Amazon.com's Kindle e-Book Reader

Never mind that its name brings a flaming pile of books to mind. Amazon's $400 e-book reader might not replace the real thing any time soon.

Among my bibliophile friends, however, my first argument against it is not the durable pleasure of opening a paper book and turning its pages. Nor are my reservations my final word: I think e-books could be the best thing to happen to the book industry since the mass market paperback.

But first, a word on the Kindle. You can read its screen in sunlight, and it is easy on the eyes. It has a tiny QWERTY keyboard that allows you to annotate as you read. It stores about two hundred books. Its battery lasts several days. It has a built-in wireless connection that works like a cell phone, allowing you to buy and download Kindle files from Amazon.com, read blogs, and receive the daily newspaper. You can upload Word files. Kindle books are sold in Amazon's proprietary file format and cost $3-$10.

It's a start. As someone who reads a lot for her job, I find it convenient to do my work on a computer screen. My barrier to change is low. In fact, I really like the idea of having an electronic library of my lesser-read volumes, because they weigh a lot less in a cardboard box. But here's my chief beef: I don't like to spend money on books. I borrow them from the library first, and if I think I have learned something worth remembering, I will find a cheap used version in the range of $4-$12. I can't borrow electronic books from the Multnomah County Library, comprehensive though it is.

Amazon's pricing isn't an issue, but the proprietary file format is. I can only acquire books that Amazon has decided are popular enough to convert to a .azw file, or which already exist in a .txt or .pdf file. That rules out a lot of the obscure, hard-to-remember academic texts like Mikail Bakhtin's Dialogic Imagination, which I rarely need to reference but are helpful and venerable titles on my shelf. Finally, Amazon allows you to preview the first chapter of books, but for patient readers like me, I need one or two hundred pages to know if I care about a book or not.

Absent these issues I would love to introduce an e-reader into my reading habits. I would love to download e-books from the library for free, and buy the e-book only if I like it, or buy the hard copy book only if I REALLY like it. In short, to consign all my less-important reading to a paperless existence.

Besides being a boon to the environment, it would be a boon to publishers and authors, too. The cost of producing and distributing an e-book is much lower, theoretically allowing publishers to take more chances on new and experimental novelists, and niche nonfiction authors. Publishers must realize the benefit to their profits, because despite e-books accounting for an abysmally tiny portion of their book catalogs, they are pushing e-books hard. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was the keynote speaker at this summer's Book Expo conference in LA.

Kindle, however, in its current incarnation, is reminiscent of the Palm Pilot. I bought one in college, and diligently created to-do lists and a monumental address book. My weekly schedule had nary a chink. Last week I was doing some spring cleaning, and in the bottom of a shoebox, next to a half-used bottle of perfume, a hair clip, and some creased photographs, was my Palm Pilot. I'd forgotten I'd ever owned one.

A Copyeditor's Worst Nightmare

Forgive the gossip. But the Princeton University Press last week recalled a book because an "inexperienced copyeditor" allowed it to reach the shelves with over ninety errors in its first few chapters.

I'm not sure if Princeton UP meant that their "inexperienced" editor would have done better work if he or she had five more years on the job, or if "inexperienced" is just a nice way of saying "inept." But besides being an embarrassment to the press and the author, the story illustrates what is often overlooked. Editing is both a skilled trade and an aptitude.

The author, Peter Moskos, had an interesting response to the story. "Certainly I tried to find errors… and failed (and my spelling does suck—embarrassingly so). And while I do think I’m pretty good at proofing other people’s writing, it’s nearly impossible to proof any writing if you already know what it is supposed to say. Even after some errors were pointed out to me with the specific line in the text marked, I still could not find about a quarter of the errors. The mind sees what it wants to see."

Editor's Recommendation

You don't know what you don't know. It's that premise that drives what may become the new gold standard for books about writing: Elizabeth Lyon's Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore.

As a freelance editor, I hope every one of my clients reads this book before hiring me. I see writers trip over the same hurdles time and again--stylistic tics, POV writing that is too stiff to carry the characters' emotional development, and plots that unfold chunkily, if they unfold at all. Editors do their best work when presented with a close-to-publishable draft. Those dozens of hours of work are never wasted, but they are far better spent teasing out a novel's themes and bringing out the full strength of a writer's voice. Grammatical mistakes and common writing challenges are comparatively easy to address on one's own.

I have surveyed many books about the craft, and find that they fall into one of two categories: (1) They condescend to the writer, and are therefore not worth reading; or (2) they address the writer as a legitimate student and creator. Of these latter books, what distinguishes Manuscript Makeover is its thoroughness and its intuitive organization. It contains many checklists, but it's more than a mechanical how-to manual on self-editing. It covers literally every problem I've ever encountered in a client's manuscript, from style to story structure, and gives the writer ways to fix them. It also contains a helpful redux on query letters and marketing, condensed from Lyon's more comprehensive books about manuscript submission.

From now on, it sits on my shelf next to William Zinsser's On Writing Well and Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Whether you are just beginning to fill your shelves or already have filled them with some published titles of your own, Manuscript Makeover should be an essential book in your collection.

The Heavy Novel

As I pack my suitcase and write the final e-mails before taking off for Rockaway Beach, I can hardly get my car loaded fast enough. Five days away from e-mail. Five days with no phone, no chance of dashing off for a few extra groceries, no responsibilities but writing. On these retreats, I get so much writing done. I have been writing a novel for five years and am producing what will likely be the final draft, thanks to a burst of clarity in February. I never thought the pieces would come together so well, and to finish it, finally finish it, all I need is the time to write.

A long time ago I read in Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way that the subconscious already knows the story. All the writer needs is to get free of the blocks, and write. The idea didn't inspire me at the time, but it lodged in my head somewhere. I carried it with me all these years, through high school, college, moving, the years in Portland -- kind of like that funny-looking tool that somebody gives you for Christmas. You never think you need it, but it looks potentially useful, and it travels from junk closet to junk closet. Something like that. Anyway, the idea returned to me in February, when I realized I knew my novel's story all along.

I told a good friend this morning, our novels are already complete. They are in our subconscious, and they are very, very heavy. Our responsibility is to get enough sleep, make time to write, and allow our minds to play. Our work is to be energetic enough to haul up our novel, bucketful by bucketful.

Better late than never.

Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize for The Denial of Death... in 1974. I'm reading it for the first time, partly to research some ideas about death, partly because I am always looking for a perfectly reasoned argument for why the humanities should be funded, why reading fiction isn't a frivolous waste of time, why we don't all get degrees in chemistry or computer science and work for Intel.

Anyway, back to Becker. He argues that "hero stories" are intrinsic to human culture. They're intrinsic to the individual--that I want to be a "hero" because a "hero" is assured the best of the gene pool, the biggest piece of meat, the safest shelter. (I'm simplifying here, but...) The more willing we are to admit to and accept our inbuilt quest for heroism as a matter of dignity, the less likely we are to shuffle along, heads down, toward a flawed or ignoble heroism: such as "the viciously destructive heroics of Hitler's Germany or the plain debasing and silly heroics of the acquisition and display of consumer goods, the piling up of money and privileges."

It seems to me that writing is an act of dignified self-interest. In creating a story or poem, the author is at the top--the author is the organizing principle in a system of meaning, and accepts that role joyfully and voluntarily. And in being aware of this power, as creator, as hero, the author may become even more powerful yet:

If everyone honestly admitted his urge to be a hero it would be a devastating release of truth. It would make men demand that culture give them their due--a primary sense of human value as unique contributors to cosmic life. How would our modern societies contrive to satisfy such an honest demand, without being shaken to their foundations?

So, keep writing, save the world.

Writers reading, writing, and thinking

We live in a country where less than half the educated population has read a novel or poetry chapbook since leaving college. Yet I'm surprised when a writer tells me he doesn't read. "I have my own style. I don't want to be influenced by anyone." Or: "I know what gets published. I can write better than that."

I read two books a week outside of work, sometimes more if I am doing research, and still I feel I don't read enough. But I will give up reading forever if one of these aliterate writers produces a manuscript that isn't unintentionally unoriginal.

There is a symbiotic relationship between language and thought. We limit or broaden our thinking by exposure to language that is either dull or crisp, cliche or fresh. If a writer engages with ideas only through conversations, news reports, ad copy, and campaign speeches, her or her source of thought is a small, muddy one indeed (no matter the quality of the mind absorbing it). And it will show up in the writing.

Over sixty years ago, George Orwell described two writing problems that evolved from this small source. "The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision. The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not."

An editor is only helpful when the writer's ideas are already sound. I can tune a piano that already exists, but I can't build one out of spaghetti. Reading is a writer's responsibility--and a pleasure, muse, friend, and teacher.

The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. --Malcom X

Someone will eat your words.

Test your vocabulary in support of the United Nations World Food Program. For every word you get right, 20 grains of rice are paid for by the site's advertisers and donated to feed the hungry.

Click the banner to play.

Perhaps this will help.

Playtime for the inner child.

http://www.ugo.com/channels/comics/heromachine/classic.asp

Call it research for your graphic novel.

He Exuded, She Proffered – And Other Dialogue Stranglers

Your main character pulls himself up to the counter at his favorite diner. He sips his coffee, looks around. At the far end of the counter, under an autographed photo of Elvis Presley, sits that woman again – the one who started coming in last week, who places pictures of her son on the counter and stares at them while she eats her toast. She’s pretty.

This could be the start of something. Your main character checks his tie for coffee drips, picks up his mug and moves to the stool next to her.

“Excuse me, what a handsome little boy. I have a son, myself, but he’s in daycare down the street right now, and his mother, well, that’s a long story,” he exuded.

She proffered, “My son isn’t with us anymore.”

“What do you mean?” John questioned, sipping his coffee as he looked into her eyes with concern.

YIKES! Any interesting information in this scene gets mangled with the dialogue. If your writing droops whenever your characters open their mouths, read further. Here are some quick clean-ups that will tighten conversations and help your dialogue scenes hold readers’ attention.

1. Keep it simple.

Stick to he said, she said – or if it’s a question, she asked. Just because Roget’s Thesaurus can give you thirty adjectives for “said” doesn’t mean you should use them all. Anything but “said” and “asked” can distract your reader from your characters’ words.

2. Use names sparingly.

In most scenes – and especially in scenes between a man and a woman – it is enough to use the characters’ names once at the beginning, and then use “he” and “she” the rest of the way through, and only when “he” and “she” are absolutely necessary to clarify who is speaking. Your readers are interested in the dialogue, NOT the dialogue tags.

3. Let the words speak for themselves...

...And beware of stage directions. For example, “…sipping his coffee as he looked into her eyes with concern.” Action is important in some dialogue scenes, but as a rule of thumb, focus on the spoken word. When you must convey action, do it cleanly. For instance:

"What do you mean?” he asked. He took a sip of his coffee and looked into her eyes.

You’ll see that his concern is still apparent in the fact that he’s even asking for clarification, and also that he meets her eyes. The dialogue tag is short and unobtrusive, giving the reader closure on the dialogue before moving on to describe his action.

4. Indirect communication: bad for relationships, good for dialogue scenes.

Use indirect dialogue to add tension and cover ground. One thing that this exchange does correctly is that it allows the woman to respond indirectly to the man’s opening statement. The jump moves us to the important information (that her son is gone, for reasons unknown), and saves us from the boredom of watching a Q&A-type dialogue unfold.

5. "Put," she said earnestly, "your dialogue tags where they don't distract."

Indicate the speaker at the beginning of the dialogue, or after the first, short phrase of dialogue. Otherwise, the dialogue tag becomes a distraction.

YES: He glanced over his shoulder. “Darn right.”
YES: She told him, “I want you to finish your dinner, first.”
YES: “Darn right,” he said. “If that’s what you really believe, I mean.”
NO: “Darn right. If that’s what you really believe, I mean,” he said.
NO: "If that's," he said, "what you really believe."

In general, dialogue scenes should move along at a good clip and present challenges to your characters. When you can trust that your readers are interested in what the characters are saying, you can concentrate on telling the story, rather than the tilt of John Q.'s eyebrows as he asks the woman of his dreams for a date.

Second editions and the self-published author

A client recently self-published her first book, a short coaching guide that she takes with her to her seminars and workshops. While thrilled to have a book, she wasn't thrilled with her POD company's work. But if you know much about publishing -- POD or otherwise -- you know that once the book is typeset, small changes add up to big bucks. How can you make the most of this expensive process?

There's an important similarity between POD nonfiction books (like self-help, business, and academic books) and, say, the textbook industry. In the textbook industry, authors make their money by writing a book and then revising it every two years and selling the new editions. One book may go through nine editions or more. And the same is true of your POD book.

Something you'd like to change about the cover? Do you have testimonials or new examples you'd like to add, based on reader feedback? Has your subject matter become more newsworthy? Once you've published your first edition, start a file of everything you'd like to add or change. Keep track of who buys your book. Wait 18 months, then revise to your heart's content. Write a new introduction. Tweak the cover design. Now you have a second edition, and probably an even better book -- and because you've kept track of who's buying your book, your new edition has a built-in audience.

And the best news for my client? As a self-published author, she still owns the rights to her work, and can select a different printing or POD company the next time around.

Believable cruelty

Often I encounter writers struggling with how to portray a violent, cruel, abusive, or drug-addicted character in a human and believable way. There are so few messages or stories in mainstream culture that adequately explain why real human beings do bad things.

How do we get to the root of something we may not intuitively understand? We run the risk of judging our characters on one hand, or on the other, exonerating them. A good narrator will do neither -- readers will be suspicious of either an apologist or moralist for a narrator.

The best book I've encountered on the subject so far is FOR YOUR OWN GOOD: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence, by Alice Miller. The book is, unfortunately, out of print, but there are many copies available through Amazon.com, AbeBooks.com and Alibris.com. Try to find the 3rd edition or later if you can.

Pan's Labyrinth

In my critiques, I often advise writers to pay closer attention to how they use point-of-view (POV). Until I saw Pan's Labyrinth a second time a few weekends ago, it didn't occur to me to use a movie to explain a writing concept.

If you're writing in third person, the narrator zooms in and out to pace the story. John Gardner, in The Art of Fiction, calls this concept psychic distance, or basically how close your narrator is to your POV character's innermost experience of the world. A common mistake is to hold the same psychic distance for too long, creating either a story that moves too slowly (the plot drags) or too quickly (we might as well be reading a plot summary).

This film, were it a novel, would be written in third-person. Since Ofelia is the main character, the closest psychic distance is reserved for her, but we get other POVs later in the film that give the story its depth and richness. In the crucial first 20 minutes, however, we move through three stages of psychic distance in Ofelia's POV. A full walk-through is beyond the scope of this little blog entry, but briefly:

1. When Ofelia finds the stone in the road that releases the fairy, the viewer is alone with her. We know very little about her other than that she reads fairy tales (her mother just scolded her for it), and this moment gives both her and us a sense of wonder. The psychic distance is very close.

2. Once Ofelia arrives at the old mill/military outpost, we meet two new characters--the captain and Mercedes--and as the viewer, we're in the midst of a lot of activity. We're observing the interaction between the captain and Ofelia's mother. There's dialogue between Ofelia and the new characters. The psychic distance is moderate.

3. There's a hinge point right after Ofelia discovers the labyrinth--Mercedes guides her away from it, but the camera stays with the labyrinth; specifically, the fairy appears at the top of the threshold and watches Ofelia and Mercedes walk away. We've broken from Ofelia's POV, and the subsequent scenes are free move to other characters' POVs. The psychic distance zooms completely out for this transition.

Thanks to the slowly increasing psychic distance, we can easily adjust to the changing POVs that come after these opening scenes: Something to consider as you're switching between POVs in your novel.

Status

Work is slow at Threepenny -- the typical summer slump. In July, I finished a critique, two manuscript editing projects, and several sample edits. I put in some good, hard work on a ghostwriting project. I saved my personal website from peril (thanks to the Registerfly.com sellout), and raced well in two big triathlons. I also tried to save the Earth; or at least I put more miles on my bike than on my '93 Saturn.

Portland summers are sweet, and there's nothing like closing the laptop at 5 p.m. sharp and pedaling to the top of Mt. Tabor Park, sitting in the grass with friends, watching the bicycle races, and waiting for the sun to set behind the city. A slow month on the P&L doesn't mean hard times.

More on gotchas

I posted last week about the dozen or so London publishers that rejected "Pride and Prejudice." The buzz on my editors guild board has finally produced a few optimistic notes, mainly this one on the Making Light blog, a group blog written by editors and writers who have been working in book publishing for decades.

Quick reference: The Tongue Untied

Why did your editor flinch when you commented on the enormity of her skill? I ran across this site earlier today, which is a nice showcase of how subtle differences in word choice make ALL the difference.

The free OED

Once again, my library card made my week. Thanks to a helpful post on the Northwest Independent Editors Guild website, we now know that most libraries subscribe to the online Oxford English Dictionary, and anyone with a card can access it for free. Word geeks, rejoice with me.

Second and third thoughts on the previous post

As someone who follows The Rejecter , Pub Rants , and formerly, Miss Snark's blog , I read the Guardian article with a sick feeling in my stomach. The reason isn't a particularly acute attack of cynicism; it's that anyone who reads and learns from publishing blogs knows exactly why Jane Austen couldn't make it past the 27-year-old know-it-all who opens your agent's mail.

I have to remind myself to stop wasting time--wasting time worrying about the formula-touting assistant with a letter-opener, and wasting time second guessing my writing goals. I have a stack of books next to my chair that need to be read as research (mostly folklore), as well as two academic books (Bakhtin, and a lit crit anthology) that have been bookmarked for months, and a novel to write.

Write well, keep the faith, and when the time comes to go out with the manuscript, you will make it happen. In the meantime, learn all you can and take any formulaic approach to fiction with a grain of salt. Good books get published all the time.

Not like the world needs more cynicism, but this gem deserves a look.

"The author and the Austen plot that exposed publishers' pride and prejudice"

· Rejection slips for slightly amended literary classics
· Most failed to identify novelist's celebrated work

Steven Morris
Thursday July 19, 2007
The Guardian

Her work has endured for two centuries, sold in its millions and inspired countless film and television adaptations. But would Jane Austen be able to find a publisher and an agent today? A cheeky experiment by an Austen enthusiast suggests not.

David Lassman, the director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath decided to find out what sort of reception the writer might get if she approached publishers and agents in the age of Harry Potter and the airport blockbuster.

After making only minor changes, he sent off opening chapters and plot synopses to 18 of the UK's biggest publishers and agents. He was amazed when they all sent the manuscripts back with polite but firm "no-thank-you's" and almost all failed to spot that he was ripping off one of the world's most famous literary figures.

Mr Lassman said: "I was staggered. Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, with her oeuvre securely fixed in the English canon and yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen's work."

Mr Lassman admits that personal disappointment as well as academic interest prompted his experiment. A little like Austen, who initially struggled to find a publisher, he has been unable to find someone to champion his book, a thriller called Freedom's Temple, a modern take on the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. "I know it isn't a masterpiece but I think it is publishable. Yet nobody wanted it. I was talking with some friends and we wondered if Jane would find a publisher or agent if she were around today."

So, styling himself Alison Laydee - a play on Austen's nom de plume A Lady - he typed up chapters from three of her most famous books. First he sent off Northanger Abbey, calling it "Susan" - a title Austen had used for an early draft - and changing the name of the heroine from Catherine Morland to Susan Maldorn.

Mr Lassman expected to be branded a fraud. But he was surprised when publishers and agents failed to spot they had been sent the work of Austen. Bloomsbury, publisher of the Harry Potter books, for instance, suggested the chapters had been read "with interest" but were not "suited to our list".

Still, Northanger Abbey is not seen as one of Austen's great books, so next he sent off Persuasion, under the title The Watsons. Again the letters of rejection flooded in. JK Rowling's agents, Christopher Little, were among those who turned it down, saying they were "not confident" of being able to place it.

Then he played his trump card, sending off Pride and Prejudice, calling it First Impressions, again an early title Austen had used for it. The names of the main characters and places were changed, but with no great guile.

Mr Bennet became Mr Barnett while the estate Netherfield becomes Weatherfield, the fictional setting for the TV soap Coronation Street.

And he did not change the opening line, one of the most famous in world literature: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Still the deception was not spotted and the rejection letters thudded on to Mr Lassman's doormat, most notably one from Penguin. Its letter read: "Thank you for your recent letter and chapters from your book First Impressions. It seems like a really original and interesting read."

Only one person appeared to have spotted the deception, Alex Bowler, of Jonathan Cape. His reply read: "Thank-you for sending us the first two chapters of First Impressions; my first impression on reading these were ones of disbelief and mild annoyance, along, of course, with a moment's laughter.

"I suggest you reach for your copy of Pride and Prejudice, which I'd guess lives in close proximity to your typewriter, and make sure that your opening pages don't too closely mimic that book's opening."

David Baldock, director of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, said he was amused and disheartened by the experiment. He added: "It's interesting that there are these filters that stop work getting through. Clearly clerks and office staff are rejecting these manuscripts offhand."

Publishers and agents yesterday tried to explain what had gone wrong. A spokesman for Christopher Little said: "Our letter was a polite note declining representation and provided a standard response. Our internal notes did recognise similarities with existing published works and indeed there were even discussions about possible plagiarism."

A spokeswoman for Penguin pointed out that its letter had said only that it "seemed" original and interesting. "It would not have been read," she insisted.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE:

First Impressions, Alison Laydee

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

"My dear Mr Barnett," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Weatherfield Manor is let at last?"

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

"My dear Mr Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"

Lazarus

I've been busy? Kidnapped? At any rate I haven't posted since February. But I'm back, with apologies to anyone who has visited this blog and been disappointed to find nothing here for months.

Editors, and editing nonfiction

Just a heads-up. If you are thinking of writing a work of nonfiction*, plan it first. Write only the first chapter. Hire an editor to make that chapter and proposal sparkle, and start shopping for an agent. If you get a publishing contract, then you can finish the book. This is the safest way to approach your project, unless you already have a guaranteed audience.

Unless you are planning to self-publish or go POD, you will set yourself up for a lot of heartache and expense if you write the thing and hire an editor, only to find out that no agent will represent it, and no publisher will publish it.

There are some great books on writing nonfiction proposals. Google it, or here are a few:

Write the Perfect Book Proposal, by Jeff Herman and Deborah Levine Herman
Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write, by Elizabeth Lyon

Also, the Gotham Writers' Workshop offers excellent, respected online courses for aspiring nonfiction authors and freelance feature writers.


* This advice doesn't apply to memoirs.