As in all ebook publishers are simply taking whatever they're sent and releasing it? I'll agree that there are many such. Far too many who say the online equivalent of, "Hey kids, we can put on a play." They'll accept any genre, which is the tip-off that they have no knowledge of how genres differ, and therefore aren't actually publishers. And of course their sales reflect the fact. But Double Dragon, like Hard Shell Word Factory and Samhain, to name a few, is a real, and long established publisher, one who it's damn hard to get a contract from. You may not have meant to, but you just insulted one hell of a lot of writers, and publishing houses who have the respect of the industry. But that's not the real question, which is: does building a background of craft matter, and result in more recognition, via sales (which is the only way we have of measuring the ability to please the reader), to publishers than simply saying, "I think I'll be a writer" and then having at it?" My personal feeling is that a 99.9+ rejection rate, with the publishers feeling that 97% of all submissions are written by amateurs (their words not mine) pretty well answers the question. It's not that the 97% have no talent, or are in some way lacking. These are decent, hardworking people who are sincerely trying to please their reader. But they are also people who believe that the general skill called writing that we learn as children gives us the toolkit and compositional techniques we'll need. But in the words of Mark Twain, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And if no one ever tells us that each writing discipline has its own unique compositional skill-set... Digging into the techniques and craft of what makes fiction for the printed word please a reader helps get rid of that "what you know for sure that just ain’t so." It won't make a pro of us, of course. But at least we'll know what we don't know. And that's the first, and necessary, step towards knowledge. We never know all we need to know, even in a lifetime of trying, because writing is a journey, not a destination. But as we learn we become confused on a higher level, which is all we can hope for, aside from changing the ratio of crap to gold, in our stories, for the batter.
My experiences more than suggest that goes both ways. It all has to do with the food chain. Does Double Dragon pay you ahead of sales?
these days, drw, fewer and fewer publishing houses of any sort are paying advances to new and unknown writers... it's just a matter of good business policy, since there's no guarantee their books will sell enough copies to equal even a smallish advance...
No. Nor do most small press published, ebook or no. Is the point of this to discredit my accomplishments, or disparage epublishers in general? If the first you're wasting your time, because I make no claims for noteworthy writing skills, only knowledge of where one might find the precursors to it if they have the personal talent to support them. If the second, I suspect that their customers would tend to disagree. And in any case, that has nothing at all to do with either writing skills and their acquisition, or writing a book that requires a crane to take from the shelf.
@JayG Not to disparage at all. Only in rebuttal of the accusation of insulting a lot of writers. IMO those writers insult themselves by boasting about what seems ignorant to me; that being signing a contract with a company that does little more than Amazon. It's like waving their hands in the air yelling "Look everyone! I have a contract with a publishing company!" Sounds like vanity to me, so what's the difference between DD and Amazon, except that maybe DD clicks the mouse button to convert it all to a PDF? I find it an insult to my own skills and intelligence to be told I can't do that myself and circumvent the middle man. The topic of this thread was essentially whether an 800 page book was over the top for a new author. One would tend to think the publishers the OP was referring to were the types that would have enough faith in a book's potential to hand them a retainer. It's turned into a thread about grammatical skills, one's schooling and the types of publishing that one can choose. It's a merry-go-round of hand waving at a dead hearse.
Jay, I think this is the most cogent post I've seen you make on this site. If there is a weakness in your argument, I would say it is in your constant reference to "high school assignments". I don't know of anyone, anywhere, who has said to an aspiring writer, "High school diploma? You're good to go." In the US, we have had (since the end of World War II) a mania for college-level education and, more recently, for graduate studies, for just about everything. Moreover, the aspiring writers on this site who are still students (and I include this thread's OP, who I believe is not even in high school, yet) are those students we all knew (and maybe even were, ourselves) who read well beyond the syllabus. There is only one best way to do a lot of things, from building nuclear reactors to transplanting human organs. But there is no one best way to write good fiction, and that's why aspiring writers are best served by doing a lot of their learning about technique first-hand, through extensive reading of quality fiction. Then, they have a knowledge base against which they can absorb what they read in the how-to books. There are many folks on this site who advocate "just sit down and do it", but that advice is usually offered (and has been by me) when someone asks advice on how (or even if) they should write something, or seems to be agonizing or just plan procrastinating. Rarely have I seen anyone advocate "just sit down and do it" in the sense that you suggest - without any preparation, study or training. One must have a foundation. Absolutely true. I shudder when I see people who clearly have no basis for doing so offering definite opinions on everything from what publishers will and will not accept to what is covered by copyright law, based on what they "feel" should be right. There are about a half dozen members whom I trust to be accurate on matters of publishing (and, yes, you are one of them) and about as many on matters of content/critique. There are several others whom I find interesting reads and I always look forward to their posts and a number whom I simply regard as friends. But in the end, we are each of us solely responsible for our writing and our writing careers, and we do them a disservice if we don't take that responsibility seriously enough to consult authoritative sources beyond a writing web site for serious matters.
Didn't really mean to suggest you were upset. Just playing. No offense intended. (I've been known to shoot from the lip on more than one occasion and often have said, "Sometimes, I can't wait to hear what I'm going to say next!") Oh, yeh. And, just because I can be such a sh*t: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/off-putting
I think it's a good thing to interject some bluntness into the mix; calling it -- as it is -- so to speak. Editors, by nature, can be brutally honest. They aren't ego masseuses. I've seen many a good photographer fail because they couldn't get their heads around being, not criticized, but, merely edited, unable to differentiate between the two, thinking that any negative statement speaks against them personally. Guys like Jay's biggest contribution is to actually get you to increase the size of your cojones. Cajoling should be used sparingly, perhaps only prior to the chair being kicked out.
this seems to be an interesting conversation, and once that i certainly can take something from. i have a feeling my current projects going to be rather large, say once i have written it and edited it within an inch of its life, and its still huge and i wanted to publish it, would it be wiser to write something smaller and get publishers to sniff round that first and have them publish that before approaching them with the huge book?
publishers aren't likely to 'sniff round' any book you write, but yes, it would definitely be wiser to have a 'smaller' thus more 'acceptable'/marketable book published first and do well sales-wise, before offering the 'huge' one...
you knew what i meant Maia, in a world we'd like they would sniff round it, but in reality thats not the case... just a shame i couldnt think of any other way of putting it
You confuse story with the compositional skills of writing the professional fiction. Is there one best way to write en essay? Yes. The structure we spend years beating into our heads is the one teachers and people who read essays expect to see. Fail to maintain it and our teacher gave us a bad grade. So after twelve uyears we pretty much all use it and expect it in essays we read. There might be a better method but the one we learned is the one readers are trained to expect because we all learn and hold it in common. Every sculptor working in stone uses the same tools to perform the same task, the removal and polishing of stone. Depending on the material, the expected result, and the artist, the way the tool is used may change, but a knowledge of the medium and its strengths and weaknesses is a necessity if you won't want to take a chisel to your statue and have the arm fall off. How they use the knowledge, techniques and tools is a function of the individual, but the medium dictates which tools are best for which task. And that's true in any profession, including writing for the printed word. The things you find in the various books on technique aren't a rigid set of rules. They're useful knowledge. When entering any scene, for example your reader wants to know whose skin they're wearing. They want to know where they are in time and space. Opening with, "Charley ran as fast as he was able," is a fact and has no context. Saying "Charlie sprinted for the commuter train," sets the scene. We know who we are, where we are, and what's going on—the third thing readers want to know. And, they want to know those things through observation, as in the line I just gave, rather than having an invisible narrator explain it. The above is something we leave school not knowing because they're preparing us for college or to learn a trade. In college we don't learn it because it's knowledge only a fiction writer needs. And the result, as you can see by looking at the vast majority of stories posted on the various writers sites, most stories open without taking those things into account because the writer doesn't know they exist—even though leaving them out in a story they read will make them say, "Huh?" and close the page. We expect the information, but because it's seamlessly placed in professional writing, we notice that we're learning those things no more then we notice a hundred other small but necessary pieces of information if we're to create stories that captivate. And that's what a writer's education is for, not to place us in rigid little grooves from which we may not stray, but to give us an understanding of the needs of the medium and how to make them work for us.
@JayG, you never addressed my comment about how some of the greatest writers didn't have access to how-to books and all that and yet were still able to produce masterpieces.
I read a good book called The Man Who Knew Infinity a few years ago. The life story of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a genius mathematician from India. It would be impossible for me to understand his life work but what makes him especially interesting, is he sat, in near mathematical isolation, and produced many new theories. And on his way to doing so, re-invented methods that he didn't know already existed, so he could carry on with developing new techniques. Because no one was around to point out to him, the generally accepted notations for those techniques, he couldn't get anyone to take him seriously, because no one knew what he was talking about. Only after sending a letter and some of his work to G.H Hardy in Cambridge, did he finally find someone smart enough to understand what he was doing. He eventually went to Cambridge to work with Hardy, where, I am very sure, he went through dozens and dozens of How-To books; all assisting him to develop some of the great new theories before his untimely death. Why anyone wouldn't look through a series of texts, and yes, How-To books are texts, on a given subject, is beyond me. It seems so self defeating.
@Fitzroy Zeph, you're looking at it the wrong way. Those math textbooks gave him the foundation with which to solve new math problems. In creative writing, language is our foundation, and what a writer does with that foundation is entirely up to him. I think the thing to remember is that creative writing is different from a lot of other disciplines, so trying to use analogies may not be the best way to get the point across. But let me echo my previous post: since how-to-write-fiction type books are a relatively new thing, how come so many great writers of the past were able to produce masterpieces? Are you suggesting that the new generation of writers isn't capable of doing that? That we, for some odd reason, must use how-to books in order to write great fiction?
I'm not going the deny that there are differences between math and literature. My first guess as to why there are How-to write books is because there is a market for them but I'd like to say that they aren't that new. Dwight Swain's book that is often quoted here is a 1965, which by book standards is pretty old to still be in print. Another one that I have been reading is Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, a 1934 first printing which is still available at bookstores. Neither one that new. I'm not sure what you mean by a relatively new thing. Unless writer's are particularly gullible, I have to believe that these books would have died a certain and quick death if they had nothing to offer. I just think that the certain techniques gave certain writers the edge, they found a fan base and sales, those techniques were then copied and similar results occurred, finally someone put the ideas down into a book so the rest of us could reference it, and they too could get a jump on successful writing. There are lots and lots of small mistakes to make and to worry about, far too many for that matter. I think it's fairly clear and obvious that these how-to's will never make a person a writer any more than I would become a mathematician if I read Ramunujan's papers on number theory. Having a rudimentary template, or road map or whatever you want to call it, to work from, is a blessing. Masterpieces are usually produced by masters, and I have no delusions of either becoming a master, or producing a masterpiece. I would, however, like to write a good, and emphasize the next word, readable, story.
I'd like to re-enter this discussion from a somewhat different angle. The trouble with over-reliance on How-To-Write books is that a new writer can be made to think that in order to write a story you must follow some formula, be conscious of all the do's and don't's, write the book that will 'sell,' as 'ordered' by whoever wrote the How-To book you're reading. I feel you should write your original story/novel first, before reading any of these books. THEN, during the editing process, read how-to books from authors you respect. Some of these How-To authors are more suited to your own style of writing than others. (I personally dislike Jack Bickham's writing style, and prefer Orson Scott Card—politics aside—Nancy Kress, Matt Braun, Margaret Geraghty, William Noble.) Take pointers from them. Adjust your first draft to make improvements, even re-writes, using the techniques they offer that make sense to you. If you've already 'written,' you'll understand the process enough to make use of their expertise, but will have avoided following any pre-set pattern or formula. Refusing input from experts is probably not sensible, but neither is 'writing by numbers.' Trick is to strike a happy medium? I highly recommend compilations such as the Writer's Digest Handbooks of Novel Writing (various editions) which contain advice from many successful authors, not just one.
Okay, back to the original question: "will it be offputting?" For readers, myself at least, we like BIG BOOKS. Maybe I'm wrong, but the general consensus in this threads suggests that readers prefer to read long books that span hundreds of pages and hundreds of thousands of words. Frankly, it then turned to the publishing aspect of such a long book, and this is probably the most important part at the moment, if your desire is to get your work published, of course; and this usually requires a bit of cutting. So, how do you do this without losing parts of your story, and killing off characters, and removing pieces of dialogue that you have come to love? IMO, it all depends on whether you want to turn this into a published work. Now, I may be wrong, but it is said that publishers rarely accept epic, magnum-opuses from first-time authors without GREAT reasons; consequently, unless you have an amazing story, with amazing prose, and characters that will be unforgettable, you may have to decide whether or not to lose part of the novel, and strive for this publishing goal, or to try and stick it out. If any of this is wrong, or you feel differently about certain points I made, feel free to reply, because I'm only trying to help
@JayG - I love it when you argue with me for agreeing with you. The only significant point on which we differ is whether there is only one or more than one way for a writer to learn the craft of writing fiction, beyond basic SPaG and vocabulary. I offer @thirdwind's point about the relative newness of both creative writing majors in universities and "how to" books to support my contention that reading and studying a wide variety of quality fiction is at least as good a method as coursework or "how-to" books, and has a far longer history of success (i.e. from Beowulf to the mid-1900s). You make a passionate case for the newer method. At this point, I suggest that if we are to continue this discussion (and I'd be happy to), we do so in another thread. I think we've dragged this one far enough off course.
By a new phenomenon, I mean that it's only recently that a lot of how-to books and writing fiction seminars/classes have become popular (past few decades). I think this is because of the rise of self-publishing, but that's a separate issue. Anyway, I like to read writer interviews and biographies from time to time, and from everything I've read so far, not a single writer has advocated reading how-to books. Their advice is the same: read, read, and read some more. And these are not no-name writers, either. They've won major awards and are well-known in the literary community. If an aspiring writer wants to use how-to books, that's fine. But it's certainly not a requirement at all. That's the point I want to get across.
That's easy. None of them simply said, "I read stories, so I'm going to sit down and write and sell them. Look at their background. Invariably, they've had training in writing. At one time stories were much more journalistic, so a background like Hemingways sufficed. Unfortunately, now it doesn't. But the real answer to the question is right in front of you. If some sort of specialized knowledge wasn't necessary we would have a lot more people we know dropping in to say they just got a contract, or at least agent representation. A lot more of the self published people would be successful. And the people we call no talent hacks would not be making more money through writing then do the vast majority of people who take no meaningful steps toward acquiring professional knowledge. You might want to read the opening to Jack Bickham's, Scene and Structure. He pretty well answers that as part of it.
So because we speak English and have a large vocabulary that's enough? Okay, I suppose this isn't polite, but you're stating that as if it's finished and done, and you know by experience that it's true. So my question to you is: has it worked? Has it resulted in sales to real publishers? I tend toward wanting to see the result of a piece of advice, so, where can I read an example of the result of that belief? I'm not trying to put you on the spot, and I'm not trying to start an argument, but you're placing yourself in direct opposition to any book on writing fiction I've seen, and stating it as immutable fact Basically, you said that writing is no more than a form of self expression. But I can't buy that because I agree with Rosanne Cash, who said, “Self-expression without craft is for toddlers.” They're not. Do your research.
