30 second stories [Superbowl Ads]

by Toni McGee Causey

Today is February 1st, 2009. Superbowl Sunday. It is the day the Steelers play the Cardinals.

[Tangent alert! I have never quite understood this whole mascot-naming-thing, because one would think, given the type of team one is naming a mascot for, that the person or committee, heaven help us, who picks the mascot would've thought about just how it sounds being shouted out by a stadium full of drunk and rowdy fans. Go Cardinals! just doesn't have the visceral impact of Go Tigers or Go 'Gators or even Go Wildcats. I mean, seriously, when they picked out the mascot, were they all revved up over the idea of a bird pecking the other team to death or what? Of course, I include the Saints in the dumber than grass category of football mascots. It's not exactly like we're gonna pray our way to a championship.]

Ahem. Okay, I got that outta my system. Maybe. 

[reboot] So, today is the day of the big game, the big clash of gladiators. The classic struggle of David (Cardinals) vs. Goliath (Steelers). The timeless tale of…

Aw, hell. Superbowl Sunday. The day the coolest ads air nationally for instant hall of fame or shame. I know there have been a lot of years I couldn't have cared less about who played, but I checked in (pre-internet) to see the ads or (post internet) skipped the game altogether and waited for the ads to be put up online. This year, NBC announced that they had sold all 67 spots for a record-breaking $206 million.

I tend to fast forward through most commercials 364 days of the year, so why the avid curiosity? It's not just about the cost–a reported $2.4 to 3 million per 30-second spot. There's debate as to whether that sort of cost can ever be recouped by an ad. Can something that expensive really drive enough new customers to a product or service to make it worth the advertiser's cost? Well, some companies out there think so, though I'd be hard pressed to believe that this commercial–though it's one of my favorites–really drove a lot of consumers to their product:

And I sorta doubt this one had consumers running out to buy their product:

And I honestly cannot fathom that there was enough profit margin per item that warranted a $2.5 million 30 second spot back in 2006:

Some are just plain gross. This next one could not possibly have paid off:

(I see their website is still around. Maybe I'm not their target audience.)

But the really good commercials are practically priceless… we'll remember them for years. Maybe that means we'll buy more of that product when confronted with options at the store, or have more goodwill toward the company. 

I can't judge a commercial's success based on saturation data or spikes in sales or anything quantifiable like that. But as a writer, the thing that impresses the hell out of me is that these 30 second spots start out as simply an "idea." Maybe there's a goal to the idea, but most of the commercials tell a story, and tell it quickly. Commercials have a structure in the same way novels or shot stories or films do–they just have to do it all in 30 seconds. They have to capture your attention (set up), create interest (conflict) and have a resolution (finale). 

Budweiser's group does this exceptionally well, year after year. (The brand is so well-known, they are no longer trying to educate the public about the fact that Budweiser sells beer… they are trying to make the public feel good about choosing a Bud whenever they have the choice in beer.) One of last year's favorites:

Or, they make you smile and associate their beer with a sense of humor:

Humor, in fact, goes over really well:

(And seriously, I don't even drink Bud. Ever. But somebody over there has a great sense of humor.)

Writing a commercial is (obviously) an art unto itself. I have commercials I personally loathe, no matter the fact that they're beautifully shot and follow a three-act structure and are memorable. [We are about to start the Valentine hostage, er, holiday celebration, wherein men around the country are made to feel like crap if they don't fork over money for diamonds for the love of their lives, and women are made to feel like crap if their guy doesn't love them enough to blow a wad of money on a shiny rock. There is no sense of humor about these things, no irony, no tongue-in-cheek… just determination to bludgeon dollars out of bank accounts, using guilt. I think shiny things are fine, but let's keep some perspective.]

Anyway, writing a commercial requires such a compressed, efficient story-telling skill, they're worth examining because the really memorable ones can teach us a great deal about good story-telling. 

Set up: The opening image sets up the world:

In the rock/paper/scissors, we see an opening scene of a family-styled gathering for a picnic: sunshine, low hum of friendly people talking in clusters, picnic tables, food. This is a friendly world, one where trust is implied.

Inciting incident: Two men both grab for the last iced beer.

Conflict: Finding a fair (implied trust) method of solving who should get the beer. They opt for the tried and true friendly "rock, paper, scissors" game.

Climax: One "throws" paper, which technically "covers" or "beats" rock, but the other throws an actual rock

Resolution: The cleverest player wins.

(Message–even friendship is not worth losing the last beer over… or, smart people get the last beer, so if you're drinking a Bud, you're smart.)

The harsh reality of a commercial is that they only have a few seconds, at best, to set up the world and the conflict. We have a tad bit more room to set up our stories in our novels, but in all honesty, we don't have that much more room. I've talked to editors and agents, and sat in on panels where they've been discussing reading something new and the cold harsh truth is, we have about five pages to capture their attention. In that five pages, we need to set up the world, the characters, and the potential conflict. We don't necessarily have to show the main conflict, the inciting incident that soon, but we have to show inherent conflict in the world, something that's going to imply that a bigger problem is about to beset these characters. 

Why must we move so quickly? Well, we're selling something, whether we like it or not… we're selling them on continuing to read the next five pages, and the next five after that. The best novels don't just describe a world… they describe a world in conflict. If the point of the story is that an idyllic world is about to be upset, then some foreshadowing is necessary to keep the agent or editor from eye-rolling over the bucolic boring stasis of the world. We need to create anticipation a problem. 

The dating scene is a great example: this is a romantic date, with candles and beautiful table setting and each person seems happy to be there. But the voice-over claims that "breathing fire" is one of the new advantages to drinking Bud Light and as the guy very romantically breathes flame and lights the first candle, we are already anticipating a problem. We're already willing to forgive them their perfect world because we know it's about to be upset. 

As we're writing, we have to look at every scene for imagery, (world), conflict and stakes. Each moment has to build on the last. The "build" can be subtle or big, dark or ironic, humorous or sad, but the tension has to keep increasing, or you've reached a plateau and the reader is going to feel it and get bored. 

So, enough for today–I'm sure some of you are rooting for your favorite team (GO STEELERS) and some of you are goofing around on the internet (hi there) and some of you are off working or playing with the family. If you want to check out past years commercials, this is a very convenient site where ten years' worth are easy-to-click: Superbowl Ads

So how about you… what is YOUR favorite ad from the last few years? Or which one do you loathe?

Mon Semblable, Mon Freud

Inkblot05

"Inkblot #5" By Jason Krieger, print available here.

By Cornelia Read

So I'm sitting here today filling out financial aid forms for one of my kids, which are due on Groundhog Day, and I keep catching myself wondering if that means I get another six weeks to file it all with the school if I spot the IRS's shadow or whatever

Zombies

(of course not, I then suddenly remember. Again…), in addition to realizing for the bazillionth time how crappy I am at all this grownup follow-through/detail stuff. Oy, carumba.

And all THAT made me think back to a comment made by a new shrink whom I saw for the first time a couple of weeks ago. (Full confession: I have an extreme propensity for depression, inherited from both sides of my family, and not a little trouble with ADD cluster-fuckedness–just to complicate things. {Although, hey, I'm glad I didn't inherit whatever it was that made my Winthrop ancestress have to chain her husband to a tree whenever his "fits" came on.})

I liked this woman–which is not something I say about a lot of shrinks, or, indeed, about the foundational notions of talk therapy as practiced during the majority of the Twentieth Century (at least the way I've seen it dispensed, up close and personal.)

Psychiatrist

(see my second novel, The Crazy School, if you want to know from whence my disdain cometh–the "therapeutic" bits are really, really, really non-fiction).

The reason I liked this new chick is that she totally got that I was there for the meds, not to forge the uncreated conscience of my race in the smithy of my soul tri-weekly over the course of the next seven years @ $150.00 an hour, and she was totally copacetic with my preferred psych paradigm. Plus, she just generally struck me as a fine salty dame with a good head on her shoulders.

The only psychological observation she uttered, during this first meeting, was "Novelist? Jesus, that seems like a helluva profession to pick for someone of your organizational impairment. How's that working out?"

To which I replied, "not bad, as long as I go to my pal Sharon's house where my wireless connection doesn't work, in order to forcibly wean myself from my online Mah Jong Solitaire jones on a daily basis."

Super-mahjong-screenshot-2-reflexive

Which is not as much of a joke as it sounds. Well, actually, it's not a joke at all.

My ADD was diagnosed when I was thirty-five years old (depression I will address in a further post).

If this condition has never impacted your life directly, it's all too easy to buy into the pat, dismissive judgments with which I've heard it mischaracterised–usually boiling down to "A flavor-of-the-month pseudo diagnosis for ill-behaved children whose parents want to tranquilize them into drooling submission so they can enjoy their soap operas in peace" and/or "A new-fangled excuse for plumb laziness."

Here's what it feels like from the inside: Time is operated by a malicious deity with access to a wah-wah pedal, while objects (pens, socks, jewelry, essential tax documents, hiking boots, luggage, painstakingly typed thirty-five page term papers, sunglasses, ATM cards, family heirlooms, passports, Swiss Army knives, my children's mittens, pet hamsters, small appliances) fly away from me in flocks as if I'm magnetized to a polarity opposite that of every other molecule in the galaxy.

Also, teetering stacks of papers breed and spawn on all available horizontal surfaces while I sleep, my laundry pile consumes floor space like a flesh-eating bacteria, and a roving band of Kafkas hides my laptop every time I go back to the kitchen for more coffee–just to fuck with me.

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My dorm room in boarding school, circa 1980 (photo: Bonney Armstrong)

Then there's this weird thing I've never found a name for, other than "tool blindness," which is when you put your pliers down on the workbench and then can't see them five seconds later amidst the suddenly random, depthless mosaic they've melted into. This turns everything into one of those old hidden-picture puzzles in doctor's-office copies of Highlights magazine, wherein all trees are filled with gumboots and wishing wells, and each suburban lawn hides a billy-goat, a 1973 Ford Pinto, and my checkbook.

Original

Basically, it would come as no surprise if I were to learn that I have amnesia AND an evil twin. In fact, I think such a revelation would occasion, on my part, a rather profound sense of relief.

What you don't often hear about ADD, however, is that it also primes you for random instances of hyper-focus. This is a state of concentration so intense it renders you impermeable to external stimuli–think Superman in a Kryptonite sensory-deprivation tank–often for several hours at a stretch (e.g., the time last year when I was so engrossed in the stylistic restructuring of a particularly recalcitrant chapter-opening paragraph that I did not notice my monitor was on fire. No shit… like, bigass flames shooting out the airholes on top and stuff.)

Granted, this can be useful when writing a novel. Unfortunately, it can just as easily occur when you're doing something completely pointless (Mah Jong, op. cit.)

The ways this disorder has manifested in my life, from early childhood on, have
earned me a monsoon of derision. Teachers and clinicians have labeled me–in turn–arrogant, passive-aggressive, contemptuous
of authority, stupid, lazy, in denial, afraid of success,
self-sabotaging, oblivious, irresponsible, and "pathologically averse to fulfilling
[my] potential."

My ex mostly called me "the lightning rod for entropy in
the universe."

LightNYDN1805_800x572

I have tried to overcome my deficits with day-planners, oversized wall calendars, serially deployed alarm clocks, Post-It
notes, talk therapy, a Palm Pilot, and even a Timex that beeped at me when I was
about to forget an appointment. These objects (aside from the therapy) are no doubt still circling
the lower 48 states on the seats of various buses, subways, and taxicabs–ill-fated Charlies doomed to ride forever on my cognitive MTA.

The only thing that really works is scrawling important stuff in big
letters on my left hand. It's hard, after all, to forget your hand.

I have learned to buy only cheap earrings, second-hand winter coats, and waterproof watches–things easily replaced, things to which I won't form any sentimental attachments. My vacuum cleaner and wallet are, meanwhile, a noxious bright yellow.

Miele-galaxy-carina-s4210

(While it is difficult to misplace a bright yellow vacuum within the confines of one's own house [or, ahem,… living room], it is, alas, not impossible.)

In 1998, shrink-the-umpteenth asked me if I'd ever been tested for ADD.

And may rose-scented blessings rain softly upon her for all eternity.


1024petals

One week later, I had a prescription for Ritalin (which is, by the way, SO not a tranquilizer.

The shrink said, "it's an amphetamine, basically." 

I said, "Excellent. I love speed."

To which she replied, "Yeah, I bet you do." In a nice way. Supportive even.)

When people ask me if it works, I explain that the first morning I took it, I picked up the large box of Christmas-presents-intended-for-my-sister off my desk and mailed it to her, out in Berkeley.

It was April 17th. The box had been sitting there on my desk since the previous October (she was born on October 18th. And, um, okay… they started out as birthday presents.)

Pony express letter

This does not mean Ritalin makes me by any means perfect–not even to the extent that your average sane person would ever ask me to serve as secretary/treasurer of ANYTHING.

It does, however, provide a floor. I can build on it.

Today I did not lose my iPhone, car, car keys, or shoes. I remembered my haircut appointment, got my nephew to school on time, and even recalled that this Saturday it was my turn to blog.

I have also had the same pair of sunglasses since March 8th of last year, my 45th birthday (a really nice pair of Ray-Bans. I bought them for myself as a sort of test–like how people fresh out of rehab are supposed to keep a houseplant alive for a couple of months, before they try dating).

I did, however, leave my favorite (second-hand) coat at my friend Sophie Littlefield's house about an hour ago.

And to go back to what the new shrink said, about being a novelist with an attention deficit? Hey, the act of writing is the ONLY arena in which I am organized.

It is a world where I have absolute control: the white screen, the 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheet of paper. Chaos cannot touch me in writing land, for lo, I have parentheses and m-dashes, semi-colons and ellipses, and ye, though I walk through the valley of my own space-cadetness, these shall not fail me.

When I write, I am in absolute and total control: the Stalin of my own pristine snowy Kremlin, against whose ramparts entropy can hurl itself a million times over, before nonetheless expiring in defeat.

080818_kremlin

I think there is a strong correlation between neurochemical imbalance and creativity. ADD isn't something that shows up across the board, but depression is rampant among artists–especially writers.

Especially women writers.

I am not saying that you need to suffer to make art, but there are not a lot of happy-go-lucky novelists and poets. Vonnegut said that most of us wander around "like gut-shot bears," when out in public.

I am sure there are chipper, well-adjusted authors, but I'm for damn sure in no hurry to sit next to one of them at a dinner party (except for Pari).

Google "writer suicide" and you'll get 10,400,000 hits. There's even a Writers Who Committed Suicide Wikipedia article, which lists 277 authors. (A veritable global Who's Who of Depression: including Tadeusz Borowski, Richard Brautigan, Iris Chang, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Spalding Gray, William Inge, Yukio Mishima, Seneca the Younger, Anne Sexton, Urmuz, David Foster Wallace…)

I am very, very lucky. While I've struggled with depression since I was nine years old, I have never once become suicidal. Friends of mine have: of the three people in my college class who got published, only two of us are still alive.

 51uHuBIKzjL._SL500_

Lucy is lost to us.


Major depression and suicide are so prevalent among female writers (especially poets) that one researcher has described the incredibly disproportionate incidence of both in that group, compared to the general population, as "The Sylvia Plath Effect."

There's a lot more I'd like to discuss about that–especially as to whether depression spawns writers or writing spawns depression–but I've babbled on enough here, so this is to be continued in two weeks.

To that end, as parting thoughts, I leave you with words from horror writer Nancy Etchemendy:

Over half the general population will experience two or more episodes
of serious depression during a lifetime. Statistics gathered in a
recent article in Scientific American indicate that the incidence of
clinical depression among writers and artists may be as much as ten
times greater than that among the general population. The incidence of
suicide is as much as eighteen times greater. Why should this be the
case? What exactly is depression? And what can we, as individuals who
are apparently more vulnerable than most, do to protect ourselves from
the specter of this often fatal illness?


 IMG_0592

From the abstract of a University of Kentucky Medical Center study of depression and creativity in women:

Female writers were more likely than members of the comparison group to
suffer not only from mood disorders but from drug abuse, panic attacks,
general anxiety, and eating disorders as well. The rates of multiple
mental disorders were also higher among writers…. Creativity also appeared to run in
families. The cumulative psychopathology scores of subjects… represented significant predictors of their overall
creativity.


Plath 2

 

And from blogger grumpyoldbookman:

There is at least one piece of research which demonstrates that some
(British) writers have a higher than average chance of being mentally
ill. The research was carried out by Kay Jamison, Professor of
Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her study
showed that 38% of a group of eminent British writers and artists had
been treated for a mood disorder of one kind or another; of these, 75%
had had antidepressants or lithium prescribed, or had been
hospitalised. Of playwrights, 63% had been treated for depression.
These proportions, as you will have guessed, are many times higher
than in the population at large.


Virginiawoolf0904

So, how high is your mental illness number, these days?


 

Welcome Guest Blogger (Glogger) CJ Lyons!

Happy Friday! I'm wrapping up the JUDAS KISS tour and looking forward to getting back home and back to work. I went to Florida for an overnight trip on Tuesday and got stuck until this evening -  my flight was canceled because of the massive storm up North, so I've been camping at my parents and stole my Dad's laptop to work. It's fitting, really, considering how insane things have been this month. I want to thank all of you for being so patient with me while I manage
the perfect storm of obligations that have converged on my poor life –
deadlines and touring and copyedits all at the same time isn't the
easiest thing. I will do better with my planning in the future – I
PROMISE!

In the meantime, my dear friend CJ Lyons is here with a great guest blog. Since I'm using a strange computer to write this I've had to adjust to an alien keyboard. When I was typing today's title I had a zillion errors, and one that sounded pretty cool. I was typing guest blogger, and the screen popped up the word "Glogger". So that's what we have today, our very own glogger.

CJ Lyons is a dynamic, overwhelmingly together woman and writer who I greatly admire. She's a 
familiar face to many of you, but for those who don't know CJ, here's a quick and dirty backgrounder:

WARNINGSIGNS

LIFELINES-2

As
a pediatric ER doctor, CJ Lyons has lived the life she writes about in her
cutting edge suspense 
novels.  Her debut,
LIFELINES (Berkley, March 2008), became a national bestseller and Publishers
Weekly proclaimed it a "breathtakingly fast-paced medical thriller."  The second in the series, WARNING SIGNS, was
released January, 2009.  Contact her at
http://www.cjlyons.net


Warning Signs


by CJ Lyons


CJ Tall Emergency Sign 3AB copy

A few days ago I woke from a deep sleep
to the smell of smoke. It was 5:22 am. Dark. Too early to get up unless there
was a darn good reason.


There were no smoke alarms going off, no
sounds at all that I could hear–I live in a small condo, so there usually are
sounds from neighboring units at almost every hour of the day and night, but
not this morning.


Took another whiff. Slightly chemical, acrid
smell of something, somewhere burning. But faint. And definitely not coming
from my place.


So….do I grab the cat and laptop (my
basic evacuation plan in any emergency) and run for it? Do I get dressed, bang
on doors, try to track it down? Do I call 911, let them wake and worry everyone
as they investigate? 


Do I roll over and go back to sleep,
knowing that if it gets worse I'll wake up? Or do I wait and worry?


What would you do? Do you listen to your
gut? Do you believe in instincts and intuition? Or do you wait for concrete
proof?


That's the same dilemma facing the
medical student, Amanda, in my latest novel, WARNING SIGNS.

Amanda has a problem. Maybe. She's not
too sure. Could be nothing.


Could be deadly.


She has these symptoms–intermittent,
unpredictable, terribly vague. When she researches them, there are thousands of
diseases they could be caused by…..or she could be imagining them.


Maybe just stress–she's a medical
student, working over 80 hours a week, plus more hours studying.


Or maybe not.


Her gut has her worrying. Her brain tells
her to forget it–she'd make a fool of herself asking one of the
"real" doctors and all her research has turned up nothing concrete.


Which to believe?


How to decide what to believe: the
"facts" or your "gut"?


Me, I always listen to my gut instincts. Which
has gotten me into trouble. A lot.


It's also saved me more times than I can
count, so I'd have to say that my "gut" has come out ahead of the game.


Which frustrates the heck out of anyone
governed by logic and facts who wants to understand my reasoning–or lack there
of!

So, you tell me–gut or logic?  Facts or instinct?  How do you decide?  Especially when it's life or death….. 

There are three copies of LIFELINES on the line today – comment and you're entered to win your own signed copy…
(we'll announce the winners next Friday!) 

 Oh, and by the way, I went back to sleep
and about ten minutes later the smell of cinnamon rolls baking came from next
door–guess their oven pre-heating must have burnt something. Score another one for intuition!

Thanks for reading!

CJ

Sometimes a Debut Becomes More Than Just a Debut

by Brett Battles

What published author can forget their debut year? I certainly can’t. It wasn’t that long ago after all. 2007. Same year as JT, Toni & Rob, and only the year after Allison, Alex, & Cornelia. I remember the excitement I felt as the year switched from 2006 to 2007. Even though it would still be nearly six months before my book hit the stores, I felt amazing. And those six months? They went by so fast I’m still wondering what happened to them.

It’s true. There is no year like your debut year. You’re full of hopes and possibilities and dreams. That said the second year wasn’t so bad either. And this year, the year my third novel will be coming out, will be just as good. But that anticipation of…well…the unknown that you feel in your debut year can not be repeated.

So like any year, this year they’ll be a whole new crop of debut authors. And also like any year, some will do better than other, but as the year begins they are all gripped with the knowledge that they will soon achieve a dream that so many of us have had, and many still have. That of being a debut novelist. You’ll start hearing about these new books in all the usual places: on blogs, at conferences, in bookstores, from friends. And hopefully many will grab your attention.

My problem is my schedule has been pretty tight these days. I’m deep into writing my fourth book. Have been putting the finishing touches to SHADOW OF BETRAYAL (which is book 3 and – side note – will be titled THE UNWANTED in the UK and Australia.) Have been working on a project with ITW. And have been working on, when I can, my “secret” project that I have alluded to elsewhere, but am still not ready to share (sorry.) So my reading time has been severely hampered. I’ve sadly had to decline requests from a couple of people I had been hoping I could read and give them a blurb (sorry to them if their reading this.) Debut authors, mainly. But recently I found I had an unanticipated block of time open up. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to squeeze in an advanced copy of a book I had just received. One that I knew I had to read for reasons I'll explained in a moment.

The book is entitle BOULEVARD by Stephen Jay Schwartz, and won’t be out until September. Other than the fact I knew I really needed to read it, I had no idea if I would enjoy it. But let me just say this, BOULEVARD is a book you’re going to want to be looking for when it comes out. If you like well written stories, with deeply troubled anti-heroes, then you will love this book. It's dark, and very character driven. And it’s also a very unique take on the police drama. I can honestly say, it's a book that will haunt me for weeks to come…wait…that almost sounds like a blurb. I might have to copy that down and send it to him. But I don’t mean it as a blurb. I mean it as a sincere endorsement.

Okay, now of the part that’s going to answer the ‘why this book’ question, and probably will cause a few of you to take my endorsement with a grain of salt. I hope that last part isn’t true. I give my opinion freely without any bias.

See there could be bias….

Talk about a small world. The first I heard from Stephen that he had a book come out was about three weeks ago via an email he sent to me. The last time I heard from him before that was nearly 25 years ago. That’s right, we know each other. The funny thing is neither of us knew we both had dreams of one day being novelists. In fact, Stephen hadn’t even known that I’d been published until he was cruising around JT’s website and saw my name.

Stephen and I went to college together. We lived in the same dorm. We had the same major. We graduated the same year. We took classes together, went to the same parties, had the same circle of friends. And we were friends. Good friends. And then after college, like a lot of people do, we lost track of each other. I did try to find him once or twice…but you try to google Stephen Schwartz and see how many different people you come up with!

But the world of fiction, specifically the world of crime and thriller fiction has brought us back together. So not only is BOULEVARD his debut, it is also the vehicle that reconnect us. What a weird and incredible world this is. And I’m happy to say – because you’re always worried when you read a friend's book that it might suck and you’ll have to lie to them – that I don’t have to lie about Stephen’s work. It is first rate, and truly a surprise for a debut novel. Hopefully we’ll have him as a guest blogger here when we get closer to his release date, so you can all meet him then. In any case, keep an eye out for him. You won't be disappointed.

That’s my bizzaro story for this week. No music video today, due to issues beyond my control.

So what kind of weird reconnections have you experienced? Has the internet blown you mind that way? (I mean, I actually found the guy who was my best friend in kindergarden!)

Stuff?

by Rob Gregory Browne

"You're a terrific stylist," she said.  "How long do you see yourself writing this kind of stuff?"

The woman, who is an acquaintance, was referring to my latest book, WHISPER IN THE DARK (which comes out in a week — eehaa), and there was an emphasis on the word "stuff" that made it sound as if she'd just bit into something quite sour and maybe a little moldy.

I don't have a lot of practice with people praising and insulting me simultaneously — it's usually just the insults — so I stammered a bit and said, "Uh, as long as I can."

But because she'd been raised on "serious" fiction and had studied it in high school and college, this poor woman couldn't fathom why I would ever want to write what I write or why anyone else would want to read it.

If I were to suggest that what she normally reads is really no different than what I write — characters trying to get themselves out of sticky situations — she would have looked at me as if I were completely out of my mind.

To her, the subject matter I cover is clearly the stuff of tabloids and B movies and is not something to take seriously.  And because I'm such a "terrific stylist," surely I'll one day graduate to writing real books.

We've talked about literary snobbery here at Murderati, probably more than once.  But its a subject that doesn't seem to want to leave me in peace.  Not because I feel any kind of guilt about what I write, but because I can't for the life of me understand how someone could categorize thrillers as somehow less important than any other type of book.

If you don't like thrillers, fine.  You don't like them.  But to avoid reading them because they're "beneath" you, tells me a lot more about you than I probably want to know.

The truth is, I love what I write.  I wouldn't be writing it if I didn't.  Thrillers are not a stepping stone to literary greatness.  There are enough thriller writers both past and present who have already achieved that greatness and I don't see them rushing out to write something more suitable to their talents — whatever that might mean.  If I should ever manage to join their ranks, it won't be because I decided to alter my subject matter.

In his bio of Raymond Chandler — one our greatest American writers — Tim Hiney tells us that when Chandler wrote The Big Sleep, most critics not only refused to review it, but those who did thought it was too "seedy" to be taken seriously.  I doubt that those critics, if they're still alive, would say the same thing today.  And if they did, I'd have to label them complete idiots.

Some of the Gold Medal paperback "potboilers" that were written in the fifties and sixties were truly great works of fiction.  And anyone chased away by the lurid covers and subject matter can be forgiven if that's simply not the type of book they want to read, but they're just plain crazy if they think those books are any less worthy than what their "serious" literary heroes were writing at the time.

Great writing is great writing because of the author's voice and point of view, not the stories he or she chooses to tell.  Even the label "genre" fiction is insulting, because it tries to set the work to one side, as if it's somehow different than any other story being told.  As if a certain set of qualifications make it a lesser work that shouldn't or can't be compared favorably to the more literary work.

One "genre" that always seems to get the worst of this kind of prejudice is the romance field, where so many are so quick to lump it all together and call it trite and inconsequential.  But the truth is, there's a lot of great work being done in that field as well and those who discount it are, in my humble opinion, fools.

But then I guess that's what all this boils down to, isn't it?  Opinion.  And I'm certainly not short on those when it comes to popular music or politics or the clothes my neighbor is wearing.

But at least I don't walk up to that neighbor and say, gee, you're a good looking woman, how long do you think you'll be dressing like a circus performer?

Tell me I'm wrong about this.  I dare you.  :)

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For those of you interested, I'll be making a number of appearances here in California next month, so I invite you to go to my website and click on the events link.  Hope to see you!

You stole my idea

by Tess Gerritsen

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
      -– Ecclesiastes 1:9  

Years ago, when my husband and I were still newlyweds, we took our first trip to Cairo and hired an Egyptian guide named Abu to show us the sights.  As we stood gazing at the pyramids, Abu described the various architectural techniques used by the ancient Egyptians that are still in use even today.  And he quoted a phrase from Ecclesiastes: "There is nothing new under the sun."

In our archaeological travels since then, whenever we encounter some startlingly familiar feature in an old ruin (the street curbs and ancient fast-food counters in Pompeii, for instance), my husband and I repeat that same phrase that Abu quoted so many years ago.  There is nothing new under the sun.

Which, it turns out, applies to storytelling as well.  Novelists like to believe that their plots have never been used before, that they've dreamed up something completely fresh and original. They can't imagine that anyone else in the entire world could possibly have come up with the same amazing idea.  So when they learn that another author has simultaneously written a book with a similar plot, their first thought may be:  "He stole my idea!"  They'll try to figure out how the thief managed to get his hands on their story.  Maybe some sneaky editor called up a more experienced novelist and said, "I just read this manuscript with a great premise, but the author's a total unknown.  Why don't you write the book for us instead?"  Or maybe someone in the post office snatched the manuscript.  Or maybe the computer repairman swiped it off the hard drive. 

The fear of having one's plot stolen is such an obsession for unpublished authors that some will resort to the literary equivalent of hanging garlic against vampires.  At the top of their manuscript, they'll type in the all-powerful words that are sure to make any plagiarist quake: Copyright by John Doe!!!  And then they'll draw the magic symbol "C" with a circle around it, so that when the manuscript arrives on some big-shot NY editor's desk, she'll know that the writer is not someone to be trifled with.  She'll know that she can't steal his idea. That's what the writer thinks anyway.

But guess what those words "Copyright by John Doe" really tell the editor?  They tell her she's dealing with a paranoid amateur.  

In all my years as a novelist, I've never typed "Copyright by Tess Gerritsen" on my manuscripts.  Nor have I heard of a single instance of a novel being stolen by some sleazy New York editor. The reason these fears exist is probably due to the mistaken belief among newbies that a premise is the same thing as a plot, and therefore easily lifted. They believe that the really hard work of being a novelist is in coming up with the idea — not the writing itself.  (These are also the same people who approach published novelists at cocktail parties and tell them, "I've got a great idea for a book!  Why don't you write it and we'll split the profits?")  Anyone who's actually written a few books will tell you that it's what you do with the premise — how you spin it into a plot, and flesh out its characters — that turns an idea into a story. That's where the craft of writing, and the real hard work, comes in.  

Let me repeat:  a premise is not a plot.  

Just because two simultaneously released books have an identical premise, it doesn't mean someone stole someone else's idea.  Because, weirdly enough, it happens all the time. One romance editor told me she received a sudden deluge of manuscripts featuring race-car driver heroes.  She never did figure out why.  I have a friend who's a script reader in Hollywood, and she recalls when two different screenplays arrived within the same week, written by two writers from different parts of the country.  These scripts had the same wacky premise: a man dies, comes back reincarnated as a dog, and must win the affections of his wife.  How do two writers simultaneously dream up a premise this bizarre?  I don't know.  Maybe it's just something floating around in the ether.  Maybe they both read the same article about reincarnation, looked at their dogs, and thought: "Aha!"  

When ideas simultaneously occur to several authors, the reason is sometimes obvious.  Years ago, after Dolly the sheep was cloned, any editor could have predicted there'd be a rash of stories about cloning to follow.  Sometimes, a premise is so powerful, so elemental, it gets used again and again through the years.  "Romeo and Juliet" became "West Side Story".  "The Odyssey" became Cold Mountain and Brother, Where Art Thou?   When "West Side Story" was produced, writer Arthur Laurents openly credited Shakespeare as his source for the premise of star-crossed lovers.  He took Shakespeare's tale — and turned it into a modern masterpiece all his own.

While I don't worry about my own ideas getting stolen, I do worry a lot about getting accused of being a thief.  A few years ago, I got an email from an unpublished writer who'd attended one of my workshops.  She accused me of stealing her idea.  "I'm considering legal action," she said.  "I want you to apologize and admit you are a plagiarist."  The idea I supposedly stole from her was about criminals kidnapping pregnant women, cutting them open, and stealing their babies.  (Which was the premise for my book Body Double.)  Lucky for me, I'd never laid eyes on her manuscript because it was in the other instructor's pile.  I pointed out to her that there are a number of well-publicized cases in the news of pregnant women getting murdered for their fetuses, so the premise is hardly original.  I also pointed out, as I have here, that a premise is not a plot.  Had I reproduced her story scene by scene, that would be plagiarism.  But a premise that's all over the news, a premise that can be wrapped up in one sentence, is not something you can call all your own.  If she had sued, I would certainly have won.  Nevertheless, I'd have had to pay legal fees and the emotional turmoil would have made my life hell.

Every published author needs to worry about such accusations, which is why so many of us avoid reading unpublished, unsold manuscripts.  I know of one bestselling author who read an acquaintance's manuscript and later got sued for "stealing the idea."  Her literary agent has since forbidden her to read any more unpublished manuscripts. 

If you're an unpublished author, I want to reassure you that no one in New York is out to plagiarize your story.  You don't need to type "Copyright by John Doe" on your manuscript; your work is your work, and just by the act of creating it, it belongs to you.  If by chance your novel is a great read, no editor will ask someone else to take the credit.  Why make another (probably higher-paid) writer re-do the story when it's already written?  The editor would rather draw up a contract and sign you as her writer.  She'll be thrilled she's discovered a hot new talent with a hot new book.  

The last thing she wants to do is ruin that relationship and steal from you.