Dear NYT Bestseller,
Perhaps you weren't listening at our August meeting when Maggie Lynch from the Portland Chapter told us to read contest entries as if they were bestsellers. Maybe your mocha couldn't get around your cheese quesadilla and you thought she said, "Write bestsellers as if they were contest entries."
Had it not been for the glossy cover with your trademark sassy & fun cover that made me plunk down my $4.99, I would have thought I missed one in that last round of judging. You do not take an extremely likable hero and heroine and spend the FIRST SIXTY FREAKING PAGES mired in backstory and narrative. Long, winding, pointless backstory. NO ACTION. NONE. NONE. Heck, I'm just now on page 61 and the hero and heroine are about to meet. And nothing NOTHING else has happened other than set-up. Yes, you've got an amazing voice (10! 10! 10!) and you could probably make a grocery list readable, but you're not going to sell based on voice alone.
Oh wait.
You did.
In fact you sold ME. I, with no book budget at all, saw your shining moniker in a weak moment and snuck you home behind the detergent and baby food. Once upon a time, you knew how to plot. You've got the slot on my keeper shelves to prove it, and they don't exactly hand out RITA's for "Best Backstory in a Non-Novel." You were good. Scary good. Then what happened?
You got smacked with a big ol' dose of J.K. Rowlings disease--thy editor is in awe of you, and no longer speaks up to actually EDIT. Maybe you signed up for too many books this year. Maybe you had other stuff going on in your life. Maybe you resurrected this one from under the bed in a desperate attempt to turn your discards into college funds, but sister, let me tell you, if it didn't have your name affixed to it, I don't think it would have made it out of the first round of judging.
Now, while your latest work is lodged firmly under MY bed now, and won't be seeing the light of day until I trade it away, I'm not willing to give up on you get. You're no longer an auto-buy for me, but I'll let you keep your library privileges. Maybe this one WAS a fluke. You've got too much talent rattling around in there to let yourself off the hook so easily as you did with this go-around. You need to dig deeper and fulfill the promise you make to readers when they pickup a book with your name on it.
And how can you do that? It's simple "Write as if it's a contest entry!" Wait. I know you're thinking "But that's exactly what I did! Isn't that what you've been yelling about?"
Um. No. You wrote a bad parody of a contest entry. What you need to do is to write like you've never sold before, like you'd sell your left kidney to make the GH finals, like getting an editor or agent to read past the partial would be your own personal Everest. THEN. Then, you'll have a shot at reclaiming some of your past glory. And I'll be rooting for you! But until then, please, lay off the double lattes and take better notes!
Smooches,
Wavy
P.S. Feel free to post your own anonymous rants at the writing/reading related injustices in YOUR world right now :)
6 comments:
Ahh, Wavy, I've felt this way before about authors I've either met and was so excited to read their books and was highly disappointed, or as you, anticipated a next book by an author and felt let down.
Or- reading EPPIE entries. I can't believe that an editor didn't catch some stuff in books that are published! I just finished a book that was soooo boring it was an effort to get to the end. And it could have been a great book if the author and injected more emotion into the characters. Her descriptions were great and the premise was intriguing but the characters fell flat and didn't pull off the story.
Wavy, I know what you mean. And it's not just the cost of the book, it's the time invested to read it. Aargh!
I'd say the majority of my favorite authors have let me down at some point. Some of them I just stopped reading future books by them, and that's only because my reading time is limited and there are a lot of choices out there. Their slot simply got filled by another author.
A lot of times what happens to me is I read a first chapter of a book on an author's website and get all excited that "This is the book for me!" I buy it, get to the fourth or fifth chapter, and then meh. The magic's gone. The action becomes tedious and the characters are stupid. I hate when that happens.
I sometimes get recommendations from others who rave about an author, so I buy the first 2 books in a series and can't get through the first one. Makes me want to just reread the books on my keeper shelf and never read anything new again.
Dear Long Time (Composite) Mystery Writer.
You know I love you. I have every one of your books. Most I've read over and over again, so many page corners turned down during so many readings that the book is twice as thick at the top than it is at the bottom.
But maybe you don't know what a glorious day it was for me when I happened across a difficult to find copy of your first book in your most celebrated series and at last I saw how it all began. Maybe you don't know how I first came across you in the run down lobby of a hotel in Honolulu in the middle of a hot, humid night while it seemed the rest of the world slumbered or how your glossy cover and catchy title called to me from across the bookstore and how I stayed up late reading because you so thoroughly delighted me.
My loyalty thus established, I have just the tiniest bone to pick. Please, please, enough with the cuteness of your characters, enough with the charm of your titles, enough with grandma's antics. And please, oh please, enough with the protagonist being a nosy busybody who justifies her intrusions with the same tired reasons you gave her twenty years ago. Enough with every woman the hero meets dying a horrible death, enough with never ending triangles and enough with characters who are aging at the same rate as a slug crossing the Portland Airport long term parking lot.
Suggestions? Try plotting again. Try getting me back on the edge of my chair even while you amuse and pique my curiosity. Try some clever twists. Blow my socks off. Surprise me. If your continuing characters can no longer do more than sell me your books, kill them. Burn them. Bury them. Move them to a tropical island. Create someone new. Do something new! Take a chance! Make it as good as the first book you ever wrote. Suffer through the inevitable comparisons, prove the pundits wrong, make lightening strike twice in the same spot. Think Agatha Christie!
Again, I owe you a great debt of gratitude. Your creations have been friends through most my adult life. You have comforted me, challenged me, made me cry and made me laugh. I know some of your characters better than I know some of my friends. So it is with genuine affection that I end this by saying, "Get off your lazy behind, find an editor who isn't afraid of you, risk not making a gazillion dollar advance and GROW."
With hopeful fondness,
Your Loyal Reader
*Eli backs away from the computer because - as she's nervously biting her nails in anticipation of her first release - she is vedy vedy scared of readers like Wavy and Alice...*
Wow, Wavy and Alice! Don't hold anything back! LOL!
I think you both could do review columns with great readership. Yes, your comments were candid. However, you didn't name any names, so authors who were feeling that niggle of guilt can take a second look at their own work and see if they have written the best book they can.
There are some NYT bestselling authors that I don't buy simply because I don't like their writing style. And, like others, my reading time is limited. So if I pick up a stinker, that author goes on my do not buy list. Perhaps not "fair," but there are so many good stories out that I can find that keeper if I keep looking, whether NYT bestelling author or debut author.
You're reading my mind!! I bought a book on Monday by a great author who has the number of years and books behind her to prove it. I've read a few of her others and the chemistry between the HH has always been smokin' hot.
What happened??
This book started with a heroine too stupid to live. (Don't set up meetings with people you don't know in graveyards. I'm going to walk home by myself down the dark street.) The hero has absolutely no spark with the heroine, and he gives her no reason to like him except for his hot bod. I won't go into all the out of character actions that happened CONSTANTLY through the book. I was shaking my head the entire time.
Where was the editor? Do authors get free passes to publish anything when they've put out enough books?
Post a Comment