Anita Likes Analogies WAY Too Much: or, The Prom Dress Comparison

[Caged Maiden]

Okay, bear with me while this takes shape, but I was just having a weird thought based on some conversations we have ongoing at the moment, and I'd like to share the thought with you guys...maybe because there's still some doubt in my mind...that you think I yet retain some small shred of sanity or shame.

So here goes: "Novels are like prom dresses."

Whoa, did that just get deep, or stupid? Okay, allow me to elaborate.

So we've been talking about old novels and their openings lately. We've also been talking about tone and execution in openings (what jerk keeps bringing up tone all the time?--just kidding, it's me ), and how tone's presence affects at least some readers.

Okay, so what's the prom dress about? I'll tell you. I was thinking about how writers say (about writing) things like, "That's an old style, but people still enjoy it," and, "that's outdated and no one would enjoy it today." Or, how many times do we hear stuff like, "That's not really a style modern readers look for," and, "in keeping with current trends..."?

Now, I'm not a particularly fashionable person, but I do occasionally dress myself and go out for the evening, and I have to admit, my style is rather simple and dark, and not fashion forward. My novels are so exactly the same way, though.

So one little thing I want to give you to think about is how a fantasy book from the 70's or 80's might not be the most popular book now (if people have even heard of it), but maybe they were sort of ahead of their time? Or not.

Just something to consider.

We often talk about how and why certain books work well, despite a meandering opening, or cliches, or maybe we just say, "If this wasn't a classic, no one would read it." And I'm wondering whether this is a simple case of finding your mom's wedding dress or prom dress tucked in a closet, and the first thought that comes out of your mouth...is it: "Holy cow, that's hideous, was this thing ever in fashion?" Or is it, "Hold the phone, I just found a genuine vintage dress, and it looks like something Jackie would have worn, and I need to put this on right now, and if it doesn't fit, I'm selling it on eBay for a cool profit...but first, I wanna wear it!"

I'm just saying, trends (and I dislike that word for this application, but can't think of a better one) change. In the 90s, we played a ton of White Wolf, and I grew up with vampires and werewolves to hang out with three nights a week, and we larped and had fun, but then went out to eat and discussed the finer points of which clan was best, why so-and-so's new thaumaturgy he bought last week with XP was going to get him killed next week, how we were planning to storm the hive of Black Spiral Dancers Saturday night, so let the storytellers know you're doing your rites on Friday night and Saturday during the day...

Yeah, we lived it, and it was all good fun, but if you told any "normal" person you went out and did vampire LARP every weekend, they'd think you're nuts. And White Wolf put out a few books that I saw, but I never heard of any of my friends actually reading any of them, and the Kindred: The Embraced series died after only a short run. SO SAD, that last one.

Anyways, then someone writes about vampires in a way that appeals to a new generation, and BOOM!!!! it's a thing now, and romance writers are churning out vampire and werewolf romance, and fantasy writers are reinventing vampires and werewolves to make them new and fresh once again, and so on and you know where this is going. Remember when those corset-top prom dresses came out? Yeah...totally dated now, but no one seems to notice, as they still exist in pattern shops and bridal catalogs, and I just don't get it because fashion has moved on. (no offense to anyone who likes the style, just saying it's a recognizable one from a specific time period. I could have just as easily have picked on those tight top and bubble butt ones, I suppose, but I think less folks would know what I'm talking about...and I do SO try to at least ease people into the madness that goes on in here, by making myself clear.)

Okay, so just as people continue to buy vintage prom dresses and wear them unaltered, shouldn't it make sense that people continue to buy old books that haven't been updated? Maybe the dress/ book was ahead of its time. Maybe it was a style that was so thoroughly outside the norm that it never got grouped with anything else from its time period? Maybe it's so bland and nondescript that it fits into any given year or trend in some marginal way. Who knows. This is all just meant to inspire thought, not take any position on whether old books are good or bad, or following modern trends is a good idea or not.

I just wanted to share my odd thought, that maybe trends are sort of the standards by which we're measured in a way, but maybe some things will always be immune to trends. And maybe if you pick an ugly dress from the 50's, it's intriguing now, but back then it would have been yuk? And maybe as things get rarer, people search for them more fastidiously? And maybe as things change, people don't always, and they prefer the things that make them feel safe (like the only 50 shades of Gray they want to see is in the paint aisle)?

I mean, I make clothes from the 16th century...so...I'm pretty sure that fashion is never coming around again, but I have plenty of clients who still buy it. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, trendsetters!

I keep mentioning execution, and I'm firmly convinced execution is where most books fail. I mean, I've read and critted so much, and I've written so much, and the common denominator in all of them is that none of them is going to please everyone. One person might have a great style but their plot got away from them, another might have a great plot but weird word usage. I mean, the list can go on and on, and when you look at books from the 70's and 80's, the things I notice are word choice and punctuation (especially comma usage because pauses all were properly marked with commas), and an omniscient narrator (which I think was just more popular back then than it is now). I don't even think description has changed that much, in that popular books in the last five years have been overly-descriptive too, and some people genuinely like it. What are the things you think date books to a bygone period we don't ever want to see again?

Alright, all done. Hope you guys join me in this thinking process.

So, vampires are new and fresh (but quickly wearing out their welcome), the corset-top dress my friend wore to prom is gearing up for a resurgence in popularity (I wore a thrift store dress from the 80's in 1997, and a nondescript dress with plain lines and solid color in 1998), and the opening of The Hobbit still has entirely too much description by most modern readers' standards, but we all forgive it because we know it was the style.

 

[FifthView]

Who picks out a prom dress that everyone else is wearing?

Then again, once the prom dress comes off, who cares what it looked like?

 

[Caged Maiden]

hm...what is the book equivalent of the prom dress coming off? HA! The editing process?

 

[FifthView]

The rejection slip?

 

[Heliotrope]

Fifthview is funny today.

 

[Heliotrope]

A dress from the 1950's made out of cheap polyester is different then a dress from the 1950's made out of high quality silk. Even if the pattern is the same. You can tell by the texture, the colours, the way it feels between your fingers. I think the same goes for fiction. The word choice, the execution, the quality, the tone, like you said. You can tell a piece of quality any day and appreciate it for what it is no matter when it was created.

 

[Caged Maiden]

EXACTLY! That was so my point, that some vintage clothing is awe-inspiring because of its craftsmanship, and when those draped styles of the 20's and 30's came around again, no one went, "Oh, that's so...OLD looking." Instead, it was embraced again with new fervor because it was different from current trends and people saw the elegant beauty of a bygone era. I think words can be elegantly fashioned as well, and I'm sure we all have our own examples of styles we really enjoy, but it isn't for everyone. And that's okay. I mean...the 80's are coming back now (why, I don't know), and it's in our nature to reinvent things. Writing is so much the same. I don't think the argument "It isn't done that way anymore" is all-encompassing. I think there are valid points on both sides of the line, and I think discerning individuals will continue to see the value in old things, new things, weird things, unorthodox things, etc.

 

[FifthView]

Also, there is the problem of mass production. A hand-sewn, specially designed prom dress might often be preferable to one that is mass-produced.

The relevance to books: I do get so very tired of picking up a book by an author new to me and discovering that it reads like ever so many others.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah. I'm a very tactile person. I actually also am into costuming (like yourself). When I am fabric shopping, or even clothes shopping for myself I don't look a the piece, I feel it first. I don't even take it off the rack unless the sleeve feels good between my fingers.

The same goes for books. I love books and write stories that 'feel' good to read out loud. They taste good on my tongue when I read the words out to myself. Some really good books will make me want to read and re-read the same passage over and over again because my mouth loves the way it feels. I try to do this in my own writing. I will read and re-read my sentences over and over again out loud until they feel right in my mouth. There is a certain texture to words that is important. A certain quality to certain words and combinations of words. Cadence is important. Like poetry.

 

[Caged Maiden]

You and me both. Or even more frustrating to me is the writer who has such a great idea, but they vomit it all over the first few pages, and it's like my VCR is stuck on >> (ha, yeah, I survived the 80's).

I think execution is hands down the thing that people need to focus on. But I understand that it isn't the first skill to come. I know I've mentioned it a time or two (or thirty), that it takes a million words to become proficient as a writer, and that it took me about two-million. I'm not trying to discourage anyone, but the quicker a writer can become aware of how to execute simple elements (like the character self-description, the format of dialogue they'll use for a particular story, the ambience through the character filter, etc), the lower the number of words it'll take them to become proficient. Don't do it how I did. Don't write six novels and then decide you ought to learn how to write. I can't tell anyone what to do, because everyone's road is different, but for the love of cookies (because I freaking don't love Pete), try to open dialogue with other writers and hone your execution as early as you feel you can, because it'll save you years of heartbreaking editing. My heart was broken many times over in editing. I have that story in another thread, so I won't reiterate. I didn't take an easy path, but I got my words out there. I'm sitting on more then three-million words now, and the worst part of it is, I actually like some of those old stories. Every time I open a document, I have to stop myself from editing what's there and force myself to rewrite it, because I know how much I've grown, and I know in my heart whatever is there is minimally salvageable. I have a closet of polyester gowns that I need to cut the lace off of, but I can't wear the dresses. It's gonna be a lot of work, but if I can craft the dresses anew, I'll have something special. But right now, I have a stack of thrift store rejects no one wants to wear...and the dog won't even sleep on them.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Helio, OMG, see that's how The Lies of Locke Lamora was for me. It was exactly as you describe. Before I read it, it was the thing in the back of my mind that I wanted my current WiP to be, but I didn't have a primary example of what my goal was. After reading it, I felt this surge of energy. It was everything I wanted my book to look and feel like. It was the right tone, the right words, the right cadence. It was like finding my long lost twin, or something. It was uncanny. And a little disheartening when I considered how similar my own vision was to an existing story that was very popular. It made me both happy to know people actually read and liked the thing that was my eventual goal, but worried at the same time that I'd be viewed as a copycat or something because the book I began in 2011 followed it, though I didn't read it till last year.

I want to hug you all. Thanks for sharing in my madness/ obsession with execution and appreciation for artistry, despite the period in which it came about. Your participation here makes me feel less crazy.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah. Reading should be a multi sensory experience. Visual (in your imagination anyways), physical (to your tongue and your ears), visceral (to your heart and your gut)...

I think this is why people still want books, not just movies. They know they need to taste it.

 

[Caged Maiden]

You need to be my crit partner, sister, because I NEED you. I'm desperately trying to find my own balance on a difficult set of characters, but I'm somehow not getting my vision across, though I edit until I pass out from exhaustion. Oh cruel world, love my characters, dammit! I love them...

Just out of curiosity, what do you write? How do you establish what is right for your target audience?

 

[Russ]

I get your message. Completely. But allow me to give a different view.

People here have a variety of different goals and write for different reasons. Advice is rarely one size fits all (trying to stay with your fine analogy).

For instance, some people think of writing as a commercial venture. Some people feel it is a high artistic calling. Some people might want to make a living at it. Some people might do it as kind of a relaxing or fun hobby. Some people use it for gaming purposes.

If each of these people asked me for advice on an issue involving the marketplace I would give them different answers, or no answer at all.

If you are writing for your own amusement or as a hobby then you don't care about trends or markets.

If you want to be traditionally published you want to know what agents and editors are currently looking for, and if people have information on that, it is nice that they share it.

If you want to go indy and make money at it, you want to know what readers are buying and how to communicate with them. If people have information on that it is nice that they share it.

If people are writing for enjoyment or amusement then advice about trends and markets is a waste of time.

No one should ever say "don't even think of writing X because there is no hope", but one should be realistic about current market conditions.

The advice needs to fit the person asking the question's goals.

A second factor is that the person is asking for advice and thus they want it, or want to hear what people think about it. If someone asks if we think that the vampire market is saturated we can say "yes I think that has been really overdone lately and it might be darned hard to sell that right now." That is simply either true, or at least an honest opinion. Then the writer can decide what to do with that information. They can say "I better stay away from that" or "I will be the one to bring them back to the fore!" But at least they will make an informed decision.

If the person didn't care about the issue then they likely would not have asked about it.

Market size is also an issue. I expect the market for 1600's style clothing is smaller than for say D&G or LAMB. If the author is happy to be selling to a niche market that is great. But they should know the market is small and make that choice in an informed fashion.

Lastly, when it comes to using the great masters as role models, that is very hard to do. And not just in writing. The vast majority of people have to start as beginners and build their way up. There are two aspects to this:

There are certain skills that need to be mastered before you can break the rules and be a trail breaker. That goes for almost any skill. Most people here I think would concede that their skill level and craftsmanship are such that they have room to improve and they have not gotten complete mastery over the basics of the writing craft.

There are some people who are so naturally gifted that they can skip these steps. If you are such a naturally good writer that you can write game changing novels without much practice, I, and this place, have very little to offer you. Go write that stuff and change the world. I often teach young lawyers advocacy. I don't try to teach advanced techniques to those who have not mastered the basics. I do the same thing when I teach WMA. You need a good foundation before you can safely and effectively do advanced techniques. Many people say you need to write a million words to be basically competent. That sounds about right to me.

The second issue about using successful authors' writing as role models is that they simply have a track record and can rely upon it. They get away with more (or less) because agents, editors and the public already give them a ton of credit. They are treated differently than unbranded writers. I read a book proposal recently that a very successful author wrote to his agent and editor not long ago. It was really mediocre. If it had been written by a non-branded author I would bet a lot of money it would not sell. Not surprisingly that book is now in print and doing fine.

So, to get back around to the beauty of vintage. I love the stuff. I admire great writers from the past and what they do. But the question around her is "what do I take from this to improve my writing."? I love the Hobbit, but don't think I should write a book with that much description. I love the Pyat quartet but know I don't yet have the skill or brand to write and sell that kind of product. I own 15th century style armour, but I don't recommend you deploy to Syria to fight ISIS in it.

Or to put it in a more fantasy context, I love the way Conan dresses but I think that trend has passed and I don't have the body for it.


Great literary works are a pleasure to read and often edifying and uplifting. But one has to recognize their limitations in giving guidance to the novice modern aspiring writer.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Ah yes, I agree with that. I guess the point of my thoughts here was merely to establish a "value" of work. As in, the work of the past still has value despite being obsolete by modern standards, and as a person who appreciates things of artistic value, that was my point, not that if one wrote a book about space invaders in the style of The Hobbit it would sell well commercially. All good points, Russ. I totally agree. I just wanted to encourage folks to consider execution and quality more than the popular advice that can somewhat stymie creativity or stop it dead in its tracks.

For example, if one believes the popular advice that a first novel ought to be no more than 120k words, they might do as I did and cut huge chunks of words from a work that needed a longer word count limit. Now, in that example, I wouldn't encourage someone with a bloated novel to say, "Well, hell. I ought to be able to push the limit of this thing, because other folks are doing it." That's just counterintuitive, really. Yes, break the rules and write the long novel, but know that quality is what will be the deciding factor, not necessarily the word count.

I just feel like the advice out there is good, but sometimes it lacks a concrete context that a newer writer can fully embrace. If one simply says, "Your first novel ought to be less than 120k words, and 100k is better," they're missing the larger point, that length and word count aren't nearly as important as quality. We were talking about openings of novels and people offered up examples of action openings and non-action openings as examples, and I felt strongly that openings need not contain action, but must be presented with a certain amount of quality to catch an agent's eye, or a reader's eye for those self-publishing.

This thread was never meant to encourage anyone to make hasty decisions or ignore sage counsel, but to simply say that styles (in the opening or in the book's overall tone) come and go or appeal to different people, and that if a writer is worried about whether to open in the middle of a fight or whether to open just before the fight, or just after, the choice of where to open is probably less important than the quality of the delivery. In my estimation, any of the three are good choices, but if executed poorly, they are all disastrous choices as well. Like a prom dress, is one's opening a glamorous gown from the 30s that maintains its timelessness because it was expertly crafted and employs a classiness despite its age, or is it a cheap polyester monstrosity in seafoam green or with huge horrible bows on it?

I agree that marketability is always a consideration for those pursuing a professional career in writing novels, but to dismiss old work because it doesn't fall into the popular-right-now trends shouldn't discredit its value to the one writing it. Of course, it's all up to the writer what they intend for a given work, and since it's my goal to publish my work, i'm trying to balance those things myself right now. However, the main trend I see among newer writers is to be overly concerned for the surface decisions like word count or any number of other small-potatoes subjects, without carefully considering the deeper issues, and at the top of that list is quality. How many times do we hear, "You can get away with a lot of rule-breaking if you do it well," and I certainly buy into that method of thinking.

Thanks for weighing in. Like I said, I completely agree that anyone wanting to make a career of writing ought to know whether their vampire novel is at the cutting edge of fiction or old hat at this point, but if they decide to go forward with the project (for whatever reason), their choice for where to open should be less about whether it needs to be action or not, and more about how to inject a quality into the work that bypasses the "old hat" feeling and at least give it a timelessness that might find a market.

Yeah, I hope I said that right, because I'm not arguing. I just felt my post was less about marketing and more about quality.

 

[FifthView]

People here have a variety of different goals and write for different reasons. Advice is rarely one size fits all (trying to stay with your fine analogy).

For instance, some people think of writing as a commercial venture. Some people feel it is a high artistic calling. Some people might want to make a living at it. Some people might do it as kind of a relaxing or fun hobby. Some people use it for gaming purposes.

If each of these people asked me for advice on an issue involving the marketplace I would give them different answers, or no answer at all.

I think this is a very important point.

There are certain skills that need to be mastered before you can break the rules and be a trail breaker.

This is where I stumble, because that word "rules" is used. I think that often the word is being used to describe something that is not, in fact, a rule. A fad or a tradition is not a rule, for instance.

So I also take issue with the pairing of "trail breaker" and that word. Although trail breaking might make good sense if we consider an author's choice to do his/her own thing–i.e., not following the trail others have already broken–there is the connotation making a trail for others to follow. Which, incidentally, relates to the idea of "rule"–so, new rules?

Conceptually at least there are three broad approaches relating to this topic:

Mimic–The Masters or the Trends

Create–Your own special thing. Or some would say, your own thang.

Embrace and Extend–Drink from the table of the Masters/Trends, but put your own twist in it. (Metaphorical use of Microsoft's strategy. And I've eliminated "Extinguish" from the concept.)

While mimicry can be good during training–something that the poet Auden supported–I don't think one needs to be especially skillful before attempting to apply a personal twist or even trying to develop one's own style. In fact, developing a personal style can take as long as learning the basics, even longer, and there is no great reason for not doing both simultaneously if selling soon and selling often is not your primary goal.

 

[Russ]

CM, I won't quote your whole last post but I think we totally agree. I think when you and I discuss great older masterworks were are looking at the same diamond but discussing different facets (I am trying to get as many analogies in as this thread will bare- thread-bare, 16th century clothes...)

Quality is critically important to my view of writing and to, I think, agents and editors as well.

A site like this is tricky because people come and ask about things and then want to discuss them. When people ask about things I assume they are not set in their views and want advice, and we can only give them advice based on what we know. So we can try to help by discussing conventional norms (if people don't like the term rules) and why those norms are followed these days.

But often when we try to answer people's questions we don't have enough information to give a custom answer, so we struggle along as best we can.

Let's take your 200,000 word book as an example if you don't mind.

If you ask about it in general, people will give you the conventional answer for first time writers. I would assume that if you are asking about length you are not certain if your work is too long. If you believed with great fortitude that it took 200,000 words of lean prose to properly tell the tale you are trying to tell, I don't see why one would ask about length.

The best thing, of course, would be to have experienced people read the work and say "Wow, that was lean, concise and powerful don't change a word." Or "That had a lot of fat that can be cut, I think you could have done it in 150k" or "I want more, you didn't elaborate enough, make it a trilogy!" or whatever.

The more specific the advice, the better. Which is why I find it easier to answer people who ask long detailed questions.

Advice and "rules" are good for people who are uncertain on various issues, but if you are Master of the tale you want to tell, tell it the way it needs to be told and then let people see it.

But if you are humming and hawing if your book should be a certain length, or are uncertain on where and how you want to start it...then those conventional guidelines can be invaluable especially if they get you out of a rut and back to writing.

 

[Heliotrope]

But if you are humming and hawing if your book should be a certain length, or are uncertain on where and how you want to start it...then those conventional guidelines can be invaluable especially if they get you out of a rut and back to writing.

This. So much This.

It goes back to the prom dresses though. You still need the pattern. You still need to stitch it in certain ways. You still need the proper boning and structure. How you dress it up is up to you, but the structure, the cut, the darts, everything needs to be in the right place for a proper, quality fit. These are the 'rules' or the 'guidelines'. Otherwise you end up with a sack, or a poorly wrapped toga.

 

[Russ]

While mimicry can be good during training—something that the poet Auden supported—I don't think one needs to be especially skillful before attempting to apply a personal twist or even trying to develop one's own style. In fact, developing a personal style can take as long as learning the basics, even longer, and there is no great reason for not doing both simultaneously if selling soon and selling often is not your primary goal.

You make an important point here and I thank you for the chance to clarify what I was saying.

I agree that it is never too soon to be developing your own voice and style, hopefully organically. I think every writer should allow their own voice to develop.

By trail breaking or trail blazing I mean making a big change from the accepted conventions of the genre or the field. Like writing a 400k word debut novel, or writing a trilogy in the second person, or writing something that is revolutionary in its originality or uniqueness.

For example I think the fantasy trilogy I am working on right now very much reflects my own voice, but certainly not revolutionary in form, length, style or intended audience.

 

[Incanus]

I think about this stuff a lot—too much to fit everything into a forum post. And I’m not verbose in the first place. But I think it’s about execution all the way.

I don’t know exactly why, but I largely prefer older writing to newer writing—stuff from around 50 years ago to 150 years ago or so. It’s not a choice, it’s just what I respond to. I’ll use a different analogy than clothing, something I know little about. It seems I look at novels—and their openings—in the same way I might look at someone of the opposite sex in light of ‘attractiveness’ (this would be females in my case). I can’t always explain why I think some women are attractive. I see some women sometimes that I would normally find attractive, and yet there is something about them that makes them less so. Something about their style, their manner or bearing, or something I simply can’t figure out somehow diminishes them (in my eyes, anyway). They just doesn’t ‘click’ with me.

So it is with novels. A character opening, an action opening, a history or setting opening—I’ve read openings of each of these kinds that I loved, and ones that did nothing for me. Some ‘click’ with me, some don’t. It is this realization that makes me a believer in execution over format.

There are far, far more writers than there are themes and basic plots. So why should I read your particular take on theme X or plot structure Y? Execution. It makes all the difference.