Criticizing the Published

[psychotick]

Hi,

Yes I think there often is envy at work. Yet I think there is also genuine confusion about why certain books succeed where others fail. And it's all part of this myth that authors live with that if a book is good it will sell / be picked up etc.

The painful truth is that there is far more luck involved in this business than people want to accept. Good books / great books fall by the wayside and often mediocre ones fly. The horrid truth is that you might write the best book ever written and it'll never be picked up or sell. The odds are against you. But at the same time other books with half so much effort put into them will absolutely rocket.

Everyone mentions Twilight and Fifty shades as examples of the latter. And maybe they're right - I don't know - I've read neither. In my world they are both works that make me violently ill at fifty paces. But what happened with both these works is that they reached audiences that other books didn't reach - tween girls and frustrated housewives bored with basic romance. So while as a red neck guy I can't possibly find any merit in them and feel nauseas just talking about them, my vote doesn't count.

There's luck in that. Timing especially. Fifty shades would not have succeeded twenty years ago. The audience just wouldn't have been there. Housewives - in my humble opinion - weren't that jaded with what they were reading. And Wool - the Hugh Howie success succeeded because of happenstance as well. His book was picked up and tweeted about by a celeb and that blew his sales out of the water.

At the same time other books fail for luck. Alexie Panshin wrote a trilogy of books starting with Starwell, which are in my opinion, some of best comic narratives ever written. They were a commercial failure. His other book Rite of Passage did much better, but isn't a comic masterpiece. Then Harrison came along with the Stainless Steel Rat and which is amazingly similar to Starwell and sold big. The books are much the same in plot and characterization, the worlds too. The writing is almost a carbon copy. The difference is the twenty years between when they were published. Between the sixties and the eighties. (By the way I recommend them all.)

Anyway that's just my tuppence worth - and I'm sure many of you would want your money back!

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Chessie]

What makes one book or story better than another? I've certainly read books that I thought were awesome but seemed obscure and I have never read Twilight, Eragon, or...lol..FSOG. Considering this is a fantasy/scifi site, I have read "Wool" and loved it, certainly lived up to it's hype.

But all of these books offer reader satisfaction in their own way. It's okay that I think Twilight is cheesy because it wasn't intended for my type of person to read. I don't like vampires and can't stand Y.A. So who am I to judge Meyers and her success? If anything, it tells me she did something right but I don't care to study what that is. Why? Because I'm not her and I don't care what worked for her.

This is also why I abstain from trash talking other writers...it's poor form. On another forum, there is a thread pages upon pages upon pages long of people arguing as to why a sequel of FSOG is the end of the literary world. See, it shouldn't frustrate us that those with supposedly cheesy stories and poor writing skills get fame and fortune. If anything, it should be a hope to us that there are markets for everything out there and we should just keep on writing.

 

[Steerpike]

The painful truth is that there is far more luck involved in this business than people want to accept. Good books / great books fall by the wayside and often mediocre ones fly. The horrid truth is that you might write the best book ever written and it'll never be picked up or sell. The odds are against you.

This is the absolute truth, and something aspiring writers really don't want to hear. There are excellent writers who can't make enough to quit their day jobs.

But even though luck and timing play a significant factor, the more you develop your craft and the better you get at it, the more likely you'll be one of those writers whose works happens to be one of the lucky ones.

 

[Russ]

. While I think the world (of books) would be a slightly better place if folks appreciated the hard work that goes into craft and technique,

But isn't this the great challenge of being great at anything? Making it look effortless?

 

[Nobby]

I'm sort of on the fence a touch. Yes, you can say that people have got fat off poorly written (more often poorly edited) works that you yourself (being an artist) would never let the light of fandom see. Fair enough. Fairly free world, and all.

But sometimes, oh, my, bites lip, my inner goddess hangs from a tyre ring eating cheetos with a prehensile foot, just sometimes it's bloody hard to resist being sarcastic.

 

[Nobby]

Opposable toed foot, even

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I think the discussion becomes much less valuable when a successful author's work is dismissed as "that person just got lucky."

I don't disagree that luck plays a huge roll in mega-success, but I firmly believe that, for an author to reach those heights, they have to have tapped into something that the audience wanted.

R.A. Salvatore is one of many successful people who says he "got lucky." He once told me he "wrote the right book at the right time."

But, yeah, I agree it takes more than luck to write dozens of "right books" and sell millions of them.



I think anyone can critique any published work, and the critic need only be honest. I've been a big critic of Game of Thrones this season, while last season, there was a lot more praise (but still a couple negatives). Could I have done a better job televising GRRM's work? No way! But don't tell me I can't have an opinion on it. It's the opinions of the audience that makes writers and artists successful or not, so you cease to have an honest discussion if you expect everyone to pretend crap doesn't stink.

(Maybe the person selling the crap can wave away the smell with a fan made of many thousand-dollar bills.)

 

[Russ]

This is the absolute truth, and something aspiring writers really don't want to hear. There are excellent writers who can't make enough to quit their day jobs.

But even though luck and timing play a significant factor, the more you develop your craft and the better you get at it, the more likely you'll be one of those writers whose works happens to be one of the lucky ones.

Allow me to respectfully disagree on the "luck" issue. It is close to being right, but I think misdescribes the reality of commercial success in writing.

It is true that the odds are against you if you want to make a living writing fiction. That does not mean that any person's success is dependent on luck. It means the way that the market works is such that it does not allow for a lot of people to make a good living at writing. Luck remains just a small factor, perhaps not any larger than in any other occupation with similar market forces.

Only a tiny fraction of hockey players will make it to the NHL or make a living at it. That does not mean that "luck" plays a big role, it means that it is hard to get one of those coveted spots. You need to train, get good coaching, identify the right teams to play, attend tournaments where scouts will be, etc. Sure luck plays a role, but people like to over emphasize it and use it as a disguise to avoid saying that something is really, really hard.

Tons of people want to be astronauts, only very few will. Are they supposed to be lucky? Luck plays a role but a small one.

Timing is important, but is not the same thing as luck. Firstly you can control your own timing. You cannot control the market, but that does not mean it is bad luck that your product does not match the market, it means you did not read the market as well as someone else. Or someone beat you to it. Beta is not dead because of "luck", computers did not swamp the world because of "luck" either. Timing was important but timing and luck are not the same thing.

And if you work at it long and steady over a long period of time, producing good work consistently for a long period, you can reduce the impact of timing as well. I have a friend who is a very successful writer. He got a handful of books published for good numbers and had some that never got published because he couldn't sell them. He could not afford to give up his day job. Then Dan Brown published "Davinci Code" and publishers were hot for books of that ilk. His agent called him up and said "Hey I have several potential buyers for one of those books you wrote that you could not sell. Can you tune it up in a hurry?" He did and it became his breakout novel. He doesn't bother working as a lawyer anymore. Some may call that luck, but what really happened is that he produced good work over a long period, developed quality professional relationships, and when the market favoured him, he was ready.

To enjoy a cliche "Luck favours the prepared."

So I would happily say that is very, very hard to make a living at writing, but the ones who do it, are no more "lucky" than people who successfully climb Everest, and that success in writing bears no resemblance to buying a lottery ticket or rolling a die. But bust your ass to create opportunities and then try to take advantage of them. IF you fail, it rarely luck or chance that really holds you back. And if you fail, you get up and do it again for another decade or so and see what happens.

I would go a step further and say it is disrespectful to published authors to suggest that "luck" is key in the industry. Those people work hard, suffer, market, train and educate themselves to get that success. They are polite enough to say they are lucky to be able to make their living at writing, but that is just good manners, they work very, very hard and deserve some credit for it.

The vast majority of the time people are either misusing the term luck or using it as a crutch or excuse.

Hitting a bulls eye at 200 meters with an arrow is very, very hard. But when Olympic archers do it, I suspect you would not call them lucky. If it is a windy day and they can't do it, that isn't luck, that is bad conditions. Writing is very similar.

And oh yes I thought this one was interesting:

you might write the best book ever written and it'll never be picked up or sell.

If you have such a book at hand, or know someone who does, get it to me and I will personally guarantee I will get it sold and will only charge 10% commission.


So while "luck" or "contingency" plays a role in everything we do there is no reason to believe it plays any more role in writing than any other really tough field.

Writing is hard place to make a living, and opportunities to do so may be scarce, but that doesn't make it any more dependent on luck that just about anything else.

Guess I should climb off my soapbox and start the weekend now.

 

[Nobby]

Yikes, Russ, you were only missing an 'Ooh-rah' in that long, poisonous and ultimately belittling rant there.

Go exceptionalism!

No, seriously, if you write 'for the the big bucks' (ergh) and you play by the rules you have made obvious (can't effect the market, but show me a good enough yarn I can sell the suits and whooo-hooh money in the bank- major paraphrasing on my part, but that is what I took from your piece)...I just can't...

By God, if you only write to see the rain of gold piling up in your coffers, if that is your only motivation in this world, then I pity you greatly.

 

[Trick]

As Thomas Jefferson said, "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."

EDIT:

See, it shouldn't frustrate us that those with supposedly cheesy stories and poor writing skills get fame and fortune. If anything, it should be a hope to us that there are markets for everything out there and we should just keep on writing.

I try to take the same view. If I think a published book is absolute crap, I then think, "Well, if this got published, why not me?" and then I keep trying to learn about how to sell my book.

The only time I get incensed about certain published books is when someone tells me that a popular book, of the type discussed here, is a literary masterpiece. I've read works of far greater quality and I wouldn't even call them literary masterpieces. So, I'm more angry at the 'stupid' reader than the author. And the reader probably isn't actually stupid, they just loved the book and don't properly know how to express it.

 

[Mythopoet]

Personally, I only ever criticize and/or judge works/authors I have read and so have experienced. And I always make sure to only criticize/judge a work/author from the point of view of a reader. It is only readers who really have a right to do so.

 

[Mindfire]

Besides, I refuse to accept any paradigm under which "I'm afraid one day we will wake up with our throats slit" is held up as an example of good writing.

Omg, what book is that from? I have to know! XD

 

[Mindfire]

I think the critiquing of successfully published authors should be done respectfully, because they have accomplished something most of us have not. I also think that helps keep out the kind of comments that show real bitterness or envy. There are plenty of petty, bitter people out there and they sure like to express themselves on the internet. I don't think that does anything any good. It is the Monday Morning Quarterback phenomena or how journalists were once described as watching a battle from a safe hill and then descending to kill the reputation of the survivors. There are things you don't know about writing or anything else until you have been "in the arena." I have a lot of respect for people who have made their way in the arena and gotten some success there. Until your "theory" has been tested in the hot fire, it remains just that, an untested theory.

Not agreeing with this. I'm not sure why anyone should be put on a pedestal simply by virtue of being successfully published. That comes a little too close to "I'm successful therefore your opinion is invalid" for my comfort.

And why must it be assumed that people tear into published authors out of pettiness, or bitter envy? What if it's just good old wholesome, malice-free schadenfreude?

 

[Mindfire]

Allow me to respectfully disagree on the "luck" issue. It is close to being right, but I think misdescribes the reality of commercial success in writing.
*snip*

Few things in this life are a pure meritocracy.

...Writing is not one of them.

EDIT: could one of the mods combine my posts or something? This stream-of-consciousness post-as-you-read thing will be the bane of me.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Omg, what book is that from? I have to know! XD

Eragon. I didn't even notice it at first, and then I did a double take.

 

[Mythopoet]

Besides, I refuse to accept any paradigm under which "I'm afraid one day we will wake up with our throats slit" is held up as an example of good writing.

Now see, I read a line like that and I don't think "wow, what a crappy author". I think, "why didn't the editor catch that?"

 

[Trick]

Eragon. I didn't even notice it at first, and then I did a double take.

Where in the book is that from? I can't find it on Google and just wanted to read the whole passage.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I saw that line and thought it a great expression of character wit. I love that kind of thing in dialogue, but then my "jokes" tend to be what I think of as witty, not really serious. I'd read that line out of context and thought it brilliant. Just FYI. However, if it's really an editing flub and not an expression of a humorous character...it's just stupid.

I often wonder whether readers will get my subtle, witty humor (and maybe this is just because I'm married to a British man and we have a sort of soft spot for wit), but I love that sort of thing that makes you double-take and go...Wha? Holy crap, that's funny!

I will go so far as to say that in critique people have picked up on my subtle humor and expressed a genuine amusement by it, but it's also caused a number of confused reactions, where people didn't know whether i was being funny intentionally or just being a sloppy editor.

 

[Mindfire]

Eragon. I didn't even notice it at first, and then I did a double take.

Was it a joke or was it played straight? Because if it's intentionally humorous then, despite what I may think of the rest of the book, that line is genius. If it's played totally straight, I must once more side eye and facepalm this book into infinity because not only is that dumb, it's a major missed opportunity.

 

[Trick]

I saw that line and thought it a great expression of character wit. I love that kind of thing in dialogue, but then my "jokes" tend to be what I think of as witty, not really serious. I'd read that line out of context and thought it brilliant. Just FYI. However, if it's really an editing flub and not an expression of a humorous character...it's just stupid.

Was it a joke or was it played straight? Because if it's intentionally humorous then, despite what I may think of the rest of the book, that line is genius. If it's played totally straight, I must once more side eye and facepalm this book into infinity because not only is that dumb, it's a major missed opportunity.

Agreed and agreed. I was trying to find an obvious grammar flaw because I simply took it as humor. Then I tried to find it's context online, with no luck.

Being Irish, I took it more for a joke like: "I've lost my reading glasses and I won't be able to look for them until I find them."