Why it's Hard to Get Published

Everyone knows how to write.   We are taught it from the first grade and often kindergarten.  So for 12 years we learn to write.   If you go to college you get even more writing classes in the USA at least.  I had writing up until I graduated because I didn't do well on the final writing test.  Everyone who graduated had to pass yet another writing test.

It's really no surprise that Americans are such great writers.  In other countries college is about learning a marketable skill but in the USA they make you take more GE (probably because it's cheaper to hire General Education teachers)   It's not that writing is difficult and "Can't be taught".  It's that so many people are good at it and yet the world only needs so many writers.   The number of fiction writers needed is proportional to the number of tastes any one person can have minus all the books that have already been written.   By contrast the number of school teachers needed is proportional to the population.   If there are a billion people on earth there will be a need for about 1,000,000,000/100  school teachers.  That's a lot of school teachers.   IT professionals needed is proportional to the number of businesses.

How many tastes could one person have?  That number doesn't increase  with the population.  Maybe if people live longer the number of writers needed will increase.   Writers don't just compete with other writers but with all the writing that went before.   With Science fiction however technology changes so they actually have a better chance.   Old science fiction novels don't age well because we now know mars doesn't have canals.  Edgar Rice Burroughs didn't focus on the canals so much and he took into account the fact that the martian atmosphere needed to be replenished by artificial means but not every science fiction novel ages so well.   So if you don't mind the fact your stuff wont last as long you probably have a better chance as a science fiction writer than as anything else.    There are always new discoveries and theories you could write about if you keep up on the latest scientific discoveries.
Jane Austen is just as good a read today for historical fiction readers as anything published today so while historical fiction may be more popular it's value will continually diminish as writers add to it.   You are competing with all the stuff that's already been published so the competition always increases. 

Anyway that's why it's so difficult.  It's not because fiction writing is hard.  What really works will probably boil down to things other than anyone has ever said or wrote about.   There are probably some amazing techniques out there.   However there are mistakes that a lot of beginners make and they are pretty obvious.  Like they will not add enough dialogue or they are hard to understand.   If you just make your writing clear with a main character who has a clear goal in mind who cares if they ever reach it.  Just make that goal continually out of reach.   Gilligan never got off the island so your character never needs to reach his goal.  Once the goal is reached the story's over anyway.  If you want him to keep trying write a sequel your readers will love you for it.   You never know what you are doing right and you are probably doing more right than you know.   So write a first chapter and let someone read it and get their advice and do your darndest to take it.  They are the only ones who can really tell you what's working or not.  You know the story yourself so you are unable to tell whether you're adequately conveying it.   If you are worried about giving away too much that's solved if you don't know yourself what's going to happen.  It tripped up J. K. Rowling that she knew the whole 7 book series because she ended up telling too much right at the beginning.    Hopefully it was a bunch of obvious foreshadowing.  I don't see how you could give away the whole plot even if you knew it.   I'd be interested to know how she did it.  But yeah if you don't know the whole plot beforehand.  It would be hard to give it away.   I used to really think a person should write the ending first and work backward but really why not write the last line of each chapter first and work each chapter backward.   A chapter is a story in itself and it's a story that the reader can grasp.   A novel is too big to really appreciate at one sitting anyway.   But I'm going into too much detail here.

My main point is that novel writing isn't that difficult to do well it's just hard to be published.    Slush-piles are full of first novels that have obvious mistakes (to anyone who has even read one "how to write fiction" book.   I was reading Harry Potter the other day (just the beginning).  I can see how she got passed over actually because the beginning seems to start way too early in Harry's life.   I came across an audio-book that seemed to start much later and it started with Harry's home life and a trip to the zoo I think and I couldn't believe how good it was.  She's got that Roald Dahl vibe (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) .   I'm surprised she was passed over by so many publishers because even the story about a guy going to work is pretty entertaining.   I think more for me though and for her at the time because I've always struggled to find work and she was out of work at the time.   That's probably why I appreciate "Career Opportunities" by John Hughs so much.

A lot of really great writers didn't even write their stories.   They dictated them.  It's possible that there are writers out there who can't even write.   A lot of writers who do write say the dialog out loud first so a writer who dictates it to a secretary is probably killing two birds with one stone.   you could certainly write a lot faster by just dictating it.

My opinion is that it's really not that hard to write fiction you just need to avoid making a few easy to avoid mistakes.   There may are probably some really advanced techniques that would blow people away but most mistakes can be avoided by just reading a book on how to write.   An article might be good enough though.  Maybe I should write an article that covers everything you need to know to be a fiction writer (provided you've graduated from high school.).   I admit I'm not a "published" author but I was never encouraged to spend all day writing a novel.    I should have done one of those contracts with my parents where I agree to go to college if I don't get published  when I was young.  Anyway this is mostly just what I'm thinking and I'm about to try what I just wrote down.  Maybe it will work for me.  Maybe it will work for  you.  
People read to learn I think.    The most popular writers have this "educational" vibe about them.   Salenger, J K Rowling, Roald Dahl, Todd McFarlane, Art Adams.   The last two are comic book artists but they have a literary look maybe due to cross hatching.  People read to better themselves even if it's just fiction.   If people want pure entertainment they would probably just watch TV.  People are willing to suffer a bit while reading.   They don't expect it to be all pleasure.   The writers job is to make it as pleasant as possible.  For me reading has always been a way of improving myself.   Am I the only one who checks to see how much of the book I still have left?  I'll check how the thickness of the book I've read compares to the thickness of what I've finished.   I almost always doing that. Very few books have I read that I actually didn't want them to end.  Actually it's only one and I'm a bit ashamed to tell you what it was.    It was actually a non-fiction biographical book by a first author I think.  First authors have an advantage because they aren't writing to grind out text necessarily and they have a very non-repititious way of writing because they don't have a set "style".  Some are trying to get as many words on the page as possible if they are writing fiction but if they are writing about a real person they will have plenty to write about if they take the time to do the research.    Yeah beginners have an advantage because they don't have that professional feel where everything has the same "style".  They haven't got to the point where they are doing it just to do it and get paid.  They are doing it because they enjoy it  and when they have something to write.  It's a bit disjointed and while that can call attention to itself it also makes it a bit more interesting.  I guess you really don't want the writing to call attention to itself though because you want the reader to focus on the story and forget the writing. 
Probably the best way to do that is to ask questions.   I think it's OK to include questions in a story.
I guess I'm getting sidetracked but I guess the point is that it's difficult to get published because it's pretty hard to stand out.    Some people have come up with a lot of really good techniques that pretty much go against  a lot of common wisdom.    People say they don't like exposition but the top novels have a lot of it in the beginning.    They don't begin with action either contrary to what's been told.  Action scenes may get the reader interested but it's like where do you go from there?   Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Ready Player One all start with humble beginnings.   The Ordinary or even less than ordinary eventually (gradually) becomes extra-ordinary.    They all connect that ordinary in some very clear way to that wider more amazing adventure.    Katness starts out poor,   Bilbo starts off ordinary if not poor at least not rich.   The story basically connects an ordinary person to an extra-ordinary fantasy realm.  It's a simple formula easy to copy.    It's not really constricting either because there really isn't anything.    Change is a form of conflict.   As long as things change there will always be a little apprehension.  

Writing Science Fiction

I just figured out how to write science fiction at least the kind that starts off with an enigma.

1. look at a future science technology.   One you make up yourself or someone else makes up
2. figure out why it's not possible today (perhaps though it is possible in which case you could patent it)
1. look at the drawbacks
2. look at the dangers
3. Begin of your story where danger becomes reality.     (This is like in fringe, X files and Star Trek The next Generation and Doctor Who)   Where the opening sequence something strange happens but the reader and characters don't know why because they haven't been told about the technology.   They aren't aware of it or that it exists.  (it might exist in their setting and the reader can be made aware of it if the characters are aware of the technolgy  but he and the characters haven't yet connected the technology and the strange event)   I suppose it doesn't have to be some horrific thing either as long as it's sufficiently compelling and strange.
4. The rest of the story is about the investigation into what happened and slowly the technology that caused the problem is revealed.   I guess this is more a mystery than science fiction. 

I'll give you an example.

• A space alien startles a farmer and is shot.
• Upon getting hit by a bullet the alien explodes.
• The creature has the ability to speak telepathically (implanted radio transmitter) which is necessary since it lives in an environment devoid of any air which is necessary for sound to travel.
• What is odd is that it is a being that lives in space (an environment with no atmosphere) and yet he exploded in an atmosphere on earth.  
• In the course of the story it is discovered that since there is no air in space space creatures carry a lifetimes supply of oxygen in a device implanted in their lungs.  Upon being hit by a bullet the oxygen canister exploded.  (it could be that the creatures detonate the canister themselves to prevent us from capturing them)

It may not be academy award material.   But this is a conundrum and it's I think enough to keep someone interested enough to keep reading.     I came up with the idea since all the other planets and moons and asteroids we know of are hostile to life.    However if a person had a way to breath without an atmosphere he could survive on almost all moons, asteroids, comets and dwarf planets we know of.   Since there is no air in space though you would need a way to communicate.   Just as the oxygen could be implanted so could a device that allows communication by thought.    After that you are pretty good to go in space.   No need for atmosphere.   At that point the moons are even more hospitable than the planets with atmosphere since the atmospheres are usually the wrong temperature.   Mars isn't so bad.    As cold as it might be the atmosphere is so thin that the temperature would have less effect although the wind can move quickly.  On airless worlds temperature is almost a non-issue because space is the ultimate insulator.   The only way you can lose heat is for it leave as radiation.   Without the requirement for an outside air supply you have less need for a pressurized environment.   It's the fact that you need to breath air that you have to pressurize the air inside a spacesuit.  If the air you breath is pressurized then your whole suit needs to be pressurized.   If the blood were oxygenated directly there would be no need for lungs or breathing  The only danger might be a cut.   I'm not sure that the blood would coagulate quickly enough.   Sorry if the example is overly graphic.  It's just about looking at a situation from an angle from which the situation makes no sense other than that it's of great importance.   In a mystery the event is a murder.  It doesn't have to be something catastrophic.   I'm sure it could also be something amazing as long as it's implications are far reaching enough.     You still need good characterization though with lots if detail.