Literary Lights

[cactuswatcher]

I see Bill Clinton has teamed with James Patterson on a novel coming out early next month entitled The President Is Missing. Well, if it's a mystery set in Bill's times, it wouldn't take a super-sleuth to suggest checking Monica's room. If it's a mystery set in current times, you might first want to see how broadly Melania is smiling and check that sinkhole on the White House grounds.

In an interview Stephen King once referred to Patterson as "a terrible writer but he's very successful." Bill Clinton is a terrible husband, but he's also been very successful. Together they ought to make good money on their book.

Comments

[shadowkat]

1. What Stephen King was too nice to state is ...James Patterson isn't a writer at all. He doesn't write his books. What he does is write an outline or come up with an idea, give it to a team of writers, who write it for him under his brand name.

Go James Patterson Mostly Doesn't Write his Books and His Readers don't read..

Although written is not the precise verb. Conceived, outlined, co-written and curated. Patterson delivers exhaustive notes and outlines, sometimes running 80 pages, to co-authors, his printer regularly discharging collaborators’ efforts like lottery tickets. “The success rate when I write the outline is almost 100 percent. When other people do, it’s 50 to 60 percent,” he says.

Another example of how narcissistic personality disorder = success in today's world. And how sick our society truly is.

He basically writes books the same way you might write an advertisement. Or writing by committee. I find what he does ...any writer would...to be deeply offensive. And he does not support the independent publishing movement at all.

And his books are truly horrible -- the worst things I've ever read in my life. (Which is saying something, since I've read, as you know, a lot of bad books.) People like them for the same reason they like watching an episode of The Bachelor, no intelligence or semblance of intelligence or even cognitive thought required.

2. Regarding "The President is Missing"? If only. This reminds me of the series, "We've Lost the President", "We've Lost the Penguins"....which makes me cackle every time it pops up on the Kindle ads.

[cactuswatcher]

I've never had the pleasure of reading anything (even vaguely) by Patterson. I guess like Bill O'Reilly, whose very suspect history series Killing...[whomever] has been disturbingly flooding the bookstores recently, Patterson is just one of those suspected of mostly just tossing out themes, putting his name on the cover and collecting his cut of the profits.

[shadowkat]

When I read Patterson, he was actually writing them -- this was way back in the late 1990s, before he became a brand. I was in a genre book club focusing on mystery, sci-fi, and fantasy novels and we read one of his really early supernatural horror mystery thrillers -- about a weird facility that created human hybrids. I don't remember it well, except how poorly written it was, and that it felt like reading a really bad episode of The X-Files or The Gifted

Short chapters -- often no more than two to three pages. Boilerplate dialogue. Scant description. Short sentences. Basically third grade or second grade reading level.

Now...he's turned it into a franchise and made millions. Similar to what Tom Clancy started doing, along with a few others. The "mystery/thriller" genre field is notorious for this type of writing. It's odd, but the better writers are the independent ones, in part, because they aren't as into branding. Patterson hates the self-publishing and e-book movement, because it digs into his franchise biz, and has ranted about it.

[cactuswatcher]

Boo hoo! Folks like you are giving Patterson such a tough time. ;o)

Back where I used to live I knew a guy who ran a small bookstore. He admitted he couldn't stay in business without "trade" paperbacks, or put another way, people who bought stacks of throw away westerns, mysteries, horror, romance, cheezy fantasy and so on. He gladly bought books back and resold them to folks who'd rather save a nickle and not buy new, because there were always those willing to spend extra for the crisp copies. He said he'd rather talk to someone like me who was a little picky, but his livelihood was dependent on those who weren't. I'm sure he was out of business before e-books came along.

[shadowkat]

Yeah, the small independent book stores got killed by B&N and Borders way before the e-books arrived. The mega stores really hurt them. Then e-books chipped away at their profits.

Patterson sells heavily in airports, grocery stores, etc.