editors

Judging the Quality of Your Writing

October 6, 2010 By Mark 4 Comments

In the previous post I said there’s no relationship between writing quality and publication. Book deals are made for economic reasons, not because great writing makes the world a better place. If a prospective but marketable writer stinks, the industry will hire a ghostwriter, treating content as just another part of the manufacturing process.

I said the same thing in a recent spat with Jane Smith. I said the same thing when Sarah Palin’s book was announced. I’ve pointed to, and will continue to point to, incidents where publishers have failed to meet the same standards they routinely accuse unpublished and independent authors of failing to meet.

I understand why publishing wants to promote itself as the sole judge of quality and merit. Such status equates to power, and power in the marketplace equals money. But publishing’s credibility is so completely corrupted by its own actions that nobody in their right mind would take the sole word of a publisher, agent or editor when it comes to judging writing on the basis of quality, any more than one would try a case if the presiding judge had a vested interest in the outcome. [ Read more ]

The Infallible Editor

January 20, 2010 By Mark 14 Comments

Not everyone tells stories, but we all create and embrace narratives as we move through our lives. As human beings we do this for a number of reasons, including making life seem more orderly and secure than it actually is.

For example, it’s commonly said that during a time of war anyone who serves in the military is a hero — in part for risking their life, and in part for doing a job the rest of us don’t want to do. The reality, of course, is much different. People in uniform are no different than people out of uniform. Even during a time of national emergency there are military murderers, pedophiles, psychotics, traitors, and on and on.

But that’s not a narrative that makes us sleep well at night. We need to believe that the people in the military are highly-trained professionals keeping us safe from harm, and we don’t want to feel guilty about not taking that risk ourselves. So we buy into a narrative of dedicated heroes who put our physical safety ahead of their own lives. The military encourages this narrative because it helps maintain their funding, and because it shields them from analysis that might force a change in doctrine or structure.

We embrace such narratives because they allow us to get out of bed and slog through our day without freaking out about existential pointlessness or worries that the people we are forced to rely on are letting us down. It’s ultimately an extension of childhood, where you can’t see your parents as individuals partly because you don’t have the cognitive capacity, but also because you know on a primitive level that you are wholly and completely reliant on them for your survival. No matter how many times a parent hits you or passes out in front of you from drugs or alcohol, you know they’re good people down deep because they have to be.

As someone who tells stories for a living, I see these kinds of narratives in every aspect of life, every endeavor, every organization, every business, every profession. Despite the example above, I also see the utility of these narratives, and the benefit to individuals both within and outside organizations that use narratives to further their cause or justify their existence.

Unfortunately, it’s often the case that such narratives are not a function of genuine personal, societal or cultural need, but rather an attempt to exploit the very idea of a narrative for self-serving reasons. You can see this most clearly in all aspects of politics, where messaging and rhetoric aspire to nothing more than sloganeering and nationalism of one flavor or another. Maddeningly, this kind of narrative marketing usually works, and all the more so when threats of imminent death are churned into the mix. [ Read more ]

An Up-Close Look at the Sausage Machine

September 29, 2009 By Mark Leave a Comment

Imagine for a moment that you can write a story — any length, any genre — and when you are finished you can make it available for the whole world to read. You need a very small amount of money to do this, for computing and technology-related costs. You need some understanding of technology, but nothing prohibitive, and people online will help you learn what you need to learn for nothing other than the satisfaction of doing so.

Hold this idea in your mind and linger on it. You write a story, and the whole world can read it. There is nothing between you and your audience….

Now consider this:

The sheer book-length nature of books combined with the seemingly inexorable reductions in editorial staffs and the number of submissions most editors receive, to say nothing of the welter of non-editorial tasks that most editors have to perform, including holding the hands of intensely self-absorbed and insecure writers, fielding frequently irate calls from agents, attending endless and vapid and ritualistic meetings, having one largely empty ceremonial lunch after another, supplementing publicity efforts, writing or revising flap copy, ditto catalog copy, refereeing jacket-design disputes, and so on — all these conditions taken together make the job of a trade-book acquisitions editor these days fundamentally impossible. The shrift given to actual close and considered editing almost has to be short and is growing shorter, another very old and evergreen publishing story but truer now than ever before.

From the point of view of an author considering doing business with a publishing house, this is the kind of behind-the-scenes look at the book industry that has prevented me, for most of my writing life, from ever really trying to break in. Yes, I’ve made a few attempts, but at some point — and fairly quickly — I’ve realized that the game is so heavily weighted against me that I would be better off buying a lottery ticket. [ Read more ]