Writing for Dollars, Part 1

Writing for Dollars, Part 1

So I read this list of 2010's top earning authors and as always, it stirred up a lot of feelings in me. I think when you're very young, you look at a list like that and say, "one day that will be me." And there's nothing really wrong with that, I suppose. It's good to dream and aspire to greatness. On some level, if you don't think you can achieve true greatness, why start? However, at some point I think it becomes counterproductive to think of a 70 million dollar paycheck.

For one thing, it's frustrating. Because you're not going to get it. If you want to be a writer, you're far more likely to struggle financially than get rich. If the only way you'll see yourself as successful is to earn million dollar advances, you're never going to be content.

The other reason that it's particularly counterproductive is that you might look at some of the authors on that list and say, "but I'm a better writer than some of them." And you might be right, at least from certain perspectives. But it's a complex issue.

For example, you might be one of the many people that deride Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight books. You might dismiss them as teen angst books that taint the whole vampire mythos with sparkles and silly romantic love triangles. You might look down on her prose stylings. But consider another perspective for just a moment. An author's job (at least from one point of view) is to create fiction that appeals and entertains. The Twilight books appeal to and entertain countless readers. By doing so, isn't she--at least from that perspective--a great author? 

The issue is this: is success an indicator of quality? Most would say no, but it's a more difficult question than most might think. To step away from literature for a moment, consider the latest, hottest, appeal-to-the-lowest-common-denominator reality tv program. It's probably puerile and crude, hastily and likely artlessly produced. But it's appealing to a wide audience. It's getting people to come back and watch week after week. Which is precisely what it set out to do. So how is that not, on some level, an indicator of quality. Is quality an objective measure in which all things can be compared or is it a subjective matter, with each individual item being judged on its own terms? (The argument, however, teeters on the brink of circularity, because if truly subjective, can one use earnings or ratings to judge success? Are earnings only an objective measure?)

To look at it another way, are Meyer's books, or--to use my own personal bugaboo--Patterson's books successful precisely because neither writes particularly good prose. If you hand a Patterson fan a book written by someone widely recognized as being a far better wordsmith, say, Michael Chabon, will that person immediately see that they should have been reading Chabon all along, or will they stick with Patterson? If they do prefer Patterson, are they wrong? How can someone be wrong about what they like? (Or rather, how snobbish is it to say that someone is wrong about what they like?)

And to take it one step further (and tie it back to the beginning), should a writer like me try to aspire to be more like the phenomenally successful Patterson or the moderately successful Chabon? Is it useful to look at Patterson's work to learn something from it? I honestly don't know the answer to that, because I've read one Patterson novel, Along Came a Spider, and it was the worst book I've ever finished. I'm afraid of looking at it too closely or trying to take anything away from it. (I've heard from many that he has written books that are far better--most, I think, with co-writers.)

Here's what it comes down to for me. Patterson's a (subjectively) terrible writer who either got very lucky or has found precisely the right kind of terrible that is actually wildly appealing. There are thousands of terrible writers who never get anywhere. Chabon is a fabulous writer who succeeded because he's very talented and very skilled. If you're a fabulous writer, you're likely to at least achieve moderate success. So it's better to strive for Chabon than Patterson just like it's better to work hard at your job than it is to play the lottery.

And all this is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this topic. It's dangerous to spend too much time on it, however, because I really ought to be writing, hopefully something of quality.

Whatever that means.