Posts
By Lonnie Cruse
I'm a huge fan of HGTV and apparently some of the people who appear on the various shows are fans as well, because they all spout the same popular phrases as they wander through other people's houses, looking to buy. Lots of natural light. Light and airy. Gotta have hardwood floors. Gotta have stainless steel appliances. Gotta have granite counter tops.
We live in the Midwest, where you can buy an entire house for the price of a small bathroom in California or New York. We have light. We have airy. Granite counter tops aren't quite as numerous but our walk-in closets make theirs look like glorified shoe boxes. So there.
Favorite phrases. They pop up in novels as well. I forgot to grab my cell phone off the charger (translation: the protagonist is now without any way to call 911 for backup, so must chase and/or run from the killer aaaaall alone. The cop/sheriff/DA (take your pick) is so stupid, he/she will never solve the case, and since I was in the neighborhood when the murder took place, I'll be arrested (never mind that 100 or so other suspects were there too) so I'll have to solve it myself. I never carry a firearm, they're too dangerous, so I'll face the bad guy bare-handed. I don't suspect this person, so of course, I'll accept a ride to a remote location. And the ever popular, I heard a noise in the basement. The lights are out, I can't find a flashlight, and the phone isn't working, so I'll just skip down there and see what's going on.
Okay, the last three aren't actual phrases, but it's what the protag often does that has the reader grinding her teeth.
Are there any common or popular phrases in books that drive you nuts? If so, would you share them with us? How would you word yours differently?
And what color are your granite counter tops, by the way?
Friday, May 8, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Writer’s Craft and the Learning Curve
Elizabeth Zelvin
I’ve been writing my whole life, having first declared I “wanted to be a writer” at the age of seven and sticking to it through many years of rejections (eight or nine book length manuscripts in the drawer), false starts (like majoring in English and working as a textbook editor), and distractions (like selling life insurance—disastrous—and being a therapist—reasonably successful). As a shrink, I know that if we’re wise, we never stop learning. But having done as all top writers and writing teachers advise—read read read, write write write—for so many decades, I thought the learning curve would flatten out once my “mature” mystery manuscript, Death Will Get You Sober, had actually been accepted and published. Not so.
That first book has been out for a year. The second, Death Will Help You Leave Him, has been through the hands of an editor and copy editor, back to me, and off to production to become the “uncorrected proofs” that my publisher will send as advance review copies to the powerful “big four” of pre-publication reviewers. The third, after many revisions and three sets of comments by carefully selected critique partners, is in my agent’s hands, to be submitted to my editor. And as I struggle to choose between the two stories that might come next in the series and start to turn them into first-draft reality, I am bowled over by how the challenges keep coming, by the amount of craft it takes to turn out the third and fourth and fifth mystery in a series, and by how much more I have to learn.
Much of my learning has taken place the hard way, over time and by living with my mistakes. I’m not complaining about this. I’m a social worker by training, and a beloved boss of mine (a psychologist himself) once said that the only two words social workers ever say are “appropriate” and “process.” In retrospect, I can see that nothing is wasted.
And that knowledge helps me keep going through the next round of rejections, false starts, distractions, and mistakes.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
Death Will Get You Sober. First draft completed 2002, accepted for publication 2006, published 2008
1. Don’t submit your first draft to agents—I was given this advice in 2002 but it took several years to sink in.
2. Kill your darlings—same as above.
3. Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle—after 125 agent queries and 35 publisher submissions with and without agents, I got a contract with St. Martin’s, where the manuscript had sat on an editor’s desk for 2 ½ years.
4. Rewrite the whole thing if you have to, if that’s the price of getting published—that’s how my recovering alcoholic Bruce got to be sole protagonist and my world-class codependent Barbara got demoted from co-protagonist to sidekick. In spite of a little feminist embarrassment, I’m so glad I agreed to do it. The result was a much better book.
Intended second manuscript in the series, title withheld. Revised several times. My agent loved it, my editor didn’t. It took me till 2009 to acquire enough craft to see what was wrong with it.
Death Will Help You Leave Him. Submitted March 2008, accepted November 2008, to be published October 2009. Having workshopped the first few chapters in 2006, I revised the first draft lightly. My editor liked it and made hardly any changes.
Next manuscript in the series, ready for submission. Writing the first draft was sheer torture, and I hated the result. For the first time, I couldn’t get away with no research. I had to talk to the police, pick strawberries, and go fishing, all lots more fun than I expected. Three hand picked critique partners helped me turn it into a manuscript I love.
Two candidates for follow-up to the last manuscript. I wrote 60 pages of Manuscript A and decided it wasn’t working. Not enough conflict, too large a pool of suspects. For the first time, I submitted an incomplete first draft to a critique partner. Her comments will help me write this book eventually if I decide to do it. But her key question was, “Is this a book you feel you have to write—if your publisher went bankrupt tomorrow, would you write it anyway?” I couldn’t say yes. But the next day, my thoughts about Manuscript B began to come together in my head. I could even see how much better it would be for the character and series arcs to make B the next one and A the one after that. I’m a little scared about my ability to write B—the stakes get so much higher once you’ve got a series going, especially in a bad economy—and I may have to try outlining for the first time. If so, it’ll be another vertical stretch in the learning curve. I’ll simply have to dig in my pitons and keep going.
I’ve been writing my whole life, having first declared I “wanted to be a writer” at the age of seven and sticking to it through many years of rejections (eight or nine book length manuscripts in the drawer), false starts (like majoring in English and working as a textbook editor), and distractions (like selling life insurance—disastrous—and being a therapist—reasonably successful). As a shrink, I know that if we’re wise, we never stop learning. But having done as all top writers and writing teachers advise—read read read, write write write—for so many decades, I thought the learning curve would flatten out once my “mature” mystery manuscript, Death Will Get You Sober, had actually been accepted and published. Not so.
That first book has been out for a year. The second, Death Will Help You Leave Him, has been through the hands of an editor and copy editor, back to me, and off to production to become the “uncorrected proofs” that my publisher will send as advance review copies to the powerful “big four” of pre-publication reviewers. The third, after many revisions and three sets of comments by carefully selected critique partners, is in my agent’s hands, to be submitted to my editor. And as I struggle to choose between the two stories that might come next in the series and start to turn them into first-draft reality, I am bowled over by how the challenges keep coming, by the amount of craft it takes to turn out the third and fourth and fifth mystery in a series, and by how much more I have to learn.
Much of my learning has taken place the hard way, over time and by living with my mistakes. I’m not complaining about this. I’m a social worker by training, and a beloved boss of mine (a psychologist himself) once said that the only two words social workers ever say are “appropriate” and “process.” In retrospect, I can see that nothing is wasted.
And that knowledge helps me keep going through the next round of rejections, false starts, distractions, and mistakes.
Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
Death Will Get You Sober. First draft completed 2002, accepted for publication 2006, published 2008
1. Don’t submit your first draft to agents—I was given this advice in 2002 but it took several years to sink in.
2. Kill your darlings—same as above.
3. Don’t quit five minutes before the miracle—after 125 agent queries and 35 publisher submissions with and without agents, I got a contract with St. Martin’s, where the manuscript had sat on an editor’s desk for 2 ½ years.
4. Rewrite the whole thing if you have to, if that’s the price of getting published—that’s how my recovering alcoholic Bruce got to be sole protagonist and my world-class codependent Barbara got demoted from co-protagonist to sidekick. In spite of a little feminist embarrassment, I’m so glad I agreed to do it. The result was a much better book.
Intended second manuscript in the series, title withheld. Revised several times. My agent loved it, my editor didn’t. It took me till 2009 to acquire enough craft to see what was wrong with it.
Death Will Help You Leave Him. Submitted March 2008, accepted November 2008, to be published October 2009. Having workshopped the first few chapters in 2006, I revised the first draft lightly. My editor liked it and made hardly any changes.
Next manuscript in the series, ready for submission. Writing the first draft was sheer torture, and I hated the result. For the first time, I couldn’t get away with no research. I had to talk to the police, pick strawberries, and go fishing, all lots more fun than I expected. Three hand picked critique partners helped me turn it into a manuscript I love.
Two candidates for follow-up to the last manuscript. I wrote 60 pages of Manuscript A and decided it wasn’t working. Not enough conflict, too large a pool of suspects. For the first time, I submitted an incomplete first draft to a critique partner. Her comments will help me write this book eventually if I decide to do it. But her key question was, “Is this a book you feel you have to write—if your publisher went bankrupt tomorrow, would you write it anyway?” I couldn’t say yes. But the next day, my thoughts about Manuscript B began to come together in my head. I could even see how much better it would be for the character and series arcs to make B the next one and A the one after that. I’m a little scared about my ability to write B—the stakes get so much higher once you’ve got a series going, especially in a bad economy—and I may have to try outlining for the first time. If so, it’ll be another vertical stretch in the learning curve. I’ll simply have to dig in my pitons and keep going.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Writers are from Venus, editors are from Mars... in between are agents
Sandra Parshall
Writers live in their own insular worlds – located mostly inside their heads – and editors live in the bustling world of commerce, where a book is a product that must justify its presence on a shelf. Straddling both worlds, always trying to bridge the gap, are those wondrous creatures called agents. If a writer wants to be published by a big New York imprint these days, having an agent to get your manuscript on editors’ desks is a must. Most New York editors won’t look at work that hasn’t first been vetted by an agent they respect.
Agents are in the ideal position to judge the current turmoil in the publishing business and predict the future, so I was eager to hear from the panel of agents who spoke at the Malice Domestic conference last weekend. Because the phenomenal Anne Perry was being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the Malice organizers were able to lure both her US agent, Donald Maass, and her British agent, Meg Davis, to the conference and to seats on the panel. Joining them were Ellen Pepus of the Signature Literary Agency, Janet Reid of the Fine Print Agency, and Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
They tackled the toughest question first: Is publishing dead, or dying?
Ruley – whose clients include Julia Spencer-Fleming, Dorothy Cannell, Rhys Bowen, Cathy Pickens, and other equally talented mystery writers – believes this is a “watershed moment” in the history of publishing, with great movement and change as people discover new ways to read. Books are still selling, but the printed form is no longer the only way to enjoy a book.
Davis agreed and pointed to the internet and other “channels we haven’t seen before” that allow authors to prove to publishers that an audience exists for what they’re writing. Reid – who represents Dana Cameron, among other well-regarded mystery and thriller writers – said that publishing is certainly changing, but writers shouldn’t worry about it. “The one thing that will not change is the hunger for storytelling.” She advises writers to “just write really, really well” and leave the business worries to others.
Don Maass, who looks far too young to be the legend he is (clients include a long string of award winners and NY Times bestselling authors), believes that e-publishing is taking hold, although it now represents a “microscopic” percentage of book sales. Audiobooks, Maass said, account for 10% of publishing profits, and eventually e-publishing will equal that.
So what’s selling? What’s hot and what’s not?
These five agents may be markedly different in their personal styles, but they all played variations on the same theme: they want to see superior writing and storytelling ability. They aren’t interested in shallow books that are basically more of the “same old same old.”
“People want something that engages their minds in an intelligent way,” Meg Davis said. “They want books with weight.”
While admitting there’s still a strong market for vampire books, Ellen Pepus said she’s looking for “deeper” books that delve into the psychology of the characters.
Reid finds thrillers easiest to sell, but she said that a “compelling, fresh voice” is essential even in escapist fiction.
Ruley doesn’t believe it's worthwhile to think in terms of trends, but she snaps to attention when a book written in a “fresh and distinctive voice” lands on her desk.
Maass spoke rather disdainfully of “hook-y” books and said there are now more mysteries featuring Jane Austen as a character than books actually written by Austen. Those novels, he said, are “nice but shallow.” He’ll consider representing only “the best paranormal” – novels that create a rich, layered story world. What he most admires are literary mysteries with deep character development and great storytelling that works on many levels. He looks for “micro-tension” in a novel – every sentence must be so strongly crafted that it compels the reader forward. No flab, no utilitarian prose.
With so many writers jumping from genre to genre these days, I was especially interested in these agents’ views on writers who want to try different things. Pepus said that if a writer can be successful in different genres, she’ll represent everything the author produces. But Maass and Ruley said it’s unlikely that a writer can master more than one genre. A writer should think about his or her long-range career and focus on one thing, Ruley advised. “The more focused you can be, the better.” Maass agreed, advising writers to stick with what they do best and cultivate the audience for that type of book.
How does a writer claim the attention of these agents? It is possible, however daunting it may seem. Maass pointed out that his agency (four agents, total sales of about 150 novels per year) launched the careers of half a dozen new writers in the past year. Those writers have one important thing in common, aside from their talent: they were willing to dig in and do major rewrites for the agency before the manuscripts were marketed, and they had the patience to take their time and bring their books as close to perfection as possible. He’ll read queries from unpublished writers, always looking for a voice so distinctive that it bowls him over, and he doesn’t ask for exclusives on manuscripts. Neither does Ruley.
Davis bemoaned the number of “mass mailings” she receives – queries broadcast to every agent in the world. Don’t send out stuff like that, she advised, and don’t send agents money, candy, cookies, or nude photos of yourself either. Most writers, the agents agreed, say too much in their queries. It takes “so much less” to engage an agent’s attention than writers believe, Maass said. Brevity is best. If your work is special, you’ll be able to convey that in one paragraph.
Reid said she prefers to make sales herself, rather than being approached by writers who have contracts in hand and just want an agent to do the fine-tuning on the deal.
One of the most discouraging comments came from Pepus, who cautioned that “most first books don’t sell.” But if she loves a client’s writing, she’ll hang in there until something does sell.
Often it seems to writers who are wading through rejections that the last thing in the world agents are looking for is a new client, but no one who sat in on this panel could miss the enthusiasm – the love – that Davis, Pepus, Maass, Reid and Ruley feel for books and the people who write them. Ruley summed it up when she said “the most fun ever” is discovering a new writer whose work makes her “flip out.” Believe it or not, agents are in the business for the same reason writers are – because they are passionate about books.
(The agents in the photo above are Meg Davis, Ellen Pepus, Donald Maass, Janet Reid, and Meg Ruley.)
Writers live in their own insular worlds – located mostly inside their heads – and editors live in the bustling world of commerce, where a book is a product that must justify its presence on a shelf. Straddling both worlds, always trying to bridge the gap, are those wondrous creatures called agents. If a writer wants to be published by a big New York imprint these days, having an agent to get your manuscript on editors’ desks is a must. Most New York editors won’t look at work that hasn’t first been vetted by an agent they respect.
Agents are in the ideal position to judge the current turmoil in the publishing business and predict the future, so I was eager to hear from the panel of agents who spoke at the Malice Domestic conference last weekend. Because the phenomenal Anne Perry was being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, the Malice organizers were able to lure both her US agent, Donald Maass, and her British agent, Meg Davis, to the conference and to seats on the panel. Joining them were Ellen Pepus of the Signature Literary Agency, Janet Reid of the Fine Print Agency, and Meg Ruley of the Jane Rotrosen Agency.
They tackled the toughest question first: Is publishing dead, or dying?
Ruley – whose clients include Julia Spencer-Fleming, Dorothy Cannell, Rhys Bowen, Cathy Pickens, and other equally talented mystery writers – believes this is a “watershed moment” in the history of publishing, with great movement and change as people discover new ways to read. Books are still selling, but the printed form is no longer the only way to enjoy a book.
Davis agreed and pointed to the internet and other “channels we haven’t seen before” that allow authors to prove to publishers that an audience exists for what they’re writing. Reid – who represents Dana Cameron, among other well-regarded mystery and thriller writers – said that publishing is certainly changing, but writers shouldn’t worry about it. “The one thing that will not change is the hunger for storytelling.” She advises writers to “just write really, really well” and leave the business worries to others.
Don Maass, who looks far too young to be the legend he is (clients include a long string of award winners and NY Times bestselling authors), believes that e-publishing is taking hold, although it now represents a “microscopic” percentage of book sales. Audiobooks, Maass said, account for 10% of publishing profits, and eventually e-publishing will equal that.
So what’s selling? What’s hot and what’s not?
These five agents may be markedly different in their personal styles, but they all played variations on the same theme: they want to see superior writing and storytelling ability. They aren’t interested in shallow books that are basically more of the “same old same old.”
“People want something that engages their minds in an intelligent way,” Meg Davis said. “They want books with weight.”
While admitting there’s still a strong market for vampire books, Ellen Pepus said she’s looking for “deeper” books that delve into the psychology of the characters.
Reid finds thrillers easiest to sell, but she said that a “compelling, fresh voice” is essential even in escapist fiction.
Ruley doesn’t believe it's worthwhile to think in terms of trends, but she snaps to attention when a book written in a “fresh and distinctive voice” lands on her desk.
Maass spoke rather disdainfully of “hook-y” books and said there are now more mysteries featuring Jane Austen as a character than books actually written by Austen. Those novels, he said, are “nice but shallow.” He’ll consider representing only “the best paranormal” – novels that create a rich, layered story world. What he most admires are literary mysteries with deep character development and great storytelling that works on many levels. He looks for “micro-tension” in a novel – every sentence must be so strongly crafted that it compels the reader forward. No flab, no utilitarian prose.
With so many writers jumping from genre to genre these days, I was especially interested in these agents’ views on writers who want to try different things. Pepus said that if a writer can be successful in different genres, she’ll represent everything the author produces. But Maass and Ruley said it’s unlikely that a writer can master more than one genre. A writer should think about his or her long-range career and focus on one thing, Ruley advised. “The more focused you can be, the better.” Maass agreed, advising writers to stick with what they do best and cultivate the audience for that type of book.
How does a writer claim the attention of these agents? It is possible, however daunting it may seem. Maass pointed out that his agency (four agents, total sales of about 150 novels per year) launched the careers of half a dozen new writers in the past year. Those writers have one important thing in common, aside from their talent: they were willing to dig in and do major rewrites for the agency before the manuscripts were marketed, and they had the patience to take their time and bring their books as close to perfection as possible. He’ll read queries from unpublished writers, always looking for a voice so distinctive that it bowls him over, and he doesn’t ask for exclusives on manuscripts. Neither does Ruley.
Davis bemoaned the number of “mass mailings” she receives – queries broadcast to every agent in the world. Don’t send out stuff like that, she advised, and don’t send agents money, candy, cookies, or nude photos of yourself either. Most writers, the agents agreed, say too much in their queries. It takes “so much less” to engage an agent’s attention than writers believe, Maass said. Brevity is best. If your work is special, you’ll be able to convey that in one paragraph.
Reid said she prefers to make sales herself, rather than being approached by writers who have contracts in hand and just want an agent to do the fine-tuning on the deal.
One of the most discouraging comments came from Pepus, who cautioned that “most first books don’t sell.” But if she loves a client’s writing, she’ll hang in there until something does sell.
Often it seems to writers who are wading through rejections that the last thing in the world agents are looking for is a new client, but no one who sat in on this panel could miss the enthusiasm – the love – that Davis, Pepus, Maass, Reid and Ruley feel for books and the people who write them. Ruley summed it up when she said “the most fun ever” is discovering a new writer whose work makes her “flip out.” Believe it or not, agents are in the business for the same reason writers are – because they are passionate about books.
(The agents in the photo above are Meg Davis, Ellen Pepus, Donald Maass, Janet Reid, and Meg Ruley.)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Epidemic Narrative
Sharon Wildwind
If a story builds in the forest, and no one hears it, is it still a story?
Amidst the plethora of news recently related to the swine flu—is it or is it not an epidemic—was a fascinating interview on CBC’s Radio 1 morning program, The Current.
Priscilla Wald, a U.S. author and English professor and Vincent Lam, a Canadian physician and writer got together with the program’s host Anna Maria Tremonti for a look at contagious illness not as sickness, but as story. If you’d like to hear the entire segment, click here; scroll down to Part One: Swine Flu Narrative; and then click on the play button.
Basically what the two authors said was that the more confusing an event, the greater the lack of cohesiveness, the more prevalent conflicting opinions, the more desperate human beings become to turn events into a narrative, that is, into a story line they understand.
Right off, most of us choose sides. We pick bad guys, good guys, and victims, the essential triangle needed to develop story conflict.
Small waves radiate out from the initial event. There is a first victim; as Stephen King says, probably an old man and his dog in a dusty pick-up truck. The heroine feels the tremor in the universe:
“What’s wrong professor?”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. For a moment there, my readings went all out of whack.”
“They look okay to me. It must have been a trick of the light or something.”
“You’re probably right.”
Eventually people notice the deaths/mutations/body inhabitation, etc. The usual authority figures are baffled and helpless; they call in the experts, who are themselves baffled.
“What do you think that is, professor?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Someone suggests an easy fix. It fails. Increasingly esoteric fixes also fail. Each failure is more spectacular than the last. Panic grows. Sides develop. One group wants to try to communicate. The other group wants it incinerated and its ashes scattered in the wind.
Finally only one chance remains, and somebody will have to pay big time for it to work. It doesn’t pay to be the hero’s best friend at this point. In Star Trek it’s known as the red-shirt syndrome.
The hero takes the final, awful chance. The world is saved . . . until next time.
Great stuff for the late-night Friday science-fiction movie. The problem is the temptation to use a Hollywood script as a model for real life events
As you read the following list, which of the three roles—bad guy, good guy, or victim—comes to mind for each character?
Big business is the . . .
The workers are . . .
Government is the . . .
Pharmaceutical companies are the . . .
Poor people are the . . .
Rich people are the . . .
Doctors and nurses are the . . .
The media is . . .
Did you think I was talking about the potential flu pandemic? I never said I was; you’re already forming your narrative based on an assumption.
Suppose that we do talk about the potential pandemic. Poor people are the . . . . A lot of people would say victims, but a surprising percentage would say that poor people are the bad guys. That percentage believes if poor people would just clean up their act—literally and figuratively—the conditions for illness development and transmission would be reduced. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be this mess. That’s a narrative looking for a scapegoat.
Another problem with building a real-life narrative is knowing the reliability of the narrator. In addition to assigning a role to characters, as readers or viewers we also assign a reliability factor to each character. “She had me completely fooled; I never imagined she would lie about her husband.” or “Those shifty eyes didn’t get by me. Soon as I saw him, I knew I couldn’t trust him.” Okay for fiction because if we’re wrong about a character, maybe our enjoyment of the story is a little diminished, or sometimes, as many years ago with the movie, The Sting, we slap our foreheads and gleefully realize we have been had.
In real life, so many sources compete for our allegiance that the tendency most people have is to make one of two choices: if I trust the source, then their information must be right or this is all too much to understand. I’m going to pick a point-of-view that sounds logical and stick to it.
Take masks. The one image of the past few weeks will be, for many people, noses and mouths covered with blue masks. They have taken on the totem effect of Harry Potter’s wand or Wonder Woman’s bracelets. With masks everything will be okay, in spite of the fact that most masks offer virtually no protection against respiratory spread of infection.
It’s so hard to build a story when we’re busy living it. We’ve heard a lot the past two weeks about breaking the transmission chain. We also need to break the anxiety chain. For some time every day, turn off the TV, radio, personal data device, e-mail, cell phone, etc. Get outside. Take a walk. Listen to music. Do yoga. Do art. Meditate. Do whatever it takes to get you outside the constant barrage of someone else trying to build the narrative for you.
Oh, yeah, and wash your hands. Wash often and well.
_____
Quote for the week:
The success or failure of your narrative passages … depends entirely on your clear under- standing of point of view. ~Beth Anderson, mystery and romance writer
If a story builds in the forest, and no one hears it, is it still a story?
Amidst the plethora of news recently related to the swine flu—is it or is it not an epidemic—was a fascinating interview on CBC’s Radio 1 morning program, The Current.
Priscilla Wald, a U.S. author and English professor and Vincent Lam, a Canadian physician and writer got together with the program’s host Anna Maria Tremonti for a look at contagious illness not as sickness, but as story. If you’d like to hear the entire segment, click here; scroll down to Part One: Swine Flu Narrative; and then click on the play button.
Basically what the two authors said was that the more confusing an event, the greater the lack of cohesiveness, the more prevalent conflicting opinions, the more desperate human beings become to turn events into a narrative, that is, into a story line they understand.
Right off, most of us choose sides. We pick bad guys, good guys, and victims, the essential triangle needed to develop story conflict.
Small waves radiate out from the initial event. There is a first victim; as Stephen King says, probably an old man and his dog in a dusty pick-up truck. The heroine feels the tremor in the universe:
“What’s wrong professor?”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. For a moment there, my readings went all out of whack.”
“They look okay to me. It must have been a trick of the light or something.”
“You’re probably right.”
Eventually people notice the deaths/mutations/body inhabitation, etc. The usual authority figures are baffled and helpless; they call in the experts, who are themselves baffled.
“What do you think that is, professor?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Someone suggests an easy fix. It fails. Increasingly esoteric fixes also fail. Each failure is more spectacular than the last. Panic grows. Sides develop. One group wants to try to communicate. The other group wants it incinerated and its ashes scattered in the wind.
Finally only one chance remains, and somebody will have to pay big time for it to work. It doesn’t pay to be the hero’s best friend at this point. In Star Trek it’s known as the red-shirt syndrome.
The hero takes the final, awful chance. The world is saved . . . until next time.
Great stuff for the late-night Friday science-fiction movie. The problem is the temptation to use a Hollywood script as a model for real life events
As you read the following list, which of the three roles—bad guy, good guy, or victim—comes to mind for each character?
Big business is the . . .
The workers are . . .
Government is the . . .
Pharmaceutical companies are the . . .
Poor people are the . . .
Rich people are the . . .
Doctors and nurses are the . . .
The media is . . .
Did you think I was talking about the potential flu pandemic? I never said I was; you’re already forming your narrative based on an assumption.
Suppose that we do talk about the potential pandemic. Poor people are the . . . . A lot of people would say victims, but a surprising percentage would say that poor people are the bad guys. That percentage believes if poor people would just clean up their act—literally and figuratively—the conditions for illness development and transmission would be reduced. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be this mess. That’s a narrative looking for a scapegoat.
Another problem with building a real-life narrative is knowing the reliability of the narrator. In addition to assigning a role to characters, as readers or viewers we also assign a reliability factor to each character. “She had me completely fooled; I never imagined she would lie about her husband.” or “Those shifty eyes didn’t get by me. Soon as I saw him, I knew I couldn’t trust him.” Okay for fiction because if we’re wrong about a character, maybe our enjoyment of the story is a little diminished, or sometimes, as many years ago with the movie, The Sting, we slap our foreheads and gleefully realize we have been had.
In real life, so many sources compete for our allegiance that the tendency most people have is to make one of two choices: if I trust the source, then their information must be right or this is all too much to understand. I’m going to pick a point-of-view that sounds logical and stick to it.
Take masks. The one image of the past few weeks will be, for many people, noses and mouths covered with blue masks. They have taken on the totem effect of Harry Potter’s wand or Wonder Woman’s bracelets. With masks everything will be okay, in spite of the fact that most masks offer virtually no protection against respiratory spread of infection.
It’s so hard to build a story when we’re busy living it. We’ve heard a lot the past two weeks about breaking the transmission chain. We also need to break the anxiety chain. For some time every day, turn off the TV, radio, personal data device, e-mail, cell phone, etc. Get outside. Take a walk. Listen to music. Do yoga. Do art. Meditate. Do whatever it takes to get you outside the constant barrage of someone else trying to build the narrative for you.
Oh, yeah, and wash your hands. Wash often and well.
_____
Quote for the week:
The success or failure of your narrative passages … depends entirely on your clear under- standing of point of view. ~Beth Anderson, mystery and romance writer
Monday, May 4, 2009
On Plants and Writing: Pruning is Healthy, but Painful
by Julia Buckley
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My parents were in town on Friday to attend Grandparents Day at my sons' school. Afterward they came over to socialize for a bit, and since they are both accomplished gardeners, I asked them to take a look at mine. Naturally they tut-tutted over its sloppiness (guilty as charged) and immediately began weeding. This is how I remember my parents in spring and summer evenings of my childhood--squatting in front of their lovely corner gardens and rock gardens, weeding and tending and nurturing. Then they would water it all with our hose, occasionally giving in to the spritely impulse to water the children, as well.
Now my parents frowned at my yard. "You have to weed this, Julia! Look at how those other plants are choking these out!" My mother glared at the lab/beagle mix from next door, who while they watched slid his paw inside our fence and pulled back a stalk of my peony bush. "Stop him from doing that!" she cried. "He's killing your plants."
"He's so cute, though," I said. "And no one really plays with him."
My parents were stern. "You have to choose which you like better: the dog or your peonies."
I agreed that this was true, and asked my father to look at the little tree pictured above. We planted it last year, my husband and I, in honor of our twentieth anniversary. It's had a slow go of it because Jeff accidentally broke it last year while he was mowing the lawn (I asked if he was symbolically trying to destroy our marriage, but he says no). This year I was excited to see so many shoots and buds.
But my father, squinting at it with his arborist's eye, said, "You have to prune this."
"No!" I yelled instinctively. "It's just getting some green on it."
"But it's healthy for the tree," he pointed out. "If you leave it like this, it will grow out instead of up. You want it taller, right?"
"Yes," I said, pouting.
My dad nodded. "I'll go get my pruning shears."
"You have them in your CAR?" I asked.
Of course. My dad has everything in his car. If you have a highway emergency, you should pray that my dad is nearby, with his tools and his flares and, in case of a tree emergency, his arborist's implements.
He returned and pointed to the tree. "See how it makes a V there? It will grow outward now, and that's where the tree will branch off. You don't want it to do that so low to the ground."
Then, before my eyes, he went snip, snip, snip, and pulled off the pretty green leaves that were using up the tree's precious water in areas where, my father told me, I didn't want it to go.
It all makes sense. And today I see that the tree is, in fact, going to grow taller without wasting its resources on side branches.
This is also true of writing, isn't it? I take a draft that I've grown very fond of and I see that some of it has to go, but it's painful, to prune it all away like that and leave it dead on the ground (metaphorically). And then for a while the manuscript might look like nothing at all, once those terrific scenes have been cut away (or even, sometimes, beloved characters).
Still, pruning is a necessity, and my father's wisdom is something that I've come to rely upon, and not only in my garden.
Later in the summer I'll give you an update on my little tree, and all you writers can be encouraged that your pruning, too, is worth the effort.
_001.jpg)
My parents were in town on Friday to attend Grandparents Day at my sons' school. Afterward they came over to socialize for a bit, and since they are both accomplished gardeners, I asked them to take a look at mine. Naturally they tut-tutted over its sloppiness (guilty as charged) and immediately began weeding. This is how I remember my parents in spring and summer evenings of my childhood--squatting in front of their lovely corner gardens and rock gardens, weeding and tending and nurturing. Then they would water it all with our hose, occasionally giving in to the spritely impulse to water the children, as well.Now my parents frowned at my yard. "You have to weed this, Julia! Look at how those other plants are choking these out!" My mother glared at the lab/beagle mix from next door, who while they watched slid his paw inside our fence and pulled back a stalk of my peony bush. "Stop him from doing that!" she cried. "He's killing your plants."
"He's so cute, though," I said. "And no one really plays with him."
My parents were stern. "You have to choose which you like better: the dog or your peonies."
I agreed that this was true, and asked my father to look at the little tree pictured above. We planted it last year, my husband and I, in honor of our twentieth anniversary. It's had a slow go of it because Jeff accidentally broke it last year while he was mowing the lawn (I asked if he was symbolically trying to destroy our marriage, but he says no). This year I was excited to see so many shoots and buds.
But my father, squinting at it with his arborist's eye, said, "You have to prune this."
"No!" I yelled instinctively. "It's just getting some green on it."
"But it's healthy for the tree," he pointed out. "If you leave it like this, it will grow out instead of up. You want it taller, right?"
"Yes," I said, pouting.
My dad nodded. "I'll go get my pruning shears."
"You have them in your CAR?" I asked.
Of course. My dad has everything in his car. If you have a highway emergency, you should pray that my dad is nearby, with his tools and his flares and, in case of a tree emergency, his arborist's implements.
He returned and pointed to the tree. "See how it makes a V there? It will grow outward now, and that's where the tree will branch off. You don't want it to do that so low to the ground."
Then, before my eyes, he went snip, snip, snip, and pulled off the pretty green leaves that were using up the tree's precious water in areas where, my father told me, I didn't want it to go.
It all makes sense. And today I see that the tree is, in fact, going to grow taller without wasting its resources on side branches.
This is also true of writing, isn't it? I take a draft that I've grown very fond of and I see that some of it has to go, but it's painful, to prune it all away like that and leave it dead on the ground (metaphorically). And then for a while the manuscript might look like nothing at all, once those terrific scenes have been cut away (or even, sometimes, beloved characters).
Still, pruning is a necessity, and my father's wisdom is something that I've come to rely upon, and not only in my garden.
Later in the summer I'll give you an update on my little tree, and all you writers can be encouraged that your pruning, too, is worth the effort.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Annie's Ideas for Getting Unstuck
Brenda Novak’s 5th Annual On-line Auction for Diabetes Research began Friday and will run through the month. Items up for auction include books by many of your favorite authors, treats, jewelry, once in a lifetime experiences, critiques by top agents, editors and writers, and some wonderful gift baskets—including mine, The Chocolate Lover’s Gift Basket. Please stop by the site and take a look around.
If you’re dealing with writer’s block, or just feeling depressed about writing in general, how do you get started again without adding to the stress you already feel? Maybe what you need to do is something other than writing. (Like bidding on the Chocolate Lover's gift basket. Hint. Hint.)
My friend Annie is not only a grammar whiz, she’s also a very talented artist and poet who never seems to be stuck for ideas or inspiration. Or so I thought. She laughed when I told her it seemed as though the creative muses lived in her studio.
“I get stuck all the time,” she said. “I just know what to do to get unstuck.”
So here are Annie’s Ideas for Getting Unstuck. Maybe one of them will work for you.
1. Listen to music. Get up and dance.
2. Cook. Try a new recipe or indulge in comfort food: mac and cheese, brownies, chocolate chip cookies.
3. Read non-fiction.
4. Walk through a museum or art gallery.
5. Walk around your neighborhood and take pictures.
6. Draw on the sidewalk or driveway with chalk.
7. Cut pictures from a magazine and make a collage.
8. Prowl around Wikipedia
9. Choose five words at random from the dictionary and use them in a naughty poem.
10. Walk the dog.
11. Baby sit a friend’s kids.
12. Make playdoh and then sculpt with it.
13. Take a long, hot shower. Or a short cold one.
14. Have sex.
What do you do when you're stuck?
If you’re dealing with writer’s block, or just feeling depressed about writing in general, how do you get started again without adding to the stress you already feel? Maybe what you need to do is something other than writing. (Like bidding on the Chocolate Lover's gift basket. Hint. Hint.)
My friend Annie is not only a grammar whiz, she’s also a very talented artist and poet who never seems to be stuck for ideas or inspiration. Or so I thought. She laughed when I told her it seemed as though the creative muses lived in her studio.
“I get stuck all the time,” she said. “I just know what to do to get unstuck.”
So here are Annie’s Ideas for Getting Unstuck. Maybe one of them will work for you.
1. Listen to music. Get up and dance.
2. Cook. Try a new recipe or indulge in comfort food: mac and cheese, brownies, chocolate chip cookies.
3. Read non-fiction.
4. Walk through a museum or art gallery.
5. Walk around your neighborhood and take pictures.
6. Draw on the sidewalk or driveway with chalk.
7. Cut pictures from a magazine and make a collage.
8. Prowl around Wikipedia
9. Choose five words at random from the dictionary and use them in a naughty poem.
10. Walk the dog.
11. Baby sit a friend’s kids.
12. Make playdoh and then sculpt with it.
13. Take a long, hot shower. Or a short cold one.
14. Have sex.
What do you do when you're stuck?
Friday, May 1, 2009
What is it???
By Lonnie Cruse
This unusual set of buildings is located on a highway at Cunningham, Tennessee. Any idea what they are? Any idea what purpose they serve? Visitor's Center? Art Gallery? Museum? Home and/or office of an architect with a great imagination? Hmmmm.
I spotted this group of oddly beautiful buildings a few years ago on my way to a Christian Women's weekend retreat at Montgomery Bell State Park. Since I attend the retreat every year, I pass the site every year. This time I pulled over and took pictures for this blog post. And, yes, those are real live geese in the foreground.
The answer to the "What Is It?" question is . . . it's a high school. Montgomery Central High School to be precise. Certainly nothing like the high school I attended in Las Vegas, Nevada multiple decades ago. Probably nothing like your high school either. Wonderfully different set of buildings, don't you think? Wish I could have gone to school there.
My friend, Carey, riding shotgun for this trip, wondered out loud if the staff has a problem keeping the students out of the water. Having worked as a substitute teacher's aide in all grades for various schools in Massac County, Illinois, I can assure you, hers is NOT an idle question. Not to mention keeping the kids from throwing things into the water. The mind boggles. But I digress.
Dragging myself back to my intended post, let's talk about education. Kids are still kids but seem to be more eager than ever to get out of school, eager to get on with their lives, not realizing the weight of the responsibilities they will take on after graduation. More important, often not realizing they need to soak up as much knowledge while they can because they will need it later in all aspects of their lives. Math, for their jobs, for personal business like balancing a check book, for figuring measurements for crafts or hobbies. English for writing letters, writing books, or the all important resume' to get a job in the first place. History and geography, just in case they want to play Trivia or make an appearance on Jeopardy! Stuff like that.
Seriously, wanting to get out of high school faster than the required four years is one thing, dropping out early because the students don't realize the importance of their education to their future earnings, to their ability to live the lives they want and provide enough for themselves and any dependants is quite another. And having seen this attitude first hand when I worked for the local school system, not from all of the students, mind you, but enough of them, it worries me.
We seem to be in a "fast food" world. We hate to wait in line. Hate to wait for anything. We don't even want to get out of our vehicles and walk into a business to be served, so drive-up windows pop up everywhere for every conceivable business, including churches and funeral homes. Food can be fixed and handed to us during the couple of minutes it takes to drive from the order box to the window, television programs now come on demand. Patience to obtain the important things in life is quickly disappearing.
Seems to me we need to teach our kids to slow down a bit. AND to get as much out of school as they can, while they can. We want them to achieve whatever dreams they have once they enter the real world, the rat race. Being able to add two plus two and come up with four would probably be a big help to them. And as a writer, I'd like for them to be able to read my books. I'm just saying . . .
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Mysteries Without Guns
Elizabeth Zelvin
I have recently started working on the first draft of my fifth manuscript featuring my amateur sleuth, recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler, and his friends, Jimmy the computer genius and Barbara the addictions counselor and world-class codependent. Bruce, Jimmy, and Barbara live in New York City. They are not sheltered from the seamy side of life. During their drinking days, Bruce and Jimmy were not always in control of what they did and often suffered from impaired judgment. Their dark past included acts from turnstile jumping in the subway to purchasing illegal drugs to removing a priceless painting from the wall of a museum. No, they didn’t take it anywhere; they were just horsing around while in an altered state. And of course, now that they are both clean and sober in AA, they would never dream of doing such a thing.
Nor is Barbara an innocent, after working in addiction treatment programs from the Bronx to the Bowery. As she herself enjoys recalling, she has hugged cops and murderers, either professionally or as an imperfectly recovering member of Al-Anon, the program where people with alcoholic loved ones try to learn to stop controlling others and mind their own business. In Barbara’s case, it’s a good thing that members of 12-step programs are never expected to graduate.
In general, I’m not that interested in the technology of murder. When the victims in my stories have to die, I like to hit them on the head or push them down the stairs. Occasionally I’ll strangle them with a convenient household object. I want to get it over quickly so that I can get on to the real business of the story: the investigation and, even more fascinating to me, the relationships among my characters.
A couple of years ago, I took advantage of a Sisters in Crime field trip to spend a day learning to shoot a handgun. It was extremely cool—in the same way hugging those cops and murderers is for Barbara—and I enjoyed the day. I even put a few bullets, if not in the bullseye, well within the circle. They let me take home the paper target to prove it. At the time, I figured that now that I’m a mystery writer, sooner or later my characters will have to pick up a gun, so I’d better know at least the rudiments of what to do and how it feels to use one.
Now I’m not so sure. So far, neither Bruce nor his sidekicks has encountered a gun, even when facing my murderers. And it is possible that I may never introduce a gun into a book in this series. How can I do that? How can I write occasionally gritty crime novels set in New York City without including firearms? Easily. I can do it by allowing art to imitate life.
I just got my Medicare card, which means I’ve lived in the Big Apple for 65 years. And I don’t know anyone who owns a gun. I exclude the police officers I’ve met in the course of both my mental health professional and mystery writing careers in the past few years. Some of them may own weapons, for all I know. But my family and friends and colleagues, thousands of people over a lifetime, have lived their whole lives in New York without laying hands on, in most cases never even seeing a gun. Until that field trip to New Jersey, I don’t think I’d ever seen a gun, except as a butt sticking out of a holster on a cop’s hip in the subway. My parents came to New York in 1905 and 1906 and both lived into their 90s, and I’m sure they never saw a gun. They certainly never touched one.
No, I can think of one exception: back in the Seventies, I visited a friend for a weekend at a genuine English country house. No, there was no murder. No butler, even. I did fall in love briefly, so the weekend wasn’t a total disappointment. But I digress. The house was in Kent, which is known for the growing of hops for English beer. Evidently squirrels are significant consumers of hops, so they are considered vermin. I was quite shocked when on Saturday afternoon, several of the young people present took shotguns, or maybe they were rifles, and came back bearing the bodies of several squirrels exactly like those with whom New Yorkers live and let live in Central Park.
What are your favorite mysteries without guns? How necessary do you think they are? Have I shaken your conception of New York City even a little? Please leave a comment if I have.
I have recently started working on the first draft of my fifth manuscript featuring my amateur sleuth, recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler, and his friends, Jimmy the computer genius and Barbara the addictions counselor and world-class codependent. Bruce, Jimmy, and Barbara live in New York City. They are not sheltered from the seamy side of life. During their drinking days, Bruce and Jimmy were not always in control of what they did and often suffered from impaired judgment. Their dark past included acts from turnstile jumping in the subway to purchasing illegal drugs to removing a priceless painting from the wall of a museum. No, they didn’t take it anywhere; they were just horsing around while in an altered state. And of course, now that they are both clean and sober in AA, they would never dream of doing such a thing.
Nor is Barbara an innocent, after working in addiction treatment programs from the Bronx to the Bowery. As she herself enjoys recalling, she has hugged cops and murderers, either professionally or as an imperfectly recovering member of Al-Anon, the program where people with alcoholic loved ones try to learn to stop controlling others and mind their own business. In Barbara’s case, it’s a good thing that members of 12-step programs are never expected to graduate.
In general, I’m not that interested in the technology of murder. When the victims in my stories have to die, I like to hit them on the head or push them down the stairs. Occasionally I’ll strangle them with a convenient household object. I want to get it over quickly so that I can get on to the real business of the story: the investigation and, even more fascinating to me, the relationships among my characters.
A couple of years ago, I took advantage of a Sisters in Crime field trip to spend a day learning to shoot a handgun. It was extremely cool—in the same way hugging those cops and murderers is for Barbara—and I enjoyed the day. I even put a few bullets, if not in the bullseye, well within the circle. They let me take home the paper target to prove it. At the time, I figured that now that I’m a mystery writer, sooner or later my characters will have to pick up a gun, so I’d better know at least the rudiments of what to do and how it feels to use one.
Now I’m not so sure. So far, neither Bruce nor his sidekicks has encountered a gun, even when facing my murderers. And it is possible that I may never introduce a gun into a book in this series. How can I do that? How can I write occasionally gritty crime novels set in New York City without including firearms? Easily. I can do it by allowing art to imitate life.
I just got my Medicare card, which means I’ve lived in the Big Apple for 65 years. And I don’t know anyone who owns a gun. I exclude the police officers I’ve met in the course of both my mental health professional and mystery writing careers in the past few years. Some of them may own weapons, for all I know. But my family and friends and colleagues, thousands of people over a lifetime, have lived their whole lives in New York without laying hands on, in most cases never even seeing a gun. Until that field trip to New Jersey, I don’t think I’d ever seen a gun, except as a butt sticking out of a holster on a cop’s hip in the subway. My parents came to New York in 1905 and 1906 and both lived into their 90s, and I’m sure they never saw a gun. They certainly never touched one.
No, I can think of one exception: back in the Seventies, I visited a friend for a weekend at a genuine English country house. No, there was no murder. No butler, even. I did fall in love briefly, so the weekend wasn’t a total disappointment. But I digress. The house was in Kent, which is known for the growing of hops for English beer. Evidently squirrels are significant consumers of hops, so they are considered vermin. I was quite shocked when on Saturday afternoon, several of the young people present took shotguns, or maybe they were rifles, and came back bearing the bodies of several squirrels exactly like those with whom New Yorkers live and let live in Central Park.
What are your favorite mysteries without guns? How necessary do you think they are? Have I shaken your conception of New York City even a little? Please leave a comment if I have.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Readers in a Rut
Sandra Parshall
“I stopped enjoying her books years ago, but I still buy them and read them.”
“His last half-dozen books have been poorly written and boring – but I can’t seem to stop myself from buying them, even though I know I’m going to hate them.”
How many times have you heard people say this sort of thing? How many times have you seen similar statements posted on DorothyL? How many times have you admitted to buying books by authors you should have given up on years ago?
I’m trying to understand why readers buy, and read, then complain about books they know in advance they won’t like. Do they have such ecstatic memories of an author’s first few good books that they keep hoping she or he will suddenly start writing well again when all the evidence points to a permanent decline? Any author can be forgiven one weak book – no one is consistently brilliant, after all – but I have so little time to read that a writer who disappoints me repeatedly has to do something spectacular to win me back. I feel very much alone in taking this hard line, though.
If you doubt that American readers are creatures of habit, just take a look at last year’s overall bestsellers list, as reported in a recent issue of Publishers Weekly. Among the top six books of the year – those that sold more than a million copies each – is only one by a new author: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, which came in second with 1.3 million copies sold even though it wasn’t published until September of 2008. The other books at the top are (1) The Appeal by John Grisham, (3) The Host by Stephanie Meyer, which is still near the top of the bestseller lists after 48 weeks, (4) Cross Country by James Patterson, (5) The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks, and (6) Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich.
Moving down the list, to books that sold more than 600,000 but fewer than a million copies last year, we find (7) Christmas Sweater, a first novel by conservative media personality Glenn Beck, who was already a known quantity because of his books of opinion on social issues; (8) Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell; (9) Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz; (10) Plum Lucky by (again) Janet Evanovich; (11) 7th Heaven by (again) James Patterson; (12) Sail by (again!) James Patterson; (13) A Good Woman by Danielle Steele; (14) Divine Justice by David Baldacci; and (15) The Gate House by Nelson DeMille.
One new writer in the entire lot -- and Wroblewski was blessed with Oprah’s imprimatur, which drove sales of Edgar Sawtelle.
A total of 155 novels sold more than 100,000 hardcover copies each last year. Of those, four were by James Patterson, three by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, four by Iris Johansen, three by Danielle Steele. The following authors all had two bestselling hardcovers each in 2008: Janet Evanovich, Patricia Cornwell, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (they co-authored one book), Dean Koontz, David Baldacci, Laurell K. Hamilton, Jonathan Kellerman, Stephen King, John Sandford, Clive Cussler, Debbie Macomber, Stuart Woods, Robert Parker, Jeffery Deaver, and Jack Higgins. Twenty-one authors wrote 47 of the 155 novels that sold more than 100,000 copies.
In paperback, these same authors sold even more copies of more novels, some of them reprints of books originally published years ago. Roberts/Robb had the most paperback bestsellers in 2008 – nine in mass market pb and six in trade pb. James Patterson had a total of nine.
Almost all of the other books on both hardcover and paperback lists were written by long-established authors.
I’m not saying these people produce bad books, or that their fans are automatons who buy blindly even when they don’t anticipate enjoying the novels they purchase. All of the top-selling writers have legions of devoted fans who love every word they write. I realize that the millions of books they sell are helping their publishers stay in business. But the sameness of the names at the top of the bestsellers list, year after year after year, does suggest that many readers lack a sense of adventure and would rather buy a book with a familiar name on it, whether it’s a good book or not, than try something new. Publishers know that, and count on it when they put out multiple books by the same writers each year.
In addition to Wroblewksi, one other newcomer stood out last year: Brunonia Barry, whose The Lace Reader sold more than 160,000 copies. I refuse to believe that only two new writers published novels last year that were good enough to engage the minds and hearts of a broad range of readers. I think a lot of wonderful books fail to sell in large numbers because the publishers don’t promote them and habit-bound readers are reluctant to spend money on books by writers with unfamiliar names. Yet those same readers will automatically buy a familiar writer’s book – even when they expect it to disappoint them.
Will somebody please explain this quirk of human nature to me? I am sincerely baffled.
Do you buy books by writers you no longer enjoy? Why do you do it? What would it take to persuade you to spend your money instead on a new author’s book? Have you discovered any new authors in the last couple of years whose books are now on your automatic-buy list?
“I stopped enjoying her books years ago, but I still buy them and read them.”
“His last half-dozen books have been poorly written and boring – but I can’t seem to stop myself from buying them, even though I know I’m going to hate them.”
How many times have you heard people say this sort of thing? How many times have you seen similar statements posted on DorothyL? How many times have you admitted to buying books by authors you should have given up on years ago?
I’m trying to understand why readers buy, and read, then complain about books they know in advance they won’t like. Do they have such ecstatic memories of an author’s first few good books that they keep hoping she or he will suddenly start writing well again when all the evidence points to a permanent decline? Any author can be forgiven one weak book – no one is consistently brilliant, after all – but I have so little time to read that a writer who disappoints me repeatedly has to do something spectacular to win me back. I feel very much alone in taking this hard line, though.
If you doubt that American readers are creatures of habit, just take a look at last year’s overall bestsellers list, as reported in a recent issue of Publishers Weekly. Among the top six books of the year – those that sold more than a million copies each – is only one by a new author: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, which came in second with 1.3 million copies sold even though it wasn’t published until September of 2008. The other books at the top are (1) The Appeal by John Grisham, (3) The Host by Stephanie Meyer, which is still near the top of the bestseller lists after 48 weeks, (4) Cross Country by James Patterson, (5) The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks, and (6) Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich.
Moving down the list, to books that sold more than 600,000 but fewer than a million copies last year, we find (7) Christmas Sweater, a first novel by conservative media personality Glenn Beck, who was already a known quantity because of his books of opinion on social issues; (8) Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell; (9) Your Heart Belongs to Me by Dean Koontz; (10) Plum Lucky by (again) Janet Evanovich; (11) 7th Heaven by (again) James Patterson; (12) Sail by (again!) James Patterson; (13) A Good Woman by Danielle Steele; (14) Divine Justice by David Baldacci; and (15) The Gate House by Nelson DeMille.
One new writer in the entire lot -- and Wroblewski was blessed with Oprah’s imprimatur, which drove sales of Edgar Sawtelle.A total of 155 novels sold more than 100,000 hardcover copies each last year. Of those, four were by James Patterson, three by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb, four by Iris Johansen, three by Danielle Steele. The following authors all had two bestselling hardcovers each in 2008: Janet Evanovich, Patricia Cornwell, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (they co-authored one book), Dean Koontz, David Baldacci, Laurell K. Hamilton, Jonathan Kellerman, Stephen King, John Sandford, Clive Cussler, Debbie Macomber, Stuart Woods, Robert Parker, Jeffery Deaver, and Jack Higgins. Twenty-one authors wrote 47 of the 155 novels that sold more than 100,000 copies.
In paperback, these same authors sold even more copies of more novels, some of them reprints of books originally published years ago. Roberts/Robb had the most paperback bestsellers in 2008 – nine in mass market pb and six in trade pb. James Patterson had a total of nine.
Almost all of the other books on both hardcover and paperback lists were written by long-established authors.
I’m not saying these people produce bad books, or that their fans are automatons who buy blindly even when they don’t anticipate enjoying the novels they purchase. All of the top-selling writers have legions of devoted fans who love every word they write. I realize that the millions of books they sell are helping their publishers stay in business. But the sameness of the names at the top of the bestsellers list, year after year after year, does suggest that many readers lack a sense of adventure and would rather buy a book with a familiar name on it, whether it’s a good book or not, than try something new. Publishers know that, and count on it when they put out multiple books by the same writers each year.
In addition to Wroblewksi, one other newcomer stood out last year: Brunonia Barry, whose The Lace Reader sold more than 160,000 copies. I refuse to believe that only two new writers published novels last year that were good enough to engage the minds and hearts of a broad range of readers. I think a lot of wonderful books fail to sell in large numbers because the publishers don’t promote them and habit-bound readers are reluctant to spend money on books by writers with unfamiliar names. Yet those same readers will automatically buy a familiar writer’s book – even when they expect it to disappoint them.Will somebody please explain this quirk of human nature to me? I am sincerely baffled.
Do you buy books by writers you no longer enjoy? Why do you do it? What would it take to persuade you to spend your money instead on a new author’s book? Have you discovered any new authors in the last couple of years whose books are now on your automatic-buy list?
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
An Interview with Chester Campbell
Chester Campbell is a former journalist, freelance magazine writer and publisher, and public relations man. He wrote speeches for the governor of Tennessee and commercials for bluegrass musicians Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Fortunately, he made good on his promise to write novels after he retired. He’s written four mysteries in the Greg McKenzie series, and The Surest Poison, his first book in a new series, featuring private investigator Sid Chance, is a tale of deception, pollution, and old conflicts surfacing.
PDD:You now have four books in your Greg McKenzie series. Why did you decide to write another PI series with a different type of protagonist?
Chester:
I enjoyed writing about Greg and Jill McKenzie, a pair of sleuths in their late sixties. Writing their snappy banter was particularly enjoyable. Several reviewers referred to them as cozies. I didn’t think of the books that way, but they’re certainly not hard-boiled, and I felt I’d reached the place where I wanted to strike out on a bit edgier path.
The Surest Poison deals with the dumping of a large amount of a toxic chemical behind a small plant in a rural community west of Nashville. When the state comes after the plant’s current owner, PI Sid Chance is hired to find the real responsible party. He soon finds himself, and his associate, Jaz LeMieux, beset by three seemingly unrelated murders, an explosion, and shadows from Sid’s past.
PPD:
I gather Sid has—what’s the current term—issues?
Chester:
He was formerly a National Park ranger, then spent ten years as a small town police chief. After he was disgraced and forced to resign, he spent three years roughing it in a hillside cabin in the woods fifty miles from the city. Jaz got him out of that cabin, back to Nashville and into the PI business.
PPD:
Jaz is sharp, sexy, and fourteen years younger than Sid. Do we see romance ahead?
Chester
A. Sid has never been married, or even had a serious relationship. He and Jaz clash now and then, but they’re obviously coming closer. Who knows what may lie ahead?
PPD:
Where did the plot for The Surest Poison come from?
Chester:
I have a friend in Nashville named Norma Mott Tillman who is a private investigator specializing in finding missing persons. She’s pretty well known, being on Oprah and several other shows. She told me about a case she had investigated in West Tennessee a few years ago that involved a similar scenario. I saw the possibilities, moved it closer to Nashville, and the story took off.
I should have given Ralph Waldo Emerson credit for the title, but I don’t guess he’ll complain. He wrote an essay in The Atlantic back in 1862 in which he said substances like prussic acid and strychnine “are weak dilutions: the surest poison is time.” I thought it fit the story. The actual poison took years to affect the community, while time took its toll on the characters.
PPD:
The Surest Poison is published by Night Shadows Press, your second small publisher. What are the pluses and minuses of going with a small publisher?
Chester:
I’ve heard a lot of New York editors are only concerned with acquiring manuscripts. With a small press, I got to work closely with my editors. I learned an awful lot from my first editor.
I’ve also been fortunate that my editors have stuck with my suggested titles. The only change in mine was with the first book, which I called The Secret of the Scroll. I was rightfully told to leave off the first “The.” Covers involve another plus. I have had total input on all my covers. An additional favorable aspect is production time. From the time I sent the manuscript to the editor, it was no more than nine months until the release date.
On the minus side, the chief problem is distribution. The books are available through Ingram and Baker & Taylor and can be ordered through any bookstore. However, the stores do not routinely stock them. They will only be on the shelf at places where I have done signings. Also, the major review sites mostly ignore small publishers. Library Journal is the only one that has reviewed some of my books. However, respected review sites like Midwest Book Review and Crimespree Magazine always come through.
PPD:
I’m not telling secrets to say that loads of us in the mystery community envy your ability to do top-notch book signings. Got tips for the rest of us?
Chester:
I’m always looking for any kind of venue where I can sell. One of my grandsons’ school has a Market Place. I went there and to a street fair in a small town not far from here. My book launch for The Surest Poison will be at my church. Church members are always asking, “When will your next book be ready?” So I know I’ll sell a bunch of books there. I do some signings in larger chain bookstores as well, and we have a small mystery bookstore in Nashville that pushes my books and has ordered several copies of the new one.
I’m pulling out all the stops for this new release, primarily on-line. With the economy as it is, I’m cutting back on travel this year, spending more on venues where I can sell books. I’ve recently done the Southern Kentucky Book Fest, and will do the Kentucky Book Fair in November. I’ve always done well at book fairs.
So I guess my tips are get on the road, do bookstore signings when you can, and constantly keep your eye out for other places to sell. Build a team. I’m very fortunate that my wife plays such a big part in all of my appearances. She’s my shill: she passes out small promo folders and directs people to where I’m signing. If you’re not as lucky as I am, with a ready-made co-conspirator, build a team to help you sell.
PDD:
It sounds like retiring to write books has been very rewarding.
Chester:
I’d say there are several rewards. The first is that I simply enjoy writing mysteries. I wrote eight before the first one sold, and I guess I’d still be writing away if none of them had. Another is the satisfaction I get when readers tell me how much they enjoy reading my books. And being a bit vain as we all are, I get a charge out of reading a good review, like the one Jon Jordan wrote in the current Crimespree Magazine that ended, “A top rate mystery by a gem of a writer.”
For more information about Chester and his books visit his web site.
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Sharon's blog returns next week.
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