Publishing is an Industry Bedeviled by Pessimism

As the number of original titles published in Britain in 1927 numbered 13,810, compared to 119,000 in 2001 (of which about 75,000 were general trade books), it is still harder to sustain the charge that good writers are being passed over. And there is evidence that volumes are actually rising. In the first half of 2002, the number of books bought in the US rose by 1.6 per cent to 557m copies.

Quantity is not everything, but the doomsayers' view that the consumer is being denied a wide choice of books (and thus points of view) is hard to sustain. One could argue that non-mainstream thinking is not published by big houses and therefore not widely available, but to do so would be oxymoronic: what is mainstream if not that which is widely available?

With its over-educated, overworked, underpaid legions, publishing is an industry bedeviled by pessimism. This pessimism blinds people to the fact that we are living in a golden age of book publishing in which quantity and quality rival anything in the past, in which books have never been so well published and in which they occupy a more boisterously visible place in the general culture than ever before.

The future, it seems, belongs to writers, readers and entrepreneurs. There will be as many or as few masterpieces published as ever, but they will enter the world through proliferating channels. More publishers will exist and some of them will also be famous authors. For less well-known writers, making a living from the written word is likely to be hard, but no harder than it is now. From the industry point of view, as it sits on the tail-end of the longest economic boom in postwar history, all this seems somehow unimaginable. From the consumer's point of view, the golden age is set to continue. But for publishers, ordinary writers and booksellers, the next few years could be the last great days of publishing as we have known it since the 16th century.

From "Good Books"
Toby Mundy
Prospect Magazine, October 2002

The Writer's Best Friend

The wastepaper basket is the writer's best friend. ISAAC B. SINGER

The Appearance of Reading

"Many [new readers] are making a fashion statement of sorts, carrying around tattered copies of 'in' books-"not necessarily to read, but to be part of a scene," says Jeremy Ellis, a manager at Austin's Book People. Garrett kemps, for example, has everyone from William Shakespeare to William Faulkner on his shelves, but rarely reads more than 40 pages of any one volume. "In this day and age, it's much important to appear like you know something than it is to actually know something," says the 23-year-old Web designer in Los Angeles."

From "Look Who's Reading" by Pooja Bhatia
Wall Street Journal 11/9/01

Experience Becomes Literature. . .

"Experience becomes literature when the reader ceases to care whether or not the story is true." Garrison Keillor

Stories are Better than Truth

Lawyers are storytellers "who take the raw and disjointed observations of witnesses and transform them into coherent and persuasive narratives." The reason that storytelling works is because the linear narrative has been proved to be the best way to persuade a judge or a jury. Also, the disjointed statements of witnesses mean little until they are connected into a single meaningful story.

from "Author argues stories are more important for lawyers than truth", by
Malcolm Abel in the ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES

The Essential Gift for a Good Writer

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shockproof sh*t-detector. ERNEST HEMINGWAY

The Power of Suggestion

The following is a letter to the editor published in the Nov./Dec. issue of Poets&Writers

David Long's "Stuff: The Power of the Tangible" (Sept./Oct. 2002) while invaluable and penetrating, does not address an interesting concomitant question: Why are there so many great works of prose fiction that do not "write about stuff"?

Jane Austen, Stendhal, Henry James, and Marcel Proust have all created palpable fictional universes without cultivating the kind of physical detail and concreteness found in Long's examples. Reread PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and you will notice that Austen's. . . description of Darcy's estate is quite general. Stendhal renders the Battle of Waterloo in THE CHARTERHOUSE OF PARMA with very few particulars. Likewise, neither James nor Proust are much interested in naming objects or listing things for the sake of it.

A work of literature is given life by the reader's memory and imagination. Flat and mundane details of the sort cited by Long can stifle the quickening act of the mind we call reading. Lady Murasaki, and other masters allow us to "see" entire physical worlds for ourselves by the power of their suggestion.

Edmund de Chasca
Senior Editor, Boulevard

The Aim of Every Artist is to Arrest Motion

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. (William Faulkner as quoted in the THE QUOTABLE SOUTH edited by Al Dixon and published by Hill Street Press)

Dialogue

"I was the first reader for an editor of one of the biggest companies in the business. For two years, while writing my own first novel, I dropped by an editor's office once a week to pick up several manuscripts, mostly novels, took them home, read them, and prepared a 'reader's report' including a brief plot summary and a paragraph giving my recommendation as to whether it was a 'hit' or a 'miss' and why. . . .

"I often saw the editor I worked for wander over to the slush pile table and riffle quickly through half a dozen manuscripts before handing me one to read. I was mystified: What could she possibly see from ten seconds of flipping pages? When I asked her, she answered, 'I'm looking for lots of dialogue.' Questioned further, she explained that one of the major flaws in novels from beginning writers was too much narration, not enough lively conversation between characters. Dialogue is vital in getting a reading from an unagented script, not just well written dialogue, but plenty of it."

--Confessions of a First Reader, by Roy Sorrels

Poetry: Wislawa Szymborska (9/11)

I read a Reuter's story about Poland's Nobel Prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska's moving tribute to the victims of Sept. 11th in the United States and thought the poem "A photograph from Sept. 11" extremely moving.

A PHOTOGRAPH FROM SEPT. 11

They jumped from the burning stories, down
-- one, two, a few more
higher, lower.
A photograph captured them while they were alive and now preserves them
above ground, toward the ground.
Each still whole
with their own face
and blood well hidden.
There is still time,
for their hair to be tossed,
and for keys and small change
to fall from their pockets. They are still in the realm of the air, within the places
which have just opened.
There are only two things I can do for them
-- to describe this flight
and not to add a final word.

I'm a fan of Szymborska's work, Poems, New and Collected: 1957-1997 and thought the poem A Photograph from Sept. 11 extremely moving, especially what I felt was a powerful ending. A friend had a differing opinion about the ending. The poem reminds me of Chekhov. He was a master at painting a picture without the editorials. In the same way, I felt Ms. Szymborska's decision to describe and not comment increased the power of the poem.


Poems, New and Collected: 1957-1997

Don't Write Stage Directions

"Don't write stage directions. If it is not apparent what the character is trying to accomplish by saying the line, telling us how the character said it, or whether or not she moved to the couch isn't going to aid the case. We might understand better what the character means, but we aren't particularly going to care." (David Mamet)

Challenged by a Conflict

Terry Brook’s Rule #3: A PROTAGONIST MUST BE CHALLENGED BY A CONFLICT THAT REQUIRES RESOLUTION.

Conflict is necessary in every book because that's what generates concern for and interest in our characters. The more complex and overwhelming the threat to a protagonist, the better the opportunity for the author to create a compelling conflict and a dramatic resolution. Of course, you can overdo this. Too many threats make the story unbelievable. Too much conflict renders it unrealistic. As with all things, you have to find a balance that works.

From SOMETIMES THE MAGIC HAPPENS by Terry Brooks.

Finding Time to Read

I never understand when people say they don't have time to read. They're lying. It's easy to have the time; just don't watch television and live alone." (John Waters)

Writing a Novel is like Building a Wall Brick by Brick

I quit writing if I feel inspired, because I know I'm going to have to throw it away. Writing a novel is like building a wall brick by brick; only amateurs believe in inspiration. (Frank Yerby)

Richard Ford

After lunch at Dunbar's, [Richard] Ford climbs back in the Jeep to give a quick driving tour of the city; as he passes a particularly seamy-looking housing development, he declares, "There is no street in New Orleans that I wouldn't walk down." He pauses. "But that's not to say that I wouldn't get my ass kicked."

Ford talks a good deal about ass-kicking: He reminisces about the time he foiled a mugging by slamming the hapless thief in the face, and he remembers exchanging punches with a neighbor who refused to keep his dogs from barking, an episode that concluded with Ford in handcuffs and the neighbor in the hospital. At a later point during this interview, while taking a brief walk through the French Quarter, Ford gets into a shouting match with a guy, admittedly a schmucky guy, who is for some reason creeping his car along the sidewalk. The argument begins with Ford calling him a douche bag, continues with the driver asking the Pulitzer Prize winner to lick his balls and ends with Ford making some disparaging comments about the man's mother. "Richard goes directly to his emotions," says Russell Banks, the author of Affliction and Sweet Hereafter and a friend of Ford's. "He comes to full alert whenever anybody acts like an idiot."

from "Ford Tough" by Michael Kaplan, BOOK, March/April 2002

Definition of Story

“A story consists of a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters a complicating situation that he confronts and solves. (Jon Franklin, WRITING FOR STORY, p. 71)

Novel: The Outside World

The Outside World (Tova Mirvis) ***

Several years ago Tova Mirvis' first novel The Ladies Auxiliary was my runner-up for favorite novel of the year. So, when I saw the new novel at the bookstore, I picked it up and my wife and I read it on the drive to Florida and back.

Mirvis' gift is drawing a world that many of us will never see. Her representation is detailed and alive and the reader feels transported, and a part of this strange (to us) culture. At the same time, she captures the universality of individuals and relationships and we see ourselves reflected back from the pages.

The plot seems to unravel a bit at the end but this is common with a novel that has so many characters woven through 250 plus pages. But the plot is almost secondary and the time spent inside the orthodox jewish culture was time well spent.


The Outside World

Throw Another Handful of Characters on the Fire

I remember Virginia Woolf was reviewing a book. . .but one of her complaints was when the author lost his way, he would just throw another handful of characters on the fire. (Novelist/Essayist Joy Williams)

Intellectuals Make People Feel Alienated

"I think something horrible happened in American letters, which is that intellectuals started acting as if other people couldn't understand what they were talking about," adds Mr. Silverblatt, a grad-school dropout whose resume includes such unpoetic occupations as hotel desk clerk, publicist and screenwriter. "That's often true when they're talking about novels and poetry. These are the things we've made. They're our culture. And I think it's a crime when intellectuals make people feel alienated from what is the greatest treasure we have." (Joanne Kaufman quoting "Bookworm" host Michael Silverblatt in the article "A Bibliophile With a Hypnotic Gift of Gab")

Evoking Sensation

"Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it's raining, but the feeling of being rained upon." (E. L. Doctorow as quoted by Sol Stein in "Stein on Writing")