... but never use nuclear power plants as the setting for romance in the workplace?
I mean, the titles would be gold:
RADIANT LOVE
HOTTER THAN PLUTONIUM
MELTDOWN IN MY HEART
Add your own suggestions...
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
The Wacky And Wonderful World Of Publishing!
A snapshot of the Fear Of Change in Publishing, from Holt Uncensored:
Pat Holt: "Things I Worry about Seeing #1: A New Kind of Paralysis?"
Choice Quote:
"I’m hardly the first to say that resistance to change is going to be the doom of mainstream publishing.
"But I admit it’s just beginning to sink in that Internet publishing has taken off so fast that New York publishers may have only five or six years before the empire really starts to crumble [my italics]. "
Then again, if the mainstream publishing industry is an "empire" -- metaphorically speaking -- why, precisely, must it be saved? If all big-budget New York publishers went out of business, would people everywhere suddenly stop reading books?
About ten years ago, frustrated with trying to get published, I started a homepage to test out my unsold fiction on real readers. I figured the feedback might teach me become a better writer, and perhaps the fiction samples might attract a publisher eventually (and they did, but that took quite some time).
Since then, it has gradually dawned on me that electronic fiction doesn't have to follow the same rules as paper print.
I can tinker endlessly with the text and rewrite it on the fly (like George Lucas keeps "improving" his old movies ;-)).
A story can be written as long as it needs to be, not forced to fit the limitations imposed by the typical length, breadth and distribution requirements of a printed book. Too many new novels of today are just too long when they get released in print. In digital formats, they no longer have to be the "minimum required length".
I can play around with presentation, typography, illustration, sound samples, interactive fiction, anything the digital display will allow.
At first, I worried that posting fiction online might damage its value... as if paper was somehow "finer" than pixels. (Sure -- and stone tablets are finer than paper. And poetry recited entirely from memory is superior to anything written on stone or paper. [*SARCASM*])
I still think, like McLuhan, that a medium shapes its content. Electronic media don't "ruin" novels, they can create new kinds of stories in new formats that wouldn't be possible - or even allowed - in older media.
(Go into any big bookstore today, and try to find a new novel, on paper, that is shorter than 100 pages... or 300 pages... or perhaps 500. I'm only half joking.)
So if the traditional publishing conglomerates refuse to learn or adapt, and their book-publishing departments are closed down... frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I'm having too much fun learning the new media.
From now on, I will write books as if they were meant to be read from a digital display in the first place. (*)
----------
(* Have YOU bought a Kindle or Sony Reader or other "reading tablet" device? What do you think about it? Has it changed how you read (or write) fiction?)
Pat Holt: "Things I Worry about Seeing #1: A New Kind of Paralysis?"
Choice Quote:
"I’m hardly the first to say that resistance to change is going to be the doom of mainstream publishing.
"But I admit it’s just beginning to sink in that Internet publishing has taken off so fast that New York publishers may have only five or six years before the empire really starts to crumble [my italics]. "
Then again, if the mainstream publishing industry is an "empire" -- metaphorically speaking -- why, precisely, must it be saved? If all big-budget New York publishers went out of business, would people everywhere suddenly stop reading books?
About ten years ago, frustrated with trying to get published, I started a homepage to test out my unsold fiction on real readers. I figured the feedback might teach me become a better writer, and perhaps the fiction samples might attract a publisher eventually (and they did, but that took quite some time).
Since then, it has gradually dawned on me that electronic fiction doesn't have to follow the same rules as paper print.
I can tinker endlessly with the text and rewrite it on the fly (like George Lucas keeps "improving" his old movies ;-)).
A story can be written as long as it needs to be, not forced to fit the limitations imposed by the typical length, breadth and distribution requirements of a printed book. Too many new novels of today are just too long when they get released in print. In digital formats, they no longer have to be the "minimum required length".
I can play around with presentation, typography, illustration, sound samples, interactive fiction, anything the digital display will allow.
At first, I worried that posting fiction online might damage its value... as if paper was somehow "finer" than pixels. (Sure -- and stone tablets are finer than paper. And poetry recited entirely from memory is superior to anything written on stone or paper. [*SARCASM*])
I still think, like McLuhan, that a medium shapes its content. Electronic media don't "ruin" novels, they can create new kinds of stories in new formats that wouldn't be possible - or even allowed - in older media.
(Go into any big bookstore today, and try to find a new novel, on paper, that is shorter than 100 pages... or 300 pages... or perhaps 500. I'm only half joking.)
So if the traditional publishing conglomerates refuse to learn or adapt, and their book-publishing departments are closed down... frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I'm having too much fun learning the new media.
From now on, I will write books as if they were meant to be read from a digital display in the first place. (*)
----------
(* Have YOU bought a Kindle or Sony Reader or other "reading tablet" device? What do you think about it? Has it changed how you read (or write) fiction?)
Monday, February 09, 2009
S. Andrew Swann On Exposition
Writer S. Andrew Swann gives a piece of solid, practical advice on how to write exposition into an action scene.
Read it.
Read it.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Binyavanga Wainaina: "How To Write About Africa"
By way of Nick Mamatas, this hilarious satire of the most tired, shopworn literary cliches about Africa:
Binyavanga Wainaina: "How To Write About Africa"
Choice quote (and I hope this upsets all the right people):
-----------------
Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her.
Africa is the only continent you can love — take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated.
Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.
-----------------
Binyavanga Wainaina: "How To Write About Africa"
Choice quote (and I hope this upsets all the right people):
-----------------
Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her.
Africa is the only continent you can love — take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated.
Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.
-----------------
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Jill Priluck: "Can, and should, book authors become brands?"
By way of Andrew Sullivan's blog, this fascinating article on authors as "brand names":
Jill Priluck: "Advertisements For Yourself: Can, and should, book authors become brands?"
Choice quote:
"When authors are beholden to a brand, they ally themselves, almost like actors and athletes, with agendas and meanings that are well beyond their control. In their desire to fulfill the dictates of a brand, authors can compromise their integrity as writers, especially if they cubbyhole themselves."
There's a lot to think about in this article. I am acutely aware of how the current state of publishing forces every author to become his/her own PR agent and "stylist."
But I am firmly convinced that the work and the craft comes first: You start out writing because you want to tell a story, express yourself or make a statement. And mastering the craft of writing -- regardless of whether you can make living off it or not -- is what makes this possible.
Remove the mastery of the writing craft, and the writer is reduced to a parrot who just throws quotes around without knowing neither meaning nor message.
"Branding," I think, grows naturally out of the body of work.
Branding so easily becomes a cage of expectations, trapping the writer:
"It wasn't like his first book in the series, so I don't like it."
This fear of the unexpected among readers I find particularly amusing (and frustrating) in fantasy or science fiction, where surprise and imagination are supposedly required (well, in principle at least) but often shunned.
Most writers return obsessively to one or a few themes, which may help them stay ahead of expectations. Readers could always safely assume that Philip K. Dick's next novel would also deal with mind-bending false realities. Fine, but...
...I don't mind being surprised now and then. Where is it written that Stephen King has to write horror if he, for once, doesn't want to? By what divine law is Danielle Steel forced to always write romances?
If an archivist in Prague should one day discover Franz Kafka's unknown action-adventure manuscript JOSEF K. GETS A GUN AND TAKES THE LAW INTO HIS OWN HANDS, shouldn't we all be glad that Kafka had defied expectations and written against his "brand"?
(Kafka is a brand. So is Shakespeare, and J.K. Rowling, and most certainly Ernest Hemingway - who even has his own brand-name merchandise after his death.)
In short, I'd rather not be a brand -- a name on a café ("Café Kafka" might soon be as commonplace as "Irish" bars) -- but just a writer who defies expectations.
Jill Priluck: "Advertisements For Yourself: Can, and should, book authors become brands?"
Choice quote:
"When authors are beholden to a brand, they ally themselves, almost like actors and athletes, with agendas and meanings that are well beyond their control. In their desire to fulfill the dictates of a brand, authors can compromise their integrity as writers, especially if they cubbyhole themselves."
There's a lot to think about in this article. I am acutely aware of how the current state of publishing forces every author to become his/her own PR agent and "stylist."
But I am firmly convinced that the work and the craft comes first: You start out writing because you want to tell a story, express yourself or make a statement. And mastering the craft of writing -- regardless of whether you can make living off it or not -- is what makes this possible.
Remove the mastery of the writing craft, and the writer is reduced to a parrot who just throws quotes around without knowing neither meaning nor message.
"Branding," I think, grows naturally out of the body of work.
Branding so easily becomes a cage of expectations, trapping the writer:
"It wasn't like his first book in the series, so I don't like it."
This fear of the unexpected among readers I find particularly amusing (and frustrating) in fantasy or science fiction, where surprise and imagination are supposedly required (well, in principle at least) but often shunned.
Most writers return obsessively to one or a few themes, which may help them stay ahead of expectations. Readers could always safely assume that Philip K. Dick's next novel would also deal with mind-bending false realities. Fine, but...
...I don't mind being surprised now and then. Where is it written that Stephen King has to write horror if he, for once, doesn't want to? By what divine law is Danielle Steel forced to always write romances?
If an archivist in Prague should one day discover Franz Kafka's unknown action-adventure manuscript JOSEF K. GETS A GUN AND TAKES THE LAW INTO HIS OWN HANDS, shouldn't we all be glad that Kafka had defied expectations and written against his "brand"?
(Kafka is a brand. So is Shakespeare, and J.K. Rowling, and most certainly Ernest Hemingway - who even has his own brand-name merchandise after his death.)
In short, I'd rather not be a brand -- a name on a café ("Café Kafka" might soon be as commonplace as "Irish" bars) -- but just a writer who defies expectations.
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