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D.J. Swykert’s short fiction and poetry have been published in The Tampa Review, Monarch Review, Sand Canyon Review, Zodiac Review, Scissors and Spackle, spittoon, Barbaric Yawp and BULL. His novel, Maggie Elizabeth Harrington, won a literary competition with The LitWest Group in Los Angeles in 2002. Alpha Wolves, D.J.’s Noble Publishing’s bestselling novel, was released in April, 2012. Children of the Enemy, D.J.’s OmniLit’s bestselling novel, was published for the first time in 2009 and a third edition published in September 2012 by Cambridge Books.
Hi D.J., Please tell everyone a bit about yourself.
D.J.: I’m a blue collar person from Detroit. I’ve worked as a truck driver, dispatcher, logistics analyst, operations manager, and ten years as a 911 operator, which was the very best job of all of them. I write stories like you’d watch a movie and put them down on paper. I have written in different genres; crime, romance, and even a little bit in literary fiction. The last sentence in my writing bio is always: He is a wolf expert. I am not a biologist. I raised two arctic hybrids, had them for eleven years, and have written two books in which they join the other protagonists.
When did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?
D.J.: The first thing I ever wrote was a poem to impress my art student girlfriend. That was right after high school. It wasn’t very good, but she was impressed with my effort. I’ve been scribbling things ever since.
When you started writing, what goals did you want to accomplish? Is there a message you want readers to grasp?
D.J.: I’ve always wanted a career that I enjoyed. I looked at writing as a possible means to that end. I’ve had some small success, enough to be encouraging, but I’ve always worked for a living. If there’s a central theme to my writing it’s that all life has value. My characters tend to question norms. I tend to question what is considered normal. I like animals, I have empathy for the hardships they endure and my protagonists usually do as well.
Briefly tell us about your latest book. Is it part of a series or stand-alone?
D.J.: The Death of Anyone is essentially a mystery/suspense story with romance and a little science in it. The story centers on homicide detective Bonnie Benham’s search for the killer of young girls.
This book has a couple of the same characters from an earlier unpublished novel I hold the rights to titled Sweat Street, but I wouldn’t consider it a sequel. If I have some success with The Death of Anyone I may look to publish the first book. And perhaps consider another story with Detective Bonnie Benham. This is not the first time I’ve written from a female POV, but it’s the first time for a female police detective.
What’s the hook for the book?
D.J.: The book introduces readers to a DNA search technique not in common use here in the U.S., Familial DNA. A lot will be written on this subject as the real life trial of Lonnie David Franklin, The Grim Sleeper unfolds in California this year. The trial will set precedence for future use of this DNA search technique and I suspect will eventually lead to a Supreme Court decision on it’s admissibility as evidence. The defense is going to severely question LAPD investigating Lonnie Franklin in the first place as there was no direct evidence linking him to the crime.
How do you develop characters? Setting?
D.J.: They say write what you know, so I set my story in Detroit, where I grew up and lived for a long time and can authentically describe the city and places for the scenes in my story. When I make up a character I usually visualize someone in my head and then give them the characteristics I believe suits the character in my story. I wrote a story about a thirteen year old girl trying to save a pack of young wolves from a bounty hunter. In my mind I visualized Maggie Harrington as Jodie Foster in an old film, Taxi Driver, where she played a thirteen year old prostitute. I used Jodie’s image to describe the girl and my own feelings for animals to impart her emotions concerning the wolves. This is how I generally develop a character.
Who’s the most unusual/most likeable character?
D.J.: I think Bonnie Benham is both unusual and likeable. She was originally in narcotics, but washed out. In her own words she became more “narcotic” than “narc.” As she investigates the murders of adolescent girls she is trying to resurrect herself as well as seek justice for the victims. This makes Bonnie a very edgy homicide cop. The story contains several suspects who are both likeable and unlikeable.
Do you have specific techniques to help you maintain the course of the plot?
D.J.: I’m a ponderer. I do a lot of thinking about my character and the story in my head before I begin to write. I usually have figured out how I wish to end the story. When I begin to write I put my character into a situation and from there the chapters all point towards the ending. It doesn’t always work out quite as simply as this sounds, but this is how I begin.
Do you have a specific writing style? Preferred POV?
D.J.: I think my best writing is in first person. But The Death of Anyone and Children of the Enemy are in third person past tense, which most readers I think prefer. First person works good as a narrative for a strong character in a short book, but since it can only get into the one character’s head it can get a bit tedious.
How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?
D.J.: I grew up in Detroit, so, for crime or mystery stories I’ve set them in Detroit, which unfortunately has held the Murder Capital of the World title several times. I have also written stories set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where I lived on the Keweenaw Peninsula for a decade. Love it up there, a true wilderness much like Alaska only with smaller mountains. But the winter is extremely long, turbulent and prohibitive.
Share the best review (or a portion) that you’ve ever had.
D.J.: I liked this review left on Amazon:
The Death of Anyone by David Swykert, reads like a Jessie Stone movie, was a true page turner for me. His subject is close to our hearts and the viewpoint is an eye opener. He has interwoven the personal problems of some of his Characters making them real. He also has a flair for writing some romantic scenes that most ladies will find endearing. If you enjoy a mystery, some anxiety and a little romance I would recommend you read The Death of Anyone.
What are your current projects?
D.J.: I have an offbeat/quirky romantic tale titled The Pool Boy’s Beatitude. The book will publish this summer by a small Indie press out of Detroit, Rebel e Publishing. They do have a book distributor and a small print run will be done. It’s the story of an alcoholic physicist who drops out and is cleaning swimming pools to earn a living, skimming what he refers to as the “Infinite Pond.” The story follows the human orbit of Jack Joseph and his trail of broken relationships until he ultimately lands himself in a county jail.
Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
D.J.: I have a page on an artistic collective called: www.magicmasterminds.com You can find information about my work, and me on the site, and see a host of other amazing artists, musicians and writers.
Thanks for joining us today, D.J.!
D.J.: Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Writing in Slate, Jacob Silverman argues that literary culture, driven by Twitter and blogging, has
gotten too nice:
if you spend time in the literary Twitter- or blogospheres, you'll be positively besieged by amiability, by a relentless enthusiasm that might have you believing that all new books are wonderful and that every writer is every other writer's biggest fan. It's not only shallow, it's untrue, and it's having a chilling effect on literary culture, creating an environment where writers are vaunted for their personal biographies or their online followings rather than for their work on the page.
I think we've all encountered shallow and forced positivity online, and all those likes and RTs and squeefests can, at times, ring a more than little hollow. I'm a bit wary of reviewers who choose not to write negative reviews, which, by the way, is completely hypocritical because I have a self-imposed rule not to give bad reviews on Goodreads and Amazon.
But I disagree with Silverman that old school negativity is an integral part of a more virtuous literary culture. Sure, we need both positive and (thoughtfully) negative reviews, and above all we need honesty, but there's no reason thoughtful literary criticism and squeefests can't coexist. It's a big Internet out there.
Besides, uh, have you
seen some of the reviews on Goodreads? Some of them would make H.L Mencken blush they're so hostile.
Even if one accepts the premise that we're getting more positive in the Internet age... what are we losing again? Old school literary smackdowns may have been entertaining for those who agree with the reviewer, but I'm not sure I see how hysterical pans really advance constructive dialogue.
So basically... if there's a problem I don't see a problem.
What do you think? Too many rainbows and puppies out there? Would we be better off with more negativity and fewer niceties? Does the problem have more to do with cliqueishness than positivity?
Art: The Happy Violinist with a Glass of Wine by Gerard van Honthorst
STATUS: It's BEA time! Oh crazy schedule
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? Nothing at the moment.
Obviously I'm not just talking to children's editors while in New York. So here's a little snippet of what editors have been buying in the adult realm:
1) Literary novels with some sort of magical element (i.e The Night Circus)
2) Multi-cultural literary novels by non-American writers
3) Voice-driven literary novels that shed light on the contemporary modern landscape for protagonists in their 20s or 30s.
In women's fiction and romance
1) contemporary stories with small town settings
2) southern contemporary women's fix
3) looking or romantic comedies in romance (haven't heard that desire in a while!)
Off to the Javits Center!
Kinfolk. Pearl S. Buck. 1945/2004. Moyer Bell. 408 pages.
The theater in Chinatown was crowded to the doors. Every night actors brought from Canton played and sang the old Chinese operas. If Billy Pan, the manager, announced a deficit at the end of the lunar year, businessmen contributed money to cover it. The theater was a bulwark of home for them. Their children went to American schools, spoke the American language, acted like American children. The fathers and mothers were not highly educated people and they could not express to the children what China was, except that it was their own country, which must not be forgotten. But in the theater the children could see for themselves what China was. Here history was played again and ancient heroes came to life before their eyes. It was the only place in Chinatown which could compete with the movies. Parents brought their children early and stayed late. They talked with friends and neighbors, exchanged sweetmeats and gossip, and sat spellbound and dreaming when the curtain went up to show the figures who were contemporary with their ancestors.As much as I just loved and adored
East Wind: West Wind--my very first Pearl S. Buck novel--I just LOVED, LOVED, LOVED Kinfolk. It is so very different from
The Good Earth and
Sons. While I struggled to find anyone sympathetic in The Good Earth and Sons, I could name half a dozen characters (if not more) that I liked, loved, respected, or admired in Kinfolk. And here's the thing, even the characters that I didn't necessarily "like", I found them to be well-developed, complex. Unlike the often nameless one-dimensional characters in The Good Earth and Sons. And the language, the style. It wowed me. It really did! So much to love and appreciate.
Kinfolk is about the Liang family. Dr. Liang, the father, is a scholar who fled China because it was getting to be too harsh, too ugly, too dangerous, too uncertain. He's a scholar, a teacher, a thinker, a philosopher. He needs peace and quiet and rest. He needs to be surrounded by people who appreciate his intellect, his superiority. (And does he ever think he's superior to just about anyone who's ever lived.) His wife, well, she "appreciates" him as best she can. Knowing that he can be oh-so-difficult to live with. But knowing that it is her place to bring out the best in him. To calm him when he gets furious or frustrated. But this isn't always easy since he doesn't respect her or see her as someone worthy of love and respect. She's the mother of his children. But. That's about it. He doesn't feel like she's intellectually or emotionally his soul mate. And he doesn't see any need to treat her as if she was the love of his life. It's her job to appreciate him, not the other way round.
So the Liangs have four children--two of the children were born in China, two of the children were born in America--James and Mary are the oldest, Peter and Louise are the youngest. James and Mary have a deep longing to return to China, to make their home, their future in China. They know it won't be easy. They know it will require sacrifice and hard work. But neither James or Mary would want to live anywhere else. They wouldn't trade the hardships, the uncertainties for anything because they feel
This series is called "Successful
Queries" and I'm posting actual query letters
that succeeded in getting writers signed with agents. In addition to posting the actual
query letter, we will also get to hear thoughts from the agent as to why the letter
worked.
The 54th installment in this series is with agent Elisabeth Weed (Weed
Literary) for Meg Mitchell Moore’s debut
novel, The
Arrivals (May 25, 2011; Reagan Arthur Books). Learn
more at megmitchellmoore.com, or through
Meg's Twitter.
Dear Ms. Weed:
My name is Meg Moore, and I'm writing to you to see if you'd be interested in taking
a look at my first novel.
The novel, THE ARRIVALS, tells the story of Ginny and William Owen, retired parents
of three grown children, who lead a peaceful life in Burlington, Vermont. But one
summer, when their oldest daughter Lillian brings her two young children to her parents'
house to escape her crumbling marriage, things start to get complicated. It's not
just Lillian turning to Ginny and William for help. Lillian's younger brother Stephen
is preparing for fatherhood with his successful, ambitious and misunderstood wife
Jane when pregnancy complications extend a weekend visit to his parents into a weeks-long
bed rest. Rachel, the youngest Owen sibling, who is trying to forge an independent
life in New York City, needs help of a different sort: money, and lots of it.
As Lillian embarks on a friendship with a young priest, tension builds between Ginny
and William over how much to allow the lives of their children to intrude into theirs,
and between the siblings as they realize that even as adults they are competing for
their parents' help and attention. By the end of the summer, each character has had
to learn how to negotiate the precarious landscape of family love and loyalty. Each
has had to re-examine his or her assumptions about balancing professional success
and parenting. And everyone has discovered, in his own way, that a parent never stops
being a parent.
One reader has compared the novel's themes to those of Heidi Pitlor's THE BIRTHDAYS,
and I think it will find an audience in readers of that novel as well as novels by
Joanna Trollope or Carol Shields—writers who use domestic settings to illuminate universal
themes.
I work as a freelance writer in Newburyport, Mass., where I live with my husband and
my three little gi
By: Kristin Nelson,
on 7/6/2011
Blog:
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STATUS: Even though I look absolutely ridiculous doing a happy dance, I’m doing it anyway! White woman overbite. Here I come.
What’s playing on the XM or iPod right now? THE LOAD OUT by Jackson Browne
This is just getting impossible. If I keep hitting crazy milestones, what will I have to look forward to? Last year, I had 3 authors on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time.
Then it happened twice in one year. Fabulous. Where to go next?
How about 4 authors on the NYT list at the same time? And 3 of them on the top 150 USA Today Bestseller list at the same time as well.
Yep! That’s the news that hit my inbox about an hour ago. And here they are.
At #19 on the Trade Paperback list and #146 on USA Today
At #9 on the Children's list
At #11 on the Mass Market paperback list and #109 on USA Today
At #13 on the eBook listand #59 on USA Today
Whe
Guess the Plot
Through a Glass Darkly
1. The school's science nerd hacks Kari's digital scale and livestreams the results on the Internet, launching Kari into a deadly struggle with anorexia, bulimia, cutting, and a mean stepmom.
2. Nerdy Aaron could not believe his luck! His cool new house-mates not only turned him on to the joys of substance abuse, but they actually trusted him to store the pillowcase full of weed in his room. Hilarity ensues when their house gets raided.
3. The light is out. The glass is broken. Preacher man Joss Simpson will either lose his soul or save it when he enters the mysterious mirrored portal to Dimension X. He has to build a city, an army, and save the world.
4. A gay Japanese man in his last year of law school in the US goes out for the football team and falls for the wide receiver. But will his conservative family in Japan approve? Also, other characters who see life . . . through a glass darkly.
5. At a wild party celebrating his divorce, Steve Betts falls through a second story picture window in the dark. He wakes up in the hospital to find that his wiseacre friends have left him a gift: copies of all 273 books listed on Amazon under the title "Through A Glass Darkly".
6. Kids holding a giant bar mirror across one lane of a dark mountain highway are causing causing a rash of fatal roll-over accidents by drivers trying to avoid head-on collisions (with themselves) -- until a suicidal divorcee sees her chance at escape and floors it dead ahead.
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor,
Stephen James has finally accepted himself as a gay man when he meets Grace and, one coffee later, is left torn between his undeniable attraction to men and the red-headed exception that proves the rule. [Does that mean I can't be sure I'm straight unless I find a guy who's the exception that proves the rule?] [How many coffees did it take for him to accept himself as gay?] He and Grace marry, but his confusion continues, and the marriage fails. [Too bad. But how could anyone have foreseen that?] Another year, another coffee shop, and this time it is Gabriel who has Stephen brushing up on his flirting skills. Will it be different with Gabriel, [Count on it.] or will Stephen push him away as he did Grace? [Don't take this the wrong way, but who cares?]
Higen Nishida attends law school in the United States, planning to return to Japan, the family law firm, and an arranged marriage upon graduation. [Apparently you've overreacted to my last comment by switching the query to a different book.] [Is the legal system in Japan so similar to America's that going to law school in the US prepares you to practice law in Japan? A lot of law school involves studying cases that can be cited as precedents, but not in any country.] When Gabriel encourages him to try out for the football team, [In his last year of law school
Guess the Plot
Pensive
1. Evelyn has always felt secure within her own borders. But when she opens a door into a world where dreams are no more reality than her own faith, she finds herself thinking about thoughts and dreaming dreams of reality. And faith.
2. Some superheroes are strong. Some are fast. Some can fly. Gus Rodin, aka "The Thinker" is smart. Thrill as he fights evil by sitting down to contemplate.
3. He used to call her his Lucky Penny, but now that they're divorced, (due to her affair, mind you) he just calls her Ex-Pensive. Why can't he just forget about her? She's all he can think about. It's like witchcraft or something. Hang on! There was that dead goat and pentagram in the garage...
4. To think, or not to think . . . I think. When you have a 10 minute memory it's all a little fuzzy.
5. Anne has just graduated NYU with a degree in Sociology and $100,000 in student loans. There are no jobs to be had in her field of choice: social justice at a top non-profit in NYC. A gin and sex filled weekend will determine her fate: give up and go work at her uncle's accounting firm, or say screw it and be a stripper.
6. Unable to think of a good title, an author goes to a random word generator site, specifies "adjective," and is given . . . Pensive.
Original Version
Sister Evelyn of the C.G. Priori lived her life sheltered and absorbed in the understanding that the Influence would always be a dream away, protecting and securing her future. All of that changes one day and shakes up Evelyn’s fifty years of devotion with the single opening of a rusted and once sealed door, leading her past her own borders, and into a world where dreams are no more reality than her own faith. [I was about to suggest that we drop paragraph 1 and start the query with paragraph 2. Then I looked ahead and discovered that paragraph 1 is the entire plot.]
PENSIVE, a debut novel of 50,100 words, thrusts the reader into a world where thoughts are controlled by the rules of a close-minded society, and consequences are extreme for those that dare to ask what lies outside their own borders. [You keep using that word. I'm not clear on what it means.] A notable work it can be compared to would be The End of Mr. Y, by Scarlett Thomas. [I Googled The End of Mr. Y, and I agree that it's a good comparison, in that it sounds just as wacko as your book. However, compare the first paragraph of that book's plot description (on Wikipedia):
The book tells the story of Ariel Manto, a PhD student who has been researching the 19th-century writer Thomas Lumas. She finds an extremely rare copy of Lumas's novel The End of Mr. Y in a second-hand bookshop. The book is rumoured to be cursed - everyone who has read it has died not long after
How to Create Literary Fiction
By Maggie Ball As a book reviewer, I get anywhere from fifty to one hundred review requests a week. Of these, I might accept five or so. While I do occasionally take nonfiction books, most of what I accept will be in the genre known as literary fiction. But just what is literary fiction?
What differentiates literary fiction from what most publishers class as commercial or genre oriented fiction, and why am I biased towards it? It's a question I get asked regularly. Some, like author David Lubar ("A Guide to Literary Fiction," 2002) equate the label with work that is pompous, dull, plotless, and overly academic: "If you're ever in doubt about whether a story is literary, there's a simple test. Look in a mirror immediately after reading the last sentence. If your eyebrows are closer together than normal, the answer is yes." Publishers often use this label for work which defies other genre distinctions, eg it isn't romance, isn't "chick-lit," isn't science or speculative fiction, isn't a thriller, action, or political drama. It is meant to denote a fiction which is of higher quality, richer, denser, or, as the literary fiction book club states, work which "can make us uncomfortable or can weave magic."
These distinctions aren't always clear, and there are some superb exceptions to the genre rule, such as Margaret Atwood or China Mieville, whose high quality work fits the speculative fiction genre, or Umberto Eco and Iain Pears, whose work is full of mystery and suspense. All writers feel that their work is high quality, and most write fiction with the goal of producing great work. So how can we ensure that our work is literary fiction rather than some other form? Here are five tips to guide writers who are inclined to produce literary fiction:
1. Aim for transcendency. The one quality which seems to be present in abundance in literary fiction and much less so in other forms, is what agent and author Noah Lukeman calls "transcendency." It isn't easy to define, and in his exceptional book, The Plot Thickens (St Martin's Press, 2002), Lukeman presents a number of points, such as multidimensional characters and circumstances, room for interpretation, timelessness, relatability, educational elements, self discovery, and lasting impression. I would say that transcendency equates to depth, to writing which does more than entertain its readers, and instead, changes something, however small, in the way they perceive themselves. How do you get transcendency in fiction? With a deep theme, deep and powerful characters, complex plots, and exceptional writing skills. Sound easy?
2. Read quality literature. This is a lot easier than transcendency, though not unrelated. Since achieving literary fiction is a subtle and difficult thing, you've got to develop your literary senses. The best way of doing that is to read books which fit this genre. If you want to create literary fiction, chances are, you probably are already reading it. These are books by the writers we call "great." Your list of names may differ from mine, but these are the writers who win prizes like the Booker, the Pulitzer, the Commonwealth Prize, and the National Book Award to name just a few. The more great literature you read, the better able you will become at recognising the elements which make a fiction literary.
3. Don't get defensive! Lubar's article is lots of fun, but literary fiction isn't meant to be snobbish, academic, plotless, or boring in any way; just well crafted. That may
Valerie and Hatchette Book Group are sponsoring a giveaway of 3 copies of Anita Shreve's A Change in Altitude. I heard Anita Shreve talk about A Change in Altitude during the Boston Book Festival last October and am very excited to host this giveaway!
About the Book:Margaret and Patrick have been married just a few months when they set off on what they hope will be a great adventure-a year living in Kenya. Margaret quickly realizes there is a great deal she doesn't know about the complex mores of her new home, and about her own husband.
A British couple invites the newlyweds to join on a climbing expedition to Mount Kenya, and they eagerly agree. But during their harrowing ascent, a horrific accident occurs. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how these events have transformed her and her marriage, perhaps forever.
A Change in Altitude illuminates the inner landscape of a couple, the irrevocable impact of tragedy, and the elusive nature of forgiveness. With stunning language and striking emotional intensity, Anita Shreve transports us to the exotic panoramas of Africa and into the core of our most intimate relationships.
About the Author:Anita Shreve began writing fiction while working as a high school teacher. Although one of her first published stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975, Shreve felt she couldn't make a living as a fiction writer so she became a journalist. She traveled to Africa, and spent three years in Kenya, writing articles that appeared in magazines such as Quest, US, and Newsweek. Back in the United States, she turned to raising her children and writing freelance articles for magazines. Shreve later expanded two of these articles — both published in the New York Times Magazine — into the nonfiction books Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone. At the same time Shreve also began working on her first novel, Eden Close. With its publication in 1989, she gave up journalism for writing fiction full time, thrilled, as she says, with "the rush of freedom that I could make it up." Since Eden Close Anita Shreve has written eleven other novels: Strange Fits of Passion, Where or When, Resistance, The Weight of Water, The Pilot's Wife, Fortune's Rocks, The Last Time They Met, Sea Glass, All He Ever Wanted, Light on Snow, A Wedding in December and, most recently, B
Guess the Plot
Jesus, Mo and Cheese Puffs
1. Jesus is a Puerto Rican immigrant living in New York. Mo is his neighbor and drinking buddy. Together they have a dream to transform the snack food industry.
2. Mo and his wife Flo pack the car with Cheese Puffs and head for sunny California so Flo can get plastic surgery from a TV doctor. Along the way they meet Angel, a homeless woman who tells them about Jesus. Will Angel renew their faith, or will they give her some Cheese Puffs and tell her to get lost?
3. Jesus and Mo are middle grade Vampyres without a care in the world . . . until their school cafeteria, trying to meet strict new healthy lunch regulations, adds garlic to the Cheese Puffs. Hilarity ensues.
4. Being Jesus means you can hate but you can't show it. Mo is God's relative but God smat him and threw him into the cheese puffs. Jesus goes back to woodworking, which he likes very much. The puffs, 12 of them, wander the desert until it rains. They melt, Jesus stays a carpenter and Mo becomes Moses.
5. Mo smokes one bowl too many, sending him on an epic crusade for Cheese Puffs. When he opens the bag of cheesy airy goodness and discovers a puff in the likeness of Christ the Savior, a moral dilemma ensues as he considers whether to sell it on eBay.
6. When Jesus Christ appears at Mo's door seeking a bed for the night, Mo is only too happy to oblige. If this doesn't get him into heaven, nothing will. But Mo regrets his hospitality the next morning when he wakes to find Jesus gone and the entire bag of Cheese Puffs eaten.
Original Version
Dear Evil Editor,
When Flo Brown wins $40,000 from a scratch-off lottery ticket it’s vanity that propels her to agree to a cross country trip with her husband Mo. [If it's Mo's idea to take the trip, one wonders if it's Mo who's the vain one.] In no time at all, Flo packs, and is ready to go. She and Mo plan to drive from Indiana to California so she can have one of those “TV doctors" do plastic surgery on her mangled eye. It’s with this premise in mind that she and Mo pile in the car along with extra bags of cheese puffs. [Be specific: Is she looking to hire Dr. Taub on House, or the doctors on Nip & Tuck? Are they packing regular cheese puffs or the crunchy kind?]
From the get-go, their trip is anything but ordinary. Their first stop is at a bitty gas station where the clerk directs them to a favored diner. There they meet a young family with twin toddlers and a broken-down car. Mo, having been a mechanic in Vietnam offers to help. Flo goes with Kendy, the mother of the twins and her toddlers [The twins are the toddlers. Just say Flo goes with Kendy and her kids to the park. ] to the park. What Flo doesn’t know is Kendy is Mo’s granddaughter, but at this point, neither Flo nor Mo knows she exists. [So far you haven't backed up the claim that the trip is anything but ordinary. The granddaughter bit is unusual (in fact, is sounds like a one in a trillion chance), but no one kn
Thissssssssss Weeeeeeek... InPublishing
Page Critique Friday is alive and well!! It's happening over in the Forums. You do not need to register in the Forums to check out the Page Critique thread, but you will have to register if you'd like to leave a comment. To register, just click here and it should be quite self-explanatory. Other than that it's the same as before, so stop on by.
Lots and lots of news this week, so let's get started.
First up, the most comprehensive review I have ever seen about the relative environmental benefits of e-books vs. paper books was published by Slate's The Green Lantern. The winner? E-books on every count, provided you read more than 18 books on an iPad and 23 books on a Kindle. Even on chemicals/metals, often cited as a problem with e-readers, the Green Lantern judged the side-effects of producing ink more harmful than the metals that go into e-readers. Worth a read.
Random House and agent Andrew Wylie have settled their standoff over the rights to backlist e-book titles that Wylie had announced would be exclusively published by Amazon. In the end, Random House and Wylie came to terms, and the e-books will be published by Random House after all. Word this morning is that Wylie and Penguin are negotiating as well. Bloomsbury publisher Peter Ginna has a great analysis of some of the implications. While early reports tended to characterize this as a "win" for Random House, Ginna points out that it really depends on the deal that was struck (and the ones yet to be struck).
In further e-book news, PWxyz spotted a good explanation from Wired about the economics of e-book pricing, another e-book domino has fallen as Laura Lippman's brand new bestseller is selling more e-books than hardcovers, there's a color e-reader called the Literati coming, the Wall Street Journal took a look at the reading habits of e-book readers (hint: they read more), Seth Godin made some publishing waves as he said in an interview that he will no longer publish the traditional way (citing the frustration of the long wait and filters of traditional publishing), and oh yeah, the NY Times had an article about digital devices and learning and attention spans but I've already ohmigod how awesome was Project Runway last night????
And yeah yeah news news, what about e-books and author revenue? Well, Mike Shatzkin has a really great post explaining how the royalty ma
You may have heard from, oh, I don't know, the
Time Magazine cover or the
Vogue profile or the
rave reviews or the
Picoult/Weiner spat or
the author video where Franzen says he doesn't like author videos or the fact that
the President of the United States was spotted with it..... anyway, you might have heard that Jonathan Franzen has a new novel out today, his first since THE CORRECTIONS, and it's a pretty big deal.
I haven't yet read
FREEDOM, but from the early reviews this novel is everything that our Internet-manic, high concept craving, supposedly dumbed down culture is not. It "[deconstructs] a family’s history to give us a wide-angled portrait of the country as it rumbled into the materialistic 1990s." (
NY Times) It explores "the unresolved tensions, the messiness of emotion, of love and longing, that possesses even the most willfully ordinary of lives." (
LA Times).
You can't exactly Tweet a summary of what this book is about. Whether you like Franzen's books or not (as you can probably tell: I'm a big fan), it's a novel that punches a gaping hole through the remarkably persistent idea that the publishing industry, and the culture as a whole, is only interested in high concept schlock and the lowest common denominator.
On the other hand, FREEDOM, in its bigness, in its You Must Read This To Be a Thinking Person in America, is already a novel of the times - the big books getting steadily bigger, accumulating hype with gravitational pull, and then there's everything else fighting for attention.
We seem to be a culture that is simultaneously craving books that fit our exact specifications at the same time that we want the shared experience of reading something, loving it, and sharing that experience with our friends (virtual and real life). Culture seems to be moving two contradictory ways - fracturing into ever-smaller niches at the same time that it's coalescing around a few massively popular books and movies. We normally think of the blockbusters in terms of James Patterson, Suzanne Collins, and Stephenie Meyer, but even in literary fiction you have your FREEDOMs and OSCAR WAOs.
And in a still further sign of the time, even though Franzen once said
of his disdain for novels in e-book form, "Am I fetishizing ink and paper? Sure, and I'm fetishizing truth and integrity too," FREEDOM is available for sale as an e-book simultaneously with the hardcover.
What do you think? Will you be reading FREEDOM?
Recently, it seems that New Jersey's place in popular culture has been solidified by the TV popularity of shoes like Jersey Shore and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
But for New Jersey native P.F. Kluge, now a professor and writer-in-residence at Kenyon College in Ohio, it's the place where he grew up, and a perfect setting for a novel about how the American dream has changed through generations.
The Newark Star-Ledger and Cleveland Plain Dealer both reviewed Kluge's new novel, A CALL FROM JERSEY, this week.
The Star-Ledger's interview offers more insight into the creation of this literary novel and the thought processes Kluge had while writing. Read the full article here, but our favorite excerpt is below.
"The book is really about conversations with my father I never got to have," Kluge said. “I have tried to imagine his experience as an American, and as a German in America, especially between the two world wars."
The son, too, is culturally adrift. He is a second-generation American, suddenly trying to understand his parents’ life and re-connect with their lost old-world ways.
“As I grow older, and the number of years since my parents have died grows larger, I grow closer to them,” Kluge said. “As I get older, I miss the sound of their voices, the sound of German being spoken around me, and the stories they told. I miss the beer parties and German songs sung into the night. I miss mother’s potato pancakes.”
The book’s sense of place is authentic. Kluge writes about “13 Bumps,” (Johnston Road in Watchung), which climbs the mountain above Route 22 and has been a teenage makeout place for generations, from Model As to Mitsubishis. And Snuffy’s in Scotch Plains, gone from “roadhouse to Parthenon.” Old Hans even recalls Madame Bey’s, the old Passaic-side boxing training camp on River Road in Summit, where Schmeling once trained.
Only one of Kluge’s previous seven novels was a Jersey story, and it was his most famous.
“I set ‘Eddie and the Cruisers,’ in South Jersey. I spent the summer of 1962 working as a college intern at the Vineland Times Journals, and I found South Jersey so fascinating, and so different from here I was from. You could smell whatever they were canning that day in the air.”
The Plain Dealer's article,
This series is called "Successful
Queries" and I'm posting actual query letters
that succeeded in getting writers signed with agents. In addition to posting the actual
query letter, we will also get to hear thoughts from the agent as to why the letter
worked.
The 43rd installment in this series is with agent Janet
Reid (FinePrint Literary Management)
and her author, Sean Ferrell, for his novel, Numb,
which was released in August 2010 from Harper Perennial. Kirkus Reviews called Numb an
"eye-catching debut ... Artfully barbed entertainment.”
Dear Ms. Reid:
I am seeking representation for my literary novel, Numb. I found your submission
guidelines online and have included below a one-page synopsis.
I live and work in New York City, I have had short stories published in Uber, WORDS and Bossa
Nova Ink, and one of my recent short stories was a finalist in the Italo Calvino
writing competition at the University of Louisville. I received my MFA in creative
writing from Emerson College.
Numb is approximately sixty-thousand words in length.
In summary: Numb is a man who cannot feel physical pain.
When he wanders into a dying circus, he doesn’t know who he is or how he got there.
Despite feeling like an outcast the circus adopts him. When it is clear that his “talent”
(if you can call being shot with nail guns and staplers a talent) will make him the
star freak of the show, he becomes the circus’ best chance for survival. After nearly
sacrificing himself for the circus’ sake, he decides to run away from the circus and
make his way to New York City to discover himself and his past.
Accompanied by his fire-eating best friend, Mal, Numb discovers a world outside the
circus that is all too ready to reward and punish him for his self-destructive talents;
and it’s a world that forces all his relationships to shatter. Numb finds women to
comfort him, yet he won’t allow himself to trust them. He looks for love but won’t
accept it, and he looks for safety in self-destruction. After undermining or losing
friends and lovers, Numb is forced to figure out how to find a place for himself instead
of just taking up space.
This novel is in the spirit of Fight Club or Battle Royale; it is an
antiheroic tale of finding a way to survive in a world so filled with noise that simple
conversation and compassion are often drowned out.
I look forward t
Lucky Press will publish J. Michael Dew's debut novel Tecker (working title) in September 2011. This adult fiction title would best be described as literary fiction that explores the prejudices within a small community against a 29-year-old man, Robbie Toe, a graduate of Vo-Tech, whose intellectual differences garner the attention of the town bullies, male and female. When a false accusation of rape lands Robbie in jail, the true nature of various townspeople is revealed.
Synopsis:
Robbie Toe never touched Missy inappropriately, never raped Blue Jean by the fire, never did anything to the other five girls who accused him of sexual abuse. But no one cared to hear his side of the story. He was a "molester" from the beginning, a "pervert," a "predator." On the day he climbed into an abandoned treehouse to rescue The Priest, an all-black kitten with a white tuft on his neck, Robbie was whisked off to jail to the great satisfaction of the bullies who hated him for no other reason than that he had a curious penchant for cats and was an easy target.
Tecker tells the story in four distinct voices of a social outcast who falls prey to the relentless scorn of a small Pennsylvania town and the cruel lies of its teenage girls. How is a 14-year-old girl inspired to use sex as an instrument of torment? Has our collective conscience weakened to the point that bullying another becomes a source of amusement? Twenty-nine-year-old Robbie Toe stands to be forever changed by these attacks. The charged conclusion of the story, however, will leave the reader wondering: was the change for good or bad?
About the Author:
J. Michael Dew has been making a living as an English professor since 2002. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and three daughters.
Welcome to the eighth (free!) "Dear Lucky Agent" Contest on
the GLA blog. This will be a recurring online contest
with agent judges and super-cool prizes. Here's the deal:
With every contest, the details are essentially the same, but the niche itself
changes—meaning each contest is focused around a specific category
or two. So if you're writing a novel that's considered literary fiction,
this eighth contest is for you!
HOW TO SUBMIT
E-mail entries to eighthagentcontest@gmail.com.
Please paste everything. No attachments.
WHAT TO SUBMIT
The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work
of literary fiction.
You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry
and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the
work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work)
with your entry.
Please note: To be eligible to submit,
I ask that you do one of two things: 1) Mention and link
to this contest twice through your social media—blogs, Twitter,
Facebook; or 2) just mention this contest once and also
add Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to
your blogroll. Please provide link(s) so the judge and
I can verify eligibility. Some previous entrants could not be considered because they
skipped this step!
CONTEST DETAILS
1. This
contest will be live for 14 days—from Jan. 9 through
the end of Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011, EST. Winners notified by e-mail within three weeks of
end of contest. Winners announced on the blog thereafter.
2. To
enter, submit the first 150-200 words of your book. Shorter or longer entries
will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.
3. This
contest is solely for completed book-length works of literary fiction.
Literary fiction, defined, is fiction that falls outside the categories of genre fiction.
Much fiction falls into the so-called popular commercial genres of romance, mystery,
suspense, thriller, Western, horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Writing that falls
in none of these categories is often called "literary."
4. You
can submit as many times as you wish. You can submit
even if you submitted to other contests in the past, but please note that past winners
cannot win again.
5.
I am not fond of traditional problem books, which I see as validating themselves because they are about something really, really important. A problem. I particularly dislike those books that pile on problem after problem to make sure we all get the point about how serious they are. Jellico Road by Melina Marchetta involves a lot of problems. To make matters worse, when a librarian friend saw me leaving with the book, she told me she'd cried over the ending. That is not my idea of a recommendation.
I didn't cry over the ending of this marvelous book, but I came damn close.
The many problems the many charcters in Jellicoe Road suffer through are not there to instruct us on how people should deal with their trials. Instead, they are there to support character and plot. They explain why characters behave the way they do, and each ordeal is literally part of the plot in this story of a tough, witty, capable seventeen-year-old girl who appears to be alone in the world but most definitely is not. Taylor appears to be caught in an age-old battle among three groups of teenagers--the private school students like herself, the Townies, and the Cadets who are just in the neighborhood for a few weeks. Really, she is in paradise, a pardise that is slowly revealed to her along with the story of another group of students, Townies, and Cadets who had lived in that very spot nearly eighteen years earlier.
This is a demanding book. The story of the earlier kids is told by means of a manuscript that Taylor has been reading out of order. It takes time to work out those kids' relationship to each other. We have to also work out what they have to do with Taylor, something that I was sometimes able to figure out before she did--but in the most satisfying way.
There are also multiple mysteries here. In addition to Taylor's personal mysteries and the mystery surrounding the earlier teenagers, there is a serial killer at work here, maybe some arsonists, and a tunnel keeps coming up. Everything is resolved, nothing is forgotten.
How good is this book? It's good enough that its weaknesses don't stop the narrative drive. Why don't the adults in the book tell Taylor more about her life? Everybody seems to know and to be keeping things from her. Isn't the manuscript a little contrived? Isn't the crisis at the dorm at the end of the book a little over the top? Hey, let it all go, and enjoy the ride.
Jellico Road might be a great crossover book between traditional mysteries and mainstream literature. The mystery will engage mystery-loving teen readers, and the quality of the writing will make them want more of the same.
Plot Project: Several times in the book, Taylor talks about what she wants. More. More from everybody. Is this a case where the author gave her character something to want and then came up with a plot by throwing in stumbling blocks to getting it? I don't think so. Come on. More? Plus there are too many threads here for something so simplistic as roadblocks to happiness to have kept things running. My guess is that this is a book that started with a situation. You've got this group of kids involved in this elaborate war that in reality is a game that enables them all to interact together, and they start learning about another group of kids who were doing the same kinds of things twenty years before. From there the plot is all about reve
elena minor, photo courtesy of PALABRA
The editor and publisher of PALABRA, a Magazine of Chicano & Latino Literary Art, keeps a fairly low profile. However, she was adventurous enough to meet with La Bloga. I’m lucky in that I have an insider’s view.
When I first heard about PALABRA in 2006, I sent many poems and short stories to the magazine, which were rejected. As someone who relishes rejection, I kept sending work to the magazine until I finally had a breakthrough with two poems in 2009 issue 5.
One important memo I’ll divulge has to do with the magazine’s visual aesthetics, a bit of information that might help potential contributors to the literary magazine. PALABRA is always spelled with capital letters and the publisher’s name is always spelled with lower case letters, as in “elena minor.” If you get this visual quality correct, she won’t frown at your submission or be in a bad mood when she reads your promising manuscript.
Remember, persistence. I don’t take anything for granted. PALABRA is an annual publication that rejected my work for three straight years, published my work in 2009, and rejected everything I sent in 2010. I’m happy to report that PALABRA has accepted my poetry for the forthcoming 2011 issue.
The Bay Area native started PALABRA in 2006 because she wasn’t finding any Latino literary magazines that published the kind of work she wanted to see. “I wanted writing that wasn’t geared to an Anglo audience, whose interest didn’t lie in trying to explain us (Chicanos and Latinos),” she said. “I wasn’t interested in footnoted Spanish. I wanted work that was different and unapologetically Latino.”
Over the past five years, PALABRA has taken on a life of its own. Also, she gets the word out by attending AWP, the Association of Writers and Writers Programs conference; this is her fourth year at the roving conference. In addition, she started the PALABRA readings at the REDCAT Lounge in the Disney Center in Downtown Los Angeles three years ago. She also gives authors who’ve been published in PALABRA the opportunity to read and feature their books at REDCAT. Working for CalArts at REDCAT helped secure the lounge’s excellent reading space. PALABRA Press will soon publish single-authored books of short, unconventional fiction.
Being the publisher, marketer, and editor of PALABRA takes its toll on minor’s writing time. She hopes to retire someday from all her jobs and devote more time to her writing. She’s an award-winning dramatist who also writes fiction, poetry, and hybrid works. She is currently polishing a poetry manuscript and working on an episodic novel. The MFA grad from Antioch puts her name out there and also rides the acceptance and rejection roller coaster. “I want to make sure they know Latino writers exist,” she said. “There are still a lot of editors of lit mags who have no clue about Latino literature.”
Eventually, the publisher would like to hand off the editorial decisions to someone else. For now, she thrives on finding exciting work that’s different. “I’m not a big fan of trying to repeat a formula,” she said. “I’m looking for writing that’s working from some well spring of originality.” She’s such a fan o
This is a recurring column I'm calling "7 Things I've Learned
So Far," where writers at any
stage of their career can talk about seven things they've learned along their writing
journey that they wish they knew at the beginning. This installment is from novelist Alexander
Yates.
Alexander is excited to give away a free copy of his
novel to a random commenter. Comment within one week; winners must live in Canada/US
to receive the print book by mail. You can win a blog contest even if you've won before.
Alexander Yates grew up in Haiti,
Mexico, Bolivia and
the Philippines. His first novel, Moondogs,
(Doubleday;
March 2011) was given a starred review by Kirkus,
which called it “accomplished ... unusually involving.”
His other work has appeared in American Fiction,
FiveChapters.com and the Kenyon Review Online.
Alex has a website and
is on Twitter.
1. Revision is important, but finishing your draft is more important. I learned
this the hard way. It took me five years to finish writing my novel, but in retrospect
two of those years were wasted (or at least used very ineffectively) on obsessive
over-revision. I wrote my first few chapters and, realizing they weren’t very good,
I began rewriting. And rewriting. What I didn’t realize at the time is that first
chapters are supposed to stink. How could they not? By the time Moondogs was
finally picked up for publication I’d deleted virtually all the early material I’d
agonized over for years. Just because I’d been reluctant to hold my nose and push
through to the end of the book.
My takeaway: Nothing compares to the perspective that a full
draft (stinky though it may be) will give you. For all you know that scene you are
pouring hours into revising doesn’t even belong in the book.
2. There is no substitute for time at the keys. This, of course, is a cliché.
But it also can’t be overemphasized. Sometimes work needs to simmer away in your head,
but the process of discovery happens much quicker when you’re struggling with your
own raw sentences. Some writers will tell you: “Treat it like a job.” This is maybe
a little extreme—writers like George Saunders and Charles Yu have written brilliant
books while working full time at office jobs. But whether it’s eight hours a day,
or two, you need to make them happen. Time at the keys is no guarantee of success,
but it is a precursor to it.
3. The Internet is not your friend … unless you are way better at time management
than me. But if you’re like me (read: a big and distractible baby) then the Internet
is a major enemy to productive writing time. I got around it by writing my novel on
a 90’s era laptop with busted Ethernet ports and no wireless. Even as I write this,
my modem and router are unplugged. If they weren’t, I
East Wind: West Wind. Pearl S. Buck. 1930/1995. Moyer Bell. 288 pages.
These things I may tell you, My Sister. I could not speak thus even to one of my own people, for she could not understand the far countries where my husband lived for twelve years. Neither could I talk freely to one of the alien women who do not know my people and the manner of life we have had since the time of the ancient empire. But you? You have lived among us all your years. Although you belong to those other lands where my husband studied his western books, you will understand. I speak the truth. I have named you My Sister. I will tell you everything.I loved this one. I just LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it. As in I think I may have found (another) author to become obsessed with.
East Wind: West Wind was Pearl S. Buck's first novel. It's set in China. Our selfless heroine, Kwei-lan, finds herself in a troubling position. She's been raised in a very traditional home. She's been raised--some might even say trained--from a very, very young age to please her future family--her future mother-in-law, her future husband. As a daughter, her mother has always, always kept in mind that she is not truly of their family. Kwei-lan's marriage has been arranged--set in place--since the time she was a baby. The first few chapters chronicle her childhood, her bringing up. Readers get a glimpse of the culture. How women lead very separate lives from the men. How women are to be silent and obedient and always willing to please their husbands, their masters. Readers get a glimpse of this culture. Of what made a woman beautiful, attractive, desirable. And one of the things that made a woman beautiful are incredibly tiny feet which led of course to the practice of binding feet. (Being able to cook well also helped a woman please her husband. And you HAVE to know how to pour tea for your elders.)
But our heroine, our narrator, is in for quite a shock. For her husband has spent time in the West. He has become educated; he's a doctor. He prefers to break with some of the traditions, to live a more modern life. He wants his wife to be more of an equal and less of a slave. He wants his wife to be his companion. He wants to share his life with someone. He doesn't want a silent shadow, an obedient slave. He wants more. The first step may just be the hardest--for he is asking his wife to unbind her feet.
East Wind: West Wind is all about tension and drama. For though our heroine wants to please her husband, although she is fascinated by some of these new ideas, she finds it difficult to forget everything she's grown up believing. It's not something that can be done in one week, one month, or one year.
But. This isn't her story alone. No. Some of the most dramatic scenes in the novel focus on her brother. Like her husband, her brother has been educated in the West, he has spent time in foreign countries. He's learned to adapt to new ways of life. And he does NOT want to return to China to marry the woman he's been betrothed to since he
Welcome to the Book Blog Tour of In the Shadow of the Cypress by Thomas Steinbeck.
The blurb:
In 1906, the Chinese in California lived in the shadows. Their alien customs, traditions, and language hid what they valued from their neighbors. . . an left them open to scorn and prejudice. Their communities were ruled -- and divided -- by the necessity of survival among the many would-be masters surrounding them, by struggles between powerful tongs, and by duty to their ancestors.
Then, in the wake of a natural disaster, fate brought to light artifacts of incredible value among the Monterey coast: an ancient Chinese jade seal and a plaque inscribed in a trio of languages lost to all but scholars of antiquity. At first, chance placed control of those treasures in the hands of outsiders -- the wayward Irishman who'd discovered them and a marine scholar who was determined to explore their secrets. The path to the truth, however, would prove to be as tangled as the roots of the ancient cypress that had guarded these treasures for so long, for there are some secrets the Chinese were not ready to share. Whether by fate, by subtle design, or some intricate combination of the two, the artifacts disappeared again. . . before it could be proved that they must have come there ages before Europeans ever touched the wild and beautiful California coast.
Nearly a century would pass before an unconventional young American scientist unearths evidence of this great discovery and its mysterious disappearance. Taking up the challenge, he begins to assemble a new generation of explorers to resume the perilous search into the ocean's depth. . . and the shadows of history. Armed with cutting edge, modern technology, and drawing on connections to powerful families at home and abroad, this time Americans and Chinese will follow together the path of secrets that have long proved as elusive as the ancient treasures that held them.
This striking debut novel by a masterful writer weaves together two facinating eras into one remarkable tale. In the Shadow of the Cypress is an evocative, dramatic story that depicts California in all its multicultural variety, with a suspense that draws the reader inexorably on until the very last page.
Review:
In the Shadow of the Cypress is an unusual and engrossing read. The book is told from three points of view: that of Dr. Charles Gilbert, a professor at Stanford University in 1906, that of his contemporary, Dr. Lao-Hong, a Harvard-educated Chinese who takes an active role assisting the Chinese community, and that of Charles Lucas, a graduate student at Stanford in the present. At the center of the book is a mystery of unique Chinese artifacts that were first discovered in Northern California in 1906, at a time that Chinese immigrants are marginalized.
The novel begins with the narrative of Dr. Charles E. Gilbert, a professor of marine biology at Stanford. As Gilbert describes life in Northern California during the early 1900s, he sympathizes with the local Chinese as they face open discrimination and attacks on China Point. Gilbert learns about the discovery of unique Chinese artifacts and his fascination with the mysterious artifacts leads him to a great mystery.
Then the novel the impact that the artifacts have on the local Chinese community from the point of view of Dr. Lao-Hong, a contemporary of Dr. Gilbert's. Dr. Lao-Hong is a Harvard graduate and well respected member of the Chinese community. Born, raised and educated in America, Dr. Lao-Hong often shares
Welcome to the Book Blog Tour of How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly by Connie May Fowler!
The blurb:
Set amidst the lush pine forests and rich savannahs of Florida's Northern Panhandle, this is the story of one woman whose existence until now seemed fairly normal: She is thirtysomething, married and goes about her daily routine as a writer. But we soon learn that ghosts, an indifferent husband, and a seemingly terminal case of writer's block are burdening Clarissa's life. She awakes on the summer solstice and, prodded by her own discontent and one ghost's righteous need for truth, commences upon a twenty-four-hour journey of self-discovery.
Her harrowing, funny, and startling adventures lead Clarissa to a momentous decision: She must find a way to do the unthinkable. Her life and the well-being of a remarkable family of blithe spirits hang in the balance.
In How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, Connie May Fowler once again demonstrates her keen abilities as a storyteller. A remarkably original and empowering novel about an unexpected midlife awakening, it will resonate and be discussed for years to come.
Review:
I admit that when I read about Clarisse Burden in her large, well cared for and beautifully proportioned house with a husband frolicking with nude models in the garden, I didn't sympathize with Clarisse. I kept wanting her to get angry and kick the deadbeat out of her house!
But as Clarisse's personal history, wit and personality unfolded, I slowly sympathized and could understand why she didn't call her husband on his ludicrous behavior. Albeit, I kept hoping that she would. Getting to know Clarisse - her kindness and generosity to the young reporter, her wry internal voice, and interest in her surroundings - helped draw me in.
Once I got into it, I thoroughly enjoyed How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly. Clarissa's voice is smart, observant, and a little sad. As she focuses on other people and their stories, she becomes engaged and you see how Clarissa was able to write stories that touched people's lives. If you're looking for an unusual absorbing read, I highly recommend How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly.
ISBN-10: 0446540684 - Hardcover $23.99
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1 edition (April 2, 2010), 288 pages.
Review copy provided by the publisher.
About the Author: Connie May Fowler is an essayist, screenwriter, and novelist. She is the author of five novels, most recently, The Problem with Murmur Lee, and a memoir, When Katie Wakes. Her 1996 novel, Before Women Had Wings, became a bestseller in paperback and was adapted into a successful Oprah Winfrey Presents movie. She also founded the Connie May Fowler with Wings Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to aiding women and children in need.
Thanks so much to Miriam, Henry, and Hatchette Books Group for this review opportunity!
"Agent Advice" is a series of quick interviews
with literary and script agents who talk with Guide to Literary Agents about
their thoughts on writing, publishing, and just about anything else.
This installment features Lisa Bankoff of ICM (International
Creative Management).
She
is seeking: literary fiction, some women's fiction,
some mainstream fiction, and narrative nonfiction written by journalists.
GLA: How did you become an agent?
LB: I was an assistant
at ICM and learned by paying attention and asking questions. I was very motivated
and wanted to somehow be part of a book's genesis, an act of creation that still astounds
me, one thin page after another adding up to a thing of heft and consequence.
GLA: What’s
something recently released that you’re excited about?
LB: A recent novel
which has a special place in my heart and has sold very well and yet no one seems
to have heard of is Laura Kasischke's In a Perfect World. Two others on the
cusp of publication: A Fierce Radiance, by Lauren Belfer (June 2010) and Adrienne
McDonnell's debut novel The Doctor and the Diva (July 2010).
And a very special and unique work, nothing else like it,
is David Lipsky's road trip with David Foster Wallace, Although Of Course You End
Up Becoming Yourself.
GLA: You specialize
in literary fiction. What draws you to this unique category?
LB: If by literary
we mean writing that's assured, intelligent, distinctive, sometimes playful and wry,
and never boring, then the question becomes how could I not be drawn to it?
GLA: I would
imagine literary fiction isn’t the easiest thing to sell. Is it getting easier or
harder as time goes on?
LB: It's head-banging
hard on some days; on other days, it's the one thing editors can't get enough of—and
those are the truly great days.
GLA: Two of
the first fiction authors I looked up of yours were Elizabeth Berg and Claire Cook.
It seems like many/most of their books could be classified as women’s or upmarket
fiction. More than just “literary fiction,” do you find yourself gravitating toward
upmarket fiction with women protagonists?
LB: What they share
is a talent for capturing the voices and concerns of women with whom many readers
identify; their characters feel familiar but in a good way. It's fair to say that
upmarket fiction with female protagonists finds me; it's not that I'm on the prowl
for it.
This new series is called "Successful
Queries" and I'm posting actual query letters
that succeeded in getting writers signed with agents. In addition to posting
the actual query letter, we will also get to hear thoughts from the agent as to why
the letter worked.
The 34th installment in this series is with agent Michelle Brower (Folio
Literary) and her author, Michele
Young-Stone, for the literary fiction novel, The
Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors (April 2010).
Dear Ms. Brower:
Please consider representing my novel, The
Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors.
A literary novel, The Handbook... spans nineteen years in the lives of the
two main characters (Becca, born into privilege in 1969, and Buckley, born into poverty
in 1959), and suggests that people, however disparate, are linked. The 400-page narrative
encompasses multiple themes, but ultimately the book is a story of redemption.
Buckley, whose mother is struck dead by lightning, writes a nonfiction handbook, The
Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, excerpts of which appear throughout the
novel. Becca, a repeat lightning strike survivor, buys Buckley’s Handbook through
an ad in the back pages of a magazine. Becca and Buckley, destined to collide, meet
during a massive electrical storm where there is a surprising reversal of fortune.
Structurally, the novel tells Becca’s story, then Buckley’s—the tension mounting until
the two meet.
I am a thirty-four year old MFA fiction graduate My screenplay Spotting Normal was
a 2003 semi-finalist for the Chesterfield Writers Film Project Award and a 2004 finalist
for the CineStory screenwriting award. My story “Cop Drag” was a finalist in the First
Annual Lewis Nordan Fiction Contest sponsored by Algonquin Books. My second screenplay, Paint
Spain With Bart, was a finalist in the 2006 Screenplay Festival Contest sponsored
by InkTip. I am currently halfway through my second novel.
Let me know if I may send you the first 100 pages or the full manuscript.
All Best,
Michele Young-Stone
Commentary from Michelle
Michele’s query absolutely jumped out from the slushpile
for me, at first for one reason alone: her title was amazing. For all readers, a title
creates a visceral response, and as agents, we want that response to be “I must pick
this book up!” In this case, there is what we call a “high concept” aspect to the
plot--two separate
View Next 25 Posts
D.J.: I’m a blue collar person from Detroit. I’ve worked as a truck driver, dispatcher, logistics analyst, operations manager, and ten years as a 911 operator, which was the very best job of all of them. I write stories like you’d watch a movie and put them down on paper. I have written in different genres; crime, romance, and even a little bit in literary fiction. The last sentence in my writing bio is always: He is a wolf expert. I am not a biologist. I raised two arctic hybrids, had them for eleven years, and have written two books in which they join the other protagonists.
D.J.: The Death of Anyone is essentially a mystery/suspense story with romance and a little science in it. The story centers on homicide detective Bonnie Benham’s search for the killer of young girls.
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I never post anonymous but screw it I'll do it this time.
You know what I think is the problem, not that everybody is too positive, but that agents are looking for the wrong stuff in choosing clients.
I think it's messed up that self-published authors cannot get agents and then end up doing fantastic on their own and getting an agent.
I think the people in publishing need to get smarter about what they're doing.
You gave me such food for thought that I had to write a whole blog post on it. Thanks, Nathan!
http://lindsaysmith.net/2012/08/too-nice-or-too-phony/
I don't think it's bad for authors to stay positive and support each other. After all, there are plenty of readers who will give us the painful truth. Just like in Hollywood, where actors generally put on a good face for their peers, we should try to be professional and positive and leave the criticism to others. First of all, it's hard for readers to be believe you're being impartial anyway (and let's face it, I'm not going to write a negative review for a friend). Secondly, it's a small community and you might well meet the writer whose book you bashed on GR. Not a great way to make friends and influence people.
If anything, I wish that authors would remain MORE professional and stop harassing regular reviewers who didn't like their book. Grow a thicker skin, people, or get out of the biz.
I think the people in publishing need to get smarter about what they're doing.
Here, here. I recently attended a conference and objectively speaking (and I'm not even querying yet!) the things the publishers were saying were so risk-averse it's ridiculous. They will only try to sell what already sells. They claim they want something different, but all they want is more of the same. They white-wash covers, put extreme limits on the number of minority characters they are willing to have in their books, and jump on band-wagons. An editor said she would only be interested in my YA sci-fi if it was dystopia. Seriously? I am so SICK of dystopia and I doubt I'm the only one.
The recent seven-figure deal with the wanna-be 50 shades book is yet another example of the publishers getting really excited for MORE OF THE SAME.
Good questions. I also avoid negative reviews. I prefer to boost what I love rather than slam what I don't.
It's a fallacy to treat the new democratized publishing world, with reader reviews, as equivalent to the old aristocratic version, with learned reviews. Why should mere 'consumers' feel the need to develop a complex criteria? After all, they bought the 'product.' All they have to do is love it or hate it.
In the case of a qualified person giving a real old-time review, I think you have to clearly lay out your criteria for what you are saying. For instance, express an understanding of what the author tried to do and say, how such a thing should be done and said, and specifically how the author failed or succeeded.
One thing that blows my mind is how basically illiterate people can use the internet to sound educated. Their grammar and spelling has been beaten into shape by a combination of some long-suffering teacher and the computer's dictionary/grammar-check functions - but they can't connect the logical dots from one phrase to the next. This morning I read a comment on an article at Poetry Foundation dot org, in which someone excoriated the essayist for saying that lyrical poetry is a cognate to nursery rhymes and riddles. She felt that the essayist was being snobbish for making lyrical poetry superior to nursery rhymes. Apparently she thought 'cognate' meant "highly superior" - however, all her words were spelled correctly and she used a bunch of phrases and qualifiers that sounded faintly academic. So funny but also disheartening. It makes me wish there were more trade-based high schools out there and that they were less stigmatized.
There is a problem, and it's even more prevalent in the indie world than the traditional world. I pretty much won't buy independently published books anymore, because the reviews are -always- positive and frequently from people that didn't even read the books. Just other authors that went and said something like "this is guy is great! buy his book!" I was fooled by that a few times and read the absolute worst books I've read in my life because of it. The current refusal to do negative reviews harms everyone, but, especially, it harms the consumer, because it becomes impossible to distinguish not just good from bad but what I might like from what you might like. At the end of the day, lying is still lying even if it's "no, those jeans don't make your ass look fat."
There are so many good responses here that I almost didn't respond, but I decided to add my piece.
You hit the mark with honest review. As several people said, there are many negatives with the overly positive as well as agressive negative reviews. Both types are rarely constructive; often they do not give a reader concrete, specific analysis. I'm always pleased when I come across a review who does give a thoughtful, honest review.
Honesty: yes! A reviewer can be honest without being caustic and bombastic. I would add to honesty that good/great reviews are thoughtful and analytical as well. Even books I love/like have issues.
Having said that, I do enjoy H. L. Mencken. I wouldn't mind if a new Mencken rose up and wrote for the Internet.
Huh, I kind of blogged about this today at the Drunk Writer Talk blog... Group think today. :) There's a link to a goodreads ARC giveaway on my post there... I won't link here, but anyone interested can google. ;)
I fully believe that professional reviewers and all readers, for that matter, should be honest in their reviews--even if they hated a book. But I don't think that means authors shouldn't support each other and draw the attention of their own fans/followers to the work of other authors. It's good karma if nothing else. :)
I, for one, think it's fabulous that authors support each other.
I'm also an author who's chosen not to criticize fellow authors' work in public. Do I like every book I read? No. But I'm an author, not a professional critic so I keep those opinions private (or amongst friends). I could choose to post my thoughts as a reader, but to what end? It feels to me a bit like: don't sh*t where you eat.
There aren't any other professions I can think of where the workers publicly deride their co-workers' or competitors' work.
You don't see actors, or screenwriters for that matter, publicly criticizing each others' acting skills.
That's what critics and the general public are for.
I know there's this tradition in the literary world of authors reviewing other authors' books... but it's always seemed odd to me. Aren't there enough qualified lit profs and librarians etc. etc. to do the critic job without authors pooping on each other? (clearly I have a scatological fixation today.)
That said, I love it when readers are honest. Even when their words sting or are completely inaccurate. (i.e. describe things in the book that aren't there.)
I look at Goodreads in particular as less of a review site, and more of a social networking site for book lovers. Some of the members post thoughtful reviews that could have ended up in a review journal or newspaper if more of those were thriving these days and/or still publishing reviews. But most members just post their gut reaction to books. And that's great.
In my mind, anything that encourages reading is, well, to use a frequently misused squeefest word: awesome.
I'm curious as to why neither you nor Silverman has stated outright the logical consequence of this love-fest - that writers are not made aware when their writing is of poor quality.
The most alarming problem that I see is not the critics participating in this mutual admiration society, but the editors. I know that there is a market for everything, but there is such a thing as objectively poor grammar, structure etc., and editors need to be honest with their clients if they are to be truly kind to them.
I've watched as freelance editors jump on twitter and join writing hashtags so that they can make 'friends' with writers and get work from them (usually ones that have given up on traditional publishing.) I'm looking for freelance editors, at the moment, so I've been reading books that have been edited by some of the more popular editors on social media, and some who have been recommended to me by self published authors. As I read, I find myself genuinely angry to think that anyone has been paid for editing these works. I'm not talking about prose that might not be to my taste, I'm talking about gaping plot holes, appalling deus ex machina, scene after scene which does not further the plot and, worst of all, "ending" the work based on word count, regardless of any plot arc - at all - being resolved (seemingly justifying it by calling it a "series").
Sure, not every writer listens to their editor, but I know these writers, and they shared their process, talked about how they were working through the changes suggested, and they believe they have produced quality work - because their editor told them it was ready for publication.
The question is, does it matter? If these guys are all proud of their self published work and some are even selling fairly well, are the editors wrong not to actually try to help them make their work better? Am I not being a coward by not telling them what I truly think?
Obviously, my personal view is that it does matter and that I am a coward (hence the anonymity). Story telling is vital to human psychology, and evolution. However ugly or beautiful the prose, if stories without endings, or psychologically real characters, or illogical "plots" become the majority of stories published (even the traditional publishers are putting them out there, now) we are failing to provide the next generation with the tools to become good storytellers. Eventually, stories won't quite entertain or move us,so they won't teach us anything, either, but no-one will know why (except the screenwriters - assuming they have enough stories to recycle!)
For my work, I'm going to keep looking for an honest editor, because I consider lying to me, telling me that my work is great, when it's not, to be not just unprofessional, but not at all friendly.
To put it another way, I've never found there to be a shortage of people on the Internet willing to tell you how much you suck.
Long ago, I remember the unwritten rule "Don't say so-and-so is a bad writer" or "Don't say that trade published fiction has a bunch of stinkers." I understand that literature is an art form. Not all art speaks to all people. This is true for movies (we review them, too), art (critics abound), and theatre (being critical here is an artform in and of itself). We are culture that is addicted to reviews (restaurants, plumbers, television shows, sports).
What is happening, I believe, is that smart authors and publishers realize the power of a positive review and they "game the system." This is similar to the movie reviews a decade ago that would pull positive review quotes out of a negative review and then use that in their advertising. It is another version of publicity spinning.
As far as negative reviews are concerned, I think the problem is the extremists reacting. If you examine closely the pattern, you will find that enormously popular books and authors get the highest volume of vitriol. Often, these negative reviews take on undercurrents of racism, elitism, colonialism and a host of other -isms. The point is that positively negative reviews that push the boundaries of good taste often don't use valid explanations for their views.
This same problem occurs on the positive extremes as well. A glowing review that gives no legitimate reason for that particular view is common. I like those sites that offer the question for comments "Was this comment helpful?" I vote that we all start clicking the corresponding box so that we can help level the field.
Because, in the end, why do we have reviews? We use them to make intelligent purchases with our hard-earned discretionary income. Reviews are supposed to aid us in that search. When reviewers are paid, when reviewers are dishonest, or hostile, it cheats the potential customer.
And, to all those out there that don't leave reviews, let me encourage you to do so in the future. You don't have to be flowery or long-winded (like me). You just have to be honest and specific. What appealed to you? Or, conversely, what repelled you?
If we can collectively provide more honest, unbiased, non-publicist reviews, then we have a better chance at killing the rainbows and puppies and squelching the haters who gotta hate.
Nathan, I happened to blog about this yesterday. Loving the comments on your post (and on mine too.) We're all thinking about these thing since Silverman's article. I was thinking about them before too when I asked in the comment section of a friend's blog if we can really trust reviews from aspiring novelists. I won't go into all the details here since they're in my post, but my opinion is still--NO, I do not trust most reviews, not the overly positive or overly negative ones.
I agree with Nathan when he said there is no shortage of people who are willing to tell you how much you suck.
I believe in being honest, and I also believe we can be honest without being rude, hurtful and biligerant. As a writer, I take my work to my critique group because I want to hear what works along with what doesn't work. I trust they will be honest while being kind.
I shoot for the same consideration when writing a book review. I haven't liked everything I've read, but I try to picture them sitting across from me as I write what I think in a constructive manner.
I'd love to see more people, in all aspects of life, raising up to the challenge of being honestly kind!
I had a no negative review policy for a while, and my blog suffered. Not because I wasn't giving good reviews, just because I wasn't reviewing enough. I'm a harsh critic even on books I enjoy. So I went back to my tried and true honest but not mean review policy. It's made a difference. As for the question have we gotten too nice? I'm not sure. The reviews that personally attack authors, and the way every PNR review is compared to twilight makes me think not. On the other hand, the way authors have been attacking negative reviews makes me think they're not used to it--as in there aren't enough neg reviews out there.
It depends where on the internet you look. The internet is full of everything, from cheerleading to the kind of vitriol that could strip paint.
The best thing to do is read a reviewer's policy statement. If you want the good, the bad, and the ugly, written by people who are not authors themselves and who don't work for publishers, they are out there. There are ninety kajillion book reviewers on the internet. You can find what you're looking for.
Hmmm! Very interesting points. I personally haven't been privileged with much politely fake feedback from people online. Quite the opposite a lot of the time. So I know how I wouldn't like to be treated and I go out of my way to be polite if and when I have intelligence and the emotional fortitude to do so.
Linking this question to the one about, "Why the heck is America so violent?" I think that many people in an individualistic culture are very quick to invade each others boundaries, to disagree on what constitutes conventional behavior, and to hold in contempt other people's emotional world views. You can see so much of it documented in writing on the internet. Do a Youtube search for something like pit bulls, Obama, or... geez, anything really!
I tie this into the idea of online shallowness. Based on both the blank praise and the anti-social remarks I see everywhere in comments online, I think that most people struggle to analyze and articulate their thoughts and feelings about a text. That inability to analyze and articulate may increase people's tendency to lash out at each other, and even worse- lead to a fear about articulating your own opinions- even if those opinions are respectfully honest. No ordinary person going about the course of an ordinary day wants to get cornered and attacked. In order to be truly honest, you must feel safe enough to BE honest, and that safety from personal attack and manipulation just isn't there on the internet yet.
I think that some of the online shallowness has also increased because of the increased accountability that Google and Facebook created. You're not so anonymous, and coworkers and employers can link to your online profiles.
I also think that the increase in online college classes may have impacted people's agreement on what constitutes "netiquette."
Just some of my thoughts. I always enjoy the online community created here,
Naja
There is a difference between being constructive and being an asshole just because someone gave you a box to stand on in the public square. I don't think we need more negative anything. More constructive criticism, certainly.
But some of these reviewers are simply being mean to get traffic to their blogs. That's despicable.
Also, if you're an author and you're unprepared for negative reviews, then don't publish. Yes, they hurt. Cry to your dog and then write something else. Or get drunk and complain to your sig other.
But for f's sake, stay off Goodreads when you do it - those bitches are NASTY and they will NOT forgive you.
This is a great question. My feeling is that it takes GUTS to follow your dream, and no one should try to piss on your parade. Does that mean that there aren't poorly written books out there? NO. It means that we need to lift as we climb. Do not deny someone their right to happiness and their dream just because you don't happen to like their style, their grammar, their story or their book.
I'd rather people practice being overly kind because of social media than be twits to each other because it's easier and makes them THINK that they look smarter or better educated.
Do your thing. Write your book. Share the characters and stories that are aching to get out of your head and heart. And...kill people with kindness. The world needs WAY MORE of it, not less.
I expect reviewers to be more honest than kind, but I really am disgusted when writers decide to give a fellow writer, especially one who writes in the same genre, a nasty, negative, review. They are essentially dissing the competition and it smacks of pettiness and jealousy. In those cases I think niceness is the only professional stance to take.
Or better yet, say nothing.
I also agree that there's no shortage of people who are willing to tell you how much you suck. It's not just the reading public, either - Kirkus takes pride in being "the world's toughest revieweers," do they not?
Someone mentioned in a previous comment that editors need to stop participating in this mutual admiration society. That person appeared to be talking about freelance editors, but it made me think of editors at traditional publishing houses, and I don't see those editors going out of their way to avoid honest criticism. Quite the opposite, in fact, and the evidence is the sum total of queries and manuscripts that are submitted and subsequently rejected every year.
As a published author, I can also say that my editor doesn't allow my work to slide - he pushes me to write the best books I possibly can, and if he thinks there's something that can be better, he tells me.
I have no data to back up any of my assertions, but I don't think there's an imbalance in favor of positive energy. If you ask me, the positive energy in the book world is still catching up to the negative.
I recognize that my behavior has changed since leaving college and all of those writing classes I loved. No matter who it was, almost everyone's story paired their compliments with constructive criticism in workshop all in an effort to help the writing.
There were times when no one could think of anything to say about a story (good or bad), not because it was perfect but because it was too far gone or to raw of a first draft (it's extremely difficult to help anyone out with a first draft since--hopefully--it's just the jumping off point). But we always tried to help out to help the writing as best we could.
Now, if I have trouble reading something because the writing isn't what it could be, I put it down and leave it forever and rarely speak of it again. I save my reviews (whether in person or online) for works that I am excited about. It doesn't help the writer of the book/story I couldn't and didn't want to finish. It leaves them not knowing how they can improve.
Positive comments (and puppies and rainbows) are nice but my confidence increased once I understood how to fix my errors and improve my writing, and then reached a skill level where I could see the other errors that I was not at point to recognize before.
As long as we avoid border-line hate-speech and criticizing for the benefit of no one, constructive criticism can only help our fellow writers out and, since seeing someone else's writing problems can help you recognize your own, it can help ourselves.
I just think there's more.
We live in a time when everyone who purchases a book has the ability to be a critic and voice an opinion (twice actually. Once on Amazon, once on Good Reads). These are reviewers with no agenda of critically reviewing a book. In most cases, the ratings are of the liked it/didn't like it variety--with a somewhat unrelated point system attached.
You point out, Good Reads straight up rapes some work. Usually it's done to be funny, the Fifty Shades of Grey review with pictures and videos comes to my mind.
What's even more baffling are the 4 star reviews that are luke warm. "It wasn't great. 4 stars!" Or the 2 star reviews that love it, "AWESOME! Was captivated, a real page turner. But I hate Helvetica. 2 stars."
Actually, the REAL version of this review is -- "Good book. I don't like the genre(then why the hell did you buy the book) so I can only give it 3 stars, even though it's the best book I've ever read in this genre."
There's also nothing quite like being ripped a new one, by poor grammar and terrible spelling.
I just think there's more.
The Internetz is too nice? Is that chap online?
I agree, Nathan, with what you've said and what Ava Jae wrote in her comment. When I decided to self-pub my first book, I was able to quickly find kindred spirits on Twitter and Facebook, others who have chosen the same path (at least for now). We support each other. I will not publish untruthful reviews or say things I don't believe. But you can be a "friend" by retweeting, hosting an interview on your blog, re-posting an announcement to your FB page. And it is more fun to be engaged with others who are climbing the same mountain you are.
Being a writer/author is damned hard. Why shouldn't we be nice to each other? Why shouldn't we help each other out? The "us" and "them", and "me" versus "them" mentalities of the old publishing world are going away. Good riddance.
Hi Nathan. I'm reminded of what Dr.Seuss said,‘Be who you are and say how you feel, because those who matter won’t mind and those who mind don’t matter.’ If you love a squeefest (& I include myself in that number), then squee your heart out. If you're inclined to be a harsh critic then slay your dragons. Either way, as long as you are being true to who you are at core, then nothing else matters!
Yvette Carol
The title of this post made me laugh. What are some of the things I've seen going in the literary community lately? Hmm. Twitter or Goodreads-incited flamewars between authors and readers, sites dedicated to trashing and ridiculing books of a certain genre and the authors who write them, the many, many people who trash self-published or the corresponding people who trash authors who choose to sign with an agent and go traditional, Goodreads lists of authors who "behave badly" and corresponding lists of reviewers who behave badly (and stalkerish posts of personal information like where these people live, work, and regularly hang out--yikes), and many other things. Lately the literary world--at least online--has seemed more like a battlefield than a field of rainbows and puppies.
I am never going to support the idea of encouraging people to be nastier or more negative than they already are, because clearly the literary community is perfectly capable of doing that on its own.
That isn't to say that I'm opposed to critical or honest thinking. OF COURSE reviewers should be honest about their opinions. I think that goes without saying. But for too many people, "honest" is just an excuse to be cruel or snarky, often almost as a game.
Is too much shallow praise or lack of sincerity a problem? Maybe...? I dunno, I feel like the worst thing that happens there is that people praise a book and then those praises don't pan out. Should this problem be corrected by encouraging more negativity and critical words? I don't think so. Like I said, we have plenty of that already. Too much, I'd say. I think as a community we should strive for meat instead of fluff, of course. But that meat can still be served kindly, respectfully, and politely.
Great question, and one I struggle with. I'll write a negative review, but only if I can separate my emotions out, explain what appeared to be wrong with the book, and point out anyplace where I thought the author succeeded.
To second a couple of other commenters: it's the Goodreads stars that bother me. Goodreads stars are set vaguely on a scale of taste, from "didn't like it" to "it was amazing". I've considered just not giving stars because my taste is not always guaranteed to correlate to quality.
E.g., I recently gave a very popular YA book a one-star review--it was one of those violent dystopians, made me practically ill to read--but it was actually reasonably well-written and I made that clear in the review. Even included a disclaimer against the star rating.
It still bothers me. I worry about the author seeing the review and only seeing the one star, rather than the affirmation contained in the review itself.
I'm a puppy and rainbow kind of writer - for some of my stories. Others not so sweett, but I write children and adult fare so that broadness is to be expected.
We tend to forget there is a difference between a review and a critique. With a critique, one pays to get bashed, and the review one buys to knock or buys and wanting it free, knows that bashing will earn money returned.
To me, a review is giving a potential reader an inside track and I will not make a negative review. If I believe one is required, I contact the author and let them know why I think there is a problem, including my reasoning, but also not in a bashing manner.
I, in fact, have a review due on a book for a friend. The writing is excellent, his stories, however, are disturbing, antisocial, and could be construed as being from a psychopathic mind. I will write the review and ask him if he wishes me to post it.
I don't see it as fake. Maybe because I've never complimented another writer on facebook, twitter, or goodreads and not meant it. I always mean what I say.
At the risk of being negative, I think the point of the essay was missed. It's not about a lack of negativity so much as a lack of honesty. The online book culture is built mostly out of writers following writers, and the primary reason anyone follows, or retweets, or likes anyone else is to get attention for themselves.
The beginning of the essay touches on something that bothers me deeply--writers are becoming famous online not for their books but for their twitter and blog posts. And that's part of the writer's point. Once you become "friends" with someone, it's much harder to be honest and tell them when you don't like something they've done.
This is an interesting question. I think there is a plethora of fake "love" on the net for friends, cliques, or others people see as potential help. But there is genuine love as well. The problem is sorting it out, and I have chosen not to. As a reader,I still purchase books by reading the blurb and a few pages or by the rec of friends who share similar reading tastes. If I stumble upon a book I don't like, I stop reading it and move on. In the end, I think the niceness helps some people and it's only a problem if you let it become one. As far as opinions of my work, I'm a writer, not a mind reader. If someone says they like my book, I'll never know for sure if they are telling the truth or not. We can all choose to believe what we want and participate in the lovefest or not.
I'm with you on the hateful reviews on Goodreads. There are a lot of Simon Cowell wanna-bes out there. Sometimes they just want to be clever and make fun of a book because it makes them feel better somehow about themselves.
On the other hand, I agree with the poster who pointed out that once you become online buddies with a writer it is hard to tell them their book bored you to sleep. That's why I try to keep my friends separate from the books that I read. If I make friends with you, I probably won't read your book. Or I'll read it and just won't tell you that I read it unless it blew me away.
Many excellent responses so not sure how I can add much more except to say it is one thing to give support to a writer through false postings on social media and another to be honest to the work and not the person.
After all, isn't a critique supposed to be objective? What has happened to objectivity?
I'm not implying support for someone who wants to give a negative and hostile review. There are too many riding either end of the scale and not enough of us in the middle!
I'm a co-founder of the online book recommendation site for kids and teens called Whatcha' Reading Now? We have a policy of only reviewing books we love. This is not simply to play nice, but if we are going to endorse a book, we want it to be one all three of us truly liked. So, while there are plenty of books we've read and disliked for one or more reasons, we don't see a need to put that out there. After all, someone else might feel differently about that work.
We theme each of our WRN? issues (humor, love, friendship, mystery, etc...) and I can tell you there have been many times we've struggled to find a book all three of us loved enough to feature on our site and give it our stamp of approval. So, this whole age of being positive on the Internet doesn't mean we're all sugarcoating things, it just means some of us choose to focus on the good and let others make up their own minds on the rest. We get large shipments of books from major publishers each week for review, but we're very selective in what we use. Because we're writers in addition to being reviewers, we're aware of and sensitive to all the hard work that goes into producing a book. That alone is a good reason for not going "harsh" in any review. It's just the way we roll at WRN?
I definitely think there's an assumption these days that people need to be nicer to one another. I can attest to this with a personal experience. In addition to writing and editing, I review books and I got to know a writer a little bit before reviewing her book. I didn't like the book and said so in my review, albeit respectfully. In no way did I degrade or disrespect her; I simply stated in the review what I didn't like about the book itself. And she got angry, telling me in an email how she felt like my comments about the editing of her book were unwarranted (even though I said repeatedly in a private email to her that I was on her side and urged her, for her own sake, to find a new editor.) A few days after my review appeared on Amazon, another review of the same book appeared that praised it to the high heavens.
I'm not saying reviewers, editors, and others should rip a book to shreds. But if it isn't good or if the story is weak and needs work, we shouldn't be afraid to say so (provided, again, that we remain respectful in our approach.)
I don't think there is anything wrong with writers/readers/bloggers to support authors by talking positively about their books. I look at these more as recommendations rather than reviews. And when it comes down to it, I think if a book doesn't have a buzz about it, that should be enough. There is enough negativity in the world (the news) so why not keep the ugliness to ourselves. And puppies rock.
I've been thinking about this lately. It's an interesting issue.
I think it's a mixed bag. Certainly the community that is forming is wonderful. Authors supporting each other is terrific!
But the downside is the pressure on authors to be 'honest' (alot of the not-so-nice commenting people mentioned is done by readers, not authors, or it's posted anonymously). I think there's a definite loss there, in terms of honest exchange of opinion and truth.
I think we are entering the world of public scrutiny and celebrity. Just like actors and musicians tend to have almost scripted positive responses to their interactions with fans and interviewers, authors are beginning to feel the same pressure.
It is really easy to say the wrong thing and have someone swear they will never read your book, or promote your book, or feature it on their blog, or whatever, because they didn't like what you said. Authors may be wary about generating that type of ill will. The two-edged sword of the internet, which is allowing authors to finally have some visibility, is also placing them at the recieving end of other people's immediate opinion.
Some brave souls may ignore this pressure and speak out anyway. And thank goodness, because we need honest voices. For an actor to give a scripted response is one thing, that's what actors to. But to silence the voices of writer could be a great loss.
For those brave souls who speak out, if they are lucky, they'll get a positive reputation for frankness that people will accept. Men will probably find this easier than women; an outspoken woman still tends to draw harsh critique, for the most part.
My final concern is that this pressure to be 'nice' will impact what people write. That they will soften their books because they are worried about the reaction from readers.
Of course, writers will speak. We do have the fortunate options of pen names. That may help balance the pressure to be popular rather than truthful. And, again, some writers will always choose truth over popularity.
It will be interesting to watch.
I agree! This is a great post, and you're awesome! The guy you quoted is the best! I love your blog! You talked about a subject I love!
Full disclosure: Positivity is my #2 "StrengthsFinder" strength. So I tend to think everything's great. I'm totally a rainbows and kittens and cupcakes kind of guy. But the saccharine squeefests make me gag a little, and I stay out of them. It often comes across more like sycophantic ass-kissing celebrity worship than actual dialog. I also don't ask for autographs when I meet super awesome famous people, which I have a few times recently. Even that one time when I really was tongue-tied star-struck. (Sorry, Nathan, it wasn't you, though you're a close second.)
Anyway, someone wise once used to yell at me quite often, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Reading between your lines, it sounds like on Goodreads you'll list the books you've read, but you'll only actually review the ones you like. That seems completely honest to me and very stable and sustainable. I think it's a good approach in person, and a good approach online--twitter, facebook, blogs, etc.