You labor for years to build a strong skill set, you make your new-writer blunders and get wiser. Finally, if you’ve been dedicated enough and kept at it long enough, you’re the full package. Yet…you’re still unpublished. And it drives you crazy to peer into the big money books and see shoddy fiction getting the royal treatment. Why? Why? Why?
A few final observations, in no particular order:
• It’s true. When the manuscript comes in, an unknown writer really is judged more harshly than a bestselling author. At the other end of this stick, we see big authors getting slack and not being held accountable for “bad writing.” Yes, they have editors, but where style corrections are concerned, well, that’s essentially over; it’s not going to happen anymore, not in any significant way.
Why? When you bring in millions in revenue for every book, there’s a shift in the way folks treat you. Think about it: if you were Stephen King’s editor, would you tell him to clean it up here and there, cut this, cut that? The instinct is to be respectful (meaning silent) on creative matters. Editors want to keep their jobs; publishing houses want to keep their big ticket authors–even if a vigorous edit could significantly improve the book.
Annie Dillard tells a great story about hearing the audio version of her long, rambling novel of the northwest, The Living….
She had been too busy to help make the cuts, but when she heard it, she realized the cuts actually made it a better novel. (How many novelists, by the way, would tell that story on themselves?)
• "Dying is easy…getting published is hard.". Bobbie Ann Mason, who for a time in the ’80s seemed to have a story in every New Yorker, submitted 19 times before getting a nibble from the deities there. Once that door opened for her 20th submission, it stayed open.
So let’s see then: at first it’s impossible, then they’ll take anything. That doesn’t make sense, does it? No, but there you are: if you want to publish your fiction (short or long), all things equal, it is near-insane persistence that will most likely triumph in the end. Sure it’s a closed door, sometimes absurdly so (as in Bobbie Ann Mason). But have you ever seen a door that wouldn’t open? The biggest mistake of all is to give up too soon.
• Author self-promotion shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s a factor misunderstood by unpublished writers when they observe bitterly that big authors "get all the attention". Look a little closer and you will nearly always discover why those authors are in fact worthy of it. They are experienced self-promotors, good in front of people, and know well how to play that game. Publishers trust them to be effective marketing and sales agents for their own books, so aren’t afraid to throw a ton of money into their publicity budgets.
A good example is John Berent, who parlayed a charming, but not extraordinary book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, into 216 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list. Backed by his publisher, he pulled it off largely through a two-year marathon publicity blitz that he was fully prepared to take on.
If you’re thinking most first-time authors wouldn’t get a commitment of anything like what Berendt got, you’re absolutely right–and why should they? If your job at Random House was on the line, would you gamble big money on publicity efforts for a promising but unknown new author? Berendt was a known quantity: he had been an assistant editor at Esquire and editor of New York Magazine. He was an insider and Random House had factual knowledge that he knew the business, was OF the business, and possessed all the skills to be a good promoter.
So what does this say to the rest of us? I think it says this: We are not in Berendt’s seat, but each one of us can be “promotable” in some way to help sell our books. Work on that. Make it known. Take the time to understand how book publicity works, and what skills you might either hone or (if you have none yet) develop from scratch. When submission time comes, It will all be grist for the mill.
• I like Lindsey’s analogy–"bestselling novels as the literary equivalent to Billboard’s Top 10." I would add that, just as some bestseller fiction succeed brilliantly on the artistic level, some pop musicians create sublime examples of songwriting, performance, and production. If the top-40 song is its own genre, there are master artists whose genuine creativity defines the best in that genre. Top-down manipulation may be responsible for many a lessor-quality hit song, but with books, I think it’s harder to decree bestsellerdom from the front office. Too many books, randomly targeted for mega-success have actually fallen off the vine because nobody took the bait and bought them. Radio listenersl, after all, tend to turn on their radios out of habit, no matter what’s on; readers, by contrast, must be coaxed into a self-motivated transaction: they must lay their money down.
• Marc brought up Flaubert’s notion that his goal, and the ultimate goal of all fiction, should be work "judged by its style alone, regardless of content." To the everyday fiction writer, that’s a weird notion on its face. It reminds me of the longing many artistic giants have expressed to fly free of the earthly bonds of their art; to leave their bodies behind, as it were, and rise to a new level of pure craft. The problem I see is that it’s all head, all intellectual, one of those “French” theoretical constructs that have little to do with real readers and what they desire when they pick up a novel. That kind of novel, it seems to me, must live or die according to the success or failure of our efforts, as writers, to tell a story; that the crucial factor in its life or death is how skillfully we render real material–the very real material Flaubert thrived on, yet claims he would jettison.
In his comment, MAG notes that more people go to the McDonalds down the street than frequent the fine restaurant where he’s a chef. But it’s fine with him–he wouldn’t want those types anyway. MAG is a fine fiction writer–I know this–who, though he hasn’t had the big break, has written and published good, well-wrought fiction fashioned out of rich subject matter. His comment sounds to me less like elitism than just another way of stating this blog’s apparent collective wisdom, that the goal is a fine story, accessible to all readers, expertly told, built solidly with the kind of craftsmanship only those who possess all the skills in “muscle memory” can bring to bear. Certainly that’s been my intention for over 30 years, and unless I undergo a brain (or soul) transplant, that end will always be what I aspire to.
And so, friends and neighbors, the previous paragraph brings us “a way a lone a last a loved a long” etc. to the far frontier of “practical” old Truevoice. Let’s turn around and head back into the prosperous, well-populated midlands where we started
Back in those parts, if you happen to be already a bestselling author, the demand will be for you to continue laying that golden egg. You won’t be directly penalized for bad writing on the style level, though getting slack on story and structure will bite you in the end, confusing and disappointing your readers, who will eventually wander away.
None of us are franchise authors, so those particular matters should not be our concern. Our concern today, tomorrow, and for as long as we do this thing with all our hearts and minds–even, I say, unto the future days of our blockbuster success, or so I would hope!–must be to write well in every possible way. First, because if every aspect of our writing shows we genuinely command the powers of our art and craft, it will impress those who need to be impressed (again, Therese). Shun or neglect this truth, and as Lindsey wrote, “you’re relying more on luck to have a publisher notice you when you resort to cliches and the no-nos,” and that’s putting it mildly. I’d say you’re risking instant rejection. Next: full mastery of skills will make a good story all the more compelling and powerful. Ryan said it well: “When the day comes that I discover my compelling blockbuster story, I want the style to back me up all the way. I want the the story to read fast so the reader can dive in and forget that the images dancing through his mind are the product of black ink on white paper.” Mastery of skills makes you able to raise the ante.
Finally, there’s the question of how you personally feel about what you do. Erik asked it this way: “Assuming you do (or don’t) strike it rich, what level of self respect do you want to achieve by the end of the decade.” How you answer that will largely determine how far you go.
There is much, much more to say on this evergreen topic, of course. Even if we haven’t laid the matter to rest, it’s smart to examine the motivational roots of our efforts every now and then, and look a little more closely than usual at the tenets we hold dear.
But now, as my “far frontier” analogy indicates, it’s time for us to turn around and get back to Truevoice’s stated task–practical advice on how to write fiction well and truly, no matter what style and genre you work. Starting Monday we’ll be all about that once again.
I’ll leave you with this:
All things said, let’s not forget the debt most of us owe those ugly blockbusters we complain about. Lisa said it: “After all, the best literary fiction is usually published at a loss for the publisher, isn’t it?” Yes, it is. And that means: if we publish or aspire to publish quality fiction, our books are and will be underwritten by the largesse of those very same ungainly blockbusters. So…go easy.
