About James Scott Bell

International Thriller Writers Award winner, #1 bestselling author of THRILLERS and BOOKS ON WRITING. Subscribe to JSB's NEWSLETTER.

From Failure to Success in Writing

Posted on July 5, 2015 by James Scott Bell

The rah-rah headline for today’s post is borrowed from a book I read as a young man, How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger. It’s considered a classic of sales-training lit. But lots of folks have given the book props for helping them get ahead in other professions, too.

The headline is also apt because I definitely thought myself a failure as a writer when I was in my twenties. The stuff I wrote didn’t work the way I wanted it to, and I was told that’s because you have be born a writer. You can’t learn how to do it.

For ten years or so I accepted that I would never make it in this business.

So I did some other things. I moved to New York to pursue an acting career. Started doing Off-Broadway, Shakespeare, avant-garde. But after awhile I wondered why I wasn’t being offered a starring role in a movie like Raiders of the Lost Ark (they gave it to some guy named Ford).

During a visit back to L.A. I met this gorgeous actress at a party. Knowing I’d be returning to New York soon, I only waited two-and-a-half weeks to ask her to marry me.

Shockingly, she said yes.

After we were married I decided it might be a good idea for us to have one steady paycheck. Since Cindy was the more talented of the two of us, she continued with her stage work while I applied to law school.

In my third year at USC Law I interviewed with a big firm with offices in Beverly Hills.

Shockingly, they hired me.

Later on I opened my own office. And found out I had to be a businessman, too. I had to learn entrepreneurial principles. So I started to read books on business, and one of these was Bettger’s.

A few years went by and the desire to write, with me since I was a kid reading Tarzan of the Apes, came back to me. Bettger’s principles helped me along that path, too.

Frank Bettger was a former big-league ballplayer who went into the insurance game. After initial failures he started wondering if he really had what it took to be a good salesman. He decided to find out what others did. He began to apply a set of practices that helped get him to the top.

The first of these practices was enthusiasm. To sell successfully, you have to be enthusiastic about your product, your prospects, life itself. You need to exude joy, because the alternative is gloom, and gloom don’t sell.

Bettger noticed that if he didn’t feel enthusiastic, he could still act enthusiastic, and soon enough the feeling came tagging right along.

When I discovered you really can learn the craft, I got as excited as a man in the ocean who finds a plank to hang on to and then spots a lush island in the distance. It was enough to infuse joy and hope into my writing, and those two things alone started to improve it.

Another practice Bettger mentions is a system of organization. Make plans, record your results. When I got my first book contract I hadn’t thought through what I’d do for a follow-up. So I got organized. I began planning my career five years ahead, kept track of who I met with and pitched to, who I wanted to meet, and scheduled projects accordingly.

I’d already established the discipline of writing to a quota, but now I started keeping track of my output on a spreadsheet. Starting with the year 2000 I can tell you how many words I wrote on any given day, on what projects, and my weekly, monthly, and yearly totals.

Next, Bettger summarized the most important secret in sales: Find out what the other fellow wants, then help him find the best way to get it.

This got me thinking about pleasing readers. In college I was heavily influenced by the Beats (Kerouac, Ginsberg, et al.) Their writing was idiosyncratic and experimental. But I figured out early that what was idiosyncratic did not necessarily, or usually, connect with a large audience.

I knew I could write solely for myself, ignore genre, be hip (though a lot of the time it was artificial hip). But I wanted to make a living at this, so I backed up and looked for points where my own writing pleasure met with readers’ desire for a good story.

Still, I needed confidence this could be done. Bettger wrote that the best way to increase confidence is to keep learning about your business. Never stop.

The same holds true for writing, both the craft side and the business side.

If you are set on traditional publishing you need to know: What are publishing contracts like? What terms are you willing to accept … or, more importantly, walk away from? What are the characteristics of a good agent? What can you realistically expect in terms of editorial and marketing?

If you are going to self-publish, do you have a plan? Do you know what you need to know? Are you putting in a systematic effort to find out? Are you a risk taker?

In my business life I dedicated at least half an hour a day reading about business principles, thinking, and planning. I do the same thing in my writing life. I read every issue of Writer’s Digest. I enjoy books and blogs on the craft. My philosophy has always been that if I pick up one new technique, or see something familiar from another point of view, it’s worth the effort.

There’s a lot more packed into Bettger’s book, but I’ll close with the part that helped me most, both as a businessman and as an author. It’s his chapter on Ben Franklin’s plan for self-improvement.

In Franklin’s autobiography, he writes about his desire, as a young man, to acquire the habits of successful living. Franklin chose thirteen virtues, such as temperance, resolution, frugality, justice and so on. He made a chart and concentrated on one virtue for a week, ingraining the habit. That way, he could go through his list four times a year.

Bettger followed this plan by choosing thirteen practices that would help him as a salesman, such as sincerity, remembering names and faces, service and prospecting, and so on.

I did something similar with my writing. I formulated what I call the Seven Critical Success Factors of Fiction: plot, structure, character, scenes, dialogue, theme, and voice. By concentrating on these serially, I hoped to raise my overall game.

Bettger’s book helped me at two crucial points in my life––when I had to run a business, and when I made the decision to pursue the writing dream. In both pursuits there are challenges aplenty. Sources of inspiration are critical. I’m glad that ex-ballplayer was around to fire me up.

So what gets you enthusiastic about your writing? When you need an infusion of confidence, where do you turn?

Reader Friday: What About Those Millennials?

Posted on July 3, 2015 by James Scott Bell

A new report finds that Millennials (those born roughly between 1982 and 2000) are less likely to purchase ebooks than any other age group, with 63% of 16-24 year-olds saying they have never bought one, The director of the study said, “[I]t is clear from our research that authors, publishers and retailers must do more to appeal to younger audiences in order to remain commercially relevant.”

What do you think the future is for authors, especially indies living off ebooks, with the Millennials? Will they grow into readers? Will they buy ebooks? Or, with so much vying for their attention, is the very idea of spending time with a novel destined to become a relic of the past?

Writing Blunder #14: No Push Through The Door

Posted on June 28, 2015 by James Scott Bell

Structure is my beat.

My book Plot & Structure (Writers’ Digest Books) is the foundation. It was a labor of love from someone who was told you can’t learn to be a writer, that the ability to plot was something you had to have born into you, that you might as well sling hash if you think you can write for a living without “it” being in you from birth.

I believed that twaddle for a long time. I lost ten good years of a writing life because of the chuckleheads who said you can’t learn to write fiction.

When I sat down to try—because I wanted to be a writer more than anything, and just had to give it a go, even if I failed—I began by studying structure.

At the time, the big structure book was Screenplay by Syd Field. Field said there were three acts in a good movie, with Act I comprising the first quarter of the running time, Act II half the time, and Act III the last quarter. He then determined there were two “plot points” that occurred to move the action from Act I to Act II, and from Act II to Act III. His “paradigm” looked like this:

All well and good. But as I studied this out I got hung up on those plot points. What Field said they did was “spin the action around” in another direction. I could not figure out what that meant. Was it any random action? Because there are an infinite number of actions and an infinite number of directions a story can take.

Determined to find out what I was missing, I spent a year watching movies with a blank paradigm sheet in front of me. I divided the running time of a movie into quarters, and kept an eye on that first quarter, Act I, looking for the secret to the plot point.

I finally found it.

And dubbed it the “Doorway of No Return.” The key is this: Something pushes the Lead into the confrontation with death in Act II. The Lead has to be forced through, because no one wants to fight with death.

We want to stay in our nice, comfortable world and enjoy life as we know it.

We can’t let that happen to the Lead! A novel or movie does not become the story until the Lead is forced to fight death, which is what Act II is all about.

Not pushing the Lead through that first doorway is #14 of the 27 writing blunders I take on in my new book:

It’s a doorway of no return because the Lead can’t go back through the doorway to the old life. If he can, it’s not a true break into Act II.

When you do this right, the reader will go right along with you.

But if you don’t force entry into Act II, the story will feel weak. Unmotivated. Manipulative.

Note this, too. You must force that entry by the 1/5 mark of a novel or the 1/4 mark of a movie, or the story will start to drag.

Let’s look at some examples:

The Wizard of Oz. At the 1/4 mark, Dorothy is taken, physically, to the Land of Oz. She can’t go back through the Doorway. There is no return. She has to make it through the rest of the plot, and survive, in order to go back.

The Fugitive has the train wreck and escape in the first act. Then Tommy Lee Jones and his team of trackers show up. He immediately figures out Kimble has escaped. He orders roadblocks and a complete area search. “Your fugitive’s name is Dr. Richard Kimble,” he says. “Go get him.”

That line is exactly one quarter of the way into the film. See what’s happened? All the essential elements of the story are in place: escaped man and his opponent. They have competing agendas. Death is on the line. If Kimble is caught, he’s toast. Death Row will be his final stop.

The first doorway can be an emotional push if it is strong enough to motivate the character into the death struggle.

That’s what happens in Star Wars. Luke’s Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen are murdered by Imperial stormtroopers searching for the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. Up to this point, Luke has only dreamed of going off on adventures. His loyalty to his aunt and uncle kept him on his home planet.

Now, though, he is experiencing loss and the desire to fight. He will go off with Obi-Wan Kenobi and learn the ways of the Jedi and join the rebellion.

Ask yourself this: When does your Lead character get forced—by an action or strong emotion, or both—into the main conflict of your story?

Be clear in your own mind, and on the page so the reader will have no doubt.

Then place that scene before the 20% mark of your word count.

Do those two things, and your novel will not feel like a drag!

***
This post is adapted from 27 Fiction Writing Blunders – And How Not To Make Them! (Compendium Press). The book is available now:

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Earn Your Writing Success The Old-Fashioned Way

Posted on June 21, 2015 by James Scott Bell

Back in the 70s there was an effective ad campaign for the investment firm Smith Barney. It featured John Houseman in his Professor Kingsfield garb (if you don’t know who John Houseman is, or Professor Kingsfield, go watch The Paper Chase, a movie about Harvard Law School that won Houseman an Oscar). Here’s one of the ads:

That tag line became famous. They make money the old-fashioned way—they EARN it.

It was great alternative advertising, countering the young, fast, Maserati-driving, Rolex-wearing rah-rah hype of the day. The ads reminded people that you don’t make money for long with get-rich-quick schemes. The only lasting value comes from hard work. (Let’s put aside for our purposes here the fact that Smith Barney itself seems not to have listened to its own spokesman.)

I thought of that ad the other day as I read a post by Kristine Kathryn Rusch about writers trying to “game the system.” I recommend you read the whole thing, but here are a few reflections that track with my own thinking on the issue.

Kris’s post was prompted by an announced change in the Kindle Unlimited program on Amazon. Currently, writers in KU are paid from a common fund, triggered when 10% of a downloaded piece is read. Which means a payout happens when 500 words of a 5000 word short story are clicked through by a KU borrower. And the same amount when a 100,000 word novel gets to the 10,000 word mark.

Theoretically, then, a writer can put out a ton of short work, or serialize a full-length novel, and increase his or her payouts. Bloggers have been dispensing strategic ideas to get the most out of the program.

When that happens to their business, Amazon tends to shift things around.

As they have now. Starting next month Amazon brings a new formula to KU. Payout will be on a pages-read basis. So that 5000 word short story is only going to be making a fraction of what it once did. Not everyone is happy about this. See here for further details.

The new plan does reward full-length novels that people want to read all the way through.

Imagine that. Just like when writers had to earn money the old-fashioned way. They had to EARN it!

These changes are still going to bring out strategies to use digital output and SEO tricks and algorithmic ping pong to squeeze money out of readers and their discretionary income. Note, I’m not talking about wise marketing and the fundamentals of digital commerce. This is about trying to make bank from chicanery rather than superb storytelling.

Kris Rusch is having none of it:

In the beginning, I tolerated gaming the system. I used to think that writers would get by it. Some writers do get past that idea that they can game their way to success. Some writers do game their way to success. But I have learned that every writer who games his way to success has short-term success.

And then that writer gets caught or the system changes or the bottom falls out. Most writers quit at that point. Last summer’s Kindle Unlimited Apocalypse took out hundreds, maybe thousands, of writers who had some success. Many of them left writing altogether.

Some of them found a new way to game the system, still with Kindle Unlimited, figuring out the new algorithms and what those writers “should” be writing in order to win the big prize—which is, either, some imagined (unprovable) bonus to their bestseller rankings or part of the Prize Pool. Ooops. I mean the Select Global Fund. Or none of the above. Honestly, I haven’t made much of a study of it, because, as you can tell from my tone, I don’t think it important.

The remaining writers who were gaming the system and got nailed did the cliché thing and turned lemons into lemonade. They learned that they were approaching their business wrong, and they took the collapse as an opportunity to build a foundation underneath their writing career.

What “bugs” her about all this is “the contempt these writers show for the craft of writing.”

In other words, gaming a system, like Kindle Unlimited or the New York Times bestseller list is extremely disrespectful. It doesn’t require the writer to get better, to become a better storyteller or to build a fan base. It only means that the goal—whatever that goal is—means more to the writer than having readers does….

They disrespect readers. These writers want people to buy their books (or borrow them for a fee, as in KU), but these writers don’t care if the readers read the book.

They want a reader’s money and they want to give the reader very little in return for it.

I hope this sentiment reaches writers coming up who are tempted to concentrate more and more of their time and effort on gaming, and less and less on the hard work of learning the craft.

I’ll always maintain that the most satisfying writing career, and the one most likely to last, is the one that EARNS its place at the table.

Yes, the old-fashioned way.

Do you agree?

Should Fiction Writers Tell the Truth?

Posted on June 14, 2015 by James Scott Bell

I read a quote this week from David Mamet (left), the noted playwright and essayist:

When you sit down to write, tell the truth from one moment to the next and see where it takes you.

Over the years I’ve heard this same sentiment expressed in various forms. Novelist Wendell Berry once wrote, “The first obligation of a writer is to tell the truth–or to come as near to telling it as is humanly possible.”

Sounds noble and good, but something about this bromide has always bothered me. Maybe because it is, as judges sometimes say about statutes, “void for vagueness.”

So I decided to devote this space to figuring out what the heck it’s supposed to mean, and whether it’s at all helpful to writers.

My first question is, what’s the definition of truth? What do these folks mean by it? Do they mean objective truth (that which is true no matter what anyone thinks about it)? Or subjective truth (that which comes out of the deepest part of ourselves)?

And if they mean the latter, is that really truth? I’m not down with the whole “that may be true for you, but it’s not true for me” vibe. In that case, Mein Kampf would be a classic of world literature.

No, I think what Mamet and Berry other writers mean by “tell the truth” is that the writer must, first and foremost, be honest with himself. Not be afraid to go wherever his inner heart and life are leading. Tell that story, from the gut.

I partially agree. Exploring deep––and sometimes dark––corners to render honest fiction is one aspect of this game. But there’s another, equally important part, and it’s this: you, the writer, are in charge of what is ultimately shown in your stories.

Which means you don’t have to spew everything onto the page in the name of some vague notion of truth. You’re not a slave to your material; you’re the shaper and molder of it.

Now, I’ll grant that a novel can seem less truthful and honest if certain punches are pulled. Readers sense that. But as the author you get to decide how you want to land those punches. You should land them artfully, with purpose. You think through the strategy for your novel. The truth-at-any-cost school doesn’t always produce better writing. In fact, it may make it worse.

Case in point, the obligatory sex scene (in other genres than erotica, where they are expected). There’s no rule that says graphic descriptions of body parts, and profligate use of synonyms for pulsate, make such a rendering necessary. Personally, I prefer the closed door, leaving the rest to the imagination. That’s the way they used to do it, and it’s actually more sensual. (Read the carriage ride scene in Madame Bovary sometime.)

Which brings me to Game of Thrones.

At the outset, let me make clear that I’ve not read the books nor gotten hooked on the series. I know both have rabid followings. So what I’m about to discuss is simply a reaction to something I recently happened across.

It seems the author, George R. R. Martin, has come under considerable criticism for gratuitous depictions of rape. One blogger puts it bluntly: “Martin is content to use rape to develop male characters, to titillate the reader, and to paint rape victims seeking justice as villains. No other raped women have a voice. This calls into question his empathy as a human being and his imagination as a writer.”

In answer to this, Martin says:

I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the “Disneyland Middle Ages”––there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn’t want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned … [If] you don’t portray (sexual violence), then there’s something fundamentally dishonest about that. Rape, unfortunately, is still a part of war today. It’s not a strong testament to the human race, but I don’t think we should pretend it doesn’t exist.

A few points. George R. R. Martin is free to write what he wants to write. And I’ve heard his writing and world building are amazing. So what I’m about to say isn’t coming from a political or social agenda. It’s as a fellow writer who would simply ask Mr. Martin, “Is all this really necessary? How much of this material is carrying you, rather than the other way around? I get that you want to soak us in medieval darkness, but what about the equal value of artistic restraint? That’s not denying that something exists, but it’s also not letting it run rampant.”

Maybe for Martin that’s not a consideration or desire. And, again, he as the right to do it his way. But “telling the truth” isn’t the only fiction strategy.

I think the best writers make a case. Great fiction depicts a clash of values in which the writer will, ultimately, take a side. Yes, the side that prevails has to do so in a way that does not feel manipulative. That’s where craft comes in. The author’s job is to make the case through the characters behaving in surprising, clever, and ultimately justifiable ways.

That’s actually harder to do than just letting it all hang out.

I think this is what the novelist and writing teacher John Gardner was getting at when he said this to The Paris Review:

As I tried to make plain in On Moral Fiction, I think that the difference right now between good art and bad art is that the good artists are the people who are, in one way or another, creating, out of deep and honest concern, a vision of life … that is worth pursuing. And the bad artists, of whom there are many, are whining or moaning or staring, because it’s fashionable, into the dark abyss.

So by all means, tap into your heart and soul when you write. But include your head, too.

As I like to counsel new writers: Write like you’re in love. Edit like you’re in charge.

So what about you? Do you think “just tell the truth”––all by itself––is helpful writing advice? Is it possible to make an argument for artistic self-restraint anymore?

The 30-Minute Character Generator

Posted on June 7, 2015 by James Scott Bell

I know some artistes rebel at the idea of systematization. But if the system is designed to unleash your imagination and send it running in productive directions, I say go for it. All the time.

You don’t want to be sitting around waiting for a Muse to start dancing.

Before I can begin to write anything, I have to know who my story is about. I’ll have a concept. I need a character. A Lead.

But I don’t want to take a lot of time doing so. I don’t want to spend weeks creating a whole history of this character’s life. I’ve never found that effective.

So I’ve come up with a 30-minute character generator. It’s a system. It gets me excited enough to start on that story journey. The system is made up of three things: a visual, a voice, and a vision.

Visual – 10 minutes

Start with a look. For me, a character does not begin to take shape until I can see him.

I want to look at my character’s face and see some mystery and a suggestion of stuff happening below the surface.

There are two things I do.

First, I spend several minutes on the internet looking at images. I find a few that set something off in me, drag them to my desktop, and look at them later.

I use Google Images. I find it has more variety than, say, iStockphoto. Since I’m not going to be using these except for my own reference, there’s no copyright issue.

When I put in a search term, I use an emotional tag rather than something generic. Here’s what I mean.

Let’s say my Lead is a successful businesswoman. If I just search for “businesswoman” I get all sorts of publicity style photos––smiling, confident and posed. Nuts to that.

My novel is a thriller, so I want my Lead to be troubled.

Thus, I might type “unhappy woman” or “stressed woman.” (You’ll notice that when you do this, Google Images suggests other types of searches in their top bar. Nice of them to help!)

Find faces that stir something inside you. The best is when you think “Aha! That’s her!”

The second thing I do is use my love of classic movies to think of my Lead being played by any actor from the past I choose.

For my businesswoman, suppose I think of her as Bette Davis? Or Kate Winslet?

If I like that, I can always find a head shot of that actor and use it for my model. The reader will never know.

I usually find my headshot in under ten minutes. Then I put it into my character file on Scrivener. The nice thing about Scrivener is that you can look at all your characters on a corkboard when you’re ready to roll.

Voice – 10 minutes

Next, I spend at least ten minutes creating a Voice Journal. This is a free-form document in the character’s voice, talking to me. Sometimes I prompt the character with questions. Other times I let the character ramble.

I just keep typing until the character sounds like someone other than me.

Which is the key. This is where the character begins to “take on life.”

Here is a bit of the Voice Journal for Sister Justicia Marie, the Lead in my Force of Habit series:

I don’t go around looking for bad things to happen. They just seem to. Yes, I live in L.A., I know all about it, oh yes, you know my story. I was supposed to be living the dream. I was making five million a picture when I was ten. Somebody told me I was the new Shirley Temple and I looked at him and said, “That curly-headed little snot can eat my shorts.”

I actually said that. Dear Lord, forgive me for that. Forgive me for the whole of my teenage years!

But now am I in the grip of another sin? Am I wrong, my Lord, for wanting to stop bad thing from happening? Even if I have to kick in somebody’s face?

Are you calling me, Lord? Am I Joan of Arc or Joan the crazy lady who shouts in the park?

Ten minutes of voice journaling always brings happy surprises. I may continue to add to this journal from time to time during my writing or planning, fleshing out more of my character if I see the need.

Vision – 10 minutes

Finally, I want to get to the heart of my character. I want to know what the character thinks most deeply about as the story begins. What is her trajectory? Her yearning? Her vision for her life?

No character in your novel should start as a blank slate.

We know that Luke Skywalker, like most farm boys, yearns for a life of adventure. He looks out at the sky, dreaming of becoming a Jedi. But the practicalities of life with his Aunt and Uncle prevent it.

Scarlett O’Hara’s vision is to become a fine, Southern lady married to a noble Southern gentleman named Ashley Wilkes. Boy, is she in for a shock.

The vision is not always a pleasant one. Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games sees no hope in the future. Her vision is for survival in the daily, dismal world of Panem. Her daily life is taken up with the care of her mother and sister. She tells her friend Gale she never wants to have kids. Will anything in the story change her outlook?

Spend ten minutes exploring your Lead’s vision just before your story begins. Ask yourself how the story will frustrate, challenge, or redeem the vision.

You can do this same 30-minute exercise for your other main characters, too.

The result will be a full-blooded cast. You can start writing now, letting the characters grow organically. Or you can do more planning and backstory if that’s your preference.

Either way, the 30-Minute Character Generator will give you a solid foundation for bringing original, unforgettable characters to your novel.

Which is kind of a nice thing.

Is Our Writing Culture In Mortal Danger? Part III

Posted on May 31, 2015 by James Scott Bell

I’m going to try to wrap up my thoughts on the mischievous missive delivered by Mr. Porter Anderson at Writer Unboxed. The first part of my response is here. The second part is here.

There are three issues outstanding:

Issue 3 – Is the Party Over?

Issue 4 – What Counts as Writing Success?

Issue 5 – Can Fiction Writing Be Taught?

Last week I upheld the view that this is the best time on Earth to be a writer. Lest you think I only mean because writers can now self-publish and make real dough, here’s some news that rippled outward from the traditional side of things: Sci-Fi writer John Scalzi inked a $3.4 million deal with Tor Books. That’s for thirteen books over a ten-year period. I’d say that counts as good times. Mr. Scalzi explains his thought process here.

Ah, but is the party over? Or about to be? Has there been a “tonal shift” in what Porter calls the “palaver” from the indie writer sector of the publishing world?

I do sense a shift, but not a negative one. It is, rather, the natural maturation of a revolution. During the Early Konrathian period of indie publishing, the talk was all about waking people up and stirring them to action (“Give me liberty, or give me death!”). There was an exuberance. There were fight songs around the campfire. Free beer.

It was Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry time. Yes, there was plenty of vitriol, too, which is always part of an uprising. What the American colonists said about the tea tax was not intended for polite society. Nor were the words of indies when reacting to representatives of the Authors Guild.

Now, it seems, the tone has changed from revolution to constitution. From muskets to quills. Giddiness has been replaced by plans and purpose and increasing success.

But just what is success? This is Issue #4.

One type is, certainly, traditional, bestselling, A-list status. Another type is having the freedom to publish what you want, when you want, and making steadily growing income. When you read surveys of traditional authors and how frustrated they can be with their publishers, this type of success might even be all the more attractive.

For some writers the “validation” of traditional success is the most important thing. Others find more satisfaction going directly to readers…and to the bank.

We are all free to define success for ourselves, and should. What does it mean specifically to you? Talk about it in the comments.

Finally, Issue #5. The title of Porter’s post was The Dreaded Training Debate: What If It Can’t Be Taught?

The question implies that a negative answer might be possible. Or, worse, that there is a possibility the whole enterprise of teaching fiction is little more than a racket. That’s what brought me and a couple of my teaching colleagues—Donald Maass and David Corbett—into the comments with some admonishments.

Porter, I’m happy to say, qualified this impression, kindly mentioning my name and my two fellows (and others) as exceptions. But he added this in a comment:

It’s been interesting to see some of these folks I’ve mentioned struggle with this piece. On the surface, of course, that looks natural in that no one wants to be painted with too broad a brush. But you note that I mentioned none of them, nor would I — they’re not the kind of problematic how-to players I’m talking about. And yet, to some degree, they seem unsettled by even the discussion of the problem.

This makes me think (I’m speculating here, they have not told me this) that the problem of “the toadstools” — who are NOT these writer/teachers — is much on their minds.

I can’t answer for my colleagues, but I’m happy to clear up any confusion on my part. No, “the toadstools” were not on my mind at all. What set me off was even entertaining the notion that writing can’t be taught. In point of fact, virtually all writers have been taught how to write in some form or fashion. It’s just that not many talk about it. As good old Ernest Hemingway once said, “It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.”

Writing is taught in many ways.

It is taught by editors who know what they’re doing.

It is taught by teachers who know what they’re doing.

It is taught by books by people who know what they’re doing and how to teach others to do the same.

It is taught by critique partners and beta readers.

It can be self-taught by reading novels and analyzing what other authors do. That’s fine. What I do when I teach, however, is save writers years of trial and error by showing them right away what successful authors do, and how they can do it themselves.

The proof of all this, I add as a former trial lawyer, is in the testimony of credible witnesses. The successful writers who themselves give credit to writing instruction.

Let me offer just one example. This from critically acclaimed author Sarah Pekkanen, who gave an interview to NPR about getting published:

I needed advice before I tried to write a novel. The usual axiom — write what you know — wasn’t helpful. I spend my days driving my older children to school and changing my younger one’s diaper — not exactly best-seller material.

So I turned to experts. Three books gave me invaluable writing advice. One, by a best-selling writer [Stephen King]; one, by a top New York agent [Donald Maass]; and one, by a guy who struggled for years to learn how to write a book and wanted to make it easier for the rest of us [some joker named Bell].

The full interview is here. That was six years ago. It’s nice to see how Sarah’s career has prospered since. I’d say she’s offered credible testimony that writing fiction can indeed be taught.

Whew! That’s three full posts all sparked by the incendiary flying fingers of one Porter Anderson, provocateur and good sport. If you bump into him at a conference, don’t dislodge his keyboard…buy him a Campari instead.

Now I’m done. Next week we return to our regularly scheduled program!

Is Our Writing Culture In Mortal Danger? Part II

Posted on May 24, 2015 by James Scott Bell

Last week I began a discussion sparked by a provocative post by Mr. Porter Anderson at Writer Unboxed. The first part of my response is here. We had a robust debate in the comments, but I’ll try to summarize the first issue I’ve addressed, which is the plethora of teaching and “author services” appearing, in Porter’s words, like “toadstools” all over the internet. My view, in agreement with Porter, is that many of these are not worth the money and some are downright scams.

Porter would like me, and other “legitimate” teachers (I thank him for carving out an exception for me and colleagues like Donald Maass and David Corbett) to cry foul and go after charlatans publicly. But that is not my job or responsibility. Others have taken that on. My solution is the old but still valid rule: Let the buyer beware.

And yes, that is enough. I’m not a nanny.

Now, on to Issue #2: Is it the best or worst time to be a writer?

Here we come to a piece quoted by Porter, written by an anonymous literary agent in the UK. Calling him/her self “Agent Orange,” he/she wrote a post for The Bookseller which opens:

On the face of it, it is paradoxical that while it’s never been easier for authors to get their books into print, there has never been a worse time to be an author. Author earnings are down and the number of writers able to make a living out of their work is at an all-time low.

While this was mainly a jumping off point for Orange to complain about writing courses and teachers, I can’t let this sentiment go unchallenged.

I’ve been expressing exactly the opposite view since 2009. I give my reasons here. To save time, I’ll just refer you to that post, which I stand by. Further, both Porter and I have cited the amazing work being done by Hugh Howey and Data Guy and their quarterly Author Earnings reports.

Bottom line: in terms of making actual money, and even an actual living from writing fiction, it is beyond all question, doubt, cavil, or dispute that this is the best time on Earth to be a writer.

As the old political rejoinder goes, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

Now, to be fair to Agent Orange, I do think there’s a bit of context we have to understand. I haven’t spent a lot of time studying this out, but there seems to be a more entrenched traditional book publishing culture in the UK, and it is those authors who are seeing their incomes go down significantly. It’s happening here in the U.S., too, of course. But across the pond there’s a greater concern over the survival of the “writer as artist” ideal.

To which I respond: This is nothing new. It’s always been difficult for any artist to cobble a living from their art. And by art I mean singular vision as opposed to commercial production.

How many artists in history have ever been able to support themselves by doing, for want of a better phrase, “their own thing”? How many Jackson Pollock wannabes have tried to out Jackson Jackson, only to be completely and utterly ignored? (And there are those who think the original Jackson should have been ignored, but that’s another discussion entirely.)

How many structure-hating novelists have poured their souls onto the page, only to be rejected fully and finally? Or, if managing to get a small press to take a flyer, seen ten book sales and no publicity, not even from their local paper?

If you want to pursue the life of a solitary genius, that’s never been a road to riches. If you expect to be treated with a velvet backscratcher, and have the literary elite fete and fawn over you, then yes, times are not great. But they have never been great for this kind of artist.

I believe this is the “writerly culture” that Agent Orange sees as doomed.

But consider: writers who love to tell stories, who entertain, who work at their craft, who are productive, who keep striving to get better, who don’t see plot as a four-letter word (irony intended)—these writers now have a better chance to realize a return on their work than at any time in the history of storytelling. From Og the cave dweller, who told the first story (you know, the one about killing the mastodon) to Geoffrey Chaucer and Jonathan Swift and James Fenimore Cooper and Mark Twain and Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack London and Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and Dorothy Sayers and Erle Stanley Gardner and Herman Wouk and Nora Roberts and Stephen King and John Grisham and Michael Connelly and J. K. Rowling and James Patterson…

…to all of the new (or formerly midlist) writers who are now earning five, six and sometimes seven figures a year because of the disruption called digital self-publishing, I say without any qualm – and eschewing dew eyes, Kleenex, and exclamation points – that it is indeed the best time on Earth to be a writer.

Is there still room for the solitary, literary genius? Yes, and even more room than before. If the artist is not insistent on a traditional print run and New Yorker reviews, he or she has a good chance at finding readers via self-publishing. Or by partnering with a digital company that knows what it’s doing. (Unless your goal is to win the National Book Award. Then all I can say is, good luck to you, because that’s always been a matter of “writerly culture” roulette. Lightning may strike. But be prepared to have some stamina, and a day job. I refer you to Mark Z. Danielewski, whose 27 volume, 22,680 page experimental epic is only now leaving the starting gate.)

So to all writers I say, jump into the indie pool. Even if you’re trad published, establish some sort of indie footprint with short-form work. Talk to your agent and editor about a plan going forward.

And tell them the water’s fine. We’re even serving margaritas at poolside.

So which is it – the best of times or the worst of times to be a writer?

Is Our Writing Culture In Mortal Danger? Part I

Posted on May 17, 2015 by James Scott Bell

The philosopher Immanuel Kant was sipping his morning coffee one day, reading the philosopher David Hume. That’s what philosophers used to do––drink coffee and read each other’s work.

At some point, Kant slammed his mug down with a great thunk, for what he was reading was an outright challenge to the whole enterprise of philosophy. Hume, the great skeptic, was saying, in effect, “Dudes, you can’t really know anything. Deal with it.”

Kant would later write that this provocation awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber.” He had to answer! So he went out and wrote one of the towering works of all Western philosophy, The Critique of Pure Reason.

I was thinking about good ol’ Immanuel the other morning as I quaffed my own warm brew. I’d traveled over to that great writing blog Writer Unboxed to read a post by my friend Porter Anderson. Porter is one of the more astute observers of the publishing scene. You can and should check out his work here.

This day Porter pulled a Hume on me. Like the Scottish skeptic, Porter has doubts. They are somewhat evident in the title of his post: The Dreaded Training Debate: What If It Can’t Be Taught? By “it” Porter means the art and craft of writing fiction. Since I am one of those who believe it can be, he definitely had my attention.

There is a lot of material in Porter’s wide-ranging and expressive rant. He challenges the notion that it’s the best time on Earth to be a writer, suggests a definition of writing “success” that seems to me too restrictive, and intimates that “better books” and indeed our “writerly culture” itself may be doomed.

My coffee mug came down with a thunk. I was awakened from my own dogmatic slumber. I would have to reply! I left a comment, but deferred a fuller critique until now.

This is Part I.

I see the issues raised by Porter this way:

Issue 1 – The Toadstool Effect

Issue 2 – Is It The Best or Worst Time to Be a Writer?

Issue 3 – Is the Party Over?

Issue 4 – What Counts as Writing Success?

Issue 5 – Can Fiction Writing Be Taught?

It’s always good to begin a discussion like this with points of agreement, and that’s what Issue #1 provides. Porter writes:

“Like toadstools,” one seasoned observer called it in a note to me recently — this sudden proliferation of “author services,” especially the ones there to teach you, instruct you, train you. They’re everywhere, these kitchen-sink companies, and many of them seem to be peddling (or claiming they do) parts of the job we’re not even sure can be taught.

As he made clear to me in the comments, Porter is concerned about the onslaught of less than “adroit” training:

I do believe, however, that we have generated here an overheated “training wing” attached to this new everybody-into-the-pool stage in the industry’s development. I think the mushrooms are getting pretty thick on the ground and that many, many offerings are neither as adroit nor as potentially valuable as yours. Beyond the buyer-beware rule, always good, is an implication that I think overstates what many people believe they can learn to do on the receiving end of instruction.

Porter and I agree on this, though I don’t find the “toadstool effect” unique to writing. The digital age has unleashed a veritable planet of multiplying fungi, making promises about everything—business, sex, health, wealth, writing, acting, plumbing, fame, “dogs and cats, living together. Mass hyseria!”

The only antidote to this in a free market is the ancient and wise admonition, Caveat emptor. A writer-in-training simply must be about due diligence in these matters. How?

Look at samples of the work. Look for recommendations. Distinguish mushrooms from toadstools.

I note in this regard that none other than Mr. James Patterson is offering an online course on writing for $90. Were I a newbie I would reason thus: James Patterson has sold a few books. He seems to know how to tell a story. The course is 22 lectures. The price is quite reasonable. People who’ve taken the course seem to be pleased. If I’m going to invest in being a writer, this looks like a winner. Sign me up!

But what about some high-falutin offer by someone I’ve never heard of? I’d look at what’s being offered, the cost, and the background of teacher. From Porter in the comments:

So I’m saying that if someone is instructing other writers but has not had the experience of success AS a writer — if they’re teaching you fiction but their own fiction doesn’t sell — then I think, yes, that’s reason to stop, think, and carefully assess whether this is the person to study with.

Completely agree. Which, I quickly add, does not rule out taking a flyer on someone whose artistic output is limited. Some of the best teachers are like that. Michael Hauge in screenwriting. Lee Strasberg in acting. You just have to dig a little deeper to make an assessment. Look for what other students say about them. How have those students fared themselves?

As far as dollars go, you can spend a lot for a course, but relatively little for a book. I love books on writing. My shelves (and my Kindle) are filled with them, all highlighted. My philosophy has always been if I learn only one thing from a book, and it helps my writing, it’s worth it.

I can think of only two writing books out of the many hundreds I’ve read where I did not learn something. Exercising mercy, I shall not name those books.

A further note. There are toadstools that are extra toxic. Right now there is a class action lawsuit against one of these services. Such services will always be with us. The Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross could have run one of these, believing as he did that people are “sitting out there waiting to give you their money! Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it?”

Well, we’ve only covered Issue #1, and I’m happy to say a general agreement has been reached.

Next week, not so much.

So what is your view of “author services” out there? Good, bad, ugly? How can you tell the difference?

In Praise of Entertaining Fiction

Posted on May 10, 2015 by James Scott Bell

“I have been writing for nineteen years and I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing, and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.”

So wrote Edgar Rice Burroughs in an article for Writer’s Digest in 1930. The full text may be found here. I love the up-front honesty of the statement. It resonates with me because the first “real” book I read all the way through was Tarzan of the Apes. I still remember the feeling of being gripped by a story that wouldn’t let me go. When I finished, I knew I wanted to do the same thing someday.

I can even remember the precise moment I got pulled in so deep I put everything aside–playing outside, watching TV, riding my bike to the candy store–just so I could finish that book!

Allow me to share that moment with you.

Chapter One begins as a narrative frame, the voice telling us that he cannot vouch for the truthfulness of the tale, but what he is about to reveal is based upon the “yellow, mildewed pages of the diary of a man long dead.”

The man is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke. The text continues:

We know only that on a bright May morning in 1888, John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice sailed from Dover on their way to Africa.

A month later they arrived at Freetown where they chartered a small sailing vessel, the Fuwalda, which was to bear them to their final destination.

And here John, Lord Greystoke, and Lady Alice, his wife, vanished from the eyes and from the knowledge of men.

I was hooked for sure. But the best was yet to come.

We are introduced to Black Michael, a mutineer, and I loved pirate stories as a boy. In Chapter Two, Black Michael takes over the ship and instead of killing the Claytons, as he was wont to do, he spares them because John Clayton had saved Black Michael’s life in Chapter One. Instead, the pirate sends Clayton and his pregnant wife to the jungle shore, where they will be on their own to survive!

But the best…not yet!

In Chapter Three the baby is born, a son, as John tries valiantly to make a safe home in the jungle for them, hoping against hope that a party from England will eventually find them.

Alas, it is not to be. Poor Alice dies. And the baby! The baby must still be nursed! The chapter ends with the last, sad journal entry of a man soon to be dead himself:

My little son is crying for nourishment—O Alice, Alice, what shall I do?

Great heavens! I was so into the story now. But there was more! I fell indelibly under the spell of Burroughs with the beginning of Chapter Four:

In the forest of the table-land a mile back from the ocean old Kerchak the Ape was on a rampage of rage among his people.

Wow!

The younger and lighter members of his tribe scampered to the higher branches of the great trees to escape his wrath; risking their lives upon branches that scarce supported their weight rather than face old Kerchak in one of his fits of uncontrolled anger.

The other males scattered in all directions, but not before the infuriated brute had felt the vertebra of one snap between his great, foaming jaws.

A luckless young female slipped from an insecure hold upon a high branch and came crashing to the ground almost at Kerchak’s feet.

With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until her skull was crushed to a jelly.

And then he spied Kala, who, returning from a search for food with her young babe, was ignorant of the state of the mighty male’s temper until suddenly the shrill warnings of her fellows caused her to scamper madly for safety.

But Kerchak was close upon her, so close that he had almost grasped her ankle had she not made a furious leap far into space from one tree to another—a perilous chance which apes seldom if ever take, unless so closely pursued by danger that there is no alternative.

She made the leap successfully, but as she grasped the limb of the further tree the sudden jar loosened the hold of the tiny babe where it clung frantically to her neck, and she saw the little thing hurled, turning and twisting, to the ground thirty feet below.

With a low cry of dismay Kala rushed headlong to its side, thoughtless now of the danger from Kerchak; but when she gathered the wee, mangled form to her bosom life had left it.

Oh man! That was it! I was left hanging with a baby, all alone in the jungle, in the last chapter. Now I am completely into the story of…an ape! An ape who has lost her baby! And this villain named Kerchak. I wanted him to get his just desserts! I knew this poor ape Kala would find the Clayton baby and take him as her own. And that sooner or later, one or both of them would have to kill Kerchak in a duel to the death.

This was more than mere entertainment. This was magic. A story world unlike anything I’d ever seen, even when watching the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies I loved so much.

Burroughs, no doubt, influenced generations of boys to become readers, authors, or perhaps flat-out adventurers. But when I mentioned the Burroughs quote at the top of this post to an online group of veteran writers, I was delighted by several women saying the John Carter and Tarzan books were favorites of theirs, too.

Which proves that great storytelling is great storytelling. That’s what we writers must aim for, every time we sit down and clack the keyboard. As Burroughs himself put it in that WD article:

“I have felt that it was a duty to those people who bought my books that I should give them the very best within me. I have no illusions as to the literary value of what I did give them, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that I gave them the best that my ability permitted.”

So what author carried you away like this when you were a kid?

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