Chattiness

[flemmings]

I still think writers shouldn't keep blogs. Or that one shouldn't read their blogs if you intend to read their works. I will maintain with my last breath that a work by someone you know reads differently from a stranger's. Personal knowledge creates a subtext, if only in expectation, and you see where the writer's personality comes through in their prose, if it does. (Occasionally you see where it does even if you don't know them. I would never want to meet either Amis in the flesh, thank you very much.)

Further: the knowledge gained from a blog is random, filtered and skewed. It's nothing like the whole of the person, their presence, voice, mannerisms, and the way they'd actually talk to you an unknown stranger. But it has a spurious intimacy- there they are apparently talking personally and without constraint. One feels one knows the 'true' person. How can you not go looking for that person in their published works, or not read the works through the filter of bloggist as you know her?

And by and large, the human race being as it is, the person who creates is much smaller and much less satisfactory than the thing they create. Really I didn't want to know what Mozart was like, and am just as happy that I'll probably never find out how Shakespeare was. (No doubt he was a miserable self-absorbed bugger. It's the writerly default. RL Stevenson and Chekov were exceptions.) Yes, incandescens, I am echoing Antonia Forest again: "how queer it was that what people were like had no connection whatever to what they could actually do." But one feels it should be different; the bad-tempered or dismissive or self-absorbedly prolix (no no I'm not thinking of anyone in particular perish the thort) blog writer casts a personality miasma over the possibly quite wonderful fantasy they've produced, distinctly lessening one's enjoyment of it- supposing you conquer your distaste and read it anyway which in several cases I haven't. So, yes. Note to self: don't read writers' ljs.

Comments

[incandescens]

It is not our fault that Antonia Forest put a number of things in an admirably concise and precise way. :)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

But it's awfully sad that she won't be doing it any more. I think that's what hit me most when I was looking up that passage.

[incandescens]

True. It is.

[stormcloude]

I agree completely.

There's one writer whose works I loved, but I can't read them anymore because as a person I find her behavior appalling. She may be a gifted writer, but that doesn't make her negative aspects more palatable. (And unfortunately I used to be able to pick her out by her writing style even when she didn't sign her works.)

Also I have a really hard time giving feedback to people I know vs. strangers on the net. With strangers, I never have to interact with them again. ;)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Third time lucky, she says grimly. LJ is hungry for comments tonight.

I was thinking more pro writers, largely because I assume a certain anonymity from them and quasi-impersonality. I shouldn't need to know anything about the writer to enjoy their works. Fanwriters are... fans. The condition comes with a high not to say ridiculous degree of personal investment and involvement. If I admired a stranger's writing I don't think I could stand not to know anything about her. It feels all wrong. We're co-religionists fans together. Thus I'll forgive a fair amount of idiotic behaviour in a fanwriter, since idiocy is part of the territory.

But after that, finding that an admired fanwriter is a toad as a person feels like a much greater betrayal. We're co-religionists fans together and she's... a toad. Yuck.

[lebateleur.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you should post this, because I came across the blog feeds of two of my favorite authors the other day (and no, one of them was not Gaiman!).

I poked around a bit, as the curious do, and now I'm convinced that one should not read any writers on 'how to write' because it makes their obvious as writing (not story), and moreover, some of the bits they were proudest of were bits I tended to dislike heavily. Ah well.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

some of the bits they were proudest of were bits I tended to dislike heavily.
Funny you should say that - one bit of writing advice I've happened across (I'm not sure where) is to take the bit you like the most, cut it out and throw it away. I figure whatever works for the individual should be fine - they amuse themselves with their favourite bits, and we can like the bits they don't like so much. :)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

And I read advice saying if a piece isn't working for you stop tinkering and just can it. 'Other people may like it' is a fallacy. If I'd followed that one I'd have abandoned the story that got me most of my fans. lebateleur is right- the best advice is not to read writers' advice.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* I was agreeing, sort of, in a "do what you are comfortable with, never mind what others think way". I read everything because reading is fun and I'm a kitty with lives to spare, but I've not yet felt impelled to try out anything except to amuse myself. Not that I count as any sort of example. =)