Writing

Blog Suicide?

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A few days ago, author Sandra Scoppettone  blogged about her editor, Joe Blades, leaving Ballantine and her anxieties about it.  This prompted an anonymous commenter to warn her that her very candid blog posts could be damaging to her career. Sandra angrily fired back. Soon, the ugly little argument spilled over to  other   blogs. Now Galleycat has picked up on the catfight, so-to-speak, and it will mushroom from there…

Unfortunately, it illustrates that even someone who’s been in the
business as long as Scoppettone has (and whose influence on two
different genres continues to be felt) can sometimes let things go all
too haywire. And it further illustrates the power of blogging in the
publishing world — because you never know who’ll be out there reading,
passing judgment, and jumping to conclusions.

The blog skirmish brings up an interesting issue — how honest should you be on your blog? I have to admit I cringed a bit at some of Sandra’s posts, and at my friend Paul Guyot’s surprising candor about the ups-and-downs of his pilot experience, and at my cousin regularly trashing her employer. Sure, it makes good reading and can be cathartic for the author  — but is it self-destructive? I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to find out for myself.

I’ve been very careful here not to talk about the shows I am working on (except to hype them when they air), or the executives and producers I am working with (or hope to work with), or authors/writers I work and socialize with (unless it is to hype their latest work).  I  rarely name individual producers, writers, editors or executives. I talk in general terms, for the most part, or about personal experiences that are safely in the past. 

I’m clearly not shy about expressing my opinion — but I’m careful about it. I don’t hesitate to criticize fanfiction, self-publishing scams, the RWA, or people searching the Internet for Lindsay Lohan’s nipples  — those are safe. But, for example,  you won’t see me trashing a producer, a studio, a network, or a major publishing company.

I think some bloggers forget that they aren’t writing a private diary — it’s like a column in a newspaper. You have no idea who is reading it or how your words are being passed around. Blogging is fun, but my career is far more important.

Abandonment Issues

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Galleycat reports that editor Joe Blades is leaving Ballantine — and publishing.

Why? Though Blades hadn’t responded to email queries as of this writing, burnout
seems to be the biggest issue, according to a recent post by
one of his authors. Though Blades isn’t certain what his next move will be,
it won’t have anything to do with the publishing world.

Blades was especially known for editing mystery and crime fiction, and his
author list included Anne Perry, Sandra Scoppettone, Terrill Lee Lankford,
Rochelle Krich, Mary Logue, Gillian Roberts and William Bernhardt. It remains to
be seen how many of these folks will be kept on by Random House, but Blades will
be meeting with various RH brass to discuss which editors get custody of which
authors.

It’s very scary when your editor, often your biggest champion at the publishing house, leaves. When one of my editors left, on the eve of publication of my non-fiction book,  any interest in  me or the book within the company just vanished… the book was orphaned. There was no effort made by the sales force to sell the book or by the PR department to promote it.  Sandra Scoppettone, one of Blades’ authors, is worried this might happen to her:

What worries me is the new book, Too Darn Hot, which will be published in June. 
Even if a new contract hadn’t come my way, this editor would’ve still been on
top of things and moved the book as much as possible.  As the book is finished
and there’s nothing for a new editor to do on it, it’ll lie there like a lox. 
Unless there’s a new contract and then it’ll be different.  At the moment my
book is an orphan.

 

I don’t blame her. I’d be worried, too. On the other hand, losing an editor doesn’t always mean doom for his list of  authors.  I’ve been extraordinarily lucky at Penguin/Putnam/NAL on the DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK books. I’m on my third editor so far  (the first was downsized out of a job, the other left for a richer offer) and they’ve all been wonderful… supportive, enthusiastic, and totally committed to the books.

Hijinks on The High Seas

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No, I’m not talking about yet another revival of THE LOVE BOAT.

HIJINKS ON THE HIGH SEAS is  a mystery-writing cruise on March 24-27th to Mexico put together by Joan Hansen, the wonder woman behind the wonderful MEN OF MYSTERY event (and she’s the winner of this year’s prestigious Raven Award from the Mystery Writers of America).  Speakers hosting on-board seminars include yours truly, my brother Tod, and Matt Witten among others. For more information, call  (562)
595-6905. Call Now! That’s (562)
595-6905. Operators are standing by! (562)
595-6905.

 

Winslow is Hot Hot Hot

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Author Don Winslow’s latest novel THE WINTER OF FRANKIE MACHINE hasn’t even been published yet, but Variety reports that Robert DeNiro is already attached to star in the movie version for Paramount Pictures.

De Niro would play a Mafia hit man who has given up the game to become the
proprietor of a bait shop. When he finds out that he’s been targeted for a hit,
he gets back in the business.

Winslow’s work made the rounds in New York recently, sparking the interest of
Tribeca. De Niro and Rosenthal committed to the adaptation and, with the help of
CAA, shopped it around to studios.

If the package comes together and a movie gets made, it would bring De Niro
back to a type of character that helped make him famous. He has said he wouldn’t
return to the Mafia world in film but then "Frankie Machine" came along.

Your Great Idea for a Pilot

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My friend Javier Grillo-Marxuach, supervising producer of LOST,  has a wonderful, brutally honest post on his blog about his experience writing and producing pilots. The post is nearly a year old, but the wisdom and bite of his story hasn’t dimmed.

so anyway – pilots. the one question i hear most is “i have a great
idea for a pilot, what do I have to do to get it see/produced/on the
air?”

the stock answer to this is “move to los angeles and spend
ten years making a name for yourself as a television producer with an
established track record that will make a studio and network believe
that they should trust you with forty-four million dollars of their
money to produce twenty-two hours of television.”

however,
things have changed in television, and now it is easier than ever to
get a pilot on the air without establishing a track record as a
producer…

…and I say that in the same way one might say “now
it’s easier than ever to put an orbital mind-control laser in a
geosynchronous orbit over your mother-in-law.”

You’ve got to read the rest. It will make you weep.

How do I become a television writer if I don’t have any contacts?

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I get asked this question a lot…but it’s disingenuous, since I’m a
TV writer/producer and whoever is asking me that is really asking me to either read
their script or to invite them in to pitch. So, theoretically, they already
know somebody in the business.
 
They’re luckier than I was when I got started. I didn’t know
anybody in the TV industry. But I got in. How did I do it? Everybody’s story is
unique. Most of those stories, however, share one common element. You have to
put yourself in the right place to get your lucky break. And it’s easier than
you think. 

The first thing you have to do is learn your craft. Take
classes, preferably taught by people who have had some success as TV writers.
There’s no point taking a class from someone who isn’t an experienced TV writer
themselves. 

You’d think that would be common sense, but you’d be
astonished how many TV courses are taught by people who don’t know the first
thing about writing for television or who, through a fluke, sold a story to Manimal twenty years ago and think that
qualifies them to take your hundred bucks. Even more surprising is how many
desperate people shell out money to take courses from instructors who should be
taking TV writing courses themselves.

There’s another reason to take a TV writing course besides
learning the basics of the craft. If you’re the least bit likeable, you’ll make
a few friends among the other classmates. This is good, because you’ll have
other people you can show your work to. This is also good because somebody in
the class may sell his or her first script before you do… and suddenly you’ll
have a friend in the business. 

Many of my writer/producer friends today are writers I knew
back when I was in college, when we were all dreaming of breaking into TV some
day. 

A writer we hired on staff on the first season of Missing was in a Santa Monica screenwriters group… and was the
first member of her class to get a paying writing gig. Now her friends in the
class suddenly had a friend on a network TV show who could share her knowledge,
give them practical advice and even recommend them to her new agent and the
writer/producers she was working with.

Another route is to try and get a job as a writer/producer’s
assistant on an hour-long drama. Now only will you get a meager salary, but you
will see how a show works from the inside. You’ll read lots of scripts and
revisions and, simply by observation, get a graduate course in TV writing. More
important, you’ll establish relationships with the writers on the show and the
freelancers who come through the door. Many of today’s top TV producers were writer/producer
assistants once. All of the assistants I’ve had have gone on to become working
TV writers themselves… and not because I gave them a script assignment or
recommended them for one. I didn’t do either.

 The first step towards getting into pitch a TV producer for
an episodic writing assignment is to write an episodic teleplay on spec.

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PJ Parrish Talks Sex

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The writing team that goes by the name PJ Parrish talk about the sex…or, rather, the lack of good sex…in mysteries.

Why are crime writers such major wussies when it comes to sex? What the hell
happens to most of them when they have to write about it?

I’ll tell you
what happens. They turn trite and sentimental. Or they become boring and
flaccid. And they get as self-conscious as pimply prom dates. Crime writers can
meet murder head on and not flinch, can even render death poetic. But faced with
having to describe copulation — especially in the context of, gasp!
relationships — they can turn out the most dreadful, unbelievable, embarrassing
treacle.

Dear Mr. Teriyaki

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Author Eric Stone posted this on the DorothyL discussion list this morning:

Did anyone else who attended Men of Mystery in Irvine, California
on Saturday find the story Dean Koontz told in his speech about his
letter writing campaign to the president of a Japanese company, offensive? I
did. And I’m pretty hard to offend. At least one other author I know who
was there, who has lived in Japan, also found it offensive. We both were
aghast. While most of the people in the audience were laughing, we
weren’t.

I write thrillers that are set in Asia. I know the region well.
I lived and worked in Asia for 11 years and though I never lived in Japan, I
visited it for business and on holidays at least twice a year that entire
time. If I was ever to create a character that would say or write things
similar to what Mr. Koontz claimed to have written in his letters to the
Japanese corporate executive, it would be for the purpose of showing him as
a culturally-insensitive lout – the Ugly American personified as it
were.

Sheesh, I was enjoying the event up until then, and looking forward
to hearing Mr. Koontz speak.

I also found his  letters to the Japanese CEO offensive.
So did quite a few other authors in attendance (I didn’t talk to any of the 550  "civilians" in the audience
about it).

Koontz talked about a dispute he
had with a studio owned by a Japanese company and regaled the audience with the
letters he wrote to the Japanese CEO, who he referred to as "Mr. Teriyaki." The
letters used WWII, the Japanese surrender, Bataan Death March, and Godzilla to ridicule the CEO and
browbeat him into taking Koontz’s name off a movie based on one of his books. To
say the jokes were in horrifically bad taste and that letters
themselves were cringe-inducing in their boorish insensitivity would be an
understatement.
 
What if the CEO was black? Would Koontz have addressed his letters to Mr. Fried Chicken and joked about the good old days of slavery and racial discrimination? Or if
the CEO was a Jew? Would he have called him Mr. Matzoball and reminded him of the
Holocaust? I was astonished that people were laughing when they should have
shunned him with silence. It’s a shame, because Koontz is an incredibly talented
writer who I’m sure could have delivered both an entertaining and interesting
speech.

UPDATE: My brother Tod was also shocked by Koontz’s speech.

Each letter was addressed to "Mr. Teriyaki." (Internment camps were not
mentioned in any of the letters, which I assume was a simple omission on Mr.
Koontz’s part and will be rectified in the future.)

Stunningly, the audience thrilled to the stories! The laughter cascaded about
the room! People dabbed tears! Do you have any stories about your hatred of the
Jews, Mr. Koontz? Any good ones about the Muslim world? How about a notation on
some more racial stereotypes you’ve used when negotiating your name off other
shitty movies?

Happily, author after author came walking to the back of the room in horror
(more horror than is typically engendered by one of Koontz’s books, no doubt)
and wonder about what they were hearing. Did he really just tell a 15 minute
story about the Japanese where he referred to the person in question as Mr.
Teriyaki? Was the audience really laughing? Or, as Rob Roberge said, "Is he
coming out in blackface next?"

UPDATE: I got a call today from Dean Koontz, who wasn’t pleased about the comments here. I apologized to him for using "Sambo" and "Kike" as comparisons for his use of "Mr. Teriyaki" to refer to the Asian exec. He found the use of those words pejorative and said they mischaracterized the tenor of his speech. I agreed. So I  have changed them to "Mr. Fried Chicken" and "Mr. Matzoball." I believe his speech was  offensive and in bad taste — and I reiterated that belief to him in our phone conversation.

Author Joe Konrath, who was also in attendance, weighs in on his blog:

There’s a lot of buzz circulating about Dean Koontz’s speech, and how
he offended many attendees. Personally, I didn’t find the remarks
offensive—Koontz was purposely trying to be humorously insulting, in
order to get a certain Japanese CEO to drop his name from a movie
title. His goal was to dishonor the guy. The problem was in the set-up
and the execution. Koontz just wasn’t very funny. George Carlin is a
lot more offensive, but gets away with it because he’s funny.

Had
Koontz spent more time showing he was the underdog, and established
that he wasn’t racist and did all of this to right an injustice (rather
than because he simply wanted his way, which is how he came off), I
think the story would have gone over a little better.

Or perhaps Mr. Koontz should simply retire this particular anecdote.

More UPDATES on the jump:

 

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King Kong Tie-Ins

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Galleycat reports that Pocket Books is going ape for King Kong Tie-ins.

Anybody can put out a novelization for their blockbuster film, but Peter
Jackson had bigger plans for King Kong: He came up with a
backstory that’s been turned into an official prequel, King Kong: The
Island of the Skull [by Matthew Costello]. As Rod
Lott writes in Bookgasm, "Kong himself does not appear, not even in a
cameo. His name is whispered, his face is crudely drawn, but the ape never rears
his giant, ugly head." Still, Lott found it entertaining enough, and a cut above
the usual tie-in.

There will also be a novelization, by Christopher Golden, as well as two behind-the-scenes picture books (The Making of King Kong
and The World of King Kong), and sci-fi writer Karen Haber will be edit
Kong Unbound, "in which various writers will discuss "the history and
legacy of the most famous ape in Hollywood and his continuing impact on pop
culture and modern filmmakers."