Recognizing that there’s a reading public out there with definitive wants, I’d like today to speak on this.There seems to be an attitude evoked among a lot of novelists about “I’ve worked hard writing this novel, why doesn’t the ungrateful reading public understand that and buy my book?”
That’s pretty much the wrong attitude – that goes without saying.
Here’s some plain talk about what readers want – they want good stories that grab you. The kind of stories that make you want to lie in bed on a rainy day and read.
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Readers don’t care too much if you put the inciting incident in chapter 1,2,3 or 4 – as long as you give them SOMETHING that interests them.
They don’t care about your political views – really, they could care less. I’ve written before about how one author and I share the same political views, but he kept stressing parts of it I didn’t agree with, and his entire novel (a sci-fi classic, I’ll say this) kept HARPING on it. And that meant I had to skip some pages, see if he was harping on it more, skip more pages, etc.
If you weren’t a sci-fi legend, and if the book wasn’t good, it would have gone in the trash.
I can remember books I’ve read that offended me greatly – and they went right in the trash.
Here’s the first take away- WRITE A GOOD BOOK. Hone your craft. Learn how to “get into the room” and start the scene in media res (in the middle of the action). Learn some basic guidelines about structure and WRITE. Plan, write your synopsis, know how it’s going to write, then WRITE a good basic novel about people and feelings, and of course mutant penguins or whatever.
People are literally dying to read good books. I spent years trying to find good novels to read. I remember coming across some. I can remember some bad novels, but the way they wrote it, they kept me intrigued. The story was good, but their writing was so-so. It was enough to maintain my interest, and often to read the book three times or more (nothing beats Lord of the Rings for re-reads – I re-read it I think 40 or so times).
Next Take Away – you’ve got 85,000 to 110,000 words – there’s no TIME in there for political exposition. If you want to write a political book, write a non-fiction essay. Don’t stick politics into a Sherlock Holmes novel, or a story about moon mining. Don’t proselytize for organizations with secret handshakes every chance you get. Write the story.
take away rule – don’t use your novel to push your agendas. Half of the reading public disagree with you, and all of your readers might happen to belong to the other political party.
Take Away rule – be careful with faith matters, unless your book is specifically aimed to edify and please members of your own religious faith. I stopped reading Arthur C. Clarke simply because I got tired of reading his constant references to “all that remained was a purified Buddhism.” Marvelous. I’m not a Buddhist, and your constant pushing of it offended me.
Some books seem to go out of their way to ruin things for you. I remember the one book where a man who seems destined to some kind of greatness leads his troops onto a hostile planet. All of the other companies are advancing in a relaxed way, assured by intelligence that there’s no enemy around. The great one leads his troops in a careful, battle ready manner. At this point, you’re ROOTING for the guy to be justified, and the other divisions get caught sleeping – but no. The book shows him looking stupid.
Then later, the interstellar version of Buddhist priests tell the great one they think he can levitate. He scoffs, and walks away, maintaining a perfect plane of walking – except he’d walked off of a ledge and was now walking in the air. Okay, cool!
Well, that’s the last time any kind of hinted at mysterious abilities show up.
Bleh. I amused myself by trying to get a perfect 2 points into the trash can with the novel.
Next take away – if you promise something, deliver it!
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Another take away – Don’t violate the readers expectations! We want to see the character vindicated. It’s our promise to keep reading the book, and if you don’t deliver on it, there’s no reward.
Both Frank Herbert and Robert Heinlein spent the last 15 years of their writing career writing novels that started with promise, but then… wandered off somehow. Heinlein’s books are described as “self indulgent” – meaning he spent all his time writing about characters and not plots. I think the last 5 Heinlein novels had zip for plots. I’ve resolved to myself that if I ever buy a Heinlein novel ever again, it’ll have to be before 1962, when he wrote good old sci-fi, with spindly looking geometric design space ships, and particle weapon pistols could have the name “blaster” without shame.
Herbert got Dune off to an amazing start, and offered a promise never realized – that Muad’ Dib would return. Every chance he got to redeem this, he went off on a tangent. Herbert was obsessed with the passage of thousands of years, the change upon peoples and their customs. Yes, maybe interesting, but we wanted to keep up with Guerney Halleck and Duncan Idaho and Paul Atreides and the Harkonnen. If he could have kept the world started in Dune going in the same direction, he would have been one of the greats. But alas, he fumbled after that, and his fans left disappointed.
take away rule – write books that have a plot, where something happens – with an active protagonist who makes things happen, instead of things just happening.
Take Away rule – Deliver on promises for future installments. If you make a promise in your novel of something to come in the next book, you need to deliver that. Readers were a little annoyed with Leto Atreides being the Atreides version of Vladimir Harkonnen, and we were dying to see Paul Atreides confront his son and kill him. We had ZERO identification with Leto Atreides as the half worm/half man all monstrosity.
I contrast this with Robert McGammon and Fred Saberhagen. I read their books, and surprise! – I never really had a problem with them! They conformed to everything I read above, and it was great reading. It got to a point where I read every McGammon book that came out, and was constantly looking for more.
That’s what readers want. Deliver a good book that keeps you reading, and they’ll search book stores for your books!
