means skipping the dragons and ignoring the elves in favor of lighter fair – that unread copy of Macbeth, perhaps, or another shot at page twenty of Moby Dick.

To many, fantasy novels are not literature. These readers view fantasy as cheap escapism, simply another way to the forget the boss and ignore the economy – except that there is no chance of Merlin installing a round table in the White House. Thinking that in reading they should “better themselves,” many readers choose books that they believe will directly apply to their lives. They pick up John Grisham and Tom Clancy because certainly those books hold a grain of truth – people get sued every day, and you never know which wars our nation may be fighting outside the view of CNN. Stephen King is a harder sell, but he writes so believably that, for a moment, a reader could imagine those horrible evil things lurking in the shadows under the refrigerator. But fantasy? Dragons that belch flame? A world of dirt roads and enchanted chain mail? Pardon me, but I have work tomorrow.

Unfortunately, this nagging literary discrimination has become quite widespread. It affects many genres – fantasy, science fiction, romance, even Westerns. Part of this ironically results from the high demand for novels in these genres. Readers who love the likes of John Wayne and Captain Kirk will buy many, many books – as a result, genre novels are often not as well written as a New York Times bestseller. Readers unfamiliar with a genre – especially fantasy – see these rows of books at Barnes and Noble and don’t know what to look for. They get swamped by the cover illustrations of damsels and unicorns and knights in heavy armor. They might spend a few minutes reading the back covers before giving up and heading for the bestseller racks. If they’re brave and happen to buy a book, they’re often disappointed. It’s hard to make sense of a good fantasy without at least some familiarity with the standards of the genre. But a poorly-written fantasy novel? Our realist reader might put down the book at chapter one and never go back.

As these mainstream readers face their own poor experiences with fantasy, they spread the word. Instead of “oh, I didn’t like this book by author X,” it becomes “I tried reading a fantasy once – it just didn’t make sense to me.” These views, unfortunately, are still further reinforced by the popularity of the genre. As “typical readers” go about their daily lives, they run across people who love fantasy novels and are very vocal about this love. Renaissance Fairs coupled with Dungeons and Dragons players dressing up for their weekly game leave mainstream readers thinking that fantasy novels are more of a subculture than simply another form of literature. Like Brahmin avoiding Untouchables, these readers avoid “that guy” at the office who spent his weekend dressed in a tunic while turning a pig at a spit – chances are he still smells like boiled grease. Never mind that pig-turning-tunic-guy has always been a little nutty – the fact that he talks about warlocks and magic amulets makes it seem as if it was the books that made him this way. No one really considers the cute secretary down the hall who adores Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and R. A. Salvatore – she never talks about books because she doesn’t want to get lumped in with greasy weirdo dude or (worse yet) encourage him to talk to her.

As this pattern continues, most readers become turned-off to the idea of fantasy novels. They might pick up a copy of Harry Potter because everyone says it’s good, but they’ll never browse the fantasy section looking for it. It’s unfortunate that this happens – these readers miss a very entertaining and insightful genre. Well-written fantasy novels provide more than a magical setting. They develop a metaphorical world for readers to explore, a world that is different from our own but always close to home. But the only way to visit these worlds is to first find a book – a good book – and dodge the ever-watchful eyes of the literary purists.

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