September 28, 2020
Writing Gimmicks and How to Avoid Them
Writing gimmicks are tricks authors use to distract readers from a bad text. We’ll be defining this in more detail in this post, but in this context a trick has nothing to do with reader manipulation.
Reader manipulation is a legitimate narrative technique. Writing gimmicks, on the other hand, are not techniques but fluff. Indeed, writing gimmicks often have nothing to do with the text itself and are more about extra-textual factors.
In this post we’ll see what writing gimmicks are, how to avoid them, and there’s also a bonus: What are reverse writing gimmicks, and how to take advantage of them. As an example, I’ll throw in a brief reference to a kick-ass Japanese rock band. Home for Fiction combines everything, you can’t complain!
What Are Writing Gimmicks?
As we saw in the introduction, the crucial difference between narrative manipulation and writing gimmicks is that, whereas the former are legitimate literary devices, the latter are very often not connected to the art or even the text at all.
So, what are they?
A writing gimmick is a trick that is unnecessary to the artistic integrity of the text.
Here’s an imaginary example: Imagine the publisher of a Gothic book claiming the cover was printed using real blood. Although one could claim it increases the affective impact of the narrative, the fact remains. It’s fluffAs we will see later in this post, however, there is a degree of theoretical ambiguity involved..
Or, here’s another one: Imagine an author separating their chapters with some random, unconnected drawing or graphic.
Can there be a textual writing gimmick? It can, but it’s easy to confuse with simply sloppy writing. I’ve even seen creative-writing teachers confusing this. To put it plainly, no, using a Deus-ex-Machina ending is not a gimmick; simply the result of poor narrative structure. A textual writing gimmick would be something like writing a chapter in gibberish without any apparent reason and without any affective purpose behind it.
Remember that artistic manipulation and writing gimmicks are entirely different. The “based on a true story” trope is a literary device, not a gimmick.
Writing Gimmicks are about Distraction
At worst, writing gimmicks are meant to distract the reader from the fact that a text is of inferior quality, in some area. The more fancy gimmicks an author uses, the more they want – consciously or subconsciously – to distract their readers.
At best, writing gimmicks are falsely perceived as something that can increase the appeal or marketing value of the text. But, as the saying goes, you can put as much lipstick as you want on a pig; it’s still a pig.
How to Avoid Writing Gimmicks
Simple. Don’t add anything to your textual product – whether to the text itself or to something related to it – that isn’t necessary to its artistic aspect.
Are you writing science fiction and you want your reader to feel the desperation of not understanding an alien language? Feel free to write gibberish.
Is your novel about an artist struggling with the (d)evolution of their work? Go ahead and separate your chapters with the (imaginary) artist’s drawings.
I don’t see how you could justify claiming the cover was printed using real blood, but if it’s somehow related to the art, go for it.
In all other cases, don’t.
But I promised you something about reverse gimmicks and a kick-ass Japanese rock band, so stick with me for a moment longer.
Are BAND-MAID a Gimmick?
No, BAND-MAID are a reverse gimmick, which is the reason why we’re talking about it.
But hey, first things first. What is BAND-MAID?
BAND-MAID is an all-female rock band from Japan, the members of which are all dressed as maid-cafe waitresses. Now, if you’re even remotely familiar with Japanese culture, I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you believed it’s a gimmick, to distract you from seeing their lack of talent.
Only, the exact opposite is the case.
BAND-MAID are incredibly talented (personal opinion: the BAND-MAID rhythm section, drums and bass, might be among the best ones at the momentFor the musically inclined among us, just listen to the drummer’s footwork between 2:01 - 2:23 in the video below. It’s easy to play double-bass like a machine gun, in the fast but monotonous way many drummers do, but it takes a special kind of drummer to do it the way she does, producing creative accents that complement (and augment) the lead guitar riff. If you have good headphones, also notice how the bassist precisely supports the rhythm, helping it evolve between 2:18 - 2:23.).
Click to display the embedded YouTube video
The costumes are there to distract you alright, just not in the way you believe. They’re like a Litmus test. If you can’t go past the reverse gimmick, the apparent gimmick, you probably don’t deserve the art.
It’s not unlike what I said in my post on language and destabilizing narratives, about the bigger bigger picture.
So, how can we use that for writing?
Use Reverse Gimmicks to Weed out Inferior Audiences
I’ve talked about unsophisticated readers before. Such readers, inferior readers who can’t understand symbolism, characters, or descriptions, are not readers who deserve your work.
You must weed them out. And using reverse writing gimmicks is one way of doing that.
Now, a slight discrepancy in the theory: So far I’ve defined a writing gimmick as something not related to the art (such as claiming the cover was designed using real blood). If you’re perceptive enough, you must have noticed this isn’t a binary condition. In other words, it all boils down to deciding whether it’s connected to the art or not, which isn’t an objective truth.
In this context, deciding whether we’re faced with a writing gimmick or with a reverse writing gimmick can be a matter of perspective.
To me, using a laconic description such as the following, from The Other Side of Dreams, is a way to keep inferior audiences at bay.
He ekes out a meager living battling society’s prejudices and a past trauma.
She’s struggling with alcohol addiction.
An unexpected lottery win changes their lives overnight, and they begin to travel around Europe, discovering more about themselves and each other.
But soon the darker truth behind his past as well as her future will force an unexpected endgame.
Put frankly, I want anyone who thinks “what a self-righteous author, who doesn’t offer a proper description, not even divulging the characters’ names” to stay as far away from this and any other of my novels as possible.
The Perspective of Gimmicks
In conclusion, the difference between a writing gimmick and a reverse writing gimmick lies with the author. As I’ve mentioned in my post on whether good writing can be taught, the author is the only way to measure whether a text is successful or not.
This doesn’t mean the author is right and everyone else is wrong. Literature is a bit like the double-slit experiment in quantum mechanics. I’ll spare you the details (if you’re familiar with it you will see the parallel, otherwise simply ignore it), but the key takeaway is that we can’t even pose the question: Who is right, the author or the critics?
It’s a nonsensical question, and that’s what I refer to by saying the author is the only way to measure the success of a text. It’s another way of saying there is no point in assigning right/wrong claims to a text.
Writing gimmicks fall into the same category. If the author can make a case that what the audience/critics consider a gimmick actually serves an artistic purpose, the discussion becomes complicated. We can perhaps argue (back and forth) whether it was deployed successfully or not, but, in the end, we might have to agree that we disagree.
4 Comments
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Anything to weed out these who shouldn’t be reading your work – they leave the most dad-blasted reviews.
Now, if you can turn it around to attract those who SHOULD, cough it up. I suspect your example, with the less common SAT words helps. But how do you get the right audience to ENGAGE with that description, so it stimulates their funny bone into making them click the BUY NOW button. Even more importantly, how do you get the ideal readers to even SEE the description? Those readers are skittish – and used to insisting their favorite pundits vet the books, which defeats the whole purpose, as the pundits are rarely your ideal readers themselves. I think those readers have been fooled too many times.
If we’re talking about marketing, you can definitely find better advice than mine. Marketability and I don’t mix well. Having said that, I suspect one way forward would be to focus on a group of readers who would be both ideal readers and likely to keep talking about your book (e.g. active bloggers, Goodreads group moderators, book club members, etc). Now, where you can find those, is an entirely other matter.
I couldn’t help but recall my dearest heavy music subgenre: mathcore. It is predicated on a gimmick that grew far too large and became a genre-defining trope. Time passed, and we had standards to compare the newer bands against and some were gimmicky, and some were authentic. I think you’re on to something deep here. Here’s a link to a song that uses some of the in-community jokes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMxkKod5RQk
Finding, and then persuading them that indie is as good as (or better than some) traditionally published novels is uphill battles in every direction, UNLESS you can persuade them to read enough to decide for themselves.
I love that Amazon opened up the writing world to anyone. I also hate it.