Faith and the Unpublished Writer

Writing isn’t easy. Writers are misunderstood, patronized, looked down on, and discouraged. There isn’t one of us who hasn’t been told “Why don’t you go and get a real job?” by some well-meaning friend or relative. Even when phrased delicately, that doesn’t change the meaning. You can call shit “feces,” but that isn’t going to change the stink.

In addition, writers have to deal with the nuts and bolts of writing. Plotting, characterization, worldbuilding, theme, dialogue, the list goes on. This isn’t always simple or easy. A stubborn character can block your work-in-progress for weeks. Very few non-writers understand how much work actually goes into writing a short story or novel. Most non-writers seem to think writers sit down at the computer and words immediately start flowing from their fingertips without any effort whatsoever.

Faith is fundamental to the profession. When faced with so much opposition, writers need to have faith in themselves and their work. If you want to be a published author, you’ll be faced with rejection. There isn’t an author alive who hasn’t had his work rejected at one point or another. I’ve had nearly 100 rejections so far and am not giving up. I know my work is good and will eventually sell. Jean Auel’s bestselling Clan of the Cave Bear was rejected by over 20 publishers before she sold it. S. L. Viehl received 1500 rejections on miscellaneous works before getting published.

Publication takes persistance and faith.

Some pro-published authors advise new writers seeking publication to write to the market. IE, look at what’s currently being published and write something like what they’ve already bought, but different. Don’t push the envelope, don’t ask hard questions, and keep your work tame. Some authors don’t outright say this, but they do it in their own published work, and when they make a point of advising new authors, it has the same effect.

Now, for conservative genres like romance, there might be something to that. There are barriers in traditional romance that just can’t be crossed. A romance must always have a happy-ever-after for the hero and heroine; else it’s not romance, but mainstream (or fantasy/science fiction if it happens to be paranormal or futuristic romance). GBLT relationships are still not accepted by traditional romance publishers, nor are other alternative lifestyles like polyamory. If you write these, you’re better off looking at marketing them mainstream or to e-publishers.

Even so, romance as a genre is more open today than it was, say, 20 years ago. Even the most conservative and tight-laced of romance publishers, Harlequin/Silhouhette, is opening up and branching off into edgier territory with lines like Blaze, for erotic romance, and their excursion into fantasy with Luna.

However, genres like fantasy and science fiction are traditionally open to new things. During the Golden Age of science fiction, writers broke new ground and went places society hadn’t before explored. While many Golden Age classics might seem tame to modern readers, it’s important to take the period there were written during into context.

Science fiction and fantasy is innovative; it’s the genre most known for pushing the envelope. Historically, it’s challenged cultural taboos of the day. SFF explores important issues in depth, whereas mainstream fiction has a distinct tendency to go for shock value instead. Speculative fiction is a vision of the future.

On newsgroups and forums over the Internet, I see people complaining that when they go to their local bookstore, they have difficulty finding anything new that’s good. I’m an avid reader as well as a writer, and there have been very few books that attract me by premise, and half of those, the writing is enough to make me put it back on the shelf. I see a lot of rehashed stories out on the market, and not much originality. Jacqueline Carey and Anne Bishop are two recently published authors I can think of offhand who are that original.

Because of this, numerous people moan that the industry is dying. It’s not. It’s gone stagnant. The two are not the same. Rehashing same old without taking chances and doing something new keeps the industry stagnant.

When authors advise new writers to tone their work down, or give them that example, that just sets them up for failure.

Don’t write to the market. Write what the market wants. Write what drives your heart and soul. Write what makes your blood burn and your skin sweat. Don’t tone it down, or you will rob it of everything that makes it strong and reduce it to a rehash.

Believe in yourself.

The industry needs to change. It needs to grow. New ideas, strong and wild and passionate and free as the unchained mind, will change the industry, like Heinlein did, or Tolkein. This isn’t the first time the market has gone stagnant. A new wave of writers always follows.

This is the 21st century. We are the next generation of writers. We are the Next Wave.

If you get tempted to tone down your writing, change it, de-emphasize something integral for fear of what people might think or that it might be too much–don’t. I know of one published author who changed her lesbian main character to straight because of her agent’s crit. The agent told her that he couldn’t sell a book with a lesbian main character because she would be unsympathetic to readers.

I think Mercedes Lackey would beg to differ, what with the popularity of her The Last Herald-Mage trilogy, which features a gay hero.

When an agent, or anyone, tells you to tone your work down–that’s a major warning sign. Some things should not be compromised. If the original vision of your book is a beautiful woman, the toned down version is that same woman with her belly slashed open, guts dangling out, eyes gouged, nose sliced off–maimed and broken and not even a shadow of its greatness.

A book that takes chances may be harder to sell, but breakout novels take risks, as Donald Maass repeated in Writing the Breakout Novel. Controversy sells. Look at the popularity of Harry Potter. While it was popular among children at first, it didn’t become an adult hit until the controversy started, and adults read the books to find out what all the fuss was about.

Don’t tone down the controversial elements, because that may well be what makes your fiction rise above the rest. Controversy will change the field. Don’t silence your soul because of what people might think.

Believe in yourself. We are the future. We have wings, and now is the time to fly.

 

 

Originally posted on Evolution.

Posted by Nonny under Uncategorized