Friday, December 3, 2010

Water for Elephants

I began reading a popular bestseller--that is, I think it's a bestseller. Inside the cover are two pages with nothing but accolades from the leading newspapers and authors of our time, including Stephen King, one of my personal favorites, for better or worse.

I was impressed by the intricate care that went into the storytelling. No one could dispute that the author labored over every word, scene, and setting. It is poetry, and I immersed myself and read more than I usually do and plan to read the rest today.

The only thing I found jarring was that the style was in contradiction to many of the "Writing Commandments" that I learned long ago, such as avoiding the use of cliches and avoiding sentence fragments. I suppose that is one reason Stephen King liked the work, because he violates the same rules with impunity. I suppose they are not rules anymore, not really. I think there is something cheap about using cliches on every page, though, and I don't think it's snobbery to think so.

However, the author obeyed the Commandment that I violate, which is to show, not tell, which requires more effort on the part of the writer, but is more effective at engaging the reader's imagination.

The author's style reminds me so much of Stephen King's that I sometimes feel like I am reading Stephen King. The American vernacular, as he likes to describe it.

I forget the title of the book. Water for Elephants, I think. It was given to me as a birthday or Christmas present a year ago, and I have finally gotten around to reading it.

If I had known that cliches were OK, then heavens to Betsy, I'd have been using them left and right, all the time. As it is, a few pass by my guard, but I throttle most of them before they get on the page.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

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