To some, writing is a skill. To others, it’s intuitive. I’ve been reading of late a small controversy brewing over the mechanical writer vs. the artistic. I believe that there is a place in this world for both, but my question is which technique does better in the general fiction marketplace? Is it the writer that maps out every subplot that graphically organizes characteristics of the protagonist? Or is it the dreamer whose creative wind sails them across the sea of their imagination?—Elizabeth Isaacs
Mechanical.
No question.
Good god, look at James Patterson. He uses co-authors rather than a muse. Readers don’t care. He’s got more books on the 2009 Publishers Marketplace best seller list (compiled of stats) than anyone.
Ask Stephen King what he thinks of James Patterson’s “art.” Then ask James Patterson’s bank what they think of it.
Literary fiction, while truly the one great reason I read, is dying out in traditional publishing. It is no longer enough for a novel like Maria Dermout’s The Ten Thousand Things to be breathtakingly beautiful and exquisitely plotted along unique and wandering lines. Now that literacy is everywhere, the vast, vast majority of readers can read but don’t understand art for the sake of art, so they read solely for stories. They want to know who did what to whom and how it turned out. Half the time, they don’t even care why. In fact, they like it best if it’s the same old characters doing the same old thing over and over again ad infinitum.
The really touching part is that some of the most serious writers who come to me are practitioners of literary fiction. They’ve spent years and years of their lives learning, in all dedication, how to craft lovely sentences into beautiful, poignant scenes and seismic-level exposition. They’re creating wonderful art. It’s a joy to work with them.
But they are having a very, very hard time breaking into traditional publishing. “I love your novel,” they hear over and over again. “But I’m afraid the market for it’s not big enough.” And that, people, is a NO.
UPDATE: Here’s what I mean by NO.
What’s even worse, the books that are being accepted for publication—stories solidly set in their genres with carefully-organized plotlines and easily-identifiable characterizations—aren’t usually edited these days. Now that publishing houses have jettisoned half the ballast holding them steady, more and more the writer’s only recourse is to either hire an editor on their own or else accept that simply mechanical has to be good enough. So even if these authors want their fiction to be the best writing it can possibly be, they’re out of luck. You can’t edit yourself. Believe me, I have tried. And I’m good. Tough luck for me.
Make no mistake: this is a tragedy of major scope. Major. HOWEVER! All is not lost. Because self-publishing is available to everyone. And what the traditional publishers refuse to consider or, if even if they do accept it, to edit, the serious artist can still get out there, if they’re really, really serious.
I’ve blogged about this a lot. I DON’T MEAN SELF-PUBLISH YOUR EARLY DRAFTS. Listen to me when I say this. Listen.
But certainly, if your work falls into the category of creative winds sailing you across the seas of your imagination. . .hope is on the horizon.