Writerliness

Okay, Arianna Huffington on Colbert says "The Huffington Post is not about Right versus Left, it is about Right versus WRONG ..."

Oh, honey.

And I read HuffPo from time to time.



But THAT.  Is writerliness.  And this finally gets me off my bum to write that Writerly post I've been thinking and saying I was going to get to soon.


***


Okay.

Writerly writing goes past self-consciousness and ends up in self-satisfaction instead, skewing either twee or superior depending upon its point.  And it always has a point, which itself is tiresome.

More often than not, the latter seasons of M*A*S*H represent for me the sins of writerliness - the didactic sentimentality, the heavily over-ground axes - but it is popular even in journalism.  In fiction, it can get pretty thick.  Fiction peopled with auto-characters, avatars for an author's self (or dreams of self) modeled into *ary *ues, cheap exposition working to be clever, would-be clever verbiage straining to teach.

The writerly writer can be heard finding their own work witty and charming.  On television, Sorkin productions sometimes fluff a writerly writer.  Sitcoms of course do it, see the old war horse referenced above.  In the seventies, before irony, archness, and meta came along (we did not know of these concepts of course, the human race before Teh Intarwebs), earnestness was done to a scale which might appear ostentatious to the wiser eyes of today.  (Is Diane being writerly?  The world may never know.  But as Mr. X knows, I was never suBtle.)

Cleverness and sincerity had a dangerously passionate relationship, and of course audiences had no critical eye for it.  This stuff was ENT-ertaiment!  (*Cue Lovitz doing his Thespian character.)  Even the quiet writerly moment - *especially* the quiet writerly moment - was thick with portent.  "Portent!" these moments cried, with their contrived intensity.  "Portent ..." they whispered, with the profundity of Lesson.

Ahh.  Writerly writing.

It's hardly gone the way of the dodo, since all us hayseed pre-'netters grew up and got iPhones.  Even reality TV occasionally falls prey to writerliness, don't kid yourself.  And reality serves us up intimate, powerful personal monologues by the multi-ton.  Purported human beings sell their lives to the highest bidder so they can touch people - and get touched - and let's not pretend this stuff isn't scripted.

Still, for me, the worst writerliness is the CLEVER writerly moment - the scene in "Sports Night" where the implied emotional payoff is pride in condescension, when an inconceivably wealthy white dude offers a sandwich to a homeless person ... and the older guy *cuts it in half* because sharing is so cool and so deep, man, and we're all just the same, even though one dude is going home to his posh bachelor pad in half an hour.  Hey, but he was HUNGRY - and the homeless guy was hungry - and we're all just in this together, man.

I resent these things most when I let them affect me, which is perhaps why I am suspicious of emotionalism in my own writing.

That - or ... Ax, at any rate, happens to be first-person male, and I'm steeled to the teeth for all the XY-chromosome-sporting Guitarists who're just sneering in wait for me to "fail" writing my character.  And guys have no hearts, or whatever the stupid cliche' (err, common wisdom) is.  Ahm.

But sometimes, writerly writing DOES work, mechanically.  It's egregious and overheated, but damn if the tricks aren't effective, even when you see them for what they are.  Good writers can be writerly - and those buggers can be lethal when you are having a good week's PMS.

But effective or no, I still speak out against the onanistic (that's writerly speak for Jillin' off, kids) and controlling will of the writerLYer.  I play Guitarist to their performances, I scoff and snub and pretend I'm superior.

Don't be a writerly writer.

ESPECIALLY if it is "what you know".  Writing what you know is almost odoriferously overrated.

And that whole, profoundly overacted, breathily delivered right/left/right/wrong thing above is SUPER writerly.  Don't be That Writer.  That dude is a tool (even if the dude's a woman).