This week! Books!

Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries – PEN America – A new report from PEN America details the extent to which libraries are under unprecedented threat due to censorship challenges and librarian harassment, arguing the role of public libraries as essential democratic institutions is in “extreme jeopardy.”

New Study Analyzes the Impact of Library E-Lending on Commercial Book Markets – Jéssica Dutra and Robert Stoner, AAP and Authors Guild – Meanwhile, there’s a long-simmering battle between publishers and libraries around e-book lending fees, which has led to proposed legislation in some states that would force down e-book costs. The argument has a new salvo from a study sponsored by the AAP and Authors Guild, which argues that increased e-book lending results in reduced sales, buttressing publishers’ fears of cannibalization.

Libraries Are Not the Problem – Ron Charles – Don’t cry for publishers in this argument, argues Ron Charles, particularly after publishers were content to bemoan the decline of newspaper book sections without spending any ad money to support them.

Having been involved in some of the early negotiations around library e-book lending, while I too don’t cry for publishers, I believe authors suffer from unrestrained library e-lending and strongly believe in some form of restricted lending licenses. Libraries can support literacy and serve a democratic function in society without becoming endlessly free sources of downloadable content at the push of a button.

Pangram Has Emerged as the Gold Standard of AI Detection. Should You Trust It? – Lexi Pandell, Wired – Pangram has very savvily assumed a role as the leading company professing to detect AI writing. But is it actually any good? It claims a high success rate, but “humanizers” can easily bypass its detection, and critics continue to raise flags about bias.

What Do Booksellers Make Of “The End Of Reading”? – Joel Pinckney, Defector – A much ballyhooed Atlantic article declared our era “the end of reading,” even if the actual article was just the latest iteration of the perennial “people aren’t reading as much as they used to” moral panic. Said panic is (mostly) not shared by actual booksellers, who are experiencing increased sales and foot traffic, and trace the problem, if there is one, to deeper cultural factors.

Union Square to Launch Novella Publishing Program – Sam Spratford, Publishers Weekly – Like short story collections, novellas have a reputation within the publishing industry for not selling well. But does that actually reflect consumer choice or is it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Hachette is about to test that proposition, as they’re launching a new imprint focused on novellas.

‘The Corrections’ Is 25 Years Old. Its First Paragraph Still Feels New. – A.O. Scott, New York Times – When I’m editing novels, at the start of chapters I often leave the note [WHERE ARE WE ENTIRELY?], as writers often neglect to adequately orient the reader around the setting and help us visualize where the characters are. Jonathan Franzen had no such problem starting off his classic novel The Corrections, which turns 25 this year. A.O. Scott has a wonderful deep dive unpacking the first paragraph, which every writer should read.

The Latest Literary Scam: Emailing the Long-Dead Legends of 20th-Century Literature – Adam Hochschild, Lit Hub – AI-driven publishing scams have gotten so bad, even the late George Orwell is getting them.

Rachel Cusk Tried to Caricature Natalie Portman. She Only Caricatured Herself. (gift link) – Parul Sehgal, New York Times – It’s been a little while since I’ve read a juicy pan, and Parul Sehgal did not disappoint.

Gloria Steinem, Personification of the Women’s Movement, Dies at 92 (gift link), Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times / Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92 (gift link), Robert D. McFadden, New York Times – Two very different but monumentally influential writers and thinkers passed away this week at 92.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. Big Little Truths by Liane Moriarty
3. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
4. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Going Further by Ted Cruz
2. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
3. The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore
4. This is Me by Hayden Panettiere
5. Strangers by Belle Burden

Young adult hardcover:

1. Barbie: Dreamscape by Alex Aster
2. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
3. But I Hate Him by Page Powers
4. Thornbird by E. Kennedy
5. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Kiki and the New Magic by Eiko Kadono
2. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
3. Kiki’s Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• For novels, reality is not all it’s cracked up to be

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

How Saudi Arabia’s Neom Megacity Dream Collapsed (gift link) – Eliot Brown and Todd Johnson, Wall Street Journal – I continue to find myself utterly mesmerized by Saudi Arabia’s dream of the Neom megacity, a fantastical science fiction vision that now seems to be collapsing.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram!

Life. It’s deep, right? I mean, just look at the word.

Life.

Wow, man. Just, wow.

But here’s the thing. Real life is very often extremely boring. That’s one of the main reasons we read and write books in the first place.

Want to know one of the absolute worst ways you can defend yourself from criticism as a writer? “But this really happened!”

When you’re writing a novel, your job is not to transcribe real life. Your job is to tell a story.

The limits of verisimilitude

If verisimilitude helps the story? Great. Drawing upon real life can add authenticity and immerse readers in a world they may never have visited.

But the story comes first. Just because something really happened in real life doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to make a good story.

Look, I brushed my teeth this morning, then I rinsed with mouthwash. That really happened!

Anything can be made to work in a novel, but it would take world-historical levels of genius I do not possess to make you want to read a book about my morning dental routines.

In real life, people get depressed and don’t get off the couch for a month. They do a bunch of boring chores. They fall in love without getting into knock-down, drag-out fights and maintain friendships where everything seems easy.

In a novel, unless your voice is so scintillating you can get away with writing novels about paint drying (and there are about ten people like that on the whole planet), chances are your protagonist needs to stay active, encounter obstacles (interior and exterior), and experience change. If your protagonist is bored, your reader is going to be bored too.

The imperatives of storytelling just aren’t the same as real life.

Keeping characters active and giving them ups and downs

In real life, people really do stall out in spirals of inaction.

But when you’re telling a story, the best way to evoke idleness is by giving a character something insanely idle to act upon, like counting the number of red Froot Loops in his kitchen cabinet to win a petty feud while his apartment descends into squalor and he gets fired from his job.

In real life, some relationships really are easy and drama-free.

But there’s a reason Romeo & Juliet is one of the quintessential love stories, and nearly every culture on Earth has its own version of the archetype. Iconic relationships in fiction tend to have immense obstacles. Nothing is easy, which makes forbidden love feel “earned.”

Active characters encountering obstacles, experiencing ups and downs of increasing intensity, and emerging from the events in a new place. If you string together scenes where characters are trying to get what they want and face obstacles nearly as powerful as they are, chances are your readers will keep reading.

Even writers who famously home in on the quotidian elements of life and relationships (Sally Rooney, Karl Ove Knausgård, Rachel Cusk, etc.) usually center a character who is actively trying to figure something out or untangle specific questions. They’re active and coming into conflict with their worlds, even if they’re very internal quests.

You don’t need to have fireworks and explosions in your novel. But even if you’re writing something “quiet,” dialing up real life can help.

Dialing real life up to 11

Allow me to date myself with a tangent, but growing up, I was a big fan of The Wu-Tang Clan, who created an elaborate fantasy world based upon martial arts mythology, Al Pacino movies and, I’m told, cash ruling everything around me.

People call rap “real” because it deals with real life issues (i.e., the aforementioned cash ruling everything around me), but my favorite rap artists take those real issues and place them in a fantastical-feeling world, such as Deltron 3030, and, more recently, xaviersobased.

When you take the completely boring trials and tribulations of real life (i.e. cash ruling everything around me) and place them in a foreign surrounding (i.e., Staten Island Shaolin), things like credit card debt and student loans aren’t mundane, they suddenly appear poignant and powerful.

Now, my intention here is not to tell you to write Wu-Tang Clan-inspired fiction (although, actually, that’s not a bad idea).

But consider taking “real” life to the next level.

It’s totally fine to draw upon real life as it is actually lived. And at the end of the day, what’s most important is writing the book you want to write.

We don’t read novels about the 99.9% of planes that take off and land safely. We want to read about the 0.1% where nearly everything goes wrong. Even “quiet” novels tend to have intensely personal stakes.

What feels “real” in a novel doesn’t often correlate with real life

When you focus on real issues and engage with emotional truths in a strange world, a funny thing happens: your book seems more real.

Think about the unique worlds crafted by your favorite writers, even the ones that take place in “real” life. Great books are transporting. They take you away to a new place before they bring you back to what you know.

To put it another way still, when a sales rep goes to a chain and tells the buyer about the books on the upcoming list, they need something to point to that makes a book stand out.

They need to be able to say, “This is what makes this book different.” A unique character, a unique way of telling the story, a unique plot, a unique world. Something, anything that sets a book apart from the thousands of other books that are published every year.

And I’m here to tell you: Real life isn’t enough on its own.

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: The Dragon by Kunisada II Utagawa

This week! Books!

Dolly Parton, Superstar Whose Songs Spoke to Millions, Dies at 80 (gift link) – Bill Friskics-Warren, New York Times – Dolly Parton’s greatness was just about the only thing this country could agree upon, and it was particularly devastating to lose her during such a fractured time. Of course she looms largest as a singer, songwriter, actress, and all-around personality, but she had an outsized impact on the book world and as a storyteller as well…

Dolly Parton’s contributions to literacy will outlive the star, just like she planned – Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times – Dolly Parton, who grew up in a house without electricity and an illiterate father, launched her Imagination Library program in 1995, which has given away over 330 million books to children around the world. The mission will continue after her death.

Loving Dolly Was Easy. Understanding Her Was Hard. (gift link) – Tressie McMillan Cottom, New York Times – Author Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote a moving appreciation of Dolly Parton as, foremost, a writer and storyteller, whose greatest story was her own.

Dolly Parton, Rights Holder, Dead at 80 – Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo – And it’s admittedly much lower down the list of Parton’s many achievements, but she was innovative as an intellectual property rights holder as well. After starting her own music publishing company at age 20 (unusual at the time), Parton famously resisted a deal for Elvis Presley to cover “I Will Always Love You” in exchange for half of the publishing rights. Her refusal paved the way to immense profits from Whitney Houston’s popular cover in the 1990s.

Inside the Warehouse Where Amazon Scans and Destroys Books for AI Training – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – The upstart news site The 404 has an interview with an employee at the Las Vegas warehouse where Amazon is scanning and destroying mountains of books from all over the world to train AI.

The AI ‘Ghosts’ Contaminating Academic Publishing – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – Meet Elena Vasquez and Marcus Chen, the entirely fictitious “experts” AI chatbots repeatedly make up to refer to papers that don’t exist.

Get a Tech Job, Babies! – Elise Broach, The New Yorker – A look at the curious rise of books translating hard-core STEM concepts, such as general relativity and quarks, for very young children.

A New (Shorter) Chapter for Middle Grade – Joanne O’Sullivan, Publishers Weekly – Amid lagging middle grade book sales, publishers are turning to shorter books with more illustrations. From my vantage point, publishers always over-learn “lessons” about what readers supposedly want, and all it will take is one blockbuster long middle grade novel to change the conventional wisdom.

‘I was scared I was going mad’: Meg Mason speaks to fellow authors about the parasocial relationships that begin on the page – Meg Mason, The Guardian – A deep dive into the intense relationships readers develop with their favorite authors.

Survey Results Detail Publishers’ Failure to Register Authors’ Copyrights – The Authors Guild – Much to many authors’ chagrin, many publishers failed to register copyright in a timely way for many of their books, even when they were contractually obligated to do so, which left authors ineligible for funds from the Anthropic settlement. The Authors Guild surveyed its members about the problem, and while the results should be taken with a grain of salt due to response bias for those adversely affected, the problem appears widespread.

The Best Literary Detective You’ve Never Heard Of, and the Man Who Made Him (gift link) – Sarah Lyall, New York Times – Peter Grainger is the latest self-published septuagenarian author to ride a wave of interest to traditional publication and Hollywood interest.

The rise of ‘biogossip’: Rachel Cusk’s Natalie Portman novel is the latest in a delicious literary lineage – Greta Rainbow, The Guardian – The rumors that Natalie Portman is not-so-secretly the subject of Rachel Cusk’s new novel The Life of M is the latest in a long history of teasing who novels are really about, a canon she calls “biogossip.”

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
3. Delusional by James Patterson and James O. Born
4. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
5. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. This is Me by Hayden Panettiere
2. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
3. The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán
4. Strangers by Belle Burden
5. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Young adult hardcover:

1. Barbie: Dreamscape by Alex Aster
2. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
3. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Thornbird by E. Kennedy

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• All about prologues

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

Yayoi Kusama, Pop Artist Who Expanded and Endured, Dies at 97 (gift link) – Holland Cotter, New York Times – Dolly Parton wasn’t the only luminary we lost this week. Artist and sculptor Yayoi Kusama, whose wide-ranging work spanned the iconic pumpkin in Naoshima to polka dots to infinity rooms, passed away at 97.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: The Huntington, San Marino, CA. Follow me on Instagram!

I get quite a lot of questions about prologues. Are they necessary? Do agents like them? Should they be included with partial manuscript requests?

Consider this a post on all things prologue.

I’m going to cover:

• What’s a prologue?
• Different types of prologues
• Do literary agents like prologues?
• The prologue litmus test
• Advice for writing good prologues

What’s a prologue?

Typically, a prologue is 3-5 pages of introductory material that is written while the author is procrastinating from writing a more difficult section of the book.

Ah, I’m kidding.

The prologue is usually a scene that’s separate from the main plot of a novel that provides an introduction, often for atmospheric or tone-setting effect.

Sometimes the prologue is told from a different POV from the main story, sometimes it happens in a different timeline, heck, it can happen in a different universe. But what separates a prologue from being Chapter 1 is that it feels separate from the main story, and Chapter 1 is typically where the story really begins.

Different types of prologues

There are no “rules” for prologues. Your only limit is your personal creativity.

That said, there are a few common types of prologues:

• A framing device – Sometimes authors will create bookends with the prologue and epilogue, such as an interrogation scene in the prologue followed by the whole story of the crime, finishing back in the interrogation room.
• Forces gathering outside of the protagonist’s view – To create a sense of ominousness, sometimes writers will show what the villain is up to in a way that builds tension and danger when we meet the protagonist.
• Distant inciting incident – Similarly, the prologue may show the true inciting incident, such as a virus escaping a lab or a meteor being detected heading toward Earth, while we start Chapter 1 with an oblivious protagonist.
• Building the mythology – Sometimes writers will zoom way into the past to show the creation story for, say, a magical talisman, or a gathering of the gods in order to lend depth to the world-building.
• Ancestral catalyst – Another version of building mythology is to show a historical legacy, such as an ill-gotten land transfer or a murder in an old house, that adds another layer to the main story.
• Showing the crime – In crime fiction that focuses on a detective or investigator, sometimes the prologue will show the crime at the heart of the story from the criminal’s or victim’s perspective.
• Document or artifact – Sometimes writers will start with a piece of ephemera, such as a newspaper clipping or podcast transcript, that reveals a key bit of information that will become important.

These are just a few of many. Prologues are a land of infinite opportunity.

Do literary agents like prologues?

It depends.

Agents tend to have strong opinions, and prologues can be lightning rods. Not everyone likes them.

But you can’t control an agent’s individual pet peeves, so don’t worry about any strong opinions you hear about them. Just look in a bookstore and you’ll see that there are plenty of books with prologues. There isn’t anything resembling a blanket rule against them.

Don’t listen to anyone who says you can’t include a prologue. You clearly can.

When I was an agent, I liked good prologues and disliked bad prologues, which I believe to be an eminently sensible opinion.

Now, should you include the prologue when agents ask to see your first twenty or fifty pages?

Yes. Include the prologue. Agents want to see where you think the story begins, and if you think it starts with a prologue, you should include it when you send the partial manuscript.

If you’re worried that the prologue doesn’t put the best foot forward or doesn’t capture the spirit of the book, and thus you want to give the agent Chapter 1, well, maybe you don’t need the prologue entirely.

Which brings me to…

The prologue litmus test

Personally, I think the easiest litmus test on whether you need a prologue or not is to take out the prologue and see if your book still makes sense.

If you can take out the prologue and the entire story still makes perfect sense, chances are the prologue was indeed written to “set the mood.”

But here’s the thing about mood-setting: most of the time you can set the mood when the actual story begins. Do you really need to set the mood with a separate prologue? Really? Really really?

Sometimes the answer to those four reallys is: “yes, really.” Or the prologue is to be used as a framing device around the plot or to introduce a crucial scene in the backstory that will impact the main plot.

If, in your heart of hearts, you think the prologue makes the book better, by all means include it.

Advice for writing good prologues

What makes a good prologue?

Short, self-contained, comprehensible.

The most important thing to remember about including a prologue is that you are essentially making a reader start the book twice. We have to get our bearings in a prologue, then start all over again in a new place, and often with a different character entirely, in Chapter 1. It takes more effort.

It’s crucial to make the reader’s extra effort worth it. The prologue should have a genuine role in the overarching story, feel engaging unto itself, and create the best first impression possible.

What makes a bad prologue?

So vague it’s incomprehensible, information for information’s sake, and self-indulgent.

All does not need to be revealed straightaway in a prologue. Particularly if it’s teasing a mystery that will get explored in the rest of the novel, it’s okay to be a bit coy.

But being so vague there’s nothing for the reader to sink their teeth into can quickly drag down a prologue. Make sure your prologue still feels active and propulsive, even if you’re ultimately setting up a tease.

And don’t use a prologue as an excuse to info-dump. It still needs to feel like a scene.

Do you like prologues? What do you think makes the good ones work? And do you have any favorites?

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Art: In the library by Ludwig Valenta

This week! Books!

Okay now we really are in the dog days of publishing summer. But I still have some good links for you!

First up, back by popular demand, I’ll once again be hosting office hours on September 3 at 9pm ET / 6pm PT. In order to join, you need to be a newsletter subscriber, so what are you waiting for, sign up! More information to come via the newsletter…

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility – Emanuel Maiberg, The 404 – I realize not everyone may have a subscription to upstart news site The 404, but this article is too important to not lead with. Long story short: The 404 partnered with a used bookseller to put a tracking tag on a rare book. They followed the tag all the way to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, where books are destroyed in order to scan them to train AI models. The logo of the facility is literally a dinosaur holding a book, baring its teeth:

All of this is (probably) legal because in the Anthropic class action suit, a judge ruled that Anthropic only pirated authors by acquiring the books illegally. Destroying books to train AI (probably) falls under fair use. Unreal…

Anthropic’s Text Watermarking Proves AI Companies Do Not Care at All About Writing – Jason Koebler, The 404 / Words Matter. Damnit. – Jeff Jarvis, Whither News? – At a time when AI writing detectors are notoriously faulty, some took heart when Anthropic announced its text would have a “digital watermark” to facilitate AI-detection. Essentially, Anthropic will alter Claude’s word choices in order to change “the source of the randomness used to pick among words,” which should aid detection. By treating not-quite-synonyms as essentially interchangeable, Jason Koebler and Jeff Jarvis argue this is further proof of how little esteem AI companies have for actual writing. And it’s a great reminder that AI models are not writing, they are outputting probabilities that can be arbitrarily tweaked at any time.

AI Has Plunged the Book Publishing Industry Into Utter Chaos (gift link) – Anna Silman, The Wall Street Journal – A roundup of the various recent AI controversies and deluge of slop submissions that have wreaked havoc on the publishing industry, including this wonderful quote from agent Angeline Rodriguez: “When I see something that’s honestly badly written, it’s such a breath of fresh air now.”

How a Highbrow Novel Became Celebrity Gossip (gift link) – Alexandra Alter, New York Times – Many have speculated that literary star Rachel Cusk’s new novel Life of M is based on Natalie Portman. In a new interview, Cusk addresses the controversy, sort of, saying whether it’s based on a real person “is not really the point.”

UW researchers say AI is coming for kids books, but it’s biased – Ann Duan, Seattle Times – In case you needed yet another reason not to buy AI-generated children’s books, they are also filled with pernicious biases.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

1. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
2. The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
3. Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
4. Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
5. The Secrets We Hide by Karin Slaughter

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

1. Regime Change by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan
2. The Day After by Brian Tyler Cohen
3. Strangers by Belle Burden
4. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
5. London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

Young adult hardcover:

1. Wings of Reverie by Anna Bright
2. Rootbound by Margaret Owen
3. Fake Skating by Lynn Painter
4. Ruinous Ends by I.V. Marie
5. Thornbird E by Kennedy

Middle grade hardcover:

1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
3. Wombat Waiting by Katherine Applegate
4. Growing Home by Beth Ferry
5. Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

• Know your rights as an author and don’t get scammed

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

• Follow me on Threads, Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter

And finally:

When Your Brain Is in Your Arm – Cara Giaimo, Wired – Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons live on its arms, and other wild facts about these mind-boggling creatures.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel, and my guide to publishing a book.

And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!

Photo: Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, CA. Follow me on Instagram!