Wallbangers or Authors who need editors.

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There are some authors I have just given up on. They often start with very good ideas, but go no where with them. Anne Rice is my best example. Her early books such as "Interview with the Vampire" & "Vampire Lestat" had good flow, and overall I think she has the talent to create a world on paper. However, her books that followed just seemed to end up as a mess. I attempted a number of them with high hopes, but somewhere in my reading ended up tossing the books across the room until they met the wall with a thud. Where are the editors? Is Rice such a blockbuster writer that a publisher would not dare suggest she get a second opinion? Maybe a second pair of eyes would figure out the geneology in "Lasher" is incorrect or key elements in a story just disappear (a main character can tell the history of an object by touching it, but it never adds to the plot or is really explained). Those I have managed to finish tend to slide down a hill of impossibility and leave more questions open then answered by the last page. Yet I still see her pop onto the NYTimes best seller list over and over.

I think JK Rowling would have benefitted greatly from a good editor's advice in her last two Potter books. I'm not sure I'll even bother with the new one.

Any authors you enjoyed in the past that you have now given up on due their inability to deliver a good solid story? Have you had the personal urge to go over a work with a red pen and rewrite scenes for a more intelligent outcome? Is the role of the editor meanlingless if people will buy a book based solely on the author's name?

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Oh my, so many!

I adore Salman Rushdie, but "Fury" pissed me off. Such a slapdash effort. (Talked about here btw.)

It's hard to get mad at Kinky Friedman because it's not like he's trying to write Literature, but his later books are also way annoying. Totally that red pen urge. My husband was recently asking whether he would like a book, and making levels in the air I said "good kinky friedman" [highest] "bad kinky friedman" [middle] "this book" [just below the middle level]. Good kinky and bad kinky are completely different levels.

Completely agree with you on Anne Rice. Gave up after the second Vampire Chronicle or so.

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Re: Wallbangers or Authors who need editors.

Green Witch wrote:

Have you had the personal urge to go over a work with a red pen

Just yesterday, in a mini-way. It was just about the one sentence, actually - but it was exactly one of those wasnt-there-a-coreader-who-picked-up-on-this-and-said-dude-thats-redundant? thing. I'm reading Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard, its very flowerish in language but still I like it - but this one sentence was just a metaphor too much, too awkward. Should have been struck away and made me wonder.

Oh **** I'm tired <blinks, peers>

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Anne Rice has a loyal audience for whom she can do no wrong. I read her first novel, many years ago, but one was enough. She's still writing about vampires decades later. Well, more power to her, I guess, but I'll give it a miss...

Anita Brookner is an author I really liked until her novels seemed too much the same to me.

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That's a nice book, I liked it. (Hullaboo.)

I'm always having those editorial urges though.

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Over the years, I have found several writers in need of editors. As much as love Simone de Beauvoir, she desperately needed an editor. No wonder the French called her, "Our Sacred Monster."

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I'm about halfway Hullaballoo now and yes, it's nice. That's about it though, my opinion. Nice. I marvel at the language and the ingenuity, I get a little annoyed when its all too overwrought, I like it anyway, but it doesnt otherwise do much for me.

Well, yes - all those people who would all really just like to relax or space out - in a positive sense - like Sampath, but at the same time themselves cant help but create all the drama that keeps them from it - now theres a notion I can identify with. But - so far - none of it is very deep, or touches me except for in this kind of pleasantly, superficial intellectual way - like: how pretty - how clever. Nice.

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I think I remember having about the exact same reaction. (Read it a while ago.) A shade too precious.

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we should really some day try to come up with something we disagree on, soz. on anything, really.

in the meantime, lemme go through your recent posts, cause i'm not finding much (beyond the one sad thread) to interest me in "new posts"...

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If you can open "new posts." I haven't been able to open it in two weeks.

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Finished Hullaballoo last night - still feel pretty much the same about it.

Funny - I just did an A2K search on "hullaballoo" to find this thread back - seems like it's been pretty much mostly me who ever used the word here on A2K, forever ... <grins>

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I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

A lot of people seem to think a work needs to be flawless before it makes it to print.

The plot was so terribly sloppy in the third Harry Potter book. Especially the conclusion. Everyone I know is too blinded by the fact that the book is entertaining to realize it is sloppy.

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A tangent: Does anyone remember the television show, "Hullabaloo"? It followed close upon the success of the music show, "Hootenanny," and was obviously meant to cash in a similiar sounding word. Hullabaloo was a rock music showcase with women with ponytails high on their heads dancing the Frug and other vigorous dances.

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Wallbangers or Authors who need editors.

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