When I was young and green and thirsty to get published, I lapped up every writing advice book and magazine I could find. There was no piece of advice too weird, too outlandish that I didn’t take seriously and try out.
Write with a potato on your head? Why not?
Write with a plate of spaghetti in my lap? It will keep me nourished!
Write while dueling the greatest swordsman in all of France? You betcha!
I have read so many of these things that my mind is weighed down by this advice. Somehow, not knowing all the “rules” allowed me to write over 30 different novels though, admittedly, none of them has been published.
I have just finished listening to a lecture series in The Great Courses by James Scott Bell entitled “How To Write Bestselling Fiction.”
Those two of you who regularly read this blog might recall that I praised Mr. Bell greatly for a book he wrote in which he noted that every book has to have death at stake. It greatly helped me write the first Minerva novel.
And this course is very good as well. But along about the sixteenth lecture, I suffered lecture fatigue.
It’s not Mr. Bell’s fault. He hasn’t changed his formula or his thoughts on selling best-selling fiction. Indeed, I recommend his book Just Write if you are struggling with your genre novel right now. It helped me and it can help you.
But I suffered this cloud coming over me last week, my friends. I have been given so much advice that I feel I can’t write a book anymore.
I can’t write one, even though I’ve written over 30.
Because there’s so much I have to remember. Do I have a compelling protagonist that the reader roots for with flaws as well as virtures? Do I have a villain that still has human qualities the reader will sympathize with? Is my setting strong enough? What about the minor characters? Does the dialogue sizzle? Does my pacing briskly propel the reader through the story?
It doesn’t help that I just finished reading a book by famed author Isabelle Allende for my Sisters In Crime book club. The book is called “Ripper,” named after an online game that’s played by the twelve-year-old protagonist of the book. At least, I think she’s the protagonist.
Or maybe the protagonist is the hippie girl/woman who is the girl’s mother. She seems to get a lot of room in the book.
Or maybe it’s the former Navy Seal who loves her. Or her other lover, a rich guy who’s got no skills whatsoever.
Or maybe…
The problem with the book is that it gives you backstory after backstory, often with no purpose toward the story. It’s 475 pages of slogging through other people’s rather dull lives.
This is a famous author, folks, one who’s published dozens of books. No editor pulled her aside and said, “look, Isabelle, you gotta have scenes and stories, not just a couple dozen backstories.”
Yet this book is published. Indeed, The Guardian in England said : “And while there are many places where Ripper reads like a half-polished experiment, what lingers is Allende’s generosity with fictional detail, her warmth and humanity.”
Uh, no. It was just dull and tedious.
But if you’re a famous writer, you get good reviews.
If you’re Mark Bruce you struggle getting an agent.
Now you can see why I’m confused. Sigh.
Mark Bruce, Writer 