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.

Dan Santat's School Visit

I follow the blog of Dan Santat just because I love his drawing (the other artist I subscribe to is Sarah Macintyre. Love her stuff!) Dan does the Disney cartoon The Replacements (I haven't seen it here in the UK but then I don't get the Disney Channel).

Anyway, this is not just about how wonderful Dan is (which he is) but about School Visits. Now I did a little piece on school visits featuring Doomspell author Cliff McNish a while back - school visits are a big deal for children's authors because it's a cool way of getting in touch with one's readers etc etc. Of course, it doesn't hurt either that you could make a little bit of money to supplement your non JK Rowling advance.

So here's Dan's truly super cool video about a week long visit to a school for gifted children in Virginia. We can all learn a thing or two about marketing ourselves here.

Writers Need Two Brains

I've been a member of SCBWI (the Society for Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators) for donkey's years but last year I decided to join the Society of Authors. The SOA is only for the published author (I got in on the basis of a non-fiction book and my radio work)and the difference between SCBWI - which supports both published and non-published - was veeeery interesting.

Whilst at SCBWI there is clear emphasis on craft and (naturally) getting published, the focus at SOA is on sales, rights, taxes - all the stuff that many SCBWIites have yet to dream about.

It became clear to me that to call yourself an author, you need two brains.

The brains of an artist, dedicated to his/her craft.

And the brains of the entrepreneur, building his/her brand and getting the books sold.

Weirdly there was a lot of stuff out there today about the process of selling books.

A New York Times essay by Rachel Donadio described the shift from writing the book to seeing it in bookshops as akin to "a sudden change in cabin pressure"

As soon as a literary agent has sold a publisher a book, and even before it’s edited, copy-edited, proofread and indexed, the publicity wheels start turning. While writers bite their nails, the book editor tries to persuade the in-house sales representatives to get excited about the book, the sales representatives try to persuade retail buyers to get excited, and the retail buyers decide how many copies to buy and whether to feature the book in a prominent front-of-the-store display, for which publishers pay dearly. In the meantime, the publisher’s publicity department tries to persuade magazine editors and television producers to feature the book or its author around the publication date, often giving elaborate lunches and parties months in advance to drum up interest.

It doesn't sound like a picnic.

Shelfstalker, a children's bookseller's blog, described how independent bookstores augment the bestseller sales of publishers by handselling titles they have a personal liking for. Here's a quote from bookseller Karl Pohrt speaking at the Beijing Book Fair:

When we do our job properly, independent booksellers act as an early warning system for publishers. We help publishers launch books. It should also be noted that the 150 to 500 range of titles is where publishers are making money, because they haven’t made huge investments that they have to recuperate in contracts with best-selling authors and large ad campaigns. So we also augment sales from the top 150 to 300 titles.

And here's Scott Pack, former Waterstones big guy (now The Friday Project publisher), analysing the stuff going on at Borders (nutshell: one boss has left - will Borders still meet its potential?):

What next? If Borders continue to prove value for money for publishers and carry on with their support for indies as well as offering a decent alternative on the high street then presumably there is no problem. If the new regime start tinkering, and you would guess they will, then hopefully it will be to improve and progress. If their planned review of the business can strengthen the work already done then great. If they get it wrong then their rivals will give them a thumping.

It's been a newsy day for booksellers.

Writers ought to look up from their keyboards and pay some heed.