Word Count

Jess has asked this question:

“In all your years of writing books, did you ever come up short in word count?”

Word count never came up until I signed with Ballantine about five years ago.  No one said anything about it.  I wrote until it was finished. Some books were longer than others.  I guess I went by feel.  Or to put it another way, the characters told me when it was time to get out of there.

Then when I got the Ballantine contract it said I had to turn in a book with 95,000 words.  I’d never seen anything like that in a contract before.  I’d spent my career paring down my writing.  My aim was to not have a wasted word. The joke was on me.

Years ago 65,000 words was the length of the average novel. Thomas Wolfe was an exception. I had no idea what word count I had in any novel I’d published.  But I felt that 95,000 words might be too many for a P.I. novel.  I got them to agree to 85,000, which I still thought might be too long, but I had to sign the contract with that word count. And my book came in around that length.

Still, I think dictating the amount of words a writer must punch out is destructive.  Sometimes a very long novel is self-indulgent.  I can think of quite a few.  On the other hand, very short novels might leave a reader feeling cheated. 

If you’re worried about getting a book up to a certain word count you’re bound to load it with filler. We’ve all read books like this and it’s a big bore.  Even if it lands on the bestseller list.  Boring.

A writer must do what he/she feels comfortable with.  Thinking about word counts might take the life out of the novel especially if you’re new at writing.  But times have changed and publishing houses have new rules. 

I think it’s sad that these rules and regulations have come into play.  Asking for a specific word count is as bad as asking a writer to write a book like Dan Brown or Mary Higgins Clark.  Or Virginia Wolfe.  But no one would ask you to write like her.

If getting published is more important to you than writing what you want to write then, by all means, do your word count.

I believe you have to write like you and you have to write until you come to the end.

Quote

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."

Truman Capote

FRIDAYS: The Book You Have to Read.

From Patti Abbott

This is the first of what I perhaps overly optimistically hope will become Friday recommendations of books we might have forgotten over the years. Not just from me, but from everyone. I have asked several people to join with me today and recommend favorite books of theirs. Their blog sites are listed below. I also asked each of them to tag someone to recommend a book for next Friday.

I’m worried that we are letting some great books of the recent past slide out of print and out of our consciousness. Not the first-tier classics we can all name perhaps, but that group of books that comes next. If you read a book that someone recommends, please call our attention to that too. It would be nice to think a recommendation had an impact on someone somewhere.

Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

If you’re looking for a fast read, this isn’t for you. Bowen's people are keenly aware and the reader must stay right there with her, because hidden among lengthy descriptions of sea air and drawing-room politics are terse asides.

This is a story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties. Portia, an orphan, comes to live in London with her half-brother, Thomas, and his wife, Anna.

It’s Portia’s innocence that causes so much trouble. She isn’t trained to deal with London society or with boys or with the isolation she endures. Anna and Thomas live dull, sterile lives.

Unfortunately for Portia, she falls in with Anna's friend Eddie, who seems to be made entirely of bad motives. Though the plot follows Portia's relationship with Eddie, the novel's real tension lies between Portia and Anna.

There is a stunning romantic betrayal and it sets in motion one of the most moving and desperate flights of the heart in modern literature.

For me this is the best of Bowen’s novels.

For the others go to Patti's Blog

Tomorrow

Even though this is a writing blog tomorrow will be different, especially since I’m not writing. Although I did change part of the page and a half I have from first person to third. Does that count?

Patti Abbott has come up with an idea that is quite interesting and I’m participating. So check back tomorrow.

 

Quote

"There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily."

Anthony Trollope

A Little Bit Pregnant?

I’ve written about a page and a half since I last posted here.  Yes, I have an idea.  And I find myself thinking about it especially as I read other people’s books.

Am I working my way toward a disciplined life again?  Am I going to find a new way to work?  Am I going to work at all?  Will I stick to this idea in some way?

I don’t know any of those answers.  I guess I’ll wait and see.  Or write and see. 

I do like the idea. That’s something.  Still, I don’t like the thought of a schedule.  Perhaps that will pass.  Now that I have an idea I like and think I can execute, everything might fall into place.  Yeah, right!

Teasing Me

On Monday, while I was reading, an idea came to me.  I made notes. I put them into my computer.  I felt excited.

On Tuesday I couldn’t care less.

On Wednsday I thought about it again.  It interested me. Maybe, I thought, maybe….

Today I couldn’t care less.

Quote

"The mere habit of writing, of constantly keeping at it, of never giving up, ultimately teaches you how to write."

Gabriel Fielding

Double Take

This morning I was flipping through Crimspree Magazine and came to an ad by Echelon Press.  I was stopped still when I saw the jacket of a novel by Robert Goldsborough.  Except for the cigarette in the woman’s mouth, it is the same jacket on the the large print edition of This Dame for Hire.  Clean Feet Design is credited for my book.  I wonder if Clean Feet knows they’ve been used at least twice.  I guess so. I hope they get paid for this.

I think somebody did an article, either on the Internet or in a magazine, about this practice.  I don’t know why but I keep thinking Sarah Weinman did it on Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind.  Has anybody else come across this with a book they’ve written?

I got an email from someone I’d told that I was no longer writing. This is what he wrote to me in reply: “If you are genuinely happy without the writing, more power to you.  I don't seem to be able to shake the bug and am hard at work on a book about my father.”

The annoying thing about this is that this man self-publishes and seems to only write about himself and his family.  No fiction.   He’s retired.  He doesn’t take in that my writing was my career, my job.  And clearly doesn’t get that my life’s work had nothing to do with a bug.  Yes, I’m grouchy.  I would write him a scathing letter except that he’s married to my favorite cousin.

Which leads me to something I was thinking about yesterday.  I used to have this saying on my bulletin board:  “I think there’s truth in what you say.”  The late Edward (Ned) Stewart told me to say that, or a version of it, when talking to my agent or an editor.  This was because of my prickly personality.  I know this comes as a shock to some of you, but, yes, I did have an abrupt style once upon a time.  But all that isn’t my point.

Remembering that sign led me to the other sign I had on my bulletin board.  “Advance the Story” in big black letters. They are important words.  And I wrote by them.  Most of the time.

No matter what kind of novel you’re writing the main thing is to advance the story.  That should be your goal.  If it is, it will keep you from going off on tangents, doing set pieces, throwing in a dream that bores the hell out of readers, ruminating on the weather, the scenery, the silverware or any other thing that has no business being there.  Unless it’s a sentence or two, but even then if it doesn’t move the story along, drop it.

I want to read a well-written book, but I’m not interested in pyrotechnic writing.

I just finished Richard Price’s Lush Life.  He doesn’t waste a word.  There’s one dream the book could do without.  It didn’t tell me anything and didn’t advance the story.  It was slightly irritating because it was a page and a half long. But if you’re Richard Price you can get away with it.  Almost.

I suggest that you take a piece of white letter-sized paper, turn it so it’s horizontal and in black magic marker write ADVANCE THE STORY and pin it up where you can see it as you write.

Or don’t.

Disappearing Act

My Medialist disappeared around March 6th or 7th. This is where I listed my recommended books. The website has no new entries after March 8th. I think it’s over. I wish I could find another site that would allow me to do what I did with Medialist. If anyone knows of one I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.

I’ve made my own recommendation list and I’m starting over because I don’t remember what was on there. It isn’t as pretty as the old one but I guess this list isn’t about pretty.

Obviously the Medialist came back since I wrote that.

And speaking of disappearing, I haven’t. I’m still around and still not feeling guilty about not writing. I’ve been following Laura Lippman's book tour and feeling happy for her and happy it’s not me. I could never do a tour like hers. The most I ever did was two weeks and I found it exhausting. I couldn’t even do two weeks now. Fortunately, no one is asking me to.

I had a short period in which I was unable to read. I found that awful. But now I can. I have a bunch of books lined up and you can see the one I finished on my jerry-rigged list.

When I read a wonderful novel like Lush Life I do feel a bit nostalgic for the act of writing. Not that I could write a book like Price’s. That’s not the point. But there’s a part of me that wants to be in that state…the state of creation. There’s no better state to be in, I think. Even when it’s not going well. Still, I’m not interested or ready to go back to my schedule.

Jess has suggested that I write about “plotting, characterization, making setting come alive--whatever.” I’m not a teacher but I might be able to do this if asked a specific question. I promise nothing.