Comments on: Stupid Writer Tricks: 10 Writing Tricks to Avoid

By: FlossieT

FlossieT — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:59:39 +0000

Ooh, doesn’t this kind of post make you itch to find the ‘notable exceptions’??

Mine:

- cliffhangers: Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians. Not a great book overall, but he opens with, “So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians.” I don’t want to spoil the fun, so all I will say is the payoff comes many, many pages later. Classic.

- second-person narration: Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help. Works with the title, fits the narrators to perfection.

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:44:01 +0000

Re: 8.

The consumate cliffhanger: The Lady and the Tiger

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:51:57 +0000

G.VanC.: Try as hard as I might, I can't find a single stab at Stephen King or Gene Wolfe on this page. I'm not taking stabs at anyone, just pointing out writing techniques that have had their day. You don't have to agree. As for my publishing credentials, click on my name in the byline and you'll find them. Admittedly, I'm not Stephen King or Gene Wolfe, but I've got some major award nominations under my belt. And I can spell successful, your and Shakespeare without having to look them up.

By: G.VanC.

G.VanC. — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:11:01 +0000

as for stupid writers…where are you published?

By: G.VanC.

G.VanC. — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:09:43 +0000

what is wrong with you? are you a failed writer taking stabs at those who have been successfull? stephen king, gene wolfe, why not shakespear in you’re next rant?

By: Mimi

Mimi — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:50:55 +0000

I think that when you have to flip through pages to get to another chapter is annoying. (EXAMPLE: “*Page 87…Harry finally did it. He finally told her!… *Go to page 36* {Then you flip to page 36, read that chapter, and at the end it says: *Go to page 4*} …..And so on!)

So, avoid that, too! It’s okay for middle schoolers, but truthfully, it’s a ~~little~~ boring and frusterating.

POINT: Don’t Do It.

Thanks!
~Mimi K.~

By: Faye

Faye — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 00:26:54 +0000

Gyp: I think ending the story with “We find the defendant…guilty.” and then switching to Shanghai would be an effective use of a cliffhanger — and why we have the name for that type of ending at all.

It reminds me of when I read Phillip Pullman’s Shadow in the North and one of the characters is in a burning house. Right as he gets to a window to escape, the house collapses. And the chapter ends. My mind did the equivalent of “oh shit! what just happened?!” and of course I wanted to go on to the next chapter to see what happened to him. However I was younger and my dad dictated my bedtimes and had said I could finish the chapter before I turned my light out, but not more. I spent the entire time before sleep imagining continuations of the chapter. And I’ve remembered that cliffhanger for years while I’ve forgotten most other’s I’ve read.

By: Derek Lowe

Derek Lowe — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:12:47 +0000

Good points, all – and it’s honest of you to include the honorable exceptions. The usual response to advice like this is to cite the good works that don’t follow it, but (to quote, of all people, Rickie Lee Jones), “you can’t break the rules until you know how to play the game”.

The Truman Capote story you mentioned is, I believe, “Children on Their Birthdays”, and you’ve remembered it correctly. But he sure didn’t try that trick very many times. . .

Another honorable exception in the mixed-up chronology category would be some of the Cordwainer Smith stories, where the main event of the plot is mentioned in the first paragraph or two.

By: David Louis Edelman

David Louis Edelman — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 22:20:05 +0000

John: Agreed. I’m not sure if my distinction between “biased” and “unreliable” narrators is a good one. But I think there’s a difference between the first-person narrator who’s not presenting the full story because it’s impossible for any one person to ever present the full story… and the first-person narrator who’s not presenting the full story because the author is trying to shoehorn him into a severely limited position strictly to ratchet up tension or make a cheap point. The narrator of OMW I think clearly falls in the former camp.

By: John Scalzi

John Scalzi — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:46:37 +0000

To echo what Jesper Svedberg says, a narrator may be unreliable not because he’s being deceptive but because he simply doesn’t know all the details of his situation and may not be in a position to find out. The narrator of “Old Man’s War,” for example, is an unreliable narrator about the nature of some aspects of the universe he finds himself in, because he’s basically fed a particular line of information, and he doesn’t have the resources to discover more (nor would it be appropriate to diverge from his point of view in fill in the audience with what he doesn’t know, because the book is written in first person).

I think this sort of unreliable narrator is fine (naturally, because I wrote one) because I think it’s fine to have ambiguity and not have everything explained at the outset or even at the conclusion.