Wangst and weemo

[feuervogel]

I read a lot of writers' blogs. Or LJs, whatever. And I've started to feel like I'm inadequate and inept as a writer, because I wasn't an English major. I'm not Trained in things like Narrative Technique, Structure, and Symbolism, and I'm not well-read enough in classics, folklore, or myths to make use of Allusions.

I'm an impostor.

All I've got is some characters, a story idea, and 20-odd years of reading spec fic (and some Real Books™). No technique, no ideas for creative symbolism or structure or literary allusions.

I'm never gonna sell anything.

Comments

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

Wow. Picking the 20 worst sentences of Dan Brown is like trying to find a needle in a needlestack.

So, now, take that, and multiply it by hundreds of pages over multiple novels. Because, trust me, The Da Vinci Code doesn't really have any better turns of phrase that I recall.

But the chapters are short, and the sentences are usually simple, and you get to thrill to the fact that you're way smarter than the Professor of Symbology and all his very educated friends. I mean, like, people who studied Leonardo da Vinci's life, but are thwarted by a clever "code" for several pages - said "code" being mirror-writing. You know, like Leonardo used all his life.