When I receive posts from literary agent blogs I always check to see what’s hot and what’s not. One year it was boy wizards; then no one wanted any more Hogwarts lookalikes. Then it was vampires; suddenly no more vampires, please. Ditto werewolves. Currently in favor one finds angels (both good and bad varieties) topping the list, along with dystopian YA, and Swedish detectives and girls with tattoos. Zombies have held their own, with extra help from a few variations on a Jane Austen theme. Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a compelling first line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” I just had to put that in. Back to the list—I think vampire hunters will break into the closed circle with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by (you guessed it) Seth Grahame-Smith. (Personally I prefer Hugh Jackman as Gabriel Van Helsing)
So, on the serious note with which I began … when you write, are you writing for the trends, or are you writing because you have passion for a story that must be told?
To be honest, Michael Crichton brought about this post. Yes, since I recently confessed to loving Clive Cussler’s rollicking adventures (along with his delicious heroes), I might as well go the whole hog and add Michael Crichton to my list of commercial fiction favorites. I really enjoy his blend of scary fact with even more frightening fiction. Jurassic Park farfetched? Well, now that nanotechnology is all the rage, who’s to say extracting dino DNA from flies trapped in amber gazillions of years ago can’t happen in the future? It was actually the sequel to Jurassic Park, i.e. The Lost World, that made me think about how literary trends might dictate writers’ output.
Here the bit that sparked my brain:
“I think cyberspace means the end of our species … Because it means the end of innovation … Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there’s McDonalds on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap cross the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there’s less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity—our most necessary resource? That’s disappearing faster than trees.” (So says a character named Ian Malcolm, iconoclastic mathematician)
(The Lost World, Ballantyne Books, 1995, pg 339)
That was published in 1995. Have we disproved this author? Are writers turning out books at the rate of knots that explore a wonderful world of diverse, challenging, fantastic, and moving literary concepts and ideas? Or, when something becomes fashionable do people immediately copy it? Will there suddenly be a plethora of Swedish detectives and quirky tattooed female sidekicks following after the success of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?
The question I’d like to ask is: are writers brave enough to plow on with their original ideas, or are they bowing to trends? Of course, I’m not saying The Development of Knitting Patterns in the Outer Hebrides Since 1865 will be a bestseller, but what I am suggesting is that writers should have enough faith in their writing not to think, “Oh gosh, I’d better write a book about boy wizards/angels/demons/dystopia/vampires/Swedish detectives.…
The literary world needs unique ideas to continue to be fascinating and challenging. Let's not lose our intellectual diversity.
Showing posts with label Clive Cussler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clive Cussler. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
Fiction Factories: The Good, The Bad, and The Indifferent Side of Publishing
A recent post by Jim Thomsen, Six Things We Can Learn From James Patterson, got me thinking about fiction factories (a relatively new phrase in publishing) and what, if any, is their value both to the reader and the writer. I have used James Patterson as an example because he is, quite simply, the biggest, and thus the best example.
A recent Times article outlines some facts about James Patterson’s writing (being the most successful of this phenomenon) which sees him churning out books by the dozen. There are many different ways to catalog Patterson’s staggering success. Here are just a few: since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson. He is listed in the latest edition of “Guinness World Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1.
The changing face of publishing explains why writers now achieve blockbuster status.
Like movie studios, publishing houses have long built their businesses on top of blockbusters. But never in the history of publishing has the blockbuster been so big. Thirty years ago, the industry defined a “hit” novel as a book that sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in hardcover. Today a book isn’t considered a blockbuster unless it sells at least one million copies.
With so many readers now hooked, someone has to feed the monster. Enter the fiction factory where established authors employ a slew of writers and editors to expand upon and edit the author’s original ideas.
So, what so good, bad, or indifferent about this new kind of mass production, marketing, and consumption of books?
For me: the good means that many people who didn’t read before are now reading, albeit they may not be reading literature but more pulp fiction. No matter, they are still reading.
The bad: it’s bad for somebody and that’s the reader. The publishers and the authors score massively big bucks, but isn’t that somehow creating cannon fodder, not books.
Which takes me the indifferent and that is loss of quality. The Times article says: Each of Patterson’s series has its own fan base, but there are also plenty of people who read everything he writes. His books all share stylistic similarities. They are light on atmospherics and heavy on action, conveyed by simple, colloquial sentences. “I don’t believe in showing off,” Patterson says of his writing. “Showing off can get in the way of a good story.” … Patterson’s chapters are very short, which creates a lot of half-blank pages; his books are, in a very literal sense, page-turners. He avoids description, back story and scene setting whenever possible, preferring to hurl readers into the action and establish his characters with a minimum of telegraphic details.
While fiction factory authors have energy, a prolific work output, brilliant marketing ideas, the ability to work with others, a keen grasp of the target audience, and the courage to break the rules (James Patterson exhibits all these qualities in spades!), I wonder if that is what writing is all about. Certainly, every writer needs enough talent, skill, confidence, and faith to sometimes take a leap into the unknown, but many writers spend hours perfecting their craft so that readers can put down a book with a satisfied sigh. No matter how many ‘helpers’ an established author employs to widen the output, nothing (I feel) can replace that author’s unique, personal touch.
I love reading Clive Cussler but I find I tend to avoid books he has written in collaboration with other writers (including his son). Why? I don’t know. It’s a feeling, a sense that it’s not all the author that bothers me. Call me picky.
When reading articles such as those mentioned above, I also wonder if this prolific output (and corresponding financial rewards) is considered the benchmark of literary success. Why then do writers and editors bother with articles devoted to character, plot, action, ambiance, back story, descriptions etc if these elements are not as highly prized in comparison with financial success. C. Patrick Schulze offers good advice to writers in his blog post The Secret To Writing a Riveting Novel. Novelist K. M. Weiland is another writer who offers simple but effective advice to transform your writing. Her blog posts are well worth the read.
Obviously every genre and every level of writing has its fans and detractors. Success means different things to different people: it’s the same for writers. The author who lovingly works on each word in his/her book or the mega-author who has a slew of editors and writers completing his/her great ideas aim for the same goal: recognition, (financial) rewards, and success.
Jim Thomsen has a good last word on the topic: “Learn from industry professionals, but make yours the final word. It’s your time, your energy and your dreams on the line.”
A recent Times article outlines some facts about James Patterson’s writing (being the most successful of this phenomenon) which sees him churning out books by the dozen. There are many different ways to catalog Patterson’s staggering success. Here are just a few: since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson. He is listed in the latest edition of “Guinness World Records,” published last fall, as the author with the most New York Times best sellers, 45, but that number is already out of date: he now has 51 — 35 of which went to No. 1.
The changing face of publishing explains why writers now achieve blockbuster status.
Like movie studios, publishing houses have long built their businesses on top of blockbusters. But never in the history of publishing has the blockbuster been so big. Thirty years ago, the industry defined a “hit” novel as a book that sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in hardcover. Today a book isn’t considered a blockbuster unless it sells at least one million copies.
With so many readers now hooked, someone has to feed the monster. Enter the fiction factory where established authors employ a slew of writers and editors to expand upon and edit the author’s original ideas.
So, what so good, bad, or indifferent about this new kind of mass production, marketing, and consumption of books?
For me: the good means that many people who didn’t read before are now reading, albeit they may not be reading literature but more pulp fiction. No matter, they are still reading.
The bad: it’s bad for somebody and that’s the reader. The publishers and the authors score massively big bucks, but isn’t that somehow creating cannon fodder, not books.
Which takes me the indifferent and that is loss of quality. The Times article says: Each of Patterson’s series has its own fan base, but there are also plenty of people who read everything he writes. His books all share stylistic similarities. They are light on atmospherics and heavy on action, conveyed by simple, colloquial sentences. “I don’t believe in showing off,” Patterson says of his writing. “Showing off can get in the way of a good story.” … Patterson’s chapters are very short, which creates a lot of half-blank pages; his books are, in a very literal sense, page-turners. He avoids description, back story and scene setting whenever possible, preferring to hurl readers into the action and establish his characters with a minimum of telegraphic details.
While fiction factory authors have energy, a prolific work output, brilliant marketing ideas, the ability to work with others, a keen grasp of the target audience, and the courage to break the rules (James Patterson exhibits all these qualities in spades!), I wonder if that is what writing is all about. Certainly, every writer needs enough talent, skill, confidence, and faith to sometimes take a leap into the unknown, but many writers spend hours perfecting their craft so that readers can put down a book with a satisfied sigh. No matter how many ‘helpers’ an established author employs to widen the output, nothing (I feel) can replace that author’s unique, personal touch.
I love reading Clive Cussler but I find I tend to avoid books he has written in collaboration with other writers (including his son). Why? I don’t know. It’s a feeling, a sense that it’s not all the author that bothers me. Call me picky.
When reading articles such as those mentioned above, I also wonder if this prolific output (and corresponding financial rewards) is considered the benchmark of literary success. Why then do writers and editors bother with articles devoted to character, plot, action, ambiance, back story, descriptions etc if these elements are not as highly prized in comparison with financial success. C. Patrick Schulze offers good advice to writers in his blog post The Secret To Writing a Riveting Novel. Novelist K. M. Weiland is another writer who offers simple but effective advice to transform your writing. Her blog posts are well worth the read.
Obviously every genre and every level of writing has its fans and detractors. Success means different things to different people: it’s the same for writers. The author who lovingly works on each word in his/her book or the mega-author who has a slew of editors and writers completing his/her great ideas aim for the same goal: recognition, (financial) rewards, and success.
Jim Thomsen has a good last word on the topic: “Learn from industry professionals, but make yours the final word. It’s your time, your energy and your dreams on the line.”
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Why I Read Clive Cussler
This sounds like a really strange title for a blog post: Why I Read Clive Cussler. Well, maybe you’re wondering why I do read his books, now that I’ve said (almost guiltily) that I do. That remark and this blog post were inspired by an interesting article in the Guardian (UK) by Cormac McCarthy, about bad books and bad writing. He questions whether some of the supposedly ‘good’ writers were all that good in the end. I guess many people who went to college and university have (like me) read just about every ‘good book’ that the English Lit courses had to offer. How many people continued to read those good books after graduation? How many of those people sashay into a bookshop and immediately head for the (Whatever) Prize winners of the year? How many of those same people sidle to the ‘commercial fiction’ section, shelves groaning under the weight of yet another bestseller that the critics have panned but has been flying off the shelves, copies bought by secret (avid) commercial fiction aficionados?
Confess! How many readers have snuck a wonderful ‘bad fiction’ book into their ‘good books’ shopping? I began to think long and hard about what constitutes a good book. A few years ago, while running a personnel agency, I was interviewing a woman who told me emphatically that she never, ever read ‘rubbish,’ and that she only ever read ‘fine literature.’ Shame. Sounds like torture. The problem is, when you consider fine literature like Jane Austen, she wasn’t writing for the literary snobs of the day: she was writing for the readers of the day. So was Dickens. His weekly installments had readers panting for the next chapter in his novels.
I then formulated my theory that a book is as good as its reader perceives it to be. I am not talking about poorly written, badly constructed novels with excruciating dialogue and pathetic grammar, desperately in need of merciless editing. I am talking about popular fiction. The businessman who wants a throw-away spy thriller to read on the plane, the housewife who languishes in the arms of an imaginary Mills & Boon lover while washing socks, the computer buff who craves sci-fi above all else; the kid who devours comics … what they read is good for them because it satisfies a need and makes them happy.
Philistine! I hear the shrieks already. But hear me out. At university my book shelves bulged with the fruits of fantastic writers: Austen, Bronte, Waugh, Poe, Tolkien, Dickens … you name it, I had it, and I still have them now. And yes, I do still read them. My mother was much addicted to frivolous romances (she still is!) and when I would try to persuade her to wade though some tome or other, she would shudder and tell me that at her stage in life she wanted to read for enjoyment. Young and naïve, wrestling with James Joyce and other ‘good writers’ who were actually sometimes completely obscure, I thought she had sunk quite low in the field of literary tastes. Her behavior was made all the more reprehensible by the fact that my mother did English Lit at university and many of my good books were hers originally.
Actually, I have also fallen somewhat from my ivory tower of literary correctness. I love reading Clive Cussler because he tells such ripping good yarns. Of course, being a complete tomboy with four brothers may just have contributed to my loving adventure stories. I now realize that one can have good books that may only be good to an individual. It might be character, plot, or descriptions; whatever counts the most for that reader. My adopted daughter agrees with many opinions that Bella of the Twilight sagas is annoying. Maybe as a heroine she is, but my daughter has devoured all the books many times over already and the series transformed her from being a reluctant reader into an avid reader. Obviously Edward's charms have made up for Bella's deficiencies...
I have heard J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, and Stephenie Meyer’s writing skills being criticized. Despite all that, they’ve sold more books and earned more money than many a ‘good’ writer. So, how does one measure the success of a writer? Katie Price (er … Jordan, for those not in the know) has published yet another bestselling autobiography. I thought a person could only write one, and that technically it should at the end of a long, meaningful, and fruitful life, but apparently that’s not true. So, if she sells more books than a ‘good’ writer, does that make her a better writer?
The public is fickle. Writers have to give readers what they want. With the evolution of society and the novels that reflect society’s tastes, values, morals (or lack thereof), habits, and desires, more themes are becoming available. The sky is the limit when it comes to topics and, especially since the explosion of print on demand and e-publishing options, people ready to write about them. A hundred years ago it would have been unthinkable for anyone to pen a memoir that included lovers, children out of wedlock, drugs, sensational intimate details etc. That’s why D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was such a literary and social scandal way back then. Not so today. It actually seems rather tame. Reality has become more compelling than fiction, and the adage holds true: truth is stranger than fiction.
Is there a future for ‘good’ books? Of course there is! People want solid writing when they’re in the mood for it. Others want just fluff and escapism. I say give people what they want, but write what you know to be real. Read any good books lately?
This is not a rhetorical question: who has managed to read James Joyce’s Ulysses from start to finish?
Confess! How many readers have snuck a wonderful ‘bad fiction’ book into their ‘good books’ shopping? I began to think long and hard about what constitutes a good book. A few years ago, while running a personnel agency, I was interviewing a woman who told me emphatically that she never, ever read ‘rubbish,’ and that she only ever read ‘fine literature.’ Shame. Sounds like torture. The problem is, when you consider fine literature like Jane Austen, she wasn’t writing for the literary snobs of the day: she was writing for the readers of the day. So was Dickens. His weekly installments had readers panting for the next chapter in his novels.
I then formulated my theory that a book is as good as its reader perceives it to be. I am not talking about poorly written, badly constructed novels with excruciating dialogue and pathetic grammar, desperately in need of merciless editing. I am talking about popular fiction. The businessman who wants a throw-away spy thriller to read on the plane, the housewife who languishes in the arms of an imaginary Mills & Boon lover while washing socks, the computer buff who craves sci-fi above all else; the kid who devours comics … what they read is good for them because it satisfies a need and makes them happy.
Philistine! I hear the shrieks already. But hear me out. At university my book shelves bulged with the fruits of fantastic writers: Austen, Bronte, Waugh, Poe, Tolkien, Dickens … you name it, I had it, and I still have them now. And yes, I do still read them. My mother was much addicted to frivolous romances (she still is!) and when I would try to persuade her to wade though some tome or other, she would shudder and tell me that at her stage in life she wanted to read for enjoyment. Young and naïve, wrestling with James Joyce and other ‘good writers’ who were actually sometimes completely obscure, I thought she had sunk quite low in the field of literary tastes. Her behavior was made all the more reprehensible by the fact that my mother did English Lit at university and many of my good books were hers originally.
Actually, I have also fallen somewhat from my ivory tower of literary correctness. I love reading Clive Cussler because he tells such ripping good yarns. Of course, being a complete tomboy with four brothers may just have contributed to my loving adventure stories. I now realize that one can have good books that may only be good to an individual. It might be character, plot, or descriptions; whatever counts the most for that reader. My adopted daughter agrees with many opinions that Bella of the Twilight sagas is annoying. Maybe as a heroine she is, but my daughter has devoured all the books many times over already and the series transformed her from being a reluctant reader into an avid reader. Obviously Edward's charms have made up for Bella's deficiencies...
I have heard J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, and Stephenie Meyer’s writing skills being criticized. Despite all that, they’ve sold more books and earned more money than many a ‘good’ writer. So, how does one measure the success of a writer? Katie Price (er … Jordan, for those not in the know) has published yet another bestselling autobiography. I thought a person could only write one, and that technically it should at the end of a long, meaningful, and fruitful life, but apparently that’s not true. So, if she sells more books than a ‘good’ writer, does that make her a better writer?
The public is fickle. Writers have to give readers what they want. With the evolution of society and the novels that reflect society’s tastes, values, morals (or lack thereof), habits, and desires, more themes are becoming available. The sky is the limit when it comes to topics and, especially since the explosion of print on demand and e-publishing options, people ready to write about them. A hundred years ago it would have been unthinkable for anyone to pen a memoir that included lovers, children out of wedlock, drugs, sensational intimate details etc. That’s why D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover was such a literary and social scandal way back then. Not so today. It actually seems rather tame. Reality has become more compelling than fiction, and the adage holds true: truth is stranger than fiction.
Is there a future for ‘good’ books? Of course there is! People want solid writing when they’re in the mood for it. Others want just fluff and escapism. I say give people what they want, but write what you know to be real. Read any good books lately?
This is not a rhetorical question: who has managed to read James Joyce’s Ulysses from start to finish?
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