Friday, November 19, 2010

Not luck, skill

You know a writer* is talented when they can break the rules (punctuation, grammar, dialogue, genre, length) and you barely notice, let alone care.

You know a writer is really talented when they flaunt convention so brilliantly that the rules end up looking pointless, even petty.

J.D Salinger springs to mind. He used exclamation marks, italics, slang and repetition with (what appears to be) delicious abandon.

But he walked a fine line, and I've no doubt he knew it. Too many "goddamns" or a misplaced "phony", and Holden would be a caricature, not a character; too much "horsing around" and readers would feel irritated, not awed.

But Salinger broke the rules and, more importantly, got away with it.

According to Holden, "you're lucky if you get time to sneeze in this goddamn phenomenal world".

But in this case it wasn't luck, it was skill.


*or musician, director, artist... I just couldn't think of good examples. Anybody?

2 comments:

  1. This reminds me of David Fair from Half Japanese writing about how he plays guitar. He challenges everything that would otherwise be considered fundamental to playing the guitar. The post is also fantastically well written. I was going to quote a bit here, but just can't bear to leave any of it out. Please read it here: http://www.halfjapanese.co.uk/how-to-play-guitar.php

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