On the Comparison Trap

If there is one question I hate, it’s, “To what other books would you compare yours?” “Or what other books is your book like?” Agents and editors often ask writers to describe their novels in terms of other published works. In addition to finding this question difficult to answer, I believe it poses a couple of traps to the writer seeking representation.

First, comparing a well-known work of fiction to your own implies a certain level of hubris that might be thrown back at you. (You , my dear, are no Jane Austin.) But it hardly makes sense to pick something so obscure that the agent or editor is unlikely to have read or even heard about it.

Second, let’s say you can come up with a comparison. Now you have to justify how your story is unique. If it’s sufficiently different, then maybe the comparison doesn’t hold. A query letter is not the right place to offer these kinds of explanations, yet it is the place one has to sell oneself sufficiently to get read.

One way of dodging this bullet is to say, readers who like X will enjoy Y. Here, the comparison is implied rather than outright, but it’s still a comparison with all its attendant perils.

Of course, there is always that trick, popularized in the movie, The Player. My book/screenplay is Gone with the Wind meets Catcher in the Rye. The advantage of the analogy is it takes the focus off the direct comparison by splitting it between two targets. But how will the agent/editor know what aspects are most salient about the analogy? Is it the genre of the books we chose, the point of view, the time period, the overall tone, the plot, the themes, etc.?

Is the story in the above analogy a coming of age tale about a young Confederate soldier, who, feeling that his life is pointless as he watches his old way of life being destroyed, goes AWOL , taking his baby sister with him? Or is it a contemporary novel, set in the South, about a day in the life of a headstrong, but wealthy teenage girl, who leaves home and ends up in the middle of a gang fight? The possibilities are endless.

However, as an exercise, the analogy game is thought provoking. So here’s my attempt.

My novel about a young woman who loses her moral compass in Japan is kind of Memoirs of a Geisha meets Lost in Translation. Both books take place in Japan. With the former it loosely shares the overall plot told as a first person narrative of being about a naïve young woman who must learn for her livelihood the ins and outs of entertaining and pleasing men. However, Memoirs is set in an earlier era, the protagonist is Japanese, and she appears to have little choice about accepting this lifestyle. My novel is more contemporary (set in 1981), the protagonist is American, and she freely makes her choices.

Like my story, Lost in Translation highlights the complexity and challenges of being an American temporarily in Japan. Although my novel has its light moments, its overall tone is more dramatic than satirical or humorous. In addition, the protagonist in Lost in Translation is a middle-aged man; mine is a young woman.

How would an agent interpret my analogy? And what if they make different assumptions than the ones I’ve posed? Will they feel disappointed or worse, misled? Am I in danger of descending into absurdity? Will the agent pass if my analogy seems too far-fetched?

So as I construct the dreaded query letter, might I be better off just bypassing the comparisons and trusting that my story will entice on its own? There’s an original idea!

On a Letter to My Classmates Who Didn't Come to Our Recent High School Reunion

Dear Classmates:

When I tell people I went to my high school reunion, I get a variety of reactions. Most are surprised a) that my school has regular reunions and b) that I actually attended. And not just once in a lifetime but every five years. Reunions have become one of my life markers. I look forward to them—as does my husband! Since you are someone who for one reason or another has not participated in a reunion (or not for a long time), I wanted to share some thoughts about why you might want to consider (or not fear) coming to the next one.

Time waits for no one. As Chris, our exchange student who flew all the way from Munich for more than one reunion, put it. “We are not getting any younger.” Sooner than we’d like, there will not be that many opportunities. We’ve already lost more than our share of classmates.

We are all adults now. We’ve had lots of practice playing at being grown up, and it shows. Those cliques from high school? Erased. Those embarrassing or humiliating incidents? Forgotten. That adolescent meanness? Gone or replaced by guilt for slights or traumas caused. The personalities are largely the same, and the voices may trigger some unpleasant memories, but the rough edges are gone. And someone you didn’t think even liked you may remember you as being a friend, or tell you why they admired you or envied you. If you have demons, come bury them for once and for all. You’ll be glad you did.

No one was immune from problems. It seems that just about everyone had their issues. Now we have names for these things. When we were growing up, we didn’t have the labels for or the understanding of dysfunctional or even abusive family members , eating disorders, ADD, social phobias, homosexuality, or any number of other concerns that may have made our lives a living hell at some point because it seemed that no one (and maybe not even ourselves) understood.

It’s about now not then. Reunions at this stage of life aren’t so much about reminiscing (though a walk through the main building will catapult you to another time) as about finding out where people are now.

None of us is Peter Pan. Those few extra pounds? The gray hair or the bald spots? The wrinkles? All there. I thought we looked great, but then I’m older, too. You’ll blend right in.

Families are whatever we make them. Sure, many classmates got married and had kids; some also got divorced, lost spouses to death, lived with partners, loved people of the same sex, stayed childless, lived alone, bred horses, or smothered their pets with love. We were the generation for whom the rules changed, thank goodness.

We were lucky. No matter what indignities or traumas were a part of your adolescence, or even if you felt you got a raw deal from teachers, or you didn’t try your hardest, you have to admit that overall you got a great education. And it was a bargain compared to today’s private schools. Although the faces of the staff are no longer familiar, the values of the school remain.

We are a damn interesting bunch. Including those of you we haven’t seen. We are entrepreneurs, poets, farmers, doctors, teachers, cheesemakers, grandparents, artists, beekeepers, volunteers, sailors, potters, travelers, writers, inventors. One of our classmates has even been on Oprah. The best part is that you couldn’t predict a lot of what we’re doing now from who we were then. So many surprises! And more to come. You don’t have to have fit any traditional model of success to fit in.

We went through a lot together. Some of it heartbreaking (the accident). Some of it fun (our class language). Not all classes have a bond. And maybe you aren’t feeling it. But it’s there. You have to come to sense it. As someone put it, “The older I get, the more important I find it is to stay connected to the people who I knew way back when.” Several of us stay in touch in the years between reunions thanks to the Internet.

You were missed. Yes, we do wonder what happened to the folks who weren’t there—all of you! And aren’t you just a little curious about us?

Mark your calendar—May, 2015. No excuses.

Faithfully yours,
Belle

On the Immortalizing Power of the Internet

Most of us would like to leave this earth with some kind of legacy. Before the Internet, unless someone was well known, only a small number of people might be aware of that legacy. Now our lives are open books—the good, the bad, and the ugly. We know that prospective employers and suitors Google us to find out who we are. Of course, there is a fluidity to that information. Each search produces something different, depending on a host of complicated criteria.

Summing up a life from an Internet search may produce an alternative bio to the one we’d write for ourselves. My first three pages include 21 of 30 entries that really refer to me. From them, you would see first that I have my own business, that I was on Facebook, that I wrote a study guide for a documentary on career counseling in 1993 (still in demand). Then, you’d note that I was an author on some scholarly pieces as well as some chapters and reports related to current professional field. Finally, on page 3, if you were patient enough, you’d find a reference to my fiction. In contrast, my niece, who is both a scientist and a fiction writer, fares much better as a visible presence in this latter role. It probably doesn't help that I don't use my full name in my blog.

A year ago, I noticed that Googling my dad, using his full name turned up nothing. On the 14th anniversary of his death, I created an imaginary Facebook page for him and published it on my blog so that he would have his own Internet presence. One year later, I Googled him again and was amazed to find seven entries connected to his full name. Only one was my blog entry. The rest referred to patents he held in electronics and physics. Deciding to investigate further, I entered his name, using his first and middle initial, the way he often referred to himself. In the first three pages, 12 of 30 entries appeared to belong to him, including an essay called “Science Marking Time” from New Country published in 1931, when he would have been 27. In that volume, he is sandwiched between C. Day Lewis and Stephen Spender. Other illustrious contributors were W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood. It was the only thing my dad ever formally published. The book has been copied and can be downloaded. From these various entries (minus my blog) you would glean that he was a scientist, held various patents in the electronics industry in the UK, had worked for Marconi, lived in England and Lancaster, PA, and was somewhat of an intellectual. Hardly the full measure of the man but not a bad bio.

Of course, this kind of legacy inference is messy work. I had to weed out the entries with the misplaced punctuation, work published after his death, and references to occurrences from too early a time. And any search of my father mainly calls up a certain legendary Kansas City Royals baseball player of the same name. So it helps to have an unusual name to eliminate all the noise. With punctuation, which Google ignores, my first and last names link me with a male and female from the porn industry.

My mother doesn’t fare so well. If it weren’t for my blog entry of April 3rd, she wouldn’t be there at all. Yet her legacy of paintings and prints is very tangible, and she would be pleased to know that several of my friends proudly display her art work on their walls. My sister, whose first name is more common than mine and who, therefore, has a fuzzier Internet profile, also leaves behind a trail of visible markers in the form of the many garments she designed and produced over several decades. And her legacy has become more stable since her fashion archives are now housed within the very real walls of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. (But naturally, you can find reference to this archive on the Internet.)

My husband has the best of both worlds, and he may not even know it. As an events and fine arts photographer, many, many people possess the fruits of his creative labor. Google him, even with his not so unusual name, and not only is he the first entry, but he dominates the listings. Even those in the non-tangible world of legacy can touch many lives and be noticed in cyberspace. One friend is batting 100% on the first three pages of entries with her name—all 30 entries refer to her and her work. One trick? She has been quoted regularly in articles.

A friend of mine from high school has such an ordinary name that there are 40+ of him on Facebook (and he’s not one of them). But in a few months, after his first book (non-fiction and heart-warming) is published, I can guarantee you that you will see his name appear on the first page of the Google listings. It’s going to be that big.

So I suppose the moral of this story is if you want a coherent cyber legacy, make sure you do something noteworthy, do something a lot or in the company of well-known people, get yourself published or in a museum, or start a business and secure your domain. Routinely use your middle initial, and always use the same version of your name. If your name is relatively common, you will have to work that much harder, but you can do it.

On the other hand, while you can make your mark on the World Wide Web, it’s important to remember that you can’t easily wipe away your presence once it’s out there. You can even write your own autobiography, but it will be augmented by whatever the critics have to say, for better or for worse. So, it’s probably better just to get on with your life and do what you want to do. Let the Google entries fall where they may, and, if you must check up on yourself, try another search engine once in awhile.

[Note: Although I have used my blog to give certain members of my family a web presence, this time I have intentionally omitted names so as not to add to anyone’s cyber biography.]

On My Mother, My Muse

Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of my mother, Josephine Carlton Brett (June 9, 1908-April 3, 2000.) She was born in London within the sound of the Bow Bells, making her a true Cockney, but her parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe. Her life spanned most of the 20th century, encompassing two world wars and the Great Depression. When I was very young, our family emigrated to Pennsylvania for 18 years for my father’s work, but my parents retired back to London, which was always home for my mum. Except for her last year, she lived the final 30 years of her life in a flat in Putney, overlooking the Heath.

My mother was an art teacher and artist, and her huge range of talents, her continual learning of new skills, her creativity, and her productivity in her “golden” years, when she took up a new (to her) art form (silkscreen), serve as inspirations to me, perhaps now more than ever. I own and proudly display pieces from her legacy.

Because of the time in which she grew up and her detour to the USA, she was never quite able to realize all her personal ambitions. Perhaps as a consequence, she was fiercely proud of her daughters and her granddaughter and our professional accomplishments. When I became director of the career services department at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in my mid-thirties, my mum bragged to everyone, “My daughter is a director at Harvard!”

I know she would have been supportive of my writing efforts, if not a little eager for completion of my projects. When I first told her that I was writing a screenplay (probably around 1997), she was very excited. Of course, she kept asking me whether I’d finished it. I think she expected it to magically appear on the silver screen. But even in the last year of her life when she was suffering from severe dementia, she became animated when recalling the passion of the creative process—it’s like “butterflies in your stomach.” Much like love, yes?

A large portrait of my mother as a young woman hangs on the wall in the room where I do most of my writing—serving as my muse. Between my sister (see March 16 blog entry) and her, I should be able to draw sufficient inspiration to last a lifetime. The photo on the left was taken when she was about 23 (and still involved in acting, her other love.)

Below I share a poem about her that my sister and I wrote and read at her funeral, following a family tradition that my mother maintained for many years of composing poems for our birthdays. It seemed fitting to honor her life in a similar way. The last line was originally, “Go in peace,” which she always said to us as adults when we would leave her flat after a visit. I have changed it to be more eternal.


ODE TO JOSIE BRETT

She was-
Creative, imaginative, energetic, vivacious.
Lively, theatrical, talkative, but gracious

She wore-
Tailored suits, high heels, black leather, bright smocks.
Patterned jumpers, silk leggings, red velvet, warm socks.

She did–
Painting, silkscreens, puppetry, and plays
Sewing, knitting, odes for birthdays.

She saw-
San Francisco, Montreal, Boston and Maine
Venice by ship, New York by train.

She shopped at-
Lord and Taylor, Blum Store, M&S with a cart
Fifth Avenue, Liberty’s, always dressed smart.

She made–
Shepherds’ pie, soufflé, sherry trifle, shavas dinner
Sponge cake, stuffed trout, each one a winner.

She took pride in-
Her handwriting, her voice, an organized chart,
All her family’s achievements, her posture, her art.

She was-
Proper, stoical, don’t make a fuss.
Generous, loving, unconditionally supportive of us.

She loved-
White Linen perfume, flowers, teaching children, Matisse.
Sisters, husband, and family.
Now, Mum, rest in peace.

On Failure Deprivation Syndrome

I’m sitting here watching “American Idol” and marveling at the resilience of these young people who in front of millions listen to some pretty raw criticism—“That was horrible!” is a frequent Simon Cowell comment. Of course, these are the finalists; they’ve already shown their mettle against hundreds of other candidates. But I wonder what happens when they are voted off. Do they cry? Say they’ll never sing again? Resolve to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again?

Years ago, when I was a career counselor, one of my colleagues at Harvard noted that she regularly saw students who came to her devastated because they had received their first lousy grade in their lives, or some professor hadn’t liked their paper. She named this phenomenon “failure deprivation syndrome.” These young people had never failed at anything, and they didn’t have the tools to handle it.

As I thought about my own life, I realized that I, too, had not suffered big setbacks at least in terms of standard achievements by which we gauge success. I did well in school, was accepted into all the colleges and graduate schools I applied to, and generally got the jobs I wanted. Sure, I worked hard and aimed for things that were reachable given my talents. You could say I deserved my rewards. My early love life was another story, but after a slow start, I even landed the guys on whom I’d set my sights. I guess I should consider myself lucky.

And then I started writing. Let’s face it. This whole business is not for sissies. Last year, I sent off queries regarding my novel to four agents; I actually heard from three. I’m told that it’s quite common to not receive a reply. One sent a form letter saying they weren’t taking on new writers. Another took the time to write back, “I didn’t love it, and I have to love it.” And a third, with whom I had had previous contact, was even more generous with her feedback, though I didn’t understand what she was telling me to do. Later, in a one-one-one manuscript review of the first twenty pages of one of my novels, a New York agent told me she didn’t feel simpatico with my protagonist.

Recently, I entered two local short story contests—in one, the odds were about 6:1, and the other, 40:1. I thought my stories were pretty good. I wondered whether I was close to the cut or tossed out after the first read. Unfortunately, I’ll never know.

I wouldn’t say I am a sore loser. A sore loser complains, blames others, doesn’t use feedback to improve. I believe I take responsibility and listen to suggestions if they are offered. Nevertheless, I can’t say I handle rejection well. It slows me down and makes me reexamine my goals. I know that people we now think of as great authors often had their novels rejected many times, and I have a copy of Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections (Ed. Bill Henderson and Andre Bernard), itself a best seller to remind myself of the variety of viewpoints out there (and that agents, reviewers, and publishers all have bad days).

But how do you know whether for you it’s just a numbers game and that someone out there will eventually like you well enough to represent you, or that your manuscript really does need more work, or that you really don’t have the talent? The agent who gave me the feedback I didn’t quite get did say that maybe someone else would like it as it was. Was she saying, “I could see how some people might respond to this, so keep sending it out?” I stopped at four agents, and maybe I should have just kept sending out my novel. Instead, I decided to take the disparate and unclear pieces of advice and do more revision. So now having stalled on that task, I am in a nowhere land. I’ve made it convenient for myself. If I don’t get it out there again, I can’t be rejected again, can I?

All of those who write need to ask ourselves why we write; how much effort to we are willing to put into it after the first one or two drafts and the inevitable suggestions; how badly we need external affirmation for our labors, especially in the form of publication by someone other than ourselves; and how much indifference or negativity from an increasingly deluged and strapped publishing industry are we willing to endure to get to that place. But I suppose that if John Le Carre could keep going after hearing, “You’re welcome to Le Carre—he hasn’t got any future,” I shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet. After all, it’s never too late to learn something new—even how to weather a little rejection.

Now didn’t I just hear about NPR’s latest 3-minute fiction contest?

On Channeling Beth

Like many sibling relationships, mine with my sister Beth was complicated. It was loving, competitive, intimate, and at times rage-inducing. Beth was a fashion designer, and not surprisingly she felt somewhat wedded to fashion trends both good and bad. I, in contrast, held a certain amount of scorn about blindly following what seemed to me arbitrary schemes by the clothing industry to shame women into throwing out their wardrobes every couple of years. On more than one occasion, we had screaming fights on this topic. No doubt we both dug in our heels more deeply than our beliefs would have dictated. I liked clothes, but I shopped with an eye to bargains rather than what was in, what suited me, or what even fitted me properly.

Sadly, Beth died seven years ago on March 16 from cancer. After her diagnosis, I promised myself that I wouldn’t start any arguments with her, especially about fashion. During those 22 months of ups and downs regarding her prognosis, our relationship was about mutual support, particularly since we had lost our last parent, our mum, just the previous year.

For some years prior to Beth’s illness I had been writing a screenplay with a friend, but a couple of months after Beth’s surgery, I returned to writing on my own. I wrote another screenplay based on some experiences I had had in Japan as a young woman. As it happens, Beth had spent the last decade peddling her knitwear designs in Japan, travelling there twice a year. I asked her to read my script, and she gave me some practical suggestions regarding cultural references as well as a hilarious explanation for a character’s physical condition that I incorporated. (I won’t give it away!) Beth herself was a wonderful and humorous writer with a gift for an original turn of phrase, but her literary efforts were confined to letters, then faxes, and finally emails. Had she lived, I wonder if she would have written something lengthier, perhaps a memoir of her years in the fashion industry.

For more than two years after Beth’s death, my own creativity dried up. I didn’t have the heart , nor the emotional energy to write anything, much less to complete the novelization of the screenplay. The loss of my only sibling with whom I’d been so close was devastating, and with Beth’s passing went my connection to my nuclear family and all that history it represented.

Then in 2005 two things happened within a few months of each other. I began to shop, and I began to write again. Oh, how I shopped. I began watching TLC’s “What not to Wear,” and I went through my wardrobe with a critical eye, giving away bags of ill-fitting, out-of-date, and unbecoming clothes in unflattering colors. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I followed the trends. For someone in her middle years, some of these seemed most unsuitable. Rather, I focused more on classical pieces that fit, and colorful fun pieces that I would enjoy wearing. I still looked at price tags and shopped at sales, but my sense of a reasonable cost increased from my 1970s yardstick. And, gasp, I even bought a few things at full price! At times I became obsessed with finding the right top to go with the pants I’d purchased or with one of Beth’s designs that I wore, travelling to multiple shops along the way. I felt possessed.

I am not a superstitious person. I walk under ladders, let black cats cross my path, and don’t worry about Friday the 13th. I don’t consider myself a person of great faith, or even a particularly spiritual person. But I swear that I was channeling Beth. Maybe it was her fun way of getting back at me for giving her such a hard time about her passion. But as I mentioned, I also started writing again-with a greater sense of purpose and with more regularity. I took better classes and workshops to hone my craft, and I not only completed multiple drafts of the novel about Japan, I wrote a second novel. This burst of creativity also felt like a gift from Beth, who was enormously talented and prolific. (The prestigious Victoria and Albert Museum in London recently took all her fashion archives—sketches, photos, costings, etc. as well as several samples from her collection.) I know there may be rational explanations for both of these phenomena; I studied psychology. I also understand that both the interest in fashion and the creativity describe my mother. But I like to believe that Beth, who had provided me some seed funds, was watching over her little sister—giving her a push.

A couple of months ago, I perused my bulging wardrobe and realized I didn’t really need anything new for the time being. Beth would have said it was about “want not need.” As a self-employed person who works at home much of the time, I only have so many occasions where something other than jeans is the appropriate attire. Oddly, during this period, I have felt less creative. Each session at the computer has felt like more of a struggle. I am not suggesting cause and effect here. Maybe I am going through an end-of-winter dry patch. Maybe I need to take a break or an inspiring course. Alternatively, maybe there is a time limit to a spirit’s assistance. Maybe Beth has moved on to more important causes. Or maybe she feels her work is done and that I can do this all by myself. Or maybe like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz I had the power all along.

In the meantime, let me honor this day and Beth’s memory with a very short story (or poem if you prefer) that I wrote for a class during my first few months of renewed creativity (and have since revised.) (Note the structure of the story. The first sentence is 10 words; the second, nine, and so forth.)

Channeling Corinne

Corinne was a clothes horse and a slave to fashion.
Her sisterly advice drove me into a rebellious rage.
“Pleated pants are so unflattering; buy something new!”
“You used to wear them,” I screamed.
“They’re no longer in,” she scoffed.
Corinne died two years ago.
I obsess over style.
Replace my wardrobe.
Corinne teases.
“Shopaholic!”


Beth—RIP. I love you. PS. I did just buy a cute little black jacket with white polka dots. Totally didn’t need it.

February Check-in

So February didn't seem as productive, but I guess it was okay, especially since the month was short.

1. Revised Chapter 1 several more times, chapter 2 a couple of times, chapter 3 once, and gave a cursory revision to chapter 4.
2. Wrote two short-shorts and submitted them to contests. No success.
3. Wrote two new blog entries.
4. Participated in two sessions of my writers' group.
5. Didn't do as much reading as I would have liked. Finished a couple of novels I'd started earlier and am about half-way through another.

I'm feeling a little discouraged about the whole business (see first March blog entry), but maybe it's just the winter blahs.