1 of N does not equal N And Never Complain, Never Explain
Arrghhh. Math in a writing book. Sorry, but it's the best way I can explain this concept. What this formula means is that just because you can go to the bookstore and buy a best-selling book written by so-and-so, the famous writer that does not mean you can write a similar book and get it published.
Ahh, now you're really mad at me. I'm contradicting what I wrote earlier. No, I'm not. What I'm talking about is those people who sit there and complain that their book is just as good as such and such and, damn it, they should not only be published but have a bestseller. Also, those people who look at book number 5 from a best-selling author and complain about how bad it is. Yes, there are many book number 5’s from best-selling authors that if they were book number 1 from a new author, would not get published. But the primary thing that sells a book is the author's name. I've always said Stephen King could write a book about doing his laundry and it would be on the bestseller list. Stephen King earned being Stephen King and to misquote a vice-presidential debate, I've read Stephen King and you ain't no Stephen King. Neither am I.
Another thing people do is they see a technique used in a novel and use the same technique, and then get upset when told it doesn’t work. They angrily point to the published book that has the same technique and say, “SEE.” Unfortunately, what they don’t see is that that technique is part of the overall structure of the novel. It all ties together. I’ll discuss book dissection to study various aspects and techniques and I still stand by that; however, I also remind you of the story of Frankenstein. Just because you can put all the pieces together, that doesn’t mean you can necessarily bring it to life. There are some techniques that only work when put in context of other parts of the novel; thus using it in isolation can be a glaring problem. You can’t take the beginning of one bestseller, tie it in with flashback style from another, and have a similar flashy ending as another and expect the novel to automatically work.
Every part of a novel is a thread connected to all the other parts. Pull on one piece and you pull on them all. Tear apart a novel or a movie and see the pieces, but then be like a watchmaker and see if you can put them all together again as the writer did and if you understand why they go back that way.
For example, Quentin Tarrantino ignored the classic three act screenplay structure with Pulp Fiction. Yet the movie was a great success. So therefore, a number of new screenwriters decided they didn’t need the three act structure. However, what they failed to see is that it was not so much the unique story structure that made Pulp Fiction such a success, but rather the intriguing dialogue. Tarrantino’s structure without the Tarrantino dialogue would have spelled failure.
It is also more important to figure out what is working and why, rather that what you feel didn’t work in a book you read. An attitude that will serve you little good is the there’s so much crap on the shelves in the bookstore. I admit that there are times when I am looking for something to read, and I stand in the local supermarket looking at the paperbacks, that I really can’t find anything I want to read or that sparks an interest. But that doesn’t automatically mean it’s all crap.
I had to do this many times. I’d read something I might not like, but it seems to be selling quite well. Instead of dismissing the rest of the world as stupid, I try to find what it is about the book that people like. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same thing, but it does broaden my horizon.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with a little fire burning deep inside believing you are better than those people getting published, but I think that’s the sort of thing that should be used to fuel your writing, not expressed loudly so everyone can hear it.
John Gardner once said that every book has its own rules. Remember that when you examine a book to see what you can learn from it. Look at the parts from the perspective of that book’s specific rules.
I think Henry Ford uttered the famous line: Never complain, never explain. This applies in the writing world in several ways.
One thing I do when critiquing material is ask a lot of questions. I tell my students, ‘You don't have to answer those questions to me’ (in fact I would prefer they don’t), but rather they are to get the students to think. What I don't tell them is that the more questions I have to ask, the worse job they’ve done.
The reason I don’t want answers is because you don't get any opportunities to explain your book once it's on the shelf in a store. You also don't get any opportunities to explain your submission when it's sitting on an agent's or editor's desk. So if they don't "get it" the first time around, they won't get it. Get it? All your explanations and defenses mean nothing because you not only won't get the chance to say them, you shouldn't get the chance to say them.
I've gotten five page long, single-spaced letters back from students answering my questions or challenging points I made and my reaction is that such letters are a waste of paper. If I couldn't figure it out from the material, it needs to be rewritten. This ties in with my theory about the original idea. If you can't tell me what your story is about in one, maybe two sentences, and I understand it from that, then you are going to have a hell of a hard time selling it. You don’t get to put those letters in the front of your published book. You must incorporate those answers in the novel itself through rewriting.
The never complain comes from the fact that there are people running this business. You won't agree with some things, particularly rejections, but do not complain or write nasty letters, make obnoxious phone calls, send dirty faxes, etc. etc. Because you never know when you are going to run into those people again. My first book was published by a publisher that had rejected my own query reference for that same book. I had disagreed strongly with some of the things they put on that first rejection letter, still do as a matter of fact, but I ate it and drove on. If I had sent them a nasty letter, methinks they would have remembered me and not even considered the manuscript when my agent submitted it.
I even find this with students I've worked with. They get angry and upset with my comments or questions. And they let me know it. What they don't understand is the fact that their anger expressed that way will get them nowhere. Take the energy and put it into your book, which is the only place it will do you any good.
Agent Richard Curtis’ first piece of advice in his book Beyond the Bestseller to writers consists of a few simple words, “Keep your big mouth shut.”
The longer I have been doing this for a living, the more I realize the profundity of those words. Go ahead, laugh. But here is the golden rule that I take out of those words: If an action you plan to take, words you plan to utter, a letter you want to write, an email you want to send, could have anything other than a positive reflection back on you, DON’T DO IT. Negativity begets negativity. Acting out of anger, frustration, righteous indignation, etc. will bite you in the butt, to put it mildly.
It is hard sometimes not to react. I believe publishing is a very poorly run business in many aspects. And those bad business decisions in New York can adversely affect you. They can destroy you in some cases. But you have to drive on and you have to accept that you, by yourself, are not going to change the entire publishing industry. Also, you can take comfort, if you want, in the fact that the business is in the throes of change.
At one publishing house, I went through five editors over the course of three years. I’ve had half-a-dozen people assigned to me as my publicist. None of my publicists returned my phone calls for the first two years. For my most recent book from that publisher my assigned publicist never even bothered to give me a courtesy phone call to tell me all the things they weren’t going to do to promote the book.
For the same publisher I submitted an outline for my next book. I asked for feedback on the outline and received none. So I wrote the book and turned it in. Then I got a phone call a couple of weeks later saying the book didn’t go in the direction they envisioned for my series. Was I angry? Yes. My gut reaction was to tell them it would have been good to have heard that when they sat on the outline for half a year, before I wrote a book that faithfully followed the outline.
What did I do? I kept my mouth shut and listened. And I realized that, ultimately, they were right. The book was going in the wrong direction. I spent three weeks, seven days a week, totally rewriting the manuscript and produced basically a new book. It sucked doing that. I didn’t get paid any more money for doing it. But what were my options? Scream and yell and rant and rave? And then what? And, getting back to admitting you’re wrong, their way was better than the way I had been going.
Most of the time, I have found that comments made by editors and agents, even when I very much disagreed with them initially, turned out to be very worthwhile. I never respond to anything right away. I always take some time to digest it.
At the same time, with the same publisher, they screwed up my royalty check (and it was their mistake) and issued it two weeks late, which almost cost me the closing date on the house I was trying to buy; plus the check was short money they owed me. Did I call up my editor and scream? No. I sent a polite letter detailing the situation to my agent and sucked it up.
I’m not saying be a patsy. Or go along with every single thing you are told. But I am saying don’t shoot yourself in the foot and understand reality. They didn’t sit there at the publishing house and decide to screw up the royalty check on purpose, even though paranoid people like us writers like to believe such things. On the flip side of that, though, I do believe you have to be persistent on your own behalf. No one is going to care more about your book than you.
For example, I am often asked how long a writer should wait to hear back on a query/submission to an agent or publishing house. My answer: Forever.
I’m not being a smart-ass with that answer. Rather I am defining the reality of the situation. What are you going to do if you don’t hear back in two months? Send another letter or email to be ignored? Move on.
I said above that publishing is poorly run, but that doesn’t mean the people who run the business are incompetent. Like many other businesses, publishing goes through changes and it takes time for bureaucracies to catch up to change.
One of the bitter realities of being a writer is that you have very little leverage. If something isn’t happening the way you would like, there is little you can do. In the past year, several major writers, flagship writers who carry publishing houses—who have leverage—have switched publishers. They didn’t do it over money, they did it over the way they perceived the publisher was treating them. How much publicity effort they were getting.
I stated earlier that this is an emotional business. If you want to succeed you need to have positive emotions working for you. This is very difficult for many writers. I switched agents because the original agent I had, while good, was a little too negative. I realized I had enough negative traits on my own (as you can see by reading between the lines on some of these pages). I didn’t need my agent to amplify my negativity. I switched to an agent who is more confident and positive. Who also, coincidentally, is the most professional individual I’ve worked with in this business as far as correspondence and doing what he says he’s going to do. However, he also doesn’t ‘hold my hand’. He expects me to be a professional and deal with the emotional issues of this business on my own. But he is also like a psychologist in that he leaves me alone a lot to figure things out on my own after giving me a few comments to chew on. Many people want the ‘answer’ right up front, but they don’t realize they’re not ready to accept the answer yet. In the same manner there are things in this book that you intellectually understand, but emotionally disagree with. I have often found that the things I most strongly react to with negative emotions are the things I need to pay most attention to.
Be positive.
I wrote the above two paragraphs two years ago. Since then I left that second agent to move on to a new agency. That’s not to say there was anything wrong with that agent. However, I received advice from fellow writers, people who I respected, about what they felt would help my career and I listened to them, digested how I felt about the validity of their comments, and eventually followed their advice. It was difficult to do, since I had no burning reason to make the change, but in retrospect it was the right move.
And since I wrote the previous paragraphs, I’ve broken from NY publishing and struck out on my own. Despite all that, the craft of writing is the same.
Another aspect of this comes whenever you read a book or see a movie. Stop trying to find what’s wrong with it and try to figure out what is working. It’s easy to be a negative critic—much harder to find the elements that were successful. I believe that learning to do this was a significant achievement for me. I used to look at some best-selling novelists and think their work was totally worthless. Because of that, I failed to look hard enough to see the things in that work that were worthwhile and well done.
I recently got a letter from a student where the student first told me all the things he didn’t like. He didn’t like thrillers. He didn’t like horror. He didn’t like serial killer books, etc. etc. etc. My first reaction was why is this guy telling me this? Second, what good is it doing him to know what he doesn’t like? Third, some of what he doesn’t like could teach him a lot about writing. Fourth, he was telling me, in so many words, he didn’t like what I wrote. Not a good way to start a working relationship.
The bottom line is I’ve learned to shut my mouth even if I have to bite my tongue in half to do it.
What a Writer Needs
Like any other profession, there are tools the writer uses. Here are some you need to consider.
A Laptop
Tolstoy's wife copied six drafts of War And Peace in freehand for him as he wrote it. Since most of us aren't as lucky to have such an understanding spouse/friend, a computer/laptop is almost indispensable. My hat is off to those legions of writers who produced their works before the day of electronic cut and paste.
Laptops are wonderful as you can take your work with you when you travel. I tend to get a lot done waiting for planes, trains and ferries. I purchased an adapter for my laptop that plugs into the cigarette lighter in my car, which allows me to charge my battery while on the road which increases my working capability. I haven't yet learned the trick of writing while driving and am not sure I will attempt that feat. But I have been known to tap out some thoughts and ideas on the ferry from my remote island off the coast of Seattle. If it’s a really great idea (they always are) I’ve been know to key it in at a rest area.
I used to do quite a few book signings at military post exchanges throughout the country. This consisted of sitting in front of the PX for twelve hours at a time trying to sell my books. I spent a lot of that time at the keyboard of my laptop, tackling two jobs at the same time. I carry an extension cord as part of my standard equipment in my briefcase so that I can plug in.
Most computers nowadays are much more powerful than what you need, capable of making phone calls, balancing your household budget, finding you a life partner on the Internet, doing the laundry and a whole list of other tasks—all you need is something with a keyboard that will allow you to save what you write.
Always, always, always, and always, back up your work. And do it often. Nothing is more agonizing than to lose pages you have just written because of a mechanical malfunction or a power loss. I was in an interesting position writing my first couple of manuscripts in Korea. The power there would cut out at the strangest times and I learned to hit the keys for save almost automatically at the end of pretty much every paragraph.
I keep the latest copy of what I'm writing on my hard drive and back it up on a neat device called a time machine. It’s automatic and I don’t even have to think about it, except I check to make sure it is working every day. I also have a 32gig thumb drive on my keychain and I backup my important material every few days.
I also started using Dropbox, which is in the cloud. What is nice about Dropbox is I can park this master document there, share the folder with others, they can pull it up, edit it, and park it right back there for me to go over. Sure, you can do that in email, but this makes sure we are both working off the most recent document.
Besides, you never know, my home may catch on fire and the computer and time machine may be destroyed. Paranoid? Slightly, but I know there's someone out there who lost everything when they thought it was backed up.
Can't I simply write on legal paper with a pencil? Someone might ask. Certainly. If that's the way you write best. I read an interview with Joyce Carol Oates and she does her first draft with pen and paper. I've heard that some authors dictate their stories into a recorder and then transcribe it. Whatever works best for you.
A place to write
This is very individualistic. I like quiet most of the time, so I have an office in my home where I can close the door and focus on my writing. You will also need plenty of room to lay out pages and research along with a bulletin board to keep that list of characters and key information posted where you can constantly refer to it.
My work area has expanded over the years. Currently I have a large wraparound desk with over nine feet of length, a large four space file cabinet, two window sills full of books, five steel shelves holding various materials, two ceiling high bookcases, several vertical files, two cork bulletin boards, a dry-erase board, etc. etc. The bottom line is that I need plenty of area and I like to keep my work as organized as possible.
Some people like to grab pencil and notepad and curl up in bed. Others climb a mountain and like to write on the peak. Again, whatever works best and is within your realm of possibilities. I'm writing this paragraph sitting in my car waiting for the next ferry to take me to America. That is what we call it when we actually have to leave our peaceful little island and head to Seattle to make the Costco run. I'm a firm believer in using time wisely and my time is very valuable.
A Dictionary
And yes, I have seen cover letters with words misspelled. One thing I have learned is that although I may think I know what a word means, occasionally I am wrong. Sometimes it pays to look it up and know exactly what you are saying.
A friend of mine walked out to her sporty convertible outside a store and found a note stuck on her windshield. Some guy who had been eyeing her in the store had left it. She opened it up and read:
“Let’s meat.” And then listed his phone number.
Needless to say they didn’t meat. Spelling is important.
A Thesaurus
Spell checks and thesaurus programs that come with your word processing software are not all that great. They can be helpful and useful, but sometimes a word is on the tip of our tongue, we know what it means, so we can look at the Thesaurus to find it.
The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale is a great resource. However, a word of caution. Don’t rely on these books to find the right words or to find bigger words. I’ve seen many misused words or words that toss me from the reading solely because a writer was trying to be creative.
A Recorder
This tool can be helpful to put thoughts down when driving or you're in a position where you can't write. I also place mine by the side of my bed at night and when I wake at three in the morning with that brilliant idea, I mutter it into the recorder and play it back in the morning when my cognitive functioning is somewhat better. The most used app on my iPhone is the iRecorder.
I also record workshops where a group is brainstorming, because often someone says something and it’s lost in all the conversation. With the recording, we can go back and find it.
Large Easel Pad, Corkboard Or White Board
I occasionally use a large easel pad when I work. I put my outline on it and fill it in as I write. The large page allows me to put quite a bit more down than a regular notepad. I use this because I am visually oriented when I think of a story. I can scrawl notes all over the large space and refer back to it more easily than if I had twenty smaller sheets of 8.5" by 11" paper.
At the present moment, the easel pad is flat on my desk, with the outline of the end of a book scrawled across in it in numerous notes along with various reminders of editing to be done and phone numbers from calls I received while I was working.
When I was writing with Jenny Crusie, she would have large white boards all over her house. On the boards were every scene in the book broken down into the four acts (hence, four white boards). Each scene was labeled character versus character and were color-coded by point-of-view. This gave us an overall visual of the book.
A Lot Of Books
This sounds superfluous, but to be a good writer you have to be well read. Not only that, but as you will see when we get to the research section, often other fiction novels can be good sources for not only facts, but techniques of writing that you will find helpful. Whatever problem you run into, the odds are some writer in the past ran into the same problem—how did they solve it? Then, being the brilliant person you are, you have to figure out a better way.
These are just some of the basic physical tools a writer might want or need. As you will learn from reading this book, there is no right way or wrong way to write a book. Every writer has their own process that has been developed over the course of several manuscripts and in that process are different tools. Whether you can only write on your desktop in your office, or only in your bed in the middle of the night, it is important that you foster those needs with those things that can make the writing come more easily.