Thursday, December 9, 2010

Literary Blog Hop: Dec 9-12

Welcome to this week's Literary Blog Hop hosted by The Blue Bookcase!

This blog hop is open to blogs that primarily feature 
book reviews of literary fictionclassic literature, and general literary discussion


How do I know if my blog qualifies as "literary"? Literature has many definitions, but for our purposes your blog qualifies as "literary" if it focuses primarily on texts with aesthetic merit. In other words, texts that show quality not only in narrative but also in the effect of their language and structure. YA literature may fit into this category, but if your blog focuses primarily on non-literary YA, fantasy, romance, paranormal romance, or chick lit, you may prefer to join the blog hop at Crazy-for-books that is open to book blogs of all kinds.


Instructions for entering the Literary Blog Hop:



1. Grab the code for the Button.





Literary Blog Hop




2. Answer the following prompt on your blog:


(Suggestions for future prompts? Email them to us at thebluebookcase@gmail.com)


What is one of your literary pet peeves?  Is there something that writers do that really sets your teeth on edge?  Be specific, and give examples if you can.

Our answer this week comes from
Christina:


I have lots of readerly pet peeves.  Any kind of punctuation or grammatical error is almost always an automatic deal-breaker, but I'm pretty sure everyone within the Literary Blogging world will agree with me there.  So I feel like I need to come up with something a little more original.  Luckily, Mr. Dave Eggers has recently reminded me of one thing writers do that I HATE.  See if you can spot it:





Yeah.  Dialogue that goes on for more than a page without a single "he said" or "she said."  I inevitably lose track of who is saying what, and then I'm just muddling through, waiting for the author to throw me a frickin' bone, some kind of hint, so that I can get back on track.  Often I'll read the entire excerpt several times, trying to picture the conversation correctly.  Sometimes I get so confused that I actually wonder if the author himself forgot which character was which. 

Is anyone else bothered by this? Plenty of good, literary writers do it!  It drives me berserk!

(P.S. - The above photo is from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.  My review of it will be up Friday.)



3. Add your link to the Linky List below.





Happy Hopping!

Comments (39)

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Wow! That particular dialogue is VERY long! I have come across pieces like this, but they have always been about a maximum of half-a-page long. It is rather confusing, but strangely enough I don't think of it as all that annoying...but yes, if I were reading that book you've shown us I think I'd be cursing the author!:D

My pet peeve can be found here: http://breadcrumbreads.blogspot.com/2010/12/liter... ^_^

Btw, this is my first blog hop and I'm really looking forward to taking part regularly and meeting new people!
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
Christina, I agree with you on your pet peeve. I just recently read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and it's only because I had seen the movie first, that I could distinguish between who said what in the dialogue.
2 replies · active 745 weeks ago
Christina - I love that you included a photo!! I can't stand that either!
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
Here's my entry for you ladies!
I see your point and I would generally agree with you, but I think there are some exceptions (I have actually discussed that in my post).
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
There's a story by Ernest Hemingway called, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" with a lot of dialogue, a couple of lines of which is:

"He's drunk now," he said.
"He's drunk every night."

According, to the editor (and, I think, the logic of the passage) BOTH lines are spoken by the same person. He really didn't give us a chance on that one. I agree, that's annoying.
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
This was an easy one for me to answer. It'll be fun to see what other peeves are out there!
This drives me nuts as well and I've also thought that the author got just as confused as I did about who's talking. Great pet peeve!
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
Pet peeve: Elitist New York writers acting as though the Midwest is some sort of intellectual wasteland. Boo!
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
Another fun question! This is a terrific event. Thanks, again, for hosting.

Rose City Reader
I ve had same problem with him ,also hate it ,all the best stu
Great hop topic!

I think my literary pet peeve is a lack of forward momentum...I don't like reading pages and pages of prose just waiting for something to actually happen...note to self "look over WIP again to make sure you're not doing this." hehe

Thanks for hosting as always.
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
This weeks challenge is--What is one of your literary pet peeves? Is there something that writers do that really sets your teeth on edge? - subtitled, The one where The Parrish Lantern, crashes & burns (I failed to answer it).
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
I was just talking about Dave Egger's with a friend. The overall consensus was that we loved McSweenys but hated A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
Long dialouge is confusing!
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
Yeah that can be really annoying. I have to admit that I prefer a book where the story is told through words rather than dialogue. Authors like Isabel Allende and Gabriel Garcia Marquez do a great job of this. I think it takes a lot of talent to tell a story rather than show it unfolding through the dialogue, mostly anyway.
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
I hate that too. I also hate when it's just plain "he said" "she said". Or when there's a whole lot of irrelevant details and shaky plot. Bleh!
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
awesome question, and good choice on the pet peeve. I like that sort of dialogue, but in MODERATION - when it goes on so long that I lose track of who's saying what, and even give up on being able to backtrack and work it out, it's too much.

My pet peeve is stylistic laziness - you know, those authors who take advantage of having a well-established style and "rip off" their own style when writing later books.
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
I HATE he said, she said. It's just lazy and unnecessary - a good writer will be able to write dialogue without the tags without it being confusing. There is such a thing as taking things too far though!

I hate Info Dumps - http://subtlemelodrama.blogspot.com/2010/12/liter...
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
Hi! This is my first hop here. My literary pet peeve is multiple narrators, but I agree with so many of them listed here, too.
http://asthecrowefliesandreads.blogspot.com/2010/...
Yeah, I see your point in that dialogue without notating "he said" or "she said" can be annoying, confusing, and even more work for the reader. However I also appreciate it sometimes, because the story makes it feel like you're actually in the conversation.
1 reply · active 745 weeks ago
It is easy to get lost in the dialogue in that example.
I had trouble coming up with a pet peeve, because I kept thinking of exceptions. I was left with a type of story I try to avoid.
I'm a little late this week, but better late than never. I actually like dialogue without speech tags (too many of those annoy me) but it does need to be clear who is speaking. It is not a technique that works very well when dialogue goes on and on and on....

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