Richard S. Wheeler's Blog, page 10
March 9, 2015
Writing Again
A few days ago I pulled up some chapters of a mystery I started a year or more ago, a book I abandoned half way through. The novel had gotten so complicated and impossible that I had set it aside, hoping maybe to discover what went wrong some day in the future.
It was one of my Axel Brand mysteries, set in late 1940s Milwaukee, a big industrial city where tractors and electrical equipment and steam shovels were built. It was a diverse town, first and second-generation German and eastern European, with a tavern in every neighborhood. My hero, Joe Sonntag, was a detective who often had to deal with the beliefs and habits of different people from every corner of Europe.
It had a great beginning in which a husband, a dental technician, shoots his wife at a church supper, a deliberate act intended to be seen by the whole congregation. He cheerfully confesses his crime, and awaits his fate. The couple's four children had vanished one way or another years earlier.
But the story got complicated beyond my abilities, and I finally set it aside. It involved things usually not seen in mysteries, such as liturgy, even some theological beliefs, which is why the murder occurs at a church social event. But now I have revived it. I've read the seventeen completed chapters, made some changes, altered the story here and there, and am ready to plunge in again. It was in better shape than I had supposed all these months. Yesterday I wrote a few pages, my first writing since June, and I am very glad that it went well. I should finish the book this spring.
It was one of my Axel Brand mysteries, set in late 1940s Milwaukee, a big industrial city where tractors and electrical equipment and steam shovels were built. It was a diverse town, first and second-generation German and eastern European, with a tavern in every neighborhood. My hero, Joe Sonntag, was a detective who often had to deal with the beliefs and habits of different people from every corner of Europe.
It had a great beginning in which a husband, a dental technician, shoots his wife at a church supper, a deliberate act intended to be seen by the whole congregation. He cheerfully confesses his crime, and awaits his fate. The couple's four children had vanished one way or another years earlier.
But the story got complicated beyond my abilities, and I finally set it aside. It involved things usually not seen in mysteries, such as liturgy, even some theological beliefs, which is why the murder occurs at a church social event. But now I have revived it. I've read the seventeen completed chapters, made some changes, altered the story here and there, and am ready to plunge in again. It was in better shape than I had supposed all these months. Yesterday I wrote a few pages, my first writing since June, and I am very glad that it went well. I should finish the book this spring.
March 2, 2015
IQ and Genre
Let me begin by saying this is a catalog of prejudices and observations garnered over a lifetime. I lay no claim to unvarnished truth or wisdom.
I've noticed over the years that academics, professionals, and people who use their mind in their vocations tend to favor two literary genres: mysteries and science fiction. That is probably because these genres engage the mind. Science fiction requires a lot of imagination along with plenty of background in science, math, physics, and human nature, while good mysteries employ a rich understanding of human nature, cunning, clever storytelling, and surprise. No wonder there are plentiful reviews and comment about this sort of literature in prestigious journals and papers. People of superior intelligence gravitate to stories that display that insight. My guess is that mysteries and science fiction are read by people with IQs in the 120s to 140s, with comparable schooling.
In the mid-range are the thriller and horror genres, where storytelling is a critical value. Among the intelligentsia storytelling is not as highly regarded, and plotting almost vanishes in literary fiction, but these genres still attract thoughtful and bright readers, who like to be gripped in the vise of an intricate plot, released only at the last page. These are people with above average intelligence, arrayed across a broad economic spectrum, and mostly university-educated.
At the lower end are the women's romance and western genres, largely ignored by the intelligentsia and only rarely reviewed or criticized. You don't discover lawyers and English professors or business administrators reading westerns. Women's romances stand somewhat higher, because the stories require an evolved and skillful depiction of human nature and relationships. A sophisticated romance can draw and entertain thoughtful and educated women with above average intelligence and vocational training. Still, you won't discover academics or corporate executives devouring them. I would argue that most readers of women's romances have above-average intelligence.
The genre least favored by educated people is the western. Or at least the mass-market type that specializes in gunfights, mass killing, and stories resolved by blood and bullets. Over the years I've come to realize that gunfights and six-gun killings rob western fiction of all its potential riches, by aborting character, killing interesting relationships, stifling ethical and spiritual values, destroying plot or rich storytelling, and reducing the whole range of behavior to itchy trigger-finger resolution of a conflict. In short, this sort of western is stupid, and is read by the stupidest segment of American society. There are always exceptions, some bright guy or smart juvenile delinquent who loves westerns, but I believe I am right about the generality of western readers.
I wrote a bunch of western stories, and was glad to move into historical fiction, which is much more rewarding for readers.
I've noticed over the years that academics, professionals, and people who use their mind in their vocations tend to favor two literary genres: mysteries and science fiction. That is probably because these genres engage the mind. Science fiction requires a lot of imagination along with plenty of background in science, math, physics, and human nature, while good mysteries employ a rich understanding of human nature, cunning, clever storytelling, and surprise. No wonder there are plentiful reviews and comment about this sort of literature in prestigious journals and papers. People of superior intelligence gravitate to stories that display that insight. My guess is that mysteries and science fiction are read by people with IQs in the 120s to 140s, with comparable schooling.
In the mid-range are the thriller and horror genres, where storytelling is a critical value. Among the intelligentsia storytelling is not as highly regarded, and plotting almost vanishes in literary fiction, but these genres still attract thoughtful and bright readers, who like to be gripped in the vise of an intricate plot, released only at the last page. These are people with above average intelligence, arrayed across a broad economic spectrum, and mostly university-educated.
At the lower end are the women's romance and western genres, largely ignored by the intelligentsia and only rarely reviewed or criticized. You don't discover lawyers and English professors or business administrators reading westerns. Women's romances stand somewhat higher, because the stories require an evolved and skillful depiction of human nature and relationships. A sophisticated romance can draw and entertain thoughtful and educated women with above average intelligence and vocational training. Still, you won't discover academics or corporate executives devouring them. I would argue that most readers of women's romances have above-average intelligence.
The genre least favored by educated people is the western. Or at least the mass-market type that specializes in gunfights, mass killing, and stories resolved by blood and bullets. Over the years I've come to realize that gunfights and six-gun killings rob western fiction of all its potential riches, by aborting character, killing interesting relationships, stifling ethical and spiritual values, destroying plot or rich storytelling, and reducing the whole range of behavior to itchy trigger-finger resolution of a conflict. In short, this sort of western is stupid, and is read by the stupidest segment of American society. There are always exceptions, some bright guy or smart juvenile delinquent who loves westerns, but I believe I am right about the generality of western readers.
I wrote a bunch of western stories, and was glad to move into historical fiction, which is much more rewarding for readers.
March 1, 2015
A Revived Series
I began writing my Skye's West series in the late eighties, and concluded it after nineteen titles. Forge, a Macmillan imprint, is now reviving the series with mass-market doubles, two books in one for ten bucks. You will find copies on the grocery racks.
The first double appeared in August, and featured Sun River and Bannack. The second, appearing a few weeks ago, features Rendezvous and Dark Passage. There will be another double next August.
I conceived of the series as a way of writing about the West without plunging into the usual frontier story. The protagonist, Barnaby Skye, is a pressed British sailor who escapes at Fort Vancouver in the 1820s and makes his way into the North American interior long before the frontier rolled west. He ends up in the fur trade, with two Indian wives, and eventually becomes a guide.
Two of the novels got starred reviews in trade journals such as Publishers Weekly.
I achieved my purpose. There are no gunfights or fast draws or cowboys in these stories. Skye's own unfinished nature gets him into trouble now and then, but his shrewd Crow wife Victoria, born Many Quill Woman, usually bails him out, or he is rescued by his truly ugly horse, Jawbone, a creature so irascible that no one else can handle him.
The reappearance of the series comes at a good time for me. I will be eighty in a few days, and the income from the series will help stabilize my income as my literary life winds down.
The first double appeared in August, and featured Sun River and Bannack. The second, appearing a few weeks ago, features Rendezvous and Dark Passage. There will be another double next August.
I conceived of the series as a way of writing about the West without plunging into the usual frontier story. The protagonist, Barnaby Skye, is a pressed British sailor who escapes at Fort Vancouver in the 1820s and makes his way into the North American interior long before the frontier rolled west. He ends up in the fur trade, with two Indian wives, and eventually becomes a guide.
Two of the novels got starred reviews in trade journals such as Publishers Weekly.
I achieved my purpose. There are no gunfights or fast draws or cowboys in these stories. Skye's own unfinished nature gets him into trouble now and then, but his shrewd Crow wife Victoria, born Many Quill Woman, usually bails him out, or he is rescued by his truly ugly horse, Jawbone, a creature so irascible that no one else can handle him.
The reappearance of the series comes at a good time for me. I will be eighty in a few days, and the income from the series will help stabilize my income as my literary life winds down.
January 9, 2015
Why Manuscripts Are Worthless
The simple answer is that they can be replicated with a click of the mouse. They are not unique. Authors are contractually obligated to keep them on hand, in the event of a lawsuit involving plagiarism or libel. And there they sit until the author dies, and his heirs think they have a bonanza on hand. They usually discover that the entire stack is headed for the circular file, orphaned by modern technology. They will not acquire value a hundred years down the road, as long as they can be reprinted with a click of the finger.
Actually, manuscripts were once valuable-- if you were a Hemingway. A friend of mine, close to the Hemingway family, has had Sothebys sell some typescripts, and has gotten large sums for them. In the days of typewritten or handwritten manuscripts, they were indeed unique. Add the author's fame to that, and the manuscript became a valuable possession.
A handwritten manuscript was singular, and often contained the author's emendations. Typewritten ones would show the alterations. Pages would be retyped and shorter. Chapters would be retyped. Page numbers would be crossed out and redone by hand. Or an added scene would bear the page numbers 47a, 47b, and 47c. So the editor would get a manuscript that was disorderly: half pages, extra pages, pages with paragraphs whited out. Pages with sentences scratched out. The disorder would reveal the author's purpose, critical judgment, and cast of mind. A few of my early stories were created in that manner, and I gave them to a small museum. The rest, beginning with computerized preparation, have no worth.
Once computers came along, and the corrections could be written into material that would all be neatly printed out in a given format, the peculiarity of each story would vanish. Spellcheck, a perfidious friend, often made the stories even more anonymous. In recent times, the publishers' editors and copyeditors would edit the story, return it to the author, who would incorporate the changes in the manuscript, and send it back to the publisher as clean copy, which often could be typeset without interference. In short, the print scripts sitting in an author's office were finished editions. Nowadays, paper has largely been eliminated, and stories are e-mailed to publishers. If they want a paper copy, they make one at the publishing house.
I have a ton of the things rotting in my basement, there only because I am contractually obligated to keep them available. But my heirs will know what to do with them. I've let them know.
Actually, manuscripts were once valuable-- if you were a Hemingway. A friend of mine, close to the Hemingway family, has had Sothebys sell some typescripts, and has gotten large sums for them. In the days of typewritten or handwritten manuscripts, they were indeed unique. Add the author's fame to that, and the manuscript became a valuable possession.
A handwritten manuscript was singular, and often contained the author's emendations. Typewritten ones would show the alterations. Pages would be retyped and shorter. Chapters would be retyped. Page numbers would be crossed out and redone by hand. Or an added scene would bear the page numbers 47a, 47b, and 47c. So the editor would get a manuscript that was disorderly: half pages, extra pages, pages with paragraphs whited out. Pages with sentences scratched out. The disorder would reveal the author's purpose, critical judgment, and cast of mind. A few of my early stories were created in that manner, and I gave them to a small museum. The rest, beginning with computerized preparation, have no worth.
Once computers came along, and the corrections could be written into material that would all be neatly printed out in a given format, the peculiarity of each story would vanish. Spellcheck, a perfidious friend, often made the stories even more anonymous. In recent times, the publishers' editors and copyeditors would edit the story, return it to the author, who would incorporate the changes in the manuscript, and send it back to the publisher as clean copy, which often could be typeset without interference. In short, the print scripts sitting in an author's office were finished editions. Nowadays, paper has largely been eliminated, and stories are e-mailed to publishers. If they want a paper copy, they make one at the publishing house.
I have a ton of the things rotting in my basement, there only because I am contractually obligated to keep them available. But my heirs will know what to do with them. I've let them know.
January 8, 2015
The Cranky Novelist
If I sound cranky these days, it's because I have health problems that are not easily dealt with. And also because one or two friends are alternative medicine believers who discover cures on health food store shelves, and who find fault with any MD they run across.
I was telling one of them about a great medical success story. My mother, in her seventies, developed cruel arthritis in one knee, that plunged her into a life of severe pain and probably wheelchair imprisonment. But a good doctor began injecting cortisone into the bad knee, freeing her from pain for six months at a time. She spent the rest of her life--she died before her 91st birthday-- walking easily, enjoying her life and family, free from torment except for a little arthritis in her hands. I rejoiced that her physician was able to give her a comfortable life to the very day she died of an aneurysm. I was telling this great success story to one of my alternative medicine friends, and she launched into an attack on cortisone and the evils it generated and how wrong it was to give my mother cortisone shots. I got so disgusted I left.
Today I saw an orthopedist about my bad shoulder, broken from the grand mal seizure of last June that left me unconscious in a hospital for five days. It torments me. I go for weeks without sleeping. The bulb of the humerus was fractured twice, and the collar bone also. I returned to physical therapy recently but my excellent therapist discovered that the humerus had slid below the shoulder socket, and asked me to see the orthopedist at once and hold off on all exercises and therapies. The slippage had not existed when I worked with her before my wife died.
The orthopedist said I had two options and no middle ground. I could try cortisone to see if it would be a mercy to my shoulder, or I could have my shoulder surgically rebuilt, which would mean, he said, six months of bad pain during the healing. He favored the shots: they were easy to administer and I could get them every few months in perpetuity, and would not involve invasive, complex surgery. I am doing that. I told my alternative medicine friend about it, and she wondered why the bones hadn't been "set" earlier. (My arm was in a sling for a month or so.) That is, blame the doctors, even if the problem didn't then exist. She did not congratulate me for having escaped from torment.
How is this affecting me? I am finding most recent fiction annoying, to put it mildly; finding most nonfiction worth reading and better done than the rambling outpourings of novelists. I am enjoying friends who let me live my life with my own North Star as my guide, and am annoyed by friends who think they have all the cures for old age. I distrust fantasy and find comfort in the hard research of historians and biographers. Don't ask me why. I am a mystery to myself.
I was telling one of them about a great medical success story. My mother, in her seventies, developed cruel arthritis in one knee, that plunged her into a life of severe pain and probably wheelchair imprisonment. But a good doctor began injecting cortisone into the bad knee, freeing her from pain for six months at a time. She spent the rest of her life--she died before her 91st birthday-- walking easily, enjoying her life and family, free from torment except for a little arthritis in her hands. I rejoiced that her physician was able to give her a comfortable life to the very day she died of an aneurysm. I was telling this great success story to one of my alternative medicine friends, and she launched into an attack on cortisone and the evils it generated and how wrong it was to give my mother cortisone shots. I got so disgusted I left.
Today I saw an orthopedist about my bad shoulder, broken from the grand mal seizure of last June that left me unconscious in a hospital for five days. It torments me. I go for weeks without sleeping. The bulb of the humerus was fractured twice, and the collar bone also. I returned to physical therapy recently but my excellent therapist discovered that the humerus had slid below the shoulder socket, and asked me to see the orthopedist at once and hold off on all exercises and therapies. The slippage had not existed when I worked with her before my wife died.
The orthopedist said I had two options and no middle ground. I could try cortisone to see if it would be a mercy to my shoulder, or I could have my shoulder surgically rebuilt, which would mean, he said, six months of bad pain during the healing. He favored the shots: they were easy to administer and I could get them every few months in perpetuity, and would not involve invasive, complex surgery. I am doing that. I told my alternative medicine friend about it, and she wondered why the bones hadn't been "set" earlier. (My arm was in a sling for a month or so.) That is, blame the doctors, even if the problem didn't then exist. She did not congratulate me for having escaped from torment.
How is this affecting me? I am finding most recent fiction annoying, to put it mildly; finding most nonfiction worth reading and better done than the rambling outpourings of novelists. I am enjoying friends who let me live my life with my own North Star as my guide, and am annoyed by friends who think they have all the cures for old age. I distrust fantasy and find comfort in the hard research of historians and biographers. Don't ask me why. I am a mystery to myself.
January 4, 2015
So, What Is My Legacy?
In recent years I've spent a lot of time wondering whether I should call myself a western novelist. I wrote a bunch of them when I was starting out, and a few since, but I've gradually been overtaken with a sense of embarrassment about them.
The truth of it is, a story that is resolved with a bullet isn't much of a story, and a plot resolved by force of arms usually robs the story of character. The rare good gunfight story, such as Shane, is usually built around elements of belief and character, not weaponry. So I've been sliding away from all that. Most genre westerns are junk, appealing only to those who don't fathom the role of character as our lives play out. I've always supposed that readers of gunfight westerns want a quick, easy resolution.
This past year, in which I found myself walking through darkness and wondering why I have been set upon the earth, I sensed that I have been following the right path, moving away from violent westerns resolved by guns, and toward biographical or historical novels, in which the conduct of people is more important than what they carry in their holsters.
Recently, I've been negotiating with a marvelous new distribution company that puts new life into dead, reverted titles, and sells them as electronic books and sometimes trade paperbacks. By all accounts they are successful, and are earning a variety of authors a great deal of new money from what had been considered dead books.
I proposed that they handle the thirty or so reverted titles I have, and they have shown great interest in the project. These included my genre westerns, my historicals and biographical stories, a few mysteries and a couple of stories not easily classified.
Their proposal, after examining my list, was to handle the genre westerns only, and build upon my history and reputation as a western novelist. That reputation certainly exists in reviews, sales, blurbs, and six Spur Awards.
But in this six-month period of personal illness and loss in the family, I have been asking myself whether I really want to be promoted as a western novelist, with a portfolio of violent stories. I found myself feeling uneasy, and finally saddened. What I really want is to promote my historical and biographical fiction, which is a country mile from genre westerns. So I made the difficult decision to go where my spirit leads me, even at some potential loss. The company accepted my decision graciously-- it is staffed by first-rate professionals-- and we came to a parting.
About half of my novels are historical or biographical. Those are the ones I hope will survive me.
The truth of it is, a story that is resolved with a bullet isn't much of a story, and a plot resolved by force of arms usually robs the story of character. The rare good gunfight story, such as Shane, is usually built around elements of belief and character, not weaponry. So I've been sliding away from all that. Most genre westerns are junk, appealing only to those who don't fathom the role of character as our lives play out. I've always supposed that readers of gunfight westerns want a quick, easy resolution.
This past year, in which I found myself walking through darkness and wondering why I have been set upon the earth, I sensed that I have been following the right path, moving away from violent westerns resolved by guns, and toward biographical or historical novels, in which the conduct of people is more important than what they carry in their holsters.
Recently, I've been negotiating with a marvelous new distribution company that puts new life into dead, reverted titles, and sells them as electronic books and sometimes trade paperbacks. By all accounts they are successful, and are earning a variety of authors a great deal of new money from what had been considered dead books.
I proposed that they handle the thirty or so reverted titles I have, and they have shown great interest in the project. These included my genre westerns, my historicals and biographical stories, a few mysteries and a couple of stories not easily classified.
Their proposal, after examining my list, was to handle the genre westerns only, and build upon my history and reputation as a western novelist. That reputation certainly exists in reviews, sales, blurbs, and six Spur Awards.
But in this six-month period of personal illness and loss in the family, I have been asking myself whether I really want to be promoted as a western novelist, with a portfolio of violent stories. I found myself feeling uneasy, and finally saddened. What I really want is to promote my historical and biographical fiction, which is a country mile from genre westerns. So I made the difficult decision to go where my spirit leads me, even at some potential loss. The company accepted my decision graciously-- it is staffed by first-rate professionals-- and we came to a parting.
About half of my novels are historical or biographical. Those are the ones I hope will survive me.
December 30, 2014
Skye Revisited
In February, Forge will release a mass market double of two of my early Skye's West novels, Rendezvous and Dark Passage. Since the late eighties I've been writing a series called Skye's West, about a pressed British seaman named Barnaby Skye, who escapes the Royal Navy at Fort Vancouver in the 1820s, and makes his way into the North American interior, eventually entering the fur trade and marrying two Indian women. Over the years the series found a readership and has been the mainstay of my royalty income.
Back in the eighties I wanted to escape the sort of mindless frontier gunslinger western I had come to dislike, so I proposed this series about a Brit who survives in the western wilderness and eventually becomes a noted man. Skye and his two wives, Victoria of the Crows, and Mary of the Shoshones, along with the evil and ugly horse, Jawbone, become a nation unto themselves. The series extends through nineteen titles, and ends with the birth of the third generation of Skyes in the New World. I succeeded: I wrote a saga of the American west that had nothing to do with frontier gunmen shooting it out.
Forge, a division of Macmillan, has kept the series going all these years, putting out various hardcover, mass market, audio, large print, and electronic editions. At least one of the novels has gotten a starred review. So I am pleased to see this edition, which I believe is the first double one reaching the market.
Back in the eighties I wanted to escape the sort of mindless frontier gunslinger western I had come to dislike, so I proposed this series about a Brit who survives in the western wilderness and eventually becomes a noted man. Skye and his two wives, Victoria of the Crows, and Mary of the Shoshones, along with the evil and ugly horse, Jawbone, become a nation unto themselves. The series extends through nineteen titles, and ends with the birth of the third generation of Skyes in the New World. I succeeded: I wrote a saga of the American west that had nothing to do with frontier gunmen shooting it out.
Forge, a division of Macmillan, has kept the series going all these years, putting out various hardcover, mass market, audio, large print, and electronic editions. At least one of the novels has gotten a starred review. So I am pleased to see this edition, which I believe is the first double one reaching the market.
December 4, 2014
November 26, 2014
Wheeler's World
I am returning to my traditional blog site for future posts. It is located at:
http://wheelertitles.blogspot.com/
http://wheelertitles.blogspot.com/
November 7, 2014
Hope Springs Eternal
The constant in my remaining life is hope. It alters itself to new circumstances. I have always hoped to have one of my stories become a film, but it never happened. But now, a novel called Anything Goes, which will be published next year, has revived that hope. It's about an early vaudeville company touring Montana, and would make a dandy film.
Not even death snuffs out hope. At first, upon my wife's death in August, I yearned for the impossible; somehow to continue with her. But now my thoughts turn to a different hope, companionship in my last years with one or two women who have been my friends for a long time, women who might share the rewards and trials of sunset times.
Bad health doesn't extinguish hope, either. In spite of new debilities, I am hoping for another five years or so of complete independence and self-sufficiency, while taking care of home and property and health.
When a self-employed person stops earning, there is plenty to worry about. And here, hope continues. I will get a little more social security as a widower. My electronic books sell quietly. And I've written some successful jacket and catalog copy, that points to future storytelling, in good time. So hope quietly, persistently permeates my every hour.
Not even death snuffs out hope. At first, upon my wife's death in August, I yearned for the impossible; somehow to continue with her. But now my thoughts turn to a different hope, companionship in my last years with one or two women who have been my friends for a long time, women who might share the rewards and trials of sunset times.
Bad health doesn't extinguish hope, either. In spite of new debilities, I am hoping for another five years or so of complete independence and self-sufficiency, while taking care of home and property and health.
When a self-employed person stops earning, there is plenty to worry about. And here, hope continues. I will get a little more social security as a widower. My electronic books sell quietly. And I've written some successful jacket and catalog copy, that points to future storytelling, in good time. So hope quietly, persistently permeates my every hour.
