On Becoming a Novelist (15 page)

Young writers want to publish because they’re unsure of themselves. However talented they may be, they cannot go on writing for long (as a rule) without some reassurance beyond their fellow students’ praise and the teacher’s A minus. Part of the good young writer’s virtue is his wish that “real” people like his work—some editor who does not know him, some casual reader in Lost Nation, Iowa. It is perhaps unreasonable to ask the writing teacher to make a special effort to get his competent students published; he has enough to do already—far more than the ordinary teacher of literature, who can meet his classes, grade two or three sets of papers a term, and spend the rest of his time fishing. (I speak as a teacher who has done both.) But the teacher should at least recognize that the student’s wish is legitimate and healthy; and if the student’s work really is good enough to publish, the teacher ought not to scorn the student’s wish. Some widely respected writing teachers—for instance, the novelist Robert Coover—are famous for the energy and relative success with which they push their students’ work on appropriate editors. Since students need confidence to write at all, and respectable publication is one of the roads to confidence, the teacher does well to offer what help or encouragement he can.

More important, of all the hard things a student needs to learn in order to become a professional writer, nothing is more self-preserving than learning the ropes of publication, so he might as well start learning while still in school. In some ways the young writer may need as much guidance in the matter of publication as he needs in the development of writing skills. Letters of rejection from even the most respectable magazines may be wise and helpful but are more likely to be perfunctory. I have seen editors complain of “too obvious symbolism” in a story no one else would call symbolic, and recommend cutting what any sane reader would instantly recognize as the best moment in the story. The editor may complain of sentimentality in a story I myself would call not sentimental but authentically moving; or he may, after skimming a story too quickly, complain that the plot is unclear, though in fact it’s clear as day. Getting any letter at all from an editor is of course a mark of interest—it shows he thinks too much of the writer to send out a printed rejection slip—but the writer must learn not to take such letters of rejection too seriously. For the young writer, that is a hard thing to learn. The editor has power; surely he’s smart. And the editor liked the story enough to send a letter; perhaps with just a few changes—even if they seem senseless—he’ll accept the story and print it.

The writer sends out, and sends out again, and again and again, and the rejections keep coming, whether printed slips or letters, and so at last the moment comes when many a promising writer folds his wings and drops. His teachers and classmates praised him, back in school, his spouse is baffled by the rejections; but the writer’s despair wins out. It’s a terrible thing to write for five or even ten years and continue to be rejected. (I know.) And so at last, down goes another good writer. (Let no one tell you that all good writers eventually get published.) At this precarious moment when he’s ready to give up, the writer needs three things: trustworthy reassurance that his work really is of publishable quality; a clear understanding of how editing works, so that the editor’s damage to the writer’s ego is minimized; and the strongest possible support from teachers and friends. It will not hurt, of course, if he can get one thing more: a contact—some writer or agent or famous critic who can help. Let me pause a moment on these three things, or rather four, that the young writer needs as he approaches his hour of despair.

Most rejected fiction is rejected because it’s not good. Not all is rejected for this reason, as I’ve said: some is rejected because it was sent to the wrong kind of publisher, or because it never got past the slush-pile reader, who’s tired and maybe not too bright, or because the publisher has a backlog, or because the editor cannot stand stories about cows. But most rejected fiction is rejected because it’s bad. The writer, in this case, needs to find a better teacher, or if he can’t get a teacher he should study the various books about writing—though for the writer who’s worked for years and is still just plain bad, neither courses nor manuals are likely to help.

Sometimes good writing gets rejected by the very editor who ought to have recognized its worth. One should fight like the devil the temptation to think well of editors. They are all, without exception—at least some of the time—incompetent or crazy. By the nature of their profession they read too much, with the result that they grow jaded and cannot see new talent though it dances in front of their eyes. Like writers, they are under insupportable pressures: they have to choose books that will sell, or at least bring the publisher honor, so they become hypercritical, gun-shy, cynical. Often they are consciously or (more often) unconsciously guided by unspoken policies of the publishing house or magazine they work for.
The New Yorker
, for instance (to mention one of the best), has from the beginning been elegant and rather timid, a perfect magazine for selling expensive clothes and fine china, and its fiction editors, probably without knowing they do it, regularly duck from strong emotion or strong, masculine characters, preferring the refined and tentative. Alfred A. Knopf, one of the most respected publishers of novels, tends to resist publishing a profoundly pessimistic book. It is useful, in short, for young writers always to think of editors as limited people, though if possible one should treat them politely.

Understanding editors, one will recognize that at certain points one can stop thinking of them as enemies and begin to consider them friends. Although they’re skittish and sometimes blind to real talent, they are often ambitious idealists; they would like nothing better than to discover and publish a great book—or even a moderately good one. This means they can be worked. They would
like
to publish a certain young writer’s book, but they’re unsure of themselves, so the thing for the young writer to do is win prizes and honors, fellowships and grants. If other people have admired the young writer, the editor feels more comfortable doing the same. (The editor is happiest when he can bet on a favorite while at the same time appearing to have discovered him.) Publication in one magazine makes publication in the next one much easier, as long as the writer is a good writer in the first place. And publication in several magazines—especially one or two reputedly good ones, like the
Georgia Review
or
the Atlantic
or
The New Yorker
—increases the odds that when one is ready with a novel, it will be taken.

Once the editor has made up his mind to take a chance on the writer, some trick of the mind makes him sure he was right, and from that moment on, all the editor can see in the writer is good and more good. He may give advice, may even make annoying changes in the writer’s manuscript, but essentially not even the writer’s mother can love the writer as that editor does. He tells everyone he can find—his wife and children, his friends who write reviews, his fellow editors—and as the publication date nears, the editor’s whole world, not to mention the writer’s, begins to vibrate with panicky joy. If the writer is savaged by reviewers, the editor will be at least as angry as the writer, and the next book the writer sends in, the editor will fight for, partly because he likes it, partly because he has bet his credibility on the writer’s career. Editors, at this point, are the bravest, most wonderful people on earth. A newly discovered writer has to go far out of his way—some writers do manage it—to turn his editor against him.

Let me pause for a few words on what the editors of novels do. Either by way of an agent (on which more in a moment) or “over the transom”—that is by direct submission from the writer—the novel arrives at the editor’s desk. Normally a note comes with it, partly because mention of the writer’s previous publications may help sway the editor (so the writer or agent hopes), and partly because sending a note is common politeness. If the note is from an agent, it is sure to address a particular editor by name, since a given book is likely to be of more interest to one editor than to another. The young novelist living in Filer, Idaho, or St. Joseph, Missouri, may have a hard time getting a specific editor’s name and may have no idea which editor would like what. If so, “Dear Editor” will do, though obviously that writer would be better off with an agent. (Magazine submissions, like submissions to publishing houses, should also go, ideally, to a particular editor.)

As soon as he possibly can, depending upon how many manuscripts he’s received that day or week, the editor reads the manuscript. At major publishing houses this is usually not a long-drawn-out process. Little-magazine editors are often not paid for their editorial work, have other responsibilities such as teaching, and in any case are so deluged with manuscripts they can’t possibly be prompt; but at publishing houses the selection process is usually efficient. It may be, in a given house, that slush-pile readers cull out the obviously bad work, then pass on the better manuscripts to more senior people. One way or another, the better manuscripts reach a senior editor, who, as I’ve said, reads it fairly quickly and, in my experience, as conscientiously as he knows how. He thinks about various things as he reads, notably: Is this a book that is likely to sell or bring the house prestige? Is it the kind of book that’s suitable to this particular house? (Publishers have various specializations, and the editor who pushes for a book too far outside the specialization of the house knows he’s running a number of risks. In a house where final decisions are made by an editorial committee—the usual case—he may lose his fight with the other editors. In smaller houses, where one or two senior editors make the final decision, he may not only lose his fight for the book but also lose credibility with the boss or bosses. Or if he wins his fight for a book that is not within the usual range of his house, the sales force may misunderstand or fail to push the book. The salesmen for a publishing house have large districts to cover, a great many bookstore owners or managers to visit. Except in those rare cases—and they do occur—when the salespeople believe strongly in an unusual book, one that requires them to take extra time making a special presentation to the buyer, they tend to mention the unfamiliar book and, getting no reaction, hurry on. Editors, knowing this, do not often push hard for a book they believe most of the sales force will find an annoyance.) But the main thing the editor asks himself is: “Do I really
like
this book?” Experienced editors have a keen eye for what is, according to some standard (commercial or aesthetic), good. They are good readers; that is, when a novel ends disappointingly, or has lumpish spots, or will annoy readers in an unjustifiable way, they know it.

If a book is generally well written and intelligent (given its intended audience) but seems to the editor finally unsuccessful, the editor writes what he means to be (and what sometimes is) a thoughtful, helpful letter to the writer or his agent. He explains what he likes and what he doesn’t like, where the book succeeds and where it fails. The writer who gets such a letter should understand that the editor is interested in his work (otherwise, of course, he’d fire off a printed rejection slip, or no comment at all). If the writer agrees with the editor’s comments (after a suitable period of calming down, getting rid of his anger or depression), he is wise to revise his book and submit it again to the editor who signed the letter. If the writer doesn’t agree, he should of course try elsewhere. The editor reads the resubmitted book and either decides to take it or sends further (or new) objections. Again, if the writer comes to feel that the editor is right, he should again revise and again resubmit. It is probably true that his odds are going down—he can gauge this by the tone of the second rejection letter. Sometimes when an editor rejects a book more than once, each time with a carefully reasoned letter, he’s rejecting the book for reasons he’s not fully conscious of. Nonetheless, as long as the editor’s comments seem right to the writer, on due reflection, his best course is to keep revising. He may never convince this particular editor, but the writer is wise to take good advice wherever he can find it: as long as the editor is willing to keep commenting, he’s of use. Writers often feel—especially writers prone to dejection—that repeated rejections accompanied by reasoned letters mean that in the end there’s no hope. This is simply not true. All editors want to publish (within the boundaries of their profit requirements) excellent books, and they are willing to help the promising writer achieve those standards.

None of this is to say that the writer should make changes that he does not believe in. But he should make sure he has understood the objections. It is sometimes supposed that editors suggest changes in a good writer’s book to make the book more commercial. In my experience this isn’t true, and a recent questionnaire asking successful writers their opinion on the matter showed that their experiences are mostly like my own. If you write a thriller, the editor will try to make it the best possible thriller. If you write a serious work of art, he will try to make it what it is meant to be, and not make you turn it into a thriller or a Harlequin romance. If you have ever worked as an editor or a sub-subeditor of a magazine, you know that all second-rate stories submitted tend to sound alike. Certain devices that the ordinary writer could not guess to be old hat—such as a compulsive use of the third-person-limited point of view, or the habit of starting every story with the weather (“It was unseasonably cool that morning,” or “The sun hung directly overhead”)—prove so commonplace that one feels compelled to avoid them in one’s own fiction. Editors’ experience makes them sensitive to these clichés, and one is wise to listen as objectively as possible. If it seems to the writer that the editor’s comments on his novel are wrong, my advice is that he write back and defend himself. If the writer’s defense is foolish or petty (if it reveals a personality much worse than the editor guessed from the novel), the editor is likely to drop the novelist. Who needs a crank pen pal? But if the writer is correct and states his case intelligently, the editor is likely to pay attention.