5 September 2005
Less
Say you write a novel, even a short novel. I suppose you could publish something around 65,000 words as a novel. And when you print your copy, it's about 200 A4 pages at one and a half line spacing. 200 pages ...
Then let's say it gets reviewed - not an author profile or a comment piece in which you figure, but a review.
Maybe you are lucky and your 65,000 words are reviewed sympathetically in a 1500 word piece. That's a substantial chunk of journalism. But it's only a fraction of what you wrote, less than 2.5% in fact. And that review has to conjure not just your novel, but also the journalist's reaction to it.
Then, of course, you might not get quite so much space devoted to your book. The review could be just a few hundred words, or less ...
... and perhaps you spent five or even ten years on your book ...
... and then it gets into the bestseller lists where it is summed up in fewer than a dozen words ...
Don't get me wrong. This is not a complaint. This is how the world is. It's very important to be able to summarise your work in intelligent fashion. I say 'intelligent fashion', but that isn't all. As an author you spend lonely hours wrestling with aspects of plot and character, structure and tone of voice, then someone asks you to sum up your novel in a couple of lines ... And those few sentences must have the effect of making your interlocutor want to read your novel ...
If you are, say, a car designer, no one expects you to write the advertising copy. But a novelist is always being called upon to sell her work. And I know several writer colleagues who find it awfully difficult.
I am very fortunate. I have a lot of experience of publishing, both as editor and author. Labyrinth is my fifth book and my publishers - Orion, Droemer, Piemme and others - have been fantastic promoting it. Not everyone is so lucky and Greg and I have included aspects of selling one's work in our next creative writing course at West Dean College.
To sum up, then ...
... you must learn to sum things up in the Labyrinth!
