"What makes a good writer?"
Now I'm not really sure. I don't even know why people love to read the things that I write or what attracts them even to my blogs to see what I'm discussing or what have you. I personally think that I'm nothing as far as writing goes, dwarfed by those from whom I draw my influences from. I'm no Vonnegut. I'm no Hemingway. I'm no Bukowski. Everyone knows it. But could it be that I'm just unique? That I have my own style and my own twisted mind that looks GREAT on paper or just in black and white? Could be.
I think what makes a good writer is something that can keep you guessing, but it still makes sense. Something that'll leave you on the edge of your seat thinking "What the fuck is he going to say next?!" Or when you read it you think "Wow... that's fucked up!" or "Wow... I never thought of it that way." It's never really about what you say though as opposed to HOW you say it.
Plus you have to be real. You have to connect. You can't develop a character who is flawless in every way. Not even ONE flaw will do. The reason why I see Superman as the greatest failure in comic book literature is because he is completely invincible. He has one weak spot... an Achilles heel. But he is by no means a human being. He's one dimensional. And his villains have come to utilize that weakness every time. Same plot, Lex Luther... just a different ball game. And it doesn't win me over.
Iron Man is such a successful character in the Marvel Universe because he is a human being with problems and issues inside of a suit of armor. There's more to him than the exterior. He's bulletproof, for sure... but he's an alcoholic. For a period of time the entire superhero community relied on him as the spearhead of SHIELD. And he had trouble adjusting to and being responsible for such a monumental position.
Even Captain America is more human than Superman.
Personally I think that Stan Lee and the subsequent writers of our generation who were influenced by him are geniuses. There's nothing more to it than that. There are few books or writers from the DC universe who can grab my attention like anything that has a shred of Stan Lee in it does. DC has Batman, and that's it for me. Stan Lee seems to put a little bit of himself into every character he's created and thus he's made them more personable. He's made them REAL.
Chuck Palahnuik has very personable characters in his writing as well. They all seem to suffer from some socially unacceptable disease that throughout the novel they need to come to terms with. Some of his characters are "static" and some change but none the less they are human beings.
Charles Bukowski always wrote himself into his character, making it more human. Henry Chinaski is someone we can all relate to in some way. He has one of our billions of problems in life... all of us.
It takes a great mind to be a good writer. It takes brilliance. But the hardest thing is to take that brilliance and put it into terms that other people can understand and relate to. THAT is the biggest challenge in being a writer. It's not that people are stupid and couldn't get it anyways. It's opening the door and giving them a perspective. Because every mind is complex and everyone sees thing differently. Think about when you explain something and when people see the actual thing it's either better or worse than they imagined it, but never EXACTLY the same. What you need to do if you're a writer and as a writer is to create something that will never disappoint someone. Something that'll always exceed expectations of a reader post-description. I can't tell you how many backs of books I've read that looked good but were disappointments. And I also can't number the amount of books I've read that the back couldn't say enough about but by far blew my mind away. The latter is something you want to accomplish. Don't write just anything and expect for your beloved fans to automatically like it. PUSH THEM!
When you push yourself as a writer you tend to be more satisfied with the results. Because you can stand behind it with more pride because you've actually put more into something than just the standard run of the mill short story, poetry bullshit that you write in your spare time. It's not as generic.
No one starts out as a great writer. In fact if anyone read what I wrote years ago they'd agree... I wasn't nearly as good as I am now. It takes time to hone and develop the skills and the ability to connect. But you need to have a starting point. You need to know where to begin. Honestly I didn't have much of a start. I learned everything I know about writing either from my influences or it was self-taught (like a lot of things that I am talented with in life).
No one can tell you how to be a good writer. Only you can really, but first you need to take some time and learn just what a real good writer is. From there, the choice is your own. YOU are your writing, no one else. So your writing is going to be different and unique from anyone else's. And NEVER worry about technique. It's not about technique. You need to have grammar and syntax skills, granted. You need to be able to spell and have a good sense of vocabulary. But that's just the basics.
If you read this, I love you.
Just a quick note though... because I need to be a little ridiculous with every post:
1 comment:
You just inspired me in so many different ways, as an aspiring writer.
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