Being a Better Writer: Over the Top Action · 5:35pm March 17th
Welcome back, writers! I assume that most of you know the drill, but if this is one of your first exposures to the weekly article series that is Being a Better Writer, then all you need to know is there’s a new article each Monday, and that the title there is entirely self explanatory. Are you looking to sharped your writing skills in a subject? Then you’ve come to the right place!
Now, before we dive into today’s topic, which is indeed a unique one, I do want to poke your attention toward last Thursday’s news post. There’s some stuff there worth looking at, even if the protagonist poll for the next book has already concluded by this posting. So go check it out!
Now, on with the show! Or rather, BaBW post. This one’s a bit of an interesting topic. In part because some do find it incredibly polarizing.
But it is polarizing in part because of how tricky it is to do right. Look, if all there was to making a successful over the top action story was writing really over the top action with a decent grasp of grammar mechanics, webfiction—especially fanfiction—would probably be the dominant form of writing on earth.
But while webfiction and fanfiction is certainly popular, it’s also frequently used as a demonstration of elements of fiction gone wrong—and to be fair, it should be noted that the majority of this sort of fiction is novice fiction, IE written by novices at the craft. I’m not trying to disparage fanfiction or webfiction, just pointing out that the scales are weighed against it for understandable reasons. However, even webfiction that’s universally seen as poor will often find among its criticisms that the action is “too unbelievable” (or poorly written, often both) even if it is “over the top.”
And yet … one of the more successful authors of the late 20th century was Clive Cussler, whose Dirk Pitt adventures could not be counted as anything other than “over the top” to a frankly ludicrous degree. But as noted, one of the more successful authors of the late 20th century.
In other words, while over the top action is often cited as a failing of many novice fictions online, it’s also counted as a win for the millions upon millions of books Clive Cussler sold in his lifetime. And he’s not the only example of this, but certainly one of the more famous. Clearly, over the top action isn’t an automatic flaw, despite the legion of critics online that quickly jump to it as such. But then, if that’s the case …
What’s the difference? What did Cussler do right that so many webfiction creators do wrong?
Hit the jump. Let’s talk.
Question, I know the "Being a Better Writer" series has been ongoing for a long while now, but is there a more convenient way, or a table of content, to navigate the various topics you have already covered?
As far as I am aware, the blog only allow a single tag to be search, lack an obvious sorting button, and the number of topics, or even the time spent just pressing the page down button, is kinda daunting to say the lest. Make it challenging where to start reading or searching for topics I am more interested in.
5836638
Sadly no, at the current time there is no better method other than using the tag cloud or the search bar. A "table of contents" would be ludicrously massive, as at this point there are somewhere around 500 or so BaBW articles on the site.
There have been frequent requests for hard copies of BaBW, but it's been a project on the back burner for years now. An index page would be a massive undertaking, though I can see the use. It'd be one those things that could take a week of straight effort, though.