I would HATE HATE HATE to get a publishing deal and for everyone to sit around saying 'well, she used to be an editor so...'

We'll be too busy sitting around thinking "aren't we such a good crowd of critics, to have helped her..." ;-)

It's interesting how this debate seems to have gone full circle. It started off suggesting that agents and editors wouldn't recognise a classic work if it fell on them, and has ended up with this idea that they would if it was from their mates. I think, in reality, we're all sufficiently switched on to the way the world works to realise that both things can be partly true, without either necessarily being the whole story. And if we don't understand the world that well, what are we doing trying to write about it?


Alex

Well, I don't know what you're doing Alex. I was just trying to flaunt some satanic propaganda and warn people about the imminent End of the World. That's all.

JB

We'll be too busy sitting around thinking "aren't we such a good crowd of critics, to have helped her..."

Alex, now that I wouldn't mind so much. In fact I was just thinking today that if i hadn't come to this site, there's no way I'd be where I am now with an agent and a finished novel trying to find a home - no way at all.

Aww, you guys...

There's hope for me yet.

I would HATE HATE HATE to get a publishing deal and for everyone to sit around saying 'well, she used to be an editor so...'

Me too. I always feel for the poor teenagers who work for years to get terrific A Levels, and then all the papers do is say that it's just that the exams have got easier.

And I remember being very fed up when people looked for any reason for Zadie Smith's success (colour, gender and better still looks, age, fashion in the book trade) except that she'd written a very good book. There were lots of things wrong with White Teeth, but it was still pretty remarkable.

Never on WriteWords, of course, but people do use the 'only celebrities get published nowadays' dirge as a way of avoiding the heart of the matter, which is that writing a good book is long, difficult, hard work, scarily self-revealing even if by mistake, and often disheartening. And writing a better one is more so of all of these things. Sometimes it's more comfortable to believe in the falsity of other people's success than the truth of our own lack of it.

Emma

Emma

As you are aware, I did raise the 'celebrities get published' point/'dirge', and I am on writewords.
My comfort levels in my own success (or lack of it) do not invalidate the point I made earlier, that a great many celebrities do get published, simply for commmercial reasons.

As for what it takes to write a very good book, I'm sure I don't know.

Sion

Sion, I absolutely didn't mean you. It's an interesting discussion as conducted on WW. I was thinking of the times I've been trapped in a corner at a party by a non-writer taking that line. It's right up there with, 'So you're going to be the next J K Rowling then!' for irritation-value.

Emma

Sion, you're quite right about celebrities, of course, except for one teensy point - there is absolutely no need for them to be able to hold their own crayon.

No, they have make-up artists to do that for them


Alex

Is it just me, or did it just get really bitchy in here? Lol.

Well, I agree with the earlier point that all these facets we've mentioned are probably taking place right now, in some office or other - but if I didn't have hope that a good story will win through, no matter where it's pitched from, then I wouldn't write professionally.

JB

It's just you, James

I think what gives a lot of us hope is the fact that, just once in a while, a book (or a piece of music, or a film) comes out of left-field and takes everyone by surprise with its popularity. Sometimes that happens even when the "establishment" is actively trying to squash it (remember Cliff Richard's "Millennium Prayer"?). Sometimes even knowledgeable experts get it wrong, which is why getting more than one honest opinion on a piece of work is so important.


Alex

What about the theory that talent gets a writer into the inner circle but after that there's a lot of luck necessary? Even if only 5 to 10% of all submissions are 'worthy' or 'good enough' by some objective measure that might vary according to genre, that still means that there are hugely more 'good' books out there than will ever get published. One article had it that 30,000 people entered the Richard and Judy novel competition (just using this as a concrete example of the large numbers). 1,500 to 3,000 of these might be good but how many could get published? I think that the few that do get chosen happen to be in the right place at the right time, have the good luck to be picked up by an influential person with an hour to kill who loves it or whatever, not because they are intrinsically 'better' than all the other rejected ones. I'm not demeaning talent, just saying that it's not everything and it's not enough.
Being an editor/journalist probably does help in getting published if only because someone who chose that career must love the English language and that's a good start. If I were an agent/editor I might read a submission from such a person or from a recommended source with a slightly higher interest level than I would plough though the slush pile.

By the way, Happy New Year everyone.

Ashlinn

Yes that's true, Ashlinn, and I can't deny that I became an editor because I wanted to be a writer - not because I thought it would give me an advantage but because I wanted to be 'near' the whole thing, and I needed a salary! Someone once said that editors who want to be writers are never very good at being editors...maybe there are too many of that kind around and that's why you hear so many complaints about us these days.

I don't think the exercise carried out by the Times proves very much at all apart from the fact that journalists don't mind using a few old tricks to create a 'shock, horror, dismay' story.

We all know editors and agents don't get it right, partly through ignorance, partly through pressure of time and partly because publishing - just like newspapers - is a numbers game where you work a successful formula to make money.

The democratisation of the writing process has also had its part to play. There's little doubt that more people from a much wider range of backgrounds have the opportunity and belief that they can pen a novel. Which is a good thing. Trouble is most of it is shit and creating ever larger slush piles. Which is not a good thing.

Unfortunately, until the editors and agents come knocking on our doors, we're all going to have to play the game and hawk our asses as best we can.

[quote]There's little doubt that more people from a much wider range of backgrounds have the opportunity and belief that they can pen a novel. Which is a good thing. Trouble is most of it is shit and creating ever larger slush piles. Which is not a good thing.[quote]

Somebody in a similar conversation a year or two ago pointed out how much easier it is to produce a submittable manuscript since the invention of the wordprocessor. Maybe in the days when you had to re-type the whole damn thing everytime you changed anything major more people fell by the wayside before they got that far.

Emma