In Today’s Journal
* My Quote of the Day
* The Bland Ugliness of “Winner’s Tilt” Part 1
* Of Interest
My Quote of the Day
“Once a reader has selected his genre, the excuse of ‘reader taste’ is exhausted and becomes just another myth writers use to explain why the reader doesn’t like their work. It’s the writer’s responsibility to pull the reader into the story and keep him there.”
The Bland Ugliness of “Winner’s Tilt” Part 1
Any practicing or even wannabe psychologists out there? You’re fiction writers, so there should be. Here’s a case study for you.
I’ve think I’ve finally recognized why I stopped writing after Blackwell Ops 53, which I finished back in December of last year. I believe the reason is akin to something called Winner’s Tilt, a poker term. (See Of Interest.)
I don’t play poker, though I’d like to. I think I’d be really good at it, but I suspect I’ll never know. I’m too afraid of throwing good money after bad.
An-knee-way…. after I finished BO-53, I was a little weary of that series. I’d written so many books in the series I felt like I was phoning it in.
For me that was the last dark cloud in a gathering perfect storm.
- My “big” sagas (Wes Crowley and the Journey Home) were long-since done and dusted, and
- I didn’t feel any new stories coming on from Stern Talbot (PI) or Joseph “Joey Bones” Salerno and his ilk or any other strong major character(s), so
- I found myself hoping a new character would step up and grab my attention.
Additionally, despite my having updated some covers and sales copy that I realized were inadequate, my book sales showed zero signs of climbing to where I thought they should be after I’d written so prolifically and so well for so long.
And all of that led, quickly, to the critical mind popping up with Why bother?
There, I said it. Somehow I’m still susceptible to that crap.
After 53 novels in the Blackwell Ops series, my focus in fiction was narrowing. Not only that, but awhile back I recognized a kind of “formula” in the Blackwell Ops novels, and I don’t like formulas in writing. So that was weighing on my mind too.
Now, Dean Wesley Smith often recommends reading fiction from contemporary bestselling authors to “learn the craft.” Okay, so that must be a good idea, right?
So I bought several novels written by several different New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors. I bought those specifically to read the openings.
The plan was simple: If an opening grabbed me—if it invited or pulled me into the story—I’d finish the novel, then go back to study that opening in hopes of improving my own.
To put it bluntly, the experiment was a flop. It didn’t help at all.
Within the first few pages of each book, I realized the opening didn’t invite or pull me into the story. Not one of those openings made me feel as if I was even actually in that fictional world with the protagonist.
Like say the way Stephen King’s work does or Elmore Leonard’s work does or Dashiell Hammett’s or Raymond Chandler’s or Ernest Hemingway’s.
In fact, in every case, those openings actually put me off as a reader. Every one of them held me at arm’s length, forcing me to be a passive observer—an outsider—rather than inviting me in to be a participant in the story or even a colleague of the main character.
- In some of the openings there was unnecessary vulgarity or over-the-top clichés (sometimes owing to the genre, but still…) or unnecessary or inanely modified tag lines like “she said aloud.” (C’mon, how else can “she say” something?)
- In others, because of a lack of setting description, I was left to fill in the blanks myself. (Not my job, dude. I’m here to be entertained.)
- Because of that lack of setting description, I also didn’t learn any of the main character’s opinions about the setting. You know, the opinions that would’ve told me something about the personality of the character.
- And there were other, lesser problems that repelled me instead of inviting me in.
As a result I only became more envious and maybe even developed a lesser-grade borderline depression. And honed by that envy and depression, the “Why bother?” critical-mind intrusion actually sharpened.
I want to emphasize here, this wasn’t a matter of the cheap, legless, catch-all excuse of “reader taste” that so many writers lean back on when someone passes on reading their books.
- In every case I bought novels in genres I enjoy,
- in every case I eagerly suspended my own sense of disbelief even before I even started reading, and
- in every case the way the author presented the story caused that sense of disbelief to quickly return, usually accompanied by “Aw, c’mon, man!”
In other words, in every case, I stopped reading because the author gave me too many opportunities to stop reading, one after another after another. It was as if they were actively trying to shove me out of their work.
If I may I state the obvious, shoving readers out of your work instead of inviting them in is bad juju. Don’t Do That.
Plus I know the openings of my own stories and novels definitely invite or pull the reader into the story, and then they keep the reader in the story with a series of other openings and emotional cliffhanger-hook combinations direct to the heart.
Please understand, I’m not saying my stories are “better” that anyone else’s or that those bestsellers’ stories are “worse” than mine. I’m only saying my application of the craft—how the story is presented in order to intentionally pull readers into the story and keep them there—is better. Because it is.
So at that point I felt completely lost. And I freely admit, the envious part of me wanted to scream: How in the world did lightning strike for those authors and not for me?
Tomorrow, the Bradbury Report and Part 2 of “The Bland Ugliness of Winners’ Tilt.” Talk with you again then.
Of Interest
Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week: Are You an Original or a Copy?