I just read a fascinating post by the always-interesting Phoenix Sullivan about people’s reactions to unpublished writing, and why you so often get a situation where someone posts a first chapter online, general readers are admiring of it, and then an industry type turns up and shreds it.
This reminded me of an experience I’d had a couple of days before. Working in children’s licensed publishing, I sometimes get to see embryonic new characters whose creators hope to turn them into a whole package of books/TV series/merchandise etc. Earlier this week I came across one such: I looked at the characters and intro material for about 20 seconds, noted the half-dozen obvious (to me) things wrong with it, shrugged and almost moved on, but because the design and production side of the material was in some ways strong I did take the time to click through to the promo video.
I watched the video and had my impression reaffirmed: someone with an embryonic idea and big dreams has teamed up with a competent animator to produce a package that is all style and little appropriate content. However, at the bottom of the page, there are quite a few comments from apparently random viewers, and they’re all positive. ‘My kids would love this’ being the general theme.
So there I am, all clever with my instant bullet-pointed list of ways this package fails to hit the spot, and there’s its potential audience going ‘ooh, shiny!’
Huh?
From a professional’s point of view, this sort of thing is unsettling. It’s like the first-chapter review situation described by Phoenix, plus an extra layer of confusion, resulting from the fact that nobody involved in the judgement process is actually the intended audience for a preschool character.
On the other hand, I was still pretty certain that this particular idea is going nowhere unless the originator gets some experienced creatives on board to overhaul it from the ground up.
Why am I confident that I’m right and the YouTube parents are wrong? In this particular case, I suppose I’m taking a leap of faith and assuming that those preschoolers are actually more discerning than their parents are. Children don’t like something, or at any rate they don’t keep coming back to it, just because it has bright colours. They are also interested in gripping, coherent stories and relatable characters. Sure, they’re not gripped by the same issues their parents are, or by the same issues that appeal to a different age bracket of children, but it’s still something they want and need. Yes, Bob the Builder has several machines which are distinguished by their bright colours, but they’re also distinguished by their child-like personalities – Dizzy the giggler, Scrambler the impulsive, Lofty the bag of nerves.
On top of this, I suspect that if they were viewing a new series on the BBC, these parents would apply a much higher standard than they use for a promo posted online with an appeal for comments.
So I shrugged off the enthusiastic comments and moved on. Professional ignores public – again. And remains pretty confident about doing so.
Of course, this raises the question, what is the basic checklist for viability in a children’s character? Sounds like a good idea for the next post.
I've noticed that when people wear their internet personalities, they leave comments in extremes. Though a video may be slightly above average, they might say, "OMG this is the best thing in 10,000 years of human history," or if a video is slightly below average, they might say, "Terrible. The guy who made this should be castrated to save future generations from the idiocy of his offspring."
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's the lemming effect. Have you ever thought something was mediocre only to read a string of comments saying it was great, which alter your opinion?
Another perspective from the trenches is always appreciated, Anna!
ReplyDeleteI'm adding your link to my post as an addendum, if that's OK.
As long as there are venues (and I have no doubt there always will be) that promise a brand, vetting, and a certain quality, gatekeepers will be needed. Readers who want to be sure of a quality read will seek out publishers, reviewers, or other perhaps-still-to-be-dreamed-of aggregators of content they can trust. I think you as a gatekeeper have to go with instinct and market trends. Plus, gatekeepers will always choose 'great' over 'above average' and that's how it should be.
But gatekeepers are working with 1) limited slots to fill and 2) more than enough submissions to make it viable to be choosy. What self-epublishing offers readers is not an either/or but a have-it-all option at -- something I don't think can be ignored -- a price readers won't feel they've been ripped off about if the content doesn't live up to its promise. To accomplish this, I do see a more highly segmented market, with each product getting fewer eyes-on. A successful book in the future might move as few as 2-3K units.
Interestingly, after a dozen years or so of this model, with writing no longer being a viable career choice for mid-list-equivalent authors, the market may well shift to writers seeking other ways to make money so fewer books may be written and the initial glut will self-level. In another 20 years, the swing may well be back to readers -- and writers -- begging for fewer publishing options and more gatekeepers.
In general, though, as a discerning reader myself, I'm happy to have you gatekeepers filter the majority of the content for me :o)
I'm sure Matt's points are factors in shaping opinion too. I guess being a professional is a sort of insulation against the lemming effect: it doesn't matter what the commenters are saying if you still have a mental picture of your boss going 'wtf's *that*?' at an acquisitions meeting.
ReplyDeleteThanks for adding me to your post, Phoenix. I'm in a different field to you, but you often seem to post about the things that are on my mind.
I really hope you're right about the shift away from the current glut; it's occurred to me that things may go that way, too. But I don't see much sign that the message that writing is not a good way to make a living, never mind get rich, is reaching the public. So a few more mid-listers may get tired of living on beans and get day jobs, but I don't anticipate the supply of poor-quality self-published material letting up. Or then again, in 20 years the novel could be dead and everyone will be publishing collaborative virtual reality cereal packets.
I think the other problem is that most people tend to be nice rather than honest - or even honest in a nice way. They will avoid criticising, especially publicly, even if they do not know the person.
ReplyDeleteI would really appreciate some honest responses from my target audience but even children learn to be 'nice' if they actually know you.
I accept that viewing a first chapter doesn’t necessarily represent what the entire manuscript will be like. Subsequent chapters could become weak and muddled, especially with inexperienced writers. But that apart, I can’t help wondering if it wouldn’t be a good idea to occasionally publish material that parents believe their children would love. I belong to a group of writers who meet once a month to critique children’s books. Many months have passed since we read anything we all enthused about. There’s a lot of stuff out there that’s not so hot.
ReplyDeleteCat - I'm sure you're right! Rosalind - I think there's probably a difference between random online commenters and book groups. I'm sure your book group would provide a serious and honest critique of new material they came across.
ReplyDelete