One of the blogs that I read is written by Anne R. Allen. It's a big blog, and she has this lady named Ruth Harris who comes from an editing position with one of the Big Six Publishers. Anyway, it like a hundred thousand other blogs out there--it seeks to pass on writing advice. In other words, they tell you how to write so that you can get agented and published with the Big Six. I assume that, in a perfect world, if you supposedly followed exactly what was said verbatim, you would find yourself with a product that would get 1) agent and 2) book deal and 3) some sales before your career was over.
Why do I say #3 with snark?
The specific piece that Ms. Harris talked about was the things that you shouldn't do to introduce your protagonist to the world. Another of these was to excise the prologue. Now, I agree...in many cases, a prologue is unnecessary. I agonized over mine and decided to get rid of it in the end. It is now a short story that may help me market my book in a year. But I made this decision on my own, and not because I took "professional" advice.
I have some strong opinions about the industry professionals snobs (those that pull-down more than $250,000 a year and have education equivalent to that provided by Ivy League schools--Stanford and Berkely and U.C. Irvine are examples of "Ivy League" equivalents). But more importantly...those that are snobs because of their attitude. And yes...I'm using the word SNOB. You may know some in your life.
I think industry professional snobs are out of touch with dung--with crap. I define "crap" as being anything that isn't a Pulitzer prize winning/ Nebula award winning/ Hugo garnering (you get the picture) piece of written fiction. I (for example) write crap. So does Stephanie Meyer and so, for that matter, does George R.R. Martin who by my definition, lost his Hugo to J.K. Rowling (who obviously doesn't write crap because she won an award).
Okay... so industry professional snobs are out of touch with crap. Maybe that's because it smells bad and they want to represent future Nobel Prize winners. They also want these award-winning novelists to make them a lot of money. But you very rarely get both.
CRAP, quite frankly, sells rather well.
And I think that industry professionals are ashamed that crap sells well. I think that it makes them mad. And they want people to stop writing crap so that they don't have to represent it and that maybe...just maybe...someday better books will be published and the crap will all be cleaned up and flushed away.
But this won't happen. And, they shouldn't be providing advice on how to win a pulitzer with your prose anyway. Why try for an "A" when stuff that gets a "C" gets published and makes more money? They shouldn't be providing advice on how to be the next J.M. Coetzee. Industry snobs sound a lot like college professors (and I know some) who sit back and speak of things that they think is true...but the high school dropout that has three kids at Wal-Mart who buys romance novels knows nothing about. And I'm talking LEGIONS OF THESE PEOPLE who smoke pot and have sex for a six-pack of Keystone and draw down welfare like it's nobody's business. These people BUY books.
In the blog post I linked above, an industry professional has "testimonies" from other industry professionals pointing out how a prologue is bad. Maybe it is. But here's something that I find VERY interesting...it was only this year that even Nathan Bransford decided to read the Harry Potter books. Don't believe me? Go check out his blog. And he's a middle-grade writer. How could you not read the work of the best-selling writer in your genre until after you started to work on your second book?
My point is that the industry professionals are late in the game when it comes to buying books...yet they have all of this advice on how to write one for the masses so that it will sell? J.K. Rowling's career by the time Nathan Bransford even bothered to look at it was bigger than Jupiter. In other words...he only read it because EVERYONE ELSE in the world had read the books. How come no one ever has testimonies from Joe Martin...the bum on the street corner that has a copy of James Patterson's latest published 'fiction-factory' CRAP? Ask him..."Hey...do you read prologues?"
I could ask my friend Melissa...she has a high school education and works in a call center and reads vampire books. She reads everything in the book...EVERYTHING. That means she reads the prologue, the epilogue and the author's notes in the back. I do too. I read all fifty pages of Neil Gaiman's epilogue and I read every single one of George R.R. Martin's prologues.
Was I asked if I read a prologue? Nope. But if I had been asked I'd say "Yes I do!" But they like to quote things like, "No one reads a prologue." Hmmm...I must be a no one then.
But industry professionals were asked, and their opinions solicited. My question is why? THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MASSES. The only star on their resume is that they are in control. But being in control does not make you a sample of the general population. President Barack Obama is in control of the United States. But is his lifestyle the same as yours? As mine? I'm thinking he probably lives a lot better, has better healthcare, has some...I dunno...RESOURCES and probably doesn't have to worry about trying to afford medicated shampoo for dermatitis. It's like having a black person on trial and then selecting a jury of all white people and saying "THESE ARE YOUR PEERS" to the black person. Like WTF?! Really?!
So yeah...publishing is a catch-22. Crap sells. But if you write crap that people like...it won't make it past the gatekeeper who is ashamed of your BAG OF DUNG. So, somehow in all of the stuff that you've got to keep straight...you need to slip past the gatekeeper with your crap by making it good enough for the snobs, yet have it still be appealing enough to those that buy the crap enmasse. I wonder how many vampire manuscripts are being turned down simply because the agent "Is tired of seeing vampire stories" when in fact, my girl Melissa wants more and more and there are tons of girls just like her out there wanting more. They want hot, sexy vampires with perfect bodies willing to sink their teeth into them. But yeah...there are some "industry professionals" that are turning this down because supposedly "the trend is over". WHATEVER. They just want it to be over and are hoping that because they are in control, that they can influence mass opinion and prove themselves right.
Interesting AND a headache. I have just five words for all of that advice:
OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY.
Why do I say #3 with snark?
The specific piece that Ms. Harris talked about was the things that you shouldn't do to introduce your protagonist to the world. Another of these was to excise the prologue. Now, I agree...in many cases, a prologue is unnecessary. I agonized over mine and decided to get rid of it in the end. It is now a short story that may help me market my book in a year. But I made this decision on my own, and not because I took "professional" advice.
I have some strong opinions about the industry professionals snobs (those that pull-down more than $250,000 a year and have education equivalent to that provided by Ivy League schools--Stanford and Berkely and U.C. Irvine are examples of "Ivy League" equivalents). But more importantly...those that are snobs because of their attitude. And yes...I'm using the word SNOB. You may know some in your life.
I think industry professional snobs are out of touch with dung--with crap. I define "crap" as being anything that isn't a Pulitzer prize winning/ Nebula award winning/ Hugo garnering (you get the picture) piece of written fiction. I (for example) write crap. So does Stephanie Meyer and so, for that matter, does George R.R. Martin who by my definition, lost his Hugo to J.K. Rowling (who obviously doesn't write crap because she won an award).
Okay... so industry professional snobs are out of touch with crap. Maybe that's because it smells bad and they want to represent future Nobel Prize winners. They also want these award-winning novelists to make them a lot of money. But you very rarely get both.
 |
| CRAP SELLS. PERIOD. |
And I think that industry professionals are ashamed that crap sells well. I think that it makes them mad. And they want people to stop writing crap so that they don't have to represent it and that maybe...just maybe...someday better books will be published and the crap will all be cleaned up and flushed away.
But this won't happen. And, they shouldn't be providing advice on how to win a pulitzer with your prose anyway. Why try for an "A" when stuff that gets a "C" gets published and makes more money? They shouldn't be providing advice on how to be the next J.M. Coetzee. Industry snobs sound a lot like college professors (and I know some) who sit back and speak of things that they think is true...but the high school dropout that has three kids at Wal-Mart who buys romance novels knows nothing about. And I'm talking LEGIONS OF THESE PEOPLE who smoke pot and have sex for a six-pack of Keystone and draw down welfare like it's nobody's business. These people BUY books.
In the blog post I linked above, an industry professional has "testimonies" from other industry professionals pointing out how a prologue is bad. Maybe it is. But here's something that I find VERY interesting...it was only this year that even Nathan Bransford decided to read the Harry Potter books. Don't believe me? Go check out his blog. And he's a middle-grade writer. How could you not read the work of the best-selling writer in your genre until after you started to work on your second book?
My point is that the industry professionals are late in the game when it comes to buying books...yet they have all of this advice on how to write one for the masses so that it will sell? J.K. Rowling's career by the time Nathan Bransford even bothered to look at it was bigger than Jupiter. In other words...he only read it because EVERYONE ELSE in the world had read the books. How come no one ever has testimonies from Joe Martin...the bum on the street corner that has a copy of James Patterson's latest published 'fiction-factory' CRAP? Ask him..."Hey...do you read prologues?"
I could ask my friend Melissa...she has a high school education and works in a call center and reads vampire books. She reads everything in the book...EVERYTHING. That means she reads the prologue, the epilogue and the author's notes in the back. I do too. I read all fifty pages of Neil Gaiman's epilogue and I read every single one of George R.R. Martin's prologues.
Was I asked if I read a prologue? Nope. But if I had been asked I'd say "Yes I do!" But they like to quote things like, "No one reads a prologue." Hmmm...I must be a no one then.
But industry professionals were asked, and their opinions solicited. My question is why? THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MASSES. The only star on their resume is that they are in control. But being in control does not make you a sample of the general population. President Barack Obama is in control of the United States. But is his lifestyle the same as yours? As mine? I'm thinking he probably lives a lot better, has better healthcare, has some...I dunno...RESOURCES and probably doesn't have to worry about trying to afford medicated shampoo for dermatitis. It's like having a black person on trial and then selecting a jury of all white people and saying "THESE ARE YOUR PEERS" to the black person. Like WTF?! Really?!
 |
| Listen here, Vick! We dogs are your peers. We know WHAT IS BEST FOR YOU AND WHAT YOU LIKE TO READ! WE ARE THE PROFESSIONALS and make a living doing this so you'd better darn listen to us or you'll be sorry. |
Interesting AND a headache. I have just five words for all of that advice:
OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY.