Richard S. Wheeler's Blog, page 5
January 23, 2016
Spin
I got a severe two-star Amazon reader review of my new novel, Anything Goes. And that got me to thinking about the way we authors deal with those. One instinct is to persuade friends to flood the site with five-star reviews praising the story, in an effort to undo the "damage" of the bad review.
Politicians do that a lot. They use spin to deal with damage. I know writers who are quick to criticize politicians for spinning their publicity, who think nothing of spinning the critical material about their own books.
What gets damaged is truth. What if the review of my book actually catches its weaknesses and is intelligent, discerning criticism of a book that fails in some respects? My task, as an author, is not to conceal the criticism but learn from it. If the review points to weaknesses, that is my opportunity to grow. It is also my obligation to recognize that not all my books are good; some of them don't please readers, or have severe problems. Another is to consider the prospect that I am aging, at the end of my writing life, and am not producing material that equals what I was writing at my prime of life. I have far fewer brain cells than I did at age forty.
That said, the Internet is also a destructive medium. There is a new word I don't quite understand, "trolling," that has to do with ruthless negativity or criticism, and it largely stems from the reality that Internet criticism can be anonymous. A person of that sort can unload caustic comment anonymously, his name and address unknown to the world.
I have often thought that the way to deal with that is to require commenters to own what they say; let them sign their criticism or comment with their real name, a real address, an identity that can be tracked by anyone. To say things anonymously is to avoid the consequences of criticism, and is a coward's ploy to intimidate others. In other words, most of those who troll anonymously are plain cowards, whose words should be dismissed because the author won't make himself known. If there is one thing wrong with the Internet it is that it's a coward's playground. Since most publishers don't require that comment be owned by a traceable person, our best recourse is to dismiss all comment that appears over a pseudonym.
That said, I do hope other readers find some value in my new novel.
Politicians do that a lot. They use spin to deal with damage. I know writers who are quick to criticize politicians for spinning their publicity, who think nothing of spinning the critical material about their own books.
What gets damaged is truth. What if the review of my book actually catches its weaknesses and is intelligent, discerning criticism of a book that fails in some respects? My task, as an author, is not to conceal the criticism but learn from it. If the review points to weaknesses, that is my opportunity to grow. It is also my obligation to recognize that not all my books are good; some of them don't please readers, or have severe problems. Another is to consider the prospect that I am aging, at the end of my writing life, and am not producing material that equals what I was writing at my prime of life. I have far fewer brain cells than I did at age forty.
That said, the Internet is also a destructive medium. There is a new word I don't quite understand, "trolling," that has to do with ruthless negativity or criticism, and it largely stems from the reality that Internet criticism can be anonymous. A person of that sort can unload caustic comment anonymously, his name and address unknown to the world.
I have often thought that the way to deal with that is to require commenters to own what they say; let them sign their criticism or comment with their real name, a real address, an identity that can be tracked by anyone. To say things anonymously is to avoid the consequences of criticism, and is a coward's ploy to intimidate others. In other words, most of those who troll anonymously are plain cowards, whose words should be dismissed because the author won't make himself known. If there is one thing wrong with the Internet it is that it's a coward's playground. Since most publishers don't require that comment be owned by a traceable person, our best recourse is to dismiss all comment that appears over a pseudonym.
That said, I do hope other readers find some value in my new novel.
January 7, 2016
What I Learned
I've been recollecting what I blotted up about writing when I attended my first western writing conventions. I listened, rapt, to veteran writers who made a good living at it and who didn't mind sharing their insights with neophytes. They are long dead but their insights stay with me.
One of these was to get into the story immediately, preferably in the first paragraph. Set up the drama, the dilemma, and then fill in the characterization, the backstory, later. Ideally, a story should put the protagonist in trouble in the first sentence. And then it was our task to keep him there, force the reader to wonder what would come next.
We learned that Hemingway was right. Use short words in simple declarative sentences, words that yield a solid understanding of the trouble facing the characters. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly, if at all. They are not needed because forceful verbs or nouns do their own work. You don't need to say "it was very hot" when "it was hot" does the job.
We learned to avoid meandering, or long asides, or literary ornaments that slowed the flow. Readers didn't like to be diverted. We learned to keep our stories relatively simple: a dilemma arose, and the story was about resolving it.
Most of these things ran contrary to what critics and academics tried to teach about writing fiction, but my mentors knew their audiences, knew their publishers, knew what would work and what would sell books, and wrote to meet the marketplace rather than the college lecture hall.
I have tried to make these things my own foundation, and when I've strayed I've usually paid the price. I sometimes wish I could go rewrite some of my novels, especially ones that meandered, and whip them into tight form. Maybe some day I will. I'll always be grateful to the old timers at the conventions who steered me into a successful career writing fiction that was accessible to everyone, in every station of life. Over time, I've stopped yearning for critical success, and instead, look at numbers as the hallmark of my achievement.
One of these was to get into the story immediately, preferably in the first paragraph. Set up the drama, the dilemma, and then fill in the characterization, the backstory, later. Ideally, a story should put the protagonist in trouble in the first sentence. And then it was our task to keep him there, force the reader to wonder what would come next.
We learned that Hemingway was right. Use short words in simple declarative sentences, words that yield a solid understanding of the trouble facing the characters. Use adjectives and adverbs sparingly, if at all. They are not needed because forceful verbs or nouns do their own work. You don't need to say "it was very hot" when "it was hot" does the job.
We learned to avoid meandering, or long asides, or literary ornaments that slowed the flow. Readers didn't like to be diverted. We learned to keep our stories relatively simple: a dilemma arose, and the story was about resolving it.
Most of these things ran contrary to what critics and academics tried to teach about writing fiction, but my mentors knew their audiences, knew their publishers, knew what would work and what would sell books, and wrote to meet the marketplace rather than the college lecture hall.
I have tried to make these things my own foundation, and when I've strayed I've usually paid the price. I sometimes wish I could go rewrite some of my novels, especially ones that meandered, and whip them into tight form. Maybe some day I will. I'll always be grateful to the old timers at the conventions who steered me into a successful career writing fiction that was accessible to everyone, in every station of life. Over time, I've stopped yearning for critical success, and instead, look at numbers as the hallmark of my achievement.
January 6, 2016
Author Tours
Long before the Internet and social media became the means to promote novels, I went out on author tours arranged by my publishers. Some of them were quite grand, and involved readings, signings, radio or TV interviews, lunches with distributors or critics, and stays in fine hotels. On one occasion, a marketing vice president was along to make sure that everything worked well.
Those faded, mostly because my sales weren't justifying the lavish expense, but also because genre western fiction was declining, bookstores ignored the field, and social media began to replace the old-style marketing.
All of this sounds glamorous and exotic, but in the paperback world, the world of spinner racks and mass-market titles, the reality did not match the glamour. In those days there were over two hundred local distributors whose task was to stock the paperback racks in groceries and drugstores and sometimes other businesses.
One of the keys to successful distribution was to meet the truck drivers who could make or break a title just by placing it in favored locations. A mass-market title placed at eye level would do better than one down at the foot of the rack. So our author tours involved getting up at five, hustling over to the distributor's warehouse, having sweet rolls and coffee with the drivers, meeting and signing books for them, all before they set out for their day's run, filling up racks throughout their territory. Not glamorous; not what author tours are supposed to be, but highly effective. If my book was settled at eye level and not buried somewhere, the whole purpose of the tour was achieved.
We often did stay in good hotels, not because the publishers were being kind to authors, but as a signal. On the road, booksellers and executives of distribution companies often asked where we (I usually traveled with another author or a publishing executive) were staying. If we were at a Sheraton or Hilton, that meant the publishers were pushing us. If we were at a Super 8, it meant that a distributor could simply dismiss us. We weren't getting the push they were looking for.
If we had free time, we volunteered to sign books at various booksellers, but more often than not, our paperbacks were not being stocked, and a signed mass-market paperback had minimal sales value in any case. The publishers usually did produce a small hardcover edition, largely to get reviews and to sell to libraries. Very few of those hardcover books went out the door of a bookseller.
All that changed with the advent of the Internet, and the collapse of local distributors. Now there are only a handful, and they are not local, and store personnel stock the racks themselves.
I call my work blue-collar fiction, and that is what it was, and most of my tours were blue-collar tours, greeting truck drivers before dawn. For some reason, I look back fondly on all this, and count myself lucky to be a part of that world.
Those faded, mostly because my sales weren't justifying the lavish expense, but also because genre western fiction was declining, bookstores ignored the field, and social media began to replace the old-style marketing.
All of this sounds glamorous and exotic, but in the paperback world, the world of spinner racks and mass-market titles, the reality did not match the glamour. In those days there were over two hundred local distributors whose task was to stock the paperback racks in groceries and drugstores and sometimes other businesses.
One of the keys to successful distribution was to meet the truck drivers who could make or break a title just by placing it in favored locations. A mass-market title placed at eye level would do better than one down at the foot of the rack. So our author tours involved getting up at five, hustling over to the distributor's warehouse, having sweet rolls and coffee with the drivers, meeting and signing books for them, all before they set out for their day's run, filling up racks throughout their territory. Not glamorous; not what author tours are supposed to be, but highly effective. If my book was settled at eye level and not buried somewhere, the whole purpose of the tour was achieved.
We often did stay in good hotels, not because the publishers were being kind to authors, but as a signal. On the road, booksellers and executives of distribution companies often asked where we (I usually traveled with another author or a publishing executive) were staying. If we were at a Sheraton or Hilton, that meant the publishers were pushing us. If we were at a Super 8, it meant that a distributor could simply dismiss us. We weren't getting the push they were looking for.
If we had free time, we volunteered to sign books at various booksellers, but more often than not, our paperbacks were not being stocked, and a signed mass-market paperback had minimal sales value in any case. The publishers usually did produce a small hardcover edition, largely to get reviews and to sell to libraries. Very few of those hardcover books went out the door of a bookseller.
All that changed with the advent of the Internet, and the collapse of local distributors. Now there are only a handful, and they are not local, and store personnel stock the racks themselves.
I call my work blue-collar fiction, and that is what it was, and most of my tours were blue-collar tours, greeting truck drivers before dawn. For some reason, I look back fondly on all this, and count myself lucky to be a part of that world.
Origins
Some of the thoughtful comments on my last post got me to thinking about my origins as a western novelist. I began writing them out of a love of the American West and its history, but also as a means to survive. The advances were small, and I had to write several a year to support myself.
I joined Western Writers of America and blotted up the advice of experienced novelists. At that time WWA was a guild, very like a union, looking after our well-being and also helping us refine our craft. It was there I learned to hustle a story along, keep it direct, and always to remember that western readers were blue-collar people, mostly older males. College-educated people rarely read westerns, but did tackle mysteries now and then. We were writing not for the people who patronized bookstores, but for people who picked up pocketbooks from the spinner racks in groceries. Those racks offered romances, large-scale dramas, mysteries and westerns to a variety of people who rarely spent more than a moment examining the book covers or reading the blurbs. Westerns were time-blotters, usually read while commuting or during a slow evening, and most got traded back. Paperbacks were cheap. If you didn't like one, you pitched it without feeling any loss.
Booksellers such as Barnes and Noble did have western bays, but they were small and poorly stocked, and I rarely saw my titles there. Even now, few bookstores stock westerns. You buy them in groceries, or at Walmart.
Unlike the authors of literary novels, we kept ourselves out of these novels. We didn't insert our "voice" or try to make an artistic production out of a story. I considered myself a journeyman, a professional, an artisan. I was not striving to be an artist, or a genius, or someone who might win an award.
These novels were solidly written for the most part, a cut above the old pulp stories of earlier times. But they avoided the sort of material that might interest an academic or a critic. The characters were not complex or contradictory. They were intent upon the goals we supplied in the opening chapters. Most of these stories were middling, and swiftly vanished. Very few stand out now. But they were good enough to draw a steady stream of readers. And very few of them were bad. Since I began writing them in the seventies, thousands and thousands of them have been published. One might call them manufactured fiction; assembly-line fiction.
All of this amounts to a humble livelihood, but it has supported me for most of four decades, and I marvel that I was fortunate enough to devote my life to this sort of blue-collar fiction.
I joined Western Writers of America and blotted up the advice of experienced novelists. At that time WWA was a guild, very like a union, looking after our well-being and also helping us refine our craft. It was there I learned to hustle a story along, keep it direct, and always to remember that western readers were blue-collar people, mostly older males. College-educated people rarely read westerns, but did tackle mysteries now and then. We were writing not for the people who patronized bookstores, but for people who picked up pocketbooks from the spinner racks in groceries. Those racks offered romances, large-scale dramas, mysteries and westerns to a variety of people who rarely spent more than a moment examining the book covers or reading the blurbs. Westerns were time-blotters, usually read while commuting or during a slow evening, and most got traded back. Paperbacks were cheap. If you didn't like one, you pitched it without feeling any loss.
Booksellers such as Barnes and Noble did have western bays, but they were small and poorly stocked, and I rarely saw my titles there. Even now, few bookstores stock westerns. You buy them in groceries, or at Walmart.
Unlike the authors of literary novels, we kept ourselves out of these novels. We didn't insert our "voice" or try to make an artistic production out of a story. I considered myself a journeyman, a professional, an artisan. I was not striving to be an artist, or a genius, or someone who might win an award.
These novels were solidly written for the most part, a cut above the old pulp stories of earlier times. But they avoided the sort of material that might interest an academic or a critic. The characters were not complex or contradictory. They were intent upon the goals we supplied in the opening chapters. Most of these stories were middling, and swiftly vanished. Very few stand out now. But they were good enough to draw a steady stream of readers. And very few of them were bad. Since I began writing them in the seventies, thousands and thousands of them have been published. One might call them manufactured fiction; assembly-line fiction.
All of this amounts to a humble livelihood, but it has supported me for most of four decades, and I marvel that I was fortunate enough to devote my life to this sort of blue-collar fiction.
December 31, 2015
Westerns at Year's End
The western genre continues much as it has been for a century. It is still built around stories that are resolved by guns. Those continue to sell well, while other, broader versions of the genre barely sell at all. The western has changed in a couple of ways over the century. It is much bloodier now. Earlier stories were often resolved with a single death. Now a typical western has a high body count, and skill with a weapon is more important than character or bravery in the resolution of the story.
The other way that westerns have changed over the century is that they have become southernized. This is best described by what you don't see on the paperback racks: you don't see two former Union army soldiers, fresh from freeing the slaves, fighting it out on the streets of Bismarck or Sheridan. What you do see on the paperback racks, almost a hundred percent, is stories involving former Confederates, mostly from Texas or border states, getting into a bitter fight on the streets of El Paso or Tucson. The modern western hero is southern, bitter, and settles his disputes with guns.
I tried for years to broaden the field. The West is a grand place, settled by diverse people with diverse ambitions. And while many of these stories won critical acclaim, and some won awards, they hardly sell at all compared to the tens of thousands of copies a typical Pinnacle gunfighter western sells from grocery racks across the country.
I was reminded of that by the brief appearance of my most recent novel, involving a vaudeville troupe making its way through the barely-settled west. It climbed up Amazon's charts briefly and then vanished, more or less. Last I looked, there were 866,000 novels that sold better. It will, over the next months be reviewed with care in sundry places, and then it will vanish.
Such is the western genre, which remains rigid. Mystery fiction, by way of contrast, has broadened into a variety of subgenres involving crime, mystery, detective skills, criminal psychology, etc., and most of these sell very well. That genre is fluid and healthy.
The other way that westerns have changed over the century is that they have become southernized. This is best described by what you don't see on the paperback racks: you don't see two former Union army soldiers, fresh from freeing the slaves, fighting it out on the streets of Bismarck or Sheridan. What you do see on the paperback racks, almost a hundred percent, is stories involving former Confederates, mostly from Texas or border states, getting into a bitter fight on the streets of El Paso or Tucson. The modern western hero is southern, bitter, and settles his disputes with guns.
I tried for years to broaden the field. The West is a grand place, settled by diverse people with diverse ambitions. And while many of these stories won critical acclaim, and some won awards, they hardly sell at all compared to the tens of thousands of copies a typical Pinnacle gunfighter western sells from grocery racks across the country.
I was reminded of that by the brief appearance of my most recent novel, involving a vaudeville troupe making its way through the barely-settled west. It climbed up Amazon's charts briefly and then vanished, more or less. Last I looked, there were 866,000 novels that sold better. It will, over the next months be reviewed with care in sundry places, and then it will vanish.
Such is the western genre, which remains rigid. Mystery fiction, by way of contrast, has broadened into a variety of subgenres involving crime, mystery, detective skills, criminal psychology, etc., and most of these sell very well. That genre is fluid and healthy.
December 29, 2015
My Titles
There were two or three other Richard Wheelers writing, most of them nonfiction authors. One was a Civil War historian; another a Marine Corps historian; another a political scientist specializing in Pakistan.
Here is a link to my credits, which is complete except for half a dozen westerns I wrote anonymously. All in all, I've written over eighty books. This list was posted on December 29, 2015.
http://wheelertitles.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to my credits, which is complete except for half a dozen westerns I wrote anonymously. All in all, I've written over eighty books. This list was posted on December 29, 2015.
http://wheelertitles.blogspot.com/
December 16, 2015
Windows Trouble
A while ago I switched to Windows 10, and have been regretting it. One of my new problems is access to my computer. There is a new screen that requires the administrator of the computer to sign in, but increasingly it tells me my password is incorrect. That is pure panic. I depend on my computer for both business and social reasons.
I can usually jigger things around, restate my old password, and get back in. But I want more than that. I want access without requiring my password. I live alone, and don't need separate family accounts. But Windows 10 forbids that, too. It supposedly offers account and security options but won't let me open my account and change anything. Neither can I change anything else such as background or screen choices. I'm screwed.
What a far cry this is from the days when I could control my computer. I've lost control. Windows 10 also denies my efforts to defragment my hard drive. There is no longer a choice. If I move to Apple I would have more options, but it would mean learning a new language. I've used Microsoft since the DOS days before Windows existed. Maybe the solution is to find an antique typewriter and do my manuscripts the old way, and write letters rather than trying to use machines that take my options from me.
I can usually jigger things around, restate my old password, and get back in. But I want more than that. I want access without requiring my password. I live alone, and don't need separate family accounts. But Windows 10 forbids that, too. It supposedly offers account and security options but won't let me open my account and change anything. Neither can I change anything else such as background or screen choices. I'm screwed.
What a far cry this is from the days when I could control my computer. I've lost control. Windows 10 also denies my efforts to defragment my hard drive. There is no longer a choice. If I move to Apple I would have more options, but it would mean learning a new language. I've used Microsoft since the DOS days before Windows existed. Maybe the solution is to find an antique typewriter and do my manuscripts the old way, and write letters rather than trying to use machines that take my options from me.
December 15, 2015
Bad Music
I've been wondering why the current generation of chanteuses annoys me. At first I supposed that it was generational; what would an old guy find in a young lady's singing? So I headed for YouTube, and had a close look at whatever Miss Swift has posted there. I no longer think it's generational. I think there's a whole crop of young ladies who can't sing at all, and use a wide variety of gimmicks to hide the reality.
It's hard to pick out Taylor Swift's voice in these productions because it is buried in her bimbo chorus. On the rare occasions that it actually is separate and distinct, it is reedy and thin and untrained, and always on the verge of shouting because she doesn't have the lung power or discipline to lift up a tune and carry it.
Compare her voice to that of, say, Rosemary Clooney, and you will see what I am driving at. Miss Clooney, who had perhaps the finest, most elegant, richest and most disciplined voice in the last century, could stand alone before the microphone, and sing without the crutches that today's young singers require.
The other giveaway is that today's singers require elaborate visuals, sometimes so complex and fast that we never get a chance to see the artist. They are all bobbing and weaving, and in Miss Swift's case, she employs one after another bad paint job so we never see the same person for more than a second or two, and then she's busy being someone else. When I compare her with, say, Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald, who could and did command the rapt attention of their auditors with breathless ease, alone on a stage, it is easy to see that something is lacking in the young crop.
Maturity seems to be the key to it. This old guy likes to see mature artists giving their all, without the crutches of entire productions propping them up.
It's hard to pick out Taylor Swift's voice in these productions because it is buried in her bimbo chorus. On the rare occasions that it actually is separate and distinct, it is reedy and thin and untrained, and always on the verge of shouting because she doesn't have the lung power or discipline to lift up a tune and carry it.
Compare her voice to that of, say, Rosemary Clooney, and you will see what I am driving at. Miss Clooney, who had perhaps the finest, most elegant, richest and most disciplined voice in the last century, could stand alone before the microphone, and sing without the crutches that today's young singers require.
The other giveaway is that today's singers require elaborate visuals, sometimes so complex and fast that we never get a chance to see the artist. They are all bobbing and weaving, and in Miss Swift's case, she employs one after another bad paint job so we never see the same person for more than a second or two, and then she's busy being someone else. When I compare her with, say, Lena Horne or Ella Fitzgerald, who could and did command the rapt attention of their auditors with breathless ease, alone on a stage, it is easy to see that something is lacking in the young crop.
Maturity seems to be the key to it. This old guy likes to see mature artists giving their all, without the crutches of entire productions propping them up.
December 11, 2015
Casting
I'm enjoying that venerable author's game of casting my novel, Anything Goes. It's about a small, second-rate vaudeville company struggling through a tour of the mining towns of the Northwest in 1896, a tour so perilous that it must rely on sell-out houses or fail.
There are some delightful parts in it, most of them vaudeville acts. The impresario who runs the show, August Beausoleil, is none other than Jeff Bridges. I can't even imagine anyone else in the role. He's got the right seamed, weathered face, and the right bright eye for the part.
There is a singer who joins the show midway through the novel, and I wish it could be Reece Witherspoon, but she's too old. I'm stuck with Taylor Swift, the right age but a lady with many false faces, for the part. The role calls for a formally-trained singer, and Miss Swift is too much of a squawk-box for that.
There are other acts, difficult to cast, such as Mrs. McGivers and her Monkey Band. She's a fine old slattern, who could be played by some of Hollywood's gifted antiques. There's a juggler, a singing trio, some tap dancers, you name it. But Jeff Bridges is the guy who could put it all together
Meanwhile, the novel tumbles along, not yet reviewed, and I am content.
There are some delightful parts in it, most of them vaudeville acts. The impresario who runs the show, August Beausoleil, is none other than Jeff Bridges. I can't even imagine anyone else in the role. He's got the right seamed, weathered face, and the right bright eye for the part.
There is a singer who joins the show midway through the novel, and I wish it could be Reece Witherspoon, but she's too old. I'm stuck with Taylor Swift, the right age but a lady with many false faces, for the part. The role calls for a formally-trained singer, and Miss Swift is too much of a squawk-box for that.
There are other acts, difficult to cast, such as Mrs. McGivers and her Monkey Band. She's a fine old slattern, who could be played by some of Hollywood's gifted antiques. There's a juggler, a singing trio, some tap dancers, you name it. But Jeff Bridges is the guy who could put it all together
Meanwhile, the novel tumbles along, not yet reviewed, and I am content.
December 9, 2015
Dale L. Walker
I've lost my best friend and editor, Dale L. Walker. He was a major influence not only on my writing, but upon my life as an author and editor. He was a Jack London scholar, the former director of the University of Texas at El Paso Press, a tireless editor for Forge, a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, a distinguished reviewer for The Dallas News and other publications, the author of several fine histories and biographies, an expert on the early West, a devotee of Victorian poetry, and most of all, a quiet friend who stayed close all these years. I owe everything to him, and will grieve his loss all of my days.
