Robert Sawyer's "publishing problem"

Robert Sawyer, a highly respected science fiction writer(I really like some of his work), has a publishing problem.  No, I don't mean that he can't get published.  He can.  You can get his books in any halfway respectable bookstore that sells science fiction.  He's against "self publishing" science fiction.  Totally against it.

 

 

He claims, in effect, that you will never, ever find a science fiction writer who self publishes.  This may or may not be true.  Writers who write science fiction are often a quirky lot.  And there was "vanity publishing" back in the days of classic writers like Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, etc.  "Vanity publishing" back then had a very bad reputation, and for very good reason.  Also, there was no such thing as e-publishing.  For that matter, there was no such thing as the Internet.  So I can see where he's coming from. 

 

I should also add that I've seen at least some "independently published" fiction(some of it is actually a type of science fiction).  The quality varies, and the audience for some of this stuff may be rather limited.  In some instances, I think the writers know this, and that is why they go this route.  Occasionally, the writer goes this route after trying to get a "bite" from some agent(very hard to do these days).  These writers have done all the right things that they're supposed to do, but gave up in despair of ever having their books published. 

 

However, a lot has changed in recent years, and many of the publishing houses(including the ones that publish science fiction) are subsidiaries of giant corporations, and "traditional" publishing is not in a happy state right now.  It's always been hard for an unknown writer to get him or herself published, and perhaps even harder for a writer of science fiction who can't break into one of the magazines(and there aren't very many of those any more,  either).  Is Mr. Sawyer completely unaware of this?  It almost seems as if he is.  And, unfortunately for Mr. Sawyer, I think it is only a matter of time before a lot of material ends up e-published anyway.  Again, this may not be true of science fiction, but I wonder.  I don't know how much time will pass before this is the case, but I am pretty sure this will happen; the publishing business at the moment is in a fluctuating state.  And because of this, if there isn't some science fiction writer who has "self published" somewhere, there soon will be, and people will read him or her.  And, perhaps, Mr. Sawyer will end up having a very red face.

Anne G

Write what you love?

Not long ago, I wrote about the "deadliness" of taking the maxim "write what you know" too literally. Since then, I've had an interesting conversation with my (live) writing partner, about whether one should "write for the market" or  "write what one loves".  Neither of us are published, yet, and I haven't even had the courage to try to peddle my Great Medieval Science Fiction Masterpiece With Neandertals to an agent.  Since the current draft of the first book in my trilogy is a lot stronger and better organized than my first draft was -- partly because I know my characters a lot better, I've been more careful with the timeline, and am making fewer(I hope) "historical mistakes", and some characters have developed that weren't there before, I think I'm getting closer to the point where I can start sending out query letters to agents. 

 

But here's the problem.  Science fiction doesn't seem much interested in Neandertals right now.  Even worse, the time period I've set my book in  There's lots of "Tudor themed" stuff, fiction about the Crusades, and tons of American Civil War historical fiction out there.  Trouble is, I'm not really interested in writing anything in those periods.  I don't think I can write "hard" science fiction; my writing is more like Ursula le Guin's or an early woman s-f writer by the name of Zenna Henderson.  Its only saving grace, in a way(as a selling point, at least), is that it also could be sort of described as Harry Potter for adults, in a "real" medieval setting.  But late Anglo-Saxon/early Anglo-Norman?????  For what will presumably be an American audience who has probably never heard of some of the (real) characters?  I don't know.   I've been told(mostly by writers of primarily historical fiction), that certain periods just don't "sell".  Some authors, particularly in the romance field, will "update" their settings(though not their genre), to reflect what "sells" at the moment.  This is one reason, I think, why there is such a plethora of material about shapeshifting werewolves, vampires, and the like.  Especially after the success of the Twilight series.  But that's another story.  I think it's easier for romance novelists to do this, since the conventions of romance writing are still fairly strict(unlike mysteries, where there seem to be a lot of variations, though there's always a "mystery" of some kind).

 

On the other hand, writers who tell you how to write your own novel -- and, interestingly, a  number of very good writers(Stephen King and Terry Brooks come to mind, but there are others), pretty much tell you to "write what you love" and never mind the "market".  Of course, both Terry Brooks and Stephen King are extremely successful at what they do, and they love what they write.  This is extremely obvious from the way they write.  They aren't just "churning it out", although Stephen King admitted he almost did, for a while, when he had other problems.  Even Nora Roberts, who generated an article in a recent New Yorker magazine, seems to write what she loves, which is basically romance and "women's fiction", and, as J.D. Robb, suspense.  And she's successful at it.  She doesn't have to worry about a "day job", because she has a loyal fan base and her stories are, well, comforting, I guess.  I've never read anything by her, but she soulnds like an interesting and fun person to be around, and doesn't take herself too seriously.

 

Unfortunately, most writers aren't going to be this lucky.  I"m writing something that at least seems kind of "oddball" on the face of it, partly because it's a sort of "hybrid" of science fiction and historical novel, and partly because the period in question isn't "popular" or well-known, at least to the average American(besides which, Americans in particular seem to have some extremely odd ideas about medieval life.  Which, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, turns some potential readers off.  On the other hand, this is more true of romance novels, than it is regarding other genres. 

 

My writing partner probably isn't going to be so lucky, either, if she decides to try to peddle her current efforts, which have kind of come out like Little House on the Prairie meets, well, I don't know exactly, except that there are wizards involved.  Of course, a lot of people have loved the Little House books over the years.  I did, as a child.  My writing partner loved them even more.  But then, I grew up and have always lived in, cities, whereas she grew up in a small town that was, in some ways, more like the environment of the Little House books than Seattle was when I grew up(even though it was at that time, just an overgrown small town).  But will books written like this sell to a modern audience?  Even to a modern Young Adult audience?  I don't know?  Should she and I care?  Again, I don't know.  I know that some writers on another e-mail list are willing to shape their work to the "market".  I don't know how willing I would be to do this.  I can't write what I don't particularly love, and neither can my writing partner.  Though we have different interests(in some ways), and different writing styles), we agree on this:  we can't write what we aren't really passionate about.   Neither could Stephen King and Terry Brooks, and several others I can't think of at the moment.  They got lucky.  I'd like  to get lucky.  So would my writing partner.  But it won't be easy, if it happens.  And  if either or both of us do get lucky, I have a feeling it won't be because we shaped our writing efforts to whatever the market "wants".  Besides which, as Stephen King and others point out, what the market "wants" keeps changing all the time, and there's no guarantee that if you write about vampires or werewolves, that your writing will be anything other than "derivative", and heaven knows, I"ve seen far too much of that sort of writing, to be impressed with the willingness of some writers to "write to the market".

 

But perhaps there's hope.  I have something "on the shelf" that might work as a Young Adult novel.  I didn't conceive of it this way, but who knows?  It might work.  And yes, there are Neandertals in it.  And wolves put in an appearance, too.  No knights or castles, though.  Because it takes place in the near future, in a former Western Washington timber town(a creation of my imagination, but here, I really am "writing what I know", since I know Western Washington fairly well).

Anne G

An interview with Ursula le Guin

Ursula  le Guin is one of my favorite science fiction writers. She recently gave an interview with an online science fiction magazine.  Ever since she came out with The Left Hand of Darkness, a tale about a planet where the beings there change sex for a very brief time and then go back to being "a-gendered" ,I've liked her. Unlike many science fiction authors, she hasn't been afraid to explore themes few others will take on. And while the ratio of female to male science fiction writers has gotten better(there are more female ones now, than when I was growing up), there are still fewer female than male authors, and many, though not all,of the female ones tend to write pure "fantasy". 

 

For the record, LeGuin is old-fashioned enough to dislike "sci-fi" as a descriptor. She insists on "sf".  Personally, I think both are acceptable, but then, I'm younger than LeGuin. 

 

I like LeGuin for several reasons:  As I said, she takes on social themes that not all writers of the genre do.  Particularly at the moment, there doesn't seem to be much "social" science fiction writing going on.  That is,there is a lot of "hard" science fiction, e.g. very "techy" stuff set in dysfunctional futures, or there are endless Tolkien fantasy clones, set in medieval-like worlds without any of the quirkiness or unpleasantness of the real thing. And then there are some interesting novels set in the future,where some horrible bioengineered plague of one sort or another  spreads over the planet. Some of these books are very well written, and well-thought out.  Robert Sawyer and Greg Bear come to mind. But almost no one writes about imagined societies that have  what might be called social structures "alternative" to the kinds we see on earth today.  One partial possible exception is Julie Czerneda.  In some of her books,she describes aliens with more or less "fantastic" social arrangements. But unfortunately, in the last book of the one series I read, it turned into space opera, and I gave up.  Basically, I don't like space opera very much.

 

Also, LeGuin is humane.  She really cares about the societies she makes up, and tries to see them, no matter how apparently unpleasant, as people. This is especially true in her "younger readers"series, like Earthsea. Furthermore, the people she imagines are not necessarily "European looking"(which, European looking though I am, I really appreciate). This is rare, and it seems  LeGuin has made a deliberate attempt to do this. I believe she was one of the pioneers in the field, in doing this. Unfortunately, making heroes and heroines of people not "like us" is still fairly rare, though non-European "supporting casts"  are more common now, than when I was growing up.

 

Finally, though her writing, she continues to speak out and reflect on society as we know it,and society as it might be -- some day. Unlike some science fiction writers, her writing is easy, and not "edgy", but still has an "edge" to it, that is well worth exploring, especially for ideas that perhaps have not yet been entirely articulated. I say hooray for this.  I am in awe of this.  Besides, isn't that what science fiction/s-f/sci-fi is supposed to do?  I wish I could say I do the same in my writing, but alas,I don't. Or at least I don't think I do.  I'm a different sort of writer. But again, aren't all writers, no matter what genre they write in,different in some subtle way,from one another?

 

Something to ponder,

Anne G

Robert Sawyer's essay on Neandertals

I have a lot of respect for Robert Sawyer.  Most of the time.  He is an excellent writer,and I've enjoyed many of the boos I've read that he's authored.  I will continue to follow his output.  And he has written an essay about Neandertals, which is worth reading.Unfortunately, he trots out the same old, same old, regarding what Neandertals did or did not do, though he does put a kind of different "spin" on it.  He claims that Neandertals were somehow smarter for not supposedly emulating the things "we" are supposedly famous for:  burying our dead and having "religion"(he implies, just as in his Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, that Neandertals didn't), and he implies that they didn't "go in for" decorations, such as painting themselves with ocher. 


Trouble is, there are a number of known, and agreed-upon, Neandertal burial sites.  Even the (somewhat) controversial Shanidar is thought to be a burial site, though there is disagreement as to whether they "really" buried their dead with flowers(I happen to think that in this case, they probably did).  And there are others.  It is also true that there are some sites that were thought at one time to be Neandertal burial sites, which are now not thought to be, but that is entirely different from saying Neandertals never practiced rituals or buried their beloved relatives. 
It is also untrue that Neandertals "never" decorated themselves.  There is ample evidence of this, at some sites, and even in earlier sites, there is some evidence of ocher use, which may have served both practical and "decorative" purposes. 


Finally, he trots out the whole "extinction by genocide" argument which has been around in one form or another, practically since the time Neandertals were first discovdefred.  A lot of people seem to buy into it, because they have an unnecessarily "dark" view of what "human nature" is. There is "human nature" all right, but those people who seem to hold this view most strongly, also seem not to understand that philosophers and others have been debating exactly what "human nature" is for  at least the last 2,000 years, and have not come to any agreement on this subject. And again, while there is some argument as to whether Neandertals came up with thingvs like decorating themselves, and more "modern" tools by imitating "modern" humans, or whether they came up with these things on their own(the "great minds think alike" version of prehistory, perhaps), there is no doubt that they figured out such complex ideas as social distinctions and probably had rituals and belief systems and myths of their own.  The disadvantage to Neandertals is, these kinds of things don't show up in the archaeological record, except indirectly.  Whereas with "modern" humans, you have a time when somebody started writing down the myths and rituals of the people who were telling the stories, dancing the dances, singing the songs, etc.

Robert Sawyer is, as I said, a fine writer, and this essay was triggered by the fact that Neandertals apparently had tools that were just as efficient as "modern" ones, sometimes more efficient. But even in the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, he seems to have ignored or been unaware of these findings. He may have had an excuse for ignoring or not knowing abou these things at the time he wrote these books. But, again in my view, he has no excuse ignoring these findings now. Shame on Robert Sawyer!

New link

I found a new link today. It's called Biology in Science Fiction And it's a blog. But it has some, well, useful stuff, which is why I added the link. It listed some quite interesting books that make a biology-science fiction link. I've only read one of them --- Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness, in which LeGuiin posits a society where the beings can be either male or female when they are fertile. Which, as I recall the book makes for some pretty interesting situations. And it's now considered a classic of the genre. LeGuin has written a lot of other stuff since, and she's still going strong. I will read her latest series, a YA/science fiction/fantasy series which looks quite good. When I'm done, I'll probably comment on it here, but that won't be for a while. In any case, Biology in Science Fiction looks like a really interesting blog, and I'm going to keep my eye on it.
Anne G

Some more (sort of) good advice to writers from Robert Sawyer

Robert Sawyer has again given writers some advice. Usually, I think his advice is reasonably good. This time around, I'm (sort of) not so sure. He basically is advising would-be writers to write a bunch of short stories before they submit. It looks to me as if he is basically drawing from the arc of his own career here. Like a lot of science fiction writers, he started out writing short stories. But not all writers of SF(or any other fiction) start out that way. Because not everybody can write short stories well. I might be able to, but I write "big". I always have. I tackle big, complex stories, and while I can pare down, I find it very hard to pare down to the miniature quality required of the average short story.

Mind you, I used to read a lot of SF short stories. I cut my teeth on science fiction this way, and I absorbed the work of some excellent authors. Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury come immediately to mind. But I also remember, even as a relatively young girl, reading Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination ---- which is a novel-length work, though very strange in some parts. It's science fiction, after all.

But following his advice, even to get the interest of an agent, probably wouldn't work for me. As I said, I write too "big". Whenever I've wanted to write, it's always been conceived as novel length. I agree with Sawyer that it's much harder, if you're unknown, to interest an agent this way, or a publisher, but there are a lot of things in the publishing world that seem to be changing, some for the benefit of writers, some not. And it would probably not work for the writers I know or am in contact with, most of whom are not yet published, but have good, imaginative works that simply need some polishing.

I think Sawyer is still mentally living in an age when you were pretty much required to "come up" the way he suggests. He still thinks this is the path to getting published. Perhaps he's right. And if you can conceive of "miniature" story arcs, and have the discipline to polish your craft this way, there's nothing wrong with writing short story-sized SF. There are markets for it, and it will get your name in print. But not everybody conceives their story arcs this way, not everybody is attracted to small, spare incidents. And it definitely would not work for, say, a romance writer! Probably not for someone writing mysteries, either. There was a time when this career ladder worked for at least some writers, but you practically have to go back to the days of Fitzgerald and Hemingway to get to that time. Nowadays, yes, there's a lot of work trying to get yourself published, and even then, that won't guarantee success. I read somewhere, that J.K. Rowling got rejected some 25 times before she sold her first Harry Potter book, and after that it got really good "buzz". She was lucky. And she is a very good writer. But she didn't have Robert Sawyer to tell her what she "should" be doing. If she had, Harry Potter probably would not have become the phenomenon it did.
Anne G

Again, Robert Sawyer

Robert Sawyer again has a lovely entry in his blog. It's his definition of science fiction. It's short, but it sums up the genre pretty well. I should note that he doesn't write like I do; I doubt that he would write a novel with a medieval historical backdrop that basically contains "Harry Potter-like" elements. But science fiction contains a pretty wide variety of "critters", so to speak, so I think that the "alternate reality" he speaks of would certainly fit anything I'm writing. Or what my writing-partner friend is writing. Or any number of writers are writing. Be that as it may, for anyone interested in science fiction, or writing in general, the Robert Sawyer blog and website is a good place to go from time to time.
Anne G