On Becoming a Novelist (16 page)

The first editor to look with a certain amount of interest at my work was Bob Gottlieb at Knopf. I went unpublished for a long time, as I’ve already mentioned, so I had a number of novels waiting for someone to notice them. When I sent
Grendel
to Gottlieb he was puzzled by it and wrote a letter full of reserved admiration and doubts. Being young and foolish, I assumed he was giving me the brush-off, so I sent the book elsewhere, to no avail. Later I sent him
The Sunlight Dialogues,
which he suggested that I cut by a third. I responded with a postcard: “Which third?” (He didn’t answer.) A few months thereafter, the late David Segal, then at New American Library, read my work; he was partly influenced by William Gass, who had recommended me (and was then publishing, under Segal’s editorship,
Omensetter’s Luck),
and partly influenced by my arrival at his office in a black leather motorcycle jacket, carrying a shopping bag full of manuscripts—
The Resurrection, The Wreckage of Agathon,
and
Grendel.
(The rest of the story is embarrassing but I’ll tell it anyway.) I placed on Segal’s desk the three novels I’d biked into town with and said, “Mr. Segal, I’d like you to read these novels,” and then, after a pause, “Now.” David Segal was a kind man, though not really one to be bullied. He began to read, went through two or three pages, then said, “Mr. Gardner, I can’t read your fiction while you’re watching.” So I left. When he arrived at his office the next morning at ten he told me he was taking all three novels. He published one at New American Library, then moved to Harper and published one there, then moved to Knopf, where he was in the process of publishing
Grendel
and
The Sunlight Dialogues,
which he’d subsequently accepted, when, to this world’s great loss, he died.

David Segal’s style was probably unusual in the publishing world. He accepted my books on the basis of the merit he saw in them and only then told me what he thought wrong. I have a long letter from him about
The Sunlight Dialogues
in which he tells me where the symbolism has gone amiss, where the language is excessive, and so on. (Though he did not say it, one implication of his letter was that I should cut the book by a third.) Because he approached me as he did, treated me as a serious novelist and attacked the work on its own grounds, I found it easy to listen. Later, after he died and I began to work with Bob Gottlieb, I came to understand that they both knew the same things; the difference was one of style. Bob Gottlieb hints at what’s wrong, sometimes stating the problem metaphorically. (The novelist Harry Crews once wrote a scathing
Esquire
piece mocking Bob Gottlieb for saying Crews should let his novel “breathe.” Some who have read Crews’s work would say Gottlieb was right.) Other editors work in other ways. Some write long, thorough letters after the first reading; some prefer to talk informally with the writer; some make almost no comment but take the book as it stands (these last are rare). All of them, though they may at times be off the mark, are serious, careful people.

Once the novel is accepted, the editor goes through the manuscript again and marks it up, suggesting cuts, improvements, expansions, reworkings. I have found that some editors edit with a light hand, while others question almost every line. Usually I’m happy with either kind of editing. On rare occasions one hits a stubborn, wrongheaded editor, and then one is in trouble. The editor of one of my novels (not Gottlieb or Segal) insisted on changing my punctuation, forcing it to conform to some rule he learned at Yale and denying absolutely the notion that punctuation can be an art. One of the characters in the novel was unable to remember people’s names and used any name that came into his head. The editor fixed all this. When I howled, he said nothing, and he refused to change anything back. I don’t know what the writer is supposed to do in a case like this—probably withdraw the manuscript. Certainly don’t go to that editor again. That kind of experience is rare, or at least it has been rare for me. On the whole, editors are flexible and respect the author’s wishes.

Now the manuscript goes through copy editing. The writer’s literary editor turns the book over to another kind of editor, a maniac for details, who goes through the book checking spelling, accuracy of statement, consistency of style, and so on, and giving any necessary instructions to the typesetter. When the job is finished, the copy editor sends the marked-up manuscript back to the writer with pink slips of paper attached, giving the copy editor’s queries. The writer takes or rejects each of the editor’s corrections, and the manuscript goes to the typesetter. After a short while (a few weeks, in my experience), the writer gets the galleys—long pages from the typesetter, marked up by the proofreader for typographical errors. The writer rechecks what the copy editor has checked, notes mistakes, sends the galleys back, and waits for the book. Sometimes writers are still rewriting at the galley stage. Changes at this point cost money, and the writer who suddenly has a major new vision of his novel is sure to make his publisher unhappy. If the book is high art, or if it’s one the publisher is sure will make a fortune, galley changes may not be a matter for concern. But ordinarily one should alter galleys sparingly.

After the book arrives in the writer’s mailbox, and after it has finally reached the bookstores, the writer wrings his hands over a new problem: promotion. Writers are almost never satisfied with the promotion job their publishers do. There’s nothing wrong with complaining and exerting any pressure one can to get more, bigger, and better ads, nothing wrong with getting the publicity department to try to arrange TV interviews and so on; but the writer should understand that the game is now pretty much out of his hands. Publishers generally know what kinds of books will benefit from aggressive promotion and what kinds of books, no matter how hard you push them, won’t take off. Like other businesspeople, publishers invest where they expect their investment to pay. The masterful promotion job done on John Irving’s
The World According to Garp
(jackets in various colors; large ads in major papers and magazines; for all I know, T-shirts and bumper stickers) obviously paid off; but the same campaign used on another novel, even an earlier novel by John Irving, might have been a waste of time and money.
Garp
is one of those novels that can be viewed either as a serious work of art or as a book for a mass audience, containing, as it does, the requisite sex, strange violence, and concern with great questions of the moment (e.g., feminism). If the book had not in fact had the kind of appeal its promoters claimed for it, the publisher’s credibility would have dropped, readers and bookstore managers would have been angry, and John Irving would have done less well on his next novel. Since promotion departments are usually efficient, it is probably not very beneficial to yell and scream at them, or to insist on the publisher’s writing into the contract the amount of money guaranteed for promotion. (If he gives the writer more money for promotion, he’ll take it away elsewhere, for instance lopping off part of the advance. And if the publisher is right about how much promotion to use and where it will become a matter of diminishing returns, the writer who demands more promotion and accepts a lower advance to get it is robbing himself.) As for TV interviews and the like—things that cost the publisher nothing—the writer can choose to do as many as he pleases or can get. (He may get none, of course.) His publisher’s promotion department can try to arrange, in various cities, book-and-author luncheons, or get the writer onto all-night radio talk shows. If the writer proves extraordinarily charming, such strategies may do wonders.

So much for the writer’s relationship with his publisher. Let me turn to the writer’s need for the support of those around him. However tough the peasant in his heart, every writer needs people who believe in him, give him a shoulder to cry on, and value what he values. If the writer doesn’t get it, he might try changing friends. Above all, I think, it pays to seek out other writers—taking a writing class, going to readings if there are any he can get to, attending a summer writers’ conference.

Summer conferences sometimes offer beginning writers a good chance to meet editors and agents, get their fiction evaluated by famous older writers and fast-rising younger writers, and meet other serious beginners suffering some of the same troubles they have, aesthetic, psychological, and social. The writing community encountered at such a conference does not end, for many people, when the conference ends. It is common for conferees to write to one another through the year, meet once or twice in some convenient city, and look for help, long after the conference, from conference instructors. One hears the complaint that conferences lead to a kind of writer incest: we find one instructor praising another’s book on the book jacket, or reviewing it in
The New York Times,
and so forth. What is really involved is almost always a senior conference instructor giving help to the book of a younger instructor or a conference student. Friendships (not to mention love affairs) can be intense at conferences. No doubt this has to do with the frenetic atmosphere bred by the brevity of the conference—the student’s hunger to learn everything he can, the teacher’s responsiveness to it, and the occasional escapes into pressure-relieving revels. From every point of view, except in the instance of the bad writer who goes away feeling ignored by his teachers and fellow students—that is, goes off psychologically less strong than when he came—writers’ conferences are wonderful ego boosters for young writers.

Professionally, the young novelist’s most valuable support is his agent. Poets and writers of short stories don’t need an agent as badly and probably can’t get one anyway: there’s ordinarily not enough money in poetry and short stories to make the agent’s expenditure of time worthwhile. If the short story writer prints a few stories in high-paying magazines like
The New Yorker,
he may be able to attract an agent, but he obviously doesn’t need one. He can sell his own stories, and with a magazine one can’t use an agent to jack up the price. But for a young novelist, an agent is all but indispensable, even if, thanks to powerful friends or freaky good luck, he’s able to sell his novel on his own. A good agent knows what the going rates are, knows editors personally and can accurately gauge how hard a given one can be pushed. The innocent writer can be eaten alive by a publisher’s contract. It’s common for publishers to try to take a share of movie rights, foreign rights, anything they can grab. Only an experienced agent knows when to make a canceling sweep of the pen.

Agents are also of value, of course, in getting the writer’s work sold. Agents may not work as hard at selling as the writer would do himself. They have a stable of writers to work with, and no personal urgency; they know from experience that the good fiction that comes into their office will probably sooner or later be bought. Ordinarily they don’t mind if the writer tries to sell things on his own (they get their ten percent anyway) and if the writer has the proper temperament he may want to do some of the selling, keeping the agent in reserve for contract negotiations. On the other hand, an agent can take pressure off a writer. Whereas after a certain number of rejections the writer is likely to give up on a story or novel, the agency goes on, impartial as a pulsar, sending out the fiction, getting it back, sending it out again. (Agents usually know better than writers do when to give up.) And whereas the writer is likely to be humbled or enraged by letters of rejection, with all their perhaps foolish advice about how to fix the book, agents tend to be unimpressed. At the writer’s instruction, the agent will tell him nothing of what editors advise—except if some editor comes up with a suggestion that seems to the agent important. While writers may feel self-doubt—after twenty published books, I still often ask myself if I’m really a writer—and while editors have grievous responsibilities, the agent deals in simple yeses and noes, more dollars or less dollars. As long as he has reason to trust his own judgment (from repeatedly selling his clients’ books), he expects editors to pay attention to his judgment, and the force of his conviction helps make it happen. An agent, in short, is a good person to have on your side.

Getting a good agent can be almost as hard as getting a publisher. One should avoid dealing with an agent who charges a reading fee. It’s usually against the policy of the literary agents’ associations and suggests that the agent may be in the business of fleecing amateur writers. (If one takes in enough reading fees, one never needs to sell a book.) For information on reliable agents, or to contact an agent, write to ILAA (Independent Literary Agents Association), Box 5257, FDR Station, New York, N.Y. 10150. This organization includes younger agents, the kind most likely to take on a new writer, if the writer does not have strong recommendations from someone famous. Or write Society of Authors’ Representatives, P.O. Box 650, Old Chelsea Station, New York, N.Y. 10113. Tell the agency head in brief, clear terms what kind of writer you are and what kind of book you want to sell. (If the agency doesn’t answer your letter, fine; that’s one agency you don’t want.) You need to write a smart letter, of course. If the letter contains bad writing (tiresome chattiness, jargon, crabbed syntax), the agent will know he doesn’t want you. With agents as with anybody else, name dropping helps. If you’ve studied with famous writers, mention them. If you’ve published stories or won prizes, mention that.

In the normal course of things, one or more agencies will write back asking to see your work. Send it. (Neatness counts. Nobody, including agents, wants to labor through a manuscript that’s barely legible.) If every agency in the end turns you down, you will know you’re either not good enough or too good. If you’re too good, keep writing, keep your contacts with the writing community available to you, and eventually your day will come.

One last word on this subject. Rejection by an agent means more, usually, than rejection by an editor. Agents seldom explain in detail why they’ve rejected a writer, but they have, invariably, only one reason: they do not think they can sell the writer’s work. They may think it’s wonderful, they may think it’s awful; but they don’t think they can peddle it. The only agent you want is the one who wants you. As I’ve said, it may help if a famous writer introduces you—certainly the young writer should tug the coattails of every famous writer he can get near without making him angry—but in the end, agents trust no one but themselves. That’s why they prosper, and why their clients prosper.