Matt’s on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic as I write, which is a bit unfortunate as everything in front of me appears to be UK-centric… well, maybe not everything…
Still, here goes.
The Guardian’s literary section got very excited this week about the 2010 Man Booker Prize shortlist, which was announced last Tuesday. Readers were treated to endless discussion, both online and off, as the chatterati debated whether Damon Galgut’s ‘The Strange Room’ was really a novel, and whether Tom McCarthy’s ‘C’ could be termed ‘experimental’ or no. Chair of judges Andrew Motion wrote that the judges’ criteria had never included popularity, but he was pleased to find the ‘longlist’ (the top 13 books) selling well. The Guardian’s Literary Editor, Claire Armitstead, wrote a thoughtful piece about the lack of young and/or novice writers in the shortlist, but pointed out that innovation is not the same thing as novelty. Indeed.
Back to Earth with a bump. How much do novelists really earn? That was the question fiction editor Meredith Efken chose to answer with a dispiriting, but authoritative, two-part article. And no, don’t go giving up that day job. Always assuming you’re one of the rapidly decreasing few that still has a day job, that is.
The topic of how to make your books make money–the one aspect of publishing that will ever prevent my even trying to submit a novel–is understandably a perennial favourite among writer blogs. Author Jody Hedlund came up with an original angle on the subject when she described marketing methods that don’t involve the Internet, although it should be noted that these in isolation wouldn’t help a great deal. Agent Kate (oooh, very James Bond!) had some more advice about offline marketing when she wrote her heartfelt advisory for authors attending industry conferences. But I think the prize for ‘person at the pointiest end of the stick’ should probably go to Tawna Fenske. Her offline publicity stunts have included dressing up as a pirate and treading grapes, although presumably not on the same day.
The Creative Penn (Joanna Penn) does actual research. She blogged this week about her recent field trip to a gun club–her protagonist being someone overly familiar with firearms. It wouldn’t happen in the UK, I must say. Then again, neither would the pirates and grapes.
Jeff Cohen posted an amusing quiz for aspiring writers. Assuming you don’t take up lapidary as a result of failing the quiz, there’s plenty of literary advice out there for you, as ever.
Gail Carson Levine wrote a helpful piece about ‘voice‘ and what is meant by it, while over at Warrior Writers Kristen Lamb warned against ‘POV Prostitution‘ and listed some common point-of-view howlers.
Nathan Bransford gave us seven sensible keys to writing good dialogue. Scott G F Bailey shared a link to Robert Bolaño’s satirical advice on writing short stories, and offered up some generic plotting notes of his own. Eileen Cook–a guest writer on The Divining Wand–went the whole hog and gave away the secret to writing a novel. Oh noes!
Lynne Patrick discussed acceptable levels of violence in fiction (spoiler: you can torture people all you want but you must never, ever, touch a hair of an animal’s head.) On a similar track, Janice Hardy looked at how to treat violence in fiction for young readers, using her own trilogy to illustrate the issues at hand.
Emotional involvement is always tricky to handle, both in fiction and in real life. This week Anna Staniszewski grappled with making her hero lovable, while Elizabeth Spann Craig posted on Mystery Writing is Murder about when it’s time to let go of your creature.
Back in the real world, Pakistan’s still having a seriously bad time. Micro-publisher Greg McQueen (Big Bad Media) would like to help put things right for some of the millions going through hell over there, and is asking for submissions of flash fiction for his upcoming anthology in aid of the Red Cross’ efforts. Click here for details.
