Saturday 6 September 2014

Dubious Advice to Writers

My Response to Avril Joy's excellent post How Not to Write the Book That Makes You Millions – 2  www.avriljoy.com/

  1. Wendy says:
    Brava! Marvellous You have articulated here so powerfully what many of us feel. The truth is that we writers are the sometimes gullible consumers in this new industry of ‘advice to writers’. To follow the advice leads us down the road of writing a 21st Century brand of inferior pulp fiction to be sold like soap, rather than continuing on a quest to become better, deeper and stronger writers producing work to be proud of which might sell in tens or twenties or hundreds to discerning readers who are looking to be entertained, interested and – dare I say – enlightened, This is in the very best traditions of popular fiction since novels were first written for more widespread consumption.

  2. Look at, for instance, Daphne du Maurier, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Alice Hoffman, Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield  Alan Sillitoe, Scott Fitzerald, George Orwell, Sylvia Plath, Chinue Achebe, Edna O'Brien, Anne Tyler, Isabelle Allende , Pat Barker, Chung Chang and so on....

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for the endorsement Wendy - I hadn't thought about the book that sells in small numbers being in the very best tradition of popular fiction - but of coursei t's true and it makes the argument all the more powerful

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