Anna Staniszewski

Sometimes when I’m not sure what to blog about, all I have to do is read other people’s blog posts and they get my brain going. Today it was a tidbit from an older post by Keith Snyder on things he tells his writing students. There was a lot to think about there, but this point particularly stood out to me:

Sometimes what gets a book published isn’t how well it’s crafted.

Instead, there’s a spark someplace–the language, the characters, the situations–and it just happens to catch the right tone at the right cultural moment. This does happen; it’s a real force in the novel business.

So often I hear people say, “How did that book get published?” I used to be one of the people asking that question. Now I try to remind myself that we all read for different reasons and that some books, as Snyder says, just come at the perfect time. It’s not always easy to be so level-headed, though.

When you read a book with more telling than showing and with minor characters who appear on page 1 and are forgotten by Chapter 3, it makes those of us who strive to write by The Rules want to tear our hair out. But sometimes the rules are broken because that book has something else going for it: a relatable character, an interesting story, or a trend it fits into. All these books are really doing is reminding us that publishing is a business like any other; books are published because someone is gambling on the fact that people will buy them, even if they break all the rules of good writing.

As tempting as it is to get discouraged by the popularity of “bad books,” that’s when it’s even more important to stay focused. We can’t worry about the books that break the rules, the ones that are popular because of some force we can’t understand. All we can do is learn our craft, keep our chins up, and keep writing.