Entry # 170 - "Where's The Fiction?"

Great Photo of "Once-in-a-Blue Moon" last week from Alex Dunn

Once again The New York Times Book Review has sparse Fiction Review offerings. It seems to be a growing trend that I’ve watched all year and all summer as fewer novel reviews are printed. In fact today, August 25, 2013, the editors have (once again) lumped three Fiction & Poetry Reviews together. David Orr’s book, On Poetry, is napping quietly between two novel reviews:  A Marker To Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik and Crime by Marilyn Stasio. In fact it is only 'once in a blue moon' that The Times covers more than three fiction reviews. 

Fiction has not always been treated so badly and I am left to ponder why this trend is growing. I am fairly sure that people are still reading novels and short story collections. In fact fiction readership has increased with e-books and print copies selling well.

I am aware that it is much easier to get nonfiction published than to get a novel published.  And of course, getting a story collection published is difficult, to say the least. So the market for nonfiction is robust, and yet today’s Nonfiction Review section consists of eight, (yes – count them) books. I suppose my ‘inquiring mind’ wants to know why?  I can understand devoting pages 11-20 to more than nine Children’s Books. School is about to begin and perhaps parents are scrambling around for fresh recreational reading materials to load into their children’s electronic book lists.

Another - "Once-in-A-Blue-Moon" by Jim Wilson from Florida

While the big publishing giants are publishing more nonfiction, many smaller publishers, as well as university publishers are putting out quality novels and story collections.  Over the last few years many excellent story collections have been published, and yet few readers know how interesting and well written these are because reviews are sparse.  

K. L. Cook’s Love Songs for the Quarantined, Sheldon Lee Compton’s The Same Terrible Storm, Pinckney Benedict’s Miracle Boy and Other Stories, and Daniel Mueller’s newly published collection, Nights I Dreamed Of Hubert Humphrey are only a few examples of work that deserves attention.  And a list of fine (but ignored) novels would be too long to post here.   

But those smaller publishers’ offerings don’t get the same kind of ‘review love’ that the large publishing houses get. I suppose there is no mystery there, since following the dollar tends to reveal so much about how the world works, but I do notice that the playing field for writers is uneven. Maybe that’s where sites like GoodReads can help.

============================================================

About Jan Bowman

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or

visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 169 – “What's The Difference?”

What do you notice in your world?  Do you tend to see similarities or do you dwell upon differences? Writers tend to notice the details of similarities and differences, whether watching and listening to people, or whether they are thinking about objects.  Details of the senses are essential elements to consider and notice if you want to write. And if you want to read good fiction or nonfiction, you expect the writer to look closely and offer readers a fresh take on the world.

For example, here is a luscious photograph of mangoes.

Photo by Jim Wilson

And below it is a photograph of lovely avocados, both taken from a close study.  If you were to describe them, how would you do this?  Would you focus on the similar physical appearance of color and shape? How would you help someone who had never seen or tasted either,  know what the experience of seeing, touching, and yes, tasting these is like?

Externally, mangoes have a 'pinkish hue' and the skin is a paler shade of green, suggesting that the skin is thinner than the rugged avocados in the bowl below.  If you painted this difference, rather than writing or photographing these how would you arrange them? And if you write about them, what would you focus upon.

Photo by Alex Dunn

Or - would you think it more appropriate to consider the more subtle, tangible and interior ways that avocados differ from mangoes?  You would need to cut one of each open and taste it, smell it and then describe it. Having done that, then - upon what do you focus? Perhaps, differences are likely to be more interesting than similarities. And if you are writing fiction - that is an essential thing to consider.  But I can't help but wonder, what the heck are avocados and mangoes doing in your work? Do they have some purpose to help connect something essential to some larger element in the work? Perhaps they are metaphors of some type or not. Maybe they just are what they seem to be. Something for lunch.

I am reminded that in Susan Sontag's essays "On Photography" she noted that... "The disconcerting ease with which photographs can be taken...suggests a very tenuous relation to knowing."  And words - to connect - to the objects around us are necessary if we are to know more, know deeper, know with the cognitive and emotional parts of ourselves, for as E. M. Forster and others have said, "The writer's task is to only connect."
========================================================
About Jan Bowman 

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Another story won the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, and her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, Pen/O’Henry Awards. A recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or   visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 168 - "Branding People"

Recently I have noticed an annoying trend I call 'branding' - that is using product names to suggest character traits - and it seems to be catching on across the media.

Guggenheim Museum - Bilbao 

 

I suppose some of it comes from the social media attempts to market everything. And perhaps television is more responsible for this trend, but now branding is showing up in fiction frequently. 

I have seen a fair amount of it in workshops, writing groups and a couple of novels over the past couple of years.  

For example, a writer might wish to suggest that a character in a story is rich and shallow, so the character immediately sports a Rolex watch and drives a Mercedes, and readers are reminded of this fact often. While this might be sufficient for some characters with ‘walk-on parts’ – this begs the question of whether such a character is even needed if this is all we get as readers. 

Repeating these facts to reinforce and remind does little to draw readers into the story, and in fact serves to insult readers who bring quite a lot to the written page. Complexity is bypassed for a quick product placement. Readers deserve more than this.

And while the car a character owns, drives, steals or leases, as well as the scotch they drink or the jewelry they wear, suggests a range of possibilities about individuals and their choices, it does not do enough to provide satisfying character development.

Writers who get caught up ‘literally’ in the "show-don't-tell-school” of writing rules can find themselves grabbing the first glittery material object at hand to show something about character, but this odd habit of writing can undercut the depth and quality of the work.
============================================
About Jan Bowman 

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Another story won the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, and her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, Pen/O’Henry Awards. A recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or   visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 167 - "Cool Science"

I think writers need to read widely if they want to write thoughtful and thought-provoking work. Whether writers specialize in fiction or nonfiction, writers who read outside their chosen genre have a richer world view and more source material to encourage their creative process.  The New York Times Science section for Tuesday, August 13, 2013, posted a list of recent  Science Best Sellers which prompted me to consider whether I will likely read any of these over the next six months.   For no particular rhyme or reason, these books caught my interest.
So here are my current top five choices that I intend to read:

1 QUIET by Susan Cain. Crown. Introverts — one-third of the population — are undervalued in American society. 

(because I am an introvert)
4 BREAKPOINT by Jeff Stibel. Palgrave Macmillan. A neuroscientist and entrepreneur shows how the brain can act as a guide to understanding the future of the Internet (seems to say the whole Internet will eventually collapse, or NOT) and the constellation of businesses and technologies that run on it. 

5 THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg. Random House. A New York Times reporter’s account of the science behind forming habits, and breaking them.

  (what to keep & what to break)
6 THE HAPPINESS PROJECT by Gretchen Rubin. HarperCollins. In a hunt for happiness, the author consulted science, ancient wisdom and pop culture. (say yes)

7 HALLUCINATIONS by Oliver Sacks. Vintage. The renowned neurologist considers his patients’ hallucinatory experiences, and his own. (really - did someone actually 'see' that)

I read this one last year and it is fascinating even for 'non-scientific' readers.
2 THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS by Rebecca Skloot. Crown. The story of an African-American woman whose cancer cells were extensively cultured in 1951. 

Go to The New York Times for the complete list or click on the links for more information.

Related

• Science Bookshelf: Methodology (April 16, 2013)

Connect With Us on Social Media

@nytimesscience on Twitter.

• Science Reporters and Editors on Twitter

Like the science desk on Facebook.

The titles ranked here are selected by the science editors from all adult nonfiction books reported to The New York Times for the month. These titles are fundamentally based on the sciences; those for which science is more tangential or peripheral are generally excluded. Rankings reflect combined print and e-book sales for July 2013. An asterisk (*) indicates that a book’s sales are barely distinguishable from those of the book above. A dagger (†) indicates that some bookstores report receiving bulk orders. 

=========================================

About Jan Bowman

Her fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, and her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, Pen/O’Henry Awards and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection and writes a weekly blog on the writing life. Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or

visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 166 - "Let Us Hear The Good Stuff"

 Photo - Wilde Lake - Columbia, MD - Jan Bowman

In Laura Oliver’s wonderful guide to craft, the Story Within, she says, “All writers need to hear the good stuff. They need to hear it first and they need to hear it last.”  Which is to say that writers who hear the good stuff, who learn what they’re doing well, learn to trust their intuition and risk more in their writing. As a result, they will write more, if they feel confident and writers really do improve by writing more. We writers risk a lot and it is scary work. But writers hope to improve by putting words on the page and revising them until the words on the page are true to that wavy vision we had in the first place.

Oliver goes on the say, “Writers don’t become arrogant, conceited, or lazy when work is praised.” In fact, mature writers who see what they’re doing right can then move on and go deeper into revising their work.  And since writers usually have a ‘feeling’ about areas in their work that trouble them, they are more open to finding solutions in keeping with their vision.

Photo - Harbour Town - St. Michaels, MD - Jan Bowman

Oliver reminds us that stories belong to the writer, not to readers in a workshop setting.  She says, “The story is not yours to change, so don’t change it. If you feel a change is necessary, see if you can suggest a couple of ideas worth exploring rather than expressing vague dissatisfaction.”

Yes. Find the good stuff, even if you must struggle to do so. ‘Applaud the energy, creativity, honesty of a piece’ and then the writer can hear what else might help the work evolve in keeping with that writer’s vision.

Photo - St. Michaels, MD - Jan Bowman

  

About Jan Bowman

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or

visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Entry # 165 - "Sailing Rocks & Green Flashes"

Okay, 'gentle reader' says,  "I’ll bite. So what is a sailing rock and what the heck is a green flash? And why would I care?"

Green Flash

Sailing Rock

Green Flashes and Sailing Rocks are among a number of natural environmental phenomena that seem to defy what we know of the known world. Even experts struggle to explain these oddities of nature. And yet these things have viable scientific explanations. And readers – like our previously mentioned 'gentle reader' are naturally curious about the odd things of the world. Which is to say intelligent readers, like to learn new things when they read. And intelligent writers who explore and connect interesting events or objects organically help readers feel a bit smarter from having read their work. Organic objects that fit the ‘particulars’ can serve also to provide metaphors that add to the complexity of layed subtext in work.   A quick look at any number of online sites will bring up lots of information about both phenomena such as the excerpts quoted below.

“A ‘Green Flash’, also known as the ‘Green Ray’, is a visual phenomenon that occurs at sunset and sometimes at sunrise. For an instance, rays of green light appear as stripes beside the area where the sun has just set or as a green ball of light slightly above the spot where the sun was last seen. In some cultures a green flash is considered good luck, but others see it as a more foreboding omen." Whatever your view, it is a brief, memorable sight, but you have to be quite lucky to see it. And thanks to newer digital camera technology, people are able to photograph this phenomenon.

“Sailing stones, sliding rocks, and moving rocks all refer to a geological phenomenon where rocks move and inscribe long tracks along a smooth valley floor without human or animal intervention. " Sliding rock tracks have been observed in places like Death Valley and other areas in California.

“The stones appear to move only every two or three years and most tracks develop over three or four years. Stones with rough bottoms leave straight striated tracks while those with smooth bottoms tend to wander. Stones sometimes turn over, exposing another edge to the ground and leaving a different track in the stone's wake.”

What possible concern should such phenomena be to any fiction writer?”

Perhaps it’s because, ordinary or extra-ordinary events, objects, or phenomena have the potential to be mined as possible metaphor in fiction and in the real world.

Metaphors help readers make connections between complex layered ideas. It seems to me that the best ones arise organically from a given work. Often it is only after I have written a draft that I recognize the possible threads of some object, event, or phenomena that subtly serves to connect the reader to a new reality. For example – recently I observed that a character in my newest story is on a quest to get a perfect photograph of a sunset ‘green flash’ and much to my surprise, I discovered that this quest serves as a metaphor for other things going on in this story. I did not intend this. I only knew she photographed sunsets.

Another Sliding Rock

About Jan Bowman

Jan Bowman’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others. Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, her stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, a Pen/O’Henry award and a recent story was a finalist in the 2013 Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection. She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at www.janbowmanwriter.com or   visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com