Convocations and Contacts

Earlier this month I was in Manhattan for Thrillerfest, wherein a large group of similarly minded people get together and talk about ways to kill, maim, blow things up, save sultry damsels from evil villains and pull off great and improbable heists. Writers are a pretty twisted lot. These otherwise seemingly normal folk filled the meeting rooms of the Grand Hyatt to hear accomplished authors speak about topics like plot lines, building tension, character arc, and to listen to their theories about pro- and antagonist balance and creating conflict in the scenes. Real exciting stuff right? And it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard about a hundred times before. In the thriller business, the craft gets pretty formulaic; it all comes down to the plot and the voice.

The week’s real work took place after hours at the hotel bar. I walked around and talked to people, dropped a lot of business cards, bought a lot of beer. There were hundreds of people there. Every level of suspense and thriller writer from Sandra Brown and James Patterson to… well, to me. And there were agents. Lots and lots of agents. One day a few dozen of them sat at small tables in a big room and listened to pitches while prospective authors extolled the virtues of their stories. Writing is a tough business, but these guys were not on any picnic. Toward the end, their eyes started to glass over. I don’t know how they managed to keep all the names and the stories straight. Probably they didn’t. But I jumped in and made my pitch, one that I’ve rehearsed many, many times in front of the mirror. Pitching is tough but it’s a part of the game, and it’s always good to practice. It was an expensive week but it was seldom dull. Will the time and expense prove justified? Only time will tell.

One thing that really caught my attention was to note the sheer number of writers who are trying to break into this business. It’s at events like this that you look around and realize, Holy Shit, there are really a lot of people trying to do what I’m trying to do. You also realize, of course, that not everyone can succeed.

Does that let the wind out of your sails? Maybe a little. But if you’re like me, you look around and, as you talk to people, you realize that very few of them, even the big guys, are all that special. Most of them are where they are because they worked hard and persevered and had some luck. And if you’re really like me, you go back to your room and read some of the stuff that other people like you have had published and you think, I can do better than this. And that cheers you up and gets you stoked to jump back into the fray.

The focus of all of this frenetic activity, of course, is selling a book. Everyone was there to snag a deal and some of us will do it. That’s the rush we all strive for, that letter or phone call that wants to publish our manuscript and is willing to pay for the privilege. The flip side of that is that while publication is what we all dream of, it’s not always a good thing for the writer. The dilemma about being published is that your first novel lays the foundation for the rest of your career. Publishers need a constant stream of words to publish; not all of what comes out of the pipeline can possibly be good and some of it’s downright junk. Wouldn’t it suck to work so hard to achieve something and have it be less than you knew you were capable of? But with many writers, the pursuit of publication becomes a quest onto itself and they forget about the quality of the work. That can be fatal.

Even though the conferences were rehashing dramatic structure 101, it was good to hear it again. It made me think about how my scenes are constructed and whether or not I’m sticking to the rules. The one rule about rules is that you have to know them before you can break them, and then you break them for a specific purpose. Sometimes a writer gets so caught up in their story that they forget to examine the structure and make sure their efforts are rooted in good craft. And sometimes the job of selling the book becomes more important than the writing.

Editors don’t edit much these days; that’s up to the author. And there aren’t much in the way of advertising budgets, either. It’s up to the writer to take care of shilling for his work. So it’s easy to forget that the primary thing a writer is supposed to be doing is writing. And writing well. And that not until that job is done, and polished, should a budding author push on to the sales part of his job. It’s a lot to remember and there are so many voices competing to for your attention it’s hard to know who to listen to. When that happens, get back to basics and write.

Would I do Thrillerfest again, was it worthwhile? Like I said, time will tell. But being thrown into the mix with so many other likeminded people was inspirational and motivating; so that’s something. And being reminded about the importance of craft was important too. But the main thing to remember is that we’re writers with a goal, but that achieving that goal should never be done at the expense of doing good work. Like the man said, what’s important is not the destination, it’s the journey.

— Ric Hess, Jul 30, 08:04 PM

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