One of the problems with writing against the conventions of your times is that the avalanche of material coming the other way can sometimes sweep you off your feet.
Many readers like books that are the same as other books. Their expectation means that if your book is not like all the other books they don't know where they stand. They find that experience unsettling and ultimately they reject your work in favour of what they know.
One of my biggest beefs is with the third person narrative. The so called "eye of God".
The reason I don't like that perspective is that no human being is ever God. There are no invisible cameras with limited or total omniscience. If a person takes a camera anywhere other people react to the camera. Some act up for it, others hide their faces. To get people to ignore a camera you generally have to pay them. If you are a person in a room with other people talking about relationships you have to be in the room. You can't be an uninvolved witness or you are antisocially eavesdropping. You are either involved or you choose to do nothing - which is pretty much assent. But you can't pretend to be invisible. You aren't.
What the third person narrative has also created is a laziness in readers about authority, the narrator and the exposition. Readers simply accept what the narrator says. They don't ask the same questions they would ask a human narrator, such as: 'where were you?', 'why were you present?', 'what was your interest in the situation?', 'what was your point of view?', 'are you an unbiased narrator?' And yet why are these questions not valid? As the French philosopher Jacques Derrida asked, who is speaking, and why? We know what is being revealed, but do we know what is being omitted? The third person narrative is an insidious form of authority based on nothing more than assertion.
What the third person narrative also allows is for the narrator to use any voice they like. Suddenly an English major is in the middle of a swordfight or taming horses. Really? Is this really the voice of a swordfighter or a horse whisperer. No, it's the language of an English major trying to impress the other English majors at the publishing house in order to get their book published. Because what if the language of swordfighters is ugly, ignorant and unlikely to get an A in English composition? What if the language of horse whisperers is largely plain, unspoken, and again unlikely to get an A for English composition?
Because the voice of the narrator does convey a position, an attitude and a lot of prejudices. If I write a narration in short, sparkling sentences reminiscent of Jane Austen and then introduce a character with a Cornish accent I've as good as told you that this Cornish character is a rough man of the land with whom I have had little acquaintance, and frankly, less sympathy. He is, not of us, dear reader.
In short the voice of God in a third person narrative ultimately excludes those who do not have his voice. Historically the voice of authority has been rich, white and supremacist. Not only does the third person narrator have command of events, but also more insidiously command of the language of events and the ability to eavesdrop on words and even thoughts with impunity. No wonder, then, respect for the otherness of the other is so hard to find, and that some writers end up with characters like poorly defined sock puppets devoted to merely exploring the Id of the author.
But what are the risks of departing this conventional point of view?
I've only discovered these by doing it, and many authors haven't so I thought I would share them.
First person points of view are not convenient. You can't have multiple "I"s in one book without hopelessly confusing the reader. "I" means the protagonist. Because of this you can't change voices or suddenly see into the points of view of others. Sure your protagonist might be psychic but the point of view of the protagonist can't readily change to that of anyone else. Like real people the protagonist is where they stand. Even if they may sympathise with the points of view of others they cannot actually BE others.
People who read mainly third person stories fall into the assumption that the first person narrator is doing the job of the third person narrator. They aren't (or they shouldn't be), A first person narrator has incomplete information, failures of perception, biases and prejudices, all of which colours what they see and how they report it. A first person narrator is a liar by default, in the way that a third person narrator is not by default. The ability to read a first person narrator is the ability to read testimony with a critical eye. If you have no critical eye you fall into the trap of believing every thing they think and say.
For the exposition of the story the first person inflicts a considerable constraint. To build up tension writers often switch points of view in order to explore the world of the antagonist. They slip us (the audience) information the protagonist doesn't know. We watch in growing fascination and tension the inevitable collision between the protagonist and the antagonist. The first person narrative has no such option. The audience can't tell what the antagonist is doing except through the flawed eyes of the protagonist.
But an advantage the first person brings is that the narrator is a character. The language they use may well be that rough Cornishman's and we accept that as his acting in the world. If he chooses to mimic Miss Elizabeth we know the point of view he has is his, not God's. For the author narration becomes more akin to acting and less like directing.
It seems to me that movies have robbed audiences of a critical eye of story telling. Where a play is clearly a contrivance by a group of people in an empty space which derives its authority purely from the story and its enactment the effort of increasingly sophisticated movie making is to hide all that contrivance. The result is an audience unaware of anything but a sequence of scenes. Films where the contrivance of the story becomes visible are disparaged or relegated to film festivals as if they are some from of betrayal of the convention between creator and audience.
Yet rail as I may against this deficiency the result is still the same. The convention of the third person eye of God remains dominant and authors defy it at their peril.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Sunday, January 3, 2016
The Indie - Amateurism and daring to try
The fundamental difference between the Indie writer/publisher and the commercial publisher is quite simply amateurism.
I can almost hear the squawks of protest from many indie writers and publishers who claim their quality is no different to that of commercial publishing houses, and this may well be true, but that is not what I am talking about.
Commercial publishing is professional in the sense that it incorporates a body of experience and knowledge about its market which it applies to every new project that comes along. It holds that this wisdom, this knowledge, is the key to commercial survival and if a project does not fit within the expectations of that template then it is best avoided.
Commercial publishers look for the qualities they have succeeded with in the past. The bigger ones are now recognising that the world has changed and are treating the Indie world as a slush pile so that they can bring their skills to bear on the works that are already succeeding in the market. But the point is commercial publishers are not interested in authors as unique little snowflakes they are interested in authors the same way oil companies are interested in places where oil seeps out of the ground. They see authors as sources of potential revenue once they have developed the field into a commercial resource.
Inside the commercial publishing house new recruits are inducted into the ways of that publisher. Like any new recruit they individually will make mistakes. Normally their colleagues and superiors will explain why what they are doing is mistaken and the error will be found and corrected. The house protects its brand by educating, controlling and sanctioning until the recruit becomes a "professional" within that branded organisation.
The Indie author is a completely different creature. They don't start out with a brand or a body of knowledge. They don't see themselves as a source of revenue, they see their projects as a source of self expression and revenue. The Indie is an explorer and an artist who, by comparison) is only playing in the world of commercial publishing.The Indie does not have a body of professional experience and knowledge. They are simply following their noses and their stars - a very small fish in a very big sea.
This amateurism means they have a lot to learn about the world of commercial publishing.
Some have to learn how to write. This is no small thing, because I don't mean simply how to string a sentence together. I mean how to write a large textual structure. How to tell an interesting story, or mount a convincing argument. For people who have not written over 50,000 words at a time (and that is most) this is a challenge.
Having learned how to write the Indie must learn production. This can be contracted out, but in many cases the cost of doing so is simply uneconomic. To recover two thousand dollars on a book may be more than the gamble of producing the book is worth. Story editing, copy editing, fact checking, all of these skills are absolutely essential to the production of a quality text. They don't come easily either. Many points of grammar are arcane, and style fashions change over the years. A grammatical construction which may have been acceptable twenty years ago may be quite unacceptable now.
Book and cover design is another complex art. Yes, many either buy standard templates or hire the skills but others learn the arts themselves. That too is a slow and difficult process. It can include learning the finer points of image licensing and model releases. It can mean licensing fonts. Presenting a clear look and feel for a project is a critical part of its branding.
Bringing all this together for different platforms is no small task either. Learning how Kindle files differ from ePub files, and how the layout and design of printed books differs entirely from electronic ones reveals a world of work.
Then there is the question of distribution. Electronic books have a number of global platforms to choose from. Many simply leave everything to Smashwords but others are more hands on, developing versions for the strengths of the different platforms. In print distribution is both difficult and expensive and working out a pricing model that is affordable and does not involve a huge debt for stock is difficult. While organising distribution the Indie has to learn the ins and outs of ISBN numbering and finding the right BISAC codes to classify the new work with.
If print distribution isn't complex enough then the non-US Indie also has to navigate the American tax system. This involves some for of registration, and a link to the Indie's own home tax jurisdiction.
Finally there is marketing and discoverability. The trick here is to get your book in front of people who like your kind of work. This involves website design, social media campaigning, sales props, and advertising on promotional sites. It means trying to find book reviewers. It means designing ads: visual; audio and video. Working out the rate of return on various marketing campaigns can be a seat of the pants exercise or a scientifically managed one.
For some people this huge work challenge is simply too much, but for the true Indie it is a vast and fascinating world of discovery. And this is where the word amateur comes to play.
Nobody sprang out of the ground knowing everything about all these complex careers. It isn't reasonable to expect the Indie to know all about every aspect of publishing from the get go. Like everyone entering a new career they will make mistakes and have regrets. This is only to be expected.
But like any adventurer they must be allowed to learn from their mistakes. They must be given the same chance to learn and make mistakes as the "professional" hidden away inside the institutions commercial publishing has also had.
To expect perfection from an indie producing the first edition of a new book as they stagger into the world of publishing is simply plain unfair. Indies, unlike professionals don't learn in secret behind the walls of a commercial brand. They learn in the public gaze.
For some people any sign of weakness is a good excuse to attack. To write savaging reviews full of spite and bile. Some do this to defend their own patch. Some do this to assert the importance of their own skill set. But the effect is simply the same, to deride the newcomer, the person who dared to try.
This blog is for those who dare to try. Those who can tolerate the humiliation of learning in the public gaze. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I don't pretend to be all that successful either. But what I am prepared to do is stand up for the right of people to try things, learn, fail, and try again, while all those who carp and catcall laugh in the background and don't try anything themselves.
I can almost hear the squawks of protest from many indie writers and publishers who claim their quality is no different to that of commercial publishing houses, and this may well be true, but that is not what I am talking about.
Commercial publishing is professional in the sense that it incorporates a body of experience and knowledge about its market which it applies to every new project that comes along. It holds that this wisdom, this knowledge, is the key to commercial survival and if a project does not fit within the expectations of that template then it is best avoided.
Commercial publishers look for the qualities they have succeeded with in the past. The bigger ones are now recognising that the world has changed and are treating the Indie world as a slush pile so that they can bring their skills to bear on the works that are already succeeding in the market. But the point is commercial publishers are not interested in authors as unique little snowflakes they are interested in authors the same way oil companies are interested in places where oil seeps out of the ground. They see authors as sources of potential revenue once they have developed the field into a commercial resource.
Inside the commercial publishing house new recruits are inducted into the ways of that publisher. Like any new recruit they individually will make mistakes. Normally their colleagues and superiors will explain why what they are doing is mistaken and the error will be found and corrected. The house protects its brand by educating, controlling and sanctioning until the recruit becomes a "professional" within that branded organisation.
The Indie author is a completely different creature. They don't start out with a brand or a body of knowledge. They don't see themselves as a source of revenue, they see their projects as a source of self expression and revenue. The Indie is an explorer and an artist who, by comparison) is only playing in the world of commercial publishing.The Indie does not have a body of professional experience and knowledge. They are simply following their noses and their stars - a very small fish in a very big sea.
This amateurism means they have a lot to learn about the world of commercial publishing.
Some have to learn how to write. This is no small thing, because I don't mean simply how to string a sentence together. I mean how to write a large textual structure. How to tell an interesting story, or mount a convincing argument. For people who have not written over 50,000 words at a time (and that is most) this is a challenge.
Having learned how to write the Indie must learn production. This can be contracted out, but in many cases the cost of doing so is simply uneconomic. To recover two thousand dollars on a book may be more than the gamble of producing the book is worth. Story editing, copy editing, fact checking, all of these skills are absolutely essential to the production of a quality text. They don't come easily either. Many points of grammar are arcane, and style fashions change over the years. A grammatical construction which may have been acceptable twenty years ago may be quite unacceptable now.
Book and cover design is another complex art. Yes, many either buy standard templates or hire the skills but others learn the arts themselves. That too is a slow and difficult process. It can include learning the finer points of image licensing and model releases. It can mean licensing fonts. Presenting a clear look and feel for a project is a critical part of its branding.
Bringing all this together for different platforms is no small task either. Learning how Kindle files differ from ePub files, and how the layout and design of printed books differs entirely from electronic ones reveals a world of work.
Then there is the question of distribution. Electronic books have a number of global platforms to choose from. Many simply leave everything to Smashwords but others are more hands on, developing versions for the strengths of the different platforms. In print distribution is both difficult and expensive and working out a pricing model that is affordable and does not involve a huge debt for stock is difficult. While organising distribution the Indie has to learn the ins and outs of ISBN numbering and finding the right BISAC codes to classify the new work with.
If print distribution isn't complex enough then the non-US Indie also has to navigate the American tax system. This involves some for of registration, and a link to the Indie's own home tax jurisdiction.
Finally there is marketing and discoverability. The trick here is to get your book in front of people who like your kind of work. This involves website design, social media campaigning, sales props, and advertising on promotional sites. It means trying to find book reviewers. It means designing ads: visual; audio and video. Working out the rate of return on various marketing campaigns can be a seat of the pants exercise or a scientifically managed one.
For some people this huge work challenge is simply too much, but for the true Indie it is a vast and fascinating world of discovery. And this is where the word amateur comes to play.
Nobody sprang out of the ground knowing everything about all these complex careers. It isn't reasonable to expect the Indie to know all about every aspect of publishing from the get go. Like everyone entering a new career they will make mistakes and have regrets. This is only to be expected.
But like any adventurer they must be allowed to learn from their mistakes. They must be given the same chance to learn and make mistakes as the "professional" hidden away inside the institutions commercial publishing has also had.
To expect perfection from an indie producing the first edition of a new book as they stagger into the world of publishing is simply plain unfair. Indies, unlike professionals don't learn in secret behind the walls of a commercial brand. They learn in the public gaze.
For some people any sign of weakness is a good excuse to attack. To write savaging reviews full of spite and bile. Some do this to defend their own patch. Some do this to assert the importance of their own skill set. But the effect is simply the same, to deride the newcomer, the person who dared to try.
This blog is for those who dare to try. Those who can tolerate the humiliation of learning in the public gaze. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I don't pretend to be all that successful either. But what I am prepared to do is stand up for the right of people to try things, learn, fail, and try again, while all those who carp and catcall laugh in the background and don't try anything themselves.
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