Current Affairs

To Outline or Not To Outline

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Prolific novelist Sandra Scoppettone has hit a wall in her new book.

I think I’m in big trouble.  This novel is a mess. I’m on page 142
and not only don’t I know what’s going on, I can’t imagine writing at
least another 250 pages of this.

Nothing makes sense.  I’ve written myself into so many corners I can’t see how to ever write out of them.

If
it wasn’t so depressing, and if I didn’t have a deadline, I think I’d
junk this novel and start again.  I honestly don’t know what I’m going
to do.  I should be working right now but instead I’m doing this.

I
feel I’ve been fooling myself, thinking it would work itself out.  I
don’t see how it can.  I’ve never been in quite this position so early
in a book.

I don’t know whether she writes with an outline or not, but I’m guessing she doesn’t. Novelist Ed Gorman wishes he could outline…but can’t.

The few times I’ve managed to fix an outline on both the page and in my
mind, I was more relaxed with the writing itself. I didn’t wake up in
the middle of the night depressed because I couldn’t figure out what
next day at the machine would bring.

Novelist James Reasoner always has a vague sketch of where he is going.

Although taking off and winging it with no outline can be fun . . . if
everything works out right. These days I like a nice six to eight page
outline so that the basic structure of the book has already been
figured out before I start. I usually write these even for books where
the publisher doesn’t require an outline, just for my own benefit.

All
that said, I don’t think I’ve ever written a book that turned out
exactly like the outline. Some unexpected plot twist or character
always pops up during the writing of the book itself.

That’s the way it goes for me, too. I find the security blanket of an outline, even if I deviate from it along the way (and I do), always helps me. At least I can look at it and say, "Okay, I had an idea of where I should be going, why am I not heading in that direction? What changed? And did it change for the better?" My outlines tend to evolve as my novels do…I call them "living outlines," because I am constantly rewriting them as I write the book and usually don’t finish my outline until a week or so before I finish my book.

Sometimes it’s fun for me to go back and look at the original outline and then the one I ended up with and see at what points I went in new directions… and why. I always learn from it.

UPDATE: Sandra Scoppettone reports on her blog that she doesn’t use an outline…and here’s why:

I
couldn’t stand to have an outline.  The idea of knowing where I’m going
is hideous to me.  Anyway, I couldn’t write an outline when I never
know who did it until I’m at about page 100.  I don’t want to know who
did it when I start.  It would spoil everything for me just as if I was
reading a book and knew who did it from the beginning.  Before I start
I know who my protagonist is (in this case I know a lot about her
because it’s the second in a series) and who has been killed.  That has
always worked for me before.  And now it’s failed me.  I still won’t do
an outline.

Frankly, I can’t imagine writing a mystery, and planting clues, without knowing whodunit ahead of time.

I’m curious, fellow writers… how do you feel about outlines?

A&E’s Check Book

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A&E couldn’t afford to continue making the series NERO WOLFE, which cost them less than a million per episode…nor have they had the bucks to produce  a single,  original, weekly dramatic series since then…

…but they can lay out $2.5 million per episode for edited reruns of THE SOPRANOS. 

Is LOS ANGELES Magazine in trouble?

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Los Angeles Magazine must be desperate too boost their anemic circulation numbers. We’ve been getting subscription offers from them for years. Today we got a letter from them offering us a two years subscription, 24 issues, for $9.95, which is more than 90% off their cover price. I’m tempted to subscribe,  but I figure if I ignore them long enough, pretty soon they’ll offer to send me the magazine for nothing. That’s what Weekly Variety did.

Self Publishing = Bad Idea

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Book critic David Montgomery weighs in on the self-publishing debate.  His bottom line? Save your money.

The problem with self-publishing is that the resulting product will
have no credibility and no exposure — and very little chance of ever
obtaining either. Everyone will know that the only way you were able to
get your book published was to pay someone to do it, and they will
judge your work accordingly. (In that sense, I think it’s even worse
than having no book at all.)

Conflict of Interest

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Bernard Weinraub is retiring from the NY Times. For ten years, he was their  LA correspondent covering the entertainment industry beat. Along the way, he  married Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal…but kept on reporting about the biz as if nothing had changed.

In his parting shot, he finally acknowledges what everybody, even those without any journalism experience, already knew and what he strenuously denied…that it was a conflict of interest for him to be reporting about the industry, and impossible for him to be truly impartial, once he married a major player in the movie business.

Clearly, I stayed too long on my beat, clinging to a notion that I
could sidestep conflicts of interest by avoiding direct coverage of
Sony, and learning too late why wiser heads counsel against even the
appearance of conflict.

Well, duh, Bernie.  If a reporter covering the U.S. Senate married a Senator, he would be yanked off the beat in an instant. If  a reporter covering the automobile business married the top exec at Ford, she would be reassigned to something else. But it’s okay for a reporter covering the entertainment industry to marry a studio chief and keep covering the business? C’mon. A kid in a high school journalism class would know better than that.

But my marriage, and some of the events that
tumbled out of it, also taught me something about the ferocity of a
culture in which the players can be best friends one day and savage you
the next.

It took marrying a studio exec for Weinraub to figure that out?  Most people discover that the first week they are in L.A. Doesn’t say much for Weinraub’s keen observational skills, does it?  But the true nature of Weinraub’s naivete and lack of journalistic ethics is betrayed by this stunning admission:

I’d written about Jeffrey Katzenberg, then president of the Walt Disney
Company. He returned every call quickly and often phoned me; he dished
over pasta at Locanda Veneta about all the studios in town and became
such a pal that I once showed him off-the-record comments made about
him by Michael Eisner.
That was wrong and foolish, and years later I still regret it. As soon
as I stopped covering movies, Mr. Katzenberg stopped responding to
phone calls. I was surprised but shouldn’t have been.

Weinraub revealed off-the-record comments to the person the comments were made about? That’s an outrageous breach of ethics. It wasn’t just foolish and wrong, it was reprehensible and shameful.

Weinraub asked to be taken off the movie beat in 2000. The fact is, the New York Times should have reassigned him themselves the day he acknowledged he was dating Pascal…but then again, this is the newspaper that gave us Jayson Blair.

What Weinraub’s article reveals is that the Blair’s behavior wasn’t really an isolated incident, but rather a by-product of  a reporting cultures at the New York Times that, casually disregards basic  journalistic ethics.

How sad for the Times. How sad for its readers. Shame on you, Bernie.

Wasserman Remaindered?

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Publisher’s Weekly is reporting that LA Times Book Review editor Steve Wasserman may be on the way out,  seeking job opportunities elsewhere. Let’s hope so. 

Wasserman came to the LAT eight years
ago after a career at Times Books and NY publishing, bringing a flash of
intellectualism to the paper. But he has also reportedly had a number of
run-ins with supervisors who saw the section he ran as being overly
highbrow.

Not to mention exceedingly dull, irrelevant and out-of-date. But mostly dull.

It’s not unusual for the Book Review to finally get around to reviewing some major hardcover mysteries  around the time they are about to come out in paperback  (not that you’d call what mystery critic  Eugen Weber  writes  "reviews," more like senseless ramblings).

I had lunch with Wasserman when I was president of the SoCal chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. I came armed with months worth of local and national bestseller lists. I wanted to convince him that they should run more reviews of mysteries and thrillers  because those were the books his readers were actually reading. But he told me that he felt the mission of the Book Review was to educate people about what they should be reading…  which wasn’t mysteries and thrillers.

His smug superiority might have been easier to take if he didn’t spend most of our lunch drooling over the fact that Brian Grazer was at the next table.

Whether they review more mysteries or not, it sure would be nice if the LA Times Book Review  was interesting and entertaining to read again…

UPDATE:  My wise and witty brother Tod, who recently talked about shooting his life force out his ass, now offers his view of the Wasserman era.  He, too, has reasons to be encouraged by the prospect for change at the Book Review.

Bad Agents

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A friend of mine told me an agent horror story today. A few years ago, his publisher accidentally sent him, instead of his agent, royalty statements on his book. The royalties showed that he’d earned $350,000… but his agent had sent him a false statement that said he’d earned only $11,000. My friend sued his agent, the case dragged on for years, and (for reasons I don’t understand) the parties involved ended up settling for about ten percent of what he was owed.

This story reminded me of a couple of other recent agent scandals. This one was covered by the Sacramento Business-Journal:

Celebrated local chef Biba Caggiano writes cookbooks, yet her
relationship with her literary agent has turned into the stuff of
detective novels.Caggiano is seeking more than $400,000 and alleges that Los
Angeles-based Maureen Lasher Agency kept two advances that were
supposed to go to her.  The suit says the agent
even attempted to pass off an incomplete Italian recipe book, written
by someone else, as Caggiano’s work.

Caggiano — who owns Biba restaurant
in midtown Sacramento and once had a cooking show on cable’s The
Learning Channel — learned of the advances only when her publisher
contacted her in July about two books for which it had paid advances of
$106,250 and $143,750, the suit says. It was, Caggiano alleges, the
first she heard about the advances or the negotiations for two new
cookbooks.

Advances and book royalties go to the agent and are then disbursed,
along with financial records, to the author. Caggiano says she hasn’t
received any checks or any accounting from her agent. The suit says the
amount owed Caggiano exceeds $400,000.

A spokeswoman for publishing house Harper Collins said that the
company couldn’t comment about the issue and that it is a matter
between Caggiano and her literary agent. In addition to Caggiano, New
York-based Harper Collins has a stable of best-selling cookbook
authors, including Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse and Marcella Hazan.

In October of 2000, unbeknown to Caggiano, Harper Collins delivered
$106,250 as an advance for a cookbook; Caggiano was not paid any part
of the advance nor was she made aware of its existence, according to
the suit. A second advance of $143,750 was paid by the publishing house
for a second book, and again, Caggiano says, she was not paid any of
the advance or made aware of it.

Then, the suit states, Lasher "attempted to deliver to Harper
Collins an incomplete and unauthorized manuscript" without Caggiano’s
knowledge or consent.

The agent hasn’t responded to calls or letters about the incidents,
the suit states. The suit seeks an accounting of Lasher’s books,
records, receipts and disbursements.

This was no fly-by-night agent, either.
Lasher’s clients included Barry Manilow.  Another well-known case of agent fraud involved Marcie Wright who, at one time, represented DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES creator Marc Cherry as well as many other top screenwriters and writer/producers.

According to Variety, she told screenwriter Robert Kuhn that Castle Rock never paid him for a rewrite he did on a script, and that DreamWorks wasn’t going to pay him for a  "quick  polish" on another screenplay he’d written.  The truth was that Castle Rock paid him $150,000  for the rewrite and DreamWorks  kicked in $87,000 for the polish.

Kuhn wasn’t the only client she was robbing. Her client Marc Cherry made a $100,000 pilot script deal with Paramount Network Television in 2001 that was later tabled.

Wright allegedly went to studio and said Cherry wanted to
settle out of the deal and walk away rather than pick it up at a later
date. The studio agreed and cut a check for $25,000, made out to "Marc
Cherry, c/o the Wright Concept," that never made it to Cherry.

Wright was arrested on grand theft and fraud charges and  ultimately pled no contest to embezzlement,  agreed to pay some $270,000 in restitution to her clients,
and serve 12 months in county jail.  The amount ballooned to nearly $500,000 with interest and legal fees. She paid the restitution and was released in September after serving 160 days in prison. She is on three years probation. According to media reports, Wright  is forbidden
from holding a personal checking account,  may not act in any fiduciary
capacity, and is currently  "undergoing psychological treatment."

A Big Thumbs Up

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Sarah Weinman is asking writers over on her excellent blog to share how they felt after getting their first bad review.  Here’s the story I shared:

Maybe it’s because I come from TV…so I’m used to getting unwanted "notes" (ie criticsm) on my writing from everyone (actors, agents, managers, directors, psychic colorists, craft services etc.) and everywhere (studio, network, talent agency, viewers, the press, my pool man, my mother, etc.). I don’t ever take it personally. When it comes to reviews, I read them with a smile, whether they like my book or not. Everyone is allowed their opinion…I’m certainly not shy about expressing mine.

My favorite review ever was from Rolling Stone, calling an episode of BAYWATCH that I wrote the worst hour of television in the history of the medium. And they were being gentle. I loved the review… probably because they were right.

But reviewers…well, at least the publications they work for… can be truly schizo. For instance, Publishers Weekly gave MY GUN HAS BULLETS a bad review… and then, a year later, praised that same book as "riotously funny" in the midst of a rave review for the sequel, BEYOND THE BEYOND. Go figure.

In TV, you develop a very thick skin. I had a star tell me a script Bill Rabkin & I wrote was a "complete piece of shit." I just smiled and said cheerfully, "Gee, I guess you didn’t like it much. What troubled you?" Turns out what troubled him was a great scene one of his co-stars had  that The Star wasn’t in. His idea of fixing the script was a) deleting the scene or b) deleting all the fun and character from the scene or c) making the scene all about his character and what his character might be doing, thinking and feeling.

I had another executive tell me another one of our scripts would be  a hell of a lot better with a teen suicide in it.  And she wasn’t joking.  She just felt a teen suicide somewhere in the story would add drama.

Another exec once told me his only note on a script we wrote was that he’d like me to swap Act One with Act Three.  He wasn’t joking, either.

Now these aren’t exactly reviews, per se, but they are still comments on my writing. Severe, ulcer-inducing comments. 

What I’ve learned the hard way is that you can’t take these notes, or reviews of any kind, personally or you won’t survive in this business… whether you’re toiling in TV or publishing… or, as in my case, both.

I’ve found some negative reviews, especially of our TV shows, helpful in refining the franchise or spotting weaknesses in our story-telling.

But it also cuts both ways…if you start believing all your positive reviews, you are just as screwed as if you take all the negative ones to heart.   The good reviews feel better, but they can be just as destructive if you start believing your writing is perfect and you’re God’s gift to TV or literature…

The Wild West

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If you think Spongebob Squarepants promotes a gay agenda, James Wolcott reports you’ll be positively terrified by the old western series on the GoodLife TV Network.

Bronco, starring Ty Hardin. Bronco. Ty. You tell me those aren’t gay-sounding names. Then there’s Sugarfoot,
starring Will Hutchins. Sugarfoot–another name that sounds awfully fey
to me. In the title song, he’s described as "easy lopin’" (the
sagebrush version of crusing), and joggin’ along "with a heart full of
song." Show tunes, no doubt. Cheyenne,
starring Clint Walker, whose title tune asks the haunting musical
question, "Cheyenne, Cheyenne where will you be camping tonight?"
Camping, indeed! The song has him dreaming "of a girl you may never
love," and I think I know why he may never love her, and why he needs
to go "camping."