A Universal Truth About Sequels and Zombies

Okay, I have to get washed and dressed and polished in 15 minutes to attend the reception for winners of the Undiscovered Voices competition run by British SCBWI.

But blog I must because this is too important to put off.

The wise and worldly Maureen Johnson recently dispensed some free Awesome Advice to writers gnashing their teeth over writing sequels:

Advice One: Remember What You Wrote in the First Book

Advice Two: Add At Least One Zombie

To demonstrate Advice Two, she presented this revision of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:

“What think you of books?” said he, smiling.

“Books? Oh! No, I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings.”

“I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.”

“No. I cannot talk of books in a ballroom; my head is always full of something else.”

Hearing this, a nearby zombie turned, lured by the prospect of whatever was contained within Elizabeth’s head. He was within striking distance of her when the other dancers caught him up and swept him away by accident.

“The present always occupies you in such scenes, does it?” said Darcy, throwing a look of doubt at the still-flailing zombie as he was pulled down the line.

“Yes, always,” she replied, without knowing what she said, for her thoughts had wandered far from the subject. Elizabeth’s distraction was not related to the zombie. She had not seen it, and was only vaguely aware of the fact that the time of the dance had been thrown off by the newcomer’s awkward shuffling and the panic that ensued.

“I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created.”

The zombie once again made his shambling way toward Elizabeth and the delicious promises of her coconut-like head.

“I am,” said he, with a firm voice designed to scare away the interloper.

“And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?”

“I hope not,” Darcy replied, noting with satisfaction that the zombie had once again been dragged into the action by the remaining dancers who had not yet observed his presence in their midst.

The zombie, confounded by recent events, tired of the chase for Elizabeth. He instead ripped off the head of the nearby Sir Watkin Smiley-Franklin and commenced in the eating of his brain, which pleased Mr. Darcy even more. Sir Watkin was a terrible bore on the subject of farm taxes, and Mr. Darcy was much relieved to see all of his thoughts on the subject being consumed by the zombie’s loose, grinding jaw.

The zombie thing was such a hit that she has launched her Insert a Zombie Win A Prize competition which attracted a celebrity entry from Scott Westerfeld based on Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of apocalypses, it was the worst of apocalypses. It was an age of brain eating, it was an age of shotguns. It was the epoch of damaging the head, or of removing it from the body. It was the season of light infantry weapons, it was the season of dark pursuits through abandoned sewers. We had everything at the local mall before us, but there were too many zombies in the way. In short, the period was so far like the present period—except for, you know, all the frickin’ zombies.

Needless to say Scott has been promptly disqualified for being married to one of the judges.

The deadline is tomorrow!

A Brave New World for Publishers (the Key Word is Brave)

Comes the news this week that two publishers have launched distribution initiatives that feature competing visions of the future.

Harper Collins is releasing complete texts online from such web-savvy authors as Neil Gaiman and Paul Coelho.

Random House on the other hand is selling chunks of business books for small fees.

This almost 20 years after the creation of the world wide web. Is it just me or does this sound a bit slow, considering how the web has so far revolutionised music distribution and all sorts of human interaction?

Nicholas Clee, on the Guardian Book Blog, notes:

These announcements suggest we have not moved on from the year 2000 - at least a generation ago, in internet terms.

Clee saves us some research by outlining how authors from Stephen King to Seth Godin have been working the web for years way before the publishers perked up to its possibilities.

One author commenting on Clee’s blog post wrote:

The publishing houses are stuck in old modes of doing things, trying to make money (yes, they have to survive). Finally! they are allowing the public to read their books without trekking to the bookstore? But they are doing this after the books have been out and their window of opportunity is closed. And in whose interests?

When the Media Guardian invited media movers and shakers to predict the future, book publishers were conspicuous in their absence.

For the publishing world, the online universe is a Brave New World. Aldous Huxley describes his novel as set in a “negative utopia” – which pretty much probably reflects how publishing regards the web.

Author and marketing guru Godin sees the Harper announcement as a typical traditional book publishing mentality attempting a new initiative: "They took all the [viral marketing] things that work — that make it spread — and they're turning them off." His idea is that marketing is "trying to start conversations, and if that conversation takes place the ideas spread." - 22nd Century Press Blog

I guess the key word in this Brave New World is Brave. The initiatives announced today are at best tentative and at worst fearful.

Sure, the industry is constantly struggling to stay on the right side of the bottom line.

But publishers should do better.

Brave New World image copyright Tony Hamilton, DreamingAloud.com

Writers Have to Make Choices

In my critique group there are quite a few of us revising finished manuscripts.

It’s a thrilling process, revisiting your words and discovering that you can recharge a scene in ways you couldn’t imagine the last time you read the manuscript.

But it’s also a terrifying thing.

One little edit throws up a thousand edits. Injecting nuance to a previously two dimensional character might mean weeks of re-imagining all the scenes the character features in.

Suddenly the revision is not just a quick edit but a total rewrite.

One novelist friend wrote me in an email:

I’m doing really well. The only thing is it's getting so I’m afraid I’m going to have to rewrite the whole novel!

What to do?

I found the answer when I was half-watching a movie in the wee hours while contemplating my manuscript.

The film was Wonder Boys (2000), featuring Michael Douglas (pictured) as former award-winning novelist Grady Tripp who we are led to believe is suffering from writer’s block. Except he isn’t. The real problem is that he can’t stop writing – and the script has hit an unpublishable 2,000 plus single-spaced pages. His creative writing student Hannah (played by Katie Holmes) reads the tome and delivers the following critique:

Grady, you know how in class you are always telling us that writers make choices? And even though your book is really beautiful, I mean amazingly beautiful ... at times it’s ... uh ... very detailed. You know, the genaeologies of everybody’s horses and dental records and so on. And I could be wrong but it sort of reads in places like you didn’t make any choices. At all.

What to do?

Make choices.

You’ve decided to edit your book.

So do it.