Comments on: Is 90% of everything really crap?

By: David-J-West

David-J-West — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:35:02 +0000

I expierenced this last saturday. At a writers conference (not the one you did) I won first place for my story in the general fiction category. I had 5 anonymous judges, winning it on the strength of 4 of them because those four liked the story that much. They all said it was extremely compelling and they couldn’t put it down. ZING BABY. They had only the slightest of suggestions that I will heed. Seems like 3 of the 4 thought there was a little too much info dump right at the end. So I will space that out a bit. Thats about it with them.
The last judge had some of the craziest theories I could have imagined at what I was trying to write and I had to come away from it thinking, this person doesn’t have a clue and practically hated the story because it just wasn’t their cup of tea, nuff said.
So just like your latest post, sometimes you got to go your own way regardless.

By: John Brown - the author’s official site » Blog Archive » Read and report for effect, not rule compliance

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:38:14 +0000

[...] I read until I’m bored or lost. Then I put the work down. I put the work down because at this point I’m OUT of the story and cannot judge the effect of what follows as a reader. Maybe I’m bored because of the craft. Maybe I’m bored because I’m not in the audience for that kind of story. If this is the case, my experience doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t give a romance to a thriller reader and then expect them to love it, would you? Well, authors are no different. Just because we write doesn’t mean we automatically love everything (please see my blog Is 90% of Everything Crap). [...]

By: John Brown

John Brown — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:26:14 +0000

My wife read that and loved it. I’m going to have to put it in my queue.

By: asiakee

asiakee — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 21:22:32 +0000

One of the best definitons of quality I’ve ever read is contained in the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Rober Pirsig (who was sited in your list on the post). The whole book is an explanation of quality, what it is, and how it plays out in most peoples lives.
Also, the book is an excellent read.