[Note from Steve: This is the third post in preparation for Tom Pope’s and my Socratic dialogue on writing thrillers.  It’s more about reading, though, not writing.  The title is a bow to Pete Seeger.]

I read and review in many genres, including non-fiction.  Every author should be an avid reviewer.  And, if you want to give something back to the community of readers and writers, honest reviews help those readers who are looking for new and interesting books to read.  Of course, they help writers too, but I’m pleased when I receive that note from Amazon saying that one of my reviews helped a reader make a reading decision.  That’s my reward.  (I never charge for reviews because money can’t beat that kind of reward.)

Many writers don’t share my views on reviews!  Some will say that they’re busy writing and that they can’t take time to write a review.  Some will say that they have a policy of not reviewing other authors because they’re afraid of being accused of practicing review exchanges, aka a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours review policy.  Whatever the reasons, I respectfully disagree with them.  Authors should write reviews.  They can do them on review websites or places like Amazon and Smashwords and avoid the review exchange criticism (many accept clever pseudonyms for their reviewers).  They can be technical without being erudite.  And their reviews will be useful to the reading public.  Above all, writing reviews shows that the author is also a reader and not just a person interested in selling books.

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[Second post leading up to Tom Pope and my Socratic to-and-fro about writing the thriller.  In “The Eightfold Way” I listed eight things a writer should NOT do.  Here I take the tack of analyzing what he or she can do.]

Given my sales and/or my number of readers (easy to measure the first, hard the second), any secrets I might reveal about the writing business are probably suspect.  Caveat emptor: The word “secrets” implies that there are magical actions you can take to become a successful writer—in other words, that there exist sufficient conditions for success.  (Let’s agree to measure “success” as a book that has had N readers since its release, where you pick N > 1000 to fit your own criteria.)  I hate to say it.  There are NO SECRETS—there are no sufficient conditions.  There seem to be necessary ones, but some outliers often don’t satisfy many of those either.

Take the Fifty Shades trilogy.  It doesn’t meet any of the necessary conditions I outline below, yet you can’t argue that it wasn’t successful.  Call it prurient interest among readers; a rebirth of sloppily written, commercial erotica; a naïve, 19^th century portrayal of S&M; or something else—but the books fail to satisfy so many necessary conditions that they leave me shaking my head in wonder.  If you ever needed proof that having a successful book is akin to winning the lottery, this is it.  While many authors including me are turned off by this badly written drivel, readers read it—maybe not you, but plenty of others.  Each book in that trilogy is what I call an outlier.  Authors in general shouldn’t worry about them—they’re statistically improbable events.  You should worry about the necessary conditions, unlike the author of that trilogy, who didn’t, but still won the lottery.  She won the big prize.  Writers in general should be content to go after the smaller prizes in the lottery—as many times as possible.

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[I wrote this quite awhile ago.  It made the rounds on other blogs, but I thought it would be a good intro to a series of posts on writing, a sequence that will end with Tom Pope and my Socratic to-and-fro about writing the thriller that’s in prep—see yesterday’s interview with Professor Tom.  On Tuesday, I’ll follow this with a new post, “Writing Secrets,” which might repeat some of the same material: give advice often enough and some might sink in.  Or not, especially if you disagree!  If you disagree, let me know.  That’s what blog comments are for.]

The media has become fixated on spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson (the so-called “God particle,” a name that would surely make Mr. Higgs cringe).  The Higgs mechanism (i.e. the spontaneous symmetry breaking) is necessary to give mass to some of the vector bosons in the electroweak or weak and electromagnetic interaction theory.  Forgotten in all this media hoopla is the theory that led to the idea of quarks and gluons, the Eightfold Way of symmetries popularized by Mr. Gell-Mann.  (Note that I refrain from using the term “discovered.”  In theoretical physics, the math is “out there.”  You just have to figure out what math matches up to the experimental data.  Experimental physics is where “discoveries” are made.)

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[Tom Pope is a fellow reviewer for Book Pleasures.  He also has an alter ego as a writing teacher. He works with private clients and tutoring services and conducts fiction workshops for nonprofits such as the Langston Hughes Cultural Center. I thought it would be interesting to interview him about his work with aspiring writers.  It’s a changing world in writing, and he’s seen it all.]

Steve: Describe your background, Tom, and what you’re doing now.  In particular, why are you doing it, and do you find it rewarding?

Tom: I have a background in Political Science, which led to journalism that covered business trends in healthcare and the nonprofit world.  My skills in writing transitioned to tutoring students in writing about history and literature.  Those elements positioned me for seeing characters in a complex world structure of factions and forces. For example, when physicians wanted to create physician-hospital organizations, I immediately saw that one faction of doctors was forming to counter another faction of administrators. Viewing those elements allowed me to teach writing to authors about how their WIPs could be enhanced with background for the characters and pacing for the conflicts. Factions always design ideologies that try to determine whose social norms or forces strike a person.

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[Today’s blog post is a four-peat of one about Irish writers—celebrating St. Paddy’s Day, of course!  Somehow, I missed this last year.  Irish men and women have migrated to the far corners of the Earth.  Some have migrated back.  Some stayed home.  They have suffered the boom and bust of late 20^th and early 21^st century economics.  Their Church scandals involving priests and choirboys, and unwed mothers and evil nuns, have made ours in the U.S. seem minor, yet Ireland is still the most Catholic country in Europe.  The Irish, above all, are resilient.  Their writers reflect this resiliency.]

St. Patrick’s Day is March 17.  There’s controversy in NYC because the new mayor won’t march along with the anti-gay Hibernian hoofers—he’ll march in an “alternative parade.”  Of course, I’ll remind the loyal Hibernians that one of their greatest writers, Oscar Wilde, was gay and persecuted by the English, no less, and an apt hero for all Irish—at least, Irish writers.  The whole thing is a storm in a teacup and shows how uptight and immature America is—in Dublin, no one worries about who marches in the parade.  So, before I forget, I thought today was a perfect day to set the record straight: many great writers in the English language that you may have heard about are not English but Irish.  And I should add, hailing from old Eire too, just like Wilde.

The title quote is by George Bernard Shaw—an acerbic, old curmudgeon who successfully rankled British aristocracy.  His plays and other writings poked fun at the English establishment, a commendable thing to do even today—if you can get away with it.  His biting wit transferred easily into words on the page and probably embarrassed everyone from royalty on down.  On the other hand, the endurance of his work over the years is proof of its quality—it’s classic literature in the English language written by an Irishman.

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Perhaps you’re familiar with the Western song with a similar name, made popular by Marty Robbins, for example?  While the song is about demons and salvation, I intend no demonizing here…well, maybe a bit for people who use ghostwriters and never acknowledge them.  Writers trying to scratch out a living will do most anything from greeting card verses to entire books for big name celebrities who couldn’t write a complete sentence even if they tried.  These are unsung heroes because they receive no accolades.  Your marketers and editors are at least acknowledged in the writing business, but ghostwriters are like true phantoms.

We just learned, in fact, that ghost writing is not exclusive to the writing business.  Japan, where personal honor is a national prerequisite and dishonor is historically often dealt with in violent fashion, just learned that their most famous classical composer, Mamoru Samuragochi, is a complete fake (I’m referring to a NY Times article).  Not only did he pretend to be deaf—they called him the Japanese Beethoven—he paid Takashi Niigaki to write his music.  What Mr. Samuragochi will do as a consequence is an open question, but I suspect that the Japanese response will be one of national shame.  We Americans have something to learn from that culture.

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[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

My mind surprises me sometimes.  I’m not just talking about my writing.  I expect that most people think writers are weird, maybe even schizophrenic with all those characters bouncing around in our heads.  (Followers of my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” will remember how the main character in Sing a Samba Galactica had three ET mentalities bouncing around in his—that was easy for me to write!)  No, I think it’s my training as a physicist—I observe the world around me and make strange connections between things.

This happened watching bits of the dog show that occurred last week.  (Never remember the name, but it happens around Thanksgiving every year.)  I started thinking about GMOs.  That Great Dane and Chihuahua are GMOs (for those who haven’t yet mastered the acronyms of the 21^st century, GMO means “genetically modified organism.”)  Humans have been making GMOs at least for 50,000 years—nothing new there.  I’ve mentioned this to several people, including two dear nieces, and the people I speak to usually respond, “Yes, but….”

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[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

If you’re an avid reader (I read more than I write, if you can believe it), you know there are certain things that slow you down.  One is what a prospective agent of mine long ago labeled in a critique of my MS (after sitting on it for many months) “too much narrative.”  I wrote and asked her to define that, but received no response—not surprising, because it required more than a form letter, so she couldn’t bother.  I was left to figure out what she meant, naively giving her the benefit of the doubt instead of thinking it was a lame excuse pulled from a list of similar lame excuses she maintained (you’ve already concluded what I think of the phrase now).  The novel, a long sci-fi tome, later became “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.”  Back then I figured she was complaining about the world-building—it tends to lengthen hard sci-fi, but needs to be done—and also that there wasn’t enough dialogue.

Lots of narrative—lengthy description or back story about characters and situations, or world-building in sci-fi—can slow a reader down.  I’ll admit that.  One of the worst examples is Melville’s classic Moby Dick.  You’re reading speed slows down from whatever a normal fiction rate is for you to one comparable to a snail crawling uphill in a molasses spill.  The book is partly a how-to book—How to Hunt Whales Unmercifully and Turn Their Blubber into Lamp Oil should be the subtitle (today it’s for Asians who feel sexually inadequate—they need to complement the ground rhinoceros horns and tiger gonads).  If that’s not boring enough, you have endless pages of description and very little dialogue.  I’m not sure Melville knew anything about dialogue—many 19^th century writers didn’t.  These literary wunderkind wouldn’t have a chance in today’s competitive publishing arena.  (And Einstein wouldn’t have ever left the patent office, let alone have a paper accepted by Physical Review—but that’s another story.)

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[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

[Note from Steve:  This post can be considered a continuation of my post on NaNoWriMo.  That program challenges newbie writers to write a novel in thirty days.  But you might not have regular periods that you can write.  In that case, NaNoWriMo is a moot point.  You have to steal your writing time from a busy schedule.  How and when do you do this?]

Not all of us can be writers, but more of us today are.  The eclectic circles of traditional publishing are now complemented by indie writers and publishers, a paradigm shift that drives the establishment crazy, tremendously benefits a dwindling number of readers, and probably hurts a larger number of writers.  You might be able to write well, but the competition is ferocious.  I know—I live it every day.  It often seems I have more chance of winning Power Ball or Mega Millions than having one of my books become successful.

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[TANSTAAFL: Do you read this blog?  I’m not asking if you like the posts, just whether you read them!  If so, don’t be passive.  React.  Write a comment—chew me out if you like (no foul language, please).  You can even receive a free ebook—see the bottom of the “Free Stuff and Contests” webpage; or write an honest review of one of my ebooks in exchange for the ebook.  In general, buy, read, and review some of my books.  Your participation motivates me and helps defray the costs of this website and my ebook releases.  Be active.  Help indie authors provide you with inexpensive entertainment.  It’s a two-way street, folks!]

OK, I get it.  Participating in NaNoWriMo is supposed to help a writer “get in the zone” and produce a novel—in a month!  Maybe all 302-thousand-plus of you signed up this year will do this.  As Clancy said, “Tell the damned story.”  This is an interesting quote because Clancy wrote books filled with whiz-bang gadgetry—some would call them “military sci-fi” or “militaristic thrillers,” at least the good ones—but it’s inconceivable he ever wrote anything in a month.  That’s the problem with NaNoWriMo.  Maybe it works for vampire romances, fantasies, or other pulp fiction (apologies to authors in those genres, but that’s my opinion), but most fiction works, especially sci-fi thrillers (my subgenre), whether for entertaining readers or literary erudites (they’re almost mutually exclusive groups), require more than a month.  Hell, I spend more than a month copy editing my MS, and that’s not counting the research.

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