What readers look for in writers

"Aspiring authors, take note. 

Nothing secures a literary legacy like an over-sized personality to match the work. On some level, we want our artists to behave badly, feuding with critics and wearing, perhaps, less clothing than appropriate in public. We want to believe that being a talented, successful writer isn’t just another job, like being a plumber or an accountant—it's a lifestyle, or maybe even a curse.

Ultimately, the actual writing of the book isn't what's interesting to most people. If you can type, you can put words on a page. What we look for in the dramatic lives of artists is a hint of the origin of genius. Who wants to hear that what it takes to write a generation-defining novel is eight hours a day of work for three years, plus an editor worth her weight in gold? And if you're going to write a best-seller, please, for the love of schadenfreude, don't be a model of health and decorum as well. That's just too much."

More: http://m.wfpl.org/?utm_referrer=#mobile/4509



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
A new Pope. A new Church. A new world:


www.SpyWriter.com

Dumbing down literature

"From Reader’s Digest to Cliff’s Notes to No Fear Shakespeare, simplified novels have infiltrated American society over generations. They seem innocent enough, flaunting an “easy to read” nature meant to appeal to those less versed in complex literature and language. However, while these watered down novels may be convenient for the busy, story-oriented adult reader, they are hardly appropriate for a class focused on critical reading. They’re a skewed kind of censorship that removes students from the benefits of difficult, close reading and dumbs down the English classroom.

Words are taken out that set the entire mood of the piece; phrases that define the moment and add depth to the author’s style are taken out. Removing these aspects eliminates the experience of analyzing the author’s intent and figuring out why that phrase or scene was deemed necessary."

From: http://tigernewspaper.com/wordpress/2013/03/14/the-dangers-of-watering-down-literature/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
A new Pope. A new Church. A new world:


www.SpyWriter.com

Read fiction to combat insomnia

"Insomnia seems to be becoming increasingly common, and good sleep hygiene ... plus a basic understanding of the nature of sleep ... can help us to return to a good regular sleep pattern...

The trick is to slip from the real world to the dream one, so lying there rigid with anxiety to achieve unconsciousness is never going to work.

Reading fiction, on the other hand, acts as a first breakaway from reality and gives the mind a first hold on the suppressed state of dream that is so firmly denied all day.

... steer clear of non-fiction books. Read to go into another world, and raise no resistance. Dream actually comes before sleep, and is the way in."

From: http://m.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/mar/13/cognitive-behaviour-therapy-suzanne-moore



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
A new Pope. A new Church. A new world:


www.SpyWriter.com

Reading and social intelligence

"By the time we’re young adults, we’ve all intuited it to some degree: people who’re ardent readers of fiction seem to have the ability to engage with others in a manner that is completely lost on non-readers. A teenage boy-girl sibling combo might evidence a situation where the boy, whose extra-curricular life is dominated by sports, finds himself completely lost as he watches his fiction-loving sister routinely blend in with ease with both older contemporaries and adults at family gatherings, even having the occasional poignant conversation with a great-aunt or grandmother."

Why is it? Glad you asked:

"fiction-reading leads to one being more empathising and socially intelligent... reading fiction develops in one the ability to construct a map of the thoughts and feelings that are occurring in the minds of other people. This is what developmental psychologists refer to as ‘theory of mind’.

When one identifies with the emotions that are materialising in another person, it is called empathy, one of the core aspects of emotional intelligence...

fiction – and in particular narrative – is an exercise in empathy. In reading narrative, we join ourselves emotionally with the protagonist, in a manner experiencing his or her emotions as they navigate through the struggles in their lives. The overarching importance is in the fact that we, the reader, get to view situations from the articulated points-of-view of others.

Additionally, we lend ourselves to situations we have never yet experienced, understand the ways of people completely peculiar to us, and thus begin to acquire familiarity with such novelties that we may later face in life; novelties we would otherwise be helpless to understand except through one awkward effort at a time, usually exposing us to great friction with the unfamiliar environment first.In other words, reading provides us with: “the ability to sensitise…to the emotions of other people, transcending the limits of our own experiences and perspective”.

More: http://tribune.com.pk/story/518680/because-novel-readers-are-more-socially-intelligent/



SpyWriter Jack King, the author of:
Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.
Coming soon:


www.SpyWriter.com

Would-be writers: No originality required.

A piece of advice for would-be writers:

"We ought to make the process of writing books seem less daunting to those who are starting out."

So, let us begin by scrapping the notion of originality...

"In a profession without rules, the one essential is that writers have to be magpies: bits of films, songs, other people's journalism, other people's books, conversations, someone they saw in the street are the flotsam and jetsam that are going to give shape and colour and inspiration to the story under construction. No writer in the history of the world is original, they all depend on other writers' work, or the narrative of a previous book, and that is the way it should be and always will be. First-time writers begin and give up because they think their work must be original. Nothing could be further from the truth. Can't think of a plot? Take a classic of literature or the theatre, rename the characters, move the location and bring it up to date."

FROM: http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta3/tft/article.php?issue=20130308&page=23

Jack King is the author of Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault, and The Fifth Internationale.

Escapist Literature

"literature is not isolated from the social and cultural framework in which it is set, but takes an active part in constructing it. Literature has a socializing, acculturating function. It can topple regimes and spark changes in ways of thinking that reverberate down generations. ...

I think that escapism is probably the most important literary development in recent times. It is properly not an end unto itself, it is a mode, a hook, a literary device to draw readers in. Literary fiction has always seemed unapproachable because it often deals with heavy topics: the human condition, war, slavery, inequality, the like – all within the confines of mundane existence; a mirror unto the imperfections of our own reality. Many people don’t like that. Escapism replaces that reality with one in which we actually want to live in, and thus makes literature accessible. Escapism is not incompatible with literature-as-mirror or literature-as-agent-of-change. In fact, far from being the great enemy of traditional affective literature, it may be its greatest emerging ally, combating the evil forces of reality TV, celebrity gossip and the always-on camera recording the lives of the Kardashians. That is because escapist fiction can, at its best, act as a cradle for good stories and good literature. If the thought of escaping to a world where you can ride broomsticks and cast spells introduces kids to the wonders of reading and good storytelling (and a life of literacy afterward), more power to escapism."

FROM: http://www.cornellsun.com/section/arts/content/2013/03/01/escaping-through-fiction

SpyWriter Jack King, author of Agents of Change, WikiJustice, The Black Vault and The Fifth Internationale

The Racket

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. ... I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. ... In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." Smedley Butler, Major General, U.S. Marine Corps.

Smedley Butler inspired my novel The Black Vault:

In the 1930s a group of wealthy industrialists plotted to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt and replace him with a puppet dictator. The coup failed because of moral reservations of a single man: Smedley Butler.

MORE ABOUT THE BLACK VAULT