Great post…I couldn’t help but muse that so many of the characteristics of bad writing you described can be applied to the analysis of our culture’s pet ideologies…failure of vision: first stage thinking that can’t survive a deep examination; failure of character: pigheadedness/ego/narcissism, sloth…
This was an excellent post. I absolutely loved Angle of Repose by Stegner on your recommendation. Every word of it. I also loved Gentleman in Moscow by Towles. I have reserved Rules of Civility. I also plan to reread Heller. An author I am sure I found on your website is Abraham Verghese. I read Cutting and Water and was still crying 3 days later for fictional characters. Excellent reads. Thanks for your interesting articles. Looking for next Murakami. Agree on Dan Brown. Read one, gave up.
This is brilliant. Thank you! I also wonder why so much bad writing makes it through publication but the pigheadedness and procrastination reasons make a lot of sense.
Also, I loved most of Angle of Repose, found the look into the inside workings of a marriage fantastically realistic, but thought Stegner lost his head with the bizarre dream sequence at the end.
This is such a helpful rubric! I can spot my own failings—fear that my vision won’t pan out if I actually put it on paper, and procrastination. It’s so true, too, about books not following through. Endings are so much harder to pull off than beginnings!
I might be the only one, but after seeing Callard's comment regarding Angle of Repose, I was curious if she shared any thoughts after finishing the book.
I just finished Not Heaven but Paradise. I forced myself to read it because I bought it, fearing a post modernist that would leave me with no heart. But my goodness what a terrific ending, and conversion. The book caught some mythic tropes and left me thinking about how some kinds of art are hollow and maybe even cruel in practice.
- The second half of a piece of writing is edited far less frequently by the author than the first
- Most ideas are optimally expressed in short form but our notions of value for the reader and intellectual weight require them to be padded out way beyond this
Joel, I am continuously mining the value of the post about ways your art could fail, particularly that diagram about how a bad story gets worse. Is that a diagram you developed? If so, may I please have your permission to use to illustrate a classic example: the stories of Joseph Smith in the emergence of Mormon doctrine. (Perhaps you're familiar with my Zondervan book, in print for 46 years now, The Mormon Mirage?) I'll be including some of my research with your diagram in an upcoming Substack post, if I could please use your diagram. (Also, privately I'm contrasting the story-gone-bad of Mormonism with the increasing richness of the Story as I'm discovering it in Orthodoxy.) Yours, Dr. Latayne C. Scott
Great post…I couldn’t help but muse that so many of the characteristics of bad writing you described can be applied to the analysis of our culture’s pet ideologies…failure of vision: first stage thinking that can’t survive a deep examination; failure of character: pigheadedness/ego/narcissism, sloth…
This was an excellent post. I absolutely loved Angle of Repose by Stegner on your recommendation. Every word of it. I also loved Gentleman in Moscow by Towles. I have reserved Rules of Civility. I also plan to reread Heller. An author I am sure I found on your website is Abraham Verghese. I read Cutting and Water and was still crying 3 days later for fictional characters. Excellent reads. Thanks for your interesting articles. Looking for next Murakami. Agree on Dan Brown. Read one, gave up.
This is brilliant. Thank you! I also wonder why so much bad writing makes it through publication but the pigheadedness and procrastination reasons make a lot of sense.
Also, I loved most of Angle of Repose, found the look into the inside workings of a marriage fantastically realistic, but thought Stegner lost his head with the bizarre dream sequence at the end.
This is such a helpful rubric! I can spot my own failings—fear that my vision won’t pan out if I actually put it on paper, and procrastination. It’s so true, too, about books not following through. Endings are so much harder to pull off than beginnings!
Terrific post. I shared it to my Notes.
Thank you!
I might be the only one, but after seeing Callard's comment regarding Angle of Repose, I was curious if she shared any thoughts after finishing the book.
I spent a few minutes scrolling through her Twitter feed and found an update but not a final verdict: https://x.com/AgnesCallard/status/1763378926888357942
I just finished Not Heaven but Paradise. I forced myself to read it because I bought it, fearing a post modernist that would leave me with no heart. But my goodness what a terrific ending, and conversion. The book caught some mythic tropes and left me thinking about how some kinds of art are hollow and maybe even cruel in practice.
Great stuff. Two thoughts on the topic:
- The second half of a piece of writing is edited far less frequently by the author than the first
- Most ideas are optimally expressed in short form but our notions of value for the reader and intellectual weight require them to be padded out way beyond this
Thanks for this—very inspiring and informative. Love the ant-crossing-the-road analogy.
Very good piece, thank you. The Heller anecdote is very helpful!
I doubt most in the sciences would think Joseph Heller would make an outline so technical like that.
Joel, I am continuously mining the value of the post about ways your art could fail, particularly that diagram about how a bad story gets worse. Is that a diagram you developed? If so, may I please have your permission to use to illustrate a classic example: the stories of Joseph Smith in the emergence of Mormon doctrine. (Perhaps you're familiar with my Zondervan book, in print for 46 years now, The Mormon Mirage?) I'll be including some of my research with your diagram in an upcoming Substack post, if I could please use your diagram. (Also, privately I'm contrasting the story-gone-bad of Mormonism with the increasing richness of the Story as I'm discovering it in Orthodoxy.) Yours, Dr. Latayne C. Scott