The urge to write now comes at about 4am. This is inconvenient, but doable.
Nothing is more tragic than watching Czech people dance. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been to clubs in the Czech Republic and been flummoxed by how random the limbs were moving in relation to the beat. And, I know, it’s a hell of a thing to criticize if you yourself are no Baryshnikov; but seeing a beautiful Czech lady studiously trying to move sexily, while coming off like two penguins in a foot-race, can leave a man confused.
I blame it on the lack of black culture. This came to me when I was watching a group of white people try to keep a simple rhythm with their hands. The only thing funnier than the person clapping off the beat while trying desperately to be on the beat, is the look of unbridled joy when a bunch of white people actually pull off a few claps in unison.
The way I figure it, the ability to informally dance (as opposed to ballroom dance, belly dance, or Riverdance) increases in direct proportion to a society’s historical exposure to black, or darkly complected people. And yes, the stereotype is as glaring as white-people dancing is hilarious.
So what’s the excuse for bad literature?
Again, this is coming from a place where the critic is no literary genius himself. I am by no means a masterful weaver of words like Julian Barnes, Elmore Leonard, P.J. O’Rourke, or even Dave Barry. However, I read —if you’re familiar with the unit of measurement — “a fuckload”. So without further ado, here’s a few of my pet peeves:
Recently I was watching the Disney CGI film Tangled — at least the first ten minutes before the characters burst into song. When this happened I literally leaped across the room, brought the mouse to bear on the “stop” icon, and checked myself before throwing my computer against the wall in disgust. Here’s the thing: I like music (I don’t, however, like whiny music), and I like animated features, but being badly surprised by song —in something I thought was songless— is worse than discovering that the chocolates are raisins in your chocolate-chip cookie. When I hear singing, when I don’t expect to hear singing, I feel the urge to do horrible things to nice people. This goes for sporting events, bars, and yes, films.
I feel the same way when I suddenly encounter poetry in a novel — or poetry cleverly disguised as a song, for that matter. There are poets, and there are writers of pros. There is very rarely both at the same time. I've only actually seen it done successfully by one guy, Kevin Colgan. Without getting too deep into the relative merit of each, I should make it clear that I pretty much don’t get poetry. I just know when it’s bad. Leonard Cohen, for example; great poet, terrible novelist. Beautiful Losers was one of the most banal, badly-written books I have ever read. Tolkein, had a habit of lapsing into poetic verse without the slightest warning. There you are, Frodo has perilously moved his Baggins to the crest of Mount Dimpletwat, you turn the page, and. . . what? A friggin’ three-page poem about the observable vista across the Valley of Quidditch. Just tell me the story, man. Don’t wax on to yourself about the mighty tower/ with eye that glowers. Never once have I read a poem in a novel that added to the plot in any way. At best, the author comes off as a fatuous jerk, at worst it’s like discovering a flattened, dried, bug carcass between the pages.
I used to believe that people that use more than one exclamation point are mentally retarded. Somewhere along the line, in my crotchety, bitter state, I have come to believe that people that use any exclamation points are mentally retarded. Am I going too far with my fascist punctuation ideas? Especially for someone that’s terrible at using them? I just feel that very few sentences are so exciting that they warrant an exclamation point. I put exclamation point users in the same category as people that use emoticons ( 8==> ): they have sponge for brains, or they’re girls up to the age of eighteen — which nearly amounts to the same thing. I suppose I don’t like being told I should be excited about something. A good sentence (or a tame sentence, but in a good context) should be able to convey the necessary excitement on its own. Even in dialogue it should be used sparingly in short statements, otherwise you get: “Marty, get down from the top shelf when you’re going to try to steal cookies, otherwise the fall from that height may cause you to break your head and make it necessary to mop up blood and brain matter before heading to the hospital, which I don’t want to do because hospitals smell of iodine, and I hate the smell of iodine!” I picture exclamation points as tiny little crutches used both by the reader and author to convince each other that something interesting just happened.
This is highly controversial, but I also feel the same about words other than “said” to indicate that someone is speaking. This is a bit of a tricky one, but the same rule can apply; if you have to use a colourful expressions to describe how the person is saying something, either you haven’t contextualized the statement enough, or you’re trying to sell something that isn’t there. Sure I’ll accept the odd “whispered” or “yelled”, but when we start getting into “complained”, and “snarled”, and “griped”, and even “enquired”, and, of course “sang” (when the person is clearly not singing, and if they are, you're annoying me with your poetry again) I start to doubt the author’s actual ability. This tends to happen in cheap thrillers a lot:
“Hey. Hey! Did you shoot Jim?” Jeff growled.
“I had to, he had the master-code to the Omega System.” grimaced Mike.
“Well, you know, if he dies, you die.” seethed Jeff.
“You just try it.” Mike challenged
“Maybe, I will.” Jeff snarled.
“Oh, yeah?” enquired Mike.
“Oh. Yeah.” whispered Jeff.
“Well, take one step closer—“ mewed Mike.
“I already have!” Jeff spat.
“Ugh, do you have a towel?” Mike wondered.
“Kiss me first.” muttered Jeff.
And so, on and so forth.
Okay, here’s the thing about stories within stories: The quality of that story is only as good as the skill of the author producing it. Telling me, “And he regaled me with a tale of such stupendous mystery. I was so awed by its magnificent profundity I quite shat myself.” does not automatically induce the same reaction in the reader. Unless that reader is easily amused, or simple. That means; don’t tell me that the story your character heard, or witnessed, is amazing, just tell me the damn story. If you have to tell your audience that what they are about to hear, or have heard, requires scaffolding to put their jaw back in place, you are probably telling (or have told) a shitty story. The same goes for the listener’s reactions within the story, unless that story wasn’t explicitly told: “Jeff told us a story that scared the crap out of us.” works. “Jeff began to tell us this story: (insert long story about hats here). Afterwards we all sat in stupefied silence, some of us moved to tears.” does not.
The same goes for supposedly humorous statements. Saying, “Everyone around the table laughed”, or, “The room filled with laughter at his comment”, or, “What he was about to do made some people laugh so hard they vomited”, means you are obligated to write something that’s actually funny. Cueing your readers for laughter in this way, without producing amusing material, is the equivalent to laugh-tracks in bad sitcoms. Unless you expect your audience to be sheared every spring to make warm sweaters, you are asking paper airplanes to land on runways designed for 747s. I’m particularly sensitive to this because it’s hard to write funny material. Trust me, I’ve been trying (with varying degrees of failure) for years. It takes a special kind of verbal intuition, timing, and execution to get it right. So if you come along and fake it by explaining that this is the point when the audience is expected to laugh, I will call you a hack and punch you in the throat if I ever meet you in person. No joke.
Also, I am no longer sure of the viability of the word “that”. I see it a bit like my removed appendix: I probably didn’t need it anyway. This is more a personal taste thing, like: “He was sure that he left the keys on his desk”, as opposed to, “He was sure he left the keys on his desk” Hmmm, you can stare at these two sentences until your eyeballs rupture and not be convinced that (or not “that”) one is better than the other. What is totally unacceptable, however, is two or more “that”s together: “He indicated that that key was the one he left on the desk.” I mean seriously people, a quarter-million words in the English language and you start doubling up on the dodgy ones?
I think a lot of these complaints I have can be boiled down to one very simple thing: Don’t treat your audience like sycophantic morons. Unless that's your target demographic (which is growing in inverse proportion to the polar ice-caps melting) treat them like they at least have a couple brain-cells which communicate with each other to create a thought. This means ease off on the use of description — and if you insist on copiously smearing your wondrous and varied thesaurus-based vocabulary like rich golden butter across the tableau of your morning darkened toast, try not to emit a constant stream of clichés. Don’t perpetuate the dumb, like so many other mediums are trying to do.
In conclusion:
Something funny.
