This time last year, I’d started a “survey” of all the sub-genres of mystery in order to introduce me to works that I hadn’t read before: to the pleasures of noir, the craft of police procedural, the perils of fem jeop. Of course, like all things I try to put on a schedule, to say I will do at set intervals every month without fail, this endeavor failed. It failed - not because I couldn’t bring myself to read in every sub-genre - no, the porblem was I would get stuck in the reading, I would want more and I would not know so quickly what I thought about it to be able to write about it in any sensical fashion.
So I dropped it. But now I’m back in school. They have this thing in school they like you to do. It’s called critical thinking. And, let me tell you folks, it hurts. Expecially after a long work day.
But I’ve been thinking…uh…critically. My course this semester is not about genre fiction, but it is about fiction, and one of the things touched on is whether or not you can write without having read. That is, must you know the body of work that has come before you in order to add to that body anything worthwhile? And, if the answer is yes, just how well do you need to know it?
I’m a dabbler, a skimmer. Not that I don’t read books from cover to cover, but I’ve read all sorts of books cover to cover. I don’t know the classics of each, I don’t make sure I’ve read this “must-read” or that classic. I have read widely but shallowly of the Canon - both in literature and in genre fiction. Even in mystery, I have only read deeply in certain pools.
My last year’s survey of noir introduced me to the craft and style of Hammett, Chandler, Bruen and some others. Yet it was before then that I wrote and had published in ShotsUK my contemporary noir short story, Catch Me Waiting. Did I do okay, without having read the masters, old and new? I don’t know. You tell me.
For me (’cause Diana will jump down my throat if I don’t put my two cents in) I believe that it does inform the writing, but I think it best to not be too conscious of it. Like anything one learns about craft, it is best to study it, know it, then forget about it. Being too conscious of it is like being in a workshop where everyone is trying to mold each writer’s work into one model of “good writing.” Yet, ignorance isn’t bliss in writing. You may not need to know where everyone’s ship has sailed before you, but you may want to get a general idea of how to sail. The question is - as it so often is - one of degree.
So, what do you think? Does a writer have to know - really know - the body of literature that has come before him/her? How deeply and thoroughly? If you write, do you think there is some particular book without having read which you would not be able to write what you write?
-
For me, and I haven’t published anything fiction yet, I need to know the style that I’m writing in. That being said, I keep stalling myself because I get thinking I don’t know what I’m doing and go and read for knowledge.
But after two semesters of fiction workshop in my MPA, the only story that still sticks with me is Rock Springs and I don’t even think its called that. Its a short story by Chandler or someone like that but the writing was so sparse and the feeling so deep.
Now I’m stuck in the middle of a middle school novel and not sure how to get it past the hump and to the end. So I went to the children’s library and found Princess Academy a Newberry award winner to read.
So I think dabbling is good.
by Lynn
on January 31st, 2008 at 7:31 am
-
I think the more you know, the better. I think the more you read, the better. I think the better you understand your chosen genre, the better. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I think you need to have read everything in that genre, or certain ‘classics’ of the genre, but you need to have read enough to understand what makes that genre what it is. In other words, if you want to write a thriller, have read enough thrillers to know what makes one. Same with noir, cozies/traditional mysteries, etc. That’s only if you want to publish what you write, of course. If you just want to write it, then write and be happy. But unless you’re lucky and find someone willing to take a chance on a cross-genre book, your chances of being published are a lot less if your story doesn’t fit easily into a slot of some kind. My agent still can’t sell my first book, and it’s not - or so she says - because it isn’t written well. But it’s not exactly a cozy, not exactly literary, not exactly romantic suspense…
by JennieB
on January 31st, 2008 at 8:58 am
-
I think studying how others “get over the hump” is a good technique to help to do the same for your work, noting what other writers do for that sagging middle.
Reading critically, looking for craft, when you’re stuck is a great psychological tool too - you don’t feel bad if you’re procrastinating by reading for research purposes.
-
Cross-genre is so hard, yet some of the best works are just that - esp. those “literary” mysteries. Which, if you’re not up on this topic that comes up for discussion annually on DotL and other places, is mystery that comes from character, that enjoys language, that addresses theme beyond the theme of the genre or sub-genre. At least that’s my definition.
-
Not having even finished anything, perhaps I’m a little off topic with my reply, but I think the most valuable thing that reading other works (of all kinds), is being able to recognise “voice” and hear and understand when it happens well and when it doesn’t, and distinguish what makes the difference. There is such a gulf between Steinbeck and Kafka in style, but the voices are so distinct. There’s a different sound to Chandler and Christie, but they are both clearly heard. Dana Stabenow and Nevada Barr and C.J. Box write about wilderness and people in the wilderness, and they all are distinct. Even when humor is thrown into the mix, understanding the difference between wry and snide, or ‘punny’ versus ‘in’ jokes, is important to know. Then, as you write, you can try to make sure you don’t describe things, or have your characters speak as if they were hijacked from someone else’s work.
by Kate Hathway
on January 31st, 2008 at 9:32 am
-
Kate, I wonder if developing voice is something that can ever be taught. Really, I don’t think it can be. It falls into the realm of things we can learn, but only by a sort of osmosis. Reading others’ voices and then developing your own is not a conscious process. I think you’re right - you can only do well to read, read, read. Then write, and let your own distinct voice trickle into being.
-
David Lindsey, who’s been highly successful, says he read three or four thriller novels before doing his first book in the field. I doubt that he’s read another one since, but he’s sure written some good ones.
-
I stink at pin-pointing the genres for my books, so reading only the genres I write in is difficult. Instead, I just read everything I can. For the next book I have planned, though, I know what genre it is, and I plan on reading in the genre just to get in the mood - Erle Stanley Gardner, Mickey Spillane, Robert Chandler, etc. Educational and fun. ;o)
-
They say Robin Cook read a hundred best-sellers before sitting down to write his first book. And there is something about reading to get yourself in the mood - that goes back to what Kate said about reading to hear voice.
I also have heard a lot of authors say they can’t read in the genre while they’re writing in it - it messes with their style. So maybe there is something to the idea of reading ahead of time and then just leaving it all on the shelf as we type away.
-
I feel more comfortable when I know the genre. I started in a teensy-tiny niche, where I knew just about everything written. When I sat down to write, I knew, without a shred of doubt, that I was writing with originality.
When you try to, say, write a thriller, there’s no way to know the whole genre. You could spend a lifetime reading all the thrillers written. So … I guess you just have to know enough so that you’re not writing TO the genre, but capturing the spirit of it with your own unique twist.
-
Regina, I agree you can’t ‘learn’ ‘voice’ in and of itself. I think you need to learn to hear what kind of voices are out there, partly so you don’t imitate (whether consciously or not), so that readers hear yours as distinct, and mostly, so that you know that what you’re doing isn’t imitative. I think nothing is more disheartening than being told (or realizing it yourself) that what you write “sounds just like…” or “I just couldn’t get into anything” because “nothing stood out.” If, of course, you’re purposefully trying to write even a pastiche, it needs to have something special - your own voice. Trying to find it is, as you said, the key.
by Kate Hathway
on January 31st, 2008 at 12:16 pm
-
Kate, I agree - nothing is worse than being imitative, especially without realizing it! Though maybe having no voice (nothing standing out) is worse still. Voice is key. Knowing how voice gets into a piece - that’s really something to deconstruct.
-
I think you can never stop learning–but I also think if you’ve read a dozen books in a genre, you get it.
by Keith
on February 1st, 2008 at 11:04 am
-
So, Keith - does that mean when I WRITE a dozen, I get it too? God, I hope so! 
Leave a Reply
|
Loading ...