Reading, writing, and "The Dark Side."

I'm reading a book I truly dislike. Better yet, I just stopped reading it. I usually can plow through most everything I commence reading--only 2 or 3 books per year achieve this level of demerit...out of 125-135 books read per year!

When an author is so taken by their cunning turn of phrase, by the inclusion of "telling details" that put you right into the "dusty street with only the sound of the dry tumbleweed clunking off the abandoned storefronts," when they fail to develop plot or character--sorry, when I gave you forty pages worth of attention and my only feeling was of the need to recruit all my speed-reading tools...we're done. Really, have you ever met a knight who was never angry but always in "high dudgeon"? Makes one to wonder, what's low dudgeon? And, of course, the knight's armor is always "glinting with brilliance under the low wintry sun just rising over the gloomy ramparts of the evil duke's turreted castle." Pah!

Now, lest you think that this is merely a rant, my intent was to explore the world of writing from the dark side. Or, as I often told my kids, "They are setting you a horrible example--just do exactly the opposite and you'll be in good shape!" I truly learn a lot about writing from works that I consider sub-par. Okay, deplorable! (And, I wonder, WHERE was their editor, and how did such a poorly-written, flowery and vague, typo-ridden book ever meet up with a printing press?)

Characters that you hate, you cannot wait for them to get their just reward--that's a well-limned character. Characters who charm you, whom you hope won't step over that creaking threshold and into the cobwebbed darkness--again, you've bought into the author's world; success! When you get sweaty pits and you cannot put the book down--YES! THAT is the response to good writing, whether it's Dean Koontz, Shakespeare, or whomever. Characters who bore you, playing against other characters who have nothing to love or hate or laugh at, characters who trundle on through a story line that doesn't make you marvel at that last strange twist or wonder what's next...bah!

As Truman Capote is alleged to say of Jack Kerouac, "That's not writing, that's typing."

May our life's work be "writing" rather than "typing"!