This is the perfect genre for writers who may be tempted to throw out manuscript pages when they get stuck — with magic realism, you can just conjure up a flaming tornado and whisk troublesome characters away. “Where’s Jasper?” “Remember that legend I mentioned 25 pages ago, about the Flaming Tornado of Red Creek?”Elizabeth, I think he stole your meterorite test and turned it into a viable plot option. How does that make you feel?
Anyway, if you like this essay and haven't read HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST yet, try it, you'll like it.
3 comments:
I enjoyed this article. Coming on the heels of How I Became A Famous Novelist, it seems as if a lot of good writers are beginning to feel uneasy with the publishing industry - or maybe the market for literary fiction.
I have often wondered if the publishing industry isn't in a position similar to the music industry ten years ago, when sales were down, and the industry started to blame new technology for the decline in cd sales. Then, a wave of new, non-MTVified bands like The Strokes, White Stripes, and Alicia Keys became popular around 2001, followed by a much deeper wave of indie bands in 03/04, like Arcade Fire, The Shins, The National, etc, and now all of a sudden music is much more popular among young people.
Is the publishing industry falling back on these cliches because, in a bad market, the tired-and-true is all that will sell? Or are sales down because all that gets published are these tired genre novels?
Meteorites aren't magical, just unlikely!
I once heard Charlaine Harris (of Sookie Stackhouse fame) speak, and someone asked her what she did when she got stuck. She said that if a character gives her the first sign of trouble, she kills him/her off, and that's why she likes working in the murder mystery genre.
W.G., as far as your last two points, I think it's a little bit of both. Given that the culture of publishing (if you'll forgive me for using such a monolith) clearly favors some genres over others, the people who rise to decision-making levels absorb that thinking. If you watch your boss take a chance on the next William Vollmann, watch it fail and get fired, when you take over his desk you might prefer to buy another ethnic bildungsroman that sells moderately well and gets decent reviews and keep your job.
I think your analogy to the music industry is apt, but the question is, what had to change for record companies to look at a wider variety of music and support bands like the White Stripes that don't have immediate breakout hits? And can the publishing industry replicate that? One suggestion has been that small publishers can lead that change because their threshold for success is lower (I guess the music equivalent would be Saddle Creek or Matador).
Post a Comment