In April 2006, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” made the top five in a survey of men’s most loved novels while Theodore Dreiser’s “An American Tragedy” came nowhere near. However, in 1925, when both books were written, most people would have picked Dreiser's work as the on going most popular of the two.
John Sutherland brings up this fact in his “How to Read a Novel” and, in his expert judgment, the reason has a lot to do with the titles of the novels. He puts before us the thought that if Fitzgerald had picked the titles he first considered that the book would not have achieved its near mystic status. His original list of possible titles were “Trimalchio in West Egg”, “The High Bouncing Lover”, and “Under the Red White and Blue”. Also, the novel may not have taken off if he named it in a plain, to the point way, like “James Getz, Big Shot”.

Before 1850, novels did not have all the peripheral information and promotional hype, notably covers with blurbs on them like we have now, so the title of such books as “Robinson Crusoe” were long and overloaded. In today’s world, your novel will have to compete with an avalanche of novels. Of course, you will have your blurb and such, but your title will need to be competitive and eye catching.

Your title needs to keep the reader in what John Sutherland calls “a state of confusion – or, more precisely, ‘suspension’” Your title should not give away the story. You want to entice readers to pick your novel.

Likely, you will write your novel in the past tense as the narrator. You know the conclusion; however, you want to reveal it to your reader at your pace and a bit at a time. Don’t let your title be a spoiler! If “Nineteen Eight-four began with the sentence “This is the story of a man who rebelled, failed, and ended up with a bullet in the back of his neck”, would your reading of Orwell’s novel be enhanced, subverted, or plain ruined?

Just a note here. John brings up the fact that the books you pick to read make a statement about you. In the same sense, I believe the titles you give your books make a statement about you as an author.
(To be continued)
 

Wow! Long time, no see! The golf game was long, hot, and tiring. It was fun, but I was in no mood to write.

That evening, my wife brought up her dream of improving our house. Being very supportive and wanting to “put action to the dream”, I went for it.

“So, what do you have in mind?” Said I.

“I want all the trim in the house repaired and I want the wall in the utility room repaired. I believe I will have to give up on the ceramic floor tile in the kitchen.” She replied.

I sprung for it! “Honey, let’s do the ceramic floors. That is, if you think we can take a large amount of money from our savings account.”
I may well have said, “Sic ‘em!” to a Bull Dawg!

Now, my tool shed has over $1,500.00 worth of ceramic tiles and supportive material and equipment. I had to make two loads to bring in all the order which would include the backer board. The tiles alone weighed nearly a ton. Let’s see. 35 boxes (15 tiles per box) times 52 pounds per box. I was watching the springs above the axle of my truck’s rear wheels when they began to draw down the prongs of the fork lift.

Yeah! Easy for the store. Forklift. When I got home, I had to offload these jokers one box at a time.

I went back into town and picked up the 30 odd sheets of backer board a couple of days later and they were heavy (think cement laced drywall). In this load, I also picked up ten 55 Pound bags of mortar and three sacks of grout, plus miscellaneous tile and mortar tools and equipment. I was really sore after toting all that into the tool shed by hand.

Then, Saturday, we began the first phase. Let me tell you, my Linda is a worker! Yes, not like those guys at my previous job who tried to find ways to dodge the work. Together we took up the carpet and padding in the Master Bathroom. Who ever heard of carpeting a bathroom anyway?! We began in our Master Bathroom so it would be a learning experience before we did the kitchen, utility room, the adjoining short hall and guest bathroom.

After we took up the carpet, I found an area of glued in plywood which defined patchwork from when we removed the big master bathroom tub. Well, Linda and I are shower orientated and we hardly used the big tub. Anyway, I had to sand that area and ended up using my angle grinder to take down the wood so we could lay the backer board.

Okay, the story is getting longer than you want. However, the point is that we spent a lot of time on the floor working. We got so sore we could hardly move around by the time we got all the backer board laid.

Ha! Our plan was to lay the tile in the Master Bathroom in one evening. After a couple of days, we have only the backer board down. The tile will happen tomorrow and maybe Saturday.

So, since my last blog, nearly two weeks of soreness has passed. We have been so dead tired and we have had other events take place as well. Linda has spent several days with our son, daughter in law and our new grandson. I have also spent a couple of days other than the days she spent.

The point. The point is that I have not had a chance to write for two weeks. I am behind two weeks on my blog. I have either been working; taking care of Wee Willie the Third (don’t tell them I said that. No one likes Willie but me!); or too sore and/or tired.

I don’t know if I have told you the Willie story, but here goes (perhaps again).
Dad’s name was Wellington Edgar, but he didn’t want to leave me that name because he had a tough time with it. He and Mom named me William Edgar. Now, a lot of folks called Dad, Wellie. So, Dad wanted to call me Willie. Mom hated Willie and wanted to call me Bill. Dad did not like Bill, so I was William all my young life.

However, some folks started calling me Bill before I finished high school. My first ship in the Navy was manned by folks from Georgia and Alabama, so I was Willie there. In fact, I was called Wee Willie and Wild Wee Willie often.
So, I was very comfortable with Willie, Bill, and William (which those close to me use).

We named our son William Edgar Jr., something I would never do again because the mail and stuff gets mixed up! We call our son Little Bill until he became big Bill and so he is now just Bill.

I am honored, but told them not to do it, that they named my first grandson William Edgar III. Several nicknames have popped up. I really like Liam, especially because I found out it was a good Irish name and I have a lot of the Irish in me from Mom’s side of the family. In fact, I am Scott Irish which I understand is a good mix. Dad’s remote ancestors are English. Willie, of course, is the no-no. Will has been brought up. I think the lad is going to be William.

After my son, Bill, was born, Linda and I discussed what to name another boy if we had one. My Dad was Wellington Edgar and Linda’s Dad was Kenneth Oliver. We thought Wellington Oliver sounded quite the Brit, but I am not sure we would have gone through with it.

A footnote. When Dad applied for Social Security after the age 65, he found that his birth certificate had him as Washington Edgar. I wanted to call him on the phone and say, “Hey, George.” However, I could not pull myself to do it. He was quite touchy about the incident. He had been Wellington all his life, so he had his name changed to Wellington.

Okay, I am ready to get back to work on titles which I have studied quite a bit during my time away from my Blog. I also want to grace my portfolio with some new works. However, Linda has taken a day off from work tomorrow and I believe we will be laying the ceramic tiles in the Master Bathroom! I don’t think it will take as long, but I have yet to operate the Tile Saw…

So, it's either titles or tiles tomorrow...

Wish me luck!

When we get done, if you decide to lay ceramic tile in your domicile, let me know. I should have some expert (ha!) advice for you by then.

Oh, I need to get this on my Blog plus get the dogs in and some food fixed. So, I am going to read over and edit later. I did type this on my Word Program, so the spelling and grammar should be within specs.
See ya!
-William

 

A lot of the big talk among writers is "Writer Block". We all remember the cartoon of Snoopy sitting on top of his dog house with a typewriter (Is that where he types? Maybe not, but when I think Snoopy, I think 'top of doghouse') and hundreds of balled up paper sheets with the words "It was a dark and dreary night." written as a starting sentence.

Well, here's the thought. I haven't written anything new in quite awhile. I need to create some new items. I'm on a roll, but I want to remember to come back to that statement.

But, first, I have always felt that events would inspire my writing and so, instead of looking for something to write about, I would have hundreds of things burning in my brain to write about. It seems foreign to me to try to contrive things to write.

The question I come up with is this. Should my writing be spontaneous or should I be hunting themes to write on? Is the latter type of writing contrived, unimaginative, and trivial? This comes back to another question. Are contrived writings (manufactured writing for lack of a better term... Well, maybe assembly line or production line writing) worthwhile to the reader? To the writer?

I remember, in my childhood that since our family was quite artistic, my older sister and I would engage in a game of drawing. One of us would draw a line of some sort. We would try to make the line squiggly in some way so it would be a challenge. However, we had rules such as the line could not cross over itself. It was amazing what one could do with a misshapen line. Well, any line I gave Loraine would usually be incorporated into a horse. A sideline of interest: Loraine's art was always flowing and alive. My art was always more precise, to the point of being somewhat surgical. She free spiritedly formed fire and I precisely chiseled ice. I wish I had more fire in my drawings. Perhaps she would have liked to have a little more precision. But each of us is who we are. She would not be tied to rules while I was fascinated with the structure of rules.

I believe that is why I found the military to be so fulfilling. I used to believe that everyone should spend at least four years in the military. I have since modified that belief because I have found so many folks who cannot exist in a world so bound by such order. While I can direct my inward fire within the framework I am placed in, others find their flames doused by being tightly locked in a box.

I believe my writing is somewhat like my art. I tend to write with precision and direction while others can write flowing and spirited. Of course, I am always trying to seek a flow and a soul in my pieces, but I may do this with a surgical approach.

But, moving on. Would I have developed my art and kept my interest if we had not of engaged in our playful (and competitive) games. The drawing of a line by my sister for me to complete a winning piece of art sounds an awful lot like a WDC contest where a prompt is given to write about.

And what could be more natural? Having a prompt given by a contest oriented activity or going through my mind for stories I have lived or pondered? Just as an artist might place fruit on a plate and then try to draw them, could I not look at a frog and write a telling tale or poetic description of that creature?

In fact, all our writings will be... well, instead of contrived, think created from the writer's mind. And, yes, "production line" writing does not have to be cold and going through the same motions (... well, some motions such as good grammar are always cut and dry). On the assembly line, I produced several types of items based on demand. On the writing scene, I should endeavor to produce different items all the time, but a lot of the building blocks will be the same.

Okay, coming back to a thought I had at the beginning. I need to create new items. Why? Because I am a writer and became my portfolio is getting stale. I want to showcase my calling. I want to have the fun and enjoy writing. In order to do that, I must write. I need to create new items because each item produced is exercising the muscle of writing. Each item produced is a time of meeting and working with my muse.

Wow! I am feeling the old inspiration welling up within! After I dump the trash, pick up the mail, and take my daughter's car into the shop, I will have to come back and write!

 

The eighth chapter of John Sutherland’s book, “How to Read a Novel” is “Titles”.

Before I go into his sparkling diamonds, I want you to think about the titles you have come up with and think about why you chose them.

That’s exactly what I did before I read John’s chapter. I pick my titles to try to hook readers. I also pick my titles carefully because I am one of those types who try to do everything by “the book”, even if the book is not written. I try to think, “What would my English professor have me name my book?” I have written essays and had to come up with titles for them. The title selected is part of the grade.

For awhile, the big kick in movie titles were the use of one main word. “Jaws”, “Cujo”, “The Firm”, “Ghost”, “The Natural”, “Money Ball”, “Avatar”, and on.

A little off the subject of titles, one of my pet peeves is journalists who use a word in their descriptive sentence of news to do a little pun/truth. Actually, I would like a little of it, but when it becomes the norm, it becomes disgusting to me. These mindless thoughts go like this.
After the commercial break, we will cover these top stories. “Fans Devour ‘Hunger Games’ at the Box Office.” “Challenges of an Apple without Jobs.” “Worries about Lights were Kept in the Dark.”
Instead of the hassles of buying and trashing newspapers, I just read the news online. However, to get to the stories, one has to read the headlines and pick interesting stories to read. Many of them are misleading and I end up clicking out of different stories after the first sentence.

Okay, while coming up with a title for your book, you might want to check out John Sutherland’s blurb on titles.
First, he points out that there is no copyright in titles. I wish I had of known that little bit of info in the past! I have googled my title names to make sure it wasn’t taken.
However, though the titles are not copyrighted, librarians, booksellers, authors and readers do not like duplications because it creates confusion. You do not want someone to fail to buy your book “The Matrix” because they own the original and think yours is just another printing of the same book.

I am going to have to let this be the first installment on titles. I am too sleepy to finish tonight, so I will continue “titles” in my next blog.

I will just leave you with this little incident.
Ever been attacked by a garden rake? Well, I was a victim of one today. I am cleaning out an area on the other side of my chain link fence (property belonging to my mom in law which she is letting me use) so I can practice playing golf. Once this area was an old storage shed but, after the shed was gone, the stuff stayed on the ground. Old jars, bottles, chicken water containers, and other junk were just left there and the bushes grew up around it.
I cleared out the bushes and dead wood, removed what remained of the old tin sides, and have begun cleaning up the mess. I am using a garden rake to pull up stuff covered by dirt and to remove stuff not buried so I don’t have to handle all of it initially with my hands.
After raking and bagging a bit, I leaned the rake against an old tree which had fallen onto the junk pile. I had pulled the tree trunk off the junk using my “come along”, a cabled puller with a racket handle.
Okay, here’s the picture. A garden rake leaning against a fallen tree trunk.
I was looking at the junk pile remaining and noticed a pipe half buried in the ground. I picked up the end and found that it was a long heavy pipe, metal and about 2 inches in diameter. I decided to toss it parallel to the back side of the fallen tree. As soon as I tossed it, I remembered the rake; but it was too late. The pipe caught the rake handle about a foot from the top and the rake shot straight up into the air. I tried to keep my eyes on it, but I was also trying to put some distance between me and it. Then, I got a glance of the rake coming down near my left side and so I moved to the right just in time. The rake grazed my left upper arm and hit the ground with a wallop.
I got a slight scratch and a little swelling on the side of my upper left arm along with another reminder which I used to hear from my previous boss. He said, “Bill, you need to stay aware of your surroundings!”
Lesson received!
Tomorrow is golf day with my brother in law, Jimmy, so I may not get much done on titles tomorrow evening. We will see!
‘Night all!

 

I get bored with stuff after awhile. So, I went to my neatly planned and laid out Port(folio) and completely revamped it!

'Kay! Here are my thoughts. Even though putting everything in order sounds technical and logical, my most read piece is my WilliamWriter Blog. So, instead of putting my major works first, I put my blogs and blogs' support first and prominent on the Port.

Then, instead of hiding all my poetry behind folders, I put nine of my favorite poems right out front. I know that I have three up top with my profile, but this exposes more titles.

I removed all those neat "divisional folders" whose sole purpose was to try to divide my Port into three major themes. These were Writing, Reviewing, and Reference. I can still put things in categories, but I remove the labels and am conscious of what area I put things in my Port. However, I want to let the titles speak for themselves so readers do not have to figure out my system.

I tried to remove as many folders as possible so that the works shine and are not hidden. Folders do have a purpose because if everything was front and center, readers would be confused and lost as they tried to swim the seas of the many items. I worked through a lot of give and take to get a proper balance. I will have to see how this works.

I plan to do a lot more writing in the near future. After all, this is a writing site! I joined to write. I have been coasting over the past year, so it is time to get back on task.

I hope to get back to "How to Read a Novel" tonight or tomorrow. My first Grandchild was born on the 24th of April and I am going over to my son's house to help out today. But, I did want to spend some time getting the most out of my Port!
 

Sorry. I am tired and it is late! I did write in my other blog. Check it out if you wish. "Thoughts about Novel Writing" 
 

John Sutherland, in his book "How to Read a Novel" begins a discourse on copyright in chapter 8.
Before novels came about, the means of reading was storytelling. With no owner, the tales could be repeated by anyone and often the same tale would be personalize by the teller

John's analyses of storytelling reminded me of four hour Sonar watches in the Navy. When we were at sea, we had to constantly search the seas with our underwater sound transmitter/receiver. One person would sit at the Sonar stack. This consisted of a circular screen surrounded by control knobs whereby the Sonar Operator could change direction, coverage, and transmission frequency to systematically fill areas of the ocean with sound in an attempt to locate submarines. The watch team usually consisted of four individuals. In case of a submarine contact, one would man the weapon firing computer, another would establish headset phone contact with the bridge, one would stay on the Sonar Stack and track the sub, and the last man would be available to run errands as needed. General Quarters would sound if the initial contact was classified as "possible submarine".
So, on watch, while the Sonar Stack Operator searched the seas for his hour (we would rotate so each person got an equal time at the Sonar Stack), the rest of us would talk or play cards to stay alert and yet stay fresh. Talking consisted of storytelling and covered everything from our upbringing and events in our pre and present navy lives to telling jokes.

The telling of a joke seemed simple, but it was very challenging. One had to have the joke storyline memorized, had to keep the listeners interested, and had to be careful not to give away the punch line of the joke until that precise time that the teller laid it.

I would have to say that storytelling did not go away verbally because of the copyright. I am always flipping through joke books at stores or turning to the joke sections of "Reader's Digest" to pick up one to catch my brother-in-law with.
One of Jimmy's (said brother-in-law) favorites is this.
Joe's wife was always fussing because she claimed he spent more time playing golf than doing things with her.
Finally she gave him this ultimatum. "It's either me or your golf clubs! One of us has to go."
Joe looked at her sadly for a moment and then replied, "I am sure gonna miss you."

Do you know why fast food places which do the birthday thing don't ever sing "Happy Birthday to You"? They don't because the song is copyrighted and the restaurant which used that song would have to pay royalties to use it. That copyright may have ended because recently I was in restaurants that used it.
But, I cannot go out and write someone else's book for my profit even if I put it in my own words. However, ideas are not copyrighted and so I can use plotlines, scenarios, character types, and gimmicks from someone else's book. I just can't use the linguistic form in which these ideas are expressed.

Novels, because of the copyright laws, are legally owned by their originators...Well, by whoever got the copyright on them. I suspect, like the old western gold mine claim jumpers, a person could steal someone's work and copyright it first under their name. Not only is the owner protected, but the publisher who has contracted to publish the book and the retailer who has bought a number of the books to sell from his store. John goes on to say that the copyright owner could be prosecuted if she/he was to shoplift a copy of his book from a store.

A novel is frozen in a single authorized form. Just as you cannot go to Michelangelo's statue of David and do a few changes with a hammer and chisel, with copyright laws, you cannot change a novel. (paraphrased from John Sutherland)

John goes on to give an example of ideas being used by others. Ward Moore came up with the idea of a parallel universe gimmick and, while Moore's characters and specifics has to be respected by other authors, many authors have used the parallel universe in their own scenarios.

However, it is a thin line. John is afraid that the copyright might be replaced by the trademark %u2122 because of some cases which had their day in court. He said that it would be a serious loss.

Well, the sharing of ideas, such as the parallel universe gimmick, allows writer to thoroughly explore and develop those areas.

What does this mean for you as an author?
Well, first, you need to copyright your work. I hope the "poor man's" copyright is as good as I believe it is. Because I have written my work on a Web page and it is dated, that should be sufficient to win a battle in court if someone copied it and then sent in for a copyright.
Second, if you find a scenario in someone else's book you really like, you can take the idea as long as you don't take its literary form. In other words, you can have someone beam you up to their ship as long as it is not James T. Kirk's USS Enterprise or with a ship and characters amazingly identical to the USS Enterprise and Captain James T. Kirk and crew.

My blog went over 3,000 views Tonight! Thanks so much for reading my blog!
 

In Chapter 7 of John Sutherland’s book, “How to Read a Novel”, (which is presently sounding like “how to pick a novel to read”), John first talks about dust jacket blurbs – which I will get back to – but first, I want to go to the latter part of the chapter and pick up on something I found special. John says to check out the copyright page!

Okay, you find an interesting book and you are browsing to see if it is a worthy read. You go to the copyright page and it is first published in 1928, but the present edition is copyrighted in 1994. The particular example John uses is “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”. In this case, the problem was the book could not be copyrighted in the United States or Britain at the time because of the subject matter and language. For better or worse (I am only reporting, not telling how I feel about the changes), 1959 – 1960 is a watershed date in that sex and language restrictions changed (first in Britain and then, a few months later in the United States), so that books like “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” were able to be copyrighted and sold.

But, there is more to this tale; one that involves you as an author.
“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” starts off with a diatribe by D. H. Lawrence. I quote, “Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes….”

If you read that book in 1994, would you assume (because you are reading and not really thinking about copyright dates and time) that “Our age” is the present time? Most likely, I would have. However, Lawrence wrote this at the beginning of the ‘Jazz Age’, around the time of the British General Strike in 1926 and the gloomy days of 1929 stock market collapse in the United States. Lawrence, himself, was dying of consumption and, full of anger mixed with pessimism, he blasted what he thought was Anglo-Saxon hypocrisy.

Could you imagine getting upset with America’s foreign policies in the years before the fall of the Iron Curtain and writing a novel meant to bring about a public changes in attitude? The novel might have been completed, but the lag time while you found a publisher might place the book on the market just as the crisis goes away.
The soap box you, as an author, shout from may lose its relevance in the next ten years. If the readers of that latter age don’t know the context from which you wrote, they will be lost. If they are aware, they may consider your ranting as irrelevant trivia.
Well, we still enjoy reading books from the Viet Nam war period of history, but the cultural attitude changes yearly.
I have, long ago, left this politically charged discussion to those who still live in the past. However, my point is not what I feel on the subject; but rather, how the young adults of this day, who you, the writer, are writing to, feel culturally. There are historical distances, which include cultural differences when you read history. The ancients who wrote early history saw things differently than you or me.
How many times have you heard that the present war in the Middle East goes back to ancient times? But, that is a glib approach in so many respects. If you follow history, you find the ancient kingdoms were often overthrown by peoples migrating in from the Far East. Persia reigned as a power throughout the days of the Roman Empire, though at one time, it had been under the control of Alexander, the Great, and his heirs. The Huns finally took over that country, but afterwards, the forces of Mohammed took control of the land. You may say, “Yes, but the captured Persians still lived there and their descendants are there today”.
However, if you follow history as a story of migrations of mankind, you will likely find that the immigrants blended with the locals and made the same melting pot as the United States is lauded as being. Culturally, the ‘battle’ changed and different powers or mindsets fought for territory. Just because war goes on in different places around the globe, does not mean that the causes are the same or the peoples fighting them are the same.

When John Grisham wrote his novel, “The Firm”, in 1991, the top of the line law firm he describes in his book did not even have desktop computers. Mitch didn’t have a cell phone though junior high school kids had them by 1990. John Sutherland surmises that John Grisham must have written the book some years before but finding a publisher took a long time.

So, what do you, as an author, do with that?! You write a book and try to find a publisher for a few years. Meanwhile, technology moves on and your book is in a techno-lag! Some things will just have to been “behind times” for your readers. If your book hits the big screen like John Grisham’s did, then they will clean it up for their audience.

Maybe the major thing to remember is that if you write about current events, the historical lag could leave your audience more confused than techno-lag would. I think folks would get more upset over an outdated outlook on the future than over the gadgets your characters might fail to have.

John Sutherland makes some very interesting points concerning “Pride and Prejudice”, so if you are interested in picking that book to read, you will want to check out his book “How to Read a Novel”. But, anyway, “Pride and Prejudice” was written and set in the mid 1790s when Britain was at war with Revolutionary France. It was published in 1813, the second year of the Regency. Therefore, the movie versions show the ladies in full Regency finery because it looked grander.

But, take heart, authors! John Sutherland makes the point that we (readers) can be wholly gripped by novels which history has shown to be entirely wrong. Arthur C. Clarke’s classic “The Sands of Mars”, first published in 1951, has the pilot “…leaning back idly in his seat so it rocked back and fro in the gimbals”. “…’Yes’, said Martin Gibson, never taking his eyes from the chronometer, as it ticked seconds.”
Gimbals are located in BOAC (now British Airways) cockpits. “…ticking chronometer”? John says, “What next, egg-timers”, yet goes on to point out that Clarke’s standing as one of the big three Sci-Fi writers (along with Asimov and Heinlein) was never affected. The book is still in print and can still be enjoyed by twenty-first century readers who are able to reset their literary ‘chronometers’ and adjust their literary ‘gimbals’ to read the work in two time contexts.

I am writing a lot of historical fiction. It would be bad news to get my facts so messed up that my readers would question my historical accuracy and thus not be hooked into my book. Even in the fantasy world, I have run amuck because my dragons did not match up to the dragon model. Believe me, the diehard fans of dragons and fantasy worlds will turn on you if you do not study a bit of “Dragons 101”. When you are writing Sci-Fi and fantasy, you will encounter the deeply committed fans of these genres. You really want to appeal to them because they will make up a large percentage of that audience.

Still, I remember from seminary, where we ministers prepared for our pulpit stumps, the concept of lifting the nuggets of truth from writings of an ancient time and planting them into a modern situation. We had to look at the context of the teachings in their original settings and in the culture of a distant past; get the concept right for the people it was written for and then translate it for an accurate placement in our actions today.

For instance, in the Hebrew Bible, “gird up your loins” meant get ready to run. The people wore long robes for clothes. “Gird up your loins” was the action of reaching down and grabbing the back of the robe from under the legs and pulling it forward to tuck in your waist band. Now you are free to run without the robe getting in the way.
Hundreds of years later, in the years right after the birth of Christ, Luke, the Gospel writer, would write, “…Let your loins be girded about…” in regards to the return of their Lord from the wedding. In other words, be ready for action, your robe tucked into your waist band.

So, moving ahead to the twenty first century, ministers preach the message of being ready for the return of the Lord. Of course, we do not tell folks to “gird” their trousers, but we tell them to be “ready for action”. That is, be alert. And ladies, there is no need to gird your long dresses. The saying is to be taken figuratively rather than physically.

Okay, the first is last. Blurbs – synopses for the browser/potential buyer. John says these began to appear on the dustjackets of books in the early twentieth century. You see them on the backs of paperbacks and on the front flap of a hardback. Often, you, as the writer, will write them yourself. However, if you use this technique to get your book sold, you will want to walk a fine line between giving away your plot and holding back so you don’t give your story away.

Remember the books reports you gave in High School and College literature classes. The idea was to give enough about the book to get others interested, but not enough to "steal" the book's thunder. Or better, when you are telling someone that they should watch the DVD "Taken" with Liam Neeson, you are careful not to give the plot and ending away.

The “sales pitch” blurbs (written by someone other than the author) is called “shoutlines” and endorsement tags. John says such endorsements and shoutlines are useless. Their aim is not to inform but to entice the prospective reader into parting with his(her) money.

 

"De gustibus non est disputandum" is a Latin maxim meaning "In matters of taste, there can be no disputes" In other words, no one can tell you what you like and dislike. They can disagree with you, but you can disagree with them.

John Sutherland’s book, “How to Read a Novel” is beginning to remind me of those 60 minute real life dramas on TV.
They bring up some story and get you interested, but each time they come back from commercials, they recap a lot of what they had already told you. You just want to rip the TV off the shelf because you have already gotten point A and point B. You want to hear what is ahead rather than hear again what you already heard.

Unlike the TV, you can just skim forward in John's book until you find the new nuggets of gold within.

I highly recommend the reading of “How to Read a Novel”. The ‘rehashes’ are small in comparison to the knowledge and understanding gained.

Okay, what do you think is being rehashed throughout this book?

Right! He keeps reminding the reader that one can only read a small fraction of the books on the markets in their lifetime and that more are coming each day! He also constantly reminds his readers that even trying to skim through books to find those the reader will enjoy is a formidable task. Not only that, but 90% of the books on the market are garbage.
Once again, he reiterates that you have to find the novels that you have the time to invest in.

A real quick overview of the lead in to the meat of chapter 6 follows. First, he goes over statistics of how many books are on the market; how many come out a week; how old books do not disappear; and how all these books are like literary plaque clogging up book shelves and coffee tables. He continues to compare the amount of novels now with the amount of novels at various times in the past.

He then asks this question, and I paraphrase. How can we identify the 10%, or less, fiction books that are good reading and can we tell the difference?

Well, the stinger which makes up the second question really got my attention! Am I reading a bunch of junk without even knowing it because I am not used to reading the real stuff?

Okay, writers. Good news and something to think about. First, if only 10% of the books being written are good reads, then, if you are a good fiction writer, you can be in that 10%. The problem is, just like trying to pick out good books to read; can you pick out what you need to put in your book for it to be a good read?

I wrote my “Where Jackals Hide” and thought it was great. However, after study, I found out it is telling and not showing. After learning and evaluating, I found that the book can be written a whole lot better.

So, not only must you write to be one of those 10% good writers; you must hone your writing skills to always write good. Once you can consistently and repetitiously write good sentences; write good dialogue; write good blocks of showing; and use the other skills of writing a novel, you will produce those good reads!

Now, the first way you can begin to identify good reads is to read some acknowledged classics.
As I read this piece in John's book, this thought came to my mind, “Sure, some of the old ones are dinosaurs. But the good ones are really good!”
You will not enjoy any modern novel more than some of the classics that have been around for a long time.

John says that once we move on from that start, we should take a look at the pornographers. No, not their literature, but the way smut hounds profile their desired bondage. They locate their personal bondage and then home on it like pigs.

If we readers were into reading like smut hounds are into their smut; we would search for those reads that ‘send’ us and we would travel those old roads of reading again that we love so much.

Now, as we profile our personal reading preferences, we find some help in the bookstores as they put books into genre (category fiction). John says it is fascinating to watch book browsers. I will have to try it the next time I go to Books a Million. He says older women drift towards ‘romance’, men towards ‘male action’, older readers towards ‘classics’, and the young towards ‘teen fiction’.

John says we need to know ourselves in order to pick out our reading preference. I say that we writers need to know ourselves as we pursue our writing preferences. Perhaps that is why one of your novels is not going well. Could it be that you are trying to be with a certain group of writers, but you find that you are not all that interested in the scenes and situations you are trying to write? Could it be that you are trying to write to an audience in order to sell a novel, but that is all you are writing for? Maybe you need to write about something you care about and enjoy.

John divides the reading community into two “great taste” sectors.

1. Thackerayans, who likes fiction which talks, conversationally to them.
2. Dickensians, who like their fiction to be theatrical. A spectacle at which they are spectators.
I believe I am Dickensian inside and out! I hate yak and I love adventure. However, these definitions may not carry the depth that they should. I googled both sectors and could come up with nothing. I had hoped to find a list of Thackeray type books and another list of Dickensian books, but was unable to find any guide.

However, the two books John gives for examples of each are “Vanity Fair” and “Dombey and son”. I suppose I should read “Vanity Fair” and mentally figure out what books I have loved in the past fit this bill, if any.

Well, here’s my thought. Though I love action and adventure, I also love those “dreamlike” trips into fantasy worlds. I love thoughts coming together. I love the mental game as much as I love the action game.
Example: In the movie “Stargate”, the young scholar, Dr. Jackson, is taken to an Air Force missile silo. There he observes a massive rock with carvings on it which no one can figure out. After much study, he gets nowhere, but then the answer hits him and he figures it out. Then, he expands on the answers and puts things into place which had been a mystery for years with even the most brilliant minds working on it.
The movie caught the wonder of discovery and all the actions that proceeded out of it. For me, this was a brilliant moment.

But, anyway, writers need to find their preferences and then write from their hearts that which they love to write.

Once you, as a reader, get to your genre or category; then you can browse to find something you might like to read. Even on Amazon.Com, you can “look inside” some books. You will get a prompt that enables you to do so. However, if you can’t, you can go to your local bookstore, browse through the book. If you like it, you can go back to Amazon.com when you get home and order the book on line.

However, browsing takes time and you may be short on time. John suggests you use the McLuhan test. Go to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like the page, buy the book.

Since there is a McLuhan test, I would strongly suggest to writers that they read their page 69 and make sure it is as good as the rest of your writing!

John speaks of using charts to find the best reads. Book seller lists are good; however, the downside is that you are joining the “thundering herd” or in other words, you are in danger of having someone else pick your reading for you. Too, big names get preferential treatment in such lists, so you have to be careful you are not being sold a bill of goods just so some writer can line his/her pockets.

Another place to go is to book reviews. However, John says that the most comprehensive book reviews are in book trade papers which are inaccessible to the common reader. These are “Publisher’s Weekly” and “Kirkus Review and Choice”.

For the unprofessional searcher, word of mouth, intuition, powerful browsing, and the page 69 test are the best options.
I would add to John’s list for unprofessional searchers, look for more books from an author you love. It doesn’t always work. I loved “Dragon Flight” but hated Anne’s sequential novel because I fell in love with Lessa in “Dragon Flight”, but Anne made Lessa into a woman monster in the following novel. However, most of the time I buy and enjoy books written by authors who captivates me with their writing.
I do take a look at Amazon’s “people who bought this book also bought these books”. I like the idea of checking out similar books.

As a writer, I believe it is good to build up a fan base. I also believe that if you write well on Writing.Com, other members can get a liking for what you write. When you write your novel, your readers here will remember you and they will likely try out your book and their word of mouth could help build your reading base.

 

Remember how at the beginning, John Sutherland, in his book "How to Read a Novel", said that he would start out like an astronomer looking in the sky with a telescope and then would begin to zoom in until he would end like a biologist looking in a microscope.

Well, the first blog I wrote on this subject was about the vast number of novels compared to the brief time we readers have in our lifetimes.
The idea for us readers is that we need to focus in on what we want to read, or how to best use our reading time.
The idea for us as writers is that we need to realize our readers have limited reading time and we have to compete with many writers. We need to select our audience and then write quality works.

Our publishers are grappling with tons of newly written novels. We need to captivate them by using good writing techniques.

As readers, if we don't make our own decisions, book sellers and those with other agendas will cram us with their picks. John uses the words, "...we will be force fed like a goose". As writers, we don't need to duplicate the works of others; we need to be creative and bring new life to the table.

My second blog, which covered chapter two, spoke of the difficulty of sifting through the book galaxy trying to find those books you want to read without wasting your time and energy.
I just thought of the night time sky filled with all those stars. Instead of trying to look at each one, I tend to find the constellations, planets, the moon, and other interesting objects in the sky and concentrate on them.
As writers, we need to put new constellations on the night sky! We need to be seen and that means we must create new interesting objects. We cannot afford to just duplicate the moon or a constellation. I have read so many new works on line which seem like another chapter in "Dune" or "The Matrix". Those have been taken. It is time to come up with your own creations.

Chapter three is about books in general. It also makes the point of being an individual while you read instead of giving into the pressure of reading what everyone else reads in a mindless way. As writers, we need to be individuals writing to these individuals. We don't need to join the chorus of mindless voices singing the same old lines.

Chapter four begins to focus or zoom in. Novels become our focus and then the genre, or types of novels. As writers, we need to write with the understanding that not everyone will like our particular genre. We may reach for our audience and then take them in a bit of a different direction at times, but know that if we get too far off the trail, we may loose that audience. Many liked the cowboy and aliens movie, but die hard Louis L'Amour readers may not make the leap.

At last, in chapter five, we begin finding our book to read. Well, perhaps not.
This chapter is about how the book peddlers will try to grab us with the dust jacket. A quarter of the cost of production goes into the dust jacket. Just as you, the writer, try to grab your readers with your words, so the book peddler tries to grab the potential readers (buyers to them) with the bait of the dust cover.

Yeah, you ladies grab the books with a hulk type man on the cover and the men grab the books with the scantily clad lady on the dust jacket. The cheese on these mousetraps may have nothing to do with the story inside.

Paraphrasing John, "When you are buying a book, if you feel a tender hand reaching for your sensuous regions, the other hand is probably feeling your wallet".

I think what this says to us as we read John Sutherland's "How to Read a Novel" in order to figure out how to write to the reader is: If we use an illustrator to try to sway readers to read our novel, we should be careful that the illustrations and design of the dust cover is not just bait, but accurate. If not, I believe we destroy our credibility. We might do well deceiving the public once, but they are not likely to fall for it a second time. I do love the T-Rex dust cover on "Jurassic Park" and the dragon on the dust cover of "Dragon Flight". However, if "Jurassic Park" didn't have a strong T-Rex presence within or if there were no dragons in "Dragon Flight", I probably would think twice about buying books from those authors in the future.

Take this a step further and I would say that you may get them in your book with a good cover, but you will only keep your readers by using good writing techniques.