Savvy Novel Quotes

If what's always distinguished bad writing--flat characters, a narrative world that's clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.--is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it. Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong, because they'll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony's gone from liberating to enslaving. There's some great essay somewhere that has a line about irony being the song of the prisoner who's come to love his cage… The postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years. We enter a spiritual puberty where we snap to the fact that the great transcendent horror is loneliness, excluded encagement in the self. Once we’ve hit this age, we will now give or take anything, wear any mask, to fit, be part-of, not be Alone, we young. The U.S. arts are our guide to inclusion. A how-to. We are shown how to fashion masks of ennui and jaded irony at a young age where the face is fictile enough to assume the shape of whatever it wears. And then it’s stuck there, the weary cynicism that saves us from gooey sentiment and unsophisticated naïveté. Sentiment equals naïveté on this continent. You burn with hunger for food that does not exist. A U. S. of modern A. where the State is not a team or a code, but a sort of sloppy intersection of desires and fears, where the only public consensus a boy must surrender to is the acknowledged primacy of straight-line pursuing this flat and short-sighted idea of personal happiness.

The assertion that Americans love violence and bathe in it daily is a self-serving lie promulgated by fundamentalist religious types and America's propaganda-savvy gun-pimps. It's believed by people who don't read novels, play video games, or go to many movies

By standard intelligence texts, the dogs have failed at the puzzle. I believe, by contrast that they have succeeded magnificently. They have applied a novel tool to the task. We are that tool. Dogs have learned this--and they see us as fine general-purpose tools, too: useful for protection, acquiring food, providing companionship. We solve the puzzles of closed doors and empty water dishes. In the folk psychology of dogs, we humans are brilliant enough to extract hopelessly tangled leashes from around trees; we can conjure up an endless bounty of foodstuffs and things to chew. How savvy we are in dogs' eyes! It's a clever strategy to turn to us after all. The question of the cognitive abilities of dogs is thereby transformed; dogs are terrific at using humans to solve problems, but not as good at solving problems when we're not around.

The characters populating male fantasies have little in common with those inhabiting female fantasies. In porn, the mind of a woman is usually empty of all thought and feeling – except for an overwhelming urge to have sex with plumbers, pizza boys, and her BFF. Women’s hopes and fears are irrelevant. Their skills are inconsequential, except for the admirable ability to satisfy multiple lovers simultaneously and an impressive capacity for moaning. Their bodies, on the other hand, are depicted in lavish, graphic detail. The heroes of romance novels often seem like members of a more evolved species. They are natural leaders, rich, powerful, and well-connected. Their minds are intelligent and savvy, though they are reticent about their abilities and hide their inner demons. Despite the fact that they are a five-star general or lord of southern England, they hide a troubled and tempestuous soul that can only be healed by the magical balm of a woman’s love.

He smells funny,” the kid said. “He’s been rinsed through pretty good.” “With that whisky?” the kid asked. “Yes, sir. Some men take to it. I never did.” “Why not? Does it do bad things?” The old man looked at him over his shoulder. “Keeps varmints away,” he said. “How so?” “Savvy what a varmint is?” “Yeah,” the kid said. “Pests. Things you don’t want around.” “Well, whisky keeps things away that some people don’t want around neither. Like dreams, recollections, wishes, other people sometimes.” The old man turned on the stool and set the milk pail down on the floor between his feet. “Things get busted sometimes. When they happen in the world you can fix ’em most times. But when they happen inside a person they’re harder to mend. Eldon got broke up pretty bad inside,” he said.

The next biggest reason folks buy fiction is that it has been personally recommended to them by a friend, family member or bookstore employee. That process is called word of mouth. Savvy publishers understand its power and try to facilitate its effect with advance reading copies (ARCs), samplers, first chapters circulated by e-mail, Web sites and the like.

Clear and concise language should be the aim of most fiction authors with few exceptions. The main way to achieve this is to use simple language, as it will be more effective and communicate your meaning more easily. Using long words is not going to make you seem smarter or a better writer. Know your readers. If the novel is aimed at a tech savvy audience, then some amount of technical jargon will have to be used, but even then, simple language should be the basis for the book with the computer terms sprinkled in only as required. Keep sentences short. Nothing makes a text more difficult to read than long run-on sentences with multiple independent clauses. Also, avoid the comma splice, which is when you put together two independent clauses with the use of a comma between them. This technique is one of which I am guilty of using all too frequently. There is the Flesch-Kincaid grading system that was developed in the 1970s to evaluate the readability of text. It is widely used and gives a score based on a US grade level of reading ability. Most successful novels will have a score of no more than grade 8, which is the average person’s reading level. There are free online web pages that can evaluate text using the Flesch-Kincaid system.

some of the most prominent stores in the country have changed owners. And the new owners bring a whole new sense of energy – they’re more tech savvy and sophisticated. Their energy is contagious. They give everyone else a sense of possibility for their business.” And finally, in a twist of irony, the explosive growth of the digital landscape has, counterintuitively, rendered print books and the community booksellers who peddle them, novel and refreshingly real.

You know why writers are always the savvy and sexy characters in novels and movies? It’s because all novels and movies are written by writers.