Re: Visual & Verbal are not as disparate as language suggests

Sean McGowan wrote:

On Nov 1, 5:05 am, green_kni...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Catja
Pafort) wrote:

Sean McGowan wrote:

but I would say your argument runs in the other
direction: it's a lot cheaper and easier to produce an illustrated
edition of a text, and text formatted and illustrated exactly as the
author would like to see it in an electronic medium than in print.

Well, I tried to just introduce the issue... I didn't really make an
argument either way. The point of the introduction is that we CAN all
do this. Now. We all have the capability to decide everything from
the first word to the gloss on the cover.

Doing that would make us something other than writers. I'm not saying
there is no room in the field for people who want to produce a product
that consists of both words and visual elements; but what the vast
majority of people here are interested in is the storytelling, the
getting the words right.


(Personally, I'm convinced book designing is an art form, and I have
seen designers at work: I could not duplicate their work any more than I
can produce a good cover.)

I'll bet you can learn. :) Artists used to make their own frames.

Of course I can learn, but I reckon I'm about five years away from the
ability to produce a good cover - and that would be five years of
intensely throwing myself into art, and getting directions from artists
and spending 30-40 hours a week becoming a better artist, and I'd still
be a mediocre artist. A friend's daughter who is eighteen and off to art
college already has the ideas, the eye, the skills I would hope to
acquire through intense study - and five years from now, she will be
ridiculously far ahead of me.

Division of labour is a wonderful thing. I want to spend the next five
years _writing_. I know just enough about art, and book design, to know
that I'm not particularly good at it, and that the best I can do might
just about match a shoddy job from someone who knows what they're doing.

If you want to do it, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you, nobody tries to
spoil your enjoyment - but most writers are more interested in writing
than in everything else; and learning to do - and doing - everything
yourself is not costless.


I am bringing to light a current, divisive issue

It might be something discussed in your corner of the net, but there
have been no heated discussions on rasfc, and none of the writers I know
are in the least bit worried about it. You've raised the topic and
you're presenting it as an important discussion - and I'm asking 'for
whom' because I don't see the controversy in it.


This is an issue which is changing the landscape of
literature for readers;

There have always been beautifully designed books and not-so-well
designed books, and readers have always gone to some books because they
liked the whole package - tooled calfskin binding included - and to
others because they wanted to read the words. All POD technology does it
make interior design more accessible to writers; but at the same time a
different aspect of the quality of the end product suffers: paper and
print quality and the physical binding.

Technology now exists which affords writers
unprecedented ability to communicate with their readers.

It's called 'the Internet.' Or even 'meeting in person.' Communication
is a two-way street. What you're talking about is writers putting
something in front of readers. Not the same.

_Should_ an author include visual elements to enhance his text? That
depends on the book, and on the author's relationship to it. I can think
of only one novel that relied on a particular design; see if you can
come up with the title.

Not sure if that was sarcasm. Didn't think comedy writers were
allowed in here. :) I'd suggest a novel written by a typographer
called The Last Samurai (no relation to the mildly entertaining yet
predictable Tom Cruise movie) as a work of art that pushes the barrier
of communication and brings the reader into a fantastically close and
trusting relationship with the author.

The only novel I can find under that title appears to be entirely
conventionally set, but I'm not talking about the (small but existing)
subset of typographic novels; I'm talking about a novel -
straightforward text - that relies on being printed and arranged in one
particular fashion. It's a pretty well YA fantasy novel, but it's the
only book I can think of. Others, like Terry Pratchett might have the
occasional typographic choice, but he seems pretty happy to leave such
things to his publishers.

I don't have a particular visual vision for my books. I want them to be
produced well, giving readers easy access to the text, but for me, it's
the words that count.

Catja

--
writing blog @ http://beyond-elechan.livejournal.com
.

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