Laugh or cry?

I was directed to a short story today and read it with growing disbelief. I am not going to name names because the last time I did that I got jumped on by the faithful and called all sorts of nasty names. Suffice it to say this was a piece of genre writing by a BIG name. The story had appeared in one of the leading magazines in the field. It has been nominated (and for all I know it has won) an award.

The disbelief came from the fact it was a truly shite piece of writing. I don’t mean dire in an angsty-teenage-nobody-loves-me-paint-the-walls-of-my-bedroom-black kind of way. Awful as the finished product may be, such writing does have psychological merit for the writer (and their psychiatrist if they need one). This was shite in a way that was stunning. The piece lacked pace, the characters were… well who cares about them? The story was poorly constructed and full of false sentimentality. And the sentences were dull, dull, dull. If this had been handed me by a student I would have handed it back and asked them what they thought they were playing at.

And if it wasn’t bad enough that this was turned out by a BIG name, the other implications are terrifying. To begin with, the editor of a well known magazine thought it was suitable for publication. Perhaps the editor was out to lunch. Perhaps the editor was so pissed when they got back from lunch… Who knows what they were thinking, other than the fact that this was a BIG name and would help with sales figures. It is certainly happening in literary magazines. Where newcomers once stood a chance of having their work considered and showcased, they are being squeezed out whilst editors stick in any old garbage as long the author is well known.

Now, I know I am no literary genius, but I wouldn’t turn in a piece of work like that or expect an agent or editor to do anything with it except chuck it in the bin if I did.

So think about this for a moment. Authors and editors, agents and publishing houses, anyone who allows this sort of rubbish into print is sticking two fingers up at the reading public. Whether it is out of malice or, more likely, out of cowardice, I don’t know, but it is time it stopped. There are thousands of good writers out there, producing high quality work – short stories, poems, novels, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, radio plays, stage plays. And what happens? The shite gets into print because the gatekeepers (the agents and editors) have lost their bottle.

I know these people have to earn a living, I know publishing houses have to make a profit, but why are they trying to do it by flooding the market with sewage? The good books that do get into print (and there are many) are swamped, the good writers who are ‘unknown’ don’t stand a chance, the reading public are being insulted.

There are times when experimental, cutting edge work fails and we have to allow that. Anyone forging a new way of working, a new way of writing is bound, at the beginning to miss the mark. But their work deserves to be in print because such experiments help other writers to gain new perspectives and a new understanding of their own work. The work I saw today failed because it was lazy and contemptuous of its readers. And when that sort of work gets printed and nominated for awards, we know it is time for a revolution.