Continuing my series of little pointy points while I try to improve my time management skills and deal with book festival generated overload, here's one prompted by catdownunder's comment in which she reminded me painfully of that most hackneyed question that all authors get. A lot.
Pointy thought. "Where do you get your ideas from?" is the wrong question:
Listen, ideas are nothing special. Ideas are just thoughts. Everyone has them. All the time. You can't help it. Where do your thoughts come from? They come from your head, or from someone saying something, or you reading something or simply having an unexplained train of thought.
What's interesting and important - no, essential - is what the writer does with those thoughts. Shaping them into a story is the hard bit, the bit you have to learn and practise. And practise some more. And improve all the time. And sweat over.
People sometimes say to me, "Why don't you write a story about ...?" or "You should write a story about that." Well, yes, that's a thought. But it's not an idea until it's grown a lot, and in my head is where it grows. I nurture it with questions like "What if?" and "What would happen then?" and "How would it affect the story if that happened?" and "Who are the characters who will make this story grow into a full and fascinating shape?" and, crucially, "What problems am I storing for myself if I start down that particular ideas road?"
Because thinking of the idea is easy - shaping it into something that works as a piece of fiction is much much harder.
And you can do it in a formulaic way or you can do it in an original way. I can't do formulae - they bore me rigid, as reader and writer - but formulae can be very successful.
So, ask not where I get my ideas: ask how I turn them into stories that work. And for that I only have one answer: damned hard work.
Showing posts with label writing process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing process. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 August 2009
Monday, 20 April 2009
NANOWRIMO - WHY? BECAUSE ...
I do have a habit of doing mad things. Frequently I regret it. Usually in the middle of the night. I once took a test to see whether I was a risk-taker. I scored pathetically on the type of risk which involves physical danger - like sitting by a window when at any moment a pigeon might come crashing through - but impressively bravely on "new experience-seeking".
If there was a category for "things no sane person would do but which aren't actually even a teensy bit dangerous" that would be my type of risk.
So, doing a NaNoWriMo is pretty much in that category. (A Nanothingy, btw, is where a group of idiot writers decide to write 50,000 words in a month. You're meant to do it while having a normal working life, though you will not be normal by the end of it.)
I am fascinated by several aspects but I'll share just three with you. And I'm going to be briefish because a) my posts are often too long (though none of you has been cruel enough to tell me so) and b) I've, er, got 5,000 words to write tonight.
1. Changing your writing habits is a good thing
We get into ruts. People ask writers things like "Where do you write?" or "When do you write?" and we have answers. We shouldn't have answers. Whatever your answer is now, why not change it? Our brains are wired to love change. They get excited by it, pumping out dopamine, the chemical that makes us learn, and live, and love to live and learn. This week, I've changed. I was a keyboard-addicted-email-addicted-writing-is-a-last resort-can't-write-unless-I've-vacuumed-the-dog kind of a writer, but I'm now a writer who can write With A Pen On Paper, in the garden, in a coffee shop, on a bus with yackety people around me; I'm a writer who writes first and does tasks later. This is a revelation.
2. "No Plot? No Problem!" - the book by the founder of Nanowrimo, Chris Baty - is a must-read for authors. I rarely say that anything is a must-read, but this is. If you don't find something in it that excites or challenges or improves you, I'll eat my novel. I've never read a book about how to write a novel and never wanted to, but this is a totally different book about how to write a novel - it shows you how to write your novel, not how novels are written or what to put in them. Everything from time management made sexy (que?) to how to bribe, terrify or blackmail yourself or your friends into writing is covered.
3. The important thing is to turn off your internal editor. As Baty says, "The first law of exuberant imperfection is essentially this: the quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy." You're just supposed to write, get that first draft down, and allow it to be substandard. For me, it's hard not to re-write every sentence five times before going on to the next one. But it feels so much better to get some kind of flow and I used to be able to - I'm just getting it back, that freedom to write rubbish and deal with it later.
The way Nanowrimo works is that you all encourage each other. Or threaten, bribe, goad, jeer at or otherwise abuse each other. On Saturday, one of the participants and I were being silly on Facebook - "bet you can't" / "oh yes, I can" / "I'll raise you 5,000" / "losER" and in the end we challenged each other to write 10,000 words on Sunday. I woke up on Sunday with a migraine and she had a serious hangover (shame on you, Gillian ...) but we were both at our desks. (Yes, OK, I see this isn't sounding attractive.) And we wrote, oh boy did we write. Neither of us reached 10,000 - well, I could have, of course, but I felt sorry for her with her hangover, so I generously eased up and took another couple of codeine. But none of our several thousand words would have been written if we hadn't been doing this. Which feels pretty good.
Writing a novel is hard. Writing it with other people pushing and encouraging you is a whole lot easier. I recommend it. You don't have to wait for the official Nanowrimo to start - get a group of friends together online and just do it. Go to the website here for everything you need to start one. Or do a smaller challenge - anything to break whatever habits might be holding you back. (And you'll never know till you try.)
And even if you don't do anything vaguely Nanoesque, do remember:
Mind you, I have only done a week. In another three, I could be a wreck. I could really regret this whole post and be cursing the day Chris Baty ever decided not to be a normal person doing a normal job.
But at least I took the risk.
If there was a category for "things no sane person would do but which aren't actually even a teensy bit dangerous" that would be my type of risk.
So, doing a NaNoWriMo is pretty much in that category. (A Nanothingy, btw, is where a group of idiot writers decide to write 50,000 words in a month. You're meant to do it while having a normal working life, though you will not be normal by the end of it.)
I am fascinated by several aspects but I'll share just three with you. And I'm going to be briefish because a) my posts are often too long (though none of you has been cruel enough to tell me so) and b) I've, er, got 5,000 words to write tonight.
1. Changing your writing habits is a good thing
We get into ruts. People ask writers things like "Where do you write?" or "When do you write?" and we have answers. We shouldn't have answers. Whatever your answer is now, why not change it? Our brains are wired to love change. They get excited by it, pumping out dopamine, the chemical that makes us learn, and live, and love to live and learn. This week, I've changed. I was a keyboard-addicted-email-addicted-writing-is-a-last resort-can't-write-unless-I've-vacuumed-the-dog kind of a writer, but I'm now a writer who can write With A Pen On Paper, in the garden, in a coffee shop, on a bus with yackety people around me; I'm a writer who writes first and does tasks later. This is a revelation.
2. "No Plot? No Problem!" - the book by the founder of Nanowrimo, Chris Baty - is a must-read for authors. I rarely say that anything is a must-read, but this is. If you don't find something in it that excites or challenges or improves you, I'll eat my novel. I've never read a book about how to write a novel and never wanted to, but this is a totally different book about how to write a novel - it shows you how to write your novel, not how novels are written or what to put in them. Everything from time management made sexy (que?) to how to bribe, terrify or blackmail yourself or your friends into writing is covered.
3. The important thing is to turn off your internal editor. As Baty says, "The first law of exuberant imperfection is essentially this: the quickest, easiest way to produce something beautiful and lasting is to risk making something horribly crappy." You're just supposed to write, get that first draft down, and allow it to be substandard. For me, it's hard not to re-write every sentence five times before going on to the next one. But it feels so much better to get some kind of flow and I used to be able to - I'm just getting it back, that freedom to write rubbish and deal with it later.
The way Nanowrimo works is that you all encourage each other. Or threaten, bribe, goad, jeer at or otherwise abuse each other. On Saturday, one of the participants and I were being silly on Facebook - "bet you can't" / "oh yes, I can" / "I'll raise you 5,000" / "losER" and in the end we challenged each other to write 10,000 words on Sunday. I woke up on Sunday with a migraine and she had a serious hangover (shame on you, Gillian ...) but we were both at our desks. (Yes, OK, I see this isn't sounding attractive.) And we wrote, oh boy did we write. Neither of us reached 10,000 - well, I could have, of course, but I felt sorry for her with her hangover, so I generously eased up and took another couple of codeine. But none of our several thousand words would have been written if we hadn't been doing this. Which feels pretty good.
Writing a novel is hard. Writing it with other people pushing and encouraging you is a whole lot easier. I recommend it. You don't have to wait for the official Nanowrimo to start - get a group of friends together online and just do it. Go to the website here for everything you need to start one. Or do a smaller challenge - anything to break whatever habits might be holding you back. (And you'll never know till you try.)
And even if you don't do anything vaguely Nanoesque, do remember:
- you can (and often should) change your habits or at least challenge them
- it really is worth reading this book:
Mind you, I have only done a week. In another three, I could be a wreck. I could really regret this whole post and be cursing the day Chris Baty ever decided not to be a normal person doing a normal job.
But at least I took the risk.
Thursday, 16 April 2009
PIGEON COMPETITION RESULTS
Well, well, my husband surprised me. He went for the literary novelist. Hmm, note to self: the pen is mightier than the sword.
Here's Harry's verdict on your pigeon post pieces. (By the way, he is a man of few words so don't expect any gushing):
"I congratulate the bloggers and their creativity. Every entry brought a smile or a shiver. All should win prizes. (Steady on there. You're not that nice to me.)
I especially commend:
For wacky, original, left fieldness - bshanks (the Geisha girl)
For cool language - Jan
For wit - Rebecca (the troll) (don't make personal remarks about my blog-readers, please)
For nice try but too many words - Ebony (yeah, Ebony, read the submission guidelines, why dontcha? He liked that one a lot but he's a rule-follower so you had to go)
For management training advice - Phoenix (heh? He doesn't normally like management training advice.)
But, the winner for me - and this is because I find the evocation of war zones heartbreaking and scary - is Sally Zigmond - "when her window shattered she knew he had lied."
Well done everyone. A humble capitalist salutes your skill - all of you.
Best wishes, Harry Morgan"
Aww. Thank you, Harry. (Edited to include the words, for Sally's benefit: A very good choice - you are, after all, a man of taste.)
I should add (because it's my blog and I can interfere if I want to) that, because he hasn't been following this blog properly, he missed the cleverness of Sandra and Sarah, who both did pigeon-related spoof query letters (and one in rhyme and mentioning Werther's toffees, no less). I also loved Emma's disappearing garden idea, and Elen's detective-themed one. Really, there were loads of others he or I could have mentioned but life's a bitch. We laughed, a lot, and then we laughed again. And then we realised that a decision had to be made so I went and had another glass of wine and he made his decision. Which is as it should be.
I thought the whole thing was fascinating. So many different writers, so many different personalities, so many different takes on the same subject. Every genre was there, and every mood, from urban to surreal, from literary to chick-lit, from dark to light and from sensual to prosaic. There were the ones who'd done their research, the ones who'd used local knowledge and political topicality (comparing us to our fairly near neighbour, Fred G, are you??) and the ones who led others in new directions.
It was the world of books in microcosm.
Then too, there's the reader. Oh, the reader. The unpredictability of another person's response; the need for a writer to understand that not everyone will "get" what you were trying to do; the knowledge that your reader will judge you while not knowing what was in your mind, or without appreciating your talent or wit. Every reader comes from somewhere different, brings different desires and meanings and pleasures to the words he/she reads. And likes it differently. You don't know the reader but the reader will judge you as though you were writing especially for him.
So, when you write, and then you send it out, you take a leap into the unknown. You can't know how it will be received.
Which is so the scary bit. Trouble is, readers just don't know how hard it is. Damn them.
And then, of course, there's trying to sell books, which I've just realised I have spectacularly failed to do: my husband just picked as the winner the one person who'd already said she was going to buy Deathwatch anyway. So, that's one lost sale and we don't get to eat today. Thanks, mate. Back to my garret.
Meanwhile, thanks to everyone, congratulations to all the named writers and especially to Sally.
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
BEWARE OF PRAISE
Praise is very like chocolate:
Anyway.
So, we all need it. Praise, I mean. But actually, it's not like chocolate because ALL chocolate is Truth Incarnate (except mint flavoured white chocolate, which is pure evil and doesn't deserve to be called chocolate) but some praise is False and Must Be Rejected Forthwith.
And I don't mean that it's false because the person delivering the praise is lying. Just that they're wrong, irrelevant and not worth listening to. Sorry. No really. I am. I don't like saying this. But believing that sort of praise is the worst favour you can do yourself as a writer. Would I lie to you after all this time?
Praise from someone who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about is worse than mint flavoured white chocolate. Or those pale ones from Marks & Spencer that have absolutely no chocolate in them at all and make me gag. Oh and omigod M&Ms - I nearly walked out of the cinema when my husband was eating M&Ms. All that vacant crunching and crappy plastic smell and not a hint of genuine cocoa. Am I showing myself up as a chocolate snob? Well, in that case fine, but maybe I 'm a praise snob too.
You should become a praise snob. If you really want to hone your writing and get published, learn to do two things with praise:
Ask yourself two questions:
This post has come about because I see people being held back from publishing potential by clutching at empty praise and ignoring the much rarer really constructive criticism, which could actually improve their writing and pull them towards genuine success. Of course I love it when people say nice things to me but I grow much more from the negative points - the girl who asked me why I wrote such long chapters, the comments from readers who didn't like a certain ending - and then the praise from the specific people who I most respect because they KNOW and they are HONEST and I DIDN'T ASK THEM FOR AN OPINION.
There are people I know who are renowned for being honest in their criticism and those are the ones I work hardest to please because I know they won't say it's good if it's not. I so respect people with the guts to be honest - and I admit that I'm not one of them. (You surprised??) I know that occasionally when a friend has written something I didn't really rate, I've said some nice things. That's the problem, it's so hard not to. People say, "Be honest," but they don't mean it ...
The worst places are some online communities and forums. You see people going on-line and off-loading and everyone piles in with all the oh dahlings, and poor you, and don't worry WE know you're fab, dahling. When they haven't even read the thing that's been rejected. And of course it's lovely and kind and generous and right in lots of ways but in terms of becoming published it's so so so detrimental.
I feel really bad after this, but I'll have to steal myself and click "Publish". I really don't mean you to reject all praise but a) don't go seeking it because if you ask for an honest opinion from a friend/colleague/equal it will be highly unlikely to be entirely honest and if not entirely honest then somewhat pointless (except in a chocolately sort of way) and b) when you get praise, consider this: that if you accept praise, logically you should equally accept the negative stuff. Such as the rejections by professionals ...
And now I really am going to wimp out: you're all fabulous, dahlings. Think about it - how does that sound?
Perhaps I should more constructively say: hold all praise briefly to your heart and then let it go and focus on improving your writing.
Before I go, I should also pass you over to a post on How Publishing Really Works a while back, which illustrates this very beautifully and much more pithily than my typically over-long rant has. (Oops, Jane, that sounds like praise.)
- it tastes great at the time
- too much of it is (regrettably) bad for you
- it (regrettably) needs to be balanced with the sensible stuff
- once tasted, you want more and more of it
- people give it to each other to show love, to bribe them, to make friends, and because giving and receiving are linked
- you should sometimes reject it
- it has been scientifically proven to be beneficial to mood
Anyway.
So, we all need it. Praise, I mean. But actually, it's not like chocolate because ALL chocolate is Truth Incarnate (except mint flavoured white chocolate, which is pure evil and doesn't deserve to be called chocolate) but some praise is False and Must Be Rejected Forthwith.
And I don't mean that it's false because the person delivering the praise is lying. Just that they're wrong, irrelevant and not worth listening to. Sorry. No really. I am. I don't like saying this. But believing that sort of praise is the worst favour you can do yourself as a writer. Would I lie to you after all this time?
Praise from someone who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about is worse than mint flavoured white chocolate. Or those pale ones from Marks & Spencer that have absolutely no chocolate in them at all and make me gag. Oh and omigod M&Ms - I nearly walked out of the cinema when my husband was eating M&Ms. All that vacant crunching and crappy plastic smell and not a hint of genuine cocoa. Am I showing myself up as a chocolate snob? Well, in that case fine, but maybe I 'm a praise snob too.
You should become a praise snob. If you really want to hone your writing and get published, learn to do two things with praise:
- store it in the cosy bit of your brain to boost you when you have no chocolate
- analyse it, judge it, assess it, and be HONEST about it (Is that 4 things? Call me generous.) And sometimes, reject it.
- your parents, grandparents, children - other blood relatives may very occasionally give acceptable advice, but only if they are not:
- members of your writing group - oh god, I'm sorry, now I've really blown it. Sorry, guys: it's that you've got issues that get in the way. Like, you're really wanting to boost the self-esteem of the writer, and it's lovely of you, it really is, but you're too psychologically, morally and ethically connected, (and you may be actually in their house and drinking their wine) and it's not possible for you to be objective (unless you're really cool, and I don't mean cool-trendy); OK, I relent: occasionally your writing group may have a point but ... will you know when that point arrives??
- other unpublished writers, unless they have publishing credentials, in which case listen to them (unless they fall into the blood-relly category)
- anyone who doesn't have publishing credentials or some other reason to Know
- especially the above if they're sober - alcohol is a great honesty boost
- your friend
- your dog
- anyone on a blog
- anyone on Amazon
- anyone posting an anonymous review, as it's probably your friend, dog, parent, publisher
Ask yourself two questions:
- Does this person actually genuinely know what they're talking about?
- Is this person giving the praise entirely out of the blue and not because I happen to have put them on the spot by asking them for an "honest opinion"?
This post has come about because I see people being held back from publishing potential by clutching at empty praise and ignoring the much rarer really constructive criticism, which could actually improve their writing and pull them towards genuine success. Of course I love it when people say nice things to me but I grow much more from the negative points - the girl who asked me why I wrote such long chapters, the comments from readers who didn't like a certain ending - and then the praise from the specific people who I most respect because they KNOW and they are HONEST and I DIDN'T ASK THEM FOR AN OPINION.
There are people I know who are renowned for being honest in their criticism and those are the ones I work hardest to please because I know they won't say it's good if it's not. I so respect people with the guts to be honest - and I admit that I'm not one of them. (You surprised??) I know that occasionally when a friend has written something I didn't really rate, I've said some nice things. That's the problem, it's so hard not to. People say, "Be honest," but they don't mean it ...
The worst places are some online communities and forums. You see people going on-line and off-loading and everyone piles in with all the oh dahlings, and poor you, and don't worry WE know you're fab, dahling. When they haven't even read the thing that's been rejected. And of course it's lovely and kind and generous and right in lots of ways but in terms of becoming published it's so so so detrimental.
I feel really bad after this, but I'll have to steal myself and click "Publish". I really don't mean you to reject all praise but a) don't go seeking it because if you ask for an honest opinion from a friend/colleague/equal it will be highly unlikely to be entirely honest and if not entirely honest then somewhat pointless (except in a chocolately sort of way) and b) when you get praise, consider this: that if you accept praise, logically you should equally accept the negative stuff. Such as the rejections by professionals ...
And now I really am going to wimp out: you're all fabulous, dahlings. Think about it - how does that sound?
Perhaps I should more constructively say: hold all praise briefly to your heart and then let it go and focus on improving your writing.
Before I go, I should also pass you over to a post on How Publishing Really Works a while back, which illustrates this very beautifully and much more pithily than my typically over-long rant has. (Oops, Jane, that sounds like praise.)
Friday, 6 March 2009
DEFINE A TEENAGE NOVEL
OK, so two posts in a row about teenage fiction is hardly balanced, but then I never made any claim to be balanced and any time I'm asked to walk along a white line I find myself becoming suspiciously unbalanced. Besides, your comments and interest in the subject were really all the excuse I needed, if I needed any excuse to talk about one of my pet subjects, which I don't.
Do we need to define a teenage novel in order to write one?
Some teenage authors whom I respect claim not to be able or wish to define or even particularly think about what a teenage novel is when they write one. Others are with me, enjoying trying to pin it down without restricting it, and trying to reach a level of understanding that helps us identify with our readers as perfectly as possible. The former authors prove that you don't have to. But I think those authors are very few and far between and happen to write books which happen to be teenage in tone simply because those happen to be the books they want to write.
For the rest of us who dare to tread the tight-rope between writing a great story from the heart and writing a great story that will hit specific readers in the heart, and for those of us who want to understand our market, we need some analysis and some knowledge.
PLEASE NOTE: a teenager, like any other reader, is perfectly entitled to read and enjoy ANY book. When I talk about "teenage novels" I don't mean "novels that teenagers often enjoy". I mean "novels aimed specifically at teenagers" (but which other readers may indeed enjoy).
It would help if you first read my last post - COMMON MISTAKES WHEN WRITING FOR TEENAGERS. In fact, without it you won't understand what I'm about to say, especially about safety-nets. Yes, safety-nets - essential tools for writing for young people.
A perfect illustration
If you are prepared to borrow or buy three books, I can show you with absolute clarity what makes a teenage book a teenage book. A quick read of the first few chapters of these three books will illustrate all I am about to say. Without reading the books, however, you'll still get a pretty good gist of what I mean from what follows. All three start with a young person being bullied or set upon at or near school, which is one reason they make a great comparison:
Bad Girls is not a teenage book - for a start, the protagonist is too young. The language is simplifed, with short sentences and gentle vocabulary, and there is a great deal of protection by adults. You can see the mesh of the safety-net. It's not particularly relevant to our topic except that it's when you then read Malarkey that you see the great leap that the reader must take, both in terms of topic and safety-net distance, to go from one book to the next. Bearing in mind that the reader of Bad Girls may well be 10 or 11 but that an 11/12 year old could easily be reading and enjoying Malarkey, and you see the leap the reader has made in a very short theoretical time. The main character in Malarkey is 16ish, which, according to the "rules" of writing for young people means that our intended readership is up to 14/15.
But then consider The Illumination of Merton Browne. There is a level of violence (extreme domestic abuse) which goes beyond what we'd be able or probably want to offer teenagers. There's a total absence of safety net. There is a great deal of swearing. The age of the character is interesting too - at the time of writing he has left school and is thinking back to his childhood, relating events which happened mostly around his eleventh birthday, and much of the initial action takes place as he arrives at secondary school, aged eleven. A teenage book would not normally be this retrospective: it would normally take place during the relevant teenage years of the reader (although earlier episodes might well be related) and in fact cover a very small part of those years. So, by having the main character an adult looking back to being mostly eleven, we already skew it for the teenage reader and make it not a teenage book.
However, it's a book which many older teenagers might like - if they could get their hands on it, which they won't in a school library in the UK or US or Australia or anywhere else I can think of. unless the librarian really wants to lose his/her job.
Why have teenage books anyway?
Ooh, I could write a whole post on this, and have already written about it in the Scotsman, but I see they have put it very annoyingly onto their "premium pages" and I'm sure you don't want to pay for it. Anyway, maybe another day. Consider simply that some people still argue that teenage books are unnecessary because readers should do what "we always did", ie go straight from kids' books to adult books. Thing is, (amongst other things), adult books have changed in the last 20-30 years and you simply cannot go from Bad Girls to Merton Browne. Or at least not without experiencing severe trauma on the way.
What you said
Some of you posted comments about eg whether Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books were teenage or not. DanielB and anonymous / tbrosz were talking about whether something was "quite right" / felt properly teenage in those and other stories which we might have thought were teenage. I haven't read those Pratchett books but I have always thought of him as one of those writers who isn't a teenage writer but who writes books that many teenagers love. I'm guessing that it's the "adult perspective" of the story that you are referring to and have noticed. Yes, in my view this would be something which would make them "not deliberately teenage books". And it's once you've identifued the "teenageness" or otherwise that (I think) you can fully understand what teenage really is. And you clearly have!
Another one to think about is perhaps Doctor Who - much loved by teenagers for generations but (you'd agree??) not exactly "teenage"? Like Pratchett? And Children of the Stones?
Which I guess brings me to my attempt at a definition, granted that all definitions break down when you start to pick at their edges, and that there will be exceptions, and that books are just books forchristsake and why should they have to be pigeon-holed ...
The "definition"
I see a teenage novel as a story with a teenage character(s) at the centre, written from a teenage viewpoint, which explores a situation which teenage readers often fear, aspire to, dream about or experience, and which provides an emotional connection to themselves as teenagers now. It has no visible boundaries or safety-nets and may be frightening, cutting-edge, brutally honest, shocking or sad, (but doesn't have to be) but in fact there are boundaries of acceptability and hope:
Of course, I can't shut up when I should so I feel obliged to give a few extra "rules", some of which I touched on in the previous article but which bear repeating:
Daniel and Jane - re the 70s series the Children of the Stones, it's worth remembering too that teenage fiction really had only just got going at this time, all in the US - with SE Hinton's The Outsiders and Paul Zindell's The Pigman (God, that's brilliant and devastating in a simple way that only teenage writing can be) both in the late 60s, and then the fabulously dark Robert Cormier - OMG I am The Cheese* - from the 70s. He, incidentally, was edited by my main editor. (Main? See, I'm so rubbish I need more than one ...). Anyway, I guess the rules and possibilities of teenage / YA fiction were so new by that time that adults still very much ruled the roost. Whereas now, we know who's in charge, don't we?
*title of book, not an existential statement
One other point - teenage or YA? YA is more a US term, though we often use it in the UK too. To be honest, no difference is usually implied between the two terms, though sometimes YA refers to a slightly older teenager, but I think this distinction makes it too complicated and unnecessarily pigeon-holey. Outside the book world, young adult refers to 18-25s (eg in medical terminology) so it can be confusing for people outside when we talk about YA.
In the last post I said you had to be able to reel off at least ten favourite teenage authors or books and some of you enthusiastically came up with your own lists (full marks to you). Well, of course, I have a few more because you can't keep a keen reader down:
Have a lovely weekend. I had a near death (not exaggerating) incident on the motorway yesterday and made my first ever 999 call, from a stationary and exceptionally vulnerable position in the middle of an intersection between the UK's two biggest motorways (yes, I know, nothing compared with US motorways but they are Big To Us), having been hit by a lorry which didn't stop to see that it had knocked us off the road. So I am planning to count my blessings for being alive. I think wine and chocolate may well be necessary in extra quantities to get me back to a normal mental place.
By the way, if you ever see a car stopped in an incredibly stupid place, risking being smashed to pieces by speeding cars from six lanes of two motorways, I would ask you to consider that it might not be there on purpose. Some of the drivers that passed us clearly had not worked this out, judging from the way they hooted their horns at us and shook their fists.
Pah! Give me teenagers any day.
Do we need to define a teenage novel in order to write one?
Some teenage authors whom I respect claim not to be able or wish to define or even particularly think about what a teenage novel is when they write one. Others are with me, enjoying trying to pin it down without restricting it, and trying to reach a level of understanding that helps us identify with our readers as perfectly as possible. The former authors prove that you don't have to. But I think those authors are very few and far between and happen to write books which happen to be teenage in tone simply because those happen to be the books they want to write.
For the rest of us who dare to tread the tight-rope between writing a great story from the heart and writing a great story that will hit specific readers in the heart, and for those of us who want to understand our market, we need some analysis and some knowledge.
PLEASE NOTE: a teenager, like any other reader, is perfectly entitled to read and enjoy ANY book. When I talk about "teenage novels" I don't mean "novels that teenagers often enjoy". I mean "novels aimed specifically at teenagers" (but which other readers may indeed enjoy).
It would help if you first read my last post - COMMON MISTAKES WHEN WRITING FOR TEENAGERS. In fact, without it you won't understand what I'm about to say, especially about safety-nets. Yes, safety-nets - essential tools for writing for young people.
A perfect illustration
If you are prepared to borrow or buy three books, I can show you with absolute clarity what makes a teenage book a teenage book. A quick read of the first few chapters of these three books will illustrate all I am about to say. Without reading the books, however, you'll still get a pretty good gist of what I mean from what follows. All three start with a young person being bullied or set upon at or near school, which is one reason they make a great comparison:
Bad Girls is not a teenage book - for a start, the protagonist is too young. The language is simplifed, with short sentences and gentle vocabulary, and there is a great deal of protection by adults. You can see the mesh of the safety-net. It's not particularly relevant to our topic except that it's when you then read Malarkey that you see the great leap that the reader must take, both in terms of topic and safety-net distance, to go from one book to the next. Bearing in mind that the reader of Bad Girls may well be 10 or 11 but that an 11/12 year old could easily be reading and enjoying Malarkey, and you see the leap the reader has made in a very short theoretical time. The main character in Malarkey is 16ish, which, according to the "rules" of writing for young people means that our intended readership is up to 14/15.
But then consider The Illumination of Merton Browne. There is a level of violence (extreme domestic abuse) which goes beyond what we'd be able or probably want to offer teenagers. There's a total absence of safety net. There is a great deal of swearing. The age of the character is interesting too - at the time of writing he has left school and is thinking back to his childhood, relating events which happened mostly around his eleventh birthday, and much of the initial action takes place as he arrives at secondary school, aged eleven. A teenage book would not normally be this retrospective: it would normally take place during the relevant teenage years of the reader (although earlier episodes might well be related) and in fact cover a very small part of those years. So, by having the main character an adult looking back to being mostly eleven, we already skew it for the teenage reader and make it not a teenage book.
However, it's a book which many older teenagers might like - if they could get their hands on it, which they won't in a school library in the UK or US or Australia or anywhere else I can think of. unless the librarian really wants to lose his/her job.
Why have teenage books anyway?
Ooh, I could write a whole post on this, and have already written about it in the Scotsman, but I see they have put it very annoyingly onto their "premium pages" and I'm sure you don't want to pay for it. Anyway, maybe another day. Consider simply that some people still argue that teenage books are unnecessary because readers should do what "we always did", ie go straight from kids' books to adult books. Thing is, (amongst other things), adult books have changed in the last 20-30 years and you simply cannot go from Bad Girls to Merton Browne. Or at least not without experiencing severe trauma on the way.
What you said
Some of you posted comments about eg whether Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books were teenage or not. DanielB and anonymous / tbrosz were talking about whether something was "quite right" / felt properly teenage in those and other stories which we might have thought were teenage. I haven't read those Pratchett books but I have always thought of him as one of those writers who isn't a teenage writer but who writes books that many teenagers love. I'm guessing that it's the "adult perspective" of the story that you are referring to and have noticed. Yes, in my view this would be something which would make them "not deliberately teenage books". And it's once you've identifued the "teenageness" or otherwise that (I think) you can fully understand what teenage really is. And you clearly have!
Another one to think about is perhaps Doctor Who - much loved by teenagers for generations but (you'd agree??) not exactly "teenage"? Like Pratchett? And Children of the Stones?
Which I guess brings me to my attempt at a definition, granted that all definitions break down when you start to pick at their edges, and that there will be exceptions, and that books are just books forchristsake and why should they have to be pigeon-holed ...
The "definition"
I see a teenage novel as a story with a teenage character(s) at the centre, written from a teenage viewpoint, which explores a situation which teenage readers often fear, aspire to, dream about or experience, and which provides an emotional connection to themselves as teenagers now. It has no visible boundaries or safety-nets and may be frightening, cutting-edge, brutally honest, shocking or sad, (but doesn't have to be) but in fact there are boundaries of acceptability and hope:
"it takes them to the edge but will not throw them over."
That's my definition anyway.
That's my definition anyway.
Of course, I can't shut up when I should so I feel obliged to give a few extra "rules", some of which I touched on in the previous article but which bear repeating:
- the teenage characters find their own solutions because the story is about them and not the adult secondary characters. Get the adults out of the way. Kill them if necessary (preferably before the book starts, or at least before we get to care)
- though some teenage novels are deep and some are shallow (as with adult books), the language does not patronise by trying to be simple
- although the voice is teenage, this does not mean you have to sound like a teenager - see my post on voice. The voice has to be appropriate, a voice they'd like to listen to. ie not a teacher, parent, middle-aged person, sad git, kid
- the protagonist is usually a bit older than the intended readership (this applies to writing for younger children too)
- no message, remember - or at least not an in your face one. You're a writer not a teacher.
- the pace is likely to be faster and tighter than in adult writing
- a teenager (see my book Blame My Brain for a defence and explanation of the details of this, and for an entertaining read, and to save your sanity if you happen to share your living quarters with a teenage specimen) may be 11 years old, but by the age of 15/16 is off your readership radar
- the writer must be aware that the level of literary criticism of plot, structure, language, themes to which the book will be subjected by the young reader will be intense - if you think you're writing for kids and that kids don't know how to tell you what's wrong with your book, you're in for a big shock!
Daniel and Jane - re the 70s series the Children of the Stones, it's worth remembering too that teenage fiction really had only just got going at this time, all in the US - with SE Hinton's The Outsiders and Paul Zindell's The Pigman (God, that's brilliant and devastating in a simple way that only teenage writing can be) both in the late 60s, and then the fabulously dark Robert Cormier - OMG I am The Cheese* - from the 70s. He, incidentally, was edited by my main editor. (Main? See, I'm so rubbish I need more than one ...). Anyway, I guess the rules and possibilities of teenage / YA fiction were so new by that time that adults still very much ruled the roost. Whereas now, we know who's in charge, don't we?
*title of book, not an existential statement
One other point - teenage or YA? YA is more a US term, though we often use it in the UK too. To be honest, no difference is usually implied between the two terms, though sometimes YA refers to a slightly older teenager, but I think this distinction makes it too complicated and unnecessarily pigeon-holey. Outside the book world, young adult refers to 18-25s (eg in medical terminology) so it can be confusing for people outside when we talk about YA.
In the last post I said you had to be able to reel off at least ten favourite teenage authors or books and some of you enthusiastically came up with your own lists (full marks to you). Well, of course, I have a few more because you can't keep a keen reader down:
- John Marsden's Letters from the Inside
- Alice Kuipers' Life on the Refrigerator Door (though you'll need a lot of chocolate to get your life back on track after either of those)
- Adele Geras' Ithaka - nothing to do with the fact that she reads this blog; I'd just forgotten how much I'd liked it and it's very different from the dark cold ones on my previous list. Adele writes books for many different ages but Troy and Ithaka, which fit my criteria for teenage novels, are my favourite.
Have a lovely weekend. I had a near death (not exaggerating) incident on the motorway yesterday and made my first ever 999 call, from a stationary and exceptionally vulnerable position in the middle of an intersection between the UK's two biggest motorways (yes, I know, nothing compared with US motorways but they are Big To Us), having been hit by a lorry which didn't stop to see that it had knocked us off the road. So I am planning to count my blessings for being alive. I think wine and chocolate may well be necessary in extra quantities to get me back to a normal mental place.
By the way, if you ever see a car stopped in an incredibly stupid place, risking being smashed to pieces by speeding cars from six lanes of two motorways, I would ask you to consider that it might not be there on purpose. Some of the drivers that passed us clearly had not worked this out, judging from the way they hooted their horns at us and shook their fists.
Pah! Give me teenagers any day.
Monday, 16 February 2009
WRITER'S BLOCK AND AN APOLOGY
Apologies to those of you who lovely people who commented or contacted me personally to say they really liked my idea of doing online one-to-one tuition: I'm afraid it's not going to happen, or at least not in the foreseeable future. I was going to do it, really: I spent the weekend planning it, creating a new blog to give you all the info, working everything out in huge detail. The blog was all ready to go live. Just needed to click a button, though first I was going to ask lovely Jane Smith of How Publishing Really Works to say what she thought. While I was doing it, I admit that a major part of me was screaming NO! You see, although I love teaching and would have enjoyed so many aspects of this idea, I have a habit of doing too much, spending too long at my computer and not enough time getting a life, and I know that I am supposed to be writing books, doing talks, and all the other paraphernalia of being an author (including this blog, which I really enjoy doing), all of which would be enough even if I didn't have a husband, dog and occasionally two daughters. Not to mention the chocolate habit.
But I wanted to do it, and I'm an idiot, so I was ploughing on. Then, yesterday evening, my husband and I were going to the cinema, just about to leave the house, when the phone rang. It was a friend to say that a good friend of ours had died. Just like that. Out of the so-called blue.
I don't believe in signs, but I do believe in listening to yourself. And my first rational and coherent thought was a cliché: life's too short. Then another one: you only get one life. And finally a line from my favourite film, The Life of Brian: "Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it."
But life isn't a piece of shit - life's good, mostly. Life is for living and loving and so I'm going to live it and love it, and that means making time for myself, family and friends, chocolate, novels, the best words I can produce in the best order I can design. And that means no new and possibly exhausting projects like an on-line writing school, at least for now. Even though I'd have got a lot of satisfaction from it, it's not what I know I should be doing and I know this is the right decision. I hope you understand.
What I will do is include some posts about the various things I'd have taught you if you had signed up for my mad idea. This blog started as purely advice about getting published, but since the most important step towards getting published is writing the best possible book, I should and will include some advice about that, and I'll focus especially on the most common things people do wrong in their writing.
Meanwhile, I am myself learning the brutal reality of writer's block. It does feel as though something physical is sticking there, that if I tried to get back to the novel in progress today it just wouldn't work. Creativity needs space and there's no space in there right now. If I sit at my desk and stare at the screen, nothing will come and the more nothing comes the worse it feels. So, I'm going to switch the computer off and I'm going for a long walk with the dog. She won't be pleased, as it's raining and she's not stupid, but we're going. Walking and fresh air - even wet fresh air - always work for me.
Normal service and "crabbit old bat" sense of humour will be resumed. Just don't go away and please do take care.
But I wanted to do it, and I'm an idiot, so I was ploughing on. Then, yesterday evening, my husband and I were going to the cinema, just about to leave the house, when the phone rang. It was a friend to say that a good friend of ours had died. Just like that. Out of the so-called blue.
I don't believe in signs, but I do believe in listening to yourself. And my first rational and coherent thought was a cliché: life's too short. Then another one: you only get one life. And finally a line from my favourite film, The Life of Brian: "Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it."
But life isn't a piece of shit - life's good, mostly. Life is for living and loving and so I'm going to live it and love it, and that means making time for myself, family and friends, chocolate, novels, the best words I can produce in the best order I can design. And that means no new and possibly exhausting projects like an on-line writing school, at least for now. Even though I'd have got a lot of satisfaction from it, it's not what I know I should be doing and I know this is the right decision. I hope you understand.
What I will do is include some posts about the various things I'd have taught you if you had signed up for my mad idea. This blog started as purely advice about getting published, but since the most important step towards getting published is writing the best possible book, I should and will include some advice about that, and I'll focus especially on the most common things people do wrong in their writing.
Meanwhile, I am myself learning the brutal reality of writer's block. It does feel as though something physical is sticking there, that if I tried to get back to the novel in progress today it just wouldn't work. Creativity needs space and there's no space in there right now. If I sit at my desk and stare at the screen, nothing will come and the more nothing comes the worse it feels. So, I'm going to switch the computer off and I'm going for a long walk with the dog. She won't be pleased, as it's raining and she's not stupid, but we're going. Walking and fresh air - even wet fresh air - always work for me.
Normal service and "crabbit old bat" sense of humour will be resumed. Just don't go away and please do take care.
Friday, 13 February 2009
A TIP, AN ODD THING, AND A QUESTION
THE TIP: Creating Dramatic Tension
As I'm sure you'll agree, it's important to give your readers subtle clues to suggest there's something really exciting about to happen, but keep them hanging on as long as possible. But not so long that they get really hacked off with you. Don't give them the answer too soon, in other words. Or too late.
This is why for about a week now I've been telling you (OK, telling is not so subtle, I agree) to expect a story of hilarious ineptitude, the funniest day of my life as an author - and then not giving it to you. See what I mean? It just guarantees you'll hang around a bit longer. And you are only slightly hacked off with me but not too much so. If I keep you waiting too long, on the other hand, you may just disappear and go and read something much more exciting, like the contender for last year's Diagram Prize (a prize for the weirdest book title) the possibly life-saving How to Avoid Huge Ships. Fact-fetishists amongst you might like to know that previous winners have included Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers and the seminal People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It. One previous winner, the Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, contained a whole an education within the title, or at least to me. However, the very first winner of the prize was probably unbeatable: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.
Don't worry: I haven't forgotten about the story. I'm just keeping you hanging on - creating dramatic tension. Call it a demonstration in the cause of your education. I am sure it will improve your writing.
THE ODD THING: my 50th "follower" on this blog is a dog. And, weirdly, the dog can write as well as follow blogs. It's truly a blog-dog. I am not sure I am qualified to advise a dog on how to get published, though I have often been tempted to tell a human writer that he/she is barking up the wrong tree.
Here is my dog, by the way, to say a virtual hello to the blog dog. Apologies for the wine in the background - it's just in case I have guests round. Although this rarely happens, I feel it's best to be prepared.
THE QUESTION: it has occurred to me, following rash suggestions by a couple of people, that it might (or might not) be a good idea, or at least a not entirely stupid one, for me to offer online tuition for a few writers who a) want to get published and b) are good enough to be promising and c) are the sort of writer I feel I could help. So, a completely personalised "writing towards publication" course, tailored to the specific needs of the writer and covering whatever areas of weakness I find. (And believe me: I will be looking. I wasn't an English teacher for nothing.) I would only take a very few pupils, and they would have to fulfil certain criteria, but it could work. I'd cover a whole range of things, from writing style, voice and specific techniques, to pitching your material to agent/publisher, and each selection of topics would be made in consultation with the victim - sorry, no, I mean client - depending on what stage the writer was at.
I would also take groups - for example a writing group could sign up for group feedback and exercises.
So, my question is simple: what do you lovely people think? (I should add that it won't be cheap, as a great deal of chocolate will have to be consumed by me while I spend some months preparing perfect materials. And I don't function well on cheap chocolate.)
Oh, and if you say it's a good idea, don't worry: I won't then assume you want to sign up, honestly! I will be rubbish at the hard-sell. I just want to know in general what you think.
NB: I'm not tutoring the dog, but I'm very happy to continue reading his blog. Though I confess I do feel rather silly doing so. On the other hand, I'm beginning to think the dog may have some help from a human as he is rather competent and I just think those claws would get in the way of effective typing.
The next post will be the story of incompetence. Probably. I have actually written it, honestly - just haven't seen fit to click the relevant button. Oh, the power!
Must dash - got to see a blog about a dog.
As I'm sure you'll agree, it's important to give your readers subtle clues to suggest there's something really exciting about to happen, but keep them hanging on as long as possible. But not so long that they get really hacked off with you. Don't give them the answer too soon, in other words. Or too late.
This is why for about a week now I've been telling you (OK, telling is not so subtle, I agree) to expect a story of hilarious ineptitude, the funniest day of my life as an author - and then not giving it to you. See what I mean? It just guarantees you'll hang around a bit longer. And you are only slightly hacked off with me but not too much so. If I keep you waiting too long, on the other hand, you may just disappear and go and read something much more exciting, like the contender for last year's Diagram Prize (a prize for the weirdest book title) the possibly life-saving How to Avoid Huge Ships. Fact-fetishists amongst you might like to know that previous winners have included Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers and the seminal People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It. One previous winner, the Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, contained a whole an education within the title, or at least to me. However, the very first winner of the prize was probably unbeatable: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.
Don't worry: I haven't forgotten about the story. I'm just keeping you hanging on - creating dramatic tension. Call it a demonstration in the cause of your education. I am sure it will improve your writing.
THE ODD THING: my 50th "follower" on this blog is a dog. And, weirdly, the dog can write as well as follow blogs. It's truly a blog-dog. I am not sure I am qualified to advise a dog on how to get published, though I have often been tempted to tell a human writer that he/she is barking up the wrong tree.
Here is my dog, by the way, to say a virtual hello to the blog dog. Apologies for the wine in the background - it's just in case I have guests round. Although this rarely happens, I feel it's best to be prepared.
THE QUESTION: it has occurred to me, following rash suggestions by a couple of people, that it might (or might not) be a good idea, or at least a not entirely stupid one, for me to offer online tuition for a few writers who a) want to get published and b) are good enough to be promising and c) are the sort of writer I feel I could help. So, a completely personalised "writing towards publication" course, tailored to the specific needs of the writer and covering whatever areas of weakness I find. (And believe me: I will be looking. I wasn't an English teacher for nothing.) I would only take a very few pupils, and they would have to fulfil certain criteria, but it could work. I'd cover a whole range of things, from writing style, voice and specific techniques, to pitching your material to agent/publisher, and each selection of topics would be made in consultation with the victim - sorry, no, I mean client - depending on what stage the writer was at.
I would also take groups - for example a writing group could sign up for group feedback and exercises.
So, my question is simple: what do you lovely people think? (I should add that it won't be cheap, as a great deal of chocolate will have to be consumed by me while I spend some months preparing perfect materials. And I don't function well on cheap chocolate.)
Oh, and if you say it's a good idea, don't worry: I won't then assume you want to sign up, honestly! I will be rubbish at the hard-sell. I just want to know in general what you think.
NB: I'm not tutoring the dog, but I'm very happy to continue reading his blog. Though I confess I do feel rather silly doing so. On the other hand, I'm beginning to think the dog may have some help from a human as he is rather competent and I just think those claws would get in the way of effective typing.
The next post will be the story of incompetence. Probably. I have actually written it, honestly - just haven't seen fit to click the relevant button. Oh, the power!
Must dash - got to see a blog about a dog.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
IN DEFENCE OF AUTHORS, AND ABOUT TIME TOO
First an apology: this is not the Thursday light relief that I promised. That story of extraordinary and hilarious incompetence is coming, I promise (something for the weekend?) but I have a need to offload something that is seriously bugging me first.
Warning: crabbit old bat in major full swing. But with a difference. Today, I’ve had enough of criticising my fellow authors, unpublished and published - because we’re all in it together, dahlings - for things like “Inexcusable Ignorance” and general tawdry and unprofessional behaviour. I think I even perhaps once mentioned drunkenness and unpleasantness and possibly arrogance. How could I? Anyway, I’m going to turn the tables. Yes, I am. Now it’s the turn of you nasty mean editors and other forms of publisher, and even booksellers. Because you just don’t understand us, you really don’t.
I feel that in the very few weeks that this blog has been in existence, I have had many approving noises from (wonderful) publishers and (gorgeous) booksellers and I’ve accepted them all like the pathetic, insecure gallery-playing author that I am. And I would not be surprised if you fabulous, long-suffering, aspiring authors were not sitting there weeping quietly and bravely at the crap I’ve been dealing out to you, allowing yourselves to be flagellated by the likes of me. (Please don’t get too excited by that concept - it’s really not nice and, anyway, I mean it only metaphorically.)
So now I say, ENOUGH! Let’s hear it for authors, and let me send a message to those powerful, cruel publishers and booksellers who hold us in their thrall. (Just what is a thrall anyway? I don’t know, but it sounds like a very nasty thing in which to be held.)
I should start by saying that of course I know, and have said before, that very occasionally an author lets the side down by behaving as though he (or even, more occasionally, she) has a brain the size of mouse genitalia, an ego in inverse proportion to said genitalia and an alcohol habit to match the inverse proportion. Occasionally, it must also be said, authors are exceptionally rude and crass and many other unacceptable things. But APART from those few, we are simply misunderstood. And the sooner that editors and agents and booksellers understood this, the better for world peace and various other useful things.
So, let me, on behalf of my suffering writerly colleagues (to whom I apologise for all previous cruelty and mockery - though I don’t take it back, because it was entirely justified most of the time) enlighten those professionals who take such pleasure in berating us for our failure to understand the errors of our ways.
So anyway, calming down slightly (but not much) in the spirit of almost Valentine’s Day (omigod, better go out and buy something for him - maybe a BOOK, and if so then certainly and absolutely from Vanessa’s fabulous bookshop) let’s show a bit of a loving understanding for all those misunderstood authors out there. Yes, sometimes we're rubbish but we are trying not to be. We're doing our best to overcome our paltriness.
Yep, it’s a real bugger being an author sometimes. Which, to be honest, is why we eat chocolate. It gives us courage to brave all you scary, scary professionals. Chocolate is the only known antidote to insecurity. That and shoes.
Warning: crabbit old bat in major full swing. But with a difference. Today, I’ve had enough of criticising my fellow authors, unpublished and published - because we’re all in it together, dahlings - for things like “Inexcusable Ignorance” and general tawdry and unprofessional behaviour. I think I even perhaps once mentioned drunkenness and unpleasantness and possibly arrogance. How could I? Anyway, I’m going to turn the tables. Yes, I am. Now it’s the turn of you nasty mean editors and other forms of publisher, and even booksellers. Because you just don’t understand us, you really don’t.
I feel that in the very few weeks that this blog has been in existence, I have had many approving noises from (wonderful) publishers and (gorgeous) booksellers and I’ve accepted them all like the pathetic, insecure gallery-playing author that I am. And I would not be surprised if you fabulous, long-suffering, aspiring authors were not sitting there weeping quietly and bravely at the crap I’ve been dealing out to you, allowing yourselves to be flagellated by the likes of me. (Please don’t get too excited by that concept - it’s really not nice and, anyway, I mean it only metaphorically.)
So now I say, ENOUGH! Let’s hear it for authors, and let me send a message to those powerful, cruel publishers and booksellers who hold us in their thrall. (Just what is a thrall anyway? I don’t know, but it sounds like a very nasty thing in which to be held.)
I should start by saying that of course I know, and have said before, that very occasionally an author lets the side down by behaving as though he (or even, more occasionally, she) has a brain the size of mouse genitalia, an ego in inverse proportion to said genitalia and an alcohol habit to match the inverse proportion. Occasionally, it must also be said, authors are exceptionally rude and crass and many other unacceptable things. But APART from those few, we are simply misunderstood. And the sooner that editors and agents and booksellers understood this, the better for world peace and various other useful things.
So, let me, on behalf of my suffering writerly colleagues (to whom I apologise for all previous cruelty and mockery - though I don’t take it back, because it was entirely justified most of the time) enlighten those professionals who take such pleasure in berating us for our failure to understand the errors of our ways.
- It’s a real bugger being an author, sometimes. Honestly, it’s over-rated as a holiday destination.
- We suffer constant insecurity. (Most of us. And we hate the others, so that’s OK.) Well, how wouldn’t we be insecure, when people regularly tell us we’re rubbbish, even once we’re published? And if anyone says nice things, they’re most likely to be a) our publicity people b) our parents or c) deluded (which includes our parents).
- Would you like it if your work was reviewed negatively and those negative comments were put on the internet for like EVER? Would you like it if your audience went on message-boards and said a load of rubbish about your oeuvre? The fact that this ignorant rubbish is often written by people who should be asleep instead of messaging crapness at 3 in the morning, and that they can’t spell, doesn’t make it hurt less. Actually, it makes it hurt more to think that such a stupid person would care enough to have gone online to over-share - I mean if the book was just mediocrely awful, wouldn’t they just have ignored it and watched re-runs of the X-Factor?
- Some unpublished authors absolutely and utterly deserve to be published and have a glittering career in front of them - perhaps far in front of them but distance is like size: not everything. No one should assume that because an author has failed to be published (yet), they are rubbish. Lynn Price of the phenomenal BehlerBlog was kind enough to be fabulously, well, kind, about my writing - which is a) wonderful of her and for me but b) confusing because in that case how come I was unpublished for so almost-soul-destroyingly long? The point being? The point being that for very many painful years I had regularly and horribly assumed that I wasn’t good enough and for that long I was the person that published writers (including me, until now) and editors and booksellers often knock: the wannabe no-hoper, the deluded idiot who really should just keep on with the day job because everything else - the dream - is nothing more than a dream.
- We work for years and years and years (and in my case years) before we earn anything at all from our writing, because we love it are and drawn to it and driven to it and yet some (most) of us will never earn anything approaching a decent salary for it. No violins, please. And OK so some of us don’t deserve to earn anything from it, but we lay our heads and hearts (and actually sometimes lives, though I can’t claim such bravery myself) on the line in our belief that what we produce is art and matters. And what do we get for that? What we get is 96% of the world never having heard of us, 3.9% of the world messaging at 3 in the morning to say what rubbish we are and the remaining 0.1% being either related to us in some way, or pathetically undecided.
- We cringe in abject mortification (and some) when we go into a bookshop and our books aren’t there and 99% of the time we slink out (after buying something we didn’t want, just to make us feel there was a point in being in the shop in the first place) and the other 1% of the time we pluck up courage to ask the busy and godlike bookseller if by any chance they might consider - pretty, pretty please - stocking our book because it’s quite a good book and it’s had some lovely reviews which unfortunately you, o glorious bookseller, don’t seem to have seen but if you were to consider stocking my humble little book I promise I will come in and give up my time - free, because of course my time is free since no one’s sodding well going to pay me for it - and do an event for you to bring five people into your shop because I’m such a loser (cue more cringing embarrassment and mortification), four of whom are related to me and the other one of whom came in looking for a birthday present for his mother but got forced or confused into listening when you locked the door. Trust me, it’s AWFUL doing the “how to help bookshops sell your book” thing, unless you have a monstrous ego, which I just don’t, so I apologise in utter shrivening abjectness to every bookseller whom I have failed to help sell my books. And they are many. Oh, how often I have slunk away, worm-like, and how often you have never seen me. I have never put my books face out (yeah, I know, I’m really rubbish as an author - please don’t tell my publisher /agent /editor /daughters / dog and everyone else who relies on me to earn some money for them) or done anything remotely annoying or in-your-face - and more’s the pity, according to my publishers and my royalty statement. I am sorry, so sorry, and please forgive me and please stock my next book because it will be much much better than anything I’ve ever done and has a gorgeous cover, which you always say is the MAIN thing.
- It’s a real bugger being an author sometimes. Frankly, it sucks. But you know what? We love it. So forget your violins and take back your sympathy because I’m changing nothing. Sorry, but I just can’t do enough to help you sell my books because I’m too shy and pathetic and actually, you know, I am supposed to be WRITING. And you are the bookseller and that’s why you do it so brilliantly and kind of that’s why I would like to think I’m the writer in this deal and you’re the bookseller / editor / publicity person / EXPERT. And yes I KNOW I am supposed to help but please just let me go home and write. Where the hell is that garret I dreamt of for so long, and that delicious loneliness??
So anyway, calming down slightly (but not much) in the spirit of almost Valentine’s Day (omigod, better go out and buy something for him - maybe a BOOK, and if so then certainly and absolutely from Vanessa’s fabulous bookshop) let’s show a bit of a loving understanding for all those misunderstood authors out there. Yes, sometimes we're rubbish but we are trying not to be. We're doing our best to overcome our paltriness.
Yep, it’s a real bugger being an author sometimes. Which, to be honest, is why we eat chocolate. It gives us courage to brave all you scary, scary professionals. Chocolate is the only known antidote to insecurity. That and shoes.
Monday, 9 February 2009
ON (NOT) GETTING PUBLISHED AGAIN
It's often said that when you've been published once, you have "got your foot in the door". What's less often but equally truthfully said is that if the door is very heavy, this can be a singularly painful and stupid place to have your foot.
Of course, being published the first time is a wonderful feeling. For a while, the future doesn't matter: the present is everything. You don't care whether your book sells in pallet-loads - after all, you won't have to give back your advance, your parents / children are proud of you at last, and what else matters? You're still heady on the cheap Cava from your (self-funded) launch. Your friends are proud to know you. Your mum is talking about, "My son, The Author". You are still walking into Waterstone's and loudly asking for your own book.
But what next? Or what after the second book of the precious two-book deal is written? Friends are already asking "What are you working on at the moment?" and you begin to realise that everyone expects you always to be "working" on something. Being an author is not just about the glory. (The what?)
No problem - you are writing another book. Surely your publisher will want it, if it's good enough? After all, the list of authors who didn't achieve fame and fortune on their first, second, third, even eighth book is as long as .... ooh, well, long anyway.
Thing is, two things are making that door very heavy nowadays and unless you've got steel-capped boots, you're going to feel the pain.
Why am I telling you this?
And when you hear this sorry story of hilarious ineptitude, (mostly not by me, of course), you may decide to keep your foot firmly out of the door.
Of course, being published the first time is a wonderful feeling. For a while, the future doesn't matter: the present is everything. You don't care whether your book sells in pallet-loads - after all, you won't have to give back your advance, your parents / children are proud of you at last, and what else matters? You're still heady on the cheap Cava from your (self-funded) launch. Your friends are proud to know you. Your mum is talking about, "My son, The Author". You are still walking into Waterstone's and loudly asking for your own book.
But what next? Or what after the second book of the precious two-book deal is written? Friends are already asking "What are you working on at the moment?" and you begin to realise that everyone expects you always to be "working" on something. Being an author is not just about the glory. (The what?)
No problem - you are writing another book. Surely your publisher will want it, if it's good enough? After all, the list of authors who didn't achieve fame and fortune on their first, second, third, even eighth book is as long as .... ooh, well, long anyway.
Thing is, two things are making that door very heavy nowadays and unless you've got steel-capped boots, you're going to feel the pain.
- Impatience, fuelled by the "bottom line" - nowadays, publishers have to get a faster and more predictable return on their money; they have big overheads, mean share-holders who weirdly expect a profit, and hundreds of writers coming along who might be the next cash cow if you're not. (No offence meant.) Unfortunately, the current climate means that publishers are more often looking for big sellers - and the gap between biggest sellers and the rest is widening. The mid-list is becoming a scary place to be, instead of just the normal authory place to be.
- Damned computers - and Electronic Point of Sale - meaning that because of clever databases like Nielsen Bookscan, your agent cannot massage fictitious life into the pallid sales figures of your first book. Authors used to call themselves "best-selling" if they'd been No 7 on the South Devon Mind Body Spirit List. Now any potential publisher can see exactly how minuscule your figures are. And not be impressed.
Why am I telling you this?
- Because people often ask and I'm one of those people who thinks a question should be answered. (I'd never make a politician.)
- Because unpublished authors often think that those who are published are set up for life - it's not a helpful delusion.
- Because published authors (and you, the moment you are published) need to act to protect those future contracts.
- By understanding the market so as to produce ideas that publishers will want. (While never selling out to commerciality. Oh no.)
- By understanding the market so as to produce hooks, synopses and covering letters that publishers must want.
- By using the market and doing loads of clever things to maximise book sales - there's so much that authors can do. Yes, yes, yes, I will do a post on it, but meanwhile you should take a look at Alison Baverstock's Marketing Your Book - an Author's Guide
- By being the nicest most publishable author ever. Yes, yes, yes - jolly good idea: I will do a post on How To Be a Nice and Very Publishable Author. Using my own extensive experience.
And when you hear this sorry story of hilarious ineptitude, (mostly not by me, of course), you may decide to keep your foot firmly out of the door.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
COMMON WORDS YOU SHOULD KNOW
Your lesson for today, children, is vocabulary. There are certain words and phrases which you will come across in your journey and of which you may not ask the meaning without looking foolish and unpublishable. Some of them you may already have met in rejection letters.
Many of them may seem as though you won't need to know them until you have a contract, but a) I believe that the more knowledge you can have of all stages, the better chance you have of that contract and b) many of you have already been published once or even more often, and have discovered the inconvenient truth that being published does not mean that publishers will tripping over themselves to sign you up for the wonder that is your second /third etc book.
My teachings come in no particular order, as usual. You must by now be beginning to know the haphazard "creativity" of which my brain is capable. Some might say I should make such lists alphabetical but alphabeticalisation is the domain of librarians, who are incredibly good at it.
Trust me: I'm a novelist. No, seriously, do.
Need chocolate badly.
Many of them may seem as though you won't need to know them until you have a contract, but a) I believe that the more knowledge you can have of all stages, the better chance you have of that contract and b) many of you have already been published once or even more often, and have discovered the inconvenient truth that being published does not mean that publishers will tripping over themselves to sign you up for the wonder that is your second /third etc book.
My teachings come in no particular order, as usual. You must by now be beginning to know the haphazard "creativity" of which my brain is capable. Some might say I should make such lists alphabetical but alphabeticalisation is the domain of librarians, who are incredibly good at it.
- List - as in "your book is not right for ours". A publisher's list consists of several lists. There is the entire list of its publications and there are lists within lists, such as the literary fiction list or the mind/body/spirit (MBS - there's another "word") list. One day, a publisher might have a literary MBS list, but this is hard to imagine - though I guess the Bible might be a contender. Anyway, the point is that the editors for that list know what they want on it. And, sadly, that is not your book. (Remind me to do an article on "What rejection letters are really telling you" - in fact, I'll put it on the list right now.) Thing is, suppose you had a shopping list - would you include an item "do tax return"? See? On the other hand, the item "anchovies" is a perfectly valid thing to put on a shopping-list and for you to say it's not right for your shopping list would be simply to say you don't like anchovies. Similarly, to say that your book is not right for the list can sometimes be a way for the editor to express not liking it.
- MSS - were you listening in the early lesson on "Inexcusable Ignorance"? MSS is in fact a misnomer, because your manuscript is not really a manuscript - ie hand-written while lying on a sofa eating peanuts and drinking nicely-matured grape juice - but a typescript - ie beautifully and clearly typed. (Please don't tell me yours really is a manuscript because if it is you'd better get it transmogrified asap). Pedants among you will want me to point out that also MSS strictly stands for manuscriptS, and that MS is a singular manuscript. But although agents and editors like careful authors, they don't like pedants, so please get with the lingo even if it's wrong.
- Agent - a person who quite rightly takes a % (10-15 and more like 20 for foreign/TV/film rights) of what they earn for you. (See the article on To Be Agented or Not ...). If you grudge this, don't have one. Trust me, they are not coming looking for you - it's up to you to show (show not tell) them that you are going to be so very successful that they will want their % even though it will be a long time till they get it.
- Acquisitions meeting - (forthcoming article alert) the crucial meeting held by your publishers, at which the editor who likes your book has to persuade everyone else to like it equally, and that it is perfect for their list (qv). In the US, I have heard it called a Decide meeting by by US publishers, but a comment (No 10 - thank you, Marissa) from one of you helpful expert readers suggests that this might not be widely-used. Mind you, the US is quite a big place, she says, with gentle understatement. And "Decide meeting" would be a very sensible term. Go for it, US, I say!
- Advance - an amount of money which is always much less than the papers will say. If the papers even mention it it means it was a lot, but still they are exaggerating. You don't get it all at once either. A common system is to get 1/3 on signature of contract, 1/3 on final delivery of MSS (pay attention at the back), and 1/3 on publication day. Or half on signature and half on publication, or some other system agreeable to you and your agent, though not as agreeable as getting twice as much twice as soon.
- Royalties - elusive things which only come when your book has "earned out" its advance. Most/many books never actually earn any. You have a royalty percentage (say 10%, but this varies hugely and for very good reasons depending on whether hardback, paperback, ebook, audio, serialisation etc etc and nothing to do with how amazingly brilliant you are) and essentially you get that % on each book sale (usually based on the publisher's receipts and not the cover price, which is where high/low discount (qv) comes in). I know, you've switched off but don't worry: only sad people understand their royalty statement.
- Returns - ugh. Bookshops buy your books "sale or return" and when they are returned they appear unpleasantly on your royalty statement and their previous earnings are deducted. And the books don't get sold again because too many customers had jam on their fingers when they picked up your baby - sorry, book - and fingered it before not buying it. (Please can we not talk about returns any more?)
- Publication day - OK, you you know what it means but do you know what it really MEANS? Often, it means two years from now. So I hope you've got some writing to do in the mean time. Or a paper round or something, because you're going to need it.
- Sales and marketing departments - two parts of a publishing company that sometimes might as well have offices on different planets, and on different planets from the editorial dept. And absolutely in a different universe from the author. (Note to my publishers - this is hearsay: of COURSE I don't mean you - you all communicate stupendously well.)
- AI - not A1, which is a very dangerous road between Scotland and more southerly parts of the UK, but AI (pronounced AY - as in May - EYE) - stands for Advance Information. This is a document which in the ideal world would tell that world accurate details about your book, and you, and why everyone should buy said book. Of course, this is not an ideal world, and as I mentioned in a previous article, the AI may be written by a 12-year-old who lurks virtually unpaid in a cupboard somewhere and who bases her description of your book, understandbly from her p.o.v., on your description of your book before you wrote it. Therefore, one of the first things you should do once you've signed your contract, is enlist your editor to ensure that what ends up on Amazon is something you can be proud of and that has a close resemblance to the truth. Otherwise you will have a hell of a lot of explaining to do when you are asked to talk to the Bognor Regis Women's Institute and they discover that the book they thought was an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery of a whimsical and traditional nature is in fact a post-surreal pastiche of American Psycho with shades of In Cold Blood.
- Hook - every book needs one. The sales and marketing departments need a quick phrase that sells your book, tells the potential buyers what it is in a pithy way that makes it different from anything else in the world and yet exactly like a book they'd love to read. I once went to speak at the publisher's sales conference before the publication of my historical adventure, The Highwayman's Footsteps - (that's called a plug by the way, which is a very important word and should always be preceded by shameless and yet performed with a pleasant smile so people don't hate you too much) - I had to speak for 10 minutes to the sales team, to enthuse them without teaching them their job; so, I wanted to make them want to sell the book and also give them something that would make it easy. They won't remember anything else I said that day except for my hook: "Robert Louis Stevenson on caffeine." My agent tells that story as an example of a hook that works. So, get yourself a hook for your book. (If you want to know a secret: actually, caffeine wasn't the word I used. But I write children's books so let's keep this appropriate, please.)
- Prelims - the pages at the front of your book before your actual words start. So, the title page, any foreword and acknowledgements, list of your previous books, little biog. Not a dramatic word but at least now you can respond sensibly when your editor asks you if you've got anything you'd like to add to them. (Your name is the most important bit, by the way.)
- Trade publishing - publishing of books that you can reasonably expect to find in a good bookshop. As opposed to eg educational or academic books, which will be sold in different ways and not usually through high-street bookshops.
- Trade paperback - I confess I've always been a bit mystified / bored by this distinction because it really only refers to the size/format of the book, which is a pretty boring thing to get too involved in. Essentially, your book will either be published as a hardback and later "go into" paperback (once the publisher thinks it's squeezed enough higher-profit sales out of it); or it will be published as a "paperback original" and not be in hardback. Sometimes the publisher will publish as a hardback while simultaneously (or almost) bringing out a "trade paperback" which is always for some odd reason fatter and bigger than the pb (paperback) original would have been. Absolutely fascinating, I am sure you agree.
- High discount - publishers sell books to retailers at high or low/normal discount. A powerful volume retailer like Amazon, or a big high-street chain, can command a higher discount, especially if they are going to put your book in a price promotion. And it matters, because you get less dosh out of it. But it also doesn't matter, because a) you can't do a damned thing about it and b) you're just ecstatic that anyone is buying your book at all.
- Editing / copy-editing / proof-reading - these probably need an article to themselves, but briefly: your editor is the one who helps you mould your book in major ways. He/she will suggest that a character isn't developed well enough, or your pace is not varied enough, or this bit doesn't work, or that bit was too short / long / shocking / boring. This then becomes a dialogue that you hope doesn't become an argument. Who has the last word? Hmmm. I play a tactical game with mine - I give way on things I don't care about so much, or which she might even (it happens, Chris) be right about; and I reserve the full power of my persuasion for the rest. I reckon I have the last word; she probably reckons she does. Which is a happy conclusion. Then she passes it on to the copy-editor, who picks up small things - not as small as punctuation but things like sentences that she / he doesn't understand, places where I've forgotten I said it hadn't rained for weeks and then have sunlight sparkling on the wet road (not that I would, as that would be a cliché) or I said someone was riding without a saddle but then I mention stirrups. Copy-editing can be a very painful process if you get a lousy copy-editor who thinks she/he knows best or a great process if the c-ed picks up really embarrassing things which an annoying reader might harangue you about in the distant future. Then, when all of those glitches are sorted, comes proof-reading, and you know what that is. It's skilled and picky and you REALLY want a good proof-reader because by that stage you've read your damned MSS so many times that you're starting to sleeptalk it and worms crawl across the page every time you look at it. Also by this time you hate your book and think it's rubbish and you go into a decline to which the only solution is chocolate. Luckily, chocolate solves everything.
Trust me: I'm a novelist. No, seriously, do.
Need chocolate badly.
Monday, 19 January 2009
TWO (3 actually) BRILLIANT LESSONS BY VIDEO
For your amusement and edification, I do suggest you watch this video. And, at the risk of being patronising but for the sake of essential clarity, I should point out that IT IS IRONIC ... From the Typewriter to the Bookstore: A Publishing Story
But now that you have well and truly got the message, I can allow you to watch this absolutely BRILLIANT video: Imaginary Writing Process
Happy writing - but not that happy ...
Um, sorry, but I just found another one. Well, we need something to brighten up a really dreary Monday. And this one is much closer to the truth ... How the Writing Process Works
But now that you have well and truly got the message, I can allow you to watch this absolutely BRILLIANT video: Imaginary Writing Process
Happy writing - but not that happy ...
Um, sorry, but I just found another one. Well, we need something to brighten up a really dreary Monday. And this one is much closer to the truth ... How the Writing Process Works
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