Earlier in the year, I read a post on Facebook, in which Ray Bradbury suggested that all writers must start with short stories only, and tackle novels years later. He suggested a regimen of writing a story a week, so you'd have something like 50 stories in a year and a few of them may be publish-able. I personally didn't agree with this method - I started dabbling with novels when I was 15 or so, and never stopped. I enjoy the breathing room and the breadth of a novel's narrative, and working with it hands-on has helped me evolve stylistically and structurally. On top of that, it seems to me that plenty of authors got their start with novels. This is ultimately subjective - some authors can pump out a great first novel, others can't.
However, in the past few weeks (mostly during the big writer's conference in Logan) I learned of another rule. This is a quote that was once said by Terry Brooks, who attributed it to Ray Bradbury, but online it appears to also be attributed to David Eddings, Jerry Pournelle, and John D. McDonald. Who knows who originally said it? The gist of it is this:
"Write a million words–the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin."
It sounds rough to write one million words and dispose of them. However, that would roughly equate to ten years, which is about the amount of time suggested for a writer to properly mature enough to be any good. At the conference, author Maxwell Alexander Drake pounded this into us, saying that it's always your newest work that's the best and everything before it is garbage. Writing is a progressive learning process. If you look back on your old work and think it's still good, then something's wrong.
When I look back on more than ten years of writing - all random stuff just for the fun of it, and hardly anything published - I realize that I might have reached a certain point of maturity. I would have surely written a million words by now.
At this point, my projects are all scatter-brained and all over the place. It's pretty sad to look back on old projects, which always elicited so much excitement and pride when I wrote them, and find that they're just bad. Just about everything I have is now slated to be rewritten in some way. At the same time, I realize that this means I've changed, improving my skill little by little to produce something that might actually be readable.
I've come to believe that writers have to be sadomasochistic by nature. The sadism comes from having to create great characters and force them through hardship, pain, and suffering in order to make a cool plot. The masochism comes from having to take your beloved story and cut out huge swathes of it and change it all around to make it better. On top of that, a writer has to suppress his ego, accepting the pain of criticism to address shortcomings and fix things.
From writing panels, conferences, and critiques, I've learned the following lessons that could apply to any writer:
- Writing is a skill, not a talent. It takes years of practice and learning, and it never stops.
- There are three things to master in writing: dialogue, narration, and motion. If you can write all three of these well, then you'll be set.
- As difficult as it is to get accepted by agents, publishers, magazines, etc, the only way to truly fail is to quit altogether. You just have to keep writing and keep trying.
- Rules are meant to be broken. I hear this all the time in writing. I kinda hate the phrase, because I'm a conformist by nature and I can't bear the thought of breaking rules in society or rules given to me by figures of authority (including English teachers). However, after reading from Cormac McCarthy, William S. Boroughs, and Hubert Selby Jr., I am truly convinced that anything goes in literature (seriously, how did these guys ever get published?!).
- Moderation goes a long way. This can apply stylistically (watch your adverbs, your narrative tags, how much you show, how much you tell, etc) or with your content (too much trashiness, too many cliches, tone imbalances, deus ex machina, etc will turn people off).
- Lots of things can be left unsaid. It feels important to describe things, but if you don't, it's nothing to worry about. Readers can fill in the gaps with their own imaginations, and sometimes it may be better that way.
- Hooks are the thing that will earn you time with readers, agents, and other pros. To hook people with your work, you should start immediately with the action/plot. But action alone won't help you if it's just action for action's sake. The characters need to be the focal point of all the action, so if you can establish the right pathos right away and keep the plot rolling, you should be set.
- The publishing industry is going through a transition phase. In spite of that, it looks to me like there's a difference in opinion on the value of the traditional publishing model, and of literary agents. Agents are busy people as they are, they have little to no time or patience to accept new clients, so they set the standards for queries absurdly high and will reject anything and everything that doesn't meet those standards. On top of that, they're also pulling double-duty as editors. Some agents have recently been sued for negotiating contracts without a license. Publishers in New York are enforcing more life of copyright contracts, meaning that they'll have the rights to books for 50 years or so, giving writers no control over their work. The quality of traditionally-published work is not what it used to be, and they still won't do much to market you. Some writers will still tell you to publish this way - it's the professional way and it's how you break into the business. However, some writers will enforce indie-publishing as a viable alternative, since new tools (like Createspace) allow authors to print and distribute their work in the same trade channels as real publishing houses. Becoming a "hybrid" writer may be the most ideal position - one who publishes both traditionally and independently. In the future, however, the entire industry could change drastically. Flexibility is warranted in our current era.
- If you do submit works to a professional publishing house or magazine, you can't just spam them. Research them first, to find out what agents and presses are looking for. Submit only to those who seem to match up with your work. Make sure you follow the correct formatting guidelines, and provide everything they ask for (nothing more, nothing less). The guidelines are strict, because editors and agents have huge slush piles to work through and they will look for every opportunity to reject your work. You can improve your chances by making sure you submit to the right people and in the right way.
- Pitches are opportunities to formally connect with agents and try to sell them on your novel. It's easy to psyche yourself out over a pitch session, but after trying out a practice pitch, I found that it's not too terrible. It's helpful to practice your pitch, to memorize the points you want to say, but you should be flexible to deviate if you have to. It's not as formal as you might think - these sessions can be quite conversational, and if you're really passionate about your work, it should be easy to talk about. There are loads more guidelines I've uncovered on this topic, so I may have to make a post about it later.
- I've read this advice years ago and it still seems to be true: beware of anybody who asks for fees or money, or tries to force you to purchase something for your book's benefit. Real agents and publishers should make the money flow towards you, and make their money out of a percentage of profits (about 15% for most agents, 55% for publishers) - anything else may be a scam. Research should be able to help you identify how creditable your agent/press is.
- The most successful writers don't just stick to one thing, and they won't get far doing just one book a year. Writers may work with novels, short stories, freelance writing, ghost writing, screenplays, musicals, comics, and so much more. All of these different mediums have different processes. To make a living as a writer, you will need to dabble in multiple mediums and work pretty darn hard.
- If you do manage to become a professional writer, you'll generally do a good job if you do two of the following: write well, get work done on time, and be easy to work with. For some reason, many authors aren't easy to work with, and that's why agents are needed to mediate between authors and publishers.
- It all begins and ends with the characters. It seems like all the work I've been getting critiqued of late has failed to captivate readers because they can't connect to the characters - they're described as robotic. I realize that my stories might be too engrossed in some cool idea or plot, and I fail to address the characters properly. Without their thoughts and emotions, it's just shallow action and ideas. I tend to think that these things could still sell, but they won't have a lasting impact. I've come to think of this as the "Christopher Nolan" effect, because if you look at all the people who hate the movie Inception, or anything else the guy makes, you'll find these same complaints: lots of ideas, not enough character focus. I think I've made plenty of colorful and interesting characters, but when the action hits, they tend to go through the motions, leaving various scenes feeling cold and empty.
- I've also been told recently that I've been telling too much and not showing enough. For some things, it can be an easy fix. I find it hard to figure out how to extrapolate great detail and description in character thoughts and emotions, without being blunt or obvious. And then I find myself overthinking things, and I worry that I might wind up making a contrived effort. What I find interesting about this is that I think I've done an okay job at balancing these issues in some stories, but have done a terrible job in others. It's great when it flows out naturally, but it's a pain to fix in editing, and it feels weird to consciously tell myself "I have to show this and not tell it" while drafting something new.
- My hooks are weak. In most cases, I've been so focused on using action or dialogue to start a story as an instant hook, but action and talking alone doesn't captivate nearly as well as starting with the character and the story's starting point. I've also been compelled in many stories to start with setting the scene, but this is obviously a boring way to start. I've been analyzing the openings for most of my stories, and I've been thinking of new ways to revise them so that they'll hopefully be better.
- Repetition, is one of the first problems that was brought to my attention, as far back as 2005. I've kinda trained myself to spot repetitive words and phrases in editing, but it still rears its ugly head on occasion.
- Balancing dialogue. I usually get a kick out of writing dialogue and hearing the characters' voices in my head. So much so that I've probably overindulged in exposition. I've had one scene get picked apart because the villain was "giving a lecture" to the character (I suppose he was monologue-ing). I've recently been made aware that I have characters talking about stuff they should already know. I'm gradually learning that there are things that are better left unsaid.
- Density. Most of my older works were so action-focused that I made the classic mistake of over-indulging in it. As a result, I had scenes that went through fight moves move-by-move. It was long and dry to write, and it's long and dry to read. I succeeded in making awesome stuff boring. Same goes for description, which is weird since I don't usually like overly-descriptive books. However, action and plot do slow to a crawl when I stop and try to paint a picture, no matter how cool it is.
- I should really read my stories out loud. Even to myself, it's a way to methodically go through a story word-by-word and spot errors that will be missed when just looking at it. I find that reading my stories out loud will also give me a better idea of how the pacing is going and whether I'm being repetitive or dull.
I've written about one million words up to this point. So in the words of Khan..."shall we begin?"
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