Will Grayson the Counter Counter Post

"He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him."
---Oscar Wilde

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!"
---Charles Dickens


Elfarmy has had the audacity to disagree with me about Will Grayson Will Grayson (http://elfarmywrites.blogspot.com/2010/12/will-grayson-counter-post.html) and I must respond in kind.

To begin with she quoted me as saying

"Going into this book I had one problem with John Green, I felt that he had appointed himself the savior of YA Literature and saw it as his duty to push the envelope."

and responded with

"I'm not exactly sure what this means, nor do I know what this opinion is founded on, therefore I can't really refute it. However, I will say that there is a difference between believing you made YA better and believing you are the "savior" of it."


Here is what this is based on: John Green loves to push the envelope with sex,language, and what have you. And that would be fine if it wasn't so gratuitous. For example there is a line in Will Grayson Will Grayson in which Green's character refers to a house, a house for God's sake, as a two word combination beginning with an M. There was no reason for this language the character did not seem like the type of person who would say something like that. It was pushing the envelope for the fun of it. And it took the reader out of the story and it hurt the book.Was the use of that word really worth that much? No, but it made John Green feel good and important and edgy. So, props to him. The real way to push the envelope is to give readers a plot that makes them question things and is clever and new and edgy and progressive. If only someone had written a book like that. Oh, wait, someone has. It was called Boy Meets Boy and it was written by David Levithan.

Elfarmy then a dressed my point that his narrators are very similar in terms of voice and said

"It could be argued that he's pointing out that all people are essentially the same on the inside and it's only our situations and backgrounds that make us different (which is something he's frequently talked about in videos), but I doubt that philosophy was behind it. I think it just turned out that way, and some people will find it annoying, and others will not."


She is right, I find it annoying and many do not. I somehow highly doubt that he did it to prove that everyone is the same on the inside.

She then said

"My question is this: If they do read exactly the same, is that a bad thing?"

Not to be flippant but yes. I will explain why is a second. But let me quote Elfarmy again

."If you mean they read exactly the same in regards to style, well, don't all authors have a style? That's what makes you like an author, as opposed to a book by that author.
The summary of a John Green book: Somewhat nerdy teen with a specific quirk and lovable friends confronts an issue that is easily related to by teen readers through humor and character-recognized metaphor.
Either you like that plot line, or you don't. I do, and therefore I don't mind that the books are the same."

If the characters are very similar,the style is the same, and the plots are really alike then why bother reading the new books? Why don't you just reread the old ones? Why bother writing anything new? What's the point? If a writer is just writing the same thing over and over then how can you say that they are still a good writer? I used to love Caroline B Cooney but recently she is basically writing the same plot over and over and over again trying to get a hit and she isn't very good anymore. A good writer actually, again not to be flippant, but a good writer writes. They create new things, they don't just reinvent the wheel. The stretch and create characters who are different from each other and different from the author. So if the author were, say, a gay man, he might write a book about two straight brothers. And he might call it Are We There Yet.

Elfarmy went on to write

""Nothing happens in this book." I guess it depends on what you want to happen. It's a book about teenagers doing stuff. There aren't any vampires, or evil governments, or parents who are Greek gods. There's nothing to make them unique. They're just people. Some like to read such books, and some don't."

Interesting thing about that, I do like to read those books but normally something happens, there is a point. And looking back at WGWG here is what happened: lowercase Will struggled with his sexuality and went out with this weird character Green created and fought with this weird girl. And that was about it. Uppercase Will had problems with the weird character who Green created and wanted to go out with a girl and a school play. So all of that could have been interesting if it had been done better. And I have to say, Uppercase Will is kind of a jerk. I mean, the way he treats his supposed friend is pretty shameful. If he had been nicer and gotten more involved in the school play the book would have become way way way way way way better. But no, John Green did not do that for whatever reason. He apparently did not realise that the school play could make for a really really good main plot and the other stuff could make for an acceptable sub plot.

Elfarmy then wrote

"You can't give good author-cred to someone just because they mention musicians you like."

My response: Heck Yeah you can, and I just did. IN YOUR FACE!!!!!!

Also, on a side note, Earagon and Eldest are almost scene for scene rewrites of Star Wars. Think about it and you will see that I am right(I spent a lot of time thinking about this)

Dash and Lilly is really really sweet and funny. I love it to pieces.