Thomas Sullivan: “OH, YEAH?” STUFF
7 COMMENTS follow
Two columns into my contributions at Storytellersunplugged.com and I’m already writing a “loose ends” piece. But, as it turns out, some interesting feedback has come in as well as a head’s up offer.
First up was this thought-provoking piece from Ed Picard, a surfer-philosopher-musician from Ventura, California, and the husband of writer Jeani Picard. He’s responding to my first column (December 16, 2005), which had to do with the default way writers are categorized by subject matter as opposed to style. Ed’s examples from other creative disciplines (creative discipline – now there’s an oxymoron) got me thinking about another distinction, which I’ll get back to after presenting his thoughts.
[quote from Ed’s email] “…what popped into my mind was that article on style and how writers really are categorized differently than any other artists. For example when I go to Grady’s Record Refuge, the records are arranged in rock, folk, country, jazz, etc. in other words style. When we were in San Jose recently, there was a modern art museum almost next to the hotel we were staying in. I made no effort to go see it, because I don’t like the style. For reading, I always go to the classics section when I’m looking for a book. In this case, I have turned over the job to a group of scholars to find books written in great style. Even though there are plenty of classics that I’ve put down because I didn’t like the style, it is the most reliable method for me to find something that I will probably like.
Anyway, I have to agree with you that subject is probably the worst of all alternatives for organizing an art form. Can’t imagine going into Grady’s Record Refuge and seeing a section called “Love Songs.” Man, that could have anything in it from Jimi to Stephen Foster! It’s a very unique predicament that writers are in, for sure. I guess the alternative that would best suit me and keep me from being overwhelmed from the staggering number of new books that come out every year would be to find a guru critic to follow. Maybe they could organize the books by critics choices. I know this would be impossible, but it is the only alternative I can see to lumping everything together or breaking them out according to subject…” [end quote from Ed’s email ]
The thing that struck me hearing from a musician like Ed is that he represents what I’ll call the “sensory arts.” He talks about records and paintings, and of course these have direct sensory impact. They don’t come to you as abstract symbols that merely stand for sensory impact, they jangle the senses THEMSELVES with sound, color, form etc. Writers, on the other hand, are confined to scribbles. Ideas represented by abstract scratchings, if you will. We skip the scenic route, trying to plant sensory effects directly in the brain rather than via the senses. Tough road, and not as much fun. We depend on readers with imaginations, associations and the willingness to think a little. Should that shape market labeling? Seems to me it makes the “style” all the more important.
An excellent Midwest writer, Frank Wydra (THE CURE), took the opposite view, emailing support for the content categories. I couldn’t get hold of Frank for permission to quote him verbatim, but essentially he argues that styles are a given and that readers sort them out. With much more eloquence than this summary can achieve (call it style), Frank pointed out the difficulties publishers would encounter trying to express the differences, and in the end he thought that “style” would simply become another label.
I never argued that subject matter didn’t, well . . . matter, only that it has increasingly become a series of catchall blind alleys that rob writers of their distinctiveness. Readers expectations are herded into those blind alleys and in the process a lot of writers get dismissed in a lump. That ubiquitous comment – “I don’t usually read books like this…” – is utterly revealing. Books like what? Books having to do with subject matter described variously as horror, western, romance, mystery, science fiction, fantasy etc? It’s a self-limiting form of marketing which has increasingly carved up (and carved out) a lot of readerships and writers. More often than not writers labeled by subject matter never get a chance to be sorted out by general readers, because they are not sampled. I’m simply in favor of moving away from content categories that literally don’t tell the whole story, and I wrote that advisedly in my December 16th column, citing the difficulties.
It occurs to me that filmmaking as a creative art offers some parallels and differences to books in its marketing. Movies share many of the same general labels – westerns, science fiction, comedy, romance, horror etc – but look how much more broadly they reach, despite the fact that many are made from books whose appeal (at least until the movie is made) is sharply limited by contrast. The movie-goer’s expectations are conditioned to much more than just subject matter. Films are marketed with all kinds of hype about the performances, the chemistry between actors, the beauty of the cinematography, the editing, the directing, the animation, the special effects, and so on. Star power is effectively a preset for characters portrayed. By the time the video is released, the movie is a known quantity as far as marketing. This comparison between film and book marketing is imperfect, to say the least, with many exceptions to what I’m saying, but I think overall it is quite fair to say that the average movie comes at a potential customer with far more emphasis on elements other than mere typecasting as a category. You could draw similar conclusions from live theater and performance art.
Most of the response I got was for the January 16, 2006, column, “Thomas Sullivan: Who?” Several emails shared lengthy descriptions of where and how writers write. Distilling that with what I know personally of other professional writers, the one common element seems to be control. My word. Have a feeling semantics would require a different word from different writers. What I’m talking about is the assurance that the atmosphere is saturated with whatever one considers non-intrusive. Amazing what a range of possibilities that includes. For some it is pristine silence, for others just the opposite, even background roar, so long as it is predictable and will not engage (distract) the writer directly. In fact, I’m still corresponding with a couple of people about this, dredging up anecdotes and searching for common ground in what would seem to be contradictory methods to produce the same result. I’ll save the details for one of the next columns. Touching on the same subject, writer Robert C. Jones from Michigan passed along some interesting research on creativity, which I will also try to include.
So glad the ski stuff resonated with others who read the column, though. Nothing more inspiring to me than to be in a magic setting where every cell of my being is required and the full sensory panel is lit up. Why wouldn’t that be the obvious place of choice to form thoughts, give free play to imagination, and solve specific problems in the development of a story? Artists are cannibals. What’s the bit – you are what you eat? Add to that: you write what you absorb. It’s metabolism. Being surrounded by an inspiring ambience has just got to press buttons if your nerve endings are still in touch with your brain. Doesn’t make sense to lock oneself up in a sterile cubicle all of the time. Garbage in, garbage out. Much better to select kinetic settings consistent with the tone of one’s work and channel the vitality as it happens.
There are ways to shortcut live influences, however. At least for me. Sometimes a movie, a photograph, a CD or even a phone conversation can fire up my muse. But more and more I favor full senses five brought to bear on whatever I want to write about. Maybe that’s a failure of imagination. Dunno. I do know that when I get out in the world, and all systems are go, fed by direct sensory stimulation, my mind just naturally gets with the pace. You have to shape the setting to the task at hand, of course. If you’re writing about a neurotic trapped between four walls and drowning in his own abstractions, then maybe a writer’s garret is the place to be. I just don’t want the venue to dictate or smoother the mood of what I write. And if you want to awaken your full spectrum of feelings, you need something transcendent to jar you. For me it’s those ski trails, my breathing cadenced to the wind as I skate up-hill toward a full moon, and tuck on the downside to soar blindly into some dark hollow where I am the alien and denizens scurry in the underbrush. That’s what phantom blue snow is all about. Tabula rasa for my imagination to write upon.
The “head’s up” I mentioned comes from Suzanne Beecher. There is no better friend to writing on the Web that I know of than this inspired entrepreneur from Sarasota, Florida. Having eschewed the usual academic routes to a career, Suzanne opened a restaurant at age 21, subsequently created and edited her own business mag, and now regularly and fearlessly beards corporate lions in their dens as part of her many outreaches to opportunity. She is disarmingly homey (homey not “homely” – this stunning blonde who has been known to get up in the middle of the night to drive her new car). She is a baker of chocolate chip cookies who writes down-to-earth columns on Dearreader.com that reach some 300,000 subscribers to her book clubs. I have been fortunate enough to have had my last three novels presented to her readers, and she tells me that they are actively looking for new books they can use in their horror and thriller categories. And as Suzanne would say, “Thanks for reading.” Your thoughts are welcome and your attention valued.
Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com/
http://twitter.com/thomassullivan
7 Comments:
David Niall Wilson said…
It’s an interesting comparison, the visual arts and sensory arts to the written word. You see every sort of musician in the world doing Christmas albums, for instance, and a lot of cross overs and collaborations that draw their audiences from various listening pools in music – and artists are allowed to go through “periods” where they switch styles completely, or create new ones…but authors?
I suppose if you are Stephen King you can get away with writing a Western, but unless you have name recognition level fame, you are going to have a hard time selling a publisher on a project well out of the range within which they already know how to market your work. I guess instead of Christmas albums, the things writers are allowed to do is cookbooks and children’s books.
As long as marketing gurus, editing gurus, publishing gurus, and readers are all seperate groups, this seems an enigma unlikely to end well for any of us (lol)
DNW
David Niall Wilson said…
Sigh…the things writers ARE allowed to do, not is…sorry.
DNW
Janet Berliner said…
I think most musicians, artists, and writers get battered for taking sideroads, just as we do, but they go ahead anyway. The Biggies do what they want, as you both said; the rest, like the Sullies, Berliners, and Niall Wilsons, are constantly torn. I know that I am. We find ourselves up that ole crick without a canoe, let alone a paddle. In the end, I think it depends upon how we define success. As someone who loves canoeing, you like those cricks, Sully. As for me, I’d rather be out on the ocean in a pea green boat than writing what I’m told to write rather than following my head and heart.
Truth is, there’s also that place in-between, which is where most sensible people end up–artists, musicians, writers. I’m just not sensible.
David Niall Wilson said…
Hah. I slice myself into thin ribbons and trickle down all the “cricks” and out over the ocean without even the pea green boat and hope that one day, before I fall apart, I’ll come back together and be on the right tributary…it’s a dream.
DNW
Janet Berliner said…
You will, Dave. I have faith. J.
Sully said…
What a crazy day. Think I am without a canoe, a paddle, or a crick so far, but I’m about to head out into the wilderness and correct one of the three. Yeah, as writers, we do seem to be bludgeoned by the limitations of the abstractions we use. It’s an argument for performance art. I say BAN published books. Let’s just read our stuff on street corners… That way we can draw or repel based on our good looks and sonorous voices. Uh-oh… Might work for you, but I’m in trouble.
– Sully
Teresa said…
Just want to toss in my own ‘Hell Ya!!’for Susan Beecher. I subscribe to the Horror and SF clubs and they are wonderful for bringing new authors to my attention. I’ve bought books by Tim Lebbon and James Moore because I read them on the ‘club’.
This week I’m reading from Gary Braunbeck’s “Keepers”.
and on a related note, I thought I’d point out this new service developed by Andrew Bert, Called iFiction http://www.aburt.com/ifiction/
What is iFiction?
“iFiction is like iTunes — pay a small amount for some great stories. You can read the first part for free, then pay an amount determined by the author to read the rest. You can pay by Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex, or PayPal.
iFiction stories are direct from the author. That means you are directly supporting authors you like, with no middleman
Any author can sign up to use this free tool.
iFiction was created and is hosted / maintained by science fiction author Andrew Burt.”
As a reader I assure you I will be taking advantage of this great idea.
