December 2017 - Writers Magazine

News Review

• 'Two of our links this week relate to the report just published by Arts Council England which looks at literary fiction and concludes that it is in sharp decline. A close look at the figures suggests however that literary fiction is not alone, the problem relates to fiction sales in general. Genre sales have gravitated to ebooks, especially in some genres such as romance, where they are enjoying considerable success. But it is in literary fiction where the starkest outcome can be seen...' Our News Review is entitled Authors face declining incomes - should literary novelists receive more state support?
• There's bad news from the US, where reading scores are declining, just when they are making real improvements in many countries across the world. Basic literacy is at an all-time high around the world and most countries have seen steadily rising reading achievements in the last decade, as is shown by the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study.
• British publisher Richard Charkin of Bloomsbury on the blind spots that might keep the publishing industry from seeing what's ahead. Charkin, formerly of Macmillan and past president of the International Publishers Association, is known for being outspoken and radical in his approach. He condemns the fact that in this age of instant news, it still takes a year for traditional publishers to bring out a book.
• Newly released figures show that ebook revenues in the US have declined again. In the first half of 2017, e-book sales declined by 4.6%, according to the AAP. All other categories, apart from paperback books saw increased revenues in the same time period, with some astounding growth.

Comment

• 'I look at a good many poetry scripts every week. Of the great majority, I may say that there is no part of my work which costs me less time and trouble. That is one thing about verse: you can judge from a very small quantity whether the author has any possibilities or not; you can often say, ‘The man who can write as bad a line as that simply hasn't got it in him.' The rarest experience is to come across a new poet who strikes you as so good that you don't need anybody's judgment but your own...' T S Eliot's address to the Society of Young Publishers, on The Publishing of Poetry is this week's Comment.
• 'The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way...' Stephen King provides this week's Comment.
• ‘I knew from a very early age that I wanted to be a novelist, but my father thought I should have a proper job, with a proper salary, a proper pension. The idea of being a writer struck him as the height of foolhardiness. He died very young (58), so he never saw how things worked out... We were very lucky. For 10 years literary fiction was the thing, paperback imprints were starting up, advances huge, every publisher wanted the spin to their list so the literary novelist suddenly found himself in demand with auction bids for the next novel...' Our Comment is from William Boyd, author of A Good Man in Africa, Any Human Heart, The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth and eight other novels in the Sunday Times.
• ‘My students at Columbia I teach to read. If you can be a good reader and can think that reading and literature are great pursuits, you can perhaps teach yourself to write. For every ‘lesson' one would try to propound there'd be a wonderful story or novel that violated any rule. But that's about all. I use myself as something like a specimen to them...' Richard Ford, author of The Sportswriter and Let Me Be Frank with You, talking about writing in the Guardian provides this week's Comment, Most books don't last.
• 200,000 books published a year (just in the UK)! An optimist may think this abundance marvellous: a sign of publishing virility, of a lively literary culture. They would be wrong. It is a disaster for readers and for writers... Do we really think that we need all 200,000 books? Robbie Millen, Literary Editor, The Times, comments on the vast number of books published.
• ‘There were some things about Agatha Christie's writing that I did want to emulate: not the prose style itself, but her blueprint for what the ideal crime novel should be and do. She often started with an outlandish, almost impossible-seeming plot premise that cranked up the suspense level to maximum right from the start; her stories have the strongest bone structure I've ever read..' Sophie Hannah, author of two Poirot novels and 19 other novels in the Observer. Taking on Poirot.
• As an aspiring writer, you should certainly start by writing an outline. I explain how to do this in this Masterclass. You solve a lot of problems with an outline. It is far easier to correct your mistakes if you write an outline than if you sat down and wrote, ‘Chapter One' at the top of a piece of paper and started writing. If you work that way, it will take an awfully long time to correct your mistakes. Our Comment is from Ken Follett, author of The Kingsbridge Series and The Century Trilogy, whose latest novel is Edge of Eternity. It's tempting to quote again from the helpful Masterclasses on his website.

Quote

The test of any good fiction is that you should care something for the characters; the good to succeed, the bad to fail. The trouble with most fiction is that you want them all to land in hell, together, as quickly as possible.'

Mark Twain