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Stephen H. Provost is an author of paranormal adventures and historical non-fiction. “Memortality” is his debut novel on Pace Press, set for release Feb. 1, 2017.
An editor and columnist with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, he has written on subjects as diverse as history, religion, politics and language and has served as an editor for fiction and non-fiction projects. His book “Fresno Growing Up,” a history of Fresno, California, during the postwar years, is available on Craven Street Books. His next non-fiction work, “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street,” is scheduled for release in June.
For the past two years, the editor has served as managing editor for an award-winning weekly, The Cambrian, and is also a columnist for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
He lives on the California coast with his wife, stepson and cats Tyrion Fluffybutt and Allie Twinkletail.
Filtering by Tag: writing
Writing is, as the saying goes, a lonely profession — and many authors like it that way. J.D. Salinger, William Faulkner, Emily Dickinson, Harper Lee, and others have preferred the comforts of home to the discomforts of the cold, cruel world. Some write to escape that world, and others escape the world to write. I do both.
Read MoreNew Year’s resolutions are a dime a dozen, and 80 percent of them fail anyway. I never make them. I do something else instead.
Read MoreEvery hour you’re not going out to dinner or a movie or shopping at the mall is an hour you can dedicate to writing. …The fewer distractions you have, the more focused you’ll be.
Read MoreQuotes are great. They’re often my favorite part of a novel. In the form of dialogue, they move a story along like almost nothing else, and they break up those chunks of heavy gray description that can weigh a book down if the author isn’t careful.
But quotes don’t write themselves. Some authors use them well; others, not so much. So here are some simple, practical suggestions about how to use quotes effectively.
A good novel should have both, but there’s an advantage to dialogue: It lets you inside a character’s head without a lot of tedious description. When the characters themselves tell you what they’re thinking, you get their thoughts from their own lips. And the way they tell you what they’ve got to say gives you even more insight: into their motivations, their emotions, their biases, their limitations.
In practical terms, quick-hitting dialogue is a lot easier on the eyes than dense blocks of text from an author who presumes to know what his characters are. Of course, the author does know. After all, those characters were born in the author’s head. Still, a narrator who describes what a character is thinking seems like a secondhand source. Readers want a front-row seat; at least, I know I do, and dialogue provides that.
This does not mean dialogue is the only way to get inside a character’s head. In a first-person story, especially, you can get inside the character’s head without it. But it’s still the most natural, direct way of communicating what’s on the character’s mind.
It’s also a good idea to break up dialogue with description, and vice versa. Extremely long sections of dialogue can feel more like a screenplay than a novel, while extended description can feel static, like a visit to an art gallery.
Remember that the people are talking. Writing dialogue is not just taking some description and slapping a couple of quotes around it. It’s a way of describing what characters are thinking, what they want to communicate, and who they are without some third-party analysis.
This isn’t as easy as it seems. In watching a well-reviewed TV show the other day, I noticed a teenage character say something like, “We will need to trek over to that mountain.” What teenage uses the word “trek” in a sentence (unless the character’s a science fiction nerd talking about Star Trek)? This was probably a case of description masquerading as a quote that was placed in the character’s mouth — a particular risk with screenplays, which lean heavily on dialogue.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when writing dialogue is that it’s meant to be spoken. That doesn’t change just because it’s on a printed page. As you’re writing, recite it to yourself (or even aloud) to be sure it sounds natural to your own ear. But be careful: Don’t go to the other extreme and rely on buzzwords and catch phrases you’ve heard just because they sound like dialogue. Stay original.
This can be one of the biggest challenges for a writer. You know how you talk, so it’s easy to simply transfer your own conversational style to your characters. But if you do that, they’ll all sound alike — and like you.
Be sure the words spoken come from the mind of each particular character. If you’ve put a lot of effort into developing a unique character, you’ll have an easier time defining his or her voice. If, however, the character is two-dimensional or poorly developed, it will be tempting to fall back on stereotypical accents and rely heavily on clichés as crutches when writing dialogue.
Strong character development is the key to engaging and convincing dialogue.
You’re not writing a speech for some self-important politician. You’re writing for someone who’s reading to be entertained or informed. Long blocks of text, whether they’re descriptive or in quotes, can seem daunting to a reader — especially in the age when tweets are in and Shakespearean soliloquys are out.
Just looking at a dense block of gray on a page can feel exhausting. (This is another reason snappy dialogue, with its frequent paragraph breaks, can move a story along so effectively. It’s like running a treadmill instead of struggling up a hill.)
Besides, it’s not realistic. Most people in a conversation don’t drone on ad nauseam. Those who do tend to get tuned out, right? So why should you expect a reader to keep paying attention to a character who does the same thing?
If you have to break a quote up over two or three paragraphs, ask yourself whether it’s worth it — and whether there might be a better way to present that information.
Don’t keep the reader guessing about this. How often have you seen a quote go on for four or five sentences before finally identifying the speaker? “She said,” shouldn’t always go at the end of the paragraph. Inserting the attribution after the first sentence breaks up the quote and keeps things moving.
It doesn’t hurt to change things up occasionally by leading with the attribution, either.
Just don’t leave readers wondering who’s talking if it’s not clear in the flow of the narrative. It can become a distraction. The more they focus on trying to answer that question, the less attention they’ll be paying to what’s on the page.
On the flipside of No. 5, if it’s already clear who’s talking, you don’t need a dialogue tag. If you’ve got a back-and-forth between just two characters, inserting “she said” after each line slows the section down and quickly becomes tedious. Don’t be condescending to the reader. Let the dialogue speak for itself.
For the most part, dialogue tags (aka attribution) should be reserved for cases where it’s not clear who’s talking. If three or more people are engaged in a conversation, they can be helpful in sorting things out. The same is true if you’re starting a section of dialogue and it’s not clear who’s going first.
If you decide to use a dialogue tag, “said” is usually fine. You don’t need to switch things up by using words like “criticized” or “gasped” or “enthused.” These are fine occasionally, but they’re often overused in a quest for variety. (If you must use “exclaimed,” please don’t use it with an exclamation point. That’s redundant.) The main point to keep in mind is that these varied tags draw attention away from the dialogue itself, which is the last thing you want to do.
The best writing lets the dialogue speak for itself, conveying the speaker’s tone, emotion and vocal inflections without relying on dialogue tags and exclamation points.
On the one hand, a character’s words should reflect his or her background. On the other, the reader should be able to understand them. There can be a tension between these two goals if the reader and character come from two different worlds, and it’s up to the author to bridge this gap as seamlessly and effortlessly as possible.
Sometimes, genre can help your audience make the necessary connection. Readers of science fiction are likely to know what a character means in referring to wormholes, cyborgs and quantum drives are. Fans of noir fiction will probably understand a character who talks about a “button man” or a “canary.” But in general fiction, you can’t make those assumptions.
Unfamiliar and unclear jargon will stop readers in their tracks or send them scrambling for a dictionary. But explaining that jargon in the author’s voice will slow things down, too. That’s why the jargon is used best when it 1) flows naturally from the character and 2) can be understood based on the context.
The same thing goes for accents. If your character’s accent is so thick you have to convey it with multiple odd spellings, readers may feel like they’re reading something in a different language. The energy it takes to translate thick accents inside the reader’s head can be tiring or distracting, and may or may not be worth it. Use accents sparingly and with discretion.
A related topic: Swearing. You have to balance how natural, and expected it might be from mouths of certain characters with how acceptable it is to your readers. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. So, be true to your characters and trust that your work will find an audience that appreciates your authenticity. Or, write to your audience and create characters who will speak naturally within that framework.
Remember the mullet? Maybe you do. What you might not remember is that it was actually popular for a while (at least in some circles). The same goes for beehive hairdos, per rocks and The Partridge Family.
It may be popular today to write in the present tense, but will it be a decade from now?
Characters don’t speak in computer shorthand. They’re not going to go around saying “LOL” or “AFK.” You might want to think twice about using here-today, gone-tomorrow pop culture references. If you try too hard to make your characters sound hip or trendy, you might accomplish just the opposite. It’s entirely possible for something to be all the rage when you’re writing Chapter 1 and yesterday’s news if your book’s published months later.
Another downside: Such references often look forced. Don’t try too hard.
You don’t see much dialogue in nonfiction. Quotes, however, serve the same primary purpose: They allow the source to speak directly to the reader.
In nonfiction, though, the author doesn’t have as much control. You’re not dealing with a fictional character, so you can’t simply make something up or change it to suit your purpose. You have to remain true to what the person actually said.
Even if it’s awkward. Or grammatically incorrect. Or boring as hell.
Nonfiction does have a reputation as sleep-inducing. The authors of those tedious textbooks from your school daze made them educational, but not engaging. (No wonder kids don’t like homework.) So, it’s become almost come to be expected. Many authors use an “academic” tone because they’re writing for an academic audience; but still others emulate that style because they want to sound impressive or knowledgeable.
That’s not good if you want people to actually read what you’ve written: About only thing more boring than academic writing is the fine print in a contract.
The way quotes are used in nonfiction doesn’t help. They’re not usually part of a dialogue. Most authors include them for the sake of authority: “If Dr. So-and-So from Harvard says it, it must be true.” But even if the author isn’t writing a textbook, quotes from professors, scientists, lawyers or other experts will likely seem like they belong in one.
Yawn.
Those experts are not, generally, professional writers. If you, as the author, devote too much space to quoting them directly, your writing won’t seem professional — or original. It’ll seem dense and derivative.
The solution is to limit the use quotes from such sources, and to choose those quotes that are the most lively and conversational. If you know what they’re saying and can say it more clearly, do so. There’s nothing wrong with paraphrasing, as long as it’s clear that’s what you’re doing, and the message isn’t lost in translation.
There are exceptions to almost any rule you can come up with. It all boils down to this: If you keep your dialogue compelling, authentic and easy to understand, you’ll be golden.
There’s a ton of advice out there for writers, some of which I agree with and some of which seems like utter B.S. I’ve been writing professionally for 35 years, and I’ve written 30 books in the pass decade, and I’ve heard good and bad advice from authors both more and less productive than I.
Terry Pratchett said, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” That strikes me as simple, profound and altogether true. So does this one from Walt Disney: “That’s what we storytellers do. We restore order with imagination. We instill hope again and again and again.”
But then, Roald Dahl said, “Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration.” While this can be true at times, I find it deflating. I want to have fun when I’m writing, not just “grind things out.” In that light, it may seem ironic that some of the following tips deal with disciplining yourself to write.
If you think about it, though, discipline is the opposite of exhaustion (and perspiration). It’s a means of setting up a system so that, once you start following it, it becomes almost second nature. It might never be entirely effortless, but it sure won’t be exhausting. It should be less so.
With that in mind, here are my 10 tips for staying productive and fulfilled as a writer.
Think you can multitask? One study found just 2.5% of people can do so. Others say it’s altogether impossible. You can’t do two things at once, so don’t try. My theory is that multitasking is just a euphemism for being distracted as fast as you can. Have you ever done wind sprints during sports training? I have. You get real tired real fast.
Now, imagine that your mind is doing wind sprints, darting back and forth from one thing to another. You’ll feel worn out before you know it. It’s even tiring to remain alert to several things at once. Ask a gazelle at the watering hole or a mom trying to keep tabs on several kids at once. This level of alertness can’t be sustained for long before you wear yourself out. And if you’re worn out, you can’t be productive.
Worry is a form of attempted multitasking, which is why you can’t get much done when you worry.
Since you can only do one thing in any given moment, focus on that thing — whatever your current priority is. If you’ve plopped yourself down at your computer, that priority is writing. Now, extend that moment. Set aside a block of time, a series of moments, and focus exclusively on that priority for the duration.
We do this all the time in 8-to-5 jobs, so it’s nothing new. You might set aside a 25-minute block of time, then take a 5-minute break. Or write for 50 minutes, then take 10 minutes off. Set your clock as you see fit, but I suggest making your “on” time at least twice as long as your “off” time. Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up to get sucked in by distractions.
Some editors charge by the word, others charge by the hour. As a writer, you have the same choice: You can set goals based on time or volume. You might want to give yourself a goal of producing 3,000 words in a day, for example, or you might want to set a deadline: “I want to complete this book in two months.” (If you do the latter, be sure to leave time for editing and, if you’re self-published, formatting, etc.)
Either method can work, and they can work together: If you decided to write 3,000 words a day, you could finish the first draft of a 90,000-word novel in a month if you worked every day, straight through — or in a little less than a month-and-a-half if you took weekends off.
A personal note about deadlines: I work best when I have an external deadline. If I set my own deadlines, I don’t take them as seriously because I know I can change them whenever I choose. But if I know my publisher needs a manuscript by a specific date, I’ll almost always submit it well ahead of schedule.
If you don’t have a publisher, you can create your own external deadlines. Maybe you want to finish a self-published book in three months because you’d like to start earning extra income for Christmas gifts by September. Or, you could set a release date on Amazon for kindle copies that can be preordered in the meantime (you can’t do this with paperbacks at this point, unfortunately). Either way, you’ve created an external deadline — a “finish line” to keep you motivated.
One word of caution: Don’t overwhelm yourself. Don’t create goals that are so unrealistic you’ll throw up your hands and walk away. You might try setting goals that are just a tad beyond what you think you can do, in order to stretch yourself.
Goals won’t help you much if you don’t work to achieve them. If you’re continually blowing deadlines, missing writing days or falling short of target word counts, you should probably reassess either your goals or your method for achieving them.
On the other hand, if you don’t hit a goal every now and then, don’t sweat it. Just start over again the next day. It’s easy to get discouraged and give up altogether. But if you really want to pursue writing consistently and you’re in it for the long haul, you can’t give in to that discouragement. This isn’t a diet or a New Year’s resolution.
If you’re a writer, that’s your professional identity. It’s not just what you do, it’s a huge chunk of who you are. Take pride in that. I don’t get to stop being a 6-foot-5 bald guy just because I don’t feel like it on a given day, and I don’t get to stop being a writer, either.
I include the asterisk here because all writers are different. For many, it will be helpful to designate specific writing days. Do you want to write five days a week? Six? Seven? If you’re a full-time writer, starting work at the same time each day can accomplish two things. First, it gives your writing the respect it deserves, because this isn’t just a hobby, it’s your profession. Second, it will get you into a routine and give you one less thing to think about.
Where does the asterisk come in? It’s for those writers who are so continually inspired they don’t need the external motivation of a schedule. Maybe a deadline or word-count goal is enough. Or perhaps you’re the kind of writer who often wakes up in the middle of the night with an awesome idea, heads directly to your computer and churns out 5,000 words like it’s nothing. For you, flexibility might actually help your creative process. Don’t be afraid to play to your strengths.
Don’t be afraid to put yourself in the world you’re creating or writing about. There are two advantages to this. First, if you’re “there,” you’ll be able to describe the world you’re creating more vividly, because you’re experiencing it — which is what you want the reader to do. Second, you’ll insulate yourself from distractions, worries and other issues associated with the “real world.”
For me, immersing yourself in a story is like diving into the swimming pool, rather than dipping your toe in to find out whether it’s warm enough. When I’m having trouble motivating myself to write, I’m dipping my toe in to see whether “I feel like it” or if “it’s worth it.”
Without exception, I’ve found that, in order to be productive, I’ve got to dive in. Otherwise I’ll think or worry yourself out of it. Or, I’ll wear myself out doing so and, by the time I’ve finally decided to start writing, I’m too tired to do so.
One great thing about creating a world, for me, is that I’m in control of it. If my real life feels out of control, I can find a refuge there — plus I’m creating something and might even be able to sell it. What could be better than that?
Some authors say they write to make money, while others say they write for pure enjoyment. But what happens if you’re books aren’t selling (on the one hand) or if you’re not enjoying writing (on the other).
If you’re like most writers, both of these things will happen. That’s why it’s helpful to view writing as a two-cylinder engine. Sometimes, you’ll be firing on both cylinders: You’ll be enjoying what you write and making money from it. Other times, only one cylinder will be functioning on one, but you’ll still be moving forward, and that’s what counts.
You can also think of it like an alternating current: Sometimes, the energy will be flowing toward sales. At other times, it will be flowing toward inspiration. But the important thing is that it’s always flowing.
In practical terms, I love immersing myself in a story, and I’ve also dedicated myself to completing a certain goal on such-and-such schedule. If one of those two motivations don’t work on a particular day, I can fall back on the other, and that keeps me going.
I have, at times, been inspired by more than one thing at the same time, which has led me to work on two projects concurrently. I write blogs while I’m working on books, for example. I also wrote The Only Dragon and Please Stop Saying That! concurrently. The point is, it’s all writing. And no, it’s not multitasking: I’m still focused on one or the other for a sustained, if shorter, block of time.
You may still want to prioritize one project over another based on your own criteria (deadlines, potential for sales, etc.). But it’s different than being distracted by non-writing-related stuff like social media, online gaming, music playlists, and scrolling the net.
That doesn’t mean you never do that stuff, it just means you confine it to before or after hours, or during those 5- or 10-minute breaks between your writing blocks. As long as you do that, you’ll be golden.
Sometimes, you might set a story or idea aside when it’s partly done. If you’re looking for inspiration, consider combing through old files for half-finished stories or work you might have put on the back burner.
I wrote A Whole Different League in three chunks over about three years, starting with about 20,000 words, then going back a year later and adding more, then finishing it up with a flurry. When I was writing a collection of short stories called Nightmare’s Eve, I went back to my files and found an unfinished tale that I found intriguing. I’d started it so long ago I hadn’t the faintest idea how I’d planned to end it, but I supplied a new ending and included it in the book.
It’s also OK to abandon a project if it just isn’t working (unless you’ve signed a contract for it, that is). I’ve started a couple of stories that just hit dead ends, and a couple of others that would have required more work to fix than I would have spent on starting something else from scratch. You’ll have a good idea what’s worth revisiting, what’s worth salvaging, and what isn’t. Use your judgment.
Know thyself. Some of these tips, and tips from other writers, may work for you. Others may not. Figure out what works for you — and do that! Just don’t use it as an excuse to ignore everyone else’s advice. You don’t know everything. You might find something you’ve never considered fits you better than anything you’ve tried so far.
Staying true to yourself probably seems obvious, but I find it’s worthwhile to remain aware of it, so I can remind myself that I have my own unique strengths, and my own reasons for writing that aren’t exactly what anyone else’s are. I’m not the best writer in the world, but I know I’m good, and I also know I can tell a story the way no one else can. The same is true for you.
Reminding myself of these things, and staying true to my skills and vision helps me stay productive more than anything else.
Less than 12 hours ago, I hit “send” on my latest book. It just appeared for sale on Amazon, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out. It’s my fourth book in four months this year, and I’ve got another one coming next month.
It’s No. 30 overall for me, if you include four short educational workbooks I produced a while back. I’m happy with that, too.
Which is why this may come as a surprise, at least at first blush: I’ve decided to stop writing fiction.
And I’m OK with that.
To clarify: My latest book is a nonfiction book. So was my first published work, and roughly two-thirds of my books overall.
But the decision to stop working on novels wasn’t an easy one. I’ve wanted to be a novelist since my junior year in high school, when I wrote a short story called The Adventures of Krack, the tongue-in-cheek tale of a medieval knight. The story itself has long since been lost or discarded, and the only things I remember about it are the title and the theme — and the fact that the assignment called for three handwritten pages, and my story wound up being 11.
I knew then and there that I enjoyed doing this, that I wanted to do this for a living.
I also knew that writing books as a career was, shall we say, challenging, and I wanted a steady paycheck. So I became a journalist. This was, I thought, a reasonable compromise: I’d still be working with words, but I’d also have a guaranteed income. It worked out nicely until the bottom fell out of the newspaper business and I found myself unemployed.
Suddenly, I had time to pursue my real dream of being a novelist.
It didn’t work.
Let my qualify that: I’ve published eight works of fiction, including a children’s story and a short-story collection. My traditionally published work has gotten good reviews in the press. So has my self-published stuff. My books get between 4 and 5 stars on Amazon. People generally tend to like my stuff ... if they read it. And there, as they say, is the rub, as it is for many of my peers. In three words: not enough readers.
One review of Memortality declared that “readers will assuredly want — if not expect — more.” I gave them a sequel, but alas, neither book sold particularly well, so the third installment in the planned trilogy languished as my motivation waned, even though I had it all plotted out.
I’ve tried since then, gotten excited all over again about another original idea and a new cast of cool characters — only to meet with the same result.
Stories of disappointing sales are not unusual among authors. They tend to elicit one of two responses: Either you should keep writing for the sheer love of it, and the money be damned, or you should keep writing precisely in order to make money (even if you're not making any now).
The first message goes like this: “It doesn’t matter whether your books sell or not, as long as you enjoy it. If you can afford to write, do it. Don’t sweat the sales figures.” The folks who say this sort of thing are well-meaning, and there’s some truth to what they say, but what they miss is that writing is about communication. If you’re not communicating with anyone, what’s the point? You might as well write a diary.
The second group says money does matter. The reason you haven’t broken though, they kindly suggest, is that you’re doing something wrong. There are plenty of people in this category just itching to make money off your desperation to succeed: “All you have to do is buy my how-to book (one of several thousand on the market), take my masterclass, pay me to market it. ...”
The vast majority of these ideas are regurgitated and repackaged common sense that most serious authors have already tried dozens of times. It’s like picking up a greatest hits collection from an over-the-hill band when you already own all their releases. Pointless.
These two groups have one thing in common: They both think you should keep writing. Plaster those rejection notices on the wall. Look at how many J.K. Rowling got before she hit it big with Harry Potter. It’s a popular and “positive” message, but it creates a false narrative: If you love what you’re doing, you’re dedicated and you’re good, you’ll succeed. As Journey sang, “Don’t stop believin’. Hold on to the feelin’!”
Sometimes, though, you can’t hold on. Or, maybe, it’s better not to. To quote John Lennon from Watching the Wheels: “No longer riding on the merry-go-round. I just had to let it go.”
That’s the point I’ve reached.
For years, I’ve been listening to that second group and flagellating myself for not getting it right, even as some of my peers have hit upon success. Online book tour? I’ll try that. Snazzy cover? Hey, that looks really good. It’s bound to sell! Self-publish? Sure thing. Get an outside publisher? Check.
Send a press release? TV appearance? Radio show? Convention? Book signing? Networking? Reviews? Cool blog? (Hey, that’s what this is!)
But what if none of that works? At what point do you realize that not everyone is J.K. Rowling — that she’s the exception to the rule, not the template? This should be obvious. How many authors, after all, are worth nearly $1 billion? Yet bestselling authors routinely “encourage” their less successful peers with assurances of “if I can do it, you can, too.”
They mean well, but they’re not telling the whole truth. It’s almost like a lottery winner saying, “If I won the Powerball, you can, too.” That’s technically accurate, but the odds against it are overwhelming.
Now, I’ll grant that writing a book takes a lot more skill than buying a lottery ticket, but so does (for instance) playing basketball. At one point, I practiced more than 200 days in a row. I’m 6-foot-5 and reasonably athletic. Does that mean I’m going to be the next Stephen Curry? That I’m going to make the NBA? That I’d even be the best player in a playground pickup game? No, no and no.
My point is, we’re so determined to hold on to our dreams, we indulge in a kind of magical thinking, assuring ourselves that if we work hard enough, get good enough and check all the right boxes, we’re bound to succeed.
Until we don’t.
Now, you may think that I’m writing this out of resentment. I’m announcing to the world that I’m giving up on writing fiction. Isn’t that like the guy who rage-quits on social media or, to use another timeworn basketball analogy, takes his ball and goes home?
Not this time. There’s no doubt, I’ve gone through a lot of resentment, bitterness and frustration over this, and I know some of it’s still there. But that’s not why I’m writing this. For one thing, I’m under no illusion that this blog will be widely read, or that many people will care about whether I keep writing fiction or not. I don’t have that expectation.
In fact, this is all about letting go of false expectations and looking at things with a clear eye and a positive outlook going forward. I realized that I don’t have a positive outlook about fiction anymore, to the point that it’s no longer even enjoyable. So why keep doing it? Why not devote my time and energy to things I do enjoy? There’s no shame in that, despite what the “don’t stop believin’” crowd may tell you.
That’s the reason I’m writing this: To tell you that it’s OK, if you’ve come to the end of your creative journey, to move on to something else. Even if it was your childhood dream. Even if you were sure this was what you were destined to do in life. Acknowledging that is unbelievably hard — harder, in some ways, than continuing to fight for it.
Don’t stop because you’re bitter or resentful. Don’t rage-quit in a bid for sympathy. Quit because you see a better path, and then go for it!
Every writer is on a unique journey. You shouldn’t quit just because someone else suggested it as an option, any more than you should keep trying because someone else encouraged it. Those are your decisions. They shouldn’t be made by trolls who write scathing reviews or con artists who try to sell you a bill of goods about being “the next big thing.”
Yes, it’s a good idea to look at what works and what doesn’t — and to adjust your approach to writing or your marketing strategy based on that. But you know what? You can try so hard at so many different things that, if they don’t work out, you spend more time second-guessing yourself than you do writing. Then you’ll start beating yourself up over it, which can send you into an endless roller-coaster that’s not good for your mental health or your productivity as a writer.
I realized I’d reached that point, and I didn’t want to be there anymore, which is why I decided to stop writing fiction. I’d started another novel and, 12,000 words in, I realized my heart just wasn’t in it, and I didn’t see a pathway to making it a success: to communicating with actual readers.
That’s when I decided to stop asking endless questions and making endless adjustments, because I realized it wasn’t doing me any good. At a certain point, I had to feel good enough about myself to stop asking why it didn’t work and just accept the most frustrating answer of all:
I don’t know.
And I may never know.
And, I realized, that’s OK.
I still reach readers with my nonfiction and, while I can’t make a living with that alone, at least I’ve developed a small and somewhat dependable niche.
None of this is to say I won’t write more fiction at some point in the future, but it’s not to say I will, either. If I come up with a killer story idea that grabs me by the throat and demands to be written, who am I to argue? But I’ll have to feel like it’s worth my while.
Right now, it simply isn’t. I’ve got better things to do.
So, at least for now:
The end.
“To him who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Originality? What’s that?
If you want to make money, I mean really make money, you’ve got to do just the opposite: Find what’s sold in the past, repackage it, then sell it again to an eager audience.
This isn’t a new technique. Recycled ideas are a lot older than recycling aluminum cans and plastic milk bottles. I first noticed it back in the 1970s. Products from detergents to deodorants would tinker with their formula just a touch, call themselves “new and improved,” and put on a marketing blitz to gain new customers and win back old ones.
It’s not new, but it is more popular – especially in entertainment.
Take the movies, for example. There’s still original stuff out there. Movies like Get Out and Bird Box come to mind; and a Japanese-language film called Parasite even won the motion picture cast award from the Screen Actors Guild this year.
But it’s getting harder for them to find traction amid a sea of reboots, sequels and franchises. Consider: In 2005, sequels and prequels accounted for less than 10 percent of the 100 top-grossing movies in the United States. By 2017, the figure had more than tripled, to 30 percent.
Heck, Disney’s got it all figured out: Another Star Wars film. Another Marvel movie. Hey, I know, let’s repackage all those uber-profitable Disney animated classics as live-action movies! Even without Robin Williams, we can get Will Smith to play the genie in Aladdin, and voila! Another cool billion in the bank.
Biopics are big business, too: Freddie Mercury, Elton John, Judy Garland... People love what’s familiar to them, and they’ll eat it up.
Which brings us to my line of work: writing books. The same thing seems to be happening there, too. Familiarity rules.
What’s most familiar to most readers is an author’s name. If you’re “known,” you’ve created a reliable brand that can serve as your formula for success.
The rest of us have to latch onto an existing formula and hope against hope we catch on. The idea is simple: Choose a formula or subgenre that bears a strong resemblance to something that’s worked before, and crank out the stories. (For the record, the romance genre had nearly twice as many earnings as any other in 2016, followed by crime/mystery, religious and fantasy science fiction. Horror was in fifth place, but with just 5 percent of the earnings raked in by romance-erotica.)
So, say you’ve decided to write in a popular genre or subgenre and you’ve started writing.
Your first obstacle will be the fact that other writers have done their research, too, and have targeted the same popular genre you’ve identified as “yours.” And more people there are cranking out the same kind of stories, the harder it is to choose among them.
Some readers will read any story in a given subgenre, just like some moviegoers will see any Marvel movie. But there are a lot more books in a subgenre than there are movies in any given franchise, and it takes a lot longer to read a book than it does to watch a movie. So, sooner or later, the market will get flooded, and only tried-and-true authors need apply.
The rest of us? Well, we’re back to Square One.
“The poor stay poor, the rich get richer. It’s just so disproportionate. ”
Maybe you don’t want to focus on formula. Maybe you’d rather try to break through by writing original stories. That’s still possible – if you can catch someone’s eye. Someone who isn’t looking for the same-old, same-old, and who has the connections it takes to put your books in front of readers. (Oprah Winfrey’s book club is an example.)
I don’t know whether it’s more difficult to do that, or whether it’s more difficult to write formulaic novels and hope they somehow find an audience in the sea of other formulaic novels out there.
There is a third option: Write an original story and tie it up nice and pretty in a familiar looking package. But you’ll face the same challenges here, too, plus another potential obstacle: Readers looking for originality might never give your book a second glance, and those looking for pure formula might feel tricked and protest, “What the hell is THIS!?”
None of these options is bad. I prefer to write original stories, but I’ve also seen all the Star Wars movies and most of the Marvel flicks. I’ve also tried to package original stories within the framework of a subgenre.
The point is, whatever option you choose, the odds are never in your favor. Or, at least, not very often. And that can lead to desperation...
...which attracts con artists like a dying animal draws vultures to the side of the road. You hire a marketing guru. You pour money into Amazon and Facebook ads. You buy into “sure-fire” systems for increasing profits, but the only “sure-fire” profits wind up going to the self-proclaimed experts selling those systems.
In one sense, authors face the same Catch-22 (that started out as a book title, by the way) anyone faces when getting started in a business. There’s an old saying that you have to have experience to get a job, but you have to have a job to gain experience.
The writing world is similar: You have to have exposure to sell books, but you have to sell books to gain exposure (unless you want to give them away, which kind of defeats the purpose).
The difference lies in how hard it is to break into this specific field. At the start of 2020, the overall unemployment rate was 3.5 percent. Now, a lot of people had to work two or more jobs to make ends meet, but that still leaves them in better shape than the typical author. According to the Authors Guild, that was $6,080 in 2017, or less than half the poverty level for a single person living alone.
To put it another way: If you worked half-time (20 hours a week) at $10 an hour, you’d still make one-third more than the median author’s salary.
And while other industries are seeing a slow but steady climb in wages, author earnings actually fell by 42 percent from 2009 to 2016.
In this kind of environment, success stories from big-name authors are less than comforting. A successful author telling a struggling writer, “If I did it, you can too,” might as well be a lottery winner conveying the same message.
Unlike a winning lottery ticket, however, there’s often a snowball effect with writing a bestseller or two. Big-name authors who have been around any length of time have made the vast majority of their money off their reputations, not their talents – which is not to disparage their talents. It’s simply proof of my original premise: Familiarity is a goldmine. It may breed contempt in some quarters, but obscurity breeds indifference, which is far worse if you’re trying to sell books.
I like to write stories with happy endings, but I haven’t found one here. Not yet. I guess if I want that, I’ll have to go see another Disney movie.
On second thought, maybe I’ll see an indie film instead. If I can find one playing within 200 miles of where I live, that is.
Yes, the struggle is real.
If you’re successful, please resist the urge to utter these five words: “You can do it, too!”
You may think they’re encouraging, but what if they have the opposite effect? How many J.K. Rowlings or James Pattersons are there? I can do it, too? Really?
Still, I’ve heard this kind of statement often enough from writers who’ve found success. I’m sure other creative people – visual artists, musicians, poets – have heard it, too. But let’s change it up for a moment. How would it sound coming from a Wall Street executive telling someone in the inner city how to succeed in business? Do the words “presumptuous” or “clueless” come to mind?
But for some reason, it’s considered OK – even “inspiring” – to speak to creative people like that. Kind of like the old saying that anyone can grow up to be president of the United States. Well, no, not just anyone can. Only people who receive millions of dollars in donations, are nominated by a major political party and receive a majority of Electoral College votes can do it. Oh, and you’ve got to be a citizen by birth and at least 35 years of age. If you’re a naturalized citizen or wind up dying before you hit 35, you’re out of luck.
I know this sounds cynical, but I’m not writing this from a cynical perspective. I’m trying to illustrate how people who have “made it” often view the world through the lens of their own narrative ... and then try to apply it to everyone else. Yet how they feel about their own success is informed by their hindsight; they might remember how hard it was to be a poor or struggling artist, but they no longer feel things from that perspective (not would they, I suspect, wish to do so).
Some people do this intentionally, to augment their income. They want to make everything seem “easy peasy” so they can sell you how-to books containing a “sure-fire” formula for success. But the only thing sure-fire about these books – even those that contain helpful advice, and some of them do – is that the author is going to be making money off each sale.
Most successful people, however, do it unintentionally. Some may suffer from impostor syndrome and can’t believe they deserve what they’ve achieved. They see themselves as frauds, and if they can fake their way to stardom, they assume others can do the same. Others look at how far they’ve come and sincerely want to encourage others – to share the “secret to their success.”
But the effect can be just the opposite: Instead of instilling hope, it can encourage people to place expectations on themselves that they have no way of ever fulfilling, because every situation is different, and everyone has a unique story to tell.
Whenever I hear someone say, “You can do it, too,” the little voice inside me says, “No, I can’t. Not the way you did it.” I want to tell them not to sell themselves short with false humility, because they have a talent I can’t replicate. Nor would I want to, because I’m not them. I can’t do what they’ve done, because what they’ve done is uniquely amazing and should be recognized as such, not downplayed as some sort of happy accident that can be duplicated by me or anyone else.
That being said, there is luck involved in any success, and I’m just as likely to duplicate a successful person’s luck as I am to match their skill.
What most people probably mean when they say, “You can do it, too,” is that they worked their asses off, and they view their success as the payoff for that hard work. Our nation’s Protestant work ethic has drummed it into us: We believe that hard work is the key to success, as though one automatically follows the other. Of course, it doesn’t. Any more than innate talent or even a single stroke of luck does. It’s just not as simple as that.
A successful person’s story can, indeed, be inspiring. I’m not for a moment suggesting that those who have found success “shut the hell up about it.” On the contrary. Those stories are part of what made them who they are, and they should be told – so we can get to know that person and celebrate their successes along with them.
But to suggest that “you can do it, too” is to cheapen those stories, to make them seem more pedestrian than they really are. I can’t live another person’s life or achieve someone else’s success; I can only live and achieve my own. When all is said and done, it will look different than that of another author who made more or less money, sold more or fewer books, became more or less well-known than I did. That’s not only OK, that’s how it should be.
Even if we don’t write books, each of us has a unique story to tell. It’s not a template for someone else’s story, because we aren’t cookie-cutter clones of some ideal. Each of us is unique, and each of our stories is, too. Someone once compared my writing to Stephen King’s, which is certainly flattering, but I’m not the next Stephen King ... and no one will be the next me.
When we stop trying to follow someone else’s treasure map, we stop trying to adopt their expectations as our own. Then, we’re free to appreciate their story as truly theirs, and learn about what makes them uniquely who they are. That’s authenticity, and it’s how we really get to know one another – not as “role models” but as real people.
And it’s real people who inspire me, whether they’re authors working their asses off, people juggling two jobs to make ends meet, stay-at-home parents or scientific geniuses. I’m encouraged by hearing about their unique life journeys, not by listening to two-dimensional success stories that end with false promises that “you can do this, too.”
I already know I can’t. And that’s part of what makes life beautiful.
Motion pictures didn’t kill writing. Neither did television.
We who love the written word took comfort in the fact that authors such as Stephen King, J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown could still use it to captivate mass audiences. Good writing was alive and well, we thought. Reports of its demise were premature and, we believed, greatly exaggerated.
Or were they?
Death can come suddenly, but far more often, it creeps up on us. It hides in the shadows of our own denial. Lurking there, it bides its time, numbing us to the signs of its looming presence. We barely notice that we’ve embarked upon a long, slow walk toward our demise. Our decline is subtle, our transformation gradual.
One day, we stop running. Farther down the road, we labor to walk … and then to stand. If we notice this regression, we do so reluctantly. Fatigue whispers in one ear and apathy in the other: “Accept it. Ignore it. It’s not really as bad as it seems.” And so forth. We acclimate to a “new normal” and forget what the old normal was, because it’s too painful to remember and even more painful to pursue — until, at last, it eludes our grasp entirely.
Movies weren’t the end of books, and television didn’t kill magazines or newspapers, but the regression from the age of literacy continues apace — indeed, accelerates. This is no seasonal illness; it’s become a chronic condition, and the symptoms are no longer just a few, but myriad.
If literacy isn’t dead, it’s on life support. You can’t read if there aren’t any writers, and there won’t be any writers if no one pays them — if they’re too busy marketing, posting and promoting to knock out that sequel you’ve been waiting for. The more time writers spend doing the work of agents and editors, publicists and promoters used to do, the less time they’ll have to actually write. The more rushed and the less robust their stories will be.
How can we create memorable prose when it disappears in the blink of an eye on Snapchat? Will any library preserve the tweets and texts of this impulsive generation?
Readers have it in our power to provide the answers. It is we who create the demand, or refuse to, and the supply increases or dries up in response to our decisions. That’s just the way it works.
In the world we’re fashioning, we value tweets and memes and Facebook Live. Quality writing? Not so much. You might want to debate that point, but until you’re willing to do so with your pocketbook, it’s all just empty noise. Yes, there are exceptions. Some people still make a living by writing, even a comfortable one. This proves nothing. A patient with a chronic, wasting illness still enjoys occasional “good days” and periodic bursts of energy. They’re no proof that the patient is any less ill, the condition any less serious.
Such “good days” will become less frequent with the passage of time, until at last they’re whittled down from few to none.
Is that what will happen to literacy? Time will tell. It would be cruelly ironic if some hothead’s reckless tweets were to result in a catastrophic war — a war that might reduce our “information superhighway” to cyber-rubble. Such a tragedy would obliterate our carefully crafted virtual world of denial and convenience, and if that were to happen, we might need writing again, just to communicate.
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. ... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”
This is not to suggest that our only choice lies between a nuclear and literary wasteland. Far from it. With some luck and just a little restraint, the nuclear button will never be pushed, and we can avert a literary apocalypse, as well. There are, after all, alternatives. Most notably, we could celebrate writing again — something we haven’t been doing.
We denigrate reporters as purveyors of “fake news,” dismiss authors as hobbyists and degrade those who instruct us in the language by quipping, “Those who can’t, teach.” Is writing really a marketable skill? Shouldn’t university students be taking practical courses like business, engineering or computer technology?
Such thinking could lead us to a real-life Tower of Babel, that engineering marvel from the realm of lore that remained unfinished because all those talented architects and builders forgot how to communicate ... just as we're doing right now.
But what if, instead of devaluing the written word, we exalted it once more and encouraged those who sought to master it? What if we invested in the authors and reporters and editors and English teachers who have made it their passion? The more we value writing, the more people will aspire to fill these roles; the more accomplished those people will become, and the greater the rewards will be, not only for those who read their work, but for society as a whole.
That’s not fake news. You have my word(s) on it.
Hey, fellow authors, Jeff Bezos is laughing at you ... all the way to the bank.
Bezos is already the richest man in the world, but that’s not stopping him from making a few extra bucks off the proverbial “starving” authors.
Until now, Goodreads has offered a free service allowing authors to promote their books via giveaways. (They weren’t really free, as the authors were, giving away their books, but Goodreads didn’t make any money off it).
No more.
As an author who’s run Goodreads giveaways in the past, I received an email this morning about a new program that’s being touted as “a more powerful book marketing tool for authors and publishers.” Of course, there’s a catch: This new program will charge authors $119 bucks to run a “standard.” And if that’s not enough money to line Bezos’ (or his shareholders’) gilded pockets, you can run a “premium” giveaway for the bargain basement price of $599 smackeroos.
I call them Goodreads Takeaways.
Bezos, who just became the world’s only $100 billion man, is the founder and CEO of Amazon, which purchased Goodreads back in 2013.
Like he needs the money, right?
Forgive the sarcasm, but when you’re struggling to promote a book that sells for $10, it’s hard to get excited about paying 600 bucks just to give the damn thing away!
Any faint hope that these new packages would be somehow optional upgrades is quashed in the first paragraph of the email, which states that the new program “replaces our current Giveaways program.”
Of course, Amazon … er … Goodreads is touting enhanced features of the new packages. The standard package get “a notification letting them know there’s a giveaway starting.” Oh, goodie! Let me jump up and down a little bit higher.
And if you buy the premium package, you’ll get “premium placement in the Giveaways section.” Translated, this likely means that unless you dish out the $480 extra for the premium package, your giveaway will be buried.
(None of this is really much more than the giveaways offer now.)
I’ve paid to promote my books before. I’ve spent money on gas to drive to book signings. I’ve invested in posters and bookmarks and postcards. But I’ve never paid hundreds of dollars for the “privilege” of giving my books away, and I'm not going to do it now. That’s where I draw the line.
Oh, but the exposure!
I’m sorry, but I get paid to write. I get paid a decent salary to write in my day job, and I don’t value my work as an author any less. I'm not going to pay to do it. I'm not a flippin' vanity press.
As Wil Wheaton said when he was asked to contribute his work to Huffington Post in exchange for exposure, “How about no.”
That’s my answer to the new Goodreads Takeaways, too. They take money away from authors and give them to the richest man in the world.
Not just no. Hell no.
Let Goodreads know what you think: Take the survey here.
Time travel. Whether you’re reading H.G. Wells or watching Capt. James T. Kirk “slingshot around the sun” in the U.S.S. Enterprise, and it’s always a lot of fun. “What ifs” make for great stories, and time travel opens up a vast trove of possibilities.
Still, it’s just fiction. We can’t actually do it, and here’s why.
I’m no physicist, but I know the difference between an object and a unit of measurement. The first is tangible in a very real way; the second is merely a convention. It’s a human construction, entirely artificial and fully dependent on the thing it’s designed to measure.
We create such constructs all the time. They help us make sense of the world.
The words you’re reading right now represent real things. The word “box” represents a real object, but the word is not that object – and apart from the object it refers to, it would be utterly meaningless. We could have just as easily called that object a Heffalump or a Bandersnatch. Whatever we decide to call it, as long as we all agree that the word in question represents a cube-shaped object with a hollow interior, we’ll understand one another just fine … which is the purpose of communication.
The same is true for numbers. Numbers don’t exist in and of themselves; they measure things that exist. We can use Roman numerals, Arabic numerals (our own system). We can use a base-10 system, a base-5 system or whatever. Our choice. The things we’re numbering remain the same regardless of the labels we place on them, and we can’t count anything unless we have something to count.
Say we’re measuring something in space. We can use inches or centimeters or whatever, but the actual thing we’re measuring – its physical length – doesn’t change, no matter what units we devise to quantify it.
So, how does this apply to time?
Like distance, it’s something we measure, using years, centuries, hours, minutes, etc. We can base our system on a sundial or modify it for daylight savings. We can monkey around with the calendar to create a year of 12 or 13 months if we so choose. For centuries, the Western world used the Julian Calendar, devised by Julius Caesar; these days, we use a calendar promoted by Pope Gregory XIII. But whether we use one or the other has absolutely zero effect on the way Earth rotates on its axis or orbits the sun.
In the same way we talk about “distance” and “volume” to measure length or storage capacity, we use the concept of time to measure a specific aspect of our universe: change.
Without change, there would be no time, because there would be no way to tell the difference between one moment and the next. In fact, there wouldn’t be any moments, per se. The concept of time merely gives us a way to understand and document change; without change, “time” is meaningless, just as the word “box” is meaningless without the thing it describes.
You might argue that it’s still possible to travel forward in time by entering a condition of stasis. This is at least theoretically possible – although the idea of “freezing” and “unfreezing” the human body is problematic in a practical sense and has not been achieved outside of science fiction. But think about it: We’re traveling forward in time anyway, so none of this would really change the nature of the way things work: You’d merely be altering a single physical element – the body – by prolonging its viability. Other than that, change would continue in the very same manner it otherwise would have.
(One could even argue that prolonging average human life span to more than 70 years from just over 30 at the start of the 20th century constitutes a form of forward time travel.)
To “go backward in time,” by contrast, would require far more than simply placing one small element of the universe into stasis. It would mean restoring the entire universe, down to the smallest subatomic particle, to the precise state in which it existed in 1776, 1492, 10 million years BC or whenever you wanted to go. To describe such a task as Herculean would be the biggest understatement of all time (pun intended).
So while it might be great fun to talk about slingshotting your way around the sun and finding yourself back in, say, medieval England or Biblical Judea, it ain’t gonna happen, folks. That’s why they call it science fiction.
It’s also why people like authors and poets, screenwriters, musicians and visual artists are so important. They can take us on journeys beyond the limits of this universe, into the only alternate universe any of us has ever really visited: our imagination.
The trip there and back again is no less a journey of discovery than any other adventure you can …
… imagine.
A writer’s voice is like his or her soul.
No offense to ghostwriters. I don’t mean to suggest you’re selling your soul by trying to sound like someone else. Everyone’s got to make a living, right?
Maybe that’s the problem, though. Writing is such a difficult way to make a living, that sometimes, it might seem like the best way to do so is to sound like someone else. I’m not just talking about ghostwriters. I’m talking about authors across the spectrum who can't help but feel the pressure to write the "next" Twilight or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter.
I have three words of advice: Resist that pressure.
Because ...
Your voice is your most precious commodity as a writer. You may feel like, as an author, you're on a leaky lifeboat in the middle of a storm-tossed sea (and what author hasn't felt that way at one point or another?) In such moments, the last thing you should throw overboard is your voice. That's your life-preserver.
The good news is that, contrary to what many readers believe, the vast majority of authors don’t make their living writing books. They’re journalists, science teachers, medical doctors, public relations professionals, website designers … you name it. Even many of those who have won awards use writing to supplement their incomes rather than to pay the rent.
This may not sound like good news, especially to the large number of authors who would love to quit their day jobs and make a living from their writing. But consider this: If you have a day job, it gives you the same kind of freedom authors like Rowling and King and Patterson have —the freedom to write whatever the hell you want.
If you’re a mid-range writer on a contract who’s struggling to make ends meet, you might have a lot of people telling you that you need to write specific things that sound like a specific someone else.
How much fun is that?
“I could never be a novelist because then I would have to stop being a ‘write-for-TV-sometimes-ist’ or whatever the things are that I want to work on,” bestselling author, scriptwriter, etc. Neil Gaiman said in a 2014 interview. “I have the freedom to write whatever I want, for example children’s books.”
Gaiman is, in fact, a novelist, and he’s written some very good fiction. His point is, he isn’t just a novelist. He’s other things, too, and he can afford to be those things because he's "made it."
What those of us with day jobs often fail to realize is that we can do the same thing. We may not be free to write as much as someone at the top of the pyramid, like Gaiman, but we do have the same kind of freedom. So instead of trying to “make it” by writing like someone else — and becoming entrenched in a less-than-creative process of grinding out the next not-quite-so-great fill-in-the-blank title, why not exercise that freedom?
I have a day job, and I don't make enough to live off writing books. Would I like to? Sure. But I’m luckier than most because my day job involves writing (I’m a newspaper editor/reporter) and exposes me to plenty of fodder for my off-the-clock writing.
That’s allowed me to, like Gaiman, explore a diverse array of topics and genres. I've written (as Stifyn Emrys) books that are philosophical and inspirational, and (under my own name), I've tackled speculative fiction and historical nonfiction.
As long as I don’t get caught up in worrying about “making it,” the process is a lot of fun. Plus, I get to keep my own voice.
My foremost criterion in writing each of the books I’ve written for Linden Publishing — Fresno Growing Up, Memortality and Highway 99 — has been originality. People had written about Fresno’s pioneer years before, but they hadn’t focused primarily on the Baby Boom generation. There are tons of books out there about Route 66, but Highway 99, which was similarly important out here on the West Coast, had received little such attention. As to Memortality, I have yet to run across another story that pairs the concept of a person’s eidetic (photographic) memory with a supernatural ability to raise the dead.
What fun is it to cover the same old ground, anyway?
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but I’ve never been interested in flattering anyone. I’ll stick to plain ol' sincerity and hope someone else likes what I’m putting out there. If so, I’ll be ecstatic. If not, I’ll still have had a ton of fun along the way.
Photo by Ray Dumas.
A good editor will:
But a good editor will never simply change your voice without consulting with you. Changing your voice without asking or just because it sounds better to the editor’s ear is not OK. (Your ear matters as much as or more than the editor’s — suggestions are fine; wholesale changes without consultation most definitely are not.)
If you come across an editor who wants to significantly change your voice, my advice is to run like hell, don't look back and keep on writing.
Fleetwood Mac released an album in 1973 titled "Mystery to Me." The cover featured a cartoon baboon sampling a cake, having apparently already taken a bite out of a book.
Four months have passed since the release of "Memortality," and readers have taken their first bite (not literally, I hope) out of this, my debut novel on Pace Press. I'm happy to say the reactions have been positive: a series of 4- and 5-star Amazon reviews, along with praise from respected literary magazines such as Amazing Stories and Foreword Reviews.
Many readers don't know how to categorize it. Is it fantasy? Science fiction? Horror? A spy novel? That's because I wrote to the story, not to the genre. I've never liked labels, so when my publisher called the novel "genre-breaking," it made me smile. I'm all about breaking down artificial boundaries, even if it makes things harder for booksellers to find the proper shelf for my novel.
I wasn't even sure whether to call it YA, new adult or adult fiction. Truth is, I wanted it to be all of the above. Hey, if J.K. Rowling could impress my then-octogenarian dad with a series of books written for kids, I figured that was a pretty good role model.
“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”
But one thing did surprise me most about the readers' reaction: Some classified it as a mystery. I definitely didn't set out to write a mystery. I've even been known to remark that I didn't think I'd ever write a mystery. For one thing, it's been my impression that good mysteries are elaborate exercises, and I'm mostly a "pantser," which is to say I write by the seat of my pants. I don't create elaborate outlines before sitting down to write a book. I start with a general concept and let the story take me wherever it wants to go.
When people say the word "mystery," I tend to thing of Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie and the like. But mystery, in the broader sense is about keeping the readers guessing; it's about sprinkling enough clues around in the plot to foreshadow a twist without giving it away. And I do love twists. If you haven't read "Memortality," it's got a great twist toward the end, if I do say so myself.
So maybe I did write a mystery, after all, even if, to quote that old album title, it wasn't a mystery to me.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
My name is Stephen, and I am not, repeat not, a workaholic.
It might look like I am at times, but these days, it’s easy to mistake someone who’s conscientious, driven and passionate about what he does for a workaholic.
What’s wrong with that, you ask?
If people think you’re doing something because you’re addicted to work, they’re likely to tell you to “take a load off,” “relax” or, my favorite, “Don’t take life too seriously.”
I have an offbeat (some might say warped) sense of humor, but I like a good laugh as much as the next person. If there’s anything I might be addicted to (other than caffeine), it’s puns. But addicted to work? You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s like accusing me of being addicted to exhaustion and stress, two of my least favorite things.
Another problem with being mistaken for a workaholic is that people overlook the real reasons you work as hard as you do. Here are a few:
All of the above apply to me. As a journalist, I want to make sure my newspaper contains high-quality content and is delivered on time, and I know it’s up to me and my reporter to make that happen.
As an author, I’m trying to establish a support framework (fellow authors and others in the industry; and, most importantly readers) in addition to doing the actual work of writing.
In order to give all this a chance to work, I have to establish clear boundaries. My work as a journalist comes first, because that’s my primary source of income. So, I make sure those goals are met first.
Sometimes, that means working outside the "normal" workday to cover a meeting or respond to breaking news. But that doesn’t mean I go out looking for extra work just for its own sake. I have books to write and market, too. So, on the weekends, I don’t do journalism unless 1) there’s a crisis involving breaking news, 2) my boss asks me to or 3) I need to in order to ensure the aforementioned quality and timeliness standards are met.
I became an author (and a journalist, for that matter) because I love to write. Most of the time, writing isn’t work to me; it’s pleasure. The stuff that goes along with it – the marketing, promotion and the networking – is necessary work. If I were a workaholic, I’d love that stuff. I don’t. Not even close.
Yes, it’s fun to meet other authors and talk to readers, but nine-hour drives to conventions aren’t kind to a 53-year-old body, so they’re not my idea of a good time.
(An aside: I don’t want people contacting me on social media or personal email about their pet peeves regarding the newspaper or telling me that one of my books sucks. Just put yourself in my position. Would you? I don’t think even workaholics enjoy that sort of thing.)
It’s easy to dismiss hardworking, conscientious people who are passionate about what they do as “workaholics,” as though there’s something wrong with them. But is there really? Aren’t hard work, conscientiousness and passion positive traits? They sure were when I was growing up, and I think they still are today.
So, the next time you see someone working hard, don’t assume the person's a masochist or workaholic. Far more likely, it's someone with a goal, a vision, a purpose. And chances are good that, if it's achieved, it will help make the world a little better place.
With the year drawing to a close, I decided to look back on the blogs I’ve posted in the past 12 months and noticed a theme: A lot of them involve politics.
It wasn’t my intention, when I started blogging, to spend so much time on political matters. An earlier blog I authored (no longer available online, sorry) was meant to do just that, but I wanted to move away from politics with this one.
I haven’t been entirely successful.
I could take the excuse that this election year has been so crazy it would have been hard not to write about it, and I suppose that’s true. In my defense, I’m not the only one who’s done it: A lot of very accomplished author friends have devoted considerable space to the news of the day in articles, blogs and social media posts.
Excuses aside, however, it raised the question of why.
First off, it occurred to me that outrage can be one of a writer’s greatest motivations. It’s also one of the easiest things to write about because it’s so obvious. If you’re irate about something, it’s often because the answer is so obvious (at least to you) that it might as well be screaming at you from a couple of inches in front of your nose … so you want to scream it at other people.
Obvious things are easy to write about, and we writers aren’t immune to the temptation of taking the easy way out. In some ways, we might be more susceptible to it than most: Writing – especially creative writing – can be laborious, so it can feel damned good to see the words just pouring out from your fingertips onto the screen in front of you.
Add to that the feel-good nature of a nice long rant – or a short, Twitter-pated one – and you’ve got a recipe for a lot of political posts, especially in a year such as this one.
There’s a second issue at play, however, that’s related to the first but is more fundamental. It involves the distinction between active (or creative) and reactive writing.
I’ve spent most of my career doing the latter, because it’s what a reporter or columnist does: He or she reacts to the news. This transitioned nicely for me into historical nonfiction (my books Fresno Growing Up, Highway 99), because writing about history is another sort of reactive writing. This is fairly easy, because the ingredients for a story are right in front of you. All you have to do is put it on the page.
That’s not to diminish the importance of telling the story well. In some ways, nonfiction is a bigger challenge: You can easily fall into the trap of parading events before the reader in a predictable chronology (“and then, and then, and then”) that will put a reader to sleep. This is how you get dry textbooks and newspaper articles full of jargon, wherein police “respond to the scene” and victims “sustain multiple contusions, lacerations and blunt-force trauma to the head.” Are you still awake? Me, neither.
That’s a challenge to a writer’s skill set, but not to his or her creativity, which is what comes into play with active writing.
A couple of years ago, I set about writing my first novel, Identity Break, and I remember being very excited about it. I had what I thought (and still think) was a great concept, and all I had to do was put it down on paper. I was still reacting to my own idea, but there was more work involved because I had to keep drawing on my own creativity to fill in the blanks. The novel, which I self-published, got some good reviews but didn’t create enough buzz to really take off, and what I had planned as a trilogy wound up truncated into a single book and a prequel novella called Artifice.
Fast forward a couple of years, and I decided to give novel-writing another go. Memortality started out as a “fun breather from non-fiction” after I’d finished Highway 99. Once again, I had a great concept – even better than Identity Break, and a lot more complex. It was that complexity, though, that exposed me to the real challenge of writing fiction: keeping the creative juices flowing while ensuring iy all made sense.
I told myself I never finished the sequel to Identity Break because I didn’t want to spend time on a project that wasn’t taking hold with readers, and that’s mostly true. But I also wasn’t as comfortable about active (fiction) writing as I was with (reactive) non-fiction, so it was easier to tap that well again for my next big project, which turned out to be Fresno Growing Up. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad I did. It has turned out to be far and away my most successful book to date.
That led me to the idea for Highway 99, and after I’d finished writing that, I plowed ahead with a similar work on U.S. Highway 101, thinking I’d found my niche. That was before I asked my publisher: “How would you prefer me to spend my time, working on 101 or putting together a sequel to Memortality?” I expected him to say the former, because Linden had always focused heavily on California history books and Memortality was its first fiction release. When he suggested I focus on the sequel, it threw me right back out of my comfort zone.
I finished writing that sequel last week, and I’m very pleased with the result (sorry, no title yet – I have one, but I’m keeping it under wraps for now). But it may be the most difficult book I’ve ever written. The more I wrote, the more I had to delve into my own creative space; the longer I had to rely on active, rather than reactive writing. In the end, I think the struggle paid off with a story that’s pretty damned inventive, if I do say so myself, and one I hope readers will find engaging.
But it was work. I’m used to having everything just flow, the way it has since I started writing in high school. Most of that writing, I now realize, was reactive. As a journalist, that’s what I’ve done for 30-plus years, so I’ve all but tamed that beast. Active writing is a different animal – one you don’t want to tame. You want to let it run loose and see where it takes you. I’ll need every one of the skills I learned as a journalist to keep up with it, but I’ll also need that little extra something known as inspiration.
It’s easy to react to the events of the day, especially if you’ve worked yourself up into a lather about them, so I don’t blame myself or my fellow writers for focusing so much on politics. I will admit, though, that seeing the same posts on the same subjects from the same people on social media day after day can get tedious, especially when I know the people making those posts are gifted, creative writers.
None of this is to say they should never write about politics again – or that I never will myself. My father was a political science professor, and I’m supposedly a distant relative of Alexander Hamilton, so it’s a family tradition. Nor am I going to stop writing about history: It’s just too damned much fun (go ahead, call me weird). What I will say is I have a lot of respect for writers to delve into their creative reservoirs and have the guts to engage in active writing, and I can understand why George R.R. Martin might take a while to produce the next “Song of Ice and Fire” novel.
This stuff ain’t easy, but that’s part of what makes it so rewarding.
Note: I'll be speaking periodically about a related topic, "Making History With Your Writing: The Past as Every Author's Inspiration," at various presentations. Check the Events page for details.
Do people pay attention to books anymore, or do they wait for the Hollywood adaptation to care? Do they understand the power of allegory, or are they content to go looking for something on the surface that might offend, and then use that something the basis for dismissing a story entirely?
Three years ago, Ransom Riggs released a fabulous book called “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.” This story held particular fascination for me, not only because it was deftly told, but because it was based on old photos the author had collected at flea markets, swap meets, antique shops, etc.
I’ve never met Riggs, but I like to think of him something of a kindred spirit. The old photos he collected inspired his fiction in much the same way that my own historical research provided the inspiration for my novel “Memortality.”
But despite the book’s quality and popularity, the story didn’t make its way into the nation’s collective consciousness until it was adapted into a Tim Burton movie. And now, much of the attention is focused not on the story, but on a controversy over whether the film’s cast was diverse enough.
I think that’s a shame – not because diversity isn’t worthy of attention (I wrote a book about it titled “Undefeated”) – but because the furor seems to be overshadowing a fantastic story.
Before I go any further, a few personal thoughts: In addition to being a fan of Riggs’ book, I found the movie enjoyable. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Burton’s, but I’m not a detractor, either. I’ve enjoyed some of his movies over the years, while others I found to be so heavy on style that they overwhelmed the substance.
I’m also well aware that Hollywood has far too often ignored clear opportunities for diverse casting, particularly (Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Edward James Olmos have been rare exceptions) in lead roles.
But here are two questions worth asking:
The first question leads to the second because, as far as I could tell, the characters in Riggs’ book weren’t particularly diverse … in the conventional sense. I don’t recall reading explicit references to characters who were identified as racial minorities, and the vintage photos the author included in the book depicted, by and large, white children.
So Burton’s casting was based largely on Riggs’ writing, which, in turn, was based largely on those photos he found at flea markets and swap meets. Does that make Riggs somehow tone-deaf to the issue of diversity?
No, it doesn’t. For one thing, the story includes strong female characters, such as Miss Peregrine and Emma, who appear to be more formidable than any of the male characters. For another, some of the characters are Jewish, and the story takes place in the midst of World War II, when people of Jewish ancestry were the most persecuted individuals on the planet. The explicit comparison the author makes between the Nazis (human monsters) and the hollowghasts (paranormal monsters) couldn’t be clearer.
Even more to the point, the “peculiar” children are depicted as having to hide in a time loop to escape the cruelty of those who would persecute them for being different. And on top of that, each child is different in his or her own unique way: One floats unless she’s held down by heavy shoes; another spits out bees; another transplants hearts into robotic models.
The cast of characters is, in fact, nothing if not diverse. It’s not about skin color or ethnic background; the point is made allegorically, and very effectively.
I applaud J.K. Rowling for suggesting that Dumbledore was gay and saying that “white skin was never specified” when she created the character of Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter books. But the story doesn’t live or die by the sexual orientation of its characters or their skin color. It stands on its own. So does Riggs’.
And that’s the point here. Would there have been a salad bowl of Asian, black, Native American and people of other ethnic backgrounds in 1942 on a remote island off the coast of Wales, where much of the book is set? My hunch is there wouldn’t have been.
In fact, it's more than just a hunch: According to one estimate, there were around 7,000 blacks in the United Kingdom as of 1940, out of a total population of 48 million. That pencils out to 1.4 one-hundredth of one percent.
So most likely, the town depicted in Riggs' book have been populated almost entirely - if not exclusively - by people with pale skin and Welsh ancestry. Ethnic minorities within this group would have been (following Riggs’ World War II allegory) children at the home with Jewish names such as Jacob Portman – whose grandfather, in a biblical parallel, is named Abraham – and Emma Bloom.
The first responsibility of any author or filmmaker is to remain true to the world you’ve created, not the world your audience is living in. If you create a less-believable story to placate potential critics, you’re doing a disservice to the rest of your audience.
Riggs recognized this, and he understood the power of allegory to make an important point about diversity and human nature. Both of these things helped make “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” the success it has become. And I, for one, wouldn't change a thing.
Note: Creative freedom is no less important than and, indeed, is a vital element of free expression. It cannot and should not be compromised to those who would burn books on either the altar of bigotry or its equally tainted counterpart, the shrine of political correctness. For more on this subject, see my blog titled "Micromanaging creativity in the name of diversity undermines them both."
“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”
So said Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs (aka the Wizard of Oz) in the 1939 movie adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s classic fantasy.
The wizard, of course, wasn’t really a wizard at all. He was nothing more than a charlatan – a con man.
In writing this piece, I wondered to myself: Did Baum, in some sense, see himself as the wizard – an impostor hiding behind a curtain, performing marvelous feats that were really nothing more than tricks or sleight of hand?
Many of us authors do.
No small number of us are prone to viewing ourselves as men and women behind a curtain. Our books serve as our magical veil, which both connects us to and protects us from the outside world.
Many of us are loners who never quite fathomed the social games played by our more outgoing peers – even though we studied them scrupulously in the hope, perhaps, of imitating them. Of pretending to be a series of someones we’re not.
There’s a name for this: It's called “impostor syndrome.”
Those of us afflicted by it become so accustomed to playing roles that we wind up thinking it’s the only way to succeed.
But then, if someone happens to catch a glimpse of that “man behind the curtain,” we feel certain we’ve been found out. We aren’t real authors, after all. We’re just play-acting, and worst of all, we’ve failed in the one thing we believe we just might be good at: putting one over on the public at large through some elaborate ruse.
When we do venture out of our literary cocoon for book signings, presentations, conventions and the like, we often take great care to avoid any possible missteps. We don’t want to give off even the slightest hint that we might be something less than the larger-than-life image we’ve projected onto that curtain. It’s called keeping up appearances … or, to our way of thinking, maintaining the illusion.
Writing is both the perfect and absolute worst profession for those of us suffering from impostor syndrome. It’s perfect because it allows us to relate to the world in a very intimate way, scrawling or typing out insights and details that other, less observant sorts, are wont to miss. Yet in the same moment, it denies us the very intimacy we crave because it separates the real “us” from the world we’ve been so carefully observing.
We can create worlds of our own in which to find refuge from the real one, wherein reside all manner of critics ready to expose us as the frauds we’re certain we really are.
Our writing is our curtain.
But that veil of protection can’t shield us from our own desire for acceptance … which we’ve merely transferred from ourselves to our writing. Our baby. And, lo and behold, those critics out there are just as eager to bully and ridicule that baby as they were to assail us.
So we’re right back where we started.
Scathing reviews confirm that we are not now, nor were we ever, “real” writers. So do those rejection slips and emails, which bombard us as long as we keep sending out query letters.
Are you seeking affirmation? Adulation? If so, you might want to think twice about becoming a writer. Fame isn’t part of the job description unless your name is Rowling or King or Patterson. Achieving even a cult following is a major accomplishment.
And job security? Forget it – your chances of making a cushy living as a writer are akin to your chances of making it in the NBA.
Being a writer will most likely make you appreciate the day job you’ve held for the past 10 years a lot more. (Most of us have to keep our day jobs, by the way.) Think for a moment about that 8-to-5 job. Now imagine having to reapply for that position every time you completed a project. Imagine sending out another resume, going through another series of interviews, enduring another background check every six months or so just to keep doing the same job you were already hired to do.
Unless you have a contract that covers more than one book, that’s part of what it means to be a writer.
Repeated rejections are the last thing you need if you’re struggling with impostor syndrome. At best, they’ll reinforce the feeling that you’re just not “worthy” (whatever that means); at worst, they’ll make you feel like even more of a pretender. “I knew I was never any good in the first place, and this just confirms it.”
Even successes are often rationalized away as flukes.
“I may have sold one novel, but who knows if I’ll ever sell another!”
“Yes, I sold a few thousand copies, but it’s not enough to pay the bills, so I’m obviously a failure.”
“I didn’t win that award I was up for. Those readers who bought my book? Sure fooled them!”
Or, conversely: “I won some award? Big deal. People still aren’t buying my book. I must have done a real snow job on those judges!”
See what you’re doing here? Not only are you denigrating your own work, you’re insulting your audience – whether it be the people who’ve bought your book or the judges who thought it merited an award. Nobody wins here. You’re only accomplishing one thing: perpetuating the singularly pernicious illusion that your talent is all just an illusion.
The curtain is suffocating you.
This is the challenge authors face when they find themselves enmeshed in impostor syndrome, and it’s why you’ll hear so many of us encouraging one another to ignore the bad reviews, wear rejection letters like a badge of honor and, above all, keep writing, even if no one seems to care or even notice.
But perhaps most important piece of encouragement anyone can offer is the reminder that the writing is its own reward. When it comes right down to it, our writing isn’t really a curtain at all. It’s more like a prism that allows us to fashion our “inner light” into an array of colors that we can send forth in unique patterns at impossible angles to illumine the world around us. We get to discover ourselves and, in the process, offer the world at large a ticket on its own voyage of discovery.
What could be more exciting than that?
Despite what we might tell ourselves in moments of self-doubt and frustration, we writers aren’t impostors at all. We’re explorers.
An impostor can only mimic what’s come before. It’s an explorer’s unique privilege is to go forth in search of something new – and, upon finding it, to unveil it for the rest of the world do see.
Then, suddenly, the curtain is gone. And the wonders we've hidden behind it are unveiled in all their glory.
Writers are born, not made … or is it the other way around? The nature-versus-nurture debate has baffled philosophers for millennia, as though there were some definitive answer to be had.
But is there really?
We’re keen on labeling and compartmentalizing things for our own convenience, and there’s something to be said for that. It’s helpful in determining whether the leftovers in the fridge are beef stroganoff or Fancy Feast.
But we creative types don’t tend to like leftovers. We’re all about cooking up something new (even if it is a new perspective on something old, like highway history, for instance). I’ve written about everything from my hometown’s history to ancient religion; I’ve penned a children’s fairy tale and a paranormal adventure. There’s no formula to any of it, but there’s common thread: It all stems from the kind of curiosity that might prompt our cat Tyrion to forgo the Fancy Feast for the stroganoff if he happened to discover it lying on out on the kitchen counter.
“Ooooooooh! Something newwwwwwww! Imma gonna try it!”
Curiosity is that singular trait that sets writers (and other creative types) apart from the crowd. It’s also the one thing that ties nature and nurture together in a package – even if that package is anything but neat. It’s a swirling, seething ever-shifting sea of endless discovery and transformation. What comes next? What’s over there? How did we get here?
When it’s not killing the cat (and most of the time, it’s not), curiosity is like a perfectly sustainable engine of renewal and reimagining. It’s a natural part of who we are, but it leads us to seek out new information, refine our craft and take the next step in our artistic development. It’s the part of our nature that nurtures us. Can we all start singing “The Circle of Life” now?
Seriously, instead of trying to figure out whether a good writer is born or made, follow in the footsteps of Puss in Boots and Pangur Bán. Get curious. Explore, discover and write about what you find, whether it be in the recesses of the past, the pages of some forgotten tome or the back alleys of your own imagination.
The more you nurture your own creative nature, the more accomplished you’ll become – and the more fun you’ll have.
Hakuna matata.
Note: The accompanying photo does not constitute evidence concerning Schrödinger's cat. It's our own tuxedo-attired Tyrion, who's very much alive and, despite his innate curiosity, often likes to think inside the box.
Over the past five years, I’ve written nearly a dozen freestanding books of various lengths, a couple of short stories, dozens of newspaper columns and more blog entries than I can count.
Why do I do it? Why pursue an occupation that many find daunting to consider and grueling to pursue?
Because I can? No, because I must.
I don’t have any choice. “Writer’s block” to me is nothing more than an excuse not to get started (most often) or not to continue (occasionally). It’s a phantom menace, the voice of the wolf inside my head that I don’t feed very often because the other wolf is a lot hungrier.
George Orwell posited that, putting aside the need to earn a living, there are four great motives for writing prose:
Sheer egoism: “Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc.”
Aesthetic enthusiasm: “Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement.”
Historical impulse: “Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.”
Political purpose: “Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after.”
Guilty on all counts. Orwell’s “1984” left a lasting impression on me as a young adult, both for its creativity in fashioning an alternate universe and for its insights into the human condition.
I share each of the four motives he mentioned, but all of them together aren’t what keeps me writing. One thing does: Like Orwell, I’m able to create an alternate universe. And, to be blunt, I like it better there.
Novelists create new worlds; writers of non-fiction revisit old ones. I’ve had the privilege of doing both. As an author of paranormal fantasy/science fiction, I get to imagine what life would be like if the rules were different, if the world were more vibrant, if the challenges less mundane and the means of answering them more noble. Who wants to worry about paying bills, going to the doctor or attending some pointless meeting when you can imagine yourself slaying a dragon – or, far better yet, befriending one?
As an author of historical nonfiction, I get to travel back in time and visit worlds that have passed into memory. I wrote a book about my hometown as it was during my childhood and another about the history of a long-traveled highway. Sorry, H.G. Wells, but I don’t need your time machine. I can research and write my way back into a world that might otherwise have passed to oblivion. Talk about power. Talk about responsibility.
It’s not that I don’t like this world. I have a wonderful wife, two stepsons who are maturing into proverbial “fine young men,” a father who loves me and two cats who provide unconditional affection (they do demand a bowl of kibble and a rub behind the ears, but that’s beside the point). I live in a beautiful town where I don’t have to choose between the beach and the forest and the foothills, because it’s got all three. What’s not to like?
In response, I refer you back to the earlier reference to bills, health concerns, meetings … you get the picture.
I write because, in doing so, I can escape such mundane concerns. I write because I have the audacity to believe that I can create a world more exciting, more honorable, less bitter and less tragic than the one in which I live. A world where whimsy and nostalgia vanquish bigotry and heartache and disease – maybe not every time (a good story has to have conflict, after all), but enough to keep hope alive that I’m headed for a happy ending.
There have been times in this life when I’ve lacked that hope, and it was then that I started writing, first in the angst of teenage isolation, then in the aftermath of job loss and divorce. I suppose that means there’s something to the old cliché about affliction stoking the fires of creativity, which makes this musing something of a paradox: Torment set my pen in motion, a chariot upon which I can escape that self-same torment.
But that paradox no longer matters. I’ve fallen in love with writing, and now that life is good again, I’m not about to quit. This is one of those “till death do us part” things, with one singularly fascinating caveat: My writing will survive me, and will carry a portion of me into the afterlife of the printed page.
That’s something Orwell touched upon in his nod to egoism: Writing offers a taste of immortality achieved through memory preserved – of "memortality," if you will. (I like how that sounds.) And though it’s a taste and nothing more, it’s enough to whet the appetite for what lies beyond. In the next line, on the next page, in the next chapter.
To visit worlds where I’d like to live – and worlds that will outlive me.
This is why I write.
This is why I’ll never stop.
What does it take to be a successful author? First, you might want to ask yourself what it means to be a successful author. Since writing's about communication, Job One is to communicate with your reader. If you can do that, everything else is likely to follow: good reviews, a publisher and yes, maybe a few extra dollars. But ignore those things when you're writing or you'll never get there. To get you started, here are seven tips on how to go about it.
You can't write a book if you don't know how to write a sentence. Don't tell yourself, "The editor will fix that." Two simple facts: No editor will know or care as much about your work as you do. If you use your editor as a crutch, it means you're limping along, and you need to be in the best shape of your life to do this. If your editor is anything but a last line of defense, you're using him/her wrong. You are the expert on your story, so act like it. Care enough to understand language and how to use it. This doesn't mean following your eighth-grade English teacher's rules religiously. Dialogue, for example, should be true to your characters - the rules of grammar be damned. But here's Tip A1: You need to know the rules so you can know when to break them.
Yes, some journalists get lazy and rely on a "paint by numbers" approach to writing. Too often, they fall into the habit of relying on the same clichés passed along to them by police chiefs and public information officers. But they have one advantage most other writers don't: a hard deadline. They can't take the day off because they have "writer's block" or feel like sleeping in. They can't tell their editors they "don't feel like writing today." I asked bestselling author John Scalzi how his background in journalism helped him in his career as an author. This was his answer: The deadlines he faced gave him the discipline to write consistently.
Remember when Chevy Chase blindfolded himself in "Caddyshack" and hit the golf ball onto the green? Maybe you don't. (After all, the movie came out in 1980.) His character's advice was to "be the ball." This doesn't mean you should blindfold yourself while you're writing. That probably won't work too well. But it is a good idea to block out distractions and put yourself in the middle of the action. Imagine you're the protagonist or, if you're writing nonfiction, one of the people affected by the events you're describing. The more you're a part of the story, the more invested you are; the better you can describe what's happening and, even more important, the what the characters are feeling. If you like living in your world enough to stay there for eight hours straight writing about it, chances are your readers will, too.
This is not the same as "writing the way you speak." If you were to do that, the result might not even be coherent. You're a storyteller, so tell a story. Spin a yarn. Don't write a thesis or a form letter. You're not trying to impress people with your vocabulary or talk down to them like a second-grade teacher. You're trying to grab and keep their attention. If you start writing like a bureaucrat or a textbook writer, no one's going to want to read your stuff. Even other bureaucrats fall asleep reading small print, and students have to read textbooks, but they don't want to, do they? Reading should be fun, so have fun with your writing. Your attitude will come through.
Seriously. Is your name Oprah Winfrey or Michael Jordan, Kennedy or Reagan? If not, most people probably aren't going to want to read about your life. Even if you're the best writer since Stephen King, few people outside your immediate family will want to read about the time your Aunt Mabel fell asleep in her mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner when you were 7. Nothing against you or your Aunt Mabel, but subject matter matters. Readers want something they can relate to (yes, that's a dangling modifier, but see Tip 1A). Too many writers use the tired admonition to "write what you know" as an excuse to write about their own lives. The trick is to infuse your writing with what you've learned from your experiences, not relate those experiences verbatim and call them a story.
What's around the next bend, over the next hill? Write like you can't wait to find out, and you'll give your readers that same passion for your story. You've heard the advice to "write like a reader," which is good as far as it goes. But go further. If you're reading a good story, you'll want to be an explorer, too. The writing will pull you along, and you'll be eager to turn the page to find out what happens next. Write with that same desire, with a passion to learn about your characters and the world you're describing; your readers will pick up on that and go along for the roller-coaster ride.
Be fearless. Don't worry about what happens if your manuscript doesn't sell. There aren't agents or publishers, queries or rejection letters in the world you're creating for your readers. You can be whoever you want to be, and that's the beauty of it. Your last book didn't catch on? So start the next one (you should have started it already). Stop thinking about your boss' demands, your favorite video game, the dirty dishes, your Facebook friends or the big game on TV. The minute you pause to let the "real world" intrude upon your creative process, you'll lose the flow and find yourself out of the zone. That zone is your gateway to success.
