D&D General No One Reads Conan Now -- So What Are They Reading?

[Bedrockgames]

On Lovecraft, I think people should really read the prose and decide for themselves but without letting other people get into their head (defenders or critics). He is definitely has prose some readers find difficult and intentionally archaic, and some readers find unskilled. I don't think he is unskilled. And I would defend him. Would I say he is as good as Poe? No. I think Poe is a much better writer. But lovecraft for me is very good at what he does and I don't think you can separate his prose from his concepts. The first story of his I ever read was the Festival, and it wasn't the idea that thrilled me, it was the way he presented this old yankee New England town, that was so insular it could harbor a secret black mass to strange creatures below a prominent Church. It was the descriptions that first caught my attention. I am sure there are better defenses of Lovecraft's prose than I could give, out there online somewhere

On the specific things like adverbs. I feel like people getting too picky about this these days. Adverbs exist and have their uses. It isn't a sin to incorporate them into a sentence. I understand the advice is you should use the right verb. But why? What if the sentence sounds better with an adverb? Or what if the author feels it gets the point across better? Or what if the author just likes how -ly words sound ? I am fine with this being advice. As I think it can help writers to think about these kinds of things. But one of my frustrations with the writing community these days is so many style suggestions have turned into hard rules.

 

[Imaro]

For me reading Lovecraft (putting aside the racism) is like pulling teeth... his stories feel like they could do with half the word count and suffer from overly long description. I find more contemporary authors who utilize his Mythos and its ideas to, in general, be a much better intro for cosmic horror.

 

[Clint_L]

On the specific things like adverbs. I feel like people getting too picky about this these days. Adverbs exist and have their uses. It isn't a sin to incorporate them into a sentence. I understand the advice is you should use the right verb. But why? What if the sentence sounds better with an adverb? Or what if the author feels it gets the point across better? Or what if the author just likes how -ly words sound ? I am fine with this being advice. As I think it can help writers to think about these kinds of things. But one of my frustrations with the writing community these days is so many style suggestions have turned into hard rules.

Sure, adverbs exist and have their place. In bad writing, for example.

I jest, but only in part. In teaching creative writing, adverbs are my bane, because 9 times out of 10 they aren't used because they are the best choice, they are used because they are the easy choice. There is almost always a more muscular verb that conveys a precise idea a lot better than just putting the word "very" in front of a more prosaic choice.

That's obviously not a hard rule; there are very few hard rules in language. But that one is generally good advice that you will get from almost every writer and writing teacher.

Lovecraft and Howard are both very amateurish writers. Again, I write that as a fan (a fan of their work, at least). I don't see why defending their writing skill when they are both obviously limited and inexperienced is a hill to die on - to me it feels like defending the Sex Pistols as great musicians when that obviously wasn't the point of the band.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hmmm...I have trouble with the latter statement.

To me, virtuosity implies skill. I love punk music (note the tattoo on my shoulder), so it's not like I think virtuosity is the be all and end all of what makes art good, but I do think that it is objectively measurable. Lovecraft has an extremely limited range, meaning that he has a few very predictable flourishes, he relies way too much on adverbs rather than finding (or knowing) stronger verbs, he's very expository, what dialogue he has seldom, if ever, comes across like actual people speaking, and his characters are barely characters.

This is kind of a side topic but I play guitar and used to play heavy metal. I would say my chops are not that shabby (or at least they weren't, these days my fingers have more issues than when I was young). A lot of virtuoso playing is really just learning relatively simple techniques. Finger tapping for example, is really easy once it is shown to you. You have to practice it like anything else, but one of the first things I remember learning was eruption. Sweeps are also kind of a simple hack to make it sound like you are playing faster. I tend to do a lot of hammer ons, pull offs and legato, which can create a fast, fluid sound, but is actually quite easy to do (especially if you know scales). The real skill in guitar is stuff like rhythm, groove, phrasing, knowing how to write something that is emotionally resonant. One thing I have noticed is there are a lot more virtuoso players these days because of the internet. And while many of them can blaze across the fretboard, play crazy things you wouldn't imagine, some of the stuff sounds like pure garbage because it just all technique. I don't think this connects to Lovecraft so much, but my point is, I think there is often a lot more skill and ability in punk rock than it gets credit for (and I say that as a metal player who never really got punk rock). A good guitar player does something and you say "Oh, I wouldn't have thought to do that". Tony Iommi isn't really known for virtuoso playing, but he is a talented guitarist with tremendous skill and probably one of the best riff writers and players out there (plus he founded a whole genre of music----and did it with two missing fingertips).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Lovecraft and Howard are both very amateurish writers. Again, I write that as a fan (a fan of their work, at least). I don't see why defending their writing skill when they are both obviously limited and inexperienced is a hill to die on - to me it feels like defending the Sex Pistols as great musicians when that obviously wasn't the point of the band.

I don't think it is worth having a drag down debate over. Like I said, people should read it for themselves and make up their own minds. I do think in a lot of these threads though things get repeated about them, and we end up with caricatures of their writings. That said, I understand at least why you would say this about Lovecraft. We could debate the merits of it, but he had a style that is divisive, and so fair enough. But I really do think you are being unfair to Howard. He writes nothing like Lovecraft, and his style is so readable and engaging. And I am not just saying that because the stories are good. There are writers whose books I like, but prose I don't, and I can say so (Jim Butcher for example, love his books, but not a big fan of his prose). But Howard's prose is one of the reasons I got to him. Again, people should him for themselves. But I do think he is an effective writer. Perhaps even a very effective writer ....or wicked effective if one prefers

 

[Autumnal]

I'm not really sold on this. Lovecraft is in the unique position of mostly being known for the things he created, and what other writers did with them. You could be dismissive of a more literary author's writing style but it would be hard to argue that say, McCarthy or Hemmingway or Roth are known more for their inventions than their writing style.

Lovecraft’s prose puts him in a tradition that includes the pulps, gothics, Poe, and like that. But his content is a particular fusion of elements that could barely have come together any sooner than it it. Maaaybe the late 19th century. But many later readers don’t at all grasp the extent to which Lovecraft was genuinely well-informed about cutting-edge science. There’s a bit in At The Mountains of Madness where he folds in an update to the known geology of Antarctica that came out after he started writing the story. He was up on experimental confirmation of relativity in the late 1910s. Likewise with biology and other sciences. Of his predecessors, the closest any come to matching his lore fu is Poe, and Poe was going off in a different direction.

Lovecraft took the idea of sinister mysteries in the world around it and generalized it. It’s not just thst lands of faerie and dream are not congenial to the human soul, or that there are singular manifestations of ancients passions and communities of lurking evil here or there. It’s that not a single part of the whole damn universe cares about us at all. No devils hunt for our souls. No Angel appeared at Mons to save our brave boys, nor anywhere else. Nirvana is a state of mind that has no consequence for your body’s interactions with the universe. And it’s also not that great evils prowl the cosmos looking for prey like us. They don’t care, 99.99% of the time. Occasionally some of us achieve imstrumental utility. Thst doesn’t end well for us. But then just being left alone in an uncaring universe ain’t the greatest, either. And Lovecraft turned this sense of the world, as well as he could, into art and inspired others to do the same

I’d there’d never been a Lovecraft, there still would have been Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Catherine Moore, and so many others. But it seems quite likely that in the absence of the particular fusion thst is cosmic horror, their talents would have led them in different directions and the field would be the poorer for it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There’s a bit in At The Mountains of Madness where he folds in an update to the known geology of Antarctica that came out after he started writing the story.

Now, with parts of Antarctica emerging from the ice, would be an ideal time to do a movie version.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

the absence of the particular fusion thst is cosmic horror

Nah, Cosmic Horror already existed, and arises naturally out of real world Quantum Physics and Cosmology anyway (if you think not mattering is a bad thing and not a good thing!). Lovecraft's writing style is much more distinctive than his ideas.

Query: is M R James known in the US?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In teaching creative writing, adverbs are my bane, because 9 times out of 10 they aren't used because they are the best choice, they are used because they are the easy choice. There is almost always a more muscular verb that conveys a precise idea a lot better than just putting the word "very" in front of a more prosaic choice.

Is this even a thing? In the US maybe? I spend my time encouraging kids to use adverbs. There are marks for it in the KS2 SATs.

 

[Dioltach]

Is this even a thing? In the US maybe? I spend my time encouraging kids to use adverbs. There are marks for it in the KS2 SATs.

I think it became a thing when Stephen King wrote in "On Writing" that adverbs are bad. Except he uses them himself too (apparently; it's been ages since I read anything by him).