4 ms·

OK, I read her last blog post and ... she just doesn't read like a serious writer. Maybe I'm bitter but I've read comments in hacker news that have a better lit

OK, I read her last blog post and ... she just doesn't read like a serious writer. Maybe I'm bitter but I've read comments in hacker news that have a better literary style.

keefe 16y ago
it's worth noting she writes young adult fiction, so she has a different optimization target than what a typical college educated adult would call good.
- reeses 16y ago
  In addition, the blog just needs to be good enough to keep people buying her books. The best is the enemy of the good.
muhfuhkuh 16y ago
She's writing for her audience, not HN's. Plus, she's quite inexperienced in both writing professionally and self-publishing, both of which some have toiled away on for years and have not even a 1/100th of her success to show for it. Finally, her blogging style isn't for everyone. Some people want to come across as "not phony" and tailor their writing style to that ethic. Maybe you don't have the patience for a non-professional tone.
6ren 16y ago
She's a best-selling author, not a best-writing author.
alan-crowe 16y ago
I noticed that too, but I suspect that competition from cinema has bifurcated books into two distinct products, novels and stories. The novel responds to the challenge from cinema with interior monologue and writing with literary merit. The plot unfolds five to ten times slower in the reader's library than would a similar plot projected in a cinema. The story tries to compete with cinema on pace by adopting a simple writing style that a young reader can devour at great speed. It fails, but only by a factor of two, and it is cheaper to buy than a cinema ticket, by a similar factor. A story is cheaper to write than a movie is to make, perhaps 100 or 1000 times cheaper. That matters to the reader because, each year, there are many more stories to chose from than there are films. The reader can find the particular kind of story that they especially like, which makes up for the fact it is only writing and not a film.

OK, I read her last blog post and ... she just doesn't read like a serious writer. Maybe I'm bitter but I've read comments in hacker news that have a better literary style.

keefe 16y ago

it's worth noting she writes young adult fiction, so she has a different optimization target than what a typical college educated adult would call good.

reeses 16y ago
In addition, the blog just needs to be good enough to keep people buying her books. The best is the enemy of the good.

muhfuhkuh 16y ago

She's writing for her audience, not HN's. Plus, she's quite inexperienced in both writing professionally and self-publishing, both of which some have toiled away on for years and have not even a 1/100th of her success to show for it. Finally, her blogging style isn't for everyone. Some people want to come across as "not phony" and tailor their writing style to that ethic. Maybe you don't have the patience for a non-professional tone.

6ren 16y ago

She's a best-selling author, not a best-writing author.

alan-crowe 16y ago

I noticed that too, but I suspect that competition from cinema has bifurcated books into two distinct products, novels and stories. The novel responds to the challenge from cinema with interior monologue and writing with literary merit. The plot unfolds five to ten times slower in the reader's library than would a similar plot projected in a cinema. The story tries to compete with cinema on pace by adopting a simple writing style that a young reader can devour at great speed. It fails, but only by a factor of two, and it is cheaper to buy than a cinema ticket, by a similar factor. A story is cheaper to write than a movie is to make, perhaps 100 or 1000 times cheaper. That matters to the reader because, each year, there are many more stories to chose from than there are films. The reader can find the particular kind of story that they especially like, which makes up for the fact it is only writing and not a film.