About Richard Bowker

Author of the Portal series, the Last P.I. series, and other novels

Do world-class writers have world-class editors?

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Richard Bowker

This question occurred to me as I read Haruki Murakami’s new novel, Colorless Tsukuri Tazaki And His Years of Pilgrimage (why can’t I come up with catchy titles like that?). Murakami is clearly a world-class writer. This novel was a #1 bestseller, it was reviewed on the cover of the Times Book Review, it got a top-of-the-line design from Knopf. Murakami has won prestigious awards, people talk about him as Nobel Prize-worthy. But…

The novel seem to me to contain some elementary fiction-writing mistakes, the kind that any editor or writing teacher would point out. For example: the novel begins with Tsukuri in college, wanting to die because he has been dumped, without a word of explanation, by his five best friends from high school. The novel becomes the story of why he was dumped and how he comes to terms with it. Fair enough. The problem is, the author never brings us far enough into that high-school world for us to really experience it. We just get summarized memories.

The result is that, when we finally find out why Tsukuri was dumped, the revelation lacks emotional resonance. It’s all about one of the girls in his group, but we have never really seen that girl, we have never experienced her. So, for me anyway, the revelation didn’t matter much.

An editor would say: Show don’t tell, Haruki-san. Consider some flashbacks. Bring us more deeply into the world of the high-school kids. Give the reader more of a stake in what the protagonist is going through. (And while you’re at it, why don’t you explain what happened to that college friend who simply disappeared? Don’t you think readers will care about that?)

But I have no idea if Murakami has such an editor. Murakami has such a distinctive voice that perhaps an editor would be reluctant to point out what are obvious flaws by conventional writing standards. What if Murakami had some deep reason for doing things the way he did them? Are writers like Murakami beyond editing? Maybe the publisher is so happy when he turns in a new manuscript that it goes straight into production.

This kind of editorial advice and support is supposed to be one of the strengths of traditional publishing. As I’ve explained elsewhere on this blog, I never received much of it. I wonder if people like Murakami are different.

The Times’ public editor weighs in on the paper’s Amazon Derangement Syndrome

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Richard Bowker

It doesn’t surprise me that Margaret Sullivan, the public editor New York Times, has finally seen fit to weigh in on its absurdly one-sided coverage of the Amazon/Hachette dispute. The column’s title, “Publishing Battle Should Be Covered, Not Joined” sums up her opinion. The reporter, David Streitfeld, insists that he’s just covering the controversy. Sullivan isn’t quite buying it:

MY take: It’s important to remember that this is a tale of digital disruption,not good and evil. The establishment figures The Times has quoted on this issue, respected and renowned though they are, should have their statements subjected to critical analysis, just as Amazon’s actions should be. The Times has given a lot of ink to one side and — in story choice, tone and display — helped to portray the retailer as a literature-killing bully instead of a hard-nosed business.

I would like to see more unemotional exploration of the economic issues; more critical questioning of the statements of big-name publishing players; and greater representation of those who think Amazon may be a boon to a book-loving culture, not its killer.

That sounds about right to me.

Things I don’t understand about the war between Amazon and Hachette

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Richard Bowker

The dispute between Amazon and Hachette has continued long enough that it probably qualifies as trench warfare. Everyone seems to have an opinion about the conflict, even though neither Amazon nor Hachette is being very specific about their positions. Amazon clearly wants to lower ebook prices, and Hachette wants to keep them higher to avoid cannibalizing print sales. Amazon has flexed its muscles by refusing to discount books by Hachette authors and limiting their availability, among other things.

OK, fine. I can understand how authors, even non-Hachette authors, could be angered and possibly worried by Amazon’s actions. But here are some things I don’t understand.

Why is the New York Times presenting such a one-sided view of the war? Here is their latest article, titled “Literary Lions Unite in Protest over Amazon’s E-book Tactics”. Well, I suppose it’s news that authors like Philip Roth and Ursula K. LeGuin have come out in opposition to Amazon, but you will search in vain in the article for a quote from anyone supporting Amazon. It’s not like they are hard to find.

Why are these authors so certain about Amazon’s evil motives? Here is a quote from LeGuin:

“We’re talking about censorship: deliberately making a book hard or impossible to get, ‘disappearing’ an author,” Ms. Le Guin wrote in an email. “Governments use censorship for moral and political ends, justifiable or not. Amazon is using censorship to gain total market control so they can dictate to publishers what they can publish, to authors what they can write, to readers what they can buy. This is more than unjustifiable, it is intolerable.”

Huh? The matter at hand is a contract dispute in which Amazon wants to sell Hachette’s books at a lower price. How do we get from there to censorship and total control of publishers, authors, and readers? And how is Amazon making books impossible to get? I went looking for a book to buy my lovely wife for her birthday. It happened to be published by Little Brown, a Hachette company, so it wasn’t immediately available. I went over to the Barnes & Noble site and found it there. I didn’t want to pay extra for shipping to get it in time, so I stopped in at the Barnes & Noble store and got it there. Slightly more expensive and more inconvenient than getting it shipped to me by Amazon Prime, but no big deal.

Why don’t the authors focus on the more basic issue? Lee Child mentions it in this colloquy with J. A. Konrath: Why does Amazon care so much about ebook prices?

One thing few people know about me is I love ironing. I just moved, which was a great excuse for a new ironing board. I checked Amazon, naturally, who had boards ranging from $18 all the way to $220. Has Amazon approached the expensive manufacturer and said, “C’mon, pal, America needs cheaper ironing boards! Think of the children!” No, it said, “Sure, throw it up on the site and we’ll see if anyone’s interested. We trust our customers to decide for themselves.” . . . Can you explain in detail why the e-book market shouldn’t operate the same way as the ironing board market or the amplifier market? Why do e-book buyers – uniquely – need Nanny Amazon to save them from deciding for themselves? Are books special? Are they different? Or are there others factors in play?

Well, I don’t know the answer to that. Why does Amazon care so much about ebook prices? I assume it’s because of the Kindle. Amazon wants t ebooks attractively priced so people will want to read them on this device that Amazon sells. But I don’t know.

Why do self-published authors go against their own self-interest by supporting lower ebook prices for books from traditionally publishers? If Hachette wants to charge $12.99 for their ebooks, isn’t that good for those of us charging $4.99 and less for books that are every bit as good as Hachette’s? But most self-published authors that I’m aware of are firmly on Amazon’s side. One reason, I suppose, is that Amazon has done right by these authors, and as a result they approve of Amazon’s model — lower prices leading to more sales. More people reading more books is just a good thing.

It sure is an interesting time in the world of publishing.

Copywriting for dummies: tooting my own horn

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Richard Bowker

One of the challenges of being an independent author is that you’re responsible for everything associated with publishing your book, including editing, cover design, and marketing.

I haven’t outsourced writing the marketing material for my recent novels. Hey, I’m a writer! I can do that! But it ain’t easy. Your job is to write a couple hundred compelling words explaining why the world should be thrilled to read your book. Where to begin?

Anyway, here’s my first attempt at marketing copy for Where All the Ladders Start. Does this make you want to part with three or four of your hard-earned dollars?

What I wanted to say was this:

The novel is about religion and family, not necessarily in that order. It involves two separate cases, which causes it to be about a third longer than the first two novels in the Last P.I. series. In the course of the novel, our protagonist reads the following books:

A Tale of Two Cities
Middlemarch
Great Expectations
An unnamed Harry Bosch novel
Selections from the collected poems of William Butler Yeats

His friend Doctor J, who has very different tastes in literature, reads the following books:

Civilization and Its Discontents
A Genealogy of Morals
The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

And the following things happen to our hero:

He is whacked on the head with a rock
He fights off a pack of feral humans in the wilds of Somerville
He is arrested for murder
He is shot at twice
He skins his knee
He rips his new pants climbing a fence
He is lectured to by several people about the meaning of history and the danger of making bad career choices
Against his better judgment, he travels to New York City

But most of that didn’t make it into the copy.

Maybe I should at least try to say something about Middlemarch?

The Old Manse

Posted on September 27, 2014 by Richard Bowker

Like Walden Pond, the Old Manse in Concord, MA is another American literary shrine just minutes away from where I work. I visited it decades ago, but a couple of weeks ago the entire company got to go there.

Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in the place. Emerson wrote his essay “Nature” there; Hawthorne wrote the pieces he later collected in the book Mosses from an Old Manse.

The main feature of the house for me (the only thing I remembered from my first visit decades ago) is the little messages and sayings that Sophia Hawthorne etched on the window panes with her diamond ring; these give me a shivery sense of stepping into her long-ago life.

The original garden was planted by Thoreau, and it’s still maintained:

(The people handing out cider are new.)

The Old Manse overlooks Concord’s Old North Bridge. If you happened to be hanging out there on April 19, 1775, you would have heard “the shot heard round the world.” Here is Emerson’s poem “Concord Hymn,” which he wrote for the dedication of the Battle monument there in 1837:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

That first stanza still packs a wallop, doesn’t it?

Where All the Ladders Start

Posted on September 20, 2014 by Richard Bowker

I have looked at the novel I’ve been working on in all different seasons, at all different times of day, and I have finally decided its title is Where All the Ladders Start. Readers of a poetical persuasion will recognize the quote from the ending of the Yeats poem The Circus Animals’ Desertion:

I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

Deciding to give the books in my Last P. I. series titles lifted from poems is one of the many ways in which I strive to be a commercial failure. Couldn’t I have come up with something clever — liking naming them after numbers, or colors, or letters of the alphabet?

Anyway, I am declaring the novel “pretty much done.” So you’ll have a chance to take a look at it before very long.

Wanna see my son in a Jordanian sitcom?

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Richard Bowker

“Wait,” you say, “there are sitcoms in Jordan?”

Yes, there are. This one is called My American Neighbor. It’s a mild cross-cultural satire: Jordanians misunderstand American customs; Americans misunderstand Jordan. In this episode, the American guy living in Jordan is getting married to a local girl, and his family arrives from the States. They show up at around the seven-minute mark. His kid brother is wearing a Red Sox cap — hey, I recognize that cap! Later he wears a Celtics jacket, and in another scene he wears a green shirt with the Narragansett “Hi, neighbor!” slogan on it. I recognize that shirt, too! Clearly he’s giving off a New England vibe.

Here’s the show:

Anyway, I think James is pretty good (not that he got paid or anything). The best part of the show, though, is the Mona Lisa print on the wall with duct tape covering her décolletage.

Writers in movies: Bright Star

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Richard Bowker

Another in an occasional series.

Like The Invisible Woman and Hemingway and Gellhorn, Bright Star is about a real writer — this time, John Keats. The movie covers the last three years of Keats’s life, focusing on his relationship with Fanny Brawne.

Unlike Dickens and Hemingway, Keats was not a jerk. He is, in fact, just about the most lovable great writer I know of. This is, of course, problematic in a movie. Here is what the director, Jane Campion, had to deal with:

All Keats’s friends loved him.
His relationship with Fanny Brawne was chaste and “appropriate”. Fanny’s family loved him as much as his friends did.
At the end of the movie he’s gonna die, and we all know it. (He dies because he catches TB taking care of his beloved brother.)

So you have a sort of tragedy — the romance is doomed, and Keats is doomed to think that he will die a failure. But that’s just sad; it’s not dramatic. Where do you find your conflict? Campion finds a little between Fanny and Keats’s roommate, but that’s about it. For the most part, watching this movie is like watching very elegant paint dry. It’s well acted; the costumes are great; but there’s just not that much going on.

There’s a little bit in the movie about writing: we see Keats and Charles Brown, his roommate, sitting around during the day trying to find stuff to write about. And then there’s the famous scene of Keats sitting in Brown’s yard one morning writing “Ode to a Nightingale”:

According to Keats’ friend Brown, Keats finished the Ode in just one morning: “In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass-plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found those scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feelings on the song of the nightingale.”

But really, there’s not much you can do to dramatize that. This is the essential problem with writers in movies: a young guy sits in a chair, listens to some birds, and scribbles out an immortal masterpiece. It just isn’t very cinematic.

Anyway, let’s all enjoy Bright Star:

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—

         Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

         Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

         Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

         Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

         Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

         Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Faulkner on inspiration

Posted on August 31, 2014 by Richard Bowker

Two of my favorite writing quotations come from William Faulkner:

I only write when I’m inspired. Fortunately, I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.

And in a similar vein:

I don’t know anything about inspiration because I don’t know what inspiration is; I’ve heard about it, but I never saw it.

I was thinking about these quotations recently as I came to the conclusion that my next novel should be a sequel to The Portal. Fine, but what should the sequel be about? The thing to do, I have found, is to open up a blank document, start asking myself questions (starting with What is this book about?), and start trying to answer them.

In less than two hours, over the course of a couple of mornings, I had the title and the basic idea. They will probably change completely before I’m done, but at least now I’ve got a direction to head in.

The point I wanted to make here is not that I’m especially creative, but that when I say “morning”, I mean 6:30 in the damn morning. Years ago, I couldn’t have imagined being creative at that ungodly hour. But nowadays that’s the way may life happens to be organized, so that’s when I have to get my “inspiration.”

Faulkner knew what he was talking about. And it seems like someone thought that first quote was worthy of an inspirational poster:

“The Kiss” and Chekhov’s Gun

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Richard Bowker

The Kiss, from 1929, was the last silent movie for both MGM and Greta Garbo.

There’s no to watch it except for Garbo. That’s because there’s just not much going on in it. As the web site Silent Volume says:

I got the feeling that The Kiss, Garbo’s last silent film, was acted on the sly, as though everyone knew the Temptress had run its course and wanted to see how little they could build around the character and still make it work. For The Kiss is short: 62 minutes; without a subplot of any kind, one scant scene of comic relief; a barely resolved second act and no real third act at all.

A commenter on the site suggests that the studio just gave up on the film because it knew that talkies were the future and didn’t want to waste time and money on something no one would watch.

I’m always interested in plots that involve Chekhov’s gun, however, and The Kiss includes a very rudimentary implementation of the technique — every bit as rudimentary as the one in The Two Mrs. Carrolls. In an early scene we see Garbo’s husband dropping some papers, and then opening the bottom drawer of a file cabinet to insert them into it. Inside the drawer we and Garbo see — a gun! Later on (spoiler alert!) Garbo is trying to stop her husband from beating up the callow young man he has seen her chastely kissing (Lew Ayres, appropriately awful). The husband thrusts Garbo aside. She is on the floor — she suddenly recalls the gun in the file cabinet next to her — she takes it out — she shoots!

I don’t know the state of forensics back in the 20’s, but it seems odd that the jury lets Garbo off on the theory that her husband committed suicide. The bullet, after all, was fired from a gun at least half a dozen feet away, held at the level of the husband’s kneecap. Such details aren’t worth worrying about in this movie, however. Better to just look at Garbo.