Why I'll Never Be an Acquiring Editor

[ksmith]

Tucked on my hard drive is a long, sort of rambling semi-review of The Historian. There it will stay. I'll never be a reviewer, either. I get to a certain point in the proceedings and lose interest. Wonder if the faults I'm finding in the work in question are just as evident in my own books--the mote in their plot and the beam in my own.

I started out wanting to like this book. The reviews I read were uniformly good, and I found the premise interesting.

I found scattered sections of TH quite gripping. Then about a third of the way through, it turned into peanut butter soup. The revelations consisted of discoveries made over the course of travels from Amsterdam to London to Istanbul and Eastern Europe. Academics, uncovering documents and making connections. The problem isn’t sense of place--Kostova is quite good with description and setting scene. I felt, unfortunately, that the level of background/description fought with the thriller aspect and came out on top too many times.

There are three main POVs, all academics, and at times I found it difficult to determine whose head I was in. I did not find their voices distinctive and their personalities strong. I didn’t care about them. That's a red flag for me because if I don’t care about the people I'm reading about, it turns into an exercise in reading to get to the end, which I don’t enjoy as a rule. But I wanted to see if I could determine why this book was worth $2 million, so I kept going.

At this point, Kostova can't write action to save her life, and the opportunities were there. This is Dracula, for crying out loud. Blood, and stuff.

The ending should have been a riveting culmination. For me, it seemed a fizzle with a not particularly satisfying twist. Again it's worth noting that Kostova can't write action to save her life.

Thing is, there's a copy of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL sitting on my shelf waiting to be read, and if it's anything like TH, I'm not sure I want to read it. I have heard that it's a slow mover and that Nothing Much Happens, and well, I just read NMH and didn’t have much fun.

Is this a trend in mainstream fantasy/alternate history/whatever? I've heard that Stephenson's QUICKSILVER books move slowly as well, with much convolution along the way. So what's the deal--folks who don’t normally read genre can convince themselves that they're still pure because they've digested all this chewy, nutritious, historical fiber along with the sweet, soft, caramel plot center?
I'm not a shallow all-action hussy--I enjoy Ian Rankin, Le Carre. The MAPP & LUCIA books are some of my favorites, for crying out loud. The first one begins with a multi-page description of Mrs. Lucas walking home from the train station. By the first few sentences, I was hooked.

Shortest form: Plenty of people love this book. I didn't. If I were an acquiring editor and had read this manuscript, I've have offered a low five-figure advance and an axe. So much for my editorial career.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The eight deadliest words you can utter about a story: "I don't care what happens to these people."

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Some of the scenes they're in are quite compelling. But there's a barrier there that I can't get past, and it played a major role in killing any interest I had in the story.

Thing is, I didn't care what happened to the people in DAVINCI CODE either, but I inhaled that book in two days. Stayed up until 3am to finish it. Yes, the characters were cardboard, and yes, the research wasn't the best, but I wanted to see how the puzzle ended. Still a McNovel, but I can be as shallow as the next person--hell, I loved Judith Krantz in the 80s--and at least I got something out of it. I can understand to some extent why that book got the push it did. I don't understand why THE HISTORIAN garnered the interest it did.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

Word.

[dancingwriter.livejournal.com]

I felt the same way about Possession. I thought I would love it, but I only got a third of the way through because I just didn't care about the characters, so it just wasn't worth working my way through the rest of the book.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

One of the things I've noted in the bestsellers I've read in the past is the fact that I didn't care about the characters. They seemed to be placeholders, figures to move around a gameboard, endanger, threaten, and kill. Other reviewers/readers talked about how fascinating/driven/well-developed they were, leaving me wondering whether we read the same book.

And this concerns me when I consider my own work. If I can't figure out what makes big sellers tick, how can I tweak my own work accordingly?

I console myself with the fact that I enjoy some strong sellers (frex, Rankin), and understand to some extent why their books work. I also tell myself that I should just write the book I want to write, and damn the comparisons. However, I'm not sure that's a valid position for a writer in this market. I think if you want to reach the next level, you need to see what works well there. The discomfort comes when you look at what sells and can't figure out why.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the current state of bestsellers is more a reflection of what the general reading public is buying rather than what's being written (blame the readers, folks!)--people tend to buy (1) what they're comfortable with, or (2) what Important People tell them to buy.

Okay, now that I've got myself all bummed out, I'll go try to write something.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I think that in part, you're right--some folks buy what they're told is Good. Others wait and use the bestseller lists as their guides. Others want to read essentially the same book over and over and over.

But books like THE LOVELY BONES and ANGELA'S ASHES became bestsellers via word of mouth, iirc, so it occasionally happens that certain stories that no one thought would take off actually do take off. And books that get a lot of push and publicity fall flat because for whatever reason, they never sparked.

IOW, some of it is formula and some of it isn't. Some bestsellers are manufactured, and others aren't. I can understand why some books take off, while others fall into the WTF category.

I would love to be a bestselling author, but I doubt I ever will be. It's a lightning strike after all--I know it's better in the long run to just concentrate on writing the books you need to write. I know that 'writing to the market', trying to tailor your book to meet the current criteria for Hot, doesn't often work. I know a lot of things, really. More than I did 10 years ago, at least.

But sometimes I still looks for Clues, and it bugs me when I can't find them.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting but...you seem to have an underlying assumption that what makes a bestseller is the same for all bestsellers.

Do the same people who read Terry Goodkind read Susan Elizabeth Phillips? Probably not. But okay, one may say, those are very definitely genre books, so they have a kind of "special case" attachment to them.

Less than half of literate American adults read a whole book last year. Most paperback books are romance novels. The biggest bestsellers in the USA are actually religious books, but you won't always see them on the NY Times list due to the Times's arcane selection system, or on the Big Box Store lists because they sell significant numbers at specialty independent bookstores.

So what makes a "bestseller"?

One way or another it has to reach into a lot of brains and make them jump. But people have such radically different ways of thinking. A book can be a bestseller by appealing to a small percentage of lots of different types of people (a "mainstream" bestseller), or by appealing to a huge percentage of a specific subset of people (a "genre" bestseller).

Nothing can guarantee a bestseller, but I think there are steps a writer can take to increase the odds:

1. Be excited about what he or she is writing. I suppose some can fool the audience, but I'm pretty sure most bestselling writers really enjoy what they're writing. There's an energy that's almost impossible to fake.

2. Write in well-structured prose. This doesn't mean talk down to the readers, and it doesn't even mean write in straightforward language. I can't define the quality, and it's probably different for different groups of readers, but what puts me off a book more than anything else are clunky or dull sentences. Sure, I can tell what the author is saying, but it could have been said with life and grace. (Now ask me to define how this is accomplished. Ah ha ha ha ha! I wish I could. But I know it when I read it.)

3. Engage multiple parts of the reader's brain. This is a new idea for me, but it seems to hold true for many bstsellers. It goes along with my First Dictum ("all scenes must accomplish at least two things"). A simple story and plot can be fun, but readers will be more engaged if more is happening. The Harry Potter books, frex--very simple story, right? Boy vs. Big Evil Wizard. But it's everything else that makes those books so enjoyable. All the creative worldbuilding bits, the little mysteries, the interpersonal conflicts...it adds up to a lot of moving parts, and the readers' brains are engaged by trying to keep track of it all.

Just my thinking on the subject.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I wondered if I had given the impression that there was a Magic Checklist, and I just needed to assemble it.

I know what all bestsellers are not the same. But when I read one, I usually find something that grabs me, and I understand why the book hit. I liked DVC for the puzzle. I read Ian Rankin for his wonderful takes on office politics, situations that I think touch a lot of his readers the same way they touch me. Sometimes it's because one character just gets to me.

It's when no aspect of the book grabs me that I wonder, what am I missing?