Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-7-2009

[andrewducker]

• Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age: A New Model for the Workplace
  An interview with one of the leads from Pixar. Fascinating to see how they view the world.
  (tags: education video collaboration pixar creativity)
• Stephen King rubbishes Twilight author Stephenie Meyer
  King compared the Mormon author to JK Rowling, saying that both authors were "speaking directly to young people". "The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good," he told an interviewer from USA Weekend.
  (tags: books stephen_king)

Comments

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

well, I don't actually think much of JK's writing talents, so this other girl must be fairly dire (never read any of her stuff).

[call-waiting.livejournal.com]

I've never read any, but I've seen the movie. It was... dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

but funny! There was much chortling going on from our corner of the cinema.

[draconid.livejournal.com]

I've actually just gone and bought the 3rd book - I loved the first two. She's not the best writer (I don't think JK is either). What they both have is the ability to tell a good yarn. Given that Stephenie Meyer's book is a bit of a "chick" book, it's not surprising it's not Stephen King's cup of tea.

Whether she's a good writer or not, she's had me reading at every spare minute of the day - haven't done that since the last Harry Potter came out, so she can't be all that bad.

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

Interesting interview with Randy Nelson. The talk about communication reminds me of user interface design. If the user can't understand the interface, it's not necessarily a failure of the user, it's the failure of the interface. Likewise, it's easy to blame the reader or the person who is listening, but if they can't understand what's going on, the writer/speaker needs to do something different.

[andrewducker]

Mostly true. You have to decide where to aim it. You can't have in-depth conversations with people who aren't educated in the area - nor is there much point aiming general conversations at domain experts.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

When you've got as many people lining up to make a point of bashing you as Ms Meyer does, you must be doing something right.

[andrewducker]

When you've got as many people lining up to make a point of bashing you as Hitler does, you must be doing something right.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Doesn't work in all fields. But in fiction, it works pretty well. I remember the number of people lining up to bash Rowling, for example...

[andrewducker]

The number of people bashing is a factor of the popularity and the quality.

Dan Brown, for instance, is very popular, and I made it three lines into The Davinci Code before having to put it down again.

I mean, sure it's doing _something_ right - because it clearly appeals to a large group of people. But that doesn't mean that the quality of the writing is good, merely that a lot of people don't care about writing quality.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Dan Brown is also very good. I'd agree his writing style isn't good (something I would challenge on the Stephanie Meyer point). However, he can write a compelling, very accessible thriller. He's definitely doing something right - there have been plenty of people who trod the same ground as him and didn't get that level of success, and whilst you can put that down partially to luck, that ain't all it is.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

You see I cannot get past bad style (unless it's a straight as possible factual piece, in which case it's more a *lack* of any style - that seems to get by me OK). I'd say that a book cannot be good if the style is dreadful. Nothing else will redeem it for me. I cannot imagine how something could be horribly written AND compelling....

I just finished reading Pillars of the Earth - and only just about made it through because of the very simplistic style/plotting/characterisation. I have no idea what that was so popular either (any number of straight-historical novels and indeed fantasy novels set in the same kind of setting knock it into a cocked hat...)

'Accessible' - does that mean "everything laid out so much on a plate for you that you don't have to trouble your brain to do any thinking"? In which case, that's a pretty good definition of a book I would actively avoid.

I was quite shocked at how much that describes the vast majority of books I see people reading on the train. I got curious and tried a few. I struggle to put myself in the head of someone who gets anything out of them. It's like the guy I knew who genuinely just couldn't see the vastness of the gulf between the original Dune books and the horrific prequels now knocking about....

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Tbh, I don't fully understand it either - I quite enjoyed "Demons and Angels", but no more than that. It seems to work, though.

You might find some of Simon R Green's work interesting. The writing style is clunky, but the ideas and story make them compelling.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Oh God, this statement is such bollocks I don't even know where to start.