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Writing and reading totally saves me. Writing keeps the dark away. Reading is the infusion of light.

Much to ponder here.

Not sure you will be able to concentrate on your corporate interview after being immersed in In Cold Blood. You might want to put back some light by reading some poetry.

I have not read In Cold Blood either. I'll wait for your impressions. I'm ready the book club book and woefully behind in it...since the meeting is tomorrow and I'm only halfway done

I've not read In Cold Blood either, but I'm so glad you had some time to yourself this morning to really read. :)

What wonderful reads. I have loved many of Sacks' books. I wasn't aware of his earlier drug use.

I don't have anything to add other than to completely agree with you. I thought about listing everything you said that I thought was spot-on, but I'd basically be summarizing it, which seems redundant. :)

Excellent post.

The earth around J. D. Salinger's grave is trembling...

It always seemed to me that books changed as the world changed. Readers of Victorian novels who read for entertainment WANTED long passages about the setting or the characters' feelings because they had no movies, TV, or Internet as alternate distractions. They expected a book to take days to read. If they read MOBY DICK, it was partly because they wanted to know what life was like on a whaling ship. Modern books are (for the most part) written for modern times and compete with video games and HBO. That's not to say we can't still enjoy older books, but it does mean we will notice the difference when we read them.

I think that "stripping away the unnecessary stuff" is like most writing advice - a good rule of thumb but when applied mechanically and rigorously without insight to the why, it can be abused. People's definitions of unnecessary stuff can vary. People's definitions of digressions can vary.

Oh no, Moby Dick is your favorite? And I was liking you sooo much.....

Kidding. It nearly killed me in high school and I've never had the guts to revisit it. Sorta like that mean girl I hope I never run into again.

To bring together a couple of points made in the article: even in its time, Moby-Dick was scorned for its digressions.

According to Wikipedia (fount of all knowledge on the Web), Melville "was shocked and bewildered at the scathing reviews [Moby-Dick] received. Instead of bringing him the literary acclaim which he sought, this master-work started a slide toward literary obscurity in his lifetime."

Wikipedia cites one of the reviews, "The idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition."

Self-publishing is re-opening the door to unique self-expression.

With corporate publishing, content and style is controlled by those who seek the greatest profit through quantity rather than quality. Get it in, get it out on the shelves, move on to the next. Keep those titles moving, slap a new cover on a proven title, get it back on the shelves.

Now the author is in control, as much as the author desires. Content and style are a function of the author's vision. "Readability" depends on the audience, which need not be large for the author to be "successful." Success is measured in the writer/reader contact, not advances and royalties.

Writers can be freed once again from the necessity to become authors; we can write what we want, in a length and complexity appropriate to the story and the storyteller, and still reach an appreciative audience.

The medium is irrelevant; it’s the words, sentences and paragraphs that are paramount.

Digressions tend to make people think..and some readers don't want to do that. They want to be entertained. 'Don't make me think, just serve it up!' It's one of the reasons that literary writing only appeals to a certain type of reader. I love Dickens stories, but find his run-on sentences ponderous at times.

I'm reading 'Tender is the Night' by F.S. Fitzgerald and it does digress but to useful purpose. Not all classics are enjoyable, but MANY written in the 20th century have staying power.

I'm not sure with our flooded book market (of trad, indie and selfpubs) if that can be said of most current books.

My faves - scifi and mystery also have their forms of digressions, but much less so in the new books. With digression you can get layers, without it, you skim on the top.

I say yes, we are stripping our modern books, and not always to good purpose.

There's so much content coming down the pipestream, readers need "curators" of one kind or another. Editors, publishers, and bookstores used to hold that role. The question is, who are the curators that people turn to now for advice on what to read? How does one discover a new writer that one enjoys?

The evil downside of self-publishing is that so many people sink so much money into self-publishing outfits. Many of those companies make their profits from the unedited writer's naive dreams, misleading them about the effectiveness of such package deals as "an email campaign" that promises to send 5,000 marketing emails. I know one writer who sold exactly 2 copies of his book from the vanity press's 5,000 emails.

The editor/publisher/bookstore route used to assure a minimum competence and saleability for a book. When people insist on "creative control," too often it means "my self-indulgence."

Interesting post. I think traditional publishing is so focused on being cost-effective that the word count seems VERY important, and that means that many digressions are axed. I think you are allowed to digress if you are an established, best-selling author, but otherwise--no.

You raise a good point that self-publishing may allow people more leeway. Done well, digressions can make a book richer. Obviously, done badly, they can make it a hot mess.

When writing books now, this is at the forefront of my mind. If I'm not addicted to my story on every page, I feel as if it isn't good enough. I end up slaving away to make it both comfortably paced (i.e. fast, in this day and age) and true to my vision, which can be extremely frustrating. Just last week, I had one of those "doubting my entire future in publishing" nights, because my current project just wasn't grabbing me the way I wanted it to. Much of it ended up having to do with cutting some unnecessary stuff, and this week, the book looks better. So, in this case, cutting was a blessing.

Still, I don't think this is a black and white issue. It depends on the writing, the story, the characters, and the overall vision. Amazing writers can make every word feel necessary. Thus, While I can love short and sweet books like The Hunger Games, some of my favorite reading experiences have been on the longer side: Many books by Stephen King, Atlas Shrugged, Harry Potter, The Poisonwood Bible, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, etc.

Like Carmen said above, books change as the world changes. It will be interesting to observe the progression, especially now that playing fields have evened out a bit!

Nathan, sometimes your blog is just what I need to make me feel better about the state of things. Thanks.

"Digression is the soul of wit." Ray Bradbury

I love this post, and I think about this question a lot.

Books that are ONLY plot are sadly lacking. To further your food metaphor, they're like icing without cake--the icing may be your favorite part, but without the cake, it's just going to leave you feeling sick.

On the other hand, self-indulgent diversions simply aren't a benefit to fiction.

Maybe the trick is that the "diversions" have to not really be diversions at all. True character-building and world-building are essential to a plot. A reader has to know a character in order to care that he might die, or to believe that he would dive off a bridge to avoid the police and that he's a strong enough swimmer to survive. Such elements can be introduced through darling diversions. I think.

Either that, or a writer has to be so damn good that readers fall in love with the diversions.

So it goes.

I recently waded into the self-publishing pool, so this has been on my mind a lot lately.

I'm against completely eliminating all non-plot-essential items. I think it takes realism out of the work, and it can make the story formulaic.

For instance, if you see a romantic comedy at the theater, not only do you know that male character will do something heroic at the end to win the female's heart, depending on what happens in the first twenty minutes, you might even be able to guess the fashion in which he'll do it (if the male lead has cold feet about marriage and he's self absorbed, he'll sacrifice a beloved part of himself, like his job, and propose marriage).

I agree that if you show a gun then it needs to be shot, but what if you show ten guns? Do they all need to be fired by plot's end?

In my distant past (youth), I read Tom Jones, loved it, and thought it was the best book ever.

But now, when I started re-reading it, I lost interest after the first five pages. Impatience and the age of the sound bite took its toll.

I love the part where you take down Dickens (who got paid by the word - and it shows) and then laud Melville. While a stripped-down Moby Dick might well suit audiences better - after all, the nonessential stuff gets scrapped in every film/tv version - the book would lack a certain something without those extra parts, and not just heft.

It's interesting to see what grabs you about Moby Dick because it's the exact same thing that turned me off that book: I loved the story, but the extra prose felt like a text book to me (I'm not terribly interested in how to properly tie a knot or the science of catching a whale). Art is subjective, which is a great thing. As for whether stripping away the unessential is good, I remember reading one author (Vonnegut? Can't remember) who argued that everything we write should reveal character or further the plot. I think there's some truth to that.

I'm a fan of old school. Life is not texting. It's the "digressions" that make you love the characters and get caught up in the world. Just being carried along with a bunch of characters I barely know in a wild ride to "the end" is unsatisfying to me. I keep reading what supposed to the latest and greatest, but I'm left feeling like someone who was only invited to the wedding, while everyone else has been to the rehearsal dinner and will attend the reception.

I love Moby Dick. It's the only book I've ever taken the time to sit down with and mark up. I mean, I grew up believing not to mark up books, but I decided that I was going to do that with Moby Dick and highlighted and made notes and all kinds of things.

I don't think it's an improvement that people don't write that way anymore. It's different, but it's not an improvement. Per se.

Imo, digressions are cool if they're well written and entertaining. Even better if they're very well written and very entertaining.

I like a little meat in a story. A book shouldn't be judged by word count, but whether each word COUNTS!

I dearly hope digressions become more commonplace. At least, I hope there are more important scenes disguised as digressions. A conversation in which an idea is planted in a character's head could be viewed as irrelevant, though that idea sparks one of the most important plot twists in the story. In the quest to destroy the irrelevant, some writers have instead gone to the bare minimum: when they don't have enough information to work with, they just reference a scene that wasn't part of the book. That sort of thing gets irksome. "Suddenly it all became clear to Bob. Two years ago, when he had been driving home, a stray cat with ears and whiskers shaped respectively like cancerous rodents and low-budget fireworks had appeared in front of his car-- then abruptly disappeared into thin air. And Dr. Evil was standing right where the cat had vanished!" When the author has to say "Oh, and that works because..." it's annoying. The reader should have all of the information already, even if it means digressing slightly.

Books, analogous with film, have different audiences for different experiences. There is resurgence in the “slow burn” film category that was the hallmark of ‘60s and ‘70s. The same can be said of new novels today, where just getting into the plot takes a little effort and the plot itself may be fairly elusive.

This slow style leaves much more room for imagination and for picking out the details that make the experience interesting and worthwhile. A few extra pages of character study, a few more pages to paint the scene, a few pages of author musings that add thought-provoking nuance to the story. Using the film example, you could cut both 2001 and the Godfather down to less than 90 minutes and keep the pace. However, think of all you would lose, the texture, the emotion, the buildup.

You could be called No Nostalgia Nathan. Good for you. ‘Life isn’t what it used to be and never was’ is a good motto, because we can’t go back.
But I’m not quite there with you. The efficient writing/story telling, while a must in commercial writing, isn’t that absolute when it comes to the truly literary. Think of Jeffrey Eugenides’ books, or even the HP volumes. Riveting but not every point stripped to bare essentials.
Leisurely prose was perfect for an age of fewer discretionary distractions. We gained, but we have lost also.

I think some meandering isn't a bad thing, but nowadays that character development looks a little different. It seems like characters need to be developed in the motion of the plot, that readers want both at once without slowing the pace. At least that's what I've noticed in fantasy and science fiction, though fantasy does tend to meander more than other genres. Science fiction can, too.

I disagree. I feel like most of my favorite books were written almost twenty years ago, and many of today's feel rushed and empty.
There have been some very spare masterpieces like James Sallis's DRIVE, but I'm loving James Lee Burke's 450+ page Feast Day of Fools so far. He'd have a lot of fun shopping that around as a new writer today.

What you say also applies to music. Our Mozart-level symphonies are sneaking past us today as scores for films. Listen closely to the music for Dances With Wolves, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter and you will see what I mean. Today our audiences value smaller bites, but even in wider varieties they taste no less sweet.

And, as a teardrop of hope to all, there are many writers today who are still telling the whole story to delight their readers. George RR Martin, Neal Stephenson, and Rowling (the final four HP books) are good examples. The HP movies missed out on a lot of depth because many funny and poignant subplots could not be condensed onto the screen.

The notion that people read authors like Dickens and Proust as a kind of vegetable that's good for you is so, i don't know, tiresome, I guess. Maybe just ignorant. People who read Dickens and Proust's books love them, they experience overwhelming pleasure reading them (with their huge works they can wallow in pleasure), they read them slowly for each word and image (and the insanity of their visions. Who is more insane than Dickens and Proust?).

(And this notion is particularly hysterical coming from a writer's blog, from people ostensibly interested in character, and yet without the imagination to imagine someone who loves to read something dense, and crazy, and wildly excessive. Is it that hard? You probably meet people like that every day.) (Hey, how about poetry? Do we have a condescending theory about all those nutty people who love poetry? Often there is no plot or characters. Poetry must really, really, really suck! I mean, can't we try to understand the other people we share this planet with even a little bit?)

I happen to love the excess of Dickens and Proust's visions. Their worlds teem uncontrollably with people, places, feeling, stories, ideas, smells, visions, energy, food, humor, meaning, and on and on. In other words: Life. And when I put the book down, I see clearer this world in all it's teeming craziness. My vision opens up. (And if you don't like excess, if you want to strip everything down to only what's absolutely essential, why do you read at all? Reading isn't 'essential', millions of people do fine without it. You can live on bread and water. We can 'live' without Love or music or Joy or Meaning. Edit everything unessential out!)

(By the way, I'm sure there's some people who see Proust's digressions and false-starts not as bad writing but as the exotic architecture of a building to get lost in. Or some crazy exotic garden. To some people 'mysteries' that are immediately solved aren't interesting at all, they are boring. Yes, some people prefer to preserve the mystery.)

What I miss in much new fiction—and perhaps what you call digression—is the social/cultural/historical context in which the characters act & react. I don't mean large chunks of "background" bulldozed in but people, after all, reflect their time & place.
The 60's were different from the 80's. The Lehman collapse era was different from the internet bubble years. Good, readable, entertaining fiction should include the mood, texture and tenor of time & place in characters' lives. Just steering characters thru the "plot" isn't really very interesting. At least not to me.

I too have mixed feelings. Those digressions often contain the truly individual and creative parts. I am reminded of a book published recently, a real page-turner - I stayed up 'till 3 AM to finish. Must be a great book, right? Now a couple of months later, I can't for the life of me remember much about it.

s.r.-

I never said I don't love Dickens and Proust. Ignorant is a strong word to throw around.

"...books that are quirky and strange and digressive will also be out there too."

Received opinion in literary circles (aka Academia) is that editor Maxwell Perkins created a masterpiece out of a mass of rambling prose that was Thomas Wolfe's original manuscript for "Look Homeward, Angel". A few years ago, some scholars pieced together Wolfe's original submission, and re-issued it as "O Lost" (Wolfe's original title). As it turns out, "O Lost" is a helluva lot better read than "Look Homeward", which is itself widely hailed as superb. So what does that tell us? That traditional editing, especially during those "golden years", was actually focused on weeding out all that extra prose, those digressions, those distractions. Yet the very appeal of Wolfe's writing is that flood of poetry that is his narrative style. Plot? Who needs a plot when we can wallow in the fabulous description, the stream-of-consciousness narration, the evocative characterization? What Perkins did was turn an original and creative work into a standard work that matched other works in the field. Maybe that was good for sales, but it wasn't very good for Wolfe, his reputation, or the generations to come who will possibly be confused by his very different works.

Wolfe is often wild, out of control, drowned in "excess". He's an acquired taste, but once acquired, an unforgettable, unshakeable one. And how much would we have lost, if he had been persuaded to strip everything down to "plot"?

There are many writers out there with many visions, and readers who will now, thanks to the Internet, be able to find that writer who speaks to them. And may not give a damn about plot.

Sarah-

I don't know that Perkins was necessarily wrong though either. It's easy to look back on choices like that and infer that Wolfe would have been better off without Perkins' meddling, but who's to say Wolfe would have enjoyed the reputation he has today if he were left to his own devices?

We grant writers a whole lot of leeway once they've established a reputation, and we're more patient with them. Even if we might see the greater genius in the original work, we're viewing it through the prism of years distant where we will afford Wolfe greater latitude because of his reputation.

This is partially why just about every literary writer out there started off with a relatively mainstream work stylistically to establish themselves before branching off into uncharted waters. See also this post: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/08/writers-authority-and-keith-hernandez.html

Nathan,

I agree, sorry. I guess I was reading, and responding to, your post in the light of an overall attitude I always get, which drives me crazy! That I'm really reading them out of serious, dour, academic, no-fun motivations. Like I like taking bitter medicine or something! I just want people to understand (sniff)! I'll be more careful next time!

s.r.

No worries, I agree that people should definitely still read those works and there's so much to love in them. I find it difficult to do so with my Internet-molded brain, but I still really enjoy them. I hope people will continue to challenge themselves.

I keep hearing how self-publishing will open up the world to the quirky and strange and digressive. But I see many (not all) self-publishers urging each other to just write fast, write a lot, get it out there. The self-published books that are doing well seem to be the same kinds of books that do well in the Big 6 world: action and romance.

It's true that a self-publisher can put out a quirky, digressive work now with a lower upfront investment of money. On the other hand, it might not get even the championing that today's traditionally-published literary fiction gets from places like NPR, book clubs, etc., and it might not find many readers.

I can't help thinking that just as there is no Golden Era in the past, there isn't one in the future either. Every era has its pluses and minuses. A high-concept page-turner will always have a bigger audience than a thoughtful, slower-paced story, but when the latter catches on it might be more long-lasting. In any era.

Some classics of the past hold up remarkably well (Jane Austen springs to mind). On the other hand, I find D.H. Lawrence unreadable now.

Nathan! I am soooo happy/thankful that someone is also thinking about these things.

Please forgive my snobbery- I recognize it all too well, but as a fellow Moby Dick fan who can't get enough of Ahab and was willing to hear all kinds of information about why a whale needs to be classified scientifically as a fish in order to get to Ahab and Queequeg, I have been sooooo miserably disappointed with most contemporary bestsellers. Ugh!!!

Although it's so easy to digest books like Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Twilight, Dexter, etc... and those are all books I love obsessively (Harry Potter 2 is in my backpack right now) those bestsellers are all, literally, on a 12-year-old reading level.

On my SAT's, I was in the 97th percentile. That upsets me very much- because I am a total airhead. I did not even remember what a percentile is, so I had to Google the definition. That tells me that most people can't understand and enjoy serious literature and absorb complex ideas in writing.

Reading a book like Hunger Games is like mind-popcorn. Fun! I loved the book. It was great. Very inventive. But man. I feel so hollow and shallow by the end of it.

Give me Ahab. I'm so sick of speedy plots. I want to pick up a book and get to know someone, like Mrs. Dalloway or Blanche DuBois. When I read, I want to feel spiritually renewed- feel intimate. I want to feel like I had a conversation with an adult. You can do that with a spare writer like Hemingway, but dang... I'm getting so disappointed so consistently with the new books I've been picking up. And I'm also super disappointed with the lack of deep conversation about contemporary literature.

*gets off soap box*

Man. This post's turned me into one of those internet ranters. *closes ears in oven door like Dobby the House Elf, in order to punish herself*

This is a really interesting idea, the idea of "digression" coming back with self-publishing.

But, while I also cite Moby-Dick as one of my all-time favorite books (and I use it as a benchmark against which I rate other books on my blog), we should also remember that IT barely got published. Doug touches on this. It's not like people recognized Melville for the genius he was...in fact, American critics thought Moby-Dick was one of the most self-indulgent, uninteresting pieces of crap they'd ever read. It only got published because Melville had written a few other popular conventional novels first.

It's also worth noting that a lot of Melville's other stories, many of them short stories, (Benito Cereno, Bartleby the Scrivener, Billy Budd) were very different structurally than Moby-Dick. Melville did what he did in Moby-Dick because it fit a specific effort at a specific moment in literary life. But he was both fighting the publishing industry with the effort, and he was also doing something out of the ordinary for his own oeuvre.

I hardly think Rowling, Stephenson, or Martin compare with Melville. But I'd suggest that Salman Rushdie writes with a richness and breadth that verges on Melville's discursiveness. I've not read Wallace, but I'd believe that. Perhaps Pynchon as well. Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange is nowhere near as insightful as the rest of these, but I think it offers and interesting level of digressiveness (a word?) that people seemed to really latch on to.

It strikes me that there are still novels that try to do what Moby-Dick did...it's just that you'd rarely see that sort of stuff on the best-sellers lists.

"Books won't have to be readable in order to find their audience."

That, my friends, is the greatest Nathan quote ever (but only because I've decided to take it wildly out of context in my mind.)

One advantage of the internet is that you can post that "digressive, cut material" as freebies for your fans, without costing a dime. Sure, it might not be edited fully, but I would think the fans would like it anyway.

My first novel, which is coming out next February has a lot of material like that (I cut 50,000 words before finding a publisher), and I'll be giving the best parts away on my website.

As a screenwriting student, I got so used to stripping everything down that Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" was a delicious shock to the system. Digressions galore!

I can't possibly cheer this post loudly enough via blog comment! Have you read Midnight's Tale (the literary short story from the POV of a goat, which is utterly charming and currently at #704 on Paid Kindle)? It's a fantastic example of literature I probably would never have heard up, much less read, prior to self-publishing enabling it's worldwide distribution at the touch of a button.

There is too much general emphasis on stripping down novels and yet modern audiences seem to value all types of books.

Plenty of aforementioned authors are more prolix and many popular authors are also sparse.

50 Shades is a perfect example of cut-cut-cut. Like two pages into that book you are in an office with Christian.

I think audiences have a wide variety of tastes, and authors of all styles get more-or-less represented, though the NYT bestsellers list does tend to favor the plot-oriented stuff.

But Stieg sure gave us an example of how long-winded books can be hits, didn't he? With his grocery lists of items the characters bought.

I suppose the real key is to be excellent at the style you choose. Get good at what you do, and I'm a firm believer that you will get your work out there.

My biggest argument against this is Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series. Those books are filled with pointless asides, anecdotes and digressions on his imaginary world and it's history. But those are often some of the funniest parts of the books. And he's able to do them without detracting from the main story.

Of course, Sir Terry is a great writer and even he has improved as the series has progressed. So I'd avoid the N=1 fallacy, and say it is possible, but not easy. So use them sparingly and only where they actually improve the book. Because there are plenty of examples of it failing.

Great post! I've thought about a lot of these things too. Not so much about digression--but I think I see a similar quality in those oft-repeated admonitions not to use adverbs, or words for 'said' other than said. But the arbiter of 'good' writing seems to be changing as the publishing community continues to change.

I went from writing super sparse to adding more details. These things enrich the reading experience. Books that are too slimmed down read almost like screen plays.

Thanks for this post! I love how you weighed both sides of the conflict. To me, I think there's room for both. I like to read my intense, deep, dark reads and break them up with quick-paced, easily-digestible fiction. If I read too much of one or the other, I get bored and irritated. I'm not a person who enjoys reading series straight through or one book after another by the same author. At the moment I'm reading four books (well three, since I finished one yesterday): A Lovely, Indecent Departure by Steven Gilbert (stripped-down, contemplative debut of a child custody dispute), The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize), The Night Eternal by Guillero del Toro and Chuck Hogan (the third and final in a vampire thriller trilogy), and Of Moths and Butterflies by V.R. Christensen (a Jane Austen-esque historical romance). So really, I love to read all over the map. It keeps me on my toes, keeps me learning from everywhere and everything.

It boils down to the question, "What is the point of a novel?" A mystery novel serves a different purpose than a literary novel. Some novels exist to entertain; some to enlighten; some to educate; some to transport. The spectrum is as broad as the population of readers, and as diverse. What qualifies as a digression in one novel may be indispensible to another. As Umberto Eco wrote in the Postscript to The Name of the Rose:

"After reading the manuscript, my friends and editors suggested I abbreviate the first hundred pages, which they found very difficult and demanding. Without thinking twice, I refused, because, as I insisted, if somebody wanted to enter the abbey and live there for seven days, he had to accept the abbey’s own pace. If he could not, he would never manage to read the whole book. Therefore, those first hundred pages are like a penance or an initiation, and if someone does not like them, so much the worse for him. He can stay at the foot of the hill."

I'm a firm believer that the form should fit the function. There is no pace that is one-size-fits-all. Novels are immersive experiences, and like all experiences, some are fast and some are slow. There is nothing to be gained by slashing the slow parts. That would be like trying to watch a movie on fast-forward. Pointless.

If your reader has the attention span of a gnat, so be it. He can stay at the foot of the hill.

One modern author who is both very digressive and very popular is Haruki Murakami. For long-winded writers looking to see how its done, check him out.

Certainly, much of what people view as 'rules' will turn out to be 'trends'.

I look to authors like David Mitchell, who have blended commercial success with quality.

Cloud Atlas is my favorite book and it's quite long--not Moby Dick long by any means, but longer than most books these days.

The most skilled writers can use digression as a tool for character advancement and even plot advancement as well. In Cloud Atlas, sometimes you think three paragraphs were a digression but actually were a critical piece to the story.

As others have said, you have to make the digressions compelling and entertaining, otherwise they kill the pace of the story.

I have no patience for books that are completely processed and stripped down, and that lack any character development. Books like The Da Vinci Code and throw away thrillers never leave you satisfied, except for maybe a cheap thrill here and there.

It's my belief that authors are better off erring on the side of character development even if it means occasionally digressing.

Especially if your in this for a career and not just a get in, get out, make a buck stint.

Ultimately, I think as readers, the authors we repeatedly buy and worship all focus on characters and creating a truly memorable reading experience, and that means having at least a small amount of digression.

There is a segment of mindless people out there that just want to read whatever trash is put in front of them, but I can't in good conscience write for them.

Not to sound like a snob, but we all know what happens when you consume a diet of only candy and junk. I'd rather be Elton John than N Sync.

Yeah, and some of us like those slow foreign films, too. You know, the ones that give us the richer, more thoughtful experiences.

This post reminded me of a website where you can paste a sample of your writing into a window and a computer algorithm grades your writing on a scale of "Fit" to "Flabby". It turns out my narratives seem pretty athletic. I couldn't resist testing some of "The Great Gatsby" which received a strong "Flabby" rating.


http://www.writersdiet.com/wasteline.php

Very nice post and one that made me think. Details are the spices you add to the mix to heighten flavor. I've read a few authors who are too stingy with the deets and are all about plot. That's simply too dull, in my mind.

I like to linger, to take my time, to enjoy the moment (sounds like I might be talking about something else and you wouldn't be far off).

However, there are some classics, like Moby Dick (Herman Melville was my senior seminar thesis in college as an English major), that are rife with details that do add a great deal of flavor, but which nonetheless, feel a bit too nitty-gritty. I know that's a personal taste, so I understand the disagreement.

In the end, I much prefer some digression to none at all -- it's what makes life all the more interesting.

Keith

I love that this post somehow, how shall I say this... digresses. You look both backward and forward and take into account changing times and appetites, socio-economic issues past and current and societal norms.
And yet not a word wasted. Good model when it comes down to it.

I had a hard time finishing this post. Way too much digression, far too little vampire love.

No one can say the first chapter of Franzen's Freedom or the whole railroad digression in The Corrections is anything else but drudgery. We've come far, but not that far.

I remember watching a program on a similar topic but in regards to movies. Particularly, the movie, North by Northwest from 1959 was discussed and this aspect stuck with me. Shown was a segment wherein Cary Grant stood on the side of a road looking/waiting for someone and minutes went by as several cars went by. Modern shows and movies leap from frame to frame until we are exhausted. I remember thinking, along a similar line, that the parts of the newer Star Wars movies that were cut were the ones that slowed down and added depth to the characters and their relationships. They were cut in favour of 20 minute action sequences it seemed.

@Chris Phillips - Lol.

Stripping away 'unessentials' is ... essential. However, shortening the prose for the sake of simplifying the story, or in an attempt to stick more closely to the plot, without any deviation or embelishment seems to be the popular take on things.

Personally, I'm a little bored with being told our attention spans are minimal, and there's simply no time to wander a little off the beaten track. If the writing style is compelling and enriched with meaning, give me more!

Funny you mentioned David Foster Wallace, since I was thinking about him during the earlier part of your post. I'm about a quarter of the way through Infinite Jest right now, and I feel if you stripped away all the unessential parts, there would be nothing at all left!

My only problem with rules - the people who go nuts enforcing them.

Do I think bloated, neverending sentences are enjoyable? No.

Do I writers should be verbally eviscerated if they try to use an adverb or adjective? No.

In all things, balance is key.

I was a teenager in the 1950s. I'm now 72. So I have what I think is a great perspective of this excellent topic. Yes to people are less patient today, and yes to commenter #1, Steven, who says "I can't helping thinking we're losing something important." Lately I've been going back to Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner (yes, Faulkner makes you REALLY think). Those earlier great works of literature do force one to sit back, relax, and go with what today's in-general reader thinks is a slow narrative flow. But there is so much beauty, so much of human nature in that flow.

I agree with the premise that prose generally benefits from being concise; clarity should be our watchword. However, this "rule" is not carved in stone, and good prose is predicated on quality, not quantity!

I blogged on this topic using Moby Dick as context--you might find it interesting (even if you disagree): http://bit.ly/NGZEGS. If links are not allowed here, please delete the url. I hope you'll at least give it a read and let me know your thoughts.

Aden

It's definitely possible to strip away the unnecessary while still writing with scope and vision. I'm reading (savoring) Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games, and it's the most incredible experience: over 900 pages long, complex as a spider's web, taking place in four or five or more different eras-- and yet it's one of the most engrossing page-turners I've ever read. Not a single thing in it is nonessential. Everything I've read so far (and I'm about a third of the way through) comes back into the plot later on; all of the characters are important, and ever new viewpoint is fresh and timely. (If the next two thirds of this book hold up, I'm going to be raving about it for years.) Cutting away extraneous matter doesn't mean shaving down the book to nothing-- it means making room for all the important things you want to put into it.

Basically, I have to completely disagree. Are MOST books better shorter and right to the point? Hell yes.

Would LOTR be the phenomenon it is and the greatest story ever told if it was published today? Hell no.

Love ya, NB, but longer is better when it comes to greatness, in my book.

Thank you for this.

Time alone to think can be a treasure. I listen to music and ebooks on my commute sometimes, but there are days when I simply sit in the silence. The brain is a wonderful thing, if we care to listen.

I can't comment on Franzen or his work, but I think you have a point about life. I tend to be a deep thinker myself, sometimes even to the level of meditation.

I need my silence. After all, silence is golden, and duct tape is silver.

I have read all his books and love them. How amazing that you got to hear him speak.

I fear that too.

This was a great post.

You know what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about the rich? That’s what I think when I think of writers like Franzen- different from you and me who waddle in the lowlands. (Well, just me maybe, but you get my meaning.) Franzen inhabits that high ground where few get to be. He has earned it, and did it his way.
And why he strikes a nerve is because when we’re done flailing from down there, we know he’s telling the truth. Kind of like a Jeremiah for our times.

I've got to deeply respect this man, even though I haven't read any of his stuff, regrettably. I do find Facebook handy and blogging is fun because I get to type down my thoughts. But ask anyone who knows me, I'm rarely on Facebook for a long period of time, I don't have a twitter and I rarely use my phone. I prefer to think. And I also fear a world where people no longer do. I see some of that happening right now.

Middle School teachers already know that deep thinkers are a rare breed.

I've never read anything by Jonathan Franzen, but I loved your post. It was a little scary how true everything you wrote is.

The time to think about what you are writing is a luxury lost to most of us. Oddly, the thing he dislikes, ebooks, may be the thing to bring him back.

I have actually appreciated his social commentary more than his fiction. I find it interesting that you see yourself as so different from him, Nathan. Yes, there's the whole social media thing, but that's nothing, really. You're both thinkers; that trait just manifests itself differently in each of you.

Thanks for this post. Insightful stuff. I'd love to hear him speak some day.

My husband is a thinker--people often miss his great insights because they won't wait for him to think before he speaks. Like Franzen, he eschews social media, but he does e-read! It's more about not having any more space to store print editions though, and not particularly about loving his Kindle Fire.

I get where Franzen is coming from, and while I could never give up my smartphone and everything that comes with it, I am often reminded (usually when I leave my phone at home by mistake) how life goes on even without Twitter, Facebook, etc. Sometimes I enjoy taking a day or two off from social media. But give it up completely? Never. I just have to be careful not to let it replace human interaction and quality reflection time. And I should probably stop tweeting while driving, even if I am using voice-to-text.

I understand that part of what he is saying. That said, he strikes me as very New York and you strike me as very California.

I live in New York (and love many things about it), but in terms of attitude, I think California is best!

I understand Franzen. I agree with his assessment of the 'noise' of Twitter and Facebook.

"Franzen thinks. I think he fears a world where people don't."

I do too.

I really enjoyed The Corrections. I don't have an opinion on the controversy over some of his remarks, other than being aware it exists.

I love ebooks, but I just don't get Twitter.

I like to have some music playing when I write. Pandora Radio, usually. It can serve as white noise, helping to block out other distractions.

I think about my books when I run. There's a zen to the rhythm of footsteps and breaths that helps clear the slate and look at plotlines and characters from a perspective you can't get when you're deep in the manuscript itself, distracted by the line edits and other minutia.

Good grief, this post is brilliant. I love what you say about him here, but mostly I love that you have proven a point that cannot be driven home enough. We've got to take the time to understand each other. We don't have to agree - but it's so beautiful when we can understand. I just love this. Love, love, love.

LOVE this post!

Keep in mind that the important thing in writing is the writing itself. It makes little difference whether the book is published traditionally on paper or electronically on a reading tablet. What matters is the words and how they are formed into sencences and paragraphs and chapters and so on. Whether you like e-readers or despise them you still have to write a good story and come up with good characters.

@Roger Floyd: exactly!

I agree on the buzz of culture - sometimes we need time to just think.

I accomplish the most with my writing with no TV or music on in the background. You'd think this was a no-brainer, but it's instinct for me to turn *something* on as filler that half the time I don't realize it.

I think he has a legitimate fear. As a culture, we've forgotten how to sit still and be silent. We use those little moments to connect to social media or other distractions (far more frequently than we need to) because we're afraid of being bored. We don't know how to take a few moments to be alone with ourselves and our thoughts. I resisted getting a smart phone until last week because I was sick of seeing people browsing theirs instead of interacting with the world, and already I've had to resist the temptation to get too sucked in.

I do love social media, though. It is a useful tool for communication and information discovery. However, we need balance in our lives. Total absorption in the online world *can* limit our ability to be quiet and think deeply, but there are also enough benefits that I can't wholeheartedly endorse Franzen's fear. We need to learn to live with the noise and to take breaks from it.

Excellent points - and cool for you to admit some dissent on your part.
There are different ways to be a thinker, so we must be careful when classifying this one or that one. The question for me is: are these social media and little devices withering our ability to think autonomously? How convenient for the purveyors of the dominant social paradigm if they are.

but maybe people feel better after staying up too late reading than they do watching poker because reading is socially approved, and poker is not?

and a lot of reading is no better than noise, too.

i personally don't tweet or FB or any of that, and i keep a blog just for book reviews for my Uncle John. i don't have a cell phone. i don't want any of that because i dislike noise, precisely as you say.

and i too fear a world where people don't think, but i suspect that is just human nature--lots of people don't, and never did. social media is just a highly refined tool for not-thinking, if that's what one wants to use it for.

but this blog post is proof that social media can also actually make a lot of people think :-)

thanks, nathan--you totally rock!

I met him in 2010. He didn't smile when we had our pic taken (partly because my phone was playing up).

I took a class from him in the mid-90s. He was really, really passionate about literature and good writing. No matter how curmudgeonly he appears in his public persona, I remember his love of words and books.

Thanks. I just heard John Irving speak at ALA & I loved hearing his close. He talked about how his son claims that he writes what he fears, and how he things most great writers do. I wonder if great writing often comes in that painful silence we like to avoid with media--that silence where we are forced to deal with what we fear most. Just a thought. Thanks again for sharing.

Brilliant. This is brilliant. I can tell you enjoyed writing this.

Love it. I'm as addicted to the internet as anyone (I'm here, right?). Yet I crave those moments too. I often shut off the wi-fi on my laptop as I write. The noise...is fun. But there is something precious in letting go of it.

I think it is very valid to be afraid of a world where very few people really think.

I think I straddle both worlds, probably thinking too deeply for some people's comfort and not quite fully committed to all "that stuff".

Great post.

Franzen may despise ereaders, but that doesn't stop him (or rather his publisher) from making his books available on Kindle. :)

I can't argue with someone who values deep thinking. And there's a place for curmudgeon's in the world, if nothing else, to remind us of what we are leaving behind, and to think twice about that.

It's sad to think that deep thinking must somehow lead to such despair. I'm too much of an optimist to believe that's the only possible outcome.

I disagree with him about ereaders, but I think he has a point about social media, which is basically that it's a low-common denominator activity in an culture that's already got too many things competing for your attention.

I agree about the noise. I love twitter, have a blog, and I've published in on-line journals. Given all that, I still feel that I sometimes spend a great deal of time on social media, when I could have read a book. I'm still looking for a way to blend social media into my days without becoming overwhelmed with noise. For me, the answer isn't to eliminate it completely. But I don't know what the answer is.

This hits me when in the rare time when the electricity is off. Totally off. No buzzes, hums, or whirs annihilating the beautiful silence.

I don't necessarily enjoy Franzen's work, but I fully agree with the idea that we should all -- really -- shut off the technology for a little while every day. I used to obsess about my email, and then I started doing a simple thing. When I've worked my one or two hours in the middle of the afternoon, I take my laptop and walk upstairs with it. I deposit said laptop on my night stand in its usual spot, and then I walk back downstairs and immediately engage in something non-technology related -- cooking, playing with my kids, laundry (I don't have a smart phone, so I can't check email on it and can leave it downstairs.) This has dramatically improved my obsession with checking email and staying online, it's helped me avoid those blinding headaches at the end of the day from staring at a screen too long, it's allowed me to give back to my family by being fully engaged with them without being distracted by my computer, and I find myself refreshed and recharged when I return to my computer in the evening after the kids have gone to bed. All good things. Sometimes physically removing the distraction is all it takes to make a change.

Very thought provoking post, thank you. And I don't mean that in an ironic sense. :)


I agree with Serenity. I think the very best thing about this post is it models empathy: by putting yourself in the shoes of someone who thinks very differently about something and trying to understand their perspective, and it's validity. That's challenging, but very worth it.

Jonathan Franzen is a genius. Like you, I have great respect for him as a writer. And Franzen’s not the only gifted writer who avoids the Internet. George R. R. Martin recently complained rather humorously about how much he hates updating his blog, and then gave one of his infrequent updates. I was shocked to discover how many more publications he’s working on in addition to A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE series. I swear that man writes more quickly than I read! Every book in A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE is long and complicated! Here’s his recent blog post, Monkeys on My Back. I have to admit I felt ashamed and saddened over my completely inferior level of productivity in comparison to Martin’s current list of upcoming publications, and those are in addition to everything else he’s already published. I’ve been traveling a lot the past few months and have slowed down quite a bit on my Internet posting. I hope to resume more chatting on the Internet in September, but I’m going to take breaks like I did when I was traveling. There’s a lot of really great stuff on the Internet, but there’s also a tremendous amount of noise and polarization on both the Internet and TV that takes away the opportunity for deep and reflective thought. I think that to add depth to one’s thinking, there needs to be an abundance of quiet, thoughtful, reflective time.

I LOVE his work, but not his attitude. And I can't live without checking into foursquare at least five times a day. Social media allows us to think in a different way. It's not that we're not thinking at all. I can get just as lost in thought looking at maps on foursquare as he can looking for birds. And, if he hadn't made the money he did on the first book he wouldn't have been able to spend ten years writing the next. Luck played a large part in his life.
And we should All be so lucky.

Huh... very interesting. Thank you so much for sharing your opinion on this.

I can see both sides of the argument. On one hand, there are so many voices telling new writers, "You've simply GOT to be on social media." And I understand the reasons for (and potential benefits of) building a platform. Also social media can be a lot of fun.

But for all the time a new writer spends promoting themselves on FB, Twitter, etc., it seems for the most part to have about as much effect as putting a message in a bottle and tossing it in the ocean, where it gets lost among bumper stickers and pictures of kittens. And that's time that could be spent writing.

I agree with your (and potentially Franzen's) assessment about noise, but my problem is that his criticisms of so many things strike me as coming from a place of deep ignorance.

You don't have to like social media - heck, I've given up on blogging because I realized I HATED it - to see and understand the value, especially the value for those in the publishing community.

For every person posting an instagram'd photo of their breakfast on Twitter, there are people posting original, creative, compelling content - whether it be informative or merely entertaining.

And quite frankly, his assessment of e-books just sounds like the Old Guard refusing to accept the fact that the world changes and so does everything in it. That kind of attitude may be born out of resistance to change and general curmudgeonness (I just made that word up, you're quite welcome), but it's perpetuated by ignorance. Often willful ignorance.

Of course, Franzen cares not at all what I have to say about him since (1) I've never read his works and (2) I am saying this in a comment to a blog post, so I'm just another airheaded, attention-seeking 20something nattering about on the internet.

I find Franzen both endlessly fascinating and comically obtuse. I'll tune in every time he opens his mouth.

Franzen pauses to think and in those pauses a great deal is happening. I met him briefly last year and your post sparked a post of my own with a small social media twist. http://theparadigmshuffle.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/is-social-media-the-antithesis-to-thinking-bransford-franzen-me/

What a great blog post! One of your best. As someone who barely watches TV and enjoys her yoga, I think people get intimidated by silence, but some quiet time and deeper thinking would probably help with the anxiety and pressures so many of us feel. I disagree with Franzen's overall points about social media, but agree it can get noisy quickly. We have the power to switch off when we want to; it's just that many of us choose not to. I thought it was sad to see so many kids logging on to Facebook while I was vacationing in Mexico...you're in Mexico with dolphins! Get off the computer and go for a swim!

Nathan, I read your posts every day, but have never commented on them. But I felt like I needed to on this one.
Nice.
I'm very glad you were there to hear Mr. Franzen in person so you could impart this bit of wisdom to the rest of who weren't. It's a truth that we need to be a culture of thinkers and not mindless automotons(sp) staring at glowing screens. It's kinda scary because we begin it all at a pretty early age with all the electronic learning devices out there for toddlers.
I have to agree that Mr. Franzen makes a good point.

Beethovenfan

I have not watched television or listened to the radio (until last night when I had to have news about the Colorado fires burning south of us) since last February. The thinking and creativity that has unleashed has been fun and like being on a roller coaster.

I have discovered especially that I am more often now thinking my own thoughts rather than arguments and ideas planted there by the latest talking head. This has been true freedom. I'm not sure I will go back to being just a viewer or listener.

Nathan, you gave us a real insight into a person the whole world wants to make noise about!

Brilliant. Guys like him need guys like you to interpret them to the world. There's just too much disconnect between them and the common man but the common man needs them all the same.

Great post.

I was out walking on the beach earlier this evening and I saw a woman walking on the beach and talking on her cell phone. It reminded me of this post which I had read earlier today and it got me to thinking about what is really going on here.

Back in the early 90's I took a daytrip up to Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. There was a young woman excitedly calling her parents on her cell phone. (This was back when cell phones were very expensive and hardly anyone had them.)

At that time it was really cool to be able to call someone from the top of a mountain. And those of us around her where smiling and thinking how cool it was to do that.

Nowadays, it's more like: Jiminy Christmas can't you turn that dang thing off for a few minutes and enjoy the scenery. Sheesh.

So getting back to the woman on the beach walking with her head down and talking on her cell phone, she was missing an absolutely beautiful day at the beach; not a cloud in the sky, the water was a gorgeous blue green, a soft wind, warm water. Why bother taking a walk on the beach if you're going to stare at the sand and talk on your phone?

The other thing you miss when you have your ear or your fingers glued to your phone is the social interaction with strangers. This is more true in a small town or in a neighborhood, than in a large city, but when I am out walking on the beach or wherever, I smile at someone when I pass them. It's a brief acknowledgement that they exist.

Sometimes, if there is a reason to I have a little chat with someone on the beach. The last time I was there I met a woman who had moved down to Boca from the northeast. She was curious about a piece of coquina rock that was being pushed around by the surf. And so I told her about the rocks that are exposed at high tide and yadayadayada. If either one of us had been talking on a cell phone, that conversation wouldn't have taken place. Those little bits of social interaction are good for our health and well being.

And if I don't want to talk to anyone when I am out and about, then I don't make eye contact.

How sad it is that we've become so attached to the internet that we're missing the beauty around us and the chance at meeting someone new.

A tweet from Sarah led me to your post here. Just last night I said to my husband, "I think I need to unplug from the internet for a while. It's swallowing me up."

Like you, I'm a fan of technology and quiet, but lately, the quiet has been replaced with a head full of useless information. Not actual noise per say, just heaps and heaps of nothing.

Reading this solidifies last night's comment to the husband. I need to unplug. Let's see if I actually do it though....

Well spoken, Nathan. Franzen doesn't need platform building, he doesn't need social media, he's the nation's
pre-eminent author. Why should he waste his time on Twitter and Facebook? OTOH, an obscurity such as myself must devote serious time to the Tweet and the Meet.

Loved this. So. Much. Thanks for posting it.

While I can't speak for Franzen, I can certainly own up, myself, to a fear of noise. Much as I value and enjoy technology and social media, it took me forever to convince myself to get on Twitter, and then I had to swear off it because it constantly broke up my mental processes.

Being the noise-fearing, contemplative type affects my reading style and relationship to ebooks, too. While I do read on my Kindle, it's endlessly frustrating because I don't like to just read one novel and move on to the next, I want to re-read parts and think through the story. It's hard on a Kindle to just flip back a few pages and go over a scene again, or to hunt out the particular section of the book that I'd like to re-read--perhaps five or ten times--after I've finished. If I didn't think to add the bookmark in the first time....

And all that's in spite of my wholehearted belief that ebooks are awesome, that they provide a lot of great opportunities for readers and writers alike.

I suspect that while the distracting world of connectivity has both benefits and dangers for everyone, it's uniquely hazardous to us introverted, meditative folk, and we just have to put hard limits on the noise levels in our own lives.

Though I must admit that for research, the perilous Internet is an introvert's paradise: nearly all the information you could ever want, without once picking up the telephone. ;)

I fear a world where people don't exercise and take care of themselves.

I fear a world where people don't get out. When I recently traveled to South America, I saw more Europeans than Americans, and I wondered why.

I fear a world where people spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing. Life is worth living, and while planning is nice, you still gotta execute.

It's be a long time since I've read a blog that has so delighted me as much as yours on Jonathan Franzen. It is not often we see someone willing to open his heart and mind to what he might otherwise dismiss. It was both impressive and encouraging, for I, like Franzen, tend to see a good bit of darkness on the horizon, that we do need to explore and make conscious choices about. Hats off to you, Nathan. What a fine example to your readers.

Very, very well said. He's a brilliant writer who produces amazing fiction. If turning off the noise is his secret, it's a message worth listening to.

If your books aren't hand copied in Latin by an order or Benedictine Monks, you're just phoning it in.

Great blog, Nathan. To answer your question, I think they are a tad cranky and will probably come around to the tech side of things. After all, I'm sure they all have cell phones, remote controls instead of antennas on their TV and probably even listen to I-tunes. LOL

Wow, those are some cranky pants writers!

I guess Gutenberg's press was high technology in his day.
And the internet is here to stay. How we use it is up to us.

Maybe it's just that writers are introverts by nature.

Maybe it's the loss of thoughtfulness that comes with technology?

Maybe it's because these authors don't have to join social networking--us newbies are required these days :-)

I embrace technology, but sigh when something new comes along (like Pininterest--come on, I just figured out how to work Facebook).

Ray Bradbury has since changed his mind. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/30/fahrenheit-451-ebook-ray-bradbury
People are always suspicious of the new thing. Just give them some time.

I think age might have something to do with it. A lot of the younger writers have embraced the technology, while some of the older ones used to doing things in a certain way or manner of writing for years are more averse to change - until someone gets around to explaining the benefits to them.

They'd better all change their minds or accept being very poor in ten years.

For me, in person socializing is much better than "chatting" on Facebook and so is holding a bound book in my hand better than reading an e-book. Being on the computer feels more like work - interacting with a person or a book is relaxing at least for me.

They are just bitter because they chipped their favorite quills on their monitors.

I still hold that college professors are the ones who are pushing back at technology. Refusing to use anything besides powerpoint, not sending out emails, etc.

But on the writer front, I'd say we're in transition. it's not that literary writers are completely averse to the idea of an online book world, but rather they are trying to get used to the idea. I mean, even the publishing world is still trying to adapt to the e-book. It'll just take some time for things to settle down again.

I don't completely disagree with the notion that there is some evil in technology. Or at least that technology makes it easier for people to do evil things.

On the other hand, I completely disagree about Facebook. I mean sure, the company and some of its policies aren't perfect, but it allows me to stay in touch with friends who live across the country with more ease than any other tool in history.

What do you think of Google's new Word Verification, Nathan? Have you had to use it yet?

I think some of these writers believe that the users of internet technology are not in their target market.

I am sure they're still getting used to the whole thing.

As a grad student in literature who is also an aspiring science fiction/fantasy author, as well as a high school English teacher and a technophile, I have often thought that the majority of "literary" writers have tremendous sticks up their rear ends. I rarely read the sort of self-important pedantry from "genre" writers that I do from the so-called "important literary figures," with the obvious exceptions Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, who still eschews the Internet and types his stories, last I heard, on a manual typewriter.

I think it comes from their need to think their work is something more than storytelling. If they don't convince themselves that they're doing something important, they might realize they're no better than TV writers, and then what would they do with their smug sense of superiority?

This also ties into our society's need to seperate stories between "Important Work" and "Entertainment," as if the two can't be the same. People who buy into this forget that Shakespeare was the pop culture of his time, and would doubtless be writing (brilliant) television today.

They're just chicken because they can see the end coming. Rather than dodge the knife coming for their neck like everyone else, they choose to stand firm and say "To hell with dodging. That's not real. Dodging isn't standing." Good riddance to all those dinosaurs.

I love Franzen, but he writes a book a decade and laughs all the way to the bank. Who on earth has that kind of a sweet deal? If I were him, or John Iriving, or any other authors who've found a great thing and have milked it for years, I'd be against technology, too.

When telephones first came out, there was a time that the boss did not dare use one. That was the work of his secretary. Twenty-five years ago I worked at a company where the CEO didn't have a computer, but everyone else did. Not his job.

With the evolution of each technology, the same comments were made. But there is an entire population out there that has never grown up without a cell phone or the internet. All of the books on my e-reader have saved at least one tree. I'd say that some say we're all going to have to wake up and small the Kindle, but by that time we'll probably start having books transmitted to the thought centers of our brain.

Bradbury sounds like a delightful grumpy old man in the quote you provided. "[The internet]'s not real. It's in the air somewhere." That's just brilliant.

I don't know... I feel like things are always going to change. It seems a bit pretentious to state that serious readers read print. I prefer print books to ebooks right now, but I know I'm still reading the same story as someone with a Kindle. I think.

This post made me think. Thank you.

I'm not sure the writers you've quoted here are all technophobes. They are specific in their comments and it is difficult to dismiss them out of hand even when one does embrace social networking as a medium for writers.

Facebook can be dull. And I found myself thinking about "looking owned" as Smith puts it. As for Franzen's comment about e-books, it is a larger question that he raises: taking the time to let work inhabit us as we read it. E-books don't necessarily preclude that but the idea that you have a battery life on the device you are using does, in fact, change the reading experience.

I see the same thing that these writers and that many commenters seem to acknowledge: when we embrace what is next, we have to consider if, when, and how to let go of what is. It may take a little time (as it did for Bradbury) or we may find ourselves looking at new kinds of writing that use the social media even as they use us. I think "420 Characters" by Lou Beach is a fine example of this, as is Margaret Atwood's use of Twitter.

I suspect that the real difference between "serious" writers who reject electronic media or appear to do so, is simply that they are more private people to begin with. And they have limited time. It helps all writers to consider how best to use that time and how best to connect.

The internet is the home of mass consumption and mass culture - the common denominator (sometimes the lowest common denominator) is what makes it big on the internet.

And that is not (typically) literary fiction. It's more of a niche market, these days, and is somewhat reliant on traditional forums that support it as important culture.

I think literary writers are probably a little fearful of the literary free-for-all of the internet, of being a small fish in a really big media pond. There's no Amanda Hocking self-pub success stories among literary writers, at least that I've heard of (though I'm sure there's a few doing well in this new market).

I think the old system supported literary fiction, both in terms of exposure and financial support. It was assured a place at the table. The new system? Nothing is guaranteed. And that's probably pretty scare at a time when mass culture seems to be moving ever further away from literary fiction (at least in North America).

Spot on. I don't presume ever to rank among the likes of the literary authors you quote here, but my manuscript is getting a healthy bunch of rejections from editors for being "too literary." As a result, I'm starting to consider the ebook route, although making sure to get proper editing along the way. But then folks make me doubt my idea, like the well-established and straight-talking agent I ran into the other day who, having read a couple of chapters from said manuscript, said: "Don't do an ebook. Only as a last resort. Your book is too good." That's flattering and all, but I wonder, how long are "literary" and "e", or technology, going to continue to look at each other askance from across some divide?

In 50 years it won't be an argument at all, the ones arguing will mostly be dead or too old to argue or care. Times change whether we want it to or not. Arguing about the lack of merit in it isn't going to make it go away. Embrace it or don't, but it's going to thrive and grow and someday we'll have computers in contact lenses and data pumped directly into our brains. And in 50 years, they'll be talking about how it was so much better when we were on Facebook.

Elizabeth, you bring up the point of battery life. Have you ever used an e-reader? Even with active reading and a lot of syncing, you will find it takes at least two weeks to drain their batteries. Normally the battery lifespan can be a month or more.

Heck, you'll usually change the batteries in your reading light far more often than that!

The batteries on e-readers don't in themselves mess with the reading experience.

What do I make of this? Facebook sucks. Smart people, some of whom are writers, recognize that. Twitter is much better, and smart people, some of whom are writers, recognize that. And as an unrelated note, some writers are iffy about ebooks.

I don't think I would lump all of this under "technophobic."

But seriously, Facebook is terrible. A terrible software, a terrible system.

I think there needs to be a balance. Sure, I love the convenience of e-books, but I still relish the smell and feel of a book in my hands.

And though some part of me agrees with with the comments made about social networking, I also have to note that if it weren't for Facebook and Twitter and the fact that everyone and their grandmother (literally) has quick access to publicly speak their mind, it has forced those of us who fancy ourselves clever to be that much cleverer.

As far as Colson Whitehead's comment about the internet keeping us from finishing our novels... I'm sorry, but I can find any numerous ways to distract myself from getting any writing done. But the internet did give me http://writeordie.com/ so I consider that a win.

Dude.
Tao Lin is lin-tastic.
Go Knicks.

Of course lumping them all together is dangerous and unfair, but I'm going to go with fear. And I can only say that because as a new author with my very first book hitting shelves in May, I am slightly terrified of the e-book business myself. Not that I haven't embraced it. I love my Kindle, but I do wonder just where we authors will be when the cookie does crumble.

I think, for a lot of people, there comes a point in life where "New" becomes synonymous with "Bad." You get comfortable enough in life and suddenly those things that come along and change it are no longer opportunities but threats. The status quo is more important when you have somethign to lose. This is why older generations look back on the younger generations and say "Those Damn Kids!" even though their parent's generations said the same thing of them.

I don't think it has as much to do with the culture of literary writers, especially since most of the writers you included are exactly young. Franzen and Egan are in their 50s. Zadie Smith is almost 40 (old enough to remember life before the Internet). David Foster Wallace would turn 50 in a few days if he were still around (how's that make you feel?).

I think it has more to do with finding comfort, which often leads to complacency which, in turn, can lead to a protectionist mindset.

How many up-and-coming literary writers are anti-tech? Phillip Roth will continue to get his checks with or without Twitter. The unknowns...they're more likely to see the benefits.

Technology, the Internet, Social Media and other New Fangled Things(tm) are just tools. They aren't good. They aren't bad. They just are. It's how we use these tools that give birth to good and bad outcomes. Like anything else in life, its where we choose to put our efforts and our time that make the difference.

I'd love to hear the literary crowd talk about THAT.

Great post, Nathan! Appreciated that you talked about this. And loved that you pointed out that "new stuff is cool".

Because it is!! :)

I think Bryan Russell nailed it. It's anxiety.

The changes in the book world are probably scary for some Lit writers.

I think they may fear that the democratization of books will push literary fiction into a very small corner or make it disappear altogether.

I would argue that literary fiction is already in a very small corner.

E-books will expand the book world tremendously, but there will still be a place for literary fiction, with it's artistry and innovation. Those who love it and award prizes, like the Nobel prize, as a small example, will keep it alive and thriving.

Literary fiction writers may also reach new audiences with the e-book, and they might make more money, too, so, they may find that they like the new book world once they get used to it.

I agree with F.T. Bradley. Writers are introverts, most of us, and certainly the older ones among us have a fondness for the touch and feel and smell of paper, a love of bookbinding and design, a sense of connection to history through the books we handle. So even if we are willing, out of need or desire, to publish our book in ebook form (guilty), we still feel guilty about it, as if we have cheated on our old friend, the book made of paper.

At least I do.

I haven’t read the articles you link to yet, but in response to this post I would point out that people who see themselves as intellectuals are often critical of what they see as popular--especially when, as in this case, the field from which they draw their identity is heading down a wildly popular but unpredictable path. All cultural shifts meet with derision, and even those of us who embrace certain changes might benefit from considering them with doubt as well as hopefulness. (After all, as things change, we always gain and lose.) But, when it comes down to it, the future happens no matter how comfortable we are in the present, and I believe those who choose to meet it with enthusiasm and cleverness despite their misgivings will be happier as it comes.

I work in a public library. Right now, at my branch, we’re seeing more patrons than ever, but I have no delusions about how the future decrease in the printing of both popular and literary books will challenge our library system. As long as librarians and library users value the role of the public library, though, I keep faith that it can live up to its value. It’s up to the public library community to figure out how to do so, even if we find ourselves uncomfortable.

And on an aside--If Franzen really means to assert that serious readers only read print, all I would say is that he seems to be great at sticking his foot in his mouth. Maybe he likes it that way, and I doubt it will lose him any readers. I still hope to read him one day, and I might even do it on my Kindle. :)

Oh my holy crap.

I think people who write about how much they hate facebook are far more ruined & time-wasting than those of us who check in real quick (oh, look! my SIL had a baby!) and MOVE ON with our very real, very fulfilling LIVES :)

My point in a nutshell: writers, settle down.

Nathan,
I suspect there's several reasons for the criticism of social networking sites. One may have to do with the fact that it's something new, and authors are used to doing things their own way, so having to change how they market their books is difficult for them and requires their taking time to learn all about it. Second, authors are frequently solitary people, used to working alone most of the time, and now here they are, having to take time to interact with others which they may find difficult to do, and may take time from their writing. Third, it may stem from the fact that publishing houses are abandoning authors more and more and putting marketing and promotion duties on the author, and well-established authors like Franzen react angrily by denigrating the social networking sites, even though those aren't the real cause of their anger. As a new writer myself and not published in fiction, I'm appalled and disgusted at the way writers are treated by publishers. It's getting harder and harder to get published these days, but the social networking sites are not to blame. I'm probably older than any of the writers you mentioned, but I use and embrace Facebook (though not Twitter, I do think that's for the birds). After all, Facebook is how I get to your blog through the updates that come through my Facebook page.
Enough said.

If my 75 year old father can embrace the Internet then everyone can.

Much, I suspect, is due to people insisting that, say, print is dead and the books that they love are on their way out. No one likes to hear that something he or she loves is obsolete and needs to be thrown away, especially if he or she still sees value in it. I think that a lot would come around to the idea of "E-books/Kindles/social networking aren't THAT bad" if the technophiles would stop insisting that e-books and Kindles and such are not only valuable but the only possible future...indeed, the only future worth having.

No one likes to hear that the things that they love will cease to exist in a few years, and good riddance. Of course they're resistant to that attitude! It's human nature to cling to what you love and to fight to preserve it, especially if you feel that it's being threatened.

And, to be honest, social networking on places like Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter is not very social. People post comments on Facebook (and on Blogger)--but there are no threads of comments; you can't have a conversation in writing with someone. I have seen no conversations on Tumblr; people post, people like the post and people re-blog the post. Twitter is limited to 150 characters. I think that a lot of writers see social networking, in many cases, not as promoting communication and thought but as curtailing both.

The Allegory of the Cave comes to mind.

I am a debut author who is published in both print and e-book. When I first saw my debut title up on Amazon it was great thrill. I e-mailed all my friends and told them they could pre-order!!!

Then my release date came and I immediately made the rounds of all the local B&Ns. Discovered my book was on the New Releases shelf! Equally thrilling! I took a jpg of my book with my iPhone and posted it to my blog page on my website!

I think I love both high and low tech. Not sure that one without the other would be as wonderful.

The music and sound industries already went through this.

In 1994 a tape transfer house my production was using had a sign on their counter that read "The Future of Digital is Analogue".

Needless to say they are out of business.

Well, lit writers do tend to be big on tradition - paper over word processors,plots with cerebral rather than visceral entertainment (if it's meant to entertain at all)... but the Internet is about laughing at silly stuff, learning highly interesting but completely useless facts... we DON'T worry about the human condition. We have fun, and a great deal of it involves zero intelligence. Zero personality too, maybe, and lit writers fear that. Their issue is that so many of them completely dismiss the web - they refuse to wait around for the benefits. And I think that hurts their readership.

Hi,

I've completed a manuscript, and I just wanted to know whether it would be okay to walk into a literary agent's office and query in person. I live in manhattan.

With my best,

anon-

Strongly, strongly advise against it.

I'm an aspiring lit author and I'm on twitter. So are Lauren Groff (author of the gorgeous forthcoming Arcadia), Jami Attenberg, and the much-anthologized Sherman Alexie. It becomes more difficult to market yourself as a lit writer using online tools such as twitter and blogs because your audience isn't necessarily online, unlike, perhaps, YA, which has an established online community. Most of my preferred agents aren't on twitter, they don't have blogs. It's just a different community that has different expectations as to how to market your writing. For me, publication in a little mag will mean more than cultivating a following of thousands as far as my career goes. Do I think that lit writers should ignore the internet? No. But I don't think that Zadie Smith is entirely wrong in her assessment.

Thank you Nathan. I'll go the conventional query route. It was tempting to walk in since these agents' offices are mere blocks from me haha.
Thanks again. It's a great resource you have here for would-be writers.
Yours,

In a slightly different vein, it also brings to mind the question as to whether established literary writers are willing or would be able to write convincingly about technology. We can't imagine 19th century literature without the epistolary device, but it's hard (for me) to imagine serious literary works involving social media sites, text messaging, or any reference to technology which might be dated in another two years.

On the matter of Facebook. Sorry, I don't make friends that easily. If Facebook allowed me to indicate "acquaintances", I'd be just fine with it.

On the matter of E-books. Battery life and readability of the screen have been solved. What hasn't been solved is how to do the equivalent of flipping the pages until you see something interesting and then reading from there. I just did that with a book. Started in the middle of a paragraph that caught my eye and an hour later I was still reading. That's really hard to do with any of the e-readers that I've seen. That's also how I determine if I'm going to buy a book at a bookstore, and again, you can't do that with an e-book. (Of course that plays merry hob with the author's intent, but that's just too bad.)

Funny that when I read your title I thought the blog was going to be about writers being afraid of technology, as in still using typewriters instead of the computer. It took me years to learn how to double space.
But afraid of technological advances -- considering the number of writers tweeting, blogging, publishing e-books, putting out there trailers of their books, and altogether using every ounce of technology that seems (to my amateur eyes at least) available today -- I don't know if I'd agree with that.
But I liked your quotes of the grumpy anti-tech writers anyways.
www.lilcornerofjoy.blogspot.com

Interesting points, Nathan.

I don't think all literary writers are technophobic, just the ones who make the headlines.

As for the social networks, they need more security and better blocking/screening ability.

Nathan, Nathan, just when I have a blog post all planned, you write something that makes me want to blog my response instead. Why do you keep doing this to me? ;-) Kidding.

Okay, seriously.

First, I really hate that everyone here seems to think that young people have embraced the digital world and it's only old curmudgeons who aren't really that into it. I'm 33, I've had a computer since I was eight, and I'm in the paper and ink camp. Just sayin'.

Part of it is time. We only have so much, and learning how to use all this stuff and use it effectively takes a whack of time. And I don't think I'm the only one who feels like just when I get the hang of something, everyone has moved on to something else. (Pinterest? REALLY? Come ON.) I'd rather be writing.

Plus, there's the fact that Twitter and Facebook and the Blogosphere are basically just electronic versions of High School, where the cool and witty kids have bazillions of followers and the rest of us struggle to rack up more than five. A lot of us chose writing so we could get away from those uber-cool people and feel successful at our own thing.

And I think there's something to Zadie Smith's comment. Sure, I can read your witty posts on Twitter. I can read and "Like" your Facebook page and comment on your blogs. But if I met you on the street and acted like I know you, you'd call the cops and take out a restraining order, because the fact is that I DON'T know you. I just know what you choose to post about. I only know about a tiny, tiny piece of the man named Nathan Bransford. And you only know about a teeny, tiny piece of me, the writer named Ishta Mercurio-Wentworth.

When I meet my writer friends in person, I get the whole person: the facial expressions that say that even though they're putting on a brave face, the waiting is really getting to them; the stories about kids and spouses that are too private for the Twitterverse; the banter and fast exchanges that stimulate ideas; the look of their notebook as they scribble in it. And they get the whole me.

I love email: it helps me keep in touch with my close friends in Seattle and Connecticut and Australia and England. I use Twitter: it lets me chat briefly with other writers about specific topics at pre-arranged times. And I blog, regularly. And I read blogs.

But whenever I leave my office and meet with other writers in person, I am reminded of this: the internet, for all its wonders, is less. The internet me is a lesser me. And I only want to spend a very limited time being a lesser me.

Thank you for the very interesting article. Our writing world has changed so much with technology and will continue to change. http://www.amberlykclowe.blogspot.com

I don't think that's necessarily technophobia, that's critical thinking. What social media is doing to you, either good or bad, is something worth thinking about.

I think if they're not accustomed to using things like Facebook and e-books, then they're more likely to be wary about it. On the other hand, like you said, there are people from older generations who have embraced technological advances.
I'm kind of divided on this issue. I don't use Facebook or Twitter because I think both would take up too much time; they seem like a lot of work. But I like blogging because I think it's good writing practice and it's a good way to meet other writers.

Ray Bradbury is a shocker!

I think FB is a great way for a fiction writer to stay in touch with the day-to-day concerns of real people.

But I can also understand busy writers complaining about the amount of time eaten up by keeping up with FB friends.

Franzen is (in effect) telling poor writers not to shop at Walmart. He can afford to be snippy about ebooks. Without estories (short, not books) I might not be published at all. Without Facebook and Twitter, I'd have to grab strangers on the street and beg them to read my stuff.

Honestly? I think it's because most of these quoted writers are bad at social media so they disparage it. "You don't see me on Facebook or Twitter not because, god forbid, a genius like me doesn't *get* it, but because I *reject* it." I feel justified in saying this because I am bad at social media--at least in terms of connecting with potential readers. I'm not an extrovert, and I bet most lit writers aren't either. I've met plenty of writers (many YA writers) who are extroverts or otherwise self-promotion gifted, and they're *awesome* with social media. I appreciate that plenty of writers feel that way--but am self-aware enough to see that it's only the well-esatblished writers who can afford to reject social media in its entirety offhand--and that, in that old maxim "It's not you, social media--it's me."

I'd much rather connect with friends in person and save Facebook for stalking people to see who's gotten fat since high school...but I also recognize that the world is moving in different directions.

I am an aspiring literary novelist but I have to agree with what someone said above me- the professors, the MFA writers-in-residence, aren't helping the peaceful merger of lit writers and technology. I am a creative writing student and my prof is a self-proclaimed luddite- he has a feature cell phone and has just signed up for Facebook two years ago. He is 36 going on 37, so age isn't really a factor, I don't believe. I am 33 and have always embraced technology, am pushing my way through promoting my literary YA novel, etc. I'm not sure where the disconnect is for these writers, though they are the only ones, it seems making any money from their literary works. My professor is not.

As a lit writer I can tell you I don't think I am going to devote all my work to a strict literary formula. I want to make money at this. I want to do this for as long as I can. Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn, etc is a step I must take to ensure, or at least tilt the odds .85 degrees in my favor.

I wonder if it has something to do with what they view the role of the writer is. With the advent of media, many commercial authors have embraced it as a tool to connect with fans, and they consider connecting with fans and creating communities for their writing an important part of their job. But literary authors are probably more likely to consider their job solely "writing"; why should they reach out to the people who read their writing?

The 2 F's. Fear and frustration.
Afraid of new things.
Afraid to leave the classic ways behind.
Afraid we can't learn new ways.

Frustration at the amount of time taken away from writing to master and use new media.
Frustration that the brain changes (it's documented)caused by using the shortcuts available via new media will mean beautiful writing no longer has a place in society.

What is a book but a box of many characters? And what is a computer/the internet but a box of many more characters? I don't understand how it can even be considered limiting or superficial, especially in comparison to a traditional book.

I think the technophobia derives from feeling slightly threatened... well-established authors around before the digital age may be feeling a bit overwhelmed by the access people now have to fictional works - it ups the competition!

I say, "To each their own." I love holding printed books, and I love getting an e-book in 30 seconds. My book is available in both formats, and the printed version is selling better, because people still visit bookstores. So yay! But friends who are on my Facebook, who didn't know I'd written a book until they saw a post, enjoyed downloading right away. So I'm for all of it--whatever works best for the book! ♥ K. L. Burrell

I believe what we're hearing is the fear of established writers that their exclusivity is disappearing with the power of the big publishers who have supported them, and whose power is vested in print.

This attitude reminds me much of Aesop's fable "The Sour Grapes"- which because the fox could not reach them dismissed the grapes as being sour. Likewise, those who haven't a clue how to master Internet say the same thing.

I can see both sides. How's that for straddling the fence? My next gig will be politics. This conundrum reminds me of the setting of Fahrenheit 451. Yes, I will be that lady who goes up in flames for her books. I love to caress the pages, admire the art and care it took to create the actual book. Going deeper, I appreciate the actual experiences that lead to the stories I've enjoyed. A virtual adventure is never the equal of the real thing. How to describe the smells and sounds are tempered by what we've known in our past. Your past is not mine and vice versa. I appreciate technology for opening new worlds to me that I cannot afford or physically manage to visit. I appreciate the ease with which the internet makes possible for me to send my words out into the world. Like all things in life, there needs to be moderation. A melding of technology and experience, the virtual and the actual, is the best we can strive for. Afterall, the quill was once new technology.

Sorry to disappoint, but I agree with them. How can anyone who loves words and the richness of the English language read Twitter without a sense of revulsion?

"How can anyone who loves words and the richness of the English language read Twitter without a sense of revulsion?"

This sentence is less than 140 characters. Does it lack meaning and inspire revulsion?

A million poets would disagree with the notion that being brief necessarily means dull and meaningless.

"How can anyone who loves words and the richness of the English language read Twitter without a sense of revulsion? "

Well if that's your standard, how can you go anywhere without ear plugs or talking to anyone when the majority of the population butchers the language just by speaking daily without a sense of revulsion? Are you a hermit?

Twitter is not a genre of literature. It's social media. That means it's people talking. If you choose to avoid the global chit chat, that's a valid choice. Trying to compare it to literature, not so much.

*No offense to anyone writing their WIPs one status update at a time. There's no way to account for the artists. :)

I'm late to this discussion, but I wanted to chime in because I'm a literary writer, I'm 25, and I don't think I could ever read a book on an e-reader.

I've tried. Many of my friends have e-readers, and I've attempted to read books on both Kindles and Nooks, but there was something about reading on a screen that made my mind wander, and I generally gave up after only 15 pages. In comparison, I can read print books for hours without falling prey to any distraction. I love the feeling of pages under my fingers.

So why the attention deficit? I think I'm enough of a digital native that my mind subconsciously links words on screens with reads that are supposed to be quick and easy -- I can't read a long article online; that's not what the Internet is for. When friends send me manuscripts over 5 or 10 pages long, I have to print them out.

This is not to say that I'm a technophobe; I use Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress, and I'm the social media specialist at my day job. But I can see why established literary writers are leery of the advance of e-books and other technology. The "death" of the print book is something that brings me great sadness, too. When I chose to become a writer, I did so partly because of the desire to one day see my name on the front of a print book, and I knew that getting my name on the front of said book would take years and years of effort and rejection and, ultimately, validation. While I know that e-books take hard work, too, seeing my name on a screen seems like a much easier job: all I have to do is open Microsoft Word and type my name. The concept of having a novel released only as an e-book isn't satisfactory; it doesn't connote effort to me in the same way that a print book would.

I have no idea if any of this made sense, but the transition from print books to e-books -- the general dissolution of physical connection in general -- bothers me a lot.

"A million poets would disagree with the notion that being brief necessarily means dull and meaningless."

Brevity isn't the problem. It's the distortion of the language into unrecognizable gibberish such as this:

Great catch by @sullydish reader that Dr. George's objections to HHS regs =rejection of Cath principle of double effect http://bit.ly/AeGnrS

Criticus,

I respectfully disagree. I think that:

"Great catch by @sullydish reader that Dr. George's objections to HHS regs =rejection of Cath principle of double effect http://bit.ly/AeGnrS"

is a strange and beautiful language. A language with hidden meaning, that requires great effort; one must read it many times before it even begins to make sense.

However, regarding Twitter, I think you underrate it.

I'm late arriving to this conversation, but I thank you for posting about this. I see this all the time among both literary fiction writers and serious nonfiction writers. They're very resistant to social media. They see it as a time waster (maybe they're right). It's difficult to convince them of the benefits. I think Mieke was right in saying that literary fiction writers don't see people reading blogs as their target market. I say the more ways you can reach readers, the better. It can't hurt to try.