Interpretation and clarity
Jan. 19th, 2006 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shalannaI always strive for clarity. I believe most writers are the same. But I want to point out that when I read something, I interpret the text as best I can. I may be putting my own interpretation(s) on it. We all have our assumptions. If I read "I hear [three years] is about average [from first novel intentionally written for publication to sale]," I take you at your word. I have to go by the text as it stands. If I misunderstand, it's not because I'm trying to twist what you say. It's me trying to say what I got out of the text. I don't know how to do it any other way.
I don't want anyone to get upset when I take issue with something they seem to be saying (to the best of my reading comprehension based on the text at hand.) I do think that controversy is good, because it starts a dialogue and increases traffic, meaning that we hear from more people and get more points of view. But I don't want people to take all this too seriously.
As far as how long it should take a new writer to get published . . . I believe this is an individual journey. Still, if someone sells three years after seriously starting (which is, I think, a valid interpretation of what I quoted), and says that "this is about average" among people she has asked, that would mean that a large number of writers she consulted have said they started writing publishable copy only about three to five years before they succeeded. There's no reason they should lie, so I'm assuming that it's accurate. Many interviews of chick lit authors that I've looked up in the past couple of days, in fact, have them stating that they "decided to write a book a couple of years ago." Lani Diane Rich had never written a novel until she did NaNoWriMo (if I understand her correctly), and she sold that novel to Warner, kicking off a successful career. It does happen. But does it happen MORE OFTEN than it does to someone working for years?
If that is so, it's a statistic that we can use to predict success. Just the same way that I can look at statistics saying that (for instance--and I'm just inventing this for purposes of discussion) new grads with a BS in computer science take on average six months to find work as a programmer . . . and then say to my nephew, "It takes people about six months to find work as a programmer." It doesn't say WHY it takes that long. Is it the job market is tight? That people don't want to relocate to where the jobs are? That people don't know how to find job openings, or that there are too many applicants for each job? What? That's the analysis we would begin doing. And that's all I was doing here.
Maybe all the time I think it takes to learn the craft is not really necessary. I don't know. That's what I was asking. Are we wasting our time? Are the other people just intuitively tuned in to the nuances of point of view, et al? They could be. I don't know. It's wonderful for them if they don't have to spend time on this stuff the way I have had to.
Still, as I mention in the post, many authors say that their apprenticeships are far longer, and the entire time they believe they're writing something publishable.
I *always* aimed at publication with what I wrote. I never wrote anything for "practice." At the time I was writing it, each novel was the best I could make it at the time. Even when I was writing that Godfather-inspired guff in fifth grade or writing about Thunderbird Tradewinds the cowboy blowhard detective, I actually believed in some naive fashion that it was publishable. (I was just an idealistic kid.)
If I were to count from "the first completed novel that, in hindsight, is actually publication-worthy," however, I would count from _Dulcinea_ in 1996. What I mean by "publication-worthy" is that most elements of craft are under control, although not perfected. Novels after that one began to improve in all areas. I think there's a distinction between a book you could rewrite and sell and a book that's just good for being cannibalized, and that's where I draw the line in my work--it started to be pro-level around the time of Dulcinea.
Looking back on it, I can see that I wasn't able to do what I was trying to do with the early novels. They were good considering the level of craft I had reached, but they couldn't be rewritten to sell without starting from scratch (it would be more work to try to work with what's there than to just start over with a new idea.)
But I'd still have exceeded the three years with EACH novel, because I don't do a novel and then send it out.
I write a good draft, work on it until I think I've done all I can with it, and then put it aside for maturation. I leave it alone for at least three months while I start something else or edit another book. Then when I go back I always edit and do a new draft. This cycle can happen more than once. So most of my books are at LEAST three years old before any agents see them. (grin) This is how different my paradigm is from the one we described earlier, with most of the succesful new authors getting their first serious completed novels sold in three years (if that's what they're saying.)
I wrote _Miranda's Rights_ and the other novels we're discussing after _Dulcinea_. The "horse sisters" novel, _Unbroken_, was born earlier than that, as Dennis may remember (he gave me advice about it years ago, including that title), but it has been edited since. I pick it up and put it back down every so often. The same was true of the "inspirational romance" that almost sold to the press in Sisters, Oregon (or so it seemed at the time)--I had picked it up and worked on it at various times. My Southern gothic (the one with Starla, the waitress) has gone through a few iterations. I still believe that when I reach the point at which I see the sculpture in the stone, I'll be able to make her into a book that will sell. But I have to see it more clearly first. I'll be working on that. That'll probably be after I start sending Camille around (Miranda is already making the rounds, along with a mystery.)
That said, I can now write a draft in about three months, let it rest, and then go back to edit. Typically it's nine months after that before I think it's ready to send out. The ones that have been worked on "over the years" are deeper and more layered, though.
As to whether it's actually more likely that someone would publish within the first three years if they're going to--well, these days, it does seem that many new authors say so. There has to be an X factor involved if that's the case. It may be that they have their fingers on the pulse of the generation who is reading the chick lit (and buying it), and so there's a "simpatico" reaction between them and editors/agents that makes their work more valid for the market. If that's so, I need to concentrate on a genre that isn't identified so much with younger generations (which chick lit is) or on literary fiction.
Or perhaps that's not part of the issue. I simply thought it was an aspect worth exploring.
I don't want anyone to get upset when I take issue with something they seem to be saying (to the best of my reading comprehension based on the text at hand.) I do think that controversy is good, because it starts a dialogue and increases traffic, meaning that we hear from more people and get more points of view. But I don't want people to take all this too seriously.
As far as how long it should take a new writer to get published . . . I believe this is an individual journey. Still, if someone sells three years after seriously starting (which is, I think, a valid interpretation of what I quoted), and says that "this is about average" among people she has asked, that would mean that a large number of writers she consulted have said they started writing publishable copy only about three to five years before they succeeded. There's no reason they should lie, so I'm assuming that it's accurate. Many interviews of chick lit authors that I've looked up in the past couple of days, in fact, have them stating that they "decided to write a book a couple of years ago." Lani Diane Rich had never written a novel until she did NaNoWriMo (if I understand her correctly), and she sold that novel to Warner, kicking off a successful career. It does happen. But does it happen MORE OFTEN than it does to someone working for years?
If that is so, it's a statistic that we can use to predict success. Just the same way that I can look at statistics saying that (for instance--and I'm just inventing this for purposes of discussion) new grads with a BS in computer science take on average six months to find work as a programmer . . . and then say to my nephew, "It takes people about six months to find work as a programmer." It doesn't say WHY it takes that long. Is it the job market is tight? That people don't want to relocate to where the jobs are? That people don't know how to find job openings, or that there are too many applicants for each job? What? That's the analysis we would begin doing. And that's all I was doing here.
Maybe all the time I think it takes to learn the craft is not really necessary. I don't know. That's what I was asking. Are we wasting our time? Are the other people just intuitively tuned in to the nuances of point of view, et al? They could be. I don't know. It's wonderful for them if they don't have to spend time on this stuff the way I have had to.
Still, as I mention in the post, many authors say that their apprenticeships are far longer, and the entire time they believe they're writing something publishable.
I *always* aimed at publication with what I wrote. I never wrote anything for "practice." At the time I was writing it, each novel was the best I could make it at the time. Even when I was writing that Godfather-inspired guff in fifth grade or writing about Thunderbird Tradewinds the cowboy blowhard detective, I actually believed in some naive fashion that it was publishable. (I was just an idealistic kid.)
If I were to count from "the first completed novel that, in hindsight, is actually publication-worthy," however, I would count from _Dulcinea_ in 1996. What I mean by "publication-worthy" is that most elements of craft are under control, although not perfected. Novels after that one began to improve in all areas. I think there's a distinction between a book you could rewrite and sell and a book that's just good for being cannibalized, and that's where I draw the line in my work--it started to be pro-level around the time of Dulcinea.
Looking back on it, I can see that I wasn't able to do what I was trying to do with the early novels. They were good considering the level of craft I had reached, but they couldn't be rewritten to sell without starting from scratch (it would be more work to try to work with what's there than to just start over with a new idea.)
But I'd still have exceeded the three years with EACH novel, because I don't do a novel and then send it out.
I write a good draft, work on it until I think I've done all I can with it, and then put it aside for maturation. I leave it alone for at least three months while I start something else or edit another book. Then when I go back I always edit and do a new draft. This cycle can happen more than once. So most of my books are at LEAST three years old before any agents see them. (grin) This is how different my paradigm is from the one we described earlier, with most of the succesful new authors getting their first serious completed novels sold in three years (if that's what they're saying.)
I wrote _Miranda's Rights_ and the other novels we're discussing after _Dulcinea_. The "horse sisters" novel, _Unbroken_, was born earlier than that, as Dennis may remember (he gave me advice about it years ago, including that title), but it has been edited since. I pick it up and put it back down every so often. The same was true of the "inspirational romance" that almost sold to the press in Sisters, Oregon (or so it seemed at the time)--I had picked it up and worked on it at various times. My Southern gothic (the one with Starla, the waitress) has gone through a few iterations. I still believe that when I reach the point at which I see the sculpture in the stone, I'll be able to make her into a book that will sell. But I have to see it more clearly first. I'll be working on that. That'll probably be after I start sending Camille around (Miranda is already making the rounds, along with a mystery.)
That said, I can now write a draft in about three months, let it rest, and then go back to edit. Typically it's nine months after that before I think it's ready to send out. The ones that have been worked on "over the years" are deeper and more layered, though.
As to whether it's actually more likely that someone would publish within the first three years if they're going to--well, these days, it does seem that many new authors say so. There has to be an X factor involved if that's the case. It may be that they have their fingers on the pulse of the generation who is reading the chick lit (and buying it), and so there's a "simpatico" reaction between them and editors/agents that makes their work more valid for the market. If that's so, I need to concentrate on a genre that isn't identified so much with younger generations (which chick lit is) or on literary fiction.
Or perhaps that's not part of the issue. I simply thought it was an aspect worth exploring.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 02:29 pm (UTC)I suspect luck is part of it, in that hitting just the right person to read your manuscript at just the right time isn't something you can plan for, or control in any way. If we were to say someone got lucky, it's probably in this sense; from the little that I know about publishing, it's very hard to predict who will really like what when, and find it exactly suited to their needs and ability to publish at that time.
Talent, and the rate at which it's honed and developed is another random thing, and so is having just the right idea at just the right time. I don't believe you can predict how rapidly someone can improve how they do a certain thing; you can often hear athletes talking about how they struggled with something and then--suddenly--had the breakthrough to Getting It Right. I suspect this applies to quite a few different fields besides sports. You can kick an awful lot of ideas around as well, and never know which is the one that is going to be the equivalent of hitting the sweet spot.
it seems like you have to have all of these working for you at the same time--the Right Idea, the skill to handle it, and the people ready and willing to receive it. The only thing the writer can control is how hard they work at it, and whether they give up.
Somewhat off-topic
Date: 2006-01-19 06:56 pm (UTC)I finished rereading WITHOUT A PRAYER last night. Yep, good book that needs every one of those nagging little mistakes caught and corrected. A better book than I thought previously.
Now I'm doing the same thing with SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE, the one with "fof" where "for" ought to be, early in Chapter One. I have the odd feeling that when I finish going through it for the nth time I am going to decide that the ending -- meaning the last 3 chapters or so -- needs a complete rewrite, just as AUTOPSY ON A LIVING CORPSE did, much to its improvement.
This book means a lot to me, as it has major appearances by both my daughters, pretty close to how they were back in 1994, and of course George Willard and -- yes, you. Shirelle Wisdom, in all her glory. Were I of a more caddish disposition, I'd write a torrid, graphic romance into the book, one involving Charlie and Shirelle. Worry not, Shal. The book already has almost too much sex, between the Charlie-and-Irene and Charlie-and-Diane passages, and descriptions of Hossie doing his . . . Hossie.
I can write this book better now, and I think I need to.
And never fear, COLOR RADIO is going to have its day in the sun, too.
They changed the URLs, huh? See what I mean about getting old and less able to keep up?
Dennis