ON MCFICTION

"Most people in America want an easy read. I call it McFiction - books which pass right through you without you even digesting them. I don't mean a book that has two-syllable words. I mean chapters you can read in a toilet break. Happy endings. We are more of a TV culture, and that is a hard thing to go up against for any writer."
Jodi Picoult

**************************

JAN:
I'm torn on this quote. A part of me thinks it's just a tad snippy and possibly aimed at the mystery genre. Is that what we are, McFiction? Easy reads digested on the toilet? But a part of me remembers what my very first agent told me when he took on Final Copy. He warned that it would take longer to sell because it was "intelligent." (and yes, it took more than three years to sell)
I do think many readers want easy reads, but I don't think that's always a bad thing. Let's just say that when I was sitting ten to twelve hours a day in a hospice at my mother's side, Janet Evanovich provided real relief where David McCullough's John Adams did not. True, I can't remember which Evanovich I was reading or what the plot was, and I still reflect on the new perspective I have on Thomas Jefferson and the early down-and-dirty American politics revealed in John Adams. But the point is that sometimes you read to learn and sometimes you just need the distraction of raw entertainment.

And if "most people in America want an easy read," why are Jody's books, which involve intense themes and are not easily digestible, such best sellers? I don't think the problem is that readers are morons. I think the problem is that there are fewer readers overall, more reselling of book copies, and a lot less room for sales in all categories of fiction and non fiction. So, as Hank says, what think? Is McFiction a problem for us? Or are we the McFiction Jody is talking about?

HALLIE:
I confess, I like a book that has something to chew on, something to say as well as being diverting. If I get to page 20 and I feel like there's no 'there' there, I generally stop reading. And yes there's lots of mysteries that seem pretty ephemeral, but we haven't got the lock on light by any means.
And let's pause for a moment to praise great bathroom books. In my bathroom right now is Bill Bryson's THE MOTHER TONGUE: ENGLISH AND HOW IT GOT THAT WAY. It's been there for 4 months and I'm 3/4 of the way through it. Perfectly fascinating and perfect in 3-minute sittings. Mc-nonfiction? Hardly.
Her comment on short chapters -- I'd say that's definitely a trend for an ADD-TV-Addicted audience.

HANK:
Okay, time to hear from the TV person. I've been a TV reporter for 30 years. And each year that goes by, the length of my stories (and everyone else's) has been cut cut cut. In 1991, I did a story that was 11 minutes long. To be sure, we had an exclusive interview with a person confessing to murder, so okay, how are you going to cut that down. But now, our stories are about four minutes--and that's amazingly long. (Most news stores are 75 seconds.)

"They" say: viewers just won't listen to anything longer than that, and they'll just click away. And "They" say: if the viewers click away, it won't matter how long your story is, because no one will be watching it.

In fact, there's a TV saying that if Moses brought down the Ten Commandments these days, we'd have to do a story saying: "In other news, Moses brought down the Ten Commandments today, the three most important of which were...etc."

So, we try to learn to write shorter better. (Insert the Cicero quote you all know so well here.) "Select" don't "compress" is the mantra.

But "select" translates to "leave out." And in writing/reading a book, if you get all plot and no substance, then--I think--that's a waste. You don't have to be a philosopher king to allow the readers to have some insight into the "Why." You don't have to leave out the "why" or the "what it means." And it doesn't have to be long. It just has to be good.

RO:
Where do I begin? This quote opens up a lot of issues - long versus short, light versus heavy, and some would say, meaningful versus meaningless. First of all, I'm just glad that anyone is reading anything, they could be watching some moronic tv show (apologies to HPR, but we know she doesn't do moronic.) And I lost any snobbishness I might have had about what people read long ago when I was a bookseller and kept trying to steer people toward the Marquez when all they wanted was Sweet Savage Love. (Anyone remember that bodice-ripper?)

I agree with Jan. It does sound a tad snippy. I would respectfully suggest that long does not equal good, any more than short equals bad. I am currently reading my first Ian Rankin - a short, but terrific (and not stupid) read. I am also slogging through the biography of Captain Richard Burton, a long, long, book that I have been working on for two years. As Jan said, different books, different reasons for reading, different reasons for writing. Which is better seems like the wrong question.

On the subject of three page chapters...The first time I read one was in a James Patterson and I remember thinking, "that's it? He's got to be kidding." Then I got it. When the scene's over, the scene's over. There are even a few short chapters in my book. Is it marketing? Something designed to make a book feel like more of a pageturner? Perhaps. Or maybe JP just knows that many of his readers are juggling kids and car keys, or waiting for a flight, or taking the train or bus to work, and they have snippets of time to read a book.

At my reading group a few weeks ago, we talked about when we read. One lucky woman said she sat down and read for 6 hours straight. I looked at her in disbelief. Who had 6 hours in a row to read? I took her cue and allowed/forced myself to finish The Birthday Party in one sitting.(Amazing story, btw) It was great, but I'm not counting on it happening again any time soon. Maybe short chapters are popular because, just like us, readers are juggling a zillion things every day. I'm glad they fit us in at all.

ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS

"A good first sentence knows about everything that will follow it and leans forward with great force, taking you with it."

**Stanley Fish in the New York Times

*********************

HANK:
Stanley Fish was in Maureen Dowd's spot in the Times...and had a wonderfully thought-provoking column.

It was about how he can pick a good mystery in the airport bookstore--really fast--as they're calling his flight.

He says: the only "sure fire" method? Not the cover, not the jacket copy, not the blurbs. He says it's to read the first line.

He has a clunker or two--but offered this as the one from the book he bought:
"Joel Campbell, eleven years old at the time, began his descent into murder with a bus ride."

He says "it's efficient, dense, and free of self-preening."

So--you all--what think?
**Does your first line pass the Stanley test?
(I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours...and I must say, after two years of working on my first novel, the first line in the soon-to-be published book never changed.)

**Does your favorite first line pass the Stanley test?

**What book is he quoting, anyway? Anyone know?

RO:
"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Wait a minute, that's not mine. I must have dreamt I wrote that. That, of course, is the compelling first line of Rebecca. I saw the movie many years before I ever read the book, or even knew who Daphne du Maurier was. How could you not be drawn in by that opening? I have changed the first line to my first book (BSP, Pushing Up Daisies, St. Martins Feb 2008) so many times that I don't exactly remember it - not a good sign, I suppose!! Omigod, just reread it for the first time in months, and it's too late to change so don't say anything mean..

"My first guess was heirloom silver, or maybe the family jewels, buried and forgotten years ago by some light-fingered servant or paranoid ancestor."

Needless to say, the wisecracking amateur sleuth's first guess is wrong.

JAN:
I think all the rewriting was a good thing, Ro. I really, really like that opening. I'm hoping that everyone adopts Stanley Fish's method for choosing a book. I don't think I've ever had an especially catchy opening line in my previous books, but I'm fond of my opening sentence in Yesterday's Fatal. (May 2007) Short but sweet.

It's not that fatals are beneath me.

That's my protaganist, Hallie, talking. The next graph is more dense, explaining that she's newspaper reporter and that she's talking about fatal car accidents. It sets up some of the changes, attitude and politics in the newsroom, and of course the fatal she's about to stumble upon.

Anyway, I did some rewriting as well. Originally, it was simply, Fatals are beneath me. But this was tongue-in-cheek, and I realized that most readers wouldn't be able to interpret it as such -- especially the ones who had never read Hallie before.

So it evolved, like your opening Ro.

So it's your turn, Hank, let's hear it!

HANK:
Between the hot flashes, the hangover and all the SPAM on my computer, there’s no way I’ll get anything done before 8 o’clock this morning. I came in early to get ahead, and already I’m behind.

(No, that's not my explanation of why I'm late with this blog entry. That's the first line--two, really--of PRIME TIME.)

And it is pretty fascinating, you have to admit, that you can tell instantly from our three lines exactly what kinds of stories you're about to hear.

In Ro's, someone digs up something sinister, buried long ago. And you're compelled to read on--because what's her second guess? And then, what was reality? And since your main character is a master gardener, that makes "digging" even more meaningful.

Jan's has a more world-weary tone, instantly. And obviously someone is dead.
And "fatals" instantly means reporter. And it instantly sounds like "Reporter who has to do something she doesn't want to do." All in 7 words.

And mine: she's busy. She's crazed. She's of a certain age. She has a job where there's some pressure and tension. Something is at stake. In the next line--you hear about "downstairs in the newsroom...."

Well, I'd love to hear more first lines...and talk about makes them work. Or not...

HALLIE:

Funny this should come up - I've just been trolling for great first lines as part of my research for a nonfiction project. My fellow Jungle Reds have great opening lines, sadly mine are fairly pedestrian novel openings (sorry, it's the truth...a problem when you're a writer and a critic). The best I've done is from DELUSION: "I woke up craving watermelon."

Here are some that are choice. Read them and see if you can guess the book...answers at the end of my blogette:

1. When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from his unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.

2. There once was a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.

3. If you want to find Cherry Tree Lane, all you have to do is ask the Policeman at the crossroads.

4. Nobody could sleep.

5. My sharpest memory is of a single instant surrounded by dark.


ANSWERS BELOW:

1: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka - 2: Silent Spring by Rachel Carsons - 3: Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers - 4: The Naked and the Dead - Norman Mailer - 5: Liar's Club: Mary Karr