So why write a novel? I have written plenty of short stories; some have won prizes. I have also written a great many stage and radio plays which have met with some small success. Occasionally I have even dabbled in poetry.
But the novel, for better or worse, is the format by which a writer’s worth is measured. It is THE format of our century, and many centuries before. It seems impossible to escape this fact. This is not to take away from the accomplishments of Alice Munro and many other extraordinary masters of short fiction. Yet even they would admit, I think, that the easiest way to make a name for yourself as a writer, is to write a good novel. It is the form that the modern reader best knows, loves, and will pay money to read.
It is no different in the small corner of the writing universe where I live. Published poets are honoured, writers whose short fiction appear in literary magazine likewise acknowledged but, if you truly want to be taken seriously, if you want to be regarded as a bona fide member of the local writing community, you need to have a published novel to your credit.
So, in part at least, writing a novel is about status. Of course, it has nothing to do with money. If you are writing a novel to become wealthy, you are almost certainly delusional.
But the novel, for better or worse, is the format by which a writer’s worth is measured. It is THE format of our century, and many centuries before. It seems impossible to escape this fact. This is not to take away from the accomplishments of Alice Munro and many other extraordinary masters of short fiction. Yet even they would admit, I think, that the easiest way to make a name for yourself as a writer, is to write a good novel. It is the form that the modern reader best knows, loves, and will pay money to read.
It is no different in the small corner of the writing universe where I live. Published poets are honoured, writers whose short fiction appear in literary magazine likewise acknowledged but, if you truly want to be taken seriously, if you want to be regarded as a bona fide member of the local writing community, you need to have a published novel to your credit.
So, in part at least, writing a novel is about status. Of course, it has nothing to do with money. If you are writing a novel to become wealthy, you are almost certainly delusional.
Mostly, however, I wanted to write a novel to see if I could do it. After much mulling, I think I found a story complex and interesting enough to suit the novel form. Short stories, beautiful and poignant as they can be, necessarily restrict the writer to a smaller tale, a surgical slice in time, a close focus on a small cast of characters.
I looked forward to the "freedom" of the novel format, which would allow me to explore several thematic directions simultaneously, look for complex relationships, delve into arcane details—things like that.
In about nine months I completed the first draft of Lunatics. A very small circle of readers looked through the manuscript, proofread, left me with general impressions, helped me identify areas which needed revision and so forth. After making the appropriate revisions, “polishing” the work as writers sometimes say, I had the sense that the manuscript was ready to see the eyes of publishers.
I looked forward to the "freedom" of the novel format, which would allow me to explore several thematic directions simultaneously, look for complex relationships, delve into arcane details—things like that.
In about nine months I completed the first draft of Lunatics. A very small circle of readers looked through the manuscript, proofread, left me with general impressions, helped me identify areas which needed revision and so forth. After making the appropriate revisions, “polishing” the work as writers sometimes say, I had the sense that the manuscript was ready to see the eyes of publishers.
Wrong. It wasn’t.
This I concluded after several publishers had rejected the manuscript. That being said, on two occasions, publishers did get back to me to ask to see the complete manuscript. Apparently in the opening of the work—the first thirty pages or so—I had done ‘something’ right, enough to warrant at least some initial interest, but no more.
It is no secret that it is probably harder today than ever to get a piece of fiction into print. The number of Canadian publishers of fiction has shrunk almost to nothing. Very little risk taking is going on. Breaking into the market as a new writer is a disheartening quest at best.
For many months I seriously explored the option of self-publishing or, at the very least, presenting the world with Lunatics as an e-book. Such books are all the rage now, and the cost of turning my manuscript into an e-book would not be that great. And the gratification would be nearly immediate when compared to the glacial pace of traditional print publishing. Besides, only months before, my novella, Eta Carinae, had been published by Vagabondage Press as an e-book, so I had already broken into the market, so to speak.
This I concluded after several publishers had rejected the manuscript. That being said, on two occasions, publishers did get back to me to ask to see the complete manuscript. Apparently in the opening of the work—the first thirty pages or so—I had done ‘something’ right, enough to warrant at least some initial interest, but no more.
It is no secret that it is probably harder today than ever to get a piece of fiction into print. The number of Canadian publishers of fiction has shrunk almost to nothing. Very little risk taking is going on. Breaking into the market as a new writer is a disheartening quest at best.
For many months I seriously explored the option of self-publishing or, at the very least, presenting the world with Lunatics as an e-book. Such books are all the rage now, and the cost of turning my manuscript into an e-book would not be that great. And the gratification would be nearly immediate when compared to the glacial pace of traditional print publishing. Besides, only months before, my novella, Eta Carinae, had been published by Vagabondage Press as an e-book, so I had already broken into the market, so to speak.
My present thinking however is that the fault lies less with publishers and more with the manuscript itself. In other words, Lunatics, in its present state, is simply not good enough to be published.
Along with my writer friend, Ross Klatte, last fall I presented a five-part talk on writing fiction to a local group of interested retirees. I was very hesitant about agreeing to do this. I had no formal training as a writer. What I knew about the craft was self-taught and largely instinctual. Nevertheless, with help of two very good books by writers who truly did understand the craft, I went ahead and shared what I knew with my retirees.
This was a good and maybe crucial experience for me. I certainly learned every bit as much as my audience, almost certainly more. Many of things I talked about: character, setting, voice—these were all things I felt I understood, but gradually I began to see I didn’t understand them nearly so well as I thought. The greatest boogie man of them all was the idea of STRUCTURE. Again and again I kept reading about the importance of a novel having a very clear and disciplined structure. The novelist, I was being told, if he hope for success, must follow some very specific RULES as he writes.
Along with my writer friend, Ross Klatte, last fall I presented a five-part talk on writing fiction to a local group of interested retirees. I was very hesitant about agreeing to do this. I had no formal training as a writer. What I knew about the craft was self-taught and largely instinctual. Nevertheless, with help of two very good books by writers who truly did understand the craft, I went ahead and shared what I knew with my retirees.
This was a good and maybe crucial experience for me. I certainly learned every bit as much as my audience, almost certainly more. Many of things I talked about: character, setting, voice—these were all things I felt I understood, but gradually I began to see I didn’t understand them nearly so well as I thought. The greatest boogie man of them all was the idea of STRUCTURE. Again and again I kept reading about the importance of a novel having a very clear and disciplined structure. The novelist, I was being told, if he hope for success, must follow some very specific RULES as he writes.
What was scariest of all in my research was the suggestion that revision was something much deeper than "polishing". A second draft was not just about choosing a better adjective, discarding a repetitive sentence. It was really about seeing that on every page and in every sentence your work obeyed these rules, that your structure was solid at every step. True revision, it was suggested, probably meant a complete re-write of your first draft—no tinkering. Keeping in mind all the ways in which your first draft had failed—and it was given that it would have failed—put away the draft, don’t look at it again, and rewrite from the very beginning! Yikes!
With all these new ideas in my head and filled, at the same time, with a sense of guilt and fear, I spoke to another writer friend, Eileen Pearkes. The structure woes resonated with her—she too struggled with structural problems—and she was a successful, published writer. Why don’t you consider the Humber College Correspondence Creative Writing Course, she suggested? In this course, you are linked up to an established writer who looks through your manuscript in detail and gives you a true substantive edit. [pic]
A substantive edit… a no holds barred look at my work by someone who understood structure, who obeyed rules, and would have no hesitation about telling me where I was breaking them. Well, I thought… this was something the work very likely needed. And if not now, when? Either I would forever be an ‘emerging’ writer, or I could try to take the next step.
I submitted a sample of Lunatics to Humber College. Good enough, apparently; I was accepted into the course along with a dozen or so other writers. I was linked up to my mentor. Starting in the first week of January, I could expect to hear from him and we would be underway. Laying bare my writing ego to whatever assaults awaited. All during the Christmas season of 2013 I psyched myself up for the moment.
I would not be disappointed.
A substantive edit… a no holds barred look at my work by someone who understood structure, who obeyed rules, and would have no hesitation about telling me where I was breaking them. Well, I thought… this was something the work very likely needed. And if not now, when? Either I would forever be an ‘emerging’ writer, or I could try to take the next step.
I submitted a sample of Lunatics to Humber College. Good enough, apparently; I was accepted into the course along with a dozen or so other writers. I was linked up to my mentor. Starting in the first week of January, I could expect to hear from him and we would be underway. Laying bare my writing ego to whatever assaults awaited. All during the Christmas season of 2013 I psyched myself up for the moment.
I would not be disappointed.