[Dragaera] Cool Stuff Theory of Litterature was: (RE: Steven Erikson (was: Reading series))

[Martin Wohlert]

Eugene wrote: 
>>
>> By the way, Wolfe's starting point for TBotNS was apparently
>> wanting his hero's clothes to be fun to wear at a con.
> 
> That's just it -- somehow hearing something like that seems to
> downplay the *uncoolness* of TBotNS. I guess I might be getting worked
> up over details here, or maybe putting TBotNS up on some sort of
> pedestal, but, really, my earlier e-mail was a poor attempt to try and
> put into words the gut feeling I got when Philip said TBotNS shares
> what seems like such a simple philosophy with the Vlad books. They
> couldn't be farther apart in my mind. At this point, either CSTOL is
> generic enough to encompass many more books than I thought it did,
> which is fine, but not what I had in mind when I first heard of the
> theory. Brust's writing has a sense of fun, and a sense of style,
> that, at least to me, are the cornerstones of "CSTOL." Wolfe certainly
> has that quality in many of his books (The Knight and Pirate Freedom
> probably being the best two examples) so I can see why he would be
> seen as the originator of that school of thought, but TBotNS doesn't
> seem to share any of those qualities, that's all. I actually feel it's
> a quality missing from all the solar cycle books.
> 
Let's turn to what Steve says on the matter, shall we?
 
>From The Paths Of The Dead:
. . . First theory: "The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: 
All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader 
will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about 
what's cool. And that works all the way from the external trappings 
to the level of metaphor, subtext, and the way one uses words. In 
other words, I happen not to think that full-plate armor and great big 
honking greatswords are cool. I don't like 'em. I like cloaks and rapiers. 
So I write stories with a lot of cloaks and rapiers in 'em, "cause that's 
what's cool." 

Second theory: "The novel should be understood as a structure built 
to accomodate the greatest possible amount of cool stuff."
 
How to write like Steven Brust: "It's really simple. What you do is put 
up a sign on whatever wall you face when you're writing. The sign says: 
And now, I'm going to tell you something really cool." . . . 
 
 
 
/Martin
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