How Outside Influences Affect My Writing

Okay, this post is gonna make some people feel queasy.  It’s gonna make you angry.  It’s gonna make you doubt my sanity.

Writers and would-be writers, for instance – the  write-what-you-know, follow-your-passion, what-does-your-gut-tell-you people out there, especially the unpublished ones, I’m going to make you absolutely nuts right now, and I apologize.   Readers?  Publishing pros? You’re gonna smile.  You’re about to feel positively drunk with power

I was asked to contribute a post about how outside influences affect my writing, and here it goes.  Here it is.

HERE IS MY SAD, UNUSUAL TRUTH

I write a couple books and let my agent choose which novel to go to market with.

And before I give those books to my agent —  I let my writing critique partners choose.

And sometimes, I let a bunch of readers I don’t even know – readers from a book club.

Yes, you heard me correctly.

I lay them out, shiny and clean and second-drafted, quirky characters, distinct voices, some in first person, some in third, displayed for someone like they are picking out a prom dress at Bloomingdale’s.

Which do you like best?  The midnight blue or the dove gray?  Floor length or tea length?  Look in the mirror.  Twirl.

Then . . . .

You choose.

I don’t try to persuade them. I don’t blather on about my inspiration, about how long I slaved over it, how personal it is, how I went to China to do the research.  No.  I say, “which do you think I should choose?”

And then I o what they say.  Like a factory worker.  Like an obedient child.

Because I cannot choose wisely. Ever.

Why?  Over twenty years of writing fiction —  I’ve learned the hard way — I fall in love too easily.  (Also, if you knew my romantic history you would see this flaw immediately.) I fall in love with pages and paragraphs and people. And when I admire the details too deeply, when I swoon over the trees, and the bark, and the smoky moss crawling up the base of the roots. . . well, I lose sight of the forest.

You see, I’m an excellent surface writer.  On this everyone agrees. During my years of rejection, prior to publication in 2008, if I had a dime for every time someone said “So beautiful on a sentence level” I would be richer than James Patterson.

But story wins, every time.  If you doubt this, look at the best seller list.  Look at the literary novels that triumph – well-written yes.  But always well conceived.  Well thought out.  And then well told.   There is no other path that works.  There is no other secret.

And I never fall in love with a story, I fall in love with the pages, and I am blinded.  It’s a problem – but at least I have recognized the problem.

Have I ever tried a different method?  Oh yes.  I tried choosing myself, back when I was getting rejected.  I tried eenie meenie miney mo.  I tried flipping a coin.

Have I ever considered a whole new method?  Something that makes a bit more, oh I don’t know, SENSE?  Oh yes.  I’ve thought of doing a focus group behind a one-way mirror.  I’ve thought of posting them all to WattPad and letting the numbers dictate.

But for now, my “you do it, I can’t” method seems to be working.  Readers absolutely love the twists and turns and didn’t-see-that-coming qualities of my newest, darkest, grief-stricken ONE MORE DAY.  So did my agent.  She chose that over four other novels that were ready to go, each written in the two-year period before.

Me?   I loved it too.  The same way I loved the story of the disabled veteran who moved his wife and son to his family farm to heal, only to run into the family secrets.  The same way I loved the story of the woman in a coma who could only hear and not see – and had to figure out the mystery of why she was in the hospital.  The same way I loved . . . . oh, you see the problem.  So many ideas, so much love.

In my own defense, I don’t write up every idea I have.  My years in advertising have made me an idea machine.  Some I jot down, some I hang on to, and some I say, ‘another writer would do a better job of that plot.’

So I release them into the wild.  Here!  Go find yourself another home!

And if the ideas come back again, in a few years  . . . if they keep tapping on my shoulder, saying ‘write me’ . . . maybe then I will reconsider.

If my agent thinks I should.

—

Kelly is the author of STANDING STILL, THE BIRD HOUSE, and ONE MORE DAY.  As well as dozens of novels that will never see the light of day.

Learn more at kellysimmonsbooks.com, or follow her on Facebook

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Tags: agents, featured, Kelly Simmons, women writers, writing influences

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing