What's that old quote about writing? It's easy: you just stare at the blank page until drops of blood form on your forehead. Something like that. I could look up it, but I'm lazy. Anyway, the idea is clear. Recently I've grown a new appreciation for the difficulty of writing. It's weird that this should come to me now, since I've been writing seriously the past several years. It's the one thing I've been devoting the majority of my adult life to, and yet it seems harder now than it used to. Maybe it's that old thing about if one really knew how difficult it is, one would never attempt it in the first place.
I don't even know that hard or difficult or tough or whatever is exactly right. The thing that has struck me most recently is simply how long it takes to write well. How slow it is. I've been rewriting my kids book, and, admittedly, some of my slow pace in proceeding through the pages comes from not spending as much time bleeding from my forehead as I could. Instead of writing, I do other things: I watch TV, I work in a bookstore, I read, I grade papers, I prepare quizzes about punctuation, I apply for full time jobs, I do things related to writing like sending out stories to magazines or applying for grants. Sure, all that stuff eats away at my time and some of it is unnecessary or could be eliminated from my schedule so I write more. But that's not even what I mean when I mention that my writing is slow.
When I am actually sitting down working on my novel, I move at a slower pace than I remember in the past. I take more time sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. The result is good. I think the new draft of this book is coming together really well. When I finish this second draft, I think it will be closer to the strength of a third or fourth or even fifth draft of my past work. I'm now focusing more on the issues of language, the specific details that make the story pop. Perhaps part of the reason I can do this already with my first revision is that I pretty well worked out the story in the rough draft (which was the fastest I've ever written), and now I don't have to go through and sift out the actual story from the mass of material to quite the extent that I often do after finishing a rough draft. This isn't to say that I'm not also doing this. I know there are things that need to be cut or added. I know that some chapters go on too long or end in the wrong place or that characters come and go haphazardly. But as I read through and rework what I have, I feel pretty confident that much of the piece, the skeleton, is strong and solid and will hold up. So rather than moving around major items and transplanting passages of text, I'm doing the cosmetic surgery already and analyzing the language in detail and attempting to convey the story as efficiently and effectively as I can. And that is damn slow going.
I sit and stare at sentences and think about how I can put images and sounds and smells into the reader's head. I try to eliminate clichés or alter details that are vague. I read over paragraphs to see if the words flow, if I'm repeating myself, if the sequence is solid or if I'm forecasting events that should come further down the page. I'm concentrating on what I do at every moment (or at least as much as I can). And although I'm so far quite pleased with what I'm producing, I wish I had more pages in my file marked "Draft 2."
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Reading Habits
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.
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.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Youth
I was thinking the other day about youth and inexperience. Mainly this was in regards to my novel about twenty-somethings. I was trying to figure out how to compose an engaging query letter that will snag an agent's attention, but it just seems like an impossible task. Is this because my book is simply not that good? I don't think so. Although I imagine it's not the greatest book ever or the best thing I'll ever write, I still feel pretty pleased with it. I've gotten good feedback from trusted readers. Even when it was at an earlier stage a few drafts ago, I got good responses. A couple people had the same major issue with it in their critique, which was simply that they wanted more of it, to spend more time with the characters. Hurray, right? But how do I distill what is decent about it into an engaging hook? There doesn't really seem to be a hook. Every time I tried to figure out what the conflict is at the heart of the book, what the major struggles are for the characters I was left feeling like it doesn't sound all that interesting. It's partly the high concept issue I discussed last time, but there's something else there, too. And that, I think, is the problem of youth.
I've written a book about twenty-something characters struggling with twenty-something problems. My hope is that those issues translate to other readers, that older folks could read the book and remember back to when they were younger. But maybe they wouldn't care much. They're past that stage of life and would rather move forward. Or another way of thinking about it is that for young characters there's an inherent lack of high stakes. Although the conflicts and struggles are very real and important to those characters experiencing them, they might not matter to an older reader. I'm not so many years removed from my characters, and already I'm starting to think that. I'm sure another ten or twenty years down the line and I'll have even less interest in young people. I remember a girl at the bookstore where I work was telling me why I should read the Twilight series of books. She said they aren't simply about vampires, but they're more about teen angst and young love. And I thought that was the perfect reason for me to not read those books. I might have some interest in reading about vampires, but teen angst and young love rank pretty low on my list of things that engage me.
So is my book then doomed? What interested me about that story when I started it a few years ago seems less significant to me now. But there's a good chance that my newer ideas will stay interesting to me for a while. Really, the kicker came when I was trying to come up with a hook opening line for a query, and I was thinking about what it is that my main character really wants and what the challenge is for him. He's a young writer who hasn't experienced enough life yet to have much worth writing about. But if that's the case, and the book is a metafictional work that he is writing, then doesn't it follow that there's not much worth reading there? Not entirely. By the time the character starts writing the story, more has happened to him. Yet, I can't quite crack how to explain that in a snappy few sentences. I just kept getting into the mind of an agent and reading a query letter that describes a novel by a young novelist about a young novelist with little life experience struggling to write a novel. How could that be anything but an automatic rejection? Even if it's good (which I think my book is), it seems so clichéd and self-referential. The chances of that kind of book being very decent and having much appeal to a wide audience seem pretty remote. If I can't imagine me requesting the manuscript as an agent, how could I expect an actual agent to want to look at it? But that's not to suggest writing it wasn't valuable even if nobody else ever reads it.
So when it got me thinking about youth, I started reflecting on young I still really am. I dreaded my last birthday when I hit 30. That seemed so old to me. It was depressing to reach that point and have so little to show for my life, to not even have a full time job. But when I think much about it, thirty is awfully young for a writer. How many writers do much that's any good by that age? Sure, there are the handful of Hemingways and Shelleys out there, but most don't get going until much later. Even Philip Roth, who made a splashy debut in his twenties, didn't hit hit his stride for about another decade, and then he arguably didn't climax for another three or four decades. It takes so much practice to get good at writing that the chances of getting in enough practice by age thirty are pretty slim. So for now I'll keep practicing and living, and eventually I'll have plenty to write about and the skills with which to write effectively.
I've written a book about twenty-something characters struggling with twenty-something problems. My hope is that those issues translate to other readers, that older folks could read the book and remember back to when they were younger. But maybe they wouldn't care much. They're past that stage of life and would rather move forward. Or another way of thinking about it is that for young characters there's an inherent lack of high stakes. Although the conflicts and struggles are very real and important to those characters experiencing them, they might not matter to an older reader. I'm not so many years removed from my characters, and already I'm starting to think that. I'm sure another ten or twenty years down the line and I'll have even less interest in young people. I remember a girl at the bookstore where I work was telling me why I should read the Twilight series of books. She said they aren't simply about vampires, but they're more about teen angst and young love. And I thought that was the perfect reason for me to not read those books. I might have some interest in reading about vampires, but teen angst and young love rank pretty low on my list of things that engage me.
So is my book then doomed? What interested me about that story when I started it a few years ago seems less significant to me now. But there's a good chance that my newer ideas will stay interesting to me for a while. Really, the kicker came when I was trying to come up with a hook opening line for a query, and I was thinking about what it is that my main character really wants and what the challenge is for him. He's a young writer who hasn't experienced enough life yet to have much worth writing about. But if that's the case, and the book is a metafictional work that he is writing, then doesn't it follow that there's not much worth reading there? Not entirely. By the time the character starts writing the story, more has happened to him. Yet, I can't quite crack how to explain that in a snappy few sentences. I just kept getting into the mind of an agent and reading a query letter that describes a novel by a young novelist about a young novelist with little life experience struggling to write a novel. How could that be anything but an automatic rejection? Even if it's good (which I think my book is), it seems so clichéd and self-referential. The chances of that kind of book being very decent and having much appeal to a wide audience seem pretty remote. If I can't imagine me requesting the manuscript as an agent, how could I expect an actual agent to want to look at it? But that's not to suggest writing it wasn't valuable even if nobody else ever reads it.
So when it got me thinking about youth, I started reflecting on young I still really am. I dreaded my last birthday when I hit 30. That seemed so old to me. It was depressing to reach that point and have so little to show for my life, to not even have a full time job. But when I think much about it, thirty is awfully young for a writer. How many writers do much that's any good by that age? Sure, there are the handful of Hemingways and Shelleys out there, but most don't get going until much later. Even Philip Roth, who made a splashy debut in his twenties, didn't hit hit his stride for about another decade, and then he arguably didn't climax for another three or four decades. It takes so much practice to get good at writing that the chances of getting in enough practice by age thirty are pretty slim. So for now I'll keep practicing and living, and eventually I'll have plenty to write about and the skills with which to write effectively.
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.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Comedy
Okay, so I've been thinking more about comedy. I haven't really fleshed out all my thoughts, but since writing is a way to discover one's thoughts rather than merely a method of putting down thoughts that are already fully coherent (as I keep telling my students), I'll go ahead and ponder a bit here.
I previously commented on the role of empathy in comedy and how it can deter. As much as I think this is true, I also think it's totally wrong. I remember reading Neil Simon's autobiography years ago, and he describes his experience as a young playwright struggling with his first play. He received feedback indicating that one of his characters wasn't very likable or sympathetic. He replied something to the effect of, "So what? Characters don't always have to be sympathetic, do they?" To which, his buddy replied, "They do if you're writing comedy." So which is it? Do you need to like the characters and sympathize/empathize or should you have distance from them so you can laugh at them without feeling bad for them? Yes.
When I think about it, I can come up with few examples of successful comedy without sympathetic characters. Basil Fawlty and Blackadder come to mind, but the very fact that they seem so exceptional indicates how rare this is. Similarly, I've known people who can't stand The Office because of this very problem. Rather than standing back and laughing, they cringe at the situations. They empathize too much and feel embarrassed for the characters. Personally, I love The Office. The British version is on my list of top television programs ever, and I also am a fan of the American version. In part I love The Office so much because I do empathize with the characters. It achieves something amazing because I both laugh at them and cringe with them.
Or what about Arrested Development, another wonderful show where the characters are hardly likable? Or, going back to my example from last time of the type of book I'm aiming for, how about A Confederacy of Dunces? Ignatius J. Reilly is such a bizarre character that he isn't exactly likable. Do we empathize with him and laugh because we see ourselves in the situation or stand back at a distance and laugh at him?
Maybe the trouble is in the balance. I'm not sure it's possible to accomplish both a great deal of empathy while also laughing. I once saw a play that was ninety percent silly farce and then the final moments aimed for heavy drama. I considered the play a complete failure. I laughed at the humor, but then felt totally thrown off when I was supposed to care about the characters' fate at the end. I didn't care about them because I hadn't been encouraged to care. But if the play had introduced the balance earlier, and let me see greater depth of character initially, perhaps it could have hit that balance. I don't know.
Maybe it's on a spectrum: there's the ridiculous farce end and the highly dramatic end, and you can never span the entire thing. But if you move closer to the middle, then perhaps you can hit both sides. You can like the characters, laugh at their plight, see yourself in their situation and chuckle, and still be emotionally moved. Maybe the reason this seems so difficult to me is that it is difficult. Move too far in either direction, and the whole thing fails. Or to an extent, it depends on the audience. As I mentioned, I think The Office is brilliant. I laugh, but there is a part of me that feels so bad for David Brent. If I had to conclude whether I find him despicable or pitiful, I'd lean toward pity. But that pity doesn't keep me from laughing.
Hmmm . . . I'll have to keep pondering this issue.
I previously commented on the role of empathy in comedy and how it can deter. As much as I think this is true, I also think it's totally wrong. I remember reading Neil Simon's autobiography years ago, and he describes his experience as a young playwright struggling with his first play. He received feedback indicating that one of his characters wasn't very likable or sympathetic. He replied something to the effect of, "So what? Characters don't always have to be sympathetic, do they?" To which, his buddy replied, "They do if you're writing comedy." So which is it? Do you need to like the characters and sympathize/empathize or should you have distance from them so you can laugh at them without feeling bad for them? Yes.
When I think about it, I can come up with few examples of successful comedy without sympathetic characters. Basil Fawlty and Blackadder come to mind, but the very fact that they seem so exceptional indicates how rare this is. Similarly, I've known people who can't stand The Office because of this very problem. Rather than standing back and laughing, they cringe at the situations. They empathize too much and feel embarrassed for the characters. Personally, I love The Office. The British version is on my list of top television programs ever, and I also am a fan of the American version. In part I love The Office so much because I do empathize with the characters. It achieves something amazing because I both laugh at them and cringe with them.
Or what about Arrested Development, another wonderful show where the characters are hardly likable? Or, going back to my example from last time of the type of book I'm aiming for, how about A Confederacy of Dunces? Ignatius J. Reilly is such a bizarre character that he isn't exactly likable. Do we empathize with him and laugh because we see ourselves in the situation or stand back at a distance and laugh at him?
Maybe the trouble is in the balance. I'm not sure it's possible to accomplish both a great deal of empathy while also laughing. I once saw a play that was ninety percent silly farce and then the final moments aimed for heavy drama. I considered the play a complete failure. I laughed at the humor, but then felt totally thrown off when I was supposed to care about the characters' fate at the end. I didn't care about them because I hadn't been encouraged to care. But if the play had introduced the balance earlier, and let me see greater depth of character initially, perhaps it could have hit that balance. I don't know.
Maybe it's on a spectrum: there's the ridiculous farce end and the highly dramatic end, and you can never span the entire thing. But if you move closer to the middle, then perhaps you can hit both sides. You can like the characters, laugh at their plight, see yourself in their situation and chuckle, and still be emotionally moved. Maybe the reason this seems so difficult to me is that it is difficult. Move too far in either direction, and the whole thing fails. Or to an extent, it depends on the audience. As I mentioned, I think The Office is brilliant. I laugh, but there is a part of me that feels so bad for David Brent. If I had to conclude whether I find him despicable or pitiful, I'd lean toward pity. But that pity doesn't keep me from laughing.
Hmmm . . . I'll have to keep pondering this issue.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Some Disconnected and Random Thoughts
1. Once again, I've been evaluating the essay I was working on. After many more hours reading it, editing, reorganizing, composing new material, cutting out old stuff, and so on, I'm still dissatisfied and unsure that it will ever be quite what I want it to be. I've concluded that writing creative nonfiction is incredibly difficult, much more so than I had originally appreciated. There's such a freedom with fiction to manipulate the characters and situation to make it all work, but nonfiction is limited by reality. And reality is messy and without clear themes or conclusions. I had envisioned my essay as having a sort of pivotal epiphany moment, but that's simply not how things happen, at least not for me. Life isn't full of epiphanies. Life is a slow process; changes happen slowly if at all. So condensing that process into a ten or fifteen page essay is a daunting prospect. When I steer the facts--including some details and leave out others--I feel like I'm being dishonest and turning the facts into fiction. I don't know. Maybe that's what all nonfiction writers do. I suppose truth is an impossibility.
2. My next novel has been pushing its way more and more into the forefront of my brain. It's an idea I came up with a few years ago and started a couple years ago as a short story, but after writing it I realized I really wanted to continue on and discover what else happens, where the characters go from the point I'd left them at the end of the story, and that this would wind up as a complete novel idea for me. I had planned on writing this one after my MFA thesis novel, but then I became more interested in writing my kids' book, so I did that first. But now I'm still really early on in the kids' book process--I have a complete draft but have barely started on an initial revision. So I'm left with this question: Do I put the kids' book on hold while I move on to a story that is more pressing on my mind or do I leave the new book alone to keep working on the kids' book? Well, unable to quite decide between the two of those choices, I've opted for the middle ground. I'm going to begin drafting the new one while rewriting the old one. I'm not sure yet whether this is a smart move, but I'll give it a try and see how it goes. My fear is that I won't fully sink into either world and I'll end up doing both poorly, but who knows?
3. With my new novel I'm proceeding in a different manner than I have in the past. Typically I have a basic story idea in mind and start writing even if I'm unsure where exactly it's going. I make a lot of notes as I draft and usually before I'm very far along I have some sort of rough outline of the entire project so I can see where I'm heading even though the route changes as I go and find detours or shortcuts. With my MFA thesis I began writing out of order, originally composing one piece as a short story then another as a separate story until I concluded that rather than a series of linked stories I really was writing a novel. It turned out the early pieces wound up (in rather different forms) as the end of the book. But by the time I had drafted the first few chapters I had a very rough form of the entire book outlined.
Right now I'm lacking that clear vision of my new book, but rather than beginning with chapter one and seeing where it goes, I'm starting before the beginning of the book. I'm doing character sketches that are more extensive than I've done in the past. Previously I've jotted down key details of characters so I can keep them straight as I go or whatever, but I haven't worried too much about fleshing out their pasts and motivations and so forth since those things tend to come up as I write and I know I'll discover those details by the time I get through a couple of drafts. But now I feel like I won't be quite sure how to proceed with each new section of the story until I have a solid understanding of each character and why they are motivated to do the things they do. So I've written several pages about the lives of the two main characters and have yet to reach the point where the book actually starts. It's really fun to explore the back story like this, and I'm hoping it proves helpful as I move forward. In part I felt compelled to do this because the first big plot point relies on a somewhat absurd turn of events, and I feel like I have to justify those events in order for the story to work. That was one of the problems with the short story version I attempted a couple years ago. I didn't have enough time to make the unlikely event seem plausible. So I need to really understand the character in order for his bizarre action to seem like something he would genuinely do under the circumstances.
Another significant factor with this new novel (that I've commented on before here I believe) is that the story and characters move much further away from my own experiences and characteristics, which in part means I don't have as thorough an understanding of the characters and their motivations. My first novel, my MA thesis, drew heavily on my own traits for the main character: he thought much like I do, had the same tastes and interests, and so on. I didn't have to worry too much about how he would react to different situations because I could simply imagine how I myself would react. My second novel, my MFA thesis, moved further away from myself but still had a lot of me in the characters. While the first book had a stand-in for me, the second one used different aspects of me in different characters, an exaggerated version of characteristic X here, characteristic Y there. None of the main characters were me, but I still felt like I understood them fairly intuitively, that it wasn't a major shift to step into their shoes and discover how they would react in different circumstances. The third book, the kids' book, was a whole different thing, so it doesn't really enter this discussion. With the new novel, though, I don't think any of the characters I've come up with so far have a whole lot in common with me, so it's going to be more of a challenge to figure out exactly how and why they do what they do and then to also make it seem reasonable to a reader that these characters would indeed do what they do. It's fun and exciting to take this new step away from what I've done before.
4. Comedy. I've been reflecting recently on comedy. It's weird, I used to be pretty good at comedy. The major piece of writing I did that convinced me I definitely wanted to devote my life to writing was a one-act farce. I wrote it in college and it was accepted into a festival of one-act plays on campus. Seeing an audience laugh so hard at my words was thrilling. But since that point I've become less and less comic in my writing. I see my new novel as being highly comic. In my mind it's on the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces or Candide, a sprawling episodic novel, maybe picaresque, where a number of characters pursue different goals and keep falling flat and perhaps there's a bit of Camus's absurd thrown into the mix where things fail to turn out as the characters expect. I have a strong sense of the feeling I'd like the novel to have, but I'm a bit doubtful that I'll be able to achieve the right balance. And I realized that the major obstacle in my way is a weird one: empathy.
What's that? Empathy? Why would that be a problem? Well, here's why. I've heard a definition of the difference between comedy and tragedy attributed to Mel Brooks: "Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die; tragedy is when I get a paper cut." There's definitely something to that. Comedy has a distance between the audience and the characters so we feel fine laughing at them. Yes, we often like the characters, but I think we still don't fully empathize. If we did, would we be so callous as to laugh at their misfortunes? Dramatic stories are all about empathy, feeling that torment of the characters. And I feel like over the past decade or so I've shifted somewhat in my level of empathy with my fellow human beings. I formerly identified myself only half-jokingly as a misanthrope, and with a misanthropic view of humanity it's easy to laugh. But more and more I feel a sense of the basic worth and individual suffering and joys of every person, and with that kind of connection, it becomes harder to laugh. So then when creating characters for a story, I want them to be real, to be empathetic, to have people care about them, but then how can I also make them funny? I don't know. I haven't sorted it all out yet. I've heard comedy is all about the head and drama about the heart, and I think my heart has become a bigger part of me than it used to be.
2. My next novel has been pushing its way more and more into the forefront of my brain. It's an idea I came up with a few years ago and started a couple years ago as a short story, but after writing it I realized I really wanted to continue on and discover what else happens, where the characters go from the point I'd left them at the end of the story, and that this would wind up as a complete novel idea for me. I had planned on writing this one after my MFA thesis novel, but then I became more interested in writing my kids' book, so I did that first. But now I'm still really early on in the kids' book process--I have a complete draft but have barely started on an initial revision. So I'm left with this question: Do I put the kids' book on hold while I move on to a story that is more pressing on my mind or do I leave the new book alone to keep working on the kids' book? Well, unable to quite decide between the two of those choices, I've opted for the middle ground. I'm going to begin drafting the new one while rewriting the old one. I'm not sure yet whether this is a smart move, but I'll give it a try and see how it goes. My fear is that I won't fully sink into either world and I'll end up doing both poorly, but who knows?
3. With my new novel I'm proceeding in a different manner than I have in the past. Typically I have a basic story idea in mind and start writing even if I'm unsure where exactly it's going. I make a lot of notes as I draft and usually before I'm very far along I have some sort of rough outline of the entire project so I can see where I'm heading even though the route changes as I go and find detours or shortcuts. With my MFA thesis I began writing out of order, originally composing one piece as a short story then another as a separate story until I concluded that rather than a series of linked stories I really was writing a novel. It turned out the early pieces wound up (in rather different forms) as the end of the book. But by the time I had drafted the first few chapters I had a very rough form of the entire book outlined.
Right now I'm lacking that clear vision of my new book, but rather than beginning with chapter one and seeing where it goes, I'm starting before the beginning of the book. I'm doing character sketches that are more extensive than I've done in the past. Previously I've jotted down key details of characters so I can keep them straight as I go or whatever, but I haven't worried too much about fleshing out their pasts and motivations and so forth since those things tend to come up as I write and I know I'll discover those details by the time I get through a couple of drafts. But now I feel like I won't be quite sure how to proceed with each new section of the story until I have a solid understanding of each character and why they are motivated to do the things they do. So I've written several pages about the lives of the two main characters and have yet to reach the point where the book actually starts. It's really fun to explore the back story like this, and I'm hoping it proves helpful as I move forward. In part I felt compelled to do this because the first big plot point relies on a somewhat absurd turn of events, and I feel like I have to justify those events in order for the story to work. That was one of the problems with the short story version I attempted a couple years ago. I didn't have enough time to make the unlikely event seem plausible. So I need to really understand the character in order for his bizarre action to seem like something he would genuinely do under the circumstances.
Another significant factor with this new novel (that I've commented on before here I believe) is that the story and characters move much further away from my own experiences and characteristics, which in part means I don't have as thorough an understanding of the characters and their motivations. My first novel, my MA thesis, drew heavily on my own traits for the main character: he thought much like I do, had the same tastes and interests, and so on. I didn't have to worry too much about how he would react to different situations because I could simply imagine how I myself would react. My second novel, my MFA thesis, moved further away from myself but still had a lot of me in the characters. While the first book had a stand-in for me, the second one used different aspects of me in different characters, an exaggerated version of characteristic X here, characteristic Y there. None of the main characters were me, but I still felt like I understood them fairly intuitively, that it wasn't a major shift to step into their shoes and discover how they would react in different circumstances. The third book, the kids' book, was a whole different thing, so it doesn't really enter this discussion. With the new novel, though, I don't think any of the characters I've come up with so far have a whole lot in common with me, so it's going to be more of a challenge to figure out exactly how and why they do what they do and then to also make it seem reasonable to a reader that these characters would indeed do what they do. It's fun and exciting to take this new step away from what I've done before.
4. Comedy. I've been reflecting recently on comedy. It's weird, I used to be pretty good at comedy. The major piece of writing I did that convinced me I definitely wanted to devote my life to writing was a one-act farce. I wrote it in college and it was accepted into a festival of one-act plays on campus. Seeing an audience laugh so hard at my words was thrilling. But since that point I've become less and less comic in my writing. I see my new novel as being highly comic. In my mind it's on the lines of A Confederacy of Dunces or Candide, a sprawling episodic novel, maybe picaresque, where a number of characters pursue different goals and keep falling flat and perhaps there's a bit of Camus's absurd thrown into the mix where things fail to turn out as the characters expect. I have a strong sense of the feeling I'd like the novel to have, but I'm a bit doubtful that I'll be able to achieve the right balance. And I realized that the major obstacle in my way is a weird one: empathy.
What's that? Empathy? Why would that be a problem? Well, here's why. I've heard a definition of the difference between comedy and tragedy attributed to Mel Brooks: "Comedy is when you fall into an open manhole and die; tragedy is when I get a paper cut." There's definitely something to that. Comedy has a distance between the audience and the characters so we feel fine laughing at them. Yes, we often like the characters, but I think we still don't fully empathize. If we did, would we be so callous as to laugh at their misfortunes? Dramatic stories are all about empathy, feeling that torment of the characters. And I feel like over the past decade or so I've shifted somewhat in my level of empathy with my fellow human beings. I formerly identified myself only half-jokingly as a misanthrope, and with a misanthropic view of humanity it's easy to laugh. But more and more I feel a sense of the basic worth and individual suffering and joys of every person, and with that kind of connection, it becomes harder to laugh. So then when creating characters for a story, I want them to be real, to be empathetic, to have people care about them, but then how can I also make them funny? I don't know. I haven't sorted it all out yet. I've heard comedy is all about the head and drama about the heart, and I think my heart has become a bigger part of me than it used to be.
Friday, December 19, 2008
writing is rewriting is rewriting is rewriting
Almost three years ago I began a short personal essay for a class. It turned out okay. It satisfied the requirement for the class and I earned an A, but I knew it had more work before it was something really good. So I set it aside and came back to it months later. I extensively rewrote it and submitted it to a workshop course. There it received some of the most positive feedback of anything I submitted during my time in the MFA program. I rewrote again and entered the new version in a contest at the university. It came in third. I rewrote again. I started submitting it for publication to journals. Although I've been submitting things for years, this was the first piece to receive regular personal notes instead of only form rejections. Most of the notes were simple hand-written comments along the lines of "please consider submitting again in the future" at the bottom of the form letter. However, one journal actually included a full letter with specific critiques explaining why despite the essay's strengths they didn't feel it was quite right for them. So even though I was getting consistently positive feedback, it still wasn't accepted, so I took another look at it and rewrote again.
Months went by with no change. Encouraging comments, but no acceptances. So again I decided to look it over and try to see how else I might improve it. And unlike my past evaluations of it, I didn't think the essay was that good. It had definite strengths, but it also had what now struck me as glaring weaknesses. The momentum of the piece fell flat about halfway through, so the essay itself simply didn't work. I thought about it but couldn't figure out how to fix the problem. So more than two years after I first started writing it, and more than a year after I began submitting it, I set the piece aside and decided to stop submitting it until I could solve its structural problems. I did this suspecting that the essay was simply a failure, something that comes close without ever quite working right.
Another couple of months passed, and I picked it up again, curious if I might see anything now that I missed the last time. And sure enough, some new ideas came to mind. The essay's faltering momentum seemed as evident as before, but now I could envision a new structure, a complete renovation, that might fix it. I'm not yet done with this new rewrite, but I feel excited about the essay again and think it might finally reach its potential.
Months went by with no change. Encouraging comments, but no acceptances. So again I decided to look it over and try to see how else I might improve it. And unlike my past evaluations of it, I didn't think the essay was that good. It had definite strengths, but it also had what now struck me as glaring weaknesses. The momentum of the piece fell flat about halfway through, so the essay itself simply didn't work. I thought about it but couldn't figure out how to fix the problem. So more than two years after I first started writing it, and more than a year after I began submitting it, I set the piece aside and decided to stop submitting it until I could solve its structural problems. I did this suspecting that the essay was simply a failure, something that comes close without ever quite working right.
Another couple of months passed, and I picked it up again, curious if I might see anything now that I missed the last time. And sure enough, some new ideas came to mind. The essay's faltering momentum seemed as evident as before, but now I could envision a new structure, a complete renovation, that might fix it. I'm not yet done with this new rewrite, but I feel excited about the essay again and think it might finally reach its potential.
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