The Myth of Formula

Ed Grabianowski blogged about a talk I gave at Origins in June, 2009 entitled Writing Careers in the Post Paper Age. Ed did a good job summarizing an hour’s worth of lecture, but a couple of points generated a lot of controversy his blog’s comment section. (My favorite is the screed that began, in reference to me, “I want to destroy this man.” (Cool. Bring it.))

In the interest of clarity, and in case anyone wants a preview of this talk when I give it at Gencon and Dragoncon this year, I’ll present several essays that address points which seem to have some people’s knickers in a knot. This is the first.

In my talk I refer to what I see as a return of serial fiction because of the way fiction is going to be consumed in the post-paper era. People seem less concerned about the monetary cost of their entertainment than they do the time commitment it demands. Not really surprising in the day and age of scheduling children for “play dates” and time-shifting through podcasts and Tivo. We’ve shifted what used to demand our time rather rigidly into a situation where we consume when we want to.

Fiction is going to be in the same position. The average commuter has a commute of approximately a half hour each way. Works out that a 2,500 word chapter is roughly fifteen minutes of reading. Each day’s reading supply is 10,000 words, or four chapters. Do the math, and you’re looking at a 50,000 word novel being a perfect fit for a week’s travel to and from work. In electronic form, loaded into a Kindle or iPhone, and costing $5 or so, it’s very economical entertainment.

And if each story is part of a serial or series, you have folks coming back again and again.

It works out that most pulp novels came in around that 50,000 word mark. A survey of the novels will show that 3-4 chapters in each followed the kidnap-escape pattern that made for exciting reading, but can easily be sacrificed for character development and exploration of themes. This neo-pulp approach will satisfy current readers who would find many of the serial pulps decidedly juvenile.

I also mention that I think serial stories ought to be 30% soap opera and 70% case content, and it’s this line that earned me vituperative comments that suggest that I write to a formula. Were that true, and were that all I was capable of doing, my career would have been over approximately 40 novels ago. More importantly, however, my content split doesn’t speak to formula at all. What it says is simply this: 30% of your story better be about your main character’s growth arc, and the rest of the words better make up a self-contained and satisfying story that stands alone. I stress that in my classes and talks because it’s not as self-evident as I would hope, and yet is critical to any writer’s success.

Of course, the word formula is meant to be a lash to chasten me for daring to suggest that what I do is, gosh, entertainment instead of art. To me, art is an ivory tower judgment rendered by scholars and has little or nothing to do with how I make my living. I am an entertainer. My work is in competition with all other forms of entertainment. The digital revolution will just make it far more convenient for readers to find and carry my work with them. And as long as I turn out engaging and entertaining stories, they’ll do just that.

One last note, the 30/70 split is a guideline I came up with myself in thinking about what other authors have done to keep me interested in their long-running series. Since coming up with it (and varying the percentages in the stories I serialize to my website) I’ve noticed that television shows like Burn Notice and Castle hit pretty much the same percentages. As television is the dominant storytelling medium in the world today, and television presentations educate us as how to understand story, producing work that is compatible with that model only makes it easier for consumers to enjoy our work.

I comment a lot on writing and the nature of publishing in my writing newsletter The Secrets. I’ve been writing it for five years. For only $25 a year, you get twenty-five issues that talk about writing and provide tips and techniques that will get you published and making a profit off your writing. Try it. You have nothing to lose but that steady stream of rejection slips.