Re: Eye of Argon, Re: Worst SF/F story ever written

Wilson Heydt wrote: 
In article <hTTBf.34057$RK3.16071@trnddc06>, lclough  <clough@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Karen Lofstrom wrote:


In article <Xns975699E41315Cbgibbonsnospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>, BGibbons wrote:



As I've heard it, it was written deliberately and with a straight face, submitted to and published in the Ozark SF Society's fanzine back in 1970, by the then 16-year-old author.


I've seen attempts by others to write in the style of The Eye of Argon, and they fail wretchedly at failing wretchedly. Grammar, spelling, style, and common sense are not so easily abandoned.


Too true. It is -hard- to write badly. In spite of one's firm intentions, and the vigorous and consistent application of a number of rules* that you would think would guarantee sucky prose, it still is very difficult. When I wrote my bit of ATLANTA NIGHTS the plot insisted on progressing, the protagonist's problems refused to do anything but ramp up to a crisis, and in general the thing wanted very much to be good and was hard to restrain.

*Rules like the ruthless limitation of vocabulary, the gratuitious addition of profanity, the application of all the words (ichor, crepescular) that Ursula LeGuin says are the hallmark of bad fiction. 


Poul Anderson once remarked that, when he was asked to write a _Conan_ book,
he found it very hard to write that badly.  And, indeed, it is written
a good bit better than is the norm for that series in spite of his efforts
to degrade his normal style.





That's why EYE is immortal, in its own way. The number of lousy SF stories is very probably infinite. But an entertainingly lousy story, now that's rare.

Brenda


--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/

Recent short fiction:
FUTURE WASHINGTON (WSFA Press, October '05)
http://www.futurewashington.com

FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html

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