Aya's Writing Workshop - Bring us your story ideas and outlines!

[Tengukami]

Some pretty interesting discussion has taken off here, it seems. Just thought I'd chime in on a few points.

Joveus astutely points out how sports manga get people to care about a showdown between two characters. However, the problem with spellcard duels in fanfiction is that you do more than make the audience care about the characters and feel the importance of the match. I think this involves combining visual and emotional aspects, and see no reason why a spellcard duel can't make a great read.

Visually, a Touhou spellcard can be described so many different ways. You could use action language about the speed and power of the bullets, poetic language about the patterns (or how about what sound they make? maybe the scent of ozone fills the air as the spellcard revs up? perhaps nearby birds take flight juts before it's cast?) - you get the picture. Why skimp on the details of the most important part of the showdown? Likewise, show your readers how the characters feel and what they're thinking during the match. Describing dodging (or even grazing!) and close calls, sure, that's part of the action. But when you share with the reader the high-pressure emotions and quick-thinking going on inside the characters, too, you've opened another level of action.

So in other words, yeah, there's no reason why something as visually stunning and emotionally charged as a spellcard duel couldn't be awesome.

You may be right, but in this sad world, opinions like that don't really matter that much. The numbers do.

"Matter" to who, exactly? In what way? Who is this arbitrary judge of What Matters?

That a story is good does matter - it matters to people who want to read good stories, and it matters to people who want to write them. That a story is popular also matters, very much, to the author. I don't think any author feels they must choose between writing good stories and writing popular ones. Writers are usually aiming for both.

And if it's numbers you're aiming for, then you either have to write something epically good or terribly bad.  Or something that sparks up discussions and splits your reader base into two factions, or more. Like another one of my fellow writers from fanfiction.net said: "No author has ever become famous for writing a mediocre work."

Now that's confusing. Writers are pretty much always aiming to write something very good. Who sits down with the decision to write a mediocre story? Aiming to write something incredibly bad is only done for comedy. "Try to write something good" is probably not a piece of advice you'd need to give someone.

But the notion of writing something that will prove divisive and argumentative, yeah, that's something I see way too much of in fanfiction. It leads to my least favorite thing about fanfiction: gimmicks. Like using devices or crossovers because it would be presumably mind-blowing or funny or cool, which are usually shoehorned into the story in such an abrupt, clumsy way that it comes across as forced, and usually is. When it becomes clear the author probably spends way too much time on TVTropes and is now trying to force in as many argued-about and divisive tropes and devices as they can, that's when I stop reading.

Shit-stirring via fanfiction in the hopes of driving up readership is putting the cart before the horse, in other words. Good stories can spark discussion and lead to divided readerships, but getting a bunch of people to argue with each other is not necessarily a sign of quality writing.

[Fonzi]

"Matter" to who, exactly? In what way? Who is this arbitrary judge of What Matters?

To the authors, obviously. Especially the professional ones. After all, the number of copies they manage to sell can mean the difference between their wealth and poverty. And the arbitrary judge is none other than the author's readers. To the authors, it may not matter that some renowned critic finds their work amazing, when people simply aren't buying it and instead pick a bestseller of arguably lower quality. I admit, this may not be the case for fanfiction writers, though. But even they have certain goals they aim for. The only reward of a fanfic witer is the feeling of accomplishment and the praise from the readers and even that depends on the numbers of people their fic manages to attract. My opinion that numbers matter still stands.

Now that's confusing. Writers are pretty much always aiming to write something very good. Who sits down with the decision to write a mediocre story? Aiming to write something incredibly bad is only done for comedy. "Try to write something good" is probably not a piece of advice you'd need to give someone.

You'd be surprised how many people would argue with that. I personally know dozens of authors who don't aim to break the ground with their fic, they write just for the sake of writing, because it's enjoyable for them. The fact that their story also manages to recieve positive feedback from their audience is just a nice bonus to them. To them the numbers don't matter. Just the writing.

Otherwise, I can agree with the rest of your post.

[lightdreamer]

But the notion of writing something that will prove divisive and argumentative, yeah, that's something I see way too much of in fanfiction. It leads to my least favorite thing about fanfiction: gimmicks. Like using devices or crossovers because it would be presumably mind-blowing or funny or cool, which are usually shoehorned into the story in such an abrupt, clumsy way that it comes across as forced, and usually is. When it becomes clear the author probably spends way too much time on TVTropes and is now trying to force in as many argued-about and divisive tropes and devices as they can, that's when I stop reading.

I agree.

Gimmicks can be interesting, but please think more than just the gimmick before writing your story.

Shit-stirring via fanfiction in the hopes of driving up readership is putting the cart before the horse, in other words. Good stories can spark discussion and lead to divided readerships, but getting a bunch of people to argue with each other is not necessarily a sign of quality writing.

How do you purposefully stir a shitstorm via fanfiction anyway?

[Tengukami]

My opinion that numbers matter still stands.

But I'm not saying numbers don't matter to the writer. I'm saying most writers are aiming to write something good -and- for it to be popular. It's not an either/or thing. You were responding to a very good point about how Dan Brown's novels are mediocre but popular by saying that the quality does not matter as much as the number of readers. I don't think Brown sat down with the intention to write a series of bad yet popular novels; I think it's a safe bet that he believes his own writing is also good, and his aim was to write stories he found good and that would end up popular.

You'd be surprised how many people would argue with that. I personally know dozens of authors who don't aim to break the ground with their fic, they write just for the sake of writing, because it's enjoyable for them. The fact that their story also manages to recieve positive feedback from their audience is just a nice bonus to them. To them the numbers don't matter. Just the writing.

Also didn't say a writer needs to break new ground. But to write a good story? Yeah, I think we can agree that that's what writers are trying to do.

How do you purposefully stir a shitstorm via fanfiction anyway?

Through the aforementioned gimmicks, e.g. canon-breaking and crossovers, especially. Yes, this gets people arguing and sending links around so that more people can argue about it. But to me it seems kinda cheap and easy.

[lightdreamer]

Through the aforementioned gimmicks, e.g. canon-breaking and crossovers, especially. Yes, this gets people arguing and sending links around so that more people can argue about it. But to me it seems kinda cheap and easy.

In short, bringing up sensitive issues in the fandom (powerlevel adjustment in crossovers for example).

And about sending links around, what do you think of a writer that likes to promote his stories everywhere?

[Tengukami]

I mean there's ways to do it that aren't spammy and obnoxious, so I don't think that's a bad thing in itself.

[Fonzi]

@Yuki Mori

You were asking to who the numbers matter and how, so I replied to that. Also, many people don't realize it, but in case of published works, a very important part rests on the shoulders of the publishers. They definitely won't publish just any drabble you bring to them. They also aim for the profit from the work you're offering and if they find its quality lacking, they'll quickly send you back where you came from. Or they'll ask you to edit a part or several parts of your work before sending it to the presses. And what the readers get in the bookstore may not be a 100% extract of the author's mind. The fact that Twilight and other questionable pieces of literature are in such demand is due to the author and publishers targeting a specific audience.

This brings out the discussions about the most appropriate places to publish and advertise your work, depending on the genre and style you write in.

[Tengukami]

Heh, I'm an eensy bit familiar with the publishing world. But we're talking about fanfiction, and the goalposts keep moving here. Point is, there is no choice between good writing -or- popularity, and it's a meme that needs to die.

[Fonzi]

Purely technically speaking, popularity is a contest of subjective opinions whether a particular work, book, fic, etc. is "good" or "bad" If a fic is popular, then it is "good" for a large group of your readers, and even when there are those who say otherwise, the numbers of those who consider it "good" don't speak in the favor of the critics. So I may speak heresy when I say that "popular = good", but that's the conclusion I keep coming to over and over again.

*sigh* I didn't intend to start such an intense opinion exchange and topic derailment, but I guess it's too late for apologies now. I think I better STFU now.

[Joveus Molai]

Purely technically speaking, popularity is a contest of subjective opinions whether a particular work, book, fic, etc. is "good" or "bad" If a fic is popular, then it is "good" for a large group of your readers, and even when there are those who say otherwise, the numbers of those who consider it "good" don't speak in the favor of the critics. So I may speak heresy when I say that "popular = good", but that's the conclusion I keep coming to over and over again.

*sigh* I didn't intend to start such an intense opinion exchange and topic derailment, but I guess it's too late for apologies now. I think I better STFU now.

No, no need to STFU, I think this is a discussion of merit. 

Despite what I said earlier, about popularity not necessarily equating to quality...your post alludes to a something that's honestly been bugging me for years.

I know I said before that Taker's "Yuuka = Outer God" idea didn't really work for me, and given the reactions of some of the other posters, that position doesn't seem to be a particularly unreasonable one. However, isn't it also rather subjective? Maybe the Yuuka-Outer God idea made me go "meh", but that certainly wasn't the case for the hundreds or thousands of people who are fans of Imperfect Metamorphosis. Maybe that idea didn't elicit the emotional response Taker intended from me, but what about the people who did go  at that revelation? Does their opinion not matter?

I'm finding that a lot of what modern fiction writers consider to be "good writing" frequently depend on invoking subjective experiences in audiences, and for the longest time I've been feeling more and more uncomfortable at using such a metric to measure the quality of writing. "Getting your audience emotionally attached to a character(s)"--fair enough, but getting emotionally attached to something is pretty subjective. YOU might find a certain ribbon-wearing, armpit-showing, cheerful and lazy shrine maiden to be a compelling character, but what if I don't? Am I stupid? Do I have bad tastes? Why? If 75% of your entire readerbase finds a particular character to be compelling, and the other 25% don't, does that mean you've written a bad character? What if the numbers are 90% and 10% instead? Or 99% and 1%? And even if 99% of a readerbase finds a particular character to be interesting, or a particular scene to be compelling, are the other 1% just wrong? Do they have poor tastes in literature? This is the issue, I feel, with trying to apply objective descriptions (good, bad) to something that relies so heavily on subjective experiences. If more people like apples than oranges, is apple the "better" fruit? If lightdreamer and I didn't find Taker's Yuuka idea to be interesting, does that make us stupid in the face of Taker's legions of fans?

 

[Achariyth]

The catch with popularity as a writer is getting your work into the hands of the people that enjoy it.  There's no way to get out of the midlist or the slush pile without this.  Telling a good story is great, but if it doesn't get to the right loudmouthed fan willing to tell others about the work they just read... (Dan Brown wasn't a best-seller because of the quality of his writing; he was the beneficiary of an advertising push from publishers who still think that they can create best-sellers at will.) 

It's also important to remember that "Name the most widely read authors you can think of [...] and the immense majority of book-buyers out there actively decline to read them."  (Thomas McCormack, The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist)

[AnonymousPondScum]

Who needs for Yuuka to be an Outer God when Yukari is already Gensokyo's answer to Nyarlhotep? :V

Also, come get some.

[lightdreamer]

I'm finding that a lot of what modern fiction writers consider to be "good writing" frequently depend on invoking subjective experiences in audiences, and for the longest time I've been feeling more and more uncomfortable at using such a metric to measure the quality of writing. "Getting your audience emotionally attached to a character(s)"--fair enough, but getting emotionally attached to something is pretty subjective. YOU might find a certain ribbon-wearing, armpit-showing, cheerful and lazy shrine maiden to be a compelling character, but what if I don't? Am I stupid? Do I have bad tastes? Why? If 75% of your entire readerbase finds a particular character to be compelling, and the other 25% don't, does that mean you've written a bad character? What if the numbers are 90% and 10% instead? Or 99% and 1%? And even if 99% of a readerbase finds a particular character to be interesting, or a particular scene to be compelling, are the other 1% just wrong? Do they have poor tastes in literature? This is the issue, I feel, with trying to apply objective descriptions (good, bad) to something that relies so heavily on subjective experiences. If more people like apples than oranges, is apple the "better" fruit? If lightdreamer and I didn't find Taker's Yuuka idea to be interesting, does that make us stupid in the face of Taker's legions of fans?

This. This is the question I've been asking to myself.

Mostly because I tend to be in the minority concerning my Touhou preferences.  :V

Who needs for Yuuka to be an Outer God when Yukari is already Gensokyo's answer to Nyarlhotep? :V

Funny how I know two Touhou stories with Nyarla in it. And they both have nothing to do with Yukari.

[Tengukami]

Well, let's bear a few things in mind when it comes to the subject of quality and popularity.

First, popularity is a fluid thing. Plenty of artists who are now considered geniuses were unknown or dismissed in their time. Likewise, wildly popular artists back in the day raise a shrug from us today. Fanbases grow, shrink, and even shift - literature which was once popularity with one demographic ends up speaking to a whole other after a generation. And as was mentioned before, popularity is increasingly less about the quality of the writing and more about the advertising and promotional efforts put behind it.

For this reason, I think just saying "popular = good" is too oversimplified. It's an attempt to try and put a dry, logical, unwavering standard to what qualifies as "good" in a field where such a standard is impossible.

Second, I see the word "subjective" tossed around a lot in these discussions; that the subjectivity of quality is some kind of problem that needs to be solved. We should have in mind that there are different degrees of subjectivity. Using no capitalization, punctuation, or spaces between words is less subjectively OK than, say, employing Lovecraftian themes in your writing. "Subjectivity" is a spectrum; not all things are regarded with the same degree of subjectivity.

So where does this leave us? How do we know what "good" writing is?

The short answer is we don't. Well, not really anyway. The long answer is we can rely on the opinions of people who have studied literature and know what works to explain what's good and bad, but any curious reader is going to read a story with a plot idea that intrigues them, regardless of the opinions of critics. We can also look back through time, over some of the Greats, to see what devices they used to make their stories so timeless and compelling. Popularity, though, is a terrible gauge for what makes a story good - popularity is fluid as hell, and is often based just as much if not more on "spamming" readers than on the quality of the writing itself.

In the end, yes, things are "subjective" - but not all things are equally subjective, subjective in the same way, or subjective at the same time. Writing is an art. It is not an exact science. So there never will be some Golden Mean for determining good and bad writing. All we can do is read, write, and interact. Way it goes.

[lightdreamer]

popularity is increasingly less about the quality of the writing and more about the advertising and promotional efforts put behind it.

This can also apply as well to fanfiction, IMHO.

You want to be popular in the community? Start promoting your work everywhere and review every single story you come across (nicely, of course) in hope that the author will check out your own story (since you're his/her "loyal" reader after all).

And don't forget to pander to the type of stories popular in the fandom.

All of those, combined with a decent amount of writing skill, are enough to at least get your story "uplifted" from the "nobody knows" status to "a bunch of people know".

Just posting your story on FF.net won't cut it at all.

[Tengukami]

Yup! Good point. Even FF.net has a bar to clear.

[Achariyth]

The short answer is we don't. Well, not really anyway. The long answer is we can rely on the opinions of people who have studied literature and know what works to explain what's good and bad, but any curious reader is going to read a story with a plot idea that intrigues them, regardless of the opinions of critics. We can also look back through time, over some of the Greats, to see what devices they used to make their stories so timeless and compelling. Popularity, though, is a terrible gauge for what makes a story good - popularity is fluid as hell, and is often based just as much if not more on "spamming" readers than on the quality of the writing itself.

No, we really can't rely on the opinion of those who have studied literature.  The writing that survives over time is genre writing, usually sneered at by the academia of the day.  Why?  Because genre writing sells enough to survive.  Literary writing doesn't sell.  The market was shrinking faster than science fiction, which itself started to shrink when it adopted literary pretensions.  It's on an upswing, solely because to survive, literary writing adopted genre conventions.  As Myers wrote in his Reader's Manifesto,

"Today any accessible, fast-moving story written in unaffected prose is deemed to be "genre fiction"?at best an excellent "read" or a "page turner," but never literature with a capital L. An author with a track record of blockbusters may find the publication of a new work treated like a pop-culture event, but most "genre" novels are lucky to get an inch in the back pages of The New York Times Book Review.

"Everything written in self-conscious, writerly prose, on the other hand, is now considered to be "literary fiction"?not necessarily good literary fiction, mind you, but always worthier of respectful attention than even the best-written thriller or romance. It is these works that receive full-page critiques, often one in the Sunday book-review section and another in the same newspaper during the week. It is these works, and these works only, that make the annual short lists of award committees. The "literary" writer need not be an intellectual one. Jeering at status-conscious consumers, bandying about words like "ontological" and "nominalism," chanting Red River hokum as if it were from a lost book of the Old Testament: this is what passes for profundity in novels these days. Even the most obvious triteness is acceptable, provided it comes with a postmodern wink. "

Especially since the 1970s, academic fashion has been against good writing and good story.  The gatekeepers called publishers shared this bias, selected and pushed books on this model, shifting goalposts where needed (such as creating a NYT bestseller list category to get Harry Potter off of the fiction bestsellers list), and shrunk their markets as a result.   No, academics have forfeited their position as the arbiter of good writing.

[Fonzi]

I just wonder what makes opinions of those who studied literature superior to anyone else's. Like you said: it's an art, not an exact science. To the author the numbers of satisfied readers matter, but not so much to the reader. A reader can pick up a book for so many different reasons: intrest in the genre, boredom, trying something different, getting swayed by the advertising or a reccomendation from a friend, to see if it's as good/bad as everyone says, or reading something that barely gets any attention, or in case of academic literature - to learn something.

[Tengukami]

I'm not saying their opinions are superior; these are the opinions of people who read for a living, and have analyzed and studied writing. So their opinion likely counts for something, and probably has more weight than xXxBongZilla69xXx or whatever. But! That doesn't mean that an academic can't be wrong, or a layman can't be right. There's no absolute here; only tendencies.

[Fonzi]

Following that logic, those who write for a living have a better tendency to gain the interest of readers than those who wrie as a hobby? Or that their writing has a tendency to be of better quality than that of a fanfic writer?

[Tengukami]

Following that logic, those who write for a living have a better tendency to gain the interest of readers than those who wrie as a hobby? Or that their writing has a tendency to be of better quality than that of a fanfic writer?

Not really sure how it follows what I was saying. On the contrary, I said that brilliance can come from laymen. And it often does - hell, just looking around this forum I've seen writing that to my mind is at least on par with stuff published by "serious" writers, sometimes even of higher caliber! Just noting the pretty uncontroversial view that those who've spent years studying literature might usually have better insight about literature than those who have not. Again, I emphasize that this is totally flexible and not at all a hard-and-fast rule. Ultimately, you can't use just one gauge when it comes to assessing art. We read and write what we like.

[Achariyth]

You can, however, assess craft.  Is the writer's use of grammar consistent with general standards?  Are they using Try/fail cycles, the Hollywood formula, proper foreshadowing?  If so, did they use them effectively?   Are they using description in a way that stops action to describe a photograph ( a description dump) or are they giving relevant details as needed?  Are they taking advantage of the resonance their story has with other works?  All of these are examples of craft.

I'd argue that literature, good writing, good storytelling, and craft are all different.  I learned precious little craft from the literature courses I took in college.  Just some nice theory based on resonances, though, which TV Tropes is a bastardization of.  I learned (and am learning) craft from active genre writers such as Pournelle, Hoyt, King, Correia, Gaiman, Sanderson, Farland, and Rusch.  Crack a book and watch how an author blocks out the action.  Did it work?  Did the writer tip his hand too soon on foreshadowing or did that plot twist come out of nowhere?  How did the author (mis)handle the tricky issue of exposition?  Is the description carried by adverbs and adjectives or by nouns and verbs?

This sort of study helps you as a storyteller.  Art may or may not be inherent, but you can always learn craft. 

[Tengukami]

You can, however, assess craft.  Is the writer's use of grammar consistent with general standards?  Are they using Try/fail cycles, the Hollywood formula, proper foreshadowing?  If so, did they use them effectively?   Are they using description in a way that stops action to describe a photograph ( a description dump) or are they giving relevant details as needed?  Are they taking advantage of the resonance their story has with other works?  All of these are examples of craft.

That they are, and ties in with the point about people who study literature, either professionally, academically, or just by reading a lot. These are people who can identify these devices and operations, to know the "why" of why something works - or doesn't - in a story.

[Fonzi]

Adjusting to the latest trends, aren't we, Yuki? Double Dealing Character, huh?

[Achariyth]

That they are, and ties in with the point about people who study literature, either professionally, academically, or just by reading a lot. These are people who can identify these devices and operations, to know the "why" of why something works - or doesn't - in a story.

If by literature, you mean the nuts-and-bolts craft, we have no argument.  If by literature, you mean the reading in of meanings that never were intended by the author that confirm the reader's biases as taught by American high schools and universities and the preference for grey goo stories filled with turgid, purple prose, I'm going to have to agree to disagree.  That latter definition of literature has demonstrably been a pox.

[Tengukami]

I REGRET NOTHING

If by literature, you mean the nuts-and-bolts craft, we have no argument.  If by literature, you mean the reading in of meanings that never were intended by the author that confirm the reader's biases as taught by American high schools and universities and the preference for grey goo stories filled with turgid, purple prose, I'm going to have to agree to disagree.  That latter definition of literature has demonstrably been a pox.

Ah, I see. Your beef is with academia. In that case we'll have to agree to disagree.

[Achariyth]

Ah, I see. Your beef is with academia. In that case we'll have to agree to disagree.

I'm a Human Wave writer and a genre writer.  I suppose I disagree with much of the writing establishment.

[lightdreamer]

I'm a Human Wave writer and a genre writer.  I suppose I disagree with much of the writing establishment.

So, are you actually a published writer or what? You're talking pretty big here.

[Achariyth]

So, are you actually a published writer or what? You're talking pretty big here.

I write.  That alone allows me to claim the title of writer.  I identify with the Human Wave movement, which espouses science fiction that isn't grey goo.  I write science fiction and fantasy, which places me square in the genre camp.  Any of these make me a second class citizen in the current publishing world.  Big talk?  Hardly.  I don't fit the mold traditional New York based publishing wants. 

[Joveus Molai]

For this reason, I think just saying "popular = good" is too oversimplified. It's an attempt to try and put a dry, logical, unwavering standard to what qualifies as "good" in a field where such a standard is impossible.

The trouble that I have with this argument, and others in its vein (~art cannot/must not be subjected to dry, logical, unwavering standards to what qualifies as "good"), is that the term "good" and by association the term "bad" start to lose any real meaning. If you follow that argument, and then go on to tell me that a story is "good"...what, exactly, am I to draw from that statement? The most likely one that I can draw is that you simply enjoyed that story on some level, and while that can be useful information in certain cases, in others it may not be as useful.

Second, I see the word "subjective" tossed around a lot in these discussions; that the subjectivity of quality is some kind of problem that needs to be solved.

I do argue that the subjectivity of quality is a problem, because when quality is entirely subjective, applying objective terms such as "good" or "bad" doesn't really tell me much. When quality is subjective, statements like "story X is superior to story Y" cannot be made, because "superior", "better", "inferior", and "worse" don't really apply.

The short answer is we don't. Well, not really anyway. The long answer is we can rely on the opinions of people who have studied literature and know what works to explain what's good and bad, but any curious reader is going to read a story with a plot idea that intrigues them, regardless of the opinions of critics. We can also look back through time, over some of the Greats, to see what devices they used to make their stories so timeless and compelling.

Using the Greats as a metric for what is "good" and "bad" seems to be flawed; what, exactly, makes the Greats, well, great? It can easily become a circular argument: What makes a story good? It was created by a Great. What makes a Great good? They made good stories.

The Greats arguably did pioneer a lot of techniques, or what Achyarith appears to call "Craft" if I'm understanding his arguments correctly. Techniques, or craft, are pretty objective in the sense that they happen in a work of art whether or not an outside observer to that work of art (i.e. an audience) recognizes or denies the existence of that technique. Whether a painter used a particular brush stroke or did not is an objective fact--if he did, he did, if he did not, he did not, regardless of whether another painter points that out or it goes completely over the head of the layman viewer.

Writing is an art. It is not an exact science. So there never will be some Golden Mean for determining good and bad writing. All we can do is read, write, and interact. Way it goes.

And this strikes at the core of my worries. It worries me that there is no Golden Mean, no absolute metric, no truly objective standards for determining the quality of an art. I believe that, without some such a metric, it becomes increasingly meaningless to say that a piece of art is good, or that a piece of art is bad. What on earth do those terms mean? And if their meaning is unclear, why should then care when they are applied?

Not really sure how it follows what I was saying. On the contrary, I said that brilliance can come from laymen. And it often does - hell, just looking around this forum I've seen writing that to my mind is at least on par with stuff published by "serious" writers, sometimes even of higher caliber!

*Looks at Achariyth, Iced Fairy, Roukanken, Sakura Rurouni, Yayifications, a host of other writers here on Shrinemaiden*

*Observes how pretty much everyone mentioned above writes better than Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer*

 :V

Ultimately, you can't use just one gauge when it comes to assessing art. We read and write what we like.

 :ohdear:

If by literature, you mean the nuts-and-bolts craft, we have no argument.  If by literature, you mean the reading in of meanings that never were intended by the author that confirm the reader's biases as taught by American high schools and universities and the preference for grey goo stories filled with turgid, purple prose, I'm going to have to agree to disagree.  That latter definition of literature has demonstrably been a pox.

I can't say I'm familiar with the academic side of literature, but everything I've heard about it so far makes me lean towards Achariyth's side of things more. As an anecdote:

One of my friends graduated as a Lit major (she's going on to law school since among other things she didn't want to become an academic, she just happens to love literature, but I digress). For her senior year, she elected to write a thesis on...some sort of literary topic, I forget what. When she showed her drafts to her academic advisor for review and criticism, her advisor kept wanting to dock points off of her paper because her points were too coherent.

Let me say that again:

On an academic thesis paper, in which you're supposed to write a clear, coherent argument about a topic, her academic advisor (a professor at the university) told her that her points were too coherent.

She wasn't being criticized for being repetitive, or for switching back and forth on the issue, or anything like that. No, she was criticized for not artfully obscuring her arguments enough.

What in blazes?  :wat:

Several people have told me that the bulk of literary academia in the US at least is made up of people like my friend's advisor. That's not nearly enough evidence for me to outright declare that literary academia is going to hell in a handbasket, but...that worries me.  :ohdear:

You can, however, assess craft.  Is the writer's use of grammar consistent with general standards?  Are they using Try/fail cycles, the Hollywood formula, proper foreshadowing?  If so, did they use them effectively?   

I'm inclined to agree with this. As I mentioned above, whether or not an artist used a particular technique tends to be a lot more clear cut (though it does depend on the technique). Unfortunately, for most standards just flawless application of technique alone doesn't necessarily merit the "quality" badge...

I'm a Human Wave writer and a genre writer.  I suppose I disagree with much of the writing establishment.

Just out of curiosity--are you a professional writer, by any chance? That is, do you regularly get paid for at least some of the stuff you write? (Apologies in advance if this is too personal.)