Skimming the Cream

Yesterday, I received a newsletter from Powell's Books to choose the best of 2011. There's a lot of that going around -- choosing the best of the previous year now that we are firmly ensconced in the new year. I decided to play along. After all, $250 in books is going to save me at least $250 in books that I will buy this year, or more accurately, this quarter (and sometimes this month).

I briefly flirted with choosing The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, which would be a first for me since I seldom choose literary novels as my favorites, but there I was flirting. Then it dawned on me which was the best book I had read last year (always excepting my own Among Women, which I thought was a very good and notable book, but I would since I wrote it). The best book was The Help by Kathryn Stockett for its humor, social themes, writing, and mostly for its characters. I absolutely adore Minny's smart mouth and Aibilene's common sense and courage. Skeeter reminded me of me, ever on the fringe of the right people and the right causes but discontented with that place and questioning everything and everyone.

In the end, it's all subjective and my favorites might have been different had I read more books or read different books. I read a lot of good books, but very seldom stellar books like Barnes's and Stockett's, books that engage and surprise me, but most of all entertain me and enrich my life, and Barnes's book was barely a novella.

What I look for in other authors' books is the same thing I look for when writing my own -- integrity and courage. The themes and plots aren't as important  except as they bring the story together, as being true to the characters, setting, and heart of the novel. I can find that in any genre or literary novel and good writing is good writing whether it's for young adult fiction or adult fiction. Just give me something true and honest; just give me integrity.

Maybe that is what has stalled my own writing of late, lack of integrity. No, that's not it. What has stalled me is disappointment. I thought my book would be more widely read and people would talk about what I created, but no. Just no. If people are talking, they're not talking to me or anywhere else I can find outside the core of fans and good people (writers really) who keep touting my book, and that's one of the hardest pills to swallow in writing.

It takes some screenwriter or director optioning a book they've read or creating a show based on a book to get the masses interested. Take George R. R. Martin, for example. He wrote a marvelous series of books that are amazing in its breadth and scope, unforgettable characters, and themes that resonate in all parts of the world, yet it wasn't until HBO decided to make Game of Thrones that readers sat up and took notice. The geek world had been on fire as Martin created his series and waited a bit impatiently for each new piece of the Westeros puzzle, but The Song of Ice and Fire series didn't take off until HBO's version of the show. The same thing happened for The Help where people sat up and took notice when the movie was announced and released. Barnes's The Sense of an Ending didn't need to be made into a movie since it won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for fiction -- literary fiction, no others need apply.

The problem is that most people are followers and they look for the leaders to tell them where to go and what to read or watch, or watch and read. The authors keep plugging away at their day jobs, unless they already have created a following by writing tome upon tome like Martin, and I get that. I don't want to wait for some bright screenwriter or director or producer to decide that my book is ready for its closeup so the masses will see what they are supposed to watch and then read. I haven't made enough of a name for myself yet, and I'm getting impatient with being disappointed. I also don't want to work for someone else when I could be writing more books and getting paid for the writing alone, be able to live on my writing alone without the help of a regular 2 pm to 8:30 pm job. I want my closeup now.

While I wait, I read and read about 80 books last year, give or take a couple, and it may have been more. I read and review a lot of books, and the best book I read last year was Kathryn Stockett's The Help. I also watched the movie and it was very good and, for once, stuck to the book and didn't change the ending or combine characters or anything else that Hollywood usually does to jazz up the material. The Help stood all on its own.

If you're interested in weighing in on your favorite book of 2011, go to Powell's and cast your vote. If not, check out  Julian Barnes, Kathryn Stockett, and George R. R. Martin and then check out writers you've never read and your favorites, your literary comfort food, in whatever format is your favorite. The best advice I can give you for 2012 is read, read a lot.

Although 2012 is just beginning, it too will end and you'll have a chance to choose your favorite at the end of this year, but only if you read. Good luck and good reading.

Now Presenting . . . Who?

It never gets easier this whole networking, socializing to sell books thing. I wonder how authors did it a hundred years ago, two hundred years ago? Oh, right, people bouught books, read the books, talked about the books and more people bought the books. Of course, there weren't millions of people writing millions of books then. Only a few ever got through to the gatekeepers. The few who could afford it and paid to have their own books published had some success, depending on how good the books were. That's the real trick. Not socializing or networking but writing really good books.

I read George R. R. Martin's Live Journal blog and I was struck by the surprise that he is having such success now, especially since his ice and Fire series has been out since 1996, except for the new one coming out next week. A Dance With Dragons took about eight years to write and finish. George admits he's a slow writer and doesn't do deadlines very well.

George garnered a lot of fans, as he should since his Ice & Fire series is amazing. The writing is accessible and not overdone or heavy with description, although there is sufficient description to put you right in the action at the right time and place. Each character is unique and flawed in some way, but eminently memorable, from the Imp (Tyrion Lannister) to Eddard Stark, Jon Snow and Danaerys Targaryen and Khal Drogo. The books have been translated into several different languages and Vietnamese may be next. What George has created in Winterfell and the world where it is set crosses all boundaries and touches something inside us that believes in magic and demons and in the strength of men and women to combat anything that comes down the Kingsroad.

A recent article cited sales in one day that exceeded all of 2010 before HBO picked up the series and shoved the series to the top of all the best seller lists here and abroad. I wouldn't mind selling 40,000 books, but I'm new at the game and don't have George's track record in movies, television and books. I'm working my way up, but I do wonder what it would take to get people talking about my book the way they talk, dissect, and love George's books. Probably stop writing about relationships and the evil that men and women do in the real world and take the same elements and place them in a world of my own creation like Middle Earth and Westeros. I love fantasy and dragons and everything that goes with them, but find it difficult to write fantasy. I work best in the real world where the harms we do each other are next door and the next town over. I'd do well to create a world, set the rules and let my imagination run wild -- right after I finish the current trip into Victorian England where Jekyll, Hyde and Jack the Ripper put Whitechapel and serial murder on the map.

There is a world -- this world a few hundred years hence -- that lies under the curse of man's technology and Mother Nature's ire where vampires rule, not the vampires currently known and written about, but vampires of a different breed at war with each other and king of a world locked beneath dark skies where the sun doesn't shine and glaciers creep ever closer to the equator. It is a world where domed cities protect the ragged remnants of humanity cloned to near extinction, a shadow of itself, and ruled over by vampires who breed the humans for food and to run the machines their ancestors built.

The mother lode of humanity's best and brightest live underground safe from the ravages of nature, nurtured by vampires who archive their memories and protect what the shadow humans in the domed cities can no longer remember after generations of cloning. The underground humans and vampires protect technology, books and memories of what went before, what caused and perpetuates the season of Ragnarok that reigns on the surface, and these two worlds are about to clash over the precious seeds of life as it once was left behind that will soon be resurrected as the world rebounds and begins to bloom again. Memory will guide the way.

If I'm very lucky, then the novels I write, in the real world and in a world of fantasy, will start the buzz and word of mouth will sell 40,000 or more books. It's my dream, and one that isn't out of reach -- so far. In the meantime, I need to work more on socializing and networking because I'm not sure I could handle any more book signings where no one shows up or a dozen people stop by on their way up the aisle to join the hundreds waiting to see the author of Clifford the big red dog's adventures. George can tell you how that one goes. There's nothing like holding a book signing where everyone forgets to come.

Now, about that socializing. Do I really have to? Can't someone just start talking, someone with a big mouth and a bigger audience full of big mouths? I can only hope.

 

The Tyranny of Series Novels

Since George R. R. Martin blogged about how some of his fans were actually angry at his slow pace on putting out the fifth book in the Fire & Ice series, many authors have been asking who is in charge, the author or the fan. It's seems like a simple answer. The author is in charge. The answer is not so simple. The author is in charge of writing, but publishers, editors and fans have more control than you would think.

When Stephen King posed this question, he came up with a novel length answer: Misery. King put the author in danger and in the hands of a psychotic fan enraged that he had killed off her favorite serial character, Misery Chastain, and changed both their lives. Seeing that as one dangerous extreme of the author-fan spectrum, what is the other end?

Writing a series of novels around a character or group of characters can be fun -- for a while. It's a great way to build up readership and a loyal fan base, but it's also hard work that often ends in tears and flat writing.

Traditional publishers are all about the series because it brands an author and that leads to pseudonyms, writing on a tight schedule and often repetition. The publisher cracks the whip. What next? The author complies with an outline of the next book in the series and the work begins again . . . and again . . . and again, and so on until the author is played out or on the verge of a major snit fit. Too often the publisher's demands exceed the muse's well of creativity and newness and the books suffer. The writing is flat and bordering on repetitious, if not downright repetitious, and rabbits must be pulled from an assortment of hats. I've seen it happen to too many series that started out wonderful and ended up boring.

Anne Rice's famous vampires were fresh and interesting once upon a time, but they became boring and irritating and no longer any good. That happened about the time that Memnoch, the Devil came out and the series didn't survive very long after that. Anne even took a powder and decided to write something else, turning her back on her vampires for religious writing.

Katie McAllister's books were fun and innovative with her vampires looking for their one true soul mate to save them from their wicked, wicked ways and make them whole. I read several and noticed that the same situations cropped up in almost the same point in the next story as in previous tales and there was little variation in the characters or their dialogue and demeanor. I have not read her dragon series or her steampunk novel, but I'd be willing to say there is a similar issue with those as well.

Charlaine Harris has fallen down the rabbit hole with her latest addition to the Sookie-verse and several other authors have fallen down the same hole, albeit with a different landing zone.

It's nearly impossible to sustain the enthusiasm for a single character or group of characters unless you're either very committed or have an endless range of stories that fits that particular universe. Boredom sets in for reader as well as most discerning fans, although the die hard fans will drive the author nuts demanding the next book in the series -- or else. Fans can be so possessive of what they consider to be their books and their characters, hence King's premise in Misery.

Many authors of genre fiction choose to write the same style of books without following a single character, like David Baldacci, although David does branch out a lot and remains firmly entrenched in the thriller genre. It's the one he knows and knows how to write very well.

A few decades ago, I picked up a novel, Children of the Lion, by Peter Danielson and was introduced to writing that mingled fact and fiction with what were purported to be the children of Cain. You know Cain, the first murderer who killed his brother Abel so his god would love him more. I enjoyed the books thoroughly and couldn't wait for the next book in the series, until I hit The Golden Pharoah. I had a big problem with the short reign of the Shepherd Kings in Egypt during the schism and the fifty-year bondage of the Israelites. That much disbelief I was not willing to suspend. I was done and didn't go back. I had the same problem with Anne Rice's Mayfair witches series that took off from the Vampire Chronicles to follow the line of Mayfair witches and who had the power in the next generation. The first book was wonderful, the second a bit bizarre and, with brief forays into more interesting territory, the books and writing descended into bland territory and I was done.

Maybe I don't have an obsessive gene that allows me to overlook banal writing, predictable plots and endless repetition or maybe I just don't have the stamina for an endless stream of books built around the same characters or situation. Whatever it is, I fail to understand the need for a fan to dictate to an author what should and shouldn't be written and on what schedule.

It could also be that I'm an author with lots of stories to write and I know how hard it is to be fresh and original with the same character or group of characters. I have never loved any character that much, even though I will be returning to New Orleans to tell the rest of Pearl Caldwell's story and write what happens when Pearl and J. D. Bath meet again, and they will meet again. It's only one more book and not a real series. Series aren't really series until they get past trilogy. So far, there is no plan for me to venture into that particular territory. Two books are okay. I can even envision a trilogy, but I doubt I'll head into series territory any time soon, or within my lifetime.

George R. R. Martin is writing the fifth book in his series and it looks like there will be another one after that one. How many more he plans is up to him. His fans have been rude and demanding and refuse to understand that some authors just don't do deadlines well. A book takes as long as it takes and fans need to understand that or Stephen King's fantasy may well become real.

My advice to readers and fans is to accept what is given in the time that it is given and be glad when you get it. Treat it like a Faberge egg: priceless, enjoyable and one of a kind. I felt that way about Frank Herbert's Dune series. His was the one series of books that never got old, wasn't repetitious and was always fresh and new. He was a rare author and I followed his stories whenever I could find them. I have also read his son Brian's continuation of the series and have enjoyed them so far, but there are only so many hours in a day and I must write my own books -- and book reviews. They are my Faberge eggs -- so far. I hope they stay that way.

As for publishers demanding additions to the brand names they feel that they have created (chain gangs authors are being tied to), buy a clue. An author is a rare and precious thing able to create wondrous worlds and memorable characters. Treat them gently or they will find someone who will. Series work on television because writing is done by committee.