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PaulaC

- 2 years ago

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Instant Lit Critic

So the other day I got a FB email from a frenemy who, I think, was trying to inspire me to write better. He said I wrote like a “robot” to which I replied "I prefer 'fembot,' to a silence on his end that only spelled out one thing: he was serious! The exchange devolved from there. He finally apologized after a week’s worth of a little bit of silence on my part. Fine, fine, not everyone is going to love what I write. Whatevs, I’m just going to keep doing it. But I’m human and still a relative newbie wearing this writer’s jacket. It made me think I need to toughen up.

Then I saw a list of the 30 Harshest Author Insults over on flavorwire, including:

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” // William Faulkner on Ernest Hemingway

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” // Ernest Hemingway on William Faulkner

“He’s a full-fledged housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices.” // Gore Vidal on Truman Capote

Devious stuff. Got an author you love to hate? Someone who is over-rated? Embrace your inner critic and rant about them here in today's quick-write.

Quick-write a review of your least favorite author in 50 words or less.

Here's SoulPancake's Melina Coogan to get us started:

Jodi Picoult, and she’s from my home town, or nearly. But my god, how many times can a child die from cancer and then get burned alive in one book? Tragedy as a cheap replacement for plot, ugh. And she’s rich as hell. @melinacoogan

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Nicholas Sparks: While I appreciate the ability to craft the descriptions of scenery and characters, I cannot appreciate the formulaic approach to your stories. Not every woman is ill, running from a dark past, or bitter. Not every man is ridiculously romantic, falls "in love" at first sight, or wants to be the knight in shining armor who has to protect the woman who can't handle issues themselves. Death/near-death experience is a fact of life but it should not always be the token climax moment in a book. And for the love of God, never compare yourself to Hemingway again! (Google Sparks' interview with USA Today from 3/12/2010)

Read I Am Number Four. It's about these aliens disguising as humans, and, after chapter and again, John Smith should stop blabbing about his crush.

James Patterson: Pages and Chapters are two different things. A 300 page book shouldn't be 300 chapters.

Is this a criticism of their work or their character? Either way, my simple review is 'red lights mean stop'.

Ayn Rand:

I understand that she focuses more on getting a philosophy across, but her plots never entertain me. Sure, Howard Roark was meant to be an unspoken hero, but don't you suggest that we are all our own unknown heroes? and in that case, who do we look up to?

Dear Ms Meyer:

Using visceral creatures of the night to surreptitiously teach abstinence to teenagers is sketchy enough. Combine that with two-dimensional character templates and possibly the most tiresome first-person narrative in the English language, and you’re on a slippery slope to literary purgatory. Please learn your genre before morally hijacking it.

Stephanie Meyer:

I understand people will read anything the public deems 'romantic and dangerous.' I question how many of your novels are written for artistic pursuit, or just another pay check. You can re-hash the same plot over and over, but it won't work unless the plot was decent in the first place.

Robert Heinlein:

Remember when you wrote a really awesome science fiction book about a visitor from another planet.. that was awesome. Remember when halfway through that awesome book you stopped writing that awesome story and started writing some hippie jango piece about strangely cultist people living in a love commune? Yeah.... Thanks for nothing.

John Steinbeck

Don't you understand less is more? You really don't need four pages to describe a room.

Toni Morrison:

You do a really horrific job of "representing your people" in your literature. Having your characters rape their daughters, kill their children, cheat on their spouses, etc. does not accurately "represent your people." You are not an ambassador.

Vladimir Megre:

Not a critique inasmuch as a warning: your stories better be as true as you have purported them to be––I mean, down to the very word––or I will find you. Your writing is not good enough for people to waste time reading a cult-inspiring sham.

Stieg Larsson. Just because you make your novels about abuse against women, and put ignored female history sound bites at the beginning of each section, does not make your female characters any less stereotypical and sexist. Your view of female sexuality through the sex-god Mikael Blomkvist is absurd.

Also, learn to edit.

Emily Bronte, I wish you had written Wuthering Heights so I could understand what the characters were saying and doing a lot of the time.

Stephenie Meyer, I hate your books, and I hate that you have made millions off books that were riddled with bad grammar and bad values, but not a plot line or likable characters.

William Faulkner: The fact that no one understands you does not make you an artist.

Ann Brashares, the first book was "good" but seriously how much can a pair of pants travel? The second book made no sense learn to write...

Chelsea Handler, your just not funny how in the world did you manage to write multiple books? And also how the hell do people like the Kardashians get book deals? I should get a book deal if they are just handing them out to anyone...

Stephanie Meyer, does your writing suck...absolutely! Do I enjoy reading your horrible writing...absolutely! I'm not looking for her to change my views on the world I just want to read about sparkly vampires so kill me if you must, but I like the books.

1. Stephenie Meyer all the way. She has some weird dream about vampires and now she's a millionaire? Your characters are underdeveloped and your description is bland and repetitive. The worst part is you managed ot brainwash all my friends into thinking you were a good writer so I never heard the end of it. I managed to keep my sanity though.

2. Nicholas Sparks. Enough with the sappy romances ridden with death that make me feel like I've died inside. You kill anyone remotely interesting and your stories are all the same. No originality. You've read one Nicholas Sparks, you've basically read them all.

Joe Hill. SHUT UP! Just, shut up...

The Scartlet Letter was the worst book I have ever read. That is all.

Mmilie,

I read annoying books to distract me from my pain. But, I fell asleep on the can reading her masturbatory jubilations. I've read better Romances written by harden Nuns . It's know mystery were she got her name. Clearly from generations of caulk mining people, who work day in and day out dreaming of the Sunday sermons and daily visits to milk the cow.

Nicholas Sparks - Anyone who writes sappy romances where someone always dies and then proclaims to not write melodrama is obviously delusional.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-03-11-lastsong11_CV_N.htm

Stephanie Meyer- Enough said.
If you don't believe me attempt to read one page of her disgrace to literature and you will understand.

Jodi Piccoult - take a break between books and try to come up with an original concept! Every book has the same plot, I swear the woman just cuts and pastes from previous novels. New disease or tragedy but same undeveloped characters, predictable 'twists and turns', and unrealistic happy endings - so incredibly generic. For some reason half the housewives in my bookclub think she's brilliant so I've had the misfortune of suffering throug a few of her books now.

Stephen King: lead character is almost always a male writer from Maine (my, how inventive, really had to think outside the box there) who is sexually irresistible to beautiful women. Any other female character is characterized as "bull d**e." Ridiculously self-indulgent metaphors, shameless plagiarism of plot points/ideas.

Stephanie Meyer. Yes, the one who wrote the twilight series. Your concept was nothing new, in fact it was boring and predictable. The characters were under developed and just as bland as each novel. I have tried to watch every movie that came out with an open mind. Each movie got progressively worse. I do not understand why you are so popular. I have read plenty of novels that deserve the respect and popularity.

Frederick Nietzsche

Sorry if I insult anyone with this.
As much as I appreciate the ideas he put forward, I think the man was far too influenced by what sounds like a horrible personal life. Honestly his lack of faith in humanity, I think, reflects a lack of positive personal relationships in his life.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner -
emotional porn and unreal characters.

Stephen King

As much as I adore the idea of alien forces taking hold of an otherwise quiet town (how Lovecraft) I did not adore the needless chapter describing the main character's sexual cravings for lumberjack, her menstrual cycle, as well as her decent into menopause. Is this a horror novel or a one woman show?

And to beat a dead horse-

Stephanie Meyer,
The greatest thing your writing has done for this world is the vast ammounts of comical criticism that's come about because of it... the joke gets old after awhile though so feel free to go back to doing whatever the hell it was you did before you wrote teenaged romance novels using vampirism as a euphamism for sex.

Anne McCaffrey,
You wrote books about Dragons, great majestic mythical beasts... and what was the great villanous foe that these majestic beasts battled? Thread that falls from the sky. Really? Couldn't you have spared a few minutes to create a more worthy and interesting advesary?

Oh and I think Elvis said it best- A little less conversation a little more action please.

stephanie meyer.

It is a waste for the reader to read about some sappy love story when we could be ready something that could change our life (even ever so slightly). Also, I think she is giving the wrong messages to young adults. You don't need to thrive your life on a relationship. Be your own spontanious person.

"How could she? That epilogue? It was like an atrocious fan-fiction. Surely, it must be a joke." // Me on JK Rowling

two words

NICHOLAS SPARK

one word

YOUMAKEMEVOMIT

why?????
your stories are "formula" stories and everyone sounds the same and no one is really happy and you kill ANYONE INTERESTING in your book....effing sucks....

Chuck Palahniuk

I actually really liked Fight Club and Rant but after reading your other books you're starting to look like a one trick pony. Your stories are composed with what is meant to be shocking twists and gross facts you researched but have no point!

Terry Goodkind

Great read, but superficial in thinking, narrow minded and shallow in questions he raises. Also dogmatic, which is repelent.

Beatrice Sparks AKA "Anonymous"
(Go Ask Alice, It Happened to Nancy, Jay's Journal, etc.)

It’s fiction set up to look like a real diary in an attempt to scare the crap out of kids who think maybe they want to get high.
I don't know if I should feel more sorry, or irate for the people (especially teens) who read these stories and believe they are true.

M.T. Anderson- Technically I've never finished one of his books but there's a good reason for that, which is why i think i'm qualified to hate him. Every time a character spoke he'd write "____ said" and I couldn't stand it. The conversations all read like so " He said, then She said, then He said". If there was ever a reason to burn a book this repetitive conversation starter would be it.

Elizabeth GIlbert - how nice that you wasted a decade of your husband's life before abandoning him, having casual sex with moody actor "David" and then dedicating the rest of "Eat, Pray, Love" to getting over said virtual stranger. This makes you a heroine in the eyes of our society. Ugh.

Team SP

Ouch! I've never read Stephanie Meyer's books but if I'm wearing a writer's jacket, she'll need a bullet proof vest.

Ashley Rhodes-Courter. She wrote a memoir on her life as an orphan, the point of it being that her ability to writeaved her from lots of crap. The issue: she can't write. It's clear no one told her that it's bad to say "asked" a thousand times, and then change it with "queried."

Also, the characters felt really fake, which was weird because it was a memoir.

If Carl Hiaasen is the guy who wrote Hoot, I wanted to burn that book to shreds after the first page. I cannot believe he could have dragged that book on for a couple hundred! Give me J.R.R. Tolkien.

Stephanie Meyer tries to rewrite what must've been a boring and awkward teenage youth by inserting herself into an awful love triangle with a stalker vampire and an as*hole werewolf. She portrays women as whiney girls who need men to be happy. She is a pathetic, housewife who is naive

Stephanie Meyer

No no no no no no no NO.

Patricia Cornwell: Like Scarpetta's subjects, started out okay, then decomposed.

Nicholas Sparks makes me crazy. Proof positive that millions can be wrong.

"Plato is a bore."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Stephanie "I'mreallyBella" Meyer:

I opened your book and my eyes bled.

Reading China Mieville is like going on a date with hot, narcissistic guy. Even when the date turns for the stupid or worse, you think maybe if you could just endure it a little longer it will be great. And instead of rewarding your patience, he just intellectually masturbates himself and forgets you exist.

That should be: The bad guys are never even a little bit good.

Tom Clancy's novels have flat, one-dimensional characters.
The good guys never do anything really bad. The bad guys
are even a little bit good. The plots are mostly predictable
and cliche. His books are O.K. for airplane reading, but in 50 years
he'll be only a footnote; in a hundred he'll be forgotten.

Fracois Lelord (Hector and the Search for Happiness)~

Francois, er...I mean Hector, a cheating, lying misogynist wrote a book about psychology for the rest of us idiots in the world that don't understand them there science magics!

Lelord, would you be so kind as to stop writing books? Just stop. Your patronizing prose are simply insulting.

Virginia Woolf - Oh my God, lady, how about getting to the point? Stream of consciousness? More like pissing words. That mark on the wall was a fly? It took you six pages to get off your butt and look? I wanted to drown myself in a river too after reading your stuff.

Special mention: The editor of "Best Horror - 2010". It is sad that I need to point this out...horror suggests that the reader will be scared, disturbed, unnerved by possibilites, or otherwise given the creeps. None of the stories within did anything but bore me. There was one that I liked, but it made me laugh. Laughing is not horror.

I've got two...

Kathryn Stockett, The Help ~
Reading a Lifetime movie has its place, but a plucky white woman stirring up racial trouble for a group of African American domestics in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi before fleeing to the whiter pastures of a women's magazine staff in New York City is not my idea of a happy ending. I'd call that desertion, missy.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner ~
I realize that I'm risking national security by writing this, but as I'm on my adult set of teeth I'm left with no other choice. So overrated was The Kite Runner that I ran out and read up every last sentence like it was a Carvel birthday cake. So saccharine was the Kite Runner that my very last tooth was left dangling from a nerve. Then the movie came out. f*ck me.

William Shakespeare: Four centuries removed, even a smut peddler can be remembered as a genius

Ayn Rand - Nice sex scenes, but otherwise "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah"...then some action then "blah, blah, blah, blah blah" for another 20 pages. I wanted to stab myself in the eye just so I didn't have to read anymore of The Fountainhead.

Stephanie Meyer: Reading about Vampires that Glitter in the sun is like listening to Ke$ha, stupid.

Leo Tolstoy: on Anna Karenina I don't like watching soap operas. Why would I want to read one?

Dr Laura Schlessinger: You do not possess the moral authority to instruct other women on how to better their lives.
'Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives' ... Does this book include ranting like a socially conservative racist, ON AIR?

James Patterson: You have really good ideas, but you aren't descriptive at all....unless it comes down to your sex scenes, you are pretty descriptive there...which is another downfall. Learn how to captivate with writing, not just your ideas.

Robert Jordan: Why wouldn't I just read Lord of the Rings again?

Stephenie Meyer: You're not good--really. Teen girls love getting turned on by sexy vampires but good writing actually entails decent character development and worthy dialogue. You have neither in your novels. Don't mistake your popularity as an indication of your talent.

Wow, that was mean.

Instant Lit Critic

Quick-write a review of your least favorite author in 50 words or less.

Spanglish. Brunch. Spork.

Some Great Rewards

Faith Fetish

Read I Am Number Four. It's about these aliens disguising as humans, and, after chapter and again, John Smith should stop blabbing about his crush.

James Patterson: Pages and Chapters are two different things. A 300 page book shouldn't be 300 chapters.

Is this a criticism of their work or their character? Either way, my simple review is 'red lights mean stop'.

Ayn Rand:I understand that she focuses more on getting a philosophy across, but her plots never entertain me. Sure, Howard Roark was meant to be an unspoken hero, but don't you suggest that we are all our own unknown heroes? and in that case, who do we look up to?

John SteinbeckDon't you understand less is more? You really don't need four pages to describe a room.

Toni Morrison:You do a really horrific job of "representing your people" in your literature. Having your characters rape their daughters, kill their children, cheat on their spouses, etc. does not accurately "represent your people." You are not an ambassador.

Vladimir Megre:Not a critique inasmuch as a warning: your stories better be as true as you have purported them to be––I mean, down to the very word––or I will find you. Your writing is not good enough for people to waste time reading a cult-inspiring sham.

William Faulkner: The fact that no one understands you does not make you an artist.

Joe Hill. SHUT UP! Just, shut up...

The Scartlet Letter was the worst book I have ever read. That is all.

Nicholas Sparks - Anyone who writes sappy romances where someone always dies and then proclaims to not write melodrama is obviously delusional.http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-03-11-lastsong11_CV_N.htm

Stephanie Meyer- Enough said. If you don't believe me attempt to read one page of her disgrace to literature and you will understand.

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner -emotional porn and unreal characters.

"How could she? That epilogue? It was like an atrocious fan-fiction. Surely, it must be a joke." // Me on JK Rowling

two wordsNICHOLAS SPARKone wordYOUMAKEMEVOMITwhy?????your stories are "formula" stories and everyone sounds the same and no one is really happy and you kill ANYONE INTERESTING in your book....effing sucks....

Chuck PalahniukI actually really liked Fight Club and Rant but after reading your other books you're starting to look like a one trick pony. Your stories are composed with what is meant to be shocking twists and gross facts you researched but have no point!

Terry GoodkindGreat read, but superficial in thinking, narrow minded and shallow in questions he raises. Also dogmatic, which is repelent.