Tell me something good

I spent most of my day on Saturday thinking about who is my favorite author. Just kidding I only spent about five minutes. What I decided was that I don't have a favorite author. However the qualifications, or rubric, that I was judging these people on pretty much determines what I thought was "good" writing.

Over the last few years I've really got into reading series books, and I think that's because I fall in love with style. I read a bunch of Salinger toward the end of high school and he beginning of college, I think this is because Salinger has a very distinct voice. You can always tell when you're reading Salinger, his lines direct your reading. When lines are long it's meant to emphasize the short lines. But I've already discussed Salinger, we know I'm a fan.

So, the next series I read and liked a whole lot was the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. Why did I like that? I think mostly because it took a very strange look at something I thought I knew very well, organized religion. The story was told from the point of view of a child which I don't usually like because kids tend to irritate me (I'm sorry but it's true). However, I think that the form fit it's function because I understood that I should be discovering the multi-verse with wonder and curiosity not strange twisted desire. If you have read the series the previous sentence made sense to you.

I guess mostly I think writing is good when I can see the mechanics of it working for the betterment of the piece. The form and the rhetoric come together in such a way that the craft and skill of the author are apparent but not so much that it's pretentious. The author is trying to tell me something about the life they experience, and make it sound awesome also.

Lupe Martinez