Being a published author has changed the way I approach books
how do you get lost in a story when you can see behind the curtain?
Reading has been a bit hard for me recently. It used to be purely a leisure activity. I would pick up books because I wanted a good story, or I heard from a friend that something was good. I wanted a distraction. Recently, though, I’ve been avoiding it. Instead, I’ve been watching movies and reading screenplays. It wasn’t until a few days into this fugue that I questioned why it was so hard for me to pick up a book. It’s because the act of reading has also become research for me. I can’t help but think things like, that’s a good chunk of dialogue, or why do I not use this vocabulary word when it is so useful, or how can someone write like this? it’s unfair!! Reading feels like work.
The days of fiction books being a distraction are gone forever, I think. If I stop writing books, I might be able to go back to the times when I put no thought towards the resources that go into a book being published and I could simply admire a good story or scoff at a bad one. I doubt it, though. I can see all the way to the bottom now.
I don’t mean to make this sound like a terrible thing. I’ve lost one thing and gained clarity in its place. I can see the stitching running beneath the masterpiece and admire all the threads that hold it all together. After publishing my first book:
I can borrow the eye of an editor: After working with an editor and going through the cycle of developing story, brainstorming character arcs, arranging scenes, and agonizing over the wording of particular sentences, I notice small things now. I notice words that are repeated too often, details about a scene that are not completely filled in, characters that aren’t fleshed out enough to deserve their endings. Reading a not-very-edited book is like driving on a poorly paved road. It’s not bad enough that you will fly off the shoulder, but it’s bumpy and uncomfortable. Even as I write, I find myself stopping in the middle sometimes because I know that my editor’s going to have something to say about this, and I better fix it. I think it’s made me a slightly cleaner drafter. Editors fill in the potholes. Sometimes they’ll even redirect you onto a new road.
I have a greater appreciation for the writer’s voice and elements of their craft:
I used to aspire to be certain authors. I wanted to mimic their style or create characters just like theirs. I have begun to realize that the things I wanted to copy were not craft. They are the writer’s own voice, the thing that separates their writing from someone else writing the same kind of story. There were times when I’d read something and think “psh, I can do that.” Now, I know that’s not true. Instead, I have learned to look more closely at a writing and try to understand how they are so good at what they do, to parse it into more understandable elements like dialogue, exposition, and prose. It’s cool to be able to be able to appreciate the specific things that authors do.
I can see the author behind the book: It’s hard for me to see a book now without perceiving the shadow of the author behind it. I used to think it was an insult to write from your own life. I believed it signified a lack of imagination, an inability to create without lived experience to back it up. That was a complete misconception. It’s our experiences that bring a unique perspective to what we write. In fact, it’s a big marketing angle when you can draw on some element of your life and connect it to the story you’re telling; why else do people always ask what inspired a book? When I read multiple books written by the same author, I can start identifying their signature in the set-up of certain characters, in particular scenes, even in the rhythm of dialogue. We have a brand, whether we like it or not.
I always read the acknowledgments: You can learn a lot from the acknowledgments section of a book. It’s a little look into the person behind the work, the only section where they are writing in their true voice, without disguising or lending it in some way to the story. During querying, everyone always says to read the acknowledgments to find out who someone’s agent is, but I find it fascinating for so many other reasons. It’s a look into what was important to the author in getting their book out there. Sometimes it’s the writer’s writing group, the experts who helped them conduct research, or some random thing a stranger on a train said to them that somehow inspired their entire novel. Almost always, you discover how many people were involved in getting their book to publication. It’s uplifting and reminds me that we’re all just human beings struggling to tell a story the right way.
I know how the sausage is made (somewhat): Now I can see every book and its place in the capitalist publishing machine. I pay attention to things I used to never look at, like imprints, blurbs, and book box / book club selections, as if either of those things can tell me anything about the quality of a book. It’s annoying how all these arbitrary stickers and inclusions now have significance, that I even know what they all mean. What has been another damning realization is that the books I thought I chose myself were actually chosen for me. The ones I chose because I saw them on Goodreads, or because it felt like everyone was reading it—most of the time, that was because these books were picked by the publisher to succeed. All of those things—giveaways, placements, mentions on press outlets—cost something from the publisher, whether it is cash or the time and attention of a marketing team and a publicist. Even shelf placement, something that I thought was guaranteed if you were being published by a big 5, is determined by the sales team. It is a rough thing to learn that even after you’ve gotten the book deal, there are still so many more people you have to convince.
Publishing is eye-opening, fascinating, and a lesson in letting go. But if I could tell my old self, the one who was desperately striving to be part of this world, I would say: enjoy being on the outside.
Something I wrote today:
They lapse into silence, although it’s not really. Not with the lap of the waves, the intermittent calls of seabirds, the sound as one of them readjusts their positioning. It’s comfortable, she realizes, in a way that it wasn’t when she first got here. Familiar.