You can say God is dead. You can say books are over. You can say bomb Iran. But when you say romance is the lowest form of literature, watch out.

Perhaps Maria Bustillos, writing in The Awl, doesn’t share the “widely reckoned” opinion that romance writing is “just a notch above the writing on Splenda packets”, but she doesn’t seem to be straining to rebut it, either.

Her critique, posted (intentionally we suspect) on Valentine’s Day, trivializes romance writers – and readers – in the guise of a serious analysis of the popularity of the genre. Though she purports to seriously delve into the psychology, philosophy and sociology of the phenomenon, she reveals her true hand when she writes “Everybody knows that they are written and read just for kicks.” The writers of romances “are in no way trying to win a Booker Prize,” Bustillos says. As for the readers, “One is supposed to be embarrassed to have a taste for it.”

“I have often wondered whether romance novels mightn’t generally serve the same purpose for women that pornography does for so many men,” she reflects. Fighting words for writers and readers.

The canard that popular literature is written by hacks for low-minded readers goes back as far as Greek and Roman times, and wherever it turns up, including its latest propagation in the hands of Ms. Bustillos, writers and readers need to speak out.

Several years ago we did. “The belletristic establishment regards the world of popular literature as a subculture,” we wrote, “but one could seriously argue that it is really the other way around. Very few ‘serious’ writers make enough money from their writing to support themselves without having to moonlight. Their audiences are often modest in size and elitist in taste. Their work is frequently inaccessible, intellectual, experimental, and sometimes incomprehensible.

“The lives of professional genre writers differ in many significant ways from those of their more literary brothers and sisters,” we argued, citing that among many virtues they are businesslike, disciplined, and sensitively attuned to their readership.

“It is vital for the writing establishment,”to realize that literature is far more than a ladder with junk at the bottom and art at the top. Rather, it is an ecosystem in which the esoteric and the popular commingle, fertilize one another, and interdepend. Principally, if it were not for the immense revenues generated by science fiction, romance, male action-adventure, and other types of popular fiction at which so many literary authors and critics look down their noses, there would be no money for publishers to risk on first novels, experimental fiction, and other types of serious but commercially marginal literary enterprises. Furthermore, from the aspect of the writing craft itself, there are many extremely important lessons for literati to learn from their genre comrades in arms, if only the former would take the trouble to study them.” (See The Two World of Literature: What Serious Writers Can Learn from Genre Comrades in Arms.)

Huffington Post blogger Pauline Millard has another view of chick lit. It has evolved into a more thoughtful and better written form of mainstream women’s literature. “In the past year,” Millard writes, “a different breed of chick lit has appeared with smarter writing and characters. It’s notable not just for the content, but also for what it says about women, and what they are willing to read in their leisure time.” (See Chick Lit Grows Up)

Join the debate. Read Romance Novels, The Last Great Bastion Of Underground Writing by Maria Bustillos.

Richard Curtis
Note to readers: Digital Book World has invited me to post my blogs initially on its website before releasing them on E-Reads, and this content is re-published with DBW’s permission. Click here to view the original posting.

As our government girds for debate over President Obama’s jobs bill, we thought the following article, published here in December 2008, might be relevant.

Richard Curtis

*******************************

December 2008

Among the few special interest groups not petitioning the government for a bailout these days are writers. Paul Greenberg, in the New York Sunday Times Book Review, speculates on what such a rescue package would look like. The bulge of his tongue in cheek is apparent, but underlying his geniality is an important reminder that although the official (according to National Endowment for the Arts) ranks of professional writers are modest at 185,000, their combined voice represents a significant influence on American culture and needs to be heard.

Unlike the crybabies in the financial sectors of our economy pleading with Congress to compensate them for their own greed and stupidity, writers are a proud and independent lot, and though they’re not above pocketing the occasional windfall – an unexpected movie option or foreign sale – I don’t know of many who would go hat in hand to their legislature to lobby for a bailout just because their agent can’t find a publisher for their latest novel.

No, writers don’t want a bailout. What writers want is work, and Greenberg reminds us that in 1935 at the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt acknowledged the value of their profession by creating the Federal Writers’ Project. Over 6,500 writers were put to work writing guidebooks, local and regional histories, photographic essays, oral memoirs and the like. (A film about this era, Soul of a People, is currently in development.) “The most well-known of these publications,” Wikipedia tells us, “were the 48 state guides to America (plus Alaska Territory, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.) known as the American Guide Series.”

President Elect Obama has established, at the heart of his economic recovery program, a plan to rebuild our nation’s long-neglected infrastructure of rutted roads, crumbling dams, rusting bridges and leaking sewers. A student of American history and in particular of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, Obama sees parallels between Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration and Obama’s own determination to put Americans back to work on meaningful projects that will restore pride to its wounded citizens.

I’m relatively certain that the crumbling infrastructure of the publishing business will not be found on the list of federal projects requiring urgent attention. But as our community of writers, journalists and poets surveys the landscape, we see newspaper, magazine and book publishers on a precipitously downward slope. Some of their decline is self-inflicted, through failure to envision, understand, and take advantage of the revolutionary power of digital delivery of information. And some of it is their unavoidable blindsiding by market and technological forces. But whether writers are witting or unwitting victims of upheaval, we find our profession upheaved, and we lift our eyes to our leader for help.

Luckily for us, our leader is a writer (and a damned good one, too). He’s one of us. So, perhaps, as he and his cultured and literate brain-trust set out to repair America’s physical plant, they will recognize that there’s a lot of writing to be done to support and celebrate our nation’s reconstruction and to give it a voice and intellectual underpinning. We’ll need artists, too, and musicians, just as we did when President Roosevelt launched his program to haul his country’s citizens up by their own bootstraps.

President Obama, when you open up those envelopes from your publishers and shake out the handsome royalty checks rewarding you for your inspiring words, remember your fellow writers. They are a priceless resource. Put them to work. They will cost a fraction of what the government is paying to bail out banks and insurance companies and automobile manufacturers (the secret is out – writers will do it for love), and they will reward you and the American people a thousandfold.

Richard Curtis

Those of us who came of age professionally in the era of genre paperbacks think nothing of writers who can produce three or four books a year.  I know of many capable of turning out more than that, and I myself wrote some in twenty days when I was indentured to the muse at the outset of my career.  It was no big deal: 2500 words a day for twenty days and I had a book for which I was paid $1500.

I hear you asking “How good could the books have been?”  They were good books, and they paid for a lot of good things. (See The Two Worlds of Literature: What Serious Writers Can Learn from Genre Comrades in Arms)

These observations were prompted by an article by Dwight Garner in the New York Times‘s “Riff” feature talking about authors who write infrequently. Perhaps not as infrequently as the comets in Garner’s simile, but infrequently enough to measure the distance between published works in decades.

Academic writers are not the only subspecies of the literary profession who worry about perishing if they don’t publish.  The book industry has inculcated a rhythm in the minds of successful authors that calls for at least one book a year else they fall out of the public’s consciousness and plunge into the slough of obscurity.  Yet there is something to be said for the writer who toils for years and years, tears up and revises and reconceives and rejiggers and will not release his manuscript until he is damned good and ready.  And because publication of such epic and epochal works is an event, nobody carps on the fact that the last book was published five or ten years ago or longer.

The interesting thing about Garner’s article is his contention that the trend in publication periodicity seems to be longer and, unlike those writers of the previous generation who went into paroxysms of terror if they didn’t have a book out at least annually, the new generation seems to be quite okay with a casual if not glacial pace.

Read Dear Important Novelists: Be Less Like Moses and More Like Howard Cosell

Richard Curtis

When I went into the publishing business after graduating from college, I discovered a literary culture so lastly different from the ones I had studied that I could scarcely find any common ground between them. This world was populated by romance, science fiction and fantasy, and male action-adventure writers, by pulpsters, pornographers, and countless others who earn their living producing genre books.

Since then, I have become a citizen of that world, both as a writer and as a literary agent representing other writers of category fiction. I have come to know and respect, to admire and even love this world and its denizens and have had the privilege of attending the birth of some works that have come to be regarded as masterpieces of their genres. But I have also become increasingly concerned about how little is known about this world by the writers and critics who dominate the world of serious literature. And I’ve concluded that we are all a little poorer for these gaps in awareness, appreciation, and communication.

To read more, click here.

Richard Curtis

When I went into the publishing business after graduating from college, I discovered a literary culture so lastly different from the ones I had studied that I could scarcely find any common ground between them. This world was populated by romance, science fiction and fantasy, and male action-adventure writers, by pulpsters, pornographers, and countless others who earn their living producing genre books.

Since then, I have become a citizen of that world, both as a writer and as a literary agent representing other writers of category fiction. I have come to know and respect, to admire and even love this world and its denizens and have had the privilege of attending the birth of some works that have come to be regarded as masterpieces of their genres. But I have also become increasingly concerned about how little is known about this world by the writers and critics who dominate the world of serious literature. And I’ve concluded that we are all a little poorer for these gaps in awareness, appreciation, and communication.

The belletristic establishment regards the world of popular literature as a subculture, but one could seriously argue that it is really the other way around. Very few “serious” writers make enough money from their writing to support themselves without having to moonlight. Their audiences are often modest in size and elitist in taste. Their work is frequently inaccessible, intellectual, experimental, and sometimes incomprehensible. Literary authors are often isolated from their fellow writers both physically and artistically, so that they have little sense of community or opportunities for intellectual cross-pollination.

The Professional World

Now look at the world of genre literature. Is purveyors are professional authors most of whom earn a comfortable living and many of whom earn a substantial one, all without having to rely on non-writing jobs to supplement their incomes. These authors reach a wide audience: Because many write original paperbacks, they can count on a minimum readership numbering in the hundreds of thousands and even millions. Their prose style and craftsmanship range from competent (they must at least be competent to sell their work to publishers) to superb; I will stake my career on the assertion that the craftsmanship and prose to be found in the best genre books matches or exceeds that found in the work of many so-called literary stars.

Professional writers enjoy a strong sense of cohesiveness and mutual support that is lacking in the world of belles-lettres. Professional science fiction, western, romance, and mystery writers belong to guildlike organizations that publish newsletters, hold conventions, and lobby for improvement of terms and conditions for their constituent authors. Taken altogether, these factors suggest that the life of the professional writer is far better integrated into the social fabric than that of the literary author. Genre writers might be likened to the guild artisans of medieval times, with the exception that the
Medieval craftsmen had the respect of their peers and patrons and were completely integrated into the community.

I have frequently pondered what it is that separates these two worlds of literary endeavor, and can think of a number of elements. One is ideas. The world of serious literature stresses the primacy of ideas, and the format of serious literature is designed to express those ideas. Another critical element is viewpoint: the serious author’s viewpoint, or vision, is what makes those ideas fresh and special. And then there is style, the unique garb in which the author’s ideas are dressed. The most interesting authors are able to identify themselves after a page or two because of what they have to say and how they say it. All too often, however, that format is not accessible to the mass reader because it doesn’t follow the universal verities that, as Aristotle contended, humankind supposedly responds to. It is sometimes remote, dislocated, overly stylized, tedious, or just plain badly constructed and expressed. But the authors, and presumably their audiences, don’t necessarily care as long as the essential idea is conveyed in a stimulating way.

The Story Element

Few professional authors approach their work this way; not, at least, if they want to stay in business. In the value system of the professional author, the most important element is story, for stories are what pros are paid to write, and those who are paid the most are the ones who write the best stories and write stories best. Ideas may be articulated, certainly, but only insofar as they help delineate the viewpoint of the characters themselves. Professional authors never allow their own ideas or viewpoint to override those of the characters who people their books, and the idea of calling attention to themselves through unique stylistic techniques are totally alien to them. Indeed, if a professional novelist slows the pace of his or her book to express some personal viewpoint, or distracts the reader’s involvement with the story by employing stylistic gimmicks, he or she can expect the editor to come down very hard on the offending passage with a blue pencil. Totally unlike serious literature, it is often impossible, upon reading a popular novel, to guess who the author is, so well disguised is he or she behind the excellence of the tale itself. And that is the way that they, their publishers and their readers like it.

The lives of professional genre writers differ in many significant ways from those of their more literary brothers and sisters, and indeed from the romantic image so many people have of the way writers are supposed to live. They are, for example, extremely businesslike, or at least extremely concerned with the business of writing. They study the provisions of their publishing contracts carefully and actively consult with their agents in the negotiating dialogues with publishers. They know the market value of their work before they sell it, sometimes within $500 or $1,000, and in fact, most of them sell their work before they write it, lining up contracts (often for more than one book at a time) in advance. They approach the work at hand in a businesslike fashion as well. Because genre book lines have specific word-length requirements to fit them into the publishers’ rigid price and marketing structures, writers have to design their manuscripts to those lengths and to pace the development and dramatic flow of their books so that all is resolved within 60.000, 75,000 or 100,000 words.

The Importance of Discipline

Which leads us to another quality of the professional writer: discipline. Inspiration as it is commonly understood plays little part in the life of the genre author, for, as we have seen, ideas are subordinate to story in his value system. Having selected a milieu or location, outlined a story, and sketched the cast of characters, the writer then tackles the job the way a skilled carpenter might approach the building of a piece of furniture, day by day, piece by piece. Of paramount importance is the outline. The synopsis of genre books are often highly detailed and broken down chapter by chapter scene by scene, so that every day, when writers sit down at their desks, they know precisely what work is cut out for them. It is here, in the daily task of writing the book itself, that inspiration plays a role. As the author follows his or her outline, the nuances of character, the details of time and place, the fine points of story and complications of plot flow endlessly onto the page from a source that is wondrous and mystifying. Characters take on lives and wills of their own. Struggling with the author for control of the work (and sometimes, to the writer’s astonishment, winning).

This day-to-day grind with its little pleasures, epiphanies, and triumphs may not be as romantic as the Big Bang variety of inspiration we usually associate with art, but does enable professional writers to get their work done no matter how ill, rotten, depressed, exhausted, or bereft of spirit they may feel on any given day: “You turn it on,” they will tell you, “and out it comes.” Writer’s block is therefore seldom a problem for professional authors, and besides, it’s a luxury they cannot afford. These writers know pretty much to the word how much they can write daily before growing fatigued: two thousand words, say, or twenty manuscript pages or three chapters of work that is consistently good, often good enough to be acceptable in a single draft. They can therefore predict almost to the day when they will be turning their manuscripts in to their publishers. This is critically important in order for the author to project income flow. It is equally important for the publisher to be able to count on reliable production in order to schedule books far in advance with relative confidence. Because covers and monthly catalogues are produced by paperback publishers before manuscripts are actually in hand and sales people solicit orders months before publication, the failure of an author to deliver a book on schedule is a nightmare that haunts editors. Reliability therefore becomes the prime virtue of professional writers.

Demands of the Marketplace

Unlike so many literary authors, professional writers are intensely attuned to the demands of the literary marketplace, because their lives and livings depend on its fluctuations. Genres go in and out of style, and heaven help the author who doesn’t adapt to a trend. As I write, science fiction is holding steady but fantasy is booming, westerns and horror are weak, cozy mysteries are strong and paranormal romance is huge. Authors working in these genres are expected to know about such cycles, indeed to know about nuances within the cycles: that within the fantasy genre, for example, the subspecies known as sword-and-sorcery is not very much in demand (as I write this, at any rate).

Like professionals in other fields of endeavor, professional writers exchange information with each other about the state of their fields. They belong to organizations devoted specifically to their genres, such as The Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, Western Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and Romance Writers of America. These organizations have websites and regularly publish newsletters profiling leading writers in their field, offering market reports about which publishers are buying what material, how much they’re paying, and whom to contact. Annual national conventions (and frequent regional ones as well) are held. There, organization members exchange information, conduct seminars, meet agents and editors, and honor their own for achievements in various categories. These meetings are usually well attended by representatives of the publishing industry and offer writers and editors an opportunity to conduct business on a less formal basis than is customary.

While I realize I’ve painted a black and white picture, discussions I’ve had with countless writers in all fields strongly suggest that the polarity of admiration and emulation runs from genre writers to mainstream ones but not vice versa. Oh, from time to time, a mainstream author will confess a secret passion for genre fiction that can be likened to a craving for junk food, and on occasion a mainstream author will cross over into genre fiction by writing a science fiction or mystery novel, a sort of literary equivalent of slumming. But these are exceptions that play up the rule that most literary authors don’t feel genre writers have anything to say to them. That this is arrant snobbery goes without saying. I also happen to feel it is bad thinking.

The time has come for serious writers to pay far more attention to their genre colleagues than they have done up to now. The increasingly monolithic publishing industry now concentrates such power that the livelihoods and freedom of expression of writers of every kind are seriously threatened. As publishers focus more intently each year on producing blockbuster bestsellers to carry their bottom lines, the time and space in which writers can develop shrinks, meaning they are being forced to mature far too early. As the spawning grounds for writers get squeezed harder and harder by economic exigencies, the pressure on tenderly budding talents to turn out commercial successes becomes more and more intense. This disease has spread from giant bookstore chains to publishing
conglomerates and has now infected the thinking of authors of every stripe, who feel their only choices are to hit the pot of gold on the first shot or become computer programmers or insurance salesmen.

When I entered the publishing business, a writer could still cherish – and achieve – the fantasy of a quiet life of literary accomplishment, a life in which one could be content with a modest living and the admiration of a small but dedicated audience. Today, this notion is so laughably out of date that I cannot imagine anyone seriously harboring it. More to the point is that if anybody did, it would be impossible to achieve it. And I believe there is worse ahead: as the conglomeratization of the publishing industry continues, it is possible that literature will no longer be a place in which writers achieve any dreams at all save that of getting rich writing stuff they don’t give a damn about. If this vision seems excessively dark, you have only to listen to the complaints of television writers in order to foresee the future.

The Publishing Ecosystem

It is vital for the writing establishment to realize that literature is far more than a ladder with junk at the bottom and art at the top. Rather, it is an ecosystem in which the esoteric and the popular commingle, fertilize one another, and interdepend. Principally, if it were not for the immense revenues generated by science fiction, romance, male action-adventure, and other types of popular fiction at which so many literary authors and critics look down their noses, there would be no money for publishers to risk on first novels, experimental fiction, and other types of serious but commercially marginal literary enterprises. Furthermore, from the aspect of the writing craft itself, there are many extremely important lessons for literati to learn from their genre comrades in arms, if only the former would take the trouble to study them. Although serious writers tend to reject formula plotting, for instance, they sooner or later realize that if they wish to reach any kind of audience at all, they will have to construct at least a minimum of formula skeleton for their works. When they do realize it, they have but to visit the popular literature departments of their local bookstores to discover a trove of skillfully fashioned works to teach them about creating sympathetic heroes and heroines,
daunting conflicts and antagonists, masterful pacing, and the building of dramatic tension to a thrilling climax and a satisfying ending.

And there is more: pride and professionalism, skill and discipline, reliability, attention to the business aspects of the writer’s trade, a healthy respect for publishers and for the vast audiences that publishers speak for – these are among the lessons waiting to be learned by those on the other side of the gulf that separates the two worlds. Above all, serious writers stand to discover that they by no means have a monopoly on integrity. And because the integrity of all writers is now in jeopardy, it is incumbent on those of both worlds to talk and listen to each other, read each other and, above all, respect each other.

Richard Curtis

This article was originally written for Locus, The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field and reprinted in the Winter1992 issue of the Writers Guild Bulletin. I’ve made a few modifications to bring it up to date, at least as of 2008. Copyright © 1990 by Richard Curtis

The idea guy in Poughkeepsie

Most publishing people can relate to the following scenario: You are attending a party and are introduced to another guest. “So, what line of business are you in?” the guest asks, a respected opening social gambit.
“I’m in the publishing business,” you reply. “I work with authors.”
“Hey, that’s great. You must lead a really interesting life.”

He then goes on to explain that he is a postal clerk, a fabric salesman, a dishwasher repairman, a sanitation worker. Your companion suddenly brightens. “Hey, you may be just the guy I’ve been looking for!” He then takes you by the arm and furtively escorts you to an isolated corner of the room. Your stomach begins to sink, because you know what’s coming.

His eyes dart suspiciously from guest to guest as he takes you by the lapels and puts his mouth close to your ear. “You got any writers looking for a great idea? Because I’ve got one! I would write it myself, but I don’t have the time or the talent. But if you got somebody, I’ll go in with him, fifty-fifty.”

You look past him, seeking your host to rescue you, but it is hopeless. The fellow has an iron grip on your lapels. “Okay, I’ll tell you the idea if you swear not to tell another soul.”
“Stack of Bibles,” you say, raising your palm to the sky.
He leans even closer. “Okay. What it is, is . . .”

What it is, is usually awful. But even if it isn’t, the truth is that I cannot help him. For how can I explain to him that the last thing that professional writers need is ideas, that most of the writers I know have enough ideas to last a lifetime? They may need time, yes. They may need money. They may need peace and quiet. They certainly need love. But the one thing they have more than enough of is ideas.

Most people who have never seriously attempted to write books subscribe to what might be termed the Big Bang theory of inspiration. They perceive artistic ideas to be stupendous epiphanies that are visited once in a lifetime on a chosen few, like Moses receiving the Ten Commandments from God.

There is no denying that many sublime works of art, music, and literature are born that way. Most of us take ideas for granted, and why shouldn’t we? We have dozens of them every day, and seldom do they seem to be of such moment that we pause in wonder to contemplate their splendor. Only when we examine books, pictures, and other artistic endeavors closely do we think about the intellectual processes that gave birth to them, and if these works are truly great, we may well be reminded that the generation of ideas is a phenomenon worthy of genuine reverence. By what occult mechanism they originate is surely as unknowable as how life itself was first created. Indeed, as the word “inspiration” literally means the entering of spirit into that which was hitherto lifeless, it could well be said that at no time are humans closer to divine than when they are inspired with noble ideas.

But ask a professional writer about his ideas and he may well respond as inarticulately as my friend at the party. In all likelihood, he’ll ask, “Which ideas?” because he’s got a million of them, and his biggest problem is choosing one. His next biggest problem is finding the time and money to develop it. For this kind of writer, the real inspiration comes when he is writing. It magically flows from a remote region of his unconscious into his fingertips and seems almost unfailingly to illuminate every character description, every plot twist, every metaphor, perhaps every sentence.

Big Bang? No, the image of a water tap is probably more apposite. Turn it on for an hour or two and out comes a daily ration of good, maybe great work. I hesitate to say “inspired” because most professional writers are too modest and self-critical to call it that. But the creative process by which literature—even popular literature—is produced may legitimately be described as miraculous.

At first glance, most people would say that literary agents operate far from this ethereal realm of ideas. After all, we make our livings appraising the value of the commodities known as books, and helping the producers of those commodities turn them into hard cash. But look again. Unlike rug dealers, car salesmen, or bond brokers, the merchandise we traffic in is intellectual. Our stock in trade is ideas, ideas that have been smelted and fashioned by authors into the precious metal called literature. A manuscript may be no more than a pound or two of paper, but when an agent pitches that book to an editor, it isn’t the value of the paper he’s describing. It’s the value of the idea.

As I talk with an author about ideas, I ask myself some very pragmatic questions. How do those ideas fit in with the author’s career goals and financial circumstances? He may have a magnificent vision that takes my breath away, but where is he going to find the forty thousand dollars he needs to write that book under the tranquil conditions he requires, particularly since he is currently getting five thousand dollars a book!
Another thing I look and listen for is energy. An author may well have dozens of ideas for books, but he does not hold them all equally dear. When writers relate their ideas to me, do their eyes kindle with fire and their voices resonate with passion? Do they gesture frenetically with their hands or seem to lapse into a sort of trance? Do they speak in a singsong tone, as if it’s all the same to them which book they write and which one they abandon?

The agent who encourages an author to develop the wrong idea, or who doesn’t help him realize an idea fully, or who doesn’t take into account that idea’s appropriateness for its intended market, or doesn’t consider an idea in the context of an author’s talent and skill, or doesn’t calculate the time and money that the author will require to fulfill his idea—that agent may inflict serious harm on his client’s career.

It’s a very big responsibility, and my fellow agents and I worry about it a lot.

Once we are satisfied that we have the right idea, and that we have it where we want it, we must help the author develop it into an outline form that is useful both as a scenario for the writer to follow and as a sales instrument we can pitch to publishers. The two functions can differ vastly, however. The key difference is that in the latter, the idea is presented with as much intensity as author and agent can possibly endow it with. We try to boil a book’s complexity down to its very essence, and to articulate that essence with words that stimulate associations in editors’ minds with such abstractions as beauty, as well as with less abstract values like profit. We strive (and sometimes slave) to make every word of description pique an editor’s imagination.

Obviously, many and perhaps most books are more complex than any one-line summary can possibly convey. And many of them are not half as good. One agent friend of mine is fond of saying that his idea of a book is usually a lot better than the book itself. “I don’t sell the book, I sell my idea of the book,” he says.

The process doesn’t stop with the agent’s pitch to the editor. It continues down the line as the editor tries to conceptualize the book for his or her colleagues. The publisher’s sales force must in turn transmit the idea to the bookstore buyer, and the store’s sales staff must get the message across to its customers. And because no one in this chain of people has a great deal of time (including the customer), the idea must be expressed in the pithiest possible way, otherwise attention may wander and the sale will be lost. So we all practice refining our descriptions of books into concepts that are so concentrated and potent they are practically radioactive. And we use a wide variety of audio and visual aids to get the idea across: good titles and subtitles, eye-catching covers, arresting dust jacket blurbs, intriguing advertising copy, plugs by celebrities.

What concerns me is that the publishing business is becoming entirely too idea-driven. In our frenzy to encapsulate concepts so that we can sell them to each other effectively, we may well be forgetting that it is not the idea that excites us when we read a book, not the idea that makes us laugh or cry or stay up to the small hours turning pages raptly while our hearts thunder with the thrill and suspense and tragedy and comedy of it. It’s the way the author realizes that idea and evokes it in our own imaginations. To put it succinctly, it’s good writing. But there is a tendency today to presell great ideas—we call them “high concepts” in the trade—then develop them in predictably formulaic plots and package them for an audience that has been conditioned for formulas by television.

But remember, if you’re really stuck for a good idea, there’s always that guy in Poughkeepsie…

- Richard Curtis

This article was originally written for Locus, The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field. It’s reprinted in Mastering the Business of Writing. Copyright © 1990 by Richard Curtis. All Rights Reserved.

Are you an And? A With? An As Told To?  A Ghost? Wherever you stand on the co-author ladder, there’s a good chance that sooner or later your partner will blame you for his own screwup.

The latest example is author Greg Mortensen’s  explanation for alleged factual lapses in his bestselling memoir Three Cups of Tea, written with David Oliver Relin.

How are co-authors selected? How are their qualifications evaluated? What is the legal relationship between authors and co-authors? The answers can be found in a two part piece we’ve posted, Collaborations,Part 1 and Part 2, but to summarize:

Generally speaking, co-authors are usually recommended to principal authors by their agents or publishers. The writers are seasoned professionals and are considered reliable, responsible and reputable. They are almost invariably skillful and, like members of an elite guild, proud of their craftsmanship.

Because in most instances they are equally liable with the principal author for libel, plagiarism or other claims, they must be diligent researchers who double-check every fact, take scrupulous notes at interviews, and accept no statement at face value made by the author. In fact they must be doubly diligent, covering not just their own ass but the author’s, too, because that author is all too often too busy, distracted or impatient to bother with details. Co-authors know that if they screw up, they may never work in this town again.

In the case of Three Cups of Tea, co-author Relin was recommended to Mortensen, presumably because Relin possessed the above qualifications.  Certainly, when the book rode high on the bestseller lists and minted tons of royalties, the choice of Relin was regarded as brilliant.  When doubts were cast on the book, however, the blame game began, and questions about Relin’s role were raised.  Rather than stand up for his co-author, Mortensen pointed a finger at him.

In an exclusive interview with Alex Heard posted on OutsideOnline.com, Mortensen explained himself thus:

It’s really complicated, but I’m not a journalist. I don’t take a lot of notes. David and I collaborated. He did nearly all the writing, and along with hundreds of interviews of those involved in the story, I helped him piece together the whole timeline, and from that we started creating the narrative arc and everything.

David insisted on writing the book in third person, which is really awkward. The publisher said, Greg, you’re too understated, so this needs to be in the third person. My wife, Tara, also told me that if I wrote a book, it would be a pamphlet.

What happens then is, when you re-create the scenes, you have my recollections, the different memories of those involved, you have his writing, and sometimes things come out different. In order to be convenient, there were some omissions. If we included everything I did from 1993 to 2003 it would take three books to write it. So there were some omissions and compressions, and … I don’t know, what that’s called?

Literary license?

Yeah. So, rather than me going two or three times to one place, he would synthesize it into one trip. I would squawk about it and be told that it would all work out.

What Relin’s role was in errors of fact, we don’t and may never know, but we’re pretty skeptical that it was his fault. Writers take the fall all too often for the foibles, follies and failures of their higher-profile principals. Co-writers don’t complain when someone gets rich riding on their backs. But they have every right to speak out when their riders kick them.  We need to stand up for collaborators.

Richard Curtis

From time to time we bring back some of the more popular articles and blogs posted on E-Reads. This one is from December 2009.

*****************************

Few authors realize it, but one of the most important reasons for hiring agents is that they have a superior sense of timing. “Timing is everything” might almost be called the agent’s motto (“Patience is everything else” might be considered the agent’s second motto). The most successful agents are those who understand that there is a season to push and a season to ease up, a season to fight and a season to turn the back, a season to watch and wait and a season to strike. Sometimes the moment presents itself on a platter; sometimes it has to be worked with brute force like steel on a smithy’s anvil. And there are times when, for all an agent’s scheming, for all his exertions, for all his manipulations, he simply cannot make the thing happen. (That’s usually a signal for me to go shopping.)

To understand timing – and test your instincts against your agent’s – click here.

Richard Curtis

A few weeks ago, a writer named Jeff Tohline emailed me asking a simple question: “What is the single biggest mistake writers make when querying you?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Meets“, I fired back at him. “As in The DaVinci Code Meets Genesis. As in Crime and Punishment Meets The Shining. As in Buffy Meets Dracula.” “Send me a ‘Meets‘ and you’re deleted,” I said. Perhaps I was a bit arbitrary, but that phrase, derived from Hollywood pitch lines that were clever in their day (the 20th century) but have become a stale convention in ours. So – writers beware.

Tohline’s query was sent to some 100 of my agent colleagues and the comments by the 50 who responded are well worth every aspiring writer’s time. I didn’t find anyone else who complained about “meets” but I did discover that…

Three agents complained about “Go to my website for a sample of my work…”, four about pitching their book’s sequel, five about unproofread queries, nine about queries addressed to “Dear Agent”, and fourteen about authors who have no clue what the agency handles or what its submission guidelines are.

Many agents amplified on their peeves.

Michael Murphy of Max & Co.: “The answer to your question is an easy one. The single biggest mistake writers make when querying me is sending manuscripts for areas I do not represent. On my website, in all my interviews, and I believe in most websites that list areas of interest for each agent, it is quite clearly stated that I do not represent YA, prescription (How To) nonfiction, nor genre fiction (SF, fantasy, romance, thrillers). Yet almost half the queries I receive are for these very categories.”

Gina Panettieri: “Don’t try to cut corners by simply referring agents to your website rather than writing a well-prepared query. It’s great to let us know about your website and we can check it out to get more info about you and your book, but we’ll only do that IF you’ve intrigued us with your knock-out query!”

Pam Ahearn: “‘This will be a bestseller and make you very rich.’ Let’s start with getting the agent to read 5 pages before you start thinking about the fortune you’re going to help them make!”

Heather Mitchell: “It all comes down to the writing. An agent’s first peek at the quality of the writing comes from the query letter. You would be amazed at the number of authors who write long, drawn out, messy queries. A query letter should be a tease – a taste for more to come. Don’t give it all away on the first date, and please, show up clean and polished.”

Want to know why your submissions come back from agents faster than a tennis serve? Read The Biggest Mistakes Writers Make When Querying Literary Agents.

Richard Curtis

Years ago when I was learning the writing trade I was part of a group of writers who wrote dirty books. They weren’t very dirty – most contemporary romances today are far raunchier.  But it was a living. Once a week we convened at the apartment of one of the writers and played poker. One of us would sit out the hand and go into our host’s study where a typewriter was set up.  He would write the first chapter of a sex novel.  When the chapter was completed he returned to the game and another writer took his place and wrote chapter 2.  By the end of three or four evenings we had a complete manuscript.  We mailed it off to the publisher and divided the payment among ourselves, setting a tithe aside for beer and potato chips.

The time it took us to write the book, i figure, was about 12 hours.

I conjured this memory upon reading that November 1st was the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, cacophonously  nicknamed “NaNoWriMo” by its founding sponsors. According to The Independent, this month “Hundreds of thousands of aspiring novelists around the world will put pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard – tomorrow with the intention of turning out a 50,000-word book in only 30 days.”

As daunting as that challenge may sound to civilians, Andrew Johnson points out that quickie classics are far from uncommon. “Graham Greene wrote one of his most popular novels, The Confidential Agent, in only six weeks… A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens, written in six weeks in 1843… As I Lay Dying By William Faulkner, written in six weeks in 1930… The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie By Muriel Spark, written in one month in 1960… King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard, written in six weeks in 1885… And The Gambler By Fyodor Dostoyevsky, written in 26 days in 1866.”

You can read about it in  In just 30 days, you too can write a masterpiece, and if you think it’s all bunkum you might read Drew Smith’s account in Publishing Perspectives of how he replaced some bad habits, like sloth and procrastination, with good ones and got himself back into the writing groove.  Here they are in condensed form:

• 1. Choose a different time to write every day, thereby teaching yourself that you can write wherever and whenever you choose. Enough with the excuses.
• 2. Pressure yourself. Find an “accountabilibuddy” to monitor progress and push you every day to complete your task.
• 3. Record daily progress with a big red X on your calendar. In time you will have a “chain of days” that becomes more and more comfortable to maintain and harder and harder to break.

Check out Smith’s testimonial here.

By the way, though our dirty book commune never produced a classic, many of the writers went on to successful careers. Prolific ones, too, totaling thousands of books amongst them. Who are they?  That’s for me to know and you to find out. I can however tell you that I lost about $350 to those card sharps.  I just don’t have a poker face, I guess.

Richard Curtis