Summer Reading- How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

Summer is for reading and summer is a time to be carefree.  So, I tend to keep my reading light.  I stay away from most non-fiction; especially anything geared towards self-improvement or serious biographies.  Maybe that’s why I was drawn to “How I Became a Famous Novelist” by Steve Hely. While wandering the aisles of the Mount Pleasant Library, I noticed a bright yellow book on one of the shelves.  On the cover was a tornado and white pieces of paper strewn about.  Something about the cover design, including a title in red and blue font, seemed contradictory, humorous; even juvenile.   I wondered what the book was really about.  After reading the back cover, I discovered that the book is a parody of the literary industry.

Standing in the library aisle, I read the first two pages.  The first was an excerpt from the “Tornado Ashes Club”, the book that the main character (Pete Tarslaw) writes that will make him famous.  This gives you a taste of Pete’s writing.  It’s horrendous and terribly hokey.  The second page begins with a great line “You have to understand how bad things were for me back then.”   I was intrigued by this simple line, hoping that this would provide insight into how someone writing so poorly could become a famous novelist.  So, I checked the book out.

When we first meet Pete, he is post-college and employed by a shady employer writing college entrance essays for wealthy kids.  He doesn’t seem to be motivated by much in life until he receives an invitation from his ex- girlfriend (Polly) to attend her wedding.  It is then that he decides to become a famous novelist so that he can show up at the wedding to make Polly feel as if she married the wrong guy.

Once Pete comes up with this brazen idea, he sits down and writes 4 goals for himself (in Pete’s words): fame, financial comfort, stately home by the ocean or scenic lake and humiliate Polly at her wedding.  Pete also comes up with 16 rules for writing his novel.  Here are a few:

• Abandon truth

• Write a popular book.  Do not waste energy on writing a good book.

• Include nothing from my own life.

• Must include a murder

• Give readers versions of themselves, infused with extra awesomeness.

• At dull points, include descriptions of delicious meals.

• Include plant names

• Must include a club, secrets/mysterious missions, shy characters whose lives are changed suddenly, surprising love affairs, women who’ve given up on love but turn out to be beautiful

Pete’s motivation for writing and his rules are blasphemous for those that view books and writing sacredly.   Even if you do, Hely will cause you to laugh about it.

Hely also intertwines other characters and story lines that keep the book moving along while we watch Pete write his novel.  Some that stand out are his roommate Hobart, his aunt Evelyn and employer John Sturgis.  There are outrageous encounters with famous authors and a movie producer.

In the end, Pete finishes the book and becomes a famous novelist.   He describes his pinball route to fame into 4 distinct stages.  One includes a famous actress swinging his book at paparazzi and the photo ends up on the cover of a magazine.  Later, as I personally hoped, Pete will crash and burn.  He attends Polly’s wedding and humiliates himself while in a drunken stupor.  

The book is a worthy read and jam-packed funny.  Sometimes I would laugh out loud or get the giggles while reading the book in public.  It’s obvious that Hely is a comedy writer.

No book is perfect.  At the beginning of most chapters, there are one page excerpts from fictional books, manuscripts, newspaper columns and email communications. This slowed me down as I tried to figure out how each tied into the next chapter. Mostly it demonstrated Hely’s impressive writing skills as he had to create all of these with a unique voice and writing style.  One such example that I loved was Hely’s recreation of the New York Times best sellers list that includes book titles such as “Cracked Like Teeth,” “They Play Red Rover in Heaven,” “Jockstraps Ain’t for Eating,” and “The Jane Austin Women’s Investigators.”

Another challenge with the book was the ending.  It was adequate but seemed abrupt or incomplete.   Midway through, I wondered how Hely would end the book. I liken it to being in the last season of a really good TV series like Mad Men, BoardWalk Empire or Six Feet Under.  I know there’s a good chance that I’m going to be disappointed.   It’s always hard to wrap up a really good thing.

Gene and I Agree

In my last post, I made a comment about how often I observe bad writing.  I saw this article by Gene Weingarten in the Washington Post Magazine about bad writing.  I've included the article after my post in case the link should stop working one day.  I was glad to see that Gene agrees with me.

Obviously, some are more aware of bad writing than others.  They probably have some type of relationship with the construction of words by way of profession or passion.  I liken it to a good friend who is serious about his body and working out.  He often notices imperfections in other’s bodies.   He points out things that I would never notice. 

Just like working out and having a nice body requires a commitment of time and effort, so does good writing. I often look up the definition of words that I think I know.  I religiously use the spelling and grammar check. The exception to this is Facebook.  Communication on Facebook means breaking every rule of grammar and a proliferation of abbreviations and acronyms.  If I don’t like the flow of a sentence, I keep looking at it – often rearranging the position of words, deleting or adding them.  I flee from clichés in search of my own voice. Then, I step back like an artist and stare at my creation.  Still not satisfied, I go through this tortuous process again and again.   Weirdly, I enjoy this. 

Here's Gene's article Gene defiantly recommends that you watch your language 
By Gene Weingarten, Published: January 3 in Washington Post Magazine

As the world’s leading connoisseur and curator of Bad Writing on the Internet, I often get letters from people about some common misuse of language that happens to annoy them. Most of these complaints are pedestrian. (Yes, I know “ATM machine” is redundant. Zzzz.) But reader Amity Horowitz just wrote in with an eye-opener. Coyly, Amity invited me to Google the peculiar expression “defiantly recommend.”

“Defiantly recommend” has been used 1.5 million times! While one might occasionally recommend something defiantly, at the risk of censure or ridicule — say, the ritual eating of one’s placenta — how often would that sort of thing happen? Not a million-odd times. So I investigated.

“Defiantly recommend” turns out to be a classic example of Internet-induced idiocy, an elegant collision of incompetence and indifference:  A person wants to write “I definitely recommend,” in, say, a product review but spells it “definately,” which is the illiterate’s go-to version of the word. Spellcheck (and its co-conspirator, autocorrect) realizes something is wrong and suggests “defiantly.” The incompetent writer doesn’t know this is wrong or doesn’t care or doesn’t notice. And so “defiantly recommend” gets published a million-plus times. A similar thing happens when inept spellers write “alot,” meaning “a lot,” but spellcheck turns it into “allot,” which explains the hemorrhage of Google hits for expressions like “I have allot of weapons.” This phenomenon has happened more than 2.2 million times, which is allot.

We will call this sort of thing The Law of Incorrect Corrections, and it leads indirectly to:

The Law of Uninformed Uniformity
Before the Web, to be published as a writer, you pretty much had to be a professional. Professionals are unafraid of words and know a lot of them and take pains to use them in entertaining, unexpected combinations. This is not so with many amateurs of the Web, who have much they wish to say but lack the professional’s confidence and extensive arsenal of words. They are to writing as I am to fashion: I know I have to put something on every day, but I have no confidence in my ability to mix and match with style or taste. And so I tend to dress in “uniforms”: safe combinations of familiar things, such as khaki pants with blue shirts. The modern Web-sters are like that with words. With words, they are … woefully inadequate.

Consider that very expression, a staple of the Internet. A Google search confirms that 80 percent of the time the word “woefully” is used, it is modifying the word “inadequate.” It’s difficult to explain how preposterous this is, but I’ll try: It’s as though 80 percent of the time people use salt, it’s on scrambled eggs. Think of all the missed opportunities for flavor.

Finally, The Principle of Trite & Wrong
Cliche is easy — it pops into the mind in an instant and often sounds profound or at least comfortingly familiar. Therefore, cliche infests the Internet, even when it is completely inappropriate to the point being made.

Consider “nothing could be further from the truth.” This expression is always a lie. Repeat: This expression is always a lie. If we scan the Web, however, we find it has been used 13 million times, generally in pompous defense of oneself or of another against allegedly scurrilous allegations. Charles Colson, for example, once decried the popular image of Martin Luther King Jr. as “a liberal firebrand, waging war on traditional values.” Says Colson: “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Really, now! I think I can refute this without getting into a tedious discussion of a dead man’s politics. Here is one statement, for example, that is palpably further from the truth: “Martin Luther King Jr. was a subspecies of avocado.” See?

I could go on and on, but whatever I said about the absurdity of the situation would be woefully inadequate.