The Goblin Market

I know how a novel will end before I begin to write it - and before I write it these days, I sell it. I realize that sounds backwards, but it's true. I make a summary, and my New York literary agent shows it around, and if a publisher offers a contract for it, then I go ahead and write the novel. I have any number of summaries that no editor wanted, so those novels have never been written.

- Piers Anthony

Until you have your following established, you have to meet the expectations of the market, which judges suitability based on how you categorize your book, on how it matches the conventions.

- Annie Wong

Life is full of little coincidences, and that's what provides most of the impetus for the creation of these postings. As a case in point, it turns out that one of my co-workers is planning to write a fantasy novel for the middle school age market, and her approach provides an interesting look at the creative process versus the practical aspects of actually being published.

Annie, who performs a variety of esoteric duties in area of shipping and receiving, has already completed the manuscript for a mainstream novel, but to her disappointment she has been unable to sell it, at least to date. Undaunted, she has found the inspiration for a fantasy series in a short story that she wrote as a gift for her 9-year old niece Emily, and now she is doing research before she starts work on it, or, as she says, "I have the clay, just wanting to have a better look at the mold before I throw the clay on the spinning table, that's all."

My initial assumption was that she was doing research in the same fashion that someone would do research for any project. For example, if you were going to write a novel about gunrunners in 60's Africa, logically you would want to make sure that your knowledge of Lewis guns and Sierra Leone was accurate, but that's not why Annie has lined up a year's worth of fantasy reading.

Her actual reasoning is much more pragmatic than any desire to bring herself up to speed on orcs, dragons, jabberwockies and marshwiggles. Annie feels that her first novel didn't succeed because she failed to write it for a specific market. She is obviously proud of that first effort, but equally obviously doesn't want to tear her creation apart in order to make it more marketable.

My concern would be that after a 12-month regimen of reading fantasy, mixed in with middle grade classics such as Tom Sawyer and Black Beauty, it would be difficult to avoid being influenced, but Annie isn't worried about that. She feels that "it is easier to write your own story than someone else's," and hopefully this will prove to be the case. What she is looking for from her research are the conventions that define any subgenre of literature: darker versus lighter plot elements, the inclusion of romance versus actual sex, and so on.*

I have to admit that my first thought was that Annie's approach would take all the fun out of writing a novel, but I suspect that her previous experience with the system makes her a much better judge of things. After all, Annie has already written a novel for "fun" - which is to say without concern as to a marketplace or an audience - and her current plan does not in any way restrict her creativity, only the mold, as she calls it, into which she needs to pour that creativity.

However, I will be curious to see how her plan to use a fantasy novel as a stepping stone to the successful release of her erotic chick-lit novel works out. If J. K. Rowling released the British version of Sex in the City, would her fame successfully transfer to a new audience?

- Sid

* I haven't read all the Harry Potter books, but my impression is that as the series progresses, the plot elements become progressively darker and more mature. Given the ten year gap between the publication of the first and the last books in the series, this approach would nicely address the changes in a maturing audience. (Of course, this approach fails to address future generations of readers who, with access to the entire series at once, may not be content to read one book every 17.14 months of their young lives...)

...In A Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Although I write screenplays, I don't think I'm a very good writer.

- George Lucas

Let's face it, eventually someone will remake the Star Wars movies. Some latter-day Peter Jackson - sigh, or J. J. Abrams - will take upon themselves the monumental task of applying a different vision to George Lucas' epic but admittedly imperfect magnum opus.

This as yet unborn revisionist will obviously make changes, large and small. They'll rewrite the dialogue (please God), make Jar Jar Binks less of an annoying stereotype, fix the gaffe about parsecs, and lose all of that midi-chlorian nonsense.

Larger decisions will alter the entire direction of the series. The simple choice as to whether Han shoots first is just the first step in establishing a different moral or psychological direction for the saga. Emphasize the incestuous romance between Luke and Leia, and you suddenly have a subplot right out of Greek tragedy à la Oedipus, or a reference to Arthurian legend.

But all of these questions pale beside the really big one: in what order do you tell the story?

The existing IV - V - VI - I - II - III sequence is a matter of circumstances more than planning. However elaborate the existing combination of movies, comics, novels and animation may be, at the time of the release of the first movie George Lucas was completely unaware that he was initiating a franchise.

Our future auteur has an open field, though. Personally, my vote is for starting the series with The Phantom Menace. In fact, in my version, the Anakin Skywalker that Qui-gon Jinn discovers is a dark child more reminiscent of Damian than Beaver Cleaver, an object of fear and suspicion in the slums of Mos Espa, perhaps winning the pod race through an unseen act of cruelty in the wastes of Tatooine.

In this version, we would actually see some of the anger and fear that dissuaded Yoda from wanting to accept Anakin. He would be like a caged demon at the Jedi Academy, wounding or even slaying his fellow padawans in training, but like a demon in power and skill, as well, towering over even the members of the Jedi Council in his abilities with the Force. But of course he would - Anakin is after all the Chosen One - or is he? The Council would be in a constant state of turmoil over the saviour/savage in their midst.

And then...love. The possibility of redemption, a time of peace and happiness with Padme. But eventually Anakin succumbs to destiny and turns to the Dark Side - part Jesus, part Judas, he contains the seeds of his own betrayal, but still manages to topple the Jedi knighthood before falling to Obi-Wan in battle.

From that point, Luke's role becomes that of the true Chosen One - the irony being that the Chosen One is in fact a child on a faraway desert planet, but it's Anakin's son, not Anakin himself. The odd thing about Luke as he is portrayed in the original movie is that there's not even a hint of his eventual mastery of the Force. Surely there should be some clue in his childhood, some sign of buried talent other than a knack for being able to bullseye womp rats. Since we already know that Ben Kenobi is on Tatooine to watch over Luke, my version allows him to become involved in Luke's early fumbling attempts to tap into his abilities.

With Anakin's story already established, we see Obi-Wan's lie about the death of Luke's father for exactly that, a lie, and in the attack on the Death Star Luke's initial survival is caused by a moment of hesitation on the part of Darth Vader, unwilling to kill his son. Unlike his father, Luke is able to deny the temptation of the Dark Side, and his time with Yoda allows the agèd master to redeem his failure with Anakin.

And in the final reel, we would see the culmination of the struggle between saviour and betrayer, Christ and Antichrist, as the Emperor watches, gloating and smirking, a figure of Satanic temptation for the younger Skywalker as to his father. And, as with Satan, we see him cast into the abyss at the climax of the battle. Finally, rather than a teddy bear picnic, the closing scenes would show Luke welcoming the first class of younglings to the reborn Jedi Temple, as the greenscreen figures of Yoda, Obi-Wan and his father look on with approval.

Or you could just do it as a comedy. More Jar Jar Binks, more R2-D2 noises, more cute romantic arguments between Leia and Han, and something falls on Chewbacca's head every ten minutes. The elements that allow for my altered view of the plotline are certainly in the existing story but then so are the ones that would allow for something as ridiculous as, oh, having Ewoks win the war.

- Sid

Post 100: blogging - it doesn't look like this.

Several studies indicate that most blogs are abandoned soon after creation (with 60% to 80% abandoned within one month, depending on whose figures you choose to believe) and that few are regularly updated.

The 'average blog' thus has the lifespan of a fruitfly. One cruel reader of this page commented that the average blog also has the intelligence of a fly.

The Perseus report noted above indicates that 66.0% of surveyed blogs had not been updated in two months, "representing 2.72 million blogs that have been either permanently or temporarily abandoned".

Jeffrey Henning of Perseus sniffed that "Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days."

Perseus claimed that the average duration of the remaining 1.63 million abandoned blogs was 126 days, with some 132,000 blogs being abandoned after a year or more. The oldest abandoned blog surveyed had been maintained for 923 days.

- Caslon Analytics, an Australian research, analysis and strategies consultancy

Wow, 1.09 million blogs that only lasted for one day. And here I am, 33 months and 100 posts in, and I feel guilty if I don't post for a couple of weeks.

Please take a look at the full-size version of the photocomp image that starts off this posting. It was a fun little project - as usual when I do this sort of thing, the result isn't exactly what I hoped for, but it's not too bad. Thanks go out to my friends Alan and Colin for comments on the early drafts, your input was greatly appreciated, gentlemen.

And I'd also like to thank my small but (apparently) dedicated group of followers for actually taking the time to read any of this. Hopefully a few of the posts demonstrate an intelligence level somewhat above that of a fruitfly.

- Sid

P.S. And still waiting for any guest postings...