This week! Books! Holy cow it’s November!
Nearly every author panel these days has a variation of this question: “Do you have any advice for writing about people who do not look like you?” Lots of authors out there are wringing their hands over whether they are “allowed” to tell certain stories or even just want to make sure they’re getting it right.
Well, author Alexander Chee has written an extremely good post on this subject: How to Unlearn Everything. The whole post is amazing and worth a thorough read, but I especially like his push to check your own bookshelf.
It’s officially NaNoWriMo and author Justina Ireland re-upped her pep talk from last year that hinges on how much writing kind of sucks.
Many writers battle imposter syndrome, especially when they’re just starting out and know that their writing isn’t very good, but this can honestly persist into a semi-permanent state. Helen J. Darling has five tips for dealing with imposter syndrome. (Here’s my own contribution to how to deal with imposter syndrome).
It’s the holidays, which means it’s also give-a-book-as-a-gift season. BookBub has 17 marketing ideas for the holiday season.
Blogging kind of feels like it’s teetering as an entire medium with the implosion at Deadspin, but blog platform Medium is doubling down trying to find new voices and feature collections.
It can be bewildering to navigate the publishing process on the best of days and you can easily spiral into anxiety or depression in the face of it. Literary agent Jessica Faust has a good reminder: focus on what you can control.
Humans are living longer than ever and there are accordingly many more books about growing old than ever before. Arthur Krystal surveys the scene and wonders: can we at least be honest about aging?
This week in bestsellers
Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):
Adult print and e-book fiction:
- The Night Fire by Michael Connelly
- The Guardians by John Grisham
- The Deserter by Nelson DeMille and Alex DeMille
- The Burning White by Brent Weeks
- Agent Running in the Field by John le Carré (still going strong at 88 years old!)
Adult print and e-book nonfiction:
- Me by Elton John
- Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow
- Three Days at the Brink by Bret Baier with Catherine Whitney
- Blowout by Rachel Maddow
- Dumpty by John Lithgow
Young adult hardcover:
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman
- Hocus Pocus and the All-New Sequel by A.W. Jantha
- The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
- Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis
Middle grade hardcover:
- A Tale of Magic… by Chris Colfer
- Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid by Jeff Kinney
- Wonder by R.J. Palacio
- Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
- The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids
This week on the blog
Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:
In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:
- Now available in audio: My guide to writing a novel!
- How to self-publish an audiobook
- What it’s like to narrate an audiobook
- Tips for #NaNoWriMo 2019
And finally, November is here and Mariah Carey is READY:
Have a great weekend!
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.
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RE: Chee’s article.
I know this is a firestorm of a controversy. I’m struggling with it now, as one of the main characters of my current WIP is a person who’s heritage is from a Spanish-speaking country. The story is not “about” their heritage, but it fully informs the character’s motivations and actions. I do not believe they are a stereotype and are inspired by real people I know (and have been close with for many years).
Still, I’m questioning myself — I’m a white dude, so what business do I have with making that person the character who’s story is a focal point of my novel? Because of the structure of the novel, I also have a (white) woman main character, and yet I’m not really feeling the same questions about writing her. Is that because I’m less sensitive than I think I am? Or is it because they are white and I am too — so much of this is wrapped up in colonizer/”colonized” dichotomies, and I have no wish to add to that. Part of me feels like, as a good ally, I probably have no choice but to change the character to a white man, but the previously-stated way the heritage informs the character’s motivations and actions is some of the most richly developed, complex character work I’ve ever written. I’m worried my own arrogance is blinding me here.
I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood, and I think I have a natural tendency to include my experiences with the diversity there in what I’m writing (including this particular WIP). Trying to find the “right” side of this discussion is probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever encountered while writing, but definitely a worthy thing to confront.
Take my perspective with every obvious grain of salt, but FWIW I don’t know that there’s a “right” side and I think you’re overthinking it. Different people are going to have different reactions no matter what you write because everyone is different. All writing is an act of empathy, and unless you’re writing solely about your own personal experience you have to render characters realistically who aren’t you.
Sure, try to be mindful of how your book will be perceived and try your best to write others’ experiences as well as you possibly can, but at the end of the day you have to write the book you want to write.
I don’t think the “solution” is for white writers to only write about white people, no more than the “solution” for writers of color is to only write about people of color. I just don’t think that kind of essentialism is helpful for anyone, and delineating still sharper lines on racial divides that are already social constructs has the potential to only perpetuate our problems.
Also: Just keep reading Alexander Chee’s article over and over.
“All writing is an act of empathy”
I agree. I also think my musings were a bit simplified for the posting — I agree that there isn’t really a “right side”. I meant that broadly — “right side” purely meaning remaining empathic of others, of where our own privilege comes in. I think so many well-meaning (white) authors who aren’t seasoned tend to write characters that look differently than themselves, but otherwise are indistinguishable from anyone else they’d write. As a fantastic Victor LaVelle quote I just read said, “I can’t imagine how anyone’s interior life is not formed by the body they got born into.”
I am writing the book I want to write. Perhaps I was a bit too stark in my comment, as I agree with your final point that “that kind of essentialism is [not] helpful for anyone, and delineating still sharper lines on racial divides that are already social constructs has the potential to only perpetuate our problems.” I was more commenting on the pull to make my main character’s heritage more in line with my own out of a fear of getting it otherwise wrong — and my own arrogance in my writing, my pride of writing a “good” character, is going to blind me to the faults that might come about. As you said, all writing is an act of empathy; I just become worried about the limits of my own empathy.
And Chee’s article is fantastic. I saw it shared prior to you posting it here, but have been thinking about (and yes, re reading) it constantly since then.
In my first self-published novel, the protagonist was a handicapped teen girl. I was not and am not handicapped, teen-aged or female when I wrote it. But my wife, who I met when she was 19, was all that and in the 33 years I was married to her (before she died of breast cancer) she spoke extensively about her childhood. I got to know her life quite well and loosely based the character in my novel on her experiences. The book was not a big seller at all yet several people I knew who read it said I did a pretty good job of bringing “Frances” to life. I know this isn’t exactly what Nathan talked about, but is an example of how one might write a character whose life is not yours…Just write the life of someone you know well. Of course make sure you have their permission!
Thanks for another great NYC skyline shot, Nathan! As for writing characters with different backgrounds, my main WIP has several different types of alien (non-human) characters, not to mention all the human characters live on a colony planet centuries in the future, which is a very different background in itself. Now where do I hire non-human sensitivity readers? (But see below.)
But seriously, ALL people, real or imaginary, are different, and yet all similar too, regardless of appearances or superficial distinctions.
Justina Ireland says writing sucks. But compared to what? The famous Canadian economist John Kenneth Galbraith once suggested that, when one has worked on a farm, nothing else that one does after ever really seems like real work. I think he has a point!
As for impostor syndrome, I must be homest. I’m not really John T. Shea! I’m an alien time-traveller from the future and his WIP is my real-life story. So disregard the first paragraph above. What I really need is just a HUMAN sensitivity reader.