Getting Your Foot in the Gate: the subjective nature of writing

by Cat Woods

This past weekend I took eight students to State Speech. While I watched rounds, coached kids and waited for results, I was reminded that speech--like reading and writing--is a completely subjective endeavor. An exact set of standards does not exist for any of the above activities. Writers cannot shoot the most baskets to secure a publishing contract, just like speakers cannot run the fastest race to win a first place medal.

Instead, they must strive to best capture the readers--and judges--attention through style, voice, characterizations and story development. Speakers and writers alike must connect on a personal level with their audiences. And not a single part of this can be judged with any certainty.

To make it to State, our speakers had to get past the gatekeepers of Sub-Sections and Sections. They had to withstand the scrutiny of the more conservative, traditional judges in our tiny corner of the state to reach the more liberal and forward thinking judges from the bigger communities.

Right or wrong, this is the process. As coaches, we know that going in. An edgy piece that is perfect State material may suffer at the more conservative levels by pushing the comfort zones of the judges. Certain themes are nearly taboo in our little burgs while a broader and more accepting approach can be found elsewhere. For instance, suicide was a risky topic for one of our duos, while homosexuality and strong sexual innuendos from lesser conservative schools made our suicide pact look tame.

Some of our speechies made a conscious decision to play the odds. They prepared edgier pieces in hopes of squeaking by the conservative gatekeepers in order to impress the more liberal State audience. It paid off. While they just managed to eke out a third place in Sub-Sections, there stronger piece and non-traditional performance (for our neck of the woods) made them true contenders at the State level where they pulled the best score in one of their three rounds, beating out four of the finalists in a head-to-head showdown.

Another duo team from our Section took a more conservative approach, and while their traditional performance earned them a first at Sections, they were dead last in every round at State. They gambled the other way and didn't quite get their foot in the gate.

Both teams were polished, professional and in the top twenty-four in the state. One held back, while the other pushed the forward. Neither ultimately made it to the final round. However, the risk-takers were one point away from doing so. Next year, they will take what they learned from this experience and use it to better their chances of medaling.

Writing is no different.

Even as the general audience may seem more open to reading risky material, the gate keepers are chaining the doors. Publishing is a business and it effects our passion. Our ability to publish traditionally hinges on the whims of judges who may be more conservative than we would like.

As I continue my writing journey, I've come to realize several truths: nobody will ever write the perfect book, and gate keepers will always exist. They may evolve over time, but they will always play an integral part in the success or failure of certain written works.

In speech, it used to be against the rules to touch the floor with anything other than your feet. This year, I personally saw several speakers on their knees, doing somersaults or brushing their hands against the stage. Judges opposed to change likely gave these speakers lower scores based on their personal preferences and past tradition. It happens. It's life. It's normal. In years to come, these same judges will likely wonder why we ever had such a foolishly prohibitive rule.

Publishing is changing. Reader tastes are changing. Even writing styles and themes come and go almost overnight. What remains the same--and will forever--is that people will always read, people will always write and there will always be gatekeepers in some form or another.

Even with self-publishing, gatekeepers exist. They are, quite simply, the readers who refuse to part with their hard earned dollars for certain books. They are the bloggers who inform other potential readers of books they love to hate. They are the people we must walk past if we are to get our writing into the hands of our readers.

While I don't believe we have to write to please the gatekeepers, I firmly believe we need to understand the nuances and the power and the reasons behind their existence. We must acknowledge that on some level, the goal of publishing is to reach as wide an audience as we can within our genre, age group or niche. To do this, we absolutely must acknowledge that our writing is judged and can either earn a place on stage or that it will fall short and we will be left clapping in the wings for those successful enough to balance the fine line between stepping out of the box and capitulating to the narrow constraints of current reading standards, tastes and expectations.

This is true regardless of how we reach publication.

Who are the gatekeepers in your writing world, and how do they impact your writing journey? Do you subject yourself to balancing their wishes with your ideals, or do you simply write--gatekeepers be damned? How has your method worked out so far?

Curious minds want to know.

Cat Woods balances writing, speech coaching and mothering to the best of her ability--always hoping to impress a gatekeeper or two along the way. Her short stories can be found in Spring Fevers and The Fall, with another coming out in the Summer's Edge anthology this June. She also blogs at Words from the Woods.

WHAT IS YOUR STORY WORTH?

by R.S. Mellette

The best advice I ever got on writing was from an acting teacher my freshman year.  I asked her about playwriting.  "I don't know anything about writing," she said, "but I know that a Broadway play costs $50."  (Okay, I just dated myself).  "You have to write a story worth $50 to the average working person."

That always struck me as an excellent test of quality.  Can I tell a story that is worth the audience's cold hard cash?  That's a standard that is visceral.  It's real.  It cuts through all of the literary, English major crap and gets right down to nitty-gritty.  The most important critical question I have for any reader is, "did you get your money's worth?"

That question has become top of the list in this digital day and age.  What is a story worth?  Is it $2.99?  $9.99?  $13.99?  Will amateur authors flood the market with such low-priced material that professionals can no longer make a living?  Is it better to sell ten books at $2.99 or three at $9.99?  If you do sell a lot of books at a low-price, should you then raise the price?

And there is the question of the value of a publisher's stamp.  When Harper Collins publishes a book, they are saying, "Out of the thousands of books we've screened, this one is worth your time and money."  What is that recommendation worth?  As publishers put out more books on the e-market, do they de-value the worth of their stamp?

In talking about traditional verses e-publishing, the questions of value centered around hard costs like paper, printing, art, etc.  Now, of course, we're learning that e-packaging – metadata, formatting, meeting platform requirements – come at a cost.  But the real question is harder to answer.  What is the story itself worth?  Storytellers are unique to our species.  We are not human without them, but how much are we willing to pay them?

I don't have the answers.  Do you?

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers and The Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse anthologies.

A Gatekeeper's Manifesto

by R.S. Mellette

In May of this year, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos told the New York Times, “I see the elimination of gatekeepers everywhere.”

As co-Director of the Dances With Films festival, I am somewhat of a gatekeeper myself, and I can tell Mr. Bezos, the world is not ready for raw art.  Without gatekeepers, there is nothing to tell the consumer, "This product is good; that one is a waste of time," and believe me, the majority of unfiltered art is horrid.  Much of it is so bad it's painful to experience.  With leisure time at a premium, there is a tremendous value in the consumer being able to shop from behind well-kept gates, buying only what has been keeper-approved.

As an writer, I've also run into some gatekeepers I'd like to kill.  Generally, these fall under the heading of those who use the phrase, "People don't like..."

Believe it or not, it is not a gatekeeper's job to guess what people will like—or even, what they will buy.  This concept flies in the face of what every gatekeeper thinks their job is, so I'll say it again.

It is not a gatekeeper's job to guess what people will like—or even, what they will buy. 

Marketing executives, who have somehow become the biggest gatekeepers of them all, like to think they believe this manifesto.  They rush around with spreadsheets of sales figures on works that are "like the product we're considering" (aka "comps") to predict—not guess—exactly how much people will like this new product and how many they will buy.  Often, they are quite accurate.

But it's still just a guess, and it doesn't address products for which comps are hard to find.  It only works for established customers, and doesn't consider new ones.

So what if we take out the idea of what other people like or don't like entirely?  What if gatekeepers all followed the three rules of criticism: 1) Are the Artist's objectives clear? 2) Does the Artist achieve those objectives? 3) Does the Artist do this in a way that I like?

Yes, rule number three goes against the marketing idea so many MBA's learn in college that "your opinion doesn't matter."  I say it does, and here are the numbers to back me up:

According to the US census, there are about 314 million people in the country right now.   So let's say you, as a gatekeeper, are an average member of that population.  That means you're in a group of about 157 million people.

No?  Since you're a gatekeeper that means you probably went to college, you read more than the average person, might have traveled more, etc.  Okay, so let's err on the conservative side and say you represent, not 50% of the population ... and not 25% ... let's say you share just 1% of the same taste and sense of quality as the rest of people you grew up with, went to church with and hang out with.

That leaves 3 million customers who will like the same stuff you do. 

Of course, not all 3 million are reachable and not all of them are going to buy whatever it is you're selling, but in this model, they are interested.  So let's say only 10% of them are buyers.

That's 300,000 in sales.  Is that good?  Noah Lukeman writes extensively on the subject of book sales, so an educated person's answer would be, "maybe."  But here's a quote from his calculations I find interesting.

It is easy to gauge if a book is a huge failure, selling only 100 copies, or if it is a huge success, selling 100,000 hardcovers—but what if it falls into that gray area? What if it sells 7,000 hardcovers? Or 11,000 trade paperbacks?

By those standards, one tenth of those potential buyers would be a good hit for a first time author.

So, without regard to what people may or may not like, if a company can sell to one tenth, of one tenth, of one percent of the population, or .01 percent, then they are doing well. 

Now let's look at the gate keeping process for books.

LEVEL ONE—The Author.  If an author is good—which is a big assumption—they have slaved away to create the best work possible.  This means they've had beta readers.  They've done workshops.  They might have hired editors.  They have created to the best of their ability a finished product, which they submit to:

LEVEL TWO—The Agent.  This is the front line.  The agent faces pure raw art.  Mike Rowe should do an episode of Dirty Jobs on the muck they have to slog through to find a single gem.  I know from working with the film festival, that finding those gems is as exciting for the agent as it is for the people who created them.  Together with the author(s), the agent will polish the work for presentation to:

LEVEL THREE—The Editor.  An editor is not looking for a diamond in the rough, but a diamond among other precious stones.  If the agent and author have done their jobs, then any one of the works submitted to an editor should be able to find a market (see the numbers above).  In theory, an editor should then be choosing, not so much the books that are of the best quality—since they are all gems—but the books that best fit into the entire piece of jewelry the imprint is creating.  Here is where it is important for the imprint to have good internal communications.  If the editor isn't sure what pieces they are looking for, then how can they make an informed decision?  Once the editor has found a manuscript, then he or she will work with the author and agent to present it to:

LEVEL FOUR—Acquisitions.  Mathematically speaking, at this point a blind monkey could pull the submissions from a hat and have the same chances of finding a successful book.  I don't mean that figuratively.  I can't remember where I read the article, but someone ran the numbers and found that random selection of projects submitted to a Hollywood Studio would be as successful, if not more so, than choices made by the executives.  Acquisitions often means a committee of people, usually dominated by:

LEVEL FIVE—Marketing.  Imagine an executive walking into his boss's office and saying, "I am not good enough to do my job, so you should make it easier for me."  Sounds ridiculous, but that's what marketing has been doing for years.  "We can't sell that," they say.  Or, "there isn't a market for that." 

And people believe them.  The gem that has been vetted and polished by the author, the agent, the editor, and presumably the editor's boss is tossed aside because someone says they can't find a market for it.  Out of 314 million possible customers in the United States alone, they can't find a market?  Out of 7 billion people on the planet, they can't find a market for something that every gatekeeper before them has said is a quality product?

What happened to a salesman's pride?  What happened to the salesperson who would say, "I can sell shoes to a snake?" 

Moreover, what happened to the boss who would tell the sales department, "this is the product we're making, now go sell it." What happened to the boss who would fire someone who said, "I can't do my job"?

So is Mr. Bezos right?  Will we see the day when all gatekeepers are as unemployed as the writers they reject?  I don't think so.  I certainly hope not.  But some of them should be told, "Thank you, but step away from the gate.  Your job is inside."

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers anthology.