No Respect!

Rodney Dangerfield talking about his early career:

​To give you an idea how well I was doing at the time I quit, I was the only one who knew I quit.

Then again, Rodney didn't have social media. Times have changed, but I understand his point.

It's hard to get noticed above all the noise, the daily release of thousands of books, many written by artificial intelligence, and the attention span of readers is getting shorter.

I've gotten to know many other writers. Common responses to less than great book sales: I've got to get an agent, I've got to market better, I need to follow the YouTube guru who espouses "Seven Hacks to Writing Success." They're all looking for the quick fix.

How about this: Learn to write better books that a broader audience wants to read. I chose to try that less traveled road.

My first novel, Losing Lola, was pretty good. I have some fans, and the book won two awards. It still sells. But let's face it, winning a book award these days is a bit like getting a participation trophy in a Youth Soccer league.

I started a learning quest. Read lots of books before stumbling my way to works that helped me.

There's a lot of garbage. I won't mention any titles.

There are several books by famous well intentioned authors that are entertaining, but not helpful. Best example: the hugely successful On Writing by Steven King. If you ask retired English teachers, this is the book they'll recommend, because King spends a lot of time talking about parts of speech. He says he hates adverbs, for example, even though if you read his books, the text is full of adverbs.

The most important thing I've learned is: Story Is Everything. If you have a boring predictable plot, nobody will read your book. Even if you get all the grammar down pat--take that retired English teacher with your unpublished homage to the Jane Austen! 

​Do I sound bitter? It might have something to do with my 11th grade English teacher.

King spends no time on Story. He says invent characters and start writing. No outline necessary. This is terrible advice. 

He doesn't mean to be terrible, it's just that he started writing stories at eight years old, and was submitting to editors by age 12. The Story is second nature to him. It's like a beginner taking a golf lesson from Tiger Woods: just hit your drive 300 yards, and then we'll talk tactics about your next shot. We mortals have to start from a different point. 

I'll discuss better ideas next week.