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lobelia321Because I do everything that self-help books tell me to do, I did the Magnae Cartae (if that's the correct plural?) as stipulated by Chris Baty (NaNoWriMo guru) on pages 85-87 of his No Plot? No Problem!. This is mainly for my own reference purposes.
What, to me, makes a good novel?
• a plot structured like architecture, like a scaffolding with legs
• uncoy, sexy sex
• slashy moments
• male friendship and homo-eroticism
• deliciously embarrassing moments
• concise, sharp sentences
• baroque, lush prose
• unusual words that I get to look up in the dictionary
• theatrical, slightly artificial dialogue
• 'magical' objects; objects as metaphors
• photographs telling about the past
• spiralling into a secret, hidden in the past
• roaming through space and across the globe to exotic locations
• offices
• the beach (Pacific)
• the desert (Arabian)
• pov of men, written by women
• pov of women, written by women
• weepy moments of grand Spielbergian / Bollywoodesque sentimentality and swelling violins
• redeemed 'bad' people
• moral choice
• endings that reach out into real life
• surprises near the end: shifts in register, shifts in pov to a new character
• reckless plot jumps, heedless of realism and enamoured of cliché
• gender bending
• lizards
• books where weather plays a role in creating atmo and space and metaphor and where the weather is at odds with the mood
• larger-than-life characters, ur-types
• detailed descriptions of employment
• thoughtful, tolerant, ultimately ethical
• sexy, driven men
• undaunted women
• 'ugly' love choices; the rare, not the overtly pretty
• for humour: fast pace, spiralling absurdly out of control
• lightness of touch
• multiplicity of voices and literary styles
• authentic-sounding, i.e. coherent, 'period' voice (note: authentic sounding; doesn't need actually to be 'authentic')
• funny 'hip' dialogue
• the well-timed use of the word 'fuck'
• the possibility of happiness
• moral backbone
Books on my Favourites shelf that I drew on to assemble this list: Andrea di Carlo's Cream Train. Italo Calvino's Si una notte d'inverno. Jane Austen. Charlotte Brontë's Villette. Adam Thorpe's Ulverton. David Mitchell. Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. William Goldman's The Princess Bride. Ursula Le Guin.
What bores or depresses me in novels
• books that strive to make a political or moral point
• political correctness
• books that showcase a lot of 'research' to legitimate themselves as 'realistic'
• interior monologue with no literary point; endless inner ramblings
• continuity breaks in voice
• characters with Dickensian names
• characters whose names are confusingly similar to other characters' names
• too many characters with names like 'Jill' or 'Edie'
• characters with names like Ethalion or Terebithia
• mainstream, conventional male/female relations
• up-itself macho writing
• coyness about sex
• domesticity; women talking in kitchens
• ghosts, elves, dwarves in any book not written by J.R.R. Tolkien
• fantasy devoid of realism
• no sense of place
• women without humour
• the Great American or English or European or Twentieth-Century Novel
• 'gay' books
• over-explanation
• over-description
• plots that go: and then...., and then...., and then....
• upper-class ponces that are not being made fun of
• political intrigue
• paragraphs that go over a page or more
• too little dialogue
• inner angsting about sex; guilt about relationship issues
• relationships that break up because of sexual infidelity
• suicide (unless written by Leo Tolstoy)
• epigraphs
• arty-farty prose masking uptight, pedestrian morals
• portentousness and pretension
• riding the wave of what's currently in the news (e.g. '9/11 novels')
• boring old farts: men having mid-life crises
• excessive realism (unless written by Elsa Morante)
• peasants
• wannabe-humorous romps about the chaotic lives of Today's Modern Multi-tasking Women
• misuse of grammar and syntax through ignorance or carelessness of author
• novels that treat individuals as monads who operate outside the strictures of culture and society
• moral emptiness; soul-lessness
It's good because you get to be as subjective and wot-i-really like as you want.
What, to me, makes a good fanfic?
• graphic sex that reveals character
• deliciously embarrassing moments
• crackling dialogue
• sexual tension that can be cut with a knife
• whimsy
• angst in shovelfuls
• manly men
• taciturn men who drink beer and repress the kernel of their romantic mooshy inner selves (until love overwhelms them towards the end and we drown in a sentimental, violin-swelling finale)
• weird pairings
• men paired with wraith or orcs or dementors in a convincing way
• pairings that start out completely unlikely and make me wonder for pages and pages how on earth these two are ever going to get into bed with each other, and then they do, and it's totally convincing
• the words 'mouth', 'fuck', 'yeah'
• happy endings (I have to qualify this: this, to me, does not necessarily a good fic make; there are some fics I consider very good that have sad endings -- but they just make me so sad!)
What bores or depresses me in fanfic
• characters that are gay and out and have no problem with that
• coyness about sex
• the words 'butt' or 'ass' (somehow I just prefer the word 'arse', even if the characters are Canadian)
• boys that stand around weeping in kitchens
• beagles (*snorts* -- well, these don't really depress me but I had to put them in somewhere, *g*)
• usage of the words 'the older man', 'the younger man'
• much angsting by an older man over having sex with a younger man
• terming a man who is five years older 'an older man'
• someone 'licking' someone else's lips
• chirpy het figures wheeled out for no discernible purpose in meaningless sub-plots
• endless inner ramblings
• the misuse of 'whom', 'him and I', 'bemused'
• characters saying 'I love you', except when written by exceptional writers and in scenes of schmaltzy Bollywoodesque over-the-topness
Note the words me and to me in these sub-headings. If you seek objective, literary appraisal that does not contradict itself: please click not.
What, to me, makes a good novel?
• a plot structured like architecture, like a scaffolding with legs
• uncoy, sexy sex
• slashy moments
• male friendship and homo-eroticism
• deliciously embarrassing moments
• concise, sharp sentences
• baroque, lush prose
• unusual words that I get to look up in the dictionary
• theatrical, slightly artificial dialogue
• 'magical' objects; objects as metaphors
• photographs telling about the past
• spiralling into a secret, hidden in the past
• roaming through space and across the globe to exotic locations
• offices
• the beach (Pacific)
• the desert (Arabian)
• pov of men, written by women
• pov of women, written by women
• weepy moments of grand Spielbergian / Bollywoodesque sentimentality and swelling violins
• redeemed 'bad' people
• moral choice
• endings that reach out into real life
• surprises near the end: shifts in register, shifts in pov to a new character
• reckless plot jumps, heedless of realism and enamoured of cliché
• gender bending
• lizards
• books where weather plays a role in creating atmo and space and metaphor and where the weather is at odds with the mood
• larger-than-life characters, ur-types
• detailed descriptions of employment
• thoughtful, tolerant, ultimately ethical
• sexy, driven men
• undaunted women
• 'ugly' love choices; the rare, not the overtly pretty
• for humour: fast pace, spiralling absurdly out of control
• lightness of touch
• multiplicity of voices and literary styles
• authentic-sounding, i.e. coherent, 'period' voice (note: authentic sounding; doesn't need actually to be 'authentic')
• funny 'hip' dialogue
• the well-timed use of the word 'fuck'
• the possibility of happiness
• moral backbone
Books on my Favourites shelf that I drew on to assemble this list: Andrea di Carlo's Cream Train. Italo Calvino's Si una notte d'inverno. Jane Austen. Charlotte Brontë's Villette. Adam Thorpe's Ulverton. David Mitchell. Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. William Goldman's The Princess Bride. Ursula Le Guin.
What bores or depresses me in novels
• books that strive to make a political or moral point
• political correctness
• books that showcase a lot of 'research' to legitimate themselves as 'realistic'
• interior monologue with no literary point; endless inner ramblings
• continuity breaks in voice
• characters with Dickensian names
• characters whose names are confusingly similar to other characters' names
• too many characters with names like 'Jill' or 'Edie'
• characters with names like Ethalion or Terebithia
• mainstream, conventional male/female relations
• up-itself macho writing
• coyness about sex
• domesticity; women talking in kitchens
• ghosts, elves, dwarves in any book not written by J.R.R. Tolkien
• fantasy devoid of realism
• no sense of place
• women without humour
• the Great American or English or European or Twentieth-Century Novel
• 'gay' books
• over-explanation
• over-description
• plots that go: and then...., and then...., and then....
• upper-class ponces that are not being made fun of
• political intrigue
• paragraphs that go over a page or more
• too little dialogue
• inner angsting about sex; guilt about relationship issues
• relationships that break up because of sexual infidelity
• suicide (unless written by Leo Tolstoy)
• epigraphs
• arty-farty prose masking uptight, pedestrian morals
• portentousness and pretension
• riding the wave of what's currently in the news (e.g. '9/11 novels')
• boring old farts: men having mid-life crises
• excessive realism (unless written by Elsa Morante)
• peasants
• wannabe-humorous romps about the chaotic lives of Today's Modern Multi-tasking Women
• misuse of grammar and syntax through ignorance or carelessness of author
• novels that treat individuals as monads who operate outside the strictures of culture and society
• moral emptiness; soul-lessness
It's good because you get to be as subjective and wot-i-really like as you want.
What, to me, makes a good fanfic?
• graphic sex that reveals character
• deliciously embarrassing moments
• crackling dialogue
• sexual tension that can be cut with a knife
• whimsy
• angst in shovelfuls
• manly men
• taciturn men who drink beer and repress the kernel of their romantic mooshy inner selves (until love overwhelms them towards the end and we drown in a sentimental, violin-swelling finale)
• weird pairings
• men paired with wraith or orcs or dementors in a convincing way
• pairings that start out completely unlikely and make me wonder for pages and pages how on earth these two are ever going to get into bed with each other, and then they do, and it's totally convincing
• the words 'mouth', 'fuck', 'yeah'
• happy endings (I have to qualify this: this, to me, does not necessarily a good fic make; there are some fics I consider very good that have sad endings -- but they just make me so sad!)
What bores or depresses me in fanfic
• characters that are gay and out and have no problem with that
• coyness about sex
• the words 'butt' or 'ass' (somehow I just prefer the word 'arse', even if the characters are Canadian)
• boys that stand around weeping in kitchens
• beagles (*snorts* -- well, these don't really depress me but I had to put them in somewhere, *g*)
• usage of the words 'the older man', 'the younger man'
• much angsting by an older man over having sex with a younger man
• terming a man who is five years older 'an older man'
• someone 'licking' someone else's lips
• chirpy het figures wheeled out for no discernible purpose in meaningless sub-plots
• endless inner ramblings
• the misuse of 'whom', 'him and I', 'bemused'
• characters saying 'I love you', except when written by exceptional writers and in scenes of schmaltzy Bollywoodesque over-the-topness
Note the words me and to me in these sub-headings. If you seek objective, literary appraisal that does not contradict itself: please click not.