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genre profiling, and profilic writers
This article is about profilic writers, or really more accurately, it's about the fact that there are some people out there who can write a lot, many many pages every day, and get a lot or most of that work into print. This is in comparison to the rest of us, who wobble along, happy for two solid pages a day, or thrilled with five, or despondent when only a few sentences survive the battle.
I find this subject vaguely interesting, the same way I might stop to read an article about people who can twist themselves into odd shapes or wiggle their scalps or who have photographic memories or perfect pitch. These are not things that can be taught. It would be wonderful to have pefect pitch or a photographic memory, and it would be even more wonderful if I could sit down every day and write 3,000 solid words without breaking a sweat.
Okay, the parallel isn't perfect. People who can write 3,000 words a day were not born with that skill. They developed it at some point, a combination of personality traits and early habits. But I still stand by the comparison, because at a certain point in your life, the possibility of becoming one of these profilic/productive writers has passed. I can't decide to be one now, the same way I can't simply decide to have perfect pitch. It doesn't make any sense to be jealous of somebody who does have perfect pitch, and, it seems to me, the same is true of reactions to writers who can turn out one or two books a year. I will confess to the occasional itch of irritation when I see that Joyce Carol Oates has got yet another title on the new arrivals shelf, but mostly I can shrug it off. I have no idea how she does it, and that's okay.
So I think this is an interesting topic, but one with limited usefulness to anybody, even other writers. And the article bothered me for another reason: there's a big discussion of genre authors vs literary authors (the terminology used in the article) and how less tolerant we are generally of profilic literary authors, because:
It hearkens back to this notion we have of how “serious” novels are created — that every sentence is the result of years of contemplation and agonized toil. Anything less is deemed half-assed — or purely for a commercial audience. Atkinson acknowledges the stigma. “If a Jonathan Lethem produced something like The Fortress of Solitude every year and a half, I think he would be lauded a lot less,” she says.There is a bone deep compulsion to divide things up, it seems to me. Us/them, commercial/serious, genre/literary. Why do we do this? Would it have been possible to write this article and consider the issue of prolific writing without bringing in this largely artificial distinction? Because I think it's patently false that so-called literary authors are more disliked for being prolific than other authors are. If you look at the illustration at the beginning of the article, it's not John Updike they've got there, but Stephen King. People who get pissed off at authors who are prolific and successful at getting their stuff into print are just generally pissy, without genre boundries. It's got something to do with the cultural need to both deify and tear down people who are too obviously successful.
Today, let me tell you, I was prolific. I wrote more than 2,000 words. You may put this down to the fact that I don't write what you might consider serious fiction, and thus those 2,000 words must have come easily. Or you can put it down to the fact that my routine is paying off, at this moment. You may fling tomatoes, if you like, but be assured: this is a temporary thing, and will (sadly) pass.
April 25, 2005 04:50 PM
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Comments
I think people underestimate the importance of training when it comes to how prolific one can be. When I'm on a roll, I average about 7K to 9K daily, but I've been known to sit down in the morning and not get up until 10pm and have 20K under my belt. (And my chapters, on average, are between 5K and 7K.)
But then again, I also work as a technical writer. Organizing, writing, and editing a four-hundred page document is just one more day in the office. At first it was intimidating, but eventually I suppose one just learns to juggle all the information in one's head--systems, code, operators manual, spare parts, blah blah blah--and one learns that every document has a pattern, an industry standard.
Thing is, fiction also has an industry standard: you start at the beginning, you go through the middle, you get to the end. You introduce characters, just like you do terminology and scope, bring in the conflict with your operators' manual, and resolve it with your spare parts data package. Heh. I'm such an ubergeek. But every major document must cover all pertinent details, which must be fact-checked with subject matter experts; I blame my lack of plotting when writing completely on the learned skill of juggling all that information in my head (and contacting various resources as needed).
Oh, and I type fast.
I've had people tell me I should tell agents that I can produce a great deal and have the chops to do so on a daily basis. I'm not sure being a technical writer is that much to boast about, so I've never mentioned it; it would feel odd to boast about essentially writing texts that some folks (myself included) use as a cure for insomnia.
So in other words: if you set your mind to it, you can write a massive amount in one day. If you can't for reasons of your own, but you're still happy with the results, then you're just not as prolific. You're also published, and I'm not, so I think it probably all evens out. ;D
Posted by: sGreer at April 25, 2005 08:48 PM
sG-- I should have been more specific, because I was referring to writing fiction. For me personally, writing non-fiction (for example, when I was writing a lot of academic stuff) moves about ten times faster. So you and I seem to be in the the same boat on this much.
If I set my mind to it, I can write a massive amount in one day. I can force the words on the page, but the thing is, most of what I get down is dreck when I approach it this way. I know this, because I have done these exercises now and then, and generally the rule of thumb is that the most I can put out in one day is about 3,000 words strung into usable, coherant sentences.
Getting those 3,000 words down, though: that is, to a great degree, self discipline.
Posted by: sara at April 26, 2005 12:11 AM
The strange thing is that until I had to sit down and simply produce, I couldn't do more than maybe 1K daily on fiction. I ended up sticking with short stories and novellas simply because I couldn't conceive of 80K or more, let alone having the patience to stay with it for as long as I'd need to be, to hit a decent book length. I think the nonfiction exposure just taught me I could write that much in a short period if I chose, and that got me over the "OMG that's so MUCH" intimidation.
Posted by: sGreer at April 26, 2005 06:03 AM
One name comes to mind: Joyce Carol Oates. How does the woman do it? Over 100 books (under her own name), even more under her pen name Rosamond Smith, an ability to work in just about every genre out there (novels, short stories, poetry, genre fiction, criticism, children's books, etc.) and oh, yea, she also has time to teach at Princeton, edit anthologies and she and her husband founded and edit a literary journal, The Ontario Review.
Posted by: Kathryn Remen-Wait at April 27, 2005 05:15 AM
Thanks for stopping by the Millions. Enjoyed your thoughts on prolific writers. I agree that the distinction between serious and popular is arbitrary and unneccessary. After working in a book store for a while, I started to find the backlash and bias of certain readers against "popular" fiction to be more and more irritating. I realized that the average reader - myself included - likes books from both categories, and doesn't care at all if a particular author is a millionaire or not. The only people who care about such things are a very small culture of readers (and writers) who get all sniffy when writers with less artful - but more entertaining - books get all the dough. I still believe in finding new voices out there, but I don't believe in attacking successful writers out of jealousy.
Posted by: Max at April 27, 2005 11:19 AM
Max -- seems like you and I approach this from just about the same place, with the same concerns. New voices with great promise show up across genres. I'm thinking of The Time Traveller's Wife, which I would have trouble classifying at all, which is beautifully done and extremely engaging and very successful. I have not read published reviews of it yet, but I'm wondering if the literati are claiming her as one of their own, or if she is too entertaining and has made too much money for that.
After I wrote this post I started thinking about reactions (mine, and other people's) to Oprah's book club. Which I may write about, if I can get up the courage.
thanks for stopping by
s/r
Posted by: sara at April 27, 2005 11:50 AM