When Writers Don't Deliver

A guest post by Tess Gerritsen.


It's every aspiring author's dream. A publisher offers you a big contract for your next book, the deal gets announced to the press, and you receive a check as an advance payment. Now all you have to do is finish writing the manuscript, send it to your editor, and presto! You're a published author.

Or not. Because a lot can go wrong between signing the contract and your book's appearance in stores. I was reminded of just how often things do go wrong when I recently came across this article:

A New York publisher this week filed lawsuits against several prominent writers who failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances, records show.

The Penguin Group's New York State Supreme Court breach of contract/unjust enrichment complaints include copies of book contracts signed by the respective defendants.

Among the five authors mentioned in the article are Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel, who signed a $100,000 deal in 2003 to write "a book for teenagers to help them cope with depression," and blogger Ana Marie Cox, who signed a $325,000 contract in 2006 for a humorous book about political activists.

I don't know the particular circumstances of these authors. Perhaps personal issues -- a divorce, a severe illness, or unremitting depression -- kept them from delivering the promised manuscripts. Perhaps they did in fact deliver the manuscripts, which was deemed unsatisfactory by the publisher and rejected.

Or perhaps they suffered from an all-too common writer's malady: crisis of confidence. I know all about it, because twenty-five years ago, it almost derailed my budding writing career.

I had just sold my first romantic thriller, Call After Midnight, to Harlequin Intrigue. The book sold well and was nominated for a Rita award. Although I didn't sign a contract for the next book, my editor anxiously waited for my second novel. And she waited. And waited.

Two years later, all I had to show her were partials of various abandoned novels, stories that started off well enough, but within fifty pages had run out of steam. I just couldn't finish that second book. The months went by and my panic grew. This wasn't just writer's block; this was a full-stop career block. I was doomed to join the crowded ranks of one-book wonders.

I don't remember how I got past those dark months. What I do remember were the calls from the editor, the sound of disappointment in her voice when I told her I still didn't have anything. Eventually the calls between us stopped, leaving editorial silence, a sign that my publisher had at last given up on me. But I hadn't given up on myself, so I kept writing.

What saved me in the end was this: I finally gave myself permission to write badly. I decided it didn't matter if what I wrote was unpublishable, as long as I just kept writing. Up till then, I had abandoned at least three different story ideas within the first hundred pages, because all I could see were the flaws, and I got discouraged. Then I'd get seduced by a different story idea, a brighter, shinier premise on the other side of the fence. And I'd go chasing after that new premise until it too started to show its flaws. I couldn't finish a single book because I wanted it to be absolutely perfect, from beginning to end. From the very first draft. Which is like expecting your child to speak four foreign languages and play Bach on the piano at age five.

Children don't start off perfect, and neither do manuscripts.

At last I pulled out one of my earlier attempts, a story about a woman doctor being sued for a case of malpractice that is, in truth, a murder. The hero is the plaintiff's attorney, whose goal is to destroy her career. It had been months since I'd looked at the story, and suddenly I saw new possibilities. I resumed writing it. This time, I didn't stop to edit, I didn't stop to think: "oh, this part sucks." I stuck to my mantra: Just keep writing. And I did, all the way to the end.

The result was a first draft that was full of inconsistencies and mid-story plot shifts and characters who kept changing. But at least I had a first draft. I had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I had something to fix, and I did. In 1990, Under The Knife was finally published -- three years after my first novel.

In the past twenty-five years, I've written twenty-four novels. I've never forgotten those depressing, desperate months when I couldn't finish a book. Over the years, the writing hasn't gotten any easier; it's hard work, and it always will be. I've learned that I simply have to forge ahead, no matter how awful my writing seems, or how outlandish my plot. Because here's my second mantra: I can fix this. I might need five or even ten re-writes, but eventually I'll make that story work and I'll turn in that manuscript as promised.

Publishers want writers they can count on, writers who are both reliable and consistent. They'll usually give the author a certain amount of leeway if unavoidable crises pop up, such as serious illness or a death in the family, but eventually the contract has to be honored... or else.

And that's what separates the professionals from the amateurs. The professional always delivers.

Tess Gerritsen left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Life Support, Bloodstream, Gravity, and The Surgeon. Tess lives with her family in Maine.

Ms. Gerritsen's most recent thriller, Last to Die is reviewed today on Stuff and Nonsense. 

Twisted

By Andrew E. Kaufman

Illustration by Justin Amos

I'm just going to put this out there right now. I don't write about puppies and rainbows. Far from it. My novels tend to lean toward the gritty, if not peculiar, side of life (read: twisted). But here's the thing: Just because I write it, doesn't mean I live it—I don't. After all, it is fiction, and therein lies a common misperception, that authors who write twisted stories are themselves twisted.

Case in point: at least once a week—maybe more—I'll get an email from a reader that goes something like this: “You look like such a nice guy …but then I read your book...” Or this: “Man, you're one seriously twisted dude! Where do you get this stuff?” What usually follows directly after that is: “So when's your next one coming out?”

Hmm.

You see, comments like that always make me wonder why readers think that suspense and horror authors actually live out that which they write. Are all romance writers great lovers? Do all historical writers live in 1800s? Of course not. So why would folks question our sanity just because we write about those who don't seem to have any?

I recently spoke with bestselling author Tess Gerritsen about this. The murders in her novels can be particularly gruesome. She said, “Well, I think I'm perfectly sane. As a group, horror and thriller writers strike me as a mild-mannered bunch, not at all prone to violence, and less combative than other genre writers. Perhaps it's because we get out all our aggressions on the page!”

She makes a good point. While I hurt people on paper, I'd never harm anyone or anything in real life. I'm a vegetarian, for heaven's sake. And I don't think I've ever met a knife-wielding horror or suspense author before. For the most part, they do tend to appear quite sane—except for when they're trying to finish a novel, that is. Another story, completely.

Robert W. Walker's novels are about as twisted as they come. On whether his readers think he's warped, he says, “I get it a lot, like at signings, people saying, 'I thought you'd have horns.' I continually ask readers 'why do you pose the author with the villain when in fact most of us share much more with the hero or heroine?'”

He adds that, as writers, we're similar to actors because, “You have to become the point of view character, so if you write scenes from the POV of the killer, then you have to play the part just as an actor, like John Malcovich, has to pretend twisted, pretend evil."

I'd have to agree with him there. Just as with any character, good or bad, I need to get inside his head in order to give him dimension, make him seem real, otherwise he comes across as forced, something the reader will pick up instantly. Not always easy for me to do, however, because it can take its toll on an emotional level. But it has to be done, and truth be known, I do tend to identify with my heros more than my villains.

Lisa Gardner takes a more humorous approach as only she can do. She says, “I suspect I was dropped on my head a lot as a child. I’m honestly not sure where the ideas come from. They simply come to me, particularly creepy, scary ones. I guess it’s a good thing I can turn ideas into novels, because being an ax murderer doesn’t pay nearly as well.”

Okay, folks. Here's your chance to find out just how twisted I can be from a first-hand point of view (on paper, that is): become a follower of this blog, then add your comment below, and I may kill you (on paper, that is). One lucky winner gets a character named after him or her in my upcoming psychological thriller, The Lion, the Lamb, and the Hunted, then gets whacked. Anyone brave enough to put their life in my hands (on paper, that is)?

I warn you, it won't be pretty.