Write à la Mode and be Published
If Isaac Asimov was an unknown writer and wrote the Foundation trilogy today, I doubt very much that he would have been able to get an agent or a publisher for it. I mean, just look at the writing! Endless screeds of exposition, almost everything is told, not shown, adverbs litter the text, and the dialogue tags are some of the most inventive I’ve seen. I can just imagine some of the big name agent/editor bloggers sending off the form rejection with a frustrated sigh, thinking, “Why do writers continue to make these elementary mistakes? The Web is full of guidance about the rules of good writing.”
Well, it is and it isn’t. What the Web is actually full of, what those how-to-write books are full of too, is advice on how to write for publication. It is really quite a big mistake to confuse the two.
It becomes obvious, if you go back to the sci-fi classics of your youth, or to any classics at all, that what was once publishable is very different to what is now publishable. Why is that so? Are writers better now than they once were? Of course not! All that has happened is that fashions in writing style have changed. The somewhat intellectual, discursive style of the classics has been replaced by the more staccato, visceral style of today.
Some people, of course, really do prefer books without a single adverb, where every idea, however subtle, needs somehow to be expressed by people doing things, and where the mounting jeopardy in which the hero finds himself is the primary, if not the sole reason for the reader to turn the page. For them, that is good writing. Such people can only yawn or scoff their way through Thomas Hardy, assuming they make it past the first page. Such people would find a Chekhov story that begins with a description of the weather, unbearably dull and old-fashioned.
Honestly, Mr. King (and that’s an interjection, not an adverb) I get it. If I want to sell like you, I should write like you. Trust me, FleshEatingEditor.com and all your friends, I know that’s exactly how you do want me to write (as long as I find my own voice, too, of course) because you care deeply about how well I sell. But please don’t confuse publishable writing with good writing.
Asimov is excellent because of the way he wrote, not in spite of it.
I also assume, if one were to have a time machine, and took Harry Potter or the Da Vinci code to the publishers of fifty years ago, you’d be told to light the fire with that rubbish.
The bottom line is, though: like clothes, writing style is subject to fashion. Which is why the outcry ‘But Big-Name Author did it’ is such a load of tripe. Fashion changes all the time, and to be in with a chance, you simply have to be familiar with the conventions of the here and now.
Which is also why an author who doesn’t read is merely taking pot luck.
Patty, That last was a very good point. (I mean, they all were, but the last especially.) It bears repeating. An author who doesn’t read is taking pot luck when they try to get published. It has always been the case. I read a Silverberg novel from the sixties a few weeks ago and it was such a child of its time they should have printed psychadelic flowers on the cover. It made me remember why I loved Michael Moorcock,
And yes, there’s no point kicking against it. Editors and agents may not think of themselves this way, but they are the Fashion Police.
You would not believe (well of course you would) the number of people whose response – when I mention the WIP – is “oh yes, I’ve often thought of writing a [insert genre here] novel myself”.
Mostly the genre they pick is Romance, because they believe in the existence of The Winning Formula. Has a single one of them ever read any of their nominated genre? Nary a one!
But I no longer worry about it. Since I’m pretty sure 99.95% will never get as far as setting pen to paper, I’ve developed a sweet smile and an interested “oh, that’s a good idea” response. Then we change the subject, and they quietly go back to thinking we are probably not from the same species.
Graham, I always enjoy reading your posts and you often articulate the things I’m too lazy to write about myself. This is one of them. I’ve come to think of the ‘good writing’ concept as the literary equivalent of IKEA. It’s nice, it’s functional but it’s somewhat impersonal and makes everybody’s house look the same! I’m not knocking IKEA and I’m not knocking stripped down writing, but public taste will change.
Thanks, Jason. And as for public taste, won’t it be fascinating to see which way it goes?
And, Janette, as for all those would-be genre writers, most of those who do start to write something will never finish, and many of those who finish will do nothing with it, and very few of those who try to do something will ever succeed. A sweet smile is the only possible response.
Your post touches on a number of things.
You’re hinting at that old writing maxim “you can break any of the rules of writing, so long as it works.” Which, IMHO, is another way of saying that if you know what you’re doing, you’re free to treat the rules as mere guidelines.
Asimov, I would agree, certainly knew what he was doing.
You also touch on the point that “good” or “bad” judgments about writing are always subjective. What was considered good in the 1800s wasn’t still good (unless it was a previously-famous “Classic”) by the 1950s, and what was considered good then isn’t so hot now. Jane Austen probably would, if she got her hands on it, consider Harry Potter an utter load of rubbish.
On the other hand, it might just blow her freaking socks off.
What your post doesn’t consider is that a) writers have certainly learned a lot about how to write an effective novel in the century+ since the modern novel was more or less invented. It would be absurd to suggest otherwise.
In an era of extremely limited publishing opportunities, when the mere act of writing a manuscript was an incredibly laborious quill-and-ink endeavour, there just weren’t that many novels out there. Those early novelists, much like the early programmers of the ’50s and ’60s, were feeling their way in the dark through unfamiliar territory. Of course some of them wrote amazing, timeless works. But most didn’t. And that, I argue, is why a lot of the Classics are pretty much unreadable to a modern audience. I still can’t get through Moby Dick; Ishamel just won’t get to the flippin’ point there in that first chapter.
A lot has happened since then. Even since Asimov. We fortunate 21st century authors stand high on the shoulders of giants.
Collectively, we have learned a lot about how to write an effective novel, and these lessons have been codified in the oral tradition of our tribe: “show, don’t tell,” “don’t use adverbs,” et cetera.
Those rules exist precisely because they have been shown to be effective guidelines for writing fiction that best engages the reader in a great reading experience.
The rules work. 99 times out of a hundred, if a great reading experience is your goal, those rules will help you get there. But as gifted writers of Asimov’s day and our own continue to show, if you know your stuff enough to understand when and how to break the rules without breaking the reader’s experience, then hell yeah, break ‘em!
Sorry to have to disagree, Jason, but I’m not saying anything like, “you can break any of the rules of writing, so long as it works.” I’m saying something more like, “the so-called ‘rules of writing’ at any particular moment merely define the current preferred style.” This may indeed be driven by reader preferences for what is currently felt to be a “great reading experience” but this too is a matter of fashion and of audience. (Audiences for novels have also changed dramatically over the decades.)
The idea that there is progress in the world of fiction akin to the progress that is made in scientific fields is a rather contentious one. (Newton’s “shoulders of giants” quote is perfectly apt for science. Not so for the arts.) My own impression is that in all the arts there is merely change, never progress.
Take the world of film-making for example. There is no doubt that the “rules of film-making” have changed over the past fifty years and that films are now much more formulaic but also more fast-paced and action-oriented. (Incidentally, the same “show-not-tell” rule seems to apply to films as it does to novels. Which is why there is so little dialogue in films these days!) Films are obviously different now but are they better? Personally, I do not think so.
You can apply the same argument to all the arts – is music better now than it was 200 years ago? Surely we understand the ‘rules’ so much better. What about sculpture? Or painting? Or do we simply have a different fashion now?
As for the idea that novelists were stumbling about in the dark, inventing a whole new art form in the Nineteenth Century, it’s possible to interpret things that way, but it’s also possible to see the novel as just another variant in a chain of storytelling practices stretching back to prehistoric times.
Finally, I don’t want to suggest that any aspiring writer should not follow today’s set of rules. As I said in the post, they are the only rules that will lead to publication. Break them and you may satisfy your aesthetic sensibilities but you will not find a publisher. For better or worse, the rules describe what people want to buy at the moment. Even the very best, established writers break them at their own peril.
Ah. Then indeed, I was misinterpreting your original post, but also, we do disagree.
I really do believe that those oft-repeated Rules of Writing do represent a collective wisdom about how to create a great reading experience for your audience. I think there’s more to it, in this case, than just fashion.
I do agree with you, though, that the novel as we know it today is merely the latest version of the age-old art of storytelling. While I, as a writer, would like to believe that my works are timeless and will be appreciated through the ensuing ages of history, I can’t. A critical look at the changes of history shows that for what it is: pure ego.
The demands of oral tradition, its reliance on memory, forced storytellers into the epic verse structure, where a story was decomposed into small, memorizable parts. The adoption of writing at first followed that same structure–it’s what everybody knew–before evolving into other, more narrative, forms and presently to the novel as we know it today. Tomorrow’s writers will surely take advantage of technology and their own creativity to invent new storytelling forms that I can’t even begin to imagine.
Whatever they come up with will probably be pretty cool. But I’ll bet you twenty Galactic Credits right now that whatever they invent, it will incorporate and build on the Rules of Writing that we rely on today. Paper novels (or even e-book ones) of 50 to 150 thousand words may go the way of the Dodo, but those lessons won’t. Our tribal wisdom will endure.
This post is labeled to have 8 comments. No matter how I click I can't read them. The subject is dear to my heart, and I want to see how other's have responded. Please help.
This post originally registered 8 comments I could not see. I posted one complaining. Now there are 9 I can't see. Plus I entered a very long comment on the manifesto detail 2 post. I entered it twice. Vanished without a trace both times.
Steve, I think what you're seeing is a really poor user interface feature of Disqus. It is in fact telling you how many comments you yourself have made since it started counting. Had me confused too for a while!
What a treat it is to read a thoughtful post and then be able to watch (eavesdrop) on a spirited discussion between two differing views. May I compliment you two gentlemen for expressing your points of view so elequontly while retaining a sense of respect and courtesy for the other’s viewpoint.
Thank you,
terry
[...] It’s Culture, Jim, but not as we know it. Posted on October 20, 2009 by terry I’ve been reading a copy of ASTOUNDING Stories of Super Science form the 1930s and it’s proving to be an educational journey. Coupled with this I had the good sense (so rare in one so young) to read Graham Storr’s blog on Writing a la mode and be published. [...]