Deadlines

I suppose this entry should be listed as "pet peeves of the week."



This one seems so simple.  You'd think more authors would get it.  Nope.  Authors miss deadlines (at least mine do) so often that I wonder at giving an author a deadline at all.  I've heard some wowser excuses too.  Which I'll kindly omit.

Writing is an art.  (Insert birds chirping and sappy music.)  Authors sit in front of their writing desks, tablets, notebooks, dreaming of being famous.  (Really?  You want to be a FAMOUS author?  If you want to be famous, murder someone in some way that was previously unimagined.  Your creativity will be put to much better use.  Don't try to be famous via fictional writing--even authors I love I rarely recognize in pictures.)

When I tell an author I want X, Y and Z by 00/00/00, I WANT X,Y AND Z (and I do mean Z too) BY 00/00/00.  Why in the world do authors think I have a sense of humor about this?  It doesn't even look like the punchline of a joke. 

I know most of you don't know me, but I am a hard core *&#$%.  If it's the first or second round, I automatically build in a week to the date, because I've learned.  I'm still mega-&^%$#, so if you can't make the date I've given, let me know.  I'll probably even by nice about saying, "Yeah, sure.  That's fine."  I will not be so nice if you make me e-mail you.

Issue one:  Most authors, especially novices, need a reality check.  Publishing is a business.  Period.  The publishing company doesn’t care if you have a day job.  The publishing company doesn’t care if it’s art.  The publishing company doesn't care if you cat at the computer pic went viral.  The publishing company cares if a book sells and the publishing company has standards, so it demands that the authors meet deadlines. 

Once in a blue moon, you will find a tiny or new publisher desperate for authors that will give more leeway in the deadlines area.  But small and new publishers are also more desperate to get work out to the public, to build up that all-mighy, mythical reader base.  (Have you seen statistics on how many people read?)  So you might find small or new publishers indecisive about deadlines.   But regardless, publishing is built around deadlines, bottom line and business standards.

I would love to be all wishy-washy and touchy-feely about this (cue the music again), but the fact is that if you have a job where you work 40/50 hours a week, three screaming kids, a husband who means well but can't clean the house, publishing isn't for you.  Put it off until the kids are in college, you get an amicable divorce and you can back off to working 20 hours a week.  If what you're writing is actually good, it will still be good in 20 years.  Be honest, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is a classic that will live on in the minds of young and old alike . . . forever.

Second issue:  Most authors honestly think what they've submitted is complete.  Unfortunately, it's more like that Grumpy Cat picture:  "Is your story over yet?  I've passed kidney stones less painful than this."  Authors are completely unprepared to do (and sometimes incapable of doing) what is necessary to get their story to X, Y and Z in the time frame necessary.   Until you've worked with a serious, professional editor or published author who is willing to mentor you in an honest, constructive way, most unpublished authors cannot fathom what they'll be up against.

And ask yourself, "Why do I need to publish this?  Why do I need someone else to qualify the quality of this work and justify my existance?"

 Once I realized that all the scrambling for agents and editors was me trying to get someone else to tell me my life was worth living, I stopped.  I have published very little.  I've edited A LOT.  You will find I now have a low threshold for BS.

I guess the long and short of what I'm saying:  If you're not ready to crucify your baby ('cause we all think our WIPs are our cutesy wittle muffin-pies), you're probably not ready for publication.  If my earlier blogs astounded you, join a writers group, go to a convention, take some classes.  Get some education. 

Then come back and try to write what you deserve to be writing and what readers crave.  Then you'll have no problem with deadlines . . . .

In Medias Res

Yep, what I love to do on a Sunday morning is read ten pages of senseless dribble not at all related to the plot or the characters.

This is a lot more common than writers think and they commit this sin a lot more frequently than they admit.  I have in fact argued with writers over this.  (Picture me hurling cat toys at a screen as an author tries to justify wasting my time.)

When I was in college, I heard the sacred In Medias Res all the time.  'You have to start In Medias Res.'  'Your characters need to be In Medias Res.'  Avada kedavra! you *&^%#$ writing professor.  If you could actually nail down a professor to what they meant by this--have you tried to nail a professor down?  Bloody and messy!  Anyway, if you could get a professors to define what they meant, they'd say that new writers can usually delete the first ten pages of their WIP.  That idea fascinated me.  I started deleting the first ten pages of everything.  A little tweaking, and hot damn, the professors were right!  Then I started reading other people's stuff.  Wow.  Somehow they had not gotten this piece of advice.  Or had ignored it.

A writer who is a little more savvy, who has taken maybe a writing class or two:  they jump right into the story, the plot is so obvious you have to beat the thing off with a stick.  The first page, two pages, three pages, squee--someone who actually knows how to write and tell a story!  Then the following ten pages are mind-numbingly dull and pointless. 

Seriously, you're writing a romance and sending your main character off to be alone and not mention the hunky guy she just met even once?  In fact, you're going to give me deep, involved details about the scenery?  For ten pages?  Really?  You think I'm a lucky reader to see how artfully you can describe trees?  You just made me look up deciduous and you're proud of yourself?  Did I mention this was for TEN PAGES?   

Or hey, even worse, and a lot more frequent, the science fiction thriller that never launches because the author spends ten pages talking about the ship and the captain standing on the bridge and yeomen walking the halls and other pointless, nameless, blah characters sitting around and absolutely nothing is happening.  If the description is well-done, sci-fi readers will have a little more patience, because the error occurs so much more often--have you ever watched a movie on the Sci-Fi Channel?  These people are masters of the ridiculous.  My experience tends to be with unpublished or self-published authors who do not pull this off, who are just yammering and not describing.  The beginning has an 'and then' feel. 

I'm not sure which error is worse, the one where the writer needs to cut the first ten pages or the writer who tries to mask that they've got ten pages of nothing after a fantastic opening.

Either way, boring is bad.  Don't do it.  The story has to be gripping the whole way through, especially with a modern audience.  Today's readers have too many other options.  Yeah, television and movies are insulting, but they're so much easier than engaging a shrunken brain.  Don't bore them.  Don't make them regret how many authors have easy access to publication--either through self-publication or through small publishers desperate to put anything out there.

Please, please, please, stop torturing me. 

If I don't turn to carrion, I may make another blog entry in a week or two . . . or three.