This Week in Publishing 10/29/10

This week in the Giants I mean publishing

Holy cow is it an exciting time to live in San Francisco, and most especially to live two blocks away from AT&T Park during the World Series. I've almost gotten used to helicopters buzzing overhead, having to reassure my dog that the world is not about to come to an end when military jets do flybys, and my wife and I have gotten quite adept at high fiving deliriously happy/drunk Giants fans in the neighborhood.

Only I'm going to be in New York next week, so I hope the neighborhood is still standing when I get back. Go Giants!!

Oh, and last thing about the Giants, but I find it so funny that the national news about the series usually takes the tack of, "Wow, those liberal San Francisco hippies sure do like their oddball baseball team!" I'm not sure whether to be offended or proud.

Meanwhile, first actual publishing update is that I'm still way behind on queries and manuscripts. No need to follow up.

And it's Friday, so that means it's time for Page Critique Friday. The page up for critique is posted in the Forums.

News in publishing!

The big news this week is that B&N unveiled a color Nook that looks pretty darn impressive, if you ask me. Retailing for $249, the Nook Color runs on the operating system Android and has a "Stunning 7 inch VividView™ Color Touchscreen shows more than 16 million colors on the best-in-class IPS** display. Incredibly clear, sharp text and images from an unsurpassed high resolution display at 1024 x 600 delivering 169 pixels per inch (PPI). Reduced glare and optimum brightness for reading indoors or outside. Backlit for eady reading day or night.” The Nook also is going to have a feature where you can access entire e-books while in a bricks and mortar B&N store. CNET came away impressed.

Meanwhile, one of the popular features on the Nook was the lending feature that allows you to lend some books to friends, during which time it is unavailable on your own Nook. Amazon will now offer the same feature on the Kindle. Mike Shatzkin has some analysis about how Amazon had ridiculed the lending feature when B&N unveiled it.

And speaking of Amazon, indie publisher Dennis Johnson of Melville House made waves this week when they pulled out of the Best Translated Book Prize that was partially sponsored by Amazon, citing what Melville House sees as Amazon's "predatory and thuggish practices" and that "Amazon’s interests, and those of a healthy book culture, whether electronic or not, are antithetical." In a blog post, the organizer of the award says that Melville House's books will still be considered, and that he's "sorry that Dennis has chosen to try and undermine the awards in an attempt to make a political point." Writing at Publishers Lunch (subscription required), Michael Cader notes that Melville House books are still sold on Amazon, and when he asked Johnson about whether they plan to discontinue sales via Amazon, Johnson said, "we don't want that; we want our books to be available in as many places as possible" and praised Amazon for their distribution.

If you are a fan of Mad Men (as I am), you may have chuckled at the plotline this season where Roger Sterling was dictating his memoirs. Well, that fictional book will soon be a real book as Grove Atlantic will be publishing STERLING'S GOLD: WIT AND WISDOM OF AN AD MAN.

In case you think form rejections are a new invention, an old form rejection from Charlie Chaplin film producers Essany Film Manufacturing Company was unearthed, dating back somewhere during their lifespan of 1907-1925. Among the possible reasons a 1920s screenwriter's idea was rejected: "weak plot," "idea has been done before," "too difficult to produce," "too conventional," "not interesting," "not humorous," and of course, "would not pass the censor board."

As you may have heard, next week is NaNoWriMo, but if you're not going to participate in that, Natalie Whipple has a great idea for an alternative: NaNoReaMo

Meanwhile, in writing advice news, Jennifer Hubbard has some thoughts expanding on yesterday's post on self-editing, differentiating between the Inner Critic and the Inner Editor (listen to the Inner Editor). And Jim Duncan discusses the differences between Pantsers (as in "seat of the") and Plotters.

And Jonathan Franzen made a visit to the White House, which Franzen said was "delightful."

This week in the Forums, the story behind your screen name, the idea of bundling books and e-books like BluRay/digital copies, horror books in time for Halloween, discussing BEHEMOTH by Scott Westerfeld, and of course, NaNoWriMo.

Comment! of! the! Week! goes to Crazy Cat Lady, with a very good suggestion about editing as you go:

I'd say editing as you go can serve a purpose, to avoid snags that will drag you down and get you stuck later on. However, my advice has always been to always save the words. Even if you go back and edit, use strike out or different highlights to cross out what you don't like but DON'T DELETE.

You never know when those couple of thousand words you want to cut may come in handy in the validation stage. So, edit, but don't delete is my take on it. =)

And finally, as mentioned San Francisco really loves its baseball team, what with Tim Lincecum (aka The Freak) and his long hair, Pablo Sandoval (aka The Panda) and the panda hats around in the stadium, and Juan Uuuuuuuuu (wait for it) RIBE. And then there's closer Brian Wilson, who, earlier in the year, gave what is perhaps the funniest interview in the history of sports:



Have a great weekend!

NaNoWriMo Boot Camp: Editing As You Go

As I mentioned yesterday, I am definitely of the opinion that it usually pays to get something-anything on the page and to try and revise later, on the grounds that it's much easier to revise and polish than to conjure out of thin air.

But one very real potential dark side of NaNoWriMo is abandoning self-editing in the name of racking up words.

Some people actually need to shut off the self-editing switch because it's easy to fall in a state of paralysis when trying to write a polished final draft on the very first try. Letting go and just letting the words flow can be freeing.

But abandon all hope ye who completely abandon self-editing. And there's a very simple reason for this: problems can snowball. A problem that is brushed over in the first few chapters can progress from there and worm its way through the novel in such a way that it can become very very difficult to fix later on. You can't build a house on a creaky foundation.

It is definitely good to get words on the page, provided overall things are working. And how do you know if things are working overall?

It's tough for everyone to be a self-aware writer and to spot your own flaws. But stopping, thinking, trying to imagine yourself as a reader, remembering the writing advice you know, and asking yourself very honestly, "Is this working?" is absolutely crucial.

And chances are you know when things aren't working. There will be a quiet, tiny nagging voice that you're shutting off or deciding not to worry about for now. It usually manifests itself as a sneaking suspicion.

Listen to The Voice, which speaks quietly and almost imperceptibly. The Voice sounds way more like, "Um...Hi! So sorry to bug you, I mean, only if you want to listen, but um, well, are you sure about the cow aliens? I can wait..." than "Duh! Wake up, this is wrong!"

If only The Voice were more assertive.

So yes. Get those words down, keep on plugging away. But don't stop editing as you go. And listen to The Voice.

NaNoWriMo You Tell Me: How Do You Power Through?

To be sure, there are mixed opinions about the utility of getting words-down-any-words-down and powering through to get something on the page. Personally I feel that getting words-down-any-words-down can be very helpful, as I find it much easier to go back and revise than to try and conjure something for the first time.

But how does one power through? I have never attempted the marathon/race to the moon/mountain climb that is NaNoWriMo, but I'm sure that at some point that brain starts yelping, "No! More! Words!"

How do you quell that feeling and power through to keep going?

NaNoWriMo Boot Camp: Goals and Obstacles

Alright, men and women. Day Two of Boot Camp!

You have your novel idea. Now it's time to fill it page in and page out with various events that keep the reader's interest. How exactly do you do that?

Novels don't just spill themselves onto the page (or at least they shouldn't!). It's best to make sure that on every page, in every scene, and in the novel as a whole, every character has their own set of goals that they're striving for and obstacles in their way.

Goals and obstacles. Goals and obstacles. It's crucial to know what your characters want and what is thwarting them.

Step 1: What does your protagonist want? It could be to save the world, it could be closure on an especially difficult issue, it could be romance, it could be to finally figure out who the Cylons are no seriously this time. But even better if your protagonist wants more than one thing, and these things could very well be at odds with each other at times. The ultimate, most important thing they want should be achieved (or not achieved) in the climax.

Step 2: What is standing in your protagonist's way? Obstacles reveal the true personality of a character. Are they ingenious? Stubborn? Clever? The way someone deals with conflict and adversity shows a great deal about their true character. Placing roadblocks in front of your characters at (nearly) every opportunity will show you and the reader who they really are. The biggest obstacle in their way should be faced in the climax.

Step 3: What do they value the most? Your protagonist should be in conflict not just with the world, but also within themselves. The battles and travails along the way should reveal the things that they care most about and their true qualities. Best of all, they should have to give up something important in order to get the thing they want the most.

And don't stop with your protagonist! Every character should have their own set of goals, obstacles, and ultimate values.

Jonathan Franzen is a master of goals and obstacles. If you look at nearly every scene in FREEDOM, every character has a goal that they approach a scene with (and it's a goal that the reader clearly understands), and we read on to see if they will obtain it. Often they are blocked by not only another character, but also by themselves.

When in doubt while you're writing your novel: throw an obstacle in your protagonist's path. Your reader will thank you for it.

For further reading:

What Do Your Characters Want?
On Conflict
John Green and Dynamic Character Relationships
Sympathetic vs. Unsympathetic Characters
Setting the Pace
Character and Plot: Inseparable!

NaNoWriMo Boot Camp: Choosing the Right Idea

Alright you lily livered writing types, listen up! I'm here to whip you into shape like, uh... like... maggots? Does that make sense?

Yeah I don't make a good drill sergeant.

But! In today's first installment of NaNoWriMo week, I wanted to talk about the most important element of starting a novel: starting with the right novel.

Chances are, if you are a writer there is one idea that you hold above all others. It is the one that has stuck with you despite the shiny distractions of other ideas. It is your one true unwritten love. Even when you look at the bestseller list and see how zombie ballerina novels have grown massively popular and you think to yourself, "Ya know, it would probably be smart to cash in on this zombie ballerina trend," your true unwritten love keeps popping back up and demanding your attention, and no amount of zombie ballerinas can distract you, no matter how simultaneously cute and terrifying they are.

This is the novel you should write. Write the book you want to write, not the one in the genre that is currently popular or that you think the publishing industry would like.

Committing to writing a book is kind of like getting married. You're in it for the long haul. And if you want the marriage to last, it's best to choose the one who makes you truly happy, the one who makes you a better person/writer, and the one who doesn't mind how your jaw clicks when you chew.

But this doesn't mean that you don't stop trying to improve the relationship. It can always be made better with effort. SO TOO with your novel.

So yes, you have a great idea for a novel. Awesome. Now start refining it (and you have a week to prepare before November!). Does the character have a well-defined arc? Are you sure you have a plot? Do you know the novel's high points and low points? Is change underway in your novel's setting? Have you thought about whether your novel should be in first person or third? Do you have a killer climax?

Here's a checklist of things to know before you start writing (pulled from my post How to Write a Novel):

- The main arc. Where your characters start, where they'll end up, how they'll change along the way. You don't have to know everything, but the more you think of the long arc the better.
- The main obstacles in the character's path
- The protagonist and his/her/its qualities
- The setting, and how it influences the character
- The style in which you plan to tell the story
- The climax. The most important sequences, where something very exciting happens that changes everything

Have a rough idea of these elements in place? Awesome. You're ready to begin.

For further reading on starting before you begin:

How to Write a Novel
Do You Have a Plot? 
How to Craft a Great Voice
Archetype vs. Cliche
What Makes a Great Setting

This Week in Publishing 10/22/10

This Week in Publishing Normal This Time

Whew! I may have missed a few items in publishing news this week as I chipped away at the mountain that sprouted in my office while I was out, but here are a few of the many things that happened over the past week.

Don't forget about Page Critique Friday! The page up for critique is up for critique in the Forums for critique. UPDATE: my critique posted here.

Now for the news.

The NY Times had a widely linked-to article about the decline of picture books, citing ambitious toddlers who are purchasing chapter books for their parents in order to prepare them for a bright future (or maybe it's the reverse of that), and also the pesky economic downturn. (Downturn, could you please go away already, can't you see NO ONE LIKES YOU. Seriously, take a hint.)

Mother Jones summarized the maladies of fictional characters as diagnosed by various health professionals. They diagnose Darth Vader with borderline personality disorder (borderline? I think he's quite past the line), and Bartleby with Asperger's.

A lending feature will soon be coming to the Kindle, allowing users to lend a book for 14 days, during which time it won't be available to the original user (assuming publishers and rights holders approve). Pretty cool.

Eric at Pimp My Novel has a great list of publishing myths that he slays like a samurai fighting some dude who was crazy enough to mess with a samurai. The lesson: don't mess with samurai.

There has been a debate percolating on the Internet about the presence or lack of presence of strong female characters in young adult literature, including in the Forums. Natalie Whipple had a great post about this phenomenon, pointing out how complex this issue is given that what constitutes "strong" and "weak" varies so much from person to person and character to character. And editor Sarah Jae Jones and agent Sarah LaPolla had very interesting follow-up posts to Natalie's post.

Michael Stearn from Upstart Crow wrote an upstanding post about some of the differences between middle grade and teen literature, including the levels of complexity and interority (a word I cannot say out loud for the life of me).

There are some beloved novels headed for the silver screen. GalleyCat had an early look at the Hunger Games script, and Peter Jackson announced the cast for The Hobbit, including Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, which I think should be spectacular. What sayeth you?

Moses Siregar uncovered plans by Nielson to begin tracking e-book sales, perhaps as soon as the end of the year. And speaking of e-books, Jacob Lambert at the Millions has a thoughtful post about how advertisements for Kindle and iPad make print books almost seem like an afterthought, and relates how his attachment to CDs fell by the wayside when Tower Records disappeared.

And this has been making the rounds: a hilarious Nerd flowchart. Which kind of nerd are you?

This week in the Forums, should wealthy writers win literary awards?, listings of agents in other countries, what is it about bad boys?, how often do you read your manuscript?, Halloween microfiction, and this was bound to happen sooner or later, but Colonel Travis spotted me in a Village People video from 1985.

Comment! of! the! Week! There were many great responses to yesterday's post about the temptation of thinking someone has it made, but Theresa Milstein wins for an expert 30 Rock reference:

This reminds me of the "30 Rock" episode. Liz Lemon considers quitting her job when she meets a bunch of women in her building who spend days taking yoga and getting pedicures. After a few days of bliss, LIz discovers the women beat one another up to feel alive again. We must always strive to feel alive. Coasting is stagnating.

And finally, not one, not two, but THREE great videos for you. And not a one is even Whip My Hair, believe it or not.

First up, via Sarah LaPolla, Grover from Sesame Street as the Old Spice Guy (the levels of bliss... they are staggering)



Second, a spectacular book dominoes video from Bookmans in Phoenix (via GalleyCat):



Finally, this video brought back some memories from childhood, and I may have to devote a full post to it someday. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the man who is unquestionably the greatest athlete in the history of the world: Video Bo Jackson from Tecmo Super Bowl:



Have a great weekend!

The Temptation of Thinking Someone Has Made It

One of the corollaries of the "if only" game is that there are some writers out there who could not possibly have reason to worry about anything as they have achieved a level of success that is unsurpassed, and who represent the pinnacle of the writerly world.

Examples include King, Stephen; Rowling, J.K.; Meyer, Stephenie.

There's a temptation to think that once an author has "made it" and made it bigger than anyone else, this author will have achieved boundless happiness and contentment and couldn't have a thing to complain about.

In the comments of my recent "When Dreams Become Expectations" post, as Ermo pointed out, people tended to think of true satisfaction always being perennially elusive, unless you're a Rowling and King. Then, it seems, people believe that would be completely satisfying.

I don't know these mega-authors personally, but signs point to this not being the case. In the recent Oprah interview, Rowling said, "You ask about the pressure... At that point, I kept saying to people, ‘Yeah I’m coping…’ but the truth was there were times when I was barely hanging on by a thread."

Not the sound of someone who feels like they have it made in the shade. I personally doubt Rowling would trade in her success and the sheer level of love for her books for anything, but I also don't think there's anyone who ever feels total and perfect contentment and satisfaction with their station. We keep striving no matter how high we've climbed, even those who have climbed the highest. Pressure can cut into satisfaction, and the spotlight can be uncomfortable.

It all reminds me of the speed of light (or at least my own understanding of the speed of light, which is likely wildly flawed). The way the physics of light works is that no matter how fast you personally are traveling, from your perspective a beam of light will still look like it's traveling at the speed of light. You can't travel alongside a beam of light. There's no catching up.

And I think there's actually something great about that. There will always be something to chase, always something to strive for, always another horizon to pursue. Who wants to be perfectly contented? Where's the excitement in that? There will always be something great to chase around the bend.

Photo by Mila Zinkova via Creative Commons

You Tell Me: Are You Participating in NaNoWriMo?

The leaves are beginning to change, the days are getting shorter, and the air is filled with a faint whiff of "I'm going to write me a novel." Yes, it's nearly November, which means nearly time for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, wherein thousands of people around the globe attempt to write a novel in a month and opt for plot over pumpkin pie, turning points over turkey, and foreshadowing over football.

Are you participating? What do you think of NaNoWriMo? Is it a great opportunity to finally get over the hump and get that novel going? Or is writing best done when not in a mad dash?

Let this also serve as a preview for a NaNoWriMo themed week on the blog next week, wherein I will attempt to get those who are participating in the right frame of mind to write pages like they have never written pages before.

Back!

Whew! Back in the office, where I returned to the sound of 421 queries simultaneously shouting "Hi! Hi! Where have you been?!" from my Inbox. Needless to say, query response time is going to be delayed for a while. Not least of which due to the monumental jet lag that led me to arrive at the office at 6:15 this morning since, hey, I was wide awake anyway!

Also, while away I entered the ranks of those who have read Jonathan Franzen's FREEDOM. Loved it. Seriously. That guy really knows human beings. Frankly I'm surprised he can walk down the street with that much awareness of what makes every single person around him tick. It's no wonder he loves bird watching.

But more on that when my brain knows what time it is.

Lastly, a major THANK YOU to the incredible lineup of guest posters for their amazing series of posts. I don't know that this blog has had a better week in its history. Thank you thank you.

The Narrowing of the Perceptible World

By: Bryan Russell

The ant clambered over a few grains of sand. “Come with me,” he said to his friend, and his friend followed.

The ant dodged a wayward leaf and clambered over a twig. “This way, this way,” he said, waving his friend forward. They trudged ahead. The ant scampered over fallen blades of grass. He was excited – home was close.

He sighted the entrance to the tunnel. “We’re here,” the ant said, pointing, but the rhinoceros had trouble making out the doorway and squinted in vain.


A little joke, yes, but such little jokes often occur accidentally in the writing of fiction. Specificity of details is necessary for creating vivid fiction, yet the devil is in those details, hiding away his little horned head and laughing.

Details are necessary, it’s true, but just as important is their proper sequencing. If we want a joke, we withhold the fact that the ant’s friend is a rhinoceros. But if we’re trying to create a vivid fictive picture, what John Gardner called the dream vision, we need to be able to see what’s happening. We need to know that the ant’s friend is a rhinoceros right from the start. The image is unclear (and untrue) until we know.

A joke is a trick; fiction is a matter of trust. A reader must trust the writer to create a world, a world they can see and feel, a world in which the rug is not always pulled out from beneath their feet.

And if we are to create a vivid new world (as all writers do, whether writing something fantastical or utterly familiar), we must do so by creating the sensual experience of this world using only our words. For what we know of our own world is through our senses, through the physical impressions that reach us, and if we want our fictive world to be convincing (and, for a time, overshadow the real one) we must not only find the right sensory details but also properly sequence them.

Without this, the dream vision lacks harmony and flow. The vision will jar the reader. Ripples will appear in the fabric of the story, the reflected vision becoming blurred and distorted.

To sequence these details we must not only know what we sense about the world, but how we sense it.

Let us say we want to fabricate a river in our new world. Yet to do so, to create a convincing river, sometimes we need something more than the word itself. How do we come upon a river? Rarely do we first see the glistening shell of the waterbug on its surface, but rather a sense of the river as a whole. Our gaze, our sensual experience, narrows as we take something in, moving from large to small. Indeed, our senses typically work this way.

We first hear, perhaps, the roar and rush of water. It is not a clear sound, at first, but a background noise, a natural white noise underlying the sounds around us. It grows louder, and as it does (as we draw nearer) the roar becomes more particular. The sound sharpens, becomes clearer. Individual sounds become distinguishable: a few rapids; water falling on stone; the eddy and rush of a whirlpool; the trickle of a stream feeding the hungry river.

We still can’t see the river itself, perhaps, as it is blocked from view by a wall of pine trees – though the brightness of their greenery speaks of water and life. Yet we can smell it. The clear scent of water beneath the scent of pine needles. And after a moment this, too, sharpens. A scent of moss, a hint of wet shale. A green and thick smell where the water has pooled in little grottoes.

The river manifests itself through the trees: sparks of reflected light, and then as we part the trees the bright surface of the water, a sense of movement and weight and width. Our gaze draws in, and we note the texture of the water, how it moves and shapes itself over stones, how lines of flow mark its bends and twists. Rounded stones resist the movement of the river, skins of moss like green shadow. A leaf floats, a castaway from some elm tree in a forgotten upstream world. Waterbugs glide and shimmy on the surface. A fish peels away, a flick of silver, disturbed by our shadow on the water.

We reach out a hand – cold. The water is cold. We pull out our hand and drops splash down. Again we touch. Cold, yes, but we also feel the weight of the water pressing on our fingers, the line of temperature change on the surface, lines of flow and movement beneath. Silt skims our fingertips, almost soft, as it courses along the floor of the river.

A taste on our lips. Water and wetness at first, and the taste of cold, but also, deeper on the tongue, the taste of that silt, the soft grit of it, and the mustiness of leaves and dry grass and other wayward travelers – the taste of an autumn flowing toward winter.

A river. We have seen it in the looking glass and fallen through, into the image. The world has narrowed itself into pertinent details.

There are always exceptions, of course; sometimes observations deviate from such patterns, but always for particular reasons, for particular literary effects. The key is to find not only what we should sense about this world we want to make, but how we should sense it. How do we find the touch and taste of it? It is in finding that particular pattern that we will find a convincing dream of a new world.