OK. I am going to vent. I've been reading erika's stuff, and Susan's stuff, and I've read Allyson's stuff and Bev's stuff. The people in here are writers.
Now. Check this out.
A musician friend of Joanna's dad wrote a novel about ten years ago (he's in London). Scifi fantasy or something; I haven't checked the URL yet because, frankly, if he writes fiction the way he writes email ("I admire the alacrity with which you are pursuing the publicity angle..."), it's going to set my teeth on edge. Dude, no one talks like that. Get real.
But what's driving me crazy is the rationale I'm getting here: "Hey, I wrote a novel! You're published! Can you read my book and make your agent read it?"
I mean, for fuck's sake:
...whether you had any good contacts you might be able to share in the publishing world.
I finished a rather weird novel some time back and I can't get any publishers or agents interested. [um, CLUE HERE, dude] I think I need an agent, and that's the area I was looking for help in.
Um, hello? You and the known universe. Has it occurred to you that maybe the book isn't very good? Or interesting? or well-written?
The book is based around a narrator who gets sucked, via the Internet, into a mysterious organisation that turns out, in the end, to be an Artificial Intelligence entity that got created by software malfunction in the Mormon church's database of souls. The narrator is a songwriter/composer who achieves success by writing soundtracks for violent video games. There's mystery, contemporary culture, a plethora of satirical irony and original ideas. A lot of the original music mentioned in the story actually exists - I made it over the years. Like I said - weird, but with cult potential...
(banging head against wall)
Why do these people do this to me? I did suggest that, between Otherland and The War of the Flowers, Tad's done it and done it before and done it better, but no - that isn't what he wants to hear.
Dude, if you can't get any interest from an agent, and you've been sending it out for ten years, maybe you should stick with music.
Gah. "A plethora of satirical irony and original ideas." Pardon me while I retch.
The narrator is a songwriter/composer who achieves success by writing soundtracks for violent video games.
Ooh, a book about Trent Reznor!
I have yet to read the
Otherland
books since they're fifty thousand pages long and I don't have that kind of time right now.
Ten years is a long time.
I just went and looked at the web page he's created for publishers and agents and editors. I just read the first page.
I also just sent an email to Joanna's dad, asking for any suggestions he might have as to how I might let this guy down without saying what I really want to say. I mean, OUCH.
1. It isn't an original idea, not even remotely. Hell, in War of the Flowers, Tad's protagonist is a songwriter/musician. Trust me, this has been done, and done better. And that one's recent - it was Tad's most recent book, I think. (Oh, P-C, if you have one of the Otherland books, Nic and I are both in the acknowledgments; I researched it for him.)
2. It's first person, and it's first person done wrong, done badly, done terribly. The page I managed to read had me grinding my teeth and unable to want to read any more of it. It's one after another of newbie-writer mistakes, what I think of as the "Help!" school of first person. Remember Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear in "Help!"? "I am moving my right foot. I am moving my left foot."
He does the same. damned. thing. "I woke up, and found I had a craving for sugar. Lacing up my shoes, I went out in search of breakfast. An hour later...Mmmmm, hot coffee with half a shot of cream in it. Mmmm, sweet cakes with syrup."
Mmmmm, honey? The reader doesn't care. Trust me. This is you, writing yourself into the story, way too obviously. And you don't have a clue how to make first-person interesting, because you aren't a writer. This isn't story-telling, it's self-indulgence.
He's a perfect example of someone with a good education, mistaking technical skill (knowing what a verb is) with inspiration and voice. Um, no.
He's been querying agents with it forever, and raised no interest. There's a reason for this and trust me, dude, nepotism won't fix it.
(Oh, P-C, if you have one of the Otherland books, Nic and I are both in the acknowledgments; I researched it for him.)
Wow.
"I work up, and found I had a craving for sugar. Lacing up my shoes, I went out in search of breakfast. An hour later...Mmmmm, hot coffee with half a shot of cream in it. Mmmm, sweet cakes with syrup."
The hell? That sounds like something out of a high school creative writing class. Granted, it's out of context and maybe the style works somehow, but...uh. And for the hell of it, I'm going to rewrite it, without trying very hard, mind you:
"The morning found me with a craving for sugar, and no desire to actually make anything. I think the Coffeemaker was broken anyway. I'd thrown it at a squirrel.
The diner down the street has the most amazing coffee. Their half a shot of cream is exactly four fluid ounces. Despite my craving for sugar, I paradoxically took my coffee without it. Instead, I took it in the form of pancakes drenched in syrup. A little too drenched. My pants, it seemed, also had a craving for sugar.
It was going to be one of those days."
P-C, I now want to read what happens next.
The squirrel comes back for revenge and bites him in the nuts. The end.
P-C, I don't think I was clear. He isn't asking for feedback; to him, the novel is finished, it's perfect, he wants hooking up because his perfect finished novel hasn't attracted one bite in ten years.
Oh, I understood you. I was rewriting for my own fun.
I was rewriting for my own fun.
Ah. Well, yours is certainly light years better than his, but I am very fierce about first person; it's very hard to do properly, very difficult to put on that character and speak through them without putting yourself into it, your own issues, your own joys and sorrows. That can be done properly, or it can be done messily. It's one of the trickiest balancing acts in writing fiction.
And the problem - or one of them - is that you'd better have a damned strong story to tell, if you're saying to the reader, come with me.
