I stopped picking up novels on the "new releases" table when I realized that they all had the stench of a writer's retreat / workshop. Once you notice the pattern, you see it everywhere. All the characters are just-so, and every story feels like the same story wearing a different skin.
And if that's true, after you've read one version, why read another?
I see the same thing. A quick cruise down the “new releases” aisle at B&N after carefully reading several openings (without breaking the backs of course) leaves me feeling completely bored. The differences don’t matter, the patterns are all the same
Why? Because the publishing industry is risk averse. True novelty is too risky; they prefer what is predictable even if they have turned it stale in the making.
Now an existing social media following has been added to the list of requisites to further minimize their risk. That will turn out to be their undoing, though, because authors are now able to bypass them altogether with self publishing. Publishing houses will end up as the producers of the paper version of books that were successful first via social media.
Matt Dinneman is such a good example of this happening already in real time. He only sold paper rights and still retains digital/audio fully. He even continues to serialize the next novels in his series on patreon in advance of the print pub. 💪
Novels written for the Middle School and YA markets are even more predictable. No attempt is made to expand the world view, increase the vocabulary, or challenge the readers. The use of vulgar language is a case in point. Yes, teens use a lot of profanity in everyday speech. Does that excuse authors from showing a different way of speaking & using language?
And the lack of punctuation (no quotation marks or commas in one of these examples noted) drives me crazy!
A few words of encouragement to you, Lisa, and all other artists...never forget that the Renaissance followed centuries of dark times. And much of what happened in Firenze is due to one family. Don't give up. You are building a family, an army...and we won't have to wait centuries.
chill. I'm a guest on a site about literature with the intent of supporting other writers. I'm not here to lecture about 500 years of history. Recognize that you sound a bit woke and chill.
It's also historically inaccurate. The Dark Ages ended with the formation of large kingdoms in the late 10th century. The Middle Ages ended with the rise of literacy and the fracture of the Catholic Church's hold on knowledge, and a variety of large political shifts (Moors out of Spain, the Hundred Years' War ended, the end of the Byzantine Empire). People were free to think and develop for themselves without the rigid structures that long wars, plague, and Catholic dominance of knowledge had bred.
Fine fine fine...if you must. I'll not mention then the fact that if it were not for the Catholic monastic tradition far too many ancient texts- not just religious texts - would never have been preserved
There were no centuries of dark times, mate. At least not throughout the world. And even during Renaissance, the average Joe without connections to courts did not have access to the great arts.
These are not "rules for literature". These are things agents are looking for because they think they know what will sell. Spoiler: they actually don't. No-one can tell you what to write. All of the "rules" you quote here can be broken with impunity, and have been, even recently, IF YOUR WRITING IS REALLY GOOD.
And if you can't get into an MFA? Fuck it.
And if you can't get a Trad Pub deal? Fuck it. Publish your novel yourself. Market it yourself. Put your money (and time, and effort) where your mouth is. If it's really really fucking good, you'll find an audience.
You're making a career out of complaining about "gatekeeping" and "rules" that aren't real. Agents and publishers can decide whatever damn criteria they like, that's their prereogative. Writers can write any damn thing that they like, and that is theirs.
Can't get into? More like, more time making no money and more money spent, to wind up making very little money, coming from a background with limited money, would have left me living like Rodolfo, which would have sucked for my Mimi had I met a Mimi at the time.
Since it can't be most of the reasons Liza has listed, can you please expound on what these 12 reasons were in an era, the Elizabethan era would work for me, and how the unrecognized great literature applies to the 12?
God! So I’m not alone? It’s like you’ve read my mind - or heard one of my many rants to anyone who’ll listen. If you’d read my recent work you’d see what I mean. Thanks for writing this, and doing it so well.
I could have told you all of this thirty-five years ago. The literary world is not going to change, no matter how many newly-minted MFAs proclaim it should. Everybody knows what the problem is, but nobody has the spine to take a risk on great Literature. Agents will only accept what they think they can sell (which often says more about their own capabilities than a writer's talent), marketing teams and publicists will always reduce the complex anatomies of humanity to "the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions," and all wokeness did was streamline the pre-approved "one-of-us" hustle. Taking literary advice from an agent is like taking medical advice your health insurance company. That's apples and oranges in oil and water.
Independence is the only path to freedom. So, at some point, you're going to have to decide what's more important: telling the story you want to tell, the one that aches in your bones, or the paralyzing, shallow acclaim and petty approval of a community that wants nothing to do with you.
I’ve been writing commercial fiction for a NY publisher since 2009. These same rules absolutely apply to commercial fiction as well, with the exception of some fantasy. I write long (every book but one over 100K words) but I’ve been fortunate to have an editor who is fine with that. I have a new agent (who I do really like), who has been pounding it into my head that I have to write shorter and punchier because my writing is too dense and contains too many “archaic” words. He’s very practical in his take on this: younger editors and readers just don’t have the attention span or patience for longer, more layered, more thematic stories. It’s all about action and nailing “the tropes.”
Sad commentary on our educational system that the vocabularies of even the educated have shrunk considerably.
“Writing down,” especially in children’s literature, only exacerbates this trend. Children actually enjoy learning and using “grown-up” words and that should be encouraged.
The state of children's lit is pretty grim in many respects. I'm reading Ozma of Oz to my 8 year old granddaughter and she's loving it. It's MILES better than the other books she gets out of the library.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes. When I first encountered all this upon trying to pitch a philosophical novel, I was confused (these supposed lovers of literature, why, having read 100 bios have I not seen a single great novel name-checked?)... I've since come to realise just how deep this malaise runs, and yet still each reminder still finds a way to be frustrating :)
All mistakes I make happily and nearly a dozen that show, not tell why not a single agent or traditional house editor will ever see any of my writing. It's going straight to Kindle where 25 years spent in copywriting will sell it, which is another thing these high and mighties will refuse to do
Agree wholeheartedly. Of course there are exceptions to everything, because we create characters, and they are individuals, so some will use shorter more Hemingway esque sentences, while some may be poets and create a Bayeux tapestry of words to describe morning tea. But I see your points.
You are right about most of this. Business is business however and what sold 150 years ago just (maybe) doesn't any longer. Lots of reasons, blame not to be placed in any one place... But I don't like it either... AND... that's why there is self publishing!
However you are wrong about Anna Karinina. She was the honest one and did what she did out of love (call it naive maybe). Her husband was the evil here and she killed herself because her entire society ostracized her.
This was a fascinating read and explains a lot of what I am encountering in writing groups. I had thought it was just a few people's personal expectations, but after reading many people's opening chapters I have noticed a sameness to them that matches what you are railing against. Then the feedback I receive is geared toward becoming part of that same sameness, that homogenisation of literature.
It is a shame, as there are many great stories being written by amateur writers in these groups, but I fear they will end up curtailing their own art to meet the requirements set out by a few YouTube writing gurus and the instructional books the industry pushes as the go-to. Hopefully, more will focus on their vision, and maybe read some older books across all genres to see old ways of writing as something new to try.
The bottom line in publishing is the same as that in the gallery business: If it doesn't sell the publisher, or gallery will go out of business. As there are now, essentially, only 5 publishers left it is increasingly difficult to get published unless the publisher feels they can get an immediate return on their considerable investment. Literature as art is a nice conceit but often times artists get in their own way trying to strong arm readers/viewers into accepting what they do rather than encouraging an organic growth of acceptance and enthusiasm. The world is full of unpublished and unseen great art. And there's little reason to believe that will be changing anytime in the near future. Good luck in your pursuits.
I would like to scream this assessment as loud as possible from every rooftop known to humankind. Your inclusion of the two opening passages by Hemingway and Steinbeck, in particular, are commendable as I think they are the epitome of the difference between the current state of popular literature and the past state of popular literature. Indeed, both these passages set the thematic stage for the central characters and conflicts of either book (the conflict of Robert Cohn’s eventual love triangle in Sun Also Rises and the conflict of the land itself in East of Eden). To have either of these books open in media res in the middle of a conversation would completely change their thematic trajectory. Just delete the first few pages of Sun Also Rises’ opening chapter (whereupon we do in fact just jump into the middle of a conversation) and it becomes painfully clear that without the long expository section about Cohn, we have no setup and no stakes, and the conversation becomes relatively meaningless.
Having been railing for years against the agent-driven demand for MFA programs to follow this style in teaching, it’s refreshing to see someone fighting back. I find more and more that these writers are quite prevalent on Substack. And while I do understand this style comes from a business driven mindset (if readers don’t read the book it doesn’t matter how good it is) I think it is also the fault of publishers and agents for creating this style in the first place and in doing so creating a feedback loop with readers whereby they now associate so-called “good” writing with this style.
Of course, the industry alone isn’t to blame, as falling critical thinking skills and increased distractions are the root cause of this decline. But it’s worrying not to see any agents or publishers recognizing that there are plenty of readers out there who are longing for better written more original material; they’re just looking in other places rather than the Big 5. Hence, I would posit, the popularity of Substack to begin with.
Anyway, as the author of two novels that both begin with absolutely zero action but rather opening which set the tone, themes, and overarching metaphor for the entire story, I resonate tremendously with your article and its sentiments. I hope any agents out there take heed as well - there are plenty of us who want and love those types of books. Give me two pages of description if it has purpose. Give me a chapter of dialogue and action followed by one incredibly well written paragraph if it has purpose. Give me short sentences (or long sentences) or simplicity if it has purpose.
I stopped picking up novels on the "new releases" table when I realized that they all had the stench of a writer's retreat / workshop. Once you notice the pattern, you see it everywhere. All the characters are just-so, and every story feels like the same story wearing a different skin.
And if that's true, after you've read one version, why read another?
I see the same thing. A quick cruise down the “new releases” aisle at B&N after carefully reading several openings (without breaking the backs of course) leaves me feeling completely bored. The differences don’t matter, the patterns are all the same
Why? Because the publishing industry is risk averse. True novelty is too risky; they prefer what is predictable even if they have turned it stale in the making.
Now an existing social media following has been added to the list of requisites to further minimize their risk. That will turn out to be their undoing, though, because authors are now able to bypass them altogether with self publishing. Publishing houses will end up as the producers of the paper version of books that were successful first via social media.
Matt Dinneman is such a good example of this happening already in real time. He only sold paper rights and still retains digital/audio fully. He even continues to serialize the next novels in his series on patreon in advance of the print pub. 💪
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Crawler_Carl
I suspect that The Critical Drinker will not be making a re-appearance in future Audio books....
Novels written for the Middle School and YA markets are even more predictable. No attempt is made to expand the world view, increase the vocabulary, or challenge the readers. The use of vulgar language is a case in point. Yes, teens use a lot of profanity in everyday speech. Does that excuse authors from showing a different way of speaking & using language?
And the lack of punctuation (no quotation marks or commas in one of these examples noted) drives me crazy!
same restaurant - different waiters.
A few words of encouragement to you, Lisa, and all other artists...never forget that the Renaissance followed centuries of dark times. And much of what happened in Firenze is due to one family. Don't give up. You are building a family, an army...and we won't have to wait centuries.
Ehhhh, that's really more like Enlightenment propaganda. Calling the Middle Ages the "Dark Ages" is an unfair, incomplete, and very biased framing.
chill. I'm a guest on a site about literature with the intent of supporting other writers. I'm not here to lecture about 500 years of history. Recognize that you sound a bit woke and chill.
"I don't like it when my preferred framing of a contested viewpoint isn't unconditionally accepted"
Ah sarcasm. Pardon me. Love it :)
It's also historically inaccurate. The Dark Ages ended with the formation of large kingdoms in the late 10th century. The Middle Ages ended with the rise of literacy and the fracture of the Catholic Church's hold on knowledge, and a variety of large political shifts (Moors out of Spain, the Hundred Years' War ended, the end of the Byzantine Empire). People were free to think and develop for themselves without the rigid structures that long wars, plague, and Catholic dominance of knowledge had bred.
Fine fine fine...if you must. I'll not mention then the fact that if it were not for the Catholic monastic tradition far too many ancient texts- not just religious texts - would never have been preserved
There were no centuries of dark times, mate. At least not throughout the world. And even during Renaissance, the average Joe without connections to courts did not have access to the great arts.
These are not "rules for literature". These are things agents are looking for because they think they know what will sell. Spoiler: they actually don't. No-one can tell you what to write. All of the "rules" you quote here can be broken with impunity, and have been, even recently, IF YOUR WRITING IS REALLY GOOD.
And if you can't get into an MFA? Fuck it.
And if you can't get a Trad Pub deal? Fuck it. Publish your novel yourself. Market it yourself. Put your money (and time, and effort) where your mouth is. If it's really really fucking good, you'll find an audience.
You're making a career out of complaining about "gatekeeping" and "rules" that aren't real. Agents and publishers can decide whatever damn criteria they like, that's their prereogative. Writers can write any damn thing that they like, and that is theirs.
Can't get into? More like, more time making no money and more money spent, to wind up making very little money, coming from a background with limited money, would have left me living like Rodolfo, which would have sucked for my Mimi had I met a Mimi at the time.
12 reasons why most classic literature was never popular in its own time. Yet, generations later, what are we still reading?
Since it can't be most of the reasons Liza has listed, can you please expound on what these 12 reasons were in an era, the Elizabethan era would work for me, and how the unrecognized great literature applies to the 12?
God! So I’m not alone? It’s like you’ve read my mind - or heard one of my many rants to anyone who’ll listen. If you’d read my recent work you’d see what I mean. Thanks for writing this, and doing it so well.
I could have told you all of this thirty-five years ago. The literary world is not going to change, no matter how many newly-minted MFAs proclaim it should. Everybody knows what the problem is, but nobody has the spine to take a risk on great Literature. Agents will only accept what they think they can sell (which often says more about their own capabilities than a writer's talent), marketing teams and publicists will always reduce the complex anatomies of humanity to "the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions," and all wokeness did was streamline the pre-approved "one-of-us" hustle. Taking literary advice from an agent is like taking medical advice your health insurance company. That's apples and oranges in oil and water.
Independence is the only path to freedom. So, at some point, you're going to have to decide what's more important: telling the story you want to tell, the one that aches in your bones, or the paralyzing, shallow acclaim and petty approval of a community that wants nothing to do with you.
Isn't it terribly difficult to maintain a literary publishing firm when the company views its customers as functionally illiterate?
"The beauty of the deal is no one is responsible because they're all drinking the same Kool-Aid."
~GG
I’ve been writing commercial fiction for a NY publisher since 2009. These same rules absolutely apply to commercial fiction as well, with the exception of some fantasy. I write long (every book but one over 100K words) but I’ve been fortunate to have an editor who is fine with that. I have a new agent (who I do really like), who has been pounding it into my head that I have to write shorter and punchier because my writing is too dense and contains too many “archaic” words. He’s very practical in his take on this: younger editors and readers just don’t have the attention span or patience for longer, more layered, more thematic stories. It’s all about action and nailing “the tropes.”
Sad commentary on our educational system that the vocabularies of even the educated have shrunk considerably.
“Writing down,” especially in children’s literature, only exacerbates this trend. Children actually enjoy learning and using “grown-up” words and that should be encouraged.
The state of children's lit is pretty grim in many respects. I'm reading Ozma of Oz to my 8 year old granddaughter and she's loving it. It's MILES better than the other books she gets out of the library.
Thanks for sharing. It's interesting to see how a novelist has viewed this evolution.
The opening sentence of Anne of Green Gables has 148 words.
And, it was aimed mainly at a youthful audience, assumed to be literate enough to read it without any problem.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes. When I first encountered all this upon trying to pitch a philosophical novel, I was confused (these supposed lovers of literature, why, having read 100 bios have I not seen a single great novel name-checked?)... I've since come to realise just how deep this malaise runs, and yet still each reminder still finds a way to be frustrating :)
All mistakes I make happily and nearly a dozen that show, not tell why not a single agent or traditional house editor will ever see any of my writing. It's going straight to Kindle where 25 years spent in copywriting will sell it, which is another thing these high and mighties will refuse to do
Agree wholeheartedly. Of course there are exceptions to everything, because we create characters, and they are individuals, so some will use shorter more Hemingway esque sentences, while some may be poets and create a Bayeux tapestry of words to describe morning tea. But I see your points.
"...Bayeux tapestry of words..." Yes! Balzac is the master here, tho Eliot is no slouch either.
You are right about most of this. Business is business however and what sold 150 years ago just (maybe) doesn't any longer. Lots of reasons, blame not to be placed in any one place... But I don't like it either... AND... that's why there is self publishing!
However you are wrong about Anna Karinina. She was the honest one and did what she did out of love (call it naive maybe). Her husband was the evil here and she killed herself because her entire society ostracized her.
This was a fascinating read and explains a lot of what I am encountering in writing groups. I had thought it was just a few people's personal expectations, but after reading many people's opening chapters I have noticed a sameness to them that matches what you are railing against. Then the feedback I receive is geared toward becoming part of that same sameness, that homogenisation of literature.
It is a shame, as there are many great stories being written by amateur writers in these groups, but I fear they will end up curtailing their own art to meet the requirements set out by a few YouTube writing gurus and the instructional books the industry pushes as the go-to. Hopefully, more will focus on their vision, and maybe read some older books across all genres to see old ways of writing as something new to try.
Might this whole situation be an opportunity to organize a new publishing house that would be run in a way that is consistent with these 12 opinions?
The bottom line in publishing is the same as that in the gallery business: If it doesn't sell the publisher, or gallery will go out of business. As there are now, essentially, only 5 publishers left it is increasingly difficult to get published unless the publisher feels they can get an immediate return on their considerable investment. Literature as art is a nice conceit but often times artists get in their own way trying to strong arm readers/viewers into accepting what they do rather than encouraging an organic growth of acceptance and enthusiasm. The world is full of unpublished and unseen great art. And there's little reason to believe that will be changing anytime in the near future. Good luck in your pursuits.
There is an art to writing a great story within constraints.
I would like to scream this assessment as loud as possible from every rooftop known to humankind. Your inclusion of the two opening passages by Hemingway and Steinbeck, in particular, are commendable as I think they are the epitome of the difference between the current state of popular literature and the past state of popular literature. Indeed, both these passages set the thematic stage for the central characters and conflicts of either book (the conflict of Robert Cohn’s eventual love triangle in Sun Also Rises and the conflict of the land itself in East of Eden). To have either of these books open in media res in the middle of a conversation would completely change their thematic trajectory. Just delete the first few pages of Sun Also Rises’ opening chapter (whereupon we do in fact just jump into the middle of a conversation) and it becomes painfully clear that without the long expository section about Cohn, we have no setup and no stakes, and the conversation becomes relatively meaningless.
Having been railing for years against the agent-driven demand for MFA programs to follow this style in teaching, it’s refreshing to see someone fighting back. I find more and more that these writers are quite prevalent on Substack. And while I do understand this style comes from a business driven mindset (if readers don’t read the book it doesn’t matter how good it is) I think it is also the fault of publishers and agents for creating this style in the first place and in doing so creating a feedback loop with readers whereby they now associate so-called “good” writing with this style.
Of course, the industry alone isn’t to blame, as falling critical thinking skills and increased distractions are the root cause of this decline. But it’s worrying not to see any agents or publishers recognizing that there are plenty of readers out there who are longing for better written more original material; they’re just looking in other places rather than the Big 5. Hence, I would posit, the popularity of Substack to begin with.
Anyway, as the author of two novels that both begin with absolutely zero action but rather opening which set the tone, themes, and overarching metaphor for the entire story, I resonate tremendously with your article and its sentiments. I hope any agents out there take heed as well - there are plenty of us who want and love those types of books. Give me two pages of description if it has purpose. Give me a chapter of dialogue and action followed by one incredibly well written paragraph if it has purpose. Give me short sentences (or long sentences) or simplicity if it has purpose.