I came across this article that was simply too good to not share. Like most book bloggers, nay - ANY bloggers, our time is limited. Most of us happen to have other obligations pulling us in different directions. For example, I am a mother to four children and work half time at a public school as a school counselor. I love to read which is why I do what I do in my spare time but I don't have time to read crap. So I found this list on a site (click to go to the site for explanation of each trend that needs to go away) and I found myself laughing to myself. I've added a couple at the end.
I don't mean to offend. These are not across-the-board truisms. But my time is valuable and I appreciated someone else validating some of my own thoughts.
10 Literary Trends that Need to Go Away
- Lackluster graphic novel/comic book adaptations
- "Self-help" guides doing more harm than good
- Bandwagon-jumping
- Self-indulgent celebrity memoirs
- "Revolutionary" diet plans
- Celebrity authors who just can't write
- "Women's literature" with reductionist views of women
- Remixing the classics
- Assuming genre fiction has nothing to say
- Dismissing all self-published literature
- Self-indulgent anybody memoirs, particularly those with a vendetta. Like the ones that air the dirty laundry on their parents or ex-boyfriend that dumped them. Too one-sided and petty. There are so many but a few that really stick out in my mind is A Girl's Guide to Homelessness, My Lobotomy, Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest and a few others that had stories to tell but get too wrapped up in the emotions of themselves and how wicked and wrong others were to treat them that way. A well written memoir allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions without having to air others' dirty laundry. This is why blogging was invented. Use that platform.
- Filler books for trilogy or sagas. Write a good book, write it well, provide all the information needed to continue, by all means, keep going. If not - please stop. Use a good editor and trust them when they tell you to cut out extraneous information.
2 comments:
I love browsing book stores, blogs, and libraries to make sure I pick books I'll like. Funny how different people's tastes in books are!
It's crazy how people will totally fall for and buy those revolutionary diet books. It only encourages other people to write more of them. Eeek, they're so annoying.
That is a good one. Also, dismissing self/indie published authors -- that's a seriously great one, not to be taken lightly.
This list is chuckle-worthy. Love it. :)
~Asheley
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