Let’s say that 10 or more years ago, while toiling in obscurity in Tampa, I finished writing my first real novel. Let’s pretend it was before the internet was big, so my circle of writing friends was a lot smaller than it is now. I had this really great coworker, you, who read a lot and enjoyed talking about books. So I asked you to read my book, before I decided what to do with it–burn it, query it, weep quietly over it?

Continuing with our hypothetical scenario, let’s say you were an enthusiastic reader, who not only said nice things about my book, but offered some comments that proved helpful to me in revising.

Now, flash forward to the present. Sadly, you and I lost touch years ago. Before the internet, this happened all the time, remember? It was nobody’s fault. Sad, but true.

Except something pretty cool happened this year, hypothetically. After all these years, I sold that very first book to a publisher. I’ve hammered out edits, weighed in on covers, shilled other writers for blurbs and engaged in a growing variety of networking gymnastics. Then the publisher emailed me to ask, “Do you want to include a dedication?”

Um, yeah, yeah, I do. I particular, I’d really like to dedicate this book to my two first readers. The problem is, I don’t remember how to spell your name exactly. I think it’s Brianna May. But maybe it’s Brianne May. Or maybe your last name was LeMay. It’s just been too long since I worked with you, and I don’t remember.

So, in this hypothetical situation …

A great title makes a great book cover!

Over the last ten years, a goodly number of my friends and acquaintances have sold books. At some point in each case, they opened the emails in which they got to see the final version of their covers. That sight has been met with everything from giddy delight to caution to abject disappointment. Until the recent increase in self-publication, that was how the game went: the author was the last to know what the cover would be. Now I know a few people who’ve actually designed their own covers with varying degrees of success.

On the other hand, I fielded an email from my soon-to-be-publisher asking for my input on a cover for my book. It’s a small press, with a president who’s used to making his own decisions, so I was prepared for the likelihood that I would simply be sent a couple versions of possible covers for feedback.  From watching all those friends’ and acquaintances’ experiences, I was also prepared for the likelihood that my feedback might be the least important factor in the final decision. After all, I’m no graphic designer.

I guess I wasn’t really prepared for the prospect of being asked for my very own little ideas about the cover.

Uh, me? I …

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve cogitated, looked at a variety of photos, and a whole slew of book covers. Today, I actually mocked up a few things to see how I felt about the various possibilities. Today I clicked SEND, and I wait to hear what the guy who makes the decisions thinks.

How about you? Have you designed a cover? Had one thrust upon you? What are your favorite covers? Least favorite?

Originally, the star itself was a marker of quality. To be singled out by Guide Michelin with a star was to be raised to the firmament, put above lesser establishments. (See what I did there? ;o) Pretty quickly, however, Michelin added two- and then three-star ratings. Three stars represented the very best restaurants and hotels. As of this year, there are only 79 three-star restaurants in the world.

Michelin, like some redoubtable academic stronghold, has resisted ratings inflation over the years. The new reader-based internet rating systems for books has not held up so well. In fact, the whole system seems to be plunging from the sky in a ball of fire, like some Sputnik/Skylab/Challenger disaster of literary proportions. The whole thing is blowing up faster than I can read the latest review kerfuffle on Amazon or GoodReads.

The first time I really noticed how rapidly book reviews were becoming inflated was when a friend lamented that she’d gotten a “bad rating” for her book on GoodReads. I sympathized with her and went to see the damage. The review wasn’t vituperative or even particularly harsh, and then I noted that the reviewer had marked the book with 3 stars.

But wait! What? 3 stars? I hesitated, confused, as I scrolled back up to pass my cursor over the offending rating in question. The hover text obligingly popped up: “3 of 5 stars, liked it.” That was what I thought. 3 stars means the reader liked the book. That was the presumption upon which I’d based all of the ratings I’d doled out on GoodReads. Not that I’m all that adept at remembering to enter the books I’ve read and my ratings of them, but there were several good books I’d rated at 3 stars. Because I liked them. Not loved them. Not felt gushy and world-altered. Just liked. You know, in a positive, hey, I enjoyed reading that kind of way.

So how the heck did 3 stars became a “bad review”?

Oh, right… the same way a C became a bad grade, when we all started expecting to be above average. When we all started expecting our work to be deemed “amazing,” or “brilliant,” or “earth-shattering.” When we started getting our little feelings hurt if we weren’t deemed geniuses by everyone who read our stories.

It’s not that I don’t understand. Yes, when my first book comes out later this year, I will hope for mostly 4- and 5-star ratings. That would be very nice. We all want to be loved and admired. But it’s crazy when we expect that. Because like the old Freshman Composition teacher I am, I still want a system of evaluation to maintain its credibility. I still want there to be standards for what makes a student essay a B+, as opposed to a C. I don’t think “average” is a “bad grade.” I don’t think marking that I liked a book should be interpreted in a negative way.

The truth is, I don’t think most books I read are 5-star books. There are a few. Books that just blow me away. Books that have changed the way I think about the world. Books that I can re-read over and over and never get bored. Those are 5-star books. Maybe I’m just a bitch, but generally the highest rating I’ll give, even to the aforementioned dear friend, is 4 stars. Because although I think some of my friends are very talented writers who’ve written enjoyable books, I don’t feel like going around proclaiming they’re works of genius, just … because. For the sake of friendship. To be nice. That’s not really what book reveiews/ratings are for, right? Or is it?

A Theme

I won’t even get into the question of writers rating their own books at 5 stars. Do I think my forthcoming book is a 5-star book? No. I think it’s pretty good. Mostly well-written with some nicely crafted characters. The plot’s no beauty pageant winner, but that’s just it. Not every book is gonna be the winner. The Pulitzer Prize–only goes to one book. Not every student essay is an A++++++++++++++++

Which is not to say that everybody should have the same 5-star book. Ridiculous. The joy of such reader-centric sites as GoodReads is that each reader can expound on the virtues of their favorite books. The other side of that coin is that every reader can discourse on the failures of the books they deem deserving of 1-star ratings.

The problem, as I see it, is when we get sucked into a system of over-rating books, because we’re afraid of offending someone or being attacked for our honest opinion. Having been lambasted for giving my honest, but not cruel opinion on books that I thought were less than stellar, I’ve all but given up rating books on GoodReads. I cringe in anticipation of my entry into the land of stars and reviews and revenge ratings, but there doesn’t seem to be an alternative…

Aphids are lousy at remembering punchlines

I ask, because the excerpt for today’s teaser was the source of a lot of disagreement in my writing group. Some members insisted that putting in a word that your average reader was unlikely to be familiar with was just WRONG. That was how they said it, like I was thinking of robbing a bank.  Other members of my writing group countered with fond memories of books that taught them new vocabulary. Like me, they cited the work of Lemony Snicket as some of the best vocabulary-building children’s books out there.

Besides, they pointed out about my word choice: it’s the punchline. Without the word, the chapter isn’t as funny.  Those opposed to strange words in their fiction countered that it wasn’t a punchline if you don’t know what it means. The lag time involving the dictionary would rob the chapter of its humor.

In the current draft, the punchline remains. I hope it will make it to print that way.

So, enjoy the teaser, and tell me in the comments how you feel about learning new words when you read a novel.

***

After a grueling day at my accountant’s office, looking at indecipherably occult spreadsheets, I drove by Meda’s house hopefully. I never would have done it, considering the embarrassment of her walking in on my act of self-pollution, except for that smile. Just as easily she could have been shocked or too appalled to speak, and I never would have stopped at her house. Her old Datsun sat in the yard, but I got no response when I rang the doorbell. I knocked loudly and a woman I’d never seen before came to the door. Her hair was still dark, but her face was lined and rough, like she had lived hard. Her sunken cheeks hinted at missing teeth. She looked at me strangely when I introduced myself, but she let me in.

Old Miss Amos was sitting in her usual spot and Annadore was in her playpen, arranging plastic farm animals and chewing contemplatively on a cow. For several uncomfortable moments, we were all quiet, and then the woman put out her hand.

“So, you’re Bernie Raleigh? I’m Muriel Amos. I’m Cathy’s–Meda’s mother.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Meda’s in the shower right now. She’ll be out in a little bit.” Muriel said it as though they’d been expecting me, so I sat down and waited.

“That’s Bernie Raleigh,” Meda’s grandmother said to Muriel. “He was abducted.”

“I know, Mom. I know that’s Mr. Raleigh. You interested in alien abduction?” Muriel took my uncertain shrug as an invitation to continue, leaning toward me over the coffee table. “You know a lot of people are starting to use hypnotism to find out they’ve been abducted. A lot of times the aliens will cause people to forget that they were taken. They suppress the memories. I remember my own experiences, and my mother has been able to since she had her stroke.”

“It’s like that whole part of my brain got opened up, where I had the memories hidden, since I had my stroke,” Miss Amos said, nodding to herself.

“I was just reading an article a friend of mine got off the Internet.” Muriel indicated some papers on the coffee table. “About this woman who got hypnotized as part of a program to stop smoking. While the doctor was hypnotizing her, she had a flashback of being abducted. The doctor never believed in it before, but he says after that, he thought it had to be real, because he did a bunch more sessions with her and she remembered all kinds of things. It turned out she’d been abducted like fourteen times.”

Down the hall, the sound of running water stopped.

“He’s here,” Muriel shouted.

At that same moment. I added up the intricate web of alien abductions and multiple Miss Amoses. Parthenogenesis.

Like many writers, she was unable to decide. The two pleasures are inextricably entwined for writers. Conjoined twins with a single heart and tangled viscera. Most of the writers I know are like me, in that they use reading to fuel their writing energy. If we gave up reading, would we be able to write?

On the flip side, would there be anything new to read, if such a conundrum were presented to the writers of the world? If we all gave up writing in order to keep reading, where would new books come from?

Oh … right. From that scary little clique of would-be writers who bound into writing groups and conferences, clutching their manuscripts and blankly declaring that they “don’t really read.” The mysterious, mystifying non-reading writers. They want you to critique the YA book they wrote, while proudly declaiming that they haven’t read any of the last few years’ top sellers in YA. They just finished writing this thriller, even though they’ve never read a thriller in their lives.

So, please, talented writers of the world, have mercy. If some cruel race of aliens comes to our little blue bouncy ball and imposes this literary Sophie’s Choice, I beg you not to be selfish. Don’t just think of yourself, curled up on the couch reading the great classics of literature. Think of the rest of us, waiting to read your next book. I know, it’s quite a sacrifice I’m asking for, but keep writing. Keep writing.

All your literary aspirations are belong to me!

]]> http://bryngreenwood.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/someone-will-have-to-make-sacrifices/feed/ 6 Bryn alien_cat http://bryngreenwood.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/dead-butterflies/ http://bryngreenwood.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/dead-butterflies/#comments Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:58:49 +0000 Bryn Greenwood http://bryngreenwood.wordpress.com/?p=493 ]]> My friend Tracey took some of my recent kvetching and turned it into an eloquent blog post on the bitterness of hope. Her post in turn made me feel badly for not daring to post here more often. (And it is a question of having the nerve these days. Being brave enough to drag my corpse over here and write.)

My lament was that hope is like a butterfly. It’s beautiful and we chase it gaily across a meadow until … oops! We step over a cliff. Too bad about that.

In a year in which my book didn’t sell, my marriage ended, my agent left the business, my home remodeling project dragged on, and my personal relationships grew frayed or faded, my hope has turned into something else.

Stay out of the garage!

I remember going out to my grandfather’s garage one summer day and seeing a beautiful swallowtail butterfly at rest on the window sill. Kansas is a major through-route for migrating butterflies, so we see all kinds. Being a tenderhearted little kid, I got a step stool and opened the window so the butterfly could fly away. Only it didn’t because I was a day late. If I’d come and opened the window the day before, it might have flown free, but it was dead, its beautiful iridescent wings and drooping tail at rest in death.

These days it’s less that hope is a butterfly luring me over a cliff, but that I occasionally go into the garage and see its carcass on the window sill. Oh, I think, that’s right. I used to have hope. If only I’d come out here sooner and opened the window. Some days I accept that. I don’t even look at the next manuscript on my desk that I’m not yet brave enough to edit and query. Other days, I think that if only another butterfly would come into my garage, I would be there to open the window.

James Frey

But the truth is, that old PR saw is true: there’s no bad publicity. Having your name in front of the public really does increase fame, fortune, and book sales. Take James Frey. He was roasted over the coals for his faux-memoir, and made to go on Oprah with a tearful apology. Guess what? It hasn’t tanked his writing career. He sold more books after the whole bruhaha. He’s making bank. Because people know his name.

Take the complaints of Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner about gender and genre bias at the NYT.  They’re not complaining about getting bad reviews in the Times. They’re complaining about not getting reviewed in the Times. Good or bad, being in the Times gets your name out there. Even a negative review can sell books, as curious souls want to see just how bad the book in question is. Or perhaps a week later the readers only remember that they saw the book in the NYT, not what was said about it.

Another friend of mine got an amazon.com review that called her book “corrosive garbage.” I’d bet money that phrase helped sell a few books before the reviewer decided to go back and temper her rash condemnation. I was once recruited to write hate mail for a local paper’s opinion columnist. Hate mail, he said, was more effective at attracting readers to his column than praise. And more likely to be published.

Even cases of Writers Behaving Badly™ on Twitter and other internet platforms probably helps them sell books. A temper tantrum can attract as much attention as a series of thoughtful, intelligent blog posts.

Hissy Twit

Step outside the writing world and you’ll find there’s still no bad publicity.

Consider KoolAid. We use it as a short cut to describe indoctrination or brainwashing. Did he drink the KoolAid? Don’t drink the KoolAid. Have you ever imagined a marketing board at KoolAid, cringing every time that phrase gets used in the media, reminding everyone who reads it of the tragedy of the Jonestown massacre. Poor KoolAid, right?

Wrong. Because that’s not what was used at Jonestown. According to several witness accounts of Jonestown survivors, the poison was put in grape flavored Flav-R-Aid. Not KoolAid. But you don’t see KoolAid rushing to correct the record and distance themselves from that notorious tragedy.

Why would they? It’s good publicity. Because the key phrase of each of these media mentions includes the perfect subliminal marketing phrase: Drink the KoolAid.

In fact, the compliment I treasure most about my writing is anytime a reader says, “Your characters are so real.”  It makes me happy, because they are real to me, so if my writing manages to make them real to other people … well, madness loves company.

One question that comes up frequently on writing forums is about making characters more real. People ask about how to create characters, how to make characters three dimensional, how to develop characters, but the real question hiding under those is “How do I make my characters seem real?”

The popular answer is, “Here’s the list of questions that will help you discover who your character is.” The list contains dozens (and in some cases hundreds) of random questions that the would-be writer is supposed to answer. Favorite color, most embarrassing moment, favorite food, hair color. Implied is the suggestion that in answering all these questions, the writer will discover the character, and the character will therefore be full-fleshed on the page.

I don’t think it works. With all due respect for those writers who use this method successfully, I think most writers who are struggling with how to make their characters seem real will not succeed with this method.

Awkward! First vampire date

It doesn’t work for the same reason online dating can be so tricky. A man can write up a very thorough list of his likes and dislikes, highlights of his life, but it may tell you nothing about how he’ll behave in any given situation. In any scene, it doesn’t matter what the character eats for breakfast, or what kind of car he drives, or which of his parents he loved best. It doesn’t. The only thing that matters is: “What does the character want?” Right now.

Put the character in any given scene and your task is not to make him/her seem real, but to figure out what the character wants, why he/she wants that, what the character is willing to do to get that, and how he/she approaches getting the desired outcome.

In the course of doing that, you should be able to figure out what sort of person your character is. And from real life, you can often reverse-engineer from behavior to motivation.

For an example, I proffer two dates.

DateOne has a very bland profile, proclaiming himself to be “a good guy.” He owns his own business and is interested in movies, motorcycles, and dogs. I go on the date with low expectations. I have to start somewhere, don’t I? So…what’s his motivation? He wants to have fun, he wants me to like him, and he’d like to make out with me in hopes of scoring during a later date.  How does he go about accomplishing these goals? He tries to be funny. He figures out that I like stories so he tells me stories. Crazy, reckless stories, where he occasionally pulls the trigger on the punch line too soon in his hurry to get to the funny parts. He listens to my stories. He compliments me in nice but slightly alarming and sexually suggestive ways.  But he draws the line at having to pretend to be something he isn’t, so he doesn’t try to dazzle me or bullshit me, and he doesn’t “clean up his act” for that first date. There is no “best behavior.” He opens doors for me, but makes fun of my hair and eats food off my plate without asking. What he has to offer on the first date, that’s what he will have to offer on the tenth date.

End result of DateOne: in the first 10 minutes, he tells me I have “nice cans.” Then he makes me laugh hysterically for the next six hours as we meander all over town, until I take him back to my place. At 2 in the morning, I’m still having so much fun he kind of has to pry me off so he can leave.

DateTwo has a profile that declares him to be “a bit of a bad boy,” with interests in motocross, skydiving, and literature. He’s also a small business owner. Not surprisingly, he wants me to like him and probably has an eye on getting lucky on some future date. See how they start with the same motivation? It’s generally safe to assume that lots of people go into a first date with the same motivations, so the question is how they approach getting what they want. DateTwo thinks the trick is to impress me.  He wants me to know that he’s smart, rich, successful, handsome, desirable. He dresses up. He exfoliates. He takes me to a very expensive restaurant and orders wine to show me he knows about wine. He tells me about the book he’s currently reading. He tells me all about his business, so that I’ll know it’s successful. He smiles in this particular way that shows off his dimples.

End result of DateTwo: this is what I think of as a “nap date.” I rouse myself mid-meal from a half-stupor and realize I’ve lost an hour of my life and he’s still talking about his eco-friendly construction business and his favorite charities. After dinner, which he insists on paying for with his American Express card, we take a few polite turns around downtown. He walks me to my truck, I shake his hand. The date is over in less than two hours.

On paper, or the computer screen as it were, DateTwo and I have many more common interests than DateOne and I. We like a lot of the same movies, books, and music. We’re both interested in the environment and similar political issues. DateOne isn’t even registered to vote and his idea of recycling is selling used motorcycle parts.

So two men enter the dating arena with the same motivations, but markedly different approaches. We learn volumes about them from that approach, not from knowing their favorite food or color. As for the reasons they fail or succeed, well, that’s all about me as a character. My favorite food is tomatoes and my favorite color is black.

***

Dena had finally settled herself, begun to calm her irritations of the day, when her bedroom door opened. She sat up and said, “What?”

“Nothin’.” Geddy crossed the room and went down on his knees next to the bed. Slipping his arms around her waist, he leaned in to kiss her. First, she resisted. Second, she succumbed. Third, she pushed him away.

“Not tonight,” she whispered.

“Why not?” he said in a normal voice.

She put her finger to lips to hush him. “Because I don’t want to.”

He kissed her again, and she let him, let him unbutton the top three buttons on her nightgown. When he tugged her closer, tried to put her legs around him, however, the bed groaned. She pushed him back again, frowning

“He’s right there.” Dena jerked her thumb toward the wall behind her bed. The sofa where her nephew slept was on the other side.

“So come into my room,” Geddy said.

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

For an instant, they were still, glaring at each other, she in annoyance, he in frustration. Against her leg, she felt how hard he was, but still she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away. With an exasperated snort, he went back to his own room, and a few minutes later she heard the now familiar box springs symphony. It drove her nearly to madness and, kicking the covers off, she stormed through the bathroom and opened Geddy’s door.

“Am I keepin’ you awake, ma’am?” he said. Even in the dark she knew he was smiling.

Honeymoon Suite

Dena snatched the sheet off him and said, “Get up.”  When he was up, with his pants on, she took him by the arm, led him through the kitchen, and up the stairs to the third floor. The honeymoon suite was palatial and sumptuous in the moonlight. Dena had never slept in the bed, and even though it would require her to change the bedding again in the morning, she pulled back the coverlet and pushed Geddy down on the silk sheets.

They went at each other with a rabidity that Dena couldn’t remember having experienced before. It was the sort of wildness she thought she should have felt at all those orgies and never had. When all of the hollering and humping was done, Geddy rolled off her, panting, and laughed.

“Well, alright,” he said.

“Now, that’s what a honeymoon suite is for.”

“I’ll tell you what.” Geddy rolled onto his side, kissed her shoulder, but instead of going to sleep, he said, “You was married. Did you have a good honeymoon?”

“Oh, gag. Let’s not talk about that.”

“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I was just curious.”

“Mediocre wedding night. Mediocre marriage.”

“That’s a real shame.”

“Not for you. I definitely would not be fucking you if I were happily married.”

“You better watch that dirty mouth of yours.” He tugged at a piece of her hair.

“Or what?  You’ll wash my mouth out?”

“Might. I know a thing or two about it.”  Dena thought there was an innuendo in there, but then Geddy said, “You know, I can’t hardly believe how you let Cole talk to you.”

“Oh….” Dena had been about to say, “He’s just a kid,” but he wasn’t. She didn’t have an answer for why she put up with Cole’s rudeness. She settled for a lie. “I don’t really care.”

“I ever talked like that to my Aunt Claire, she woulda took a belt to me.”

Wanting to get back to that silly, half-drunk feeling, Dena ran her hand down Geddy’s belly. The sheets were already dirty.

The second time, he had the decency to fall asleep immediately after. Dena lay in her floating bubble of happiness. The one that Cole always popped. Usually, she got her bubble if she went walking in the evening and saw something lovely: a perfect sunset, a budding flower, two romancing lizards, a happy squirrel. She never let herself think about how unlikely it was that the squirrel would survive the summer without getting run over.