Titles: Is that really the best you can do?

Friday 3/1/24

Obviously MFA programs are scams, but can they not even go through the barest motions of instruction by pointing out simple things?

For instance: All of these people have titles that suck. A title seems important, no? Like it should be compelling? Do none of these instructors say that? I know the answer--of course they don't, because their titles suck. They don't know what the fuck they're doing, and they never think about readers, have no clue about readers, what readers need, care about, would care about. How they think and feel. Respond.

I was looking at a Karen E. Bender story which was awful, for something I'll be doing in these pages. She's bad at writing. We'll look at just how bad that is, and who publishes her work and puts it forward and why. There will be a prose off, and I'll share my experiences with those editors and publishers, all of which, of course, will be damning.

She had this terrible book that was a finalist for the National Book Award. And it's as bad as all of it. Motorollah at Granta, the Zoetrope shit, the Speer Morgan-sanctioned wankery at The Missouri Review, J. Robert Lennon, the Five Points nonsense slopped out there by Megan "Don't you love my indoor scarf" Sexton.

The title? Refund. Short stories about money. Refund.

That's the best you can do? Plus, it sets up a punchline, as in, "I want a refund for this shitty book."

Do you have no writerly acumen? Do you ever think about readers? Or do you just write from within the vacuum of your own navel? Can you not think of anything interesting? Is that beyond the extent of your capabilities?

There are two kinds of reviews for books like this: bullshit reviews from lying publishing people within the system of broken freaks, and people on the outside who were conned into buying a book because of glowing, bullshit reviews, or an award, or whatever.

The people in that second group get the book, start it--and usually give up--and they all say the same things: No one acts like these characters do, the characters are indistinguishable from each other, it was boring, there are no plots, stories end randomly, the language is flat, they couldn't remember a single story, nothing happens, it was repetitive, nothing went anywhere, etc.

It really says so much that these reviews from honest people raise the same points from review to review. Not that it's hard to see. Then you get some publishing insider bullshit, the empty praise, the stock plaudits, the taint-tonguing, log rolling. It's always the same.

These people like Karen E. Bender can't invent anything. They can't make you care about their writing. And none of them can think of a quality title.

The title is important. It's amazing to me that that needs to be said, but these people--these writers of this system--are people to whom it's worth saying, "The writing isn't supposed to suck." There's no baseline to the ineptitude.

The title is the first thing the book says to someone. It's the first impression. First look in the eye. It's a handshake. It's something you want to be memorable, that people can repeat from one to another and enjoy how it comes out of their mouths and in thinking how that other person will hear it.