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19 January, 2005, 08:38 am
the same but different
“The same but different” is how products are sold, it’s the rationale that supposedly persuades a consumer to buy more of a product he or she already likes. The subtext is something like “this is sufficiently the same as the last (whatever) you bought and liked that you’ll like this one just as much, BUT this is sufficiently different that you won’t feel that you’ve bought the same thing twice.”
This works for books, for movies, for soup and crackers. Maybe we as a species are particularly risk-averse. Maybe we just want to know what we’re buying before we buy it – or maybe we just want to make an informed buying decision.
How people are told about these similarities is usually in the packaging. This is often called branding – Campbell’s Soup, for example, always has the same red and white label with little fleur de lis all around the can. This tells you, as a potential consumer, that if you like their Cream of Tomato soup that their Cream of Broccoli should please you too. The company is graphically showing that there is commonality between the two flavors, a commonality that presumably is more than just where they were made. It might refer to the amount of salt,
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18 January, 2005, 02:33 pm
small things...
...amuse small minds.
A box arrived today - the comps of DOUBLE TROUBLE - which gave me the perfect excuse to play with my books.
I never get tired of looking at them all. First, there's the new one to be examined in all its glory, then it has to be compared with the others (#27 meet #22, albeit in new packaging), then there is the bookshelf dilemma.
I have a bookcase in my office, right opposite my desk, which holds all of the editions of my books -- at least, all of the ones that I have. Sometimes foreign editions don't actually turn up here. You know they've happened, because there will be a line item on your royalty statement, but it's not uncommon for books to never turn up. Clearly, other people in publishing don't think that foreign editions are as cool as authors think they are -- or maybe it's just a lot of trouble to get them.
So, back to the bookcase, which is where I've been all day. It's a ritual of mine to spend an otherwise unproductive day rearranging my books (and there are sick people in my house, so my productivity this week is limited). I have a strict protocol for my bookcase - I want to know at a glance what's what. ...
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17 January, 2005, 05:55 am
private to public
Once upon a time, I had an editor with whom I had lots of great conversations. One of the things that fascinated her was how and when perceptions about the book manuscript moved from being something apparently private to a book available to the world. She told me that getting the first copies of the book was always a shock to her, was always the point when she realized that everyone would have a chance to read this book that had previously been a kind of open secret between the author and editor. Of course, she knew that was the book's ultimate destination all along, but seeing it all packaged up was always a moment for her.
For me, that moment occurs with page proofs. All of the earlier editorial back-and-forthing occurs on my original manuscript, or copies of it. The line edit and copy edit doesn't look much different than what I printed out of my computer and sent off to NYC, except for all the little notes and marks on the manuscript. (It's much neater when I send it in!) Page proofs though are copies of the actual typesetting - imagine a page from the finished book copied into the middle of an 8.5 by 11 inch page - then do that for the whole book. In reality, it's no
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14 January, 2005, 06:00 am
“How long does it take to write a book?”
This is another one of those questions to which I have never found a satisfactory answer. “It depends” doesn’t usually make people happy.
So, let’s try an analogy. <g> Imagine that you have decided to write a novel.
Today’s analogy (a fanfare, please!) is the Cross-Country Road Trip. So, embarking on the journey to write your first novel is similar to deciding to drive from New York City to Los Angeles. For the purposes of this analogy, you would be a neophyte at both of these adventures.
First will be the preparations. Depending on your own character, you might do a lot of planning. You might map out routes, or research places to stop along the way. You might make hotel reservations for the whole trip, calculating when and where to stop, eat, buy gas. You might pack a bunch of stuff, a first aid kit, sleeping bags, a cellphone, a Michelin guide, a tent, whatever. You might even buy an RV. Or you might just head out the door with your car keys and credit card, and start driving west.
Some aspiring writers do a lot of prep work. Some subscribe to writers’ magazines, join writers’ groups, read lots of ...
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13 January, 2005, 06:14 am
formulaic?
Let’s talk about another factor shaping romance novels, one that probably gives root to the accusation of them being formulaic. I believe that there are two kinds of fiction, though you could make the same division in most of the arts.
1/ There is fiction intended to reassure the reader that the world is a good place, that evil will be defeated and that good will triumph and, in general, that there is a scheme or meaning to events beyond our ability to perceive one.
2/ And there is fiction intended to challenge expectation, and to compel the reader to rethink assumptions, maybe to interpret the world in another way.
The first type of fiction is clearly a descendant of those morality plays, and we find the vast majority of genre fiction within this category. Genre fiction asserts the certainty of order and we can find this in its themes: romance novels often have the theme “love conquers all”; mystery novels often have the theme “justice will prevail”; fantasy novels may have the theme that “the least likely hero can defeat oppression, against all odds.” These books are about reassurance, or about offering reassurance ...
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