I’ve finished chapter 17 of CURSE. I’m up to 50,000 words and have moved from the presentation phase into the struggle. And I’m stopping at this point to review the what I’ve got. I’ve learned that if the foundations of the story–the presentation phase–has fundamental flaws in it, you’re only going to create a HUGE rewrite mess if you push on.
I know this from experience. When writing the first draft of CURSE back in 2009 (oh my heck, it feels like forever ago), I ignored my Spideysenses and told myself I could fix anything that was wrong in post production. And it IS possible to fix many things afterwards–you can change scenes, improve clarity and transport, remove continuity errors, layer in character tags and things like that.
And it IS true that sometimes you do just have to write to the end to figure out the story. Sometimes you have to just write to the end, and do it in a substandard way, because if you don’t you’ll never finish anything. Sort of like sketching first and then painting. But if there’s something wrong with the basic premise of a story line, and you keep writing, then that story line affects everything it touches. The fractures ripple out all the way to the end of the book. And you might end up, like I did, having to toss a huge amount of what you’d written.
Which is not all bad. I learned a lot and invented a lot of cool stuff while writing that. But when you’re on a deadline, it can be a killer. And I’m not doing that this time. I worked out the big issues in my chapter outline.
So I’m pulling back and reviewing. I’m delighted with everything but the villain. He’s still not right. I love his chapters, the scenes. I love the name I’ve given him–Endless. But the structure isn’t right. I’ve inadvertantly created two main villains. And that’s not useful. Having two “main” villains doesn’t double the power of the opposition. It splits it. The villain/henchman model works well. But I don’t have that either. Over the next few days I’ll be rectifying the setup. Then moving forward.
For those of you who are writers, I thought you’d be interested to know that there were a few times these last two weeks when I dreaded the writing. I had a large problem before me or had to invent a new chapter (as opposed to using something from the previous draft), and a dread filled me. But I sketch/drafted my way to the end, and soon found the writing a joy again.
I can’t say enough about the sketch/draft method. I’ve found it works in creative activities OUTSIDE writing as well. When working up a lesson plan for my day job, designing landscaping for our house, developing a talking script for a sales call, writing a technical manual, or a hundred other things I’ve had to do–it’s always easier to work from something than create everything all from scratch.
Sketching allows me to create that first draft. And it allows me to do this without having to worry about quality. Sketches can be silly. Weird. Full of crap. They can be all this because I can throw them away. They’re not meant to be permanent. And so there’s no pressure to perform. There’s no staring at a blank screen or page. Sketching is a free-wheeling joy. It fills me up with ideas. And then, when I’ve got the general idea of what I want to do, I can start in on the “real” draft knowing WHAT I want to accomplish which leaves me free to think about the HOW. And if I run into problems and realize the draft isn’t going to work, or I run into something better, I just call the current draft a sketch (or “take” as used in the movie business) and move on to the real one.
Sometimes a chapter or section requires 1 sketch or take, sometimes I’ve run up into the 20’s. Sometimes I haven’t needed any at all. It’s not the number that’s important, it’s the process that has really freed me.
I’m finally sold on e-publishing. It’s the great equalizer.
There isn’t much that a small publisher can do for you that you can’t do for yourself. If I did get a contract with a traditional publisher, I’d still need the same skills and I’d still have to do the same kind of self-promotion as I do as an independent publisher.
As always, I still need to focus on understanding my audience, and on writing the best stories that I possibly can. A bad first book will kill every other book in a series.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d still take a publishing contract. The one thing they CAN give you is credibility.
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That “largest trade category” seems meaningless.
For example, if “adult paper books” were a category, I think (if I understand the categories), it would be $2890.3M (sum of adult hardcover, paperback, and mass market).
Then, if we had “adult e-book” category, I assume it would be somewhat less than $969.9M, since E-Books (excluding religious) probably includes children’s and YA E-books.
So a more meaningful comparison would be “adult paper books” at $2890.3M versus “adult e-books” at somewhat less than $969.9M.
So e-books still have a long way to go for revenue to outstrip paper books.
Not that I don’t want to see it happen, but one must be realistic about these things!
JohnW,
Trade categories are useful to many in the industry. Baen, for example, makes most of its money from mass market paperbacks. Tor, on the other hand, makes most of its money from hardbacks. If you’re with one of those houses, you want to see where your segment is heading.
When your segment is shrinking drastically, it’s helpful to know. If another segment is growing, that’s helpful to know as well. When one format starts to dominate others, it shows where the money in the whole industry is flowing. And where future investment is likely to flow.
The other thing this doesn’t show is net income from the category. Ebooks are much more profitable than paper, which affect how the industry will shift as well. Kris Rusch discusses the recent announcement by those who own Random House about their investment going forward. It’s worth a read: http://kriswrites.com/2012/03/28/the-business-rusch-pay-no-attention-to-that-man-behind-the-curtain/
So when a small category of the trade in just a few years rises to dominate the others, it is indeed useful information. The purpose of the post wasn’t to make a comment about when ebooks would become the lion’s share of all book sales, but to highlight this milestone in the segment’s growth and how the industry is shifting. And this is a huge shift 🙂
Of course, I think comparing ebooks sales to all trade is useful as well. You’re right to point out ebooks haven’t replaced all of paper. It will be interesting to see if ebooks slow their rate of growth this year. If they don’t, this is going to affect a lot of things.
Thanks to your clarification, I can see how those categories may be useful to someone in the publishing industry.
But for most people, I think these kind of headlines are misleading, because it becomes, in the minds of many people, “E-books will outsell paper books in 2012”, which I think is very unlikely, even if I would love to see it happen.
Anything can be misread. But I don’t think it’s misleading for the average person coming to this blog 🙂 Becoming the biggest category is actually a big deal. It’s a huge deal. And the table lays things out in a clear way to understand what that means.
Sounds like you’ve run into some starry-eyed ebookers. What’s your connection to publishing?
I have no connection to publishing, although I am curious what I wrote that made you think otherwise.
I am just a big fan of e-books, but I am tired of them being second class citizens — e-book releases delayed relative to paper and many older SF&F titles still not available as e-books. I guess that will not change until e-books have a much larger share of the market, rather than being outsold by paper books by more than 3 to 1.
I just meant what’s your interest.
As for older titles, many titles have had their rights revert back to the authors. And so it’s up to the various authors to get them back into circulation. But there are titles that the publishers still have licenses to that aren’t up. If you read the Bertlesmann announcement I linked to, it’s clear they see the profits and are working to get them all up. I can’t imagine other publishers wouldn’t do the same. So it’s already changing.