Kill All the Lawyers? No, Kill the Fiction Writers


In the last six weeks, I’ve read comments by established writers declaring that “bad fiction writers” be stopped.

As a diligent but mostly unknown fiction writer, I beg to differ. The inherent quality of fiction, the pronouncement that it’s good or bad, is entirely subjective. Beyond that, fiction requires shelf-life. Many of our best writers finish a piece and put it away to rewrite when time has brought them to a different vantage point. Then, too, what’s bad today could easily be judged good tomorrow. Or the opposite—what was considered breakthrough literature twenty years ago bores us now. Fiction is an art. While many might agree that fiction with an indifference or ignorance of structure , grammar, narrative, character, and/or story arc qualifies as despicable writing, others might know some of the writer’s other work and declare the same piece experimental. Any writer, afraid to risk writing badly, will never manage the daredevil feats unique fiction requires.

Of course, not many people care much about unique fiction, or any fiction until it’s transformed into a movie or TV series. That development may not disturb me as much as it should. What does disturb me is the idea that bad fiction writers are an assault upon society. Why fiction writers?

Why not bad guitar players or bad sculptors? It’s not much harder to toss out a bad short story or dump a boring novel than it is to turn away from a bad painting or photograph. Bad drummers may not be as popular as I imagine, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t tolerated with a great deal more sympathy than the struggling, searching, over-reaching fiction writer. Even though bad drummers, if they’re experimenting in your apartment building or garage, intrude on your privacy much louder than any fiction writer sweating to find a line of angry, screaming dialog ever could.

One commentator expressing anger toward bad fiction writers referred to the MFA writers’ programs popular throughout this country as a waste of money and energy. I don’t know, being a self-taught fiction writer. But I would no more want to put writers’ programs out of business than dance schools or fledgling theatre groups or even a garage band with more attitude than chord changes.

Speaking for myself, you’re apt to find my penchant for writing fiction is among the least of my obnoxious qualities. Years ago I gave up almost all hope of publication. But I would no sooner give up writing fiction than I’d give up my life. Honestly, my plea here is not for myself alone. Tolerate me or not—I know quite well how little difference I’ll ever make. But earnest young writers determined to master their art? Are they really so abominable? How hard is it to say, “Keep at it.” They work alone, in silence, and dupe you into spending your money about as often as they win the lottery. The very worst fiction writer might someday become the best. No one knows. It costs nothing to say, “Work hard enough, long enough and you’ll eventually become the writer you were meant to be.”

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March 20th, 2007
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Viewing 10 Comments

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    Not having read what you read certainly the proposition in itself sounds foolish enough. In fact, I suspect the emergence of a billion web logs is proof that the judges of new fiction will not be a cluster of "good" novelists but a cyberspace full of people deciding for themselves.
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    The concept of suppressing bad writers has not entered my neck of the woods yet. And my experience suggests that if someone really wants to write, you wouldn't be able to stop them anyway. The urge is often all-consuming.
    Having said that, I do believe that there are at least some objective criteria by which we might judge a certain kind of goodness and a certain kind of badness.
    And I also think that all writing, apart from obviously formulaic stuff, is experimental writing. But is it all art? A tentative answer would be, no. Writing is a craft. It sometimes aspires to be art and there are certainly some novels which are works of art. But only a small proportion of written narratives can claim that distinction.
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    I certainly regard writing as an obsessive compulsive behaviour and advise people who CAN stop to do so before they become disillusioned with the whole thing.
    For those who can't stop, craft is the place to send them. I'm a fan of William Zissner books On Writing Well etc.
    I think it's possible for most people to learn the craft of writing. Whether they ever produce a master work is beside the point to me. In another context I mentioned that words have power. Putting words on pages empowers people at some level. And the more craft they have, the more likely they are to at least produce a few powerful sentences in a life time. That may not sound like much on one level, but to me it's an accomplishment.
    One of my favourite short stories is Leaf by Niggle by JRR Tolkein, in which Niggle, a painter, lives in a land that prizes duty to the community and his neighbours above all things. All Niggle wants to do is paint, and he's taken away by the authorities for being self-absorbed, eventually his paintings are used by his neighbours to patch their houses. In a Kafkayesque turn of events Niggle essentially dies and goes to another land which happens to be the landscape he used to paint, only more magnificent, and yet somehow his creation at the same time. In the end, all that is left of Niggle in the world the story started in, is a fragmanet of his favourite painting hanging in an art gallery, Leaf By Niggle.
    That TS Eliot line about using fragments to shore against his ruins.
    That's what I feel like I'm doing most of the time.
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    I agree that one good line is worth a lifetime of lesser ones, and a beautiful phrase can only spring from great hope and faith.
    My bias, though, (just semantics, I'll grant you that) is that creative writing is art. There are mountains of bad art, mind you, among all kinds of media. Art (such as painting, drawing, sculpture, photography) is art if the person making it intended it that way. Creative writing, music, dance, singing, movies and television shows with scripts and stories, if the intention is right, and live theatre: they're all art. Most likely flawed art, bad art, and possibly out-right pathetic art, but still--art.
    The definition need not apply only to such glorious works as the Sistine Chapel. Being an artist is a way of life.
    As for crafts? Macrame, crocheting, cooking, house painting, hair-cutting, oragami: those are crafts. And even the, if the haircutter seriously intends every the haircut as a work of art, so be it.
    Being an artist is a way of life. And yes, some artists produce deplorable work. Worse, some are fakes; their way of life requires no more creative risk than a house painter's. But a few poseurs does not negate the whole concept. A fully-imagined, creative work is not analogous to a sweater, because no matter how exquisite a sweater it may be, it still takes its form from straightforward directions, and any soul-dredging involved in its creation was incidental.
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    All I know is that I would rather live next to a bad fiction writer than a bad drummer.
    Is writing art or craft? What a muddle. When we learn how to write, we are practicing our craft. When we use our newly acquired skills in pursuit of truth, or beauty, or self-expression, we seek to create art. Is it good art or bad art? That, I agree with Kathleen, is entirely subjective to each reader.
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    The only problems I have with artists are a) their tendency to think that what they are doing is more important to the world than what other people are doing and
    b)their lives often display a deplorable lack of artistry.

    If the question is would I rather live next door to a great artist or a great neighbour ? I'd rather live next door to a great neighbour. Just like I'd rather have a great mechanic fix my car than a great artist.
    But that's unfair, because the discussion is would I rather have a great mechanic fix my car or a bad mechanic, and the answer is obvious.
    Just as I would rather read a novel by a great writer than a bad writer. But would I support anything that prevents any writer from trying to find a readership ? No.
    I might try and stop a bad drummer from staying my neighbour however.
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    Willing to risk bad writing? I would rather that most writers simply learn their craft well. Frankly, most don't, despite being able to write grammatically and insert a few high value words extracted from a thesaurus.

    I've heard it put that there are too few writers who truly have something to say, but a mass of would-be writers who desperatedly want to say something. Sometimes even established writers fall into that second category.
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    “There is no ‘good art’ or ‘bad art.’ There is only art, and precious little of it.”
    Raymond Chandler.
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    "Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious."
    Jean Cocteau.
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    Kosta, Thanks for commenting. It's great to think anyone finds the discussion interesting more than nine months after I made my plea in response to articles calling for the silencing of fiction writers, as if they were a much more odious bane upon society than uninspired, unskilled guitar players, drummers, dancers, painters, or sculptors.
    My intention was never to ask that people pay attention to what doesn't interest them. It was more to pose the question, What great harm can a struggling, stifled writer inflict upon a society so sick with evil?
    Those who appreciate art, music, movies, TV, and writing participate in creative work as its audience. And art requires an audience to exist, no matter how ephemerally. Otherwise, it's only an abstract concept, albeit one that's cost the deluded artist possible income from doing something--anything--else, untold time, and social interaction.
    Killing bad writer's isn't necessary much as one may detest the sorry beings. They'll die soon enough, poor and mentally troubled, only to be replaced by other striving souls, a rare one or two of whom may manage a meagre success.
 

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