I’m just back from a ridiculously hectic weekend attending a publishing conference called 20Books Seville. It’s the European stop of a sort of world tour for Independent publishers, which grew out of a facebook page called 20booksto50K. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of it, the important thing to note is that I wasn’t important, or invited to attend, or there in any way to impart my wisdom. On the contrary. I was there to learn.
Or at least, that was my partner Maria’s idea. She translates my books for the Spanish market, and publishes them independently. It was her who found out about the conference, and her who booked the tickets. If I’m honest I didn’t see the point. After all, I’ve written and published nearly fifteen books now, so there can’t be much left for me to learn. But when Maria gets an idea in her head it’s often easier to just go-with-it, even if (as in this case) just-going-with-it meant a near two-thousand-kilometre drive.
But – shock twist - it turns out I was wrong. To explain exactly how wrong is difficult, but partly that’s why I want to write this post. It’s an attempt to capture a sense of clarity that the weekend gave me, about the business of writing and publishing books – the business I’m in – which I’ve never had before. It’s a clarity that dawned slowly, but became something really quite startling. And also, in a funny way, rather inspiring. And it’s a clarity that, now I’m back at my desk, I can already sense is fading. So hopefully this will help me keep it in mind a little longer, because I think it will be incredibly useful. Sounds great - but what exactly am I talking about?
I’ve often wondered what my books are, to the people who read them. To me they’re an all-encompassing project that gives me a sense of purpose. It sounds a bit OTT to say they give my life meaning, but it’s also true. When I’m writing a book I can’t wait until it’s finished and I can relax, knowing I got it down on paper. But when I get there, I usually can’t go a week before the emptiness of life without an all-encompassing project to distract me, leaves me terrified and I start another one. But much as I’d like my books to impact other people in the same way (I think), I know they don’t. I’ve always assumed that for readers, they land a bit like other people’s books do for me. But that’s probably not quite accurate. To explain this I’m going to have to switch mediums, just for a while.
The shameful truth is I don’t read as much as I ought to. The even more shameful truth is that I do watch a lot more TV than I should. And if I can string three sentences together that wreck my reputation as an author, the most shameful thing is that I quite enjoy programmes like Man Versus Food. If you’ve not seen it (admit it, you have) it’s about a man who visits restaurants that offer ridiculously large portion sizes. And the man – I don’t know his name, and possibly this is because there have been quite a few over the years, as heart disease takes its toll – has to eat the four-foot-high hamburger, or the twelve-buckets-of-pulled-pork, or whatever it is each week, before the clock runs down. Oppenheimer it is not, but – and this is the part of the clarity I think I felt over the weekend – Oppenheimer it does not try to be.
It is, nevertheless, almost pure story. It has a protagonist (Man), an antagonist (food) and heaps of conflict (the ‘v’ between them). And it’s presented to us in a way that precisely fits the quest story structure we find so satisfying. We have the ‘call to adventure’ - Man turning up at a restaurant and being presented with a daunting challenge (the massive burger). But he doesn’t start right away, there’s the preparation stage, where he gains tips and knowledge that will serve him on the quest. Then he sits down to start the meal – the moment of no return, and he’s faced with a series of mini quests – will he even get past the three kilos of French fries, or defeat the insanely-hot chilli sauce? Sometimes Man wins, licks his plate clean and we get our happy ending – food is defeated (for now). Sometimes he fails, but either way, he learns something, and lives to fight another day. At least until the heart disease issue crops up again.
I also watched Oppenheimer. And apart from exiting the cinema with a new and profound understanding that me and everyone I love will likely die in a horrific nuclear conflict – I really enjoyed it. The story elements are there too, of course. We have the protagonist (the scientist Oppenheimer) and his quest – to invent a bomb that can kill everyone in the world. And we have the antagonists (those idiots who think this is a bad idea). And obviously because this is story we really want him to succeed, and make the biggest, most badass bomb ever... OK, it’s a bit more complex than that, and partly that’s where it differs from Man V Food – it is more complex, it’s trying to make you think, rather than just giving us the nice easy dopamine hits of simple story beats.
So how does this relate to books? And specifically to my books? Well, I guess I saw more clearly than before how Man V Food and Oppenheimer exist on a continuum. At the lower end, there’s no attempt to make high-concept art, it’s not designed to be one of the most dramatic and memorable viewing experiences of the year. Instead it’s there to fill a half-hour on a Wednesday evening (with the understanding that there’s plenty more half-hours to fill that day, and all the other days as well). At the higher end it’s the opposite. Oppenheimer is designed to shake you to your core, to be the one thing you really remember watching all year. But you wouldn’t want to watch Oppenheimer (or something like it) every night while you’re eating your dinner. It would be exhausting.
It’s the same for books. They too exist on a continuum. Some are there to fuel those readers who burn through a book or two (or more) – every single week. The people who read in the same way that I (shamefully) watch TV — where it’s just on every night. These books don’t have to be exceptional, in a way they can’t be. They just need to be good enough to satisfy that addictive need for simple but well told story beats. Other books sit, or try to sit, on the Oppenheimer end of the scale, the kind of story that stays with you for years, or even a lifetime.
Which begs two questions (at least to me). Where do my books sit, and where am I aiming for them to sit? But before I answer that, I need to talk about a not-so-subtle split between the authors in the Seville conference.
Again it’s a little difficult to explain. And again writing this is partly about me understanding it, before the clarity fades away. But I’ll give it a shot. Some of the speakers were on stage because they were writing books super-fast, and making literally millions of dollars a year. Yes, the hours they have to put in to churn out a book every couple of weeks was terrifying - they talked about writing 16 hours a day, and only seeing their family when they came in to bring them a sandwich. But they’re making hundreds of thousands every month. To me (like to most people I suspect), it's hard to even imagine earning that much, and while I’m not very driven by money, I don’t hate the idea of having financial security for me and my family, and getting a butler. But then there were other authors speaking too, who encouraged a different approach. Some talked about how to deepen the connection to readers by really carefully going over a manuscript, and thinking hard about the craft. And I realised that not only did I prefer this approach, I was beginning to look a bit condescendingly at those poor millionaire-authors selling their souls to put out a book a month.
But – and here at last is the clarity – I then started to see it differently. I began to see how this continuum of authors who write fast and those who write slow connects to the one discussed above. A book which is the reading equivalent of Man Versus Food doesn’t need to be as ‘good’ as one which is the equivalent of Oppenheimer. Indeed, if it is as rich and complex and disturbing as Oppenheimer, then it’s not doing its basic job of distilling down those story beats in an easily consumable way. It literally becomes a worse (Man v Food) book by becoming a better (Oppenheimer) book.
So good is bad, and bad is good – that’s my point? Oppenheimer’s Best Picture Award should actually have gone to Man V Food? Not quite. It’s more that each have their place, and each can be rewarded if they do their job fantastically well, in that place. Man V Food might not have an Oscar, but it does have millions of loyal viewers who love it, because it’s banging those dopamine story receptors every single week. The authors earning mega bucks writing a book a month are only getting the big pay checks if those books are laser-focussed on hitting those story beats.
So how about where my books sit, on the continuum above, and where I want them to sit? I think they’re somewhere between the extremes of Man V Food and Oppenheimer. I also think I aspire more to the Oppenheimer end of things, even if I will probably never get there, because such works only happen when once-in-a-generation genius coincides with elite-athlete-level drive – neither of which is a very good description of me.
But so what? The point is that it doesn’t really matter where you are on the continuum, as long as the work is good. And even though stories work in similar ways underneath, on the surface every one is unique. The Talented Mr Ripley is no Oppenheimer, but it’s a cultural icon all the same. I can’t write either – because they’ve already been written – but I can aspire to write something that’s as good. And even if I’ll probably never get there, for the afore-mentioned not-a-genius issue, it’s super-inspiring to suddenly see that it’s something to shoot for.
So I guess that’s the conclusion of this. Sort of. I’m not exaggerating when I say the clarity that the weekend has given me is fading away, to the extent that I don’t quite know what my conclusion is, or even if I have one. But the fact that I’m really itching now to stop writing this, and get back to working on my book, probably reveals that it’s something to do with inspiration, enthusiasm, and having received a huge shot of motivation that I didn’t even know I needed.
Or maybe it is just what just what happens when I drink fourteen cups of coffee to stay awake on the drive home? I don’t know. But either way, if you’re still here, thank you for reading, and do just take away that I’m suddenly super inspired to write the best damn books I can! And please do comment below with your favourite Man V Food moments.
Gregg
PS. Almost entirely unrelated to the above, I also learned a lot at the conference about the need to market my books a bit more effectively. To that aim, I hereby inform you that my latest release, Falling From Grace, has got some very nice reviews already (thank you!) and if you haven’t read it, it’s waiting for you on Amazon. Go. Now...
I 'wasted' in my opinion, too much time during lock down being obsessed with Married at first sight Australia. Even once I realised most of it was scripted, I was suitably drawn in to see it to the end. Vowing never to waste time watching those reality shows again.
I'm very much looking forward to my pending trip to Peru to see my daughter, not just to see her after two years, but to have the time to read your latest book. I've been saving it although I did sort of start it and went too far into stop. But there's still a large chunk left to keep me going on the 13 hour flight!
I'm very happy you write your books, slowly or over time.
Julie
I have never seen Man v Food (perhaps because I live in Canada?) but to my enduring shame have binge-watched “Love is Blind” while also reading “Love in the Time of Cholera”. So I get what you’re saying. And yes there is a place for both. And I would say your works tend much more to the latter than the former. Cheers!