So what exactly is 'great writing'?

[KatG]

Yes, he does sign up for the job, even though he's not qualified for it and is traumatized. It's suppose to be a cosmetic post, for insurance purposes, and David quickly realizes that he's made a big mistake. He is not stupid, but he is to some degree hapless. I understand that the thematic stuff did not come through for you, but for me and others, it does.

As for the world-building, you have a valid point, but the underwater city is not a military sort of operation. Given the society set up in the story, I found it plausible that someone's pet kitten had gotten loose and ended up a stray. I can understand if you didn't and found that the world-building didn't work for you and that this helped make the story not work for you. And our differing points of view further emphasize that an estimate of greatness in writing is going to vary considerably from person to person, as do writing styles, tone, structure, approach at details and plot, theme, and so on that writers choose to use.

 

[ShellyS]

I'm making the concession of keeping the word "great," but I'd like to do away with the word "best." For one thing, I wouldn't be able to do it. I can not name a novel I think is the best. But I am interested in what various writers value and consider, for themselves, to be great writing and why. For instance, we discovered in starting this thread that Mugwump doesn't like Spartan writing style as much as valuing other skills, but that Rocket Sheep prefers a more pared down style with little passive voice. And no, I'm not at all expecting a consensus here, but we don't need one. It's not a bad way, I'm thinking, to look at the different ways writers approach creating fiction.

I could no more choose a favorite style than my favorite book or movie. I can't even do a list of my favorite 10 of anything. I wouldn't want to even try to say what's best, or better than something else.

I'm a fairly easy reader. I like variety, in style, in plot, and while I favor dysfunctional type characters or characters who are put thru emotional turmoil, I like others just as well if the writing and story appeals to me.

I do make judgments ahead of time re: what I read. I have to. I read 12-20 books a year usually, and there are far more than that worth reading IMO, sf and everything else. I mix up my reading, alternating sf with thrillers or non-fiction, or whatever appeals to me at the moment. I save thrillers usually for the gym, read everything else at other times. In between, I squeeze in 5-6 comic books a week and some magazines. I'm really not fussy.

That said, what usually appeals to me is writing that grabs my attention. I've come to like certain authors, but I've grown tired of many who just seem to keep repeating themselves or whose quality declines over time, IMO. When I find an interesting sounding book by an author I don't know, I skim somewhere in the middle and see if the writing "talks" to me. I don't trust the beginning -- that's where the author is making a ploy for my attention. But if an author can grab me mid-book, when I don't know the characters, then I've found a must-read book. And the style can be wordy or spare, poetic or straight forward. Characters and stories that appeal to me are what matters and that covers a lot of territory, and is purely subjective as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Rocket Sheep]

George Orwell's Essay

It seems this discussion has been going on a long time.

 

[nicba]

A linguistic virus

From George Orwell's essay:

But you are not obliged to go to all this trouble. You can shirk it by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for you -- even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better

That's a linguistic virus! Phrases which infect the human brain and turn the host into a drone, mindlessly perpeptuating the phrases again and again (cue the twilight zone). Good thing that Orwell had never heard of a computer virus, or else he would have written Snow Chrash and Neal Stephenson would be out of a job.

 

[Rocket Sheep]

Snow Crash is a fantastic book. I think the word used most often to explain these contagious thoughts is 'meme', ie. cultural memes, political memes, religious memes. Neal Stephenson treated them like viruses in that you could actually 'catch' a cult religion whether you wanted to or not and you'd get physical symptoms, like bleeding from the palms... what fun!

I wonder at the physical symptoms of catching a bad grammar meme... constant speaking in passives... hanging out at messageboards searching for cures...