From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Good writing (was Re: Piers Anthony)
Date: 15 Sep 92 20:05:46 GMT
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA

In article <1992Sep14.224831.12090@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>In article <1992Sep14.210619.8095@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:

>>How about:  "Good writing (in fiction) is writing which communicates 
>>effectively, entertains, and does not insult the reader's intelligence."

>For one thing, I wouldn't limit the purpose of writing to "entertainment."

Nor would I, nor _did_ I.  Nor, apparently, do you have a thorough understandingof the verb "to entertain."  It does not automatically imply a mere passive
amusement or whiling away of the time.  Thus, your question:

>Is your
>main reaction to Joyce or Kafka or Ellison that you feel "entertained"?

Not to feel entertained, but to be entertained, as well as to enjoy the
entertainment of various ideas that don't cross the mind in the course of
the quotidian tasks of the day.  (And I assume you meant Ralph Ellison,
right?:*)


>For another, it seems to me that a part of the greatness of at least some
>great authors is their ambiguity and depth: they don't put across a 
>simple, easily grasped message.  Dickens and Asimov communicate "effectively";
>Dostoevsky and Trollope and Bradbury communicate more subtly.

Why do you think subtlety is somehow incommensurate with effectiveness?
I might add, that the subtlety of the communication of the latter group is
part of their communication, and part of what makes it so effective.  Some
messages are not effectively delivered by megaphone.


>As for insulting the reader's intelligence, I think you could make a case
>that Milton, Shaw, Lawrence, Heinlein, and Van Vogt look down on their average 
>readers, more or less to the point of insult; and yet this only makes 
>them eccentric, rather than bad writers.

Note that I carefully left the term "the reader" ambiguous.  Milton through
Heinlein, of the above list, wrote for some self-defined "ideal" reader who
could appreciate their points of view.  Shaw and Heinlein, in particular,
were clever enough about it to write for that reader in an open enough manner
that an average reader could think himself "in on the joke," whereas (from
Shaw's or Heinlein's point of view) that *was* the joke.

About Van Vogt, the less said (and the less often) the better.

>Don't take all this personally.  I don't think "good writing" can be defined.
>You can identify elements which seem to be a part of it, but for each one
>you can find some great book which flouts it.

Okay, go ahead:  find me a great book that fails to entertain, that does
not communicate effectively *on its proper level*, or which insults its
chosen audience/reader.

Make my millenium.


		The Pavlov dog and the Schroedinger cat
		Side by side in my forebrain sat
		With Shakespeare's monkeys crowding in behind. . .
		. . . it's all in your mind.
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
From: Fritz.Niespodziany@p4.f41.n2403.z2.fidonet.org (Fritz Niespodziany)
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