Listen to the voices

Like most of you I like to read, and have read many books. Like many of you I’ve actually written three books which have never been published. Like some of you, I’ve complained extensively about the publishing industry. And finally, like absolutely none of you, I’ve discussed this issue at length with the voices in my head. Hey, those guys are always willing to listen and agree with me most of the time. Well, they listen when they’re not telling me to kill something. You’ve got to understand their limits.

 All of this doesn’t mean much. However, the voices said if I didn’t mention them in a post, they’d make me do something stupid. I do plenty of stupid stuff without their help. So, I felt it better to mention them. Hi Guys! Talk to you soon.

Can you describe that?

All this being said, I just read a book and I think I’ve figured out why I’ve never been published. I’m not emotional enough. I tell the story, with all the conflict I can muster, but I never mention when my characters need to go to the bathroom. It’s not about story anymore. It’s all about detail.

For instance, in the book ‘The Name of the Rose’, Umberto Eco takes seventeen full pages to describe the intricate carvings on the cathedral door. It wasn’t even covered with gang signs or interesting graffiti. No, it’s a scene describing Heaven and Hell. See what I did there? I took seventeen pages of this classic novel and converted it to seven words. Admittedly, my description isn’t quite as impactful, but it gets the same information across. Umberto must’ve had a lot of time on his hands.

  We must ask, “Why was this door described as such?” It has nothing to do with the story. In fact, it’s never mentioned again. However, he felt it necessary that we see in our mind’s eye every animal, angel, demon, and unfortunate soul rendered there.  Kind of foolish when you realize this door means nothing in the story, except that it opens silently and the monks walk through. Big Deal!!

In ten words or less?

In the book I just read there’s a teenaged girl locked in a dungeon. It took five chapters to describe her mood. The author didn’t describe her at all. Hey it was dark, maybe the voices in her head couldn’t see clearly. Either way, while the book was very well written, I didn’t want to hear that she was lonely any more. I got that information after the first twenty-six times you told me. I didn’t need the other two-million. Thank you very much.

In the book there was also page after page, after page of sexual frustration, an air of fear everywhere, emotional turmoil over whether a person is good or evil, and a mean villainous man bent on controlling the girl for his own diabolical plans.

Well maybe not

Pardon me. Did I say mean villain? So sorry. We only think he’s mean. After the girl escapes and the basic story ends, we are treated to another fifty pages of novella from his point of view. In that part we find out he wasn’t really trying to control the girl. He just didn’t know how to tell her, he loved her. More sexual frustration. When will it end?

It’s all so sad, but that’s not all. He was beaten as a child, and received no love from his maniacal father. Consequently, he took cold showers, turned evil, killed anyone who crossed him, tore the wings off of butterflies, and kicked cute puppies all in an attempt to try to impress the man. Needless to say, it didn’t work. In reality, he loved taking long bubble baths, plush unicorns, smooth jazz, and long books with very slim plots and way too much detail.

They Liked that and not this

Remembering, that this book was actually published by a major house and mine aren’t. I took a long hard look at myself and realized that everyone is not me. Apparently, stories don’t mean anything anymore. The public wants emotions and descriptions. It’s not good enough that the hero is being shot at by fifty angry munchkins, he has to also be having an ongoing emotional dilemma after finding out the Easter Bunny isn’t real.

With this new realization I went to the library. I looked through several genres of books, including horror, history, alternative fiction, and several picture books from ‘The Teddy Bear Goes for a Walk’ series. For a stuffed animal that teddy bear had some serious issues. But I digress.

Newer books seem to be huge tomes with stories you could tell in a pamphlet. There’s a heck of a lot of useless description out there. I was surprised with one book, that the snake which was supposed to bite the protagonist didn’t die of boredom waiting to find out if the guy was emotionally secure enough to leave the house. I went to a storytelling convention once and we were given seven minutes to complete our presentation. These newer authors couldn’t get their characters out of bed in seven minutes. I’m just saying.

I go to bookstores a lot and yes folks are buying this newer stuff. I’d love to know if they actually read this crap, or just using these large books to prop up that table with the broken leg. Maybe they need those thousand-page novels to fill the bookshelf space left empty when they threw out the set of encyclopedias they’ve had since childhood. You really never know.

My story and I’m sticking to it

If I want to be published, I’d need to bend to the publisher’s will. Therefore, I created a story which no publisher could refuse;

The first line is, “Ravine Hendershot was in trouble.” It’s powerful and draws the reader in. The next several chapters would be descriptions of Ravine’s bedroom, her face in the mirror, her puppy, and some imaginary place she thinks about on occasion. But there’s certainly nothing about why she’s in trouble. That, would be adding to the plot, which can’t happen until the middle of the book.

Next, she’d be out walking, and her friend Chase would jump out of the bushes shirtless, saying no one can bush jump with a shirt on.

Ravine is spellbound. She starts thinking about the broad shoulders, narrow waist, chiseled arms, pulsing pecs, and stunning six-pack abs. Too bad Chase has none of these. We have to be enlightened that not all heroes are buff.

Either way, Ravine is filled with desire. She wants him. She wants him badly. She wants him with every molecule of her very being. She wants him so much to put his shirt back on and cover those budding man-boobs. Remember, there has to be sexual frustration even if the guy is ugly.

Then an evil man with purple ears jumps out and captures Ravine. This is followed by a fifty-page dissertation stating not all people with purple ears are evil. It’s a life choice and we shouldn’t judge.

Lastly, in some very long, and dramatic description, Ravine saves herself. Showing she is empowered. And not all girls in trouble need some prince to show up and save them.

It’s Not good, But Ot’s Descriptive!!