On this lovely Halloween, a scary story…

Once upon a time, there was a scam literary agency named Hill&Hill. Like all scam literary agents, Hill charged a fee, though it was one of those “reasonable” fees. [Ed note: no agent fee is reasonable; they make their money by commission.] The agency signed up a lot of clients, and spent long hours working with the clients to prepare their manuscripts for submission. All clients received a copy of the submission package, with the glowing pitch letter, as well as a list of the houses the work was supposedly sent to.

As time passed, writers received word from the agency of houses that had, sadly, rejected the manuscript (Hill even forwarded their short rejection notes), as well as more in-depth information and notes from houses that were apparently still interested or were passing the work up along the chain of command. Hill even told some that a publisher had made “a verbal offer.” Occasionally, the agent himself even met his clients for lunch.

[Ed. Note: If someone told me about an agent behaving as described in the paragraph above, I'd say he was behaving exactly as he should.]

However, all was not what it seemed. However, this scam could only go on so long, and writers waiting for contracts from houses like Crown, Spyglass Entertainment, and others, realized that these promised contracts would never materialize. And then, abruptly, the agency shut its doors and claimed to have “frozen” all its accounts and pending contracts as it relocated to Spain.

Recently, an editor from the UK Harper Collins wrote a column on the fifth estate blog talking about the rush of letters from Hill’s former clients wondering where their forthcoming contracts are. As the editor dug deeper into the mystery, she discovered that these writers were told by their “agent” that in order to get their book deal, they’d have to fill out an elaborate author survey (click on the link to see it; it’s really quite unbelievable).

The comments section of the post was filled with more horror stories as Hill’s victims chose to speak up. My heart broke for them, which is why I am posting, yet again, on avoiding scam agents. I feel like such information needs to get out there so I’m strapping on my metaphorical sandwich board and handing out pamphlets.

People like different qualities in agents. Some want editors, or hand-holders, or neither. Some want to be told when they get a rejection, others hate the idea. But there are two absolutely non-negotiable terms:

1) Agents make their money on commission. They don’t have marketing/agent/retainer/what-have-you fees. Period.

2) Agents should have a record of sales. Even if they are new, they are likely to be working at a respectable agency who will be showing them the ropes or they have come from some other aspect of publishing or another agency, or they are announcing they are open for business in conjunction with their first sale. Yes, everyone has to have a first; I don’t deny that. But I’d only volunteer to be that person’s first if the agent was at an established agency with senior agent’s guiding the process, or similar exception. And if the agency is in business for a year or more and still shows no sales? Yeah. No sale.

Gigawhatnow? The publishing industry is to blame because a writer signed with a scam artist who took her money and didn’t even SEND her manuscript anywhere so that it could be considered for publication? That I don’t get at all. That’s like saying that Hollywood should somehow be responsible for the creepy guy in the bus station that goes up to young women and says, “You should really be an actress. Let me take some pictures of you.”

Of course, this argument is not unusual. I see it all the time, in all manner of arguments, blaming the industry for favoring all kinds of writing in lieu of all other kinds. “Why doesn’t the publishing industry/the readership get me?” the rejected writer asks. “Why are they so obsessed with potboilers/celebrity bios/sexy romances/chick lit/Oprah-style weepies? Why don’t they publish good books, the kind I write?” This argument is not valid. It’s not valid when it’s about some sort of imagined drop in fiction publishing in favor of (!!!) ghostwritten memoirs, and it’s not valid when it’s some MFA holder saying no one takes women writers seriously because some of us like comedy. It’s just not valid. Books shouldn’t be any one thing, and publishers publish what people will read. Read more of what you want, and perhaps they’ll see the market for it. It’s happened before (cf. erotic romance).

“Do publishers feel no responsibility for encouraging new writers?” In a word: no. They are thrilled to take them when good new writers come along (after all, new=cheap), but they don’t have any need to encourage them. They’re already there in droves.

And these money-making books, these celebrity bios and such, are an amazing way for publishers to be able to encourage good new writers. They keep the publisher in the black, so they can do the most encouraging thing of all: they can buy the books of new writers, new writers who are nto a sure bet, new writers who may not make any money but have a story that people will want. Publishers moonlight too. They do some work for money, and some work for love. So if you want the love, stop dissing the money. Different books have a place. Respect that.

And do not feel entitled by the industry, or expect to be spoonfed your how-tos, or assume that any of this is going to be fair. Publishing is tough, confusing, and nothing even remotely related to fair.

I think I spent my extra hour yesterday watching television shows. Now, regular blog readers are aware that SB and I do not have television reception. When we watch TV shows, it’s at Sailor Parent’s house or care of the fabulous wonderment of Netflix. But, lo, I have no discovered that nbc.com will show me the latest episode of any of their shows. Ruh-roh.

So I decided to give Studio 60 another go. I’m a big fan of The West Wing — such a fan, actually, that SB and I got the pilot of Studio 60 on Netflix before the show began. The pilot was cute, I thought, but didn’t really wow me. Then we watched the second episode. Then we stopped. I’ve heard mixed reviews, mostly that the comedy show-within-a-show isn’t actually very funny and that it spends too much time preaching to you. Now, the preaching was pretty common on The West Wing, but it really fit with the characters there. They were actively and earnestly trying to save the world in every episode. The stuff they dealt with was important — wars, and people starving and national budgets and stuff. With Studio 60, I expected they’d still think it was important, but more in a Sports Night kind of way. I expected them to have more personality, more sense of humor.

I did not expect a ten minute tour of the flipping sound stage. Yawn. Plus, the whole “he was a blacklisted writer” thing was telescoped way out, perhaps mostly because it was a rehash of about eight different The West Wing plotlines. It just felt so done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve seen this storyline. Random person wanders into your temple-of-work, and you try to dismiss him but it turns out he knows a lot more about it than you and is a piece of living history. It’s like that West Wing episode where Charlie found the letter written to Roosevelt. And once again, the Aaron Sorkin hiring committee busts out and hires the weirdest people for the job openings in the weirdest ways possible. Who hires a staff writer like they’re recruiting for the CIA? In The West Wing, it worked because, well, sometimes they were actually recruiting for the CIA. Here… not so much.

Word on the street is that this show isn’t going to last out the season. I want it to hit its groove, really I do, because I dearly, dearly loved TWW… but I’m a huge Sorkin fan and I don’t see the need to be going back for more episodes. So I can’t imagine what people who aren’t big fans are thinking.

So anyway, that was that. Usually I heard about the goings-on of Studio 60 in the same breath as 30 Rock, which is the Tina Fey sitcom (I can’t be the only person who always wants to write Tina Fet, like she walked out of Attack of the Clones or something, can I?) about the goings-on backstage at another SNL-type show. I find it odd that the same network is pitting a drama against a sitcom about the same topic. I also find the sitcom itself to be extremely, extremely, extremely odd. It’s partially the filming style, which is very out of the ordinary (and not in a good way) — doesn’t have that “set” feeling. Also, the short, jumpy scenes, the total lack of soundtrack, I just wasn’t quite sure what I was watching. Add that to a bunch of really, really unfunny jokes, and a plot that was cut whole cloth out of a Sex in the City episode from, what? Eight years ago? Ten? and I’m wondering what everyone is raving about.

I finally did watch the latest episode of Veronica Mars, btw. (Usual white text.) Eh. I don’t understand it, personally. I’m not clear on how a lowly Vanity Fair reporter actually bugs a cellphone, and how many hours of inane cellphone conversations he must have listened to to get to the one moment in time wherein Logan actually tracked down Charlie and called him, not to mention how the conversation between Logan and Real! Charlie must have progressed, unless Logan left a message for Charlie and it was Fake! Cahrlie that called back. Also, did the guy in the ATM photo look familiar to anyone else? Anyhoo, not exactly up to snuff, IMO. Or maybe I’m just spoiled by watching whole seasons at once on DVD.

So I’ll go back to televion on DVDs, I think. We’re working our way through Battlestar Galactica at the moment, which is very well done, but so frickin’ bleak I need a lot of breathing room between each disc.

We watched some movies this weekend as well. Just like Heaven, the film version of the novel If Only It Were True, which I received in a goody bag in RWA a few years back. I remember it saying on the front cover that it was soon to be a motion picture, but the title change threw me for a loop and I never did see it in theaters. (The book is very good.) Anyway, it was cute. Reese Witherspoon is always top notch, and there were some genuinely funny scenes, but the romantic conflict felt vaguely slight to me. But if you’re looking for a sweet story with some good performances (and one of the most beautiful apartments you ever will see) check it out.

Then we saw Failsafe, and, apparently much like everyone else who saw it, enjoyed it decidedly less than Dr. Strangelove. What can I say? I like my nuclear holocausts with a dose of satire. But it did freak me out. How in the world did we ever survive the Cold War? Seriously… how? And of course, it gave me bad dreams, none of which starred a matador, one of which required me to avert the bombers by entering the Maori name for New Zealand into the bombers’ radio signals, and of course, I couldn’t remember if it was Aeoteroa or Aotearoa (it’s the latter).

I have weird dreams.

And we watched Broadcast News, and for people who know more about movies than me (yes, Gina, I’m talking to you), how old are the characters supposed to be in that film? Late 20s? early 30s? They look a little older than me, but I’m not sure if I think that because I tend to think of those actors as being older than me or because it was the 80s or because they were older than me but were supposed to be playing my age or what. Sailor Boy’s theory is that it’s a film about how the stuff you do in your twenties doesn’t end up mattering all that much anyway. I don’t know how much I liked the denounment of the story, which felt flat (yet inexorable), but I really did enjoy the characters and how it refused to take the easy way out at any opportunity. It felt very real. I also loved the DC setting, of course, which made it feel even more real, and that these people might be friends of mine. Also, William Hurt has a cute butt. Oh, and the character of Sally, the tall, beautiful late night producer slut that Casey sleeps with in Sports Night is totally based on Jennifer. (Sailor Boy has instructed me to clarify that he was the one to point that out.)

And, to round up this whole film-entertainment weekend here at Diana’s Diversions, we also re-watched The Big Lebowski and Moulin Rouge. Classics, still such joys to watch. There are a few movies out or coming out that I’m looking forward to. The Prestige, One Night with the King (might wait for that on DVD) and The Fountain, which I’m totally seeing on the big screen and I don’t care who tells me it’s supposed to be some incomprehensible mess. It shall be my big incomprehensible mess. Mine and Hugh Jackman’s.

For the weekend, I wanted to post a few tiny updates, for the enjoyment of certain Nebraska residents and readers of this blog (you know who you are, E).

First of all, here are some pictures from my fabulous trip to Connecticut:
Here I am with my lovely co-presenter, critique partner, and activity chair, Marley Gibson:
Here I am, looking rather shifty, as I retrieve and begin to sign books in Stamford’s picturesque Borders Bookstore, where we were assisted by the wonderful Tatiana. I must say that I think I’ve got a definite femme fatale air going on in this shot. I don’t know if it’s my new fall coat (scarlet, like the color of passion! of blood!) or the mysterious expression on my face.

Hmmmm…

Here I am with CoLoNY’s own Heather, who as an employee of Yale, has told me that my fictional Eli University campus bears an uncanny resemblance to her place of work. Curious. Truly:
Pictures of me getting my massage redacted. This is a family blog!

Okay. Also, I wanted to point out to all the aspiring writers out there, that, in case there was ever any doubt: it is never, ever, ever, not once, not even a little bit, no matter what they may call it (be it a retainer, a reading fee, a marketing fee, whatever), okay for an agent to charge you a fee. Ever. Not even if it’s a small amount of money. Not even if they say it’s not okay to charge fees, and then do it anyway. Not even if they say that I and everyone else whow says “no fees” is a big fat liar and that every agent charges fees. Never. Ever. Ever. Agents make money by taking a percentage of the money they make YOU. Which means they don’t make a cent until you do. Always. Always. Always. These people are scam artists. They are liars, and the lies they tell are especially manipulative, since they wrap them up in truths. They are truthful about one part of an agent’s job, but it is only a small part. They make fraudulent statements such as “may make as much as $5,000.” This is not true. 5k is damn low end for an agented deal. Here’s a discussion on this same subject from my own agent. (Who, I must add, never charged me a cent, got me much more money than 5k, and does a lot more work for me than that described in in the website.) This is who these so-called “agents” really are. And as for the final accusations of these scam artists:

Websites such as SFWA, Writers’ [sic] Beware, Predators & Editors [sic], along with associated blogs and chatrooms/forums are operated and monitored by people who…have an agenda…and it isn’t to protect you. Their agenda is to destroy the reputations, and therefore, the business of independent agents. They do not do this out of the kindness of their hearts, or because they truly care about you, the writer. They do this for a reason!

Uh-huh. And, um, what would this reason be? That’s the part that they don’t seem to be too clear on. The agenda of industry watchdog groups is to protect writers from scam artists. If in doing so, teh scam artists are put out of business? Well then. Writer Beware responds here.

I am posting about this because refutation of such complete crapola cannot be emphasized enough. I know that people come here for writing and industry advice. I feel that this information should get out there. It should never be a question in people’s minds. Everyone should know that agents who charge fees are never kosher.

Happy Friday, everyone. The weather is disgusting here in D.C. Cold and dreary. However, it won’t be getting me down. I have plans, my friend. Plans. Today, I’m going out to lunch with my… um, future cousin-in-law? Yeah, that’s it. I’m really looking forward to it. We’re going to this darling little restaurant that I’ve been dying to try out ever since I moved into town.

And then, tomorrow is my anniversary. It’s actually my last anniversary, because starting next year, they are changing the date of daylight savings time. So we will be celebrating our anniversary on a different date from now on.

If the blog posts are a bit thin on the ground in the coming weeks, don’t be alarmed. It’s just that I’ve got a lot of things on my plate right now. I’m several thousand words into SSG3 (currently untitled, and honestly, the only ones springing to mind right now are joke titles), but I’m going to be taking a break on that next week for a last, whirlwind round of line edits on SSG2. And then, NaNoWriMo. Yes, I’m going to be trying my hand at that again, despite the fact that it was a desperate failure last time. (I’m more of a tortoise than a hare when it comes to writing.) Who else is doing it?

It’s very odd to me to be writing scenes from SSG3, because several of these bits are scenes I’ve been thinking about writing since well before I finished SSG — so it’s been over a year and a half now that I’ve been waiting to write this. And the incredible thing to me is that they still fit the characters and the situation. It’s been 500 pages of other stuff, and Amy & Co. were still marching, inexorably, to this point. Contrast that with SSG2, in which I had a plot mapped out way in advance, but there was only one scene which I absolutely knew that I must have in the book, that I had imagined out beforehand, and when I finally got to writing that scene, I was very worried that it no longer “fit” the story I’d written. (Luckily, I only needed a few modifications, and I think they’ve made it even stronger.)

Also, SSG3 is currently on spec, which is the first time I’ve done that in 18 months. Yesterday, the aforementioned future cousin-in-law and I were discussing the life of the freelancer. It’s so different from having a job. You get a contract, you work to fulfill it, and then there’s that moment of freefall before you get your next contract. I guess it’s that thrill that keeps you hungry.

I overslept today, which means I’m skipping Thursday Thirteen (dear me, how did it get to be Thursday again!) and I’m going to talk about something else: understanding rejection letters.

Here’s my thoughts on the matter: don’t bother. Seriously, do not bother. Here’s why:

1. Half the time, they don’t mean anything, You’re combing through every syllable on the page, trying to glean some meaning out of a form rejection sent to both you and the person who stupidly sent the women’s fiction agent a cookbook.

2. Even when you haven’t gotten a form letter, there’s no guarantee that the letter you have received contains a shred of useful information. The rejection is, after all, just one person’s opinion. And though it is a learned, industry insider’s opinion, you have no way to tell if she is right. It could be a matter of taste.

3. And no way to tell if she is even telling the truth. She may be rejecting your work on the grounds that it sucks, that the characters are flat, that the pacing is slow, that the plot is overdone and, to top it off, that she just bought something else like it last week, but on the rejection letter, she doesn’t want to crush your little writer ego by , so she says something like, “I just bought something like this” or “I didn’t find myself falling in love with the characters.” True? Yes, but hardly helpful. And this is why so many writers, upon receiving such little gems of “feedback” proceed to kick their asses in attempts to rewrite according to the ’specifications’ they’ve decoded in the rejection letter, only to receive another rejection on grounds that weren’t even mentioned in the first letter. Raise your hand if this has happened to you. ::Raises hand.::

The whole exercise is one of futility. I know how frustrating it can be for a writer to receive a rejection, and I’m familiar with the earnest wish, the fervent desire, well, if they could just TELL me what I’m doing wrong, I could fix it!

No, they can’t. And no, you can’t necessarily fix it either, even if they do. You must not rely on feedback from editors and agents to bring your work up to publishable level. To draw a comparison, that would be like relying on hospital administrators to turn you into a competent surgeon. You have to be a competent surgeon before you even get a job at the hospital. Once there, an admin can give you a performance review telling you if you need to work on your bedside manner or perhaps go to a conference to learn about new techniques, but you need to get to a certain level first.

Repeat after me: editors and agents don’t teach people to write.

No, that’s not easy, and no, that’s not fair, and yes, it’s frustrating as hell to keep working and working and working and winning contests and having everyone in your critique group tell you how good your work is, only to keep hearing the old “not quite right for us.” But I promise you, they’ll never be able to tell you how to fix it. You’ve got to get there on your own. Get a new critique group. Go to some master’s classes. Look more critically at your work. Write another book. Submit it to a different person. Any of these things will be able to help you more significantly.

Tor editor Theresa Nielsen Hayden writes in a brilliant essay called Slushkiller about the reasons she rejects manuscripts, and about the myriad ways that writers go about misinterpreting rejections, even the kindest and most helpful ones. Other editors and agents have stated that they’ve stopped providing feedback on rejections in favor of form letters in order to halt the flow of pointless resubmissions, requests for assistance the industry pro cannot provide, and other exercises in futility. Former editor Louisa Edwards has a whole series on her blog called “Decoding Disappointment” in which she attempts to “translate” rejection letters. Most entries in this series are characterized by the words “might” or “could.” The editor “might” have meant this. This letter “could” mean that.

Stop trying to decipher these things. No means no. Move on. Me, I’m a big fan of the form reject, no matter how much it stings. It means less time this neurotic writer spends trying to figure out what she could have done. (Trust me, I do this. I’m the one who reads a negative review of my book that mentions one awkward sentence and I pore through the manuscript, trying to divine what sentence that could be!)

Here’s the only exception: If the industry pro specifically states “if you address these issues, I’d be happy to look at the project again,” then you have the right, nay, the duty, to figure out what issues she’s talking about, fix them, and resubmit. Otherwise, Move. On. You’ll not regret it.

Okay, I lied. There was no graphic post coming. I don’t have permission yet. But you know, keep tuned to this station, or something like that. I have seen my new covers (there’s a new one for the paperback of Secret Society Girl as well as one for Under the Rose) and they are very cool. They’re going to pop from the shelves. It’s also amazing to me, because, as I’ve said before, I’m a complete disaster when it comes to art, so I’m overwhelmed to discover that they’ve actually incorporated one of my designs into the covers. I love it! There might be a new design of the blog coming along with it, but that remains to be seen.

I was so amused by yesterday’s comments thread where everyone was coming up with their pop star name. Sailor Boy (whose pop star name is AWESOME, by the way) told me that most of us were being too limited, except for Miss M-to-the-G. For instance, sometimes Lindsay Lohan is called LiLo, or all of the celebrity couples who go by mixes of their names: Brangelina, Bennifer, etc. My celebrity couple name, btw, rocks, and if SB weren’t so under-the-radar around here, I could share it. Suffice to say it involves mathematical symbols. (Man, could I be keeping any more secrets on this blog today?) So anyway, I need to think of a better pop star nickname for myself. But DiPe doesn’t work. At. All. Yuck. I’ll be considering this further.

While we’re on the subject of popstars, you know how everyone makes fun of Madonna for co-opting a British accent? I think I would totally do that if I lived in Great Britain. You just start talking like the people around you. You absorb it, because, wow, go figure, your brain was meant to absorb languages and adapt. This is usually considered a good thing. They actually send students of foreign languages overseas to work on their accents. But Madonna is labeled a poser. I’m giving her a break because I know I’d be the same way. It’s not, “Hey, British accents are cool, I’m getting me one of those!” (Though they are cool.)

Though I never did co-opt an Aussie accent. In fact, I don’t even think I could fake one. I did however, pick up a few choice Aussie phrases, such as “she’ll be right,” “chockers,” “How are you going?” and my favorite, “full on.” Ah, Australia! Land of such happy vernacular!

(Okay, fine, here’s a graphic for you…proving once again that SB has nothing on me when it comes to taking pictures. The one of him in front of the Sydney Opera House has no hair in his face at all… though, it might be because his was short.)

On the subject of speech patterns (and I know Robin likes to talk about this), I find that whenever I go through a particularly intense period of writing, I take on the characteristics and yes, even the speech (and writing) patterns, of my protagonists. For instance, in this post, I’m talking like Amy. I’ve caught myself using several Amyesque turns of phrase. Interesting, no?

And, for my brother, who wants more “personal” stuff in my blog: So you know how I went to Connecticut and brought back stuff I’ve had in storage since the year I graduated from college? I haven’t really unpacked it at all yet. It’s just sitting in my living room. But I did open one box, and inside were all my winter coats. Since it’s gotten freezing here in DC, I threw one on tonight when I went out to pick up food. It’s a knee-length gray wool toggle coat with a detachable hood, one of those LL Beanjobs with the quilted lining and the “temperature rating” down to such-and-such degrees. (I do not trust that temp rating however, seeing as how I wore that coat every day for several months out of the year for four years, and I have weak Florida blood besides.) Anyway, I was wearing it and walking around my neighborhood with my hands in my pockets and my fingers naturally gravitated back to that one loose string, that one frayed edge, as if it hadn’t been about six years since my hand was inside that pocket. And though this coat was my usual go-to winter coat, and I wore it all the time in college, and even in NYC the year after college, and therefore I should have a ton of memories about that coat, there was only one that came to the surface of my mind.

Seven years ago on Saturday, I wore this coat. I wore it even though it wasn’t quite cold enough in New Haven for me to usually pull out the big gray winter coat. That night, I wasn’t wearing much underneath. It was the weekend of Halloween, and I was in a pair of sparkly jeans (which, trust me, were totally the height of popularity in 2000) and a gun-metal gray cropped tank, and it was probably the most conservative outfit I’d had on all night (long story involving Tim Curry) and I was standing in the suite of a boy I barely knew. I was looking at my reflection in the mirror and zipping up my coat and he was teasing me. I could see him smiling at me over the shoulder of my reflection. His hair was pretty curly, and very blonde still, from the summer he’d spent teaching sailing in the Caribbean, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how crazy I’d been to kiss him. It wasn’t me. And yet, there I was, standing in his suite, in my coat, having kissed him quite a lot.

And here I am now, in my apartment, thinking very seriously about going over and kissing him again. See ya.

This morning is a drive-by, but stay tuned for a cool cool, and most likely graphic post later this afternoon.

Something that occurred to me today: if I were to take one of those pop culture nicknames like J-Lo or K-Fed, I’d be D-Pete. Eh. Not a big fan of that, to be honest.

This really has been the week for writing suceesses. I know three people who have or are about to agree to book deals, adn three more who have received offers of representation from agents. Woo hoo! Keep it up, folks!

Also, a huge congratulations to Carla Hughes, who has won a Maggie Award for her Rome-set historical novel. Knock ‘em dead, Carla!

In other news, I have turned in my revisions for Under the Rose. I’ve also finally cleaned my college stuff out of storage in my aunt’s basement. Yep, five years. (I’d feel bad about it, but I had to get past both older and younger cousins’ stuff to get to mine, and my mom lost some of her stuff when my uncle sold the house. So I know this is not unusual) All that’s left is for me to go through it (that should be some fun posts). Maybe I’ll have the first ever blog white elephant party.

Tomorrow, I’ll post about my exciting weekend in Connecticut. Complete with pictures I know should make some Nebraskans reading this blog very very happy.

Sorry for the radio silence. I’ll be back tomorrow with a real post. In the meantime:

“I presume [he] means that inherently you cannot be commercial and artistic. You cannot be commercial and quality. You cannot be commercial concurrent with hav[ing] a preoccupation with the level of storytelling that you want to achieve. And this I have to reject. I think you can be. I don’t think calling something ‘commercial’ tags with an odious suggestion that it stinks, that it’s something raunchy or to be ashamed of. If you say commercial means to be publicly acceptable, what’s wrong with that?” — Rod Serling

What do you think?

(I think Rock On, Rod, in that big Dimension of Sight, Sound, and Mind in the Sky…)

And even MORE great news today. Two things I can’t talk about, and two things I can. Of the latter: I got the mechanicals for the paperback cover of Secret Society Girl, and they’re adorable. I think you guys are going to love it and I can’t wait to get permission to put it online. Very different concept than the hardcover. I’m also mostly finished with the edits for Under the Rose. I just need to do one more read through, and then some final work on some sticky points that still need to get smoothed away. Onto today’s topic:

1. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov: I love this book. I love it so much. It’s gorgeous reading, like the most decadent, many layered dessert you’ve ever tasted. And the story rocks too. And it wouldn’t work in any other point of view. No, Lolita is Lolita not because of the fascinating story, nor the ecstatic writing, but because of the miracle of narration — Nabokov makes you root for a child molester. Because he tells the story himself.

2. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley: Several FPPOV, as a matter of fact. Nested boxes of “true” histories. The moment when the monster gets his own say is such a powerful reversal, and his speech is so moving and eloquent that you can’t help but condemn the society that shuns him.

3. Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson: Too long, and so too little read, but a masterful exploration into every corner of a young woman’s psyche. Clarissa is brilliant, and so indoctrinated into her society, and it’s amazing to watch as her letters turn from correspondance to diary, as her circumstances reveal bit by bit what she’s lying about, and what she truly believes. Her “mad papers!” I remember falling out of my bed when I first read them.

4. Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz: Odd’s straightforward, just-folks depiction of his bizarre life is the only thing keeping the book from floating into another dimension. No matter how weird things get for Mr. Thomas, his grounded voice makes it sound… almost normal.

5. Bridget Jones’s Diary, by Helen Fielding: Because every one who reads this book falls for Bridget. It’s love. Love, people. She invites you to share every corner of her inner life. She’s so vulnerable, and so honest, and it’s because you the reader, are not necessarily meant to see the things she scribbles in her diary.

6. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes: I spoke about this at length on Tuesday, but my heart breaks for Charlie. His voice is so true in this story. You believe it.

7. Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem: If you’ve only seen the George Clooney movie, then (as much fun as I’m sure that was) you don’t know this story. At its heart, it’s about a man incapable of making personal connections trying to communicate with an unknown and unknowable alien entity. And the connections he draws from this irony, as well as the alien’s ultimate manifestation are purest agony through his deceptively cold POV. (I wrote a kick ass paper in college comparing this book to “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius,” by Borges.)

8. Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous: Scared my ass off drugs, that’s for damn sure. I’ve heard various reports about whether this was actually a memoir, or a novel posing as a memoir. Either way, it was awesome. I still remember how she described her first acid trip.

9. Dear Mr. Henshaw, by Beverly Cleary: What’s my thing for epistolary novels? All I know is that I read this book over and over as a child. I think I was enamoured of the idea of a kid who would actually write to his favorite author like that. I wonder how many pen pals Beverly Cleary got as a result of this book?

10. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain: Huck has you at hello with this book. “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.”

11. Confessions of a Shopaholic, by Sophie Kinsella: Here’s my confession: When I first read this book, I hated it. I threw it across the room so many times. It turned me off buying Starbucks for a month. I could not identify with Becky at all. But for some reason, I couldn’t look away. It was like watching a train wreck. And the more I allowed myself not to like her, the more I allowed myself to accept that I hated the main character of this book (a rarity for chick lit, which usually expects the reader to identify with the protag), the more I loved it. If I put Becky in the “bad protag” camp (though her crimes are nothing compared to Humbert’s or Dexter’s), then I could go along for a sick, fascinating, hilarious, undeniably enjoyable ride. Now I’ve read the whole series, and I love it. I just had to reset my inner reader.

12. “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” by Jorges Borges: (You saw this one coming, didn’t you?) A short story, but one of my favorites. Fiction and non-fiction are complex constructs in this fascinating piece. The FPPOV character is Borges himself, relating the fictional actions and arguments of his real friends and colleagues, the fictional entries in real books, and ultimately… well, if you haven’t read the story, you need to do so. It’s pretty short, and available online (though not in the standard translation).

13. I’ve been rotating books in and out of this slot all week. It seems that as soon as I decide what titles this list should include, I think of another I’d rather have. What should my criteria be? How recently I’ve read it? How often? How well I’ve remembered the wonders of the POV? And then I realize that this is by no means a definitive list and all other FPPOV novels will be burned, so I’m going to go ahead and say HIT REPLY, by Rocki St. Claire. Another epistolary novel, but one for the 21st century, Hit Reply is told entirely in emails. One of my favorite books, a real comfort, chicken soup kind of read. It makes me laugh and cry.

So, what about you? Catcher in the Rye? Outlander? Moby Dick? What am I forgetting? What have I not yet read?

Oh, Tuesday was a great great day for news. Most of it too secret to share. Sorry, guys. Hopefully there will be info soon. I don’t know if my couch springs can take all the bouncing around I’ve been doing. (Not sure if that came out right.)

Here’s something I can share. It’s the cover for the new, hardcover essay anthology on Judy Blume, spearheaded by the fabulous Jennifer O’Connell. I’m one of the contributors.Ooh, pretty.

Also, I received a lovely review from Trashionistas on Secret Society Girl. My favorite part:

I really loved this book. Diana Peterfreund has a chatty, witty, intelligent writing style and a brilliant way with cliffhanger chapter endings. I don’t think I finished a single chapter without at least reading a couple of pages of the following one.

If you haven’t picked up your copy, I know for a fact they’re still on shelves out there. What a lovely Halloween present they might make. Or, Christmas present. Heck, go wild. (There. My pimpage for the day.)

And it’s in FPPOV, which, of course, is the topic at hand. Wonderful discussion in the comments section of yesterday’s post. I’m loving it. As some of you said, I also don’t tend to read much of a book before I plunk down my money for it. I tend to buy on cover/blurb/author. I never buy on POV. In fact, I don’t think I really notice POV, any more than I would notice any other tool an author uses to construct a story. It’s just part of the story, the way long or short paragraphs are, or certain sensory details, or story progression through dialogue vs. narrative. I’m going to get into this in more detail tomorrow, but in putting together my TT on great FPPOV stories, I had to actually go back to some books and go, “Wait, this is in first person, isn’t it?”

So where is FPPOV most common in current popular fiction? From my admittedly quick research, it’s chick lit, urban fantasy, and cozy mysteries. I was about to make a comment about women’s fiction (in the global sense, not in the current “genre title” sense) but then SB reminded me of hardboiled detective yarns, which are also often in FPPOV, and are a more natural forefather to the FPPOV cozy. (Of course, novels in general, for better or worse, have always been considered a medium for women.) Still, I feel ill-qualified to make a statement about the place of FPPOV in the past, say, 5-8 years vs. earlier than that, because 5 years ago, I wasn’t doing much reading of fiction that had been written in the past, say, 75 years. I was in college.

And I think in college, I quite possibly read as much fiction in FPPOV as in any other POV. (Heck, I read Clarissa, which is about ten normal books, and Frankenstein in three — count ‘em — classes.) I also took a class called Fiction and the Forms of Narrative, where we discussed the topic in exhaustive detail, and which was taught by a team of profs with some of the most amazing names I’ve ever seen. But despite having taken and enjoyed and actually performed well in this class, I don’t think I thought much about the POV of the characters. Instead, I thought about how this POV was used to tell the story. We read Sherlock Holmes. We watched Rashomon. We read Frankenstein (my second time; my third would be in a class about the Sublime, the Fantastic, and the Uncanny). We read Maus and Daisy Miller and… hmm, I just realized that most of these stories are in first person — even if they are first person films or graphic novels. I’ll have to dig up a reading list and see what all I actually read.

Which I suppose makes my point that I read a lot of FPPOV. Therefore, I never felt much of a jarring sensation when I switched to popular fiction and found a ton of FPPOV to keep me company. Romance in FPPOV? Sure, why not?

The same for my writing. I look back at my juvenilia, and I’ve got an equal number of stories in FPPOV as in TPPOV. I was talking to Marley today about choosing POV and she said, “It’s just how it comes to me.” That was usually the same for me. I look over my past stories. The vignettes, and the things which we’d now be calling chick lit or women’s fiction are all in first person. The action stories are all in multiple third. This pattern rarely varies.

Of the novels I’ve finished, only two, Secret Society Girl and Under the Rose, are in FPPOV. When I was writing category romances, I wrote them in alternating third person, because they were category romances, and that was the thing. When I sat down to write SSG, it was in the style of a confessional, hence, first person. Who ever heard of a third person confession! So of course, given that my publication credits are all in FPPOV, what are the chances that I’d not only advocate the method, but go so far as to wonder if the switch had something to do with whatever made SSG work?

Hmmmm… more on that topic come Friday.

PS: Obligatory mention of Veronica Mars, which, of course, is mostly in FPPOV (voiceovers, anyone? And it’s very rare to have a scene that V is NOT in…) In white text for spoilage, as per usual…
Yuck. I dislike Pizz. Who is with me on this one? He’s annoying, and boring. And is Francis Capra ill or something? He’s not looking his usual drop dead sexxxxxy self. And at least Logan wasn’t boooooooorrring in this episode. Sure, it needed them to be on the outs, but still… (You’d think V. would have learned her lesson from teh chick dating the Scottish billionaire, but no…) I told SB I hope they break up. I prefer them in beautiful agony better. It makes the getting back together oh so sweet, as evinced by the final scene of tonight’s ep. Also, who played the footballer’s girlfriend? I spent half the episode thinking it was Paige Moss (you know, Buffy’s Veruca) with her hair dyed black. Anyone? Anyone? And where are Wallace and Mac? And shaved-head-girl? Why do they make these people “series regulars” if they never show them? Bleh. Okay, queing up the DVD to “Weapons of Class Destruction.” Oooh, ahhh… Okay, feel better now. No, wait… I have another query: “Claire was raped?” Um, how? She was the head of “Lilith House.” Doesn’t quite seem like the usual M.O. they’ve been pushing this season of girls getting drunk at a party would be working for in this case. She was so aware of what was happening on campus. I’m trying to figure out what happened… Which isn’t to say that’s the only way that girls get raped, it just seems to be how it’s happening in this serial rapist case. So now I’m all confused. Yep, all done for real now.