Yes why DID Fleabag work and Dolly’s one didn’t? Can’t work it out but I like Phoebe as well
I think it might just have been that characters from a range of backgrounds were given presence and personality
UK Literary Luvvies
- Thread starter queenamber
- Start date
-
- Tags
- literary luvvies
- Status
I think it might just have been that characters from a range of backgrounds were given presence and personality
Because Phoebe is genuinely talented and incisive and Dolly is not.Yes why DID Fleabag work and Dolly’s one didn’t? Can’t work it out but I like Phoebe as well
I think it might just have been that characters from a range of backgrounds were given presence and personality
Hmm I think some of Dolly’s social commentary is good
LaBlonde
VIP Member
Hmm I think some of Dolly’s social commentary is good
honestly, and i know this isn’t a rave thread
, but i think dolly is the most “talented” of the whole group tbh. she isn’t amazing but i genuinely enjoyed most of ghosts and i do agree that she has a good eye for commentary and observational details.
StillLucilleBluth
VIP Member
Fun fact that I only recently learned - the ex Elizabeth Day refers to as the much younger man (before her now husband) is Phoebe W-B’s brother!
She's good at writing chick lit. She's not talented or a good writer.honestly, and i know this isn’t a rave thread
god really? how didn't that create a massive rift in their friendship?
LaBlonde
VIP Member
i would argue that she doesn’t write “chick lit” (and urgh i hate that phrase)
she’s decent at writing romantic fiction, based on one book that i liked, and you can be absolutely good at one genre and still be a good writer. plenty of people make careers out of that. as said above, her issue is that she is good in a very small box. again, she isn’t the only writer who exclusively writes about locations and people she “knows” though. i would be intrigued as to where she takes her fiction writing next really.i’ve said too many nice things about dolly today and it feels weird. i’m out
Nah you can say nice things about her, she’s not a monster, she seems a good person if not a bit self involvedi would argue that she doesn’t write “chick lit” (and urgh i hate that phrase)
i’ve said too many nice things about dolly today and it feels weird. i’m out
LaBlonde
VIP Member
Nah you can say nice things about her, she’s not a monster, she seems a good person if not a bit self involved
thanks
i didn’t want to turn it into an accidental rave thread like i said, i have enjoyed her writing and will probably read more of it. there’s certainly enough genuine skill there that puts her above the rest of the group tbh. you’re right though that she needs to be less self-involved writing-wise and broaden her horizons a bit!You can say what you like, I hate it on Tattle when people feel they HAVE to be mean- most of the people we discuss are insufferable enough on their own though 
Just rewatching EIKAL as my friend’s never seen it and the way she tries to make herself ‘not like other girls’ is sooo annoying though- there’s a bit where she wonders what the friend and her boyfriend do together and that it’s probably playing scrabble or watching movies while she’s shagging her way round London ooh so edgy
Just rewatching EIKAL as my friend’s never seen it and the way she tries to make herself ‘not like other girls’ is sooo annoying though- there’s a bit where she wonders what the friend and her boyfriend do together and that it’s probably playing scrabble or watching movies while she’s shagging her way round London ooh so edgy
queenamber
VIP Member
Oh wow this is great info! Just seen he’s now engaged to Michelle Dockery!
You’ve got to be joking
Oh so supportive… of course Liz can recover, it was only peoples lives and futures at stake. You only failed horribly, and made the entire country far worse off in 44 days. Not even mentioning the mental health impact you’ve had.
But you’re a white woman ED interviewed - If course she believes in you, so supportive - she has failed too, did she ever mention that repeatedly, ALL THE TIME?
Call when you’re free to do HTF podcast.
Just proves everything i suspected about Liz Day. Soft Tory spineless hypocrite
Wow, he has a type!
Not even slightly - obviously was not so profitable, so now she's focused on free content
Rekyavikgirl
VIP Member
I'm so sick of high-profile writers with bylines everywhere crowding into the newsletter market. Even worse when they are staff writers. Greedy grabby cunts
I hope he’s a goodun because Michelle Dockery deserves it more than most.
her former fiancé died of cancer very young - early 30s I believe. I can’t imagine how painful it is to be planning the rest of your life with someone and having them ripped away from you. I don’t think I could ever get over the grief if anything happened to my OH.
She’s also a supremely talented actress, from fairly humble beginnings actually
i would argue that she doesn’t write “chick lit” (and urgh i hate that phrase)
i’ve said too many nice things about dolly today and it feels weird. i’m out
I think whether writing is “good” or not is fairly subjective. But at the same time, there are a few rules about what makes good writing;
• not relying on clichés or tropes
• strong, fully formed characters. People who have motivation for behaving however they do.
• well formed structure, rhythm and a good grasp of the language. Agatha christie, for example, doesn’t write much in the way of description of her scenes. But she’s excellent at writing dialogue and we get a sense of the scene through what the characters are saying. By contrast, Emily Bronte is infamous for her vivid description of the moors which are often rambling and detailed but serve an important function to her readers. Back in the 19th century, readers didn’t have TVs to help them picture scenes. They enjoyed devouring these descriptions in ways we don’t know because the image comes to our mind so easily. Books were meant to be slowly enjoyed as opposed to the rapid reading preference of today’s readership.
George Orwell believed that writing should be as simple as possible… but the pacing of his book was relevant to the point he was making. He uses simplicity in a beautiful way which makes the profound and complicated ideals in the novella, all the more impactful.
• some sort of meaningful journey. If well written, we care about characters because they feel so real and we emapthise with their experiences. We want to go on a journey with them, however small (Eleanor Oliphant coming to terms with trauma) or big (Frodo destroying the ring).
For me, what really takes good writing into great writing… is a really strong passion or belief. George Orwell warning us about the dangers of communism, comes from a deep conviction based on his life experiences. Dickens writing about the realities of the poor in London is based on his childhood experience in workhouses and something he strove to change. Emily bronte was supposedly rejected by her lover because of her social position, ergo she writes Heathcliffe’s torment out of her own heartbroken torment. Mary Shelley based Frankenstein and the themes of death and afterlife, on the profound grief she experienced at the loss of a child.
I would say an original story isn’t really what makes a good book on its own. A great book needs a deep understanding of how to play with language and an in-depth understanding of people
Unlike the “great” writers I mentioned, Dolly doesn’t really have any deeply held convictions or deep profound experiences to write about. I don’t think she has much capacity for understanding people beyond her own limited experiences. So I think she might be decent in the sense that she has spent her entire life writing so is benefit if experience and she can pick up shallow, social interactions.
her writing, to me, is pretty boring and superficial in that sense. She appears to readers who.. are like her. She relies on readers’ familiarity with certain places and objects.
When we were together, Joe often used his northernness in argu-ments against me, as a way of proving he was more real than I was; more down to earth and therefore more likely to be right. It was one of my least favourite things about him—the way he lazily outsourced his integrity to Yorkshire, so that romantic implications of miners and moors would do all the hard work for him. In the early stages of our relationship, he used to make me feel like we had grown up in separate galaxies because his mum had worked as a hairdresser in Sheffield and mine was a receptionist in Harrow. The first time he took me home to his parents’ house—a modest three-bed in a sub-urb of Sheffield—I realized just what a lie I’d been told. If I hadn’t known I was in Yorkshire, I would have sworn we were driving around the pebbledash-fronted-leaded-window gap between the end of London and the beginning of Hertfordshire where I’d spent my adolescence. Joe’s cul-de- sac was the same as mine, the houses were all the same, his fridge was full of the same fruit-corner yogurts and ready-to-bake garlic bread. He’d had a bike just like mine, to spend his teenage weekends going up and down streets of identical red-roof houses just like I did. He was taken to PizzaExpress for his birthday like I was. The secret was out. “No more making out that we’ve had completely different upbringings, Joe,” I said to him on the train home. “No more pretending you belong in a song written by Jarvis Cocker about being in love with a woman in a tabard. You no more belong in that song than I belong in a Chas and Dave one. We grew up in matching suburbs.”
in an excerpt, the narrator describes a rather banal ex boyfriend and perhaps showcases Dolly’s own anxieties about her upper middle class background. She describes markers of said middle class background in regards to how they appear to her; a cul-de-sac, fruit corner yoghurts, trips to a pizza chain. All of these things, are shallow observations of middle class life. They rely on the reader being familiar with that type of house, that brand of yoghurt, knowing what a pizza express is and what it represents.
if anything, the excerpt shows that Dolly has very little grasp of the nuances of the difference between upper middle class life and lower middle class. The narrator is from north London for example, historically a much wealthier area. Sure - the narrator and her ex might’ve grown up in a similar house in a similar cul de sac and ate similar snacks, but Sheffield has had some of the poor regions in the U.K. without the same access to the opportunities London affords (the opposite actually). To the narrator, if it looks the same then it must be the same.
The writing itself, in terms of the actual words and sentences used - is unexceptional, bordering on boring and bad imo.
so, in my opinion - Dolly’s writing - though it may comment on social anxieties that are common - really reflect her own anxiety and lack of understanding of nuances of human behaviour. It sells because, the reader she appeals to, likes easy to read books that reflect their own experiences. She’s managed to make a career out of it because of a stroke of luck more than talent. Harsh, but true to how I see it.
Last edited:
queenamber
VIP Member
Lol. Clearly it wasn't the money-grabber she was expecting it to be, otherwise why is she only now considering free content? Guarantee the Substack will be a paid subscription too.
- Status