Mikania

thenewinquiry: Solitude is a problem for writers generally, who...

Fri, 18 May 2012 05:44:13 -0700

Solitude is a problem for writers generally, who spend so much time alone rehearsing a form of ideal communication. And men —as a practical matter — are often worse at being alone than women. But for male writers, however often an appearance of self-sufficiency can be stripped away to reveal a hidden structure of support, there is a writerly tradition of solitude that has existed at least since Romanticism: Rousseau’s “my habits are those of solitude and not of men,” or Shelley’s “Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude.” A man who chooses to be alone assumes the glamour of his forebears. A woman’s aloneness makes us suspicious: Even today it carries connotations of reluctance and abandonment, on the one hand, and selfishness and disobedience, on the other.

- “The Lonely Ones” by Emily Cooke

5 Wrong Ways to Start a Story

Thu, 17 May 2012 13:04:33 -0700

5 Wrong Ways to Start a Story:

Opening With a Dream
Opening With an Alarm Clock Buzzing
Being Unintentionally Funny
Too Little Dialogue
Opening with Dialogue

More explanation for each item at 5 Wrong Ways to Start a Story.

Modern Mythology: "Our Subconscious’ Role in Listening to Stories"

Mon, 14 May 2012 05:48:49 -0700

Modern Mythology: "Our Subconscious’ Role in Listening to Stories":

As much as storytellers lead us away into fantasy, our brains are looking for what is real, what can be relied on. Of course, in story tradition, a story element is often a metaphor for truth, so it is hardly surprising that even when faced with make believe, we still look for truth. It is almost as if we know that the story has something to give us – some gift, or even healing. Many therapists deliberately use stories to heal, to awaken insight.

The Future of eBooks

Sun, 13 May 2012 05:43:23 -0700

The Future of eBooks:

It will get better, and likely quite rapidly, but what will be left after our whittling is an authoring environment that will be very, very different from what we have known before. We’ll still have plain textual narratives and film, because that’s what we can most easily draft and understand. But we will have very many other things besides, and they are becoming increasingly easy to imagine. In an email exchange discussing the attractiveness of full-featured tablets over dedicated ereaders, Ron Martinez of Aerbook noted, “Much has been written about publishing’s “soft landing” in transitioning to digital format. Text-based product made that possible. But it may turn out to have been a soft “landing on Normandy.” For trade publishers particularly, Omaha Beach is not about learning how to publish digitally — it’s about becoming software houses that support publishing functions. That’s a steep organizational cliff to climb.

Where Is Publishing Headed? The Future Of Books In 7 Steps

Sat, 12 May 2012 06:01:15 -0700

Where Is Publishing Headed? The Future Of Books In 7 Steps:

First, Amazon will continue to grow as a retail channel, while bricks-and-mortar booksellers (including the bookselling chains like Barnes and Noble) will find themselves squeezed further and further, leading to more bookstore closures and downsizing on the part of the chains. In many ways, the bankruptcy of Borders in 2011 marked the end of an era, in the sense that the age dominated by the big retail chains, rolling out their superstores across America, is now over. We’re entering a new era when those retail chains that remain are in a much weaker position and where Amazon has become the main retail force to be reckoned with.

Second, publishers with weak balance sheets and companies that are highly leveraged will face growing financial difficulties, the pressures on medium-sized publishers will intensify and some of the large conglomerates will probably decide that the time has come to divest themselves of their trade publishing interests, which were always a very small part of their overall business anyway, leading to further consolidation in the hands of a small number of large corporations that remain committed to trade publishing and continue to see it as a worthwhile part of their portfolio.

Third, the decline of retail space in bookstores - the shop windows, front-of-store display tables and rows of bookshelves - and the decline of book review space in traditional print media like The New York Timeswill make it harder for publishers to get their books noticed, so the struggle for visibility will both intensify and become displaced, as publishers are forced to devote more and more of their marketing effort to the online environment, where they will hope to find new ways of bringing their books to the attention of readers.

Fourth, the shift from print to digital will continue, though the speed and extent of the shift will vary from one type of book to another and one author to another, and income from e-books and other forms of electronic sale will become an increasingly significant part of publishers’ revenues, though exactly how significant is, at this point in time, unknown - maybe 20 percent, maybe 30, maybe 50, maybe more, no one knows.

Fifth, as more sales shift to digital and the sales of physical books decline, the large publishing houses will face growing downward pressure on their revenues, calling into question their ability to generate year-on-year growth and refocusing their attention more and more on the reduction of costs and overheads in an attempt to maintain or improve their profitability.

Sixth, the infrastructure supporting the traditional book supply chain - warehouses, sales forces, etc. - will come under increasing pressure, forcing publishers to scale back their operations and look for new ways to keep the physical supply chain going while at the same time trying to shift their organizations to a new way of doing business.

Seventh, small publishing operations and innovative start-ups will proliferate, as the costs and complexities associated with the book supply chain diminish, and threats of disintermediation will abound, as both traditional and new players avail themselves of new technologies and the opportunities opened up by them to try to eat the lunch of their erstwhile collaborators.

Photo

Fri, 11 May 2012 06:01:11 -0700

The Avengers, Comic Books and the Future of Storytelling

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:41:28 -0700

The Avengers, Comic Books and the Future of Storytelling:

The story has now become a world unto its own that allows the reader to explore whichever dimensions are of the greatest interest. Follow the events from the perspective of Iron Man or Thor. Or just peruse the core series and ignore the supplementary story elements. The series presents a nearly unbounded narrative universe for the reader to experience.

It is easy to interpret this with a cynical eye as nothing more than a series of cheap marketing tactics designed to pump sales. And yet, when well executed, something larger emerges.

True Habits of Highly Effective Writers

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:02:00 -0700

True Habits of Highly Effective Writers:

thetinhouse:

Adam Wilson (Flatscreen): I put my screen resolution at 135%. And I eat a lot of nuts. I feel like nuts are good for writers.

Blake Butler (Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia, Editor of HTML Giant): Almost every day I begin the exact same way: I wake, shower, get in my car, drive 20…

"2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or..."

Wed, 09 May 2012 08:59:00 -0700

“2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.”

- 6 tips on writing from John Steinbeck (via explore-blog)

"A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full..."

Sat, 05 May 2012 05:42:00 -0700

“A writer has the duty to be good, not lousy; true, not false; lively, not dull; accurate, not full of error. He should tend to lift people up, not lower them down.”

- E. B. White on the social responsibility of the writer, a worthy aspiration to remember and live up to in today’s media climate increasingly plagued by negativism, sensationalism, and journalistic laziness. (via explore-blog)

So, how do you think the Internet has changed the publishing industry? With all of the rapidity and...

Fri, 04 May 2012 06:01:01 -0700

So, how do you think the Internet has changed the publishing industry?

With all of the rapidity and flow, there is something new coming out every day and things become old so quickly. We used to get about 3 months for books to be on bookshelves when a new book would come out, we now get about 4 to 6 weeks before they start coming back. And we’ve put 9 months into it, so we put our heart and soul into it, and money into it, and here you go world! And nah, they aren’t interested. They want to know what’s next.

But there’s nothing we can do. We have to adapt. If I were sitting here bemoaning that, then I’m in the wrong business.

Interview with Wes Del Val, Associate Publisher at powerHouse Books

explore-blog: Characters you need for an epic tale by Tom...

Thu, 03 May 2012 06:01:53 -0700

explore-blog:

Characters you need for an epic tale by Tom Gauld, who brought us the wonderful Both.

"By 2010, many viable and prestigious venues existed for writers of the lengthy critical essay: the..."

Wed, 02 May 2012 05:21:12 -0700

“By 2010, many viable and prestigious venues existed for writers of the lengthy critical essay: the website the Millions published articles akin to the articles we published, as did the Nervous Breakdown and the Rumpus. And if writers were submitting their work to them instead of us, who could blame them? They didn’t have to wait nine months for “page space” to open up; they didn’t have to endure three-month lead times. Moreover, their articles, if published online, had a far greater chance of being seen and read by many more readers than merely the visitors to the site on which they were published. These articles could be linked to and bounced around; they could infiltrate corners of the online galaxy.”

- More from The Believer on going exclusively online at New Statesman.

explore-blog: The recipe for writing success? Kill your...

Tue, 01 May 2012 06:05:08 -0700

explore-blog:

The recipe for writing success? Kill your characters – beautiful literary infographic from “slow journalism magazine” Delayed Gratification reverse-engineers what makes a prize-winning novel. The results corroborate Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to “be a sadist” and make awful things happen to your lead characters, “no matter how sweet or innocent” they may be.

(ᔥ Visual News)

Believer Magazine: From Print to Here

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:38:48 -0700

believermag:

Believer founding editor (and author) Heidi Julavits writes today in the New Statesman about moving The Believer online: “How, as editors, would we work within these perimeter-less perimeters? Especially those of us whose sense of essayistic architecture was honed in a different medium?”

Sad but inevitable. The Believer is/was one of the rare printed matters that I fetishized on a monthly basis.

"Independent editorial start-ups posting their books on appropriate web sites have already begun to..."

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:16:51 -0700

“Independent editorial start-ups posting their books on appropriate web sites have already begun to emerge and more will follow. The cost of entry will be slight. The essential capital will be editorial talent and energy, as it had been in the glory days before conglomeration when editors were themselves de facto publishers, publicists, and marketers. Many start-ups will fail. Some will not. Specificity, reflecting the structure of the web, will matter: a guide to the cultivation of daffodils will more likely succeed than a more diffuse gardening title.”

- How Books Will Survive Amazon at nybooks.com

The Awl: How To Write The Great American Novel

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 08:31:02 -0700

The Awl: How To Write The Great American Novel:

Each tip spans paragraphs of hilarity.

Move out of Brooklyn

Drop out of school

Stop writing in Starbucks

Adultery is boring

Stop writing books told from the point of view of children

Stop wasting time on the internet

We need more novels written from the point of view of cats

Don’t listen to anyone’s opinions

Stop drinking and doing coke

No more anti-heroes

Never stop writing

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:12:06 -0700

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story :

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

Every sentence must do one of two things-reveal character or advance the action.

Start as close to the end as possible.

Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Why flash fiction is overrated, and why Etgar Keret is a master of it

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 11:15:04 -0700

Why flash fiction is overrated, and why Etgar Keret is a master of it:

For twenty years, Keret has been writing deviously strange, fabulist stories, most of which are only a few pages long. (His closest American analog may be Donald Barthelme.) Keret has also collaborated with artists on graphic novels, written for film and television, and co-directed a very good movie, Jellyfish, with his wife, Shira Geffen. He’s now one of Israel’s most popular artists, and through his books and widely published personal essays, he has increasingly become known to English-speaking audiences.

"Writing is not an exercise in excision, it’s a journey into sound."

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:00:05 -0700

“Writing is not an exercise in excision, it’s a journey into sound.”

- E.B. White