As everybody knows, it's essential as a writer to read in order to gain a greater understanding of how language works, how novels are constructed, how characters are created, what works and what doesn't. Sometimes it's kind of annoying though. Not that reading is annoying. I love reading. But sometimes I wish I could completely submerge into a book and not analyze it at all. Not think like I'm a writer trying to deconstruct. Okay, so it would an exaggeration to imply that my mind is always working like that. Sometimes I do get sucked in and forget about analyzing craft at all. But usually, at some point in a book I have this commentary going on in my brain that is about how it's written rather than what's going to happen next in the story. But the advantage of that is obvious. I feel like I'm always gaining new appreciation for writing that I hope I can then apply to my own work.
When I was a kid I never understood how my dad could read more than one book at a time. He always had a handful of books with bookmarks sticking out of the top. They sat next to his bed in piles. He read often, but what was the point? How could he "get into" a book reading that way? And now I've become him. I haven't counted up the number of books I'm in the middle of right now, but it's probably in the double digits. Some of that is due to the variety of things I read. For instance, I've read some stories from a collection, marked how far I am, but then not returned for a bit. Does that count as being "in the middle" of a book? Or how about a collection of essays? Then there are science books about theories on the brain or addressing big questions of nature versus nurture. Dipping in and out of that over time isn't the same as setting down a novel in the middle, right?
But, alas, I also have several novels I'm in the middle of. Part of the issue is that I don't feel the same obligation to read a book to its conclusion that I felt when I was younger. For the first twenty years or so of my life, I almost never put a book down unfinished without returning to it. If it was boring, well, I had to plod through. If it was interesting but I wasn't quite in the mood for it, too bad. I had to finish that one before I could start another. Now, however, if a book fails to hold my attention, I feel little guilt about setting it down and picking up something else. The problem, however, is that I often am interested in a book, want to finish it, but it's not absolutely compelling me to read, so I set it down with every intention of picking it up only to start another book. So at the moment I'm probably in the middle of a few novels that I plan on finishing, but for whatever reason they weren't holding my interest every second.
So, back to the issue of learning from writing. I've been thinking that it's a good idea to read more widely than I've always done in the past few years. In grad school, they tell you to read widely, but then that's not really what they encourage you to read in classes and for the comps exams. You pretty much stick to "classics" and "literary" stuff. I like a lot of that, sure, but what about the majority of what people actually read. I work at a bookstore, and not only do we only carry a handful of the type of book I studied in grad school, but what we do have, we rarely sell. In fact, the store has probably sold more of that since I started working there than in the previous year because I keep recommending stuff to customers or buying stuff for myself. So when professors tell us to read widely, do they actually mean to read as widely as possible, or do they merely mean we should read both James Joyce and Italo Calvino?
One problem with only studying classics or literary stuff is that it's often difficult to get much from those as far as learning what those writers do. I was reading a Philip Roth book last fall, and rather than thinking, "Ah, here's how he puts this stuff together; I need to try that myself," I kept simply being stunned by how good it was, yet completely unsure why it was so good since he seemed to be breaking a whole slew of the craft rules I learned in workshops. I'm actually not sure how much can be gained by studying the masters. They might simply be so far above the rest of us that they're untouchable.
However, I think we can learn a lot from writers whose work actually sells to normal people. For one thing, there's the major question of why does this appeal to the average reader? That's an issue that is pretty much never addressed in grad school. All the discussion of craft and character and language, and we never really think about what the average paperback buyer is looking for when they choose something to read on the plane. And sometimes, I fully admit, it's easy to dismiss what is popular as "bad" writing. I've picked up a few bestsellers and read a few pages only to shake my head and wonder how anybody can get through this junk. And yet more people are interested in that, so there must be something there, right? I wish my grad school experience had devoted some time to looking carefully at popular genres to deconstruct what is so appealing to so many. About the only time a class touched on those issues was the screenwriting class, and I still feel that class may have been the most useful course I took in grad school. One of the main things we discussed was the need to not bore the audience, which didn't seem to be much of a concern in the workshop courses. Or there was the class on "Forms of Fiction." Rather than thinking of different genres as taking on different forms, our only concern was literary fiction, often classic stuff that (in my view anyway) bears little relevance to twenty-first century writing. I mean the techniques that were cool and innovative two hundred years ago are simply clichéd now, and you can't get away with that.
This post is probably going on too long, but I've got something specific I want to mention. I was working at the bookstore the other day, and it was slow, so I grabbed the nearest book off a display by the register and started reading. As you might guess, the prominently displayed book was a big bestseller, and in this case the cover featured an image from the movie that was just coming out based on the book. All right, I figured, I'll see what the big deal is with this book, why we sell so many, why they made a movie of it, why this writer is rich now. The book was Confessions of a Shopoholic by Sophie Kinsella. So while the store was nearly empty, I read the first few pages. And you know what? I wound up buying the book that day. It is hysterical. And there's a lot to be learned about craft from it. Not only does it present a clear lesson on the value of humor, how that can compel a reader to keep going (I laugh out loud probably every couple of pages and even more often I smile laugh on the inside), but it's also a fine example of irony. A writer studying the use of the deluded protagonist-narrator who doesn't see the world as it is and is constantly at odds with that world in an effort to protect herself from its challenges could do much worse than studying this book. I'm sure Confessions of a Shopoholic would be dismissed in a graduate "forms of fiction" course. In fact, I once spent a whole class listening to my professor try and fail to explain why Jane Austen is not chick lit because Austen is so great and wonderful while chick lit is stupid fluff (apparently Austen is funny and uses irony well to comment on society, which as I've now seen is exactly what Kinsella does, only more successfully in my opinion).
Anyway, I'd say I've gotten off track a bit, but I'm not sure I was ever on a track to begin with. So here's the thing: Not only am I fully engaged with Kinsella, but I also feel like I can learn something about how to write effectively, how to appeal to a reader. Roth, on the other hand, engages me, but also leaves me completely awed nearly to the point of paralysis because I can never do what he does, or if I can I haven't figured it out yet. Not to suggest that I'm on the level of Kinsella at this point, either, but she seems attainable.
I realize that some of my thoughts here seem to be in direct contradiction to my previous post about high concepts. After all, Kinsella's book is about a financial journalist who is completely out of control with her personal finances. It's utterly high concept. And that's the case with so many genre works. But maybe there's something valuable to learn from them still.
Showing posts with label genre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genre. Show all posts
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
High Concept
It seems the trick to writing a publishable book is to write one that is "high concept." I keep encountering that idea in articles on writing and information about how to land an agent. That's what sells. It's what people want to read. Sure, you might write a character-driven literary novel (that may be redundant; I once heard "literary fiction" defined as fiction that is character-driven rather than plot-driven), but unless you have a high concept, nobody cares.
I don't mean to sound bitter. Honestly, I'm way too young to be bitter yet. Give me another ten or fifteen years, and then maybe I'll be bitter. But I don't care for this whole high concept thing. You have to put a twist onto your idea or combine genres or whatever to make it something new. What's wrong with simply having interesting characters and engaging writing? Not to suggest that my writing is the best out there or anything. It's possible my book is still nothing but crap, but in general, does anybody even publish anything that isn't high concept anymore?
I was working today on getting some new agent queries together. I haven't sent out any for a while because I'm not very happy with my query letter. I just don't know how to express what my novel is about in a few sentences so an agent might actually want to read it. When I think about what my book is about, I'm forced to acknowledge that it's simply not high concept at all.
So I was looking through this blog where an agent goes through queries and offers critiques. I hoped maybe I'd learn something valuable about how to put together a solid synopsis that would hook an agent's interest. Many of the queries were so bad as to be comical, and it was fun to read the agent's sardonic criticism of those. But then there were the queries that the agent liked and suggested she would request the manuscript if she received that query. And those successful queries all struck me as dumb. They described the kinds of books that certainly get published--I work at a bookstore and see books that I wouldn't want to read come in all the time--but they didn't actually sound interesting or like they would be very good. They seemed like soap operas because they all had such crazy high stakes or big twists.
Now maybe this is simply an issue of that agent's taste differing from mine. It's harsh and judgmental for me to say that those are dumb or bad books when all I mean is that they don't appeal to me. But it strikes me that it is more than simply a taste issue, that the trend in publishing is so much in favor of high concept that something else doesn't even stand a chance. Unless a book is written by an already established author, it can't break in without that something extra. And my problem is that sometimes books that I like suffer (at least in my opinion) from their high concepts. I'd rather read low concept stuff, but it's not even out there.
For instance, I read Tom Perrotta's Joe College last year. I liked it. I thought it was about eighty-five percent great. But then it had this high concept plot diversion that seemed like a complete distraction to me. The story is primarily about a young man from a working-class background in his junior year (maybe senior year) at Yale. There's a bunch of stuff going on that make it an interesting story. The character is drawn to two different women, one unattainable, the other not so desirable once she's attained. He's stuck between two worlds--that of Yale and the townies--as he's pulled between the two women. And then he goes home for spring break and drives his dad's lunch truck. I'm totally engaged up to this point. But then there's this whole side plot involving pseudo-mafioso characters fighting over lunch truck territory. That part of the plot makes it (in my mind anyway) veer into the territory of high concept, and I think the book would have been better off if all of that were cut out.
Another one that comes to mind is Michael Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It's a similar story in that it features young characters struggling with romance and identity. But again there's a mafia side plot as well as a character suddenly discovering he's gay even though he's lived for twenty-two years without ever noticing that about himself before (I'll admit I might not be remembering the details quite accurately since it's been a number of years since I read the book, but the way I remember it is that the gay subplot felt tacked on and artificial, but maybe it's a difference in the way homosexuality is understood today compared to twenty years ago). Anyway, if the story was simply about a character struggling to figure out what to do with himself after college, I'd be completely with it. Add in those high concept plot elements, and I get turned off.
Hell, even those new Pirates of the Caribbean movies go off track by getting too high concept. What's wrong with a good ol' fashioned pirate movie? Why do they also have to be ghosts?
So as I kept looking over sample query letters I felt less and less confident that my book will ever be able to attract any agent interest. I think my only hope will be to enter it into contests or send it to small presses that publish literary rather than commercial fiction because my book isn't high concept, I don't think I can disguise it as high concept, and I don't want it to be high concept.
Maybe my only course of action is to continue moving forward with my next books and let this novel gather dust for awhile. I'm revising my children's book, and it's closer to high concept since it's a fantasy story. Then my next literary book that I'm in the early stages of generating material for is also more high concept than what I've previously done. I think I'll stand a better chance of coming up with a one sentence hook, anyway. Then maybe if I land an agent or publishing deal with those I could pull out the old low concept novel and sneak it onto the agent's desk.
I don't mean to sound bitter. Honestly, I'm way too young to be bitter yet. Give me another ten or fifteen years, and then maybe I'll be bitter. But I don't care for this whole high concept thing. You have to put a twist onto your idea or combine genres or whatever to make it something new. What's wrong with simply having interesting characters and engaging writing? Not to suggest that my writing is the best out there or anything. It's possible my book is still nothing but crap, but in general, does anybody even publish anything that isn't high concept anymore?
I was working today on getting some new agent queries together. I haven't sent out any for a while because I'm not very happy with my query letter. I just don't know how to express what my novel is about in a few sentences so an agent might actually want to read it. When I think about what my book is about, I'm forced to acknowledge that it's simply not high concept at all.
So I was looking through this blog where an agent goes through queries and offers critiques. I hoped maybe I'd learn something valuable about how to put together a solid synopsis that would hook an agent's interest. Many of the queries were so bad as to be comical, and it was fun to read the agent's sardonic criticism of those. But then there were the queries that the agent liked and suggested she would request the manuscript if she received that query. And those successful queries all struck me as dumb. They described the kinds of books that certainly get published--I work at a bookstore and see books that I wouldn't want to read come in all the time--but they didn't actually sound interesting or like they would be very good. They seemed like soap operas because they all had such crazy high stakes or big twists.
Now maybe this is simply an issue of that agent's taste differing from mine. It's harsh and judgmental for me to say that those are dumb or bad books when all I mean is that they don't appeal to me. But it strikes me that it is more than simply a taste issue, that the trend in publishing is so much in favor of high concept that something else doesn't even stand a chance. Unless a book is written by an already established author, it can't break in without that something extra. And my problem is that sometimes books that I like suffer (at least in my opinion) from their high concepts. I'd rather read low concept stuff, but it's not even out there.
For instance, I read Tom Perrotta's Joe College last year. I liked it. I thought it was about eighty-five percent great. But then it had this high concept plot diversion that seemed like a complete distraction to me. The story is primarily about a young man from a working-class background in his junior year (maybe senior year) at Yale. There's a bunch of stuff going on that make it an interesting story. The character is drawn to two different women, one unattainable, the other not so desirable once she's attained. He's stuck between two worlds--that of Yale and the townies--as he's pulled between the two women. And then he goes home for spring break and drives his dad's lunch truck. I'm totally engaged up to this point. But then there's this whole side plot involving pseudo-mafioso characters fighting over lunch truck territory. That part of the plot makes it (in my mind anyway) veer into the territory of high concept, and I think the book would have been better off if all of that were cut out.
Another one that comes to mind is Michael Chabon's Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It's a similar story in that it features young characters struggling with romance and identity. But again there's a mafia side plot as well as a character suddenly discovering he's gay even though he's lived for twenty-two years without ever noticing that about himself before (I'll admit I might not be remembering the details quite accurately since it's been a number of years since I read the book, but the way I remember it is that the gay subplot felt tacked on and artificial, but maybe it's a difference in the way homosexuality is understood today compared to twenty years ago). Anyway, if the story was simply about a character struggling to figure out what to do with himself after college, I'd be completely with it. Add in those high concept plot elements, and I get turned off.
Hell, even those new Pirates of the Caribbean movies go off track by getting too high concept. What's wrong with a good ol' fashioned pirate movie? Why do they also have to be ghosts?
So as I kept looking over sample query letters I felt less and less confident that my book will ever be able to attract any agent interest. I think my only hope will be to enter it into contests or send it to small presses that publish literary rather than commercial fiction because my book isn't high concept, I don't think I can disguise it as high concept, and I don't want it to be high concept.
Maybe my only course of action is to continue moving forward with my next books and let this novel gather dust for awhile. I'm revising my children's book, and it's closer to high concept since it's a fantasy story. Then my next literary book that I'm in the early stages of generating material for is also more high concept than what I've previously done. I think I'll stand a better chance of coming up with a one sentence hook, anyway. Then maybe if I land an agent or publishing deal with those I could pull out the old low concept novel and sneak it onto the agent's desk.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Current project
So I ended last time without actually getting to what I'm working on now. As I wrote before I was floundering after finishing my previous novel and having trouble really sinking into something new. I bounced around a little bit, but for one reason or another, I wasn't ready to begin on a few of my other novel ideas. But I had one left. While most of my ideas are more in the realm of "literary" fiction (although I'm not necessarily a fan of that term and it's pretentious associations), I had one idea for a fantasy novel. This idea began building in my head a few years ago, and maybe a year or so ago I thought about the possibility of making the main character younger and thus, it could be a young adult fantasy instead of straight fantasy.
Now I have nothing against fantasy. I'm not one of those MFA types who looks down on genre fiction as less worthy or significant. It's all just entertainment, and whichever appeals more to you, that's just fine. As it happens, I simply prefer stuff in the "literary" mode, where it's about real characters in real world situations, where nobody's been murdered, and there's not a terrorist attack about to happen in a matter of hours if our hero can't prevent it. Even as I write that, I realize there's a bit of a snarky tone there, which I don't really want. I have gotten into some of those types of stories before (I've read everything Thomas Harris has published; I've stayed up late into the night to finish a James Patterson novel). The one genre that I have been most attracted to in my life is fantasy. Between the time I learned to read and the time I finished high school, probably the majority of my reading time was spent on fantasy novels. However, at some point in there, I'd say the change occurred in my late teens, I just sort of lost interest. My tastes changed. I didn't lose any respect for the art, but I didn't want to spend my time on it either.
So, that brings me to the point where I am in my late twenties contemplating writing a fantasy novel. A few things stand in my way. One: I'm not sure whether I'll have the excitement and interest in the project to work on it for the necessary length of time required to produce something good. After all, I spent years on my first two literary novels, and it's not fair (I guess I see it as disrespectful to the genre) to think I could just bang one out without putting in the same kind of hard work rewriting, revising, editing, etc. But would my passion be sufficient to keep me going through all those months of work on a genre that I am no longer in love with? Two: I haven't read a fantasy novel in years. Sure, I've seen the Lord of the Rings Movies and Harry Potter. I've even listened to the audiobooks of Harry Potter (read by the amazing Jim Dale), but it's been about a decade since I was actively part of that literary community, where I consumed many books and had a good understanding of its conventions and tropes. I'm afraid that if I tried my hand at this genre, I would unknowingly produce a story riddled with cliches that fans of the genre would abhore. I believe it's important to do one's research and to know about the kind of story one is writing. I'm sure if I tried to write a mystery, for example, I would produce something that didn't go beyond the conventions of the earliest type of mystery story. Sherlock Holmes would laugh at my pathetic clues, Sam Spade wouldn't even leave his desk to solve my case, and whoever the current champion detectives are would scratch their heads and wonder if I could possibly be serious with my offering. Because I don't know that genre. In the world of "literary" fiction, I feel comfortable with a story idea that even if it's a simple plot it hasn't been done quite the way I'm doing it, or there's enough room for another story along these lines because of the unique voice or character combinations I'll present. But I don't have that background any longer in fantasy, and I don't want to presume that because I've studied writing and have an MFA I could whip out something great because, "well, it's only fantasy, how hard can it be?"
After considering those reservations a few months ago, I pretty much set the project aside. I figured maybe at some point down the line I'd start tinkering with it, maybe do a chapter here and there and have a slowly expanding file on my computer, but I no longer thought it would be something that I would feel compelled to write. And then I reached the point I described earlier of lacking a project. So I'm in a situation where I need something to get caught up in, but I don't want to start my next literary novel because I know I'll be picking up and moving in a few weeks, so I don't want to disrupt that process. But I'm also not working, so I have plenty of time. It's possible I could pound through something fairly quickly and finish a draft before my life goes into upheaval. So, alas, my thoughts turn more and more to this fantasy idea. As a young adult book, it would likely be shorter than my previous novels (I'm thinking in the range of 60,000 words as opposed to the 90,000 range I've done before), and I have most of the story mapped out in my head and even written down in a set of notes I've compiled earlier. The final factor was simply that more and more this idea is what was occupying my brain. I wasn't thinking about the next literary novel, I was wondering how I could make the fantasy world work, what trials my hero might face and how he would overcome them. So I sat down and began.
More details next time on how it's coming along.
Now I have nothing against fantasy. I'm not one of those MFA types who looks down on genre fiction as less worthy or significant. It's all just entertainment, and whichever appeals more to you, that's just fine. As it happens, I simply prefer stuff in the "literary" mode, where it's about real characters in real world situations, where nobody's been murdered, and there's not a terrorist attack about to happen in a matter of hours if our hero can't prevent it. Even as I write that, I realize there's a bit of a snarky tone there, which I don't really want. I have gotten into some of those types of stories before (I've read everything Thomas Harris has published; I've stayed up late into the night to finish a James Patterson novel). The one genre that I have been most attracted to in my life is fantasy. Between the time I learned to read and the time I finished high school, probably the majority of my reading time was spent on fantasy novels. However, at some point in there, I'd say the change occurred in my late teens, I just sort of lost interest. My tastes changed. I didn't lose any respect for the art, but I didn't want to spend my time on it either.
So, that brings me to the point where I am in my late twenties contemplating writing a fantasy novel. A few things stand in my way. One: I'm not sure whether I'll have the excitement and interest in the project to work on it for the necessary length of time required to produce something good. After all, I spent years on my first two literary novels, and it's not fair (I guess I see it as disrespectful to the genre) to think I could just bang one out without putting in the same kind of hard work rewriting, revising, editing, etc. But would my passion be sufficient to keep me going through all those months of work on a genre that I am no longer in love with? Two: I haven't read a fantasy novel in years. Sure, I've seen the Lord of the Rings Movies and Harry Potter. I've even listened to the audiobooks of Harry Potter (read by the amazing Jim Dale), but it's been about a decade since I was actively part of that literary community, where I consumed many books and had a good understanding of its conventions and tropes. I'm afraid that if I tried my hand at this genre, I would unknowingly produce a story riddled with cliches that fans of the genre would abhore. I believe it's important to do one's research and to know about the kind of story one is writing. I'm sure if I tried to write a mystery, for example, I would produce something that didn't go beyond the conventions of the earliest type of mystery story. Sherlock Holmes would laugh at my pathetic clues, Sam Spade wouldn't even leave his desk to solve my case, and whoever the current champion detectives are would scratch their heads and wonder if I could possibly be serious with my offering. Because I don't know that genre. In the world of "literary" fiction, I feel comfortable with a story idea that even if it's a simple plot it hasn't been done quite the way I'm doing it, or there's enough room for another story along these lines because of the unique voice or character combinations I'll present. But I don't have that background any longer in fantasy, and I don't want to presume that because I've studied writing and have an MFA I could whip out something great because, "well, it's only fantasy, how hard can it be?"
After considering those reservations a few months ago, I pretty much set the project aside. I figured maybe at some point down the line I'd start tinkering with it, maybe do a chapter here and there and have a slowly expanding file on my computer, but I no longer thought it would be something that I would feel compelled to write. And then I reached the point I described earlier of lacking a project. So I'm in a situation where I need something to get caught up in, but I don't want to start my next literary novel because I know I'll be picking up and moving in a few weeks, so I don't want to disrupt that process. But I'm also not working, so I have plenty of time. It's possible I could pound through something fairly quickly and finish a draft before my life goes into upheaval. So, alas, my thoughts turn more and more to this fantasy idea. As a young adult book, it would likely be shorter than my previous novels (I'm thinking in the range of 60,000 words as opposed to the 90,000 range I've done before), and I have most of the story mapped out in my head and even written down in a set of notes I've compiled earlier. The final factor was simply that more and more this idea is what was occupying my brain. I wasn't thinking about the next literary novel, I was wondering how I could make the fantasy world work, what trials my hero might face and how he would overcome them. So I sat down and began.
More details next time on how it's coming along.
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