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bookcoversalt · 3 years

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A+ youtube video! I feel like this is a dumb question, but what other sources, exercises, etc would you suggest for a writer wanting to get better at, like, everything you do in that video? I feel like I'm just not intelligent when it comes to writing and reading. I slap down whatever seems fun and I'm sure it makes for a bland story full of stupid plot holes and everything you talked about, so how does one get better at dissecting this stuff and...writing/reading intelligently?

Thank you so much!! There’s a tendency to consider analytical people just “smart”, as if the observations they make come naturally to them. But that super isn’t true: being thoughtful and critical about media, like drawing or writing or playing a sport or learning an instrument, is a skill that you pick up by absorbing reference, learning the language of the art form, and then practicing replicating it through your own perspective.

ABSORBING REFERENCE

My two biggest critical inspirations are Lindsay Ellis, a video essayist who covers film and culture, and Film Crit Hulk, a screenwriter and movie critic, and I’ve been consuming their work since I was 15. (I’m 25 now! that’s a wholeass decade.) I've picked up many, may other sources along the way: other video essayists, pop culture commentators, TV critics, spirited roasts of 50 shades of gray, actual “writing craft” books and blog articles, long goodreads reviews of books I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the flaws on, funny booktube reviews, even “anti” posts. I read “how the last season of game of thrones went the fuck off the rails” articles til my eyes bled, not because I cared about game of thrones, but because there was so much good, insightful reporting being done on How And Why A Story Fell Apart.

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE

Not all of this is good or useful. There’s a lot of bad faith or shallow criticism out there. The cinemasins clickbaity style of nitpicking “plot holes” or penalizing a work for the mere presence of tropes without regard for broader artistic intent and cultural context is particularly insidious and should die. The people who think twilight is stupid because it has sparkly vampires are missing the point. A LOT of people critique YA in particular from a place of bitterness or bias or misplaced expectations (and so did I, to some degree, for a long time. I’ve worked really hard to grow out of that, I hope). But the point is to seek out content in this vein-- not what I consumed necessarily (I would not wish that many GOT thinkpieces on anyone), but stuff that interests you. The more of this you mindfully consume and the more perspectives you collect and compare, the more context you’ll have for what’s being discussed and the more you'll naturally start to form your own opinions on it. You will learn, slowly, by osmosis, to pull what strikes a chord with you from the noise.

REPLICATING IT THROUGH YOUR OWN PERSPECTIVE

The cool and fun part is that to some extent, your brain will start doing this on its own. You’ll read a book and you'll just notice more. You’ll call plot twists faster, or be more cognizant of the pacing, or connect dots you might not have otherwise connected. You’ll see the logistic scaffolding in your own work more clearly and you’ll be more aware of choices you’re making subconsciously. You’ll recognize thematic hypocrisy or worldbuilding inconsistencies and have the language to name them.

And you’ll also have the tools to explore your less clear-cut, more emotional reactions to art. And this is the most important but “hardest” part of this: sitting with vague feelings and unformed thoughts trying to suss out what’s at the heart of them and why, using your hard-won critical “training” and your contextual knowledge.

I like to frame them as questions:

Why did the end of [book] feel disjointed? Why didn’t I connect with the main character in [book]? What really resonated with me about the plot of [book]? Why does [character] appeal to me more than [other character]? Why does [book]’s use of [theme] make me uncomfortable?

Sometimes it comes down to just preference or subjective taste, and that’s fine and good to know. But more often than not, you’re reacting to something concrete that can be identified:

The ending of HOUSE OF SALT AND SORROWS feels disjointed because it comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with our heroine’s efforts in the larger story. I didn’t connect with the main character in HEARTLESS because within the context of the worldbuilding, her choices didn’t make sense. What really resonated with me about the plot of UPROOTED is its thematic coherency. The Darkling appeals to me more than Mal because the villain romance power fantasy aspect of the series is better fleshed out and ultimately more rewarding to read than the love story of two flawed teenagers. ACOWAR’s use of trauma and recovery makes me uncomfortable because it ceases to be a sincere element of anyone’s arc or characterization and becomes yet another tool to make Rhys look like the best and coolest and wokest fae boyfriend.

Pulled from an old Captain Awkward article, this is something I have in a sticky note on my desktop as sort of a criticism guide:

One of the things we try to do is to push past “I liked it”/”I didn’t like it” as reactions to work. What is it? What is it trying to be? Is it good at being that thing? Was that a good thing to try to be in the first place? Did the artist have a specific agenda? How did it play with audiences at the time? Does it play the same way now? What stereotypes does it reinforce/undermine?

Even if it’s only for your own personal growth rather than intended for an audience, I recommend putting burgeoning critical thoughts or questions you’re trying to “work through” down in writing somewhere: goodreads reviews! tweets! blog posts! spamming your group chat! Even just a private word document. The synthesis of thoughts into written content forces you to identify and choose a specific articulation of your idea(s). If it’s in a pubic or semipublic forum, you’ll also be able to see which of your ideas resonate with other people, and that can (isn’t always, but CAN) be useful information as far as having an external barometer for when you’re onto something.

And then..... you do that a bunch of times in different ways for many years, with a lot of different books and movies and games and whatever else. Like any other skill, you will get better the more you do it. (Again: I have been doing this for ten years now, and it still took me three months to write that video script. Forming nuanced, informed opinions and then articulating them coherently is hard.)

As kind of a footnote tip, seek out peers who have the same goals and feelings, and try to connect with them! Lots of my current internet friends found me back when I was posting on my personal blog about problems i had with THE SELECTION or RED QUEEN and we bonded over having similar opinions and being in similar places in our writing/ reading/ careers. These people now beta read my scripts and posts and help me brainstorm or refine ideas. I strongly believe that creatives (and critics) do their best work and grow the most within a network of support and feedback.

But also, in regards to creative writing in particular, i want to be clear that having fun is the most important thing. I absolutely think creators need analytical skills to improve their craft, but without the enjoyment of doing the thing at the core of it, there is no craft at all. If you have to choose between the "smart” thing and the fun thing, choose the fun thing. Tbh, if you’re worried your work is bland, analysis probably isn’t the solution-- figuring out how to have more fun is the solution. And letting yourself lean into the stuff that’s wild and awesome and so incredibly you that it sets you on fire to write is a skill of its own :)

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ben-winch-writer-rocker · 5 years

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Broader Context

Top Five (for 2018):

Caterina Barbieri—Patterns of Consciousness,

Anouar Brahem—Blue Maqams,

Terry Riley—Persian Surgery Dervish,

Lojii—Lofeye,

Loren Connors—Airs.

(These are the albums I listened to most in 2018, not albums released in 2018.)

Backstory:

I never was a rock ’n’ roll animal. More like a werewolf, prone to sudden fits of rockism. I spent my teen years listening to Joy Division, New Order and early Cure albums. Favourite song? “All Cats Are Grey” (from Faith) or New Order’s “In A Lonely Place”. Slo-o-ow. Most bands played >75% fast. I craved >75% slow. Really, I craved atmosphere. By age 17 I was sick to death of distorted guitars. (I learnt to love ’em later, of course, but not to the exclusion of all else.) I thought music was serious business—“art”. And I thought art was “sophisticated”. So I took a stand, adopted a niche, and, to a large extent, that niche was anti-rock.

Of course, to a large extent, that stance was a pose. My first ever album purchase was Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet! I dug “Back in Black”, the Cult’s Electric, ZZ Top. But Joy Division’s Closer changed all that. The synths, the starkness, the spaciousness, the sense that anything could happen. The journey from anger through grief, resentment, resignation, desperation, and awestruck sad wonder. It’s unique, haunting, deathly serious. And though maybe what I should have done (what would have educated me more) was to hunt down Joy Division’s influences, instead I did what was easier and followed those they’d influenced. But in the back of my head was always this sense that music could do more. Of course I realise now that actually some of the straightest rock tracks are mini miracles of energy and precision, but maybe my respect for that form is heightened by the fact that, deep down, it isn’t mine. My music is (mostly) introspective, reflective, delicate. And slowly, as once-obscure albums have become more widely available, I’ve discovered other music like mine, like the music I’ve always heard in my head.

What brings me to this juncture, then—to the point of blogging about rock—is my background as a rock-fan who wanted more. Not more volume, more aggression, or more of any of the things that are normally associated with rock, but more infiltration into rock by other musics, other sounds—sounds which, in many cases, I couldn’t even identify myself, I just knew I wanted them. Keep in mind, I’d never had much money for music. I never was a collector—far from it, Never even owned a turntable. In fact, I always pirated music, first on tape, then on CD, then via download. Nowadays, I stream. So from taping friends’ albums, to burning CDs I’d taken on approval from the record store where I worked (not for long; I’m more of a bookseller), to taking whatever I could get on the Pirate Bay, to the minor miracle of Spotify and YouTube, the scope of my listening has steadily expanded.

I remember hearing Philip Glass and Steve Reich aged 20: I’d never heard anything like that before, and I never would have heard it then if not for a friend’s parent’s CD collection. I first heard Rhys Chatham and Glen Branca aged 35; even though I’d been listening to Sonic Youth since my early 20s, it took a guy ten years younger and internet-savvy—a workmate at a bookshop—to turn me onto their influences. (He turned me onto Bitches’ Brew too.) I was a late uptaker, technology-wise. I never thought music was about technology. I guess I thought I was Neil Young or something: just plug in and play and some loyal engineer would take care of recording, just as some Alan McGee or Ivo Watts-Russell would distribute the result. It didn’t happen. In 2009 I bought my first halfway-decent computer. Nowadays, almost everything I listen to is something I researched and sourced via the internet. Sometimes, an algorithm spits out something worthwhile. Maybe owing to my age and the fact I have a family, and that much of my listening is done via headphones while working on something else—that music, for the most part is background rather than foreground for me—90% of the music I listen to is ambient, predominantly textural, and distinctly lacking in melody. “In your face” it is not. But then again, maybe for that reason there’s nothing I like better than a sudden burst of rock.

One last point: maybe owing to a traumatic childhood and a lifetime’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, I’ve always favoured music that subdues me rather than music that exhilarates me. Gangsta rap was good for this purpose (maybe incongruously, it reminded me of the Cure’s early days, synth-driven and minimalist and steeped in a sense of doom). The doom was crucial. I never could stomach a lot of cheese, or any false sense of reassurance. My ideal mood was a cushioned sense of doom—as if danger were all around, but I was, for the moment, safe. But maybe I’m over-simplifying. Exhilaration is fine, but usually for me it’s slow-building. The realisation of just how moving and well-constructed something is, for eg—that’s exhilarating. And then, sure, 10% of the time I like to blast myself with loud guitars and driving beats.

Other influences: Autechre, Tricky, J Dilla—Donuts, Miles Davis—Bitches’ Brew, Coltrane—Crescent, Floating Points, Visible Cloaks, Oneohtrix Point Never, Howard Shore—Crash, Stephan Bodzin, Plastikman, Flying Lotus, John Lee Hooker, Fats Domino, James Carr, Leonard Cohen.

Observations:

Ultimately, I can fist-punch and air-guitar with the best of ’em, but only on full moons. Which is to say, I love rock ’n’ roll, but not as a lifestyle, not as a religion. I like light and shade, always have. I’ve got my own take on rock, and to some extent it’s an outsider’s. I like bands whose aims are different from the average—who try for reactions other than fist-pumping.

More importantly for me personally, the fact of my slow education in music other than rock means I came to that music through rock. My skills as a musician and a critic (if I have any skills as a critic) are rock-centric. I want more than the average rock band offers, but it needn’t be more musicianship (though that’d be nice). I believe in a minimum of means. I believe in punk. I believe “There’s more to the picture than meets the eye”. But I also wanna see rock grow up.

ROCK THEORY, then? It’s about what I want rock to be, based on what I’ve loved in rock and outside of it in the past. The best rock has a magic to it. And it’s that magic I’m hunting here, trying to pin it down, to examine it. Why? In the name of science, I guess.

#RockMusic #ExperimentalMusic #ExperimentalRock #MostPlayed #RockHistory #RockTheory #RockJournalism

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