A Waterfall of TextPosted by dhoffman on March 4th, 2010
As an aspiring author and one who’d dearly love to see his words and stories in print someday, I’d be lying if I said the current state of the publishing industry (or, say, the very fact that we have words like “publishing industry” for what in my humble opinion is actually a very intimate act: storytelling) doesn’t give me pause.
More and more, it seems to be harder and harder to make it as a writer of fiction. More and more, I hear and read stories of people who just can’t crack it, or if they do, find themselves pounding their heads on a door that just won’t open more than that crack (and, frequently, is slammed in their faces).
But then I’ll read the story of some heroic, self-promoting author making their bones in some awesome, creative way. Like hooking up with a self-publishing outfit that has its hooks in with Amazon and coordinating an online effort of your fans to NOT buy your books until a specific time and a specific date — thus rocketing your book to the top of Amazon’s charts and netting you both an agent and a contract with one of the big houses.
The world is changing, is what I’m saying. These changes are both good and bad.
And what I’ve got for you here is an interesting read about the implications of some of those changes:
It’s worth your time, too. The author, Craig Mod, looks at how ebooks and devices like Apple’s forthcoming iPad (which I can’t seem to decide if I’m going to buy or not, dammit) affect the presentation of books and stories.
He talks about the difference between Formless Content (content without well-defined form) and Definite Content (content with well-defined form) and what something like the iPad means for both.
It’s very interesting and reading it, my head filled with all sorts of interesting ideas. Ways to use an interactive storytelling medium so that it’s more than just an e-reader.
My favorite bit:
When Danielle Steele sits at her computer, she doesn’t think much about how the text will look printed. She thinks about the story as a waterfall of text, as something that can be poured into any container.
And that really sums up how I think about stories as they’re growing. Sure, I track word count (to make sure I’m approximately as far along, story-wise, as I feel I want to be, length-wise, if that makes sense) and page count (totally arbitrary, as I type with such a small font, and I’d never make someone actually read a story the way I have it laid out on the screen as I write it) but that’s so I can feel that little bit of progress each night when I finish.
“I’m on page 62? Wasn’t I on page 58 when I started? Hmmm, how many words was that . . . ?”
The idea of text and story existing outside the bounds of the printed page is rather nice and exciting. I like thinking of text that flows and flows and flows. That’s its little job, after all, isn’t it? To start and grab you and hold you until it’s done — and if it’s working then you don’t even know it’s there until it’s all over and done with.