Rant! Story Beginnings!
Posted by stevemosby on July 8th, 2009
I’m never sure how I feel about Joe Konrath. On the one hand, he has some good advice for new writers on self-publicity; on the other, this advice is generally a hook to hang his own self-promotion on, and if you asked people who’d heard of him what they associated with him, they’d probably say “oh yeah, he’s the salesman guy” rather than “he wrote the Jack Daniels novels”. There’s no doubt he’s successful in the US. But then he funds his own book tours, handselling copies, and I question whether that makes much economic sense in the long-term or, overall, increases the readership. Never mind your sanity and happiness.
That said, it obviously works for him. I just don’t like the idea that, because it works for him, it must work for everyone. A sale is not necessarily positive. A sale created by physically spamming someone isn’t, for me, a good sale. It counts on the spreadsheet, but tells you nothing. And I don’t know about you, but if someone comes up to me in a bookshop and says “You should buy this!!!”, then I generally don’t. Bookshops are for browsing; if I want that kind of shit, I go to Dixons. Spreadsheets don’t record those lost sales.
Anyway.
I’m having a bit of an argument with him. The original post is here (although he posted it last year too). The background is that Joe is judging a short story competition (he’s paid; the entrants pay). And he’s come up with some superficially appealing rules that I don’t, on the whole, agree with.
You can read the original post at that link, including the rules he gives. And then my replies start close to the bottom.
What do you guys think? Are there rules for short stories? Are there rules for fiction in general? Is the hook a necessity in terms of literary value, or just as a market commodity? What is the answer to life, the universe and everything? Knock yourselves out. Either here, there, or in your own heads.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Interesting views. I like your solid reasoning in the replies.
It’s one thing to say that common mistakes in an opening paragraph can sink work (and this is as true in feature writing as in novels) and to list those ‘mistakes’, cliches and words of advice on things to avoid can be useful. However it’s something else for someone to say they’ve never seen an example where writing subverts those cliches by actually using them well. If Joe’s given up on that ever happening and doesn’t read far enough for that to happen, then his contest is judging openings not stories. In my book (as it were), while I often judge whether to purchase a book on how the opening line grabs me, an unexpected middle or an end often shape or change my opinion over-all.
If none of the stories in Joe’s pile of manuscripts reaches his ‘quality’ threshold level he could quite possibly be right they are of a ‘poor quality’ – but in such a case a paid judge should do one of two things: a)return a proportion of the money paid – as he hasn’t read them all – and tell the organisers that no-one deserves to win or b) look closer at his criteria of a good story to see if it needs to be reassessed. Perhaps a c) would be to give up judging as I’m a great believer in not doign somehting you hate.
I’ve never read one of Joe’s books and, not to be cruel, I’d never heard of him before this blog, so I cannot judge his openings either. They may be brilliant. But let’s be blunt, tastes vary. Airport purchases of Mills & Boon probably out-sell Michael Connelly and Harlan Coben put together and I’ve often thought The Bible should begat more jokes.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Steve, I have gone down the list and can think of exceptions. In four cases, I seem to fall into agreement. Just thought I’d chuck in a couple of pennies, if you want to get a debate going! (Thank God this is not a short story or novel as I just used an exclamation mark…)
DO NOT START A STORY WITH WEATHER
Unless it’s key to the plot, say an indicator of a volcanic eruption, tsunami, or freak storm for a thriller. Think the movie Dante’s Peak. Or Richard Doyle’s novel Flood.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH CHARACTER DESCRIPTION
Again, unless it’s key to the plot. Could be some aspect of health, for example, especially mental health or size. Not sure she started the novel with a character description, but Olive Martin’s size in Minette Walters’s The Sculptress was pertinent to the story.
DO NOT START A STORY BY ADDRESSING THE READER
Not exclusive. There’s even a book written in the second person which worked: Nikke Gemmell’s The Bride Stripped Bare. Takes some skill to achieve that. And starting out that way can feel conversational, drawing you in, as if the writer wants to share a secret or two with you.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH PREMONITION
Bit of a cliché, but can work, especially if it’s a grey, foggy one, not a black and white this-is-definitely-going-to-happen one. Needs a really good hook though.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH THE PROTAG WAKING UP
This could work in a crime novel if the victim wakes up from unconsciousness and has no idea exactly what happened to them, where they are and what time it is, for example. Especially, if they’ve been drugged. This has been done, but not exhaustively. Not that I’ve had a reading overload on it anyway. Or they wake up bound and gagged, or in a secure unit…
DO NOT START A STORY WITH CLICHES
Ah, yes. This is vomit-inducing. However, if you’re writing successful satire and making fun at all the clichés out there, e.g. Donna Moore’s Go To Helena Handbasket, it works.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH SETTING DESCRIPTION
Might work if a short sentence, followed by an even shorter one that totally destroys the first and makes you want to know what happened. Think of that recent case of a block of flats being built in China and how the moments were before it fell over.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH TELLING
Can’t think of a potential exclusion to that one.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH ANY DESCRIPTION
I am not fond of descriptive narrative, so this one would tend not to draw me in.
DO NOT USE HELPER WORDS
Tend to agree with that one, especially on adverbs. I think you can tell a self-published book by its overuse of adverbs and they tend to make for a clunky read on times.
DO NOT START A STORY WITH A PROLOGUE
Depends on the story, if a full novel. Would agree with the comment in respect of a short story though, as a reader you want to be drawn into the story very quickly. I have read a number of novels recently where the first chapters have been what appears to be a totally unrelated occurrence in the past, only to be linked to the contemporary storyline later. Scandinavian crime writers tend to like this one. For the ones I’ve read, it works for me.
DO NOT USE EXCLAMATION POINTS!
Agree totally.
DO NOT USE THE SAME FARUQING WORD TWICE IN THE SAME FARUQING PARAGRAPH
Depends on the word, the situation and the character. Someone with Tourette’s might ramble on using the same word lots of times.
GRAMMER AND SPELING SHOULD BE PREFECT
Aim for it, as it does impress. But the number of errors I’ve seen in final printed editions make me think that lit agents, editors, copy editors and proofreaders might often do a lot of work in sprucing up an MS along the way.
DO NOT MAKE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AN ANIMAL
Disagree on that one, if well done. J. F. Englert’s novels are quirky and engaging, with a black lab retriever as the protag and story told from his POV.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
“Never mind your sanity and happiness.”
Joe’s one of the happiest people I know. Sane, not so much.
I look upon those rules the same way I do on any set of rules promulgated for storytelling. You can break them, but you’d better have a damn good reason. Because most of those rules describe things that slow the story down or that have been done to death or both.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
As far as I’m concerned, his ‘requirements’ are totally subjective. As cfr says, many of them have been broken successfully. Different people will have different things which will pull them out of a story, or slow it down for them. And I’ve read quie a few short stories which start out ‘eh’ and finish up ‘wow’. I also agree that he is doing the competition entrants a dis-service.
Tastes differ. I’ve read one of his books, disliked it for several reasons and wouldn’t read another (incidentally, I dug said book off the bookshelf out of interest and there is weather in the second sentence. Maybe I should have stopped reading there and said the book sucked?). Just because I disliked it doesn’t mean to say I would tell everyone he’s a crap writer. His books just aren’t to my taste.
I don’t read his blog but read this one because you drew my attention to it Steve
) I find him arrogant, but then, that’s also solely my opinion.
July 9th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Getting into a logical argument with Joe on that subject is probably only slightly more enjoyable and likely to produce a happy outcome than trying to become a lumberjack by strapping a chainsaw to your genitals and running naked through a forest. Anyone who can say in consecutive paragraphs…
(i.e. “There are exceptions, but there aren’t.”)
… and whose own fucking novel starts with “The hunter’s moon, a shade of orange so dark it appeared to be filled with blood, hung fat
and low over the mirror surface of Big Lake McDonald.” has clearly left the bounds of logic and reason behind.
July 9th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
JD – I’m sure Joe is very happy, but Joe is Joe, and people are different. I sometimes have the worrying impression that ‘newbie’ writers might feel they have to do the same things as Joe – the tours; the hand-selling; the BSP – in order to be successful, and blame themselves for not doing enough if they fail. There’s sense to a lot of what he says. Then again, almost all of this ‘success’ business is in the lap of the gods, and it does occasionally feel like Joe is selling a fair bit of snake oil.
It’s what I meant when I said in his comment trail that his post was self-promoting. The USP of his blog is based on promoting the idea that Joe knows certain rules, and you need to follow them in order to be successful. That entire post was bullshit. There are exceptions to those rules, as Joe admits, so all he’s really saying is “be interesting”. That’s honest, but unhelpful – and it isn’t a blog post. Joe needs blog posts, because that’s what he’s selling there. Someone further up the thread even said they were going to go back and check all their stories for these errors on the basis of his advice. Will that really make any difference?
And the people who entered that competition deserve something a little better for the money they’ve paid.
I’d like to be able to comment on ‘Afraid’, but unfortunately I couldn’t finish it.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
You have to believe me if I tell you that when Jelly Obadiah – 400 pounds of fat and malice swaddling a heart innocent of kindness as would beat in the chest of a child even a mother would smother – awoke groggily in his grey bedsit situated downwind – when the heavy wind deigned to stir the fetid air at all – of the tannery, he felt terrible: terrible and certain that today, of all days, it was going to rain: rain on him and rain on Halifax as sorry a collection of souls as ever sweated in lice ridden beds, in their cockroach and misery infested tenements, that huddled round the tannery – principal employer and secondary cause of premature death behind self pity – like lice on a feverwracked and sorebitten body!!! He was wrong: it never rains on a fat man’s wedding day, but sometimes, when he marries his sister, a tannery will explode.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
You’re a fucking genius, Ken. You really are.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Steve said: “I sometimes have the worrying impression that ‘newbie’ writers might feel they have to do the same things as Joe – the tours; the hand-selling; the BSP – in order to be successful,”
To which I answer in heartfelt fashion “Dear merciful heavens I hope not.”
JK Trowling – not sure how many of the so called ‘Rules’ that broke but I think i can speak for…well…I can only speak for myself but I want to read the rest of that story NOW. Bloody brilliant stuff!
July 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
hehe… broke em all.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
“it does occasionally feel like Joe is selling a fair bit of snake oil. ”
He’s never charged me a cent
.
I’ve had a lot of long and interesting conversations with Joe, and more than a few drunk, obnoxious, and nearly incoherent ones (and I mean that to describe both of us). I’ve taken some of his advice, and decided that some of it was a poor fit for me. But I don’t know that I’d ever reject it out of hand.
Fact is, a lot of those things described in the rules DO slow the story down unless you’re very, VERY good. Hammett started THE MALTESE FALCON with a physical description of Sam Spade, and Orwell started 1984 by describing the weather, but I ain’t them. You may be, who knows. I do know that I’d think twice, maybe three times, before doing any of those things. If after three thinks, I feel the story still needs to start with the weather, then let it ride.
BTW, JK: that was pretty cool. It falls into the “damn good reason” category above, even if the reason is sort of a reverse lampshade hang.
( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging )
July 10th, 2009 at 9:00 am
JD – I think that actually gets to the heart of my objection: is it possible to “slow the story down” with an opening? Surely that’s just setting the pace? There’s a lot of talk about pace within crime fiction, but it always seems to be synonymous with “fast”, and I’m not sure that’s particularly healthy. I can’t see how ‘pace’ (in terms of speed) is obviously a virtue. A story has to have rhythm (I’d go as far as to say that, below the surface, it should even rhyme in its own way), but the perceived wisdom seems to be that it has to be 200 bpm. I see blurbs on book covers like “moves like a bullet out of a gun!” – and that is literally the selling point. Who cares? I want to know whether it’s any good or not. Sometimes, it feels like the ultimate crime fiction blurb would be “you’ll read this so quick, you won’t even fucking notice it!”.
For me, that kind of pace – along with whether there’s an obvious hook at the beginning – is actually value-neutral in terms of evaluating a story as a whole. But I get it. It’s a product of natural selection within a crowded marketplace: books like dogs in the pound, where the one that claws at the fence gets picked out. An editor has hundreds of manuscripts to look through, so you’ve got to catch his attention fast; a reader has shelves to browse, so you need to get her at hello.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but I do question whether it’s appropriate to think that way when you’re judging a short story competition. Where someone has paid to have their story considered as a story. Where you’re being paid to do so. And where your ultimate seal of approval becomes the hook for potential readers to know “this is worth reading”, irrespective of how it appears at first glance.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I’ve just come up with a new rule of my own for writing and I would even go so far as to claim it’s the only rule that applies to writing:
1) You can’t learn to be a good writer by following rules
Saying ‘don’t start a story with the weather’ doesn’t teach anyone anything about writing a good story. As crimeficreader points out, you *can* start with the weather if it’s key to the plot. Similarly, the risk in starting a story with description is that it’s not dramatic. Ditto for telling – it’s exposition, telling the reader about things that have already happened, which is generally less interesting and exciting than things that are happening right now.
If I know that, I can make an informed decision about whether the content of my story justifies taking that risk. If all I know is ‘don’t do that’, I remain ignorant. I know not to make that mistake in the opening paragraph, but I can liberally make that mistake throughout the rest of my story.
Thus, I deduce Mr Konrath’s rules will have the following consequences:
- Writers who understand writing will ignore those rules because they can see where and when they do and do not apply.
- Writers who do not understand writing will follow those rules in the naive belief that it’s helping them, when in fact all it’s doing is allowing them to get Mr Konrath to read past their opening before he spots they don’t understand how to write a good story, at which point he bins the manuscript anyway.
So, he’s not actually improving the quality of submissions, he’ll just end up spending more time reading stories that won’t make the grade.
July 10th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
I never open a book at the beginning if I’m browsing. I always dip in part way through to see how things read in the middle bits where things are likely to be a bit less frantic.
As for rules… obviously they’ve come from somewhere. Someone took the time to think them up and write them down, so they can’t always be dismissed without consideration. Exploring the objections someone has is interesting. Take repetition. It isn’t obviously the enemy of interest. There are great songs and poems that derive their effect from repetition and mantras repeated often can lead to a state of spiritual ecstasy. Like all other devices, it should be used sparingly and thoughtfully. A well aimed thesaurus can mutilate a paragraph as thoroughly as repetition. Some of the most horrible attempts at self expression that I have seen came from obeying this rule as an absolute.
When I see a writing rule, I kind of note it in passing and then forget it. I just reread and rewrite what I’ve written a hundred times. Then I put it in a drawer for a month and then reread it and then throw it away. That way no one else has to suffer. Most of what I write is scientific stuff, which has the benefit that few of the readers expect it to be interesting and there are lots of Fig 1(a)s to distract them. Even then there are rules: always use the passive/never use the passive; refer to yourself in the first person/refer to yourself in the third person.
I guess that as far as rules guard against unreflective writing they are a good thing where they are used to decide definitively what should not be written they are a bad thing. e.g.
GRAMMER AND SPELING SHOULD BE PREFECT
DO NOT MAKE YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AN ANIMAL
DO NOT USE THE SAME FARUQING WORD TWICE IN THE SAME FARUQING PARAGRAPH
DO NOT START A STORY WITH CHARACTER DESCRIPTION
Tyger, tyger burning bright in the forest of the night.
July 11th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
[...] comments on the original post, the subsequent exchange between the two of them, and Steve’s post and the comments [...]
July 11th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Well, I agree with you both, Vincent and JK, so I haven’t got much to add. Except to say that you, Ken, should be inflicting your writing on other people more often. At least you’re still doing it, anyway.
The repetition thing is a great point, by the way. Off the top of my head, I’d say Chuck Palahniuk uses repetition very effectively. Amongst other things, it helps to create a conversational style, because people do repeat words all the time. It’s inadvertent and glaring repetition you need to watch out for.
July 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
I heard about this little dust-up over on Sandra Ruttan’s blog and ran right over to read both sides.
Both sides have valid points. Konrath’s “rules” are good for any writer to keep in mind, as violations are often symptoms of weak writing.
I think Steve’s points carry more weight. Konrath does seem to want to have it both ways. He strongly implies he doesn’t read any farther until Steve called him on it. Then he made the circular argument, saying you could get away with these things if you were a really good writer, but he’d never know if you were, because he already gave up on it.
I’m condensing too much, I know, but the tome is there. I’ve read a couple of Konrath’s Jack Daniel books, and, frankly, think they’re too cute by half. The humor is sometimes forced, and sometimes inappropriate to the tension being created. They’re written like treatments for Michael Bay movies. I admire his ability and willingness to work and his tireless efforts, and I have seen him take time online to help aspiring writers with marketing tips, but he comes across as somewhat more of a huckster than I’m comfortable with. Based on this conversation, he can be a little defensive, too.
July 12th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Hey there, Dana – thanks for stopping by. I can’t actually comment on Joe’s Jack Daniels books as I haven’t read them. In a perverse reversal of fortune, I think they’re available over here the same way mine are in the US. But I probably wouldn’t anyway, as comedy-crime isn’t my type of thing. ‘Afraid’ wasn’t to my liking either, as I just didn’t buy the concept and – hey – it was too fast for me. But, for the record, I don’t wish the guy ill.
A ‘huckster’? I couldn’t possibly say. But Joe likes attention, and he gets it by being the ‘how to be published and stay published’ guru guy, and I don’t think that’s always easy to summarise in blog post after blog post. My ‘story’ as a writer runs entirely contrary to his advice, and, from everything I’ve seen, success is down to luck and circumstance more than anything else. (My most successful country, I’ve never done a second of publicity in). But saying “write what makes you happy; do the best you can; be creative; have fun; enjoy it for the sheer pleasure of doing it” isn’t going to keep people returning to your site. Fair play to him, but I hate to see people taking his advice too seriously.
Plus, as an aside, I hate the term “newbie writer”. There’s no magical division. No hierarchy. I met a guy at a festival once and asked if he was a writer, and he looked all apologetic and said, “Well … I’m trying”. No – if you’re trying, then you’re a writer. We’re all trying, including the guys at the top table.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Perhaps it would be better if we looked at the “rules” the way Capt. Barbossa looked at the Pirate Code: it’s “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”
July 16th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Steve,
Late to the party and breaking my own rules about not getting involved in Internet discussions, but I decided to pull my own volume of short stories off the shelf and see how many rules I’ve violated. Not because I think I have any standing as a good writer, but because I want to see if breaking these rules means I’m a shitty one. (I know I’ve done weather, but that was with my second novel. I happen to like weather.)
Let’s see: Do No Start With a Character Description:
“Sofia was a lean, hipless girl, the type older men still called a tomboy in 1975, although her only hoydenish quality was a love of football.” From “Hardly Knew Her.”
I’ve broken this at least two more times, in “Scratch a Woman” and “ARM and the Woman.”
Do Not Start a Story by Addressing the Reader:
“You won’t believe this, but this really did happen to me just last fall, and all because I was five minutes later, which seemed like a tragedy at the time.” (“Dear Penthouse Forum (A First Draft))
You know, this actually is pretty crummy writing, but it’s a letter to Penthouse Forum! Oops, there’s one of those pesky exclamation marks.
Do Not Start a Story with Cliches:
“This is true:” (From “Femme Fatale.” “This is a true story” was specifically outlawed, but this comes pretty close.)
Do Not Start a Story with a Setting Description:
“The best Cuban restaurant in Baltimore is in Greektown.” (“Ropa Vieja”)
The point is NOT that I am indisputably fabulous, so therefore Joe is wrong. The point, I think, is that beginning writers need some guidance, but rules gum up the works. I don’t even agree with all of Elmore Leonard’s, although I strongly urge my students to let “said” and “ask” carry 90 percent of their dialogue. But, darn it, I think a good adverb has its place in the world. And I will repeat: I LOVE WEATHER. (I was a journalist for a long time and had to write a lot about the weather and I know good weather writing when I see it, and it always makes me happy.)
I haven’t done an animal yet, but Jan Burke has, brilliantly. Wait, let me rephrase that . . .
I think one thing we — speaking now as a published writer, part of a large and collegial group of wonderful writers, including those I know here — have to keep in mind is that people who want to publish are so very hungry. For advice, for introductions, for magic beans. Mainly for magic beans. In dreams begin responsibilities — cliche? — and those of us who are lucky enough to have published a few books should never forget that.
I return, as I do often, to the scene in Zuckerman Unbound where the Roth-like author is trying to explain to his stalker/writer wannabe why his review doesn’t work. The would-be writer, Alvin Pepler, becomes incensed at what he sees as contradictory advice. (Zuckerman has said a certain line seems to be straining for effect.)
“As serious and uncondescending man of letters as there could ever be, Zuckerman said: “I wonder if it’s worth the effort.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. It was no strain at all. It just came to me. In those words. It’s the only line here that isn’t erased, not one word.”
“Then maybe that’s the problem.”
“I see.” Pepler nodded vigorously because of what he saw. “For me, if it comes easy it’s no good, and if it comes hard, it’s also no good. . . . what you have told me is the following. One, the writing stinks. Two, the thoughts stink. Three, my best line stinks worst of all. What you have told me is that ordinary mortals like me shouldn’t even dare to write about your book to begin with. Isn’t that what it adds up to on the basis of one paragraph of a first draft?”
Of course, Pepler is the butt of the joke here and I’m not sure that Zuckerman, much less Roth, is all that uncondescending, but that is our charge. To speak thoughtfully and seriously about what works. To be honest about what a crapshoot this business is. To eschew formulas, in language and storytelling. The tragedy is that Pepler is right. If it comes easy, it might not be too good, and if it comes hard, it also might not be good.
Someone remind me: Why do we do this? Oh, right. Because, as Anne Lamott once said, there are days when you feel so good that you worry if other people knew, they might set you on fire.
July 16th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
There are days when I feel so good I worry if other people knew, *they* might set on fire.
“people who want to publish are so very hungry.”
That sounds 83.5% right to me. I imagine also that ~91.1% of the published were, at some point, also very hungry. Add a dash of that uncertainty y’all refer to and I think you have a potion that will make anyone succumb to a little bit of superstitious behaviour – lucky pens, golden rules, only ever drinking tea, the right kind of paper, rituals.
July 16th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Hi Laura – thanks for stopping by. And you are, of course, being far too gracious about your own writing. I can’t really add anything to the ‘magic beans’ comment, as that, along with the Roth quote, sums up the main objection I had in the first place. People are very keen for there to be an easy solution to being successful, when I think there obviously isn’t – and perhaps it’s also that Joe’s advice aims at a definition of ‘successful’ I find depressingly narrow. But good luck to him, I guess, and – genuinely – to all the writers currently scrubbing those beginnings from their own stories based on his advice. There has to be craft to it (it goes without saying), but, given the nature of this business, I think people would be far happier producing something that lights their own fire, rather than worrying about what lights his.
Actually, it ties into something you, JK, said on my prologue post about constraints being useful for creativity. I think that’s a genuinely useful point. In a trivial sense, I always liked it in school when I was set a title to work from. And my friend Ben is an artist (you remember him, JK? there was a knife incident at a party…). At one point, he did all his paintings on a certain size of canvas, and I presumed there must be a reason for that. In fact, he told me, he did it because it was one less thing to consider, and so it freed him – focused him, maybe – to concentrate on the things that mattered more. A decision made. Constraints can aid creativity in that way; they can set you off, start you going, free you to do something new and original and interesting. And I suppose I saw Joe’s constraints as being offered … well, not exactly in that spirit. Maybe the opposite.
But that’s enough.
Anyway. Laura, I like weather too: as a metaphor, as visualisation for a setting, or just because it’s so well-suited to beautifully descriptive prose. So I figured I’d quote from an author I love, Graham Joyce. The entire (short) prologue to his novel The Stormwatcher, which is about the sexual conflicts between various friends on holiday:
———-
“All motion in the atmosphere is caused by the unequal heating, by the sun, of different parts of the planet. Heat is constantly seeking to exchange, between the warm tropics and the cold polar regions. This causes the movement of air, winds, changes in air pressure, temperature, fluctuations, clouds, precipitation of rain and snow.
Everything we call weather.
Going round and round in an endless effort to settle and even out that which can never be settled or evened out.”
———-
The metaphor is obvious, especially if you’ve read the back of the cover. But then … well, there’s that second sentence, where heat is personified: actively seeking. That makes the metaphor far more interesting, but it’s only by reading on that it becomes clear. If you read on.
It’s not even his best book, but – you know – my world has been improved slightly by reading it, regardless of how many it sold. And that, perhaps unfashionably, is a better definition of success for me.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:58 am
“THE CONTEST MOANER – I was recently a contest judge, and some folks took exception to my list of “don’ts” I recently blogged about. They feel I’m not fair.
JOE’S RESPONSE – Don’t enter contests. If your story is good enough, find an editor who will pay for it. But guess what? If you do the things I mentioned not to do, you won’t find an editor. Also, someone is knocking on your door. It’s Life, and he’s holding a big sign that says “I’m Not Fair.” Maybe you should let him in and get to know him.”
Just … must … not. No, no, no, no, no. No! NO! NO!! NO!!! Aaaargghhh!!!!!
July 17th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
“my friend Ben is an artist (you remember him, JK? there was a knife incident at a party…)”
Ah yes, I remember. You say ‘knife incident’ and it conjures up grainy CCTV images of gangs of feral youths in sportswear squaring off over a bottle of white lightening cider, under a typically restrained Daily Mail headline, when in fact what happened was some a rather genteel misunderstanding about a bowl of washing up.
July 26th, 2009 at 12:48 am
Just wanted to chime in with a correction. I don’t fund my own book tours–my publishers have always paid for those. Also, your comment about my advice being just a hook to hang my self-promo on is misguided. I’ve posted more than 400 blog entries. Only a few dozen are posts meant to sell my writing. The rest are free advice. You’re welcome to disagree with my advice–it encourages discussion and the exchange of ideas and viewpoints. But my intent is, and has always been, to help newbie authors, free of charge.
July 26th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Joe – my apologies for that. I’d got the impression, from your blog posts on the Afraid tour, that the publishers had only partially funded it, and tallying up the cost of petrol, food and so on at beginning of each post suggested to me you were saying “this is how much it’s costing me”. But that’s my mistake.
I’m not misguided on the self-promotion issue, though. Your advice is your self-promotion: it is the content that keeps people returning to your blog and puts your name in people’s minds. It’s the USP of your blog. Given the emphasis you place on self-promotion and getting yourself out there, I find it hard to believe you don’t see your blog as being an obvious and enormous part of that. But it’s just semantics, I suppose. Isn’t it all?