Storytellersunplugged

Storytellers Unplugged

There are rules?

I keep getting the feeling that somewhere along the way I missed something. Not in the writing part of the agenda (I KNOW I missed something there) but in the business side of things. Don’t get me wrong, I can read a contract with the best of them and I know better than to casually accept that what is written down on that contract is written in blood on stone. What I’m trying to get at is it seems a lot of people have preconceived notions about how books are done that are as strong as their beliefs about God and Country.

I get a surprising number of people I have never heard of who ask me for advice on writing. Normally I’m very flattered by the very notion that they think my opinion matters in the least. How could I not be flattered? I recently had lunch with a man who lives in the area and wants to be a writer. He asked me questions and I answered them as truthfully as I can. He seemed to be of the opinion that there are rules for getting published. Well, damn, I don’t remember seeing them anywhere. Oh, I’ve seen a hundred or more books that will gladly explain those very rules to you, and most of them will give you the same very useful advice along with a thousand or so platitudes to help you face the notion of submitting another story to another market and hoping, praying that somehow someone sitting in an ivory tower will look down, smile and throw contracts down to you as reward for your hard work.

The problem is that’s never been the way I did this whole writing thing. Hell, I don’t know too many people who follow any formula at all when it comes to the writing gig.

I wanted to be a comic artist. I spent years dreaming about it, doodling on paper, coming up with original characters (Well, they certainly seemed original at the time) and drawing out storyboards. Later, I even got serious about it and started studying anatomy, reading books on the process and trying to follow the examples given. I never went as far as trying to draw Tippy the Turtle to see if I could graduate from a mail order art school, but I probably would have if I could have afforded it.
I met a lot of comic book artists and writers went to conventions and annoyed them endlessly with my questions. Most of them were damned decent about it and even the ones who were probably ready to slap me senseless and throw me into a garbage can were nice enough to take the time to look at my artwork.

I can’t draw worth a damn, by the way. Never could. I suspect it has more to do with my patience than with any lack of ability. If I know that lumpy thing is supposed to be a fist and I can’t get it to look like a fist, I get too easily frustrated. But when I was at it daily, I’m pretty sure there were at least a dozen comic book artists working regularly who sucked worse than me. O won’t mention names, because, really, the appreciation of any art form is subjective.

An editor at Marvel Comics very politely and firmly told me why I wasn’t going to get any work and he was right. Every negative comment he made was dead on. He also told me I could tell a good story and suggested I try my luck with writing. Well, my choices were to rant about his family history and curse his existence or to try writing. I’ve sold several novels at this point. Guess which route I took.
The thing is; I love books. I love reading them. It never dawned on me to try writing them until someone suggested it. Here’s the other thing: I hate grammar. English was always one of my worst subjects. Well, folks, I’ve been working in retail, construction, fast food and restaurants since I was fifteen. I have never been to college and my best year in high school got me a good, solid 2.5 GPA. I was never exactly what you’d call motivated when it came to doing my homework or studying. Hey, some of my best friends are college graduates. They don’t hold my lack of an education against me and I don’t hold their diplomas against them. In my case, it was just a matter of paying bills and trying not to sink into financial ruin.

I come from a broken home, and all of that. We didn’t exactly have a lot of money floating around and I was too busy being a neurotic mess to have time for thinking about the future.

All of which is to say, the rules weren’t written out for me. I had to learn grammar. Happily, I ran across people who were willing to work with me on that. One man, a high school English teacher, a comic book store owner and a publisher for one of the leading comic book related magazines, was nice enough to take the time to look over my work and give me the sort of brutal beating I needed to make me understand how little I knew about the process of writing. He was not deliberately brutal, by the way. He was probably very gentle about the whole thing. It just felt like he’s kicked me in the teeth and used a baseball bat on my testicles. But I learned from him. He also pointed out several books that would do me well when it came to teaching myself about the mistakes I was making.
So next came the whole concept of selling what I was writing. Once again, there are rules? Could have fooled me. There are guidelines. Sometimes I’ve even followed them. Not really all that often.
I did what I have always done. I went to conventions and I spoke to writers and editors. I learned from the people who were already in the proverbial trenches. I learned a lot, too, just as soon as I got over being star struck. I mean, I had read a lot of these people for a LONG time, and standing around in the same room with Peter Straub, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Charles L. Grant, Thomas Moneteleone (Who took my mispronouncing his last name with amazing grace) and several others was intimidating. Right up until the time I tried speaking to them and they didn’t laugh in my face. We played 20 questions and they were good about answering me, and in some cases suggested markets I should try, and in some cases even tolerated me sending them submissions that, when I look back on them now, were not merely bad but absolutely wretched.

They were nice enough to answer the submissions professionally, and in a few cases to write in personal notes on the form letter rejections. Some of them never responded. I don’t take offense; that’s part of the business.

Somewhere along the way, I learned that the best way to handle the business part of this, for me at least, was to just keep trying. I am constantly amazed by how many people don’t get that. I’ve had long discussions with newer writers who take a rejection from a publisher to mean they don’t have what it takes. I take it to mean that particular editor or publisher didn’t like the idea I offered to them. For me the getting published part is just like the learning grammar part. It isn’t always a smooth road, but if you keep going, you can get to your destination eventually.

My mother taught me early on that when you fall down, you have to get up, dust yourself off and start walking again. She also taught me to learn from my mistakes and to make sure I actually paid attention when people are talking to me. I don’t have to agree with what they say, but not listening is rude. Rudeness, for the record, was close to a cardinal sin in our household. “It never hurts to be polite,” my mother would say. Words of wisdom a lot more parents should teach their children, just for the record. But I digress.

I still haven’t learned the rules of getting published. I still haven’t really found them anywhere, either. I’ve found lots and lots of suggestions, and a few instruction manuals that were worth the cost of the paper they were printed on, but I have yet to find a single rulebook that will guarantee you success.
About half of my success came from asking questions and taking a few lumps. The other half seems to have come around because of my ability to convince a few people that I have a clue about this whole writing thing. Me? I’m just bluffing and hoping not too many people catch on that I’m having a good time and just telling stories.

But what the hell, just for those who seem to need rules, I’ll give a few of them that should be taken with a grain of salt or discarded if they don’t fit into a potential writer’s plans on how to get published.
1) Don’t be an ass. It makes you look stupid and it won’t win you any friends. While at my very first professional convention I talked with a couple of editors. Two of them were lovely ladies who, by the end of the convention, pointed tone man who was also at his first ever professional convention. They both told me separately that I was handling myself very well and pointed to said other fledgling writer as an example of what NOT to do. Seems he decided that since it was a convention, it was a good idea to get drunk and then try to woo them into buying his books by copping a feel or two. Well, first I’m married; that ain’t gonna happen. Second, my mother would have qualified groping a stranger as rude and slapped me clear across the planet if I even considered it.

2) Don’t give up. If you believe in yourself and YOU ARE WILLING TO LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES, you will probably get published. There are some abysmal writers out there who are getting published regularly and probably making a lot more money at it than I am. And no, I won’t mention names because A) it’s all subjective as to what is good and bad, and B) My mother told me not to be rude.

3) Learn from your mistakes. Yes, I’m repeating myself. Remember me? Didn’t know grammar? I had several very patient editors who decided to give me a try and who redlined the bejeezus out of everything I sent them. It was a learning process. Hell it’s STILL a learning process as far as I’m concerned. I keep looking back at works I did six months ago and thinking “I should have written it that way, not this way.” I hope that never stops happening, for the record. Learning is half the fun for me.

4) Put your ego in check. Harlan Ellison said in the foreword to DANGEROUS VISIONS (and I am paraphrasing here, because I am far too lazy to find my copy and read it again) that every writer has to have a certain amount of arrogance. It requires an active ego to assume that anyone anywhere is going to willingly read what you have written and then be willing to PAY you for it. He’s right. Harlan normally is right, just for the record, and he’s always a damned fine writer in my honest opinion. But I am constantly amazed (you might have noticed I tend to stay in that state of mind) by how many writers—just starting out and veteran alike—can suddenly have Explosive Ego Syndrome. Not nearly all of the cases I’ve seen have been justified and even if they were, see that earlier rule about not being rude. Most of the people making comments on your writing are trying to give feedback. You don’t have to agree with it, but you should at least consider it. If you don’t want feedback or criticism, I might suggest a job in the wonderful world of accounting instead of writing as a good career move.

5) Expect rejection. Hellfire and brimstone, writing is almost as certain to get you rejections as going into a bar in a pink tutu and hitting on the first married couple you see. It doesn’t matter how good you are, you’re gonna get rejections. Just don’t let them crush you.

Maybe later I’ll get all preachy on the subject of what to write, but as far as I’m concerned, those are the rules. At least for today. Tomorrow they’ll probably be entirely different.

James A. Moore