There's a book I'd like to tell you about · 6:45pm Jul 20th, 2018
It's not a book I'd necessarily recommend. In fact, I rather don't think I would recommend it. It's lousy enough that I've never managed to read beyond the first four or five chapters. But a recent comment on my latest chapter of Applejack: Marvelous reminded me of it, so I felt like I should share it. Because this book means something to me, and if any of you out there are ever struggling with your writing, maybe it'll mean something to you too.
A little background about me. I love fantasy - especially urban fantasy. I love dragons - especially when they're not just mindless monsters. And, perhaps weirdest of the three, I love transformations. Not just in a metaphorical sense, but in the sense of a character physically transforming into something else. I can't say I know why, but ever since I was a little kid, stories that involve transformations have always been interesting to me. I remember as a tiny little sproglet watching a particular episode of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh over and over again, where in a dream sequence Tigger turned into a snake. I remember really being interested in the Disney movie "Brother Bear," despite it honestly being one of the dullest movies in Disney's library. My favorite Greek myth was always the tale of Diana and Actaeon. Shapeshifting characters like Mystique have always been some of my favorite superheroes/supervillains.
A weird thing to fixate on? Perhaps. But I always loved toying with the implications of it, even as a teeny tiny child. How would Tigger react if it hadn't simply been a dream sequence? What would his friends say? How would he cope with not having legs to bounce around with?
So a book that involved urban fantasy, sapient dragons, and transformations all rolled into one was obviously going to appeal to me.
It was called "Dragons Wild" by an author I'd never heard of before that point named Robert Asprin, and I found it one day whilst randomly browsing a Barnes and Noble back in late 2015 or early 2016. The cover featured a charmingly campy image of a dragon playing a game of poker in a casino somewhere. The blurb on the back cover hinted at a tale of a young con-artist-slash-poker-player who discovers that he's descended from a line of dragons who gets mixed up in some kind of fantastic criminal underworld.
To be fair, I don't know if this book actually has any transformations in it. I don't actually know if the main character ever learns to change into his "dragon form" or whatever. That's what I inferred from the cover and the blurb on the back... but I can't know because I don't think I ever made it beyond chapter four.
Because this book is BAD
And I mean that it's bad within the first couple of pages. The book opens with the main character, Griffin, talking with his rich uncle, asking him for money.
His uncle proceeds to tell us everything we need to know about the main character.
...and I mean exactly what I said.
The uncle proceeds to TELL us EVERYTHING we "need to know" about the main character.
I mean there's like a whole page and a half where the Uncle apparently just goes on a long tirade on Griffin. He basically says... and I'm not really exaggerating here, this is almost exactly how he says it in the book...
"Griffin, you suck. You are a lousy nephew because you spend to much time playing poker and you're not as good at it as you think because you've lost nearly all your money. You are a lazy brat and you were thrown out of college and you can't focus on anything else but poker. Your mother would have been horrified to see how you've turned out but she can't be because she's dead. You have a really bad attitude and you're too cocky for your own good even though you've never accomplished anything. You have a stupidly unwarranted holier-than-thou attitude that you've done nothing to earn. The only person who can stand to be around you is your sister and if you keep acting like a total jackass then you're going to push her away too. Also you're a slob and you smell like feet and I don't like your face. Have I mentioned you suck?"
I have to reiterate that I'm not exaggerating. That's almost exactly how his uncle speaks to him in the book. And I very quickly realized just what I was reading: This was the author's attempt at trying to get the audience to know the character.
I guess I see what he was going for? He was trying to tell us about the character quickly by making the uncle dress him down. I wonder if he thought he was being really clever, getting all that pesky exposition out of the way without having to devote pages upon pages of work to SHOWING US all these things about our character, when he could just have his uncle TELL us about them.
Instead, it ended up being one of the most ham-fisted, clumsy, downright graceless and hackneyed attempts at introducing me to a character I've ever seen... and certainly the worst character introduction I've ever seen in any sort of officially published work.
I burst out laughing right there in the Barnes and Noble. Here was an officially published book with this level of middle-school fanfiction writing?
The best part was that I looked onto the shelf I'd picked the book up from. There were DOZENS of books by this guy. He had written multiple SERIES. and the Dragons Wild book I held in my hand? It had three sequels.
You damn well better believe I bought that book.
I later looked the author up to see what else he'd written. I was sad to find out that Robert Asprin apparently died back in 2008. Perhaps I should have a little more respect for the dead and not spend so much time here taking a steaming dump on one of his works. But I decided I did really want to share this experience I had with you, so I'll continue.
...This man wrote over fifty published books in his lifetime. And that's not including short stories, compiled editions, and editing work.
I could scarcely believe it. The guy who wrote the drivel I'd just read was a well-known, published author with a library of over fifty books?! How was that possible?! I could write circles around this guy!
...
...I could write circles around this guy
Perhaps it's arrogant to think that way. Especially since I only ever read a few chapters of one book. Maybe I had, by complete chance, picked up the absolute worst of his library; the book he wrote on his off day. I've definitely had off days in writing. Some of them are published right here on this website for all to see.
Nevertheless, it was perhaps the most encouraging thing to ever happen to me. A published book, by an apparently prolific author... and it had ham-fistedly broken one of the most cardinal rules of writing within its first couple of pages.
So to all you amateur writers out there, what I want you all to take away from this is the following:
No matter how much you may find yourself struggling with your writing... Those days when you feel like you might never be published... that you'll be bagging groceries in Kroger forever because your writing just isn't up to par and surely nobody will ever publish you... That nobody will ever like your writing and all your efforts are completely pointless...
...there are published authors out there who still haven't learned how to show and not tell. And they're prolific, career novelists with literally dozens of books on the market.
...So if those guys can make it then you damn well can.
That was weirdly inspirational. Thank you for it.
I'm guessing it was my comment, and i ment every word of it.
I’ve actually encountered this series before. I read… I think it was the second one. Didn’t really care enough to look for the rest of them.
You bought the book...? But... You didn't read it?
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I tried to, but the next three or four chapters after that first moment are so dull that I put it down. At this point it's more like a trophy or a memento or something? Whenever I feel like my writing isn't up to snuff or that I'll never be a good enough writer to be published I break it out and read that first chapter.
Writing, fiction especially, is art. Here's a story about art.
That garbage made it into the museum, and that's just one example of that sort of thing happening.
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I am a big fan of Asprin's Myth series. That said, I am aware that the quality of his work can fluctuate. If you say that his Dragons series is on the low end, I'll believe you.
4905171
Why not read each consecutive chapter?