Is 90% of everything really crap?

ByJohn Brown

Whenever you talk in speculative fiction circles about quality writing you will inevitably hear someone cite Sturgeon’s Law.

Theodore Sturgeon, a science fiction writer, defended science fiction against critics of the genre who said that 90% of science fiction was crap by saying that 90% of everything–film, literature, consumer goods, etc.–was crap. Therefore, pointing out that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms do. So neener neener neener.

The problem with this “law” is that it isn’t a law. It’s not something discovered through rigorous testing and careful evaluation of data. In fact, no testing was performed. It’s an opinion, but “Sturgeon’s Opinion” lacks the authoritative power needed to silence the critics. 

Unfortunately, while citing the law may be a good way to give the literati what for, it’s a terrible way to think about books. I say this because we often mistake “poor quality” with “it wasn’t to my taste.” By doing so we mislabel diamonds as dirt.

How can this be? The answer is in the true nature of quality.

The business world has spent many years and much treasure trying to understand what quality is. I think writers and readers can benefit from the paths they’ve blazed. I found a great summary of quality on Wikipedia.

Business has tried to define quality in a producer-consumer context, with the following variations:

  1. ISO 9000: “Degree to which a set of inherent characteristic fulfills requirements.”[2] The standard defines requirement as need or expectation.
  2. Six Sigma: “Number of defects per million opportunities.”[3] The metric is tied in with a methodology and a management system.
  3. Philip B. Crosby: “Conformance to requirements.”[4][5] The difficulty with this is that the requirements may not fully represent customer expectations; Crosby treats this as a separate problem.
  4. Joseph M. Juran: “Fitness for use.”[5] Fitness is defined by the customer.
  5. Noriaki Kano and others, presenting a two-dimensional model of quality: “must-be quality” and “attractive quality.”[6] The former is near to the “fitness for use” and the latter is what the customer would love, but has not yet thought about. Supporters characterize this model more succinctly as: “Products and services that meet or exceed customers’ expectations.”
  6. Robert Pirsig: “The result of care.”[7]
  7. Genichi Taguchi, with two definitions:
    a. “Uniformity around a target value.”[8] The idea is to lower the standard deviation in outcomes, and to keep the range of outcomes to a certain number of standard deviations, with rare exceptions.
    b. “The loss a product imposes on society after it is shipped.”[9] This definition of quality is based on a more comprehensive view of the production system.
  8. American Society for Quality: “a subjective term for which each person has his or her own definition. In technical usage, quality can have two meanings:
    a. the characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs;
    b. a product or service free of deficiencies.”[5]
  9. Peter Drucker: “Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for.”[10]

The common element of the business definitions is that the quality of a product or service refers to the perception of the degree to which the product or service meets the customer’s expectations. Quality has no specific meaning unless related to a specific function and/or object. Quality is a perceptual, conditional and somewhat subjective attribute.

What does this mean for writers and readers?

It means that your audience defines quality. But your audience is never all of those that read. It’s only the narrow segment that reads for the type of experience you’re offering.

It means that a story can be of the highest quality, but you still may not like it. You might even hate it.

It means that Sturgeon’s Law is, no disrespect intended, crap.

All writers should consider NY Times best-seller Tess Gerritsen’s experience writing for two different audiences.

I’ve had too many smart and well-read friends like stories I do not. I’ve loved too many stories that others could not. I’ve seen too many stories I couldn’t read more than two pages of picked up by editors and find audiences. And the tales of editors passing up on stories that some other editor picked up and which became mega-sellers are legion. 

Quality has never been an absolute. The truth is that while I enjoy many stories in a variety of genres, a lot of what’s published is not to my taste, but it’s still very good.  

A more accurate statement of Sturgeon’s Law would be something like “90% of what’s out there isn’t to my taste.”

For readers this means we need to be careful to distingush between something that doesn’t work for the audience it’s intended for and something that simply doesn’t work for us. For writers this means we need to write the best story we can and then avoid pressing it onto the wrong audience. And when we do get a bad review, we need to figure out if it’s the quality of the story or just a matter of taste.

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    The fact that self-publishing provides better chances doesn’t mean great chances. The fact that self-publishing can be less frustrating than the query-go-round and the delays inherent with traditional publishing doesn’t mean that self-publishing is frustration-free.

    Read more on Howey’s site. And here’s another by Dylan Hearn. With the Hearn post, I don’t know where he’s getting the “average book sells 100 copies” data. I don’t think that’s accurate. But his intent is to tell authors to have modest expectations, and I think having modest, realistic expectations is the most helpful way to approach this.

     

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  • More 10-to-20’s

    ByJohn Brown

    I just posted this in one of the comments sections and realized it would be useful to everyone.

    There’s another part to this that has to do with text. There will be more 10-to-20’s that go along with it. But I think I’ll be trying to create that presentation as a video for the site. We’ll see. Right now I’ve got to finish CODG. But when you finish the ones I assigned, I suggest you add these.

    1. BEGINNINGS. Go to the bookstore or library and pick up 10 to 20 random fiction books off the shelves and then sit down with them. Pick up each and read the first two pages. Note which ones pull you in and which resist you. Identify the cause. Then see what patterns you can find.

    2. 3 GRUNTS. Find 10 to 20 short stories or chapters from different books. Read them over three or four days. Do NOT read them looking for problems, but just as you would any book you’d picked up for enjoyment. While reading make a note of any section where your interest flags, the writing or story is unclear, or you just don’t believe it. These bumps are what Orson Card calls the three reader grunts. They occur when a story is unclear, unbelievable, or boring (i.e. you grunt huh? come on? or who cares?). When you’ve finished, look for the patterns that caused this response in you. ***This is one of the key things we did in Card’s boot camp that made me feel like the mists were being parted*** 

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    4. SMALL BEGINNINGS AND ENDS. Do the beginnings and ends analysis 10 to 20 chapters and then 10 to 20 scenes.

    Of course, you can look at anything this way–plot turns, magic systems, aliens, settings, dialogue exchanges. Get 10 to 20 of them. Identify which are interesting to you and which aren’t. And then try to see the patterns. But I’d recommend you start with those above.

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  • Edward Bear Shares More Proofreading Secrets

    ByJohn Brown

    Mr. Edward Bear (pseudonym) shared an awesome secret for sussing out quote issues in a previous post. He’s back with a nifty way to help spot spelling issues.  It helped me spot a number of inconsistencies in Bad Penny, which I recently fixed. Take it away, Mr. Bear.

    * * * *

    Augmented Proofreading 2

    Last time, I mentioned checking spelling and spelling consistency, and this note is to fulfill my promise.

    To begin with, I’ll admit freely I do not recommend just running a spieling chucker over the text. And yes, I’m using the phrase deliberately. The spelling checker in the program I’m using to write this just waltzed right past it, despite the fact that neither word makes sense in this context. I got started trying to get some mileage out of spelling checkers a while back, when I realized that OCR scanners will work like hell trying to find a word and probably will come up with a word, but it will be the wrong word. Over at Project Gutenberg, they use the term “scanos” as an analogue of “typos.”

    The other adversary is consistency of spelling and usage. Examples might include “canceled” and “cancelled” or variant possessives, such as “Jones’” and “Jones’s” in the same text, or simply variant spellings of the same character’s name, such as “Erik” and “Eric.”

    So what do I do for these sorts of problems?

    What you need is a list of all the unique words in the story, and it’s easy with a dollop of regex. (See the first post on this topic. The one I’ve taken to using is the following:

    [^-‘‘’\w\d\r\n]

    This one I can explain, since I wrote it. 🙂

    What it says is to look for any individual characters within the brackets([]). The leading caret (^) says “Nope, they should not be in this list.” Following that are the hyphen(-), the straight  quote(‘), and the opening and closing curly single quotes(‘’). After that, it’s any character that would normally be in a word (\w), any digit (\d), any carriage return(\r) or any new line aka paragraph terminator (\n).

    And what you do with the above is to set Textpad (see previous post again) to replace all of them with a newline (\n) character.

    Here’s what the search and replace box in Textpad looks like for this:

    Augmented Proofreading image001

     

    Notice that the “Regular expression” box is checked. And then you choose “Replace All”.

    The result is to turn this:

    Once upon a night we’ll wake to the carnival of life
    The beauty of this ride ahead such an incredible high
    It’s hard to light a candle, easy to curse the dark instead
    This moment the dawn of humanity
    The last ride of the day

    into this:

    Once
    upon
    a
    night
    we’ll
    wake
    to
    the
    carnival
    of
    life
    The
    beauty
    of
    this
    ride
    ahead
    such
    an
    incredible
    high
    It’s
    hard
    to
    light
    a
    candle

    easy
    to
    curse
    the
    dark
    instead
    This
    moment
    the
    dawn
    of
    humanity
    The
    last
    ride
    of
    the
    day

     

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    Augmented Proofreading image002

    This is a case-sensitive sort and “Delete duplicate lines”, of course, gets rid of all the duplications of words like “a”, “an”, and “the”.

    For the above text, you get:

    It’s
    Once
    The
    This
    a
    ahead
    an
    beauty
    candle
    carnival
    curse
    dark
    dawn
    day
    easy
    hard
    high
    humanity
    incredible
    instead
    last
    life
    light
    moment
    night
    of
    ride
    such
    the
    this
    to
    upon
    wake
    we’ll

    34 unique words.

    And here’s the payoff for all this funky text munging: Run a spelling checker over this, and it will find typos, of course, but it will also generally complain about most names, which aren’t generally kept in spelling checker dictionaries, and it will also show you words and their variants, nestled fairly closely together. Here’s an example from one of my projects:

    Swiss-born
    Take
    Talking
    Tallmadge
    Tallmadge’s
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    Tarleton
    Tarleton’s
    Tavern
    Tecumseh
    Tell
    Ten
    Thames

    The spelling checker landed on Tallmadge and its possessive form, but do you notice the “Tarelton” on the list? That’s the time for the Aha!, and you can fix the “Tarelton” form. The same thing applies to possessive variants and any other variant form you find.

    As with the last post, I’ll be peeking in on the comments and answering any questions that come up.

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  • Can you write for love AND money?

    ByJohn Brown

    Many artists think you can’t. And not simply because they envy those who are selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

    The reason they think this is for the simple fact that the creative process is fueled by following the zing. It’s ruled by passion. You have to care about AND believe in what you’re writing. You have to because if you think it’s boring or unbelivable, then it’s likely everyone else will as well. 

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    low love, high money (For me, this would be tech writing, or media tie-in to a universe I didn’t care about)

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    high love, high money. (Loftiest of goals) 🙂

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    writer-love-and-money-quadrants2

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  • |

    Maya Lassiter interviews The Man

    ByJohn Brown

    Maya has one of the most quirky goat-loving blogs around. I dare you to read just one of her blogs. You can’t do it.  You’ll find yourself going back to read another. And another. Anyway, she’s been doing a series called “How Writers Do What They Do” where she interviews authors on the creative process. Mine’s the latest, but there are a lot of other interviews in the series you will want to read. Enjoy!

    http://mayalassiter.com/2011/05/how-writers-do-what-they-do-john-brown/

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  • Generating Story 7: Creative Q&A

    ByJohn Brown

    Filling up your mind with wonderful things by hunting zing is a writer’s bread and butter.  But guess what?  You can’t develop a killer story by waiting to stumble across great story ideas.  So while you must deploy your drag net and hunt with a purpose, you must also learn how to develop your own zing.  And I haven’t found anything more productive for helping me do that than the process of creative question and answer.

    If you refer back to the Story Development Framework download, you’ll see that Creative Q&A is one of the key tools used to develop every part of story.  So how does it work?

    Do you remember my first and second posts where I talked about Ed Smiley and the folks at NASA who helped save Apollo 13?  They used this technique.  Here’s how it went down.

    They had a problem: the astronauts were running out of oxygen because the CO2 scrubbers weren’t working in the module they were in.

    The problem led to an objective: figure out a way to get the CO2 scrubbers working.

    The objective led to a question: what are some options for getting those CO2 scrubbers working?

    Then they began to generate possible answers.  Two days later they had one that would work.  Ed and his team saved the three astronauts aboard.

    This same thing happens over and over again in any situation that requires some new solution.  Do you remember all those redneck solutions I shared in the first post?  They were practicing creative Q&A.

    You know all those accountants generating various ways to do your taxes?  They’re practicing creative Q&A.  Mine did that this year; he figured out one legal way do our taxes that saved us some money, then figured out another legal way to do our taxes that saved us more than $1,500.  I’m so glad he looked for that second, actually third, right answer.

    You see all those mothers and fathers generating ways to make ends meet?  They’re practicing creative Q&A.

    It happens all the time.  It’s a key tool when trying to develop a story, and I’ve found a couple of guidelines when using this technique that seem to help quite a bit:

    1. Clearly identify the objective.
    2. Turn the objective into a “what” question.  For example, “I need a more interesting character” becomes “What are some things that would make my character more interesting?”  Likewise, “This scene is stupid, nobody would do that” becomes  “What would make this scene more believable?” When I’m stuck with plot, “My character isn’t facing any real problems” becomes “What are some killer troubles the character can run into?”
    3. Generate a list of good, dumb, and wacky options.  It seems the more ideas I generate, the better chance I have to come up with something really good, especially if I cherish the dumb and wacky ones by writing them down.
    4. Don’t hesitate to steal other ideas I’ve seen and modify them to make them my own.  Or to go search for how others dealt with issue.
    5. Try to generate more than one good or right answer.

     

    I use creative Q&A to help me develop my key objectives all the time.  I state a question and use the principles to guide me in the options I generate.  For example, in the thriller I’m writing I started with a character, an ex-con trying to go straight.  I asked myself “What are some threats to his happiness?” and “What could go wrong?”  I started to generate options.  Some were mildly interesting; some were dumb.  One was that “some old associates come back, old prison buddies, and try to drag him back into the life he’s trying to escape.”  That one tingled my zing meter, and I started to generate more information about that.  “What would they drag him back into?”  “What kinds of crimes?”  “Who are they?” (Okay, not every objective can be turned into a “what” question.)

    There are also ad hoc objectives, i.e. objectives that arise only in a particular situation that I can’t plan for.  I can use this with them as well.  For example, in Servant of a Dark God I wanted a henchman to have a cool weapon, something that I hadn’t seen before.  My question for that was “what are some cool new weapons for this henchman?”  I listed out some that were stupid and had been done before like “a big knife” and others that were wacky like “a chain.”  I generated a big old list.  As I generated options I suddenly generated the idea of “spikes.”  And then “spikes that were alive.”  That tickled my zing meter, and I followed that path and came up with the Ravelers, which I think are just awesome.

    For more information about creative Q&A, I recommend you read Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction, Fourth Edition by Donald Treffinger.  It’s one of the most practical books on creativity around.

    While you’re waiting for that to come in the mail or to get it from your library, I want you to watch something.  Dewitt Jones, a photographer for National Geographic, uses creative Q&A.  He made an incredible twenty-minute video explaining the principles of generating options.  Please watch Everyday Creativity .  It says “Preview,” but it’s the whole wonderful video.  Then go here and watch that same last bit plus some material not on the other one.  These are two versions of the same presentation.  Everyday Creativity is the commercial version used for training.  Clear Vision is the personal use one that includes some extra material.  Let me recommend you purchase the Clear Vision version. You will not regret the $45 dollars.  I promise you.

    All of what he says applies to generating answers for our writing.

    GO WATCH IT NOW.

    Note what he says about these principles about generating options:

    1. Try different perspectives for stating a problem.
    2. Follow your zing, what you care about; figure out what’s exciting you about the thing.
    3. Look for more than one right answer.  Believe there IS more than one right answer.
    4. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes—you often must make them to get the good stuff!
    5. Try breaking a pattern, do something different.
    6. Train your technique.
    7. Put yourself in the place of most potential.
    8. Be patient, persevere.
    9. Relax and goof around.

    One last thought on creative Q&A.  There are certain questions that seem to be more productive than others.  I find that those focused on the key objectives are usually very productive for me.  So give those a try, but there are others.  Furthermore, what might work for me might not work so well for you.  Don’t get stuck on using a specific question because someone else does.  The goal is not to use a specific tool, which in this case is a specific question.  The goal is to make the different parts of the story come to life in your mind.  Whatever question helps YOU do that best is the one to use.

    Because creative Q&A is such a powerful tool, I want to make sure you see plenty of examples of authors using it in their writing.  To start, read chapter 2 of Orson Card’s Characters & Viewpoint and see what questions he finds useful and an example of  how he uses them.  Then come back here.  I’ve asked some other published authors to share how they use questions to help them generate story.  I’m going to start with Ian Creasey whose short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy and Weird Tales, and has been reprinted in several Year’s Best SF anthologies.  He’s written a wonderful essay that I’ll use for the next post in the series.

    For more in this series, see How to Get and Develop Story Ideas

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4 Comments

  1. One of the best definitons of quality I’ve ever read is contained in the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Rober Pirsig (who was sited in your list on the post). The whole book is an explanation of quality, what it is, and how it plays out in most peoples lives.
    Also, the book is an excellent read.

  3. I expierenced this last saturday. At a writers conference (not the one you did) I won first place for my story in the general fiction category. I had 5 anonymous judges, winning it on the strength of 4 of them because those four liked the story that much. They all said it was extremely compelling and they couldn’t put it down. ZING BABY. They had only the slightest of suggestions that I will heed. Seems like 3 of the 4 thought there was a little too much info dump right at the end. So I will space that out a bit. Thats about it with them.
    The last judge had some of the craziest theories I could have imagined at what I was trying to write and I had to come away from it thinking, this person doesn’t have a clue and practically hated the story because it just wasn’t their cup of tea, nuff said.
    So just like your latest post, sometimes you got to go your own way regardless.

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