by Allison Floyd
Last time I talked about how disappointed I was that the world of print and literature seemed to be going down the toilet because of Intellectual American Apathy and Tehnology. Now I would like to talk about how little love truly talented writers get, especially compared to celebrities who get published just because they are famous. I recently heard a story that just proves my point about literature not being about art’s sake, but just fodder for mindless consumers to sell a product. Apparently, a few years ago, a friend of mine who has a degree in English/Journalism was asked by a lit agent with his own publishing company to submit a story targeted towards the Harry Potter/Twilight audience for approval. He spent several months writing a fantasy/sci-fi story that he thought would appeal to the target audience because of its fantasy elements and its human appeal. However, the lit agent told him there “wasn’t enough teen romance” to make it an appealing to the Harry Potter/Twilight crowd. Whether or not the story had real substance was irrelevant because it wouldn’t sell as well as a vapid teen melodrama mixed with a little fantasy.
Honestly, if we all have to cater to the Twilight Audience, I’m sorry, all creative writers are screwed. I have read the first Twilight book so that my opinion of Stephanie Meyer’s story would be an educated one. Let me just say that the fact that this woman has sold millions of copies of her books, and has a multi-million dollar Twilight Franchise including films that are the biggest sensation of teen generation, is a testament to how doomed creative fiction is. I read the book. I saw the first two movies. I am not impressed. (In fact, I’m mostly offended and annoyed that someone with so little writing substance has been so wildly successful.) The writing is elementary at best, she has no character development, she constantly writes in passive voice and her idea isn’t even truly original. Mind you, this is just my own opinion, but as someone who is really passionate about literature and good writing, I think it’s deeply sad that Stephanie Meyer is a measure of a successful fiction writer.
And seriously, SNOOKI, is a published writer. Snooki as in Jersey Shore fake-baked-hot-mess Nicole Polizzi has a published book. While her book, A Shore Thing (*CRINGE*) wasn’t a critical or commercial success, she can still call herself a published author. Lauren Conrad, whose only contribution to world has been constant talking about how much “fun” she’s always having on MTV’s Laguna Beach and then later, The Hills, was on the New York Times bestseller list for her book L.A Candy which was based on her own reality tv experiences in Hollywood. I’d like to take this time to blow a huge, fat raspberry.
This last thing might seem miniscule, but it is further evidence that people would rather deal with fast computers than have to use their cerebral cortex to do any sort of thinking/working. I ran across an ebay commercial last week in which board members at a meeting are ridiculing “Pete” because he brought a pen and legal pad to the meeting so as to take notes. They imply that he’s a cave man for using such primitive methods of note-taking and insult him for not having a super awesome techno iPad to take notes with and put it in a word document and save it to an electronic device because writing is just so strenuous and who wants paper notes anyway? That’s right ladies and gentleman of America, HANDWRITING is now considered archaic. This kills me.
Furthermore, I don’t understand why no one thinks that it’s important to know how to write nowadays. I used to proofread essays for my college friend who was Pre-Med because we all needed to take Englsh core classes, and his writing was horrendous. It was a mess; he mixed tenses, ended sentences with propositions and used plural pronouns for singular nouns. But because he was a Bio student, his Lit teachers let him suck at writing and gave him As on papers that, if I, as an English student, had submitted in the same shape, would have received Cs. When people hear that I majored in English, they scoff and assume I picked an easy major so as to coast through college. False. I picked English because I love to read, write and I’m good at it. I understand syntax and grammar and sentence structure. It’s like mathematic properties to me. Unless you follow certain rules, it doesn’t work. But apparently I’m one of the few who feels like a good writer is a sign of intelligence and a bad writer (one who is bad because he doesn’t care enough to be good, not one who is trying and just doesn’t get it) is a sign of laziness and disregard for intelligent communication. Yes, we all have strengths and weaknesses. We can’t all be good at everything. I admit 150% that I am useless in math and non-earth science. And accounting. And business. And econ. But I feel I get no credit for dedicating myself to writing because no one seems to value good writing anymore.
I know. Wah, wah. Poor me. But still, why does someone who is really good in Biology get to be labeled as “really smart” when being good at English is utterly unremarkable and will not get you a job. In reality, people are getting worse and worse and writing, so shouldn’t it be valued when someone actually cares about doing it the right way?
