The Worst Novelist in History?

I saw some commentary about bad writing on facebook this morning, and this link was below it, about “The Worst Novelist in History.” I had to read it. And I think I might just agree, although I’ve seen some horrible writing in the modern world.

The fairly short article is about Amanda McKittrick Ros, or at least that was her pen name. Her real name was Anna Margaret Ross. She was born in Northern Ireland in 1860 and died in 1939. She was a schoolteacher, and I find myself wondering what horrific effects she may have had on her students.

Here is a line from her first book, Irene Iddesleigh, which her husband paid to have published as a tenth anniversary present to her: “She tried hard to keep herself a stranger to her poor old father's slight income by the use of the finest production of steel, whose blunt edge eyed the reely covering with marked greed, and offered its sharp dart to faultless fabrics of flaxen fineness.” 

She went on to publish more books and poetry, though. Here is the Wikipedia link for her. She apparently was a bit full of herself in addition to writing prose like that wonderful bit quoted above. 

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Zanthar of the Many Worlds: Review

I love Sword and Planet fiction. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Leigh Brackett, Alan Burt Akers (aka Ken Bulmer), and many others. There’s a reason why I’ve spent so much time writing it myself, as with the Talera series. I find it the purest form of adventure fiction. And I take it seriously.

I also demand that the writers whose Sword and Planet offerings I read take it seriously too. I’m afraid that I can’t quite picture Robert Moore Williams, who wrote this book, Zanthar of the Many Worlds, taking the genre seriously.

The book begins with John Zanthar, a brilliant Earth scientist who invents a machine that can open portals to other worlds. Zanthar himself is sucked through it accidentally, and later two of his students are sucked through as well. So is a man named Fu Cong, who becomes the primary villain of the story. So far, so good.

Then the weaknesses with the work start to arise. One would expect that transportation to an alien world would cause a person a bit of dislocation and discomfort. Not Zanthar. In the first few pages of the story he acquires some allies who decide he’s a god, and defeats the leader of a horde of attackers who are riding “miniature dinosaurs.” These appear to be T Rexes a bit bigger than the “Velociraptors” of Jurassic Park. Zanthar kills one of these dinosaurs with one blow from a “copper  hammer” he’d been carrying in his lab when the transportation occurred. He also has no problem communicating with his new friends, who are conveniently riding telepathic beasts. And one of his new allies is a beautiful woman capable of healing any wound merely by laying hands on it and concentrating. Later she proves capable of raising the dead. (I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day that easy in the real world.)

I’m also a lover of good poetical prose, and the best Sword and Planet fiction has this. The prose in Zanthar of the Many Worlds is almost completely leaden, and in many cases just downright silly. Here’s a bit of prose from early in the book: “And then: ‘The love-life?’ Zanthar questioned. He did not understand the term. In fact, he was not at all certain that he understood a tenth of the words she used. ‘I do not understand.’” The repetition was just wretched.

Later, there’s an actual bit of dialogue imagined by Zanthar between atoms.  I’m not making this up. Here it is:

“Zanthar had the impression that he could hear the atoms talking each to the other, saying, ‘Brother, where are you?’

‘Comrade, what has happened?’

‘Sister, why are we in darkness?’

‘Cousin molecule, where has mother gone?’

‘And where is father?’

‘Is—is this the night that never ends?’ an atomic voice wailed.

‘Is—is this the end of the universe of atoms?’ another whispered.” 

That was it for me. I stopped reading and just quickly scanned the rest of the book. I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone. And, do be aware that there are three sequels in this series, Zanthar at the Edge of Never, Zanthar at Moon’s Madness, and Zanthar at Trip’s End. All were published by Lancer books and were probably contracted for to capitalize on the Conan boom of the sixties. They were published between 1967 and 1969 and I’m guessing they were written exceedingly fast. I know Moore wrote a lot of books. He died in 1977. I have a few others of his at the house, most notably the Jongar series. They’ve all moved way down my list of books to read after this Zanthar fiasco. I read a quote once about a different writer that rather sums up my feelings about this book. “That’s not writing. That’s typing.”

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Writing and Other Fun Things

I've finished two stories in the past few days. One was the "Swampy Jack" story, which ended up under the title "The Finest Cut." Several folks pointed out that the original title, "Swampy Jack's Finest Cut," might either have given too much away or may not have set the right tone. I agreed. I ended up keeping the character name "Swampy Jack," though, because it fits that character and how he portrays himself. The piece is pretty much pure noir.

The other story is a horror piece under the working title right now of: "A Mouth Wet With Rain and Leaves." Some day I'll post about short versus long titles. Personally, I'm a sucker for long titles as long as they have a poetic or humorous element to them. I don't buy books for their covers, but I probably have bought books before just because the title was so cool I figured I'd have to like the writing within.

Unfortunately, the work of the semester has also hit big time. I've got a couple of research proposals on my desk to review, a student paper to edit, a set of tests to grade, a brief note I have to write for a scholarly journal, and a long scholarly book that I've been asked to review. Lana says we need to grocery shop too!

This is not to mention any pleasure reading of the books and stories I have loaded on my Kindle or sitting on my desk from blog friends like Patti, Oscar, Bernard, O'Neil, Sid, Chris, and plenty of others that I'd like to get read.

I never wonder where all the time goes. I know exactly where it goes.

By the way, I am getting ready to close my giveaway for Strange Worlds and will have the drawing this weekend. If you haven't yet entered, all you have to do is leave a comment on This Post

The Drawing will likely be held Sunday so today and Saturday it is still open.
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In a Story…(Part Two)

In a story, things happen. And they don’t happen in a nice, predictable pattern. Telling a story isn’t like playing a game of chess. The writer doesn’t have to have the board all set up and the pieces all arranged just so before starting the story. In fact, messiness is desirable at the start. “In media res” is a piece of writing advice I like. It means, begin in the middle of the action. Another piece of advice I like about writing is, never tell the reader more than they need to know at that precise moment in time. In the perfect book, the reader always wants to know a little more than they do know. That’s why they turn the page.

Of course a book doesn’t have to start with a battle or an alien invasion. As long as something is happening, there’ll be readers who will follow you. What do you think of the following scenarios, for example.

1. “I’m pregnant, Don. And it’s not yours.”

2. I heard the car coming and looked up from weeding my flower garden. We didn’t get many visitors out here in the country. I never expected this one. The daughter I hadn’t seen in ten years got out of the car. She wasn’t alone.

3. I recognized the ring tone as I answered my cell.
“Hi, Granny,” I said, smiling.
“I’ve shot your grandfather,” she said. “I just thought you should know.”

I’m not saying these are beautifully written opening lines but at least something is going on in them. My thinking is that all three of these are essentially literary openings. The stories that developed from these would most likely be primarily about human relationships, either their development of their destruction. I might not actually want to read any of these stories, although #3 sounds the most interesting to me. I’m a genre junky. I don’t often read stories that are solely about relationships. For me, a writer needs something like:

1. She looked like she was about twelve years old until she pulled the gun on me.

2. The howling began around dark. I should have left the cabin then. But the sound was far away and I told myself it was only wolves. Besides, I was expecting friends to join me for a weekend in the woods.

By midnight my friends hadn’t arrived and the howling was closer. It was closer and all around the cabin. And it didn’t sound like wolves anymore.

3. The ship plunged through the atmosphere, burning as it went. Only a fragment hit the earth. But that fragment was alive.
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In a Story…(Part One)

In a story, things happen. They happen immediately, or at least PDQ. Things that have happened are frequently revealed in dialogue, or, often with less effectiveness, in summarized form in what is called an info dump. Talented writers, in certain types of stories, can have action happening in the dialogue itself, although it’s a rare story that can get along with dialogue alone.

The first line of this essay came in a fit of irritation as I was reading a book from a mainstream SF publisher. It came because this particular book did not illustrate the principle that ‘in a story, things happen.’ By thirty-five pages in, we’d had a dozen characters introduced and had “hints” that a major crisis was threatening earth. (I already knew from the back cover that we were looking at a first contact scenario.) We’d learned a few things about the characters, almost none of it very interesting. We’d also had a nine page conversation in a jeep with a flat tire in the rain, about nothing. Starting with page 35, we got a page and a half info dump about a specific character, including pretty much the character’s whole military service and the honors he’d received. That was it for me. I closed the book and uploaded it to bookmooch. I was irritated enough to vow never to read another of this author’s books again.

The worst thing, from my point of view, is that the first book I read by this author was absolutely wonderful. It was also an alien contact story, but the action began in the first paragraph as a research lab at a major university blew up and opened a gateway to another dimension. The action seldom slacked off after that, although a lot of characters were introduced as the book went on. I was so impressed that I immediately bought two more books by the author. The second one I read was written with a coauthor and was horribly slow with a lot of character description that ended up going nowhere. I blamed it on the co-writer so I still came to the current novel with high hopes. Dashed hopes, as it turned out. If this had been the first book I read by this author I would never have gotten to the one that was really good.

Things happen in a story. Or else it’s not a story. No matter how many characters a writer introduces, it’s not a story until things happen between those characters. No matter how much a writer hints at big things to come, it’s not a story until some of those things actually begin to occur. I think most writers have to learn this fact. I don’t believe it comes naturally for most of us. It didn’t for me, although I never took 35 pages to get to some big happening. Swords of Talera is my slowest starting book. There’s a five page introduction that reveals Ruenn Maclang’s character and sets up a mystery about Ruenn and where he’s been. Then comes Chapter 1, with three and half pages of rather mundane activity until the screams begin and the story is fully launched. Wings over Talera has a three page introduction with a battle happening by page 2 of the book itself. Witch of Talera has a two “paragraph” introduction and an assassination attempt on the first page.

Here’s my plea to writers. Make things happen. Make them happen quickly. I don’t want to put your book down any more than you want me to.
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Writing Class, examples

For the last couple of days in my class, Writing in Psychology, we’ve been talking about rewriting. I’ve always enjoyed rewriting myself; sometimes I think I like it better than “writing.” But I notice a real reluctance in many students to rewrite. I believe it stems from a bit of laziness. It was enough work to get the sentence down the first time. Rewriting it is just a bunch more work for little payoff.

Of course, what I tell them, but what they don’t always understand, is that writing and rewriting are really synonymous. It’s not like laying bricks, where you get one down and you don’t want to tear it up again for anything. Words put down in writing are always “approximations.” They’re placeholders, and tearing one up to replace it is part of the process.

One of the things I have my students do during this section of the class is practice rewriting poorly designed sentences and paragraphs. I actually give them examples to rewrite of actual papers handed in for grades to me during previous semesters. Of course, I leave off any identifying names. Here’s some of the ones I’m giving to them today. Except for putting them into quotations, these are reproduced “exactly” as they were first handed in to me in my classes. Are you amazed? Traumatized? I know I was.

1. “When they are hungry or want to be held or need to be clean babies respond in there own way by crying or screeming.”

2. “Lying is also used to conceal real truths,,escape punishment, to save face, and to also shun responsibility.”

3. “Suppression is the avoiding of thoughts that are stressful or negative in some sort of way by substituting them with other thoughts that are not so hurtful to the person.”

4. “Some people can get by one just a few hours sleep while others require eight nine or more.”

5. “Some point in life, an individual face a loss of memory.”
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What I Learned from Bad Writers

Even as a kid I loved telling stories, to myself if not to others. But I first thought of becoming a writer in my late teens (17, 18) and of telling stories on paper for others to read.

Two things persuaded me to try my hand at the author thing. On the positive side, I wanted to tell stories to enthrall others the way I had been enthralled by Louis L’Amour, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and John D. MacDonald. On the less positive side, I figured I could do better, or at least put more effort into it, than some of the writers I was reading. I won’t mention any names, but I was finding books that just didn’t move me. The prose was leaden, the pace stagnant, the characters indistinguishable from the stiffness of new jeans.

In most cases, it appeared that the writers I didn’t like were writing far too fast. They weren’t taking the time and giving the care to their work that being a craftsman required. To me, this became, and remains, the definition of a hack. In later years, however, I realized that I had learned quite a bit from the hacks, mostly, I hope, about the things a writer should not do.

I learned that well-written prose strikes the ear like music, not like the sound of a bell that has lost its clapper. I learned that good characters can’t become chess pieces to be shoved around willy-nilly. I learned that description is boring unless it fires the imagination or sets a mood. I learned that good writing takes time and effort and there is no substitute for either. And while I have not always achieved these things, I have always tried.

How about you? Have you learned anything from bad writers? Or do you think that reading bad prose leads to writing it? What’s your take?