This may be of more interest to SF/F fans. I was at WorldCon, and got to meet some writers I really like, including George R R Martin, Spider Robinson, Robert Silverberg, Garth Nix, Cory Doctorow, Peter S. Beagle, Diana L. Paxson, Martha Wells, David Brin, David Gerrold (who told great stories about Harlan Ellison, as did Robert Silverberg), Katharine Kerr, NK Jemisin, and a few others I had to fan out over. Lots of panels, many on the industry, many on the craft of writing. There were editors from the big publishers on the panels as well. One thing that became very clear when it came to successful writers talking about their process (and these were processes they had when they began as well as now; sometimes they evolved, sometimes not so much) is that everyone has to find their own individual path--you do what works for you. That seems like obvious advice, but we see a lot on forums about questions like 'should I outline,' or can I do 'x.' There's no one-size fits all answer. Peter S. Beagle said he doesn't outline his novels, he just starts typing. I don't think that would work for me for a novel-length work, but it works for him. Spider Robinson talked about Lee Child starting his Reacher books that way, with no clear idea of story or plot when he first sits down and just starts writing. Other authors relied heavily on outlines for novel-length work. Interestingly, storytelling v. writing came up at more than one panel, and the consensus was that the ability to tell a story is more important than the skill with which an author may be able to craft beautiful sentences, though to some extent at least how you put the words together ties into how you're approaching storytelling. The consensus among editors was 1) know your market; and 2) the answer to "can I do X" is always "yes," provided you do it well. Another important point was that it is never too late to break into the field--you may be 50 years old and never have a sale, until one day you get one. And although it is never too late to start, staying relevant is difficult, even for old hands at the craft who have been selling for years. I was interested to hear a senior editor at TOR books say that word count didn't really matter these days--the idea that you had to fit within narrow boundaries wasn't really a thing anymore and that she didn't even think much about word count when considering a novel. On par, a really long word count is easier to sell if you're an established writer, but you shouldn't feel overly constrained by it. Another member of the same panel (I can't remember who) said you take as many words as you need to finish the story. Lots of interesting panels all the way around, but the vast diversity with which successful writers approach how they write, and how they prepare to write, struck me. There really is no one true way, and that's important for aspiring writers to know.
Yes. Every writer has their own method, and should try different ways of writing until they find the one that works for them. I'd guess there's less concern about length these days because ebooks make up a large part of the market, and the difference in cost between a 60,000 word ebook and a 160,000 ebook is far less than the cost between a 60,000 work paperback and a 160,000 word paperback.
That could be. Though I wonder whether the cost difference in physical books is even that much for big publishers. Maybe it’s more about shelf space? That wasn’t addressed.
Cost of print seems to be a hotly-debated topic. Cost per page for traditionally-printed books probably isn't enormous, but it's been a common reason quoted in the past for publishers preferring shorter books from new writers, where they don't want to have to push up the price of a book by a writer readers don't know. But, you're right, you can also fit a lot more 60,000 word paperbacks on a shelf than 160,000 word paperbacks. That may be an even bigger reason.
Yeah. It's just speculation on my part, but with physical shelf space at such a premium these days in the book stores it seems like it would be a consideration, even if not the only one.
It's a lot easier for aspiring writers to work on their story then their writing. So, I think saying story is more important than writing is what a lot of aspiring writers want to hear. And those people speaking are getting paid to speak and be at least somewhat encouraging. Those speakers would love to pick up a few new fans to sell a some more books. So, why not be encouraging and tell people what they want to hear. Everyone can create a story (if only in their mind), but not everyone can write a story well enough to "make it." Writing counts, and it counts a lot. Sure, the story is important, but if you can't write, no one is going to read it. While the popular answer and the answer most people want to hear is that story matters more, but it doesn't. I'm not talking lavish prose, I'm talking clarity and producing something well written. The writing has to be at a professional level for you to make sales at a professional level. Okay, there are always exceptions, but most of the time we are not the exceptions. Writing is always going to matter a lot. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
I don't agree with any of this, and there is a huge misconception here. WorldCon started in the late 1930s. It was long primarily attended by people inside the industry. That tradition has maintained, though a lot more fans attend now. The panelists are not being paid to speak--in fact, they have to pay their ticket, travel, and everything else to be there. That's the nature of the convention. The guests of honor get their ticket and travel reimbursed, I believe, but even they don't get speaking fees for the panels they're on. Setting aside the above, the post states that these writers, some of which are already among the top names in the field and whose work is already known by everyone sitting in the audience, are lying to their audience. The accusation of lying is based on no evidence at all, and I submit that it is false. There's no benefit to these authors to lying, either in terms of making money, or in terms of somehow generating goodwill with an audience. You see them on panels, in the halls, in the bars in the evening, and they're all taking their time to mentor aspiring writers and I believe doing their best to give good advice. That's apparently how WorldCon has always been, even back in the days when hardly anyone except writers, agents, and publishers were showing up to it. The quoted post is, in short, complete BS. Sorry.
In almost every genre, story is more important than writing, so long as the writing doesn't get in the way of the story. And, even then, it doesn't necessarily stop the book becoming a multi-million-seller. I'm reading a trade-published thriller at the moment whose writing keeps making me want to throw my phone against the wall, but it's from a long-established best-selling writer, has an average rating of over 4 out of 5 on the usual reader-review sites, and probably sold more books in a day when it came out than I've sold in my entire writing life. And I'll read it to see how the story ends, even though I hate many of the individual words that make up the story.
@Steerpike -- It's fine to disagree with me. I just know how some/a lot of these conferences work. And I'm really surprised the speakers aren't getting paid. That doesn't seem quite fair if there in an entrance fee to get in. I've been invited to speak about writing this fall and will be getting paid a few hundred dollars for it. And I recently read an essay about how authors can sometimes make more money speaking to aspiring writers at conferences and such than their books bring in. And I'm not talking about unknown writers. Also, people don't just shell out there own money to help mentor aspiring writers. Why would they? And people aren't nice enough to keep such a tradition going for as long as your conference has been around. Is it really the only conference that doesn't pay it's speakers? I'm guessing one or both of us are confused about this. I do stand by what I said earlier, and I also have no problem with you or anyone else disagreeing with me.
Yes, they do. Not all writers, but a significant number, remember when they were aspiring writers and someone helped them... they want to pay that back to the next generation. And others probably think it's nice to have an attentive audience listening to their advice for a change, after years of no-one caring what that previously-unpublished writer though. It's not as though they're paying to go to the con just to help other writers. They go to the con for their own reasons, and help other writers while they're there.
I've been assuming that it's about cost of editing labor, which would go up with size irrespective of medium.
I don't see why or how you came to that conclusion. They're both pretty difficult. They both depend on a combination of talent and work. I can't see that one is easier than the other, and if I were forced to pick one, I'd pick story--it's certainly my weaker element.
I think we can get tangled up in semantics over this issue. Of course 'writing' has to be up to a certain standard or it hampers the story and puts the reader off. However, I think it's more a question of chicken-and-egg. If your writing style is flowery and polished (or gritty and worldly) and full of pleasant surprises and hand-clapping moments and totally error-free, yet the basic characters you've created are stereotypes, or your plot has huge holes in it and doesn't ultimately make sense, then your output will suffer. If you create a story with a plot that is tight and well-researched, with a cracking ending that feels right yet nobody predicted, and your characters (in your own vision anyway) are unique, realistic and are people whom readers should identify with ...but you can't string sentences together, or can't spot tons of SPAG errors, or keep using the same metaphors and similes over and over again ...well, your output will also suffer. My own preference is to get the story straight first. If you were cooking a grand meal for people, you wouldn't start presenting things on a plate before they were cooked, would you? However, presentation DOES count, so it's good to pay attention to how you will present the meal as you go along. But stunning presentation won't totally compensate for a meal that actually doesn't taste all that good. So yeah, I think story matters slightly more than the presentation. As long as you've flopped all the food onto a plate and given everybody the appropriate cutlery—folks will remember how good it tastes, not care all that much that it's not garnished with cut-out birds and flowers, and come back for more. Just don't do the writerly equivalent of dumping the meal on the floor instead. It might still taste great, but nobody is going to get down on their prayer bones to lap it up, are they?
See, @jannert, I don't see the writing as the presentation. The writing as the meat and potatoes. The writing is what it's all about, but to me that includes the story. You can't write about nothing and ideas alone don't make you a writer. But regardless how you look at it, without both, as you said, the novel will suffer. So, it seems weird to be that everyone around here keeps saying story is more important than the writing. And this is just another thread in a string of them lately. Since when are people separating the writing and story? Well, I guess here on a forum and at conferences that don't pay their speakers.
I think we might fare better if we use the terms 'content' and 'style.' As I said, I think the argument is more about semantics than anything else. Obviously the style—whatever kind the author favours—has to be competent (or brilliant) enough to convey the story's content—which we hope is worthwhile (or brilliant.) BTW, don't disparage a conference that doesn't pay its contributors (other than accomodation, meals, etc.) That's a tribute to those writers' committment to the genre, and the names at this particular convention are stellar indeed. They don't need to prove themselves. Their sales already have. This is a very long-established convention. People want to pick these authors' brains on writing issues, and they are generous enough to want to help. I think I'd trust that format, actually.
So, who gets the money if it doesn't go to the speakers? That's what I don't understand. I'm not bashing the speakers. I'm saying that I think they should be paid. And if people are paying to go to the conference (likely to see some of these speakers), who gets the money. I have never heard of speakers like this not being paid. It could be a genre thing, but that doesn't mean it's right.
You can see a breakdown of the WorldCon finances from 2014 (LonCon) at: http://www.wsfs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2016-WSFS-Minutes-Final.pdf starting on page 58, but I think possibly you're getting a bit caught up in the details? I think the finances of the WorldCon structure are a red herring. Those authors are legit and successful and I really don't think they'd compromise their reputations for a speakers fee in any case. Really, I think the whole discussion is based on a false dichotomy. It's not a question of story vs. writing... even in @Steerpike's original post, it was framed as "the ability to tell a story is more important than the skill with which an author may be able to craft beautiful sentences". The "ability to tell a story" includes most of what I'd think of as "writing" - plot, pacing, characterization, clarity, etc. It seems obvious to me that "craft beautiful sentences" is a minor detail compared to all those other elements. There are loads of successful novels without "beautiful sentences". That doesn't mean there are loads of successful novels without clear writing.
I think it is possible that a part of the issue is that some of the people who say, "story over writing," managed to master readable prose years ago and don't think about it much, but sometimes a story is hard to come by. Some people are really talented and write readable prose early in their career. Many people take years, with multiple books or dozens of short stories to figure out readable prose, due to all sorts of barriers like: 1: The disproportionate level of confidence everyone has when they learn to do anything. 2: The gap between academic prose (which everyone learns a little about) and the prose used in fiction. 3: The difficulty in finding good advice because: 3a: Friends and family don't want to hurt your feelings 3b: Other novices might not be able to give the right advice 3c: Finding a mentor at all, let alone one that shares your tastes, is hard or expensive 4: Writing readable prose is actually really hard for most people. 5: When your prose isn't readable, it might still be readable to you, so you can't tell why. 6: Some of the techniques used to learn to write good prose, like transcribing, are seen as cheep, useless, or tasteless, and aren't advertised much. So yeah, a lot of people can write good prose, but finding the story is always an issue. Many people that can write good prose have been able to for years and years, or learned it quickly, and might not get what it is like to write and polish a book no one can get five pages through.
That could certainly come into play for most people. I've run into a few people in writing groups who struggle with producing readable prose. The more common problem (ancedotally, with respect to the groups I've been in) is someone who writes perfectly readable prose but can't tell a story effectively. When it comes to how works may perform in the market, there are many factors that go into it and many ways to gauge success or satisfaction with a work, however I still believe that when it come to sheer popularity, as reflected by sales, one will on average do better with a book that has a compelling story effectively told, but where the prose is nothing stellar, than with a book full of phenomenal prose that doesn't reflect any actual story-telling ability.
This question seems to assume that there's money left over after paying the cost of the venue and other expenses--that the convention makes a profit. Is there a reason to assume that?
The majority of the funds go to renting the facility (such as a convention center), other facility-related charges, publications/printed materials and the like, decorators/event planners, administrative costs, and a category called "post-con reimbursements" (I don't know what that includes). Other funds go to special events, such as the Hugo Awards ceremony, opening and closing ceremonies, and the like (though there are a number of lesser events as well). And so on. Last one I saw numbers for, I think they pretty much broke even. When there are funds left they get passed along to the next WorldCon, though there's a separate group organizing the next one.
I've met some great writers online and stayed in touch. When it comes to writing groups with open membership, I think the irl ones are usually stronger (in my experience) for no other reason than people who show up in real life are usually taking it more seriously, or are further along.
@Steerpike judging from my twitter feed, World Con panels sound like they are highly effective at helping the participants reach new readership. It's basically cooperative advertising.
It depends on the panel. Some can help with that, certainly. Most of the audiences are too small to represent a significant increase in readership, and the ones I went to were mostly about craft or industry. If you go to a panel because a writer you like is on it, you are going to be exposed to the other members of the panel (who may also be writers, or may be agents or editors, etc.). The tweeting about it will reach far more people than the actual panels ever could.
