I've been a bit perplexed in my reading of late as I've found too many instances of what amounts to artistic impression not being matched by technical merit: the writing has been poor.
If you equate the creation of a work of fiction with the making of any other piece of art and you break that down into its constituent parts of 'overall design' and 'execution', you'll see what I'm driving at, albeit in an oversimplified way. Take the television series Mastercrafts which in a mere six weeks seeks to turn a complete novice into a reasonably skilled exponent of the craft, one who can go on to develop into a full practitioner, and while that's artificially accelerated it's nevertheless valid; in last week's programme on stained glass-making we saw the beginners learn the basic skills from cutting glass in straight lines and curves to leading it and making a small finished window based on a template. Having grasped the technical aspects they went on to design, creating something which was beautiful and which matched a brief or reflected an idea or ethos. It's no good designing a visually arresting window only to have it fall apart or the wind blow through gaps between its pieces, no point either in making something technically perfect which does not inspire, suit its site or say something, according to the intention behind it. For a piece to leave the studio it has to score highly on both counts.
What I've been encountering a good deal of in my reading is novels with some ambitious (often quite preposterous) grand scheme of a plot - which may or may not work, and no skill or polish at all in the execution. Where is the craftsmanship? Where is the inspired or imaginative use of vocabulary, the honing of the sentences and paragraphs to make something pleasing, coherent, beautifully shaped and refined, one which then reflects the over-arching themes? It's all sadly lacking.
Of course there is wonderful writing out there and I'm reading some of it, too, but what dross I'm coming upon, what 'first draft' sketchiness, what poor quality stuff, and to my amazement this is getting past agents, past editors, being published, being launched with a fanfare on an unsuspecting public when it has no right to be because it reads like an apprentice piece, an early learning attempt, useful for the experience of its maker but not good enough for consumption.
This post is by way of a plea to publishers: get out the red pen, reject the poorly executed, demand better from your writers so that you have better to give to your readers; and to writers themselves - a good idea is not enough, you must have the technical skills to support it.
