Before Ever After

Before Ever After is Samantha Sotto's debut novel. Samantha was one of the first bloggers I met, and she's a

Doctor Who fan, which has nothing to do with anything other than that I tend to like people that are Doctor Who fans. At least, I haven't yet met a Who fan I don't like, although you don't need to be a Who fan for me to like you. It just makes it better. But I digress...

Samantha is one of those tiny percentages of authors that get picked up by a big, old traditional publisher with their first book. Normally, I would start with the technical stuff, but, having been edited by a big, old publishing house, there's not much to talk about there. Okay, there's nothing to talk about there. Which is not always the case, but it is in this case (for instance, there were editing issues with Snow Crash; I just didn't bother to talk about them because there was so much else to talk about). I didn't notice even a misplaced comma during the whole read. Not that I was looking, but those commas like to jump out and try to poke you in the eyes with those little hooked tails, and I didn't have to even swat one away while reading Sam's book.

In fact, the whole book is just well written. It's clever. It's witty. It has great prose. From a qualitative standpoint, this is a great first novel. It even has a story that is interesting. I mean, it's interesting beyond the tension of "will boy get girl?" See, it's not just a romance; it's kind of a sci-fi romance.

But this book is the reason for many of the posts I've done this past week, because this is one of those books about which I would say, "This is good, but I didn't like it." And it's not that I disliked it; I just didn't like it. (See yesterday's post for more on all of this.)

But, see, I know why I didn't like it! The reasons I didn't like it are completely subjective to me and probably won't be a problem for other people. Well, unless these particular things are a problem for you.

The first thing that posed a problem for me is the style in which the story is presented. Not the writing, because  the writing style is (mostly) fine. As I said, Sotto is witty and clever and the writing is snappy and fun, so it's not the writing. The issue is one of flow... Let me explain:

I'm a chapter reader. That means I like to sit down and read until the end of a chapter where I have a clear cutting off point. It's not that I can't stop in the middle of a chapter, I just prefer not to. Books that have tremendously long chapters can wear on me, because I don't always (in fact, almost never) have time to sit down and read a 30-page long chapter. My comfort zone is probably in the range of about 12 pages. Unless! see, there is an unless, the author has scene breaks within long chapters, and I'm fine using those in lieu of getting to the end of the chapter.

Before Ever After actually had the opposite problem: too many scene breaks. I've never actually run into this before, aesthetically speaking, but reading the book was almost like looking at a series of snapshots from someone's vacation. Someone you don't know very well, at that, and don't have a lot of interest in. On top of that, the photos aren't really of interesting things but just of the people sitting or standing or eating and, every once in a while, there might be some landmark in the background, but, mostly, it's just lots of pictures. Now, this is kind of a theme in the book, the photo taking, so, if the author wrote it this way deliberately, it's brilliant, but I still had a hard time getting into the flow of the story because of it. Often, there would be multiple scene breaks on the same page, and it made me feel like I could just put the book down at any time, so I rarely read more than a couple of pages at a time. The result of that was that I spent six months reading the book, which was just too long.

Like I said, this is something about the way I read that got in my way and is totally subjective. It says nothing about  the quality of the writing.

Now, the book is loosely divided into three sections:

1. Now -- what is happening between Shelley and Paolo
2. Five years ago -- the story that Shelley is telling Paolo about her meeting Max
3. Various historical time periods -- the stories that Max is telling Shelley during their trip five years ago

In relation to all of that, I liked the historical passages the best. They tended to be longer (fewer scene breaks). I don't know if I just liked those bits more or if I was able to get into them more because they lasted longer, but those were those most interesting to me.

Now, remember the other day when I was talking about David Eddings and I told you to remember the bit about clever, witty dialogue? Well, this is why. The present day characters (I'm including both the "Now" and the "Five years ago" characters, here) were all too witty and clever for me. That's kind of a problem for me and, also, probably my own hangup, and it may go back to Eddings. Maybe, if I never read Regina's Song this wouldn't be an issue. I don't know. What I know is that during almost all of the conversations, I felt like I was back in that book with all the characters trying to outdo all the other characters with their snappy patter, and it was distracting to me. It also felt unrealistic, because, even though we all like clever banter, most of us can't sustain it. It comes in fits and bursts and, usually, the witty comments don't occur to us until well after the conversation is over, so the fact that these characters seemed to always talk in witty banter made me roll my eyes a lot. Even Shelley has internal dialogue that is full of wit.

But it is witty! And clever! And I like witty and clever! It was just too much. Again, my own subjectivity, because, objectively, it's good writing. Any isolated passage you pull it will be good writing.

In the end, Before Ever After feels a bit like lobster to me. Or crab legs, because I did the same with both, but I think lobster makes a better example. When I was younger, I always thought I should like lobster. Not that I should but that, being me, I ought to. I like shrimp. I like crawfish. I ought to like lobster, too, right? But any time I tried it, I just came away thinking, "I really didn't like that." But I spent years trying it every time there was an opportunity to do so, because, you know, I ought to like it. Finally, I had to just admit to myself that I didn't like lobster.

Before Ever After has everything in a book I ought to like. Objectively speaking, it's a good book. It's well written. It has an interesting plot that, while not entirely unique, is presented from a perspective that I haven't seen before. It's witty and clever! I ought to like, but I could just never get into it. I do think it might make a really good movie, though, as long as it wasn't trimmed down too much.

Writing in the Slow Lane

It's 8:00am, and you're sitting in traffic. Again. To make matters worse, the car is overheating. You have the windows down and the fan blowing hot air out at you, but it's not doing any good. The temperature gauge just keeps going up and up. You turn the car off  in frustration. It doesn't matter; the traffic is at a standstill, anyway. Going nowhere. If only there weren't so many people all trying to go in the same direction as you... All these people travelling the highway of traditional publishing. The highway to being a published author. Hopefully, a rich and famous one.

You sigh and look wistfully over at the commute lane. You know, the lane that requires at least an agent as a passenger. Or a publisher. Or, even better, both. The cars in the commute lane just keep whizzing past. There goes Samantha Sotto in her Before Ever After VW van, and there goes Michelle Davidson Argyle in her little yellow Monarch beetle. And Michael Offutt is just pulling over into the commute lane with his new publisher. Those writers are getting somewhere, but you... you're stuck here in traffic with all of the other "aspirers." Just sitting in place waiting for some kind of movement.

You take the time to look around. Maybe you can sneak into the commute lane and make some headway, but, no, there's a publication cop just up ahead. You smack on the horn a few times, but it doesn't make you feel better, not really, and no one pays attention. You spy an exit up ahead, but, crap, it's one of those toll roads for a vanity publisher. Off in the distance, you see the self-publishing highway. There are some cars over there; they're moving slowly ahead, but, at least, they're moving. That has to be better than just inching along where you are. Right? Right?

You look for an exit before you realize there are no exits to the highway of self-publishing. That's a road you have to find for yourself. Yeah, there are some paths from some of the more adventurous, even some signs, and, way in the distance, you can see that there are some construction crews (like CreateSpace) working on some entrances to that other highway. But there are no exits from the one you're on. And the publication cops... well, they're waving people back and telling them it's unsafe to go that way. Uncharted. Dangerous.

What do you do? Stay the course? Inch forward? Hope to pick up a hitchhiking agent? There aren't many out there, and they seem to be really picky about what kind of cars they'll get into. And here's your car, overheating. Oh, it looks okay from the outside, but, really, when an agent takes a look in the window, will she really want to get in? You have already been turned down by several. And there's that road off in the distance. The other one. The one the publishers wish you couldn't see. What do you do?

heh heh I feel a "choose your own adventure" calling my name.
A. I stay on  the traditional publishing highway and hope for the best.
B. I dodge the publication police and head off road hoping I can find my way onto the self-publishing highway.
C. Well, I don't really have a C, but you should have one, so: I fork over tons of money to get on the vanity publisher toll road and never make any of it back.

Seriously, though, doesn't it feel like this sometimes? Like you're just sitting and nothing is happening. You're trying to move forward, but you're just not getting anywhere. Of course, the first obstacle is getting a manuscript written. You're not even on the highway until you've done that, you're just driving down the service road in envy. It's all hard, though, and the service road isn't a bad place to be. There aren't any fingers being pointed.

Anyway... I chose this particular example, because most people are still looking to traditional publishing. At least, the vast majority of the blogs I see are all talking about how to go the traditional publishing route. That's not me, of course, but it's still most people.

And I can still see onto the traditional publishing highway. I can see how zippy the people in the commute lane are, and, sometimes, it just feels SO slow over here. Almost like I'm having to get out and push my car along. And all I want is for things to just go a little faster. You know, doing that butt thing that kids do when they're trying to get their toy vehicles to move faster, but all they're really doing is causing them to rock back-and-forth.

All of this so I can say how different the experience is with this edition of The House on the Corner as opposed to the first edition (the one with no cover art). The first time through, I sold no copies by hand. It was all online and not many at that, but I didn't push it very hard, because I knew I was working on one with cover art (yea! Rusty Webb). This time, though, I'm having requests for copies from people that know me, and I already sold all of the copies I ordered initially, which surprised me, even though it wasn't very many. I've had to order more, and some of those are spoken for, so I'll probably have to order more, again, before this book signing event at the end of the month. But the e-copies aren't moving at all. That I find really surprising, especially since the previous price of my e-copy was $9.99 (yeah, it was too much, but I didn't know better, yet) as opposed to the current $2.99.

And all I want is for things to just go a little faster. But it takes a lot of work, and that part is slow. And a lot of perseverance, and that part is hard. Harder, even, than writing a book, which is hard enough. And reviews. It takes reviews. So, here I am, mentioning them, again, and saying how I'm going to do a post dedicated to the importance of reviews. And I am! It's coming soon. I promise. As I'm finding out, reviews are the most important thing! Along with how good cover art is the most important thing! And how writing a good book is the most important thing! The problem is that there really aren't any unimportant things. But, you know, since I've written a good book, and I have good (great) cover art, the next thing to deal with is getting some reviews. Then, maybe, things will move faster. Even if just a little.

Oh! and I almost forgot, I've tweaked the Brother's Keeper tab. It no longer contains the first chapter of the book but the prelude instead. No, it's not a prologue. It's more like an extended quotation that would go with the first chapter, but, because it is a little story in and of itself, I'm, for the moment, calling it a prelude.

I've also added a new tab: Tiberius. This has the first little story about Tib and will be the chapter one of this project. There's also a back story piece that I'm preparing as a separate publication as the audience isn't quite the same. Tiberius will be kid accessible (like The House on the Corner), but the short story that sets it up is most definitely not meant for kids. Look for that soon; it's called The Evil That Men Do.