First, do you have a writers group? It's tough to produce in a vacuum. Second, why not write those small, short nonsense experiments? That's how to happen upon a new voice. And after several short pieces you can look for a pattern to develop. If you've read my story 'Eleanor' then you know I embrace the nonsense experiment. You might also look for Shirley Jackson's short-short story 'My Life with R.H. Macy.' And of course Amy Hempel's story 'Deliver Us Not Into Penn Station.' I applaud you lapsing into nonsense.
I like Tom Spanbauer’s metaphor for writing a first draft. Though, given the length of time that it can sometimes take to complete a first draft, I think “You’re still pissing out a kidney stone” could unfortunately take its metaphorical place.
Some months back on a short run I heard you retell Goldberg's bit on the Joe Rogan Experience. I remember exactly where I was when you described it -- on a very steep hill opposite my apartment. Every time I run up that steep hill I'm reminded of the bit and Joe's reaction when you delivered her punchline. Scary powerful bit.
I like to keep in mind what Roxanne Gay says about memoir writing, something like, "You don't have to cannibalize yourself to tell your story." Also, I get spiritual satisfaction out of keeping some secrets forever, and I attempt to only allude to those secrets when I write.
Great piece. Over time my own writing has grown progressively more autobiographical but I've always consciously eschewed straight up memoir (partly for the reasons Chuck mentions). I do look at my own writing (which I consider autofic) and wonder about the line between autofic and memoir. What is the difference, besides changing names/dates/etc. as a courtesy or for liability reasons? Especially today with there being close to zero privacy, anyone can find out roughly how true to life a piece of writing is.
As an aside, for my tastes, the best autofic would be Bukowski, and the best example of using metaphor to indirectly resolve personal issues would be Kafka.
My rule is that I have to be fooling myself to some extent, otherwise I end up with a predictable extension of where I started. What I want is a breakthrough that's revolutionary, not evolutionary. That's why the compelling idea works. It takes me down a road to a place I've forgotten or refuse to recognize at first. Beyond that: Exaggerate. Whatever the issue is, escalate and exaggerate it until you've exhausted your emotional reaction to it.
You read my mind! I'd already written a question for this post (kind of):
How do you deal with examining emotions? Like you say you try and examine feelings when they arise so you can write about them, but what about all the harmful ones, all the ones that you take on board and act them out and become them. All the self-destruction? Like the method acting in your head? How do you deal with something that you know is going to potentially harm you? Can you compartmentalise this stuff?
In Minimalism you may never dictate an emotional reaction. You can only present actions, objects, conditions that lead the reader (ideally) to have the reaction you're trying to generate. To do that the writer is forced -- like the actor -- to unpack the perfect combination of details that will give the reader the experience. By depicting on-the-body physical details, and pacing the scene you prompt the reader into carrying all the emotion and stress. And doing so allows you to control the story instead of vice versa. You can initially experience the emotion in your head, but beyond that you're documenting it and curating it so that it will create a similar effect in the reader.
That Hempel is bordering on poetry, isn’t it? I suppose that’s kind of the point. If you’re ever at a loss for some new short stories, Tenea Johnson’s “Broken Fevers” is, in my biased opinion, exceptional. I happened to hang out quite a bit with Johnson as a friend in the nineties. One story from “Fevers” does take place from that time but twists the author’s inner pain in a nicely graphic lie. Johnson masks in “speculative fiction” which is another great term for exaggerating, isn’t it? I’m working my way through “Night Train” and, more than anything, felt the need to pay you back with a recommendation. T.J. for a T.J. seems only fair. Will be on the lookout his other books and any Schopenhauer I can find. I’m loving how some of the stories interconnect and Kulick’s jacket design seems perfect in the way it “bleeds” to the interior. You were right about Thom being photogenic as well.
Get out of my mind! I'd just got her short story collection from the bookshelf to go though! If the bookmark was on that page, I'd have sworn you were psychic (it was on 'When It's Human Instead of When It's Dog' in case you were wondering).
But as for emotion, it was more a question of how you work though it as a person. Not the writer you, but the you-you. Like the mental health experiencing you. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but the emotional hangover you get from trying to write something sad or angry or poignant makes me question its worth because of the strain it puts on you mentally. So even if it's not explicitly written, it's still there as background noise affecting both you and your characters.
Maybe it's just me being soft. I have a tendency to expose more belly than is probably necessary. I think I'm mostly belly.
I just wondered if you experienced anything similar, and if you did, how do you cope/work through it.
I'm aware that this is a massive question, and maybe too big to cover in a quick reply. Although, 'you just deal with it' is also a completely acceptable response, just one that hasn't worked for me so far.
First time I read "in the cemetery..." it shattered my heart. Completely. I count it amongst my favourite short stories. And yeah, I would love to break reader's hearts like that.
I haven't had much luck broaching my deepest emotions with memoir. Those stories always seem to be more about others - my friends, my enemies, my family - and my perception of their struggles. Maybe it's safer to give my tragedies to fictional characters?
It might be a mistake, but I like to throw my most painful memories at my antagonists. It reminds me that they're human, even if they're damaged. Maybe to let them make the self-indulgent decisions I wanted to make but was morally disinclined to? Like forcing them to relive my childhood memory of watching my dog be smashed in half by a garbage truck. What if I had allowed the trauma from that experience to turn into greed, hate, or violence? What if, in some lesser way, I did exactly that? It makes me want to find something redeemable in that person, because I want to find it in myself.
Too many of my workshop experiences have devolved into this same kind of "therapy" session, and I can't begrudge anyone their need to unburden. But when I'm there to learn, it irks me to have to wade through emotional baggage that isn't pertinent to the craft. Am I being unsympathetic? I want to be compassionate and sincere, but I'm just as interested in doing good work. As someone who exists in a near-constant state of existential crisis, my "coping mechanism" has always been to plow on, to do my best to learn from the experience and use it for growth and creation rather than dwell on it. Is there a place for that, or am I just a dick?
I live in the south, and I've had to find a group on the west coast to work with in order to get honest feedback. Southerners are extremely critical, but they won't say it to your face. You have to interpret their meaning through phrasing and tone. They precede every harsh word with "Bless their heart..." I call it 'polite malice'. It drives me f***ing batty. Parented by a 'Nam vet and a hardscrabble country woman, I was well into my twenties before I realized that not many people appreciate brutal honesty. I eventually developed the empathy to use truth as an embrace, rather than a weapon. But like you said, "I liked it" isn't helpful. I'd rather be told it's dogsh*t and I should keep my day job.
The group I'm in now is run by a curmudgeonly professor who penned a series of "how-to" books that I enjoyed. He's harsh, but helpful. He says Oregonians are too damned nice, and he's not entirely wrong, the Portlanders I've met are warm and inviting folks. But I've found more direct critique in his group than any local ones. Unfortunately, this group does not meet often enough to be beneficial to me, especially with the pandemic. I'm the youngest member by a generation, and though I'm vaccinated (I know, I'm southern, but not one of those southerners) I'm a little reticent about travelling cross-country to sit in a room with a bunch of immunocompromised people, even if the oldest member of the group is one of the toughest people I've ever met. When the whole world's trying to stop an outbreak, I don't want to be the guy driving the monkey to the airport.
"Consider This" is an invaluable resource. Seriously, thank you. I appreciate your love for the craft, and your drive to teach it. I've wrapped it in an old generic library dust jacket to avoid damaging the retail cover, and I've coupled it with a notebook so I don't mark it up. I reference it more than any other book on my "tools" shelf. I'm also a regular Litreactor student (Thanks, Suzy!). But I work best with face-to-face feedback and interaction. I need something constant, or at least something more than biannual. It's one of the many reasons I joined this Substack, which again I am thankful for. Your advice provides emotional clarity about writing and about living as a writer. How often does your group meet? Any chance I could sit in or observe when I'm in town? I'm housebroken, have all my shots, I play well with others, and I'm not easily offended. Have pencils, will travel.
Hello Jake. If you're a dick, so am I. The key to being a dick is to offer a decent "fix" if you're going to criticize an element. And to use an existing element as the fix, instead of asking for something new to be introduced. "How about if you bring in a blue dinosaur, here?" No, almost always writers introduce and forget an element that can be the crucial missing link at the end of a story/scene. You are welcome to sit in. In Tom's workshop he called the visitors "pond scum" because they sat in a larger circle around the regular students seated at the table. They can listen but not submit work. So come be pond scum.
Our local medical school says we'll have herd immunity by December. Fingers crossed. In the new world we'll have some radically new priorities. So come visit.
I'm going to have to lead the Pond Scum Welcoming Committee since the whole concept pushes my outcast buttons. Free Salt 'n Straw ice cream on the house!
Not to minimize your concerns, nor the benefits &/or drawbacks of writing groups—but why not write the book you'd want to read? I think most people drawn to the transgressive genre find it difficult to locate others who have the emotional and psychological maturity to be objective about "challenging" stories. Why not trust in your sensibilities as a writer as much as you trust your sensibilities as a reader?
That's a damn good question, Steve. I've chewed on it for most of the afternoon. I agree that we should all be writing what we want to read. The closest I've come to my reason is fear of ego. I'm not sure I can consistently trust my own sensibilities, either as a writer or a reader, through the lens of my own perception. I want someone I trust to tell me if I'm naked before I go strutting my new duds down the street. Not that I mind being naked, I just want to know it. Also, it's about audience. As selfish as art is, we make it to entertain and connect. It's inspiring to share ideas and to entertain people who are trying to do the same. It helps me step back from it and find perspective. Like Chuck said, you might have already written a vital element and just need someone to point it out. That element might be the difference between passable and transformative.
For the record, I LOVE memoir. Many of my favorite books are memoirs. I am "particularly rabid about rejecting memoir" in our workshop because it's a FICTION writing workshop, in which we specifically have said that the only rule is NO MEMOIR. So when folks try to slide memoir in and pretend it's fiction it's obvious, and annoying, and super hard to edit. And yeah, makes me froth at the mouth a little, and bite. Hey. ALL WRITING is memoir. But run it through the cheese grater before you call it fiction. Or just call it memoir. The point is, decide. Don't pretend there's no difference... Here endeth the lesson.
Chuck I’m sorry to post another selfish question, but something came up today that has blindsided me a bit. I’m concerned and I’m curious what you’ll have to say (if obliged). I found out that over the past few months a few books just came out on the topic I am exploring in my story’s narrative. It’s not the entire narrative, but it’s a big part of it. I thought I was writing about something that hadn’t been touched yet and now there are all these new fiction stories using an (until now) untapped part of my narrative. Do you ever have these concerns? Am I now screwed? Should I grab these books and read them or stay away from them and focus on what I’m working on? I’ve been working as hard as I can to make this book as unique as possible and well written. It’s frustrating to feel like I might have been beaten to something. I wish I could finish it faster, but I don’t want my work to suck.
Hey Matt. First don't panic. Consider that if books are superficially similar the best one will last over time. When I launched 'Pygmy' I'd no idea that the humor writer Dave Barry was launching a similar young adult book called 'Science Fair.' Booksellers brought it to my attention, and some needled me about the fact that both books used a malevolent foreign exchange student as protagonist. They told me I'd missed the boat because Barry's book had beat mine to market. I asked, "Does the Dave Barry book have a high school bully getting violently butt raped in a Walmart toilet stall?" I'd ask, "Does Barry publically drown a preached in a baptismal font?" No, of course not.
My point is that if such books are trending -- yours can get more traction and have more staying power if yours is more memorable and sticks in readers' minds. One useful aspect of a workshop is that you've access to several people who can tell you of similar projects in the market. Or if recent projects have come out in the past few years.
Above all, if this topic looks like a trend then all big five publishers will want a horse in that race. You know? Like how all movie studios all bring out a volcano, tidal wave, martian invasion movie at the same time -- but only the best will last in viewers' minds.
Ok, thanks a ton for that perspective. That makes sense. I feel a lot better now. The initial shock hit me kind of hard, but on the other hand my rational mind was thinking that surely this happens a lot. I swear there really is something to the idea of an overlap in human consciousness. Sometimes it’s like once a thought enters that realm, suddenly it’s somehow on everyone else’s mind too. Very odd how that works.
First, do you have a writers group? It's tough to produce in a vacuum. Second, why not write those small, short nonsense experiments? That's how to happen upon a new voice. And after several short pieces you can look for a pattern to develop. If you've read my story 'Eleanor' then you know I embrace the nonsense experiment. You might also look for Shirley Jackson's short-short story 'My Life with R.H. Macy.' And of course Amy Hempel's story 'Deliver Us Not Into Penn Station.' I applaud you lapsing into nonsense.
If anyone wants to watch the full Whoopi Goldberg routine it's here, around the 20 minute mark....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnWreiWF2nQ
Excellent. You've got much better web searching skills than I (me?).
Probably not......just more time on my hands!
That link isn’t working anymore. Here’s another: https://youtu.be/XpkpRo_XdEU?feature=shared
I like Tom Spanbauer’s metaphor for writing a first draft. Though, given the length of time that it can sometimes take to complete a first draft, I think “You’re still pissing out a kidney stone” could unfortunately take its metaphorical place.
Invaluable info exactly when it's needed most. Your generosity knows no bounds.
Hey, the big Thanks should go to the writer who submitted the question via Dennis at The Cult.
I thanked her this morning. :)
Also, all forms of writing, in general, are viable, correct? Memoire, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Veiled Memoire...etc. Just not in all Workshops.
Exactly.
Some months back on a short run I heard you retell Goldberg's bit on the Joe Rogan Experience. I remember exactly where I was when you described it -- on a very steep hill opposite my apartment. Every time I run up that steep hill I'm reminded of the bit and Joe's reaction when you delivered her punchline. Scary powerful bit.
Interesting that it's a "body" memory, like being neck-touched by Carrie Fisher.
I love how oddly specific that is XD
I like to keep in mind what Roxanne Gay says about memoir writing, something like, "You don't have to cannibalize yourself to tell your story." Also, I get spiritual satisfaction out of keeping some secrets forever, and I attempt to only allude to those secrets when I write.
Agreed. Wrapped presents are always more appealing.
Lidia's chronology of water takes my breath away. It is beautiful and devastating.
Great piece. Over time my own writing has grown progressively more autobiographical but I've always consciously eschewed straight up memoir (partly for the reasons Chuck mentions). I do look at my own writing (which I consider autofic) and wonder about the line between autofic and memoir. What is the difference, besides changing names/dates/etc. as a courtesy or for liability reasons? Especially today with there being close to zero privacy, anyone can find out roughly how true to life a piece of writing is.
As an aside, for my tastes, the best autofic would be Bukowski, and the best example of using metaphor to indirectly resolve personal issues would be Kafka.
My rule is that I have to be fooling myself to some extent, otherwise I end up with a predictable extension of where I started. What I want is a breakthrough that's revolutionary, not evolutionary. That's why the compelling idea works. It takes me down a road to a place I've forgotten or refuse to recognize at first. Beyond that: Exaggerate. Whatever the issue is, escalate and exaggerate it until you've exhausted your emotional reaction to it.
This! Thank you, Chuck! (Scribbling away and learning)
And not ignoring Sassy, I hope.
I’ve learned to my “homework” with Sassy on my lap! Lol.
You read my mind! I'd already written a question for this post (kind of):
How do you deal with examining emotions? Like you say you try and examine feelings when they arise so you can write about them, but what about all the harmful ones, all the ones that you take on board and act them out and become them. All the self-destruction? Like the method acting in your head? How do you deal with something that you know is going to potentially harm you? Can you compartmentalise this stuff?
In Minimalism you may never dictate an emotional reaction. You can only present actions, objects, conditions that lead the reader (ideally) to have the reaction you're trying to generate. To do that the writer is forced -- like the actor -- to unpack the perfect combination of details that will give the reader the experience. By depicting on-the-body physical details, and pacing the scene you prompt the reader into carrying all the emotion and stress. And doing so allows you to control the story instead of vice versa. You can initially experience the emotion in your head, but beyond that you're documenting it and curating it so that it will create a similar effect in the reader.
For the perfect example of this, read Amy Hempel's story 'In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried.' Hempel is a master at making the reader carry the emotional burden. I'll post a link here: http://fictionaut.com/stories/amy-hempel/in-the-cemetery-where-al-jolson-is-buried.pdf
That Hempel is bordering on poetry, isn’t it? I suppose that’s kind of the point. If you’re ever at a loss for some new short stories, Tenea Johnson’s “Broken Fevers” is, in my biased opinion, exceptional. I happened to hang out quite a bit with Johnson as a friend in the nineties. One story from “Fevers” does take place from that time but twists the author’s inner pain in a nicely graphic lie. Johnson masks in “speculative fiction” which is another great term for exaggerating, isn’t it? I’m working my way through “Night Train” and, more than anything, felt the need to pay you back with a recommendation. T.J. for a T.J. seems only fair. Will be on the lookout his other books and any Schopenhauer I can find. I’m loving how some of the stories interconnect and Kulick’s jacket design seems perfect in the way it “bleeds” to the interior. You were right about Thom being photogenic as well.
Get out of my mind! I'd just got her short story collection from the bookshelf to go though! If the bookmark was on that page, I'd have sworn you were psychic (it was on 'When It's Human Instead of When It's Dog' in case you were wondering).
But as for emotion, it was more a question of how you work though it as a person. Not the writer you, but the you-you. Like the mental health experiencing you. I don't know, maybe it's just me, but the emotional hangover you get from trying to write something sad or angry or poignant makes me question its worth because of the strain it puts on you mentally. So even if it's not explicitly written, it's still there as background noise affecting both you and your characters.
Maybe it's just me being soft. I have a tendency to expose more belly than is probably necessary. I think I'm mostly belly.
I just wondered if you experienced anything similar, and if you did, how do you cope/work through it.
I'm aware that this is a massive question, and maybe too big to cover in a quick reply. Although, 'you just deal with it' is also a completely acceptable response, just one that hasn't worked for me so far.
First time I read "in the cemetery..." it shattered my heart. Completely. I count it amongst my favourite short stories. And yeah, I would love to break reader's hearts like that.
Great post. By the way, I love this substack So Much. I feel like I am in some kind of super awesome club with the other subscribers.
For definite! 😁
Thank you. Next week the club becomes a smidgen more exclusive.
I haven't had much luck broaching my deepest emotions with memoir. Those stories always seem to be more about others - my friends, my enemies, my family - and my perception of their struggles. Maybe it's safer to give my tragedies to fictional characters?
It might be a mistake, but I like to throw my most painful memories at my antagonists. It reminds me that they're human, even if they're damaged. Maybe to let them make the self-indulgent decisions I wanted to make but was morally disinclined to? Like forcing them to relive my childhood memory of watching my dog be smashed in half by a garbage truck. What if I had allowed the trauma from that experience to turn into greed, hate, or violence? What if, in some lesser way, I did exactly that? It makes me want to find something redeemable in that person, because I want to find it in myself.
Too many of my workshop experiences have devolved into this same kind of "therapy" session, and I can't begrudge anyone their need to unburden. But when I'm there to learn, it irks me to have to wade through emotional baggage that isn't pertinent to the craft. Am I being unsympathetic? I want to be compassionate and sincere, but I'm just as interested in doing good work. As someone who exists in a near-constant state of existential crisis, my "coping mechanism" has always been to plow on, to do my best to learn from the experience and use it for growth and creation rather than dwell on it. Is there a place for that, or am I just a dick?
I live in the south, and I've had to find a group on the west coast to work with in order to get honest feedback. Southerners are extremely critical, but they won't say it to your face. You have to interpret their meaning through phrasing and tone. They precede every harsh word with "Bless their heart..." I call it 'polite malice'. It drives me f***ing batty. Parented by a 'Nam vet and a hardscrabble country woman, I was well into my twenties before I realized that not many people appreciate brutal honesty. I eventually developed the empathy to use truth as an embrace, rather than a weapon. But like you said, "I liked it" isn't helpful. I'd rather be told it's dogsh*t and I should keep my day job.
The group I'm in now is run by a curmudgeonly professor who penned a series of "how-to" books that I enjoyed. He's harsh, but helpful. He says Oregonians are too damned nice, and he's not entirely wrong, the Portlanders I've met are warm and inviting folks. But I've found more direct critique in his group than any local ones. Unfortunately, this group does not meet often enough to be beneficial to me, especially with the pandemic. I'm the youngest member by a generation, and though I'm vaccinated (I know, I'm southern, but not one of those southerners) I'm a little reticent about travelling cross-country to sit in a room with a bunch of immunocompromised people, even if the oldest member of the group is one of the toughest people I've ever met. When the whole world's trying to stop an outbreak, I don't want to be the guy driving the monkey to the airport.
"Consider This" is an invaluable resource. Seriously, thank you. I appreciate your love for the craft, and your drive to teach it. I've wrapped it in an old generic library dust jacket to avoid damaging the retail cover, and I've coupled it with a notebook so I don't mark it up. I reference it more than any other book on my "tools" shelf. I'm also a regular Litreactor student (Thanks, Suzy!). But I work best with face-to-face feedback and interaction. I need something constant, or at least something more than biannual. It's one of the many reasons I joined this Substack, which again I am thankful for. Your advice provides emotional clarity about writing and about living as a writer. How often does your group meet? Any chance I could sit in or observe when I'm in town? I'm housebroken, have all my shots, I play well with others, and I'm not easily offended. Have pencils, will travel.
Hello Jake. If you're a dick, so am I. The key to being a dick is to offer a decent "fix" if you're going to criticize an element. And to use an existing element as the fix, instead of asking for something new to be introduced. "How about if you bring in a blue dinosaur, here?" No, almost always writers introduce and forget an element that can be the crucial missing link at the end of a story/scene. You are welcome to sit in. In Tom's workshop he called the visitors "pond scum" because they sat in a larger circle around the regular students seated at the table. They can listen but not submit work. So come be pond scum.
Our local medical school says we'll have herd immunity by December. Fingers crossed. In the new world we'll have some radically new priorities. So come visit.
I'm going to have to lead the Pond Scum Welcoming Committee since the whole concept pushes my outcast buttons. Free Salt 'n Straw ice cream on the house!
I’ve been called worse, and I love ice cream. Count me in!
You're in. Let us know how we can help.
Not to minimize your concerns, nor the benefits &/or drawbacks of writing groups—but why not write the book you'd want to read? I think most people drawn to the transgressive genre find it difficult to locate others who have the emotional and psychological maturity to be objective about "challenging" stories. Why not trust in your sensibilities as a writer as much as you trust your sensibilities as a reader?
That's a damn good question, Steve. I've chewed on it for most of the afternoon. I agree that we should all be writing what we want to read. The closest I've come to my reason is fear of ego. I'm not sure I can consistently trust my own sensibilities, either as a writer or a reader, through the lens of my own perception. I want someone I trust to tell me if I'm naked before I go strutting my new duds down the street. Not that I mind being naked, I just want to know it. Also, it's about audience. As selfish as art is, we make it to entertain and connect. It's inspiring to share ideas and to entertain people who are trying to do the same. It helps me step back from it and find perspective. Like Chuck said, you might have already written a vital element and just need someone to point it out. That element might be the difference between passable and transformative.
I would like to join your writing club is it on zoom
Zoom! Sorry, I've grown to not like virtual anything. We meet in person, limited to twenty writers.
For the record, I LOVE memoir. Many of my favorite books are memoirs. I am "particularly rabid about rejecting memoir" in our workshop because it's a FICTION writing workshop, in which we specifically have said that the only rule is NO MEMOIR. So when folks try to slide memoir in and pretend it's fiction it's obvious, and annoying, and super hard to edit. And yeah, makes me froth at the mouth a little, and bite. Hey. ALL WRITING is memoir. But run it through the cheese grater before you call it fiction. Or just call it memoir. The point is, decide. Don't pretend there's no difference... Here endeth the lesson.
1000% valid and no defense necessary. It's like bringing a meatloaf to the Bake Sale.
Chuck I’m sorry to post another selfish question, but something came up today that has blindsided me a bit. I’m concerned and I’m curious what you’ll have to say (if obliged). I found out that over the past few months a few books just came out on the topic I am exploring in my story’s narrative. It’s not the entire narrative, but it’s a big part of it. I thought I was writing about something that hadn’t been touched yet and now there are all these new fiction stories using an (until now) untapped part of my narrative. Do you ever have these concerns? Am I now screwed? Should I grab these books and read them or stay away from them and focus on what I’m working on? I’ve been working as hard as I can to make this book as unique as possible and well written. It’s frustrating to feel like I might have been beaten to something. I wish I could finish it faster, but I don’t want my work to suck.
Hey Matt. First don't panic. Consider that if books are superficially similar the best one will last over time. When I launched 'Pygmy' I'd no idea that the humor writer Dave Barry was launching a similar young adult book called 'Science Fair.' Booksellers brought it to my attention, and some needled me about the fact that both books used a malevolent foreign exchange student as protagonist. They told me I'd missed the boat because Barry's book had beat mine to market. I asked, "Does the Dave Barry book have a high school bully getting violently butt raped in a Walmart toilet stall?" I'd ask, "Does Barry publically drown a preached in a baptismal font?" No, of course not.
My point is that if such books are trending -- yours can get more traction and have more staying power if yours is more memorable and sticks in readers' minds. One useful aspect of a workshop is that you've access to several people who can tell you of similar projects in the market. Or if recent projects have come out in the past few years.
Above all, if this topic looks like a trend then all big five publishers will want a horse in that race. You know? Like how all movie studios all bring out a volcano, tidal wave, martian invasion movie at the same time -- but only the best will last in viewers' minds.
Ok, thanks a ton for that perspective. That makes sense. I feel a lot better now. The initial shock hit me kind of hard, but on the other hand my rational mind was thinking that surely this happens a lot. I swear there really is something to the idea of an overlap in human consciousness. Sometimes it’s like once a thought enters that realm, suddenly it’s somehow on everyone else’s mind too. Very odd how that works.
Thanks Chuck, this was everything i needed to read today!
Great advice - thank you Chuck