Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with authors

If you like Orhan Pamuk....

Morrigan — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:07:23 -0800

What author would you recommend to an individual whose favorite writer is Orhan Pamuk but who has already read all of his available works in English?

Help me identify this story.

uans — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:29:36 -0800

Please help me remember the title and author of a short story I read maybe 15 years ago. A handicapped woman, living with her sister and her sister's family, sees a man in church she feels quite sure is the devil. In order to get away from him, she struggles to regain the physical independence she had given up. (She had gone into a wheelchair because walking was possible, but too painful.) She does manage to become self-sufficient enough to move out on her own--and then wonders if it was worth it, after all. I am almost sure the author was Italian. Can anyone help?

Perhaps a chair coated with glue?

BitterOldPunk — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:09:03 -0800

With NaNoWriMo looming ever nearer, I would like to hear your best tips, tricks, habits, and techniques for staying chained to the keyboard. Realizing that the point is to get 50,000 words written, I've jettisoned all illusions of producing quality, publishable prose. My only goal is to finish without having to copypaste "All work and no play makes BOP a dull boy" five thousand times. I have a (rather vague) outline, I have some preliminary character sketches, and I have every expectation that the first ten thousand words will flow fairly quickly. But. I suck at follow-through. I have the attention span of the common housefly. So, writers: how do I stick with it, fight through discouragment and ennui, and produce 50,000 reasonably coherent words?

Note: I'm not looking for tips like "prepare moar" or "work your plan". I'm looking for how to stay motivated when the fun stuff stops and the hard work begins.

Are there any authors like Cormac McCarthy?

Bacillus — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:11:26 -0800

Which author comes closest to Cormac McCarthy? I am a great fan of Cormac McCarthy. I only read one book and instantly became a fan. I read a few more and loved his style.

Can anyone suggest an author who's like him?

PS. If anyone has a hardcover good copy (1st printing would be nice) of his "Blood Meridian" (Not book club edition) they would like to sell, please let me know.

Short passages of particularly strong or weak nonfiction prose?

cymru_j — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:04:34 -0800

In search of short passages of especially strong or weak nonfiction prose! I’m hoping to build a composition class around short examples of effective and in effective writing. I'm thinking of passages of about 1-6 sentences.

We'll look at excerpted passages as a class and analyze what makes them more or less effective. Maybe we'll even try rewriting them in various ways to note the effect.

Passages from well-loved (or well-hated) prose stylists are very welcome, but bonus points for writing whose quality seems surprising or out of context, i.e. poor writing where one might expect strong (from a respected magazine, author, columnist) or good prose that pops up in off-beat venues (blogs, advertising copy, tabloids, etc.).

Any comments on why said prose is effective or ineffective are also welcome.

Thanks very much, guys!

Author! Author!

SLC Mom — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:49:40 -0800

Please recommend authors who use fiction to convey religious beliefs, a la C. S. Lewis. Not looking for religious books. Just books with a spiritual theme conveyed in a story. Lord of the Rings would fit.

The Shack would not.

Thanks MeFi!

Art and culture inspired by a dream or vision, a la Coleridge's Kubla Khan?

lhall — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:27:48 -0800

I'm looking for examples of creative works which seem to have come from a place outside the artist's deliberate, conscious effort (be it the collective unconscious, drug-induced, the subconscious of the author finally culminating, whatever). Famously, Coleridge "received" his poem Kubla Khan while in the grip of an opium high, and wrote it all down upon awakening (or so he claimed, but for the purposes of this question, assume it's true). I can think of a couple of other examples where an author had a waking dream which inspired their work (Mary Shelley and Frankenstein) or where the contents of their work appeared to them fully formed (Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the town of Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude). Stephen King also wrote that he wrote Cujo while under the influence, and doesn't actually remember writing any of it.

Do you know of more examples of similar and tangential events, in any medium and for any creative person? Thanks in advance. (And sources for these stories are greatly appreciated if you have them handy!)

Am I doing this write?

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:33:26 -0800

In writing a research book, how far along should I be before approaching publishers, agents, etc? Help needed to get my nonfiction pop culture centric book into bookstores I am working on a research book that is beyond the scope of what most part-time writers would do. The book covers a popular pop culture topic. I have interviewed over 30 people one-on-one for the research and plan to interview over 20 more. My end result will be something similar to the book "Crystal Lake Memories" found here

I have written the first few chapters of this book now and I'm wondering what the next steps are. Due to the amount of painstaking research and the trouble of scheduling some of these interviews, I expect the research portion will take at least another year, perhaps more, and the writing can in many cases happen in parallel.

I would like to ideally approach the publishing branch of the media corporation who's pop culture work I am covering to see if there is interest on their side in publishing it "officially". From my interviews I have relationships with many of the principles at said corporation (yet they don't know the scope of my project, the real reason behind all these interviews, and they help me set them up anyway), and if they were interested it would also open more doors on research; however, I'm also worried about them seeing the idea and using in-house staff to do it without me.

All my research and writing is unique and certainly falls under "fair use" so I am certain other publishers could publish this book, but from what I've read in other questions that would involve an agent, etc.

So for non-fiction works like this, what is the protocol? Should I continue to work on the book until done and hope afterward someone is interested in the work?

If you have more questions I've set up the e-mail nonficfordummies@gmail.com

Thanks.

Help me drag my uncle out of the literary dark ages!

badmoonrising — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:04:13 -0800

My uncle recently mentioned to me that he's never read any book written by a woman. Apparently this is because he doesn't think they'll be any good - he seems to think women can only write romance novels. I find this both horrific and hard to believe, but he seemed serious. So, Hive Mind, I need your help in drafting a list of the very best books written by female authors. Help me teach him the error of his ways! I've checked out a few previous questions, but I am somewhat hampered in my list-making by the fact that many of the obvious classics (and most of the books that sprang to my mind) are books that I think he will not enjoy, e.g. the works of the Brontë sisters or Jane Austen, or even Toni Morrison.

Specifically, he likes crime novels and thrillers, and fast-paced storylines without too many descriptive passages. (Or, as he put it, books "where it doesn't take the author three pages to describe a table.") So suggestions vaguely along those lines would be especially appreciated. I immediately suggested Agatha Christie and Patricia Cornwall to him, but crime is not generally my preferred genre so I'm having trouble coming up with much else.

The books do not have to be thrillers, but I suspect he will abandon anything too romance/family-orientated. So no Pride and Prejudice or The Thorn Birds, please. We're coming up with a list for a rather conservative, old-fashioned, golf- and rugby-loving Englishman in his late sixties. (So no Tipping the Velvet either!)

So, AskMeFites, please fire away!

(Also, I'm well aware of how sexist and misogynistic my uncle may seem, and I'm not interested in hearing any commentary on that, thank you. I myself want to batter him over the head with something heavy until he sees the error of his ways, but he IS family and I love the guy. So if I can rein in my violent urges, then I hope AskMeFi can too.)

"Based on a story by my pal Shecky"

TheSecretDecoderRing — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:02:38 -0800

How often are the stories of a comic, novel, play, TV series, movie, or song conceived by the writer's friend, relative, acquaintance, neighbor, mailman, dog, etc? Writers get all the credit for their works (except in movies, where the director often ends up with a lot; and TV is often collaborative), but just how often is a given story entirely their own idea?

I remember some old anecdote about how Charles Schulz refused to accept story ideas from fans. And for legal reasons it's probably a smart choice for professional writers. But like a lot of people, IANAPW, but still harbor ambitions of coming up with the concept for the Great American Movie. (A lot of people in America, anyway.)

Not that I plan on hounding my friendly neighborhood screenwriter, but out of sheer curiosity, do you know of any instances where the premise behind a well-known show, movie, book, etc was conceived of in detail by someone other than the credited writer/creator... just an ordinary "civilian"?

A close example would be "Lost," which was roughly conceived by a then-exec at ABC, before being fleshed out by JJ Abrams and company. Now, if the general story arc of the entire series had originally been pitched to JJ by, say, his optician... that'd be even better.

Abbé B—, who came from R— in Italy

Busoni — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:24:36 -0800

Say I'm writing a story and I want to emulate the old practice of referring to proper nouns by initials: i.e. Dr. M— from the town of S—. Where and when did this start? Why did they do this? (It hides the person's name, but from the author's perspective, is it to give his story an air of veracity, as with Defoe and Cervantes's works?) Would some names remain hidden and others not? Do I hide the last name only? If a man came from Monte Cristo, would I write M— C— or simply M—? I want as much information on this as possible. The name of this practice, if there is one, might be useful.

Author interviews

Dumsnill — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:54:09 -0800

What is the best author interview you have found? I don't care about any particular genre, all I care about is: Do you have a favorite author? If yes: Do you have a favorite interview with that person? If so, can you give me a link?

If this is too chatfiltery, remove.

How to safely get an endorsement?

CollectiveMind — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:06:21 -0800

OK, I've posted on this subject before. Each time, I'm a little further along. Here is where I am right now. I've been working on a book since March. The idea upon which the book is based has been getting a lot of attention recently and has consistently been in the news for about four years. After a recent post about some impending national publicity, it was suggested that I create a proposal and find an agent to help distribute the book. The agent I found says that the marketing portion of the proposal needs to have endorsements about the book from authors a publisher would recognize. This is to prove that the agent isn't the only one who thinks the idea is viable.

So, I've searched the Internet for the email addresses of all of the authors of the books I compared to my own in the proposal. Agents want this done to show a publisher that few or many books on a subject might show market potential. Anyway, I've found the email addresses for the authors of about half of the books in my proposal.

Should I have any hesitation of explaining this possibly novel concept to established authors who write books on parallel concepts in hopes of getting their endorsement? Are their endorsements likely?

Wrapped Up in Books

troika — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 19:25:55 -0800

I need some new favourite writers! Please recommend some ones that I'll love as much as Mark Kurlansky and Italo Calvino, etc. I've read everything that Mark Kurlansky, Michael Pollan, Jared Diamond, Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Italo Calvino have ever put on paper (that I know of. I tend to get absorbed in writers). Recently I've enjoyed Boris Akunin, Umberto Eco, and Haruki Murakami. Thomas Pynchon, Simon Winchester, and Mark Monmonier are also beloved. What have you liked that are similar to any of those guys?

I really like single-item histories (like Kurlansky's Salt, Cod, etc) and geography/geology-related nonfiction.

What amazing books am I overlooking or unaware of? I need something new for my long train commute!

Thank you.

Are there successful multi-genre authors?

wackybrit — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:31:28 -0800

Are there any reasonably well-known (or even famous) writers who are truly multi-genre? It's very easy to find authors whose writing is predominantly in a single genre - horror (King, Koontz), fantasy (Tolkien, Rowling), crime (Crumley, Christie), romance, and the like. But are there any famous (or at least semi-known) authors who jump between genres regularly?

Variety doesn't seem to be a remarkable attribute in musicians (Sting, for example), but while I can think of writers who straddle or work with two distinct genres (Ballard, Dahl), I cannot think of any who have produced significant works in, say, all of horror, crime, romance, and sci-fi - and I would like to look into the works of any who have.

Women writers like Neal Stephenson, are there any?

exceptinsects — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:24:03 -0800

Women writers like Neal Stephenson, are there any? I love the way his books seem to be such a reflection of what he is interested in and wants to write about, and how he is perfectly willing to take 900 pages to explore whatever he feels like. Like, a lot of other writers would take out that section in Anathem about the folding chairs, or in Cryptonomicon about the cereal, etc. but those are some of my favorite parts.

Infinite Jest has a lot of this kind of thing too, (plus footnotes, yay).

However, lately I just feel like reading more women authors. No special reason, I guess.

So: long, digressive, complicated, somewhat humorous, fun novels that teach you stuff you didn't know about...but written by women?

So... not Hemingway.

zoomorphic — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 07:38:05 -0800

ProseFilter: Nabokov's Lolita was once hailed as "a love letter to the English language." I'm looking for modern and contemporary authors with similar aspirations. I have a hankering for prose almost to rich for my blood. I specifically love Nabokov's ability to draw tensile connections between object and literary signifier: in Lolita, skies are "heavenlogged," killers are "goatish," plain women are "terrestrial."

I also waded through Ada, and very much enjoyed Atonement, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Midnight's Children, Middlesex, Song of Solomon, and God of Small Things.

What else should I pick up?

And it wasn't just SF, that's just my bad example.

BitterOldPunk — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:12:22 -0800

Years ago I saw a website that displayed authors' names in a rotatable 3D space, with genre, style, and theme indicated by proximity. (Like Heinlein and Asimov were fairly close together, Wolfe, Lem, and Dick further away, but grouped nearer each other.) Users could add author info and modify the existing info. It was great for finding tips on what to read next. Anyone else remember this? What was it called?

Feed my literary appetite.

wavering — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:29:21 -0800

BookFilter: My reading list is getting very short and I'm looking to the hivemind to help me queue up a few more books to get me by. My interests are usually historical fiction or techo/sci-fi kinds of stuff. I just finished Prey by Michael Crichton. Other books that are up my alley are Into The Wild by Krakauer, The Historian by Kostova, 1984 by Orwel, Contact by Sagan.

What other viewpoint altering, brain inspiring, society questioning or can't put down books can you suggest to me?

Kate Chopin's "The Awakening"

madmamasmith — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:43:24 -0800

I am trying to get a better understanding of Kate Chopin's "The Awakening" **Spoiler Alert** I see it as a woman's discovery of her freedom and independence. The main character forsakes her role as wife and mother in late 19th century society and pursues her own happiness. I don’t really understand the juxtaposition of the men in the story. Her husband ,who she escapes, is not violent or demanding and reacts to her leaving rather well by my standards; showing there was little emotional investment in their relationship. Women cant initiate divorce yet I suppose, but Edna does the next best thing by moving out. The object of her affection, Robert, refuses to be with her even though she has left her husband (because he "loves" her).But Alcee Arobin has no problem being private or public with Edna. So what do all these different male characters represent? Please let me know your ideas, Thanks!!

Is there an equivalent of IMDB or Allmusic for books?

mairuzu — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:10:18 -0800

Is there an equivalent of IMDB or Allmusic for books? i.e. A site that lists all books written by a particular author with ratings, reviews, comments etc? English language based.

short story recommendations?

Salvatorparadise — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:53:47 -0800

What are your favorite short stories or short story collections, anthologies etc. Hi all. I'm interested in writing short stories, but really need to read more of them before I dive into this. What are some of your favorite short stories, anthologies or collections that I should check out?

I'm a reporter and write for a living, and wrote a book a few years ago (haven't tried to publish it, i'd like to try to write it again sometime to make it better) and want to begin writing fiction more seriously. I'd like to start with short stories but I haven't read very many, and that's a problem when one wants to write them!

help me out!

What American authors write about Spain?

mizrachi — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 07:42:44 -0800

What literature is written about Spain or the experience of living in Spain by American authors? This is for a class to be taught in Valencia called, "Spain through American Eyes."

CAY-muss, de-LEE-yo, NAY-bo-koff, PROWST

Darth Fedor — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 08:25:12 -0800

How do I pronounce some of my favorite authors' names? (Names inside.) J.M. Coetzee
Halldor Laxness
Junot Diaz
Kenzaburo Oe
Michel Houellebecq
Michael Chabon

Phonetics appreciated. Thanks!

Who Am I?

greenmagnet — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:16:50 -0800

My brother is being tormented by being unable to identify a mental image of a photograph of a man who he believes to be an author. He can't recall a lot of details, but here's what he has; I told him if anyone could help, it would be you guys, so don't let me down. :) - Male, relatively young, dark hair, beard - Probably an author, or if not, at least someone well-known - Possibly German or Russian, maybe of Jewish descent - Name may be Joseph or something similar, but not Stalin - Pretty sure it's a black & white photograph, which probably places him in the early 20th century I know this isn't a lot of information, but I figured it was worth a try.... Thanks!