Comments on: And Now for Something Completely Different

By: Links « Stuff

Links « Stuff — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:25:41 +0000

[...] Nicholas Sparks is probably delusional. [...]

By: Nicholas Sparks is a Nice Guy (TM) « The Imaginary Heroine

Nicholas Sparks is a Nice Guy (TM) « The Imaginary Heroine — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:09:59 +0000

[...] Me: muahahahahaha Me: srsly? Me: does that really exist? Kimberlyloc: yeah! it looks bad Me: dude Nicholas Sparks is the commercial equivalent of the Nice Guy ™ Me: and Josh Groban Kimberlyloc: hehe Me: [...]

By: Angelia Sparrow

Angelia Sparrow — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:46:22 +0000

I write romances.

Sparks is right. His stuff would get rejected by the romance market. Needs more sex. Needs a happy ending. He writes love stories, not romances. He’s boring.

With a romance, you’re assured of a happy (at least for now) ending. And in gay romance, it’s still transgressive to let them both live, let alone happily ever after/for now.

By: Magpie_Seven

Magpie_Seven — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:11:00 +0000

@BeckySharper World of WarCRAFT, not World of Warfare!

Also, I second the idea of a Hemingway Asshattery Meter. I have seriously never been that into the dude’s writing.

By: dana_mai

dana_mai — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:13:21 +0000

I am seriously looking forward to more articles under the bwahahahaha tag, because this article was seriously lulz-y. I’m sitting in the library at my school and i had to bite my lip more than once to stop from laughing embarrassingly loudly.

By: chipchop

chipchop — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:02:19 +0000

I love how he says that no one else is writing in his genre (I guess because Hemingway’s dead?)!

Queen George, I have another recommendation: Reading Like a Writer, by Francine Prose. I think it’s the best book on writing I’ve ever read!

By: Queen_George

Queen_George — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:33:35 +0000

Thanks, everybody, for all the great advice. I should’ve turned to my feminist blog buddies a long time ago. I ought to have known they’d point me in an appropriate direction.

Now I guess the goal is – if I ever DO get around to seeking out agents and such – to avoid becoming an asshat myself.

By: Endora

Endora — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:21:54 +0000

Emilyanne, that’s a story I would love to hear!

I couldn’t bear to read the whole thing, but I skimmed, and WOW, what an ass. I had never read anything by him and didn’t even see the Notebook movie, so didn’t have much of an opinion on him, but that’s put me right off all of it.

Also, this quote: ‘See, they’re recommending The Garden of Eden, and I read that…’ indicates to me that he doesn’t read all that much (otherwise you wouldn’t have to point it out like that). Which makes sense, because if he knew what he was talking about, he would know better to compare himself to Shakespeare.

By: sybann

sybann — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:38:43 +0000

Sparks wishes he wrote romances.

He writes crap. Poo. Excrement. He aspires to write romances.

Even Fabio won’t stoop to be on his covers. He’s “straight to paperback” territory.

I couldn’t stop.

By: emilyanne

emilyanne — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:20:02 +0000

@Queen George – How Not To Write A Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittlemark is the single funniest writer’s tool i’ve ever read. The only word of caution is that after reading it you keep spotting the stuff they send up everywhere.

Also the Guardian recently had a nice magazine piece based around Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing where various writers gave advice, some more helpfully than others. The link is here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one
and you can click on part two when you go there.

Plus in 2008 they dedicated a whole guide to this subject, link here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/howtowrite