I recently had a conversation with a writer whose editor told her that her pages, while well written, lacked emotional suspense. Intensity. How do you put that in, she asked, her voice gravelly with despair. Her editor had looked under the hood and found a clean machine that had no go. How do you give an ailing manuscript the infusion it needs?
Well, in the first place, can you dig deeper? Are you withholding? Protecting someone you love, yourself? Even a story written on the surface of things will make a deeper impression if done right. Ask yourself: why should we read you and not someone else? Have you compelled your book to say what it still needs to say (that’s a loose Malamud paraphrase)?
Next, do you have stylistic proclivities that dull out emotion. Meaning is it boring? Does your beautiful prose turn into wallpaper because every sentence is delivered with the same emphasis? Have you really looked at your sentence structure, word repetition, (mono) tone? What about your pacing or timing? Is there a clock inside your book meaning does the reader have an implicit understanding of how the story moves through time, or do you purposefully thwart such expectations to even greater effect?
Read your shit aloud. Do it. Use a highlighter and mark all passages that are boring or that even you, the author, want to skip over.
Don’t narrate. Story tell. What does that mean? We, your audience, are all twelve and sitting around a campfire. Don’t disappoint our eager faces.
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At what point do you stop saying, “Happy new year?” I always feel kind of like Eddie Haskell. Worse, is saying happy new year to Jewish colleagues at Rosh Hashana. It’s like all that brisket stinking up the room. Where am I going with this? Work protocol? Agent banter? Greasing the wheel. Sending out first project of the year. Getting back to work. Getting it up. Hey, happy new year. How was your vacation? If you consider gaining six pounds a plus, it was great.
Are you the kind of person who automatically points out a flaw once you’ve been given a compliment. For instance, a co-worker says, “I like your skirt,” and you respond by pointing out a tear or a stain. Or maybe you say you got it for a few bucks at a tag sale or on sale at Marshall’s. In that spirit, I feel like posting the two worst Amazon reviews for the Forest for the Trees. At first, I was mortifried when this sort of thing turned up. Now, I like to rub my body with it.
Well, this incredible year is winding down. I felt like quitting publishing in March after I crashed and burned so badly on a project that I no longer trusted myself. And that, whether you are an agent, editor, publisher, or writer, is the worst. We’re all clomping around in the forest as far as I can tell, but when you realize you’ve lost your compass, well you’re fucked. All you really have is your taste, your belief, your instinct, your gut. Separate yourself from these for a moment and you are a goner. Nobody really knows what’s going to work, but believing in something and having the insanity of your convictions is crucial to any success. If you build it they will come, and all that. But of course, here in bookland, if you build it they can also ignore it, savage it, remainder it, and pulp it.
Sold my last book of 2011 today. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa. I know many of you hate agents out there and I get it. I hated most agents when I was an editor. Taking them to lunch so they could shit on your face, if you feel me. I once took an agent out to lunch who looked at the menu and said, “If I have one more cobb salad, I’m going to kill myself.” Another pulled a bill away as I was figuring out the tip and said, “Gimme that, I know 15% of anything.”
How can tell if your work is good? How can you tell if it’s done? how do you know if readers will feel what you want them to feel? See what you see? Why did you choose red over scarlet? Blue over cerulean? Dumb ass over douche bag? What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Is your character real or made from mix? Does your work scream amateur or does it mingle in a smoking jacket? How does time move? A day, a year, a century? A million kisses? Is there a clock? For whom does it toll? To thine own self? Or Ruth amid the aliens? What pattern is the wallpaper, the china, the china china? Are your similes brittle, brash, unexpected, bashful? Does a river run through it? Do you even know what it is “about?” And please don’t “about” me. Are you lean, concise, compressed? Bold, sassy, expansive? Highway or my way? Back hoe or pick? Do you tap, slam, rap, dip? Brush, smudge, thumb, tongue. Do you lick it, kick it, kill it, burn it. Are you in the driver’s seat? The sandbox? The stairway to my fat heaven. Can I see your license and registration? Do you seek the sun, the sea, the long finger of love.
According to Bookmovement.com, where over 26,000 book club groups are registered, here are the top twenty book club picks of 2010:
Betsy Lerner 