A long, hard wait
It’s difficult to think of America as increasingly illiterate when there are such fine writers as R.J. Keller out there.
Today we begin serializing her novel, Waiting for Spring, the story of a newly divorced woman, numbed by years of rejection, who trudges out of one small Maine town into an even smaller one where she is forced to confront her pain.
R.J. Keller is the pen name of Kelly Hewins, who has written three novels, a screenplay, is an assistant editor for and frequent contributor to the Movie Fanatic website and, more happily than her protagonist, also lives in small-town Maine with her husband, two children and a family cat.
Her writing makes me nostalgic for Maine, even though I know from personal experience that those small towns aren’t the most prosperous places in the world and, from reading about Tess Dyer in Waiting for Spring, still not the most idyllic.
Neither is the book-publishing world, if it ever was a nice place. It’s certainly getting smaller for aspiring novelists, Hewins told us in a recent email:
Waiting For Spring is the first work of mine that’s made it past the query stage. I’ve become rather disenchanted with the publishing business — not because I can’t get published, but because of the reasons I’ve been given. I’m not commercial enough for the ‘mainstream’ agents (for lack of a better term), and not educated enough for the more literary crowd. I guess what I wonder about is this: If a book is ‘well-written, with engaging characters and a good story,’ then how is it not marketable? Isn’t that the reason people buy books? Or, if my writing is good, why does it matter that I don’t have an MFA? Perhaps I’m naive.
By the way, today’s new offerings also include the latest chapter in Disconnected, a novel by an author from the other coast, San Francisco writer Jeri Cafesin, who has expressed many of the same sentiments as Hewins about the publishing world.
It’s not just the imagination of a couple of frustrated authors. There’s plenty wrong with the publishing world these days. If you want one reason, just look at our most popular television shows or, worse yet — and this is particularly sore point with me — at TV “news” and its inevitable spinoff, dumber newspapers.
Yes, America’s reading habits — and reading levels — have changed. I don’t think television is a product but rather a cause of this phenomenon. Now there certainly are other underlying factors — notably, a breakdown in homes and parental oversight as well as a growing disdain for education — but one thing is clear to me:
Americans have developed an increasing appetite for mindless junk.
Which makes it harder for authors like Hewins, Cafesin and the other writers we feature in our Works section to get published on paper. And which brings up the one bright aspect of our new age — e-publishing. Right now, we’ve got two e-books-in-progress — Cafesin’s Disconnected and Joseph Cigan’s Sniper in the Mist — and two other novels in serialization, not to mention short stories and poetry.
So while they wait the wait, check ‘em out here:
• Prologue of Waiting for Spring by R.J. Keller.
• Chapter Two of Disconnected by J. Cafesin.
• Chapter Eleven: Farmer’s Market of Ginny Good by Gerard Jones.
• Chapter Seventeen: Invitations of The Unearthing by Steve Karmazenuk.
By the way, Hewins also maintains a weblog called Ingenious Title To Appear Here Later, an interesting and entertaining collection of her thoughts and experiences. I’m curious just thinking what the eventual title will be.
– Sid Leavitt
Posted in Uncategorized |
May 11, 2008 at 11:10 pm
“I guess what I wonder about is this: If a book is ‘well-written, with engaging characters and a good story,’ then how is it not marketable? Isn’t that the reason people buy books? Or, if my writing is good, why does it matter that I don’t have an MFA? Perhaps I’m naive.”
As Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein: follow the money.
When the corporations took over publishing, all pretense at altruism died. It became about the bottom line, making money and fattening the wallets of the shareholders.
Ergo, if something–anything–sells more than a few thousand copies and gets any kind of acclaim from the “right” critics (who are notoriously easy to please) along the way, it is deemed a success. What happens then is that the publishers seek to duplicate this success. They believe that making art is like making cupcakes: all you have to do is follow a recipe. It’s vulgar bullshit, but that’s the crux of it.
I’ve actually identified one of the formulas used in what passes for “book writing” by the big publishers these days. I call it the Ludlum Formula, because it was while reading Robert Ludlum that I first discovered the pattern. It’s used by all the best sellers: John Grisham, Dan Brown, Greg Iles, Nelson DeMille, Robert Ludlum of course, and countless other authors of the “thriller” genre. That is not to say that what they write isn’t good, or that it isn’t enjoyable. But the presence of the formula is undeniable, and once you see the pattern, you cannot unsee it.
The formula is this:
“Ordinary Man” becomes “Reluctant Hero” placed in “Extraordinary Situation”. “Bystander Woman” gets swept up as “Events Unfold”, “Casting Her Lot” in with Ordinary Man. “Shocking Plot Twists” make Ordinary Man and Bystander Woman “Question Who They Can Trust”. “Last Minute Race To The Finish” makes for “Reader Excitement”. Book Ends with Ordinary Man and Bystander Woman either “Getting Married” or “Getting Laid”, while enough “Threads are Left Loose” to “Allow Room For A Sequel”.
…or maybe I’m just cynical.
May 12, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Yes, Steve, you are being cynical — and for good reasons. Your comment expresses several of them quite well. And I cannot disagree.
Thank you.
May 13, 2008 at 8:44 am
Some guy sent me an email about how he thinks he’s gonna put “gatekeepers” out of business by publishing ebooks and audio books and making “writers” review other books on his site before their own stuff is “published.” It was a complicated idea. Here’s what I told him:
“It’s a good idea but I don’t think it will work. What gives books and critics and agents and editors ‘credence’ is that they make money. So what if some bunch of wannabes who are forced to ‘crit’ other stuff before their own stuff gets ‘published’ say a book is worth reading? Who’s gonna pay any attention to loser nobodies who can’t get a real book published OR the books they have to crit in order to get their own crap critted? I have a real book published by a real publisher which got good real reviews, won real prizes, got decent publicity, etc., but nobody read the sucker. Now it’s out of print, so I’ve made it into an ebook and an audio book which nobody is reading or listening to, either. People are brainwashed morons. If you can tap into the mechanisms by which that brainwashing works, your idea will be a ’success.’ If you can’t, it won’t. Chances are it won’t, ’cause the things that keep people stupid cost money. Thanks. G.”
May 14, 2008 at 8:12 am
Thanks so much for your kind words, Sid, and especially for giving my book a new home.
Steve, I’ve been butting my head against the Bridget Jones Formula:
Frumpy woman living in [Hip Urban Center], dissatisfied with [Mundane Job in Otherwise Exciting Field], is torn between [Nice Man] and [Exciting-Yet-Bad Man]. She chooses [Exciting-Yet-Bad-Man] and he breaks her heart. This inspires her to Better Herself. She loses weight, finds [New, Exciting Job for which she is not qualified] and ends up with [Nice Man]. Bonus points if one or more of the characters is a vampire.
G, I’d been reading the installments of “Ginny Good” here, but got impatient so I finished it at your site last night. (Okay, technically very early this morning.) WOW. It left me both completely satisfied and wanting more, just like…well, you know.
May 14, 2008 at 8:52 am
Well, R.J., as I told you on your weblog, Ingenious Title To Appear Here Later (I do like that name), we’re the ones who should be thanking you.
And yes, Ginny Good is a terrific book. In fact, we’ve got several terrific books here, but we won’t mention any names.
May 15, 2008 at 6:54 am
Wait, wait, let me guess. Cleopatra? G.
“…she makes hungry where most she satisfies…”
May 15, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Can I make a confession, RJ?
For “Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind”, my “other” novel, I used the John Hughes Cinematic Formula:
ACT ONE introduces the ENSEMBLE CAST, and chronicles their OUTRAGEOUS AND FUNNY HIJINKS.
in ACT TWO, everything STARTS GOING WRONG for the characters, and our characters have to START GROWING UP FAST
ACT THREE of course features the cast RESOLVING THEIR ISSUES AND COMING OF AGE, while GROWING EVEN CLOSER TO EACH OTHER.
The EPILOGUE lets us know WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CHARACTERS YEARS LATER, while delivering the ALL IMPORTANT STATEMENT that the STORY WAS PORTRAYING.
Sue me…I was a teen in the 1980s…John Hughes imprinted on me.
May 16, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I’m afraid I can’t sue you, Steve. I, too, was a John Hughes teen in the 80s. I wanted to be Molly Ringwald when I grew up.
May 16, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Wait. You’re not Molly Ringwald? Rats. G.