Good writing always draws you in

[rootabaga]

I found this to be (the first of a series) a fascinating, well-written article. Perhaps you might, too.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/#chapter1

Here's the intro:

The cop wanted her car keys. Kelli Peters handed them over. She told herself she had nothing to fear, that all he’d find inside her PT Cruiser was beach sand, dog hair, maybe one of her daughter’s toys.

They were outside Plaza Vista School in Irvine, where she had watched her daughter go from kindergarten to fifth grade, where any minute now the girl would be getting out of class to look for her. Parents had entrusted their own kids to Peters for years; she was the school’s PTA president and the heart of its after-school program.

Now she watched as her ruin seemed to unfold before her. Watched as the cop emerged from her car holding a Ziploc bag of marijuana, 17 grams worth, plus a ceramic pot pipe, plus two smaller EZY Dose Pill Pouch baggies, one with 11 Percocet pills, another with 29 Vicodin. It was enough to send her to jail, and more than enough to destroy her name.

Her legs buckled and she was on her knees, shaking violently and sobbing and insisting the drugs were not hers.

The cop, a 22-year veteran, had found drugs on many people, in many settings. When caught, they always lied.

As noted, this is the first in the series, if anyone is interested, I'll post the links to the other installments in this thread.

 

[lunatic59]

Okay, so I dragged out my old rat's patootie and read through the first 2 chapters.

I had a difficult time even getting through the first chapter. A lot of unnecessary description and it seemed to be a bit disconnected. The tense bothered me and led the author to use the word "she" no less than 120 times in the first two chapters. It did improve as the story went on. At one point the "she's" were so concentrated that I had to try and substitute the protagonists name to make it readable.

The plot's not bad. It could easily be an episode of Law & Order.

 

[lunatic59]

Let me give you a couple of early examples which probably put me in hyper-critical mode from the beginning. In the third paragraph :

Watched as the cop emerged from her car holding a Ziploc bag of marijuana, 17 grams worth, plus a ceramic pot pipe, plus two smaller EZY Dose Pill Pouch baggies, one with 11 Percocet pills, another with 29 Vicodin.

That is presented as a sentence, but it is only a fragment. No subject. Okay, give the guy a pass for a style choice, but it's bad grammar AND it's run-on. A run-on sentence fragment? Turned me right off. I know it's information critical to the story later on, but it could have been written better.

Later that same chapter:

Peters had been doing what she always did on a Wednesday afternoon, trying to stay on top of a hundred small emergencies.

She was 49, with short blond hair and a slightly bohemian air. As the volunteer director of the Afterschool Classroom Enrichment program at Plaza Vista, she was a constant presence on campus, whirling down the halls in flip-flops and bright sundresses, a peace-sign pendant hanging from her neck.

First, the second paragraph there is non-sequitur. This is the kind of jumping around that really bothered me. The first paragraph begs a chronological question about the "hundred small emergencies", yet it goes on to simply provide a physical description and only alludes to here behavior with "constant presence" and "whirling". Then the only detail given (in the following paragraph) is used as a segue to her past occupation.

It's written in a "jeopardy-like" style where they give you some information and then make up a question about it afterwards. Not a big fan.

While non-fiction may require the author to adhere to more facts that a fiction writer and be constrained by reality, it should still be possible to write with style that engages the reader rather than acts a s a showcase for his creativity. (Artists who stylize the national anthem at public events bother me as well. )

EDIT: Oh and I neglected to mention that on top of the 120 "she's" there are 190 "her's". So there's a great deal of "she did this with her that." or "Her action was this while she thought about something."

Two authors who write historically-based fiction that I do like are Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth and Noah Gordon, The Physician (The Cole Trilogy). Both write painfully descriptive novels that engage and tell a coherent story. For the easier read, you could also look at Mary Renault who wrote somewhat romanticized versions of historical figures from the ancient world The Persian Boy for example is a fictionalized biography of Alexander the Great.

 

[lunatic59]

In any event, compared with what passes for typical media journalism...

Anymore, that's an oxymoron. Most "news", exposé and documentary writing is formulaic and too often fraught with sensationalism and hyperbole. Most of it begins with an agenda rather than simply reporting.

As I said at the outset, "perhaps you might too," and it seems plain you don't.

I don't hate it. It just didn't seem like an exemplary piece of writing. I've read many thing recommended to me that I emphatically despised, but i think reading them nonetheless had value. And, I've read many more things that were recommended that i enjoyed to the extreme.

Oh, and if you have to stylize The Star-Spangled Banner, you're more of an attention-grabbing egocentric than a singer.

Or you're covering up the fact that you can't sing it properly.

 

[lunatic59]

I will say this, they really got a handle on the tense and use of pronouns as it progressed. Seriously, there was a much better use of names and grammar in general.

The story? It's almost a fable telling the story of modern entitlement anxiety. Everybody needs to feel good all the time no matter what the cost or consequences.