Category Archives: Great Writing

Sorry, New Rule. You Can’t Do That!

In the original Star Trek TV series, there’s an episode where Captain Kirk invents a card game called Fizzbin in which he makes up the rules as he goes along.  The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes featured a game called Calvinball which may never be played by the same rules twice.

If you’re a writer of fiction, you might consider yourself to be playing such a game, too.  According to W. Somerset Maugham, “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”  With apologies to the famous novelist, I’d say the game has too many rules to memorize and they change with time, according to the tastes of readers.  Only by playing the game well can you can make money selling books.

You might try to emulate great writers of the past and imitate their writing styles, in an effort to achieve success.  Bad idea.  The rules were different in their time.  Let’s cover some of those former rules.

1.  Take all the time you need to create a vivid description, to ‘paint’  with words.  Writers of the 19th Century and earlier used extensive portrayals to convey the appearance of a scene or character, multi-paragraph descriptions abounding in adjectives.  That worked well in an era without movies or TV, but readers won’t wade through such long-winded descriptions today.

2.  Adverbs exist for a reason; use them.  Authors once used adverbs with abandon. Adverbs modify adjectives or verbs and often end in ‘ly’ like ‘crazily.’  These days it’s considered lazy to use too many adverbs, a sign you didn’t take time to select a powerful enough verb.

3.  Demonstrate your skill as an author in your narrative paragraphs; dialogue only interferes with that.  At one time, fiction was mostly narration, with occasional dialogue.  We’re now in an age of character-driven stories, and readers want characters to talk more.  No long, boring narrative paragraphs, and less narration overall.

4.  Incorporate a rather dull character who needs everything explained to him (even things he already knows); that’s a clever way to explain things to the reader. There was an era when authors could use this technique even if it strained the conversation a bit.  These days, that’s no longer tolerated and there’s even a term for it–As You Know, Bob or AYKB.  AYKB’s are tempting, an easy trap to fall into even if you make every effort to avoid them.

5.  Bring the narrator in as an entity the reader can trust, as one who helps foreshadow future events.  In a bygone past, writers could have the narrator speak directly to the reader.  And now, Gentle Reader, let us discover what Annabel must be thinking about this latest development.  That voice could be used to foreshadow future events in an ominous tone.  Little did Frank know, but his secure life would soon be altered forever.  Understand, it’s still okay to use foreshadowing, but do it with subtlety, and not with the narrator speaking to the reader.  Today that’s referred to as narrative intrusion.

6.  Find clever new ways to express your ideas.  As centuries of writers did this, many of the word combinations they used were so good the first time, they got used again, and re-used many times over.  And became clichés.  Now you don’t get to use those clichés, unless you add some twist on them.  Go think of your own clever word combo that might become a future cliché.  This rule didn’t change, but sorry, you can’t use the same tired clichés.

7.  Ease into your story by introducing the reader to the setting, time period, and major characters before any action occurs.  Readers in those times had nothing to compete with books for entertainment, and had the time to curl up near the fire and read a cozy story by its light.  Times are different.  You must grab your reader by the throat with a first sentence or paragraph that demands attention.  It’s called a hook, and stories without a good one stay un-bought.

So, are you up for a game like Fizzbin or Calvinball?  May the best writer win!  Unfortunately, the game’s rules aren’t known by you or—

                                                                    Poseidon’s Scribe

 

November 25, 2012Permalink

Better Writing through Chemistry?

If you consume alcohol or mind-altering drugs, will that improve your writing?  Many people think so.  Supposing it’s true, it’s nice to have that short-cut to greatness available, isn’t it?  Why struggle to choose the right words while sober or clean when you can snort, inject, or imbibe your way to literary greatness?

The connection persists because so many of the top writers, it seems, had a reputation for using drugs or alcohol.  The two that spring to my mind are Edgar Allan Poe’s use of opium and absinthe, and Ernest Hemingway’s consumption of wine, mojitos, and daiquiris.  The list of famous authors who wrote under the influence also includes Anthony Burgess, William S. Burroughs, Raymond Chandler, Jean Cocteau, Phillip K. Dick, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Stephen King, Carson McCullers, Dorothy Parker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, and Tennessee Williams.

The effects of alcohol that might benefit a writer include a loss of inhibitions, which might stimulate creativity.  However, other effects would be less helpful: blurred vision, slurred speech, slowed reaction times, impaired memory, blackouts, shaking, lack of muscle coordination and balance.

Drugs vary in their effects, but some of the reactions that might aid an author include euphoric pleasure, confidence, and extended wakefulness.  I suppose hallucinations could be of use to a writer, so let’s include those.  However, the known downsides of drugs can include delusions, aggression, paranoia, drowsiness, respiratory depression, nausea, blurred vision, headaches, disorientation, impaired memory, slowed reaction time, diminished judgment, mood swings, and addiction.

On balance, it seems to me there would be more harm than good in drinking or using drugs to improve your writing.  Some of the things said about the writers I listed above may not even be true.  The Edgar Allan Poe Society has debunked the myths about the writer of “Annabel Lee” and “The Bells.”  It’s not entirely clear if some of the other writers took drugs or alcohol to improve their writing or to cope with their troubled lives.

I remain skeptical about using drugs or alcohol as a path to quality writing.  Joanna Penn, whose blog I follow, has written a very thoughtful piece on the subject.  I have to commend author Eric Kuentz for actually conducting an experiment and being willing to share his experience.  His results seem rather mixed and it appears he’s disinclined to recommend the practice to others.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on, or experiences with, this subject.  Please leave a comment.  As for my own experiences, well, my scribing job occasionally takes me to Olympus where I’m sometimes allowed to partake of ambrosia and nectar.  Those are the substances most recommended by—

                                                    Poseidon’s Scribe

November 4, 2012Permalink

Book Review – Something Wicked This Way Comes

Ray Bradbury died June 5th of this year, a day this universe lost a literary giant.  I just finished reading Something Wicked This Way Comes for the first time.  I have read some other Bradbury works, including Fahrenheit 451, Dandelion Wine, The Illustrated Man, Now and Forever, and The Martian Chronicles.  His short story “The Flying Machine,” in part, inspired my story “The Sea-Wagon of Yantai.”

I listened to the Recorded Books version performed by Paul Hecht, ©1962 by Bradbury, renewed 1997, and ©1999 by Recorded Books.

The novel takes place in a Midwest town in the month of October sometime in the early to mid-1900s.  A traveling carnival comes to the town and strange things happen, including the disappearance or alteration of some townspeople.  Two boys and one of their fathers start to believe the carnival is evil and try to find a way to deal with the problem.

That synopsis sounds inexcusably bland, and doesn’t at all convey the magical experience of reading the book.  Bradbury’s works are always poetic, alliterative, and metaphorical, and this novel is no exception.  You find yourself swept along with the cadence of the words, caught up in whatever web Bradbury chooses to weave, and you’re glad of it.

The work deals with eternal themes of good and evil, as well as old and young.  With the first, he examines the weapons wielded by forces evil and good.  With the second, he explores the absurdity of the old wanting to be young and the young yearning to be old.

No one better expresses that delight, playfulness, curiosity, and sense of wonder of being a young boy in a Midwest town, than Ray Bradbury.  I was once such a boy and can relate.  The details he recalls and sensations he can–with lyrical prose–rekindle, resonate within me.

I’m not sure whether to classify the novel as horror or fantasy.  Perhaps it’s a horror…poem?  In any case, I loved it and give it my highest rating of 5 seahorses, the first work I’ve reviewed to have earned that rating.  Do you disagree with my review?  Leave a negative comment and you may find out “by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes,” and that something is–

                                                  Poseidon’s Scribe

 

August 4, 2012Permalink

Book Review – The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Writers should be versed in the classics of literature to some extent, and I had never read The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, published in 1831.  So I read it.  I just completed listening to all 19 CDs of the Recorded Books version narrated by the incomparable George Guidall.

It would be easy to do a straight review and give this monumental novel a rating of 5 seahorses.  Hunchback well deserves my highest rating for its universal themes and timeless characters.

However, you can find those sorts of reviews anywhere in print and online.  I propose to do something different here.  Since the purpose of my blog entries is to tell you things I wish someone had told me when I was beginning to write fiction, I’ll do a different sort of review.  I’ll analyze the book as if it had been written today for English-speaking readers.  If an author tried to market this book today, what would editors say?  I know this is very unfair to Victor Hugo, and I apologize, but I believe this sort of review might be more useful to you, a prospective writer.

So here goes, and I’ll start with a few positives.  Hugo has crafted a work with well-drawn, tragic characters, and then proceeded to put each of them through hell.  Quasimodo is a deaf and grotesque cripple who (1) feels an understandable but undeserved loyalty to the Archdeacon who saved him, (2) loves a woman who could never love him back, and (3) is forced to defend a church alone against an irate mob.  Esmeralda is a beautiful young girl raised by gypsies who searches for her parents and loves a soldier who does not return her love; moreover, she is accused of witchcraft and is both tortured and condemned to die.  Archdeacon Claude Frollo is tormented by his love for Esmeralda to the point of insanity.  In addition to these vivid characters, Hugo’s language–his style and use of metaphors and similes–survives even the translation from French to English.

On the other hand (and again I’m reviewing the book as if it were a submitted work in English today), the novel has an unsatisfying hook.  It gets off to a slow start and it’s not clear near the beginning what the central conflict of the story is.  Moreover, the pace is slow throughout; much of the text could be tightened up.  The long section on architecture, where Hugo compares books to buildings, could be either eliminated or cut way back.  In general his descriptions of things are two long.  There is no need for the narrator to periodically address the reader (“With the reader’s consent,…” “Let the reader picture to himself…”  “Our readers have been able to observe…”).

If Mr. Hugo would hope to get this manuscript published today, he would have considerable editing left to do.  As it stands, I would have to give it a rating of three seahorses.

All right, quiet down out there, Victor Hugo fans.  You’re asking (in loud tones) how I dare to give this colossal work of literature a mediocre rating. I believe I explained that.  My aim, as always, is to help beginning writers–those who hope to get published early in the 21st Century.  I reluctantly had to downgrade Hunchback, but I only did so to aid budding authors.  Even so, I’ll take legitimate comments from anyone about this review.  So go ahead and (figuratively) heave down your timbers and your stones, pour down your molten lead upon–

                                                                      Poseidon’s Scribe

June 9, 2012Permalink

Being Prolific — Is That the Secret?

Should you aim to be prolific?  To be prolific as a writer means to be highly productive, to write a lot, and (one hopes) to be published a lot.  Should that be your goal? If so, what is the key to being prolific?

The ultimate aims of writers vary, but a short list of such goals could include:

  1. I want to be a famous writer, popular in my own time.
  2. I want my books to be remembered through the ages.
  3. I just have an inner need to tell a story.
  4. I want to maximize my financial earnings.
  5. I want to publish as many books as possible.
  6. I seek a combination of some of the above goals.

I was tempted to set up a graph with high quantity (being prolific) at one end and high quality at the other, and plot each goal on the graph.  For example, you might think goals 1 and 2 have to do with quality, while goals 4 and 5 are more concerned with quantity.  Such an analysis would have told you whether to churn out a lot of words, or self-edit like crazy to ensure each book is perfect.

Here’s the problem.  As Joseph Stalin was supposed to have said, (even an evil dictator can utter one true statement) “Quantity has a quality all its own.”  In a previous post, I mentioned Malcolm Gladwell’s theory about becoming a genius in any particular field.  One element of that was practicing for 10,000 hours.  That implies quantity is a necessary step to quality.  To write well, you must first write a lot.

There are different ways to spend that 10,000 hours of practice, of course.  As I implied above, you might write your first draft, then do just enough editing to send it off and sell a mediocre story, then move on to the next one.  Or you could refine and polish every word, as a poet does, going over and over your story until you achieve earthly perfection.  At the end of that process, you might have a book that could satisfy goals 1 or 2 or both.

There’s a list of prolific writers and one of my favorites–Dr. Isaac Asimov–is on that list.  He’s not at the top, though.  That honor belongs to María del Socorro Tellado López, who wrote mostly under the name Corín Tellado.  She lived from 1927-2009 and wrote over 4,000 novellas.

If you hope to surpass her record, you’d better get busy.

Let’s examine the productivity of Corín Tellado.  She sold her first novel in 1946, when she was about 19.  Her publishing house contracted with her to write a novella every week.  When I read that, I thought, “Okay, I could see having a very organized schedule that results in a novella each week.”  But look closer at the numbers.  Say she wrote continually from 1946 until her death in 2009, a period of about 63 years, or roughly 3,276 weeks.  Only 3,276 weeks, and yet she wrote over 4,000 novellas.  She was cranking out a novella, on average, every 5.7 days.

Corín Tellado is the extreme example of being prolific.  You probably won’t go that far, but imagine the discipline required, the organizational and time-management skills, the need to fill all available time with writing.  Not to mention the necessity to dream up numerous plotlines and characters.  These are the keys to being a prolific writer.

Whatever your goals as a writer, whether you aim for quantity or quality, I think you’re still going to need (or at least aim for) the skills and attributes of a prolific writer.  Do you agree or disagree?  Leave me a comment.  But keep it short; I’m a busy man and have to finish my next novella in 5.7 days, or I’m not–

                                                                       Poseidon’s Scribe

March 18, 2012Permalink

Hook ‘em, So You Can Reel ‘em In

How will you begin your next story?  The beginning, called the ‘hook,’ is important.  These days readers don’t have much time.  Other things like TV, video games, and the Internet compete with your story for their attention.  If your first sentence or paragraph doesn’t grab them, they’re on to doing something else.

Here are some examples of great hooks used in novels as chosen by the editors of American Book Review:

  • Call me Ishmael.  Moby-Dick, Herman Melville 
  • Marley was dead, to begin with.  A Christmas Carol,  Charles Dickens
  • It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.  1984, George Orwell
  • You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
  • Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.  The Trial, Franz Kafka
  • Mother died today.  The Stranger, Albert Camus
  • There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
  • He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish.  The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
  • It was a pleasure to burn.  Fahrenheit 451,  Ray Bradbury
  • The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.  The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane

These beginnings work well for several reasons.  They give us an early idea what the story will be about.  They establish the tone of the story, and something about the attitude of the narrator’s voice.

But most of all they seize our attention and compel us to want to read more.  What gives them this quality?  It’s hard to find a common attribute just by looking at them.  They seem to appeal for different reasons.

Writer Darcy Pattison has grouped the different beginnings into categories.  This is helpful since one category might work better for the start of your story than another.  Knowing the category can give you a starting point for developing your hook.

Many of the beginnings in the list start with a sense of the ordinary, and then give the reader something that clashes or is jarring somehow.  We’re left with a puzzle, an oddity, a question that can only be resolved by reading further.  So read on we must.

Those without that twist added to the ordinary seem to possess a different quality.  They settle us in, set a mood, fluff up our pillow, put on some appropriate music.  We’re now comfortably in the story, transported to the author’s world right from the start, and now that we’re there we might as well read on to see what the place is like.

Each of these beginnings without exception is easy to read.  None have rare or difficult words to stumble over.  All have rhythm, and almost poetic brevity.  Not a word is wasted.

How do you write an opening like these?  Heck if I know; these are some of the best ever written.  Ask one of the world’s greatest authors.

With that task added to your to-do list, perhaps we could set our sights a bit lower for now.  How do you write an effective story beginning?  For one thing, it takes time and many trials.  The beginning is the hardest part to write, usually takes the longest, and usually involves the most revisions.  You might decide to skip the hook and come back to it later as the story evolves.  You might like to write a first version of the hook knowing you’ll revisit it over and over.  In any case, be prepared to spend the time and thought to craft it right.

To learn much more about how to write story hooks, read Hooked by Les Edgerton.  What an invaluable resource!

With regard to beginnings, we’ve reached the end.  Remember to check back at this site next week for further ramblings about writing by–

                                                                 Poseidon’s Scribe

March 4, 2012Permalink

The Classics, Pro and Con

Are you a reader of the classics, those works of literature that have stood the test of time?  Do you think reading the classics would improve your writing?

Most people have a negative view of classical literature.  They associate those books with difficult high school class assignments, slogging through indecipherable prose, writing mandatory reports, as well as answering impossible questions in class and getting the answers wrong.  Little wonder the classics are not more widely read!

You may have your own reasons for not reading the classics.  Here’s a list I came up with:

  • They’re difficult to read.  Often the language used doesn’t make sense to modern readers.  If it does make sense, it’s often overly descriptive, or it dwells on single topics to the point of boredom.
  • They seem irrelevant.  A modern reader can’t relate to the characters in the stories, who face problems today’s readers don’t understand.  As a result, the characters seem unrealistic.
  • They’re not in my genre.  There are several modern literary genres–science fiction, westerns, and mysteries, in particular–for which there are few examples among the classics.  Those who enjoy reading from, or writing in, these genres will not feel any inclination to delve into the classics.
  • Their style is archaic.  One could never write that way for a modern audience and hope to get published.  Therefore it seems unlikely a writer of today would learn much of value.
  • I could never write that well.  For those classics that can be read today with little trouble, an opposite problem occurs.  A would-be writer might well compare his or her own prose to that of a literary master and become discouraged enough to give up.
  • They won’t help me write for today’s readers.  This is an extension of some of the reasons above.  All the works we consider classics today were written for the audiences of eras now long past, not today’s reading public.  Wouldn’t a writer’s time be better spent reading modern works?

Those are persuasive reasons, and perhaps they strike a chord with you.  However, let’s consider my list of reasons for reading the classics:

  • They’re about the human condition.  Though individual situations and technologies in the classics seem historically quaint today, these works deal with timeless aspects of what it means to be human.  In that sense, they will never become irrelevant.
  • They help us understand history.  The present we see around us is only a snapshot, a result of the great chain of causes and effects that is human history.  Our present was forged by events in the past, events described in classical literature.  In that respect, too, they remain relevant.
  • They’re about philosophy.  The classics often explore the deep thoughts, the perplexing ideas worthy of intense study.  Questions about aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics bedevil us still.  They seem to have no right answers and yet we must choose some path to live our lives.  If Socrates is correct that the unexamined life is not worth living, then you want the fiction you write to be about philosophy, too.
  • In context, they make sense.  Whenever I hear the finale of the “William Tell Overture,” by Gioachino Rossini, I imagine what it must have been like for the audiences in 1829 to hear it for the first time.  They did not know a world where it was the Lone Ranger theme, endlessly repeated.  Often a classic literary work represented a break with the past, a novel new way of writing which was fresh at the time.  Though now commonplace or even passé, such works can suggest ways to make your own work fresh and different.
  • They can improve your vocabulary.  In classical literature you encounter such interesting words.  Often they’re outdated and inappropriate today, but you might come across the perfect word for your story.  In any case, you’ll increase your knowledge of English and the derivations and evolution of word meanings through time.
  • They’re often referenced.  As a writer, you’ll occasionally correspond with other writers or appear on panels at conferences or get asked questions at book signings.  Someone will bring up a comparison to a classic work.  If you haven’t read it, you’ll feel a little stupid.  Best to avoid that.
  • Stealing from them is legal.  Modern writers often base their works on the classics.  Hey, if it worked once for Shakespeare…  It’s not uncommon to create a complete retelling of a classic work set in modern times with modern characters, and the similarities can be blatant or subtle.
  • They’re examples of great writing.  The classics have lasted because they are well written.  Their authors were masters of putting words together.  Maybe you and I could learn from their example.  Even if we don’t attain their heights of grandeur, perhaps we can approach a little closer by studying them.

In conclusion, there are good reasons for and against.  You’ll have to choose what’s right for you.  As for me, I read about four or five classic books each year, roughly ten percent of my reading. Not yet a writer whose works are destined to be classics, I’m–

                                                                       Poseidon’s Scribe

 

February 5, 2012Permalink

That’s a Great Story!

What makes a story great, or even good?  For this discussion I’ll concentrate on short stories, my main medium, but the principles apply to all fiction.  Fair warning:  I’ll explore the topic to the best of my ability, but if I was an expert on writing great short stories, I would be better known.

Philosophers since at least the ancient Greeks have puzzled about what makes one thing better or of greater value than another.  Is it really all subjective, in the mind of each individual reader, or are there some objective aspects on which we can all agree?  Further, what is meant by ‘great?’  Do we measure great stories by sales, by the number of favorable reviews, or by how the story stands the test of time?

For an interesting romp through the fields of quality, goodness, and value (in general, not specifically as related to stories) read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

Of course, people differ in the stories they like, and a given reader may change her own tastes over time.  So there must be a subjective component to any definition of a good story.  I touched on this in a previous blog entry.

Still, perhaps we can agree on a few elements that should be present in a good story.  Not every element need be present, and excellence in some of them can make up for mediocrity in others.  Further, as you’ll see, these aren’t exactly objective elements, so people could disagree about whether they are present or absent in any given story.  Here are my ten elements, expressed in one long sentence:

  • A good story deals with one or more aspects of the human condition and starts with
  • an attention-grabbing hook that introduces
  • a compelling protagonist, with whom the reader can identify, who is
  • dealing with a difficult problem, a problem
  • with some relevance to the reader’s own life
  • in a vivid setting that puts the reader right there while the protagonist
  • encounters more difficult obstacles along the way
  • with enough tension and suspense to keep readers reading
  • and with the protagonist resolving the problem in the end in a satisfying, logical way, with bonus points if the protagonist learns something, and more bonus points if the reader can’t guess the ending early
  • with the whole story told in strong, clear language that produces an emotional reaction in the reader.

As it turns out, it’s easier to write down that list than it is to write a story that hits most of those marks.  Thinking back over the best short stories you’ve read, are there common elements they share?  Have I left out any elements in my list?  As writers, we ought to be striving for greatness as we tell our tales, so it helps to know what separates good or great stories from the rest.  I welcome your thoughts, which you can provide by clicking “leave a comment” below, whether or not you agree with–

                                                                     Poseidon’s Scribe 

November 13, 2011Permalink

Pioneers and Giants

For this blog post I’m dividing the great writers into two categories–pioneers and giants.  I define pioneers as those who start a new genre of fiction by themselves, and giants as those who come along later and take an existing genre to new heights and greater popularity.

Here is a table listing a few literary genres and some of the pioneers and giants in each one:

Genre

Pioneers

Giants
Adventure Heliodorus, Homer Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alexandre Dumas, Ian Fleming, H. Rider Haggard, Victor Hugo, Emilio Salgari, Robert Louis Stevenson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne
Comedy Aristophanes Douglas Adams, Joseph Heller, William Shakespeare, R. L. Stine, Kurt Vonnegut
Crime Steen Steensen Blicher, Edgar Allan Poe Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie
Fantasy Homer Marion Zimmer Bradley, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen King, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien
Historical Chariton of Aphrodisias Pearl S. Buck, Ken Follett, Robert Graves, Eleanor Hibbert, James Michener, Baroness Emma Orczy, Ryotaro Shiba, Leo Tolstoy
Horror William Beckford, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis Stephen King, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, R. L. Stine, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde
Mystery E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe Jiro Akagawa, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Erle Stanley Gardner, Dashiell Hammett, Kyotaro Nishimura, Edward Stratemeyer
Philosophical St. Augustine Albert Camus, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Hermann Hesse, Aldous Huxley, Soren Kierkegaard, Stanislaw Lem, C.S. Lewis, Jean Paul Sartre, Ayn Rand, Voltaire
Political Plato Edward Bellamy, Benjamin Disraeli, Franz Kafka, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas More, George Orwell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Gore Vidal
Romance Chrétien de Troyes, Sir Thomas Malory, Ann Radcliffe Barbara Cartland, Jackie Collins, Catherine Cookson, Janet Dailey, Eleanor Hibbert, Debbie Macomber, Stephenie Meyer, Nora Roberts, Denise Robins, Danielle Steel, Corín Tellado,
Satire Aristophanes Ambrose Bierce, Anthony Burgess, Candide, Joseph Heller, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut
Science fiction Jules Verne Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Orson Scott Card, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert, H. G. Wells
Steampunk James Blaylock,  K. W. Jeter, Tim Powers Paul Di Filippo, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling
Thriller Homer, John Buchan Dan Brown, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler, Michael Crichton, Ian Fleming, Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, John Grisham, Robert Ludlum, Alistair MacLean
Urban Robert Beck TN Baker, Kole Black, De’Nesha Diamond, K’wan Foye, J.Gail, Erick Gray, Shannon Holmes, Pamela M. Johnson, Solomon Jones, Mallori McNeal, Miasha, Meesha Mink, Jeff Rivera, Big Rob Ruiz, Sister Souljah, Vikki Stringer, Nikki Turner, Anthony Whyte

You can quibble with the names in the table and that’s fine; I don’t pretend that it’s 100% accurate or complete.  But as I look through the table a couple of things are apparent:

  • There are a lot of genres, and probably more for you to invent.  (I didn’t list all genres, or very many subgenres.)  There will be more pioneers.
  • Just because a genre is old (the pioneer long dead) doesn’t mean new, modern giants can’t emerge.  It’s never too late to be a giant.

In general, the pioneer lays down some of the rules for the genre and takes the first tentative steps within its boundaries.  The pioneer faces the difficulty of convincing a skeptical publisher to take a risk on a book that doesn’t fit in any known category.

But it is the giants who really explore the full extent of the genre and help to popularize it for more readers.

Perhaps one day you’ll be looked upon as a great author.  Which type will you be–a pioneer or a giant?  There’s glory in both.  Which would you rather be?  Let me know by clicking “Leave a comment.”  Hoping to become one or the other, I’m–

                                                              Poseidon’s Scribe

September 18, 2011Permalink

Writing and the Outlier Theory

In a previous blog post, I mentioned Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers: The Story of Success.  In it, he explored why some people seem to stand out as geniuses in their fields–what made them so good?  His conclusion was that success requires two things:  (1) Luck, and (2) 10,000 hours of practice.

There’s not much we can do about luck.  Gladwell suggested it was a matter of being born at the right time and being exposed to the right influences.  When it comes to luck, you either have it or you don’t.  If you have it, ride that wave, baby.  If you don’t, well, reconcile yourself to the fact that not all books sold are written by the greatest writers of all time.  And know this, too:  there’s no way of knowing in advance whether you are lucky.  Only time will tell.

Although we can’t alter our luck, we can do something about the 10,000 hours.  Well, not shorten it, I’m afraid.  But we can accomplish it.  We can devote ourselves to it.  If you spend 10,000 hours honing your skill at one thing, it’s highly likely you’ll become good at it.  Perhaps not great, but good.  And you may grow to enjoy that activity, such that the idea of the next 10,000 hours doesn’t frighten you, but thrills you.

Gladwell goes on to discuss what the 10,000 hours should consist of.  Many of those hours should be devoted to freeform play where failure has a low cost.  There should be a lot of experimentation and attempts at trying out different approaches without any external criticism.  Examples he gives in his book include hockey players, musicians, and computer pioneers.  But you can see how his theory applies to writers.

For writers, the 10,000 hours is spent mostly alone, writing.  The freeform play consists of many attempts at stories of different types, many drafts that get discarded, many early tales of poor quality.  The 10,000 hours should include some study as well–research into the mechanics of writing, research into how great writers plied their craft.

At this point you might be thinking of examples of great writers who didn’t have to spend 10,000 hours perfecting their skills.  Okay, there might be a handful.  And you might end up being one.  If so, great!  But do you really think you should assume that you’re going to be one of that very rare breed that achieves greatness without a lot of work?

Yes, I’ve done the math.  I know that if you can only devote three hours a day to writing, you won’t reach 10,000 hours for over nine years.  But for most of us, there’s just no way around that.  And you need to remember that much of those 10,000 hours are spent in enjoyable play.  It needn’t be all drudgery.

So those 10,000 hours won’t happen by themselves.  If you want to be an author, get moving.  The clock’s ticking and the calendar’s flipping.  Oh, and if you know some sure-fire shortcut, please send it to–

                                                      Poseidon’s Scribe

September 11, 2011Permalink