What If You Could Not Fail

I Only Need to Cut 25,000 Words

My novel, Rules for Giving, went through a few alpha readers at the beginning of the year. I’m incorporating some of their comments before I give it to few more. One of my goals is getting the word
count down. Right now it is 121,000 words. Everything I’ve read counsels first-time novelists to keep it closer to 90,000 words.   That’s going to be tough.

I’ve spent time trying to re-arrange events in the novel, allowing me to drop 5,000 words in one press of the delete key. There were a few other scenes, however, that I could not re-arrange, and they are vital for the progression of the plot.  I’m abandoning the idea, at least for now. I’m hoping that sometime during the editing process it will become clearer and I see a way to make the moved scenes work. For right now I am going through the manuscript page by page, deleting words, sentences, and sometimes an entire paragraph or two.

I’m going to go back and look at my blog posts a few weeks ago on brevity. It was occurred to me that I might be able to combine a few minor characters.

It’s a tough way to get rid of 25,000 words. Does anyone have input on word length?

An Alternative to Editors: A Good Critique Group

A few blogposts ago I ranted about how there are folks out there who will convince you that paying an editor $2,000 or $3,000 to polish your work is a vital step before submitting to an agent. I don’t think you have to. A manuscript that you’ve gone through meticulously, that you have had others read, and you’ve heeded their advice, should be good enough to submit to an agent.

But there is another tool that you should make a part of your writing—the services of a good critique group. Some time ago I posted the criteria for a good critique group. As a refresher, here is a link to that post.  

But attending a critique group is a two-way relationship.  When you share your writing with a group, and benefit from it, you have responsibilities. A few of the more important ones:

Do not be defensive—A good critique group meets weekly. These folks take time out of their busy schedules to not only receive input on their writing, but to give constructive criticism on the writing of others. When someone makes an observation about your writing, listen. Don’t get defensive, even if you think they are wrong. If you have a defense for every observation about your writing, if you argue about every observation, after a while folks are going to get conditioned to this. They will make only the most cursory observations. You will not get the full benefit of the group. You don’t have to heed every piece of advice. I’ve even had members of the group write me notes to ignore someone else’s advice.  

Attend regularly—Don’t come only when you have something to share with the group. This is selfish. Be a regular member. My critique group shares information about local writing classes and seminars, and often times I learn from listening to the work of other people, and the criticisms they receive. Some of the most useful writing tips I have received about writing have come from my critique group.

How can you find a critique group in your area? Start with the internet. I found a local writers’ club and attended one of their meetings and found they have such a group. You might also try the local library. I learn of critique groups all the time.

By the way, in my post linked in this article, I mention that our critique group meets at a local book store (hint: the only chain left). We were asked to leave there (they wanted more room for retail). Now we meet at a church. So far it hasn’t hampered anyone’s style of writing. There is still the occasional profanity. 

More Thoughts on Series Novels

My post last week about T.C. Boyle’s comments on sequels received a good deal of response.  Most folks were explaining the hows and whys of their own experience with writing sequels. Several told how they thought they were done with a character, only to have them come back later with an idea for another novel.

Michael Connelly writes a lot of sequels, but he also likes to intertwine characters for different series novels that he has going. Sometimes one of his characters from another series will make a cameo appearance. I’ve read all his books, so I pick up on these. I wonder what it’s like for someone who is reading Connelly for the first time? Are they bewildered by the random appearance of a character, or does it go unnoticed?

This morning the Wall Street Journal ran this article on sequels. They have a valid question. As a reader, do you need to read the preceding books if you come into a sequel at the mid-point? I read several sequel authors (the aforementioned Connelly, Lawrence Block, Walter Mosley, and a few others). I started reading Block halfway through his Matt Scudder series. I went back and read all the preceding books, but it took a while. I read the first Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child last year. I’m anal enough that I want to read the series from the beginning.

That would be even harder with the Hilary Mantel series on Thomas Cromwell, mentioned in the WSJ. It’s history. Are you going to read the second book, which starts when he’s fifty years old, knowing there is a preceding novel? Mantel did sell 400,000 copies of the first novel, and it sounds as if her fans are enthusiastic. Sales for her second novel are safe.

As readers, what’s your opinion? When you pick up a novel and realize it’s part of a series, does that make you think twice. According to the WSJ article, it works both ways. When a sequel writer releases a new book, there is often a bump in sales of their previous titles. Many authors, and their PR folks, insist that each book is a stand-alone.  I want to read the whole series, and with so many books and limited time, that doesn’t get done. I might be temtped to move on to another book.

Books forever, but buy an e-reader

Technology is changing everything, including books. I own a Nook, and the first thing I did when I got it was have one of my sons hack it so I can also download and read Kindle files. The best of both worlds.

I remain safe, however, in the knowledge that print books are not going anyplace, at least in my lifetime. I'm with Patt Morrison, the Los Angeles Times columnist who penned an op-ed piece this past Sunday on her love of print books—the smell, the texture, the ability to underline, and also that you can set it out in the sun to dry after dropping it in the bathtub. 

But we also know, as writers, that we can't let the world pass by us. We need to understand the technology of ebooks. That's where things are going. The million copies Amanda Hocking sold last year as a self-publisher were mostly in ebooks. They were her launching pad to a multi-million dollar publishing deal.

I need to take the plunge. I have a short story I am thinking about releasing as an ebook, if for no other reason than to go through the e-publishing process. I will keep you posted.

 

Do Writers Need to Hire an Editor?

I’m going to piss somebody off with this blogpost, but this issue needs to be addressed.

I question whether unpublished writers need to part with their hard-earned money and employ the services of a freelance, professional editor. Many in the industry would like you to believe this.

I’ve met writers who shelled out as much as $2,000, and more, to have their manuscript reviewed by a professional editor. Wow, I thought, I’m going to need to do this if I want to see Rules for Giving in print. How am I going to hide that kind of expense from my wife?

Then I signed up for the Southern California Writers’ Conference. Reviewing the list of advance critique readers—folks from the publishing industry that you pay $50 to read the first twenty pages of your manuscript and give you some input—I saw a few I knew to be editors. Am I paying fifty bucks to get a sales pitch on why I need to spend two thousand more?

At the conference, the pressure was pervasive. My suspicion is that more than one advance critique reviewer was seeking to turn a writer into an editing client that weekend. Don’t get me wrong. There were also a lot of sincere folks around there, trying to give a writer a break and some good advice. Several times, though, someone in a seminar said, “Agents don’t have the time to read anything but the most polished manuscripts. Invest the money to have your novel professionally edited.”

My cynical assessment is that these editors used to work for the publishers, but with the shockwaves that have gone through the publishing industry (Amazon, ebooks, self-publishing, the recession, and everything else) there have been cutbacks.  A layer of the industry that used to get all their work from the publishers has been displaced and in need of a new home. What more target-rich environment than writers who would sell their first-born to get published (pssst—you can have my first-born; I might even pay for you to take him). Michael Steven Gregory, the promoter of the SoCal Writers’ Conference, let it be known that he had “fired” a fellow who was listed as an advance reader. There were mumblings that he was an editor disguised as an agent.

“We can get you published,” I imagined him saying, “but we need to edit your novel first. It will cost $3,000.”

Last month Lynn Price, the editorial director of Behler Publications, talked in her blog about using an editor. She was more diplomatic than I am, but she did say this, “... out of literally thousands of submissions I’ve read, I signed one author who I feel got her money’s worth …” Read her whole blog here. It is interesting.

Again, don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of good editors out there. If you think you need one, though, check out their credentials. Who have they worked with? How many of their clients have been published? Have they been published?

This last weekend I was at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, sitting in a panel discussion about publishing and how everything, according to one panel member, has changed and –OMG—going to hell. One of the panel members was an agent who has represented some high profile names. I asked the panel, and the agent in particular, if it was a prerequisite that writers pay an editor to polish their manuscripts. After some hesitation, the answer was no, it was not necessary. Another audience member pressed the agent further. To paraphrase her answer:

“If an agent likes your manuscript, they are going to edit it and suggest changes. When they sell it to a publisher, the publisher is going to edit it and make changes. It’s going to be edited a lot.”

The publisher on the panel had a better comment: “The term editor is elastic. You need to do your homework.”

After the panel, someone came up and thanked me for asking the question.  “I wanted to ask it myself,” he said.

My philosophy is that if one person says it, ten people are thinking it. If that’s even close to true, I must have hit a nerve.

 

What? No Amazon!

USA Today and lots of other newspapers ran articles about World Book Night, a project put on by a coalition of publishers, booksellers and librarians across the United States. This past Monday night the project gave away 500,000books, mostly novels (The Hunger Games, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), and a few works of non-fiction (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks) in events throughout the country.

The idea was to get books in the hands of people who would otherwise not get a chance to own one.

The interesting aspect of the story was that members from throughout the publishing industry were asked to donate time and merchandise. The thirty participating authors waived their royalties. Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million were part of the effort.

Amazon, however, was not invited to the party.  The Internet bookseller was not asked, according to project officials, because World Book Night is about physical books, and Amazon is more and more about ebooks.

See ya’ later. 

Random Quotes from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

This past weekend I spent both days at the Los Angeles Times. Unlike previous years, I spent most of my time in the panel discussions. These were some of the comments overheard.

“I don’t know what one of my stories is about until the reviewers tell me what it’s about.” Pam Huston, author of Cowboys are My Weakness, Contents May Have Shifted, and other books.

“We don’t review self-published novels. There are too many and no way to vet them.” David L. Ulin, book critic for the Los Angeles Times.

“Indie Presses are a collaborative relationship. Writers get an incredible amount of attention. We’re not spending all our time promoting some celebrity biography.” Sumanth Pabhaker, Editor, Madras Press.

“It’s still lotto fever in corporate publishing.” Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House magazine and editorial advisor of Tin House Books, explaining some of the large author advances from the New York publishers.

“We look at self-published books in ways that five years ago we wouldn’t have.” Bonnie Nadell, an agent with Hill Nadell Literary Agency.

“There is no one way to do anything in publishing anymore. Everything is a case-by-case basis.” Miwa Messer, Director of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program.

“No glitter, no unicorn stickers, and don’t tell me you had another dream about me last night.” Dan Smetanka, editor-at-large for Counterpoint Press, on query letters.

“Editors can look a writer up on the internet and see how he promotes himself.” Ken Baumann, owner of Sator Press.

“Dialog does so much work. Secondary characters do great work.” Karen Grigsby Bates of NPR.

“Barnes & Noble has a small press division. We ask authors for marketing plans. We ask to see previous sales.” Miwa Messer, Director of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program.

This is the T-shirt I Want!

Hello. I am on a ten-day vacation in Yosemite National Park and then Pismo Beach. As hard as it is to believe, there will be times when I will not have an internet connection. In the meantime, please enjoy one of my favorite posts from this last year. 

Seen at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this past weekend. 

I'm Always Moving Forward

When I re-activated my writing career some three-and-a-half years ago, I discovered a local critique group. It was surprising by how many people were writing series novels, carrying the same character from one book to another. Trilogies are also popular, as well they should be. The Greeks invented the concept 3,500 years ago.

But by this time I was well into the writing of Rules for Giving, and it doesn’t lend itself to a series or a trilogy. One character, Leo the Knuckle, a six-foot-two-inch lesbian, fourth-degree black belt, formerly of U.S. Army Special Forces , could make a series, but at this point that prospect does not appeal to me. I have three other novel concepts in the early stages of development, but again, none of these lend themselves to multiple volumes.

Some of my favorite writers have series novels—Barbra Kingsolver, Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly. Cormac McCarthy has the Border Trilogy. I understand the logic behind trilogies and series novels. You come up with a character that works, people want to follow them, publishers see them as a proven concept. Comic books and soap operas have been doing them for years.

Am I missing the something?

Then yesterday, at the Los Angeles Time Festival of Books, I sat in on a conversation with T.C. Boyle, author of Water Music, Tortilla Curtain, When the Killing’s Done and others. I’ve not read any of his books, but they are on my list. Boyle has not written any series novels, either. As he was concluding, he solved the issue of series novels, why he has not written any, and why they don’t interest him (or me) as a writer.

“I’m not looking back,” he said. “I’m not writing sequels. I’m always trying to move ahead.”

But my mind could be changed, so let me ask the question: Do you write series novels? What’s your reasoning? 

 

More on Who's the Good Guy

Author Ann Patchett, in an op-ed piece in the NY Times about the lack of a Pulitzer prize for fiction this year, took her own shot at black hats vs. white hats:

In November of last year, along with my business partner, Karen Hayes, I opened Parnassus Books in Nashville. The brick-and-mortar bookstore, as people seem to point out to us hourly, is not exactly a thriving business model (though we are doing fine), and the publishing industry, especially since the Department of Justice has decided to be Amazon’s bodyguard, is struggling as well.

So here's my question: The Justice Department is taking Apple and its friends to court; Amazon is accused of being a bully; 26-year-old Amanda Hocking made $2.4 million auctioning off her concepts after spending a year self-publishing her paranormal romance; and the Pulitzer committee decided not to recognize the best fiction of the year. 

The cynic in me says there is no such thing as a coincidence.