Bookblogging/Writing Critique
Mar. 28th, 2006 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedI was going to wait until I'd at least made it halfway through The Apprentice by Lewis Libby before I blogged about it, but I don't think I can make it that far. This book is really bad. Not that I hadn't known it would be -- the author is Scooter Libby. (Yes, that Scooter Libby.)
Plot: a raging blizzard forces half a dozen travelers (I refuse to call them "wayfairers," Libby uses that word six times in the first six pages) to spend the night together at a small mountain inn. Suspicion! Intrigue! In other words, it's a locked-room mystery. (Also, it's set in 1903 Japan. I mention this fact last (and in parentheses) because if I hadn't read the back of the book, I wouldn't have been able to tell the setting was Japan until halfway through the first chapter, and then only from the names.)
The Apprentice is absolutely horrifying. At first I thought I'd have a good time laughing at Scooter Libby's expense, and the writing is bad enough to be funny. It's terrifying, though, because I recognize the style. Scooter Libby writes...like me. (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!)
He does! Or maybe I write like him, I'm not sure which would be worse. The resemblance really is amazingly creepy. Below the cut are some excerpts, so that you can see what I mean. I'm going to explain what I think is wrong with them, because this will hopefully keep me from making the same mistakes.
First paragraph:
On the edge of a ridge removed from the sea lay a small wooden inn half-buried in snow. Four hooded figures, grunting against the storm, struggled unbidden into its darkened entranceway. Snow swirled in around them, and the clouds of their breath were torn away.
The first line has an odd rhythm: di di DUM di di DUM di di DUM di di DUM. The second line is just odd: it's like the author was trying too hard to vary the sentence structure. A lot of the description is pointless or weird. Grunting against the storm? Why "unbidden" to an inn, surely an inn wants customers? "Darkened entranceway," sounds descriptive, but it doesn't actually tell me anything. "Snow swirled in around them" finally lets the reader know that the entranceway is an entrance chamber of sorts, so they're indoors now, but "around" should probably be "with" if the author wants to emphasize that these people have come inside, because shouldn't be as easy as it is here to miss a detail like that. "the clouds of their breath were torn away" bothers me because it's an object clause with no subject -- the wind tore the clouds of their breath away. Plus, "clouds of their breath" is eight million times more annoying than just "breath."
From later in the first chapter:
Some of the wayfairers began to grab at cushions. The extra cushions from the storage room, the youth realized. He should have thought of getting them.
It's hard to explain what's wrong with this paragraph, because it's not awful, just off. The cushions have magically transported themselves from the storage room to a place where the "some of the wayfairers" can "grab at them." Once again, an action has already occurred before its significance is understood -- in this case, the cushions are already there before the youth realizes that it was his job to bring them in. The last line is exactly the kind of pointless detail I'm always tempted to put into my stories. Yes, this is what the youth would be thinking at this time. No, including this thought does not add to the story in any way.
Next paragraph:
In the darkness beyond the firepit sat men who were headed north to tap the spring sap from lacquer trees. One with thick forearms had said that he knew the way north and that they would be leaving before a new path was broken. He said that anyone who wanted could come along. The narrow-faced man nodded as he turned part way toward them and examined the group more closely. Two of the tappers of lac were so deep in shadow they could barely be seen. The features of another, half-caught in the slanted firelight, seemed distorted. The narrow-faced man hesitated, and then dipped his head and made an indecipherable sound. He turned back to the fire.
The tapper of lac with thick forearms snorted and whispered something to those just around him.
WHERE TO START. First of all, the identification of characters by description -- tapper of lac, narrow-faced man -- is not unique to this paragraph. All of the characters are introduced this way, including those whose names the narrator should know. By this point there are more than a dozen characters. They have all been introduced in the last six pages. And none of them are named. Sometimes a character is identified by description even before being described, as is the case here with the narrow-faced man (never seen him before in my life!) and thick-armed tapper of lac (who said he had thick arms?). (No, wait, I see where the thick-armed man is described as having thick arms. It is very easy to miss, though.)
By the way, "tapper of lac" is the stupidest epithet ever.
I question what was so difficult about the tapper of lac's dialogue that it couldn't be given its own quotation -- once again, there is the sense of an event already having passed before we are given its description. Libby chooses to go into what the tappers of lac look like in the firelight in some detail. He chooses the narrow-faced man to make this observation, presumably because the narrator is not sitting close enough. It feels like there is something significant about his description (except for the sentence about two of the tappers of lac being lost in the darkness, which is a part of Libby's visualization of the scene but otherwise pointless), but the reader isn't told what the significance is. The whispered exchange is not explained. Is he horribly disfigured? Are they making snide remarks about smallpox, which had been mentioned earlier in the chapter? We never do find out.
The reader can, at this point, work out that there must be three tappers of lac (2 + 1 = 3) but, again, the line about "the other" comes before any advance warning about the third tapper being the last one (I was under the impression there were two), so that it surprises the reader.
Next paragraph:
The woman Matsuko, on the verge of leaving the room, said that some travelers had been lost heading north the previous winter. She said that their bodies had not been found until spring, and that it would be safer to wait for the villagers to beat a new path. She nodded her head for emphasis.
HURRAH, FINALLY A NAME! Matsuko was previously described as "a middle-aged serving maid," although that description and this one are not connected together in a way that would indicate to the reader that they're the same person until the next page. Henceforth, every time Matsuko appears it will be as "the woman Matsuko." The reader can remember a dozen people by description, but can't remember that Matsuko is a woman. Yup
Otherwise, it's all the same stuff I've been talking about -- lines that should be spoken dialogue, an action that we only hear about afterwards (Matsuko leaving the room). The last sentence gives me shivers because it is SO MUCH like something I'd write, except I'd put an unnecessary comma between "head" and "for emphasis." Libby is also fond of people who "tilt their head to one side" to indicate attention/confusion/a pause in the dialogue, without giving any indication of which one it is. I AT LEAST HAVE AN EXCUSE WHEN I DO THIS, because I am writing fanfiction of established characters from a visual canon (anime or manga). When I write "Joe ducked his head so that his hair fell into his eyes," everyone who knows the canon knows that when Joe ducks his head it means he's embarrassed, for instance, and not that he's tired or hiding something.
One more for the road!
"Performers," the woman Matsuko said again.
The youth, standing in the kitchen by the sink, regarded the thick, middle-aged cheeks of the main with distaste.
"The new guests are performers," the woman had said as soon as he entered the room.
I feel comfortable laughing at this section, because it is just SO BAD. I'd never have pointlessly inverted the timeline this way. I mean, it is COMPLETELY pointless.
General problems with the prose are:
1) sense of temporal disconnect. I don't know what's going on until the sentence after it happens. Alternately, I'm told a fact as if it's already something I know, even though this is my first time hearing it.
2) details included without any thought of how they are adding to the atmosphere. Libby can obviously picture the scene, and his details are specific if somewhat confusing, but he describes physical things without cluing the reader in to their emotional or other significance. There are quite a few emotions that go along with figures struggling into an inn from a storm: isolation, annoyance, relief at having avoided death by exposure. Just describing the scene is not enough. Libby doesn't have to go overboard with the exposition, but more consistently isolating (I think that's what he's going for here) adjectives would definitely help, as would his sticking to details that enforce isolation.
3) Similarly, a laugh or a shrug can mean more than one thing, and Libby should do a better job of informing us which one it is. If Libby told us enough about the characters that we could figure out the meaning of their actions based on their personalities, that would be one thing, but he doesn't and we can't. (That's why this story reminds me of fanfiction! Although there is also the part where it is supposedly set in 1903 Japan *cough*.)
Put most simply, the fact that there is a lot of detail in this story does not make it any easier to understand what is going on.
Plot: a raging blizzard forces half a dozen travelers (I refuse to call them "wayfairers," Libby uses that word six times in the first six pages) to spend the night together at a small mountain inn. Suspicion! Intrigue! In other words, it's a locked-room mystery. (Also, it's set in 1903 Japan. I mention this fact last (and in parentheses) because if I hadn't read the back of the book, I wouldn't have been able to tell the setting was Japan until halfway through the first chapter, and then only from the names.)
The Apprentice is absolutely horrifying. At first I thought I'd have a good time laughing at Scooter Libby's expense, and the writing is bad enough to be funny. It's terrifying, though, because I recognize the style. Scooter Libby writes...like me. (Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!)
He does! Or maybe I write like him, I'm not sure which would be worse. The resemblance really is amazingly creepy. Below the cut are some excerpts, so that you can see what I mean. I'm going to explain what I think is wrong with them, because this will hopefully keep me from making the same mistakes.
First paragraph:
On the edge of a ridge removed from the sea lay a small wooden inn half-buried in snow. Four hooded figures, grunting against the storm, struggled unbidden into its darkened entranceway. Snow swirled in around them, and the clouds of their breath were torn away.
The first line has an odd rhythm: di di DUM di di DUM di di DUM di di DUM. The second line is just odd: it's like the author was trying too hard to vary the sentence structure. A lot of the description is pointless or weird. Grunting against the storm? Why "unbidden" to an inn, surely an inn wants customers? "Darkened entranceway," sounds descriptive, but it doesn't actually tell me anything. "Snow swirled in around them" finally lets the reader know that the entranceway is an entrance chamber of sorts, so they're indoors now, but "around" should probably be "with" if the author wants to emphasize that these people have come inside, because shouldn't be as easy as it is here to miss a detail like that. "the clouds of their breath were torn away" bothers me because it's an object clause with no subject -- the wind tore the clouds of their breath away. Plus, "clouds of their breath" is eight million times more annoying than just "breath."
From later in the first chapter:
Some of the wayfairers began to grab at cushions. The extra cushions from the storage room, the youth realized. He should have thought of getting them.
It's hard to explain what's wrong with this paragraph, because it's not awful, just off. The cushions have magically transported themselves from the storage room to a place where the "some of the wayfairers" can "grab at them." Once again, an action has already occurred before its significance is understood -- in this case, the cushions are already there before the youth realizes that it was his job to bring them in. The last line is exactly the kind of pointless detail I'm always tempted to put into my stories. Yes, this is what the youth would be thinking at this time. No, including this thought does not add to the story in any way.
Next paragraph:
In the darkness beyond the firepit sat men who were headed north to tap the spring sap from lacquer trees. One with thick forearms had said that he knew the way north and that they would be leaving before a new path was broken. He said that anyone who wanted could come along. The narrow-faced man nodded as he turned part way toward them and examined the group more closely. Two of the tappers of lac were so deep in shadow they could barely be seen. The features of another, half-caught in the slanted firelight, seemed distorted. The narrow-faced man hesitated, and then dipped his head and made an indecipherable sound. He turned back to the fire.
The tapper of lac with thick forearms snorted and whispered something to those just around him.
WHERE TO START. First of all, the identification of characters by description -- tapper of lac, narrow-faced man -- is not unique to this paragraph. All of the characters are introduced this way, including those whose names the narrator should know. By this point there are more than a dozen characters. They have all been introduced in the last six pages. And none of them are named. Sometimes a character is identified by description even before being described, as is the case here with the narrow-faced man (never seen him before in my life!) and thick-armed tapper of lac (who said he had thick arms?). (No, wait, I see where the thick-armed man is described as having thick arms. It is very easy to miss, though.)
By the way, "tapper of lac" is the stupidest epithet ever.
I question what was so difficult about the tapper of lac's dialogue that it couldn't be given its own quotation -- once again, there is the sense of an event already having passed before we are given its description. Libby chooses to go into what the tappers of lac look like in the firelight in some detail. He chooses the narrow-faced man to make this observation, presumably because the narrator is not sitting close enough. It feels like there is something significant about his description (except for the sentence about two of the tappers of lac being lost in the darkness, which is a part of Libby's visualization of the scene but otherwise pointless), but the reader isn't told what the significance is. The whispered exchange is not explained. Is he horribly disfigured? Are they making snide remarks about smallpox, which had been mentioned earlier in the chapter? We never do find out.
The reader can, at this point, work out that there must be three tappers of lac (2 + 1 = 3) but, again, the line about "the other" comes before any advance warning about the third tapper being the last one (I was under the impression there were two), so that it surprises the reader.
Next paragraph:
The woman Matsuko, on the verge of leaving the room, said that some travelers had been lost heading north the previous winter. She said that their bodies had not been found until spring, and that it would be safer to wait for the villagers to beat a new path. She nodded her head for emphasis.
HURRAH, FINALLY A NAME! Matsuko was previously described as "a middle-aged serving maid," although that description and this one are not connected together in a way that would indicate to the reader that they're the same person until the next page. Henceforth, every time Matsuko appears it will be as "the woman Matsuko." The reader can remember a dozen people by description, but can't remember that Matsuko is a woman. Yup
Otherwise, it's all the same stuff I've been talking about -- lines that should be spoken dialogue, an action that we only hear about afterwards (Matsuko leaving the room). The last sentence gives me shivers because it is SO MUCH like something I'd write, except I'd put an unnecessary comma between "head" and "for emphasis." Libby is also fond of people who "tilt their head to one side" to indicate attention/confusion/a pause in the dialogue, without giving any indication of which one it is. I AT LEAST HAVE AN EXCUSE WHEN I DO THIS, because I am writing fanfiction of established characters from a visual canon (anime or manga). When I write "Joe ducked his head so that his hair fell into his eyes," everyone who knows the canon knows that when Joe ducks his head it means he's embarrassed, for instance, and not that he's tired or hiding something.
One more for the road!
"Performers," the woman Matsuko said again.
The youth, standing in the kitchen by the sink, regarded the thick, middle-aged cheeks of the main with distaste.
"The new guests are performers," the woman had said as soon as he entered the room.
I feel comfortable laughing at this section, because it is just SO BAD. I'd never have pointlessly inverted the timeline this way. I mean, it is COMPLETELY pointless.
General problems with the prose are:
1) sense of temporal disconnect. I don't know what's going on until the sentence after it happens. Alternately, I'm told a fact as if it's already something I know, even though this is my first time hearing it.
2) details included without any thought of how they are adding to the atmosphere. Libby can obviously picture the scene, and his details are specific if somewhat confusing, but he describes physical things without cluing the reader in to their emotional or other significance. There are quite a few emotions that go along with figures struggling into an inn from a storm: isolation, annoyance, relief at having avoided death by exposure. Just describing the scene is not enough. Libby doesn't have to go overboard with the exposition, but more consistently isolating (I think that's what he's going for here) adjectives would definitely help, as would his sticking to details that enforce isolation.
3) Similarly, a laugh or a shrug can mean more than one thing, and Libby should do a better job of informing us which one it is. If Libby told us enough about the characters that we could figure out the meaning of their actions based on their personalities, that would be one thing, but he doesn't and we can't. (That's why this story reminds me of fanfiction! Although there is also the part where it is supposedly set in 1903 Japan *cough*.)
Put most simply, the fact that there is a lot of detail in this story does not make it any easier to understand what is going on.