Did Gutenburg Worry about Making Artists Redefine Themselves?

I just read this fabulous article on the Pictorialists, the rise of photography to the status of an art (which, by the way, I discussed in my first blog post), and the way Hipstamatic and other apps introduced for the iPhone recently have tried to recreate that movement's feel. The article did a great job of explaining how Pictorialism came about organically as a reaction to technological advances at the time.

Originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and championed in America by Alfred Stieglitz, Pictorialism was a movement in the art world that placed value on hazy, dreamlike photos which emphasized light and mood more than actual readable scenes. It's often wrongly assumed that photos from this time period look so different from today's ultra-sharp images because the artists were limited by the technology available to them. In fact, it's quite the opposite; with Kodak's release of the first handheld camera for amateurs, the technology needed to make high-quality narrative photographs had just become all too available. It was no longer enough for professional photographers -- already working hard to earn the art world's respect -- to own and know how to operate complex photographic equipment. Thus, photographers who wanted to stand out as artists in a field now overrun with "snapshooters" began tweaking photography to look as similar as possible to what was already considered a serious art: painting.

Reading about Pictorialism in The Atlantic, I couldn't help but compare the cultural changes that photographers faced at that time with the cultural changes that publishers and writers face today. With the popularity of digital technology like the Kindle, the Nook and the iPad and of e-publishing in general, publication of a sort is available to more writers now than ever. Anyone with a bit of design sense and some familiarity with technology can create e-books and print-on-demand books. And with the increasingly common creation of new initiatives and imprints like Kindle Singles and Odyssey Editions, it seems that the variety of works and writers hitting your e-bookstore of choice is set to get more varied by the day. Never has publication been so accessible to the amateur writer.

That said, there are some definite differences between our situation as writers, readers and publishers today and the situation of those early-20th-century photographers: most notably, the fact that writing was long ago established as an art form. If you ignore the fact that many genres and target audiences still fight to be considered legitimate literature, you could say that we, unlike Stieglitz, don't have to try to romance the art world in order to prove that we really are artists.

Still, I think that most artists do try to set themselves apart from the masses, and it sure seems that "the masses" just got a whole lot more massive. What do you think? Is publication by an established house still enough to offer the kind of status artists often seek? Or, will writers trying to establish themselves as artists have to work harder to separate themselves from the masses in the greater world of publishing? Leaving aside nay-saying about the supposed shortcomings of web content, do you think literary writing is going to change as a reaction to technology? Where are we going to see those changes -- in style, in format, in content, or somewhere altogether different? Please, Writer Friends, do enlighten me!

A Very Short Story About Coming Back

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to become an editor. And she worked very hard, and was very lucky (usually in that order, but sometimes the other way around), and had the chance to intern at some really fabulous publishing houses where the editors were passionate and connected and interested in helping her grow. And she met a lot of brilliant writers (with stars in her eyes for all of them) and got wrapped up in a whole community of people who were excited about their craft and about trying to make the world a better place. And it was good.

Then the girl got her first Real Job in publishing. And that, too, was good.

But the Real Job required even more time and attention than the girl had put into college, even more time and attention than she had put into interning, even more time and attention than she had put into job searching. And because her daily trip to work was long and arduous, the girl uprooted herself and moved to a new city, and that, too, took much time and attention. And because the Real Job brought hundreds of emails to the girl's inbox every day, she sometimes avoided reading emails on her own time. She sometimes avoided the internet altogether. And because she was in a new city, she had a whole new world to explore when she was avoiding the internet, and that was good. She had a Real Job, and a coffee shop down the street that let her stay as long as she liked with her books, and a group of dancers to befriend, and a trove of art galleries to visit and neighborhoods to photograph and plays to see. And she let that world wrap her up in a warm cloak of vibrant music and buzzing, energetic routine.

But sometimes the girl wondered if something was missing. She liked her Real Job, and she liked her coffee shop, and she liked her dancers and her art galleries and her neighborhoods and her plays. She liked being on the go at all hours and filling her life up to the very brim. But sometimes it seemed that her head was so full of buzzing that her dreams didn't fit inside it. And sometimes, very simply, she missed her old lifestyle, and the time she had spent with quiet, passionate writers and readers.

So the girl changed again.

In other words, I'm sorry for the long silence. Let's talk again soon, shall we?

This blog is going to change a little bit. For one thing, I plan to update more regularly. You might find fewer essays in this journal, and more snapshots of my thoughts about the industry, like ideas scribbled in the margins of a page. You might find questions, and I sincerely hope you'll answer them. You might hear more about how I relate literally everything I do and see to storytelling, because it's the only way that makes sense for me to put together the pieces of my life.

And I hope you hear more about what you want to hear. So please tell me what that is! What can I tell you, teach you, or ask you? What do you hope to read?

More posts will be up soon. Until then, please leave your suggestions in the comments!

"We Aren't as Pretty or Interesting": Why White Readers and Publishers Have Got to Think in Color

I've had this post outlined for weeks, but I've been too busy during the week and too exhausted on weekends to find the motivation to write it, and now it seems a bit outdated. So let that be a lesson to you, writer-friends: make time to write, because if you don't a giant Amazon/Macmillan debacle will come and outshine you.

I considered scrapping this post altogether in order to focus on what's hot in the news right now, but to be honest, I haven't got much to add to the breakdown you can get from Rachelle Gardner, Kristin Nelson or that awesome dude named Eric over at Pimp My Novel. But since I do have something to say about people of color on book covers, and because it's incredibly important that these things get said, well... here goes:

In another blogger uproar like the one I posted about in November, the white-washing of Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass made big news. After enough bloggers pointed out the fact that Bloomsbury -- the same publisher that whitewashed Justine Larbalestier's Liar -- had misrepresented the novel's darker-skinned narrator on the cover, the company issued an apology, stating that they'd soon be providing a new cover for future editions. And the book-blogging world rejoiced, again.

But when we stop celebrating, we've got to realize that the fact that the same publisher whitewashed covers twice, in rapid succession, is indicative of a serious issue. And other bloggers have noted that it's not just these books, and not just Bloomsbury. So why does this happen?

It happens because, unfortunately, the publishing world has yet to fully step outside of the white privilege with which it's been associated for ages. And it will be hard for it to do so.

Breaking into the industry -- even devoting serious amounts of time to reading for leisure -- requires money. It requires proximity to most of the publishing world in Manhattan, a notoriously expensive place. It requires a certain amount of leisure time in which to read and think. It requires, usually, the privilege of education. It requires the propensity to dream big dreams, and to see their fulfillment as a possibility. And all of these things are unavailable to a large segment of our society: the lower classes. And because race and class (along with gender and sexual orientation and gender identity and countless serious matters I can't discuss in one post) are inextricably bound in our culture, publishing's class issues are also its race issues.

I'm uncomfortable blogging about this, as a white, upper middle class Editorial Assistant. Only 33% of my city's population identifies as white, and yet 95% of the people I work with from day to day are Caucasian. I can't ignore the fact that my background -- my class and my race -- benefit me in this industry. Does that make me an inherently bad person? I hope not.

But it does mean that I, and other white readers and industry professionals, have an added responsibility. Because a huge percentage of the decision-makers in the book business are white, proposals most often get read by white agents, who bring their white perspectives to the table when deciding if characters feel realistic and if their struggles feel relevant. From there, they're read by white editors who bring them to acquisition meetings attended by the mostly-white staff of their respective houses. So, in effect, the people who get to decide which stories are worth telling, worth re-telling, and worth printing and binding and hyping up and selling, are mostly white. And if we're not careful, it's easy to forget that our experience is not universal. Having benefited from our backgrounds, we as publishers have a responsibility to consider what stories will speak to those whose experiences have been different from our own.

It's very, very easy to assume white as a default -- especially when we spend most of our time around people who share our background. One of the reasons that an uproar was so long in coming is that Magic Under Glass stated its narrator's skin color less explicitly than did Liar. And, having read the textual descriptions of the main character's appearance, I can see why many readers assumed Nimira looked just like the model on the cover; the book never specifically calls her colored.

And that's the problem. Too often, when we imagine a character from a book, we assume white unless otherwise stated. And we've been able to do that for too long because of our privilege. But white is not the default race -- whiteness is not the default experience -- and we must shake the idea that it is.

I'm working hard to do this. I'm trying to shake the fact that my internal narrator has an undeniably European-American accent. I'm trying to imagine characters in a rainbow of colors rather than picturing them as white characters and then modifying that image when I learn of their race. Frankly, it's hard. It's hard to go outside my own experience and forget what it's like to be in the majority -- which is to say nothing of how hard it is to not be in the majority, and to have no choice but to venture outside one's own experience.

So I'm looking to you all. How do you deal with this issue? Are you challenging yourselves to read or buy books about people of color? To drop whatever assumptions you may have about race? And how do you think we can help change the industry and -- even more importantly -- the way we and other readers and publishers think?

On Scene Endings and other Small Choices that Make a Big Difference

I hope by now you all have had the chance to see Jason Reitman's film, Up in the Air. (If you haven't, but want to, this might not be the post you want to read, as it will include mild spoilers.)

The film's concept, and the artistic director/writer behind it, have intrigued me since I caught the tail end of an NPR interview covering it. And the finished film really did not disappoint. Much like Juno, it's a very literary take on a basic premise that could have made for a very mainstream film. What makes it stand out is its thoughtful characterization, its skillful weaving together of multiple plot lines and character arcs, and the sincere attention to detail that's shown in its every shot. That last one, it struck me, is something you writer-folk can learn from.

There's a scene in Up in the Air that I found to be a particularly nice touch. Robert Bingham (George Clooney) has finally met the woman for whom he'd give up his "What's in your Backpack?," commitment-free way of life. He's traveled across the country to reach her, only to learn that he isn't a big part of her life -- that she, like everyone else he knows, has her own ties already, and she won't let them go. He's free to return to his earlier habits, uninhibited by the baggage people bring with them.

Scenes in film are even shorter than those in novels, so in a well-made movie they have to be economical in order to have maximum impact. So I was on the lookout for some good moves in the scene directly following this revelation. Bingham returns to the airport -- his home, his comfort zone -- and checks onto a flight. The music is quiet, and when he swipes his card (a card which cues the clerk to say "Welcome back, Mr. Bingham," and something in which he takes total delight), the scene cuts. There's no friendly clerk's voice. Just silence. It's a small decision on the director's part, but it's significant. It not only moves Bingham from point A to point B (literally, back to his apartment in Omaha); it moves the viewer to a better understanding of his mental state. In a very effective, yet very small way, the film conveys the fact that Bingham has lost faith in his free-wheeling philosophy. The airline's welcome isn't included because it's no longer meaningful to Bingham. That's smart, smart directing.

In many ways, writing is a lot like directing a film. When you've got strong, fully-developed characters and the beginnings of a plot in your mind, they have a tendency to take off with it. You can't control everything your characters do, because who they are and how they change has to determine the way their stories advance. But what you can control, completely and entirely, is how their story is told. And a truly great writer pays close attention to every detail, and uses it to artfully convey a story's theme and its characters' mindsets.

A lot of what I know about writing strong scenes, I learned from Cheryl Klein at Scholastic's Arthur A. Levine Books. She taught me that every scene, no matter how short, needs to advance the story told in a manuscript. It can do that in a number of ways: by building character, by containing clues or vital information for the reader, or by moving the story forward with action -- preferably more than one of those at a time. With that in mind, one of the most important choices a writer makes is when to end a scene. Ended too early, a scene doesn't convey everything it needs to and your manuscript feels choppy or scattered. Ended too late, a scene gives the reader everything he or she needs to know but lacks artfulness (a manuscript full of scenes like this will come across as long-winded, and will make it difficult for your reader to hone in on your character's growth and your manuscript's theme). But a good scene -- well, a good scene makes us Get It. A good scene gives your reader everything he or she needs to know, and conveys it in a way that's satisfying because it is purposeful.

Scene endings are particularly crucial in a book's most important scenes: those in which a major change or revelation is occurring or has just occurred (perhaps a good way to identify these things is to zone in on those which make use of all three of those aforementioned Ways to Advance Your Story). Important scenes often end with a clincher which nudges the reader's emotions, and thus their perception of the book, in a certain direction. For a very character-based film like Up in the Air, a quiet and very subtle clincher conveys the appropriate emotion perfectly by leaving the viewers' expectations unmet and allowing them to experience some of Bingham's disappointment. For an action-based book, a thrilling cliffhanger might be exactly what's called for. And for a supernatural romance, perhaps the perfect clincher is the long-awaited kiss -- or a close call that ends without a kiss, but with some sort of self-discovery.

Whatever your story, now might be a good time to think about how you're ending your scenes, and what the manner in which you tell your story adds to the story itself. Remember, your story belongs to your character, but its telling is yours and yours alone. You make the decisions: when to cut, when to go on, when to zoom in on your character's thoughts and when to move back for a sweeping view of events. Questioning those decisions in every scene, no matter how small, will help you strengthen your writing, develop a voice, and more powerfully convey both action and character development.

The Return of Book-Blogging Superheroes, or How You Folks are STILL Changing the World

After my post on the power of book bloggers, couple of you lovely reader-folk expressed an interest in learning more about how blogging has affected the publishing industry at large. I've kept an eye out for similar situations; here are two of my favorites:

After School Library Journal reported that Scholastic book fairs were censoring Lauren Myracle's Luv Ya Bunches because one of the characters has two moms, bloggers in the parenting and LGBTQ worlds took up arms and made their protests heard. The result? Scholastic reversed its decision and made the book available at middle school book fairs. Whether the newer decision reflects a full victory for the LBGTQ community or not is still up for debate, but it's hard to deny the power of an angry mob of readers and activists armed with the power of words and the accessibility of the internet.

This second example isn't really about blogging, and it's not really about sparking revolutions in publishing -- but, nonetheless, it's pretty wonderful for her (and for her agent, and for her future editor, wherever he or she may be, and for we readers!). What's more, it's probably of great interest to you Author-folk. On her blog, Write on Target, Debra Schubert has a funny and inspiring story of how she got her agent -- via Twitter.

How about you? Do you know of any other great stories of blogger activism that succeeded -- or didn't? I'd love to hear them!