RIASS stuff:

A Jules Verne infographic!

A guest post from Heather Tyler, who discovered a newfound appreciation for romance fiction after attending the RWA conference

Later today: a review of BZRKby Michael Grant

If you’re not following us on Facebook or Pinterest, (or even email subscription) ask yourself why. Yes, feel that guilt!

Other bookish stuff:

Faber announces the winner of their Lord of the Flies cover design competition

A great blog post from Momentum Books on rediscovering genre books as an adult (and getting past those lurid covers):

“What surprised me was the way the book challenged me to think. I didn’t expect that of a romance novel, rather blindly in retrospect. A world devoid of animals? What does that even mean? How could they – But where would- I just- Huh. I was reminded of first reading Pullman and encountering the Mulefa and their seed pod wheels, and how that made me think differently about evolution.”

Lauren Kate and Moira Young on writing dystopian fiction:

“Read the paper, watch the news, think about the things that concern you about the world we live in today and what your concerns are for the future. When you come upon something that grabs you, that enrages or obsesses you or makes you go – what if? – pick up that thread and follow it.”

What does your conference bag say about you?

“At TOC, the bags people carried didn’t quite indicate their country of origin, as much as it did their likely status or place in the publishing pecking order. Loosely speaking, true techies — most likely hailing from San Francisco — were hauling Rickshaw messengers; New Yorkers favored Manhattan Portage bags (for the blokes) and big pricey handbags (for the ladies).”

Orion CEO Peter Roche on the future of publishing:

“Print is still the core of our business, but the ebook is here to stay.  We publish all our new books digitally and around 90% of our backlist….Who knows what the world will look like after the next two decades – right now they are probably developing the kit to put words quite literally on to the palm of your hand so that you can read without a device.  But we need authors – the future is in your words.”

Amazon Yanks 5,000 Kindle Titles In Fight Over Terms:

“As has been publicly reported, Amazon.com is putting pressure on publishers and distributors to change their terms for electronic and print books to be more favorable toward Amazon. Our electronic book agreement recently came up for renewal, and Amazon took the opportunity to propose new terms for electronic and print purchases that would have substantially changed your revenue from the sale of both. It’s obvious that publishers can’t continue to agree to terms that increasingly reduce already narrow margins,” says IPG president Mark Suchomel.

Simon & Schuster make changes to royalty format:

“Simon & Schuster has sent a letter to its authors touting some changes to the way it presents its royalty statement. The house claims the new format ‘flows more logically’ while noting that ‘of course, the method by which royalties are calculated has remained unchanged.’”

March is New Zealand Book Month

Ernest Hemingway’s childhood home is for sale

Are you game to eat like they do in Game of Thrones?

Hamish Blake interviews Zoe Foster about her book The Younger Man

An undergrad writer? Take a squiz at this prize offered by Monash Uni

Books!

Today’s post is kindly provided by Heather Tyler.

It’s easy to rubbish romance fiction. I did it. I don’t read it and have occasionally compared its literary merit to shopping dockets. But 18 months ago I covered the the annual Romance Writers of Australia (RWA) conference in Sydney,  as a curious journalist, and at the end I had ripped up my shopping docket insults. The 230 delegates were having a good-natured bonding session and attending multiple workshops on how to improve their writing. Writing romance is a really serious business.

The romance writers might be competitors, but the market is so large, there’s room for everyone. According to the American Bookseller Association it’s a multi-billion industry worldwide that comprises about 54 per cent of all adult popular paperback fiction sold in the US. Almost every major publisher has a romance title section.

One of the most popular workshops was given by American romance lit queen Debra Dixon. She says she can teach aspiring writers in one day how to write a romance novel. Her formula – understanding the characters’ goals, motivation and conflict (GMC) – is her mantra.

“If your hero has everything he or she wants and just wants more, no-one will want to read your book,” Dixon says.

“Readers of mass market fiction want characters who are flawed, who will make mistakes, but will ultimately achieve their goals. Our business is about happy endings.”

Australian writers are published in 120 countries in 26 languages. RWA spokeswoman Carla Molino says: “Our heroines are feisty, independent, empowered women and that’s attractive to women readers in any country. It may strike a nerve with women in conservative countries. The days of submissive women helpless at the hands of any man, are long gone.”

About the author: Heather Tyler is an editor, author and journalist who also runs http://TasteforTravel.com.au , a travel website with a books section – good reads for armchair travellers and books to take on holiday. She wonders whether she should list more romantic novels, because that’s the type of thing people like to read while on vacation. She’s open to suggestions. info@tastefortravel.com.au

We’ve remarked on this last a number of times, and so it seemed only fitting when the website Voyages Jules Verne approached us with this fabulous accompanying infographic for Journey to the Centre of the Earth. So if your eyes glazed over during those expositional passages, here’s your chance to make amends! Have a scroll and take in some science and a seriously abridged (but very pretty) version of the plot of Journey.

(Of course, if you want the wordier version, you can check out our review here. Our other Verne reviews can be found here.)

Books by Jules Verne (click to purchase)

RIASS stuff:

An interview with Alison Skate, author ofAmbush Proposals

A Jules Verne infographic!

Later today: a review of BZRKby Michael Grant

Coming up: a guest post from Heather Tyler.

If you’re not following us on Facebook or Pinterest, (or even email subscription) ask yourself why. Yes, feel that guilt!

Other bookish stuff:

Myfanwy Collins talks about writing acknowledgements pages:

“What if I forgot someone important? . . . I’m not sure I’ll be able to take a deep breath until the book is gone and I can make no more changes.”

Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes on the braille version of the children’s book Are We There Yet:

“It is important that people who are blind, have low vision or other vision disabilities are able to access their chosen reading materials in formats that they require, that’s why this presentation of ‘Are We There Yet’ is a positive step towards an inclusive society.”

Mark Charan Newton on things he got wrong:

“Coming to the end of the new project and, having allowed the Red Sun series to settle in a little, gave some much-needed perspective. It’s encouraging to know that, no matter how wonderful I might have thought my books were at the time, given the benefit of a few years, I can be more honest about them.”

Bob Mayer on Amazon hate:

“This is a business.  Not a slap on the back, happy go lucky, fellowship of the book.  Because all these middle people screaming about Amazon would shove the door shut in my face in a heart beat if my books didn’t help their P&L statement and many have done so over the last 25 years.”

Check out the spiffy Download the Universe site. io9 says this:

“Download the Universe is a new site that unites fifteen of the internet’s leading science communicators in a brand-new venue: an online forum, featuring incisive reviews of science-themed apps and ebooks, that will serve as a guide to the future of scientific information.”

Kaaron Warren compares writing with Sodoku:

“You start with a grid, dotted with things you know. Maybe a spark of an idea, a setting, a snippet of conversation. The rest of the grid is blank. Daunting. Some spaces you see straight away how to fill, but others? They seem impossible. Some of the blanks are easily filled; who’s telling the story? Why? And you can describe your scene, build your character. Once you’ve done that, the spaces that seemed difficult become easier.”

A spirited defence of romance novels:

“Why is it considered socially acceptable to impugn romance novels? Despite it being the bestselling category of books, with over $1.3 billion in sales last year alone, it’s the darling of haters. No other genre has to deal with this kind of heat. Personally, I ascribe this to it being the only genre primarily written by and written for women.” (see a similar article from RIASS here)

Walker Australia MD and Publisher Sarah Foster on books, glorious books:

“We are always being told that the secret to good health is a balanced diet and in our family our reading habits are suitably varied. Our reading defines us, as individuals and as a family.”

Canadian readers: win a meet and greet with Jodi Picoult

A Griffith Review reader? Fill in this survey to win a holiday!

Books I’ve come across in my travels:

RIASS stuff:

A review of The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy

An interview with Alison Skate, author of Ambush Proposals

Coming up: a review of BZRK by Michael Grant, a Jules Verne infographic, and a guest post from Heather Tyler.

If you’re not following us on Facebook or Pinterest, (or even email subscription) ask yourself why. Yes, feel that guilt!

Other bookish stuff:

Loving this reading-themed photoset from the State Library of QLD

NSW writers: pop along to some great forthcoming events at the NSW writers centre. Van Badham and Dianne Blacklock!

Authors’ perspectives on Hollywood and film adaptations of novels:

“The Hollywood experience for a novelist is that they don’t want to know that you’re alive: they’d rather you were dead. I only watched filming of the movie once. They were shooting in the Twin Towers, a scene where Ruthie the heroine, played by Roseanne Barr, was coming in to steal something. There wasn’t much cohesion. I could see they’d rather missed the point of the novel so I didn’t have much faith in it after that.”

Behind the scenes of a Harlequin connected series:

“The ‘story bible’ is the foundation of any continuity series.  The purpose of the bible is to lay out the world as well as the background details and shared history of all the characters in the series, so that the individual authors will be able to use it to tell separate yet connected stories set in the same universe.  The bible also lays out the basic plotlines of each of the proposed books, and notes certain details each story must contain in order to advance the larger continuity plot.”

An interview with Kim Harrison in Detroit Free Press:

“Somebody told me that I wasn’t very good at (writing). But I read a lot of the sci-fi greats growing up — Ray Bradbury is my favorite. I picked up a lot of how to tell a good story from them rather than book-learning.”

An interview with Eowyn Ivey:

“That was what excited me. . . Not just that it was a magical tale set in a land like Alaska, but that rub of two very different textures excited me as a writer – the ethereal next to the gritty.”

An editor on Over and Under the Snow:

“. . .Mystery is the secret spice of all compelling books. It is the unexpected and yet perfectly fitting element; when it appears its rightness is palpable, and yet often just beyond the reach of easy explanation. Why does it feel so right? We can’t quite put our fingers on it.”

The Penguin Podcast: A Charles Dickens special featuring Claire Tomalin

Cate Kennedy on book covers:

“Occasionally I’ve been reading a book and feel an odd sense of jarring dislocation that it wasn’t what I thought it would be. And what’s given me that expectation? I ask myself. Why did I think it was going to be set in the fifties, say, or be a rural love story? Because that old photo of the girl in the 1950s dress walking down a country road on the cover gave me that impression, that’s why.”

Your daily bookish eye-candy:

The inspiration

Like many fine things in life, Ambush Proposals arose out of an afternoon of procrastination. “I was avoiding working on a project, and found myself on YouTube.  One click led to another, and somehow I ended up watching a beautiful video of an event-managed proposal in the US.” In the video, the gentleman proposing to his partner worked in collaboration with lifestyle television channel WEtv to “freeze time” in order to make his proposal truly memorable.

“I think I’ve watched that video clip about 30 times, and I still get teary-eyed each time,” says Alison. So inspired by the clip was she that she decided that she wanted to have a hand in creating these types of meaningful moments. Some months later, Ambush Proposals was born.

The audience

Recognising that in large part the act of proposing is something that tends to be done by the male of the species, Alison has targeted her book squarely towards the 25-40 year old Australian male. But rather than targeting the type of bloke who drops to a knee on the beach or in a restaurant, the book is geared at those who might like to do something a little creative with their proposal.

But the book will no doubt appeal to a wider audience: “I suspect that a number of women will buy the book and ‘leave it lying around’ for their partners, or mothers will buy it as a resource-slash-hint for their sons,” says Alison. “I know of one woman who has already sent the book to her boyfriend, who is in the Army and deployed overseas.  She hasn’t read the book as she doesn’t want to ruin any surprises!”

According to Alison, the “surprise” is increasingly a focus in a modern-day proposal.

The ingenuity

“There has definitely been an increase in pressure on guys to be more unique or spectacular in their proposals over recent years, and I think this can be attributed to the thousands of hours of YouTube videos that show more and more creative proposal concepts.  I don’t think it is necessarily the men who are fascinated by these videos but they are certainly aware that their girlfriends are impressed by what they see.”

Alison points out that YouTube celebrities may be supplanting the current crop of reality TV stars, citing as an example Matt and Ginny, whose cinematic movie trailer proposal has already received over 21 million views.

But that’s not to say that those behind the proposals are necessarily seeking infamy and internet stardom.

“They understand that the delivery of the proposal needs to suit the personality of their intended spouse. A gregarious and outgoing boyfriend would do well to ditch the flash-mob proposal on Sydney Harbour Bridge if their girlfriend is uncomfortable with that kind of attention.”

Fortunately, for those who aren’t the flash-mob type but are a bit stuck for ideas, Ambush Proposals features a variety of different proposal ideas. This isn’t due so much to luck as it is careful planning. Alison spent a good deal of time devising proposal “genres” to suit different personality types, prepared a number of proposal scenarios over a little more than a month, and then put out a call-out for real-life proposals to complement the ideas already in the book.

The real-life proposals

“Everyone who responded was female,” recalls Alison. (Including, er, me.) “However I found that their husbands/fiancés were more than willing to answer my questions and give tips to readers who are thinking about popping the question.  A good male friend of mine also shared a proposal from his perspective.”

The most difficult part of the writing turned out to be maintaining the tone throughout the “real-life proposals” section.

“In the end, I chose not to try to change things too much to reflect my writing style.  Instead, this section of the book is more reflective of the collaborators’ styles than my own.  I’m happy with that outcome.”

The production process

It helped, too, having an editor who was able to share her vision. “Another author recommended editing and design freelancers in Canada and I couldn’t be happier.  The editor, it turns out, is a Melbourne-born expat who was able to appreciate the Aussie vernacular and maintained the easy, laconic style of writing.”

One aspect of the process that took a little longer than expected was design and layout, but the results were worth the wait.

“Ambush Proposals is available in both print and ebook version, and there are no notable differences in the content or layout of these two versions.  The freelance designer I used from Canada was experienced in both print and digital publishing, and she did a fantastic job at formatting the book appropriately for each format.  She also understood the upload requirements for the major POD (print on demand) and distribution services and provided me with everything I needed for each platform.  I had some delays with uploading the book files onto the POD platform, primarily due to my inexperience!”

The launch

Image by Ric Frearson for Quest Newspapers

If there’s a book that needs to be launched with a bang, then it’s this one. After all, it would be a tad anticlimactic to make do with the ho-hum when a book’s content is all about being creative and putting oneself out there. Fortunately, Alison was no slouch in this area.

“Months back I’d had a discussion with a flight simulator centre about the possibility of the words ‘Will you marry me?’ appearing on the runway during a simulated plane landing,” she says. “The owner of the business was quite taken by the idea, and set about to have the simulator reprogrammed so that a landing in Paris would include four billboards with these words erected alongside a remote runway. On their invitation I decided to launch the book in the simulator with a real Ambush Proposal engagement.”

Confident that finding a chap to pop the question in such circumstances would be a cinch, she began calling around. But though Alison’s phone was running hot with interest from journalists, no one had come forward.

There were two days until the launch.

But at last, thanks to the affordances of social media, Alison finally found her couple with a little more than a day remaining until the big moment, and everything proceeded smoothly.

“Their moment was beautiful, and captured by our cameraman. The groom-to-be was very nervous!  This launch resulted in articles in three regional newspapers, Courier Mail’s online news website, and a 6-minute interview on ABC radio.”

The extras

Alison has enjoyed making Ambush Proposals so immensely that she’s extended the content well beyond the book. “My friends and I also decided to create a unique and interactive wedding proposal planner, which appears to be a one-of-a-kind in terms of book promotion.   The viewer makes three decisions about their desired wedding proposal before being shown one of eight proposal ideas.  The third option, Public or Private Proposal, is a fun one to watch all the way to the end of the video.”

A literary proposal

We can’t let Alison go without learning about her favourite bookish proposal, and what a boon to find out that it’s one that’s close to RIASS’s own heart.

“I think some of the best proposals in literature have been rejections,” she says. “I find it hard to recall a single marriage proposal that was accepted in literature that I would rank up there with the rejections.” Of these, Alison’s favourite is the declined proposal between Anne Shirley and Gil Blythe in the Anne of Green Gables series just before they leave for college.

“Gil’s determined persistence, despite the refusal, and Anne’s steadfast reasons for not getting married are portrayed with such a sense of inner-conflict and desperation.  It is clear that they two are very much in love, yet despite Anne’s tendency to be romantic and histrionic, she calmly resists the expectation to submit to the proposal for reasons that were unprecedented in their community.”

Buy the book:

The book is available for purchase from Ambushproposals.com for $12.95 as a digital download, with the paperback version becoming available soon for $19.95. Alison notes that some retailers are also offering the book for a discounted rate. And the Fiance and I are in it–bonus!

Ambush Proposals has also been entered in the Independent Publisher Book Awards under the “Best Book Marketing” and “Best Regional eBook” categories.

RIASS stuff:

A feature on “high concept” novels and their shortcomings

A review of The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy

Coming up: a review of BZRK by Michael Grant, a Jules Verne infographic, an interview with Alison Skate, author of Ambush Proposals, and a guest post from Heather Tyler.

If you’re not following us on Facebook or Pinterest, (or even email subscription) ask yourself why. Yes, feel that guilt

Other bookish stuff:
An intriguing way of putting yourself into a book…

An interview with Laura Kroetsh, Director of Adelaide Writers Week

Dutton is relaunching its “Guilt-Edged” mysteries programme

Liz Fielding talks on where to begin when writing romance fiction

In addition to borrowing words from other languages, English is now lending them, too…

Hilary McPhee talks working with words

Stephenie Meyer fans might want to put their filmmaking skills to the test with this The Host trailer comp

Kissing Arse and Butting Heads: Life of a Debut Author, by Chris Flynn

Kiwi company creates soundtracks for e-books 

Courier & Press editor Linda Negro on bookstore tourism

Writing, writing a series and the pains of the editorial process

Essay on Joan Didion’s works accompanying you through the years

Cognition, Pleasure, and Perplexity in Fantastika

The Proust Questionnaire, with PD James

Police sketch technology used to draw pictures of literary characters

Sherlock Holmes gets a new lease on life…

Meredith Pancetti adheres to the idea of “a rose by any other name”. Born into the tumultuous Hathaway clan, an immensely wealthy farming family from Iowa, Meredith was privy to all manner of familial dysfunction as a child, and now, with both parents dead and the few remaining members of her family scattered about the country in their own efforts to escape, Meredith has become someone else entirely, living in a tiny New York apartment and going by a name that has no outward connections to the Hathaway estate. Even her childhood nickname is anathema now.

But a rose is always a rose, and despite Meredith’s efforts to create a new life for herself, her past will always be there. And when Meredith receives a telephone call telling her that her grandmother, Lavinia Hathaway, has died and that Meredith and her estranged sisters must return to the family estate one final time before it is sold.

As the book progresses, we learn just how momentous the sale of Aurelia truly is: Hathaway matriarch Lavinia ushered in newfound prosperity and respect for the family when she transformed the estate from a humble one on a large tract of land to one featuring a Southern plantation-reminiscent mansion that became a beacon of achievement and good-fortune to all around. Over the years, Aurelia came to house almost the entire Hathaway family, a careful move on Machiavellian Lavinia’s part to ensure that her nearest and dearest were able to be kept under her control.

The sale of Aurelia, then, highlights the decline and fall of this (non-Roman) empire in several ways. First, that despite Lavinia’s efforts, the family relations are so strained that there’s no one willing to take it over upon her death, and second, that despite once being a marker of success and prosperousness, Aurelia is being sold to help cover the estate’s mounting debts.

As might be obvious by now, though Meredith is ostensibly the protagonist, she’s actually not–she’s more a framing device than anything. The Legacy of Eden is not so much the story of Meredith as it is that of Lavinia, and by extension the Aurealia she created. And although the scenes with Meredith to be honest seem a little extraneous–this story is of the past, not of the present–Lavinia is certainly worth the page space. Cunning, manipulative and amoral, she could easily have descended from the ranks of the Borgias or the Medici (and indeed, perhaps this is why Meredith has ended up with an Italian surname?). She shrewdly pits people against each other in order to achieve her own ends, and doesn’t hesitate to facilitate the destruction of others’ lives in order to feed a personal grudge or to guide her family in the direction that she wants it to go. But at the same time, she’s capable of turning a blind eye or relying on inaction to achieve the same, and it’s in these cases that the outcomes can be especially dire.

Whether it’s due to the constant manipulative efforts of Lavinia, the pressures of being a Hathaway and therefore needing to achieve, or the fact that only broken souls seem to be drawn to the family, but Aurelia becomes a place where self-destruction and turmoil is centred and  magnified. Its insular nature means that the pain of the individuals within has nowhere else to go, and instead becomes compounded as it effects the others who are present. Alcoholism, depression, and a propensity toward both physical and sexual violence seem to slink through the family like a disease and with nothing to temper them, become only worse over time.

The most compelling elements of the book are easily those to do with Lavinia’s calculated machinations and the concept of Aurelia itself, and it’s these that carry the book. Some of the other aspects of the narrative fall short, however: all the darkness and grimness of the Hathaways can feel repetitive, with certain character traits and actions played out over generations, for example. Davy also tends towards being cryptic, and there are times, particularly the scenes set in the present between Meredith and her estranged sisters, when things feel less mysterious than they do deliberately obscured. The writing is at times uneven, too, with Meredith’s voice awkwardly juxtaposed against the more traditional narrative voice of Lavinia’s story. This is particularly noticeable when there are a number of short scenes in a row.

Still, The Legacy of Eden has the feel of a multigenerational epic without being an epic–I do wonder whether some of the choppiness might have been ironed out had this book been a thing of vast proportions rather than the slim volume that it is–and although it may not be anything especially new on this front, it’s worth reading for the astonishing viciousness of Lavinia Hathaway alone.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars (good)

With thanks to Meryl L Moss Media Relations for the review copy

Support Read in a Single Sitting by purchasing The Legacy of Eden from

Amazon | Book Depository UK | Book Depository USA | Booktopia

See our other Nelle Davy Posts

RIASS stuff:

A review of Pure by Julianna Baggott (in which I look at genetic deformity and morality in dystopian fiction)

A guest post from Nelle Davy on the publishing process

A feature on “high concept” novels and their shortcomings

Coming up: a review of The Legacy of Eden by Nelle Davy and an interview with Alison Skate, author of Ambush Proposals.

If you’re not following us on Facebook or Pinterest, (or even email subscription) ask yourself why. Yes, feel that guilt.

Other bookish stuff:

Not bookish, but beautiful: bonsai treehouses

Aussie readers: want to win a high tea courtesy of the new Phryne Fisher TV show?

Are you up for a romance reading challenge?

Twenty nights of queer literature

Children’s lit is going multi-modal, multi-national, multi-, well, everything

Great post on what makes dystopian fiction

Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature 2012 Shortlists Announced

Lemony Snicket and the awesome marketing campaign (and yes, getting this email totally made my day)

The Victorian State Library will be featuring an exhibition of  70 rare 13th- to 18th-century illustrated manuscripts and miniatures from the Bodleian Libraries in March. And they’re also running a Children’s Book Festival.

Jessica Shirvington’s Embrace is getting a huge push in the US. (See our Jessica Shirvington reviews here)

RL Stine’s 9 tweet story

Dressing Up an E-Reader for Style and Comfort

Novels that feature older women as protagonists

Why YA?

Fiona McIntosh talks about her new book The Lavender Keeper

Interview with author Nicola Moriarty  (stay tuned for our review of Nicola’s debut)

The mysterious affair of how Agatha Christie is teaching foreigners English

‘E-books Can’t Burn’ (but be careful: ereaders may melt)

V is for Vampire

Jane Austen-themed books:

(George Lucas pitches the ultimate in marketability: “It’s Star Wars meets My Little Pony!”)

If you aim to distill a great work of literature into a single sentence, the results generally verge on the hilarious. After all, no matter what Chomsky says about sentences about being potentially infinite, a sentence generally conveys a single idea.

What is high concept?

Increasingly, agents and publishers seem to be after “high concept” books, that is, books with a premise that can be explained in a single-sentence log-line or pitch. (Note that “high” in this context does not mean “lofty”, but rather “heaps of”, or “awesome”.) Now, while there’s nothing wrong with books that have a certain clarity of plot or theme, I can’t help but wonder, in light of some of the books I’ve received for review recently, whether this emphasis on “high concept” is to the detriment of the other key elements that make a book work.

Changes in the pitching and reporting process?

Obviously I’m speculating here, but I do think this may have something to do with the way in which the various gatekeepers in the publishing industry want to see ideas pitched. (We are, after all, the Twitter generation) The problem is, of course, not the fact that these pitch approaches exist, but that what people expect to get out of these pitches seems to be changing.

For example, Publisher’s Marketplace is full of both single-sentence descriptive pitches (“When seventy year old secretary Betty Lou hears that she’s about to be fired she arms herself with the office staple gun and sets about exacting revenge”) and of the slightly infamous X meets Y-type pitch (“It’s My Little Pony meets the four horsemen of the apocalypse!*”). Anecdotally, I’ve heard of (established) authors pitching new books based on a logline and a sample chapter or quickie synopsis.

High concept: just the beginning?

And while these pitches get across the gist of the novel, that’s all they do.

That’s all they’re meant to do.

After all, even a novel that can be described in a single line, or as an X meets Y, should be able to extend beyond that summary. That logline should simply be a salient idea or premise.

But what my review pile seems to be telling me is that the emphasis on a pitch-line that not only knocks an editor’s socks off, but even puts a few holes in them as well, seems to be resulting in books that aren’t much more than this pitch. They seem to be overly reliant on concept and that are weak in areas of plotting, characterisation, theme or prose.

And while in some cases a great concept can sustain a reader even if those other areas are lacking, over time the problem can become exacerbated.

When high concept becomes a problem

The first example is where a high concept book is turned into a series. When a book is so utterly reliant on concept, it’s inevitable that the other bookish scaffolding so important to the reading experience is going to suffer. And although it’s possible to get away with this over a single book, when it’s stretched over multiple books it becomes increasingly obvious how much of the author’s creation is hinging on a given concept. What tends to happen in such series is that each book takes on a similar plot arc. This is because it’s impossible for the author to let the story evolve beyond the original book–which is inextricably tied to the original pitch concept.

A second example relates to trend genres. High concept books are famous for being new “twists” on classic or highly accessible themes, which is where the “It’s leprechauns meets Oceans II!” stuff comes in. Obviously, when a particular theme or subgenre is hot stuff, the market’s going to be flooded with it (until we all scream for a reprieve). And the formula of “the same but different” is a good way of ensuring that readers will be likely to engage with a given book as being something new, while also finding it happily familiar and in touch with their reading tastes. But the danger here is that these comparisons can lead to a highly superficial approach to writing.

It’s one that I’ve been seeing in particular in books where the “high concept” is in large part to do with the setting, and I’m finding that it’s particularly prevalent in the dystopian and postapocalyptic subgenres that are so popular right now. Both of these subgenres are highly reliant on setting/milieu, and I think it’s very easy for the substance of the book to be lost against a grim backdrop.

Moreover, when a high concept pitch is scaffolded onto existing books in the genre/subgenre, it’s very easy to end up with a number of books that all draw on a similar base but are differentiated only by a “twist”. And while good ol’ hermeneutics says that everything’s influenced by everything else, I can’t help but think that it’s the degree to which this is is a conscious decision that will translate into how effective the final product is.

Why a high concept pitch shouldn’t be overestimated

So when a book is pitched as, say, “Mad Max meets Anne of Green Gables,” what is one supposed to get out of that beyond a vague sense of place and tone? (A red-headed, freckled lass roams the now desolate Prince Edward Island on a motorbike, alternatively shooting people and baking them cakes?)

And I think that’s the issue. Not only does War and Peace sound a wee bit ho-hum when summed up in a sentence, but a book that’s pitched as a sentence can fail just as epically when expanded beyond that.

A concept is just that–a frame, an idea, a notion, a setting–and while it doesn’t necessarily mean that a book is going to be shallow or derivative, I do worry, as a reader who reads for style, tone, and character over plot and concept, that the emphasis on concept as a pitch device will result in a number of poorly executed books based around a great idea.

*okay, I kind of want to read this