Reduce, reuse, recycle

Not a bad mantra by any means. But what about when it comes to writing?

I spent several years penning a magnum opus that went nowhere, despite, ironically, being a travel novel. Although I know Heinlein says not to rewrite except on editorial order, I’ve abandoned the book; this thing wasn’t even good enough to get an editor to order anything at all about it.

After all that work, however, I was reluctant to ditch completely what I had written. So, I did a copy and paste job to about 20K words into my WIP Nyasaland. As long as I know I won’t use the scenes again, why not put that previous hard work to good use?

Nyasaland is more or less done, it just needs some ironing out. It struck me in the rereads, however, that I like the new parts much more than the parts salvaged from the old book. In fact, the older scenes are the most difficult to get through and to edit. But why?

Possibility 1. I have improved as a writer. This is my favorite option, since I get to be a smarty pants, and I’m sure it’s true to some degree. Maybe there is a reason not even my girlfriends couldn't finish reading it (yes, the writing and rewriting outlived several relationships). But if this possibility were true, I would be able to fix the problems and be happier with the result. But I’m not. I’m just as unhappy with the edited scenes as I was when I pasted them in.

Possibility 2. I have “Golden Word Syndrome.” I thought the old book was perfect when it clocked in at 230K words. Okay, maybe it was still as perfect at the 200K words I pared it down to. I am meticulous, and every word was exactly the word it needed to be and was where it needed to be. The problem with that assessment is nobody agreed. Nobody said they loved the book. Fewer than five people (out of about twenty who attempted) were even able to finish it. But this possibility doesn’t seem right either. I accept rewriting as part of writing, and expect improvement when I do.

Possibility 3. The transplanted scenes are metaphysically different from the rest of the book. Ever tell a joke that had people rolling at one party only to have it fall flat at the next? “Guess you just had to be there.” Perhaps moving a scene from one book to another is kind of like that; each book has its own indescribable essence and simply changing tenses, names, subtle points of style, etc., isn’t enough. The new scenes in Nyasaland worked because they were created for that book; the old scenes worked in the old book for the same reason.

Possibility 4. The book was completely perfect in every way, I’m overthinking this, and I gave up too early. Yeah, right. See #2.

Possibility 5. I have improved enough to know what’s wrong, but not enough to know how to fix it. Well, this post pretty much proves that, huh?

Be an editor for an hour! Or at least play one in your own home.

I frequent a website called FreeMusicArchive.org. It’s all free and legal; the artists post their songs under a creative commons license for people to download. Some biggish names are there (Son Volt, Deadstring Brothers, Rodrigo y Gabriela)—mostly live tracks recorded at the radio stations that support FMA—but many are unknowns. Tens of thousands of songs, yours within seconds over the internet. We’ve come a long way from holding a tape recorder to the radio, haven’t we?

Anyway, I’d like you all to humor me in a fun exercise. Go to FreeMusicArchive.org. On the right-hand side is a box labeled “Recently Added Highlights.” Next to each track is a plus sign that adds the song to an online music player (you might have to unblock popups). Don’t play directly on the page; I’m going somewhere with this. Add the first five tracks to the FMA player. Hit “pause” before the first track plays (going somewhere with this . . .). Just below that box is another labeled “Most Interesting Highlights.” Add the first five of these tracks. Next, go to the “Browse by Genre” area, and select three genres of your choice. Add one track from each of the first five artists in each genre. You should now have twenty-five tracks in your player.

Ready for the excitement? Hit “Play.”

What do you think of the first track? Great from the start? Horrible? Need to hear more before you decide? If you’re not sure, click the selector to the middle and see if it takes off later. If you’re convinced the song tanks (trust me, you have to kiss a lot of toads on FMA), click “Next.” But if you like it, click “Download.”

[Do not proceed reading until you reach the end of the track list]

So what did you think? Some of the songs were just noise, weren’t they? Worthless and you hit “next” within a few seconds. I’ll bet other tracks had great music, but the singer had a lousy voice. Some tracks probably did most things right, but some critical elements were missing somehow. Or maybe there was nothing wrong with the song at all, it just wasn’t your cup of tea. But then there were the masterpieces, the tracks that started strong and stayed strong. The keepers. How many keepers did you find?

Feel confident in your choices? Well, guess what: you have just done what agents and editors do with stories.

Pretend the tracks are submissions. Some weren’t in your genre, and are similar to submissions that don’t fit the guidelines; they were sent to anyone with an address. Doesn’t mean they weren’t good, just not what you were looking for. Selecting three genres was like posting your guidelines in an effort to up your chances of finding something you’ll like. Even so, the quality varied from incoherent ramblings of people with marginal (I’m being generous here) talent, through people who did most things right but it just wasn't quite "there," to the perfectly fine pieces you simply didn’t like, to the keepers you will listen to five times in the next few hours.

Free downloads are one thing, now imagine being responsible for your magazine’s or publishing house’s financial investments in stories and books. As much as rejections sting sometimes, I think I have some idea of what agents and editors go through.

Please DON’T review my books and stories

Now that I have your attention, humor me for a couple hundred words or so and I’ll explain.

I’m a purist. Perhaps I’m too idealistic for my own good, but I trust the system. I voted absentee from Uganda in the last election even though my guy was, well, not the odds-on favorite in the state I’m registered. I stopped watching basketball when I realized coaches sometimes instructed players to foul intentionally to stop the clock and get a free time-out. As a kid, I had such a hyper-attuned sense of fairness my parents worried I was setting myself up for a lifetime of disappointment. Good thing I also have a hyper-attuned optimism.

So imagine my disappointment when a friend published a book. A decent book; not without its problems, but good enough to get a prestigious agent and a top-notch publisher. A valiant first effort. That wasn’t the disappointment. The disappointment came when I went to Amazon and saw seven or so reviews, all of them five star, and all of them posted by variants of the author’s parents’ names. “Andy S” was one. “A. Smith” was another. “A. Robert Smitty” was yet another. Good grief.

I’ve heard that stuffing your book’s review page with planted reviews is a good way to get your book noticed. Is it, though? I can hear some authors responding “Yes! It is! This is war, and you gotta pull out all the stops.” I’ve never been in the military, but it seems obvious a good general won’t simply throw everything he has at the enemy. Some modes of attack are so unprofitable, even if successful, as to not be worth it. Don’t spend 90% of your resources getting 10% of the result. Don’t be penny wise and dollar dumb.

There are many reasons I think planted reviews are not a good idea. First, it’s just plain dishonest. Call it God, karma, short-sightedness, “wow, I guess I didn’t think that through,” whatever, there are consequences for dishonesty (see my third point below). My next objection is I can’t see how a handful of planted reviews are going to make any difference in sales. First off, many readers say they shoot for the middle in reading reviews, ignoring the one- and five-stars and looking at the threes. If a book is doing so poorly that 90+% of the reviews are planted, that might tell me something (this is not an absolute, of course. There are many reasons a successful book might not have many reviews. But that’s another issue). And if the book takes off and does well, then eight or ten planted reviews aren’t going to make any difference. Finally, the adage “a rising tide floats all boats” can come back and bite us. Let’s say I run to Kinkos, photocopy the last ten years of my phone bill, self publish it, then get ten reviews from four friends with multiple accounts. How are my ten planted reviews going to raise my book above your book and its ten planted reviews? This is one of the consequences for dishonesty; my dishonesty negates any advantage your dishonesty gives you, and vice versa. Nobody wins.

Therefore, let me add a few words to my title. Please don’t review my books or stories unless you mean what you say. If the book is only suitable to line a bird cage (I’d like to see you do that with an ebook), say so. I would rather have five reviews the reader relates to than twenty where the reader says “man, what were those other reviewers thinking?” As those other reviewers, I hope you feel the same way.

Harrumph! You just don't know what's good!

A couple years ago, when my short story “The Battle of Hutchinson’s Crossroads” came out in Big Pulp Magazine, the editor organized an open conference call where selected contributors had ten or so minutes to read our stories aloud. It was pretty cool. There were about thirty people on the line.

One author read her story. To me, it was a straightforward tale: Main character unhappy, tries to be happy, then weird stuff happens and the story ends. I shrugged and thought “Okay, if weird stuff is going to happen, that’s probably how it would.”

When the author was done, the phone line came alive with gasps, exclamations, and breathless sighs. “Wow!” “That just . . . wow!” “Exquisite!” These cries were almost followed by a “Lol, what?!?” coming from my line. Almost.

I read my story to quiet “huh”s and “thanks”es. But I had bullets flying in the first sentence! People died in the first paragraph! I had an O Henry/Vonnegutesque twist ending! And I had “huh”s and “thanks”es at the end. Maybe I read it too flatly. Maybe my story was predictable. Maybe my story was . . . bad. Maybe all of my stories are bad. Maybe I don’t know what good is. Maybe I’m a . . . bad writer.

So how do I know if my writing is any good? Someone on a writers’ forum said there is no such thing as bad writing; only writing that isn’t currently in style, or writing that’s not to one’s taste. Lordy, I hope he’s right.

I’m currently reading Orhan Pamuk’s Snow. It’s blowing me away. Why? It’s omni done well: just enough out of Ka’s immediate space to keep me going without annoying teasers. It’s also clever in word play; it takes place in a snowstorm in a town called Kars, which is Turkish for snow. I understand this book, yet I can't anticipate what's going to happen and I'm delighted when it does. I want to write this way. I can write this way. I think I’m going to write this way more often.

The only criteria I use to judge if my writing is “good” is to ask if I am writing what I like to read.

Today I laugh at my reaction to that conference call. I reread the other story just now, and I can see the appeal; she did a great job making me feel for the character.

Would I like to write like that? Sure, why not? But if I did I would add my own flavor, and take the story in the direction I want it to go. Does that make me a better writer than her? No, but I don’t think being good means being better than someone else. Being good means saying what you want to say in a way the reader will neither misunderstand nor (more importantly) anticipate.

How many licks does it take . . .

. . . before you give in and give up writing?

This question comes up pretty frequently on Absolute Write. One of the common answers is: “Why do you want to write? Do you want to create worlds and characters for your own enjoyment? Or do you want to be published? Or do you want to be a best seller?” Your answer to that question sets the criteria for when to quit.

I want to create characters and situations, and share them with others. Lots of others. A posting site with ten visitors a month isn’t going to cut it. That means I have to write with an eye to being published, and being published well.

Anyone who has submitted a story or queried an agent has taken licks. “Thanks but no.” “Not for us at this time.” “I am not engaged in this story.” (Then I’ll rewrite it so the guy proposes to you. Will that help?)

In the absence of direct input, and it’s been ages since I’ve gotten a personalized rejection, it’s impossible to know why the piece was rejected. Was the writing bad? And if so, in what way? Too analytical? Too flowery? In an earlier post I suggested people ignore a form rejection in so far as what it means about the story. But rack up half a dozen on a story? Fifty on a query letter? When is the writing on the wall God telling us Belshazzars to get a clue rather than just the normal insecurities we all feel from time to time?

I don’t know. I wish I did; I could write a book and make a million dollars.

The question of when to quit is, of course, an entirely personal one. Just as the decision to write is. But I am going to give it ten years. In late 2007 I decided to get serious about publishing these stories I was writing; just over five years ago. When I was at this stage in graduate school, I had a couple papers in scientific journals and a decently received Master’s thesis. But I was doing things that would get me a lot of attention in another year or two. When I was at this stage in my career, I was building up a momentum that would get me respect within the small research community I was part of. It was too early to expect the invitations to symposia and such, but that was coming in the next few years.

Why should I expect my writing to be any different? I have a novel with Musa, and half a dozen short stories in small markets. Looks like I'm where I should be.

So by the end of 2017, I’ll take a look at where I am, and decide what I want to do then. I don’t want to “quit five minutes before the miracle happens,” but I think by that time I will know what I can expect from this endeavor. Worse comes to worst, I’ll have a million or so words written and have had a lot of fun in the process.