One of my favorite quotes regarding the movie making business, and one which I have mentioned before, is by noted screenwriter William Goldman.  Mr. Goldman wrote the screenplay for such classic films as Harper, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men, and Princess Bride, among many others.

In his 1982 book Adventures In The Screen Trade and referring to making a “successful” film, Mr. Goldman famously wrote:

Nobody knows anything.

He elaborated:

Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for certain what’s going to work.  Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.

This applies, to my mind, to almost all forms of art.  David Bowie had a spectacular music career.  He first hit it big with the release of the single “Space Oddity” in 1969, which happened to coincide with NASA getting the first man on the Moon.

However, his subsequent albums didn’t do all that much and there was the thought that he was a “one hit wonder”.  He would release a full album that year, Space Oddity, which included the single but other than that one song didn’t do all that much.  The next year and in 1970 he would release what I consider his first great album, The Man Who Sold the World, and that album went absolutely nowhere.  His next album, Hunky Dory, was released in 1971 and to many this is the first “real” David Bowie album.  The album featured the successful song “Changes” but it too wasn’t as huge of a success as what came next: 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars.

It was that album which made David Bowie a superstar and, over the years, people realized both The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory were indeed pretty damn good albums as well.

However… what if Mr. Bowie hadn’t released Ziggy Stardust?  What if the record company gave up on him following the so-so success of his first three full albums?

Moving into literature, what makes a successful novel?

Why, for example, have the Harry Potter novels become a literary mega-success while other young adult novels featuring magic -there are plenty to choose from!- haven’t?

Why did Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s incredibly successful third novel, hit a nerve in readers and sell like crazy and result in a successful movie adaptation while her previous book, Dark Places, didn’t do quite as well?  Sure, the success of Gone Girl resulted in an uptick sales for Dark Places and a movie was eventually made of it starring Charlize Theron and yet… when one thinks of Gillian Flynn, one doesn’t think of Dark Places, one thinks of Gone Girl.

Looking more broadly, why did Fifty Shades of Gray succeed so wildly while so many other works of erotica have not?  Why are the works of H. P. Lovecraft today looked upon as horror classics yet during his lifetime Mr. Lovecraft barely made enough money on them to survive?  Why did Stieg Larsson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo become such a huge worldwide hit?  Was the novel really that great or was the tragedy behind the novel’s creation -the fact that the author died before it was released- what made people curious to buy it and its two sequels?

The answer is… unknown.

Nobody knows anything.

You can write a truly great novel and find people really, really love it.  You can write something people hate.  You can get plenty of positive reviews and ratings or be slammed with negative ratings.  Worse than that, your book might engender indifferent reactions.

Your novel does well.  Or decently.  Or poorly.

You may wonder why, but its pointless to do so.  There is no explanation for a success.  Hopefully, it is because your book was well written but it could be because it featured an intriguing topic presented at the right time.

There are plenty of famous authors out there who have sold a ton of books and who many view as poor writers.  I could mention a few right here and right now but what’s the point?  They succeeded and, you know what?  Good for them.  Anything that gets people looking around for books has to be a good thing for every other author, does it not?

Yet you still wonder: Why did these works succeed?  Why did others that you feel deserved better did not?

Nobody knows anything.

Least of all me.

The bottom line is this: As a writer, write what you like.  Write about things you as a reader would like to read.  Hope for the best but, if the work doesn’t succeed, don’t feel all is lost.  Perhaps your second book… or your third… or your tenth… will finally get you the audiences you long for.

Even if it doesn’t, be proud of what you leave behind.  Do the best you can with the tools you have and don’t worry about the success.

Leave behind a legacy.  Leave behind something you’ll be proud of.

In the end, there is no magic formula for success.  If there were, the world would be an awfully boring place.

The other day I received, unsolicited, a Kindle copy of a book currently available through Amazon.com.  The reason the author (or his representatives) sent out the book to me was not because he/they knew I was an author but because I reviewed a book on Amazon that they thought was similar enough to their book that it would appeal to me.  They were hoping I’d read and write a review for their book and post it to the book’s listing on Amazon.

I can understand the reasons for him/them sending me the book.  The more reviews a book has, and especially if the reviews are positive, the more “popular” it appears to the casual book buyer and, hopefully, the better the chance more people will purchase said book.

I looked at the offered book but found it not all that interesting to me.  There was nothing wrong with the book’s plot, per se, its just that the story wasn’t my proverbial “cup of tea”.  I checked its listing on Amazon and sure enough it had quite a few reviews and, for the most part, they were positive.  I must admit, sending out copies of your book to people who have offered written reviews is something to consider and may well be helpful in getting a boost on your review numbers (By the way, thus far I’ve gotten more reviews on Goodreads than through Amazon.  The six books in my Corrosive Knights series are currently clocking in at -and I’m very proud of this fact- 4 stars out of 5).

Anyway, out of politeness to the author I decided to give the first chapter of this book a try.  Alas, it solidified the fact that this book wasn’t for me.  Further, having written as much as I have, certain technical aspects of the author’s work stuck out…negatively.

Out of deference to the author, I will neither name him or the book he was writing but I will provide some examples of things I found bothersome.

To begin, the book is advertised as a James Patterson-like thriller.  In reading the first chapter, which is a setup for what follows, the author presented an action scenario that took place in a famous location and one he took pains in describing.  Some authors like to do this.  If a book is set, say, in a particular neighborhood in London an author may go out of their way to provide readers a detailed geography of the land.  To some this may be quite fun but to me there is a fine line between offering this type of information and getting a little too focused on geography to the point where one loses the steam an exciting action scene should have.

While this author didn’t go overboard with descriptions he got, IMHO, awfully close.  Again, this is a matter of personal opinion: I like my stories to move and I don’t like to dwell too much on ancillary things or too much description.

When writing, one of the things I’ve learned is that you should constantly be focusing on telling the story as best as you can.  Each sentence and, indeed, word builds your story because every word counts.

Let me offer one sentence from this first chapter of the book and offer a critique of it.  Please note the sentence is just one sentence and does not represent the bulk of hte chapter I read (though to be fair, there were other things I found to be bothersome here and there).  Finally, this sentence is NOT presented completely verbatum as, again, I’m keeping the author and the novel secret.  Nonetheless, the below sentence is very, very close to an actual sentence in the book:

“Stop or we’ll be forced to use stronger measures!” yelled the senior officer in Spanish, who sported a five-o’clock shadow on his chiseled face.

This sentence, as written, is very clunky.  A better way to state the same information is:

“Stop or we’ll be forced to use stronger measures!” the senior officer, who sported a five-o’clock shadow on his chiseled face, yelled in Spanish.

While better this sentence is still not all that good.  By the time we read this passage, we already knows the country this part of the story takes place in and therefore should know the language spoken by the “senior officer”.  Thus, in the interests of brevity, the sentence could have gone like this:

“Stop of we’ll be forced to use stronger measures!” the senior officer, who sported a five-o’clock shadow on his chiseled face, yelled.

Better yet still not great.  I strongly suspect the “senior officer” presented here is a very small character whose only appearance in this novel is right here (I can only suspect this because I haven’t read the rest of the novel).  I know and can appreciate the author wanting to give this small character some kind of “life” in this brief appearance but the “five o’clock shadow” and “chiseled face” is at best a rather obvious descriptor and at worst a very cliched one.

Given the likelihood this is the only appearance of this character, his facial description isn’t as important as his purpose, which is to be a menace to the one he’s shouting at.  That being the case, instead of focusing on the character’s face perhaps it would have be better to focus on the threat he conveys.  How about this:

“Stop or we’ll use stronger measures!” the senior officer shouted as his right hand reached for and gripped the gun strapped to his side.

I make absolutely no pretenses about literary mastery here and acknowledge what I wrote ain’t quite Shakespeare or Hemingway but on the other hand this sentence is better at getting to the heart of what this character’s purpose is:  To impart a sense of threat/danger to the character he’s yelling at.

Writing a story, whether it be short or long or massive involves an incredible amount of thought on the part of the author.  Every word counts and you should try to maximize what you write.

This is not an easy task!

I’ve mentioned before that it took me 12 drafts before I was happy enough with my last two novels to release them.  The reason for these drafts is because I too struggle with making sure what I’m writing is as good as is possible.

I took great pains to not point out who this author is or what book he’s promoting and the reason for that is because it is unfair to do so.  I’m just as guilty as he is, perhaps even more so, of writing clunky sentences or not focusing on elements that should be focused on as I made an example of above.

Not every time you go to bat do you hit a home run.  Sometimes, you’re lucky to just get to first base without striking out.

Yesterday was a particularly good day for my work on the latest Corrosive Knights novel (this will be book #7 and will conclude the main story I’ve been working on for nearly a decade now).

Why was it a particularly good day?  Because as I was thinking the novel’s plot over (something I tend to do with my latest works all hours of the day), the synapses in my brain figured out a way to bring various elements of the beginning and end of the novel together and in a matter of a half-hour and while on the computer I created a beautiful, exciting outline of the bridge linking the two ends of the book.

Mind you, I came up with some far rougher general ideas as to what was going to happen in the middle of the book before but those thoughts were far less complete than what I came up with yesterday.  Indeed, yesterday I filled almost all of the gaps of that middle section of the novel and this will obviously be a tremendous help.

I’ve written about this before but it bears repeating: Authors, like all working people, have their strengths and weaknesses and likes and dislikes.  I’ve heard of authors who have a tough time “beginning” a novel.  I’ve heard of authors who have difficulties wrapping things up.  Indeed, one of the greatest complaints I’ve read against Stephen King’s work (I only wish I could write as much as he does!) is that his novel endings tend to be weak.

For me personally, starting and ending a novel hasn’t, to date, been all that much of a problem.  In fact, whenever I start a new novel I tend to have strong opening and closing ideas.

Where my problem lies is in providing the tissue connecting those two elements.  Further frustrating me is the fact that I strive to make my novels as original as I can and want readers to be surprised by the twists and turns leading to my novels’ endings yet everything must come together by that ending.

Trust me, that’s not an easy task!

Throughout my life I’ve sought out interviews with noted authors about what motivates them and how they work.  Some authors revel in what I consider a “mythological” take on their writing.  To them, writing may be described as akin to creating “magic.”  I’ve read more than one author talk about how their fictional characters take charge of the story and dictate its direction, as if this fictional character the author’s created has taken hold of the story being told.

I think a lot of that is bunk.

I know I’ve said it before but writing is, first and foremost, work.  Plain and simply.  In my case this work can be very hard and mentally exhausting.

On TV, shows like Murder She Wrote and Castle present a fiction of an author who seems to do their writing in their spare time, creating their “best sellers” in a matter of a few hours while otherwise living a fabulous, carefree life.

The reality, at least for me, is one of almost obsessive mental concentration.  Though you may not believe it, I do indeed spend almost every waking hour thinking of my latest novel/story.  I don’t think a minute passes where some part of my brain isn’t obsessing over some detail, big or small, within my latest work.

The thing is, while I tend to get the opening and closing acts of my works out of the way pretty quickly, that middle connective section requires a great deal of care and thought and, to date, I’ve yet to have a middle section of my book come to me as “easily” as my novel openings/closings.

Regardless of all the work involved, I freaking love creating stories.  As difficult and as frustrating and as time consuming and as un-sexy as the act of creation may be, when all that hard work is done and I hold in my hands my latest novel and then add it to the stack of novels I’ve already written, I’m in heaven.  It is as pure a moment of pride and unadulterated joy as I can have.

And I can’t wait to get to work on the next one.